Lost & Found

You have probably heard the proverb "Experience is a comb life gives you after you lose your hair."  
Or have heard The Beatles song, 

“Lend me your comb
It’s time to go home
I got to go past
My hair is a mess” 

Or you must have read about the comb in O.Henry’s story ‘The Gift of the Magi’, in which both Stella and Jim give up their most prized possession to purchase a gift for the other – Stella sells her beautiful hair to buy a chain for Jim’s watch while Jim sells his watch to buy a tortoise shell comb for Stella’s hair.  Both gifts are useless on the physical level but priceless on the spiritual level for they have each received the perfect gift in that both of them know and are known, love, and are loved.

I came face to face with all the three above recently. I was experienced with life’s lessons; my hair was a mess; and I was out of my comb, with which I had a strong spiritual bonding.

You can imagine how I felt the other day when I could not locate my priceless grooming tool. I was touring, so I rummaged through my suitcase to find my comb. It was nowhere. The sense of loss was intense, quite stronger than the one I would experience upon losing a mobile charger or a notebook. The reason was obvious: it was no ordinary comb for me, fond memories were associated with it. I didn’t want to let go of those memories, I didn’t want to lose the comb.

But to launch a salvage operation for something as trifle as a comb...? My mind protested. My heart won’t let go.

I picked up the phone and connected to the hotel I had checked out the night before. Hesitantly I put forth my unusual request of locating my lost comb to the receptionist. After five minutes or so he called back, only to say that they had completed a thorough combing operation of my suite, and the lost article was nowhere to be found.

‘OK, Thanks’, I said with a heavy heart, and tried to disentangle myself out of the object’s maya. I was well into my mission when the phone rang again and the receptionist opened with a cheerful “Good evening Sir.” I knew what he was going to report. “Sir, your comb was found in a drawer. Please arrange to collect it from the hotel.”

The article is now on its way to me. Seems like I’ll remain under the spell of the comb for some more time.

(ck.hota@gmail.com)

:Travelogue: Of Taichung Paddy and Akshay Mohanty

As my high speed train (HSR or High Speed Rail) left Tainan for Taichung I could not remove from my mind the insistent crooning of Akshay Mohanty, “Aaji kali je dhana heuchhi naa tara taichung”. I seemed to hear the song louder every time the electronic display board of the coach showed the reducing distance to Taichung during the 184 km journey of 43 minutes. My present journey and Akshay’s song had evoked a fond childhood memory about the paddy seed which had been so popular among Odia farmers decades ago. My grandfather spoke highly about this high yielding variety seed, and I was now headed for the origin of the fabled seed. As I alighted from the HSR I experienced some kind of spiritual connect.

The paddy seed association was so strong in my mind that I frantically looked for paddy fields on both sides of the road as my taxi sped down the 10 km distance from the HSR station to my hotel in the central part of the city. That was futile, because like any other ambitious metropolis, Taichung had also committed its real estate to more profitable use—for malls, hotels, roads and commercial buildings. “I will have to wait for the desired paddy”, I said to myself as I engaged myself in enjoying the window view. Taichung looked as busy as our own metros but things moved smoothly in a very systematic manner. Pedestrians waited for the lights to turn green even if there was not a vehicle or a policeman in sight (in fact I didn’t see a single policeman in my two-day stay in the city).

The window of my twelfth floor hotel room opened to a big park, complete with jogging tracks, a pond, flower beds, well manicured lawns, landscapes, kids’ playgrounds, tennis courts, telephones, toilets, eateries and all other amenities. Everything gelled so well with the leafy environment of the park. I waited for the next day so that I would head for the park first thing in the morning. Next morning as I immersed myself in my  workout among the local folks who jogged, walked, played tennis, did tai chi exercises, I felt truly rejuvenated.

(Taichung Park)

Taichung does not offer any historical sites for the tourists unlike Tainan, our previous city of visit, which has forts built by the Dutch, Chinese and even a British residency building. However, the natural science museum of Taichung is simply awesome. The 22-acre museum with its stately glass and steel buildings is right in the heart of the city, alongside upmarket shops, malls and restaurants. The robot, dinosaur, mummy and 3D movie sections are popular, especially with the kids, although I liked the imposing botanical garden inside a greenhouse, full of exotic plants and a fascinating aquarium at the basement. The mission of the botanical garden is to display and protect the floral biodiversity of Taiwan by existing as an information resource for the community, government and science, and to be a place of beauty for all visitors to enjoy.

Just near the approach road to the entrance of the museum I discovered an Indian restaurant, a rarity in Taichung. The naan and chicken butter masala provided a welcome break from the Taiwanese cuisine and the regular McDonald’s and KFC fare. I curiously looked for the owner of the establishment who would most likely be an Indian, but there was no Indian face around. I asked the person who was serving us about who owned the place and he said he did. He was Fred Lin, an Indian of Chinese origin from Medinipur. Fred told us that Indian food was popular with the locals, and we could see it from the full house.

A visit to Taichung is never complete without an excursion to the tranquil and serene Sun Moon Lake, 125 km and a two-hour drive away by bus. This bus journey was more significant for me as it brought me face to face with the fabled Taichung paddies. There they lay, stretching to the distant horizons on both sides of the highway— saplings from the seeds so well celebrated by Akshay Mohanty. The fields soon gave place to mountainous roads affording breathtaking scenery. Sun Moon Lake is named so because the shape resembles the sun on one side and moon on the other. Besides the captivating views of the lake and the surrounding mountains, this place provides a slew of activities like boat tours, cable car rides, amusement park adventures in the adjacent Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village and so on.

Sun Moon Lake teems with eating places supplying exotic seafood and delicious fruit salads. I enter into a restaurant to order the shrimp on display. To my great relief I find the owner well versed in English which makes the ordering part easy. I strike a conversation with him and gather that he is also bitten by the travel bug. He has visited 42 countries so far, but sadly not India yet. He has decorated the walls of his joint with his travel photos. The shrimp dish he prepares for me tastes heavenly.

On my return journey to Taichung in the evening I could not see the dark paddy fields from my bus window, but I could feel the calm that I experienced whenever I visited my grandfather’s farm years ago.

 (Taichung Paddy)

This hotel made my day

Casa Real Hotel, Macau: A Review
(No.1118 Avenida Dr. Rodrigo Rodrigues, Macau, China)

The hotel offers a very clean and homely ambiance, with spic and span common spaces, shiny lifts and of course immaculate rooms. The bathroom is top class with swanky fittings--certainly top end for hotels at this price range. The free internet comes as a frill. The hotel has a free shuttle service that picks you up from or drops you at the ferry terminal. The hotel has a casino, that appeared middle range. Behind the hotel there is a city bus stop and at the nearby Fisherman's Wharf (shopping plaza and entertainment area) you may catch one of those ubiquitous free shuttle bus services of other hotels and casinos that would take you to other hotels/ casinos, thereby saving your transportation expenses. 

The location of the hotel is excellent. The very good casinos are all nearby, in the same block as the hotel there are money changers, grocery stores, local restaurants, and watch and jewellery shops. Just across the road there is a Seven 11 type store. The golden lotus square is just three minute's walk and near here you have the Grand Prix and Wine museums, Aruna's Indian Curry. 

One serendipitous discovery I made about another attraction of Macau near the hotel: the sea front promenade is just across the road as you face the ferry terminal road. Just aim at the ground level of the flyover that takes off near the hotel, keep pressing ahead and you get this superb jogging/ strolling path fringing the water body. The banks are dotted with exercising equipment. In the evening the atmosphere in the area is godly.

The hotel has a nice pool and a well stocked gym. From my 8th floor non-smoking room the window view was breathtaking with the sea view dominating. Ask for a sea facing room. I was pleased with the reception desk and the hotel service.

One thing I am worried about is the big amount they took as deposit at the time of check in. They returned the voucher while I checked out, but money was finally credited to my account after a long wait after check out.

(I stayed in the hotel in December 2011)

Hotel Front

Close to everything in Shanghai

(A Review of The Bund Riverside Hotel
No.398 Beijing East Road, Huangpu District, Shanghai 200001, China)


I didn't mind the less than perfect rug and the few stains of my toilet floor because of the superb location of the hotel. It was close to Bund, Nanjing Street market, metro stations, ferry point and host of local restaurants and international chains like McDonald, KFC and Subway. 

I can't forget the morning walk upto Bund followed by my brisk walk on the Bund promenade. The place was very lively and salubrious during morning hours. People were engaged in workouts, relaxed sightseeing, kite flying or tai chi exercises.

The hotel is located in the same building with a Bank of China branch, so money exchange is easy. 
Front desk staff is very helpful and they understand English to a large extent. I had a city facing superior twin room so the view was not great. When I wanted a river facing room they claimed Yuan 200 per day. 

Mini bar water bottle charge of 67 yuan was a rip off considering the fact that outside water was available at Yuan 5 per bottle. 
The hotel people help you to hail a taxi from the nearby East Beijing Road. Overall nice experience. The bath room size is great. Free internet in room comes as bonus.

(I stayed in the hotel in December 2011)

Taiwan: Magical Green Touch

When I planned my trip to Taiwan some of friends asked “Why Taiwan?” I could have gone to Singapore, Malayasia, China, Thailand or Hong Kong or maybe Venice or New York.

It was another fact that I’ve already been to some of the above named places and the other places I was not in a mood to explore, hence I picked up a place which was plain different from these touristy places. Many Indians do not go there, for that matter not many westerners too. I was surprised not to stumble upon a Bengali tourist in my 3 days of stay in two cities namely Kaohsiung and Tainan so far. It is a bit mystifying indeed given their strong yearning for exploring least frequented places of the world. I am pinning my hope on Taipei, the capital, to meet India’s most travel crazy people.

Coming back to the “Why Taiwan” part, the question was often being asked by China, who were never comfortable with the existence Taiwan  as a democratic and separate country. Officially Taiwan is known as Republic of China and they claim sovereignty over the mainland China too, which is too much for the Big Brother to digest. Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa, lives under the shadow of Chinese aggression or even takeover. But the stance has softened in the recent years as an era of rapprochement and mutual acceptance has been ushered in by the winds of globalisation. The young people love it on both sides of the Taiwan Strait as they do everywhere, India Pakistan included.

Taiwan, which has the shape of a sweet potato, is a food lover’s paradise. The people here love their meat too much—anything that moves, crawls, walks or swims (leaving, of course, the humans) is welcome for their dishes. The whole place is bustling with eaters any time of day. Night markets, which are common in all Taiwanese cities are humming with shoppers, and eaters. Every imaginable food is being ordered by the enthusiastic buyers and being cooked right there: fish, octopus, sharks, shrimps, beef, pork, beetle, rodents, you name it you will get it. For those who do not relish meat, Taiwan offers tasty fruits and vegetables in plenty. The guavas and bananas tasted heavenly when I picked them up from a street seller on a Saturday outing. I am not telling you the price as it may spoil your taste.

Taiwanese people just love cycling and it is evident on their roads. Bikes are available everywhere for hiring, even for free, and almost all the roads have wide tracks for bikers. Cycling is not only encouraged it is also celebrated. Bikes are the most visible evidences of the Taiwanese people’s resolve tominimise pollution and make their cities and surroundings environmental friendly. Kaohsiung, the second largest city of Taiwan, was till recently a dirty industrial town and shipping port, with polluted water bodies and wasteland. People have changed the face of the city completely with their magical green touch. Now the natural settings are protected and cleaned, half the city travels underground in a very efficient metro rail system; tourist boats run on solar power and of course people pedal their way. The vast city park is a delight to watch in the morning: full of walkers, joggers, tennis players and groups elderly men and women deeply absorbed in their Tai chi exercises, in tune with soothing music. Giving company to humans are birds In the trees and  ducks in the lake. Man is in perfect harmony with nature in the salubrious morning moments.

The scene is so different from our garrulous and impolite ways. I am reminded of the din created by my fellow travellers from Kolkata to Bangkok during the first leg of my journey. The whole scene inside the aircraft seemed to have been hijacked by a big group of Hindi speaking young traders who had big parcels with them. They bragged and boasted about their expertise and familiarity with the Bangkok commerce, without caring a fig about passengers who wanted to sleep in the middle of the night.

A shop selling sea food in a night market in Kaohsiung.

My First Wine Museum Visit

Called Museu Do Vinho in Portuguese, this nice small exhibition tucked in the basement of a big building is the first wine museum in Asia. I was attracted to this place because it was in the same building as the Macau Grand Prix museum where I was headed. Also I had not been to any wine museum before. 
It is supposed to be in the shape of a wine cellar, but I had no clue of knowing this. There were no guides and very few visitors inside. The corridor leading upto the main hall displays posters on the genesis of wine making and drinking, how it reached Portugal and then China. Interested visitors may know many aspects of the subject from these write-ups. In the display hall I saw many wine making and vine growing tools followed by actual bottles of wines along with the dresses and culture of the different wine making regions of Portugal. The mannequins provided a lot of photo options.
Lastly near the exit we came to the wine testing area. Although the museum entry is free for testing you have to pay minimum of 15 patacas. You may test while the person in charge answers your queries. 
I met a visitor from New Zealand testing from many of the samples, who appeared very knowledgeable about wines all over the world. 
As you come out you are greeted by the sight of the wine store with a good stock of varieties of wines. You may take your pick, if you liked the wine inside.

This photo of Wine Museum is courtesy of TripAdvisor

The Indomitable Spirit

At the furthest corner of the muddy lane she sits, huddled up like a cat in winter. Besides her lies her rag-bag, containing the motley collection of fabrics, and may be some of her memories. She is old and shrunken, her face more furrowed than the newly ploughed paddy-field. She sits there close to the rickety mud wall, as I pass by, many times a day. I find her sitting under thatched roof of someone’s house, whenever I return home—from work, from the market or from an outstation trip. Her forlorn figure has now got deeply etched in my psyche, something I cannot simply wish way.

I am often bothered by questions about her existence. Where she gets her food from: why does not she move out to a drier or cleaner open space of the city? There she may easily draw the attention of some charity. Why does not the administration provide her food and shelter, maybe the old age pension and the like? How can government come to her rescue when she has chosen this back alley to be her shelter?

She appeared in our locality one day from nowhere. Someone said her sons had shut her out. Someone else held that she was insane and pointed to the rag-bag and her knotted hair to support this view. Well, that suggestion was accepted widely, as that way her condition looked natural and justifiable. It helped easing the guilt conscience of every rational member of the locality, who didn’t want to do anything about her yet felt a vague discomfort in her presence.

I was also a member of this group which did not want to see her suffering, yet do nothing to ameliorate her plight. But can we impose lunacy upon her just because it suits our traditional thinking patterns and to wriggle out of our predicament? To me she looks a completely normal person, constantly reminding us about our hollowed civilization and progress. Her very condition reduces to naught all the high sounding ideas like social welfare, welfare state, responsive administration and so on. And when she mutters—as she occasionally does—I feel as if she is mocking at our high claims about safeguard of human dignity.

She also reminds me of the indomitable human spirit. Like Hemingway’s gallant old man she fights the harsh elements single-handedly, without aspiring for society’s succor. Society for her is a rude bunch of self-seeking individuals, absorbed in their own affairs.

As the monsoon rain lashes the whole world in the middle of the night, accompanied by the rolling thunder, I shudder in my bed haunted by the image of the wretched old woman. I know many others like me must be experiencing the same uneasiness inside the security and comfort of their homes. But the resolute character seems to reassure us all, “Sleep on, you sentimental fools, for I can take care of myself.”