I'm still uncertain as to how to refer to this enigma of a country. Calling the country Burma subtley voices disapproval at the fact that it is ruled by an oppressive military junta; whereas, Myanmar is what the government has declared the name of the country to be. It's a country where people can go to jail just for speaking against the government as is the case with the comedy troupe the Moustache Brothers. The country remains highly controlled and the Aung San Suu Kyi, former leader of the Democratic party and 1991 recepient of the Nobel Peace Prize, is in [View Full Entry]

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This is a hugely belated blog posting, but Sri Lanka is definitely a blog-worthy country. There's been a lot of news circulating for such a small country as of late. Last year it was the tsunami and this year it's on the verge of civil war, but even through the turmoil it is an enchanting country. The people have such a strong spirit. Spirit that keeps a person optimistic after his wife's legs are lost in the tsunami along with two of his children and nearly all of his teeth. He was a fisherman who also lost his boat, which was [View Full Entry]

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From Diu to Mumbai to Goa to Karnataka, that has been the story of my past few weeks. I worked some sweet dance moves as an extra in a Bollywood movie (for 14 hours!), I experienced the roughly tantalizing effects of a 'famous' head massage on Chowpatty beach in Mumbai, and have been working on doing some uber-relaxation at some Indian beaches. Unfortunately, the weather hasn't exactly been cooperating: the relaxation part is working out but it's been pretty tough to stay dry. A couple of days ago I moved from the idyllic but Westernized Palolem Beach into the small town [View Full Entry]

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For the past five days, I could swear that I have not been in India if it were not for the fact that there are still Indians everywhere. There’s no one trying to sell me anything, no one trying to rip me off, no one really begging. And then on top of that, I’m on a small island with loads of deserted beaches to relax and lounge on. Okay, it’s not really as nice as I’m making it out to be. This morning I still saw a guy throwing some sort of sewage/waste/defecated material into the sea from one of the [View Full Entry]

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The love story or Shari and Raji begins on a blustering hot mid-September day in the city of Bikaner in the state of Rajestan… As we stood in the courtyard of small desert villa 20 km outside of Bikaner, we met for the first time. Their figures were striking: legs that seemed to travel downward forever, narrow hips and a humpish voluptuousness, long, curling eyelashes, pouty lips, surprising teeth, all accented by the aloofness of their expressions. It just seemed meant to be as we climbed on top of our new camel friends, but the perfect peace was shattered as Raji [View Full Entry]

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Hopped a train on my birthday from Delhi—disgusting, dirty, marvelous Delhi—to see the great pearl of India in Agra, none other than the Taj Mahal. But with the glut of tourists that the Taj brings, so come the touts and the beggars and the salesmen. Basically everyone wants to be your friend; “No buy, only look”, and they are relentless. I’ve only been here for a short time, but I’m beginning to adapt to the constant wrangling, propositioning, and bargaining that goes along with being a Westerner in India. It’s quite difficult though, and you are real [View Full Entry]

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Any expectation I could have had or prediction I could have made would not have prepared me for the absolute assault on the senses that constitutes the Indian experience. Since the first moment I stepped out of the airport at 2 o' clock in the morning, I was confronted with a place that was unlike any other that I had every seen. The roads were teeming with scooters, bicycles, cycle-rickshaws, cars, vans, pushcarts, and imposing trucks; the only rule of the roads here is that the big fish eats small fish, no lanes, no signals, and traffic lights are a mere [View Full Entry]

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Moscow, the nerve center of the Russian Federation whose landmass constitutes the majority of Asia and formerly extended all the way to the edges of W. Europe; this is the epicenter of the former communist experience where you can find the buildings of the former, but still infamous, KGB, the Kremlin, and the tomb of their still preserved icon Lenin planted firmly in the middle of the Red Square. I noticed immediately upon arrival that Moscow moves fast; it is a city that’s going somewhere and boasts a more reliable subway than any I have ever seen. I could swear that [View Full Entry]

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RUSSIA Russia for me conjures up images of grayness, of communism, and thoughts of the Cold War. I guess more recently I think of the Yukos Oil debacle (whose head is now entertaining the idea of running for Parliament from jail) or of the war in Chechnya. None of these things painted a particularly rosy picture in my mind, and additionally I had heard that Russian people were generally quite rude. But there is a mystique about Russia, something that was drawing me there, and fortunately the negative has turned out to be entirely unfounded. I arrived in St. Petersburg on [View Full Entry]

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And now the change of plans….I don’t know if I’d mentioned that I was planning to go directly to Moscow from the Ukraine or not, but that was the original plan. However, as I was sitting in Lviv and considering my options, I realized that about anything was a better option than a 33 hour train ride from Lviv to Moscow. Now if you look at a map, you’ll realize that Lviv is incredibly close to Poland; and if you travel north from Poland, it takes you to the Baltic states which then in effect connects to the Western-most part of [View Full Entry]

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