rest easy

morgan and i are both fine, and not in/near mumbai. what a scary situation, though.

in other news, my 30th birthday was so wonderful! thanks to all of you for contributing to that special day! i spent it with robyn and morgan, and several great friends we've met along the way. nothing could have made it a better day, except seeing all of you. but thanks for the kind thoughts and memories.

i don't have time to fill in travel details right now, but wanted to send a quick note to all of you who have sent concerns for our safety.

much love.

sick as a dog

that's my most recent news. it started with a cold a few days ago, and has moved to my lungs and turned into a full-blown flu. i just feel terrible. that's especially disappointing given the cool things we've been doing. today i had a miserable time at the taj mahal. it was beautiful, don't get me wrong, but twice we had to rest so that i could take short naps. (but how cool is it that i napped at the taj mahal?!)

our time in dharamsala was great, but also intense. we got to volunteer for a short time with some ex-political prisoners from tibet for a conversation class. i guess i never really recognized how bad the situation there is. the free tibet stickers/shirts/flags make sense to me now. but i'm a little demoralized because i don't see what can be done. everyone we asked there, including a great speaker who recently escaped to india, said that the best thing to do is to raise awareness of the plight of tibetans. but to what end? even if everyone i know had an understanding of the human rights violations taking place there, what can possibly be done to remove china's completely unethical rule? if the olympics didn't do it, what can?

that leads me to the rest of my blog... i've started to try to process some of the questions that travel has raised for me. i'm not sure that i'm comfortable sharing all of them here, but i'd love thoughts/feedback on some of them. i've got my own ideas started, but here is a list of just some of the questions i've been asking myself:

-what issues do i identify closely/personally enough to take on as a cause?
-which of these can i immerse myself in and still stay mentally/emotionally healthy?
-does travel offer me insight into this, or is it more selfish?
-what are the factors that hold me back from becoming more invested in a specific area?
-am i putting energy towards something i feel good about?
-how can i see so many people suffering and not feel guilty?
-is it possible to process things at the same time as living in the moment?

so that's where i am right now, mentally. the other thing that's really been affecting me is people's attitudes in india. especially relative to the other countries i've been in, i've been really disappointed with my inability to make connections with the people here. there are a couple of notable exceptions to this, but i've found that for the most part everyone wants something from me. usually monetary compensation for what i think is just an interesting cross-cultural conversation. it's been a sad thing for me to realize. i guess that a large part of that is the poverty that exists here, but even so it's been difficult. india is definitely not my favorite country. (i've got to go with nepal still.) on the other hand, i just met some amazing people in a place called kajuraho (where there are some temples complete with kama sutra carvings on them). that was a welcome respite.

now we're in agra, and saw the taj mahal today, as i mentioned. tonight we'll take an overnight bus to pushkar, where many people start camel treks through the desert. we've decided not to go on one, based on the expenses and mixed reviews we've heard from people, but i'm hoping it will be an interesting city nonetheless. after that we'll head to jodhpur, where we might be doing some volunteering. we'll see if that works out.

now it's time for me to get some rest. love to all.

land of the thunder dragon, and more recent activities

here's a catch-up blog:

bhutan was beautiful, as expected. but somewhat disappointing... we spent a shit-ton of money to go there, and so it was really difficult to hold it to the same standards as everywhere else. morgan and i have talked this through a lot, and there's probably much more to say, but i'll try to summarize.

the country is amazing and unique in so many ways. it's several years behind the western world in terms of development, which is both good and bad. the king there has been very forward-thinking in several different areas. the environmental protection there is phenomenal, with 70% of the country preserved in national forest. another component of conservation (of the environment, and the culture in general), is a limit on the number of tourists who can enter. the taxes alone are prohibitive, but go toward public education and health care. yet, the infrastructure is trying to keep up with the growth of the tourism industry. the result is a system where one must plan their entire trip through a travel agency. there are some great things to see, and we saw a lot of them, but the whole time we were on a tourist circuit with so many other foreigners. we really had to go out of our way to get our guides to take us to local restaurants, and to meet anyone actually from bhutan. (we did manage to have some great conversations, but that was largely due to a contact we had there before visiting.)

another key component of the culture is something called "gross national happiness," which is how the state of the country is measured rather than gdp. it looks at economic, environmental, physical, mental, workplace, social, and political wellness as its pillars. now, don't get me wrong, i think that this is a great concept. but it's just that--a philosophy. impossible to actually use as a measure of the average person's experience (according to several people i spoke to). which is too bad, because it was one of the things that really drew me to the country in the first place. on the other hand, it's refreshing that the leader of a country would even consider looking at this sort of measurement. this is the same king who instituted a democracy during his rule. (most people, however, still look to the monarchy as their source of leadership.)

while we were there, and over the past week, the people of bhutan have been celebrating the coronation of their new king. pretty amazing and historical moment. we actually got to see him twice during our time there, just by being in the right place at the right time.

another really nice thing was the flight from bhutan back to nepal. we saw mt. everest! (and several other gorgeous high peaks.) our time there was definitely good, but could have been better, i guess.

since then, we've been on a houseboat in kashmir in northern india, along the border with pakistan. it is a pretty intense place. they're currently getting ready for an election of some sort so there was a curfew on the city that kept us from doing some of the sight-seeing we had planned. on one occasion we we're on a tour around the canals, and our path was blocked by military patrols on the lake. we had to pretend we had a flight to catch in order to be allowed through to get back to the houseboat. i've never experienced anything resembling the tension that we felt there.

speaking of elections, we watched the u.s. presidential election live on cnn in kashmir. that was exciting! happy about obama, waiting to see about the minnesota al franken recount, and disappointed in california for banning same-sex marriages.

now we're in dharamsala, which is a beautiful place with a large tibetan community. it should be very interesting, and we'll get a chance to start exploring tomorrow. in a couple of days we'll be back in delhi to meet up with my cousin christopher. looking forward to that!

then we'll hit the road again, continuing our circuit of india. keep you posted!