Introduction to India

I am in India and enjoying it thoroughly so far. Arrived in Bangalore on Monday and since then its been 'eat eat eat' (manger manger manger... I hear my grand-father's words when I say this).

The food pictured above is Dosi with three types of chutneys (tomato, and I forget the other two) and a little bit of sambar in the little bowl. This is real South Indian food, not to be confused with the heavier curries of the North.  This was also my first meal in India, when our friend Geeta and her mom took us out for food at a place called Ananda in Bangalore.

More food pics will come! :)

Blessings,
Mia

Bali

Selamat! I am in Bali for a week to enjoy a "honeymoon" after Celine's wedding. We stayed for three nights in a crazy lovely place called Chapung Se Bali, which has been around for 8 years and recently built a gorgeous infinity pool with a view of the valley below and of the resort across the way. The food was quite decent, the staff were very attentive (they kindly picked us up at midnight after our flight from Singapore was delayed - and still greeted us very warmly!) and my friend and I have decided that we could quite easily get used to this luxury!! :)  The owner of Chapung Se Bali is a Danish furniture designer who clearly knows how to keep customers happy, and apparently the former GM was from Quebec, woot. 

(For a more detailed review of Chapung Se Bali, see here )

We spent yesterday touring central Bali (Ubud and surrounding areas) with Bali Traditional Tours. Our driver We was very friendly and told us all about his four sisters, his life as a rice field farmer, and of course Balinese culture and local Hindu customs. 

First stop was the rice plantations of Tagallagang. The plantations are both practical and beautiful as the many "layers" or ledges built into the side of the mountain allow farmers to plant rice and to maximise their space and use of water. 

Second stop was the Holy Water Temple. Wednesday was a Holy Day so there were quite a few people in the temple. They come to provide offerings and to purify their bodies in the holy spring (pictured below). The people get in the water from the left side and immerse their bodies/dip their heads at each of the 20-odd water spouts, moving from left to right. Small square baskets with offerings of flower, food, or paper money are put on the ledge before immersion. 

We then stopped at Mount Batur to enjoy the view. Mount Batur is actually a volcano, and the lava remains are quite visible as they cover half the mountain on the side that was visible to us. We asked our guide/driver We how long it would take to cool the lava, and he said, "It happened before I was born, but thank you for the question. I will ask my grandfather!". Guess the last volcano eruption happened sometime in the sixties. 

Our final stop was to check out a batik factory and shop, located in Batulalan, close to Bali's local capital of Denpasar. The space reminded me of the silk factory that I visited with my family in China two summers ago. The batiks can either be hand-printed or stamped using one of the wax-resistant molds pictured below. The process is time-consuming, as you can imagine. The white cloth is first covered with the outline of the drawing in pencil. Then a first layer of wax covers the areas that should remain white. The cloth is dyed in one colour, then dried and then immersed in hot water to wash off the wax. The process is repeated several times to add several different colours.  The traditional batiks have a black backdrop but we saw several examples of newer styles, with the purples, greens and blues that I personally love. 

Bali is wonderful (yes, even though it is by far one of Asia's top tourist destinations - luckily, we came at a good time after the Christmas vacation!) and I am already looking forward to my next trip back here. 

Singapore the Lion City

The first leg of my six-month journey commenced with a stop in Singapore or the "Lion City". No major mishaps getting here except for my friend C and I almost missing our Hong Kong-S'pore connection as we had gotten separated while exiting the plane and she had misread the gate info and been waiting at another gate! Luckily all was well and she managed to run to the proper gate in time for our departure.
We were blessed with good weather (only one or two major downpours- monsoon season!) and a great AirBnb appartment on Oxley Rise which was super central and was very comfortable for 4 people. The wedding we attended was quite impressive although "rather small by Singaporian standards"- only 580 people at the wedding and some 250 at the dinner!

We even managed to sneak in some quality time with the bride and our fellow "Race and Space" course mate Celine who welcomed us in for an informal housewarming for her new appartment.

The city-state of Singapore is quite clean and efficient, even compared to Hong Kong. The urban planning nerds of my group were absolutely enchanted by the MRT (subway system). We didn't do a whole lot of 'tourism' but had the chance to admire Singapore from above through the Gardens by the Bay/ Tower 3 centre which provides an admirable view of the city.  And we tried to learn some "Singlish"/ Singalese like the word 'choep' which means 'dibs' or reservations. As in, rather than saying 'shotgun the front seat' in Singapore they say 'choep'd'.

We are off to Bali tonight for some more R &R.

Departing in one month

I'm one month away from departure for Asia!  It's both scary and exhilarating to be planning and thinking about this trip.  Athena and i have been chatting about all the details of our India trip and it's shaping up to be busy, while also letting us meet up with some of our LSE India connections.

So far my rough plan looks like this:

Singapore (4 days)
Bali (1 week)
India:  Bangalore, Cochin (Kerala), Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Delhi and..? (4-6 weeks)
Burma ....

I won't be planning too far ahead given that I want to remain spontaneous and open to either volunteering, working, backpacking or a combination of all three.

More later..

Memories of Borough Market

Borough Market. 

Street scenes from Dhaka

Maximum in Bangladesh

Bangladesh.
Bangla = a Magadhan language spoken by the Bengali people, 
Desh = Country.

It was cool and rainy when I left Canada a few days ago, and after an excruciatingly long two flights (broken up by a pleasant interval in London, including a lovely lunch at Peruvian restaurant Ceviche) I stepped off the plane and was taken aback by a blast of humidity.

It's been like that for the last 3 days.

Taken aback by humidity (glasses keep fogging up). Taken aback by the traffic (I thought Saigon was the worst place in the world for traffic- turns out Dhaka has it beat). Taken aback by the teaming mass of people, begging, jumping onto busses, weaving between cars, shouting hoarsely, bargaining, sleeping, holding hands (men, mostly), staring, smiling.

Taken aback by the kindness and chattiness and the average person's desire to help out.

This week has been exciting and tiring. I'm here with a colleague for an evaluation which involves visiting various NGOs across the country (but mostly Dhaka-based). Contrary to the previous trip where I met mostly government representatives, this time we have been privileged to meet mainly civil society representatives. They are eloquent and thoughtful and at times I feel a bit ashamed of my familiar tropes and assumptions about developed vs developing world.

This week has made me eager to learn more about disability and human rights. I had the privilege today of visiting the Centre for Rehabilitation of the Paralysed which does seemingly great work with people of disabilities of all ages.  I babbled about a friend who is visually impaired (she has a lot of patience this woman, as I am constantly committing faux-pas around her). And wished and thought, geez, maybe I should have studied Occupational Therapy... maybe I would have something useful to contribute here.

It's made me embarassed about my ignorance of the world - one of the hotel staff was telling me about Alexander of Macedonia's time in India and what is now Bangladesh, and in my mind I was just thinking, "Macedonia? Random country in Eastern Europe? They produced a world conqueror?".

This week has reminded me that I'm not the fearless traveller I thought I was. Still got a ways to go. Bangladesh makes me feel uncomfortable and alien and western. I wish I knew more about Islam and about how to be patient and kind no matter how I am feeling. Basically it's shaken me up a bit and made me admire all the more my friends who travel alone to the most crowded, dirty, glorious places of Asia.

I have a feeling that I will leave this country feeling grateful for Air Conditioning, unsatisfied with a brief glimpse of South Asia and with many more questions than answers.