INDIA, JAIPUR: CITY TOUR

  December 29, 2025

We don't usually believe in quitting while the sun is still shining, so we ended the day with a city tour of Jaipur, led by a new guide booked through Audley Travel. His day job is teaching high school, and he was great!

Jaipur, by the way, is the capital and largest city in the northwestern state of Rajasthan. With a population of over three million, it is also the 10th largest city in the entire country. It is known as the "Pink City" due to the dominant pink color of the buildings in the old city. Along with Delhi and Agra, it is part of what is known as the "Golden Triangle" tourist circuit.

Jaipur appears in popular western culture. Paul McCartney wrote a song entitled "Riding into Jaipur" that is mostly Indian-themed sitar music with just a few words: "Riding into Jaipur, Riding through the night, Riding with my baby, Oh what a delight."  The city is also the setting for the 2011 movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its 2015 sequel, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

We began at the Hawa Mahal, or "Palace of Winds," built in 1799 from red and pink sandstone by the grandson of the founder of the city. The palace has 953 windows. The iconic view that we saw is actually the BACK of the palace!

It's always good to start off with a snack (or two), and our guide waited in line for this fried something  (I can't remember what), served to us on a used page from a child's workbook, and then another treat served on a leaf. 

INDIA, OLD DELHI: CHANDNI CHOWK MARKET

 December 23, 2025

Remember how I said you shouldn't drive as a tourist in India? You shouldn't cross the street by yourself either. There are no crosswalks or traffic lights and crossing takes a special kind of skill. This is one of the many harrowing experiences we had crossing with a guide, who in this video is holding on to Stan.

The way a lot of locals get around is in this little three wheelers that we came to know as tuk-tuks in Thailand. In India they call them rickshaws, and they function like taxis. These are one-seater taxis for one to three passengers.

Two-seaters can take four to six passengers, depending on how squished you want to be.

I can't remember if our guide rode with us. Maybe he was up in front.

IRELAND, DUBLIN'S GRAFTON STREET: DAVEY BYRNE'S PUB AND BEWLEY'S CAFE AND THEATER

 July 12, 2024

Many cities have "their street," the one that is associated with only that city and uniquely theirs--Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, 5th Avenue in New York City, Champs-Élysées in Paris, Downing Street in London. In Dublin, it is Grafton Street, a mostly pedestrian street that was a fashionable residential street in the 1700s, a dilapidated, crime-ridden street through the 1900s, and a shopping thoroughfare since the 20th century. It runs from Trinity College to St. Stevens Green, a distance of about 1600 feet. According to Wikipedia, it has some of the most expensive rent of any retail street in the world.

If you like people-watching and beautiful sites, Grafton Street is a great place to spend an hour or two, and compared to what we are used to in the United States, prices did not seem all that expensive.

The street is particularly famous for its buskers, and we saw at least a dozen. Most of them were unusually good. I was thinking, "Here's material for Ireland's Got Talent"!

COLOMBIA: MEDELLIN, PART 2 - LUNCH, BOTERO PLAZA

 March 22, 2023

After walking around Comuna 13, we were hot, tired, and hungry. It was time for lunch. Our driver picked us up when we got down to the flatter part of town and took us to a restaurant Jakob thought we would enjoy.

There was plenty of street art to see on the way, even on the freeway underpasses.

La Familia Restaurante specializes in platos típicos, or local dishes. The most expensive thing on the menu was about $10.

COLOMBIA: BOGOTA PART II (SHOPPING, PLAZA DE BOLIVAR, CITY STREETS, AND A SERENDIPITOUS MEET-UP)

 March 17, 2023

From the Botero Museum, we walked to an area where souvenir items are for sale on tables lining the street. This is the "Old Town," known in Bogotá as the Candelaria District, and it includes the foundation buildings of the city. Candelaria is Spanish for "Candlemas," a Christian holiday that commemorates the presentation of the baby Jesus at the temple.

On our way there, we passed this awesome three-wheeler that was selling, among other things, arroz con leche, or rice pudding.

The Nobel prize-winning novelist Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014) is extremely popular in his home country of Colombia, as well he should be. There are many sites named for him, such as the cultural center in Bogotá that we walked by.

We also saw many artworks depicting "Gabo," as he is affectionately known in Colombia. He looks like someone I would want to know, at least in this painting!

There was a lot of art for sale, often copies of well-known works, such as Botero's Mona Lisa in the bottom right corner.

ECUADOR: TRAVELING TO THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS AND VISITING BALTRA AND SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS

 March 21, 2022

After our full day in Quito, we were ready to head to the Galapagos Islands. Our hotel in Quito was one or two blocks from the airport, and the hotel had a shuttle ready for the eight of us at 7:00 AM. There were some confusing things to do at the airport, like have our bags run through x-ray before security as well as fill out some forms in a different location of the airport. It was by no means a clear process.

The Galapagos Islands straddle the equator 563 miles west of continental Ecuador. Flights leave for the islands from Guayaquil, so we had to fly there first (45 minute flight). It was fun to see the Guayaquil LDS Temple both on landing and take-off.

The second leg of the flight, from Guayaquil to the Galapagos Islands, was about 1.5 hours. This map isn't to scale (the islands are MUCH smaller in relation to the continent), but it at least gives a good idea of the location and number of the islands. There are 13 major islands and more than 100 smaller islands in the chain.

Map from here

Two airports are used for tourism in the Galapagos. We landed at the one on the island of Baltra, a tiny desert island separated from the much larger island of Santa Cruz by a narrow channel. (The other airport is on the island of San Cristobal.)

We disembarked old-style down a flight of stairs wheeled up to the plane.

The airport itself is quite small.

After two long years of pandemic waiting, we were very excited to finally be on the Galapagos Islands!

BUKHARA, UZBEKISTAN: SHOPPING HEAVEN

The name "Bukhara" is supposed to mean "full of knowledge," but I think it really means "full of shopping." What we found, however, is that it is expensive shopping, at least as compared to Khiva, which had many of the same things for lower prices.  Bukhara is a much bigger tourist destination, which drives the prices up.

One of our activities was visiting another rug-making place.  (We had previously visited one in Samarkand, the city that became the most important city in Central Asia after Bukhara started to fade.) There were rugs for sale in all shapes, sizes, and colors:

 My personal favorite:

A knowledgeable woman educated us about quality, pattern, colors, etc., and her friendly henchman helper lifted up various rugs so that we could all buy them see them:

SAMARKAND, UZBEKISTAN: SLEEPING, WALKING, SHOPPING, AND EATING

Our tour group spent two full days and two nights in Samarkand. After several days on the train and a crazy-busy itinerary, it was a relief to have a some unscheduled time in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. We stayed at the Registan Plaza, a nice hotel located within walking distance of Registan Square:

Samarkand celebrated its 2,750th birthday . . . ten years ago. Yeah, it is OLD:

The Samarkand coat of arms shows a winged lion (At first I thought it was a leopard, but that is a lion's tail) . . .

. . . that made me think of the winged Lion of St. Mark of Venice:

Picture from here

Or even more, this image, for which I can't find the source (I had it; I lost it.):

Our hotel was great--not the nicest hotel of the trip, but still at least four stars:

The best feature of the hotel was its location. One morning we had a few hours to kill, so Bob and I set out on a walk from out Hotel to Registan Square, a distance of about 1.7 miles. It was a very entertaining stroll.

SAMARKAND, UZBEKISTAN: MAGNIFICENT REGISTAN SQUARE

We have visited many of the world's great "squares"--Red Square in Moscow, Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Times Square in New York City, Wenceslas Square in Prague, St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, Plaza de la Constitucion in Mexico City, and Trafalgar Square in London, to name a few. They are all majestic and beautiful and historical. Registan Square in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, can hold its own (and more) in that elite crowd.

I think I would even put it near--or at--the top of the "Squares" list. It is a true gem.

As I look at my pictures now, I realize that they don't capture the magic of this huge square. It's hard to see how massive those three portals are, how brilliantly colored the tile facades, how spectacular the architecture. 

Before these buildings existed, however, this was just a broad, flat area ("Registan" means "sandy place" or "desert" in Persian)  surrounded by caravanserai (inns for travelers). It was used for public gatherings, public proclamations, and public executions. 

Alexander the Great conquered Samarkand in 329 BC. After changing hands several times, Genghis Khan's Mongols captured it in 1220. Marco Polo wrote about it in the early 14th century. The great Temur made Samarkand his capital and used it as his base for conquering a vast empire in the late 14th century. His grandson Ulugh Beg ruled from here.

In its heyday, all the main roads of Samarkand led to Registan Square, which lies midway between the European and Asian trading routes.

It was a natural place to build what was the 15th century equivalent of a university, a madrasa, and in 1417 the well-known astronomer and mathematician Ulugh Beg ordered the building of the madrasa on the left as you face the square from the street. It is named after him: the Ulugh Beg Madrasa:

Two centuries later, Yalangtush Bahadur, the emir of Samarkand, ordered his own madrasa to be built across the square and facing the Ulugh Beg Madrasa. Completed in 1636, it is known as the Sher-Dor Madrasa.