Category Archives: travel
Whoa, Alaska!
I hate cruises. The thought of sharing a floating city with five thousand or more people simply does not appeal.
Nor did my first cruise experience change that sentiment. We were supposedly on the newest, grandest, largest, baddest cruise ship ever built, which would sail the eastern Caribbean seas for a week. The ship was truly over the top, typical of super-size, super-everything America.
By the middle of the cruise, for whatever reason, people began suffering from some kind of gastroenteritis maladies and by the end of the journey most of the passengers had been sick or were well on their way to being sick. I don’t think anyone was spared, including the crew.
So, I swore never to travel that way again.
Until an opportunity to see Alaska by cruise came my way. I made an exception and am tremendously glad I did.
As a further testimonial, I met a woman from Anchorage, Alaska on the cruise, and she told me that this was one of the best ways to see her state.
“Seward’s Folly“, so named because of the large sum of money ($7.2 million!) that the then American U.S. Secretary of State, William H. Seward paid the Russians to purchase Alaska, which became the 49th state of the Union. And possibly the most spectacular state when it comes to nature’s bounty. Absolutely no one thinks it’s a folly now!
If an urban-dwelling, urban-loving person can extol this state’s glorious natural beauty, I can just imagine what the nature freaks think of Alaska. For those who are choosing where to travel, I would definitely consider this as one of the places to see before you die. A must for your bucket list, in fact.
Here are some pictures taken by an amateur that provide a taste of the beauty and the bounty of Alaska –
Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau, Alaska
Alaskan Sunset
Glacier Bay, Alaska
Simply. Alaska.
A word about cruises…this second cruise changed my mind. I don’t despise cruises any longer. I merely dislike them. The beauty of Alaska balanced out the distaste of being on a humongous, hedonistic floating vessel.
There’s something about the decadence of these cruises that is unhealthy for mind and body. Any longer than seven entire days must truly suck. Also, for those who can’t help but indulge during this journey on a massive, “all-inclusive” boat (unfortunately I’m one of them), a word of caution to you – I’m finding that it’s very easy to start resembling one of those hump back whales you will most likely see on the trip. Fair warning.
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Heathrow Airport Welcomes “Paan Thook”
A couple of definitions are in order.
First, “paan” is a concoction made with betel leaf and areca nuts that is consumed quite heavily in India and surrounding countries. Like chewing tobacco, it appears to have addictive properties. Paan is often served after a meal as a palate cleanser but there are many who chew it throughout the day.
Second, “thook” is the Hindi word for “spit”. Yes, it’s as disgusting as it sounds. Just as you would spit out tobacco that has been chewed, so too the paan chewers spit out their paan after they are done. What’s more disgusting is that due to the resulting color of chewing paan, the combination of the two, i.e. “paan thook” is an ugly orange-red.
It is common to see people on streets in India spitting out their paan, usually aiming for a nearby wall or structure. If not, just right there on the sidewalk is quite alright with them. Yep, again, it’s as disgusting as it sounds. Every now and then, you can spot signs like this one, which are virtually always ignored:
A feature article in the New York Times even talked about the menace that paan thook has become in one of the Indian-heavy neighborhoods in Queens, New York. Way to go, Indians, for spreading our “culture”!
So, given that prelude, here’s what I encountered on my recent trip to India.
First, my travel woes started with the winter storm that prevented any travel out of my usual hub of Atlanta, taking me North then East over the Atlantic into British territory for a quick stop, before getting to Mumbai on an airlines I had not traveled in over two decades – Air India. I knew there were good reasons for not traveling Air India for many, many years but that’s a story for another day.
The midway stop between the US and India was Heathrow Airport in London. Busy but well maintained except for a few rude Brits that I encountered, this stop, like Air India, was only a distant memory to me. Terminal 4 where Air India operates is an older terminal but looked like it had been upgraded recently. It was quite swanky actually.
Air India has its lounge in an area off by itself and secluded from other lounges. It has an elevator that appears reserved just for the guests of that lounge. I made my way over there for a couple of hours of rest before the remainder of my journey. There, they told me that I would be flying one of the new Dreamliners that Air India had recently acquired from Boeing. Neat, I thought. This is not so bad after all.
There were hardly any other passengers in the lounge and when they announced boarding for my flight, I made my way out of the lounge to the elevator. It is when I got inside and happened to glance down that, to my utter amazement, I saw one corner covered by, what else but “paan thook“. Amazement and dismay!
I wish I had taken a picture of this revolting sight (just in case you don’t believe me) but my hands were full and my brain must have been otherwise occupied. But if there’s any Indian in you, of course you believe me! Sadly, even Heathrow Airport is scarred now with this ugly mess. 😦
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Photo Credits:
Paan Ingredients: By Eraheem (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Paan Leaves: By McKay Savage from London, UK [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
The Yin and Yang of Life Anywhere 