This place was sacred. Bodies burned day and night on the ghats, the steps leading to the Ganges; it was not uncommon to find bits of ash in your hair or on your skin. I balked at the chance to drink tea with the holy men after I learned that the Ganges was the source of the water, even though, as my guide told me, “It will make you closer to India.” I watched each morning as men and women bathed in the river, washed their faces in the river, drank from the river. Hindus and Jains came here to die, the Ganges serving as the divine cosmic road to salvation. Tourist boats rode up and down the water, the people on them snapping photos of cremations.
"what to wear"
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Two weeks ago, I was in Berlin. I had met a group of backpackers at the hostel and we went out for burgers at Burgermeister in Kreuzberg (if you get the chance, you should go). We got our food and sat at one of the tables near the road, laughing and drinking beers. One of the girls had put her purse on the table, right next to the road. Picture a high table, with a barricade blocking the street, but not sidewalk; that meant, if someone on, for example, a bike or a motorcycle wanted to reach over the barricade and grab something off of our table, he or she very well could.
“You should take your bag off the table,” I cautioned. We were in a safe neighbourhood in one of the safest cities in Europe, but still I couldn’t help but think that her purse looked awfully vulnerable.
“I know, I know, I always forget to do these things!” She laughed. “Maybe this is why I’m always getting things stolen from me.”
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I was all set to do something completely different for this instalment of Around the World: beer, books, hot dogs, (all my favourites in life) but I realized I still had a lot of photo of dogs, and dogs always win.
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I went to Burning Man in 2011, and stayed the full eight days. I camped in the desert under the big clear sky, my days spent riding the playa on my bicycle, making friends, cooking grilled cheese sandwiches, my nights a hazy blur of stilt-walkers, fire-breathers, mutant cars shaped like scorpions and jellyfish. I wore outfits I threw together from a garbage bag of costumes in the trunk; I wore saris and glitter, fake fur and angel wings, tutus and sometimes nothing at all. When I first reached the gates on that very first day, a girl wearing pink fishnets made me roll around in the playa, coating my hair in the greyish dust. “Welcome home,” she told me, and hugged me. I was instantly in love with this alternate universe, this utopian dream of creativity and art and acceptance.
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Despite writing online about my travels for eight years now, I’m relatively new to the travel blogging community and the subsequent social media. Since signing up for Twitter and Facebook in the past year, I’ve come across a lot of fellow travellers, and I’ve read a lot of biographies. One line that pops up a lot? “I’m a twenty-something traveller.” Recently, when reading another Twitter bio with the same line, I had a sudden thought: I’m not going to be a twenty-something traveller for much longer. I turn 30 next spring.
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I have a confession to make: the very first meal I ate in Venice, ever, was at McDonald’s. I have another confession to make: the very last meal I ate in India was also at McDonald’s. Do I have to hand in my passport now? Will the travelling gods banish me to hell, AKA a smelly night bus in Laos with only snoring men and crying babies and ridiculously loud pop music and lawn chairs for seats (yes, I’ve been in this hell, and it is the route from Phonsavan to Vientiane)? Should we feel guilty about eating at McDonald’s when we travel?