We start this post with my arrival at Zagreb, the capital of Croatia.
The three things that will remain with me long after all else if forgotten, which is about 15 mins from now, are -
my problem with spellcheck in this post and -
encounter with horsemeat
When my passport came back after the croatian visa, the name of the country was HVRTSKA.
I've a fairly well developed left brain. I can lift my left eyebrow higher than my right one. That is proof of a well developed left brain. but despite my well develope left brain I couldn't figure out how could the spelling and sound be so far apart.
It's like calling an umbrella, not an umbrella. Bad example, but I guess you get the import.
And that is not it. Croatians actually abhor vowels. there is a place called Grk and its neighbor Krk not to forget Brcko.
I mean, how do you send a sms when leaving Grk for Krk. I've thought of some options which are listed below -
- gng grk 2 krk
- grk2krk
- g(k)rk
please send your suggestions to the post office of grk or krk. you may address them to postmaster grk (or krk), hvrtska.
I was in europe, so i decided to sample their cuisine. that was when i encountered horsemeat. yes dear reader, do not cringe - horsemeat as in meat made from the equine species. long know for giving us chetak, toofan and moti, it was now giving us sausages. i was traumatized.
my hosts were jelkwik and his sister (i didn't get her name. and looking at her and her brothers size didn't have the courage to ak for it). my english was clearly no good for them and they looked at my collegaue - a pole (not pole as in a thick wooden stick but pole as in a man from poland), to translate my accent into their accent.
jelkwik worships the ground putin treads on. he puts that on practise in the way he drives his bmw x5. which is by going against the traffic at very high speeds and playing disco music. all this only after he has twleve doubles of jack D on the rocks. before that he drives only against the traffic at high speed.
after escaping from my hosts, we headed to split. not the verb but the noun and a proper one at that.
split is a beautiul town overlooking the adriatic and cliched as this may sound, it is true.
the old city of split is a unesco heritage city and is located within the old castle walls. we stayed at a small b&b over there, which overcharged, despite the end of tourist season.
split holds the record for the shortest divorce sentence. it is - let's split.
split will also be hosting the miss universe contest in 2009.
after split, we gave came back to get a fresh dose of jelkwik on way back and spent the night at opatija, an adorable city along the adriatic.
next day, drove to zagreb early morning. speeding and getting caught. zagreb has a nice european town trapped in socialist architecture strange feel.
I liked its electric trams. overall nice scenery and beautiful country. if you're on a shoestring budget and your emails are cluttered with 'u' for you, 2 for two or too and da for the, it just might be the place for you.
Croatian women, the one that I saw in Zagreb, are quite beautiful, lacking any sense of fashion. They all choose to wear jackets with faux fur collars, knee high jeans and boots. Croatian men, all walk with limps, having been kicked in their shins by women wearing boots.
During this stay I developed some European habit, like eating cheese with wine and having espresso coffee. And consequently, constipation,.
I travel to London next week. Watch this space, for the place where beer is cheaper than water and juvenile deliquency is at its highest
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Tel Aviv
Israel has always been very exciting, part because I'd read Dominique Lapierre's O Jerusalem, of which I recalled none, a little because a rich Israeli businessman is dating some hollywood actress ( I've forgotten both names) and because of its unique position in both social sciences ie history and geography.
Readers will notice that i explain my puns - like the above. i could've very well stopped at social sciences but i continued. i call it being user friendly.
Coming back to Israel or rather to the athens airport, where in a fit of madness i bought a 19 euro pen and then tried killing myself by thinking so much that i missed a few heartbeats.
Many pangs of guilt later, i decided to forgo lunch for 3 days. I'm an awful seeker of value, who commits, regrets and tries to create balance by eating flight food to save on restaurant bills.
Anyhow the flight was uneventful and long before i could finish a few winks, we reached ben gurion airport. Incidentally, ben gurion's name is the only one i remember from the above mentioned book.
The airport is fairly well designed and I was at immigration sooner than you can say a long name. With extensive travels into bangladesh, indonesia, yemen, syria, UAE, and sworn enemy lebanon, i wasn't expecting a hearty welcome. and i didn't get it either. waited for an hour and after giving names of my family, pet giraffe, assorted planets of the andromeda galaxy and all but one of the fourteen moons of navu1287 i was asked to leave. in the direction of tel aviv.
This process was repeated twice more, before i could get into a cab for the hotel
a new day was breaking and so was my back.
As i enter the hotel, i meet noel from pondicherry, avid fan of himesh. i was made to travel 11 hours and here Israel was right next to ulhasnagar and jignesh and hitesh shah were doubling as mossad agents.
But the mediterranean was the real deal and himesh was singing on zee hot. a new channel which has since made sure that indian men will never get firang dates.
rushed to my room leaving noel with his tanhai and himesh.
my host was an iraqi jew, who took me to meet an israeli arab. later i also met a palestenian christian. i'd like to say something meaningful with a flavor of funny at this stage. but since i can't think of anything, suggestions are welcome. the winning entry gets noel's collection of zee hot recordings
That was the beginning of the end of a long night.
Then some travel to haifa and meeting before a well earned lunch at a restaurant where 23 people had perished in a suicide bomb attack. thankfully this piece of information was served with the main course, so i had to be satisfied with the entree.
My impression till now were all positive. Israelis have a good sense of humor, nice buildings, broad roads, eat good food and speak english - clearly business was going to be tough.
In my line of business, I've realized that a failure in all or substantial number of above is important for a country to have prospects.
Yemen, where we flourish, has bad food, which is served on a newspaper placed on the table, speak no english, the only buliding of consequence - the american embassy was recently bombed, and whenever they want to have a laugh, they shoot someone. unka sense aur jo mara woh non sense. (their sense is to non sense other peoples)
ergo, i rest my case.
now we come to israeli men and women. the promised land invites people from across the world, makes them do 3 years of army life and serves salads for breakfast. this gives israelis, fit bodies and good digestion. also mixing of nations has led to some exotic colors and races which can make a man very happy for being a jew in the holy land. since i was neither, i did the next best thing - hog on falafel and pomegranate juice.
i read somewhere that more israelis have been killed in road accidents than in all the wars put together. soon after reading this i found myself becoming a statistic when my hosts' employee - an american jew drove me to their office. i missed the obituaries for another day, but learnt an important lesson.
after 3 days of half kilo salads in morning, meat for lunch and falafel for dinner, i had a day off when i decided to go to Jerusalem. first stop was yad vashem which commemorates the holocaust victim. It was moving and is a must visit. i'd to pull myself to make it to the bus.
some minor churches and then at the chamber of "Last Supper". Clealry this wasn't the place. I couldn't see the kitchen and takeaways were a little distance away. the guide agreed and mentioned that falafel doesn't taste good in delivery menus.
After agreeing to disagree with historians we moved to the jesus's tomb. i'm not very comfortable near tombs so after making some guttural sounds resembling my discomfort with being near tombs i excused myself.
Travelled thru' the old quarters of jerusalem thru' the via dolorosa, the pathway Jesus is supposed to have walked while carrying the christ. pretty amazing. then the wailing wall.
that was that, and since it was a bright sunny day i came back with a mightly size migraine.
late evening was dinner with my hosts and their friends and another business partner and their wives. they took me to nazareth and served the most amazing food i've had in all trip and definitely one of the better one in my life. there was lots of tahini - different types with zucchini, humus, cucumbers, roasted bell peppers and loads of cheese, feta and non feta. and hazaar other things. the meat - ground lamb on cinnamon sticks. If someone ever asks me for my last meal, it’ll be homemade dal and rice. With some mango pickle, lizzat papad and dahi with coarse ground black pepper. But if I live to order dinner, I’ll have the lamb on cinnamon stick.. I’d also like to have the fried red mullet or the sultan Ibrahim from the eponymous restaurant in Beirut as the earlier course.
I was deposited at the airport on way back from the dinner at 230 in the morning. the securitry cleared me quickly and i was in the flight at 530, not having slept since the previous night. small stopover at frankfurt and then at munich and then zagreb and a car ride to a city called rijeka. that was a day which had lasted almost 36 hours before i hit the bed. But much happened and that I relate in the next post.
Readers will notice that i explain my puns - like the above. i could've very well stopped at social sciences but i continued. i call it being user friendly.
Coming back to Israel or rather to the athens airport, where in a fit of madness i bought a 19 euro pen and then tried killing myself by thinking so much that i missed a few heartbeats.
Many pangs of guilt later, i decided to forgo lunch for 3 days. I'm an awful seeker of value, who commits, regrets and tries to create balance by eating flight food to save on restaurant bills.
Anyhow the flight was uneventful and long before i could finish a few winks, we reached ben gurion airport. Incidentally, ben gurion's name is the only one i remember from the above mentioned book.
The airport is fairly well designed and I was at immigration sooner than you can say a long name. With extensive travels into bangladesh, indonesia, yemen, syria, UAE, and sworn enemy lebanon, i wasn't expecting a hearty welcome. and i didn't get it either. waited for an hour and after giving names of my family, pet giraffe, assorted planets of the andromeda galaxy and all but one of the fourteen moons of navu1287 i was asked to leave. in the direction of tel aviv.
This process was repeated twice more, before i could get into a cab for the hotel
a new day was breaking and so was my back.
As i enter the hotel, i meet noel from pondicherry, avid fan of himesh. i was made to travel 11 hours and here Israel was right next to ulhasnagar and jignesh and hitesh shah were doubling as mossad agents.
But the mediterranean was the real deal and himesh was singing on zee hot. a new channel which has since made sure that indian men will never get firang dates.
rushed to my room leaving noel with his tanhai and himesh.
my host was an iraqi jew, who took me to meet an israeli arab. later i also met a palestenian christian. i'd like to say something meaningful with a flavor of funny at this stage. but since i can't think of anything, suggestions are welcome. the winning entry gets noel's collection of zee hot recordings
That was the beginning of the end of a long night.
Then some travel to haifa and meeting before a well earned lunch at a restaurant where 23 people had perished in a suicide bomb attack. thankfully this piece of information was served with the main course, so i had to be satisfied with the entree.
My impression till now were all positive. Israelis have a good sense of humor, nice buildings, broad roads, eat good food and speak english - clearly business was going to be tough.
In my line of business, I've realized that a failure in all or substantial number of above is important for a country to have prospects.
Yemen, where we flourish, has bad food, which is served on a newspaper placed on the table, speak no english, the only buliding of consequence - the american embassy was recently bombed, and whenever they want to have a laugh, they shoot someone. unka sense aur jo mara woh non sense. (their sense is to non sense other peoples)
ergo, i rest my case.
now we come to israeli men and women. the promised land invites people from across the world, makes them do 3 years of army life and serves salads for breakfast. this gives israelis, fit bodies and good digestion. also mixing of nations has led to some exotic colors and races which can make a man very happy for being a jew in the holy land. since i was neither, i did the next best thing - hog on falafel and pomegranate juice.
i read somewhere that more israelis have been killed in road accidents than in all the wars put together. soon after reading this i found myself becoming a statistic when my hosts' employee - an american jew drove me to their office. i missed the obituaries for another day, but learnt an important lesson.
after 3 days of half kilo salads in morning, meat for lunch and falafel for dinner, i had a day off when i decided to go to Jerusalem. first stop was yad vashem which commemorates the holocaust victim. It was moving and is a must visit. i'd to pull myself to make it to the bus.
some minor churches and then at the chamber of "Last Supper". Clealry this wasn't the place. I couldn't see the kitchen and takeaways were a little distance away. the guide agreed and mentioned that falafel doesn't taste good in delivery menus.
After agreeing to disagree with historians we moved to the jesus's tomb. i'm not very comfortable near tombs so after making some guttural sounds resembling my discomfort with being near tombs i excused myself.
Travelled thru' the old quarters of jerusalem thru' the via dolorosa, the pathway Jesus is supposed to have walked while carrying the christ. pretty amazing. then the wailing wall.
that was that, and since it was a bright sunny day i came back with a mightly size migraine.
late evening was dinner with my hosts and their friends and another business partner and their wives. they took me to nazareth and served the most amazing food i've had in all trip and definitely one of the better one in my life. there was lots of tahini - different types with zucchini, humus, cucumbers, roasted bell peppers and loads of cheese, feta and non feta. and hazaar other things. the meat - ground lamb on cinnamon sticks. If someone ever asks me for my last meal, it’ll be homemade dal and rice. With some mango pickle, lizzat papad and dahi with coarse ground black pepper. But if I live to order dinner, I’ll have the lamb on cinnamon stick.. I’d also like to have the fried red mullet or the sultan Ibrahim from the eponymous restaurant in Beirut as the earlier course.
I was deposited at the airport on way back from the dinner at 230 in the morning. the securitry cleared me quickly and i was in the flight at 530, not having slept since the previous night. small stopover at frankfurt and then at munich and then zagreb and a car ride to a city called rijeka. that was a day which had lasted almost 36 hours before i hit the bed. But much happened and that I relate in the next post.
Mid September travel - part I
Traveling in Greece, Israel and Croatia Mid September. exotic and interesting. Somewhat like putting Sex and Naked Women in the subject line to attract attention. There wasn't any of that but nevertheless very interesting
First Stop: Athens. 11 hours in economy is never very palatable, Singapore airlines does try though.
I watched two lovely movies -
Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis and In Bruges. pl don't try to pronounce either.
My blog will carry many useful tips and recommendations, appearing randomly. Like finding green M&M's or landmines in Cambodia.
So here goes numero uno for those alighting at the Athens Airport
Pl visit the facilities in the aircraft before getting off. The first toilet after the aircraft is a little after the immigration, which is not a very pleasant discovery if one has not cleared it. It is worse if the queue at the immigration is a long one.
Since I wanted to use the toilet, I’d to clear the immigration on my brand new Schengen Staten Visa and this being my first trip to the continent, despite my casual appearance, menatally I was prepared for a quote had someone asked for it. All i was asked if I was carrying any weapons on my person. I started off with thanking God Almighty, my parents, wife and kids. but the words sounded guttural and officials were quick to clear my entry into Uni Eropa.
Early arrival, lack of sleep and some bad coffee was making the day look very miserable. But then we reached our first stop and I realized that Greek Gods must have lived with Greek Goddesses who weren't covered by historians then and aren't covered by fabric now. I could do nothing about either. So I took many mental notes.
Reference to women of countries being visited will be many. But this is purely from an anthropological viewpoint.
Well greek women are quite beautiful till a certain age. After this age, they loose all resemblance to their previous self. Must be the weather and feta cheese.
Lunch was at a very nice seaside joint overlooking a small cave near a smaller beach. Families were frolicking in the water. It looked as if they were playing onn the sand when water sucked them in.
Rest of the day was fairly meaningless and I overslept in the evening missing the visit to Parthenon Later in the night - actually next day early morning flight to Tel Aviv.
First Stop: Athens. 11 hours in economy is never very palatable, Singapore airlines does try though.
I watched two lovely movies -
Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis and In Bruges. pl don't try to pronounce either.
My blog will carry many useful tips and recommendations, appearing randomly. Like finding green M&M's or landmines in Cambodia.
So here goes numero uno for those alighting at the Athens Airport
Pl visit the facilities in the aircraft before getting off. The first toilet after the aircraft is a little after the immigration, which is not a very pleasant discovery if one has not cleared it. It is worse if the queue at the immigration is a long one.
Since I wanted to use the toilet, I’d to clear the immigration on my brand new Schengen Staten Visa and this being my first trip to the continent, despite my casual appearance, menatally I was prepared for a quote had someone asked for it. All i was asked if I was carrying any weapons on my person. I started off with thanking God Almighty, my parents, wife and kids. but the words sounded guttural and officials were quick to clear my entry into Uni Eropa.
Early arrival, lack of sleep and some bad coffee was making the day look very miserable. But then we reached our first stop and I realized that Greek Gods must have lived with Greek Goddesses who weren't covered by historians then and aren't covered by fabric now. I could do nothing about either. So I took many mental notes.
Reference to women of countries being visited will be many. But this is purely from an anthropological viewpoint.
Well greek women are quite beautiful till a certain age. After this age, they loose all resemblance to their previous self. Must be the weather and feta cheese.
Lunch was at a very nice seaside joint overlooking a small cave near a smaller beach. Families were frolicking in the water. It looked as if they were playing onn the sand when water sucked them in.
Rest of the day was fairly meaningless and I overslept in the evening missing the visit to Parthenon Later in the night - actually next day early morning flight to Tel Aviv.
FAQ about this blog
in spirit of proactivity, here are some answers. most will concern on the reason for this blog, actually one will, rest will present my views on world peace, prohibition and politicis
i'm a journeyman at heart. i have this mole on my right foot, and my dad does too. and it was said of my dad, who was frequently traveling, that he had a 'chakkar' in his foot. that stayed with me. i like to be around. not so much to see or smell or touch but just to see a new world unfold in front of me.
i also have very poor memory. i did read some author very beautifully mention about the waking up to new sights and smells and new languages. ditto
also some well meaning souls have also been after me to share my writings. i guess they'll be both satsified and sorry. but now that the bug has got me, here goes.
sorry, before i start, thanks are in order to the following
- my wife: a truly beautiful person, for her support, ability to manage in my absence and now even her editorial comments. my kids, because i really miss them when i'm traveling and my passport. without which none of this would be possbile
also my dad. for the traveling genes.
i'm a journeyman at heart. i have this mole on my right foot, and my dad does too. and it was said of my dad, who was frequently traveling, that he had a 'chakkar' in his foot. that stayed with me. i like to be around. not so much to see or smell or touch but just to see a new world unfold in front of me.
i also have very poor memory. i did read some author very beautifully mention about the waking up to new sights and smells and new languages. ditto
also some well meaning souls have also been after me to share my writings. i guess they'll be both satsified and sorry. but now that the bug has got me, here goes.
sorry, before i start, thanks are in order to the following
- my wife: a truly beautiful person, for her support, ability to manage in my absence and now even her editorial comments. my kids, because i really miss them when i'm traveling and my passport. without which none of this would be possbile
also my dad. for the traveling genes.
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