Hello, We have moved to the south of Thailand, and very much enjoying the blissful beaches. After spending an action packed weekend in Bangkok (this city is starting to grow on us). We moved to a sparsely inhabited area of coastline a day from Bangkok. Ban Saphan Yai is not on the tourist trail, and there is nothing to do but laze in hammocks, and walk along the beach. Next stop Ko Samui, not an island we would recommend, but there is no reason to explore it when you have a little piece of beach paradise. Our bungalow was right on [View Full Entry]

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Feels as though we have returned to the west, clothes are small and shiny new things in grocery stores are a plenty! Have enjoyed the time exploring on our motorbike, we will head to the south of Thailand now. [View Full Entry]

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Everest Foothills For some reason we weren't expecting the Everest foothills to be overly mountainous, we felt we had done the walking we were going to do in the Annapurna region and the walk to Deusa health post should just be a 2 day walk down the valley nothing too strenuous. How wrong we were armed with a small library and a large medical kit, it was a long and heavy 5 day walk. Walking 18km daily with a daily pass to climb ranging from 3000-4000m, then descending back down to 1500m then back up after lunch. The monsoon rains didn't [View Full Entry]

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Trekking in the Annapurnas Well the Annapurna's, are indeed one of the best trekking routes in the world, and we certainly agree with that! However very sadly they are changing at a rapid rate and we may be some of the last to see them in this very state! We spoke to a lady whom is studying climate change focusing on the Annapurna's, and she informed us that they are in the beginning stages of building a road right through the Annapurna's for trade between China (which should be Tibet) and India. It seems Nepal is crushed between 2 of the [View Full Entry]

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Old travels in pictures only, sorry we have been busy. [View Full Entry]

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So.... Our Indian visa's are just about expired, 1 month remaining, just enough for our Buddhist meditation retreat for 9 days which we are backing up with an 11 day silent meditation retreat, possibly punishment? we are not sure.... 20 days in silence and lotus position, hmmm... Our program for 11 days is as follows. 4:00 am. --------------- Morning wake-up bell 4:30-6:30 am. ----------- Meditate in the hall 6:30-8:00 am. ------------ Breakfast 8:00-9:00 am. ------------- GROUP MEDITATION IN THE HALL 9:00-11:00 am. ------------ Meditate in the hall 11 [View Full Entry]

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We have reached our new home in the hills, surrounded by snow covered peaks, endless walks and not many roads so we are thankfully minus the noise pollution of the Asian toot to drive technique. We have been here 3 weeks now and it felt like home immediately. We found a flat at the bottom of town so it is a steep walk uphill everyday to work. When we arrived at our office to start work, the computers had crashed so the office was in disarray. We seemed to be bribed into teaching a class of 30 Tibetan monks and students [View Full Entry]

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The story of Narinder Singh: Chandigarh is a modern city, created as the new capital of Punjab following partition from Pakistan. Designed by Le Corbusier, it really doesn't feel as though you are in India anymore. Wide, clean, tree lined streets, modern apartment blocks, rose garden's, plumbing and even room for growth! With a modern city however comes a modern budget. Ours was therefore spent all too soon, so we wandered towards home. Nearing home an elderly man cycled in between us, jumping off his bike and simultaneously reaching out to shake our hand and introduced himself as 'Nari [View Full Entry]

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Back to India the home of cows, cricket and chaos. It has been a brief stop in Mumbai, just enough time to recover from jetlag, watch the end of the Mumbai Marathon, and arrange a train ticket north to Gujarat. [View Full Entry]

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Visiting Dave, Nic and Jacque in their new country home in Cros. [View Full Entry]

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