My fascination with going to India started even before I was fully bitten by the travel bug. Five or six years ago, I deemed going there as almost next to impossible, as there were so many factors to consider: the long-haul flight, the expensive airfare, being heavily tied up with a demanding corporate job, and the fact that for a country as massive as India, a mere five-day trip simply wouldn't cut it—unless you go there just to snap a photo of the Taj Mahal in Agra.
However, life circumstances have a strangely beautiful way of conspiring to bring me directly to the very country I had long sought to see.
At Long Last, Arrival: Kolkata, India
The Spark of a Dream
I remember when my boss at my previous job was breaking the news to me about being laid off. My thoughts didn't immediately plunge into uncertainty, as most in my situation would have at that exact time. Instead, my mind began happily wandering toward the very real possibility of finally having the time and the severance means to go to India.
At the end of that meeting, my boss—who is of Indian descent but grew up in the United States—correctly guessed exactly what was brewing in my mind. "So Marky, I assume you will be traveling to India?" To which I proudly replied with a resounding affirmative.
I was so pumped that I was entirely ready to go on a month-long jaunt to India completely alone. Fortunately, after publicly sharing my rough travel plans online, a photographer-turned-shoe-designer friend enthusiastically signed up to be my travel buddy. With the invaluable help of our common friend Mina, who is happily married to an Indian citizen named Manesh, we meticulously plotted our trip over a long lunch a month before our departure.
Mapping Our 25-Day Route
The thing about India is that it is one massive country. At first, I foolishly thought a 25-day trip would cover a whole lot of ground. I became entirely greedy with mapping out our intended route, but when I later discovered the excruciating travel time from one city to another, I pragmatically decided to ditch several places and gracefully leave them for the next trip back (which I will definitely make in a year's time).
Since the return ticket my travel buddy and I purchased was from Kochi to Kuala Lumpur, it would mean we needed to brutally haul our behinds from Kolkata all the way down to southern India. In the end, we simply decided to pencil in rough routes that would remain subject to change on the fly, allowing us to proceed with our trip whenever and wherever we intuitively decided to go next.
A 12-Hour Layover in Kuala Lumpur
Come March 4, my India trip was just around the bend. As I finished packing my heavy backpack and prepared to leave, I looked back at my empty room and vividly imagined coming back with a whole new set of wonderful experiences and memories. Whether or not the trip would change me fundamentally remained a massive question in the air at that time.
After taking the 6:00 AM flight out of Manila, we arrived in KL at around 10:00 AM—just a shade over twelve hours early for our connecting flight to Kolkata at 10:30 PM that evening. Without any shower, ragged, and a bit tired, my mind continuously wandered to India. It was easily the longest twelve hours I have ever had to wait, and as exhausting as it physically was, I felt an immense, buzzing joy just going through that arduous process of traveling. I'd much rather wait a grueling twelve-hour period for my dream destination than just lounge around lazily at home without anything to look forward to.
Visa on Arrival at Kolkata
Ever since my unsavory experience at Hong Kong Immigration a few years ago, I've developed a hardened perception of the immigration booth as an aggressive obstacle I need to hurdle hard and fast. I approach it with absolute confidence and swagger to ensure I won't ever receive that judgmental "Are you overstaying here?" kind of look anymore. Fortunately, after going through a loud chorus of yelling-like conversations between the frantic airport staff, we were securely directed to a small back room where Visa on Arrival is officially processed.
We sat quietly in the small office for an entire hour. The man in charge would briefly leave the room a few times, but he was incredibly cordial, simply asking us the basic standard questions: How long are we staying? Are we married? To which we honestly told him, "We're just friends," which successfully elicited a warm smile from him. The Visa on Arrival cost ₹3,600 each, which got me a bit worried about shelling out that much cash when it wasn't even our first full day in India. Well, that's just me—always neurotically worried about my cash-on-hand whenever I travel.
After smoothly getting our Visa on Arrival, the waiting didn't magically end there. We still needed to spend the rest of the night inside the airport since cab rides are notoriously expensive past midnight, and it would be incredibly difficult looking for a cheap hostel during those dark hours. We needed to get our bearings right first—get a true feel of India before we could confidently go hostel hunting. (We were actually able to do that later in our trip when we arrived at Udaipur by bus at around 3:45 AM, but not on night one!)
The First Taste of India
Munching on the chocolates my buddy bought back at KL, we talked for a while in between short bursts of uncomfortable naps until the very first evidence of golden sunlight seeped inside the modern and stylish Kolkata airport. Walking outside and heading straight towards the busy line of yellow cabs, I felt a completely different kind of goosebumps.
"This is it," I quietly told myself. The one massive trip I had always waited and intensely aspired for. I'm finally walking over India's historic grounds.
The thirty-minute cab ride directly to Sudder Street was absolutely everything I expected it to be. Like violently tearing pages straight out of my India dream book, I saw immense street activities, smelled the overpowering, rich odors of spices, and heard all kinds of mechanical noises with horns blaring from every conceivable direction. Our cab driver, entirely unmindful of what was a totally overwhelming sensory scene to us, drove the cab like a total madman. Swerving left and right, braking hard, and then stopping at random just to take a quick leak.
All of my senses took a wonderful, chaotic beating, and I've honestly never been happier at the starting stages of any trip I’ve ever had before.
