Appropriate, perhaps, that I wrote the first draft of this post en route from Washington to Brussels a few weeks ago. Appropriate too that this is the time of year to count one’s blessings and give thanks, because that is what this entry is all about.

I traveled alone, but at every point I was met with vivid reminders that no one is an island. My trip would quite literally not have been possible without the generosity, effort, and thoughtfulness of dozens of people, many of whom I do not actually know and will never see this blog.

But many I do know and do tune in, and so here is a non-exhaustive list of those due my heart-felt gratitude and thanks for an extraordinary year:

Everyone who hosted and guided me through strange lands and, in the process, let me experience exotic travel destinations as something much more personal – namely, their home. From Deb in Cairo (and her friends in turn, especially Amr and Anne), to Ebru, Arzu, and Ismet in Istanbul, to Hardi and Ping Ping in China, to Connor in Nepal, to Howard in Australia, my trip was immeasurably enriched by their local knowledge and frankly over-the-top hospitality.

All of this was even more extraordinary because (with the exception of Howard, who I had not seen for more than a decade) I had never met any of my hosts before. And so I would also like to thank everyone who made the effort to connect me with their local friends. I never would have met Deb without Joe, or Ebru and Arzu without Melinda, or Connor without Liz and Kayla. It was a wonderful reminder that I am part of a vibrant, living world-wide web of amazing people.

At the beginning of my travels my roommate Jen gave me a notebook in which I could capture other people’s travel advice. This turned out to be a brilliant idea and was a frequently-consulted reference. Thanks to all who gave such great and prescient tips, especially Omri, who rightly recommended (among other things) traveling third class on the Trans-Siberian railroad, Adam and Justina, who prompted me to stop off in Datong as a day trip between Mongolia and Beijing, and Jen herself, whose extensive knowledge of Australia gave me my “cheat sheet” for that country.

Thanks too to my memorable travel companions, from Katie in Egypt to Dave, Liz, JP, and Dana in Turkey, to James and Sarah in Russia, to Rebecca and Melissa in China, to Chiara in Nepal and Roreigh in Australia . . . and dozens more that I do not have room to mention. They helped me process, laugh, and on one memorable occasion, quite literally figure out north from south.

It is far too simplistic to say that people are the same the world over – culture, history, and economics shapes lives and worldviews in fundamental ways – but good instincts are everywhere. I was astonished and humbled by the number of strangers who, knowing nothing about me other than that I was not from around there, stopped and offered assistance. This despite not knowing my language – in one town in China three people drew a map in the dirt – and perhaps not approving of my country’s politics or understanding my decision to travel alone as a single female. I hope that everyone who reads this blog will stop to help the next person they see puzzling over a map on a street corner.

And now we get to the truly unnamed: the engineers and laborers who built the roads and rails that I journeyed along. The Trans-Siberian Railroad, the Friendship Highway, the Great Ocean Road, and many other routes that I traveled cover remote and difficult terrain. As I saw first-hand during my harrowing descent out of Tibet, the men and women who work on these roads struggle against the elements, the landscape, and the equipment. Few of these frontier-breaking positions were – or are – highly-paid, nor ones of societal esteem, but without them my trip would not have been possible.

There were days when the urge to find an English-language movie channel and just park it threatened to overcome me, and nights when I realized I was on my sixth hour of trying to upload photos via a miserable internet connection. At times like this, knowing that there was an audience out there kept me grounded and inspired me to keep exploring . . . and to find the time to record my adventures! Thanks so much to everyone who read my blog, especially the ones who let me know it – your notes of encouragement meant more than I can tell you.

A particular shout-out goes to my Dad, who, in addition to connecting me with Howard in Australia, revealed himself to be a scrupulous proofreader. I found myself expecting an email from him reporting typos and requesting factual clarifications within a half an hour of a post going up – no small feat given that it this seemed to happen no matter what the time zone! Thanks, Dad.

As readers of this blog will know, there was one person who filled more roles than any other. He was both a host and a travel companion, helped me to find friendly guides in foreign cities and to track down just the right gear, and was a pretty great cheerleader to boot. Even when he wasn’t physically with me, the trip would not have been what it was without him.

Sebastian was also an astute and trustworthy editor (he saw and commented on many posts before they hit this blog), a research and logistics consultant, a translator, a negotiator (I was not allowed to talk with the Moroccan police), and, at certain key moments, the voice of reason. All this while staying on top of his own frenzied existence – whether on a Blackberry in a taxi, in a hotel room at a conference, or on his laptop at a friend's house, Seb was a wonderful, if often absent, partner in crime. Given that my decision to do this trip made a complicated, long-distance relationship even more complicated and even more long-distance, his unflagging support was nothing short of extraordinary.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Sebastian.

There is a final acknowledgement that was not in my original conception of this post but without which it could not be complete. To my friends who got me through the last few months, thank you. You made me laugh when I doubted it possible, made me feel sane when I was sure I was not, fed me when I needed it, and through it all reminded me that as impressive as the world is, it pales next to the awesome and simple power of friendship.

And, last, to the extent that it is appropriate to dedicate a travel blog, this blog is dedicated to my Grandma Joan. It was she who taught me that life is the adventure that you make of it, infected me with her yen to “be where the action is,” and showed me what a wonderful story can come from taking a few chances.

Perhaps more importantly, it was also my Grandmother who came to me as I labored on her front porch on “vacation” a few years ago, computer on my lap and legal texts all around, looked me square in the eye, and said: “You need to get a life.”

I’m working on it, Grandma.

“It’s been a tumultuous two months,” I apologized. (Two months?? My trip finished more than two MONTHS ago??)

I paused to consider that statement.

“Actually,” I acknowledged, “it’s been a heck of a year.”

Which is the best I can offer for why I find myself only now reconnecting with many good friends who are full of questions about the last seven . . . eight . . . nine . . . or so . . . months of my life.

The temptation to simply direct all inquiries to this blog is there, of course, but so too is the concern that if I start talking I might not stop – and that in my enthusiasm I might end up knocking a few wine glasses out of hands or ornaments off of trees.

And so I thought that a few lists might be helpful for both the faithful reader and uninitiated to summarize and reflect on the whole round-the-world experience. Consider it your cocktail party cheat sheet.

But if you’re buying and have the time, rest assured that I expand at length!

You mean there’s more? Blog entries that I never quite got around to writing (or, in some cases, posting):

1. Travel experiences that you can only have while wearing an “I *heart* Tulsa” T-shirt. (Tulsa natives may – or may not – be gratified to hear that many of the unfamiliar assumed it was a town in Italy.)

2. Pay no attention to that woman behind the curtain! Or, um, her computer. Also know as adventures in trying to maintain a blog while traveling around the world (including an explanation for why I was able to post so many more pictures in the latter half of my trip – thanks, Melissa!).

3. The role of women in the countries I visited (I found it nearly impossible to do justice to this topic in the format of a travel blog; I may still post something).

4. I Really Wonder how the Beijing Olympics are Going to Go Over, and its companion piece, Body Fluids and Places I’ve seen them Expelled.

5. The Art of the One-Handed Photo, or Oops, Let’s Try that Again.

In case your itinerary isn't full enough . . . Places that never made it into the blog but that you should check out if you’re ever in the neighborhood:

1. Morocco – Todra Gorge. You can hike away from the tourist hordes in mere minutes, and wow the colors.

2. Egypt – the White Desert and surrounding oases . Camping out in them will bring you face-to-face with the original desert fox.

3. Turkey – the Cistern and Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. Bring a map for the Grand Bazaar and try to catch a concert in the amazing acoustics of the Cistern.

4. Russia – the Tretyakov Gallery of Russian Art in Moscow. Those Ruskies could paint!

5. Australia – the Yarra Valley, a collection of wineries only an hour or two from Melbourne. Careful with the drinking and driving and bring willpower or you will power some very heavy luggage home!

Don’t leave home without . . . Five items that anyone planning a similar trip should at least strongly consider bringing:

1. An ExStream water filter-purifier bottle;

2. Quick-dry clothing (yes, underwear too);

3. A Blackberry or similar device giving you remote access to your email for a flat fee;

4. A sturdy notebook in which you can write down travel advice from people you meet on the road; and

5. A flash drive or, if you’re without a computer, a USB cable to get your pictures onto a computer. (Travel tip: Scan copies of your passport and other important travel documents as pdf files and keep copies of them on a password-protected flash drive or memory card.)

Another five things that most people will be glad they packed (including one that I did not!):

1. An extra camera battery (and, if you don’t have a computer with you, extra memory cards);

2. Zip-lock bags;

3. A mug or cup – particularly for the Trans-Siberian and Australian hostels, where hot water is plentiful but drinkware may not be;

4. A headlamp; and

5. A solar charger (if cars are in your itinerary, a car charger for your electronics is also a good idea).

Hmm, I am actually realizing that I could make this list a few times over – US currency in small denominations! A red foam clown’s nose! A collapsible duffle! A daypack! Utensils! Perhaps I should hire myself out as a personal packing consultant.

Or perhaps you should be sitting down with a tall drink in hand before you raise the subject.

If you can’t find me in person and are truly are dying to hear me wax on further about my travels, I am also available online to discuss any of these topics. For the insatiable, I can even cover issues such as:

1. The two items (barring, mercifully, various medications) that I carried around the world and never used,

2. My thoughts on backpacks versus duffels versus wheeled luggage,

3. Traveling solo, traveling as an American, or traveling as a solo American female,

4. What countries I would recommend you visit, and, of course,

5. Where I’m headed next.

It is, after all, a wide world.

Despite prognostications to the contrary (hi, Mom and Dad) it all went according to plan – but ooof, what a plan! I consumed five airline meals in a row, moved from a three-hour flight to a nine-hour flight to a thirteen-hour flight to two more three-hour flights with little hassle but increasing effort, sampled innumerable duty-free face creams and perfumes, saw a few decent movies – over and over again – and really began to worry when I found myself cruising the titles in the self-help section of an airport bookstore.

The worst thing that happened en route was losing one of my luggage straps on the last leg of the trip (mercifully, the six bottles of wine inside remained unscathed). The best thing was the American Airlines agent who took pity on my glazed stare and gave me a full row to myself on my last two flights, just enough room to go horizontal and really sleep.

And then I was . . . home. It was the middle of the day, so I took the metro bus into town and caught a taxi from its terminus. I somehow had exactly the right amount of US currency left for the transactions.

I turned from paying the fare to see a familiar figuring tugging my luggage towards my front door: my octogenarian neighbor, Mr. Clark. He is the unofficial mayor of my block, and over the years, as I’ve become the senior resident in my house, we’ve struck up a good friendship, from the early days of his ringing our doorbell and presenting me with a hardware store bag – “I bought you some weed killer, you owe me $2.99” – to running over to let me know when a legal parking space opened up – “You still driving that car?” – to this past February when, despite the cold and dark and a recent operation, he insisted on helping me, as I wheezed with bronchitis, dig my car out of the ice so that I could move clothes into storage.

“That’s too heavy!” I protested.

“I’m just carrying it to the steps!” he shot back, a familiar retort from dozens of similar conversations.

We grinned at each other.

“So you have fun?” he wanted to know.

And I found that the last several months could be summed up quite simply: “Yes.”

He smiled. “Well good. I think they’ve been cleaning in there. I told them the boss was coming back!”

I laughed. Wow, I was home. And the strangest thing was how normal it all seemed.

Except for the fact that all of my belongings were still packed away, and I had about 24 hours to re-pack for my brother’s wedding. If there was ever a master plan to how everything was stashed – I vaguely recall that there was – I had definitely forgotten it. As a series of friends trooped through to count my fingers and toes and offer moral support, I strewed my room with bags and boxes in search for . . .

“Black strappy sandals, maybe I left them in Brussels?”

“This makes no sense, I have the toothbrush CHARGER, but where’s the toothbrush?”

“No, that’s my old jewelry, where’s the stuff I actually wear?”

“Pantyhose! Where would I have put pantyhose?”

Thank goodness I had the dress for the wedding made in China. For a wild moment, I considered going to Boston with the same luggage, same clothes I had worn the last five months. At least then I would know what my options were . . .

But, with a little help from my friends, I persevered. I packed. I got my hair cut. I scrubbed my bathroom. Jolina left her newborn baby with her family to drive me to the airport.

I was on my way to Boston.

Sebastian landed almost two hours before me. Our friend Rocky had volunteered to pick us both up. They dropped Seb’s bags in the North End and returned in plenty of time to meet me. So much time, in fact, that a beer seemed in order. The bar was right by the arrivals gate, they told themselves. And they would pay right away.

When Rocky checked his cell phone, there were already two messages from me, standing on the curb outside. They called back immediately.

“You’re at a bar? I’m coming up!”

“No, we just paid, we’re coming down!”

The last several times that we’ve met in airports, Sebastian has moved quickly past me, scanning the crowd over my head with anticipation. I have had to call his name at increasing decibels in order to get his attention, usually attracting a few sympathetic looks – “Oh, she thinks that man knows her!” – and once I actually had to follow him.

But this time, he hailed me. I turned.

Of all the homecomings the last few weeks have offered, this was the most anticipated. And, with apologies to everyone else, it was the best.

That night we joined Rocky, his girlfriend Maryrose, and my old friends Adam and Steve for dinner and drinks in Beacon Hill. It was like old times, with everyone talking over each other excitedly and private heart-to-hearts on the side. Except, of course, for the jet lag and the weekend craziness ahead for Sebastian and me, which prevented the evening from descending into full-blown madness.

And then it was the next day and we were through our North End Italian breakfast and Cambridge Oxford Spa lunch (for old times’ sake – and with Alexa!) and had picked up games for the wedding reception – my recently-PhD’d brother was desperate to track down Connect Four – and were arriving at his new apartment, where preparations for the rehearsal dinner/barbeque that night were in full swing.

I am not sure it is possible to do justice to the wedding of one’s brother in the tail end of an around-the-world travel blog. I am certainly not going to try. I will say simply this: from weather to venue to caterers, it was about as perfect an event as one could hope, and the beams on my brother and his new wife’s faces in the photos are they way you are supposed to look on your wedding day.

My own role was largely peripheral. Sebastian and I took all the cars to be washed, outside and in. At the rehearsal dinner, I mixed drinks, chatted with the father of the bride, and later in the evening hoisted a few beers at a “noche de los jovenes” at John Harvard’s. The next day, I got ready for the ceremony in a hotel room amid a host of giggling cousins, and my sisters and I distributed programs at the church in a jokey, return-to-sibling-rivalry fashion (I may have yelled “Uno!” at one point).

At the reception, I helped arrange centerpieces and lined up dutifully for pictures (“Shoulders back! Toe out!”), chatted with family and friends (“So, what are you doing next?”), and danced with Sebastian and as many cousins as I could get my hands on.

I found myself among many faithful blog readers, who both startled and tickled me with how familiar they were with my trip. (“Remember those bathrooms in Tibet?” “I still can’t get over that ice canyon!”)

The next day, after the post-wedding brunch, Seb and I drove to my grandmother’s farmhouse in the Pocono Mountains. Of this house too I will write little, except to say that to the extent a family’s spirit rests in a physical location, for my extended family, it is here. And maybe that is why it is, despite all that I have seen, still my favorite place.

My aunt and uncle were waiting for our arrival with ribs warming in the oven and a fire crackling in the fireplace (thanks, Aunt Pat and Uncle Bob!). Over the next few days, Seb and I walked through the woods and down to the lake, picked apples, watched deer and turkey gather on the lawn, and let my grandmother spoil us with breakfast fry-ups, chocolate pudding, grilled steaks, and cocktails, in return for which we tried to offer crossword puzzle assistance.

Then it was time to visit the “other” lakehouse in my life, which also has a secure place in my heart -- my parents’ home on Smith Mountain Lake. It is here that I had left my car and packed and re-packed the weekend before I departed for Morocco.

Now, I had a dozen friends driving down from DC for the weekend to welcome me back and bid farewell to summer. They did so in style, with beers in the sun, water skiing and wake-boarding on remarkably calm waters, croquet matches on the lawn, and, best of all, a series of gourmet meals that they planned and Seb and I shopped for ahead of time.

The low-level urgency I had felt in Australia wasn’t there, but time sped on nevertheless. On Sunday, I sadly drove Sebastian to the Roanoke Airport and returned to find guests climbing out of the water and packing up their cars. The glorious adventure – at least, what I had planned so far – was over.

I had decided to stay at the lake for a few extra days. That stretched out to almost a week. After months of a peripatetic existence, sleeping in the same bed, awaking to blue skies, lapping waters and a relatively small to-do list was too enticing to leave. It brought to mind my first few weeks in Brussels in February, where despite what had seemed an inert existence, the plan had slowly come together.

But if I had come full circle, what came next?

There was only one way to find out. On Saturday evening I loaded up the Maxima and headed to DC. I had a birthday party and a baby shower, not to mention a bachelorette party and concert and some serious unpacking on my agenda.

And after that . . .

My travels are not quite over; a day after I touch down in DC I take off again for Boston and my brother’s wedding. Sebastian will meet me there, and we have an east coast road trip planned for the following week. I am hoping it will help ease the re-entry process.

I spent my last day in Australia packing, throwing things out, and (for those who didn’t notice) updating my blog. Palm Cove was a lovely spot in which to do it – a broad curving beach extending from a line of trees, which itself backs into a small esplanade catering to vacationers of all nationalities. The water is amazingly warm – several degrees warmer than the Whitsundays, eight or so hours to the south – and the surf, which rushes and recedes like a bedtime CD, surprisingly gentle.

In the afternoon I checked a final item off my list and rented a kayak on the beach. The guy from whom I rented them was super-friendly. It was low tide now, he told me, but it would be rising by the time I got back.

For an hour I cruised along the coast, relishing the push-pull that propelled me forward. I counted down and realized that I could tell you where I had been every Monday going back 22 weeks, my last day of work. I wondered where future Mondays would find me.

And when the tide turned, I turned too, and headed back to shore.

Every breath was a bubbly mixture of salt water and oxygen. I hadn’t been scuba diving much, but I knew that this was not normal. I gestured to my dive instructor and made the “something’s wrong” sign while pointing at my mouth. He swam over, fished around my side, and held up my back-up regulator.

I would have to remove one regulator and clear the other in order to use it. I had practiced this holding onto a ladder, but now we were 35 feet below the surface.

I took the one breathing apparatus from my mouth, moved the other into place, and blew forcefully. Pure air flowed in as I sucked in a breath. I nodded and gave the “OK” sign.

Now it was time to swim through a cave.

My “last hurrah” in Australia was an oft-recommended sailing trip in the Whitsundays, a collection of islands between Hervey Bay and Cairns (they were named by Captain Cook on guess which day).

There are dozens of choices of cruises, but I knew what category I wanted, and the travel agent in Sydney was only too happy to upgrade me to it: a Maxi, or a racing sailboat. The Whitsundays are one of the few places in the world where they can retire in some kind of style, fitted out with kitchens and bunks and heads for tourists who want the thrill of cruising at a 45-degree tilt and the satisfaction of hoisting the sails themselves.

There were just a few problems: it poured the two days I was driving up to my departure point in Airlie Beach, the forecast wasn’t great, and a couple I met while watching for platypus (and we saw two! In water and out! And yes, I talked like this the whole time!) laughingly told me that maxis are “party boats.” (I have had many occasions to ponder where I fall among the traditional holiday modifiers “couple,” “family,” and “party,” but am no closer to an answer. I am still holding out for “considerate and interesting.”)

Oh, and my boat was cancelled.

Given my tight schedule, this was an issue. The proposed solution was to leave one day later, which was theoretically doable but would cost me a day in Palm Cove, a town just north of Cairns where a family friend had offered me his apartment for a few nights.

I reached Airlie Beach shortly before the sailing company was closing up shop and stopped by to learn more about the alternate boat.

And darn if I wasn’t upsold again. My two-day trip had been cancelled, but there was a three-day one spanning the same days (but leaving considerably earlier and returning considerably later) that I could get on. This one included a free dive. And it was on the Matador, the largest Maxi ever built, designed by NASA scientists, and two-time world racing champion.

Seize the day. Sure, I could leave in 12 hours. Did they want cash or credit?

It was with some trepidation that I approached the meeting point at the harbor the next morning. The weather was cool and there had been an early morning spritz. But what I really wanted to know was whether this was another, well, Spin the Bottle crowd.

The fifteen other passengers weren’t giving anything away this early in the morning. The crew arrived, distributed wet suits, collected our shoes, and ushered us onto the boat. Our skipper, Pete (who with his sunglasses on looks startling like a Baltimore-based uncle of mine), gave us a laid-back welcome talk. Erin, the hostess, found everyone a bunk.

Next came a safety briefing from Sean, the deckhand, followed by an introduction to scuba diving from Tom, the dive master. Their easy patter got the smiles they were aiming for.

“We say man overboard because women don’t usually fall overboard! (beat) It’s kinda hard to when they’re down in the galley!”

“If you get a cramp or are too tired, this gesture means ‘come pick me up!’ It will only work on this boat, NOT in the clubs in Airlie Beach!”

By the time lunch came around – roast chicken and salad! – I had begun to chat with the other passengers. And so help me, they were . . . considerate and interesting!

Sean and Mike were two Canadians who were finishing up their law degrees in – my jaw dropped –Surfer’s Paradise (and in a program that lasts two rather than the normal three years); they were traveling with Sean’s sister, Alex, who had just finished a month of volunteer work in the Philippines. Ben, Guido, and Dorothee were all German, each traveling alone and each with a good story (Ben also had the bunk over me, and patiently tolerated my accidentally kneeing him each night). David had just left his job of 11 years in California and was decompressing big time. Roreigh (“Rory”) was at the end of a two-year work visa and is spending three months in Asia before heading home to the Yukon Territory. Rob had taken a year off before beginning university in England and startled me with his trenchant analysis of US politics.

Best yet, Charles and Sara, a Kiwi/Aussi couple who met in London, quietly got engaged halfway through the trip!

The weather cleared, though the wind (and water) stayed cool. The first night, a dolphin swam alongside the boat. I missed it, but saw the sea turtles, stingrays, and some kind of shark the next day when we stopped by “one of the most beautiful beaches in the world,” Whitehaven Beach. The sand is more than 95% silica – this is where they got the sand to make the Hubble telescope – and is a great jewelry and skin polish.

On our way to the beach – boats must land in a separate cove – Tom pointed out the local ant, which has a bright green backside.

“The natives used to crush the tail and make a drink out of it, because it’s high in vitamins,” he explained. “But you can just lick the tail to see – it’s really sour!”

Ants turn out to be quite slippery devils when you’re trying to lick them.

“That was kind of scratchy,” I said at one point, exclaiming a moment later, “Oh no, I licked his HEAD, not his tail! I need another!”

And when I finally licked the right bit . . . insta-pucker, talk about sour!

But at least I’m prepared for being shipwrecked in the Whitsundays.

There were a ton of fish too, both deep when we went diving – I sprung for an extra dive, hey, it was the Great Barrier Reef – and near the surface on snorkeling days. And birds – on our last morning, Tom and Pete attracted an eagle (and the somewhat less noble seagull) with raw meat.

But what we were all on the lookout for was whales.

“Which way should we look?” I asked eagerly.

“They’re generally in the water,” Sean responded helpfully.

But he dropped all pretense of cool when a huge sound came from behind me the last morning.

“There ARE whales in these water!” he bellowed, pointing, “and they’re THERE!” We whirled in time to see the aftersplash of a full breach – whale horizontal to the water – and scurried for our cameras. It was a mother and calf, and we followed them from a distance until they swam right under our boat and headed away from us.

And finally, we were out of our wet suits, our last lunch had been eaten, our luggage was packed and stowed, and there were still several hours before we were due back. It was time to sail.

“The boat is designed to tip,” Pete explained patiently. “But it is NOT going to tip over.” And with these words we took our places on the “high side.”

For at least an hour we held to one tack, flying past other boats and cutting through the waves. Conversation stilled for a time as we exhilarated at the tilt and rush of the ship and sun in our faces.

“It’s times like this that I think I must have done something right,” I offered up finally.

And a chorus of voices agreed.

I was staring at my second flat tire in five days.

(There were other ways to think about this, of course: second flat tire in a decade . . . a flat tire in each car I had rented in Australia . . . two tires down, two to go . . . but really I was thinking, “But this just happened Wednesday!”).

I had left the Blue Mountains five days earlier on my way to Hervey Bay, from where I would leave for Fraser Island. The first tire went a few hours outside of Newcastle, my destination for the night, as I went through an intersection. (I still don’t know what happened; the car swerved, I pulled over and beheld one spectacular flat).

I was shaken, but some very nice people helped me get back on the road and gave me directions for a handy shortcut. Even better, Thrifty had me on my way with a new tire far more quickly than I expected the next morning.

I stopped for the night in the quirky, scenic town of Bellingen, and left the next day with time to explore the lighthouse walk in Byron Bay, Australia’s “Surf City” and make it to Hervey Bay before the reception closed for the night.

And a good thing too; I had to be checked out by 6:30 the next morning for my “camping safari” to Fraser Island. It had sounded ideal: a four-wheel drive vehicle, camping gear, maps, permits, and ferry passage included, all we had to do was pack some groceries and figure out where we wanted to go for three days. We would be two groups of nine, each in a 10-passenger jeep; I was looking forward to being a passenger for a while.

A mandatory briefing emphasized where everything could go wrong, with graphic video footage: cars flipped on the beach, snarling dingoes, EMTs showing up (eventually) in helicopters. The guy who walked us through the process of loading up the jeeps had his own tales to tell; it seemed like every other sentence began, “Just a few weeks ago, a group . . .” with the ensuing morality tale covering everything from keeping the car in neutral while charging the batteries to not having sex on the hood.

He also reminded us that the penalty for an accident was more than twice as high for drivers between 21 and 25 as those over. As the top-heavy jeep – everything was loaded in the ceiling – swayed down the road towards the ferry I asked the guy driving how old he was.

“Twenty-one.”

“Oh. And you?” I turned to another potential driver.

“Twenty-two.”

I quickly established that I was the only driver over 25 in our group. Oh, well, it wasn’t like I hadn’t been the oldest in other groups I had traveled with. And everyone had paid attention and seemed nice enough.

But there is a difference to being the oldest in a group where an experienced guide is doing the driving and where you are expected to drive yourself on an all-sand island. Once we rolled off the ferry, conversation in the back of our vehicle trailed into tense silence as we fishtailed and rocked through sand and roots and flew over the speed limit. My backpack landed on my head; a bag of cereal flew out of an open window.

“Hey, this isn’t a race!” I yelled forward and did a mental double-take. Was that me, the adult voice of reason?

The two guys up front laughed and did not slow down.

It wasn’t that anyone was mean-spirited, and overall folks got along fine. In addition to long stretches of coast (with wrecks scenically dotting the shoreline), Fraser Island features a huge forest with trees reaching 200 feet and a myriad of crystal-clear lakes and streams. This leads to the bizarre phenomenon of turquoise blue waters surrounded by powdery white sand that reveal themselves to be freshwater when you dive in.

At some lakes we lazed, at one we played a chaotic version of dodge ball for hours, at another some people sledded down dunes into deep water below.

Our first night we camped in a cluster of trees just off the beach and dug into hamburgers and sausages. There were three schoolteachers in the other jeep who had an energetic, “let’s-play-a-game!” approach to group bonding. These consisted of drinking games that grew increasingly less complicated; I had already gone to bed by the time Spin the Bottle made an appearance.

On Fraser the surf doesn’t pound rhythmically so much as roar constantly. So when I asked jokingly the next morning if there had been any dingo encounters the night before, it was with no idea what was coming.

“You haven’t heard?” was the reply. “They got almost everything.”

“What?” I asked, unsure if this was a joke. “But . . . we put everything away . . .” This had been a highlight of the briefing and a topic of conversation the night before.

It was no joke; one of the guys had decided to sleep in the jeep and had moved a cooler outside to make room. The dingoes had cleared it out, including all of the meat for dinner and lunch and milk for breakfast.

The culprit looked shamefaced, but he did not offer to replace any of the groceries, even when we stopped at a store later that day. I had a flash of indignation about personal responsibility.

(Gulp, was that an adult reaction too?)

Because of the tides, we weren’t allowed on the beach until that afternoon. We decided to take a scenic tour inland for a few hours.

“I’m driving,” I announced, and made myself the lead car.

I wasn’t surprised when the driver of the second car eventually asked to move in front. “We want to go faster!”

I had opened my mouth to point out that we were going the speed limit when a chorus of voices from the back told him, “No!”

“This is so much better than yesterday!” was, to my gratification, the consensus.

This is not to say that we didn’t bump around and, on a few occasions, tilt wildly – traveling in tandem definitely provides entertainment for the passengers watching the other vehicle. But we made it to the last scenic viewpoint unscathed. I told the lads they could take over when we reached the beach.

It was somewhere on that final stretch that the back tire blew. No one felt it, but when we returned from photographing a shipwreck there was no missing it. Luckily, there was also no penalty so long as we brought the old tire back in patchable condition. (By the time we reached the ferry the next day, the other jeep had also blown a tire, leading to vivid but fortunately idle speculation about what we would have done if a third tire had gone.)

There were still more beaches and drinking games and even the odd substantive conversation before we reached the ferry back to the mainland the next day. It was all fun, but I was still left with the feeling for the first time in my travels that I was too old for the group.

And the crazy thing was: I was just fine with that.

I could feel myself, almost involuntarily, speeding up accordingly.

“So what have you seen in Canberra?” a woman asked me over breakfast my second morning there.

I rattled off a list:

• The National Library (free art show and internet!);

• The High Court (A strikingly modern building with three separate courtrooms; I wandered in without any metal detectors to stop me and a guard in each of the courtrooms was only too happy to answer my questions. And, to geek out for my lawyer friends for a minute: they have seven justices, who sit in panels of one, three or five depending on the kind of argument – only very important issues will get all seven – the mandatory retirement age is 70 thanks to one of the few successful constitutional amendments, and next week a sitting justice is retiring and his replacement is a woman, the first time in Australia’s history that two women will be sitting on the High Court at the same time. Oh, and the High Court is above their Supreme Court);

• The National Gallery (got a wonderful one-on-one free tour of Australian art);

• The Old Parliament (another great free tour, by someone who used to work in the offices; the system is closely aligned to the British system, but representation in the two houses is akin to the US system – the House of Representatives proportional, the Senate with six per state);

• Up ANZAC Parade at dusk (in an interesting bookend, there is actually a monument to Ataturk there – can you imagine us honoring an opposing general on the National Mall?);

• The National Capital Exhibition (which is all about Canberra’s history; it was only selected as the location of the future capital in 1908 and the winning city design – submitted by an American who had never been to Australia – not until years after that; the city is a must for modern architecture and urban planning buffs); and

• The annual winter market (complete with mulled wine – and hot doughnuts! – craft stalls, girls in faux-fur lined hoods, and discussions about what would make good Christmas presents; though I still give European mid-winter markets the edge)

“Wow,” she blinked, “That’s quite a lot!”

She had a point. Especially considering that I did most of it on foot. And the day after a 1,000 kilometer drive. “Well, I went to the visitor’s center first . . .” I tried to explain, but trailed off as I realized that I wasn’t really helping my case.

Instead I weakly volunteered that I was on my way to check out New Parliament before heading up to Sydney. (Another free tour, and wow – over 4,700 rooms, including a physiotherapist and post office, all managing to be wildly modern and traditional at once; the design – American again! – was selected unanimously from over 300 entries.)

I just couldn’t make myself stop. It was like I was late to a dinner party but still had to cruise every aisle at the supermarket to figure out what I wanted to bring. I wanted to see it all.

Sydney is a challenging city to enter in that state of mind. Fortunately, one of the things that everyone had told me to do there was “wander,” and it being a Sunday and a gorgeous day, I industriously ambled down to Sydney Harbor (Opera House! Bridge! Markets! Street performers!) and through the nearby old neighborhood The Rocks to cross Harbor Bridge at sunset.

The other items on my list covered a considerably more expansive territory, so my second day I got a travel pass and used it with a vengeance.

From Sydney Harbor and a visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art, I caught a ferry to Darling Harbor, which featured an outdoor exhibit of Earth from Above photos, then hopped the metro and bus down to Bondi Beach, where I walked the cliffs at sunset and watched surfers and fishers and boogie boarders take advantage of the considerable waves. I had just enough time to get back to Sydney Harbor, catch the ferry to Manly Beach for a quick exploration of its shops and esplanade, and return to King’s Cross in time to take advantage of a dinner special at a local pub. I dug in with a feeling of accomplishment.

As if hurling yourself against the waves can hold back the tide.

Now it was only two weeks to go, and I still had thousands of miles to cover and dozens of things that I wanted to see.

Two of those things were Fraser Island, the world’s largest sand island, and the Whitsundays, a collection of 74 islands along the southern edge of the Great Barrier Reef. So when I started passing travel agencies offering combo packages including camping on Fraser and sailing in the Whitsundays, I stopped and investigated.

It quickly became apparent that I had exactly enough time to do both trips on my way to Cairns – if I planned accordingly. Maybe giving my trip some structure wouldn’t be such a bad thing, I rationalized as I let myself be “upsold” by a travel agent.

But first I wanted to see the Blue Mountains, which lie just west of Sydney. My schedule had become a little too frenetic, and I decided to slow it down with a few days of hiking and scenery.

For more than an hour I sat with my soup, bread, and wine at the window watching Earth’s shadow obscure first a corner, then the entirety of the moon, leaving it a dark red ember in the sky. It stayed like that for several hours. It seemed, I reflected on my fourth or fifth trip to outside to check on it, that the moon had vanished forever.

But I knew that the Earth was still turning.

Of scenic viewpoints, local radio stations (but really, “Believe Me if All Your Endearing Young Charms?”), living out of one’s trunk (aka “boot”), unscheduled pit stops (hello, was that a winery?), idle chit-chat with viewpoint gazers, pouring over maps, and charting your own course.

And wildlife viewing! It hadn’t really registered that Australia is the home of more than 40 kinds of parrots, and the first time a red and green blur darted across the road I nearly did what we always expect my father to do when a hawk soars by. Likewise with the white/yellow blur of a cockatoo, screeching and diving like, well, a hawk.

But I still hadn’t seen my “Big Two.” Adam pointed me towards Tower Hill Nature Reserve (free!), conveniently located on my way up to the Grampians.

I stepped out of my car at a trailhead and stopped halfway through a stretch. There was – a koala! And . . . another one, moving! Oh, wait, it was climbing down the tree. Right, um, next to me. And, marsupial or no, its last name is still “bear.” I prudently stepped behind the car door and continued snapping pictures (on the theory, I suppose, that they do not go for ankles).

But: “Where are the kangaroos?” I asked a ranger.

“Eh, if you’re on your way to the Grampians, you’ll see plenty,” he assured me. “Probably dead alongside the road.”

Great. But less than 100 meters down the road, there was a whole family of them, alive and grazing. With their pointy faces and sizeable haunches, when their heads are down they look like ROUSes. When they stand upright and look at you, they are almost human – they even have a great side-bend-scratch-their-chest move that I think I’ve seen some recording artists do.

And when they hop, they’re like . . . a rat on a hippity hop? A vertical rabbit? Nah, too easy. You think you’ve seen every form of locomotion, and then a totally new one springs by. At high speed and en masse!

And the ranger was right. I got several more opportunities to observe kangaroos – and their smaller cousin, the wallaby – during my drive up to the Grampians, a mountainous region in the middle of Victoria.

Despite the cold and the recent fire that ravaged the park, I was glad that I came. For one thing, the park contains wonderful views and waterfalls as well as excellent Aboriginal cave drawings. And the couple running my cozy hostel (who reminded me a bit of a NC-based aunt and uncle of mine) turned out to be pretty interesting too.

Alan’s grandmother was a member of the “stolen generation,” a dark period in Australia’s history when Aboriginal children were literally snatched from their families and sent to work in white households in an attempt to “reprogram” them (this practice, which began in 1886, actually continued until 1969, two years after Aboriginals were finally granted the vote). The result was a generation that was accepted by neither culture – Alan’s grandfather (white) had to apply for special permission to marry her – and a hastening of the loss of 40,000 year-old heritage.

(The oldest skeletal remains found on Australia are actually 60,000 years old, but 40,000 is generally accepted as the age of the Aboriginal culture – the world’s longest-running human civilization, quite likely co-existing at one point with the pre-Ice Age “mega fauna,” or giant animals, which included carnivorous kangaroos, marsupial lions, and rhino-sized wombats.)

Nevertheless, until 1992 the legal fiction of terra nullius – that European settlers found Australia an uninhabited continent – was used to defend the settlement of tribal lands and the relocation and “re-education” of its Aboriginal people. In the space of only two hundred years much of the legacy of the several millennia has been lost, though there are efforts now, both public and private, to correct some of the errors of the past.

Stories like these raise obvious parallels with the United States, but while there certainly are similarities – not all proud ones – there are differences too. One is population density – “Oz” is roughly the size of the United States but has less than 10% the population – and another is age. We may be a young country, but theirs is almost absurdly so; almost half its modern history occurred within living memory.

But our histories are linked. Although the existence Australian continent appears to have been known for a while, possibly several centuries, it wasn’t until the American Revolution dried up England’s outlet for prisoners across the Atlantic that it turned its attention to the Pacific. The first fleet, with 700 convicts, only landed in Australia in January 1788.

And like America, Australia’s settlement was driven by a gold rush. Many of the towns in Victoria, like my next stop, Bendigo, were boom towns and reflect the height of Victorian-era excess, with wood-paneled pubs, elaborate two-story balconies fronting main street shops, landscaped town squares and old-fashioned signs.

I half-expected a woman to shove a flyer into my hand crying “Save the clock tower!”

This was all fascinating, but it was beginning to occur to me that I was still west of Melbourne, which is itself west of the east coast, and that I really needed to start driving up the east coast if I was going to fly out of Cairns in three weeks.

Out came the maps. Hey, was that . . . Snowy River National Park? As in The Man From . . .? And a scenic loop that ran up through it? Oh, that had to go on the itinerary.

I knew it was going to be a long day, but the sun was already hitting the western hills as I headed up the road paralleling the park. Both the twists and the view stretched the drive as shadows lengthened.

And then I reached the turnoff that was to take me into the park. A sign across the road announced that it was closed. I got out of the car and stared. It was an hour and a half back to the highway, and from there still longer to lodging for the night. And I had stopped and asked if the road was good all the way through! I grumbled to myself.

And now we come to one of the few actions recorded in this blog that out of public interest (and to forestall the emails I would be getting otherwise), I quite sincerely do not advise the reader to attempt after me. I would like to emphasize that it all ended well.

I stood at the crossroads taking sunset pictures. A car passed and a woman rolled down her window. “Why don’t you take the other road?” she suggested. I looked at it doubtfully. The pavement ended but the road continued into the distance.

“Is it OK for me alone at night?” I asked her.

“Oh sure, I don’t see why not!” She smiled encouragingly.

Huh. I thanked her, but still turned around to drive back to the highway.

After a few minutes I stopped again and pulled out a map. That town that the road went to – if I was reading my map right – would be pretty darn close to Canberra. Was I creating another detour for myself?

I turned back around. There was one sign of settlement near the crossroads – a set of trailers and a sign saying “Last Petrol for 121 km.” I pulled in. A trailer door creaked open and two dogs woofed over.

“Hey, I’m just looking for directions,” I called.

“Yeah, I thought you might be. I’ve seen you drive by a few times.” The man who walked over had longish grey hair, a beard, and a baseball cap.

I explained that I was aiming towards Canberra.

“Ah, well you don’t want to go back,” he said. “That way will take forever.”

“Really?” I asked. “So . . . how far away am I?” I had been planning on stopping short of the city for the night.

“I’d say you’re looking at about five hours,” he estimated.”

Five hours? Was that it? That meant I could get in before midnight! And then I would wake up already there . . .

“That’s great!” I enthused.

He looked doubtful. “Are you OK to keep going?”

I considered the question. “Yes. Maybe I shouldn’t be, but I am.” And so help me, I was. I've never had runner's high, but I think I had driver’s high that night – at no point did I get sleepy or feel the risk of dozing off.

“Well, so long as you have warm clothes you can sleep in the car,” he said bracingly.

“But there will be kangaroos, right?” I asked him, still thinking out loud.

“On, they’re usually only a problem around dusk. Within an hour they’ll be at their watering holes and won’t really bother you.”

“Oh.” And then, feeling this was almost obligatory, “and there’s no place around here to sleep?”

He shook his head. “There’s a place about an hour back,” he volunteered, but all that meant to me was two more hours in the car to get back to where I was now.

A sheep came into the menagerie surrounding the car.

“She’s still on the bottle, this one,” he volunteered.

“She’s cute!"

“It’s a real shame, you’re going to miss some beautiful scenery going through at this time at night.” He noted, scratching her.

I wrinkled my face. “Yeah, I know, but I think if I don’t go now I’ll spend all day tomorrow getting there. . .” I made an onward-or-bust motion. “Canberra by midnight!”

“Right. “ He paused. “Well, good luck. You have enough gas and food?”

I did.

Someday, will someone please do this drive and email me pictures of what it looks like in the daytime? Because I’m pretty sure it’s amazing.

At night, it was like something out of another world. A graded dirt and rock road with dark, high trees on either side. For nearly three hours, I did not see another car. Twice I stood on my brakes as kangaroos came flying in front of me (watering holes, bah!), my rental car policy flashing before my eyes. At times I stopped and turned off the engine just to hear the sound of the forest and the river below. Once or twice I switched off my headlights and gazed up at the stars.

But mostly I drove. (And yes, the voices of everyone who would have suggested this was perhaps not the most advisable route did occasionally chime through my head.)

I was still keyed up, though feeling the miles, when I finally pulled into Jindabyne, a ski resort town at the start of the Alpine Way. There was no snow, but you wouldn’t know that by the way that everyone was dressed and acted.

Maybe I should stop for the night here. If only all of the check-in windows (OK, the three that I tried) weren’t already closed. And it wasn’t even nine yet . . .

I blew out my cheeks. “Hey, how long do you think it will take to get to Canberra from here?” I asked a girl at a café (which was, of course, closing).

“This time of night? I would say an hour and a half.”

I perked up. “Really?”

I will spare you the rest of the drive, the search for Canberra’s city center, for the hostel that turned out to now be closed, and finally to a place that was open. Suffice to say that I was indeed in Canberra by midnight, though it was still a few hours before my body was ready for sleep.

The great push north had begun.

And all of this was because almost 24 hours earlier I had set out for my trip up the east coast of Australia – headed south.

I had flown into Melbourne two days before that, and had spent the intervening time exploring and trying to adjust to the fact that it is winter in Australia. And this being the other side of the world, the further south you go – and Melbourne is pretty far south – the colder it gets.

It is quite a transition to go from summer in China to spring in Nepal to winter in Australia in a matter of weeks – particularly when the summer was so soppingly hot and humid and the winter is so . . . well, wintery. Bare-branches-and-bundling-up-and-running-noses-and-fires-in-pubs-and-soup-specials-in-the-cafes-and-ducking-into-stores-to-warm-up wintery.

I would say it was just like the American northeast, except there were palm trees too.

And suddenly I understood what people were saying. I mean I understood them. “I like 30 Rock, but I’ll always make time for Studio 60,” a girl said to her friend as I was passing by.

And, not to put too fine a point on it, things were suddenly much more expensive. I had been bracing myself for this – goodbye, $6 hotel rooms, hello drinkable tap water – but it still took some adjusting to swallow the fact that a slice of take-away pizza was now more expensive than my sit-down coffee and fresh squeezed juice (with eggs, potatoes, croissant, and free wireless) breakfast had been in Kathmandu.

Conversely, it also took some adjusting get used to how many things were suddenly free. Melbourne has one of the largest streetcar networks in the world, and a free tram circles the Central Business District with a useful tourist commentary. A free bus covers the further-out sites. The National Gallery of Victoria was also free. The State Library of Victoria was gorgeous and included plenty of computer terminals and wireless internet as well as great temporary and permanent exhibits – all, you guessed it, free. Toilets were free too – with toilet paper! And, towels! And, well, toilets!

But I wasn’t thinking about cost – much – when I had booked the most expensive part of this trip (the overland portion) months ago: A rental car, to be picked up in Melbourne and deposited after 23 days in Cairns. (I would say it’s a total indulgence of the formerly employed, except that to cover the same territory in the same amount of time by bus would be roughly the same cost – the trick, for those coming after me, is to stretch bus passes out over several months.)

I just decided that I was ready to be the master of my own direction once again -- even if I was making it up as I went, or it involved a few K-turns.

It did occur to me that not only had it been four months since I had driven, but that I was last behind the wheel on the “other” side almost six years ago. I kept reminding myself that I have driven left in several countries, starting shortly after my 21st birthday with my very first car rental in Ireland, and that the previous occasions had gone just fine (with the exception of the passenger-side wing mirror in Ireland, which lasted about 10 minutes. But at least, I assured my friend cowering in the passenger seat, I now had my corners – and I did.).

Few things inspire confidence in a car rental agent like seeing their customer climb into the wrong side of the car. Happily, I got it right, and after a few minutes of navigating the city streets and the trickier highway interchanges, I was on my way to the Great Ocean Road, which runs along the coast southwest of Melbourne.

Built to rival Route 1 in the States (it is very lovely, but PCH still has the edge), the road was a scheme to provide work for returning soldiers after WWI and is now a major tourist destination in Victoria.

And rightly so. I hadn’t seen the ocean since Morocco. Despite the chill, I opened the windows to hear the pull and pound of the surf. At almost every turnoff, I stopped to gaze over the water. At one point, I found a waterfall; at another, a rainforest.

I still made it to the famed Twelve Apostles by sunset and decided to stop in the nearby town of Port Campbell for the night. I hadn’t hit a grocery store yet, so I was at the mercy of the town’s three restaurants. It was a freezing night; all I wanted was a big bowl of soup.

But it was like the town had been whomped by the Soup Nazi. My hopes were dwindling when I came to the last restaurant on the strip, a pizza parlor. I stopped outside and peered at the menu. Two guys were eating their pizzas al fresco.

“You should get one of these!” one of them advised. “Tandoori chicken, it’s one of the specials!” I looked at his plate. There were about five pounds – and probably two inches – of toppings on the pizza in front of him.

“I just want soup,” I said forlornly.

“Nah, you want a pizza,” he disagreed amiably. “Here, have a slice!”

I paused. I don’t want to give the reader (hi, Mom) the impression that accepting food from strangers is a habit, but sometimes you have to trust your instincts, and in the past this has lead to some memorable moments. (I once accepted candy from a stranger on a train and two days later found myself in Rupert Murdock’s board room on an after-hours tour, but that is another story.)

“Sure,” I said. Then, looking inside at the specials board: “Hey, look, they have soup!”

“Yes, but you want pizza,” he explained patiently.

The slice he slid over took two hands to negotiate. “You’re right, that’s good. But . . . I think I still want soup.”

He resigned himself to knowing he was right. “You have to order inside.”

“OK. Can I join you guys?”

And that is how I met Adam and Brad (who had an even more intimidating meat -lovers pizza, also tasty – Cool Hand Luke could not have put it away more impressively). We quickly established that they had not mugged anyone for their matching sweaters but were in fact helicopter pilots, that neither of them had ever crashed, that despite its impressive three blocks of storefronts Port Campbell actually has a population of only 400, that I was traveling around the world, and that Adam had been to more countries than me – 54 to be exact.

“You’re kidding! Where?”

The short answer is everywhere, including a two-year stint in Canada getting his pilot’s license. Though it wasn’t until a few hours later, after we had finished our meals and wobbled (in a food-coma kind of way) up the street to the bar, that he suggested that I come out for a ride the next day.

“Really?” A helicopter ride hadn’t been on my itinerary.

“It’s a totally different view of the coast,” they both assured me.

“Just stick your head in and we’ll see what we have going up,” Adam said. “I can’t promise anything, but if it’s a nice day . . .”

It was.

“I might as well say hi,” I rationalized in the car park (they launch from the back of the Twelve Apostles Visitors’ Center).

Brad was behind the desk. Adam was just about to take up a couple for an “extended” trip north of Port Cambpell. Long story short, I got the last seat. (It wasn’t free, but a kindred spirit/drinking buddy discount may have been factored in.)

“Whoa,” I breathed as the helicopter lifted up, dipped and tilted, and headed towards the coast. “This is AMAZING.”

We swooped and hovered and Adam provided a running commentary as we hummed along over rocks and surf (at a lower altitude, I reflected, than I had been for most of the past month).

I couldn’t stop grinning.

I had three weeks left on my trip, and I was flying high.

A girlfriend had arranged a mid-week, mid-winter clothing swap, and as we gathered around her kitchen, wine glasses in hand, the conversation turned to my whole quit-the-job-and-travel-the-world plan. I outlined my basic itinerary.

This was one of those groups of women that intimidate even when shimmying into each other’s clothes: whip smart, poised, unabashedly attractive and with lives that made me feel that I really wasn’t getting out – or overseas – nearly enough (and, hey, I do OK). All the while managing to be quite nice and, well, normal.

Liz also was blond and had a killer smile to boot. I hadn’t seen her in several months, but I knew that she had recently joined a few others on a Christmas trip to India.

“So what do you want to do in Nepal?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” I replied. “I actually was hoping to volunteer, but I have been looking and haven’t found anything yet.”

Her smile grew, if possible, broader. “I have a friend in Nepal who runs an orphanage!”

“You’re kidding!” I did an appropriate double-take (meaning I did not actually spill my wine).

“No, really! Actually –“her smile evolved into a delighted giggle – “I’m dating him!”

This required some explanation. The short story is that she emailed this guy (let’s call him Conor, because that’s his name) to discuss helping out Next Generation Nepal (“NGN”), his NGO, they had an e-mail spark, conversations evolved from purely philanthropic to the point where she decided to take a “detour” from India for a few days to meet him in Nepal last Christmas. There was a spark in person too, and she returned starry-eyed. She was going back in April. And sure, I should just shoot him an email about Nepal.

“Wow, talk about serendipity!” I exclaimed.

Well, almost serendipity. Because of my detours in Siberia and Mongolia, my time in Nepal ended up being shorter than planned – but I still beat Connor back by a few days. He had been out of Kathmandu for two months, engaged in the very important task of fundraising and the even more important task of getting engaged – he and Liz will tie the knot next year! And he returned sick as a dog; a chest cold that sent him to the hospital the week before he flew back.

So it wasn’t until my last few days that I was able to go over to the children’s home and meet Conor and the kids.

It turns out that Conor and I have some territory in common. He hails from Poughkeepsie (yes, really) and lived in Prague and Brussels (ditto) before deciding to quit his job and travel the world a few years ago. As a part of his trip, he organized a three-month stint volunteering at an orphanage just south of Kathmandu. By the time it came to go, he found that he could not really leave. After he completed the rest of his travels, he returned to Nepal and, from there, to the States to put together NGN.

You can read his version of events on his extremely readable blog or get UVA’s take in their recent alumni magazine feature on him.

As for the kids, many of them (right now there are about 24) are not actually orphans. When the civil war started in the mountains several years ago, many village parents sent their children away to Kathmandu, where most believed they would be safe and get a good education. But like a twisted Dickens tale, what often happened was that the children were stuck in abysmal conditions and “trafficked” (essentially, sold into slavery). The UN has listed this as one of the top global crises that the press has (largely) ignored.

Conor and a French friend, Farid, came across a group of such children living in a house off of a highway when they were first volunteering together at the orphanage. They brought them food and scrambled to try to find a place for them in a children’s home. The children disappeared only days before they secured a spot for them. Finding them all again took several months, but miraculously they managed to do it. One of the boys, who looks about seven, was being used as a dishwasher in a hotel. Three of the kids were so malnourished when they got to them that they went straight to the hospital; they nearly lost one the first night there.

Locating the children and keeping them sheltered, safe, fed, and educated is only half of the battle. Although many of the kids have been told that their parents are dead or do not want them, this frequently is not the case. And so Conor has gone deep into the mountains of Nepal with translators and guides in an effort to reunite the families. So far, he has been remarkably successful, and just the week before I visited, two children left to return to their villages.

And what are children like who have been through all of this? Well, like . . . kids. Giggling and tackling Conor, politely greeting me “Hello, Sister!”, looking after each other, making henna patterns on their hands (the girls), running around outside shrieking with laughter (mostly the boys), bossing each other around, cleaning up after themselves, playing all sorts of made-up games without a TV or video consol present.

Remember “Big-Mac-Filet-o-Fish-Quarter-Pounder-French-Fries?” The girls here have versions of it that would make your head spin. And they were determined that I should play with them (“Sister, here!”), kindly ignoring the fact that I have the coordination of a baby octopus and dodging mis-timed claps or slaps as necessary.

“Can I come back tomorrow?” I asked hopefully when dinner time arrived.

“Sure, why don’t you come and pick them up from school?” Conor suggested (they had no school that day due to a teacher strike; something to do with student unions that escaped me).

I hurried back to my hotel in a monsoon-esque downpour to change. That morning, at the end of our trek, Raj had invited Chiara and me to dinner at his apartment to meet his family. I had no idea what to expect, and I wished that I had something nicer that was clean to wear.

I wished this even more when Raj showed up to pick me in pressed slacks and a button-down shirt. He led us north of Thamel for 10 or 15 minutes. The streets were almost pitch black. Cows were grazing on rubbish piles, and the sidewalks were flooded from the recent rain – at one point Raj stopped and carefully took off his dress shoes before proceeding into a pond that had sprung up along the walkway.

His apartment was in the ground floor of a building in the back corner. Voices called out to greet us and we were given flip-flops to wear into the house. Raj’s apartment consisted of two small, neat rooms. In the first, without a lot of room to spare, was a bed, couch, table, TV, and bookshelf; in the second was another bed and kitchenette. I did not see a bathroom. He shares this with his wife, two-year old daughter, and mother. His brother’s family lives next door, and they came over to meet us (“Hello, how are you?” Raj prompted his niece).

Chiara and I were seated on the couch; most of the rest of the family crowded onto the bed into the second room looking at us. “They can come in!” I suggested, but Raj explained that they were shy. We had to content ourselves with a lot of smiles back and forth.

We spent some time talking about the organization that Raj has started to help his home village with basic health and literacy education. He and seven friends have pledged a portion of their income to the project, and they have a few hundred Nepali subscribers and a handful of overseas sponsors. He had prepared a mission statement for the organization in English, and I helped him edit it.

Then his wife brought in dinner. I have had a lot of daal bhaat and curry and vegetables during my time in Tibet and Nepal, but this blew everything out of the water. When I told Raj that his wife (his high school sweetheart) should open a restaurant, it was a very sincere suggestion. Happily, in Nepal it’s considered rude to refuse seconds, and I scarfed those down as well.

The evening ended with a family photo shoot. I had recharged my camera batteries, which had been dead at NGN, enough to get a few good pictures. When I got back to my hotel that night I downloaded everything into my computer. I wanted to be sure to have enough space on my camera for plenty of pictures of the kids at NGN the next day. I packed a notebook to be sure I got all of their names right too.

It would have helped if I had remembered to take the memory card back out of the computer, an oversight I didn’t notice until I was standing outside the school gates watching the children line up in the courtyard in their white and blue uniforms. I’ve stolen a few shots from Conor’s website to give you a taste of how great they are.

Because there actually had been school that day, things did not descend into the same chaotic happy romp once the kids were home. (In the same neighborhood, by the way, are a number of other children’s homes, giving them lots of playmates). Instead, the older kids dismantled a stack of low tables in the front room and spread them in a circle. And then all the chilren sat on the ground, unzipped their backpacks, pulled out their homework, leaned over their desks, and began writing.

(The room between the front room and the kitchen has a similar stack of cushions in its corner – these are spread in a circle for breakfast and dinner, where the dish on offer, each and every day, is daal bhaat. The house goes through about 60 kilos of rice – that’s more than 130 pounds – each week.)

I hung out in the background as homework consultant. There was no risk of not feeling needed; Kabita asked almost as soon as she was seated, “Sister, can you draw this?” pointing to a picture of an animal in her book. Of course, the answer was no, but I gave it my best shot.

I also chatted with Conor about the nuts and bolts of setting up and running an NGO (for those who are interested in donating, it’s a registered charitable organization in the States, Europe, and Nepal). In an enterprise like this, the pressure to fund-raise never goes away. The kids, after all, need clothes and food every month.

“It’s crazy,” Conor said, “People always want to send the kids pens or notebooks or clothes. And by the time they’ve gone out and bought everything and shipped it to us, that’s at least $70 or $80. But ask someone to just write a check for that amount and it’s like pulling teeth. And we can buy all of that stuff so much cheaper over here.”

(This is very true, by the way. To give you an idea: I was staying in a hotel with my own bathroom, balcony, and cable TV – loads of English movies and news – for $6 a night. Getting to the airport takes almost a half an hour in traffic – but only $2 on a taxi’s meter. A nice meal out, with starter and cocktail, is less than $10. Embroidered T-shirts in the tourist areas are about three bucks.)

He is very honest with the children about where the money comes from, and they seem to grasp the concept of making every rupee count. A number of them were down to the last two inches of their pencils; a single sharpener was making the rounds, and erasers were passed back and forth within groups.

And, he noted, people who want to actually volunteer in person are generally willing to spend more on their plane ticket than most Nepalis make in two years.

“So does that mean that you don’t think that people should come to volunteer?” I asked (a bit awkwardly).

He looked startled. “No! No, not at all! It is great when people come and see the kids! It can change your life – look, it changed mine. I don’t think that people are necessarily motivated by the kids when they sign up to volunteer – if I’m honest, I wasn’t doing this for the kids when I first came here – but once you meet them, and once you see . . .” I nodded; after just 48 hours I understood what he meant.

The hardest part of my entire trip to Nepal came a little while later. I stood in the girls’ dorm talking to Bimala, whom I had helped with (of all things) a math problem set.

“You are coming tomorrow?” She asked confidently. I winced and shook my head. She frowned.

“The day after?” Another head shake.

“Saturday.” She was sure about this.

Ooof, this was hard. I explained that I was leaving the next morning for Australia. She kept frowning.

“But I want to come back and see you again soon!” I said.

And I really, really hope that that is the case – and definitely sooner than later.

But the thing to do in Nepal, even in monsoon season, is to trek (not that I ever need much encouragement). And the country’s current situation is such that the only realistic way for a solo female traveler to hit the trail is with a guide or group.

I visited several offices to discuss my options. They noted that the more famous Nepal treks – Everest Base Camp and the Annapurna Circuit – were likely to be soggy due to the season and, more importantly, required more time than I had.

I settled on a four-day, three-night trek around the rim of the Kathmandu Valley. The walk was meant to have amazing views of the full Himalaya range, would include accommodation at guesthouses and hotels along the way, and the last day or two would provide the option of buses for portions of the route if we were pressed for time.

And (key!) I could meet the guide beforehand. I arrived at the agent’s office the night before departure to find that I was meeting not one, but two people – the guide, Raj, and a last-minute addition, a Dutch woman named Chiara.

Raj was a pleasant surprise. Slight, carefully dressed, friendly, with a level gaze and a decent command of English, he seemed engaging, experienced, and competent.

As for Chiara . . . it occurred to me at one point that she was one of the closest physical matches I have ever met to a Barbie doll, but absolutely nothing about her said Barbie (well, she did wear eye liner). A high school history teacher, she is spending virtually the entirety of her summer holiday, six weeks, traveling through Tibet and Nepal.

Not just traveling – biking. Her original plan had been to cycle and camp – by herself – from Lhasa all the way to Kathmandu, but after hitting a particularly bad patch of road 10 days or so along the way, she returned to Lhasa and, after several false starts, managed to get a jeep going to the border in one 36-hour sprint. (Her group’s guide and driver had threatened to abandon them halfway; I was beginning to detect a theme. And may I say, perhaps in this regard the Chinaman is not the issue.) She had arrived in Kathmandu that very day, and she was wasting no time.

(Incidentally, Chiara booked her flight from Europe to Lhasa via Beijing without purchasing a Tibet travel permit. At no point en route was she asked to produce the permit. Once she got to Lhasa, she looked into getting one, but was told that both a permit and a guide were required. She did not want a guide, so she just left and, for more than a week, cycled across Tibet permit-free. At the few checkpoints she passed, she simply smiled and waved and cycled on. At 14,000 feet above sea level. To put this in perspective, at Base Camp I met two very fit Dutch men, one a Navy diver, who were all that remained from an original six-person group that had left Lhasa cycling for Kathmandu.)

Chiara and I quickly discovered that we were on the same wavelength. We talked about teaching (her favorite lesson is a full-participation historical debate about who deserves to be ostracized from Athens, mine was dressing up as a rock star and being interviewed in character by my students), travels (last year she had trekked the Himalayas in India), families, politics, books, and, that backpacker standby, food.

On our first day, we drove about an hour from the city and started climbing stairs and hills into Shivapuri National Park. In less than four hours we ascended more than 3,000 feet through mossy, steamy jungles and mountain villages. It was not quite as bad as the Yellow Mountain in China, but you wouldn’t have known that by my, um, healthy glow. When I tried to roll up my pants to catch a breeze, insects descended to feast.

Over daal bhaat (the Nepali classic lentils and rice) that night, Chiara, Raj and I discussed Nepal’s potential (Raj’s village has three harvests a year!) and its problems (more than 80% of the population earns below the global minimum wage of $2 a day). Raj, who recently got his degree in population studies, described an organization that he and some friends had started to bring social services, including adult literacy courses and health education, to his home village (which is reached at this time of year by taking a bus for three hours and then walking for another four). He had an attentive – and inquisitive – audience.

Over the next four days his knowledge proved to be encyclopedic. From the average lifespan of a cow (they are sacred to Hindus, and killing one in Nepal will get you serious jail time) to a Nepali’s average caloric intake (1,800) to which ministries are controlled by which political parties, Raj proved up to the questions we threw at him.

Low clouds set in on our second day, and we hiked a good portion of the 13-14 miles in steady rain. The track filled with mud, and leeches (ew) came out of nowhere. Butterflies the size of birds flitted by. As we sat outside a rough house on a hillside waiting for our lunch – a laborious task, as apparently we were the day’s only customers – the clouds lifted briefly, giving a view of the fertile valley below.

I could feel my mood lifting as well.

Our second night was spent in Nagarkot, famed for its expansive view of the Himalayas . Unfortunately, the most we saw of the mountains was a poster that someone tried to sell us the next morning. The clouds sat heavy and low across the horizon.

But they were high enough to offer beautiful views of green fields of rice, corn, and grain as we descended from the hills and through villages. We passed a number of schools and were swarmed by children crying, “One photo! One photo!” and then, when we obliged, crowding in to view the result.

By this point I was saying hello (“Namaste!”) to everyone we passed, and they were calling the greeting back in return, some with hands together respectfully under their chin. I was chagrined to realize that, for the first time ever, I had been in the country for several days before learning this simple greeting.

Our last night was spent in Dhulikhel, a town with some attractive temples and, when the weather is good (it wasn’t), excellent views. As we began walking along the road that would lead us there, a bus approached.

“Let’s get this,” Raj suggested.

I looked at it dubiously. “Really? Look at it, there’s no room.” The window showed a sea of crammed body parts jockeying for position.

He frowned. “You’re right. So . . . let’s go up!”

Most Nepali buses feature a roof rack on top that also doubles as a perch for passengers when the main bus becomes overcrowded, as often happens. But usually this is the province of local men and boys, not women and not tourists. Chiara and I scrambled up, grinning despite ourselves. We sat on the metal grate, grabbing the sides as we swayed down the street.

I reached into my pocket and – carefully! – pulled out my camera.

“Chiara, smile!” I called. Then: “Wow, this is awesome.”

I was back to enjoying the journey.

How did I know? I was more interested in the destination than the journey.

And this despite the fact that the journey stuffed me in the back of a pickup truck due to threatened Maoist activity.

Not that a pickup truck seemed like the best option initially. After crossing the Chinese border on foot, taking a minivan taxi the 8 winding kilometers through no-man’s land to the Friendship Bridge (“No pictures!” a guard barked – irony?), walking across to the Nepalese visa office (where your visa fee depends on your choice of currency) and down through the border town of Kodari, I caught – along with Alex and Francois and three French backpackers – a local bus to the town of Barabise, from where we could catch another bus to Kathmandu.

(As is so often the case, there was no satisfactory resolution to the previous night’s drama. I saw Alex and Francois at breakfast, and they said there had been nothing unusual in their interaction with Karma. I recounted his behavior. “Tell the agent in Lhasa,” Alex replied curtly. “But he wasn’t our guide,” Francois observed. There was, needless to say, no apology.)

On this particular day, however, the unanimous word from the locals was that there was no bus from Barabise to Kathmandu. The Maoists had set up roadblocks, so no buses today. Maybe tomorrow.

Barabise was not the kind of town that invited one to spend the night. And it had already taken us nearly three hours to cover the 20 or so miles between it and the border, with people scrambling into (or onto) our bus every few feet.

So when a guy offered to take us to Kathmandu in the back of his pickup truck for an extortionate price (roughly $6 per person), we piled on board. A metal hutch that covered the bed both shielded us from view and created an oven; our “window” was the back hatch, and our luggage and some bags of rice served as . . . well, not a seat, but padding.

But whatever it was inside of me that had turned cartwheels when the train gathered speed leaving Moscow and backflips when we touched down in Lhasa, that had sent me bouncing across the bus to check out the views in Turkey and kept me standing for six hours on the Yangtze ferry, did little more than raise its head and sneeze. I was glad that we were moving – and was that a palm tree?? – but I was also approaching overload.

When the French backpackers stuck their head out to look around, I did not jump up to join them. When a boy who had climbed aboard tried to unzip my bag while “sleeping” on it, I raised neither an eyebrow nor my voice, but reached over and silently took it from him.

And when Alex and Francois walked off without a goodbye once we were finally deposited near the airport (no Maoists having appeared), I hailed a cab without having the slightest idea how much one cost (very little, happily).

I needed some processing time, and Kathmandu offered just that. Take away the rickshaws, touts and muddy streets, and Thamel, its tourist quarter, is reminiscent of a college town. Used bookstores, cheap restaurants of every ethnicity (including pizza), a decidedly new-agey feel (think crystals and Buddhas), and as many indigenous craft stores as ones offering high-tech trekking gear. Even – halleluiah! – real coffee.

Plus, like a college town, it was easy to run into people. On my first evening I bumped into Roelof and Annalies, a Dutch couple I had first met the previous day in Tibet. We chatted animatedly. (As it turns out, their night had also ended in a scene on the street with their guide, prompted by his refusing, despite their tour ending four days early and without their having seen sites for which they had paid admission, any refund.)

“We are going to find a temple that is supposed to be near here,” Annalies finally said.

I grinned. “And I am looking for a bar that is supposed to have a two-for-one cocktail hour.”

We all laughed. Then:

“I would like a cocktail too,” Roelof announced. Cocktails turned into more cocktails (“Another Phil Collins, please!” Roelof, a cocktail novice, beamed) turned to dinner as we chatted about Tibet, travel, and life back home.

If you couldn’t tell, Kathmandu also offered more unstructured time than I had in months. It was almost unsettling. Each day I picked a site or two to check out.

I started with the city’s Durbar Square, which is essentially three interconnected plazas containing two dozen or so temples and shrines and a comparable number of worshipers.

But it is hardly a silent, solemn place. Buddhist and Hindu temples teem with life. People certainly leave offerings, light incense, chant, pray, and, around Buddhist stupas, walk in a clockwise circuit. But they also loaf, gossip, sell everything from vegetables to incense, make phone calls, and generally hang out in a way that is very unfamiliar to our western (Christian) concepts of religion.

One day I walked out to the Buddhist temple Swayambhunath (“Monkey Temple”), dodging monkeys with babies clinging to them and sellers of everything from singing bowls to bangles, to find that interspersed with the holy buildings were restaurants (“Rooftop View!”), money changers, and souvenir stands.

The next day I visited the Hindu temple Pashupatinath. Non-Hindus are not allowed inside, but the surroundings provide plenty to take in. In its discussion of the area, my guidebook included a boxed text describing proper etiquette at a cremation.

“As if I’m going to crash some family’s funeral,” I thought.

But it is not something that a visitor to the temple can actually avoid. Hindus cremate bodies, typically on the day of death, and the riverbanks next to Pashupatinath are lined with stone platforms for this purpose (this is where the royal family was cremated after the 2001 massacre).

I walked to the edge of the embankment and looked down on several bodies that were either burning or being prepared. Families – mostly men, though some women were present – circled the body, which was draped in an orange cloth, sprinkling it with oil, flowers, and red powder before lighting the fire. Officials tending the pyres poked and stirred the ashes to make sure that everything would burn. Sons sat on the riverbank having their heads shaved (a Hindu mourning tradition). The clothes that the deceased had been wearing were tossed into the river.

(It also used to be tradition for a wife to throw herself on her husband’s pyre, but this practice was outlawed in the 1920’s. A guide explained, however, that whereas a widow is expected to mourn for a year, a widower typically wears mourning – white for Hindus – for one to three days. “Because the man is still valid.” I should not have been surprised. This is, after all, a country that just – in 2005, the same year it was made illegal to banish a woman to the cowshed during her period – gave women under 35 the right to apply for a passport without her husband’s or parents’ permission.)

From Pashupatinath I walked to the Buddhist stupa Bodhnath, a center of Tibetan culture. In addition to joining the throngs walking clockwise around the stupa, exploring the surrounding temples and monasteries, and patronizing local restaurants and shops, you can actually climb onto the stupa – one of the largest in the world – and gaze over the square to the setting sun hitting the hills behind. I sat there taking in the scene. My eyes were drawn to the forests above the rooflines.

Maybe it was time to get out of town for a while.

(And that is coming from me.)

There is simply too much to tell: the stupefying majesty of Everest, the head-splitting effects of altitude, the addictive surprise of a Tibetan pancake, the pits in the floor that pass – even in towns – as Tibetan toilets, the mixture of comedy, frustration and fear inspired by the terrain we were attempting to cross, the sight of yaks and cows ambling down main street, the unexpectedly corrosive effects that five days in a car can have on six people.

I generally count myself very lucky in the experiences I have had and the people whom I have met on the road (hi, Seb!). But though I have not dwelt on them here, my travels have also exposed me to those who might charitably be described as . . . difficult.

There was the guide who clearly resented questions, the one who spoke at a low monotone to a group of forty, and another who could not speak English (but thought he could). The handful of guides who wanted to give me a “very special massage.” And the truly memorable guide who offered, as we drove alone across the desert, to make me his (second) wife. (“But did he offer camels?” Sebastian wanted to know.)

And I have had the rare less-than-ideal travel companions. The guy who, in an extreme form of acupuncture, ritually burned himself with incense sticks every night. The woman who announced repeatedly and loudly – in direct proportion to how far she was standing from her boyfriend – that she really hoped he would propose soon. Late-night dorm room talkers – and, worse, smokers – alarm clock ignorers, and one very smelly man (“You’ve GOT to do something about your feet,” an honest soul advised him).

Most of these have been endearingly – or at least amusingly – annoying. But they were just precursors to my trip from Lhasa to Kathmandu.

The night before departure, we met at the travel agent’s office to sign the contract, deliver final payment, meet the guide, and see a jeep similar to the one we would be driving in. There were four of us – in a mad scramble that morning, I had managed to connect with Tracey, an Australian social worker who has been living in Scotland and planned to meet her brother at the border. She presented as an unpredictable mix of hippie – pink dreadlock switch, blousy native-style tops, florescent eyeshadow – and hardnose – she insisted that we meet the guide before paying and that all contract modifications be in writing.

The “contract” was essentially a bill of rights stating that we were not obligated to patronize the hotels or restaurants where the jeep stopped (food and accommodation were not included in our tour), and that if a delay was their fault or due to road or weather conditions, we would receive an additional day for free; otherwise, we would get nothing.

As for the jeep, its most outstanding feature was that it seated five. With the driver and guide, we would be six. Someone was going to have to ride with the luggage.

“You must rotate,” our tour agent instructed. Alex and Francois seemed less than impressed – for this we were paying good money? – but we agreed.

And as for the guide . . . Mingmar came in late, fresh from another tour.

“Where was your tour?” I asked.

“Four year,” he replied.

“Ah.” I considered this. “You have been a tour guide for four years?” I guessed.

“Yeah, four year,” he said, continuing with a stream of what was meant to be English, but was spoken too quickly and tonelessly for any of us to decipher it.

Well, Nemo in Mongolia had spoken little English, and he had been great; I wouldn’t jump to conclusions.

The first day or two passed smoothly enough. Tracey, it turned out, had a fierce cold and had already visited the monasteries we stopped at. Between that and my borrowed Harry Potter book, she disappeared into her own world.

Alex and Francois and I saw the sights, including the Gyantse Kumbum, an eight-level temple that contained more than 100 chapels (I managed to clonk my head on the doorways of four of them) and the Sakya Monastery, which was under construction – a heavy labor task employing both men and women. The three of us chatted through unremarkable dinners the first two nights.

The plan on the third day was to reach the village of Tingri, and on the fourth day to travel to Everest and back. But several kilometers before Tingri, Mingmar told us that a bridge had washed away on the Tingri road . We might, however, be able to access Everest from a second road, but this was under construction and usually closed.

We debated this turn in events. It would mean $40 each in nonrefundable tickets if we were turned back on the second road.

“Could the Tingri road open tomorrow?”

“Closed for at least a month,” Mingmar assured us.

I consulted my guidebook. It was already after noon. I didn’t see any way that we could make it up there and back that day.

“Mingmar, my guidebook says that it should take three to four hours to get there. Does that sound right to you?”

He exploded. “Fine, not my fault! Your problem! Your book! We will go back to Lhasa then!” And so on, in a mix of Tibetan and English.

Tracey’s face reflected my shock. Alex and Francois walked away. Tracey and I persisted. There would be, it turned out, a place to sleep near Base Camp that night. This would go against the general wisdom “climb higher, sleep lower,” but we would arrive before dark.

We agreed to go for it, though Mingmar’s outburst had cast a pall on the group. He seemed to recover, however, and conveyed that another guide was waiting at the checkpoint who had talked his jeep through and, hopefully, ours as well.

Mingmar’s friend, Karma, was in fact waiting for us at the checkpoint. He hopped into the back of our jeep as we were waved through. Spirits were high once again as we bounced along switchbacks under construction.

Karma’s English was much better than Mingmar’s, and he appeared much more interested in being a tour guide.

“You should spend two nights at Base Camp,” he proposed several times. “I think it is better for you.”

“Well, let’s see how we do with the altitude,” I replied, “but sure, why not?”

Thanks to all of China being on one time zone (and this is a country roughly the size of the States), it was still light when we arrived at the basic guesthouse across from Rongbuk Monastery. As with mos