This Is A Lake - A travel blog

Red Fort, Jama Masjid After a wonderful, restoring sleep, I woke up this morning to a sunny Delhi morning, and this time I could definitely notice a grayish haze in the air, even though there were no clouds. My main objective for today was to visit the Red Fort, Delhi’s main attraction, a sprawling 16th century Mughal fortress with many historical buildings inside. I decided to brave walking to the fort, as it’s supposedly less than 20 minutes from my hotel -and sure enough, geographically it’s not that far but it’s more work than it would be back home, having to navigate narrow sidewalks teeming with people, occasionally having to find a way to cross a giant six-lane road with no lights anywhere... Eventually I spotted the red walls of the fort, and from there I just followed them until Lahori Gate, the main entrance, where I found out that it’s the entrance but not where tickets are sold. What the Lonely Planet guide fails to mention is that first you have to b

At one point this summer, I said, “Would it be crazy if I up and went to India in November?” and my friends went, “...Not more than usual?” So here I am now! As usual, I’m going to travel for two weeks, and I’m going to see what’s called the Golden Triangle (Delhi, the capital; Agra, where the Taj Mahal is; and Jaipur, the Pink City of Rajasthan) plus Varanasi, which is rather far from the others but seemed really interesting for being one of the world’s oldest cities and India’s holiest, with its famous stair steps into the Ganges. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though. Getting to Charles de Gaulle airport was problematic as always (I left home at 17:00 for a 21:00 flight and arrived at the gate in the middle of boarding!), and then there was the Air India experience. I almost always fly with Air France, but their hours for India were universally terrible so I had to branch out. The plane seemed modern enough -the windows were larger and instead of having shades, the glass

Want to discover Vietnam, north to south, but don't have two months to do the backpacker experience? Here's a great, compact two-week itinerary that will get you to the country's main highlights without making everything feel like a blur: Hanoi Day 1: Arrival in Hanoi Read : The Old Quarter of Hanoi Day 2: Hanoi Read : The Imperial Citadel, the Temple of Literature Day 3: Hanoi Read : The French Quarter, the History Museum, Hoa Lo Prison Halong Bay Day 3: Hanoi → Halong Bay Read : Halong Bay, Part 1 Day 4: Halong Bay → Hanoi → Sapa (by night train) Read : Halong Bay, Part 2 Sapa Day 5: Sapa Read : Sapa, Cat Cat Village Day 6: Sapa → Hanoi (by night train) Read : Sapa, Lao Chai, Ta Van Hue Day 7: Hanoi → Hue Read : From Hanoi to Hue Day 8: Hue Read : The Imperial Citadel of Hue Day 9: Hue Read : The Tombs of the Emperors  Hoi An Day 10: Hue → Hoi An Read : Hoi An: First Contact Day 11: Hoi An R

I should thank my lucky stars, because after yesterday’s rain, today it was clear -if still muggy- all day long! This means I was able to fulfill my master plan of going all the way to Naoshima! Naoshima is this island in the Inland Sea that sits between Honshu and Shikoku, two of the main Japanese islands along with Hokkaido in the north and Kyushu in the south (Kyushu is where I just came from, where Fukuoka and Nagasaki are). The island has become famous lately because the Benesse Foundation has turned the island itself into a modern art museum of sorts, with several avant-garde sculptures scattered along the shore, not to mention multiple actual art museums that are as valued for Tadao Ando’s architecture as for their collection. The drawback is that it’s kind of a pain to get there, especially from the main cities like Kyoto and Osaka. Okay, here goes: from Shin-Osaka station, I had to take the shinkansen to Okayama (50 min), then a regional train to Chayamachi (20 min), then anot

Ah, well, I had a good run. Today tsuyu finally caught up with me: it was hot and rainy, just like they'd promised me my entire stay would be. I got incredible weather until now, though, so I can't complain! (I may still complain a bit) Undaunted by the rain, I set on my journey to Himeji. It is 90 km west of Osaka, but it's on the shinkansen line so the train ride takes just 29 minutes! And when a Japanese train says 29 minutes, it is not 28 or 30, it is exactly twenty-nine minutes. Once again, the JR Pass pays for itself (a one-way ticket would have cost me maybe €40 without it, so in practice I would have taken a regional train that would have taken twice as long). When I got off at Himeji station, the castle was immediately visible at the end of the large avenue that connects the two points. The castle is also called The White Egret, which to me was puzzling: the "white" part is because the walls and the roofs are covered in plaster (by comparison, pict

Today I got up bright and early to say goodbye to Fukuoka and take the shinkansen to Osaka! I’ve actually already been to Osaka, but my flight back to Paris leaves from there so I decided to use it as my base of operations for day trips around the region. And hey, I can always end the day with okonomiyaki at Dotonbori! I hadn’t booked a ticket for the shinkansen, so I was a bit apprehensive about seat availability, but I needn’t have worried. With a JR Pass, you can simply get onto one of the three non-reserved cars in the shinkansen. A bit of a queue formed while we waited for the train to arrive, but I had no problem finding a place for me and for my bag. The bliss of travelling by train in Japan: the shinkansen covered the 600 km between Fukuoka and Osaka in less than three hours! When I got off in Osaka, I only had to walk five minutes to my hotel, the vaguely-named Shin Osaka Station Hotel Annex (a lot of Japanese hotels have Annex in the name). For a new challenge, I did

Yesterday I had a bit of choice paralysis when I was researching where to go today. It's my last day in Fukuoka, and I had all of Kyushu at my fingertips, so where to go? Friends' recommendations and web searches turned out lots of suggestions but no consensus. So I began looking into each one: there's Kagoshima, which has a volcano, but apparently the volcano's too active right now and so they cordoned off the area because of the toxic fumes. There's Kumamoto, which has a castle, but apparently the castle was damaged in a 2016 earthquake and is still closed for repairs. There's Beppu, which has famous onsen with all kinds of hot springs, but while I enjoy the occasional onsen I didn't feel like making an entire day trip just for that (I think it's like a 2h train ride from Fukuoka). So in the end I opted for Dazaifu, which is a small town just 20 km south of Fukuoka. I did feel bad for picking such a close destination having an entire island to choose