I’ve been a big fan of Indian culture for years; I love their music, their dance, their cuisine… so it’s with a great deal of excitement that I anounce that I’ll be spending several months there this year.

I’m going with my good friend and collaborator Chaya Rao to shoot a television series. It’s called Masala Yatra – and it chronicles all of India’s various regions and their cuisines – I like to think of it as sort of a combination travel & cooking show. We’re going to be making three trips over the course of this year and the early part of 2012, and our first two-month long journey begins in just a little over a month (I just got all my innoculations this week). I’m going to be maintaining a map of all the places we’ll be going. Check out some of our destinations here:

View India in a larger map

It’s shaping up to be a really amazing experience. When I was touring as a musician I spent some time in the Central Asia/Middle East region (Azerbaijan, Armenia & Georgia), but this will be my first time in South Asia. I’m really excited; Chaya will be with me the whole time (she’s the star of the show – I’ll be behind the camera), and in my book, there’s no better way to experience a new place than with someone who knows the lay of the land (and the various languages).

Of course this means that I’m having to put a lot of my other plans on hold, most notably it’s going to delay, at least somewhat, the release of my new novel The Man From 3015, my movie Ghostfinders (still slated for a 2011 release) and my return to touring and playing shows with my new solo music act as well as the release of my new solo album. I’ll still be working on everything during my downtime, however, so I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to get everything else finished and out into the world soon.

The India trips are also going to delay what was to be my 2011 Road Trip in The Mobile Traveler. I’ve still been working on the remodel (I just picked out my new upholstery last week), and I’ll be finishing that up in between trips as well, but for now I’ve decided to hold off on scheduling any trips with it until I get some of my other projects completed.

I should have fairly regular internet access while we’re there, and I intend to post regular updates on the trip, using my blog as a sort of travel journal while we’re in India. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of interesting stories (as well as photos and videos) to share with you all. In the meantime, I’ll be using these last few weeks in the U.S. to tie up some loose ends, share a few more details about the project and hopefully even post a preview of one of the new songs from my upcoming album.

Stay tuned… and namaste!

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