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Always Pack a Runcible Spoon a round the world adventure possibly involving a pussycat, an owl and a pea-green boat |
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Categories
About this Runcible Blog (1)
About Us (2) Absurd photo du jour (4) Adding a comment (2) Asia is easy to love (9) China (48) Food - the weird, the wonderful, the just plain tasty (17) Hong Kong (7) India (43) Indonesia (7) Japan (6) Singapore (3) Taiwan (3) Thailand (19) Things that perturb me (3) Travel thoughts and whimsy (10)
Recent Entries
* Please, madam - try to love cricket more!
* Taj Mahal - monument to love or monument to grandiosity? * Blog paradox * WARNING: Pepsi contains no fruit * The divine bovine * Orchha - a palace, an island, a painter's sky * Bus-trip to Orchha: Twenty-First Century Analogue Boy * Where karma sutra meets family day out * Strawberries and dragon's blood * Chilling in Khajaraho * Tour the International Museum of Toilets * Grandma Kok's curry has nothin' on Subway * Mysterious things * Things I hate * Things I love * Goats riding in rickshaws * Dodgy Bros. Hotel * Strangers on a train - foreigner-style * Varanasi visuals: City of death, City of life * Varanasi on Prozac
Archives
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January 31, 2005Please, 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 January 30, 2005Taj 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 Blog paradoxI'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 January 27, 2005WARNING: Pepsi contains no fruitYou read it here first: Pepsi contains no fruit....Read this update The divine bovineI 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 January 26, 2005Orchha - a palace, an island, a painter's skyJust 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 January 25, 2005Bus-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 January 24, 2005Where karma sutra meets family day outWe 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 Strawberries and dragon's bloodDifferent 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 January 23, 2005Chilling in KhajarahoI 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 January 22, 2005Tour the International Museum of ToiletsNo, 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 January 21, 2005Grandma Kok's curry has nothin' on SubwayAndrew'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 Mysterious thingsThere 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 January 20, 2005Things I hateThe 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 Things I loveThat 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 Goats riding in rickshawsAttempting 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 January 19, 2005Dodgy Bros. HotelWe 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 Strangers on a train - foreigner-styleOn 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 January 18, 2005Varanasi visuals: City of death, City of lifeEach morning in Varanasi we'd step out of our hotel room and on to a balcony that overlooked the following:...Read this update January 17, 2005Varanasi on ProzacWell, 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 January 16, 2005Welcome to the Training Academy of GeniusesAt 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 January 15, 2005Fight 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 January 14, 2005Cautionary tale of a Second Class virginWe 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 January 13, 2005Conversations on the way to a pilgrimageI 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 My guru says No NewspapersThe 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 January 11, 2005Struggling 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 January 10, 2005When the exotic and the everyday collideA few days ago, I wrote an entry (Of strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff) explaining that many of my earliest travel associations are not to do with the act of travelling itself. Instead, I think that many...Read this update Squeaky-shoed childrenI will endeavour to get a picture to illustrate this little declaration of love - it shouldn't be too hard, because my guesthouse is dominated by tiny kids wearing squeaky shoes - but in the meantime, my words will have...Read this update January 09, 2005Why cricket scares meOnly 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 Confessions of an ex-Maccas chickBefore I begin, allow me to divulge some interests I have in this material: I've seen Supersize Me, and I thought it was pretty darn great. I've also personally worked at McDonald's (hey, it was the mid-90s and I was...Read this update Posted by Tiffany on January 9, 2005 12:52 AM
Category: Food - the weird, the wonderful, the just plain tasty January 08, 2005But EVERY day is Children's Day ...Never again will parents in the west be able to say, 'But every day is Children's Day ...' when their ankle-biters demand to know why there's a Mother's Day and a Father's Day, but no Children's day. Courtesy of this...Read this update January 07, 2005Farang is a state of beingIt is entirely possible to visit Thailand and to learn only one word - farang. Farang can be used perjoratively ('birdshit farang' is a popular colloquialism for backpackers), or as a neutral description, but it usually refers to Caucasian foreigners....Read this update January 06, 2005Of strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuffAs is not uncommon, there wasn't a huge amount of overseas travel in my childhood. Australia can be an expensive place to leave, and our island status means that trips abroad are officially a Big Deal....Read this update Air ChickenWe have to make a decision, Andrew and I. How the heck are we gonna get to Calcutta from Bangkok? The choice should be simple, really: Thai Airways costs about $60 AUD more per ticket than does Druk Air. But...Read this update Elephants and Bacardi don't mixLast night was a fabulous Bangkok evening, mainly because of great company and good conversation. Adding to the evening's impact, though, was the fact that we saw a fully-grown elephant making a left-hand turn in hardcore city traffic....Read this update January 04, 2005India in my mindJust 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 January 03, 2005In praise of gadgetsI can't think of the word 'gadget' without thinking of my grandmother, Gee. In my mind's-ear, Gee has always used the word gadget quite liberally and with enthusiasm, and it may designate anything from a computer mouse to a TV...Read this update A reflection on seven months of travelSeven months on the road have now passed, and I have been thinking a lot about what that's meant. In some respects, the RTW trip has been as I expected, but it's mostly far exceeded anything I could have foreseen....Read this update January 02, 2005In which I rail against our hotelOkay, I am irritated. More than that, I have a bad, bad taste in my mouth that won't go away. Following close on the heels of the great food poisoning incident of 2004, we now have its evil twin: the...Read this update |
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