Men where pants here, regardless of the temperature. Usually only boys (and tourists) wear shorts. Indian women typically wear a sari (a single piece of cloth that is wrapped without pins or buttons) or a salwar kameez (a long shirt and trouser combination). Younger people prefer jeans, despite the fact…
Travel
Karni Mata Temple
Today we visited one of the most bizarre temples in India. It is located in the village of Deshnok, 30 kilometers outside of the city of Bikaner in Rajasthan. According to Hindu legend (as retold in the Lonely Planet guidebook), Karni Mata, a 14th-century reincarnation of Durga, asked the god…
Rajasthan – by Patrick
I’m sitting on bunk number 41, coach S1, on the train from Jaisalmer to Bikaner. It is very hot. And very dusty. The train windows are all open as there is no air conditioning in sleeper class. Dust filters in, too fine to be seen during daylight hours, but it…
Welcome to India
We arrived in Mumbai a few days ago at 4AM local time. We had previously decided to wait in the airport until sunrise. After wandering around the airport to find an ATM that didn’t work, we needed to change some US dollars into Rupees in order to get a taxi.…
Doha First Class
On our flight from London to Mumbai on Qatar Airways, we had a short stopover in Doha, the capital city of Qatar. The airport is basically a transfer station for those flying elsewhere, but it had an amazing duty free shop selling both the full suite of luxury goods, and…
Africa
Here’s a quick summary of our last few weeks in Africa. After four flights over two days, we made it back to Arusha, a town in Northern Tanzania, which was the base for our next two weeks. We met our friends from Canada who came to join us on vacation…
Observations about East and Southern Africa
People have a vague understanding of Canada, and a generally positive impression. Some think it is part of the US. Many know that it is cold there, and can quote the city names of ‘Toronto’ and ‘Vancouver’, even though they have no idea where these are. The majority of the…
Okavango Delta
We entered Botswana from Zimbabwe and traveled west across the north of the country to the small city of Maun, the gateway to the Okavango Delta. This area was highly recommended to us by our friends Barb and Terry, who traveled here many years ago. Unfortunately, Botswana is not a…
Whatever happens, don’t run
Our train ride took us to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, the nearest city to Matabo National Park, known to the locals as ‘Matopos’. This park is home to one of the best collections of San rock paintings, many of which are over 20,000 years old. The San are better known as ‘bushmen’,…
The Train Trip
We promised you no more bus stories, so this is a story about the train trip that we took in the last 24 hours… We wanted to travel from Victoria Falls to Bulawayo, both on the western side of Zimbabwe. The options were a five hour bus trip leaving at…