Holy Cow Indeed!

As my home library attests, my favorite book genre is the travel narrative. Starting with William Least Heat Moon's Blue Highways, the collection runs the gamut from P.J. O'Rourke's crazy journey from Tierra del Fuego to Prudhole Bay, to Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, to Robin Cook's solo camel journey across the Australian outback. I just completed one the best ever - "Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure" by Sarah Macdonald (2002, Broadway Books, New York). Part travelogue, part spiritual journey (and what better country for spiritual journeys than India - read the book and find out why), and part autobiography, Holy Cow mixes humor, insight and adventure with the realities of ex-pat community, societal conflicts and the pitfalls of newlywed-ism. As close to a page-turner as an travelogue ever gets.

My favorite passage - a quote, from the guru Krishnamurti: "When one loses the deep intimate relationship with nature then temples, mosques and churches become important."

Vacations Ever Onward

Its Saturday and, as usual, in my e-mail in-box is the weekly Travel Dispatch from the NY Times. Some - or most - weeks, the articles are fairly interesting but not necessarily worth saving. But one this week caught my eye - "Making Vacation Last for Months," about folks that work hard at summer jobs (or winter jobs as the case may be) and then travel the rest of the year on what they've earned. Here's the link: http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/making-vacation-last-for-months/?8td&emc=tda2

Always worth a thought or two.