Kralan, Cambodian bamboo rice cake.

Three days back I had asked on Facebook about the photo shown below.
The responses were quite interesting. Ranging from a smoking pipe, cow poo to a spider, they made me laugh and of course worried. For a moment I wanted to stab myself for asking our driver to stop midway to buy these. Come on, I had eaten bambooful of this dish!
I am pretty sure some people referred to Google as well because they answered correctly.

Packed food, ready to eat.

Okay, here is the answer. It is a traditional Cambodian rice dish (more…)

Scotland attracts millions of visitors every year and those people who do head there go in search of its unique culture and sites of interest. Here are three places you should definitely check out if you’re planning a trip to Scotland.
Edinburgh
There’s never a dull moment in Scotland’s capital at the best of times, but it gets especially lively for the Fringe Festival in August and for the Hogmanay celebrations in late December. If you plan on taking in either – or possibly even both – of these events then it’s worth noting that most (more…)

Picture of the moment:- Fruit seller girl in Thailand
Picture of the moment is a weekly series exhibiting pictures, through which I show you a bit of my world.

Fruit seller girl in Thailand.

When I went out that night to buy some fruits, there were many shops in that street selling it. This girl had something in her that pulled me to her direction. A very infectious and (more…)

Delhi Metro as we all know is the second metro to be commissioned.

Then after a series of delays, from one Ugadi to another, “Namma Metro” was finally flagged off in Bengaluru, the third in India fondly called Namma Metro, meaning “Our Metro”.

The stretch is a short one, just about 4 KM covering 6 stations.

I got the chance to (more…)

This is the fifth post in this batch of Guest-post series on this site. The contributions are from people like you and me but not necessarily from the blogging world. We see, observe and experience many mundane things in our daily life. The flavours are different but the interest is common in these posts … and that is Travel.
Over to Korak Basu.
- – - – -
East Sikkim is a place of virgin beauty. Most of us are unaware of the rich flora and fauna and wildlife of this region. So there we were- a group of enthusiastic travel-men ready to trace the forgotten silk route of east Sikkim. Before the Chinese aggression, Jelep La used to be the main trade route between India and Tibet.

We took an evening train from Kolkata and landed up in New Jalpaiguri Station the next morning. It was a Friday- Good Friday to be more specific. We had already hired a van (courtesy- Sebastian Pradhan of Rishi Eco Tourism Resort) and in no time were on our way to Rishikhola. We reached there around 1 pm after witnessing a Good Friday mass in Pedang.

The resort was just (more…)

I was going to a school !
I was both excited and nervous. What’s in store for me in this town of a new country where lack of a common language is a big problem for us. Last four days, I had difficulty in explaining what I wanted to eat or where I wanted to go. Then how am I going to communicate with teachers and students of the school?

So what if I am a volunteer teacher, I was feeling like a kid going to a new school.
All these emotions bothered me constantly as I took the transport to the school that is around 3 KM away from my place of stay.

It took a while to find the place. This tuk-tuk driver, like any one of his brotherhood, would know the way to all the tourist spots and even smallest hotels in nooks & corners of Siem Reap, Cambodia but not know even the best educational institutions let alone this small little government school that was on the way to the airport in the outskirts!

One of the classes.

My contact at the school was (more…)

Picture of the moment: Cambodian Riels
Picture of the moment is a weekly series exhibiting pictures, through which I show you a bit of my world.

100 Australian dollars were exchanged for 3,69,626 Riels !

Cambodian currency is very poor and one spends lakhs of them everyday on food, transport etc. One litre of mineral water of may cost you around 10,000 Riels. When compared to India, (more…)