Cobblestone Chronicles

Hong Kong is a concoction of contrasts - it is home to a skyline that is a vertical exhibit of glass and steel skyscrapers graced in a spectrum of neon lights, and yet retains the chaste culture of a city silhouetted against the quiet, serene, nonchalant hilltops! Not many cities in the world project the symbiosis of exquisite disparities. Hong Kong, however, is a city where dreams, differences and deftness are conflated. It is a perfect congregation of the Eastern and Western cultures, a place which is equally known for its natural beauty as much as for its towering skyline, a city known for its classical, yet contemporary culture!  Even with all the infrastructural notoriety, Hong Kong hasn’t atoned its soul. Till date, it remains one of the most distinctively creative hubs around the world, a showcase of diversity - an esplanade decorated by artists, chefs, entrepreneurs and designers alike; a city known for off-beat hikes and some assorted old-school experiences !...

When you think of deserts, the first things that come to mind are the famous Arabian deserts that have given us so many childhood classics, and the sprawling Sahara, a vast, uncompromising chunk of sand famed for being the largest hot desert in the world, encompassing millions of square kilometers. On the contrary, when you think of Vietnam, your thoughts take you into the densest of rainforests, and the famous or infamous (depending on whose side you’re on) Guerilla Warfare tactics that took advantage of this very ecosystem, that even the mighty United States of America couldn’t lay a finger on. Never in your wildest imagination would you merge the two pictures that I’ve just painted in your brain, but what if I told you that you actually can? A 5 hour drive from the Cu-Chi tunnels of Saigon, the epicentre of the Vietnamese war and Vietnam’s secret weapon lies the coastal town of Mui Ne. A fishing hotspot on the South China sea, this little town has become a popular to...

Home to the country’s third largest populace, Da Nang is the temperate town that boasts sumptuous cuisine, and stunning beaches coalesced with verdant mountains, without all the hustle and bustle of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh! It is quite difficult, and onerous for some travellers too, to envisage a vacation in Vietnam without dealing with the chaotic traffic of Hanoi or the brimming streets of Ho Chi Minh. These two cities and their suburbs, ultimately, have come to showcase to the world what Vietnam is. However, it is what they say after all - sometimes, the obvious choice is not always the best one! Long considered to be the sleepy fishing destination lying about in the centre of Vietnam, and home to the country’s third largest populace, Da Nang is the temperate town that boasts sumptuous cuisine, and stunning beaches coalesced with verdant mountains, without all the hustle and bustle of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh! It has been several years since I visited this quiet nonchalant...