Popagandhi / 654 posts / 5,845 comments / feed / comments feed / flickr feed
It Was A Very Good Year
In 2006, I spent a total of 76 days in India, 25 days in Thailand, 8 days in Bangladesh and 5 days in Laos, leading to a total of 114 days out of the country. Of these, 6899 km was covered by train in India alone, spanning 128 hours (too many nights). The train rides, [...]
Rocket Boat
Last week, I took a 100kmph rocket boat down the Mekong. I rode in that thing with a crash helmet and a life jacket for 6 hours, hugging my knees and all the while thinking we were going to crash. It was a sampan with a fast engine and 6 crazy foreigners (myself included), and the [...]
The World is Flat
Because I walked into a restaurant in the old quarter of Luang Prabang, Laos, and saw a familiar face: Miss K!!! I think her exact words were, “What the hell are you doing here?” It was then followed by a discussion on how much weight I’d put on. :) Food is great, beer is cheap, Luang [...]
Alive In Luang Prabang
That about sums up today. We took the speedboat instead of the slowboat, and four hours later, my ears are still ringing and my legs are still jelly. The piece I’d originally written about the speedboat has gone the way of the speedboat: into the Mekong. See you in seven days baby.
Strange World
So I’m on the phone with the American dude from Kansas who somehow got stuck in Koh Phi Phi and now helps to run the beach shack I’ll be staying in. Me: “Can you give me directions on where to go after I get off the boat?” Ben: “Walk straight down the pier, look for the skeleton [...]
Pst
I really wonder what the purpose of a format such as .pst is. I suppose if the format was any more open, freelance fix-its for-the-fabulously-rich like myself (I seem to have carved myself a niche market of random misc computer work for the very rich), wouldn’t have much work to do. How difficult is migrating [...]
Sabaidee
It’s been a slew of difficult situations all December: first the insanity of the final exams, from which I’ve yet to really recover, then the recent shocker of losing something which was dear to me. I’ve had a hard time adjusting to this loss, and the last two days have been especially difficult. She was [...]
Missing
Natasha, age 30 months. 12” PowerBook. Last seen: back of a taxi on 6 December. No power adapter (so battery probably lasts just 2 minutes), screen is locked and prompts for “Adrianna Tan’s password”, black Marware sleeve. No helpful suggestions about buying a MacBook or MacBook Pro… my baby just can’t be replaced and I can’t bear [...]
7 Stories To Tell
John Flinn writes in SFGate: ”..visit every one of those ‘1000 Places to See Before You Die’.. do all those ‘101 Things To Do Before You Die’.. but spare your friends the description of the Taj Mahal. Yes, it’s beautiful.. Everybody knows this. What we want to hear are stories. And it’s an axiom of [...]