Travel Photo of the Week: Lunch time for the Monks

These Cambodian Monks were captured during their lunch time. The vivid orange of their robes lining the floor whilst they ate their meals, together with the colours and patterns of the nearby pillar added to the cultural experience not readily seen in the western world.

Photo courtesy of Australian reader Julie.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

We’d like to wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas and a happy new year. Thank you for your support during 2010!

We thought we’d share a Christmas Poem as retold by June Williams in Australian style and based on the traditional “The Twelve Days of Christmas” which is a cumulative song, meaning that each verse is built on top of the previous verses. There are twelve verses, each describing a gift given by “my true love” on one of the twelve days of Christmas. Each gift being an Australian bird or animal.

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me an emu up a gum tree.

On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me two pink galahs.

On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me three jabirus.

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me four kookaburras.

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me five kangaroos.

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love sent to me six platypuses.

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me seven koalas climbing.

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love sent to me eight possums playing.

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love sent to me nine wombats working.

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me ten lizards leaping.

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me eleven numbats bagging.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me twelve parrots prattling.

My Custom Designed Tour to Senegal and Mali

Gap Adventures is currently running a competition to design your own dream adventure. There are a number of requirements to be met and as I’m all for the adventure, dream, travel destinations, I set to work to create my custom design tour. The tour I have created takes in Senegal and Mali in the heart of West Africa, an area I’ve been longing to visit for many years, especially the amazing Djenne Mosque.

“Enjoy the sounds, colours and aromas of exotic Dakar, the home to the famous ‘Dakar Car Rally’. Take in Dakar’s markets, nearby ocean beaches and tropical rainforests. Enjoy a Senegal drumming class. Visit the first French settlement of Saint Louis, and like Île de Gorée, both were fortified collection points for slaves bound for the Americas…” – PLEASE READ MORE & VOTE

Where is Bagan?

Bagan Skyline at Dawn

Bagan once known as Pagan, is centrally located on a vast plain in Burma in the region of Myanmar. The area is most well-known for the numerous temples and pagodas dotted around the area, creating a mystical skyline. Most of the temples were built between the 11th and 13th centuries A.D. by King Anawrathta who founded the Bagan Empire. The Bagan dynasty fell at the end of the 13th century and many pagodas were also lost.

With more than 2,200 temples and pagodas to visit that remain standing, covering an area of approximately 40 square kilometres, no traveller will have the same story to tell of their visit to Bagan, for no traveller will visit the same temples – there are too many to choose from! Bagan is a travel destination to rival the famous temples of Angkor, Cambodia.

The Weeping Goldsmith: Discoveries in the Secret Land of Myanmar (Hardcover)

Map

TravelTipsPlus Google Map of Bagan

One Great Reason to Visit

One great reason to visit this travel destination is for the 2,200 temples that create an amazing skyline which is best viewed at dawn, creating magical silhouettes.

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