**So somehow we've reached the end of this journey, might have been even quicker to relive the duration of the trip ten years later than it was ten years back. I'm surrpised how matter of fact I am about the last day in Singapore and the flight back. There was a little hit of nostalgia at the start, but mostly about what is truly a groundbreaking moment - me taking out a tiny little netbook the first dinner at Sevruga. My life changed that day, putting on the travel writer hat in some degree from that day onwards. As I say in the story, that runnign diary gave me a reason to keep sane throughout, both in that trip and all trips since. I'll have another post about the trip as a whole, but for now i'll give you the last of a four month journey.**
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I'll have to credit the popularity of Sevruga for this whole exercise. That expensive, fusion place in Cape Town's V&A Waterfront. That's the reason this all happened. I was jetlagged and ready for bed late on Monday, February 25th, and I decided, probably against better judgement, to be a little extravagant for my first meal of my trip (not including the food on South African Airways). They asked me to wait at the bar until my table was ready, and all I had in my hand was that little Samsung Netbook in my backpack. I decided to, instead of sit lonely at the bar, to open it up and start writing about my flight to South Africa.
One hundred and five days later, and about 60 entries later, it's all over, and I have the wait time in Sevruga to thank. The RTW Trip Diary became what connected the entire trip, what kept me sane, what kept me wanting to experience as much as I can. It became a way to unwind during long days after hours of walking around. It became a way to give myself something to do during my solo meals back in the first few weeks of the trip. Like most things, it became harder to do when I reached my family and reached the (relatively) slow, banal life of Bangalore. Still, the diary served as a lasting document for a trip of a lifetime.
It's hard to go back in time and remember how I felt that first night. I was surprised at how easily three and a half pages came that day. I kept apologizing for the length of my diary entries during my time in South Africa as they went close to four full pages on Word by the time I was done. Of course, little did I know that they would stay the same length and I would soon stop apologizing for it. I never felt really happy with how I was writing the whole diary. This trip taught me a lot of things about different cultures, different ways of life, the joys and pains of air travel, but it didn't teach me the clear difference between a diary and a guidebook.
I wasn't sure how I would feel when I was returning back to the US. The fight home is never as fun as the flight away from home (it doesn't help that the flight out is almost always a night flight while the flight home is a day flight). It helped that Singapore Airlines basically pulled out all the stops on this flight. They served a really nice breakfast with really good scrambled eggs, and then Beef Rendang for lunch right before we landed in JFK. Having Beef Rendang listed on their menu brought out so many interesting emotions out of me, as I immediately remembered just how much I love Beef Rendang in the US, to how much I enjoyed tasting different variations of Beef Rendang in Malaysia, to a sign that Singapore Airlines could pull past Etihad, of the famed lamb biryani, as my favorite airlines.
Of course, the Beef Rendang wasn't a great version of it (compared to the lamb biryani on Etihad which was one of the best lamb biryanis I've had), but that didn't spoil the flight, in which I also finished watching Season 4 of Arrested Development (I'll have more on that later). It was tough to see that 'Time to Destination' clock wind down on the flight, but I knew this day was coming sooner or later. That's why I was happy to be doing it on Singapore Airlines, the last of my 30 flights.
I'm the kind of person that after a trip passes its halfway point, I start to feel a longing sense of dread about the impending end of the trip, so you could imagine how I was feeling nearing the end of this trip. I was afraid it would take the enjoyment of my day layover in Singapore. I was afraid it would take away the enjoyment of that last flight. Luckily, the knowledge that I wasn't returning to 10th Grade helped.
When I reached JFK, I did start to feel a bit sad, and when I finished the long walk from the gate to the ground floor Immigration area at JFK's T4, I turned to the large glass windows showing the tarmac. I couldn't see the Singapore plane, but I did see something that brought back a huge host of emotions. I saw that South African Airways A340-600, the plane that I started this whole 105-day trek on. I then remembered that that flight is scheduled for 11:00 AM, while the scheduled arrival time of my flight in Singapore was 10:55. As I looked out, the South African Airways plane was pulling back from the gate. As I saw that beautiful bird being tugged away, I wondered if I would, if I could, finagle myself back on that plane and go on this 105-day journey all over again. My bank account says no, but would I do it? Of course so, and that's the best way to describe any vacation. Glad to be back, but less glad than having the chance to do it all over again.
