Tag Archives: must see

Just two weeks in Tanzania over the New Year break, but soooo many impressions! And you, dear blog readers, are only half-way through those impressions…

After coming back down Kilimanjaro to the plains below, before we had time to utter ‘acclimatization’, we were whisked off… on an African safari!

Initially, the colonial meaning of the term ‘safari’ meant ‘to go and shoot wild animals in Africa’, not necessarily to later eat them or even use their hides for whatever; just like at a shooting gallery – only with live targets. Time has passed and mores have changed for the better, and now the term means ‘to look at wild animals in Africa (from a car or jeep)’… and take photos of them in all their wild poses.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BAzBieOuiQ9/

Read on: Hakuna matata!…

At Christmastime (“ho, ho, ho”), what better to do than… climb a volcano in Africa? That’s what I asked myself in November of last year… 

…Wind forward six weeks, and there I was, at the summit of Kilimanjaro!

“The first stage of altitude sickness is euphoria: the individual becomes animated, excited, amiable, chatty… almost ecstatic. The second stage is lethargy: the person becomes despondent, sad, bored, subdued and sluggish, with no wish to converse and no appetite.”

Those are the notes I wrote based on the talk our guide in Tanzania, O.R., gave us not long after our arrival in the country. But I think she left the next stage out (she didn’t want to frighten us, after all); so let me add it: The third stage is fatal: a swift worsening of one’s physical and mental state and… hmmm, like O.R., I’d prefer not to go into it. Let me just mention what you’d need if approaching this third stage: oxygen mask, injected medicine, and a call to an SOS medical helicopter service – all ASAP.

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Read on: Oh my Google Maps! What an adventure we had…

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.

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.

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Read on: A movie on the way back…

As you’ll have guessed (or maybe not) – this is Nagasaki:

This time in Japan I was practically never out of a suit – and tie! Such an unusual state of affairs could mean only one thing: no sightseeing scheduled. However, there was one place in Nagasaki I simply couldn’t forego. Yes – where the second bomb was dropped 70 years ago.

Read on: Stop and pay your respects…

A couple of months ago I brought up the topic of tourist attractions and other notable holiday occurrences in and around Beijing: Beijing Temples, the Summer Palace, and a military parade.

Well, it just so happens there’s a whole load more of such touristic delights; so many you could spend weeks taking them all in. Ok, I rarely ever have weeks to spare (unless we’re talking Kamchatka:), but at least I am able to fit tourism in between business meetings – which is just what I did recently in the Chinese capital, where I was staying for the second time in as many months. I got the chance to inspect some well-known, and also not so well-known places. Check them out:

1. The Temple of Heaven. A temple complex of astonishing beauty (as are many in the East). Its size is grandly grandiose (even by Beijing standards), the air’s easy to breathe, and it’s most pleasant to walk around. The air’s especially clean on those rare days when a northerly wind blows across Beijing (as happened when we were there): all the pollution and smog is blown away from the metropolis (hate to think where:), leaving the sky crystal clear and blue.

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Read on: The ultimate inevitable…

Next stop on the route of my hidden China vacation – the Valley of Nine Villages, aka, the Jiuzhaigou (九寨沟) nature reserve and national park: Yet ANOTHER absurdly astounding Chinese natural beauty!

Cascades of lakes and waterfalls, crystal clear – albeit fluorescent turquoise! – water in lakes, and a freakish forest of horizontally growing trees under that same crazy colored water, and all that set in the most picturesque of mountainous landscapes. And in the fall there’s a bonus: the blends of reds and yellows and oranges of autumn leaves. Oh my gigabytes.

#No filter – no, really!

https://instagram.com/p/9IvfPCOiYA/

Read on: Jiuzhaigou walkthrough…

Half an hour away on a plane from the not-so small (14-million-peopled!) Sichuan capital, Chengdu, in Southwest China, there’s yet another masterpiece of Chinese natural beauty: Huanglong. Basically it’s a cascade of brightly colored lakes and waterfalls made up of highly mineralized (calcareous) water. But that’s enough words. Better just check out the pics…

https://instagram.com/p/882AFOuib8/

Read on: Bewildering beauty…

Onward we march on our hidden China tour!

Since we happened to be in the city of Leshan in the Sichuan province, it would have been rude not to have gotten up to the top of Mount Emei, in Chinese known as Éméi shān. That’s what we reckoned anyway. Turned out we were rudely mistaken.

https://instagram.com/p/85x422uiTh/

Read on: No landscapes but … elephants!…

If you enter ‘Buddha and’ into Google, guess which five suggestions Google finishes the sentence with…:

Buddha and bonsai

Buddha and ahsok

Buddha and cats

Buddha and mara story

Buddha and the quantum

!!!

Curious, I admit. But my topic today is also curious: Buddha and… the ocean!

Never saw a connection, right? Well, did you see one between Buddha… and cats? :)

Anyway, I’ll save the Buddha-and-the-ocean connection until the end of this post (it’s a brainteasing riddle – well worth the wait). First off – text and pics by way of introduction…

In the city of Leshan there’s a giant Buddha statue, by coincidence called the Leshan Giant Buddha, which peers down on the river Min gushing past it. It’s been there for more than a thousand years. That’s a lot of river water that’s flowed past it…

https://instagram.com/p/8uvEQQOiV2/

Read on: All mindful and meditated? Ok. The question…