The story so far...

So, when I said I had no plans that was not exactly true. My rucksac was packed with thermal underwear, a Gore-tex jacket and sub-zero sleeping bag with the intention of spending a fair amount of this trip somewhere amongst the Himalaya.

A couple of years back I spent a month in the North Eastern state of Sikkim and had a fantastic couple of weeks trekking with a truly spectacular backdrop of snow-capped mountains. As this ranks as one of my best trips i'd planned to try to recreate this in the North Western state of Uttarakhand, hence the contents of my backpack being geared to higher altitudes and colder climes.

My trip got off to a great start with Air France upgrading me to Business Class so I arrived in Delhi ready to hit the ground running. It was 9-years ago that I last visited the city and its changed quite a bit since then. There is a metro system now. It's still as noisy and crazy as ever but many of the cars now run on gas rather than petrol and the auto-rickshaws have been converted from 2-stoke to 4-stroke engines so the air pollution is a little better, and with the Comonwealth games coming to the city next year the place is being spruced up and building work seems to be going on everywhere.

Halfway through the first day, needing a break from the blaring horns, the dust and heat I slipped into a backpacker cafe for a chai and to start to plan my trip North when who should walk in, Tathania, a Columbian girl I trekked with in Sikkim 2-years back!

How strange to see a familiar face so far away, in time and distance from when we last met! Tathania was on her way up to Dharasalam and had also just arrived in town that day. In many ways you could say the chances of us meeting again where high in that we're both independent travelers who like the same kinds of places, but still it's a one in a million chance we'd be in Delhi in the same cafe at the same time and it was really great to see her again.

My next meeting was not so much of a chance as i'd emailed my friend Abi in NY who'd offered to put me in touch with his brother Saurabh who lives in Delhi.
A couple of emails and text messages were exchanged and a rendez-vous organised for the Rodeo bar in Connaught Circle. I got there a couple of minutes before Saurabh and couldn't help laughing at finding myself in a cowboy bar run by a band of Indians. Saurabh arrived and we had a great evening chatting about India, Europe and life over a couple of Kingfishers and him giving me a few travel tips for some of my potential destinations.

So, the next day, having spent a quiet couple of hours in Juntar Muntar I hopped on a night train North to Nainital. A hill-station set beside a beautiful lake and surrounded my deep green valleys which I'd decided would be my gateway into the mountains this time around.

Juntar Muntar. The beautiful solar & lunar obversatory just south of Connaught Circle.

Hello again!

Its been a long time since I last blogged, over a year now in fact. That time has just flown by and in between times i've had plenty of blog-worthy experiences I could have shared with you.

Ethiopia for example is an amazing country with some outstanding landscapes, beautiful people and a fascinating history. It is also remote and under-developed however, with hardly any telephone, let alone internet connections, making ' real-time' travel updates impossible. Add to that that I had to medi-vac my feeble French ex-boyfriend, making the end of the trip premature, abrupt and very stressful and the result is no documentation of my time there, other than photos.

This annoys me for 2 reasons; Firstly its not a 'popular' destination, which is a shame as its a fantastically easy place to travel. If anyone is searching the web for feedback on Ethiopia I would have wanted them to be able to find my blog and to share my experiences with them - to encourage them to go. Secondly I use these posts as a journal and when i'm stuck at home/work with the urge to escape i'll often look back through them and come across a moment i'd forgotten and spend a happy 5 minutes daydreaming.

Ethiopia's not the only thing i've missed. There was a great week walking on Minorca with my friend Liz back in June. Then a fantastic weekend with Doug in Annecy where I had my first para-gliding experience. I can't blame lack on internet connections or flaky ex-boyfriend's for those missing posts. Simple that this past year has been a year in which much has changed for me, and change (whether expected or not) is often the catalyst for more change, which requires reflection, putting me in a more introverted mind-set and so not in the right frame of mind to blog.

That is why I need this trip now. After 9 years of happily ' coasting' along with my life in Paris I think 2010 is going to be a year of more change, but planned, coordinated change this time.
I might buy a place to live, go back to school, or change jobs, or all three! This may be the last ' long' trip i'm able to make for a while if I load up on debt or change employers so I have to make the most of it, whilst using it to buy some quiet time with myself and work out the plan for the next couple of years.

So, starting today and until 02h15 on 23Nov i've absolutely no commitments and only a handful of vague ideas as to where i'll end up. What I will do though is try to log-in every so often and tell you what i've been up to. At least then if my plans go wrong, or even right, and I end up debt-ridden and cramming for exams i'll have something to look back on.