May 31, 2011 | 18 Comments

The Zocalo, located in the heart of Mexico city, is one of the largest city squares in the world. Prior to the conquest of Mexico, the area that the Zócalo occupies was open space, in the center of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. After the destruction of Tenochtitlan, Hernán Cortés, the Spanish conquistador, razed the Aztec temples and palaces, and used the building materials to construct a gra...
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May 28, 2011 | 2 Comments

When I was wandering in Puebla’s historic centre, I bumped into a student demonstration protesting against increase in education fees. Since I am a strong proponent of free (state sponsored) education for all, I thought this was march was very cool....
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May 24, 2011 | 5 Comments

Besides a high density of churches and colonial era buildings, Puebla is also famous for poblano mole and smoked grasshoppers.
Puebla has a old colonial district and a number of buildings there are old and dilapidated. People will give you a funny look if you just stand there waiting to take a picture of a beautiful old window with worn out wooden frames and wrought iron grills....
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May 22, 2011 | 15 Comments

The first time I traveled outside India was in December 2006. My flight from Mumbai to Toronto had a four hour layover at London's Heathrow airport, making England (UK) the first foreign soil that I stepped on (albeit only at the airport, but that counts, right?).
I felt I was in some exotic place - everything was written in English and there were white people everywhere. The announcements ...
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May 19, 2011 | 4 Comments

A pyramid so huge that the Spanish, thinking it was a hill, built a church on top. I was fascinated with how familiar the landscape outside Mexico city felt to rural India. There were milkmen loading large aluminium cans on their bicycles, making a peculiar sound that, together with the gentle morning breeze, reminded me of my childhood in India. The streets were dusty, the heat was scorching, and...
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May 10, 2011 | 9 Comments

Spread over a desolate plateau, Xochicalco is a sprawling pre-Columbian archeological site that bears a remarkable affinity with the Mayans, the Teotihuacans, and the Matlatzincan cultures of central Mexico. Xochicalco became a regional power that filled the political vacuum created by the declining Teotihuacan empire around 600 CE. Around a temple of the feathered serpent at the top of the hill, ...
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