http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:Crimson-Nightingale&section=today deviantART RSS for by:Crimson-Nightingale en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Sun, 20 Dec 2009 10:21:30 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png http://Crimson-Nightingale.deviantart.com/journal/27451324/ http://Crimson-Nightingale.deviantart.com/journal/27451324/ Sun, 27 Sep 2009 14:58:37 PDT
I flew into Delhi with Etihad Airways; having read bad/mixed reviews about the service, I was unsure about my travel agents choice, but the pleasant flights, decent food and friendly attendants changed my mind. From the reviews, Abu Dhabi sounded awful with poor cleanliness and seating. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the toilets were clean (hurray!), the airport well-ventilated and the sound-levels had been reduced. While not as visually impressive and with limited shops in comparison to Dubai’s airport, Abu Dhabi is reasonable.

After stepping outside the airport in Delhi, it was a real shock to walk into what felt like a blazing hot furnace. Goodbye, unpredictable British weather. Hello, merciless heat-wave. My driver picked me up to drove to the tour’s starting hotel in another district about 40 minutes away. We travelled on dusty roads with the odd monkey sat bang in the middle; saw homeless people, dark-eyed cattle and stray dogs wandering freely on bypasses and under bridges; passed buildings with colourful Bollywood posters/advertisements peeling off their crumbling walls. We eventually reached Hotel Good Palace in Karol Bagh district. Throughout the day and night, the streets outside the hotel were teeming with peddlers selling salwar kameez (Punjab suit, a type of tunic and trouser set, sometimes with a scarf), backpacker gear, colourful glittering jewellery, sequinned bags, children’s toys and religious paraphernalia such as framed pictures of deities, necklaces and incense. It was smelly from time to time, too, with what smelled like ammonia/sulphur drifting up from hot garbage and grates.

As it was so hot and humid, I became thirsty quickly. Fortunately, I’d equipped myself with bottled water sold by the hotel. There were so many people walking on the streets (the majority were men, who outnumber women by a great many in India) and peddlers/shops selling the same items, it was disorientating to walk about; nearly all the streets and buildings looked the same. Alone, I was unsure of where to go for dinner so I became a spoilt tourist and indulged in room-service. The hotel wasn’t that good, with its interior stripped to the raw foundation, the constant banging of hammers outside and the strong stink of kerosene wafting in through the ventilation shaft, (no-one in the group was expecting heavy renovation and to make things worse, the owners gave the impression that they didn’t care). However, the food was excellent. For dinner, I had a medium spicy mutton rogan josh served with two chapattis; a decent price, even with the service charge. The meat was so tender and the ingredients full of strong flavour.

Next day, accompanied by Monica (Portuguese) and Wendy (Australian), I headed to the ATM to pull out money for the local payment and have lunch. In between dodging the random torrential showers, we walked around, looking for a good restaurant. We were recommended a place called Suruchi, where the all-male staff wore gleaming white tunics and trousers with a red turban which was styled to drape loosely over their back. While they had a limited vegetarian menu, the food was high quality. For drink, I had authentic sweet lassi (which tastes very different to the bottled fruit-flavoured stuff you get from restaurant suppliers like Mumtaz) and for lunch, a dish called Gujarati Thali, which consisted of a tray with eight sauces which had ingredients in like chutney, lentil pea and mint. You dipped roti and other types of light Indian bread into the sauce. I had Gulab Jamun for dessert, a fried cheese dumpling drenched in sweet syrup, which was nice but sickly.

Later, we met up with our group; we were due to see the buildings in old Delhi, like the Red Fort and Jama Masjid (Delhi’s oldest mosque) but because of the terrorist bombings, it was safer to visit the less crowded places. We went to Raj Ghat, where Gandhi’s ashes are kept in a beautiful, well-tended square garden enclosed by walls draped with flowers; the Crafts Museum on Purana Qila Road, which was fascinating with life-size imitations of ethnic tribes’ houses/meeting buildings and a wide array of items to buy like tunics, studded belts, pashminas, textile throws, papier-mâché sculptures and folk-style paintings. We briefly visited the popular-with-backpackers district, Connau... ]]> *Crimson-Nightingale http://Crimson-Nightingale.deviantart.com/journal/16752874/ http://Crimson-Nightingale.deviantart.com/journal/16752874/ Wed, 06 Feb 2008 11:16:10 PST
I agree that it is a somewhat pointless entry, but it seemed a good idea to knock off the previous novella-long post.

That is all.

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Brushes by ~SummerAIR ]]> *Crimson-Nightingale http://Crimson-Nightingale.deviantart.com/journal/15968060/ http://Crimson-Nightingale.deviantart.com/journal/15968060/ Mon, 17 Dec 2007 03:31:40 PST
The reason for the freakish introduction is because nothing much has happened lately, well, apart from going on a 3 week holiday to China in October. It was absolutely... amazing. The Intrepid tour may have only been through the cities, but it was beyond description.

So, flying out from Manchester to Beijing via Dubai at 9pm, it was great travelling with Emirates. Comfortable seats, brilliant innovative menu and the aircraft smelled nice, too. Touched down in Beijing before midnight and stayed the evening at the Capital Airport hotel. As it was only ten minutes away from the airport, sleep was… unsettled, to say the least.

Got up early next day (10am in my books) to check out and took a taxi straight into the heart of Beijing to reach the Chong Wen Men Hotel. Nice place with the swish but ridiculously expensive Maxi’s Restaurant (which serves French cuisine), but the roads were extremely noisy at night… even throughout the twilight hours. Despite the windows, high altitude and curtains, I still got a pounding headache from what seemed to be a mechanised drill going off from about 10pm through until 6am… and it was freezing cold at night.

On my first day of exploration, I headed out to see the Ming Temple of Heaven inside Tiantan Park. The park itself was spacious and well laid-out and the temple was extremely beautiful with subtle rich colours and its uncanny symmetry in terms of architectural design. Previously, I didn’t appreciate building design as much, but seeing that sort of thing in person is drastically different from looking at the two-dimensional depictions shown in photographs. Such perfection and colour. The Danbi wall carvings, located on one slope leading up to the elevated temple, were also amazing. Intricate and strong in design and texture, there were several panels depicting wispy clouds, phoenixes with flowing plumage and tightly coiled dragons. However, strolling around the park in my jeans and modest t-shirt, I noticed that my arms began to feel numb… like lead weights. People say that China is bitterly cold in winter, especially Beijing, but because it seemed sunny and the climate was somewhat agreeable, I underestimated how cool it would become in the mid-afternoon. To avoid feeling sick throughout the rest of my tour, I headed back to the hotel… and felt rather drowsy, so went power-napping for a few hours.

Later on, I checked out the in-built Chinese restaurant (had run out of stock of most items on the menu) and Maxi’s… the latter of which I was considered one of the proletariat to eat there. Yes, a lone backpacker with a reasonable amount of cash turned down because she was unworthy. It was likely because only the people who paid for plus deluxe/superior rooms were allocated a table. To be honest, the food was all Westernised and overpriced anyway. Wandering around the city alone, it took a while to become accustomed to the unique sights... like the spitting. Used to feel like vomiting whenever that dread sound of noisily expelled phlegm cut the air, but this second time round in China, I found it really funny. Not in a patronising way, you come to appreciate the different customs of another country. Also, I never expected to see a Haagen-Dazs shop in Beijing. (Never been into one, you see) Popping in, I ordered a Japanese-style dessert, green-tea ice-cream with crushed red bean served in a long slender vessel. The presentation was very artistic and minimalist, though of course, it was expensive (for things in China, at least). So much intense flavour and all the ingredients complemented each other without ravaging your taste-buds. For the ultimate record in gluttony, a few days later, I popped in again and had a yummy Chocolate Brownie with vanilla ice-cream. I’m a sucker for desserts. Ha.

For dinner as well as lunch for the next day, I found a suitable fast-food stall to eat in at the New World Shopping Mall. Think it was (processed) seafood with noodles. Shortly afterwards, I took a woman’s offer up to have a facial. I’m not into pampering, but after seeing the state of my skin after a longhaul flight and a day’s stay in Beijing, I changed my mind. We went upstairs in a lift, and I admit I was anxious as you hear stories of people going off solitaire and not coming back. Despite the dodgy residential area we stopped in, nothing fishy was going on… still kept hold of my money-belt though. The facial was so invigorating and relaxing. Loved it when she caressed just under the neck, made me giggle insanely and it was great having all these refreshing layers remove the crap from my skin. Ahhhhhh…

The day after, I didn’t do anything as most of the major sights would be covered in Intrepid’s tour and besides, in some ways, it’s more fun to go along with other people when visiting monuments and historical sights. Fatigue was... ]]> *Crimson-Nightingale http://Crimson-Nightingale.deviantart.com/journal/10255642/ http://Crimson-Nightingale.deviantart.com/journal/10255642/ Mon, 02 Oct 2006 05:00:34 PDT

First day was in Bangkok, got there around late lunchtime. Dubbed the “City of Angels,” it’s not quite as romantic as the name suggests, rather a chaotic juxtaposition of temples against brothels/seedy districts and nightclubs. My accommodation was the Viengtai hotel, located on one of the narrow streets within the bustling city.

Exploring the area was my first concern, and so my (excessively) loquacious roommate and I walked around the streets. She’d already been there for a few days, so she knew the area better than I did. A bubbly American, we got on reasonably at first… Anyway, it was quite interesting with all the variety in the local night-market; from freshly cut fruit to roast mice/cockroaches to henna-tattoo stalls.

Decided to indulge in a spot of decadence by taking advantage of the über-cheap massage-parlour (not that sort), so Mimi, Chris and myself went into the Chaidee Massage facility and had a one-hour session of brutal massage with pure coconut oil. While it was interesting, it was awkward having to get almost butt-naked. Still, we got over our initial embarrassment and eventually managed to relax. Oddly enough, Chris got a male masseuse (heard their voices through the curtain). We couldn’t stop ourselves laughing at that; it just seemed kind of odd to have a man doing another man… Ahem.

Though the traditional Thai massage is fairly… vigorous… we were informed that the Vietnamese were vicious with their technique. Think like extremely intimate massage and basically the masseuses could be adept torture-masters in their spare-time. You get the idea. We got pummelled, caressed and had our finger/toe digits cracked. A bit strange really, and I soon felt even more uncomfortable when my masseuse began pressing down on my hip…

I don’t think they had toilets in that small facility, but anyway, the woman moved on further down so I was spared the indignity of what might have been.

Next day we took a Klong tour in the canal-channels of Bangkok. Fairly enjoyable despite the pungent sulphur-like smell and polluted murky-brown waters; it was really interesting to look at the more dilapidated areas of residential living in the big city. From aged wooden huts on stilts to ornate glittering temples, it shows you how truly different people’s lifestyles are and how lucky we are in the West.

Eventually we got off our long-tail boat to visit Wat Pho, home of the largest reclining Buddha in Thailand. Nice, but I find those temples overwhelmingly materialistic and decadent despite the nature of Buddhism. Found out the reason why they build so many temples and statues, and it’s mostly to do with building merit. It’s the same elsewhere in the Far East. Personally, I’m not too keen about it because the money could be spent on more productive agendas, not on some superstitious belief of accumulating positive karma.

From observing, the monkhood make a living off the local populace, and that’s what really lowered my opinion of Buddhism. It’s just as corrupt as mainstream belief-systems, it’s that the West has quite a liberal approach and so most Westerners are shocked when they see how sexist/prejudiced Buddhism is in the more devout Asian places. Yeah, so that’s what really shook my happy-bunny levels; seeing something for what it was practised like, and not just the rose-tinted theory bit.

Later on that day, we travelled to Hualampong Train Station to catch the overnight train to Chiang Mai. Had a lovely dinner, though most of the others were too paranoid of food-poisoning/cultural food differences to eat anything prepared in the kitchen cabin. Chicken-turds.

Nah, wind-up. Anyway, I kept coughing because I had a nasty cold, but the others were really nice and accommodating. Awww.

Sleeping on that particular train was not the most comfortable experience I’ve endured, as we were sleeping in the direction the train was going (plus I was on top-bunk), I could feel every minute oscillation the cabin made and every little scrape. Unsurprisingly, I was knackered when we arrived in the stunning mountainous scenery of Chiang Mai. So beautiful and lush, and so different to the pollution and chaos of Bangkok.

In the afternoon, we were given the opportunity to go elephant-trekking. While interesting like the massage, I wouldn’t do it again, and it’s not directly linked to the comfort-factor. Despit... ]]> *Crimson-Nightingale