Looking at some pictures of our recent Annapurna trek, you’d believe that we were going off the beaten path up there, breaking new ground and exploring virgin territory. Not so. In fact, we just learned that the Annapurna trails were visited by almost 77,000 people in 2009 alone. That’s 1,000 times the population [...]
A fairly common racket among the world’s nations is the Visa Extension – paying for the privilege of staying longer in the country. Here in Nepal the process is pretty straightforward: you go to a Kathmandu office where you fill out a simple form, provide a passport size photo, hand over your passport and $30 [...]
We were taught how to make the perfect Indian Chapati (a puffed up flat bread) in our McLeod Ganj cooking class. The dough is cooked for a while on a flat surface, then put directly on the flame, which makes the bread puff up like a balloon. The teacher made it look easy, as shown [...]
Once upon a time I was an accountant. I wouldn’t say I was particularly good with numbers (all accountants know that’s what calculators are for) but I have to admit that I liked messing around with spreadsheets. Fine, I’m a nerd. But that’s neither here, nor there. As a throw-back to my accounting [...]
Some of my family members have gathered together in Seattle to be together after my Grandma’s recent passing. Being literally half-way around the world from them is really hard. I haven’t seen many of them in over a decade and missing the opportunity to spend time with family right now just plain sucks. I’m [...]
Our landlord recently brought a puppy over for us to play with. It was en route to it’s new owner, but had an hour to spare for us to cuddle and fawn over (as any two dog lovers who, for obvious reasons, can’t have a dog right now would do). Sadly, the little guy had [...]
One of the joys of traveling is sampling various street foods. Nepal, however, doesn’t offer much in that way – people either eat in their homes, or in cozy (heated) restaurants. This gentleman is the obvious exception: he has realized that there’s always room for corn. He charges us 20 US cents per cob. [...]
I’ve been fighting for years for a pale skin revolution. OK, fight may be a strong word. Mostly I forget that I care about it. Since an early detection (thank God) of melanoma when I was 19, I’ve had to avoid the sun. I haven’t minded, figuring it was better for me anyway, but having [...]
There are simple things about life in the States that I took for granted before traveling. Little things, like regular trash collection, walkable pavement, food that didn’t make me sick, and water that I could use out of the tap. Most of these things are manageable. In fact, they’re what make travel interesting (though [...]
2009 rolled in while we were still in San Francisco in the death throes of planning this trip – making weekly trips REI, writing lists upon lists of things we needed to do and trying to figure out how to make more money for the trip. 2010 finds us living in Nepal, eight months into [...]
Living in Kathmandu doesn’t necessarily mean that you get to experience the mighty Himalayas. Most of the time, haze from pollution and dust obscures the view – a view that’s mostly hidden by the surrounding hills anyway. Sometimes, we forget what we have just around the corner – the biggest mountains in the world. [...]
Settling into a short-term expat life in Kathmandu gives us time to really explore. Unlike the transitory nature of backpacking – transit, find a hotel, find a restaurant, figure out sightseeing, figure out your next form of transit – settling in somewhere gave us the freedom to move at our own pace. We’re not [...]
I’ve spent a lifetime assuming that moving large objects meant using large machinery. Call me what you will, but that just seemed like good common sense. Apparently I’ve been wrong. It took our time in Nepal (or India, for that matter) to illustrate that nearly anything, and I mean anything, can be moved by [...]
This is now my fifth post about garbage removal in Kathmandu, and I agree that it’s becoming a bit repetitive. Forgive me: when you’re wading around in trash, it becomes a bit of an issue. However, as the picture of the above gentleman shows, the garbage men are back on the job from today. [...]
I received some paperwork a few weeks ago from my Dad. With tax time creeping up, it was time to face some realities (boring) and figure out how I was going to deal with taxes. I’ll spare you the details, but it involved paperwork and signatures – one from me and two from witnesses. One [...]
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.
