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How’s this for a holiday: getting up before sunrise, no alcohol, and wearing modest, unremarkable clothing. This is what hundreds come to do at an ashram in the south of India.

Every year, they come, mostly young Western women, to medicate, practice yoga, and follow an acetic lifestyle. I spent 12 days at the Yoga Vacation of the ashram Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Dhanwantari, whose mission is popularize the practice in the West.

Listen to the report.

Note: this post shares advice that is best enjoyed if starting life all over again. Belief in reincarnation is advised.

Get born into a family that isn’t germophobic

Play in the dirt

Don’t take antibiotics for every little infection

And more tips inside.

We arrived in Tripoli and for the first time in two Lebanese weeks, we felt like we were in the Middle East.

The look-at-me designer shops that water down Beirut were nowhere in sight. There were no Pepsi billboards or golden arches, or other homogenizers of Western culture in the old city.

The main city square dominated by an old clock tower was abuzz with messengers, merchants transporting goods and ideas, soldiers on coffee break, all the activity you’d expect to see 200 years ago in a touristic corner that hasn’t fallen to tourism.

It’s a shame that so many tourists come to Byblos on a day trip. This is a town that begs for slow, aimless wandering, both during daytime and at night.

It’s an easy mistake to make, though. The historical part of Byblos, and the only one of interest, really, is barely the size of five city blocks. You’re greeted by a souk selling bland clothing, the usual souvenirs, overpriced cafés, and one interesting bookstore specializing in Lebanese literature.

But it’s not the shopping that stirs you, it’s the perfectly resorted stonework of the houses that glow ochre in the Mediterranean light. You can almost picture Romans, Persians, Ottomans, or any of the many civilizations that traipsed though Lebanon haggling for dates. I say almost because the plastic Christmas trees and snowmen the city scattered on the souk destroy any possibility of creative visualization.

Blame it on the Saudis. That’s what the Lebanese do.

The most striking first impression of Beirut is the number of cranes deployed for new luxury condos. Dubai usually gets the fame for unfettered construction, but we were in Dubai, and it’s nothing like this.

It doesn’t make sense. Lebanon is at peace, but for how long is anyone’s guess.

Nothing like seeing two Indian men holding hands to show how homophobic Westerners really are.

or

Nothing like seeing two Indian men holding hands to show how sexually repressed their society has become.

Which one is it? I think it’s both. What’s your say?

It’s tempting to photograph India by resorting to clichés: women in colourful sarees, street cows, bearded mystics, soaring gopuram, dirty-faced children splashing in the river.

We hope that the following pictures show faces of India that go beyond the typecast.

See the full post for a Flickr slideshow.

Hello. How are you? We are fine.

But we’re on a time-consuming transit between India and the Middle East. Hence the cavernous silence of this blog.

We’ll have new content up very soon.

For your troubles, please accept this excellent video of Lebanon, our next destination.

As a general rule, cooking courses for tourists follow the following recipe:

1. Take cook of dubious skill and place him before a group of earnest culinary travellers.

2. Teach them three to five local dishes. Omit any history, context, or philosophy of food.

3. Serve it cold.

4. Charge them a 200% markup on ingredients and time.

5. Profit for a mediocre restaurant.

Convenience rules over the mountain town of Kumily, in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Most Keralan specialties, from spices, to wildlife, to theatre to martial arts can be found within its five or six streets. This makes Kumily a cultural Wal-Mart of South India.

But like any all-in-one, each component is of doubtful quality.