HERE AND THERE

Join us for a walk through Varanasi at 6 o'clock in the morning. Why are we up so early? We're heading to the river, along with all these people, before sunrise. At the start of the day, people bathe in the river and/or pay their respects to the gods. It's hard to imagine this city shutting down, ever. Varanasi is India's most ancient city, and one of the world's oldest continually inhabited cities. Its ancient name was Kashi; the Mughals and the British called it Benares. Th

And we're back in the big smoke: Kolkata — called Calcutta until 2001 . Kolkata has a population of 4.5 million, the fourth biggest megacity in India. The Port of Kolkata is India's oldest operating port. Our ship is moored in the section from where indentured labourers set off in the 1800s to work in foreign lands: the Caribbean, South Africa, Mauritius, Fiji. Today this part of the port has been sold to developers who are building a high-end club and dining precinct, but it

Early mornings on the river are indescribably peaceful and serene. The feathery silvery heads of the elephant grass blend into the mist and the borders between sky and water are indistinct. The colours are simply sublime. We’re in the town that was once the centre of the Asian universe – seriously. Murshidabad was the old capital of Bengal, the largest and richest state of India, and the wealthiest town in Asia. Murshidabad's peak was from 1725 to 1765. But the British East I

Still heading upstream on the Ganga. We arrived in Matiari early in the morning. We’d been woken up by the sound of metal being beaten. Matiari is a village known for its metalwork, brasswork in particular. Many years ago, men from this village were employed in Kolkata in the metalwork industry. When they became too old to work, they returned to their village where they passed down their skills. Kolkata merchants now outsource metalwork to the artisans in Matiari. Scrap metal

This is a misleading title, I admit — b ecause the Ganges is a very very long river, and we're only seeing a relatively small part of it. But anyhoo. We flew from Jaipur to Kolkata, and we're now in West Bengal. From here, we boarded a ship in Kolkata and will travel up the river for seven days, stopping in various towns and villages. We'll be spending some time in Kolkata after our river trip, so more on Kolkata in a later post. The Ganges Voyager II is a river ship on the

We're back in the state of Rajasthan, but this time in the capital and largest city of Jaipur — population 3 million. Jaipur is the third...

We're now in the state of Uttar Pradesh, in the city of Agra. It's a little more than 200 km from Delhi and we travelled here by coach....

New Delhi, Old Delhi, Delhi ... ? New Delhi is the capital city of India, located in the megacity of Delhi, located in the National...

Is it possible for a toddler to scream throughout an entire 13 hour flight from Melbourne to New Delhi? Yes, from first-hand experience I...

We're in Lombok. Lombok is the island to the east of Bali. Lombok and Bali are similar in size and have a similar population size (around...

Going back in time to mid October, pre-appendicitis, and a day trip to the Mekong River south-west of Ho Chi Minh City. We're leaving the...

The area we're in is about 50 km north-west from Ho Chi Minh City. It's called Cu Chi, pronounced goo-chi . Here we're also close to the...

Here we are in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly called Sai Gon, or Saigon. One of our guides told us that only people who are sentimental for...

We're staying in Central Vietnam but moving south from Hue to Hoi An. It's a comfortable drive of about 160 km — comfortable, that is, if...

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It's 180 km from Hanoi to Ha Long City. The drive is through low plains, rice paddies and a lot of standing water — unsurprising as the...

The modern history of Vietnam is very complicated. But here goes. The Spanish may have colonised Central and South America, but it was...

We're in Hanoi in autumn, a fine time to visit the north of Vietnam. We've had a bit of tropical rain but even more sunshine, with daily...