Tag Archives: everyday life Sorong, the largest city in the newly-formed Indonesian province of Southwest Papua, is the sort of place people usually go through rather than to. As the logistics hub for Indonesia’s thriving eastern oil and gas frontier, it harbours a busy industrial port. For tourists and scientists, it is the gateway to Raja Ampat, a collection […]  Any visitor to these pages knows I love markets. So, on my first day in Srinagar, the largest city and summer capital of the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, India, I was in my element. The itinerary had us walking through various old streets and markets. I was travelling with a small group of […]  I’ve said it before: being on and around the waters of Vembanad Lake in Kerala, South India had a soporific effect on me (see: On the Kerala Backwaters). The heat – and the haze that the heat produced on the water – and soft chugging of the motors of the river traffic had me feeling like […]  India is a bundle of contradictions: chaos and calm permeate everything in equal measure. The sacred and the mundane rub shoulders. Think of the mingling scents of incense, cow dung, and refuse, and you might get a sense of it. India is never dull! Every time I wander Indian streets, I return to my lodgings […]  India is a collection of colourful paradoxes. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Holy Cities along the Ganges: that river that is the embodiment of all the sacred waters in Hindu mythology and at the same time, one of the most contaminated rivers in the world. So, while it is said that you […] |
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