The Adventure Begins! Off to South Asia

Plattsburgh, New York
October 28, 2012

Someone once said that “there is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it,” And he’s right.

I write this on the afternoon of October 28th—just a few hours before heading to Montreal for the beginning of a seven week, Himalyan adventure. I leave— quietly this time—at 11:40 pm on a direct, 12 hour Quatar Airlines flight from Montreal to Doah. (For a variety of reasons, I’ve ceased telling too many people my travel plans.) Who would have thought there’d be enough traffic to warrant three direct flights a week to the Middle East from Montreal?

I touch down in Doah at 6:00 pm on Monday, check into a hotel, then spend a full Monday and half Tuesday touring the principality.

On the 31st I fly on to Kathmandu, Nepal, then on to Paro, Bhutan on November 2nd. There, I’ll have a car and driver for ten days, returning to Nepal on the 11th. At that point I’ll be in no rush to leave a country that ranked Number 1 in the World Trip of 1998-1999, and the one country I vowed would be the first country I returned to after I retired. So much for the fact that it’s taken six years to fulfill that goal!
In November of 1998, fourteen years ago this month, I was hiking from Jomson, Nepal back to Pokhara—a distance of about 60 miles--when I had a nasty accident mid-point on the trek. After emergency surgery to repair the huge laceration in my right foot, I had to come out on a horse. Not so this year! I have every good intention to finish that hike—this time on two feet!

But then again I may just take it easy, relish long views of the Himalayas, take short hikes, enjoy fine, cloudless days and try not to pack too much into a day.

By early December I will have crossed the border into India where I’ll spend time in the holy Hindu city of Varanassi, then on the Agra and the Taj Mahal and ultimately to New Delhi where I’ll fly to Mumbai to catch my flight back to Montreal on December 19th.

And so…the journey begins. It’s been a long time since I’ve travelled outside my comfort zone.

The Himalayas are a good place to begin once again.