Dearest Shanti students:
It is difficult to describe our excitement; our anticipation; our absolute delight at the thought that, in just a few shorts days, our Shanti community will depart for the wild and magical lands of India. What fortunate souls to have such an opportunity! We are feeling such tremendous gratitude for the upcoming journey: we hope that you are too!
We have been working hard hear in Portlandia,… Read More
Wandered into the backstreets of New Delhi, ending up in a Muslim neighborhood. The streets became narrower and denser until it seemed as if we were in the bowels of the city. Once we were sufficiently lost we were turned around and sent back by the locals. It was almost a relief since we were the only tourists there and the streets got noisier, more bustling and slightly more foreboding… Read More
Tigers to end it all:
Ellen and I (Alice) were in charge of the final leg of our student-directed travel: the visit to Ranthambhore National Park in Sawai Madhopur or to many, the best chance in India of seeing a tiger. Armed with our sharpest elbows, Ellen and I woke up at 3 am that morning to get tickets for the safaris, and experienced first hand the corruption that is… Read More
We started student-directed travel with a bang! Sarah and Tully (who are writing you now) headed the first leg of this massive operation. We decided to go to Bikaner and explore the massive state of Rajastan which includes the Thar desert. Pray tell, what is the best method of desert exploration? CAMELS! That’s right, we did indeed decided to do a camel safari to kick off our last leg of… Read More
Sorry for the delay 😀Kailash-La again, wrapping up the our last week of planned travel here in the beautiful mountainside town of Mcleod Ganj, the home of the one and only, Mr. Lama himself. It took some serious skills of bus hoping to get here, but we finally arrived early afternoon on Thursday just in time to meet Neema La. Neema La is the fantastic woman who helped organize … Read More
Hello family and friends!
It’s hard to believe it’s been a month since I last blogged about Darjeeling, but it’s true. Even harder to swallow is that we only have three weeks left in this beautiful country, so we are trying to savor every moment and learn as much as possible.
Currently, we are staying at Deer Park Institute in Bir. We arrived here on the 16th and have immensely… Read More
Tashi Delek,
Happy Thanksgiving in Tibetan is a little complicated, so we thought we’d settle for hello. Shanti Group has found respite in the hills, a welcomed break from the chaos, pollution, dust, stares, and smells of the plains. After a week at Deer Park Insitute studying Buddhism, we’ve moved on to McLeod Ganj, the home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government in-exile. Right now as we type… Read More
hello everyone !!! its Ellen again, i hope you are all doing good and have wonderful health and fantastic luck and what not but lets get down to the blog this is serious time.
So we went from rishi kesh by bus (this was a new and …interesting experience) all the way to Amritsar where we planed to see the golden temple. when we where staying there we did not… Read More
Namaste everybody!
Sarahji here telling you guys all about our AMAZING time at the Taj Mahal! We all wanted to see the Taj at sunrise so we started off our day waking up at the crack of dawn to go get in line. Tully and I thought what a better opportunity to wear our saree’s than at the Taj Mahal! Thakfully Kaila knew how to wrap a saree (she learned… Read More
Imagine yourself in a comfy bed, warm, relaxed, and at peace after having been lulled to sleep by the musings of the nearby Ganga coupled with the silence of an ashram. Now, you hear the sound of a gong being rung and the vibrations reverberating within you. It’s dark, cold, and a little windy outside as you slip out of your bed and walk to the yoga hall in silence.… Read More
Alice’s turn to blog!
Leaving Bodhgaya with 2 shaved heads and, for the most part, healthy people, Shanti group headed to Varanasi, where we became students again. The first night we all stayed in a long-term hostel for students, which was almost like a dorm room. The next day, it was immediately time for us to begin our Hindi study and then visit all the different options for internships. Those… Read More
Namaste from Kailaji! Here blogging about our time in Calcutta and our transition into Bodhgaya.
We spent 11 days in Calcutta, and looking back trying to figure out what to write about, I realized we defiantly made the most of our time! We spent the first half of our days spread out through many of Mother Teresa’s houses, as Tully covered in the last blog. While we all walked away… Read More
Hey everyone, this week it’s Tully taking a turn on the blogging rotation!
I’m so excited to share with everyone our awesome time in Darjeeling and on to Kolkata! After finishing our trek and saying our goodbyes to Sikkim and the wonderful people we met there, we spent a day driving down to the plains of West Bengal, a 6-hour ride. We got settled in Hotel Tower View, which was… Read More
hey all sorry im late ! this week your informant is the lovely and ever dyslexic Ellen Anderson! sense the last blog post so many more adventures have been added to our grand epic, after spending 4 days trek up to Dzongri ! we left Sikkim and our luxurious home stay where we where thoroughly spoiled by Pemma and his wonderful family!! after a long and bumpy ride we found… Read More
Hey this is Sarah! This week we had the amazing opportunity to spend time at Pangthang Junior High! We spent time with the students teaching them some of our western games such as Bob the Weasel, Ninja and Red Light/Green Light. The students got a chance to practice their English to interact with our group members. The students were awesome and caught on really quickly to the rules. They were… Read More
Namste from Sikkim,
Thanks to all that are following the blog and posting comments. We will continue to leave the storytelling to our fearless crew of Alice, Ellen, Sarah, Tully, Kaila, and Sterling. However, we did want to chime in with a couple of quick updates.
First, word of landslides and road closures in Sikkim may or may not have made the news in the States. In any case, we… Read More
Hello all! Alice here with a super duper awesome update. We left Delhi for Sikkim on Sunday. After a long travel day first on a plane then a Jeep, we arrived at our home-stay just in time for some delicious tea and a hot meal. The next day was a designated rest day, but we did very little of that (who needs rest?). We headed into the nearby town called… Read More
Alice says: Using the guidelines Dan and Greta gave us, Kaila, Ellen, and I (Alice) set out to conquer Delhi. We ambitiously decided to go to the Lotus Temple, or the Baha’i House of Worship, which was located across the entire city from where our hotel was. We found our way to a Metro Station, a bit farther from where we originally intended to go and with many stops along… Read More
Namaste from group one!
Our super fantabulous scavenger hunt day began with our trek through the white land of tourism. Delhi wrapped us in its arms with overwhelming sights and smells. We wove in between the stalls of fruit vendors and rickshaws (automatic and wooden and horse-drawn and water buffaloed) in order to begin our first task of calling Greta and Dan (the leaders!) They answered with loving care and… Read More
