Victoria Falls The Pot of Silver at the end of the Lunar Rainbow 21-12-2010 The next day, we took a taxi to the ‘Big Tree’, which is a bit far from the rainforest but which is worth a visit. I believe it is a baobab tree but I am not sure. Anyway, it is HUGE. The taxi dropped us at the entrance to the rainforest. We were fully equipped with umbrellas and raincoats and a camera and traversed the whole length of it from the Devil’s cataract to the ‘Danger Point’, opposite to the ‘Knife’s Edge’ on the Zambian side. Fortunately, the day was clear and the ‘spray’ from the falls was not too thick to obscure the views, and so we had wonderful rainbows (solar) over the majestic falls. There is a nice big statue ... read more

19-12-2010 Johannesburg would have attracted me like a magnet when its gold and diamond mines were going strong, but now they are defunct. Take away the mines and what tourist interest does Johannesburg have? “None” Of course, some artificial tourist attractions have been created – like The Sun City, which is just a casino and the Gold Reef City, which is an ‘amusement park’ with the usual paraphernalia of roller-coaster rides. Well, we are not gamblers and getting wrung out from inside out on a roller-coaster ride is NOT my idea of ‘amusement’. The Pilanesburg Park too, which is near the Sun City, pales in comparison with the Kruger N.P. especially, as I described it to Avi, “Stone animals inside the Sun City and ‘stoned’ ones outside in Pilanesburg” because I suspect that the ‘big five’ ... read more

Kruger National Park This is my first attempt to embed a video into my blog. I still am not sure that it will work. Anyway, if you copy the url in your browser, it does work. Enjoy the poor dung beetles' discomfiture. Dung beetles moving their home. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld7eG8KoOuU Did I claim that I had planned our trip very well? OK, here is the confession. There was a big mistake that I had made while planning, which would have made us too stressed out and tired to enjoy the evening game drive at Kruger. I had arranged for the travel agency to pick us up from the Johannesburg airport (after a 9-hour flight from Mumbai) and drive straightway to Kruger N.P., which is 490 kms away – not a mean distance by any standard. Moreover, there was ... read more

‘Pacific Beach’ on the Arabian Sea No, please do not open an Atlas or do a Google search on these words. The Atlas would frustrate you and the Google would mislead you into many directions and give you all sorts of unwanted information about Karachi, Muscat or Oman beaches as well as sea-turtles in Costa Rica. I alone know that this ‘Pacific Beach’ is not located in Washington State, USA, but exists in nearby Kashid, about 140 Kms from Mumbai. Other people call it simply as ‘Kashid Beach’ but it is actually a replica of the Pacific Beach of USA. If you think there is something ‘fishy’ about this statement, you are right and you will know why, in a moment. Children’s puzzles often show two pictures which appear identical but there are small differences hidden ... read more

Catherine’s Palace at Tsarkoye Selo and Pavlovsk at Pushkin The suburban Imperial Estates of St. Petersburg like Catherine’s Palace, Pavlovsk, Gatchina etc. are marvels of recreation. Please note that I am not using the word ‘restoration’ since after the ‘Siege of Leningrad’ in WWII, there was nothing left to restore in those palaces. They were totally looted and ravaged, though some of the art treasures were moved to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg in the nick of the time and thus escaped the looting. So, what we see now at the Catherine’s Palace and Pavlovsk is a ‘recreation’ of those palaces, faithful to the original, and that is why the palaces look brand-new, not ‘lived-in’, and the artifacts look fresh. Catherine’s Palace was particularly famous for its ‘Amber Room’. The original panels are lost irrevocably, ... read more