Recently a friend and I took a tour in India. Now first of all, a disclaimer from me: I am not a tour kind of person. I prefer to travel on my own in most situations, however I have done tours in the past that were some of my most memorable travels for all the …
In Bali the worldview is a trifle different than in the west. It’s based on the island’s geography and Hindu beliefs and leads to some interesting contradictions that I’m struggling to deal with. The Balinese recognize the compass points of north, south, east and west, but they also have a unique take to their geography, …
It’s February 23 and it’s the day after the birthday of the temple around the corner—thank goodness. I don’t have to go running out for photos of the events. Maybe tonight we can even get a full night’s sleep. This temple happens to have a congregation of over a thousand families, the largest in the …
Bali is a place built on rice (and tourism, but we’ll leave the tourism for the moment.) I’m staying in Ubud, one of the main tourist towns in Bali (the one made famous by Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love.) It’s a busy place with a perennial traffic jam and stores that run the gamut from …
We’ve been in Bali ten days now and it has been a wonderful lesson in exploration—both sensory and experiential. For instance, at the moment I’m in my bed listening to a thundering downpour and the quintessential sound of gamelan music played for a Balinese shadow puppet show. But not every experience has been quite so …
We’ve been in Bali since February 4thand the first word I have learned is ‘Salam’, or ‘hello.’ I swear we are both still recovering from our Indian sojourn, which seems odd to me given basically all our travel arrangements were made for us. But then again, when there are issues the stress can wear you …
We spent our last week in India on the move. From Kanya Kumari we headed north again, toward our arrival spot of Chennai and Mamalapurum. We broke up our train trip halfway through at a city named Trichy to visit the Sri Rangnam temple, one of the largest temples in southern India—and probably the country. …
From the memorable streets of Fort Kochi with its shoreline of fishing nets we kept heading south, further into the contradictions that are southern India. We finally stopped at the seaside resort town of Varkala Beach (not to be confused with Varkala town.) It’s a town that seems to only know sunsets given it faces …
I’m not quite sure what to write about Fort Kochi. No critiques. I really liked the place. It’s photogenic as heck. Located a little over halfway down the coast of Kerala state, like Goa the area has had layers upon layers of foreign influence. There were the Arab traders who came for the spice. Then …
We’ve been in Goa for three days and I am really not sure what to tell you other than my impressions of the place have all changed. First of all, I have to admit a certain ignorance of Goa. I knew it had been a Portuguese holding (until 1961) and I knew it had …
