...and they're off

It's been a crazy week and a bit since we got back from the UK. There have been lots of very late and drunken nights and very busy days as we've finished various work admin jobs, packed up and shipped all our stuff, said goodbye to friends and staff and Gemma has run around Delhi buying the few handicrafts we didn't already own.

Its quite a relief to finally be on the train to Amritsar after such an emotionally and physically tiring week, and we're even looking forward to a forced detox in Pakistan. We've been touched by the number of send-off events (and presents...) that people have organized and will miss everyone in Delhi. The prize for saddest farewell goes to our driver Prasad, who has been breaking into tears periodically all week. We've probably spent an order of magnitude more time with him than anyone other than each other over the last 3 years, so perhaps that's not too suprising.

We're staying in Amritsar tonight, crossing into Pakistan tomorrow morning and staying in Islamabad tomorrow night, then flying up to Skardu early on Wednesday. We'll then be making our way North into China for 10 days or so.

We've been monitoring the security situation closely and this route avoids Swat and anywhere else we probably wouldn't want to be at the moment. I guess we'll know for sure soon.

Trev.