JaJaJeEv

Viewing the Eiffel was a good start to 2010.  We even considered the chilly prospect of joining the lengthy queues to get a better view of Paris before we thought better of it.

I am surrounded by native New Zealand bush, trying to catch up on the episodes of our trip so far. But here goes!

Heading south from Bangkok, we settle near Krabi for a boutique week or so. Yes, it’s “Man With The Golden Gun” country.

We take a trip over to the left-hand-most of the archipelago: Hong Island. Crystal blue lagoon stuffed with snorkel-worthy fish, precarious limestone cliffs, and sand to die for.

Oh, and a 6ft-long Monitor Lizard who roves around looking for unfinished sandwiches and unwary 4-year-olds.

Heading inland, the island shows its scars. The parties of cheerful tourists who headed to the same beach on 26th December 2004 did not all make it off. Their boats have been left where they landed – up in the rainforest, almost 100 yards from the beach – as a sober memorial.

Full set of photos here.

First stop on the trip: steamy Thailand.

After re-acquainting ourselves with the fevered pace of a city whose central focal point seems to be a strip of approximately 39 modern shopping malls (not pictured above… this was a side street), we head up the river to go and see assorted temples and palaces.

En route, Jayne gets her fortune told. “You will meet a tall, handsome stranger”.

Lo and behold… a few minutes later, there he was:

… the giant reclining Buddha of Wat Pho.

If you haven’t been to Bangkok, it’s possible your preconceptions are wrong. Admittedly we arrived from India, (so it may as well have been New York or Geneva to us), but it’s a thrusting, modern, commercial city – and quite apparently a powerhouse of Asian consumerism.

(The traffic could do with some attention though).

Although the tail end of Typhoon Ketsana managed to inundate our apartment and waterlog James’ laptop mid-stay, we loved it. All the photos here

The brands of lightweight travel: Timberland, Nokia, Salomon, Canon, Apple, P20, PADI, the UK government and Niall Ferguson.

Our first stop is Mumbai, as a weekend’s decompression – and this time’s departure from India. We’re staying right down on Juhu Beach, and of an early morning, it’s a bustling walkway, sports pitch, harbour, religious site, and fish warehouse… all at the same time.

The main trade seems to be pole-supported nets, dragged in by the fishermen. The contents are mostly eel, but that’s wastage, and they all end up rejected on the sand, and a feast for the thousands of gulls.

Amongst the remaining rubbish and ceremonial detritus, the keepers end up being squid, lobsters, and only the largest of the white fish:

All of this, of course, adds to that unique aroma which can only be one of the world’s largest cities, Mumbai, on a muggy tropical morning.

So, farewell Maharashtra for a while!

To get away from the heat in May, we headed up to Manali, a hill station up in the Himalayas, about a 14 hour (memorable) bus journey north of Delhi.

After the heat and dust of a record summer, the cool mountain forests and meadows were another of India’s amazing contrasts.

Manali is more or less an Indian resort – mostly national tourism – and seems to have made a name for itself in the action sports department. Trampolining…

…abseiling, climbing…

…getting wet…

…rolling down hills in plastic balls…

…and bouncing across raging glacial torrents.

Adrenaline junkies though they may appear, however, nothing prepared us for the drive up to Rhotang Pass the next day… of which more to come.

As of tomorrow morning we are homeless. Homeless for almost 4 months.

Our ‘Big Trip’ (as we describe it to the kids) kicks off tomorrow. Basically we are heading east, south, east, north, and east again in order to reach Europe for Christmas.

I have a small backlog of Indian photos to get up on this blog over the coming weeks. After that, stay tuned for the next stages of our family adventure!

Whilst footwear-related instructions at the temple seem to be designed to be contradicted…

… are the repairs to the inner part of the basilica …

… due perhaps to too many fireworks?

Photos: a day of temples and basilicas in Goa and old Goa. The latter is a cluster of vast, slightly lonely Portuguese edifices – in stark contrast to the bustling intimacy of Shri Nagesh, top.

Back in May, we spent an great week in Goa – (yet!) another corner of India with a particularly unique atmosphere.

No moonlight trance raves for us – this was a laid-back family stay at a wonderful resort.

Nestled at the tip of a long empty beach, all the Arabian Sea clichés apply, but, well… why not?

We’ve used the Indian Railways several times this year: these photos are at Ernakulam Junction in Kerala en route to to Goa.

No words can describe something as vast, complex, and diverse as the Indian railway system – even the clichéd ‘did-you-knows‘. (And anyway, I believe WalMart has more employees these days.)

Travelling overnight, the trans-state miles slip by in relative comfort. It’s a wonderful way to wake up, seeing rural India rattling past. Even better, you get enjoy the truly unique experience of an Indian station at night while waiting to board.

During the day, the stations are everything you might expect – squared. A heaving mass of humanity, with members of every stratum of Indian society (and several species of animal) trying to pass through – or live within – the noisy, bustling station halls and platforms.

But the chaos works. Millions of travellers get where they want to go every day, more or less on time. Millions of tickets are issued, and waiting lists planned, printed and checked off, with rarely a computer system in sight.

In fact, in Ernakulum, the centre of technology gravity was actually in the waiting room, where passengers line up by the single socket panel to charge their (in some cases, multiple) mobile phones.

I have spent more time cleaning Indian drains in one year than I have in a Western hemisphere lifetime. And as you can (but probably rather wouldn’t) imagine, it’s not the most pleasant of sewage.

So imagine how pleased I was to see a new addition to our local store’s inventory. Yes, it’s heavy duty, it melts grease and hair, and it kills germs.

But what’s more, it’s “Now in an International Pack”.

OK, now I have no idea how that actually affects the chemical composition of this fingerprint-removing stuff (and I mean off my fingers). And in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the constituents were actually banned ‘internationally’, under some important clause of the Kyoto treaty.

But the hybrid indigenous-ingredients-blend-with-foreign-brand formula is a winning one here. The domestic automotive industry, for example, is dominated by the likes of Maruti-Suzuki, Hero-Honda, Mahindra-Renault, and even Ashok-(yes!)-Leyland.

In other words, I think ‘International Pack’ simply means it has a picture of a Kiwi on it.