5 essays tagged “rivers”.
Varanasi, India
Varanasi is not for everyone, and it does not pretend to be. The city is dense, intense, ancient, and dedicated to a kind of religious practice that does not soften itself for visitors. The morning river, at dawn, is the experience that justifies the journey.
December 18, 2022
Livingstone, Zambia
Victoria Falls (Mosi-oa-Tunya, 'the smoke that thunders' in Lozi) is 1.7 km wide and drops 108 m, with a peak-season volume that throws spray a kilometre into the sky. A guide to seeing it without rushing, and to combining it with the upper Zambezi.
August 10, 2022
Cairo, Egypt
Cairo is 22 million people, dust, traffic, and a continuous Islamic-and-pharaonic history that no other city on earth can match. Plan a week. Plan, also, for the noise.
February 8, 2022
Luang Prabang, Laos
Luang Prabang is small. The entire peninsula between the Mekong and the Nam Khan rivers can be walked in 20 minutes. It is also one of the most preserved colonial-and-monastic towns in Southeast Asia, and the dawn alms procession remains, for now, an unforced daily ritual.
August 14, 2021
Kochi, India
Kerala is the antidote to the intensity of northern India. The state is greener, slower, and structurally different — Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish historic religious mix, a 100% literate population, a houseboat culture that lets you sleep on a rice barge in the canals.
February 28, 2021