Decision

I had decided some time ago that I was going to renew my Visa and stay 6 more months in India. However, I had not decided where, how or if I was going to volunteer before or after renewing it. Agonda made me see things clear.

I had found an organization that appealed to me to do some volunteering in spite of all its restrictive conditions. But more on volunteering at its right moment. The thing is that I had decided that my first months in India should be for myself, volunteering after the renewal of the Visa. On those premises, as I was heading south, the logical thing to do was to fly to Sri Lanka and do all the processing there. And this is the reason why I thought going to Hampi was a good idea.

But fate again would change my plans. For those who don't know, Sri Lanka has been in a civil war since 1983 between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who seek for an independent state. And just when I had decided to go, the peace treaty had been broken and the Tamils had attacked the south, thing they usually did not do, killing all passengers of a bus. Though Tamils have openly said not wanting to hurt foreigners not to be considered a terrorist organization, the truth is that if you're in that bus, there are no distinctions for bullets.

So I got to Hampi worried of what to do. I measured other possibilities, like going to Thailand, Malaysia or Bangladesh, but other than Bangladesh, I felt I wanted to dedicate some time to those countries, and not just get in and out. And I wasn't ready to spend some time there, I was in a hurry to settle up for a while. My main objective in coming to India seemed to be vanishing, and I needed to recover it soon.

The most reasonable and easy procedure was to go to Nepal. This I had decided in Hampi, and it meant going back north. Based on this decision, it made no sense going to Hampi after Agonda if I wanted to keep on going south. However, what to do about the south was my next question. Skip it all? Go south and get a plane to Katmandu? I would go to Gokarna and then north via Mumbai, Bundi and Varanasi.

I was a bit pissed with all this changing of plans and my not great time in Hampi, but something positive had come out it all together, not only I was doing a lot of introspection on my decisions so far, but I had not been carrying all my winter clothes for nothing.