Tentative Intinerary

Ted and Peg Hope, who direct the Institute for Village Studies and will also be traveling with us on this journey, have been leading trips like this one for the last 20 years and they have taken the lead in developing an itinerary that will give us the opportunity to spend time in some rural villages in both Thailand and India - away from the sophisticated and Westernized cities of Bangkok or Kolkata.  At these sites we'll be working with children and in schools and also be working on some micro-hydro projects.  Here's the tentative dates and places we will go.  More details later.

January 20 - Group leaves Seattle (I will actually be leaving on January 27th)

January 22 - Arrive Bangkok

January 25 - Travel to Phra Tat, a small village on the edge of the Erawan National Forest to the west and a little north of Bangkok.  (I'll join them there).  We'll be doing a micro-hydro project in this village, studying ecotourism and also working in a school.

January 29 - Travel to a Karen Hill Tribe village near Marsot, a village north of Chaing Dao, Thailand (close to the Myanmar border) to work in schools and an AIDS orphanage and perhaps do another micro-hydro project.  

February 9 - Back to Bangkok and fly to Kolkata, India.  In Kolkata we'll be looking at demographic intensities, human needs and human rights with some NGOs there.

February 11/12 - Train to Varanasi, India, then north to Sarnath, a village north of Juanpur to work with schools that serve the Dalit children.

February 24 - Travel to Dehli, India and perhaps Agra, the site of the Taj Mahal

February 25 - Travel to Amritsar, India

March 1 - Travel to Dharamsala, India to work in the Tibetan Children's Refugee Village, study the Tibetan Congress and aspects of Buddhism.  

March 11 - The 50th anniversary of the exodus of the Dahli Lama from Tibet

March 12 -Travel to Gangtok, India to go trekking in Sikkim

March 18/19 - Travel back to Bangkok

March 19 - Depart for Seattle