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Shop online for clothes, jewelry from India

By on April 12, 2013 in India, News/Events

shop shopping online India shawl jewelryYou can win a fair trade shopping spree!

Sign up to receive updates from Breathedreamgo and you could win a $75 gift certificate to go shopping around the world! I’ve teamed up with Novica to offer you the opportunity to buy beautiful fair trade products from talented artisans in India, Bali, West Africa, Mexico and many other places.

When I travel in India, a significant portion of my time is spent shopping. I love visiting markets and buying local products from a country known for beautiful handicrafts; stunning house wares, textiles and furniture; and of course my favourites: colourful, feminine clothes and jewelry. So, I was really happy to find out about Novica, an online company that sources very high quality, fair trade products from India and around the world. The online store, in association with National Geographic, features pages of stunning products: about 8,500 products from 1,700 artisans. Click here to shop online: New customers save $7 at NOVICA. Click to get code. Valid through 6-30-2013

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Gathering Road Trip:
On the Whelan trail in eastern Ontario

By on April 1, 2013 in Canada, Ireland
Costello Hotel, Brudenell, Ontario. Photo courtesy Paul Politis.

Costello Hotel, Brudenell, Ontario. Photo courtesy Paul Politis.

Visiting the Ottawa Valley to find my Irish roots

This year, 2013, as Ireland celebrates The Gathering (a year of festivities to welcome back the Irish Diaspora), I am retracing my family’s history. I’m starting here in Canada now, and in September I will be visiting Ireland to walk in the footsteps of my ancestors and join the Whelan clan gathering. But my first step is a road trip to the Ottawa Valley, where wave upon wave of Irish immigrants settled in Canada in the 19th century, including my relatives. My first post in this series is The journey from Ireland … and back again.  Continue Reading →

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Dazzled by Indian classical music maestros

By on March 30, 2013 in India, News/Events
Ustad Zakir Hussain (tabla) and Pandit Shivkumar Sharma (santoor)

Ustad Zakir Hussain (tabla) and Pandit Shivkumar Sharma (santoor)

Ustad Zakir Hussain and Pandit Shivkumar Sharma wow audience at Toronto concert

There was a moment during last night’s concert by Ustad Zakir Hussain and Pandit Shivkumar Sharma when the music, the audience, the entire atmosphere of the concert hall came together in a crescendo of movement, joy, vibration; when all barriers blurred and dissolved; and when the spiritual truth of oneness was achieved. And this, I think, was the point. For as great as the music was last night — and this was two legendary masters, at the top of their game, playing to an adoring audience — I found Pandit Shivkumar’s words just as inspiring. Continue Reading →

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A year in Japan

By on March 28, 2013 in Japan, JAPAN, News/Events

Travel writer Mariellen Ward in Tokyo Japan

My life in Tokyo, Japan

One night, many years ago, I dreamt I moved to Japan. I had just moved in with my boyfriend in Toronto and we were buying furniture and decorating. After that dream, I bought black lacquer bedroom furniture and Japanese prints for the walls. Then, he was offered a job in Japan.

We flew to Tokyo on Valentine’s Day, on Singapore Airlines, my one and only first class flight so far. When the beautifully attired air hostess offered me Johnnie Walker Blue Label, I thought she was mistaken about the colour of the label.

On Valentine’s Day, I landed at Narita International Airport to begin my new life. My life in Japan. I had never been to Japan before, never been to Asia before, when I agreed to move there. Tokyo was my first Asian megalopolis. The population of the greater Tokyo area including Yokohama equals Canada. Continue Reading →

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What you need to know about Holi

By on March 25, 2013 in India, Travel Tips
Holi Festival of Colour in India

Photo of Holi, courtesy Dave Bouskill, PicturethePlanet.com

Holi in India: Everything you need to know about The Festival of Colour

IT’S NOT INDIA’S biggest festival, but it’s the most colourful — and probably the one most beloved by foreigners. Many people have “experience Holi in India” on their bucket lists, and for good reason. How often do adults get to throw coloured powder at each, and squirt each other with water guns filled with coloured water? And … for those who are more adventurous than me … there is the bhang lassi, too. Holi does not happen on a fixed date each year; it takes place on the day after the full moon in March. This year it’s March 27. I’ve been in India three times for Holi, and my experience is that it’s a holiday best celebrated with family and friends, especially if you are a female and a foreigner. Here’s my top 5 tips for playing Holi safely. Continue Reading →

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What’s the story? Is travel in India safe?

By on March 19, 2013 in India, News/Events, Travel Tips
Taj Mahal Agra India

The Taj Mahal at sunset from the other side of the river.

Why I think you should BOTH practise safe travel AND keep your perspective

A series of much-publicized rapes in India has many people wondering if India is safe for travellers. A female British tourist just jumped out of a hotel window in Agra to escape an assertive employee knocking on her door. Was she justified; was the threat real? Or is the increasing fear volume in India making people overly anxious? It is my opinion that media bias and sensationalizing is making India sound unsafer than it actually is; but having said that, I also strongly encourage using common sense and practising “safe travel.” Media sensationalizing is having another negative effect, too: it is distracting from the real story, which is the worldwide problem of violence against women and the worldwide rape crisis. Please read on to find out real rape statistics around the world and why you need to practice safe travel wherever you go. Continue Reading →

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Photo Essay: Stories of Delhi

By on March 15, 2013 in India, Photos

Busy streets

Photographs of New Delhi by Jagdev Singh and Victoria Knobloch

New Delhi is a city close to my heart as I have spent so much time there. It is of course a massive metropolis, bustling with many people, many sub-cultures, many moods. I was intrigued by these photos by photographer Jagdev Singh, and Victoria Knobloch, who has captured some of the many faces and places of Delhi, and asked him to do a guest photo essay on Breathedreamgo. The effect of his photos is striking, no? Enjoy.

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Travelling down memory lane to London and England

By on March 14, 2013 in ENGLAND, Travel Tips
Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain, England

Me, at Stonehenge, during my first trip to England in 1987

Memories of London town and the English countryside in spring

It’s about this time of year, early spring, that I always think of travel to England. I haven’t been there in years, but I travelled several times to England at about this time of year in the past. The first time I stepped foot in London, on a balmy, overcast day in the spring of 1987, I felt at home. Though I had never been to Europe before, there was something familiar about London. Maybe it was all those English movies and books I’ve consumed, or perhaps something in the blood, the collective memory of my family. Whatever the reason, I am writing this post as a love letter to England in the spring. Continue Reading →

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Professional travellers love Emirates

By on March 13, 2013 in News/Events, Travel Tips
Emirates airline flight to India

Photo courtesy of Emirates.

Travel bloggers know the best airlines

Regular readers of Breathedreamgo know I was very impressed with my Emirates flights to India and back. Though I was a guest of Emirates, and flew in Business Class, it doesn’t make me blind: I recognize a great airline when I see one.

But don’t take my word for it. While extolling the virtues of Emirates on social media, I noticed a lot of other travel bloggers felt the same way. So I grabbed some screen shots and tapped a few leading bloggers for interviews. After all, travel bloggers are basically professional travellers, and that means they know a good airline when they see one, too. So, without further ado, here’s what some of the internet’s leading travel bloggers had to say, and why they recommend flying Emirates. Continue Reading →

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A woman’s voice

By on March 7, 2013 in News/Events
Mariellen Ward, travel blogger, blogging in Bhutan and India

Me, on the job as a travel blogger in South Asia (staying at the gorgeous Uma Paro in Paro, Bhutan)

For International Women’s Day: On being a female travel blogger

For International Women’s Day on March 8, which is also my birthday, I have decided to publish a very long post about how it has taken my entire life, an enormous amount of work and all of my savings (and then some) to find my voice and become a writer. And how this journey has been the most important of my life. And why travel blogging has played such a crucial role.

It is a woman’s voice, sire, which dares to utter what many yearn for in silence. – Elizabeth Barrett-Browning

Everyone writes and blogs for different reasons, and they each have different goals. I have always felt a little out of the general stream of travel bloggers, whose concerns seem important and valid, but often secondary to me. For me, travelling in India the first time, for six months back in 2005/6, was about recovering from grief and depression, and trying to restart my life.

International Women's DayIt was on that trip that I started travel blogging. Travel blogging for me is about helping me achieve my most ardent, most pressing dream: to become the writer I have wanted to be since childhood. And to do it in spite of a lack of confidence and support.

So please read on, when you have the time. It’s only one woman’s story, one woman’s voice. I do not mean to write for all women, or to make a political statement. I am not identifying as a “victim” — I think I’m very lucky to have been born in Canada, and I realize that every human on earth has struggles, a journey of life lessons, each unique. Joseph Campbell said, and I agree, “the privilege of a lifetime is being you.”

But if you relate to my journey, and learn something from my story, then it is worth sharing. Women are still struggling, all over the globe, to attain education, equal rights, freedom from abuse. But some of us luckier ones, born in Canada, have still had to struggle to find the confidence to speak up and be heard. Continue Reading →

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