Well, back home and swimming in the ole routine again. Getting our body clocks reset only took a couple of days; really wasn’t too bad. Getting our heads reset will take a good bit longer.

I don’t want to ramble on and bore everyone with new-found insights and worldviews, but I did think I would bookend this incredible journey I/we have just enjoyed.

First off, I apologize for my use of so many superlatives in these blog posts. I worked hard to not do so, but what I/we were seeing was so spectacular (see !!) I couldn’t find any better way to communicate it. Also, superlatives and emotional sharings are a second language to me, so I really didn’t have a choice.

Back at home, talking to friends, family, and the odd bank teller I find that there were some impressions that resonated deeply with me.

At every place we stopped probably the biggest impression was the IMMENSE gap between the classes. I am not talking lower class to middle, or middle to upper class – this is straight out have’s and have not’s. It’s the difference between people who crap in a hole and sleep next to that hole and the people who wonder why their beds weren’t turned down (with accompanying chocolates) before 9 PM.

In the vein of total honesty, I was fortunate to travel the world on this trip worrying about that turn-down service and hot water bottles at the foot of my bed. But, that instilled in me an awareness of what I was able to have/do versus the multitudes around me who would most likely never have anything like those opportunities.

Next observation, and this one big-time took me by surprise, was the amount of pollution in our beautiful world. This is from the slums of India and Kathmandu to the glory of the Great Barrier Reef and the regime of communist Tibet. Trash is everywhere and it seems to be growing – and winning. Plastic shopping bags seem to be the western lifestyle gold standard of trash and destruction to our planet. Not even the Chinese government could control it in the sheer beauty of Tibet and true home of the Dahlia Lama.

Ok, great observations – now what to do with them. To be honest, I am not sure. In speaking with one of my siblings we pondered this topic. He has spent a lot of time living around the world, a lot in SE Asia, and has seen the same. Like me, he has no answers but recognizes the huge potential impact of each. Not sure if there is a quick fix out there, as the have’s like what they have and aren’t ready to give it up, and in many countries (yes, India I am taking to you) there are institutional barriers in place that propagate the continuance of this gap.

In some ways I feel like a teenager railing against the oppression of the older generation, with no idea of what I am talking about or what the stakes are, but wanting answers ! But hey, railing like a teenager is an approach of youth and I like anything that makes me feel young, stupid, and bulletproof again !

There is enough of that blind bitching-without-answers out there in the world today, and generally when people do choose to address these issues they seem to devolve into violence and unintelligible rantings about whatever issue resonates with them that particular day.

So here is the final analysis – I had the time of my life at every stop. I soaked it all in like a bus-station wino. I rolled around in it like a dog in mud. With a 757 of luck I might get the chance to come even close to doing something like this again. Seeing it from the vantage point we did I now know, and vastly appreciate, the life I have, and understand, just a little bit more, the life of those who don’t. That has to ultimately account for good – doesn’t it ?