Patiala

Off the beaten path in Punjab, this small town by Indian standard (nearly 2 million people) was recommended as a good place to get to know the Sikh people, i.e. adherents of Sikhism, a monotheistic religion founded around 1200 A.D, and for its old bazaar.

Sikh Temple or Gurdwara (aka the door or the gateway to the Guru)

The Sikh suffered a lot throughout time, from both the Hindus and the Muslims, so they have the reputation of honest, easy tempered and fierce fighters, and although tradition requires every man to bear a knife all the time, I guess these days’ mobile phones are more common than knives.

What I found unusual with the Sikhs is that the men instead of the women need to comply with some strict customs related to their appearance in public. While with Muslims women have to cover their heads and faces, with the Hindus it is always women who have to wear as many piercings as possible, as for the Chinese it is the same - women were required to have their feet bound from childhood for the sake of beauty. But with the Sikhs, it is men who need not to cut their hair ever, or shave their beard or moustache, and it is also them who need to “suffer” an omnipresent turban even at 30+ Celsius.

Not many foreigners reach here, so.....i was quite a star, being asked twice to give…autographs. No kiddin – first it happened on a peaked cap, for some boys near the temple pool, second on a school notebook by this group of school girls. The tallest one was very pushy and insisted i should come and meet their parents at a cup of tea, proudly saying that they belong to Rais caste. I still don’t know why did I refuse their invitation…..was it the lack of time, as always?


I soon found a deserted Maharajah palace, such a cliché....but i loved strolling around the ruins, imagining how life used to look like from here, where the harem might have been……why did I refuse the girls invitation to tea?...

A tiny bodyguard appeared from nowhere and directed us out, pretexting the walls might collapse on us.

Back to India

A month on the road has just started, with all these exotic places at my feet - these were my thoughts when my excited nostrils sensed the warm and wet air of Delhi. As if time had compressed for the last 10 months since I left the Indian capital, I forgot everything that has happened in between and my eyes were suddenly searching for familiar places… and why not, even familiar faces….

With the luggage deposited in the railway station after fooling the Indian bureaucracy by inventing a fake destination and fake ticket number, of course could not have ended up elsewhere but in Paharganj – the old bazaar district in Delhi, home to our previous visit. And the first familiar face appeared: the waiter boy in what I remember as “the liver serving restaurant” on the main street of the bazaar.

A breakfast to load the stomach and 2 coffees to brighten up the view and off we go to do what we didn’t do in Delhi the last time – travel to the suburbs by public bus. 6 rupees less (60 rupees to a euro), one hour sharing the highest ever density of human beings per square foot, and we reached the Qutub Minar.

Surrounded by a large park of partly luxuriant vegetation....

....“the tallest brick minaret in the world”….in other words, “the might of Islam”, an 11th century gift to the Hindu people, on the occasion of their conquest by the Muslims, constructed with the bricks taken from 10 Jain temples which once stood on the same spot.



I've lost my mojo....after a night long Aeroflot flight, in a plane older than me (Ilyushin II– 96-300).

The late afternoon Amristar express train ultimately proved to worth its’ 10 dollar ticket, not necessarily because of its’ speed or due to the huge size of the senatorial armchairs in the A/C class, but because of the delicious food, tea, snacks, cola, coffee, sweets, etc., which was being served continuously all along the journey. To my cynical amusement, a Bollywood like handy dandy near me was using his last generation lap-top to watch a soap movie in the small screen….i guess he was not acquainted with the full screen option…..not to mention that the schmuck got excited when the monitor turned black in the middle of a 5 minute kiss.....until somebody felt sorry for him and hit any key on the keyboard…but unfortunately the kiss had finished by that time.

Dense fog

Dense fog in Bucharest surrounds the House of People blurring its outside …. No wonder what happens inside is already unclear :-)
(Shooting by a close friend)

Flying over the Italian Alps

Flying over the Italian Alps on a bright sunny day.


Will there be any snow this winter?


I do hope so....

Den Haag

A short business trip to Den Haag..meant a lot of work, but I still found a couple of hours to stroll around, despite the doggy weather.

Corporate Calendar 2008

My employer's calendar for 2008 is supposed to include photos taken by employees during their travels.....Normally, an application should include 4 photos, i.e. one for each season.

I've shortlisted some photos i've taken during the last year, maybe you can help with pick the best ones...

proposals for the 2008 Corporate Calendar

January - another beginning

(Jungle Sunrise in Nepal)

February - a long way to go

(Newari temple in Tansen, Nepal)

March - urbanly active spring

(La Defence, Paris)

April - Easter by the sea...or in the mountains
Aprilie - Pastele....la munte sau la mare

(Lake Sevan, Armenia)

(Tsminda Sameba church, Georgia)

(Ananuri, Georgia)

(Ananuri, Georgia)

May - blossom at its best

(mustard fields in Southern Nepal)

June - time to go into details, before it's not too late

(detail of a Jain temple in Jaisalmer, India)

(detail of a Jain temple, Jaisalmer, India)

July - trying to cool down

(deserted building in Old Delhi, India)

(shadowed street in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates)

(wind tower in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates)

August - Everybody needs a break

(Mount Kazbeg, Georgia)

(Monkey Temple, Kathmandu)

(after a morning bath in the lake, Udaipur, India)


(lazy afternoon, Jaipur, India)

(railroad to Chisinau)

September - Shadows of a shortening day....

(Bhaktapur, Nepal)

October - leafless tress yet warm afternoons

(Black Curch, Brasov, Romania)

November gets colder and colder

(Place de la Bastille, Paris)

(Jardins des Tuileries, Paris)

December - Celebration of a new year

(Buddhist stupa in Nepal)

Quite pissed off because the colleagues who made my travel arrangements thought it a brilliant idea for me to leave Lisbon Saturday morning at 7 a.m., which meant waking up at 5, rush into a cab and then wait for 1 hour in an airport in which everything was closed except for a lousy cafeteria full of old Brits returning from holidays. Bleah....! Ultimately, anti-tobacco laws didn’t hinder me having 2 cigarettes.

A window seat and the bird’s eye views on a crystal clear morning flying over the Pyrenees have miraculously improved my state of mind.....

....and the taste of the coffee on board.


could this foothpath be....the famous Camino de Santiago, aka Path of Saint James ?

It surely looks divine from up here.....

Crossing into the Bay of Biscay, right near Santander.

Acknowledgements: Sony, my Employer, Portuguese people, Lufthansa.