It’s the peat. Ireland just has this certain something that makes the country feel incredibly unique; a something that I couldn’t quite identify for the first three weeks I spent in the country.
I’ve concluded that if Leprechauns, fairies and the such exist, then surely they all congregate in Ireland’s “Wild West.” From Galway City I drove through hours of brown-speckled hills weakly lit with the few and tiny bits of sunshine able to wrestle from behind gray rain clouds and drove into the heart Connemara.
And just for the record, …

The is the first guest post on A Little Adrift and it couldn’t be a better way kick it off. Dave and Deb, perhaps better known as ThePlanetD.com, have a lot of respect heaped their way from me for their biking adventure across the length of Africa in the Tour d’Afrique. They haven’t stopped there and have taken part in adventure travels all over the globe and are only going to add to those adventures next month as they leave Canada and their day jobs behind and plan to travel …

Ok guys, I am sitting here in my hostel in Czech Republic in one of the most beautiful little towns of the trip, Cesky Krumlov, and my heart is kind of clutching and, well…I’m getting a bit teary and nostalgic. Here I am taking a bit of relaxing time to finish reading my book by the pretty river that winds through the town (still reading Lolita) and all of a sudden it hits me that whole regions of this trip around the world are over.
Several other RTW travel blogs that …

Thanks to the recommendation of the proprietress of the Hotel Tina (we stayed here the first two nights before heading over to the Locanda Starlight Hostel– highly recommend both!)with the beautiful Boboli Gardens done, we scheduled ourselves an appointment to see the two signature attractions in the city: the Galleria dell’Accademia with Michelangelo’s David and the Galleria degli Uffizi stocked with the most recognizable Botticelli masterpieces in the world. I can definitely wait in lines when the need arises, but the three of us agreed that it was worth …

I don’t think that I could have landed in a better place to volunteer than the Manjushri Di-Chen Learning Center. This monastery was built to specifically address the poverty and lack of education in Nepal; it’s nearly completely run on donations and the donations are used to sponsor more children as well as further develop the monastery with more appropriate classroom and dorm facilities for the children living and studying there. The children come from the poorest families around Nepal – areas where they live miles from …

I have to say, now that I am on the other side of the Vipassana Meditation course I can only wonder just what prompted me to so strongly insist that I take this ten-day spiritual boot-camp of sorts.  I just don’t know why – I’ve never really previously meditated and have to admit that I wasn’t entirely prepared for what I was getting myself into.
Some of the rules and restrictions of all Vipassana courses:  you sign a contract stating you will stay for the whole course; noble silence means …

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, …