Bytes from my travel bug...(my fav top 10 international travel destinations)

1. Denali National Park, Alaska

There is simply nothing else like it. The starkness of the landscape is sheer magnificence. It is untouched, pristine and one of those places where you can hear your soul, if you listen carefully. The best thing I liked as I left the Visitor Center to come back to Anchorage, was a sign that said…”The Denali answers questions for man, that he has not yet learnt to ask…”

2. Monument Valley, UT/AZ

Miles and miles of nothingness, and then the largest of the monoliths stand as mute witnesses to the evolution of earth. Each pebble tells a story of a million years ago. The panoramas in this place are simply breathtaking. My husband and I stayed just outside a reservation and went off roading into the valleys and dried up river beds at every detour. The silence is penetrating and somehow you don’t want to disturb it. The Goosenecks rivulets are sheer works of art by the Master himself.

3. Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

Sheer color and vibrance are all that comes to mind, when one has seen Bryce. Add to it the wind and snow chiselled “hoodoos” that rise to form the most intricate of nature’s pillars. The sunset and sunrise light up the layers of entrada sandstone and other edifces into Nature’s very own magic kingdom. Simply put, Bryce – to see is to believe.

4. Edinburgh, Scotland

The Royal Mile, grand and beautiful over miles of tunnels underneath that form the bowels of the city. The history and mystery of those tunnels locked in for centuries, the beautiful architecture and the incomplete pillars of Scotland’s folly… all of these get overshadowed as the skyline this beautiful city and university town features the grand and imposing Edinburgh Castle. You walk up the mile, and then into the castle and if you are lucky , you will hear a lone bagpiper, playing at a private wedding in one of the tiny chapels inside the castle. Look through the turret windows and the city with its lush greenery looks like a beautiful carpet spread before you. Also, take a bus out to Rosslyn and you see the famous Chapel with the Apprentice Pillar, the place made famous even more in recent times, by Mr. Dan Brown and his Da' Vinci Code ;)

5. Stonehenge, UK

Take the train to Salisbury from waterloo and then take the bus up the lush English country side to reach this surreal place of randomly placed monoliths that tell stories of druids, wizards and ancient calendars. To stand on those grounds is a very strange feeling, simply because it looks and seems unreal. A nice warm Shephard’s Pie at the local eatery close by and some warm gloves makes the self guided tour a lot of fun. Take a detour into Salisbury town on the way back to the station and you get to see the most legible version of the Magna Carta at the Salisbury Cathedral, which also houses a man made clock that doesn’t look anything like a time telling device.

6. Zushi & Kyoto, Japan

Zip out on Shinkansen from Shinjuku station, , whiz past Yokohama, and Mt Fuji and suddenly you are in a place where time has stood still and the commercialism of Tokyo has not touched the grounds in letter or in spirit. The Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines stand in full glory and divine splendor , only to be further enhanced by the serenity of the various gardens. Kyoto is intricate, while Zushi is quaint. The highlight of the latter town is a small detour to see the Daibutsu ( large monolithic, seated Buddha) in Kamakura and or course to buy the prettiest of souveniers in Lacquer.

7. New York City, NY

Have never been able to get enough of the Big Apple. The korean “mondoos” ( dumplings ) to kathi rolls in Greenwich to the Wicked at Gershwin, to the Monets at Met, to the Picassos at MOMA, to the cabbies on 42nd street, to the cocktails at the NY marquis, to a quiet dinner overlooking Lexington Ave, from the Waldorf, to the most amazing Jazz at the Grand Central Station. NYC is a place where the world comes together; read the names on the memorial at Ground Zero on your 35th birthday and life takes on a totally new perspective.

8. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

A live caldera with steaming pools of sulphur and other gases, masking the seeming coolness of turquoise waters below the surface, Yellowstone is the closest journey to the center of the earth. The park with its varied landscape, offers the sights and sounds of the heat of the earth’s core and also the flora and fauna of the most beautiful of nature’s creations. A few miles down from a mud pot or a gas spouting dragon’s mouth, you may see the prettiest of deer or the most non chalant of bisons and if you are lucky, you will see more than bear poop. You may actually see a real bear. Yellowstone has a romance about it that you have to be there to experience.

( photo courtesy: Google Images)

9. Delphi, Greece

The Parthenon in Athens, the Forum in Rome, are amazing structures no doubt, but the tiny town of Delphi took my breath away in terms of my recollection of Greco-Roman history and mythology. The significance of the Oracle is so unassuming in this little tiny town that I recall arriving around mid afternoon. It was as picturesque as idyllic. The guide told us lots of stories, and all I saw was this beautiful oracle, bathed in white robes and light, speaking the word of God and touching Man in the most divine of ways.

10. Shambles, York, North Yorkshire

It is one of the tiny little streets in York that has so much character in each of it’s crooked little homes. You come out of the Jorvik center and then decide to walk the town because the train to Kings Cross doesn’t leave for a few hours. You walk past the main cathedral, walk past little chapels, and suddenly u are at Shambles, this tiny street, with overhanging timber buildings, dating back to the 14th century.

Among the buildings of the Shambles is a shrine to Saint Margaret Clitherow, who was married to a butcher who owned and lived in a shop there. Although the butchers have now vanished, a number of the shops on the street still have meat-hooks hanging outside and, below them, shelves on which meat would have been displayed.