Raam Dev

Hello, future.

A Himalayan Quest – I need your help!

Nepali School Children

Early Sunday morning, two brothers will pick me up from my hotel in Kathmandu. We will drive several hours to a place called Sole Bazaar and from there I hear it's an eight-hour hike by foot, through areas infested with leeches, to the remote village where the project is located.

This isn't a photo expedition or a mini-vacation. If the weather holds out, I will be taking plenty of photos but that's not the purpose of this trip. I'm doing this for the kids like those in the photo above. Continue reading

Keeping an Eye on the Bigger Picture

Family Billboard in Vietnam

My bladder was about to burst.

Just a few more minutes, two more pages and I'll stop and run to the restroom.

OK, back to work. I'm on a roll. No time for lunch today.

And so went the three weeks that I spent putting together my first ebook. When it comes down to it I can be very stubborn, even obsessive. It's a quality I struggle to put to good use, but when it finds good use it's amazing what gets done.

The staff at the cafe knew me by name -- some of them even have my phone number. When I arrived, they knew what I would order and where I would sit. Sometimes they would inquire as to what I was working on. Sometimes they would leave me notes telling me how impressed they were by my diligence.

When the cafe closed at ten, I would walk back to my hotel room, past the crowds of drunken tourists who were loudly making their way into one of several clubs, where even louder music was blaring, filling the streets of Kathmandu with sounds that didn't quite fit with my idea of rugged and romantic Nepal -- a country at the top of the world, home to the tallest mountains on the planet.

I would plug in my laptop, lay down on the bed, and continue working until two in the morning, wrestling with unreliable WiFi and the occasional power outage while the sound of monsoon rains trickled in through my window. Five hours later I would wake up and repeat the entire process again. Continue reading

Introducing a New Collaborative Project: Small Ways to Make a Big Difference

Small Ways to Make a Big Difference Cover

Exactly three weeks ago, I started working on a collaborative project that had no name. I sent out dozens of emails requesting participation and quickly realized that I needed some way of organizing the emails so they wouldn't get lost. So, I created a tag in Gmail for this project and I named it with the first thing that came to mind: "Change the World".

Every time someone replied to an email for the project, the "Change the World" tag in my Gmail account lit up and it put a smile on my face.

Every time I got an contribution, it reminded me why I was doing this project. It reminded me that there are so many people all over the globe who genuinely care about this world and who have ideas for how to make it a better place.

In just three weeks, over 40 bloggers contributed more than 100 ways to live more sustainable, to live happier and healthier, to get more out of life, to inspire and share, to reconnect with our true selves, to be a leader, to exist more intelligently.

More than 100 ways that you can begin setting an example to be the change you wish to see in the world. More than 100 ways to make a difference in the world right now. Continue reading

Advice for my Future Self

He looked noticeably older, a little worn, but utterly calm with a presence that seemed to exude experience, awareness, and most of all a sense of confidence. He seemed a lot more laid back and easygoing than my present self.

I was sitting at a small coffee table in Kathmandu, Nepal and I had looked up from my laptop to find myself, twenty years in the future, sitting right across from me.

As I stared in disbelief, he leaned back and eased into the chair. His eyes smiled and he looked over me, as if he was inspecting a rare artifact.

"I'm you", he said with a bit of humor in his voice, "twenty years in the future. I only have a few minutes and I'd like to hear what advice you can give me." Continue reading

Attitude is Everything

Pakistani Woman and Baby in UAE

She smiled and asked in a somewhat sarcastic tone, "Do you live here or something?"

For her, dropping $250 in a single day was no big deal. For me, that's my whole budget for food, transportation, and lodging for an entire month.

Over the course of the past week, we had both spent several hours a day at the same cafe in the backpackers district of Kathmandu and on several occasions exchanged glances without speaking a word.

The free wifi and excellent coffee made the cafe a great place to use my laptop and for the past week it has been my home while I work during the day on my upcoming ebook, Small Ways to Make a Big Difference.

I returned the smile, simultaneously surprised and happy that my out-of-control facial hair -- which I refuse to cut until the end of my initial six-month journey -- had not scared away yet another person.
Continue reading

7 Pieces of Advice for my Younger Self

Raam Dev at Age Three

My upcoming ebook (due out by the end of this month) wouldn't be possible without the incredible contributions I've been receiving from bloggers and non-bloggers alike (thank you!).

Creating something for a good cause that brings together the collective knowledge of so many individuals is exactly the type of project I want to be apart of, so when a new friend on Twitter, Abubakar Jamil, invited me to contribute to a free ebook he's putting together, I felt it would be the perfect opportunity to give back to the community.

Abubakar's ebook will be a compilation of life lessons and advice from various bloggers and non-bloggers. The Life Lessons Series project already has over twenty contributors and the combined volume of knowledge and advice is incredible.

My good friend Farnoosh Brock, whose own list of life lessons is an absolute goldmine of advice, emailed me yesterday to make sure I was writing this post. I must say, there's nothing quite like receiving motivation and support from someone you've never actually met. Continue reading

It’s time to care (in the real world)

A couple sitting together on Marine Drive in Mumbai, India

This is a guest post by my buddy and good friend, Ali Dark. Ali lives in Brisbane, Australia and I'm currently in Kathmandu, Nepal.

We spent about an hour and a half on Skype bouncing ideas off each other and discussing ways that we could help make the world a better place. This is a great example of why I think technology gives us the perfect opportunity to start bringing the world together -- two people who never met each other, separated by thousands of miles, brainstorming ideas to help improve humanity.

Ali and myself are both going through life changes that involve a strong dissatisfaction with "normal" and an even stronger desire to do something that ensures we leave behind a world better than we found it. This blog post was born from our discussion and I think it includes some important ideas for bloggers and non-bloggers alike.

Making a difference starts with taking a stand. It starts with planting our feet on the ground, openly showing that we care, and being willing to discuss and brainstorm solutions to real problems... problems that are determining right now the future we leave behind for our children. Continue reading

Punching my Inner Critic in the Face: An Interview and a New Project

It's so easy to be our own worst critic. When I was recently asked to do my first Skype interview, I immediately thought back to my teenage struggles of talking on the phone.

I felt fear build up inside me as I recalled how nervous and unsure of myself I used to feel. I remembered the fear of being laughed at or of saying the wrong thing.

Now I was going to talk on the phone for thirty minutes while being recorded?

Since those days as a teenager, I've held several jobs that required talking on the phone. I learned to manage those fears and not let them get in my way of getting things done.

But this was my first Skype interview -- the first time I had recorded something that was intended to be shared with the public. That gave my inner critic new ammunition to generate fear and self-doubt. Continue reading

Frugal Travel Report for June 2010

This is the forth in a series of reports detailing my travel expenses during a six-month sustainable travel trip through India, Vietnam, and Nepal, as outlined in The Plan: 6 Months, 3 Countries, and $3,000.

Frugal Travel Reports
March 2010 (includes Pre-Travel expenses)
April 2010
May 2010
June 2010
July 2010
August 2010

This month has seen me travel more than 6,000 miles in three countries: India, Vietnam, and Nepal. As a result, the expenses this month are the highest since I paid for my round-trip ticket to India when I started my journey back in March.

However, I've been extremely fortunate to have had free lodging, food, and transportation for my last two weeks in India, free transportation, food, and some free lodging during the two weeks in Vietnam, and now free lodging and some free transportation in Nepal. Continue reading

An Inner Earthquake: My First Three Months Living as a Nomad

This past week marks three months since I left the place I called home for the first twenty-eight years of my life. I spent the past three months in India, a world away from my familiar home in the Northeast United States and I'm currently staying in Vietnam for two weeks before going to Nepal for two months.

Part of the reason for leaving home, changing my lifestyle, becoming a nomad was to rediscover myself; to strip my life of everything that might distract me from the process of inner discovery.

I was beginning to feel as though my life had gone down the wrong road; as if I had accidentally walked down the wrong path and I was watching the correct path disappear through a thick forest. I had to cut across. Whatever it took, I had to get to the other side. I felt an uncontrollable urge to follow my inner compass.

So I quit my job, sold all my stuff, and planned to live abroad for six months on a tiny budget of $3,000. What happened after that wasn't important to me. With the entire world knocking at my door and absolutely no experience traveling abroad, my new lifestyle started in India. I had no idea what to expect of the following six months -- I only knew that my life would never be the same again. Continue reading

Travel Update: Tours, Families, Kids, and Air Conditioning in Vietnam

Rice Fields in Hue, Vietnam

I mentioned in my previous post that I wasn't going to post on a schedule anymore, but I didn't expect to go this long without posting anything.

I flew to central Vietnam a few days ago to a city called Hue (pronounced hu-way). The hotel, which is still under construction, is very comfortable for $15/night but it has no WiFi access and I wake up every morning to the sound of banging. But I'm not paying for the room, so I can't complain.

My friend David and his wife Mai have been awesome; they're letting me tag along with them to visit Mai's family and they have been introducing me to everybody along the way (Asians have huge families).

The first few days in Ho Chi Minh City were packed full of tours and trips to various places. Waking up at six in the morning with only a few hours of sleep wasn't fun, but I wasn't going to miss an opportunity to get a free tour of Vietnam. Continue reading

Arriving in Vietnam and Thoughts on Slow Travel

The Malaysian Airlines red-eye from India to Vietnam was comfortable, but somehow I only managed to get two hours of sleep. Being that this was my first time flying Malaysian Airlines, I was pleasantly surprised by the fruit-colored seats and colorfully dressed flight attendants -- quite a different experience compared to the dry and bland feeling of say, an American Airlines flight.

My flight stopped in Malaysia's beautiful Kuala Lumpur airport for two hours where I almost accidentally got on a plane to Singapore instead of Ho Chi Minh City. Continue reading

Why Traveling to Third World Countries is Essential for World Peace

Family of Four at Home in New Delhi

Every time I have heard the response to what someone would do given a billion dollars, the answer always includes doing something that would change the world.

People are genuinely good at heart. Everybody wants to make the world a better place; everybody wants to help. Why then is there so much poverty and suffering in the world?

The answer, I believe, lies in our mindset towards life -- the established set of attitudes that we hold towards living, working, and existing. Such a mindset is not easy to change on a large scale, especially given that living standards generally remain the same, or improve, from one generation the next.

Most of us live in a bubble. We don't see the full picture of what's going on in the world. OK, we at least have an idea. We read news stories and blog posts, see pictures, and even watch videos. We have a general idea of what it's like out there. We know the world isn't all smiles and love. Continue reading

What is Your Life Gravity?

Gravity in Action

At least in this dimension, everything relies on gravity. Even the creatures that have learned to cheat gravity by flying still require a place to set down; a place to feed, reproduce, relax, and recharge.

Breaking through our own preconceived limitations and discovering new heights is vital to growth, but to perch on our newly discovered ledge and reassess our new position, we still need gravity -- we still need a link to Earth.

Our life gravity can come in many different forms. It could be a vision or a mission. It could be the welfare and happiness of our family, a set of specific goals, or even the advancement of a career. It could be a set of core values or principles on which we base all our decisions. Continue reading

Sustainable Distribution of Abundance or Why I Don't Haggle in the Third World

Holding Hands

I read somewhere recently that bloggers should be transparent to ensure authenticity. It made me think about my own writing and question whether or not I was being fully transparent with you, my readers.

I wondered, what does it mean for me to be more transparent? Since I'm traveling, does it mean writing about the little things that I generally avoiding talking about? Does it mean sharing my thoughts more often?

Perhaps I could write about my worries of running out of money or the several cases of mild travelers diarrhea that have started to get annoying. I could write about how I sometimes feel guilty for spending too much time in high-end cafes, enjoying the air conditioning and delicious coffee when I should be outside exploring the small local shops. (In my defense, it was a safe place to work on my laptop.)

What about writing how I felt for ignoring the handicapped guy with no legs who extended his hand and asked for money while I was in the beach town of Gokarna? If I help him, I thought, why shouldn't I help all of them? How do I choose who receives help? Continue reading

Video: Follow Your Inner Compass

I recorded this video while I was walking back to the farmhouse in Ujire, India, on the two-mile road between the main road and the farmhouse. Although I left Ujire several weeks ago, I'm posting this now because I feel this message is very important.

When we follow our inner compass -- our intuition -- we discover that life feels less restricted. Things just seem to flow from one thing to the next.

This effect can even be seen in the video. Initially, I wasn't going to record anything and I began walking away from the stream to continue on to the farm. But I felt something tugging at me. My inner compass was telling me to turn around and capture the moment. Continue reading

Frugal Travel Report for May 2010

This is the third in a series of reports detailing my travel expenses during a six-month sustainable travel trip through India, Vietnam, and Nepal, as outlined in The Plan: 6 Months, 3 Countries, and $3,000.

Frugal Travel Reports
March 2010 (includes Pre-Travel expenses)
April 2010
May 2010
June 2010
July 2010
August 2010

In my recent reader survey, several of you mentioned that you really enjoy these Frugal Travel Reports. This month, I have been even more meticulous with tracking my expenses and I have discovered that it really helps me see exactly where my money is going. I've been keeping a single page in my notebook dedicated to all the expenses for the current month.

The month of May has seen me travel the most since I arrived here in India more than 80 days ago. In fact, I moved around a lot more than I would have preferred. However, I was invited to a wedding in New Delhi and decided to take advantage of the journey and stop in several places along the way, including Gokarna, Mumbai, and Udaipur. Continue reading

Reader Survey Results for May 2010

After three months of budget hotels, rough buses, and grimy restaurants, the past few days here in Delhi have been nothing short of luxury. I've been in New Delhi only a few days, but it feels like it has been weeks. The wedding I was invited to has been incredible and I'm sure you will all love the photos (I will upload them soon, I promise!).

I'm staying with close friends whom I consider family and they have been incredibly generous to me; tea in the morning, home cooked meals for lunch, afternoon naps, a nice place to sleep, and an abundance of love and kindness.

Their home is located in a relatively new area of Delhi, with gated communities, wide streets, and a partially running metro that is still under construction. The wedding itself took place between their home and the only five star hotel where pure vegetarian food is served.

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A few weeks ago I announced that I was doing a reader survey to help me better understand what you were interested in hearing more of on this blog. The response has been fantastic and I really appreciate everyone who took the time to complete the survey. Continue reading

Discovering the Beauty and Energy of Udaipur

The beauty and energy of Udaipur left me at a loss for words. The morning I arrived, I could feel there was something different about the place. It was very subtle, but clearly a deep and calming energy. It was as if I could feel a culmination of all the life and royalty that had once lived or visited there.

I spent the first two days walking around the old city and exploring the three lakes from various points. All three lakes were far more dry than I expected and I was later told that there had been very little rain in the past five years and that the lakes were getting drier and drier each year.

For the first two days, I roamed for hours on foot, through small, unmarked streets that were not even on the map, passing tiny nooks that looked as if they had been transported directly from Venice itself. Incredible artwork of royal elephants, horses, kings, and princes graced the entrances to each house. The colors were usually faded, but you could always see how vibrant and striking the original paintings were. Continue reading

Tired and Overwhelmed in Surat, India

The four-hour train ride from Mumbai to Surat was cool and comfortable. It was my first ride in an AC2-class car, one of the best classes you can take on a train in India. The first thing I noticed were the passengers: they were much different than those on the lower class cars. Many of them spoke English, even to each other, and they spoke more quietly.

Several passengers used their laptops during the journey and listened to music on their smart phones. Each seat came with a complementary bottle of water, a blanket, a pillow, and even dinner! Talk about luxury.

As we left Mumbai, the man sitting next to me asked me where I was going.

"Surat.", I replied.

"Surat? I am also going to Surat. Be prepared for hell getting off!" Continue reading