There and Back Again

See photos

gavin_elliott — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 10:11:00 GMT

I've been remiss in keeping this up and in uploading appropriate photos. I hope to write a bit more as there were a few interesting events that happened after I left off last time. But the point of this note is to say that I have uploaded my photos. Not here but at: http://picasaweb.google.com/wgelliott hope you enjoy them, Gavin

Silience day

gavin_elliott — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 17:02:00 GMT

July 10th came and went smoothly. Our census in the pilgrim retreat rose to 160 and in lower Meherabad where the poorer Indians stay it rose to about 1500. No significant health issues occurred. The weather for Silence day was the best we have had during my stay. It was amazing being with so many other people keeping silence for the day. In addition the spiritual atmosphere was charged with peace and love. It was one of the nicest silence days I've had other than the one in '84 when it was my day of arrival for my first visit here and the time in '96 when Dee, Matthias and I spent the day with other Baba lovers in Assisi, Italy and we cleaned a cave that both Baba and St. Francis had used.

Medical education

gavin_elliott — Mon, 9 Jul 2007 16:47:00 GMT

Well the other day I had an education in the local health care system. In the morning I had a western resident appear at the clinic with severe abdominal pain of sudden onset in the upper abdomen. Her exam was otherwise unremarkable except for moderate hypertension consistent with her pain. I placed an iv and gave her pain medication until it was under control. The trip in town to obtain x-rays and a subsequent ultrasound at one location was a slow and bouncing trip with the usual delays due to the constantly shifting mix of animals, people and vehicles that share the roads. The xray tech brought the abdominal film to me and placed it on the viewer upside down, when I corrected it, he and two of his fellows immediately returned it to the original position, insisting that I was wrong. They could not tell me what structure the breast shadows, now extending upward from below were. At any rate, the film was otherwise normal. A physician conducted the ultrasound and was very competent and helpful - also a normal study. We then went to the Jain hospital to get lab studies done. It was the dirtiest medical facility I have ever been in and they were making no effort to clean anything in the area we were in while we were there. Fortunately we had brought clean sheets for our patient to use on their gurney. I made sure all needles, etc were clean and all went well otherwise. Our patient had improved during this time and we returned and placed her in our medical unit for observation. Fortunately she improved to normal this iv fluids, no food, and pain medicine. I do not look forward to the time someone needs to have an operation. The process of getting our small hospital usable is full of local politics as money is an issue as it is everywhere. I hope to meet with some of the required people to move this forward next week - we'll see.

Daily stuff

gavin_elliott — Fri, 6 Jul 2007 16:46:00 GMT

July 4th – Independence day The weather has turned nicely. It is still relatively cool, highs in the lower eighties, lows in the lower seventies, high humidity, a steady wind and scattered clouds, excellent for driving about the local area on my motorcycle. I’ve had it up in the garage for the most part due to the previously nearly steady rains. I do not drive into town as it is just too crazy so most of the riding is on one lane dirt roads or dirt paths with almost no other ‘traffic’. It seems inappropriate to use that word when you often never see another driver. The work load remains light but more and more I am approached at all hours of the day about minor problems. I am glad to be able to help them out and to have something useful to do. I have been enjoying playing guitar regularly and my playing is improving rapidly. I hope to start recording some of it soon. My only issue on that matter seems to be that forgot the power cable to my external hard drive that I was going to use to store the recorded files on. I may have to delete a lot of material on my internal hard drive to be able to record. Hopefully Dee will find someone to send the cable with. Dee called yesterday to let me know that Matthias, by clinical exam, appears to have torn two ligaments, the ACL & MCL, in his knee after falling while skating. Having a cell phone here has made managing such issues so much easier. For every trip in the past it was always so hard to make phone calls and often the connection was horrible. At any rate, he will go to Winston for his evaluation and surgery if needed

Weather, etc for late June

gavin_elliott — Sun, 1 Jul 2007 16:44:00 GMT

For the week of 6/18-6/25 we had the beginning of the Monsoon season. There were many spectacular thunder storms, particularly in the afternoon but some at night which provided an excellent show from the upper level of the Meher Pilgrim Retreat. At times the wind and rain would be of incredible strength. At other times it would be over cast with no sign of a storm but you chanced getting caught in one if you went out anywhere. So sometimes we got wet. On the 24th, Dee and I went to Mumbai (Bombay) so she could catch a return flight to the US. We waited for seven hours in the Pune airport for our flight as the incoming flight was delayed by severe weather from a low pressure system going up the western coast of India. It caused record rainfalls in some nearby areas and many deaths as a result of the flooding. Fortunately, where we stay there is no risk of flooding as we are miles from any river and on very high ground. It had been very warm with highs in the upper 80’s. lows around 80 and seemingly close to 100% humidity. Fortunately there is usually a good breeze. Now that Dee has left we have had several days of mostly sunny weather with highs of about 80, lows of about 70 and 85% humidity. Very nice.

Weather

gavin_elliott — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 14:57:00 GMT

Jne 19th

gavin_elliott — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 14:55:00 GMT

June 19

Beautiful cool morning.

Absolutely quiet clinic.

An hour in the Samadhi alone as there is still almost no one here.

I had requested a worker to bring me the materials to patch a small tear in my thermorest camp pad that I use to make my typical MPR ultra firm bed softer. As is normal here he brought only the patch and no glue. That apparently has to be requested separately. No issue, just typical.

Dee went to the bazaar with a friend and had a great time shopping for gifts for friends and family. She brought me a nice white scarf to protect me from the sun and a lovely little carved wooden Buddha.

June 18

gavin_elliott — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:58:00 GMT

6/18/07

The temperatures are running highs in the upper eighties and lows in the upper seventies. It is an adjustment without ac but we are coping well. The rooms all have excellent ceiling fans and my room is shaded all say so it doesn’t get too hot if I keep it closed up during the day and open it up for the evening breeze. Dee’s gets only a small amount of the early morning sun so it also stays reasonable.

The clinic was not too busy. Alan came in to let me check his finger and it bled profusely after I took the bandage off, but stopped easily with a small amount of pressure from a new bandage after a good cleaning. When I first took the dressing off I thought I could see the bone as the piece sliced off was large, but with a tourniquet on it was clear that was not the case. The rest of the care was minor sprains and aches in the village workers. Thank goodness no more scorpion stings or sightings.

With evening prayers we had a brief shower that cooled things off a bit and stopped long enough for us to make the 15 minute walk back to the MPR.

It is a bit odd as there are so few people here that I have nearly half of the men’s side to myself. I think that for the night there were only 6 men staying here. It is scheduled to fill up over the next few weeks to about 250 men and women. We’ll enjoy it while we can.

June 17

gavin_elliott — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:57:00 GMT

June 17

My birthday and Father’s day. At morning prayers (arti) someone who knew invited every one to sing happy birthday to me. It was nice and it was very joyous and peaceful afterwards as we all remembered the Father to us all on this Father’s day. During breakfast I got a call from the cyber-café as my friend James had made the contact for me to set up a cell phone and they needed me to come down to fill out the paper work. Getting it set up and ordered in such quick measure here is amazing. Years ago, when I set about to get a motor scooter, for weeks all I heard was ‘Sorry sir , not today, tomorrow.’ Also so far we have been unable to use the local line service as the line for local calls and we hope calling card calls requires one rupee coins and they are not available, come back tomorrow! And the line that is set up for direct international calls is only open here between the hours of what is midnight and 6am back home – useless except for emergencies.

No clinic today as it is Sunday. Nice birthday present. I can rest, I only have a little jet lag but it is good to have time to adjust. Late this afternoon I will go to meet the physician from town (Ahmednagar) that runs a Sunday and Wednesday evening clinic in Lower Meherabad. (I cover the clinic in upper Meherabad) The clinics are on the same property but at different ends and about a mile an a half apart. She provides the clinic for the huge number of pilgrims from all over India that stay in Lower Meherabad during their visit. There is also a very active clinic just outside of lower Meherabad for the villagers of Arrangaon.

As it turned out the phone was ready for me at 6pm and also worked properly! It is amazing in that in so many third world countries there are large regions with horrible land line service but very good cell phone service. The infra-structure is no much easier and cheaper to set up.

Dee arranged for a surprise birthday dinner at our good old friend Alan’s house. It was quite a treat and Alan is so happy in his new house. He has been the resident volunteer chief for the pilgrim center for thirty years and until this past year lived in an approximately 15 by 15 foot room with a shared bath/toilet. His new place is about 1500 square feet with incredible views and all his. We’re very happy for him. The only problem is Alan cut off the tip of his finger preparing dinner, saying he had not messed up anything like this in many, many years.

June 16

gavin_elliott — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:54:00 GMT

June 16, 2007

Morning prayers, shower, breakfast and then the first clinic of the season. I didn’t think anyone would show up as it is the first clinic and there are very few visitors here. In fact there were not many and they were all MPR workers. Not the usual stuff of my medical practice, that is for certain. One case of ‘piles’, one of on-going symptoms from a 8 month old case of chikungunya ((sp?) a mosquito borne illness related to dengue fever), and two scorpion stings. One of these stings actually occurred about an hour after clinic was over. No case was serious but it took some quick study on my part with the clinic textbooks to figure out how to help these people. It is also a bit concerning because the stings were from a species that is not too toxic but the workers also killed a different variety that can be deadly. Soon we will likely have several hundred pilgrims from parts of the world without scorpions and lack of proper foot ware discipline to avoid stings. We’ll see.

The rest of the day was only notable for the humid heat and an afternoon threat of a rainstorm that did not get here but gave us the most incredible sunset either Dee or I have ever seen. The lower part of the horizon was an ominous black from clouds but above that the sky was a mesmerizing, shifting swirl of colors that was much like oil on water. We watched from the roof of the MPR for over an hour.

Mumbai onward

gavin_elliott — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 20:51:00 GMT

Our flight to Pune was delayed on the runway for an hour and a half due to severe weather in Pune. The monsoon has started! The flight itself was smooth and without incident. At the Pune airport the cab driver managed to fit us and all of our bags into a tiny car. I would never have thought it was possible. We got to the hotel to face a delay waiting outside for about 20 minutes as we were actually booked the their other hotel that was just around the corner and it took awhile to sort it out. Once done all was well and we quickly cleaned up a bit and went to the hotel restaurant was a wonderful surprise. It is called Little Italy and had both excellent food and wine. The price was high for India but still reasonable, particularly once the quality of the food and service was factored in. There is something so nice about being able to relax with good clean food and a nice bottle of Australian Shiraz.

After dinner we easily feel to sleep in a very cool room to wake up rather cold! It took awhile for the ac to catch up but it certainly did. I’m sure this is the last time either of us will be cold for weeks.

Our driver was on time and did an excellent job navigating through the crowded streets of Pune to get us on the relatively new divided four lane highway out of the city. We had mostly smooth sailing until a few miles outside of Ahmednagar. The highway had narrowed to two lanes for about 20 miles and then traffic was tied up for miles as two trucks had collided and one had overturned off the opposite side of the road. It did not appear that anyone had been significantly injured so we carried on. Our driver had weaved his way in and out of the congestion, at times safely in the on-coming lane and at others on the shoulder, to get us through the congestion as quickly as possible. This part of the journey has changed so much since my first trip here in ’84. That time the whole length of the trip was along a jarring cobblestone like surface that was usually a lane and a half wide so when there was on-coming traffic you had to slow to a crawl with half of the car on the shoulder. In addition they we rebuilding all of the small bridges over every stream and culvert so when you came to each one you would leave the road and drive down into and across the stream bed. What once took me well over four hours was now a little over two and not exhausting.

The growth of industry along the way is amazing and the addition of about forty wind turbines on the major ridge just before you come to Ahmednagar is in strange juxtaposition to the various roadside gypsy tents with camels outside them, cowherds directing their charges along the road and shepherds watching their flocks.

After a short stop to pick up flowers to place on Baba’s tomb we arrived at Lower Meherabad to register in a room where once many years ago a slept for several weeks. With the addition of the new Meher Pilgrim Retreat (MPR), the old Meher Pilgrim Center (MPC) has become mostly administrative and a place for some western volunteers to stay. Who knows, they may send me down there after Dee returns home. The MPC was a wonderful place to stay from its opening in 1980, but it was no longer adequate for the number of visitors that now come and it had become very noisy due to its proximity to the main road. The MPR is so far away from the road that you cannot hear the traffic at all.

We did mange to get time to have a brief stop at the tomb prior to going to the MPR to get lunch, check in and settle into our separate single rooms for unpacking and a nap. After my nap I met with Karen, Dr. Anne’s nurse assistant and she showed me the MPR health clinic and told me that normal hours are only from 9:30 to 10:30 but I am the only MD here so I am always on call. Since it is only an hour we shifted it so that at times if I wish I can get the bus into town or Meherazad which leaves at 9:30. We had a relaxed afternoon with a little guitar playing, evening prayers and a visit to our old friend’s home before diner and early bed.

London-Mumbai

gavin_elliott — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 20:50:00 GMT

London-Mumbai

Our trip to the airport in London went smoothly except that it was at evening rush hour so it took an hour , and Dee noticed that our driver was periodically nodding off so she kept up small talk with him to help him stay more alert. Fortunately there was no focus on baggage weight at check in and we slowly progressed through the security check. The security area was severely littered with empty water bottles and was rather inefficient, but all the staff were nice. I had a bit of a concern when the one of the security staff took my guitar aside, which I was now ‘carrying on’ along with a carry on bag, and showed it to another. They entered in to a discussion for about two minutes, intermittently pointing at part of the case. Eventually they gave it to another person who looked at it and handed it to me. I asked what the issue was and she told me that they were not allowed to let any thing though security that said ‘bomb’ on it. My case has a very old sticker that says ‘Bread not bombs’. They let it go but told me to try to keep the sticker hidden until I was on the plane. It is interesting how rules and regulations develop in reaction to some event, fortunately there are still some people who think about what they are doing and what is behind the rule.

We wanted to look through the duty free area and pick up some scotch to take with us to India did look around briefly but did not take advantage of it out of concern for the weight limitation issues that we may face in Mumbai. Next Dee wanted to call some friends in the States to check on her dogs, but as she was preparing to do so I noted that the electronic flight status board indicated that our flight was no longer ‘boarding’ but now ‘closing’. This was a surprise as it was still 50 minutes to departure time. She skipped the call and off we rushed to find a nearly empty boarding area. We boarded, settled in, were offered orange juice and champagne and the waited in our seats for what turned out to be the normal departure time. The call could have easily been made. I knew that in the US flights are not allowed to leave the gate without all the passengers prior to scheduled departure time but I wasn’t sure about London. Now I know, the call could have been made.

The flight was reasonably comfortable, but we still both have a hard time sleeping well on a plane. None-the-less, I got about 4 to 5 hours of sleep and was clear headed on arrival to Mumbai. Even though the international airport was poorly air-conditioned, there was some. The process of immigration, customs clearance, money exchange, checking our bags in at the international airport for travel on via the domestic airport and taking the shuttle to the domestic airport went very smoothly. This is notable as in the past I have been hung up for hours to days by this process. The domestic airport has had a major refurbishment. It is clean, bright, airy and coolly comfortable It is as nice as most medium sized airports in the US. We had to again go through security and it was rather inefficient and ineffective. Even though we were not supposed to bring any fluids through, I noticed when I picked up my bag on the other side that in an outer pocket I still had a full bottle of water! I looked at the screening person and they were not looking at the display at all. In the international airport when we rechecked our bags that person also did not seem to be paying any attention to the display. Maybe it’s not necessary because out of sight they may well go through the checked bags carefully looking for something to steal! We’ll see. That may not be fair. I have never had anything taken from my bags in Indian airports, only in the US and Cayman Islands.

So, there you are.

London

gavin_elliott — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 20:47:00 GMT

London, 6/11

They have a great breakfast spread at the Thistle Hotel, Charing Cross that is included in the package. We enjoyed and set out early for the Tower of London via the tube, as they call their subway system. The tube is very easy to get around, clearly marked, clean, safe, and runs frequently.

As it turned out the opening time we were given was incorrect so we arrived very early and had plenty of time to wander around outside prior to opening time. It is in a lovely location on the river next to the Tower Bridge, of course. We had time to go out on the bridge and then went in through the main entrance. The public tours were not to start for half an hour so we proceeded in and happened upon a private tour that we were able to tag onto without objection. The tour guide was very entertaining provided fascinating stories, and looked a bit like a young image of Santa Claus without the white hair and beard and of course had a different costume. We ended up spending the entire morning there taking in the whole site.

We found a nice little pizza shop about a block away and enjoyed sitting out on the balcony for pizza and beer. The beer in England is so much better than the draught we get in the States. I drank much more there than I do anywhere else I’ve been. Not hard to do as I rarely drink it in the States, much preferring wine there.

After lunch we took the tube over to the Tate Britain Museum, spent an hour or so viewing the art from prior to 1900. We then took the Tate ferry for a nice cruise up the river to the Tate Modern, looking at modern art for the rest of the afternoon. The Tate Modern building itself it quite interesting and as you might expect very modern in it’s architecture.

In the evening we found our way over near Piccadilly Circus to what is purported to be the best vegetarian restaurant in London, Mildred’s. It is a small establishment not far from a Whole Foods grocery. We weren’t there long util I noticed that nearly all of the patrons were women. At one point I asked those seated next to us, during a conversation, if that was the norm and she said it was, that she thought most vegetarians in London were women. Even Dee remarked about the quality of the noise in this small room with poor acoustics from all these women talking at once. The food was good but only remarkable in the taste of the minted ‘mushy peas’. Interesting.

We finished off the evening talking to a lovely couple from Finland in the hotel bar over glasses of scotch.

6/12

The feature of the morning was a quick tube ride to Westminster tube station, a quick walk past Big Ben and Parliament and into Westminster Abbey. We spent the rest of the morning with the incredibly affable and informative Verger Benjamin on a 2 hour guided tour of the Abbey. What an incredible site with so many amazing stories associated with it!

We took a rushed tube trip over towards St. Paul’s cathedral to make it to the two o’clok tour but stopped at a great pub for lunch near Blackfrair’s station and got to the church a too late for the tour was sold out. We left there to go to St. Martin-in-the-Fields to do a bronze rubbing only to find it was closed for the season. By the way, for those who don’t know, there are no fields anywhere near it, it is in the middle of the city, only a few blocks from the spot used as the city location for measuring distance from the city on road maps. As we seemed to keep striking out with plans we decided to walk along St. James park to Buckingham Palace and then on through Hyde Park corner to Knightsbridge Street so Dee could do some shopping. We had a very relaxing stop for tea and scones. Dee found nothing to buy and we headed back to the hotel for a rest. That evening we had a great thai dinner at a restaurant just off of Trafalgar Square.

6/13

We got packed up in the morning, left our bags with the concierge and checked out of our room prior to heading out for the day. The Globe theatre, a reconstruction of the theatre used and partly owned by William Shakespeare was first on our list for the day. We greatly enjoyed the tour of the Globe theatre and would like to go back for a play when we have time and can get seats. Although I’m sure it is interesting to be one of those viewing the play from the area in front of the stage, a ‘groundling’, I’m am not interested at this time in my life in standing for several hours in the sun for a play – no matter how ‘authentic’ the experience.

We next had an interesting tour of St. Paul’s, not nearly as entertaining as Westminster Abbey but worthwhile. We returned to the same pub as the day before for lunch and again enjoyed the food and ambiance. The rest of the afternoon was unremarkable and partly consisted in cleaning up a bit, resting and preparing for the trip to the airport and on to India.

New York City

gavin_elliott — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 04:41:00 GMT

After our afternoon rest in Newark we took care of the check in to our flight to London online. This makes it so much easier and faster at the airport, I highly recommend doing this. We then took the hotel shuttle back to the airport and took the 20 minute train ride into New York City. Next, our navigation of the subway system was hot noisy and much longer than it should have been. Neither of us care for New York’s system. It is very poorly marked and in poor condition. It is much easier to take a cab. None-the less we spent an hour getting hot and sweaty to arrive a few blocks away from our dinner engagement. Tao is a fantastic place to eat (the address is on the itinerary page). I encourage you to check out their web site as it gives an excellent description and has some good photos. The food is superb and the ambiance would be serene if it weren’t for the euro-disco type music. It was once, long ago, a stable and in many of the grottos left in the brick walls there are now statues of Buddha. At one end of the restaurant is a huge statue of Buddha and at the other end is a wall sculpture that gives the impression of looking down on a Japanese rock garden. We enjoyed every minute there. Even a trip to the men’s room was notable as the urinal was basically a waterfall and the sink basin was like a rock filled stream. I don’t usually have comments about the toilets, but there you are. When desert arrived I had the wonderful surprise of Happy Birthday written in chocolate on the plate, even though it was still 8 days away, and a message that my sister had called with the well wishes and was picking up the tab! What a great desert topping! After dinner we walked to the Marque theatre, which took about 30 minutes and helped burn off some of the calories we had gained at Tao. We arrived with about 10 minutes to spare and then settled in to watch a thoroughly entertaining but senseless musical, The Drowsy Chaperone. The performance was excellent and light-hearted. We both laughed a great deal. After the show we took a 5 minute cab ride back to the train station for the same expense in dollars but not in effort as our earlier subway trip, went in and within five minutes we were back on the train to Newark. After repacking our bags to redistribute the weight, we got in bed in time to get a good six hours sleep before we got up at 5am to take the 5:30 shuttle to the airport. The shuttle driver, without request, broke the rules and took us to the regular terminal drop-off instead of the one the hotel’s are supposed to use which would have required us to get our bags onto the airport train system and travel around the circuit half the distance to our terminal. Having saved us a great deal of time and effort, you can be sure he got a very good tip. The rest of check in was complicated by the fact that the first thing they did after the ID check was to weigh our carry on bags. It turns out that they had to be under 6 kg! I have never had my carry on weighed before. Dee’s was 9 and mine was 13. We then took up space at the bag drop off area redistributing weight from carry on to checked bags. That is into Dee’s since her’s were the only one’s under weight. It worked out but was a bit different. All for now.

Important document tip

gavin_elliott — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 04:05:00 GMT

Just a tip for your international travelers: You know how it is a good idea to have a photocopy of your important documents? Well, if you are going to a location where you can get internet access in a situation where you need to get the copies of your important documents then all you need to do is make digital photos of them prior to departure and email them to yourself or place in some other secure site online. Then if you need them they are there waiting in a pristine state instead of in the bag that was stolen or got soaked and the images damaged, etc.

Last day!

gavin_elliott — Sat, 9 Jun 2007 06:18:00 GMT

Well, it appears that everything is in order, though Dee caught up in some last minute rushing about. All of the last minute activity is work related. It is amazing how nothing seems to happen until there is a time crunch. She has all of her travel gear together and packed in a small amount of space. She does pack lightly. Much more so than I. Then again I am going for two months and she for about two and half weeks. Thus I have three checked bags at close to the weight limit and Dee has one! It is amazing how much the weight goes up when you have to take all of your sun screen, insect repellent, lotion, vitamins and requested medical books. This last item is the killer, but they need them. And then, of course, there is the requisite music/sound gear, computer,and new digital camera. We’ll pack the car tonight so that it will be easy to get off in the early morning to the airport. New York tomorrow with good restaurants and theatre! Later

Departure

gavin_elliott — Sat, 9 Jun 2007 03:58:00 GMT

We did get away from home for the drive to Raleigh on Saturday morning a bit later than the stated departure time, but before our required departure time. This was good as we were facing two unseen delays. The first added about 10 minutes due to roadwork between Chapel Hill and Durham. The second was to have effects for days. Lucca, Dee’s older therapy dog, got ‘ansy’ during the last half hour of the trip to the house in Raleigh where he and Harris are staying during Dee’s absence. This is quite unusual. He is normally so even mannered and travels very well. Our questions were answered as soon as we arrived, he had diarrhea! It did not amount to much, but was clearly there. None-the-less, after a half hour walk he seemed to be behaving normally and had not had to go for about 20 minutes, so off we rushed to Dee’s sister’s house so she could take us to the airport and keep the car at her house and avoid parking charges at the airport. Fortunately she had already been to the airport that morning and knew that there were major delays on the normal route due to construction but she knew a very effective back route. We got to the airport without a problem and saved a great deal of time and effort by checking in four bags at the curb. Now three of these are mine and all are at the 50 lb weight limit due to the time I’ll be in India requested items from friends there. The rest of our travel to Newark was without significance and we arrived at our hotel with only a desire to rest for an hour or two before going into New York City for the evening.

Itinerary

gavin_elliott — Mon, 4 Jun 2007 04:06:00 GMT

India Trip Itinerary: Saturday June 9 Depart: Raleigh, NC to Newark, NY Stay at: Double Tree Hotel Newark Airport DINNER at Tao Drowsy Chaperone Venue: Marquis Theater Sunday June 10 Depart: Newark, NY to London Heathrow airport Thistle Hotels – Charing Cross Wednesday June 13th Depart: London Heathrow to Mumbai, India (Bombay) Thursday, June 14th Depart: Mumbai to Pune Hotel Srimaan in Pune Friday, June 15th Depart Pune by car to Meherabad with Pilgrim Express Meher Pilgrim Retreat Post Bag 31, King’s road Ahmednagar, MS 414001 India http://www.ambppct.org/trust/meher-pilgrim-retreat-n.php (91)241-2458777 Sunday, June 24th Depart Meherabad to Pune by car with Pilgrim Express Depart Pune to Mumbai Domestic Airport Hyatt Regency Monday, June 25th Dee: Depart Mumbai to Newark via London Gavin: Depart Mumbai to Pune Depart Pune by car to Meherabad with Pilgrim Express Meher Pilgrim Retreat Post Bag 31, King’s road Ahmednagar, MS 414001 India (91)241-2458777 Tuesday, June 26th Dee: Depart Newark to Raleigh, NC Monday, August 6th Depart Meherbad by car with Pilgrim Express to Pune Depart Pune to Mumbai Tuesday, August 7th Depart Mumbai to Newark via London Hilton Newark Airport Wednesday, August 8th Newark to Greensboro

Nearly ready

gavin_elliott — Mon, 4 Jun 2007 00:38:00 GMT

It's less than a week til we take off for London and then on to India, after a night in New York. I finally have all of the reservations set and I think I have nearly everything needed for the trip. I have even started to organize the stuff so that that for India is separate and I don't have to sort though it in England. A bit compulsive I guess. I will put our itinerary on my next post.