First Trip to India, April 2017

2017-04-25

There is no one India post. There’s a trail instead: “So far so good!” from Vancouver airport on Apr 9, then a first full day in Mumbai — sugar cane drinks on every street corner, McDonalds with self-service kiosks and a chicken-and-veggie menu. Then an 11-hour train northwest to Anjar, Hazel’s ancestral home, rickshaws, the desert of Kutch, small settlements not on the map. Then the long way home via Beijing with a 3h15m delay, catching Hazel’s cold somewhere over the Pacific and losing it on the plane to Vancouver.

What I remember clearest: coffee and tea in India is simply better than anything back home, but it comes in tiny cups. Drying seas leave enormous salt flats around Gujarati deserts. And coming home, fresh air and office carpet felt alien for a day — my own mouse felt weird in my hand.

If I ever wrote a proper impressions essay, it’s not in any export I can find. This compilation stands in for it.