Last Asian Eve

BANGKOK, Shangri-La Business Center (doesn't count as a cafe)

In my glassed in, ac-ed cubicle at the Shangri-La Business Center - most upscale internet cafe to date. R in a cubicle behind. In mine I have all of the tools required to run an empire - I love these spaces though realize I am hardly their target customer: bloggers aren't yet denizens of lux hotel business centers.

So while the business center's power brokers build empires, I will make my little trip reports...

CAMBODIA - Siem Reap, The Victoria Hotel Angkor

So much to be caught up on - the full debrief on Angkor and the Wats will dribble through the next few entries.



Wonderful Cambodia. Had forgotten the warmth, the supremely fun kids and the essential sweetness of their dispositions. They sell, and can sell hard, but also ease off with a grace and don't let a transaction or an insultingly low bargain pitch, or a gratingly horrendous tourist - get the upper hand on their good will. So zen? Buddhist? tempered by sadness? So Cambodian.

Siem Reap is exploding at the seams. Am sure it's all good for the people and the economy but not a little sad to see the massive hotels hulking along the airport road, with many more on their way. HUGE structures - all architecturally identical - a little flourish on the roof, a little wood on the balcony, maybe some tile, some gilding, and the ubiquitous terra cotta garudas lining the circular drives. And very sad vegetation - the landscaping of new suburban developments - stumpy palms and anaemic bougainvilleas and heavy dependence on planters. Depressing - also a lot of mirror-work - no idea why. The brand new Merridian looks like a private hospital for the well to do.

Of course our own hotel, the Victoria, utterly not a monstrosity and upgraded us so we think even mroe highly of it. R and I have been given the Gouvernour's Suite (memsahib me), dad and Sarah to the Maharaja's Suite above us (Mahrarini Sarah) and Linds and Chad - organizers and martyrs - took the lesser of the three suites which may or may not have had an important name.

Anyway - gorgeous. Ours with a corner veranda with teak and cane lounging furniture - fainting settees and drooping benches and masses of silk cushions, a changing room, a vast bedroom looking out on the main square and the resident colony of bats in the trees across, and a four poster bed out of a Merchant Ivory prop closet - slung with (of course) a mosquito net canopy.

And AC!, jasmine tea silently delivered in a silk lined box with two tiny cups each evening, and teak floors and counters too in the bathroom.

There was much more - a DVD library (easy in a country which mints pirated) and lovely other parts of the hotel too but first wanted to deliver the goods on the room.

Have to sign off quickly - will fix all typos and nonsense when I can edit this next from the States. So sad to leave Asia but so very thankful that I've had the chance for this re-introduction. And don't plan on being away all that long.

Love to all from Bangkok, next from NYC. And big hugs to Dad, Sarah, Linds and Chad - our Angkor buddies.

C

Airport Lounge, Bangkok International

BANGKOK AIRPORT

R has proven himself once more and landed us in cushy lounge with unlimited cafe au laits, tiny sandwiches, banana chips and internet access. To my own devices would still be wandering duty free contemplating Thai cookbooks, and paying for a coffee. Had assumed these lounges were only for front of the plane people - sanctuaries to keep them from the rest of us - but egalitarian Bangkok Air has an enlightened outlook and we're all in here - the backpackers en route to Burma right alongside the enormous business men.

Bangkok a whirl and a dream and, for now, over. Details owed but am onto thinking Pnom Penh, thumbing our second hand Lonely Planet Cambodia and gearing for a Khmer Thanksgiving.

We will be arriving fresh, for now clean, and generally well pressed. A far cry from my arrival here - Bangkok excellent for overhauls. Almost too easy a city - hard to segue from the rough and tumble, story and a sensory assault at every turn of India, to the refined ease of Bangkok life. Clean, easy, obvious - might as well have been reporting from an Upper West Side Starbucks. Promise to be an intrepid traveler, fly headlong into the new and foreign, again soon.

Love to all, it's dawn in Bangkok.

C

Chi's Align

BANGKOK

Back, just napping for a spell in the lap of luxury. But not entirely subsumed. R and I did get our head out of the Shangri-La clouds with an afternoon trip to Khao San Road - a little grit under our nails, B. 70 Singha and dredd-ed backpackers in our sites so we're no completely delux-ed, not yet.

R's first full night in Bangkok - Sunday eve - a study in contrasts and the literal high/low of this city. First did fancy drinks lounging on leather banquettes 64 floors above the city in a new bar called Distill. Never-emptying bowls of shelled pistachios and black olives that, if the server can be believed, cost his month's wages a kilo. Up above it all, things costing just about the same as New York, and that which is imported - champagne - far far more. We took lots of pictures of the city at night which, of course, come out as a big swath of black with a couple sparkles. Crowd made up of wealthy Hong Kongers, local expats and the traveling gawkers like ourselves – dressed in our wrinkled best.

Got that sweet taste out of our mouth with a descent to river level and a B. 50 tuk-tuk to Patpong - because it's there. Didn't disappoint but feels slightly less seedy than before, but by no means entirely Disney-fied. Bangkok has instituted a strict all close by 1AM rule - which makes for a very different Patpong timeline - but people still packing in the usual. Cheerily offered "sex show" with ping pong and other crudely illustrated acts on a plastic covered bit of card, still no cover, still cheap drinks...But no (inquisitive reader) - nothing to report.

Instead, planted ourselves at the front rail of an open air french restaurant and, over miserable salads and a tough steak, watched the Patpong world go by. More Dockers and Reeboks tourists, and older couples, and groups and the odd lost backpacker. But also large westerners with the tiny Thai ladies, frat boys run wild and the supremely bored bar girls (though no longer playing Connect Four). A few truly creepy individuals - the well dressed yuppie who chased the waitress (dressed as a cheerleader) around his table and the young boys with older men, and the overwhelming boredom of the girls involved tempering it all.

But a part of Bangkok now checked off the list.

Yesterday eve, R treated us to a Yin/Yang Couples Massage - "… to harmonise and pleasantly balance the flow of relationship chi between two people..." Well, perhaps. More like couple therapy in a dimly lit cave. Asked to indicate first and second choice favorite colors, times of day etc. which were "fed into a computer" and our essential elements was deduced - me Metal, R, Fire. All this hocus pocus chi stuff explained by an earnest young Thai woman with excited but unintelligible English. Led deeper into the flickering space (lovely smelling) and introduced to our therapists – the bigger Liang (for R) and her “friend”, mine, slighter and virtually non verbal throughout our next 2 hours and 15 together.

Led still deeper to a very beautiful suite of (dimly lit) rooms with sliding teak screens, spare flowers and an enclosed garden. Disrobed (from gym stuff) and became cuddly couple in chenille robes and slippers – both mid-size so me enveloped and R decidedly not.

Two jade cups of green tea, foot soakings and then left for 20 minutes to ourselves in the outdoor hot tub. Which chilled and we were never quite sure where or when our ladies would re-appear so sort of a suspended time followed by the main event. We were quadrant by quadrant massaged in our elemental oils (R’s lavender, me a mix) with the whole procedure rung in with the high pitch of the Tibetan singing bowl (I think along our meridians, hard to tell with face nested into table) and ended with cymbals.

Did our chis align? - my ying meeting and merge with R’s yang? Not sure but we both smell marvelous and R’s learned some spa vocab.

This place, this Bangkok place, so not foreign it feels odd to report it – and since it’s familiar to me it feels somewhat forced to introduce it as foreign to the blog. India – bless it – can never feel familiar no matter how many years spent on one block – it will always flip itself and reintroduce itself with everything new.

Brilliant Bangkok

BANGKOK

Just a quick check in before the pool, then a boat up the river, a swing by Jim Thompson's house, high tea in the refurbished Author's Room at The next-door Oriental, a splurge at the spa...

Not quite India here is it? Yesterday with R a whirl of easily managed activities and a few of my Bangkok favorites. Chatuchak Market spiffier then I'd left it but all favorite shops in more or less the same place and the fantastic hidden bar tucked in amongst the baskets and lacquerware of section 8. Even same lovely Indian gentleman who serves a mixed offering of salty snacks for B. 20. And music excellent.

Had forgotten just how simple it all is here - transport snappy, diet cokes at every turn, and 7-11s (not a good thing of course, but an easy one) and this masterful hotel to be launched from. Food odd in the market - Indian food far more familiar. Everything here jellied and baggied, entire meals offered up in bags within bags - so neat and so very foreign. And the dried squid on a stick, that I'd forgotten.

More soon, too nice to stay in typing now...

C

My Shangri-La

BANGKOK

Oh I’m a lucky girl. Forgive me a posting of excess. If it can be wrangled, 18th floor, river view with a king size bed at the Shangri-La prescribed for all arriving from Calcutta. Obscene about face of poverty to insane decadence but the extremes are sometimes good, and especially good in this order.

My room 1826, soon to be R's too (he arrives at 12:10 - I’ll leave soon to meet), is not just really, really nice - it's sort of from another planet, and that planet does not have 2 star hotel in Calcutta within its solar system.

Working backwards from the blissful now. Post hotel-wrapping/river facing gym, post finding out I can take a tennis lesson on Monday eve, post discovering the loofah in my bathtub AND my glass walled shower with Grohe everything (nozzles and sprayers and levers, and a temp control), post discovering this handy cable hookup which means I’m on my own laptop for the first time in 2 weeks, post gratis fruit plate helpfully identifying banana among other Thai fruits, post ironing all my clothes on a full size ironing board, then washing the clothes that followed my suitcase on foot from Darjeeling, post using three ear buds (their word) on each ear, post dirtying the washcloth a small portion of Calcutta (do you have to clean a washcloth you’ve dirtied?), and booking a morning wax at the CHI Spa, and plugging in everything everywhere to recharge (more than one outlet!), and reading the Shangri-La brochure...

A quick word about my bathroom - from which I've just now emerged in a magnificent terry robe. Almost too much that room. Clinically clean (was), white, blinding bright lights and meanly pore magnifying mirrors that show what part of India came on with me. BIG towels everywhere, and hooks, amenities include those you need - like a proper toothbrush and good size, name brand proper toothpaste (not one of those tiny metal tubes with the pin hole opening), the afore-mentioned ear buds, and those you don't like the infernal bathing cap. The shower - you can take steps in this shower, go in a direction and then change direction and not bump into yourself and knock all of the tubes and jars to the floor. If the whole world (but I'll start with Calcutta) could have an hour each in my shower - couples too - and a fluffy towel right after, things could look up - we'd even the playing field with some very clean people.

It’s now occurring to me that folks who emerge each day from similar amenities and niceties and conveniences truly do have a head start. Grooming is god...

So, as always when I come this direction (India>Bangkok), I've come around to the flip side. Thailand’s the alternate universe where trash stays in bins, overpasses look structurally sound, buildings are completed, the rate on the taxi meter doesn't need to be recalculated via a cipher and the drivers themselves rarely speak English.

But that's not to say a word against mother India, country of my soul. I love that place, and feel like I've been through full immersion - though the gentleman at passport control gave a disparaging head wiggle (you don't want those) when he saw I'd been there for "just 10 days madam?" I realized as my Indian Airlines flight 733 rose above the Calcutta haze, and contemplated my last "veg or non-veg" choice, and watched the Indian business men all around enjoying their 10AM whiskeys, that India does exist in its own spatial and temporal plane.

Thailand is foreign, Vietnam is foreign too and Cambodia and Burma, but India is so full on foreign - so much to the side of the other, that it takes a little bit of a leap and some faith to let it take you in. But so it does and it’s a bear hug of physical and emotional contact that’s exhausting (and very dirty) but unforgettable and lifelong. I want to go back very soon, even to Calcutta would be fine.

Thailand – just quickly – is as I left it. Same tidy airport and long lines at passport control, same good prices on the last minute duty free by the baggage carousels, same chilly cabs going too fast on the expressway, same faceless buildings that escort you to the Chao Phraya and drop you at Silom Road and same policemen in their super tight brown uniforms – had forgotten those.

More, and the promised pictures, very soon – adventures in luxury to be continued.


C

Clean in calcutta

CALCUTTA

Finally a new-ish place, again.



Long day of various modes of transport travel. Upgraded from the mini van to a sturdy Isuzu jeep for route down, driven by brother of yesterday's driver, nicknamed "Japanese Super Star" by the fellows at the taxi stand. A brave and gentle driver - will now insist on being driven on very very bad roads, essentially single lanes or potholes that must accommodate foot, truck, bus and schoolchildren traffic (+ a toy train ), both ways - by a Buddhist. We faced no jam so irksome, no close call too hair raising, as to the rattle the Buddhist driver. He'd even stop the jeep in its tracks to chat with passing drivers and the buses and trucks bearing down on us would pause as well. No honking, no ill will - all peaceful (like).

West Bengal - the real thing - as I'd left it. The heat, fumes, trash and people doing a lot less than they were in the colder climes. Lots of lounging on charpoys, squatting to watch the world pass, spitting (because it's cool?) and hair braiding going on at sea level - India full force. Darjeeling felt live a hive of activity, the level road to the airport a giant waiting room.

Uneventful hours passed at Bagdogra airport - crustless cucumber and tomato sandwich, a final pot of Darjeeling tea and ploughed through end of my book (recommend Middlesex - almost too rich at times but wonderful, though having almost nothing at all to do with India..)

Flew Jet Airways so everything on time and tidy, until we landed in Calcutta but that's really outside the airline's jurisdiction.

Yet no warm words for this city - though you see less trash at night and bought 10 very sparkly silver bangles for Rs. 20 just now. Didn't price bangles in other cities but this seems like quite a bargain. Fascinating watching the two ladies next to me at the stand (it was bangle row) matching a whole mess of differing color and types of bangles to a bit of sari fabric. So much more elaborate than just matching up purse and shoes - they were layering different widths and colors and materials. Impressed - felt like a novice with my all 10-all-the-same package.

Planning on a huge night's sleep in my AC room. Am so well showered I feel I exude nice smells - sure internet cafe mates appreciate the transformation. Realized with some shock that I showered just once in Darjeeling, and since I wore the same clothes every day, and slept in a portion of those each night, I hadn't attended to my body in some time. We're all clean now, shaved - Bangkok will be pleased and Ruslan too : )

C - sweaty

Thursday, must be Kalimpong

DARJEELING

Sorry to readers tiring of seeing sign in after sign in from Darjeeling - not authentic travel blog if one holes up in a hill station for the duration of it. Calcutta - and another attempt to love that city - tomorrow, stay tuned.

Had actually written a few paragraphs - witty, insightful stuff - but the lights went out in my cafe, the generator was on a delay, and Blogger's not designed for towns with power issues. So a fresh start, hope to be as insightful...

Day started with a hearty breakfast of porridge and brown toast at the foreigner-popular Glennary's cafe. They tune in the BBC, offer The Statesman for free, make excellent croissants and besides a miserable mural on one wall, offer a relatively cute decor with a fine view when there's a view to be had.

Today was hill station #2 - the less (farther, smaller, grubbier, less famous and worse preserved) hill station of Kalimpong. Spectacular drive there - down through the tea terraces (sadly, missed picking season so no local color amongst the scrubby bushes),
up for a stretch to a spectacular view of the turquoise Teesta river (and just beat a van of bengali tourists), down to the Teesta itself (cleanest river in all of india - must be), across and then back up through teak forests to Kalimpong.



Driver shoehorned a side-trip to the unbelievably dull Kalimpong Cactus Nursery into the itinereray. Rare breeds of cacti from South America - everyone's real reason to visit this part of India? But followed with another monastery - bringing the total to 5 in 3 days - and one full of action.

The monastery was hosting a senior lama from Gangtok and I was hospitably ushered in to witness the ceremonies on his behalf. Must read up on tibetan buddhist ceremonies as they're pretty opaque observed from the periphery. All the monks appear tuned in to a higher wavelength, taking cues from the unseen. Silence, some shufling and whispering amongst the younger monks as they try to find their place in the prayer pages, and then a deep boooom from the long horns and the conch followed by chanting - which stops abruptly and the shuffling silence begins again. Also an altar being loaded high with offerings - bags of rice and candies and lots of nice things, precariously piled onto towering plates by monks with covered mouths. Hmmm.

ead nod from the monk at the door granted permission to take photos, but did so guiltily - resulting in lots of blurred images of bits of robes and corners of the ceiling and the floor. Photography requires a certain level of confidence and prayers-be-damned attitude - need that.


Mist rolled in for the drive back - which means nap time so nothing at all to report from that leg.

And now I prepare for departure and descent. Have booked the same van driver to take me to the airport tomorrow at 8am. He's a lovely Nepalese gentleman and his mini van's a plush chariot - bright green astroturf on the van floor, nubbly black fabric on the seat and all windows open. And he speaks a little english and appears to have a wicked sense of humor - muttered "elephants" when two over-exposed, under-exercised Israeli girls passed to enter the monastery...

Will miss the monasteries in Calcutta but will pick up with Thailand's orange monks in Bangkok : )

Love from last night in Darjeeling. Will have a beer at Joey's pub and call it an early night. Joey, and eponymous pub, both local legends - he an ex-Ghurka who used pension money from the British army to establish the very British bar and trick it out with Manchester United pennants and chalk board menus of bangers and mash. Settle in with a pint and listen in as the regulars tell tall tales and foreigners earnestly trade travel tips (the same travel tips that have been traded for years, and all based on Lonely Planet itineraries).



And an aside - found out last night that my hotel, the esteemed Olde Bellevue with its perch on the hill and its tilting veranda - was built as a sanatorium for loopy British officers. A place with good mountain air, well away from locals and the saner officers, to straighten up and cool off. And there are rumors of a ghost...

C

Travel, inspired by

Travel, Inspirations 11/7
"Do not require a description of the countries towards which
you sail. The description does not describe them to you,
and tomorrow you arrive there,
and know them by inhabiting them."

Emerson, "The Over-Soul"

"Marco Polo imagined answering (or Kublai Khan imagined his answer) that the more one was lost in unfamiliar quarters of distant cities, the more one understood the other cities he had crossed to arrive there; and he retraced the stages of his journeys, and he came to know the port from which he had set sail, and the familiar places of his youth, and the surroundings of home, and a little square in Venice where he had gamboled as a child..."

Calvino, Invisible Cities

"...after the forgetfulness of his own divinity,
man will remember again that heaven is always in touch with his world,
which can never be abandoned for good to the hounding wolves
of the modern era,
scenting human blood and howling to the skies."

Tagore, "Nationalism"

"Some have stopped reading altogether.
They have abandoned the past...
Such people have learned to live
in a world without memory."

Lightman, Einstein's Dreams

"Small wayside stations have always fascinated me. Manned sometimes by just one
or two men, and often situated in the middle of a damp sub-tropical forest, or clinging to the mountainside on the way to Shimla or Darjeeling,
these little stations are, for me, outposts of romance, lonely symbols of the spirit
that led a certain kind of pioneer to lay tracks into the remote corners of the earth."

Ruskin Bond

Snow Leopards, red tigers, black bears

DARJEELING

It's all happening at the Darjeeling Zoo. Zoos very bad and we don't agree with the concept of critters in captivity but for the most part this seems a well run place (Lonely Planet authorized, a tough bunch), the creatures have ample roaming room (except for the civets - caged up in a horrible cement enclosure with a chain link front) and they're breeding successfully! What better sign of a happy group then a happy group adding to its numbers?

But before the animals, big news in Darjeeling this AM was that Kanchenjunga (world's third highest peak) showed! Oh, Majesty - peak of the gods. It's a thing of wonder, otherworldly and mesmerizing and had faded back into the clouds by mid-day. But considering it'd been hidden for (locals say) over two weeks then really, what luck. And so many photos! As if I'm the first to capture the peak with my little digital - will winnow down before I post all 30 shots...

After a walk out to viewing points - amazingly all quite empty, tourists laying low and locals probably somewhat immune to the mountain's wonders - to the Zoo!

All the animals touchable close - close like a US zoo would require insurance waivers for entry, close. One wayward kid's hand through the chain link and snap goes the Siberian. The Snow Leopards were something - a pair kept separated but one clearly preening for the other and doing all sorts of scratching and pacing. Such handsome cats - silver gray, sturdy and built low to the ground with a thick tail doubling their length.

It was the greatest hits of the big animals - even Yaks! - and all in full view and relatively active - save for the nocturnal Red Pandas who napped and stretched but kept their backs to the whistling, panda-calling crowd of school kids. Plus Tibetan Wolves, varieties of funny pheasants (with bad eyesight, and shy, but the males are spectacular) and Salamanders (apparently a dying breed). Also, first guy up was the greatest Black Bear who made himself lazily available to all takers - front and center on his rock but full of world-weary shrugs and big sighs. Could not be roused.

Funniest Zoo element: the interpretive animal area. For Rs. 5 walked through a series of dioramas featuring paper mache birds and beasts of the Himalayas with a clumsy light show illuminating first the woodpecker, then black bears at play and a dramatic sound track of the Snow Leopard on the hunt etc. Very kitsch, sort of wonderful and guide entirely earnest.

And then the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute for whirlwind tour through the routes and finds and trappings of Everest's conquerors. The evolution of the ice pick, the wonder of Tenzing big fuzzy boots, the practically un-evolved crampons, and glancing reference to the Hillary controversy. Stunning black and white portraits of the various acscendors, a mock-up of an actual high altitude tent with a mummified climber and his rations of ramen and powdered milk laid out along side. Got brochures for their climbing school - a 28 day program that includes a trek out to and camp at a glacier! Very very tempted - and less than a $100 for foreigners!! Anyone game to do it with me?

Tomorrow - if it's again clear - will do a round trip to Kalimpong. Just before the Sikkim border so requires no permit but has all the nice views en route. And then the next day I'm off and descending once more to the planes. Sad but welcome return to warmth and single layers. Freezing last night beneath two bulky quilts in my unheated room and a speed shower this morning with the 4 minutes of hot water.
Love to all everywhere - wish you could be with me.

C

Up, up in the hills

DARJEELING - evening off the main square

It's nice to be here. Albeit dark at 5 (India's squeezed its mass into a single time zone so when in the northeast...), and entirely socked in with mist and clouds since arrival so no views, not even the outlines where K2 and the rest of the range are meant to be. Still - just as nice as I'd remembered - I had good reason to keep on about this place.

But, before I begin the gushing, a few nice words about Calcutta. Feeling guilty for my scathing rap in the last posting - shouldn't write off a city based on one morning's wanderings...

What should I discover around the corner from my hotel but the sparkling Indian Museum! What luck! Had I checked a map I couldn't have happened on it as easily. It is a massive, fabulous, soup to nuts museum of everything - founded by the Asiatic Society in 1814 and - from the looks of the displays - almost entirely untouched (or dusted) since.

In its own words:"The ninth oldest regular museum of the world, INDIAN MUSEUM, Kolkata, INDIA is the oldest institution of its kind in Asia Pacific region and repository of the largest museum objects in India." And a "A multipurpose and multi disciplinary institution of national importance..."

Set around a massive courtyard, the ground floor starts you off at the very beginning - with row upon row of rocks in display cases and a fossilized tree trunk, then leads you through dioramas of India's people and tribes, then up to a taxidermist haven of stuffed beasts of the land and air, then a whole room of fish (many suspended in formaldehyde), fetuses of a human baby and an eight legged goat (also in formaldehyde), then moves on to man's creations with statues and an elaborate ivory chess set and amazing embroideries. What a trove! What a project! Took lots of photos which one of these days will get attached but the net is so slow in Darjeeling, and the process of transferring them so cumbersome, that I expect they won't come till Bangkok.

Other nice things about Calcutta - people friendly, big Ambassador taxis, had a nice sandwich at my hotel and the train for Darjeeling left on time. I have half a day there on my way out of India so will try to gather many more nice things to say. I understand their subway is a shining success so will look into...

DARJEELING -

Now for the town I have only nice words for, except that it's time consuming to reach.

Uneventful overnight train journey in an AC sleeper car surrounded by a group of chatty Spaniards. Got a jeep from New Jaipulgiri for Rs. 90 ($2) and was squashed in the way back with 4 others - middle seat also four, front seat 2 + driver. Rollicking journey up from the dreary hot West Bengal planes into the hills. British onto a winning concept with the hill stations. Up through the jungle-y brush, up through the tea terraces (including the Tazo - as in Starbucks tea - estate!) and then up over the ridge and through the tiny towns that dot your journey to Darjeeling itself. The whole hairpin road journey (about 3 hours with lots of stops for car sick passengers and people exchanges) is attended by the narrow rails of the toy train which swoop across and and run beside. That journey takes from 7 - 12 hours (a few issues) pulled by a steam engine - sadly, time too short for it this trip.

As you mount and the temperature drops, rosy cheeked Tibetans and Nepalese are added the the mix.

Big smiles from everyone and people on the whole seeming to be in a collectively fabulous mood. Hugging, laughing, holding hands, having a chai with friends, giggling - a sort of effervescence all about. The houses by the road kept tidy, flower pots of geraniums and marigolds, and less trash and more well attended to dogs than have seen yet on the trip.

Staying at the same hotel I'm always on about. The Old Bellevue (step sister of the New Old Bellevue and the Bellevue itself ). And it's the same as I remembered and had wished it to be. Now Rs. 450 a night ($10, an extra $5 for a heater) but same enormous drafty rooms with failing colonial furniture, a private front sitting (receiving?) area and a long enclosed veranda that runs the length of the hotel. Had a pot of darjeeling tea, some biscuits, and thought how nice to be back. Run by very friendly Tibetans - lots of contact with management as hot water requires half hour's notice...

A fun night last night at an impromptu disco hosted by a raucous Nepali family. Walking back to hotel from dinner and heard music from a second floor window. Paused just long enough to look up and was ushered into a mad scene of 8 family members and a young boy drinking rum and dancing to "It's Time to Disco" (a huge Bollywood hit). Group in high spirits - partying each night since Diwali. Everyone dancing with everyone and more westerners were ushered in as the night wore on. We were treated as honored guests and not allowed to sit down or have an empty glass. Have invited me back for another round tonight but not sure I can stomacher more hours of It's Time to Disco...

Today was MONASTERY day - 4 in one swoop. Architecturally all very similar (seen one Tibetan monsatery...) but nice little moments distinguishing each. Given a thorough but unintelligible tour by an older monk at one, observed full prayers (with drums and horns!) at another, watched baby monks wrestling in another. Love watching baby monks - fresh mischievous faces, grins and up to the same no good as boys their age everywhere - but in crimson robes.

Had an evening tea at a fancy hotel but basically have spent the rest of the day wandering and smiling at older Tibetan ladies and retracing steps taken in 2001. Nice to be in a familiar place, so little changed, but wish I had more time. I don't think I'll have a chance to get to Gangtok (Sikkim) but may try to do a day round trip. Entry requires an elaborate bureaucratic two step of stamps and carbons which is a waste of a morning. But the drive there along the river Teesta I remember as phenomenal. Also hoping the weather breaks - little to See now and chilly - down to 35 in the night.

Tomorrow is the Zoo and Himalayan Mountaineering Institute (where Tenzing was director of Field Training). Sadly, the Conservation Center - which houses a Snow Leopard among other wonders - is closed. The animals are actively breeding and can not be interrupted ...<

Love to all from Darjeeling.

C

Thanksgiving, Phnom Penh

PHNOM PENH

Deep in the belly of our Bangkok Air flight Wednesday was none other then the 20 pounder now into its third hour of roasting; also probably other (lesser) birds for the other 500+ US residents of Phnom Penh. Also attending tonight's feast: Stove Top, pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes - it's really not so very different. Save for the context. Outside, the typhoon that rattled Vietnam is expending its final wrath on Phnom Penh and the annual three day water festival is kicking off with boat races on the Mekong and Tônlé Sab rivers that edge the city. The city's in full bloom - its population near doubled with outliers pouring in for this hugely popular event when the Tonle Sap changes flow, the moon is full, and it's time to offer thanks for Cambodia's generous rivers. So - we've got our thanksgiving and one not so very different (except no corn, or indians) is happening all around. Karmic coincidence?

We (it's now a full 6+ group of we) are being hosted in a newly built mansion on the far west of the city. Palational proportions, two of everything (fridges, luggage rooms, couches in triplicate) and kitchen (inevitable for New Yorkers) bigger than my apartment...Table decked royally in Cambodian silk and green orchids, less royally attended by fan tail turkeys (bought at a party shop on Broadway).

But backwards working - to the point when the we of me and R became the now substantial we of Dad, Sarah, Linds, Chad and our hosts here Mark and Anne and their two sons (renters of this amazing house, PP residents, good friends, stupendous hosts).

I'd been vague on the after-Bangkok of this trip. Micro-managed just up to the flight here but all else then a blank - not sure where to go/how to get there on landing but had traveler's faith that all would come together. Which it did, even more perfectly - Dad met, driver nearly at the ready (he had a wander but was found) and we were whisked through the city - first to this palace and then settled into our own at the Raffles Hotel Le Royal hotel. Hello colonial splendor and all its trappings. There's the Elephant Bar with billiard table, long pristine hallways of black and white tile, white ceramic doorknobs and old fashioned light switches, towering ceilings and french doors out to our juliet balcony, ladies twittering over a game of bridge in the veranda and the Somerset Maugham suite just down the hall.

Yes, they are working it. Each night a Travelers Tale (from the Raffles archive) is left on your pillow, their now-defunct magazines features longing articles on Cairo's Shephard Hotel, Colombo's Galle Face and the other great of the Orient. Message? The not-so-very subtle notion that "the great days of travel, of steamer trunks and open borders and able porters and whiskey in the morning" are as good as over, but there is Raffles, so have a gin & tonic and let's talk empires past. Or something like that.

But there are odd modern touches too - WiFi in the lobby, unnecessarily electronic Do Not Disturbs outside each room and a complicated check in procedure that seems to be computerized but which actually was completely wrong.

Dad on hand to greet us at the swanky new airport, Linds and Chad winging in from Hanoi to arrive at the hotel pool a few hours later - we'd reconnected on the other side. And we met up with Sarah and Ann in the National museum courtyard after a poolside lunch so there you go. From the vague "Thanksgiving in Cambodia" to the reality of the pieces coming together. Magic.

Phnom Penh looking fantastic. Hadn't been here since early '98 and it's been spiffed much since then. Bustling, everyone seems jolly (smiles, waves, giggles), markets piled with goods, roads and walks pristine, riverside cafes and hotels positively jumping. Parts of the city still a little rough - roads unpaved and still dark bits around the lake (I'm told) - but for the most part it's had a hugely successful makeover and seems pleased with its own results. Wild west days well over.

Did the Russian Market this morning - teeming with tourists and seems to be used to them - almost every actual antique from years back now perfectly replicated for sale (a good sign in some ways), current CDs and DVDs (The Incredibles, new U2) being brusquely traded and Cambodia t-shirts stacked high. More upper-end tourists than backpackers spotted so far but have been (in our colonial splendor) largely removed from that scene.

Tomorrow is early to Siem Reap so reporting from there next.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, everywhere

Peace.

C

Oh! Calcutta

CALCUTTA - Middle of the day at cafe on Sutter Street (tourist ghetto)

Easy getting here except for the up at 4am bit but oh, my holy HELL. Calcutta is a disaster. No one told me, guide book alluded to fraying around the edges, glory days past, but this city feels ready to fly apart into a destructive, sucking tornado of rags and starving dogs and rotting who-knows and beleaguered skeletons.

Bombay's slums - by the very virtue of being somewhat contained - make it feel first world compared to this. Poor Calcutta. And the backdrop - if you pull away the debris and clear off the posters and imagine a paint job - is really gorgeous. Beautiful buildings, regal - everywhere - much more handsome underneath it all than Bombay.

But whereas the ride in from the Bombay airport to city gets better as you get closer, this drive never looked up. Was embarrassed for the taxi driver as we took another destroyed road to pass through another bombed out intersection - kept waiting for the cleaned up part but, so far, hasn't come.

Did I get that across clear enough? Going to have to get the photo thing figured out so I can communicate this better. Did manage some pictures this morning but far less camera cocky than in Bombay - the mood here feels more dire, don't want to be a vulture but it's terrifyingly mesmerizing. Folks in Bombay gave an easy smile and head wiggle when I raised the camera. Here, when I feel it's correct enough to lift it, I get hard stares and people turning away.

And yet - like all of India - people are hanging on, going about their business. Getting shaves and cuts on the curb, full families soaping up in a puddle, ears being cleaned, masala and rice weighed out, shoes repaired etc. And people, for the most part, have made themselves utterly presentable. Except for the very very poor - and they are in rags, or nothing at all, or so one with their wrappings it's hard to tell what ends where - except for them - maybe 10% of the street scape here - the rest are tidy and even the plainest, most threadbare cotton saris are bleached clean and pressed.

Whereas I currently require hot water and an outlet to emerge each morning sane, downloaded and presentable (my day room is the "economy" room of a more upscale hotel, facing the lot where the drivers kill time - $20 with hotwater + outlets to recharge all my stuff), the citizens of Calcutta emerge from waterless, light less who-knows-what-hells in bandbox neat form.

I need to get out to the more major sites so I can temper this with some prettiness and praise. Now in shock; feel like I missed the article that declared Calcutta a disaster zone.

And this eve I head for Darjeeling - another world altogether unless I've romanticized it entirely.

(Sorry about the font change - fewer master blogger controls from this cafe. Will standardize soon. Also - self spell checked...)

From the once great Calcutta, but a pretty nice cafe.

c

With matheran behind

BOMBAY - Day 3 (Not counting skipped day)

Good to back amongst the backpackers and touts. Matheran (Forest at the Top") an enormous, and hard to reach, disappointment. Had thought I'd outwit the travel mags by scooping them on a hill station not far (India not far = 4 hours, 2 trains) from Bombay with a tale of gins beneath banyans and verandas where afternoon bleeds into evening...

TRIP to MATHERAN

Well. Early early departure from the Garden Hotel, Bombay sound asleep at 5:30 - Victoria Terminal not so. The interior could have been any hour at all - the casino world of India train stations, minus oxygen and waitresses. Gambling takes form of figuring out which line will get you the right ticket in time to figure out which track that train leaves from in time to figure out which is then your correct car. Had been (ill) advised to purchase an unreserved ticket and so stood resolutely for 40 minutes to come away with my Rs. 35 (<$1) ticket in hand. Sheepishly followed instruction to sit in the Ladies Car - an Indian nicety indicating just how far the nation's ready to trust its men.


Which began fine, a few ladies and me, but we weren't throng-enough to warrant seclusion on an otherwise bursting train. At the first local station, men descended and we became all-access. Little bothering though, a smidgen of peeping, and the freedom I needed to take lots of photos. From VT it's almost 40 minutes through Bombay's slums and grim cement architecture till you hit something sort of bucolic. Departing impressions of Mumbai - as you trundle through septic backyards - is of folks going about their morning business in a very public sphere (like most of India really). But sullying the palatable domestic scenes of teeth brushing and hair braiding, is the pervasive presence of the squatters. The men and boys of the slums, a smattering of younger girls (not sure where the older ones go), do their morning business on the tracks - butt back, facing front. Since you never catch squatters in action - getting up or scroonching down - I have to imagine they maintain their genial pose of watching the world go by for stretches. Men + morning routines = global phenomenon.

"Indians defecate everywhere. They defecate, mostly, beside the railway tracks. But they also defecate on the beaches; they defecate on the hills; they defecate on the river banks; they defecate on the streets; they never look for cover."

VS Naipaul, An Area of Darkness

(News of government making toilets top-most priority. Where else, really, to go?)

Pleased to get off at the right station (Neral) and make my way across the tracks to the side platform that would launch our toy train to Matheran. Stepped out with a 1st Class ticket for Rs. 210 (<$5, vs. second class unreserved for Rs. 24) and felt top of the travel world as I settled into the cushioned small compartment, windows both sides. No aisle, or means of passing through. The single gauge tiny train is just a series of bogies (cars) strung together. Ever-India, service is not foiled and narrow runners, with a large step's distance between carriages, runs beside the cars. These footholds are tailor-made for transporting chai walla's and Frooti-walla's bogi to bogi, station to station. Cry of - "chai! coffee! nescafe!" echoes as you pull from the station and, before you can say chai walla he's back at the window. Make a beverage decision whenever! (Excellent description of Bombay's most common wallas with Mario illustrations (dad!))

Our little train waited for 3 big ones before leaving but worth it as we pulled out and started in on the first of our 207 turns up up through the hills. Hills not India's loveliest (stubby, trees blunt, undistinguished not helped by dryness) and greens beside the tracks trash-strewn. But human droppings gave way to cow patties in this new land and there was a non-festering zip to the air.

Two hours upwards - twisting all the way. It was Diwali yesterday, today's New Years, so unwittingly joined a throng of holiday making families en route to (their) weekend of fun.

Failed travel 101 by not booking the Neemrana hotel I'd wanted to stay in and (strike 2) therefore allowed a tout named Imran to pluck me from the alighting throng and lead me down a sewage alley to his family's nicely perched, but nasty, box of an (over priced) hotel. No view - no window to have a view from except in the bathroom with a view of, and hubbub from, hovel yard next door. Hot water 7 and 9am, bucket shower, hybrid squat toilet - raised but with treads where a smooth seat should be(memories of the tracks?), no fan, no give to the bed, and nothing at all to qualify it has a $30 a night hotel, not even breakfast.

Emerged from its dark grimness to take on the town - the "Only pedestrian hill station in Asia." Had a beyond-miserable cheese and chicken sandwich: tendon bits and flab, washed down with a Limca (beer only served in Saloons, dimly lit dens of no ladies). Pestered by two boys from Mumbai, ogled by the family beside me, but a nice view of enormous women sucking down kulfis on a stick and being trotted around in a wheeled stretcher by team of skinny men, also large boys being led by on small horses.

Not a lot else going on in Matheran (amusement rooms of games, famed chikki shops, bargaining for cane items and, this from a travel site: sign myself up for an (overpriced) tour on horseback of the scenic lookouts, and added the Verandah in the Forest Neemrana hotel to tour.

Which was the highlight - lovely, as imagined, and people gently snoozing as happy jazz played. Oh but I was stupid, next time (got a brochure and a full tour).

Back on my "young" horse - explanation why mine the only one to whinnie and get a wild look in his eyes when I mounted - and off to the viewpoints with the rest of the holiday makers. We were all - on horse back - following lemming-like the same tour, of the same viewpoints, of the same scene with different attractions (bowling, balls through holes, weigh yourself, and a telescope man (5 views + explanations, Rs.10) plus usual crap Indian packaged snacks. Alighted at Echo, Lord's, Honeymoon Hill and Lake Charlotte, got hassled by cocky monkeys, then back to the room (butt sore).

Sat out evening's Diwali festivities - firecrackers lit by parentally guided kids, a concert in the main square and families having meals. No niche for a single female traveler in Indian holiday towns. Earlier in the day had been turned away from hotel by a manager who'd alluded darkly to a 1996 incident when a single woman had hosted a "brothel" from her room. Sins of my sisters.

Out of town this morning on the 5:45AM toy train for Neral. Crowded compartment for a Saturday morning after the nation's most major holiday. We were a smelly crew in my second class carriage (no padding) but convivial as we descended back through the mountains in the darkness, with our chai walla making his rounds.

Lovely triumphant return to Bombay - proper breakfast in my (and most foreigner's) favorite Cafe Leopold's, back to the Garden Hotel (now a "friend"), and able to do my city errands practically unmolested.

THE PLAN

Tomorrow early fly to Calcutta (switched a plane ticket if you're itinerary following) then have booked a second class AC berth on the late afternoon Kanchan Kanya. It will drop me early Monday morning in New Jalpaiguri - there just a two hour hop up through the tea terraces to Darjeeling.

THE WRAP

Maybe another report before signing off for today - expect blog fallow tomorrow - then know just the cafe in Darjeeling to pick up the narrative strand...

Thanks to everyone who's reading this, please pass it on.

Cheers from the road,

C

Morning in Mumbai

BOMBAY - Day 2

Gorgeous sunny morning here (tried to check actual weather - like temp for instance as feels hot - but Times of India site reporting Mumbai weather as "N/A"). India up and bustling: squatting man on curb being given a proper straight edge shave, lady bent double washing feet in a puddle, men rising from stall-top sleeps to ready merchandise for the day and the drum sellers emerging from wherever it is drum sellers go at night...

Free hotel buffet breakfast and the Times under my door got me up--personal pot of coffee with hot milk got me revving. Discovered two excellent Indian travel mags yesterday and pouring over them for story ideas. Almost seems like cheating but they've got so many - boating Assam on the Brahmaputra, the Paragliding World Championships in Himachal, the refurnished Hotel Metropole in Mysore (previously guest house of the maharaja of Mysore - dad and i stayed here in 1999?) . The perks of paying over $20 for a room (plus AC, plus CNN, plus bath in room...).

Slept so well, talked to R in Sofia last night and downloaded and tweaked yesterday's photos. forgotten how photographic this country is: mounds of marigolds, beetle leaves laid out at the paan stands, the ladies in saris (of course), the buses and taxis, bracelet vendors and on...And people lovely about being photographed for the most part. A few grimaces but few that a smile and head bobble won't appease.

Still wrestling with how to link photos to this - I think I need to transfer to a CD, upload to Ofoto and then link but if others have ideas...

Also found the fab FabIndia now on the main drag (used to be only in the north) and bought up ethnic garb - jeans and polyester shirt not cutting it. So all cotton-ed out and baggy panted and a kurta to sleep in. If not careful, will return to NYC a full fledged ethnic-gone traveler.

Day's plans - VT for tomorrow's mornings tickets to Matheran via the Shatabdi (my old train to Pune!), Chor bazaar (for old time's sake - see what my old sources are up to and get very dirty, Kemp's Corner, back to Colaba - out to Elephanta Island where I haven't been since childhood and the monkeys stole Linds' Easter candy then to pee at the Taj and check out their bookstore. And tomorrow -

A million routes to Bombay

BOMBAY, Colaba

Tortuous road to now but (now) nice being back on Bombay's familiar streets, in unchanged and unhip internet cafe tucked behind STD booths. Neither coffee nor techno nor dudes mixing.

More to follow about India but now a nap and beer more pressing. About 30 hours of traveling - left Athens Rio Hotel at 9:30 yesterday morning and arrived here middle of afternoon. Trip broken by a scary stop-over in Cairo - airport and country feels pricklier than I'd remembered from late 80's visit. Cairo Airport bristled with tall armed soldiers and road out dotted with same. I couldn't get them to lighten up, to crack a smile. In India (I'm now reminded) smile + head wiggle is a charm...

Egyptian Air - which dumped me at the airport 12 hours before my connecting flight to Bombay, offered the deceptively generous choice of a tour of the Pyramids! with English speaking guide? and free dinner including water and dessert!, or a stay at the local hotel. Though the latter frankly appealed far more, I took the touristic-high road (what would mom do?) and plunged into the sightseeing - so full of promise but so obviously flawed. So did 2 traveling Greek ladies and a mother and daughter en route from Greece to their home in Addis.

Egyptian Air had unwittingly gathered a punchy bunch ladies in that mini-van - not a fool amongst us. The trip's "charm" was snuffed promptly as we pulled up to the darkened silhouettes of the pyramids. With a gate between us, them. We were herded out, positioned in front of a gate(100 me. from the silhouettes themselves), and given a rapid-fire pitch on Tut's vital dates, and then herded back into the van for the real point of the trip - shopping barely masquerading as educational introductions to Egypt's ancient arts. First the "Perfume Museum" - where our not buying disgusted the unctuous owner so much he retreated to the backroom not to return for our departure, then to the "Pyramids Papyrus Museum" where our skepticism etched still darker furrows on our guide's forehead. We did get food, and a dessert (beers extra) and hugged as we split off for flights.



Outskirts of Cairo dreary brown, traffic mad, women 99% covered (how long have they been?) and airport security (when I returned) unhappily disconcerted by a single woman traveling (groups and more groups being shuffled to and fro - sites to shops to the roadside diners and now the airport). Couldn't imagine a reason they might bar me from my connection but worried until I was seated.

Athens, Sofia Down

ATHENS

I'm on the road - Sofia a morning memory, the Acropolis on the fly this afternoon, and now a smoky internet cafe on a side street off a spur off Omonia Square.

I'll work backwards ...

Uneventful flight Sofia>Athens, seen off by big and little Chilov men - with a cup of tea overlooking the tarmac and explicit instructions about which one of the 4 gates would be mine. Passport control perfunctory - as easy to leave Bulgaria as it was to enter.

Olympic Airlines threadbare, un-gussied up for the carrier of an Olympic host country. Crummy seats with the carpet puckering and tearing, surly stewardesses, no in flight magazine and "Business Class" consisting of a tray wedged in the middle seat of a three-seat row.

Had thought to take a taxi to hotel but pushed towards thriftiness by the tourist info woman who gave directions for a bus then metro - for just 2 euros. Felt like a traveling champ, Let's Go veteran as I watched the tourists in their cabs go by while I waited for my overcrowded bus - me, the dishevelled backpackers and the less fortunate locals.<

No incidents en route to Hotel Rio. A prretty outside, an unfathomable name, and tiny room with two tiny beds and a hospital tv suspended above. Hand shower and no pulls on the drawers - but clean! safe! and you can walk to the Acropolis! (This may well be the selling point for all Athens hotels, I recall it being championed by each I considered).

Awed that a 12 euro ticket covers all the ruins, and I managed about 90% in 2+ hours. Which is really shocking-in-a-bad way but, with only 18 hours Athens, better than no ruins at all. Metamorfossis - zoom, Agii Apostoli - zoom, Stoa of Attalus - zoom and upwards to the giants of the show. Heart stopping to finally see the Parthenon and Temple of Dionysis.

They do not disappoint and the Parthenon columns do bell out at the bottom -it's all there just like the school books said. Also whizzed through a museum of statues and fragments - wrenchingly beautiful animals and the toes of a warrior - beautiful beautiful toes.

Photographede as I went - the view out over Athens, the clouds hovering over the Aegean, the Temple in silhouette as the sun sank on ancient - blah blah.

Since the Acropolis closed (5:30 with whistles) I've wandered Athen's streets and alleys. Withstood the temptations of mashelas, prayers beads, marble relics, crap jewelry, Olympics 2004 leftovers and traditional blouses. Did not buy Ruslan a Greek soccer shirt but tempted by the lovely light blue colors.

Sort of nice city - reminds me of Turkey with the smell of olive treas and doner kebabs. Olive trees everywhere - with olives!

Back to this morning - and the days since I left NYC.

Sofia

Just 3 days amidst the warmth of the Chilovs and I'm back in my toughened, solo-traveler guise. I miss their caretaking. I miss having my evenings filled. And I'm working at figuring out how to fill the evening on my own in Athens without attracting undo attention or whiling away hours in front of CNN at the hotel. Internet cafes are good for the female on the road - techno, coffee, ashtrays.

The Chilovs treated me, only son's (only) girlfriend - like a princess. I drank from the Meisen tea cup, was given a small wardrobe and driven (with R) everywhere - museum entrances paid...

Vladimir bought us walnut cookies at the monastery on the hill.
R took me out with high school friends for nights of the town.

Sofia's a handsome city - I'm sure I'm wrong and know it's historicall incorrect but it a little bit reminded me of Rome. The colors at least. (I suppose I don't know enough European cities to have a handy comparison). Broad boulevards, byzantine churches, stooped old women in thick hose and headscarves beside the twenty-somethings in stretch jeans. All the usual eastern bloc/western-world-of-evils juxtapositions. Our first night out was a whirlwind of city's hotspots. First drink at Tabacco (Bulgarians favor single word names, other hotspot - missed this go - Lipstick - hangover from mid-80's perhaps.) - a glass vestibule (green house?) off the chapel of the king's summer palace. Then Opera - formerly a Swedish restaurant (?) now re-imagined as a stunning, towering black space of baroque mouldings and light fixtures from the euro design fair. And hip bulgarians of course, smoking of course.

And then to a club that might have been any club in any country (anywhere) but may be more smoking.

And last night a meal of many plates and courses, and a few rakias, at a Bulgarian mehenatta (farm-ish restaurant) housed in a former bomb shelter now hung with plastic grape vines, blankets and costumes. And bulgarians smoking.



Sad to say goodbye to R, the Chilovs and Sofia this morning.

NOTED:

The rest of the world (outside US) is still smoking, lots. Commented on this to R as we sat in a coffee shop with smokers on all sides (2, 3 even 4 to a table - all, amazingly, simultaneously smoking). He noted that Hungarians smoke far more - for instance, they also smoke on public transport whereas Bulgarians abstain.
All Athenians speak english - learned en masse for the olympics?
Route to the Parthenon surprisingly vaguely signed. It's been there for a while, yes?
They have olives on their olive trees in Greece!
Bulgarian food is wonderful - hybrid of heavier northern cuisines with the lighter Mediterranean ones.
Dollar not strong.
Bulgarians drink a lot, but never appeared rowdy or drunk. R says that's the way they are.
Sofia a very very chic city - buy property now before it enters the EU in 2007

C - observing