Blogs from Haryana, India, Asia - page 6

Finally!!! We have gotten our own place to live, with no inhabiting servants or expat men.. Our flat is located in Uniworld (really), which is quite idyllic compared to where we lived before, and also rather nice compared to the standard indian style in general:) SInce the common way of living in India is to share flat with your whole family it is almost impossible to find 1 or 2-room apartments, the norm is 4 or 5 rooms including at least 3 bathrooms... so will and I have three bedrooms and 4!! bathrooms.. However, not all of them are very nice anyway. The apartment is suppose to be ready, the only thing that was to be fixed was some change of furniture and installation of a new tv. You may think that is a rather straightforward ... read more

Had a big day at the conference yesterday and now have information overload. I had to chair a session also, which I've never done before, went ok though. I present my paper today and I'm going to show a video in the presentation to mix it up a bit. So after I had finished work at 6pm we went to a shopping centre to see if we could get some dinner and just to have a look. The shopping centre information said it was open until 11pm. Technically it was but only after half a dozen stores. In three km's of shops there was one ATM and it was out of order! So Richie is going to have to go to the bank today. We found some dinner in the form of KFC. We decided that ... read more

Yesterday after having curried potatoes wrapped in some kind of pancake thingy, which was quite good after we got used to that flavour for breakfast, we headed off into the center of new delhi and old delhi. We caught a University taxi which was great because it had aircon and the driver picked us up a few hours later from where he dropped us off. We got dropped off in the middle of the tourist district and started getting harrassed as soon as we stepped out of the car. We stick out like a sore thumb and get stared at constantly. People were even taking photos of us! It doesn't bother me now, but at first it was a bit unnerving. We went to a tourist office, which was a big deal in itself as people ... read more

The very first thing I heard in the morning today was the Indian National Anthem as it was the Republic day. The ride was planned but not the destination. Due to national importance of this day all borders of Delhi are being virtually sealed with high security check points. So we (Ravindra and me) decided to catch the wind towards Jaipur on National Highway 8.So My new Royal Enfield Electra 350cc started thumping towards Jaipur at about 10.30am.Being very new it has got the restriction that it shouldn’t be running more than 50 - 60 km/hr speed till it finishes first 2000 kms ..! So adhering to that we started. When you start on NH8 from Gurgaon towards Jaipur, you find habitation on both side of the roads till Daruhera which is about 30 kms from ... read more

So it's a couple days before I leave the still 100+ weather of Phoenix. I wanted to create a little space for all who may be curious to view my travel photo's, or hear about my encounters in what hopes to be the best travel experience i've had in ten years. Of course, it's been ten years since I've been significantly outside the U.S., but hopefully this will still be a good experience. I'd like to fill your heads with anxious thoughts and rev your minds with excitement, but people who know me, know that a.) I don't write that well, and b.) I'm not anxious or excited... yet. I mean, I got two days. Plenty of time to pack and get my affairs in order. I'm kind of a last minute venture-ist. Eh. I'll get ... read more