Jamie and I have one of those classic modern love stories in which we were best friends for years, until the liquor did its job and moved our relationship to another level. Not exactly planned, and both of us were pretty weird about it for the first couple of months or so. But once we got comfortable with the idea that we were actually a couple, we embraced it and realized that there was a reason why we were such good friends in the first place. Our interests are eerily similar, especially when it comes to our incurable thirst for travel and adventure.

Although we have lot in common, we do not always agree… far from it. However, by no means does that hinder us. In fact, I think that this makes us stronger and capable of making wiser decisions. If I think one way, and Jamie thinks another, we will each present our point of view and meet in the middle.

This is exactly what we wanted our readers to get out of our blog. We have both been traveling since a very young age, but in very different ways. I spent my childhood looking forward to the next road trip that my family and I would take, usually lasting 2-3 weeks and consisting of countless landmark visits across Canada and the U.S. Jamie managed to travel through Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji for 6 months before attending university, and got up to more shenanigans than I like to imagine. I have experiences that have shaped the way that I think about travel, and so does Jamie. They are often completely different, but does that mean that each isn’t relevant? We both believe that the saying, “two heads are better than one” is a truth. So why not give our readers two heads? That’s how the “his take – her take” style of Couple of Yuppies was born.

2. Let’s talk experiences – what has been the best experience you’ve had on the road? The worst?

One of our all time favorite moments on the road had to have been partying with Croatian football fans on our first night in Pula. The entire population of the city watched the game on a massive screen in the town square while lighting off roman candles, chanting, and guzzling copious amounts of beer. Croatia lost, which we thought would be a bit of a downer, but the fans kept on singing, drinking, and dancing for hours. When we asked one local what he was so happy about, he said, “Spain is the greatest team in the world, and we almost won. We are very proud.” Jamie and I were ordered numerous rounds of shots and befriended by everyone and their dog. Amazing night.

Our worst night on the road was in New York City. Having just lost Jamie’s souvenirs from the MOMA, I decided to cheer her up by scouting out some big apple stand-up comedy. The only time that Jamie laughed that night was when she cackled as I was forced to sleep on the floor. Needless to say, the show did not go over well.

3. You like to do His and Her take posts on the blog – where do you guys disagree the most?

We have very different ways of determining value. For instance, I might recommend getting a burger from restaurant x because it’s filling, delicious, and only $2. Jamie might recommend the same place because the salads are dripping with flavor and don’t leave you stuffed. If someone were to only read my review, they would just see “massive burgers” and might not be interested in that. However, by going to Jamie’s write-up they would see the place has more to offer. We want to supply our readers with as much perspective as possible so that they can feel safe in knowing that our recommendations give a broader scope than one person’s opinion.

4. It looks like Jamie has done some pretty extreme stuff, including bungee jumping and skydiving. What’s the most extreme thing Kyle has ever done?

Jamie is 100% the adrenaline junky in the relationship. However, that isn’t to say that I haven’t done a few “extreme” things in my time. After graduating from high school, a bunch of my friends and I went house boating in the interior of British Columbia. On the second or third day, we sailed over to this infamous cliff diving spot in the middle of the lake called Copper Island. It’s a 60-foot drop and you need to launch yourself at least 6 feet horizontally or you’ll hit a large patch of rocks at the bottom. I must have missed the rocks by about 2 feet and I can still remember the pain against the underside of my arms as they hit the water.

5. You have quite a lot of food and restaurant reviews on your blog – what’s his and hers all-time favorite?

His Take: I love a great deal almost as much as a great meal. All along Brick Lane in London, England, the owners of a seemingly infinite number of Bengali restaurants give their best attempt at attracting as many diners as possible with incredible deals. I have a knack for bargaining, and so I managed to score Jamie and I a 4 course meal including naan bread, rice, deliciously smooth chicken curry, an appetizer of our choice, and a bottle of wine all for £10 (about $13 CAD) each at City Spice Restaurant. To this day, I have yet to find a better all out deal than that. The fact that everything that we ordered was fantastic didn’t hurt either.

Her Take: The best restaurant I have ever been to is Frank’s Kitchen in Toronto. We’ve been back here about three times now, and no matter what I order the meal is always amazing. Although this place is a bit more on the expensive side, the way the food tastes most restaurants would be charging upwards of $40 per dish, and at Frank’s you can order mains for as little as $15. My recommendation if you go here: the beef wellington.

6. What destination are you looking forward to the most on your next trip?

One trip that we currently have in the back of our minds is China. Although China is home to some of the most impressive (and populous) cities in the world, it’s the back country that Jamie and I would most like to visit. The rice patties of Longshen and the quaint backpacking atmosphere of Yangshuo are two experiences that we have our eyes on. We both realized when backpacking through Croatia that as we mature, we have a greater appetite for nature than nightlife. Although partying our faces off on Zrce Beach was amazing, stripping down on nearly every secluded nude beach we could manage to visit provided some of our most memorable experiences. I’m sure that if we were to answer this question 4 years ago, we both probably would have said something like, “getting trashed at every bar possible while in Hong Kong.” I can honestly say that we are both looking forward to traveling back in time in rural China, taking in the amazing landscapes, and chilling out.

7. What are some of your interests outside of traveling?

His Take: Well, I am Canadian, so I live and breathe everything that is hockey. However, I am equally passionate about golf. In fact, when I was living in England I managed to trek out to Kent for the final day of the British Open. Storming the green on the 18^th was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. Now that I’m in the real world, I find that cooking is another big one for me. Of course, if I don’t do it, no one will. Jamie’s useless in the kitchen.

Her Take: When I was younger horseback riding took up most of my spare time. I grew up on a farm so it was common for me to be out in the barn all day. Now that I’m in my twenties and fending for myself I realize this costly sport isn’t that sustainable, so I’ve taken to different hobbies. Filming and video editing is one of them, something we are planning to include more in the blog in the future.

8. As a couple who made long distance work for some time while Kyle was in London and Jamie was in Toronto – can you give some advice to our readers?

You CANNOT constantly worry that the other person will cheat on you. If you’re right for each other, then neither of you will. If you’re traveling like Kyle was, you can’t let yourself think about how much better everything would be if the other person were there. Think instead about all of the cool things that you can tell your bf/gf that you’ve been up to. Anyone will be more interested in hearing about all of the things that you did, than all of the things that you decided not to do because you would rather do it with them. Don’t put your life on hold! We didn’t and it worked for us.

Author Bio: Jamie and Kyle are from western Canada and love to share each of their takes on travel and food in their blog, Couple of Yuppies. You can follow them on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram.

Other Interviews

• Johnny Ward from OneStep4Ward
• Skott and Shawna from GetUpAndGlobe
• Josh and Caroline from Traveling9to5
• Alex from Alex In Wanderland
• Keryn from Walking On Travels
• Bethaney from FlashPackerFamily
• Tony and Meg from LandingStanding
• Kate from 30Traveler
• Hannah From CaravanOfOne
• Dave And Deb from ThePlanetD
• Craig And Caz from yTravelBlog
• Mike and Luci from 1000fights
• Simon and Erin from Never Ending Voyage
• Lauren from Never Ending Footsteps
• Hannah and Adam from GettingStamped
• Amar from GapYearEscape
• Charli and Ben from Wanderlusters
• Craig and John from FlashPackAtForty
• Flip from FlipNomad
• Shalu Sharma from ShaluSharma

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For some reason I thought the idea of volunteering on an organic farm outside of Chiang Mai would be perfect for both Dave and myself. (Later, we realized that it would be perfect for her). I heard of Mindful Farms through fellow travel bloggers Honey Trek and quickly signed up to volunteer for two days.

We saw a gaggle of foreigners waiting at the designated spot and asked if they were headed to Peng Term (where the farm was located) and after a quick nod the introductions began. There was a Finish girl, an Austrian couple, and a Kiwi (throw in a random New Zealander for good measure).

After some bumpy roads through the countryside, we arrived just as my motion sickness was setting in.

We approached the farm but something seemed a bit off, mainly instead of the rolling fields we had envisioned I could only see a plot of small weeds. Where were the crops? Did this farm grow anything at all?

I glanced around and saw a few girls rolling their own cigarettes and slowly drumming away on bongo drums in the living room. With glazed over eyes and tie dye shirts, you could tell they had been there for days and felt right at home.

“What have you guys been doing today?”

They all looked at each other and shrugged, “not too much.”

When we asked what they had done there all the week, the answer didn’t really change. Seemed like they attended a make shift sauna in the woods and cleared off some jungle shrubbery (not exactly working hard).

Eventually the farm owner arrived and instantly gave me the heebie jeebies (must have been the dreads). Some people just give me an “off” vibe and I had apparently just walked into a whole house of them.

Did I really just sign up for two days of volunteering on an organic farm where there seemed to be nothing growing and the only allure was the hippy hangout spot?

On top of that, the owners seems to be raising fighting cocks for money instead of growing veggies. (Ugh – seriously?)

To my relief it turned out that we were on the wrong farm the whole time. Instead of Mindful Farms we had wandered into Happy Healing Home without even realizing there could be multiple farms in the area.  Three of us left while the others stayed.

As we made our escape, one of the volunteers who had been there for over two months looked at us regretfully and then said to the owner

“It’s a shame that these guys are leaving but they were lucky to at least see this special place” (Cough Cult Cough.)

From there it was only a short walk to the real Mindful Farm, which simply looked like paradise after where we came from. Rolling green hills, clay hobbit like huts, farm plots with all sorts of veggies and herbs all over the place and most importantly a friendly farm aura.

Norika, the owners Japanese wife came out to greet us and led us into the main house for an intro. We bonded over all things Japanese as she told us how she met Penan (the owner) after a meditation retreat in Thailand. She had only come for 8 days but, despite the fact that he had been there for 40 day they just happened to finish on the same day. Love blossomed and Penan gave up his monkhood to marry Noriko (sounds like a fairytale from my childhood). Fast forward two years and they now have a baby and this farm (they’ve been busy).

I was amazed by the progress Penan, which means former monk, has made in so little time. There are several buildings and bungalows on the property, with many small plots of land with Japanese veggies growing which are then sold to Japanese restaurants all the way in Bangkok. There is even an automated sprinkler system and electricity (woohoo?).

I was seriously impressed (and I was wondering if they had wifi).  During our two days there we participated in daily farming activities with the other volunteers and we became fast friends with Sophie a German girl, Tia and Finish girl and Jantien a Belgian girl.

I learned how to start a fire with magic wood (wood with tree sap) for cooking, and how to do some weeding and got to water the plants.

Penan and Noriko run a fully vegetarian farm and all the meals we prepared use fresh farm veggies. The food was simple yet good, and we all cooked and ate together. As is common in Thai tradition we ate sitting on the floor in the meditation hut – something my inflexible legs will never quite get accustomed too.

At night there was an optional meditation session led by Penan. While Dave and I tried to participate I can tell it’s going to take a lot more work and learning to get the gist of it. After about 45 minutes when I could no longer feel either of my legs I tried to silently limp out of there.

We’ll have to work on our meditating (or maybe not).

While I can’t say I loved the farm life I fared much better than Dave. Unfortunately Penan assigned him some pretty significant tasks and with this being Dave’s first time on a farm it was a bit too much responsibility for him. When he was collecting herbs for lunch he accidentally ripped out the entire stem instead of just the leaves.

Strike 1.

Then when he was adding fertilizer to the plants he placed it too close to the roots themselves, in effect poisoning them. (all and all I think I set this guy back one month in earnings)

Luckily we left before strike three.

Overall we had a good time on the farm but I don’t think I’ll be able to convince Dave to volunteer on a farm in the near future (ain’t that the truth).

Unlike others it does seem like we don’t like to part from our A/C, wifi and plump beds for too long.

Country bumpkins we are not.

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Learned To Drive A Manual

Growing up in America, you forget that most of the world still drives a manual car. Now that Vicky and I are heading to Europe and are looking into car rentals, we are remembering how much more expensive it is to rent an automatic car. If you have access to a manual car, spend a few days learning how to drive it – it will potentially save you hundreds of dollars.

Learned More Card Games/Tricks

Cards are a very popular way to pass the time abroad. Vicky and I have played cards for countless hours but we generally rotate between the same 3-4 games, depending on how many people there are. Knowing a few of these as well as some fun card tricks is a great way to break the ice with new acquaintances. It can even used to cross communication boundaries – we’ve played cards with locals we met on trains despite not being able to speak the same language.

Learned To Drive A Motorbike

Similarly to learning to drive a manual is learning to drive a motorbike. It’s extremely common to rent a motorbike abroad, you can usually do it for about $5. It’s also not THAT hard to learn, though it does take a bit of getting used to. Still, I think Vicky and I passed on a few opportunities because we weren’t 100% comfortable renting a motorbike. Moreover, some trips have more difficult roads and require more powerful motorbikes, which we still aren’t comfortable on. Given how much tours can cost, simply for transportation and a know-nothing guide, you can save yourself time and money by learning to drive a motorbike.

Practiced My Second Language (French)

French would not have come in handy for communicating with any locals in Asia but it would have been quite handy to communicate with a few more backpackers. The number of French people we’ve interacted with is countless, and while in general they speak English fairly well, I still find that more than other nationalities they tend to keep to themselves. I feel that knowing French is a great way to break into the inner circle. I’ve been brushing up the last few months but I’m nowhere near where I’d like to be, especially with our upcoming trip to France looming overhead.

Bought A Nice MP3 Player and Downloaded Some Audio Books

Vicky and I spend countless hours on buses and trains. We try to make the most of these occasions by either catching up on some sleep or even some writing (like I am doing now on a bus to Siem Reap). Still, both of us have trouble reading on buses on account of motion sickness. I would love to have a nice MP3 player that holds a lot of memory so we could upload a bunch of audio books or even French lessons per the previous point. There are plenty of sites which convert Youtube videos to MP3s such as this one, and many other sites to find audio books, especially of the classic novels whose copyright has expired.

Invested My Money In The Stock Market

For quite awhile I had nearly 100% of my savings in a bank account. Firstly, I didn’t know much about investing and didn’t devote the time to learning about it, especially while we were busy planning. Secondly, I had this idea that we were basically going to spend all our savings on our trip so it wasn’t worth it anyways. Lastly, I just didn’t want to lose it before we even got a chance to set off. Now I realize that there are many investment options available where I can put my money and it’s essentially just as liquid as it was in my savings account, for example, no load mutual funds. Even though I was planning on spending a lot more of our savings than we currently are, that was still forecasted to be over a two-year period, which meant there was plenty of time to store it away. Now we are taking a much more active role in our finances and while I still keep a small emergency fund in our bank account enough for two months of travel, I’ve put the remainder in Fidelity and am seeing great returns, and, because this is a long term strategy it isn’t taking much time at all to manage – mostly just an afternoon of research.

Read More History On The Places We Were Going

Traveling is a great learning experience BUT I find that it does a relatively poor job teaching you about the nation’s history. In that case, you’re much better off getting a book or reading online. Wikipedia does a fantastic job providing you the facts about specific events, so does Lonely Planet. Still, I feel like Vicky, in having read specific books and personal accounts of North Korean defectors or the Khmer Rouge and the Killing Fields, for example, has a much better understanding of what transpired. A new site by Gillian from One-Giant-Step called TheGlobalBookShelf is helping to address this.

If you’re interested some of the travel themed books Vicky read before our trip were:

North Korea: Nothing to Envy

Vietnam: The Girl in the Picture 

Cambodia: First They Killed My Father

Burma: The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma and Burmese Days

China: China Road  Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress 

France: Lunch in Paris, and  A Year in Provence 

Antarctica: Endurance 

India: The White Tiger

Travel through multiple countries: The Great Railway Bazaar 

Started More Websites/Read More On Online Monetization Strategies

Had Vicky and I known more about the monetization mechanisms for travel blogs we would have started several more before we left, built them up, and paid a few writers to keep them going. This would have drastically increased our income. Moreover, the newest website we are working on, has taken months of programming and the idea isn’t nearly as fresh as it was in August 2012 when we were first thinking about it. Managing websites is a lot easier and less time intensive than starting them up, in my opinion, so it’s better to get them off the ground before you leave.

What do you wish you had done before setting off?

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More frequently though the Golden Triangle evokes images of opium poppies, hillside tribes, warlords, and the drug trade that went on in this region for years. The name originates from the high price of opium, leading itself to being known as black gold, which was purchased with gold. With the amount of gold and opium that passed hands, this area is now known as the Golden Triangle.

Right off the overdone touristy strip with blazing golden triangle signs and life sized elephant statues you will see the House of Opium.

We start our opium education here. Though the  museum is small it includes a step by step intro into the production and history of opium, with lots of drug paraphernalia on display (but not for use!).

Opium is said to have originated in the Mediterranean area and the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Persians learned to use it as a narcotic and a medicine as early as 1000 BC. Around 350 BC Alexander the Great brought opium into China and India. Over the years demand for opium grew, allowing Great Britain to monopolize the trade. Eventually this led to the Opium Wars between Britain and China, with the Chinese government attempting to forbid the trade of opium and destroying shipments. The British fought for free trade and won the opium wars, allowing them to continue flooding the Chinese market with opium.

During the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century as the Chinese hill tribes moved South, settling in present day Thailand, Laos and Myanmar they brought the opium with them, and opium began to prosper in South East Asia. There are various tribal legends surrounding the opium trade.

Opium the drug is obtained by scoring an opium pod a few days after the last petal has dropped off. After the pods are scored the white liquid is left to coagulate overnight after which point it turns dark brown and this is then collected. One opium plant normally yields 3-8 opium pods. Each pod can then be scored 3-4 times. 3000 pods of opium are needed to collect 1.6 kilograms of the opium drug. There are said to be optimal opium smoking positions – most notably, kneeling or lying down with the heel pushed against the buttocks.

Through a system of further processes the raw opium can then be turned into morphine and then heroin.

While opium was used as a medicine, it also began to gain popularity as a recreational drug, though the long term side effects were severe and addiction became common, leading to further problems or even overdoses.

For the hill tribe villages opium became a quick cash crop in the mid 20th century- easy to grow and bringing in lots of money. In Laos during the Secret War, when the US was heavily bombing northern Laos to avoid the Vietnamese spread of communism, the CIA was a major purchaser of the opium in the area (using the money to fund the war), providing the villagers with rice and aid in exchange. The CIA formed alliances with tribes and warlords, supplying them with ammunition, arms and air transport for the sale of opium.

This opium was then transported to Vietnam to keep up US troop morale – and by the end of the Vietnamese war it is said that there were 80,000 US soldiers addicted to opium/heroin (more than there were addicts in the whole of the US at that time). Sadly, when the soldiers returned home they brought this addiction with them. The number of heroin addicts in the US reaches 750,000.

Many of the areas where the opium was grown were in mountainous regions, cut off from roads, where power was in the hands of private armies and warlords. Most of these were financed by the drug trade.

By the early 1970s, Shan warlord Khun Sa (head of a Burmese minority group) became a major exporter of opium in the Golden Triangle region to fund his Shan army and his fight for independence.

By the mid 1970′s a new source of opium had popped up – the Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan area.

By 1995 the Golden Triangle region was still the world’s largest opium producer – yielding 2,500 tons annually. To battle the opium drug trade the US has put increasing pressure on Thailand to eliminate opium production in these regions and with the help of government programs villagers have received help with crop substitution and subsidies for growing other plants – coffee, tea, fruit etc. With more roads built through the mountainous regions these areas are now easier to monitor and keep track of. Even with all the efforts made there are still major opium crops in Burma (by 2005 there were 167 miles of opium cultivation).

Today Afghanistan produces the majority of the world’s opium.

While the House of Opium museum is informative, the Hall of Opium, further down the road, is even more educational and grandiose. The state of the art, interactive museum is very well organized. The museum presents the history surrounding the opium trade and finishes off with the impacts of illegal drugs. The exhibits are very interactive, with short films, audio commentaries and interesting advertisements dating from the early 1900s. There is a section extensively explaining how the drug trade was brought over to China and the effects it had on the population, culminating in the opium wars between Britain and the China. The more you read about the history, the more clear it is why the Asian countries tend to be “so harsh” on drugs.

From there the look into legal opium begins – of which Thailand is selected as representative of the extensive legal opium production, trade and use in the 19th and 20th centuries in Asia.

Another interesting exhibit at the museum featured information on other drugs, which have grown in popularity in the 20th century as well as advertisements for drugs when they were initially used for medicinal purposes in the West. Medicine with opium grew in popularity in the West from the late 1800s, when it was used to alleviate headache pain. Opium or morphine was even contained in cough medicines for infants.

The museum finishes on a hopeful note – that we all need to work together to ease and minimize the suffering caused by addiction and side effects of illegal drugs.

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Temples, temples, temples – can’t live with them, can’t explore Asia without them. Around these parts, they’re everywhere you look. Some might say they’re a dime a dozen, but we’re hear to tell you about one can’t miss temple: Wat Rong Khun in Chang Rai.

Wat Rong Khun or, The White temple, is not your ordinary temple by any stretch of the imagination. Construction began in 1996 and it is still undergoing, with expectations of another 60-90 years till completion. Most temples we see are about 1000 years older. On the contrary, the White Temple’s contemporary, Buddhist fusion style seems more fitting for  one of Tim Burton’s films than a roadside temple outside of Chang Rai Thailand.

The temple, as you would expect, is completely white. Kositpipat, the designer, believes gold is “suitable to people who lust for evil deeds” and wanted this temple to be different from the standard golden Thai temple. I think he was just working under tight budget constraints. Either way, I love his decision to go a different direction.

Still, the frosty exterior is quite striking in a “wow, never see it done this way before” kind of way. It’s refreshing, but don’t let the white paint lull you into a false sense of security – this is no fairy tale. The grounds are covered with ghoulish ghosts and heads emerging from the ground as if mimicking the depths of hell.

If it looks this crazy on the inside, you’re probably dying to know what the inside beholds. I’ll give you a hint, it isn’t the usual scenes from the life of Buddha. The inner murals are an amalgamation of contemporary pop culture reference with the occasional historical reference; think Spiderman meets September 11th. What do Peter Parker and Osama Bin Laden have in common? I suppose only Kositpipat knows for sure, but it does make for an unbelievably unique experience.

Logistics:

From Chiang Rai you can take a 20-30 minute bus to the White Temple from the bus station by the night market. Just ask the driver to let you know where to get off. You will be dropped off on the side of the highway and just need to cross the road and walk towards the temple.

Catch the bus from the same road you were dropped off on (though in the opposite direction).

Buses run frequently in the morning and afternoon

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When Vicky and I arrived in Chang Mai, we were dying for some animal interaction. The two most common choices are Tiger Kingdom or one of many Elephant Sanctuaries. We opted not to do Tiger Kingdom for various reasons. Above all, many people suspect the organization of drugging the tigers (they themselves claim that the tigers are born in captivity and are therefore used to humans, which is why you can pet them). We didn’t want anything to do with this and frankly just had an uneasy feeling about the whole organization – they advertise so much in Chang Mai it just doesn’t feel right…

As a result, we turned towards finding an appropriate elephant sanctuary. We had a few criteria, but the main one was that there would be no riding elephants. I knew that if the sanctuary didn’t allow elephant riding, it respected its animals and wasn’t interested in exploiting them to tourists for profit. There are many articles on the web that highlight reputable elephant sanctuaries, and we ended up going to Elephant Nature Park, which is recognized as being one of the best in elephant care and is part the Save Elephant Foundation.  Tickets don’t come cheap at $80 a day, but we felt it was worth it for this once in a lifetime experience.

The park is about 45 minutes outside of Chang Mai – they picked us up at our hotel along with 10 or so other park-goers. During the ride we watched a movie which explained the abysmal state of elephants in Thailand. Once in our past lives, Vicky and I saw a documentary about this very same topic and to this date it strikes me as one of the most hypocritical situations I’ve encountered.

Elephants are revered in Thai culture and it’s nearly impossible to walk around and not see some reference, a statue, a picture, a stuffed animal, depicting the glory of elephants. In spite of this, the elephant population is severely declining in all of Asia, largely due to the mistreatment of elephants and the forced labor imposed upon them through illegal logging and elephant trekking services. In fact, in the past 100 years, the Asian elephant population has declined by 90% and their available habitat has shrunk by 95% in the same time. It’s not exaggerating to say that in 20 years time there very well might not be any elephants in all of Asia. This once mighty mammal will be reduced to a mere historical reference.

Perhaps most disgusting of all, is the Phajaan, or the elephant crushing ritual, which is essentially a lengthy torture session (often lasting days, maybe even over a week), where an elephant’s spirit is crushed into submission so that it can later be dominated by its trainer, known as a mahout. Here is a video of what it is like.

Luckily the world is not completely awful, and there are places like the Elephant Nature Park that have the elephant’s interests in mind.

Vicky and I didn’t know exactly what to expect when we arrived, but all around the park bios are posted of the elephants which range from newborns to being over 70 years old.

Overall, the park is home to a few dozen elephants, almost all of which suffer from a variety of maladies such as blindness, broken hips, digestive difficulties, and more – often as a result of the brutal treatment from past owners. In fact, as I realized later, perhaps the only reason the park is able to buy the elephants is because they’re basically “no good” anymore, and can no longer be used to earn a profit. Otherwise, the elephants are just too expensive (upwards of $50k) to purchase from their owners. This is also why the park primarily has females.

Elephant with a land mine injury

While it is possible to volunteer at the park for a longer period of time, a typical one day outing involves “meeting” the elephants. You can pet them, feed them, and bathe them. Surprinsingly, elephant skin is a lot hairier and coarser than I expected. Feeding them was a blast, and they have an endless appetites for bananas and pineapples, which they devour whole.

We were also very fortunate to see the new baby elephant – Navaan.

As long as the elephant nature park is around, Navann with never experience the cruelty of the Phajaan.

As an added bonus, the park is also home to hundreds of stray dogs whom it cares for by providing food, space to run, and proper immunizations.

While I do wish the staff explained a bit more about the elephants while we were meeting them (you had to almost check back at the bios later and remember who you met), the park is definitely worth a visit if you are in the neighborhood.

If you are interested in donating to the park, there are a variety of ways.

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Income report came a little late this month but it was for good reason – we were waiting on a few things to come to closure so that we could introduce them to you in this article. Let’s dive in!

Social Media: Is Print Media An Option?

After the big feature on Nomadic Matt, Vicky and I did some brainstorming about other avenues where we might be able to spread the word about our blog. We decided to see if we’d have any luck in print media aka newspapers. We often overlook these and I think it has to do with this idea in our head that we’re not doing anything that unique or interesting, largely because we’re surrounded by other travel bloggers who are doing the exact same thing we are. We often forget that not everyone is traveling the world and some might find it interesting. Also, not every newspaper has to be the Boston Globe – there are a lot of other smaller newspapers where our story might be a good fit, especially if they have a travel section.

So we reached out to about 15 or so newspapers. It’s very easy to find contact information for newspapers online. A quick Google search is all it takes.

The end result, is that none of the papers expressed interest in featuring us. Downer.

But, I still think the idea has merit, which is why we’re mentioning it. In fact, I know it has merit because I just saw the other day that Johnny Ward from OneStepForward was featured in the Chicago Tribunal – and Johnny doesn’t have much to do with Chicago, last I checked.

So think about it – start with your local paper and move upwards from there.

Buying Our First Product: TweetAdder

I had two main focuses on Social Media, work on the new twitter product we bought and try to build our newsletter.

I had read about this twitter product, Tweetadder, from a post on how a guy got 10k twitter followers in one year. I generally tend to be pretty skeptical about online products because so often they tend to be garbage, but I liked the sound of this one. The concept was pretty simple. It’s an automated process for following and unfollowing users.

If you go online and look into how to build a bigger twitter following, most people are going to tell you about running a good twitter account and tweeting interesting stuff. While that’s good advice, the honest answer is the quickest way to build followers is simply to follow people yourself. The more people you follow, the more people follow you back.

The “problem” with this, is that it’s good to keep your ratio of following:followers less than 1 so you don’t look like a spammer. Also, following people, say several hundred at once, can take a decent chunk of time if you’re doing it manually. This is where Tweetadder comes in – you can upload followers of any twitter profile you know, and then systematically and automatically follow them while your computer is on and connected to the internet. Then, a few days later, you can unfollow the people who didn’t follow you back.

Simple – right?

Vicky and I decided to give it a try because we love automating things we do anyways. It does come at a very steep price of $57, however, we found this coupon to get 35% off. So we bought it.

So far the results have been pretty good. It took us a little bit to get the hang of us, as we didn’t realize that the computer had to be on and connected to the internet in order for it to work. However, now that we’re rolling we made significant increases to our twitter followers and can follow hundreds of people at the click of a button and then unfollow the nonfollowbackers a few days later, also at the click of a button.

If you’re interested, check it out here!

A Lesson In Newsletter Building 

My next task was to build our newsletter (which, surprisingly, we don’t send out, but I guess we’re waiting for like 500+ people to justify the work). I made a couple changes to the sidebar box to make it a bit more prominent as a start. Then I downloaded this plugin, which adds an opt-in check box after comments. If you want, it auto checks to “yes”. I’ve found that this actually works pretty well, and in only a few weeks after installing this plugin we went from 90 to 130 subscribers – I can only imagine how much better off we’d had been If we had always had it on. Of course, I do wonder how many people are being “tricked” into signing up, aka, not noticing the check box and just posting their comment. But since we don’t send out a newsletter right now and it’s pretty easy to unsubscribe if we do, I’m not too worried about it.

On a side note, I find it really surprising that people sometimes unsubscribe from our newsletter despite the fact that we don’t even send one out. How does that even work?

The last thing I tried was buying a pop up, which I got for about $20 on pop up ninja. Pop ups are known for being annoying but also converting well. I wanted to see if it would help at all to just throw one up, without a free product to give away or any catchy call to action. I installed it and watched as about 100 people looked at it and rejected it.

Fail.

But that’s OK. I’m sure the pop up will come in handy in the future. The lesson is that you can’t just stick something in peoples’ face and expect them to say yes – you have to entice them no matter what. Unfortunately, we don’t have anything enticing (at least, I’m out of ideas) so for now, no pop up!

Traffic: What Happens The Month After A Big Feature?

I was very interested this month to see how traffic panned out, a month after our big feature on Nomadic Matt. While that did bring us thousands of extra pageviews, the real questions is how many readers it brought us – something that can only be evaluated after the interview has had time to die down.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that we still had over 20k pageviews for April, compared with only 12k in February (the month before the Nomadic Matt feature).

I’m beginning to feel like traffic often comes in hurdles, and once you can get over one you can remain at the next level until the next one comes.

We also did a good job keeping up with an interview this month.

Guest posts and interviews this month:

• Interview on Time Rich Travellers

Business: Experiencing Success Working With Other Blogs

April was a very strong month and our second highest to date after a small decline from March. This is largely in part to our brokering initiative, which we started two months ago. To clarify, we’re working with other travel blogs to promote their blogs to our extensive list of advertisers on a commission basis. In April we worked with four blogs and brought in over $5k to be divided among all of us. This is double what we achieved in march. We’re continuing this in May and have added an additional two blogs to our line up which I hope will make May a record month in this respect. To keep up with all of the activity we hired an additional assistant who is largely responsible for writing.

One thing I realized, however obvious it may sound, is that if you are hiring someone, say a contractor, on an hourly basis and you only utilize them when there is actual work to be done, then you aren’t actually paying anything extra to hire someone else but you are getting things done faster. This is a little counter intuitive, at least, compared to what we are used to. Normally, we think more employees = more costs, but that’s only true if they’re say, required to show up to work 9 to 5. On the contrary, if I have say 6 articles to be written, then if one person writes 6 or two people write 3 and they receive the same wage, the costs are the same, but the turnaround is twice as fast. Neat huh? Just goes to show that you shouldn’t be afraid to take on more assistants if there is actually work to be done.

The Best Investment You’ll Ever Make

Traveling has resulted in a lot of time to read. Recently, I’ve been focusing exclusively on books about business and entrepreneurship. I know, boring huh? Vicky laughed the other day when she saw me reading a book on “The Art of Productivity”.

One thing I’ve really taken to heart is that the best investment you can ever make is an investment in yourself, because the potential is limitless. This means buying books, signing up for courses, anything that could potentially educate you. The thing is, the internet has created a new generation of people who want something for nothing. We tend to think that we can just get everything for free – the information is out there somewhere, and we tend to undervalue information based courses and products that aren’t free, thinking we “can probably find it on the internet”.

I think this is really shortsighted, for a few reasons.

1. Not everything really is on the web.
2. Even if it is on the web, there’s no guarantee that you’re going to find it.
3. Even if you could find it, there’s no guarantee that you’re going to actually sit down and do so and that it can be done in a timely manner.

Sometimes, it’s worth paying just to have the information gathered and presented to you in an organized way.

If you are running a business it’s important to be investing in it and it’s always important to be investing in yourself. That’s why Vicky and I bought Tweetadder, because, in the long run, we’re confident that we can make that money back in the form of increased traffic and, frankly, even sponsored tweets if we wanted to go down that route. Yes, we could do all of this ourselves manually, but why?

Vicky and I also signed up for Ramit Sethi’s Earn1K course, which is a course about freelancing and earning money on the side, and a rather pricey one at that. Now, to be honest, we both feel this course is pretty crappy and not worth the money, but it has a full money back guarantee anyways and I’m glad we gave it a shot.

If you’re looking for something simpler, here’s a great investment – take someone out to lunch. Not just your friend, but someone who’s brain you want to pick. I really do like this article on the best $20 you’ll ever spend. Things happen when people get together and share ideas. Consider this recent email Vicky and I received.

This blogger invited us out to grab dinner and treated us to a drink. We got to talking a bit and exchanged some ideas. I guess they’ve turned out to be helpful – at least paying back for the beer.

On the reverse end, Vicky and I just had a great dinner with someone she found on Couch Surfing. We’ve talked about Couch Surfing quite a bit on this blog, but what people fail to realize time and time again is that it doesn’t HAVE to be about free accommodation – you can just message someone who looks interesting and ask them if they want to meet up. Thanks to this concept, Vicky and I met our first native Cambodian. He also works for an NGO, and was able to enlighten us on the current state of Camboodian politics, human rights issues, and NGOs – now that’s a dinner well spent!

Experimenting With Adsense

Up until recently we didn’t bother to try monetizing with Google Adsense on our travel blog. We use it on Vicky’s food blog and it seems to work OK, but she gets over double the page views that our travel blog gets. We had also heard that the click rate on travel blogs is particularly low. Still, after we hit 20k pageviews, we decided that it was time to try for ourselves – so we stuck a vertical adsense ad on the side, just to see what would happen.

I was pretty surprised to see that the click rate was higher than what we get on the Food Blog.

So, this month, we report our first adsense earnings. Again, while this is small compared to our overall earnings it’s completely passive. Also, there really are so many great things you can do with a couple hundred bucks a year, I can fund the creation of a new site (or buy one outright), take a course, etc. All of these can lead to much bigger and better things – so I never scoff at any money someone is willing to throw at me. Still I do think there are better options that we could be doing with that space, which leads me to my next thing…

Breaking Into Banner Ads

Matthew Woodward has been teasing me in his income reports for the last two months about how we’re leaving money on the table with our two blogs. I’m sure he’s right – I definitely think we could be getting more out of the blogs. The question is what are the different things we could be doing and how do we balance that with the time investment? For example, last month we added the shop to our blog and in April, we made our first sale of $13.50. While this is a relatively small portion of our income, it is passive and it’s nice to be earning affiliate income for a change aka something Google won’t punish us for.

Our next focus for this month is going to be banner ads, starting with the sidebar. I really like this for several reasons.

1. Sidebar ads are nonintrusive.
2. People tend to rent the space monthly, so they can be a great source of recurring income.
3. They’re not against Google’s policies.

So, we have the real estate on both our blogs and the question is how do we fill them and what companies to seek out. Well, we purchased another plugin that we’ll be updating you on in the next income report, as well as mentioning our successes and failures in reaching out to companies – you can be sure we won’t hold back.

OK, enough rambling, here’s what everyone wants to see!

Social Media

Website Statistics

Google Page Rank: 3/10

Domain Authority: 41/100

• Direct Advertising: $2515
• Google Adsense: $13.32
• Direct Advertising Other Blogs: $2,364
• Affiliate Sales: $13.50

AvocadoPesto - $669.13

• Direct Advertising: $450
• Google Adsense: $90.9
• BlogHer: $54.30
• BuySellAds: $20
• Affiliates: $53.93

• Warrior Forum Membership: $47
• Other: $20
• Plugins: $44
• Virtual Assistants: $289

Total Value Received: $54

• Sorya Kayaking In Kratie Discount- $54

Find previous traffic updates:

• May ’12 Traffic Update
• June ’12 Traffic Update
• July ’12 Traffic Update
• August ’12 Traffic Update
• September ’12 Traffic Update
• October ’12 Traffic Update
• November ’12 Traffic Update
• December ’12 Traffic Update
• January ’13 Traffic Update
• February ’13 Traffic Update
• March ’13 Traffic Update

Previous Income Updates (Food Blog)

• July 2012 – $47
• August 2012 – $117
• September 2012 – $128
• October 2012 – $825
• November 2012 – $1019
• December 2012 – $837
• January 2013 – $1260
• February 2013 – $1094
• March 2013 – $1721

The post A Couple Travelers By The Numbers: April ’13 Income – $4906 appeared first on .

My name is Shalu Sharma and I was born and raised in Patna, the capital of Bihar (India). I first started travelling from school in the form of school trips to places in local areas. I got to know about my own state, its history, people, and culture and got to see historical temples and amazing sites. This triggered a desire to explore other places beyond the boundaries of my own state and further. In addition to all this, my husband used to travel for conferences and sometimes he used to take me to foreign countries. While he was attending the seminars, I used to go site seeing. This is when all the foreign travelling began. You know what they say, “Once you pop, you can’t stop”.

Then it occurred to me that I need to advice people about India and this is when I started the blog about travelling guide to India on my own domain name of ShaluSharma.com since mid 2012. I already was a running a site called YouBihar.com which was a social networking site so I had some experience of maintaining websites.

When I started blogging on the site, my aims were to provide genuine, no fluff information about travelling to India, its people, its culture, travel tips, what to buy and everything about India. In the beginning, most of my readers were from India itself but now the top visitors are from the USA, UK, Canada and Australia.

2. Your from the Bihar state in North India. How does this state differ from the rest of India? Can you discuss some differences between the North and the South of India?

The state of Bihar is geographically situated south of Nepal and the Northern part of India, politically called the “cow belt of India”. Unfortunately this state was one of the poorest in India till recently. It is now one of the most progressive of all states and has done well as far as development is concerned.

Bihar also happens to be where Buddha came from. Born just on the India/Nepal border, he lived and preached in a place called Bodh Gaya. This is where he got his englightment (Nirvana). Basically, he used to sit under a tree and one day, he realized the causes of suffering of the world and the ways to get rid it. The word “Bihar” comes from “Vihar” meaning monastery.

When the mighty Ashoka the Great came to power whose empire extended from Bihar to Afghanistan, he converted to Buddhism and sent his sons and brothers as ambassadors to countries that later converted to Buddhism.

In addition, Aryabhatta the Indian mathematician who invented zero was from Bihar, Mahavira the founder of Jainism was from Bihar, part of the Kamasutra was written in Bihar. You get my drift about Bihar and its importance.

The North Indians use different language mostly Hindi or those languages that have been derived from Sanskrit. The food is different in North India. While South Indians have different languages and I don’t understand one bit. So basically even in our own country, sometimes communication can be a problem. But all in all, most people speak Hindi.

South India has great beeches, temples and many sites of interested. I love South Indian food.

It is often discussed that North and South Indians could of different race as well. It is said that nomadic tribes invaded India from Central Asia and settled in the North while pushing the native people towards the south.

3. Whenever we talk to travelers who have been to India they almost always have a crazy story to tell. It seems like a country that can completely overwhelm people. What gives?

Indian can be overwhelming. Most people get a culture shock when they step out of the airport. It’s mainly because of the population. Also it can be hot at times specially during the summers, where the temperatures in Delhi can reach up to 50 degrees Celsius – now that’s really hot.

Also many travelers get heckled by street touts selling them something, beggars in India are common sites, way too much noisy traffic which all add to the craziness of the place.

But whatever the case maybe, India is still a country that has to be visited once, a great country by all standards be it the warmth of the people or the food – I highly recommend visiting India.

The traffic is what gives it away. When you step in a taxi, you will realize that there are really no rules and even if there are, it’s flaunted to the extremes. Honking the horn is something of tradition in India; most drivers will have their one hand in the horn and the other on the steering wheel.

You will see a lot of overcrowding on buses and trains. Do not worry too much about, it all adds to the Indian experience.

4. India has been in the news lately for several violent crimes committed against India – to put it bluntly, how safe is India? Does it vary by area and does it help to be traveling with male companions?

I agree, India has been in the news lately for violent crimes against women. This is unfortunate and I really feel sad about what has happened to these women.

But no one talks about those tourists to India who go to India and return with great memoires. We never hear about those have great times and go back home with their lovely souvenirs. India is a safe country to travel to, in fact it can be safer then New York where chances of being mugged or subjected to violent crimes are quite high.

It’s all about perspective and how you think about it. But yes, you do have to be extra cautious. Solo women travelers are particularly vulnerable and they need to be careful when travelling to India. But if precautions are taken then I do not think there is anything to worry about.

5. India is famous for the notorious “Delhi Belly” aka food poisoning – what are some tips for staying healthy in India?

The best ways to avoid a bad belly or Delhi Belly is to have your hepatics C, cholera and typhoid jabs. Most food poisoning in India is due to water borne microbes hence avoiding water is a must. Always buy bottled water, try not to eat too much street food. But all in all, if you have your jabs, you will be fine.

When eating at stalls and eating street food, make sure that they are hygienic specially the way they are washing the dishes and their location. If they are located in clean location then there is really no harm in trying the street food.

6. What are some of the must dos to someone travelling in India that might not be that obvious?

Some do’s: You must eat at the “Dhabas”. They are little road site restaurants. In my opinion they serve the best food. Most travelers to India are missing out on a great opportunity if they are not eating at the Dhabas. Always take a camera with you and plenty of storage space or extra memory if you can, India is very photogenic and you will soon have your camera memory finished. Take photocopies of your passport and a few passport sized photographs. If you are travelling to India, then buy some Indian clothes. I suggest “kurta pajama” for men and “sari” or “salwar kameez” for women.

7. Do you have any recommendations on coping with begging in India? When is it real – when is it a scam and when, if at all, should you consider giving money?

Although a lot of people has been lifted out of poverty in India, beggars are a common site especially in the tourists areas such temples, historical monuments, railway and bus stands. Many are genuine beggars but some are doing it for free money. Some are part of scams where the money ends up in the hands of gang leader. But I have only heard of this, I really don’t know what the truth is.

You just have to cope with the beggars in India, if you really feeling sorry for them, you can give them a few Rupees. I often hand out some money to beggars but try not to give them a lot. Alternatively, you can give them something to eat. When you look at a beggar, you will know those who are genuine and who are faking it. End of the day, it’s a personal choice if you want to hand out money or now. Perhaps you could give them a few Rupees (not more than 20 Rupees), just do not get carried away.

8. What are your top three Indian cuisines?

My best Indian cuisines have to be masala Dosa, Indian thali (complete Indian dish with chappatis, rice, lentils, yogurt, some side dishes, vegetables etc and thirdly the chicken biryani. These have always been my favorites and you will find these dishes in most restaurants in India. You must try them. You can have the masala dosa for lunch and dinner. Most Indian dishes can be found in Indian restaurants around the world. I suggest you try them out in your local country and then you come to India, try it again and see which one tastes better.

9. In your section “The Bad’ concerning Indian, you mention corruption and filthy cities, do you feel that India is making strides in this area? Where do you hope to see India say, 20 years from now. 

I think so; India is definitely making significant strides in all aspects. However, corruption is rampant in all areas of Indian life. In fact, there is a current movement asking the government to introduce bills that will make every single government employee accountable for their actions including the prime minister. I hope something will come out of this movement which will ultimately help companies who wants to set up businesses in India.

Sometimes you feel there is no improvement in aspects dealing with filth, although cities where tourists frequently visit are incidentally immaculately clean so that’s nothing to worry about as far as tourism to India is concerned.

I think in the next 20 years, India will be one of the major economic powers. More and more people are now being uplifted out of poverty and into the middle class giving Indians huge economic buying capacity and prowess. India is in the G20 – give it another 20 years, and I think G8 might expand to accommodate India.

About

Shalu Sharma provides information about travelling to India. She loves watching movies, listening to music and shopping. You can connect with her on Google+, Twitter account @bihar.

Other Interviews

• Johnny Ward from OneStep4Ward
• Skott and Shawna from GetUpAndGlobe
• Josh and Caroline from Traveling9to5
• Alex from Alex In Wanderland
• Keryn from Walking On Travels
• Bethaney from FlashPackerFamily
• Tony and Meg from LandingStanding
• Kate from 30Traveler
• Hannah From CaravanOfOne
• Dave And Deb from ThePlanetD
• Craig And Caz from yTravelBlog
• Mike and Luci from 1000fights
• Simon and Erin from Never Ending Voyage
• Lauren from Never Ending Footsteps
• Hannah and Adam from GettingStamped
• Amar from GapYearEscape
• Charli and Ben from Wanderlusters
• Craig and John from FlashPackAtForty
• Flip from FlipNomad

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If you are the busy type who rarely has time to unwind after the hustle and bustle of the big city, you should consider traveling. This is an activity that is fulfilling, enjoyable, adventurous and not demanding on your time and energy. No matter how busy you are, just one good vacation in a year can make a great difference.

Popular destinations

There are many places that you can visit if you decide to take a trip, say, out of town. It all depends on your preferences. You can visit beaches, mountains, tourist resorts, wildlife parks and ancient ruins, wonders of the world or even sports arenas. The choices are limitless and are strewn all across the world. For example, Europe has some great and popular tourist destinations. You can visit London, Edinburgh, Paris, Venice, Sicily or Amsterdam, among many more places.

Visiting Amsterdam

If you are planning a vacation to Europe, Amsterdam – the capital and the largest city of the Netherlands – is one city that you should not miss out on. It has an atmosphere that is reminiscent of the 17^th Century. The environment as well as the people are very friendly. Home to a thousand bridges, over 100 km of meandering canals crisscrossing it and many huge parks, visiting this city is worth every penny.

The city center is a fantastic mixture of history, recreation and art.  As far as accommodation here is concerned, the city has hotels to cater to every budget. You may opt for hotels near the city center or farther away; you may choose from a 5 star hotel or a clean and convenient bed and breakfast, there is something for everyone.

The bottom line is that when it comes to accommodation, you have a wide array to choose from ranging from castles in the country, hotels in the city, ‘botels’ (hotels on the water) or monumental buildings.

Accessibility

Amsterdam is accessible via several means of transport. You can get in by plane, bus, sea, car or train. All this is made possible by a well-developed system of infrastructure.

Pleasures that Amsterdam offers

When in Amsterdam, you can enjoy several pleasures, for example:

• Boat and bike

The city, has a huge harbor and as mentioned above, many canals. You can enjoy a ride on a canal on one of the free ferries. Bikes are also how ‘Amsterdammers’ move around for going to work, shopping or just for fun. As a matter of fact, Amsterdam is also called the bikers capital of the world.

• Enjoy the art

The city is dotted with masterpieces. You can marvel at great works from the Van Gogh Museum, Rembrandt’s Night Watch or Vermeer’s Kitchen Maid.

• The Squares

The Rembrantplein, Leidseplein, Max Eeuweplein, Spui, Dam or the Museumplein are all very familiar names even to people who may have never visited this city. All these squares are famous for many terraces, coffee shops, restaurants, clubs and pubs. If you visit Amsterdam and miss these squares, you miss the heart of the city.

Is it expensive?

Staying within Amsterdam is affordable and the city also offers you the chance to enjoy many beauties for free! Some of these attractions include:

• The free lunch concerts and Friday night skate.
• You can ride the free ferry and visit the eye film museum or the diamond factories.
• You don’t have to spend any penny for a day in Amsterdam. You can take a walk along the canals, visit Bloemenmarkt and the Albert Cuypstraat market as well as the Magere Brug and the Begijnhof.

photo credit: Werner Kunz via photopin cc

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