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...

Lazy Mumbai

by Calvin Sun | Jul 22, 2010 | How's the weather?, India, Serendipitous!, Summer 2010: Southeast Asia & India

Really nothing to update you on except I'm still reading books, saw some incoming Columbia students at a send-off event, and enjoying the 10 feet of monsoonal rains every 10 minutes. It's a good time to rest in Mumbai. . . . Below is the annual Columbia...

Finally In Mumbai

by Calvin Sun | Jul 21, 2010 | India, Summer 2010: Southeast Asia & India

Now that I'm safe and sound in the home of my college friend, Avanti Maluste, I can take my time to recuperate and rest before resuming my journey in Hyderabad. I managed to finally hunker down and read; I managed to finish Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid...

Udaipur Is Pretty Pimp

by Calvin Sun | Jul 20, 2010 | India, Summer 2010: Southeast Asia & India, Way Way Off the Beaten Path

Udaipur has long been regarded as "the most romantic city in all of India." James Bond couldn't even resist the city's charms in Octopussy (which is played at every restaurant in Udaipur at 7pm everyday). So allow me to give it an obnoxious American twist: It's...

Reflections And Superlatives: Video + Some Additions

by Annah Kim | Jul 19, 2010 | *Countries, Post-travel Reflections, Uncategorized Stories

Scroll down to find some additions that I made to my lists and view the video that I was unable to post earlier! Back in the states and reflecting on my trip... Things Lost/Stolen: 1 Blackberry (Pickpocketed, Philippines) Eyeglasses (Disappearing act...

SOUTH KOREA: Seoul Evenings

by Annah Kim | Jul 19, 2010 | Fit for Foodies, South Korea, Summer 2010: Southeast Asia & India

Video Postings finally worked! I have some more overdue videos that I will be posting later on this afternoon/evening... but for now: So, in Seoul, it seems like there are SO MANY of us Mount Holyoke Women. When I arrived I stayed with Charlina Ahn (MHC 2009)....

From Jodhpur To Udaipur

by Calvin Sun | Jul 19, 2010 | How's the weather?, India, Serendipitous!, Summer 2010: Southeast Asia & India

From Jodhpur... ...to taking a sleeper bus to Udaipur... ...to finally absorbing "the most romantic city in India": I forgot to mention that when I arrived in Jodhpur yesterday morning, I met a South Korean actress named Ryu who...

The Battle Of The Forts: Jodhpur

by Calvin Sun | Jul 18, 2010 | How's the weather?, India, Summer 2010: Southeast Asia & India

I'm now in the Rajasthan district of India, doing a back to back visit of its capital Jaipur, "the pink city", and nearby Jodhpur, "the blue city."Let's see how pink and blue go together... JAIPUR In my Jaipur rickshaw, I...

The Pink City Of Jaipur Has Tough Acts To Follow

by Calvin Sun | Jul 17, 2010 | India, Summer 2010: Southeast Asia & India

It's hard to top Amritsar and Varanasi, which is what I'm struggling with while I'm residing in the Pink City of Jaipur. Today I saw the impressive Amber Fort, City Palace, Hawa Majal, and went shopping along Jalahar Bazaar, but all the wonder and bewilderment I...

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