Trevor’s L.O.A. ‘08!

Shantaram - Review and notes

One great thing about traveling is you actually have time to read for once. I took on the challenge of knocking out all 944 pages of Shantaram and got through it sooner than I expected. Despite being long, it’s a fairly easy read and quite captivating.

My take is that it’s a good book, definitely worth reading and just shy of being a great book. The best part is that it takes you inside India and it’s culture and contrasts it’s differences w/ the Western World. Now, of course, I want to travel in India! lol

Anyway, I scribbled out some notes when I started reading the book to help keep track of characters, etc. Upon finishing, i realized that they need to be updated to be more useful, but I’ll post them here anyway. Feel free to comment w/ updates, additions, fixes and suggestions!

Lord Abdel khader khan:
- aka Khaderbai, aka Elder Brother

Walidlalla: Mafia Council

Rafiq:
- Afghan
- controls garad (brown sugar)

Chuba:
- Rafiqs closests associate, most dangerous man in Bombay

Shiv Sena Party:
- Sainiks
- “future of Bombay”
- a Maharashtrian party
- controls police b/c most lower ranked police officers are Maharashtrian
- also controls slums, many unions and some press
- desperate to control the flow of guns

Parsees, Hindus (of other regions), Muslims:
- control industrial and black money

Sikhs:
- using weapons in Punjab

Muslim Separatists:
- using weapons in Kashmir
- poor Muslims are enemy of Shiv Sena

January 4th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Chiang Mai

After Bangkok, I cruised up to Chiang Mai, which is smaller and a bit more rustic. I was a bit sick by the time I got there and even worse by the time I left for Hong Kong, but I managed to do a full day tour which included hiking up to a waterfall and swimming, white water rafting, bamboo rafting, a visit to a native village and riding elephants through the jungle. Pics below!

October 31st, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Bangkok: Muay Thai

To continue what I started in the Philippines (violent arena sports) I decided to go check out some of the famous Thai Boxing, a.k.a. Muay Thai, in Bangkok. A friend who I met volunteering in the Philippines is doing a work/study program in Bangkok, so he came along.

It was interesting…not as violent as say UFC. Fights were 3-5 rounds. No one got knocked out b/c refs would generally stop the fight before it got to that. However, knees and kicks are fully allowed as is grabbing (the Muay Thai clinch) and hitting. To prepare for this, the boxers train 12 hours a day everyday (from what I gathered). …not an easy life and the careers don’t seem to last too long. All fighters were quite young…teenages I’d guess. One of my tuk tuk drivers claimed to be a former champion…guess it didn’t pay off.

Anyway, check out pics:

October 31st, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Bangkok: Bike Tour

Since I was only going to be in Bangkok for 2 or 3 days, I decided to do a tour to get the most out of it in a short period of time. …had heard good things about the bike tour so away I went.

Along w/ me was a diverse group from Switzerland, Holland (very common in SE Asia) and Canada. The first major destination was a busy outdoor produce market. It was a bit of a challenge to get the bikes through w/ all the people and food stands. You can buy anything there from dragon fruit to live chickens which they’ll slaughter for you right there on the spot! As an American, I’m not used to seeing so many dead animal carcasses being sold on the street in such a way, but that’s just how they roll in Bangkok I guess! lol

From there, we rolled through a poor area/shanty town. Our guide explained to us that many were immigrants who were working in Bangkok and saving money to send home. Other’s had come upon tough times and found themselves there. All in all, it wasn’t that bad. They had the basic necessities and I’ve definitely seen worse. Still, it was a good reminder of what others have to endure.

After that we made our way to the river, where we loaded all the bikes onto a longtail boat sporting what looked to be a bit V6 automobile engine block jury rigged to work on a boat. The propeller simply extended on a pipe from the crankshaft (check pics).

The boat took us up and across the river and essentially out of the city and into the jungle! We rode our bikes past coconut and banana farms on elevated pathways that kept us out of the water. …pretty wild! We saw a tree snake, a monitor lizard and some gigantic Karp-like fish swimming in the wild among other things.

Anyway, was a lot of fun, check pics below!:

October 29th, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (1)

Bangkok and the Grand Palace

Ok, I’m currently in SF and happy to be back in the states! Gonna do my best to back track and post about my experiences in Bangkok, Chaing Mai and HK starting w/ this.

So, Bangkok, the bustling street meat capital of the world. The food is as sketchy as it is delicious! I didn’t expect the pad thai to be that impressive since it’s become such a staple in NY. However, my first experience was interesting to say the least. I was cruising around being indecisive as to where to eat and ended up walking down an alley not far from Kao San Rd and stumbling upon a shabby little outdoor restaurant surrounded by garbage and rubble. All locals at this place, absolutely no english and my food was served up by a burly Lady Boy! …a bit unnerving, but it was the best pad thai I ever had! Very colorful, w/ dried shrimp that didn’t taste fishy. Other street food was comparable in quality and not hard to come by. There has to be at least one cart on every street on every block in the whole city.

Besides the food, Bangkok is a fun city, I enjoyed it! Transportation involves taxis, tuk tuks (trikes) and also motorcycles. I hopped on a motorcycle taxi to beat the intense evening traffic and, umm, lived. We made good time tho! lol

My first pics here are mostly of the Grand Palace and the Giant Reclining Buda. Will post more of my bike tour, etc later!