Our Life Walkabout

As a mental health counselor, I work with people’s stories, their stories of life. I would often hear their unheard stories, stories of innocence, tragedy, love, abuse, and sometimes, if I was especially blessed, stories of transformation.

Our return trip to Delhi included a day tour of India Gate, The Palace of the President, and a recommended tour of the place of Gandhi’s death.

Pushkar was our final destination in India for the famous camel festival. No cars are allowed in the town proper so Mr. Puri dropped us off at the hotel and we walked into the town to go to the famous Brahman temple (the only temple in India dedicated to the Hindu god Brahma or [...]

We set off in search of tigers in Ranthanbore. After having been in South Africa I figured we needed to see tigers to go with our lions, elephants, etc! We had met an Englishman previously that had said he went for 2-3 safaris and saw nothing and frankly hadn’t enjoyed the experience all that [...]

After a brief scare in which our driver thought he had left his phone in Udaipur, we arrived at probably our favorite place in India – unfortunately only for a night. The hotel in Ranakpur was set in the forest with little quaint bungalows, very laid back and in nature.

Udaipur, site of the James Bond movie “Octopussy”, started with an amazing cultural show – which now I feel I can be an official judge of simply because every night we’ve seen similar cultural shows. This one topped them all by quite a bit.

Jodhpur is called the blue city of India. We visited the Mehrangarh Fort and viewed the “blueness” of the city – houses were painted this color to mark the houses of the Brahmans or the upper caste in Indian society. (sidenote – it’s interesting how we’ve gone through different ways of prejudice from South [...]

We officially reached the desert as we entered Jaisalmer or the “golden city” in the far west of Rajasthan. This, other than my Delhi belly episode, ended up being one of my favorite spots on our tour.

Our trip to Bikaner included a trip to the city palace (amazing blue paintings) and a stop by another fort in the lake. We also had the pleasure of staying in a palace with very good butter chicken.
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Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan and the “pink city” (the old city was painted pink, the color of hospitality, in 1876 by Maharaja Ram Singh to welcome the Prince of Wales), proved to be a good stop for the Indian tour.

The Taj Mahal really is somewhere everyone should have the chance to visit. It’s simply one of the wonders of the world and is exquisite in every way.

Our India experience started with flying into Delhi not having a hotel or anything booked at 7:30 in the evening – either we’re adventurous or stupid! All the horror stories you hear as a traveler about India, flying into the city I admit I was pretty nervous.

Here’s a few things that I learned in Hong Kong:

Most importantly – When you order spicy soup and there’s 9 different choices ranging from no spice to spice – 9 CHOICES MIND YOU – start off with at [...]

Kruger National Park, or KNP, has to be one of the most amazing self-catered self-tours anyone can do with wildlife. While our time in Mkuzi park earlier in the visit was amazing in a different way, KNP is amazing in that anyone can do this with a simple rental car in a [...]

A gallery of pics from our first Hong Kong visit.