Just a quick update to all – I will be out of touch for the next couple of weeks.  Cousin and I (and a friend we met while we were volunteering) are going on a five day trek to Poon Hill for mountian views of Annapurna II and some of the other fabulous mountain ranges in this region.
After that, I will voluntarily put myself into a silent seclusion in a Vipassana meditation course outside of Pokhara.  That means ten days of no talking, gesturing, eye-contact with others, reading, or writing …

Alright, I am going to skip forward just a bit – after Pushkar Cousin Helen and I went to Jaipur for Holi and then a day in Agra to marvel at the splendor of the Taj Mahal.  We left Agra in the dead of night after spending several hours loitering in the train terminals and waiting for the train that was, naturally, late.
Indian trains are either perfectly and exactly on time and you rapidly board the train and go on your merry way, or, as if often the case, …

I am going to start this blog out with noting that the monkeys in India are not nice.  In fact, as cute as they may look from afar, they are downright nasty.  This fact plays an important part what would have been a challenging and meditative hike to the top of one of the hills surrounding Pushkar.
On our camel safari into the desert around Pushkar Helen and I spotted a huge hill outside of town with a big temple on the top.  Our guides indicated that local Indians and …

One of my wide-sweeping goals for this trip is to learn new things – not just the intangible new knowledge that you gain of new cultures, religions and regions, but tangible skills.  All throughout the trip so far I have been trying to learn the local skills and crafts – a cooking class in Laos taught me a few basic dishes from that region – my intention for India has been dance classes and henna.  Pushkar is a fairly small town and quite navigable – which is most certainly …

Happy Easter! As a quick status update to everyone, although I’m still posting about my adventures in India, my RTW trip has me in….Nepal! I’m actually in my volunteer program and teaching English to monks at a monastery about an hour outside of Kathmandu.  There are two other volunteers at the guesthouse here and we all decided to have our own private little holiday celebrations since Easter is very much a non-event on this side of the world.
Laurel, a volunteer working at the local hospital, came home with six …

The dilapidated bus that was to be our next means of transportation was my next “welcome to India moment” – the bus had been around far longer than I have even been alive and the last paint job was probably administered around the time I was weaning from the bottle.  It was quite a piece of work let me tell you.  There was no reason to desire tinted windows on the bus because they were so dirty and cloudy that light could only seep through them anyway.
There are no …

Some people are wondering why I’m spending so long in each city (I’ve had this question a couple of times); I’m averaging about 5 to 6 days.  Basically, I’ve found that traveling for a year is a really long time and rushing from place to place is really stressful.  So the answer: I’m pacing myself!  I’m not on vacation as so many of my lovely friends and readers would like to believe – long term travel means at least one “business” day each week and probably two.  This means …

Udaipur was a really relaxing stop for me and I’m glad that I took the whole week to relax in the town and get used to the peculiarities of India.  I spent my days in Udaipur getting some work done, taking it slow on the sightseeing, and drinking some chai…actually not some chai, a lot of chai.
Indians drink a milked, sugared, spiced chai at least three times a day and most likely many, many more times than that.  Shop owners are quick to offer up a cup of steaming-hot, …