Trip: Indonesia to India
There are [62] stories from my trip: Indonesia to India
INDIA | Sunday, 4 Feb 2007 | Views [867]
[written ages ago but only just released from draft] Tired of lying in the sunshine
-- ("Time" / Pink Floyd)
I've had my April 1st entry sketched out for half a year. It was to be
called "Adventures in Fiction"... Read more >
Tags: general
INDIA | Thursday, 1 Feb 2007 | Views [1583]
You miss things on a first look. Sometimes you miss a lot.
In
Pokhara, for instance, I arrived in the mid-afternoon, headed over to
North Lakeside to find a room, and then took a wander. It was pretty
enough, with sun on the lake, and clouds ... Read more >
Tags: General
INDIA | Friday, 26 Jan 2007 | Views [1718] | Comments [1]
Carom Carom is a cross
between pool and air hockey played with a square wooden board and some
discs. The object is to flick the game disc at a disc of your own
colour and knock it into a corner hole. The board is coated with a
layer of chalk, ... Read more >
Tags: General
INDIA | Monday, 22 Jan 2007 | Views [1806]
I first saw Nepali trucks (which share their style with Indian trucks) at the border town of Zhang
Mu. Chinese trucks were drab and staid. A typical Nepali truck is
bright and decorated to the point of garishness. Its body is painted a
brownish ... Read more >
Tags: General
INDIA | Saturday, 20 Jan 2007 | Views [1796]
It was the nearest hotel to Pokhara's Camping Chowk and the price was
too low, but I took the room anyway. If I was to return to Kathmandu
the next day, having just returned from trekking, it seemed silly to
lug luggage all the way to Lakeside North, ... Read more >
Tags: General
INDIA | Saturday, 30 Dec 2006 | Views [1010]
That he was on holiday did not stop the UK electrical engineer from
burbling enthusiatically on the dangers of electricity; the Australian
sparky he was conversing at was less effusive. Their group and mine
were sharing a bus back from the Mekong ... Read more >
Tags: General
INDIA | Monday, 25 Dec 2006 | Views [1867] | Comments [2]
When the British colonised Australia, their culture and agriculture were imposed on a country that was in many cases unsuited for it. Seasons were six months out of phase, and the soil, climate, and weather patterns were so different, that by the ... Read more >
Tags: General
NEPAL | Tuesday, 5 Dec 2006 | Views [1808] | Comments [5]
Sauraha, gateway to the Royal Chitwan National Park lies about eighty kilometres south-west-west of Kathmandu as the kag flies. By road it's a six hour journey. If you add a couple of hours rafting on the Trisuli
River, it's a full day's ... Read more >
Tags: General
NEPAL | Thursday, 30 Nov 2006 | Views [1005]
Shakyamuni Buddha, he who was Prince Gautama, and Gyanendra
Bir Bikram Shah Dev, current King of Nepal, have more in common than
just royal blood and birth within Nepali borders: both are seen by Hindus as being incarnations of Vishnu. Avatar or ... Read more >
Tags: General
NEPAL | Saturday, 18 Nov 2006 | Views [1108]
I seem to be on the "Eat Whatever the Hell You Feel Like Diet" and it's not
appearing to be doing me major harm. An essential part of this diet is the ingestion of a balanced quantity of junk food. Two classes of this
might, perhaps, ... Read more >
Tags: General
NEPAL | Wednesday, 15 Nov 2006 | Views [2741] | Comments [1]
One advantage of trekking with my guide Shyam was that I could pick up
a little - and I do mean a little - Nepali while on trail, thus putting
my 8 year Linguistics degree to some minor use (well, we also had a
brief Tibetan lesson in Lhasa, but ... Read more >
Tags: General
NEPAL | Tuesday, 14 Nov 2006 | Views [1067]
It was time to get my pre-trip shots, and my doctor had spent quite
a lot of time in Nepal [she has credits for the Health section in a few
Lonely Planets, but not, ironically, the Nepal 6th edition, which is
what I have]. October or November? ... Read more >
Tags: General
NEPAL | Monday, 13 Nov 2006 | Views [1903]
Zero "I'm not going to pay someone ten dollars per day to walk in front of me", said my neighbour Sandrine. She lives in a mountainous region in France, and is to the fact au fait with trekking and orienteering. I don't know how ... Read more >
Tags: General
NEPAL | Sunday, 5 Nov 2006 | Views [2566] | Comments [1]
Sacred Art
Buddhism has a large cosmology, with its six realms (inhabited by
humans, animals, demons, hungry ghosts, demi-gods, and gods), buddhas
(past, present, and future) and boddhisatvas, though whether they're
viewed as genuine entities, ... Read more >
Tags: General
NEPAL | Thursday, 26 Oct 2006 | Views [913]
I'm the last of our little group of passengers left in Kathmandu, Col and Jaap having both flown off to Thailand this morning, and I'm sitting in an Internet cafe just off Jochne, better known as "Freak Street". Freak Street, which runs ... Read more >
Tags: General
CHINA | Monday, 23 Oct 2006 | Views [2280]
20: End of Phase 2c (Beijing to Kathmandu via Tibet) The last dinner of our tour was held in a Tex/Mex-ish restaurant in Kathmandu,
and afterward our tour leader Brett was presented with a little scrapbook as a
thank-you and memento ... Read more >
Tags: General
CHINA | Thursday, 19 Oct 2006 | Views [1196] | Comments [1]
The Wheel of Dharma The Wheel of Dharma is one of the eight auspicious symbols in
Tibetan Buddhism. Present in many religious artworks, as well as
underlying some Tibetan Buddhist rituals, it signifies the cycle of death and
rebirth. ... Read more >
Tags: General
CHINA | Saturday, 14 Oct 2006 | Views [1633] | Comments [1]
In Romanised Tibetan, "a" is pronounced roughly the same as the start of "about" or the "u" in "hut" rather than the "a" in "hat"? That doesn't make "Yak" quite "Yuk"... Read more >
Tags: General
CHINA | Thursday, 5 Oct 2006 | Views [2502] | Comments [3]
(In which Taro continues in his quest to provide Way Way Way Too Much Information) Steve: "He's a fountain of knowledge on squat toilets" Taro: "I'm a bidet of knowledge" There are lots of cultural differences to ... Read more >
Tags: General
CHINA | Tuesday, 26 Sep 2006 | Views [1100] | Comments [1]
Yesterday, in a park near Tianamen Square, we saw some traditional-looking buildings that had recently been built and another that was in the process of being finished: a couple of square metres of bare concrete was left uncovered and labourers perched ... Read more >
Tags: General
CHINA | Thursday, 14 Sep 2006 | Views [1302]
(5)
DdaDACDF
(3, 4)
If I'd
done as much travel as I've done, I would have taken the Gecko's tour
from Hanoi rather than from Saigon. I don't think that I would do
Hanoi-Beijing overland solo, though.
(1,4,3) ... Read more >
Tags: General
CHINA | Friday, 8 Sep 2006 | Views [1009]
Hell Is Other People How do you politely tell someone that they're driving you and others insane?
On the last night in Hanoi, I left Long, Cam, Jock, and Margie at the Draught Beer place down the road while I had a shower.... Read more >
Tags: General
VIETNAM | Friday, 1 Sep 2006 | Views [749] | Comments [2]
Sleep and Time I'm used to spending a week in a place if I don't feel like moving - inertia is my major driving force. Phase two of my travels consists of two months of package tours - the first a Gecko's from Saigon to Beijing; the second an ... Read more >
Tags: General
VIETNAM | Monday, 28 Aug 2006 | Views [778]
Kallisti "9", said Tom - an assessment of one of the girls on our trip. No holier-than-thou-ness, please: male or female you probably rate people too. "9.5", replied I, "until she spoke". I have a low irritation ... Read more >
Tags: General
VIETNAM | Thursday, 24 Aug 2006 | Views [611]
Those of you who enjoy the work of Jeremy Clarkson may be glad to know that I picked up The World According to Clarkson, a collection of his Sunday Times columns, a few days ago. Those of you who dislike Jeremy Clarkson will be glad to know that it ... Read more >
Tags: General
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