here today, gone to bali

Much action since last posting; in chronological order:



• November 4 – 9: time at the TEDIndia conference in Mysore, India where Jib shared about the future of business, and we all connected with old friends, met new ones and began a temple and sacred-spot visiting regime that hasn’t begun to slow



• November 10 - 30: After a night in Calcutta, a wild flight into high mountain kingdom of Bhutan. Nestled between the economic powerhouses of China and India, the Himalayan country is the world’s youngest democracy and home to the only real political attempt to define an alternative development model, which they call Gross National Happiness. Here Jib met with the Prime Minister and rowed a boat on the first raft descent of the Drangme Chhu River, a 7 day class IV-V gem through the heart of pristine lowland forest all the way to the Assam, India border. If you look close at this short video from Bio Bio Expeditions you will see me tumble out ass over teakettle out of the cataraft. During this time, Marci and Skye braved wild, one-lane twisty mountain roads filled with Buddhist drivers, roadside water-driven prayer wheels and cliffs as tall as Half-Dome to visit the Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries, Temples, Zhongs, Festivals, Pray Wheels and Stupahs that make up the daily life of this country of 600,000. They also did a small rafting trip of their own and got to visit the reserve of the Black Necked Crane, considered one of the world’s most endangered species.



• December 1-7: from there we traveled to visit our friend Ajeet Bajaj and his family in Delhi, India. The ‘Sir Edmund Hillary of India’, Ajeet met Jib on the banks of Siberia’s frozen Chuya River in 1988 and they have remained friends ever since. Ajeet is founder and owner of the best adventure travel company in India, Snow Leopard Adventures and is one of the countries’ top explorers having been the first Indian to ski to both the North and South Poles (among many other accomplishments). During our short stay with the Bajaj’s we traveled to the holy city of Rishikesh on the banks of the upper Ganges River, where we rafted and stayed at the Snow Leopard camp. Here we saw Puma tracks on the beach and Sadhus galore in their orange robe ascetic wildness at and around the daily sunset Ganges worship session at the local ashram.
• December 8 - Now: we’re in Ubud, Bali and have unpacked our bags, done laundry and will settle in through the new year with our friends who live here. Skye will continue her home school routine and spend time at the innovative Green School, Jib will review and compile and share his notes on the amazing people and projects we’ve seen, Marci will do yoga and consider the merits of sourcing, and we will all reconnect with friends and family over the holiday season, while we begin to make plans for the next half of the trip.