Destinations

Following James Bond’s Footsteps in Udaipur

March 11, 2012 by Bino 1 Comment

Having two full days to spend in Jaipur proved to be of no help in shaking off the lingering travel fatigue. Apparently, one is not considered a serious traveler until one has done India and now I realize why people said so. It can sap the energy out of those who don’t fully open their minds to the highs and lows of the Indian experience. And on my sixth day, I was in for another test.

the seemingly floating lake palace on lake pichola

As our next destination was quite far away from Jaipur, we decided to take the train again this time. Because our train departed late that night, we got to witness a different scene at the station, the usual touts and scams aside. Many of the locals practically kept staring at us. Intently. When I said intently, it meant that they stood around 2 feet away as a group and stared with eyes wide open as if I came from outer space! I found it really surprising as this was not at all the case during the previous days. People elsewhere generally seemed impervious to the presence of foreigners as India (or to be more precise, the places we went to) were quite touristy, so this scene at the train station was certainly strange. Then, there were also the rats as big as cats running openly on the train tracks.

…

Turning Pink in Jaipur

March 8, 2012 by Bino 7 Comments

If I were to list down the most exotic-sounding city names I have ever heard, Jaipur would be a shoo-in (along with Timbuktu, Ouagadougou, Samarkand and of course, Baghdad). Jaipur – the name alone brings to mind images of maharajas, stately palaces, bearded men with turbans and snake charmers – it’s the quintessential India in the eyes of naive foreigners like me who lack familiarity with the myriad of cultures actually found in this massive country.

more peach than pink… but yeah, i’m in jaipur all right

To be honest, it was not the iconic Taj Mahal in Agra nor the scattered UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Delhi that prodded me to come to India. It is rather the desert state of Rajasthan – a region of colors, festivals and bright architecture – which led me here. And surely, there was no better introduction to this northwestern Indian state than through Jaipur – the pink city, its capital.

…

Taj Mahal: A Timeless Monument to Love

March 5, 2012 by Bino 9 Comments

We arrived in Agra at almost 11PM. Coming from my very first train ride on a sleeper car, I just wanted to get to our hotel. But there was one final hurdle.

the taj… a lot more atmospheric early in the day

After leaving the train station, I was immediately accosted by one of the city’s notorious touts. Did I want a taxi? Where was I going to stay? Oh, that hotel is already closed! No, no and no. We just walked on despite his useless inquiries as he tried to impose his choice of accommodation upon us.

We eventually got to our hotel – a relatively simple, if not overrated lodging mere minutes away from the Taj Mahal. This was after all what we came to see. This was why we’re in Agra, to lay our eyes on this gem in the middle of all the mess. A famous Indian poet once called it a “teardrop in the face of eternity” and experts rate it as one of the most beautiful buildings in history. We were about to find out if this white tomb is worth all the hype.

…

Delhi: My Absolutely Chaotic Introduction to India

March 3, 2012 by Bino 10 Comments

Even from the very beginning, there was red tape. At the Air Asia X check-in at KLIA, the counter staff asked us for a visa. It seems that not a lot of people use India’s visa-on-arrival facilities so the staff was still thinking twice whether to board us on the flight. But we eventually argued our way through.

chaos!!!

We landed at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Airport after a flight time of approximately 5 hours. Their terminal seriously reminds me of Changi – the carpeting and signage look like they’re copied down to a tee. But I do have to hand it to them – DEL is really pleasing to the eyes. The visa-on-arrival desk is hidden in one of the obscure corners of the terminal and took us a while to find. With only 1 guy manning the booth, it took us nearly an hour to get our visas.

…

Joseph Stalin’s Hometown of Gori

February 17, 2012 by Bino 1 Comment

This was our third and final day in Georgia and it turned out to be an auspicious one. I woke up about an hour before sunrise in Tbilisi. Despite the darkness, I could make out these little white particles descending from the sky. It was snowing!

gori fortress

I checked the temperature and it said -7 celsius outside. What a way to mark my last day here in Georgia. We decided to try our luck once more that morning and searched for a minibus that was heading to Gori, a town that is famous for being Joseph Stalin’s hometown.

After doing the same routine at the bus terminal as the previous day, going back and forth and using nothing but sign language, we finally found the marshrutka heading for Gori. We were the first passengers in the van, and their system was to wait for it to fill up before it could depart (same with the jeepneys in the Philippines!) We sat there and waited for what must have been nearly an hour, hoping and praying that each and every pedestrian that passed by was looking to go to Gori as well. It was only when this group of American and British English teachers boarded that the van reached its maximum capacity.

…

The Unpronounceable UNESCO World Heritage Town of Mtskheta

February 15, 2012 by Bino 10 Comments

“M-TSKHE-TA,” I shouted, pointing furiously to my guidebook. It was our second day in Georgia and the plan was to visit this UNESCO World Heritage town only a few minutes away from Tbilisi. We were at the bus station and no one around us could seem to understand a word we were saying.

a cathedral whose name i can’t pronounce, in a town whose name i also can’t pronounce

It didn’t help that everything was in Georgian writing, which is totally alien to me. They don’t even use Cyrillic like the Russians and they have their own alphabet. We would have been toast and left to board some random car that could have been headed to war-torn South Ossetia had it not been for this helpful chap. “Oh, you are going to Skheta?,” he asked. Apparently, the first two letters of this town’s name are supposed to be silent. He directed us to a row of parked minivans. The most popular mode of long-distance transportation in Georgia are actually not public buses but these speedy contraptions called marshrutka – a legacy of Georgia’s Soviet past. For 1 Lari (approximately US$0.60), we boarded one of these to Mtskheta which was just 30 minutes away from Tbilisi.

…

Warm Hospitality and Subzero Temperatures in Tbilisi

February 12, 2012 by Bino 80 Comments

It was towards the tail-end of a great flight (one of the best I’ve been on after constant delays in my previous flights in Southeast Asia) when I first had a glimpse of Georgia from the window of the plane. Everything was covered with snow and for the nth time, I pondered on my seemingly spontaneous decision of coming here during the depths of the Soviet winter. Average temperatures in Georgia were supposed to hover at around 2 to 10 celsius, but in reality, it turned out to be a numbing -10 to 0 celsius.

touchdown tbilisi!

I have heard about the legendary Georgian hospitality before, where visitors are believed to come from God. Even from the immigration part alone, it certainly did seem like it. The arrival formalities at the airport was a breeze. Ex-Soviet countries are notorious for gifting tourists with a lot of red tape but Georgia was refreshingly efficient and welcoming. Over 70 nationalities can enter visa-free and Filipinos can enter with a visa on arrival for roughly USD 30. It is the only European country that Filipinos can visit without needing a pre-arranged visa. (Note: Georgia changed its visa regime in September 2014. Visas are no longer issued on arrival and need to be secured beforehand)

…

Kampong Glam: Wandering Singapore’s Arab Quarter

January 30, 2012 by Bino 9 Comments

Singapore’s small size belies the cultural diversity evidenced by its traditional ethnic quarters. This entry will be the first of hopefully three parts – with this first one covering Kampong Glam, a traditional Muslim enclave which has seen recent gentrification due to its proximity to the downtown core.

the sultan mosque – you can’t miss it!

One need not go far to witness something resembling more of the Near East in this Southeast Asian tropical island. In Kampong Glam, minarets and hookah joints prevail over churches and coffeeshops. To be sure, it feels foreign while still maintaining the orderliness and efficiency that Singapore is known all over the world for.

…

Page 26 of 34

« Previous 1 … 24 25 26 27 28 … 34 Next »