India Tour 2018

In a few weeks, I will be going to India to lead a 14-day tour of mogul gardens as well as many of the iconic sites and other highlights of northern India followed by time cruising the Kerala backwaters around Alappuzha in the south. In preparation for this tour, I’ve been suggesting that my group spend some time watching a...

Our journey from Delhi to Agra was uneventful, but for our awareness of the poor air quality. The thick white mist sat like a morning fog, obscuring most of the countryside until we were a good distance from the Indian capital. We saw the smoking chimneys of brick works that were pumping dark smoke into the air. As we...

After three weeks in India, we're heading home to Vancouver today, carrying gifts for everyone, especially grandchildren, who will be waiting eagerly for our arrival. It is always a little like Christmas Day when we arrive home from any trip. Always a fun, joyful reunion. But before we leave Delhi, it's fun to look back over the last few weeks  and...

It’s very nice to go travelling - to Paris, London and Rome - but it’s so much nicer to come home.  So sang Frank Sinatra. And it’s true. When you live in Canada, it's very nice to come home after travelling around the world. Here in Vancouver, in particular, we live in a bubble of good fortune and privilege with clean...

Here are a few untold stories from my recent India Tour, stories that for one reason or another just didn’t fit into posts I published each day. Head injury The first and most important untold story is about how Bev Morris, one of the women in my tour group, slipped and fell and cracked open her head when she got up...

Our flight from Vancouver to Delhi could not have gone more smoothly. It was long - 14 hours, Delhi being 13 1/2 hours ahead of us on the West Coast - but there is no better way to travel on a long distance flight than aboard an Air Canada 787 Dreamliner.  We decided to come to India two days early,...

Our first day of touring Delhi was filled with a dazzling spectrum of sights and sounds from impressive historic buildings to the perpetual honking of city traffic to the hauntingly hypnotic tones of snake charmers playing music to make cobras dance. We started at the Red Fort, a Unesco World Heritage site in the heart of Delhi. Made from red...