Roommate Salute

As I prepare for my final plane rides back to Denver tonight, I find myself looking back over nearly seven months of incredible travel.  It's been exhilarating, exhausting, rewarding and lonely at times, but I never could have enjoyed it as much as I did without these incredible women - All my roommates from around the world who shared these experiences with me!  YOU ARE AMAZING and I'm so lucky to have met each of you...  :)

The Regency in Lucknow

At the site of one of the biggest events of the Indian freedom resistance of 1857, we walked around the Regency and witnessed the remains of the cannon-shelled buildings...  Haunting area where thousands died as Indians rose up to shake off the British East India Company's rule...They would not actually gain their hard-fought freedom until 1947.

 

The Sunset Ceremony on the Ganges

Mesmerizing nightly ceremony on the Ganges - The videos don't do it justice...  (We watched from a boat on the river.)

 

Varanasi and the Ganges

If you visit one city in all of India, it has to be Varanasi.  It was built along the banks of the Ganges River, considered holy, and it's one of the oldest cities in the world.  Pilgrims believe that if they bathe in the water of the river, they can wash away their sins.  Every night, a holy ceremony is performed on the riverbank and all day long, starting at sunrise, pilgrims immerse themselves in the water along the ghats.  Additionally, people who have passed away are cremated in pyres along the river banks at all hours of the day and night.  It's a powerful sight and truly an incredible place to visit - We visited at sunset and sunrise and I was blown away...

 

The Tea Plantations of Darjeeling

The town of Darjeeling is synonymous with tea and the steep hills surrounding the town was filled with tea plantations.  We took a ride on the World Heritage toy train there as well, but it was a disappointment to say the least.  It polluted out huge clouds of black smoke from the coal-burning engine and several of us just couldn't stand the sight, so we took a taxi back to town...

 

Monasteries of Eastern India

On our adventure from Kolkata to Darjeeling, we stopped at a number of fantastic monasteries, some of them covered in prayer flags.  Many of the monks were from Nepal, Myanmar or Bangladesh and had found a new home in India...

One of the rivers and bridges we passed along the way:

 
Another monastery:

A third monastery and the prayer flags everywhere!

Final Books of the Trip...

An absolute must-read book for everyone.  It's about housing and eviction in America, as seen through the eyes of several families and individuals in Milwaukee.  Awful that this is happening in America...

The follow-up book to Sapiens where Harari predicts the future with artificial intelligence...

A sometimes funny, sometimes scary look at Wall Street and specifically Michael Lewis's experience in the mortgage department at Salomon Brothers pre-Great Recession.

What the future of retail will eventually look like and predictions about which retail companies can survive the momentous changes currently occurring in America.