Samar Halarnkar - Livemint.com
ABOUT RECENT POSTS
Member since 04-04-2008
Last visited 09-29-2008
Timezone 5.00 GMT
Total Posts 25
Post Rank 0
  • Monday, June 30, 2008
    Posted at 11:49:00 PM
    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 Asian vegetarian (no fish or eggs) meal, after being rebuffed in South America ("Sorry, we have discontinued vegetarian meals," was the frosty response from a TACA, Trans American Airlines.
  • Saturday, June 28, 2008
    Posted at 12:05:00 AM
    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 herself and the fashionable owner who emerged to chat and help interpret what I wanted - nothing more than a standard army buzz cut - I had three women involved in my long overdue haircut. This.
  • Wednesday, June 25, 2008
    Posted at 8:11:00 PM
    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 children than in Peru. Many, as young as three, walk around unsupervised, dwadling on their way home. This lot was older and were prancing along through a town square. Photo, above: A Hamara Bajaj.
  • Wednesday, June 25, 2008
    Posted at 6:56:00 PM
    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 from this height like those insects that skim water. Where we had huffed, the local men walked easily, knitting as they strolled over the rocky mountain paths. Yes, the men of Taquile island -- the.
  • Sunday, June 22, 2008
    Posted at 7:00:00 PM
    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 -- what else -- the Inka Express, just under 400 km from Cusco to Puno, a grey city that is the base for Lake Titikaka, the highest navigable lake in the world. This is the start of something we've.
  • Saturday, June 21, 2008
    Posted at 10:07:00 PM
    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 photos from Peru by tomorrow ...
  • Wednesday, June 18, 2008
    Posted at 8:41:00 PM
    "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 over the last 20 years. Sounds familiar? But after two days of wandering its cobblestone alleyways, dodging its relentless flow of little Daewoo taxis and observing its town planning closely, we.
  • Sunday, June 15, 2008
    Posted at 9:27:00 PM
    "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 remote Andean outpost, we meet these welcoming, amiable Quechua Indians who, thanks to the quirks of history, share a name with us. We have run through Peru´s plains and are steadily climbing into the.
  • Friday, June 13, 2008
    Posted at 5:18:00 AM
    ( Photo: on the Pan American Highway, 180 km out of Lima ) Coca Cola´s biggest challenger in Peru -- a land of sweeping landscapes, rough edges and friendly people proud of their Inca heritage -- is a sugary, piss-coloured drink called Inca Kola. As we head out of chaotic, colourful Lima, the first thing we see is advertisements for Inca Kola. Surely some archaeo-pop patriotism at work? After all the Inca empire was wiped out by the Spanish before the British took over India. But our driver, Richard, a shy Quechua Indian from the Andes -- now a.
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