Goodbye Santiago!

Dear Santiago, 

Although I do not so much like you from the point of view of tourism, you are still dear to me. It is always late at night that I touch down on your runway and still later, when my tour bus makes it to your centre. I am tired, hungry and all those concrete and glass structures that greet me on the way to my hotel, I despise. What do you expect? I am coming from the South and from places where the woods and the waters have fascinated me over the years. As I sleep in your arms, I don't feel cuddled even in the super comfortable bed linen your hotels boast of. The feeling of going back to the south keeps knocking at my door, even when I am waking up to a day I don't feel like even starting. For I know it will be the day of the ‘city tour’. A day when you will impose more of your so called arty concrete in your old centre or the same glass in the business district. 

I get out in the open leaving the hotel behind, hoping of taking the bus not in your streets but back to the airport. I put on my head phones to cut the sound of the guide talking about history blah blah and more blah. I want to close my eyes and shut myself completely off from you when casually I look out of the window and see the people. Not too many, and certainly not less. I don't feel the difference from other cities in general. The cities that keep you company in your larger domain. Buenos Aires, Lima and Sao Paolo. All cities that I feel nothing in and only treat them with the same kind of remorse as I feel for you. 

The bus stops and I get down with my group. The same drill! I walk off away from them and into some street with a place to eat. I find a random eatery with some activity and occupy a table in the hope of making up for missing the same old hotel breakfast of scrambled eggs and coffee earlier in the morning. I know what I will eat, and I have to join the group back. So I eat, I pay and greet the waiter on my way out. As I walk back to my group at least my stomach is full with the ‘Avocado’ that I think is the only thing I love about you. The rest of the day goes on and there is nothing that I wish to write about you. In the hotel, I don't even feel like getting out to know you more. 

This, Santiago, has been going on since the first time I came to you in 2010 and ever since, I have told myself, never again! 

A few months back I finally managed to take you out of my tour itinerary by re arranging some flights that will only make me fly over you. So, when I landed this time at the same nightly hour as I always do, and felt the same on my way to the hotel, I smiled and said to myself, 'this thank god is the last time'. However an undercurrent crept up in me the night I went to bed. I still did not feel your cuddle and I still did not feel the warmth. But then I realised you are like this. You are always like this to everyone. To the many people that depend on you for their daily living, you never cuddle them. You simply provide. I know that all the cities do the same, they provide. But now as I know this is the last time I will be visiting you, I feel your eyes all over me. They are not asking me to come again. They are simply staring .. and in your stare I catch something. Something I cant explain through words but can only feel. 

Did you ask me something, through those eyes of yours? Coz even if you did not, i might have an answer. I finally know why I feel this way as I leave you. Not sad, but not happy. ‘Saudade’ is a word in Portuguese that best describes it. I at some moment of ‘yesterday’, while I walked out of the eatery felt like being a part of the people on the streets. People, not tourists! This, I have never felt in any other city and I don't know why I feel it with you. You were all dead to me and now suddenly you are alive and what a time to do it?!!

I know I wont come to you with a group of tourists. I know however I will come, just to be one of yours!

Bariloche to Puerto Varas .. The Tip of Patagonia!

On a cold windy evening, the sound of the waves hitting the shore makes me forget that this is not a sea I am hearing from. The Lake Region which comprises of land from both Argentina and Chile is the start of the wonder called Patagonia. When in Patagonia, if its not windy, the locals feel out of home. 

Lake Nahuel Huapi from my room in Bariloche

The morning starts all sunny with still views of the Nahuel Huappi Lake. The local guide very confidently exclaims “look at the lake now and then we will see it again on our way back”. As I sit by the view of my lake facing room, with the window just aptly open to let the sound of the wind and waves in, I can state that I have just begun to understand Patagonia. 

View of the lake from Mt. Companero

I first came to the town of Bariloche in 2013 and came here on a clue. A scene from the movie, ‘Motorcycle Diaries’, where ‘Che’ played  by Gael Garcia Bernal looks at the lake in front of him and then the mountains that fall on the waters and the words just flow out, ‘Viva Chile’, long live Chile! It is the first time he has crossed the borders of his country and entered a foreign land. I did the same crossing of the borders three years ago and then I don't remember exactly the feeling that went through me when I saw from the cross border waters the mountain that belonged to Chile. It certainly didn't feel like ‘Che’, It certainly didn't feel like Chile or that I was crossing Argentina. It just felt like Patagonia. 

The spring cherry blossom - Bariloche

The lake crossing of the Andes is one of the high points of North Patagonia with a full day dedicated to moving from Bariloche in the east to Puerto Varas, Chile in the west. Being on the east of the Andes Bariloche and inland gets its rain coming from the pacific blocked by the mighty mountains. Since more of ‘Patagonian Land’ is in Argentina, the minimal rainfall makes it look like a vast expanse of ‘Steppes’, mostly covered with dry grass. The rivers that originate in the lakes flow into the Atlantic and even then the green spots are limited only to the foot hills of the Andes on the Argentinian side. This scarce of green gives the Argentinian Patagonia its character. Where for kilometres and kilometres one sees nothing but dry grasslands. Where ranches known locally as Estancias feel like a mini province in its expanse. I have yet to see this expanse and I only write from what I have seen on the tip of the iceberg. 

  

The dry grasslands of North Argentinian Patagonia

Even though on the lake crossing it doesn't feel like a different country, once I’ve crossed over and gone just over 10 kms inland Chile, it feels like a different Patagonia. Grasslands become the terrain, but this time not like the Steppes but like the foot hills of the Alps. That is the reason the Germans and the Swiss were called by the then government of Chile to settle here and they did come, first alone and later joined by their families. With a landscape like back in Europe the highlanders sure didn't miss their home.  

The German feel is everywhere in the town of Puerto Varas, from the cafe’s to the beer that they serve here. The German thing however ends there and it gets purely Chilean when it comes to the way of dealing with people. 

The Osorno Volcano - Puerto Varas

Patagonian Chile feels different than Argentina through its people and more through its food. The people on both side of the Andes are warm, but I have to give it to the Chileans, for that little bit of extra effort they take to deal with tourists. The food, the seafood is a big point scorer too when compared with Argentina. Its all beef and meet in Argentina and even the fish is more or less the trout coming from the lakes. In Chile … What can I say about the seafood!!

It makes all the difference specially for a person like me. 

The Fish Market of Puerto Montt

The fish market of Puerto Montt feels like the original version of the Bergen fish market in Norway. 

Norway and Chile!! There is a whole lot I can write about these two nations. But this is not about the countries, as much it is about a region. A region where nature makes you look so small that you have no other option but to sit back in silence and wonder. 

The only thing to break that silence is the scent of its food and the warmth of the people of the South of South America. Nature alone is beautiful and for some people that would be enough. As far as I go, I need the culture to add on to the whole experience. Patagonia starts with the lake region and whenever I talk about it to the locals here they always tell me to go south. I simply smile and tell them, someday I will. I just will!

A Bug called South America

I am on a flight to Buenos Aires. I don't know how many more hours there are until we touch down and I don't even want to know(maybe coz they upgraded me to business class). I want to however land and get out on the ‘streets of the continent’. 

Buenos Aires although more European than any of its partner cities in South America, still feels one with the continent. In my travels, there have been these three regions on the planet that have fascinated me and made me go deeper into them for reasons best known to me. Scandinavia,  Eastern Europe and South America. When I think of these three regions I immediately think of the homogenous feel their elements have in whichever corner you touch. There is this distinct Scandinavian style in every aspect of how a town or a village looks to how the people that live in it are. The style gets a little more ‘not so easy’ to specify when you move east and go to Poland or Albania. However you still are ‘very aware’ that this is the east.

What makes South America and its ‘feel’ so unique is the expanse in which the character is spread. Nowhere on this planet would you find such tastes which are more or less similar and in an area so widely spread as South America. Yes, each one has its own different nature but it is not just the Spanish that is widely spoken makes up for the similarities. It is something that cannot be defined as easily as in Scandinavia or Eastern Europe, but you would know it is somehow South American.

The head of Patagonias untamed nature - Bariloche

 It was in 2014 - 15 that maybe I decided, more has to be done to promote the continent amongst the people back home, in India. To promote was to simply keep coming here no matter the number of people I have with me and certainly no matter if the economics are working out or not. 

The challenge itself starts from the flights. 

To Buenos Aires the length of the flight time in hours from India although maybe less than its North American counterpart like Chicago, but still the limitation of connectivity makes getting to the South a long shot and a more expensive affair than the North. However once you get to South America you would, like me, realise why you have to get there. The other part of the challenge would be the language, Spanish is an essential tool and needs to be employed from time to time with whatever skill quotient you have. The distance to travel and the absence of a rail network or more flights to conquer the expanse is yet another bit of a difficulty. However once you are on the continent you simply accept all this and keep moving, just as you do in India with its huge train network but double the madness. 

Pisco Sour with Parmesan Scallops in Paracas, Peru

The untamed nature, the warmth in its people or the food? I don't know what is it about South America that keeps me coming back. To people who call me to book the trip but are concerned with things among which primary is the price, I often say, “do not wait, simply come with me as I know the Bug has bit you, the more you wait the more you would suffer”.

As for me the infection grows. 

Peru with Love..

I came to this continent for the first time in 2011. A group of seven is all I had on my first tour. It was too early in my work as a tour organiser that I had ventured this far away from India. The land felt far but once I landed in Buenos Aires it didn't feel that distant from some of the other countries I had already been to. I had only been able to complete the preliminary level in Spanish and that was good enough to get me started with the basics in dealing with ordering food(very important when you have vegetarians) and getting things done on the ground. In my class I had already identified more with the chapter in which they spoke about food and travel and I remember revising the chapter again as I was inflight from Johannesburg to Buenos Aires. 

Chile felt just like Argentina with a little more warmth in peoples expressions and with only Santiago on the charts, it didn't feel anything special to be in two cities back to back. 

Then came Peru! At first nothing seemed pleasing. The streets of Lima were not kept well, the traffic maddening and the buildings on the way to the hotel from the airport looked like they needed a facelift. I may even have thought of whether I really wanted to do this tour again. Then came the highlands and at 12000 ft above sea level, Cusco hit me bad. I am not very altitude friendly and even today anything above 10000 ft makes me feel want to get away to the sea level, no matter how beautiful the place is. Cuzco, back then didn't feel beautiful, but it felt like South America! Yes, for the first time the continent came into picture in its real sense. The people looked different and most of them were not white. Everything felt slow, maybe because of my head ache. 

The Plaza de Armas - Cuzco

 But the language was more easy to understand and the people were more willing to help. After 5 painful but different days in the ‘high andes’ we were back on the sea level and in a sea side town called Paracas. I remember my first ‘Pisco Sour’, a cocktail made with lime juice, egg white and sugar all mixed together with 50 ml of the local Pisco and lots of ice. The pacific was in front of me and the Scallops that are found in plenty on the South Peruvian shore were in me. The bartender narrated stories of the coast and how its people are different than the highlands. Even with my little knowledge of Spanish his stories I understood and I realised what an important thing it is to speak the language of the country and its people.

The Pacific in Paracas

Today after 5 years as I fly out of Lima and to Iguassu Falls in Brasil, I think of all the times I have been to this continent and somehow only Peru sticks in. The itinerary has changed a lot over the years. From spending only 6 nights here in Peru, I am now spending 9 nights and 10 days. The Peruvian Amazon, replaced the Brazilian one, the Nazca lines had to be taken off and the altitude sickness that made me mad was dealt with by staying in the Sacred Valley at 8,700 ft for the first 2 days to acclimatise. The people have come to love the Peruvian cuisine and even the vegetarians eat out of their hands. The locals always have a pleasant conversation with my people even if its in broken English. The Pisco Sour I still have at the same bar in front of the Pacific Ocean in Paracas and I always end up telling the bar man the same thing. “This is the best Pisco Sour I have had in Peru”.

The Pisco Sour with Scallops Parmesana

My Spanish has not really improved and I keep making mistakes which the locals are happy to correct or just make sense of what I am trying to tell. 

“Peru for me is South America in miniature”, said a tourist yesterday. Its true, Peru has everything from the Andes, to the Pacific Ocean. The Amazon forest makes up for 60 % of the land and a lot of what is left is the Andes or the desert hugging sea shore. After the ‘mostly meat’ diet of Argentina, Peru feels fresh. Fresh in its peoples attitude more than anything else. No wonder, it overtakes all the other countries in tourism in this continent. It is very easy for the people working in tourism in any country to have a commercially inclined mindset after the tourism has boomed. I always tell people to go to Myanmar before the locals there smile because they are paid to do so and not because its in their warm nature to do so. Countries like Peru give me hope. A hope that no matter how much money comes to the country through tourism and development, it is the people and the culture that lives in them that finally decides their attitude. 

To me South America is Peru. Not that I don't like Argentina, Chile and Brazil. But there is something in Peru that makes me fall in love with it. Something, which I don't even want to analyse, but just feel!

Finding Iceland

I am writing this after more than two months of me coming back from Iceland. I had started to write in Iceland but somehow it felt too detailed, something which Scandinavia is. Detailed yet to the point. Iceland though not a part of the Scandinavian peninsula is very close to what Scandinavia feels like. For me Scandinavia means Norway and thats the only reason I had put Iceland on the back bench since it began to surface in my mind. 

‘The Northern Lights in Iceland’ read a Facebook post in September, and then whoever was posting those pictures posted a few more over the next week. Meanwhile my friends in Tromso, Norway posted their pictures of the lights and somehow it seemed like a showdown between Tromso, the official capital of the Northern Lights sighting on the planet to the entire Iceland, the new emerging sensation. I think somewhere in that period I clicked the ‘book’ button on the Air Iceland website. 

For the first winter since 2011, I had done two back to back trips to North Norway and when I touched down at the Keflavik airport in Iceland at 1530 hrs, the total darkness was not a stranger. It was only when I saw the prices in the menu displayed outside the restaurants on the main street in Iceland did I completely felt like being in an extension of Norway. 

The Continental Split between the Euro and North American plates.

With no plan in my mind I woke up in my hostel bed on the first morning in Reykjavik. The coffee was free flowing in the hostel kitchen but my mind wasn't with any ideas of what to do in the 3 days I had allowed myself in Reykjavik. In those first few hours I was sure I was not going to come back here again and maybe was even telling myself, ‘relax this is a holiday and Norway is Norway’. 

It took me 24 hours to go from ‘maybe not again’ to ‘have to come again’. 

The cities are cities, maybe a Reykjavik or an Oslo, it is only when the raw power of nature overtakes the tar roads and man made buildings does a real country makes its presence felt. The North of Iceland and just 6 hours of travelling in it made me change my mind about Iceland. 6 hours full of geysers, mud sulphur pools, frozen waterfalls, and a hot pool in - 10 deg centigrade. But it is not the pure nature that helped me make my decision. It is the simplicity of its people too. 

Like the ice-cream shop in Akureyri, still there as it was made in 1950’s, serving the locals and the house on the old street which has aged more than a 100 years and still stands with all its glimmer with the post christmas lighting, which they keep till the end of Feb. Electricity is virtually free and the surrounding dark, so wouldn’t. 

When the waters are at +40 Deg C, the Air doesn't matter

One of the many frozen Waterfalls in North Iceland

 I don't know when I will get back to this country again. A country where they say, “who needs hash, when we have ash’. Where the geo thermal activity makes it the most unique in Scandinavia, and its people who proudly display their ‘100% pure Icelandic’ tag are more friendlier than anywhere in Scandinavia. 

Iceland, in winter and in summer I wish to come back to you. Right now I have just found you, there is still the discovering to be done. 

Hanoi, Night and Day!

I generally dislike cities. I live in one of the biggest and the most populated cites in the world and that in itself makes me run away from anything similar when I travel. I live in a city which might not have a lot of sights to check, but has something more than mere sightseeing for the average tourist. It has a strong character. 

In my travels around, only Rio in Brazil had matched the colour of Mumbai. A colour which when looked at from the ground seems to be only of one shade. The shade that you currently see as experiencing the scene in front of you. That might be the grey of poverty, the red of glamour or the yellow of the bright faces one sees walking on the crowded streets. But, get above the streets and look at it from a different angle(and I don't mean going into the top floor of the towers) and you will not make up any shade. Its  a mad mixture of everything and yet there is a distinct colour to it. I love the fact that you don't know what you love in a place.

In Hanoi, Vietnam I have had a similar experience. There is something in the city I cant explain. At first when I came here 6 months ago, I immediately felt peaceful in the mad rush of its old quarter. I wasn't that far away in days from Mumbai, but even then it felt good to walk around the streets as if it was my city. The sweat was minimal though and with it the fragrance of different kinds of foods was the only thing which made my walk on the first night in Hanoi, somewhat different than the ones I have had in Mumbai. 

One of the busy streets in the old quarter, Hanoi.

 There is the Hanoi of the night which has a wild side to it, but even after my second time here I know it is not as wild as Bangkok. In the old quarter, which is the pulse of Hanoi, people, both tourists and locals sit on small plastic stools and go about their chore of eating. When I look at faces of locals and in them the tourists, all look the same. Its like they all have the colour of Hanoi on them.

Then there is the Hanoi of the morning, especially the early morning. In my first few minutes of walking on the lake front, I could smell the air different. The scent of food was still in the air but with it the sight of people, mostly locals starting with their day made me feel like a resident of the city. Tai chi on the lake remained in my mind as I had my breakfast of the Pho(noodle soup) with chicken at a road side stall and later downed a freshly brewed iced coffee. I wanted to stay for more but I had to go back to my hotel to pack up for my flight. That morning was left incomplete so I went again today. Since the last 9 days on this tour of Cambodia, Laos and North Vietnam, it is only Hanoi in the morning that made me wake up an hour before the alarm rang. 

Pho at a 'not so roadside joint'

When I think of both the times, the night has its energy like you would expect, but what makes the early morning different is along with the obvious calm there is a different pulse that comes with it. It is like the energy from the night just spilled over to the next morning. I have seen the odd food stall serving food late till the night and the same lady opening up for the morning breakfast, like she has been over the last 30 years maybe. 

Off course there are other parts of Hanoi which i haven't experienced yet and maybe they are the same like any other city with their offices and shopping malls. The old quarter however remains the place to be in Hanoi. No matter how cynic you are, no matter how much I tell myself, “oh I have had it with the dirt, cramped up food joints and loud noise”. It is to the old quarter that I return to. Like last night when I thought of eating at a shopping mall which I had taken my tourists to but eventually came back to an old quarter food joint, which turned out to be quiet an institution. Sticky rice with meat floss, white corn and chicken is what they have been selling for the last, i don't know how many years. Like the many little unknown food stalls, that have stuck to one item and mastered it. 

I am on my way back to where I live, after having ‘lived’ in Hanoi. 

Luang Prabang, Laos - European face, Asian smile!

My first view of Luang Prabang was on Google Images. I was not even aware that such a town existed. As my screen started to show a village like town from an aerial view with two rivers joining hands at its head, I was already clicking on more images. The initial reaction from my Hanoi based agent when I told her about wanting to add Laos and in it Luang Prabang to the Vietnam & Cambodia itinerary, was a ‘why’?

“Why do you want to go there? You have a similar kind of town in Central Vietnam, called Hue and much cheaper”, she said in one of our 30+ mails, exchanged to discuss what exactly to do different in the already touristy Vietnam and Cambodia. 

The only way I could decide between the Central Vietnam and Luang Prabang in Laos was by going to both the places, before having the tourists come with me. Back in October 2015, on a bus from Hue to Hanoi in Vietnam, I was kind of desperate in wanting Luang Prabang to be better than the architecturally old world chinese but very commercial, Hue. I had to however scrape through the madness of Vientiane, the capital of Laos to reach Luang Prabang. As I stepped out of my over crowded Toyota van, the first welcoming sign was the breath of fresh mountain air. We indians and especially people from Mumbai dislike sweat, crowd and rush when we travel. The first few minutes and I had already known that the matter of sweat is resolved, now I had to see if the crowd and rush give me a 1:2 ratio against coming to Luang Prabang. I wanted a 3:0 in favour of Luang. I still remember the relief I felt, when I first entered the centre of the town on a shared Tuk Tuk from the bus station. There were tourists, but for some reason it didn't feel crowded. 

The very French main street 

That evening when I had already made up my mind about coming to LP back with tourists, I changed a few dollars more than what I would normally on a 2 night stay. I was not worried about the left over Kip (local currency in Laos). A old world (not thankfully chinese) french town with a lot of south east asia character which dripped from the smiles of the local Lao people was a recipe for at least 3 - 4 nights of stay. 

I could just spend all the time walking on its quant streets (only post sunset) in the glimmer of the low lit shops and cafes. But I would have people with me and an answer had to be found to, ‘what to do for the period of stay’?

Trip advisor is something which I have come to have a love - hate relationship with. At the onset when one is completely unaware of what to do or where to stay in a place, trip advisor is a good platform but then I believe one should simply follow ones own path.  When a place becomes famous with a 4 star + rating on trip advisor it usually stinks of management making things work to just keep up the rating. The soul is replaced by plain smiling faces I think. When I chose the living land company for a half day excursion out of the near 2 days I had in Luang Prabang, I chose it for what their website said and how they appeared to be but the initial guidance came from trip advisor. 

When I visited the farm where the whole process from seed to feed is actively shown, I was happy. Happy that we would as a group, have a really different activity to do in the town which was at par with the feel of the town. 

'Suzuki' the water buffalow at the 'living land farm'

Sticky rice being steamed 

The other obvious choices, the Kuang Si waterfall with a asian bear rescue centre and the city tour made up for the 3 days I would choose to spend here. 

3 days ago as the flight from Siem Reap to Luang Prabang was about to land the flight attendant announced the outside temperature to be +15 deg C, a drop of 18 deg C from Siem Reap. I however knew the people would have a 180 deg turn around in terms of the feel, once they see the central street of Luang Prabang. I like it when someone from my group asks me on the first day at a place which I want them to like, “How many nights do we have here?”. In Luang Prabang as a 65 year old lady from my group looked at the Mekong from her room with a face I know well, the question came, “why are we only staying for 3 nights here”?

The river Mekong is the biggest in South East Asia and it runs through the length of Laos after beginning in China and ending in the Mekong Delta near Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. It is in Luang Prabang that it meets the Nam Kham and therefore fish is an integral part of the cuisine here in Lao. The local snack, khai pan is a dish where, mekong river weed is dried with some sesame and fried to be eaten with a chilly paste. The paste usually is anywhere from spicy to super spicy and is therefore combined with sticky rice, a national past time. Rice is rolled in balls and dipped in any sauce, and you have a wholesome meal. The starch content in the sticky rice is more than the regular grain and therefore the average person feels and remains full till mid day after having a breakfast of sticky rice with fish or pork. The lunch again has to take care of not feeling hungry till dinner and therefore its sticky rice time for the mid day meal as well. 

We have had our quota of rice and before the noodles of Vietnam, something like a Pizza is a safe bet to give variety to the already deprived vegetarians. So it was Pizza for the guests. As for me, I had the other Lao meal. A fish fillet stuffed with pork and steamed in a banana leaf. 

Fish with Pork steamed in Banana Leaf

The more I come to Laos, the more I want to come again. As I write from my flight to Hanoi, and going back to the mad tourist rush, I know I wouldn't mind if Laos was the only thing that people remembered from this trip of Vietnam Laos and Cambodia. Without Luang Prabang and its laid back european ambience added to that the Laotian greeting of ‘Sawasdee’ coming from every person on the street, there is no Laos for me. As i sipped my last bit of the Lao mango juice on a cafe on the main street, the only thing asian about the experience was the mango, until the bill came and with it came, khop chai (thank you, in Laotian). 

Khop Chai Luang Prabang for staying Luang Prabang.