Day 3: Bagan is a small UNESCO heritage district spread over 42 sq km. The ruins of about 2200 temples, stupas, and monasteries (originally over 4000 but many destroyed in an earthquake a few years ago) dot this small area, described by the ancient explorer Marco Polo as one of the finest sights in the world. Bagan city is now full of resorts and lodges owned by rich hoteliers and military generals and the real estate prices are as high as in Tokyo. A small plot of land - 80 ft x 60 ft can cost 1 million USD. A used car until a few years ag...
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I wrote this diary in January 2020, when I met up in Myanmar with my son who lives in the US. Since I live in India and we both have busy lives, the highlight of my year always is the week or so when we meet and travel together. This time we were seeing each other after a year and a half, a meeting made all the more sweet by the fact that it was his 28th birthday and we hadn’t celebrated a birthday together in the longest time.
Happy birthday!
At that point I did not know that my life, and soon en...
Day 6: The morning started off beautifully - it poured! I sat on my balcony and had toast and coffee, watching the greenery take on deeper emerald hues. M asked me if I would mind if Frank (the Italian guy I met at the coffee store in Trivandrum) showed up for lunch along with a Malayali writer (who she warned me was very "boring" and quiet). Why would I mind? This was such a good opportunity to meet more local people! So she set about preparing an elaborate meal with Vasantha’s help and I got out of her way.
Varkala is probably the most dramatic beach I have been to, if not in the world then at least in Goa or elsewhere in India. It lies at the bottom of a line of red cliffs and there is a narrow path, a kind of promenade, which winds its way along the top of the cliffs and is lined with restaurants, shops and yoga and Ayurveda resorts. You can sit in a cafe there and watch the white surf crashing on the shore way below.
The day started off somewhat unexpectedly. M emerged from her room wearing an Anarkali suit and wrists full of tinklin...
Day 4: I went to the art gallery and art museum in Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram) yesterday and completely fell in love with the works of Raja Ravi Varma. But the most incredible thing I saw was the ceiling of the Art Museum. It is exquisite and unique – completely different from anything I have seen in Europe, America or Northern India. I learnt that a visitor once told a curator of the museum: “I suggest you remove all the artefacts from this building. Because the building itself is an elegant object d’art and should be...
