Travels - Bluegreen Butterfly

At the Taj Mahal Hotel

Taj Mahal Hotel

This is me in Mumbai, India with the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel on the background. This was during our second tour to the Gateway of India, with Paul the driver. It was safe and peaceful then which I am so thankful. It is just so sad that the seaborne terrorist attack not just damaged the building, but killed almost two hundred people, poor clueless and so defenseless people and tourists in a strange land. I know just how it feels, but the terror and fear on that day and the reason of the attack is beyond comprehension.

Frontier trivia of the day:

The best rooms in the superior old wing of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel cost more than £250 per night, India’s best-known and best-loved hotel in the heart of its commercial and financial capital.

Our last trip

At the river walk towards our way to the IMAX theater in New Orleans. Behind is the beautiful fountain, soaring up high (in what my G10 camera can vividly capture,) only to fall back down its lowest point with a heavy drop, like the dramas in life. But life is an endless frontier, sure it is beautiful and good things still happen, even much sweeter after the fall.

Roasted pig

Roasted pig, or lechon, is a staple food in the Philippines especially during celebrations, gatherings and big events. There are so many “lechonhouses” in the malls and almost in every streets that is it readily available if you don’t roast your own. To be most crunchy, crispy and yummy, it has to be slowly cooked over a fire for several hours to a day. The pig is completely cleaned and its internal organs are removed for another menus or whatever way one wants to cook them. Inside the pork for roasting are several spices and seasoning for greater taste, especially lemon grass that removes any pungent meat smell and makes it fragrant. The roasted pork/meat is very tender and the skin is very crispy the food is very delicious. It is best served with ketchup or any sauce.

I missed lechon so much, so it will just wait till I go home!

Two wheel drive

I remember an email circulating around about “only in Vietnam”, featuring the scenes and stuff that happen only in the land, or in the streets of the Viets. Motorists using the motorbikes and loading them like they would a big truck. The more load, the better is the driver, I guess, because he has to have more control and balancing. This also reminds me that in Netherlands, thousands of bicycles are rolling down the streets as much as the four-wheel drives. This is the beauty of going to a lot of places for we will learn new things and about the other people and their culture. And I love it.

Horn blowing

Do you let people know that you are in town? And if you do, how do you do it? Today a man in New York was arrested for misdeanor and ticketed for blowing his horn excessively. Of course he is DWI for which he is charged with. He just wanted to let people know that he is in town. Whatever, intoxication really makes one to do unimaginable and unreasonable things. Speaking of horn blowing. The very first thing I noticed while traveling in India right outside the airport was the excessive horn blowing! Horns honking here and there always, and by always it was almost every second. I was surprised at first, but of course, I was entering into a different place with a culture of its own. But when those horns stop blowing, one would definitely kind of miss it, for the roads are not complete without vehicles and rickshaws that don’t blow horns, loudly.

At the Taj

A photo of us at the Taj Mahal one chilly early morning in December last year. Our tour guide took this photo. It was a wonderful experience. Isn’t it lovely?

Frontier trivia of the day:

There are calligraphies everywhere in the Taj Mahal compounds. As we enter through the gate of the Taj, there is one that says, “O Soul, thou art at rest. Return to the Lord at peace with Him, and He at peace with you.”

Elephant on the road

Namashtè! I just want to share these photos we took a while back. You see this man, he did not look like a beggar to me, but after all, we were strangers to the place. But our tour guide said that he collected money for the elephants, his elephants, or for the sake of the elephants, whatever it was. It was fine, we really were going for an elephant ride just for experience, which in the end, I found it so much fun. That day he had an elephant with him on the road carrying a load on its back. It was just one of those elephants we always see on the roads. What I like about this picture are his clothes and the silverware he’s carrying, and also his bag. Somehow I felt satisfied being able to capture them.

Frontier trivia of the day:

In India there are a total of 3,400 domesticated elephants owned by different groups, and 23,900 – 32,900 total elephants in the wild (eleaid.com)