Dehradun, India Travel Blogs

Endless Song
Sep 13, 2006 (5 photos)

As I sit in the cosy recesses of my home I wonder at times how I made such a long and tough journey, that too mostly on foot. I remember how every cell of my body screamed in protest on steep slopes and yet I moved on, sometimes alone in terrible ...

Meditation Boot Camp
Mar 13, 2009 (20 photos)

... sessions we could hear the sounds of practiced gun fire in the distance, plus the odd music playing and wild dogs barking - it is India after all :) As usual, the hardest part of the 10 days is the sitting - for the 10 hours each day, which can be ...

Back where we started...
Mar 10, 2008 (17 photos)

So here we are back where it all began...nestled in the the Himalayan foothills in northern india.  Just outside of the state capital Dehradun, lies the school - Ngoenga School for Tibetan Children with Learning Difficulties - where i taught for 5 ...

Vipassana Survivor of Dehradun
Mar 25, 2009

Hi Everyone, I am back from the Vipassana Retreat in Dehradun...very happy I did it, and also glad that I was flying blind when I decided to go. I might not have done it if I knew more about the retreat itself and the facility at which it was held. ...

Forest Research Institute
May 23, 2008

Friday, May 23rd: Woke up at 5am again (still can't sleep later). Same morning schedule, then went to the Forest Research Institute. It was housed in a huge old building with tall rooms and hard dark wood floors and walls. It was founded in the late ...

17 hours from Leh to Dehradun
Jul 8, 2008

... asked was the one for Dehradun, and I only had to sit for minutes before departure. It took almost 9 hours to get to Dehradun, and about halfway there, we stopped and I bought some good aloo chat (minus the beatle) and freshly squeezed orange juice (don't ...

Not my ideal family stay
Jul 9, 2008

... I will need to extend my stay in India to finish the project. They also got me excited about studying Ayurvedic medicine while in India, and I might go find a class for a few weeks in Haridwar after I finish making the film. Later on, I had some chow ...

The Godfather
May 11, 2008

... Sikh man barrels in with half the panth behind him all booming and waving about...they have to pay for an ambulance...here in India, a trip to the doctor's office is like Xmas dinner; Gran, the cousins, and all the inlaws show up too...  & ...

Dehradun
Aug 27, 2008 (3 photos)

... joined me asking the standard questions and he took a particular interest when I couldn't answer how much longer I would be in India. Eventually we came across one of the shared rickshaws with the "#5" printed on the front. This was the one that passed ...

A Bollywood Film and Auto-collisions
Jun 4, 2008

... a motorcyclist tried to pass the bus on the shoulder, wiped out, shook his head, and got back on. The second was in Dehradun when a girl driving a scooter ran into the back wheel of another scooter driver and skidded her shoulder a bit on the road. We just ...

Safari at Rajaji National Park and Cricket Match
May 24, 2008

... with baseball and didn't hit it. He didn't show any mercy towards me either though it was my first time batting. Everyone in India seems to have played cricket from birth, and the graduate students we played with had loads of experience. You don't have to ...

Day number Ek (Hindi for 1) in Dehradun
May 21, 2008

Wednesday, May 21st (1st whole day in Dehradun): Prof. Eaton decided not to start class yet, so we could get settled in and get our cell phones. We had our first Hindi class after breakfast. The teacher is really enthusiastic about the philosophy of ...

The Wildlife Institute: Tiger Corridors
May 22, 2008

... eg. water and nitrogen cycles, climate patterns, etc) from 9-11:30, lunch at 12, then went to the Wildlife Institute of India. At the Wildlife Institute, we sat in a huge lecture room with microphones, bottled water, Pepsi at each seat. After all the staff ...

The drive from Delhi to Dehradun
May 20, 2008

... with lush gardens and exotic birds (in cages). The food was not too bad, but boring. Our hotel, Hotel Madhuban, in Dehradun is definately the nicest in the city. There are marble floors, manicured lawns, and a dining room where, on some nights, two guys ...

Escape from New Delhi
May 5, 2008

... outside Delhi..however the girls had an itinerary to keep and were soon bored, so we sped off to the largest mosque in India, very impressive. feeling the cool stones on my feet and the listening to the muted shuffles of reverence brought a nice calmness, ...

There were 3 in the bed and the little one said...
Aug 29, 2008

Stayed in a footprint guide book recommended hotel called the hotel victoria, shared a crazy 3 people bed with Simon and Steph.  Had the nicest meal of the trip when we went off guide book and our hindi kicked arse when Simon and I managed to read ...

Visiting Friends in Dehradun
Aug 15, 2008

Visiting my friend Ghak and his wife.  Had a great home cooked meal and great conversations.

at the hospital
Jun 5, 2008

This morning I went to the doctor's office!  It was called a hospital, but really it was a clinic.  But then again they had an X-ray machine, and I got a chest X-ray showing that I do not have tuberculosis.  Score!  I had been up all ...

Weekend not at Yamunotri
Jun 2, 2008

Yesterday was mostly spent resting and reading.  It was heavenly!  I don't know what I would have done if I'd gone to Yamunotri with the group.  Saturday we had a nice night at a restaurant the Black Pepper.  The food was great (we all ...

web ads
May 23, 2008

Since I'm in India, the web ads along the side of Yahoo say things like "Arrange your OWN marriage!"

Wildlife Institue of India & Rajaji National Park
May 28, 2008

... the best one on statistical methods for tiger counting (my dream job!) and a third less interesting one on the history of India's environmental legislation.  Dr. Eaton may have dozed a little during these, which made the rest of us feel better about ...

pictures
May 26, 2008

Sorry I haven't updated in so long.  I have no time! But I edited a video together, so hopefully I'll still be able to capture some part of the experience together. My videos and pictures will be here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maymesterindia08 ...

Institue for the Blind and Visually Impaired
Jun 4, 2008

Today we visited the Insitute for the Visually Impaired.  Mari asked the questions "What's wrong with the word blind?"  and we discussed ways in which his might be insensitive, but also that the Texas School for the Blind is called such.  ...

On the bus to Dehradun
May 20, 2008

[very difficult to read handwriting] After an emergency bathroom break, when 5 of our number trooped out to behind a thatched hut into the woods behind, and shortly after a woman in a bright pink sari emerged smiling a big smile, the first boy returned ...

documentation into the wind
Jun 3, 2008

To date, have written almost 45 postcards.  Only 15 to go.  Should have gotten more at the second Rishikesh visit.  I'm tempted to photocopy them, front and back, as a supplement to this journal, and to my own photos (textual and visual ...

Forest Research Institute (FRI)
May 23, 2008

Wasn't feeling well today.  I could tell everything was interesting, objectively, but I had trouble standing for such long periods of time.  In the wood museum, I remembered a lot about my time working at the lumber yard at Twin Oaks-the way to ...

Survey of India
May 30, 2008

... well.   Dr. Gamkhar arrived today.   Tibetan Cultural Center This was an odd little jaunt after the Survey of India.  A Buddhist temple with a lot of construction sucking away all the Zen the place may have had.  A lot of people ...

Central Soil and Water Conservation Res...CSWCRTI
May 27, 2008

The presentation at the museum was very difficult to understand because of a heavy accent.  The parts I understood with the help of the museum's visuals were pretty interesting.  I had been wondering what the terrace farming was supposed to do- ...

Dehradun
May 21, 2008

... I said, I don't mind there being mostly seller surplus (in the economic sense), but I think prices will be cheaper here in Dehradun.   At the National Museum, we met a few guards.  One gave us mango while we lunched in the Canteen, and later, ...

Travel to Surkanda Devi temple at 10000 ft height
Oct 14, 2009

... a scenic view of the surrounding region including the Himalayas to the north, and certain cities to the south (e.g., Dehradun, Rishikesh) The Ganga Dussera festival is celebrated every year between May and June and attracts a lot of people. Legend ...