“Dawn in Mongolia was an amazing thing. In one instant, the horizon became a faint line suspended in the darkness, and then the line was drawn upward, higher and higher. It was as if a giant hand had stretched down from the sky and slowly lifted the curtain of night from the face of the earth. It was a magnificent site, far greater in scale… than anything that I, with my limited human faculties, could fully comprehend.” Haruki Murakami
The Flaming Cliffs were made immortal by the Central Asiatic Expedition’s discovery in the 1920s of the first fossilised dinosaur eggs
“The towers are built of stone, and one has been covered with gold a finger thick, so that the tower appears to be of solid gold. Another is covered with silver in a similar manner and appears to be made of solid silver. The King of Mien Guo caused these towers to be built as a monument to his magnificence and for the benefit of his soul. They make for one of the finest sights in the world, being exquisitely finished, splendid and costly. When illuminated by the sun, they are specially brilliant and can be seen from a great distance.” Marco Polo
“After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense.” Werner Heisenberg
Bhagirathi I, II and III with Shivling on the right
Lansdowne Road
54a Lower Circular Road
“One of these temples - a rival to that of Solomon and erected by some ancient Michelangelo might take an honourable place beside our most beautiful buildings.” Henri Mouhout
“Why do we not avenge Greece, then and put the city to the torch?' he asked. They were all flushed with wine, and they got up, drunk, to burn a city which they had spared while under arms. Alexander took the lead, setting fire to the palace, to be followed by his drinking companions, his attendants and the courtesans. Large sections of the palace had been made of cedar, so they quickly took flame and spread the conflagration over a large area [one to three feet of cedar ash were found in the excavation]. The army, encamped not far from the city, caught sight of the fire. Thinking it was accidental, came running in a body to help. But when they reached the palace portico, they saw their king himself, still piling on torch-wood, so they dropped the water that they had brought and began throwing dry wood into the blaze themselves. Such was the end of the palace that had ruled all the East.” Quintus Curtius Rufus describing the destruction of Persepolis in his History of Alexander the Great (V.6. 1-7)
“Few romances can ever surpass that of the granite citadel on top of the beetling precipices of Machu Picchu, the crown of Inca Land” Hiram Bingham, American academic and explorer who rediscovered Machu Picchu in 1911
