for future reference

It is sunny and warm in Boston. I rode in to work with a fair amount of people, about two-thirds guys. All of them looked like they were over thirty but I think most people do against that dreary MBTA lighting. My fellow commuters minus five were white, but it was the kind of "diverse white" I've come to associate with urban-ish areas ever since I found out that white people look the same in places like central Pennsylvania and upstate New York. I had to wear a sweater. I ate toast. The "cool shoes" go with the "cool purse" and I'm eating Ramen for lunch. I feel vaguely guilty because the temps we hired are all at least twelve years older than me and kind of obviously out of a job. And vaguely bummed because it's Tuesday.

I'm trying to predict what I'll forget about when I'm on vacation for two+ months. Will I have cool shoes? Will I remember that it's Tuesday? The things that puncuate the time these days are going in the trusty old Tempo for home in a couple weeks--goodbye, beautiful bag. Pretty much everything I'm used to being around is going to be reversed: no more cars full of sullen young professionals, the weather will certainly not require a sweater. I'll be the one out of a job and looking for directions and wondering where the coffee is.

Finally!

if I were a guidebook

I would want to be this one: South-East Asia: The Graphic Guide. It's like what I want all my diaries to look like. It's got schematics. It's got some pointers but not enough. Hopefully enough.

Now, some thoughts on planning. I feel I've struck the delicate balance between planning ahead and leaving things to chance with India. I have to make a room reservation for the night of May 14, but besides that, I've got a rough idea of where I'll be and kind of when. I consume guidebooks at all meals and I'm printing out about eight billion helpful emails. Many are from kind folks in what would be most aptly called the Fear Network, as in your mom Fears for your safety and has contacted everyone she knows who has ever been to India and it's a surprisingly large number and includes your uncle. Also, from the P4th Network, Parrish 4th '04-05, where one day we realized the housing gods had mixed up the rooms so that the ratio of black:brown:white in each room was 1:1:1 (which was actually 2 too many people given the size of our bedrooms). Three cheers for all-girls halls--it was a two-semester pajama party and now I've got a friend in Delhi. And finally from the Catholic Mass-Attenders Network, which includes two people who are on the Indian subcontinent right now, one of whom is my reference on my visa application (thanks!).

Which brings me back to the planning ahead/chance balance. Yes, I've struck it, which means that with tickets and pseudo-itinerary in hand, I have yet to hold a visa, the thing that would actually get me into the country. But that's ok, because part of leaving things to chance means being just a little bit nervous because you left things to chance, and yes, it's your own darn fault you didn't apply yet and failed to purchase travel insurance on the ticket and now you get to chew on your nails until they return your passport with a stamp (or something) that says YES, MA'AM, YOU'RE GOING. You know what? This is good preparation for when you're stuck in a train station and the train won't leave and if you don't get to the ferry landing in an hour you're going to miss the ferry and then you'll have to spend a night in the seedy underbelly of a port town which everyone knows is unpleasant no matter where it is (see Elizabeth, Annapolis) and you are SO OK with that because you have gone with the flow so many times before now that there's no reason to think that one night in a grungy hostel full of grumpy travelers who also missed their ferry that you'll now have to hunt down would shake you because remember? Once you forgot to get a visa before you bought your $800 plane tickets and look, that worked out (here's hoping) just fine.

it's adding up

I called to my mom after buying a backpack and an S.O.L. (that's Survive Outdoors Longer...!) kit and extolled the virtues of blowing an entire paycheck on myself. I mean, most of my paychecks go to myself, unless I send my sister a postcard. But paying the bills is so lame compared to buying a gigantic backpack and all kinds of stuff to put in it.

And I thought it might be educational to add up my bills in public. Now you can be en/discouraged to do as I do. It's only...

$832.59 (tickets) (those are cheap, because I peace out of NYC)
$129 (totally sweet backpack)
$13 (nerdy neck pouch)
$10 (socks)
$18 (S.O.L. kit)
$75 (toiletries. subtract at least $20 for men)
$85 (guidebooks)
$200 (quality rain jacket. tentative)
$100 (waterproof pants. tentative)
$73 (Indian visa)
= 1535.59

And that, folks, is my tax refund. Note to future self: always make big purchases on or around April 15.

trekking

I'm really glad I got out a trekking book. It's got lots of helpful suggestions, like bring over your own dried fruit and the bus from Delhi to the hill station is three days long. My favorite quote, though, is from the description of the trek through Markha Valley: "If camping, bring a supply of food, a stove, and sufficient kerosene for the entire trek."

If camping, what a beautiful phrase. I was hesitant to buy a trekking book because I was afraid I'd find out that trekking in India means something much more hardcore than I'm capable of. But good news: trek does not equal overnight hiking with a tent and some yak butter tea. (I've had yak butter tea. If I have to drink yak butter tea on a hike in the mountains after a night of sleeping on the ground and probably freezing my ass off, I just know I'm going to cry. And after all the smack I talk that would be poor form.) Trek means you get your friends together, find a guide, and take a hike. At night, you stop by a guesthouse, or you camp in a tent. Then you get to see things like this:

And this:

Sure, you have to deal with your backpack and scrapes and sore feet and all the other mountain-climbing stuff. What I mean is: it's still hard. But the trek through Markha Valley has tea stalls and villages that offer soft drinks and accomodations. At the end of the day, you can peel off your socks and get in bed. So good job, Lonely Planet, you've almost escaped the bearer-of-bad-news axing you were going to get for bringing me down with the girl talk.

kudos to all old ladies

A lot of times when I tell people my plan they go "Who are you going with?" and I say "No one" and they say "Wooooow." This doesn't make me pat myself on the back, it makes me freak out just a little bit more. Like the edges of my apparently unequipped-for-solo-travel body bug out an inch further, I go through my mental list of men available for travel, come up with nothing, and resign myself to being on edge for all 85 days of my trip.

So, in the interest of not getting trapped in an alleyway or stuck on a mountain with an unsavory character, I have gone straight to the "For Women Travelers" section of every guidebook I pick up. I've pretty much talked myself out of recurring rounds of fear about being on my own in a city--it's the mountain climbing that's got me freaked out now. The Lonely Planet Trekking in the Indian Himalaya says:

In simple terms, the traditional attitudes in some remote villages are that
there could be something wrong wth females trekking without male company.
Here, your guide--who normally comes from a more educated area--can assist by
explaining why you have decided to trek without male company. This can go a
long way to assist women trekkers who want to spend time in the villages, visit
the local school and be invited into the houses.

Trekking crews (there are rarely, if ever, women porters, horse handlers or
guides) treat women with more respect, although they will always defer to any
males for instructions on where to camp, etc. It is an attitude to be
recognised but will change as more women trek in India--it can be overcome to
some extent with good humour and patience. Women trek leaders are likely
to be treated with appropriate respect.

So, I've decided I will latch onto a large crowd of strong men when hoofing it through the mountains. This is what you might call a huge downer. I'm going on the trip of a lifetime, blah blah blah, and for the first time ever, it depends on the will of the patriarchy whether or not I get to do something. I'm not really worried about finding a bunch of guys to hike with--it seems to me that all the posters on the Thorn Tree are hardy men with big backpacks--but it's possible that I'll only get to look at the mountains just because I'm a girl!

And it sucks fundamentally when I think about how if I were a man, I wouldn't have to read this section at all. I could trip up to a hill station, ask who's the best cook, and head for the hills.

That's when I give myself a pat on the back. Go women. And if you know of anyone who wants to climb a mountain, give them my card.

bummer

Travel Document - Chennai 5/13/09

That's the title of the best email in my inbox, hands down. Last night, the tickets got bought around 11 pm with Meg on the phone (we're meeting up in London in August). Here are the highlights:

Me: Hold the phone--the options for a meal are Bland Soft (Veg), Bland Soft (Non Veg), Low Protein (Non Veg), Low Protein (Veg), Low Purine (Veg), Low Purine (Non Veg), Veg, Veg Lacto Ovo, and Jain.
Meg: Low Protein?!
(debate over whether or not I can get a Jain meal without being a Jain. I choose Non Lactose (Veg), another thoughtful option)
(Jet Airways times out)
(twice)
(I hope this isn't a sign of things to come. Jet Airways is last year's Air India + Jet Airways, the two Indian airlines)
(head over to Orbitz)
(computer freezes)

1 hour and 44 minutes after calling the Meg/an residence, I hung up with tickets in hand. Well, almost. I have them in hand now, and let me tell you, they are even better on paper.

packing light

I had some CVS bucks that were about to go bad, so I decided to stock up for the trip. The toiletries you ABSOLUTELY MUST have to go to the Indian subcontinent include:

• two boxes of neon green bandaids, pre-ointment-ed (why did no one think of that before?)
• two toothbrushes
• two pairs of flops
• two Sudoku books (pocket and pocket-book sized)
• two tourist-sized things of "All, Small & Mighty"
• three bars of soap (one per month).

The four tourbooks are also coming with me. The cat's staying home. She's agoraphobic.

bienvenue

Hi, folks. Welcome to my soon-to-be travel blog. Even though takeoff isn't until mid-May, there's lots of packing and picture-taking to be done at home.

As you might know, I was the happy victim of our economic downturn. My job is up May 1, and shortly after I'm going to hightail it out of the country for a trip through India & Southeast Asia. I'm going solo (unless you want to come) and plan to stay for two+ months.

Why India and its friends? For one, I'm ready for something new. The Western world is great and all but I think it's time I saw the other half. I've had a thing for India for awhile (have you read The Namesake?) and I can't get enough of the food. Plus, there are mountains in the north and the south, and lots and lots of trains--pretty much everything outside I'm into.

Malaysia made the list because of its name. Back in the 6th grade day, Mrs. Eton's (edit: Egan's) geography class included all the capitals of every country in the world (minus the former Soviet Union, so I don't know the capital of Moldova). An even shorter me was sitting in the back of the room and getting very disappointed as we went through the list. "The capital of the Philippines is Manila." "The capital of Thailand is Bangkok." Then Mrs. Eton pointed to Malaysia, and said, "Now we come to the good stuff. The capital of Malaysia is...Kuala Lumpur." And that's how I've said it ever since. Kuala Lumpur. Do you believe that's the name of a real place? That there are people who get to write "Kuala Lumpur" every time they address a letter? That they get to say, "I'm catching the early bus to Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday"? I've read that the cool kids call it "KL" but that's just so everyone doesn't get jealous/the shivers every time they hear it. So now it's my turn--I'm going to Kuala Lumpur. Yep.

Indonesia is the part of every museum that I like the most except for the mummies. When I'm reading blurbs about festivals in Bali and gamelan music I just feel like I'll get to see it someday. I have this vision of me in a jungle, and the jungle is in Indonesia. Also, there are volcanoes all over Indonesia, and those are like mountains on crack.

If I get the chance, I'll hop on over to Laos and Vietnam for the beaches.