Just because I tend to get bored very quickly on holiday, and this brings direction, stamina and purpose to my congenital wanderlust … in the bargain I can only hope it will both inform and entertain my audience.
From Bodhgaya to Rajgir to Nalanda to Patna … my mini 24-hour pilgrimage, November 2024
Above: Great Buddha Statue, Bodhgaya
In January of 2019, an unlikely conversation with an acquaintance led me to wander into a weekly gathering of practitioners of Nichiren Daishonin Buddhism, (a branch of Mahayana Buddhism), and suffice to say, I kept going back …
… Till date, I cannot explain why; all I remember is that the person I had spoken to said it was like magic, and I guess in many ways it is, for the combined practice and study of Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhist philosophy foster the most remarkable, even somehow mystical, courage and self-reliance …
Varanasi, October 2024
Above: Image of one of the Ghats taken on arrival, from the boat shuttle ride to the Brij Rama Palace Hotel, October 2024
The moment I began to pen down this account of my experience of Varanasi, I struggled to coin a tagline for the title, one that would not only pay homage to the subject, but also whet the appetite of the reader for further enquiry …
… Alas, each one felt and sounded either insipid or hackneyed, for it is next to impossible to be original and measured when describing this ancient living city in words, to be neither too florid nor elegiac in tone, tenor and choice of adjectives, and yet not, by virtue of restraint, lapse into the mundane.
Bali, Indonesia … August 2024
Clockwise from top left: Garden & beach-front of La Lucciola restaurant, Seminyak,
Tirta Empul temple, Ubud,
Langoustine ravioli in a laksa bisque, Sangsaka restaurant, Seminyak
An island that needs no introduction, for it has been rated one of the top travel destinations in the world for as long as I can remember, which is why I have simply given an account of my visit by way of a series of images supported by a minimum amount of text …
A Long Weekend in the ‘Land of a Thousand Lakes’, Breathtaking & Oxygen giving Finland … June-July 2024
Clockwise from top left: Medieval town of Porvoo, Harbor at Paijanne National park, Uspenski cathedral, Helsinki
For precisely 28 years, I have been wanting and planning to visit Finland, ever since I forged what has turned out to be an enduring friendship with a Finn in France in 1996 … whilst wandering the streets of Paris together, he would periodically speak to me about watching the sun set on the banks of one of the thousand lakes in Finland with a glass of ice cold Riesling in hand, riding snowmobiles and catching sight of the Northern Lights in Lapland, eating lots & lots of salmon and egg butter Karelian pie, and so on and so forth…
From Paris & Lyon, France to Florence, Italy … May 2024
Clockwise from Top Left: Place Furstenberg, Paris, Quenelle de Brochet at Comptoir Brunet restaurant, Lyon, Rooftop Bar of Hotel Degli Orafi, overlooking the Ponte Vecchio, Florence
A chance summer holiday itinerary, the ingredients of which conspired to not just satisfy, but altogether satiate my yearning for ‘L’art de la table’ – aka the art of the table – in which the quality of company, dialogue and debate are as essential as that of gastronomy …
One of the things I had been most excited about in anticipation of my ten days in Paris, was the opportunity to see an exhibition at the ‘Maison Europeenne de la Photographie, (MEP), (aka, ‘European House of Photography’), which was a visual adaptation of 2022 Nobel Prize winner for literature, Annie Ernaux’s works, by way of photographs selected from the permanent collection of the MEP …
A final adventure in Paris before my departure for Florence, Italy, was to re-unite once again with my old pal, Prince Louis Albert de Broglie and his charming and most accomplished artist girlfriend, at the former’s Paris pad that also houses the office of his immensely chic gardening tool & wear brand, ‘Le Prince Jardinier’ (The Prince Gardener) …
From Fort Kochi to Jaisalmer to Corbett Park …
India, Jan-Feb, 2024
An accidental travel itinerary showcasing the multiple personalities of this incredible country
Clockwise from top left: St. Francis Church, Fort Kochi,
Entrance to Jaisalmer Fort, Jaisalmer,
Jhirna Safari Zone, Jim Corbett National Park
The wonderful thing about reading personal travel accounts, as opposed to journalistic ones, is that each experience is akin to eating different version of the same dish, the ingredients identical yet the interpretations not only varied, but also nearly always with an element of surprise…and so, I felt justified in including this section on my web-site, which essentially is a platform for me to able to share my passions, talents, observations and experiences with whomsoever might be interested…
…These travel tales – underscored by a personal obsession with, and pursuit of culinary adventure and perfection – are not posturing as guides for everything to do, see, eat etcetera, but rather they paint a miniature portrait of my particular sojourn in each of the places I visit, with emphasis on what tickled both my senses and tastebuds.
This particular itinerary was not constructed by design, but by consequence of the wishes of friends travelling to India from England and France, and what it conspired to reveal, or rather remind me of was the incredible melting pot of peoples, cultures, customs, topography, cuisines and so on and so forth that make up this vast, colorful, unpredictable and altogether unique country.
It was in mid-January, 2024 that I travelled to Fort Kochi with two companions, just after the tourist traffic had subsided, and there was something especially sleepy about this characteristically somnolent Southern town …
…a part of India I had never felt particularly inclined to visit, up until I happened to befriend an American architect called Diana Kellogg, the lady behind the incontestably eye-catching Rajkumari Ratnavati Girls School located in the Thar desert on the fringes of the city, which opened to much acclaim in 2021…it was shortly thereafter, in 2022, that I met Diana at a dinner party in New Delhi, and very soon, our shared love of food, philosophy and self-analysis, in addition to a common congenital cynicism, cemented a somewhat quirky friendship…
For those who don’t know (I confess that I didn’t, until I went for the first time in February 2024, and as I write this, have just returned from a second trip in the month of April), Jim Corbett National Park is a wildlife sanctuary located in the North of India, the oldest of the National parks and where Project Tiger, dedicated to the safeguarding of the endangered species, was launched in 1973 …
