I’m guessing the moment you read the header for this post, certain images and thoughts popped into your head. In fact, for most people in the world, Hiroshima means one and only one thing. If you asked someone to name something else about Hiroshima, they probably couldn’t. The word Hiroshima has become so intertwined with …
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 …
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 …
From the World Heritage inscription for Kinabalu National Park: Located in the State of Sabah, Malaysia, on the northern end of the island of Borneo, Kinabalu Park World Heritage property covers 75,370 ha. Dominated by Mount Kinabalu (4,095m), the highest mountain between the Himalayas and New Guinea, it holds a distinctive position for the biota …
Tomorrow I’m off to Jakarta. I hope to be in Indonesia for two weeks going through Java, Bali, and then a few days in East Timor. I came to Borneo not really knowing anything about the island. Next to nothing about the political divisions on the island, the history, the people, and very little about …
If you’ve been following along for a while, or if you at least take a look at the left column of my website, you’ll notice that I have an affinity for UNESCO World Heritage sites. I’m not trying to visit every one of them, for that would be impossible. I passed up four in Japan …
From the World Heritage inscription for Quseir Amra: Quseir Amra bears exceptional testimony to the Omayyad civilization which was imbued with a pre-Islamic secular culture whose austere religious environment only left behind insignificant traces in the visual arts. It is the best conserved architectural ensemble, if not the most complete, of all the Omayyad palaces …
What a day. I’m still exhausted even after a night’s sleep. Yesterday was probably the second most grueling day of my travels (the first being the 30 hours I went from the Solomon Islands, to Nauru, to Kiribati, to Fiji, to Hawaii). I got up at 3am in Tel Aviv and left for the airport …
From the World Heritage inscription for Angkor: Angkor, in Cambodia’s northern province of Siem Reap, is one of the most important archaeological sites in Southeast Asia. It extends over approximately 400 square kilometers and consists of scores of temples, hydraulic structures (basins, dikes, reservoirs, canals) as well as communication routes. For several centuries Angkor was …