Behind Blue Eyes... says Who?

I discovered a secret garden with a hidden alcove with a lost moss-covered fountain and a big laughing elf with huge blue eyes - now I know why its called Serendip. At Bevis Bawa's Brief Garden near Bentota, Sri Lanka.

The lost Shaolin temple

You could almost miss it if it weren't for the prince that turned into a stone toad... Brief Garden by Bevis Bawa is AliceinWonderlandesque!

Call a spade a spade? or an eagle!

At Paradise Road, Gallery Cafe in Colombo - a perched eagle made of spades. Don't miss the rakes for claws!

Art at work... go figure!

Papier mache art installation in the KPMG lobby at Salisbury Square, London

Window art... quite literally!

Artist inside a window display at Selfridges in London

Forgotten hieroglyphics

Inside a forgotten pyramid in Cairo, Egypt

Art for 5 days!

(c) Shouren Datta
Pandal art at Durga Puja in Calcutta - this mural is made from clay and hemp. This festival sees a mindboggling array of talent, for all of a fleeting 5 days.

Drain covers for directions

Every drain cover in Cologne, Germany tells you exactly where you are

More drain cover art - London

Memorial Walk for Diana - Princess of Wales

Writer's walk at Syndey Harbor

Every drain cover along this walk commemorates a famous writer

It's all coming back to me now...

Aboriginal women playing the boomerang. At Katoomba Valley in the Blue Mountains, Australia

Wine bottle art - at a boutique winery in Hunter Valley, Australia

Aromas are reminiscent of cinnamon and raisins, with a hint of sweet red apples on the palate. The Vin de Vie is the ideal aperitif or accompaniment to your favourite winter dessert. Visit www.peppertreewines.com.au for more info

Don't scrap it

In a park in Sausalito

Another brick in the wall

© Sandeep Chopra
Between houses in Cologne

Amsterdam graffiti

© Sandeep Chopra

A weight off my head

An embellished version of Henry Purcell sits quietly in the corner of a London park

Calypso captured?

Aye, Calypso, the places you've been to
The things that you've shown us
The stories you tell
Aye, Calypso, I sing to your spirit
The men who have served you
So long and so well

Blog of the Week

What started out as a humble blog and more a fanciful hobby, was recently voted as "Blog of the Week" by the Times of India.

Lover of life, singer of songs

"If you want to find peace, go to Montreux."

Didn't have a digicam when I saw this one, so took the liberty of picking this off the net - courtesy: www.satriani.com.

Rowling's wall art

At King's Cross station in London

More fictitious walls?

At Baker Street station in London

Om mani padme hum

Mani stones and a mandala near the outpost guarding the road to Siachen glacier

Pink bench art...

...deserves pink attire, eh? Outside the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam

Vintage hand pump in Berlin

Creepy?

Creeping vines but creeping wine bottles?

From the outside looking in

Art through a window - one is meant to peer through windows at this gallery in Rothenburg

My orange car and...

...my orange house

Keeping time

Somewhere in Black Forest - a sun dial house

Waiting to catch a bus to Calais...

... these women sit patiently outside the Oostende train station

Droogle says you get a Flying Bull...

...if you mix a peg of dark rum, a peg of light rum and a Red Bull.

Egocentrically delicious

The tagline says it all

Art commemorating those exterminated at Dachau

The concentration camp at Dachau near Munich leaves one numb and speechless as the ghost of the atrocities committed here play havoc with the senses...

Drain cover art - Tokyo

Photos courtesy Arjun Bali

Tokyo is a treasure trove of drain cover art - I suppose as you walk with your eyes peeled to the ground, the sky will most definitely fall on your head!

Stairwell art

In Australian wine country

The new age man

"Two blocks down George Street, take a right, another block and then a left... you'll find the best chap in Sydney to grease your joints"

Someone's watching over you

In downtown Sydney. Someone tell me who that is?

More rock art

Sign outside the ladies rest rooms at Dr Jurd's Jungle Juice in wine country north of Syndey. Legend has it that Dr Jurd went from winery to winery to collect wines from spittoons and blended, bottled and branded them Dr Jurd's Jungle Juice!

Rock art rocks

On a rock near the gorilla pen in Taronga Zoo in Sydney. The lazy King Kong is so aweinspiring in its size, the artist probably just dropped this knapsack on this rock which also froze in fear.

Sailor's outpost at The Rocks in Sydney

You could almost miss them as you saunter past...

What's in your head?

Exquisite street art found on the internet. Copyright: Zhang Dali

Cologne: Remembering the Crucifixion

Photo by Sandeep Chopra

Notice the exquisite charcoal rendition against purple skies! Cologne is a visual delight. If you're lost, one must only look for the brass square drain covers - measuring a foot square, they have embossed on them the map of a half kilometer radius...

Brussels - the comic world's bastion?

Every corner you round in Brussels, make sure you take a 360 degree look lest you miss one of these!

More Brussels

And then some...

Yet more Brussels...

Guarding the Museum of Comic Arts, Brussels

Did you know Herge barely stepped out of Brussels and yet Tintin travelled the globe on his adventures? There's an entire book on how...

Quintessential Amsterdam

It doesn't get more complete than this - a Van Gogh collage on Prinsengracht, Delftware tiles on the yellow power box, quirky window displays, reflection of gables and yours truly sillhouetted on the brown cafe glass...

Amsterdam in stone on an Amsterdam wall

Another tiny find...

On a wall in Amsterdam

Is this the Batenburg Castle? Perhaps... Intriguing that it should adorn a wall in Amsterdam. Note the silver coins in and gold out!

A piece of the Berlin Wall

Walls… the word evokes in us a sense of boundaries, partitions, barriers, barbed wire fences, borders, fortification, confinement, imprisonment, captivity… walls…

The Great Wall of wonder in China. Wailing walls of faith in Jerusalem. Political walls dividing Berlin and West Bank. And unmitigated lawless liberal graffiti. Freedom of expression on walls that are the very antithesis of freedom… in a world of inherent contradictions.

One such slice of the past here, now relegated to being a mere tourist attraction.