Mangalore, and I can't even remember what this is. It's that fort, right. Well it looks pretty and that's all that matters:

A church with a belltower - y'know, I think we might be in Madikeri right now...?

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No, it's Kerala for the first time, and the spinning of rope from coconut husk ( a pretty tedious process, but essential) in the middle of my little backwater boat tour:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4320.jpg

Communism works! Okay I just made that up, but there are some ways in which it actually does perform superbly, on a small scale, with friendly people, who have never had any kind of real money.
Thus you can imagine why I think it doesn't work (because rich people are very happy that way and often know a thing or two about getting richer) and isn't at all realistic (because at least 50% of all people are selfish, cheating bastards) but here is the one shining example that sponsors a million malcontent little reds and all those childish Che Guevara T-shirts/posters/flags/TV shows/governments/tea towels/mugs/ashtrays/riots;

Around the backwaters there are dozens of tiny groups that produce the coconut rope, each made up of about 4 small villages working together. One village, upstream from the rest, harvests the coconuts and stores them for 6 months. They deliver the dried coconut husks to the next village down, and these second lot flay and fleck the strands of fibre from the shells and soak them in water for a period of time (or water with something else in or something), and then send them to the third cluster of Party workers who take all the short, straight-ish strands of fibre and do something odd to them (possibly involving voodoo) to make them all fluffy and aerated, like cotton. The fourth village, on receiving this fluffball of ajusted fibres spins it all out into rope, and this rope, once finished, is distributed back upstream to each of the villages, and no-one has to pay for a thing.

Truly, the masses own the means of production, and this similar process is repeated, with varying timescales and numbers of participants in other mini-industries as well, including the manufacture of lime (I think..?) from the millions and millions of tiny shells on the river bed, a part of which can be seen here:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4315.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4316.jpg

Lovely thought, glad I could share that with you, nice theory isn't it, communism, but if you made half of those people any richer (any richer at all) than the others it would break down into anarchy and disarray in seconds.
Such is (real) life.

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More lovely boat/river shots; and I say, this does all look rather lovely:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4317.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4313.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4310.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4309.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4307.jpg

We had a guy who punted the boat along from the front, and this job was offered to anyone on board who fancied it. I didn't, as I would either be shockingly good at it and put the poor boat man, whose life had been spent doing this, completely to shame, or I'd lose the big stick and we would be adrift:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4308.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4311.jpg

Another boat:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4305.jpg

Our boatman doing his thing:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4303.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4302.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4301.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4300.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4298.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4297.jpg

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Kerala still, but off the water in Kannur. Here we have the source of something evil; you may wish to avert your eyes

The bane of Western households, it sometimes seems, are Indian call centres, and a lot of people really do not like speaking to them in the slightest. Cheaper workforces in poorer countries have always been evident in the Western business model, but never before the outsourcing phenomena that has swept our utilities and major companies has this become a front-line problem for the average American or English homeowner.

Personally I don't see the problem in the slightest, because the monkeys we had in English call centres had no more power to do anything (I have been one), they were equally intractable just for different reasons (usually through being too stupid, if memory serves) and the Indians who staff these places are almost always painfully well-qualified, heartbreakingly so in fact, and can happily work out a solution to most problems given in this narrow field of work. I can quite imagine that a great many pretend to not hear or understand people properly because of the condescending tone of voice, blatant rudeness, and/or general bad experience they have already had with the Western customers in that job.

The actual problem, in my opinionated view of things, (and I base this on a few ongoing and much-debated issues with such call centres in various jobs I've had, as well as a lot of conversations in the pub cross-referenced with everything else said by the same people) is usually that Westerners calling an Indian call centre to fix their British or American gas problem are inherently racist, even in some tiny, unacknowleged way.
They disapprove instinctively of speaking to an Indian who is in a position of more power than them, to sort out what they consider as their Important Problems (you'll find these people can understand despite any accent perfectly well in other places) and will invent all sorts of quasi-arguments as to why this trend is a bad thing, focusing on the gas company's inflated profits (I'm sorry, why are they in business except to make money?!), carefully circumnavigating their true opinions and replacing anything slightly racist with some artificially thought-out reason.

Anyway that's my two cents, and it distracts completely from the photo which, now has so little impact it is barely worth showing.
However this is a subject that gets on my wick because one thing I can't stand being bred into people is thoughtless generalisations (and yes, I know I use them myself and they are never wholly accurate, I only go on what I have personally experienced) so I just had to lay that one down for ya'll

Big archway thing:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4296.jpg

Temple on a street thing:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4293.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4292.jpg

A weird sign - really not sure what they were going for with this;
Assuming all children are electronic geniuses, they hope to have them take some vegetables with their Nintendo?
They'd like to make spiritual teachings cool by sneaking them in through the internet (with overtones of `tree of knowledge` analogy)?

Weird. Anyway:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4291.jpg

Mosque:

Mosque?:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4289.jpg

Mosque:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4288.jpg

Plane:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4287.jpg

Plane!:

Taken at a former miltary base on the way to a fort, on the outskirts of Kannur (I think.....)

A rooty branch that looks rather interesting, from somewhere en route:

The fort, some good, some bad, some indifferent pictures here I'm sure:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4282.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4283.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4284.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4280.jpg

School outing:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4279.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4276.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4273.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4271.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4265.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4267.jpg

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That's quite enough of that - it is hard sometimess to stop putting up every inconsequential little picture. I'm sure I had a reason to take every single one but just sometimes I see one and think: If I was sober enough to hold the camera level AND not shake uncontrollably, which I even do sober, how the fuck did I ever think that worthwhile?

Sea of palm leaves from some hotel roof (in Kannur still, possibly a different hotel/guesthouse:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4260.jpg

No, actually it must be the same place:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4259.jpg

For some reason I thought this worthwhile - if nothing else to show a totally average, normal piece of urban planning I guess:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4258.jpg

I hope this is in focus....

And this might even make a meaningful photograph in some strange way; post-apocalyptic urban animal takeover, perhaps.
Eagles seem to have taken over every high perch in the whole of India anyway - did I miss an apocalypse, anyone? :

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4248.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4250.jpg

Commies. A bit of urban park. New from BBC radio 4: Commies in the Park!!
Some of the small (ahem) tributes left to do eternal tribute to the struggle of some select flaming reds now gloriously departed this vale of proletariat tears and gross bourgeoise manipulations, who triu- oh, put a sock in it already! If we're all so bloody equal why do Communist parties actually have leaders??
And why are some of your ochred number (the leaders, usually) always better provisioned, furnished with material trappings and idolised, if not martyred? Collective ownership my arse More like lowest common denominator! :

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4246.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4244.jpg

Pwetty burdies Maybe some among you find this shot aesthetically pleasing, as I hoped at the time:

Down in the park still, there were a few odd little sculptures and statues as well as the Pinko tribute parade :

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4240.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4239.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4238.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4237.jpg

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Errr... last few odd things, from Madikeri and maybe Kannur, and god knows where else:

That's a cannon, that is:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4235.jpg

And that's a sneaky photo inside a museum where you're not supposed to do that:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4232.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4230.jpg

This is a bit of wall - Mangalore, I'm pretty sure it must be - no, wait, madikeri also had this sort of thing. Yes, it all makes sense *clutches head* :

An ornamental tower from that fort again:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4227.jpg

The text explanation of all that stuff - read this if ya want some history on the place shown next:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4226.jpg

Ze fort again, new photos though:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4225.jpg

And, in light of the fact my mind is melting, and also that I've come across the bird sanctuary pictures from Mysore for the 4th time now in this album, I am going to bed.

It is 5pm precisely here in Cambodia, I have been your host for today; goodbye, and good night

Which is precisely what I was/did last night
I'm immensely proud of this title and just hope I haven't used it already; I went out clubbing in Siem Reap last night - woah boy, Cambodian nightclubs (where the locals go, not the tourists) are a liiiitle bit behind the times. Still, all quite proper in style if not substance, and I had a few voddy/redbulls and am still good for something this morning, despite getting back at 4am and THEN watching Big Trouble In Little China for the sake of nostalgia and for something to occupy my caffeinated mind for two hours until I could lose consciousness.

I drank considerably more straight redbulls than those with any booze in, but forgot to reign myself in on volume and quantity through sheer habit of years of clubbing, so I probably got through about a gallon of sugary, Taurine-rich over-stimulating wrongness. Once was a time I would sneer at feeling anything other than saturation from such things (and nip off to the city for something in a small paper wrapper), but this is what they call `progress` or some such thing...

I danced, I boogied, the best tune they played was that godawful `Hey Macarena` song that was popular with children and idiots 7 years ago. Yes, I did say the best tune, most of the rest of the time it was ancient Cambodia folk songs with a kettle drum overlay - in the middle of what looked like a full-on regular club with lasers and a big-ass P.A. and a little podiums and balconies crowded with young folk.
They seem to still be in that stage where couple can slow-dance in a massive huddle on the dance floor; I'm sorry, how godawfully 1962 can you get?

Needless to say I was something of a spectacle, despite the pressing bodies and lack of adequate breathing space. As anyone who knows me from clubbing and dancing, I was a danger unto myself and others, as is my exact intention
Oh and this Aussie guy we were hangin out with for the night punched the only other Westerner bloke in the club right in the face, in an argument over his (the other guy's) girlfriend.
Way to go dude

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Okay these photos are toast, as it were. I went to Angkor Wat this week, the largest religious building on Earth, and saw another dozen or so incredible temples and places. It is getting silly playing catchup with photos from the 23rd-to-last place I visited, It's kinda taking the piss, so I'm gonna skip a lot out.... leaving you lovely people with only the very finest in vicarious travel coming right up

A shtload of them need rotating, but I'm trying to just get through them so most are not labelled as such, sorry.

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Nothing strikes you more quickly and unexpectedly in India than the roads and vehicles - if only because the first that happens is probably the taxi scam, swiftly taking you on alien roads amid exotic and bizarre craft In Mumbai the latter (vehicles) are immensely colourful and act as if they are invunerable, the former (roads) incomprehensibly unfinished, with open sewers even in well-to-do suburbs and major shopping districts.
Out in the coutryside they are often strangely wonderful; this is where the great `Hinglish` slogans are seen on long-haul transport vehicles (as on the BharatGas tankers which righteously tell you to "Cook Food - Serve Love") and the sheer willful casting to the winds of all caution visible when 30 passengers crawl into/onto a tractor cab or 4X4 for a trip to the shops.

Regrettably I have none of these to show you (youve already seen the gas one) and have to cop out with the only lame shot I got of anything slightly related. I'm sorry, I will make whole families pile onto tiny scooters and ride into oncoming traffic just for you soon enough. For now there is just this, slightly overloaded lorry. I really am most terribly sorry (they do get better - no wait, come back!) :

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Woohoo Madikeri!
Right, some bits of a sort-of museum/government building complex, including old fort walls/gatehouses and replica elephants (yay!) :

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4205.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4203.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4200.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4199.jpg

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Kannur, sometime between the public beheadings and me climbing out of hotel balconies

The fact that this sign exists, in the stairwell of a posh shopping mall, says it all really:

This is just a sign in a bus station - I took it because I rather love a) the Malayalam script, which this is written in, and b) the mindset where a public bus station has a seating area fitted out with seats taken from public buses instead of crappy hard plastic chairs :

This photo from out of my hotel window in downtown Kannur at midnight is, if I say so myself, rather sweet:

This is a quiet street for any Indian City - look, autorickshaws, just like in James Bond!!! :

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4163.jpg

Cats and birds living in harmony, would you believe:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4162.jpg

Mangalore

Beaches, city streets and great museums and churches (well, they look pretty) and some eagles too if I recall correctly. Let's see what we got...

This where babies pineapples come from. Cool huh?
Did you know that a pineapple bush/tree only produces one pineapple per stem in its entire life cycle? The plants usually only become bushes, produce the first pineapple on the first stalk and as soon as its harvested the whole thing is cut down.
If they are left to become trees then they grow about 5 times faster too, I believe I was told.

Actually wait, these aren't pineapples at all. They're not red enough for one thing (yes, red) and I don't even know what these are. But all that stuff about pineapples still stands:

The beach! mangalore beach was utterly deserted, one of the reasons I may ahve loved that city so much. Even though it is near a big city (11km) and a string of towns and villages abut it from the land (about half a km most of the way) it is almost totally devois of human life for several miles. Simply wonderful:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4152.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4151.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4150.jpg

Back in Mangalaore city, there are some photos which, despite needing rotating, hopefully still look kinda good.
Indian wiring is often impressive/terrifying:

Palm trees near another hotel seen from the roof (I have a bit of a thing about hotel rooves); I thought at the time this was framed nicely, let's see... :

Coconuts in the palm fronds:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4143.jpg

'nother 'otel. Might look somehow nicely shot, might not:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4142.jpg

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire nicely painted, this being one of the several cathedrals in the city and the easiet one in which to sneak photos behind the back of the guard-dog nun militia.
Slightly wishy-washy colours and the usual assortment (and some unusual, too) of Christian holy-holy depictions. The overall effect was pretty grand, and nicely different from the beaches and city streets. It seemed thoroughly tranquil as all the best cathedrals ought to, and not a single inquisitor in sight :

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4140.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4138.jpg

Not a great shot of an eagle on a floodlight mast:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4134.jpg

Not a great shot of an eagle in flight:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4133.jpg

Hopefully better shot of another cathedral and college combination complex.
c c c c c, yeah it gets cleverer every time, obviously :

A building with an interesting lack of roof, as it were:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4130.jpg

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Another cathedral, with genuine Indian (probably Kannada not Hindi) script, just to prove I was really there :

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4127.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4126.jpg

Another big church thing:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4117.jpg

You may have noticed from these 3 or 4 places that they rather do love their grey paint when it comes to Christian buildings. I can't explain it either, but it does seem slightly unimaginative. Hey-ho.

I just about got this bugger of an eagle as he was taking off. A quarter of a second later would have made a brilliant shot:

The newspapers offer some great little titbits too - this cartoon caught my eye one sunny Mangalorean morning in my posh hotel where fresh newspaper are slipped, straight from the oven, under the door each morning. It made me giggle, and highlights not only the directness of thought but also most Indian's perception (not just this newspaper's ) of the `great man`:

Hahaha! Bloody gotcha ya bastard - an eagle coming straight for me on the roof of the Poonja International Hotel, how often do you get a photo at eye level eh? :

Another bunch of skyline shots from on high:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4109.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4108.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4105.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4104.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%202/inde4102.jpg

And that's enough for just now.

Mangalore will continue, after the break