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Up and Over

Posted August 11, 2013

PART 15 (DAYS 33-35): “How’s everything here?” I asked Chris, the manager at Southern Laughter Lodge, when I arrived back in Queenstown for a day in order to catch a homeward bound flight early the following morning.

“Oh, it’s quiet. It’s finally slowing down,” he answered.

“Oh, is the ski season over?”

“No, the season can go all the way until October,” he told me. “But all the Aussie kids have gone back to university.”

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Meet The Maharaja

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted November 04, 2004

DAY 382: Baldel, the bearded old Indian man in the paisley shirt, greeted me with a smile and a wave like he did every morning I walked down the market area from the Evergreen Hotel. It was his way of telling me his cycle rickshaw services were available to me without being too pushy like the other cyclists.

“Hello, how are you?” I greeted him.

“How is your leg?” he asked. The day before he had brought me to the local hospital to get my leg checked out.

“It’s fine,” I told him, hopping into the carriage, no questions asked. “I need to go to the City Palace,” I instructed him. He had been there many a time before, it being one of the main tourist attractions in Jaipur. However I was going there not as a tourist but as a journalist. “I’m going to meet with the maharaja.”

Look At The Stars

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted November 03, 2004

DAY 381: From what I gather, astrology has a bit of legitimacy in the public eye in India. In fact, the day before I saw on the front page of the legitimate Hindustan Times, whose cover story was the US election — it’s the cover story in most countries since the American president affect the entire planet — one blurb in the corner that had two prominent astrologists tell what the stars said about the election: that Bush and the Republicans would win a second term, but that second term would be tough. At the time, it was not in the hands of the stars but in the hands of American voters, at home and abroad. (The news reported that the American embassy in Delhi had a record voter turnout of 5,000, two and a half times more than usual.)

Monkeys, Elephants and Pangkot Palace

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted November 02, 2004

DAY 380: According to the tips provided by Blogreaders Duaine and markyt, the fictional Pangkot Palace from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is not just a set in a British sound stage. The exterior shots were filmed on location in India, more specifically at one of the palaces in Jaipur. While “palace in Jaipur” is like saying “skyscraper in New York City” or “church in Rome,” it was narrowed down to one palace, the Amber Fort, the former residential fort and palace complex built by Maharaja Man Singh in 1592. While the current Maharaja Sawai Bhawani Singh (forty odd generations down from Man Singh) chooses to live not the 11 km. north of the city where the Amber Fort is, but in the City Palace itself (it’s closer to the movie theater and the Pizza Hut), the inspiration for Pangkot Palace still remains on a hilltop for tourists to wander and for filmmakers, particularly the ones in Bollywood, to continue using it as a film location.

Jaipur Introduction

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted November 02, 2004

DAY 379: I woke up in Agra fighting again, the constant fight in my mind between myself and The Blog. “Blog” wanted me to hang out in my shabby room in Agra until I typed up another entry, while I just wanted to get out of there. I really wanted to go; there was a haze over the view of the Taj Mahal, the place was deserted, the toilet was clogged with drainage leaking onto the floor, and I was pretty sure Nati the shady auto-rickshaw driver was going to show up to drive me to another store to make commission if I didn’t leave by mid-morning. “Blog” said I could go, but only until I got some work done first.

Playing The Game

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted November 01, 2004

DAY 378: Every now and then back home in the metro New York City area, my friends and I, inspired by the movie Swingers, hop in the car for a spontaneous 2 1/2-hr. road trip to Atlantic City so that we can pretend to be high rollers. Because of the free parking (and the fact that we are not high rollers), we often end up in the parking deck of the Showboat casino and eventually walk over to the adjacent Taj Mahal, Donald Trump’s palace of green felt tabletops, shiny slot machines and a pretty good buffet.

Gandhi Park

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted November 01, 2004

DAY 377: In 1888, a young man from India went to London town to study law. Three years later he passed the bar exam and became a bona fide lawyer under the British court system and eventually became the legal representation of a firm in South Africa. Little did the young Indian man know at the time that a couple of decades later he would be hailed as a saint by some — and shot to death by another.

Worldwide Pants

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted October 30, 2004

DAY 376: Bedridden again, this time in Delhi to rest my leg from the bacterial infection I contracted from a weird insect bite (and the mild “operation” I had to get it cleaned out), I sat in my room as the penicillin did its thing. For me it was a time to catch up on world news with CNN International and BBC World, with its always catchy break filler background music (RealMedia file) so jazzy that I think I even heard it in a club once.

American Leftovers and Indian Flair

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted October 29, 2004

DAY 375: Since my arrival in India I had two leftover errands from Nepal that I wanted to take care of right away: finalize my insurance paperwork for reimbursement from the rescue from the Everest trail (total expenses came close to $5,000 USD!) and more importantly, try and get my absentee ballot for the 2004 US presidential election. I had tried numerous times in the Anoop Hotel’s fax desk to electronically send the eleven sheets of documents to my insurance company, only to have them tell me that I also had to mail in the originals. I had spent even more money and time to fax in my absentee vote ballot application to either of two numbers in America that I had gotten from the US embassy in Kathmandu. I don’t know which party was playing games on the other end, but the fax machine wouldn’t pick up my call.

Good Old Delhi

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted October 28, 2004

DAY 374: Centuries ago when the British came and butchered the people of India, there was an immediate resentment and a rebellion built up within the British-governed Indian society. This was to be expected of course; I mean, what do you expect when a Western superpower forces a governmental system upon a country in order to regulate the taking of its natural resources? (Sounds familiar, huh?)

On The Way To Delhi