mungbean in india
 

Category Archives: Exploring India

The End of India

So I recently reached the End of India. I have just spent the first two weeks of December travelling around Tamil Nadu and Kerala in the South, mostly by train, and taking in Ooty, Madurai and Kochi, with a stop in the middle at Kanyakumari (pictured), the Southern-most point in India.  The end of the line. And then five days ago I left India. It was four years ago today that I arrived in Bangalore at the start of that adventure, eventually […]

Looking Back…

So somehow this blog seems to have fallen off my radar this year. For most of it I’ve been incredibly busy at work, including studying for my PGCHE as well as leading a re-write of our undergraduate curriculum. It feels like I had barely any time to do anything outside of work until September. I’ve been planning a trip in the first half of December, so I’ve also been looking back at where I’ve already been over the last 4 years. […]

India on Wheels

Testing slideshow from Flickr.

Mumbai

I went to Mumbai last week–mainly because we had finally got through the madness of our graduation, exhibition and fashion show at college and I wanted to get away for a few days, but also because I was really curious to see what the city is like. Everyone told me that it would be crazy and crowded and noisy, but I really liked the place.  Admittedly though, I did spend the first day or two in the slightly more well-heeled […]

Small Things #2

In a hotel room in Mumbai, Sunday morning about 9am.  I suddenly notice that it’s really quiet… all I can hear is the clock ticking and crows cawing outside.  A tap-tap on the window turns out to be a dragonfly looking in.  It must have been like this for at least half an hour. I’m pondering how peace and quiet is such a rare commodity in Indian cities, and how you could run special holidays to quiet places for city-dwellers. […]

UP North, Part 1

I’m only just finishing off writing this post in July, but the last bit of holiday I managed to take was our “term break” in the last week of March. I took a short trip away to see another bit of India — this time up to the Northern state of Uttar Pradesh, or U.P. as it’s known. I got away for a whole 7 days, which is the longest I’ve been off work since arriving here in December 2010. […]

उत्तार प्रदेश

[ Hover mouse over the text for English translation. I had to write something for my Hindi class, so I thought I would post it… ] मार्च में मेरे पास सात दिन कि छुट्टी थी, तो मैं उत्तार प्रदेश गया । पहली बार थी । मैं हवाई जहाज़ से लखनऊ गया, और फिर मैं रेलगाड़ी से वाराणसी गया । मुझे वाराणसी बहुत पसन्द था। प्राचीन और दिलचस्प शहर है, और हिन्दूओं के लिए बहुत पवित्र स्थान है । भोर से […]

The Best Photo I Never Took

Mysore at the start of a hot and sunny October. The Dussehra festivities mean the small town is bursting with people. On a busy road, a tallish Indian man with a huge grey handlebar moustache has a wide basket balanced on his head.  It’s more than a metre in diameter, shallow, straight-sided and piled infeasibly high with bananas. He keeps his back and neck perfectly straight to ensure the basket is steady, and holds the side with one hand.  He’s […]

Pondy and Beyond

  The last couple of weeks have been pretty eventful for me, with a lightning trip to our Calcutta campus to sort out some business for a couple of days, immediately followed by a short break in Pondicherry, an enclave of Tamil Nadu on the East coast. Pondy is a lovely place, a former French colony and still carrying many traces of those times, from the street signs in French and Tamil, to the menus in the restaurants including Steak-Frites […]