After travelling India for seven months, covering a total distance of 16,000 km (10,000 miles) on my (occasionally) trusty Royal Enfield, it is finally time to head back to the Western World, and reintegrate, at least for long enough to earn my next adventure.

I left Delhi, and Mother India, last Wednesday, and flew to London, where I am now visiting with family, and preparing to return to Los Angeles in a few days. So far, I feel like a kid in a candy store, marvelling at the technological wonders, comforts and functionality of the developed world, but also knowing that I will soon miss the presence of wildlife (especially the cows) in the streets.

I've been feeling rather thin, so, before leaving, I put 1 Rupee in a test-your-weight machine on the main Bazaar in Delhi, and got this card ejected in return (View image). It means that I lost 7 kg (16 lbs) in India, or 1 kg for every month spent there! But the card also claims that I am a "gentle dreamer, sensitive and artist"(sic), so that's good...

I have quite a bit of catching up to do on the blog, to fill in the gaps between this departure and the last entries I made a few weeks ago, and I'm going to try and do this over the next couple of days, so that I can hit the ground running when return to the States. One of the things that is horribly overdue, is to put in a map of India, showing my route and movements through the subcontinent.

Over the past weeks I have been excited to tell people that I had not had ANY accidents or spills during the whole trip, but knew had better keep my mouth shut, for fear of changing my luck, so close to the end of my travels. But now that I have left my bike and India safely behind, I can now say how amazing it feels to have covered so much ground -- under such INSANE conditions -- and to have come away completely unscathed.

One unexpected turn of events: I ended up NOT selling the motorcycle before I left India. Instead, I put it into storage in the garden of a restaurant in the Parvati Valley (View image), where I hope to return sometime in the next few months, to further explore the breathtaking Himalayan region of North India, on what must be one of the best motorcycles in India. After so many problems and repairs, at least I can now say I know that bike inside out -- and what more can go wrong, right?...