Writer Fiona Caulfield: From India, with Love INDAGARE GLOBAL CONVERSATIONS | 1.04

Melissa Biggs-Bradley Hi, and welcome to Indagare’s Global Conversations, a podcast about how traveling the world shapes our lives and perspectives. I’m Melissa Biggs Bradley of Indagare, a company I founded on the belief that how you travel matters. I’m sitting down with some of the most inspiring and innovative people I’ve met while on the road. They’re activists and conservationists, designers and filmmakers, writers, chefs, and entrepreneurs. They will share stories about their travels and how they lead lives of passion and purpose. They inspire me, as I hope they will you. Welcome to the Conversation!

When we first found ourselves under lockdown during the COVID-19 crisis, what I immediately missed the most was connecting with people while traveling because so often it’s meeting people that helps you understand a place and leaves the greatest impact. So I reached out to people who I consider true global citizens, people who've spent their lives seeking and exploring, because even while isolated, I thought we could continue to discover and share and learn from each other through conversation.

Today, I'm really excited to be speaking with Fiona Caulfield, who describes herself as a citizen of the world. We met more than 10 years ago. Soon after, she had quit her job as a consultant in New York. And I had started Indagare. We were introduced and I can't even remember who introduced us, but we immediately bonded over our love of travel and not just travel, getting on an airplane, but a certain kind of travel. And I would say it's the kind of travel that is authentic and soulful and eye opening and mind expanding. And it's the kind that always involves people because people are the portal of getting into the heart of a destination. And that's something we agree on. We also bonded over the fact of what I consider one of our elements of Australian-ness. My mother's Australian and Fiona is from Australia. And there's something called the Nomad Gene, which was discovered a number of years ago, and it's in 25 percent of the world's population, but it's particularly prevalent in migratory populations. And I think that part of my Australian heritage is that Nomad gene, which is when...is triggered when your endorphins are particularly high, because you're discovering a new place where you're traveling or you're learning new things. So I think both Fiona and I get restless when we're trapped someplace for too long and we really feel our best when we're moving and we're exploring. So, you know, let's start with where you are in lockdown and what it looks like, who you're sheltering with and how your daily routines have changed.

Fiona Caulfield Lovely to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me. It's nice to connect. It almost feels in person, though you're on wine time and I’m on coffee time. I'm in my hometown. I'm in a town in Adelaide, in Australia called Adelaide, and I lived here in 1986 and this is the longest amount of time I've ever spent since then. So, you know, I went to school and university here. So it's a challenging time for me. You know, I have a home in India and I also have a home in New South Wales, North Sydney - a little cottage on the beach. So it feels quite strange to not be in my home places. I'm lucky I'm with my partner Paul and we're both working from home. We're adjusting to all of that together. And I'm also just 15 minutes from my mother. So that was an important decision from a virus perspective, Australia, our isolation has been great. We have a pretty limited number of cases. Here in South Australia we’re under 500 cases, but sadly, four deaths. We've got one of the highest testing rates in the world. So it's kind of a light experience in terms of fear, like it feels quite a safe place. But we were only, you know, were asked not to leave the house. You are allowed to go out and exercise. So I have been walking in my neighborhood and walking the river every day. And I think it's interesting, you know, there was that wonderful book about traveling in your own room and I sort of feel I’m doing that. I’m looking at my home in a whole new way and falling in love with it, actually.

MBB Yeah. I was going to ask you about how you're feeling about being stuck at home, so to speak. And if there are certain routines you’ve actually found yourself surprisingly grateful for?

FC Yeah. The ability to have fresh air! A girlfriend of mine flew back to Australia from London, and she was quarantined in a hotel in Sydney. There was a five star hotel. And, you know, there's a lot of...the government's paying for it. There's a lot of controversy over, you know, “Wow, such luxury for all these quarantined people.” But actually, she posted everyday videos and she couldn't open the window and there was no balcony. So imagine two weeks with no air and a girlfriend of hers sent her a jar of air. And I thought “God, we’ve actually got to that stage.” So, you know, for me, having a home and feeling safe is such a privilege because clearly, you know, my world for the last 15 years has been living in India and in India, when the lockdown says “stay home,” for many people there is no home and there is no water to wash hands with. So, you know, I feel in a great position of privilege, of how I'm getting through a very vulnerable time. You know, my whole world is being traveled. And Melissa, I'm sure it's a similar feeling like everything that you do has kind of changed. Pretty suddenly.

MBB Yeah, it certainly has. And are you hearing regular reports from folks in India? Have you heard a lot about what it looks like for them?

FC Yeah. You know, I have daily contact with...I mean, India lives in my heart, my head. I have very close friends. I also have my little tiny, tiny publishing business. So we are also dealing with the lockdown, just like lots of the people I write about. You know, we have supply issues. The Postal Service is shut. I had a commitment that I'm going to pay all of our readers and our paper makers. And so it's...so we're in contact a lot. And India is an incredibly resilient country. You know, there’s a great sense of optimism. People are loving seeing blue skies. There’s quite a conversation around quiet. You know, if you ever in a million years, you'd never think that India could ever be described as quiet. And for some people, they’re loving it. And for others, they feel like India has gone to sleep on them. Yeah. So it's certainly strange times. By and large, India is catching up with looking after its people. You know, I think the suddenness of the lockdown and the crisis with the daily wage workers was real. But there are lots of people who have galvanized to help. And, you know, it sounds actually, it sounds frightening but calm.

MBB Now, I know you've lived in lots of different places. The UK, Canada, Australia. Can you talk about when you first left Australia and what led you to leave home and to start your wanderings?

FC Yes, I agree with you. I think as Australians, we have part of our DNA. I've never known the Nomad gene but I believe it. My parents are English. And my father was in the Navy. My mother was in fashion. So I think, you know, I grew up with my father traveling the world and sending postcards every week from wherever he was. So travel was part of my world. And as an Australian, I did what most Australians do. The rite of passage is going to live in England after university. And I have a theory - when people move countries, there's always a love story. You're either running to a love or running away from a loved one. There's always a story with that. So in my case, I narrowly avoided getting married and dashed off to London. And that was quite life changing. I worked in marketing and I met this headhunter and I was talking about normal kinds of jobs. And she said “There’s a very good looking man running an advertising agency; you should meet him.” And so that started a career in advertising for me. And it was a wonderful experience. This is London, the late 80s. Our first client was Remy Martin, the cognac house. They also had Krug champagne and Piper-Heidsieck. So with Piper we sponsored John Galliano’s show in Paris. And it was an exciting time. But when I went to London, I dreamt to travel and what was happening is I was working. And so, yes, I would go to Paris for a meeting and I do what we can in Venice or something like that occasionally. But it wasn't the travel that I wanted to do, you know what I mean? It was like it wasn't big travel. It was just kind of humdrum. It’s mean of me saying that Paris could be humdrum, but you know what I mean.

MBB I absolutely know what you mean. You don't want or you may enjoy the quick, superficial experience of a place, but you want to dig deeper. You want the kind of travel that transforms where you really feel a place. And I mean, one of my favorite travel quotes is the one by Robert Lewis Stevenson who wrote: “The great affair is to move, to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly, to come down off this featherbed of civilization and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints.” And he's talking about how the real travel that changes us is the one that takes us out of our comfort zone and actually causes pain in some ways.

FC Yeah, And I've read William Dalrymple's book In Xanadu. So that was that amazing journey along the Silk Route. And by then I had a new boyfriend and he decided he was going to travel back to Australia on the land. So in an instant, I resigned from the advertising agency, gave up my share that was then later sold. The plan was that we could travel back over land from London to Australia. We brought sleeping bags for the Karakol Highway. And, you know, I had a backpack for the first time. All my advertising friends were worried about, you know, how was I going to navigate and could they drop champagne passes along the Karakol Highway? But what happened is his sister decided to get married. So we flew back to Australia and he said, “Don't worry. Instead of Europe, we'll do Africa and then we'll get to Turkey and then we’ll...Turkey, Iran and Pakistan will be the same.” We got to Africa and the Gulf War started. So a couple of weeks in Africa turned into five months and we never got to do that journey over land. So I still want to do it. I wake up and I think that's actually, you know, now I dream of it. I dream with like...a year of traveling that route.

MBB That would be an amazing trip through history.

FC Anyway, we had a different experience and Africa was wonderful. To slowly travel through Africa and to wake up every morning with a slow mentality, not a fast one, because, you know, we just couldn't travel any faster. You couldn't fly out. But by the time we eventually went to Cairo, you know, I went to the Egyptian Museum, and I was literally the only person there.

MBB Wow.

FC It had camels, Michael Jackson and Madonna were the names of our camels. And there were only two camels going around the pyramids. It was deserted. That's a long winded way of saying that started that yearning for serious travel. Thank you William Darlrymple for that book. And then I returned to Australia and ended up running an agency in Sydney. And I did that for close to a decade.

MBB But then at some point, you wound up in New York working as a futurist for the legendary trend forecaster Faith Popcorn. Right?

FC I did. So what happened to get to that point, the catalyst was a movie. IMAX cinema opened in Sydney. Look, honestly, it could have been anything. If it was dolphins, I think I would have been a marine biologist by now. But the movie was Everest and I shot like David Breshears. And it was shot at exactly the same time as about the incident when Scott Fischer and Bohle died and Jon Krakauer wrote Into Thin Air. And what happened is my then-boyfriend and I went to see that, it was the next screening. And after the film, we went to dinner and had a bottle of wine. And he said, “You know, I can't understand why anyone want to climb that.” And I looked at him like he was a complete stranger and I said, “ And I can't understand anyone who wouldn’t want to climb that.” And that was the end of the relationship. And, nicely, and I then just got totally caught up in mountain climbing books. My library is like five hundred copies. My favorite book is Annapurna. So I created this kind of yearning that led me to leaving him and taking a job in Manhattan at Bill Gates's house; I met a guy who told me about climbing and he introduced Wally Berg who guides to the Seven Summits. So I signed up to climb Kilimanjaro. And honestly, you know, I was in stilettos and drinking wine every night. I was so unfit. I was not a Manhattan kind of girl at all. So I said, “Yup, I'm up for Kilimanjaro.” And the trip was leaving, I think, eight weeks later and then started this incredible new life, actually. So Kili was first and then with Wally, I signed up to do Everest, not to climb it, just to have a look at the icefall. And he was taking some climbers, but I just went for the walk. It changed my life and I decided to have a different life. You know, New York had been amazing; five years of serious work. From advertising, I joined Faith Popcorn. She and I have been speaking during the week. We do wonderful work. The Future of Food for Campbell's, The Future of Pain, the Tylenol and the Future Travel for British Airways, which we started working on on September the 12th, 2001. You know, it's an exhilarating time and I'm glad I did. But when I moved to India, turned 40 and just decided it was time to have a different life, it was almost like a reincarnation and it was just a chance to follow a different dream. And that dream was about travel and transformation and discussion.

MBB And how did you decide to move to India? I can’t remember if you’d spent time there before you did move.

FC I hadn't. I'd spent one week in India between London and Australia because it was a nice dropping off point. You know, as a futurist at that time, Ric was very exciting. And the choice was either a happy ideal on that walk into Everest. And I’d just read Jeff Greenwald's book, Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, and it's a fantastic book about he wanted to write a novel, but ending up just writing a series of letters and postcards in Kathmandu. And I thought, “My God, maybe I can live in Kathmandu and write a novel.” I kept thinking it was a bit small after New York, and the politics was a bit tricky and stuff, and I thought, “Well, you know, India would be amazing; maybe I could write a novel living somewhere, somewhere else.” And so I had that idea on the trip to Everest and back. And then at the end of that trip, I was nipping into Jakarta to see Louis Can’s building. And the only way to get there was via Calcutta. And in Calcutta, there was, it was overnight. And it was a really seminal moment for me because I wanted to eat good Bengali food. But the hotel was trying to get me to eat at the Thai restaurant. And you know exactly what I’m talking about because that Thai restaurant is still there. And I was yearning for a different kind of information. And my insight was that if I had been traveling to Prague or if I'd been going to San Francisco, I would figure out where I was going to have dinner that night. And I would know and I navigate my way through that. But as soon as I was in Calcutta or I was in Urrutia near Kili or I was in Kathmandu or I was going to be in another exciting place, Marrakech, all of a sudden, I was being treated like an 18 year old backpacker only interested in pizza. And that was not true. And I wanted a different standard of content and insight. And in Calcutta, when I went to the bookshop and asked for a local guide, because I've given up on the concierge, this wonderful woman in a beautiful silver sari waved me at a wall of those fat books. And I said, “No, no, no. This is what I'm after. I’m after great Bengali food. Ideally a glass of wine.” And she gave me three answers. I've still got that piece of paper. And her name is Deepak. And she and I remain friends all these years later. So Deepak also gave me a few pieces of information on where to do some shopping the next day for textiles. And I went to the flower market in the morning. And it changed my life. I totally fell in love with Calcutta. And I thought, “You know, what I need is that woman, everywhere!” Because I then went to Dakar and there was no woman and I didn't fall in love with Dakar. This is it, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to create, I'm going to become that person in all these complicated cities and destinations. And I was rather naive. Like I remember that trip when I saw you in New York, I met with the head Thames & Hudson and he said, “Sure. Right now your books, we’ll publish them.” And at that stage, I thought, you know, I can do that 400 books. And here I am 15 years later with six. The journey was a bit slower than I thought.

MBB And then you ended up actually publishing the books yourself. So how did that happen? I mean, what made you decide to actually not just publish the books yourself, but start a very unique kind of publishing company where the books are actually handcrafted?

FC Well, you know, after a long career in advertising, I’d done far more complicated things in print. You know, for me the brand was all about authenticity and, you know, the style was intimacy. I wanted it to feel like it was a letter from nature. You say, you know, “Melissa, hey, I'm in Jaipur. When you come in, here’s what you need to know.” But the other thing is, I wanted it to be a sensual experience. I wanted, you know, when you feel my books, I wanted you to smell India. I wanted you to touch it. And so for me, that decision was I wanted it to be made by hand. So when I touched this book, I know that, you know, I'm touching the hand, which almost feels incredible during the virus to talk about touching it; you know, I know that a person made this sheet of paper. And I can feel it. And I can feel the person who wove the cover. And at the back we hand embroider the labels. And I know there’s a lady who sat there embroidering and who’s done the bookmark. And so for me, it wasn’t just an aesthetic. It was a real commitment to the craft and the artisans. And I think you feel that when you touch the books. I had that idea when I spoke to some traditional publishers, they looked at me like I was insane. “Do you have any idea what this is going to cost, how slow it's going to be?” And it's like, you know, really, I'm not doing this to make money, I've had a career. You know, this is like a, this is something different. And I and I think that all these years later, you can feel that when you touch these objects.

MBB It's clearly a passion project. I mean, you can feel it. You can feel the artisanship and you can feel your care for every single person who's in the book. So how about the giving back component? Was that part of it from the beginning that you were going to really highlight so many of the places in India that were making a positive impact?

FC Yeah, I mean, it was an emotional decision. There's a section in the book called Share The Love, and that's about my commitment to giving back. But it's also around...here are organizations that are doing good and you can visit them and you can support them and this is how to get involved. But the other thing that I did is all through the content is I created a symbol of conscious travel. And my perspective was like to choose to go to Cafe or Cafe B. And they're both good, right? So to make the book, the criteria is: Do I fall in love with the destination more by going here? So if they’re in the book, they're both going to deliver against that. Well, why wouldn't I go to the places employing acid burn victims? Why wouldn't I go to the place that's doing supporting organic farmers? And so it was that decision to kind of highlight on every page of the places that are doing good and doing good, you know, I don't have a scientific way of measuring that, but I've gone to all those places, had all those conversations with the owners. I hear about who they're supporting and how they're sourcing, and what they're doing. So they're doing good could be social, it could be environmental. You know, it's a sense of kind of being connected to community and giving back.

MBB Can you address how you find balance between success and charity?

FC Gosh, that's a question and a half, isn't it? Yeah. For me, well, I kind of think that having success actually stops the need for charity. So when our artisans are successful and they have a livelihood and they're in charge of their own destiny, they no longer need charity. So I think the goal is for me - I want to have the artisans and the craft successful and busy and getting orders and working and being creative. And then there's no need to have a discussion on charity, but making sure they're fairly paid. Studio Babru is doing a wonderful initiative with licensing things for design rather than just buying work; you're actually giving them a license for their designs. And I love that. So, for me, I think I want success to drive things, not charity.

MBB And this will add nicely to the next question, which is how best is it that people can support traditional artisans, especially now during the pandemic?

FC Yeah. I think the thing to do is to not cancel orders, to keep the orders and allow the delays. And I think the same with travel, you know, delay, defer, not cancel and to make more conscious choices about what you buy. Buy less, but buy more Beautiful things. You can tell the difference. You know? I can feel it in my books and I'm glad that that's the decision I made. And I think you can do that in everything that you touch, actually. So more conscious buying would help.

MBB In some ways, Fiona, you make it sound easy to change your life and to start a project like this. And I know that it isn't easy all the time. Are there certain things in those moments that you must have of doubt or periods when you're struggling that you feel you can rely on to keep you close to the mission, to keep you going?

FC Yeah. I mean, look, there's been plenty of vulnerable moments. Plenty of tricky moments about, you know what? Because I don't have a background in writing, I don’t have a background in travel and how dare I think I can do something like this? So there's a lot of learning and vulnerability and I just kind of keep it small. And it's if it's something frightening, like a girlfriend of mine, I haven't done a Zoom chat with so many people and a girlfriend of mine just said “Imagine you’re just, you know, talking to me.” And I thought that’s actually really nice, to just always kind of bring it down to...I'm just doing it for one person. And that makes a huge difference. And also, I think over time, creating Love Travel, it's grown. People understand it more. They trust it more. And it's got this community, this following, and it makes more sense now, I think, than when I started. And people in India love it and feel very proud of it. It's changed some lives. You know, there was a rickshaw driver in Ahmedabad and he's great. And so when I first started, I would always be in his rickshaw. And then he was certain I put him in the book and he was so successful, he got a car, a small car, and then he got in an Inova, and now he has four Land Rovers and he’s booked up and I can’t get to use him.

MBB One of the things I really love about the books and what makes them so different is how personal they are. I mean, you really have connections with the places that you recommend, you know, whether it's the name of the astrologer in Jaipur that you should call on a certain day or the dish to order from the small family run café. I mean, it feels incredibly personal.

FC Yeah, it is. You know, it is. And, you know, the strange thing is, is way too much information in it. You know, I can remember I put in the book, the astrologer told me I would meet somebody with the initial “P,” and that was in the book. And then when I started, Paul is my partner. And then when we got back together again, we went to university together and when we reunited, I went back to the book and I went back to the astrologer and I thought I'm way over sharing in that book.

MBB That’s really funny. So what point did you figure out that India was going to be a home base for you?

FC You know, I moved completely in 2004. So when I moved to India, I moved. I've always kept my home in Australia. And I sent back my apartment from Tribeca, that all got shipped back to Australia. And I arrived in India just with a bag. And I quickly started amassing books and things. But I settled into an Indian home, actually, spending ninety percent of my time in India at the beginning. And then that's changed now as an only child and I'm in Australia more often, but I certainly landed in India expecting to live there, to commit to this project and I got a bit wobbly a few months in and I returned to New York because, you know, consulting money is like heroin. You know, it's hard to give up. I went back and I did a stint in New York. A girlfriend of mine had an apartment on the Upper East Side and it was empty and I could stay there and work on this line. I was working in the Upper East Side. But after a few months, I just knew that life was over. And I returned to India with greater commitment. So I actually got back to India, I think July 2005, with a total commitment to be in India.

MBB And where did you live originally in India?

FC Well, I started living...I started staying in the Bombay Yacht Club next to the Taj. I was homeless. And some friends gave me, but new friends gave me the keys to their cottage in the Nilgiris. And every day I would walk forty five minutes to the nearest town one way to check my email once a day. Can you imagine? And then finding work. There were no shops nearby and a local farmer dropped in milk and carrots. It was insane. Anyway, and then I...the nearest airport was Bengaluru, which was eight hours away. And by then I had started making friends in the network and they said, “You’re insane; you can't keep doing this drive to get onto a plane.” And Bengaluru hotels cost a fortune. And they said, you know, “Just get a little apartment in Bengaluru.” So I moved into this apartment and I thought I'd be like four months while I popped out a book, and there I am still in Bengaluru fifteen years later. And my original apartment has now become a textile museum. So it's a funny world.

MBB Now, since you've been there the last 15 years, the country has changed a lot in that time. What would you say are some of the ways that are most significant, either for the positive or the negative?

FC Well, like everything about India, both positive and negative, good. Again, you know, the good and the bad are a kind of marriage. You know whatever’s true is also untrue. I think on the positive side, since I've been writing the books, I've always written about poverty and inequality. And what's happened is when I first started writing books, the first one came out in 2007. At that time, according to World Health, one third of India's population lived under the poverty line. And today it's one sixth. So that's a huge improvement about lifting people into better livelihoods and having better care. And so India is a richer and more successful economy. And, you know, there’s certainly greater sanitation, greater education. So there's a whole lot of really positive things for the society. I think the other thing that I've noticed is...pride is a funny word. I should think about the word a little bit more, but there’s certainly a great energy around Indians discovering and enjoying their own country. So there's like on Conde Nast Traveler Top 50 restaurants. What's happening with that now is you've got an explosion of interest in regional foods, like one of the top 10 restaurants in India is run by a 90 year old woman in rural Tamil Nadu. Like, it's amazing. And so there’s this kind of journey of sort of enjoying Indian design, Indian textiles, Indian food, that domestically, everyone's in love with. So I'm really enjoying that, you know, and that pride and that excitement about the variation in India is great. So there's lots of positives. From a travel perspective, when I arrived in India, 80 percent of travelers were foreign. Now, that's completely flipped. You know, travel is now, it's 80 percent domestic. So, you know, India is on the move, because India used to only travel the pilgrimage to see family. And now that's changing. You know, Indians are having holidays at home and so that's a real change. And on the negative side of things, we have politics and pollution. I think politics and pollution are probably issues for the whole world to consider right now. But on the balance, I think, you know, India, it's an exciting time. It's such a beautiful place to travel through. India's full of amazing palaces to stay at. But I also love what's bubbling away, which is the sort of idea of these smaller hotels and private homes. And my futurist cap is going to be that when we look at traveling in India, this whole idea of staying in beautiful villas and private homes is going to really increase. And so I think that's going to be quite exciting ahead.

MBB Now, Fiona, do you have any new projects that you can talk about?

FC Yeah, I've been wanting to write a Love India, a national book for the longest time because the book stuff, it's so difficult. You know, they need updating. It would be a lot easier if I had written a novel, I think. So, I've been wanting to work on a Love India. I thought this was going to be the year and then the lockdown's arrived and this could be an opportunity to do that. It sounds easy to say, to write a Love India but actually thinking about how to make it timeless and how to format it, they're quite big challenges and I'm mulling it over on how to do that.

MBB You mentioned earlier that you've been speaking with Faith Popcorn, and I know you have this background in future casting. So can you make any predictions? I think we're all looking for someone to give us an update on the future right now.

FC It's interesting. I couldn't wait to talk to Faith about it. Yes. So we had a little exchange during the week. My instinct is, Melissa, when we did the future travel after September 11th, what we discovered was that September 11th kinda was an accelerator. So whatever the trajectory you were on, it pushed you further. So again, nothing to do with travel, but if you were in a good relationship, you raced into a marriage, if you had a bad relationship at that time then you broke up. So that was relevant also in corporate situations that, you know, whatever was in place sort of got pushed along. And I think it's kind of interesting to think about like, this huge event, this catastrophic event, in some ways it might do the same thing. Like we’ve been on a trajectory, Indagare and I, about talking about transformative travel and slow travel and conscious travel. My instinct is this will dial that up even further. I think that there will be, you know, the curiosity to discover the world and also to discover ourselves remains. You know, people think they come to India to travel, to look at things. What actually happens with India as you travel inside, you know, the great journey is the journey that India gracefully takes you on inside yourself to ask what you believe, what you think and what’s changed. And my instinct is that that will continue. It might take us a bit of time to get back to it, but it will continue.

MBB Yeah. I was actually going to ask you what you think makes India and its people so special, but that's beautifully described and very accurate to me.

FC Yeah. I think the other thing for me about India, I just love the intensity that life is lived. So, you know, when I'm out of India, I feel like someone's switched the car off and made it black and white, and I feel like everyone's turned the volume right down. You know, intensity of life, you just feel it. You know, the other thing about India, which I didn't talk about is India just has this incredible, authentic belief in beauty. So if something can be beautiful, it will be. I can remember I jumped in a rickshaw in Bangalore and there was a heart on the seat and I thought, oh, take a picture of that for my Love Travel. And the rickshaw driver looked at me like I was crazy. And he said, “It's just a patch. I tore it.” You know, if we had done a patch, it would've been a square. In India patches are hearts.

MBB An area of India that I’ve never actually visited but I'm really drawn to is Kerala. Have you spent much time in Kerala or in the South? And if so, what do you love about Kerala or the south of India as a whole?

FC I have a file on Love Kerala and I've made a dozen trips to Kerala in the last two years. So I'm pretty in love with it. I've also got a Love South India file open and I have a Love India. So Kerala will find its way into one of those options, I think for me, what I love about Kerala is I love...it’s absolutely beautiful and it's tropical beauty. If Rajasthan is the Indian imagination with palaces, forts and turbans, and incredible color, Kerala is the tropical India. Its palm trees and coconuts and men in white curtains and women in white and gold. It's incredibly beautiful. I admire the Kerala of the tourism posters. Like for me, being on a houseboat for longer than about half an hour, I want to shoot myself. But so for me there’s a whole other way of doing Kerala.. The places inland in Kerala are amazing and the food is amazing, the weaving is amazing. So there's a whole way of doing Kerala more authentically than being trapped on one of those houseboats. The best antique shopping in India is a town called Karaikudi, and it's in the Chettinad region of Tamil Nadu. This is where all the antique dealers across India come in to do their sourcing. Lots of old dowry collections from Burmese traders. There's a whole area of these antique shops and warehouses. And it's not for the faint hearted. You need to go with good energy and it's helpful to know what you're doing to know which are the right ones to go to. But there are total treasures and it's the dealers market, where the dealers in India are sourcing from.

MBB So how do you think COVID-19 will have an impact on a visit to India going forward?

FC I think only the small things there will be a legacy. So just like, in India right now, when you go to hotels, shopping malls, gyms, high security, you know, your bags scanned all the time. I think we’re probably going to have temperature checks. You know, I think there's going to be the administration of travel we all notice. But I think that, you know, India has for 5000 years this incredible culture and spirit, and I don't think the soul of India will change.

MBB If you had to describe what the greatest gift of travel is or what you have learned the most from being able to travel, what would you say that is?

FC Wow, I think the gift is about...it's about the journey of life. It's about you just, you, you learn so much. You know, travel is the greatest teacher. And I think that wherever you go, that's the gift if you're ready to receive it. That's what happens, is that you learn about yourself and about life and it makes life so much richer.

MBB Now, this is gonna be a hard one for you, I think. But I always ask people, is there a charitable organization or a couple of charitable organizations that you're connected to in your part of the world, whether it's India or Australia, that people could donate to if they want to have a positive impact?

FC Give India is 20 years old. It’s giveindia.org. They are a platform that receives donations and a hundred percent of that money goes into the field and they work with a thousand NGOs. All of those NGOs have been credited and they know where the most vulnerable people are and they know how to get immediate supplies. So at the moment, there's food and sanitation rations going to lots of vulnerable communities. So Give India I think is great and it's great for small donations as well as large ones. Bill and Melinda Gates have contributed through Give India but so too have like, I'm given my personal donation through them. And people in India are using them.

MBB Okay, so what are you reading right now, Fiona?

FC Im reading an Australian book by Helen Garner. It’s called The Yellow Notebook, and it's her diaries. And she's a superb writer. And at the moment, it's nice just dipping into those diary entries because I'm not sure I'm ready to escape into a different story. But pushing hard up against Helen's book is Williams’ book The Anarchy: The Story of East India Company, which I haven’t got to but that’s next. MBB Yeah, I have that on my table, too. It's intimidating, but intriguing. And what are you watching?

FC Oh my God. You know what? I find with this lockdown that there’s an expectation that I should be fluent in Mandarin and making a soufflé. And, you know, like there’s so much, I should say sourdough bread, I think. Yesterday I watched Margaret Atwood being interviewed. The John Paul Lit Fest has gone digital and they've got this digital festival called Brave New World. Well, it's incredible. A few days ago I listened to Pico Iyer on stillness; it’s brilliant.

MBB So is there a favorite memento that you've ever brought back from a trip?

FC Oh, my God. I would so love to say that I only bring back memories. But in truth, I'm the person in the airport that’s always lugging something ridiculous. You know, like I bought a drum vat from a sushi festival. And when I went to Mt. Kailash, I ended up buying a small shrine that I carried back with me. Like, seriously! Textiles are a much safer thing to bring back because they fold and you can pack them. But no, I'm the person the ridiculous mementos that kind of are bigger than the car.

MBB And do you have a favorite destination for relaxing? I'm going to keep this in India. So where in India would you go to for a relaxing vacation?

FC I don’t do any relaxation in India at all.

MBB Okay, so then elsewhere?

FC So the answer to that is when my yoga teacher comes home three times a week. That's it. Truthfully, my relaxation is a Hervey Bay, north of Sydney. You know, I am lucky enough; it's the perfect contrast to India. It's tiny. My cottage is on the water and it's quiet, quiet, quiet.

MBB And favorite destination for exploring?

FC India, of course. And you need more than one lifetime. You know, it’s endlessly exciting to go there.

MBB What about something that's always in your carry-on?

FC A book! And I mean a real book to read. I mean, I have a great fear that I may be delayed or worse, taken hostage with nothing to read. So I’ve always got a book, and I always get a pen and some paper.

MBB And what's on your travel wish list next?

FC You know, I think of it in, like, concentric circles. So at the moment, you know, my pragmatic wish list is I want...I feel the need for some big space. So I want to go up to the Flinders Ranges here outside of Adelaide, and I want to walk and walk those mountain ranges and just see ancient landscapes. And then I’m, you know, when I think of that circle getting bigger, I can't wait to go back to the Himalaya, you know, like I'm thinking of Nepal. I'm thinking of the snowmen trekking east of Bhutan. And I just have this yearning for some big space.

MBB Absolutely. And could you let us know where we can find your book? FC Sure. I mean, the easiest thing is on my website - lovetravelguides.com. There's two things: One, we sell the books and as soon as the Postal Service opens again in India, which we hope will be May 3 but they might push a little bit, we can send books in nice parcels from India. And then we keep my team very happy. We also have a list where you can search by where you are and find near stockists. And the truth is in America, it's really just Amazon. And we're at the Norton Simon Museum in California and not in New York. So very, very limited distribution.

MBB Now, I know the travelers are often concerned with poverty in India. Can you speak to your experience there? A little bit?

FC A smile goes a long way. I'll tell a story: I was with given a couple in a car. We were traveling through Dharavi through the largest slum in India in Bombay. And she looked out the window and she saw beautiful women with Jasmine in their hair, smiling. And he looked out the window and he saw poverty and empty shops and kids playing in the gutters with a piece of wood not with a cricket bat. So it's a perspective. They're looking at the same window. So, you know, I choose to look out and try and connect with them, with the joy of the people and of having enough and learning to try and figure out what that is. You know, the answer to the solution to poverty is education and opportunity. And so that's the important thing to support and to to learn, to learn and to treat everyone with respect I think is important.

MBB What a beautiful note to end on. I hope you enjoyed hearing about Fiona's philosophy on life and travel. In the next episode, I'll be speaking with another real source of inspiration, tastemaker Martina Mondadori. She's the editor of Cabana magazine and she grew up in Milan and now divides her time between Italy and London. Martina’s one of the most creative people I know. She and I will talk about the hidden secrets of her Italian home, because Milan really is one of those cities where all the treasures seem to lie behind closed doors. But we'll also discuss the role of nostalgia in design, Italian entertaining and the connection between creativity and escapism. I hope you'll join us.

Producer Thank you for joining us for this Indagare Global Conversation. We hope you'll tune in next time and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. It also helps us enormously if you rate and review us on iTunes. And be sure to check out www.indagare.com/ globalconversations for information on joining one of our conversations live. Be sure to also follow us on Instagram at @ @indagaretravel for more travel inspiration and news on our programming and upcoming episodes.