We’ll be spending most of our time traveling in India, as far as specific countries go. Your response to this will either be ‘Eww, India!’ or ‘Ooh, India!’ As far as I’ve seen, no one is ambivalent about India. You either love it or you hate it, and I’ve never met anyone who said they didn’t care.

I’m simultaneously fascinated and terrified by India. It’s obviously really vibrant and thriving, but at the same time, there are a lot of people (have I mentioned I hate people?) and a lot of poverty.

I’m very worried about the poverty. I am one of those suckers who wants to give money to everyone and I can’t not look people in the eye, especially children. This ends up being a terrible quality when you’re traveling in poor places, because they catch you out immediately. Then I end up being surrounded by a village of barefoot children with their little hands out while T glares at me, muttering about divorce. Between now and then, I am going to try to remember New York and go back to looking no one in the eye. Unfortunately, damned Australia has broken me of this habit, and now I am one of those godforsaken people who looks strangers right in the face in the street and smiles. I am but a shell of my former self.

We’re planning to fly into Delhi, do the tourist triangle to Agra and Jaipur, then go up, up, up to Rishikesh, Shimla, Dharamsala and Amritsar. That’s one month. Then we go waaaaaaaay down south to Kerala for two weeks. In Kerala, I will get ayurvedic treatments and T shall hide from the sun under the nearest tree.

Since coming to Australia, I have become fascinated by spirituality. So, I’m hoping we can hear the Dalai Lama speak in Dharamsala, at the very least. Also, India has good food. As long as I don’t find any maggots the way I did in an Indian food stall here, I’ll be pretty happy. I am also completely in love with the colors I always see in pictures. So there you have it. Religion, food and colors. Our trip to India in a nutshell.