http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/nickkembel/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from nickkembel en-us Sun, 27 Dec 2009 04:13:35 +0000 Sun, 27 Dec 2009 04:13:35 +0000 I have no idea what to expect as my train enters Mumbai. Well actually I have a few ideas. 20 million people sprawl poverty and wealth mishmash of religions colonial architecture the biggest city in mainland Asia. Bollywood with the highest output of films in the world practically side by side with Dharavi the second largest slum in the world. The city of blaring contrasts. An hour past http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Maharashtra/Mumbai/blog-462826.html Within a sandcastle fort a cow meditates possibly on the tradeoff she has made being born in IndialdquoI will not be slaughtered but I must eat trash to surviverdquo.A passing Canadian touristpilgrim borrows the moment with a digital imprint to be nostalgically revisited at times to come. A threelegged dog drags a dripping sock out of an open sewer visibly proud of his discovery.A Gre http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Rajasthan/blog-459065.html For this blog entry my pictures will tell the story of my lsquoseeanddorsquos but the story I will tell you will be nonillustrated for reasons that you will understand if you read below. I should note for the Red Light District pics I did not 'seeanddo'. It just happened to be right in the middle of the Old City.The setting is Punjab a fertile prosperous and densely populated regi http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Pakistan/Punjab/Lahore/blog-456832.html ldquoMy father is an ibex hunter. Tonight we will eat ibexrdquo. ldquoBut I am vegetarian. I donrsquot eat meatrdquo. ldquoIt is all we have. We are preparing it for yourdquo. ldquoOKrdquo. Am I really going to break ten years of vegetarianism to eat an endangered animal But I am not going to say no to this family who has so kindly invited me into their simple mud and brick hous http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Pakistan/Northern-Areas/Karimabad/blog-456707.html Believe it or not there is a welltrod tourist trail across the vast country of Iran. Travelers generally enter by air at Tehran or following the hippy trail from Europe to India enter overland from Turkey and on to Pakistan. Nowadays on the road you meet loads of these adventurous overlanders many of them tackling the route on motorcycle or bicycle. Iran is a rare country where high snowy mou http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Iran/West/Esfahan/blog-450150.html In the Islamic tradition guests are considered a gift from God and must be treated accordingly. This might sound like yet another religionbased principle that sounds good on paper but in the country of Iran belief in this regard is put into practice. In the two weeks that I spent traveling across the nation I was faced with daily examples of warmth and generosity to a degree that I have neve http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/blog-450156.html To label Iranian people as lsquofundamentalistrsquo would be an absurd generalization. It carries as much truth as the flipside proclamation that western culture is inherently evil and immoral. The governments and media of the nations in question are content to propagate these stereotypes given that from an authoritarian perspective it is highly desirable and useful to establish a created en http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Iran/North/Tehran/blog-450103.html I think my experience of Turkey is better summarized by my photographs than any description I could compile so I will provide only some brief context. Turkey is a fascinating nation where Europe and the Middle East meet and the culture food costs and social customs that I encountered there were a reflection of this. Islam is universally practiced but Turkey is secular and European in its outl http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/blog-439328.html Before you read ahead forget everything you know about Iraq. The ancient Mesopotamian ruins of Ur and Nineveh where civilization began and writing and law codes were invented the site of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon the purported location of the Garden of Eden and capital city Baghdad are all scratched off my Iraq travel itinerary. I am going to the lsquoNew Iraqrsquo a relatively safe http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Iraq/North/Arbil/blog-447539.html One week was simply not enough time for me to completely adjust to the face of modern Lebanon a face that still bores many of the scars from decades of civil war and violent disputes with neighboring countries. Only three years ago Israel was laying waste to Beirut and southern Lebanon which resulted in the loss of over 1000 Lebanese civilian lives in retaliation to Hezbollah kidnappings of Isr http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/blog-443410.html At the time that the events of the New Testament were taking place the earliest written records of Damascus and Aleppo were already 2500 years old. Evidence suggests that these two cities have been continuously inhabited for as long as 8000 years making them the oldest living cities in the world. Over time they have been incorporated into the Egyptian Assyrian Persian Roman Ottoman and Fren http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/blog-443407.html As I travel through this part of the world a region that for most people in the West first and foremost stirs up visions of war instability and fighting I have made this question of violence and safety my foremost topic of conversation with local people. But not in the way that you might think. I have not been asking people ldquowhy is your country so turbulentrdquo or ldquowhy do thes http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Syria/North/Aleppo/blog-443293.html Which words do I use to summarize one of the most beautiful places I have ever beenI have wanted to go to Greece for as long as I can remember and Santorini was always the part I wanted to visit the most.The tiny C shaped island is composed of the remains of an enormous volcanic eruption some 3600 years ago that is thought to have contributed to the downfall of the ancient Minoan civilization by http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Greece/South-Aegean/Santorini/blog-437312.html I am going to take a break from writing on this one and just let the photos speak for themselves. EnjoyNick http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Greece/blog-434593.html In December of 2008 there were huge riots in every major city in Greece with frustrated protesters taking to the streets and pillaging public property. Living under the shadow of the glorious ancient past that most of the world still associates with this Mediterranean nation the modern urban Greek lives on an average of a mere 500 Euros a month in a nation where costs of living are soaring in a http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-435795.html This summer for the first time in my life I felt like a tourist in my own country. I don't know if it was simply due to being away for so long or the fact that being away for that long made me appreciate the beauty and diversity of my own country in a way that I never had before. Either way the summer flew by and I can't believe how much fun and exploration I squeezed into those 7 short weeks http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Ontario/Toronto/blog-433327.html I am publishing this blog as my summer days in Canada fly by and I am counting down sleeps to my looming return to the great city of Rome from where I will begin my overland journey from Europe to Asia. Following my grand introduction to Europe at the stunning city of Venice my travel companion Hannah and I continued our Italian journey with a stop in Verona a most quaint and pleasant city loc http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Rome/blog-429059.html It seemed so suitable for me to begin my first European venture in one of its most remarkable cities Venice. For me Venice was everything I expected it to be but my expectations were very high. In a sense Venice is like a microcosm of Europe as a travel destination to me at least. It is beautiful stunningly so. At every single bend or corner in the street or canal one is faced with a magic http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Veneto/Venice/blog-420387.html 9am It is 43 degrees Celsius outside. Welcome to Qatar. I have just left my home for the last year Taiwan land of short shorts to the Arabian Peninsula where women hide all but their eyes behind black veils and robes. The temperature is about 10 degrees hotter than what I am used to in tropical Taiwan but curiously it is so dry that I have not even broken a sweat. This is one of the smallest http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Qatar/Doha/blog-415374.html 35242248593034028417201542841720154284172015425105244782035827794263772617838291284172015428417201543553125842251053034037686369142802335041353772510536319385682474430340274933551922312251053702735041 22823 27155 251392282539135292892035833258 316652 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Taiwan/blog-400335.html