Long term travel may sound glorious, but in practice, it can be hard.
Read MoreFiltering by Category: India
The Seasons of Things + Visiting Jodhpur, India
Everything has it's season and right now, I'm travel worn. I kind of just want to sit bundled up in one place and not move. Is that bad? We are almost four months into our 13-month long journey, but travel in India is hard. Seriously.
Read MoreThe Street Cows of Jodhpur, India
There are cows everywhere.
Read MoreOn 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.
Read MoreThe Ellora Caves of India
Sightseeing certainly has its limits. But when you're in the middle of India and you don't know if you'll ever return, no matter how hungry or tired, you see the sights that are there to be seen.
Today on the blog, I'm picking back up in India—where I last left off in the story of our extended vagabond journey around the world.
Read MoreA Buddhist masterpiece: The Ajanta caves of India
We've flown north, through Mumbai and then east to Aurangabad to visit another impressive art historical site—the 2,000-year old Buddhist caves of Ajanta.
Read MoreOn begging, giving, and choosing empathy in India + A tour of ancient temples
The woman pulls my hair tightly. She stabs my scalp with a bobby pin while looping a garland of orange and white flowers on either side of my ponytail.
Read MoreWelcome to Hampi, India
I can't knock the feeling that as a child, I was cheated in my education of the history of the world.
Read MoreFalling in love with an elephant in India
In Hampi there is a temple. In that temple lives an elephant.
Read MoreStepping off the path + A train ride to Hampi, India
"Chai chai chai! Chai chai chai!"
"Pakora! Samosa! Pakora!"
We are on a train heading east to Hampi. Food hawkers jump on and off at every stop, rushing through the cars shouting, selling refreshments. I want to taste everything that passes—samosas served from a worn cardboard box, crispy masala rice snacks in a giant plastic garbage bag, fresh mango lassis carried in a tattered milk crate. Yet I cringe as the vendors grab food with their bare hands, passing it to customers wrapped in sheets of used newspaper."Chai chai chai! Chai chai chai!"
Read MoreThe sting of fear, poverty & injustice in India
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 MoreJungle Leopards + Adventuring in Goa, India
Goa is where we motorbike through dry rural winding country backroads, weaving past gypsy camps filled with colorful Rajasthani women who wear brilliant red orange saris and layers of silver jewelry. Tents line the road where these workers from the north live temporarily doing hard construction labor, carrying bowls of rock on their head. Yaks and cows lazily wander, oblivious to the cars and motorbikes that zip past. The farther away from the beach we get, the more worn and dry the landscape becomes. Yellow haystacks á la Monet and brown rice paddies void of crop or water fly past as we move deeper inland.
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