It is hard to give a straightforward impression about India because we only visited a few cities (in the Golden Triangle of Delhi, Agra & Jaipur) for eight days. So, we've decided just to weave together a series of events that describe a typical day so you experience a bit of what we did and make up your own mind. You've just paid for the "premium" bus and board a smart-looking minibus with an interior from the 1970's (at least that seems as though...

A cold wind blows, birds fly above, and all I hear is the sound of my feet crunching in the gravel of the trail. I'm moving very slow now. One step every two seconds to get up this hill. Crunch-Mississippi...Two-Mississippi...Crunch. I have spent eight days now getting to this point. My mind wonders. I think about the gorgeous bridges I crossed, covered in Tibetan prayer flags and suspended by steel cables high over the glacial-green river below. I think a...

A good wildlife safari always begins with the guide listing the different ways to escape animal attacks. If you are walking through the jungle and a rhino chases you, run in zigzags until no longer being chased (whenever that may be). For sloth bear encounters, huddle together as a group and yell. If wild elephants attack, well, you're pretty much screwed because apparently they are aggressive and will kill you. Oh, and my personal favorite, if you encounter a ti...

I'll probably get in trouble for saying this, but here goes anyway...Egyptians are the best & worst sales people. In the last two weeks, we've gotten more touts and sales pitches here than anywhere else we've been. We do realize that here, like everywhere else, people are just trying to make a living. That said, we've probably been asked 100,000 times whether or not we'd like to buy a miniature granite replica of the sphinx or pyramid. And while a mini sphin...

The second leg our our journey around the world is upon us. And what better way to start the trip than with a baptism by fire in Cairo, Egypt. I say that because on the first leg we were fairly comfortable with our language skills (Genny especially), had a good grasp of the culture, and could get out of a hairy situation if need be. Here in Cairo, it's a completely different story. We cannot speak the language, it is both of our first times in a Muslim country an...