106 Bottles (or drafts if you are lucky) of Beer on the Wall

If you are uninterested in beer then it might be best to save yourself 5 minutes and skip this post!
Having lived in Northern California for nearly 5 years, we have caught the beer bug and have been longing for cold drafts of west coast microbrew throughout the trip. Often we reminisce of the happy hours in San Francisco at Rogue Ale House, Vesuvio, Kennedy’s and of course, The Buccaneer.

Being beer enthusiasts we have made a point to sample the domestically produced beer in each country that we have visited in the hopes of learning not only what styles are preferred but also what role this wonderful drink plays abroad. Six months in we have visited 18 countries and sampled 106 domestically produced beers. The styles and tastes preferred have varied as well as the role that beer plays in each culture.

The world of beer styles is essentially split into two groups. ales and lagers. The essential difference is the yeast used in production, top fermenting vs bottom fermenting, and outside of that, both styles can offer a wide array of beers. Colleen and I are ale drinkers. Unless it is an early Saturday morning with Miller Lite during college football season (go Hawks!) or the conclusion of a long bike or run, we usually find ourselves sipping a cold pint or bottle of ale of some sort. Interestingly enough, the rest of the world heavily prefers the lager style of beer.
Availability of different labels has varied greatly from country to country. In Vietnam we have been treated to 18 different labels of beers while in Lesotho we were only able to track down one, the national lager called Mulati.

Over 70% of the beer we have sampled has been lager with the occasional surprise of an ale every now and then. If you like lagers such as Budweiser or Heineken, you would be in good company in most parts of the world. Most all the lagers we have sampled are fairly straight forward, light in color, lower in alcohol, and not much malt flavor or mouth feel outside of the presence of a slight alcohol taste. Most all contain adjuncts of some sort, usually rice or corn (or as they call it everywhere else, maize). Many add a fair amount of sugar prior to fermentation to boost alcohol levels (but impart no taste) and in Eastern Africa they even add unfermentable sugars to the mix resulting in a beer that can only be described as a Budweiser with a tablespoon of sugar added. There have been some great finds though, including the wonderful Laurentina Clara in Mozambique, the all natural Windhoek of Namibia, and the high alcohol Kingfisher Red of India. Rwanda, moving forward since the tragedies of the mid 1990s brought with it a tasteful Primus Lager served in traditional Belgian glassware, a reminder of it's colonial past.

Nearly all of the ales we have found have been in Ireland, the UK and South Africa. We were treated to unpasturized 'live ale' in London, a special treat that is hand drawn at traditional pubs. We also spent a fair amount of time with 750 ml bottles of Castle Milk Stout while camping in South Africa and we have also enjoyed half liters of dark ales recently in Vietnam.

I have found it very interesting the amount of mass produced large label beer available throughout the world. Carlsberg and Heineken are mainstays in most every country we have visited. We have actually had Carlsberg (Danish) that was produced domestically in Malawi as well as Amstel (Dutch) produced in Jordan and Lowenbrau (German) produced in Nepal.

We have been lucky enough to visit a total of 8 microbreweries so far getting a taste for small batch beer in each continent we have visited. Vietnam has been the surprise of the group boasting a microbrewery in a majority of all sizable towns we have visited. A stop for a beer at Legends microbrewery of Hanoi turned into and afternoon of discussion with the German Brewmaster. He introduced himself as I was seated at the bar staring at the brewing equipment and asked if I was Australian. I responded and clarified that I was American and asked him if he was Czec. It was a good way to break the ice and lead to an afternoon of beers he refused to let us pay for. Turns out his name was Werner and he was from Ramstein Germany and had been working in breweries since he was 13 (he was now in his mid 50s) eventually moving to Africa to brew and now to Vietnam. He was the owner and turned out to be very open to discussing his operation: he ships in a container of malt and hops from Germany every 3 months and brews 40 times per month on his 10 barrel system. He regularly sold 1500 liters of beer a day in his 400 person beer hall and distributed what was left over. I told him I thought he needed a larger brewing system to which he replied that the his Vietnamese investors would not approve it. So for now, he brews at least once a day, seven days a week.

Beer prices and packaging have also varied greatly from country to country. The most costly place we have drank was our first stop, Dublin, where we paid up to $6 USD for a pint of Kilkenny on draft. Africa brought with it low prices for beer (always by the bottle, never available by draft) where we bought 750 ml bottles of domestic beer for as little as $0.60 in Uganda. All in all, draft beer has only been found in about 1/4 of the places we have visited and the preference seems to be toward large bottles (deposit required in Africa) over cans.

The closest thing I have found to homebrew abroad has been the street beer of Vietnam, known as 'bia hoi'. Always served by draft out of a shabby looking keg placed curbside, bia hoi has been easy on the pocketbook as you can sit on the sidewalk in a plastic chair drinking low alcohol draft beer for around $0.25 a glass. There was also the homemade Tibetan beer offered in Nepal which consisted of a scoops of fermented millet grain placed in a large metal stein and topped off with steaming hot water. The bitter fruit wine like drink was then sipped through a metal straw and each stein refilled multiple times with hot water until all of the alcohol and flavor had been extracted from the fermented millet.

The role beer plays in each country has varied greatly. In the largely Muslim state of Jordan it is almost non existent outsite of the tourist areas. We did not see beer for sale or have a drink for nearly 2 weeks prior to trudging through a downpour to the other side of town for a cool draft of Amstel. In Africa, beer drinking was usually reserved for the men who began drinking in the early afternoon on roughly welded bar stools placed outside wood shacks roadside. In SE Asia, drinking is done at all times of day, and it is not uncommon to see businessmen having a drink by early afternoon. Unfortunately in many countries the drinking has become a curse of the poor and I wonder how a man with thread bare clothes and no shoes can be drinking beer after beer. Then I have to remind myself that the same thing occurs back home and unfortunately there is no help for these people. Beer, as always, accompanies celebration as well in most countries. Whether it was the completion of a long work week in Ireland, a Saturday night in Capetown, a wedding in India or locals on vacation in Vietnam, there was usually a person to be found enjoying a cold one.

Tonight we have our first sips of Beer Laos, the much famed national brew of the new country we have entered.

Your Flight Has Been Delayed 11 Hours

We left Nepal in high spirits. The country had rejuvenated us physically and mentally and we headed to the airport excited for the coming months of travel in SE Asia. We had three flights scheduled for the day. The first was from Kathmandu to Delhi, followed by a Delhi to Mumbai flight which landed at 1AM in time to connect to a 4AM flight to Bangkok. We were dealing with 3 different airlines so we had no false hope of all 3 flights and connections going off without a hitch. The first two flights went off as planned but as we entered the check-in queue at Mumbai we were told our flight was delayed until 3PM. I had previously spent the night in Mumbai airport, there are certainly worse places to be, but the thought of sleeping on a dirty floor after a long day of travel was not appealing.


We reached the front of the line, received the details of the delayed flight (pilot had fallen ill) and were pleasantly surprised to be told we were getting put up in Mumbai’s finest, the Intercontinental Hotel. Two hours later we had caught a shuttle and checked into the hotel. Silk sheets (no sleep sheets needed!), aircon, hot water, hair dryer, flat screen TVs...it was somewhat of a huge treat midway through our trip. The next morning we headed downstairs to our free breakfast. The variety of food was somewhat staggering, larger than I have ever seen at a hotel or restaurant. As we relished in our cereal and milk for the first time in 5 months, the headlines of the Jakarta bombings came across the TV. It was an eerie feeling: we were in the nicest hotel of our trip, in a city with a recent history of terrorism/bombings, eating breakfast in the lobby...very similar to the scenario they were describing on TV. You prepare yourself of pick-pockets, thieves and such but for the first time on our trip we were pondering the reality of safety issues of a different type.


We arrived to Bangkok the next day, met another American in the taxi queue at the airport and shared a ride to the infamous backpacker district of Koh San Road. Turns out he was from Chicago but living in DC. He was a tech consultant and had recently been laid off and during his few week stint in Thailand was now pondering whether he should hit up grad school or start a job search once back home. As at home, the current state of the economy is always a point of discussion during our travels.


We have enjoyed the past 4 days in Bangkok. Power outages and operating by candle light were a daily ritual in all of Nepal and many parts of India. Bangkok has brought us some comforts we have not experienced since the first weeks of the trip. There are 7-11s (fountain pop for Colleen and coffee for me), street vendors, cold beer, pharmacies, sidewalks, clean cheap accommodation, stoplights, and many fold more travelers than we have seen anywhere else on our trip. As of late we have been longing for our regular runs along Marina Green in SF that were a staple of our life for the past 5 years. That feeling of a good workout lead us to the nearest shopping mall in Bangkok where we each picked up a new pair of New Balances, workout shorts and a running tank top (Colleen assured me that it was OK to wear a tank top for exercise purposes). We have ran each of the last 3 mornings and have enjoyed the journey through the local neighborhoods although the heat here is a bit stifling. After the runs we hit up 7-11 for milk and cereal and a small part of the whole process actually feels a little bit like home.


Tomorrow mornings run will be early as we have a 7AM 12-hour bus ride to Cambodia and the next segment of the trip.

Climb Every Mountain, Or At Least Catch a View

So how do you get out of India quickly as I so desperately wanted? Take an overnight bus to an overnight train with a quick stop in Varanasi to see the Ganges river, to a 6 hour morning train (which broke down) to a 3 hour bus (yep broke down again) to the Nepal border just in time to catch another overnight bus. By the time we arrived in Pokhara, our first stop in Nepal, we were exhausted but extremely happy to be out of India. Let's just say it was a trying month there and I had hit my limit a few days earlier on India as a whole. We were more than ready for the peaceful town of Pokhara.

Nepal is a small country with the tallest mountain in the world. In fact it holds many tall mountains and our goal in Pokhara was to find a group trek to view some of these mountains. Unfortunately, good old monsoon season stood in our way. Usually you can see the mountains from town, but the monsoon brings in daily rains and the clouds never lift. Undaunted, we decided to head out on a trek with the hopes of seeing something, and if not then the quiet time in the mountains would do us some good.

We arranged a porter through our backpackers. With the monsoon comes low season and very few tourists to fill group treks so Chad and I were on our own with the porter. The day before we were to head out we hiked 4 hours to the World Peace Pagoda, high atop a hillside outside of Pokhara. No views from there but on the way down we did get hit by the other wonderful part of monsoon season, leeches. Leeches are everywhere during the monsoon and they quickly latched on to Chad's legs and shoes, but surprisingly did not touch me. Maybe Chad is secretly a leech?

The next day we met our porter, Dhan, and headed out on a two hour bus ride to the trail head in the Annapurna Conservation Area. Dhan was an interesting man. He was the married father of two and ran a small shop selling chips and cigarettes when he was not filling time as a porter. He was part of the lower local 'caste' and scraped by on what he could earn off of the tourism industry in order to put his kids through college (he had two college aged kids and he was 37...Nepalese marry young). He enjoyed his nightly cup of local moonshine when on the trail and emphatically told us very seriously that the yeti did in fact exist (he had not seen one but many of his friends and family had found footprints and had lost livestock to the yeti). Dhan had been a porter for the past 13 years and besides hauling most of our weight, he left us feeling safe and secure as there had historically been numerous muggings on the trails during low season.

Our four day trek started out at 3000 ft and wound its way up to near 11000 ft by the third day. The final day and a half would then be spent winding our way back down the valley via a different trail to our starting point. Along the way, communities of locals were spread across the valley in numerous small villages, usually containing no more than a dozen buildings. When were tired, we stopped to rest at trailside stands and drank milk tea (I now actually enjoy the stuff) and snacked on granola. At night we stayed at local 'tea houses' on the trail. The tea houses were no more than small simple hotels with an adjoining kitchen for food. The rooms were simple to say the least and cost $1-$3 a night for the both of us! We spent the evenings sipping tea around a pot belly stove and eating dal bhat, the local curry of lentils and beans, along with rice. Dhan would tell stories of growing up in a small mountain village, helping out on the farm and hunting snow leopards (or tigers as he continuously called them). If anyone ever visits Pokhara and see's a man in a Sports Basement tee, it is no doubt Dhan as Chad gave him his.

The mountains stayed hidden behind the clouds for most of our trek. The downfall of visiting in the off-season is the rain and clouds but the upside is that we had the countryside to ourselves. Trails that normally received 250+ new trekkers daily in high season were lucky to have 10 this time of year. We welcomed the peace and serenity as we plotted along. We awoke before dawn on day 3 to attempt a nearby hill that had 360 degree views of the Annapurna mountains, but found a torrential downpour outside. By the end of day 3 we had only been able to view the huge peaks for a handful of seconds in between cloud cover but on the fourth morning Dhan woke us up at sunrise to beautiful mountain views of the surrounding mountains, some reaching over 25,000 ft tall! Overall the trek was definitely something neither of us will ever forget. It was a excellent way to relax after our month in India.

Oh, and in case you were wondering.......
Final Leech Count Chad: 5
Final Leech Count Colleen: 5
Number of leeches we pulled off our shoes with salt sticks before they were able to attach to our skin: hundreds

Chance Encounters with the Dalai Lama

But first…animals have been giving Colleen a hard go at it lately. First she was head butted (in her side) by a passing cow in the streets of Udaipur. I got a good laugh out of it but she felt bad and wanted to know ’why the cow did not like her’ because she does not even eat cows. This was followed up by a stray monkey chasing her down the hallway and up the stairs in our hotel in Agra. For someone who loves animals so much lets hope her luck turns for the better.

With the beauty of the Taj Mahal fresh on our minds we headed northward, a quick day stopover in Dehli followed by a night bus 12 hours north to the city of Dharmasala. From there it was a 5 kilometer taxi ride straight up a mountain side to the small town of McLeod Ganj. Our reason for visiting was that since 1959 it has been the home of the Tibetan Government in exile including the Dalai Lama (thumbs up to India for welcoming the Tibetan refugees to the area).

We settled into our $8 guest house with a private balcony overlooking the valley and headed out on foot to explore the village. As has been customary on this trip, when possible Colleen enjoys her Diet Coke and Chad enjoys his daily coffee (or in this part of the world, chai). As we searched the streets for a good deal on Diet Coke (regular soda is always a set price but a premium is charged for diet) we noticed a large crowd had begun to line the main town intersection. The crowd was set a few people deep and everyone seemed to be focused on the traffic coming down the single lane road from uphill. We overheard talk of a ‘Lama’ but figured there was no chance of the Dalai Lama passing by and thought most likely it to be a lower ranking Lama in the community. Then it happened. A patrol car passed by followed by a gold colored sedan with the broad smiled Dalai Lama waving out the passenger side window. We sat there somewhat mesmerized. Neither of us follows the Buddhist faith (although we see much to be learned by its teachings) but we are big fans of the Dalai Lamas writings and work. We had no idea he was even home within the city and to watch him pass by within a few feet of us was a special treat.

Volunteering has been difficult so far on the trip. That seems like an odd thing to say but most NGOs and other opportunities want at least several weeks, if not months, worth of commitment. Without that commitment they say that the time is more about the experience for the volunteer than the work they are actually contributing. That is good and well but we would like to spread our time and efforts over several continents so the ’challenge’ of volunteering has presented itself. By chance, in Mozambique, we were approached while sitting in a café by local teens who needed assistance in converting their resumes from their local language to English. They worked in the local museum and hoped to send their resumes off to museums in the UK and receive sponsorship in order to travel and work overseas. So we spent the evening helping them with the translations and grammar, it was a chance encounter but definitely rewarding for both sides.

The main volunteer opportunities in McLeod Ganj are with the constant incoming flow of Tibetan refugees. Opportunities include helping document new arrivals and helping them set up their new life in a new town. Again these opportunities all require multiple months worth of commitment. We figured our best bet was to come up with a way on our own of how we could help the community in a matter of a days worth of time. We decided to keep it simple and pick up litter. Definitely a generic task but with the amount of visitors visiting the region on a daily basis, the surrounding hillsides are littered with plastic bottles.

We set out on foot on a 5 mile trek uphill out of town. Out destination was a small remote lake atop a mountain. As we went we picked up any and all plastic bottles we could find, emptying them into bins as our bags became full. We reached the lake after a couple hours time and began to head back down via an alternate route. The work was quite messy. We were loading the plastic bottles into our day packs (trash bags are not available in the community) and had no plastic gloves. Many of the bottles were in ditches and water ways which had all forms of human and animal products running down them. About halfway back down we decided to take a break, and have a sip of water. We were standing there on the side of the road, sweaty and covered with mud, when a familiar vehicle came around the turn from uphill. I immediately recognized it as the escort vehicle we had seen the day before and muttered something on the order of ‘I think he is coming again’. And of course, following the patrol car was the gold sedan and again the smiling Dalai Lama. He was seated shotgun on our side of the road and as he strolled past he gave us a slow nod and a hand wave. He probably wondered what these two westerners were doing with on the back gravel roads, covered in dirt and sweat and holding overflowing backpacks of plastic bottles. We could not be more thrilled.

It was our own private encounter with the Dalai Lama. No one around but us and him and his chauffer. Definitely something we will cherish for a long time…and we picked up 151 plastic bottles in the process!

Hot Times

We turned travel soft and bought some plane tickets. After Hampi we knew we wanted to get up north as quickly as possible, but the state of Rajasthan was a 2 day train ride away and all the tickets were booked out anyways. After a quick look on the internet we discovered that one of the many of the cheap airlines in India had decently priced tickets to Udaipur(still way more than it would have cost to get there by train) and we decided to jump on it. In our fit of ticket buying we also purchased flights back from Nepal to catch our next RTW flight to Thailand at the end of July. No long days of train/bus riding for these legs of the trip and I was extremely happy about this!

After 2 quick flights we arrived in Udaipur and found the famed city side lake to be dry. The normally picturesque island containing the Palace Hotel (made famous in the Bond flick 'Octopussy') was no more than a hill in a cow pasture. None the less we found the city to be relatively charming and relaxed as we toured the centuries old palace of the Raja's (old colonial state governors) and spent a couple nights in a top floor room over looking the dry lake bed.

We continued our trend of avoiding the train tracks and headed out of town on our first Indian bus. Overnight Indian buses are different than anything we have seen yet. They actually have full sized beds for two on the second level above the normal chair seating. Unfortunately you could not sit straight up in the double bed, so we spent 16 hours (supposed to be 12) laying down. We headed to Agra where we arrived to heat like neither of us have ever experienced. Highs of 48 degrees C...that is over 115 degrees F! and no aircon in the guest houses

After touring a couple guest houses we settled on a roof top room with a circular bed and a toilet view of the Taj Mahal (Agra guest houses are kind of odd). We awoke early the next morning to catch the Taj at sunrise. We were some of the first visitors to enter and found the setting to be magical as the morning’s first rays cascaded off of the white marble. I was pretty much gasping with a huge grin the whole time and Chad stated he was even more impressed viewing the Taj for his second time. On our way out of Agra a shifty train ticket seller sold us 2nd class seats (although we had requested 1st class) telling us that we must upgrade on the train. Well the day arrived and 1st class was full so we spent a day long train ride in 2nd class sharing our seat with others who had not bought tickets, sweating and watching babies without diapers pee on the floor. After 140 days of traveling we are appreciating life on the road more and more, but India is definitely starting to wear on us and our thoughts are turning towards upcoming countries.

Friends in Bangalore

It is nice to meet up with friends while traveling. A little slice of normalcy and a familiar face are always welcomed and this was our reason to head to the city of Bangalore.

We left the houseboat behind and headed out of Kerala on our 3rd overnight train in the past 10 days. Our travels by train have mostly been in the 3AC train compartments. Basically an 8 person configuration of bunkbed style beds and seating in an aircon carriage. Comfortable compared to Africa travels but definitely nothing to envy!

Bangalore is known to most Americans as the epicenter of the Indian IT boom of the past two decades. In fact our connection to the city was IT related. Chad spent 10 months in 2006/07 leading a software team in Vancouver that consisted of a handful of members from the Bangalore office. Over the 10 month stint the team became close and Chad vowed to see them next on their side of the ocean during future travels. That time had now arrived and we were sure to follow through with the promise!

Our hosts during our stay in Bangalore were Kumaran, Subhash and Bala, all former co-workers of Chad. Kumaran and Subhash had kept in regular contact after the end of the project and helped to coordinate our stay. Bala graciously offered up a bedroom in his apartment and his wife's wonderful cooking (thank you so much!) as well as his children's endless entertainment. We spent much of the time wandering the urban IT sprawl of the outskirts of Bangalore. Just a handful of years prior the land was farmland but had now been converted into condos and office buildings that would not have looked out of place in San Francisco. The Accenture building (Chad's former employer) was situated in a massive business development flanked on one side by Intel and by AOL on the other. It definitely looked similar to the sights seen while driving down highway 101 through San Jose. Our hosts treated us to meals in their home and at restaurants, took us to historical sights, and showered us with gifts. We really cannot thank them enough in any way and our hope is that they will make it to the USA in the future so that we can show them the same hospitality that they bestowed on us. We are grateful, thank you so much!

From Bangalore we decided it was time to head north. Hours of waiting at the station and another overnight train took us north to the 500+ year old ruins of the town of Hampi. We stepped off the train to find the usual array of rickshaw drivers who really wanted to take us to our destination. Endless rounds of bargaining had us heading the 30 minutes out to Hampi. 500 meters outside the town and around a sharp hill(so we couldn't see the town) 2 men jumped out of the bushes and handed us a ticket for a "tourist vehicle fee". Sure, hand the white people a tourist ticket for a rickshaw. It was only for 10 rupees (25 cents), but come on. We have been traveling long enough to know it was crap. I handed the ticket back to the guy and we grabbed our bags and told them we would walk. Our driver was in disbelief as he was also in on the scam and now knew he wouldn't be able to try to get commission off of whatever guesthouse we chose to stay at. "Very far", the men kept saying, "2 kilometers". "Very strong" we told them, "we will walk." And so we did. Just up the short hill around the corner was the town. And so our stay in India continues on the this path. There is a constant pestering to buy things, take a rickshaw, see a different guest house, pay double what the locals pay, etc. It is exhausting, but adds to the unique travel experience of this dynamic country. (as we write this post we are sitting in a non-aircon hotel next to the Taj Mahal and it is 111 degrees outside. whoo!)

Exit Africa, Hello India

Of course exiting Africa would be difficult...a fitting way to end a highly rewarding yet challenging continent. After jumping a plane from Zanzibar (on a South African airline called 1 Time...more like 1 Time Only) to Johannesburg and a quick one night layover at a backpackers (the website made it out to be city center accommodation yet it was a done up farm in the countryside) we headed to the airport for our flight to Asia. Round-the-world plane ticket rules and regulations can be tricky. Paper tickets are a rarity these days and difficult to manage. We have the double whammy of a paper round-the-world ticket. We showed up at check-in and received the now common look of frightened awe over the face of the airline representative as we produced our paper ticket vouchers. We were then told that Colleen was on the flight but that my ticket was no where to be found. To summarize, our next 4 flights were on Cathay Pacific and they had for some reason cancelled all of my tickets. They were not able to completely explain why but told me they would put me on standby for the flight to Hong Kong and the onward flight to Mumbai, India. We told them I had paid in full, confirmed by phone and email, had a receipt and that there was no way I was going to hang around two different airports hoping to get on standby. For some reason they did not understand why I would not wait behind and send my wife on ahead without me and when Colleen insisted she would not leave either, they were really confused. Luckily we had arrived to the airport early and after a couple hours of talking with management and some calls to headquarters in Hong Kong we had things straightened out. On to Mumbai...

Colleen had been prepping for India. After the challenges of Africa and a fair amount of my forewarning we hit the streets of Mumbai. Auto-rickshaws, people, dogs, taxis, cows, smells of curry and delicious food, burning throats from exhaust, strange looks and curious people everywhere. India was as I remembered it plus more. We spent two nights in Mumbai before heading south to Goa for some time on the beach.

Hello monsoon season....yeah so we did not plan that well. We arrived in India on June 1st, the official first day of the monsoon season, and were greeted by the rains just as we reached the beaches of Goa. We made the best of it and splurged on nicer than usual accommodation and actually had a pool to help pass some time. We met up with Linda and Kira, a traveling mother daughter combo from Denver and spent time comparing travel stories. Kira had recently graduated high school early and spent the past 5 month volunteering in India while Linda had spent time earlier in life volunteering in refugee camps in Thailand during the Cambodia genocide. We sampled much of the Indian cuisine we have been highly anticipating (Linda, thanks again for dinner!) and after 3 days headed further south.

We ended up in the town of Alleppey in the southern Indian state of Kerala. The region is known for easy going socialists (yep communists), beaches, coconut trees and fine cuisine. After a night in town we booked a houseboat to tour the backwaters for 3 days. The trip turned out to be a highlight thus far as we cruised the canals and waterways in our boat with our two man crew. The houseboat is essentially a flat bottomed barge/boat with a native wood and reed house for shelter. Our driver maneuvered us through tiny rural villages and our cook kept us full with splendid meals. When there were sights to see we pulled over to shore and made short hikes to markets and churches/temples (a petite 4 ft nun blessed us, our marriage, our families and our jobs...hopefully that carries over to our job search when we return). We spent the rest of the time on our private balcony atop the boat viewing the world as it passed by.

Changing continents and spending our first week in India had revitalized our spirits. Traveling for a full year is no doubt a challenge but the changes in scenery and culture have provided a much needed lift.