Thailand is fantastic. That’s simply a fact. If you are a foodie, a nature lover, a history buff, an adventure seeker, or a bargain hunter--Thailand is the place for you. Pierce and I fall into a little of each category, but we openly admit that we mostly travel for food. Amid bouts of chai withdraw (I have inexplicable headaches for the first two days in Thailand), I think more and more that we went to India simply because we love Indian food--and I am ok with that. I also think that life in Seattle has prepared us well for this trip. Thanks to Seattle’s ubiquitous Thai restaurants, we are more knowledgeable about curry than the average traveler. “Pad Thai, please” and “Pad Kee Mao, please” roll off our tongues with ease as we bounce from street ... read more

We have a new driver. His name is Deepa…or so I thought for the first 5 days. One day he points to a sign that reads “Deepak” and says “See? That is my small name.” He explains and slowly annunciates the two parts of his name, “Dee-pak, Dee-pak is a boy name and Deepa is a girl name.” I nod and resolve to never say his name again. Deepak is totally different than Avtar, who begins to resemble a robot in my recollection. Avtar would drive for hours without a break, we never saw him eat or drink, and he hardly talked. Deepak never drives more than two hours before he will look in the rear view mirror at me and chirp, “You are needing chai,” endearingly pinning his chai habit on me. We will pull ... read more

Three young Tibetan monks and one woman sat in a semi-circle around me--warmly smiling and contorted into various positions to fill the small floor space between us. They had ushered me here--gesturing with their arms and saying, “Please, come, come” and I had sat--succumbing their welcoming smiles and eager energy. In the absence of language, they stared at me with great anticipation--as if I might magically light on fire or begin to distill great wisdom. Now what? Minutes before, we had signed up to volunteer for the one-hour English conversation course, where newly-arrived Tibetan refugees practice English with native speakers. We had been instructed to go to the “library”--a small white light-filled room packed with about 25 Tibetan English students and 8 other volunteers. There was no discernable system in place. Instead, each volunteer just drifted ... read more

India brings out the voyeur in me. I am continually enraptured by all of the colorfully-adorned (and sometimes interestingly-pierced) people who scatter along the Delhi streets or dodge cattle in one of the many Rajasthan cities. I snap pictures. I stare. My mind scrambles to remember each detail and begins to compose a written description immediately--trying to capture this image in any form possible. Unfortunately (and somewhat ironically), even looking comes at a price in India. “Come in Madame” a store vender will call as we walk by his shop at the market--enthusiastically beckoning with his hands. This is always followed with “Looking is free” and “Please, just come look….looking is free.” One day, as we race through the rolling hills of an Indian countryside town--watching as lazy cows saunter across the crowded road and chickens ... read more

The Taj Mahal is everything thing they said it would be. It’s beautiful and it is easy to see why it is one of India’s most photographed sites. Even though it has been attempted hundreds of times before, we join the rest in trying to get the perfect picture. As we snap pictures, we are first approached by the other travelers--who ask in broken English with thick Japanese accents for us to take a picture for them. We, of course, oblige. I, of course, take this duty very seriously and spend over five minutes composing and re-taking a series of pictures for one Japanese couple. They are very grateful and we exchange happy nods at the resulting image on the LCD screen. I ask for the same picture and they quickly agree. The Taj Mahal grounds ... read more