It’s a name which evokes a sense of wonderment: Shangri-la. In perhaps the most brazen ploy for tourism revenue in recorded history, the Chinese government renamed the town of Zhongdian in northern Yunnan to Shangri-la in 2001. While the name change was shameless and crass, Shangri-la isn’t entirely undeserving of the moniker. In fact, I’d …
temples
The Old Town of Lijiang
‘The Black Spot of China’s Tourism Industry’. That’s the moniker often given to the Old Town of Lijiang. Even travel guides mention it. The name has to do with the heavy-handed restoration efforts to local Naxi-style buildings and an influx of Han Chinese putting on traditional Naxi getup to give the place an ‘ethnic’ flair. Perhaps that’s a byproduct …
Five Things to Do in Xingping
Not even a 3 hour ride via high speed rail from the urban sprawl of Guangzhou, the Chinese countryside begins to change. Vast coastal plains shrouded in haze and chewed up by the grinding mouth of urbanization give way to scenes lifted from those old Chinese paintings — sheer limestone karsts topped with hanging greenery …
Day Trip to Lantau Island
Hong Kong is famous for many things: diverse food, bustling markets, fascinating history, tiny hotel rooms… However, there’s a whole other side to the special administrative region just next to Shenzhen, and that’s what I fell in love with on my third trip to the Pearl of the Orient. Outside the main city are a number …
Atop the Walls of Jaisalmer
I write this from the shores of Lake Te Anau, on the saturated fringes of Fiordland National Park. Here in the midst of lush forests and craggy fiords, I find myself missing the desert. Dunes, the endless expanse of featureless scrub-lands, baggage trains of camels… and I miss that crumbling fort at the edge of the …
Colors of Rajasthan: Six Highlights in Jaipur
I reached Jaipur after almost 24 hours straight of traveling, having left the hill station city of Darjeeling the preceding morning. I was shambling by the time I got into an airport taxi, and couldn’t find the energy to care when the driver charged me a couple hundred rupees extra. But even as fatigued as I was, …
The Fort over the Blue City of Jodhpur
A palace that might have been built by Titans and colored by the morning sun.” – Rudyard Kipling I came by night through the teeming bazaar, so I didn’t see the azure city until the following morning. The fort I glimpsed only from a distance — as the train I rode chugged into town under …
A Walk through the Mists in Darjeeling
“Moonlight disappears down the hills, Mountains vanish into fog, and I vanish into poetry.” ― Sanober Khan The owner of the Cozy Nest Homestay, Wangchuk, had drawn a route map out for me on a scrap of paper. He’d done the same when I went exploring the tea fields previously, further emphasizing that home-stays are so …
A Walk through the Lanes and Tea Fields of Darjeeling
I slept well Friday night. I had to, for the next few days would involve very little sleep. I only managed a couple hours collectively over the next two nights — a few minutes grabbed on an airport bench, a few passed out against a wall, a few more in the shuddering seat of the Boeing …
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Love in Kashan: A Tale of Two Houses
Kashan was notable because it was the end–the final stop of our tour before returning to the clamoring urban jungle of Tehran. A small oasis in the middle of the Dasht-e Kavir, Kashan has captured the minds of travelers for centuries. Instead of reading more about it in my guidebook, however, I found myself staring out …