India
INDIA
I found myself sitting in an airport. I’d been sat in front of the gate for five hours straight, awaiting boarding for a flight that would take me to my next adventure. Well, okay, not really. I was waiting to board a seven-hour flight that would take me to yet another airport, from which I’d have to catch another four-hour flight to my destination and next adventure.
As daunting as all this might’ve sounded… there I was, sitting in an airport, my eyes pregnant with tears as I was about to embark on a new adventure. It had been six months since my last trip. Six long, long months. An eon by my usual travelling standards. Six whole months of not travelling. The last time I’d gone that long without travelling had been back in 2020, courtesy of our friendly neighbourhood virus: COVID-19. Some six years down the line, I found myself reliving that embargo – though this one was self-inflicted.
As much as I’d missed travelling, I gotta say my plan had worked. Coming back from Ecuador, I’d found myself facing a kind of travel exhaustion I never thought I could experience. It had been a mixture of stretching myself too thin to accumulate as much time off work as possible and then draining myself further with all the activities and adventures I’d cram in once abroad. At that point, it had all gotten to be too much, and I’d felt like I had to take a step back.
And so, I had taken a step back from travelling in an effort to fall back in love with it. And boy, had I been right. I’d missed travelling like a mother. And there I was, sitting in an airport once again. I couldn’t friggin’ wait!
The Event of a Lifetime
So… where was I headed, huh? Right… I guess the journal entry title kinda gave it away. I’d never been one to build suspense anyway. So yeah, I was finally off to India.
Under usual circumstances, I probably wouldn’t have been as excited. Mostly cause it wasn’t gonna be my kind of trip. It wasn’t gonna be this multi-week holiday where I’d go solo trekking, diving and surfing while moving from one hostel to the next, meeting all kinds of cool and crazy people and discovering everything I could about the local culture and history. Not at all.
This one was gonna be a ten-day trip that would barely justify all the travelling time it would take to get there. But I was doing it for one damn good reason: Zara and Rohan’s wedding – a long-awaited celebration I wouldn’t have missed for the world! I’d known them for some eight years by this point in time, but from the very first time I’d met them, I knew these two were “it” for each other. This was basically just a formality – one I was dying to attend.
Joining the wedding party, of course, would be the rest of the Indian gang: Akash, Ved, Joshin, , Sebi and a few others. There were also other people I’d met along the way, like Zado, with whom I’d been to the Lana Del Rey concert in Milan, and a few whom I had seen here and there.
Not Quite My Kind of Trip
Excited though I might’ve been to attend their special day, there was one thing I wasn’t particularly looking forward to. You see, a few weeks before the wedding, I’d been invited to a supposedly small get-together with a few dozen other attendees.
Amongst them were a few people I didn’t know from Adam: Jane, a Maltese girl who worked with Akash (and who told me all about her dysfunctional relationship), Cassie, her best friend (who seemed like a badass), Vanessa, a British lady who also worked with Akash (and who told us all about her two gay ex-husbands), and Elena, a Colombian chick who worked with Joshin (and with whom I could practise my Spanish).
From the little time I’d spent with them, I’d gathered they weren’t the kind of people I was particularly interested in spending time with. Given that they never ventured outside Europe, I don’t blame them for being apprehensive about travelling to such an exotic country. That said, it wasn’t quite apprehension that they voiced. One had no idea how she’d manage the heat, another went on about how she’d freak out if she were attacked by a rabid bat or stung by a venomous scorpion. The cherry on the cake, of course, was when another claimed she wouldn’t be able to cope with some of the local customs – how people ate with their hands, how they shared food, how annoying she found their head-bobbing, and on and on. I couldn’t help but cringe at every xenophobic comment she made – especially when she made them in front of “them“.
Though fun, these seemed to be exactly the type of people I’d done my best to distance myself from over the years. In fact, I could hardly remember the last time I’d been in a room with such people – not by choice, at least. And suddenly, I was about to embark on a ten-day trip with them. I knew I was coming across like I was on the highest horse that ever existed, but there was no use sugar-coating it.
Given how selective I was about the people I surrounded myself with and how much I valued my time (especially my vacation leave), I felt like this trip would be more of a chore than a holiday. Even so, I’d have to make do with the Motley Crew.
Two Left Feet and a Full Rota
So yeah, ten days with this group of people. A group with whom I’d have to share hour-long transfers, hotel rooms, and all kinds of excursions and activities – including a bunch of dances we’d have to perform at the wedding ceremonies.
That’s right. Dancing. Me, Marius, dancing. The same Marius who could barely walk without tumbling over. But anyway, I was doing it for Zara and Roahn. Or at least that was the plan. Given that all the vacation leave in my shift group had already been taken up, I’d had to swap every single shift if I wanted to attend the wedding – meaning I’d have to work my ass off to make up for it before I could go. This, of course, meant I barely had enough time to breathe, let alone dance. And with the rest of the gang incessantly nagging me in the group chat to attend dance practice, all I could think about was how badly I’d fail.
One final complaint? I hadn’t gotten to plan a single thing myself – which, to be fair, was both a good and a bad thing. I suppose what I’, trying to say was that, despite this not being the ideal trip to India I’d always envisioned for myself, my six-month period of abstinence had lowered my expectations and softened my outlook – meaning I was more than ready for everything this trip had in store for me. Bring it on!
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DAY ONE – COMING SOON
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