Luxusním vlakem po Indii
Featuring 14 carriages, two fine dining rooms, a bar and lounge, ornate and sumptuous interiors, as well as a vibrant exterior design, the Maharajas’ Express luxury train must be the fanciest and most exciting way to see quite a bit of India. The tour packages map out “journeys” for train guests, so you won’t have to do much planning. The 7-night “Royal Sojourn” package offers tours starting from Delhi and continuing on to Jaipur, Kota, Ranthambore, Agra, and back. Besides conveniently seeing many parts of this vast and majestic country, simply being a passenger within the Maharaj Express is a magical experience in itself. The Maharaja is unarguably reminiscent of a different era – with decadent upholstery, dark cherry-wood furniture, exotic plants and gilded turban sporting staff. If traveling by train was the only form of transportation as it was once long ago, something tells us we would not complain if all the trains were like the Maharajas’ Express.
Nyiragongo – aktivní vulkán
All Photos © Carsten Peter/National Geographic. Above: The lava at Nyiragongo is made of an alkali-rich volcanic rock; its unusual composition may be a factor in the lava’s fluidity.
Photographer Carsten Peter descended into the fiery center of Nyiragongo—an active volcano towering over a city of one million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—for the April issue of National Geographic magazine. See Carsten and his team explore the depths of Nyiragongo in Man vs. Volcano on the National Geographic channel. To see more of Carsten Peter’s work click here.
A member of the expedition walks on the caldera’s cooled lava floor, turned red by the reflected glow of the lake. “Down here you feel the volcano,” says photographer Carsten Peter. “It’s a low-frequency rumbling that pulses through your body – like being inside a giant subwoofer.”
Traders ferry logs and charcoal 12 miles from the forests around Nyiragongo to Goma, which continues to swell with refugees fleeing the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s war-torn east. The plume rising from the mountain reminds residents of yet another threat: eruption.
Many of the porters were local women, who huddled in the cold at the crater rim.
Rising gas bubbles explode, splattering lava up to 60 feet in the air over Nyiragongo’s fiery lake.
Constant bubbling sends waves of lava lapping over the rim. Scientists aren’t sure of the lake’s depth, though recent lava samples indicate the magma originated in the Earth’s mantle more than 46 miles below.
Photographer Carsten Peter tests the thermal suit that Sims used to get close to the lava lake. “It can protect you from the radiant heat, but if you get hit with a lava splatter, the force will likely kill you,” he says. For 30 years Peter has explored volcanoes around the world. “Seeing at close range the primal forces that shaped the planet can be hypnotic. You cannot allow yourself to fall under a volcano’s spell, especially one as unpredictable as Nyiragongo. That can be a fatal mistake.”
Tags: Carsten Peter, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Man vs. Volcano, National Geographic, Nyiragongo
Ohromující fotografie zvířat uvnitř dělohy
These amazing embryonic animal photographs of dolphins, sharks, dogs, penguins, cats and elephants are from a new National Geographic Documentary called “Extraordinary Animals in the Womb”. The show’s producer, Peter Chinn, used a combination of three-dimensional ultrasound scans, computer graphics and tiny cameras to capture the process from conception to birth. They are the most detailed embryonic animal pictures ever seen.
Zatmění slunce 2011
People are silhouetted against light pollution in the sky before daylight beside telescopes setup up to view the partial solar eclipse from Parliament Hill on Hampstead Heath in London on Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2011. Cloudy skies hung over London on Tuesday morning, preventing a view of the partial solar eclipse that began over the Mideast and extended across much of Europe. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham) #
Lubna, a nine-year-old handicapped girl, lies buried in sand up to her chest during a partial solar eclipse at Karachi’s Clifton beach in Pakistan on January 4, 2011. Children with disabilities were buried chest-deep during the partial solar eclipse on Tuesday, as part of a traditional superstition that it would bring healing to their bodies. (REUTERS/Athar Hussain) #
An image of the eclipse caught by photographer Wiphu Rujopakarn in Moscow, Russia. In his words: „The eclipse caught me completely off-guard as I gazed up at the first sunshine in Moscow in two weeks. I happened to be wandering in Red Square so I snapped a picture of the eclipse alongside the crazy historical architecture of Saint Basil’s Cathedral“. (© Wiphu Rujopakarn) #
Rok 2010 v obraze část 3.
As the year 2010 approaches its last few days, it’s time to look back on the previous 12 months. In the last third of 2010, Wikileaks released hundreds of classified diplomatic cables, 33 men were rescued from a mine after being trapped for 10 weeks, protesters took to the streets all over the world, and so much more. Each photo tells its own tale, weaving together into the larger story of 2010. This is a multi-entry story, 120 photographs over three days. Please see part 1 and part 2 from earlier.
Chilean President Sebastian Pinera shows a message reading „We are fine in the refuge, the 33 of us“, from the miners trapped in the San Esteban gold and copper mine on August 22, 2010. The miners were alive and contact was established with them 17 days after a structural collapse trapped them below ground. (HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/Getty Images) #
Chilean miner Osman Araya (right) is welcomed by his wife Angelica as he comes out of the Fenix rescue capsule after been brought to the surface on October 13, 2010 following a 10-week ordeal in the collapsed San Jose mine, near Copiapo, 800 km north of Santiago, Chile. Araya was the sixth from the 33 trapped miners to be lifted from underground. (HUGO INFANTE/AFP/Getty Images) #
A Hungarian soldier wearing chemical protection gear walks through a street flooded by toxic sludge in the town of Devecser, Hungary on Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2010. Approximately 1 million cubic meters of liquid waste spilled from a nearby alumina plant after a dam burst. Ten residents lost their lives in the caustic flood, the managing director of the operating company was later arrested and charged with criminal negligence. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky) #
A woman with cholera symptoms waits for treatment at a public hospital in Limbe village near Cap Haitian, Haiti on Monday Nov. 22, 2010. Thousands of people have been hospitalized for cholera across Haiti with symptoms including serious diarrhea, vomiting and fever and at least 1,100 people have died. (AP photo/Emilio Morenatti) #
A miner stands in front of the drill machine „Sissi“ after it broke through the rock at the final section Faido-Sedrun, at the construction site of the NEAT Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland on October 15, 2010. With a length of 57 km (35 miles) crossing the Alps, the world’s longest train tunnel should become operational at the end of 2017. (REUTERS/Christian Hartmann) #
Friends, colleagues and family members embrace while mourning the death of Luis Carlos Santiago during his funeral in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on September 18, 2010. Santiago, a 21-year-old news photographer working with Juarez-based newspaper El Diario, was killed after an attack by gunmen. (REUTERS/Alejandro Bringas) #
B.J. Parker of Lake Forrest, California, recites the National Anthem during the „Restoring Honor“ event on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 2010 in Washington, D.C. Conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck hosted the event, which drew people from around the country and filled the National Mall between the Lincoln Memorial and the World War II Memorial. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) #
A North Korean man (right) on a bus waves his hand as a South Korean man weeps after a luncheon meeting during inter-Korean temporary family reunions at Mount Kumgang resort October 31, 2010. Four hundred and thirty-six South Koreans were visiting North Korea to meet their 97 North Korean relatives, whom they have been separated from since the 1950-53 war, for three days. (REUTERS/Kim Ho-Young) #
NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity looks back at its tracks in the Martian soil on Sol 2321. Originally planned to operate for 90 days, after landing on Mars in January of 2004, Opportunity continues to function well over 2,500 days later, and has now driven more than 26 km (16 mi) across the planet’s surface, sending back data and images nearly every day. (NASA/JPL) #
A crowd of Cambodians are pushed onto a bridge during a stampede on the last day of celebrations of a water festival in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Monday, Nov. 22, 2010. Thousands of people celebrating a water festival on a small island in a Cambodian river stampeded, killing nearly 350 people. Hundreds more were hurt as the crowd panicked and pushed over a bridge to the mainland. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith) #
The daughters of Pakistani Christian woman Asia Bibi pose with an image of their mother while standing outside their residence in Sheikhupura located in Pakistan’s Punjab Province November 13, 2010. Asia Bibi, 45, a Christian mother of four, was sentenced to death for blasphemy, the first such conviction of a woman, Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported. Standing from left to right is Esha, 12, Sidra, 18 and Eshum, 10. (REUTERS/Adrees Latif) #
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner greets sympathizers while accompanying the hearse of her husband, former President Nestor Kirchner, from the Casa Rosada Presidential Palace to the local airport for a flight to their home province of Santa Cruz, in Buenos Aires October 29, 2010. Nestor Kirchner had died suddenly of heart failure on October 27th, 2010. (REUTERS/Martin Acosta) #
South Korean Marine Corps’ amphibious vehicles and the Navy’s Landing Platform Helicopter (LPH) ship „Dokdo“ (background) take part in a mock landing operation in the sea off Incheon, west of Seoul, September 15, 2010. The operation marked the 60th anniversary of the U.S.-led United Nations troops’ Incheon Landing Operations during the 1950-1953 Korean War. (REUTERS/Jo Yong-Hak) #
A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) worker rubs her hands across a female traveler’s chest during a pat-down search at Denver International Airport in Denver, Colorado on November 23, 2010. This year, the TSA began implementing wider use of full-body scanners and „enhanced“ pat-down procedures at airport security installations across the United States. (REUTERS/Rick Wilking) #
A boy with his face decorated with thanaka paste waits outside a local school for children of migrant workers from Myanmar, near Mae Sot in northwest Thailand October 15, 2010. Myanmar’s long standing political crisis has forced millions of people across the border for a better and safer life. Some 140,000 refugees live in official camps along the Myanmar-Thailand border, according to the U.N. refugee agency. (REUTERS/Damir Sagolj) #
Raj Kaliya Dhanuk lies still on a bed with weights on her eye after receiving local anesthesia at Hetauda community eye hospital in Hetauda, about 40 kilometers (18 miles) south of Katmandu, Nepal on Feb.13, 2010. Dhanuk and more than 500 others, most of whom have never seen a doctor before, traveled for days by bicycle, motorbike, bus and even on their relatives’ backs to reach Dr. Sanduk Ruit’s mobile eye camp. Once condemned by the international medical community as unthinkable and reckless, this mass surgery „in the bush“ started spreading from Nepal to poor countries worldwide nearly two decades ago.(AP Photo/ Gemunu Amarasinghe) #
Jill Warren, stepmother of Army Staff Sgt. Kyle Warren, holds a shirt he left in his room in Long Beach, California on August 3rd, 2010. The 28-year-old was patrolling an area of Tsagay, Afghanistan on July 29, 2010 when his military vehicle hit an explosive device. He died in the blast. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) #
Rok 2010 v obraze část 2.
As the year 2010 approaches its last few days, it’s time to look back on the previous 12 months. In the second third of 2010, a nearly unpronounceable Icelandic volcano wreaked havoc on European travel, South Africa hosted the World Cup, and while Russia endured disastrous fires, Pakistan struggled with its own terrible flooding, and so much more. Each photo tells its own tale, weaving together into the larger story of 2010. This is a multi-entry story, 120 photographs over three days. Please see part 1 from yesterday and watch for part 3 tomorrow.
Landon Donovan of the United States (front left) celebrates after scoring a goal with fellow team members Clint Dempsey (back left) and Edson Buddle, during the World Cup group C soccer match between the United States and Algeria at the Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria, South Africa, Wednesday, June 23, 2010. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn) #
Two year-old octopus Paul, the so-called „octopus oracle“ predicts Spain’s 2010 soccer World Cup final victory over The Netherlands by opening and choosing a mussel from a glass box decorated with the Spanish national flag instead of a glass box with the Dutch flag, at the Sea Life Aquarium in the German city of Oberhausen on July 9, 2010. Paul became a media star after correctly picking all six German World Cup results including their first-round defeat against Serbia and their semi-final defeat against Spain. (REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay) #
German police officers lift a woman from the crowd of revelers outside a tunnel at the Love Parade „The art of Love“ in the western German city of Duisburg July 24, 2010. A stampede killed at least 19 people after mass panic broke out in a tunnel at the techno music festival in Germany on Saturday. (REUTERS/Daniel Naupold) #
A Pygmy Marmoset (Callithrix pygmaea) among of the hairs of a keeper at a primate rescue and rehabilitation center near Santiago, Chile on August 3, 2010. The Pygmy Marmoset, known as the world’s smallest monkeys and under danger of extinction, was confiscated after being found inside the clothes of a Peruvian citizen during a highway police check at the northern city of Antofagasta. (REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado) #
Two-year-old Dhoal, a child suffering from severe malnutrition, is swarmed with flies as he cries on a bed at a local hospital in the southeast Sudanese town of Akobo on April 10, 2010. The population in Akobo and the surrounding counties in the Jonglei state in southern Sudan are suffering from the effects of a devastating drought and tribal conflict. Aid officials have called Akobo the „hungriest place on earth,“ after a survey showed that 46 percent of children under five are malnourished. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images) #
Sokreun Mean, 36, a badly scarred victim of an acid attack, poses at the Cambodian Acid Survivors Charity (CASC) facility on August 1st, 2010 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She was attacked outside her home with a large quantity of acid causing blindness and severe disfiguration to her face. She has been operated on over 20 times. Sokreun was divorced, but the estranged wife of her husband became jealous and attacked her. She is one of 270 patients receiving treatment by the Cambodian Acid Survivors Charity (CASC), an organization dedicated to the welfare of acid survivors in Cambodia, since 2006. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images) #
In seawater covered by a thick layer of spilled oil, two Chinese firefighters, Zheng Zhanhong (center) and Han Xiaoxiong (top right) attempt to rescue their fellow firefighter Zhang Liang (only his hand visible) from drowning beneath the oil slick during clean-up operations at the port of Dalian, China on July 20, 2010. Zhang Liang was unable to resurface, and drowned. (REUTERS/Jiang He/Greenpeace) #
As central Russia suffered through its hottest summer since record-keeping began 130 years ago, hundreds of wildfires swept the countryside, causing billions in damage. Russians here try to stop a fire from spreading near the village Golovanovo, Ryazan region, on August 5, 2010. (NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP/Getty Images) #
Starting in July and lasting for months, some of the worst flooding in Pakistan’s history took place – at one point nearly one fifth of the country was underwater. Here, Pakistani flood victim Mohammed Nawaz hangs onto a moving raft as he is rescued by the Pakistan Navy August 10, 2010 in Sukkur, Pakistan. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images) #
An Afghan detainee sits in the entrance to a bunker while under guard by US Marines from India Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, inside their base in Marjah, Helmand province, on April 7, 2010. A single Afghan man was arrested by US Marines near the site where a roadside bomb blew up early in the morning, with a false Pakistan passport, two different Afghan identification cards, some wires wrapped on a few batteries, an old rifle and pamphlets of Taliban activities in Marjah. (MAURICIO LIMA/AFP/Getty Images) #
Phillip Serwinowski (center), father of Lance Cpl. Timothy G. Serwinowski, rests his head on the forehead of Marine Lance Cpl. Nathan McCormack of Garden City, Michigan as he presents the flag to the family outside Amigone Funeral Home on Sheridan Dr. in Tonawanda, New York on Saturday, June 26, 2010. Serwinkowski’s mother Sally Urban reaches out a supportive arm to the visiting marine who served in the same platoon as her son and escorted the body home after his death. Serwinowski was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and was killed on June 21, 2010 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Robert Kirkham) #
U.S. Army Sgt. Jonathan Duralde (right) and Sgt. Luis Gamarra of Bravo Troop 1-71 CAV react and hold hands as they fight pain from injuries they suffered from an IED blast as they are transported aboard a MEDEVAC helicopter from Charlie Co. Sixth Battalion, 101st Airborne Combat Aviation Brigade, Task Force Shadow June 25, 2010 near Kandahar, Afghanistan. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) #
A tremendous sinkhole caused by the heavy rains of Tropical Storm Agatha in Guatemala City was estimated to be 30 meters wide and over 60 meters deep. As the sinkhole formed, it swallowed a clothing factory about three miles from the site of a similar sinkhole three years earlier. The clothing factory had closed only an hour before it plunged into the Earth. (REUTERS/Casa Presidencial) #
A rioter uses a door as a shield as he is fired on by a metro police officer during a protest at the Phomolong informal settlement, outside Pretoria, South Africa on March 23, 2010. South African police fired buckshot on Tuesday to disperse township rioters who threw stones and looted shops to protest over poor housing and lack of rail services. (Reuters/Stringer) #
A woman kisses the shrouded body of her four-year-old niece, Zainab, who was killed in a Baghdad bombing, as the family prepares for her burial in the Shi’ite city of Najaf, 160 km (100 mi) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, June 21, 2010. The child was killed along with her entire family – mother, father, and sister – on Sunday, when suicide bombers attacked a a crowded Baghdad commercial district. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani) #
