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You may have noticed the line on our map departed from its usually furtive inching along and suddenly jumped a country and an ocean to land in India.  This represents Nakia’s path, one the rest of us will hopefully be following shortly. 

Speaking for myself, getting on a plane is the last thing I want to do.  However, in light of the situation, it may be the best option.  Myanmar, a country I long to bike through, has no open borders and large sections of the country are closed off to foreigners.  Others have traveled through it, but only as ‘guests’ of the various rebel groups operating in the areas not controlled by the government. Such travel is impractical for five people on bicycles, and probably would not involve much bike travel anyway.

Going back into China and around Tibet is the next best option.  However, we all don’t equally love mountains, and buying visas and climbing the Himalayas would cost significant dollars and time.  As a group, we decided it would be best to take the carbon emissions hit and book a flight. 

We are currently in Bangkok, staying with Gretchen, a super-hospitable Bennie, and preparing for India.  The three of us guys still hold out hope for finding a ship to take us (less trouble and fewer emissions) but chances of that happening are not great.  So don’t be surprised if you see another jump on the map from Bangkok to Kalkutta.  Hopefully our current and future biking will offset the carbon.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 9th, 2008 at 9:34 am and is filed under Jim's Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.