Review: Plans for the Next Ten Years

Two years after I initially composed this list, how have I progressed? Not very well, I'm afraid. First of all, I've added two cities to the list - Athens and Istanbul. In 2007, I visited Singapore and Sydney. In 2008, I visited Norway. It was a really enjoyable vacation. but did not contribute to ticking off any places on this list. This year I have been to China, but not to either Beijing or Shanghai. A vacation to Egypt last month yielded Cairo.

So, 11/42 done and 31 remaining. The finishing date has definitely been pushed back to Dec 31, 2017. Next year...will try to see Vienna and Prague, or Tashkent.

Asia

• Bombay (done)
• Tokyo (done)
• Hong Kong (done)
• Delhi (done)
• Singapore (done)
  
• Beijing
• Shanghai
• Tashkent
• Seoul
• Baghdad
• Damascus
• Jerusalem
• Istanbul
  

Europe

• London (done)
• Berlin (done)
• Paris (done)
• Rome (done)
• Vienna
• Copenhagen
  
• Moscow
• Prague
• St. Petersburg
• Athens
  

N America

• New York
• Boston
• Los Angeles
• San Fransisco
• Chicago
• Miami
• Toronto
• Vancouver

S America

• Rio de Janeiro
• Beunos Aires
• Lima

Africa

• Cairo (done)
  
• Johannesburg
• Durban
• Cape Town
• Nairobi

Australia

• Sydney (done)
  
• Melbourne
• Perth

Eclipse chasing in Surat

I made a short trip to Surat yesterday/today. Really short. Took a bus to the city late last night, reached there at dawn, was back in Bombay by train by early afternoon.

The purpose of my excursion was to view the solar eclipse, which was going to be visible from Bombay as well, but only partially - Surat was in the path of totality.

There are two aspects of a total solar eclipse that make for really interesting viewing - the sight (through eclipse glasses, of course) of a dark circular disc encircled by a bright ring as the moon almost covers the sun, and the transition from daylight to darkness and back to daylight in a matter of minutes. The cloud cover of the past few days made it extremely unlikely that I would be able to see the sun eclipsed, and so it proved to be.

But I experienced the other effect very vividly. Around 5:50 am, dawn commenced. By 6:15, it was quite bright, despite the dense clouds gliding in the sky. Then it began getting darker. Unnoticeable at first, the effect soon became clear. By 6:25 the sky was totally dark. For 5 minutes, night had befallen again. It is an amazing experience. Since my bus had reached Surat late, I went through the entire experience sitting in its front cabin (thankfully, with very large and clear window panes). Almost as soon as it began, the total eclipse was over. By 6:35 the sky was normal again. It was my first experience of a total solar eclipse, though not the last, I hope :)

Not much else to report from Surat. I was impressed by the series of flyovers that connect the city centre to the national highway via the "Ring Road" (One, a really long one, is still in the process of construction). And the design of many of the shopping complexes (shops lining up on each floor with a balcony-type passage connecting them) reminded me of Ahmedabad. Is it a Gujarat thing?

More Travel Plans

I should have posted multiple entries about my vacation in Singapore and Australia, but somehow didn't. I hope I can do so sometime.

Meanwhile, I have been busy thinking up new plans :)

In March, I shall go to Corbett NP with my college friends. There's a 4-day weekend coming up, and I should be able to go there without needing leave from work. Should be fun!

Less certainly, I hope to visit Europe in July. Consulted the list of cities I wanted to visit, but seems that I won't be able to check any more from that list this year. That's because I am thinking of visiting Norway for a week, along with a weekend sojourn in London. A week in Norway should be fun - Oslo, the famous fjords and other wilderness to explore, I hope. And I'll try to see Midsummer Night's dream in London, if possible.

There's plenty of time to go, but I'm already excited, about both trips!

Getting softer

Just spent the last 6 hours planning my holiday in Australia. Planning had been put on hold for the past two weeks because of issues in getting my visa approved. But this week, approval came, the 5th visa stamped/pasted into my passport in less than two years.

After abundant modifications of my planned itinerary, I am frustrated with the conclusion that I have one less day than necessary to accommodate my reasonable plans (though I have a sneaky feeling that had I had that extra day, I would have wished for one more :) ).

I am now quite charged up about the trip, and can't wait for Nov 30 to come (one of my best friends will wed on Nov 25, and I can't wait for that too, of course!). This trip will be similar to the two-week journey I made through England and Scotland last year in Sep-Oct (though I am hoping that it will not be exactly similar to my trip through Italy in Nov-Dec, for obvious reasons, for those in the know!). In the UK, I simply had a train pass, and a rough plan, and no reservations in hostels. I ended up spending one night in Inverness' youth hostel's lobby, that too only due to the kindness of the receptionist. The no-reservation policy continued in mainland Europe, and again I ended up spending a night outside Naples station, shivering in 10C temperatures and sitting next to beggars, drunkards and the homeless. I did not mind much. But this time, I'm planning to reserve beds in hostels and even tickets for shows in the Sydney Opera. Have I grown softer? Or smarter?

In any case, the charms of vibrant Sydney await (have I mentioned that I love big cities? :) ). So do vineyards in Hunter Valley, sand dunes in Port Stephens, snorkelling amongst corals and fishes in the Whitsunday Islands in the Great Barrier Reef, beaches in Fraser Island (and elsewhere), rainforests in Mackay and the mighty Ayer's Rock. Should be fun :)

Plans for the Next Ten Years

While roaming around in the likes of Paris and Rome last year, I became convinced that I want to visit some of the most prominent cities of the world. I had in mind a number of 30, as the number of cities I wanted to see by the end of 2015, though I had not done any precise enumeration. I still have not done so, but my hope (it's not exactly a binding resolve) is to see most of the great urban centres of the world over the next 8-10 years. A list follows (selected on the basis of my preferences and limited knowledge):

Asia

• Bombay (done)
• Tokyo (done)
• Hong Kong (done)
• Delhi (done)
• Singapore
• Beijing
• Shanghai
• Tashkent
• Seoul
• Baghdad
• Damascus
• Jerusalem

Europe

• London (done)
• Berlin (done)
• Paris (done)
• Rome (done)
• Vienna
• Copenhagen
  
• Moscow
• Prague
• St. Petersburg

N America

• New York
• Boston
• Los Angeles
• San Fransisco
• Chicago
• Miami
• Toronto
• Vancouver

S America

• Rio de Janeiro
• Beunos Aires
• Lima

Africa

• Cairo
• Johannesburg
• Durban
• Cape Town
• Nairobi

Australia

• Sydney
• Melbourne
• Perth

Wow! That's a list of 40 already, and I did not even refer a map! Let's do the maths here. 40 cities, 8 finished. Including 2007, I have 9 years to visit 32 cities - 3 to 4 every year on average. This year I will hopefully cross Singapore and Sydney off my list. Will try to do Vienna, Prague, Moscow and St. Petersburg next year. Don't want to think beyond that :)

I have in mind many non-metropolitan environments that I want to visit as well, and fitting them into this city hopping plan is going to be enjoyably challenging :)

In any case, I have decided to have atleast one foreign and one Indian vacation every year. This year's domestic trips are over, of course - both Kerala and Arunachal (also Kaziranga NP in Assam) were awesome. For the foreign jaunt, I will head to Australia in the first two weeks of December (with short halts in Singapore on both legs of the journey). Should be fun!

The Travel Itch

Spend much of the afternoon today walking around the Fort area in south Bombay. Saw the buildings housing David Sassoon Library opposite Kala Ghoda (At one time a statue of King George V atop a horse stood there, now it has been shifted to Rani Baug, I think), Bombay University and the High Court. For the first time, I noticed the rounded, semicircular side of the Bombay University building. I like stone buildings generally, and especially those built in Gothic style!

I am now determined to take a vacation in January. Have done some financial planning, and taking the trip (in conjunction with paying off the loan I took to fund my European travels, and replacing the laptop and camera I lost there) into account, I will not be able to begin saving till March 2008. Not too sure how prudent that is, but the travel bug has taken hold of me :) Still have to finalise the destination, but leaning towards Greece (and also considering Australia). There's enough time to plan and work out the details. The only hitch - will my boss give me leave?

Stopovers and Recovery

Went to Agra last weekend to attend Lizzy's wedding. Felt really good to see Chhedi again, and also Jhumki and Kaka, and of course Lizzy, herself :)

I flew to Delhi the night before the wedding. Stayed with Kaka in Gurgaon. Saw only a little bit of the city, but my first impressions were not too positive. Gurgaon is too full of glass-facaded buildings and little else. Even the buildings are not the exceptionally pleasing to the eye, what with their non-uniform and asymmetric shapes, and abrupt lines and planes jutting out of otherwise smoothly curved surfaces.

After my first trip to Delhi last August, I have been there three more times, all in the last 5 months. In mid-March, I stopped over for a night in the city enroute from Cochin to Guwahati. In May, I was in Delhi again, while returning from Ranchi to Bombay. Was meaning to stay only for 2-3 hours, but thanks to a first delayed, and then cancelled, Indian Airlines flight, I ended up staying a night at Centaur Hotel. I am amazed by the apparent speed of infrastructure creation happening the city. The Metro is coming up fast, and I saw flyovers under construction at multiple spots. Perhaps, because I am an outsider and only have glimpsed the city for a few hours at infrequent intervals, I have not been able to see how well these projects are actually progressing. But my feeling is that Bombay is being left behind. And that makes me both unhappy and upset :(

During my trip to Delhi, Agra and Jaipur last year, I had clicked many scores of photos. I of course pretty much lost the whole lot in the 'Naples Affair'. Clicked some decent photos of the Taj during this trip.


The recovery has begun :)

Memories and Perverse Pleasures

Today's NY Times has an article about German consumerism and an advertising strategy ("German Ad World Declares the End of a Catchy Slogan"). What interested me most though, was not the short discussion of changing consumer behaviour at different points of an economic cycle, but the simple memory evoked by the tagline of Saturn, a music and electronics store, "Geiz ist geil!" (Stinginess is cool!). I bought one of my first ever music CDs in a Saturn store (Ein Neuer Tag, by Juli). Living in Cologne was fun, and I sure would like to go back there sometime, preferably in summer to laze on the lawns of the Uni. The Christmas markets are very wonderful too though :)

Tonight I was about to call a friend. Suddenly I realised that "The Soup Nazi" episode of Seinfeld would be playing. I messaged my friend, "Can I call you at 11:30 please?" "The Soup Nazi" is a classic episode! How can a bunch of people be so self-consumed and inconsiderate towards others, and yet be such an absolute pleasure to watch?!" I guess it's my wicked side that loves Seinfeld ;)