Videos of the Taj Mahal (November 2014)

Lunch in Old Delhi - November 2014

Watching the chefs prepare delicious naan at a tiny lunch spot in Old Delhi, India.

Old Delhi Chili Market

Dad and I visiting the Chili Market (with our amazing guide Anuj Dhawan from Amber Tours) in Old Delhi, India on November 2, 2014.

Here's How You Can Cut Down on Junk Mail, Emails, and Unsolicited Telemarketer Calls

This stuff annoys me to no end, especially the hundreds of pieces of junk mail that I receive annually. So, I did some research and found out how to stop some of it.

Unsolicited Calls from Telemarketers

The National Do Not Call Registry, operated by the Federal Trade Commission, is a beautiful thing. It doesn't stop 100% of the calls, but on the rare occasion that I receive an unsolicited call, they hang up as soon as I mention that I'm on the DNC Registry and never call back.

Click here to Add Your Number to the DNC list. I added my number years ago when the registry first became available, and then check to verify or renew it every couple of years. I definitely noticed a difference in the number of calls I received after my number went on the registry (it takes about 30 days to process). Now I get maybe one or two calls a year. It is important to note that you will still receive calls from certain types of businesses, like debt collectors, and any business that you have interacted with, unless you tell them not to contact you anymore. For instance, if you ordered something from Joe's Bacon Barn, Joe can call you to tell you about their specials even if you are on the DNC list, unless you specifically tell him that he cannot contact you any more. After that, additional calls can be violations.

Click here to Submit a Complaint. Once you've been on the registry for thirty days, it's quick and easy to file a complaint (takes about 30 seconds) and it's okay if you don't know the name of the company or any other details. You just provide whatever information you have (such as the number and date/time of the call) and click "submit." Obviously, the FTC does not have the resources to investigate every complaint, but your complaint goes into a database so that they can prepare cases against the most serious offenders. I kind of think of this as a civic duty - the more people who use this resource, the better the government can go after the offenders.

Pre-Screened Credit and Insurance Offers (Mail, Email, etc.)

Did you know that you can "opt-out" of receiving all those credit card offers in the mail?! I only recently learned about this and I'm super excited about not receiving any more of that junk mail. In order to opt-out (or learn more about it), go to OptOutPrescreen. There, you can submit a form online to opt-out for five years; there is also information on how to request permanent opt out by mail.

Additionally, you can stop some direct mail and email marketing.

Email: You can register up to three email addresses with the Direct Marketing Association's (DMA) Mail Preference Service (MPS), which will remain on the mail preference service for six years. After you register, it takes about two months before you start to see a decline in emails. 

Postal Mail: As far as "snail mail" is concerned, the DMA "lets you opt out of receiving unsolicited commercial mail from many national companies for five years. When you register with this service, your name will be put on a "delete" file and made available to direct-mail marketers and organizations. This will reduce most of your unsolicited mail. However, your registration will not stop mailings from organizations that do not use the DMA's Mail Preference Service." 

Source: FTC website.

Click here to register with DMA's Mail Preference Service. I have not registered yet, so I don't know how well this works. I plan to register very soon!
Here's more information from the DMA website:

• What can the mail preference service do for me?
  There are plenty of reasons to keep receiving direct mail. But maybe you just want to cut back on certain types that you're not interested in. We can help you do just that. We've divided direct mail into four categories:
  
  

  1. Credit Offers
  2. Catalogs
  3. Magazine Offers (this includes subscription offers, newsletters, periodicals and other promotional mailings)
  4. Other Mail Offers (this includes donation requests, bank offers, retail promotions and more)

  For each of these categories, you can choose whether or not you want to receive mail from companies one at a time. Or, if you prefer, you can choose to stop receiving mail for all companies you haven't purchased from or donated to within an entire category. Any choices you make will be effective for five years from the date you make them.

Next Stop: South Pole

(No, I’m not going to the South Pole, Mom! I promise!)

Laying out on the beach at my resort in Tangalle, Sri Lanka, I met an adorable Swiss couple in their mid-twenties, Lee and Priscilla. Lee and Priscilla come from Interlaken (coincidentally, I visited Interlaken en route to Grindelwald in 2001) and speak German, but Lee had studied in San Diego for a year and communicated well in English. Priscilla also understood a lot of English (a lot more than she realized when we first met!), but did not feel comfortable speaking more than a couple words at first. They are such a great couple! They’ve only been together three years, but they have spent as much of that time traveling as possible – they are both passionate about seeing the world and, spending time with them, one can easily see how that mutual passion strengthens their relationship. After talking for a bit, I told them I was going to walk to another beach that I had visited the previous day with a woman named Monika (more about awesome Monika later), because I wanted to collect sea shells. Lee asked if they could join me and I was happy to have them come along!

We spent the morning on “the seashell beach,” which had a really cool Buddhist altar on a patch of green that jutted out into the water. We drank fresh juice from a beachside restaurant called Turtle Landing, and I ate some delicious fresh shrimp there as well. Around 1:00, we decided to head back and they invited me to join them to do some sightseeing that afternoon. I gladly accepted the invitation because I had not made any sightseeing plans in Sri Lanka and they already had a driver arranged to take them to a lighthouse and a couple Buddhist temples. I wasn’t super excited about seeing a lighthouse, but I thought, what the heck, I’ll check it out.

I am so glad I did. Dondra Head Lighthouse, the tallest lighthouse in Sri Lanka and one of the tallest in Asia, is located almost at the southernmost tip of Sri Lanka. In fact, standing at the lighthouse, you are literally at the end of the world: the next landmass to the south is the South Pole!

We were the only tourists at the lighthouse when we arrived, and we entered to find a couple of guys who worked there (it is still an active lighthouse). For a small fee, they allowed us to climb to the top of the lighthouse. There were a lot of stairs. When we reached the top, we opened a small door and climbed out onto the ledge.

To say that the view was breathtaking is inadequate. I have never, in my life, seen a more spectacular view anywhere in the world. We were all speechless for at least a full minute after we stepped outside. There we were, standing alone on top of the world, basically at the end of the world, looking out at the vast Ocean and the landscape of this magnificent country. I will post some videos, but there is just no way to capture that feeling. The clean, brisk air, the birds flying below, perfect spots of bright white clouds, blue water crashing ferociously into the rocks below, and the endless Ocean. That experience with nature was far more spiritual for me than any church or temple I have visited before or since. Just beautiful.

I have no idea how long we were up there. It could have been 15 minutes or an hour. I was just lost in the moment. Eventually, we started back down the stairs and ran into at least 30 tourists on their way up. We had come at the perfect time.

• Click this link for a video from the top of the lighthouse. 
• Click this link for another video from the top of the lighthouse.

After leaving the lighthouse, we went to a nearby Buddhist temple that was hundreds of years old and fed bananas to the temple elephants in the yard. 

 

Then we drove to another temple, on top of which sat a magnificent giant Buddha, maybe eight stories high and covered in mosaic tile. The inside of the temple had amazing sculptures and paintings, some over 600 years old. 

 

It started sprinkling a bit as we were leaving the temple, but the rain passed by the time we reached the resort. After freshening up in our cabanas, we met for dinner at the restaurant and later shared a bottle of South African wine on my verandah. It was a wonderful day spent with wonderful people – Priscilla was using English quite a bit by the end of the day – and I was sad that they would be leaving the next day for Mirissa Beach.

The next day, Wednesday, I spent most of the day at the beach and at my villa planning the last few days of my trip. I needed to do some souvenir shopping, so I decided to head to Galle, a city built in and around an old Dutch fort about two hours away. Thursday morning, I went down to meet my driver and the hotel manager, Rohan, informed me that Lee and Priscilla had left a small item behind and they had called asking if I could send it to them. Rohan told them that I was heading to Galle, so they messaged me asking if I could pick them up on the way! I was more than happy to see my friends again, so my driver stopped in Mirissa, where we picked up the Swiss kids, and then we went together to Galle.

We had a lovely day eating and shopping in the cute colonial town. Galle reminded me a little of Valetta, Malta, which was a fusion of British architecture and customs with African cultural influences. Galle had a definite European flair, but the Asian influences were a constant reminder of how far away they had come from colonial times. The shops were great and the company was such a pleasure! Late afternoon, we returned to the car and headed one town over to drop Lee and Priscilla at their new hotel in Unawatuna. Again, I was sad to part with them, but it was so nice to get to spend another day together.

On the drive from Unawatuna to Tangalle, my driver told me a little about the impact of the 2004 Tsunami on Southern Sri Lanka. He was actually one of two men from the district who attended a post-Tsunami training camp in Thailand. He returned as a manager of the rebuilding process, a job he held for two years when the project was complete. I was surprised to learn that Tangalle and Galle were two of the hardest hit cities in the Tsunami. Over 40,000 people in Sri Lanka lost their lives in the Tsunami, many from this area. If you are interested in learning more about the Tsunami, which killed 250,000 people in 18 countries, there is a documentary available on YouTube that I’ve watched twice. Also, the film The Impossible with Ewan Macgregor and Naomi Watts is excellent.

Today is November 20. On the morning of November 23, I will head to Colombo to spend the day before flying to Mumbai that evening. From Mumbai, I will be coming back to America. Time has flown.