I am not excited..... much.

As you can imagine two years with no adventures has not been fun for me. Like many people my wings have been clipped and my yen for travel and exploring has remained unfulfilled. I have missed the excitement, the exploring, the challenges, the people and of course the food. But equally I have missed the emotion that it all stirs up inside me and has me reaching for my trusted  i-pad to share my experiences.  

My last sojourn through parts of Africa in 2019 was amazing; from the new born mountain gorilla clutching it's mother's breast, the tales from the Hutu's and the Tutsi peoples in Rwanda, the time with the tribes of southern Ethiopia and the rock hewn churches of Lalibela, the seafood from The Gambia and Senegal and of course the wildlife and people along the southern part of Africa.  Each  captured a different part of my heart and had its own story which left me hankering for more.  

By the time the trip was over I had done most all of the main game reserves and some of the private reserves/conservatories to fulfil my craving for the wild animals. After the most amazing viewings on my first trip in 2001 the rest have paled by comparison and my time with the magnificent animals is over leaving room for me to spend more time with the people of Africa.  A trip to Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso and Ghana was booked within a few weeks of my return home.

And then the world turned upside down.  Covid-19 hit and created various iterations of a "new normal".  Just when we thought we were over the worst and managed to have a few short sojourns to Oz, then damn thing morphed into 'Delta' and then 'Omicron' and we were locked up again.

Despite my hankering to take up the Africa trip again and the fact that I have learned a reasonable amount of Spanish and can't wait to go back to the Spanish speaking Americas I decided on something closer to home and found an eating tour of India. Close jaunts seemed to be the best option.  Hopefully easier to get home if it all goes belly up and less time sitting next to people of unknown health status with or without masks.

2 weeks of backstreet eating with a quick offshoot to Agra and the Taj Mahal gave me just the thing to look forward to.  I have always been curious about the work done by Mother Theresa and so being that close to Kolkata I could not go home without checking out the spaces where she did so much wonderful work.  With my fascination of religious practices (not the beliefs themselves) I also felt the need to visit Varanasi and see for myself the thousands of people bathing in the Ganges.  I have a desperate need for madness, colours, flavours and something different.  

Itinerary sorted and and airfares booked my next step was completing the never ending range of stupid forms that Singapore, India and NZ need for entry.  It all sounds simple but trying to get the most current information for entry requirements from each country was painful.  Life was far more simple in the good old days despite our access to technology.  The Indian High Commission website suggested that being a kiwi I only needed an e-visa.  Simple I said clicking on the link to an e-visa.  I complete the form only to get to the end and find I need to print it off and send/deliver to the high commission.  That seemed odd so I rang to check and had the statement confirmed.  I need that visa to be able to enter India so I send it off and received confirmation of delivery from NZ Post.  To cut a long story short after about 2 weeks of trying to contact the High Commission and not being successful (for a variety of reasons) I pay them a visit and take my turn in a very orderly queue.  Stupidly I forgot to take my reference number with me so once my number was called I was told that they can't search by name and only by reference number so my visit was in vain, but they would ring me back if they found it.  I emailed the ref no through as soon as I got home. Next day nothing.  Next day nothing.  No one answering the phone.  Something made me check the website again and I found an alternative email address.  That recipient was obviously slightly further up the chain because by the next day I got the phone call to say my visa was ready. Duly collected and happy my passport had not been lost and I was now officially able to enter India.  

Enough on that but I will not include the language that came out of my foul mouth when I later discovered that the link I had used for the e-visa was a link to a regular visa (which is what I got) and had the website contained the correct link when I applied I could have instantaneously received the e-visa I wanted. )(*&^%$#@!+_)(%^.

So now here I am typing away with two sore arms having had the last of my travel booster shots, my wallet is lighter having paid for all the incidental meds I need to travel with, my devices all sorted, my research done and I'm nearly ready to fly.

I would love to share my travels with you and will try to post each day - wifi dependent - so if you would like to follow me as I go please "Follow my Blog" and/or leave comments as you wish.  Following should mean you get a notification each time I upload a new blog.

But be warned there will be days when I write after the fact and moments when I write as I am in the midst of something so the tense and grammar will reflect the different circumstance.  The blog site does not have a spell check nor does it have a grammar check so do not expect literary genius or else you will be very disappointed.   

But you will get to feel my emotions, imagine the tastes of my favourite foods (and maybe those I don't like as well), feel the madness and the colours.  I wish there was a way that I could send you the smells - maybe within the not to distant future we will not only be able to capture smells but share them as well.  I hope you enjoy the trip!  I know I will.

If you would like to share the blog with anyone please direct them to https://spicetemples.blogspot.com/   

or check out my other blogs and books at https://helen117.wixsite.com/cotsys-bucketlist