please mind the gap

Pour some sugar on me

2008-11-01T20:40:00.000-07:00

So I was at this Kopitiam the other day and ordered tea. A lot of these coffee counters these days leave the sugar out of the tea and have a separate bottle of sugar nearby for you to add according to taste, so I sipped my tea and sure enough there wasn't any sugar. I stirred it a little and still no sugar. So I looked around for a sugar container and I found one nearby, and I added some in liberal quantities. Then I sat down and had a sip. My tea was very salty.

At this point your typical level-headed human being would let out a sigh, contemplate a while on the inherent stupidity of man, and either leave or get another drink. But what does the typical level-headed human being know? I'll be darned if I would be deprived of my tea. So I sat there and took my salty tea like a man. After a while you even stop tasting the salt in the tea... no, who am I kidding, it was horribly salty till the end. I'm not really sure what's the takeaway from vignette. Okay, maybe I can think of a couple. One, I can be really stubborn sometimes. Two, salt in tea is okay in moderation but not in excess - actually I'm not even so sure about the moderation part. And three, it's time that someone calls for adequate labelling of containers at Kopitiam counters before there's a nationwide outbreak of high blood pressure amongst stubborn men. I can call for it, but I'm to stubborn to do so.

Day 15: Delhi-Singapore

2008-10-04T19:54:00.000-07:00

We did not get any wake up call in the morning, because the concierge was still asleep. So we ended up giving him a wake up call, and a bit of telling to in the process. Our driver was there, fortunately... he must have spent the night in the car itself.

We got presented the final hotel bill upon checking out, and it was a whopping 10000Rp for three nights. To the original quote of 2500Rp a night was added 'luxury' (!!!) and 'government' taxes (which I don't think will ever get into government hands) and so we ended up paying roughly 30% more on top what we had budgeted for. We'd already spent most of our rupees and set aside just enough to pay for the rooms, but how silly of us to not see this coming. Of course this was a clear-cut ripoff. They never mentioned anything about taxes to us when checking in, and we didn't enquire since all room quotations from the previous hotels were always inclusive of taxes. And of course, the room charges were negotiable and hence arbitrary - how can such arbitrary amounts be so precisely taxable? It all stunk to high heaven, but we had a plane to catch, and there wasn't much room for argument anyway in this kind of situation, so we had to just pay them whatever we had in cash and the remainder via credit card. Our whole experience in Ajanta Hotel was a case of blatant swindling by the management, and which is why I can't emphasize this more - if you're looking for a place to stay, avoid Hotel Ajanta, and be very aware in the other hotels around the strip too - be sure you get the room you want with the final price you want - recommended by Lonely Planet or not.

And so with some bitterness and disgust we left for the airport. Throughout our whole trip we had been drven around by some of the fastest, most reckless drivers, regardless of whether we were in a rush or not. So of course, on our final day, when we had a plane to catch, we get the slowest driver possible. And I do mean slow - the roads were empty, but he never went beyond 30km/h, and he'd start slowing down 50m before a traffic light, even when it was already green. It was a totally anomalous experience - a slow driver in the land of fast drivers, especially when the roads were clear! The randomness of India, folks, never ceases to amaze - and it's precisely because of such unexpected encounters that we always made an early start whenever there was a plane/train to catch. Even the driver was getting bored by how slow he was driving, that he was actually falling asleep at the wheel, so we had to keep talking to make sure that idiot stayed awake - we were even contemplating getting him to pull aside and taking over the wheel, driving ourselves to the airport while our poor driver catches up on his precious sleep.

Fortunately we got to the airport without any mishaps, and we duly checked in, got onboard the plane, and said our farewells to India and its population of heroes and clowns.

Read any book on India and you get an idea of how multi-faceted it is. There is no way for one to emerge out of this country without a conflicted opinion of one's experience there. There's plenty to dislike about travelling in India (the heat, the hygiene, the con-artists, the warped beliefs), but this is more than balanced out by the allure (the grand architecture, the magnificient scenery, the excellent hospitality, the inherent spirituality), and because one treasures clarity of mind, one will keep coming back to resolve this conflict, but of course one never does, so one keeps coming back anyway. This was my second trip to the north, and I had enjoyed the mountain scenery and weather of Himachal hill stations, the forts of Jaipur, the Mughal monuments of Delhi, and yet I still want to go further, into the mountains of Ladakh and Kashmir, the other colourful cities of Rajasthan, the other grand Mughal structures of Fatehpur Sikri and the Taj Mahal (we left this out of our itnierary because none of us were keen to go there, probably because we had been supersaturated by its imagery on all types of media that we felt nothing there could awe us anymore, but after having recently read Rushdie's short essay on the Taj Mahal, I think maybe we should have given it a chance). And I haven't even begun exploring the South - the beaches of Goa, the riverboats of Kerala, the elaborate temples of Tamil Nadu... a country so vast in its geography, its people, its ideas can never be completely explored in a lifetime, but its mere vastness is a temptation, an invitation that's hard to refuse.

The other plus point about travelling in India is the ridiculously low cost - excluding shopping and airfare, I spent just under S$700 on the whole trip. That's less than S$50 a day on food, transport and accomodation. Of course, it helped that there were 2 others to split the cost with - travelling by myself would've cost substantially more on transport and accomodation - but I felt it was pretty impressive to have paid such a small price for the reasonable amount of comfort and convenience we got in return - air-conditioned train seating, day-long car rental, spacious and comfortable hotel rooms. But my sense of satisfaction with the cheapness of the trip was wiped off when I got my phone bill - like a dolt I kept using my phone on roaming, thinking it wouldn't cost that much... the call charges turned out to be S$6 per minute, instantly erasing all the savings I made elsewhere on the trip. And so it goes.

And of course, when there's three baifellas on a trip, it's bound to be an eventful one... the shared experiences, from the memorable (three baifellas, their bags, the auto driver and his friend speeding in an auto from one railway station to another at 4am in the morning) to the type we'd rather forget (Govin's ten tequila shots too many in the drinking game), the shared conversations (including, inevitably, daily discussions of bowel movements - colour, consistency and frequency of. When I say we talked shit most of the time, I really mean we talked shit most of the time), the in-jokes (including some of the worst pick-up lines ever - for reference, see Dave) and just the general pangey and level of rationalized immaturity that one does not expect to see in two thirty-somethings and one UK University graduate. But from all that chaos and fuzzy-headedness (especially after long alcohol-sodden nights) we managed to forge out a reasonably smooth itinerary, and everything just came into place as we made decisions and came to consensus and compromises over our plans. It's no small thing that over fifteen days of close proximity we did not have any problems with each other, and we made it a point as far as possible to accomodate everyone's interests when doing long-term and short-term planning. In this way we made sure that nothing came in the way of the camaraderie and fun of travelling together, and everybody took something away from this trip. So, finally, here's some of the highlights of this trip for me:

- being in the presence of the majestic mountains of the Himalayas at Rohtang Pass
- chilli pork and whisky in a dark and dingy bar, waiting for the rain to stop at Mcleod Ganj
- driving in the misty sunset towards Simla
- having a long, lazy lunch, with beer and cards, on a rooftop restaurant in Vashisht
- exploring the labyrinth-like Nahargarh Fort
- listening to kirtan in Bangla Sahib
- walking amongst the biers in Humayun's Tomb

In those fifteen days we experienced the heat of the plains and the coolness of the hills, the honking horns and the silence of the tombs, the irritation at being swindled and the gratitude for hospitality... somehow we got through the rumbling stomach and reckless road trips, we emerged unscathed and we can now say that we have survived India and lived to tell the tale. And what a tale it is.

Day 14: Delhi

2008-10-01T05:01:00.000-07:00

This was the last full day of our trip, so the first half of the day was focused on shopping. The three of us headed across town to a newer part of Delhi, where they had various shopping markets that we'd heard lots of good stuff about.

The contrast between Pahar Ganj, where we lived, and the rest of New Delhi was truly striking. On our side was hustle and bustle, potholed roads, chaotic traffic, the rich smell of food, sewage everywhere. Across the tracks, it was straight roads, air-conditioned malls, multi-level flyovers, big villas, posh hotels. In fact, subtracting Pahar Ganj, Delhi was pretty much like Kuala Lumpur, but with a better metro system. Our destination was the Delhi suburbs, which looked virtually indistinguishable from the typical PJ or Kelana Jaya housing estates. Dave and Govin went to Haat Bazaar, known for stalls offering wares from every single state in India. I was headed for Fab India, known for its excellent ethnic wear.

After getting an armload of kurtas at Fab India (each kurta cost about S$6-7) I explored the neighborhood, stumbling across a really excellent cafe cum bookstore in the process. For me, the best things to shop for in India, besides kurtas, are books. Not only can one find some top-notch literature (especially books about India, books by Indians and books on India by Indians) but they're much cheaper as well. I loaded up on S$100 worth of books, each one costing about $8 or so. Totally burdened from all the shopping, I headed for my rendezvous with Dave at the Defence Colony (the closer suburbs of Delhi mostly go by the name of Colonies). Govin was out with a friend of his who was studying here.

Dave and I had some excellent lunch and a couple of beers at Swagath Restaurant. The food was excellent - we got a Hyderabadi briyani and their specialty chicken gassi. It was easily the best meal I had on this trip. Fully content, we walked out to get an auto, and came across this nice little boutique called 1469 that was actually selling designer Sikh-oriented merchandise (1469 was the year Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism and our first Guru, was born). Both of us were pretty impressed by the whole concept, and once we emerged after doing some shopping there we were debating the feasibility of such a franchise in Singapore/Malaysia. I was of the opinion that this was a concept whose time has come and would do quite well amongst the Sikh diaspora in the region, especially after the massive commercial success of the Bollywood movie Singh is King, but Dave was more sceptical.

After leaving the Defence Colony we headed for the Mahatma Gandhi memorial, built at the spot where Gandhi was assassinated.
The spot of his assassination. The cement footsteps mark the route he took on that fateful day.

The nearby Birla House, where he lived his final few months, was now a museum commemorating his legacy, focusing on his last days.

His worldly possessions at the time of his death.

The second floor had been converted into a pretty high-tech museum of the Independence movement. All in all it was quite an impressive memorial, although a bit repetitive at times.

It was already closing time when we left the memorial and took an auto to Humayun's Tomb, which was something that I'd decided I definitely could not miss on this trip. I'd always been awed by the sense of history in Delhi, with the presence of so many monuments left behind from almost dynasty that had ruled here over its 2300 years of continuous existence. The Mughals had probably left the most memorable and magnificient ones - previously I'd had the opportunity to visit Lal Qila and Qutb Minar. This trip I'd gone to Lal Qila again, Jama Masjid, and now, finally, the Tomb.

First up, though, was a smaller tomb just outside the main complex, built for an obscure Mughal general named Isa Khan. Even though not much is known about his life, he sure left a memorable landmark to commemorate his death.

The biers, presumably those of Isa Khan and his kin.

A nearby mosque, now unused.

More pics from the Isa Khan tomb here.

And then on to the main event.

There are hundreds of unmarked biers in the tomb. Humayun's is presumably the one in the centre, but there are also many others in the surrounding area, including on the outside. Most of them are of Humayun's kin, including other Mughal emperors whos reigns were too shortlived or unremarkable (like this guy)to merit a separate tomb.

The Tomb (along with the smaller Isa Khan tomb) totally lived up to its reputation as an architectural masterpiece. The gloomy and, uh, tomb-like atmosphere also helped accentuate the aesthetics of the place. For me, this was the highlight of Delhi, along with the Qutb Minar. More pics from Humayun's Tomb here.

Dave and I were hoping to catch a qawwali performance at a nearby shrine to the Sufi saint Nizamuddin, but it turned out that these only take place on certain months, and this wasn't one of them. So instead we took an auto to the Oberoi Hotel, since it was one of Dave's aims of the trip to sip their renowned lassi. Being such a posh hotel and all, we decided to get into the whole spirit of things, lording it out while affecting an American Surfer Dude accent and lingo, enquiring about the 'lay-see' and the 'kee-babs'. I'm sure the waiters were raring to kick our asses, but being a 5-star hotel and all, they managed to retain their composure. Of course they would have their revenge when they handed us the bill... the food and drinks were average, but the prices were definitely 5-star.

From the Oberoi we got a taxi to take us to Connaught Place for dinner. We've had our fair share of daredevil taxi and auto drivers throughout the trip, but this young baifella whose taxi we took now wins the award hands down. We got into the taxi, little knowing what fate had in store for us. Once we got in, the guy turns on his CD player and starts looking for a particular track to inaugurate the journey. This track turns out to be none other than the infamous 'Rambo Rambo', which had been more or less the uninivited soundtrack to our time in the north. The music video features the really short singer wearing lots of bling, having this incredibly tall blonde model as his chick (note: if you're incredibly short, don't stand next to someone who's incredibly tall, especially if you're trying to look cool. I thought they'd have taught this in Bling Video-making 101), going out hunting from his country manor and generally doing other inexplicable Gangsta stuff all the while singing about how people call him Rambo. Don't believe me, check out the video.

Soundtrack duly selected, our hero the driver gets to the main business, weaving in and out of traffic. In the meantime I was still struggling to fasten my seatbelt, so Our Hero, noticing my predicament, takes both hands of the wheel to help fasten my seatbelt. I suppose I should have returned the favour and taken over the wheel, unfortunately I stuck rooted to the spot caught in the headlights of the oncoming truck. But, as it always happens in Bollywood, Our Hero, passenger's seatbelt duly fastened, gets back on the wheel in time to get the car under control. Oh how he must have suffered under the apprehensions of us mere mortals!

Needless to say, the rest of our drive was truly exhilarating, and all the way the driver kept changing the tracks on the CD player with the remote - yes, his car radio/player has a remote - no doubt since such expert driving requires the right soundtrack. Upon arriving at Connaught Place I barely checked the urge to kiss the ground, although I think we did tip the driver a little in appreciation for a memorable ride.

At Connaught Place we walked around a little, weighing our dinner alternatives, before opting for the Volga Restaurant. Unfortunately it wasn't serving Russian food. Instead, it served Indian food, but I suppose the Russian name was in reference to the sparse and utilitarian internal decoration which was like something out of the Cold War-era.

On the menu we spotted Black Label being listed under beer, so we duly called over the waiter to highlight the error. But then we were informed that there indeed was a Black Label beer, which we then tried, and like all the other 'regular' beers in India, tasted like crap. One thing I've learnt about Indian beers - never go for the 'Regular', always go for the 'Premium'.

After an average meal, we got an auto back to our hotel, and we started packing and rearranging our stuff, in preparation for an early departure the next day. We also arranged with the hotel for a 3am wake-up call and transport to the airport.

Day 13:Delhi

2008-09-29T07:07:00.000-07:00

Our first destination in the morning was Chandni Chowk. The auto driver as usual was bent on ripping us off, but uniquely in this case he put a pious spin on it, as he kept swearing on Waheguru (he was a Sikh) that he wasn't ripping us off while doing so. We didn't really much bargaining anyway, since we had to get rid of our excess rupees in one way or another over this day and the next, and getting extravagantly charged for auto travel was one sure way of doing so.

Security was pretty tight all around Delhi this day since there had been bomb blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad a couple of days back and there was a strong indication that Delhi was the next target. Checkpoints had been set up at all the major tourist attractions and some roads - like the one leading to our hotel - were cordoned off. Our backpacks were frequently the subject of police checks when walking in areas like Chandni Chowk, while at some places like the Red Fort, we could not enter with our bags, but have to leave them at the baggage counter. The situation eased off a little after a couple of days... but as it turned out tragically, the terrorists got their way eventually.

We got off at the Sis Ganj Gurdwara, built on the spot where the Guru Tegh Bahadur, the 9th Guru of the Sikhs, was beheaded on orders of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. Dave and I had no problems getting in with our bags, but Govin was prevented from coming in with his bag, basically because he looked too dodgy. So I went out, grabbed his bag and told him to go ahead in. After a while I went in with his bag, and no one stopped me. This of course proves once and for all that Govin is dodgier-looking than me.

We spent some time at the darbar, and headed out for the langgar. This time all three of us were prevented from entering with our bags, so instead of checking in our bags at the bag counter we just decided to go out. We went to the nearby McDonalds for lunch... the McDonalds menu in India has almost nothing in common with its counterparts around the world. Everything has been Indianized, up to the use of raita instead of mayonnaise in their burgers. It's pretty delicious too... no India trip is complete without a trip to the McDonalds. I recommend the McAloo Tikki burger.

Having completed our McDonalds pilgrimage, we looked around Chandni Chowk for a bit. Our explorations were cut short when it suddenly started to rain, but fortunately it was just a brief spell. We didn't linger too long and headed over to the Jama Masjid, just a short walk away.

The Jama Masjid is one of the oldest and biggest mosques in India, built by Shah Jahan in the 17th century and can easily accomodate 25,000. We got there just when the Friday prayers were finishing and weren't allowed in by the security until all the worshippers came out. We stood there in the wilting heat - the rain hadn't helped much - for nearly half an hour as a never-ending stream of people kept pouring out of the mosque. Finally, the crowd thinned somewhat and we were allowed in. Once again, for some inexplicable reason I was asked to pay to snap pics with my camera (in a mosque!!), so I used my camera phone instead.
The first glimpse of the masjid is simply breath-taking.

A corner of the compound is set aside for pigeons to feed on grains.

Inside the mosque.

We spent some time at the mosque, after which we headed across the street to the Red Fort. I've been there before, so it wasn't anything new to me. I was also feeling quite exhausted and dehiydrated from the heat, so decided to sit down somewhere while Dave and Govin explored the environs. While seated this dodgy-looking guy comes over to me and asks my help in operating the PDA that he had just 'bought'. But I felt it wasn't for me to judge by his dodginess if he had actually purchased the phone or just, um, borrowed it permanently from someone, even though you'd think that the PDA would have come with a manual. So at best, I did my good deed for the day and at worst, I just might have aided a criminal, in which case I can probably strike that off my list of things to do before I'm dead.

Those thoughts were brushed away like a drowsy fly as I waited for Dave and Govin. They returned shortly and we headed out of the fort. Our next destination was Bangla Sahib, and we decided to go there via the Delhi Metro, which had a station close by. I have to say the Delhi Metro is pretty impressive, even more so when you consider the effort required to maintain it in such an environment. Trains were frequent, stations were clean and informative, tickets were cheap. Only drawback was due to the bomb scare, there was a security checkpoint at the entrance so only one person could enter at a time, so we had to take our place at the end of a winding slow-moving queue. Eventually we managed to get in and the train arrived shortly, so it wasn't too long before we emerged at the station near Bangla Sahib.
On my first trip to India I had been very taken with Bangla Sahib. The place simply exudes an aura of serenity and peace to which I couldn't help but submit myself. So this time around I pretty much insisted that we go there. Coincidentally we got there in the evening, which was about the same time of the day that I first visited the gurdwara. The shades of the evening sky combined with the sounds of kirtan to accentuate the spirituality of the moment. Once again we weren't allowed to bring our bags into the Darbar Sahib, so we just sat outside. But it didn't matter to me. Even more than the Golden Temple, Bangla Sahib is where I can lose myself and realize my faith.

We spent some time there - and like the first time, however long wasn't long enough - before taking an auto to our next destination, Connaught Place. I introduced Dave and Govin to the labyrinth of wonder that was Pallika Bazaar - the underground shopping center at Connaught Place where one could find virtually anything. We split up to do our own exploring, and I bagged myself a few Hindi DVDs at about 100Rp a copy. Govin wanted to spend more time looking around, so Dave and I headed out first to look for a cold one. We found a few cold ones at Regent's Blues, a cozy pub which seemed to have a loyal clientele, most of them seemingly here after a day's work. We were lucky to find a corner table as within minutes a queue had formed up outside and people were standing around waiting for tables to empty. There was a also a live band - well, more like a girl singing and a guy on keyboard, but they seemed popular enough with the local crowd, even though their repertoire was a bit too adult contemporary for me. But I did like the chummy atmosphere, and the music got better once the duo stopped playing (heh) so it was an enjoyable start to the evening's planned festivities.

Govin joined us for a couple more drinks, after which we left to look for an auto to take us back. We planned to stop by to have a look at India Gate on the way back, so we arranged with the auto driver to take us on such a detour. Once we got to India Gate, this is how we paid reverence at the war memorial:
Um, yeah.

We got back to the hotel and got all dressed up for a night of partying. Only problem was we had no idea where to go. The first place we went to, called My Kind of Place at the Taj Palace hotel, turned out to have closed down a couple of years back, but the hotel receptionist kindly directed us to Dublin next door at the Maurya Sheraton - in Delhi all the happening clubs are in 5-star hotels apparently.

The cover charge into Dublin was a whopping 1000Rp. However this also entitled us to 1000Rp worth of drinks from the bar. Obviously these would be a tad overpriced, but still we were able to get our money's worth, especially since the bar had apparently won awards for having a fine selection of whiskeys. There was also a dance floor with a DJ spinning R&B music, but unfortunately there wasn't a crowd building up. Some mighty fine chicks were around though - including some Middle-Eastern-looking types whom we suspected were stewardesses - but they didn't linger long. So after a couple or three shots of some superb single malt, we decided to split the scene in search of somewhere more happening.

Next stop was the Ashok Hotel, which housed two of the most happening nightspots in Delhi - Capitol and the ftv Bar. Unfortunately both places wouldn't allow us in because entrance was for couples only - I suppose being three dodgily-dressed dodgy-looking baifellas didn't help our case much either. That would turn out to be the sad reality about nightlife in Delhi - almost everywhere happening is for couples only. No doubt because everyone knows what happens when you put too many drunk Indian guys into an enclosed area. The cover charges weren't cheap either - for ftv it was 3000Rp a couple (ie S$100). I was too stunned to enquire how many drinks that covers though. But judging from the quality of the crowd going into the bar, I suppose it didn't really matter to them. And viewing the fashion on display outside the bar - while we debated our choices - this definitely looked like the place to be.

In the end we decided to just head back. It didn't look like we had many options available - we had no idea where else to go. In any case we were actually looking for a bhangra/hindi club, but it turned out that the nightlife here was more into techno/trance stuff... if we going to do that, might as well do it back in Singapore, where, judging by the prices, it was probably cheaper anyway. So we asked the concierge to help arrange for us a cab. The concierge turned out to be this extremely helpful guy, who upon finding out about our predicament, really went out of his way to find us a club that we can get into. He called up a few clubs, but they turned out to be couples-only as well. He even went down to Capitol and tried to convince them to let us in, despite me insisting that he didn't have to. Of course he probably had the notion that we were guests of the hotel, which we didn't really disabuse him off. And when he finally gave up, it was as if he was more disappointed than us - it was like he took our situation very personally. With many words of gratitude, we got into a taxi and headed back to the hotel. After all the concierge did for us, the only thing I can do is to highly recommend the Ashok if you're looking for a posh place to stay - excellent service, and the best nightspots in town. Just remember to bring a chick along.

The evening's disappointment was slightly mitigated by the experience of riding in a Maruti... but all in all, the nightlife in Delhi fell short of our expectations. The party crowd didn't, though.

Day 12: Jaipur-Delhi

2008-09-27T07:05:00.000-07:00

Our plan this day was to explore old Jaipur on foot. Our hotel was right next to the old walled city, also called the Pink City because the walls and the buildings were all painted pink (it seemed like quite a fascination amongst Rajasthanis to have a uniform colour theme for their cities... the Amber fort and palace complex was wholly painted in - you guessed it - amber, and apparently there were more blue and red and what-have-you cities further out in the state). However, there were only three major gates of ingress into the walled section and all of them were not very close to our hotel, so we decided to take an auto there. So we flagged down a metered auto and told the guy where we were going, and he told us to hop on.

When we got down at our destination - outside the Hawa Mahal - Dave prepared to pay the driver 3x the metered amount, which was the normal going rate in India. But the driver refused to accept it and asked for more, saying his meter was broken. So the three of us got into a confrontation with the driver. He got a couple of the onlooking shopkeepers nearby to give him support, but we were adamant on paying him any more - it wasn't the amount, although at the asking price of 70Rp it was pretty steep - it was the principle of the thing... if your meter is broken, then you tell us when boarding, not at the end of the ride and then start charging us some arbitrary price. In the end Dave pretended to call the tourist police, so the guy sped off, without even taking the amount we were offering him. For the remainder of my time in Jaipur I was in constant fear of being set upon by a team of auto drivers.

The "tension of the day" session over and done with, we proceeded to explore Hawa Mahal, which turned out to be under renovation, so we didn't really get to see much. While we were inside however, the skies burst open, and Jaipur got its first downpour of the monsoon season.

A perfect day to pick for walking on the streets.

The three of us split up after Hawa Mahal to do our own thing, and planned to meet back in the hotel in three hours to pack and leave for the station. There wasn't much exploration we could do however, with the rain still pouring down. I tried to wait it out by getting a haircut, shave and head massage (nothing beats an Indian head massage after a haircut!) in a barber shop along the street. But the rain still kept on coming...

In the end I had no choice but to head back to the hotel in the rain. I let Dave and Govin have the maps since I had more or less committed the route back into my head, but I didn't account for flash floods blocking my way. So I had to take a couple of detours, which branched out into even more detours as I couldn't find my way around the floods that were seemingly besieging the section of the city I was in. Eventually I ended up walking on a fairly unwaterlogged route, only to find my way blocked once again by a huge puddle, and to retrace my route would be more time-consuming, so I just had to roll up my pants and trudge through the flash floods getting my shoes and socks thoroughly soaked in the procees. Soaked to the skin, my shoes making squishy sounds at every step, and feeling completely unhealthy, I finally got to our room, only to find our other two friends very much drier than me - apparently they weren't in the same section of town I was when the flash floods sprung up.

The bathroom was submerged in wet clothes, shoes and underthings with the fan turned on full blast as we tried to get them as dry as possible before we left. In the meantime we started packing, and Dave realized that he couldn't find the bag with his shoes in it. Even more catastrophic, that bag also had my slippers in them! You know how hard it is to find a decent pair of bata slippers these days? Apart from that, the short term effect of this development would be that I had no choice but to travel back to Delhi in my wet shoes. We figured we must have lost it when leaving the station the previous day, since that was the last time any one of us could recall seeing it. Oh well, the odds were pretty high that some possession of ours would disappear on such a long trip, so at least it was just footwear and nothing more costly.

We had our meals - I had some noodles at the hotel restaurant while Dave and Govin went for pizza next door, which took such a long time coming that they had to get it packed in the end - and headed back to the station. We had spiked one bottle of Pepsi with what remained of our Black Label, and in the station waiting room Govin bought a couple of Limcas to be spiked with the Bacardi. But of course, in between all this, we had to have our tea, which we got from the station tea stall in earthen cups.

The last train that we would take turned out to be the only train that was behind schedule - by 10 minutes. The rest of the trip back was pretty uneventful though. I have to admit that I wasn't expecting much out of our Jaipur excursion, so maybe that was why I was quite pleasantly surprised with the city - particularly the palaces and forts. In any case, our short Jaipur trip did leave me thirsting for more exploration of Rajasthan, if I ever get the opportunity in the future.

Arriving at New Delhi railway station this time, it was a short walk to Ajanta Hotel. We collapsed into the office while one of the hotel guys took Dave to show him our room. And it turned out to be a completely different room than the one we asked for - not even a suite, but a double room. Of course Dave refused to take the room, and asked the guy about the room that we were showed when we came here before, which turned out to be the only one of its kind, and it was no longer available! Dave got that guy to show him a couple more rooms - one of them was a bigger version of the suite that was showed to us before. The guy was asking for 4000Rp for it, but Dave brought it down to 3000Rp. The other one was another suite going for 2500Rp, but slightly smaller, no balcony, and only one (non-flat screen) TV. When Dave came back he told us about all this, and we discussed our options in Malay. Due to miscommunication and tiredness Govin and I voted for the 2500Rp, and I at least was under the impression that it was the same type of suite that was shown to us earlier but without a balcony. Of course when I saw it I realized it wasn't after all. I suppose on hindsight when the guy tried to show Dave that double room we should have all just walked out of the hotel and tried our chances elsewhere, but the exhaustion of the day's activities in particular, and 12 days of almost non-stop travel in general I suppose was beginning to tell, and we were in that stage where we just wanted everything over and done with, now that we were almost at the end of our trip. But it was pretty clear that we got conned good and proper, and subsequent events would reinforce this. So boys and girls, if you're looking for a nice place to stay in Delhi, Hotel Ajanta is strongly unrecommended. It may be recommended by Lonely Planet, and we did see a lot of Caucasians there, but once again like in Spars Lodge we got the feeling that because we weren't white, we got the shit treatment.

Day 11: Delhi-Jaipur

2008-09-25T04:10:00.000-07:00

At 230am we woke up, got ready, and made our slow way to the railway station. And we couldn't find our train. Upon enquiring at the booking counter, we found out we were at the wrong railway station. Panic! We rushed out of the station (believe me, no easy thing with all those bags) and squeezed into one auto, bags and all, to make our quickest possible way to the correct station (note: 3 huge baifellas + 3 huge baifellas' huge luggage + auto driver + auto driver's uninvited friend + bad roads + crazily parked lorries = not very quick). Finally, after a nerve-wracking ride, we made it to the station in time to get on our train, which started moving shortly after that. Moral of the story: when leaving from Delhi by train, always check whether it's from Old Delhi or New Delhi.

The train we caught was actually a sleeper from Jammu, hence we got sleeping berths. And they were pretty comfortable too... nothing like a moving train to rock you to sleep. We caught up on some of our lost sleep, and it didn't seem long before we arrived in Jaipur.

At the railway station we went to the tourist office, from which we arranged transportation to our hotel as well as for the rest of the day to conduct a whirlwind tour of Jaipur. Since we'd only allowed for an overnighter, we figured this was the best way to do the city. The prices quoted were pretty affordable too (can't remember now, but think it was in the range of 2000Rp). Our first stop was our hotel, the Arya Niwas. It was mentioned in the Lonely Planet as a budget hotel, and we only opted for it because for some reason all the mid-range hotels we wanted were fully booked, so we were resigned to another Namashkar-esque hovel. Boy were we surprised...
The digs were actually pretty impressive, built to resemble a typical Indian haveli. The rooms were spacious and fully airconditioned, a boon in the hot Rajasthani summer, and with excellent plumbing to boot.. all this for a budget-level price of 1200Rp! If this was a budget hotel, it made us wonder how the mid-range hotels were like..

After dumping our bags we promptly started on our whirlwind tour. It was now 12pm, and we had roughly half a day to cover most of Jaipur's attractions, so it was going to be pretty tight. But first, we had to have the customary 90-minute lunch, after which our destination was the Jantar Mantar.

The fascination of Jantar Mantar for me is the unexpectedness of it all, to encounter such angles and curves amidst the more traditional Mughal/Hindu architecture. It's like coming across a Salvador Dali exhibition in the Vatican. The Jantar Mantar wasn't new to me however, since I've been to its Delhi cousin on my previous trip up North.

After our morning dose of weird science we headed across the road to the Jaipur palace.

Part of the palace is still cordoned off as the official Jaipur residence of the maharaja (yep there's still one, although he spends most of his time abroad these days). The rest of it has been converted to a gaggle of museums, displaying royal heirlooms such as clothing and weaponry.

We were invited to watch a short puppet show featuring not only your standard booty-shaking dancing girl, but Michael Jackson and the Devil.

Just inside the entrance, on the left and right, are the largest silver vessels in the world, as duly noted in the Guinness Book of Records. These were supposed to contain holy water from the Ganges, for the Maharaja to take along with him on his travels.

Two of the four doorways into this square, each doorway representing a season. These two were winter (hah!) and summer.

Our next destination was Jaigarh Fort, 15km further up in the hills north of Jaipur.

On the way up this security guard came up to me and tried to charge me for taking pictures on my camera - the first of many such occurences to come during the remainder of our Jaipur/Delhi travels. I refused and just said I'll keep my camera in the car, and even offered to delete my previous pictures since he kept insisting I pay. Eventually I made him go away none the richer after I kept my camera in the car. The following snaps were taken with my handphone camera.

I never got the whole deal about charging extra for cameras, which is especially outdated in the age of the cameraphone. I mean, what's the rationale behind this rule? It seems like nothing short than just another way to get tourist money. It's to the eventual detriment of the place in question, I feel, since by discouraging photography you're preventing other people from learning about its beauty and hence paying it a visit. Just another example of unproductive short-termist beauracratic greed.

The fort was also home to the biggest wheeled cannon ever built, but because of these silly rules I can't show you a pic.

It was high summer in Jaipur, with temperatures in the mid- to upper thirties. We were averaging one mineral water bottle per hour in the killing heat, and walking around the unsheltered fort were just making it worse... which was another reason (apart from the time constraints) we didn't spend too much time exploring the environs of Jaigarh. Instead we headed on to the neighbouring fort of Nahargarh.

Nahargarh was the highlight of Jaipur for me. It was exactly how I imagined an abandoned Indian palace would be... a majestic facade masking a run-down labyrinth with dark passageways and endless corridors, beauty in decay.

And to top it all, the fort offers amazing views of the sprawling city of Jaipur directly below.

The rooftop. More pictures of Nahargarh can be found here.

The fort also houses a cafe and a hotel (another place I'd love to stay in if I get the opportunity to revisit). We went to the cafe for a couple of cooling beers.
Godfather strikes again!

Next up was the third and final fort - Amber, which was also the previous home of the Maharajas before Jaipur was founded.

A settlement has mushroomed around the fort, enveloping the old gateways and lining the entrances to the fort.

The route to the fort was swarming with guides offering their services, every one of them 'students' who were doing this to fund their studies. One 'student' even stopped our car in the village to offer his services. I suppose it's up to the individual whether he/she would like to contribute to the educational standards of the population, but do keep in mind that the fort entrance offers excellent audio guides for a small amount.

The entrance to the palace.

The royal gardens.

The zenana, or royal harem.

Closing time. We made it out just in time.

As the sun started to set, we made our way back to Jaipur. Due to lack of time we had to scrap our plan to watch the sunset from one of the forts or from a rooftop cafe. Instead we had to rush back to change and get ready for our next destination. However we did have enough time to stop near the Jal Mahal (Water Palace) so that Dave could go on a camel ride, one major aim of this trip.
The water palace.

Unfortunately the camel didn't take Dave too far away from us, so we had to resume our journey with him (Dave, not the camel) along. We headed back to the hotel for a quick bath and change of clothes, after which we emerged once again to go to Chokhi Dhani.

Chokhi Dhani was a sort of theme park some 30km out of Jaipur, showcasing elements of Rajasthani culture set up as a traditional mela, or village carnival. Even the performers are actually from the villages who performed in the village melas.It was quite professionally done from very beginning, as you're greeted by a traditional song and the someone applieas a tikka (red powder) on our foreheads making us all look like dacoits.

The park itself was quite big, with every space fully utilized. The main attractions were the dance platforms, where one can find the colourful and fluid traditional Rajasthani dance performances. The performers were pretty awesome as well - being able to bend over backwards to pick a piece of paper with your eyelid is not something you see everyday. There are notices everywhere discouraging people from tipping the performers, but at the end of every performance the girls will be looking at you expectantly, so naturally we found it hard to resist giving a contribution (we tried hard! Really!). Govin even tried to take a photo with one of the girls, but in the final shot he got crowded out by the various old ladies who were doing the singing, probably wary of these foreigners getting anywhere near these girls unchaperoned.

Of course the dance performances weren't the only thing happening at Chokhi Dhani. There were also magic shows, elephant rides, games, and one surreal section that Govin and I stumbled to while walking around (Dave was in the toilet, having another dose of the runs). We were exploring the edges of the park when we stumbled across this tribal village thing with kids wearing tigerskins who handed us sticks and got us to dance with them. It was quite a strange moment, me and Govin dancing with sticks in our hands surrounded by jumping boys in tigerskins. But it must have touched a primal chord within us since it didn't take long for us to get into the groove. Sadly we couldn't linger long since Dave had emerged from the toilet and was frantically trying to reach us, probably afraid that we had left him in the deserts of Rajasthan and fled to civilization.

After exploring the environs we sat down to a traditional Rajasthani thali meal which was extremely filling, since the courses and the helpings kept on coming seemingly incessantly. Finally they let us go and we could stumble out of the park, bloated to the gills. As a microcosm of Rajasthani culture I suppose you can't beat Chokhi Dhani, and it's pretty obvious that the whole park has been designed so that everyone can extract maximum enjoyment from it. I was impressed by the orderly and disciplined manner that the whole show was being run, quite a rare find in India. All this doesn't come cheap though, at about 1200Rp per person (inclusive of meals) it was quite a high price to pay for a night's entertainment. But pricey as it was, I think it was quite worth it.

Along the way back we stopped to get a bottle of Coke so as to finish up our bottle of Black Label that we had brought from Singapore. The Black Label had been a source of nourishment on our many train rides, as one of us would try to sneak of as unconspicuously as possible to the coach toilet or a quiet spot on a railway platform to pour some Black Label into previously bought Coke or Pepsi bottles. Of course in such undercover missions some spillage was bound to happen, but most of the time we tried to ensure that as little as possible went to waste. And so that we did not remain dry once the Black Label was over, enroute to Chokhi Dhani we had also bought a bottle of Bacardi. Sufficiently stocked, we could satisfactorily look back that night on what had indeed been a most productive and eventful day.

Day 10: Simla-Delhi

2008-09-22T05:15:00.000-07:00

When checking out from Spars Lodge that morning the proprietor was trying to get us to pay extra for the suite he gave us on the first night, while apologizing and admitting his mistake. I was completely against paying anything more from the very beginning, since I didn't believe we should be paying for his screw-up. But Dave, playing the good guy (I have no idea why, since there weren't any chicks around) paid him 100Rp extra for that night. In any case, I strongly recommend against Spars Lodge if you're going to Simla - to me it seems as if they thought they could get away with 2nd-class treatment of us simply because we weren't Caucasians. Instead, I strongly recommend Harsha Hotel, as I mentioned previously - classy yet cheap.

And so we headed down to the train station.

There was a brief moment of confusion when we realized our tickets did not have seat numbers on it. Turned out our seat allocations are given on the spot at the ticket counter - just like a budget flight, heh.

We boarded our coach and bid our farewells to Simla.
... yeah, and these guys to, whoever they may be.

We didn't do much in Simla apart from a couple of strolls into the city, but I thoroughly enjoyed my time there... mostly I suppose because I loved the idea of Simla itself - a colonial city in the mist high up in the mountains - and it was maintained well enough for this idea to make its impression. Oh, and the girls are beautiful - but who pays attention to those kind of things, eh?

Our train itself was called a 'toy train'. The coaches were your typical domestic type, and passengers seat 2 to a bench facing each other, with barely enough space for luggage - we had to pile most of our bags at one end of the coach, blocking the entrance at that end. So when people had to make use of that entrance the person next to it had to shift the bags around, and we had to keep an eye in case our bags don't get carried out. Our companions were the typical mixed bag you find in this type of journeys - a tourist couple, local couples including newlyweds, a group of students, a very quiet guy stuck next to a bullying type... 40 passengers, 40 stories.

The Simla-Kalka railway route is known for its surrounding scenery, and was itself quite an impressive feat of engineering - more info can be found here. If you have 6 hours to spare, it's probably the bext way to cover the 96km journey.

Stopping for tea along the way.

One of the many zig-zags enroute.

Approaching our destination Kalka.

From Kalka we took a more conventional train to Delhi, this 2nd leg taking another 5 hours. By the time we arrived it was close to 11pm. Since we had an early departure the following day, we decided to lodge in good ol' Hotel Namashkar for the few hours in between. After checking in and an hour's internet time at the cafe nearby, we tucked in at 1am for an hour and half's shut-eye before waking up at 230am to get ready for our 5am train.

Day 9: Simla

2008-09-21T03:02:00.000-07:00

In the morning we headed to a nearby hospital so that Govin can get some medical opinion. After dropping him there Dave and I went down to the railway station to get our tickets to Delhi for the following day.

A misty morning in Simla.

Once again I was impressed by the efficiency of the railway service (they even had an e-ticket interactive booth!) and the helpfulness of the staff. I went back up to pick Govin up while Dave ambled on to the tourist office to get some brochures.

Well the doctor's opinion was that Govin had two choices - either he stayed in the hospital for a day with a saline drip, or take some meds and get as much rest as possible in the hotel. I'm not sure why the doctor never suggested the obvious third choice - that Govin walk around with us in Simla with a drip in his arm. But I suppose then it would've been quite hard for him to fend off the attacking monkeys with only one hand. In any case he decided he'd just take the meds and take the rest of the day off in bed.

By this time we'd already shifted over to Spars Lodge, since they'd ensured we'd get the room we paid for on the 2nd night. So Dave and I left Govin there and made our way to town. It was a 2-3km walk from our hotel to Simla proper, and no vehicles are allowed on the route we took. Which was just as well, since it was probably the best way to get introduced to Simla.
the main city, as it gradually emerges from the morning mist.

Simla (or Shimla as it's now called.. I don't know what's with Indians and renaming their towns) has raked itself quite a bit of history in the short duration of its existence... founded in the 19th century, it became the summer capital of the Indian Raj within 50 years of the building of the first colonial house. After Independence it was briefly the capital of the state of Punjab (which used to include the current states of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh) until it was carved up into its current constituents, after which it became the capital of Himachal Pradesh. But even then, 80 years of colonial rule has left its mark...

I think Simla is best enjoyed if one has an appreciation for the surreal. And surreal indeed is what I found Simla to be - colonial buildings and strolling Indians in the enveloping mist...
... and oh yeah, the monkeys.

Simla has loads of monkeys roaming the streets. And they are not to be messed with. They can get pretty aggressive if disturbed, as we witnessed a couple of times. Killer monkeys atop colonial buildings... it just gets curiouser and curiouser.

The other impressive thing about Simla is that the authorities had taken pains to maintain its cleanliness and preserve the buildings, a rarity in India. The Mall, which is the main thoroughfare in the city, is closed to vehicles as well, so that helps substantially in keeping the place well preserved.

The crowd on the Mall.

One of the many little side alleys, consisting of narrow and steep stairs.

The Gurdwara in Simla, a little further up.

At Scandal Point, the square at the heart of the city, with its most notable landmark, the second oldest church in India, Christ Church.

At Scandal Point Dave and I decided to check out a traditional Indian pastime - catch a Bollywood movie in a cinema. There was a cinema next to the church, so we went over there to get tix. Unfortunately the only movie showing there was 'Money Hai Toh Honey Hai' (literally - Got Money then Got Honey) which as the name suggests, was not exactly the avant-garde insight into the Indian existentialist perspective. But then again, what better movie to watch in an Indian cinema? So Dave and I got tickets for a night show.

On the way back we dropped in the Simla Coffee House, and watched government bureaucrats having their extended lunches - it was 2pm already by then.

Check out the helipad in the golf course. Simla didn't have any difficulty transitioning from the playground of the old (British) Raj to the playground of the new (Indian) Raj.

With dark clouds gathering we made our way back to the hotel and to check on Govin. It looked like the day's rest did him good since he was raring to go for our evening's jaunt - although I'm sure he wasn't keen on another round of tequila shots, for sure. So in the evening the three of us strolled to the city, this time we went a little beyond Scandal Point to the local bazaar.

After browsing around for a while, we made our way to the cinema. It turned out the movie was rubbish even by local standards - we were the only ones in the theatre, and even then we couldn't take it any longer than the intermission, so we walked out. Like this reviewer put it: 'I tuned out some fifteen minutes into this nonsense, which is so unwatchable, a wag at the theatre yelled “Thank you” when the power went off for a minute'. Fortunately the movie tickets cost 60Rp but even then we lost one hour plus of our lives that could never - ever! - be brought back.

So to erase the unspeakeable horror of 'Money Hai Toh Honey Hai' from our minds we went to the lounge in the same building as the cinema (the lounge must have been there for this very purpose... or people to fortify themselves with some cheap scotch before watching the latest B-grade masala flick) and hit ourselves with some stiff drinks, which if we were fortunate enough, would kill the very brain cells in which the memory of this movie resided (no such luck for me, as you can tell). There was also a disco next to the lounge, but probably because it was a Monday, it was pretty dead. The DJ was playing some pretty loud techno stuff as well, which wasn't really to our taste. In any case, after having a few, we ventured out into the surreal darkness of the city at night.
The church emerging out of the dark.

On our way back we came to the rescue of this guy who was stranded on the roadside, who was scared to move since there were lots of monkeys just ahead of him, and they sounded pretty agitated. Whatever that was agitating them, I suppose it got resolved by the time we came since they were moving away as we advanced. And the guy who was stranded there seemed pretty relieved about it. See? The monkeys were not to be messed with.

Day 8: Manali-Naggar-Simla

2008-09-20T04:29:00.000-07:00

And so we said our farewells to Manali and the Beas View hotel. I have to say that the people in Manali were the most helpful and honest people I've met in this trip. Of course there was the occasional blip like the guys in Johnson's Lodge, but on the whole, even if I don't include the extremely helpful Pavan, the hospitality shown to us here was notable. Everyone was direct and honest in their dealings with us, and we never felt cheated or ripped off anywhere (once again with one exception). I'd also recommend the Beas View hotel for anyone who's travelling up there - good, spacious and cheap rooms, and helpful management (service was a bit on the tardy side though, especially the wake up call. The previous morning I had arranged for an early wake up call for our Rohtang Pass trip, which never came. So I called up the receptionist and gave him a word or two about it. So when on this day I had arranged for a wake up call as well, it came - one hour earlier. But anyway wake up calls in India were pretty unreliable as a whole - I always set my phone alarm in any case).

A couple of days back Dave had made arrangements for our stay in Shimla. We went with Spars Lodge, which came highly recommended by the Lonely Planet. On the morning of our departure to Shimla the guy from the hotel called us to reconfirm our bookings, which we promptly did.

We set off for our 260km trip in a small car driven by Bhipu (this one I remember coz it took me some time to get his name right) with our biggest bags roped up on the car roof.

We decided to do a minor detour on our way to Shimla, to visit the fort at Naggar, about 20km south of Manali.
The road to Naggar.

An apple orchard enroute. It was apple season in the Himalayas, but we never got a chance to try one of the local apples.

The main attraction in Naggar is the Fort, built over 500 years ago with wood and stone and without the use of a single nail.

A temple in the courtyard. The interesting this about this temple is that there are no idols in in, but instead it venerates a slab of stone that was brought here from Rohtang Pass at the time of its construction. I must have seen its cousin at the pass the day before:

The village around the fort.

Headstones from ancient burial sites nearby.

The fort has now been converted to a hotel. We enquired about the room prices and they were pretty affordable... if I ever come this way again, this is something I definitely want to do - to stay in a 500-year old fort overlooking a scenic valley...

From the fort we went a little higher up to the Roerich gallery, previously home to Nicholas Roerich, a famous painter of Indian landscapes.
Naggar Fort as seen from the gallery.

Our sojourn in Naggar complete, we resumed our way to Simla.
In a 3km road tunnel south of Kullu.

Oh look, people sitting on the bus roof!

A dam on the Beas River near Mandi.

The Gurdwara in Mandi. Govin went in, but Dave and I had drunk some wine earlier, so we stayed out.

The sun was setting as we got closer to Simla, and the view of the sun setting over the mountains and the encroaching mist was simply magnificient...

We arrived in Simla at night, amidst twinkling lights in the valley...

Our hotel was inaccessible by vehicle as one of the connecting roads was closed to traffic after 8pm every night. So we were dropped off near the railway station to make our way up. Once we got off Govin promptly threw up... his condition had taken a turn for the worse, and I suppose the journey over winding roads didn't help as well. As a matter of fact I was feeling a little ill too, and on hindsight finishing half a bottle of the local apple wine that Dave had bought along the way didn't look like a good idea. But we didn't have a choice, and uphill we trudged in the direction of our hotel.

After some hunting - we asked an apparently clueless guard along the way and he pointed us in the wrong direction, but fortunately a tourist couple who were staying there walked past at the same time and showed us the right way - we found our hotel, on the top of a 45-degree road slope - I kid you not - which was not the best of walks with a 15kg pack on your back. But then again, at least I wasn't carrying Dave's backpack - I have no idea what all he'd been carrying throughout this trip, but watching him put on the backpack was a spectacle by itself - first he'll need to fall into the bag straps, then with many an accompanying grunt he'll heave the pack onto his back, and then he'll stagger like a drunk for a while as he absorbs the momentum from his Herculean struggle. We always made sure that he didn't do this act next to a cliff, in case his staggers take him over the edge and the weight in his bag pulls him down Wiley Coyote style - and none of us will be able to stand in the way of him and his bag. So watching him climbing up the 45-degree slope was particularly worrisome, and I was frantically making mental physics calculations about torque and center of gravity, while trying to keep myself from walking directly behind him lest he pulls me down as well when he tips over. To be caught in an avalanche of a whole lot of Punjabi and a whole lot of Punjabi used underwear -never had I been in such gut-wrenching fear for my life!

Completely out of breath and virtually on our hands and knees, we made it into the hotel, just to be told that they had given our rooms away. That was when I competely blew my top. Those who have had the rare privilege of seeing me in such occasions tell me that I get pretty scary when it happens, and probably I scared the proprietor, which was just as well. To be such a highly recommended hotel (by Lonely Planet even), and then to call us in the morning to reconfirm our bookings, only to give it away! I was totally pissed off. The proprietor tried to give us two small single rooms, but I didn't care. It was only right that they gave us the room we asked for, and if they have only smaller rooms, then he should not expect us to pay for it. The proprietor kept apologizing and saying there was nothing he could do, but I didn't budge. It wasn't my problem that he didn't have rooms, it was his problem to find us rooms. I probably terrorized the guy into calling a nearby hotel and getting us a suite there. He told us that it would probably cost more but I said we were not going to pay a rupee more than what we had agreed on for our room in their hotel. So off we went down the slope to Hotel Harsha. I actually highly recommend this hotel, and if I knew about its existence previously, I'd have gone for it instead of Spars Lodge. The location was excellent, good views,a nd by far the best rooms of our India trip. No doubt we got the suite because of the screw up at Spars, but at 1500Rp the suite was indeed a bargain - 2 huge bedrooms each with its own tv, and -oh heavenly- a washroom with a regular water supply! And so our unpleasant encounter had a sweet epilogue.

Day 7 - Rohtang Pass

2008-09-18T05:23:00.000-07:00

It was an early departure for us, on another road trip. This time it was another 2000m uphill, towards the source of the Beas river.

It was a 40km stretch of narrow winding road, taking about 2 hours of travel time either way, but offering awesome sweeps of scenery at every bend of the road.

The road conditions weren't that great either... this being the main road to Ladakh, we had to negotiate around quite a few lorries and buses.
Getting up close and personal with a truck.

Yes, this is the main road to Ladakh.

Around the 3000m mark the landscape abruptly changed into something out of the Scottish highlands...

We stopped for breakfast at a settlement which looked even more like something out of Braveheart or Highlander.

Stomachs filled with alu paratha (and some really nice sweet chai) we resumed our journey uphill, into the misty mountains.

With another 10kms to go, at about 3500m above sea level, we got stuck in a massive jam due to roadworks.

The road conditions up here...

... are not a barrier to overtaking.

Where we had our breakfast, waaaay below.

And finally we got moving.

Entrepreneurship at 3800m.

So we arrived at Rohtang Pass, elevation 3900m. This was the second highest place I've ever come to, after Hemkunt Sahib, but definitely the highest place I've ever reached directly by road.

Dave and Govin immediately arranged for a short trip on *cough*ponies*cough* errr, horses...

...while I explored the environs on foot.

The landscape was easily navigable, green grass peppered with rocks left over from glaciers. Everything looked fresh, and the air had that strange muted quality that one only finds in cold environs.

A hindu temple at the pass. Rohtang Pass has been use since ancient times as a trade route between Ladakh and regions south, and the name itself means 'pile of dead bodies'.

The settlement at Rohtang Pass, consisting of makeshift tents.

It was still about 10am, and the surroundings were still shrouded with mist. As I explored further, the mists gradually started to clear up, and I was humbled.
One truly does not know the meaning of awe until one stands in the presence of such giants. It was an amazing sight, and I could only just stand there looking and contemplating on eternity and transcience.

Eventually the boys returned...

... and we retired for some chai.

We then embarked on the journey back.

And we got stuck in the same jam we encountered coming uphill.

The rest of the way down.

While waiting we decided to perform an interpretative dance about Samy Vellu's loss of the Sungai Siput parliamentary seat in the March 8 Malaysian General Elections...

We finally got moving again. On the way down we decided to take a break at this row of makeshift cafes that had tables directly in the Beas river...

The water was so cooling that Dave buried his bottle of soft drink inside the river bed so that he could drink it later nice and cold.

After a bowl of fried Maggi mee Indian style, we headed the remainder of the way down, at the end of what was for me the high point of our trip, in both manners of speaking. You can find more pictures of Rohtang Pass here.

We got back to our hotel at around 2pm. After a bit of rest, we decided to solve our tequila problem. In Dharamshala we realized that the bottle of tequila that Govin had brought from Singapore had sprung a leak. We found this out when Govin's bag started reeking of tequila. It was either this, or that Govin had been nipping a few while we were not looking. It was hard not to believe the latter was happening, but upon closer inspection of the bottle top we realized that the bottle indeed was leaking. So we decided one way or another we had to finish the bottle, with one quarter already leaked out. Since we didn't have much planned until later in the evening, we decided to finish it this day (hence the purchase of lime and salt the previous day). And what better way to do it than with a drinking game! So on the spot we decided on the rules of the game:
- we turn on the tv and surf channels till we come across a Hindi movie. Must be the first Hindi movie we get.
- whenever the hero appears, Dave takes a shot.
- whenever the hero mentions his mother, Dave takes 2 shots.
- whenever the heroine appears, I take a shot
- whenever the heroine cries, I take 2 shots
- whenever the villain appears, Govin takes a shot
- whenever the villain smokes, Govin takes 2 shots
- when there's a song, we all take a shot
- when there's a rape scene, we all take 2 shots

Unfortunately for Govin and me, the first movie we came across had the heroine and the villain in almost every scene. Even worse for Govin, in every scene the villain was smoking. So Govin was taking tequila doubles like there was no tomorrow, until we had to modify the rule to Govin takes a double when the villain laughs. But by then the damage was already done... Govin, having barely recovered from his diarrhea, was once again down. With all those doubles, and with three songs almost back to back (a rarity even in Hindi movies!) we managed to finish the whole bottle in half an hour. Govin was sprawled on the bed, so it was only Dave and I who staggered out of the hotel, having proved to ourselves that we didn't need to be drunk to think of stupid ideas.

Our first agenda of the evening was to arrange for our transport to Shimla the next day. Pavan offered to arrange for our transport in the morning, but we hadn't heard from him since and Dave couldn't reach his phone, so we decided to make our own arrangements since we had no idea whether Pavan had already done so or not. We headed over to the taxi stand and arranged for a taxi for about 2000Rp (taxis from Manali normally charge lesser since these drivers were already paid to ferry passengers here from some place else, and would otherwise return with an empty car), and right after we made the deposit we get a call from Pavan that he's already made arrangements for our transport. He sounded a bit pissed when Dave told him we'd already made arrangements after we couldn't reach him - I'd be pissed to if I was in his shoes - but we just couldn't take the chance. Feeling bad about the whole thing, Dave asked him to join us for dinner. We also wanted to treat him in appreciation for all the help he had given us during our stay in Manali.

In the meantime we ventured over to Johnson's Lodge (again) where the rave we heard about the previous day was supposed to be happening. Once there the guy at the bar said that there was a cover of 500Rp, which was not advertised at all in the posters we saw about the rave, nor mentioned anywhere. Dave and I were quite irritated about it - the whole incident about the transport arrangements didn't help either - but we paid up since we might as well experience the rave scene in Manali. But to pay 500Rp for a club in Manali was ridiculous... we pay even less to get into more happening clubs over here. At one point I went over to confront the management since I kept seeing people walking into the club without paying anything. The bartender said they were just going in to have a look, so I warned them not to take us for granted as tourists to be scalped and I'll be keeping an eye on them. Obviously after that our presence near the bar made these guys nervous, and I think the bartender asked the security guy to keep an eye on us. Of course we weren't about to make a scene, but I just felt from the offhand way that these guys were treating us that they were having us on, so I wanted to make sure if they were going to fleece us, they bloody well try fleecing everyone else who was going in.

In a way I supposed this worked to our detriment, because when they started asking for a 500Rp cover almost no one was going in. All this while Dave and I loitered near the bar, playing a couple of games of pool (we kicked a fuss when the management tried to charge us for a game). After a while I went over to the hotel to fetch Govin, who had recovered sufficiently by then (but no doubt having a kickass hangover). When we got back Pavan had also joined us. By this time Dave had managed to placate him a little and I put in my two cents' worth of explanation as well. We had some bites, and Govin and I went into the club to check out the scene. We were back out in fifteen minutes. Besides me and Govin, there were something like ten guys and 1 girl, and unsurprisingly all the guys were dancing around the girl. Govin and I went to rave at one corner, and then this guy breaks off from the big group and comes over to me, dancing with those typical rave gestures. So to be polite I rave back at him. I tell you man, I don't know what strange attraction I have that guys keep coming to dance with me.. it is so freakingly perverse. And depressing.

The music wasn't that great either, but then again I'm not really into techno stuff - old school rave's more my thing. It didn't look like the crowd was going to get any better, so the four of us decided to split the scene.

After all that booze and food we were in no condition to eat or drink anymore, but we had insisted on giving Pavan a treat, so off we went to a restaurant. Pavan promptly started ordering huge plates piled full of stuff and he kept insisting we eat. Feeling bad about what happened earlier, we felt obliged to stuff ourselves further. In the end we just couldn't take it anymore, so we had to convince him that we'll pack the rest and take it back to the hotel. When the bill came, Pavan also insisted on paying, so eventually we had to settle on some complicated payment system where everyone emerged more or less without losing face. Finally we made our farewells and endured a nervous auto ride to the hotel, nursing our bloated stomachs, every bump we hit forcing some half-digested morsel back into our throat. Courtesy kills, I tell you.

Day 6: Vashisht/old Manali

2008-09-17T04:20:00.000-07:00

We woke up to the view of the Beas on a cloudy day. Inspired by the vista, we decided to get closer to the river. Unfortunately the river banks were fenced off from the road. But when we were walking along, we noticed a chink in the fence where locals were squeezing thtough, so we figured that there was a path down from the road to the river banks, and indeed there was.

We had a grand time posing for pix along the rushing river, enjoying the scenery. Eventually, after noticing a few patches of dark brown amongst the rocks, I figured out what the locals were doing here in the early morning (fast river = natural plumbing system+conducive sounds), after which we made our hasty way back up to the road.

Our destination was Vashisht, a little village about 2km upstream and uphill. We decided to trek it so that we can truthfully say that we had trekked in the Himalayas. It wasn't too difficult actually... bulk of the walk was along the main road, after which we cut right for the final 500m or so on a reasonable uphill climb. All in all it took us about half an hour to get to Vashisht.
Admit it... you were looking for people relieving themselves in this pic, weren't you?

On the trek looking uphill towards Vashisht.

Upon completing the climb we promptly collapsed in the nearest cafe we could find.
Dave in collapsed mode at the rooftop cafe.

Vashisht had many such rooftops cafes like this, with excellent views of the surrounding mountains.

My camera has 10x optical zoom!

The main street of Vashisht.

While slacking on the rooftop cafe we got to talking with this German hippie guy who had came here more than 10 years ago, fell in love with the place and promptly settled down, married a local and built a house. We learnt quite a bit from our conversation with him, including the interesting fact that most of the backpackers that linger around old Manali are Israelis... no idea why it's specifically so popular with them. We also found out from him that there was to be a rave party the following night at one of the discos in Manali town. That was our Saturday night made then.

After lounging there for a couple of hours, we decided to continue with our exploration of the village.

The local temple, which also had hot spring baths. Dave and Govin went in for a dip, while I lingered outside. While lingering a local guy came along distributing plums, and passed me some as well, telling me it was good 'for the system'.

The boys eventually emerged, reeking of sulphur, and we continued our exploration of the village by exploring an, uh, internet cafe. After updating our respective Facebook statuses, we ambled over to another rooftop cafe for another 3 hours of loitering, lunch, cards and Kingfisher beer, with a brief intermission when we stopped to see a wedding procession happening down on the street.

Eventually we got off our lazy asses and ventured back to our hotel. After freshening up a little we went to Pavan's shop to talk cock. We also got some lime and salt (you can probably guess for what, if not you'll find out eventually) from his shop and he also arranged transport for us the next day to Rohtang Pass, which was recommended by this bloke Govin met in a souvenir shop in Mcleod Ganj. From new Manali we took an auto to old Manali, about 3km further up.

The auto took us to the local temple at the very end of the road.

After exploring the temple we made our way down to the village.

Old Manali, like Vashisht, was a backpacker hangout. The winding road was lined with backpacker hotels, cafes, shisha bars and souvenir stalls, including a shop selling burnt CDs, from which I bought a couple of qawwali CDs amongst others.
Dave holding a leaf.

The leaf came from this plant.

The sun sets over old Manali.

At this point we came across an ayurvedic massage place. After all the exertion of the morning, we figured that a massage was just the ticket. And it was a pretty good massage too, at about 300Rp per person for an hour's worth. After the massage the proprietor gave us a really invigorating ayurvedic drink, which he said was good 'for the system'. It was spicy as hell, but I could already feel its refreshing effects in a short while. Unfortunately there was no instant powder that I could purchase to make this drink back home, since it was apparently freshly prepared out of raw ingredients.

I went for my massage last, since the guy had only 2 masseurs available and had to ring up some guy to come over. While Dave and Govin were waiting for me to finish, they went outside for a while and noticed some guys loading up speakers on a motorbike. Apparently a rave party was to occur later in the night somewhere up in the woods. We contemplated going for it, but in the end decided not to, since we didn't want to end up lost in the woods in the dark, and we were going for one the following day anyway.

The invigorating effects of the massage was cancelled out by our walk back to Manali town, where we ended up as exhausted as before at the Johnson Lodge Restaurant. The restaurant was a bit on the posh side, so we ended up paying posh prices as well.. about S$10-15 IIRC. But we settled for it since we wanted a change from the standard Indian meal that we've been having for the past 6 days. Once done, it was back to the hotel by auto, and to bed. It had been a completely slow and lazy day, just the way a holiday was meant to be.

Day 5: Mcleod Ganj - Manali

2008-09-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

Another day, another 250kms to cover. We had arranged for a (relatively) late departure time of 10am so that we could have a good rest and an unrushed breakfast. For some weird reason the hotel concierge who had arrange the transport for us had insisted we pay him the money instead of the driver, weird reason being that the driver, his 'friend' was a drunk who'd waste all the money on alcohol, so the concierge will keep the money for him. You don't need to be a genius to figure out the real reason, which is the concierge must have negotiated a different price with the driver, the difference in amounts being his cut. Anyway, the driver was agreeable and we were ok with the price, so we didn't make a fuss over it. The driver, Ramu (name changed to etc etc etc) at first came with a hatchback, so Dave sent him back for a van which was what we had agreed on with the concierge. In the meantime we had breakfast in the hotel. Dave wanted to try out a Tibetan breakfast. It was a tough choice between porridge and porridge, but eventually Dave went with the porridge. I had my usual alu paratha (yum yum) while Govin had something pitiful, considering the state of his stomach.

Like almost every single meal we had in India, the food took 45 minutes to 1 hour to prepare, even if we were the only people there. But can't complain though, the food would be more often than not delicious, due to the time taken to prepare it. Of course if you have a tight schedule to meet, 3 meals of such length would probably throw your whole day off-kilter, so the best solution would be not to plan a tight schedule as far as possible. That was one of the benefits of our long vacation - we did not pack too many things into our schedule (even though in the end it did appear that we'd done helluva lot) so when unexpected delays cropped up we had enough room to take it into our stride. If there weren't any unexpected delays, then all the better since we had more time to linger at scheduled destinations, add in short detours if we felt like it and last if definitely not the least, savour the long, lazy meals.

With stomachs full and the occasional rumble, we started on our journey to Manali.

See? I wasn't kidding about the roads.

The town of Mandi, from where the road tracks the Beas River all the way up to its roots.

And the further up we went, the more breath-taking it became...

A common mode of transport across deep ravines with rushing waters - the flying fox. The interesting thing about this one was that it goes uphill. Must be quite a fun ride.

A more routine way to cross the river.

The town of Kullu.

And so after 8 hours of being on the road, we finally arrived in Manali. Dave had a contact there, a friend of a friend, who had helped to arrange our accomodation. We picked Pavan up at the bus interchange, and he took us to our hotel, the Beas View. And for once a hotel lived up to its name.

The view was from our relatively spacious room which cost us a mere 1800Rp or thereabouts... definitely a bargain. While we checked in and settled down Pavan excused himself to return to his shop, and we arranged to meet up with him later in the night.

After unpacking we headed down to Manali proper, across the river from our hotel. The town itself is mainly focused on the Mall, a strip of road that's only open to pedestrian traffic. We whiled away some time at a typical Indian dive, a dark dingy place with an unused billiards table and old Hindi songs playing softly in the background. And it was here that we became directly acquainted with the inebriating, braincell-killing wonder that is Godfather beer. Goes well with chicken tikka. Or maybe not. After a while, you won't care anymore.

Barely clinging on to some form of sobriety, we headed back out to the Mall for our rendezvous with Pavan. We've had more than our share of the dodgy and lazy Indian stereotype, and here now was the flipside - the stereotypical Indian host who takes your wellbeing as his personal responsibility, even though you've never met him before. And this despite having to run a grocery shop for almost the whole day. He never said 'No' to any request of ours, and would take it as a personal affront if we didn't go through him to arrange for something. What's more, the transport and accomodations that he'd arranged for us were both good quality and good bargains. All this without asking for anything in return but friendship. On top of all that he insisted on paying for our meals, starting with a scrumptious veg meal that night, over which we we formed a new bond of friendship.

Day 4: Amritsar - Dharamsala/Mcleod Ganj

2008-09-14T02:18:00.000-07:00

I woke up at 2am and headed down to the Golden Temple. People were still walking around, although the crowd was noticeably thinner than in the day. Some were also sleeping next to the sarovar. I also found a spot next to the sarovar and sat down to recite the Asa di Var . One could feel the spiritual rejuvenation, sitting there looking across the still waters to the golden structure arising out of the dark.

Around 4am the temple slowly started stirring, some sewadars coming to wake the sleeping folks, some cleaning the sarovar. An hour later I headed back to pack up and check out. Our ride arrived punctually at 6am, and we headed out, the receptionist happily waving farewell to us.

We started our 200km trip to Dharamshala with a man down... Govin had started vomiting and having stomach problems overnight, I suspect due to the kulfi he had the day before... in any case the poor guy was bundled up in the back of the van as we made our way through the flat fields of Punjab.

So our grand trip to the Himalayas started with a whimper... which was followed by a groan when barely out of the city the van engine sputtered and died because we were out of gas. With some unholy mutterings our driver sprinted off with a tin can in search of a petrol station, while the three of us remained crouched inside the van, attracting curious glances from passersby... we had no idea how long he'd take, or if we'd ever see him again, since there was a statewide strike (more on that later) and all shops were supposed to be closed. Fortunately the van had stalled just in front of the bus station, so the germ of the thought to take our chances was forming in our heads when we spotted good ol' Kulvinder in the horizon sprinting back with a full can. And so once again, we set off in the not-so-early-anymore morning.

Stopping for some chai along the way. That's our driver in the background.

And now for our "Tension of the day" segment...

Along the way Dave gets a call from the hotel... turns out the reason why our room charge was so low was because they forgot to charge us for the most recent night, and the receptionist was almost begging us to pay for the room somehow otherwise he'd be in big trouble with the boss. We debated between being honest and paying up or being bastards and disappear into the hills, but - one of those rare occasions - our better natures won the argument, and we decided to be nice guys for once. Only problem was how the heck were we going to pay for the room, being halfway on our journey already and the guy didn't want us to do a bank transfer since otherwise his boss will find out... so in the end our driver volunteered to bring the money back to the receptionist, and we opted for it, since he seemed honest enough and in any case we'll get him to talk to the receptionist before he left so that he can verify that we'd passed him the cash.

The first part of our journey went by pretty fast. There was a statewide strike called by the ruling state party due to the acquittal by Mumbai courts of a Hindu activist who had killed a Sikh over there. In one town we had to take a minor detour since the main road was closed for a demonstration. It was a pretty novel experience to encounter no lorries and buses on the roads and closed shops in all the towns we passed by. Petrol stations were open, thankfully.

Once we crossed the border into Himachal Pradesh the landscape visibly changed as well, forested hills replacing cultivated flat lands. And that's when our driver's skills came to the fore. You have not experienced true driving talent until you have travelled on the roads of Himachal. These are narrow mountain roads with hairpin bends,blind corners and potholes the size of Taj Mahal,, shared with big-ass trucks, overloaded buses, drunk cyclists, half naked yogis, and maniac drivers all coming at you. But hey, do not fear, because your driver's a maniac too! At one point we got stuck behind a convoy of army trucks at a badly damaged bridge that could only take on one vehicle at a time..
Part of the convoy. Apparently the rule of 'one vehicle at a time' was sufficient and it doesn't matter how heavy the load was.

This wasn't the first damaged bridge we came across. Apparently a few days back there were heavy rains in the mountains, and the swollen rivers had swept away a couple of bridges, including one big one on the main road, forcing us to take a detour some distance back. In any case, our driver apparently took it as a personal insult to be held up behind a convoy, and spent the rest of the journey demonically determined in overtaking the 20 or so trucks that were ahead of us. You probably think it's no big deal when you're reading this in the comfort of your office cubicle, but after Golden Temple that morning I didn't expect to find myself so close to God again so soon. One thing about Indian roads and traffic you'll learn pretty fast is that, like my friend puts it, all traffic and speed rules are 'for reference only'. It's pretty common to find a car overtaking a lorry while being simultaneously overtaken by another car, all three vehicles also needing to avoid the cow that's lying down and contemplating the rumen condition in the middle of the road. This arbitrary driving works most of the time, but sometimes the system breaks down, like when we were almost at our destination in Dharamshala. In the pouring rain we got stuck behind a line of cars that didn't seem to be going anywhere for some time to come. Through the network of drivers and curious onlookers that gathers in any such occasion our driver figured out what happened... apparently there were two buses, one going up and one coming down, and they were blocking each other's way on a bend further up. Unfortunately there was no romm to move since vehicles had quickly piled up behind them, and some enterprising drivers had also tried to cut in through the road shoulders and also got stuck. So the only way that traffic could get moving again was for each vehicle to back up and provide space for the vehicle in front - this was a truly painstaking and tortuous process since oftentimes when some space opened up you'll find some idiot speeding up all the way from behind to fill the gap, and everyone gets stuck again. It didn't help that the rain was truly heavy - Dharamsala has the heaviest annual rainfall in all of India - so our driver would be reversing at full speed downhill round a bend with zero visibility, all the time grumbling about bad drivers. I was pretty much craving for a couple of whisky double shots by then. It's times like this that you gain an insight into the Indian personality though. You can understand why people here are so damned patient and fatalistic, because that's probably the best attitude in dealing with situations like this.

After three hours and lots of sorting out by irritated drivers and amused locals, we finally got into Dharamsala. Our destination was Mcleod Ganj, about 5km further uphill. The whole journey took up 10 hours, jams and food breaks included. In the heavy rain, we got off and checked into Hotel Tibet. Dave couldn't get in touch with the CJ Hotel guy, so in the end we wrote out a receipt for the amount of 1650Rp and passed a copy to our driver along with the cash. We didn't hear from the receptionist again, so I suppose he finally got the money in the end, and they all lived happily ever after...

Our room in Hotel Tibet was quite cozy actually, with a view of the valley that Dharamsala overlooks. Having tucked a still ill Govin into bed, Dave and I ventured down to the hotel bar to celebrate our survival. Ten hours ago we were in the wilting heat of the Punjab plains, and now we were 2000m above sea level sheltering from the incessant rain and plummeting temperature - perfect circumstances and perfect surroundings for some Tibetan chilli pork and double shots of Royal Challenge scotch. Never heard of Royal Challenge before? It's just one of the many local brands of alcohol that's prevalent in Indian bars. Don't expect to find a Chivas or even Dewar's at the local dive. Well, we did come across a Black Label, but of a very different type, and much later. How's the local scotch? One word, three letters - meh. But it did the job though, along with the chilli pork... I totally enjoyed that warm harbour in the freezing storm.

Thankfully the rain cleared up after a while and we could come out to have a look at our surroundings. Dharamsala/Mcleod Ganj is mainly known for being the place of residence of the Dalai Lama and the capital of Tibet's government-in-exile. And hence a significant portion of the people here are of Tibetan origin.
A Tibetan temple

Prayer wheels. One spin is the equivalent of one oral chant.

A typical street in Mcleod Ganj. Still wonder how traffic jams can happen so easily?

One of the many vestiges of the pro-independence stance of the local Tibetan populace.

The main intention of our walk was to get to the HP government tourist bureau to find out more on transportation options out of Dharamsala. At that point our plan for the next day was to take a scenic train ride to Jogindernagar, about 100km east of Dharamsala, and then get a taxi from there to Manali. Unfortunately the bureau was manned by a totally clueless guy who I suspect wasn't actually an employee, but just some random guy who snuck in for a quick smoke. In any case there was a train timetable stuck on the wall, from which we figured out that the train journey took about 9 hours and the best option was a 7am train from Kangra, about 20km south of Dharamsala. We discussed this for a while, and decided that since Govin was still ill, we'd might as well skip the train ride and cab it direct to Manali. Govin was already having a fever, and Dave was looking for a clinic so that we can get a doctor to check on him. However all the clinics there were offering Tibetan medicine, and the only Western medicine available was at pharmacies. So Dave went back to check on Govin and give him some panadol, as well as make arrangements with the transport guy at our hotel for a taxi to Manali, for which he had quoted us a price of 3300Rp earlier. While Dave went to make the arrangements, I continued on my walk.

Apart from being the centre of government for Tibet-in-exile, Mcleod Ganj is also a hill station. And the 2km walk up to the village of Bhagsu is a good reminder that I was actually over 2000m above sea-level...

The Dalai Lama's residence, as seen from Bhagsu Road.

More awesomepics from my walk can be found here. After an hour's worth of breath-taking scenery, I made my way back.

Aparently the panadol did its job since Govin was out and about by the time I got back, so we did more exploring of the town itself as well as some shopping. I have to say that the bargains in Mcleod Ganj was among the best of the trip, and good quality stuff too, especially the clothing and leatherwork. With the shopping done, we had a tea break on one of the many rooftop cafes in the town, watching the people below and the mountains above...

At night we had dinner in our hotel room, and tucked in early after a long, exhausting and eventful day.

Day 3: Amritsar

2008-09-11T05:53:00.000-07:00

Over breakfast we firmed up our itinerary for the rest of the trip. We decided on Simla and Jaipur as our final two destinations, and Dave went to the booking office at the Golden Temple complex to make train reservations. Before that we dropped by the musical instrument shop, and Govin got a tabla. Dave got himself a flute, and I got myself a dhol, in preparation for the inevitable mid-life crisis when I'll probably get the urge to do something different, like learning to play the dhol. Of course we couldn't carry it back ourselves, so we arranged for them to be shipped over. I've yet to receive my dhol though... I suppose it'll arrive just in time for my mid-life crisis.

After all those musical arrangements, we walked over next door to Jallianwalla Bagh, the site of a massacre of Indian civilians by British soldiers on 13 April 1919, which proved to be another nail in the coffin of the British Empire. Some of the masonry is still preserved, pocked with bulletholes, and there's also the well in which many jumped into to escape the deadly fire.

After this we made our separate ways, Dave to book our Jaipur tickets as well as arrange for transport to Wagah later in the evening, Govin to get his bathing implements for a dip in the sarovar, or pond surrounding the Golden Temple, and me directly to the Golden Temple to enjoy the kirtan and the atmosphere. I headed to my favourite corner of the complex, Bhora Sahib, a little gurdwara beside the Akal Takht. It's built around a tree trunk next to which Guru Tegh Bahadur apparently sat and meditated when the doors of the Golden Temple were closed against him. There's a small darbar sahib atop the tree trunk, with two narrow winding staircases on both sides going downwards. Walk downstairs and you'll find the tree trunk. For me it's not the tree trunk or the history that brings me back, it's that the external sounds are totally cut off in that little place next to the tree trunk, and for a while you can just forget that there's an outside world. It's a great place to meditate.

After some time there I walked over to the Golden Temple and found myself some space to sit on the upper floor to listen to some kirtan. Govin came over after his dip and after a while we both headed back to the hotel to spend a couple of hours before heading to Wagah.

Our driver, Kulvinder (name changed to protect the forgetful) was outside the hotel at 5pm sharp to take us to Wagah. With us for company were two couples, both south indians judging by their conversations. And so, three of us squeezed at the back, we headed off to the Indo-Pak border.

It's a 30km drive from Amritsar along the Grand Trunk Road that connects Bangladesh to Afghanistan, and it took about an hour to get there. Once there we managed to get into the tourist stands, which were closer to the border gate, by flashing our Malaysian passports and talking in fancy accents. It was autumn the last time I came here. It wasn't that fun then and it definitely wasn't fun now, sitting for 90 minutes in the mid-thirties summer heat, waiting for the show to begin. Within 10 minutes I was already soaked, and sweat was pooling around my feet in my slippers. Occasionally soldiers will come over and get us to squeeze more to make space for the constant inflow of people. Kids - and some soldiers too - were making easy money selling water bottles and soft drinks. Both sides of the border engaged in a competition of who can blast patriotic songs the loudest. Both sides had their cheerleaders egging the crowds on to sing and dance along to the music, and the Indian guy got some volunteers to run to and back from the border gate carrying the Indian flag. It was 90 minutes of brainless and jingoistic spectacle from both the Indians and Pakistanis, making me despair all over again for the human condition when people can get so whipped up and primitive over an imaginary line in the ground.

After all that foreplay came the main event, which in contrast to all that nationalistic breast-beating that came before, was a remarkable display of coordination between both countries, albeit of an antagonistic nature. It was 30 minutes of complicated rituals and maneouvres that wouldn't be out of place in a Russian cultural dance show. And so the flags came down, the gates clanked shut, and the guards disappeared into the encroaching dusk, the echoes of 'Mere Desh ki Dharti' probably still travelling over the flat plains of Punjab, scaring many small birds.

We made our way back to Kulvinder and his jeep. On the way to Wagah Dave had discussed with him the possibility of taking his jeep for the next day's journey to Dharamshala, and he had quoted us the price of about 3000Rp. On the way back we decided to take up his offer and made arrangements for a morning pickup.

In the evening we did a little souvenir shopping and headed back for an early night, especially since I was planning to wake up at 2am to go to the Temple. Before turning in we decided to just settle the bill since we were starting early the next day and didn't want to rush everything there. When I got the bill I was quite surprised since I was expecting our stay to have been pricier, but hey, why ask to pay more, so I promptly settled it.

Day 2: Delhi - Amritsar

2008-09-09T03:14:00.000-07:00

We barely had a couple of hours' sleep before we were awake again to head off to the railway station.

The New Delhi railway station.

Freshening up for the day ahead.

Piles of linen from a recently arrived sleeper.

After an invigorating cup of chai from a chai-wallah at the platform, we boarded our New Delhi-Amritsar express train and it left on the dot at 720am for the 6 hour journey to Amritsar.

I'll have to say I was very impressed by the Indian Railways. Trains were nearly always punctual in both departure and arrival, the refreshments served onboard were excellent and stations were well maintained with easy accessiblity to information and facilities. The Railways Minister, Laloo Prasad Yadav is mainly credited for the transformation of what was previously an accident-prone and inefficient government-run body, and this too without anyone losing their jobs - no easy feat considering Indian Railways directly employs 1.6 million people who are supposed to organize a transport system consisting of over 63,000 kilomettres of tracks. The irony is that Laloo Prasad was also previously notorious for being the totally corrupt Chief Minister of Bihar who, when forced to resign over corruption charges, managed to get his illiterate wife to take over the Chief Ministership. And now due to his success at Indian Railways he gets invited for talks in Ivy League colleges. Shows that even the most corrupt politicans can get their act together and do something beneficial for the country - are you watching this, UMNO, MIC?

Upon arrival in Amritsar we headed to our hotel via the pickup that Dave had arranged with the hotel previously. Dave had arranged beforehand for us to stay at CJ International, which was also where I stayed the last time I was at Amritsar. Rooms were pretty good considering the rates of 1550Rp per night for a triple. The location was excellent as well, close enough to the Golden Temple to hear the kirtan.

The Golden Temple as seen from the top of the hotel.

The entrance to the Golden Temple Complex.

The Amritsar skyline.

The first order of business was to get some chow, and for me to get a towel, since our hotel curiously didn't provide any. After which we headed back to get a little bit more shut-eye. A couple of hours later, reasonably refreshed, we headed out towards the Golden Temple, but first Govin wanted to look for a shop famous for selling quality traditional musical instruments like the dhol and tabla at cheap prices. His source told him that the shop was easy to find, having a Golden Temple view across the road from the shop. We spent one hour circling the exterior of the Golden Temple complex looking for this shop - and believe me the external perimeter of the complex is huge - but to no avail. Finally we gave up, and I suggested we try this instrument shop I spotted a little further up close to where we had our lunch. We walked over there, and sure enough that was the shop we were looking for. No, it did not have a Golden Temple view across the road. It did face a signboard for 'Golden Temple View Hotel' across the road though. Being late in the day, it was already closed, so we ahd to check it out the following day instead. And so we headed into the Golden Temple complex.

If you'll pardon me the mixed up analogy, Amritsar is the Sikhs' Jerusalem while the Golden Temple is our Mecca. It's the landmark that will first come to mind when our religion is mentioned, and it's no surprise. It is a sight to behold.

But the complex is more than visual grandeur for the Sikhs. Almost every building surrounding the Temple has some spiritual history to it, and the Golden Temple itself houses some of the oldest copies of our holy book and our Guru, the Guru Granth Sahib. Facing the Golden Temple is the Akal Takht, the throne of spiritual authority and where decisions on religious matters are made for the Sikh diaspora to abide by.

However it's hard to find the right time or space to savour the spirituality of the place. The complex in general, and the Golden Temple specifically, is always bustling with devotees and sight-seers (all gurdwaras are open to everyone regardless of caste or creed) and every year the crowd gets bigger. One barely has time to pay obesiance at the Darbar Sahib (Prayer Hall) before one has to get out of the way of the throngs behind you making their way through. Which is why I prefer to visit around 2am, when the crowd is at its thinnest, but even then it's not totally gone.

Besides the Golden Temple, the Akal Takht facing it, and the various small darbar sahibs surrounding the pond, the complex also consists of dormitories for pilgrims and a large langgar hall, or community kitchen. The three of us headed there for food after going to the Golden Temple. After food, we spontaneously decided to do some sewa (community service) at the dishwashing section. I was very impressed by the whole system - it consists of a series of troughs in parallel, each row being a stage in the washing process. There was no one managing the system overall, and people kept coming and going to do sewa, but somehow everything kept moving like clockwork, people taking initiative to fill up gaps in the link when things seem to be slowing down there. I would say it was one of the most fulfilling and inspiring sewa experiences I've had. We helped out for about an hour before heading back to the hotel and catching up on lost sleep.

Day 1: Singapore-Delhi

2008-09-08T08:27:00.000-07:00

Govin and I left Singapore in the late afternoon. I had a minor panic earlier in the day when, with superb comic timing, my phone suddenly hung on me. I was on the verge of just buying a new phone but fortunately the guy at the phone shop told me I just needed to reformat my phone memory. It worked, but at the expense of deleting all my contacts and previous messages. I was bracing myself for a bleak future of rebuilding my phone address book when Govin, who had arrived the day before from Malaysia, mentioned that I can do backups of my address book on my PC in the future, which sure enough, I actually had done some time back when I had nothing better to do. That Govin sure is one smart bugger... I figure that's what you get with overseas education and all, unlike us local yokels. Seven years working in electronics, and I'm still an idiot when it comes to phones.

Phone back to normal, and most of my contacts restored, my zen was restored to the tenth chakra. I had decided to pack light, or as light as possible considering that it was going to be two weeks of being on the road in the sweltering summer heat. In the end that translated to a 7kg backpack and a 5kg small sling bag that I'd be checking in.

Our flight arrived in Delhi at around 8ish, and Dave was there at the airport to meet us, bald head and cowboy hat and all. Much merry-making and joyous shouting ensued, after which we merrily made it out of the airport and to the stuffy van that was to take us to our hotel.

Dave had already told me earlier not to expect much from our hotel, and being the Master of Understatement that he is, I was bracing myself for cowdung on the walls and chickenshit on the floor. But it wasn't too bad... basically, when you're paying 450Rp (SGD15) for a hotel room, you get what you deserve. To get to Hotel Namashkar wasn't that difficult actually... keep walking down the main thoroughfare in Paharganj until you smell the open air public urinal, then turn into the alley with the urinal and walk to the end.

The alley as seen from our hotel.

It was a typical backpacker's hotel, and it was located in a the backpacker's area of Delhi called Paharganj, which was just next to the New Delhi railway station. Our room was pretty basic - a bed, a fan, a couple of cushions that double as chairs, an attached bathroom where we had our first experience of the temperamental Indian plumbing system, no tv, no radio, no aircon. Not really the best way to spend a night with temperatures up to the mid-thirties, but the following day would be an early one, so for a few hours' of shut eye, it would do.

First order of business was food, so once we checked in we walked out to the stretch of restaurants just outside the railway station for a bit of chow-down. It was everything you'd expect your first impression of India would be - the hustle and bustle, the honking traffic, the countless conversations, the smell of cooking fat, the kebabs on display... it was India in your face. We settled into one of the restaurants and had some delicious chicken tikka.

Along the way we decided we should start checking out other alternatives for accomodation for our next stay in Delhi. We had decided prior to this that we'll save our Delhi sight-seeing and shopping for the final days of our trip, so that we keep our itinerary as flexible as possible. But if we were looking at spending a few days in Delhi, then obviously we should be getting better digs. And since it was going to be the last leg of our trip, it was pretty unanimous that we should splurge a little and end our trip with some degree of comfort as a reward. I'd checked out Dave's Lonely Planet, which recommended a hotel a little further down the road than the restaurant we were in, so we decided to walk up and have a look. It turned out that it was one of a strip of garishly lighted and decorated hotels, probably targetted towards the middle-class locals in transit. We checked out the rooms in a few hotels, and were pretty impressed by the room showed to us at Hotel Ajanta, which was actually a suite containing two rooms with king-sized beds, a flat screen tv in each room and a balcony, all for 2500Rp a night. We enquired after its availability but decided not to make reservations until we had firmed up our itinerary, but we now had something to look forward to as a reward for our future endeavours.

Our first day in India wouldn't be complete without some tension, of course. We got onto rickshaws for the return trip to our hotel, and ended up haggling with the rickshaw drivers on the price for the ride. There's nothing like a fight over an extra 10 rupees to ensure you've gotten your money's worth of a ride.

Of course, there was a lot of catching up to do, so we didn't really have much of a shut-eye that night, talking and playing cards up to 3am with a few bottles of Kingfisher for company, along with a round or two of welcome shots of tequila, which we had bought from the Singapore Duty Free. Govin had sweet-talked a chick at one of the duty-free shops into giving us some plastic cups, which he then promptly misplaced somewhere else in the airport. So in the end we got some paper cups from a nearby grocery store, along with some salt, and negotiated for some lime from a guy selling nimbu pani on the road side.. let nothing stand in the way of our welcome tequila shots!

Going back to my roots

2008-09-07T02:46:00.000-07:00

It wasn't part of my plan to go to India this year. After sojourns in Phuket and Jakarta, my plan was to end the year with a trip to, well, somewhere else. But then one day Terv asks me if I was interested in joining him and my two cousins (well, nephews technically, but let's not get into that right now) Dave and Govin for a trip to India, so I thought, what the hell, let's do it. Of course, Terv then predictably backs out of the trip, citing work reasons etc... but to this day I have the feeling that Terv had been already thinking of me then as a replacement for him, the sneaky bugger.

So anyways the rough plan was for me and Govin to fly over to India and meet up with the Wise Nomad, who was already there doing some charity work at a school for needy children, and spend two weeks going around India. That was the easy part. The tough part was to figure out an itinerary. So we decided to thrown in some options, and thrash something workable out. We started with an ambitious plan to do a Delhi-Amritsar-Manali-Leh-Srinagar-Rajasthan loop along with Goa/Kerala, and over some emails, chats and 'conference calls' whittled it down to Amritsar, Manali, Delhi and Goa with maybe Simla thrown in. Then came the realisation that it's monsoon season in Goa, with almost daily thunderstorms. That pretty much kicked Goa out of the picture, and with all our flights, train tickets and hotels for the first few days booked already, that pretty much left a big gap in our itinerary for the 2nd week. We decided to just wing it and figure something out once we all meet up in Delhi. After all, with such a big country to explore, we weren't exactly short of alternative destinations.

This being sort of an unexpected trip for me, I didn't really have much in mind in terms of must-see or must-do things to put into the itinerary. But since my first trip to India was with a pilgrimage tour, and my 2nd trip was a very short one, what I was looking forward to was simply exploring India as a backpacker, and to enjoy the company and whatever experiences that may ensue. And boy, we definitely had some experiences.

Day 5: Jogjakarta-Jakarta-Singapore

2008-06-14T00:49:00.000-07:00

We had an early morning flight to catch from Jogja, and we had arranged for transportation from our hotel the previous night, so we had ample time to wait for our flight when we arrived at the airport. While packing in the hotel we realized that we still had a quarter of Jameson's left, and were wondering whether we should just leave it there, since carrying the bottle would be quite cumbersome what with all the shopping. But our resourceful minds prevailed, and we emptied a mineral water bottle and filled it up with the whiskey... waste not, want not!

We arrived back in Jakarta at around 9am. After dumping our backpacks at the airport baggage room, we took the good old Damri bus back downtown. Our flight back was at 10pm, so we had more than 12 hours to kill with no idea of what to do. We figured we'll check out the old town of Batavia, now called Kota, which was supposed to have some old building preserved from the Dutch era. I wasn't really that interested in Dutch architecture (the Stadthuys in Melaka is pretty representative of the standard Dutch building - all right-angles, monotonous and purely functional) but there wasn't anthing better to do anyway. We first considered taking a train from Gambir to Kota, since we were at the station anyway, but got defeated by the countless ticket counters and confusing directions from people on where to get our tickets. Back outside, we settled on taking a cab to Kota.

The old town wasn't any great shakes - our first sight upon getting there was some guy pissing against a tree, which kind of set the mood for the day. We spent an hour walking around the Jakarta museum. The first floor contained some relics from the old Hindu/Buddhist empires dug up around the area, which was faintly interesting, but the second floor consisted only of Dutch furniture and porcelain, which was frankly puzzling. We wandered around a bit after that before settling down for some excellent nasi padang for brunch, after which we resumed our wandering.
A drawbridge in the old city.

Our last stop in the old city was the old lighthouse, from the top of which one can get a view of the Jakarta skyline and shoreline. Of course, that's shoreline in theory - where one expects to see sun,sand and the sea, be prepared to see instead ships, smog and sewage.

It was barely 1pm after we completed our old city walk, so after some discussion (and browsing through a Jakarta Post newspaper we filched from the plane to see if there was anything on we could go for) we decided to head back downtown. Along the way I fiddled in my bag for my bottle of water and took a swig before realizing I had swigged from the bottle with the whiskey inside... cue merriment from Mags and teary-eyed choking from me. So, boys and girls, travel tip #8173: always make sure that you pour your whiskey into a bottle that's of different shape and size than your mineral water bottle if you're planning to put them both together into your backpack.

We alighted at the Gajah Mada shopping complex, which was something like Bukit Bintang Plaza in its layout. They had a cineplex on the top floor, so we thought we'd try catching Iron Man. However, it turned out that the cineplex had only two screens, and it was packed with teenagers - Mags and I looked to be the oldest people around, by a mile - so naturally when our turn came at the ticket counter we found out the screening was sold out. But we also found out that the movie tickets were dirt cheap too... something like S$2.

Since there wasn't really much else to do, we took a cab to another shopping complex - Cititel, which was about halfway between downtown and the airport, so would be convenient enough for us to find our way back. When we got there our taxi guy kept the meter running even though we'd stopped, so while Mags was fiddling around for money to pay the guy the meter went up another 1000Rp, so Mags had to dig around for more change. I was afraid we'd be stuck in the cab for eternity, with the meter going up everytime Mags looked for change, forcing Mags to look for more change, causing the meter to go up again... until we go broke, or the taxi breaks down, or the nuclear fusions on the sun cease and we enter into a permanent ice age. Fortunately Mags was fast enough this time, and we successfuly exited the cab. In any case, metered taxis were pretty cheap as a mode of transport around Jakarta, and we still had tons of rupiahs to get rid of before getting back to Singapore, which was why we decided on cabbing around.

Cititel was a more modern shopping mall, something like JB's City Square or KL's 10,000 malls... interestingly Bread Talk was kind of a big thing here, with a huge 10-foot sign at the side of the mall announcing their existence in the mall to all and sundry. We headed up to the cineplex first, only to find out that they were showing solely Indon movies. I was actually quite keen to catch one of their horror flicks, but Mags didn't understand Malay and I doubt they would have any subtitles, so we finally gave up on the idea of watching a movie in Jakarta. However, the mall was bigger than the Gajah Mada one, so there was more stuff for us to do. I got ensconced in a cybercafe while Mags went shopping, and he came across a Polo shop with some good deals. We had noticed previously that Polo attire was dirt cheap in Indonesia - and this was in an airport shop, so it was hard to believe they weren't authentic. A shirt with a US$75 tag would be selling for about S$30. And in this shop that Mags came across they had a 2-for-1 deal, so even cheaper! The attire was all locally manufactured, so Polo probably had some agreement with the government where they got the cheap labour in return for selling their stuff at a subsidised rate in the country.

Our shopping done, we headed towards the airport via cab, with enough time to spare to play a couple of games of chess on Mags' new board (Mags 2 me 0, needless to say) and grab some chow. After meal after meal of nasi goreng, nasi ayam and nasi padang, I was frankly relieved to find a Koufu and had some Japanese food for variety, and like every other meal I had in Indonesia, it turned out that they don't mess around with their spices even when it came to fusion food - the curry katsu I had was delightfully, ear-burningly spicy.

And so we got on to our late night flight and arrived in Singapore way after midnight. For a long weekend trip it was pretty eventful, since we'd stuffed in so much stuff int our itinerary. Jakarta turned out pretty much like what everyone said it'd be - boring by day, happening by night. But in any case the focus of our trip was Central Java, and it was definitely worth the visit. My trip highlights:

- exploring the beautiful and majestic Borobudur
- sipping whisky outside the chalet in Kaliurang in the cool and quiet night
- shopping in Jogjakarta
- the Ramayana ballet

Cost is always a plus point for travelling in Indonesia. Our plane tickets were about S$350 each for both SG-Jakarta and Jakarta-Jogja flights combined, and the rest of our expenditure during our time there came to about that same amount as well, so total expenditure per person comes to only about S$700. Not many people travel to Java for sight-seeing, and speaking Malay is a plus when it comes to negotiating prices (interestingly, many locals figured right off that I was Malaysian, sometimes even when I don't speak Malay. I could never figure out how, unless they were quite attuned to the Malaysian accent from my conversation with Mags, or unless there was a vast underground network keeping tabs on me. But of course, only paranoid people think that, and I'm not paranoid, hahahahahahaha! Haha. Heh. Hm.)

And finally, it helped to have a good travel companion, with similar interests, outlooks, and tendencies to rationally-planned idiocy... here's to you, Mags.

Day 4: Kaliurang,Prambanan,Jogjakarta

2008-06-06T23:38:00.000-07:00

So we assembled at the unearthly hour of 4am at the hotel's main room (lobby sounds too grand) for a briefing and to meet our fellow trekkers. Christian did a brief overview of the volcano as well as the route we were taking, and things to look out for. Apparently the seismic activity in the region had been increasing recently (he only told us this after we got back from the trek), so he had to attend a meeting of the area's rescue committee, of which he was the chairman. In his place, his brother will be our guide.

After being armed with torchlights, we set off on our hike. There were 10 of us in the group. Besides me and Mags were a German guy and a Polish girl, both of them a couple and studying in Cambridge. They were taking a couple of months off to travel around the region, and in fact their next stop would be Singapore. Thomas and Erika (not their real names, not to protect their identity but because I, uh, forgot) were quite a friendly couple, and we were to prolong our acquaintance with them a little longer after the trek. That didn't stop me and Mags however from thinking up awkward conversation openers with the couple... e.g. "You know, it's very nice to see that you guys are a couple, what with how the Germans treated the Poles during World War II", or "So Thomas, any Nazis in your family?". Of course, we never really used them, us two being classy folks and all..

The remaining six people were a bunch of PRC folks working in Singapore (yeah, we kept running into people either living in/heading to/leaving from Singapore. So if you're looking for a place to get away from anything Singaporean, Java isn't it.). The interesting thing is that most of these guys didn't know each other before the trip, and they got together because one of them posted a topic on a buletin board looking for travel companions to Java, and the rest responded. However, by the time our paths crossed it was pretty evident that this group had become dysfunctional. Apparently they left it to the group leader (presumably the guy who first posted) to organize the trip, and he booked them all on a 10 hour train ride from Jakarta to Jogjakarta. It seems like the train ride was such a hellish experience that the rest of the group (the Masses) rounded on their group leader (the Great Leader) and insisted on flying back to Jakarta rather than take the train trip again (the Glorious Revolution of the Proletariat and the Voicing of the People). Of course it wouldn't be easy or cheap to get a ticket back on such short notice, hence a lot of sour faces all around (the Grim Reality after the Revolution). It was pretty easy to figure out who the overthrown Great Leader was - there'll always be one guy lagging behind the rest of us and letting out the occasional yawn or groan loud enough for those in front to hear. It was pretty obvious that quite a few of them weren't keen on going for the trek too... well, having been on trips like this, chaotically organized and with people of differing preferences and temperaments, I could only hope that these guys learnt their lesson and spread their message far and wide - choose your travelling companions carefully if you don't want to regret travelling in the first place.

The hike itself took about 2 and a half hours, and was reasonably easy to negotiate, despite being conducted in the dark and depending wholly on our torchlights to illuminate the path ahead (of course I can say this now, but at that time I was looking at my watch and muttering "another hour of this?"). We didn't climb all the way up to Merapi, the approach we were taking being out of bounds, but we got close enough to see the peak, and the smoke emitting from the peak, while the sun slowly rose and our surroundings gradually became visible.

The locals believe in 3 god-kings (well, 2 god-kings and 1 god-queen) that protect the population of Jogjakarta. The first is the Sultan of Jogjakarta at its heart, the second is the King of Merapi in the north, and the third is the Queen of the Sea in the South (the centre of worship was at Parangtiris, which I briefly considered visiting but had to drop because of lack of time... they have a curious belief that if you go to the seaside wearing green, the Queen (i.e. the sea) will claim you). Once a year a procession sets out from Jogja to Gunung Merapi carrying offerings including tributes from the Sultan (a royal costume, a lock of hair) and set them at a designated shrine halfway up the mountain, much closer to the peak than where we were. It is believed that those who supplicate the King of Merapi will be protected from the volcanic eruptions.

Gunung Merapi is actually scalable, even now, if one approaches from the northern side rather than the southern side, where we were. This is because at the northern side the peak is a culmination of a series of steadily ascending hills and valleys, whereas on the southern side it's just a steep conical approach i.e. how you expect a volcano should look like. This is also why the southern approach is more scenic, and also more dangerous, since the lava would flow mainly in this direction in the event of an eruption. And Merapi's eruptions are not to be laughed at... it's been erupting more or less consistently over the years, the most recent being 2006.

We spent a couple of hours at a few viewpoints, admiring the view while surreptitiously eyeing possible escape routes in case Merapi suddenly erupts (Mags and I decided to go for the more heavily wooded areas, since they clearly weren't in the path of the lava flow). We then headed back for our hotel, more moanings and groanings tailing us all the way.
on the way back.

A final glimpse of Merapi.

Once we got back Mags and I were considering our next step. We wanted to go to Prambanan, but we decided to go back to Jogja first, get a hotel, dump our bags, get our shopping done, and then head out. Furthermore we were hoping to catch a Ramayana performance, which took place at sunset in the Prambanan temple complex on certain days, although we weren't sure which. It turned out that Thomas and Erika were headed the same way, so we decided to arrange for joint transport at our hotel. We settled for 150,000Rp for the five of us, and we were driven by the Asia-Pacific Man of the Year himself, Mr Christian Awuy! Unfortunately we were all quite sleepy and exhausted, so after some conversation during the first part of the trip, we all fell asleep.

Once we got to Jogja Mags and I parted ways with our friendly Polish-German travel companions (without mentioning the war even once) and started looking for a hotel. This being our last night, and having had more than our share of dodgy hotels, we decided to splurge a little and get a better hotel. In the end we decided on Hotel Amina (or Hotel Amanda or something like that), a decent enough hotel in one of the cul-de-sacs off Sosrowijayan (btw Mags' theory on how the name came about - there was this Indian guy caled Vijayan, and he used to walk around with a bottle of Teh Sosro in his hand...). Although I don't remember the name exactly, I do know that it was next to a hotel called Hotel Monica (I'm glad to have you as a friend, Monica!).
The hotel was pretty decent (2 or 3-star, I figure)and rooms were going for 300,000Rp, which was quite a decent price. The room itself was quite cozy.

After checking in and unloading our bags, we headed out to do our shopping. But first we decided to check out tour agencies for packages to Prambanan, hopefully with the Ramayana performance thrown in. It turned out however that this wasn't one of the days where they did the Ramayana at Prambanan. However they did have a nightly Ramayana performance at a cultural hall in Jogja, so we figured we'll do that then. The total cost for Prambanan (transport + entrance fee only, no tour) and the performance was 450,000Rp for the both of us, if I'm not wrong... in any case we decided it was pretty affordable, so we decided to get the package. After that the friendly guy who brought us to the tour agent 'invited' us over to his batik painting 'exhibition', which is actually one of the many batik painting galleries around. The paintings were beautiful, but they were unfortunately out of our budget and a bit too bulky to bring back. We didn't really know how to say no to the guy who was talking to us, we being such soft-hearted guys and all, so Mags opted for a tried and tested tactic that we had been using pretty frequently throughout the trip - offering a ridiculously low price (say S$1). Surprisingly, it worked pretty well for us, the seller being so insulted by so lowly an offer that he'll let us go.

We parted ways and went about our shopping. I got a few batik shirts and a sandalwood scroll depicting Arjuna from Mirota. I was tempted to buy more craftwork, which were so beautiful and so cheap, but I figured there won't be enough room in my bag. Mags bought the chess set he was interested in as well as a couple of batik shirts - for his dad.

At 2pm we were back to our hotel and awaiting our transport to Prambanan. Prambanan is the site of the biggest Hindu temple in Java, built around the same time as Borobudur and also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The complex consists of three main candis representing the Trimurti - Vishnu,Brahma and Shiva. The temple of Shiva was the one in the middle, the God of Destruction being the main deity (it struck me as apt since the people had to live in constant fear of destruction from the volcanoes). In front of each candi was a smaller candi commemorating each deity's vehicle - Garuda for Vishnu, Angsa (swan) for Brahma and Nandi for Shiva. The temples were quite badly hit by an earthquake in 2006, so restoration works were in progress when we got there, so the temples and the surrounding compound were unfortunately out of bounds to visitors. Couldn't be helped I suppose.

Me in front of the temple complex.

The various reliefs on the outer walls.

Nearby the Hindu temples were a couple of Buddhist temples, built about the same time. The Buddhists and Hindus in the island during those days seem to have coexisted pretty well and even inter-married, quite interesting when you consider that Hindus believed in many gods and the Buddhists believed in none. If only we had a smidgen of that kind of acceptance and co-existence today...

oh, deer!

I thought having deer in the park was quite a nice touch.

Candi Lumbung.

Candi Sewu, the biggest Buddhist temple in Java after Borobudur.

a demon guarding the entrance.

We were allowed 3 hours to roam around the complex, but we got done an hour early, so we had a quick dinner (consisting of indomie goreng and some yummy fried chicken) before getting aboard the van. Once we got back we had a couple of hours to freshen up and sneak some internet time at a cybercafe (while watching Man Utd go 3-1 up against West Ham) before heading for the Ramayana performance. I thoroughly enjoyed the performance, even though it was an abridged version (the complete version would take 4 hours to complete). There were some variations from the Ramayana that I was acquainted with, but that wasn't so surprising since apparently there are quite a few different variations of the story. The performance was in the open air, and combined with the hypnotic gamelan music provided an otherworldly atmosphere to the retelling. One could just close one's eyes and imagine being cast back hundreds of years when this was the only form of entertainment around, combining mythology, spirituality and 'Drama Minggu Ini' in one multi-level grand soap opera.

Definitely a memorable experience.

By the time I got back to the hotel I was totally exhausted as a result of such an eventful day. I walked around town for a bit, stopping for an unsatisfying foot massage in the process (hairy legs and oil don't go together) before limping back and crashing in bed for an early night. So much for partying on my last night in Java.

Day 3: Jogjakarta-Borobudur-Kaliurang

2008-05-31T02:49:00.000-07:00

We walked out the next morning towards the palace via Malioboro, the city's main thoroughfare. Along the way we stopped for some breakfast at McDonalds, which unfortunately did not have any breakfast meals. What it did have, though, was a urinal with a door:

So I assume the Whitley Detention Centre here, where Mas Selamat escaped from, put in one to make their Indonesian detainees feel at home....

We continued on our stroll down Malioboro after breakfast, browsing through the wares on offer. I was suprised at the variety of good quality batik shirts on offer, at such cheap prices(about SG$6-8)! This of course was a temptation I could not refuse, considering my predilection for loud and colourful batik shirts. Unfortunately, even their XL sizes could barely fit me, and so I had to keep a lookout for the few shops that had batik shirts my size - XXXL or 'Jumbo'. Of course, any nudges from my conscience about my size were deftly deflected away by my lovingly cultivated thick skin.

Besides the ubiquitous batik shops all around Malioboro, there were also a few shops and stalls selling crafts, which were also surprisingly cheap and of good quality. Mirota Batik, in particular, had an amazing and eclectic choice of batik and craftwork. We made a shortlist of things that caught our attention (Mags had his eye on a chess board, no doubt to thrash more people and further establish his superiority over the masses) and decided to purchase them the next day instead of today, so that we won't have to carry these on our trip to Borobudur and Kaliurang.

A glimpse of Jogja from the second floor of Mirota Batik.

We continued on our way towards the palace, but not without encountering another demonstration-

The palace, or kraton, is that of the Sultan of Jogjakarta. Jogja was one of the 2 kingdoms that managed to maintain their sovereignity from the Dutch in Java, and willingly merged with Indonesia after its independence. The people here quite revere their Sultan still, and voted him on as the region's governor during a recent election.
The Royal Mosque.

There was this recitation going on at one of the palace courtyards. I think it was in the local Javanese language, which is very different from Malay. Main reason I think so is because I had no idea what he was reciting.

An offering being made in one of the rooms.

Hmm... wonder how this works?

As you can see by the somewhat clueless comments, we weren't really sure what really was going on in the palace. That's because we refused a guide, even though we were told they were free. Partly because we didn't intend to spend too much time there, partly because we are men and we can figure out things for ourselves, dagnammit.

Half an hour and a couple of Teh Botols later (interesting fact-when you buy a Teh Botol you're required to return the bottle to the vendor, so we'd have to drink it on the spot. First time when I've paid for the drink, I've literally paid only for the drink, and nothing else. Also brings about the vague suspicion that they recycle the bottles, and that's where the 'extra flavour' of the Teh Botol comes from... hmm, this aside has gotten a little too long and divergent, so let me start the sentence again...) Half an hour later, we emerged from the palace almost as clueless as we went in, although we were better informed about the Sultan's choice of cutleries and spices. We resolved to walk over to the bus terminal, since on my Lonely Planet map it looked to be about a mile or so away from the palace. Along the way Mags asked a trishaw rider about the rates to the bus terminal, and the trishaw rider refused to take us there, insisting that it was something like 5kms away. That kind of made us a little wary, but hey, if my Lonely Planet map says it's a mile away, it must be true, right?

Half an hour of wandering through small residential lanes later, we finally made it to the main thoroughfare and made further enquiries, which confirmed the fact that the bus terminal was indeed quite far away. Fortunately a local bus with an enthusiastic bus conductor arived at about the same time, and it was headed in the right direction. And indeed the bus terminal was quite a long ways away. What was more, along the way we found out that the bus terminal we were looking had been torn down quite recently, and the new terminal was even further away! Our friendly bus conductor got us there, and a grateful Mags passed him a pack of ciggies.

The bus terminal was fairly new, and interestingly we had to pay an entrance fee to get in (it was called a 'charitable donation'). We got on the bus to Borobudur (ticket cost us 10,000Rp) which was something like the old minibuses of KL. And like those minibuses, they'd squeeze in as many people possible into the bus at all the stops. The distance to Borobudur was 40km, and our bus took 2 hours to get there, stopping at various towns along the way. At the major stops, the bus will be there for 5-10 minutes and local troubadours will alight to sing and play the guitar, asking for donations from the passengers.

Finally we got to the Borobudur bus terminal at around 3pm. After a quick lunch, and not knowing how far the temple was from the town, we negotiated with a couple of trishaws for a ride there, at 15,000Rp one way. So we got on our trishaws, got cycled round the bend behind the bus terminal, and we were at the temple entrance. Feeling quite silly, we disembarked, dumped our bags at the baggage counter, and headed in, fending away the innumerable vendors that are always such an irritation at tourist attractions in Indonesia.

Borobudur was awesome. The vision of such a huge pyramid emerging from amidst this valley of rice-fields and small villages was truly breath-taking. I strongly recommend reading this excellent Wiki on Borobudur to truly appreciate the history and intricacies of its construction, and some of the fascinating mysteries that still surround it, such as the hidden underground panels and the theory that it was actually a floating temple. But even without knowing all this, being in its presence is enough for you to gain a sense of its history and spiritual importance.

At the entrance.

We got there about an hour and half before closing time, and the crowds were still there. All the rowdy kids running around kind of distracted from absorbing the site, but fortunately the crowd thinned considerably when it came closer to closing time, and we had the place virtually to ourselves. That's when I could best appreciate the serenity and majesty of Borobudur, by walking around each of its nine platforms.

The intricate reliefs on the walls, denoting tales from Gautama Buddha's life.

The stupas on the upper levels of the temple, each containing a Buddha.
A Buddha in an uncovered stupa. This pose is apparently Buddha turning the Wheels of Law. Ever since my time in Ayuthaya, I've been fascinated by the amount of attention spent on every single aspect of a Buddha statue - every pose, every gesture means something. You have a Buddha sitting in lotus position, a sleeping Buddha, a standing Buddha. Then the positions of his hands also means something. The position of his feet (curling in, curling out) also means something.

A Buddha in a preserved stupa, as seen from outside. Another thing that fascinated me from my Ayuthaya trip - most stupas contain many Buddha statues inside, even though most of the time they're never be visible to people - the big stupas in Ayuthaya could contain hundreds or thousands of Buddha statuettes. Surprisingly, the main stupa of Borobudur does not contain any - another mystery!

Sadly thieves had a field day before Borobudur was declared a heritage site, and defaced reliefs and statues like this are pretty commonplace around the temple.

An old photo of Borobudur before the restoration.

A view of the temple from the ground.

A final glimpse before leaving.

There's more Borobudur pics here.

We left Borobudur on the dot of closing time, and we got our bags from the locker room just as the guy in charge was about to get on his bike. And once again we embarassingly got on our trishaws for the ride back. At this point we weren't rally sure about how to get to Kaliurang from Borobudur, and we were thinking of just taking the bus back to Jogja and getting another bus to Kaliurang from there. Unfortunately when we got to the bus terminal we found out that the final bus to Jogja (or to anywhere, actually) had already left, and the bus station was deserted. So our trishaw riders helped us to arrange for someone to drive us to Kaliurang for 100,000Rp, which wasn't actually a bad deal.

The sun was already setting when we left Borobudur (before leaving there was a minor comedy moment when Mags offered ciggie packs to the trishaw riders and they were quite pissed since they thought that we weren't gonna pay them and were offering them cigarettes instead). A short way out of Borobudur we stopped by another old ruin at Mendut, a rectangular monolith with kids playing soccer at its foot.

We arrived at Kaliurang, at the southern slopes of Gunung Merapi, about an hour later, around 8pm. Amidst the confusion of getting out of the van and paying the driver, I lost my vietcong cap! Mags, being the gentleman that he is, assured me that he'll get me another one from his Vietnam trip the following week. He has yet to pass it to me though.

We intended to stay at Vogel Homestay, which was recommended by almost every guidebook we came upon. The primary reason for its recommendation was that its owner Christian Awuy (Indonesian Man of the Year 1997, ASEAN Man of the Year 1998, Asia-Pacific Man of the Year 1999... no, I kid you not) who was the only person eligible to conduct treks up to the slopes of Gunung Merapi, the most active volcano in the world. We duly checked in and signed up for a trek the following day, which would start at the unearthly hour of 4am.

The rooms itself were cheap and cosy and chalet-style, and before turning in early for the early rise the next day, it was heavenly to sit outside in the cool climate and have some whisky late into the night, contemplating life, the universe, and the pesky ants swarming around the Coke that got accidentally spilled onto the floor...

Day 2: Jakarta-Jogjakarta

2008-05-25T04:51:00.000-07:00

I was expecting to sleep right to checkout time (1pm), but somehow I found myself awake in the early hours of the morning - okay, 10am - so I figured I'll just mosey down for my free breakfast, which turned out to be surprisingly good, especially the gulai kambing (dry sweet curry consisting of mutton, anchovies and peanuts). I had some interesting fellow diners as well - three shady Indian guys carrying out a conversation in Hindi, bits and pieces of which floated over to my table, sounding very much like from some Bollywood gangster movie. I headed back to bed for a couple more hours of shut-eye, after which I met up with Mags at the hotel counter and checked out.

Our flight to Jogja was at 845pm, so we had pretty much the rest of the day to play around with. However, we heard much about the jams in Jakarta, so we figured we'll play it safe and aim to leave Jakarta at around 330pm via the Damri bus. The couple of hours in-between we'll kill by exploring the environs.

Hardly had we emerged out of Jalan Jaksa that I had my first experience of what seemed to be a favourite Indonesian pastime - street demonstrations.
This one was happening in front of the ministry of agriculture or something like that, and further down the road there was an even bigger one, which seemed to be more of a May Day Rally. At that time I figured that all this was happening as it was Labour Day, but I was to encounter street demonstrations on every single day of my trip, whether it was in Jakarta or Jogja. Vox populi indeed.

Our immediate destination was the National Monument (or Monas as the locals call it) which was right next to the Gambir train station where we were to get on the Damri, and about 15 minutes' walk from our hotel.

The Gambir train station and bus terminal.

Along the way we stopped for some nasi goreng Indonesian style (complete with keropok) at a warung. We also had a couple of Sosro Teh Botols each, which was wonderfully thirst-quenching especially in the hot and humid city atmosphere. The Sosro Teh Botol (Sosro's the manufacturer's name) is basically bottle iced tea, but there seems to be some extra ingredient there that makes it taste so much better than your regular iced tea. Unfortunately you can't get hold of Teh Sosro in Singapore (probably because of that special extra ingredient, heh), so you can probably draw parallels between Teh Sosro and Malaysia's own trademark Ramli Burger - although recently I've been seeing more and more Ramli Burger stalls showing up in those wandering neighbourhood night markets... not sure whether they're legal or not though. Pretty fun to imagine them packing up and running during a police raid though, like those illegal DVD sellers, heh.

Anyway, back to the trip. The National Monument is in the middle of a huge park, so huge that we had to take a mini-train to the monument itself (well, actually it was because it was hot and we were lazy to walk all the way with our backpacks). Here's how the monument looks:
It's another of those ego projects that tyrannical leaders have a tendency to put up, in an effort to leave behind a permanent mark, and in the hopeful thought that this would be the only thing that people will remember them for, once enough time has passed by for all their atrocities and bad behaviour to get erased from the history books. Oh, and wide avenues. Tyrannical leaders also have a tendency to pave damnedly wide avenues.
No, I don't have a clever pseudo-philosophical sweeping statement to explain this phenomenon.

The monument itself wasn't any big shakes... there's an elevator to take you all the way to the top, but the queue for it was so long that we didn't bother. A guide took us around the base of the monument, explaining to us the plaques that surround it while trying to sell us lapel pins of the monument. Our fellow visitors in the base were local couples more interested in making out in dark corners than in the milestones of Indonesian history. Further below was a museum containing dioramas of important historical events. The dioramas were pretty cool, but once again the bulk of visitors weren't really there for the historical lessons but more to escape from the heat in the nice air-conditioned and cavernous interior.

By the time we were done it was about time to grab the airport bus. It turned out that there wasn't any traffic jam, so we were at the airport incredibly early. After spending some time walking around from end to end of the terminal (and grabbing some Dunkin Donuts whhich turned out to be quite stale), we settled down in the A&W and opened the bottle of Jamieson's that we had brought with us from Singapore. We didn't have any glasses so we got a couple of paper cups from KFC. Yes, drinking whisky from KFC paper cups in A&W, another milestone in our tireless search to achieve new lows in life. But hey, at least it helped to pass the time.

The Jakarta airport was quite old-fashioned, and reminded me of the old Subang airport - open air viewing galeries where you have a clear view of planes on the runway, and even the departure terminals are quite nicely laid out, with the gates connected to the main terminal via open-air sheltered walkways... quaint, in a nice way.

Our plane was slightly delayed, and we arrived in Jogja at around 10pm amidst heavy rain. That kind of eliminated any option of walking out and grabbing a bus, so we got a cab (which wasn't to pricy) to take us to Sosrowijayan, the backpackers' lane in Jogja. The airport isn't too far out, so we arrived at Sosrowijayan quite quickly. We walked around for a bit to find a place to stay, and plumped for a small hotel (Hotel Gembira, IIRC) with cheap rooms at 10,000Rp. The room was quite cosy, although the bathroom was kinda run down, and there wasn't any hot water.

Once we got settled in, we wandered around awhile looking for grub and something to drink. We settled for a nearby bar, where coincidentally enough we came across other Singaporeans, including the wife of the Singaporean ambassador, who was also there sight-seeing. The pub also had a chess board so Magaesh challenged me to a game of chess, where he promptly whupped my ass (the first of many ass-whuppings to come). I didn't feel too bad though, coz another Indon guy asked to play him, and Mags promptly beat him too. We got to chatting with this guy and his friend, and they turned out to be agriculture students at the nearby Gajah Mada University. They were quite friendly, and so that's how we spent our first night at Jogja - just chatting and drinking till closing time.

Day 1: Singapore-Jakarta

2008-05-10T21:41:00.000-07:00

The eve of Labour Day. Our flight was at 845pm, so I clocked out of the office at around 5, rushed back, picked up my bag and headed to the airport. The flight was slightly delayed, so we arrived at Jakarta around 1030pm local time. By the time we got out of customs it was about 11pm. Avoiding the usual taxi touts, we managed to find the terminal for the local bus that connects to town. Damri buses operate pretty regularly between the airport and the city centre (roughly 15mins frequency), and at 15000Rp (roughly S$2.50) a ticket, quite a cheap way to get to town. The travel time was about 1 hour, and the bus dropped us at the railway station terminal in the heart of the city, Gambir. From there it wasn't too far away to Jalan Jaksa, but since it was already midnight we figured we'd just take a bike taxi each, which cost us about 10000Rp a bike.

Jalan Jaksa turned out to be a little back alley behind one of the numerous ministry buildings, lined by cheap hostels and dodgy pubs. Our hotel was one of the more presentable ones in the area, but we're talking pretty low standards of reference here. Let's just say at S$30 a room, they seemed overpriced. The bathroom had a pool of water next to the toilet bowl, and the doors gave an impression of having been forced open fairly recently. Anyhow, the bed was decent enough, and we weren't going to spend much of the night there in any case.

After checking in and freshening up, we headed out to explore the lane. Like I mentioned previously, there were quite a few dodgy pubs around. Even our hotel had a dark and dingy karaoke pub. Another pub down the road looked like an African hangout. We strolled along the lane looking for some grub, and settled at a crowded enough cafe for our first meal on Indonesian soil - which turned out to be Malaysian food. The cafe we were at was called KL Cafe, complete with digital printouts of the Twin Towers, and the fare included roti canai and teh tarik. So much for exotic local food.

Feeling slightly dissatisfied - where was all the nightlife, the action? - we decided to take a gamble and hail the next cab to take us to Stadium, a club I'd heard about previously. We had no idea whether it would still be open at such a late hour... but it turned out we didn't need to worry. Stadium was located at what appeared to be the main thoroughfare of the city, connecting our Jalan Jaksa/Gambir base with the old city. At 1am in the morning the traffic was still fairly heavy, and the road was lined with stalls selling Cialis and Viagra, and god knows what else.

Stadium itself was a revelation. It was a four story building, consisting of a lounge on the first floor, a KTV on the 2nd floor, a pub with live music on the 3rd floor and a discotheque on the 4th floor. And the place was packed. Cover charge to the disco was 15000Rp including one free drink, and once we walked in we were met by a wall of bodies. The music of choice was techno apparently, somewhat different from the predilection for hip-hop around here. There wasn't much alcohol in evidence within the crowd, this being Indonesia and all... the beverage of choice was mineral water. But the amount of cigarette smoke there was at super-saturation level - I think I must have inhaled a couple of sticks' worth of nicotine during my few hours there.

Despite the happeningness of the joint, I couldn't stand much of the loud techno and the excess nicotine, so I retired one floor below to the pub where I could nurse my piss-flavoured Bintang beer and listen to a decent enough live band while watching the Champions League semis. We left the joint at around 4am, and people were still pouring into the club - apparently it closes only at 9am.

We explored the vicinity in search for some supper/breakfast (when ariving there I spotted a fast-food joint called CFC, which I was curious to check out - at least to confirm that it didn't stand for Chloroflourocarbon Fried Chicken, but unfortunately it was closed). We plumped for a 24hr KFC (apparently the most popular fast-food joint in Indonesia, similar to Malaysia) where they actually had bento on the menu. Once done we headed back to our hotel via taxi (interestingly, the taxi driver had to pay a 'fee' of 5000Rp to some guy standing around there for picking us up) and I hit the bed at the decent hour of 5am. The risks of nicotine overdose aside, the Jakarta nighlife was indeed something to behold.

silau does Java

2008-05-10T01:12:00.000-07:00

It all began on the Good Friday weekend. All my weekend plans had fell through, and so I was resolved not to spend another long weekend in Singapore. Somewhere along the way the vague notion to go to Borobudur popped up in my mind. After discussing it with a couple of my Indon colleagues, the idea solidified into something feasible - Borobudur was quite easily accessible from either Jogjakarta and Solo, and both places were connected via direct flights to Singapore. Further research revealed that there were also some old Hindu temples in Prambanan which was pretty close to Jogja too, so it looked like there was enough to do for a long weekend. At this point I had already told my plans to Mags and he was quite interested in doing the trip too. So we started firming up the itinerary.

Booking the flight tickets didn't take too long. It turned out that flying S'pore-Jakarta-Jogja would cost about the same as flying direct to Jogja, so we decided to add Jakarta into the itinerary too, after hearing quite a bit about its nightlife from some of my degenerate friends. So we got return tickets to Jakarta via Jetstar (about S$255 each incl all the hidden costs) and return tickets for the Jakarta-Jogja route from Mandala air for about S$90. There are quite a few domestic airlines flying about in Indonesia, and they offer pretty good prices too. Mandala Air had pretty good rates and their website is quite easily navigable too... plus their stewardesses are quite hot, but that we'll only find out later of course...

I also made advance bookings for a hotel in Jakarta for our first night there, since we were arriving there pretty late and I didn't want us to be walking around the alleys around midnight looking for a place to stay, especially after hearing so much about the high crime rate over there. Mags found this cheap hotel via Asiarooms that was in the Jalan Jaksa area, which is the backpackers corner in Jakarta. Rates were pretty alright at S$30-40 a room, so I promptly made reservations. But besides that, we figured we'll just keep it flexible for accomodation during the rest of our trip.

While doing further research and planning (by huddling over a Lonely Planet guidebook in a corner at Borders) we realized that we actually had a further half-day or more to spare... so we added in Gunung Merapi, which was also pretty close to Jogja, into our itinerary.

I then started making preparations. I purchased a backpack, since I figured it'll be more convenient to use during our trip, and I was also planning for a trip to India in July, so it'll be useful then as well. I borrowed a guidebook from the library (Lonely Planet's Southeast Asia on a string... it covered the basics, but wasn't as useful as the Indonesia guidebook). I converted my cash into rupiah, since I figured there won't be much opportunity to come across moneychangers where we were going. And so we were as set as we can be.

Although Java is virtually next door to Singapore, I couldn't help but feel a slight trepidation at the eve of our departure (but then again I always feel trepidation at the eve of any big trip)... there were all those stories of robberies and backpack slashers in Jakarta, and then there was the uncertainty of transportation for all the places we were going too. But then, like all the other trips, everything resolved itself and there wasn't much to worry about.

... and we're back!

2007-12-20T05:55:00.000-08:00

Indeed, as I expected, my life's been hectic since I got back from Boise. Between my new project, house-hunting, weddings and meeting up with family and friends I've barely had any time to myself until today. And this is just a temporary respite, since my schedule till early February is already filled up with more of the same.

The one change in Singapore that's most obvious to me is the increase in the crowd everywhere. Traffic is crazy - you can't get anywhere without getting stuck in a jam, even on the CTE at 1130pm. Of course, part of the reason is the Christmas season, when Singaporeans get whipped up in a frenzy and rush to Orchard like lemmings, Christians and non-Christians alike... but there's also the government's mini-bus conductor-like fervour in squeezing in as many foreigners as they can into the island, with the intention of getting the population to over 6 million - it's currently 4 million, which means that the space between me and the next fella is gonna be filled by another fella. The increase in population has also jacked up property prices like crazy, tripling rental rates in the past 5-6 months. This is also impacting my search for an apartment, forcing me to go slower and find another person to share the rental with, for the time being until either the rent goes down or I'm eligible to buy an apartment. And finally, the other direct way in which the increase in population had affected me - for the first time in my life, I've found myself queueing up for a urinal.

But enough about my travails - I was having dinner at Jaggi's today, and they were showing the usual music videos on their TV screen. One of which was the title song from 'Jhoom Bharabar Jhoom', featuring Amitabh Bachchan bedecked in a gypsy costume, holding an electric guitar (double-axed, no less) and cavorting in some shopping complex while a horde of glazed-eyed white folks in ordinary clothes are dancing behind him. Oh ye gods... that vision is gonne be the source of my nightmares for years to come. One can only pray that this has opened the eyes of Indian directors to the depths of humiliation and shame the obsession with anything white-skinned has brought the Bollywood movie industry to and that we can start seeing some multi-starrer, blockbuster movies that are shot entirely in India (or even when shot overseas, it's because it has relevance to the plot) and do not contain any item numbers with a pseudo-English chorus. Of course, we all know that's not gonna happen... I have a higher chance of marrying Rani Mukherjee than seeing that happen in my lifetime. But then again, in both cases, I can always hope...

And with that little break done with, it's back again to my hectic schedule - I have Za's wedding reception plus chalet thingy tomorrow, and then it's off to Pangkor for Dave's stag night next weekend. Yeah, a stag night in Pangkor - either Dave's stay in UK has made him totally clueless, or there's a hidden side to Pangkor that I've never known. Either way, I'll find out soon... and with all my work and house-hunting in between, I've no idea when I'll update this blog next.

The transition begins

2007-11-19T14:33:00.000-08:00

I'll be heading back to Singapore next week. This past weekend was taken up with packing up the stuff that I'll be shipping back. In the end it came up to 5 boxes and 100 pounds of books, CDs, clothes and various knick-knacks I picked up during my travels. Today I brought them to the office, and my arms are still aching from lugging these boxes for 200m, and doing a separate trip for each since there wasn't a trolley available... and halfway through I'll have to get past a card-scanner, so I have to do a complicated manoeuvre to remove my card from my pocket while balancing the box on my other available limbs, and then dive through the checkpoint once my access is approved... all this while maintaining my dignity, of course.

Anyway, that ordeal is over, so now it's just packing the rest of the junk that I'll be taking with me, which I'll do over the weekend. But I'll still be occupied these next few days with stuff I want to wrap up before I head back, namely:

- try to finish the remaining seasons of Battlestar Galactica, which has totally grown on me. You're in a war with cyborgs of your own creation, they've destroyed your worlds and now you're fighting a running battle with them while simultaneously rebuilding civilization from scratch. There's so many aspects to this situation and the series does not shirk from exploring them and highlighting the nuances that come with any conflict resolution. It's an amazing series, well plotted, good cast, and quite unpredictable too.

- read through as many comics and graphic novels as I can. The library here has a pretty good comics and graphic novel collection (much better than the libraries in Singapore) and I've had a fun time getting acquainted with new characters as well as re-acquainting myself with familiar ones. I've just completed 'Hellblazer', which was a blast, and now I'm gonna wrap-up '100 Bullets' and 'Preacher' (which I gave up on after the first 20 issues or so since I felt it becoming quite repetitious and predictable, so now I'm just going through the rest to see what I missed out on). I'm also reading more stuff by Steve Niles, my new favourite writer after I picked up his horror-noir novel 'Criminal Macabre'. Only after reading that did I find out that he was behind '30 Days of Night', so I promptly went out and bought that graphic novel. And finally, I'm hoping to get some spare time after all this to re-read Alan Moore's elephantine 'From Hell', which I had blogged about previously.

- shopping. I've already done most of it, so this is just some last minute stuff that i need to pick up, like stuff for my mum, some Christmas goodies for generic friends, and a couple of flash drives for movies and music that had magically appeared on my laptop from some unknown source. It's also the Thanksgiving this Thursday, and the day after is normally marked by crazy sales. My friends assure me that the queues and the crowds would be nothing like I've ever seen before, but having survived Christmas in Singapore multiple times, I find it hard to believe. But then again, I hear people start queueing up at electrical stores at 9-10pm the day before the sales itself, so I might be wrong. So to be safe, I'll be doing my shopping on a more rational hour on Friday, and maybe I can still pick up some good deals.

I'm also planning to embark on the search for my next abode this weekend. I'm planning to move out from my tiny little room in AMK within the month once I return, and get a whole apartment to myself. Property prices are insane in Singapore right now, but I can't avoid the bubble, so I'll just have to lower my expectations of what I can get for my budget. So if you know of any apartments available for rent under $1.5k/month. Do let me know.

The game of life

2007-11-10T16:17:00.000-08:00

Poker is quite an unpredictable game. Even if you don't play poker, just watch any poker tournament (the World Series, for instance) where pros play with amateurs and you realize strategy doesn't count for much. Of course, if you're playing with pros, then strategy becomes all important, because everyone expects everyone else to play by the known strategies so you can base your game on that. But when amateurs come into the picture, then unpredictability rules. They don't have the same sophisticated tactics, their play works differently. Which is why ever since the World Series has been opened to amateurs, not a single pro has won the grand tournament so far. I've followed the past two World Series, and I didn't think the eventual winners played that well. I could see through their strategies easily (of course, this comes from observing everyone's hand during play, a luxury no one on the table has). The pros play excellent hands, betting and folding at the right times. But always there's one or two amateurs who get them beat, simply because they bet and fold erratically. And eventually the pros become less confident about their game and start making mistakes, and that's it. Even during the occasions when I play poker, most of the time it's the first-timers who do pretty well, because they play erratically and win more, until someone figures out their game. That's why poker to me is so fascinating... it really is anyone's game.

I was reading 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' when this thought occured to me about amateurs doing well in poker. Because it does seem to have parallel in history and politics. To a certain extent that was how Hitler could rise so far and so fast. He did not play by the rules that the German politicians did. So those who tried to manipulate him ended up being manipulated. Then when he became Fuhrer he took gambles by raising an army and occupying more territories. And the foreign governments and generals stood by because they couldn't predict his game. If the French or the British called his bluff at any one time while his power was still being consolidated, a lot of bloodshed and horror could have been averted. But Hitler was an amateur, he did not play the game of the pros. I guess one plays politics the same way one plays poker - you can play like a pro and win some, lose some, make compromises and try to make your way slowly up the ladder, or you can play like an amateur, take huge risks, have some essence of chaos in your game, and rush to grab as much power as you can and consolidate your position before someone figures out your game and call your bluff.

Fetchez la vache!

2007-11-04T07:07:00.000-08:00

I'm not much into musicals (the only staged musical I've really enjoyed was 'Rent') but I couldn't miss the opportunity to catch Spamalot! when it came down to Boise. Written by Eric Idle, the musical is loosely based on one of my all-time favourite movies, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Of course, the musical is as silly as can be, featuring the song that goes 'The Song that goes like This', and of course, how can you not include rude French soldiers!

King Arthur: If you will not show us the Grail, we shall take your castle by force!
French Soldier: You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person! I blow my nose at you, so-called "Arthur Keeeng"! You and all your silly English Knnnnnnnn-ighuts!!!

(the soldier proceeds to bang on his helmet with his hands and stick out his
tongue at the knights, making strange noises.)

Galahad: What a strange person.
A: (getting mad) Now look here, my good ma--
S: I don' wanna talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food-trough
wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster, and
your father smelt of elderberries!
Galahad: Is there someone else up there we can talk to?
S: No!! Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!

Last week was also Halloween, and downtown on the weekend before Halloween was taken over by people in all kinds of weird costumes, including quite a few people only in cardboard boxes with 'Minneapolis airport public toilet' written on them... but the best of them all, IMO, were a couple of guys dressed up as Optimus Prime and Rodimus Prime of the Transformers, complete with blinking LEDs and voice coders. Halloween is a pretty fun time over here, and most people really take the effort to put on really good costumes. As for me, I took the lazy way out and went out as an '80s Bollywood movie villain, i.e. myself with a bit more hair.

I've got another 2-3 weekends here before I return to Singapore, so now it's gonna be mostly shopping and stuff. Now that Halloween's over, the shops have started putting up Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations (kind of reminiscient of the whole Hari Raya-Deepavali-Christmas transition back home) so I'll probably grab some Christmas goodies to bring back. And of course, no trip to the States will be complete without a trip to Vegas...

Day 9: Rio and back

2007-10-25T17:07:00.000-07:00

It was the final day of our trip, and it was more bumming around. I spent most of the morning at the poolside on the top of the hotel, and after checking out we walked the whole stretch of Copacabana towards Ipanema.

Ipanema was more of the same - miles on miles of sand, sports and sweeties. Our flight was only at 10pm, but it's easy to while away the time when there's so much to see, heh. While walking I realized that all the clocks I passed by were an hour behind. At first I thought it must be some kind of massive malfunction, and then I found out that the country had officially moved one hour ahead on that day. It struck me as weird that a tropical country has daylight savings, but there you are. Little did I realize then that the daylight savings switch would prove fortituous to me in the near future.

While walking in Ipanema I spotted my first Indian of the trip - it was hard to miss him, fully dressed on the beachside, looking thoroughly lost, and of course sporting a luxurious moustache. And soon after that I met a second Indian. And a third. And then I sighted in the near horizon - a chariot! Yes indeedy, amongst all the bikini-clad babes and Speedo-contained guys, a chariot with a Hindu deity and Hindu priests, surrounded by chanting Hare Krishna folk. I was pretty sure my caipirinha had not been spiked with acid, but this vision did make me doubt my sanity for a while - maybe I had been too long out in the sun. But nope, folks, it was an actual Hare Krishna procession. What was interesting was that most of the followers were Brazillians, but they were all decked out in saris (the women, of course) with tilaks on their foreheads. They were distributing pamphlets and prasad to everyone along the street, so I got my hands on some too. Turns out the Hare Krishna movement is quite big in Rio, but man, what a surreal encounter when you don't see it coming. On our way back we found the chariot abandoned. The Hare Krishna crowd had adjourned to a park with the deity and an aarti ceremony was going on when we passed by.

Actually Sundays seemed to be procession days in Rio. Or maybe it was just that Sunday. They closed off most of the thoroughfare next to the beach, and earlier in the morning I spotted a Catholic procession on the streets (complete with fireworks!). There was also a small PETA procession making its way, consisting of a few people dressed up as animals carrying a banner (no nude supermodels though, *sigh*). But the biggest procession of them all was starting to build up in the early afternoon - a Gay Carnival! The carnival was part of a campaign against homophobia - the government had recently passed legislation with stiffer penalties for homophobic crimes. At first it consisted of a couple of trucks blasting techno music and people handing out pamphlets and stickers. By the time we got back from our walk, around 4pm, there were more trucks and more techno. The streets were packed for over a mile with people dancing away - gay, trannies, straight. We had missed out on the samba season, so this was probably the closest we could get to the samba spirit.

With the streets packed with people, we were wondering how we could get out of Copacabana to the airport. There was a bus we could take, but even during normal times it could take up to an hour of waiting time, and with all the traffic congestion due to the carnival, it might be even longer. So we decided to play it safe and arrange for a taxi to the airport, which would cost 70 reals, fortunately payable via credit, since we didn't have enough cash. We got to the airport and I spent most of the reals I had on souvenirs and, uh, more sociological research *cough*.

So we said our farewells to South America and got back to the world of English-speaking peoples. Our flight was to Atlanta, where we initally had a 3-hour layover, but with Brazil bringing their clocks forward, it became a 4-hour layover. At the US immigration checkpoint the official looked at my passport, asked me a couple of questions on the intention of my stay in the US, then handed over my passport to this other official and asked me to follow him. This other guy brought me to another office, handed over my passport to the official behind the counter, and asked me to sit down. So I sat. And sat. And sat. For three hours I just sat there while people came and went. And then finally the official behind the counter calls me over, hands over my passport, and tells me I can go now. Not a single question asked, not a single explanation. In the end I was fortunate that my layover got extended an hour because of daylight savings in Brazil, or else I would've missed my connecting flight. There were 4 other guys who were there about as long as me, and 3 of them missed their connecting flights. Of the 5 of us, 4 of us had moustaches, 3 of us were bald or balding, 3 were from Dubai, and I had a Malaysian passport. And that, folks, is how profiling works.

That little unpleasantness courtesy of Team America:World Police aside, things went smoothly. We had another tight connection to make at Salt Lake, but that plane got delayed another 1.5 hours. With all the flight delays and immigration holdups I'd already finished In Patagonia, so I bought a small booklet of writings by Mark Twain and 'A Spot of Bother' by Mark Haddon. I'd finished the Twain and just starting on the Haddon when we landed in Boise at 4pm on Monday - 10 and a half days since we took off for Salt Lake City on the beginning of our journey.

Like I said earlier, the itinerary of the trip wasn't ideal, what with all the flights and at times hectic scheduling. But for a whirlwind trip, it turned out quite satisfactory, mainly because of the nature and variety of our destinations - glaciers and waterfalls, snow-capped peaks and sandy beaches. Argentina is truly a wonderful country to visit, with its majestic and contrasting attractions, friendly people and low cost. If I get the chance again, I'd love to spend more time exploring the country, and maybe even retrace a little of Paul Theroux's travels by train there. And while Argentina is a journey, Rio is a destination - to be in Rio is to indulge in sun-worship and the party atmosphere. But Rio burns a deep hole in your pocket, and it's hard to stay and indulge yourself for too long there if you're on a shoestring. But, ah, the girls of Rio will be making their appearance in my dreams for a long time to come...

Day 8: back in Rio

2007-10-24T20:53:00.000-07:00

We arranged for a taxi to take us from the hotel to the airport in the morning, for 70 pesos. There was a shuttle bus option, but it would stop at quite a few places and take us 1 1/2 hours to get there. Furthermore, the cost of the bus was 30 pesos per person, so there wasn't much of a price difference. Once at the airport we changed the remainder of our pesos to real. Another thing to note about the airports in Argentina is that most airports charge a departure tax which is not included in the ticket cost. The departure tax from El Calafate and Ushuaia was 20 pesos. THe departure tax from Buenos Aires for international flights was USD18. I suppose that's one way to get money from the tourists, since everything else is so cheap. Our flight was more or less on time, which we were quite appreciative of after our Ushuaia experiences.

We arrived at Rio in the afternoon and it was back to those small buses and their mini-turrets. We took a shuttle bus to our hotel. Since our hotel this time round was in Copacabana, the bus ticket was slightly pricier at 6 reals each.

It was a happy accident for us when we got to the hotel and they told us they were overbooked, so they upgraded us to a beachfront five star hotel that they also owned... good times! Here's the view from the top of our hotel:

After all the hectic travelling of the past few days, we took a well-deserved time off and spent the rest of the day bumming at the beach.

It's a beach resort by day, but by nightfall Copacabana becomes something else altogether. That's when the sleazy side of Rio comes on display. Almost every woman you see on the streets is a pro... mostly they travel in twos, linger outside the restaurants, sometimes even take a table, and try to catch someone's eye. The trade is not as blatant here as Thailand, but it's still pretty obvious who the women who are idly seating at the bar are. I have to say though, like most of the women I've seen so far, some of the pros were pretty good looking too. We just sat in a bar over some drinks and savoured the, uh, atmosphere.

I also attempted to do some souvenir shopping along the beachfront. I came across a wraparound that I was interested in (not for me of course *cough*) and I asked for the price.
'15 reals' she said.
So I replied,'Hmm. Why don't we make it 40.'
And she looked at me as if I was insane in the brain.
It didn't take too long for me to figure out after that that she was charging me 15, not 50 for it. This is why I'm such a failure at bargaining. I paid up the 15 reals, and refrained from making any more purchases, ashamed to call myself a Malaysian.

Day 7: Buenos Aires

2007-10-23T17:10:00.000-07:00

We woke up to a wet and cold springtime day in Buenos Aires.
It would continue to rain for most of the day. Our hotel was quite centrally located, so we decided to walk to our first destination, the Cemeteria Recoleta.
This was the cemetery for the rich and famous of Argentina, containing alleys upon alleys of elegant mausoleums.

There's tombs of Presidents and other notable personalities from Argentina's history here, but the main object of pilgrimage for most Argentinians is here:

The tomb of Eva Peron, more popularly known as Evita.

I did find it kind of eerie to see coffins lying in some of these tombs... but then again, what do you expect in a city of the dead?

I suppose part of the reason people build such beautiful tombs is to distract a little from the realization of the finality of death.

Our walk among the gravestones complete, we headed out to Buenos Aires proper. The city of Buenos Aires is very much what I'd expect a European city in the 1930s would've looked like - grandiose buildings, vast squares every 3 blocks or so with a statue in the middle...

Unfortunately there was a massive renovation project going on at the time of our visit, so we couldn't get into most of the historic buildings we wanted to see, like the Opera House..
Incidentally that was one of the very few good photos of me in Buenos Aires... the others had my face blotted out by water drops, making the photos look like something from a Japanese horror movie.

For me, the highlight of our walk through Buenos Aires was our final stop - the subway.

Even the subway system is like something out of the 1920s, with old fashioned carriages complete with open windows and doors that have to be manually pulled open.

We ventured out again in the night for our final dinner in Argentina. So to end our trip with a bang, we went to one of the bigger barbeque houses in the heart of the city.

All that meat!

Even then, the total didn't come to much... a full course of barbequed meat would cost about 30 pesos. And when it comes to drinks, they don't mess about... for 15 pesos I got this much whiskey on the rocks-
And that, friends and neighbours, is how you serve Chivas.

On our way back we got accosted by this fella who wanted to bring us to a 'sexy tango' strip show. Unfortunately the dingy corner where he wanted to take us was a little too dodgy for my liking, so in the end I missed out on finding out what a sexy tango was all about. They're pretty liberal with this stuff over in South America - there's a newsstand at every street corner, and every newsstand had a pethora of guy/girlie mags, and even X-rated DVDs.... interestingly, every newsstand also had a pretty impressive selection of literature, from Albert Camus to Pablo Neruda. So to further investigate this social phenomenon, I picked up a couple of girlie mags. Purely sociological reasons, of course.

Day 6: Ushuaia

2007-10-22T19:16:00.000-07:00

So, here we were at Ushuaia - the southernmost city in the world.

Sunrise over Ushuaia, as seen from our hotel. We checked out of the hotel and called for a cab to take us downtown.

Snuggled between 4000+ ft mountains to the north and the sea to the south, the city was not short of panoramic views.

Translated into English, the writing means 'Ushuaia - the end of the world, the beginning of everything'. There's this cuckoo fella sitting above that sign and waving frantically. Oh wait, that was me.

We signed up for a short cruise around the Beagle channel (the body of water in the pics above) for a cost of 130 pesos each. Initially our plan was to take a cruise to a penguin colony, but we found out that it was still too early in the season and the penguins were still up north - they would start migrating south closer to summertime. And here I was thinking that I'd have a better chance finding penguins in the cooler, not warmer, regions.

Not being able to find penguins were the only hitch in our trip. But I wasn't as disappointed as my friend was - I could never see what the big deal was about seeing wildlife 'in the wild' as opposed to in captivity - either way you're being an intruder. Anyway, we got on the boat and headed off on our 3-hour boat trip.

Onboard the boat.

Ushuaia seen from the middle of the channel.

Cormorants and sea lions.

Another view of the city on our way back.

After we got off the boat we explored the rest of the town.
In case you want to know the way to San Jose.... or anywhere else. 'Just walk straight for the next 7000km, then turn left.'

It wasn't much of a city actually - we could walk from one end of downtown to the other in an hour. We stopped at a couple of places for shopping, food and and my favourite Argentinian dessert, the Dom Pedro - a scoop of ice cream in whisky, muy, muy, muy bien. Argentinian ice cream is quite good, actually - probably for the same reason their beef is so good. They also made their tea the way I liked it - lots of milk and a little tea. In fact, what with all the abundance of meat, whisky and weak tea, any Punjabi can feel right at home, heh.

At Volver, the restaurant where we had our lunch. The restaurant had a bit of history to it, like most of the buildings downtown... it's over a hundred years old, and used to be part of a prison. Besides the history, it offered some pretty good seafood too, including crab soup with big chunks of crab..

After we ran out of places to pillage, we got a cab to take us to the airport, grabbing our luggage from the hotel enroute. We got to the airport to find out our flight had been delayed 1.5 hours. In fact, from my observation, every flight to and from Ushuaia would inadvertently get delayed, whether or not I was on it. Maybe it had something to do with it being the southernmost commercial airport in the world. Maybe it was the strong wind and cloudy skies. Maybe the pilots get blinded by all that snow on the mountains, or overshoot the town and end up in Antartica... in any case, if you're ever heading to this part of the world, bring a couple of good books, a pack of cards and a nice comfy pillow, because in all likelihood you're gonna get delayed. What with all the delays I'd finished both books that I had brought along to read - Michael Shaara's Civil War novel 'The Killer Angels' and Stephen Alter's 'Fantasies of a Bollywood Love-thief', about film-making in Bollywood (film in question being the excellent 'Omkara', an adaptation of Othello in the deserts of Rajasthan) - and was about to finish Bruce Chatwin's 'In Patagonia', which I had bought in Patagonia, haha!

So we finally left Ushuaia at 10pm, and arrived in a cold and wet Buenos Aires at 1.30am. Fortunately I'd arranged for transport from the airport to the hotel through our tour agent while planning for this trip, so we didn't have to worry about getting to our hotel. And so to bed at 3am.

Day 5: El Calafate-Ushuaia

2007-10-20T20:13:00.000-07:00

I had a weird dream last night where Little Richard was singing 'Since I've Been Loving You' and I was accompanying him by drumming my hands on a table. The table was cluttered with stuff at the beginning of the song, but I was drumming so hard that everything on the table fell off at the end of it. I shall leave it as an exercise for the interested reader to figure out what it all means (take that, Freud!).

While still on the topic of music, I watched Across the Universe today, which as the name suggests, is a musical using Beatles songs. Frankly I'm quite surprised that no one has thought about doing this before, since it's so obviously a hit formula. Needless to say, it'll definitely strike a chord (heh) with Beatles fans. For me the best parts were the Beatles songs that were given new interpretations - I loved the spin given to I Want You (She's So Heavy), for one. But if any modern group's repertoire of songs were made for a musical, it has to be the Beatles, with Lennon/McCartney/Harrison's lyrics covering possibly the whole spectrum of emotions and conveyed with such simplicity and yet such intensity.

Anyway, back to the travelogue... so we checked out the morning after the glacier trip and went to explore the town.
Downtown El Calafate.

The outskirts.

We had a half-day to kill since our flight to Ushuaia was in the late afternoon, so I took the opportunity to do some souvenir shopping. It seems the Argentinians are crazy about the Simpsons, since I saw some pretty cool Simpsons t-shirts everywhere. There was one that reproduced the famous Abbey Road album cover, but with the Simpsons instead of the Beatles crossing the road. Unfortunately they didn't seem to have one my size, but I got a couple of others instead.

Once shopping was done, we headed back to the hotel to wait for our shuttle pick-up.

The barren landscape enroute to the airport. We got to the airport about 2 hours before our flight, only to find out that our flight was delayed by 3 hours. So all we could do was sit and play cards next to the empty runway...

We'll eventually find out that Ushuaia is synonymous with delayed flights. In any case, we finally got to Ushuaia some time around 8pm, flying over some awesome landscape of mountains and fjords in the process. A cab took us to our hotel, which we found out was actually a bed & breakfast joint in a run down part of town about 2-3 miles out of the town center. This was the worst place we stayed during the whole trip - there was no way we could get to town apart from taxi, the whole place was surrounded by residential areas, and our rooms had central heating which was cranked way up so we had to open up the windows (even though it was near 0degC outside) and sleep with the noise from the neighborhood coming from outside. Our hosts were genial though - we even got a welcome drink - but for people on a tight schedule like us, the hotel wasn't a good match. In any case, it was just one night, so we just roughed it out and slept the hours away.

Day 4: Perito Moreno Glacier

2007-10-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

The van came to pick us up at 9am from the hotel. From there it was an hour and half's drive (80km) up to the Glacier National Park.

Baaaadaaaasss.

After paying the entrance fee of 15 pesos (not included in the tour charge) we made our way into the park proper. The first stop were a series of balconies overlooking the face of the glacier.

The Perito Moreno glacier is 30km long, 5km wide, 60m high, and advances about 2m a day. And at all times one can hear the sound of cracking ice. Occasionally bits of the glacier will break and fall into the waters.

After we were done with the balconies, a bus took us to the disembarkation point where we took a boat across the lake to the point where we start our glacier trek. Along the way we passed chunks of ice that had snapped off the glacier.

We had a couple of guides who gave us some brief information on glacier formation, and then we were off!

The approach to the glacier.

At the foot of the glacier the guides helped us put on crampons on our shoes. And after that we started walking on the glacier. It took a little time getting used to walking with crampons, because of their additional weight and bulkiness, but the spikes at their base do come in very handy in getting a stable grip on the ice especially on steep slopes on the glacier. With these on even a Laurel & Hardy candidate like me had no problems navigating the ups and downs of the glacier.

Of course you can't beat the feeling of getting up close and personal with a glacier...

Our two guides, Dom and Julio.

Julio doing an ice-climbing demonstration.

Me being very pleased with myself.

A pool of melted glacier ice. The water on the glacier was pure and drinkable, and we did in fact drink a little from some of the pools we came across. No weird aliens bursting out of any part of my body so far...

At the end of the hike we were in for a surprise, as our guides had set up a couple of tables on the glacier itself, and proceeded to give us a shot of whisky each.
The ice was, of course, from the glacier.

It was the best whisky I've ever had.

That was the final part of the hike, and so we got off the glacier, removed our crampons, and headed to the port to wait for the boat to take us back to the main shore. The walk back provided some nice photo opportunities...

As the boat chugged away, I glanced back for a final view of the glacier with the sun setting over it...

The evening sky was in fact of about the same tone of blue as the water, so at times you could almost believe that the mountains were afloat.

The whole excursion was about 10 hours, with 3 hours travelling time and 2 hours hiking on the glacier. A price of USD100 might be considered steep, but for such a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I think it was definitely worth it.

Day 3: Puerto Iguazu-El Calafate

2007-10-18T19:31:00.000-07:00

On the previous night we had tried to make arrangements for transportation to the airport from our hotel. When we had approached our hotel receptionist, he had tried ripping us off by insisting that there's no bus transport and he could arrange a taxi for us for a 'cheap' price of 50 pesos. Unfortunately for him, I knew for a fact that there was an agency that arranged for shuttle bus pickups from the hotel to the airport for a much cheaper price of around 10 pesos per person. Only problem was, I didn't have a contact number. So we went around town looking for the agency or at least people who could tell us how to contact the agency. At the end of it, six different people gave me six different numbers to try, although they all named the same agency.

The next morning I finally managed to get the right number after six tries. And the service was pretty prompt - they were at the hotel right on the dot, so we actually ended up arriving at the airport pretty early, since we had accounted for delays in our pickup time. I have to say at this point that the people we met throughout the trip have been pretty honest and straightforward in their dealings with us, the aforementioned hotel receptionist being the rare exception. Of course in Rio the prices are so high that the locals don't really need to try to con us, but even in Argentina where everything was generally cheap (1 USD = 3.10 pesos) no one even tried haggling for prices with us, not even that bane of tourists everywhere, the taxi drivers.

Our flight left Iguazu more or less on time and we arrived at Buenos Aires. Our next flight was in another 4 hours time, so we decided to use that time in between to figure out what kind of tour package we want to do in Calafate. After some research and a couple of phone calls to some agencies, we settled on one agency that provided a trip to the Glacier National Park plus a boat trip plus trekking on the glacier. Problem was that our flight was due in Calafate at around 6.30pm, and the agency closed at 8pm. Furthermore, the airport was 20km away from town and we weren't too sure about the availability of public transport from the airport to the town. So we could only hope our flight won't get delayed.

And it didn't. In fact, it was the only domestic flight that we took in Argentina that didn't get delayed. Our flight arrived on time in El Calafate, giving us majestic views of the nearby snowcapped mountains during its descent..

We landed on this airstrip in the middle of nowhere, and I'm not kidding. All around the airstrip was total desolation, not a single habitation within a 20km radius. There weren't even any taxis outside the airport, only a shuttle bus that would take us to town for 15 pesos each (or we could arrange a round trip for 25 pesos, and they'll pick us up from the hotel on our way back). Makes you wonder what happens if you're on the last flight and missed the last bus.

The drive to town provided us with our first close up glimpse of the desolate landscape of Patagonia - brown scrublands everywhere, nothing taller than shrubs, not a single moving thing visible. A chilly landscape in both senses of the word, and yet for some reason haunting and compelling in its stillness. Therefore the first impression of El Calafate was all the more surprising - you turn a bend and all of sudden there's all these houses in front of you. In fact the sole reason for the existence of the town is tourism, it being the gateway to the Perito Moreno glacier. The town itself consists of a town centre that looks like a ski resort, and back streets that resemble a frontier village. Our bus dropped us right in front of the tour agent which was still open (5 minutes before closing time!) so we promptly went in and booked the package, which cost us 310 pesos (USD100) each.

Once that was settled, we did a little exploration of the cosy little town centre, and stopped by a parrilla (Argentinean steakhouse) for a little barbeque buffet. Argentinean diet is very meat-based, especially barbequed meat. And it's pretty good meat too - the pampas of northern Argentina have a reputation of supplying arguably the best beef in the world.And with an unlimited spread at 30 pesos per person, it was cheap as well. Needless to say, this is one trip where you won't be losing weight.

After dinner we headed for our hotel. We walked over to a little taxi kiosk where we wait in line till a taxi showed up. The trip to the hotel cost us 3.20 pesos, but the driver just took 3 pesos from us - ladies & gentlemen, another unique Argentinean experience for the tourist - the undercharging taxi driver.

The hotel itself was the Rincon del Calafate, and was my favourite among all the hotels we stayed during this trip (including even our final one in Rio, which will be discussed later). After the freezing cold outside we come into a cozy lobby with a fire burning at the heart, and a welcome glass of wine. The staff were friendly and helpful, and the rooms were very comfortable. The hotel was a little out of town, but that gave it the benefit of having more land to be built on and therefore a more spacious feel. In fact, the further out of town we went, the bigger and more beautiful the hotels became. In any case, I truly enjoyed both of my nights of stay at the Rincon. And so I ended the day that began in the steamy tropics of northern Argentina cuddled up in a warm bed in the freezing wastelands of southern Argentina.

Day 2: Rio-Iguazu Falls

2007-10-17T17:23:00.000-07:00

We left the hotel for the airport in the morning after a buffet breakfast. One thing about breakfast - dulce de leche is a default spread everywhere we went. It tastes pretty good too - something like milky caramel.

Our flight to Iguazu was from the international airport, even though our destination was still in Brazil, albeit close to the border. So we walked over to the domestic airport and took a shuttle bus to the international airport. Today's itinerary was one of the tightest, since we ideally wanted a full day to explore the falls, but due to flight timings the best we could get was a half day. So the plan was to go to the falls directly from the airport. We arrived in Foz de Iguazu on time at 1.30pm, and we took a bus from outside the airport to the falls. The airport is pretty close to the falls, so we reached the park entrance in no time. After dumping our bags in a public locker, we got the admission tickets (20 reals) and took the park shuttle bus to the falls, which was another 8km further up.We got off at the penultimate stop and hiked up another 1.5km along the falls. This is our first view of the falls:

Notice the boats at the foot of the falls. There are a couple of agencies offering boat rides up to the foot of the falls, but we didn't have either the time or the money to do them.

The trek to the falls also serves as an introduction to some unique South American wildlife, such as coatis, shown above. We got lots of warnings about feeding the coatis, since they can get quite violent. And here I thought only park monkeys are prone to that habit.

The views got more spectacular, and the roar got louder, as we got closer to the falls.

The walkway ends right in front of Garganta del Diablo, or the Devil's Throat, arguably the highlight of the falls.

The falls straddles the Brazil-Argentina border, and we were at the Brazillian side. The Argentinean side also had a park where you can walk above the falls and look directly down, but if you want an idea of the extent and majesty of the falls, then you should see it from the Brazillian side. Ideally I'd liked to have done both, especially since there were night tours of the falls from the Argentinean side whenever there was a full moon. Unfortunately we got there a week after the full moon.

In any case, the final verdict for Iguazu Falls? Awesome.

After a couple more pics of the falls and the Iguazu river, we headed out to the park entrance to start over journey across the border to Argentina.

We waited about 30 minutes for a bus to downtown Foz de Iguazu. Since it was a Sunday, buses weren't that frequent - we were told to expect an hourly frequency. The buses here were also of the turret variety, leading to more excruciating moments of me stuck at the entrance due to my backpack. In any case, we weren't travelling all the way downtown, but got off after we passed the junction leading to the border crossing, then crossed the road and waited another 50 minutes for a bus headed to Argentina.

After a while the bus arrived at a huge building - picture a run-down Gelang Patah complex without any vehicle or person or a signboard in sight - and we were wondering if this was the Brazil immigration complex. Fortunately one of the guys in the bus was an Aussie backpacker who's been past here before, and told us to get down to get our passports stamped. Only the foreigners had to get down, since apparently Mercosul inhabitants have free passage between member countries. But of course there were no signs anywhere to notify any foreigners about this. So we got a ticket receipt from the bus driver, and the bus sped off after we disembarked. After exploring the seemingly abandoned edifice for a while we managed to find a tiny office where we could get our passports stamped. After that it was back to the bus stop again and another 40 minutes wait for the next bus in the middle of nowhere. My colleague was on the verge of a panic attack, but I was actually enjoying it - the whole heavy tropical surroundings kinda reminded me of travelling in the kampungs in Malaysia. These are the times when you're thankful of being brought up in an environment where uncertainty and randomness rule, so that you are flexible enough to accept a little chaos and even enjoy it.

So finally we got a bus that took us to the Argentinian immigration complex, and we got held up for a short while there while the officials tried to figure out whether we needed visas to enter the country. We had the same experience in Brazil, leading me to wonder if we were the only Malaysians in recent memory to have come here... I wonder if QCY had a similar experience - care to share?

After getting cleared we got on the bus (which had waited for us this time) and headed on to our hotel. The 40km journey from the falls to Puerto Iguazu took us nearly 4 hours.

Puerto Iguazu, where our hotel was located, was a pleasant little one-street border town that resembled any Malaysian one-street town, but maybe with more souvenir shops. After checking in we walked down to the town for a little look-around and some bites. We also got a couple of beers to take back to the hotel. Our room had a little balcony from which we could see out into the jungles surrounding the town, and it was quite a nice way to end an eventful day, sitting on the balcony, swigging beer and watching the sun set.

Day 1: Boise-Rio

2007-10-16T18:28:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Rio some time in the morning, after leaving from Boise the previous afternoon. It was a journey consisting of three flights and a total flight plus transit time of about 18 hours. We had pretty tight transits of about an hour each, but thankfully none of the flights got cancelled or delayed, something that American airlines are pretty notorious for. I did get 'special' treatment at the immigration checkpoint in Boise, but I've been pretty much resigned to that, being a balding guy with a moustache and hence compartmentalized as 'dodgy-looking' by society in general, and the Department of Homeland Security in particular... more tales of DHS vs. Dodgy Man to follow...

So anyway, we arrived in Rio in the morning. We took a shuttle bus from the airport that would take you to almost anywhere in the city, for a cost of 3-6 reals. The exchange rate is roughly 1 USD = 1.7 reals, making the real just about equivalent to SGD. And the cost of things in Rio are pretty equivalent to Singapore as well, as we realized once our money supply started depleting.

The bus dropped us close enough to our hotel. After dumping our bags in the room, we decided to explore the neighbourhood. Our agent got us a hotel close to the airport, maybe for reasons of convenience. Unfortunately she got us one near the domestic airport, when both our inbound and outbound flights were from the international airport. It wasn't too bad though, since the both the domestic airport and the hotel were located pretty close to the business district and the subway. But this also meant that there wasn't really much to see around the hotel. So we decided to head out to Corcovado, the hill with the famous Rio landmark, and one of the new Seven Wonders of the World, Christ the Redeemer.

Visiting it wasn't cheap though.. the entrance fee (which includes a Penang Hill-like train ride up and down the mountain) set us back 36 reals each, and wiped out half of our real supply. But like watching Revenge of the Sith if you've sat through The Phantom Menace and the Attack of the Clowns, it's just something you're compelled to do if you're in Rio.

I didn't find the monument itself that awe-inspiring, maybe from a combination of too-high expectations, travel fatigue, and the shock of the entrance fee. The crowds all around the place didn't help either, especially those people posing for photos in front of the statue with their arms extended just like the statue. It was probably funny the first time someone thought of it, but everyone doing it just makes the whole place resemble those HDB open spaces in the mornings when the uncles and aunties are doing their tai-chi. However, the view of Rio from the hilltop was pretty awesome...

There was also a service going on right in front of the statue, which was pretty interesting.

After absorbing as much as we thought was our 36 reals' worth, we headed downhill and took a bus back to the hotel. The public transport in Rio all charge you a flat fee regardless of how far you're travelling - the public buses, for instance, charge 2 reals per person. The irritating thing about buses in Brazil is that they make you go through a tiny revolving turret to get to the seats. You have to wait for the bus driver or conductor to unlock the turret before you get through, so that you can't barge in without paying. But this also means that the bus starts moving before you even get through the turrets, and they could be difficult to turn too - not easy when you're carrying a backpack, and the bus drivers can give our bas mini drivers a run for their money. I had a couple of slapstick moments when my I'd get through the turret but my backpack got stuck, needing either the conductor or a passenger to push it through while I was helplessly flailing on the other side. Although the bus system brought back nostalgic memories of KL public transport, I was pretty impressed by the Rio subway system. In the first place, they have a pretty handy website complete with interactive maps so that you can figure out how to get anywhere even before you leave your home. The stations are also pretty conveniently located and there's connecting buses that take you to the major attractions that are not on the subway line (like Ipanema).

Upon getting back to the hotel and grabbing a quick bite at what looked to be a Chinese-run Brazillian version of Bread Talk, we headed out once again for Sugerloaf hill (that wierd-looking hill in the Rio pic above) and its cable-car.

In front of Sugarloaf Hill. But once we got there we found out that taking the cable-car would cost us another 35 reals, we decided to skip it and head to the beaches instead.

So we went to Copacabana and did some sight-seeing.

I have to say that Brazillian girls are really and truly beautiful, even compared to the girls of Argentina. I think this is probably due to the higher proportion of inter-racial mixing in Brazil, widening the gene pool and yielding beauty in every possible skin tone. Living next to the beach also probably helps, since sunbathing and swimming was obviously a popular local past-time. Whatever the reason, it's undeniable that walking the streets of Rio is a truly aesthetic experience.

Oh yeah, the beach was pretty nice too.

The whole stretch of Copacabana is about 2.5 miles long, and almost every square metre is occupied with sunbathers or soccer players. Occasionally one comes across some pretty intricate sandcastles.

We cruised the whole stretch of the beach till sunset. Along the way I had some caipirinha, a strong cocktail consisting of lime, salt and the local liquour which cost only 3 reals. Interestingly, a can of beer costs the same as a bottle of mineral water or a can of soft drink. We had some churrasco (Brazillan barbeque) near the opera house, in the business district.

Me in front of the opera house. Dinner set us back some 70 reals. Like I said, Rio isn't cheap.

The disadvantage of living near the business district gets pretty obvious at night, when we had to walk about half a mile to the hotel with no one else around. And when we got to the hotel we found the door locked! Knocking didn't work, and the number I had of the hotel turned out to be not operational. Fortunately my eye fell on the sign on the restaurant next door, which was also owned by the hotel. I dialled the number for reservations displayed on the sign, and managed to get someone. It turns out that the hotels around here normally lock their doors at night, and there's a doorbell next to it that we can ring to get in. Of course they didn't tell us the reason for it, but it's pretty obvious to anyone who's watched City of God and know of Rio's notorious crime rate - another reason not to stay out of the main tourist belt.

Chronicle of a trip foretold

2007-10-15T18:36:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a 10-day trip to Rio and various parts of Argentina. I'd been thinking of doing this from 2 years ago when I was first in the States, but finally managed to get the opportunity this time around. It so turned out that a colleague of mine also wanted to go there, so we planned this trip together. We started out with a rough idea of the places we'd like to visit, cobbled together an itinerary with the help of Lonely Planet and some internet research, and booked our flights and hotels with the help of local tour agencies. It was an exhausting itinerary - 12 flights in 10 days(!!!) - which I would normally not go for, but figured that this could be my only chance of going to that part of the world, so might as well try to squeeze in as much as I want to see. Some flight delays and immigration holdups notwithstanding, the itinerary pretty much worked out and it has been an awesome holiday - good food, friendly people, beautiful girls, magnificient sights. I'll be blogging out our itinerary on a day-by-day basis here in a bit. First I need to catch my breath.

The luck of the Irish

2007-09-22T18:24:00.000-07:00

I've been watching too much Irish stuff these days... last week I watched Bloody Sunday, about the Bloody Sunday massacre in Northern Ireland which significantly exacerbated the situation there and destroyed the peaceful civil rights movement in favor of the IRA. To paraphrase Ivan Cooper - the organizer of the march that ended in the massacre and the main character of the movie, Bloody Sunday was the Northern Irish Catholic's Jallianwalla Bagh. The movie itself, directed by Paul Greengrass, is shot mostly using a handheld camera, giving it a feel of on-the-scene news reporting and largely effective in conveying the actuality of these events as they transpired.

A few days after that I watched 'The Wind that Shakes the Barley', set even earlier during the Irish independence struggle of the early 20th-century. The first half deals with the fight against the British, but the 2nd half is the more intriguing, chronicling the internal disagreements after the British offer a certain degree of autonomy to Ireland but still short of full independence. The leaders of the independence movement largely accepted it, but a significant minority vehemently disowned it, leading to the bloody and brutal Irish Civil War. The movie largely focuses on the human aspect of civil war, where brother can literally be against brother, and close friends are shot in cold blood. It's another historical motif that we keep seeing again and again - how a cause can take over a person's life and destroys everything else.

In a way, Irish and Indian independence movements have quite a few parallels between them. There's all the violence and bloodshed, the schism within the movements and the eventual partition of the country. And of course, the post-indendence Protestant vs Catholic fights could get as ferocious as the Hindu vs Muslim ones too.

Finally today I watched 'The Boondock Saints', a so-so movie about Irish vigilantes in the Bronx. Oh, and I'm rereading the Preacher too, featuring my favourite Irish vampire, Cassidy.

On another note, two weeks ago I went down to Salt Lake City, and decided to search for the salt that it's been named after. And I found a vast plain of salt about a hundred miles away.

No wonder the food here is so salty...

Glacier National Park

2007-09-15T17:21:00.000-07:00

I'm guessing that today is an important day in the Hindu religous calendar. There's a small sheltered picnic table just outside my apartment. This morning some people came over and started decorating it. Then this afternoon, to my surprise, I find they've placed an Idol there! Right now, as I type this, a puja is going on out there and quite a few Indians are seated on carpets laid out on the grass. Something tells me they're not there for the Boise State football game that's also currently going on.

some pics from my wanderings during the past two weeks.... first from Glacier National Park, which straddles the US-Canada border over in Montana. I always thought Idaho was the emptiest state around here, boy was I wrong. In Montana I could drive 80 miles without encountering a single vehicle.
The shadows of clouds across one of the peaks in Glacier.

Iceberg lake, surrounded on three sides by steep cliffs. It took us 3 hours, 5 miles and a 1,200ft climb to get here.

More lakes in Glacier.

An actual glacier. There used to be more if it in the Park, but what with global warming and all, this is what's left...

The Going-to-the-Sun Road, the main thoroughfare in the park, is one thrilling drive - narrow stretches hugging the cliffs winding up thousands of feet and then winding down, providing some breath-taking views at the same time... this pic is taken from the road side, and you can see where the road eventually ends up, about a thousand feet down...

Avalanche Falls. Notice how the water has rounded out the rocks into some quite intriguing shapes.

and finally, the sun sets in Montana.

Why drink the water from my hand, contagious as you think I am?

2007-09-07T13:08:00.000-07:00

I was recently going through this thread on my favourite Internet aggregator (yeah, it's a slack Friday), and it was pretty fun recalling all my favourite memorable opening song lines. Of course, everyone has their favourite opening lines, and most of the times it's from their favourite songs. But to be a memorable opening line, it has to be one that can straight away evoke the whole song, or something that's catchy even if the rest of the song isn't (or in other words, what this guy said. Quite a few of my favourites are already in the thread, here's a few more that aren't:

We don't need no education
we don't need no thought control
no dark sarcasm in the classroom
teacher leave them kids alone

Is this the real life? Or is this fantasy?
Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality

Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner
sometimes I feel like my only friend
Is the city I live in the city of angels?
Lonely as I am, together we cry

All your dreams are made
When you're chained to your mirror with your razor blade

(actually quite a few Oasis songs had some pretty good opening lines: 'Is it my imagination/Or have I finally found something worth working for?','You need to be yourself/You can be no one else' etc etc)

She never mentions the word addiction
in certain company
Yeah, she'll tell you she's an orphan
after you meet her family

Hey Jude, don't make it bad
take a sad song, and make it better

(oh, and of course, 'I heard the news today oh boy')

Darling you got to let me know
Should I stay or should I go

Is it getting better?
Or do you feel the same?
Does it make it easier on you now, you've got someone to blame?

and

One man come in the name of love
one man come and go
one man come he to justify
one man to overthrow

You know that it would be untrue
You know that I would be a liar
If I were to say to you
Girl we couldn't get much higher

Oh is this the way they say the future's meant to feel
or just 20,000 people standing in a field?
Though I don't quite understand exactly what this feeling is
but that's okay, coz we're all sorted out for E's and wizz

Looking around the house, hidden behind the window and the door
Searching for signs of life but there's nobody home

I'm sure there are many more that I can't remember at the moment (which, of course, kinda defeats the purpose of calling them memorable, but I'll probably kick myself for forgetting to mention them). Oh, and of course:

Like, stop, collaborate and listen
Ice is back with a brand new invention
Something grabs a hold of me tightly
Flow like harpoon daily and nightly

Will it ever stop? Yo, I don't know.

Yosemite

2007-08-27T22:06:00.000-07:00

I went down to Yosemite on the day after the concert. Here's some pics from there:
That's El Capitan on the left. The world's largest granite monolith, rising to 3000ft from the valley floor.

Magnificient views from the 7200ft high Glacier Point, including the rock that's shaped like a half-dome, imaginatively named the Half Dome, standing at 4800ft above the valley floor. Quite a few people scale the sheer cliff that marks the non-dome side of the rock, and quite a few have lost their lives doing it too.

Yosemite Falls - the highest falls in the USA and one of the 10 highest in the world. Or at least, when it isn't all dried up as it was when I was there.

And finally, here's me with my new Buddhist monk look (as Tas puts it):

At least I don't need another haircut until I get back to Singapore.

Renegades

2007-08-21T17:14:00.000-07:00

Oh what a rush.

I went down to SF last weekend for the Rock The Bells concert, primarily to catch Rage Against the Machine in one of their very few performances after they've decided to briefly reunite this year. It's 3 days after, and I'm still pumped from their performance. Definitely by far the best concert I've ever attended.

But let's start from the beginning. Gates were scheduled to open at 11am on Saturday at the McCovey Cove parking lot, which was this huge 800ftx400ft open lot at downtown SF. I'd arrived in SF the evening before and spent the night at Kwang's place. By the time I got to the Cove it was around 1130, and the queue was already a quarter mile long.. so it took me another hour to get in. The early part of the event I spent walking around the environs and quaffing my first pint (the alcohol was only sold in enclosed areas called beer gardens scattered around the lot, and we couldn't bring it out with us, which kinda dampened the whole drinking process. There weren't any Tiger beer ladies either, as one would expect in a beer garden.). I found the side stage more interesting than the main stage, especially the witty Sage Francis and The Coup. And at all times the air was dense with the smell of weed... folks were lighting up everywhere, with tokes or bongs, and I even saw a group of people creatively using an apple as a bong, lighting at the stem and inhaling through a hole on the side that was drilled to the core.. a very environmentally friendly approach to getting high, I must say.

The main stage started heating up around 5pm with Public Enemy coming on first. These days it's Flava Flav who's getting most of the attention, mainly due to his appearance in MTV reality shows, but of course it was Chuck D's angry lyrics that put the fear of Public Enemy into the people. I thought they still sounded good after all those years, and apparently they're coming up with a new album soon as well.

Next was Cypress Hill. You know they're on when an inflatable Buddha pops up onstage. So they went through their repertoire, and once they got to 'I Wanna Get High' my vision got hazy due to the smoke from innumerable bongs lighting up. Heck, even the rappers were smoking these big rolls of weed.

Cypress Hill were followed by Wu-Tang, who would've headlined this event if not for Rage. The audience making the Sign of the Wu.

Through the last couple of hours I had managed to inch my way till somewhere about 100ft from the main stage, and I couldn't find my way beyond that. In fact the crowd started pushing from in all sides once Wu-Tang came on, and I couldn't even make my way back. Wu-Tang rocked, but everything paled in comparison with what came next.

There was a lull of about 45 minutes after Wu-Tang left the stage, and the crowd was slowly building in energy and impatience - the Bob Marley songs they were spinning kind of helped to ameliorate the folks, but it was from the 'Best of' CD, so there's a section in the middle where they have songs no one knows, which doesn't help much.

And then Rage came on. Rage onstage. Yeah the night shots on my HP camera suck.

And what an electrifying performance it was. Once you see them perform you will know, if you didn't already, that all the passion and intensity in their songs is for real, that they really mean it. Zack de la Rocha's stage presence was powerful. From the first song 'Testify' to the last encore 'Killing In The Name Of' (of course, what else could it be) he was all over the stage, reminding us that we, the people, are the once who hold the real power. And of course it was awesome to see Tom Morello producing all his trademark scratchings on the guitar. Zack didn't need to banter with the crowd. He didn't need to do any crowd surfing. He was there to deliver the message, and he did. The repertoire was pretty evenly taken from their first three albums - to name a few, 'Bullet In The Head','Bombtrack','Vietnow', 'Bulls on Parade','Calm Like A Bomb','Sleep Now In The Fire' - plus 'Renegades of Funk' from their album of covers. The crowd lapped it up. People were moshing everywhere, and I mean everywhere - random circles of space would open up, and people would go slam-dancing in it, even where I was which was midway through the crowd.

And so it went through the 45 minutes or so of their set. Every single song was a firecracker, the energy of the crowd feeding onto the stage, and then back again from the stage to the crowd. And at the end of the show, when they took their bow, they all spontaneously got into a group hug. You could feel for a moment everyone wishing that Rage get back together again and record an album, and maybe, just maybe, they were thinking the same too. If there was a place where a voice against the madness that is the post-9/11, post-Saddam world needs to be heard, if there was a time when everyone feels the lack of anti-war songs in comparison to Vietnam, then what better place than here, what better time than now?

The crowd by the end of the show had grown close to 45,000 people, and with the adrenalin was still surging when the show got over, 45,000 people took to the streets of San Francisco. It was amazing - we're talking about downtown San Francisco, and here were this rabble walking towards the city centre, chanting and yelling. For a moment, you could believe.

Crater Lake pt 2

2007-08-09T21:00:00.000-07:00

More snowy awesomeness...

I bought a camcorder last week, when one of my colleauges here brought to my attention the fact that they are much cheaper over here than in Singapore. So the very next day I went out and got a Panasonic camcorder for US$320. The electronic goods are pretty cheap over here actually... in fact some of my colleagues have been going crazy buying laptops left right and centre... one of them already have 3 laptops. Hm... maybe I should get another camcorder, so that I have one for my left eye and one for my right!

Crater Lake pt 1

2007-08-07T16:26:00.000-07:00

This is the first part of pics from Crater Lake in Oregon, over 8000ft high and still covered in snow at the end of May...

ah... so much snow is good to look at on a hot summer's day...

Random ramblings

2007-08-01T21:47:00.000-07:00

It's officially 5 months since my arrival in Boise. The horizon was clouded with smoke today from the forest fires raging in the Idaho wilderness. In fact Idaho has the most forest fires in the US this time around, and quite a few are raging out of control. All the smoke in the air results in cooler mornings and hotter evenings.

Matt Damon came over here a couple of days back for the Bourne Ultimatum premiere. You might think it's no big deal, but like I told my friend, it's like Amitabh Bachchan coming down to Ipoh. So I planned to go over to the cinema to catch a glimpse of him, but unfortunately I was 20 minutes late. So I had a couple of beers instead.

For some reason I got to thinking about my first crush, way back in primary school. Once she forgot to bring her Music textbook to class (yeah, we actually had textbooks for Music) and the teacher was quite a meanie, so I gave her my textbook and got a caning from the teacher for not having one. After that she came over and shook my hand, and I was in heaven ;-) But actually I'm not sure if I could call it a crush, since I had an idea that she liked me too, because I was funny. And that was the beginning of my Klass Klown career. So, Zetty Akhtar, if you're out there somehow reading this, you changed my life! But whether for the better for the worse, well, that's arguable.

Grafitti of the day - below a 'Stop' sign near my apartment, someone scribbled 'Hammertime!'

And finally, here's a picture of a tree I can drive through!

Full circle

2007-07-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, they say. But I think it's very difficult to avoid repeating history. History is like this giant rock that's rolling down a slope - it's easier to let it roll than to divert its path. One can see the emergence of repetition in daily current events if one takes a long enough step back to take an objective view, but the players involved will always delude themselves that the events playing out have unique circumstances, that the contributing factors are different. And yet, the repercussions are always the same and on hindsight the unfolding of events is so predictable. I'm currently reading David Halberstam's 'The Best and The Brightest' - about how the Kennedy and LBJ governments bumbled its way into the Vietnam war despite having some of the best leaders and intellectuals on board. And as I read it, the parallels between Vietnam and Iraq keep coming - how the government consciously pre-selects the reports it wants to believe and blacklists the objections; how the media played the role of a cheerleader instead of a watchdog; how disconnected the US was from the opinion of the Vietnamese people, and instead choose to believe the war was instigated by outside elements rather than it being an internal affair. And now read this -

The U.S. has probably not yet fully woken up to the appalling fact that, after a long period in which the first motto of its military was "no more Vietnams," it faces another Vietnam. There are many important differences, but the basic result is similar: The mightiest military in the world fails to achieve its strategic goals and is, in the end, politically defeated by an economically and technologically inferior adversary.

Taken from this excellent article.

If we should learn something from history, it's that it's doomed to repeat itself.

Gum reflexology

2007-07-25T17:35:00.000-07:00

Last week I went for a dental checkup, since my company provides free dental checkup coverage here (but not in Singapore, ha!). My checkup stretched to 1.5 hours. The reason - my last checkup was over 4 years ago, and hence 4 years' dental work to be squeezed into one visit - some might say value for money! And even then one visit wasn't enough... I'll need to do a follow-up visit in a couple of weeks. Apparently my teeth are fine (drinking tea has its benefits!) but my gums are in quite a bad shape, mostly because I haven't been massaging my gums while brushing. So I'll probably need to look for a gum spa when I get back. But one thing I'll have to say about the medical services here - they're very thorough, and every step of the way the ensure that you're well-informed and in good enough shape. Of course, if I wasn't being covered my my company's insurance policy, I'll probably be paying through my nose (or my teeth, in this case). Of course down here the medical services are also quite wary of legal liability, hence all the measures taken so that the patient gets treated to his/her satisfaction. I guess that's one good thing about living in such a litigation-heavy country.

Continuing on my road trip series... these are pics of a reconstructed native American village in California. Apparently they didn't all used to live in teepees. The interesting thing about this reconstruction is that it's all done by native Americans, using tools that their ancestors used.

An assembly area.

The reconstructed village is located in Patrick's Point, which had some pretty nice scenery as well...

Amazingly enough, I actually climbed up this rock. And as you'd expect, the vista from the top was pretty awesome.

Next, a tree I can squeeze my car into!

And now, the redwoods

2007-07-19T21:07:00.000-07:00

On a particularly foggy day on the road...

Here's how tall the redwoods are. Look closely at the end of the road, and you'll see a car...

This tree is 304ft high, 21ft in diameter, and about 1500 years old...

South Oregon coast

2007-07-16T22:29:00.000-07:00

One final round of pics before we hit the redwoods...

Port Orford

2007-07-13T02:40:00.000-07:00

Onwards, and southwards, on my Memorial Day road trip...

here's Port Orford, where winds are so strong that boats need to be set down in the sea using winches..

and here's how the seaside looks when the sun finally comes out...