Varanasi: First Look
Varanasi is, in a nutshell, a great big cauldron of excrement and faith. People's devotion and the colours, though, make this a photographers dream and never before have I seen so many dreadlocks and extremely expensive cameras in one place. More pictures at:
http://www.evelyn-vijay.blogspot.in/2013/02/varanasi-first-look.html
Finding Richard Parker
Tigers are extremely elusive, preferring the dense foliage of the forest to any open space where we could spot them from. But this tiger, in his charity offered us a little spy window through the trees where we could just make out his stripes - his camoflage failing - but only if one knows specifically where to look. He was pretty far off and all I could really see were some stripes in the forest which, to be honest, weren't so impressive. But then when the elephant trackers went too close he let out a tremendous roar that reverberated throughout the jungle and struck deep down into my core; rattling my bones and sending my soul cowering into a dark corner. This is without doubt the most impressive sound I have ever heard!
Ajanta Caves
Indian Railway System
The Indian railway system is awesome. It handles over 7 billion passengers in the world each year making it most probably the largest mass transportation system in the world*. These passengers as well as millions of tonnes of frieght travel over 64,000 km of tracks in one of 9,000 locomotives. Finally these lucky travellers have over 7,000 stations to choose from. The railway has over a million regular employees making it one of the worlds largest single employer too. Managing this system is mind boggling but the Indians haven't balked at this task. They have grasped it with both hands and created an online platform where one can book seats on any one of the 10,000 daily trains** through the seven different classes. But that's not all either, 50% of the reserved train tickets are held in an emergency quota and only released for sale one day before travel making the online rush for tickets a daily crush for any system. But it works and it works well. Could this be the world's largest operable online platform?*
Again, that's not all. If one changes their mind they can cancel beforehand and receive about 95% of the ticket cost back and even if one doesn't cancel and not travel one is eligible for some refund.
But no system is perfect and my train is delayed by 4 hours... :(
* Be great if someone can verify these. ** From wikipedia. Trust it at your own peril.
INDIA: Monkeys and Countryside
Two posts up on our other blog with loads of great photos: Monkey Business
The Kite Flyer's Reward
As the sun decends below the horizon and twilight turns to night only the most enthusiastic and skilled continue to fly their kites. The rest of us, on the roof terraces of Ahmedabad, pack up our kites and carefully wind up our kite strings. But before we even had a chance to reflect on the amazing day of kite flying and battling, another more spectacular image appears over the walled city of Ahmedabad: Chinese light lanterns fill the skies in their thousands, pin pricking the dark canvas background with light. Our eyes get to feast upon this never ending peaceful formation of light, steadily rising and disappearing off into the distance. Fireworks and crackers intersperse the calm display with powerful shows of light and sound and the whole scene, a 360 degree theatre, leaves us in awe, unrivalled by anything we have seen in the world.
The Kite Cutter
"Here, take the line." Dipak said in earnest.I immediately stood in position and took the string from him with both hands, my right hand leading. The glass coated string slid across my taped up fingers with the satisfying taughtness of a well balanced kite. The wind was good in the setting sun and the kite flew well and free. That had become the habit of our Uttarayan (kite festival) experience up to now: Dipak would get the kite in the air and sufficiently high before passing control to our novice hands.
I surveyed the scene as the kite flew itself. We were three stories up on top of a small pol house in the densely packed walled city of Ahmedabad, the best place to experience Uttarayan. All around us, on every roof top and every terrace, families gathered to fly kites, eat and celebrate. Flat rooftop terraces hosted parties of extended families and friends whilst the slum houses of slanted, corrugated iron had smaller groups, precariously balanced children flying their kites with no safety net between their roof and a ten metre drop to the streets below. Thousands of kites filled the skies around us, the air filled with the sounds of celebration. War cries followed by shouts of joy as a kite is cut down merged together into a continuous hum and only the blaring radios pumping out bollywood songs could be distinguished over it.
"Look! There! Careful! He wants to cut your kite." Dipak exclaimed seeing the threat with an experience honed from a lifetime of kite flying and well before I registered the attack. The attacking kite had moved into position about twenty metres away from mine to my left in a purposeful move. I followed the almost invisible line down to the hands of its owner. It belonged to a rival roof terrace, a man in his thirties. The small terrace not much larger than six square metres was, much like ours, crowded with kite fliers, reel holders and spectactors. He saw me looking and grinned knowing full well that his kite was in a better position and that he was the better kite flier. "Let out some string." Dipak said over my shoulder. My attention was brought back to the urgent moment. I let some string out letting the kite be blown into a new position. The kite flitted around in the wind, being drawn further away but to my horror also dropped a few metres in altitude. The kite itself was circling around in a tight circle, facing downwards then upwards. The string was not taut and I started to panic: I was losing control of the kite in the most crucial moment. The other kite, now in a dominant higher position to mine, noticed the distress of my kite and moved in for the kill. The attacker flicked his kite to face downwards in a sweeping motion directly into an interception line of my kite string.
"What should I do?" I asked Dipak, panic rising, evident in my voice. "Wait." he answered, calmly and patiently, his eyes carefully surveying the scene, calculating. The attacking kite was now closing in at a ferocious speed leaving only a few metres between our sharp glass coated kite strings. "Now! Pull up!" shouted Dipak without any warning. I immediately flicked the string and the struggling kite faced briefly upwards. It was enough. I tugged the string with all my might and the kite shot upwards towards the intercepting kite. "Pull in, pull in!" Dipak and Molik, my reel handler, shouted in chorus. With all the speed I could muster I began pulling in the kite string. The sharp string was sometimes sliding across my taped hands and sometimes over unprotected patches of skin. I didn't care. I pulled and heaved the string, the world melting away in insignificance. My kite reacted like a waking giant, shooting upwards at the approaching kite. Our strings locked. I felt the contact in the string, adrenaline surged and I pulled again with everything I had left in my aching arms.
"KAIPU!!" shouted Dipak and Moloki, arms in the air in celebration. I continued pulling, not knowing what had happened. A second later, I saw what they had already seen: The attacking kite with all its speed and control was now floating aimlessly like a falling leaf. "YES!" I shouted in joy, joining in the celebration and euphoria. Our kite had sliced through the attacking kite's string. We ran to the side of our terrace facing our adversary, "Kaipu!" our fists pumping. The defeated kite flier, busy pulling in his limp kite string, acknowledged our success with a sheepish smile and a wave. He will have another kite in the air soon and he'll be going for revenge.
Confusion, bewilderment and silence
I am at a bit of a loss writing about india. She is everything that I know, but also a complete stranger, bewildering me into a confused silence. I am stuck, my pen stationary on the page. Defeated I can only begin by trying to explain my confusion. I am a third generation Indian, my grandparents emigrated to Kenya where both my parents were born who in turn emigrated to the UK where my siblings and I were born. Although, we were brought up in the UK, we grew up in a predominantly Indian culture. Centering around food as cultures typically do, ours was an Indian diet, so much so that I had no idea how a knife and fork worked until after the age of ten. We identified ourselves culturally more to India than to the UK even though we were two generations from having lived there.
This image and cultural identification changed and morphed as we grew into adults and we integrated and assimilated into the western society around us but India and her culture were still there, deep inside, our roots, who we were.
But it’s not. Unconsciously our culture has changed and adapted to our Western hosts’ to create a hybrid culture, not Indian, nor English but a mixture of the two with a splash of East Africa.
Thus to an Indian I don’t look Indian. My hair is different, my clothes are strange and my body shape is telltale. I don’t feel at home on the noisy, busy streets, with the in-your-face poverty, the noise and pollution, the dirt, the smell and the spitting. I long for the quietness of European countryside, the order of her cities, the cleanliness of her streets. India is a stranger.
Yet, the woman struggling with the heavy shopping bags could be my auntie, the little boy begging for money could be my cousin and the guy spitting an entire disgusting mouthful of red saliva onto the street, centimetres away from my feet could be me.
Unlike other countries and continents, where praise and critiscm comes easy as an outsider, criticizing India feels like I am betraying her, like stabbing a friend in the back straight after meeting her after a thirty year exile.
Confusion, bewilderment and silence.
The Greatest Infinity Pool on Earth
**Attention: Some strong language**
A lecture on plate tectonics - Likoma Island, Malawi
Volunteering in Africa
The basis of volunteer work is to do work that requires to be done for the benefit of society or the environment without any financial recompense. It is a socialist concept and one that isn’t tremendously popular in our predominantly capitalist society. Whilst living in north-eastern France for the last three and a half years, I discovered that the concept of volunteering is at the heart of their society. I too participated and was a member of a particular group that organised music festivals and cultural events in the local area. There was no financial reward and if you were to break it completely down we were typically out of pocket due to travel expenses and such. But the sense of achievement and fun we had typically made up for losing our weekends and evenings to long hard days of cooking food, pulling beer and being on our feet for 15 hours at a time. But this article isn’t about the wonders of volunteering in France but what we were astounded by when we went to Southern Africa this year. My girlfriend and I have just returned from a three-month trip in Southern Africa. We hitch-hiked from Namibia to Zimbabwe and continued through Zambia into Malawi. Our journey covered thousands of kilometres, meeting hundreds of people along the way. The cultures and languages within countries and across borders are fascinating and vary to a greater extent than those between neighbouring European states.
What we found in southern Africa was that ‘volunteering’ is a massive industry. But the definition of volunteering is different. What we discovered was that the premise of most ‘volunteer’ projects is that the locals are incapable of developing themselves because they are inherently incapable or culturally inept in making the necessary changes. This premise has to be true in order to justify, say, an eighteen year old, with no previous experience of development work nor knowledge of African culture or history to start telling communities what to do in teaching or health or construction or whatever projects he might be involved in. It is quite simply absurd to think that untrained westerners have a better idea of how people from a different continent, culture, lifestyle, climate should live their lives than they do, or what is best for them in terms of development. Even the experts are continually getting it wrong.
I have seen ‘volunteer’ projects advertised for teaching assistants, sport teachers, medical projects, helping to build a school/hospital or helping to look after animals. Expertise required to join these projects? None. The volunteer does not have to be an expert in his field. The teachers do not have to have any previous teaching experience, the medical helpers no medical or nursing experience and the one helping to look after animals, no zoo-keeping experience or zoology knowledge.
These projects are funded by the volunteer who makes a payment of between hundreds to thousands of pounds to attend a project of duration of typically two weeks to two months. I find that a simple way of determining who is the real beneficiary is by following the money. Whoever is paying is the ultimate beneficiary.
The volunteer benefits from learning about a new culture, experiencing a different lifestyle or close interaction with children or animals. In comparison, the communities that the volunteer has come to help in put up with the westerners with bemusement and with the infinite politeness that is common in these parts.
One day, we inadvertently overheard a conversation between a volunteer agency and leaders of the local community. The volunteer agency stated that they had X number of volunteers arriving soon who want to be involved in teaching sports. They asked the local community leaders whether they could accommodate this. It seems that the ‘need’ for volunteers has not come from the community but rather it is suggested to them from savvy volunteer tour agencies. The link between supply and demand has been lost somewhere in the world of business.
I believe it is important to think about what sort of volunteers are required for a particular need. Wouldn’t, for example, asking a group of professional teachers to lead a course to train local teachers who will stay in the community their whole lives be more beneficial for the long-term development of a school?
Nevertheless I must finish by saying that most of the volunteering programmes are not inherently bad. From my point of view they are tourism trips and should be labelled as such. They are rewarding to the participant and if managed properly the projects may benefit the local community. However they can be detrimental to development when communities stop doing things for themselves: We came across one village chief who mistook us for volunteers. After greeting us he declared that it is good that we are there and that he is relying on us to develop their country for them.
Malawian Sachet Culture
The sachet, as it is popularly known, is a small transparent plastic packet containing about 60ml of cheap, hard liquor. They are available in all the popular brands of alcohol common in these parts as well as other sachet only varieties with fancy names and colourful packaging. They cost as little as 15 kwachas (five pence) each and are typically bought in packs of five or ten. It has become the drink of choice for the poor, young, uneducated or vulnerable. Such is their negative effect on society that Zambia has recently created a country-wide ban on the sachet industry. Just three months after the ban came into force, when we passed through Zambia we didn’t come across their existence. However when we passed across the border into Malawi, the sachet culture slapped us in the face. We first come across the discarded empty sachets littering the dirt road and countryside. They are everywhere and littering the towns, countryside, beaches and forests. The litter problem, typically a Western defined problem (Malawians don’t share the same values on litter) is not the main problem of the sachet-culture, the effect on certain social groups is debilitating. More than once we were harassed by men, madly drunk, incoherent and dangerous.
The affordability and availability of this cheap and potent alcohol means that life even in the most idyllic and rural settlements is being severely affected. Men, who are typically the main consumers, are drunk before midday. Teachers and parents are complaining of the effect on teenage boys who are dropping out of schools to drink sachets. Even children under the age of ten are known to be drinking the substance. Others complain of a rise in domestic and sexual violence. The sachet culture also affects those not directly connected; the transport system based around private mini-buses are becoming increasingly more dangerous as drivers keep themselves awake with the use of sachets.
For a country with a high unemployment rate, such an increase in unproductiveness of the population paralyses development.
Malawi has tried banning the product but a labyrinth of free business, vested interests and long legal processes means that the government required great political will to pass a ban. They do not (yet) have the will. A small success has been had from the Malawian government as they have increased the taxes on alcohol to 250% in the latest budget with the idea to price out school children from the market and make it uneconomical for others. Sadly it still remains too cheap and the sachet problem will not be solved until a total ban is enforced.
Further articles: http://www.nyasatimes.com/malawi/2012/11/04/malawis-chanco-student-dies-after-consuming-alcohol-sachets/
http://www.nyasatimes.com/malawi/2012/07/01/chiefs-back-ban-of-alcohol-sachet/
http://mwnation.com/opinion-and-analysis/weekend-investigates/6767-should-malawi-ban-sachets
http://www.faceofmalawi.com/2012/09/zambia-bans-liquor-sachets/
The village of Chona (no electricity, no running water) PRESENTS: A special lecture on Aeronautics
The village of Chona, Zambia is not really a village at all but more of a focal point, a place of infrastructure where the wider community gathers. It has a health clinic, a school, a small market and a well meaning everyday the community for miles around descend to Chona before heading back to their small plots of land and huts in the evening. It is here at the local school, with so many pupils that the school starts at 7am to 5pm working in two shifts, where I offered to give a lecture on Aeronautics to the eldest math and physics class. The small classroom, packed with fifty Grade 9 pupils wait patiently as I am presented. As with the impeccable politeness of all Zambians they stand when I enter the class room, greeting me formally yet warmly. I forgot to ask them to sit and they continued standing until the head teacher intervened and gave the instruction.
As with schools in the UK, all the pupils wore a school uniform, shirt and tie for boys and skirt, blouse and jumper (?) for the girls. At this age in school, their shirts were not torn or over used and almost all had a note book to write in.
I started at the beginning. The most that any of these children had ever gotten to an aircraft is seeing the large airliners silently cruising through the blue skies kilometers above them. Had they ever asked themselves about how it could fly? Or even how big these aircraft were? From their astonishment I would say no. Their initial shyness, coupled with ignorance soon gave way to intrigue and fascination. Aircraft, aeroplanes, helicopters are understandable to small villagers like themselves who may have never even been in a car before.
They started answering the questions I posed them. One boy, even answered correctly as to why the aircraft needed a tail using his knowledge of the large African birds around them. Another correctly answered to what would happen if the aircraft started to go too slowly. Their questions too became more sophisticated, 'Sir, how do you get oxygen into the aircraft?', 'Why can't you open the windows?'
The greatest part of the lesson was taken up by practical maths. They were to work out in relation to other modes of transport how fast an aircraft travels at. Speed is not something they are accustomed to. The question 'How fast can you travel by bike?' Was met with shrugs until they could think about how far their house was and how long it took to get to school. 30 minutes to travel 7km equals 14km/h. The car, which most had never travelled on, was worked out to be at 120km/h. But how do you work out the speed of an airliner?
I gave them a few clues: 1) Airliners cruise at roughly Mach 0.9, 2) Speed of sound is roughly 300m/s. A few brave children, came to the black board to work it out. Having no calculators all calculation must be done long hand or mentally. When they worked out the speed at 972km/h they were astonished! Shouts of surprise and murmurs of disbelief filled the classroom and exploded to a raucous when they found out that fighter jets can travel at 2-3 times that speed.
Hands were shooting up now and the questions flowed one after another non-stop. But time was now over and I left them in a state of wonder.
As Mr. Moses, the senior teacher, said as we left, "Thank you. It is inspiring to the young village children to realise where they can emerge with studying and the usefulness of it."
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ETOSHA - Wildlife Safari
Check out a few of our animal photos from Etosha National Park. Enjoy and welcome to our world! :)
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Sand Dunes of Namibia
When you walk or drive through a desert, you might get the impression, that there's no life around you... In case of the Namib, a coastal desert in southern Africa, this assumption is completely wrong. Having endured arid or semi-arid conditions for roughly 55–80 million years, the Namib is the oldest desert in the world. This is one of the reasons why a number of unusual species of plants and animals are found in this desert. Many of them are endemic and highly adapted to the specific climate of the area.
In Swakopmund we had the pleasure to track some of these amazing creatures. Have a look!
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The Desert Horses
The Fish River Canyon is the second largest canyon in the world, second only to the Grand Canyon in the USA. We were lucky enough to walk a certain part of it, a 90km section over five days. The Fish River winds itself through a semi-desert landscape deep inside the canyon walls. The hike which follows it's winding path became pathetically slow in places as we negotiated sand dunes and boulder fields. Cheekily, we spent a lot of time looking for the trail of other (guided) groups that may have picked a more direct line or found firmer sand to walk on. Most of the time we didn’t find it – if there was one at all! :-)
But every time we saw some horse shit on the ground we said to each other: "We must be right here. Only locals or guides with groups would hike the Fish River Canyon with horses" – and we nonchalantly followed the signs.
One late afternoon, when we were ready to make camp, we spotted two horses on the other side of the river. They were beautiful in the warm evening light of the sunset and turned their heads towards us watching us attentively. We were happy to see that they were free and could move up and down the river as they wished, finding the juiciest plants to munch on. Yet we asked ourselves where the owner might be as we couldn’t hear or see anyone.
About two days later our path crossed the horses again. First we thought that they must have been the same ones. But this time there were four of them, one of them a fowl. Our path took us within ten metres of them.
They looked wonderful with their dark brown fur shining in the sun, their bellies round and their mane and tail thick and full. The healthiest horses we have ever seen! We remarked that we couldn't make out any traces of saddles or heavy loads they had been wearing. Although there were no people in sight we were still sure that they must belong to a guided hike trough the Canyon.
That night we finished the hike and ended up at a lodge with a bookshop. We stumbled upon a book called "Namibias Desert Horses" and we couldn't believe to find out that a small population of these wild horses must live in the Fish River Canyon!!!
Today we were lucky to see some of the other Desert Horses of the Namib. They were coming to a waterhole not far from the main road where we passed on our way to Luederitz. As we sat in the shade of a simple shed next to the waterhole, we could take our time to study the horses intently. Even these animals dwelling on a desolate gravel plain far away from a river and plants to feed looked surprisingly well. Their remarkable story of survival in these harsh conditions is deeply impressing. A wonderful experience.
Read more about this topic at www.wild-horses-namibia.com
Southern Namibia
Completely dry. The south of Namibia is a long endless plain of dryness. As we continue our journey southwards across immaculate tar roads the dry desert countryside rolls past. We pass over countless number of dried up river beds and watch the sand and dust being blown about when the winds pick up. It's due to the dryness of the country as to why the roads are so good. Without adequate rain, the farming possibilities in Namibia are extremely limited and as a result the country relies on supplies brought across the South African border by road. Huge trucks and lorries thunder past on the large and well maintained highway. Of course off these main highways the roads are gravel roads but in extremely good condition that our Toyota Corolla has no problems (so far..). Freezing cold. The nights have dropped below zero several times in the last few days. -7C our car registered one morning making the nights extremely uncomfortable. This temperature climbs to 25C in the daytime making a huge temperature differential. No precipitation and no clouds... this part of the country is a real desert.
Unemployment. The unemployment level in Namibia is according to our taxi driver 51% down from a high of 55% last year due to the government hiring more police officers and army personnel. We pick up the occasional hitch hikers who is trying to get from one town to the other to get to work. "God bless you" is what the Namibian's say when you have been nice to them. We've received five so far :).
Damn these Olympics!
It's always a mad rush just before leaving on an expedition or traveling adventure. It's even harder when you've coupled this with living between two countries, moving from one country and dealing with two broken cars (one written off). Finally it's become next to impossible when you've got these Olympics destroying every ounce of concentration one can muster. Damn these Olympics and damn Team GB for doing so well! T-30 minutes before heading off to the airport and finally I have two spare moments to write a short post.
First stop, Namibia for a three month cross continent voyage through Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique finishing up in Malawi.
Follow us here or on: http://evelyn-vijay.blogspot.co.uk/
Swiss Arctic School Talk
Last week I was honoured to being asked to present to a class of ten year olds in Switzerland about the Arctic. A bit outside my usual geographical sphere of presentations but after hearing what happened in their last lesson I could not say ‘no’. The class had been learning about the Polar Regions for the last five weeks and on their last lesson they had been asked to figure out what a certain website was about – my website. The main problem is that my website is in English and they are Swiss (German). Nevertheless they were quite proud of themselves to figure out that it’s a website of an Arctic explorer. But when their teacher told them that on Monday this Arctic explorer in question might be coming to school they were unreservedly ecstatic. One girl claimed that she will bring in her autograph book. Of course after hearing such a story I couldn’t say ‘no’.
Upon presenting to them I was amazed as to their level of comprehension. As requested from their teacher I did not descend the level of my English below what I would have used for a group of native English speaking ten-year old pupils and on average they understood about 50% without a translation into German. We had one morning scheduled about the Arctic but even as the school bell rang a cry of ‘more’ erupting at the back of the classroom spread throughout: ‘MORE! MORE! MORE! MORE!’
This week they learned about climate change and with enthusiasm like this, I still have some hope for the future.
