The last time I was in Singapore I had some suits made so I decided to return to the same tailors. Serendipitously, they are in the building next to my hotel! I visited them my first day here and they remembered me and even what I bought. They are a playful group of Indian men…
Reflections on India
India is so varied it is hard to make a general declaration about “India is ….” Parts were strikingly beautiful, sadly filthy, touching, wrenching, perfumed, stinky, funny, poignant, etc. Most countries have some variety, but India has extreme contrasts. And the volume of people makes the ends of the continuum pronounced. Here are a few…
Getting beautiful in Udaipur
(The pics here are of the City Palace in Udaipur and the Floating Palace. The latter is on an island in the middle of Pichola Lake. Udaipur has about 500,000 residents.) I entered the Kanika Herbal Beauty Parlour in Udaipur, India not knowing what to expect. It was a 6×10 room with a large mirror…
The Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal is on the cover of a book about places you must visit before you die. And here I am in Agra, the city of the Taj. Our group is to visit it at 10:00, but several gals went the previous day at sunrise and said it was magnificent at that time of…
India observations
Some random observations and stories about my trip. Tuk-tuk’s eye view We get around town in the 3-wheeled, motorcycle-engined “tuk-tuk” (pronounced “took-took”) — we surmise the name came from the ever-present horn tooting. The drivers get perilously close to trucks, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians, buildings, and cows, but so far we’ve not seen any in…
Being a rock star in India
We have noticed sometimes school children wave to us as our bus passes. We feel like celebrities no one has heard of, even though we’re not in a rock star-size bus. But today it got even better. After a stop for a monument viewing, a dozen of our group clustered outside the gates on a…
The Land of Contrasts
India has been described by friends who’ve traveled here before as a land of contrasts. They were not exaggerating. I’ve traveled to third-world countries before and seen cardboard shanties next to good hotels. However, it is the sheer volume of one over the other here that makes it so startling. Some examples: On the 4-lane…
Praying for a man
In Singapore we found a Hindu temple that we were told was for single women to pray for their man to appear. Since my two travel mates are also single, we thought this was a must do. The temple was encircled with carvings of various gods with interesting characteristics. This handsome god guards the entrance….
Resolution: Protect your heart because no one else will
During my trip abroad, I’ve invited several relationship coaches/bloggers/authors to fill in. So you’ll have a different weekly voice to read. The first one is from my friend Rachel Sarah, author of Single Mom Seeking. Her book is full of not only practical tips, but candid reports from the dating front as a single mom….
Fresh start. New beginning.
[googmonify]8790107066:right:120:600[/googmonify]Within a few weeks of my ex announcing he was leaving, these four words came to me while I was sleeping. I want to say they were in a dream, but they were so vivid and clear it was as if they were said by someone standing next to my bed. While I was still…
New approach to dating resolutions
I know it’s clichéd. Talking about New Year’s resolutions on New Year’s Eve. Ho hum. How original — not! But I heard a BBC World Service report that made me think differently about resolutions — especially dating resolutions.