Showing posts with label Bulgaria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bulgaria. Show all posts
The world's most jawdropping drives, pt 2
Here's the second part of my pick of the world's most jawdropping drives from roads we've travelled in the last few years (read part 1 here). I've categorized these great drives by region and country, as some destinations are gifted with so many dramatically beautiful routes:6. MOROCCO: one of our favorite road trips starts from Marrakesh, heading east to Essaouira, then south via the surfing spots dotting the coast down to Agadir, before turning inland toward the walled city Taroudant, and on to other-worldly Ouarzazate, Zagora and the tiny hamlet Mhmed, the last stop before the Sahara, returning to Marrakesh via the Atlas Mountains. The trip took us through moonlike landscapes, sublime desert scenery, abandoned mountain palaces, Berber desert citadels, and date palm oases. Magical!
7. THAILAND: we once drove from Koh Samui (via a car ferry) across the south of Thailand to Phuket. This route takes you through lush green tropical landscapes boasting striking limestone mountains and impenetrable jungle. On the way are tiny towns with bustling markets and diversions such as elephant trekking and whitewater rafting, but the drive itself with the stunning scenery was enough to keep us satisfied.
8. BULGARIA: the roads may be in a poor state, pot-holed and breaking away in parts, and the Cyrillic signs mean you need to continually refer to your dictionary, yet other than that driving in Bulgaria is a road trippers' dream, with idyllic rural landscapes with lush green meadows carpeted with wildflowers, where ramshackle villages tumble down mountainsides, and striking war monuments appear in the most surprising places. You'll have to frequently stop for cows and families will pass you on wooden horses and carts, but that's part of the fun of it.
9. MUSANDAM, OMAN: from the UAE border to Khasab, the sleepy capital of the Musandam Peninsula of Oman, a road skirts the magnificent coast, taking you by majestic forts, mosques with pretty minarets, date palm oases, hills topped with watchtowers, and small coves where fisherman haul in nets. The whole way you have on one side sheer rocky mountains and on the other the turquoise sea. (For more info, see my story 'Dhows, dolphins and smugglers' published in the January issue of Get Lost magazine here)
10. UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (UAE): there's a drive in the Liwa region through the sandy desert near the border with Saudi Arabia that snakes through massive peach- and apricot-coloured sand dunes. There's very little vegetation, just an occasional small shrub, and the dunes are dotted with long-lashed camels. This is real Lawrence of Arabia stuff! As the sand is continually shifting it dramatically 'bleeds' across the road from time to time. (Read more in my story 'Dubai's Desert Escapes' published in Lifestyle+Travel magazine, available here.)
Making connections: traditions and rituals of love and devotion, or, When you wish upon a heart
I found another photo that's similar to the one I showed you earlier of the ribbons and pieces of cloth tied at an Islamic shrine in Syria. I took this photo in the lovely garden of a gold onion domed Russian Orthodox church in the Bulgarian countryside, where the branches of a tree were tied with hundreds of strings, many bearing tiny trinkets such as hearts. The universal symbol for love, no? So once again I'm reminded of that 1970s song 'Tie a yellow ribbon round the ole Oak tree...' One theory, from the USA, has the tradition of ribbon-tying dating back to the 19th century when women wore yellow ribbons to show their devotion to their 'sweethearts serving in the US Cavalry (yellow being the official Cavalry colour), and then sees it widening throughout society in the 1970s to signify remembrance of a loved one away in the military or in prison. During the ongoing Iraq War, families of US soldiers have been wrapping large yellow ribbons around their porches. The American Folklore Centre researched the origins of the tradition, finding connections to the Civil War, a prison legend cited in a 1959 book, and even to Shakespeare's Othello. Having travelled all over the world, and seen ribbons and strings (like the locks) in many different countries, I find it baffling that a researcher would only look at Western references and that their research didn't cross more borders, cultures and religions. This academic paper I found on 'Religious practices in the Turco-Iranian world: continuity and change' by Martin van Bruinessen, a scholar from Utrecht University, looks at the long list of 'superstitious' (and therefore anti-Islamic) rituals of Muslim pilgrims in Turkey, who treat visits to shrines as cheap family outings and behave like ordinary tourists; they tie pieces of cloth to the gate of the shrine and ribbons and strings to trees, in addition to lighting candles, placing 'wishing stones' on the tombs, and circling the courtyard trees seven times. The Russian (and Greek) Orthodox Christians do the same thing. I remember participating in the act with my Russian grandparents every Easter, walking around the Church at midnight, holding candles. And I expect they do the same thing in Bulgaria.