Sleepless in the suburbs

While I'd like to possibly blame the effect of Lariam for my very early morning wake ups, I suspect that has more to do with the numerous tasks which I have yet to organise pending this trip to India. With only 2.5 weeks to go, I'm staring down the very short barrel of a gun.

I've been asked: Why India?

That's a difficult one to answer. In all honesty, I don't have a simple and direct answer. That answer lies in a myriad of reasons, each of which isn't enough to explain the motivation to visit India for a month, but together they make a case for this journey. As briefly and succinctly as I can, they include:

• Wanting to visit a place like no other place I have visited.
• Wanting to be challenged and taken out of my comfort zones as a traveller.
• Wanting to document certain elements of India photographically (at the moment, I have yet to consolidate what these elements are)
• Wanting to be internally changed by the experience of travel in India.
• Wanting to be revived out of this mundane and comfortable routine of living in Perth.

When I feel pangs of anxiety about this trip - because, let's face it, it's going to be fairly intense and unrelaxing - I focus on the above and what I may gain from this journey.