India Day 13 and Final Thoughts

I woke up the next morning, had a standard hotel complimentary breakfast, and then waited for Amy to drive up from KC to retrieve me. It was more wonderful than I can say to see her again, and the bad weather had cleared the area before we made the trip back home.

So there you have the saga of my first experience with international travel. The blog entries were written a month or so after the fact and back-dated to put them in proper chronological location and order. The entries are based on 73 pages of notes and 3,924 photos.

Just sorting through the pictures took quite some time. Eventually I managed to settle on 14 of the best images for my portfolio.

I want to thank On Track Safaris in the UK and India Footprints in India for providing me with one of the most incredible experiences of my life. Also a quick thank you to Responsible Travel for serving as the way I found On Track.

Most of the places where I experienced discomfort during the trip were due to my inexperience as a traveler. For example, the Jabalpur airport shouldn’t have been anywhere near as nerve-racking as it was for me. Now that I know what to expect from such experiences, hopefully I’ll be less nervous traveling in the future.

Indeed, for the most part the uncertain moments worked out for the best. For example, my original itinerary had me in Bandhavgarh first and Kanha second. But going to Kanha first was much better. There I had Uday Patel’s expert guidance and a much calmer experience than I had at the second park. But by the time I got to Bandhavgarh I was much better prepared for the experience, even without a naturalist to help me. And after being so close to those tigers, Kanha might have been a bit anti-climactic, which it definitely shouldn’t have been.

However, I do want to note two big negatives for the sake of any readers who might wish to benefit from my experiences. First, I absolutely will never ever ever do business with Travelocity ever again. If you haven’t read my blog entry about what happened with that whole mess, please study it carefully before you ever trust your travel plans to that “service.”

And second, India (especially the rural parts of the country) is the land of cash. My card didn’t work at all. Fortunately, I exchanged enough currency to cover tips and other expenses. And most of the big stuff (hotels, transport, most of the food) was already covered by the tour package.

When I did the currency exchange in Toronto, I got such a huge pile of bills that I felt bad about how much money I was carrying. But I was down to financial fumes by the end of the trip. So the lesson there is to get more money than you need and don’t get freaked out when you walk away from the currency exchange counter with a Scrooge McDuck sized wad of cash.

My sole regret from the trip was not taking even more pictures than I did. That said, I have to remind myself that if I stopped long enough to take good photos of everything I saw that would have made a good photo, I’d still be there taking pictures.

Looking back, India might have been sort of a crazy choice for the first trip taken by a 53-year-old man who never even had a passport prior to a few months ago. I do wish I’d worried less and relaxed more, which might have been easier in more familiar surroundings. But I think what I really needed was exactly what I got: a total break from the familiar and a beautiful place full of fantastic photo opportunities. I’m glad I went. I’ll treasure the photos and the memories for the rest of my life. And now I feel ready for any other opportunity for adventure that might come my way.