Did you know cashew nuts are cultivated in Bandarban? I had no idea either. When I looked into it, I discovered that cashew cultivation in the hills began as early as the 1960s.

In one way or another, we are all addicted to life. Over billions of years, from simple atoms to conscious beings, non-existence slowly turned into existence.

Travelling to cemeteries is neither common nor particularly popular in our part of the world. Even heritage tourism itself was barely acknowledged as a serious form of travel a decade ago.

No travel experience of Vietnam would be complete without encountering the charm of Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Every nook and cranny of this two-thousand-year-old town felt like something out of a fairytale.

The journey begins in the dust. Fine, red ochre dust that plumes behind our safari vehicle, coating everything in a thin film that smells of ancient earth. It’s the dust of the Maasai Mara, the pulse of Kenya’s wildlife.

The moment I stepped into the Forbidden City, the noise of the modern world seemed to fade away.

Land of endless beauty, simple living

The morning mist clung to the hills of northern China, softening the sharp lines of the mountains. Then, through the shifting veil, I saw it -- the Great Wall of China.

I was in the ancient city of Cuzco, Peru -- once the capital of the Inca Empire -- standing at the train station with the Andes rising like ancient guardians all around me. My next destination was Aguas Calientes, better known as Machu Picchu town.

Not long ago, the country was on the brink of collapse. Now, it has turned around

Once the heart of a vast empire and now a crossroads between East and West, Hungary stands as a testament to Europe’s layered history. At the centre of it lies Budapest — a city where Gothic grandeur meets post-imperial nostalgia, and the echoes of Roman legions, Ottoman rule, Habsburg royalty, and Soviet tanks still whisper through cobblestone streets.

Would you go somewhere today, far, far away? A place so remote and isolated, so vast that the only thing left to focus on is the wilderness and its untouched beauty. A place where time feels irrelevant, and the horizon stretches forever. That place, for us, is Alaska.

The Nordic summer stretches time -- golden evenings linger, and under the glow of the Midnight Sun, every moment feels both eternal and fleeting.

However, one of the most unforgettable experiences of this journey was our visit to a Himba village in northern Namibia, where time seemed to slow down.

Nestled in the very heart of India, Madhya Pradesh is a treasure trove of history, spirituality, and nature. With its rich heritage, the state offers a unique window into ancient India. It hosts three Unesco World Heritage sites, 11 natural parks, 24 wildlife sanctuaries and six tiger reserves. However, the state, with all its archaeological sites, turned out to be a treasure trove to me, a traveller drawn to history.

“My God! How can a mountain change so much in just a month?”

We reached Pungro, a small town in northern Nagaland’s Kiphire district, late at night after covering about three and a half hundred kilometres on a dusty, winding mountain road. With no lodges available, the car driver took us to a government rest house. However, as foreigners from Bangladesh, we were told we needed permission from the zone’s additional district commissioner. 

We had no idea that we slept away the past twelve hours, the whole journey from Kolkata to Siliguri.

Nestled amidst the lush, rolling hills of Northeast India lays the enigmatic Dzukou Valley, which has been on my bucket list since I came to know about it. We, Dr Mamun, my travel partner and I, had spent the last 3 days of our 5-day tour travelling to Nagaland and then exploring Kohima, the capital city of the Indian state, and the history-laden Khonoma village.

The mysteries of Nagaland -- the vibrant people, the folklore of the fierce Naga warriors, the mountains, the valleys, and the forests -- have attracted me for a long time.