Twenty minutes later we were at what is now known as the Moynaq ship cemetery. The level of the now barren Aral Sea was somewhere below the road, and a flight of steep steps led down from a kind of viewing gallery. From that height the brown rusted hulks looked like toy boats left behind by children bored after play.
As I stood facing the mountains and remained mesmerized by the magic charm of Mt. Kanchenjunga and her fellow mates, somebody knocked at the door. It was Padma, with her smile and a transparent cup of aromatic Darjeeling tea.
Vishansar lake loomed up into our vision from the ridge, and it was jaw dropping at the very first glimpse. Its azure waters reflected the hillocks flanking its sides.
On this trek, our first campsite was at Shitkadi. We could see Sonamarg from up there. The meadow of gold is an alpine valley, perched on the bank of Sindh River, about 75 km from Srinagar. Sindh is the largest tributary of the Jhelum River, born in the upper western Tibet valley at Mansarovar Lake.
We had planned to go up to Tumling, enjoy some snow and come back to Manebhanjan. But the plan was shattered right at the beginning when we were told by Singalila Land Rovers Association that cars would go only as far as Lamey Dhura, five kilometres away.
It takes about an hour to reach Port Douglas From the city of Cairns in north Queensland. It’s a fishing village which morphed into a pretty little town full of holiday homes, resorts and spas around 1984.
At the extreme eastern end of Issyk-kul, the vast lake whose northern shores we saw in 2017, lay the town of Karakol. Not far from it, in 1888, the great Russian explorer Nikolai Przhevalsky often called the Russian Sven Hedin, with good reason – stood poised for his fifth great expedition into Central Asia, this time determined to reach Lhasa in Tibet
It was the Moorish conquest in 711 that made Granada an important city in southern Spain’s Andalusia – Al-Andalus, as the Muslims called the region. The ruling Nasrid dynasty had a profound influence on its architecture, food and lifestyle and nurtured the fort-city Alhambra (Arabic for ‘the red’ due to its red walls), the most famous landmark of Granada.
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