I’m back in Baltimore after a 48 hour transit which, all in all, went very smoothly. The last installment of my story was from my favorite internet and laundry spot, a hole in the wall place off an alley in Thamel (Kathmandu), while holiday revelers cheered and ran about in the streets. I wasn’t sure [...]

The water baggies started flying last night with boys aiming at girls and kids aiming at tourists but this morning, the Holi festival is in full swing. It’s like a massive, city-wide game of paint-ball. Even now from my internet hideout I can hear cheers & screams echoing in the streets of Thamel. It’s like [...]

It was such an incredibly beautiful morning here I had a hard time tearing myself away from my breakfast in the sunny courtyard of the Northfield cafe where there are bottomless cups of brewed coffee and homemade banana muffins. I’m not usually a coffee drinker but the when the tea sucks, as it does here, [...]

Sorry for the long gap between Darjeeling and Kathmandu. It was only two days without a post but looking back on it, it feels much longer. I decided to break up the trip into two days since getting from Darjeeling to the airport inside Nepal was full of unknowns. Even in retrospect I can’t really [...]

I don’t think I’ve had a cloudy day since Susan and I were Bhutan a couple weeks ago which, by the way, is part of the reason there is a serious water shortage here as well as in Sikkim and Bhutan. I shouldn’t complain but it does make for a dull picture day. I took [...]

It’s been a pretty mellow day focused mostly on food and napping. After yesterday’s marathon of tourist activity I needed a rest-day so I stretched out breakfast into two stages having my tea and toast at the vegetarian place that bakes brown bread and then moving onto a late-opening spot on the main darjeeling square [...]

Last night I was sound asleep by 9 p.m in preparation for my early day today. I was surprised by a knock at my door at around 9:15 when the hot-water-bottle delivery man showed up (could a $12 hotel get any classier?). My 3:50 a.m. wakeup call was unsolicited but I’m guessing my hotel is [...]

Yesterday was no less than EPIC. If you are bored, read on. If you don’t have much time you might save this one for later…
My final night in Gantok I continued the search for a meal containing fresh vegetables, protein or both. I thought I’d hit the jackpot with the Tibetan restaurant in the Hotel [...]

Feeling the pressure of moving on soon so I’ve been trying to cram a few of the remaining Gantok sites into this day. I started at 8 this morning for a trip to a monastery across the valley from Gantok. Rumtek is the seat of the 17th Karmapa of the Kagyu sect of Buddism, kindof. [...]

I woke up before 6 am today (pretty normal for me here – i have no idea why) so I had two hours to kill before the Bakery cafe opened giving me access to some of the only real caffeine in town. At least they told me they opened 8am . At 8:30 they still [...]