I’ve been in India for a few weeks now but I wanted to take you guys back to some of the adventures of that first week in India.  Leaving Southeast Asia was pretty hard – over the six weeks I was there with Laura I really grew to love the people and the culture in that region.  I’ve talked about the slow pace of the Laos, and also about the faster pace of Cambodia – well, even the big city aspect of Phnom Penh couldn’t quite prepare me …

It was a little painful for Helen and me to wake up at 5:00am to catch our train out of Jaipur but we managed to drag ourselves out of bed, slung our pre-packed backpacks onto our shoulders and trudged to the train station – it was early and it really hadn’t hit either of us yet that we were on our way to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal.  I mean, can I just repeat this one more time…the TAJ MAHAL!  Once we got to the train station …

Holi, Festival of Colors and Jaipur’s Elephant Festival
India’s Festival of Colors, was tops at my list of travel experiences when I planned my RTW trip back in 2008. The rainbow of colors streaking radiantly happy faces during Holi just stuck a cord and a little research showed that Jaipur hosts the annual Jaipur Elephant Festival the day before Holi!

Rajasthan acts as the epicenter of the most intense Holi action although the Festival of Colors is celebrated throughout India and even Nepal.  The Holi celebrations actually …

After the Gibbon Experience I really didn’t have a lot of time left in Southeast Asia before I was due to meet cousin Helen in India.  With that in mind I hopped on a quick puddle-jumper flight out of Luang Prabang and landed in Siem Reap, Cambodia just an hour later.  I decided to take out Vietnam from my itinerary – it was just too much to do in just six weeks and now that I’ve been on the road for a while I’ve really been able to …

I have largely neglected my duties to this blog so far by not updating all of my readers on the state of driving on this side of the world.  For those who have not yet had the pleasure of traveling or backpacking through Asia, well, it’s unique and an assault on Western safety sensibilities.  To understand the way these people drive you pretty much have to completely abandon your conceptions about Western driving tactics and strategies and instead accept the organized chaos of a free-for-all.
From what I’ve discovered …