I am in the middle of a week long India trip, and am writing this at a little photocopying/internet browsing outlet (Rs. 10 only for 30 minutes) near my parents' home in Malleswaram.
Four days into my trip, I have ticked off the must dos (pani puri at Gangotri, some book and hindi movie DVD purchases, a bit of shopping for the kids, etc). Today we are off to visit some relatives, and will round off the day with dinner at a highly recommended restaurant with parents and mum in law.
The highlight of this Bangalore trip has been the newly built Mantri Square mall (claims to be India's largest mall - hmm...to be taken with a pinch of salt, I think) close to home in Malleswaram. It is a bit of a culture shock to see this new hip face of old Bangalore. It has most of the happening names in Indian retailing: Lifestyle, Shoppers Stop, an exclusive Tissot store, Taco Bell (I didn't know this existed here), Pantaloons, etc. Going by the crowds, the local residents seem to love it. Given the price tags, I am not sure how many people actually enter the place with an aim to buy, but at least it's a great place to spend a couple of hours on a hot summer afternoon.
Tomorrow, I am off to Mumbai to spend a day there, before getting back to Sydney on Friday night.
*****************************
I managed to catch up on a bit of recent Oscar fare on the flight to India: Hurt Locker, Blind Side, Up in the Air, and It's Complicated. Enjoyed Blind Side - sucker for predictable cinema about human goodness that I am.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
Money, Maslow and me
It is only morning
but doesn’t seem that.
Can we forward to night?
My cola’s gone flat.
Considering that life’s primary pursuit is happiness, it doesn’t seem I am making a spectacular success of it. At the moment, life seems a series of humdrum days and nights rolling on relentlessly. It is an age old river maintaining its steady course towards the sea, the still surface interrupted only briefly by little fish bobbing to the surface.
There was a time when I thought money would bring joy. An uncle, who is now no more, summed it pretty well when he once said to me, “Upto a point, money is the most important thing in life. Beyond that point, it is the least important thing.” I guess I am beyond the Point. I am neither the Monk who sold his Ferrari nor anywhere near being a millionaire. It is just that I know enough about money and myself to realise that having a million bucks land in my account overnight will not fundamentally alter my state of happiness.
In college, Behavioural Science was a subject hardly anyone took seriously, and generally considered a bit of gas providing relief amid tougher subjects. Looking back, I think it offered at least one powerful tool to understand motivation – the Maslow hierarchy. I don’t recall the finer detail, but Maslow basically said that man is motivated by a hierarchy of needs, starting from basic physical needs such as food and drink. Once these are satisfied, one progresses to creature comforts like a nice car and comfortable house, and then onto the emotional affiliation needs such as love and affection of family and friends, recognition of the community, and so on. Once all these are satisfied, one reaches the apex of motivational needs – the need for self actualization ie. the ability to fully realise one’s inherent potential.
Flashing back to the recent past, I review recent moments of satisfaction. Visit from close family friends (affiliation), playing with kids (same), progressing from being a non-swimmer to doing a few strokes in the pool (actualization?), resolving a somewhat complex problem at work (ditto), writing a piece for this blog (ditto). Hmmm…maybe Maslow had something there.
Hail Abraham Maslow, facilitator of introspection. Long may his memory live.
but doesn’t seem that.
Can we forward to night?
My cola’s gone flat.
Considering that life’s primary pursuit is happiness, it doesn’t seem I am making a spectacular success of it. At the moment, life seems a series of humdrum days and nights rolling on relentlessly. It is an age old river maintaining its steady course towards the sea, the still surface interrupted only briefly by little fish bobbing to the surface.
There was a time when I thought money would bring joy. An uncle, who is now no more, summed it pretty well when he once said to me, “Upto a point, money is the most important thing in life. Beyond that point, it is the least important thing.” I guess I am beyond the Point. I am neither the Monk who sold his Ferrari nor anywhere near being a millionaire. It is just that I know enough about money and myself to realise that having a million bucks land in my account overnight will not fundamentally alter my state of happiness.
In college, Behavioural Science was a subject hardly anyone took seriously, and generally considered a bit of gas providing relief amid tougher subjects. Looking back, I think it offered at least one powerful tool to understand motivation – the Maslow hierarchy. I don’t recall the finer detail, but Maslow basically said that man is motivated by a hierarchy of needs, starting from basic physical needs such as food and drink. Once these are satisfied, one progresses to creature comforts like a nice car and comfortable house, and then onto the emotional affiliation needs such as love and affection of family and friends, recognition of the community, and so on. Once all these are satisfied, one reaches the apex of motivational needs – the need for self actualization ie. the ability to fully realise one’s inherent potential.
Flashing back to the recent past, I review recent moments of satisfaction. Visit from close family friends (affiliation), playing with kids (same), progressing from being a non-swimmer to doing a few strokes in the pool (actualization?), resolving a somewhat complex problem at work (ditto), writing a piece for this blog (ditto). Hmmm…maybe Maslow had something there.
Hail Abraham Maslow, facilitator of introspection. Long may his memory live.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
To believe or not to believe
An interesting discussion about religion on ABC’s Q&A show last week stoked my thoughts on the subject.
I do not have a relationship with God. When at a temple or a religious occasion, I bow my head and fold hands, more to blend in with the crowd than for anything else. Just in case God actually exists and listens to prayers, I occasionally ask for something, usually quite general and relating to the world at large, rather than to a specific individual.
I do not scoff at the possibility of God’s existence, for people far better than I are convinced of it. It is just that I do not find his existence necessary to explain anything that I have experienced to date.
The general tendency to externalize our problems, instead of looking for solutions within, has always been a bit puzzling to me. Isn’t one better of spending more time studying to clear an exam rather than visiting a temple to pray for a successful result?
Many people I know approach God to ask for favours – “please let me pass this exam”, “please let me get through this job”, “please let me win the lottery”, etc. Occasionally, they even offer God a bribe. “If you get me through this exam, I will break a coconut”. “If I get selected for this job, I will donate my first salary to the temple, etc”.
If God does exist, and these offers do work, I am not sure what to make of Him. In a normal human being, this would attract corruption charges.
God shows himself in mysterious ways. When I was an MBA student, idols of the Lord Ganesha started sucking up milk offered by devotees over a few days, unleashing a wave of religious hysteria across India. The country was divided in its explanations of the phenomenon, ranging from scientific theories such as capillary action, to sheer divine magic.
I wish He would show himself in some more obvious way, like a giant vision seen worldwide, putting all argument to rest and enabling people to get on with at least one big question in their lives resolved.
If God does not exist, he must surely be by far the most humungous scam perpetrated on mankind. Imagine the enormity of time and money spent on this fabrication over the ages.
If he exists, I am sorry for the skepticism, and wish to say Hello.
I do not have a relationship with God. When at a temple or a religious occasion, I bow my head and fold hands, more to blend in with the crowd than for anything else. Just in case God actually exists and listens to prayers, I occasionally ask for something, usually quite general and relating to the world at large, rather than to a specific individual.
I do not scoff at the possibility of God’s existence, for people far better than I are convinced of it. It is just that I do not find his existence necessary to explain anything that I have experienced to date.
The general tendency to externalize our problems, instead of looking for solutions within, has always been a bit puzzling to me. Isn’t one better of spending more time studying to clear an exam rather than visiting a temple to pray for a successful result?
Many people I know approach God to ask for favours – “please let me pass this exam”, “please let me get through this job”, “please let me win the lottery”, etc. Occasionally, they even offer God a bribe. “If you get me through this exam, I will break a coconut”. “If I get selected for this job, I will donate my first salary to the temple, etc”.
If God does exist, and these offers do work, I am not sure what to make of Him. In a normal human being, this would attract corruption charges.
God shows himself in mysterious ways. When I was an MBA student, idols of the Lord Ganesha started sucking up milk offered by devotees over a few days, unleashing a wave of religious hysteria across India. The country was divided in its explanations of the phenomenon, ranging from scientific theories such as capillary action, to sheer divine magic.
I wish He would show himself in some more obvious way, like a giant vision seen worldwide, putting all argument to rest and enabling people to get on with at least one big question in their lives resolved.
If God does not exist, he must surely be by far the most humungous scam perpetrated on mankind. Imagine the enormity of time and money spent on this fabrication over the ages.
If he exists, I am sorry for the skepticism, and wish to say Hello.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Naked Truth
Early this morning, 5000 men and women posed naked for photographer Spencer Tunick at Sydney’s Opera House. They braved the dawn chill, standing in their birthday suits, obediently following the photographer’s every command. Imagine 5000 people with their clothes off, doing as you please. Wicked! All in the name of art, of course. The photo-shoot was commissioned by the committee in charge of the ongoing gay and lesbian festival, Mardi Gras.
More noteworthy than the event itself, was the public reaction to it. This ranged from some quiet chuckles with a couple of risqué jokes thrown in, to genuine appreciation for this expression of individual freedom and choice. In general, Sydneysiders took this in their stride as something completely acceptable, even if not everyone’s cup of tea.
I have been trying to imagine the scene if someone attempted a similar project in India. What a logistical nightmare it would be! The five thousand people in the picture would be completely outnumbered by another twenty thousand trying to get a look in. Actually, things would not even get that far. The moment word got around, a couple of political parties would see a ticket to extracting their mileage for the month. They would cry hoarse about the insult to Indian culture and vow to prevent the event. They would do this without any debate on the subject or even considering the possibility that there may be nothing sexual about it. The police machinery would have to be brought into play in full force, for the event to go ahead.
There will be debates on TV about freedom of expression and how much is too much. I can just visualize Barkha Dutt moderating an animated discussion with someone like Shabana Azmi on one side and some stuffy cleric on the other. The cleric would say in a huff. “If you want to take off your clothes and do mujra in this studio, go ahead – who am I stop you?”
If a bunch of people want to get their clothes off and pose for a picture in a peaceful manner in a matter of half an hour, why waste so much airtime on it? Just get it over with and move on.
* * * * *
It’s not just the traffic in the western world that is more orderly. Even the weather-gods seems to follow a strict timetable. March 1 is officially the end of summer and the onset of autumn. True to form, overnight, the nights have become nippy, and darkness hangs around much longer in the morning.
More noteworthy than the event itself, was the public reaction to it. This ranged from some quiet chuckles with a couple of risqué jokes thrown in, to genuine appreciation for this expression of individual freedom and choice. In general, Sydneysiders took this in their stride as something completely acceptable, even if not everyone’s cup of tea.
I have been trying to imagine the scene if someone attempted a similar project in India. What a logistical nightmare it would be! The five thousand people in the picture would be completely outnumbered by another twenty thousand trying to get a look in. Actually, things would not even get that far. The moment word got around, a couple of political parties would see a ticket to extracting their mileage for the month. They would cry hoarse about the insult to Indian culture and vow to prevent the event. They would do this without any debate on the subject or even considering the possibility that there may be nothing sexual about it. The police machinery would have to be brought into play in full force, for the event to go ahead.
There will be debates on TV about freedom of expression and how much is too much. I can just visualize Barkha Dutt moderating an animated discussion with someone like Shabana Azmi on one side and some stuffy cleric on the other. The cleric would say in a huff. “If you want to take off your clothes and do mujra in this studio, go ahead – who am I stop you?”
If a bunch of people want to get their clothes off and pose for a picture in a peaceful manner in a matter of half an hour, why waste so much airtime on it? Just get it over with and move on.
* * * * *
It’s not just the traffic in the western world that is more orderly. Even the weather-gods seems to follow a strict timetable. March 1 is officially the end of summer and the onset of autumn. True to form, overnight, the nights have become nippy, and darkness hangs around much longer in the morning.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Just another weekday
It is just another weekday, drawing to a close. It was one of those lazy days at the office, involving nothing more demanding than a couple of conversations and a few emails.
I am on the train, which is only 70% full giving its passengers the option of spreading their limbs around. A rather manly lady sharing my seat is talking loudly on her cellphone. About half the people aboard, myself included are busy with some electronic toy or the other – cellphone, laptop, iPod, etc. A few are reading books/newspapers, and a minority is engaged in actual conversation. Some are simply looking out of the window, and others staring at the seat in front.
In half an hour, I will be home, to the noise of two kids, and complaints about their behavior. Their mum will be distraught about one of them, and deeply concerned about his (lack of) future. The same boy, who was a source of great joy when born and later as a toddler, is now a cause for stress. This, I suppose, is the norm in families with growing kids.
After a hearty dinner, the boys and I settle down to the routine bedtime reading session. A story about an alligator who cannot get himself to eat a duck he befriends, and for the older one, two chapters from Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven series. My eight year old son points out the word “awkward” in a sentence, and remarks that if someone had the name Dr Awkward, one could spell his name backwards. I nod my head impatiently, wanting to get on with the story. My heart soars. Someone with such perception cannot have a doomed future.
One of the boys nods off, and I say goodnight to the other and ease out of the room. It is quiet time – I check email, and settle down on a sofa with a glass of red wine. My thoughts drift back to the swimming lesson earlier in the day.
I manage the front glide, and the paddling all right. I actually feel I am getting somewhere with my aquatic skills. Then we attempt to do the back float. This is a disaster. My backside just sinks towards the floor, as thought it has weights attached. The natural tendency of my body in the water while attempting to face up is to form a V with my bum as the vertex, and floating horizontally is impossible. The sinking bum gradually drags down the rest of the body with it, and water gets into my nostrils. I flail my arms and somehow, struggling, get back to a standing position, with my feet on the floor. I doubt whether I will ever be able to do this. “You are too stiff”, my trainer tells me. “Make your arms floppy”. I try again, with similar results. My trainer decides this will take me a while, and saying “You are a sinker. Fill your lungs with as much air as you can”, moves on to the next person. I must lick this. Perhaps some practice over the weekend will help.
I down the last sip of wine, and make my way upstairs to bed.
As always, my eyes beat the alarm. I play my routine time guessing game. What will it be – 6:12 or 6:13, something tells me. I glance at the clock – 6:12 it is. I retain my horizontal position, cherishing those last three minutes before the beeping of the alarm. When it beeps, I shall rise, and walk into the bathroom and just another weekday.
I am on the train, which is only 70% full giving its passengers the option of spreading their limbs around. A rather manly lady sharing my seat is talking loudly on her cellphone. About half the people aboard, myself included are busy with some electronic toy or the other – cellphone, laptop, iPod, etc. A few are reading books/newspapers, and a minority is engaged in actual conversation. Some are simply looking out of the window, and others staring at the seat in front.
In half an hour, I will be home, to the noise of two kids, and complaints about their behavior. Their mum will be distraught about one of them, and deeply concerned about his (lack of) future. The same boy, who was a source of great joy when born and later as a toddler, is now a cause for stress. This, I suppose, is the norm in families with growing kids.
After a hearty dinner, the boys and I settle down to the routine bedtime reading session. A story about an alligator who cannot get himself to eat a duck he befriends, and for the older one, two chapters from Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven series. My eight year old son points out the word “awkward” in a sentence, and remarks that if someone had the name Dr Awkward, one could spell his name backwards. I nod my head impatiently, wanting to get on with the story. My heart soars. Someone with such perception cannot have a doomed future.
One of the boys nods off, and I say goodnight to the other and ease out of the room. It is quiet time – I check email, and settle down on a sofa with a glass of red wine. My thoughts drift back to the swimming lesson earlier in the day.
I manage the front glide, and the paddling all right. I actually feel I am getting somewhere with my aquatic skills. Then we attempt to do the back float. This is a disaster. My backside just sinks towards the floor, as thought it has weights attached. The natural tendency of my body in the water while attempting to face up is to form a V with my bum as the vertex, and floating horizontally is impossible. The sinking bum gradually drags down the rest of the body with it, and water gets into my nostrils. I flail my arms and somehow, struggling, get back to a standing position, with my feet on the floor. I doubt whether I will ever be able to do this. “You are too stiff”, my trainer tells me. “Make your arms floppy”. I try again, with similar results. My trainer decides this will take me a while, and saying “You are a sinker. Fill your lungs with as much air as you can”, moves on to the next person. I must lick this. Perhaps some practice over the weekend will help.
I down the last sip of wine, and make my way upstairs to bed.
As always, my eyes beat the alarm. I play my routine time guessing game. What will it be – 6:12 or 6:13, something tells me. I glance at the clock – 6:12 it is. I retain my horizontal position, cherishing those last three minutes before the beeping of the alarm. When it beeps, I shall rise, and walk into the bathroom and just another weekday.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Taking Stock
For someone in the financial services sector, I can be accused of being rather lazy in regard to personal finances. My savings largely languish in the public provident fund and bank fixed deposits, struggling to keep pace with inflation. Thanks to peer pressure, I invested, with the aid of a housing loan, in an apartment in a multi-storeyed complex in Thane three years ago. That has been ‘nearing completion’ for an year now. But the price for this apartment-in-making has apparently risen significantly over this period, as prices for most things tend to do. It creates the illusion of a tidy profit, albeit on paper, which is a nice feeling to have.
My relationship with the stock market has been more of an occasional dalliance than an enduring romance. A couple of years into my working life, I decided it was time to get into this exciting area. I had no grand ambitions of quadrupling my original investment. Being fundamentally risk averse and having read the appropriate literature on the pitfalls of putting eggs in one basket, I decided that a mutual fund was the way to go. I think it was sometime in April 2000. I put a reasonable chunk of my modest savings into two mutual funds.
I could not have timed it worse. It was as though the stock market had carefully laid out an ambush for me. Almost from the day of my investment, the Sensex went into a spectacular dive, taking my mutual funds with it. I began taking a masochistic pleasure in seeing the erosion of my money in the daily papers. After a bloodbath lasting a year or so, my mutual funds seemed to have hit rock bottom, and lay there without heading in any particular direction, licking their wounds. My experience left me wanting to have nothing to do with this sort of crazy market. I sold pretty near the bottom, and exited.
Lesson1: It does not matter if your eggs are in one basket or many, when the whole damn cart carrying the baskets turns over.
Lesson2: At the moment of investment you don’t know whether you are near a trough or a peak, so unless you have the stomach for a wild ride, its best to spread your investments over time.
Time is a great healer, and sometime in 2005 I decided to re-enter the stock market, with the view that I was now financially better able to withstand shocks. The last episode had taught me the benefit of staggering investments over time rather than doing it in lump sums, and armed with this knowledge, I started investing small investments each month into a few select mutual funds. The concept of rupee cost averaging seemed to work, and this time, when the value of my holdings fell, I did not panic. The Global Financial Crisis happened in 2008, stocks/mutual funds got ravaged, and yet I did not exit. Now, the GFC has passed and the value of the funds is back to where it was and a little better.
Lesson 3: Although it may seem counter-intuitive, when all is crashing around you, it is time not to exit, but to get in deeper.
It was not until 2006-7 that I decided to put money directly into stocks. I chose five companies to own – four were either names that I had known to be good from prior personal experience, or just respectable companies that the man on the street would recognize. The fifth was a rank outsider, an obscure cotton yarn manufacturer in the deep south, which I was informed by a colleague, was sure to at least double in a few months. The first four in the whole made some modest gains over the course of 6 months. The cotton yarn manufacturer dropped value by half, and threatened to go lower, when I decided I had enough and dumped it. I sold all my shares before leaving India, thinking I would have a fair bit on my mind with having to settle down in a new country, and lack the time or inclination to follow the Indian market on a regular basis.
Lesson 4: Don’t buy on tips, especially if you never knew of the company’s existence before.
It is now two and a half years since I owned any shares, and just last week, I decided it was time to renew the sporadic affair. The approach, even now, is not rocket scientific, and simply to shortlist “enduring, solid” companies which have been in business for years, and offer no reason to believe that they will not do well in the foreseeable future. From these, identify those which appear to be going cheap i.e. trading nearer a low than a high, based on their stock price over the last few years. I have placed my chips on the table, fastened the seat belt, and leaned back to enjoy the ride.
My relationship with the stock market has been more of an occasional dalliance than an enduring romance. A couple of years into my working life, I decided it was time to get into this exciting area. I had no grand ambitions of quadrupling my original investment. Being fundamentally risk averse and having read the appropriate literature on the pitfalls of putting eggs in one basket, I decided that a mutual fund was the way to go. I think it was sometime in April 2000. I put a reasonable chunk of my modest savings into two mutual funds.
I could not have timed it worse. It was as though the stock market had carefully laid out an ambush for me. Almost from the day of my investment, the Sensex went into a spectacular dive, taking my mutual funds with it. I began taking a masochistic pleasure in seeing the erosion of my money in the daily papers. After a bloodbath lasting a year or so, my mutual funds seemed to have hit rock bottom, and lay there without heading in any particular direction, licking their wounds. My experience left me wanting to have nothing to do with this sort of crazy market. I sold pretty near the bottom, and exited.
Lesson1: It does not matter if your eggs are in one basket or many, when the whole damn cart carrying the baskets turns over.
Lesson2: At the moment of investment you don’t know whether you are near a trough or a peak, so unless you have the stomach for a wild ride, its best to spread your investments over time.
Time is a great healer, and sometime in 2005 I decided to re-enter the stock market, with the view that I was now financially better able to withstand shocks. The last episode had taught me the benefit of staggering investments over time rather than doing it in lump sums, and armed with this knowledge, I started investing small investments each month into a few select mutual funds. The concept of rupee cost averaging seemed to work, and this time, when the value of my holdings fell, I did not panic. The Global Financial Crisis happened in 2008, stocks/mutual funds got ravaged, and yet I did not exit. Now, the GFC has passed and the value of the funds is back to where it was and a little better.
Lesson 3: Although it may seem counter-intuitive, when all is crashing around you, it is time not to exit, but to get in deeper.
It was not until 2006-7 that I decided to put money directly into stocks. I chose five companies to own – four were either names that I had known to be good from prior personal experience, or just respectable companies that the man on the street would recognize. The fifth was a rank outsider, an obscure cotton yarn manufacturer in the deep south, which I was informed by a colleague, was sure to at least double in a few months. The first four in the whole made some modest gains over the course of 6 months. The cotton yarn manufacturer dropped value by half, and threatened to go lower, when I decided I had enough and dumped it. I sold all my shares before leaving India, thinking I would have a fair bit on my mind with having to settle down in a new country, and lack the time or inclination to follow the Indian market on a regular basis.
Lesson 4: Don’t buy on tips, especially if you never knew of the company’s existence before.
It is now two and a half years since I owned any shares, and just last week, I decided it was time to renew the sporadic affair. The approach, even now, is not rocket scientific, and simply to shortlist “enduring, solid” companies which have been in business for years, and offer no reason to believe that they will not do well in the foreseeable future. From these, identify those which appear to be going cheap i.e. trading nearer a low than a high, based on their stock price over the last few years. I have placed my chips on the table, fastened the seat belt, and leaned back to enjoy the ride.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Bondi and New Year
Thanks to our visiting friends from Mumbai, the Jalans, we got to dip our toes in the water of Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach a couple of weeks back. After a two hour long journey using three modes of public transport, the family and our visitors arrived at the famous destination.
There is no denying the atmosphere. There is something about milling crowds exhibiting generally friendly behaviour that adds to the charm of a place. Add to this the clear bluish green water, surf, cafes and shopping in the vicinity, and it is not hard to see why it is the city’s favourite beach destination, for serious surfers and casual picnickers.
The beach itself is a ten minute walk long crescent of sand, flanked by a rocky cliff at one end and a similar shelf on the other. The water was rather cold, as it tends to be in this part of the world, particularly for those looking for nothing more adventurous than a quick toe dip. However that did not seem to deter surfing and swimming enthusiasts. Mr Jalan though, was possibly a tad disappointed, as we did not come across anyone who was not at least slightly clothed.
It was a rather active end to the year, from a sight seeing perspective. In the space of two weeks we covered what we might normally do in 6 months – Gold Coast, Bondi, Jenolan Caves, and New Year’s Eve at Sydney Harbour. Hosting visitors who are committed to ticking off as many places as possible in a compressed timeframe shakes people out of their travel inertia.
For anyone who is planning a visit to Australia/Sydney, do not leave without a visit to the Jenolan Caves which is a 2.5 hour drive from Sydney. An overview of the wonders on offer is available on their website. The place is awesome and highly recommended.
2009 was the year in which I
• Saw the coral in the Great Barrier Reef
• Snorkeled for the first time
• Went on the insane Jet Rescue ride in Seaworld
• Experienced the acoustics of the Cathedral Chamber in Lucas Cave, Jenolan
• Had a palm reader in Jaipur tell me I will go back to India
• Truly got addicted to dark chocolate and acquired a liking for red wine
• Went on Facebook
• Started writing this blog
Have a great 2010.
There is no denying the atmosphere. There is something about milling crowds exhibiting generally friendly behaviour that adds to the charm of a place. Add to this the clear bluish green water, surf, cafes and shopping in the vicinity, and it is not hard to see why it is the city’s favourite beach destination, for serious surfers and casual picnickers.
The beach itself is a ten minute walk long crescent of sand, flanked by a rocky cliff at one end and a similar shelf on the other. The water was rather cold, as it tends to be in this part of the world, particularly for those looking for nothing more adventurous than a quick toe dip. However that did not seem to deter surfing and swimming enthusiasts. Mr Jalan though, was possibly a tad disappointed, as we did not come across anyone who was not at least slightly clothed.
It was a rather active end to the year, from a sight seeing perspective. In the space of two weeks we covered what we might normally do in 6 months – Gold Coast, Bondi, Jenolan Caves, and New Year’s Eve at Sydney Harbour. Hosting visitors who are committed to ticking off as many places as possible in a compressed timeframe shakes people out of their travel inertia.
For anyone who is planning a visit to Australia/Sydney, do not leave without a visit to the Jenolan Caves which is a 2.5 hour drive from Sydney. An overview of the wonders on offer is available on their website. The place is awesome and highly recommended.
2009 was the year in which I
• Saw the coral in the Great Barrier Reef
• Snorkeled for the first time
• Went on the insane Jet Rescue ride in Seaworld
• Experienced the acoustics of the Cathedral Chamber in Lucas Cave, Jenolan
• Had a palm reader in Jaipur tell me I will go back to India
• Truly got addicted to dark chocolate and acquired a liking for red wine
• Went on Facebook
• Started writing this blog
Have a great 2010.
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