Trichy and Srirangam…

His business is still on, and still at the same spot

I reached Trichy city after the eventful trip in the dinky buses. There was a time I used to call this city my home - when I was this little schoolboy bemused with his first pimple on the cheek, clad in maroon uniform shorts and driving a Streetcat cycle. This was also the city that saw me grow from being the little schoolboy into an interesting adolescent, my first big crush, and then a mature graduate ready to move out of the small city into the big bad world outside. 

Eight years after I left the city, I went there for a friend’s marriage. It was a surprise how little the city has changed. Whilst I find Bangalore a different city with every passing year, years have not had any impact on Trichy. The Central Bus Stand has hardly an unknown spot, the bunch of hotels around the bus stand still stand the same, the roadside shops, flower dwellers still seem seated where I remembered them, the one-way roads continued to be so. And it looked like the signboard of the school I studied, had not been repainted ever since.

We refreshed quickly on our rooms and set out to the Srirangam temple. Unbelievably, the ticket from Central Bus Stand to Srirangam still costs four rupees! The bus took me through places I remember walking in my childhood days - a Pastry shop and ice cream joint where I ran out from school to grab a mouthful, the bus-stops I stood, the road leading up to my college - everything stood as if frozen in time.

The Rajagopuram of Srirangam temple

Between all the nostalgia, the fun began when I got down in Srirangam. An old man suddenly grabbed hold of my hand and said (in Tamil), “Give me one rupee”. I said trying to relieve my hand, “Excuse me? Can you leave my hand first?”

“Give me one rupee.”
“Yeah, but leave my hand will you?”
“Give me one rupee.”
“First leave my hand.”
“Give me one rupee.”

And I used my left hand to reach out to the wallet behind my jean and stretched out a one rupee coin. He plucked it out of my hand and went his way leaving me gaping.

But Why?

I resumed walking towards the Rajagopuram, said to be the tallest in Asia. As I entered the premises of the Agraharam (the area encircling the temple), highly orthodox flavors of a Tamil Brahmin culture began to abound - men wearing Veshti (dhoti), women in nine-yard sarees, Kolam (rangoli) on the roads, shops selling stuff used in typical religious rituals.

There were also a few faces staring at me in some strange way. One of them asked me in Tamil to leave my slippers at his shop and when I turned to face him, quickly switched to English and repeated the same thing. That’s when I actually realized that the “I heart NY” tee shirt (remember those typical ones you get in New York?) may not have been the best choice to wear in Srirangam.

The sacred lamp, in sepia

Being a Saturday, the temple was crowded and we squeezed ourselves through the crowd. Srirangam reflects another of those astonishing constructions that many South Indian temples are famous for - parts of it carved out of a single stone. Admiring the architectural splendor of the temple I was shocked to find a board that prevented non-Hindus from entering. If a temple cannot tolerate a fellow human just because his belief is different, aren’t we being hypocritical about all the talking of God being one and all such crap? They say non-Hindus spoil the purity of the temple. Well, how do you know a Hindu entering the temple is pure in the first place?

Mix with some water, lemon and ice

We moved on to the temple store to eat my favorite Puliogare. The MTRs and ready-mixes only go so far, but anything for a temple-made Puliogare! After clicking some photos around the temple we started our exit and ran into a human traffic jam. A huge number of cycles and people had got tangled within themselves (though I couldn’t imagine how) in a narrow junction and we detoured into the agraharam taking the longer route to the bus stand.

That took us through lanes hosting houses that have been standing for many decades, some, for a century. The long dark pathways inside the house, the thinnai - a seating place in the entrance, the entrance itself decorated with rangolis extending till the middle of the road, made one feel as if transported back in time. Srirangam would never see a high rise building or a shopping mall. Tamil Brahmin traditions and culture have taken such deep roots that people here live the city solely for its orthodox tradition. The past hasn’t given much way to the present, and neither will it in the future.

And I also helped myself to three glasses of Nannari Shorbet - a delicacy more famous in Southern Tamil Nadu, and one that I just couldn’t stop drinking. For seven rupees it gives you a huge relief from the scorching heat and tastes next to nothing. The heat was too much, and we bought ourselves a bottle of water - which happened to be costlier than the Shorbet - and took a comfortable seat on our return bus.

Hitchhiking All the Way…

When you board a dinky crowded bus that wouldn’t go faster than a forty, shakes the life out of you every time it changed gear, sit beside a window that won’t open more than half, have four men seated in a three-seater with six bags under the footrest, you know you are up to experience the quintessential tour of semi-urban India.

You have to admire the village folks when it comes to high tolerance levels to what we urbanites find extremely irksome. You could find one squatting comfortably near the bus door surrounded by his sacks, one hand on the sacks and the other holding on to whatever they could hold on to - and be perfectly at ease with it. And there was also this belligerent lot sitting in the next seat squabbling how they were cheated over the price of fish and seemed bent on spoiling whatever little sleep I was hoping to get.

Inside the dinky bus, when it stopped for coffee

The bus stopped at Krishnagiri for - as the conductor claimed - coffee. And the driver and conductor hopped out for theirs, while I got down for the heck of it and some fresh air. But what I got instead was a smack of nauseating stink of pee, and the ignominious sight of moist walls reflecting the dim light from the café, surrounded by a lush green bush. As I rushed away into the café, more people got down and walked to that stinky spot, their back facing the road and did their stuff until they returned to the bus with a satisfied smirk. Yes, the café did have a restroom inside.

I got down at Dharmapuri to join another friend and we walked through a narrow one-lane road which had a two-way superfast traffic including roadside-parking. There were shops named Coffee Bar that served only coffee and tea (the ‘Bar’ was a misnomer), a Chick Chick Chips and Cool Drinks (oh whatever), a non-Dhaba which was named (in Tamil) Tamizh Nadu Thaba and served rice and drinks. Incidentally, that Thaba was where I went for a light dinner. Light, because I’m not a fan of Thaba food and there often are times when I hate human metabolism and I happen to believe in Murphy’s law.

We boarded a better looking bus that would take us to Trichy, soon to realize that looks are deceptive. We took a seat just behind the driver and I made same desperate attempts to close my eyes ignoring the constant droning of the engines and blaring horns to catch some sleep. I don’t know if I slept or was just twisting around on the seat, but I woke up when the conductor called out that we were stopping for coffee and tiffin. Coffee? At a sleepless 3 AM? And he wasn’t even kidding. Well, apparently, it happens to be coffee and tiffin for the driver.

With sleepy eyes I got down, barely balancing a stumble from the footboard. And there went another herd of men grouping together at a little distance with their back towards the bus. Do they ever teach in the Human Behavior class why men pee in a herd? Later, just as the bus was about to resume the driver realized the headlights were not coming on. And much to our horror, decided to go ahead to a depot in Musiri village - 30 KM from where we were - to get it repaired!

So the great blindfolded journey began. The bus cruised at a speed of 20 kilometers, driven by two hands on the steering and twenty eyes on the road guiding with whatever they could see (which was zilch) and warn the driver where to turn (and where not to), where there was a bullock-cart on the road, where the cyclists were and where he was about to ram into the tree ahead.

As the highways don’t have streetlights, an occasional oncoming vehicle gave a momentary relief, but soon it was darkness all over again. I was already imagining possible morning headlines - Bus falls into bridge after headlights blew; Bus rams into tree; Terrorist driver blows headlights and hijacks bus; Bus disappears in the dark, alien abduction suspected.

With heart in mouth we counted every meter until we reached the village limits of Musiri, which had streetlights. The driver had enormous guts, and we had our little prayers. The repair was quick and as the morning light trickled in, we reached the city limits of Trichy. Despite the blindfolded hullabaloo, we managed to reach intact. Sleepless, tired, but intact.

Travel Tales: Chennai

It was quite late at night, when I stepped out from the Meenambakkam airport to be greeted by a swarm of auto-wallahs pushing against themselves in search of, possibly, their last customer of the night and a sudden smack of gripping heat that slapped against my face. The latter reinstating the arrival of Chennai city.

Chennai has never disappointed me. Be it the young girls adorned with jasmine flowers, or the rushing office goers commuting on the footboard of dusty green buses, the auto-wallahs who never switch their meter on but nevertheless always have one, the ecstatic and aromatic beaches, the erstwhile conservative outlooks that some say is changing of late – albeit slower than the snail next door, the Central Station that still radiates the nostalgic remains of the past, the gripping sticky sweaty heat that is sure to engulf you like you are out of a steam sauna.

More so, when you are just coming from a bone numbing cold weather of -24 degree Celsius in Columbus. It was only over 48 hours ago, that I was wrapping myself in multiple layers of woolen clothing over a thermal wear and topping it all with heavy jacket – all to counter the heavy snowfall and the cold wind that cut across the face. And here I was, wearing the thinnest possible tee and a jean, and already wiping the sweat off my face becoming more restless by the minute to seek refuge in the guest house.

Thirty minutes later, I checked into the guest house where I would be spending the next few weeks. The AC in the guest house was, ironically, warming. A much needed relief from the sultry outside weather, even at that time of the night. After spending the past few months warming our Columbus apartment to over thirty degree Celsius, it now seemed time to cool down, as I set the temperature to 18 degrees. Brick walls and carpet-less floors made sure the cold permeated all over the place unlike the wooden homes of the colder hemisphere that restrict the movement of cold.

Now that I am in Chennai, there are a few things I should keep in mind. Like, I’ll have to endure the 1.5 hour journey to my workplace (where, my mobile – which has a local connection now – often slips into roaming automatically for god knows what reasons) from the guest house, if I miss the morning bus I could only hope to make it to work in time for lunch, there will not be any high-speed wireless connectivity which was my lifeline in Columbus. And the foremost being – never sit next to a woman in the city’s buses. Because, in this city, you are not allowed to.

This begins the last leg of my travel episodes which began last September in this very city. As they say, what goes around comes around.

Curtains Columbus…

Nothing refreshes your soul like a good long travel. And it’s another way of reinstating to yourself, how less you’ve known about the world and its people all this while.

This trip to Columbus has been a pleasant one. Though now confined only to mental images of picture postcards – the bone numbing cold touching a low of -24 degree Celsius (which for some strange reason I might actually miss), the snowy mornings, gloves in my fingers, the jacket that I’ve worn more times during my stay here than I ever did since buying it, the apartment rooms heated to over seventy degree Fahrenheit and quickly converting every Fahrenheit number into the more familiar Celsius scale while looking at the weather report every morning – all captured into the black and white albums of memory.

An unforgettable trip to New York City during the early days of my stay here, and how I was in awe of that wonderful city. A few new friends and many acquaintances. Some would stay in touch, while some would pass like another flash of lightning through the sky of life. All those times together with new people from so many different cultures only indicating that the world is far too diverse than one can ever imagine. They too become confined into the black and white picture postcards, that, in times of solitary retrospection, I would flip through to admire what good old past it was.

I did the customary shopping, a bit of packing to go, the papers and tickets, a Woody Allen to read during the travel, exchanging parting pleasantries with people I’ve been interacting with. And as do all things change and move, so do I move on to the next episode.

Tomorrow afternoon – Eastern Standard Time – I’ll be on my way to the Columbus Airport. Another episode of the future beckons from twelve thousand miles away and I shall step into it. Adios America. Until next time.

Frozen, for Valentine’s sake

It was only when somebody walked up to our table, while we were having lunch, that we knew of the Winter Storm warning having been issued across the city. The morning snow was heavy – six inches expected, and Freezing Rain forecast for the afternoon, which forced offices and schools to shut down early for the day. So, two hours later, we were on our way home. Well, almost.

The Freezing Rain was already beating down our heads as we walked to the parking lot through the long stretch of land covered in thick snow, slipping with every other step, my jacket hood wrapping my head tight, eyes almost blinded white in the splattering ice, laptop in one of my gloved hands, and wiping my face every now and then with the other, a thin whoosh of wind escaping through the jacket’s hood buzzing as if mosquitoes caught in a storm were seeking refuge in my head.

After wrestling with the wind and a steady sleet to remove all the ice and snow around the car, we finally started to move from office. When we hit the road, it was unlike any other day. Cars and giant trailers moving at a speed not beyond twenty miles, a Highlander almost skidding on its turn near a signal, snow clearing vehicles diligently braving the heavy fall and paving way for the ones like us, and the vehicles trying their best to stay close behind the snow clearing ones, so that they get the best side of the road.

Minutes later, we managed to cruise at twenty miles an hour, having found a relatively safe path behind a train of cars following a snow clearing vehicle. After driving for thirty patient minutes, we realized we were running out of gas and detoured into a gas station. I pulled my hood back on, fastened my gloves, rushed to the dispenser, pushed the buttons in a freezing frenzy and reached for the piston. As the piston began gushing out the gas, I mustered enough courage to push my hood aside and take another look at the world around me.

The world outside was colorless. Like someone had painted the entire world with shades of grey and white. The leafless trees, the slippery roads looking wretched with ice and dirt, snow covered houses and shops, vehicles parked on the roadside as if they were being frozen for eternity. It seemed like Apocalypse was here and the Freezing rain was the harbinger of the four horsemen.

The world was moving in a slow motion. Slow moving cars, slow moving giant trailers, people walking slowly over the ice with utter caution protecting themselves from the rain, a child clutching its daddy’s hand and getting slowly into their car. Add the grayscales to that scene, and it was like watching the world move in a slow-motion, through a black and white television.

I replaced the piston back and jumped into the passenger seat. We resumed driving, thereby rejoining all those slow-moving entities that had conquered the earth for the day. We made it home twenty minutes later, to rediscover its warm comforts. The rain continued to splatter outside, and the world continued to move in a slow-motion. And a Happy Valentine’s Day to you too!

Another Inconsequential Day…

Remember those first few seconds after you were born? That’s when the world dissolves from that hysteric haze into a pattern of familiar real world entities. And when I woke up this morning, it felt just like that. The images around me dissolving and merging in the first few seconds of opening my eyes, until I was able to recognize the familiar patterns that were my room.

My eyes slowly digested the figures of my laptop and a copy of The Satanic Verses lying next to me. But I did not reach out for the book, as I would normally have done, despite the urge to open page 21 and read what happens after – He was a kindly man, which he disguised with insults and noise – which was the last line I read before falling asleep. So unlike me.

Aren’t clichés very soothing? You know everything about it, all very predictable and feeling so comfortable doing the same familiar things everyday. But when someday, you choose to skip them – like I did, by not reaching out for the book – that could very well be a sign of complete exhaustion, having been awfully sleep deprived, working four straight weeks, including weekends.

A few minutes later I did reach out for the book, but only so much as to keep my palm over its shiny cover. That felt better. Like I was seeking refuge in fiction because reality was a bit difficult to handle. Then I went over to make myself a cup of coffee and sat with my laptop to find out what the world was up to while I was fast asleep.

The Breaking News. First News, Abhishek and Aishwarya are engaged. I thought they did that many days back. Seems a long running engagement. Second News, Shilpa Shetty and her Big Brother problem.  It’s called Racism goddamnit. You better agree, or refuse to disagree. But stop kidding around bragging about the rights and the wrongs of Shilpa Shetty. She is a victim, not a placard for politico-media-money-making. Third News, I left my clothes in the drier – oh, that was the automatic mental reminder breaking the news to me after a dose of caffeine activated my system.

I dropped the glass in the sink, wiped my hands and moved the blinds aside to peep out of the window. The ground was covered under a shiny sheet of white snow. It was white all over – the overcast sky, the leafless trees, the neighborhood, the roofs, the cars, the pavement, the road – with the footprints of those who had walked over the snow. Does the story of Footprints in the sand apply to Footprints in the snow, as well?

Salman Rushdie might have an answer. Who better can answer such a queer question? And so, I came back to my room, made myself comfortable on my bed, picked up The Satanic Verses and turned to page 21. There is something very soothing about clichés.

New York City - Ye Beauty…

Lesson 1: When in New York, Walk! That’s the only way you can get the complete glimpse of this wonderful city. Be it the breathtaking skyscrapers or the amazing diversity in culture, New York is one city you’ll never stop loving.

Where the twin towers once stood

So after a ten hour drive from Columbus, I reached New York City, with ten of my mates, to be greeted with a bright sunshine and the temperature hovering around fifteen degrees celsius (this after a heavy rain the previous day). It was not just the walk around Manhattan – which is an experience beyond anything you could imagine – but the overall culture in display that left me awestruck. It’s a kind of culture that would puzzle any uninitiated, even a localite. The amazing contradictions that you encounter – man-driven rickshaws, some poor men playing violin on the roadside for money and a luxurious limousine in all its glowing shine floating noiselessly past them beyond the towering buildings.

If you can spare him a penny or two…

We spent some time at Madame Tussaud’s wax museum, and headed to the Empire State Building. From its 86th floor the whole city was visible in all of its glorious beauty. That’s probably how the world looks when you stare down from heaven. Beauty at its best! Our next stop was the Ground Zero, the spot where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once played with the clouds. Though it was strange watching people enjoying at the spot – which became what it was because of a tragedy – with smiles and snaps, my mind went back to the night of my college days in Madurai when I was awake all night watching the scenes live on BBC as the events frighteningly unfolded. Not a lot of time before an is became a was. Life can be such trifle.

Jackson Heights is more of Bangalore than New York

For now though, life moved seamlessly over to the next morning, when we walked around Jackson Heights (or was it Bangalore?). The place had more Desi population than anywhere else I’ve seen outside India. Literally every shop was a Vishal Sarees or a Kunal Jewelers or a Subzi Mundi. People wearing chudidhars and sarees were more than those in formals or jeans. All the roads seemed to resemble Commercial Street in Bangalore, with overcrowded shops on either side and a heavy traffic jam of cars in the middle.

A subway train then took us to that place which holds the world’s economic health in balance – Wall Street, home to the New York Stock Exchange. The street welcomed its visitors with the statue of a Bull that is a general mark of prosperity in the Stock market circles. So there always may be prosperity in this world.

Lights and music at Rockfeller center

Later that evening, we paid a quick visit to Lady Liberty. Quick, because, the ferry system that would normally have taken us for a closer rendezvous with the Lady herself was closed early for the Christmas eve. And talking of Christmas eve, the Rockfeller center – our next stop – gave us the right dose of a classic evening blast. The crowd was terribly dense at Rockfeller. The evening was dark, the air was getting colder by the minute, the sun already having sunk behind the horizon. But what lit up the sky, the air and our spirits was the amazing lights and music show what went on display. Kaleidoscopic designs of colorful lights zig-zagged in a rhythmic fashion through the buildings, tuning itself to some great music.

We scampered our way through the crowd, past giant Christmas trees and Santa Clauses of different sizes to the most happening place in the city – Times Square. It was thrilling to actually see the spots that I had hitherto heard a lot about – the Broadway theatre running The Color Purple, the giant Nasdaq display and the sheer pleasure of walking down the street. And a dinner at the Bombay House in Times Square was the culmination of an exciting two days in New York City.

The visit to New York did leave me with many kinds of memories – going around with friends most of whom I met after a long time, the glamour and the distinct culture of New York that doesn’t have many parallels. And the middle aged woman who sat under a skyscraper in a shady corner of Times Square clutching a tiny board in her weak hand, which read – I lost my job. I have two kids. I don’t have anyone else. Please help me.

At the Bookstore…

Every time I step into a bookshop promising myself to only ‘look’ at them and not buy anymore until I complete the unread ones piling at my bookshelf, I unfailingly step out with one or two in my hand. So I was not surprised with what I did last Saturday afternoon.

Traffic jams are everywhere, not just Hosur Road.

After lazing around in bed till late morning, we squeezed our way through the heavy Saturday traffic and drove to the Easton Town Center for lunch at the California Pizza. But not before we spent twenty frustrating minutes going around three levels of the parking lot looking for a parking space. Knowing little that, three hours later, we would spend another twenty minutes trying to remember where we parked it.

All was fine with the Tomato and Basil Pizza and the fresh lemonade (that I got refilled twice) and we were all set to drive back home when my eyes fell on the Barnes and Nobles bookstore. Ah, the sight of books! Aesthetically lined across the aisles, the stylishly written titles, the scrambled music of the turning pages, the scent of the pages filled with infinite permutations of alphabets forming sentences that seems to have a life of its own, the extremely inquisitive exercise of reading the back-cover summary forming first impressions and the mysterious wobbling of my intestines the moment I come across a book of interest.

Did I miss my Golfing interlude?

It’s such a fascinating thing – this walk around a bookstore. And I aimlessly walked around picking up books at random, running my fingers over the covers, reading their summaries and heaving a sigh of strange contentment. Sometimes it doesn’t even matter if I’ve already read that book, I would still pick it up and run my fingers.

All resistance to buying a book was lost when I saw Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. The book – a 1988 Booker finalist – which earned the author a death sentence for alleged blasphemy,  is banned in India (and many other countries). After picking myself a copy, a kind old lady helped me to the Virginia Woolf section where I picked up Mrs. Dalloway.

Another thirty minutes later, I picked my mobile, dialed my friend who was sulking in some corner of the shop waiting patiently for me to finish romancing with the books, and – like the man who had to leave his wounded friend behind to proceed into the war – told him, “Hey, I’m at the first floor, literature section, next to the escalator, adjacent to the reading lounge. Can you come over and drag me out of this shop, please?”. Needless to say, he was more than pleased to do so.

Cold, Hot and Warm…

I’ve read in fables and fairytales of hobbits and angels being blessed with soft pellets of snow falling from the sky. But it took me till last Wednesday morning to have my first ever feel of snow.

It seemed a typical winter morning of the west. That was until I peeped out of the window in my room. Tiny white balls of irregular shapes drifting down from the sky, as if you were actually watching blessings being showered upon this world. The snow balls quivered gently, sparkled by the mild crack of sunlight that played hide and seek all through the day, as they glided between the winds and finding their resting place over the dewy green grass. It was a morning of utter beauty. There’s more beauty to nature than we may even realize, and the Wednesday morning was a perfect example of that.

If you thought that was wonderful, then here’s something that made me revel in pleasure. Three days later, we drove off to – hold your breath – Udupi restaurant. Yep! You read that right. And even while I restrained myself from jumping up and down and off my seat watching the items in the menu, I was literally drooling over the prospect of eating all those items that I’m used to eating at home.

So there you go – two hot Sambhar Vadas, a steaming hot bowl of Tomato Soup, a hotter bowl of Bisi-Bele bath, some Coconut rice, shared Poori Channa, Puliogare and Lime Rice from my mates. And topped it all with a cup of filter coffee with a highly concentrated decoction. Bliss!

It was a home, away from home. The restaurant was filled with a lot of Indians and a few Americans as well. The city has a fairly large Indian community, a number of them being students at the Ohio State University. That evening, we shopped at The passage to India – an Indian store that sells everything from Parachute coconut oil and Ponds talcum powder to MTR instant mixes and videos of latest Indian movies. And the kind old lady at the stall gave us a complimentary box of Chilli pickle, fellow country-mate sentiments and all those nice things.

The weather has been pretty cold. Much colder than conditions back home. But sometimes twelve thousand miles doesn’t seem as far. It’s just as far as a few warm words and a warm smile. It’s a small world after all.

Travel Tales: Columbus, Ohio

After bathing for almost three months in the glorious sunshine of the sweltering Chennai heat, switching to a temperature of minus eight degree celsius is not the most wonderful of things in this world. But on this other side of the world, where I would find myself hovering over the next few months of my travel episodes, this is but the order of the day.

I landed at my last transit still giggling under my tummy reading and re-reading lines from Woody Allen’s Without Feathers. And I heard from the locals there was a snowstorm the previous evening and the airport (which until not long ago, was the world’s busiest) was closed. Apparently, I had just managed to escape it. After partially refreshing myself with a cold coffee whose name was so hard to pronounce that I had to point my finger at the menu item while placing my order at a Starbucks outlet, I boarded a rather tiny United aircraft and slipped into a sleep the moment I fastened the seat belts.

Seventy (or so, I guess) minutes later, I was woken by a screeching thud and a banging thump on my back and peeped through the corner of the eye into the dark but lighted sky outside the window. The lights seemed to merge into a murky pattern and recede into a strange oblivion. There was a sudden frenzy of frantic activity as people around me began bustling around unbuckling the seatbelts and pulling out their baggages. I thought I was having a dream until through the tiny opening in the corner of my eyes, I saw the yellow incandescent light and a number of people in motion all around. My eyes were still sulking after the 24 hour travel across the world, that closing my eyes was the biggest bliss I could hope for in that moment.

Not all hopes in life are realized, and so I finally surrendered to the inevitability of movement – of unbuckling myself and moving off my seat and heading to the exit – eyes still half open. The first bite of cold that ripped across my face wasn’t all that bad. “Cold huh?”, I muttered until I reached our apartment. And later that night, I was out with my apartment-mates to buy me comforters, pillow and all those instant needs of early morning gratification. And that’s when the freezing cold wind ripped through my cheeks and pierced my ears, giving me a taste of what winter feels like in some parts of the world.

We got home soon, into the comforts of a heater, thereby saving myself from being etched into a frozen eternity, like it used to happen to those wooly mammoths. Ah, wool. Wool, is what I need all through my stay. It would be my closest companion during the course my stay in this part of the world, and without which life would be impossible.

The travel adventures continue. It is said, a journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. Mine went past twelve thousand miles, and the first few fair steps have been taken. May we live in interesting times.