Quick personal photodiary on how I spent this day.

Chorten in the middle of McLeod Ganj today.

After spending January with my sister and niece in Goa I am back in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh in North India. It's lively place where Dalai Lama and exiled Tibetans reside. There are also many expats from all over the world but don't think it's not Indian town - very much Indian, for both locals Himachalis and Indians from other parts of the country (first of all Kashmiri traders) and even many Nepalis have come here for business and work. They were attracted by newly found prosperity and development.

In media and in public there is growing sense of failure in Afghanistan for the Western alliance. Leaked report of general McCrystal only confirmed this feeling. Brushing aside biased letters and articles of American conservatives and self-congratulatory speeches of officials of Obama administration I want to concentrate on Afghanistan, let's try to judge what is going on in this country on merit. Is there any chance for success and what is constituted success?

It is late evening in Bangkok and it is still raining. Monsoon time. After some time I found myself again in the friendly Asian megapolis waiting for visa processing (quite a usual timepass when one is out of her country for a long time).

Tourist ghetto of Khaosan Rd area under the rain.

My friend left Bangkok long ago, her friend who entertained me last time in March too, she left for dreadful Baghdad, so this time I am on my own, mixing expeditions into rich Bangkok's past with browsing gleaming malls and cozy family-run bookstalls in search for wonderful books.

The rain intensifies

With both kinds of business I was extremely lucky this time so I had run out of my budget for Bangkok rather quickly. That's why I am sitting in internet café in my hotel's lobby and printing these words.

It was my dream to look at the highest mountain on this planet called by westerners Everest (after British official) and by locals Qomolungma or Sagarmatha, which in translation mean roughly the same, the Mother Goddess of the Sky. The full text of diary is in Part I, Part II and Part III. Here you can see some photos taken on the journey.

This diary is about Indian election.
For the prepoll diary please go to Indian political tamasha (Part I)

The world's biggest electorate in India is notorious for unpredictability of its choice, even exit polls on massive scale cannot predict results of Indian elections with acceptable margin of mistake. The conducted polls of 70000 respondents with the margin of 30% for mistake can be taken only as astrological forecasts. This time pollsters again failed predicting hung Parliament but as a consolation they managed at least to sense the blowing wind - the ruling coalition of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) headed by Congress party is comfortably placed to return to power after 5 years in office.

The beginning of this diary is Mountains are forever (Part I) which continues in Mountains are forever (Part II).
If you want to see some pictures from the trip visit slide show In search of Shangri La.

While I was preoccupied with gloomy reminiscences under the fading oak and birch trees near Paya suddenly there was some noise in the air. It was a group of schoolchildren returning to their homes in Khari La pass and farther on the other side of the ridge Tham Danda. They were singing songs. Looking at us like at forest ghosts they continued their daily journey making as much noise as possible. Why they were going together, boys and girls, after classes finished? We were not the only ones whom they met in the forest.

Gokyo in the early morning

The beginning of this diary is Mountains are forever (Part I).
If you want to see more pictures from the trip visit slide show In search of Shangri La.

Any trip requires some necessities and surprisingly my journey to Everest took just two days to prepare - trekker's passport in tourist office, fleece trousers from Anjuna's store, rented sleeping bag from Kathmandu Trekking Store in Thamel allegedly enduring "-20" temperature, extra memory stick for camera (which refused to work actually), Strepsils pills for throat, headtorch, Khumbu map etc.

The view of Numbur (Dudhkunda) from Ringmu

If you want to see photographs from my trips to Nepal, please visit In search of Shangri La

When I was a child I together with my mom and sister visited Caucasian mountains. The sheer scale of jagged terrain terrified and excited me beyond imagination. I wanted to go further up immediately as I had desire to touch snow capped mountains. Mother and sister were suffering from altitude and did not allow me to venture there alone. Many years passed. I've found myself in Indian Himalayas, where childhood dreams came to pass. Yet I never visited Nepal. It was my dream to look at the highest mountain on this planet called by westerners Everest (after British official) and by locals Qomolungma or Sagarmatha, which in translation mean roughly the same, the Mother Goddess of the Sky. How she would receive me I wondered.

My first view of Everest (distant left) on the way from Junbesi

Here is the collection of photos I took during two trips to Nepal: in october 2008 and february 2009.

I don't know how to approach ongoing political festival (tamasha) in India. From one side I don't want to oversimplify vibrant and unpredictable political process in this country, putting the contest in Procrust bed of triangular (square) fight between major coalitions, from other side more nuanced description may be mystifying for outsiders. Also there is question of lessons to be drawn from Indian politics, how it's relevant for you. If European Union is more coherent entity with strong executive wing then its politics may become more similar to what is going on here. India after all in many ways is like Europe (it has the same size and her population is more than twice than EU's), it is big peninsula attached to the largest chunk of earth - Asia.

Yesterday 714 millions registered voters in India started to exercize their democratic franchise in the world's biggest elections. Regions were divided by Election Commission in 5 parts voting every week upto May 13th and then election results for 543 constituencies will be declared. States like Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Sikkim vote also for state assemblies according to custom of last decades. So what does Indian democracy look like? What is her nature and how is she similar or different to so-called Western democracies?

Promoted by whataboutbob

of dictatorship.

Very few countries in the world can rival with Thailand where political crisis became rather normal than extraordinary event. So what's new happening in Bangkok these days?

Army on streets of Bangkok

warning: some very disturbing photos are included

Promoted by whataboutbob

I know how not to start a travel story - about view in plane's window. Yet, I want to start telling so about my trip in Nepal and Thailand so. When I embarked on Royal Nepal Airlines' Boeing 737 in Kathmandu on the flight to Bangkok I quickly stuck to the muddy window trying to recognize familiar mountains and ridges. Though I just returned from 2 weeks trek through Eastern Nepal in vicinity of Mount Everest I had feeling I got not enough of high-altitude mountain scenery. Boeing quickly gained height and from there Nepal did not look ragged at all, just lumpy as unmade bed and even great ridges looked like mild waves. I did not see Bengal sea which disappeared under thick blanket of clouds. After three hours we started gliding down over Thailand. This fabulous country is complete antipode to Nepal - it lies very low to sea level, it literally washed from all sides by waves. It seemed like very populous country, everywhere I could see neatly divided rice fields.

Before traditional Thai statues in Suvarnabhumi airport

Despite stern warning from Indian foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee to Dalai Lama not to indulge in political activities on Indian soil Delhi's elite was spellbound by this Buddhist monk when he recently visited Indian capital to participate in workshop. Many privately went up to his room on 6th floor of run-down government hotel Ashoka to seek his blessings and some shared their feelings in press. Let's see what they say.
 

I took some time from my busy schedule to write a little about Tibet as Dharamsala where I live witnessed growing unrest among exile Tibetan community.

This is I hope the first part of photodiary covering my current journey over Indian subcontinent. Any travels are tiresome, especially if it's a kind of business trip so we had to admire much-maligned journalists of MSM who used to produce and transmit results of their travels immediately.

Promoted by Colman for a wintery afternoon in the western islands. More news and pictures from our Indian correspondent!

Yesterday I read good article about what bothered Indians in 2007 and decided to share it with you offering mini-dictionary (imperfect but still) to explain proliferated cryptic words incomprehensible for many foreigners.

Happy new year!

Former Pakistan's PM Benazir Bhutto (1953-2007) has been assasinated yesterday evening on outskirts of Rawalpindi, the city to the south of Islamabad, famous for numerous security and army institutions (Pakistan army headquarters located there) and infamous for the ongoing serie of suicide attacks by Islamists on them. Now high-profile politician fell victim to suicide squad, apparently from the same stables.

Morning newspapers with identical headlines: Benazir assasinated.

Short Christmas diary, devoted to recent scandal in highly conservative Punjab high society.

Yesterday's front-page article in The Tribune, Chandigarh-based newspaper which was a cause of din and wild accusations in Punjab assembly yesterday.

Controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, 45, is on the run from Islamic fundamentalists, who issued fatwas against her in 1994. She was in Kolkata, flied to Jaipur, then now she is hiding in Delhi.

Taslima by profession is doctor however it was her literary activities which completely changed her life. Her novel Lajja (Shame) was banned by the Bangladesh government in 1993, and the following year she went into hiding then Taslima left Bangladesh in 1994 after violent street protests. She was granted refuge and citizenship in Sweden. She returned to the region in 2004, living in Kolkata on a renewable visa.

This story is going on and nobody knows how it will end. I compose this diary from excerpts of old interviews and articles and with some moderate input, expressing my bewilderment at Indian explosive mix of modernity and ancient prejudices. As it's usual in India every such story has potential to trigger sharp political crisis, from accusations in condoning fundamentalism to playing vote-bank politics.

Diary Rescue by Migeru