While sifting through papers tonight, I found this Kolkata (Calcutta) newspaper clipping from our time there in April 2008. I couldn’t have made this up if I tried.
Man swaps wife for goat
A Bulgarian farmer has swapped his wife for a goat – because she couldn’t give him kids. Stoil Panayotov exchanged his third wife with Elena, the eight-year-old goat at a livestock market. The extraordinary deal was concluded in front of a stunned crowd in the market town of Plovdiv, central Bulgaria. “The day before, a friend told me that he has had no luck with women and that he really liked my wife,” says the 54-year-old. “The deal was reached when my wife gave her approval. The goat has given birth to three kids and my wife to none. So this deal was more profitable to the goat owner, I got a secondhand goat and he got a brand new wife.”
Filed Under: Europe, Humor, India, NAST by: Audrey Scott
1 Comment | 20 August 2008
I’m not normally moved to poetry, but India is a place of firsts. I wrote this in Kolkata (Calcutta), but was reminded of it today as I walked the streets of Thamel, Kathmandu’s backpacker ghetto.
This poem is for all who ceaselessly sidle up to me as I walk down the street, befriending me only for the sake of a sale. Although I’m certain those who inspired this poem are unlikely to ever see it, I offer it just the same. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Humor, India by: Audrey Scott
6 Comments | 30 May 2008
Wondering where we’ve been and what we’ve been up to? Our recent Twitter updates from the hills of Sikkim were all a facade.
We ran out of money. So Audrey went looking for work in Varanasi, India’s holiest city. And this is what she found.
Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Food, Humor, India, Travel, Videos by: Daniel Noll
23 Comments | 6 May 2008
Shortly after our morning encounter, our breakfast pal Vikram checked out our website and gave us a call. He hoped to facilitate our India experience by adding a bit of refinement to it.
A few phone calls and a couple of hours later, we were scheduled to meet with Rajan Sharma, the head chef at the Taj Hotel Chandigarh’s Dera Restaurant. Continue Reading »
- Breakfast in Chandigarh: Samosas at Sai Sweets
- Lunch with Friends in Chandigarh: Methi Muttar Malai and Aloo Gobi
- A Five Star Dinner at the Taj Dera Chandigarh
Filed Under: Food, India, Travel by: Daniel Noll
3 Comments | 22 April 2008
Not long after breakfast, we were sitting with Sharan and his business partner Rajiv, our previously virtual friends. They were the reason we had come to Chandigarh. Sharan had completed a small software project for me (to help put the finishing touches on our photo gallery) the year before. After the project, Sharan and I continued to stay in touch.
When he found out we were coming to India, we received an invitation to visit. Continue Reading »
- Breakfast in Chandigarh: Samosas at Sai Sweets
- Lunch with Friends in Chandigarh: Methi Muttar Malai and Aloo Gobi
- A Five Star Dinner at the Taj Dera Chandigarh
Filed Under: Food, India, Travel by: Daniel Noll
No Comments | 22 April 2008
“Chandigarh??” Travelers often squawk in confusion when we share our India itinerary with them. While places like Rajasthan, Kerala, and Varanasi register as usual suspects for visits to India, Chandigarh – a planned and rather atypical city in the northern Indian state of Punjab – rarely finds itself on travelers’ must-see checklists.
Our primary motivation to stop in Chandigarh was to visit a friend, one we’d never met in person. (Actually he’s the programmer we hired last year to help us tune some parts of our website photo gallery.)
As it turns out, our high expectations for the visit were far exceeded. We solidified a friendship, developed some new ones, gained insights into India’s culture, and even peeked into its future.
Continue Reading »
- Breakfast in Chandigarh: Samosas at Sai Sweets
- Lunch with Friends in Chandigarh: Methi Muttar Malai and Aloo Gobi
- A Five Star Dinner at the Taj Dera Chandigarh
Filed Under: Food, India, Travel by: Daniel Noll
12 Comments | 22 April 2008
It was our India moment. You know, the kind of travel moment when you’re on a trip and you think to yourself, “Now this is why I came here.”
No, we weren’t sipping masala tea and eating chicken tikka while admiring the image of the Taj Mahal in its reflecting pool. Rather, we were tucked into the sticky folds and the dingy creases of an uncontrived real-life Indian experience.
It was awful; it was amazing. Maybe not amazing, but eye-opening. Uncomfortable, certainly.
Most of all, we wondered how on Earth our overnight Indian tourist sleeper bus transformed into a chicken bus stuffed to the gills with what seemed like a crowd of refugees. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: India, Perspectives, Travel by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
21 Comments | 6 April 2008
A roller coaster ride on a bus honking in sync to the beat of Bollywood tunes blaring on a television dangling from the ceiling; a dash through endless strings of chaotic villages and heaps of people; a panorama of barreling trucks listing and careening their way through clouds of dust; an endless cacophony of ear-piercing, elephant-inspired air horns; roadside vendors stringing together flower garland temple offerings amidst clouds of pollution; food stalls serving up colorful bites in makeshift newspaper cups and banana leaves; cows and long-horned oxen browsing through sidewalk trash heaps; and Brahmin priest blessings by morning and elephant blessings by night.
Life in all its incarnations of filth and colorful glory. Just another typical day for us in southern India. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: India, Travel by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
5 Comments | 27 March 2008
We arrived in India with mild travel trepidation. Aside from the monsoon-like rains which greeted our arrival, we’ve been pleasantly surprised by how relaxed life is in the southern Indian state of Kerala.
To give you an idea, we offer a photographic mosaic and a few highlights from our first two days. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: India, Photography, Travel by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
6 Comments | 16 March 2008
Before we serve up a snapshot-mosaic of what we sampled while here in Singapore, a note on what we mean by “return” to India.
For each of us, India served as a first trip outside of North America, albeit at very different times in each of our lives. Audrey’s senses were barraged at five weeks old. Despite her good memory, she obviously doesn’t recall much of that first trip, nor of the subsequent two years she lived there. Dan’s visit happened at 26 years. He’ll never forget it; he almost didn’t make it back due to a bout of dengue fever. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: India, Singapore, Southeast Asia, Travel by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
2 Comments | 13 March 2008
