Travelrific® Travel Journal
Picture postcards in prose.™ Check out the blogroll on the front page for official merchandise and other resources!Archive for international travel
Outback Railway 80 Years On
By Linda Tancs
Named for the Afghan camel drivers who once explored its unchartered territory, Australia’s famed railway, The Ghan, celebrates 80 years of service this year. Led by its fire engine red locomotive, the train traverses the breaktaking landscape framing Australia’s Outback. Originally routed for Adelaide to Alice Springs, the journey now includes a Darwin extension. City slickers need not worry. Connections to the legendary railway are available on Indian Pacific and The Overland for guests travelling to or from Sydney and Melbourne. All aboard!
Share this:
A Wild Wedding
By Linda Tancs
Weddings can be a strange affair. You’ve heard of underwater weddings, sky diving weddings, Halloween-inspired weddings, and so on. Well, in a primate rescue center in Dorset, England, you can now have a wedding amongst the largest group of chimps outside of Africa. In June, Monkey World in Dorset, a 65-acre refuge, acquired a wedding license. At least one couple has married on the grounds since then, serenaded by the cacophony of some of the most abused and neglected monkeys in the world. Sort of gives animal magnetism a whole new meaning.
Share this:
An Illuminating Sight
By Linda Tancs
The cooler autumn air in Myanmar is warmed up a bit with the cascade of lighting taking place during the Tazaungdaing Festival. During November’s full moon, women weave saffron-colored robes as an offering to the Buddhist monks. More than just a robe-weaving festival, though, the event’s highlight is the vast illumination of pagodas, monasteries and even office buildings with colored lanterns and candles. As Saint Thomas Aquinas once said, “Better to illuminate than merely to shine.”
Share this:
Camel is King
By Linda Tancs
It’s humpback heaven in Pushkar this weekend in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan. Pushkar Festival brings together camel traders and their ornately festooned charges ready for their close-ups. A beauty pageant of sorts, the camels are paraded around for throngs of admiring onlookers, including curious tourists. Of equal interest is Lake Pushkar, a must-see for shutterbugs. Hindus believe that the lake was created by Lord Brahma (their creator of the universe) when he dropped a lotus flower to earth as a result of battle with a demon. The lake is beset with ghats for bathing away sins (like Varanasi) during this high festival. So how best to reach this holiest of places in the Rajasthani desert? The nearest airport in Jaipur is 86 miles away. A network of bus service will get you to Ajmer, just 7 miles away. The local bus ride through scenic mountain ranges will get you to your final destination in a half hour.
Share this:
Bright Lights, Big City
By Linda Tancs
In Chiang Mai, a mountain-ringed metropolis north of Bangkok, they’ll be lighting up the night sky with thousands of floating lanterns this weekend in the annual Loy Krathong festival. At ground level, you can set more lights afloat on banana leaves across the Ping River, a symbolic gesture celebrating the resources of the waterway and casting off misfortune. No doubt a sight to behold, you can capture the essence of it here.
Share this:
Dancing in Nepal
By Linda Tancs
It’s a festive time of year in the Khumbu region of Nepal. Following the autumn moon this month, the monks of Tengboche begin a solemn ritual of chant and dance for the sherpa community (and international visitors who don’t mind heights). Known as Mani Rimdu, the festival is one of the most sacred and highly anticipated annual events celebrating Buddhism in the Himalayas. The monks, dressed in flowing orange robes and bright yellow headgear resembling a crescent moon, prepare for the 3-day festival with the drawing of a giant sand mandala symbolizing beauty and its impermanent nature. Intricate dances alternate between highly theatrical (including the famous mask dances) and subdued, telling the story of the defeat by Padmasambhava of the evil spirits of the Bon religion and the conversion of the people to Buddhism. The mountain air gets mighty cold this time of year. Warm up at the fire puja (or offering) on the third day, when the evil spirits of the world are said to melt away and peace returns to the mountain kingdom.
Share this:
Jurassic Park in France
By Linda Tancs
High in the Jura Mountains of eastern France the sauropod reigned supreme. Just when you think its star would have faded, however, comes news of a discovery there of one of the largest dinosaur footprints (at almost five feet in diameter). Dated from the Late Jurassic period (the era taking its name from the Jura due to some prehistoric rocks there), the well-preserved prints are likely not the last we’re going to hear about the long-necked vegetarian that weighed anywhere from 33 to 44 tons. Perhaps this scientific discovery will invigorate tourism in the area–namely, the Jura Mountains Regional Natural Park, southwest of the mountain range on the French/Swiss border. Filled with a wide variety of flora and fauna, mountain forests, high altitude grassland, wooded meadows, peat bogs, lakes and deep valleys, you can traverse the area by hiking, mountain biking or even Nordic skiing. Who knows, you might even stumble upon some really big feet.
Share this:
Exotic Adventures for Elders
By Linda Tancs
So you’re “older.” That doesn’t mean you can’t travel like a millenial or one of those other younger generations whether it’s hiking, glacier hopping, kayaking, safari jeeping, or just hanging out with an ornately festooned camel in Rajasthan. If you’d like to travel like a Generation X’er but not necessarily with one, consider an elder trek for travelers aged 50 and over. And remember, as economist Bernard Baruch said, age is only a number.
Share this:
1300 Years in Normandy
By Linda Tancs
The motto of WASPs (Women Air Force Service Pilots) was “We live in the wind and the sand, and our eyes are on the stars.” That could equally apply to France’s Mont Saint Michel (Saint Michael’s Mount), a hauntingly beautiful rocky expanse between Normandy and Brittany whose granite apex hosts the Benedictine abbey started there in the 10th century. The worship of Saint Michael there, however, dates back to the year 708, making this holy site more than 1300 years old. As if that weren’t enough to distinguish it, the Mount is also one of the first locales to obtain a UNESCO World Heritage listing. The village lying beneath the abbey, ringed by a fortress, is built on sand but can withstand the constant assault of the highest tides in Europe. Its ebb and flow, described by Victor Hugo as being “à la vitesse d’un cheval au galop” (“as swift as a galloping horse”) is striking and quite a tourist draw. Take it all in at the North Tower of these medieval ramparts.
Share this:
Meet and Greet
By Linda Tancs
Roman philosopher Seneca mused, “The whole world is my native land.” You, too, can have that familiar (or better yet, familial-type) feeling if you’re lucky enough to find a greeter at your next tourist destination. If the idea of finding a friendly native to take you around town for a few hours–for free–appeals to you, then you should see if the Global Greeter Network has a volunteer guide for you. A growing network, the group currently has ambassadors of all ages across the U.S. and in Europe. Why go it alone?
If you enjoyed this post, please share it on sites such as StumbleUpon, vote for it, bookmark it or Tweet it. Thanks for your support! Travelrific® was featured as Blog of the Day on NJ.com!
Travelrific® Travel Journal 