A Journal of Travel Tales Across 72 Countries
Like Delhi, Windhoek is perched on the edge of the desert, but unlike Delhi, there’s no alluvial river to fertilize it, nor is there abundant vegetation to clothe it. To me, Windhoek appeared like a disrobed town, fair, clean and orderly in its nakedness. The …
After two weeks of driving through Namibia, we flew from Windhoek to Katima Mulilo on the border, drove another 75 km to exit Namibia and through 700 meters of ‘no man’s land’ to cross the land border into Kasane, the border town of Botswana, the …
The Zambezi comes cascading down in torrents that send up massive clouds of spray that gave it the name Mosi-oa-Tunya’ (the smoke that thunders) in the Kololo or Lozi language, and the name is now used throughout Zambia and in parts of Zimbabwe. Mosi-oa-Tunya National …
2000 kms, 14 days, 4×4 Self-drive The Namib desert is the oldest desert on the planet. It takes its name from the Nama people who originally inhabited this land. Three or four major ethnic groups and many minor ones are native to Namibia – Ovambo, …
Etosha Pan extending over 22000 square kms of dry scrubland in Namibia is home to every African wildlife species, some of them prolific. What sets Etosha apart from other wildlife parks in Africa is that it is a desert and the animals here have adapted …
Two years ago, I decided to ditch the traffic and pollution of Delhi to move to Bengaluru, all I desired was a bit of quiet and silence. North Bengaluru beckoned, not having been concretised densely like the rest of the city, but my local friends …
There was a time when we used to live in Agartala on the border with Bangladesh and crossed over a few times, once going upto Dhaka by road. In 2003, I attended a week-long regulatory workshop in Dhaka and was escorted by my dear friend …
It was a rainy morning in November when I boarded a train from Brussels Zuid to Ghent St.Pieters, just half an hour away. Ghent not being on the usual tourist map – that honour goes to Bruges, the lace-making, adjacent Belgian town which is a …
Antananrivo is a tongue-twister no doubt, and means ‘city of a thousand warriors’ but most shorten it to Tana. The Malagasy, of course, are mind-twisters: they defy slotting – they could be negroid, Indonesian, Malaysian, Indian or even European. My travel company has sent me …
He hangs a lantern on a hook suspended from the bamboo rafter above and disappears into the gloom. The reluctant illumination reveals a freshly-washed dhoti spread on a charpoy. And then he re-emerges from the darkness with a small cloth parcel. With a flick of …