One week in Burma

Central Yangon with Sule Pagoda in the background

“Woah, some high level brands here dude….” Anup said, as we passed another luxury mall on our way from Yangon (Myanmar’s commercial capital) International Airport to the city centre. We didn’t really know what to expect from Myanmar (formerly Burma) – just somehow expected it to be less developed. Yet Yangon’s wide roads and glass buildings were trying to tell us something different.

What does one expect from Myanmar anyway? It neighbours India, was home to several ancient kingdoms, used to be a key component of the erstwhile British Raj, was effectively cut-off from the rest of the world for nearly five decades (under military rule) and has only recently started opening up under nobel laureate Aung San Suu Ki’s leadership – i.e. it’s a pretty unique place.

On the personal front, I was committed to making this trip different – by committing to budget travel. Staying in hostels, traveling by bus and eating cheap – that was what this trip was going to be all about! Having spent the better part of the last decade working as a travelling consultant – I had been wondering (thanks to strong assertions from select friends) if I had gotten “soft”. Such a excellent opportunity to prove my detractors wrong.

In fact, I had a pre-existing connection with Myanmar – as I learnt a couple of weeks prior. My hometown of Visakhapatnam in India has a large population of folks from Myanmar who were driven out in the 60s (thanks to policies from its then leader – General Ne Win). Our household maid, who has been working with us for over a decade, came over from Myanmar when she was a child. She was happy to hear that I was visiting her former home but couldn’t remember much. Yet, there was a certain sense of comfort from having a connection to this unknown land.

Our bunk bed in Yangon – very comfortable and hardly “roughing it out”, but hey everything counts

Coming back to the trip, we visited three major locations on our trip to Myanmar – Yangon (formerly Rangoon) the commercial capital, Bagan an ancient city full of pagodas and Inle lake which was just a nice looking lake. Yangon was definitely the highlight for me – the diverse people and cuisines, those beautiful pagodas and colonial buildings, the intriguing history, the hipster cafes …there are many things to love about Yangon, but perhaps just a few which really caught my eye:

• That South Bombay feel – hard to describe, but there is something about crumbling old colonial architecture. If you’ve ever visited the South of Bombay, you’d experience some of this old world charm. Yangon is said to have the largest number of colonial buildings still intact in South East Asia. Some of the buildings are being restored, but there are plenty more which are just there – subsumed by everything that has come since and in some indescribable way, they are all absolutely beautiful! Beyond the British era, the modern history of Myanmar is interesting in its own right – for instance read about General Aung San, a super young and charismatic leader who won Myanmar its independence before being assassinated at the age of 32 or about General Ne Win, an eccentric leader who did some really random things (example below)…
• Strange cars – perhaps one of the more bizarre observations about Yangon are its cars. Some of the cars have steering wheels on the right and some of them have them on the left, but they all drive on the right side of the road. Let me explain – being a former British colony, Myanmar initially had cars driving on the left with steering wheels on the right, which is how it works in several former British colonies such as India, South Africa etc. But that system was arbitrarily changed overnight, one fine day in the 70s by General Ne Win (same one who asked all Indians to leave). It’s not entirely clear why – but there are stories which attribute this change to a dream he had or a suggestion from his wife’s astrologer. Eish, it’s a mess! But the local people seem to do just fine with it
• Food and markets – like most of South East Asia, there appears to be a culture of eating out in Yangon. You see locals just sitting on the streets and enjoying their teas, salads, soups, noodles, barbeques and so on…. so chill!
• That Desi connection – there was a point of time (around World War 2) when over 50% of Yangon’s population was Indian. While most of them have left since then, there is a still a strong influence on local culture and cuisine. We had a chance to visit an Indian section of the city center which was bustling with activity and had people just sitting on low stools, enjoying their chai, tea salads, dosas and even faloodas – how awesome!
• Shwedagon Pagoda – There is everything in Yangon and then there is the Shwedagon Pagoda. It is just MASSIVE. It is an actual place of worship that is used by the locals and the calm and peace you feel inside is really striking. We observed in disbelief as a monk sit rock still in meditation for over an hour – not a single movement and his face locked in concentration/bliss. One hopes he is well on his way to Nirvana for such excellent efforts. A time might come when this jewel is overtaken by tourists, but for now this remains one of the best things in Yangon
• The Rohingya crisis – Myanmar has been in the news for the wrong reasons in recent times due to the ongoing Rohingya crisis in the Rakhine state on the west coast – between the predominantly Muslim Rohingya people and the Buddhist Burmese people. We learnt from local guides that this has led to a significant reduction in tourists from Western countries. On the surface, there doesn’t seem to have been much impact on Yangon though and we only observed peaceful co-existence between different ethnicities and religions. In fact, I observed several inter-ethnic looking couples going about their business normally. Yet I couldn’t help but wonder what it must be like, living as a muslim in Myanmar in such times…
• Those human stories – A a bustling city, there are humans everywhere in Yangon – monks, tourists, locals, expats, guides and we were fortunate enough to interact with some of them. We learnt about what local life is like for expats from a Indian couple who’ve been living there for years (it’s great!), engaged a food tour guide who misses the curry house his parents used to run in his childhood, met a travelling British couple (one of whom was wheelchair bound) who looked completely at home in this strange city, got our shirts ripped by an overzealous masseuse, chatted with the really sweet hotel mgmt students who ran the hostel we were staying in, observed monks, vendors, families on their daily commute in the crumbling old railway lines and so on….

An old colonial building in Yangon

A typical Yangon street

The amazing Shwedagon Pagoda

Mohinga – Myanmar’s unofficial national dish

After two days of walking and eating our way through Yangon, it was time for us to move on. We took the 8 hr bus to the ancient city of Bagan – which is a UNESCO world heritage site and is famous for having thousands of pagodas concentrated in a very small area. Now the trip was remarkable because of the remarkable bus company we used – called “JJ Express”. JJ Express is unexpected in many ways – it was quite luxurious (wide reclinable seats, touch screen entertainment, food, charging etc. – a bargain for the price we paid), supremely efficient/strict on time of departure and bizarrely enough would always reach the destination a couple of hours before the scheduled time. While reaching ahead of time is usually a blessing, it proved to be a mild inconvenience for us as we tended to arrive well before the local hostel would allow us to check in. But net-net, I have never been more impressed by a bus service.

By the time we reached Bagan, I realised that I was falling quiet sick – an upset stomach, runny nose, cough, weakness and some fever. While there were several potential causes for my state (e.g. all the Yangon street food), the most probable one might have been the most well intentioned one – the typhoid vaccination I had taken just before leaving for Yangon. Note to self – take vaccination atleast 2 weeks before a trip.

Given my weakened state, I only managed to see a couple of pagodas and an amazing sunrise and sunset. Yet, the highlights of Bagan were:

1. The local restaurants – “Be kind to animals” is the name of one of the top restaurants in Bagan and highlights a general vegetarian theme observed in Bagan and in the rest of Myanmar for that matter. In most nations across the world, I get a sense that people prefer to eat meat over purely vegetarian meals. Recently, I’ve started wondering if it comes down to just the human time and creativity spent on meat based recipes Vs vegetarian recipes. For instance, it’s great being a vegetarian in India because thousands of years of effort and creativity has gone into creating tasty vegetarian food there. Myanmar seems similar in this aspect, where the locals enjoy amazing vegetarian curries and salads created with the freshest ingredients
2. Those human stories – I was really struggling in Bagan; my sickness combined with the long bus journey and blazing heat had put me well out of my comfort zone – perhaps I had gotten “soft” after all. Enter -the world’s greatest guide. We hired his services to show us around a few pagodas – but he quickly transitioned from a guide to a friend and caretaker with small acts of kindness. He bought us coconut water with his own money, drove me to the pharmacy and made sure I got all the medicine I needed even though it was well past the time allotted and in general made us feel taken care of. “You’re in our home now and you are my friends, we will take care of you no problem…” he repeated several times over the course of the day. It reminded me of the simple kindness I often observe in rural areas, where people take pride in caring for visitors. Those ethos might well be gone in most tourist destinations, but at least in Bagan they were still there…

Sunrise in Bagan. One of the more attractive (albeit expensive) means of enjoying the sunrise while exploring the pagodas of Bagan is on the hot air balloons you see here

Inside one of the temples in Bagan I did manage to explore

Suffering from an upset stomach and severe weakness, I was definitely out of my comfort zone when I read this in our hostel in Bagan. Critics might argue these are signs of going “soft”

After two days of rest and recuperation in Bagan – we set off for our next stop, Inle lake. It’s a massive lake surrounded by mountains on both sides and a number of “floating” villages on its periphery. To get the proper Inle experience we decided to do a homestay in one of these floating villages. A few things things which stood out:

1. The lake – The lake is beautiful and the life on it (birds, plants, fishermen) is quite picturesque. Boat rides were fun but I felt like the best way to appreciate life on the lake is with a drink in hand while watching the sun set slowly – a unique visual treat
2. The environment – all is not rainbows & butterflies however as the lake is under environmental threat. Slash and burn agriculture in surrounding areas, floating farms and the water hyacinth are causing some damage in these parts
3. Those human stories– We got to interact with several lake humans and as in other parts of Myanmar, their way of life is changing rapidly. The kid running our homestay raved about how his PUBG (a popular online game) skills have been boosted since they got fast WiFi, a 4th generation puppeteer smiled when asked if his son was going to continue the family tradition, weavers/blacksmiths/silversmiths/ cigarette makers scrambled to explain and sell their trade to tourists…it was in Inle more than anywhere else that I felt like people were really grappling with the change that was hitting them

Shan noodles near Inle Lake

Village life on the lake

Donno exactly what this was – but was among the most delicious things I’ve eaten

A house floating on the lake – similar to the one we were staying at

Sunset on the lake

A fisherman on Inle Lake

Puppet master at work near Inle Lake

After two days of floating on Inle, our time in Myanmar was drawing to a close. We took a JJ express to Mandalay (Myanmar’s second largest city) to catch our flight and as usual they dropped us off two hours early at 3 am in the morning. Alas, there was not much to see or do at this time of the day…sigh.

Mandalay’s top attraction was an old wooden bridge called U Bein bridge which has the distinction of being the longest and oldest teak wood bridge in the world. Not knowing what else to do – we hired a taxi to take us there – perhaps the bridge would look beautiful in pitch darkness?

It was quite nice actually – we were accompanied on the ancient bridge by a pair of friendly dogs which seemed keen to show us around or perhaps they were just lonely? Doesn’t matter. On our way back we saw the first signs of activity as locals started coming onto the bridge – some exercising, some there to just enjoy the calmness and others clearly on their way to somewhere they needed to be.

On our way to the airport we experienced one final act of Burmese hospitality, our cab driver offered his cab for us to sleep in as we still had several hours to catch out flight. We tried but it didn’t prove to be a comfortable setting for a nap – yet still left with a sense of amazement at how nice these people were.

At the airport I reflected on Myanmar and more broadly on why people travel. On Myanmar, I was upbeat – in particular due to its young, proud, generous, hard working and diverse people. They seemed in general to know where they were going and in peace with their way of life.

On why people (myself included) travel in general, I reflected on the moments which made the biggest impact on me. Invariably, they involved humans and a curiosity to understand their lives

• What does the monk in deep meditation in Shwedagon pagoda feel about the rising commotion and tourists around him? Does he sense it? Is he annoyed? Does he make peace with it as the nature of life?
• What does the wheelchair bound traveller feel for his able bodied companion? Is it gratitude, guilt, surprise, jealousy or a combination? Are such relationships on average stronger or weaker than relationships between equally abled companions?
• Where does the muslim Indian man traveling on the Yangon train with his Burmese wife get his identify from? From his state? Religion? Ethnicity? Loved ones?
• What specific emotion did the kid on Inle lake feel when fast wifi arrived? Pride for the progress of his village? Or joy from improved ability to play PUBG? How does something as simple as being able to play a game he likes affect the way he looks at his world?
• How do the weavers/blacksmiths/ silversmiths/fisherman on Inle lake feel about tourists? Are they happy about their improved livelihood? Is there a tinge of sorrow/shame that they might be putting their ancient crafts/trade on show for tourists? Or is it really an opportunity to ensure the continuity of these crafts?
• How does the 4th generation puppet master feel about his son joining the trade? Which joy is greater – to see his son continue the family trade or knowing that he has a secure livelihood doing something else?
• ….

Perhaps that is the ultimate goal of travel – to make us think and keep us curious.

What I learnt in 2016 – Part 1

2016 wasn’t the greatest – in fact, it was a pretty shit year. While I met a lot of amazing people, traveled to exotic places and in general experienced many firsts, I also got it wrong (a lot), endured personal loss and saw the world kinda **** itself. Yet, in trying to make sense of the crappiness, I did learn a lot and I’m going to share some of these learnings with you. Mostly because I enjoy the process of verbalizing my thoughts and getting people to react to them.

This is going to be a three part writing which elaborates on the things I learnt about:

1. Motivation and happiness
2. People and relationships
3. Work and the world

These categories exist not only because I think they’ll make it easier for you to grasp the thinking – but also partly because I’m too lazy to finish writing about all in one go and hence will be releasing these in parts. So let’s talk about motivation and happiness.

Part 1: What I learnt about motivation and happiness

1. The ultimate passion doesn’t exist – when do we start trying to figure out what we want to do with our lives? I don’t know to be honest, but the quest for an ultimate passion has been with me for as long I can remember. You know that one passion you will dedicate the rest of your life to, the one thing which makes you jump out of bed every morning in eager anticipation of an exciting day taking you closer to a beautiful end goal. The thing in which you will be so outrageously successful that they’re going to make multiple movies about it, but only one of them is going to be good – but it’s also the one which is the least closest to the truth.
   Yeah, it doesn’t exist.
   I lie, it just doesn’t exist in its romanticized monogamous state. I’ve found many passions and none of them are as romantic as I’d expected. In a certain way, the word passion is setting you up for disappointment – I want to find a different word for it in 2017

2. There is a route to finding these passions – It goes without saying that you have to try a lot of different things, put yourself out of you comfort zone and blah blah. Here’s some unconventional wisdom if you’re looking for it
   1. You’ll probably end up finding things you hate – Let’s face it, it’s a lot easier to identify things which we don’t like than the things we do. It’s a numbers game after all – we’re negative AF beings that hate most of things around us and this is not all bad, at least we know what we don’t want. With this comes the realization that perhaps all we want to do in our lives is to avoid the things that we hate and then find happiness in that. For example, I hate “face time” or showing up just for the sake of showing up, so I’ll avoid activities, jobs, places which require this. Just realizing that perhaps the path to finding your passion is a process of “elimination” Vs “selection” is valuable
   2. You may actually be passionate about activities and not topics or issues- I used to look for sexy topics that I had to be passionate about such as “eradicating poverty”, “drones”, “gender parity”, “space” etc. While it is possible to be passionate about such topics, I increasingly feel like one can also be passionate about the activities involved in realizing such passions e.g. you could be just be passionate about the activity of developing a community of people who believe in a cause – regardless of whether the cause is “eradicating poverty” or “gender parity”. This ties well with conventional wisdom which suggests that you should not just enjoy the destination but the journey as well (clichéd but true hey)
3. People are traders in energy – So life actually turns out to be a process of self-discovery and I’ve learnt a lot about myself over the past year. Specifically, I’ve learnt that there are some activities that fill me up with positive “energy” while others drain me of the same. For instance, I find that writing, meaningful conversations, chilling with friends fill me up with a lot of energy while others such as small talk, interacting with a lot of new people at once takes a lot of energy from me. There are some reasons to actually pay attention to this not-so-garbage theory:
   1. It’s kind of a zero sum game – which means you’re going to have to be super deliberate about how you gain and spend energy. For instance, if I know that I’m going to be in a situation which is going to suck the energy out of me (e.g. corny group activities – ***k that, no way), I’m going to spend some time gaining energy from other sources (e.g. getting some spicy Sichuan Chinese food with like-minded friends -fish in chilli oil, hell yeah)
   2. There are some activities and people that suck energy that are actually pretty important – so you want to make sure you have energy built up to invest in these activities and people. The people bit I find pretty important; more often than not you want to be the person bringing energy to a relationship than the one just taking it
4. There are things you can only learn through experience – and that’s because we live in an irrational world. Actually let me correct that, I actually find the world pretty rational and sensible when I have all information I need to make sense of a situation. E.g. Before living in the Middle East, I used to find the conflict plaguing the region to be completely irrational – but once I gained a better understanding of the history of the place, it became a lot easier for me to make sense of it. However, our limitations as human beings mean that we don’t always have complete information to make sense of a situation and that’s where experience kicks in. Experience helps us plug this information gap by leveraging our past experiences to make an informed guess as to what might actually have happened in a given situation. While this may sound fairly obvious, this is a bit of a change in perspective for me. As vain as this sounds, for a long time, I used to believe I could make it through life using just logic and rationality; increasingly I believe that there are certain things that I just am not able to predict or make sense of through just rational thought
5. It’s important to make the most of time – So 2016 was also a year in which I got it wrong – a lot. For a long time, I judged the “intense over achievers” around me that were rushing around to pack as much activity into a day as possible. I would often be the guy advising such people to just “chill the **** out”. Even worse, I sometimes believed such people didn’t really know how to stop and appreciate the smaller things in life – yeah I was judgemental AF. Increasingly though I’ve come to realize that there is only so much fun to be had in chilling (as crazy as that sounds) and the line between being chilled about everything and not having a purpose is pretty thin. I’ve also come to believe that trying to do a lot doesn’t necessarily mean that one doesn’t appreciate the smaller things in life; perhaps appreciating the smaller things is one of the many things that you want to do in a day. Time to get off my lazy ass and explore the exciting opportunities around me
6. The most important decision in life is who you decide to spend it with – Sounds a bit cheesy but it’s true. Assuming you have one partner that you spend most of your life with, I can’t imagine how anything or anyone else comes close to influencing your happiness as this person. I’ve come to this realization rather late unfortunately, which meant that for a long time I prioritized other quests such as getting into my target school or finding a job I love – none of which in hindsight influence my happiness as much as I thought they would (you’d find more detail on how to find such a partner in the “people and relationships” section – once I’m done with it)
7. Constantly worrying about the future is the surest way to not make the most of the present – 2016 also made it embarrassingly clear to me that I spend a lot of time thinking/worrying about what’s going to happen in the future. While it makes sense to plan for the future, worrying is a wasteful activity which takes away from the present. My main man Lao Tzu captured this perfectly when he said:“If you are depressed you are living in the past.
   If you are anxious you are living in the future.
   If you are at peace you are living in the present.”
   I’ve also come to realize that a lot of the smart, talented, beautiful and accomplished people around me feel the same way as well – we’re all anxious AF. So how do you stop worrying? I’m not going to say, just decide to stop – because I know you probably can’t, it’s just not how worriers are wired. There are a couple of things you can do:
8. 1. Have a plan – at the very least you’ll stop worrying about not having a plan
   2. Be more structured about it (full disclosure – I haven’t tried this yet) – nothing is as bad as unstructured and irrational worrying – you really get nothing out of it. My untested theory is that if you set aside a specific time to worry every week, you kinda know there is time to do it and you might not want to do it randomly. Seems like something I should try in 2017

8. Money determines happiness (almost) – Let’s get this right, money is important and you’re definitely better off having more of it. I won’t be the first person to suggest that there are diminishing returns (in terms of happiness) to making more and more money i.e. if you’re poor AF, a bit of extra cash makes a much bigger impact on your happiness than when you’re rich. Basically, it makes sense for you to do things for the sole purpose of making money till you reach a certain wealth threshold – let’s call this the “Point beyond which it makes absolutely no ****ing sense to spend your time purely in the pursuit of wealth unless you’ve figured out that making money is your ultimate source of happiness, in which case keep going you weirdo“ – fondly abbreviated as the PAPOH point. It is of crucial importance for all young adults to figure out what their PAPOH point is. You can do this by figuring out the type of lifestyle you want to live and then figuring out how much money you’d need to have to afford that kind of lifestyle. For instance, I know I’ve reached my PAPOH point when I can afford to do the following:
   1. Travel to ~5 different countries every year
   2. Wear functional clothing with minimalist styling
   3. Eat healthy food prepared by myself or by the supermarket
   4. Afford healthcare for myself and my family incl. emergencies
   5. Grab dinner and drinks with friends at a hipster bar/café (preferably with some sort of Asian twist) at least three times a week
   6. Live close to work in a safe and clean neighborhood in an apartment with a giant TV, fast internet and a massive couch
   7. Play tennis or any other sports/gym once every week
   8. Have enough money to sustain above lifestyle for ~2 years, in case I get fired

Figure out what you want, be brutally honest about it, get the damn funds and then forget about money. Earn money to be free of it.

Yeah, so that’s it about motivation and happiness. You’re probably going to have to wait for a while to hear from me on people and relationships and work and the world around us. Sucks but that’s just how it is – just like 2016.

End of Part 1

If You’re Ever in Hong Kong

Hong Kong skyline

Hong Kong seems like the kind of place I’d like to live in for a year or two. Its reminds me a lot of London and indeed it’s hard to miss similarities such as the public transportation system and the cosmopolitan environment.

I like:

1. The fact that there is water next to the hills. I love the feeling you get as you take the bus up the winding roads past tiny streets, expensive houses and great views of the city
2. The roof top bars that show off the amazing skyline; the one I went was in  a steak house called Woloomooloo
3. The Asian karaoke experience: tiny room, great food, alcohol, new people and random chinese songs (many of which were kinda sad)
4. The fact that you don’t need  a car to get around: you can walk, take the bus/tube/tram; just the way it should be. This is further supported by the fact that the main areas tend to be rather condensed…

   

   Did I mention condensed?

5. The international crowd you see everywhere, think LKF, SoHo etc., and the fact that they contribute to the culture of the city
6. The general sense you get that things are happening in this place, akin to the feeling you get in NYC and London. This precedes the feeling that there is always something to do
7. Efficient public services. I spent new years eve on Victoria harbour and was joined by thousands of people, literally. However, I was kinda impressed by the coordinated manner in which the  police managed the crowd by constantly moving barriers and restricting access only to emergency vehicles. I also noted that the public transportation system was super convenient and always on time. I tend to appreciate when the words public and efficiency go together

   

   The tiny points of light you see are people (presumably with their phones) on NYE

The other major attraction that people often talk about is shopping. I didn’t however have an amazing shopping experience, which is a bit strange considering the fact that I was looking to buy a phone and Hong Kong is known for its great deals on electronics. I found the prices at regular stores to be comparable to most other parts of the world and  the offerings at the dodgy stores to be… well, pretty dodgy. I did however note that shopping for clothes appeared to be cheaper. I was going to be sexist and suggest that this should make HK very attractive for female travellers, but managed to correct myself just in time. Oops…

Despite the love, there are a couple of issues with Hong Kong:

1. Pollution: I’m not entirely sure if the air in Hong Kong is really polluted or if I’ve developed that perception based on the reaction from people around me. Furthermore, I’m not even sure if the pollution is from Hong Kong or is carried over from the Mainland. Nevertheless poor air quality is widely agreed to be an issue in Hong Kong
2. Impatient residents: I’m against all forms of generalisation of a population. However, I did encounter a number of people in Hong Kong who seemed to be in a constant state of rush, whether its pedestrians on the street or waiting staff in restaurants. Sometimes, this hurried behaviour unfortunately does come across as “rudeness”, but when you observe the impact on efficiency you kinda tend to wonder if it is worth it

Overall, love the place, definitely worth a visit if you don’t mind being rushed around a bit.

If You’re Ever In Taiwan

Keelung night market

Culturally, my trip to Taiwan was perhaps the most enlightening one so far. Taiwan is different in many different ways. Part of it might boil down to its unique political situation or the fact that it escaped the adverse effects of the cultural revolution. What ever the reasons, I made the following subjective observations:

1. The people in general appear quite hardworking, for relatively low pay
2. The variety of food available is mind boggling. There is also tea flavoured everything
3. There is a lot on offer for off beat shoppers looking for unique and random products. A lot of these products tend to be quirky and cute at some level

   

   Cute local design

4. The country seems particularly obsessed with “cuteness” and relentlessly strives to create cute characters out of everything. This includes a giant metallic sphere (damper) in their tallest building, Taipei 101, which protects the building from seismic activity. This object, which in most other parts of the world would be considered a dry technical device, is transformed by the Taiwanese imagination into “damper babies”. These “babies” come in four different character shades and talk to you as you walk around the sphere. And then they really took it to the next level with this.

   

   Damper babies

5. The relationship with China looks like it is heading towards some form of a climax. While political opinions vary, in general tourists from Mainland China (and there are a lot of them) do not seem to be very welcome. They are attributed with everything from rising real estate prices to general rudeness. This combined with the economy’s increasing reliance on Chinese spending makes me sense that something has to give soon.

Now, if you ever have the good fortune of travelling to Taiwan, you could try some of the things listed below:

1. Night markets: Taiwan is well known for its street food and you’ll find plenty of it at the night markets. I was able to visit a couple during my visit and loved the one in Keelung (where I was also blessed with the sight of a giant rubber duck which travels around the world). The variety of food is unparalleled with everything from frog to stinky tofu. I’d personally recommend the fried small sized crabs

   

   Yummy fried crab

2. Cheink Kai Chek Memorial: Huge memorial ideal for selfies and pictures of synchronised jumping. The sight of local schools practising dance in the evenings was pretty cool as well
3. Shrimping or Prawning: Basically fishing for shrimp in a swimming pool
4. Tea: Different types of tea, the local favorate seems to be Oolong tea. Tea making is a recognised art form in Taiwan and it’s definitely worth spending a few restful hours at one of the many tea shops
5. Food: Besides the street food, you can try the beef noodle, hotpot, hakka cuisine and other traditional Chinese food

Overall, Taiwan is all about the food, the tea and the truly weird manifestations of its citizens’ imagination……and this rubber duck

Giant rubber duck

If You’re Ever in Accra

James Town sounded like a nice area; largely because it sounded English. When you’re in an alien country, as unfortunate as it sounds, you tend to judge based on a variety of random criterion ranging from how European a thing sounds to how strong the cell phone network is. Yet as we walked towards James Town we didn’t see a Royal British Dockyard, we saw a slum on the beach. While, I’ve seen slums before I had never seen one on the beach. There was something contradictory about having a slum on the beach, while a slum is an obvious sign of deprivation and hardships, the beach represents leisure and the luxury of an excellent view. Ghana is a land of many contradictions and its capital Accra is no different.

The Makola Market

Arguably my favorite place in Accra, the Makela market represents everything that is good about Ghana. The friendly people, their exotic goods, the music, the intense smell; enough to fill anyone with loads of energy. People sell everything from running machines to centipedes and they sell it everywhere from the road to rooftops. Its quite possible that someone might reach out and grab your hand; its not that they mean any harm, they just want to stop you so they can say hi and learn more about you.

James Town

While I love the Makela market, it was at James Town that I felt the strongest sense of emotion. There are a couple of things  I find amazing about James town:

-While the residents of the shanty town were probably the same people who keep trying to sell stuff to foreigners on the streets, we were not approached by a single person while we were in James town. It was amazing and I concluded that they were either too shocked to see us there or somehow compartmentalized areas into work and home. There was no place for work at home.

– While I doubt any of them had running water or toilets, we spotted a communal area with a pool table, some kids playing football under lights and even a fridge with beer in it. Clearly these people saw their right to have a good time.

Oxford Street

Yes, they have an Oxford Street. While its nothing like the one in London, they do have a KFC at the center of it all. The street also hosts some of Accra’s best restaurants and even flaunts a sushi bar ( I hear Japanese people flock here from all over the continent to soothe their sushi cravings). There are also a couple of other really good(relatively upscale) restaurants like Papaya’s(Ghanian KFC) and Frankies.

Labadi Beach

Accra’s best beach is surrounded by a couple of five star resorts and hosts the most number of foreigners I’ve seen in Ghana. I really enjoyed my time here as it has a number of cafes put out comfortable armchairs on which you can just lie down and  sip your drink as you gaze at all beach folk and soak in African awesomeness.

Food

While my European companions took turns to fall sick, I really enjoyed Ghanian cousin. My personal favorite is Jollof rice with fried chicken. Based purely on the number of times we came across it, fried chicken seems to be an integral part of Ghanian cuisine. Other popular foods include fried plantain, tilapia fish,  fufu, benku, gari and a host of other cassava borns. The thing I like most about this cuisine is that its spicy and my Indianess makes me love anything spicy. There were a surprisingly high number of chinese restaurants in Ghana but sadly my Asian friends did not allow me to taste any.

The only Ghanian beverage I got to taste was beer( and they love their beer!). Popular brands(possibly local) include Star, Goulder, Castle Milk Stout and Stone. However, softer drinks such as cidre and Bacardi breezers were quite popular as well.

Music

Ghanians love to dance and do so from a very early age. I was exposed to this particularly groovy form called Azonto:

Some of the Major Ghananian Artists include Buk Bak, Guru, Sarkodie, Stay Jay, Tiffany, Eazzy and Eduwoji. They have thriving music scene here and you can check out more Ghanian music here.

While I covered my favorite ones, there are couple of other spots in Accra worth checking out like the Kwame Nkrumah memorial(where people go to take pictures after they get married), a couple of African art galleries, Accra Mall, Independence Square and some local markets. If you’re a tourist, a couple of days should be more than enough to cover this coastal city. And then? Probably head off to Cape Coast or one of the many resorts along the coastline.

Pictures Courtesy: Denise Chau and Grace Chen 

If You are Ever In New York

While I’m generally skeptical about making absolute statements, I’m almost certain that New York city is my favorite “Big City” in the world. However, I’ve never actually lived in New York and I’m wary of the limitations of my experience in this city.Also worth noting is that my memories of New York have been shaped by the amazing people I was fortunate to be there with. Regardless of all the above factors which might affect my objectivity(this was never meant to be objective either), New York is a great place to visit.

While I don’t have time to detail, when you do visit New York, make sure you google the following:

Greenwich village
Bryant Park
Central Park
Time Square
5th Avenue
Wall street
NY Chinese
NY Pizza
Canegie Deli
Napoli
Wu Liang
Souvenirs
Street Food
Macy’s
Ground Zero
Empire State
Museum of the City of New York
Harlem
Ferry to Staton Island
Japan Day
Fair
Brooklyn
YMCA
Subway
Cab
Back to NYC
Piccolo cafe
Little Italy
The Cambell Apartment
Cipriani Dolci
The Golden Unicorn- china town
Astoria
Rapture

If You are Ever in Seattle

1. Take a stroll in downtown Seattle and down through Sculpture Park

2. Visit the Historic Pike Market

3. Get a tour of the University of Washington

4. Gaze at the skyline from Gasworks and Kerry Parks

5. Eat Dimsum in China Town, the Rob Roy in Rob Roy, the Dork Burger in Lunchbox Laboratory, Donuts in Top Pot Donut, Pizza at Tutta Bella

6. Take the Monorail to the Space Needle

7. Take the Theo’s tour of its Chocolate Factory

The “If You Are Ever in ______” Series

Its a cruel thing really, to be aware of  both a constant need to write about my travels and of my blog-killing inertia(read laziness). I’ve always wondered about the process of expressing what I see in my mind and whether the fact that it is challenging is born out of some higher design to ensure that only the most worthy thoughts are expressed. I’ve also thought about instruments which can capture on a screen what one sees in one’s mind. I’m certain film makers would find such tools helpful as there would be no cameras to handle or actors to pay. All they really need is this one instrument (a mind camera) which can record every scene from their minds.

I’m digressing, in fact the only sentence relevant to the subject of this post is the first one. So I’ve always wanted to write about my travels and about those tiny-often-ignored elements which enable me to really feel a place. Yet I found myself constantly pushing such endeavors to the bottom of my to-do lists. I’ve now come to the conclusion, that perhaps a common template which can be applicable to all travel related posts would make the task of blogging about a place seem less burdensome by removing the necessity to think about the style and layout of the post. Am I killing possible innovation in the way I present my travels by factoring my laziness as a constant? Yes or no depending on how you look at it. It was laziness which forced me to innovate and develop a template in the first place. In fact laziness could  entice me to further simplify the template, perhaps making me deal only in videos. That would be quite innovative as well. But yes, we are digressing again!

Finally, presenting to you the “If You Are Ever in ______” Series.

50 Things I Learnt in College

“Tell me fifty things you’ve learnt in college!”

“What?! Why?”

“I just want to know”

“Erm, ok, here goes: Principles of Management, Thermodynamics, Introduction to Philosophy, Biology, Advanced Computer Orgaa..”

“Stuff that matters in a cool sophisticated manner vague enough to be applicable to all..please.”

“Okhay…

1. Your happiness is affected by and affects the happiness of those around you. So stay away from that depressed kid unless you’re sure you can help him/her without getting depressed yourself.
2. Gratitude is the weakest emotion. Don’t bank on it.
3. When people ask for advice they generally want you to tell them what they “could” do and not what they “should” do.
4. A team will communicate or perish.
5. There is no black or white. There is no right or wrong. There is no absolute.
6. People have a natural affinity towards things that seem absolute. Remember this while promoting any idea.
7. People(you included) are woefully unaware of their full potential.
8. The gap between thought and talk ought to be larger than the one between talk and action.
9. When people come to you with problems, thank them and ask them to come back with solutions.
10. Misery wants to get in bed with company. Its pretty desperate.
11. To not feel lonely is to realize everyone is alone.
12. Reading books gives you confidence.
13. If you think you know everything, you know nothing. If you think you know nothing, you know something.
14. Always know if the juice is worth the squeeze.
15. You will always have to answer to people who you consider to be of lesser intelligence. Save yourself the effort and tell them what they want to hear. Do what you want to do.
16. Heroes and Gods are man-made. Making them is fun. Try it.
17. Try everything, only in the company of people who can stop you.
18. Girls are not dumb. They just have different priorities.
19. Flirting is a sport. An extreme one.
20. The more you know about yourself the more you know where you want to be and with whom.
21. Don’t enter a relationship expecting it to last forever. Grow up already.
22. Numbers alone mean nothing.
23. Weakness is a state of being unable to defend what is right to you.
24. Understanding where the power lies is crucial if not everything.
25. Don’t be afraid to manipulate, everybody else is already doing it, consciously or unconsciously.
26. Good leaders are instinctive. Great leaders have words attached to explain their instinct.
27. A leader’s strength lies in his followers.
28. As an individual you can afford to do one thing at a time, as an organization you cannot.
29. Its ok for others to tell you what you need to do, but how you do it, is upto you.
30. Explore your physical environment as much as possible; opportunity lies in the next corner.
31. Jealousy is just plain lousy. Avoid it like the plague.
32. Introspect.
33. Be honest to yourself. Its first step towards being honest to others.
34. Always think long term; except when it sounds uncool.
35. Being Type A works, even if it kills you.
36. The devil really is in the details.
37. Take care of all the little things and the bigger things will take care of themselves.
38. Be nice and polite at all times. It will help you in the craziest possible way.
39. Consciously try to put yourself out of your comfort zone.
40. You already know what is right and what is wrong. Just listen to yourself.
41. Treasure people who value what you can do and not what you’ve done or what you know.
42. Death reminds you of life.
43. It all starts with an idea.  Make sure it doesn’t end with it.
44. The opportunities that find you are the ones that really matter.
45. Cultivate the habit of Wowing people once every month. Its cool to do so.
46. Understand that you can’t pursue all opportunities. Thinking about what you’re giving up on can be depressing.
47. Our society is based on taking certain things for granted. Humans are not one of them.
48. Religion or friendship; you’ve got to have at least one of them.
49. Everybody has a story. Get it out of them.
50. Always keep your head down. Seriously, do it.

Why fifty again? I think I can go on for like 50 more…”

“No, thats enough, thanks.

.

.

Seriously, go away.”

Norway

As some of you would know, I really enjoy traveling. Especially when it involves meeting amazing people from all over the world. International conferences are the perfect excuse to travel abroad on a shoe string budget and invest in a kind of experience you simply cannot buy with your own money twenty years hence.

I was in Norway a month ago, representing India at the International Student Festival in Trondheim(ISFiT) 2011. Needless to say, I had a whale of a time! I’m now writing a short account of that complete experience, how I wish I had done the same for my trips to Turkey and the UAE!

I spent 15 days in Norway, exploring Oslo, Trondheim(ISFiT) and Tromso. Most of the planning for the trip was done by Madhu, a great friend from Singapore who put up with all my laziness for 15 days.

Oslo:

My first port in Norway was Oslo, where I spent half a day before heading to Trondheim for ISFiT. I roamed the city center with a couple of other Indians, a Finn and a Brazilian. I was thoroughly exhausted as I had been traveling for over 24 hours. But it was snowing and things became really pretty..and slippery..and wet. I quickly realized that I didnt really have the clothes needed to survive that kinda weather. But I did manage to attack my companions with snowballs.

The size of the city surprised me, it was really small for a capital. We could cover the entire city center in an hour. We covered a path leading from the Oslo Central Station to the Sculpture Park. We saw the Parliament, The Royal Palace, Oslo University, The Cathedral and a couple of other important looking buildings on the way. I soon realized that Oslo, being the world’s most expensive city, was gonna burn our pockets. For example, a McChicken burger costs a little over 1USD in India and 13USD in Oslo! (Sorry, didnt bother to check the price of the veggie burger, if it existed). The sun set at 6pm and the snow started melting. As the snow melted, it seemed to get warmer somehow.

After roaming about for a few hours we returned to the Airport to catch the bus to Trondheim with the rest of the participants.

Trondheim:

The bus trip to Trondheim took 8hrs, but it was OK as I was asleep most of the time. I was still pretty tired by the time we reached Trondheim. I was relieved to be connected with my host, Kaia, who took me home immediately. She was a literature student at the university and was as kind as she was beautiful. I was to share the living room with a participant from Iran(whom I didnt get to see much of as he devoted most of his time to getting laid). Kaia cooked us a lovely dinner with rice, chicken and salad. That dinner taught me that Norwegians stay fit by eating little.

The ISFiT experience was all about my workshop group “The Future”. There were about 38 of us. As I’ve noticed in previous conferences, I take some time to get talking with people. So I was kinda shy at first. But slowly I got talking and made some really close friends. Everybody in my group were somehow amazingly cute! It was also interesting to note how close we became, a lot of people cried on the final day, no I DID NOT CRY.

What exactly did we do?? Well in the mornings we would meet up and do group activities, debates. discussions, have guest speakers over and play loads of games. We’d then head over to the university campus to have dinner at around 5pm. After dinner we’d go to this student activity center called Samfundet. That was the epicenter of all ISFiT activity. I was really impressed by this building as its completely run by the students on a voluntary model. We’d either have a plenary session or a few cultural events at the samfundet. After these there would inevitably be a party. Not really being a party freak I would generally take the last bus home at around 11pm. Yeah, I was kinda loserish there. 😐

But I always found the route back home quite intruiging, I would sometimes even walk home. Now, Trondheim is considered by some to be the most beautiful city in Norway. I think it looks even more beautiful by night, with its many trees, cobbled streets and white snow. As I lived close to the city center, I would pass half the inner city before reaching home and it still wasnt too long. I would just grab a cookie(that was the cheapest thing available!) and some cola on my way home. I think I found it intriguing because it had this sense of uncertainty and adventure attached to it. I would sometimes lose my way until I come across a land mark and then redirect myself from there. Hard to believe, but I did this for 10 days!

So by the end of it, I knew bad words in four new languages, heard stories from all over the world and found places to stay in three continents 😀 . I also got to introspect a lot and understand myself better. I was kinda flattered because girls from different parts of the world found me “cute” and I actually got videos of some of my new friends describing how awesome I am! 😀

On one of the days they showed us a video about the free hugs campaign and everybody started hugging each other. Now, I’ve never really been a huggy person, my hands are never aligned the right way  and I dont lean the right way either. But needless to say, I got plenty of practice at ISFiT. I wanna hug everyone now! 🙂

I really wish I could write in more detail about my friends at ISFiT:  whether its about angelic Xiwen(Moshie), or drunk Eams, or the amazingly sweet Raluca, Cigdem,  Romy  or the constantly abusing and funny Daniel and Cem or whistling Ida or the amazingly sweet Andres and Jaochim, or the embryo that Anin is or the winner in Nina, or the beauty of Ermira, Lena and Marina, or about just how cute Hye Na is, or about Ingvild’s Puppy face or about charming Charles or bold Marian, Rabab, Jane and Kim or about the leaders in Carlos, Rosilin, Marius, and Vebjorn and how awesome  Ines and Jose are, or about how Vandana and her camera are one thing or about amazing Zak who is currently battling it out in Libya or practical Nikoline or about dancing Aina and talented Defbry or eccentric Akshara or smart David or just about how bright the future looks because of everyone else.

But I cant, you’ll read about them in the news soon enough 😀

On the last day of ISFiT we said our goodbyes and people were really crying. I felt kinda bad that I couldnt get myself to cry but I really did feel sad for leaving them. I stayed back as I was going further north while most of my group mates took the bus to Oslo. Those who were left went back to this place where we all used to hangout and it felt really weird seeing it so empty. We cleaned up, ordered pizza and discussed marriage traditions in different parts of the world(always a great topic). I was really groused out by this Zimbabwean tradition where the father in law sleeps with the bride first to test her virginity.

I headed back home after some time and had a long conversation with Kaia. I really did enjoy my conversations with her, she was also very deeply introspective and we would discuss at length about personal satisfaction and stress control. She also taught me that Norwegians are well educated, well rounded, competitive and very proud of being Norwegian. The next day, Madhu and I explored Trondheim a bit more, got kinda lucky because it was the King’s birthday and we got to witness, read: feel, the traditional firing of the canons at noon. Kaia prepared another really amazing lunch for us and we ate, laughed and talked for one last time.

Tromso:

The flight to Tromso took us a couple of hours. Now Tromso is to the north of the arctic circle and is considered to be one of the best places  on Earth to catch the northern lights. Madhu and I were kinda concerned because the lights are not visible everyday and the forecast was not looking very good either. But, we got lucky, really lucky in fact. We saw the northern lights from the flight. So we literally went hysterical in the flight, much to the amusement of out co-passengers.

It has always been a personal dream to see the northern lights and we couldnt stop smiling stupidly for hours after that. We took a bus to the hotel where we were staying and the lights were even more distinct there. They seemed fluid somehow, green lights playing in the sky, needless to say, it was pretty amazing.

We were joined soon by Akshay and his DSLR with which we were able to capture this:

We spent the next day exploring the beautiful town of Tromso.  It was quite amazing actually, its like everywhere you look, you see a scene out of a post card. We went northern light hunting the next night as well, but due to a cloud cover couldnt really see anything. But we met this really nice Aussie couple who travel all over the world. Talking to them really gave me an idea of where I see myself in 30 years.

Oslo:

We took a flight back to Oslo the next morning.  We were going to stay at the home of an Indian professor. We were really happy to meet her and the German researcher she shared a flat with. They were researching on social media branding, an area in which I had some insight, so I thoroughly enjoyed my  discussions with them.

We then set about exploring Oslo. We first went to the Edvard Munch museum.  We went on a guided tour and I was feeling kinda sleepy towards the end.  We then went to this lane which was filled with ice sculptures on display. All of these sculptures were modeled after Munch’s creations so it was pretty easy for us to recognize them.

We then went to the harbor and walked around a bit. We also checked out the Nobel Peace Prize Center where the Nobel Peace Prize is delivered.

We then met this Norwegian lady and her son who took us to their ‘ancient’ house. As it turns out, her son was a genius piano player! So we were treated to some good music and some great conversation at their house. She told us how she used to travel a lot when she was young and her wish to visit India one day. Everyone in Norway has either been to India or is planning to visit soon.

By the time Madhu and I returned home, there was hot Indian food waiting for us! We then had a really long discussion on social media, culture, bollywood, living outside one’s home country etc. We finally called it a night and slept for one last time in Norway.

We woke up early next morning and went our separate ways at the airport.

As my flight was taxying towards the runway, I got a mail from London Business School, saying that I’ve been accepted to their Masters in Management programme. A fitting end to the Norwegian Experience.