This time next month, I'll be 7,392 miles around the other side of the planet... India! Since many of you aren't on Facebook, I've decided to create a blog - so if you'd like to follow my journey, here it is!

Long in the planning, no doubt this trek will shape a consequential shift in my world. Absence of the familiar has way of doing that. I endeavor to shed expectations, to disassemble pre-conceived notions, to arrive with fresh eyes, a blank page to be filled with a new story. Still, my imagination wanders & wonders....

Will the food be as different from the 'Indian' food I love in Philadelphia as Tex Mex is from campesino? Will the people be welcoming, or find tourists annoying? Will the taj m'hal be as big a let-down as the sistine chapel was? Memories surface: will it be like that time in....

...ah, those roadside meals on the expedition to Noikolo-Koba. Spine challenging hours of rhythmic jostling over washboard clay carried us south-east from Dakar, 'till the dashboard of our Russian jeep fell into the lap of our driver, DjibeeSoe. Oh, you should know that this jeep, once a solid servant of long and rugged travel, was, by the time we bought it for $500, held together with packing tape - inside and out! Headlights were a distant memory, seats more hollows than padding, and windows spiderwebbs of cracks.

The road ran on forever, cleaving plains of barren desert punctuated by infrequent baobab trees, those dwelling place of the ancestors. From time to time, the horizon disclosed a distant burp. As we droned on, the burp grew in size and shape until it revealed itself to be a lean-to. Grinding to a stop, we gave in to tantalizing smells of a cook-fire, roasting meat & onions wrapped in cones of dampened newspaper nestled in glowing wood and ash. Do not ask what meat...

So, if you'd like to tag along, sign up for the blog. I can't promise how often or how much I'll be able to post - who knows what I'll find in the way of cyber cafes, but I do promise to record my experience, and share when I can!