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I read a decent about of fantasy but I have never read fantasy based on India. Tasha Suri's Burning Kingdoms is a refreshing read, it takes the genre and contextualizes it in Indian culture. Here the two women protagonists are fighting but they wear saris, wear flower garlands. The food mentions rotis, halwas. The worship/religion is similar to Hindu religion but never explicitly stated. The place and other references are based on Indian lingo, examples - Parijatdvipa, Malini, Priya and Yaksa. The feel of this book is Indian and that is what motivated me to pick it and I would recommend the series.
The Jasmine throne starts when Malini is exiled by her brother to a remote place in the empire because she would not burn herself, that is sacrifice herself, for a prophecy that was foretold many eons ago. It is a form of imprisonment. The book touches a lot of patriarchal subjects without making them obvious. In this prison, Malini meets Priya who is assigned to take care of her. Priya is part of a old tribe who had magical powers and she can still feel the magic in herself.
The magic system of Burning Kingdoms is really well done. It is based on nature. People are infected by a rot - that is they are turning into trees. Skins gets converted into tree-bark like texture, veins into plant-veins, leaves and flowers sprout from body's spores. It is wholesome, easy to visualize and builds nicely. Then there is deathless water, a secret place where you take three dips, each dip either kills you or gives you stronger magical powers. There is training to improve your strength to pass these water-tests.
Tasha Suri builds the magic system gradually and her prose is awesome. Pages flip faster. The book is part of Sapphic fantasy genre - a subgenre of speculative fiction that features women-loving-women (WLW ) or nonbinary people in prominent roles. (I learnt about it recently). It is a love story of Priya and Malini against this backdrop of this magic system and evil logic of burning women.
Fire and water occur frequently and play the role of power/revenge vs strength through the book. There are a lot of good subtle touches throughout the book - nameless gods, prophecies and a lot of politics, and diplomacy weaved in.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book and that convinced me to read the trilogy.
As trilogies go, books 2 and 3 expand on the world building. Where does the magic system come from? Why does the rot happen? As our main characters are going through their journey of self discoveries, sometimes, they find success, sometimes they hit roadblocks. Patience is tested, plans are re-drawn. And in between all of this, there is a longing between the two characters when they are not together and more so, when they are. The society has not accepted woman-woman relationship and they have to hide. Then, there is also the power dynamic - one wants to become an empress, other is a citizen of the empire. Tasha Suri, weaves all these into the plots neatly - the story keeps developing as these themes are explored.
I really liked the world building expansion. The magic system comes from these god-like beings called Yasksa who are celestial beings who once ruled the earth but were killed. Now, they are coming back. As they come back, they have to take human bodies and there are nice inner-monologues on the meaning of human forms for celestial beings. The magic system goes from a celebrated power to a curse because Yaksa are the new threat - they want to rule the world.
I also really liked the politics that goes. A woman to become an empress in the man's world - that does not go well. And there are different shades of it. They are those who support her claim unconditionally. Then there are those who want to remove the evil brother but are not sure of her claim. There are those who support her claim but are not ok with her proximity to the magic system/Priya, Each of these factions have their own political games and Malini dances around them.
By the end of book two, Malini has become the empress and Priya's magical powers are at its peak. But Priya has tried to kill Malini unsuccessfully, So, they are apart now. Book three is about how they eventually come together to destroy the Yaksas.
Book three opens with a strong velocity and I was gripped. But once they hit the early failures, the book takes time gets its pieces back. Somethings work - the Yaksa and anything related to them works for me. But the other things feel ingenuine - example - a character leaves to search for a way to kill or slow down Yaksa and then finds something as the very first thing. No struggle, no challenge. It is the very first thing they stumble into. Some characters who were introduced in book 2, do not show up strongly in book 3.
Tasha Suri manages to conclude nicely. The conclusion is logical, ties many plot points, bring closure and also our two characters end up together. It is a happy fantasy ending - one that is meant to be.
Overall, the writing is tight, good pace and very relatable. I think for the first time, I felt that I am reading fantasy and I can relate to the universe of this. It feel personal and real. That the Indian culture can be used as the base was known but no one had done it (at-least I had not read so far) . I liked the books and I would definitely recommend.
Day 6 - Puerto Maldonado - Tambopata (JunglePro Lodge)
We had booked JunglePro's 3 nights Tambopata tour of Amazon rainforest. As part of this, they provide airport pickup/drop, lodging inside rainforest and various rainforest activities. Amazon rainforest is huge and it borders almost all latin American countries, a small part of it is in Peru. In Peru, there are two places to see the rainforest - Iquitos and Puerto Maldonado. We chose this because of easier connectivity.
We landed in Maldonado in the morning and were escorted to the JunglePro Lodge's base station. We had some time before another group had to come so we went to Plaza de Armas of Puerto Maldonado (where else). There we had our brunch - all local street food. One of the famous street food breakfast in Peru is potato+eggs - two boiled potatoes + two boiled eggs with some mint/mustard sauce. It is healthy and tasty. We also had empanadas. The veg options are few but they are ok. We also had flan :)
We had a group of 4 other girls from Guam - an American colony near Taiwan. Our guide was a rainforest localite who learnt English. His name was Freddy and he was amazing - lot of jungle knowledge and stories.
Our day 1 was a 3 hr boat ride on the Tambopata river to get to the jungle lodge. Along the way, we saw largest rodents on earth - capybaras. We also saw turtle, reptiles etc. JunglePro's lodge is very well built - reminded me of the JungleLodges in Karnataka. They take care of food, stay, wooden based cottages with mosquito protection.
At night, we had our first activity - Jungle nightwalk. Freedy led us into the dark forest. Forest is alive, lot of sounds at night. We had to wear gumboots - the trail was sludgy, and applied some mosquito repellants. Freddy carried a special UV torch - animals like scorpions can not be seen with naked eye but they light up under UV light. We saw tarantulas, large spiders, spider-webs, large ants, and many other animals.
One of the best part of the JunglePro lodge were its meals. We had the best meal here of the entire trip. They would feed us breakfast, lunch dinner. Lunch or dinner had rice and dal - black masoor dal is a staple there. Having dal-chawal in peru was heavenly and it was well made. Since we had shared that we are vegetarians, they would make special dishses for us - sometimes mushrooms, sometimes sauted vegetables They had different salads, potatoes, tofu etc. After a long activity, we would have food and sleep peacefully. The food, stay, nature really reminded me of River Tern
They also had a bar counter where you had to pay for drinks. Interestingly, the payment was to be in cash only and that too in dollars. I have rarely seen a country accepting dollars instead of their own currency as cash.
There was no cellphone reception, but they had wifi, so Whatsapp calling was possible.
Day 7 - Macaws eating clay
Day 7 began at 3 am. We had to leave the lodge at 330, travel up the river for 3 hrs to reach a clay hill. There, in the morning, colorful Macaws come to lick clay. Clay is natural detox. Macaws lick clay to neutralize acids and other minerals that is their in their wild diet.
For the 330 am boat ride, the lodge guys gave us blankets. Thankfully, we had our jackets. When the cool breeze hit our faces, we slept. It is amazing how the boat guy navigated the river current. The river is not clean, so navigating the debris without daylight was a challenge. But these folks are pro now.
Macaws are magestic birds - so much color, beautiful wingspan. To just see them, it was splendid. The guide taught us to use telescope+phone camera to click highly zoomed in photos and videos. We saw parrots, owl, and even a sloth
The breakfast was organized next to the river only. They had boiled eggs, pancakes, banana chips, coffee, fruits etc. The boat-ride back was peaceful.
In the evening, we went to visit a nearby lake (40 mins by boat) . Here, we saw rain - it was heavy. We first time realized that why is it called a rainforest :)
Day 8 - Day hike and tower
We did a 4 hrs day hike to walk to a nearby lake. Anacondas live there appratently but we couldn't spot any. The walk on the way was refreshing - through the jungle and we saw many cool things. Before leaving, the guide cut out a termite nest and by the time we got back, we saw the nest has been fixed. We saw a trail of red-ants travelling with us for about half a km, on the trail to get some specific substance from a tree. We saw Peru monkeys, old huge trees with giant trunks. My cool photo is of this monkey eating banana here -
JunglePro had constructed a 50-floor high watch tower near the lodge. In the evening, we went to climb there and see sunset.
Day 9 - Tambopata - Puerto Maldonado - Lima
Day 9 was just traveling back from the lodge to Lima. We took boat from lodge to reach Puerto Maldoando, then a bus to reach airport, then a flight to reach Lima and then a Uber to reach our Airbnb. We had booked an Airbnb at Miraflores and it was centrally located.
Our Airbnb was a 1BHK and a good kitchen with washing machine. It was spacious and well maintained. Rating is 3.5/5 .
Our Airbnb was close to the Kennedy Park which is famous for having cats live there. Somehow, they have created an environment for the cats to happily exist there. The civil/municipal workers take care of feeding and cleaning them. (Some) Cats are friendly and they let to pet you
Day 10 - Lima downtown
Lima is not a safe city. Only Miraflores and Barranco neighborhoods are considered safe for tourists. But, the downtown Lima, its Plaza de Armas, is at the centre. How to go there ? We ended up booking a walking tour and it took us there. Interestingly, the guide took us via public bus which was also a good experience. Lima, like any over-populated city is battling traffic problems. But, they have dedicated bus lanes, so buses do go faster. But, their bus stops have high demand. While coming back, we saw long queues of people waiting to get on. But, overall, bus management and cleanliness was good.
At the historic centre, the guide took us to various churches - couple from inside and others outside, old Spanish houses, gave restaurant recommendations, and overall shared the history of Peru. He also cautioned on what was safe to walk and what is not. The tour was informative, weather good. So, overall a great experience.
Once the tour was over, we had ice-cream near the Plaza. We took the guide on his recommendations and visited two restaurants - one which served traditional pisco sour, and second one in Chinatown. We did our own walking tour, aimlessly exploring the city. At one place, we saw dentist equipments, machines, drills, etc being sold like wholesale goods, and folks at the side-walk asking random people to get their root canals done, at 50% discount :). We saw couple of girls selling artisinal breads from a food truck . Walking without any aim was real fun.
It is not fun when everything is going good. Some adventure has to be there. We were exhausted after walking the whole day, We took an Uber to reach back to our Airbnb, only to realize that we do not have the right keys, Turned out that at the icecream shop, I had used their restroom and returned the Airbnb keys instead of the restroom key (which had hombres on its keychain) . We quickly took the uber back to the cafe, did the traffic thing again. Fortunately, they had the key. We got the swap done, and finally, went back to airbnb, battling the traffic again.
At Lima, we have been cooking breakfast and some meals. Near to where we were staying, we had Vivanda, a upscale grocery store. We bought water and veggies there.
Day 11 - Museums
Day 11 was our Larco museum day. Larco museum hosts historic artifacts - both from Spanish time and before. It is rated very high and rightly so - very well maintained with a rich colletion of artifacts. It covers thousands of years on what happened to Peru, old settlers, their pottery, textiles etc. Very neatly explained with audio-guide as well.
One thing that I remember very well is that Spanish folks looted a lot of gold from the Incans. The Incan royalty had the habit of weating gold-plated breast-plates, armors, crowns etc. So, Spaniards looted them all and took it back. Only to realize that it was only gold colored and didn't include actual gold. It is funny and sad at the same time.
The museum was blasting AC and I was not wearing any jacket because the outside weather was warmer. So, upon reaching home, I had a little temperature and we decided to call it a day. We had plans to visit Barranco that day but we dropped it. My temperature reached 101+ later and I took Dolo and slept it off.
In the evening, we stepped out to taste good hot chocolate. The cafe next door had jigsaw puzzle setup. So, Kanishka and I solved the puzzle and drank hot chocolate.
Mira Flores also has lot of Casinos and we were living walking distance from them. But, in this trip, I could not visit even a single one.
Day 12 - Sick in foreign land.
This was the last day of our trip. Tomorrow was the flight back. Our plan was to eat at Astrid Y Gaston. We had made lunch reservation. Lima is well known for having 3 restaurants in top 50 restaurants in the world . We wanted to try one even though most of the dishes are non vegetarian. But, they did have some veg options.
My fever persisted through the night. In the morning, it was not coming down. Since we had just returned from Puerto Maldonado, a thought came - could it be Dengue? There were a lot of mosquitoes in the rainforest. Earlier I was dismissive and then thought that so what if it is dengue. But, then a google search showed that flights during Dengue can be life threatening. Kanishka was also having similar symptoms, with fever.
So, we finally decided to get the blood work done. In a foreign land, visiting hospital, this was a first. The first two nearby diagnostic centres we went, the communication was hard, we used Google-Translate. But they said that it would give reports in 2 days. We didn't had the time. Kanishka then took us to British American Hospital. They were super helpful and took me to emergency.
A doctor consultation in Lima is 350 Soles (~INR 10.5K) and emergency visit consult is around 600 soles. Healthcare is crazily expensive there. We took the emergency option to get 2 hr bloodwork done. The doctor was nice and the hospital very cooperative. Both Kanishka and I had tests done and got our reports negative. Huge relief. But, I was feeling low energy, so we bought electrolytes and kept on sipping that. Thankfully, Kanishka was able to claim insurance and we got 80% of our expense back. Phew!
Evening was peaceful. We just went out for dinner at a Japanese place, had ramen and then had churros for dessert.
Day 13 - Travel back
Recovering back, there was some energy. So, we finally did the boardwalk in the morning. It was nice and walking felt good. Boardwalk had the famous kiss statue there. We walked back to the Airbnb. We ended up visiting the Kennedy cats park for the third time :).
Flight back was ok. Watched a lot of movies. Diners card was very useful - we used lounge access in almost all departure lounges in Peru. They were small, crowded but good food, and free water :)
Our return was very long - Lime - Amsterdam - Delhi and then to Bangalore. We could not check in to our Delhi - BLR flight, I think it was sold out, so we had to take premium economy.
The reverse jet-lag and body recovery took another week. The fever indeed took almost 1.5 days from our trip. But no one can plan for these things. It did leave with an interesting experience.
Overall, a great trip - new country, new experiences, new memories. We may not go back to Peru - lots of things to see in the world, but it is a worthwhile experience to go there. Machu Picchu alone makes up for it. Rainforest is a bonus. But, it is a developing country with crime - not much motivation to re-visit it. But, worth every dime to experience it once.
We took the bold decision to directly go to Cusco, that is to not spend a night in Lima. We kept a gap of 4 hrs between landing at Lima and then flying to Cusco. We had to collect our luggage and re-check-in for the domestic flight. But, our flight departed late from BLR, landed late in Paris, the next flight from Paris was delayed and then we landed an hr late in Lima. But, thankfully, we were on time. As they say, fortune favors the brave... or in our country - this was a masterstroke of planning.
At Lima airport, we got the first taste of lack of veg food options... if the airport had so few options, then what would happen. We landed at Cusco at 10 pm and the hotel had booked us a taxi for pickup. It was cold but manageable.
Our stay was at Amaru Colonial Cusco, one of the rare original Spanish architecture based hotels. The entrance is via a small one-vehicle wide cobbled road with no space to park, but once you are inside, it was awesome. Overall, our hotel would be 4/5 for decor and 3.5 overall.
Day 1 - Cusco
Kanishka found an excellent city tour. It covered -
Plaza de Armas - Q'enco - Saqsaywaman - Puka Pukara - Tambomachay - Coricancha
The starting point was walkable from our hotel. At the Plaza, some kids were practicing for the festival, we saw the dance and roamed around there. It is a pretty cool hangout places with fancy cafes and activities going on.
We hopped on a bus to cover these places. Most of the places are ruins of Incas. Usecase of some are known but others, it is a guesswork. For example - Puka Pukara was a market, it sat at the intersection of the Incan trail and a detour to get to Cusco. Now, it is all ruins.
My favorite of the mix was Saqsaywaman - this was built as the meeting place for the Cusco leaders to welcome guests. It has three layers (floors) of zig-zag well structured stones. Some of the stones are huge and they are not local. They were dragged from 12-15 kms away. Dragging those stones with human hands plus some ropes, would have been an engineering feat at that point.
Our guide also shared a glimpse of local challenges. The rates at Plaza De Armas are 2-3x of rates at other places. There is a lot of corruption in Peru. The trust on govt. is low. Many of these sounded familiar to us.
We were tired by the end, so we decided to skip Coricancha and instead headed for lunch. Our lunch was at Vida Vegan Bistro Cusco . I had my first taste of Vegan Pisco sour ( a national drink which typically contains egg). We had burger and pasta and paid 20 soles (INR 600) for two bottles of water. First lesson that water in restaurants are not free. Post lunch, we went to hotel and crashed.
We stepped out in the evening and again visited the Plaza. Our dinner was at this Chia Vegan restaurant. The food was amazing. Peru is known for its variety of potatoes and we had one here.
Day 2 - Cusco to Ollantaytambo via Sacred Valley tour.
We checked out post breakfast and dragged our suitcases on the cobbled street to meet the tour-van. Our night stay was at Ollantaytambo. Kanishka did the clever booking - Sacred valley tours includes Ollantaytambo, so she found one who can give us the tour and also drop us there. That made things simpler
Sacred Valley tour started with a local textile shop Textile quechua . Cusco is known for making winterwear using LLama wool. At this shop, they showed the process of how the wool is made from the llama fur. Pretty good exerperience. They also were selling stuff, the quality seemed good but so did the prices, so, we didn't buy anything.
Our next stop was Chinchero. Another Incan ruin with a beautiful step farming setup. It was burnt down to prevent the Spanish inquisition here. Next stop was Maras Moray - a circular terrace farming place. Our guide told story that it was like a farming laboratory for Incans. After returning back, I got curious and did more research. The farming laboratory theory is now called bogus. But to sell a narrative, it is pretty cool. The sights here were also great. Maras Moray was peaceful, green, serene.
Our next top were the Maras salt mines. We also stopped before at a salt shop and bought expensive salt :) Salt mines are unique, cool, and crowded. But, worth a visit. We had authentic buffet lunch after this. The buffet had few good veg options and flan for dessert. We were sorted.
Upong reaching Ollantaytambo, we skipped the Ollantaytamo ruins from the Sacred valley tour. We wanted to do so at our own pace. We checked into the Airbnb, which was right next to the Plaza de Armas of Ollantaytambo. Our airbnb had kitchen, so we headed out to buy water and veggies :)
At the local market, we saw a 7 gallon water being sold from 12 Soles to 30 Soles. Kanishka did her best to bargain but they were better. Veggies were fresh, juicy and delicious - this is an hilly area, so veggies are grown locally. The market was also like a local basement kind of market but still okay-ish clean. Not as clean as Japan ones :) but a lot better than Bangalore.
At midnight we celebrated Kanishka's birthday. We bought a local brownie but got looted. The brownie was very small and it was for 15 soles. The Ollantaytambo market was a good walk, not much crowds in the evening, well lit and weather was also good.
It is hyper commercialized. The trains to reach there are expensive but they are luxurious. There is no road access. Machu Pichu allows only 4500 visitors per day. One has to select which routes to pick for sightseeing, and the route #2 - where you can walk among the ruins get sold out the fastest. Then you have to book the trains, the bus from train station to entry point, a guide for local sight seeing etc. Kanishka did all the planning here and we booked the Panoramic route which in my opinion is the best one :)
Machu Pichu was never finished. It was not a functional city, it was still under construction. It was abandoned when Spanish folks came. Spainiards never reached here, so it was under moss and ruins until it was rediscovered by a adventurer geologist. It is one of the new Seven wonders of the world.
The train journey is very scenic. We follow the Urubamba river nestled in the mountains. It is like a Vista dome train. The attendants are multi-talented. The attendants does the job of ticket-checker, serving food-drinks, and in the onward journey, we had a mini traditional ritual that was performed by the attendants only. On the way back, Kanishka booked the other train company - Peru Rail and they are also getting into apparel. So, their attendants did a whole fashion show ramp walk. The number of things expected by attendants is just amazing.
Machu Picchu was surreal. Our guide was an expert in taking Insta-worthy photos and made us pose. But once the photo-shoot was done, we got time to sit and admire the wonder. It is amazing. Between the mountains, so quite, peaceful. You get to see the whole thing only in the Panoramic route and I think it is the best one. If you are inside, you do not get to see the big picture, the expanse of it. Only in Panoramic, the beauty comes alive.
The station town is called Aguas Calientes. After Machu Picchu, we walked the streets and had lunch at Iskcon themed vegan restaurant by the name of Govinda. The whole town is pricey. We had some quinoa khichdi and it was yum! We walked through the markets, bought our souvenir magnets here.
We had dinner at a train-bogey themed restaurant next to the station only. The food was awesome. We walked back to Airbnb. This was the highlight of the trip - best day.
Day 4 - Ollantaytambo
Day 4 was meant to be chill day. We had carried Theplas from home. Breakfast was boiled eggs, Thepla, yogurt and salad. I think our meals during travel are way more healthier than at home :)
The market outside the ruins was interesting, After the walk, we ended up buying sweaters and caps. Kanishka demonstrated her bargaining skills - I could not believe that we got 60% discount.
We did a leisurely walk to the Ollantaytambo ruins and explored it. Beyond the ruins, there were some spots even higher and we had to walk there. We took an easy stroll to climb and reach there - it was sunny but not super hot.
The Ollantaytambo ruins are special - it was a living city, fully functional one. When the Spaniards came, they attacked the city but a 19 year old warrior was able to defeat them. This is the reason they never reached Machu Picchu, they turned back there. All Incan ruins have certain things as common - a Sun temple for example. Incan worshipped the Sun god and June 24st, they celebrate the Inti Raymi, a festival dedicated to Sun god. It is difficult to understand how people lived during those times but the space is huge and structure is solid.
Post the ruin visit, we had lunch at the Plaza and had the worst Burrito ever. And at the cost of 50 soles, it was a loot. We visited our favorite local grocery store, bought bread, butter and stuff and then had a nice salad + bread as dinner. We also used this day to do laundry :)
During the evening stroll, we tried local street food. One such drink was Emoliente - a herbal drink made of roasted barley, lemon, sugar and herbs. It is served hot and it was awesome! Our Airbnb had kitchen, heater and hot water. It was next to plaza. It was one of those Inca ancestral home, next to the cobbled streets. I would rate it 4/5 for the experience.
Day 5 - Back to Cusco
We took a cab from Ollantaytambo to Cusco. It was a 3 hr ride. Our driver knew english. He was from the jungle but spoke english fluently, On the way, we say these purple colored drinks sold in bottle and we asked him what it is. It was Chicha Morada , made of fermented corn. We bought it and it was awesome!
Our one night stay at Cusco was at hotel Hacienda . This was far from the Plaza. The hotel was ok - basic, functional. It was next to the Pedro market, so that is where we started.
Pedro market is the local grocery+food+chocolate market there. It has vendor stalls selling all kinds of things. One such thing is roasted guinea pigs :) We tried some cakes, some random items, empinada and finally found a vegan restaurant there - Vegan Pinto and had one of the best ROI (taste over money) meals. We were full but the meal was yum!
After this, we went to see the Coricancha museum - it used to be an Incan temple taken over by Spanish clergy and it was then their sacred place. We didn't had a guide so we didn't enjoy it much. The one thing that I remember is reading about the history and it is here we learnt that Incans used to believe in sacrifices - they sacrificed kids too, sometimes burying them alive in ground. So, Incans were also superstitious and had places to offer sacrifices and many such weird rituals.
Post Coricancha, we went back to the plaza. This was a parade day there - a local festical where they shift the statues of some renowned old priests from one church to another. It was festive atmosphere there.
We had bought a group-pass to get access to multiple-sites. Kanishka figured out that it included a local cultural performance. It was fun. The music is really like the traditional one - lot of flute. It is a govt. run institution, so things are still how they were in 70s :) But we enjoyed it.
Dinner was a walk to a pizza place - fresh oven baked pizza was good. By this time, we were using Uber, so we took the uber back to hotel.
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