Circled by rugged mountain peaks, Seoul itself is an ancient city built in the late 14th century under the Chosun Dynasty. With a population of nearly 11 million, it boasts a blend of well preserved antique buildings and palaces juxtaposed with state of the art skyscrapers, deluxe hotels and shopping complexes. Beautifully landscaped parks, temples and fortresses vie for attention with museums, art galleries, and shopping arcades bristling with bargains.
Including historic sites, and tourist attractions, sightseeing on your own is relatively easy in Seoul, where the public transport system is …
Every morning you can see Vietnamese women pushing bicycles loaded with white, red, yellow and orange roses, water streaming from their baskets. Vietnam’s capital grew by absorbing the inhabitants of the surrounding countryside. “The neighborhoods in the city center, along the Red River, were the business districts,” explains historian Philippe Papin in his remarkable book Histoire de Hanoi. “Each one was named for a specific trade: the Street of Sugar, Hemp, Cards, Chicken, Platters, Tin, and so on. To understand the unique aspect of Hanoi commerce, you have to distinguish …
Two thousand years ago in India, the legend goes, a Jain priest who could fly, and a disciple who could create gold founded a glorious sacred city on the crest of a mountain. They called it Shatrunjaya (place of victory). Now it is the Jains holiest pilgrimage site, and every year believers come for a day, a week or even months. To most Jains, these pilgrimages to Shatrunjaya, near Palitana in the western state of Gujarat, are sacred obligations. In seeming contrast to their workaday lives as India’s premier bankers …
The vintage red ‘Hotel Indonesia – Kempinski ‘ sign above Jakarta’s busiest traffic circle is nowadays nearly dwarfed by the gleaming skyscrapers all around it, but it’s a curious historical landmark. Known locally by its acronym ‘HI’ , the hotel is an eerie symbol of President Sukarno’s obsessive 1960s effort to create a ‘New Jakarta’ that would bring international respect to his nation and pride to his struggling people. Opened with great hoopla in 1962, Hotel Indonesia epitomized the era’s modernization drive, and as it declined over the years in …
Indonesia is one of the most popular tourist destination countries in the world. The famous of its culture, tradition, and of course its hospitality. Although for the last few years, Indonesia condition is a little bit unstable, and there are some security issues regarding Indonesia, but the number of foreign tourists visiting Indonesia is steadily climbing. It must be confessed that there is so much that Indonesia still needs to do. Besides a much more aggressive promotional effort, it needs much more tourism support, namely accommodations, restaurants, transportation, and infrastructure. …
