Knowing we would be returning to this modern, upbeat city for our flight out, we didn't spend long in Tel Aviv. Anyway, we were eager to catch up with all our good friends and only had only two weeks in the Holy Land. To update those not in the know, the volunteer project we were involved with in Cambodia was locally managed by Israelis. Most of the non-Khmer workers and volunteers were from Israel and we inevitably got to know them pretty well. So, to uphold a ...

It's 4am in the morning, and the streets of Delhi are unusually quiet as we're on our way to the airport for our flight to Israel. We've just spent the last few days shopping, something we've mostly avoided since leaving Australia, although we figured this was our last chance to get a good Indian market bargain and there were a few things we needed... Our old shoes had suffered some serious wear and tear last year in the Asian wet season, and trekking up and dow...

With all our recent self discovery in spiritual northern India, we decided that we needed a few days back in reality to let it all soak in. As we missed our chance to bask under the coconut palms in the south, a British influenced hill-station in the mountains seemed the next best thing... Nainital was a beautiful, cool, clean and well-organised village, developed around an emerald green lake. In other words, it was the total opposite to the rest of India! Befo...

With our minds very clear and open, and irremovable smiles on our faces we left the Ashram to head back into the touristy yet convenient Rishikesh. We picked Easter Sunday as our day of departure, and so appropriately gobbled away on some Indian chocolate bars whilst we sat on the dusty rickshaw. We had already slackened off on our strict yogic diet, although we haven't forgotten what we've learnt and actually spent the last week extending our knowledge of health...

Santosh Puri Ashram turned out to be exactly what we were looking for, although we still spent half of our time wondering what we were doing there... We spent 12 nights almost completely cut-off from the outside world. Besides our active thoughts, our company was a small and friendly spiritual community, some good natured vegetarian dogs and beautiful gardens filled with birds of every colour! In the end we decided we were both balanced enough, and too attached t...