November next

It seems to me that by November the epidemic would have burnt through most of the population of India. In this newly safe climate, if we survive, we will be aching to go on a holiday. I suppose international travel will still involve quarantines on arrival, or impossible-to-satisfy COVID-safe visa conditions. So our next holiday will have to be in India. My mind turns to the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh: the high border between India and China.

We love that high cold air, the hours on bumpy roads which take us to the middle of nowhere. In that bleakness, to find a warm cabin, and a simple dinner of hot thukpa with a blazing chili sauce. In that emptiness the only sounds that you hear are the cold winds which blow over the roof of the world, and the lonely calls of ravens and choughs. We are waiting for that long drive across the flood plains of Assam and up into Ziro valley. I hope the next five months do not change the world and its borders so badly that this becomes impossible.