One hundred and ten kilometres from Santorini lies Crete. A powered catamaran takes one to Heraklion in northern Crete, site of the largest Minoan palace excavated so far. The Minoan site in Knossos in Crete is the product of the singular efforts of a British …

Bukhara is a sepia-tinted portrait come alive for more reasons than one.  It is one of those cities where time seems to have stood still for centuries. The present graciously defers to the past and its glory, leaving little room for incongruities. And Bukhara is …

The flight from Chennai to Colombo is a kaleidoscopic experience. The plane cruises along the emerald coast of the Indian peninsula where waves flirt with beige sands, their pearly froth sketching an undulating design along the shores. Through the scratched panes of your Airbus 320 …

Mount Merapi (mountain of fire, in Javanese) looks enigmatic, almost benign, as though it were a guardian angel watching over its favourite ward. A placid plume of smoke curls out of its top like an agarbatti. Yet, as late as October 2010, this live and …

Patan and Bhaktapur, two former imperial capitals of Nepal are Unesco World Heritage sites. For 200 years between the 14th and 16th centuries, Bhaktapur became the most powerful of the three Malla kingdoms of Nepal. Exquisite Newari architecture using wood and metal worked into intricate …

Baku is a bustling oil town on the shore of the Caspian, its coastline studded with oil rigs, platforms, tankers, refineries, the works. Baku’s legendary `Pillars of Fire’ were nothing but gas fields which could not be capped and hence burnt away. Local people began …

The Mandalay-Bagan cruise in the Irrawaddy is the highlight of any trip to Myanmar. Flanked by sculptured mud-banks sprinkled with stupas whose steep spires rise skyward as if in prayer, the river is tranquility personified. The boat glides gracefully. Sunrise on the Irrawaddy is a …

The origin of the city of Athens is an interesting story. Cecrops, a Phoenician came to Attica where he founded a city on a huge rock near the sea. The gods at Olympus decided that the city should be named after a god who could …

  When you visit Angkor Wat, make sure you arrive by the river route. That would be a fitting tribute to an ingenious ancient civilization that flourished and dazzled primarily because of its unmatched ability to harness water, that elixir of life. In an unfortunate …