Travel Guides

Samarkand is an exotic place in Central Asia, Uzbekistan. I discovered it in June, and was already too hot. There is no shadow there, there is no hope for rains. Despite all these, an impressive city I falled in love with!

Samarkand is one of the oldest world’s cities. It is 2700 years old and was founded in the same time with Rome and Babylone, under the name of Afrasiab. Its actually name of Samarkand has a persian origin, and means the stonefort.

Samarkand was named the pearl of the Orient, the oriental Rome. It is first of all an islamic city and a traditionally islamic centre of scholar studies. You can find, see and admire here three islamic universities from different periods of times, based in the fascinating square of Registan. The Registan is a typically islamic architecture, similar with the spanish Alhambra and the Istanbul Blue Mosque. Registan means the sandy place, here were made the public executions and the sand were used for cleaning.

The three islamic universities are:

-Ulugbek Madrasah, build between 1417-1420. During the XVth century was Islam’s bigger university. You can admire the geometry mosaique, the high wide arches, and the proportionally minaretes

Sher Dor Madrasah (1619-1636) is much sobre, very harmonic and symetric

Tilya kori Madrasah (1649-1669) , named also the golden building.

In the good old times, before XIIth century, Samarkand was much important and bigger than today(400 000 inhabitants in 2005).

The city lies in the neighborhood of Silky Road, which had a major contribution to the city importance and prosperity. It was first an oase on this road, where camels and people stopped to refresh.

In the XIIIth century the city was destroyed by the mongols lead by Genghis Han, and needed a few decades to recover. In the XVth century Tamerlan declared Samarkand the capital of his huge empire, and the city flourished again. Tamerlan also protected arts and culture, and during his rule were build most of the old buildings I mentioned above.

Samarkand is hot, interesting, deep and special. The people are good hosts, and very normal, have no afraid of fanatic muslims. My tip: visit Samarkand, but not in summer.

Thailand attracts throngs of visitors from all around the world. People go to Thailand in search of sun, sea, sand and everything else in between. Famed for its beaches and islands, Thailand has some of the most beautiful scenery on earth. The most popular beach destination in Thailand is the island of Phuket, which is home to about one million people and 500 square kilometers of jungle, beach and concrete.

Phuket is said to attract something like five million visitors a year. While much of the unspoiled beauty of the island has been lost to development, there are still some serene, magical spots.

Phuket is a large, modern island. It has all the contemporary conveniences you could want, with everything from budget guesthouses and markets to luxury resorts and large shopping malls. Phuket is easy to reach, connected to the rest of Thailand by buses and the rest of the world by Phuket International Airport.

If you are planning on coming to Phuket, forget about the popular beach spots and head to some of the lesser-known destination, such as Yanui Beach or Mai Khao Beach. It’s at such places that you can see the real Phuket.

You can get by in Phuket for about $10 a day, not including accommodation. People often waste money by following the expensive tourist trail, but a trip to Phuket needn’t be a serious drain on your pocket.

Critics claim that Phuket has lost its original appeal, but the critics are usually the people who don’t know where all the best spots are. My advice: see Phuket and don’t be put off by the cynics.

If someone is going to ask me about what I will be in 5 years, I have no answer. In 100 years I will probably leave this wonderful world and this blog. But in one more million years?

I don’t intend to make you sad. The truth is, I have an extraordinary other question to ask you: what was on the Earth 47 millions years ago? I am asking you this question because visiting the Mesel Cave near Darmstadt, Germany I found some interesting very well preserved fossils. I think this cave is heaven on Earth for any naturalist! In the photo you see an ancient art of horse, the Propalaeotherium! Which is exactly 47 millions years old! Really amazing.

If you think to London as an old obsolete city with old dusty buildings, must reconsider at once. London is also a modern everchanging fascinating city . Its city marks are not only the traditional Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey etc!

No, Sir, it also has its modern buildings, and some of them are more than modern: they are even stranger!

Cape Town is comparable with Mallorca. It is very European, and many Europeans have there a second vacation house. The city is booming. I visited Cape Town two weeks ago and stayed in Cape Heritage Hotel; I was happy there, and I can recommend you this special hotel.

And I am also able to recommend you a few other attractions of Cape Town:

1. The Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden. Jan van Riebeck founded Cape Town at 1630 as a supply basis for the dutch ships, and founded also a vegetable garden. Today the Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden is one of the world largest, and a main attraction of the city. It stretches on 530 ha. , having wide collections of plants, including protea. Protea is growing only in SA and is a national symbol.

2. Kloof Street with its many bars and restaurants. Check specially the fish and asian restaurants.

3. Whale watching in Hermanus, 1hour away from Cape Town.

3. White sharks Cage Diving. White shark is very dangerous and ferocious , but also interesting and fascinating. A dive in the cage is proofed and absolutely safe.

4. Birds watching in Rietvlei nature Reserve.

5. Pan african market in Cape Town. 3 storey buiding with many traditional african artefacts. You can get here an african look by the hairdresser, and you can even learn to sing at drums.

Enjoy your trip in Cape Town!

Tripwolf is a social travel guide which covers over 200,000 destinations and points of interest throughout the world. Tripwolf is backed by MairDumont, Europe’s largest publisher of travel guides. The website was in the private beta stage and was successfully launched to the public on 1st July.

The site has a pleasant design and the interface is absolute joy to use and won’t take much time to get used to. The site can be viewed in German which is a helpful feature, also a Spanish version will follow in 2009. All the key locations are available in a list which, next to the map, makes it even easier to narrow down on your search. The site contains a Journal which contains experiences of other travelers who have kept a log of their trips. The Galleries are another feature in which you can share your pictures from a place you’ve visited and can view other’s pictures. This helps in socializing with others and also you can plan your trip based on other’s recommendation.

If you feel you are lacking information about the place you are going to visit, there are Trip Gurus who make things easier for you. They are the people who have visited many places and willing to share information and helpful facts about the place you are visiting. You might be lucky to even meet a Trip Guru who has been to the place you have been planning. As you visit more places and when you are sure you can help out other users with their trip plans, you can become a Trip Guru too. You can add new places which you have visited and don’t already exist on the site.

One of the many brilliant features of this site is the Facebook integration. Facebook is a social-networking site which has millions of users throughout the world. If you have a facebook account you can log in through it and add an application called Tripwolf which helps you meet many people with similar interests. The site allows wiki-like editing which allows the users to edit most of the stuff which ensures that the information provided is first-hand. You can drag and drop the places into the scrapbook and print it as a pdf at the end which might be used as a guide/quick reference for accommodation, places to visit, shopping etc.

Geo-tagging, another feature of this site, which can help users find a wide variety of location-specific information. For instance, one can find images taken near a given location by entering latitude and longitude coordinates into a Geo-tagging enabled search engine. The co-ordinates might be useful for travelers who might be using GPS systems. The travel blogs posted on the site show routes on the maps to famous and major tourist spots. The hotels and different sightseeing places are rated by the users which give an idea on prioritizing which places to visit and how much time to spend.

Tripwolf will definitely make planning your trip a memorable one. There is nothing more memorable than a well planned trip and will make you explore the world some more.

In Asia all the people behave like aristocrats. They have manner, are very polite and smile. It is a pleasure, it is fascinating to travel there.

This picture of hands asking for attention and giving thanks is common all over Asia, I would say is a symbol of Asian culture.

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If an asian salutes you with this greeting(which they usually do) is a sign of honour and you must answer in the same way.

Cape Town is a fascinating impressive city, Africa’s oldest city and one of most beautiful worldwide.

Cape Town lies on the Cape Peninsula, having near an important city mark: The Table Mountains.

Table Mountains really look like a table, and have also a tablecloth.

The Peninsula gets frequent strong winds from South East, which are known locally as The Cape Doctor, because clean the air and keep the pollution away. It is a kind of impressive natural ventilation, the air here is very clean.

Today Cape Town proudly counts 3 500 000 inhabitants, being the South Africa second most populous city, behind Johannesburg. Cape Town was founded at 1630 as a supply harbor for the Dutch ships sailing to India, East Africa and Far East ( do not think at Suez Canal, it was not build at that time). Following english-boer wars, Cape Town was governed by the British, starting the second half of the XIXth century. In 1948 South Africa became independent, and the National Party won the elections, based on an apartheid platform. That means racial segregation and was a shock and scandal for the XXth century. Because of the apartheid South Africa was internationally isolated. Inside, the black people had very tough times. They had to go to bantustans and were not allowed to study. The demolition of District six from Cape Town and the deportation of 60 000 people was a huge scandal at its time. Who disobeyed, could go in the jail from Robben Island, near Cape Town. Nelson Mandela did it, but was strong enough to defend his convictions, and was elected as the first black South Africa’s President. It was also a turning point for Cape Town: ever since the city is booming, specially the tourism and the real estate business.

In Cape Town you have the unique possibility for bathing in Atlantic or Indian Ocean. The Atlantic beaches are better with cafes, restaurants etc, but the water is usually much colder (10 degrees) as the water of Indian Ocean in False Bay. At Boulders beach there is an important colony of african penguins

Surfing is very popular on all these beaches.

If you are a marine freak, do not miss the Two Ocean Aquarium. You can even dive there.

Another entertainment possibility is going on the Table Mountains (by cable or by your own) and getting a wonderful panoramic sight.

Eating and drinking opportunities - you have a lot in Cape Town. You can even take part to organized tours for wine tasting, as not far from the big city there are many famous wine yards.

For shopping I can recomend you Victoria and Albert Front with its Nobel Front, where you can see the four peace Nobel prize awarded south africans. You have here many shops, malls, supermarket, and you can also watch the coming and going ships in the harbour.

Watch carefully the older buildings from Cape Town: it is an impresive Dutch architecture, with other western influences.

Enjoy your trip to Cape Town! Sounds exotic, not exactly like Kuala Lumpur, but nevertheless is an interesting beautiful city.