India Journal 2004

Home

I — Greetings from Rishikesh

II — Dharamsala Journal

III — Leaving Dharamsala

IV — Teachings of the Dalai Lama

V:i — In Search of the Monsoon: Chennai

V:ii — In Search of the Monsoon: Mammalapuram

V:iii — In Search of the Monsoon: Tiruvannamalai

V:iv — In Search of the Monsoon: Pondicherry

V:v — In Search of the Monsoon: Mysore

VI:i — End of My Wanderings: Ooty

VI:ii — End of My Wanderings: Kanyakumari

VI:iii — End of My Wanderings: Kerala and Kochi

VI:iv — End of My Wanderings: Goa

VI:v — End of My Wanderings: Mumbai

Reflections

About Eleventh Hour Sol/Contact

Welcome to India Journal 2004

 

"During the last three months I've traveled by plane, train, bus, automobile and autorickshaw, jeep, boat, (and even toured a wee bit by horseback) as I've been blessed to have the opportunity to explore India. I realize now that, as much as I was fortunate to see and experience, there is so much more I wanted to do, so many other places in India I would like to return and see. I understand now how people can fall in love with this timeless place.

I'd like to think that my time in India has been a new beginning for me, though maybe what I've learned here is that there are really no beginnings and no endings. It's impossible to sum up India — she's too deep, too vast, too mysterious, too maddening and inspiring ...

To me India represents where we are collectively in our humanity, crazily careening along on this planet, somehow surviving, offering up our beauty to each other and sensing a deeper meaning for our being here even as we struggle through our ignorance to look wonderingly out of our eyes and do our best to get through our lives ... "

 

Those are the last few paragraphs of an email journal I wrote to share my personal experience traveling mostly alone in India for three months in 2004. This website is organized around those six emails, sent approximately two weeks apart, supplemented by some pictures I took while traveling in India.

Looking back now, two years later, I realize how lucky I was to have had this experience and how it became true, as many people had said it would, that India has changed me. I may or may not be able to return to Mother India someday; As of this writing I'm completing my first semester of nursing school, with 18 months left to become an RN, and probably won't have the time and resources to make a trip like this for at least several years. But if this turns out to have been "my trip," I know that I have truly been blessed to have experienced it, and I encourage anyone who can, who has the desire and the willingness to step out of their comfort zone, to go to India.

"Eleventh Hour Sol"
December 6, 2006
New York City

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