Almost Time!

tacita

leaving tomorrow.

i feel surprisingly calm and ready, almost all packed, well-armed with information from all of you, still enjoying the glow of yesterday's meet-up in NYC's little india (note on paan - dental floss!), and looking forward to, among other things planned and unplanned: the tibetan new year, chaam dances, dangling ropeways, sacred lakes, chorten and monasteries, prayer wheels and prayer flags, a yak ride, tea plantations, a cloudless (maybe?) morning view of the himalaya, an elephant safari (and the most miniscule possibility of spying an endangered one-horned rhino), the overnight darjeeling mail train, kalighat, CIMA, the high court, the famous (sugarfree!) bengali sweets, the kolkata IM meet-up (!!!), finally meeting somnath, visiting my sponsored child in his village, and lastly, sadly or elatedly, returning to new york broadened by my travel. i may like india, i may not. but i will, as always, be glad to have traveled and feel fortunate to have the resources to facilitate this most precious of avocations. thanks yet again, IM.

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Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. ~Helen Keller

cyberhippie

Bon Route Janice

Hyderabadi

Have a great trip! Look forward to your posts from India.

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"There’s nothing common about common sense." - Internets.

Nick-H

Whatever will we do without you?

Lost in India

i wish i could jump in time, skip this semester that looks like its never gonna end, and be leaving tomorow as well.

enjoy the trip. Bonne route.

PeakXV

Just skimmed through your post and thought it was your trip blog of things you've completed and it was almost time to come home .... then realized that you haven't left for the airport yet.

Will you please get a move on!

Enjoy!

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What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

Don't go to India ~ Pre-trip Warnings & Misconceptions?

batistuta

Janice,I sincerely hope that your experience in India will be a good one and a trip that you will savour for a long time.I have not seen a more thorough preparation to India.
Have a great trip.

capt_mahajan

Enjoy your trip. And do tell us about it.

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Outside the machine

tacita

probably have well-earned rest!

thanks, all. although i don't leave until 8:50 pm tomorrow evening, i've taken tomorrow off from work. maddeningly, however, i still have to teach my volunteer ESL class in the morning at the UN. i'd hazard to say the students might just as well be speaking in their myriad native tongues (russian, bhutanese, japanese, spanish, among others), and i'll be too distracted and none the wiser. good thing none of them speak nepalese or bengali or i might have asked them to teach me instead!

you guys are great...just amazingly great. my best to you all, and thanks for your good wishes.

Nick-H

You think there's any chance she wouldn't?

Darmabum

I've seen a lot of the world, have been blessed to have had the opportunities (and taken them!) to have seen many places . . . like it or not, India will stay with you . . . it lingers . . . feeds me still . . . still makes me cry . . . feeds me . . . You have an impressive list of things to do, places to see, envious really, but in my mind those are just the dots . . . in between those dots there are lines, and those lines are really just a series of dots you know nothing about . . . I am envious of the places you're going, the people you're going to meet, but I'm more excited for you for the places you don't know you're going, the people you don't know you'll meet, the experiences you can't know you'll have. Bon voyage. Scott

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Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate; our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure - Marianne Williamson

tacita

a point warmly observed, i think, and equally warmly received, nick.

tacita

ok, now you're gonna make me cry. you guys just get better and better...thanks, scott.

Merchant

Soon, you will know what we're all talking about! You're about to join a large cult!

machadinha

... And don't go running to the cybercafes all the time now, would you Remember it's a holiday.

Off with you! Have a good flight! What route do the planes take from NY? There's fantastic sights over what must be roughly Asia Minor, all the way up to India proper. A whole lot of enticing mountainous nothingness stretching as far as the eye can see, with the odd village or field dotted around. By night and given clear weather, you can follow what I fantasize is the Grand Trunk Road (some major highway in any case) leading up to Delhi. Amazing.

... Warmest again Janice. And thank you for having found us.

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Reading tips, all picked up at IndiaMike : INDAX's A Comprehensive Guide To India / Dinoj Surendran's Desi Humor / ITHVC on Culture Shock & Travel Health / JetLag Travel Guides For the Undiscerning Traveller / India Travel Links