Months of Preparation!

From way back in January when we filled out our applications to just this past week when we booked our final hotel, all the preparations needed to spend a month (or more for Shivani!) in India has consumed a large portion of our 2nd semester of Year 1 in medical school.

Shivani spent SO much time organizing our tour for the first week of the trip and taking care of all the plans to finalize that. Our itinerary for the first week includes:

-arrive in Delhi Tuesday evening

-drive to Agra Wednesday to see The Tomb of Itmad-ud-Duala, Agra Fort, and stay overnight at the Hotel Clarks Shiraj.

-wake up SUPER early Thursday to go see the Taj Mahal at sunrise!! Later, sightseeing of Fatehpur Sikri

-drive back to Delhi for Thursday night, spend the day in Delhi Friday seeing Old Delhi, Jama Masjid (the largest mosque in India) and the Raj Ghat (cremation site of Mahatama Gandhi)

-stay overnight in Delhi and fly out on Saturday for Chennai

-from Chennai, we get picked up to go to Vellore where we will be working at CMC Vellore for 2.5 weeks

Hotel is booked in Vellore where we will stay for those 2.5 weeks and hopefully make some weekend trips to neighboring cities. Our last 5 days will be spent relaxing in beautiful Goa, where we will be staying at the Taj Fort Aguada.

Amongst all the tour planning, hotel searching and booking, flight booking, tour book reading (Caitlyn probably checked out every India travel book from the library!) and plenty of reads on trip advisor, we also managed to squeeze in applying for our Visas, getting all our vaccinations/preventative meds (Hep A, anti-malarial, typhoid, cipro, might as well add Pepto-bismol on there), trips to Target and of course shopping! Caitlyn found the best deal for linen pants which we all bought. Nothing says prepared American tourists than a group of 5 girls with matching pants!

There have been many more minor details along the way and amongst all of this, still having to be medical students (oh yea, minor detail). But we've managed and crossing fingers, will all be done with our first year of medical school and on our way to India within 4 days of finishing.

I think we can all agree that this trip will change all of our lives and really help shape our future careers in medicine. We all look forward to chronicling this once in a lifetime trip for all of our friends and family at home and hope you all enjoy it!