bye bye s.e.asia

tomorrow we will arrive in delhi at about 5 in the morning--we'll be tired, hot, and vulnerable to all sorts of taxi scams but we're taking measures to protect ourselves; booking reservations, buying padlocks, sanitary hand wipes, and a pair of sunglasses for me because if a woman looks a man in the eye in india it is considered a sexual come-on, (according to the dubious knowledge professed in the lonely planet), and i refuse to walk around with my eyes lowered all the time.
we are wildly excited and a little bit scared. thailand was an easy place to land because emerson's been here 3 times now, so even though i was completely enchanted and a little bit lost upon our arrival, he knew what to do to get around. neither of us has ever been to india and by all accounts we hear we will either "love it", or "hate it", although i'm always suspicious of those people you meet who tell you a whole country sucks and it's not worth visiting. we met a guy who said that about cambodia and vietnam--"don't go there, it sucks", and we ended up loving both countries. how can someone write off an entire country? nevermind an entire sub-continent? we are ready to be overwhelmed.

so i would like to take a moment to acknowledge the casualties of this trip so far:

1. my sunglasses purchased last summer in p-town, they were expensive too... lost in a pizza hut in chiang mai, thailand (why did we want pizza hut?--i know, i know, it's shameful, and we were, i suppose, rightfully punished).
2. a gray three dot shirt, left in an outdoor shower on the island of koh chang, thailand.
3. a blue three dot shirt stolen, (ruined?) by a laundress in phnom penh cambodia. three dot shirts are hella expensive by the way.
4. an i-path hat i bought for emerson in bangkok--i-path is a skateboard company in case you didn't know, (i didn't), lost somewhere on the riverside after tubing and drinking lao moonshine with this group of singing lao dudes.
5. one red bikinni, drying outside the hotel window in hanoi.
6. one blue swimsuit belonging to emerson, (hanio, ditto).
7. one biography of aaron burr titled, BURR, by gore vidal--left in a guest house room in vientianne when i was about 20 pages from the end, right at the good part about the treason trial.
8. one bag with about 100 stickers of vietnamese heartthrob boy-band singers, which emerson intended to plaster all of his posessions with, purchased in hanoi and lost about 20 minutes later--never given the chance to fulfill their divine destinies.
9. a bag containing three gifts, all purchased at a sapa store in hanoi--one silk shirt for jin, one silk scarf for pa breneman, and one little stuffed monkey for andi and noel molloy's new baby girl saoirse, where this went is a mystery.
10. one camoflage hat purchased for emerson in siem reap cambodia and lost somewhere on the mekong.

not too bad for three months.
we hope that all of these items find new and suitable homes.
happiness to everyone.