Well, I made it back safely from Bombay to Brooklyn. I’d like to take a moment to recognize the following, which made my trip bearable:

1. Dial soap.
2. Gmail. (Particularly the chat feature, which made it possible for me to arrange last-minute lodging in London, courtesy of the Dewar sisters. Without it, I probably would have ended up staying at a youth hostel with a bunch of soccer hooligans.)
3. The iPod Shuffle. (Charged just once at the beginning of my trip, it lasted me through three weeks of traveling, used for half an hour every day, with plenty of juice left over for the long plane ride home.)

The following, however, are dead to me:

1. Orbitz.com. (I got a good price on the trip, but Orbitz booked me way too tightly at Heathrow, causing me to miss my first connection and nearly miss the second.)
2. A certain five-year-old con artist at the Gateway to India. (You know who you are.)
3. Dave Freeman. (A yoga-related mishap? Well, great. Who am I going to have brunch with now?)

But in the end, if there's one thing that I learned while I was in India, it's that you should always check the sugar bowl for fly larvae before adding sugar to your coffee. Trust me.