http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Mim/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Mim en-us Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:54:28 +0000 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:54:28 +0000 Adventures on the Road to Murree from IslamabadSo the steep narrow curvy and perilous mountain road leading up from Islamabad to the cool mountaintop town of Murree is well steep narrow and perilous. The road to Murree is also filled with large commercial trucks that are rolling folk art wonderfully painted and dazzlingly decorated. They are also often old and tired. Metal chains dangl http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Pakistan/Islamabad/blog-189585.html In area generally called Kalbadevi is a very old Hindu Temple a Jain Temple different blog a Mosque a bazaar and the nearby Crawford Market. The Hindu Temple is Mumba Devi Mandir or Mumba Devi Temple. It is dedicated to the goddess Mumba. Mumba is where the name Mumbai came from and is a local incarnation of the Devi Mother Goddess conception of being. It's a small temple and was very c http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Maharashtra/Mumbai/blog-92344.html There are several small open air Hindu temples such as the one below which is in a downtown business district. This allows people to make puja on their way to work during a break or after work. A friend asked the priest permission for me to take photos of him and his small temple. He agreed but then made a big show of my coming up to the altar wherein he put the red kum kum on my forehead. In http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Maharashtra/Mumbai/blog-92338.html While I was in Mumbai it was the festival of Navratri. Navratri is a festival of worship dance and music celebrated over a period of nine nights. Nav nine and Ratri nights. It is celebrated for the worship of the Goddess Durga. Goddess Durga is believed to exist in many forms. The name ldquoDurgardquo means ldquoinaccessiblerdquo and she is the personification of the active side of http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Maharashtra/Mumbai/blog-92331.html Near what I believe is the oldest Hindu temple in Mumbai the Mumba Devi Templewhich is what gave Mumbai its name and the Crawford Market huge market for veggies and household goood is another Jain temple. And much of this seemed to be a fairly Muslim neighborhood.This Jain temple is less opulent than the Babu Amichand Panalal Adishwarji Jain Temple at Malabar Hill in Mumbai. Although they we http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Maharashtra/Mumbai/blog-92322.html There are many Hindu Jain and other types of temples and of course many mosques. However because of terrorist bombings in Mumbai several years ago and again several months ago security is extremely tight at the larger temples. As a result one cannot bring cameras or cell phones to some of them. So I cannot give you pictures of those temples. And if you are not Muslim you cannot enter the m http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Maharashtra/Mumbai/blog-91695.html For a while I was staying at Juhu Beach in Mumbai which is north of Mumbai proper. In this and other areas the autorickshaw provides inexpensive but often frightening transportation. Basically they are threewheeled open air contraptions with space for two sensible adults or more if you are a little nuts. They are powered by a motor plant approximately appropriate for a lawnmower. Apparently http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Maharashtra/Mumbai/blog-91677.html About an hour or so boat ride from the Gateway of India at Mumbai is a small island with a series of caves containing Hindu temple carvings. The complex is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The main temple on Elephanta is a honeycomb of shrines caverns courtyards and prayer halls created some time between 450 and 750 AD. The site of these caves contained beautiful reliefs sculptures and a tem http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Maharashtra/Mumbai/blog-91657.html Yet another in a series of illadvised poorlyplanned and hastilyassembled journeys by a fallenaway exCatholic this time straight to the heart of Hinduism Bollywood and lots of terror threats. With pretty pictures a wealth of inaccuracies and without the benefit of spellcheck. Visit to a Jain temple. Jainism is a religion and philosophy originating in ancient India. Jainism believes http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Maharashtra/Mumbai/blog-87267.html Okay so it would have a lot quicker to just go to the Caribbean or Florida. The first leg of the trip was 14 hours. Left left Washington DC and few over Toronto then across the Bearing Strait across parts of Russia and China and then down to Seoul. It was really just a 24 hour layover but I was a chance for a quick glance. Maniac taxi driver broke every conceivable law in the onehour trip to http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Wilayah-Persekutuan/Kuala-Lumpur/blog-47937.html Kuala Lumpur has a wonderful and inexpensive monorail that runs north to south and is an easy way to get around. At one end of the monorail is a neighborhood called Brickfield. It is home to many Sri Lankans and Indians. In this area is a small Buddhist temple caled Maha Vihara Buddhist Temple and a Buddhist study center. It was founded by the Sinhalese community based in Kuala Lumpur and the surr http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Wilayah-Persekutuan/Kuala-Lumpur/blog-49454.html Mr. Naido had driven me in his taxicab on a previous trip from the airport to downtown. He is a 69 year old retired civil servant who operates a taxicab to get out of the house and remain active. Important for me he used his taxi meter which most taxi drivers don't do and thus overcharge. He was confused about my request for him to drive me around to the different cemetaries but I convinced him http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Wilayah-Persekutuan/Kuala-Lumpur/blog-48823.html Before I left Washington DC I had been given very precise instructions to get a hijab the head scarf that Muslim women wear for a friend. With these instructions I asked several Malay Muslim women who were wearing a hijab where to get one. This typically involved more sign language and a lot of curious looks and smiles since a man does not buy a hijab. But they all pointed in the same area M http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Wilayah-Persekutuan/Kuala-Lumpur/blog-48300.html The National Mosque Masjid Negara is the equivalent of the National Cathedral in Washington DC. A few obvious differences starting with the lack of pews shoes and Christians. It is a glorious building but not the kind of soaring one I expected as in a cathedral. It is open to the public technically but in practice they prefer Muslims. So I wore the cap and carried prayer beads but of course http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Wilayah-Persekutuan/Kuala-Lumpur/blog-48248.html