Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Bahrain Tourist Attraction

 Adhari Park is a brand new visitor attraction in Bahrain adjacent to the existing Adhari National Park. Spread across 165,000 square meters, it provides a complete leisure experience for the whole family, aiming to become the number one family attraction in the GCC, with 38 exciting outdoor and indoor rides for people of all ages, a Family Entertainment Centre, 10 food outlets at the Food Court, Dine in restaurant, Coffee Shops and a lot more.
 Al-Fateh Mosque (is one of the largest mosques in the world, with the capacity to accommodate over 7,000 worshippers at a timeThe mosque is the largest place of worship in Bahrain. It is located next to the King Faisal Highway in Juffair, which is a town located in the capital city of Manama. The huge dome built on top of the Al-Fatih Mosque is made of pure fiberglass. Weighting over 60 t (60,000 kg), the dome is currently the worlds largest fibreglass dome.
 The Barbar Temple is an archaeological site located in the village of Barbar, Bahrain, and considered to be part of the Dilmun culture. The most recent of the three Barbar temples was rediscovered by a Danish archaeological team in 1954. A further two temples were discovered on the site with the oldest dating back to 3000 BC. The temples were built of limestone blocks, believed to have been carved out from the nearby Jidda Island.
 The Qal'at al- also known as the Bahrain Fort or Fort of Bahrain and previously as the Portugal Fort (Qal'at al Portugal) is an archaeological site located in Bahrain. Archaeological excavations carried out since 1954 have unearthed antiquaries from an artificial mound of 12 m height containing seven stratified layers, created by various occupants from 2300 BC up to the 18th century, including Kassites, Portuguese and Persians
 The Bahrain National Museum (also referred to as National Museum of Bahrain) is the largest and one of the oldest museums in Bahrain. It is constructed near the King Faisal Highway in Manama and opened in December 1988. The museum complex covers 27,800 sq meters and consists of two buildings. The museum possesses a rich collection of Bahrain's ancient archaeologyical artefacts acquired since 1988, and covers 6000 years of Bahrain's history

Saturday, October 8, 2011

7 Top Tourist Attraction In Cambodia

 Angkor is a vast temple complex featuring the remains of several capitals of the Khmer Empire, from the 9th to the 15th century AD. These include the famous Angkor Wat temple, the world’s largest single religious monument, the Bayon temple (at Angkor Thom) with its multitude of massive stone faces and Ta Prohm, a Buddhist temple ruin entwined with towering trees.

 Koh Ker was the capital of the Khmer empire for a very brief period from the year 928 to 944 AD. In this short time some very spectacular buildings and immense sculptures were constructed. The site is dominated by Prasat Thom, a 30 meter (98 ft) tall temple pyramid rising high above the surrounding jungle. A giant Garuda (mythical half-man, half-bird creature), carved into the stone blocks, still guard the very top, although its partially covered now. Left to the jungle for nearly a millennium, Koh Ker was one of Cambodia’s most remote and inaccessible temple destinations. This has now changed thanks to recent de-mining and the opening of a new toll road.

 Kratie is a small town located on the banks of the Mekong River and is dominated by a central marketplace surrounded by old, French colonial buildings. There’s no large scale tourism, but plenty of backpackers pour through here during the peak season. It is the place in Cambodia to see the rare Irrawaddy dolphins, which live in the Mekong River in ever-diminishing numbers. It is estimated that there are between 66 and 86 dolphins left in the upper Cambodian Mekong area.

 Bokor Hill Station was built by the French in the 1920s to be used as a retreat from the heat of Phnom Penh. It has since been abandoned twice, first in the 1940s when the Japanese invaded Cambodia and again in the 1970s, when the Khmer Rouge engulfed the country. Today, Bokor Hill Station and its abandoned buildings have an eerie, ghost-town feel. As of October 2008, the road to Bokor is officially closed due to ongoing reconstruction. Independent access seems to be impossible. though there are hiking tours arranged by local travel agents.

 Silver Pagoda houses many national treasures such as gold and jeweled Buddha statues. Most notable is a small 17th century baccarat crystal Buddha (the Emerald Buddha of Cambodia) and a life-sized gold Maitreya Buddha decorated with 9584 diamonds. The internal wall of the Silver Pagoda courtyard is decorated with a richly colored and detailed mural of the Ramayana myth, painted in 1903–04 by 40 Khmer artists.

 Sihanoukville, also known as Kampong Som, is a port city and beach resort on the Gulf of Thailand. The big attraction here are the white-sand beaches and several undeveloped tropical islands. Sihanoukville is a good place to relax and unwind, though be prepared to battle the crows during the high season or a holiday weekend. 



Preah Vihear is a Khmer temple situated atop a 525 meter (1,722 ft) cliff in the Dângrêk Mountains, on the border between Cambodia and Thailand. It has the most spectacular setting of all the Khmer temples. Most of the temple was constructed in the 11th and 12th century during the reigns of the Khmer kings Suryavarman I and Suryavarman II. It was dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. Preah Vihear is the subject of a long-running territorial dispute between Thailand and Cambodia, and several soldiers were killed in clashes in 2009.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

7 Wonders of the Ancient World

The Great Pyramid of Giza
 The Great Pyramid of Giza (also called the Pyramid of Khufu and the Pyramid of Cheops) is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now El Giza, Egypt. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact. Egyptologists believe that the pyramid was built as a tomb for fourth dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops in Greek) over an approximately 20 year period concluding around 2560 BC. Initially at 146.5 metres (480.6 ft), the Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years, the longest period of time ever held for such a record. Originally, the Great Pyramid was covered by casing stones that formed a smooth outer surface; what is seen today is the underlying core structure. Some of the casing stones that once covered the structure can still be seen around the base. There have been varying scientific and alternative theories about the Great Pyramid's construction techniques. Most accepted construction hypotheses are based on the idea that it was built by moving huge stones from a quarry and dragging and lifting them into place.

flickr.com/search/?q=hanging+garden+of+babylon&z=e
 The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are considered to be one of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. They were built in the ancient city-state of Babylon, near present-day Al Hillah, Babil, in Iraq. They are sometimes called the Hanging Gardens of Semiramis (in reference to the legendary Queen Semiramis).
The gardens were supposedly built by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II around 600 BC. He is reported to have constructed the gardens to please his homesick wife, Amytis of Media, who longed for the trees and fragrant plants of her homeland. The gardens were destroyed by several earthquakes after the 2nd century BC.


Statue of Zeus at Olympia (Phidias)
 The Statue of Zeus at Olympia was made by the Greek sculptor Phidias, circa 432 BC on the site where it was erected in the Temple of Zeus, Olympia, Greece. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient WorldThe seated statue, some 12 meters (43 feet) tall, occupied half of the width of the aisle of the temple built to house it. "It seems that if Zeus were to stand up," the geographer Strabo noted early in the 1st century BC, "he would unroof the temple."The Zeuschryselephantine sculpture, made of ivory and gold-plated bronze. No copy in marble or bronze has survived, though there are recognizable but approximate versions on coins of nearby Elis and on Roman coins and engraved gems. A very detailed description of the sculpture and its throne was recorded by the traveler Pausanias, in the 2nd century AD. The sculpture was wreathed with shoots of olive worked in gold and seated on a magnificent throne of cedarwood, inlaid with ivory, gold, ebony, and precious stones. In Zeus' right hand there was a small statue of crowned Nike, goddess of victory, also chryselephantine, and in his left hand, a sceptre inlaid with gold, on which an eagle perched. Plutarch, in his Life of the Roman general Aemilius Paulus, records that the victor over Macedon, when he beheld the statue, “was moved to his soul, as if he had seen the god in person,” while the 1st century AD Greek orator Dio Chrysostom declared that a single glimpse of the statue would make a man forget all his earthly troubles. was a

The Greek Temple of Artemis
 The Temple of Artemis (Greek: Ἀρτεμίσιον, or Artemision), also known less precisely as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to a goddess Greeks identified as ArtemisSeven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was situated at Ephesus (near the modern town of Selçuk in present-day Turkey), and was completely rebuilt three times before its eventual destruction in 401. Only foundations and sculptural fragments of the latest of the temples at the site remain. and was one of the
The first sanctuary (temenos) antedated the Ionic immigration by many years, and dates to the Bronze Age. Callimachus, in his Hymn to Artemis, attributed it to the Amazons. In the seventh century the old temple was destroyed by a flood. Its reconstruction began around 550 BC, under the Cretan architect Chersiphron and his son Metagenes, at the expense of Croesus of Lydia: the project took some 120 years to complete, only to be destroyed in an act of arson by a young arsonist seeking fame named Herostratus. It was later rebuilt.

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus or Tomb of Mausolus
 The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus or Tomb of Mausolus (in Greek, Μαυσωλεῖον τῆς Ἁλικαρνασσοῦ) was a tomb built between 353 and 350 BC at Halicarnassus (present Bodrum, Turkey) for Mausolus, a satrap in the Persian Empire, and Artemisia II of Caria, his wife and sister. The structure was designed by the Greek architects Satyros and Pythius of Priene.
The Mausoleum stood approximately 45 m (148 ft) in height, and each of the four sides was adorned with sculptural reliefs created by each one of four Greek sculptorsLeochares, Bryaxis, Scopas of Paros and Timotheus. The finished structure was considered to be such an aesthetic triumph that Antipater of Sidon identified it as one of his Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Colossus of Rhodes

The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of the Greek Titan Helios, erected in the city of RhodesGreek island of Rhodes by Chares of Lindos between 292 and 280 BC. It is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was constructed to celebrate Rhodes' victory over the ruler of Cyprus, Antigonus I Monophthalmus, who unsuccessfully besieged Rhodes in 305 BC. Before its destruction, the Colossus of Rhodes stood over 30 meters (107 ft) high, making it one of the tallest statues of the ancient world. on the

Lighthouse of Alexandria
 The Lighthouse of Alexandria, also known as the Pharos of Alexandria (in Ancient Greek, ὁ Φάρος Ἀλεξανδρινóς), was a tower built between 280 and 247 BC on the island of Pharos at Alexandria, Egypt. Its purpose was to guide sailors into the harbour at night time.
With a height variously estimated at somewhere in-between 393 and 450 ft (120 and 140 m), it was for many centuries among the tallest manmade structures on Earth. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Wonders of the Philippines


Chocolate Hills, bohol
 The Chocolate Hills form a rolling terrain of haycock hills – mounds of a generally conical and almost symmetrical shape. Estimated to be from 1,268 to about 1,776 individual mounds, these cone-shaped or dome-shaped hills are actually made of grass-covered limestone. The domes vary in sizes from 30 to 50 metres (98 to 160 ft) high with the largest being 120 metres (390 ft) in height. Bohol's "main attraction", these unique mound-shaped hills are scattered by the hundreds throughout the towns of Carmen, Batuan and Sagbayan in Bohol.

Banaue Rice Terraces
 The Banaue Rice Terraces (Tagalog: Hagdan-hagdang Palayan ng Banawe) also called Payew, are 2000-year old terraces that were carved into the mountains of Ifugao in the Philippines by ancestors of the indigenous people. The Rice Terraces are commonly referred to by Filipinos as the "Eighth Wonder of the World". It is commonly thought that the terraces were built with minimal equipment, largely by hand. The terraces are located approximately 1500 meters (5000 ft) above sea level and cover 10,360 square kilometers (about 4000 square miles) of mountainside. They are fed by an ancient irrigation system from the rainforests above the terraces. It is said that if the steps are put end to end it would encircle half the globe.

Tubbataha Reef
Tubbataha Reef  is located in the Sulu Sea, 98 nautical miles (181 km) southeast of Puerto Princesa City in the Palawan Province. The reef is made up of two coral atolls divided by an eight-kilometer (5 miles) wide channel. The South Atoll, the smaller of the two is five kilometers in length and three kilometers in width; while the North Atoll, the larger of the two is 16 kilometers (10 miles) long and five kilometers (3 miles) wide.(Knipp 22) Each reef has a single small islet that protrudes from the water. The atolls are separated by a deep channel 8 km (5 miles) wide.
Hundred Island, Pangasinan
 The Hundred Islands National Park is the top tourist destination in Lingayen Gulf in the province of Pangasinan in northern Philippines.
This national park is one of the wonders of nature. With its 124 islands, it is a wonderful place for seeing nature, for boating, and for diving. It is also a top bird watching site.
Mayon Volcano, Albay
 Mayon Volcano is the main landmark of Albay Province, Philippines. It is 10 kilometres (6 mi) from the Gulf of Albay, in the cities and municipalities of Legazpi City, Daraga, Camalig, Guinobatan, Ligao City, Tabaco City, Malilipot, and Santo Domingo (clockwise from Legazpi). It rises 2462 m (8,077 ft) above the gulf.
Mayon Volcano is the Philippines' most active volcano and is considered to be the world's most perfectly formed volcano for its symmetrical cone. It is a basaltic-andesitic volcano. The upper slopes of the volcano are steep averaging 35-40 degrees and are capped by a small summit crater. Its sides are layers of lava and other volcanic material.

Taal Volcano
 Taal Volcano Another one of the active volcanoes in the country, Taal Volcano is located between the towns of Talisay and San Nicolas in Batangas. It is considered an island inside Taal Lake, a body of water surrounding the volcano which is actually believed to be a former crater or mouth of a larger volcano. It is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, making it very volatile. The volcano has become a very famous tourist spot; as a result, various establishments have been set up surrounding the lake. Due to its proximity to these establishments and human activities, the volcano is kept under close, tight watch for any signs of volcanic activities.
Mt Makiling

Mount Makiling -This one is a “dormant” or potentially-active volcano. Located in Laguna, it is one of the most popular destinations for hikers. There are actually roads going up this mountain but if you really want to see its beauty, you have to veer away from these roads and hike on foot. This mountain has a lot of hot springs inside, which are the source of the hot spring resorts surrounding the mountain. Part of Mount Makiling is located in the University of the Philippines, the premier university of the country and one of the designated caretakers of this lovely mountain. From afar, the mountain looks like a reclining lady, said to be Maria Makiling, the “guardian” of the mountain.

Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park

The Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park is located about 50 kilometres (31 mi) north of the city center of Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines. The National Park is located in the Saint Paul Mountain Range on the northern coast of the island. It is bordered by St. Paul Bay to the north and the Babuyan River to the east. The park has a limestone karst mountain landscape with an 8.2 kilometer navigable underground river. A distinguishing feature of the river is that it winds through a cave before flowing directly into the South China Sea. It includes major formations of stalactites and stalagmites, and several large chambers. The lower portion of the river is subject to tidal influences. Until the 2007 discovery of an underground river in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River was reputed to be the world's longest underground river.

Maria Cristina Falls

Maria Cristina Falls is a waterfall of the Agus River on the island of Mindanao. It is sometimes called the "twin falls" as the flow is separated by a rock at the brink of the waterfall.It is a landmark of Iligan City, nicknamed the City of Majestic Waterfalls, because of the presence of more than 20 waterfalls in the city. It is located 9.3 kilometers away southwest of the city proper at the boundaries of Barangays Maria Cristina, Ditucalan, and Buru-un. Well-known for its natural beauty and grandeur, the 320 - feet (98 meters) high waterfall] is also the primary source of electric power for the city's industries, being harnessed by the Agus VI Hydroelectric Plant