Switching India and Thailand

Having fiddled around with the flight planner a bit more, it seems in
reality breaking the return journey from Singapore in the Gulf is not
particularly cheap. I'm not over confident in my conclusion, but I guess
it's a question of carriers competing on certain routes and hence the
prices for A-B via hub C can be considerably lower than the combined
prices of separate flights A-C and C-B. Given I was only stopping in the
Gulf because it seemed "helpful" - not that I wouldn't like to go, but
I'm not desperate - I think I might knock that on the head.

What I am leaning towards now is going to Thailand before India. So
instead of approximately
London->Georgia->Istanbul->India->Thailand->Singapore->Gulf->London it
would be London->Georgia->Istanbul->Thailand->Singapore->India->London.
In other words I am increasing the length of my flight out of Istanbul
eastwards in order to allow me to break what would otherwise be a long
flight Singapore-London into two halves by stopping in India going west.
My current draft itinerary has mostly direct flights (the only
non-direct is London->Georgia, which has an hour or so in Warsaw
airport) and no flight longer than 9h 45m, most being considerably shorter.

Having had a quick look on a couple of random websites, the best time in
terms of climate to visit Thailand is November-February, and although
for India it does depend where you go I found something saying that for
most of India the tourist season starts in winter, which is
November-February. So it looks as though visiting these countries at the
times of year I'm proposing to be there is reasonable. I think
especially for India I should let the time of year help influence where
I go within the country.

There seems a hell of a lot of stuff to sort out before I go - flat
sitting, flat insurance, vaccinations, maybe some new clothes - but I'm
sure it will all be fine. It is sort of fun in a strange way, even if it
does feel a bit hectic. Perhaps I should have done more work on this
preparation earlier, but a) I didn't, so that can't be helped and b) it
was perhaps never going to happen with all the other stuff I've been
concerned about.

As I said in the previous entry, I think Georgia is sorted in terms of
the planning I'm doing at the moment. So given the itinerary is firming
up, I probably need to buy guidebooks for Thailand and India and give
those a skim through. I suspect in a way India is the more "pressing",
since - perhaps naively - I assume for Thailand I pretty much do want to
fly into and out of Bangkok, whereas for India I could imagine it making
sense to fly in and out of different cities, so my plans for my time in
India have more bearing on my main flight plans.

(I should say that while I don't want to leave making my plans for the
second half of the trip until I'm back in the UK at Christmas, I
obviously feel that's less pressing right now. Maybe in 2-4 weeks when I
have hopefully got flights booked up for the first half I will start to
mull over that a little more. However, while I do expect to be doing
some flying in that time, I suspect there will be a lot more overland
travel by bus between countries, so booking flights is less critical. Of
course, I do want to get the outbound flight from London to wherever
booked with a good few weeks in hand so as to avoid paying over the
odds. I do wonder if I will have the balls not to book a return flight
to London before I leave to give myself more flexibility. Anyway, we
will see how the plans fall out when I start thinking about that.)

[Several hours pass]

OK, I've been doing other stuff and half dithering over buying an India
guidebook. I fiddled around with the Georgia one converting it to PDF so
I can view it properly on the netbook and also on the phone; the Kindle
version does not seem to be zoomable on the phone, which is not good for
maps. (Also, if I have a PDF version on the phone I can be 100%
confident of viewing it without internet access, whereas the Kindle
version just might decide to get uppity.) I didn't want to buy another
electronic guidebook in Kindle format without checking that sort of
problem was overcomable.

Anyway, judging from the amazon reviews the Lonely Planet guide is not
so great in the latest edition, so I think I will take a punt on the
Rough Guide to India. Disappointingly all the books seem to be 2011
editions, but I don't think I've ever stayed in a ho(s)tel listed in the
guide book - it certainly hasn't been common - and I guess that's the
kind of stuff which ages most rapidly. (Must admit the mention in at
least one review that Rough Guide is aimed at a broader range of
travellers whereas Lonely Planet seems aimed at gap year students and
backpackers sort of helped, but that isn't really why I've picked it. I
suppose in some sense I am a backpacker anyway, although I can do
without an excess of SYT "tone" in the text. The Lonely Planet Georgia
travel guide seems superficially relatively free of that kind of thing
anyway.)

[Oh, I did find myself reading the paragraph of blurb about each of the
writers of the Georgia guide book. As always they sound like insanely
interesting people whose lives sparkle in a way mine doesn't. But I also
thought, not for the first time, there's a lot of spin about these sort
of things. I'm oddly tempted to write my own potted biography, sticking
strictly to the truth but sticking to the cool-sounding bits, just to
prove it can be done. I don't intend to stick it on here if I do, of
course.]

Reading the guide book now, I find I actually need to apply for a
tourist visa. By the looks of it this shouldn't take more than a week or
two (I have only just skimmed the details), but it's a good job I didn't
find this out nearer the time. Not applying just yet, but will probably
do so at some point during this week. It also seems that you basically
can't leave and re-enter India within the same two month period, so
although I don't particularly intend to do this, the plan which floated
through my head briefly while fiddling with the flights earlier of doing
India twice in two 1.5-week-ish bursts once in each direction wouldn't
have worked anyway.

While the guide book is trying to be reassuring about the health
situation in India, it has naturally had the opposite effect. Still,
I've been ill (at the diarrhoea sort of level) abroad before and I've
got through it, and maybe I have finally learned my lesson about
drinking the water, and I have to assume anything worse is pretty
unlikely. I am wondering if I should take some water purification
tablets or something, if only so that if I do get caught without bottled
water when drunk or ill I can take advantage of whatever water is available.

While I am hardly any distance through the book, even just skimming it,
the obvious thing to do, and apparently good at the time of year I'm
going, would apparently be the so-called golden triangle which I believe
is Delhi/Agra (for the Taj Mahal)/Jaipur. Not having anywhere particular
I'm desperate to go (although I suppose the Taj would be cool, and is
pretty much mandatory :-) ) I don't see any need to be deliberately
contrary. I suspect that area could quite easily fill three weeks by
itself, but if it wouldn't be pushing it I could imagine venturing
further afield. On the other hand, my style of travel is lazy so I might
do well to spend the three weeks solely in those areas, perhaps a week
each. Anyway, still skimming the book and will see how it goes; except
for making flight bookings I don't need to make detailed plans yet. At
this rate I suspect I would fly into and out of Delhi.