Author: kenritley

Marco Polo was here – maybe, just maybe

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This is the famous Italian explorer Marco Polo,

I have not researched this personally, but I read somewhere that at one point he stayed in the Swiss city of Bern, in the area known as the Matte:

This is the area where farmers would bring their produce in the middle ages to be sold in the city of Bern, so interestingly the merchants of this area developed their own language, Mattenenglisch, that was not understandble outside of their community, so they could keep their negotiations a secret. There are many such examples of dialects created for this purpose around the world.

Petronas Towers

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This is a snap looking up at the Petronas Towers buildings in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia:


They are nice towers, to be sure. And underneath the towers is a very nice indoor shopping center filled with many fabulous restaurants.

But for a long time Malaysia has tried to portray these towers as one of the world’s tallest. This is far from a true statement, as anyone with experience with tall towers knows just after standing under them and looking up.

The Grand Lisboa Casino – beautiful on the outside but terrifying on the inside!

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It’s located in Macao.

Chinese casinos are scary, intimidating places. When I first entered one, I was not sure if it was a casino or a conference of snipers and assasins. For the casinos are filled with intense looking ultra-affluent Chinese people sitting silently at the various gambling tables, never moving more than the required muscles for hours at a time.  Nothing even casually reminiscent of Las Vegas.

Würm flowers

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Continuing the series, I took this snap in a field in Alsace,

What’s amazing to me about it are two things. The plants are stuck on the ground and remind me of starfish.

And the high number of flat, polished rocks is certainly a vestige of the last ice age in this area, in which a massive glacier (known as the Würm) covered this area.

 

My feet on the ladder of death

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Or it could very well be the ladder of death, if you fall off.

Here is a picture of my feet on said ladder, and as you can see the drop is many thousands of feet below:

This is along the world-famous Hindelanger Klettersteig, a mountain route through the Alps of Southern Germany, where you don’t even want to think about coming unless you have the right equipment and know how to use it. Interestingly, this was my first such expedition, so I didn’t have the right equipment (I had to borrow it) and I didn’t know how to use it (but I learn fast).

And where you can get some very impressive views if the weather is nice:

Nanjing Road in Shanghai

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Today it is one of the busiest streets in the world, but when I visited many years ago it was still quiet – it was unempty until at least noon, and you’d have to struggle to meet any foreigners there at all.

Interestingly, while visiting Shanghai as I scientist I was followed on at least two occasions by the Chinese secret police (actually, nothing unexpected since I had a background in nuclear physics, and the Chinese goverment made no secrets about following nuclear physicists whenever possible). And (as many, many people over the years have asked me) this is where my path first crossed with a man I only know as Mr. Tradecraft.

This was back in the days before China was open to the west: for example, all incoming flights had to stop in Beijing, where the passengers would get out and pass through immigration, before re-boarding and heading to Shanghai.

Another interesting story is that I shared a train cabin with a team of business leaders from Motorola, who at the time had no footprint in China and were considering opening their first factory there. So unknowingly I may have helped contribute to their business decision!

Cubbon Road Cows

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Good cows, bad picture – I hardly think it’s possible. Here’s a snap of a few cows enjoying a quiet moment outside of Bangalore’s Cubbon Park.

Although it happened rarely, it did happen from time to time: cows are herd animals, so if given the chance they will spontaneously come together and form a herd. That’s OK if you are in Moneta, Wyoming, population 6.  But it ain’t so OK when you are in downtown Bangalore, and the cows stop traffic for over six hours.

Train operators

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I don’t remember where I took this snap exactly,

but it was a few years before I joined the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB / CFF / FFS) so in many ways it was probably a harbinger of things to come!

I guess they didn’t get many American tourists here, because they invited me in and allowed me to watch them doing their operations!

Goan sunset

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Goa is the site of many mysteries for me. For a long time it was a colony belonging to the Portuguese until India “liberated” it in 1961. One mystery is why more Indians don’t know their recent history, as this was an interesting episode of armed aggression initiated by the Indians. Another mystery is why there are still television stations in Goa that broadcast Portuguese language stations, although literally everyone I spoke to here told me that nobody remains who speaks it.

Anyway, located on the western shore of India, they have nice sunsets, as this snap shows:

and also this one:

Deadly fence at Hiranandani

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Here is a beautiful view from the Renaissance Hotel of the neighborhood in known as Hiranandani, overlooking Lake Powai in Mumbai:

Just visible behind the bannisters is a barbed wire fence that is, by design, intended to kill. For after the atrocious terror acts in Mumbai, when terrorists entered the city via boats, hotels in Mumbai take no chances.

Namada Chilume at Devarayandurga

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South Indian names are really not so bad – they are just like German words, made up of very many tiny elements.

Devarayandurga is a hill station near Tumkur, just outside of Bangalore. It’s famous for a number of incredible temples. I didn’t photograph any of them, but what caught my attention the most were the monkeys on a ledge,

And although I suppose I shouldn’t do it, I never miss the opportunity to share some of my fruit with any local monkey I come across, such as this very red-faced macaque,

But for me the most fascinating bit was a natural spring called Namada Chilume,

According to legend, the Indian God Rama was looking for water but could not find any, so he shot an arrow into the rock and out flowed a spring of water.

What I find so amazing is that water continues to flow, even after the many thousands of years of this legend!

Minerals in rural France are MIND BLOWING – 3

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Continuing the series, I’ve warned you that Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines and Sainte-Croix-aus-Mines are places where tourists are advised to keep out.

Keep well out, that is, except for two days every year, during the summer, when they become home to one of the world’s LARGEST and most MIND-BLOWING gem and mineral show on the planet, namely, the Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines International Gem and Mineral Show.

During this time, the villages are visited by literally hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world.  And every square inch of the villages is occupied by the stands of gem and mineral dealers from all over the world (52 countries at last count!) selling their gems and minerals.

The village center is filled with dozens upon dozens of stands:

The church courtyards are all filled with dozens and dozens of stands:

And in fact, during these two days, each and every village office building is open to the public and filled with yet more stands. No space goes unwasted. For example, the local indoor pool is also filled with stands: