It was dream come true to travel to South Africa and Europe. I have always tried to make most of the opportunity that comes to me in any form, I can never lose an opportunity when it comes to travel! it was big chance for me to travel to some of the best destinations of the world the Cape Town, Belgium and Netherlands. In this blog I will have two separate sections of my travel to South Africa and Europe.
My travel to South Africa was the best ever journey in abroad. Started with academic activities and ended with wonderful road trip with my South African friend (Catherine Townsend) and her beautiful family. South African's have big influence of the dutch communities. They have largest Cape Malay communities having dutch affiliation. I was amazed to experience the Cape Malay food. I find Cape Town to be less African culture, it is rather mixed culture with Asian and European communities as well. The city was surrounded with one of the large mountain called the Table Mountain, it has its own history and one of the best tourist attraction place of Cape Town which 
enlighten the entire city. Ohh yes, how can one miss the opportunity of visiting Nelson Mandela, the great freedom fighter who was imprisoned for 18 years in Robben Island The
Island which is one of the important UNSECO world heritage of South Africa has it own
history of many political prisoners. To reach the island one has to take
ferry from Waterfront cape
town to Robben Island which is about 12km. I felt each site in the island have engraved with pain and
victory of freedom. We were all touched with the narration of the history
by one of the political prisoner who works as tourist guide in the
island. 
The academic activities remain the best, meeting scholars from different parts of the world, having close research interactions on various topics and team work in summer school was eye opener. We were put up in a halls in the University of Cape Town called the 'All Africa House', I was surprised to see the kind of facilities they provided us. The houses were beautifully equipped with cooking areas, decent bedrooms and eating areas. The stay with different research scholars and working together each day gave me so much of motivation. The academic activities ended with a international conference of presenting my research findings. 
Soon after the conference me and my friend took road trip to Eastern Cape Town, crossing some of the beautiful beaches which is rather termed as 'bays' than beaches such as the Jeffreys Bay, Mossel Bay, Cannon rocks...it was breath taking experience going though the beautiful landscapes of rocky mountains, fruits orchards, rivers, forest and animal herds. The stay in George, Cannon rocks and Cango caves was best learning experiences. The drive inside the Addo Elephant Park was the most amazing encounter with the wild life's the Zebras, Kudu, Elephants, Jackals. The Cango Caves and Big Tree was another beautiful world heritage we visited. The Ostrich farms at Oudtshoorn was lovely to watch the big birds. The road trip ended with long drive from Oudtshoorn to Cape Town City with my stunning beautiful kids Zola and Lindi. The journey of wild Africa didn't end in Southern Africa, on my way back to India I stayed a day at Addis Ababa i.e. falling in North 
Let me now take you to Europe which was another breath taking travel experience, although it was not a very long stay but learned a lot from Brussels and Amsterdam city. I find Brussels as more commercialized place having big multinational companies and the country with robust economy in the Europe. The place is rather a major center for international politics. The well preserved world heritage point the Grand Place and Manneken Pis has its own beauty to unwrap history of Brussels. The love for seeing the country of windmills and traditional houses been long awaited visit to Amsterdam. The Dancing houses and canals were the spot of attraction in the city. It was fascinating to know that people do swimming competition in summer in those canals where many big Hollywood celebrities have already swam. The entire city seems to be traditionally preserved and lively, people seems to be enjoying riding cycles and having beer bike party on the street. The Anne Frank house house was another world heritage place to experience the history of Jewish people escaping from Nazis in the world war. Although I could not visit Paris and other historical places but I was very much satisfied with my small Europe trip to Belgium, Netherlands and Frankfurt. 
