Happiness is dozing off with a book open on your chest, in the quite and solitary weekend mornings in Kampala …. Built at an elevation of 3,900 feet above sea level, on a series of hills along the northern side of Lake Victoria, Kampala is…
India, Nepal and Bangladesh are probably the only countries in the world where widespread worship of the ancient Goddess (and other female divinities) continues till date – an unbroken tradition that may be traced way back to the Indus Valley Civilization, five thousand years back….
I grew up in the beautiful town of Cochin (now Kochi) in picturesque Kerala – in “God’s Own Country”. In school, a boy called Ajith and I used to be best friends. We were pretty inseparable – Ajith was plump, I was skinny and our…
Much of my growing up years, 12 to be precise, was spent in the beautiful city of Cochin (now Kochi), located by the Laccadive Sea, in Kerala, in the south-west coast of India. In Cochin, we were very close to one particular family – a…
A masterpiece of Moorish-Andalusian Islamic art and architecture, the extravagantly beautiful Bou Inania Madrasa (Koranic School) in Fez dazzled our eyes and lifted our spirits. We were on a 24-day private tour of Morocco, with Journey Beyond Travel. Originally built by the Merenid Sultan, Abu…
Crossing the Atlas Mountains in the morning, we arrived at day’s end, into the desolate sands of Erg Chebbi, in the Moroccan Sahara. The day long road trip from Fez to Erg Chebbi took us through a surreal kaleidoscope of contrasting landscapes and vegetation. We…
We spent a night near the spectacular Todra Gorge, sleeping in a cave at the Auberge Le Festival. Well it really wasn’t as dramatic and adventurous as it sounds. It was a cave alright, but a well appointed one, with an en-suite bathroom. The Auberge…
After spending two nights in the Sahara desert, including a night camping in the sand dunes, we traveled west, towards the Atlas Mountains, into the Todra Valley and spent the night next to the Togra Gorge. From Todra Valley, we headed back through the Dades…
Till I visited Morocco, I had no idea that ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ (1975), ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ (1977), ‘Time Bandits’ (1981), ‘Marco Polo’ (1982), ‘The Jewel of the Nile’ (1985), ‘The Living Daylights’ (1987), ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ (1988), ‘Kundun’ (1997), ‘The…
From Marrakesh, we drove towards the foothills in the southern direction and then onto the pink-ochre-orange High Atlas mountains. In one and half hour’s time, we arrived at the busy and touristy village of Imlil, in the shadows of the Toubkal Mountain – the tallest…
We visited Bern, the capital of Switzerland, on a day trip from Interlaken. Boardeing our train from Interlaken Ost in the morning, we passed through some beautiful scenery and reached Bern approximately one hour later. Located on a plateau, the city is about 20 km north…
Surrounded by vineyards, Schaffhausen is a beautiful medieval town located on the Upper Rhine in Switzerland, between Lake Constance and the Black Forest of Germany. We visited this beautiful town during our trip to the Rhine falls. We stayed for a night at Schloss Laufen,…