Category Archives: India India! The heat, the crowds, the colours! And, the intricately beautiful – and historic – architecture. All my previous forays into this vast and varied country have been in the north (see: Weekly Wanders India), where turbans and Mughal palaces and mausoleums are commonplace. In the south, French, Portuguese, and British influences are still much […]  When I spend time in the crush of Indian streets, rubbing shoulders with holy men and drinking masala chai with the locals, I always come away with some new realisation about myself, or the world. My first visit to Varanasi was not my first trip to India, but it was revelatory. Most of my time […]  The Ganges River is India’s lifeblood, flowing 2525 kilometres (1570 m) from her source in a glacier in the Himalaya, across India and Bangladesh, and into the Bay of Bengal. The river is sacred: personified as Ganga Ma, mother to humanity. Hindus worship Ganga Ma as the goddess of purification and forgiveness. Some places along […]  India is a real experience in sensory overload. That is true of all the places I’ve visited in the country, but especially true in Varanasi. Varanasi – previously known as Benares, Banaras, and Kashi – is considered the spiritual capital of India. It is one of the world’s oldest continually inhabited cities, and has been […]  India is truly a street-portrait paradise. People are everywhere. Swathed in colourful fabrics and draped in layers of beads, they sit or stand against backgrounds of textured wash-painted buildings or rusting roller-doors, colourful ads or fading billboards. It is as if they are just waiting for an aspiring photographer to wander past! They meet your […] |
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