Making life a holiday with interesting vacation and adventure ideas.

There is a small but growing band of bird watchers in India and South Asia. With over 1250 species of birds, the region is a birders paradise and anyone interested in the birds of India and South Asia will find www.birding.in a quite exceptional resource.
I really cannot speak to highly of this site; much of the information, including bird identification, is of value to beginners and advanced bird watchers alike, wherever they happen to be in the world.

The picture is of a Painted Stork, photographed in Hyderabad sanctuary, India, by Asif Akbar

Labels: Asia, birds, Birdwatching, India

Tomorrow morning, 17 July, 2007, visitors to the Southbank will see a model of the Taj Mahal sail up the Thames to London Bridge Pier, marking the beginning of India Now, a three-month festival in the UK's capital which will showcase India's contribution to world culture. This is the most comprehensive festival of culture ever to be staged in London and celebrates the riches of India's diverse and dazzling traditions, including new Indian trends across art, film, theatre, food, music and fashion.

The festival is to be launched by London Mayor Ken Livingstone, together with a host of celebrities, including Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, English actress Joanne Lumbley and Indian cricket team, Rahul Dravid.

Our listings contain many interesting activity holidays in India.

Labels: 2007, festival, India, India Now, London, UK

Pradip Chandra Sorcar, the Indian magician who famously performed a trick which made the Taj Mahal disappear from view, plans to open a school of magic. Based on 2,000 years of knowledge, the school is to be based in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal.

Ten years ago, Sorcar received the Merlin Award for his contributions to the art of magic from the International Magicians Society in New York.

Fillet of a fenny snake
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blindworm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble,
A handful of chillies and a scoop of curry,
An Indian spell to cause Hogwarts worry.

With apologies to William Shakespeare's witches spell in Macbeth.

We have Performing Arts Holidays in our amazing database.

Labels: Hogwarts, India, magic, Pradip Chandra Sorcar, school

A report in the Hindustan Times illustrates the importance of doing your homework and answering the ' what if ' questions before embarking on adventure travel.

British adventurer, 38-year-old Daniel Robinson, who trekked 3,000 km across the Himalayas to re-trace the ancient Tea Caravan trail, is tonight, in a dank Uttarakhand jail, with a one-year sentence for illegal entry into India.

The route leads from the Chinese mainland to Lhasa in Tibet but misfortune led him to stray into India, across a disputed border, and without an entry visa.

Labels: Adventure Travel, Daniel Robinson, hazards, India, planning, Tibet

The Institute of Adventure Research, a group of eccentric lunatics, have decided that the best way to enjoy the Christmas holiday season is to spend it in a three-wheeled, 150cc, motorised rickshaw, navigating the mountains, mud tracks and tropical heat of India.

Not to be confused with the Cannonball Run, the Rickshaw Run has been organized by the mysterious League of Adventurists, who believe that the world is far too full of health and safety regulations and have set their sights on saving the world from the tyranny of boringness and safety. However, being a jolly good bunch of fellows, they decided that all their adventures should raise money for amazing charities.

This year's Rickshaw Run started on the 27th of December, 2006, at Cochin in the deep south of India and will finish some 2000 miles and 2 weeks later, at the famous tea town of Darjeeling, in the Himalaya foothills. The exact route is left to the discretion of the teams or possibly the number of gin & tonics they consume.

Labels: adventure, India, rally, Rickshaw, Rickshaw Run