Free Travel Secret Ebooks + Clean Water Charity Project

We all have our little secrets, tips or special places while traveling.

Months ago, Tripbase, the big online travel website, started a collaborative project with over 200 travel bloggers (I'm in too!) to gather 500 travel secrets and compile them into ebooks. From travel destinations, beaches, family travel to general tips, these books are available for free download!

But there's more to it than just sharing travel tips.

For every book downloaded, Tripbase will donate 1$ to provide clean water to people in developing nations.
The target is to provide 4 freshwater wells to provide drinking water to an entire school for 20 years.

Therefore, your help would be appreciated to make this campaign a huge success. Please follow the link below and download as many books as you want (there are 7 different) and help Tripbase accomplish their mission to provide fresh clean water.

I would also appreciate if you share this blog link to your friends so we could reach more people!

Thank you!

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Photo Essay - Songkran, the Thai New Year!

Songkran is the traditional Thai New Year from the 13th to the 15th of April. It is also widely celebrated in Laos, Burma and Cambodia.
Traditionally a time to pay visit to elders and family, prayer, cleansing and renewal, Songkran has evolved into probably the world's largest water fight lasting up to a week in Northern parts of Thailand.
The water throwing originated as a way to bless people, by capturing the water used to cleanse Buddha images or shrines and sprinkling the passers.
Nowadays, as it falls during the hottest days of the year, the emphasis is on water-fighting with hoses, buckets and waterguns, widely celebrated by foreigners, tourists and locals.
The water is often mixed with mentholated talc and the use of chalk is common to cover faces to mark blessings.

Gullfoss

Since childhood, there were 2 countries I always dreamt of visiting.
For my 30th birthday, It was time I realized those dreams... So I went on holiday to Ireland and Iceland.

Iceland had always attracted me, something magical and mysterious about that lost volcanic island in the middle of the ocean, with a spine-chilling name.. The Land of Ice.
Stories of vikings, geysers, volcanoes and northern lights always kept fascinating me. I had never thought that the country would actually look so beautiful!

Despite the name, "Iceland" is not covered with Ice and is not having freezing temperatures all year long. Iceland is actually quite green, with vast desolate and wild landscapes. No trees in here, you'll find mainly moss.

Iceland has also many famous touristic sites to visit. One of them is this waterfall, Gullfoss.

This majestic waterfall, one of the biggest in Iceland is part of the popular "golden circle" tour.

I wanted to capture the strength of this waterfall, together with the low clouds giving it a dramatic feel.
I shot this at 1/80 sec, f/11 and ISO 100. I did not have much choice for the composition.
I processed then the RAW file into a pseudo-hdr and tonemapped it with photomatix.

You should definitely visit that magical island once in your lifetime.

Bless!