OneWayTicket

Day 90: The (sad) journey back home

Posted by Priya Ramani at 
It broke my heart to say goodbye to Mika and Khensani. Mika wanted to know why we hadn't stayed with them for the full 10 days. And I don't think I will ever meet another seven-year-old who is as special as Khensani. On the flight we were seated near a Gujarati family who proceeded to "capture" all the nearby empty window seats and...

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Day 84-88: In search of Africa's Big Five

Posted by Priya Ramani at 
Lion. Leopard. Elephant. Buffalo. Rhinoceros. The Big Five that top every African tourist's been there, seen that list. After yesterday's health scare, I'm feeling slightly more charitable towards Willem. I don't envy his job - he's under constant pressure to seek out the biggies. And I think I just made it worse by telling him I'm...

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Day 83: A wild introduction to the other South Africa

Posted by Priya Ramani at 
I don't know what we were expecting but it certainly wasn't an Afrikaner with a Tom Selleck moustache, a blond ponytail and a tatoo high on his left thigh that doubled up as his visiting card: Master Tracker it read, like the pieces on a scrabble board, one word vertical, one horozontal with the "a" common to both and the face of a...

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Day 81: Tales of liberation--and the best mutton curry--in Soweto

Posted by Priya Ramani at 
Remember 1976? India was in the midst of a long vacation from democracy - we were trapped in the Emergency - but for South Africa this year marked the first real landmark in the struggle against Apartheid. The uprising that started in Soweto in 1976 gathered momentum and spread all over the country for the next 10 years or so. We're spending the...

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Day 78: South Africa, home away from home

Posted by Samar Halarnkar at 
It's been three days since we crossed the Atlantic. We're pros now at three-hour nights: grab whatever little sleep you can on board, somehow stay awake the entire day after you land, and finally sink into a long, exhausted sleep. It was a nine-hour flight from Brazil to South Africa. The wife was particularly happy because she finally got an...

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Day 75: Blame it on Sao -- 48 hours, a new friend, a light head

Posted by Samar Halarnkar at 
I paid 50 times as much as I normally do for the haircut. But, I also had my hair washed four times and had an attractive - if somewhat stressed - Brazilian woman fuss over it for an hour, holding it between her fingers and snipping it off strand by strand. Ah, the pleasures of a haircut in an alien land. Between the woman who washed my hair, the hairdresser...

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Ah Peru! Scenes from a far country

Posted by Samar Halarnkar at 
As we exit the land of the Incas and all those other Indians, I dredged up some photos from my camera. They were previously missed or all those shaky cybercafes in remote towns didn´t let me upload them. Here they are. Also, four posts have gone up today, so please take a look at the One-Way Ticket home page. Photo, above: I´ve rarely seen more carefree...

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Day 73: Meeting Gandhi in Lima

Posted by Priya Ramani at 
Considering this is the city where middle aged women zip around in Bajaj autorickshaws labelled The Tigers of San Miguel and curvy bikini-clad women on signboards exhort you to drink Brahma beer, it shouldn´t have surprised us that we bumped into Gandhi ( see the man himself above ) at Lima´s Chinatown, right? Oh well, it was one of those perfect holiday...

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Day 71: Trout at the world's highest "sea" view

Posted by Samar Halarnkar at 
Let me use what I hate to, an adjective. Incredible. That was the view at lunch today -- facing the azure waters of the world´s highest inland sea. As I ate my freshly fried trout, I could see snow-clad peaks about 22,000 feet high (Everest is just under 30,000). I could see ferries coming and going over the cliffs, creating triangles of wake, looking...

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Day 70: Alpaca curry and some travel fatigue

Posted by Samar Halarnkar at 
Take a look at the furry little fellow above with his good-luck garland. He's a baby alpaca. I had him for lunch. Well, not him literally, but a bigger, tougher, less fortunate cousin, or brother, or whatever. I met this furball at a rest stop for lunch on another long, mountain road journey in the high Andes, this time on a bus service called ...

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NEW PHOTOS! Take a look

Posted by Samar Halarnkar at 
Folks, we have finally solved our photo upload problems. Lots of new photos have gone up in our blogs. Take a look at all posts from Day 63 onwards. And to those of you who protested the lack of photos -- thanks. It forced us to find a solution. We suspect Durga Raghunath, the chief of Livemint, increased space on the database. Except more blogs and...

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Day 68: Crazy Peruvians on the train or why we love Peru

Posted by Priya Ramani at 
This is probably how an advertisement for Peru Rail would read: Wanted cabin attendants. Must have experience in service industry. Must be well-groomed. Must know folk dances and have previous ramp experience. Today, on the train back from Machu Picchu, after the three employees of Peru Rail had finished serving us weary travellers an airplane-style...

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Day 67: Machu Picchu or the Taj Mahal? Who got your vote?

Posted by Priya Ramani at 
I already know the answer to that question. In last year´s frenzied email polling, you voted for the Taj Mahal as the seventh wonder of the world. Why? Well, because it was Indian of course. India is great. The Taj is amazing. India´s best monuments are as good as any other country´s right? So what if you hadn´t seen Machu Picchu. As an Indian, the...

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Day 66: What Cusco can teach Mumbai, Delhi

Posted by Samar Halarnkar at 
"Good god, it´s like Simla!" That is our first reaction when we first saw Cusco -- ancient capital of the Inca empire -- from a neighbouring mountaintop on the other side of the world from India. Peru´s third-largest city spreads chaotically in all directions, a result of an influx of rural Quechua Indians. Its population has grown three times...

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Day 63/64: Indians meet Indians in the high Andes

Posted by Samar Halarnkar at 
"We have only seen Indians before on the Discovery Channel!" exclaims Lorenzo Gonzalez as his sister-in-law ( photo, above ) laughs in delight. As we talk to them in their little provision-store-restaurant-garage in the Andes -- the second highest mountain chain on earth after the Himalayas -- we truly understand globalisation. Here in this...

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