Planet MnM – Page 6 – Travel Tales of Molly and Monty

5 Reasons why NOT to visit Jagannath Temple in Puri & My experience

December 31, 2014montyb

2014-12 BLOGPIC Puri 2

My Experience

On a personal front it was a eye opener in many respects. The trip to the Jagannath Temple in Puri (one of the dhaam) started with me being questioned before entering the temple. My straight long hair, grown up beard and possibly a different dressing style made the security guards think I man not be a Indian/Hindu. I was asked for my name, my father’s name, place I come from and my gotra. I replied in a typical hindi accent confidently. And this is how I succeeded in entering the temple. Perhaps I shouldn’t have. It is well known that only born Hindus are allowed inside the Jagannath Puri temple. And silly me I always thought everyone is equal in the eyes of god.

Visit to an Indian Village near Delhi

December 5, 2014montyb

On an early Indian winter morning of Nov 2014 I travelled with my relatives to meet my cousins, to a village 60 km from Delhi. Our intention to leave early to avoid Monday morning Delhi traffic did not prove to be useful. At any time of day Delhi traffic is manic. It took us just over an hour to reach there in good old Hundai Santro. Read more →

Last month before take off …

November 26, 2014montyb

This is when the reality hits. That you are going to be away, away for quite a while. September and October 2014 were the ‘tell’ months. This is when we disclosed our travel plans to family and friends. The results were a mix – from astonishment to excitement and from silly to brave and encouraging.

Molly and I had meetups with friends and relatives planned for most of the weekends in Sep 14 and Oct 14. This was also the time when we spent a majority of our time in completing the checklist of all items that need to be completed before we leave. As Monty have 2 months planned stay in India while Molly in UK, few items from our planning checklist were moved to last few weeks.

Rough Itinerary

September 11, 2014October 25, 2014montyb

As the title says this is just a very rough itinerary as we want to be very flexible with where and when we want to travel. This is a rough path we wish to follow. I created some routes and marked places on the may that we want to visit.

The Start .. Travel Planning

September 11, 2014October 18, 2014montyb

It takes someone a good decent amount of planning when going away for 1 or 2 weeks holiday. So when it comes to a year off travelling things take a different scale altogether. New set of parameters need to considered, special arrangements made before we can take that first flight off. I have listed down all areas we considered in our planning in order of priority.

The How, When, Where, Why?

September 9, 2014October 18, 2014montyb

The Beginning – 25 Aug 2013

It was over the UK bank holiday long weekend of August 2013. Unlike most other long weekends where we always have travel plans , that weekend was all feet up. It just so happened that while checking Facebook updates of an acquaintance an idea stuck. James Markoja and Anna Markoja were on a an year long motorbike trip from UK to Australia. I have been so fascinated to see this lovely couple travelling the world on the motorcycle. I (Monty) said “May be we should do this or something similar. Why can’t we?“. Molly’s response was “Yes lets do it, I always wanted to do it“. This was the precise beginning. We both knew we want to travel the world and now we are going to travel the world.

Trips So Far

August 20, 2014October 18, 2014montyb

Before we start writing about our new travel tales we thought it will be a good idea to reflect on the travelling and places we have already been in the last 5 years. I have compiled videos from few of our trips and here are some of the pre trip memories.