LIFE AT VAGABOND TEMPLE
Had the most amazing seven weeks at Vagabond Temple in Kep, Cambodia. During this time I spent an amazing Christmas + Hanukkah celebration, learned and practiced Yogasutra, had seven weeks of — you guys won’t believe it — all vegan food, and, my favourite of all, connected with the most beautiful souls from around the globe. It’s an overwhelming experience!
- "Signora, between Austria and Italy there is a section of the Alps called Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew some day, the train would come."– Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
BELLA ITALIA
My new favorite mantra is La vita è questa: niente è facile e nulla è impossibile, which means This is life: nothing is easy and nothing is impossible.
SUKABUMI: A WEEKEND ESCAPE
Survived 5 hours of travel by motorbike to reach Sukabumi, Indonesia. The entire archipelago celebrates its Islamic New Year this weekend.
- "Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s OK. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind."– Anthony Burdain
JUNGLE TREKKING SAEN MONOUROM
A quick wiki search tells us that Saen Monourom translates to ‘Delightful’ in English. Tourists, expats, and locals flock to this sleepy town to delight themselves with nature’s 5-star offers.
- "A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions."– Oliver Wendell Holmes
POSTCARDS FROM KHAM: SICHUAN PROVINCE
But why think about that when all the golden lands ahead of you and all kinds of unforseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you’re alive to see? says Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac’s 1957 novel On The Road.
Visiting monasteries and towns one after another in the famed Sichuan province was one of the highlights of our Tibetan countryside trip in China. Breathtaking panorama and warm culture greeted us on the road. It was beyond any ordinary out of town trip. It was, in the words of Kerouac, one of those fleeting moments in life that makes you feel glad you’re alive to see it.
POSTCARDS FROM KHAM: SIX-STAR SHANGRI-LA
It was an unremarkable afternoon sometime in July 2017 when Samuel casually mentioned about the sightly autumn in Kham, a historical region covering present-day Tibet Autonomous Region and Sichuan, China. More than the breathtaking panorama, I joined the adventure because it was an opportunity to immerse myself into a fascinating culture rarely visited by many. The initial plan was to fly in September to catch the full autumn colors, though the beauty of autumn-winter mix in late October was also worth while.
- "The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."– Alexander Supertramp