Canada is not all mountains and snow but also tiny coastal villages cosy-ing up to the surrounding oceans! Victoria-by-the Sea - it's the ‘by-the-sea’ that attracts us to this tiny, sleepy fishing village in our drive path, never mind the detour, between Charlottetown and Summerside, on the shores of Northumberland Strait. We were driving down the Trans…

Niagara-on-the-Lake is a serendipitous Victorian village/ town on south side of Lake Ontario which attracts romantics and nature lovers from both across Canada and beyond its borders.  



It was a clear day in early March - though still cold - and our friend insisted we take a detour on our way from Toronto to Niagara Falls. A Toronto native he is a frequent weekend visitor to this lakeside vineyard country town (insisting that this was gaining miles, not losing them).…

Hangzhou, an extension of the quintessential water towns of the Yangtze River delta unfurls with each brush stroke of past and present travellers. Ibn Batuta, the Moroccan traveler and scholar, was overwhelmed by the beautifully 'crafted and painted Chinese ships with silk awnings sailing the canals' of the largest city he had ever seen.  Hangzhou (roughly pronounced "…

Hansel & Gretel’s Chocolate house* turned into steel.....a delectable piece of ingenuity spawned by boredom....or a prime example of energy saving-recycling kitsch. John Milkovisch, a retired upholsterer for the Southern Pacific Railroad, took nearly 18 years…

Living on my back, people come, telling their stories, singing their songs. They celebrate together, their significant days and their creative ways. I am the spirit of the island they once called Snauq, born of the ocean. Like a sand castle I may be moulded and used, remoulded and used again. Like nature itself, the possibilities abound. I am a mirror in which…

The symbol is greater than visible substance. . . . Unhappy the land that has no symbols or that chooses their meaning without great care.” ― Freya Stark, East Is West.

The mythical and mystical overlapping of azure and verdure in the southern end…

My visits to Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Sanya, cities on the tourist map of China, by air and train were journies to view the impassive facades of city life. Sanya, touted as the Hawaii of the East, is the winter holiday destination for cold East Europe and Mainland China. The Expressway route to Taizhou, Ningbo and Cixi, the emerging industrial icons,…

The mystique of the Dhofar region or of Salalah is not its salubrious climate or its architecture but the sacred scent, one of the gifts given to Baby Jesus by the Three Wise Men. This aromatic incense, or frankincense, was the source of the wealth and riches of Dhofar and Arabia and was exported by caravan routes and ships as far as China, India, and Egypt to be used for temple rituals, cremating the dead and for medicinal purposes.



It…

The shivering semi-covered bodies in the freeze moment of instant 'moksha' captured the essence of the magnanimous waters of the 'Sangam', the confluence of the three holy rivers Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati. The moksha seekers or pilgrims were emulating the Devas (gods) who had outsmarted the Asuras (demons) for the eternal nectar of life which the demons had won. The gods, not willing to concede defeat, managed to pilfer the kumbh (pitcher) and in process four drops fell on…

Zhoujiajiao

On a trip to Shanghai in the summer of 2009 we discovered Zhoujiajiao by chance. Our original choice was Suzhou, a water town famous for its silk and embroidery but it would have meant cutting short on other attractions and we had just 36 hours in Shanghai. When the person at the bus ticket counter at Shanghai Indoor Stadium suggested Zhujiajiao, we were teeny bit sceptical but still boarded the Government tourist bus leaving in 20…

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https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/89580?ref=MHBonham

This is an anthology put together with contributions from writers and authors and the proceeds would go to help out…

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate,

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date".(Shakespeare…Sonnet 18)

or the perennial favorite: What's…

I missed out the traditional Sakura Matsuri Festival from April 30-May 1 at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Held each year at end of Hanami, a month-long celebration from April 2 to May 1 of Japanese cultural tradition of appreciating cherry blossoms in full bloom.…

The sprightly deer, nosing their way around on Miyajima Island remind me of Sarnath, near Varanasi, India and close to my home town, Allahabad. We are in Miyajima, 10 miles from Hiroshima in the Seto Inland Sea and a sacred Shinto and Buddhist site. The closest resemblance between this verdant Island and Sarnath, in the hot, dusty River Ganges plains of North India, is…

Delhi has changed…this before I decided to fly to New Delhi during the…