Doha

Had a nice flight to doha.  Now we have to lie in these propped up deck chair like things for the next six hours. Did we really neeed to pay a fortune to sit like buffoons in these contraptions in stead of our nice flat beds in mumbai,supplied by the  MES and populated with innocuous bed bugs.

More from london

Leaving Tonight!!

Well, we finally leave tonight.  The bags are packed. The younger kid is almost delirious with excitement; the older one appears suitably disinterested and aloof.  My wife wants to add a knife to one of the suitcases.  I wonder why.  She says it is to enable us to consume  fruit  in a civil way.  May be the packing has tired her. She wonders if a shiny new car would have been better than dragging ourselves through rain and fog all over an alien continent.  Well, she won't know till she gets back; and she might still want the car!

Thomas Cook is not being as thoughtful as we thought they would be.  They have arranged a 7 hour layover, sorry, stopover for us in Qatar.  However beautiful an airport maybe, 7 hours is a little prolonged!  I have reassured the family that we are trying to open our minds with travel and if sitting huddled for a few hours in an oil rich part of the world is going to help us accomplish this lofty aim, so be it!  They do not smile.

More from where ever I can find wi-fi!

5 Days to go!

Why do we travel?  Is it to try and create a storehouse of pleasant memories which we hope to draw on later?  Or is it for the current experience?  Is it to try and cement ties with family?  Is family bonding likely to be better in alien surroundings?  Would we choose to travel if all memories and reminders of the trip were to be erased on return?

Exchanged Rs for Euros yesterday.  An obscenely obese pile of currency was replaced by the slimmest possible wad.

Why blog about travel?  My daughter wants me to write for her 9 -year- old friends.  My son, who is seventeen, is looking for ways to delete all attempts at "creativity" (symptoms of an early stage of dementia).  My wife feels I should not be writing nonsense when I could be helping her pack yet another suitcase.

Should a blog be provocative? Or should it be harmless and civil?

Getting set to go!

Travel is supposed to be  a great experience.  Can it be so with a bus load of fellow travelers all paying through their noses to try and get in as many sights as possible in as few days as possible, the right way to go?  Is it better to slow down and explore each place in a leisurely manner? Where is the money and the time to do what should really be done?  The Western traveler in India can stretch his dollars.  The currency rate makes sure that even the most plebeian of them feel rich while they are here.  Can the reverse ever be true?  How can the rupee be ever made to expand in the West?

 Should children be taken on trips abroad?  Does sitting in the crowded economy section of a Turkish Airlines plane ensure that their horizons will broaden?  Will it give them the confidence they need to take on an increasingly competitive world?  Or is it just another place to play video games on their Dad's new mobile?  Is relative hopping an infinitely better way to see the world? Take a few  gifts, bend a little with folded hands and carry greetings from the motherland.   Deal with some spoiled kids, who wonder why the Indian side of the family has suddenly decided to visit.

Well, we should have some answers over the next two weeks.  Welcome to the Paul family blog on our trip to Europe together.