Visiting Yangon is like emerging from a time machine into a sepia-tinted, dreamy, misty town where overloaded ancient buses with beaked bonnets and pump horns share road space with bullock carts, chickens, and Buddhist nuns in single file seeking alms. Unmindful of the chaos on …

  The attractive attendant at the travel desk at Jinlung Hotel in Beijing smiles approvingly when you ask to hire a bicycle. After all, she knows it is the best way to get the real flavour of this sprawling city of wide, straight avenues and …

When I check into the elegant Schlosshotel Cicilienhof at Potsdam near Berlin, I have little idea of the historic significance of the location. It is only when I stray into the adjoining wing of the hotel, now converted into a museum, I learn that this …

As our ferry from Victoria, an idyllic town in Vancouver Island just across the bay, glides unhurriedly towards Canada’s mainland, thickly forested islands, with occasional smoking chimneys peering out of the foliage, line up on both sides. This seems quintessential Pacific Northwest, untamed and unharmed …

There has been intense rivalry between Sydneysiders and Melbournians over the prized tag of the most livable Australian city. While officially, Melbourne has been conferred the coveted title, my personal preference is for Sydney, where I have spent extended stays upto six months. Melbourne, in …

Madrid was our pitstop as my friend Rekha and I traipsed all over Spain and Portugal in 2006. We spent quite a bit of our time in Prado, admiring the various masters. In fact, museum-hopping is my favourite pastime in most cities. Guernica dazzled.

I accepted the invitation to speak in a conference in Dushanbe with alacrity.  I thought I could use the visit to drive on the Pamir Highway, something I missed on two earlier visits to Kyrgyz Republic. I wanted to travel from Murghab to Osh or …