Merry Christmas from Chiang Mai!

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12,500 Buddhist Monks

We were fortunate enough to be a part of a symbolic Buddhist ritual that occurs annually in which monks come from all over Thailand to receive food donated by the Thai people. The only way they get fed is through the Buddhist tradition of the public donating food daily as the monks can't buy or prepare their food.


The ceremony of feeding 12,500 Buddhist monks was held on the street outside our condo.


A money tree for the monks' expenses.

Loy Krathong Festival & Parade, Chiang Mai

Loy Krathong, the festival of light, is the biggest and most colorful event in Thailand and especially where we are staying in Chiang Mai. It is held on the night of the full moon of the 12th lunar month.


We sent the flower-laden and candle-lit vessel with joss sticks into the Ping River and expressed our heartfelt wishes.





Sending a lantern up into the night sky that represents our worries floating away.




The sky was lite with the ascending lanterns.


On our way home we luckily walked into a beautiful parade.

Six Months Travel Statistics

Posting blogs in Kathmandu

A glimpse into our six months of travel:

125 Blog Posts
120,325 Pictures Taken
27 Flights

25 Hotels

558 Meals at Restaurants

7 Countries

55 Books Read

12 Modes of Transportation

4 Visas

Books on our iPads:

Albert

All About M.K. Gandhi, Raja Sharma

Our Kind of Traitor, John le Carre,

Mahatma Gandi and His Myths, Mark Shepard

Lasker's Manual of Chess, Emanuel Lasker

The Voice of Knowlege, Miguel don Ruiz

Nemesis, Philip Roth

Portnoy's Complaint, Philip Roth,

Rage of Angels, Sidney Sheldon

Shadow Elite, Janine Wedel
Hopes and Prospects, Noam Chomsky

I Married a Communist, Philip Roth

Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War, Andrew Bacevich

Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, Wallace Stegner

The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism, Joyce Appleby

The Finkler Question, Howard Jacobs

Rhonda

Life, Keith Richards

The Confession, John Grisham

The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf

India, Culture Smart!, Becky Stephen

The Finkler Question, Howard Jacobson

I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced, Nujood Ali

Untouchables: My Family's Triumphant Journey Out of the Caste System in Modern India, Narendra Jadhav

One Night at the Call Center, Chetan Bhagat

Daughter of the Ganges: The Story of One Girl's Adoption and Her Return Journey To India, Asha Miro

Easily Amused, Karen McQuestion

Raising Jake, Charlie Carillo

The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama, Thomas Laird

Fall of Giants, Ken Follett

The Brethren, John Grishman

A Dog's Purpose, W. Bruce Cameron

What Women Want: The Global Marketplace Turns Female Friendly, Paco Underhill

A Scattered Life, Karen McQuestion

I Married a Communist, Philip Roth,

Shadow Elite, Janine Wedel

Rage of Angels, Sidney Sheldon

Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann

Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship, Gail Caldwell

The Appeal, John Grishan

Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, Paco Underhill,

The Street Lawyer, John Grisham

Women of the Pleasure Quarters: The Secret History of the Geisha, Lesley Downer

The Sex Life of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific, J. Maarten Troost

How Not to Look Old, Charla Krupp

The Partner, John Grisham

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Stieg Larsson

Tales of a Female Nomad, Rita Golden

The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler

Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China, Leslie Chang

China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power, Rob Gifford

Sh*t My Dad Says, Justin Halpern

I'm a Stranger Here Myself, Bill Bryason

Whatever You Do, Don't Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide, Peter Allison

How Not to Act Old, Pamela Redmond

The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson

Synced to be read
In Motion: The Experience of Travel, Tony Hiss
Cleopatra: A Life, Stacy Schiff
The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
Freedom, Jonathan Franzen

Gandhi

Gandhi through the years.

His bedroom.

Albert and I were very moved as we walked next to Gandhi's last steps and stood where he was shot dead. He lived here the last 144 days of his life.

Humayun's Tomb

This tomb was built in the mid 16th century by Humayun's senior wife who brought Persian style to Delhi. Obama will come here during his trip next week to New Delhi.

The tomb of the emperor's favorite barber.

Red Fort, New Delhi

The same Mughal Emperor who built the Taj Mahal built the famous Red Fort in 1638 with palaces, mosques and harem quarters. Folks, it's just another fort. What cathedrals are to Europe, forts are to India.

The throne (below) in the Hall of Public Audiences (above) is inlaid with marble and precious stones.

The Indian Army was protecting us from ourselves.

Agra Fort & Palace

The red sandstone Agra Fort and Palace was begun in 1565 and completed by Shah Jahan, the builder of the Taj Mahal. In 1658 he was overthrown by his son and imprisoned here for the last eight years of his life where he could only gaze across the valley to see the Taj.

Khajuraho

The Kama Sutra carvings that swathe Khajuraho's temples are among the finest temple art in the world. Around the outsides of the temples are bands of stonework showing life a millennium ago - gods, goddesses, warriors, musicians and animals. Women and sex repeatedly appear in erotic poses only for the Hindu purpose of creation.

Don't try this at home!

Inside the Jain Temple complex.

Buddha's First Sermon, Sarnath

Buddha came to Sarnath after he achieved enlightenment and gave his famous first sermon here. The 34m Dhamekh Stupa (center) marks the spot. There stands one of Buddha's admirers.

This bodhi tree was transplanted in 1931 from the tree in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, which in turn is said to be the offspring of the original tree in Bodhgaya under which Buddha attained enlightenment.

Varanasi and Sarnath are home to the roots of Buddhism and Hinduism.