Someone just passed me the link to this movie , Mystic India .
.........
Basically A movie on India in Imax format filmed over 100 locations across India, The movie is set 200 years back in time, is the world’s first large format epic on India.
..........
Mystic India rediscovers India, a land of many mysteries and fascinations, the one land that all desire to see.It retraces the incredible journey of an 11-year old child yogi, Neelkanth,in 1792 AD.He walked for 12,000 km continuously for 7 years, barefoot and barebody, through the length and breadth of India...
Am awaiting the release .....................some pics from the movie
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.
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London so far , Travels in Africa & Asia,Crazy rafting on the Zambezi , Happy life in Ghana (beer,beach,seafood & more beer!) , Masai Mara ,Dubai and risks of photography,Singapore and the art of living in a small circle ,Weekends at Tioman,Livingstone - the adrenaline capital ,Vic falls , Jacarandas in pretoria, ......My MBA @ spjain .. whims,fancies,.. Pics
Saturday, December 11, 2004
Friday, October 15, 2004
India confusion - from indiamike.com
India confusion - from indiamike.com posting by "beach"(longish ,but excellent article)--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This write-up is intended to throw some light on various India facets for the ones who are still searching to locate India on the map. It is difficult to explain the whole of things in this short (!) posting. This obviously suffers the fatigue of oversimplification of a complex topic. But still I feel that for a novice India tourist this can give a glimpse of what is India. A few apparent topics of interests are attempted.
This is not a ‘quick fix guide’ or a ‘sure shot trick’ for the India candidate. Nor it is trying to suggest you the optimum itinerary. Where to go and what to see is not discussed.
Also this is not to scare you away or discourage with the real facts. The ones planning to visit India is a special league with a taste for a mini adventure and inquisitiveness to see a new way of life. It’s not an easy and lazy experience. You need not have to be a brutally brave macho to visit India. It’s neither a cakewalk nor a mission impossible.
A better understanding of the scheme of things goes a very long way in your memorable India trip.
The India confusion
India is a gigantic chaos that is on the move! Unexplainable. It works more like biology than physics. Your India plan invariably starts with the classic confusion - India or Not. The experiences narrated by the ones already visited India only add fuel to fire. Any one can convince you (with proof) contradicting facts about India.
The stories I heard ranges from how someone flew out by the next possible flight within hours after landing in to the one dreaming about the next India tour when she was only at the beginning lap of her first India tour. That she had the real cultural shock on returning home. I’ve been convinced with unquestionable reasons for all their points.
The excitement a traveler seeking from the ‘ancient spiritual India’ is comparable with that of the Microsoft executive visiting India for business. Both are enthusiastically scratching the India itch but at the two ends of a century!
It is a unique, overlapping and entangled landscape one living within the other. Her one part is stuck in the history. You as a tourist are going there to experience this living past. The other part is the modern India that facilitates you as a traveler.
Her past collide with her present in the middle of the road. You witness this never ending and mind-boggling fusion of contradicting things. This is the how the whole of hysterical chaos can be explained in simple terms. It’s akin to two huge elephants wrestling avidly. Nothing bothers them nor no one can stop it.
A man driving a Mercedes honking horn at a bullock cart to give way is not a funny sight. It’s a real life picture you'll see on the Indian roads.
At every turn awaits you a hither to unknown surprise. This suspense hound you all the way from the ‘India or not’ skepticism through the India adventure and finally fade into that India nostalgia.
The rude welcome
Your welcome to India is never a friendly one. The first thing you’ll notice is the people. I mean lots of them. People moving in all directions. You’ll have to deal with the worst of India head-on. It’s really raw. Let it be the beggars or the touts or the poor children pestering or the local taxi drivers, you’ve to deal with all of them in minutes after arrival. Whatever tricks and tips you’ve by hearted will be forgotten in a matter of minutes facing this.It’s like learning swimming by reading a book and jumping into the pool! It will teach you new lessons only after you’ve failed the test!
And it is powerful enough to change the way you look at life. The shock treatment that strikes at the very core of you. No amount of homework can prepare you to neutralize this. Nevertheless you won’t be caught totally off the guard if you have done some.
A regular foreign tourist in all probability won’t be dealing much with their Indian counterpart social class during the tour. The shock is more so due to this reason also.
Even for an Indian visiting an unfamiliar Indian city is as eventful as a foreigner doing it.The India poison works a bit quick on you. You need to give it some time before you take control of the whole scheme of things.
Its bizarre but that is how India welcomes you. This shock is also very much the part of experience India package.
There is no India culture
This is a fact about India. And you would fail miserably if you were all out to find out the Indian culture. India is not a monolithic cultural block. It’s an anthology of a thousand countries within a country.More than a dozen languages are spoken principally within various geographic regions. The diversity is visible in food, costume and even in the social behavior. The way people look and think are different. The ways people cook and eat are different. All has different festivals and customs. Even the religious holidays are different for different regions.
For an Indian living in a southern town, Varanasi at the north is a mysterious place far away from his visual range and comprehension. If you’re traveling the length and breadth of the country everyday you are arriving at a new India, different from the one you have seen yesterday. The north, south, east and the west are all distinctively different. No cities or towns are stereotype representative of India. All are unique in its own way. It’s a never-ending roll of menu for you to pick places of your taste.
Culturally this country falls somewhere in between the orthodox and the modern. You’ll find a lot of sex symbols and signals of modernism almost everywhere in India. Like women in the cities walking around in tight T-shirts and jeans. Those huge billboards profiling modern attire. Make no mistakes about it. Deep in their mind it is a conservative culture that respects tradition.
The difference between a sleeveless blouse and the one with elbow long sleeves is HUGE in terms of modernism. It’s technically possible to prove that a traditional Sari is (can be made!) more ‘sexy’ than a T-shirt and jeans. But still the later is accepted with skepticism.
The younger generation is a century away from that of their parent's. The cultural clash truly happens more at the middleclass Indian living rooms than the one with a western tourist at a social place. They are notorious in “Indianizing” everything they like. The numerous “Chinese fast food” joints doted all around the country serves food neither Chinese nor Indian. The vegetarian McDonald and the Indian version of MTV (empty V, as they call it!) are other examples.
But the peculiar thing about this diversity is that you can feel the presence of a strong and widely spaced common cultural net encompassing all the individual Indian cultures.The blood circulating is common.
The Social structure
There is nothing like the poor lives in villages and the rich in the cities. The extreme riches and the unimaginably poor live almost side-by-side. Well. The burgeoning population of middleclass lives somewhere in-between.
All share more or less the same public landscape. The cultural co existence of these classes for the lifetime is a miracle unexplainable. Accommodating an alien foreign tourist in this society is not a surprise as compared to her own social contradictions.
The shear sizes of all these classes created a unique economic system to accommodate and cater all of them. As a tourist this plays to your advantage. You can fit into anywhere in the economic spectrum. This is one reason why it is possible for you do an India tour with a lavish or a tight budget.
You'll not miss anything expect the luxury and comfort as the hotel accommodations are available from $3 to $300.Three thousand kilometers you can travel for a cost from $10 to $150 by the same train at different classes. You can have a decent meal from less than $½ to a king like supper for $50.
There is something like the "poor man's Mercedes" available for anything and everything in India. Like anyone in India you need to find out your financial class and just fit into that! ‘When in Rome, do as Romans do’ is a practical piece of advice in this context.
A foreign tourist definitely stickout in a social setup. The difference can be made as an advantage. People taken it for granted that a foreign tourist is well traveled and courageous. It’s up to you to make it to your advantage. Probably this is evolved from the fact that they see countless number of lone foreign travelers roam the nook and corner of the country. An average Indian thinks as if the whole of the western population is of the same monolithic culture. For him the US culture and the UK are the same, leave alone the difference between Scotland and Wales! This has nothing to do with the geography understanding or the lack of it. The reason assigned for this could be simple. Both the learner guest and the host are unaware of each other's culture.
The family factor
Don't get surprised if your Indian friend introduces you to her dad's eldest brother's son-in-law's younger sister to you! It is a highly networked family structure alien to the west. People are not independent to each other as in the west. Parents play highly influential role in everyone’s life.
A simple example is the marriage. Selection of ones life partner is rarely an individual’s decision. People prefer a wider acceptance in the family circle on matters related to marriage. It’s perceived as a creation of a new network of relations and not as a one to one agreement. This is what the social security net in India. The same hold good for many aspects seemingly individualistic ranging from academics to career decisions. A family is more of a collective consulting body where everyone’s opinion matters. This explains why a large number of people travel as family. This is one reason why the trains and busses are crowded. ‘Family only’ sections are available in most of the restaurants.The family is the elementary building block of the Indian society.
Communication
Any layman on the road wants to talk something with you. They love talking. That is talking a lot even with a total stranger on the street. Such communications hardly starts with introducing each other by name. The starting topic is generally a subject of popular interest. They can talk for hours as if they are long time friends. At the end they may depart even without knowing each other’s name! To a foreigner the first question is invariably about his country. Everyone is licensed to ask anyone on the street the latest cricket score! Probably this explains the high sound levels in public places.
It’s a patient but emotionally sensitive race. Personal attachments and intimacies are valued. They are notorious for asking personal questions. This may not be with any malicious intend. They socialize and ‘come closer’ by sharing personal information. It typically range from where they live, where are they going, what business they do…. and the list is endless. Never get embarrassed if a total stranger standing next to you in a queue ask such blunt questions. The fun is that if you are not asking such questions back you’ll be regarded as impolite or rude. In Indian customs this is a bit of insult to the initiator.
Not looking at your face when answering is not a sign of impoliteness. Eye contact in face-to-face communication is much less compared to the western practice. The funniest fact is that you will attract a lot of stare when you are not talking to them. This is more so in a rural or a small town setup.
English is the de facto communication language for government and business communications. A business traveler faces much less or no trouble at all in speaking in English as compared to the tourist. India has the second largest English speaking population after the US. But majority of this is in the professional, academic or business community. As a regular tourist you may not encounter them in any direct sense.
Your concern is the English knowledge of a taxi driver, a counter clerk or a layman at the bus stop. But you’ll be able to manage in public with English. Almost every Indian language uses a good amount of English vocabulary. What this means is people may not understand the sentence but they can pickup the key words.
Even the English spoken in India has its own style. The accent is distinctively different. Each and every letter in the word is pronounced distinctively. You’ll be addressed ‘Yes Madam’ (d not silent!). They don’t bother much about it .
The worst is the structure of the sentences. They try to translate and speak verbatim as spoken in the local language. The infamous “You are from which place madam?” is a perplexing question for a novice listener. Almost everyone at the street (read as taxi drivers and vendors) knows to count in English. Speak to them in English without grammar!
Culturally there is no “NO” in India. An evading answer is equivalent to NO. Never use the word NO if you don’t want to harshly deny something. “I just had a tea” is the polished way of saying NO to a tea offer than a polite “No. Thank you”.Never deny an invitation by saying that “I Won’t be able to join”. “I’ll try to come” almost means, “don’t wait for me,” told in a polite way.
In written communication also the NO is not usually communicated unless it is very formal. A long silence from the other end can be treated as a negative answer.
Patience
The most valuable currency you need to enjoy India in total is patience. She never allows you to run faster than her nor she is bothered about your hurry. The India elephant moves at her own pace. Stops hear and there at her own wish. Enjoys every bit of her journey. Follow her procession in style is the best way to enjoy India.
Your patience will be put to the ultimate test. If you are on the way to another country and want a quick 2-day India tour, you are in for serious trouble.If you are used to the clockwork life style, leave it at your departure terminal to be picked up on your return! Don’t get frustrated if someone tells you that you have to sit on a bench and wait for four hours for the next bus to the town..
She teaches you systematically the new limits of your patience!
The India nostalgia
It’s more of an infection you get after visiting India. If you haven’t fallen in the ‘runaway from India’ category, in all probability you are in the India addicted league. There is nothing like a neutral feel about India. Those who are already infected try hard to spread it on to others!
As a novice traveler you’ll be satisfied with the most popular tourist spots you visited. The first experience has already induced the courage to go further. In the second time you are less skeptical. But this time you have an advanced set of questions about her. You want to go to the regions you couldn’t last time. You comeback from your second tour with the knowledge that how little you seen India.
The itch makes you to go there again. This time you have a better control over the scheme of things and are more adventurous. The advanced India traveler ego drives you to explore the out of the circuit and remote places.
For you this doesn’t feel like a movie seen again and again.
If you’ve reached this stage, well, you can assume that your India addiction has reached a point beyond cure!------------ *------------ *------------ *------------
Comments welcome!!!
Beach
This write-up is intended to throw some light on various India facets for the ones who are still searching to locate India on the map. It is difficult to explain the whole of things in this short (!) posting. This obviously suffers the fatigue of oversimplification of a complex topic. But still I feel that for a novice India tourist this can give a glimpse of what is India. A few apparent topics of interests are attempted.
This is not a ‘quick fix guide’ or a ‘sure shot trick’ for the India candidate. Nor it is trying to suggest you the optimum itinerary. Where to go and what to see is not discussed.
Also this is not to scare you away or discourage with the real facts. The ones planning to visit India is a special league with a taste for a mini adventure and inquisitiveness to see a new way of life. It’s not an easy and lazy experience. You need not have to be a brutally brave macho to visit India. It’s neither a cakewalk nor a mission impossible.
A better understanding of the scheme of things goes a very long way in your memorable India trip.
The India confusion
India is a gigantic chaos that is on the move! Unexplainable. It works more like biology than physics. Your India plan invariably starts with the classic confusion - India or Not. The experiences narrated by the ones already visited India only add fuel to fire. Any one can convince you (with proof) contradicting facts about India.
The stories I heard ranges from how someone flew out by the next possible flight within hours after landing in to the one dreaming about the next India tour when she was only at the beginning lap of her first India tour. That she had the real cultural shock on returning home. I’ve been convinced with unquestionable reasons for all their points.
The excitement a traveler seeking from the ‘ancient spiritual India’ is comparable with that of the Microsoft executive visiting India for business. Both are enthusiastically scratching the India itch but at the two ends of a century!
It is a unique, overlapping and entangled landscape one living within the other. Her one part is stuck in the history. You as a tourist are going there to experience this living past. The other part is the modern India that facilitates you as a traveler.
Her past collide with her present in the middle of the road. You witness this never ending and mind-boggling fusion of contradicting things. This is the how the whole of hysterical chaos can be explained in simple terms. It’s akin to two huge elephants wrestling avidly. Nothing bothers them nor no one can stop it.
A man driving a Mercedes honking horn at a bullock cart to give way is not a funny sight. It’s a real life picture you'll see on the Indian roads.
At every turn awaits you a hither to unknown surprise. This suspense hound you all the way from the ‘India or not’ skepticism through the India adventure and finally fade into that India nostalgia.
The rude welcome
Your welcome to India is never a friendly one. The first thing you’ll notice is the people. I mean lots of them. People moving in all directions. You’ll have to deal with the worst of India head-on. It’s really raw. Let it be the beggars or the touts or the poor children pestering or the local taxi drivers, you’ve to deal with all of them in minutes after arrival. Whatever tricks and tips you’ve by hearted will be forgotten in a matter of minutes facing this.It’s like learning swimming by reading a book and jumping into the pool! It will teach you new lessons only after you’ve failed the test!
And it is powerful enough to change the way you look at life. The shock treatment that strikes at the very core of you. No amount of homework can prepare you to neutralize this. Nevertheless you won’t be caught totally off the guard if you have done some.
A regular foreign tourist in all probability won’t be dealing much with their Indian counterpart social class during the tour. The shock is more so due to this reason also.
Even for an Indian visiting an unfamiliar Indian city is as eventful as a foreigner doing it.The India poison works a bit quick on you. You need to give it some time before you take control of the whole scheme of things.
Its bizarre but that is how India welcomes you. This shock is also very much the part of experience India package.
There is no India culture
This is a fact about India. And you would fail miserably if you were all out to find out the Indian culture. India is not a monolithic cultural block. It’s an anthology of a thousand countries within a country.More than a dozen languages are spoken principally within various geographic regions. The diversity is visible in food, costume and even in the social behavior. The way people look and think are different. The ways people cook and eat are different. All has different festivals and customs. Even the religious holidays are different for different regions.
For an Indian living in a southern town, Varanasi at the north is a mysterious place far away from his visual range and comprehension. If you’re traveling the length and breadth of the country everyday you are arriving at a new India, different from the one you have seen yesterday. The north, south, east and the west are all distinctively different. No cities or towns are stereotype representative of India. All are unique in its own way. It’s a never-ending roll of menu for you to pick places of your taste.
Culturally this country falls somewhere in between the orthodox and the modern. You’ll find a lot of sex symbols and signals of modernism almost everywhere in India. Like women in the cities walking around in tight T-shirts and jeans. Those huge billboards profiling modern attire. Make no mistakes about it. Deep in their mind it is a conservative culture that respects tradition.
The difference between a sleeveless blouse and the one with elbow long sleeves is HUGE in terms of modernism. It’s technically possible to prove that a traditional Sari is (can be made!) more ‘sexy’ than a T-shirt and jeans. But still the later is accepted with skepticism.
The younger generation is a century away from that of their parent's. The cultural clash truly happens more at the middleclass Indian living rooms than the one with a western tourist at a social place. They are notorious in “Indianizing” everything they like. The numerous “Chinese fast food” joints doted all around the country serves food neither Chinese nor Indian. The vegetarian McDonald and the Indian version of MTV (empty V, as they call it!) are other examples.
But the peculiar thing about this diversity is that you can feel the presence of a strong and widely spaced common cultural net encompassing all the individual Indian cultures.The blood circulating is common.
The Social structure
There is nothing like the poor lives in villages and the rich in the cities. The extreme riches and the unimaginably poor live almost side-by-side. Well. The burgeoning population of middleclass lives somewhere in-between.
All share more or less the same public landscape. The cultural co existence of these classes for the lifetime is a miracle unexplainable. Accommodating an alien foreign tourist in this society is not a surprise as compared to her own social contradictions.
The shear sizes of all these classes created a unique economic system to accommodate and cater all of them. As a tourist this plays to your advantage. You can fit into anywhere in the economic spectrum. This is one reason why it is possible for you do an India tour with a lavish or a tight budget.
You'll not miss anything expect the luxury and comfort as the hotel accommodations are available from $3 to $300.Three thousand kilometers you can travel for a cost from $10 to $150 by the same train at different classes. You can have a decent meal from less than $½ to a king like supper for $50.
There is something like the "poor man's Mercedes" available for anything and everything in India. Like anyone in India you need to find out your financial class and just fit into that! ‘When in Rome, do as Romans do’ is a practical piece of advice in this context.
A foreign tourist definitely stickout in a social setup. The difference can be made as an advantage. People taken it for granted that a foreign tourist is well traveled and courageous. It’s up to you to make it to your advantage. Probably this is evolved from the fact that they see countless number of lone foreign travelers roam the nook and corner of the country. An average Indian thinks as if the whole of the western population is of the same monolithic culture. For him the US culture and the UK are the same, leave alone the difference between Scotland and Wales! This has nothing to do with the geography understanding or the lack of it. The reason assigned for this could be simple. Both the learner guest and the host are unaware of each other's culture.
The family factor
Don't get surprised if your Indian friend introduces you to her dad's eldest brother's son-in-law's younger sister to you! It is a highly networked family structure alien to the west. People are not independent to each other as in the west. Parents play highly influential role in everyone’s life.
A simple example is the marriage. Selection of ones life partner is rarely an individual’s decision. People prefer a wider acceptance in the family circle on matters related to marriage. It’s perceived as a creation of a new network of relations and not as a one to one agreement. This is what the social security net in India. The same hold good for many aspects seemingly individualistic ranging from academics to career decisions. A family is more of a collective consulting body where everyone’s opinion matters. This explains why a large number of people travel as family. This is one reason why the trains and busses are crowded. ‘Family only’ sections are available in most of the restaurants.The family is the elementary building block of the Indian society.
Communication
Any layman on the road wants to talk something with you. They love talking. That is talking a lot even with a total stranger on the street. Such communications hardly starts with introducing each other by name. The starting topic is generally a subject of popular interest. They can talk for hours as if they are long time friends. At the end they may depart even without knowing each other’s name! To a foreigner the first question is invariably about his country. Everyone is licensed to ask anyone on the street the latest cricket score! Probably this explains the high sound levels in public places.
It’s a patient but emotionally sensitive race. Personal attachments and intimacies are valued. They are notorious for asking personal questions. This may not be with any malicious intend. They socialize and ‘come closer’ by sharing personal information. It typically range from where they live, where are they going, what business they do…. and the list is endless. Never get embarrassed if a total stranger standing next to you in a queue ask such blunt questions. The fun is that if you are not asking such questions back you’ll be regarded as impolite or rude. In Indian customs this is a bit of insult to the initiator.
Not looking at your face when answering is not a sign of impoliteness. Eye contact in face-to-face communication is much less compared to the western practice. The funniest fact is that you will attract a lot of stare when you are not talking to them. This is more so in a rural or a small town setup.
English is the de facto communication language for government and business communications. A business traveler faces much less or no trouble at all in speaking in English as compared to the tourist. India has the second largest English speaking population after the US. But majority of this is in the professional, academic or business community. As a regular tourist you may not encounter them in any direct sense.
Your concern is the English knowledge of a taxi driver, a counter clerk or a layman at the bus stop. But you’ll be able to manage in public with English. Almost every Indian language uses a good amount of English vocabulary. What this means is people may not understand the sentence but they can pickup the key words.
Even the English spoken in India has its own style. The accent is distinctively different. Each and every letter in the word is pronounced distinctively. You’ll be addressed ‘Yes Madam’ (d not silent!). They don’t bother much about it .
The worst is the structure of the sentences. They try to translate and speak verbatim as spoken in the local language. The infamous “You are from which place madam?” is a perplexing question for a novice listener. Almost everyone at the street (read as taxi drivers and vendors) knows to count in English. Speak to them in English without grammar!
Culturally there is no “NO” in India. An evading answer is equivalent to NO. Never use the word NO if you don’t want to harshly deny something. “I just had a tea” is the polished way of saying NO to a tea offer than a polite “No. Thank you”.Never deny an invitation by saying that “I Won’t be able to join”. “I’ll try to come” almost means, “don’t wait for me,” told in a polite way.
In written communication also the NO is not usually communicated unless it is very formal. A long silence from the other end can be treated as a negative answer.
Patience
The most valuable currency you need to enjoy India in total is patience. She never allows you to run faster than her nor she is bothered about your hurry. The India elephant moves at her own pace. Stops hear and there at her own wish. Enjoys every bit of her journey. Follow her procession in style is the best way to enjoy India.
Your patience will be put to the ultimate test. If you are on the way to another country and want a quick 2-day India tour, you are in for serious trouble.If you are used to the clockwork life style, leave it at your departure terminal to be picked up on your return! Don’t get frustrated if someone tells you that you have to sit on a bench and wait for four hours for the next bus to the town..
She teaches you systematically the new limits of your patience!
The India nostalgia
It’s more of an infection you get after visiting India. If you haven’t fallen in the ‘runaway from India’ category, in all probability you are in the India addicted league. There is nothing like a neutral feel about India. Those who are already infected try hard to spread it on to others!
As a novice traveler you’ll be satisfied with the most popular tourist spots you visited. The first experience has already induced the courage to go further. In the second time you are less skeptical. But this time you have an advanced set of questions about her. You want to go to the regions you couldn’t last time. You comeback from your second tour with the knowledge that how little you seen India.
The itch makes you to go there again. This time you have a better control over the scheme of things and are more adventurous. The advanced India traveler ego drives you to explore the out of the circuit and remote places.
For you this doesn’t feel like a movie seen again and again.
If you’ve reached this stage, well, you can assume that your India addiction has reached a point beyond cure!------------ *------------ *------------ *------------
Comments welcome!!!
Beach
Thursday, September 30, 2004
a gold mine , a museum, a game reserve and a theme park ( South Africa)
Well, that pretty much sums up, what all i did over the weekend in south africa Am definitely not wasting my weekends in South Africa any more . Am watching lot less TV and exploring more of the country. My first weekend in S.A , was wasted, all i did was a brief half day trip to pretoria ,which is just next door to joburg anyway .The recent weekend was better , i covered gold mines,apartheid museum ,pilansberg national park and sun city.I wish i had one more weekend and i could have finished capetown as well,and one more weekend for kruger natl park,and maybe one more weekend for durban,and one more....... .The list of must-do in south africa is just too long, so i guess there is no point in being greedy :(
I kicked off saturday with a visit to a gold mine near joburg , called the gold reef city.This one gold mine , allows tourists to go underground in the shaft and see how they dig out gold and the entire process. The gold reef city is a gold mine cum theme park with some amazing rides .I did'nt have time for the rides though. I went there for the gold !. Gold mines are like any other underground mines - shafts,huge pumps pumping out water, safety headgear,head lamps , etc etc. Except that they run very very deep when compared to other mines. Tourists are taken only half km down the shaft. That is still very deep enough, esp could be scary if you are claustrophobic. But then , if i tell any gold miner that i went down some half a km down ,he will laugh at me , as some of the gold mines run as deep as 4 kms into earth.
They also show you the casting of gold into 12 kg blocks which are sent to bullion markets around the world.The oven used to prepare the gold blocks is fired upto 1000 degrees and the molten liquid gold is cooled into gold bars. Obviously they have very elaborate security before you go onto that zone to watch the process like metal detectors ,bags and body search etc,etc.They have a small sign which says"Number of attempts made to steal gold from this mine since 1980 : - 36050 "Another interesting thing is ,they have an open challenge , which is, if you can lift a 12 kg gold bar without turning or or twisting , using only two of your fingers of one hand ,the gold is all yours .Obviously, it is humanly impossible !It is amazing that a tonne of rock will yield just about 2 to 3 grams of gold and of course whole range of other minerals like platinum,uranium . Johannesburg is also called igoli or egoli which means the gold city in afrikaans ( the local dialect of south africa, basically ,80 % dutch and rest of it is kitchdi of french ,english and zulu).
The afternoon , i visited the aparthied (or is it apartheid) museum which sits just next to gold reef city.I was planning on 1 hour stop there but i ended up spending close to 4 hours in the museum.The museum is not a museum in a tradiional sense,it is more like a modern display .The museum gives you glimpses of life during apartheid time ,the history of white and other settlers in south africa,anglo-boer wars of the early 20 th century ,large screen videos and huge black and white pics of life from 20's till 90's ,the first televised interview of mandela,info on the various dozens of laws during the days,some portions on nelson mandela and then other leaders who were assasinated in 80's . As the first thing that comes to our mind about South Africa is nelson mandela.
Some facts that the outside world knows very little about apartheid,is that there were thousands of people and dozens of leaders who sacrificed their livers for the cause,including many south african whites .One thing i didn't know before the visit was that , India was the first country to impose a trade embargo on south africa back in 60's and the rest of the world incl britain,america joined only in 80's, esp brits had their business interests in south africa and they were not willing to let go in hte beginning .Atleast by the beginning of 90's most of the countries had cut off ties with S.A. There was one section of the museum housing lots of old anti-aprtheid posters ,one of them says "You want to play cricket with South Africa ,you should watch their national sport of apartheid". There is a room dedicated to cartoons and some of the cartoons were really funny. One says "the following is the list of whites who did not benefit because of apartheid ...." (and the list is empty)
There are also small portions dedicated to Gandhi's struggle for south african indians,passive resistance and on the two decades he spent here .There was a recent TV program by SABC TV on 100 great south african leaders chosen by south african viewers and there is a huge controversy on why gandhi was chosen in the list ,as some argue he was not south african and some suggesting that he worked only for the upliftment of south african indians and some even go to the extent of saying that, he himself was prejudiced against blacks , because he did nothing for their cause.
If one reads his autobiography ,Gandhi himself mentions in one of the chapters , "I will always be a south african indian .." Anyway,one can go on and on for ages discussing aprtheid .The good thing is south africans are putting their past behind and atleast all the south africans that i met ,so far, are very friendly.They call themselves "the rainbow nation..!"which is quite true as South Africa is one of the most multi-racial nations in the world.You can see chinese,dutch,blacks,indians,colored,malays,brits etc etc.
Sunday , was for the pilanesberg national game park with a brief stopping at sun city .
Our stop at sun city was very brief ,more like, been there done that kind of thing .Sun city or some call it " the sin city" is a huge complex built next to pilansberg natl. park and houses gambling dens,casinos,two beautiful golf courses, couple of 5* and one 6 * hotels,a huge artificial theme park called "valley of the waves".You need a one long good weekend to explore sun city.Pilansberg is ,relatively, a new wild life reserve on national park , built in the 80's and what was mostly farm land (The Bophutatswana tribe owned the land along with some farmers back then ) was converted into a game park,SA govt brought in some 7000 different animals ,birds etc from different parts of southern africa and relased them into the park .Some say it was the largest such game stocking project in the known history of mankind. The project was, aptly,called "operation genesis " and was started in 1979 . After a period of 25 years,now ,pilansberg looks like any other wild reserve in africa.The best thing about the park is, it is two hours drive from sandton , where i was staying.The park ,interestingly,never had predators till the early 90's. and thats when they introduced the cats . They have the usual elephants,zebras,wilder beasts,antelopes,wild buffaloes,cheetahs,desert lions ( from namibia) ,rhinos etc etc.
You can see lots of africa first timer tourists here ,excited at the sight of a zebra or a springbuck. I was probably behaving like them on my first game drive last year in kenya.But at time it is bit irritating ,they want to stop at every stupid animal ,take pics after pics and after some time they see the same animal from the other side and again they are back to taking pics.Now, it was getting dark and all we were seeing were zebras and buffaloes, then the guide showed us some antelope and told us that was the "pamba" or whatever ,i told him ,"enough of pamba , show us the simba" .Luckily we did get to spot the desert lions which was the best part of the day for me atleast , we actually saw the desert lions and it's cubs feeding on a zebra .We also got to see wild dogs (from a distance) as i did'nt see wild dogs before.
Geologically speaking , Pilansberg is inside a volcanic crater . As we know, a volcano typically has to erupt. Now, this didn't happen here,2 billion years ago(give or take a few million) . The magna cooled under the ground before it erupted, later the centre collapsed forming the centre of the volcano, now called the Mankwe dam. 300 million years later there was actually a bit of volcanic activity to the side of the centre. Then with millions of years of erosion, the hard rock stayed behind forming the crater. Pilanesberg is the best preserved alkaline volcanic crater (!!!) by far(other two in siberia and greenland) and also most accesible.I hope the guide was telling us some facts and not some horse-shit geology. Geology is too boring for me to cross verify his claims.
Anyway, i guess i had enough of game drives in africa and if ever do another game drive ,it will be a self drive.I know the african bush a lot better ,atleast i can tell the diff between a waterbuck and an eland !. (can you??)
Friday, September 17, 2004
The smoke that thunders / mosi - o - tunya - Victoria Falls
Well if you are wondering what the title means,’
The smoke that thunders' or 'mosi-o-tunya’ as the local Kololo tribes of Zambia call it, is but the "the Victoria falls" as we know from David Livingstone.
The thick mist and loud roar produced there are heard from a distance of 40 km, aptly named 'mosi o tunya' by locals. After couple of weeks of production trial runs for STS project in Zambia, i finally got a weekend free from work to head off to vic. falls.
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The first sight of the falls and you go numb for a few seconds, you simply don't expect anything of this magnitude! It's a surreal feeling and probably the only other experience that comes closest would be the first glimpse of taj mahal Livingstone is the town nearest to the vic. falls on the Zambian side is also known as the adrenaline capital of the world because of many insane things one can do here: from white water rafting on the Zambezi to the world-famous bungi jump into the breathtaking gorge, abseiling, gorge swinging, canoeing on the Zambezi (swarming with crocs and hippos) Victoria Falls is one the seven wonders of the natural world for its tremendous size and beauty.
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Actually, the fall is so big that it can't be seen from any single point and spreads across from Zambia into Zimbabwe. (Victoria Falls is twice as large and twice as wide as Niagara Falls. Imagine! ) It has five different parts to it: Devil's Cataract, Cataract Island, Main Falls, Rainbow Falls, and Eastern Cataract. This is the world's largest sheet of falling water.
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Thursday, September 09, 2004
How about white water rafting on the mighty zambezi !
Rafting was definitely not on my mind when i went back to livingstone over the weekendI was looking forward for a relaxng full day canoe trip and a chance to get some closeup pictures of crocs and hippos But i ended up with the white water rafting group on the zambezi.There was no one else to accompany me on the canoe and the safari company owner says that single canoe safaris are too risky and instead offered me to put me on a full day rafting group .I did'nt have the faintest idea or clue on how tough it was gonna be .
Rafting on zambezi downstream pushes you to extreme physical stress and is scary and unpredicatable Zambezi rapids are classifed at level 5 by the british ... rafting association In simple english , this means "very high rapids and extremely dangerous ..."We are talking 20-foot-high waves, and of course the bonus of hungry crocodiles with an eye out for fresh flesh .The rafting kicks off at boiling point ,the foot of the 350 foot high victoria falls on the zambian side ,you go under the international bridge and then into the batoka gorge.
There are a total of 23 drops covering a total distance of 19 km from the zambian side and taking you to zimbabweEach drop is given a funny name like "judgement day" or "washing machine","oblivion","the three sisters","the muncher","the morning glory","the mother" etc...Then there were two back to back drops, aptly named " terminator -1" and "terminator-2"Just when you start counting ,the leader of the raft tells you that some of them are actually sub divided into a,b,c like 13 a ,13b ,13c.Effectively you end up doing around 30 plus drops in one day . ,( now, that is unfair ! )The toughest one was what they called " The Commerical Suicide"At one of the rapids ,the guide/leader of your raft gives you a choice of three paths to take 25-75,50-50 and 75-25 ,indicating the chances of raft turning over upside downWe took a vote and chose the 50-50 one and still ended up turning over after the fall !Our raft did a total of two upside downs and of course from time to time ,some of us fell off the boat and we had to swim back to the safety of the boat.The climb back from the gorge ,at the end of a tiring day,back to the top of the hills tests your patience and stamina
And the safari company i went with (safpar) has a very good safety record ,6 years running and no incidents Of course you have the standard life jacket and helmut The best and experienced guides and raft leaders and safety kayaks. The only major incident that they had were some broken nails and bonesLuckily, we did'nt spot any big crocodiles ,just a few baby crocs here and there (of course, big crocs can't be far off )I guess in the end ,it's more about conquering your own fears !
Btw,Here are the top 10 rafting trips on this planet
1. Futaleufu River White Water Rafting, Chile.
2. Cherry Creek/Upper Tuolumne White Water Rafting, California, U.S.A.
3. Zambezi River White Water Rafting, Zimbabwe.
4. Great Bend of the Yangtze River White Water Rafting, China.
5. Río Upano White Water Rafting, Ecuador.
6. Magpie River White Water Rafting, Quebec, Canada.
7. Karnali River White Water Rafting, Nepal.
8. Gauley River White Water Rafting, West Virginia, U.S.A.
9. Middle Fork of the Salmon White Water Rafting, Idaho, U.S.A.
10. Victoria Nile White Water Rafting, Uganda.
Saturday, January 31, 2004
Birthday in Africa
My birthday this time around was the most boring i ever had in my life.Anyway we had a bash 1 week in advance, as all my friends in kenya were going to diff place ghana ,india etc.So nothing on the actual day itslef.Am not doing much of travels in this trip So am just having fun by changing rooms in different floors in the hilton ,trying out different rooms Finally i settled for a room on the pool side ,they have this exceutive floor only for hi fi executives coz am here for the last 40 days in this trip and 30 more days last time and they way am playing around by changing rooms ,the manager allowed me access to the executive lounge they have 24/7 complimentary drinks and amazing pastries and samosas letting me into the exec lounge was as good as allowing a monkey in :(But ,they realised a bit too late !
There are lots of indians settled here in kenyamostly from gujarat ,some pretty gujju babes heremost of them are stinkingly rich ,so am thinking .... :(
i will be off to ghana this month end around 27'th friends say ghana is fun and relaxed first time i will be seeing south atlantic , in ghanaheard a lot about the lovely beaches in ghana and the forts by the coastmaybe by next travelogue would be from accra
( i was watching this piece on CNN on the death of the aborginee kid and riots in sidney and the problems faced by aborgineesit's very sad reading ,esp about the 'stolen generation' )
There are lots of indians settled here in kenyamostly from gujarat ,some pretty gujju babes heremost of them are stinkingly rich ,so am thinking .... :(
i will be off to ghana this month end around 27'th friends say ghana is fun and relaxed first time i will be seeing south atlantic , in ghanaheard a lot about the lovely beaches in ghana and the forts by the coastmaybe by next travelogue would be from accra
( i was watching this piece on CNN on the death of the aborginee kid and riots in sidney and the problems faced by aborgineesit's very sad reading ,esp about the 'stolen generation' )
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