Most of our journey in India was unplanned when we arrived here. Slowly we're starting to firm up dates with people/places we want to visit and it looks like we have up until July 10th (ish) "planned" out. Here's how it goes:

 

June 15: bus from Mysore to Ooty

June 15-18: Ooty with day trips to Coonoor and Kotagiri

June 19: travel to Kodaikanal

June 20-21: Kodaikanal

June 22- 24: Munnar

June 25-27: Varkala

June 28: Kanyakamuri

June 29-30: Pondicherry

June 1-3: travel to and stay in Hampi

June 4-5: visit with Anil's cousin Mughda in Pune

June 6-10: visit with Anil's maternal and paternal family in Mumbai

 

We're planning on meeting up with Vijay (the father of the boy that's staying with Anil's parent's while he attends school in London who will be accompanying us in the North) in Chandigarh on July 20th. From there we'll travel through parts of the North and do some traveling and trekking up there for about 10 days.

 

Now what most of you don't know is that there's been a bit of a change in our travel plans for the 3 weeks of August we're on this side of the earth... we're going to Vietnam to visit Val and Adam! When I told Mum that we were considering it, she said "Don't give up on India too soon." I will admit that the topic came up when we were struggling with the culture shock, but the reality is that both of us think that we will have experienced India after 2 months and we're so close to Vietnam it would be silly to miss out on the opportunity to travel there, especially with one of my best friends living there! We're not expecting that Ho Chi Minh or any other parts of Vietnam to be less crazy and the people less zany than here, but I think the difference will be that we'll have Val and Adam to socialize with. So far, I think the whole experience would be a lot better if we were meeting fellow travelers, but unfortunately we haven't met many. Hostels (which are breeding grounds for international and local travelers) aren't that prevalent here and the ones we've read about are described as grubby so we've been opting for budget hotels. The local travelers we have met are traveling with their families or are in the area on business. All that to say, we're really looking forward to visiting Val and Adam.