Our last morning in Punakha started quite uneventfully; James and I had switched back to our pants and shirts and Kinga and Phuntsho to their gho. As usual, we left the hotel at 8.30 but this time instead of moving eastward as we’d been doing […]
All posts tagged: temple
Entering the Divine Madman’s Land
Once upon a time in Middle Earth, nine fellows traveled to the east to deliver a powerful ring back to its source. At one point they had to traverse the arduous pass of Caradhras, through snow-capped mountains with harsh weather and enchanted air. It was […]
Jongmyo: Walking alongside the Spirits
In the past, great temples, shrines and places of worship were often constructed to signify the rise of new kingdoms and empires, or to commemorate significant events, or even to appease gods and goddesses. Normally a great amount of time and wealth was expended, and […]
Hoi An: A Revived Old Beauty
Four hours after leaving the onetime imperial capital of Hue, we arrived at the outskirts of our final destination in central Vietnam. The pockmarked roads were quite a contrast to the smooth streets of Da Nang, the country’s third largest city. We were in fact […]
A Pilgrimage to Purity
Remember the dream I took you into not long ago? Remember that bright vermilion color amid the lush green foliage? Remember Inari and the foxes? That was just the beginning of a journey to a magical realm I’m about to show you. No, I’m not […]
A Vermilion Dream
Imagine being in a lush forest where two parallel paths are laid before your eyes. The one on the right has seemingly endless rows of torii (a type of gate usually found at Shinto shrines in Japan), and so does the left one, although peeking […]
Candi Badut: A Remnant of Kanjuruhan
In the eighth century, several centuries after Hinduism arrived in Java, the fertile island where towering volcanoes took lives but replenished the soil saw the beginning of temple construction in earnest. The central part of Java in particular witnessed the proliferation of Hindu and Buddhist […]
Kyoto’s Pavilions of Beauty
At midday in Kyoto James and I were enjoying a quirky Japanese TV show – a miscellany of over-excited hosts, cartoonish animation, and video game-ish sound – sitting cross-legged on the comfortable tatami mat inside our hotel room. At the same time on our laptops […]
Bagan Rising
Chapter 1, Part 13 At the turn of the second millennium, Hinduism became the dominant power in Southeast Asia where powerful Hindu kingdoms controlled vast swathes of land between the Pacific and the Indian Oceans. Following the return of Shaivism into the royal court of […]
Pura Singapadu: Beauty in Details
We only had 3 hours left before we had to be at the airport in Bali to catch the flight back to Jakarta. But after watching the Barong performance at Batubulan and having visited some of eastern Bali’s most picturesque palaces, gardens and temples we […]
A Mother’s Trouble
A big family were walking down the outer courtyard, each donning bright-colored traditional costume with some of the family members carrying ceremonial paraphernalia: small umbrellas with very long wooden handles and baskets made from woven palm fronts. As they walked further away from the candi […]
A Bat Cave Like No Other
Bli Komang took us along the main coastal road in eastern Bali where earlier that day he introduced us to what is now my favorite place on the island: Taman Ujung Sukasada. Passing by trucks loaded with high quality sand from the slopes of Mount […]
What an Amazing World! 