Summer. The word brings back memories of summer holidays and
days spent idly on the beach. Growing up in Mangalore I could spend hours just
watching the waves crashing along the shore. As fate would have it, I landed up
at KREC (Or NITK to use its present name) the only college in India to have its
own private beach. The lighthouse and beach have been home to many a story through
the years.
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| The clouds gather before a storm |
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| Coconut tree lined beaches |
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| The Surathkal Lighthouse |
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| View from the Lighthouse |
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| View from the light house 2 |
After graduation and into the working world, wanderlust took
root. Work hard and party harder was the motto. Weekends and holidays meant
trips to various places. The first among the exotic trips was a visit to Egypt.
Pictured here is the Citadel of Qaitbay. It was built on the ruins of the
Lighthouse of Alexandria (One of the seven ancient wonders of the world). Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great
and was the sea port between Greece and the Nile Valley. .
Speaking of the Nile
valley, the next is the Faiyum Oasis. This oasis in the desert is different
from others in the world, in the fact that it is fed from the river Nile and
not underground springs.
Another one of these trips took me to Sri Lanka. Pictured
here are the beaches of Unawatuna, Galle fort and Hikkaduwa. Una-Watuna
literally means “fell down”.
This stems from mythology as a part of the
mountain that fell down when Hanuman was bringing back the mountain to help
heal Lakshman. Hanuman was unable to figure out which herbs were required by
Jambavan and picked up the whole mountain and brought it back to the
battlefield.
Hikkaduwa has brilliant corals and is a lovely place to do
snorkeling or scuba diving
Galle Fort is a Dutch fortress built in traditional
European style. The sunset from here is a must do and pictures really do not do
justice to the beauty of this beach.
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Work took me to Los Angeles and one particular long weekend,
we did a road trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Pictured here are some of
the photos of places along the way.
Elephant seals are one of the highlights of
this trip where the whole beach is covered with these huge animals (They weigh
between 2 to 2.5 tons) who have come ashore for the mating season. This happens only in December.
Pebble beach,
as seen in the picture, is a beach completely covered by pebbles that have been
polished smooth by years of exposure to the waves.
Malibu beach’s claim to fame
is the number of Hollywood stars who have moved there. It has its own helipad
and is awash with surfers and people building sand castles.
For people who
dream of beach retirement homes Manhattan Beach is the place to be. Its beauty
has been used as the film location for greats like Starsky and Hutch, Tequila
Sunrise and more recently TV series like CSI: Miami, The O.C, Weeds etc. It is
also home to the Wimbledon of beach volleyball, “The Manhattan Beach Open
volleyball tournament”. However, with people like Tiger Woods and Shaquille
O'Neal moving in, the cost of owning property here just a dream for most of us.
Well, this is what summer means to me. The sun, the sand and the travel. What about you?
P.S. This post was written as an entry to the internal magazine of the company I work with. The topic was "What does Summer mean to you".
