Tierra Del Fuego

I'm at the End of the World, in the Land of Fire. It sort of reminds me of Scotland, in that there are mountains, trees and some bleak looking views of the sea.

Ushaia itself is kinda how you expect it to be: a tourist outpost packed with trendy bars, restaurants selling king crab and shops selling high-end trekking gear. Although a general strike gave it a soupcon of je ne sais quoi, everyone loves it when there are things burning in the streets, right?

So this is where the adventure really gets going. In a handful of hours, I shall be leaving my third continent of the week. Bring it...

Good Wind? Again?

And so another adventure starts in the City of Fresh Air, the so-called Paris of the South. Last time I came here I spent my first day trying to find a water park, and as fun as that was I couldn't help but feel that I didn't see he most of Buenos Aires.

This time I spent the day smashing the sights: La Boca, Rosa Casada, Recoleta cemetry, Belgrano: I saw more in one afternoon than I did in the whole time, last time.

In other news:
"That's the biggest steak I've ever seen."
It got devoured: nice to know that I haven't completely lost my edge.

A Sleepy Hilltown

I hadn't really heard of Pune and people kept telling me it was a sleepy hilltown. It was only a week or so back that I really paid any attention to it. It's enormous. It's  the biggest city in Asia beginning with P, which is a prime pub quiz question if ever I heard one. If it was in UK only London would be bigger.

My assessment, which is based on almost no empirical evidence, is that this perception of sleepiness is based on two things:

1. Everything seems to shut at 5.
2. The trees. They entirely dominate the city. And I don't mean saplings in planters at the side of the road, I mean big, gnarled, haunted-house beasties growing through everything. It creates an atmosphere completely unlike anywhere I've ever been, and I don't say that very often.

Sacred Cows

"Even the wildest imaginations leave travellers underprepared for that breath-stealing moment its gates are traversed and this magnificent world wonder comes into focus."

At the risk of sounding like I'm trying too hard to be underwhelmed, the Taj Mahal was alright. Don't get me wrong, it's obviously a really impressive bit of craftmanship but it is really difficult to have a wow moment over something that is so familiar.

The inside of the Taj was one long jostling, queue punctuated by flashes, whistles and whatever the Hindi is for "No Photo" which didn't exactly add to the experience. Still there were monkeys in the grounds. I like monkeys.

Agra itself was ace though. It hit all of my Indian preconceptions - hustlers and bustlers and temples and animals. Cows-in-the-street-tastic.

Delhi

I'm not in Delhi. I'm in Gurgaon and then only just. I'm on the outskirts of Gurgaon in a part of town where they are still building the metro. Now I'm aware of two things: 1, you've not heard of Gurgaon and 2, you don't read this to learn real facts...

Gurgaon is a city in its own right and it is full of big, shiny buildings for big, shiny companies. Whilst today about a million people live here, about ten years ago it was scrubland and noone seems to have told the previous inhabitants. Consequently, you get the rather lovely juxtaposition of wild boar hanging out outside Porsche show rooms.

I spent the day in Delhi proper yesterday and was fairly impressed with the number of eagles about.

Qutub provided the first wow moment of the day. A ruined mosque (that doesn't do it justice) made to seem all the more Indiana Jones by flocks of birds swooping through it.

I learnt about a new religion. I assumed that the Lotus Temple was Hindu, it's not it's Baha'i, which seems eminently sensible in that it preaches that all religions and science can coexist peacefully. The inside of the temple was free from religious trinkets and just provided a space for you to sit and think about whatever you wanted to think about.

Finished the day at Akshardham's water show. Now the water show was a lot less terrible than I feared, that said I was a bit confused as to why one of the most spectacular religious buildings in the world needed a Disney-esque sound and light show.

Big B's Bungalow

When I said I was in Mumbai in the last post I was telling a little tiny lie. I was actually in Navi Mumbai. And even that's a bit of an overstatement. I was on a business park in the outskirts of Navi Mumbai. Kind of like saying that you are in London when you are staying at the Boreham Interchange services.

That meant that a lot of my travels were complemented with a side of Mumbai traffic. Now I stand by my previous statement. The traffic isn't as bad as I was expecting - that said I did have high (low?) expectations. However what the traffic lacks in anarchy it makes up for in volume. If you're in the traffic, you're there for two hours. You have to commit to the traffic.

And commit I did. Bandra, Juhu beach, Haji Ali, an unnecessarily western shopping mall: a veritable smorgasbord of Mumbai. And to top it all off, I didn't see The Big B. I'm kind of pleased to have not seen The Big B, it's almost better than if I had seen him. As it stood until yesterday, Gary Neville was in the top three most famous people I'd not seen and he just didn't seem famous enough.

Gateway to India

I'm in Mumbai and I can't help but think that it's been exaggerated somewhat. From what everyone had told me I was expecting full on crazy and it's only delivered common or garden crazy. Like an old man with a big moustache driving a herd of buffalo down the freeway.

I'd been told too expect traffic like nowhere else and so far it's been very busy but not anarchic. Everyone seems to follow some kind of system (even if I don't understand it) and there's not the same sense of peril when crossing roads that I've had elsewhere. Or maybe that's because I'm basing this whole paragraph on a Sunday afternoon.

I'd been expecting it to be Hot.  That's capital H Hot. And it's pretty far from cold but doesn't feel sweltering. In fact it feels pretty amazing, bot least because I know it's 37 degrees colder back home.

There are people. Lots of people. But the crowd seems less oppressive because there aren't that many tall people about and in just about every crowd there's someone selling enormous balloons. It's hard to find anything intimidating if it's punctuated by enormous balloons.

The one thing that I had been told which was proved bang right is that I would be a hit down at the Gateway to India. I reckon that more selfies have been taken of me by randoms in the initial ten minute period than I've taken ever. Although admittedly I have set the bar rather low.

I had a bit of a wonder round downtown, the whole area is chock full of massive Indian-tinged Victorian buildings and looks really rather impressive. I aimed at Leopold's, but it turns out it's a trendy coffee shop full of fat westerners eating red velvet cake - that's not where I'm going to become a Mumbai gangster. Surely Shantaram wouldn't lie to me...