"Insert Cheesy Title Here"

So here's the story you've all been waiting patiently for... it all began in a classroom.

12 months ago, Kristen and I broke into a free classroom in the Engineering building, found a piece of chalk, and drew a rough map of the world on the board. "So where do we want to go" Leen asked. "Dunno", she responded.

2 months ago, we walked into a travel agent and asked for a pricing on a "round the world trip". Somewhere in the region of "more than we had" came up, and so we asked the travel agent to price for us only the first leg. Cape Town to India. At a pretty decent price too... and it happened to be with Emirates, which made Kristen smile so big it touched her ears. So we went online, and found that going around a travel agent is actually cheaper. 2 days later, we sat eating dinner with 2 return tickets booked to India, in our hands - a 9 month trip. 

Then the serious planning began...

(If you haven't yet, now would be a good time to read the other blogs)

After Mumbai, we traveled to Delhi for a night, on the way to the primary school in Satyon (North India), aka North Pole! We spent the day walking around market stalls which, despite being new to us, looked identical to every other Indian market stall. We fought our way through, and took random turns down the most interesting street at that time. Left. Right. Straight. For hours we bought nuts, fruit, tea, henna, and all sorts wonderful smelling goodies : ) 

We eventually found a 5th story roof-top restaurant hear our hotel. Having worked up an appetite we pretty much ordered a standard paneer butter masala, some rotis and some naan bread. After a decently long conversation about our trip, what we've left behind and what we had in store for ourselves over the next few months, we decided to order Chai (tea). Presented with a selection of 12 types, we ordered a tasty selection of 4 teas (at R3.00 / $0.40 a cup we thought it forgivable to splurge!) While waiting for the tea to come, Kristen had wandered over to the balcony to look out over the clearing market stall. I crept up behind her, and wrapped my arms around her, holding her close to me. I didn't have a plan.

"Kristen my love, you know I love you."

She looked up at me and smiled that huge warm smile that I adore about her. 

"I want you to know that you make me happy! My life is better with you by my side and I am a better person with you holding my hand. You know me well enough to know that I'm not going to buy you a ring, the way all the other boys propose to all the other girls... but how about a trip to India? As we begin this adventure together, I want you to know how much you mean to me, and that I want you to be by my side the whole way. Would you make me the happiest man in the whole world and marry me?"

I think she said yes.

It sometime takes a crazy plan like a trip to India, to realize that the person standing next to you is the perfect one :)