After traveling for three very long months and visiting a grand total of 18 cities in India, we finally prepare to depart from Ladakh, and Mother India herself. But before we go...
Read MoreShanti Stupa, Leh, Ladakh
Stories about finding your heart and soul around the world.
Filtering by Tag: life
Exploring the Khajuraho Temples of India
"There are no mistakes. Only new paths to explore."
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Anokhi Museum of Hand Printing in Jaipur + Pondering What's Next
There are many times on this journey that I find my mind wandering, contemplating what will happen next.
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Female construction workers in Jodhpur carry sand in buckets on their head as their children play nearby.
On Flying and Not Dying in India
After traveling several months throughout India, I can't seem to understand how people don't die more often.
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Exploring The Quiraing on the Isle of Skye, Scotland
Wanderlust + Solitude vs. loneliness + How I finally decided to travel the world
I have always had it in me, wanderlust. It's pretty much forever been my dream to explore the world through long-term travel.
Forget those short stolen twelve days of annual vacation allotted to working America (even though that's all the time I've had these past few years). No, that kind of travel is frenzied, restricting the majority of life to an unnatural cycle of constant want of more. I'm talking about the kind of long-term travel where you give up owning most things, leave behind a stable home, learn to live simply on a budget, and really see the world.
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Traditional puppets for sale at the street market in Fort Kochi, Kerala
Exploring the heart of Fort Kochi, India
Luckily the local government hospital isn't the only thing we see while in Fort Kochi. A casual rickshaw tour offers a different glimpse of life in this South Indian spice capital. It's not the churches or museums that grab my attention with the story of this place, but the people. And the street goats.
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On suffering, survival, & the Indian heart
I am at the hospital. A woman wearing a hijab motions for me to sit next to her.
"Where you from?" she stares up with wonder, as if she's never seen anyone so tall before. If I ever thought the frequent statement you're tall from strangers back in the States was annoying, I've come to accept that being nearly six feet in India makes me quite a giant of a superstar. Oftentimes I am wary of this attention as it can mean photo after cell phone photo with teenage boys and entire extended families. But right now, it's just a woman and a man who want to meet me, so I sit.
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Docked houseboats on the backwaters in Alleppey, India
Houseboating through the backwaters of Kerala, India
Dawn is breaking, soft and blue. The river and I are just rousing from sleep. Gazing out the window, a placid bed of water gently ripples beneath me as a bird dips down in search of breakfast.
I have spent the night on a houseboat in the famous Kerala backwaters. Here, a web of about 500 miles of lagoons weave between barrier islands inland from the Arabian sea on the western side of southern India.
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Holy men sitting by the Ganges river in Varanasi
How to find something to believe in: the search for a guru in India
Searching for a guru is trendy in India, especially if you're a Westerner. I've begun to theorize that this eternal quest is driven by what is lacking back home in the West––a culture with belief in something more meaningful than the self.
India is the perfect place to visit, then, because spirituality is so omnipresent in a non-preachy sort of way. I should have known of its importance months prior to arrival, simply from the visa application. Halfway down the form I was required to check a box indicating my religious affiliation. For the record, agnostic and atheist weren't even listed as options.
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Peeking inside the communal living space of a hutong
It all comes down to perspective + Exploring a traditional hutong in Beijing, China
Beijing is famous for its hutongs.
No, this is not a type of food, nor is it a Chinese rapper.
Hutongs are charming courtyard residencies clustered together and scattered about the city––they're a glimpse into old-world China. In Mongolian, the word means 'town,' a remnant from their 13th century invasion. Back then, single families lived in communal spaces such as this. As times grew tough, haphazard additions filled the once open-aired inner courtyards to accommodate family growth. Sadly, most traditional hutong areas were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.
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Snowfall at the Summer Palace, Beijing
Why we need endlessly changing horizons + A day of winter wonderland + breathing in China
I'm happy to announce that I've broken through the shackles of the internet firewall of Chinese censorship — I've arrived in India! It's 2013! And I haven't posted in a really long time. Oops.
In order to blog properly, I really need to dedicate quite a few more hours a week to this. Easier thought than done when continually on the move. I'm seeing so much every day (awesome!), it seems like it will take forever to fully process my documentations. But the amazing thing is, I really feel like I'm living. And I love that.
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Mengwi royal Balinese temple palace, from old times
One month of impermanence + Farewell Bali
It's been one month on the road, but it feels so much longer. I am in southern China now, and after days of being blocked out of my own blog (even with a VPN), miraculously the Great Firewall seems to have peeked open for a moment, time enough to post a farewell to beautiful Bali.
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