Tag Archives: Travel Theme

Travel Theme: Beaches

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Whitefish Point beach, A fin du monde

Whitefish Point beach, A fin du monde

Thailand, where I am now, has its share of magnificent beaches. Mountain-encircled. Clear blue watered. Silhouettes of fishing boats crawl along the horizon mimicking snails.

So too did Malaysia and Puerto Rico before that.

However, the beach I chose to share for this Travel Theme, Whitefish Point, is one of the most uniquely iconic I have ever been to.

Quite literally a fin du monde shooting out into Lake Superior, the beach at Whitefish Point is a memorial, a final eulogy, to all those lost vessels. Myron and John B. Cowel and the Superior City, and most famously the Edmund Fitzgerald, who perished in the frigid and unpredictable waters of this great inland sea.

Lying only 10 km north of the insignificant town called Paradise, this beach is littered with the remnant driftwood of the decayed woodlands of the Canadian Shield. In the winter, the sand and the ice and the shards of decaying driftwood jet out like oversized splinters on a
frostbitten skin.

Regardless of the time of year, far off in the fogged horizon lay the intangible white towers dotting the shore of Canada. And the lighthouse horn sounds, a voice reassuring to those lost vessels. It lets them know that Paradise is close; that there is a way around this end.

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Travel Theme: Light

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plain-of-jars-lightThe Plain of Jars Site 1, my final stop over a hellishly adventurous day of exploring ancient ruins amidst active minefields. I was convinced my wrists may be broken after 5 hours of riding on a motorcycle after a spill on a jagged road.

Site 1 is the largest and most accessible of the Plain of Jars sites, making it less appealing in a way. Dozens of giant stone jars little a landscape torn apart by stray bombs from the Vietnam War. Their purpose is unknown. Why would people who live in reed and bamboo homes and barely subsist in rice cultivation have put so much effort into creating such massive stoneworks?

Through the pain, as it might be my only chance to ever see these, it had been an otherwise amazing day. Small Laos towns, abandoned war zones, mysterious ancient monuments. Late in my time at Site 1, the newly thickened clouds gave way to an immense pillar of light shining down over the hills of this once-devastated plain.

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Travel Theme: Contrast

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contrast-phanom-rung-monks

Straddling the Cambodia border, atop of the extinct volcano of Phanom Rung, is one of the most magnificent Angkorian structures outside of Cambodia.  Prasat Phanom Rung is a temple dedicated to Shiva and on a major pilgrimage route stemming from Angkor Wat to Phimai in Thailand.

To this day, Buddhist pilgrims come and honor this site, a symbol of the religion from which their stems, much in the same way Christians visit Jewish sites.

Leading up to the main monument are a series of ornate, paved walkways called Naga Bridges.

This picture is one of my favorites from the site, contrasting the natural tones of the trees and grey stonework with the bright, artificial, and some might argue spiritual, colors of the saffron robes the Buddhist monks wear.

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Travel Theme: Green

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khmer-ruins-green

I had wasted nearly an hour travelling the wrong direction down an Isan highway.  My destination was the various Khmer ruins hidden somewhere to the south.  As I was already skirting the Cambodian border, my initial misdirection gave me pause to check the vague maps I had with me.

So, cooling off with a green Fanta for the first time and by chance sitting at a table outside the petrol station that was the same question, I relaxed for a few.

I gathered from the maps that I was right at the intersection I needed to go south from.  So, back on my bike and I was off toward the border in search of the Angkorian Lost Cities of Prasat Hin Phanom Rung and Prasat Hin Muang Tam.

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Travel Themes: Bridges

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wampo-viaduct-bridge

Normally for a bridge theme, I would have posted about the bridge I have the most intimate history with, the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan.  However, I already posted my favorite picture I’ve ever taken of that in a previous Photo Challenge.  So I figured, I put up something a little more offbeat.

Who says a bridge needs to cross a body of water? While the Death Railway in western Thailand is famous for it ‘Bridge Over the River Kwai” I have never found it that intriguing.  Not regarding its history, but I mean this in the sense that it’s not a visually impressive bridge or built over a particularly harsh section of river way.

More interesting, I think is this locale on the railroad: the Wampo Viaduct.  A raised wooden trestleway that straddles a cliff carved out of the riverbend.  It passes the secluded Krasae Cave Buddha.  20 meters beneath float resort and chains of bamboo rafts barely at surface level.  At one end of the Viaduct are a dead end road and an oddly placed Christian English camp.  At the other end is a makeshift souvenir village on the outskirts of the village of Saiyok.

This remains one of my favorite spots in Thailand for no particular reason other than how I first stumbled upon it by complete accident, rather than the masses of tourist buses that come from the other side.  I’ve been here every time I’ve been in the area now, in one form or another.

My most recent trip was to track down an elusive, regal mountaintop temple.  Saiyok was a nice middle point and the Viaduct proved clear and ripe for another visit.

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Travel Theme: Glass

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New-Orleans-Glass

Glass, while a fantastic décor in many cases, usually serves a much more practical purpose.  Though, whether practical or not in this case may be debatable.

 

A few days after arriving in New Orleans, I was in the French Quarter along with Joachim and Simon, the two Germans I had met my first day.  On a word of mouth recommendation, we had gone to the Voodoo Museum.  This outpost of what is supposed to be traditional New Orleans voodoo is filled with random exhibits, which are interesting, but overall only for show.

 

Tapestries, fake human skulls, and interesting carvings are joined by things like what is in this picture:  weird things preserved in formaldehyde jars.  We had a good look around and got a few explanations from the owner, John T. Both, who is a Voodoo priest.

 

Our trip to the Voodoo Museum concluded with John giving me his snake to hold for a couple minutes and then handing over his business card, in case we might need a psychic reading or a spell of some sort cast.

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Weekly Travel Theme: Bright

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One thing you have to hand to the Caribbean is that they do not shy away from their bright colours.  Coming from northern North America, where the norm of buildings is black, grey, blue and brown, this comes as an immediate shock to the visual senses.

Stepping out of the plane in Culebra, past the man sleeping under an airplane wing and the airport’s beer stand, the colours became brighter as more and more building appeared nearer town.  The downtown of Dewey, Culebra was absolutely bathed in pastels.

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