The highlights...

Traveling can often be totally overwhelming; the sights, sounds, smells that surround you and speeds at which everything moves are alien and it takes a couple of days to adapt and adjust to your new surroundings.

Likewise, after 5 weeks in India it takes 48 hrs or so to adjust back to Paris life - people smoking everywhere, not having to hold someone else's chicken or child on the bus and the lack of spices in the food. In fact I shouted at my taxi driver on the way home from the airport as I was truly terrified at the speed he was driving at.
'Mais Madame', he said, 'I am well within the speed limit!' and he was, but as I hadn't traveled faster than about 40kmh for the last month suddenly 120kmh felt like warp speed.

Its only after i've adapted back to our 'speed of light' Western lifestyle I can sit down and reflect on my trip, and after a month back in Paris there are many highlights that remain bright in my memory:

Bouncing around in the jeep convoy through the tea-plantations to Darjeeling

Crawling out of my sleeping bag to see sunrise on Kanchenjunga and Everest

Trekking with Tom and Rob down through the cardamom forests

Dawn over the Tibetan plateau, freezing, but in the company of warm friends!

Trekking to Pelling with Daphna and Arvi - the Khecheopalri Kids!

Having Jeroen fill an entire page of my notebook with book and music recommendations, then racing round Kolkata in taxis

Having out of trains with Arvi

Sunsets in Puri

and of course all the food!

As you'll notice from most of the photos, many of my highlights are moments i've shared with people i've met along the way, and theres a very good reason for this. The majority of people I meet traveling are open-minded, adventurous, fun loving, inquisitive, generous, spontaneous, cultured and eager to share everything - from travel tales, tips and warnings to their food and company for a few days.

Traveling to a foreign country is always a rich experience and my trip to India was made all the more so by the people I met there. So to all my travel companions in 2007 I say 'Thank you!' for helping make my journeys so much fun, and see you somewhere off the beaten track in 2008!

x

Unwieldy Baggage Packers - take note!

Hell on wheels, By Seth Stevenson

IHT, Friday, December 21, 2007

ABOARD SEVEN SEAS MARINER, Pacific Ocean: You'd rather not think about it - and you never, ever talk about it - but you and I both know that you've run over feet.

You can rationalize. (The airport concourse was crowded. You were distracted, looking up at the departures board.) But come clean. You know it's happening. You can feel your rolling suitcase treating a stranger's ankle as a speed bump. You can hear the swallowed yelp of pain.

And do you apologize? You might mumble "sorry" over a shoulder.

But you never break stride. Instead, you steer into the Chili's restaurant next to your gate, your bag clipping a waitress' shin as you wheel to the bar. (Go ahead, drown your guilt in that frozen margarita. It won't cure her limp.)

Aboard the plane, the wanton destruction continues. For the central fallacy of the wheeled luggage trend is that your suitcase will roll smoothly up the aisle in coach. Lie!

Your bag lurches along, catching on seat handles, bumping knees and elbows. You pull harder when it gives resistance. You pull harder still. And you look back to see your bag scraping against the thigh of an obese seated passenger. His haunch has spilled into the aisle to meet the wrath of your ballistic nylon.

When you at last reach your seat, do you gracefully collapse your telescoping handle and lightly tuck your bag in the overhead compartment? No, your handle jams, holding up the line behind you. And your bag won't fit because all the other bags up there also have huge, jutting wheels.

Plus - particularly if you are a petite, elderly woman (a demographic I am in most cases quite fond of, I promise you) - you sometimes can't lift your bag at all. This is because those wheels have freed you from having to rely on your own muscle power, or a hired valet. You're encouraged to over-pack to such a degree that you can no longer move your bag without wheels. So you stagger weakly under its weight until (if I see you) I assist you with it or (if I don't) you drop it on my head - bludgeoning me with 70 pounds of toiletries.

People, you never need more clothes than you can comfortably carry in a shoulder bag. Soldiers in 'Nam got by with less gear than the average executive now packs for a two-day trip. Unless you are a deep-sea diver or, maybe, an iron-ore salesman, your luggage really shouldn't necessitate load-bearing wheels.

Also: aesthetics. Your dorky rolling bag doesn't say, "I'm embarking on a voyage." It says, "I'm going to a conference in Cleveland." And maybe you are, but you don't have to advertise it. The swashbuckling adventurer hoists a leather rucksack, or a battered canvas duffel. He doesn't tug his bag behind him on a leash like a stubborn and especially boring pet.

It's easy to see the appeal of wheeled luggage, of course. It eases our burdens and lifts the weight off our shoulders. It keeps our neatly pressed jackets un-mussed. But rolling bags are really functional only for the type of journey that goes taxi-airport-taxi-hotel-shuttle bus-convention center. Outside this comfortable circuit, they're often useless.

I've been traveling a lot recently, in countries ranging from developed to less developed to dear Lord, is that a monkey attacking a naked child? In harsher conditions, a dainty rolling bag is absurdly out of place. It's no fun rolling those wheels across a "street" that's just a rain-soaked blotch of mud. Or bouncing them up the stairs of a packed train station. Or dragging them through a marketplace where puddles are indeed full of fish and goat entrails. (Enjoy that pungent odor when your bag is back in your room.)

Don't misunderstand me: I'm not trying to eliminate rolling bags altogether. I'm just trying to halt their unchecked proliferation.

Perhaps we should regard them with the same mild disapproval that greets that fur coat your mom inherited. She won't throw it away, but she is a bit uneasy about wearing it in public.

This will all become moot, of course, with the advent of the levitating suitcase, an invention that can't be far off. When it arrives, we'll immediately go gaga for it. And soon after, I'm sure, your bag will be levitating swiftly and directly into my groin.

I await your mumbled apology.

Thanks Seth, you've said it all

x

Where to next...?


Often when I get back from a trip one of the questions my friends and colleagues ask is "Where are you off to next?". They know i've a wish list of countries/regions as long as my arm (no, longer!) and its just a matter of getting more time off work before i'm heading off somewhere else. The question remains.... where?

Up until now various factors have determined my next destination; amount of time off work, the season, political situations and my bank account to name a few. Another factor is difficulty of travel, for example i've not been to many European cities or large swathes of the 'developed' world, simply because travel there is so much easier that I can visit them when i'm older and maybe less able. But just recently i've become more aware of other elements or risks I should include when deciding on my next destination.

The number of tourists traveling to Tibet has hit a record high, Chinese state media has reported.
Just over four million tourists will have visited Tibet in 2007, an official said, an increase of 64% year on year.
The official put the increase down to better marketing and improved transport links, including the controversial high-speed rail service to China. bbc.co.uk 17 Dec 07

For a long time i've dreamt of visiting Tibet - exploring its mountains and high desert plains - but have balked at the idea of going there whilst its under Chinese rule. However with tourism expanding fast that means the country, its people, culture and even landscape, is being exposed and altered by outside influences and if I want to see Tibet before Starbucks moves in i'd better get a move on!

Also much as I abhor the Chinese for their human rights records I admit to admiring their China-Tibet railway. The project they undertook was almost impossible given tracks had to be laid on shifting deserts, melting permafrost, in earthquake zones and much of the construction undertaken at high altitude in freezing conditions. Given my geeky fascination for feats of extreme engineering and passion for unexplored areas and train travel, Tibet and the Lhasa railway is now a dream journey, and it looks like i'm going to have to make it sooner rather than later.

And there are other human impacts that need to be factored in to my decision making...

DENNIS and STACIE WOODS choose their vacation destinations based on what they fear is fated to destruction.

This month it was a camping and kayaking trip around the Galápagos Islands. Last year, it was a stay at a remote lodge in the Amazon, and before that, an ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro.

The visit to the Amazon was “to try to see it in its natural state before it was turned into a cattle ranch or logged or burned to the ground,” Mr. Woods said. Kilimanjaro was about seeing the sunrise on the highest peak in Africa before the ice cap melts, as some forecasters say it will within the next dozen years.

Next on their list: the Arctic before the ice is gone. NY Times 16 Dec 2007

Hundreds, probably thousands, of vacation companies and expedition organisers are cashing in on this 'get there before its gone' logic, otherwise known as 'Doom Tourism'. Its pretty ironic in that in we're all busy burning carbon fuels in a rush to get to the places we're trying to see/save before they melt/flood/burn/die.

Its also hypocritical of me to want to be a tourist in Tibet whilst citing tourism as a reason for its changing face and landscape, however in my defense theres a big difference between being a low impact backpacker and demanding 5-star hotels with Western cafes, CNN & wifi in every room...

The questions I now need to ask myself when deciding 'where next' have changed. Like Mr & Mrs Woods, sunrise on Kilimanjaro is on my list, and as temperatures rise its ascends faster than ever up that list. When? for how long? under what political situations? and with what budget? are no longer priorities. These days I don't have to think about whether i'll be fit and able to travel to a destination when i'm older, but whether it will even exist anymore...

x

Down down, deeper and down...




When I arrived India was gearing up for Diwali, the 'festival of light', a celebration involving gifts, sharing meals and exploding large amounts of firecrackers. But the firecrackers weren't the only thing exploding as Sensex, India's stock exchange, hit the 20,000 mark for the first time ever.

India's economy is booming and it has no problems justifying its position in the 'BRIC' (Brazil, Russia, India & China) group of future power nations, who are already muscling in on the traditional super economies. Yet I don't think the Sensex's record high made it on to many pages or websites around the world- perhaps because they're all too busy reporting on the continuing demise of the dollar...

This weekend's IHT ran a cover story on the difficulties faced by US expats in Europe and Asia who are dependent on dollar salaries, pensions or client bases and gave plenty of examples of belts being tightened or sticks upped and moved to countries where the living costs were lower. Whilst India and its BRIC allies become richer the dollar earning expats are significantly poorer now than they were a year ago, and at present there are few glimmers of hope on the horizon.


I noticed back in 2004 when I was last in India that Euros and Pounds were easier to change than dollars and saw further proof of the situation in S. America earlier this year when Euros, Pounds and even Swiss Francs were prefreable to dollars. For this latest trip I made the decision to travel only with Euros, a decision the Indian government backed up by refusing to accept dollar payments for entry to many of the countries tourist sites:

'The Ministry of Culture has begun insisting that tourists visiting the country’s monuments, including the Taj Mahal, pay the entrance fees in rupees rather than in dollars. Entrance to many sites for foreign tourists is priced in dollars and then converted to rupees, but the ministry has been losing tourism revenue as the dollar slid more than 12 percent this year against the rupee.' NY Times, 17 Nov 07

It's not just the Ministry of Culture that's refusing dollars... I heard a tale of beggar in Kolkata turning up their nose and walking away from a woman who offered her dollar bills!

As some Indian's and expats take all necessary measures to protect their revenues those earning Pounds and Euros are cashing in on their currencies strength and flexing their purchasing power by jetting off to the US to do their Christmas shopping:

'“Your money just keeps on going,” said Ms. Dragonette, awed at the buying power of her British pounds, each worth $2.03 at the time.

The dollar was so weak, said her cousin, a 27-year-old nurse, “We had trouble spending all our money.” Add a new superlative to New York’s long list: world’s most fabulous discount mall.

With the dollar near its lowest rate against the pound in 26 years, and its lowest rate against the euro ever, many Europeans are looking at the United States the way some Americans have long viewed Latin America and the Caribbean and, once upon a time, Europe — a cheap place to flex their strong currency. ' NY Times 15 Dec 07

At least the US hotel and retail economy would appear to be profiting from the dollars doldrums...

Who knows how long the dollar will continue to devalue... in the meantime if you're thinking of traveling to India, or anywhere else on earth for that matter, forget those greenbacks - they're not worth the paper they're printed on!

Save the planet... strip!
(an aside from India)

Some people will go to all kinds of extremes to save the planet, Jean-Louis Borloo, France's Minister for the Environment being one of them!

On a recent trip to Bali to visit a coral regeneration scheme Jean-Louis stripped to his boxers, donned a mask and made an unscheduled dive to see the site for himself.

Good for him! He dropped his pants and raised awareness by ensuring his picture, and therefore the coral project, got plenty of media attention. What i'm curious about though his PR peoples motive behind this picture ...

Back in the summer I posted on the scandal caused by Paris Match air brushing out Sarkozy's lovehandles. Apparently Sarko's entourage felt those 'poignées d'amour' might not correspond with his dynamic, charismatic presidential profile and magicked them away.

Jean-Louis however doesn't seem to deserve the same attention as theres definitely some flab, blubber and even a touch of arse crack going on in this photo.

Do the French expect less of their lower members of government and therefore the PR people let these things slide? or is their aim to portray our Environmental minister as a 'no messy, straight to action' kind of man?

Maybe in revealing himself as a pretty typical middle-aged Frenchmen he'll inspire many other Frenchmen to take some impulsive action to help save our environment. Lets just hope they keep their trousers on in the process!

K