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Travelogue - Samarkand

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As we stepped off the high-speed Afrosiyob train from Tashkent , our guide greeted us in Samarkand an—a city as ancient as Rome, once a vital crossroads on the Silk Road, and a true melting pot of civilizations. This is Samarkand: enigmatic, storied, and endlessly fascinating. We checked in to our hotel, Hotel Samaria Resorts & Spa, near Registan Square Silk Road Trade Routes converging @Sogdiana / Samarkand The Silk Road’s Heart: Sogdiana and Samarkand The Silk Road conjures images of caravans winding through mountains and deserts, and Samarkand—once known as Sogdiana—was where many of these routes converged. I expected a city as bustling as Alexandria , but Samarkand surprised me with its neatness, spaciousness, and welcoming atmosphere. The influence of Soviet rule is still visible in the city’s broad avenues and enduring infrastructure. Many medical and technical institutes from Soviet times continue to thrive, and during our stay, we dined at a restaurant run by Indian studen...
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Travelogue - Taskent

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The very name of Tashkent resonates with mysteries and conspiracy theories for India, connected with our erstwhile Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri's death.  The city had a bit of an obscure feeling as we landed on a Saturday early morning. In a congested airport terminal filled with a cacophony of languages from across the world, it took a bit of time to converse properly toning down the pace of speech and bridging the language barrier as we changed currencies, took a local SIM (e-SIM didnt work!) took a taxi and left for our  hotel, in a quaint corner of Tashkent - Ateca Hotel Suites   That spell of unfamiliarity was broken on the very next day morning as we met an Indian origin couple from Silicon valley in our hotel lobby.  Our first day's guide Ruslan made us quite home with his confident communications and confident style taking us through the central monuments such as Amir Timur museum, Chorsu market and the iconic TV tower.  Timur / Tamerlane is a nati...
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Location: Tashkent, Uzbekistan
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Travelogue - Sydney

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  "I like to be on the edge of possible" - remarked Jorn Utzon, who designed perhaps the most iconic landmark of Australia - The Sydney Opera House. Opera House is a wonderful  testament to another of Utzon's quotes -  The architect's gift to society is to bring joy to the people from the surroundings he creates." . True to that, just like other global landmarks, the Opera House brings in various groups of artists round the year and bring tremendous joy to the people.   Harbour Bridge from Opera House  Indeed, the Opera House and the associated stories made me think about the limitations of traditional assessment models of urban infrastructure. Apparently the initial estimate of Opera house was $7 Million (back in 1959) and it took about $102 million by the time it completed. All Government officials would have been shit-scared to approve such a project and approve the cost escalations of about 14 times. How can someone foresee such a success and value add ...
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Location: Sydney NSW, Australia
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Travelogue - Melbourne

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"Melbourne & Sydney are sisters, but Sydney is the prettier one ..So she's always been more overtly beautiful, she's got the Harbour, the bridge, she's got Bondi, the good weather – but because of that she's never had to really work on her personality. So her bars, her restaurants, her coffee – not great. But she's so overtly beautiful that people will keep going back anyway" Melbourne Street Art -1 " Melbourne is the less overtly attractive sister, she's still beautiful but in her own subtle way. So we don't have the Harbour, we have a body of water, and it's pretty at night and sunset but you've gotta look a little bit harder to appreciate it, so we've had to work on our personality, " So we have the best coffee, the best restaurants, rooftop bars, festivals – we're even fun when it rains... Because we can't fall back on our looks – we're not the overtly attractive sister here – so we've had to get such ...
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Location: Melbourne VIC, Australia
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