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For centuries now, every once in three years, The Feast of Immortality – Kumbh Mela, takes place alternatively in four Indian centers : Allahabad and Hardwar (Uttar Pradesh state), Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh) and Nasik (Maharashtra). Descending from Vedic mythology, the feast

Journeying to people instead of places is the reverse of the current, holiday-bound view on travels. Indeed, the projected picturesque of the surprising landscapes is the main constituent mesmerizing people into moving at great distances, sometimes despite the difficulties

excerptI will never forget the nights spent with Bogdanof and Van Manen around Calcutta, in Serampore and Titagarh. Bogdanof, who had been the consul of the Tsarist Empire to Teheran and Kabul for ten years, was at the time my teacher of Persian. He had made friends with

Sometime in April the old and refined Victorianist Robert Langbaum came to Virginia in order to hold a conference at our university. Going out for a meal, I mentioned that I was going to spend a week in Hong Kong at the beginning of May for professional purposes. He answered

A visit which lasts barely a week, spent most of the time in meeting and conference rooms or on the plane, cannot possibly be conclusive. You are astonished by the gentle, harmonious and calming lines of the roofs in the beautiful Forbidden City of the former emperors. You

excerptsAlthough if you observe it partially and with amusement the Chinese landscape may look like any other landscape, the fundamental impression is of being on another planet. The soil suggests here that the matter froze quickly while boiling and it stood still in dramatic

The parallel journals of two travelers, separated by more than three centuries, who crossed Asia from the west to the east, following the same route to the capital of China, offers us a human measure of the passage of time. Double photographs of the same places, even the

*On Handak street, which meets Anastase street a few steps away from the place where I'd eaten, the bustle was at its height. Although lazy and indifferent when they have nothing to do, Arabs are very much alive and quick when there's a chance of making some money.

On this clear morning destined for the departure for Delphi I am unconsoled at having to leave Athens, where everything measures up to the artistic emotion. The distance between Athens and Delphi, on a well-kept road, is 243 kilometres. The itinerary includes a halt, around

*I intended to be concerned with literary form in this series of reportage. I can see I have done better than I expected. At the moment, my problem is preserving the chronological order of events. Our departure from Odessa was marked by a small, insignificant in fact, incident,

The sadness of the leaving trainIs something we have never felt,Although we often travel, For when we leave a station,We really stay –The train alone is leaving! The train alone is leaving,The train aloneIs carrying our silent restlessness,Our luggage-dreams,And thirst

My plan for this little article had already taken shape. After having read all the materials, learned quite a few things therefrom, enjoyed the erudition, remembered some of my friends' passion for rare watches, phone cards or antiques, or my own childhood stamp, coin,