Adventure and Excitement to the Very End

Yesterday, at sunset, we bathed in the holy waters surrounding the Golden Temple, and shorty after we got out, a large sand storm engulfed Amaritsar and the Holy Temple. The golden building shined brightly in the midst of the dark whirlwind of sand and looked incredible. We went bus-hopping that night, looking for a way to Delhi, and ended up on our first AC bus of the trip. AC sucks. Way too cold - I'll take the budget sleeper bus over AC anyday, thank you very much. Then, at 5 AM, the bus driver somehow managed to run the bus off the road into a ditch, so we all had to get out, luggage and all, and flag down a public transport bus, which we somehow managed to squeeze into. Only in India (actually, once in Panama something similar happened, where one of the tires on this big bus we were riding almost 10 hours through the countryside from a remote village where I had been volunteering for a month, popped. We had to inch slowly on the bare rim to the closest service station, adding a few more hours to the trip).

We're in Delhi now, waiting to head to the airport for our flights back home and it's raining very very hard. We really lucked out that it didnt rain much at all during our trip - once in the desert, and once in Darjeeling, but thats it. We're lucky with a lot of things. THis trip has been amazing. I'm sad to leave here, but very happy that I will be seeing my family and friends back home for a few days at least.