Tag Archives: UNESCO

Dancing on the wind, dispersing prayers, mantras, and general good will across the landscape, strings of prayer flags hang to the four corners of Boudhanath Stupa. Somewhere, amongst them, were mine!  Prayer flags are said to date back to the battle flags used by the Gautama Buddha in the fight against the asuras – malevolent divine beings considered by Indian mythology […]

View full post »

There are some sights – no matter how many times they have been shown in photos or on film – that you just have to see for yourself. Sure, there are stock images online that are taken in better weather conditions and from better angles, and the hosts of travel programs get superior entry and […]

View full post »

The earthquake in Nepal in April 2015 killed more than 8,800 people in that country, injured nearly three times that many, and left nearly 3.5 million homeless. As a further blow to the national psyche, numerous precious historical religious buildings were damaged or destroyed. Many of these were contributors to the 1979 UNESCO World-Heritage listing […]

View full post »

Riding the rails is my favourite way to travel. Being able to move around at will, or nestle in a seat or a berth, while watching the world chug past the windows, is just magic to me. It was summer – many years ago now – and we had several weeks in which to explore […]

View full post »

Today is Holi: the much-loved Hindu ‘festival of colours’. In India and Nepal, Holi is celebrated for a night and a day: starting on the full-moon evening of the month of Phalguna or Phalgun on the Hindu calendar. This usually falls somewhere between the end of February and the middle of March, according to the […]

View full post »