The traveler friendly main street in Pokhara, Nepal was like a breath of fresh air after 2 ½ months in India. Ok, maybe that is a bad analogy since the air in the town was terribly polluted, but we were very happy to be in a place with a wide variety of restaurants and shops catering to the needs and wants of travelers.
Just an hour north of the Indian border, the nondescript town of Lumbini, Nepal is famous for being the birthplace of the Buddha. We decided to stop here for a few days on our way to Pokhara.
We arrived hot and exhausted after 36 hours of travel. Continue reading
Long term travel is not the same thing as a vacation. Vacation is taking a break from real life for a few weeks. When you are on the road for months or years, travel is your real life. And just like real life, travel has stressful times and bad days. One of our worse travel experiences was the 36 hours it took us to get from Agra, India to Lumbini, Nepal.
It was early, very early. The gates opened at dawn. We stood in lines by gender. Rand in one line and the girls and I in the other. Soon we would see one of the most famous buildings in the world, the Taj Mahal.
In the center of the small town square stood a mound of wood ready to be lit for a bonfire. We milled about with the crowd encircling the woodpile, waiting to see what would happen next.
I sat alone in the dark yoga studio, waiting for the class to begin. I had arrived early, but was now wondering if other students would be joining the class. I had been in India for 2 months and had still not experienced the stretching, strengthening, breathing exercise in its country of birth.
Rishikesh, India is known as the Yoga Capital of the World. You would think that we would have immediately felt the zen of the place when we arrived, but you would be wrong. Our first day in the small mountain town was one of the most stressful of the whole trip.
Jaipur was the last, and our least favorite, city we visited in Rajasthan.
Continue reading
Seeing a tiger in the wild in India is largely a matter of luck and persistence (and a little bit of know how).
I looked across the scrub brush and could hardly believe I was sitting atop a camel, riding through a Rajasthani desert.
Any Direction We Choose 