When you think of Samarkand, it conjures up images of an ancient city, with minarets and mauseleums, the center of Amir Timor’s power, an exotic location on the Silk Route, from where Babur was driven out and made his way to the tiny country of India to form the inconsequential Mughal Empire.

I had read about Samarkand in books and magazines and had been fascinated with it since I was eight years old. However, the Samarkand that I finally came to this morning is that of a modern city, with sprawling boulevards, modern storefronts, and internet cafes all over the place. The monuments from the bygone area can be found scattered across the city, preserved in their tiny enclosures, much like animals in a zoo. Music you hear is either Bollywood or Western pop/hip-hop.

Its been interesting walking around the city, especially after having been to more rural and p[rovincial cities in this trip. At first you are a little dissppointed, after the innocence and unspoilt beauty of the small towns and villages where some had never seen a tourist before, to a big city which could be in any part of the world. But once you adjust to that, Samarkand can be a pretty remarkable city to explore. The kebabs are wonderful, the streets immaculate, and people are distant, but friendly.

In the days preceding Samarkand, we had a wonderful time in the deserts and pastrureland. We spent one night in a yurt camp in the desert run by a former Czech colonel who believes in having his guests consume the same quantity of vodka as one does water. While it was a campsite, the facilities were luxurious, and included a blanket and running water in the yurts (traditional dwelling).

The next day was however, brilliant, as we headed out to a lake that was the result of a dam breaking about thirty years ago, took a swim and sunbathed (a post on that will come up later when I can hook my computer to the net), and then headed into the middle of nowhere to camp the night in verdant pastures, and were greeted by the nomadic shepherds who seemed to live life the same way for the past thousand years or so. Tehy loved getting their pictures taken and made me promise to send it to them by post. I will write mor ein detail about that camping experience as it was truly heavenly.

Am in Samarkand for another day and then off to Tashkent for a couple of days and then that would be the end of this absolutely wonderful trip- two weeks have just flown by!

 

Normally, going tothe middle of nowhere meant going away from civilization and basic amenitiews such as running hot water, electricity, heating, internet, cable TV etc. However, today I visited a place which manages to provide all amenities yet in an environmentally friendly and economic way.

SECMOL is an organization in Ladakh which has a campus about 20kms away. You reach it after a 30min bus ride followed by a 3km walk into what looks like nowhere. But once you are there you see a campus which is completely reliant on solar energy. Through ingenius construction they are able to achieve a temperature of about 10-15 degrees celsius in an area that sees temperatures as low as minus 20 to 30!They also have access to all modern tools such as TV and internet. The placeis designed keeping local architecture in mind and recycling waste and other eco-friendly practices. At the same time,its not like you have to “rough it”. It really shows that a viable eci-friendly life can be lived without sacrificing modern amenities (except maybe ironing your clothes as the iron uses a lot of energy).

A thought that also came to my mind while visitingthem was that maybe development cannot be measured in per capita GDP. Someone with the same amount of wealth, if given access to hygenic conditions, education, entertainment and other basic items that they currently don’t have, it leads to a better life, and uses less resources.

The west is consumed by stories of rising energy prices, and India and China are scrambling around the world trying to secure energy supply for a growing economy. While infrastructure may require conventional fuel, maybe we as individuals can try and implement energy-smart practices such as better designed homes, solar etc. ???

Ladakh gives you the feeling of being far away from civilization and very close to it at the same time. You could be walking down a street where the only things you are are snow-clad peaks in the horizon, and maybe a few monastaries and yaks here and there. Then take a rught and you enter the main market place where there are cyber cafes and shops like any tourist destination. Ladakh caters to an international clientele, and keyboards in the cybercafe have chinese, japanese and hebrew scripts on them!

 This is my second day in Ladakh and its been a unique experience so far. Flying in, I was convinced that our Boeing 737 was going to lose a wing, or a wingtip at the very least. You could hear the wind howling outside and all you saw around you were white peaks, with no sign of any civilization. Then, magically, there was a calm around us and we were greeted with a view of a valley, unlike anythign I;ve ever seen. The airstrip where we landed was literally a table surrounded on all sides by mountains, gleaming white from a fresh coat of snow.

The Oriental guest-house, where I am staying is comfortable, albiet without electricity or running water. The lack of such amenities is more than made up by the warmth and friendliness of my hosts, the ladakhi family who run the guest house and make it a point to feed you three hot home cooked meals a day, to the point that you are literally bursting on the seams. They also conscientiously provide you with a large bucket of cold water and a small one of hot water early in the morning… their hospitality cannot be substituted by electricity, even though it would help.

I spent most of yesterday sleeping and taking rest, to avoid altitude sickness. This morning spent most of the day in the company of the women who run Namgyal, an institue that helps disabled children.

A few days ago, I was sleeping in a tent on the banks of the ganga, and white-water rafting with a gang of eleven other people I had not met before. Again, no electricity, the toilet was a three-sided box with a hole on top for you to sit on, and one at the bottom to send your business down into a sand pit. Instead of water you uised a mix of sand and lime to “wash down”. Very eco-friendly, and quite easy to use actually. Rafting was a lot of fun, and swimming in the Ganga was just fabulous- all sins washed, and given that we were north of Rishikesh, the water was clean as well. In the afternoon it was great soaking yourself in the icy-cold water of the Ganga while temperatures soared to above 30 degrees celsius around you.

Both being at the campsite in Rishikesh, and being in Ladakh, have got be intrigued about eco-friendly living… it really might be possible to have the same quality of life that u are used to, but using less resources… hmmm, must think about that at some point.

But now its time to head back to the guest house for some good home cooked food and rest. Maybe there will be electricity for me to use my laptop and also read!

 

Ok, so admittedly its taken me a little while to get my Jamaica post up and running. Now to a few of you this might be a little disconcerting, given that Jamaica was in fact my first port of call. Except for a random two line email post sent on a weak stolen Wi-Fi signal from the beach, which for some reason that I can’t fathom has the largest number of comments to date, I’ve only managed to talk about Pelican Bar and the villa experience. What, you might ask, was I doing for the rest of the five days? And what about details from the rest of my trip? Am I going to be as tardy all the way through? Do you, the few readers who come by and check this space regularly, have to wait until 2007 and the culmination of the cricket world cup before you get to read my posts from June 2006?

No, my dear friends, I assure you that order and regularity shall make their way onto these blogs. We shall start by catching up on my first day here in Berlin, and then shall fill in Amsterdam and Jamaica in a few days. I am currently sitting at a desk in my room on the 21st floor of the Park Inn, a four star business hotel in Alexanderplatz. The room is about as big as my studio in New York, and has the sleek ergonomic european design that I quite enjoy. True, I am not really “roughing it” as a backpacker should, but then again, I never said I was backpacking, and more importantly, there was a great deal on Expedia, and this place cost about half of its normal price! Long live the Internet!

Berlin

Berlin is a really interesting place, and I will do more justice to it in my next post as I have another day here. However, a few initial observations after my first day here:
1) Berliners love public transport: You have the U-bahn (underground subway), the S-bahn (overground train), the H-bahn (tram, which threatens to kill you everytime you attempt to cross the street) and buses

2) There are helluva lot of monuments and government buildings- almost two at every corner

3) Hugo Boss suits are cheaper here than anywhere else, including Toronto and Vancouver. Now why would someone who is not going to wear a suit for another six months buy one? Just put it down to craziness, and we should be fine.

4) Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan:
Friendly competitors to the venerable House of Morgan, Deutsche Bank have gone one step ahead in the world of corporate sponsorships by actually naming a museum the “Deutsche Guggenheim”, and putting a massive poster just outside the building. At first you might say that it is fine, after all, Deutsche could also just mean “German Guggenheim”. True, except then the marketing geniuses at my friendly competitor decided to add their logo of the square with the slash on it, and on every other reference to the Deutsche Guggenheim. To add insult to injury, this massive sign was on a massive building right opposite a tiny building with a tiny sign that announced the offices of JPMorgan

4) Einstein Kaffe: This chain of well appointed coffee shops will give Starbucks a run for their Euros any day. Can’t wait for them to make an entry into the New York market

Confession: I can’t escape my past. Here I am, on my way around the world, “away from it all”, and yet I try and read the FT when I can, I find humor in investment bank sponsorships, I try and think about business strategies of coffee shops. Maybe it isn’t my past. Maybe its the present and these six months are just one long commercial break!

Is it a good idea to start packing twelve hours before leaving for your six month trip? Probably not. But I ended up doing it anyway.

This is what I planned on taking with me:

As you can see, its all about the important things in life:
– a couple of cameras, associated cords
– a USB reader to upload while on the road
– Paperwork
– Books (Shalimar the Clown, Samarkand, 1000 places to see before you die, Bill Bryson down under, Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk)
– gifts from work colleagues (note the I love NY boxer shorts and toilet paper)
– laptop
– toiletries
– medicines (though I have no idea what half of them are for- succumed to consumer marketing and got swindled into buying an “Adventure Medical Kit for Zone B travel”. “Zone B”, for those of you unfamiliar to the world of consumer marketing in the travel world, refers to what is commonly known as “third-world nations” or euphemistically as the developing world)
– All-important “Not all who wander are lost” t-shirt gifted to me
– running shoes and clothes
– oh, and some clothes

Unfortunately, about twenty five seconds into packing I discovered that my goal of traveling around the world with airline-compatible carry-on backpack alone was not going to happen, and so had to resort to adding a duffel bag to my travel group (primarily for the winter clothes for Europe).

So, after hmming and hawing, I finally managed to fit all my stuff into this:

Of course there were some casualties who couldn’t make it:

I have a sneaking suspicion that I won’t use half the things I’ve taken with me, and will probably find a dozen things I should have taken. Well, I guess part of taking such trips is to take things as they come and not try and plan everything. Anyway, I will be touching India in March and can buy stuff there or drop stuff off there to lighten my load. Plus I can impose on friends in London as well next week!!

Well, this is my last post from New York. Expect the next one either from sunny Jamaica or drizzly London.