Kumbh Mela is the biggest pilgrimage festival in the world and in fact also by far the largest gathering of people for any purposes anywhere. This festival attracts tens of millions people every about 12 years, when it takes place in Allahabad (Uttar Pradesh, India). The pilgrims’ crowd is so big, it could even be seen from space. The main purpose of the Kumbh Mela pilgrimage is to bathe at the Triveni, in the most holy of places – the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna, and the mythical river Saraswati.

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From Moscow to Beijing via Ulan Bator in Mongolia. Crossing 7 time zones. If measured from start to end it accumulates to a vast total of 7622 km (4735 miles). You will have heard about it. It is the Trans Siberian Express. It is not just a train ride. It is one of the amazing experiences in the world! If you choose to not make any stops after departure from Moscow, the journey can be made in 6 days. However that’s not how I did it and I’m darn happy about that because otherwise I would have missed an amazing experience!

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I recently found myself on a cross-country, East to Left coast, train adventure on Amtrak, the national railway company in the United States. We were a group of twenty like-minded artists, journeying to a conference together and intent on spending three days talking, ideating, and drinking whiskey together. Amtrak is the transportation of Amish families who eschew automobiles, elderly couples, and young vagabonds; there’s a curiosity surrounding train travel in the United States. How quaint and old fashioned (!), we think. One of my artist companions fully expected chandeliers and an elegant service in the dining car for dinner and was disappointed when Tony, the waiter, shouted the dessert options to the entire car en-masse between off-key snippets of Elvis tunes. It was a disappointing and high-priced meal, with an atmosphere only notable for its similarity to crass and cheap small-town diners. (I should note that seven of us, gratefully not including myself, fell ill after this meal; apparently a lack of sanitation standards for train food is an international phenomenon).

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