Travel Blog 3 Months In: How’s it Going?

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It is a little over three months into our travels and running our travel blog has been fulfilling, exciting, time consuming and at times confusing.
We wrote an article at Travel Writers Exchange about How to Manage Your Blog While Traveling to give you an idea of how we do it.
But we thought that we would share the things that we have had difficulties with, things that we want to change in the blog and directions that we want to take.

Content.

This has been the easiest part of running our blog. With new adventures and destinations happening daily, we have no problem posting information and travel stories.

Difficulties: We have come to the conclusion that we may be posting too often. We are not sure if we are turning off regular readers by putting up blog posts 7 days a week. We have so much to share however, that if we don’t post daily, we would still be writing about India while we are in Sri Lanka!

Solution: We decided to change things up a bit recently by giving readers a break two days a week. Sundays will be featuring our favorite snapshot of the week from Dave’s repertoire of photos. Each week we have a highlight of a fabulous moment and instead of having to read an entire article, you will have a short synopsis of our favorite moment.
On Fridays we have decided to feature Dave’s photography by posting a photo story. Dave was originally going to post these photostories on his photgraphy blog picturetheplanet.com, but we haven’t given that blog the time it deserves and decided that his photos would receive much higher traffic at theplanetd.

Niche:

Our Blog Niche is about Adventure Couples Travel. We wanted to focus mainly on adventure travel and destinations and how we enjoy them as a couple.

Difficulties: While India is an adventure unto itself, we feel that we have been lacking in the adventure aspect of our Blog. India is such a big country and there is so much to see. While we love adventure sports and travels, we still wanted to see the temples, palaces and experience the spirituality of the country.

Solution: We are expecting to start our adventures in the North with more hiking, treks and white water rafting. While we tried to fit as many adventures as possible from camel safari’s, bouldering and even intensive yoga classes, we feel that we really thrive when we are in jungles and climbing mountains.

Itinerary:

Traveling for long periods of time lets a person have a loose itinerary. We can change our minds on a whim and are free to travel in any direction.

Difficulties: While the freedom is great, we have found that we are a little too loose in our itinerary. We stay in places for just a little too long, we don’t really have a focus on where we are going to go next and we don’t do the proper research on what activities there are to do at each destination. Once we leave a place or talk to someone else, we realize that we missed out on a few great things.

Solution: We are going to do more research before each destination. Not just through our guide books, but on the internet. We are also going to visit tourist offices. When we were well into our travels in Sri Lanka and were running out of time, we came across a government tourist office. We discovered that there was rock climbing, rapelling and mountain biking in the North. It wasn’t mentioned in the Lonely Planet, (which we never solely rely on anyway) but we also didn’t see anything about it on the Internet or from other travelers. A visit to a government tourist office is at the top of our list from now on.

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Travel Blogging as a Couple

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We have several blogs that we admire and we often wonder how they manage to stay ahead of the game so well.

Most of the travel blogs out there seem to be solo travelers.  They travel the world and manage to post quality articles while staying connected to their community and running an appealing blog.

Dave and I are lucky.

We can split the workload.  While it may seem to some that Deb does the bulk of the work because she writes the posts, that is only one portion of running a successful travel blog.

We thought that we would share with you what the roles are of Dave and Deb at theplanetd.

Since Deb is obvious, let’s start with Dave.

Dave:

Dave’s main focus lies in three main areas of the blog.

1. Photography

He takes photos that not only complement Deb’s writing, but he also posts his gallery at www.picturetheplanet.com

While photography brings him accolades, it is his behind the scenes work that really plays an important role in Canada’s Adventure Couple.

Dave proofreads and edits all of Deb’s posts and chooses the photos to go with the articles that she write.

2. Code and Website Design

Do you see the layout of this blog? Well, Dave has sat at the computer for hours on end learning code and reformatting the website.  From the little things like adding sponsors and advertisers to changing the look of pages, sidebars and even the colour of the blog he has become a self taught web designer.

It may seem easy when you look at it, but each area of the blog has delicate coding to deal with and Dave does it all.

Dave makes changes to the blog regularly. It is hard to believe that our little box stating “connect with us” contains a lot of code and can’t just be done through widgets and plugins.

3. Business.

People contact us regularly to advertise on the site.  Dave deals with the business aspect of theplanetd.  He fields emails, writes proposals and sets up our rates structure. While we would love to take all the money and run, Dave screens advertisers to see if they are right for our site.  He has a strict code that other blogs may not follow.

We won’t bring our price down just to get more advertisers on our site.  Quality is always better than quantity.

Deb

Deb’s work is directed to the creative, marketing and social side of the blog.

1. Writing

Deb comes up with ideas for articles and writes the content.  It can be exhausting during travels to constantly look for the story, but Deb keeps us moving to the next adventure.  Once she has run out of content, it is time to move on to another destination.

2. Networking

Deb is also the social force behind the blog.  She visits other sites to comment on their content, give them a tweet or stumble and helps to advertise her friend’s content.  She is the person that keeps our presence alive in the Internet universe.

3. Marketing

Deb works on building relationships and getting the word out about theplanetd.  She contributes guest articles to other websites and sends queries to newspapers.  She has also mastered social media, working hard at building followers on twitter, stumbleupon and creating links through unique article wizard and ezine.  Deb is also never to proud to hand out a business card and tell everyone what they do for a living when they are traveling.  If one person looks at the blog, she has succeeded in her job.

Together as a Couple.

This blog is run together and it is a team effort.

1. Brainstorming

Dave and Deb brainstorm story ideas and decide whether people will be interested in what they have to say or not.  We check for key words and search engine optimization together.  We also make sure that the blog stays focused to our niche of adventure couples travel.  (something we are still working on)

2. Video

Dave is by far the more technical savvy of the two and he has set up the entire system of editing.  He is in charge of transfering files to the computer and keeping it organized.

Editing is a team effort that takes a lot of time.  We have fallen behind I am afraid, but working to catch up.

3. Planning

We plan our itinerary together.  Believe it or not, we plan our travels around the blog.  We would love to sit at the beach for weeks on end, but that would not make for interesting writing.  We choose locations and adventures that we feel people will interested in.  We climb mountains and go on safari’s because that is the adventure.

So there you have it.  Dave and I have our roles, but we also work together.  We are lucky to be able to split the workload.   We admire the solo travelers out there that keep such great blogs going and have no idea how they manage. 

We are overwhelmed with double the manpower.

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New India Visa Rules Update

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A few weeks ago we posted an article about the changes to the Visa rules in India.  India has now changed their 6 month multiple entry Visa to basically a non  re-entry visa.

You can read more about the new rules here at our post New Visa Rules for India, but to give you a little recap…

Here is what is going on.

In December, India decided to stop allowing visitors back into the country until they have been gone for at least 2 months. India has had problems with terrorism and after the arrest of an American suspected of taking part in the 2008 attacks, they have clamped down.

He freely traveled in and out of the country for two years without raising any alarms.

We did some research on the subject and after reading about the new visa rules in the Times of India and the India Times, we came to the conclusion that the average tourist that already has a 6 month multiple entry visa should not have a problem coming back to India.

The conclusion was that the average tourist would be fine and only people that have stayed their entire 6 months in the country or people that work in India will have a problem.  That is a pretty big problem for them, but at least the average traveler wasn’t going to have to worry about re-entry to India.

If the average tourist wants to go to say Sri Lanka like us,  or Nepal for a side trip, all they will have to do is keep all of their documents to prove that they have been traveling and not up to no good.  Customs and immigration will need these documents to see what you have been up to and will then let you into the country.

Great we thought, we can still go to Sri Lanka.

Well things seem to have taken a confusing turn.

We bumped into some fellow Canadians that had their entire itinerary planned before leaving for India.  They had their tickets prebooked to Sri Lanka and they have their ticket home booked already from Delhi. 

They were issued a 6 month multiple entry visa before the rule took place and thought that everything would be fine.

During their time in Sri Lanka, they met an American that was already turned back when he tried to re-enter India, even though he too had the multiple entry visa that should be honoured since it was issued before the rule took place.

They worried that they to would have a problem and upon further investigation, they found that their passport had been stamped with a big black notice when they exited India.  It clearly stated that they were not allowed back into India for 2 months.

They fly back to Delhi in a few days and already have train tickets and hotels pre-booked in India. Even worse,  their flight back to Vancouver is booked from Delhi.  They had all of this booked before they even left Canada.

As they said,” we are not young and we are not traveling cheaply”  “We have dropped a lot of money into the India economy and we have a lot of money to lose if we are not allowed back in the country”

They went to the India High Commission here in Sri Lanka where they received no help whatsoever.  As with everything in India, they only encountered bureaucracy and frustration. That is after filling in a bunch of useless paper work, standing in long queues and being told to come back in a couple of days.

They have no other choice but to try to fly back to India.  This trip and itinerary was planned months ago. And they were issued a 6 month multiple entry visa!

Shouldn’t India honour the visa’s that were already issued?

Unfortunately, they are at the mercy of the whim of their customs agents.  Much of India works this way we have learned.  Ask one person one thing and they will have a completely different answer than another person.

Ask at least 3 people average it out and you may have the right answer.

As for our last post about New India Visa Rules, I guess we should have read a 3rd newspaper before we came to the conclusion that the average tourist would be OK.  The two major national newspapers were not enough, we needed a 3rd opinion.

What will happen to us?

Like I said, India is very random.  We left the country almost at the same time as the other Canadians, but we do not have the big black stamp on our passport.  We simply have a little red exit stamp that doesn’t say a thing about not being allowed back in the country for two months.

It looks like we may be O.K.

We have followed the rules that we read about and have kept every receipt right down to our bus, train and entry tickets.  We clearly have a 6 month multiple entry visa and we have no notice on our passport that states we cannot re-enter the country.

Luckily, Dave and I don’t have our flights back to Canada booked from Delhi.  If they refuse us entry, we may just have to fly on to Nepal early or fly back to this paradise of an island that we absolutely love, Sri Lanka.

Or we could end up like Tom Hanks in the Terminal and stuck living in the Delhi Airport without visa or country.

Yikes! Now that could be a problem.

We have asked the Canadians to let us know how things go for them.  I hope they get in touch so that we can update you all on the situation.

If not, you will just have to wait until Feb. 22 when Dave and Deb try to re-enter India.

It will be an adventure.

But like Dave and I and so many other people that we have encountered on our trip have started saying on a regular basis…

That’s India.

Links to more information

India Revises Tourist Visa Rules

No Change in Tourist Visa Norms

New Indian Tourist Visa Rules

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6966518.ece

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5388578.cms

Some Correspondence that we have received from a person that contacted an expert on the subject.
We have heard that if you provide the Indian consulate with copies of your travel documents for your time spent in India, they are allowing tourists to enter more than once, if you are visiting neighobring countries. We have clients successfully do this after going to India then to Nepal and then back to India.
Here is what we got from the Indian visa people:
Question #2:
Whether the gap of two months between two visits would apply irrespective of the duration of stay in India during the previous visit ?
Answer:
The intention behind the stipulation of a gap of two months between two visits on a Tourist Visa is to curb the abuse/misuse of the Tourist Visa. With a view to ensure that the genuine tourists are not affected by the recent guidelines, the following clarifications are furnished:
I. Foreigners holding Tourist Visas, who after initial entry into India plan to visit another country largely on account of neighbourhood tourism related travel and re-enter India before finally exiting, may be permitted two or three entries, as the case may be (need based), by the Indian Missions/Posts subject to their submission of a detailed itinerary and supporting documentation (ticket bookings). If they are already outside of their country of origin, they can also get such an endorsement from the nearest Indian Mission/Post.
II. The Immigration authorities in all the Immigration Check Posts may also allow such foreign nationals on Tourist Visas arriving in India without the specific authorization from the Indian Missions/Posts to make two or three entries into the country (need based) subject to production of an itinerary and supporting documentation (ticket bookings).
III. The total period of stay in the country counted from the date of first entry into the country shall not exceed the stay stipulation period of 180 days or 90 days, as the case may be.

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Six Signs You are Suffering from Travelers Fatigue

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Long term travel can be tough.  After a couple of months on the road, it becomes work.  You are no longer in that honeymoon phase of excitement.  Every day has been one site, temple, trek or museum after another. Sometimes, after you have been busy being a tourist for weeks on end, all you want to do is nothing.

It can feel pretty strange when you are in a foreign country and other travelers are heading out in the morning on their tours and site seeing excursions.  You think that you should be doing something too.  but you just can’t motivate yourself, so you give into the fatigue and enjoy some time not traveling.

Here are some signs that told Dave and I that we just may have a little bit of travelers Fatigue…

1 – You go to the Taj Mahal, its cold, misty and foggy for three entire days…
You don’t care.  You don’t even bother to go inside.  Instead you go to the only heated place in town…the coffee shop.

2 – You have a opportunity to see the astounding Amber Palace in Jaipur India…
Instead you go to the mall, walk around and buy some socks.

Off to the Mall

3 – Your hotel has traditional food and musicians playing on their rooftop restaurant. It has everything you would want for a night out in India…
You go to Pizza Hut instead.  Not once, but twice.

4 – Not far out of town, there is a village filled with dancers, artists and local cuisine.  They offer tours to go out there from the evening…
You choose to stay in bed and stream “Sherlock Holmes” with Robert Downey Jr.  On your computers free wifi.

5 – You have two days in Delhi before flying out. It is pleasant for a change.  It’s not too cold and the sun is out.  Your centrally located close to some of the cities best attractions….
You order room service and channel surf between HBO and the BBC

6 – You should be heading east to Varanassi in central India.  You have planned to travel all the way to Calcutta…
Instead you buy a last minute ticket to escape for a month.  You’ve thrown the budget out the window and you couldn’t be happier.  Time to lay on the beach and enjoy your fatigue in style.
We are now starting our Sri Lanka leg of our trip.  The excitement of travel has come back to us. We are dealing with our fatigue on a beach in the southern coast.  Slowly we are recovering from our travelers fatigue.  A few days laying in the sand, playing in the surf and relaxing by the pool, just may do the trick.

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Travel Fatigue, Have You Ever Had it?

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“What are you planning on doing in Jaipur?” our hotel manager asks us.  “Not much.” We say. “Can you point us to a mall?”

Travel Fatigue

We are two months into our trip in India and travel fatigue has already kicked in.  It has been a non stop adventure since arriving.

We have been on backwater cruises, taken yoga courses, have attended numerous festivals, rock climbed and been on safari to name a few. But right now all we want to do is rest.

We don’t want to see the Pink City, we don’t want to see the Monkey Temple or Amber Fort. We just want a mall.

Worlds Largest Calendar at the Mall in Jaipur

We want to barricade ourselves in our hotel away from the noise and the hawkers.  We want to give our minds a rest.

It is exhausting fending off hawkers everyday.  It is exhausting answering the same questions day in day out.

• Where are you going?
• Where are you from?
• Have you seen the temple?
• What is your name?
• One photo please?
• One Rupee please?
• First time to India?

We usually try to be polite. We try to answer their questions with a smile.  And we make a point of not ignoring people when they say hello.

Sometimes it is a little difficult.

Once one person leaves, another person comes along to ask us the same set of questions all over again.  It has become progressively worse in Rajasthan.

It isn’t so bad when it is someone that legitimately wants to say hello or practice English, but mostly it is a person wanting to be our guide or a rickshaw driver that will ask the questions and then go in for the sales pitch once he thinks that he’s got us hooked.

Creature Comforts

When we finally made it to the mall it was a little bit of heaven.  We walked around its sanitized aisles in air conditioning.  We didn’t smell exhaust fumes or urine and we didn’t have shop keepers yelling at us to come inside. We were allowed to just be.

We found a McDonalds.  We went inside and had a McVeggie Meal, we read the paper and we enjoyed the familiar taste of their famous fries.

We then went to Baskin Robins and had ice cream.  I had been trying to get some ice cream for days.  Every time I went somewhere where it was on the menu and ordered it, I always got the reply that they were out, finished.

We stuffed ourselves and promptly felt sick.  It is not wise to gorge yourself on western fast food when you haven’t had it for awhile.

We have been in Jaipur for four days and we haven’t seen one tourist site.

Instead we have watched Sherlock Holmes and Twilight, we have sipped lattes at the Barrista and we have had our dinner at Pizza Hut.  It was so nice to have a simple salad.

We didn’t seem to be alone in our need for the familiar.  We saw many travel weary faces sitting in McDonalds and Pizza Hut.  People read books and wrote in their journals.

Some people had their heads in their hands.

Is Jaipur the stop where everyone just runs out of steam in their travels? It certainly seems like it to me.

We can’t bring ourselves to do anything. I am sure that the forts and palaces are beautiful and I am sure that years down the road we will say that we should have gotten ourselves out of bed to take a look at them, but I don’t think that we will make it to much while we are here.

We leave for Agra in two days to see the Taj Mahal.

The adventure is about to resume whether we want it to or not.

Have you suffered from travelers fatigue on your journeys?
Have you missed out on a famous site because you were just not in the mood to leave the hotel or the coffee shop?
We would love to hear some of your experiences and how you got yourself back on track and in the mood to travel

again.

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Udaipur: The most Romantic City in India

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We have made it to Rajasthan and it is everything that we ever imagined India to be.  Arriving at the bus station on a cool morning, we were greeted by a friendly man named Jamil.  We always have our backs up against the wall when we arrive in a new town. Rickshaw drivers can be little schemers and we never know who to trust.

Jamil seemed nice, he quoted us a fair price to take us to the lake and he was friendly.  We loaded in our bags and off we went.  As we drove he handed us his book from many satisfied customers.  We have seen this form of advertising before and it is an excellent idea.  People had amazing things to say about him and for the 6 days that we were in Udaipur, he became a great friend and we are so glad that we got in that Rickshaw on that first day at the bus station.

We knew right away that we were going to love Udaipur.

The Sprawling City of Udaipur

Known as one of the most romantic cities in India, it is breathtaking to look at.

Situated on Lake Pichola, buildings fit for a Maharana rise from the water with architecture dating back to the 1500’s.  Domed rooftops and arched windows make for a storybook setting.  Days can be spent lounging on a bed with big cushions over looking the ghats (steps leading to the water) and daily life. Tourists dine on balconies and roof top patios as they overlook the cityscape of pastel yellows and creams.

The city’s main attraction is the City Palace, former home to the 19 Maharaja’s of Mewar.

City Palace at Night

It is an imposing palace.  Giant and beautiful.  The buildings blending beautifully with one another.

It is so beautiful that Udaipur was used as the setting for the movie Octopussy.  I can still remember the scene in the movie where James Bond stays at a hotel in the middle of the water.  I always wondered where such luxury could be sure enough it is right in the middle of Lake Pichola at the Lake Palace Hotel.  An absolutely stunning site of white decadence in the middle of this fairy tale setting.

Look for hotels in Udaipur at Twenga

Lake Palace

We stayed on the other side of the lake at Hanuman Ghat and I highly recommend this location.  It is far less busy and quieter than the main old city side.  It offers magnificent views of the Old Town however and if you make your way to the far southern pier for sunset you will witness the most stunning view in town.  As the sun goes down, the palace lights up and the lights of it and the city reflect in the water making for incredible photographs.

A man walks the ghats of this pier nightly.  Chaupin (I think that is how he spelled his name) a retired teacher paces and does his excersizes daily at sunset as he waits for his temple to open.  Have a chat with him.  He is friendly and can offer excellent information about what is going on in town.

It was from him that we learned all about the two festivals that went on while we were in Udaipur. But you will have to wait for a day or two to find out about them.

Things To Do

Other sites include touring the City Palace, taking a boat ride out to the islands, seeing the God statues of Ganesh, Vishnu and Garuda at Jagdesh temple, dining at a rooftop restaurant and relaxing at Lakeshore Guest House’s chill lounge on cushions and beds while looking over the river and enjoying conversations.

For now we leave you enjoying views of this wonderful city in Rajasthan India that a person can find themselves spending too long in.  The people are too nice to leave and you feel that you have not only met some people on your travels, you feel that you have made a friend.

Washing on the Ghats of Udaipur

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See more photo’s of Udaipur Here

Information

• 75 Rs for Rickshaw from bus station to town
• Accommodation-600 Rs for large room with hot shower at Lakeshore Guest House
• You can watch Octopussy anywhere at 7:00 pm and relive your childhood obsession with Roger Moore’s James Bond (or is that just me?)
• make sure to get a room where the windows can close.  We only had screens in our windows overlooking the lake.  It was safe, but noisy.  Women beat their clothes daily and it is like a loud tennis match going on all day long. Plus the mosques and temples can be very loud.
• City Palace charges 200 Rs for Video and camera’s, entrance fee is 25 Rs.
• 1 USD = 44 Rs

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Bus Travel in India, It’s Not Bad

As usual, people have made us think negatively about something in India and they have been completely wrong. We had some problems booking the train to Mumbai from Hampi, so we decided to go on the bus.

Whenever we mentioned to someone that we were taking the bus, we would always get the same reply…”you are brave” or “wow, that is crazy” or “Oh, poor you” We got ourselves so worked up before leaving that I actually had a few butterflies in my stomach in the rickshaw on the way to the station.

I don’t know why I was worried. We have ridden some of the worst buses in the world during our past travels. In Cambodia the roads were so bad that we broke something every time we got on a bus and had to pull over for repairs on a regular basis on all buses. In Laos we drove on a decrepit bus filled with lobsters and produce. In Vietnam we saw traffic fatalities often and in Peru, Dave had a journey with the broken seat in front of him practically sitting on his lap. I don’t think that buses could ever get much worse than some of the stuff we have been on.

But for some reason, the hype has gotten to us here in India. We seem to listen to everyone too much and let their stories and negativity get under our skin.

Before getting on the bus I worried about everything. I thought to myself, are the drivers crazy? is the bus filthy? are the roads in such bad condition that I am taking my life in my hands? It was absolutely ridiculous.

And then our bus arrived.

It was a good looking Volvo semi sleeper looking all shiny and new. A sweet little guy took our bags and asked us what stop we wanted to get off at in Mumbai. We had no idea, we thought that it only stopped at the main bus terminal. Nope, it didn’t go there, but it stopped at many other places.

That is when a helpful man stepped in and asked us where we wanted to stay. He told us the stop that we wanted and how much we should pay for a cab.

It was so easy.

The Volvo buses are in great shape and there are two drivers for long trips. One relaxed and slept that journey while the other drove. I am assuming that the other driver will be driving back. They are dressed in crisp white uniforms, they are polite and they have an assistant to help out as well. Very professionally run I must say!

When we got on the bus, we had a great seat right at the very front. Lots of leg room, a cozy blanket and a clean seat that reclined. We were very comfortable. Our only worry now was the loud movies playing all night long.

Not to worry!

The alternate driver kept the volume at a very respectable level and the movie even had English subtitles. We both enjoyed the movie very much. I only wish that in knew the name to recommend it to people at home. I must say, Bollywood is alive and well and they have great production value and scripts. What a great flick. I laughed and I cried and I am not joking!

We stopped for some snacks and everyone was quick to serve Dave and I. They offered to help with whatever we needed and even showed us to the toilet so that we didn’t have to pee on the sidewalk. Anyone could have gone to the loo, but most chose to go against a wall. Not sure why, the toilet was fine.

Back on the bus we actually had a pretty decent sleep. It was more comfortable that an airplane that is for sure.

We arrived in Mumbai in the morning and couldn’t understand why people put the buses down so much. Why does everyone speak so poorly of India when they travel?

I wrote a post before leaving for India talking about my fears. I mentioned that everyone I have ever talked to doesn’t really have anything good to say about their time in the country, but they conclude with “but I am so glad that I went there”

For us, we haven’t had many problems. It is cleaner than we expected, friendly, safe and pleasant to travel through. We have had far more difficult travels and so far, we are finding India easy. Now that we have figured out how to book trains online, I think it is going to be amazing here.

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