This summer I set off for a five-week trip to India by hunching my shoulders over my iMac and hunkering down right here in Spokane.

The journey actually belonged to our younger daughter, a recent college graduate, and two of her best friends from school. They’d been working extra jobs, saving up their cash and planning this trip for months. With the help of the virtual world, I worried them right through every step of the way.

Intellectually, I certainly understood the importance of travel to developing countries like India and China, with their astounding rates of economic growth. Why not visit the land of my new airline and tech support buddies?

Yet between my real trip to China in May and this virtual one to India in August, I found the latter much more harrowing.

Most of my fellow empty-nesters blanched politely when I told them of our daughter’s plans. A few seasoned travelers asked blandly, “So what worries you?”

The list was too long to quickly convey: malaria-infused mosquitoes, typhoid, Japanese encephalitis. Monsoons, landslides, bus accidents. Engrained sexism, terrorist attacks, kidnappings. My brain roamed far and wild. It soaked up images from recent films set in Pakistan, “A Mighty Heart,” and even 1920s’ China, “A Painted Veil.” It madly devoured news of India: 2,000 died in monsoon flooding this summer alone. Bus accident deaths climbed. A clash between Maoist rebels and police left 49 dead.

As my daughter and her friends soared off to Delhi, I began to comb my copy of “Fodor’s India,” and type up e-mails filled with advice: Avoid guides driving lightweight cars like Unos or Maruti vans. Stick with something heavier, I wrote. And ask the driver to DRIVE SLOWLY.

My daughter, for her part, read these e-mails with a bemused grin, cheerfully ignoring most of them. And at one Indian cyber café after another, she patiently filled me in on her itinerary as it emerged. It would be a two-week tour of Rajasthan first, then on to Delhi, Rishikesh, Amritsar, Dharamsala and Agra.

She wrote gentle reassurances. One day, her e-mail ended with this one: “So far no bugs or illnesses have bothered us. Cross your fingers. I think that it was from the blessing from feeding bananas to holy monkeys yesterday! Everything involves blessings or prayers here.”

Another day she reported from Bikaner: “We arrived at the rat temple, which wasn’t as horrendous as we had anticipated. The rats were very small and mostly they hide from humans. Nonetheless, it was fascinating.”

As she traveled, I downloaded Google Earth and peered at aerial views of the lakes and temples she was visiting. I read online blogs written by travelers who had stayed in exactly the same hotels. One day I even found a YouTube video of the identical bus ride she was bouncing along through the Himalayas.

By the time she ventured into Dharamsala where the Dalai Lama lives, I decided to go one step further. I rustled up a copy of “Awakening the Buddha Within” by Lama Surya Das.

As I read of the spiritual wisdom that sustains the gentle people who surrounded my daughter and her friends that week, I remembered once again how to slow down and breathe.

That calm lasted right up to the moment I read of the terrorist attacks in Hyderabad that killed at least 37. The Times of India helpfully informed me that India has lost more lives to terrorism since 2004 than any country other than Iraq.

A few mornings later, the phone rang at 5 a.m. After a 15-hour flight from Delhi, Megan had landed back on American soil. She was carrying a new tote bag with a picture of a sacred cow she’d paid 25 rupees for, and Indian travelers were grinning at her in the Chicago airport.

After five weeks, I felt my shoulders finally release, and I sank back to sleep.

Later I awoke with a curious case of psychic jet lag. I may take a trip to Amritsar and Mussoorie and Darjeeling myself one day. But first I’ll need to recover from this one.

Jamie Tobias Neely may be reached at jamien@spokesman.com.