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Bali
November 6th, 2009 by Travel
In the Indonesian Islands Bali is located at the westernmost part of the Lesser Sunda, between Java and Lombok. It is populated mostly by a Hindu Majority that is in fact on of Indonesia’s smaller minorities, this making is a tourist attraction, for its developed art, music, dance, sculptures, painting and metal works, with the island having been inhabited since the 3000’s or earlier BCE.
The island has over ten thousand temples and is also home to many massive rice terraces, along with having more artists and craftsmen per capita than many other places on earth. In addition to having ten thousand plus temples the island also boasts many statues that are numerous along with other works of art created by more modern artists in a variety of styles, and the island itself is surrounded by coral reefs. There are two kinds of beaches on the island, white sand beaches and black sand beaches created by volcanic rock sand, with more being developed to improve tourist interaction and bring more in.
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Forbidden City
November 6th, 2009 by Travel
During the Ming and Qing Dynasty a city was built in the middle of Beijing China, which is called the Forbidden City – although it was originally an imperial palace city and is a cultural landmark for the Chinese. It took only fifteen years to complete, however there were a hundred thousand employed or more during the construction between 1406 and 1421. In 1925 the city was established as the Palace Museum, after a fire had destroyed many parts of it including the massive garden, which was not rebuilt.
When the Japanese invaded China during the Second World War the Forbidden City was threatened, and all of the exhibits and artifacts were moved in a daring action to prevent the obliteration of them – and they were often just hours ahead of bombings during the movement of the lots. During Communist Rule various proposals involved obliterating the Forbidden City, Razing it to make way for public parks, transportation infrastructure, or even auditoriums. Luckily it survived the early Communist rule with some damage, including some artifacts being destroyed until Premier Zhou Enlai sent the army to protect the site, and seal it until 1971 when the threats passed.
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Bagan Temples & Pagodas
November 6th, 2009 by Travel
Bagan is a city just 90 miles south west of Mandalay, and is one site that the World Heritage Organization has attempted to on multiple events to declare a WH Site, however the military government has been using poor restoration techniques, often using modern materials and completely changing the original looks of the monuments, destroying the originality and the history in the process.
If this continues there will be nothing left to declare as culturally significant. The ruins cover more than sixteen square miles of the city, and were built between the 1000’s and 1200s with the first dating as far back as the 800’s. There are many domed temples and most of the construction focuses around the relic shaped dome, tomb shaped dome, stupa and many northern, southern, and central Indian models of architecture. The largest threat to these temples is the government and are people who live in this country.
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Karnak Temple
November 6th, 2009 by Travel
The Karnak Temple is located in a small village with the same name of Karnak which is in the city Luxor in Egypt, and the temple is a massive open museum today and is the largest ancient religious location, temple that is, in the world, and is the second most traveled tourist attraction in the country of Egypt, with only the Giza Pyramids being traveled to more. The temple is split up into four areas, with just one being accessible to tourists, with the other three areas being closed.
The main area allowed to the tourists is the Precinct of Amun Re, which consists of many structures and columns, along with several large obelisks. Nearby is the Sacred Lake along with the temple of Ptah and temple of Ramesses II, and probably the most popular area is the Open Air Museum, located northwest of the complex in the corner, where visitors can see reconstructions of structures that have been dismantled or are buried.
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Teotihuacán
November 6th, 2009 by Travel
Teotihuacán was once the largest city in the Americas and was a civilization and culture all its own. The city included most of central Mexico was virtually an empire that reigned supreme for many years, having been built around 200 BC and the large Pyramid of the Sun completed in 100AD.
The city reached its highest point between 150 and 450 AD, when it was the dominant power comparable to the Roman Empire (and around the same era as well, although the Teotihuacán site did not last as long as Rome), with a population estimated at being as many as a quarter million. It is not known how the city collapsed but two of the theories are either an uprising against the higher classes or invasion and sacking by outside influences, whatever the cause the city declined from 400 AD until it sustained most of its minor damage in the 700’s. The city was multi-ethnic with Zapotec, Maya, and Miztec peoples along with the Nahua and of course the Totonacs (who have said they built it).
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Grand Canyon
November 6th, 2009 by Travel
The Grand Canyon, in Arizona which follows the Colorado River is a large gorge carved by said river and is millions of years old. The canyon is very large, and was made one of the first national parks in the United States of America by the president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but was also previously a target of conservation by the previous Theodore Roosevelt some two decades earlier.
The Grand Canyon attracts more than five million tourists a year who take hiking treks down into the canyon along with rafting in the Colorado River. The canyon itself is dated at being over six million years old and well over 270 miles long. The rocks exposed by the Grand Canyon range from 2 billion years old to 230 million years old, and are easily seen in the layers of rocks exposed by the ever-cutting Colorado River. The only threat to this location is air pollution and increased human presence, but due to its vast size and with proper human control littering is the most pervasive problem.
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Galapagos Islands
November 6th, 2009 by Travel
The Galapagos Islands is an archipelago of islands that were formed by volcanoes and consists of thirteen large main islands, six smaller islands, and over a hundred rocks and islets which break the surface. The oldest of theses islands is thought to be well over 10 million years old, as they are over a geological hot spot.
The islands are famous thanks to Charles Darwin, who went there on the Beagle (a ship) and after examination of local wildlife and various adaptations from similar species came up with the theory of evolution that is given his name “Darwin’s Theory of Evolution” where the strongest will live to pass on their adaptations and the weakest who have poor adaptations will not – natural selection. Today the islands are under threat from illegal fishing and development, along with human tourism and human population explosion – illegal immigration and high birth rates are the main cause of this problem.
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