32. Arriving and being taken straight to a cricket match, never been a fan, trying to stay awake.
33. More in Calcutta than the brain can take in, noise, bustle, chaos, smells, smoke, animals and people living on the streets, decayed opulence, the Kali Temple, Tibetan Market, long Hindi Movies, Marble Palace, Jain Temple, pugla tree...
34. Buying a stone Ganesh in Mahabillipuram which I still have, carrying his bulk for weeks.
35. Getting bed bugs waiting for the ferry to Sri Lanka, waking on the sleeper to Colombo in a transformed landscape. (see haiku)
36. Visiting the tea estate, Concordia, in Nurawa Eliya where my Mother was born and brought up, hearing the invisible bullfrogs in the mist, white arums by the stream.
37. The Taj Mahal by starlight as well as in full sun, one of not many places better than the best pictures. Much less white, much smaller and inlaid with semi-precious stones, large numbers of bats in the surrounding buildings.
38. Cycling through Jodhpur, colliding with a camel, sitting with a sadhu watching red-vented bulbuls in his tree.
39. The Jain Temples at Mount Abu, superlatives cannot do justice to the delicate subtle-colour-intricate-saints-and-lotus-flowers carvings.
40. Travelling all the way to Ootacamund to find real cheese, finding red bananas, good bookshops, a terribly British rowing club and church, but tasteless processed cheese.
32
spacetimetraveller
trains bustlenoise steamsmellsoot
junglemist valley
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