Gold and Beautiful

Herd of Bighorn Sheep on the Trail I finally checked off an item from my bucket list - hiking in Banff and Jasper National parks! The Canadian Rockies are full of beautiful lakes, mountains and wildlife, and they had been on my list for a really long time. So, I was happy to check them off this summer. We went on a 9 day trip in the Alberta area and loved every minute of it. While we hiked quite a bit and saw tons of lakes, I will share some of the highlights in this post, that I think are not to be missed. Check out my post on hiking in the Colorado Rockies to read about appropriate gear and altitude adjustment. All of that applies here too.  Banff National Park : On day 1 in Banff National Park, we headed to Johnston Canyon and hiked the Inkpots trail . The canyon itself is beautiful and most people hike to the lower and upper falls. To get away from the crowds though, continue hiking further on the Inkpots trail. This leads to five cool springs where the water percolates from the

After a three-year looooong hiatus thanks to COVID-19, we finally visited India in December 2021. This time we spent a few days in Jaipur, before spending time with family and friends in Mumbai and Pune. Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan and is known as Pink City, due to the pink hued buildings in the city. Rajasthan is popular among tourists and part of the golden triangle that many tourists visit. Probably due to COVID, we encountered fewer crowds than usual. We also went quite early everywhere and that helped combat the crowds. Most people spend 2-3 days in Jaipur and probably see more places than we did. But we were fairly jet-lagged when we reached there and were glad to have more days at our disposal. We stayed at Karma Haveli in Pink City and enjoyed the stay. It is in the older part of the city, which puts it in close proximity to many monuments. We used the rickshaw/tuk-tuk to visit the nearby monuments. The staff and the service are amazing, and the rooms are great too. We