I'm running a 5K tomorrow - Saturday, May 9! Won't you join me in helping to change the lives of children throughout Tibet, China, India and beyond? Many of you know how passionate I am about Vision Builders, the organization I worked through in Tibet and India. WELL --- TOMORROW I'm running in a 5K and it's the last day to sponsor me. Won't you please consider a small or large donation? Just think of it, $10 can buy a child's food for nearly a month at our Varanasi, India project. Really, no amount is too small. Please visit my fundraising [View Full Entry]

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A Colorful Beginning We left Varanasi during Holi, the “Festival of Colors,” an fertility celebration glorifying the Hindu god Krishna. The festivities began the evening prior with huge bonfires on the street burning effigies of the demoness Holika. On the second day of Holi - the day that we left - the streets were lined with people of all ages throwing pink and blue paint on every passerby. No car, bicycle or pedestrian was safe from the colorful ammunition, so our driver strategically maneuvered us through a less crowded route to the train station from which [View Full Entry]

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Apologies for the delay in getting to this blog entry. And why is the road to China so slow? Because I'm still not there yet. About a week before my scheduled return to Tibet, my plans changed and I wound up here in Varanasi, India. Actually, it's Sarnath to be exact - which is the site of the Buddha's very first teachings on the dharma. The teachings were given at a place called Deer Park, and there are still deer there - very cute and with Bambi spots even though they are full grown. Their one oddity is their enormous, fuzzy [View Full Entry]

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Many months have passed since my last entry. I’m in the US now and I guess I only think about updating my travel blog while I’m overseas and technically, traveling. And here at home, there’s not much to report except for life in the good ol’ US of A as most of you already know it. These days that means a little cold, a little grey and a little too much holiday food. My Lama, Traktung Rinpoche, invited me home in October along with Lama Yonten, his wife Osel Drolma and our friend Gangri. (All of them have been written about [View Full Entry]

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Please visit the extensive photo gallery that goes with this entry. See it here. Shortly after four of the pilgrims left for their homelands (see last entry), Chuck, Carin and I returned to Ngawa and to the home of Lama Yonten and Osel Drolma. There, we spent ten days so that Chuck and Carin could assist with work at Lama Yonten's monastery, Kashi Gompa. Their primary role was to teach Engilsh to the young monks that Lama Yonten has taken in. The gompa does not have funds or facilties to care for the boys, s [View Full Entry]

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Note: Please see the two links embedded below to visit two rather extensive photo galleries of our trip. Northern Journey At the end of June I made the several day trek up to Xining to meet friends I’d be taking on pilgrimage. My visit there was somewhat bittersweet because I knew it might be my last stay in my “old college town” and probably the last time I saw my friends who were soon headed back to their home countries. It was funny to be back in a real city again with city comforts and chaos - toilets, ceaseless car horns [View Full Entry]

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It has been awhile since I've written; I've been busy traveling to Chengdu (cute Pandas!), Beijing, Hong Kong (Western food!), and then back to Chengdu again dealing with visa complications. After a month of busywork and a huge amount of money spent, all is now just fine with my visa. I forgot to mention this awhile back: for those who are interested, an article in the Ann Arbor News was written about my adventures here in Tibet. To read it, please go [url="http://www.mlive.com/features/annarbornews/index.ssf?/base/features-0/1180622578156280.xml&coll=2" target="_blank"] here. In [View Full Entry]

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I’d been meaning to make the trip to Dartsedo all year. Some of the texts I’m hoping to translate were said to be there, so I knew I’d go eventually. Rather than make the trip over three long bus days, I decided to break it up by taking a small pilgrimage along the way, stopping in various ancient kingdoms throughout the Gyarong Gorges (Chinese: Jiarong). A note about Gyarong - it is the most breathtaking place I’ve ever visited. It is totally unlike the Amdo grasslands I’ve grown accustomed too. The mountains are gigantic, solid rock, with lush vegetation gro [View Full Entry]

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Tibet's dogs are somewhat legendary, this I knew before coming here. The most famed is the Tibetan mastiff - huge and black, with a head and mane somewhat resembling a lion. Most of them wear a red, furry neck ornament, which aims to drive the lion point home. Buying one is not cheap - it takes thousands, sometimes tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to install one as the household guard dog. (Yes, that amount is in US dollars.) Most of them are filthy, with long, unkempt dreadlocks. Many have mange or other pussy sores on their bodies. Tibet [View Full Entry]

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Needing to make a quick trip up to my apartment in Xining, I met my friend Anne on the road and together we hired a car. Surprise! The one we found was being driven by one of Amdo's most famous singers, the one-and-only "Sherten" (short for Sherab Tendzin, I later found out). Sherten was headed to Xining on his way to his first international appearances - performing in cities throughout the US. (Maybe you saw him?) His father, a very sweet leprechaun-esque kind of fellow, also joined us on the trip. He didn't quite know what to make of me [View Full Entry]

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