Destination: India

R.I.P. Ali Akbar Khan, Indian Musician

Ali Akbar Khan REUTERS/Adam Tanner
Ali Akbar Khan. REUTERS/Adam Tanner

The Bengali-born musician, who died last week at the age of 87, was regarded by many as a genius who helped popularize Indian classical music around the globe. He played the 25-string sarod.

When he arrived in the U.S. half a century ago, many he encountered were confounded by his origins.

He told Asia Week:

“When I came in ’55, because I was in Indian dress, people on the street in New York came out of the bars and shops and followed us. They asked me, ‘Who are you? Where are you from?’ When I said, ‘India,’ some of them didn’t even know where it was. Or others who knew I was a musician asked funny questions like, ‘How can you play music in India with all the tigers and snakes and monkeys you have to fight off?’”

Here he performs via YouTube:

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Tags: Music, Asia, India, R.I.P.

Jammu, India

A boy and buffalo cool themselves in the Tawi river on a hot summer's day in Jammu.

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Seven Images to Inspire Wanderlust: From Nicaragua to New Delhi

Cerro Negro volcano, Leon City, Nicaragua REUTERS

Indulge your armchair traveler with seven wanderlust-inspiring travel photos from around the world

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Danny Boyle Can’t Quit You, Mumbai

Danny Boyle Can’t Quit You, Mumbai Photo by babasteve via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Photo by babasteve via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Yup, the Indian city has its hooks in the Oscar-winning director of “Slumdog Millionaire,” and it isn’t letting go. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Boyle has bought the film rights to Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, Suketu Mehta’s Pulitzer-nominated travelogue about Mumbai’s seedy, sometimes-violent subcultures: dirty cops, exotic dancers, religious hitmen and more.

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The Heat Seeker: Spicier, Please!

The Heat Seeker: Spicier, Please! iStockphoto

Alison Stein Wellner likes her food hot and spicy. To find out how hot and spicy, she searched the world for heat. Part three of five: Into Kumarakom.

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The Heat Seeker: ‘This Raita Will Be Your Savior’

The Heat Seeker: ‘This Raita Will Be Your Savior’ Photo by Swami Stream via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Alison Stein Wellner likes her food hot and spicy. To find out how hot and spicy, she searched the world for heat. Part two of five: Getting Hot in Mumbai.

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Video: Alison Stein Wellner: The Heat Seeker

Alison Stein Wellner traveled around the world to eat the hottest food she could handle, a quest she chronicled for World Hum

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Don’t Forget to Splurge!

Don’t Forget to Splurge! Photo by Carlton Browne via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Photo by Carlton Browne via Flickr (Creative Commons)

For me, part of the fun of budget travel is the chance to loosen the purse strings once in a while and drop some cash on a worthwhile splurge.

Whether that means a night in a plush hotel room after weeks of hosteling, a spa day, or a way-out-of-my-price-range meal, I generally find some way to treat myself once during any budget-conscious trip—and, I figure, I appreciate my reward that much more than if I’d been pampering myself all along. It doesn’t have to be about spending a lot of money, either. My favorite travel splurge of all time cost just $15.

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Mathura, India

Mathura, India REUTERS/K.K. Arora

A rickshaw driver rides in the rain as he transports school children in the northern Indian city of Mathura.

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Odd Jobs: Interview With the Pigeon Chaser

Odd Jobs: Interview With the Pigeon Chaser Photo by David Farley

David Farley meets the man behind a hotel's pigeon-free zone in Jaipur, India

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Dhaka Outskirts, Bangladesh

Dhaka REUTERS/Andrew Biraj

A woman and her child carry drinking water back to their slum house in the outskirts of Dhaka.

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Six Great Women Travelers in Asia

iStockPhoto

March is Women’s History Month, so this seems a good moment to call out a few of history’s great women travelers. Because so many 19th- and early 20th-century adventurers found themselves drawn to Asia, I’ve narrowed this list to women who made their mark on that continent, fording the Indus River or crossing the Tibetan Plateau, in defiance of social norms and often at great risk. These are the women I wish I’d been in another life. Herewith, my top-six list of the most intrepid Western female travelers to take Asia by foot, camel or donkey.

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An End for Kashmir’s ‘Mughal Palaces on Water’?

An End for Kashmir’s ‘Mughal Palaces on Water’? Photo by shahbasharat via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Photo by shahbasharat via Flickr (Creative Commons)

The beautifully carved wooden houseboats, which are area icons, date to the 19th century, when they shielded British officials from the subcontinent’s penetrating summers. Today, tourists rent the houseboats on Dal Lake, which, though seemingly lovely, is actually a dumping ground for untreated sewage.

To combat the pollution, Kashmir’s provincial government has asked houseboat owners to install pricey sewage treatment on the vessels within 90 days or face a shutdown, The Guardian reports. But the houseboat owners, many of whom live below the poverty line, say they can’t afford the units. “The government should pay for the sewage treatment units, or it should put all the 850 houseboats together and blow them up with one big bomb,” lamented Mohammed Azam Tuman, president of the Houseboats and Shikara Owners Association.

 


Sonamura, India

Sonamura, India REUTERS/Jayanta Dey

A farmer works in a Paan or betel leaf garden in Sonamura village, south of Agartala, capital of India's northeastern state of Tripura.

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Slumming It: Can Slum Tourism Be Done Right?

Dharavi, Mumbai REUTERS/Punit Paranjpe

Global Positioning: On the intersection of place, politics and culture

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