Part 11 – the Taj Mahal Date: 4/11/2017 Sunny, 70F/99F The early rooftop breakfast put on for us by the Delhi Shanti Home staff at 6:15 a.m. was very enjoyable — they had their full breakfast staff on hand for us alone, and took this early hour completely in stride as if it happened every day. Our car arrived right on time at 7 a.m. and we were on our way to New Delhi’s Nizamuddin Railway Station to catch the…
Part 12 – Dubai: the Burj Khalifa Date: 4/14/2017 From my point of view, unless you have business there, the main reason to go to Dubai is to see the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest skyscraper. There’s no question that the wealth and unbelievable development in Dubai is impressive … even breathtaking. And it is enlightening to see how well-managed oil wealth can be put to use to create a vibrant economy and open society, things not always available in…
Part 13 – Egypt and the Pyramids Date: 4/15 & 4/16/2017 The flight from Dubai to Cairo turned out to be quite a geographic show. The takeoff gave us a panoramic view of downtown Dubai and the needle of the Burj Khalifa as we winged out over the Persian Gulf, leaving the tip of the Arabian boot headed northwest passing just over the tip of Qatar. Photo 4102, winging out over smoggy Dubai, the Burj Khalifa rising above the rest…
No discussion of great world engineering works would be complete without the Great Wall of China. However, since we had visited the Great Wall on a previous trip in 2005 we did not repeat that in 2017. For the sake of the topic at hand, I include some photos and a journal entry from our 2005 trip giving our earlier description of the Great Wall. 6/27/2005. Cloudy and humid. Low: 70F. High: 86F. After lunch, we continued our drive to…
5/5/2017. Mostly cloudy with some hazy sun. 63F At last, after all these years: Versailles, which we had never seen. We walked from our hotel down to the Seine to catch the RER “C” line train from the Pont de l’Alma subway station that we scoped out the night before. Had a heck of a time getting tickets out of the ticket machines … it took about 5 tries to get them. The only saving grace was that even the…