Just hit American soil… After thirty sleepless hours standing in airport security lines, being an anonymous face in the blur of eastern travelers and wayfarers… single Indian mothers and their daughters traveling West, grandmothers in saris wearing golden earings and bengals on their wrists… young Thais heading home after study abroad programs, Malaysians, Pakistanis, Saudis, South Koreans, Chinese… Then the spread changes not suddenly, but subtly… The color of the skin that wears the suit become a different color, the families change in the colors and patterns of clothing, style, how they wear their hair. But, in essence they are the same… the noise, the bustling, florescent lights and carpet. Windows so tall that you yearn to walk through the glass and into the foreign landscape beyond the barbed wire and armed chaos that buffers all airports… and into a new place, less sterile, and with new flavors of people to meet…

I was hoping to blog one more time before I left India but when winding things down they inevitably speed up… and alas, my blog follows my life. Thankfully, not the other way around.

But, I do enjoy keeping one, and after a solid 15 hours of sleep and a sweetly bitter IPA, here I am.

And although I am here, I am unsure of how to bring my experience in India to a close… it will take a bit more time and thought… I still have to do some processing and writing about my experiences traveling with Nelson in Kashmir. I have done some writing, but it needs to filled in, not to mention the the 11 gigs of photos I need to  further screen and process (I had taken 40).

But, here are a few I just pulled off the camera…

Royal Enfield on our second to last day up in Ladakh – Khardung la pass, 18,630′.

Cityscape of Gurgaon district in New Delhi the afternoon before my flight home. (from the balcony I could count 16 cranes constructing high-rises).

Me and all my worldly possessions upon arrival at my uncles house in Michigan…

And as for wrapping up the India trip, it will have to wait until I can do a post on my experiences in Kashmir. As that was one of the most interesting places I visited, wrapping up my thoughts on India wouldn’t be complete without those blogs.

Cheers and til’ then,

Alex