Weekend Snapshot 26: Beam of light
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In one of the palaces inside Agra Fort.

PhotoHunt 99: Party

This party took place in one of Amsterdam’s famous bars and coffee shops, with some old friends and hubby’s workmates from around the world during the worldwide meeting.

It shall be noted that in the Netherlands, the use of soft drugs – cannabis in all its forms (marijuana, hashish, hash oil) has been admitted for the personal use only; it is legal! And openly sold and smoked in Amsterdam’s coffee shops which can legally store up to 500 g of marijuana and can sell up to 5 grams to adults over 18. (We didn’t smoke, ok!) These coffee shops offer several kinds of weed and hash, and usually there is a “menu” to choose from. The prices vary according to the quality (about 5 EUR per gram). Amsterdam has also a major smoking event called High Times Cannabis Cup on November. But there are also so many interesting places and tourist spots in Amsterdam as well.

PhotoHunt

Wordless Wednesday – Safe in her mother’s bossom
Sanjay Gandhi National Park, India.

wordless wednesday

I am not comparing monkeys with people; I don’t believe in the theory that we come from there. But looking at that scene in that park I didn’t see the monkeys, but I saw the emotional bond between them and made me recall that when we were kids, five of us siblings (that’s a blessing!) then with a year or two age gap, it was not just our mother that held us tight, but our eldest sister too. She would always hold us together so we would not be run over on our long way home from church. The joy of childhood! I was holding tight. In case you ask why it is a blessing..

The illusion of the long neck

I came across a humor blog few weeks back and the humorist showed a photo or two of peoples, particularly of women having long necks. At first sight that seemed funny, but I knew it goes deeper than that.

By following Jewel in the palace community I read some phrases about “long-necked beauty”. So was it for that reason that those women have long necks, for beauty?

I have not traveled and met with them actually, I just found some interesting things. I believe there are also some small tribes in Africa (women of Ndebele), but the group of people some labeled as the “long-neck” or “giraffe” tribe, signifying the very old tradition and practice of adorning their women with rings around the neck, are called Karen Padaung, a tiny sub-group of the larger Karen people, natives of Burma who have long been caught up in a civil war against the government, and found refuge in artificial tourist villages in Thailand who were accepted by the Thai government for the tourist money they bring in, which also supports them. They sat on display at a Bangkok tourism fair, helping to create the buzz that would draw visitors from around the globe who will be paying a heavy entrance fee to gawk at them. They prefer to be exploited for tourism, (anyway they seem to enjoy being photographed), than going back to their land in civil war.

In the Mae Hong Sorn and Bann Thaton area in Thailand, the women of the Karen Padaung villages wear multiple brass spiral coils and rings around the neck, the arms and the legs, and use carved elephant tusk in the ears. This neck ring adornment is started when the girls are 5 or 6 years old and the neck grows longer as additional rings are added with each passing year. The rings on the neck reach from the clavicle up to beneath the chin, and these rings are always held very tightly by the bone structure from clavicle to chin. But the appearance of a longer neck is a visual illusion. The women’s necks are not actually stretched. The weight of the rings gradually pushed down the women’s collarbones, as well as the upper ribs, to such an angle that the collarbone actually appears to be a part of the neck, making an illusion of a long neck! For this tribe the rings are the most prominent sign of female beauty and status, and an extra-long neck is considered a sign of great beauty and wealth and that it will attract a better husband. But in this small tribe whose members marries within the group, adultery is low, well, since the punishment is removal of the brass neck ring, which over the years, weakened the neck muscles that women have to spend their life lying down for support. Each peoples, each cultures. There is always striking beauty and wonder in them that overwhelm our thoughts of fathoming them.

Weekend Snapshot 25

This is one of the four large towers of the Taj Mahal, called the minarets, each more than 40 meters tall standing at the corners of plinth, all symmetrical in every corner, made from naturally crystallized marble only found in India.

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The minarets display Taj Mahal’s penchant for symmetry. These towers are designed as working minarets, a traditional element of mosques as a place for a muezzin to call the Islamic faithful to prayer. Each minaret is effectively divided into three equal parts by two working balconies that ring the tower. At the top of the tower is a final balcony surmounted by a chattri that mirrors the design of those on the tomb. The minaret chattris share the same finishing touches, a lotus design topped by a gilded finial. Each of the minarets were constructed slightly outside of the plinth, so that in the event of collapse, a typical occurrence with many such tall constructions of the period, the material from the towers would tend to fall away from the tomb.

PhotoHunt 98: Wooden
These are some of the photos I took in Netherlands during our trip last October. These are in the countryside where life still rolls with the wooden shoes and windmills. The wooden shoe factories gained it’s reputation across the world and gathered display collection as far as Korea and Japan. One thing with wooden shoes is that they warm the feet when its cold and cool the feet down when its hot.

A wooden shoe-maker showing us the traditional shoe making using the same tools as old as the use of clogs themselves.

These are the finished products. Colorful and Imeldific shoes.

One more. This is what the unpainted old shoes look like:

PhotoHunt

I am glad I finally heard from hubby and that they landed safe in Mumbai this morning. He has been traveling trans-atlantic since yesterday, and now I am peaceful. I know. He has been traveling a lot for so many years now. It is just good to know all is okay. Much okay because he will be gone for just three weeks. He is flying the Houston-Netherlands-India route.

This was the hotel we stayed in Mumbai in 2006. Situated on Juhu beach, this was taken one afternoon along the shore where thousands of Indian passed their time. A silhouette of the hotel gave obscure view of the building painting.

Juhu beach, an indispensable part of the city of Mumbai, is one of the largest and frequently visited beaches in India on the shores of the Arabian Sea. Not exactly an ideal place for a quiet swim and a sunbath, the beach has a charm of its own, attracting legions of Mumbaikars every day.

How to get there:
Juhu is 20-25km north of the city centre; by air, it is not far from Mumbai airport, and which is also well connected by rail and roads, 15 Kms From Dadar Bus Stand.

For accomodations along the Juhu Beach, check here.