Making hay while the sun shines ... in Mumbai.

The first day of our long honeymoon. 

Who knows what lies ahead.  Someone asked when we’d be back in Australia. I replied … “Oh, I’ll be back around July.” Was this a Freudian slip?  Would goat/Capricorn Reno, so keen on home and solid turf,  turn tail and flee home, leaving me catatonic in Cappadocia because I wanted one more hot air balloon ride?  Having had just one long international jaunt excluding the one when he was five and remembers everything, how would he manage all the twists and travails of such long travel in my wake?  Would my perfection about packing, and predeliction to talk to everyone drive him mad?  Would I want to kill him every time he told me how to cross a road in Rabat?  

There are times that spending an hour together in a car in Sydney has us both frothing at the gills, so when we return we are either going to have the strongest marriage on earth ... or .... as Reno said .... the strongest marriage on earth.  Whatever, we have both fastened our seat belts for a wild ride.

I am a snob about a few crucial things in my life, and I’ll admit it, here, at the outset of this blog about travel, that travelling business class is a fabulous way to travel. Yes, of course I like to get down with the locals to eat grasshoppers.  And yes, I've slept in some frightening beds, so you can't accuse me of being a precious princess all the time. The point is, I've done all that, for more than 20 years, so at this uncertain age, I want a soft bed, with air conditioning and thick towels. Room service if I want.  I've worked hard and lived long enough to become an embarrassment to my children.  So there.  Don't knock the good life it till you've tried it. 
 

But I'm quickly discovering that I like Reno's travelling style.  He's a fidgeter ... and doesn't like to sit still.  And he's a well built man.  He decided we'd fly business class so he can move around as much as he wants. Eat the food he likes. Sleep flat, wake refreshed.  Talk to interesting people.

I like to travel incognito.  Stare out the window for hours.  Immerse myself in the creation of my stories.  

I don’t like sweating over extra luggage, nor having to decided between my Youth Cell regenerative Face cream or my warmest coat.  Both need to be lathered or layered onto me.  And I don’t like having to pay more for that gram of cream when it’s in the air, than when it’s on the ground.  So I like my extra weight allowance. I don’t like deep vein thrombosis, nor having a fat neighbour’s lung germs attach themselves to me via a florid cough.  I’m not crazy about eating mashed potatoes and limp spinach out of alfoil containers. I like the options of Thermidor or scallops, and truly, secretly, desperately, I actually like to HEAR what I’m watching.  Yes, I know I’m hearing challenged at the best of times, but trying to lipread a dark screen for 6 hours is beyond even my resilience. So I like Bose headphones, white linen napkins, bread that doesn’t feel like a hand grenade, air before those in the back, and all the simpering that accompanies business class.

We managed to get a great deal on business class seats from an online company called Alpha Flight Guru.  It routed us through Mumbai, so I booked us four days at the Taj Palace Hotel, that glorious Victorian edifice right across from the Gateway to India, and yes, the place where the lunatic fringe of terrorists ran amok killing and bombing.  

The Taj Hotel stay was, in real terms, a gift from a client.  She'd arranged to come to our home to buy some jewellery.  I told Reno that whatever she spent would be spent on our first night/first few days of our honeymoon. She spent enough for us to have four days at the Taj Palace Hotel in Mumbai.  I had to stop myself from dancing around the room after she left.   

Reno wants to see India?  I'll show him India!

We packed tight and thoroughly. We packed as light as we could, but collectively it came to 63 kg which is ridiculous, but we'll dump along the way because we’re travelling from mid summer and 40 degrees, to mid winter, snow, aqua alta,  and possible sub zeros.  We’ll be in spring and autumn as well.  We packed just two or three changes of clothing with everything layerable and co-ordinating.  We’re taking our wedding clothes –to get our tax refund and because we want to wear them whenever we can. I felt so alive and fabulous in that gown that it deserves to be displayed again and again.  Bugger the weight.  Being cold is no joke. 

This is to be a long trip, dipping into Mumbai for a few days with a splash at the Taj Hotel on the shores of the Arabian sea, then spanning a large chunk of east and western Europe: Venice for Carnevale – masks, mayhem, madness, ball gowns and traipsing in the footsteps of Marco Polo and being seduced by the ghosts of Casanova.  On to Verona, where Shakespeare set his Romeo& Juliet, a drive to Lubljana in Slovenia, a few days in Saltzburg, then the Czech Republic with Prague and art deco as focus. Off to London, then down to Marrakech in Morocco, along the west coast passing Essaouria, El Jadida, Rabat, Meknes, Fez and back to Marrakech.  Via London to Turkey, Istanbul and down to Cappadocia for hot air ballooning, then Rome to meet Sharon & Oren Snir, who were at our Sydney wedding. From Rome we’ll drive with them through Tuscany, staying in Florence, then a week in Varenna , Lake Como, where we’ll meet a group of friends – Dawn, who was with me when I said I would marry there one day, Francine and Pippo who would also have shared our Venice apartment during a few wild Carnevale days and nights, perhaps some of Reno’s relatives – for a celebration wedding lunch.  Then back to Venice to learn to ride a gondola (wedding gift from Liza and Ben), a cruise down the Adriatic passing several important Dalmation sea ports, Malta, Sicily, where we’ll meet Reno’s family for a lunch on land, and home from Rome.

Not bad, eh? 

Which is why travelling for this length of time has made Reno a little anxious, while I’m like a thoroughbred at the starting gate.  I can smell the diesel on the tarmac, the heat in the streets, the crunch of suitcase wheels in pre dawn, and I’m already hyperventilating with excitement.