Exciting news!! You’ll remember that a few weeks ago, I was sharing around the web an article I’d written for a competition with Padhaaro, an online travel site for India. Contestants had to submit a travel story about an experience they had while in India. My entry, “Lama Illumination,” was a write up of the…
In honour of yesterday’s World Human Rights Day, I’ll begin with… A TRIBUTE It is with great sadness that his family, the people of South Africa, and indeed, the entire world lost Nelson Mandela. Very rarely in the history of humanity has one man meant so much to so many people. His bravery transcended the…
Wow!! That was an exhausting 6 weeks in India. During our time in Thailand, Leslie and I spent many hours over beers at Mr. Poong’s Bar discussing our next adventure. We deliberated long and hard between Burma and India, and China was even an option at one stage. But one day we discovered flights to…
Anybody that knows anything about me will know that I’m not a very spiritual person, or at least in the traditional sense of the word. I’m a strong willed atheist, I don’t believe in horoscopes and the zodiac, Feng Shui is another name for good taste and even yoga hurts just to watch. If asked…
Most places we live in or travel to have different sides to them, like an old coin, one side shiny, the other worn and grimy. But never during all my adventures has this been more evident than in the city of Agra. A small town in the state of Uttah Pradesh, Agra is home to…
Varanasi, despite its status as India’s holiest city, shares one other less desirable distinction, at least in my opinion; it is almost certainly its filthiest, which in the world’s filthiest country is quite an accolade. Nevertheless, it remains a city that I love, and is more than capable of producing some memorable moments and scenes.…
Darjeeling, a former jewel in the British crown, lies across the Himalayan foothills like some dirty folded blanket, its inner creases the grimy streets or trash strewn lanes, its outer folds the ramshackle and rundown hotels that cling to the hills as mere shadows of their former splendor. When I imagined Darjeeling I saw a…
Our arrival in Kolkata didn’t go well. The flight from Bangkok arrived after midnight, and a big Indian city is not the best place to start searching for a hotel in the wee hours. So we pre-booked our first night, savvy travelers that we are. Our friendly taxi driver bombed his ubiquitous yellow cab at…
As our amazing 4 month stay on Koh Yao Noi came to an end, it was with an equal mix of sadness and excitement that Leslie and I headed off for our flight to Kolkata. Thailand was the perfect place to relax, recharge after Korea, and dive fully into editing my novel. But like all stories,…
With very little spare time today due to our packing up and preparing for India, I’m taking a quick stroll down memory lane. After a heavy partying weekend in Seoul in early Spring 2011, what better way to finish up than a few hours sitting on Busan’s Haeundae Beach, drinking beers and playing guitars. My…
