There is first the matter of the city’s name, Mumbai or Bombay. In 1995 a far-right, xenophobic political party, apparently in an irritable mood, changed the city’s name from the classic Bombay, a pusillanimous gesture at ridding it of the last vestiges of the British Raj. Nevertheless English-speaking Indians still call it Bombay and so will I. […]
After an uneventful eight-day crossing of the Bay of Bengal, Indigo arrived at the capital of the Maldives Islands, the colorful city of Male’. Among the most geologically unusual of countries, the Maldives are a constellation of some 1190 islands and islets, more if you count those visible only at low tide, […]
In the English language there are single words that can tell us much about a place. When we read that the Sahara is a desert, for example, our mind conjures a reasonably accurate picture. Likewise, if we say Palm Beach is manicured. […]
I flew on Royal Thai Air, my first ever alcohol-free flight (their rule, not mine), and can’t really recommend it. Just where this daffy idea of jetting about a country without proper fortification came from I can’t say but it needs to be quashed at once. Most likely it came from those pesky Buddhist monks. […]
Thanks to a delay in the arrival of some needed parts and to a cyclone hovering over our intended path across the Indian Ocean, we were obliged to stay in Thailand several weeks longer than planned. I greeted this turn of events in the manner of an enthusiastic bar patron confronting an unexpected extension of closing time. Black clouds sometimes hold little rays of sunshine. […]