It's raining .. so time to go

Got the visa, got the plane ticket, the money, and tomorrow's the day... we've had sun all summer in Vancouver. Now it's getting cold and I've heard that it is somewhere around 36 Celcius in New Delhi. So I'm going to have summer all over again.

Wow, I don't know what to say. Everything's arranged that can be arranged from this side. The rest is all a big adventure.

I expect the next time I will get to update my blog will be in Kathmandu on Monday (which would be Sunday for all you in North America since I cross the dateline). But I may be able to post from the airport in Hong Kong. That is, if I'm not spending all my time lusting after all the cheap personal electronics that I've told are a bargain in Hong Kong.

Just about every hotel in India now has Internet access. And bank machines. My bank says I can access money from ATM's in major cities in India using my Canadian bank card. And I will be likely be getting a cell phone when I get there .. airtime and cell phones are quite cheap and very useful for getting around.

So, I leave tomorrow, fly direct to Hong Kong, stay for four hours or so, get on another plane and fly to Delhi. I arrive at, like, 2:05 AM. I was really nervous a bout that .. I have been told that landing at Indira Ghandi international airport in the middle of the night after too little sleep is like entering another dimension. So I am really, really happy that the brother in law of a friend is going to be meeting me at the airport and taking me back to his family's home to spend the night. I tell you, it is so wonderful to have friends (and friends of friends) to help out. It all makes everything go so much smoother.

I have some jitters, of course. And sometimes I even have mild (and not so mild) panic attacks. So this is really good. Builds up my resistance and toughens me up. To put things in perspective, I remind myself that there are many places in the world where I have travelled. Like major American cities, which I think are among some of the most dangerous places in the world.

Case in point. See the picture of me at the top of this post? I took it in the train station in Seattle. The same train station where I arrived last week, expecting to find my friend to meet me. She wasn't there, it was 10:30 pm and they were locking the station. I tried to call her, she wasn't home (despite my having left a message with her the night before and, I thought, confirming my visit), so I was left standing on a very dark curb in a city where you don't want to be standing on a curb in the middle of the night. So, though I felt a bit panicky (a lot, actually), I hopped a cab and went to sit in a hotel lobby while I made repeated phone calls to my friend. Who eventually picked up the phone and we all lived happily ever after.

Having never been there, I can't say that Delhi is going to be a harder place to negotiate than other places I've been, but the U.S. is no picnic and I've been all over the continent successfully. So I think I am up for this.

All for now, gotta fold the laundry, pack my backpack and do other things to occupy my time. More later.