India – The Post-mortem, March 9

Hello all:

Okay, the results of the survey are in… and the answers can be unveiled to those questions that have puzzled you for the last 6 weeks!

1. Yes, my favorite ballplayer of the last month is named Rickey Henderson, HOF
2. Yes, my favorite animal to get a blessing from is an elephant (even though much cow dung was spread on my forehead)
3. Yes, you should always take a supply of cipro on a trip like this
4. While some of you would go to India, only two of you said you would take this trip,
5. Yes, Fred Holtby was a great high school English teacher
6. Yes, on a third world trip, It is a great idea to have one of your tour members be any kind of doctor
7. All of you would like MHB to come along on your trips
8. Most of you think Bob Dylan is not only the greatest artist since Shakespeare, he is the greatest artist ever
9. Many of you were kind enough to offer mild encouragement to get blog updates from Berlin and Copenhagen this summer
10. Nope, no editor will be hired to trim the blog before the postings are posted
11. Yes, more (not a lot more) pictures are welcome

Hmmmmm…here’s my disconnect: we’ve been chatting up the trip (especially after the fog of jet-lag lifted), watched the PBS Story of India series, did a bit more reading on India, and I have become more and more enamored of the experience, recommending it to all, getting more enthusiastic the more we talk about it.

Why is that? I think it’s a combination of
- my natural curiosity and growing realization of how little I really understood of what we saw,
- the fascination and joy in seeing spectacular (ancient) art in situ
- a bit of the “roughing it” style of the trip, staying in less than 5 star hotels, eating locally at times, visiting houses and villages with locals (not guides)
- realizing I could survive on an almost fat-free and alcohol-free diet (ok, not so much joy in the latter!),
- maybe my expectations were low and thus my “emotional” association with the trip was more likely to be positive,
- the issues with being sick faded as time passed,
- and, lastly, wasn’t it great that we pushed Slumdog over the top, who knew that we’d be soooooooo au courant!!

Farvel, Auf Wiedersehen and Namasté, Ralph