January 2011
16 posts
48 hours (and a bit) in Bangkok
After spending nearly two months in gritty southern India, what I experienced in Bangkok was a truly severe reverse culture shock. The airports were a good indicator: the one in Chennai was a ramshackle affair, barely worthy of the name ‘international’, whereas Suvarnabhumi airport was a ritzy modern airport with all the necessary trimmings, including very Thai (?) fixtures such as Dunking Donuts...
Volunteering in Sadhana Forest
Hannah and I took two weeks off city and temple hopping in Tamil Nadu to volunteer at Sadhana Forest. It’s a community near Auroville and Pondicherry aiming to restore some of the dry evergreen forest, the original vegetation of the area which has now all but disappeared. To do this, they welcome up to more than a hundred volunteers.
The logistics of this place are mind boggling. Just...
Facebook is Down
betelnut:
They just blocked Facebook in Egypt, which is how all the protests were organized in the first place. Although cell phones are operable today, Twitter remains blocked and now this bullshit on top of it. The local state papers were acting like nothing happened yesterday. This is getting out of control.
Update: It’s back up again for now. But a realtime Google search has a lot of people...
Last hours in India
And so, after seven and a half weeks, my second trip to India is about to end. Tonight I’ll be heading to Chennai airport, flying out to Bangkok just after midnight, trying to survive there, a hectic city of nearly 10 million, after a sleepless night, a daunting yet exciting prospect.
I’ll be alone though, as Hannah is staying in India. It’s harsh, really harsh. Things are open,...
