I must admit, I never expected to have a good time at a circumcision party. I supposed it helped greatly that the circumcision was not my own, and in fact the deed itself occurred after the party. Let me back up a bit and explain. I arrived in Tajikistan full of optimism and energy, eager to start my job as a Kiva Fellow. I arrived at the airport in Khujand, Tajikistan after 22 hours of flying and 23 hours of…
Excuse me while I ask for your help one more time. Please take a look at this link and help Kevin make the world a better place 🙂 Please read below before you get to our island paradise story. Please note – if you didn’t get a chance to read about Kevin’s new volunteer position, please take a minute to view my Generosity page and CLICK HERE. I’m starting my journey back to San Francisco in about three weeks, so…
Please note – if you didn’t get a chance to read about Kevin’s new volunteer position, please take a minute to view my Generosity page and CLICK HERE. I’m starting my journey back to San Francisco in about three weeks, so it’s getting close. Even if you’ve just enjoyed our blog, a small donation will really help out. Just $10 will get me a night in a dorm room in Tajikistan and help keep me out of debt. I hope…
We hopped on a bus from Kota Kinabalu, known simply as KK, towards the northern tip of Borneo, known as … well .. the tip of Borneo. We hadn’t spent any time at a beach since January and thought we were long overdue. Plus we had seen a commercial for it on one of our flights showing turquoise waters, empty beaches and what we figured was warm water … who wouldn’t want to go check it out! Plus we had…
Newsflash: I (Kevin) will be flying from the Philippines (after Borneo) to San Francisco in mid-July for a week of Kiva training, then off to Tajikistan and Georgia for six months. I’m extremely excited to have the opportunity to not only help out struggling entrepreneurs and improve the world, but to also get training in an industry I’ve wanted to explore for many years. To go to work and know that you are directly helping needy people is a something…
After leaving Kuching we took our first internal flight into Miri – after buses and trains throughout the rest of our trip, flying is a real luxury. Lucky for us flights are super cheap within SE Asia … though I have to wonder what has happened to cheap flights within America … how come we can’t manage this? We even got a drink and snack onboard the 40 minute flight. In any case we arrived in Miri and after quite…
After our rather taxing Himalayan mountain trek, we needed some time for R&R. We chose to stay a week in Pokhara, a fairly quiet tourist town in central Nepal where people leave to start their trek on the Annapurna circuit. Nothing that ambitious for us, though. We had some vague notions of day hikes or other activities, but soon after arriving, my leg got quite sore and it was all I could manage to limp out of the hotel room…
When we arrived in Kathmandu we thought it would take a week or so to plan our trek to Everest Base Camp, little did we think that within 3 days of our arrival we would be on a 18 seater plane heading to Lukla to complete a 16 day loop trek including Gokyo, Cho La Pass, Everest Base Camp. Kevin had done the EBC trek 17 years ago but had gone out and back so this time we would include…
After Darjeeling we headed on to Sikkim, our last state in India and the second smallest of the Indian states. Originally founded in the 17th century and ruled by a Buddhist priest-king, Sikkim only recently officially joined India in 1975 after the Indian military deposed the Sikkimese monarchy. Once we got to Gangtok, the capital of the region, I tried to find the locally made millet beer like I had on our last hike, but was repeatedly told that none…
We arrived from Hyderabad to Darjeeling expecting two things – some good tea and a good first trek into the Himalayas. We arrived in Darjeeling to freezing weather, at least it was to us, it was a max of 50 degrees during the day – about 50 degrees colder than our last stop… plus you have to consider that most of the budget hotels don’t have heat or double paned windows so the rooms are cold!!! All I can say…