Category: Experiences

Last day of October

TAKING THE SLOW ROUTE TO CHAMONIX

I was told nothing in the whole wide world matches New England’s “Indian Summer”. That special period in autumn when the last rays of warmth wash the rolling mountains of Northeastern United States. That few short weeks when every leaf of every tree turns bright yellow and red just before it falls to the ground in preparation for the long, hard winter to come. The time the whole Appalachian range burns with surreal colors of Scarlet and Orange. Oh, dear. How wrong they were.

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Crazy (not so) little thing called S500

INSIDE MERCEDES’ NEWEST UBER-LIMOUSINE

The phone rang in a middle of a meeting. Realizing it was from one of my best buddies, I excused myself for a minute and took the call. “I got the newest Mercedes S500 for a test drive this weekend. Want to join me for a ride to the north”. The invitation was the equivalent of receiving “an offer I couldn’t refuse” from the Godfather himself. Being the nice guy that I am, I said, “YES.” This is what I found out driving the best car in the world.

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Inside the lost city of Tikal

HAN SOLO, I PRESUME?

It’s 6am. The air is thick with moist. Although it too early to be hot, I’m sweating like a swine. We have woken up earlier to see the sunrise over the granddaddy of all lost Maya cities. Perched on top of Temple VI, some forty meters above ground, we see nothing. A thick blanket of fog covers everything but a pair of beautiful wild Aracaris that pose for photo-op smack in the middle of what should have been a direct view on the Temple of the Jaguar. Looks like spotting sunrise is not in the cards today. The ancient mega-police of Tikal will take more patience to reveal.

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98 Beautiful Acres

TEATIME IN SRI LANKA’S TEA COUNTRY

Green shrubbery, mild weather, and a 5 o’clock cup of tea. You may be excused for thinking you’re in rural England (of 50 something years ago). In fact, you are some 1,500 meters above sea-level and much closer to the equator. Welcome to the magical tea country of Sri Lanka. We came. We saw… We had a nice cup of dark Ceylon tea.

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A barking Joker

Nobody noticed the small white dog, perched on the deck, well, who does? Probably belonged to one of the many visitors. But then it decided to start barking. A lot of unexpected things happened next.

WHY WOULD A POODLE PADDLE WITH A PORPOISE

It’s another scorching-hot, bone-dry summer day in Eilat, Israel. So hot, you can fry an omelet on the black asphalt and get your swimsuit completely dry while waiting for that egg to fry. No wonder everyone’s rushing into the cool blue waters of the Red Sea.

Everyone, including one small canine. Why did it jump in? Why was I there to photograph it? And what did the dolphin think about that hairy little guy?

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Hungry like the wolf?

KILLING TIME AT THE SERENGETI

Sun sets down on the vast plains of Northern Tanzania, coloring the Serengeti in Scarlet and Orange. Photographers call this time the “magic hour”. They say it’s because the warm and angular lightning makes the pictures more dramatic. But there’s another drama playing here. Dusk also happens to be the best hunting hour for the big cats, and one of them just happens readying itself for dinner on top of one of the Acacia trees ahead of us. We stop our breath in anticipation…

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Petra 2.0

WE COME IN PEACE, TAKE US TO YOUR INSTAGRAM

I’ve been to this place before, back in 1999. Looking at the temple carved inside that enormous red rock, it seems as if nothing has changed. That is until you lower your eyes and look at the picture you’ve just taken with your iPhone. Once you prayed to the lord-all-mighty. Now you pray for the 4G network not to fail as you upload your photo to your Instagram account for the whole world to marvel. It was 20 years, give or take, since I last visited Petra. It might as well have been in a different millennium. Actually, it was.

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Eyes open shut

COLORFUL PROCESSION DOWN IN SATAN’S BOTTOM

Pashupatinath Temple during dry season. It’s filthy; it’s rancid, it’s gut-wrenching, it’s Kathmandu. To say the place is merely special is to say Stalin was simply a dictator. If you are on the lookout for life-changing experiences, Pashupatinath is for you. But then, so is walking into a Ku Klux Klan congregation wearing a Star of David.

Yet, amidst the desolation, stench, and decay, something rather beautiful managed to captivate me. No, it’s not the Gaudian-colored Sadhus priests. It’s something much smaller and more intimate. This is the story about it.

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28 hours later

LIFE & DEATH ON THE SERENGETI

Orcs! Brutish, aggressive, ugly, malevolent orcs! I’m perplexed at the site of the kill as if seeing a scene taken straight out of Tolkien’s Lord of the Ring. Just look at it. Its ears have been chewed off – probably during an argument with the other Orcs in the clan on who gets to eat Frodo first. I would have said it has a face only a mother could love, but he probably ate her already.

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