Dubai – rules around drinking and driving

Follow all of the rules, all of the time, or we will help you do it – seems to be the motto here. For instance, if you are involved in an car accident and the police officer feels there might be even a scent of alcohol on your breath (don’t need those pesky breathalyzers [...]

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So, how hot is it in Dubai?

Well, let’s put it this way, July, August, and September should never appear in a tourist itinerary for Dubai. If those words do, then said tourists should be prepared for 120 degrees in the day and not much cooler (105) at night. Plants turn brown and even the ants and flies disappear. [...]

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Why Iranians support John McCain

Just a quick aside from a conversation that I had with a guy from Iran on a plane. I asked him if he is following the US presidential elections at all. He said he was keeping a close eye on it and he wanted John McCain to win. Why? McCain hates [...]

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Dubai buildings

“They don’t build short buildings anymore, everything goes tall,” remarks my friend Annie as we drive past a two story building. She said most of the remaining short buildings in the older city center area are either in the process of being torn down, are government offices, or are villas owned by the landed [...]

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Dubai First Impressions

Oil drills’ excess natural gas flames gleam and dance across the dark landscape encircled by dim electric lights. As we start to land for our 1:45 am arrival on Friday, October 10, I realize we must be flying over the Straits of Hormuz and those are on and off shore sites. We fly [...]

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Buddhist retreat in Katmandu

The Buddhist Monastery experience at Kopan: About 45 minutes
by extremely rutted roads and up a hill from Katmandu, the Kopan monastery
has been providing 7 day beginning Buddhist and meditation retreats for
Westerners for the last 15 years or so. During that period, I lived in the
same building which is among many buildings housing over 300 monks, [...]

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Famous Nepal sites and monkey joy

Impressions of Katmandu: The capital city struck me as more affluent
than the average Indian city except that the many of the roads were unpaved
or riddled with potholes. Katmandu is a very old city so the majority of the
streets are twisty, one-lane affairs hugged tightly by tiny storefronts -
which makes for interesting pedestrian experiences. I went [...]

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Nepal’s civil war in 2002

Although I’m writing from India, this travelogue will be almost entirely
about Nepal as I just spent the last 3 weeks there. I’m going to keep this
one rather short although I could go into exhaustive detail about a lot as I
loved Nepal and I conversed for countless hours with Nepalese about the civil
war that is going [...]

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Tibetan Buddhist Temples and Monasteries

Doing the “tourist thing” on the way to Llasa:  We didn’t see a famous
temple/monastery until the afternoon of our third day when we got to
Shigatse’s Tashilhunpo Monastery.  This monastery is the home of the Panchen Lama who is the second highest lama in Tibet. Rather the Panchen Lama should be there but the designated reincarnated [...]

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Tibetan people, Tibetan food, Tour group bonding

Tibetan encounters: I will always remember the friendliness of the people in
Tibet. As we passed them along the deserted road, so many people would stop
what they were doing and wave cheerfully at us. I did run into several
people who either didn’t speak Chinese or weren’t happy to speak it but,
largely, people were very warm and [...]

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