Al Ammo

I just finished volunteering for two weeks at a foster home for children. DB and Rekha have adopted 8 children in addition to their 3 biological children from remote mountain areas of Nepal. Some of the children have fathers who have left or died and others were street children that did drugs. The rural areas in Nepal are very poor and without Foster Foundation Nepal these children would not have food security, healthcare, or go to school. DB and Rekha dream of adopting more children and expanding their program to include a handicraft business for single women with children. In Nepal, divorce is basically forbidden and women whose husbands leave them are branded witches by their family and village (this happens in rural areas), making it impossible to support their children. The organization is brand new ... read more

Pushkar is a sleepy little town next to a lake that is a major pilgrimage site for both Hindus and backpackers. The lake was created when Brahma (god of creation) dropped a lotus flower to Earth. Pushker literally means "flower hand." The lake is surrounded by dozens of bathing ghats where people go to wash in the holy water. Ghandi's ashes were spread in the lake at what is now known as Ghandi Ghat. Pushkar is also famous for the throngs of hippies that got stuck here in the 60's. We saw quite a few baby boomers with dreadlocks that got lost in Pushkar 40+ years ago. The city is really just a few labyrinth-like lanes along the lake crammed with guest houses and rooftop restaurants serving traveler fare such as banana pancakes, pasta, and basic ... read more

Q: What do you get when you take millions of Muslims, millions of Hindis, and two white people? A: Northern India in the off-travel season. Sorry for the late post. We've been super busy and not all of our wireless internet connections have been very good. The trip has been nuts so far, in a very good way. This post is of Delhi and Agra. We were able to rent a car and driver for the entire stay in Delhi, and took a train on our day trip to Agra, which is about three hours from Delhi. We went to the largest Mosque in India, the Taj Mahal, Hindu temples, and lots more. It's funny to look around this place and think about how we Americans daydream about winning the lottery, because each of us HAVE ... read more

I have been lucky enough to be in Vietnam for Tet (also known as Lunar New Year and Chinese New Year). Tet is like Christmas, New Years, and everyone in the whole country's birthday all rolled into one. During the holiday, everyone takes at least 1 week off to spend time with their family and most businesses are closed for 1 - 2 weeks. The preparation and celebration blows any western holiday away. Everyone buys tons of flowers, especially these yellow flowering trees that go for 1 million dong! Near where I was staying, the whole park was transformed into a gigantic flower market with bonsai trees, dragon fruit, orchids, bushes shaped like dragons, and every other sort of flowering plant one could imagine. It was so beautiful! To celebrate New Year's, my other volunteer friends ... read more

My mom and her fiance Jan eventually made it to Thailand after a marathon 48-hour journey. Their plane was delayed for 8 hours in San Francisco due to a cracked window, which in turn made them miss their connecting flight in Taipei. They were supposed to arrive in Bangkok at noon for a fun filled tour of the city with me, but they made it after midnight. So, we had a quick evening drink at 1 AM in Bangkok and then went to bed for our flight to Chiang Mai the next morning. As with all of my mom and Jan's vacations, it was raining when we got to Chiang Mai. Luckily it let up enough in the afternoon for us to check out some temples around town and go to the Chiang Mai night safari. ... read more