Our journey begins from central and southern India. We were born into the rich and diverse eastern civilization of India. We are among the minority of people in India who have received a formal western education in English. We rode the high tide of the hi-tech wave into the western tip of the western civilization - the United States of America. While this hardly makes a unique story, a sudden twist in the story makes ours an interesting story to tell.
We got an expat offer at work to move to Switzerland in 2011 for 2 years. Tempting as it was, with 2 careers and children's education to manage - this was not an easy decision - particularly since we were leading a pretty settled and happy life in Overland Park, Kansas (rated consistently as one of the best places to live in the US). But Zurich, Switzerland wasn't exactly far behind as a destination - it's consistently ranked as among the top best places to live in the world.
We have had this sense of adventure that in the first place took us out of India to the United States and that old restless feeling was re-kindled and we decided to take the plunge - and as they say, luck follows the brave. We gained so much - Careers, Personal growth, making new friends and we traveled a lot and we got grand stories to tell.
For 2 and 1/2 years, we abandoned most social activities and on every possible opportunity, we traveled. Our travels were simple affairs. We tried to travel light and used public transportation whenever possible and walked a lot - so that saved us money but that also meant we reduced our carbon footprint. We avoided costly tour packages. Instead did our own research on doing our tours ourselves - gaining valuable insight into local offerings. Importantly, we took the children to every event we went to, whether they were late in the night or happening in dingy corners of an old city. Luckily - it all worked out without bad incidents - after we took some basic precautions (keeping the wallet in front pocket and leaving it behind where not needed, wearing inconspicuous clothes and no jewelry, etc.) . However, we didn't stop from spending on local specialties (for e.g. an Opera in Vienna, Musical in London, a Dervish show in Istanbul, or a full course grand dinner in France).
What a joy ride this has been. We have traveled to over 25 countries and visited innumerable cities. We believe that our travels to all these destinations, the time we spent on researching these places and our own background of the East and the West has given us a balanced, rounded and complete view of the western civilization. While there have been countless renditions of the stories of the Eastern and Western civilizations by "western specialists", there are not so many stories of the western civilization narrated by "Easterners" - particularly by Easterners who are also tech savvy and maintain a scientific approach. Yes - we consider ourselves Eastern although we have adopted many of the western ideologies. Also, there is no simple, easy to read story that combines the West's spiritual past with it's modern science and technological present - something that we have been privy to experience. This is also a story hopefully that explains how everything appears to have started out equally between the East and West and at what instance, the west sped past the east.
So this is a story of stories worth telling and as they say every picture tells a story and this story is told best with pictures - and so we present to you a picture story of the west as told by easterners.
Some considerations:
1. The pictures in the site are captured by us and the prose and captions are written by us. Rarely though, we may have used a freely distributed image (always acknowledging its source) to tell a story if the image made a compelling case to convey the message in the story. If you want to share any of the images or stories in this site, please:
2. This site has many pictures that feature us and/or our family to add a personal touch to the story. Our opinion is that the personal touch catches attention better and the expression convey the message better - but the objective here though is to tell the stories of from these travels.
3. We want to hear from you. If you like our stories, or you like to share your thoughts or even contradict us, please feel free to air your views - we look forward to them, gladly. We are available at [email protected]
4. The stories told here are mostly true to the best of the information that we have at our disposal. Please feel free to air corrections if the corrections are from valid sources. It's also fair to point out that in many cases, the connections between different facts could be our opinions and this may not be held against us in a court of law for claiming damages - all that sort of stuff that fill pages that you accept unthinkingly when you install a new software - yes this statement is our disclaimer from any legal action against us based on what is said in this site.
Enjoy!
Neha, Avni, Nirupama and Anjan Madhwesh
We got an expat offer at work to move to Switzerland in 2011 for 2 years. Tempting as it was, with 2 careers and children's education to manage - this was not an easy decision - particularly since we were leading a pretty settled and happy life in Overland Park, Kansas (rated consistently as one of the best places to live in the US). But Zurich, Switzerland wasn't exactly far behind as a destination - it's consistently ranked as among the top best places to live in the world.
We have had this sense of adventure that in the first place took us out of India to the United States and that old restless feeling was re-kindled and we decided to take the plunge - and as they say, luck follows the brave. We gained so much - Careers, Personal growth, making new friends and we traveled a lot and we got grand stories to tell.
For 2 and 1/2 years, we abandoned most social activities and on every possible opportunity, we traveled. Our travels were simple affairs. We tried to travel light and used public transportation whenever possible and walked a lot - so that saved us money but that also meant we reduced our carbon footprint. We avoided costly tour packages. Instead did our own research on doing our tours ourselves - gaining valuable insight into local offerings. Importantly, we took the children to every event we went to, whether they were late in the night or happening in dingy corners of an old city. Luckily - it all worked out without bad incidents - after we took some basic precautions (keeping the wallet in front pocket and leaving it behind where not needed, wearing inconspicuous clothes and no jewelry, etc.) . However, we didn't stop from spending on local specialties (for e.g. an Opera in Vienna, Musical in London, a Dervish show in Istanbul, or a full course grand dinner in France).
What a joy ride this has been. We have traveled to over 25 countries and visited innumerable cities. We believe that our travels to all these destinations, the time we spent on researching these places and our own background of the East and the West has given us a balanced, rounded and complete view of the western civilization. While there have been countless renditions of the stories of the Eastern and Western civilizations by "western specialists", there are not so many stories of the western civilization narrated by "Easterners" - particularly by Easterners who are also tech savvy and maintain a scientific approach. Yes - we consider ourselves Eastern although we have adopted many of the western ideologies. Also, there is no simple, easy to read story that combines the West's spiritual past with it's modern science and technological present - something that we have been privy to experience. This is also a story hopefully that explains how everything appears to have started out equally between the East and West and at what instance, the west sped past the east.
So this is a story of stories worth telling and as they say every picture tells a story and this story is told best with pictures - and so we present to you a picture story of the west as told by easterners.
Some considerations:
1. The pictures in the site are captured by us and the prose and captions are written by us. Rarely though, we may have used a freely distributed image (always acknowledging its source) to tell a story if the image made a compelling case to convey the message in the story. If you want to share any of the images or stories in this site, please:
- Acknowledge the source of the pictures and/or prose.
- Hyperlink this site where applicable.
- Do not share, reprint, reproduce pictures that feature our family without explicit permission from us.
2. This site has many pictures that feature us and/or our family to add a personal touch to the story. Our opinion is that the personal touch catches attention better and the expression convey the message better - but the objective here though is to tell the stories of from these travels.
3. We want to hear from you. If you like our stories, or you like to share your thoughts or even contradict us, please feel free to air your views - we look forward to them, gladly. We are available at [email protected]
4. The stories told here are mostly true to the best of the information that we have at our disposal. Please feel free to air corrections if the corrections are from valid sources. It's also fair to point out that in many cases, the connections between different facts could be our opinions and this may not be held against us in a court of law for claiming damages - all that sort of stuff that fill pages that you accept unthinkingly when you install a new software - yes this statement is our disclaimer from any legal action against us based on what is said in this site.
Enjoy!
Neha, Avni, Nirupama and Anjan Madhwesh
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