Brown Motion

There is a lot of ground to cover if one wanted to visit all the 190 plus officially recognized countries in our world. A lot of them have even more water to cover to get to them. But the family all aligned on the merits of burning fossil fuels to appreciate other cultures embarked on few voyages in the past two decades and came back with lots of pictures and memories to last this lifetime. Below are glimpses from the five of seven continents we touched down on..in no particular order.. and merely arranged based on the laziness of finding these gems by yours truly Above pic is of my breakfast in Pune, India High calorific content amidst a humid and noisy ambience not captured in the picture the rice lentil crepe is a crispy delight. Above vista is a ski slope near the Tahoe basin of the Sierra Nevada range in winter in Northern California. Bull. No really ... it is a big deal in India.  It is what Shiva the destructor of this universe rode on.. as myths go i...

Many a trip to me is a pilgrimage of sorts - the religion being curiosity.  Some throw curveballs and are rather exhausting in their execution simply because the destination happens to be rather remote.  But making the most of the journey (to harp on an oft harped cliche) does add flavor to the experience. So here are some more of these exotically intoxicating and 'holier than thou' (you will figure out what I mean) adventures... We start in New Zealand on the north eastern coast of the south island (the country has two main islands - north and south) and travel along the eastern edge hugging the Pacific. Departure from PICTON NZ Through tunnels and down the coast to Christchurch  Few hours north from NZ, crossing the equator and you are in the tiny island country of Singapore.. Neat and tidy this once Victorian trading post and gateway to the riches of Asia is now a well oiled business machine.   Hanging out at the local D...

Growing up in India the only Peru I knew of was a tropical fruit (Guava for those whose lingua is English).   Not until high school did I discover that it was also a country in the South American continent. So it was this early April week that we decided to hit up Peru - the land of the once glorious Inca people that lived 500 years ago.  Today Peru is the third largest country on that continent with a diverse geography that stretches from the drier Pacific coast plains to the high mountains of the Andes and the Amazon river valley to its east. Our trip was primarily a pilgrimage of sorts to visit the last remaining, lost (now found and documented), large scale, mostly undamaged, city of the Inca nobility, called Machu Picchu (MP).  The Inca were great architects and builders.  MP is a UNESCO world heritage site affording it high visibility to the tourism trade and therefore crowded year round.  Our timing was not quite high season allowing us...

We have our mind set on visiting our 5th continent this spring.  Our fifth in the order of continents visited - the destination an ancient Inca city high in the Peruvian Andes.  A UNESCO World Heritage site. All that may sound sexy or highly cultured but is quite taxing on the brain and wallet so getting there is another matter entirely.  The easy way is to simply get one of the tour operators to plan it for you and let them drive you like cattle.  No control on schedule or destinations and an arm and a leg to boot in terms of Dollars or Soles (in this case). It is a multi stage itinerary and investigating and booking all aspects of the trip is a journey in itself as we have realized.  It reminds me of the days certain religious types from India visited destinations like Tirupati Tirumala Venkata also on a mount (much smaller hill than the Peruvian Andes we are planning) but much older in historic context.  In a way this too is a pilgrimage ...