Driving away from an angry mob of kids swarming the rickshaw
I am being mobbed and I'm scared.
A crowd of kids is swarming, pushing the rickshaw with me inside. My driver yells, telling them to back off. Crowd psychology has already kicked in though, and more little arms reach inside to grab me.
Read MoreTraditional puppets for sale at the street market in Fort Kochi, Kerala
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.
Read MoreI 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.
Read MoreDocked houseboats on the backwaters in Alleppey, 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.
Read MoreHoly men sitting by the Ganges river in Varanasi
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.
Read MoreA hand-painted semi truck hauling goods in southern India
India is a land of beauty and adornment with colors, textures, and patterns abound. It's also a place of curiosities. Mash these two things together, the surprising with the decorative, and you'll find some pretty unique things.
One of my favorite examples of this is the beautifully incongruous hand-painted semi truck.
Read MoreA working elephant at the sanctuary carries palm branches near Trivandrum, Kerala
"In the West, you save up all your money in order to spend it on an experience. You are searching for something," our Indian travel agent winks at me. Her sparkly nose ring catches the light and her bangles jingle as she hands us our train tickets. "Us Indians, we think you're a little bit crazy; we would never travel like you. We'd rather spend our money on gold jewelry, land, or a new house." This explains her inability to tell us more about popular sights at our next destination in India.
In the West, we do believe in the almighty experience. And for me, like many, the ultimate coveted experience has always been to travel.
Read MoreWatching the sun set from beneath palm trees at a peaceful yoga ashram in Kerala, India
My foot is asleep. No, I take that back. My entire leg is asleep. A numb tingling sensation that reminds me of childhood gymnastics shoots upwards through my body. I have been sitting cross-legged in silent meditation, wrapped in the darkness of early morning for satsang (sanskrit for in the company of the "highest truth") since 6:00AM. Given my current inability to feel my legs, I'm not sure things are quite so enlightening right now.
Read MoreRed, the color of fire, good fortune, and Communism
This is how I entered the People's Republic of China: by foot.
A subway ride from central Hong Kong deposited me at the border just south of Shenzhen. Backpack buckled, I walked through one round of customs before being dumped into a wide corridor flooded with a sea of people, most about a foot or two shorter than me. Together we're headed straight towards a second round of customs, but for now we're hovering in between two entities, Hong Kong and China proper.
Read MorePeeking inside the communal living space of a hutong
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.
Read MoreHiding from the camera amidst the narrow aisles of Qing Ping market
The Chinese eat everything. If you don't believe me, just visit the street markets.
Guangzhou is probably the most important trading and manufacturing city of southern China. It's filled with clusters of towering skyscraper apartment buildings, and factories line the freeway for miles leading up to the city center. Tucked away amidst all this modernity hides Qing Ping market, a remaining section of old China nestled just across from the central island.
Read MoreSteaming fresh handmade noodles on a rainy eve in Guangzhou
My eternal quest for edible items not secretly infused with some part of a pig or cow hasn't always been very successful this leg of the trip. That's because China is a country of meat.
The meatiness of China is something I find extra troubling given that I have now truly experienced their population issue firsthand. All that talk about China being crowded? Yeah, that's true. In regards to food, my question is this: where do they grow all the animals to feed so many meat-lovers?
Read More
