International

Portsmouth & Bluereef Aquarium

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Portsmouth is a small port city famous for many famous naval ships for example HMS Warrior and HMS victory. It is old dry port and is situated on an Island.
ome facts about Spinnaker Tower

The Tower has been a huge success and has received over 2 million visitors since opening.
The high speed internal lift travels at 4 metres per second, taking you to the View Decks in just 30 seconds.
The concrete used to build the Tower would fill five-and-a-half Olympic-sized swimming pools.
The Tower is founded on 84 piles, the longest of which runs 50m into the ground – the equivalent of Nelson’s Column.
The total weight of the Tower exceeds 30,000 tonnes.
The 27m spire weighs 14 tonnes and was carefully lifted into place by crane.
1200 tonnes of structural steel used to form the Tower’s distinctive bows is the equivalent weight of 12 blue whales.
115 metres up and in high winds, the Tower can flex approximately 150mm.
There are 570 steps from the base up to View Deck 3, The Crow’s Nest.

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Southampton & Stonehenge

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Southampton is a small city…very quiet, beautiful and attractive. There is nothing much to see in Southampton, but the Titanic Museum and remains of old Southampton fort. Next day we started our exploration of Southampton. We went to the market and saw the gate of Southampton Fort. In WWII, SH was completely destroyed and it was re-built. The pier from which Titanic sailed, was also destroyed and there stands the new port.

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London 2012 – Getting there

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We went in and did the usual hoolah of checking in and immigration etc., and headed for the duty-free/lounges. My dad waited patiently while mom and I took a look around the duty-free, and finding nothing to our liking, commenced to the lounge. It was the same lounge and, of course, nothing had changed since last year – the couches, the low impossible-to-eat-off little coffee tables, the lights, everything was the same. The food was kept on a granite table with L-shaped counters around it. They had patties, sausages etc for starters, and rice, Mexican chicken gravy and different curries for people wanting a full-er meal. I first went to the patties, which were kept in that microwave-y, revolve-y thingies. I took one and got back to the couch we were sitting on and picked up the day’s Daily Mail, and spent the next 10-15 minutes savouring ‘delicacies’ (okay, it was just a patty, but still) and reading about what’s going on in the country hosting us for the next 14 days or so. I then went on to get myself the other things – I got myself sausages and sat down to eat, and in my mind thought, ‘wow, pretty delicious’, but the truth was, I was gonna learn what delicious sausages really are. I decided not to pig out anymore on the food on land and fill myself only once in air, and so for the rest of the time all I did was drink various kinds of juices, call all my friends to say bye and generally watch the news and listen to music, thinking of all the delicious cuisine I was going to savour soon.

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St. Martin’s – A Hidden Coral Island

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The Naf river rises in the Arakan mountain ranges of Myanmar, thence it flows through Myanmar and Bangladesh. Akyab in Myanmar is on its left Bank, Teknaf in Bangladesh is on its right bank. Outside the famed Sundarbans, the river is home to Sundari trees . Flowing between mountain ranges, dotted with little fishing boats, Silver Hued and wide as the heart of a Saint, the river was in true sense the “Daughter of the Mountains”. As the boat cruised through the Naf, Myanmar came into view, the 36X zoom of my Nikon P-500 revealed a beautiful land nestled at the foot of sky kissing Mountains and dotted with beautiful pagodas, but fenced with tall barbed wire fences all through. It was a reminder that this was a country which is warning the entire world , “Keep OFF”. Cut off from the world for the last 24 years , Myanmar is an enigma in itself. We are all awaiting the day when Myanmar will be opened up to the world at large and tourists would flock back to this lovely place.

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हेरिटेज मेला

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इस फोटो में आप कैनेडा  के मूल बाशिंदों को देख सकते हैं, यह इनका पारम्परिक घर है. कुछ लकड़ी के डंडे खड़े किये और उसके इर्दगिर्द एक कपड़ा लपेटा और घर त्यार. यह अपने आप को नेटिव या ऐबओर्जिनल कहलाना पसंद करते हैं. सब से पहले यह लोग ही कैनेडा आये थे.

इस स्टाल पर घाना का नाच चल रहा है, यह जोड़ी देख कर नहीं लगता नाचना इनके बस का है शायद गीत संगीत बजा कर लोगों का मनोरंजन कर रहे हैं, नीचे वाली फोटो में मार्शल आर्ट दिखाया जा रहा है, काफी बहादुरी से मुकाबला चल रहा है,  यह लेडी आसानी से परुष को पटक देती है.

यह रशिया की स्टेज है, यह नाच का कौन सा स्टेप है, काफी प्रेक्टिस के बाद ही इसे किया जा सकता है, रशिया के लोगों को काफी महारत हासिल है  पर बाद में दूसरे नर्तक दल ने आसान न्रत्य पेश किया काफी अच्छा लग रहा है .

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Makkah – Performing the Hajj Pilgrimage – 3

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In reality, we returned to our hotel room in Makkah and snatched a little sleep before dawn. After the Fajr prayers, we proceeded to go to Mina, which is about 2 km away. Just ahead of Mina is the “Jamarat” or the place where the three “devils” are located. Before I describe this, let me say that stoning of the three devils is a ritual more to remember and praise Allah than to actually denounce the devils.

The route to Jamarat goes through a tunnel that is over a kilometer long. This tunnel was full of devotees right in the morning; only police and emergency vehicles are allowed to pass (and some motorcycles, which had one Saudi and one pilgrim … a private arrangement where the Saudi earns some quick bucks). We also saw several guys with wheel-chairs for hire; they ferried the willing pilgrims to Mina for 50 Saudi Riyals. However, theirs is an illegal enterprise, and we frequently saw the police blocking them and asking the pilgrims to “disembark”. However, the thing I wish to say is … the road to Mina, and beyond, to the Jamarat, is easily traversed as you are walking with hundreds of others. We went past the tunnel, and via a busy but narrow road, we finally reached Mina.

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Makkah – Performing the Hajj Pilgrimage – 2

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I was in regular touch with the other doctors whom I had left behind, and at about half past twelve, one of them informed me that Sk. Jamal, the tour operator, had finally sorted out the problem with the police, and that they would all be proceeding shortly directly to the hotel where we were to be lodged for the next few days.

I then caught a cab and went to the hotel, where everyone else was just arriving/settling down. This hotel, grandiosely called the Salman Plaza Hotel, was just a building with sub-standard rooms … the kind that you saw in your salad days! They had allocated one room of about 220 sq. ft. for 11 males! Each of us would get to sleep on a half-width Chinese mattress, with the rest of the space being used to keep our bags and shoes/slippers. The A/C worked okay, as did the fan. The room had a small (read cramped) toilet-cum-bath. I chose my “bed” and lay down almost immediately.

My co-passengers were all as tired as I was; one of my friends brought some food, and invited me to share it with him, which I did. We prayed the Dhuhr prayers, and then went to the Holy Mosque to perform the ARRIVAL circumambulation (7 rounds around the Holy Kaa’ba). I continued after this to also complete 7 lengthwise walks between Safaa and Marwah.

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A Day Trip OF Philly

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Philadelphia has lots of statues in the parks and roads most of them of historical figures like Presidents and war heroes  specially popular being President Lincoln’s statue on Kelly Drive, I could not take its picture as the bus was moving too fast. But I was able to take picture of the statue of chief justice John Marshall outside the west gate of Franklin Institute. Ever heard of a Judge’s statue in India? If yes please inform me.  There is also a controversial statue of the Italian Stallion Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa a must for movie buffs as the story of Rocky series is in Philly. The guides in the buses were very knowledgeable and were telling a lot of stories about not only the city but also some of the controversies going in the city. The controversy around Ricky’s statue was another one.

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Makkah – Performing the Hajj pilgrimage

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A trip to Makkah normally takes about three hours, give or take. The actual distance from my village to it is about 290 km. This night, though, we took over ten hours to reach Makkah, and over 16 hours to finally reach the hotel rooms where we would all be staying. I would tell you all the sordid details, but suffice it to know that our agent had arranged the whole trip ILLEGALLY … that is, there was no payment made to the Government of Saudi Arabia for performance of a legal journey. We were performing Hajj at a very low cost … the cost would include the transportation to Makkah and the return from it, and the 11-persons-per-room stay in a hotel in Makkah. Food, internal travelling, comforts etc. were EXCLUDED. Of course, the organiser’s huge profit margin was INCLUDED in the 1800 Saudi Riyals per person package!

As we were not official pilgrims, the police stopped our bus at many places. At one spot, we were immediately directed to the opposite side and asked to return to Ta’if, the city from which we had just left; we tried to re-negotiate this barricade, and failed again. Then, in a burst of creativity, one of my co-passengers simply shifted one of the barricades aside and we drove past it, out of sight of the police! Ahead, as night deepened, most of us went off to sleep. The bus plodded on, inch by inch, as it neared Makkah. At the break of dawn, the driver woke us all and asked us to get off the bus, while he tried to get the bus past yet another police barricade. We got off, and walked past the lingering police with hundreds of other pilgrims in a similar predicament. Finding some flat, even ground on the side of the road, we all plopped there to await the bus that would come to pick us up. It was another two hours before it did. In the meantime, night turned into day and the sun climbed up, changing the weather from a balmy, warm one into an uncomfortable, hot one.

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Chasing the Heavenly Lights !!

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We had information that this year Aurora would be in full swing due to high activities in the sun… My daughter had gifted me a new camera (lumix GF3) so I was ready to see and shoot Aurora this year.   One day I woke up at 5, for drinking a glass of water and when I peeped out of my window, I saw a green colored cloud over my garden.  I was excited that I was watching Aurora from inside my house.  I ran and brought the camera, but by the time I fixed it, the green cloud left and a beautiful blue haze covered the sky.

So first attempt failed.   Evening when we were watching our favorite TV serials, suddenly telephone rang and my friend Hilde was on the other side.  She told me to go to certain place, If I wished to see Northern Lights.  It was a wintery night and temprature was -4, with high winds blowing, but that did not bar us from rushing out.  We drove by the downtown, and near the sea and watched the beautiful Reykjavik in night.

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Venice Calling

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While my son followed the boatman’s song with “row row row your boat”-my daughter’s lively imagination propelled her to the way people in the olden times. The gondola swerved into smaller water channels, compressed by the rows of houses projecting on either side. The balconeys of most houses were decorated by a riot of colorful flowers. I imagined fair maiden peeping out of the balcony, glancing shyly at the boatman who had purposefully directed his boat there-to glance at lady of his heart…hmmm I know too vivid imagination-but that’s was just the Gondola ride playing tricks on my mind.

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