bicrom abroad

this has been an odd long holiday, without the easy flow of our time in south america. this is largely because it was sandwiched between two non-travelling events, our wedding in cal and boropishi's kaj. we saw and did some amazing things but this was six weeks that lacked a common unifying thread. it was the holiday where my kindle came into its own: three jeeves and woosters, two amitav ghosh's, if on a winter's night a traveller and the richard hill autobiography was a edifying return (and vicki was not far behind with her oh so last century paperbacks). finally, this was the death of our backpacking dream; we're too old for it and besides, in the advent of the internet, it's simply not as good, or as cheap, as it was back in our day. the kids today just don't know how to do it right...

best natural sight: the himalaya bathed in the rising sun at sarangkot. nothing else could come close (although on any other trip radhanagar beach would be hard to beat).

best manmade sight: the taj mahal. again, hard to top. on retrospect we really did see some amazing things this holiday.

best experience: one of the joys of leaving penniless backpackerdom behind is being able to afford to do things. the best one on this trip was the ride in the two seater up to the annapurna. honourable mention to vicki's swim with rajan the elephant.

biggest disappointment: jaipur. dirty, unimpressive and a blot on the rajasthani landscape.

best journey: flying from pokhara to kathmandu, eyeball to eyeball with the himalaya. exhilarating. kathmandu to doha gets an honourable mention for serving up mountain views together with seatback entertainment on a spiffy new plane.

best hotel: the leela palace udaipur. this felt like a honeymoon. honourable mentions for the radisson in delhi for rescuing us after a day of travel gloom and the himalayan vista to which we woke up at trekker's inn in pokhara.

best food: the finger chips at barefoot and the tortilla chips and (especially) salsa at new orleans cafe in kathmandu. being vegetarian for a large chunk of this holiday did not help.

best drink: sweet lime soda at barefoot (all imitations thereafter increasingly disappointing). vicki was tucking into the hot lemon ginger and honey in kathmandu as well. finally, the entire bengal club wedding party chowed down more old monk and thums up then was strictly healthy, with clumpy getting a special mention for her gin and fanta combo.

touristiest ghetto: thamel. like a hundred khao san roads stuck together: nepal is more backpackery than anywhere i have ever visited.

most ridiculous public schoolesque nickname for city: katters for kathmandu.

best dog: assistant, apparently.

best wedding: our wedding!