The next morning, Dean took us into town and helped us arrange a driver to take us to Kaziranga National park in Assam. Our driver was cool, stopping for daab just outside of town (basically as soon as it was available) and good-naturedly letting us fill up every extra available…
Mawlynnong won an award a few years ago for being the cleanest village in Asia. It is proud of that designation, and rightly so. The village is almost utopian-like in its cleanliness. When we were hiking, we went quite far out of the town before I saw even one potato-chip…
Today, I went to the living bridge in Ruwai, near Mawlynnong, in Meghalaya. This is perhaps one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my entire life. I do not exaggerate on this. Due to one of the highest annual rainfalls in the world, the floods each…
When we got up to head to Meghalaya, Bonnie had prepared breakfast and sent us off with a wave for our journey with Dean. We drove out of Shillong and headed into the hills on a road that is under a lot of construction. In some places, it’s still dirt…
After a couple of days in Kolkata, I got onto another overnight train, headed for Guwahati. Jayanthi and Alec had been out of town when I returned to Kolkata and both returned from their travels ill. They weren’t quite up to the difficulties of a full day on a train,…
Back in Kolkata, I had reserved rooms at a place called Travel Inn. I decided to stay a little closer to the area of town where I had stayed when I lived here in 1998. I’ll only be in Kolkata this week for a couple of days before my sister…
Vishakapatnam is located in Andhra Pradesh, on the shores of the Indian Ocean. While beautiful, this shore in Andhra is not quite as beautiful as the Arabian Seashore in Goa. It’s touristy, but more for Indian tourists, rather than foreigners. It is therefore, filled with trash. Also, (and I assume tides…
The day after visiting the orphanage and school, my cousin Pratap took me into the jungle to see one of the village churches. This is a ministry he and Sunitha have been working on for years. They now have 20 churches. What I didn’t realize, nonetheless, is how extensive the…
In the evening after I had gone to see the kids at the school and the orphanage, my cousin Moses and I went over to see the building site our cousin’s husband Venkat is developing. He owns a construction company and had mentioned I should come by and see it,…
I’m staying with my dad’s cousin Deborah Sunitha and her husband Pratap here in Rajahmundry. Pratap is a bishop now and he and Sunitha have a very large mission program, school, and orphanage they run, based out of Rajahmundry. Moses, their son, just finished his masters and is looking for…
Rajahmundry is hot. And humid. Everyone on my trip so far has been asking how I’ve been bearing the heat. In Goa (and Hyderabad and Bangalore) everyone said, “It’s so hot! How can you manage?” I said that it was hot in Kolkata, and hot in Goa and humid in…
Peeing in India can be…challenging. If you are a boy, this is not the case. You can find any street or building-side – really, any corner or bush will do. No one will blink an eye. A girl, however faces a few more hurdles. Assuming she can find a toilet,…
Right after coming to Hyderabad, my cousin’s wife Clara and I went with her kids Melissa and Aaron to the lake in the center of town where there is a very large statue of Buddha. It’s on an island in the center of the lake actually, and I’d seen it…
I’ve been in Hyderabad the last few days. I haven’t really had time to update my blog because I’ve been busy with my family. One would think that’s when I’d have some downtime to sit and relax a bit, but most of my family in India is concentrated in Hyderabad. …
So I say goodbye to Goa. I had so much fun here. I was able to try new things, different things, and to relax and rest and rejuvenate. I feel good. Hot and sweaty (as per usual here in India), but good. Also, I am about 3 shades darker than…
There are four girls (and by girls, I mean ladies in their 20s or 30s like me) at my hotel who came a couple of days ago. They are clearly on holiday. We’ve said hello a couple of times. Their names are Jyoti, Pallavi, Aparna, Bittu. I know they’ve also…
I went para-sailing today! For the first time. And it was super awesome! More details to come. *just a note to my friends who are asking why I haven’t posted recently – I’ve been traveling around throughout India…
