I'm officially back home in the USA, and the fact that I just spent the past few weeks travelling around India seems completely surreal to me. Nineteen days ago, I boarded a flight to a faraway country with some familiar faces and a head full of fears. Now, I have made...

The past 14 days have been a nonstop adventure filled with factory visits, tours of research institutions, shopping escapades, and hours spent on busses. And I have loved every single second of it. For our last full day in India, we wanted to end this amazing trip with...

Ooty is a region in india known for its many tea factories, and today we had the opportunity to go behind the scenes and experience the making of one of India's most popular beverages. We visited the Glendale Tea Factory. Unfortunately for me, the smell and taste of te...

We said goodbye to Coimbatore today, but not before one last excursion. We stopped by the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR), an organization that conducts in-depth research on different ways of growing and using cotton to benefit India and the world!

This was...

This morning, we visited the South India Textile Research Association (SITRA), an organization funded by India's federal government under the Ministry of Textiles. SITRA is one of the world leaders in research on functional textiles, specifically those for medical use....

Today began with a visit to Netaji Apparel Park.  Located about an hour outside of Coimbatore city, Netaji Apparel Park was established nearly 6 years ago, and it serves as a large area with many apparel factories.  These factories are not related, however many of them...

This morning, I visited Isha Yoga Center, a meditation facility on the outskirts of Coimbatore.  It was nice to have a change of pace after so many days of touring garment factories.  Although Isha is called a yoga center, it's focused less on the yoga that we are use...

Today, we departed from Aranha Homes and Bangalore and began our journey to our next destination: Coimbatore.  On our way, we stopped at the Jeeur Village in Tamil Nadu.  This village is home to the Devi Maa Apparel Park, a division of United Dry Goods.  This was diffe...

Yesterday evening, when we first arrived at United Dry Goods (UDG), we met Gary, a friend of the sponsor of our trip.  He told us a little bit about Mr. Khaitani's vision for UDG, and a big part of that vision was to provide their factory employees with a better way of...

Today is the never ending day.  At 4 AM, we finally boarded our flight to Bangalore, and I was hoping to use the hour long flight as a chance to catch up on my blogging, but instead, I was the source of entertainment for the five men sitting nearby me, who I assume had...