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Showing posts from March, 2011

10 Tips for Writing a Good Travel Post

Many of us have read travelogues by Bill Bryson ('Down Under' about Australia is my personal favorite) and William Dalrymple ('The City of Djinns' about Delhi has won a million Indian hearts). No doubt these are extremely well written and very well-researched travelogues. I love Bill Bryson's wit as much as I appreciate William Dalrymple's depth. But this article is not about them. This blog post is about those short travel posts that appear on various blogs adding to a wealth of authentic information available about travel destinations worldwide. I have come to trust these blog posts more than I trust travel agents, 'Places to see' posts on tourism websites, and, I am sorry to say, even the painstakingly compiled travel guides published by reputable travel companies. How many times have you visited a place at a popular tourist destination and been completely disappointed by it? Or you have missed going to a beautiful, 'must visit' place because

Places to see before I die

Inspired by Kelsey Malia Chapp's post , I decided to put down the list of places I have to see in my lifetime. I have been talking about these pretty much all the time but probably writing them down will make the dream more substantial. So here goes: 1) New Zealand I know it is beautiful and I know that you not only have to see it but also experience it. So I would like to spend a year of my life there walking, trekking, hiking and just breathing in the New Zealand air. Perhaps soon. Keeping my fingers crossed. :) 2) Iceland Another place I would love to go once. A short vacations (2 weeks) would perhaps do. There are two reasons I want to go to Iceland. The most important one is the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis). Watch this video to see the amazing natural phenomenon: and the other reason is this article by Vir Sanghvi. 3) The Grand Canyon, US And when I get there, I want to walk on this skywalk: 4) Alaska, US Need I say more? I looked at the world map

An Extraordinary Prequel - A review of David Almond's 'My name is Mina'

When requested by his publisher to write a sequel to his award-winning book Skellig, David Almond chose to write a prequel instead. And what a prequel it has turned out to be. The book is beautifully fresh, both in appearance and content. Almond uses it as a device to challenge basic beliefs about almost everything in a playful, light-hearted way. The book is unusual. The peculiarity starts right from the beautiful cover, which is gold and white with some words from the beginning of the book embossed on it. It continues inside where a variety of fonts and layouts are used without any inhibition. And it does not stop here. This is a book in which “nothing barmy happens at all”. In the name of plot, there are only a couple of mild twists, the first on the day of SATS and the other towards the end when Mina, the lead character, goes up to say hello to the boy whose family has just moved into Mr. Myers house. This sets a very nice tone for Skellig. The best way to describe Mina is to use