Sticky in Chennai

I miss the frangiapani floral fragrance, the coconut water so subtly sweet and the chirping geckos of our life in Chennai.  But we are back home in Hoboken, NJ USA.  Here are some snapshots of our Memorial Day weekend, the first long weekend holiday of the summer.  In the U.S. this marks the beginning of the summer travel season.

These photos are from our reader Anand who lives in Hyderabad.  You can check out his blog at http://settingmeup.blogspot.com.

More reader photos coming soon...

 

Esmerelda and I have been having a wonderful time with our Blog.  One of the funnest aspects has been the sporadic but usually quite interesting comments from all of our readers.  In fact, getting readers' comments has been one of the most rewarding aspects of blogging.  But as of late we have been hungry for some reader interaction that goes beyond simple comments.  Hence, we would like to invite you, our readers, to send us a snap shot of either yourselves, your window view, your neck of the woods, your fluffy companion, or anything else you would like to share to tapuch@hotmail.com.  We will take the best of our readers' snap shots and share them with all of you here at stickyinchennai.  We look forward to opening our in-box. 

- Yitzy and Esmerelda

Esmerelda sitting at Chennai's perhaps too progressive vegetarian health food paradise Aiwa.  Worth a visit, I liked it a lot, but Esmerelda was under whelmed as usual.  She has very high standards.  As you can tell she looks unimpressed in the photo.  At Aiwa a convey belt brings you an unlimited supply of small but quite yummy portions of vegetarian fair.

This is actually a statue of Tara, the so-called 'female buddha' but you get the idea.

A fruit stand on the side of the road in this rural area. Cashew nut is being sold in its natural fruit state. I did not recognize it never having seen cashew anywhere but in a bag in a grocery store.
The nut is the swirl at the end of the yellow fruit. I was told it was an acquired taste by my guide. I was not hungry and feeling very hot (41C) so was not in the mood to try. I think my guide wanted to go home.
Not that rural, but as rural as I saw in my travel in Cambodia.
Nothing exciting about Cambodian food, but being vegetarian, I wasn't able to order 99% of each menu. They do eat insects there, including hairy spiders, but obviously they are a part of the animal kingdom and thus excluded from my menu.
Very nice presentations of food

Silk worms at work at a Cambodian handicraft silk weaving center on International Labor Day - so no humans were working, only non-humans who can't help but work when they are worms spinning cocoons. Instinct.
Looking a bit more natural than the pretty spinning wheel of spinning cocoons.
Worms eating so they can spin silk for me. We have been to a number of silk weaving mini-factories in a few countries now. Cambodia was the only one that gave some credit and display area for the worms.
The silk worm display room for tourists. I was not able to buy any silk in the silk shop they had at the center. I tried hard to like something but couldn't force myself.

There's my guide helping me size the trees at this temple in the Angkor Wat area.  This temple was really nice on its own but also because few tourists were at this temple.

Same temple different person.

They are alike alien octopus devouring the temples.  They are all a kind of banyan tree, the specific name which I cannot remember anymore, something with an 's'.

They have a beautiful silver color and glow, making them appear a bit artificial, especially in sunset light.

In moonlight it must appear extra creepy.

They are part of the beauty but also a part of the destruction of the temples.

A group of nuns and some other people.  It is not often one sees elderly people in Cambodia.  Life expectancy is about 55 years old.

For a country profile:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/country_profiles/...