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Dangling our feet over the Seine #ParisBliss
So 2017 is the year of discovering Paris for me. Sometimes stuff you never even dreamt of comes true. I’ve spent the last couple of months steeped in logistics for this stint here, chiefly to manoeuvre things so the family could join me for some time, but without actually thinking about what it would be like. Delayed gratification, have you heard of it?
When we actually got here, it’s in the middle of a heat wave. It’s like we brought the bad weather with us from Delhi. Ever tried 37 degrees without ACS and fans?
I’ve been at work during the day, in a stifling office with the nicest people wading through literature as part of a research stay. In the evenings, I’ve tried to join the mums and kids as they explore the city. Museums in the heat is the mantra they are loosely following, spending the mornings in our rental apartment and dashing into a museum in the hot afternoon.
Yesterday I met them outside the Musee Rodin and we walked around the area, ending up in the courtyard of les Invalides, which houses the Military Museum. In this beautifully proportioned space, Aadyaa was inspired to sketch and Udai conjured up fantasies about cannon balls, fire and destruction. The walk across the vast lawns towards the Seine felt good, with the cool grass under our feet and the winds beginning to blow.
We ambled pointlessly wondering where to eat. Food was very much on the mind of the young man, who can be super fussy and was likely imagining a proper Parisian meal. Down the steps right next to Seine, the city was settling into a long evening of fun and partying. On a whim, we ordered burgers and joined the picnic. What bliss to sit dangling our feet over the lovely Seine watching the world go by, hearing laughter and conversation and sharing a hearty meal. Doesn’t Aadyaa’s expression say it all?
A whirlwind #workation in Indonesia: Is travel planning overrated?
One of the interesting contradictions in my life is how little I research my travel before I set off, despite being a researcher by profession. This trip to Indonesia, which Greg and I had planned as a recce visit to explore collaborations and case sites for a new project, was one of those in which I literally landed up at the airport with a lets-see-how-this-goes attitude. Part of this was related to how much we had riding on this trip work-wise, the nature of the visit was exploratory. We didn’t even have a fixed itinerary- except for the knowing when we arrived in and departed from Jakarta, we were literally making this up as we went along!
Far from being apprehensive, I was enormously excited about this trip. It felt like a true adventure, which would entail seeing a bunch of places I had never imagined going to and a couple that I didn’t even know the existence of! There were a few comforts though. One, Greg speaks Bahasa Indonesia and had spent enough time there to act as guide and interpreter (he did a fantastic job of that!). And I had been to Bali and Surabaya earlier this year (yes, this is my 3rd trip in a span of 3 months!), gained an initial understanding of Indonesian people and had a few reliable contacts there.
My expectations about how much I would be able to “see” on this trip were low from a touristic perspective and because I really enjoy the urban wandering as much, if not more than straight-jacketed tourism experiences, this wasn’t much of a concern.
And so I land up seeing four Indonesian cities and some of its countryside in eleven days. First: Jakarta, the sprawling capital and primary city, where the country’s economic and political power concentrates, where young people dream of living and working, where life is buzzing and traffic is painful. Second: Yogyakarya, fondly called Jogja, city of universities and students, a special region where the Sultan still rules, once laid back and pretty, now seeing new wealth. Third: Kupang, out there in eastern Indonesia, capital of the province of Nusa Tengarra Timor (NTT), a sleepy city with hilly outcrops and stunning beaches. Surrounding by hinterland that is arid and poor. Fourth: Semarang, a large industrial port city in Central Java, a city that celebrates its colonial history even as the part-rural counties around it pulsate with the excitement of promised new industrial investments.
We do this by buying tickets hours before we fly out, sometimes even deciding on the go! We use Whatsapp shamelessly to contact NGOs, academics and government officials wherever we go. We end up working long stretched in cafes, using their free Wi-Fi connections to take Skype calls, write emails, consult collaborators and download data, all for the price of a few cups of coffee! We try budget hotels and budget-budget hotels and laugh at the Spartan decor and not-really-there breakfasts. We meet people who go out of the way to help us (some of them were meeting us for the first time!), giving us their time, inviting us into their homes on weekends, finding us contacts and even accompanying us to difficult meetings. Everything works out and we accomplish nearly everything we had hoped we would, with minimal pre-planning, mostly by being able to take reasonably quick decisions, by keeping our wits around us and by listening carefully to what our Indonesian contacts had to say to us. In my opinion, the Indonesian cultural traits of respect for outsiders, gentleness of manner and inordinate helpfulness were our biggest assets on our trip. And since we weren’t overthinking the trip before we started, I think we got a lot of the ‘pleasant surprise’ factor out of it than if we had had everything perfectly lined up!
Watch out for more posts about our experiences in beautiful Indonesia!
Already published: Crumbling legacy, so much potential: In Jakarta’s Kota Tua
ramblinginthecity 