The village priest conducts the ceremony...

Bali is after all the “Island of the Gods” so it should have come as no surprise that before constriction could start on our house in Canggu there had to be a ceremony…

The ceremony was required because the land was part of a rice paddy field so to ensure harmony Dewi Sri, the goddess of rice and fertility, has to give permission to use the land for building on.

The local priest and those in the village directly associated with the new house are involved and everybody took it very seriously.

Rice from the land and some other offerings are put in to a box and taken to the village rice temple, harmony is assured and the construction can begin.

Quite a difference to the last house we built in Brisbane some 20 years earlier where the principal ceremony seemed to be the subbies getting to the local pub before 4 in the afternoon!


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Bali House Ceremony

Tufi Puri Puri Man

To the casual visitor to Papua New Guinea, the impression that the country is deeply religious would be easily gained. Missionaries are common in the country and I have met them in even the most remote locations – once unexpectedly about 2 hours up the Isis River on the remote south coast of New Britain.

But the more exposure I gained to the local Tufi people and how they live, the more I sensed that beneath the external pious appearance was another story related to a belief system that time had painted over.

That system is called Puri Puri, which literally means black magic in the principal Motai dialect, but a more accurate description would be “traditional belief system”. I became quite intrigued by all this and convinced that I must get a better understanding of Puri Puri.

My initial attempts to go deeper on the subject with the local people I met around Tufi were met with embarrassed silences and it quickly became obvious that they really were not comfortable going there…

So I turned to the various expats I knew, starting with Simon Tewson who has spent most of his life in PNG and understands the people & their culture well. From these conversations I learned that the people who actually practice & administer the more potent elements of Puri Puri live apart from the main villages.

In the case of the Fiyogha clan, they live in a small village called Tuvirade, further up in the foothills from the main villages Koje & Sefoa.

Read the full story on this link

Shai Ram Sharma - Jaipur

Sometimes you just automatically connect with people… so it was with Shai Ram Sharma as I wandered around near the City Palace in Jaipur the capital of Rajasthan in north-west India.

Street and people photography is not really my forte, particularly in poor countries like India where, although the streets teem with photogenic subjects, I usually struggle to find the right balance between interest and intrusion.

Quite often the problem can be solved by making a small contribution and I have learned to carry some small denomination notes in my pocket – having learned the folly of getting my wallet out and being quickly surrounded by a lot of poor and hungry people…

With Shai Ram Sharma I just knew he would not object to having his photograph taken, in fact I subsequently discovered that modeling was actually his day job!

The area of the City Palace called Chandni Chowk (Moonlight Square) is what used to be the courtyards of the palace stables, but these days has lost much of it’s former imperial glory and become the temporary residence of numerous homeless people and beggars.

Amid these pretty bleak surroundings Shai Ram Sharma, with his saffron robes & head-dress, proud bearing and brilliant white beard, really stood out.

My request to photograph him was positively received and he went to work like a pro. In return I acknowledged his need to eat, gladly paying him for his brief work and then sharing some tea with him from the nearby chai wallah.

The next weekend I was exploring more of the area when I saw him again, resplendent in his robes, posing for another budding photographer and it dawned on me that modeling was probably his day job. Early the following day I was roaming around the City Palace again and realized that the area where he had posed for me was actually his home and he lived rough in the courtyard area.

As it was still early, he had yet to put on his kit… which hung on a line near his bed on the hard floor in one of the courtyard alcoves. Over more chai, he used sign language to explain that the tourists would not be around for another hour or so and he was just chilling before his daily gig started.

Like somebody once said to me, everybody in India has an angle…

Chairman Mao "antiques" at Dong Tai Road Market

The Dongtai Road “antique market” in Shanghai well worth a visit and is a pleasant way to pass an hour or two, but don’t go there expecting to find anything really genuine…

There is very little for sale that could be classified as actually antique, although you will find things like Chinese made cameras that are genuinely old but of dubious value – plus the stall holders give the distinct impression that they would not be seen dead with much of the stuff on display in their homes.

But the market attracts lots of tourists and the Chinese relish the opportunity to sell something to them, particularly if it’s at a grossly inflated margin which the majority of the stuff for sale is at.

Most of the stalls sell much the same thing and the irony of so many similar “antiques” being available in the same location seems to be lost on the vendors.

Care need to be taken in expressing even the merest hint of interest in one of the many things for sale as it is immediately seized on as an intention to buy and leads to a bout of “calculator based negotiation” whereby offer and counter-offer is transmitted back and forth courtesy of a calculator as very little English is spoken.

Dong Tai Road Image Gallery

How to get to Dong Tai Road

The market is just on the edge of the Xintiandi area and is a 10 minute walk from South Huangpi Road Metro station, which is on Line 1.

The SmartShanghai website is a great resource for finding your way around Shanghai and has excellent street maps so that you can find specific locations easily and a very good map of the extensive and really excellent Metro

Insect Trading - Shanghai Style...

Shanghai is a city of immense contrast and you don’t have to go much farther than the Bund area to see the most vivid of those contrasts.

Here the wide and powerful Hangpu River separates the old colonial part of Shanghai from it’s brash new counterpart Pudong.

But if you wander around Shanghai you will find many examples of the locals just doing their thing, quite oblivious to the frenetic activity that characterizes the city.

The insect market near Tibet Road (Xizang Lu), close to the Pu’xi old town, is one such example of this…

Quite why anybody would want to buy insects in the first place was lost on me initially, but it seems that many Chinese consider them as good pets, particularly crickets.

In fact there is a long history of them being used in cricket fights, so in true Chinese fashion a market place has developed to buy and trade them.

The images below are from the impromptu street market where the crickets and other insects are traded between enthusiasts, and nearby is the pet market which is worth wandering round but probably best avoided if you are an animal lover…

Shanghai’s Insect Market

Shanghai's Pudong area at sunset

I was recently back in China for 3 weeks, about 1.5 years after living there for nearly two years – it really is an interesting place, full of contradictions and very much a puzzle wrapped in an enigma.

It’s basically a huge “parallel universe” of 1.3 billion where there are many superficial indications of western culture and practices having been or being adopted, but scratch the surface and it’s all being done in a very Chinese way.

Despite the many times I have visited the country over the last 9 years, the experience actually living there and the numerous books I have read on the country and it’s turbulent history, it is very clear to me that the more I learn about China, the less I actually know…

So before the memories fade from the last 3 weeks, I thought I would record for posterity the 10 most important things I think you need to know traveling in China.

The Top Ten Things to know about traveling in China

1. Generosity - never confuse the gruff, often downright rude, way of many Chinese with their underlying generosity and some of the greatest hospitality I have personally experienced has been in China, often from people who are extremely poor!
2. Queues are for foreigners – standing in line, as most westerners automatically do, appears to be taken as a sign of inherent stupidity by many Chinese… why wait in that line when you can simply slip in at the front?
3. You are what you eat – the stuff that westerners grind up, boil and then feed to pets & animals are some of the choicest things to eat in China… Faced with attending numerous customer dinners/banquets during my times in China I have learned you have two main choices – ask what it is and risk embarrassment (pass me another slice of horse penis please…) or drink a lot and just “bring it on”. There is actually a third option whereby you can pretend you are a vegetarian, something that will completely bemuse the vast majority of Chinese!
4. A little Mandarin goes a long way – Mandarin is the standard language in China, but it is not universal and there are hundreds of local dialects. English speaking people are quite rare away from the city centers and usually non-existent most other places, so a little basic Mandarin could just save your day…
5. Traffic Options - traffic rules do not seem to apply anywhere in China, so I think options is the right description. For example last minute swerves across multiple lanes of traffic to avoid a missed turn-off, or reversing back down an on-ramp (hazard warning lights thoughtfully activated) seem perfectly normal and rationale behavior for China’s new generation of drivers.
6. You will pay more - foreigners are seen as completely fair-game to most Chinese and the logic seems to be that you must be rich to be there, so you can clearly afford to pay a little more and of course it’s nothing personal!
7. Fashionistas - in the downtown areas of major cities you will see many western brand stores and well-dressed Chinese, but they are grossly outnumbered by other Chinese who seem to consider rolling up both their trousers and shirts to reveal  socks & shoes and nicely rounded rice-bellies as a very “summer thing” to do. In Shanghai for example, arguably China’s most fashion-conscious city, it is quite normal to walk around in your pajamas…
8. The money gene – I am convinced that Chinese have an extra gene that westerners do not possess and on it is a $ sign. Basically they love to make money, know how to do it very well and generally do whatever it takes to succeed.
9. Millisecond baggage – a millisecond is the time delay between the plane stopping and all the Chinese on it  simultaneously trying to get their bags down from the overhead lockers and jostle for position in the aisle. Similarly, there seems to be a burning desire to remove their bags from the luggage carousel and the fact that you have been waiting patiently does not seem to matter as you are shoved out of the way when their bag does arrive…
10. Pedestrian crossings - widely available in the cities, but under no circumstances assume that there is a remote chance of road users stopping to let you cross!

The city is largely as I remember it, but it seems nobody remembers me!

What has changed though is the utter chaos around all the roadworks in preparation for the 2010 World Expo and in particular the area around the famous Bund is now looking really good and I spent a couple of hours wandering round. Just across the road from one of the most impressive buildings is a new bull statue created by the same guy who did the one in Wall Street – the Sicilian artist Arturo Di Modica.

Shanghai's Charging Bull Statue at the Bund

It really is an imposing piece of art and I stopped to take a photo or two, and when I had finished I was approached by a pleasant Chinese guy who was with his wife and asked me to take a photo of them with the Bund as a backdrop. She smiled demurely at me from underneath her sun parasol and of course I said yes.

That lead to me posing with him while she took a picture of the two new best friends against the same backdrop. The guy spoke excellent English, which I complimented him on in the spirit of this new found cross-cultural friendship and the world was good…

As I attempted to move on he engaged me more deeply and I smelled a rat when he asked if I wanted to join them at this special place they knew for Chinese tea, which all seemed a bit strange seeing as he told me they had just arrived from Xi’an in central China on a special holiday!

I politely declined and explained that I was meeting a friend for lunch – a complete lie, but a man has to do what a man has to do!

So I got away but noticed that an unsuspecting American tourist had replaced me as the professional portrait photographer when I checked from a safe distance. Unfortunately he went mildly like a lamb to slaughter and was happily lead off with his new best friends.

Off for tea they go....

No idea where they went but I suspect that he is no worse off physically, but financially he is probably a bit poorer having been duped in to buying some fake art or antique…

You can read the story for yourself, but the short version was that a local sport fishermen was sat contentedly in his tinnie (boat) on the Adelaide River when a large salt-water crocodile jumped out of the water into the boat and attacked him!

We were about to leave Darwin Airport on a very small plane to spend two days at Banurru Plains for some “wild bush luxury” on the edge of Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory of Australia, when the newspaper caught my eye.

The inside of the plane was vaguely reminiscent of a Ford Anglia I had as a youth in England, but not quite as roomy… It was all very cozy, but a little nerve wracking as I pondered the back of the heads of our two pilots who appeared to be younger than our son…

The pilots of our flying Ford Anglia...

I have to admit that I was wondering if they enjoyed the same recreational relaxants as Callum, but reassured myself that they were dedicated professionals.

The “wet” in the Top End had produced a huge 3m+ amount of rainfall, which meant the Mary River floodplains we would be flying over were well and truly flooded and it was quite an amazing site to look down on them as we made our way, Harry Potter like, towards our bush landing strip.

Next Stop – Bamurru…

More to follow with the next post.

Durghesh doing his thing...

I have never understood Indian movies… all that dancing seemed to be completely over the top and make no sense at all – until last night…

I have been in Goa for the last six days running a training program for our local team in India.

Goa was selected as a reward for them for a good 2010 and they came from all over the country.

Last night was the last chance to celebrate as they are all leaving today, so a “party” was arranged in the hotel’s function room and I arrived at the appointed time expecting small talk and Indian snacks.

I was quite stunned when within minutes Punjabi disco music was blasting out of some mega speakers and without a drop of alcohol being consumed all inhibitions were cast to the wind and everybody was up on the dance floor doing their thing!

Durghesh lead the way with a routine that was a cross between Saturday Night Fever and belly dancing, but inspired the rest of the guys to demonstrate their individual prowess while I hid behind several bottles of Kingfisher beer and declined numerous invites to show what I am capable of on the dance floor…

I have come to realize that Indian people just love to dance and I was quite amazed at the way guys who have been fairly quiet & conservative all week took to the dance floor with what can only be described as uninhibited joy!

Maybe I need to watch more Indian movies…

Getting down in Goa...

The Chennai Lift Walla

Traveling in India is never dull and in the last week I have done a road trip from Delhi down to Agra for a weekend checking out the Taj Mahal and other local sites. Then it was back to Delhi and various customer meetings before flying to Hyderabad for more meetings and then down south to the state of Tamil Nadu and the city of Chennai – formerly known as Madras.

The offices of the company I work for are normally in large modern buildings, but for some reason the one in Chennai is in an old building and it was here that I encountered yet another interesting aspect of India – the “lift walla”…

Walla is the term applied to people who perform specific tasks such as the chai walla, who makes the tea – more to follow on that topic…

The lift walla’s job is to sit in the lift and push the floor buttons for the occupants who get in and out of the lift.

I had no idea that there was such a vocation, but in India with it’s huge population – they just completed the latest census and came up with a grand total of just over 1.2 billion – there is a clear need to create employment opportunities. Although the thought of sitting in a box measuring roughly 2m by 1.5m for an 8 hour shift does not seem like much of an opportunity to me…

My Indian colleagues were quite puzzled  by my interest in the lift walla, as was the man himself who seemed quite bemused by my request for a photograph!

Similarly my colleagues were also a little surprised when I pointed out that if I locked a dog up in a 2m by 1.5m poorly ventilated box for 8 hours at a time I would probably be reported to the police.