In fact our last two days in Leh were just a bit boring. It is hard for me to write that. Can you believe it? Such a strange, beautiful place, and I was bored! But I was. Leh is not a real big city, and there isn't an infinite variety of things to do and see there. Also I was now focusing all my thoughts on leaving India, and these last two days seemed anticlimatic. But I was really looking forward to seeing Leh Palace; Scot had promised to take us up there, and that sounded like fun.

Our original trek plan had included a tour of monasteries to take place on Friday morning. If we had been able to follow that plan, we would have just arrived in Leh from our long trek on Thursday. We wouldn't have seen any monasteries, or perhaps we would have seen Lamayuru at the end of the trek. We were to have been exposed to monasteries with a morning trip to two or three major gompas in the area. Since we had visited a few monasteries by now, we weren't bursting with enthusiasm to see many more. Scot assured us though that Hemis, about twenty kilometers from Leh, was well worth a visit, and all of us but Colleen decided to go. Colleen had seen enough monasteries and was more interested in resting her knee. Unfortunately, when Friday came around, my innards were again acting up fiercely, and that morning at breakfast I told Scot that I wouldn't be going. He was a bit irritated with me, because our original number had been only one more than the number allowed by law to ride in one jeep, and he had had to hire two jeeps; now that I was backing out, the group could all legally go in one jeep, but two jeeps were coming. I was sorry, but I wasn't going. The others made plans to meet at the jeeps.

I enjoyed a quiet morning spent sitting in the courtyard in the shade of an umbrella and reading. Colleen and I shared a late morning beer and some talk; we were very surprised to see our companions walk in, hours before they were due to return. The road to Hemis had been blocked by a landslide! As Rob said, it was typical of that part of India that the only way to find out that the road was blocked, was to drive out and see for yourself.

Since this hotel was so close to downtown, it seemed an ideal opportunity to go shopping. Rob and I walked the few blocks to town after lunch. Things were quiet; it was Friday, and since many of the businesses were run by Moslem Kashmiris, many doors were closed. One exception was a little grocery store where we purchased some cashews. The cashews we ate in India were the best cashews I have ever eaten anywhere; maybe they were the only food worthy to accompany that delicious apple juice! Back in Kashmir we had bought little plastic packages of cashews in small villages to snack on while traveling. In this store they had a great big bin of cashews, and we asked for a half pound (they were expensive). I remembered the warnings about eating only boiled or packaged or sterilized food, and here we were buying cashews from an open bin. No idea how many flies had walked over those cashews...but I also believed that I couldn't get much sicker than I was already (maybe I was wrong, but that's how I felt), so what the heck! It gave me a moment's pause when some of the nuts fell from the scoop onto the floor and the man just picked them up and threw them in with the others, but I shrugged it off. And though I was sick for the remaining days we spent in India, and didn't feel better until after we got to Great Britain, it didn't seem that those cashews made me any sicker than I was already. They were delicious!

We had both been impressed by the tankas we saw at Stok Palace. I remembered my friend Dennis from Ithaca, who had spent three years living and teaching in Nepal, telling me before I left about painted pictures I ought to look for. I hadn't completely understood what he meant at the time, but now I realized he probably had been referring to tankas. Rob decided he might want a tanka for himself, so we went shopping. A few stores were open, and we found one in a rather obscure spot, up a flight of stairs on the second floor of a building. The proprietor was happy to see us, made us welcome, and took out a chest full of his stock of tankas. We spent at least an hour admiring his wares. There were so many beautiful ones! There is a law that antiquities cannot be exported from Ladakh; greedy foreigners have already depleted the stock of treasures of the Ladakhi people, so the government passed some strong laws to stop the leakage. Whatever we bought in Ladakh must be able to pass inspection at the airport. The shirts were of course no problem, but tankas were a different story, and would be scrutinized closely. The salesman explained that these tankas were painted especially for tourist consumption. He showed us the various seals and marks on each tanka that told a knowledgeable person where it had been painted. We learned the difference between stone colors (much superior) and regular paints. Our visit to his store was very educational. I think he had a hard time understanding when Rob told him that his wares were beautiful, but we wanted to keep looking; Rob promised that we would be back on Saturday to let him know if we wanted a tanka from him, or not. I don't think he believed us; he probably thought we were handing him a line of Western malarky.

I think it was Friday night that we chose to go out to dinner together at the Dreamland Cafe. Scot promised to try to procure a pitcher of chung to drink with the meal, as a special treat for us. Rob and I had noticed a chung seller in the street during the day. She was an older woman, carrying a big old fuel can filled with chung. Presumably she had brewed the stuff; people who wanted to buy some would pay her and produce a vessel for her to fill. Our chung showed up at the table in an equally elegant container - a dirty opaque whitish rectangular plastic thing. No telling what that plastic used to hold, but now it held chung. It was good! I liked it better than the chung we had had from the horsemen. Either it really was better stuff, or else the taste was growing on me.

We had an unexpected guest at dinner. A man came into the cafe, hailed Scot and joined us at our table. He was young, with reddish close-cropped hair and freckles, tall, and extremely muscular; he looked like a gymnast grown to the size of a linebacker. And he had a bone to pick with Scot. We offered him chung and listened to his story.

This fellow was a bicyclist. He liked to bicycle in the mountains, in places like India and Nepal, over the kind of trails that most of us walk on. He and a friend from the States were thinking of opening a company like Mountain Travel, perhaps based in Leh or in Nepal, that would offer adventure-filled bicycling excursions in the mountains. In fact the two of them had bicycled to Everest base camp, and had been filmed by a television crew shooting a special about Everest that was aired in the United States early this year.

This bicyclist had bumped into Scot months before, and over a glass of chung they had discussed the potential for bicycling in northern India. Scot had suggested a particular trail in the Himalayas as one that had a lot of potential, and the bicyclist had tried it out. Well, as I keep mentioning, the weather in Northern India was strange that year, and the poor fellow had had a hell of a time. He had spent much of his time carrying his bicycle through deep mud. Passes that were supposed to be open had been closed; he had gone over them with ice climbing equipment, his bicycle strapped to his back. He had forded rivers in flood, and coped with the desertion of porters. Someone stole his air pump. Then, the last straw was laid on his back. After weeks of struggle he reached the highway to Leh. At last! Seventy miles of paved road and enjoyable bicycling lay before him. His tire promptly went flat. With no air pump, he had no way to reinflate the tire. He was forced to hitch a ride, and he spent the only good bicycling miles of his journey riding in a powered vehicle.

He was more than a bit peeved with Scot, but Scot managed to jolly him into good spirits again. I was very impressed with his toughness. He had had quite an adventure! To him, though, it was commonplace. He seemed to lead an amazing life. Unfortunately he wouldn't accept our offer of dinner, because he was late for an appointment elsewhere in Leh. His story interested us all.

The next day, Saturday, all the stores were open again. We looked at tankas in several stores without finding anything we liked nearly as well as what we had seen in the first store on Friday. We were about to go back when we tried a tiny little shop, the place where Nat had bought her embroidered shirt before we went trekking. As all shops did, this one had a selection of tankas, rolled up like scrolls inside the protective cloths sewn to each one. This shop didn't have the large selection that the first shop did - no one else seemed to have such a large selection - but the ones he had were nice, and the prices were better. After some thought, and of course some bargaining, Rob bought a Life of the Dali Lama tanka for himself. He was very pleased with it. I, of course, was envious; I would have given anything to have a tanka for myself! I find them fascinating. Rob wanted to pay for the tanka with Visa; that was fine, but we would have to wait for a minute. One minute stretched into several; the fellow offered us tea, obviously nervous that we would run out of patience and leave without completing the purchase. Finally the little machine arrived. Several stores shared one Visa account! I'll bet that isn't strictly what the Visa people have in mind.

Before returning to the hotel, we had to keep our word and go tell the owner of the original shop that we had bought a tanka elsewhere. We walked down the street, to find that another man was on the sidewalk trying to entice passersby up the stairs and into the shop. We asked him to tell the fellow upstairs that we would not buy one of his tankas. The man tried his best to convince us back into the store. He appeared not to understand that we had been there yesterday, and just wanted him to deliver a message. I think he was pretending not to understand, in the hope of convincing us to climb the stairs again, perhaps to buy something. He seemed to understand English fairly well, until we told him we wouldn't be buying one of his tankas; then his ability to understand us seemed to vanish, though his ability to speak English remained. We finally got disgusted with his importunities and walked away.

Saturday, our last day in Leh, was the day Scot had promised to take us all to see the great ruined castle above the town. In the afternoon we all set out; the oldest section of Leh, through which we walked, was a real maze of narrow streets and houses. Scot just kept going uphill, and after a while we got beyond the houses and found ourselves on a path leading up to the castle. The climb was not long, but the hill was steep, and the path switchbacked across the hill to make the grade easier. Mary, still very run down from her recent illness, had to walk quite slowly; Rob, thoughtful as usual, walked with her for much of the way to keep her company. The rest of us forged ahead behind Scot.

Leh Palace had been largely destroyed in the Dogra Invasion of 1834. Frequently monasteries and large buildings looked to us as though they had been casualities of WWII, with crumbling walls and faded ornaments, but this palace was really destroyed. We had to pay a small admission fee to a junior monk waiting at the foot of a ladder up into the castle proper. Rob and I were with Colleen at that point, and for some reason the junior monk gave her a very hard time. Rob went first and paid for all three of us; he and I were on our way up the ladder when we realized that the boy wouldn't let Colleen pass. It was never clear what the problem was; perhaps he was a little brat! It certainly seemed that way, since he wanted her to pay a second time. We urged her to ignore him and come on - he had been paid, after all, and she was a lot bigger than he was! - and eventually she did so.

Leh Palace must have at least a hundred rooms; I don't think any are totally intact any more. The construction is basically a wood frame above a stone foundation, with adobe walls. Holes in the floor make the palace a danger to the unwary. Little is left any more of the decorations that once adorned the structure; the contents vanished long ago, and all that remains is a lonely ruin, still imposing in its size, but with its glories long gone. The view was great from the roof, though. For the first time we got a clear view of the layout of the town of Leh. We had been confused because the streets twist around and some are very narrow, but now we got a feeling for the total picture. We could see our hotel. We also had a clear view of the air strip, and could see how the runway sloped, and how a passage had been blasted through the middle of a low hill to create the runway. I never tired of the beauty of blue sky, green fields and brown mountains crowned with snow, and we had a splendid view of them from the palace. What a wonderful place it must have been in its heyday! Its present state of dangerous decay was sad. There wasn't much to see there; we could have wandered from one empty, ruined room to another for hours, but they were all the same.

We left the palace and continued walking, up to the monastery that crowned the hill. We walked all around it and knocked on the doors, but no one came to let us in; Scot guessed that it was probably too late in the afternoon, and they were no longer accepting visitors. We took a last look at the view, and headed down the hill.

That night was rather a sad one. Our last night in Leh, it was also the last night of our adventure; tomorrow we would fly back to Delhi (weather permitting!), and all too soon we would be taking different paths, our lives separating again.

Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny, cloudless and nearly windless, an answer to our prayers. Ashraf and the staff left early that morning on their bus back to Srinagar. The night before we had conceived the idea of seeing them off by bringing them tea before they left, the way Indrapol had so often brought us our tea in the morning. I woke up in time for the ceremony on Sunday morning, but I stayed in bed and didn't get up. I hate goodbyes; I couldn't face saying goodbye to those guys. I preferred to let them think I didn't care enough to get up to see them off, if that was the conclusion they drew from my absence.

Our plane was scheduled to leave at 11:05 A.M. We knew there would be a thorough search of all baggage at the airport, so we wanted to be there early. Scot had arranged for jeeps to pick us up at 9:00 A.M. We all had brought things for the trek that we hadn't used, and we filled bags with items to leave for the local hospital. Somewhat lightened, we zipped our duffels and piled them in the lobby.

The airport was close to town; it only took us a few minutes to get there from the hotel. "Airport" probably conveys an idea of a much more elaborate structure than what exists. The "terminal building" was a quonset hut; even at this early hour it was hot inside, and it soon filled with people waiting for the baggage check to begin. I thought for a while I would faint; the air was so still, hot and thick, that I felt I couldn't breathe. We heaped our duffels together in a big pile and stood around them. We had not too long to wait before the inspectors came to do their job, and the mass of people began to stir.

We weren't far from the scale and the inspection desk. Because we were traveling as a group, our luggage could be weighed all together, and the total weight was divided by the number in our party (seven) to decide if we were overweight. Thank goodness, our weight was all right! Next step was inspection. I was first. I unlocked the padlock on my duffel and a man began feeling around inside. I got the feeling he was looking only for certain things; he didn't take anything out, and he was quickly finished. Then I had to zip the duffel up again! That was quite a job, since I had packed my duffel as full as I possibly could to take the strain off of Rob's duffel, which had to be tied together. I feared (remembering Bombay) that the inspectors here might be nasty, or inefficient, or something. But this man was very nice. He helped me by holding the sides of my overloaded duffel together while I managed to struggle the zipper closed and lock the padlock. Then I was free to join the next line, where carry-on baggage and passports would be inspected.

I had a bit of a wait in that queue. I watched the other members of my party at the first inspection station. I felt sorry for Rob, and for the inspector who had to look at his duffel; it was really a bother to untie the rope and tie it up again. Belatedly, I wondered if the distinctive aura of mule around my duffel had anything to do with the celerity with which it was examined!

When it came my turn to have my carry-on luggage inspected, I walked up to a table and faced a pleasant-faced, middle aged man. I opened my pack and started taking things out. Unfortunately for him, my pack was very full, and he had a lot to look at. This time we had been smart - our Swiss Army knives were in our duffels, and now safely through inspection. Most of the things in my pack he passed over without interest. My rocks caught his eye though; I had gathered a nice collection while trekking, and I explained to him that they were for my father in the United States. He seemed dubious about letting them through, for some reason, so I told him about how my father likes to work with wood and natural things and would really enjoy these rocks, would maybe make something with them, how my father would really love the mountains and India, how India was such a great place...mindless chatter can be valuable in certain situations. People get so bored that they will do anything to stop the flow of words! This man gave up on the rocks and returned them to me. The next thing he examined was a little flashlight that I had. It was shaped like a fat pen, and the light came on when one end was twisted. He seemed to think it looked dangerous; another inspector came over, and they were giving me threatening looks as I twisted the stupid thing. It took an uncomfortably long time before it lighted up, but once they saw what it was (they didn't understand English well enough to understand my explanation) they relaxed and smiled, and I was allowed to put my things back into my pack, go through the body check, and sit down in the waiting area.

Everyone came through the inspection with flying colors. We all found seats and relaxed; I felt as though I was about to be released from prison, not because I was so anxious to leave Ladakh, but because I had been so worried about the flight; it was a wonderful feeling to be so close. We waited mostly in silence; I was lost in my thoughts, memories of the trek so nearly done and thoughts of the trip still ahead. Perhaps the others were thinking similar thoughts. The flight was delayed by a bit, but not by much, and the time came soon enough to walk across the airstrip and board the 737, piloted, of course, by Sikhs. It seemed that they took forever with whatever procedures they had to go through, but eventually the doors were closed, the engines revved, and the pilot floored the accelerator. He needed all the speed he could get from those engines to take off at that altitude, in the heat, and I've never been on a commercial flight that picked up speed so quickly. It was fun, like being in a giant drag racing vehicle. The plane leaped into the air and we were airborne, on the first leg of our journey home.

The flight from Leh to Srinagar is without question the most spectacular flight I have ever been on. Words (my words, at least) could never adequately describe how splendid the Himalayan range looks from the air. It resembles an ocean of whitecaps, with every whitecap another peak. There were no friendly green valleys to be seen between these mountains; just a sea of white peaks and grim black rock. Truly breathtaking. According to the map, we should have seen Nun, Kun and K2, the second highest mountain in the world, but we didn't pick those individuals out. We couldn't miss the distinctive shape of Nanga Parbat, though, and it was a thrill to see her. Our Nikon camera was packed away in Rob's duffel, because we'd had absolutely no more room in our carry-on luggage, so we took out the little Olympus that has taken so many good pictures for us in the past. Much to our dismay, the shutter was sticking! I think that was the only time the Olympus gave us trouble, but what a time to pick. It did take a few pictures, but without a UV filter the colors appear washed out. We didn't have a lot of time for pictures, because in 45 minutes we were circling to land at Srinagar airport.

Srinagar felt like an old friend to me now. Unfortunately we didn't have time to go into town and say goodbye to the now familiar sights; we had just enough time to go through inspection and board the plane for Delhi.

Inspection went without incident, or so I thought, but after we settled in for the flight to Delhi I learned that Nat had had a little excitement. She was really angry, and after I heard what had happened I certainly didn't blame her. The woman inspecting her luggage picked up a pen and said something like, "For me!" Nat responded with "Oh, no its not! That's my pen!" but her protest did no good. The woman would not give back the pen, and although of course the loss of a pen was not important, the principle of the thing was irritating her. A similar thing had happened to Rob when an inspector noticed his packet of Pepto-Bismol tablets. Rob explained that they were for upset stomach, rubbing his midsection to illustrate. The inspector responded by rubbing his own stomach and asserting that he had troubles, too! He kept the pills. Rob found it amusing, rather than irritating. Scot of course had the last word on how to deal with those situations. When the inspector appropriated something (I think that was a pen also) from Scot's things, and told Scot he couldn't have it back, Scot's response was an emphatic "bullshit!" as he snatched the pen out of the inspector's hand and walked through the gate.

Scot had more confidence in himself in that part of the world than we did, and he knew what was customary, and what was not. He explained to us that India has a perfectly good legal system; I got the impression that the system works, India isn't like some other countries where the interpretation of the law depends on the mood of the person you confront. It was against Indian law for those inspectors to appropriate things from our luggage. But most tourists were too unsure to stick up for themselves; most people, like Nat, are at least a little afraid of getting on the wrong side of someone in authority in a strange country. So inspectors can take a small thing now and then, and get away with it. But if someone sticks up for his rights, as Scot did, the law is on the tourist's side and the inspector will back down. I remembered Scot's words a few hours later, when I found myself in a situation where suddenly they applied to me.

When we reached Delhi we were met by a Mercury Travel representative who had rented a bus to take us and our belongings to the Oberoi. It was hot and muggy in the big city; what a change from Leh! We piled into the bus, our duffels were tied on top, and away we sped, back to the good old Oberoi for our last night in Delhi.

The Oberoi really seemed like the epitome of civilization to me, as I looked around the lobby while we were waiting for our room assignments and keys. I looked outside, and noticed that our Sikh bus driver was unloading our duffels from the top of the bus. His method was simple; he picked them up and threw them to the ground. He was working quickly, and I didn't think quickly enough. I saw Rob's duffel sail through the air and hit the ground. It took a minute to register - he shouldn't be throwing our duffels down like that! I mentioned it to Rob. Rob went outside and spoke to the driver, who began handing the baggage to his assistant on the ground, instead of throwing everything. But it was too late; the damage was done. When we got up to our room and began to unpack, Rob found that his Nikon camera had been broken. Actually the body belonged to his mother, who had lent it to him for the trip; the telephoto lens that was on the camera at the time was Rob's. We assume it was the impact of the fall to the driveway that snapped the lens from the body. The camera would be useless for the rest of the trip, and it wasn't clear whether it was salvageable or a total loss.

Rob takes setbacks better than anyone I have ever known, but this was a hard one to take calmly. He immediately told Scot, and the Mercury Travel people, who chastised the bus driver, and I suppose put a scare into him - but the camera was worth a lot more money than he could afford to pay. The management of the Oberoi (totally blameless in the accident, of course) were profusely apologetic and offered to give Rob any documentation he might need for his insurance company. Scot felt bad, and said he would write a letter explaining what happened. Mercury Travel felt bad, too. But Rob felt worse; because that was his mother's camera, and also because we were leaving in a few hours for Great Britain, and we wouldn't have our good camera there. In fact, when we got to Great Britain, the fact that we didn't have that camera put a crimp in our desire to take photographs; we took very few.

The bags we had left in Delhi were delivered to our room, and it was great to be able to put on different clothes from the ones we had been wearing all month. Almost a whole month! We had left Delhi on July 6, and today was July 31. It was strange to be at the Oberoi again. We were excited about leaving; most of us had been obsessed with thoughts of food that was unobtainable in India, like pizza! I tried not to get too excited about pizza yet (or Mexican food) because I thought it might be hard to find those treats in London, but I could get very worked up at the thought of a simple hamburger, too!

In the few hours that remained, we had a lot of repacking to do. Scot vanished into his room; he was meeting a new group of trekkers in Delhi the next day, and he had paper work to complete between treks. We all planned to meet for dinner in one of the Oberoi's dining rooms. Scot told us the head chef made a special dish that had been highly recommended to him, and since no one really had the energy to go out for dinner, we decided to dine there at the Oberoi.

We who were leaving had early flights to catch. Our flight was at 5:10 A.M.; Mary and Ann were leaving on the same flight, and would travel with us to Frankfurt where they would catch another flight for Iowa, and we would continue on to Heathrow. We needed to leave for the airport before 4:00 A.M., so we would have a very short night. Colleen was also headed for London, but with a different airline, and her flight left an hour before ours. Nat could relax; she was staying on in Delhi for a few days before returning to Brazilia, and she had offered to help Scot greet the trekkers and brief them, an offer that Scot gratefully accepted.

At dinner that night, everyone looked strange to me in fancy clothes. The mood was pensive. Already the trek had ended; although everyone was still in India for a few hours yet, our thoughts were turning to the future, away from India and one another. We talked about the trek, once again going over the reasons for its failure, and assuring Scot that although things had not gone as planned, it had been a memorable experience nevertheless. Mary called it "wonderful". I couldn't go quite that far; I really regretted missing Zanskar. Visiting Ladakh had given me a feeling for what Zanskar was probably like, and I will always wish we had been able to see it. Our trip was certainly interesting, and vastly educational, but not complete without Zanskar. Scot promised to do whatever he could to help us receive some sort of rebate from Mountain Travel for our disappointment.

The restaurant no longer prepared the dish Scot had heard of, but after he described it, the chef offered to give it a try. It was one of the best meals we had in India. Talk turned to concerns we had left behind - Ann's boyfriend back in Iowa, Mary's hopes to do her Ph.D. thesis on people in rural India or Nepal. Colleen, Rob and I planned to get together in London; Colleen had only one evening free before she began another trip around Europe. Nat made tentative plans to meet Scot in Nepal for Christmas. He told us that Christmas is a wonderful time to be in Nepal. The weather is great, the celebrations are fun, and few foreigners visit the country at that time of year. Rob and I were excited about seeing Great Britain; I was looking forward to seeing my friend Kathy. I was also sad to be leaving India. We had seen so much - but so little of what there is to see. And suddenly a month seemed like a very short time.

After dinner Scot invited us up to his room for a last drink of rum together. Rob didn't want to go, as it was late and he thought we should finish our packing and get some rest, but I couldn't bear to break up the group just yet. Up we went; Rob joined everyone for a few minutes. There wasn't much left to say. Scot promised to get up early enough the next morning to say goodbye to us before we left for the airport. I wouldn't be seeing Colleen again until London, and I gave her a big hug. I expected to see the others in the morning, but gave Scot a big hug anyway. My throat felt tight, and I was glad to put off the other goodbyes.

Monday morning we were up before 3:00 A.M. When we entered the lobby we saw Mary and Ann waiting with Nat. Colleen, of course, was already at the airport. Nat looked amazingly fresh and rested. She got up just to say goodbye, and I was touched. Scot was sleeping, so the hug last night was the real goodbye, after all; I was glad to be spared another parting. Nat saw us off with best wishes, and we left for the airport.

We had a while to wait, and Ann, Mary and I sat down and watched the people while Rob changed our remaining rupees (not a large item!) into pounds and shillings. That was exciting! The beginning of a new adventure, though this one wasn't quite done with yet. There was a group of Westerners dressed like hippies, complete with small children, sleeping on blankets on the floor. One fellow really amused Mary and me, and we could hardly keep from roaring aloud with laughter. He was Indian, but didn't look Indian at all; he looked exactly like a Chicano biker. His pants were very tight and black, and he swaggered past on tall, high heeled black leather boots. His shirt was tight too, but unfortunately for his image, he had quite a pot belly. I suppose he thought he looked irresistible!

Time came for the last passport check and inspection. There were two men inspecting passports, and two lines; Mary and I got into one line, Rob and Ann into another. I was in front of Mary, and handed the man my passport first. He looked at the passport, looked at me, then scowled, threw the passport back at me, and reached past me to take Mary's passport. Surprised, she handed it to him, he glanced at it, stamped it, gave it back to her, and she was free to go. I pushed my passport back at him again; he batted it out of the way, and reached for a whole bundle of passports being proffered by someone who was probably a travel agent, taking care of this for several clients. Ann and Rob had already gone through their line, and Mary softly suggested I might want to try the other inspector. No way! I was getting angry. I remembered Scot's words about how some people might try to push tourists around, but only if they thought they could get away with it, and I didn't believe this inspector had any legal reason to refuse to let me through. I knew my papers were all in order, so I asked him again to look at my passport. He gave me a black scowl. If looks could kill, I wouldn't be writing this now! I noticed an official looking person standing not far away, so I raised my voice and called to him. I explained, loudly, that the man was refusing to check me through. The official was solicitous and obviously told the inspector to stop the nonsense; the man took my passport, and though he was as nasty as he could possibly be about it, he completed the formalities and I was allowed through. Then and now, I can't imagine what he disliked so much about me. Perhaps it was something as trivial as the way I was dressed (I was wearing one of our embroidered Ladakhi shirts). Who knows?

Then there was nothing left to see or do. Our flight was delayed, the waiting was uncomfortable and we were impatient, but after an hour or so we were allowed to board the Pan Am 747. Before long the plane began to move, and soon we were airborne, headed West toward all the things I had been missing. I was looking forward to London. In Great Britain we could expect interesting sights, good times, and hamburgers! We would also find our health taking a dramatic turn for the better. It would be fun to drive on the "wrong" side of smoothly paved, two-lane roads, see the Tower of London, and hear our own tongue spoken everywhere. But we were leaving magic behind in India.