Blog are very self-indulgent and I continue in the same vein. After writing my diary entries about Japan here, I started thinking of experiences and moments in other new places.
Before arriving in a new country, I am breathlessly excited and almost always feel a little bit let-down afterwards...not because I am a pessimist (a whole new blog entry for that) but because I have this notion that it will be totally different from what I have seen so far.
This entry is a brief account of my impressions and moments landing in a new place starting from my very first trip outside India to the US of A. I often remember things from a long time ago...my fourth birthday..I am sucking orange toffees in the balcony on a sunny January afternoon...and Mummy is inside and no one else is around...this moment is frozen...mentally, I don't see a dramatic change in me either....haha..
Starting from my first few days in the US, some unforgettable moments:
The air is crisp and the sun sharp when N and I step out into the street. I am enamored by the well-dressed people in suits in Manhattan...
An unforgettable image..on Fifth Avenue at the traffic light a newly wed East Asian couple runs across the road, stops in the middle and kiss with people cheering them...and then they step into a limousine.
In the classroom, I am surprised by the sight of students with drinks and food as the instructors teach...how quiet I was at that time... The informality of the instructors is fascinating....a different academic world.
I get into an elevator and a stranger smiles and says hello...I am taken aback and start liking it.
Spain
Impressions of Madrid, Toledo....
People milling around in the subway station...in Plazas...in streets...dressed in leather, women in heels and pants so long they sweep the streets.
All parts of animal meat displayed like art exhibits in the shops....bright shining New Year lights and the music...Feliz Navidad played in malls....the produce salesman at the shop forbids me to touch fruit before buying it....I do not like it.
In Toledo, we meet a beautiful woman in an exquisite art shop...white hair and green eyes dressed in pink with a sparkling smile and a pink ribbon in her hair...We struggle to communicate without a common language... and naturally :) we ask her birth date....she does not understand...N hums the Happy Birthday tune and she gets it...runs to a calendar and points to February 14...
Thailand
The tropical foliage of this part of the world is simply heaven...the fruits...the flowers...the leaves....the waters...Bangkok is just fine...not worth spending more than a couple of days..
What is better....north Thailand going towards Burma...where army men check our IDs vigorously...the town Mae Sot so close to Burma...we see Burma across a river...it is like India..lots of people of Indian origin residing here...the most amazing food we had here...(a whole new blog on food for determined vegetarian travelers..:)..the pouring rains....ahaa...nothing is like rains in this part of the world...dream of going to Rangoon (Yangon now) one day....introduced to Burmese food and am not the same since....delicious is an understatement.
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Teenagers and younger kids chase you down to buy wares in this dusty and dimly lit town....settle in a guest house...with alligators in the back yard!...I peered through the curtains and saw two of them basking in the sun...oddly, I did not feel any fear...
At Angkor Vat, again face a deluge of eager sellers who will say anything to sell their wares including praise of feminine beauty...My heart is racing as I climb up and down the steep stairs in different enclosures in the complex.
Images from Ramayana and Mahabharata adorn huge walls ...and incongruously (or perhaps not), statues of Buddha installed in the temples covered in saffron cloth....
At night as we crave desi food, we step into an Indian restaurant and eat possibly the worst food...There is no other customer and an over eager host...should have been a red herring..
European tourists flocking the restaurants in the evening...Saw a menu which stopped me dead in my tracks....snake, kangaroo, ostrich and alligator..hello!...are those alligators in the back yard ending up on a plate??..yikes....see the menu..
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