Bandipur is delightful. The village enjoys a stunning location, perched high on a ridge, it's a mixture of spectacular natural beauty and stunning viewpoints. On clear days it's possible to see a panorama of Himalayan peaks that include Dhaulagiri (8167m), Machlapuchlare (6997m), Langtanglirung (7246m), Manasla (8162m), and Ganesh Himal (7406m) as well as a view right down into the Marsyangdi valley, 1000m below. The village itself has a medieval ambience, restored Newari architecture, and tiny two-tiered temples. My first thought was 'it's gorgeous, charming, a land time forgot'. The bazaar is traffic free and clean. No litter anywhere. Not a single plastic bag. Stone cobbles, compact town houses with ornate carved wooden windows and doorways, and tin and slate roofs. A covered veranda extends in front of the houses and shops to provide shade from the ... read more

Kathmandu is a fascinating city to visit. A patchwork quilt of faith, religion, tradition, superstition, - it offers a link with the past, but is also a dynamic city living fully in the present moment. A city of temples, shrines and statues; a stroll down the narrow streets of the old city will reveal markets, "toles"(1), "bahals"(2), and "bahil"(3). It's a glorious mix of ancient and modern, faith and religion intertwined with the standard business of day to day living. Relics several centuries old are dotted around the squares and streets. Anywhere else these treasures would be behind glass, protected in a museum; here they merit scarcely a glance and are just part of the tapestry of normal everyday life. At busy traffic intersections crowded with cycle rickshaws and motorbikes people circle shrines, and light butter ... read more

The landscape in the Little Raan Sanctuary is harsh and extreme. For eight months of the year it's a desert of cracked, crusty mud - a flat expanse of nothingness stretching as far as the eye can see. Confronted with such a landscape it's easy to see how people believed it was possible to fall off the edge of the earth. Featureless, colourless, a country-scape to drive a person mad. Occasionally, a bet (elevated plateaus which rise to about three meters) provides eye candy. Heat mirages hover on the horizon. Vast lakes appear out of nowhere, shimmering in the sun's glare. The emptiness is unrelenting. Imagine living in such a place. The area is punctuated by desolate salt farms where Agarias - salt pan workers - belonging to the Chuwaliakolis caste (which comes under the backward ... read more

This blog started life as a photo-blog - 'Faces of Jamnagar' - was to be it's title. After a short while it became evident that all the photos were of men. This gave rise to several questions - many as yet unanswered - and the blog became something quite different. Men are highly visible in India. It's disturbing - not threatening - but somehow unnatural to see so many men on the street at any given time. Men own, manage, and run guesthouses. They wait in restaurants, are auto rickshaw drivers, and shopkeepers are almost exclusively male. They hang out on street corners, linger at 'chai' stalls, and roam in small groups, four or five strong. Women wander the streets, but they move with purpose. They are less approachable - they shop - for fresh produce ... read more

Food is one of the delights of India. Colour, smell, flavour, eating is an experience for all the senses. In Junagadh, we found two wildly different favourites. The Jay Ambe Juice Centre was a welcome retreat, a place to rest and watch India from a distance. Great for a fresh juice or a delicious milkshake - chikku, (sapodilla), valiyari (aniseed), kesar (safron), badam (almond) - we tried several. Three oblong tables fill one side of the shop. Long benches line either side of each table. If it's busy people sit wherever they can. It's a clean, breezy place with a front open to the street - a great place to sit and watch the world go by. But Indians do not linger. We sit, and sit, and stay some more. They order, drink, and go. A ... read more