I’ve spent the last 21 days traveling through south India and it has been a surreal experience. Our travels took us to Mumbai, Mahabelashwar, Goa, Kerala, and all the airspace in between. It’s been filled with some of the greatest memories I’ve ever had on a vacation coupled with some of the worst.

I’ve always been a fan on Indian food, so this trip was perfect for satisfying the foodie in me. I got to taste a multitude of dishes and it really helped that I was traveling with friends that have been to India before and are of Indian descent, since they were able to steer me towards the tastiest dishes. As good as the food was, it definitely gave me a lot of stomach troubles early on in the trip. I guess I was a little too adventurous in my eating since I was cumulatively sick for nearly 1/3 the time I’ve been here!

Along our travels, we discovered a love for King Fisher beer, Uno and negotiating everything we bought, including taxi rides. Near the end of the trip, we managed to fit in the hilarious game of “How much woud someone have to pay you to stay another 3 weeks in India?”. It seems that none of us would even accept $30k. Yikes.

This trip marks the longest time I’ve spent with a group of friends — imagine spending 24 hours a day with the same 5 people for 21 days. Surprisingly it went better than we all would have expected. We got to share a ton of laughs coupled with deep, meaningful conversations. I couldn’t have picked a better group of friends to travel with. Craig, Fil, Chaitanya, Shaheen and Suraj — thanks for a great trip and all the memories that came along with it. You guys rock.

Photos from both India and China will be posted shortly after I get back to Seattle and I have a chance to go through them all. I’ll post up a link to the photos once I’ve completed them and uploaded them to Flickr.

My upcoming travel back to Seattle isn’t going to be short. I’m flying from Mumbai to Seattle, laying over in Amsterdam on Northwest Airlines. My total transit time is just over 26 hours! Wish me luck!

Here are some fun facts about our trip:

I can’t wait to get back to “normal” civilization in Seattle, my own bed and the ability to do laundry at will. Hallelujah!

Greetings from Kerala!

We spent the last 4 days in Kerala, having an absolute incredible time. It’ll be impossible for me to summarize everything in this single entry, so I”ll opt for the highlight which is coincidentally the highlight of the entire trip as well.

After spending a night in Kochi, we headed off to the Kerala backwaters to stay on a houseboat. However, to call this a “houseboat” is not doing this experience the justice it deserves. When I previously heard the word “houseboat” I thought of permanently docked and dilapidated houses that you see all the time on the shores of the waters around Seattle. However, this houseboat in Kerala is like a palace on wheels. Not only down is actually move through the water using a motor, but it also is fully furnished with multi-bedrooms and A/C. It also has a full staff that steers the boat and prepares all your meals. To make the deal even sweeter, it costs us a mere $50 US per night, which included the houseboat rental and all the King Fisher beer we drank.

Earlier in the week, we met 3 women in Goa that ended up sharing the houseboat with us which not only helped cut costs down, but also added some new blood to the mix to spice up our conversations. It also added more people in to play Uno with us which has taken over our down time

The 2 nights we spent on the boat were utterly amazing, filled with great food and unbelievable scenery. I’m anxious to post pictures when I get back to Seattle!

After the houseboat, we decided to splurge a bit and are currently staying at the 5-star Taj Malabar hotel in Kochi. This hotel is amazing, with super luxurious rooms, great amenities and a really posh infinity pool. The houseboat was the nicest from a scenery perspective, but this hotel is off the charts in terms of luxury. WOW!

Tommorow, we check out nice and early (6am!) to catch a morning flight to Mumbai where we’ll stay for just over a day before parting ways to our respective destinations.

For those anxious to see some photos, here is a photo I snagged while waiting for a 1 rupee (yes, 1 rupee) ferry in Kochi. Gotta love the penetration of communism

See everyone on the 11th in Seattle!

Our time in Goa has come to an end, and truthfully it was fairly uneventful here. We expected much more partying to happen than actually took place and I’m currently sick which doesn’t help matters. However, I do have to say that the sunsets are gorgeous here, and being on the water it’s not as hot as it could be (which is always a plus in my book!).

New Year’s Eve was marked with attempting to get into various parties unsuccessfully with one threat of getting arrested (long, long story). But the good news is that we avoided foreign police capture, had a great meal at this restaurant called ‘Over the Flames” and marked the coming of 2008 with a toast and talking about our goals for 2008. Here are some of mine:

1. Sell 3 photos to people I don’t know (2007’s goal was to sell 1, which happened in November!)
2. Bike one 50-miler (this is much less a fitness goal and more of a mental one).
3. Ship the new product I’m working on for Microsoft by the end of the year.
4. Take the bus to work at least 4 times a week on average.
5. Go home to visit my family at least 5 times. 2007 was marred with severe out of country travel restrictions due to my Green Card, but that has now passed. I’m anxious to see more of my niece and nephew!

I have some other more personal goals that I’ll opt not so share Hopefully everyone has thought about the coming year and has some goals set as well.
We fly out of Goa tommorow afternoon and, after 2 layovers, will end up in Cochin early evening. Well be spending 3 days there followed by 2 days in the backwaters of Kerala living on a house boat.

Happy New Year everyone!

It’s been a leisurely few days here in Mahabaleshwar spending Christmas with Craig’s family. His aunt and uncle own 2 hotels here in Mahabaleshwar — Shreyas Hotel and the Shreyas resort. His family (and us) are occupying all of the rooms in the resort and most of the rooms in the Hotel. It’s made this portion insanely cheap since all of our lodging and food has been free courtesy of his family since they own the restaurants that are on the hotel premises. Booze has been pretty cheap as well with King Fisher’s running us about 800 rupees for 24 cans/bottles.

During the day, we all went to Elephant’s Head Point and Kates Point which are 2 of the lookout viewpoints here. They both gets you a good view of the horizon and the unbelievable polution. Thank god I had my polarizer since it cut down a lot of the glare from the sun against the smog. We took a bunch of photos, including some panoramas which Fil has already uploaded to Flickr.

Walk-way to Elephant’s Head Point:

All of us at Elephant’s head (self-timers and camera balancing are my friends):

Jumping shot at Kates Point (I’m always behind the camera for the cool ones!):

For Christmas, Craig’s family had a DJ come and we partied most of the night to songs like Eminem’s “Smack That”. Yes, “Smack That”. The most hilarious portion may be when the DJ did the “slow dance” portion and ordered everyone on the dance floor. Nothing like family members slow dancing to tunes from the 80’s

Time here has been very, very leisurely with plans ebbing and flowing since this is a really small hill town. We leave for Goa tomorrow night (the 27th) on an “ultra-luxury” bus called a “Volvo” which may or may not be affiliated in to the automobile brand.

It feels like our trip is winding down, but it’s funny to think our crazy days and nights are still ahead of us in Goa. I’m looking forward to meeting up with Suraj who will be joining us on the 30th in Goa for new year’s then continue with us to Kerala. A lowlight of the trip moving forward will be that it will just get hotter and hotter since we’re progressively moving south. Eep.

To end this entry, it’s fitting to show you our trip’s new mascot. It’s my pleasure to present you Dirty Craig: