My trip with a Baby.

camelgirl

Very, very interesting. Amazing. Great writing, very engaging. I didn't think what you did was "do-able" without breastfeeding (hauling all that food, etc. and worrying about keeping things sterile). But you have proved me wrong! I was going to just take a glance at your journal but once I started I couldn't stop! Now I need a nap.. before we go on to the next part.

hawaiiyogagrl

WOW, great tale.
Parents are amazing- sometimes on the plane I think that I can't make it without a tantrum, and to hear of Maggie taking it all in stride... she is already a better traveller than I am.
The best part (so far) is to hear that you are sharing your India passion with your partner and your child. Sometimes I feel like I am in an illicit relationship with India and my husband gets jealous. We are working it out now, he will meet me this year in India for our anniversary.
Thanks for the story, write more

LuAnnandJawahar

"The next thing we knew it was 8 in the morning and Maggie was poking me in the face, amazing, we’d all slept right through, Maggie was in an amazing mood, Mammy hadn’t gone to work, Daddy wasn’t taking her to the childminders and we were all together with nothing to distract us, we must have played for about 2 hours before we realised that we should be outside looking at Goa, it was the first day of our holiday, but little did we realise that all the best times we’d have on the holiday were mostly in that room and could have easily been had without leaving London."

The perfect ending to Chapter One. Wating for more...............

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robotvoice

Great writing! Very interesting to read. Keep it up!

Bigzero

Great read, Steven! Looking forward to the next chapter!

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phantom

Very well written, stevie !!
It seems like parenting is a real tough job. Cheers to all of you who seem to enjoy it all
Would also love to read Michelle's view on first time india experience.

dhans

Thanks Steve.

I'll update the India with Kids section with your info.

Hans

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steven_ber

When I've finnished the whole 'trip report' I'll copy it into the journal section, but that will likely be in a couple of months time.

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steven_ber

Thanks for the great comments everyone, I'm amazed, I thought the whole thing would be boring to those not looking for info about travelling with kids.

It's kind of hard deciding what to include and what to leave out, so I'm trying to remember what concerns I had before we started the trip and what difficulties we faced, but at the same time trying to keep it interesting.

Most of you won't remember my posts about the passport office, I think I wanted to torture their staff one by one, they really made a difficult trip next to imposable.

It may be a few more days till part 2,our first full day in Goa ended with such an enormous twist that it's kind of difficult to put it into words.

dhans

You sure know how to write cliffhangers....

capt_mahajan

my kids are grown up, but I found it refreshing.. many indians travelling with a baby would have been more fussy and less relaxed than you seemed to be.

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steven_ber

I only put that bit in to make sure I mention the events of that day, it would be so much easier to leave them out, but they had a massive impact on our trip.

These events will not be helpful to any parent considering taking a baby, but they will make the trip report that little bit more interesting.

But Damn, it's hard work putting it into words, you'll see what I mean when you read it.

Nick-H

Oh but I do, and dread the day I have to apply for a new UK passport, especially as that will be in another ten years, and the madness, seeing the direction of UK, is bound to have increased --- and (hopefuly) I will have had no permanent residence there from now until then....

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steven_ber

The following post goes way off topic and some may find it disturbing, but as others know, I always tell it as it is, don't say you weren't warned.
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First full day in Goa.

I’ve been home for 10 weeks now and have thought many times about our first full day in Goa, how the happiest day I’d had in years turned into my worst nightmare, there was just no way I could have predicted it, no way.

The day started so well, we’d all been awake and playing together for a couple of hours.

It was only when Maggie decided she’d had enough of messing about, that we realised just how much work needed to be done before we could take her out to see Goa, as any parent will know, this is when the baby will start to moan if not getting attention, making even the simplest tasks difficult.

We needed to get showered, dressed, sun creamed, tidy the room, sort the paperwork out and pay for the room, we needed to find out where there was a vegetable market so we could make Maggie’s dinners, change some money and what seemed like a hundred other things.

I take Maggie with me to change some money, then we went to sort the paperwork out, the owner is a wonderful friendly Goan woman who just adores Maggie, good thing really as she has to hold Maggie while I fill in all the usual forms and pay for out 12 night stay, I take Maggie back and the owner starts the usual friendly conversation, I normally love these conversations, but Maggie is getting restless and is constantly trying to get out of my arms, so I make my excuses and go back to the room.

Were ready to go out within an hour, but tired as we already feel like we’ve done a day’s work, Maggie gets strapped to me and we go for a walk, it’s about 11:30 and bloody hot, walking down the road to the beach is hard work, the touts are confused, they must try to get us to buy from their shops, but also want to talk to Maggie, I’m hoping that Maggie can get us past the usual “hello sir, please look”, but I’m wrong, she makes it worse, the touts get friendly with us when talking to Maggie, then they try the “please, just look”, making it harder for us to say no.

We see a group of holiday homes around a nice pool, it’s called Maggie’s place, we chat about Maggie taking over the place in 18 years.

The beach is very quiet, the season hasn’t started yet but people are repairing their shacks and preparing for the invitation of tourists, we walk along the water’s edge, waves breaking all around us, the water is a nice temperature and I bend over to allow Maggie’s feet to get wet, but as much as Maggie’s enjoying it, we’re worried about the heat, so we find a place with shade and order breakfast and a watermelon juice for Maggie, she loves it, but wants to put her hands in it.

I’m not too comfortable with the breakfast, the eggs are undercooked and I’m always aware of the famous ‘Goan pig toilet’ when I look at the bacon, the ‘pig toilet’ is a wonderful environmentally friendly toilet that is sadly dying out these days as Goa becomes more aware of western sensitivities, the pig toilet is an ordinary squat toilet, with a difference, the results of your activity slide down a shoot into a trough, the waiting pigs then help themselves to your waste products, I was aware of the pig toilets when I first visited Goa, but completely forgot about them, I used a toilet at a cheap thali place in Madgaon and was startled at the noise coming from behind me as I done my business, another of India’s weird and wonderful surprises.


We left the breakfast place and went down a long narrow lane back towards the main street, a couple of women from rival shops tried to tempt us with offers of Lungis (can’t remember what they called them) for Rs50 each, I knew this was a good price and Michelle wanted a couple, so she chose about 6, “Rs1800 said the woman”, it was the first of far too many instances that would put me off Calangute.

We then went to the top of the lane and found a shop to buy some water, the family running the shop were very friendly and we had a long chat as Maggie enjoyed the shade.

We then looked for, and eventually found a little market, we had to go down a tiny lane to find it, the vegetables looked awful on ever store, so we eventually bought some carrots and potatoes from an old woman and returned home to cook them for Maggie’s dinner, they were lovely, really tasty, but Maggie was off her food, she was OK, but had just gone back to her summer routine of eating very little, I guess it was just the heat.

The owner of the hotel suggested we wet Maggie’s cotton hat, rinse out most of the water and put it on her head, it worked, we done this every couple of hours when we were out and it seemed to keep Maggie cool and happy.

We all had an afternoon sleep, then played on the immaculate lawns of the hotel, as green as you’ll ever see, Maggie loved the feel of the grass, and as usual, tried to eat it, we all had great fun, after a quick wash it was time to put Maggie’s mosquito repellent on her, again, we had to play games with her to do this.

So we decided to go for a meal at a place on the beach, we can relax and watch the sun set, it should be a fun evening, we get to the place and find a place right at the front, a big table, plenty of space for Maggie………..then


BANG..

As if struck by lightening, everything changed in an instant, all I’d done was turned my head and saw the sun setting over the sea, it wasn’t even a great sunset, but I suddenly felt vulnerable, weak and extremely fragile, my head was racing in a hundred directions, my muscles refused to move, I was back on that dreadful beach in Thailand, alone, a million miles from home and on the last night of my life.

I must have ordered some food because I remember Michelle asking why I wasn’t eating and ordering me to talk to Maggie, we somehow got back to our apartment and I couldn’t think straight, I told Michelle I had to go for a walk and remember being shocked that she said OK, but puzzled that she insisted on me talking to Maggie for a few minutes and then telling me she loved me in the way a mother would say it, but nothing was normal about that night, so I walked back to the beach.

That ‘dreadful beach in Thailand’ was actually a picture postcard beach, it was Nopparat Thara beach just northwest of Ao Nang beach in Krabi province, It was late October 2002, and I was at the lowest point in my life.

Several months earlier I’d walked out on a woman I’d spent most of my adult life with, I’d spent years trying to prevent it, trying to work through the problems, yet it had still been the most difficult decision I’d ever had to make, but right or wrong, I did make the decision and then had to live with it.

The only woman I’d ever truly loved (and still did) was hurting more than I could ever imagine, and if I go back to her I can take all that pain away, but I’d have to spend the rest of my life unhappy.

I knew if I was in England I’d have gone back to her, every part of me wanted to put my arms around her and tell her everything would be OK, but I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t lie to her.

Sitting on that beach, knowing what I was about to do, was the strangest feeling I’ll ever experience, I was at the lowest part of my life, yet I was strangely comfortable with the whole situation, I’d spent months persuading myself that I was about to do the right thing, spent months telling myself how every person who’d be affected by my actions would be better off in the long run, and I believed it all.

I’d watched the most wonderful sunset knowing it would be my last, I watched a family playing for hours on the beach, and I’d watched the last people leaving the beach to go back to their happy homes, another couple of hours thinking, then I walked for a while till I got to a place where nobody could see me, it was about 2 in the morning.

I took a long last look at the beautiful surroundings, they meant nothing to me and did nothing for me, a last look around, then I swallowed about 80 sleeping tablets, lit a last cigarette, walked into the sea as far as I could, then swam away from the beach for the 15 or so minutes it took for the tablets to fully take effect.

I was horrified and angry when I woke up in a tourist police house a day or so later, after a few days they told me to go back to Bangkok, about a week later I handed myself in to the police and spent a couple of months in a police cell/prison for visa overstay before being sent back to England. (Read about that here)


Back on the beach in Goa, inside I’m screaming “why now, why when I’m so happy?”, the truth is, I’d never dealt with my problems properly in the past, a few beers always helped them to go away, but now they were coming back to haunt me.

I spent many hours thinking, I knew I couldn’t just make these thoughts go away, I had to do something about these problems tonight, beer wasn’t going to help me, and indiamike.com wasn’t going to be a useful distraction, it was just me, a head full of thoughts, an empty beach and the sound of waves gently rolling onto the beach.

Maggie and Michelle kept coming into my head, this didn’t help, I had to deal with the past before worrying about the present, but still that last little chat with Maggie and Michelle’s strange way of saying I love you kept coming back into my thoughts.

I could go on and on about these feelings, hours and hours of thousands of thoughts could have an entire book written about them, but I’ll only say that I made decisions that night that I should have made on the Thai beach, or better still, before I left England, I knew the things I had to do when I got back to England, how each and every problem had to be dealt with, and it’s kind of strange, when I isolated each problem and worked out how to deal with it, the rest seemed easier.

I walked back to the apartment knowing things would be difficult when I returned to England, but knowing I had to try to enjoy the rest of this holiday first and make sure that my problems from the past didn’t spoil this holiday for Maggie and Michelle.

Michelle tells me I got back at about 2 in the morning, I don’t remember much, she told me to look at the way Maggie was sleeping (the usual way……….), made me a cup of tea, told me she loved me and went to sleep, It was also time for me to sleep, and to put my problems to bed for the rest of the trip.

The next morning things seemed different, I’d love to say that I managed not to think about what happened the night before, but that would be a lie, I went to the shop and thought about a lot of things, but just managed to reconfirm that I’d come to the right decisions the night before, I felt more relaxed, more at ease with myself and started thinking about Michelle and Maggie, why did Michelle let me go for that walk, she can be insanely jealous and thinks I’m having an affair with the postman if I collect the mail from the mailbox.

I was to figure out over the next few days that Michelle knew exactly what was happening in my head, knew I had to deal with it and just done all she could to put Maggie into my thoughts, she then let me go, not knowing what I’d do, if I’d return, or if she’ll be left alone in a strange country, she had a lot more confidence in me than I ever had, how did I end up with such a wonderful woman.

Meanwhile, Maggie was again in a wonderful happy mood.

More soon….

(edit, I've stuck to the plan now I'm home, and with Michelle's help, things are moving slowly in the right direction)

capt_mahajan

steven, admire your courage.

had to say that.