We've passed another day or so in Bangladesh and more random little truths reveal themselves. I'm noticing, in no particular order, that a) goats are tiny here, b) you never get your instant coffee in the same mug twice (my favourite so far had 'Happy Birthday Canada!' printed on the side), c) Bangladeshi women have a uniquely purposeful way of walking, and d) it is so likely that you will get stuck in your hotel's lift that every one you go in has signs telling you not to panic. Our own personal lift breakdown - inevitable - occurred in Jessore. The [View Full Entry]

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Heading from Kolkata towards the India/Bangladesh border, I kept asking myself what could go wrong. It was a morose way to be thinking, granted, but this was the third time i've planned to come to the country, and both of the previous times, something fell through. I started examining my visa in the back of the car, thinking it might have some kind of expiry problem. Meanwhile Seth snoozed next to me. He falls asleep in any moving vehicle. It's a gift, especially on this occasion, when it took us an hour and a half to get out of Kolkata; a [View Full Entry]

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I'm always happy in Kolkata. It's hard to say why. It's a city that is in many ways poor, squalid, sometimes desperate, with lots of its citizens living out difficult lives. It might be that I'm deranged, but I sense that even those living in the toughest conditions approach their daily lives with a kind of practical stoicism and verve. Despite the odds, the poorest of Kolkatans seem undefeated, and its luckier citizens have the same air of drive about them. It feels like a place populated by do-ers. We were in the cab, heading to our hotel, and my heart [View Full Entry]

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Plans change, even if you don't want them to. We were waitlisted for train tickets on an express service between Bangalore and Vijayawada. Vijaywada sounds like a great city, with cave temples, pretty ghats and an old fort close by, and it also sounds untourited and quintessentially Andhra Pradeshi; great! Sadly, we never got there. When you're waitlisted for an Indian train, it means the train is fully booked and you're in a queue to get tickets should anyone else cancel. Oddly, you almost always do get a seat in these situations but you only find out on the day of [View Full Entry]

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Bidar is remote, hovering in the north eastern corner of Karnataka, but closer to Hyderabad than it's own state's big cities. When I say close, I mean a hot three hour drive. I think we must have passed through a time warp on our way there because this city, despite being full of monuments and character, hadn't aquired the tourist savvy touts, auto wallahs or hysterical children i tend to associate with towns like Hampi and Badami. In fact there was an ambiguous comment in the Footprint guide suggesting Bidar had problems with being 'backwards.' (I don't know what that implies, [View Full Entry]

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The banality of the human condition is bizarre and it catches up with you at the wrong moments. I remember standing in front of the Taj Mahal for the first time and thinking, of course, that it was beautiful/ glowing/ surprising despite the hype, yet another part of me was thinking simply: I'm hungry. Likewise, in the World Heritage site of Hampi, on approaching the Vittala Temple - an architectural wonder, hundreds of years old, with elaborate carvings, musical pillars, a stone chariot and a gopuram alive with monkeys - i was distracted by mangoes. Now let's be fair, mangoes are [View Full Entry]

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We looked for ways to get rural. The town of Badami has fantastic Chalukyan hilltop temples and caves, around 1600 years old. From the roof of our hotel, you can see the full length of the red rock cliff face, with it's northern and southern forts, and all the temples inbetween. It's incredible, but walking the streets is a little depressing. I swear there are eighty percent more children hanging off your arms asking for school pens and chocolates than there were two years ago, when i found the town quite peaceful. These kids are cute really, but you feel like [View Full Entry]

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From Panchgani, we came to Kolhapur by bus. My mp3 player has a pleasingly bizarre mixture of Roy Orbison, Frank Sinatra and Bollywood soundtracks, and nothing beats watching Indian life racing by with the sound of 'Chicago is My Kinda Town' in your ears. It's greatly weird. Kolhapur was a typically busy Indian town, with a nice Mahalaxmi temple (she's the Goddess of wealth) which had a pretty black, carved base (10th century) and a modern, painted roof and spire. (As eclectic as my music taste, really.) Lots of the locals wanted to shake hands and talk, and there was a [View Full Entry]

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A quick note from the hill station of Panchgani, high in the Western Ghats. It's beautiful here, surrounded by woods, and it's cold too; i need either a jumper or a constant supply of warming masala chai. We're staying in a tiny bungalow on the hill, overlooking the valley below and the true blue reservoir of Dhom Dham. At night, fireflies flash green around the windows and in the morning you can hear wild peacocks calling. We came here to visit the nearby town of Wai and the village of Menavali. These places don't feature much in guidebooks, but we've seen [View Full Entry]

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I thought i had experienced India's monsoon back in 2006, but now I'm not so sure. I've never seen India quite like this. It rains, hard, night and day, and when it stops you find yourself looking at the sky and thinking, 'something's not quite right here.' Then the clouds come again, and all's right with the world. Most of the things i own are drenched, and we are often in cabs that conk out in the puddles, but Mumbai has never been so charismatic in my eyes. In our two days here, we've been busy. The Mumbaikers are mad for [View Full Entry]

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