What a wonderful world!
Mahbub Morshed is thrilled by thoughts of travel
100 Journeys for the SpiritWatkins Publishing When this mundane urban life makes you sink into deep melancholia, this is the book you should pick to lift your spirits. 100 Journeys for the Spirit, with photographs of 100 tranquil settings and write-ups from eight acclaimed authors, takes you to a world of solace, far from chaos, despair and disdain. As you flip through the pages, you marvel at the greatness and splendour of nature and the indomitable human spirit. Starting with an inspiring foreword from the revered travel writer Pico Iyer, the book explores a hundred mystic and magical places spanning the Americas, Africa and the Middle East, Asia and Australia and the Pacific. "We can be turned around by a magic place, that's why we travel, often," writes Iyer. And your journey begins with Bryce Canyon that boasts rocky pillars known as "hoodoos", a name given by the Paiute Indians, who once inhabited this part of Utah in the USA. The Nazca Lines lying untouched in Peru's desert for over a thousand years will make you ponder the purpose of hundreds of gigantic markings that include representational images of hummingbirds, dolphins and other natural phenomena. As the sun dips below the horizon, you admire the beauty of Lake Atitlán that still holds many mysteries. Beneath the surface of the highland crater lake, none precisely knows how deep, lie the remains of ancient cities, lost for 2,600 years, in the central American country of Guatemala. Iyer gives a vivid description of Big Sur, the 90-mile stretch of central Californian coastline in the USA, and Uluru, a magical place known as Ayers Rock in the Northern Territory of Australia. For thousands of years, the Aboriginal people have lived around Uluru, the "island mountain", whose sandstone constantly changes colour in the light in the desert. There are caves around it with paintings showing stories of the Dreamtime. The red-rock city of Petra stands as a man-made wonder in the desert of Jordan. Built by the Nabataeans, a nomadic tribe from western Arabia, it had been a perfect location for controlling trade routes to Gaza, Damascus, Aqaba and across the desert. With "The Treasury", a six-columned elaborate palace, and hundreds of tombs, "the city sits like a ship in a bottle sent to us from a civilization of which we know little … Yet the power of the site -- what lifts the spirit and expands the senses -- is the feeling of tiptoeing into a wonder undiscovered," writes Iyer. In Lalibela of Ethiopia, the cluster of eleven 700-year-old churches, carved entirely out of red rock, is a place close to heaven for the Ethiopians of Christian faith. "Light streams through the cross-shaped windows; swinging censers fill the ancient spaces with incense; boys dart among the underground passageways, while priests in purple robes, golden crosses in their hands, chant softly in the dim light", notes Iyer. Ethiopians believe that the churches were constructed with the help of angels, one of whom visited King Lalibela and asked him to build a city in the north. Ryōan-ji, meaning the temple of the peaceful dragon, is one of the world's most famous rock gardens, surrounded by beautiful parks and gardens in Kyoto, Japan. There lie 15 boulders placed in the late 15th century in an abstract arrangement, several imperial tombs and a small stone basin. The Zen temple was once an estate of the Fujiwara family but now belongs to the Rinzai school. The American author Joseph Marshall III, famous for his historical fictions based on Lakota history, takes you to the Devils Tower, the core of an ancient volcano, in northeast Wyoming, USA. The vast protrusion of igneous rock, known as "Bear's Lodge" among local indigenous tribes, stands about 1,300 feet above the prairie floor with near-vertical sides. In June every year, the Native people perform sacred rituals at the foot of the mountain. If you are willing enough to go for an arduous climb, you can visit the mountain called Croagh Patrick in Ireland. Commonly known as "The Reek", it is a holy place where St Patrick is believed to have banished tormenting demons and serpents from the island during a Lenten fast. From the summit of the 2,500-foot high mountain, you get a magnificent view of the Clew Bay and its myriad islets. "That high foggy summit in the wind is a truly holy place. It is holy by heredity, as it were, its holiness inherited from the sages and saints of antiquity," writes British travel writer and historian Jan Morris. Away from the bustle of city life lie sets of the mysterious stone structures at Talatí de Dalt in Menorca, home to many pre-historic sites in Spain. They were placed there thousands of years ago but nobody clearly knows why. The structures of the gigantic sun-whitened stones might have served as lookout posts or tombs. The mysterious stone remnants will certainly elude your understanding, writes the English poet and novelist Andrew Motion. A view of the Tuscan countryside awaits you as you climb up the winding road to the small town of Montalcino in Italy. It will make a lasting impression on your mind while you explore the town's paths and alleyways that meander around the slopes of the surrounding olive trees. If you walk a few miles south of the town, you will see the Abbey of Sant'Antimo, regarded as the most beautiful of Italian Romanesque churches, "a building of soft feminine shape with a perfect square tower, and surrounded by cypress trees and olive groves," narrates Scottish writer Alexander McCall Smith. Tucked away among the trees, the remnants of various structures of the 12th-century monastery – a bathing pool, promenades for walking meditation, a refectory and dwellings for monks – still stand in the Arankale forest of Sri Lanka. The history of the monastery remains largely unknown. Asanga the Wise and his followers once lived here. After they died, it was stilled of humans and remained forgotten for nearly four centuries until some monks started living here again. "Here, the forest towers over you as though you are within a deep green well. The corrugated overhang by a nearby cave to keep out sun and rain rattles and shakes whenever the wind comes through the trees," writes Canadian author Michael Ondaatje, who was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The veteran journalist Mark Tully takes you on a trip to several holy sites across India – Jama Masjid, built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in the 17th century, with tall fluted minarets, white marble domes and vast courtyard in Old Delhi; the shrine of the 13th century sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya; the Janog Temple in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh; and the Sikhs' holy site in Amritsar, the dazzling Golden Temple that seems to float over water. Globetrotting writer Paul Theroux journeys to one of the most coveted destinations of thousands of travellers around the world – Lhasa. Surrounded by the high Tibetan mountains, the small town on a high plain is a holy place. "Pilgrims have made Lhasa a town of visitors, who are not exactly strangers, so even a real foreigner feels a sense of belonging here. Its chaos and dirt and its jangling bells make it seem hospitable," writes Theroux. A visit to Tibet's holiest site, the Jokhang temple, could prove to be really exciting if you visit it during the 15-day festival marking the Tibet New Year. You will see hundreds of monks gather there chanting mantras, and the prayer wheels spinning almost everywhere. "The setting is more than touching – it is a bewitchment: the light, the air, the emptiness, the plains and the peaks," narrates the writer of the popular travelogue The Great Railway Bazaar. The book also gives you glimpses of enchanting places like the Pyramid of the Magician, a Mayan structure in Yucatán of Mexico, Sénanque Abbey in France, Goðafoss Waterfall in Iceland, Valaam Monastery in Russia, Rousanou Monastery in Meteora of Greece, the Great Mosque in Djenné of Mali, Umayyad Mosque in Syria, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul of Turkey, Meroe Pyramids in Sudan, Matobo Hills near Bulawayo of Zimbabwe, Taktsang Monastery in Paro of Bhutan and Cheju Island in Korea. Last but not least, the book contains a 12-page gazetteer to help you choose the right time to visit these places. Mahbub Morshed is Assistant News Editor, The Daily Star.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments