From the World Heritage inscription for the Greater Blue Mountains Area: The Greater Blue Mountains Area (GBMA) is a deeply incised sandstone tableland that encompasses 1.03 million hectares of the eucalypt-dominated landscape just inland from Sydney, Australia’s largest city, in south-eastern Australia. Spread across eight adjacent conservation reserves, it constitutes one of the largest and …
Read part 1 of my 2008 travel round-up here July July marked my last month in Australia. I flew from Perth to Adelaide. After weeks of driving across Western Australia, the thought of more driving didn’t appeal to me. Adelaide was overcast and cold the entire time I was there, but I did get to …
From the World Heritage inscription for the Willandra Lakes Region: The Willandra Lakes Region, in the semi-arid zone in southwest New South Wales (NSW), contains a relict lake system whose sediments, geomorphology and soils contain an outstanding record of a low-altitude, non-glaciated Pleistocene landscape. It also contains an outstanding record of the glacial-interglacial climatic oscillations …
I was all set to leave Dubai. Last night I sat down and went through all my photos from Sukhothai and Ayutthaya. I noticed something horrible that I hadn’t seen when I was shooting in the LCD of my camera. A giant hair like thing on every single image. Somehow, something had gotten on the …
From the World Heritage inscription of the Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens: The Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens are a surviving manifestation of the international exhibition movement which blossomed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The exhibition building was constructed as a Great Hall, a permanent building initially intended to house …
From the World Heritage inscription of Sangiran Early Man: Sangiran Early Man Site is situated about 15 kilometers in the north of Solo town in Central Java, Indonesia, covering an area of 5,600 hectares. It became famous after the discovery of Homo erectus remains and associated stone artifacts (well-known as Sangiran flake industry) in the …
From the World Heritage inscription for the Prambanan Temple Compounds: Prambanan Temple Compounds consist of Prambanan Temple (also called Loro Jonggrang), Sewu Temple, Bubrah Temple and Lumbung Temple. Prambanan Temple itself is a complex consisting of 240 temples. All the mentioned temples from the Prambanan Archaeological Park and were built during the heyday of Sailendra’s …
It has been awhile since I have been able to talk about McDonald’s. There were none in Cambodia, Vietnam or Laos (although there were KFC’s in Vietnam and Cambodia). Dubai, however, has everything manner of fast food you can think of. In addition to McDonald’s, I’ve seen KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King and the oh …
From the World Heritage inscription for the Borobudur Temple Compounds: The Borobudur Temple Compounds is one of the greatest Buddhist monuments in the world and was built in the 8th and 9th centuries AD during the reign of the Syailendra Dynasty. The monument is located in the Kedu Valley, in the southern part of Central …