From ‘The Travel Gods must be crazy. Wacky encounters in exotic lands’ by Sudha Mahalingam

 Yazd is a fascinating desert town stuck in a time warp. Its labyrinthine streets are lined with adobe houses whose earthy hues are relieved every now and then by exquisite turquoise tile panels and ornamental doorways. The intricately carved wooden doors have double knockers - a slender one for woman visitors and a sturdy one for men. Depending on the sound from the knocker, the residents of the house could decide whether the door would be opened by a male or female………………

Joyce……….. the most sobering declaration; Of all the countries she had traveled through, India was where she had faced the worst sexual harassment. She narrated harrowing tales of how she had been groped and pinched, probed and propositioned in most places she had traveled to.

 

…. Moreh, a sleepy border town between Myanmar and Manipur. Maraikayar, Tamil Muslim, has been a Moreh resident for over forty years now, and dabbles in everything from dosas to gems…… I had come to his roadside eatery lured by the Tamil board outside which advertised dosas in this most unlikely corner of India, the Manipur - Myanmar border.…….. Tamil population in Moreh - they all came from the east, many on foot, trudging for months through the malarial jungles of what was then known as Burma, during the Second World War. Those days, there used to be a huge Tamil expat population in Malaysia, mostly traders. The lot comprised refugees fleeing Japanese- occupied lands, traders from Penang and beyond. When they reached the Indian border, some were too tired to trudge any further and chose to settle down there. They went on to build their own Tamil schools, of which there are five now, and an equal number of Tamil temples.…………… Tamil settlers in Moreh trade in ginger mostly, but also do a bit of smuggling on the side- mostly Chinese blankets, thermos flasks, torches and, perhaps other contraband…………..

Moreh is the very last town on the Indian side of the border.

…..Swampy and mosquito- ridden, it was a picture of despair. But for the disenfranchised lot of Tamils who could not find a home in prosperous Malaya……………… it was a land of opportunity………..

Curiosity takes me to the other side of the border, a Myanmarese village called Tamu………………… I can't believe my eyes. This tiny, nondescript village in a godforsaken corner of the jungle has a row of shops stocked to the gills with……………. ruby- studded jewellery………… there are also heaps of rubies and sapphires, cats iron and peridot, jade and topaz, all neatly arranged in bowls and sold by the carat. I have never seen so much jewellery and so many gems in one place, not even in the jewellery section of Mustafa store in Singapore…………….. obviously, they must be doing brisk business; why else would they be there?

 

 

Wadi Musa, the jumping-off point for Petra……….. It's high street is littered with star chains- in fact, the highest concentration of five star hotels anywhere in the world.

 

Pushkar, congested, crowded and dirty by day, is magically transformed by evening……………. The ghats, swarming with bathers and seekers of spiritual salvation, become bereft and silent as night falls…………. seekers of a different kind of salvation, emerge out of the shadows; the gullies and lanes are now enveloped in a haze from their chillums.

 

…….. Seville………. What we find is a dreary town with uninspiring concrete blocks. The romantic sounding Guadalquivir is nothing but a foul ditch winding its way through the towns congested streets.

 

………Samarkand’s city square, is easily among the most magnificent in the entire world, at par with Emam square in Isfahan.

 

Once taller than the Andes, now reduced to a stub just 348 meters in height, Uluru is nevertheless stunning, whichever angle you view it from.