Kashmir pyjamas, punts and politics
The safety announcements were in one language only, and it wasn’t mine. And there are no other blondies on the plane. Praps they’re all going on the direct flights to […]
NOTEBOOK
Canter past Patagonian icefields. Sail the tranquil waters of Lake Como in Italy. Sip coffee in a Palestinian village. Listen to the ancient voices of Australia’s Arnhem Land. Climb the mountain paths of northern Albania. Let’s go!
Delhi traffic and books I should have read
I was stuck in traffic. Nothing new in Delhi. The city is plagued by traffic jams of epic proportions. Perhaps not as bad as Cairo, where midnight traffic jams are […]
Cow pats and incense
“Why is it that every foreigner goes to Varanasi?” a well-travelled Delhi local asked me. At the time, I was in the car going to the airport. “Beats me, I’ll […]
Cows and holy men: Varanasi
“You haven’t been to India until you’ve been to Varanasi,” a well-heeled woman told me last week. “After that, everything is India Lite.” Varanasi is India’s most holy city. Lord […]
Life in the slow lane…in Delhi
“Breathe in, stretch up. Breathe out, palms on the ground.” Rajneesh is taking me through morning yoga by the mirror-like 50-meter pool that stretches out along the ground level of […]
Divine intervention: don’t kill your television
What’s on Indian TV tonight? Veging out to Cory Feldman killing vampires, I flick the channel to find lots of ads for Fair & Lovely face-bleaching creams, news of the […]
Singh is King
And so the formula goes: every Sikh is a Singh, but not every Singh is a Sikh. Dharamasala is behind us as we gun it down to the plains of […]
Of yak butter, tantric meditation and why I’m not a supermodel…
Walking through the streets of Dharamsala is like walking through a Benetton ad: you can see the broad Central Asian faces of Tibetan exiles, narrow, dark faces from southern India, […]
A cautionary tale of lentils and the Jammu Mail train
I’m having a flashback to Russia – the a second-class train sleeper (with air-con!) is an open affair of double-decker bunks that double as seats in the daytime. Before we […]
All that glitters…gold and the gate
I don’t know what I was expecting, but I didn’t expect there to be so…many…saris. Here, women glitter – literally, with richly decorated saris. In the afternoon sun, the gold […]