Blogs from National Capital Territory, India, Asia - page 9

Geo: 28.6137, 77.1834... read more

Pessimo momento per arrivare in India: il paese e' nel bel mezzo della messa fuori circolazione delle sue due banconote di taglio maggiore, che dovranno essere sostituite da quelle nuove da 500 e 2000 Rupie. E' questa la grande trovata del primo ministro Modi che ormai da un paio d'anni ha sostituito la nostra Sonia Gandhi nel cuore degli elettori indiani; peccato che si sia clamorosamente dimenticato di far stampare per tempo quantita' sufficienti di nuova valuta, che per il momento rimane severamente razionata, tanto da aver portato alla creazione di un suo mercato nero e, nei casi piu' estremi, al ritorno in auge del vecchio, caro sistema del baratto. Questa mossa del governo va sotto l'orecchiabile nome di "Notebandi" e sembra avere come scopo principale l'emersione del denaro accumulato illegalmente ed il passaggio a forme ... read more

Day fifteen started early, we only had one full day in Delhi and we wanted to see as much as we could so we hopped in a tuk tuk and headed towards the red fort. The area our hotel was in was not the most inviting and I was excited to see some more of India, though my first impressions were of crushing traffic and noise interspersed with flashes of bright fruit, dogs and carts pulled by humped white cows. Arriving at the red fort it looked an imposing sight, all crenelated red walls on the top of a hill but were then informed that it was closed on Mondays so that was all I saw of it. A man offered to show us where the markets were nearby and, like it or not, it seemed ... read more

My next birding stop in Delhi was the Sultanpur National Park which is just outside the city. This is almost (but not quite) as easy to get to by public transport as the Okhla Bird Sanctuary, but it is totally worth the small effort. As yesterday, the start point was the Ravij Chowk metro station, from where I headed to the Huda City Centre station in Gurgaon (an outlying district of Delhi where the local street animal is not dogs or cows but pigs). This takes just over an hour and costs 25 rupees (there's approximately 50 rupees to one NZ dollar). From there I had to take an auto-rickshaw to the Gurgaon Bus Stand from which Mr. Internet had told me there is a Haryana bus route which passes the park. In India a "bus ... read more

My flight out of Kota Kinabalu was scheduled for 12.30pm and left at 1.30. It's two and a half hours between KK and KL so I arrived at 4pm, and then my next flight on to New Delhi in India was at 7pm. So far all my flights except the first (between Christchurch and Auckland) have been with Air Asia. Like the old saying goes, if man wasn't meant to fly there wouldn't be Air Asia air hostesses. There were quite a few white girls in the departure lounge dressed in "Indian hippy" style. They look like they have walked into an Indian clothes shop and said "just dress me in everything you've got". It's almost like a weird form of racism. I mean, all the Indians are dressed in normal clothes and these white girls ... read more