20 years ago today – Day 312

Thursday, January 9th – New Delhi I have an airline ticket home, leaving from Bombay (Mumbai) on February 14th! Wow, I had not realized how exciting this would be. I remember being this excited when I bought my ticket to Lisbon from Toronto in mid-February a year ago, and now it seems ironic that I would be just as excited to reverse the process. I have chosen to spend $300 extra to fly over the Pacific on Swiss Air to Hong Kong and from there on Air Canada to Taipei and then Vancouver, where I'll stop over for two weeks to visit with my good friends Bill and Lee and my sister Linda. This means I will have circumnavigated the globe. Amazing! Steve Dynes, my manager in the Research and Information Section of the City of Toronto Planning Department, questioned whether taking a whole year off would be too much traveling for me. I wasn't sure, but the thought of returning to Toronto early, having to stay through a bleak winter in windy, icy Malton by the Toronto International Airport with my parents for a few months until I could move back into my sublet home, was so disheartening that I was determined to make this work. I have suffered at many times on the trip and wasted away to 125 lbs (57 kg) but I have almost made it.

I headed out into the city streets in my new Indian garb this morning. They feel so right in this climate, both warm and airy enough to feel comfortable. I am sure I look like a demented tourist dressing in anachronistic clothing - the locals mostly wears jeans and T-shirts. There is actually a huge variety of clothing and ethnicities on the street here. I really enjoy it. It feels cosmopolitan, in a very Asian way. No one stares at me like I do not belong here.

So I made my way back to Connaught Circle around 10 am and spent the next hour and a half researching prices and talking over options. Now that I have my ticket in hand I am heading west to the famous market district called Pahar Ganj on Main Bazaar Rd north-west of Connaught Circle. The street is crowded with pedestrian shoppers and vegetable, fruit and retail clothing stalls with six to eight floor buildings on either side. Rickshaws, wagons, cars and bicycles inch their way along the crowded corridors. I wonder why they even bother trying as it must take them a half hour to go a block. There is nothing I want to buy but it is fascinating to just to watch the flow of humanity. People seem happy here and many greeted me warmly. I can see why people stay in India for prolonged visits. At 3 pm, I meet Frank at a tea house between Connaught Circle and the tourist camp where we are staying. He has been checking out bike shops and shopping for his ticket home too. He will stay in India a few days in Mumbai after I leave, then fly home to see Eric and his family. He plans to go skiing in the Alps and might even try scuba diving below some alpine ice again. I haven't told him yet but he is my superhero. I haven't told him I am gay either. Perhaps he has figured it out. He never tries to talk about women with me. If he does know, he is clearly OK with it. On the chance he isn't OK with it I want to leave it unspoken, at least for now. He is wonderful company, warm and protective of me, and I wouldn't want to lose that. Tracy Chapman is playing on the stereo at the tea house. She is singing "You can say 'Baby'..." Frank is trying to explain something to me but he has forgotten the word. 'I don't know what to say...' he starts, and I chime in "'You can say 'Baby...' and we have a good laugh over this. We have such a good time together I wish he lived in the same part of the world so we could stay close friends when we return home. At least I can enjoy his company for now. I have started taking the malaria medicine again with the expectation that if there are not mosquitoes in south Rajasthan then there will be in Mumbai or Goa. This is the third time I have started taking them, which is highly discouraged, but the side effects for taking the medicine for an extended period aren’t something I want either – problems for the liver and hair loss, etc. I hope I am not fucking up my system too much. PHOTO 1: washing day PHOTO 2: getting your wires crossed PHOTO 3: street scene PHOTO 4: PHOTO 5: PHOTO 6: