Nota Bene

What’s interesting and recommendable in my Top-100 in the rest of Asia, apart from China and the Middle East? Here’s what…

62. Taj Mahal, India.

A mighty mausoleum made of white marble – the tomb of the favorite wife of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan. If you look closely on Google Maps, here, on the other side of the river opposite the Taj Mahal you can see traces of the preparations for a second Taj-Mahal. Those traces are as far as plans went for a mirror image of the mausoleum – which was to be made out of black marble instead of white. Legend has it that the Mughal Empire simply didn’t have the funds needed to finance such lavish expenditure on an oversized grave, so its padishah (emperor) was deposed by his attendants, which brought his Taj-2 project to an abrupt halt too.

A magical place, especially the contrast between it and its somewhat less regal, rural surroundings. I really recommend taking an individual tour with a personal guide and mini-van so as not to be shaken about violently on a regular tour bus. Details here (pics; text in Russian).

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Read on: mountains, pagodas and volcanoes…

Congratulate me – I’ve completed my first flight of the year! :)

We flew from Arusha to Zanzibar with PrecisionAir in a turboprop ATR 42/72-500 (aka the mosquito).

Read on: The summit of Kili above the clouds…

I always believed bananas fell into one of three categories: ripe, unripe, and, well… fried :) Of course, there are also normal size bananas and mini ones (much tastier).

A visit to Tanzania literally opened my eyes – it turns out that the whole banana theme is far bigger, convoluted and diverse than I imagined.

This is the view we got of the roadside “fruit and veg” stalls:

Read on: Truly amazing berry!…

Hello to everyone in this new year!

I hope the holidays went off well, without too much collateral damage, and that the winter break has proved useful for the mind, body and cultural development. All the usual stuff. But now it’s time to return to my tales, travel notes, reports and photos.

Starting the year as I mean to carry on – quietly… Yeah, right!

You need to start the year with a bang! Like this:

No matter who I talk to about Kilimanjaro, they’ve either been to the summit (the majority) or intend to go there in the near future (the minority). A few days ago I joined the majority – on 31 December 2015, to be precise, I stood at the highest point of this volcano. And saw in the new year on Kili!

Due to Internet and time constraints here, the details will have to wait. For now, all I can do is have a little moan about the fact that for this kind of expedition you need to prepare well in advance and very thoroughly. It wasn’t easy.

Everything about New Year is good! And one of the best things is that it’s the perfect time to take a break, take stock, take note, share impressions, and recharge the batteries for next year. I go through this procedure every year (2014, 2013) – I find it useful in all sorts of ways. I recommend you all do the same and give all those around you a burst of pure positivity. So, how did 2015 shape up? Well, let’s see what my notebook says:

• I shattered my personal record for number of flights – 116 for the year, ~500 hours and ~400,000 km in the air. The most intense month was March – 15 flights.
• Visited 23 countries, some more than once. I was in China, Germany and the UK most of all.
• Gave 50+ presentations, did 100+ interviews, got through 20 business conferences, met 6 presidents, prime ministers and ministers.
• Stayed, lived or simply slept in 41 hotels
• Discoveries of the year: the Maldives, Guatemala, Gabon, Iceland. I now have 80 countries under my belt.
• Completed the 9^th round-the-world trip. Not much for a year, but it was all fast and action-packed.
• Caught a connecting flight at SVO for the first time.
• Turned 50 while “on the road again”.

Read on: Geographical discoveries…

Ho ho ho!

Once a year, usually around the end of December we suddenly start feeling all festive. And it doesn’t matter if there’s a winter wonderland outside or a miserable ‘Euro-winter’ with heavy rain falling from dark gray skies, and a biting wind whistling around our office and apartment blocks. At least you can hide from the weather in the underground car park! It’s about the only place actually.

The gray northern gloom is the harsh reality of the last few days before New Year. Melancholy and “the aesthetics of decay” (с).

But we’re not the type of people to let the weather get in the way of a good time! Every year we shake off the winter blues, and by sheer force of will, and with a little help from volunteers, professional performers, makeup artists, event organizers, plus lots of rehearsals, we all gather together at a prearranged venue. Yes, this is KL’s annual New Year Party! And the results speak for themselves!

Read on: And we wouldn’t have it any other way!…

I have just attended a Very Interesting Conference, namely the World Internet Conference 2015 in China. You can find out more about the conference in the news (if you’re interested), but I have my own story to tell.

The event took place in the historic town of Wuzhen, which was closed and cordoned off in its entirety so it could receive high-ranking guests, including presidents, prime ministers and China’s Chairman Xi in person. I fell asleep on my way from Shanghai to Wuzhen, so I don’t know exactly how many security cordons we crossed. The roads in Wuzhen were empty, the clouds had been dispersed (or they may have dispersed of their own accord, I’m not sure). The weather was bright, bordering on frosty, and the heat-loving locals were wrapped up in coats and scarfs.

The first day of the conference was a killer.

The action started at 8.00 in the morning and finished at 11:30 at night. “I almost died” (c). However, I did meet some very interesting people :) and made an important business announcement.

On the second day, I managed to find some time to wander around this remarkable place as a tourist. It was very interesting. On the Web Wuzhen is dubbed ‘The Chinese Venice’. Yes, the principle is the same as Venice, with canals, bridges and boats, but all with a Chinese flavor and much smaller in scale. You can stroll around the whole of the old town in just 2 or 3 hours, and that’s taking plenty of time for pictures.

https://www.instagram.com/p/_Zevp2uiYK/

Read on: A movie on the way back…

I first visited Dubai a long time ago – back in 2005, in February as I recall. It was then that we signed our very first distributor contract in UAE.

Business didn’t take off immediately (if I remember correctly), but by little by little we started conquering the home-user segment (green boxes appeared on the shelves of local shops) followed by small companies, and now we are working with large corporate customers too.

In November 2008, we officially opened our local office in a skyscraper right in front of Palm Jumeirah island – in this one right here:

Read on: A quick excursion…

Congratulations to all those who guessed! I now have a Sony-A7 camera [as well as a business, kids and family] hanging round my neck, plus a couple of lenses – a “standard” and a wide angle. Here they are together:

So, what can I say about it? As expected, there were no real surprises! The picture quality is superb compared to the same manufacturer’s point-and-shoot (DSC RX100-II). You can see it with the naked eye. But there are still some people with their Lightrooms and other shamanic processing rituals who are wiping their sweaty palms, desperate to show me all kinds of manuals on professional image processing. Yeah, right! I’ve got better things to do than spend hours tinkering with nano-masterpieces, whose total time of public viewing will be less than the time it took to process. No thank you! I need something more straightforward. A couple of runners to move back and forth or up and down a little, a few buttons to press, then cut off what is not necessary – 30 seconds and it’s ready!

But the shots taken with this new camera truly are something else, especially after some minor processing:

https://www.instagram.com/p/–odw9OiTj/

In other words, this camera has the “masterpiece” button that I have long been looking for – unsuccessfully – on other [point-and-shoot] cameras!

I have to say that overall I like it, but there are some questions that still need to be answered. And a few comments.

1. The camera has a Wi-Fi option meaning you can post your photos to the Internet or upload them to a smartphone or a computer. My first thought was – what about security? Perhaps I should take this smart device to our security experts to be checked? I’d be really interested to know how safe this IoT-device is in terms of the external cyber influences.

// If things carry on like this, we’ll soon have toothpicks with Wi-Fi that immediately send a picture of tooth decay to your dentist.

2. And what do we need all these extra black wheels for at the front and rear? I moved them around and saw no difference. Or maybe I didn’t turn them hard enough. Perhaps I’ll find the answer later on when I finish reading the manual that takes time. Lot of time. And memory.

Drawbacks:

3. It’s not pocket-sized! And I doubt I will ever wear jeans with pockets big enough :) // Ideal size for a kangaroo though.

4. The battery only lasted for 300 photos. What am I supposed to do in Kamchatka?? I’d need to take 10 batteries with me for a week’s travel! Or a power pack for a week? Actually, last time we took solar batteries – they weren’t all that heavy and helped us a lot with the point-and-shoot cameras. Maybe they’ll help with more energy-hungry equipment? I’ll let you know soon.

5. And by the way, where’s the flash? What do you mean there’s “no flash”? No flash at all?? You’re kidding!? … And so what now? … I guess I’ll have to keep that point-and-shoot camera – with its built-in flash – in my back pocket.

So, why does China (in addition to Russia) get a Top-100 post all of its own? Easy: the quantity of unique natural beauties here is simply off the scale. Curiously though, hardly any of them are known outside the country.

Quite why that’s the case, I’m not fully sure of. What I am sure about is that China appears to do absolutely nothing to attract foreigners to the country. But then they don’t have to. They’ve enough on their plate catering to the hundreds of millions of their own citizens. Accordingly, some places – no matter how ‘wow’ – don’t even have a Wikipedia entry. They only become known about through tales of the odd (odd!) foreign tourist or two who accidentally happen on them during their pioneering travels around the country’s hinterland. And one such odd odd foreign tourist is (to a certain extent, for I still haven’t seen a great deal of the country) me!

But before getting to those ultra-exclusive unknown Chinese locations, let me get a few of the very obvious, very famous Chinese tourist attractions out of the way…

52. Great Wall of China.

I’ve been told that several generations ago folks could trek along the wall for several days on end! Alas, these days there’s no chance of that: self-preservation’s the name of the game today; only a short section is open to visitors. Nevertheless, it’s still totally worth checking out, and not only for the proverbial tick on your ‘been and seens’: there’s no other wall quite like it in the world. Uniformly unique.

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Read on: China…