Posts Tagged ‘trip’

Shiva statue in Rishikesh, yoga capital of the world

Breathe in India TOUR

Do you long to experience spiritual India, and do yoga on the banks of the sacred Ganges River?

Breathe in India is for people who long to experience the  magic of spiritual India. Participants will watch the Taj Mahal float in  a iridescent sunrise, explore the ghats of Varanasi, the world’s oldest  city, bask in the sublime beauty of Khajuraho’s temples and do yoga on  the banks of the sacred Ganges River in Rishikesh. The tour dates are February 5 to 18, 2011 (with a six-day extension in Rishikesh, Haridwar and Aurovalley Ashram).

For more information on the tours visit New! Tours to India or scroll down for dates, cost and detailed itinerary. Read the rest of this entry »

Mariellen at the Taj Mahal, India

The best way to see India

I am very excited to share my passion for India by taking people to see the places I love. Together with award-winning tour operator Indus Travels, I am presenting two tours this winter in India.

Dream in India (starts Jan. 8, 2011) is for people who want to experience inspirational India and learn travel writing and blogging. Click here to learn more about Dream in India.

Breathe in India (starts Feb 5, 2011) is for people who want to experience the magic of spiritual India and do yoga. Click here to learn more about Breathe in India. And read Golden mornings on the Ganges, my Toronto Star article about what life is like in an ashram in India. We will be visiting both of these ashrams on the Breathe in India tour! Read the rest of this entry »

Ambling up to Amber Fort, Jaipur

Dream in India TOUR

Learn travel writing and blogging as you travel in India

Dream in India is for people who long to be inspired by India’s dazzling culture, fairy tale palaces and wondrous wildlife. Participants will experience the eternal beauty of the Taj Mahal, the excitement of Ranthambore tiger reserve and the fantastical art and architecture of Rajasthan. Plus, we will stop in Rudyard Kipling’s Bundi, the palace hotel where Bruce Chatwin wrote The Songlines and the Jaipur Literature Festival. The tour dates are January 08 to 21, 2011 (with a six-day extension in Jaipur, Samode and Delhi).

Along the way, I will teach travel writing and blogging; and will help participants get their own personal blog set up on WordPress.org or Travelblog.org.

For more information on the tours visit New! Tours to India or scroll down for dates, cost and detailed itinerary. Read the rest of this entry »

Help Passports with Purpose

Passports with Purpose is a collaborative online fundraiser created in 2008 by four Seattle-based travel bloggers: Debbie Dubrow, Pam Mandel, Michelle Duffy and Beth Whitman, the bloggers behind Delicious Baby, Nerd’s Eye View, WanderMom, and Wanderlust and Lipstick.

Each year, they choose a charity and leverage their online presence to help raise funds for it. This year, 2010, they are building a village in Southern India with Land for Tillers’ Freedom (LAFTI) and their non-profit branch based in the U.S., Friends of LAFTI Foundation.

Watch this video about the founder of LAFTI – a real modern-day hero. It’s a very inspiring, very moving story about women empowering women. Yay!

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Photo of the Week

Naga Sadhu at the Kumbh Mela, Haridwar, India

Naga Sadhu (naked holy man) at Kumbh Mela, Haridwar, India

I took this photo in the Naga Sadhu’s camp during the Kumbh Mela in April 2010. I went into Haridwar for the day with two men who were also staying at Aurovalley Ashram — Lalit and Jean-Pierre. We spent an amazing day together, hanging out with the sadhus, swimming in the Ganges and having a lot of fun. I could never have had these experiences without the help of Lalit, who is a large, gregarious Punjabi man who speaks Hindi (and English and French). We spent a long time in this camp, where I bonded with this incredibly sweet young man (but I don’t remember his name!). I wrote about another Kumbh Mela day — the main bathing day — in Alone, and at home, at the Maha Kumbh Mela, the largest gathering on earth.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

The biggest question of our time is not do you believe in god; or is global warming real; it’s where do stand on Eat, Pray, Love? The book about Elizabeth Gilbert’s quest to find “everything” in Italy, India and Bali is a publishing phenomenon: it was an international bestseller with more than seven million copies sold worldwide; and in 2008, Time Magazine named Gilbert one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Today, July 18, is Elizabeth Gilbert’s birthday. She is 41. And I want to salute her.

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For Video Friday on BreatheDreamGo, I have a video I took while riding in a bicycle rickshaw on the way to the train station from my hotel in Haridwar during the Kumbh Mela. I was staying at the wonderful Haveli Hari Ganga, which is located deep in the bazaar – where the streets are too narrow for cars and too crowded with people and stalls piled high with brass figurines of the Hindu pantheon, pyramids of vermilion kumkum powder and neatly stacked wafers of pastel sweets. The hotel has its own bicycle rickshaw for transporting passengers to and from the train station.

Taj Mahal, India

India is a vast and beautiful country, filled with world heritage sites, throbbing megalopolises, sacred pilgrimage routes, tropical beaches and snow-capped mountains. But along with the ubiquitous tourist draws such as the Taj Mahal, the forts and palaces of Rajasthan and the intricately carved temples of Tamil Nadu, India is home to a very well-trodden backpacking trail.

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Front gate of "the Beatles ashram," Rishikesh

All you need is love

This blog is dedicated to my older brother Matthew. If it wasn’t for his Beatles obsession in the late 60s and early 70s, I might never have come to India. I used to follow him around when we were children, which meant listening to a lot of Beatles music. I remember looking intently at the pictures of the Beatles — especially George Harrison, my fave  — wearing long hair, flowing shirts and marigold garlands. I had always loved anything “Oriental, exotic and mystical,” and when the Beatles went to India, I was entranced. I secretly wished I was old enough to be a “hippie” and join them. Read the rest of this entry »

Har-ki-Pauri, Haridwar during Maha Kumbh Mela

A sea of humanity, an ocean of bliss

April 14, 2010 was the highly auspicious final Royal Bathing Day at the Maha Kumbh Mela – the biggest and perhaps most important spiritual festival in the Hindu world, and the largest gathering of humanity on earth. As I was staying at my spiritual home, Aurovalley Ashram, just about 10 kilometres upstream from Haridwar, I found myself caught up in the excitement. And on the morning of the big day itself, I found myself alone, smack in the centre of the Kumbh Mela, at the extremely sacred Har-ki-Pauri ghat in Haridwar, surrounded by millions, probably tens of millions, of pilgrims, devotees, tourists, naga sadhus, babas, sunnyasis, pandits, swamis, VIPs and god knows who else. All the roads into and out of Haridwar in every direction were closed for miles around, the sun was climbing and the temperature was starting to soar to above 40 C. It was one of the peak experiences of my life: In that moment, I had to face my fears. Read the rest of this entry »