Ponto de Vista

Earlier this month, I went overlanding for the first time. What’s that? It’s defined like this: “Overlanding is self-reliant overland travel to remote destinations where the journey is the principal goal.”

Seven of us got on a modified truck (called Bonnie, a beautiful orange BharatBenz), while her twin (Clyde, of course!) followed us (tricked out with loos, showers, hot water on one side and a kitchen on the other) and went from Jaipur to Gurgaon (where we were stopped by curious cops at every intersection, it seemed), on to Rishikesh, where we stayed in a room by the Ganges, then further up the mountains, following the Alaknanda river past Rudraprayag and Devprayag to Chopta, Uttarakhand. Here we stopped for two nights and camped amidst rhododendron trees, (more…)

#throwback Google has helpfully reminded me that we were in Vik, Iceland, on this day four years ago, on (more…)

Cry, Mumbai, cry. #depressing #nature #irony #sad

A post shared by chhavi sachdev (@chhavi_sachdev) on Nov 17, 2015 at 9:04pm PST

https://www.instagram.com/p/7pHrxungKK/?taken-by=chhavi_sachdev #travel #portugal #fall2015

My new favorite town. It has a street of cats! 🙂 #coimbra #travel #portugal #gatos

A post shared by chhavi sachdev (@chhavi_sachdev) on Aug 26, 2015 at 3:51am PDT

Sal trees reflected in a cast iron kadhai over a wood stove at Narmohan Das’ silk home-industry. The boiling water is going to be used to make dye from harad – a bitter dried seed pod used as a digestive in triphala and churan. Handwoven fabric is dipped into it, allowed to rest, and then hung up to dry. The resulting silk is a  beautifully muted charcoal gray – absolutely my favorite color.
#Assam #travel #handmade #handicrafts #India #silk #natural

A teeny tiny, fully ripe, totally sweet watermelon from my mother’s terrace vine. July 2013.

Even in white, there is color. This moulin (or mill) is maybe a few hundred years old, but could have formed overnight, too. And there are rich veins of blue, compacted ice exposed as the hole widens. Breathtaking.
(Breiðamerkurjökull glacier tongue, near Jökulsárlón, Iceland, October, 2013)

There are sunsets, and then there are sunsets when just for a brief slice of time you feel humbled and breathless from being bathed in this kind of ineffable beauty.

Some time last year, the road by the Radio Club in Colaba was festooned with these. I don’t think I’ve ever needed to use the word ‘festooned’ before but it’s the only one that fits. The little globes are, of course, marigolds – definitely the coolest genda phool collection I’ve seen.