These things occurred on Thursday January 23, 2025 through Tuesday February 25, 2025 travelling between New Delhi, India and Mumbai, India
Preparing for the India part of our world tour began back in November when I spent a morning with friends who had lived in India, trying to gain as much information as possible for our journey. Despite their best efforts to help me draft an itinerary, I struggled to think of India as I had other countries. For whatever reason, the idea of visiting India felt overwhelming, somehow more critical than other places, and completely out of my comfort zone. In retrospect, I must have been subconsciously building up a tour of India in my mind for the last two decades without realizing. Instead of approaching India with a more laissez-faire attitude, we ultimately decided to use a tour company recommended by my friends.
We learned quickly that time and priorities move differently in India. I messaged the company two months before our expected arrival date and received an almost immediate response. This felt like a good omen and the tour agents were kind and knowledgeable. However, the days passed quickly and, somehow, we were two weeks away with no final itinerary or confirmation to show for it – and this was with me having put together a comprehensive spreadsheet detailing our religious and family needs in a calendar format. My gut was yelling at me to scale down from a five-week itinerary to a two-week itinerary. I kept thinking, maybe we should dip our toes in with an itinerary the first two weeks and then figure out the rest of it. By the end of the back and forth, silence, long nail-biting waiting periods, a maddening e-visa website, and second-guessing ourselves, we agreed to a jampacked five-week itinerary instead of taking a breath and trusting our gut. In the end, we moved through different parts of India so quickly it became a blur. Fourteen different cities, two flights that were full travel days, and an ungodly number of hours on the road. The boys joke they can’t even remember what they did. They do know we saw “forts, palaces, forts, temples, and more forts. And then that one shul/synagogue.” They also happen to have a greater knowledge of Hinduism than Chaim or I ever had, and an appreciation for India’s rich culture, mythologies, and unfathomable traffic.
As much as this is now one of my greatest regrets this year, it served as an important learning opportunity: No matter how overwhelming a country might feel, it is okay to take it slowly, one city at a time, figuring it out as we move along. We like somewhat nicer places to stay. We don’t mind a short, catered and tailored experience. For extended periods, we prefer making it up as we go along, exploring at our own pace, and chancing upon playgrounds and parks that are more local than tourist centric. Yes, this could have meant that we would stand in the wrong lines over and over again (as a colleague warned us would be the case). And yes, we might have gotten lost or ended up on the wrong side of town. But in the end, that is what works for our family.
