We are safely back in the US after almost 48 hours of travel...we left Rishikish around 6:45 am on Sunday, Jan 4 for a 6 1/2 hour car ride down narrow, windy, bumpy mountain roads to Delhi to catch a 2 hr. flight for Mumbai...from there we flew overnight to Amsterdam, then after going through another thorough security screening, flew onto Atlanta - arriving road wreary and rumpled. All the flights were thankfully smooth and uneventful. There were long security lines to just get out of the airport and after all the travel on planes in India and international flights, we were very happy that all our bags arrived. We picked them up and had to take them to customs where we put them onto a conveyor belt and were told to pick them up at the final baggage claim # 1 after we completed the final security check. One of my bags didn't make it out of customs with the rest and I'm still waiting for it - (I just talked with Delta and it is now in the baggage office in Atlanta waiting for room on one of the flights to Nashville later today)...After waiting 2 hrs for it, we finally filed a report and left the airport for an hour ride to John's house to pick up Jennifer's car and drive 4 hrs back to Nashville...arriving around midnight last night...
Impressions of India will emerge over time - there is so much - sights, sounds, smells - to process...I'm looking forward to reviewing the iternary along with all the pictures and mix in the memories...and images that were not possible to adequately capture or to capture at all as we passed by while driving through the countryside as we covered many kilometers going from one place to another. Crowded cities; rich farmland; ox carts heavily loaded with harvested sugar cane; women mixing straw with cow dung to make 'patties' to dry for fuel or building material; cutting slabs from rock quarries; families living in shelters along very busy roads made with everything from rusted metal sheets to tarps to straw; people taking care of bodily functions in full view of anyone passing by anywhere; trash piles for cows, pigs, dogs to eat through; plastic trash everywhere; smoggy cities; blue sky in the mountains; ancient holy sites; poverty in the extreme; apparent chaotic traffic situations that mysteriously work as drivers of all sorts of vehicles, animals, and pedestrians work in concert to move everyone/thing safely through mazes of obstacles; and in the midst of all this, people smiling and waving as strangers pass by.
More will be added as thoughts, memories, impressions, and details emerge through the jet-lagged fog that is my brain at this point. As mentioned in an earlier post, there was just no time for blogging on this trip and limited, consistent internet access was not available. All in all, it was the 'trip-of-a-lifetime' experience and as 'they' say - There is no place like home.
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