Milford Sound If you do not like the sound of the name ‘sound’ for an arm of the sea, you can call it by a few other names like inlet, estuary, channel, branch, strait. I checked on the Net. “The Oxford Pocket Thesaurus of Current English; 2006” says so. However, the New Zealand brochure uses the word “fjordland” to describe the area with arms of the sea extending in the land. But, then, why not call it a bay or a creek or a backwater? Yes, there is a reason for that. According to the definition, a ‘fjord’ is a long, narrow, deep inlet of the sea between steep slopes. Milford fjord fits the definition. Anyway, it sounds much better than Milford sound. The Maori word “Piopiotahi” sounds even better, but has limited circulation. With ... read more

Kbal Spean alias The River of Thousand Lingas Sometimes, one knows more about distant places than one knows about one’s own native land. That is what happened to us. We had NEVER heard of a river on the banks of which, there are thousands of Lingas (Phallic symbols) carved in stone, but I came to know about it through the Internet AFTER we had visited Kbal Spean in Cambodia, and it amuses me to think that this original River of Thousand Lingas is less than 100 miles away from my own native town Belgaum, at Sirsi, and I had never heard or read about it. No, we are not particularly ignorant or stupid, but we did not have Internet in those days. Internet is a wonderful thing. I think, the spread of knowledge among common ... read more

Angkor Wat So, what color is Siem Reap? The most beautiful shade of blue - the color of money, of greenbacks, of 100-rupee notes, or of blue chip company stock? A lot of money must have been spent in building the temple, but the builders were the blue-blooded Kuber ( Khmer) kings. Were they not? Kuber is the God of Wealth in the Hindu mythology. We used to think that Angkor Wat is the world’s largest Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Vishnu, but we did not know that Angkor Wat is the world’s largest religious monument also. Its scale is mind-boggling. The whole complex covers an area of 40 square MILES. Angkor Wat is a model of the Hindu mythological universe. Scenes from Ramayana and Mahabharat are carved on the outer walls in bas-relief. One ... read more

‘Shyamrang’ Siem Reap What is this color ‘Shyam/Siam/Cyan’? Is it the dark blue-black color of a nimbus cloud (Meghashyam) ? Is it light blue green of the ‘sasya-shyamal’ earth, the color of ripe harvest ready for the sickle? Is it azure like the blue sky above or is it deep sapphire blue like the color of the Tonle Sap lake (in Cambodia) stretching to the far horizon? What is the color of Siam Reap? (Tonle Sap is a very curious river. It flows from Tonle Sap lake to the sea part of the year and from sea to the Tonle Sap lake the other part of the year, thus reversing its direction. Have you ever heard of any other river that does that?) From the oval window of the airplane, Siam Reap looked as though God ... read more

Spelunking in the Neandertal cave Got you there, didn’t I? Now reach for your dictionaries and find out the meaning of ‘spelunking’. I have killed two birds with one stone. I have used the word ‘Spelunking’, which very few people would know the meaning of and so created an impression of myself as an erudite person, and I also have given the impression that we are great explorers and indulge in extreme sports like white-water-rafting, or scuba diving or mountaineering. And, I could do so with impunity without compromising the Truth. That is because the Feldhof cave a.k.a. Neanderthal cave does not exist anymore. Limestone quarrying has totally demolished the cave and now, there is only open ground in its place. The classical literature is full of such half-truths. When Homer describes Helen’s as a “face ... read more