This is the personal blog of Amit Karmakar about web, mac & life in Sydney, Australia
I just got mail and am all too excited to share it with you…
…we have seen some amazing monuments from mosques and Hindu and Jain temples to the unforgettable Taj Mahal as well as the narrow alleys of old Delhi including a spice market. Tomorrow we head to a national park to try to spot some tigers — apparently quite rare to see…
Before I embark on writing another personal anecdotal sojourn I had better warned my readers that this might well be yet another unfinished write up… given the fact there are only twenty four measly hours of which I usually sleep seven, work eight, travel two, eat, rest and mac-about… there is not enough time to do much. I’m lagging behind in keeping up my site looking pretty and posting photos I’ve recently shot in Viêtnam and Brunei.
And another lovely holiday has gone by in a moments blink. Vietnam was a blast, and so was Brunei. Really-really nice. Honyea, Ros, David and I flew Royal Brunei Airlines in and out of Sydney. Quite an experience! 
But I’ll get to that later.
Continue reading ‘Saigon, here we come’
We’re back from a fantastic trip to Viêtnam, the old the new, from Ho-Chi-Minh City, Siagon right up to Hanoi and then of course to the richest country in the world… Brunei gee whiz what a good time was had by us all. I shot up 17 Gig’s and the Epson P2000 was a big help.
Across the rice paddy on our way back from Halong Bay to Hanoi (north Viêtnam).
Looking over chinabay at De-Nang on the way to Hue through the meandering mountain roads.
I’ll have some exciting stories for you soon. My only regret is that I truly forgot to buy one of those beautiful conical hats in Viêtnam. Rumour has it that only women wear ‘conical hats’ in Viêtnam but am pretty sanguine I saw loads of men wearing ‘em too.
Ho Chi Minh City, Cu Chi tunnels, the Cham Museum, Marble Mountain and China Beach en route the delightful fishing town of Hoi An, exploring its narrow streets filled with historic buildings, tailors and inviting restaurants, historic Hue for its splendid tombs, ornate pagodas and the remains of a once magnificent Imperial Citadel, overnight cruise on the scenic Halong Bay also known as the Jewel of the Bay, dotted with thousands of limestone islands and hidden grottos, Hanoi’s Old Quarter, the Temple of Literature, the History Museum and Ngoc Son temple oh I can barely contain my excitement, a few weeks from now, we’re headed to Vietnam for two weeks.
Soon the tiny little spot(representing our aircraft) on the map spotted very close to the International date line. I sat back up in my seat, craned my neck a bit just in case my eyes would meet a big thick metal line engraved with the words ‘International Date Line‘. Silly, I know! But the excitement of the moment had long surpassed the reality of geography. I was thinking of words and phrases like antipode, 180°, GMT, Prime Meridian, Pi’s journey. I was excited. Very Excited. And as of this very moment we were flying over it. First time ever. Mary looked at me and could tell how very excited I was: Well, she said with a smile, I don’t think you’d get a certificate for crossing the date line. We had a laugh but I was still excited. I had momentarily stopped listening to the Jazz, the organs in my body were confussed, some were in the tomorrow and some in the yesterday and the remaining very confussingly in the present! How Bizarre!
Continue reading ‘International Date Line’
It was time to board soon and I walked in as seating area 2 was called. David had booked lovely aisle seats for long flights. The walk through the first class, business and then onto Economy is really a tease! In a while I saw a couple come up and stood infront of me. Mary, had a lovely soft and peaceful smile. Our eyes met… I kind of gestured: Are these your seats? Mary softly replied: I’m afraid so! Soon we were taxing for take-off and we were air-borne. It was noisy! But Mary and I got chatting and much before we knew… we were cruising over Fiji at thirty-four thousand feet, very close to sunset as I noticed through the small window next to Chuck, Mary’s husband. Sunset hues over relatively unpolluted almost pristine air is breath-taking. These are things a photographer craves to capture. Unfortunately, I couldn’t shoot any picture during my flight but I wasn’t very keen either!
It was the 3rd of March 2006, the day of my travel to America. I was all packed and ready to go to a land of new experiences, new adventure. I was about to embark on a journey that would take me coast to coast, southern to the northern Hemisphere, over the great wide pacific, the international date line, and meet many amazing people. David had taken half day off from work to take me to the airport. On reaching the airport my heart raced faster. I was leaving Australia, soon I would walk past the immigration line. Oh I can be a worry wart sometimes(only very rarely), in this I do justice to my dad. We had a nice Oporto meal and soon enough it was time to part 
- excited, yet sad, nervous yet happy. I checked in, I could see David wave me goodbye. The lady checking me in asked if I’d packed my bags myself, Of-course i didn’t. I never do. LOL. soon I got 3 boarding passes. Sydney to San Francisco was the first one… Wait for the rest.. :). It was time to go through the immigration now.
Creativity has many wild forms and all of them are mostly unique… here is Yasuhisa Hasegawa’s quick reaction to say Cheese, whats yours?
The flight from Raleigh Durham North Carolina was nice. It was sad to leave Nan. We have had a great week indeed and good length of travelling too. Hopefully there will be more of it. This afternoon I boarded the narrowest plane ever known to man (no thats not a complaint). If I stood in the aisle and stretched my hands I would be able to touch the sides of the plane no kidding. It was an American Eagle an alliance of American Airlines.
We all ended up at Nan’s school to see the young’uns and we had a grand time. I reckon there was near ’bout 150 kids in that school. And they all wanted to hug and kiss the strange fellow from Australia. Two of the boys Zack and Daniel took me around the school to show me all the thangs. They are fledgling photographers. I met the Secretary Daphne and she told me that she was from South Caroliiiiiiiiiiina and she liked it there, in her very strong southern drawl. Its late here now, off to bed, ya’ll have a bless night.
Chicago is a fun fun city. Oh there is SO MUCH to do in Chicago and so much fun to be had… since we are in Omni on magnificient mile right in the heart of Chicago we could get upto a a lot during the day…
We have to get up early and leave for the airport and we have breakfast with Arun and his family so will keep this short. We fly into Memphis Tennessee with a layover of an hour-ish and then head on to Raleigh Durham and then on to Pollocksville in the coastal county of the beautiful North Carolina. USA is very diverse and friendly. I am bubbling with so many things to write and share but for the moment let me link you to nans update and photoslide for the day.
We’re in Chicago now. Got in here a bit after 11pm last night after all the ordeal at the Raleigh airport. We were delayed by a few hours but we kept ourselves very busy both at RDU airport and on the flight. This is the first time I flew American Airlines a spacious S80 on the exit aisle. The flight was really smooth. Flying into a space totally filled with snow… though I have experienced snow before but never in this abundance and no never in spring… there was a 2 inch(or more) layer of snow on almost everything… we met Arun and he dropped us at the Omni in Magnificient mile where we are now… gosh this is a gorgeous place. We are on 24th floor overlooking a fair bit of Chicago CBD, magnificient mile and soon we will be going out again in the cold and snow but I can’t wait to do it. Its still snowing as I look out the window now. Its an amazing experience to be here in Chicago, the home to beautiful architecture, Sears tower (the tallest in North America), Oprah and so much more…
In less than half hour from now we are off to Detroit and then on to chicago for a few days. more update to follow soon.
We are now confirmed to fly into Chicago at 9pm if the weather is good. Snowstorm cancelled our last flight.
Update: 
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