How do you pack for a trip like this? With a strict 20 kg limit (and a 40 Euro per kilo charge to pay for extra weight!), a lot of stuff to bring and no idea what to expect, it wasn't easy! Bicycle stuff, camping stuff, reference stuff, and just living stuff--for three weeks across wide temperatures and crazy altitudes--make for some hard decisions. I made the best choices I could and weighed in at 19.9 kgs at the airport. You can't do any better than that! But now I'll see if I'll regret some of the decisions I made to get down to that weight!

The Air India flight left Paris at 7:30pm. The flight attendants were all in traditional Indian dress. And yes, you get Indian food on Indian airlines. So even if it was airplane food, I thought it was great. The plane was an old Airbus that smelled like the disinfectant they used to clean it, so the seats were cramped and faded. But with no one next to me, I did manage to get a little sleep. The movie was way too weird to keep my attention, and the night was very short. We landed under sunny skies in Delhi at 7am.