The trip from Amman to Jerusalem involved a land-border crossing. It was the third one of the trip and they are never quite as easy as entering the country through an airport. The two cities are only 50 miles apart, but the whole process took us almost eight hours; it involved three buses and four different taxis. Part of the problem was access to cash at the Israeli border station. We traded in the last of our Jordanian Dinars at the only currency exchange place available, which took an outrageous …

Two days before our second visitor arrived we landed in Amman. Luck would have it that we actually knew someone who lives there. Janelle, who graciously provided four college kids a free place to stay in Manhattan for New Years Eve ten years ago, invited us to stay in her upstairs studio apartment for as long as we could make use of it in Amman too! Janelle and Mark and their two cute kids, Alexandra and Paul were very helpful giving us the ins and outs of the city and …

Our tour of Rajasthan ended, and we arrived back in Delhi just in time to see crowds of Hindus starting an annual pilgrimage. They were mostly dressed in orange and each carried two small jugs of water which will be deposited at a temple 200 kilometers away. The other major activity in town is construction. They are getting ready for the Commonwealth Games in October and have a lot of streets to fix, hotels to upgrade, subway lines to build, and various other infrastructure projects. There is much speculation, and …

Although Rajasthan is not home to the Taj Mahal, it does contain the Pink City, the Blue City, and numerous palaces and temples. We opted for a ten day private car tour of the area. Fittingly our driver’s name was Raj!
The first stop was Agra. We didn’t head to the main attraction right away but instead went to Agra Fort. From the outside it looked like we’d be there all day, it is massive. However, once inside we learned that it is still used by the military so we …

When the British got tired of the heat they went to the mountains, we were hot and tired in Kolkata so we went there too. Apparently this happened to them a lot, so they found a little patch of fog in the Himalayas and built a small city up there. Posters on the walls of travel agencies offer views of Mt Everest from town, but the reality for us, in the middle of monsoon season, was just clouds. The fog would roll in and out all day, but never cleared …

That was our first thought when we landed in Kolkata. The airport was built in the 1930s and it appears that little has changed. No computers at immigration, customs was a joke, no ATMs anywhere, and once you step outside you find a fleet of yellow taxis made circa 1950, lovingly called Ambassadors.
The drive to our hotel revealed the modern side, complete with neon lights. The whole city is an interesting mix of old and new. Many colonial buildings remain but most in dismal shape with vegetation growing from …

The great thing about low season is that it’s quiet and prices plummet. The bad thing, no one is around and it’s low season for a reason. On the Andaman Coast, this means storms which also means no diving. Had we elected to go to ultra-touristy islands like Phuket or Ko Samui we would have had the chance, but in Khao Lak there aren’t even boats in the water.

We spent the rest of our time in Thailand just relaxing and taking the short walk to town at least twice …

Chiang Mai is Thailand’s second largest city and we headed straight for it from Hong Kong. The flight to Bangkok served the best airplane food we’ve ever had, no joke. They also had quite the selection on board for Muslims, Hindus, Vegans, you name it, impressive Thai Airways!
The first night out we encountered the Thai tri-fecta. One – Friendly people. Despite not exactly knowing where he was going our cab driver got us to our destination, charged us less for getting lost and then walked us to the door of …

Only our second land border crossing of the trip: China to Hong Kong. Despite being a part of China, Hong Kong maintains separate border controls. It also has its own money, they drive on the opposite side of the road as the mainland, and English is widely spoken, after all it has only been thirteen years since the Brits left town.
Something we noticed right off the bat, private companies print money here. The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, or HSBC, is a large bank we have been seeing …

With one week left in China, we had several places we still wanted to see. It seems that everywhere we look there is a city here with more than a million people, and we still wanted to find something a bit quieter. We decided to go west from Xi’an to higher, and cooler, ground. This is the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, and we thought we’d find something different here out. It took another overnight train to get to Xining, another place home to over a million.
We had hoped …