Update Video

Reading Material

Man, it's going to be a busy 6 weeks until the trip - already is, pretty much, with work and also writing a new book before I leave to hand to my agent. And I need to read, read, read. I read a lot about India for my last trip and Tibet is an ongoing interest of mine, so you can check out my Goodreads list to see what I've already read and reviewed, especially the stuff with the Tibet tag.

I've got some Travel Guides (for India, Nepa, and Tibet) but I won't be bringing a lot of them with me, as past experience has told me that they are (a) heavy and (b) ridiculously easy to get for a few bucks over there, and I have other things to bring, like a computer and of course some Talmud. I also have a Kindle, which hopefully will not die on this trip like it died in Tel Aviv. I don't use it much when I'm not traveling, but man is it something to have on a trip.

Reading list:

Dharamsala: Tibetan Refuge (non-fiction)

Dharamsala Diaries (non-fiction)

Among the Tibetans (non-fiction)

Sky-Train: Tibetan Women at the Edge of History (non-fiction)

A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State (history)

A Place Beneath the Pipal Tree (Nepalese historical fiction)

Faulty Glasses and Other Stories (Nepalese fiction)

Dance of the Snow Dragon (Tibetan historical fiction)

Some Books on Oral History from the library

I am really looking forward to being able to buy Indian books again. India has a tremendous English-language publishing industry but the books are rarely brought to the States except as expensive imports. In the historical epic and fantasy categories they really excel. The inter-state airport has an incredible selection. I was very surprised when I got back from India at how few of these books I could find in America, even with Amazon, where I buy most of my books used. I won't lack for Shabbos reading material while I'm there, that's for sure.

The Riddle of the Yak Butter Tea

We're 40% of the way towards our fundraising budget at Kickstarter, which is pretty awesome. Please think about helping us be more awesome by being closer to said budget.

In other awesome news, I solved a riddle.

Two years ago, I was in Dharamsala taking a tour of a monastery that's part of the TNP system, and talking about how yak was kosher and therefore I could drink yak butter tea. To which my guide said, "There is no such thing as yak butter tea. Yaks don't produce milk that butters."

And I thought, "Well, this has to be true; she's an abbess, she must know what she's talking about," and I took it on faith. But when I repeated this story to just about anyone, they said, "No, that is real yak butter in the tea. What else do you think it is?" (Unless you order in in America, in which case it is just butter from the grocery store)

This frustrated me for a long time, until I happened to be reading a Tibetan photography book with an introduction by a monk, who went into a side note about yaks. It seems that the word "yak" actually means "male yak" while the word "dri" means "female yak." There's a gender signifier that hasn't made it into English. Since the stuff that comes out of yaks, which are all male, doesn't butter, there is no such thing as "yak butter tea." It's "dri butter tea," though you will look weird if you order that in English. But apparently Tibetans find Western people making this mistake and consistently referring to it as yak butter tea hilarious but for the most part are uninterested in letting us in on the joke.

And I can't blame them, because as far as jokes on stupid white tourists go, it's a pretty good one.

Kickstarter Project

For those unfamiliar with the site, Kickstarter is a program where people can donate money to creative projects and receive prizes. Their donation is only collected if the project meets its initial goal and can be completed, so you're not throwing money at people who are not going to produce anything.

My program is called The World That Was: A Living History Project, and is my attempt to record the oral histories of people who lived in independent, pre-1950 Tibet. I've wanted to do something meaningful for the Tibetan refugee community in Dharamsala for a few years, and this was inspired by Jewish organizations like the Shoah Institute and the research projects at Yad Vashem. Anyway, I explain that all in the video. The program asks for regular updates during my stay in India, and those will be posted here, along with pictures and video as I'm bringing a camera and a computer this time.

Also, if you're interested in purchasing a fairly high-quality Tibetan thangka, $300 is probably what you'd spend in America doing it (maybe a bit less with considerations for size and quality), whereas if you donate to the program you'll get one AND help out what I hope is a good cause, since thangkas are cheaper over there and I happen to know a bunch of artists and where to buy them.

Update for 2011

G-d Willing I will be in India working with the Tibetan refugee community in February 2012. Stay tuned for more information.

This is the final blog post

Mom requested I put up this photo again, so people don't have to scroll down to prior entries to see it.

(May 15th, 2009)

Well, we've come to the end. All the pictures are posted, all the events summarized, and tomorrow morning is my last anti-malarial pill. I want to remember every minute of India, though of course that's not going to happen because my memory can be terrible and awfully selective. I guess at some point I'll just have to go back; there certainly is a lot more to see. I wasn't even finished with the top 3rd of the country.

When I was growing up, my life goal was to get published. Then I got published. So I said, "I'm going to go meet the Dalai Lama." And I went and met the Dalai Lama. Now people are asking me, "What's next?" I'd like to be a rabbi; it's a suitably crazy and far-fetched idea that doesn't seem like it suits my lifestyle, but I don't think putting my budding writing career on hold for six years of rabbinical school is really the best thing to do right now. On the other hand, for this goal, I don't feel a need to rush. "I'd like, possibly, to have rabbinic ordination before I die. Maybe. If I get around to it. Not for any particular reason; it's just something I want to do." Check back on that in 20 years.

Back to the present: India has opened up a world of travel for me. Before India I was reluctant to travel, having been burned multiple times by getting sick while abroad, and I was positively terrified of going to India when the moment came to leave the apartment. In the end, my stomach was fine on my own food, and good enough on Indian food, and my health didn't hold me back from anything I wanted to do while I was there. I definitely want to travel more, and the more exotic the better.

Where to next? I've wanted to go to Tibet for awhile, which is partially why I went to India (to meet the Tibetan exile community), but China keeps closing the country to foreigners, or at least saying it's open and then denying most foreigners visas to travel to Tibet. Plus you actually have to go all the way to Beijing to apply for the visa, and wait for it to be approved. But hey, I got published and I met the Dalai Lama. Nothing's impossible. Just at the moment, not probable. There are plenty of other places to go that are similarly insane but involve less Chinese bureaucracy. Oh, and I have to make some money to pay for the trip. Did I leave that out? That sounds crucial.

My answer is that I have no idea where I want to go next, but the question isn't pressing. For the moment, I just have India, and that's enough.

Photos from Delhi

I met with my editor for the Darcys and the Bingleys series yesterday and she feels I can write off my India trip as "research." I think it's worth trying, at least the plane ticket and the cost of the tour. It was actually a research trip, in that I visited particular sites because of scenes I had written or intend to write. Whether I can pull it off remains to be seen.

At the end of my trip I returned to Delhi, and saw the Red Fort (another Mughal Red Fort built around the same time as the others), Gandhi's cremation site (he has no grave), India Gate, and some government buildings like Parliament and the President's house that I couldn't go in because they were active. That was the end of my tour, though I could have tacked things on, but I was running low on cash and it was 113 degrees or so by noon, so next time I'm in Delhi, I'll have more to see.

Up next: Conclusion of my India blog.

Red Fort at Delhi

New Delhi

General Photography from the Road