​An easy ride to school every morning for our kids is something that we often take for granted, but many children in poor nations around the world don't have the same luxury. In fact, there are about 60 million kids around the globe that don't get to attend school at all every year, and many more drop out after only a few years.

The challenges are often economic, as families need their children working to feed everyone or can't afford books, tuition, and school clothes, etc., but sometimes, geography gets in the way, too. According to UNESCO, children living in a rural environment are twice as likely to be out of school than urban children, and when you add in jagged mountains, isolated valleys, raging rivers, and flooding in the monsoon season, it can be almost impossible for some kids to get to school.

ALMOST impossible. As they 25 examples in photos will demonstrate, some kids will do just about anything to get to school, risking their very lives just to get an education because they know it's their only chance at a better life.

We can all draw inspiration from their sacrifice and dedication, and the next time your kids complain about getting on the school bus, just show them this blog!

With love,
Norm  :-)

PS Contact me if you're interested in helping kids like these and others around the world get an education. 

​These kids have a perilous journey to the remote school in the world in Gulu, China, following a 1-foot wide path for five hours through the mountains just for the opportunity to learn.

​When the Ulnas River in Western India floods every monsoon season, some school kids need to walk a tightrope to get to the other bank of the river and on  to school while other ingenious scholars get creative with their transportation!

​There are no school buses in this rural province in Myanmar, so this resourceful girl hitches a ride on a bull to get to her classroom every morning!

​In Nepal, the mountainous landscape makes travel difficult, or sometimes impossible. But undeterred, these school kids ride a sitting zip line over a river to school every day.

This Palestinian girl lives in a refugee camp in Shuafat, near Jerusalem, and when Israeli forces clash with Palestinians in the streets, she has to walk right through them to get to school.

In Lebak, Indonesia, school children can either walk four hours out of their way or take their chances crossing the river on an old suspension bridge that’s literally falling apart.

A chance to go to school is worth a wild ride outside Bogota, Columbia, as these youngsters have to cross the raging Rio Negro River on a half-mile steel cable high above the waters. Attached by a pulley, she travels at up to 50 mph for a minute and can only slow down using this tree branch as a brake! Even crazier, she’s actually carrying her younger brother in the sack!

In the rainy season in Rizal Province, Philippines, youngsters in search of knowledge take a ride across the river on inflated inner tubes every day. 

These kids have to traverse these treacherous mountains for 125 miles to get to their boarding school Pili, China every term. With the help of the headmaster, the journey takes two days and includes wading through four freezing rivers, crossing a 650 ft chain bridge and four single-plank bridges. 

It takes a lot of focus to keep their bicycle from falling off this foot-wide plank bridge in Java, Indonesia, but it’s a shortcut that saves at least 4 miles on the way to school every day.

With the help of their teacher, these schoolgirls get across the wall of the 16th century Galle Fort in Sri Lanka on a flimsy wooden plank.

To get from their remote island to the nearest school on the mainland in Pangururan, Indonesia, these children pile onto the roof of this boat every morning and afternoon.

Likewise, these kids in beautiful and lush Kerala, India ride to school in a wooden boat every day.

When the bridge over the Ciherang River in Indonesia went out during flooding a few years ago, the village children had no way to get across and attend school…until they started floating to the other shore daily on makeshift bamboo rafts. 

But these elementary school students in Vietnam don’t even have a raft to cross the river to their schoolroom, so twice a day they take off their school clothes, putting them in a bag to try and keep them dry, and swim across the deep rapids.

The region around the village of Mawsynram in India is one of the wettest places on earth, with an average of 467 inches of rain each year. Due to the high precipitation and humidity, wood bridges will rot quickly, but the locals have trained the roots of these rubber trees to join and grow over the river, forming a natural and safe living bridge for the kids to cross to school every day. 

These pupils have a beautiful but difficult canoe ride every morning through the mangrove swamps o to their school in Riau, Indonesia. 

It takes the 20 intrepid pupils of Batu Busuk Village in Sumatra, Indonesia hours hours to walk the seven mile route to school, culminating with a dodgy tightrope traverse 30 feet over the river.

These kids from Zhang Jiawan Village in Southern China have to climb hundreds of feet up a sheer cliff on these dangerous unsecured ladders to get to their classroom.

Crossing this dilapidated and icy bridge in Dujiangyan, Sichuan Province, China, this mother and daughter risk their lives for her education.

A ride to school is a precious thing since it helps avoid a long, hot walk, so these well-dressed scholars pack onto a horse cart in Delhi, India. 

During the monsoon season in many Southeast Asian countries like Cambodia, the rains flood the countryside and city alike, often cancelling classes if kids can’t find a way to wade, swim, float, or boat to their school.

Floods won’t even stop the children from bicycling to school, though it’s dangerous because they have no idea where the road is beneath the waters.

At that point, getting the young ones safely to school could be a whole family affair. They'll do anything to give their children a better life!

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a blog with the FUNNIEST sh*t you'll see in Southeast Asia and shared it with you. The response was so great that I decided to follow up with a new two-part blog with the CRAZIEST sh*t you'll see in Southeast Asia!

From Cambodia to Laos, Vietnam to Myanmar, and Thailand to the Philippines, there's definitely NO place on earth that will make you sure in amazement and scratch your head like in Southeast Asia, where the wild, hilarious, and downright bizarre are a daily occurrence. 

So enjoy, and look for part 2 of this blog coming soon! 

If you want to read more about life in Southeast Asia, read my new book, The Queens of Dragon Town.

-Norm   :-)

I caught this beauty through a bar window the other evening in Thailand. I cried myself to sleep that night, and this will forever haunt my dreams.

It makes me ponder life on so many levels and ask so many important questions.

Like, has this ever happened before in the history of the human race? (I'm guessing not.)

Does the love between an Indian tourist and a decapitated polar bear really stand a chance? (I'm guessing not.)

Should I have left in the part where he started playing with his tail inappropriately?

​And why the hell did he feel the need to wear headphones?  

Either way, I'll just leave this right here for your amusement.

You're welcome.

-Norm  :-)

As I travel around the world, I see so much poverty that it can become routine, a kaleidoscope of suffering always spinning in the background. But when I stop for a second and talk to these children, the beggars and hustlers and vendors on the streets who approach you for change or try and sell you a bracelet or bubblegum, I see their big, eager smiles, the glint of hope that hasn’t been burned out of their eyes quite yet. And when I chat with them you realize they’re just as funny, imaginative, and bursting with energy as our children here in the United States.

So I’ve compiled a few photos of poor street children from my recent stint living in Cambodia and the Philippines, two of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia. This is just a very small sample of the children I’ve encountered and happened to shoot photos of. Every time I do so I ask permission, and/or give some money or food to them. Most of the time they’re thrilled, and want to look at their own photo in my phone or camera. I focus on helping children because they haven’t done anything to warrant their circumstances - they're not guilty of making bad choices. Instead, they’re born into the curse of poverty, and can’t fight for themselves. 

There are far too many children in the world who eat like this - rooting through the trash to try and discover a few edible scraps that aren't too rotten, fighting off the rats and insects and sometimes, other people, for their supper. 

In fact, more than 1 billion children are living in poverty, according to UNICEF. 1 in 5 children around the world don’t even have clean drinking water, and around 1 in 4, enough food to eat. An alarming number of children don’t get the proper immunizations and die of easily preventable diseases like malaria, measles, and diarrhea – the three biggest killers of children that end about 500,000 young lives each year.

The statistics go on and on, but if we only quantify child poverty by numbers and statistics, our perceptions tend to slip from compassion to calculation, and we start defining them as problems, not people. So let’s focus on a different statistic: one. The number one is the only way to define each of these children. Each as their own person, their own mind and spirit, just like you or me.

The little things that you and I take for granted are unimaginable luxuries to these kids. These little street girls in in Phnom Penh, the capitol of Cambodia, were amazed to see their own reflection in a car mirror, and giggled embarrassingly at their own vanity when I snapped a photo of them.

In poor countries, there are no government programs to help; no social security, food stamps, welfare, free medical care, or anything else for the poor. So these kids don't get the simple vaccines and immunizations that our kids enjoy. They are rife with worms and malaria and infections.
 
They hope for the charity of NGOs, orphanages, schools, or community centers that receive foreign aid or are set up by great, caring individuals. But corruption is also rampant among international NGOs, and even the good ones can only help a few.

Last week in the Philippines, I was talking to a local friend over dinner. We got to talking about our families, and she told me this touching story about her childhood: 

“I grew up very fortunate, living in the countryside in the province. Our village was right on the side of a mountain and my dad was a miner so we did well. He made enough money that my mom could open up a little store and we had plenty to eat.

But others in the village were very poor. They’d come to my mom’s store and ask for a bag of rice or some medicine for their children, but they wouldn’t have enough money to pay.

“Please, I will pay you tomorrow,” they’d say, and she’d give it to them, even though she knew they couldn’t pay tomorrow, either. But she carried medicine at the store even though she made no money on it, and ay sundown when she heard the babies and children in the village crying from hunger, she’d always give out some rice. I had everything as a little girl, plenty of food and clothes and gold necklaces, and never had to be sent to the mountain to work like the other kids.

But when I was eight years old, things went bad when my father met another woman in our village. She was older than him and very rich, with many houses and gold since she owned the mine. They started having an affair, and soon my father left my mother. My mother was crushed, but I was too young to understand that my father wasn’t coming home anymore. I grew very sick with a broken heart.

My mother had no more money from his mining job. The store didn’t bring in much because she gave food to those who were hungry and medicine to those who were sick, even thought they could not pay. I grew even sicker and I stopped eating. I only wanted to see my daddy. For months, I didn’t eat anything but liquids and I grew so thin that even the doctors thought I would soon die. My mother tried to take me to more doctors and buy me medicine, but she had no money. And there was no medicine for my broken heart. My mother sold everything in the store and then the store itself and started selling our furniture just to keep our house and enough food. But I did not eat. I only watched the window every day, lying on my bamboo matt on the floor because I was too weak and sick to even sit up, waiting for my father to come home. There was nothing more my mother could do because I refused to ear, and she was heartbroken, herself.

The rich older woman was in love with my father, and wanted him to come to the big city. She had a beautiful house there where they could live with servants and always be comfortable and he would never have to work again. He agreed, and they took their things and went to the bus station to travel to the city.

But once they got there, he couldn’t stop thinking of his children and his family. Their bus was leaving soon so he told the rich woman that he had to go to the bathroom. He left her side and all of his suitcases but instead of going to the bathroom, he went to the ticket counter and bought a ticket for the next bus back toward our village. He never went back to her, but got on the bus and left.

I was so sick that there was nothing anyone could do and my mother was waiting for me to die, but I wouldn’t eat. I had such a bad fever sometimes that I would say crazy things and see things that weren’t there. Sometimes I’d call out to my father. My mother had no choice but to ignore me after a while.

But one afternoon, I thought saw someone walking on the long dirt road that ran into our village from the main road, where the buses ran. I was dizzy with fever but I thought I saw a man walking towards us. I knew I was sick so I thought I must be seeing crazy things again, because it looked like my father. But I watched him walking, and even thought he was still far off, I could tell it was my father.

I cried out to my mother that my father was walking home, but she dismissed me as having feverish dreams once again and went back to doing the wash. I called out again when he was closer, but my mother just swept the floor. Finally, when he was so close that I could see his face and I knew it was actually my father and not a dream, I cried out to my mother again.

My mother turned around and dropped her broom with what she saw. It was him.

He walked up to the home and came inside. He saw that there was no furniture and his daughter was very skinny on the floor. He hugged me first.

“Is everything Ok?” he asked my mother.

“No, everything is not ok,” my mother said. “We have no food or medicine and our daughter is very sick. She hasn’t been able to eat rice or solid food in months. She just drinks. She is going to die and the doctors don’t know what it is.”

He hugged me again, and then hugged my mother. He apologized and she hugged him back and they both cried, because she knew he was home for good and her heart opened up to him again.

“Mommy,” I said. “Can I have some rice? I am hungry.””

My friend told me that she ate well from that day on, and grew healthy again. Her father moved back in and her mother forgave him. He tried to go back to work but he couldn’t work in the mine again, and they didn’t have money to open the store, so they were poor. But the people in the village remembered that the family had been good to them and shared what they had. Things were not easy, but somehow, there was always enough.

Her father and mother never left each other’s side again, and lived the rest of their many years together until he passed away around Christmas, the year before. 

Of course Jenny and Jenna were there to greet me with big smiles. Jenny, the younger sister, still had that wonderful smile on her face that lit up the world. And Jenna, more serious and stoic, was had grown a head taller and had turned into quite a strong soccer player. Sitha assured me that the girls had fit in and adjusted wonderfully in the year since they’d been placed in the orphanage and I last visited. They were catching up in school slowly but surely after never attending much before, and always were kind to the other children and extremely helpful. In the mornings, when it was a scramble to wake, feed, and ready 37 children for school, Sitha often didn’t have time to eat as well. But Jenna often came up to him with a plate of rice, reminding him to take care of himself and looking out for her new papa. Jenny and Jenna were still thrilled to see me and hugged me warmly but didn’t cling to my shirt, afraid and nervous to let go, like they did when we first brought them there. That was a great sign to see them so happy but also so strong, confident, and independent. 

But despite the odds that are stacked against CIO and the children, Sitha and Mama never give up and never exude anything but positivity. Of course they have 35 little reminders why it’s all worth it, from 3 to 19 years old, with them at all times. The afternoon was cooling so Sitha walked me around and gave me a tour of the compound, like I’d received the previous year. But there were definitely improvements; the school room looked great, the colorful library and study center, complete with a few donated computers, was new, and they even had a spirited Khmer (Cambodian) college student, an orphan herself, living with them and teaching the kids English every day as she continued her own studies. There was even a small 1980s television, but the always-thoughtful Sitha explained that the kids were only allowed one hour of television a week on Saturdays. The boys wanted to watch U.S. wrestling, of course, but the girls wanted cartoons, so cartoons it was.

Little girls helped Mama in the kitchen where she prepared about 100 meals a day outdoors on wood and charcoal fires, a task that got her up at 5:30am and off work well past dark.

The soccer field was in full operation, a new volleyball court marked off in the sand, and the separate building with bathrooms was high class for rural Cambodia. There was a whole room with bicycles so the middle and high schoolers could peddle to the school 10 kilometers away every day, as there was no bus. The elementary school kids had an easy 5-minute walk in their blue uniforms and white shirts. The school day was spilt into morning and afternoon sessions in Cambodia with children attending one or the other, so kids were spilling as Sitha and I talked. Each child as they came home walked up to us, bowed and put their hands to their foreheads as is the custom of respect, and said hello and reported they just returned from school in English. Respect, manners, and discipline are integral to the lessons Sitha teaches them, and English is also vital if they hope to get good jobs above manual labor, like working in a hotel or restaurant with tourists for $150 a month or so if they’re lucky. 

As Mama cooked and Sitha supervised the children coming home, I wandered over to the garden, a new addition in the year I’d been gone. As they were designing the flowerbeds, the children had a cool idea to build it in the shape of CIO – the orphanage’s initials. The water pump was also near the garden, an old-school red metal handle the children took turns working to get water to wash dishes, do laundry, and also bathe. I was saying hi to the kids there when I felt a biting pain in my foot. Then another one, and more on my other foot, ankles and legs. I looked down to see I was standing right in a nest of fire ants. Those little sons-of-ants (I gotta keep the language clean when writing a blog about kids!) hurt like wasp stings. I brushed and kicked and danced until they were off me, the children laughing with hilarity at my painful antics.

When dinner was ready, the children took out metal folding tables and plastic chairs and set them up on the concrete deck under the main pavilion. Some of them set the tables while others poured drinks into little plastic cups or took out metal cafeteria trays. Mama scooped the food onto each tray. There was white rice, green beans with chopped pork, and Lok Lak, a Khmer treat of beef in sauce, tomato and onion, and egg. I realized it was a feast to celebrate my visit; they couldn’t always eat that well, and many people here lack meat in their daily meals. 

Before we dug in, some children were assigned to wave the flies away from the tables. Unfortunately, the orphanage grounds sits near a chicken farm and a crocodile farm if I heard correctly, both attracting swarms of flies that migrate over to their dinner tables. The children sang an adorable song of gratitude and blessings before the meal, which I asked them to repeat so I could video it.

We ate among the sounds of children’s’ laughter, but at the adult table Sitha gave me a sketch on the history and culture of Cambodia. He explained that Siem Reap province, despite being the top tourist destination in the country, was the poorest province in Cambodia (which is saying a lot). In fact, the home to Angkor Watt – one of the wonders of the world and an UNESCO world heritage site – brought in a ton of revenue, but the regular people never saw a penny of it. All of the hotels, bars, and restaurants were owned by rich foreigners or a small number of elite Khmer families and the rights to profit from Angkor Watt had been sold to a Vietnamese tycoon in 2004, in one of the most glaring cases of political corruption for profit I can fathom.

I hugged him and mama, then shook their hands, and then hugged them again. There weren’t words to express enough gratitude for what they were doing for these children.

“You don’t say goodbye, only ‘see you later’” Sitha called out, reminding me of what I wrote about the orphanage in my blog a year earlier.

“Here you go Sitha, this will help,” I said, handing him a stack of crisp $100 bills, enough money to pay the upcoming 3-month lease that was hanging over them. I explained that I wasn’t the generous one; most of it came from donations from sweet, caring friends in the United States who had never even been to Cambodia or seen the kids.

As I left, the children lined up and waved, running behind the tuk tuk. I hoped to visit one more time before I left Cambodia, or maybe it would be another year before I got to see them all again, but I was heartened knowing they were all  safe and happy and in great hands. 

-Norm   :-)


P.S. Drop me an email if you'd like to help the children of C.I.O. 

There are many great architectural marvels in this world: the Sistine Chapel, the Burj Dubai, the Pyramids of Egypt, and the Great Wall of China, but none that stand as a living monument to two peoples’ love more than the Taj Mahal. The iconic marble temple complex in Agra, India doesn’t just have a love story intertwined in its creation myth, the Taj Mahal is a love story.

 The story starts in the year 1592 with the birth of Prince Khurram, the son of Jehangir, the fourth Mughal emperor of India and the grandson of Akbar the Great. Price Khurram was born to a life of royalty and unsurpassed privlidege, his name changed to Shah Jahan in accordance to custom because he was the rightful heir to the throne after his father. 

When he was 14 years old, Shah Jahan was walking with his entourage in the Meena Bizarre and witnessed a girl selling silk and glass beads. She was the most beautiful thing his eyes had ever seen and it was love at first sight. The girl was named Arjumand Banu, a Muslim Persian princess that was a year older than him. Upon meeting her, Shah Jahan immediately ran back to his father, the emperor, and declared his undying love and that he wanted to marry her. The love was mutual and the wedding was set and the young couple wed in 1612. 

After her death, Shah Jahan was so heartbroken that he ordered the whole Emperor’s court to mourn with him for two full years. He honored his pledge to her never to marry again (a big deal for an emperor at that time!) and then set out to plan and build the greatest testament to love the world has ever seen, a mausoleum over her grave so shining and ornate and grand that the world would remember her beauty, forever.

It took 22,000 workers and artisans 22 years to build the Taj Mahal, which means “Crown Palace”. (There are claims that after completion, Shah Jahan had the hands cut off of all his craftsmen so they could never build something that beautiful again, though these claims aren’t proven.) The head architect Shah Jahan chose for the job, Ustad Ahmad Lahauri, was not actually from India, but a Persian from Iran, so the late queen’s origins would be honored. They used 1,000 elephants to transport the heavy building materials like slabs of marble and stone. When it was done, the total price tag was 32 million Indian rupees, or the equivalent of $1 billion at the time, which would be much more in today’s dollars. 

They used the finest white marble brought all the way in from the bordering country of Rajasthan. Depending on the time of day and how the sunlight kissed it, the marble of the Taj Mahal changes colors; sometimes rosy pink, milk white, or golden yellow, all representing the many feelings he had for his wife. 28 kinds of the most dazzling precious and semiprecious jewels were used, tens of thousands of stones in all. The brought in turquoise from Tibet, jade from China, crystal, lapis lazuli, amethyst and turquoise from all over the world. These jewels were crafted together into the most intricate flowers and then replicated thousands of times in patterns all over the walls and ceiling of the Taj Mahal. Writings from the Quran were inscribed in golden calligraphy on the arched entrances and walls.

Built on the southern bank of the Yamuna River in Agra, the Taj Mahal consisted of a spiraling domed mausoleum. Centered inside was an octagonal marble and jewel-encrusted chamber, which was supposed to be the resting place of Mumtaz Mahal. But her body was actually housed in a sarcophagus far below that very spot, in accordance with Muslim doctrines.

In total, the Taj Mahal is 240 feet high and surrounded by four smaller domes and four minarets, or Islamic prayer towers. In front, there is a long series of gardens and crystal clear rectangular pools. The entire Taj Mahal complex is guarded by a red sandstone gateway entrance building and a red sandstone mosque, and jawab (“mirror”) or replica building directly across from the mosque.

Once completed, the Taj Mahal was just the first part of Shah Jahan’s tribute to the inextinguishable love for his bride. He planned to build a second grand mausoleum – this one in all black – directly across the river from the Taj Mahal, joined with a connecting bridge like two lovers holding hands, and there he would be buried when he died. 

But Shah Jahan’s son, Aurangzeb, seeing the opportunity to dispose his ailing and heart-stricken father (and perhaps worried that he might spend the whole family fortune on more construction) usurped his father, the Emperor, and took power in 1658. He placed Shah Jahan under house arrest in a tower of the nearby Red Fort of the rest of his days, his only solace that he could see the Taj Mahal out of his one little window. Shah Jahan sat in prison for 8 years until he died in 1666, still in love with the princess he came across in the market so many decades before. His body was placed in a tomb right next to hers in the center of the Taj Mahal, the only thing that is a-symmetrical in the whole structure.

Over the centuries, the Taj Mahal changed hands with each new Emperor, ruler and invader. The British changed the gardens from the roses and daffodils that were originally planted to the Wimbledon-like cool green lawns you see today. During World War II and later during conflicts with the new nation at war, Pakistan, false scaffolding and structures were built around the Taj Mahal to confuse and deter enemy bomber pilots. 

These days, the Taj Mahal has been named one of the original Seven Wonders of the World.  Each year, ore than 3 million tourists from all around the world come to the Taj Mahal to witness its grandeur and learn about the Emperor who constructed it as a tribute to his one true love. Even 400 years later, it is the greatest love story ever built.

"Not a piece of architecture, as other buildings are, but the proud passion of an emperor's love wrought in living stones."
-English poet, Sir Edwin Arnold

-Norm  :-)


Check out the new book, Travel With Norm

Someone opened the front zipper of my backpack again today (happened in Nicaragua this fall, too), probably in the crowded train station. I only had bug spray and a stick of deodorant in that pocket and it’s very apparent they don’t use either of those things in India, so nothing was stolen.

Male friends and relatives are extremely affectionate here. They walk around with their arm around each other or even holding hands. Yet you never really see physical contact or affection between men and women in public, even when they’re a couple.

Every single one of the waiters I’ve encountered is a man.

In fact, almost all of the professional or service jobs seem to be taken by men. With so many people, such high unemployment, and backwards cultural barriers to women in the workplace (or women’s rights at all) I’ve seen women selling fruit and working as cleaning ladies, but that’s it.

People in India go to Dubai for work. They pay a lot, their economy is booming, and it’s much easier to get a visa than the United States. The nice lady who was running my homestay (contradicting my previous statement completely) went over there for three months at a time once or twice a year to work. She had no friends or family there or any life outside of work, but it allowed her to make good wages to send back to her family in India so they could get a little ahead.

One consistent thing in the world – everyone is pissed at the U.S. because out visa process is so ridiculously hard, costly, and stringent, especially after 9/11.  It’s nearly impossible for good, hard working people from poor countries to go there, even for student or work visas. While you may think this is just how it goes to protect our national interests, it’s ridiculously easy for U.S. citizens to get a visa to any other countries, and a flood of American companies set up on foreign soil to make money from those same poor people, or evade paying taxes back home.

Back in the 1970’s, there was a “brain drain” in India, as many of the doctors, engineers, and smart, affluent people emigrated to the United States because of economic opportunity. Fascinating enough, in the early 2000s when the tech bubble burst and again in 2008 with the recession, many of their children headed back to India to work and live because this country presented better opportunities.

They say the NYPD is looking to hire more police officers of Indian descent so the young guy working at my home stay told me his dream is to go to America and New York to become a cop. However, he's only seen snow on TV and in the movies and thinks the cold and ice looks “nice”. 

The dogs here are very happy and tranquil and there are a lot of them. They just curl up and sleep in the sun anywhere – on the beach, on the train track, or in the street. I was meditating (don’t laugh) and deep breathing and stretching on the beach this morning and a dog came right up and laid down next to me to chill.

Speaking of yoga, I took two classes. One was run by a teacher at an Ayurdic medicine center. I was supposedly for beginners but the pretzeling he was asking me to do was inhuman, and they he was confused why my body wouldn't comply. The second class was on the beach in the morning and consisted mostly of breathing and gentle movements, which I liked a lot better 

I seriously cannot find a decent Wi-Fi connection here. Everyone says they have great internet when you’re checking into their hotel or contemplating eating at their restaurant, but when they give you the password, it either won’t connect or it connects but the signal is so slow that it takes like 5 minutes just to load a page. It also just goes on and off frequently. I’m really not sure why they can’t figure out Wi-Fi in India considering all of their tech savvy, business acumen, and improved infrastructure. Always a problem and I’ve learned to work fast and keep working whenever I do get a signal. I hate to harp on that, but I need it for work every day so it can be a torturous undertaking.

Some of the Indian hotels in the big cities are very expensive but really subpar, mostly inhabited by Indian businessmen. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, but when you go out to the nicer tourist areas, like by the beach, there are a lot nicer hotel options for a lot less money.

The countryside is beautiful. Once you get out of the cities and surrounding towns, the little backwater and forest villages are well worth checking out.

I saw something really shocking today. I was on the back of a motorbike on the way to the train station and we zipped through a countryside hamlet. As we passed, a skinny yellow dog – no bigger than a small mutt with ribs sticking out - took a running start and jumped right up on top of a 6-foot wall around a house, and then scrambled over. I’ve never seen a dog do that – it was so graceful it looked exactly like a cat might do, and his paws only touched the wall one time as made contact with the wall and vaulted over.

I know I’ve said it before, but the trains are madness. And the madness I’m witnessing is on the nicest upscale sleeper cars, not the 2nd class common passenger cars.

Joined in a beach cleanup the other day. I saw a poster for it and decided to help, because I love to volunteer wherever I go and trash containment is such a problem in a lot of developing countries (is India still considered developing?)

Shattering my stereotypes, there were a bunch of young Russian hippy backpackers running the clean up. I was assigned to a group with a really cool and really tall dude from Holland and a few others. I added the leader of the Russian volunteers on Facebook to keep in touch, and he proudly told me in broken English that he was called Jesus on social media, spelled Jeesoos.

We picked up all sorts of garbage on the beach for about an hour until our bags were full and our heads cooked from the sun. In all, the 12 volunteers gathered about 20 bags.

My group was assigned to the temple beach, which was the south end butting up against some rocky crags where a Hindu temple sat. So all sorts of Indian people came to the beach and worship and perform rituals. One of them was to honor their deceased relatives, so they’d make shrines on the beach of lit incense, coins, flower wreaths, and framed photos of their loved ones right by the rocks. So as we walked around picking up trash, we had to be careful not to collect things from these shrines or disturb them. It’s sort of eerie to see these sun and ocean faded portraits strewn about all over the beach.

At temple beach there are three huge burial mounds made from the sand (though no one is in them) with Indian religious men sitting on top of them, orange, white, and black ash on their foreheads, amidst smoking incense. People come and these old religious men bless them…for a fee.

In Varkala there are a lot of stores selling Tibetan crafts and you can tell a lot of the workers in town are Tibetan or Nepalese.

I’ve been eating vegetarian for two weeks now, save for prawns, fish, or squid a couple of times. With this abundance of amazing vegetable curries, I don’t miss meat one bit. In fact, I saw a dead plucked chicken today in a store and it really looked nasty.

The women dress absolutely beautifully in their sarongs, dresses, and traditional garb with bold colors and golden embroidery.

It’s so strange but there’s a ½ hour time difference to India: it’s 10 ½ hours ahead of New York. I’ve never heard of a ½ hour increment in time zones, but I guess Nepal has a 15-minute incremental difference!

Also, all of India is on the same time zone, though it’s huge.

So far, so good on the stomach front. I have suffered from “Delhi belly” at all, though I’ve been really careful what I eat and drink.

Good thing, because I’ve noticed hotels don’t provide toilet paper (I carry my own rolls anyway) though they sometimes provide soap. But don't count on it.

And there are very few public toilets in India, or toilets at all for that matter. I read something crazy like only 60% of Indians have access to indoor plumbing and there are far more cell phones than toilets in the country. Good times.

Speaking of toilets, there’s a real thing called “Flying Toilets” here. There are so few public toilets or even indoor bathroom facilities in poor homes, that a lot of common people just defecate into a plastic bag and then just throw it down a hill, into a vacant lot, or into an alley. So you actually have to be careful in some areas not to get hit with one of these flying toilets. The other day I saw a French lady who lives here chastising some teenage boys for throwing their flying toilets off a cliff by the sea.

They drive on the left side of the road here. Or, more accurately, they drive all over the friggin road including going the wrong way when a huge bus or truck is barreling our way, but they are supposed to drive on the left.

The bigger directional problem comes from people walking. For instance, we in the U.S. automatically also walk on the right and when someone is approaching, we move in that direction to let them pass. But Indians and some Europeans walk left with the same intention, and Russians just stand in the middle of it all blocking everyone’s way and not giving a rat’s ass.

There is only one ATM in the beach community of Varkala, the Catholic Syrian Bank.

They call checking accounts “current” on most ATM’s all over the world.

There are two great institutions in India: the railways, which employ 1.4 million workers (more than the population of a few small countries) and the postal system.

My typical breakfast, at The Juice Shack overlooking the beach, consists of fruit, shredded coconut, yogurt, and honey, and also an omelet. I also get a big water and good coffee. That all costs me about $4.75 on average.

A good number of people here walk barefoot all day every day, even on the city streets, too poor to even afford shoes. A begging man at the train station was limping around with bloody bandages around his feet, which were afflicted with some terrible swelling it looked like. I can’t imagine the pain and worse, the hopelessness he experiences.

There are loads of beggars in the main cities like Mumbai, but in the tourist areas I’ve been too there are very few people begging. Those who are usually are infirm and helpless old people, sitting folding onto themselves in a pile of rags and filth, under the hot sun all day hoping someone takes mercy on them. I can’t describe the look of gratitude, love, and warmth they radiate when I’ve given them just a dollar or two. 

The train cars have a food service called Meals on Wheels and they wear black polo shirts with the logo. That makes me laugh for some reason.

It’s interesting what I notice and how I feel after I went back to the U.S. for 6 months in between the traveling/living abroad life. This time, I want to document the daily minutiae of my life on the road more. So I’m going to try and take a photo of every single hotel room and place I stay in for the next 6 months.

At the train station, there was a room that was a waiting area only for ladies. I’m sure a place for women to have privacy, safety, and be able to care for their children or get a respite from public is greatly welcomed.

I like drinking milk tea in the afternoons. They serve it very hot in a little glass, and the glass is so hot, I don’t know how they pick it up. Or maybe I just need to toughen the F up a little.

Cheese Naan and butter Naan breads are so good its redunkulous. The vast majority of my meals consist of veggie curries and rice and Naan. 

Verkala was really beautiful and had a terrific vibe. I definitely want to go back one day and spend some more time. But it was a place to visit, not to live I think.  

I grabbed my camera and a water bottle and took a walk last Sunday afternoon, getting lost on purpose. I walked for about three hours and found myself on a path that wound up and down the sea cliffs and beaches following the coastline heading north. I passed palm groves, shady meadows with cows, small rivers leading to the sea, grassy parks, and secluded black sand beaches. It was one of the most beautiful settings I’ve ever witnessed, and I was truly in the moment. Everything was green and blue. The sunlight reached inside me. I felt perfectly grateful just to be there and breathing. If I have only those moments, it will make the whole trip worth it.

By now, many of you know the term “Chicken Bus” to describe the common form of bus transportation in developing countries. But it occurred to me: since many parts of India are widely vegetarian, should we change the name from “chicken” bus to a more plant-based moniker? Soy Bus? Nah. I rode the Tofu Bus? Too Whole-Foodsy. How about the Curry Bus? Yeah, I like that one.

Like you see in many developing countries, vendors will all sell the exact same thing even though they’re all lined up together. I always tell my friends abroad - whether they’re beggars, street merchants, shopkeepers, or bar owners – to do something to differentiate themselves. I made friends with a Nepalese family in Varlkala who ran a shop and I told them they should serve free hot tea samples or have cultural dance shows or something to bring the tourists in, but of course they just look at me and smile and say: “So Sir Norm, you want to buy something?”

By the way, children work right along with the adults 10-14 hours a day or longer.

I hate goodbyes, so when I leave a place I don’t make a round of sappy and prolonged adieus, I just ghost. It’s better that way.

There’s nothing much to do at night here – not even bars really – so you tend to get up and retire with the sun.

The few tourist restaurants that serve beers have to do so clandestinely, so they’ll sell you a liter bottle and then pour a bit into a coffee cup and hide the bottle under your table.

I’ve only had three beers I think in three weeks here. I had two small glasses of beer last night and I was buzzed! Hahaha. Then again, I’ve always been a lightweight.

I should read more but I’ve been watching a movie every night. I watched Bend it Like Beckham, Slum Dog Millionaire, and Million Dollar Arm while in India. Does that make me a racist? Or just a cultural retard?

You take off your shoes before you enter any shop, home, or religious site. It would be extremely rude and disrespectful to do otherwise. 

I’m frequenting the class of accommodations that involves a hard wood cot with a thin foam “mattress,” one rock hard pillow, and sheets with blood on them from previous residents’ battles with mosquitos. The rooms have a ceiling fan and a dingy bathroom with a bucket. This costs me an average of $8 a night, even by the beach. The next level up is around $18-$24 a night and may include a TV, an air conditioner you’re not allowed to use unless you pay an extra $10 or so, maybe a desk, and a balcony or bigger windows on the second or third floor.

Bathrooms have a drain in the floor so there are no shower pans in most countries. The shower falls right into the room and then the floor just drains. Good system, actually.

I bought a mango ice cream the other day and walked about ten steps with it when a little poor Indian kid asked me if I’d buy him ice cream, so I just handed it to him without getting even a bite and walked on. Haha

They love cricket here, as well as field hockey, and football (soccer) the #3 sport. They play cricket on the beach every morning.

 Anywhere you go in the world, poor and common people visiting from the city go into the ocean in their clothes. Same here. Men go in with their jeans rolled up and no shirts, and women go in in their dresses or traditional sarongs with leggings or jeans on underneath.

There is nothing better than watching the joy of these people as they play in the ocean. They wade out in groups, laughing, pushing each other, holding hands in a group, and collectively yelling like they were on a roller coaster at every new wave that crashes into them. They do this for hours. It's purely golden. have seen no greater pure joy. When I close my eyes I can still hear their laughter over the windy sway of the waves.

-Norm  :-)