Hi, my name is Faruk. I am from Leeds (UK) and welcome to my TravelBlog.

I love to travel and this seems a great way to keep in touch with your friends/family and share your thoughts and photos of your trips. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to upload all my pics but I will do when I get a moment...maybe a job on my next train journey to London ;o)

In terms of travelling, my dream is to travel all the corners of the globe. The world is a huge place but it feels as if it's getting smaller and smaller in many ways. Travelling definitely broadens your mind and experiencing new cultures, people, languages, food gives me great pleasure :o)

My family background is from Bangladesh. Up until I was 16 years of age, we had done a number of family trips but they were all to Bangladesh. My very first trip abroad on my own was to West Germany when I was 16. I had some relatives living in Stuttgart where I spent 2 weeks.

I have since been to a number of places in France (Paris, Strasbourg), Spain (Madrid, Barcelona, Majorca, Ibiza), Italy (Rome, Milan, Venice, Lake Garda), Netherlands (Amsterdam, Rotterdam), Belgium (Brussels, Brugge), Luxembourg, Germany (Berlin, Franfurt, Stuttgart), Cyprus (Paphos, Aya Napa), India (New Delhi, Mumbai, Agra, Jaipur, Goa, Kolkata, Ahmedabad), Pakistan (Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi), Bangladesh (Dhaka, Chittagong, Cox Bazar, Khulna, Sylhet), Saudi Arabia (Jeddah, Makkah, Medina), Czech Republic (Prague), Abu Dhabi and Dubai (UAE), Turkey (Istanbul) and most recently USA (Los Angeles and Las Vegas).

As well as travelling for leisure/pleasure I have also been fortunate to travel to South Asia on business to recruit International students to study in Leeds. The business trips are never ideal for sight seeing or relaxing but I have had some amazing trips.

I feel very fortunate and blessed in many ways and hope that I can continue my travel adventures for many years to come. I am fascinated by history therefore I have thoroughly enjoyed my visits to the lands of the Roman, Mogul and Ottoman Empires in the past couple of years.

I have fulfilled one of my long term ambitions of going to the USA. I can't believe I drove from LA to Vegas...what an amazing drive. Hope to visit the East Coast of Boston, New York and Washington DC sometime in next couple of years.

No more big trips this year but I would love to do Australasia in 2011....Hope you enjoy reading my blog!!!!

Faruk

Updated June 2010

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