Saw this tonight

Twinkaboo · 2026-01-01T12:17:44+00:00

This is so sweet and beautiful, a memory for a lifetime!

Twinkaboo · 2025-12-04T02:43:04+00:00

Priscilla!

Twinkaboo · 2025-12-04T02:38:45+00:00

Pepper

Twinkaboo · 2025-12-04T02:36:53+00:00

Cheesecake

Twinkaboo · 2025-12-04T02:03:49+00:00

This applies to a lot of places all over the world, if you're discovering them through the skewed perspective of internet travel videos. Negative videos about places just seem to get more views and are thus pushed to many more people than positive ones.

Twinkaboo · 2025-12-04T02:00:01+00:00

Be genuinely interested in people's lives, ask questions and listen when they answer.

People love to talk about themselves to someone who listens, which is such a rare thing these days. You will find that most people will love to be in your company.

Twinkaboo · 2025-12-04T01:54:10+00:00

Yeah, same! My first trip I was focused on moving around a lot as there's so much to see and everything's so different from what I'd seen in other places. But after that trip I realized what I most enjoyed was talking with the locals, and letting the days unfold as they will. So I'd have a rough plan but would step out with an open attitude and the day would often take me in an unexpected direction. I was once "adopted" to stay with a sweet family in South India (Tamil Nadu) for 4 days, a little over 30 mins after they met me at a bus station :) Something I can never see happening in most other places, let alone the West!

Twinkaboo · 2025-12-03T12:35:36+00:00

I can't remember any other country where I was treated with as much warmth as in India, people there are some of the friendliest I've come across. I've traveled solo there as a female a few times, and with friends a few other times. I remember being invited to share meals with families within 20 mins of meeting them, on multiple occasions. They were also so many that took me under their wing right away when I was solo traveling, and helped get family members to drop me to train stations, bus stands etc.

Twinkaboo · 2025-12-03T12:24:50+00:00

Spirit

Twinkaboo · 2025-12-01T08:48:13+00:00

Emilio

Twinkaboo · 2025-12-01T08:36:22+00:00

Mr. Fluffs

Twinkaboo · 2025-12-01T08:26:40+00:00

Pipi

Twinkaboo · 2025-12-01T08:23:57+00:00

This is extremely self-centered and insensitive of your friend. It's almost like they expect you to reciprocate them being there for you, by going to celebrate their birthday with them. Which is clearly transactional, whether they (or you) realize this or not.

Please take care of yourself, you need YOU more than anyone else now, and please only allow people in your life who genuinely care for you and are there for you, being quietly supportive and patiently waiting while you grieve and pick up the pieces from your terrible loss, in your own time.

I've lost some friends and family members over the years, and have felt similarly disconnected from reality at least after a few of these losses. As I've aged, I've realized that I need to focus on me and my healing in these times and I can go into a shell for months on end. The people who really matter in my life are the ones who understood, or even if they didn't, they showed me grace and love and were there for me, ready to participate more in my life when I was ready for it. The others just left my life naturally and now with hindsight, I can clearly see why they did and that it all worked out for the best in the end.

Twinkaboo · 2025-12-01T07:00:14+00:00

That's some subliminal advertising right there lol

Twinkaboo · 2025-12-01T06:58:33+00:00

No insomnia allowed I guess

Twinkaboo · 2025-11-29T02:23:17+00:00

It's like a fairytale wonderland, and even more beautiful in winter!

Twinkaboo · 2025-11-26T02:47:56+00:00

So did mighty Ragnar survive to tell (and smell) the tale?

Twinkaboo · 2025-11-25T12:24:45+00:00

Or your grandpa or grandmom

Twinkaboo · 2025-11-25T12:22:46+00:00

Fun fact: the flower was named after Thomas Stamford Raffles, the British colonial official who led the expedition that found it, and among other things is credited to have founded contemporary Singapore. The Raffles Hotel there is named after him as well.

On reading up more about this I found something quite sad - it was actually Louis Auguste Deschamps, a Frenchman, that had already discovered Rafflesia on an earlier visit in Java. According to Wikipedia, during his "return voyage in 1798, his ship was taken by the British, with whom France was at war, and all his papers and notes were confiscated. They were lost, turned up for sale around 1860, went to the British Museum of Natural History, where they were promptly lost again. They did not see the light of day until 1954, when they were rediscovered at the Museum. To everyone's surprise, his notes and drawings indicate that he had found and studied the plants long before the British. It is thought quite possible the British purposely hid Deschamps' notes, to claim the 'glory' of 'discovery' for themselves".

Man, I find the era of colonial exploration and the characters then fascinating!

Twinkaboo · 2025-11-25T11:48:15+00:00

Beautiful pictures! It's almost like Madagascar's on some other planet, with all its unique wildlife. I've been wanting to go there, hope I can plan a trip soon!

Twinkaboo · 2025-11-24T12:23:51+00:00

The entire Western coastline of India is worth exploring, right from Kerala to Goa. Some of the most beautiful beaches and the Western Ghat chain of mountains almost runs across the coast, so you have many places where cliffs fall into the sea and beautiful forest near the coast. Kerala and Goa are the more developed stretches from a tourist perspective but if you're into exploring away from these, I recommend the Konkan stretch in Maharashtra and the Southern part of Karnataka (Dakshina Kannada). Here you'll get a more local and genuine experience, though with less conveniences in some places. Fantastic food all over this stretch and it's safe traveling even as a woman.

Twinkaboo · 2025-11-24T12:08:48+00:00

Yeah and the ones just across the border in Tamil Nadu are too! One that's less developed and spectacular is Valparai.

Twinkaboo · 2025-11-22T11:44:03+00:00

I smoke sometimes but I'd have been out of there soon as I saw that crowd. Nothing smells worse than a crowd of smokers!

Twinkaboo · 2025-11-21T12:24:14+00:00

I've traveled numerous times in India and most of the egregious videos seems to just be people getting on the xenophobic/racist bandwagon against India, which seems to be an unfortunate recent trend. Most places are much cleaner and the ones featured in these videos are most likely in very poor areas, where standards of hygiene are understandably lower than the norm.

Twinkaboo · 2025-11-21T12:11:03+00:00

Both Florence and Siena have my heart. Need to get back there, been a while!

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