Technical Details

Every thing I say here about flights is hypothetical until we buy our tickets and that will not happen until $25,000 of funds are pledged.

We had a request to first visit Pune (Poo-ney) from the first to 3rd of August for orientation.

It is interesting to see that the first 18 hours of flight are common to our friends the GCC India team. While their flights are set, ours is just research until another $1,600 in support funding is given.

For the three of us:
Chicago to Bombay July 29th $2292 on Air India 124
Bus to Pune $37
5 nights stay at guest house meals included $111 total.
Flight from Pune to Bangalor to Chennai August 4th $468 on kingfisher

total =$2908

Now granted I would love to ride Singapore Air (one of very few 5 star airlines) but what Air India does in 18 hours will take about 36 with layovers.

We are also working on finding luggage, if you have any LARGE suitcases you would like to donate to the cause we would be thankful, you may get them back in a year.

We did find out that it would work well for Nancy and I to take an all day trip into Chicago, drop off our Visa forms for the India Consulate in the morning, and pick up in the late afternoon. We still have some questions about whether to get a 6 month 1 year or 5 year visa. We need to leave India every 180 days anyway but will there be less hassles if we get a longer visa?

Also we also sent out an update letter. On the cover we had a short story about Amudha, I will fill in some more details about her in my next post.