I am still here in Atlanta planning my trip. I leave in 10 days, on January 11. For the last few days we have all been watching the death toll from the Tsunami. The last number I saw was 140,000 deaths, but it keeps climbing. Millions of people are homeless, with no food or water, surrounded by rotting dead bodies.
Please help with a generous donation. A few dollars can save a life. If you have an account at amazon.com you can go to http://www.amazon.com and make a donation to the Red Cross with one click. There are plenty of other good organizations to donate to. Two that I think are particularly good are UNICEF at http://www.unicef.org/ and Seva at http://www.seva.org/.
I still intend to go on my trip. For a while I considered canceling the trip for two reasons. The first reason was a feeling that it was disrespectful to go as a tourist to a country where so many have recently died, and so many more will die. However, everything I read on discussions on the internet says that people in the effected areas really want tourists to keep coming. If the tourist trade stops because of the Tsunami that will just be one more blow to the local economies.
The second reason I considered canceling was fear of disease. We have all read about the great chance of various epidemics caused by the disaster. However, I will be up in the North West part of India, in the foothills of the Himalayas, in Rishikesh. This is almost 1000 miles away from the nearest area hit by the Tsunami, so there is not any danger of increased risk of disease.
Life goes on. I am corresponding with lots of people in India. Even in the effected states in Southern India, in those areas that had not been hit, New Years Eve parties went on with great gaiety and people danced late into the night.
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