Postcards for the weekend 22: Anything you wish

Some of you may have seen in my previous posts that I have a habit of sending postcards to myself whenever I go for a trip. These postcards were sent from Mumbai Airport. I got them though from New Delhi. 

Swaminarayan Akshardham is a spiritual and cultural complex. It was placed at the Guinness World Record as the World's Largest Comprehensive Hindu Temple in 2007. 

Akshardham means the divine abode of God. Information about the place says that the mandir in the middle is the most visited structure within the complex. I was totally in awe of the statues decorating the mandir. The gajsthar (plinth of elephants) was my favorite. Our visit became all about walking around the mandir to examine and understand the story depicted by all 148 full sized elephants.

We had a great view of the entire temple complex from the elevated express way leading to the entrance of the place. We were brokenhearted at first as we thought the queue was so long and we only had 2 hours left. Good thing, we realized it was the queue for the cloak room and not for the entrance! A lot of items are prohibited inside, such as cameras and mobile phones. Visitors need to deposit the prohibited items prior to entering the place. Needless to say, the security was very tight and we had to queue for at least 15 minutes to pass through the x-ray machine and body frisking.

We're almost left by our flight from New Delhi to Mumbai. I wanted to run into the Post Office inside the New Delhi Airport but we won't just make it on time. In the end, I had quite an adventure to get the stamps in Mumbai but gladly, I was able to send the postcards from Mumbai Airport before eventually boarding my flight back to Singapore.

These are my postcards for this weekend for our theme "anything you wish" . Sending myself postcards during my business trips gives me interesting memories from the place, and not just the endless meetings and usual stuff about work -- which leaves the travel experience too dry sometimes.

Hope we're all having a good break this weekend! I'm glad to finally get a real weekend after a continuous 16 days of work! 

Signing off this post from a place surrounded by pepper farms in the province of Kampot, Cambodia.

~maria

P.S. My apologies for the late posting as internet here wasn't working last night. I wish for those who came here to my page prior to getting the linky up will be back to link up their postcards for this weekend. If not, please help me get the word out -- thanks!!

Postcards for the weekend 21: Sunrise/sunset

Thank you to everyone who wished me well for my trip to India. I'm now in Malaysia and will be back to Singapore in 2 days. It feels like I've been chasing sunrises as for two consecutive days, I was on the plane very early in the morning. One was coming in and another departing from Singapore.

For most of my postcards that has sunrises or sunsets, I reckon the most beautiful ones are those that are coupled with a water reflection. From the country that I just visited:

Friendship Gift Postcard, Sent from Dehradun, India
Traveled 4,710 km

On the above postcard is a Colva Beach sunset. Colva is in the west of India. It's a popular destination because of its powdery white sand beach, tall coconut trees, and yes, beautiful sunset. I've never been to this part of India and really keen to visit just for leisure and play.

Sent from Bangkok, 18 Sep 2016
Traveled 1,434 km

One of the many postcards I've sent to myself from Bangkok ... it's from September when I was really longing to watch the sunset while on a longtail boat ride through the Chao Phraya River. This wish finally came true before Christmas when I came back to Bangkok with my partner.

This postcard is from Thailand's neighbor, Cambodia and had been shared here in my blog in the past. It's one of my favorites to send out whenever I visit Phnom Penh, where my partner currently lives. Siem Reap, the city where Angkor Wat is more accessible is approximately 6 hours from Phnom Penh. Angkor Wat is truly magnificent! 2D photos like on this postcard isn't enough to give justice to the wonders within this religious and cultural complex. It's a sight to behold though with the silhouette of the towers amidst the fiery sunrise sky.

I'm traveling again to Phnom Penh at the end of the month. If any of you wishes to receive a postcard from there, please send me an email to avi_resha@yahoo.com and I'll happily mail you one! :)

Thanks in advance for sharing your sun!

~maria

Postcards for the weekend 20: SE Asian land transpo

PH-61397, Sent to Pella, Greece
Traveled 9,664 km in 14 days

Here's a horse-drawn wooden carriage that's been widely used in the Spanish colonial era of the Philippines. The local term is calesa. I remember when I was a child, my grandparents would bring me to the church or to the town market in a calesa. Nowadays, it's mostly found at tourist attraction sites and is no longer used as a means of every day public transportation.

Sent from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Traveled 350 km, sent 12 June 2015

This is called a trishaw. Similar to the calesa, tourists are the ones seen enjoying a ride. The back of this postcard says that this is static image was taken in Malacca. I've never been there but I've seen for several times a row of trishaws carrying tourists around Chinatown (Singapore).  

Friendship gift postcard, Sent from Jakarta
Sent 23 July 2012, Traveled 2,787 km

Trishaw in Indonesia is called becak. I've never seen a trishaw for the couple of visits I've had to 2 different cities in Indonesia. I reckon that it has been widely replaced by motorbikes. As far as I know, at least in Jakarta, there's an app for motorbikes which works like an Uber/Grab where you can order a motorbike for a pick up / drop off service.

Friendship Gift Postcard, Sent from Ho Chi Minh, Vietman
Sent: 20 November 2013, Traveled 1,611 km in 6 days

I've been to Ho Chi Minh several times and I've seen few people still riding this type of tall bicycles. Although nowadays, as most of you may know, the city's streets are full of motorized bicycles. Perhaps for originality or to attract attention, some street vendors could also be seen like the man with his items for sale on the postcard below:

Sent from Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
Traveled 2,698 km

I hope you enjoyed these postcards from my part of Asia. I'm currently traveling for work and facilitating workshops even on Saturdays for this weekend and the next. It's been really busy on my end lately and I hope you all would forgive my delayed visits on the pages you share for our weekly linky party.

I hope you're all having a more relaxing weekend as compared with me!

Cheers,

~maria

Postcards for the weekend 19: Trains/trams

Direct Swap, Sent from Pawlowice, Poland
Sent 26 July 2012, Traveled 9,615 km

A steam railway locomotive photographed by Ilya Semenov. It's a model L-3348 from the former Soviet Union. Do you know a place where steam trains are still used for passenger service?

Souvenir postcard from Gothenburg, Sweden

I ran out of stamps for all the postcards I bought when I went to Sweden in April of 2015. This is one of a couple of postcards that remained with me. I think these are much older models of the trams I saw and used when I was there. It was my first time to ride a tram in Europe and I think I spent a good 5-10 minutes just to watch the trams passing by and stopping at the Central Station in Gothenburg.

CA-249624, Sent from Hong Kong
Sent 18 May 2012, Traveled 13,422 km in 21 days

Here's another tram that looks like an older model compared to what exists in Hong Kong nowadays. Hong Kong was my first out of the country trip back in 2009. I was amazed to see the tram as no trams exist in the Philippines (at least none that I'm aware of which are being used for public passenger service).

I wish the year is starting well for all of us!

Happy weekend,

~maria