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Dalai Lama in India
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8 Things to Do in India

You won’t be reading about the Taj Mahal here. Now, I’m not saying don’t go. But I’d like to inspire you to have experiences in India you can’t have anywhere else but in India.

India confounds me, trips me up, shakes me to the core, and blasts my preconceived ideas every time I show up here. It’s a good thing. My heart is drawn to the Himalayas and this is where I have spent all of my 4 visits here; for months at a time in the northern most states of Ladakh, Himachel Pradesh and Sikkim.

This is where I am called to go.

Don’t go to India for less than a month like I did on my first trip. You’ll soon see that you need at least 6 months to dive into this vast country. But don’t see it all – pick any one of these 8 things to do and you could easily stay in that place for many weeks as I’ve done and I never felt it was too much time in one location.

You realize how much India affects you after you leave her. Just like an old lover. You realize how good they are after its over. And once that happens you’ll keep coming back for more.

I still haven’t seen the Taj Mahal… it’s on my list but I never seem to get to it.

Here’s what has inspired me to stay in India and discover her secrets. Enjoy the journey, you don’t know where it will lead you but that’s most of the fun!

 Tikse Monastery in Ladakh

High in the ethers of the Himalayas is this ancient monastery. Just down the street is Hemis monastery, so old that even Jesus visited it. You can stay here at Tikse (near Leh) for about $6 a night and the view is drop dead incredible. You even get a bed. The monks do their morning chanting and you can join them or not. Food at the monastery isn’t bad either. Go and go now, this place has a celestial feeling that flows through your veins. Your feet just might lift off the ground. See my video here.

Go to the International Yoga Festival at Parmarth Ashram. Its the first week of March every year and has a full line up of amazing teachers from all over the world. I have gone to the festival twice. It changed my life. You’ll enjoy being on the banks of the Ganges River in the holy section of Rishikesh, in Ram Jula. Saints and sages have walked here. You can too.

Go to the Golden Temple in Amritsar,

Dharamsala to see the Dalai Lama and

Sikkim, a Northern state of India filled with forests, on the backside of Mount Everest.

Check it out.

The Golden Temple in Amritsar will knock your eyes out. Here it is in all her midnight glory. Yes that is really gold leaf!

Go see a teaching of the Dalai Lama. You will be blessed by his love radiance and we all need that.

See more photography of the Dalai Lama and get it for your own delicious projects.

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I travel the world shooting, writing, and teaching and you can do it too.

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REVISIT THE BASICS TO IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY

I love this as now that I am living out of 3 pieces of luggage gallivanting around the globe I still need to keep it all tidy and sometimes can’t find things in my own suitcase. When I had my set place to live in Palo Alto California I easily got sidetracked by clutter and now with less to take care of I feel better. This is inspiring to read Lin’s post on the ordeal of accumulated junk. Read more you’ll like it.

10 Things to do in Thailand

I am back in Thailand after 8 months of traveling in Cambodia, Myanmar, Nepal and India. I am falling in love with the Land of Pad Thai, Dragon Fruit and Orchids. Absence does make the heart grow fonder. Here is what I love to do in Thailand: Motorbiking in the hills of Pai as seen in the above photo. Absolutely jaw – drop gorgeous scenery and no traffic until the tourists arrive in November.

Eating! 

And the best part? You won’t gain weight. No bread or cheese, mostly small portions of noodles or rice with spicy meats/fish and veggies. Barbecued fish is sold on the street for $1 to $1.75 US, what’s not to like? I was looking forward to cooking but since stoves are not standard issue in apartments I just walk out my door, hop on my motorbike and today for lunch I had roast duck with rice and it was crazy delicious. $1.50 US. My neighborhood in Chiang Mai is full of wonder and yumminess. Sap Li! (that’s Thai for very delicious) Khao Soi soup – my favorite!

Commune with an elephant. Read my Thailand issue of Vagabond in the itunes store for your ipad here.

Go see temples in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and in Issan: Wat Suan Dok in Chiang Mai and there is a Vegetarian restaurant in the back. Go to the markets – if you can stand to be shell-shocked by consumerism. But its all in fun and entertaining to watch other shoppers buying bags of loot. And its mostly all cheap too. You can always stop when you are getting overwhelmed. But you never know when the perfect pair of sandals will fall on your head out of the sky or you will just get so hungry you have to eat again – take your pick.

Make Friends. Volunteer to speak English with a class – its great fun and you laugh a lot! Do yoga and have a Thai massage.

Enjoy the flora and fauna.

Discover waterfalls and hot springs in Pai.

Write me at mbartnikowski@yahoo.com

Web site: http://bartnikowski.com

See Mary TV

Love from Thailand!

Vagabond Mary

 

The Truth About Meditation in India

Now that I am immersed in no electricity, no TV, no wifi, and no cheese either I have a different perspective. I cannot dash out and get a rich cup of brewed coffee right now. If I want that I have to walk far into the sunshine on a winding path through rice fields with buffalo plowing the earth. I don’t want it that badly.

I have been staying at the Thosamling Buddhist Institute for Women and I have not left this sacred soil in 10 days. There is no traffic, no tooting horns, no crappy music, and no yelling. It’s Slow Here.

When I am in the USA I am reminded that Results and Speed are what matter. There is no process. We have to achieve and be successful Right Now. But try telling that to these butterfly pupas – they are on their way to being butterflies. They will break out and fly. In their own time.

We forget that.

Before I got my first publishing contract for a book I wrote, Everyday Naked, I wrote for 5 years and didn’t tell anyone about it. I just wrote.

When I wanted to show my writing to someone other than my dog I put together a book proposal and went to a writers retreat where I met my publisher.

Interesting, how a few people reacted when I told them about the book being published. Most people were happy for me but I also heard, “Did you know someone?” or “I didn’t know you wrote” which means I didn’t know so how could you be an author all of a sudden.

Because it wasn’t all of a sudden. They didn’t see me in my room writing every day being in my pupa stage. When it was time to bust out I flew out of my cocoon. But I was in there for 5 years writing every day.

And now after a bazillion years of meditating, (OK it’s been 25 years) I still am learning how to do it. Maybe when you try it you’ll get to a more profound level in less time but I’m only just seeing that some how what I was doing before was daydreaming while meditating and I’m very good at daydreaming.

So I’m still in my pupa stage when it comes to meditation. And mindfulness. But one thing I am learning is to be more gentle with myself, and less goal-minded which is difficult to drop. Why?

Because we are supposed to be PhD’s in everything we attempt and this kind of Western logic takes a while to drop. So the photo of the pupas helps me. Every one of us is a butterfly in the making. We’re all in this together – we’re all pupas. It’s easier for me to see this in Asia where I can happily live without a Mercedes Benz and have a more relaxed attitude about time.

You don’t have to go to the Himalayas to see this but it sure helped me to go without all my comforts to start to see that we are all the same. And that’s why when the Dalai Lama is out teaching in the world he doesn’t just talk to the luminaries like Richard Gere, he talks to the hotel staff, the old people waiting for hours to catch a glimpse of him, and to the babies who don’t even know His Holiness they are just playing outside while their parents wait for him. I’ve seen him do it. And it makes my heart glad.

I was blessed and grateful to be at the teachings this year in Dharamsala, India and to have a press pass to photograph the Dalai Lama. (Photos here) The best part of being there was that he directly teaches me to be happy being a pupa, not just the butterfly. By his example watching him interact with people he shows how to Go Slow and not be Fast. He seems to forget his bodyguards pressing in protecting him and reaches out to people and holds their hands reminding me to do the same.

Butterfly on Green Leaf

10 Reasons I Love Nepal

Discover the Secrets of Nepal in Vagabond Mag for your ipad click here

It is said that Nepal is the holiest place on earth. Why?

It’s the rooftop of the world, home of Mount Everest and the Annapurna Mountain range but what keeps me coming back is the people. The kindest people I know live there.

Nepal breaks my heart and makes me cry and laugh within the same minute. How?

Well my favorite Grandma in the world lives in the Terai in Inawura.

She’s 90 years old but never complains. She has a lilting girlish voice that resonates with wisdom even though I don’t know what she’s saying because I haven’t learned Nepali but we understand each other.

One day we found ourselves alone with no others around and we were chatting after I made her a hot drink with peppermint and she would say what she wanted to say in Nepali. I would listen to her then I’d talk to her in English and she carefully listened to me. We understood each other but not so much with language.

My son who has stunned me with his generosity and beauty got me there. I’d never heard of this little town but I found myself flying domestic from Kathmandu to get there.

He discovered this village when his friend brought him here to meet his family and now they are my family too.

Wolf Price inspired American Apparell to make a tee shirt to sell globally to fund education and wifi for the girls who live here so they don’t have to get married as teenagers and live a life of servitude. He’s also making a documentary about it all. Find out more about him click here. You may want to donate to empower girls in Nepal and buy the cool tee-shirt.

I met many wonderful ladies and taught them yoga in the bamboo grove – they were courageous to try it out after saying they had aches and pains.

It was a non-stop love fest from morning to night.

Mom would wake me up with chai every day. Her smile made me never want to leave.

And then…

I discovered the Sacred Places in Kathmandu Valley
If you want to invigorate your soul go to Namobuddha Monastery

Then go to Bahktapur just outside of Kathmandu.

Then go to Kopan Monastery on the edge of Kathmandu.

And You Will Fall In Love with Boudha below, the largest Buddhist stupa in the world.

Be Enchanted by Nepal, Learn All About it in Vagabond

Wolf brought me to a dance recital he was shooting so I took some photos too. I loved the girls expressions and their enthusiasm.

If you have time, go to Lumbini where Buddha was born. He was not born in India as most people think he was born here in Nepal and you’ll be overjoyed to be in the sacred garden  –its far from Kathmandu and if you don’t hire a car you have to take a public bus. Or you could fly.

It’s worth it.

I didn’t feel this love struck after the 14-hour bus ride back from the village of Inawura to Kathmandu but have now realized that driving over rocky dirt roads on a night bus will not feed my sanity or give me easy access to a toilet so I will leave this pass-time to the youngsters who can stomach it as I noticed there were no other people on the bus over age 30.

Perhaps this is a sign.

So if you are going and want to do something other than trek check out the sacred places of Kathmandu, go to the jungle and play with elephants, or just stop and go meet some Nepali women, maybe you can come to the picnic next year on Women’s Day March 8– here is me on the bus to the picnic Wolf Price puts on for the ladies.

We had a blast and my face hurt from laughing all day.

Women Laughing while their Friends are Playing a Game at the Picnic

My favorite new friend who busted out some amazing moves while dancing right here.

Do you want to escape the USA? Or just take a break and feel free?

You can travel all the time on a low budget and a high level of fun and adventure. You can work while you travel so all your costs are covered. Find out how in Vagabond Travel Photography Mag for your ipad here

I’m in India now and am head over heels happy I photographed the Dalai Lama here in Dharamsala where he lives. If you want to see photos click here

If you like, Comment below or Write me at mbartnikowski@yahoo.com

10 Reasons to Quit Your Job Now

My New Backyard in Belize

10 Reasons to Quit Your Job Now

The Dalai Lama said, “Asians don’t know how to worry.”

He must have noticed that people in the USA are about to have heart attacks from thinking too much.

I have the solution. Quit your job and leave the West behind – spread your wings and fly!

Here’s my list to inspire you:

1.You’ll get younger (not older.) Studies have shown, keep learning

and you won’t age. Those brain cells need revitalizing.

2.Stress kills, quit, and find something you love

3.Go live in another country. It costs less than staying in the USA working.

For example:

My rent per month in 2012 in all the countries I lived in this year:

Belize: $450 for a shack – it was on the Caribbean Sea, folks!

Guatemala: $300 for a lovely house with private terrace overlooking Lake Atitlan utilities included.

Tulum, Mexico: renting a clean basic room on the Yucatan a few kilometers from the sea for $20 per night or if you like rustic, $8 per night for a hostel or camping on the beach, same price. I liked the beach until I got rained out.

Half Moon Bay, California $600 for 2 weeks for a small 2-room house walking distance to the glorious beach.

Bangkok, Thailand: fully loaded hotel room – AC, own bathroom, king-size bed, wifi in room, proper air flow, quiet and all for $21 per night.

Loei, Thailand in Issan. Room in guesthouse: use of kitchen, wifi in room, fan only, kind family, shared spotlessly clean bathroom, $6 per night.

Chiang Mai, Thailand: Guesthouse $12 per night; wifi in room, AC, fridge, good bed, Quiet.

Pai, Thailand Best Deal of the Year: $200 per month (incl. utilities) for my own house in Pai with a breathtaking view of the sunset, quiet, mountains, hot springs, and clouds floating by (no wifi in the house, no AC, I loved it!)

So the high cost is no longer an issue.

$200 US dollars per month folks!

4. Don’t think about it – just dive in. Luangpo my meditation master and spiritual friend in Loei, Thailand says, “You thinking, thinking, you aren’t in Thailand. Look at heart, look at body.” It’s all about the moment.

Anything you have to think about for too long usually doesn’t work.

5. You discover the wonder inside you by slicing off the past.

There is nothing familiar: no anchors to hold on to — you are free floating.

I’m not saying the past is bad. Just that the Past is Over. The Present is where it’s.

6. What do you live on?

You live on your wits.

You can volunteer and receive room and board

You can give massages, cook, teach yoga/meditation, English, you can do it!

I currently, teach photography, yoga and meditation, write and shoot for Vagabond Magazine, and get hired to shoot photographs.

Set up a business for tourists – guiding, teaching.

Run an Internet business

Do the business you are doing now as a consultant from Asia, Belize, or Fez, Morocco.

Teaching yoga on the Caribbean in Belize

7. “I’ll do it next year” — never happens.

Once you do it – you will wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.

Teaching Meditation in Pai, Thailand

8. OK you do have to pay back your bills before doing it. So did I.

Now I have one bill: for my storage unit back in California for my photography/art stuff, china dishes from my Mom, glassware and artifacts.

9. Being free is a choice. Choosing to be happy is also a choice. I choose happiness every day even when I’m feeling bratty.

Santa Cruz, Guatemala terrace of my home overlooking Lake Atitlan

10. Invest in your self. Rather than the stock market or a house.

Give your self the option of re-inventing yourself. Only you can do it – no one else will do it for you.

Dharmasala, india View from my bedroom

Jump in! Don’t think about it. Bathe in the sweet waters of wonder and awe.

Write and tell me what you feel and how you will implement your new plans!

Me, teaching yoga in Belize

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Kitten Heels in Kathmandu, Adventures of a Female Vagabond

Secrets of Myanmar

Falling in love with Burma made my heart fly. It’s still working its magic on me even though I’m now in Kathmandu, Nepal. I cannot forget it and I’m happy to share it with you too.

I just finished my latest issue of Vagabond on Myanmar and its overflowing with:

What No One Tells You About Burma, Meditating and Motorbiking in Myanmar, 169 photograph, Photography Advice for shooting on your own world adventures or your backyard and tips I learned in the 29 days I was visiting this Astonishing Country. Here’s the cover. Check it Out!

The best things about Burma: the friendly people. They help you find your destination while on the city bus, are over the top excited to be in pictures with you and chat about your life. Astounding level of consideration and tenderness! They know you are a tourist and therefore don’t know much about anything in Burma.

And the spirituality is everywhere. People are not caught up in only achieving. They are meditating, praying, and being kind. That’s my kind of religion –  not really a religion, but a way of life. See the video here to get inside Shwedagon Pagoda!

Yangon, the finest and most ethereal temple I have ever seen in my life.

Shwedagon Pagoda is my favorite place to go in Yangon. Being there at sunset was divine, the candles were glowing and I was blessed to see two full moons there. This is not Photoshop – this is the real deal.And Eating! I asked a local in Bagan where do you go to eat?

This is what I got, vegetable curry with rice for $2.

All these plates are for me. Can you believe it? And they weren’t done bringing out the food, more arrived that I could not identify  but if you want to see it all on video go here

Go to Nu War restaurant in Bagan for real Myanmar food. At non-tourist prices.

Bagan is mystical – you can’t believe how many temples there are – this one made me veer off the road while I was biking and go see its gorgeous-ness up close.

Sunset in the temples.

One thing about Mandalay is the great food. I went to a local place that opens at 5AM for the real people who work and live here. And you’ll pay the same price as them – its about 50 US cents for a bowl of rice, egg, and chicken which the restaurant routinely ran out of but here is the place and the cute kids who are the waiters. And it had great Burmese tea. Stay at the Nylon Hotel and ask about the local place three blocks away that opens at 5AM – I don’t know the name of it. They had no sign.

Delicious Food, Adorable Waiters, and 1950s prices

And the Mandalay morning market is not to be missed! It is churning with color and vibrancy. The girl above is making a fish dish similar to that traditional seafood dish in Thailand. I didn’t taste it as I am a bit cautious when it comes to seafood especially when its raw. I don’t need to throw up now so I usually steer clear just to be safe.

Give me an apple and I’m happy.

More Photographs here

I love bananas so I got excited seeing this. Its the perfect food except that it does not travel well. My bananas end up getting crushed on the bus and I don’t have any yogurt or a  blender so I can’t make a smoothie. The other most perfect food.

This girl was at the Mandalay Market selling her coconuts – my third favorite food. You can drink ’em, chew ’em and decorate your house with the palm leaves. Whats not to like?

Don’t miss Kandawgyi Botanical Park in Pyinoolwin – you’ll think you died and went to heaven!

If you want Jaw-Drop Gorgeous head straight to Pyinoolwin 2 hours from dusty chaotic Mandalay and luxuriate in Orchid Heaven — Kandawgyi Botanical Garden is now one of my most favorite places on earth. Check it out here in the video.

The cool weather, fresh yogurt, and slow pace in this hill station made me relax and stop moving. Suddenly all I had to do was walk around smiling at people, drinking tea, and chatting with locals. I did not see anyone rushing in the 4 days I was there.

Wish I could have stayed longer but you only get a 28 day tourist visa in this luscious country – you can’t see it all so get a business visa, which is a 70-day pass for Burma, if you can get it.

Its easier to get visas in Cambodia, that’s where I got my Myanmar tourist visa. There were no lines –  its a small office in Phnom Penh and it took only 5 days to get.

I over stayed one day in Burma (fine is $3 per day) as I could not tear myself away. You pay the fine at the airport when it is discovered by the officials they don’t even ask you why they just want their 3 bucks.

My last night I was at Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon – I did not want to leave but my visa was up. Going higher up in the mountains to Kalaw and the oceanside towns will be my next trip there. My advice is to go now, discover its untrammeled beauty, and let me know what secrets you find out.

Check out Vagabond Travel Photography Mag here

See my photography store and more Photographs from Myanmar and the 29 other countries I have visited in the last 7 years – indulge yourself and go for a ride – you may be buying a plane ticket soon!

Kindly, Mary

My Life as a Child

I wondered when I would leave home to explore the world but I was only four years old.

I had to wait until I was at least nine.

So I just kept riding my orange push-pedal fire engine around the block knowing that one day I would fly free.

For fun, I would walk downtown to the city library and get lost in the stalls reading books and smelling the rarified air of literature. There was adventure in those books. Wild wonderful global explorations that called to my heart.

I’d be exploring when I got taller. But for now I could read the book, Mary Poppins and how she floated from cloud-to-cloud and visited worlds I could only imagine.

Someday I would discover the world just like her.

Arrive when and where I wanted to then float off to a new place.

I brought home armloads of books and was determined to read every book I found interesting. I started reading before kindergarden because I wanted to discover the worlds beyond my own boundaries of Canandaigua, an Upstate, New York, Finger Lakes town.

Canandaigua was bursting with colonial houses and wide front porches, full attics and large basements. It was the land of snowflakes freshly falling on every Christmas morning guaranteed. Sleigh rides, snowball fights, and building forts in the heaps of snow.

It was a good place to grow up.

But it was so cold my face froze one winter and I had a large patch of red on my cheeks when I drank alcohol for years. After I moved to the tropics my face returned to normal.

My cheeks had thawed.

I knew I wanted to be an artist but kept it to myself in my medically inclined professional family.

My bestfriend Cherie and I hatched a plan to run away on a motorcycle with one suitcase bungeed to the back – off we would go in to the rarefied air of world exploration.

Today I bungeed my rolling suitcase to the back step of a red truck – a pickup-like affair transporting people in Thailand to their destination for cheap – 50 cents a ride. They did not charge me the inflated tourist price so I gave him more than a 100% tip after he helped me move my luggage in the pouring rain off the truck.

The drivers never do that – I’ve been in Thailand 6 times and that is just not done.

So I have arrived!

I just realized right this minute that my deepest dream I held in my heart as a child has come true.

If you want to see my gallery of photography click here

Me with my sisters – I am on the lower right showcasing the black poodle on my new dress

Burma is Breathtaking

Burma is Breathtaking.