Back in the day, the Mughal Emperor wanted an exclusive way of commuting between his new capital and Agra. He thought it would be handy to be able to show up in either place without having to travel there with his whole entourage. His solution was to have a secret forty kilometer long tunnel built [...]
If you’re the Mughal Emperor and you’ve got a Taj Mahal standing around on your property, you probably want to have a strong fort next to it to scare away your rivals. That is my (completely untrue) theory behind the existence of the Agra Fort. Yesterday, we did a hurried tour through the fort – [...]
I’ve compiled a list of towns we’ve seen on this trip and added it to our Map/Itinerary page here. And, since we really are traveling by the seat of our pants, we don’t have a set schedule for the future. I’ve added a rough idea of our future plans but this changes almost daily, so [...]
Even if you want to be a super independent traveler, boldly going places where no one else dares (or cares) to go, I say it is still wise to mix in a few super high profile tourist things into your daily sightseeing. Today the turn came to Taj Mahal, a place I first heard about [...]
I told you that we’ve ridden all forms of transportation available at this point here. Well, I stand corrected. The Indian sleeper class bus is something we’ve never seen before, and are hoping to never ride in again. We booked ourselves into two sleeper class seats on a ride south from Haridwar to Agra. [...]
I’ve been making fun of myself on this site a lot lately, so I figure it’s only fair to point the finger at my favorite travel buddy, my hussie. Not only does he now have a huge Mexican-style mustache, for reasons he hasn’t been able to explain to me, he’s also started dressing like [...]
It was 1968 and the Beatles were bigger than Britney. The hype around them was unprecedented, raging and so out of control that the band decided to go to India and enter an ashram – the Yogi Maharashi Mahesh’s ashram in Risikesh. They spent some time here, engaging in spiritual discourse and whatever they did [...]
Hinduism is a religion that, admittedly, I don’t know much about. I’ve been reading up on it and the more I learn, the more I realize that I don’t have the slightest clue what this religion is about. It has multiple dieties, an infinite uncreated thing called a Brahman but beyond that, it’s still all [...]
Yep. That’s right. That’s a Hindi dot on my forehead. Just when I thought I couldn’t get more hippiefied in India, I go and get a dot. Actually, it wasn’t completely my fault. Martin and I walked to the Ganges in Rishikesh last night to catch the nightly Garga Aarti, the Hindu river offering. A [...]
So, our original plan was to stay here in Risikesh for a week at least. Jaime wanted to do some yoga, and I was interested in the trekking scene. So far so good, but once we got here we both realized that we don’t really fancy the place much. It’s dirty and gritty, full of [...]
Now this is a symbol you don’t see much in the Western world anymore, for some pretty good and obvious reasons. Here in India the Swastika is just a good-luck symbol though, and you see it plastered on just about anything. Like these cozy swastika lamps. Or here: something to lighten up the look of [...]
En route to becoming a full-fledged hippie India traveler, I’ve been testing out the various yoga options offered in McLeod Ganj and Rishikesh. I was a regular student of Bikram Yoga (hatha yoga taken in a heated room) when we lived in San Francisco. It’s a rigid, balls-to-the-wall form of yoga and totally my kind [...]
Forget culture, history and all things beautiful about traveling. Let’s talk fashion for a minute. What I’ve seen by hopping between two travel cultures – southeast Asia and India – is a dramatic change in traveler’s clothing. Southeast Asia is beach culture, for the most part. Tank tops, flip flops, loose fisherman-style pants and [...]
We don’t have photoshop on our computers. This is truly and honestly the color of this otherwise austere man’s hair. It’s a phenomenon we’ve noticed lately and, truth be told, we’re not quite sure what to make of it. The other Orangeheads we’ve seen vary anywhere between neon orange and a dark red. I’m pretty [...]
Behold! The mighty Ganges river! We traveled all day in a public bus (not recommended for the faint of heart or if you have an aversion to the smell of armpit) to reach Haridwar, the region’s holiest Hindu city – only to find out that extensive work being done on the waterways. We found no [...]
You know the saying, “to fly by the seat of your pants?” Well, that's been our philosophy for most of our adult lives – before and after meeting, falling in love and marrying. We're now taking that idea on an extended round-the-world trip. Follow us as we share the good, the bad and the downright nasty of life on the road.
