India is a land of wonders. Here, you’ll get to see something fascinating in every few steps. One such fascination that has lately grabbed the world’s attention is Jatayu bird sculpture. People from all over the world flock to capture the sight of this mountainous bird sculpture. Being the largest sculpture in the world literally spellbinds the people. If you’re already intrigued and planning to visit Jatayu bid sculpture, let me tell you the location.  It is located in the God’s own country atop rocky hills of Chadayamangalam in Jatayu adventure park of Kollam district.

How to get there

Since it is located on the peak of a hill, you’ll need to use ropeway to get there. The other option is the helicopter ride. In fact, it is better. With the helicopter, you can capture the bird’s eye view of the sculpture from the high above. To reach Jatayu Adventure Park, you can hire the local cab and taxies. Kollam is the nearest railway station and Trivandrum International airport is the closest airport, which is respectively 38km and 51km from the park.

Size and construction of the sculpture

Other than its stellar craftsmanship, the thing that makes the sculpture notable is its giant size. The statue is 200ft long, 150ft wide, and 70ft high. Having such a colossal size, it the largest bird sculpture in the world. The sculpture is designed in the vulture shape with every single feature. In fact, it imitates a real vulture. Of course, the size is much larger, but the features are exactly like a real vulture. You would be surprised to know that it took almost 10 years to construct this grand bird sculpture.

The story behind its name

There is a story behind the name of every place and so it with Jatayu bird sculpture. The historical saga of this statue is associated with the Indian epic Ramayana. In Ramayana, Jatayu is depicted as a noble and divine vulture. He is known to rescue Seeta Maa, the wife of Lord Rama when demon Ravana was abducting her. While rescuing her, Jatayu battled with Ravan and lost one of its wings.

After losing its wing, where it fell down, the place was called Jatayupara. Today, this giant statue is built in the same place. Since Jatayu lost its life fighting for the dignity and honor of a woman, Jatayu sculpture is built high to pay a tribute to it as well as its respect for the women. The statue also represents the unconditional love between humans and other creatures of the earth.

Sydney Vivid is an annual festival of light, art, and culture that brings bizarre creatures, colourful works of art, and tens of thousands of tourists to the city in winter – a season that would normally be particularly quiet. The art exhibition component of the festival makes imaginative use of open spaces, parks, and building facades to turn the Circular Quay area, from the Opera House, around to the Rocks, into a gigantic open-air art gallery that turns on a spectacular show as soon as the sunsets.

The sails of The Opera House, which is spectacular by itself (all praise Joern Utzon), come alive with massive animated projections that vary from year to year. This year we see the sails luffing in the wind and a young lady lolling about on them. Customs House is particularly amazing when you look at how accurately the project aligns with the columns, ledges, and windows of the building. The animations are amusing and wonderful.

But Sydney Vivid is more than just a colourful art display, it includes the Sydney Film Festival, film workshops, talks, plays, and live bands.

As a method of attracting tourists, it is a raging success. But it is much more than that. It brightens the image and lifts the spirits of a city that has a reputation for having a spectacular coastline, but being culturally dull, compared to its cousin down south.

The festival runs from May 24 to June 15 every year and overlaps with the Sydney Film Festival which runs from June 6 – 17, making early June a great time to visit Sydney if you want to get away for a week or a few days, but avoid the tourist season crowds, heat, and prices. Sydney Vivid 2020 has been canceled due to Corona Pandemic.

Featured image credit: Daniel Boud

If you live in Sydney or are visiting Sydney from overseas, Canberra is a weekend destination that is very close, often overlooked, but surprising. Canberra, the capital city of Australia only 2.5 hours drive from Sydney by motorway, is a pretty, elegant, purpose-built city that contains a wealth of live shows, museums, libraries, interesting tours, and surprising weekend destination nightlife. We went to see the Inca Gold exhibition at the National Gallery but found a city that we could return to again and again any time we wanted to get away from Sydney for a weekend.

As it was, the Inca exhibition was the only thing we had time to see in the National Gallery but would love to return to see the regular art exhibitions there, as well as the many other interesting attractions.

A few other things to do in Canberra include:

– National Museum
– War Museum (Australian War Memorial)
– Canberra Museum and Gallery
– Questacon science museum
– Tour of old parliament house
– New parliament house
– National Portrait Gallery
– Australian Botanic Gardens
– National Film and Sound Archive
– Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve
– National Library
– Black Mountain Tower
– National Dinosaur Museum
– Commonwealth Park
– National Arboretum
– Big Splash Water Park
– Canberra Casino
– Canberra Glassworks
– Mount Stromlo Observatory
– Mount Ainslie Lookout
– Australian Museum of Democracy
– Namadgi National Park
– Deep Space Communications Complex, Tidbinbilla (remember Apollo 11?)
– National Zoo and Aquarium (privately owned)
– National Archives

Weather in Canberra

The weather in Canberra is searingly hot in Summer and below zero in Winter. My preference is to go in Autumn, Winter, and Spring because if it’s cold, you can always just put on a warm coat. If it’s a seriously hot day with hot nights, you won’t want to be outside at all and are better off going to one of the millions of beaches in and around Sydney, Kiama, or the Central Coast. We went on a weekend that was neither warm nor cold, but a bit rainy. A light coat and an umbrella were all we needed.

Canberra is compact and well designed for getting around. Most of the galleries and museums are congregated around Parliament House, which is only 1 kilometer from the city centre, where all the nightlife is. It’s preferable to have a car, but on a nice day, you can hire a bike and cycle around Lake Burley Griffin and visit the various attractions. Most hotels will be only 1 or 2 km from the city centre, so when going out at night you can walk or catch a bus or taxi. Hotels in Canberra are not expensive and are of very high quality.

Adina Serviced Apartments Canberra Dickson

The Adina Serviced Apartments is new and amazingly up-market, stylish, and comfortable. We had a stunning 1-bedroom apartment that was enormous, roomy, and comfortable, with a full-size lounge room, plus dining room with table and seating for 6, a full-sized, well-equipped kitchen, large, attractive, en-suite bathroom. The styling is ultra-modern, with clean lines, lots of white, very attractive and comfortable furniture, and a fabulously comfortable king-size bed. The reception staff was very courteous and helpful. They also will provide a free shuttle service to the city during the day and night.

Unfortunately, we didn’t find out about that until the day after we walked 30 minutes to the city centre. They also have a great rainforest bar under a towering canopy. Nice spot to have a quiet drink in any weather. The only minus I would give the hotel is the lack of breakfast options and lack of coffee. On Saturday morning we slept in and found that the coffee shop was closed at 10:00 am and there was no way to get a cup of coffee until we got into the city centre, by which time I was dying for bacon and eggs and coffee (and eventually found it after walking around the area).

Also, the breakfast options are extremely limited at the hotel, which is just a small breakfast counter where you can buy toasted focaccia or bacon and egg roll. Quite strangely limited and primitive compared to the rest of this wonderful hotel. Apart from the limited breakfast and coffee options, I would highly recommend the Aria Hotel and will definitely stay there again.

What can you do if you are a nightlife lover

Friday night we went to the Monkey Bar near Petrie Plaza for their regular Latin music night. If you are into Latin music and dance, I highly recommend it, but don’t bother getting there before 10:00 pm because you be the only person there besides a couple of bored bar staff. There are many nice restaurants and bars a short walk from the Monkey Bar, so have dinner first. There is even a Guzman y Gomez across the road for a substantial Mexican meal.

You can visit a Bar

Saturday night we checked out an interesting bar called “Cube “, at 33 Petrie Plaza, that is promoted as being a gay bar, but the gays there were very much in a minority. The music is a regular raunchy night club style, and the passing parade of unusual characters is interesting. If you like something funky, off-beat, unusual and totally “out there”, then The Cube nightclub is definitely somewhere to go on a Saturday night. Check out the cage and the cave in the corner.

So, if you are based in Sydney, there is always something to do for a weekend, just a couple of hours drive away in Canberra – especially in cooler weather.