March 17, 2012 | No Comments yet

Valladolid took me by surprise. A really simple town with nothing much to do but it had a certain vibe that kept you there. I got off the bus and while it the terminal was in the middle of the town, there were hardly any people lurking around. Get out of the bus terminal, walk across the street and buy a glass of sugarcane juice while asking the guy for recommendations for places to stay and go an...
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March 13, 2012 | 4 Comments

In addition to the fact that the Acropolis is a structure with 108 steps (108 is a spiritually significant number for eastern religions) and a temple at the top, the surfaces of the acropolis has a number of rooms with stucco statues that look like winged gods. There are some more statues showing divine figures standing or sitting in mudras that are commonly seen in Hindu/Buddhist temples...
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March 10, 2012 | 4 Comments

Due to its proximity to Cancun and Mexico’s party zone, this place attracts a huge amount of tourists. Most tourists visit Chichen Itza get picked up from their resorts, driven to this site by luxury buses and get dropped back in the evening after some souvenir shopping, in a very insular form of tourism.

I think it's really difficult to NOT like Chichen Itza if you can ignore the c...
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March 6, 2012 | 3 Comments

A kid screams from the window of the first car that zooms past. I stand at that spot for 15 minutes, making a sign at every soul that drives past, determined to catch a ride. A dozen cars and pickup trucks pass but other than some enthusiastic waves, some shrugging, some fishy looks and a mandarin peel, I get nothing.

Other than sunglasses and a backpack, there is nothing quite touris...
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March 3, 2012 | 3 Comments

There is nothing more disappointing to an independent traveller than arriving at a popular tourist site and finding it filled with busloads of tour groups. I like to have the vastness and emptiness of archeological ruins all to myself and don't mind sharing it with a select few who, just like me, have worked hard to get there first thing in the morning....
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October 1, 2011 | 3 Comments

Autorickshaws, also known as tuk-tuks in the west, are quite ubiquitous on Indian streets. I saw lots of made-in-India Bajaj auto rickshaws in the villages in Yucatan. It was kinda funny...
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September 18, 2011 | 7 Comments

I packed before going to bed last night so that I could wake up early and leave without disturbing other people in my dorm. I hate to be the guy who wakes everyone up at 5am in the morning. Merida was beautiful at dawn, a bit foggy, with birds flying around and women sweeping the streets and raising a cloud of dust. I hurriedly made my way to the bus station....
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August 12, 2011 | 6 Comments

While walking in Mérida’s tourist centre, I saw a bunch of such plaques at street intersections. Along with street names, there were these signs with pictures of animals, people and other subjects and their Spanish names....
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