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2003-12-29 - Anwar (Day 260)

It is amazing how personal something like this website becomes. I feel as if one of the most important last things I must complete is tying up the loose ends on the site. Somehow, it just will not do to leave anything undone. Unfortunately there are still things there simply will not be time to fix, a couple of articles I want to write - the most important of which is on Kashmir which is getting a very unjust wrap in the media, but the compulsion to complete is there. It also amazes me how big the site has become with 6,000 files, more then 2,000 photos and taking up 65 Megs of space. Perhaps I have become a packrat, but I think this is more likely to be the direction that future diaries will take - multimedia collections that really bring home the story of what the writer saw, not just the hardbound words of yester-year. As with all "advances", there is much that is lost and I wonder if the reality of a travelogue such as this will diminish the "imagination" one had, reading tales of far off places and make the whole world seem just like a far less professionally presented National Geographic channel. A couple of times on this trip I had a feeling of Déjà vu not because I had been some place but because I had seen it on television. Once or twice I was also happier with the TV version then the reality - now is that not that depressing!

I am only a couple of hours from Delhi and as this hotel is so comfortable and a hot shower has become such a luxury to me, I am staying put until the last day then I will take the last Onwalkabout ride out of Rajasthan direct to Delhi.

[Foreshadowing - I have done the near impossible in riding 12,000 kilometers on Indian roads without a single flat tire. Considering I left my foot pump in Delhi, I probably cannot even comprehend how lucky I was not to be stuck alone in the middle of nowhere with all my luggage and a crippled Mule. HOWEVER, I have one last road to go... I have been thinking for a week that if the God's really have a sense of humor, if there was to be a flat tire, tomorrow is the day. Since there is not an open seat out of Delhi for the next two weeks, if I miss my plane...well, the God's do love to play with us mortals! ]

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