Broken Bangles: Putting Together Life and the World

 (Pellworm Island; image source: de.wikipedia.org) Hello Traveller, You are someone eager to walk unbeaten tracks. You wonder how people live in remote corners of the world where time seems to stand still, and life flows forever without much change. This is why you must visit Pellworm and Suderoog in Germany. These places might teach you an entirely new philosophy of life if you are the listening type.    Suderoog Island can be described in two phrases- one, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the North Frisian Wadden Sea, and two, called by many a floating dream. This island is on the mudflats of Germany. To benefit those uninitiated in geography and its weird diversity, I must explain that a mudflat is a tidal flat, a slob, as the Irish call it. It amounts to a coastal wetland formed by silt deposits in an intertidal area.  They are similar to bays, estuaries, lagoons, and bayous. The mudflats are alternatively submerged and exposed. Even when submerged, the water...

(Vanavara town. Image source:  Traveling Dunia) Hi, Traveller! You are fascinated by remote and isolated destinations and not the type to shy away from the hardships of exploring distant terrains and cultures. This is the first travel note for you in a series of travel plans you will surely want to read before you go off that beaten track.  A Trip to Vanavara Vanavara is the nearest human habitation to what was known as the Tunguska event. Now, what was the Tunguska event?  The incident happened in 1908. A meteor fell into the taiga and burnt and flattened a little above 2000 square kilometres of the spruces and birches growing there. This was the largest recorded meteor impact in history. And there are a bunch of conspiracy theories about the event, a few even claiming that the explosion was supernatural.  In the subarctic climate of Vanavara, everything is white when it is winter. This place is home to the Evenk people, the reindeer herders, hunters and fishermen. ...

Photo source: geograph.org.uk Footpaths are Memory Lanes Do we remember when we went for a walk for the first time? Every one of us might have trod a narrow lane or footpath for the first time with our parents: probably on our way to the shop nearby, to the school, or to a relative's or neighbour's house. The experience of those brief walks lingers. They taught us about the tiny pleasures of life, like a soothing breeze or the scent of green grass as it crumbled under our feet; the welcome and not-so-welcome sights of a stray dog, a blooming wild bush, or a crow perching on a tree. To welcome a new morning and inhale its charming sensations, to clear the mind by going on a walk on the seashore, or to stroll down avenues of calm and buzz with our friends, chatting lightly about you, them, and life! What is the one constant in all the above? The footpath.   Footpaths have a fascinating way of reminding us who we are. So many have come before us and walked the same paths. Their fo...