Category: Travel
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The Burning Ghats of Varanasi – A Dance of Life and Death
Varanasi is a place where the veil between life and death is remarkably thin. At the ghats, where the sacred Ganges meets the city’s heart, bodies burn every hour of the day, releasing souls into the cycle of rebirth. Witnessing this ancient ritual, where grief and reverence intertwine, is both surreal and grounding. The air…
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Henna: A Timeless Tradition Connecting Women Across Cultures
Henna has always held a certain mystique. It is not merely a dye but a tradition, a rite of passage, a symbol of celebration woven through time and across cultures. From India to the Middle East, North Africa to the Mediterranean, women have adorned their hands with intricate patterns, each line telling a story, each…
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My Memorable Encounters with Camels in the Desert
I remember the first time I moved from Lebanon to New York, someone casually asked if I used camels as transportation back home, along with other misinformed curiosities like whether Lebanon was an African country. The reality is, camels are nearly non-existent in Lebanon, except for a lone show camel I once saw in Baalbeck.…
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The Day of Many Hands
Continuing from yesterday’s quiet encounter with the woman who had never seen her own reflection, the very next day in this remote region of Yunnan brought the complete opposite experience. My two photographer friends and I were exploring when we came upon a group of children working together to clear the road after a flood.…
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The Eye of the Storm
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There is a palpable sense that we are standing at the edge of something vast, or perhaps already in the middle of it. A shift, a breaking down, an unraveling that so many feel yet struggle to define. Conversations echo this sentiment everywhere—the world is showing its fractures, and the unknown looms like a shadow,…
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Embracing the Now: Finding Peace in Presence
Today, I was so busy that I forgot about time, and that was a good day. Time only exists when I stop to think about it, when my mind drifts to places it has not yet arrived. But if I don’t look for it, if I am completely immersed in the flow of doing, time…
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The Haunting Pull of Spirals
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There is something deeply hypnotic about the spiral. It is a shape that exists everywhere, from the tiniest seashell to the vast expanse of galaxies. The Fibonacci sequence, that golden ratio of nature’s design, reveals itself in the way sunflowers arrange their seeds, in the unfurling of fern fronds, in the winding embrace of a…
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A Love Letter to the Rain
Here in Germany, when it rains, the sky feels as though it leans in closer, as if to whisper, “All is well.” It’s a peculiar sensation, one that dances between a gentle gloom and a quiet comfort. The rain envelopes the world, softening the edges, muting the noise, and creating a space that feels safe,…
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Seeking Meaning: My Quest from Lebanon to the World
Image taken at Bahla Fort in Oman As far back as I can remember, I’ve been searching for something—something elusive and vast. As a child, I called it truth, or magic, or meaning. At times, it felt like a hidden world waiting to be discovered, something that could take me beyond the mundane reality I…