The Monsoon Diaries: How to travel the world with no time or money -

Meet the Sundancers!

by Calvin Sun | January 2, 2026 | Introductions | 0 Comments

From a trip planned over a year ago after a bunch of friends joined me in Killington 2024, we are flying out to Park City, UT for our first time at the Sundance Film Festival for their final time in Park City, UT! Welcome back those returning with me for their...

Niger At Last: A Second Chance

by Calvin Sun | December 10, 2025 | Border Crossing, December 2025 Annex: Niger, Fail, Flying Fancy, Getting that VISA, How Did You Do That?, Layovers, Niger, Rules Are Meant To Be Broken, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, What Dreams May Come | 1 Comment

11 months ago, I sat on the tarmac in Niger's International Airport at Niamey, watching my trip evaporate due to visa complications. The Niger Embassy in Washington D.C. had stopped issuing visas to Americans entirely. But I don't give up. In late...

Yemen Day 4: Mukalla Drive

by Calvin Sun | December 5, 2025 | December 2025: Yemen - Hadhramaut Valley, Serendipitous!, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, Yemen | 0 Comments

Al-Mukalla Pulling ourselves away from a desert mirage paradise at Haid Al-Jazil, we swapped our armed guard at another checkpoint during the 2 hour drive to Mukalla. You point that thing away from me! After a long wait at one of the...

Yemen Day 3: Where Reality Surpasses Dreams at Haid al-Jazil-lion Miles Away From Reality

by Calvin Sun | December 4, 2025 | December 2025: Yemen - Hadhramaut Valley, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, What Dreams May Come, Yemen | 0 Comments

Haid Al-Jazil As the afternoon began to wane, we continued onto our accommodation for the night at the Haid Al-Jazil Resort Hotel, named after what it overlooks and its location perching dramatically on a cliff overlooking the Wadi Do'an. You'll find remarkably...

Yemen Day 3: Wadi-“we” Do’an Here?

by Calvin Sun | December 4, 2025 | December 2025: Yemen - Hadhramaut Valley, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, What Dreams May Come, Yemen | 0 Comments

Deep into Wadi Do'an From Shibam, we drove deeper into the Hadhramaut system, heading toward Wadi Do'an, a dramatic side valley that branches off the main wadi. Because of the recent military takeover of the local Hadrhamaut government yesterday, we had...

Yemen Day 2/3: Waking Up to A Military Takeover | Shibam Diggity – Where Are Skyscrapers Born? Here, in The Manhattan of the Desert

by Calvin Sun | December 4, 2025 | Crisis, December 2025: Yemen - Hadhramaut Valley, Travel Warnings, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, What Dreams May Come, Yemen | 0 Comments

Day 2 was supposed to start with a morning drive to Al-Mukalla, the seaport and capital city district of Hadramawt. But that plan aged poorly, because we woke up to this instead: Just like my morning of our last day in Kabul in 2019, we woke up to...

YE-ah-MAN! Yemen Mainland Day 1: Oh Sei-yun Can You See?

by Calvin Sun | December 2, 2025 | December 2025: Yemen - Hadhramaut Valley, Getting that VISA, How Did You Do That?, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, Yemen | 2 Comments

Let's just say being here to take this photo at sunset today was worth the wait: The Visa Maze: When Standard Procedures Is Anything But Standard Before you get in, you'll need an entry visa. As an American citizen in 2025, you'd expect the Yemen...

Grenada Más

by Calvin Sun | November 4, 2025 | Grenada, October 2025: Pirates of the Caribbean's At World's End | 0 Comments

🇬🇩 190 down. 3 to go. After our 3 day stay in Dominica, we took a long hour-and-a-half drive back to the airport from our Portsmouth lodgings, stopping for a quick photo opportunity along the way. Dominica's airport is tiny. You...

Dominica-n’t Miss This

by Calvin Sun | November 1, 2025 | Dominica, October 2025: Pirates of the Caribbean's At World's End, Way Way Off the Beaten Path | 0 Comments

From St. Vincent, we boarded InterCaribbean Airways JY 717 at 12:20pm. Their new airport, however, was built just 8 years ago and still has some operational quirks. The staff double-printed my first leg itinerary from St. Vincent to Barbados without including...

Dead Men Tell No Layovers: St. Vincent & The Grenadines in 12 Hours

by Calvin Sun | October 29, 2025 | Layovers, October 2025: Pirates of the Caribbean's At World's End, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | 0 Comments

Fresh off a quick overnight in Grenada (courtesy of a free JetBlue voucher from last October's Welcome to Chinatown gala), we touched down at Maurice Bishop International Airport at 1:53pm. This marked the beginning of a 3-country Caribbean...

Oh Leh, Oh Leh Oh Leh Oh Leh

by Stephanie Quan | Jul 5, 2011 | India, Introspection, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea

Leh is geographically 300 km northeast of Srinagar, but it feels like much farther in terms of its environment. As I sit in this cafe typing, we are behind the mountains. Away from the monsoon, the air has the arid, light, unforgiving smell of the high desert....

“The Most Beautiful Drive In The World”

by Calvin Sun | Jul 5, 2011 | India, Kashmir, Pakistan, Public Transportation, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea, Travel Warnings, What Dreams May Come

I guess not everything is that peachy in the region at the moment. At least Pakistan isn't blaming India.Before I write about Kashmir's Ladakh region, I have to pull the same stunt when I wrote about Varanasi and use the same video that I did then to show you...

A Wedding In Srinagar, Day 2 Of 2

by Calvin Sun | Jul 3, 2011 | India, Kashmir, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea, Way Way Off the Beaten Path

More scenes from our unplanned gueststay at a Kashmiri wedding in nowhere else but Kashmir. Pre-wedding: Getting henna done: And to end the night, the newlyweds leave by car to the groom's house.

Kashmir Misunderstood

by Calvin Sun | Jul 3, 2011 | India, Introspection, Kashmir, Lessons Learned, Mythbusters, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea, Travel Warnings

"In the last 3 days it seems like we've been the only international tourists in Srinagar." "That's because your media always paints the wrong picture of Kashmir." He was right. Although Srinagar boasts more security checkpoints than the rest of India, it...

A Wedding In Srinagar: Day 1 Of 2

by Calvin Sun | Jul 2, 2011 | Fit for Foodies, India, Kashmir, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea, Way Way Off the Beaten Path

Najia's Classmate Calvin Sun will arrive in Srinagar soon. Arrives in Srinagar 1st or 2nd July to attend Neelu's wedding. He will call your Mom/Dad. Give him a place to stay and feed him to fatten him with wazwan. - Najia's uncle in an email CC'ed to me As mentioned...

Kya India?! 24 hr. Car Rides, Scams, And Kashmir

by Calvin Sun | Jul 2, 2011 | Fail, How Did You Do That?, How's the weather?, India, Kashmir, Lessons Learned, Let me tell you a Story..., Mo' Money Mo' Problems, Nepal, Public Transportation, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea

The last 36 hours have been no less than a harrowing series of events and run-ins. For our last hours in Kathmandu, I got to head over to the suburbs of Chisablani to meet with a family that hosted my cousin when he was in Nepal last year. This was the same...

Everest.

by Calvin Sun | Jun 29, 2011 | Nepal, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea, What Dreams May Come

Today I saw Mount Everest with my own eyes. Whether it's the 14-day trek to Everest Base Camp or a 1 hour mountain flight from Kathmandu, everyone should see Earth's tallest structure at least once in their lives. I went in thinking it wasn't going...

How Are The Kids?

by Calvin Sun | Jun 28, 2011 | Community Service, Fit for Foodies, Nepal, Serendipitous!, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea, Way Way Off the Beaten Path

Before I post up my entry on Everest, I should mention our unexpected detour to Hindu Vidyapeeth (HVP) last night. HVP is a non-profit educational trust that enrolls Nepalese children from regions as far as Myanmar and provides them a quality education and prepares...

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