The longer I leave it, the more intimidating it looks, so there's nothing for it but to start writing.
Tomorrow is Shauvot, some religious festival involving blintzes and Torah, so the museums we were planning to visit are closing early. This gives us plenty of time to write - which isn't work, scary fundamentalist black-garbed Jewish guys! Honest!
Man, there's so much I want to write about Israel, but this blog was supposed to be chronological so back 3 months and I can finish off my account of Kolkata:
The Victoria Memorial was all big, white and impressive. Surprisingly still retains its name, unlike most of the roads which are confusingly signposted with shiny new Indian names while generally being referred to by their old colonial names. Makes navigation and map-reading tricky.
The Indian Museum was decaying, dusty, an exhibit in itself. One room full of skeletons and mutated foetuses and animals in jars looked like an archetypal evil alchemists lab, needing just a bit more clutter and less lighting to complete the effect. The eight-legged goat and two-bodied three-eyed cat are the only exhibits I can vividly recall. Many rooms are just racks and racks of drawers with what seems to be an unlabelled jumble of fossils on top of each stack.
Kalighat, or at least what we saw of it, was a mostly unremarkable Hindu temple apart from the fact that they sacrifice a dozen or more goats there every day. We had to enter barefoot, and walking on the bloody flagstones and around a goat's jawbone made me wish I had worn sandals rather than shoes and socks.
Went to a really expensive Bengali restaurant, discovered we don't really like Bengali food. The fish was good, the desserts sickly, stickily sweet.
Watched a Bollywood movie, Yeh Saali Zindagi. Great title track which I can't find anywhere and seems to have been left off the soundtrack, stylish modern feel, mostly incomprehensible. Hard plastic seats arranged auditorium-style. Well worth the ticket price.
After a week in Kolkata we were ready to move on, but we didn't realise you can only get seat reservations for trains in India by booking at least a day in advance. Our trip down the coast to Puri was long, uncomfortable and mostly standing, but numerous people tried to strike up conversations and free up space for us to sit whenever possible. One teenage boy and his uncle in particular kept plying us with snacks and bananas. I recall them clearly because they were so at ease with each other - hugging, dozing off, slapping and playing, despite being all squashed in with the rest of us by the open train door. Very Indian. This picture is not of them, but of a genial touchy-feely monk we met later who was crazily friendly and quite helpful.
We moved on from Puri to Konark, and four months after the fact, so does the blog, hoorah!
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| About a hundred of these guys were blocking the roads, shouting 'Shabbos' in a menacing bass tone and even throwing water-bombs at cars trying to pass through. Would have liked to take better pictures but the whole scene was more than a little intimidating. They are all looking at a taxi that they chased off after it had to make a U-turn. |
Man, there's so much I want to write about Israel, but this blog was supposed to be chronological so back 3 months and I can finish off my account of Kolkata:
The Victoria Memorial was all big, white and impressive. Surprisingly still retains its name, unlike most of the roads which are confusingly signposted with shiny new Indian names while generally being referred to by their old colonial names. Makes navigation and map-reading tricky.
The Indian Museum was decaying, dusty, an exhibit in itself. One room full of skeletons and mutated foetuses and animals in jars looked like an archetypal evil alchemists lab, needing just a bit more clutter and less lighting to complete the effect. The eight-legged goat and two-bodied three-eyed cat are the only exhibits I can vividly recall. Many rooms are just racks and racks of drawers with what seems to be an unlabelled jumble of fossils on top of each stack.
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| Never did figure out what this guy was doing in the Ganges mud. |
Kalighat, or at least what we saw of it, was a mostly unremarkable Hindu temple apart from the fact that they sacrifice a dozen or more goats there every day. We had to enter barefoot, and walking on the bloody flagstones and around a goat's jawbone made me wish I had worn sandals rather than shoes and socks.
Went to a really expensive Bengali restaurant, discovered we don't really like Bengali food. The fish was good, the desserts sickly, stickily sweet.
Watched a Bollywood movie, Yeh Saali Zindagi. Great title track which I can't find anywhere and seems to have been left off the soundtrack, stylish modern feel, mostly incomprehensible. Hard plastic seats arranged auditorium-style. Well worth the ticket price.
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2 comments:
Hey Ben, I looked back at the last 3 months, and found that I somehow found time and excuses to make it down to Malacca once a month. Last month was good. It was an ex-colleague's wedding in northern Johor. She's Malay-Muslim, and my god!! The beef and mutton curry were simply the best I've had. Cooked on huge steel pots over charcoal fire, freshly served, with some pickles and such.
If you do land in KL during your return trip, you have to ring me up. There's lots more to explore.
The food in Malaysia was fantastic, we'd really like to visit again for that alone!
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