The “Itinerary”

My dad is a store house of information when it comes to my travels. Every time I have traveled for work he needs to know all the whats and whens and wheres and hows. My colleagues have gone through the process of giving their numbers to dad “just in case”. And not to miss the barrage of questions including who is going with you? Have I met her/him? Where will you stay? When will you come back? Which airline? Will a taxi pick you up? The list is endless.

And then Nitish happened to him. While I was happy to share all the information, here was a guy who was not ready to share any of it. All of dad’s questions fell on deaf ears. And Nitish did everything possible to protect his whereabout information including our Sunday plans within the city. Once, a few weeks after our wedding I was away to Dubai for work. Dad called Nitish to find out which flight I went by. “I don’t know” said Nitish. Dad asked when will I be back. “I don’t know” Nitish replied. And it stuck dad that not knowing this information was also a possibility.

So coming back to Meraki, ever since we have planned our Spiti trip, dad has been giving me hints to share our itinerary. The trouble is that we really don’t have one. We don’t have any agenda, any achievables, any seeables. All we have is exploration time. But as a reference point we plan to cover 1700 km in a matter of 20 days pitching our tent wherever we feel like and coming up with some delicious meals in the mountain backdrop. I know most of you will geek out at reading 20 days but we know we have toiled super hard for this break.

Our route is Gurgaon-Chandigarh-Manali-Kaza-Dhankar-Mud-Kaza-Chandrataal-Manali-Gushaini-Chandigarh-Gurgaon. We expect to be in Kaza on 13th and in Gushaini on 23rd. And the days in between when we are off the planet, we dedicate to new experiences, adventure and meraki moments! Oh, the excitement is driving me crazy!