Given its ancient history and remoteness of location, Skellig Michel naturally fell into my itinerary during my travels through Southern Ireland in 2013. Skellig Michael is an outstanding, and in many respects unique, example of an early religious settlement deliberately sited on a pyramidal rock in the ocean, preserved because of a remarkable environment. It illus ...
An interest in 2007 for traveling the silk route and beyond spurred me into taking a trip to Louyang, which lies 300 miles east of its terminal point of Xian. In the year 64 of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 CE), Emperor Mingdi, whose capital was Lou Yang, wanted to send a delegation of his men to study Buddhism in India. Taoism at that time was a higher–level religion in China and was pursued mostly by the upper class. There ...
AMAZING CUSTOMS OF A MEGALITHIC PEOPLE AS SEEN IN 1995......................RAMDAS IYER 02.02.1996 - 08.02.1996 My first visit to Indonesia in 1996 opened my eyes to the beauty of this magnificent archipelago of 17000 Islands, 300 ethnic groups that range from the highly evolved Javanese court culture to the tree-dwelling Korowai…
OBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS ON THE PLIGHT OF SEABIRDS...............................RAMDAS IYER 03.12.2010 - 14.12.2012 26 °F My travel stories are normally laced with adventure in very historic places. But somehow the story of the sea birds of the Southern oceans is very compelling. My real adventure to Antarctica involved crossing the violent 500…
SAILING INSIDE AN ACTIVE VOLCANIC CALDERA IN ANTARCTICA................RAMDAS IYER 16.12.2011 - 17.12.2011 31 °F I have come a long way to a distant place far far away from where i used to live and from what i used to do Deception Island... it’s just a state of mind, i tell myself…
RELIGION AND ROULETTE IN A DELICATE BALANCE 04.06.2004 - 10.06.2004 As an entrepreneur who had literally bet his house on his new business, I needed some serious relaxation in Paradise. It was indeed Ubud in Bali that I chose for that time. During this second visit in 2004 after 9…
A PEEK INSIDE ONE OF THE GREAT CULTURES OF ASIA................RAMDAS IYER 10.06.2004 - 11.06.2004 After my first trip to Bali in 1995 I was totally convinced that if there is a Paradise on earth it must be centered in Ubud, Bali. The sensory effects of the land combined with a…
A VANISHING TRADITION OF A FASCINATING PEOPLE BY RAMDAS IYER 01.12.2007 - 22.12.2007 Any visitor to our house will appreciate my large collection of African art: especially that of the Dogon people. West Africa is such a rich cultural place that rapid Islamization, past Christian conversions and pressures of a…
EXPERIENCES ALONG THE GANGES RIVER IN VARANASI, INDIA 08.04.2011 - 12.04.2011 95 °F The ancient city of Varanasi (Kasi) has been the ultimate pilgrimage spot for Hindus for ages. Varanasi is the oldest living city in the world. These few lines by Mark Twain say it all: "Benares( a British corruption…
A SILK ROAD TRAVEL SEGMENT IN XINJIANG PROVINCE, CHINA 01.12.2008 - 19.12.2008 img=https://photos.travellerspoint.com/396820/IMGP5839.jpg] I started my Chinese silk route travel west of Kashgar near the Pakistan border and headed east passing the ancient Uyghur towns of Kashgar and Urumqi. Turpan, a key stop on the Silk Road, was easily accessible…