Posts tagged "travel"
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It Was All New
I have a tattoo on my lower back. It was given to me by the grandson of a tribal village chief. I grimaced for hours on the floor as he used the primitive tools and ingredients that had tattooed his Iban people for centuries, on me, a girl from a big city. I'd always wanted a tattoo, but didn't know what; this one…
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Five of Each
Five Places I Visited and Loved in the Past 12 Months Helsinki Copenhagen San Francisco New York City Stockholm Five Things I Learned in the Past 3 Months Diving Swimming Git Ruby Still looking for the fifth big thing. For now it looks like it's going to be Fightshape Note: I could swim, but badly. I took up Shaw…
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63Random
63 random things from the past 3 months (inspired by Michael Ruby's "Fleeting Memories") Arriving in Budapest knowing absolutely nothing about Hungary Drinking palinka for the first time, feeling the flush The Hungarian energy drinks I drank while wearing funny hats Walking with team Photogotchi along the…
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Boomerang
National Day came and went. I haven't written any of those essays I promised to. Sheepish. I will write them, I just need a little bit more time. I did, however, contribute a piece to the Straits Times after PM Lee's National Day Rally speech, which I streamed from a house by the lake in… Hungary. I know, I'm still…
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The Places We'll Go
Five years ago, I said: "Ask me again a year, three, or five from now and all I will remember is driving up, around, up, around, up, around, in the swirling clouds as the rain lashed at my windows and I feared for my life, balanced so daintily in this tin can navigating itself on the hairpin road." Plenty has…
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The Road Less Ridden
In my mother tongue we have a brilliant turn of phrase. Geh kiang. Separately, they mean fake clever. Together, it means some approximation of 'smart alec', but that's not quite good enough. It's hardly translatable at all. 'Smart alec' does not embody the degree of stupidity we are usually referring to when we say…
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Did you hear the one about the Swedish chocolate cake?
I'm home now of course, whatever home means, and I've been retelling a couple of stories. The same ones, but many of them, just because I've had such a crazy time in the Nordics. This one isn't very much of a story. Just a little tale that, once again, shows you how crazy we Asians are about our food. I spent the first…
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Wilderness TV
I can't say I've been away from my phone or Mac for more than 24 hours, not at any point in the last 10 years. I can't say I have at all. They feel like such natural extensions of my arm, they are almost artificial appendages themselves, not just of my body but also of my brain. I needed to switch off and I needed a…
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Chocolate, Nudity, Helsinki
I have seen some places in my short travelling life, but rarely a place that offers me chocolate and naked women within two hours of arriving. Helsinki turned out to be such a place. Unknown to me, mostly since I knew so little about Finland other than Nokia, Angry Birds and the cold, when I pinged some local friends…
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Four Hours Light
Tallinn, Estonia 028 - Catedral Alexander Nevsky/ Alexander Nevsky Cathedral "Tallinn, Estonia 028 - Catedral Alexander Nevsky/ Alexander Nevsky Cathedral by Claudio.Ar, on Flickr" Somewhere between lying in a hospital bed, travelling, and coming back to a hospital again, I decided: man, I really need to go…
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Taj Mahal Foxtrot
A note from New Delhi Taj Mahal Foxtrot, namesake of the book by the same name by naresh.fernandes Another new year, another bad habit: I'm late, again. Just a few days ago, I was sitting at the back of a Toyota Innova, stuffing my face with mithai and chips — not at the same time — thinking what a nice surprise it'd…
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Lakewood
Thiruvannaamalai to Yercaud, 155km, though it ended up a lot more I come from a place with no highlands. No real ones, anyway — the highest point, Bukit Timah Hill, is a mere 163 metres. Enough for families and joggers to work up a sweat on Saturday mornings; not quite enough to keep going. You run, you jog, you break…
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Private Islands for Everyone
110413_livemintluxe I've been spending a lot of time in the Philippines lately... There comes a point in every traveller’s life when the experience of going to a foreign place no longer feels the same, nor as exciting as it used to be when she first began. Cities blur into similar skylines, restaurants and bars.…
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The Great Southern Trunk Road
Madras to Thiruvannaamalai, 185km I've often said India never calls for me, she mostly shouts. With India, there is no moderation: you either love her, or you hate her to death — she never cares for you, or you can't get enough of each other. It's clear which camp I fall into. I could have been in class, somewhere in…
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We Have No Dungarees, Saar
Madras, India There are slower ways of seeing India. On a buffalo. On a "two wheeler", a motorcycle, stacked to great heights with assorted luggage until you can't see what's in front of you. Or on foot, "by walk", like a sadhu with no clothes on. We travelled by autorickshaw. An autorickshaw isn't…
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Southeast Asia for Lovers
I have a piece in the Valentine's Day issue of Mint, the Indian paper. Read it here. I have not written much since my cover story in Reader's Digest Asia in July 2010, so I'm feeling pretty good about my "comeback". I will be writing more regularly, here, as well as for a handful of publications. Feature art…
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Two Hundred and Nine
A year in review 2009 was a year of many things: it was the year of change and death. More so it was the year of change because of death. Many famous people died that year; my grandfather, who was not famous, somehow also did the same. In April I called him from a phone booth in Beirut at US$2 a minute and had a…
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You Asians Have Two Stomachs
Some friends from Turkey came to visit this past weekend. I had a great time hanging out with Melissa and Emirhan in Antalya when I stopped by en route to Istanbul (from Damascus), so I naturally returned the favour and put them up at my place. After three dinners (not at the same time, albeit the same night), Emirhan…
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The Torino Express
Beirut Downtown Beirut was swanky. Saifi Village was strange. I had to duck into a hair salon and get my hair cut by a gay man in Ashrafieh to avoid the guy following me on his scooter, and the other guy trying to sell me drugs. All I wanted was a steak. Walking around Beirut, glamorous, fashionable Beirut, the party…
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And All The Roads That Lead You There Were Winding
I came to the Middle East to do just one thing: see a part of the world that I felt I needed to learn more about. Its language was alien, but familiar – many Malay and Hindi words have roots in Arabic. Its customs and food strange, but not dissimilar – much of the Indian subcontinent that I love and call home was…
91 posts tagged "travel"