Wonderful Beautiful Nepal

Earning an Income to Support Your Travels to Nepal Or to Another Developing Nation I host a lot of young travelers. They seem to be so in love with the world it is reassuring to see these future leaders as works in progress. They are so amazing to spend time with.  I get questions all the time about how to travel without using up all your savings. First of all, I need to assure you that it is not an easy thing for most people to do, but if you can find your niche it will perhaps make your savings last a bit longer. Some people have found ways to survive abroad for extended times by using a bit of cunning, discretion and hard work. Here are a few things that you might want to consider doing to this end, or perhaps they will help you to think of something else.  Your first step needs to be to take a good look at your own skills, talents, abilities, education and interests. The days of showing up to teach English for pay or to get a work visa is not necessarily going to work in...

Chitwan seemed like the most laid back place on the planet. We would be sitting at an open air restaurant having milk tea or a meal when we would see an elephant walk by like it was no big deal. It was something that made the entire atmosphere somehow 'unworldly' to me. How does an elephant just walk down the street? My brain couldn't adjust to a reality where elephants bathe in the river only a few hundred meters from where you sit having dinner.  The people were very nice and friendly. Both of the tour operators we got to know seemed quite honest. We were disappointed with the food situation and joked about Chitwan being a 'dieter's paradise.' We only found a couple of places throughout our stay that served food I could actually finish.  We spoke with two tour guides that impressed us. Both claimed to recognize over two hundred birds by sight or sound. Sure enough, both of these men would stop talking mid sentence to identify a bird for us, and then continue h...

View of the river in Chitwan area. This was at our 400 NRs. guest house. Everyone kept telling me to go to Chitwan. Maybe they were just tying to get rid of me, but I finally went. Genae went with me and I have to admit that I did enjoy myself. It was very nice and quite a bit different from Kathmandu. Since this trip I've made a coupled of decisions. I am going to write shorter blog posts, and write more posts. Blogspot errors when I try to save or publish the post, so I think keeping posts smaller will be less frustrating. I hadn't been out of the valley very much since I arrived over two years ago. Yet, in my eBook, Nepal: A Tourist's Manual, I wrote a transportation chapter and tried to cut some of the errors out of traveling for my readers. This was a test as to my research. I knew there was another way to get out of the Valley without getting up and to the bus at 6:30 am, but I didn't really know how. I wanted to find out and actually wasted a couple of days tryin...

Aloo ko Achaar - (आलू को अचार) - Spicy Potato Salad with Sesame Seeds Spicy aloo ko achaar from Jyoti's Kitchen - A delicious dish made with classic ingredients and freshly picked baby red potatoes Potato achaar is a popular, addictively delicious, refreshing potato salad dish from Nepal.  Only rarely have I come across a traditional Nepali meal that is served without potato achaar.   It is a very flexible and popular potato dish often served as a side dish with Nepali staple Daal-Bhaat-Tarkaari . It can be served at any time of the day as a snack food with cheura or chewra (pressed rice flakes), sel-roti (fried rice bread) and poori (deep-fried puffed bread),  for family gatherings, picnics and other casual functions or festive gatherings.   For a  Nepali bhoj ,  ceremonial and formal occasions feast,  aloo ko achaar is a must item.  A large quantity of potato salads are prepared that accompanies other ceremonial food items.  Alo...