Articles from this Category
27 January 2011
Above: It is possible to scuba dive with an elephant. In the Andaman they have one of the last swimming elephants. You can snorkel or dive with the elephant … if you pay … it is about INR10,000 (NZD300) for one snorkel or dive. That’s like 3x the going rate for two normal dives. I couldn’t […]
26 January 2011
Above: Flying into the Andaman Islands. Uncharted Territory I’m flying off into uncharted territory today … uncharted by me, anyway. Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands is 2 hours from Chennai. It’s also accessible from Kolkata … but really, it is closer to Banda Aceh (Indonesia) and Phuket (Thailand)! For some […]
25 January 2011
Above: Dinner near my hotel and railway station. I said goodbye to Ammi, Salome and Jackson Pollock in the morning. I was bound for Chennai at 1235 flying Oman Air. With the time difference flying eastwards, it was surprisingly and pleasantly cool when I landed at Chennai at 1730. It was neither hot nor humid. […]
18 July 2010
I landed at Dubai at 0100 for a short 1h45 transit to Colombo at 0245. I arrived into Colombo airport at 0845 and after clearing the immigration queue from hell, I took a taxi to Mt Lavinia on the other side of the city where the Tropic Inn was located. The ride was expensive but […]
1 July 2010
Today I took the bus from Hikkaduwa to Colombo; it was easier than the train … I only had to walk out to the hotel gate and hail one down as opposed to having to take a tuktuk to the railway station at additional cost. It seemed too easy because I got on an air-conditioned […]
30 June 2010
This morning I took the bus down to Galle (pronounced “Gawl” in English but “Gaal-le” locally) which is less than half hour away. Things are very cheap here … the bus ride is about USD0.20 and meals are less than USD1 each. Galle has an old Fort dating back to the Portuguese, then Dutch then […]
29 June 2010
Sri Lanka Again Today I’m off on my second visit to Sri Lanka. There are a few reasons for my visit: Even though I’ve travelled extensively around Sri Lanka, I don’t have the true feel of the country and its people. We were in a rush as it was a 6-day stopover on the way […]
8 November 2006
Arriving in Delhi Disembarking passengers at Jaipur around 0500 woke me up but I was able to doze and lie-in till around 0930. The 1110 arrival time passed and the Jaisalmer – Delhi Express was in the urban area but not at Delhi station. Then came a painful 45 min wait at the penultimate station. […]
7 November 2006
Last of Jaisalmer I checked out around 0900 before heading out for breakfast. I have a departure on the overnight train at 1600 back to Delhi, so I had plenty of time to kill. I read the newspaper; more about that later. Afterwards I visited the palace using an audio guide. While it was nice, […]
6 November 2006
I had a horrible night sleep. Being full moon, dogs were howling. Then the temple chanting went into the wee hours of the night. And at dawn, the azan from the mosques had their turn. I didn’t make it to breakfast at Krishna’s Boulangerie till after 1000. I continued to the Jain temple around 1100. […]