The N Family

Coorg.

Last year's visit to the Synthesis Homestay made me a new friend, Namratha. Her parents, Naresh and Namita, took such excellent care of us that when she said she was going home for the holidays, I offered to drive her home. And in the process, I invited myself to their estate again.

Since it was the monsoon, I expected it to be raining heavily and constantly for the entire weekend, so I planned to sit in the patio with cups of tea getting my fill of dripping green. As it turned out, the rains stayed away, mostly, and I ended up with a bunch of highlights: Blue bearded bee-eater, what a blue! Pork for every meal. Shield tail snake, Uropeltidae, while walking at night. Crested Serpent Eagle sitting close enough to identify without binoculars. Buff-striped keelback at my feet. Namratha as a guide to the estate.

And then when I got back to town, I learned that Shield-tailed snakes are only found in the Western Ghats! And what I've spent my life calling hammerhead leeches are really terrestrial planaria, or flatworms! There's still so much to learn.

Oh, and the Ns are seriously wonderful hosts!

More photos...

Same, Same, but Different

Vietnam.

Same coffee, but whitened with condensed milk, sometimes iced. Thoroughly enjoyable either way.

Same spring rolls, but wrapped in rice paper.

Same stalactites and stalagmites, but so much bigger than I've ever seen, in caves named 'Amazing' and 'Surprise'. The surprise was the source of humankind.

Same Latin script, but not a single recognizable word. Well, recognizable if pronounced, but what would 'Bich Lap' or 'Phuoc Long' mean?

Same pieces of paper, but spent in millions of dongs. A significant amount of time went into wondering if we were actually paying a reasonable amount of something we were buying - I mean, is it reasonable for dinner to cost millions?

Same sounds of war (probably), but now made by tourists shooting AK-47s and M-16s.

Same tunnels, but no longer used by rebels, just by well-fed visitors.

Same taxis, but some of them have meters that run at five times the speed. I think we were taking for a ride in just one of those.

Same ancient Hindu temples, but pockmarked with bullet holes. The ruins at My Son are relics of a Cham civilization that thrived for many hundreds of years.

Same communism, but you wouldn't know it, apart from the blocking of facebook.

Same international apparel brands, but available at two different prices - the brand price, and the locally made price. The quality is still excellent though.

Same songs, but covered in an undecipherable accent.

Same secret war strategy room, but now a family shrine to the man who ran 'Pho Binh' right under the American noses through the war. The chairs on which the leaders of the Viet Cong planned their attacks on the Americans are still there.

Same En Chiang though. No matter that they thought I was Vietnamee.

Lots of photos...