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Showing posts from May, 2011

Khajjiar (A photowalk with Diink)

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Khajjiar is a hill station in Chamba district, Himachal Pradesh, India, located at an approximate of 24 km from Dalhousie Khajjiar sits on a small plateau with a small stream-fed lake in the middle that has been covered over with weeds. The hill station is surrounded by green meadows and dense forests. It is about 6500 ft. (1981m) above sea level in the foothills of the Dhauladhar ranges of the Western Himalayas and snowy peaks can be seen in the distance. Khajjiar is often called the Mini Switzerland of Himachal Pradesh and was officially baptized thus by the Swiss Ambassador on July 7, 1992. It has a rare combination of three ecosystems: lake, pasture and forest, all in one place. Khajjiar can be reached from Dalhousie, the nearest major town and hill station, by bus in an hour or so. There are two buses in the morning that leave at around 9:30. The last bus that returns from Khajjiar to Dalhousie is at 3:30 PM. Khajjiar Lake is situated in district Cham...

Finland (A photo-walk with Diink)

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  Helsinki was established as a trading town by King Gustav I of Sweden in 1550 as the town of Helsingfors, which he intended to be a rival to the Hanseatic city of Reval (today: Tallinn ). Little came of the plans as Helsinki remained a tiny town plagued by poverty, wars, and diseases. The plague of 1710 killed the greater part of the inhabitants of Helsinki.The construction of the naval fortress Sveaborg (In Finnish Viapori , today also Suomenlinna ) in the 18th century helped improve Helsinki's status, but it was not until Russia defeated Sweden in the Finnish War and annexed Finland as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland in 1809 that the town began to develop into a substantial city. Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is 588,941 (31 January 2011), making it by far the ...