Every morning John and I go for a jog together. During the first month of our tenure here, it was over 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit during both the daytime and nighttime hours, but now the air is cooler so we can survive longer runs that take us out into the countryside.
There are several indigenous tribes in Mexico and Guatemala and even in the states that run, not for personal health or ...
South Asia
In August, before the 2016 elections, Jennifer interviewed people of different countries about their perception of America, Americans, and American politics. How do Indians view the United States (as of fall 2016)? Jay works in technology in Chennai, India and some of his views on Americans will probably surprise you. ...
The sounds here are intoxicating. Downstairs (or down the hall, I can’t tell) I can hear the sounds of drums and flutes playing vibrantly, and the murmur of many people’s voices. Occasionally, I’ll hear a car horn from outside going, wee-o-wee-o-wee-o. And then a bird cooing in the distance. And people shouting to each other from across the courtyard down on the bottom level of the apartment complex. The ...
Jennifer blows up the inflatable couch to make the Naddi Village vacation rental tolerable. It was a nice thought. Unfortunately, even inflatable furnishings couldn't make that place habitable.Related Posts:Worst Vacation Rental Experience Ever: Moldy Mattresses in the Himalayan Mountains -- By Jennifer Shipp ...
We'd traveled primarily in northern India before going to Chennai in the south. In all of the cities we'd seen in northern India, the presence of other people, weird traffic patterns, cows, and trash made jogging outside impossible. But in Chennai, we stayed at an apartment complex with a very clean parking garage around which we jogged each morning. ...
Every day, we sat at our giant window watched the workers on the building across the street as we ate lunch. Note the scaffolding and hot it's made out of sticks. The workers worked on this scaffolding without harnesses or any kind of safety "net" of any kind. In this video, one of the workers swings around a big stick on top of the building next door. Maybe he's angry about his job...or maybe he's just ...
In this video, a chipmunk chirps on the porch of our vacation rental in Delhi, India. The landlord, an educated man, told us that one of the tenants before us was a Korean Buddhist monk who claimed to be able to talk to animals. One day, the landlord walked in on the monk who was sitting quietly on the porch, surrounded by birds. The monk told the landlord that the birds in Delhi were "sad". ...
The burning ghats (also known as Manikarnika ghat) in Varanasi are a sacred place where the Hindu funeral rituals take place. After the body is burned, the ashes are pushed into the Ganges River, which is also considered sacred. We'd visited the burning ghats in Kathmandu a few weeks before this trip to see Pashupatinath along the sacred Basmati River. Cremations take place within full public view in these ...
On our August 2014 trip to Kathmandu we had quite an experience at the airport... We had read online that we'd be able to purchase our visa to enter Nepal at the airport after we arrived. But, when we got to Kathmandu we discovered that we needed actual cash to pay for the visa since we weren't able to use our card (the airport's card readers weren't working). We did eventually get things figured out, but ...
We traveled to Nepal in 2014, before the big Kathmandu earthquake. We spent a month in Kathmandu getting rabies vaccinations because they were much cheaper there than in the United States. Toward the end of our trip, we booked a flight on YetiAir to fly to Bharatpur near Chitwan National Park. It was a coin-toss between taking YetiAir and BuddhaAir, but BuddhaAir had the most grim reputation of the two. A ...
Though there's some controversy regarding the use of elephants for safaris in places like Chitwan National Park, we weren't really a part of that dialogue when we visited Nepal. Going by elephant was the only option for us in terms of transportation into certain parts of the park. We watched the elephants and the people who cared for them walking along the rivers each morning and our elephant-experience in ...
Our Chitwan Jungle Safari began with a dug-out canoe ride down the Narayani River. Two guides took us into the jungle to look for rhinoceros and tigers. We didn't see either of these things, but that was in part because our safari took place later in the morning. Early morning safaris at Chitwan are more likely to yield good wild-life viewing. We travel enough that we weren't stressed out about "missed ...
Our guide at Chitwan National Park showed us a unique plant on our way to the elephant sanctuary. The plant curls its leaves in response to human touch.Related Posts:
Chitwan National Park: Boarding and Riding an Elephant (video)
Chitwan National Park: Dug-Out Canoe Ride into the Jungle Part II (video)
Chitwan National Park: Dug-Out Canoe Ride into the Jungle Part III (video)
How to Get from ...
We had no idea what to expect when we set out for the day in a canoe down the Narayani River at Chitwan National Park for our jungle safari. The goal was to find rhinoceros and tigers. Two guides rode into the jungle with us and they searched diligently, but it was too late in the morning. Still, it was an amazing experience.Related Posts:
Chitwan National Park: Boarding and Riding an ...
Pondicherry (sometimes also known as Puducherry) is located in southern India near Auroville (a place where tourists can go to observe a cult in-action...In this video, we took a moment to stop and note our impressions of Pondicherry (or Puducherry, whatever you prefer) before bombarding ourselves with Auroville (because we knew Auroville was going to be a little weird). We'd already been in India for a few ...
We stayed at the Sapana Village Lodge near Chitwan National Park in 2014. The lodge offered "custom-made" clothing as one of their "experiential packages". This was exciting to Lydian, who was 14 years old at the time. She and I had shared a very small and boring wardrobe during our month-long sojourn in Nepal so John and I decided that some new clothes might be fun for her.Related Posts:Chitwan ...
We visited in Nepal in 2014, one year before the Kathmandu earthquake. During our time there, our main goal was to get the rabies vaccination series which was available for about 1/10th of the cost that we'd pay in the U.S. Unfortunately, though the rabies vaccines made us sick. When we visited Chitwan National Park, we'd just had the last of three shots in the series. Rather than have a terrible time, we ...
John wore a GoPro into Chitwan National Park so that we wouldn't feel compelled to be taking pictures the whole day. In this video, we drift down the Narayani River toward the jungle. Unfortunately, we didn't see any rhinoceros or tigers on our Chitwan Jungle Safari, but we were okay with that. A year later, we went on safari in South Africa at Pilanesberg National Park and saw rhinoceros and other animlas ...
From Kathmandu, we traveled by air to the airport in Bharatpur. From Bharatpur, we traveled by taxi to Sauraha, a village in the Chitwan district of Nepal. We stayed at Sapana Village Lodge, which offered all kinds of different "packages" to visitors. After having spent the past month in Nepal with only 3 changes of clothes, Lydi was immediately interested in the "custom clothing" option on offer at Sapana ...