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Published: February 13th 2006
Hello Friends!
Well, I've been pondering how to start this blog for a week now, without any major breakthroughs, so I think it's time to just begin writing and see what sort of format I come up with. The current material notwithstanding, and, though it is my wont, I will attempt to keep navel gazing to a tolerable level in my journals. I have not left yet, but on Feb 26, I take off for Kathmandu to do a one week trek with Eddie and his girlfriend Michelle.
While I'm writing his entry from the relative comfort of my home, I expect that future entries, written in internet cafes with diverse fee structures (or, such as the one on Liverpool Street in London, where a police officer warned me not to even take out my digital camera in the EasyWhatever internet spot), will need to be produced under somewhat tighter time constraints than I have thus far imposed upon myself.
Since the route from my apartment to my office, which I shall ply, ostensibly, for one more day in my life is hardly worthy of being called "travel", nor, indeed, am I really capable of observing much of interest about it, so callused are my eyes and ears from years of being raked back and forth along it, I shall dedicate this entry to the considerations I must make in preparations of the upcoming trip. I think it will prove interesting to note which of my concerns were warranted, and which will reveal themselves to be misguided.
As most of you know, my plan, or those parts of my plan that have been formulated so far, has been to quit my job of five years doing software development at a major bank to go on a trip, which will last between 3 and 12 months. I'm rather hoping to make it last closer to a year than a quarter (argh. One of my first goals should be to efface that word from my memory). I have a ticket to Kathmandu booked for two weeks hence. My plan was to spend about a month wandering around Nepal, then, in April, head down to India for about 6 weeks. After that, I will return to the New York region to attend the felicitous occasion of my sister's wedding, at which time I will have ample time to ponder whether the prodigal life suits me. Already, several chinks have appeared in my otherwise-unassailable plan:
1) Nepal appears to be on the verge of a civil war. And 2) I have it on good word that April is unbearably month throughout most of India, and by hot they mean that the average daily high temperature is in the upper nineties, and the daily low is between seventy and eighty.
Since I'm not much of a heat person (perhaps I'll learn to be one, but I'm afraid that I'm more likely to have a lot of sleepless, sweaty-in-a-not-good-way nights) this worries me somewhat. The only parts of the country which are not terribly hot are the mountain regions of that are nestled on either side of Nepal and Bhutan (and Kashmir, a region whose frigid appeal is tempered by occasional brief flashes of intense heat). This is a bit disappointing, as I am unlikely to be able to tour the majority of India in this season, which is followed by the monsoons that sweep up the country starting in May, and don't give up until September in some parts.
Anyway, more on this soon. I could write at you for a dozen more paragraphs, but I think I should send this out before I bore everyone to tears.
If you've read this far, I have a question for you: If you could take one non-esssential item on a long rambling trip, what would it be?
Best,
Dan
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Bisham
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non-essential item for trip
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