Posts Tagged ‘around the world’

This Is India Podcast

This Is India Podcast

March 24, 2010  |  Featured, General, Travel  |  View Comments

Hello and wel­come to an experiment!

Cecsa and I have sat down and recor­ded a pod­cast of our time in Ane­gundi in India. This is a total-first for us and so please strap your­self in as we try and cap­ture our feel­ings about the amaz­ing Hampi area without really know­ing what the hell we are doing. I haven’t edited it much, nor put on any intro and outro — this is raw stuff. If you like it, then let us know and I will make sure to up the pro­fes­sion­al­ism about 1000% for next week.

Oh and warn­ing for a few swearwords!

I have uploaded a col­lec­tion of pho­tos for you to browse as we speak as we refer to them as we go along. Hope­fully, this will keep us on track and give you some­thing nice to look at while we blather on. Here is a slideshow of the images, click to open in Flickr and you can go through them as I refer to them in the audio.


(Dir­ect link:Flickr Set)

And here is the pod­cast, click play to start it:
 

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Outside Context New Zealand articles now on iPhone

Outside Context New Zealand articles now on iPhone

March 17, 2010  |  Featured, General, Travel  |  View Comments

The most com­mon ques­tion I have been asked by people after return­ing home is, “which was your favour­ite coun­try to visit?” For Cesca and I it has to be the majestic New Zea­l­and. Not because it is ter­ribly exotic. as everything is famil­iar (espe­cially the road names), but rather because it is so much like you wish Eng­land could be. The lakes, the moun­tains, the rivers, the beaches. New Zea­l­and has everything. The people have a real “get up and go” atti­tude that is infec­tious. They love their coun­try, they also appear to know who they are and what they want. Liv­ing in such a cul­ture is, and I hes­it­ate to write this, idyllic.

Shame I don’t live there then!

Cesca and I have writ­ten many art­icles on the sub­ject of New Zea­l­and and also made a “love let­ter” of a short-film cel­eb­rat­ing the coun­try (found under “films” in the nav­ig­a­tion bar). How­ever, I have always wanted to do more to speak of our time driv­ing around these islands.

Well, our wish has come true.

About a two weeks ago I was approached by a com­pany work­ing for Air New Zea­l­and. They wanted to license all our con­tent on New Zea­l­and for use in the offi­cial Air New Zea­l­and iPhone app!

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Goa: The Beach Life

Goa: The Beach Life

February 24, 2010  |  Featured, General, Travel  |  View Comments

I lay on my back and tried to relax. The sound of rolling waves crashed back and forth in the dis­tance, which helped. How­ever, the sun was beat­ing down, heat­ing the air and leav­ing me gasp­ing like I had my head in an oven. It was also mak­ing the sand hot to the touch and the use of san­dals more of a neces­sity than just a fash­ion statement.

San­dals.

I hadn’t worn shoes for 2 months. A new adult first, mean­ing that my feet were always dusty; the ever present Indian dirt and sand sticked to my toes. Every night I showered and a tor­rent of black washed off my feet. I turned onto my side and spied Cesca on the next sun loun­ger, she was tak­ing in the sun by lay­ing on her front, her bikini open at the back to allow a tan, but – since I had rubbed in some cream for her — no white line or burn­ing. I reached to the table between us and took down my beer and my book. It was called The Mas­ter of Go, by Nobel Prize win­ning author Yasunari Kawabata.

Then my phone rang. It was my best friend Mark.

I thumbed the screen and the call con­nec­ted, “Mark!” I exclaimed, genu­inely please to hear from him, “It’s great to hear your voice. Where are you?” From over the con­nec­tion I could hear what soun­ded like traffic and men talk­ing; the sounds of Lon­don. The sounds of home.

“Heyya, I thought I would give you a call,” his voice was raised like he could not really hear me and was com­pens­at­ing by shout­ing; he must be at work on a build­ing site, “I’m in a man hole at the moment sort­ing out found­a­tions for a new tube station.”

“Wow,” I said, interested.

“Yeah, it’s for the Olympics and all that. Any­way, it’s cold, wet and hor­rible and I am down this smelly hole and I thought I could do with cheer­ing up. Where are you?”

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The Ellora Caves

The Ellora Caves

February 18, 2010  |  Featured, General, Travel  |  View Comments

One of the unique things about India, and one that you never quite come to terms with, is the trains. I would even go as far as to say that if you could under­stand Indian trains, then you might well lay claim to being truly at home in India. For almost everything that there is to exper­i­ence in this wild and beau­ti­ful coun­try is cap­able of being exper­i­enced by rail.

You see all sorts of things just by walk­ing into a sta­tion. They are often grand build­ings left over from the Brit­ish age of iron and func­tion as hotel for thou­sands of home­less trav­el­ers of all types. They have some of the best and very worst toi­lets in the world, and for some over the edge of the plat­form is pre­ferred. They are often smelly, fre­quently dirty and occa­sion­ally hor­rid. But, for every bad thing there exists a good to bal­ance it out. Sta­tions are packed with fam­il­ies play­ing together, sleep­ing and eat­ing together. There is the bustle and fizz of people meet­ing, people depart­ing from loved ones and people wish­ing they were on their way. The best book­shops I found in India were oper­ated out of mobile stores. Almost any­thing you could want is for sale on these strips of con­crete, and after hours on a train you will eat almost any­thing (no mat­ter where it has been). They are amaz­ing places, a sort of nexus point and a melt­ing pot of cul­tures. The gaps between the high and low fade away on these platforms. They are to India what black­cabs are to Lon­don. Almost, but not quite, romantic.

People sleep­ing at a Station.

India has inves­ted heav­ily in its trains, a trick they learned from the Vic­tori­ans, and some­thing we back home should con­sider care­fully. Short of fly­ing, trains remain the quint­es­sen­tial method of trans­port around India. The tracks are every­where. All the major cit­ies are linked, and most of the minor ones. In fact, we never struggled to find a train going any­where we wanted to go, from the high tech city of Bengaluru (Ban­galore) to the deep desert city of Jaisalmer.

We just struggled to get on one or two.

They are not slow either. For while a jour­ney, say from Varanasi to Agra, takes place over one night, a simple look out of the win­dow shows how the train is ham­mer­ing out the miles at mind-meltingly fast speeds. It’s just the coun­try is massive. Even­tu­ally, train trans­port became a wel­come break for us. We would even plan our jour­ney around it and use it as a “free nights’ accom­mod­a­tion”. For see­ing into a heart of India, trains are your choice.

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Sunset in Mumbai

Sunset in Mumbai

February 10, 2010  |  Featured, General, Travel  |  View Comments

The Novem­ber ter­ror­ist attacks on Mum­bai was some­thing we had wor­ried about before land­ing in the city, but to look at the place it was as though they had never happened. In any city with such a var­ied and eth­nic pop­u­la­tion, it had prob­ably not fully been dis­sem­in­ated. Some­times, I have wondered about the quick dis­sem­in­a­tion of news. Does it actu­ally help or hinder? Is, in a very real sense, ignor­ance bliss? In India, of course, they are as used to ter­ror­ism as any Lon­doner. Ter­ror was in at the birth of this nation, it was in the sep­ar­a­tion from Pakistan, it never leaves. I think per­haps that they have become numb to it.

Mumbai Taj Mahal Palace

This is what I thought as I sat at the table. Leopold’s café is a trav­el­lers legend. Not least of all because of the fam­ous gang­ster novel, sup­posedly mostly true, called “Shant­aram”. In that book, which I read in two days (a sure sign that I didn’t enjoy it), the main char­ac­ter is taken here by a local guide and it is here that he meets his friends for the first time. In my mind, I ima­gined some­thing grander. Some­thing with a “old empire” feel, like some of the journ­al­ist bars we had vis­ited in places such as Cam­bodia. In fact, it is noth­ing of the sort. It is a café like a greasy spoon.

Albeit one with machine gun marks on the walls.

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Bangkok, city of a thousand names

Bangkok, city of a thousand names

December 10, 2009  |  Featured, General, Travel  |  View Comments

Thai­l­and, again we arrived in Thai­l­and, but this time by air.

The siege of Bangkok air­port, which had messed us about so much the last time, was over. The pres­id­ent was back in coun­try (he sneaked in via Chi­ang Mai) and the king was appeal­ing for calm. In fact, the situ­ation in Thai­l­and was no longer both­er­ing us. Rather, the emer­ging details of the hein­ous Mum­bai mas­sacre had us a little wor­ried. We were due to fly to the city in four days, but the gov­ern­ment was coun­selling that all but essen­tial travel be cancelled.

Cesca and I logged into the web to find an update.

“The gov­ern­ment site says don’t go,” she said.

“Then we can­not,” I replied crestfallen.

Cesca looked very dis­ap­poin­ted. “But, India is the reason I wanted to come away to travel!” I looked at her, and I knew that we must face the pos­sib­il­ity of not going, of shunt­ing the entire trip for­wards three months. It was a daunt­ing prospect.

“Let’s look around the web, I will try on the Thorntree.”

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Hanoi, Halong Bay and Tet New Year – Part Three!

Hanoi, Halong Bay and Tet New Year – Part Three!

December 1, 2009  |  Featured, General, Travel  |  View Comments

The travel blog­ging is back!

Note: This is the third part of a com­plete three part art­icle that com­pletes our time in Viet­nam. This entry con­tin­ues our adven­tures in Halong Bay and the won­der that is Tet in Hanoi.

The next day we were taken to a large island and dropped off. There we were given a bike each. These were frankly ter­rible bikes and I got the dis­tinct impres­sion that that staff did not expect us to ride them. They expec­ted us to pay for a moped instead. An older couple from our group did so, but Cesca and I insisted on rid­ing and so set off. The chain fell off imme­di­ately, so Cesca changed her bike and we set off. The wheels locked imme­di­ately, so Cesca changed her bike again and we set off. The seat fell off imme­di­ately, so Cesca took my bike, I got another one, and we set off.

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