I call them “National Geographic Moments.” They are those times when we are off the grid or in a very unusual place, as if we’ve slipped though a wormhole and into the pages of a magazine.
Varanasi is a crazy place, or Indian people are bad spectators at religious events
It is safe to say that there is no place like Varanasi.
Indian Festivals are Awesome Part II, or We Need to Burn More Stuff in Effigy
Indian Festival are Awesome
Indian Festivals are Awesome, or I am the World’s Worst Dancer.
When traveling, I usually avoid festivals the way one might avoid a crazy ex-girlfriend – they can be expensive, annoying and wild.
A Tale of Two Touts
Tout: one who solicits business brazenly and persistently India is infamous for persistent vendors, con-artists, beggars, shyster tuk-tuk drivers, liars, fakes and frauds all trying to get a piece of the tourist dollars flowing into India.
Escaping the Chaos of India in Tranquil Pushkar
Somewhere in the mountain pass leading into Pushkar there must be some sort of wormhole that leads to another universe, because the place we spent the last three days sure didn’t feel like India. Mellow, peaceful Pushkar could be described as bucolic, a term you […]
Movie night at the Raj Mandir – 4 Differences between the Indian and American Movie Experience
We went to the elegant Raj Mandir movie theater to see the Bollywood film English Vinglish. The movie was mostly in Hindi with some English and was about an Indian woman in New York learning English. It was interesting to us on many levels as […]
Delhi = One Big Carnival
After day one I didn’t know if I’d like Delhi, but then I realized the following: Delhi is one big carnival. The street is full of food vendors, sales people, con artists, beggars, stray dogs, random cows, oxen pulling stuff, henna artists, colorful religious parades, […]
Being a Celebrity at Jama Masjid and Old Delhi
It isn’t uncommon for Kristi, with her fair skin and blonde hair, to attract a lot of attention in the Middle East and Asia. But today, we were both celebrities. And let me say, I like being loved by the masses. We went to the […]
Notes and Observations after 3 days in Delhi
After my first day in India, I thought to myself, “I could never like Delhi. This place is too crazy, too dirty, too chaotic for me to ever enjoy.” After three days here, I not only like it a lot, but I am a little […]
Favorite Animal Photos from Africa
Here are my favorite photos of African animals from our trip to southern Africa last year. These photos were taken on safari in Etosha National Park, Namibia, Chobe National Park, Botswana, and South Luangwa National Park, Zambia. In Namibia, we rented a two-wheel drive car […]
Why I love Autumn in Denali
Each year, sometime at the very end of August or the first of September, when the fall colors reach their absolute peak, I believe that Denali National Park is the most beautiful place on Earth that day. The other 364 days of the year I […]
Planet Bell 