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  • Impressions of Chennai: Protecting Buildings from the Evil Eye

    There’s lots of construction underway in Chennai, and one thing the visitor notices early on is that larger construction sites tend to have a scarecrow-like dummy – clothing filled with straw, with a cloth head attached – strapped up somewhere prominent.  If you look closer, you’ll also see a round yellow disc (in most cases),

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  • R.A. Puram, Chennai in Photos

    There’s something both scary and exciting when you get off a plane in a strange foreign country, knowing you’re going to spend the next two years of your life here, whether you like it or not.  The first thing that hits you is the humidity.  Then, all your bags collected, you head into town and

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  • The Mars Reality Show Has Begun!

    If you haven’t heard about the private-sector “Mars One” project to colonize Mars, you should check it out – I posted about it back in April.    The project envisions being largely financed by the proceeds of a reality show to eventually beam back to Earth as the 7 billion of us who stay behind

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  • Namibia: Skeleton Coast and Damaraland

    Although we’ve just moved to India, waiting for our things to arrive means there’s time to finally catch up on those blog posts I didn’t have time to do while we were getting ready to leave Namibia. This is the final trip we took within Namibia, a country that is far too large to be

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  • Chennai Snake Park

    One of India’s few urban national parks sits in the center of Chennai. Guindy National Park, India’s 8th smallest national park, is also host to a snake park. The Chennai Snake Park Trust, founded in 1972 by American herpetologist Romulus Whitaker, is a fun place to spend a few hours and check out not only

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