The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who seek them
Posts tagged India
Fly over the Himalayas
Dec 13th
by sir_watkyn
The Himalayan Mountains are the highest in the world. Of the thirty one summits over 7,600 m (25,000 ft), 22 rise in Nepal, including Everest and seven other great giants that are over 8,000 m (26,000 ft). If you have limited time here but still wish to see some of the highest peaks and do a little trekking, one option is to fake the mountain flight from Pokhara to Jomson, where you can take a short trek into the Annapurnas. More >
The Indian Subcontinent and the Himalaya
Aug 26th
This region has a distinct identity that transcends the artificiality of political borders. Screened off from the rest of the world by the Himalaya, it rests on a single tectonic plate and its common geography has, over the years, built a shared heritage.
If you were to traverse the Indian subcontinent from north to south, you would start from the world’s highest city, Lhasa in Tibet, and cross the Himalaya Mountain range. These mountains are truly magnificent in their scale: the world’s 14 peaks exceeding 8,000 metres are all located here.
The Indus, the Brahmaputra and the Yangzi Rivers have their origins here, with their combined watershed extending over the subcontinent from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal. No wonder the ancient Indian poet Kalidasa wrote: ‘Linking the oceans on the east and the west, He (the Himalaya) cuts across the earth like a scale kept to measure it.’ More >
Sundarbans National Park – Bangladesh
Aug 9th
Sundarbans National Park faces two serious risks. Rising sea levels due to global warming could floor the park and threaten the tigers, wild birds, and other native species. And the River Ganges, which feeds the delta where the park is located, is so polluted from industrial outflow, raw sewage, human remains, and naturally occurring arsenic that the water is no longer safe for humans or animals to drink. More >
India
Aug 3rd
It has been said that there are two types of people in the world, those who have been to India and those who have not – what is certain is that no one who visits this nation of jungles, temples and tigers ever forgets it.
India is the world in one nation. Form the dizzy heights of the Himalaya, the landscape plunges down towards the plains, passing lush green hills, jungles, deserts and grassland on its way to the palm-fringed beaches of Goa and Kerala. Indians divide their nation into the Hills and the Plains, which sprawl south towards the tip of the subcontinent. The steamy south of India is almost another country – jungle-covered, beach-fringed and inundated by rivers and streams. More >
Taj Mahal – Agra, India
Jul 11th
Mark Twain called it ‘that soaring bubble of marble.’ For Rudyard Kipling, it was ‘the Ivory Gate through which all good dreams come.’ But for Shah Jahan, the 17th century Mughal Emperor who built the Taj Mahal in Agra, the building was a tribute to the woman he loved.
After the death in 1631 of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, with whom he had 14 children in 19 years, the Shah resolved to build an earthly representation of paradise. Form the farthest reaches of his empire, he summoned architects, stonemasons, and artisans who laboured for more than two decades on the royal mausoleum. More >
