If you wish to revitalize yourself and recharge your energy, taking a vacation is one of the best ways. If we look at recent travel surveys, we come to learn that travelers all round the globe now prefer to visit exotic India. India is one enchanting country that hosts something for everyone. It won’t be wrong to say, India is a perfect holiday destination, attracting tourists from all walks of life, all around the world. India is the seventh largest country in the world and truly an abode of a tremendous blend of diverse culture and glorious history. India is host to several tourist attractions and India holiday packages are now grabbing everyone’s attention. There are numerous holiday spots in India that never fail to impress its visitors. Broadly speaking, India offers a lot to experience and enjoy ranging from modern cities to prehistoric monuments and from holy places to holiday spots.

The Indian tourism industry is riding high these days and to attract more and more tourists, many traveling agencies have started offering various India holiday packages . The visitors are usually originating from all parts of the world starting from Europe to Africa and Southeast Asia to Australia. If we compare India to other countries, you will realize that India is one of few other countries offering assorted categories of tourism. These categories include cultural tourism, adventure tourism, mountain (trekking) tourism, medical tourism, spiritual tourism and beach tourism. India is an ancient country boasting historical monuments and primordial forts and this is one country that is certainly worth the visit.

The majority of ancient monuments is still in fine shape and spells the true colors of India; they even carry its every essence. India holiday packages, include visits to some incomparable monuments like the Taj Mahal, the Axis of Islam – Qutub Minar, the pride of free India – Red Fort, the Chariot temple of the Sun God – Konark, the mighty Mughal citadel – Agra Fort, the glorious island caveland of Lord Shiva – Elephanta; the cave site of numerous Chaityas and Viharas – Ajanta, the grand memorial of an Emperor – Humayun’s tomb and last but not the least, the forgotten walled city of Fatehpur Sikri. All these monuments form an integral part of India’s historical heritage. Apart from this, India is dotted with a number of exotic tourist destinations, from sun soaked beaches to scenic landscapes and wildlife reserves making it a paradise one would never want to miss visiting. If you are looking for a traveling agency that can help you visit India with affordable India holiday packages, then sti-travel.com is the place you should be visiting. We offer personalized and professional services to our valued clients.

Sti-travel.com is a leading tour operating company, located in Hackensack, New Jersey. We offer full travel services to our clients to numerous destinations across the world, including India. As a tour operator our main goal is to provide you with a wide-ranging selection of tailor-made tours that will suit your budget. We are committed to providing tourists with the experience of a lifetime. In other words, let us worry about the details and you concentrate on the fun, after all, we want your trip to be unforgettable. Whether you are traveling North or South East or West, sti-travel.com stands out as the best. To know more about visiting India, India holiday packages, traveling agency, and other travel packages visit www.sti-travel.com.

Italy is truly a feast for the senses for the average European traveler. An Italy itinerary will connect a person with the joy and passion of life – whether that is an authentic pasta and wine Italian meal in Milan, high fashion in Rome, beautiful architecture and history in Florence, or a romantic walk by the canals of Venice.

For the average person with two weeks of time available to see Italy, it can be a challenge to see as much as possible during this time. Thus, one must be organized and plan ahead to have an effective travel itinerary.

As an experienced traveler in Italy, I recommend the following action-packed and interesting itinerary so you can enjoy the best of Italy during your two weeks:

1. Rome – 4 days (including a day trip to Naples to see Pompeii)

(travel to Florence – 2 hours)

2. Florence – 3 days (including a day trip to a Tuscany town such as Siena)

(travel to Cinqueterre near Pisa – 3 hours)

3. Cinqueterre – 2 days

(travel to Verona – 6 hours)

4. Verona – 2 days

(travel to Venice – 2 hours)

5. Venice – 3 days

With all these well-known destinations, which one will be your favorite city in Italy? That is for you to decide, but I can tell you mine. It is Rome.

Every person should visit the Eternal City of Rome at least once in their life. This city was the most important place in the world for many centuries and its influence lasts today with the Vatican and the Catholic Church. Of course, on a basic Rome itinerary one must visit the ancient sites like the Colisseum and the ruins of the Forums, as well as more modern sights such as Trevi Fontain and the Spanish Steps. A few days in this fast-paced metropolis are such a pleasure! Also, a worthy day trip located a few hours south is the amazing preserved city of Pompeii resting in the shadows of Mount Vesuvius.

The great news is that the above Italy itinerary is only suggested, and thus your exact travel itinerary is completely up to you. However you choose to construct your travel itinerary, the key point is to take action and start planning your trip instead of putting if off for “maybe next year”.

Panama is one of the most happening countries in and around Central America. The place is the best holiday spot in the region which anoints the tired souls who are the victims of the urban responsibilities.

Panama is one of the rarest places where you can have fun and enjoy like there is no tomorrow. The most mandatory thing one has to do before visiting panama or any other holiday spot is you should keep your work and personal tensions out of your mind. Panama has so much to offer to its visitors that they will not be complacent visiting it only once. It would always be in their itinerary list in the future once they visit the place.

A brief description about the place would surely be helpful to the people planning to visit panama. For example, the only international airport with international standard security in panama is Tocumen international airport. Although there are other domestic airports, which are in the rural parts of panama, these are not advisable for safety concerns.

If you get down in Panama, it is very important to clear the immigration check and customs check as soon as possible. You can hire a person to guide you around if you do not know Spanish. This is because; English is a secondary language in panama.

What can you do in panama? The answer is “you name it, the country has it”. You can get every thing under the sun in panama. It has large malls; Albrook is a mall you would like to check out if you want to bag some goods for cheaper prices.

Panama is a good place to buy electronics, clothes and cosmetics. You can carry money in US dollars or in balboa. It is however not advisable to carry US ATM cards, as they are not being accepted in most of the places in Panama.

If you are a music freak there is no better place than panama. The city is drowned with salsa. If you are a nightlife freak, panama is heaven on earth for you. Panama is known for its nightlife. Calle Uruguay is a place where you can find ample discos and bars.

David is the most popular city of panama and it is known for its prosperity. It serves the interest of people in casino; the most popular casinos of the city are royal casino and fiesta casino. You can try them out and who knows you might make fortunes.

Colon is another city worth having a look around, where you can find amusing cultures and people of panama. David city provides food that can surely tingle their taste senses with mini chocolate eggs and square treat called cocada. The best of panamian food is available in “chobeca’s burgers” in David city. Ron Abelo the local rum is the most popular drink in available.

Local people in panama are very friendly in nature. They always help the visitors, respect them and take care of them. Panama is quite advanced in tele communications. It is however advisable to get a prepaid card once you are in town. The famous network provider there is Movistar.

It is said that, all is well that ends well. No one would want any mishaps in their holiday trips. Just to avoid any such mishaps, be prepared and careful, after all it’s only the thoughts of a good tour you can treasure and cherish for a life time.

Panama is the place to relax or to spend some quality time with friends.

South Africa, also known as The Republic of South Africa is a fascinating tourist spot, where one can have the experience of savoring the beauty of the majestic mountains, the beaches, as well as the numerous reserves and parks. The not to be missed places are Durban, Johannesburg, Capetown, Waterberg and Pilansburg. An African wildlife safari occupies the number one spot amongst the must do activities during a visit to the country. There are plenty of good options available for holiday makers of any budget to stay and enjoy. Tourists have the option of staying at villas, resorts, holiday homes and hotels.

South Africa is the most developed country in the whole of Africa; socially, economically, as well as in terms of infrastructure. It is also an important member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The country has moderate climate, and the best time to visit is end June to the end of October. Flowers bloom during August to September. Beaches of Durban and Cape Town buzz with activities in the summer months.

A visit to South Africa could commence with a visit to the Kruger National Park, where tourists can enjoy the natural scenery as well as get glimpses of wild animals like leopards, elephants, and lions. The beautiful Sabie River is just at a stone’s throw distance from this park. Mention must also be made of the beautiful waterfalls; Augrabies waterfall being one among them. The ideal season to visit here is the spring. Blyde River Canyon is another amazing spot famous for its idyllic setting. Garden Route can be another choice of visit, the area extending from Mossel Bay to Port Elizabeth. This place not only offers a picturesque setting, but also activities such as hill climbing and trekking can be undertaken by those of adventurous spirit.

Another must see spot in South Africa is Durban, where tourists can have an unforgettable experience of the lovely beach. Plenty of villas and private apartments can be rented by holiday makers here. If you want to catch up with some fun in surfing, Jeffrey Bay is the place to go. Sun City is an international tourist spot and another top attraction during South Africa travel. This city boasts of numerous attractions ranging from gaming, gambling to golf. The experience is synonymous with fun, frolic and good dining.

South Africa is fun, adventurous, charming, idyllic and offers great attractions to all kinds of tourists of all tastes and age groups. With various online options available today, gathering information and making arrangements for vacations abroad is just a click away.

As a producer and provider of production services in Israel, I am always on the lookout for that one ultimate shoot that captures the breathtaking beauty of Jerusalem. No crew leaves Israel without filming in Jerusalem, and through all the years that I have been providing professional production services in Israel, no crew has left untouched by the city’s history, monumental architecture and eternal spirit.

I have compiled a list of locations across the city of Jerusalem, which offers you the best panoramic shots. I regard this list as unfinished – even after many years of producing and filming in Israel, there will always be a new spot with a good angle that offers great light and a stunning view.  

Kibbutz Ramat Rachel

At this Kibbutz you can find a lookout point with wonderful views of the city, stretching all the way to Bethlehem, the Herodian, and the Judean hills. When you reach the Kibbutz you make first a left and then a right. From the parking lot you continue to a small amphitheater, and at the edge you will find this enchanting hidden lookout.

The Haaz Promenade

This promenade is located in the Talpiot neighborhood, just ten minutes from the town center. It offers a great lookout point over the old city of Jerusalem, the Hinnom Valley, and the ruins of the City of David. The promenade is also known as Tayelet, and in fact there are three different promenades to discover. Film crews travel here often to catch a good shot in the afternoon sunlight.

The Y.M.C.A.

In the town center on King David street, across from the famous King David Hotel, you find the Y.M.C.A. hostel which offers a remarkable balcony with wonderful views of the old city, the new city and the Mount of Olives. When filming in Israel, film crews often look for symbols of the three religions and this is definitely a location to visit.

The Jerusalem Municipality Building

The building is located right in the center of town in Jaffa Street. If you take the elevator to the sixth floor you will find a wonderful panoramic balcony looking out to the east and the west of the city.

Mount Scopus

On your way to Mount Scopus, every point on the road around the Hebrew University provides you with a view of the old city and the Judean Desert. The lookouts also offer an almost birds eye view of the old city. This is the highest and closest point from where you can observe the old city: 830 meters above sea level.

Mount of Olives

Some say that the view at the Mount of Olives is the most beautiful in the world. The lookout terrace is on top of the mountain under the Seven Arches Hotel and above the large Jewish cemetery. During sunset and sunrise the city is painted in different shades of red, yellow, pink and orange and the Dome of the Rock sends rays of color all over the city. Shooting at the Mount of Olives when filming in Israel helps you to understand where the phrase ‘Jerusalem of Gold’ comes from. It is an unforgettable experience for thousands of filmmakers who travel to the Holy Land every year for filming in Israel.

The Tower of David

The Tower of David is located next to Jaffa Gate, the busiest and most well-known gate of the old city. The top balcony of the Tower of David provides a stunning 360° view of the old city and the new city. Filming at the Tower of David is a great location for film crews coming from overseas for filming in Israel. 

As mentioned above, this list is unfinished. Filming in Israel, and especially filming in Jerusalem, is a journey that takes you to surprisingly beautiful locations even after years. For anyone interested in further information about filming in Israel, I recommend our website http://www.biblicalproductions.com/index.htm with a comprehensive location guide to the best filming locations in Israel.

The New York Times conducted an interview with Ms. Janine Jaouni, Director of Business Solutions, an entrepreneurial e-commerce figure in the Middle East; the interview was part of a research and collaborative efforts by Microsoft, Google and eBay to explore markets in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) for introduction of new product lines and services. According to Ms. Jaouni, the e-commerce environment in the Middle East and North Africa faces several obstacles which deprived consumers in the region from commodities which [surprisingly] they can afford.

“The major issue is lack of a free market economy, companies are encouraged to export, yet customs and red-tape are a trade mark of most Arab economies, perhaps with the exception of the Emirates.” Ms. Jaouni continues: “the population of MENA stands at approximately a quarter-billion people, yet the economic boundaries have defeated the purpose when it comes to creating economies of scale.”

Microsoft, Google and eBay realize that MENA is an untapped consumer environment, yet the challenge remains on how to make such fragmented demands make economic sense, after all, the American business model is based on centralized operations of scale, particularly when it comes to the services sector, the challenge is the many borders, each with its own set and often contradictory rules of doing business.

Ms. Jaouni points out that her company Business Solutions has identified three challenges. The first challenge is lack of infrastructure for transportation and speedy delivery and reliable mail services; the second is lack of credit (less than 2% of the population of MENA has credit cards, 5% of those in her estimates have PayPal accounts), and the third is lack of trust – this is due to the fact that prosecuting someone in a different country is very difficult, particularly for consumer size transactions. Ms. Jaouni discounts the challenge of the centralized business model; “the web and e-commerce in particular lend themselves to a decentralized model,” she adds.

Then, how do you do e-business in the Middle East and North Africa, isn’t that what you do?, we asked.

Many young Arab entrepreneurs have realized that they can setup simple e-commerce (business-to-customer, B2C) sites catering to European and American customers. The nature of the products ranges from souvenirs to specialty or traditional items. These businesses, while profitable, require extensive marketing and dedication, something which is not easy to do for a part-time entrepreneur. Ms. Jaouni states: “Our approach and company philosophy is different; we help these and others setup a network of Business-to-Business (B2B), and from there B2C, thus creating a web of tiered network referred to as B2B2C.”

Business Solutions realized the potential of B2B marketing and produced its first EXPO package in 2003. This B2B package is designed for export oriented markets and includes categorized listings of businesses, each business with online catalogs, inquiry baskets, PDF brochures and utilities to export spreadsheets for large scale marketing campaigns. EXPO is most suitable for markets with specialized product sectors, like in Jordan, Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Morocco. The platform has significantly contributed to exports of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, marble and stone, leather products, textiles and furniture.

Based on the success of EXPO, the company launched the Arab Travel Network (ATN) in 2005. ATN is a site totally administered by travel agents, tour operators and companies which provide related travel and tourism services. For businesses, it functions as a B2B platform creating a travel and tourism marketplace in an area long ignored by Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz. Tour operators are now capable of organizing tours and selling packages to travel agents world-wide. Travel agents in turn offer travel packages to customers, also online, a very successful B2B2C model. The major tourism sectors benefited by this package are in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan. Ms. Jaouni states that Business Solutions has also experimented with hotel reservations and other services related to Hajj and Omra in Saudi Arabia, and is currently looking for local partnership and representation. The Emirates market also has great potential, but requires a unique model which Business Solutions is looking into.

The latest release by Business Solutions is ArabCityUSA.com which is a super-portal targeting the Arab Community in North America. The planned release of ArabCityUSA.com was postponed by six months in order to re-design the site to make full use of the latest AJAX technology. This technology enables vendors and users alike to get results effectively without having to “mine” for information. The site is focused on travel services with airfares and packed offers, and online airfare quotes system to many airports in Arab countries and world-wide destinations. The portal has a comprehensive list of restaurants offering Middle Eastern and traditional Arabic (particularly Lebanese and Moroccan) cuisine, where each restaurant self publishes specialties and menus which appear in a compiled easy to browse pages. The site also offers a comprehensive business directory with categorized listings and online catalogs for products and services. In addition to AJAX, the site utilizes US zip codes to calculate distance to such businesses and sorts results by distance. The site has a social platform which offers a meeting place similar to MySpace.com; among the innovative features is Skype.com online status for members and statistics about who is online using IP-to-Country detection technology. Ms. Jaouni adds that the target Arab communities in the US are primarily in Paterson and Jersey City in New Jersey, New York City, Boston, Baltimore, Washington DC, Houston, Dearborn, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and San Francisco. All services offered through ArabCityUSA.com are free, except for the advertisements, preferred and featured listings.

The future of e-business in the MENA region remains promising, evident by the high number of internet users. “Somehow we need to turn browsing time into a shopping experience”, Ms. Jaouni comments, “I see people taking shopping trips to London, Paris and New York; we need to make the same products available here for the middle-class, it is all products they can afford.”

PASSIONATE DESIRES TRAVEL & TOURS WELCOMES YOU TO AFRICA AKWAABA,* It’s an expression you will hear several times daily as you travel around Ghana, one that will ring in your ears at night, and bring a smile to your face for weeks after you leave. Akwaaba! It means Welcome! And you will be. Welcome to a Land of Sunshine, a nation with the reputation as the friendliest in Africa. A haven that combines the charms of a tropical beach idyll with a fascinating historical heritage, rich cultural variety, and some interesting wildlife in the national parks… Discover & Experience Ghana With Passionate Desires Passionate Desires is the leading Ghana’s travel and tour Company for independent-minded and adventurous travelers who are passionately in love with Africa and want to explore both the beauty and the primitive side of Africa either for pleasure, business or educational purposes. We provide world class information and advice about where to go, what to visit and how to get here. Our in-depth travel guides have been written by experts and will help you plan your trip whether it’s an overland trek, adventure tour or a once in a lifetime travel experience. We have it all with our offer affordable tourist attraction. Passionate Desires, as a full service destination management company based in Accra, Ghana, our primary focus is providing ground-handling services for you or your group. The tours we offer consist of an array of interests and experiences, ranging from cultural, educational, to adventure/eco and we can customize programs to meet your needs and interests. Our priority is providing a seamless travel experience for you. We want you to feel the tour was especially designed for you; whether you are traveling alone, with the family or with a group. Our Service of specialization includes the following: * Ecological Tours Flora and Fauna (National Parks) * Educational Tours (Exchange programs) * Hotel Reservation * Stay With A Host Family * Students Internship * Domestic tourism * Volunteer Programs * Escort Service * History and Slave Routes Tours * Cultural Tours (Festivals and Traditions) * Leisure /Pleasure Tours * Business & Investment Consultancy We have established a reputation for providing exciting tours and quality service throughout Ghana and West Africa and we look forward to being one of your new partners. Please for further information, contact us and our staff would be happy to assist you. Find out why American Presidents loves to visits Ghana…

The world is full of amazing and awe-inspiring sights and sounds. To squeeze all of Mother Nature’s extravagance into the top ten great summer travel destinations for families is a daunting task. Summer brings everything outdoors; the furniture, toys, children and every kind of outdoor activity one can imagine. However, one of the best ways to enjoy one’s summer vacation is to pack up ones family and go discover the world. Now, you may be wondering, isn’t that what the rich do? Well, today you can find cheap flights to almost anywhere, and once you arrive you can rest assured there are one or two reasonably good cheap hotels to stay in. That said; spoil your family with a vacation to one of the following great summer travel destinations for families:

Costa Rica
This beautiful south Caribbean tropical paradise is located in Central America and bounded by the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea to one side and Nicaragua and Panama on the other. Amazing white beaches and tropical flora and fauna adorn this country making it the perfect tropical paradise to visit. What’s more, many budget airlines that fly to Costa Rica offer discount airfare rates especially when advance bookings are made.

The Hamptons
Located conveniently on the east end of Long Island, NY, this historical summer getaway is great for domestic tourism. Accessible via domestic couriers that offer cheap airline tickets to locals, enjoy the long stretches of beach, sprawling vineyards and magnanimous estates. In addition, experience the unique historical seaside villages that dot the Hampton coastline and make for a great family travel vacation.

Madagascar
This prehistoric island off the Southeastern coast of Africa has some fantastic and extraordinary creatures and plant life. Perfect for a summer vacation eco tour, this country has all sorts of great flora and fauna to keep everyone excited. Popularized by the Hollywood movie, Madagascar, this destination will definitely live up to your expectations. Hospitable locals, exuberant landscapes and cheap hotels all go towards making this a perfect summer vacation destination.

Abu Dhabi, UAE
Tipped ‘the richest city in the world’ (Fortune and CNN) this rapidly growing capital of the United Arab Emirates is fast becoming one of the premier destinations for summer vacationers. Multicultural and super urbanization features characterize this area. As the Emirati begins to diversify the economy of the area, tourism has become a key building block for the developing economy. With cheap flights from the numerous carriers plying the Middle East, experiencing this new city f the world has never been easier.

Cyprus
Located in the Eastern Mediterranean sea, Cyprus is a great summer vacation destination for all. With an excellent economy to match the excellent Mediterranean climate, Cyprus has a booming tourism sector and great packages for the interested traveler. The Mediterranean climate provides warm to hot weather all year round and the azure waters surrounding the island are a great way to kick back and relax.

Australia
This continent ‘down under’ has a great adventure awaiting the intrepid traveler. Arrive in style in either Sydney or Melbourne and embark on an Aussie adventure in this expansive country. Camel hikes, dune bashing, or seaside holidays are all on the itinerary. Once in the country, get some cheap airline tickets form one of the budget airlines in the country and hop from one area of the country to the next, you’ll have a whole continent to explore to your heart’s content.

Kenya
Home of the safari, travel to the renowned Maasia Mara or recline on the white sand beaches enjoy that perfect summer vacation. Hospitable locals, a vibrant, cosmopolitan capital and numerous options available to access, a summer vacation to Kenya would be a different experience altogether.

Scandinavia
Well, you may be wondering, Scandinavia is not a country; exactly the point. Take a summer vacation to one of the Scandinavian countries and simple hop onto a bus, train or cheap flight and in no time, you are in the next Scandinavian country. Offering great summer travel destinations for families, the kids will get a lesson in European geography as well as have a great time.

Tuscany, Italy
Home to the true Italian Renaissance; walk in the neighborhood of great artistic leaders such as Dante, Botticelli, Leonardo De Vinci, and Galileo Galilei amongst others. Breathtaking landscapes add to the rich artistic legacy to create a holiday vacation like no other.

China
Two billion people call this country home and so there must be something to it. In deed there is; from the Great Wall of China to the Yangtze River, China has such diverse landscapes it will leave you wondering if you were in one country or ten. The top vacation destination in Asia, China offers eco-cultural tours like no other.

Busan To the south Korea is really a large city situated within the southern province of South Gyeongsang, To the south Korea. Busan is Korea’s second largest metropolis getting an estimated 4 million population. This town also serves as To the south Korea’s international port cargo, as well as ports for passenger ferries to Jeju Island and to Japan. The Metropolis of Basun is extensively popular for its tropical beach resorts and delicious seafood dishes, and also the Hallyosudo Waterway identified for its picturesque island beauty.

The fish market in Busan offers a broad assortment of fresh seafood items throughout the early morning. And even though this marketplace is primarily known as the interface, the metropolis presents several steep hills that produce a extremely unusual ambiance mix of ocean and mountains.

Busan To the south Korea’s strategic coastline place assists give restaurants and clubs in this area a really mild winter than in any other position in South Korea. This enables both locals and visitors to appreciate the seemingly endless night existence inside a a lot more secure and soothing method than other locations. As a interface that serves major international interface for international shipping, its harbor spot features a striving district that could accommodate a large number of sailors and guests who passes via the port every year.
Busan South Korea also offers a lot of attractive destinations for vacationers to visit.

The Beomeo-sa Temple is 1 on the fantastic 5 temples in South Korea. This massive vintage temple is located close to the mountains, situated additional away through the big city. You much better watch out though as this temple gets wildly populated with worshippers on weekends.

40 Actions can also be one of Busan’s most visited destinations. Some with the streets in its grubby district already been reconstructed to their original issue to this spot accessible for the two locals and vacationers. 40 measures is generally created with wooden lamppost and bronze figure monuments that illustrates that depicts the hand scrabble street life on the place.

For nearly four hundred years many maps of Asia, and particularly India and Southeast Asia, depicted an enormous lake far to the northeast of the Bay of Bengal. This lake, alternately called Chiamay, Chiam-may, Chian-nay, or Cayamay, is postulated to be the source of four to five of the great Southeast Asian river systems, the Irrawaddy, the Dharla, the Chao Phraya, the Bramaputra, and the Mekong. Today we know that the Lago de Chiamay is entirely non-existent, but where did this persistent myth come from?

1685 Bormeester Map of the World showing Chiamay

The earliest reference to the Lago de Chiamay that we have been able to come across is the c. 1550 geographical study produced by Jao de Barros. Barros, who is not known to have traveled to the orient himself, compiled his geography from reports from Portugese explorers in the region, who themselves no doubt extracted many of their ideas about the remote interior of Asia from indigenous authorities. His most likely source for our purposes is most likely Fernao Mendez Pinto. Today the Barros geography is unfortunately lost, but some of its commentary survives via G. B. Ramusio and his 1554 edition of “Navigationi et viaggi”. While some have argued that Ramusio could not have possibly have had access to Barros’ commentary, as it had not been published at the time, Ramusio himself provides clear reference that he did in fact have an unpublished Barros manuscript. Ramusio includes several maps in his “Navigationi et viaggi” that were drawn around 1550 and depict the Lago.

Fernao Mendez Pinto, Barros most likely source and the lake’s supposed “discoverer”, is the only European who claims to have visited the lake itself. Pinto apparently discovered the lake in 1744. Generally speaking, while Barros was well respected in his day, Pinto is considered an unreliable geographer at best and at worse has been dubbed the “prince of fiction”. Why this is the case when he was without a doubt actually in Siam, may be explainable when his own sources are evaluated. Pinto may have heard about the lake in the Royal Court of Siam, one of the kings of which is said to have invaded Chiamay and captured many cities around it.

1540 Seutter Map of India, Tibet and Southeast Asia

That Pinto derived much of his geography from local sources is highly likely. What he and his readers back in Europe may not have counted on is the presence of a mythical and semi-mythical Hindu-Buddhist geography overlaying the actual geography. Hindu and related Buddhist mythology consider Lake Manasarovar and Lake Rakshastal, in modern day Tibet, to be the spiritual source of four religiously and geographically important subcontinent rivers, the Brahmaputra, the Karnali, the Indus and the Sutlej. As the Hindu-Buddhist culture expanded into southeast Asia, these four rivers and their source lake were reassociated with local rivers such as the Irrawaddy, the Dharla, the Mekong, and the Chao Phraya.

From a European perspective, associating these rivers systems with one another and with a single source is an almost natural assumption. All five rivers bear a great deal of similarity. That is, all seem to originate from roughly the same area, all flow along roughly parallel courses, and all have enormous fluvial volume. Associating a great lake with said source is equally natural. Given the size and orientation of these river systems, one naturally speculates that the source lake itself must be enormous. Such speculation was not uncommon for map makers working in the 18th century and earlier. Cartographers, who rarely traveled the world themselves, had the difficult job of piecing together and interpreting various vague and often contradictory traveler’s accounts as well as reconciling such new information with accepted mappings.

Whatever the original source for the Lago de Chiamay may have been, it begins appearing on maps as early as the Gastaldi map of 1550 (though some speculate that this map was actually drawn a few years earlier). The Lago was embraced by Ortelius in his c. 1570 mappings of Asia and was eventually associated with various hopeful fantasies of a river passage through central Asia to the North Sea. Almost all subsequent mappings until the late 18th century included the Lago de Chiamay in various forms. Later, as explorers began to penetrate the region with greater regularity, Chiamatwas at various point associated with any lake discovered in the area, including Koko Nor (Qinghai Lake) in China and the actual Lake Manasarovar in Tibet. By the late 18th century the lake had moved far west of its original location and been reduced to a fraction of its original size. By the 19th century, it disappeared entirely.

The source of the name itself, “Chiamay” may be derived from Pinto’s original discovery of the lake in the records at the Royal court in Siam. Pinto was told of a royal raid to conquer and claim Chiang Mai, once the Capital of the Lanna Kingdom.

1848 Homann Heirs Map of India & Southeast Asia

The city of Chaing Mai, now fully part of Thailand was founded in 1296 and was frequently invaded and conquered by both the Siamese and Burmese empires before being formally incorporated into the Siamese empire in the late 18th century. Though there is no lake near Chiang Mai, Pinto, who is not known for reliability, may have misinterpreted what he was told. The Lago de Chiamay is most likely the result of Pinto’s misunderstanding of stories from the royal court of Siam, misassociations regarding the Buddhist-Hindu mythology associated with Lake Manasarovar, and natural assumptions based upon the observable similarities of the great southeast Asian river systems.

Sven Hedin discusses this lake and its origins in great detail in his fascinating and well researched 1919 article, “Early European Knowledge of Tibet”.