You fly into Delhi at three in the morning on a charter flight of crazy drunk Uzbeks from Tashkent. The airport, that is, what little you can see of it, is swathed in a dense, poisonous fog. A stray black and yellow rickshaw passes in front of the glassed in building, pauses indecisively, then flees.

You have nowhere to go. No room, not taxi, nothing. Its best to just hide somewhere out of sight until dawn. You crouch behind a row of chairs, hugging your pack to your chest. A trio of Indian soldiers armed with sten guns stroll by and you crouch a little lower. A smoldering bidi falls at your feet. Uninterested they turn away, their steps echoing across the marbled hall. Finally you sleep.

The dawn brings more horror. A leaden sky barely obsures the outlines of a crumbling urban area to the south. New Delhi, as it is now called, as opposed to the old Delhi of Babur and the desert caliphates. Now one wonders why thy came at all. Bored, you go downstairs. A desolate city bus tears around a corner of the transportation dock. Smoking, downshifting through terrible gears, it stops and in a flash is mobbed by panicky Indians. Perhaps it is best, you think, to just hang back to avoid the pushing and shoving. You will get into town eventually, don't you worry about that.

Waving, the bus driver calls out to you. "Please be coming!" The open door beckons. With a surely resignation the tide of perspiring men compacts and you push you way aboard. Plainly it is time to go.

To me this is the essence of travel. Not a sanitized package tour to Cabo but a full-on assault on the senses. Traveling isn't a vacation, oftentimes it isn't even 'fun'. Instead it is an intense examination of what it means to be human.
Instead of taking the taxi one takes the bus, and in doing so questions of rank and privilege arise. Who are these people? Dressed in cheap clothing, packed into antiquated buses and trains without a shred of human dignity, this is how a greater proportion of the world lives. In the end one is forced to ask: 'shall i accept my shared humanity or shall I stand apart? This is the crux of it all.

Certainly there are as many ways of perceiving the world as there are individuals in it, and I can hardly recommend my way as being superior. Yet I can attest that an expensive 'multi-sport adventure' followed by a trip to the spa doesn't increase ones knowledge of the world; it only increases the wealth of a limited amount of corporations and the glossy adventure magazines that feed off of them. Traveling, when done alone or with a friend, is tiring, dirty, humiliating, exhilarating, and ultimately liberating.

On November 1st, 2006, my partner and I are departing for a year adventure. On our first stop we will take the pulse of Germany by visiting friends and family in Heidelberg, Berlin, Koln and Goerlitz. Goerlitz?

We fly into Bangkok in early December. Initially we will visit the beaches of western Thailand to chart their recovery from the tsunami. Evidently our favorite spot on the northwestern coast fared well. Hopefully we can bump into some sea gypsies to get their feelings on post-tunami politics. When our Thai visa expires we will journey to Laos to experience the exquisite slow motion torture of the Laotian public transit system. Si Pon Don (the Four Thousand Islands), Vientienne (where we will write about the pleasures of late-night street stands), and Luang Prabang are amongst a few of the destinations we will visit in 'the land of a million elephants.'

In early April we will cross into China and make our way through Kunming to northwestern Yunan. We hope to follow in Joseph Rock's footsteps and attempt a circumambulation of the 6,500m peak Kawra Karpo. Without a map, a working knowledge of Chinese or a description of the passes it is hard to say exactly how that journey will end up.

From northwestern Yunan we will travel by bus to the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, to Kham, where we will circumambulate the sacred lake, Yilung Latso before traversing passes and gorges to visit a number of different monasteries. By now it should be June, the start of the monsoon. We will return to Bangkok and fly to New Delhi. Withen Days, we will be in the foothills of the Himalayas at Manali. In short order we will visit the tribal areas of Kinnaur and Spiti, on the Tibetan border, before beginning a long series of treks through the Himalayas to Zanskar and Ladakh.

While in Ladakh we will return to Nubra to explore the eastern Karakoram, including the 7,500m monster Saser Kangri. In September we will attempt a challenging crossing of the Himalayas via the Umasi La fro Zanskar to the Kristiwar area of Kashir. Everyone is invited to participatae with us, either physically or in the virtual realm!

As the Tibetans would say, 'Ki Ki So So Lag Sa Lo!' May the deities of the high places accept our offerings, and may all beings be happy and at peace.