prologue: a summary of my travels so far

When I was a kid, we moved around a lot because of my father's job. Later, when I left home, I moved even more because of my studies and work. But coming back to when I was growing up and living at home, my father wasn't too keen about family holidays.

We used to go to Calcutta for vacations to visit my paternal grandparents, and while they were still alive, to Cooch Behar to visit my maternal grandparents. Otherwise, while we lived in Bhubaneswar (age 4.5 to 8 years), we had visited Konark a couple of times and we used to visit Puri very often. When we moved to Delhi (age 11 to 16.5 years) we visited Agra once and Bhopal once. Then when we were back in Calcutta (age 16.5 to 20 years), we visited my father's cousins in Shantiniketan. That's all I have travelled on family holidays with my parents. Ok, I am forgetting the day trip to Mysore when my father visited me in Bangalore. It is interesting that since I have left home, and especially since my brother left home, my parents did travel a bit, but now they have stopped again because of flimsy reasons.

My own travels started when I was in college and I visited Rajasthan (Jodhpur-Jaisalmer-Jaipur-Sawai Madhopur/Ranathambore) with my college class. When I moved to Pune for my Masters, we used to go hiking or on other trips at every opportunity. But I confess, I didn't travel at all when I was in Bangalore for 2.5 years.

After I moved to Tübingen, I used to visit my friend, Hari, in Berlin, but they were more social and catch-up trips than sightseeing ones. We went for a conference from the lab to Zurich and I went to Berne to visit Ramesh in Oct 1999. Immediately after that I visited India. My parents were in Delhi now, and I stayed there most of the time, but also travelled down to Pune to meet Kanchan and then down to Bangalore to meet other friends. I visited the UK in Dec 1999, mainly to visit my cousin Archie-- Christmas at his grandma's in Burford, sightseeing with Archie in Oxford, London and Stratford-upon-Avon, and then visit a former colleague and friend, Sanjeev, and his wife Mitali, in Cambride.
I tried to persuade friends (Jagan, Hari and initially Rajeeb) to travel with me, without avail, so I decided to start travelling on my own.

My first visit into the unknown was to the Netherlands in Easter 2000. I had been chatting with someone on the internet, and decided to visit him in Groningen, and he also showed me around Amsterdam and the tulip gardens in Keukenhof.

I travelled for two weeks in Italy in September 2000. I had planned it like a trip through time. First I went to Naples and did the Archaeological Museum, Herculaneum and Pompeii (in fact I didn't get to see much of Naples itself). Next to Rome and exploring Ancient Rome. Then started the Renaissance in Rome and culminated in Florence. I stayed only in youth hostels of the IYHF, and the whole experience was fantastic.

In December 2000, Maity and I (mainly I) planned a visit to Salzburg and Vienna. Hari, Rajeeb, Tressa and Mahendra joined us. We enjoyed the trip, but I also realized why I really like travelling alone.

Sometime in 2001 (I forget when.. most likely during Easter), I visited India again. My parents were still in Delhi and I took a week to travel to Agra and Khajuraho and stumbled upon the fabulous Orchha.

While in Tübingen I had been travelling a bit with Chris. I visited him in Würzburg a couple of times, and once went to Bamberg and Nuremberg (and another place?) with his friend Alex. The Nuremberg trip was fascinating. When we visited the tiny museum on the Nazi era and post-war Nuremberg trials, we spent two hours there with these guys showing me around the exhibits in detail. Had I been alone, I would probably have done it in 20 minutes.

Later after I moved to HD (in October 2001) our team also visited Speyer near Heidelberg.

While living in Germany, I travelled here and there too, Hamburg, Ulm, Konstanz etc. and also Strasbourg.

After I finished my PhD, I visited India in Feb 2003. My parents were back in Calcutta now, and I took the opportunity to visit Bhubaneswar and Konark again. I had not been there since moving out at the age of 8. I hardly recognized anything. I also miraculously got in touch with our fomer next-door neighbours, and went for dinner at their place. Except for the patriarch who had passed away, everyone was a home, and it was quite brilliant. I loved both Bhubaneswar and Konark, and would love to go back again.

After coming back from India, I moved to Vienna in early March 2oo3.

That Autumn I was planning to go to Greece, a childhood dream. But I learnt that the Archeological Museum of Athens was closed for renovation until the Athens Olympics 2004. Since I wanted to visit Greece mainly for its Archeology, there was no point in going now. I was mentioning this on telephone to Rosario who was still in Heidelberg at that time, and she mentioned that she would be visiting Salamanca for a conference, and immediately it clicked-- why not Spain?
So I planned my visit in such a way that I would be in Salamanca when she was there. My route was Barcelona, Salamanca, Caceres and Trujillo, Sevilla, Granada, Cordoba, Madrid (+Segovia and Toledo; I missed Avila). I spent three weeks travelling, and it was fantastic.

My mother visited me in summer 2004, and I took her to Salzburg (of course!), Heidelberg, Strasbourg (day trip), Tübingen and Munich. That year I didn't go anywhere else.

I finally did Greece in May 2005. My route was Athens (+Delphi), Nafplio (+Mycene; missed Epidaurus because of a strike and bad planning), Heraklion (Knossos) and Mykonos (+Delos). The pottery section of the Archeological Museum was still closed to the public! The trip was for 12 days.

I visited Budapest for a weekend in the end of May 2005. It was very spontaneous, as Tyson told me two days before he was visiting, and I decided to join him. I loved the city. Later on, since my visa was valid for six months, Peter Lenart and I went to the eastern edge of Hungary to visit the Aggtelek caves famous for their stalactites and stalagmites. We stopped over for a day in Eger on our way back. It was good fun.

I had not visited India since moving to Vienna, and so I went to Calcutta in Dec-Jan 2005. On my way back, I visited Bangalore mainly to visit my old friend, Samarjit who had recently become a father. I stayed at Samarjit's parents' place rather outside the city. I visited Uma (and her daughter) at NCBS, Keya, IISc and Biocon. I had planed this with Sunanda who had flown back from Berkeley, and we did all the professional visits together. As we had planned Sunanda came with me to Bombay and stayed with my brother Apu. We didn't really get to do much sightseeing, though we had great food tourism courtesy Apu, and social visits for me... I met my cousin, Sumankaka, and his family, and also my cousin "Dada" had come down (we had decided that while I was in Calcutta) with some work and I met him for an evening in his hotel. Sunanda and I went to Aurangabad, and we finally visited Ajanta, and the fabulous Ellora. We were to visit Tressa and her daughter in Nasik, but Sunanda decided she had to visit Hyderabad instead. So we split up and I went to Pune to visit my cousin Tirthodada. I had not met his wife and daughter, and it was great to catch up with him. I really had a nice time there. Then back to Bombay and a visit to yet another cousin Rintudada and his family, and that was it for social stuff and my India trip. Four weeks passed by very quickly.

I am preparing for my next trip: Paris (+Tours) from 14-25 June.

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