When inflight safety instructions come on in an airline, that’s when many passengers tune off. They’ve seen these droning instructions…
Browsing: Travel
Travel tales about India and other parts of the world
How would you like to see the entire world in one afternoon without stepping into an airplane? The farthest I had to travel was by subway from the Upper East Side to the Jacob Javits Center, but this was the Travel and Adventure Show, now in its 20th year, and it was a fun way of seeing the world without stepping out of one’s own city.
What was special this year was that for the first time India has a president from the tribal community ( she is the second woman president in India – Pratibha Patil was the first) and Rashtrapati Bhavan is her home. Prebsident Droupadi Murmu renamed the gardens, which were created by the British in 1929, as ‘Amrit Udyan’ meaning ‘Garden of the Holy Nectar’.
A visit to YO1 Longevity and Health Resort in the Catskills
The three hour journey from Abu Dhabi to Delhi is made more satisfying with wine, nuts and food for someone slogging at blogging.
a visit to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque is a must – it is a testament to faith and reverence for the Almighty, and tolerance for all humanity. This majestic building set on Abu Dhabi Island has 82 domes of various sizes and the largest is located in the centre of the main prayer hall.
On New Year’s Eve I am in Dubai, doing something I’ve never done before – hot air ballooning!
May we all soar this year with our families, our hopes and aspirations! Read about my discovery of sunrise and the adventures of take-off and landing -sideways
Safe flights and happy 2023, full of hope and possibilities.
Dubai Diary: A Ringside Seat to the Burj Khalifa Merry Christmas from glittering Dubai where I’m with the family. A…
2026 people reached on Lassi with Lavina FB page – 219 post clicks Sonam Saxena, Navdeep Cheema and 62…
The Masai people invite you to breakfast – without leaving home! A chance to see them in their home environment and support them too.
As an insider in this world of discovering new places, it’s his passion to share the blueprints of the road less traveled and the how-tos of his adventures. Today Harsh has circled the world several times, apexed Mt. Kilimanjaro thrice and knows certain far-flung places like the back of his hand.
No matter which part of the world Indian immigrants live in, they each carry with them their special memories of India filed away in their heads and hearts. For these diasporic Indians, many now with hyphenated identities, India’s Republic Day does bring in a whole lot of memories and a feeling of pride in being a part of India, and India being a part of their emotional DNA.
How many Indias are there?
As many as the eyes that perceive it.
Each visitor sees a different India, bringing in their own experiences to the encounter. British photographer Clive Limpkin has a lively new book ‘India Exposed: the Sub-Continent A-Z’ which shows the results of his brush with India. His camera, however, returns time and again to what really moves him: the human connection. As he writes: “When friends ask for one good reason to visit, I offer them a billion – it’s the people.”
“I was so amazed at the thought of somebody cycling me, who was just turning 20, who was a fit young American man, that I insisted on bicycling half the way myself. That’s how I entered India, bicycling a rickshaw, with the rickshaw-wallah sitting in the back, wondering what the hell I was doing!”
As a child growing up in New Delhi, India, my favorite pastime was watching the planes take off at the airport. Since my siblings and I had never traveled by plane there was a sense of wonder, even mystery. Where did these shining silver birds go and how would it be to ride off on their backs?
Years later, having migrated to foreign shores – Hong Kong, Africa and then America – I’m quite blasé about air travel but I still love planes. They are my way of getting back home, journeying to family, friends and picking up the threads of past worlds. Now learn how you can win two air tickets to India via British Airways Welcome of Home promotion!
I was in the fabulous Udaivilas in Udaipur, enjoying the morning breakfast feast, when my eyes lit up. No, it wasn’t some grand Rajput jewels which had so excited me, though these gems I speak of were a rich golden orange and came wrapped in a delicate outer covering of gossamer beige.
Imagine thousands and thousands of stone, brick and glass skyscrapers rising in the concrete canyons of New York City, blocking out the sun and stars. The streets of Manhattan are gridlocked with vehicular traffic, horns blaring, tempers flaring, sometimes drowned out by the wailing siren of a rushing ambulance.
Now imagine lush greenery, idyllic ponds on which swans and ducks glide, virtual forests of old trees and acres and acres of plush green grass where families can relax, dogs run about and children play ball. Welcome to the parks of New York City which are the virtual lungs of the city and provide the breathing room, the thinking room that millions living in the frenzied city require.
A look at the parks best for a Summer celebration.
In India you can see man and monkeys living together in an uneasy truce. A photograph that got away was of at least 20 monkeys all dangling from a traffic light pole in Agra! Before I got my camera out, the bus had moved on and the clambering monkeys remain a delightful snapshot in my memory. I’m sure the monkeys run rampant in places like Benares, Mathura and Haridwar.
In fact, I distinctly remember having my toast snatched from my hand by a greedy monkey at the Haridwar Railway Station many years ago. Now I caught glimpses of monkeys – and humans, outside a small wayside temple near the Ranthambhore National Park. Seen as a form of Hanuman, the venerated Monkey God, these monkeys are indulged and even fed by passers-by.
It was only 8 pm on Dec 31st in Mumbai but already the drums were beating wildly outside my window in an apartment close to the Gateway of India. People are packing the streets here and I’m struck by the sheer energy of the crowds. The vitality of Mumbaikars is catching, their passion to live, to succeed. I’ve been in the city just three days but already I’ve met so many ordinary people who take each day as it comes and pack a punch into it.
India is serenity, beauty, calmness. India is noise, pollution, crowds. India is irony, humor, drama. India is sharp contrasts, extreme wealth and extreme poverty.
India is a billion people and you get to see many facets of their lives in Clive Limpkin’s book,’India Exposed: The Subcontinent A-Z’ (Abbeyville Press)