Tag Archives: Travelogue
Travelogue: Lucky Cheng’s Drag Queen Karaoke in New York City
Okay, so these Groupon and Living Social deals can really get addictive. We all know that. But because of them, Navdeep and I have definitely had some experiences we wouldn’t have otherwise indulged in — ice climbing, anyone?
Another case in point: Lucky Cheng’s Drag Queen karaoke on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, largely the bastion of alcohol-fueled, giggle-heavy bachelorette parties and birthdays. A straight guy’s no man’s land. Still, when they offered up a two-for-one deal on Living Social, I convinced Navdeep we should give it a go. And just for amusement, he said okay. At the very least, it would be a nice Chinese dinner, right?
Musings: The Six Oddest Places We Slept in India
Imagine waking up to this view everyday!
Traveling in India for six months, we had our fair share of odd experiences — but the most interesting seemed to be when it was time to rest our weary heads. From bumpy buses and crowded trains to a thatched hut on the beach, here’s a round-up of the six oddest places we slept in India.
The Beach Hut In Goa
Honestly, it was as awesome as it sounds. A thatched-roof hut with poles sunk into the warm beach sand. It contained just a bed and a chair and a functioning, American-style bathroom (very necessary). As soon as we stepped outside, we could see, smell, and even taste the ocean! It was perfect for lounging, swimming or having a casual, Goan Feni-soaked afternoon. Dinnertime was a candlelit meal of fresh seafood and locally grown veggies, a picnic right there on the sand. It was the first time we discovered, even dinner could be haggled for! (And breakfast was chocolate corn flakes for Navdeep. But only once. Turns out, it was regular old corn flakes with chocolate syrup on them! Ew!) Can’t wait to come back.
The Tree House In Periyar
We may have missed the elephants and tigers and bears on our safari in Periyar, but the three nights we spent camping out in the treehouse at Carmelia Haven made the trek worth it. It was amazing — an actual tiny little one-room house in a tree, with little windows overlooking the garden, and a giant bed taking up most of the space. Sure, we didn’t have our own bathroom and it wasn’t nestled in the middle of the forest, as some within the grounds of the conservation area were, but it was a unique and amazing experience just the same.
The Barracks at the Golden Temple
We have family in Amritsar, so we didn’t really need other accommodations there. But once we learned that you could actually stay at the Golden Temple, we had to experience it for ourselves. So, we showed up in our Indian attire at the reservations booth and Navdeep asked for a room in Punjabi. We were given one, sure, but it was not quite what I was expecting. It was dormitory style without lockers, and squat toilets. Shared squat toilets. I saw a rat scurrying about and looked pleadingly at Navdeep. Did I mention that we were there for my birthday? Navdeep took pity on me (not that he had much choice), and we gave it another go. This time, we dressed as backpackers, him in jeans and T-shirt, me in a long flowy skirt and we both wore bandanas. We were immediately given another room, this time a large, airy suite with a private bath and balcony. All for 50 rupees a night! And right at the foot of the Golden Temple. It was an absolutely magical experience.
The Beach-Front Cottage In Puri
We were only in Puri for one day — we stayed there overnight when was stopped to see the amazing Sun Temple in Konark Bhubaneshwar, which is intricately carved with poses straight out of the Kama Sutra. Once we arrived at the lovely, airy, immaculately-kept Z hotel, a old, rambling palace, we wished we’d given ourselves more time in the area. We wandered the storied beach at the Bay of Bengal before settling into our, which was huge and breezy, with a four-poster bed and a view of the sea. One point to note, though: this is a tourist hotel, which means when we called to reserve a room and spoke in Hindi, there was no availability. However, when I called five minutes later and spoke in English, with a clear American accent, suddenly a room was available. Go figure.
The Bumpy, Stinky, Squishy Bus to Jamu-Kashmir
If you think sleeping on a plane is rough, you’ve clearly never tried 0vernighting it on a non-deluxe bus in India. We spent 15 hours stuffed into a 15-inch two-seater on a shock absorber-less clunker that sputtered more than 1000 miles from Pathankot into Kashmir. The bus — on which I was the only female — made an unexplained late-night stop for several hours in the middle of a bridge, with water on either side of us. And there was no bathroom, so, I awoke from one fitless stretch of sleep to several men, lined up in a row outside my window, peeing on the bus. That’s right, on the bus. Fun times. Later, of course, we learned that the equivalent flight would have cost a mere $50 and run 90-minutes. So obviously, we winged it back to New Delhi.
The Houseboat in Kashmir
The houseboat experience in Srinagar, Kashmir, was amazing — though very different from the one we had in Kerala. This was more like a literal home on a boat, one that was docked at one edge of Dal Lake. It had a real bedroom, dining room (complete with china cabinet), terrace, the works. We stayed for four nights and enjoyed traditional Kashmiri curries and biryanis, lounged on the terrace as salesmen on shikaras floated by with their wares, and watched locals row by in their shikaras, going about their business, selling veggies, shawls, or heading off to school.
Travelogue California: The World’s Largest Gingerbread House in San Francisco?
We had all of two days to spend in San Francisco with my parents-in-law, and for some reason, I was stuck on seeing this two-story gingerbread house — made of real gingerbread, of course — at the Fairmont Hotel. So everyone decided to indulge me. (This isn’t so surprising, by the way.)
To capture the essence of San Francisco, our mission — and we all chose to accept it — was to abandon our car and navigate the hills and curves of the city by the bay completely on foot. Surprisingly, we more than managed (despite the stroller!) and we didn’t get lost. Not even once.
It turns out that getting to the aforementioned gingerbread house, though, was quite a hike. We started out from our hotel — the lovely Tuscan Inn, which hosts an evening wine reception and offers freshly brewed a.m. coffee — at the Fisherman’s Wharf, and headed west. Which turned out to be straight upward for more than a mile. Great exercise, yes, but not super-fun when you’re pushing a ten-month-old in a rickety stroller.
In any case, the trek itself was fun. Along the way, we stopped in North Beach for croissants and cappuccinos on Columbus Avenue. Then we paused for a break — which we certainly needed by then — at the Cable Car Museum (free!). The museum itself was fascinating — it showed the working gears of all three cable car lines, along with restored cars from the 19th century. There was a short documentary film, and photographs of the city before and after the great earthquake and fire of 1906.
The museum, it turned out, was only a few blocks from the Fairmont, but we didn’t realize that because of the giant hill in front of us. We huffed and puffed our way to the stately old building, which has been standing between California and Sacramento streets since 1907 — a year after the fire.
Travelogue India: The Countdown Begins, So Much to Do and Only Three Weeks to Go!
When we booked our tickets, way back in June, this trip seemed ages away. And now, there’s less than a month left. It seems surreal to think that in three short weeks my life as I know it will end—at least for a short while. Right now, to me, the daily grind is pitching stories and interviewing the random celebrity, pretending to work on my writing, endless loads of laundry, the occasional episode of House Hunters on HGTV and making often-elaborate meals for my husband, who’s been working his ass off teaching endless English classes to make up for our time off.
In the meantime, we’ve also been doing the things that make this trip seem a bit more real. Tickets. Check. Camera. Check. Backpacks. They’ll be here any second now. And we finally ordered the sleeping bag, too. But really, it’s the slow build of this website, Navdeep painstakingly learning Dreamweaver and Flash, me dictating design and writing content, that’s making it seem real. Slowly but surely, we’re getting closer. And as we add pages, we mark off another day—or four—on the calendar. And now it’s almost time to flip the page.
For three months, it’ll be just be me and Navdeep, on the road, a different city every week, lots of new tastes, people, places to explore and absorb. It’s exhilarating, but at the moment, it still seems unreal. And though I’m really excited, it’s also kind of scary.
I keep second-guessing other goals. What if this is the right time to get that script out, as studios stockpile under the threat of a long, grueling writers’ strike? What if I should have taken that job opportunity in New York a little more seriously? What about the fact that I’m going to miss several birthdays, or a big reason to celebrate that we’ve all been waiting for? I’m stepping out of my life, but it will go charging full speed ahead without me. Britney will lose custody. Lindsay will end up in prison. (Hey, these things are breaking news when you’re in the celeb content trade.) But it’s also that Meena will move to L.A., my cousin Arun will start college (oh my God!) and my brother will get a new (fulltime, with benefits!) job. Those are the things I’ll really be missing.
But there’s something more to the fear. It’s that my world will never really be the same after this. Travel changes people—Navdeep is a vivid, shining example of that. And sure, I’ve been on a plane loads of times, seen lots of exotic countries. But I’ve never really traveled. I’ve lived a very sheltered life. And I’m sort of excited to see who this new incarnation of me is going to be. But I’m also a bit sad to be leaving the old one behind.
She was hardly perfect, but we had some good times.
And it’s also the first time Navdeep and I will really travel together besides our 10-day Puebla honeymoon. We obviously have very different styles—he’s a hardcore backpacker, while I prefer all-inclusive, if possible. Do we meet in the middle? We’re sure to have cranky moments—after all, I’m only allowed to carry two pairs of flip-flops! We’ll truly be tested by this adventure—bugs and all. But no matter what, this journey is sure to bond us together even more.
Travelogue India: Deciding to Go (Navdeep)
Deciding to Go: Sona and Navdeep Backpack Around the World!
Much like asking Sona to marry me when I didn’t have a job, or any remote interest in the possiblity of attaining one – I was in the middle of an MFA in creative writing program while living with my parents in Fresno (and she still said yes!)- the decision to drop everything and go backpacking through India wasn’t a difficult one. When I asked Sona to get married, all I knew was that it felt right. And that is how I feel about this adventure, despite Sona’s tendencies to overcomplicate everything, from simple recipes, to packing, I knew it would be an adventure that I couldn’t pass up. Sona has great work ethic, which is not a good trait in a traveler. So, when she suggested the act of vagabonding for a couple of months before settling back into reality, I knew I couldn’t pass up my one opportunity to infect her with the travel bug.
We had the whole world at our disposal, but we ultimately decided on India because, well, it’s India. There is no country in the world quite like it and we both think we can speak the North Indian languages of Hindi and Punjabi, relatively well (numbers higher than 10 are a bit tricky though).It is a land of contradictions with its breathtaking beauty, vast areas of ugliness in the sheer level of visible pollution, majestic architecture, squalid tin-roofed make-shift neighborhoods, perilous roads, home to some of the world’s most exciting and dangerous places.
For Sona, it is also about embracing a country that she has never properly explored as an insider. She’s always been on the outside with sheltered 2 week family trips involving lots of shopping, and being shuttled from one relative’s house to the next. The first time I went on my own was when I was 20, as a reward for myself for failing all of my classes at community college. Yes, community college. That trip really made me focus on my studies, perhaps not exactly for the right reasons: I wanted to be done, so I could go travel some more!
The second I graduated with my Bachelors degree, I went gallavanting off to China, and ended up living there for 2 years. I eventually made it back to the United States, but not before backpacking from China into India via Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Tibet, and Nepal. I took the scenic route.
Travel has always been a part of my life and my parents have always made it a point to learn about local customs and cultures, while remaining true to their own identities. Growing up, we would go on adventures big and small: weekend camping trips, long summer holidays, and because of my dad’s work as a landscape architect, we lived all over the world. Sona and I don’t want to be fifty and remembering our one long honeymoon adventure. We want to have countless adventures!
I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this site that Sona isn’t on friendly terms with bugs. Here is an example of what happened yesterday:
So we’re in bed and I’m in a deep sleep while Sona has the lamp on and is reading when apparently a moth flies in, attracted to the light. The book flies up into and lands on the floor with a loud slap. I still don’t stir, until Sona ever so gently clasps my t-shirt and shakes me vigorously.
“There’s a flying thing. Get rid of it,” I make out in between her screaming.
“What?” I say, opening my eyes.
“Get rid of it!”
“Get rid of what stupidass, there’s nothing here. Just turn the light off and it’ll go away.”
She decides my logic has a huge flaw and the only rational thing to do is to drag the blanket I was covered in out to the living room. Then switch the hallway light on to attract the moth back so I can kill it. And for her to lie awake on the sofa in the living-room (which only sleeps one).
To put it mildly, we are different travelers. And I am dreading having to deal with creepy-crawlies. Or rather dealing with Sona dealing with creepy-crawlies in India. But I am quite curious to see what Sona’s solution to moths being in our vicinity will be. Or crickets, mosquitos, ants, fireflies, wasps, and cockroaches. Maybe I’ll roast them and put them on a stick for her.
Travelogue India: Deciding to Go (Sona)
Just a little over three years ago, I was chained to my desk at People magazine, working sixty-plus hour weeks. Yeah, I got to interview celebs and blah blah blah, but to me it was all just a day job. I was too wimpy to quit to pursue my real dream, filmmaking. And then I met Navdeep. A hardcore traveler who’d lived in China and backpacked overland through Tibet into India. An adventurer who scoffed at the idea of staying in one of the fancy pant palaces converted into hotels in Rajasthan (as my sister and I did on our trip there). He thought nothing of sleeping alone in a tent in the middle of God-knows-where in Mongolia. I didn’t know it then, but his free spirit (and indie travel bug) were about to rub off on me, big time. Now, at 30, I’m a fulltime freelance writer with all the instability that implies. Journalism, unfinished novels, screenplays gathering dust in a pile on my bookshelf.
I’m not sure exactly when the idea of a three-month long honeymoon jaunt in India started to percolate between us, but for the longest time I didn’t take it seriously. We both had strong roots in the country, but for me, a trip to India simply meant being shuffled from one relative’s house to the next in Delhi. Besides, who really quits their dayjob to pursue something as amorphous and unstable as writing fulltime—let alone pursuing the fantasy of filmmaking? Even with the clips from those glossy magazines everyone picks up at the newsstand, the decision was impractical at best. Besides, shouldn’t we be thinking about serious married-people things like health insurance and 401Ks?
But the idea just wouldn’t die. As we fell into the typical Gen-X/Y (which are we, anyway?) angst of low-paying permalance gigs without benefits (Navdeep as an adjunct English instructor and photographer, myself as a freelance writer), we asked ourselves why we couldn’t just drop everything and jet off for three months? What, really, were we leaving behind? As I went from one freelance gig to another, Navdeep brought up the idea again. Why not? He could take a semester off, lining up work for the spring in advance, and we could pitch travel stories along wave. After all, what’s the point of being a freelance writer if you can’t be—well, free?
Soon enough, we were researching itineraries and contemplating equipment. Backpacks. Travel guides. The tickets were booked. Navdeep had his camera, and he saw this trip as just the right opportunity for me to finally pick up mine. I’d long written screenplays, but was always too scared to just go ahead and shoot something. So we thought we’d start small, shooting short pieces on the road for our website, which would keep us sharp, writing-wise. Here on IshqInABackpack.com, you see the results of our labors.
We’re still in the midst of gearing up, and with the trip now just a month away, the tickets are booked, the website is launched, and we’re set to shoot (and eat) our way through India. After 30 years of waiting, my big adventure is finally about to begin. And though he may be my opposite in many ways, I’m glad I’ll get to share it with Navdeep. He’s sure to lead me into corners of this world that I’d never see otherwise. And I can’t wait to get started.
Neither of us are strangers to travel, but we are very different travelers. Navdeep can brush aside a cockroach from his food and continue eating. Sona flies into hysterics at any creepy-crawlies (real or imagined) within a ten mile radius. 
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