The New York Times did a piece on "36 Hours in Mumbai" this past weekend. It's a bit heavy on food and drink but it does do a good job of highlighting some of the more modern Mumbai stops that aren't the usual collection of monuments and sightseeing photo-ops. And 36 hours may be rushed but it might also be just enough time in the big city before heading out to smaller-town India.
As he says, "Unlike in many countries, walks and walking tours are not common or popular in India. This series intends to promote the idea of walks that can enable travellers to see and experience the places better by getting closer."
A good idea and well executed with each amble including: detailed description of the walk along with maps, difficulty level, best season and time of day to do the walk, distance and helpful Google maps.
In a quote reminiscent of the ailing Lou Gehrig, Albert Brunner, the CEO of the Bengaluru International Airport (a consortium composed of the private enterprises Unique Zurich Airport, Siemens Project Ventures and Larsen & Toubro and the state-owned Airport Authority of India and Karnataka government) was widely quoted as saying, "I am the happiest man in the world," upon the airport's opening. (On the management page for the airport where the Swiss honchos are all pictured, they are all smiling in a way that is uncharacteristic for the rather staid Swiss and for management photos in general; "See, look how happy we are!" they radiate. Stephan Widrig, the Chief Commercial Officer looks like he's almost painfully happy.)
What Brunner was probably trying to say was, "I am the most relieved man in the world" after the fast-track project was "marred by controversies, litigations, protests and cost over-runs, the much-awaited launch was put off thrice (March 28, May 11 & 23) due to delays in setting up the air traffic control, training operators, government clearances and finally the poll panel's directive to it put-off by a day."
If you're headed to the company-cum-airport known as Bangalore (aka Bengaluru) International Airport Limited also known as BIAL, be sure to use BLR as your code; BIA will put you in France.
China's hosting of the Olympics could very well be a boon for tourism there; but it can get one thinking that sometimes tourism might be too much of a good thing – that is, there might be too much to handle. In Asia's other big country, India, the country's strong economy and increases in tourism are bumping up against sufficient places to lay one's head. While India doesn't look to have an Olympiad in the next decade, it will still be hosting some big events, notably the Commonwealth Games. The Wall Street Journal reports that:
NPR did a story today about India's dhobis or clothes washers (I suppose they would be "launderers" or "laundresses" which are words that don't seem to get much print these days). As I realize by looking back at my stacks of pictures from my time in India, I really felt myself mesmerized by the daily washing ritual that happens all across the country. Although the same fabric-flogging is seen in developing countries all over the world, there was something about it in India that lent a true sense of place whether in the big cities or the small towns and numerous riverbanks in between. Reporter Laura Sydell posits that the iconic dhobis may become a thing of the past as a result of the increasing prevalence of washing machines and the general march of modernization.
This is my photo of Dhobi Ghat in Mumbai where thousands of launderers smack wet clothes (and hotel linens) against their stones in a weird harmony.
Bollywood is cranking out movies by the barrel-load (probably to feed the supply of Indian actors-turned politicians). Although set in India, they don't exactly convey what it's like for a foreigner to visit the subcontinent; certainly there's a truism to that across cultures; what one sees in a Hollywood blockbuster, after all, isn't exactly a mirror of everyday life in the US; similarly, Bollywood isn't a perfect reflection of a typical life in India. Hollywood's foray into India – the treatment of the East through the eyes of the West – has been understandably limited. Richard Attenborough's Gandhi (1982) is a possible exception although it is an Indian story about Indians. George Stevens's 1939 film, Gunga Din (based partly on a poem by Rudyard Kipling) mixes Indian and non-Indian characters but in a plot that doesn't exactly resonate with the realities on the ground today:
In 19th century India, three British soldiers and a native waterbearer must stop a secret mass revival of the murderous Thuggee cult before it can rampage across the land.
NPR did a story today about 