The Travels of Ibn Battuta

I've heard a lot of this. Further than Marco Polo, the Moroccan man who started his journey towards Makkah for Hajj in 1325 and ended up not coming home until 30 years later. I heard references to it in a few places and one day a few months ago, I found this treasure at a car boot sales. For 2 quids, I got the abridged version (abridge is better for such a long book) in English translation. It proves to be a good and it's quite amazing to reflect on the sort of things that he saw and described from his journey. Covering North Africa, Middle East, Eastern Europe and most of Asia, the narrative is detailed and quite vivid.

A few interesting things I noticed; total lack of racial-biased perspective, what we consider modern now are not that new actualy - some things have been around for a very long time, China is more opened that we thought, human species' ability to survive is admirable, don't worry about too much details - just move on!

That's travel in my book....round the world trip should come soon!

Happy New Year 2011

I was awake past midnight on the 31st of December 2010 but I totally missed the actual moment.  It was just a non-event I guess.  Someone reminded me an hour before midnight about it but that was it.

Why do we celebrate new years and not new months or new weeks or new days (for that matter new hours, new minutes and new seconds)?  The significance of it is lost to me now.  I remember the moments, more than 15 years ago when I was at Trafalgar Square on the new year, walking along the embankment to Westminster, to Hyde Park Corner....more than 20 years ago riding a bike with the national flag across Sungai Petani at midnight when the whole town was 'blacked-out' for a minute (that used to be the trend in my hometown, done by the good folks at LLN - now TNB) etc.  But why?  Because everyone does it?  Because it's a good excuse to stay up late (that's my kids' reason)...? Because it's fun?  Because of the fireworks?  I honestly don't know.  It's just a good excuse to celebrate would be my guess.

How to celebrate?  A different question altogether albeit the more important one.  This is the question to which the right answer is important.  Need to find out how.