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Posted in Videos | 
cultural travel, culture, Dashain Festival, goat sacrifice, Hundu, Kathmandu, Nepal, traffic, Travel | 
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After years of working 70 hours a week at jobs I detested, I felt like the proverbial "hole in the donut" - solid on the outside, but empty on the inside. Searching for meaning in my life, I abandoned my successful but unsatisfying career and set out on a six-month solo backpacking trip around the world to pursue my true passions of travel, writing, and photography. My blog features stories about the destinations I visit, people I meet, the crazy things...Read more here.... 
Posted in Videos | cultural travel, culture, Dashain Festival, goat sacrifice, Hundu, Kathmandu, Nepal, traffic, Travel | Leave a comment
Like an old-fashioned 8mm movie rolling and flickering in an antique projector, the scene on a busy Kathmandu street unfolded frame by frame. I was on a bus bound for Chitwan National Park in southern Nepal for a three-day, two-night safari. The trip was supposed to take five hours but already we’d been sitting in backed up traffic for more than two hours and we still hadn’t made it out of the capital city.
Bored and seeking any distraction that would take my mind off the hard seat that was making my butt ache, I turned my attention to the street. In a gap between trucks moving just as slowly in the opposite direction I noticed a small butcher shop sandwiched between a lunch stand and a pharmacy. Behind the open-air wooden counter, a lady butcher swept her hand through the air in a futile attempt to shoo away swarms of flies dive-bombing the pale, plucked chickens lined up in a row on the countertop, sweating under a blistering sun.
Then traffic moved and blocked my view.
A minute later a truck inched forward, providing me a new window on the scene. A young boy led a goat by a short length of frayed rope. Just as he was about to tie the goat to a telephone pole in front of the shop, traffic again rolled across the stage. How strange, I mused. Someone tying up a goat on a busy retail street in the middle of Kathmandu.
With each opening between buses and trucks, the slaughter scene played out before my eyes
When traffic next inched forward the boy was running after his goat, which had cleverly escaped its tether. He snatched the rope, dragged the goat back to the pole, and tied it more securely.
Another bus, another wait, another scene revealed itself between vehicles.
The goat was lying on the ground, securely tied to the pole, with the boy sitting on top of it. Weird. Why would he do that? Maybe he’s trying to punish the goat or teach it who’s boss. My butt no longer hurt and I wasn’t thinking about the fact that my bus hadn’t moved an inch for more than an hour. I just wanted to know what would come next between boy and goat and waited impatiently Continue reading
It seems a simple thing, crossing a street. But my idea of how to get across a busy street in the U.S., whether on foot or in a vehicle, is significantly different from methods employed to cross streets in other places in the world. For example, take a look at this video showing a busy street in India:
As I traveled around the world I was intrigued by the various means employed to cross a street. On my very first morning in Saigon, Vietnam I spotted a bakery across the street from my hotel. I stood at the curb for 15 minutes, waiting for a break in the monstrous traffic but the vehicles just kept coming. Just as I was about to give up, a local man stepped off the curb, walked out into the midst of the traffic, and slowly crossed the street as the vehicles weaved and darted around him. Eventually, I got up the nerve to try it and stepped out into the stream of traffic. Continue reading
Posted in Travel tips | Africa, cross a street, India, New Zealand, Singapore, Tanzania, Thailand, traffic, Travel, Vietnam, Zambia, Zimbabwe | 4 Comments
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