The art of Kolam

Brightening up the roadsides of some of my travels around southern India were a multitude of colourful, geometric patterns that appeared around the time of festivals such as New Year or Pongal, Tamil harvest festival. These decorative, religious images are an ancient, Hindu tradition designed to invite the goddess Lakshmi to bring prosperity into the home and protect from evil spirits. Traditionally they were made of edible materials such as grains, rice, flour and vegetable dyes, as they would provide…

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Hit me with your rhythm stick part 4 – the gardens of Japan

Recent travels had alas, taken me nowhere near the destinations mentioned in Ian Dury’s classic tune, hit me with your rhythm stick to further my pointless quest to visit all of them. Although Japan had always been on my somewhat nebulous list of places I ought to get around to visiting one day, I’ve never been a Japan obsessive, as many who celebrate particular aspects of its culture can be. However, being in the region made it a more reasonable…

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Cock fighting in the Philippines

    On a hill overlooking the small town of Banaue in northern Luzon sits a rickety shack, cobbled together with random timber left-overs and a corrugated iron roof. Improvised wooden seating around two sides of a hard packed, dirt floor arena hold an eager crowd of local men, anticipating today’s action in the cockpit, as the cock fighting space is known. Naturally there’s more to the event than just the sport, or Sabong as it’s known here, it’s a…

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Being dead is a serious business in Vietnam

  The dead may be gone, at least from this earthly plane, but they certainly aren’t forgotten. Death is a transformation rather than an end in traditional Vietnamese culture. Ancestors continue to play an important role in everyday life and if you don’t treat them well they are liable to make your life extremely difficult. The most sure way of upsetting the dead, so that their displeasure manifests itself in the world of the living by dishing out liberal portions…

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Dawn in Hanoi – the calm before the storm

  To truly appreciate the early morning calm of dawn in Hanoi you really need to endure the full frontal assault of the night before in the old city. It is here that the full gamut of bars, restaurants and nocturnal services endeavour to lure the abundance of tourists and locals alike into wallet emptying rapture. Terms like hustle and bustle don’t do justice to the relentless hard sell from personnel stationed outside each venue. Menus are thrust under your…

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The forgotten tourist hot-spot, Swat Valley and NW Pakistan

“So when did you last see a tourist”? I asked the man, a resident of Battagram, a Pashtun town in NW Pakistan. “Ummm….” he pondered, eyes to the sky, deep in thought, “15…..17,18 years ago, when I was at school”. His answer probably explains the slack jawed gawping from just about everybody l passed in the street. Needless to say, those who managed to stop staring were incredibly friendly. A few days earlier in the small Swat Valley town of…

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Want to know the meaning of hospitality? Come to Pakistan

A simple list of the things I was given by locals in one day of walking on the streets of Multan in the Punjab, Pakistan will give you a very clear insight into the generosity at the heart of its culture. 1 Orange 1 Fruit juice 1 Bag of pickles 2 Cups of tea (several more refused due to risk of overdose) 1 Gigantic poppadom 1 Chicken Biryani 1 Bottle of Coke 1 Veggie Samosa (obliged to turn down a…

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A truck is never just a truck in Pakistan

The art of commercial vehicle decoration in Pakistan Other than for little boys and peculiar breeds of adult nerds, the appeal of commercial vehicles to the general public rarely transcends the mundane in the West and on the occasions they are customised there is little chance of the owner risking the dents and scratches of commercial use or letting any of the proletariat getting their greasy paws all over the immaculate bodywork, unless it was a trusted mechanic. For Pakistanis…

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Buffalo arse on the road to enlightenment.

Buffalo arse formed the most vivid memory of the traffic jam. It was this that was responsible for much of the predicament, along with the dozens of dark, dusty grey creatures they were attached to of course, ambling at a stately plod over the dusty, potholed tarmac on the outskirts of Larkana, Pakistan. Sitting in the back of an auto rickshaw conveniently gives you an almost perfect eye level view of this feature of the animal. When confronted with such…

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Raving in the name of Allah

The first, deep resonant boom of the bass drum echoed around the courtyard, the cue for the men to begin to stand. The second boom commenced a slow deliberate beat, soon all were standing, swaying, letting the rhythm gently guide their motion. Little by little the beat picked up pace, the dancers responding to its energy until it morphed into an insistent roll and the movements became more agitated. The beat dropped into the breakdown, the piercing, discordant wail of…

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