(This entry condenses days three and four from my written journal into one entry for brevity.) “Where did all the Israelis come from?”, I pondered at 06:45 whilst meditating in a room of fourteen people, four of them Israeli — including the monk leading the trance. I’ve surprised myself. I wasn’t sure that I’d make […]

(Day two.) Three chimes of the gong at 6am meant that it was time to drag myself over to the gompa to meditate for forty-five minutes — the first of three meditations each day. Less tired than yesterday, I was able to remain mostly awake this time around, although had pretty much a calm, blank […]

(Day one.) I’m writing to you from the Root Institute in Bodhgaya, Bihar: a semi-monastic Buddhist Dharma center — for wisdom and culture. I’ll be spending the next ten days of my life learning about and practising Dalai Lama-style Tibetan Buddhism. Getting here was a big mission that began yesterday evening from a railway station […]

Agra, the site of India’s most famous monument–the Taj Mahal–is probably the dirtiest, smelliest town that I’ve ever visited. It is really, genuinely, disgustingly filthy even by the often appalling Indian standards. About a minute’s walk from the east gate of the Taj Mahal, the free public toilet was so utterly unclean that I had […]

We’re heading to Agra, the site of the Taj Mahal. The more we catch the train, the more delays we seem to suffer. Given that there’s currently three of us to share the cost, it’s only marginally more expensive to swap the train for a taxi in some places — especially after taking into account […]

One of the highlights of the Pushkar Camel Fair is the “Foreign Indian Bride Contest”, which essentially means that a bunch of foreign ladies are dressed-up in traditional Indian garb and paraded on stage before hundreds of hooting desert nomads and an equal number of crossed-legged Western tourists trying to make sense of things. Whilst […]

Pushkar Camel Fair is an annual event, held around the time of the Kartik Purnima full moon, which this year fell in early November. Thousands of nomads bring their horses and highly decorated camels from all over Rajasthan to one of the biggest animal markets in India, if not the world. Nothing really can prepare […]

This is a guest post written by Phil, Claire’s dad. I’m flattered to have been asked by DaveB and Claire (aka Squiffy) to write up a blog on our Tiger Safari at Ranthambhore National Park in Rajisthan, India. I just hope I can do it justice. We were several days into our tour of Rajisthan, […]

We splashed-out and hired the hotel’s driver and air-conditioned car for a day, which cost about £15, to take us outside the city limits to visit Jaipur’s Amber Fort, the Monkey Palace and a couple of other places of interest. The Amber Fort, a 16th Century palace was an impressive complex, and an official guide […]

Whilst Dave headed to Goa for his solo adventure, I flew home to visit my family and help my friend Naomi chose a dress for her Vancouver wedding next year. After two weeks in luxury, I was a bit dubious about joining Dave in India. However, my Dad, who visited India in a Land Rover […]