Join my journey to the corners of this world
November on the High Sierra-Nevada. Waterfalls have almost all dried up, the crowds too. We’re heading up from San Jose, driving a Kia of some sort on route 580 all the way up to the queen of all US National Parks – Yosemite.
Forget Shenzhen, and it’s Hong-Kong-like facades. Pay no attention to Shanghai, with its tall glass towers and “eat-your-heart-out-Manhattan!” aspirations. They are all too busy with being an in-your-face, soulless showcases of a new and sumptuous China, to notice you.
Zhouzhuang, on the other hand, is a whole different story.
Continue reading “What lies on the other side of the Silk Road?”
It was raining hard and the place was muddy, but we couldn’t care less. We were inside a large Elephant herd and felt as if we were part of a family of giants. Better watch out not to get trampled by the great beasts.
Tending a lone island must rank high amongst people’s wish lists. Why not? Disconnected from the pressures and whims of our 21st century, huddled inside a 19th-century mansion, surrounded by empty beaches, natural beauty, and lots of wildlife. Heck – this could very well be the best job in the world!
When I published my very first post a year ago, I wasn’t really sure where this experience would take me. The original idea was to take you – my readers – to see the world the way I saw it through the lens of my camera. I invited you to take a journey, but the reality is I was also taking a journey of my self – shading some light on my own experiences and memories. It was, and still is, a fascinating experience. During this year I published 38 posts covering five continents and 22 countries.
The hour was early. The hall was dark and stale. The patched up concrete floor was stained with grease, and the bidders looked no better. This was no Sotheby’s.
“Let’s get away from the kids for few days,” said my wife, “I heard Western Ireland is really beautiful”. I’ve never been there, but the brochure sure looked nice. Sunny, lush and green. I guess I should have known better. After all, I do occasionally create brochures for a living.
Nobody really knows much about La Favela Rocinha (pronounced Rossinya). Only that it is vast, unmappable and dangerous. No one can calculate the volume of drug trafficking that takes place along its dark, narrow alleys. None can tell the exact daily toll of bodies consumed by gang wars, vendettas, and innocent collaterals. This is partly because nobody has a clue as to how big Rocinha is. The official count stands at 70,000 souls, but unofficial guesses hover between 150,000 to 300,000.
One thing is clear. Rocinha is the largest, most disreputable favela in Rio de Janeiro. Its notoriety reaching far beyond the borders of Rio and Brazil. Would you like a visit?
Continue reading “The closely kept secrets of Rio’s largest slum”
I’m riding my beaten-up Enfield through this small village in the middle of the vast Thar Desert, somewhere in northwest India. The main street is unpaved and littered with trash and tired-looking cows. There’s a grocery shop with rusty rails covering the front window, few improvised motorbike repair shops, a barber, a tiny branch of a local cell phone company, and an Opium joint. Yes, that’s right. A dark, dingy, open-for-all Opium den.
Continue reading “This guy is high on Rajasthani Opium, and so is the government”
Quite a lot, apparently. And while all of us carry great burden – life, children, career, spouse, bills to pay – you name it, none takes a load like this. To put it bluntly, if you’d like to witness a real-life example of the difference between “figuratively” and “literally”, come to Antigua, Guatemala, around Easter. I promise an exceptional example of what REAL burden looks like.
