Prior to arriving here, my knowledge of Balinese culture was limited to what I had absorbed from reading Elizabeth Gilmore's "Eat, Pray, Love", which was, basically, that the Balinese are a deeply spiritual people who don't make decisions about anything important without consulting a holy man for guidance. The other preconception I had was that Bali's beaches would be one big five star hotel strip of western luxury tourism, overpopulated and overdeveloped. Both ended up having elements of truth, but like all preconceptions, there is usually more to be discovered when you look a liitle more deeply. Which again is why we travel, is it not? To try to understand better the other stories? We had no intention of seeking out any holy men while here. However, our very first taxi driver, whom we hired to ... read more

Perhaps the romance with Kathmandu began in the seventies, as the words from the Cat Steven's hit song of the same name created visions of a mystical, enticing city in a far away exotic land. I believe I have yearned to visit this city, and this land, ever since. And here we are, finally. It only seemed right to perform this song for a small audience at our guest house the night before we set off to Kathmandu, and the next day Cat Stevens set the tone perfectly as we approached the city listening to his "Kathmandu" repeatedly. In spite of a few tourists we met in Pokhara suggesting that Kathmandu was a busy, noisy, dirty, polluted city that they could not wait to leave, we agreed, once we got here, that those people could not ... read more

Although it is never fun being ill away from home, and I was definitely ill when we arrived here, I cannot imagine a better place to recuperate than the lovely laid back little town of Pokhara, Nepal. Situated on beautiful Lake Fewa, surrounded by the Annapurna Range of the Himalayas, with one Main Street lined with countless restaurants, trekking shops, and local art, it reminded us in some ways of Banff, Alberta. At least we felt so until that camel came strutting down the street, followed by that group of yaks passing by, and then there was that placid cow, simply hanging out on the road. I did get to have my first hospital experience in a foreign country, and a non-Western one at that, and although it may not be the place I would opt ... read more

The twenty nine hour train journey that we undertook to get to Varanasi left us understandably exhausted, and we were in no way prepared for the walk from our taxi tuk tuk drop-off point, to our hotel, with each of us having to carry our very heavy loads of luggage. We were shocked to discover at the drop off point that the tuk tuk could not, as per always, take us to our hotel doors because the streets to the hotel were too narrow for tuk-tuks to go through. Just as we were reluctantly debarking our vehicle with absolutely no idea of where to go, a young boy offered his services to guide us there. (Sadly for us, neither he nor any of his buddies were offering porter services). So our Varanasi adventure began, even before ... read more

Our decision to return to Delhi was predicated by a need to visit The Taj Mahal. I am not lying when I say I had no desire to make this trip. Visiting The Golden Temple in Amritsar was my gig, and I left it just a couple of days before feeling completely overwhelmed and satisfied with the experience. However, Stan insisted that a visit to India must include this iconic wonder of the world, so we set off for another day trip to the city of Agra and The Taj Mahal. The plan was to pick up a 10:00 a.m. train, arrive by 1:00 p.m., have a full afternoon to visit, then take a train back in the evening. Well, things didn't work out quite like that, as our train was three hours late, but our ... read more