I'm almost an Indian (again)

I have spent a glorious Sunday in Chennai, my first day off since the beginning of this trip. Since lists are apparently easier to read, here's what I did:
1. A late and long breakfast with masses of natural yogurt set in little clay pots. This reminds me of Nepal and Dwarikas hotel from previous post.
2. I hired a white ambassador taxi for the whole day to take me shopping and drive me around. The driver stopped by the side of the road and bought the fragrant flowers on a string so the whole car was cool and fragrant. Nice!
3. I promised someone a silver bracelet so I went to Chennai's Spencer's Plaza, which i visited on my last trip and bought 2 bracelets and..... A Magic Wand. Yes, a magic wand made of crystals and different stones to cleanse my chakras with. The guy who sold me the wand accepted the price i suggested, without argument, he said the wand was mine as soon as I looked at it. I think I made a special mystical connection with the seller of the said wand and we discovered we were numerological 11s (and 11s are special!) I love spiritual India! Anyway I'll post photos of my magical wand later.  :-)
4. I also stocked up on my John Abraham bolywood stock and I think I now have his entire collection... I also bought many more bolywood classics, so if anyone wants to borrow some, let me know.
5. Lunch was at Amethyst which is an old villa converted to a cafe, surrounded by lush gardens. This is where I spotted a chameleon lizard in a bush, again, photos coming.
6. I then made myself look like an Indian with a few kameez dresses. Photos maybe coming... ;-)
7. A pedicure and a (very mild) foot massage by the poolside and then a mango lassi before the giant mosquitoes threatened to eat me alive.
And now I'm off to enjoy John Abraham in peace before work starts again tomorrow. An evening with JA is again a spiritual experience! ;-)
Good night lovely friends, I might come back. :-)

I survived Bangladesh!!

And I even liked it! Yes, after my fear of the place it turned out way better than my low low expectations suggested. It is wild and extremely poor and so congested at first it looks like the scariest place on earth but after a day or so I saw the charming face of Bangladesh.
The best thing about the place are it's people, of course. They don't take anything for granted, not even living... After that are all the colours - from the shiny, multicoloured rickshaws to the amazing  sarees the women wear. Photos will come when I again have access to a real computer. 

The road is long...

And the road is my life again.
Namaste from Sri Lanka.
I'm here until Monday 10/09 and then I go to country number 40 - Bangladesh.
Then to India and back home via Cairns (where I will start learning how to drive - hmmm maybe that's why the road is so long, because I'm not driving?) and final stop - Melbourne.
I haven't written much. But I am going through many profound internal experiences at the moment.
Peace to you.
A.

Back in Oz

I arrived back here yesterday and will update the German Cold War and Beer tour in the next few days. And for those who wandered about the Helsinki flea market - it was a weekday so it was very small. But I visited some other op shops and spent the budget anyone...

Helsinki - cool beyond words...

Heya!
I'm just reporting in very quickly from Helsinki where I arrived last night and where it never gets dark.
I already explored a bit yesterday but then many places closed in the evening. I have just today to explore their amazing opp shopping and then do some touristy stuff. My phone ran out of batteries yesterday so I managed to take just one photo before it went dead. It was inside the op shop... (I officially don't know how to add images to my blog from this iPad, later I will explore if hotel has a computer I can use.)
Today I'm all charged up, with €100 budget and taking a tram to a massive flea market...
Headache in the making. Yesterday, I had to leave the opshop because I thought my head was going to burst from all the 60s colour. Either that or the smelly kimchi Korean man sitting on the plane next to me, who sneezed constantly, gave me another flu... Grrrrr...

Cold War and Beer tour!

Quick update on the upcoming tour:
* Helsinki stopover for 2 nights, just me for this one,
* Berlin - 5 days, both dad and me,
* Leipzig, old East Germany - 1 day,
* Nuremberg - 2 days, I don't know what there is in there except some courts, but we'll see.
* Pilzen - 1 day, brewery stop?
* Prague - 2 days
* Dresden - 1 day to smell the ashes.... When I was first travelling to Dresden, my dad told me after the extensive bombing during WW2, it was still possible to smell the smoke... I'm taking him to prove him wrong.
THE END

Photo comments

Hello from Jeju island in Korea.
I can't add any more photos again, but I thought I'd describe the previous two posts photos.
On the more recent post there are six photos, starting left to right:
- a nicely caught moment of Shinkansen (the bullet train in Japan) arriving at Osaka station.
- inside the Moomin Troll cafe in Fukuoka. Just a bit of Finland in Japan.
- in Fukuoka cat cafe, no seats left and not allowed to move a sleeping cat!
- the iced coffee with milk and ,syropu' in the Poem beatnik cafe.
- in Osaka there was this moon festival and everywhere were these wishing trees where people wrote their wishes and tied the paper to the tree. This particular tree was on the 40 floor in a Sky Garden. My wish is there too.
- this is Osaka with a big ferris wheel inside a small building, that's why so much of the ferris wheel is sticking out.

On older post there are 5 pictures:
- when Tokyo cat 'Curl' cafe was closed, I got to pat a cat for free. This is the Poet, growing in a pot plant.
- Fukuoka cafe was busy!
- As I was passing a tap in Fukuoka cat cafe, I heard a demanding 'meow', this handsome young man asked me turn the tap on, so he could have a drink.
- Osaka cat cafe was very Japanese style, with tatami mat floor and wooden elements. I also had all the cats to myself!
- Even the food in Osaka cafe was cat themed. The two sweets on the plate are called 'mochi' and they are gelatinous dough filled with chocolate or fruit or a bean paste. They are VERY addictive!

Photos!! Still from Japan

Photos from Japan - cat cafes!

 

Sayoonara

I'm really showing off my Japanese here... Not!

I'm in Fukuoka now, just about to leave beautiful Japan (I still can't transfer my photos).

But I've been around now!
*I visited 3 cat cafes - 2 in Osaka and one here in Fukuoka,
*I've been to a Finnish moomin valley cafe,
*travelled on the shinkansen twice (Japanese bullet train),
*I've been to a Hawaii Festival,
*made a special wish from a sky garden on 40 floor,
*explored an Italian neighborhood in Tokyo, haidresser street in Osaka and walked the entire length of worlds longest shopping arcade (3km),
*I have eaten russian borsch, hawaiian po, udon/ramen/soba noodles hot and cold, some Japanese dish starting with kotsu..., had japanese breakfast (I haven't even started on the Cold War and beer tour with my dad!)

Quiet life? Not for me! ;-)
Hopefully photos coming soon!

Radiohead

Due to a roof collapse and a death of a stage technician at a Radiohead concert, the concert in Berlin has been postponed. :-(

Photos will be come when I figure my new system...

Tokyo, ah Tokyo... I think I've seen everything and then there is Tokyo. I arrived here with a typhoon - a few hours after landing the airport closed and trains stopped. I sort of slept through it all. I woke up to the windows making a strange noise and rain pounding on the building, but the windows looked like they were going to hold and I'd be surviving, so I went back to sleep.

My first Tokyo adventure was with the toilet, how poetic I know... (but there is poetry in this post - later!) I knew to expect the many buttons, some to mask noises, some to wash after, some to massage with water. Yes many buttons on a toilet remote, but how should I flush the damn thing? It took me a good 15min to work it out and I felt like I passed some sort of a Japanese intelligence test, first of many! I've been trying to play this bridge building engineer game on my new iPhone and keep on finding out why I'm not an engineer. I'm up to lowly level 3 and stuck, that is I can't build a bridge that will survive a car driving over it. Let alone a tank, as my engineer father would no doubt want to test it with. If flushing that toilet wasn't so important, I'd have given up on that intelligence game much, much earlier.

Flushed, clean, massaged and dried, I decided to explore Tokyo's famous Love Hotels. Love hotels are 'couples' places where a pair (or more - hey, whatever swings your swing) can stay for the night or 'rest' for a couple of hours. The rooms are themed to whatever fantasy takes your fancy. Online I've seen a lot of Hello Kitty themes, but there are also fairytales, space, Hawaii, bondage kitty rooms, and so on... But as everyone knows, I am TERRIBLE at making choices, so I needed a volunteer to form my couple and to make the hard decisions. Alas, no volunteer... (I never actually asked anyone, maybe that was the problem! But when I once asked my now-ex-husband to visit a love hotel! he declined! Maybe I need a Japanese husband?) ;-)

When I was a teenager I had this fantasy of being Japanese, unfortunately I failed the choosing of parents test (another Japanese test?) and I am pretty sure I'm not. Though when I'm back here I wish I could be, again. I could dye my hair red instead of black, look ultra stylish in a cute kind of way, say 'kawai' whenever I see a cat, live in a tiny apartment (I'd have to loose 1/2 of my weight to fit into one) and get myself a Japanese husband, because ladies, I can see beauty in the men here! I saw an almost perfect candidate last night returning to the hotel from an evening out (not from a Love Hotel unfortunately). He was standing over a dog, that looked like it was sitting down, and the man was talking to the dog. When the dog started to move, I realized it's back legs were paralyzed. The man picked up the dog, we shared a smile and he went upstairs and I down the road to my hotel. He would have been perfect, if only that dog was a cat, we could have looked after it together...

So with no couple to speak off and too chicken to go by myself, I decided to switch themes completely and go to a pussy cafe... Ha! Got you there! I can just see the shock and horror on my dad's face (he reads this, don't you dad?) I meant to say a neko cafe - a cat cafe! The BEST Japanese idea ever! You pay an entry fee and order a coffee or tea and have an hour or whatever time you pay, to spend with 20 or so resident cats. Great place for a crazy cat woman, don't you think? So I set off to find "Curl up" one of Tokyo's neko cafes.

Catching trains in Tokyo is another intelligence test you have to pass. It's not that it is a crazy complicated web of lines that only have English directions in small letters sometimes, or that it's so crazy busy that it scares an introverted extrovert such as me, or that I've heard all these stories about Japanese men molesting women on trains (there's even a name for it -chikan). No, my problem was that there are at least 4 different types of trains, all requiring different tickets. Now, while I had day tickets for 3 types of those trains, when I got to the neko cafe train station, I found out I didn't have the right ticket. The man controlling the entry and exit of potential lawbreakers such as myself, called me over and was saying something in Japanese (I think, he was mumbling and wearing a face mask!) and I'm assuming he wanted me to buy a ticket because he had the type I was missing from my collection. At that moment I realized I had no yen left... What's a foreigner to do with no ATM in sight? What's a ticket man to do? He let me exit for free. If he spoke some English I might have proposed marriage, I was so happy that I could go pat a cat (after finding an ATM)!

Before we enter the cat heaven, a little lesson in etiquette of neko cafe (cat brothel?)...
* before entering you have to remove your shoes and wash hands with disinfector
* any cat has a right to refuse to play with you
* no waking up of sleeping cats
* no BYO toys
* no picking up cats, they will come to your lap if they want to
* if a cat scratches you, a band-aid will be provided but no refund and if you punish the cat in any way, you die!
I was ready to meet some cats!

Back to 'Curl up'cafe...
It was closed.
I could see movement of cat-like shapes through the frosted glass, but in a typical cat fashion they ignored me and didn't open the door.
When the cat's away, the mice play... Or something like it... But I have successful cat cafe sessions planned for Osaka and Fukuoka, where I have already thoroughly researched the neko cafe industry. In fact, first Japanese neko cafe originated in Osaka!

Then, a miracle happened or poetic justice to be precise. I saw a cat and got to pat it for free! Gorgeous Mr Poet was sleeping in a pot outside Poem cafe, which has been there since 1966, as I found out. I broke etiquette and rushed to pat the sleeping poet. He didn't even stir. I asked the waiter about the place and I think Poem cafe was a beatnik cafe in the 1960s, but I could have misunderstood what "brack!" while pointing at the clothes, was meant to convey. I enjoyed my iced coffee with the kawai little milk and liquid sugar pots. I almost swiped the cute pots as a memento of my experience, but Mr Poet woke up and looked at me like he knew I was up to no good. To prove him wrong, I left without a souvenir.

PS After my bullet train trip to Osaka and the number of snorers around me, I'm adding a 'no snore' clause to my Japanese husband search.

PS2 And all around Tokyo the are men wearing the "Intergalactic" Beastie Boys or Japanese construction worker uniform! I keep thinking I'm seeing MCA! Watch the video for my view of Tokyo!

Beastie Boys no more :-(

Adam Yauch of Beastie Boys has died.
Their music was always special to me, especially MCA with his enlightened approach.  :-(  
Fly in the clouds MCA.

There will also be a Supermoon this Saturday 5th May. Go see it whether from the Australian tropics, Berlin's Teufelsberg, some desert in the Middle East, Louisiana swamp or a cold northern fjords...

I'm still alive

I had no internet access in Istanbul. But I loved it there again and met lots of really nice cats! :-)

I'm just about to leave Bratislava for Prague (train). All very busy, hence no writing from me.

Also working on university essay whenever I have a chance (my 4 hr train trip will come in useful!)

So still alive but barely!!

More comedy...

This from the past - I noticed it says it's the 12th April, but it's still 11th here! :-)

David O'Doherty featuring Shakira! :-) >>> CLICK HERE <<<

Merhaba from Ankara, Turkey

I finally got here! I didn't think I would! Istanbul where I was transiting through, really wanted to keep me. Not that I would have minded, except that I couldn't leave the airport!

Lets start at the beginning of this trip and the most important announcement - I have finally become GOLD Qantas member! This has been a mission since coming back to Australia and one that eluded me... Now that I am GOLD member it means I can... erm... well... It doesn't mean anything, but mission completed! ;-)

I also flew in the new A380 plane (didn't notice much except the screens for watching movies were bigger). In Singapore the said new plane broke down and was delayed by 2hrs!! 2 hours of sitting on board with my fellow 400+ breathing, stinking, talking, occasionally crying (the babies), frustrated fellow human beings. Oh what fun!

Unusually, the pilot went into this detailed explanation why the plane was delayed. He said that the part that was broken was not really necessary part of the plane but due to protocol had to be repaired and that the engineers had difficulty getting to this unnecessary part. Now, hang on... There are useless parts we're carrying on new planes?? And the airlines whine so much about how much fuel costs and so we get charged so much for excess luggage, while they carry unnecessary parts... OK I forgot where this was going. Not to London anyway.

The pilot must have been British. Only they have this fascination of telling you causes of delays. I remember train delays in Britain and the driver saying it was "due to a fatality on the tracks - someone committing suicide on train tracks, people...".

Because of delays, in London I had to rush to my Istanbul flight and then when I arrived in Istanbul and saw the visa queue, I nearly cried. No way was I going to get my visa, line up again in the passport control queue, pick up my luggage, rush to the domestic airport and make my Ankara flight! In both queues I got ahead by asking people to let me through because of my onward connection. Though explaining it tens of times took almost as much time as standing in queues. No one objected and everyone I asked let me through, my faith in humanity restored. For a moment I contemplated asking for money from everyone who let me through, since I was begging anyway and apparently the 'foot in the door' technique works... But don't worry, I didn't! I even met a man who was failing to meet the same flight as me and from then on we were the move-ahead-team. He didn't have any luggage to pick up, so when we finally cleared passports he could run to the domestic airport and probably made the flight. I didn't.

I tried to get on the next flight (there is Istanbul-Ankara flight every hour) but they were all full. So I was put on standby and waited for the next available seat. This of course meant I couldn't go anywhere. I was stuck in a coffee shop, never knowing if someone else might be late this next flight and I can take their place... I finally got on board a plane after midnight.

Now, after a sleep and no jet lag (yet?) and in a remarkably good mood considering my recent delays, I am itching to go out and explore Ankara, but I made a deal with myself - no wasting of time (except for blog update ;-) ) until my free day in Istanbul. I have my Saudi clerics essay to finish for uni! So it's just me, the clerics and coffee to keep us all awake and happy...

Caffeine addicted teeth chattering, two finger flying/typing at 100km/hour HAPPY! :-/

Comedy... ha ha...

I'm in Melbourne at the moment - I decided to leave home early before my next trip and do something useful, since I'm so behind with EVERYTHING. And so instead of that I've been going to see stand up comedians. But at least it's funnier than Saudi clerics, really!

First, I went to see some small fry, working in a pub - type of comedians and having the ego of a cat, my immediate impressions were - I got funnier stories than that! Due to the way the dice fell and some choices I reluctantly made, my life has been a constant source of strange situations, stranger people and strangest coincidences. So I thought I had a back-up plan. If this travelling to odd places and trying to cope with weird situations ever gets old, I can do a comedy routine on my life. Come on, I can be funny! I'm sure I can even deliver funny, especially after the hundreds of times I did that Volvo course... (and every Monday morning, before a new course I was worried, this time I was going to FAIL!) Anyway I digress...

Before putting in my resignation at work, I decided to see the competition and went to see a proper (every seat in the theatre sold) Irish (as I told my mum - when I find a man who has an Irish (Republican) father and maybe German mother - I'll marry again!) comic. Tonight I went to see David O'Doherty (hmm... who has a HUGE soft spot for an Irish beard, anyone?) and I realised the difference. This man can make his broken-hearted depression funny, his fear of a mouse funny, this man can make 'nothing' funny. Granted, he has an accent that sends me giggling before he even comes on stage. But that is funny, so is Dylan Moran. Anyway if that's competition, I sent my cat ego to chase Ringo the mouse.

See an Irish comedian if you get a chance.

Next trip coming soon...

I'm sorry, I've been so busy with study of the Saudi clerics and making sense of Arabic script (let alone trying to pronounce the bloody thing!) that I haven't been answering emails, reading (fiction) books (I do my fair share of Saudi clerics readings) or talking to strange cats on the streets (OK I still talk to strange cats on the streets but only because they claim to be Saudi clerics...)

And now a new trip is coming up! I leave at Easter and start of with Turkey and then off to Europe:

Ankara

Istanbul

Vienna

Bratislava

Prague

Wroclaw

Warsaw

Berlin

And return via Singapore.

See you on the road again :-)

Big Boss Frankie!

Happy Birthday in cat heaven, where I'm sure you are the biggest boss of them all! X

Happy Birthday Pushkin

Happy Birthday Pushkin, I so wish I could hold you now.

Arrived in Kazakhstan

I was hoping for colder but at least the passport control line took 2 hours with 100s of Russians trying to push in and arguing loudly, sometimes nearly fighting (what other foreigners want to come to Kazakhstan?)...

My pickup car wasn't there, so I had to wait extra long.

Then OK, the walk to the car was FREEZING! And slippery! Snow everywhere and it was still snowing. I would have taken a photo but it was still dark at 8am! (My flight arrived at 5:05am)... By that time I was walking, trying not to slip and fall mindful of my recently hurt tailbone and laughing hysterically. When the driver asked "Where you from?" which actually sounds more like an insult than a question... And I told him Australia... He laughed too. But then he took pity on me and turned up the car heating to maximum...

Then I slept and slept and slept and now that I woke up I feel like a Russian truck ran over me!

I think maybe I'm getting too old for these extreme trips? Nah...

Now I have to start practicing saying I'm not Russian. Or maybe I should say I am Russian and just add "ja ne gavarit pa ruski"?

At 5am Almaty was a disappointing -10 degrees.

View of Almaty from my window, which is opened BTW, otherwise temperature inside is set to 26 degrees and cannot be changed! Snow tennis anyone?

Tomorrow Kazakhstan brrrr....

I sent these photos to my work: The highs and lows of my travel

Mt Everest from plane (the black mountain) and expected (+ current!) temperatures in Kazakhstan

Reply to my mum - I knew what to expect, so I took my new woolen coat, plus I ALMOST finished knitting hat and gloves (I wanted to use some of my own wool).

I'm still in balmy (20 degrees) Doha. It's Friday so all shops are closed.

Flying to Kazakhstan tonight!

:-)

Bhutan

Just quickly letting you know because I'm so busy here I don't have much time to write fully... but...

Bhutan has immediately and effortlessly made it into my top 5 destinations to visit. It's there with Libya, Iceland and others! :-)

Landing here was difficult turbulence wise, so if I don't make it out, know that I died happy (except for the last few minutes where I was probably shit scared!)

It's different, people are beautiful and Buddhism keeps it calm and enlightened. The country's unique Gross Domestic Happiness affected me in such a positive way, I'd seek asylum here if it didn't get hot in the summer!

Tomorrow Nepal.

Marriage-Marketing-Madness

** Just because even my parents were worried - I am not looking for a husband - these are just cultural observations! **

For some, getting married just happens. They meet someone, fall in love and then sometime later decide that it's a good idea to get married. Kind of what happened to me long time ago...

Yet this is a very ethnocentric view of marriage. Other cultures have different approaches. In India, many marriages are still arranged. I talked to a few people in India, who have still had their parents or other family members arrange their marriage.

This isn't a post about whichever system is better. This is a post about when neither system works. This is a post about what happens in India when a family is left with an ageing child (or through divorce he/she returns) and what do they do to secure a marriage for him/her. How do they market this marriage 'reject' and finally have the house back to themselves? ;-)

Oh and before you proceed, remember not to take this too seriously... Some of my India posts already resulted in an angry feedback from some (unknown) Indian blog readers.

If you don't like what I write, don't read it.

Newspaper Matrimonials

On Sundays the Times of India newspaper is full of ads. Ads advertising brides and 'boys' of various ages, regions of India and religions. Here's my brief analysis of this phenomena.

FYI - matrimonial ads are divided so:

1. "Wanted Brides" and "Wanted Grooms".

2. Each gender is divided into age groups - 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s.

3. Each age group is divided into religious, locality, social, professional, cultural and other(?) groups, for example: Hindu, Brahmin, Bengali, Cosmopolitan, Green Card, MBA, Doctors...

The list goes on and on...

The ads show the value of a potential partner and from my observation are based on the following (not order of importance):

• educational qualifications - PG (postgraduate), MBA, Medico (medical doctor) and often it is indicated if education was done abroad and where.
• work - wkg (working), world renown MNC (multinational company), professor. Often parents occupations are also included - Fthr Retd Sr Cl1 Ofcr (Father retired senior class 1 officer).
• earnings - 4.5Lpa (Lakhs per annum. Lakh is 100,000 rupees, Cr = Crore is 1 million rupees).
• age and height - 28/6' - 28 years old and 6 feet tall (180cm).
• skin colour - very fair, fair, wheatish (dark) - the lighter the better...
• family - decent status, from respected family, industrialist reputed business family of old Delhi, (family reputation is very important).
• all men no matter what age are called 'boy' - obviously their mothers write these ads...
• and very often an exact birth date is given, including time and location - this is to ensure an astrological match...

So let us look at some examples that I found particularly amusing...

And of course, I focused on the men! ;-)

PS Deciphering these was not easy. I might have made mistakes, so let me know if I'm wrong.

First a few of the "Bride Wanted":

Kumauni is a region of India. Br and Brahmin is a religion. 162cm tall and from March 1975. Masters of Science and a doctorate.

mglk= manglik, which is something from Indian astrology and apparently is bad for marriage.

boy (he will always be a boy to his mother!)

wkg=working (I have no idea what Ggn is) but he earns 11,5 lakhs (=AUD230,000pa).

Seeks beautiful, professionally qualified Kumauni girl with various listed qualifications preferred.

The next ad caught my eye because this 'boy' is seeking specifically a government employed woman.

Agarwal is a community of people in India from the North.

What caught my eye here is the term 'convented', which I think means convent educated...

Does this relate to the potential 'purity' of this 38year old man (according to his mother at least!)?

Notice too the 'early marriage' - I'm still trying to work that one out.

And 'Caste no bar' - meaning a match from a lower caste should not be a problem.

The ad highlighted in pink was just too difficult for me - what l is a 'Farm Fly'??

Here the circled ad got my attention - 'innocent Divorcee with American girl' - yes, I'm sure it was the American girl's fault!

The top left hand ad under Marwaris is also interesting:

Marwari is an Indian ethnic group

SM4 = suitable match for

Separated = only separated, not even divorced yet, mother is fast!

I'less = 'Issueless' or 'without issue' means NO CHILDREN!! And here I thought they were looking for people without problems...

This 54 year old gentleman is one of my favourites because he LOOKS 40 years old (look 40)!! And he also claims he's handsome (h'some) and is a US citizen living in Delhi but is willing to move anywhere else in India!

Maybe he's also one that got corrupted by one of those American girls?





Now this 'boy's' mother really took matters into her own hands!

Suitable match for a Brahmin boy in Canada. Born on 23/01/76 (what a birthday present from mum!), 5'11" tall and had a previous marriage annulled after 7 days (is that a good thing??)

His mother is currently in India and looking for a wife for him...

Lucky boy!

Now this is my all time favourite!!!!

I almost replied to this innocent boy!

Sikh (religion) Boy born on Jan 1980, 5'8" tall, Bachelor of Engineering and MBA educated, earning 10Lpa (=AUD 200,000pa).

Inc (??) Divorced Marriage survived for a few days and was not consummated!!!

Well at least his mother believes his innocence!

:-)

And now for the sake of balance - from the girls, "Grooms Wanted":

Of course all the girls describe themselves a lot more and they are all fair and beautiful!

The first girl certainly knows she likes a man in uniform - Army/Civil officers only!

And in the left column, I wander who insisted in the precise height measurement? 5 feet and 2.5 inches tall?

And then this girl knows exactly what she doesn't want! No widowers, divorcees or dowry seekers!

Interesting this 'no dowry' clause. Apparently a woman is still supposed to bring into the marriage everyday items she uses - like a TV, bed, fridge etc...

Now what would your matrimonial add read like?

Please keep in mind it would be written by your mother or aunts!

And if you're ready to take action, here's who to contact if you've found the one:

PS Please notice I've left the phone numbers and email addresses in these ads visible. I figure this was published in a newspaper so is available to be seen by the public, meaning - you.

But please, leave my innocent Sikh boy alone! He's mine! ;-)

Happy Republic Day!

It's Republic Day here in India and everything seems to be closed, hence no appointments for me either... :-)

In Australia we have Australia Day too, so likewise, Happy Australia Day!

I'm just quickly posting a view of a Delhi street. It's a middle class Delhi suburbia. Taken from a car again.

The driver locked all the doors when he saw me taking pictures. When I asked him why he was worried, he replied: "I am very scary"... Hmmm... I think he meant he was scared. :-)

And later today, in celebration of these two events in very different parts of the World, a special post about marriage, marketing and me!

Delhi again

I'm typing this with my fingers greasy from lunch (Indian food of course, 'veg' too to prevent illness) and the incredulous look from the waiter: "You like Indian food, Mam??"

Yes! I like! As long as it doesn't make me sick! Or fat! OK, or too fat! ;-)

Anyway, it's a miracle I'm even here! Delhi winters are the birthplaces of fog/smog. Extreme fog/smog. have never seen anything like it. Already in Hong Kong the flight was delayed but then in the air, we circled above Delhi for even longer. All those episodes of my favourite TV show - Air Crash Investigation - came to mind where planes ran out of fuel, crashed in heavy fog (I am from Poland, there are precedents!) and mid air collisions as planes scramble to land (those are the worst casualty wise and true pilot-controller, that is, human mistake crashes).

Enough prayers must have been said, or the heavy traffic above Delhi became more dangerous (with pilots unable to speak English...) than landing in the fog or the pilot decided to test the autopilot but we landed eventually. And Delhi was nicely cool!

Everyone knows I love cold weather, give me snow and freezing temperatures any day! So Delhi was cooler than normal, maybe 14 degrees, but didn't warrant the woolen headscarves that Indian men wrap around their heads or the big woolen coats that the women wear... And everyone walks around rubbing their hands together like they going to get frostbite!

My driver found me or rather I found him (wearing a scarf around his head and rubbing his hands together) and we drove to the hotel at the ungodly hour of 5am.

This is where I invent a new term - 'intuitive driving'.

The fog was thicker than I've seen and the driver still drove fast, hell, he talked on his mobile and drove fast, even more - he talked on mobile, did the head shaking thing and drove fast!

OK, I'm exaggerating here, he didn't do the head shaking...

The 2 photos show - 1st the view from side window of the car and 2nd the view from the windscreen - only a very bright lamp visible.

When I got to the hotel, I found out that it was the foggiest and coldest day in Delhi for a while. It was even reported in the Delhi papers.

Next few photos are of typical Delhi streets. In doing my work, I have to go to the offices of people we work with and I just wanted to show you you what we might see along the way. So below is a typical view of a street, outside of the typical the tourist areas.

Then I also spotted a street barber and took a snapshot of that from the car.

And here, when I finally arrived at the destination, my driver with the car waited at the car park where 100s of cars are parked haphazardly. And then I spotted the dogs on top of the cars! :-)

India is full of these homeless dogs that roam the streets, eating rubbish, procreating and just hanging about. It must have been warmer for the dogs on top of these cars. When I first came here, I was terrified of these dogs, but they seem mostly harmless. There are incidents of dog bites, I saw a newspaper article reporting the yearly statistics, but hey, I got my rabies vaccine! ;-)

Incidentally, this place - where the dogs were, was the first office I ever visited in India, outside of tourist areas. If you remember, I was shocked at how dirty the inside of buildings were.

The photo below is the proof - a year later and things haven't changed.

This is a staircase inside an Indian office building.

And again...

Do you know that I am still living with the intention to update? Even Iceland from 6 months ago still deserves its write up...

But it's that time again... I haven't finished packing but in 5 hours the roller coaster starts:

Australia - Canberra (30 degrees and sunny)

India - Delhi (10 to 20 degrees and morning fogs = plane delays)

Bhutan - Thimpu (-5 to 0 degrees and some light snow + happiest people on Earth)

Nepal - Kathmandu (3 to 16 degrees and sunny + calm Buddhists and Himalayas)

Qatar - Doha (18 to 23 degrees and sunny + some rooftop shisha smoking)

Kazakhstan - Almaty and Astana (-21 to -35 degrees, snow and sunny + YES! I am looking forward to it!!! :-) )

Korea - Seoul (-6 to 0 degrees and sunny + a short stopover for a sleep and a recharge)

Then back home on 11 Feb to Australian summer :-)