The whirring sounds and motion of the overnight train to Bosnia did little to cover the noise of constant intrusions into my train compartment; I was doing a late night border crossing into Bosnia from Croatia and the customs officers have absolutely no mercy. The officer who came through the train on the Croatia side to check my passports and issue an exit stamp was as unsmiling and humorless as so many of the other Croats I’ve met. I hate to make a generalization about the Croats, but while …

My lucky weather streak didn’t hold and our travel day from Milna started a bit ominously, I woke up to the sounds of thunder in the distance and a quick look outside the cottage window showed a sky pregnant with dark clouds and rain –it didn’t bode well for making it across the country and to a new Croatian town.
But, rain wasn’t about to stop us so it we spent the morning closing up the cottage, putting away the dishes, locking closed the windows and repacking our packs. I …

Continued from Round the World Travel Torture
The cab to the ferry to the ferry
The cab makes the 2 kilometer drive to the docks in record time and we tumble out of the vehicle in true clown car style, sling our packs onto our backs and dart into the customs line for a perfunctory passport check where the customs official stamps our passports and rapidly shoos us away to catch the ferry.
It’s still there!
As we jog toward our ferry we pass by a large group of older Eastern European …

There is a very distinct rhythm to life in the developing world –things happen day after day often enough that you just forget that life could be lived any other way. For me, carrying toilet paper in every pocket of my clothes was just second nature. My whole days in Nepal were built around the timing of electricity for the day. Another fun part of traveling throughout India and Nepal…hand-washing laundry. Ahh, that is one of those things that just becomes a part of the routine.
In India we …

Amrit is just about one of my favorite people who I met in Nepal. He’s 23 and just has one of the most optimistic and happy dispositions on the planet. Amrit’s uncle, Barbajaun owns Family Guesthouse  (and just about everything in Pharping) and Amrit lives at the guesthouse and acts as the “den-mom” of sorts for all of the volunteers living at the guesthouse through VSSN. Our first days in Pharping will forever be shaped in my memory by Amrit’s joyfulness. Although we had some problems with VSSN, …

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 …

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 …

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 …