perks

Until I got to South Africa, India and Jordan were the two countries I’ve been to on this trip with the highest level of spoken English proficiency. Now, in some ways, this made travelling really great and easy because it meant I was able to really connect with people, make friends, and ask questions about the culture and society. But it also had the major drawback that touts – those guys on the street trying to sell you everything including their own mother – could really be bothersome (especially in India). You know, in China the touts would just look at me and walk away because they knew they couldn’t talk to me, but in India they would sometimes follow me for blocks offering a new and better deal after each block. Now, for most travellers, ... read more

Let me just start by saying that I’m writing this while watching the sun set over the Taj Mahal (and while drinking a beer) from a rooftop restaurant in Agra. So please bear with me if this isn’t my best piece of work :) After a couple of weeks on the ground in India, I'm finally getting a feel for the lay of the land and the people here, and I've decided that India really is a wonderful place. The food, sights, and festivals have all been fantastic so far, and the people have been out-of-this-world friendly. In fact, they've been so ridiculously friendly that I've decided that they are just a little TOO nice. I’ve been thinking there has to be some dastardly plot behind all of the bend-over-backwards kindness, and I think I've come ... read more

Hey guys, I know it's been a while since I've written. Sorry about that. I took a short two week vacation from my trip (to go home and pay taxes) at the end of February, and it's taking me a while to get back into the writing mood. Since I'm slow to come up with a few of my own ideas, I thought I'd used Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" as inspiration and just share a short story and a lot of pictures from today. At the moment I'm in the city of Ahmedabad / Ahmadabad / Ahmdavad (just depends on who you ask). I came in on an overnight train (a story for another time), so I was a bit tired and just figured I'd make it a lazy day of visiting a few ... read more

Okay, I really am starting to slip with these blogs, so I'm just going to fire off a short one this time with a lot of pictures to try to get caught up. As some of you may know, Jenn (my girlfriend) came out to Cambodia to join me for two weeks over New Years. She's still alive and safely at home, so you can take that as a good sign that I took it somewhat easy on her. Though I did have her trek through the jungle to befriend three very passionate leeches that all tried to giver her an ankle hickey! I'm sorry there aren't any pics of the leeches, but being the conscientious and thoughtful boyfriend that I am I decided it was best not to ask her to leave the leeches on ... read more

Hey guys, sorry in advance, but this has to be kind of a quick and dirty entry. I only have a few minutes to throw together my thoughts on Vietnam as I'm heading off to Thailand tomorrow, and I don't want to fall too far behind in my log. So, with that said, I'll just get into a couple of the quick highlights: 1. I've discovered that the reading books I travel with really are my greatest form of adventure. Every time I sit down to have a quiet hour of reading, something bizarre inevitably happens. In the most recent incident of this, I sat down under a tree in a small village to kill some time, and 5 minutes after pulling out the book a man of about 30 came out and sat next to ... read more