Tag Archives: boats

Sorong, the largest city in the newly-formed Indonesian province of Southwest Papua, is the sort of place people usually go through rather than to. As the logistics hub for Indonesia’s thriving eastern oil and gas frontier, it harbours a busy industrial port. For tourists and scientists, it is the gateway to Raja Ampat, a collection […]

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The first day I was on Dal Lake – the centrepiece of Srinagar in the North Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), I felt like I was in a dream – or a Monet painting (see: Floating in a Dream). The air is hot and thick. The stillness is punctuated by the plunk of boat oars in the water, […]

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It was like a dream – indeed, a dream come true! Kashmir had been on my ‘list’ since long before my first-ever trip to India, but opportunities had never quite lined up for me. The beauty of the landscape is legendary. The land itself – the valley running between the Great Himalayas and the Pir […]

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I’ve said it before: being on and around the waters of Vembanad Lake in Kerala, South India had a soporific effect on me (see: On the Kerala Backwaters). The heat – and the haze that the heat produced on the water – and soft chugging of the motors of the river traffic had me feeling like […]

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The heat; the soft chug of the motor; the sun glinting in the hazy sky and off the water; it was one of those iconic ‘Pinch me!’ moments. I was finally on the backwaters of Kerala in south-western India. The backwaters are a network of more than 900 km (560 mi) of waterways, stretching north-south […]

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