February 11, 2005
1000 things I never did ...
1000 things I never did in Mumbai. Never chewed paan at a streetside corner. Never bought gold sandals from a chappal vendor. Never got around to drinking fresh sugarcane juice, that pale green nectar rich with froth, sold by the...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 08:06 PM |
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February 09, 2005
Mumbai by night: Plumes of fire and broken dreams
As I might have mentioned, I love cities. I love them with a kind of blind fervour that shrugs off their pollution and their vices. I get kind of antsy when I'm in a particularly isolated, tranquil destination. I find...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 07:58 PM |
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February 08, 2005
Wonderous things
Gods that are pot-bellied elephants, gods that are blue-skinned. The smell of nag champa incense. Bright, shiny things. Over-the-top, unashamed decoration. Peacocks. Babies' hands with tiny bracelets....Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 01:45 PM |
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February 07, 2005
Awful things
For some reason, the sheer reality that cows here are eating plastic bags and other rubbish has only just begun to hit me where it hurts. Maybe your first few weeks here are spent riding such a whirlygig of sensory...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 10:14 PM |
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The emperor has no clothes (a travel experience)
Udaipur has really captivated me - lake or no lake. In a way, I think its task has been made easier by the fact that its chief charm has gone AWOL. It seems a bit of a leveller somehow; the...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 10:04 PM |
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Udaipur in pictures: Dry, Dry, Dry
I wasn't exaggerating when I said that Udaipur had run dry. This post is really just to provide some pictures of the somewhat incredible phenomenon - though I imagine these will have most impact if you have previously seen Udaipur...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 08:58 PM |
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February 06, 2005
24 hour party people: Weddings are in the air
You've gotta love that India has a 'wedding season'. I like that - take a social concept and elevate it to the level of seasonality. What's perhaps less loveable is the never-endingness of these weddings in the flesh. It's taken...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 11:19 PM |
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February 05, 2005
Udaipur without water (think Vegas without casinos ...)
Udaipur is one of the many places in this world that's liable to be described as 'the Venice of the East'. Okay, fine. Hackneyed perhaps, but we get the point. Besides which, Udaipur's unique combination of sapphire lakes and ornate...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 07:45 PM |
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February 04, 2005
In which Andrew's hair wins friends and influences people
You might say that that for Andrew and I on this trip, two roads diverged in a yellow wood ... yaddah yaddah ... His hair went one way, and mine another. As my locks get scraggier and scruffier and more...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 10:32 PM |
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His n hers commodes: Survive an attack of Delhi-belly in style
I was recently asked what our experiences of the dreaded 'Delhi Belly' have been whilst in India. I really wanted to reply to this question in a bit more detail than the teeny-tiny comments box allows, so here is my...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 10:07 PM |
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February 02, 2005
How to build a temple using forty thousand kilograms of liquid butter
One Jain temple, forty thousand kilos of ghee. This is Bhandasar Temple in Bikaner, and I am in love. In love with the idea that anything so wacky exists. In love with the fact that when the foundation stones were...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 11:42 PM |
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Rockstar royalty
There are moments here in India when, as a simple foreigner, you feel like rockstar royalty. People are jostling to get close to you, gossipy chatter catalogues your every move, and small children are liable to be thrust into your...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 10:55 PM |
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Show me on the doll where the bad man touched you
There’s a lot of talk about sexual harassment of women travelling in India, so I wondered how this issue would play out while we were here. In most places we’ve been, I’ve encountered no problems at all. Of course, I...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 09:02 PM |
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Rats, baby, rats: a whole temple full of rats
The renowned Karni Mata ‘Rat’ Temple in the countryside near the town of Bikaner is dedicated to the ‘Goddess of Scuttling Things’. But our personal pilgrimage to it was dedicated to another entity entirely - namely, TV’s The Amazing...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 08:20 PM |
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February 01, 2005
Internet cafes or pornography parlours?
Aaargh! I have lots of stuff to say about the crazy things we've seen in the last few days (plus photos of the craziness!) - let's just say, there were rats, there was 40,000 kilos of butter-oil, and there was...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 09:08 PM |
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January 31, 2005
Please, madam - try to love cricket more!
Cricket hasn't been quite the bane of my life here that I thought it might. But it has cropped up in conversation with unseemly regularity. My fave moments so far? Number one has to be: 'Please, Madam - in future...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 11:38 PM |
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January 30, 2005
Taj Mahal - monument to love or monument to grandiosity?
Every guidebook under the sun has one comment to make about the Taj Mahal -it's enough to melt the heart of even the most jaded traveller. 'Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the most jaded of them all?' I may...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 08:52 PM |
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Blog paradox
I'm steeling myself to write about our encounter with the Taj Mahal. It seems difficult, though, as that was several days ago, and every day in between has been filled with the usual travel detritus - long train journeys, touts,...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 07:54 PM |
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January 27, 2005
WARNING: Pepsi contains no fruit
You read it here first: Pepsi contains no fruit....Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 09:55 PM |
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The divine bovine
I shouldn't blog this, but I have to. A cow just walked past the big plate glass window that separates me and this computer from the muck and grime of the Agra streets. Such a rippled, glossy flank; like an...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 09:25 AM |
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January 26, 2005
Orchha - a palace, an island, a painter's sky
Just when you think India couldn’t sock you in the nose again with its fabulousness, it does. The Orchha sky is a deep slate grey, the kind of colour that’s so painterly you only ever see it in Indian miniatures....Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 09:46 AM |
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January 25, 2005
Bus-trip to Orchha: Twenty-First Century Analogue Boy
‘Here is bus, Madam-Sir!’ chirps our auto-rickshaw driver as we pull into the dust-bowl that is Khajuraho’s bus station. ‘Very, very good! Bus is deee-luxe!’ True, the 11:15 am to Jhansi via the Orchha turn-off was billed as a deluxe...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 11:49 PM |
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January 24, 2005
Where karma sutra meets family day out
We came, we saw, we photographed. The famously smutty Khajuraho temple art has been sampled. And, in a word, it was stunning. Nothing short of spectacular. I actually found myself more entranced here than by the carvings that adorn Angkor...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 09:26 PM |
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Strawberries and dragon's blood
Different internet cafe tonight. Like most of Khajuraho's tourist concessions, this tiny backroom operation offers silver toe-rings and pictorial accounts of the temples and carved wooden elephants as well internet access. While you check your mail, you are left to...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 08:29 PM |
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January 23, 2005
Chilling in Khajaraho
I am too cold to think of a witty and enticing title for this post. It's panty-freezingly cold here in rural Khajaraho, and it's making typing raw-ther difficult. We treated ourselves to a flight here from Delhi yesterday, which was...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 09:43 PM |
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January 22, 2005
Tour the International Museum of Toilets
No, I'm not kidding ... and no, it's not a snide reference to some of Delhi's less salubrious facilities ... That's right, folks. There really and truly is an International Museum of Toilets - we have visited it and returned...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 08:49 PM |
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January 21, 2005
Grandma Kok's curry has nothin' on Subway
Andrew's Chinese grandma, Mrs Kok, cooks a mean curry. Her nonya-style food is nice and spicy, and she prides herself on being able to take chilli like a pro. Grandma Kok may have met her match, though, when it comes...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 04:33 PM |
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Mysterious things
There is a hair-dye thang going on here that I am impelled to mention. I have tried not to, but the need just keeps welling up. It's a daily mystery. Pretty much confined to men, this cultural phenomenon is an...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 04:07 PM |
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January 20, 2005
Things I hate
The toilets at Barista (an upmarket local version of Starbucks serving yummy coffees and other fancy drinks). I cannot fathom why these toilets have to be filthy - they are far, far worse than the amenities on an Indian train...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 05:14 PM |
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Things I love
That Indian head-bobble. If you've seen it, you know where I'm coming from. If you haven't seen it, I don't know quite how to describe it. It's one part fluid movement to two parts waggle with a dash of insousiance...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 05:09 PM |
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Goats riding in rickshaws
Attempting to break free of our Delhi funk, we decided to try to hop in a rickshaw and go pay a visit to the city's famed Red Fort. Of course, in subcontinental travel, things are never as straightforward as you...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 04:41 PM |
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January 19, 2005
Dodgy Bros. Hotel
We find ourselves in Delhi now, after another overnight train trip (much more pleasant than the last since we've purchased thick woollen blankets!) Maybe I've hit a travel slump, or maybe it's Delhi - but the city's just not working...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 05:13 PM |
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Strangers on a train - foreigner-style
On the Second Class Sleeper train from Varanasi to New Delhi, there are five of us foreigners here in a set of six bunk beds. Our motley crew consists of two French, one Korean, two Australians, topped off by one...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 11:35 AM |
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January 18, 2005
Varanasi visuals: City of death, City of life
Each morning in Varanasi we'd step out of our hotel room and on to a balcony that overlooked the following:...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 06:22 PM |
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January 17, 2005
Varanasi on Prozac
Well, no, not really ... but it felt that way, in a Peter D Kramer 'better than well' sort of a sense. It was our first full day's exploration of the old city and the ramshackle way it tumbles down...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 11:05 PM |
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January 16, 2005
Welcome to the Training Academy of Geniuses
At the start of Life of Pi, Yann Martel says something like (and here I paraphrase wildly), 'before I went to India I knew very little about it, except that they used words like "bamboozle".' Reading that statement here in...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 07:36 PM |
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January 15, 2005
Fight touts - and win!
It had to happen, and happen it did. As soon as we reached Varansi in fact. The touts and the scamsters sensed us coming (either that or they just looked at our backpacks ... I can't be sure which ...)...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 08:58 PM |
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January 14, 2005
Cautionary tale of a Second Class virgin
We arrived in Varanasi this morning chilled to the bone. Our own stupid fault, for certain. But horrible nonetheless. In Calcutta, we had booked tickets on an overnight train to Varanasi, happily signing up for a 14-and-a-half hour ride in...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 09:17 PM |
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January 13, 2005
Conversations on the way to a pilgrimage
I think we experienced a quintessential 'Indian conversation' today: bamboozling; impressive; surreal. I was worried before arriving in India that my complete lack of cricketing knowledge would be frowned upon, proving to be both a conversation-stopper and an affront to...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 06:49 PM |
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My guru says No Newspapers
The evil rats-with-wings that were sharing our room last night went on to have a primitive, avian orgy above our heads as we tried to sleep in the Calcutta gloom. Needless to say, the new day today brought new accommodation...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 11:59 AM |
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January 11, 2005
Struggling not to say 'Black Hole of ...'
Having arrived in Calcutta, I'm all mixed up - which is probably as it should be. The first day of India has already confounded me in both good and bad ways....Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 04:52 PM |
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January 09, 2005
Why cricket scares me
Only two days now until we fly to Calcutta - surreal, yet exciting! But one thing keeps bugging me: I know nothing about the great game of cricket. How this happened without my being forced to surrender my Australian citizenship...Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 01:25 PM |
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January 04, 2005
India in my mind
Just to be clear - India hasn't happened yet. Not for us. But what I'm struck by is the way that it's swirling about in my mind without me even being there....Read this update
Posted by Tiffany at 10:57 PM |
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