A friend from Portland recently asked, "What the hell do you guys do all day?"
It's a good question. If you've never been on vacation for more than a couple of weeks, than you may wonder what it's like to travel for six months or more. Well, it's a lot less busy than you'd think, except for travel days which are long(yesterday we arrived in Ahmedabad after a 42 hour train ride), hard, and often complicated. Most of are days, once we get settled, are bit like weekends at home: we run a few errands(post office, bank, internet) and the rest of the time we just hang out. Usually first stop after getting up(not too early, not too late)is to a shop selling lassi yogurt drinks, which protect the stomach from the the Indian germs lerking everywhere. Then it's on to breakfast. This week in Varanasi every morning we ate at a place run by a German guy that employs graduates from a school for street kids that he set up. We usually have a look through an English language newspaper while eating. Headline in this week's Hindustan Times, "Obama stuns Hillary in Iowa!" The paper usually also keeps us up to date with all the new Brittney Spears drama. After breakfast I might go for a hike or rent a bike. Yo usually spends the day walking around taking photos. We get together later in the afternoon for some fresh squeezed juice(usually pomegranate) and stop by our favorite tea shop. We like to frequent the same shops everyday. The owners are not used to having travelers as regular customers, so it's a good chance to get to know some local people.
I spend a lot of time reading. This trip I've reread some of my old favorites: Desert Solitaire, The Razor's Edge, and Wind, Sand, & Stars. Yo's been bogged down this past month or so with Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamozov. Sometimes we'll read the same book at the same time(her's in Japanese, mine in English) and discuss it as we go along.
We tend to break down chores in a traditional manner, not because we are traditionalists, but because that's what we each like to and are good at doing. I mostly do the transportation, logistics, and financial stuff. Yo mostly does laundry, shops for fruit and snacks, and scopes out the best rooms for us. She's a hardcore master bargainer. She often negotiates a price so low that I feel sorry for the locals and slip them a few extra rupees when Yo isn't looking.
We also spend a fair amount of time hanging out with other travelers. We've met some great people on this trip: this past week we've met a Spanish guy who works for an NGO that sets up microloans for Bangladeshis to buy instead of endlessly renting their cycle rickshaws, a British couple who patiently explained to us the rules of cricket(by far the most popular sport in India), unfortunately we still don't understand, and a couple from Spain who come to India each winter to buy clothes to sell at their shop back home and to put on puppet shows at Indian schools(see photo).
Overall it's not a bad life, and the days seem to past at just the right pace.
-Shawn
