These two look like they’re having a real heart to heart. I wonder who gets to ride in that bright and comfy-looking saddle — when I took a camel safari in India, my ride was not so plush and I certainly felt it after three days. Flickr user arunchs captured this scene in Rajasthan, India, where I also took my three-day camel ride.
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Every year when the temperature warms and the wind picks up, we buy a cheap kite to fly for a day or two before we get too busy to head to an open field. As an Earth Day Celebration, what could be more environmentally friendly than kite flying? Except, of course, for the gas to get to a place with wind and enough space.
Open fields are among the best places to fly a kite if you live in an urban area. Think the middle of a high school track for one option. Look out for power lines, though. Kites and power lines are not a good combo. If you live near a coast or a large lake, head to the beach. Other places to consider are fields in city parks.
One thing I like about kite flying, once you have a kite, it’s free. It’s also participatory. What a great way to join in with humanity in environmentally friendly fun. Here are suggestions–some based on personal experience, what people have told me, or in this article, “The Ten Best Places Around the World to Go Fly a Kite”:
1. Central Park in New York City. There is an Earth Day Celebration on April 20, this Sunday, at Rumsey Playfield. Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder are on the line up of entertainment. The park is also on the Holden Caufield tour of New York City.
2. Fano Island, Denmark. With Denmark being the happiest country in the world, flying a kite can only make some one happier than happiest. The family I lived with, when I was a student in undergraduate school, took me here as part of a weekend trip. It was gorgeous.
3. Great Wall of China, China. With China as the country credited for the invention of kites, the Great Wall is an interesting option for kite flying. Here’s an account of one family who found this to be the case. When I went to the Great Wall, it had just snowed. Then it was a place for building snowmen and sliding down the steps on ones bottom.
4. Jaipur, India. Even though the kite festival happened in January, this is a wonderful city to spend some time. A place to launch a kite is from the top of a roof. It’s not uncommon for hotels to have a roof-top terrace restaurant. I never tried it, but I bet roof-top kite flying would be a conversation starter. India is one of those places where everything and nothing is out of the ordinary.
5. Long Beach, Washington. I posted a video taken at the Washington International Kite Flying Festival. It’s not until August, but kite-flying is good anytime.
6. Mission Bay Park and Mission Beach, San Diego, California. When I was walking the boardwalk at Mission Beach last month, the kite fliers were braving chilly weather to send their massive kites sailing. By now, I bet the temperature is perfect.
7. Nan-Liao, Taiwan. This harbor town, a bus ride from Hsinchu, where I used to live, is a popular weekend spot for kite flying. We did fly kites here and ate squid-on-a-stick that we bought at the nearby market. Andrew Zimmern gushed about this popular street food on the last Bizarre Foods episode on China.
8. Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. One of my cousins and his son bought a kite to fly here. When they stopped some place for lunch, they tied the kite to a bike rack so it would stay airborne. They left it behind so someone else could have it. While they shopped they could see it dipping and weaving.
9. Venice Beach, Venice, California. Also a great place to see kite-flying or fly one yourself in the midst of the cacophony of humanity. Check out the drum circle Neil wrote about when you are there.
And a place I haven’t been, but it was recommended in a comment on the 10 great kite-flying places article.
10. El Morro National Park in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. There is a kite flying festival here in March, although, the commenter said it has great kite flying conditions most of the year. As a bonus, this is also a World Heritage Site.
Kashmir probably does not evoke emotions of vacationing and relaxation in most people. After 18 years of militant violence, Kashmir wants to rebrand themselves from a heavily militarized Himalayan region to a global golfing destination.
According to this article in the NY Times, Kashmir’s government believes that golf will attract tourists who spend more than the penny-pinching backpackers who still come to trek in the mountains and stay on Srinagar’s latticed wooden houseboats. The state is spending $6.2 million to build a golf course in the winter capital, Jammu, to be completed later in the year, the fifth course in the region, and an international airport is scheduled to open in the summer.
My question is, Is there a country out there, which is supposedly not a golf destination nowadays?
Pico Iyer, my ultimate favorite travel writer, has a new book out Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Whenever I see Iyer’s name, it’s like a laser beam calling me to read it.
The book chronicles Iyer’s 30 year history with the Dalai Lama that that began when he first met him. This was back before fame struck either of them. As he told in an interview with World Hum, Iyer got the idea for the book five years ago after the war in Iraq started. Then Iyer began to look into the patterns of the Dalai Lama’s life and travels and Iyer’s own. From my understanding, the book is mostly about the Dalai Lama with Iyer’s presence dipping in and out of depending on the chapter and theme.
The idea sounds fascinating to me. I do think there are people who come into our lives at particular times that are turning points for us. Certain world events offer a backdrop or a heightened sense of awareness in our own day to day meanderings. The book also intrigues me because of my own chance encounters with both Iyer and the Dalai Lama that left an impression.
In Dharamsala, in the courtyard of the monastery where he lives, the Dalai Lama walked right by us as he made his way to address the audience who had crowded in to hear him talk. It was the day before the U.S. went into Iraq. I remember how beamy he seemed when he walked by right where I stood leaning against a fence of the courtyard. Being with people from all over the world at an audience on the day before the U.S. went into Iraq is something I don’t think I’ll ever forget. It’s an unusual happening at an unusual time in an unusual place kind of thing.
As for Pico Iyer, I had no idea he was in New Delhi when I sat down in my living room with a cup of coffee and the newspaper one morning. There his name was under a things happening today type section. At a writers conference. “Pico Iyer’s at a writing conference!” I sputtered out, spewing coffee. “Pico Iyer! Today, as in now,” I moaned. “Oh, why do I find out about these things so late?”
“Let’s go then,” my husband said, grabbing our then one-month old and the diaper bag. He didn’t want to be left stranded for who knows how long until I returned. So there we were, hustling for a taxi. We sat in the balcony of the auditorium during the panel discussion that Iyer was moderating.
Afterwards, I went downstairs to say hello and hand Iyer a short odd little creative non-fiction piece I wrote about him. He shook my hand, seemed pleased, and sent me a thank-you post card later. And that’s my Dalai Lama/Pico Iyer global journey story. I’m not sure what turning point I had in my life as a result of seeing either one of them. I think I’m still waiting, but the encounters make me smile when I think about them, so perhaps, that’s enough. [via World Hum]
This photo was taken in Jaisalmer, India, by Flickr user arunchs. Although I’m not certain if the structures in the lake are ruins, I do get an Ozymandias feel from them, as though they’ve sunk over time.
And are the only primary colors in the photo from paddle boats?
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