Two articles are upcoming for amazing India. The first one is definitely an adventure that I am tentatively titling From Lakeshore to Seashore. We first took a land trip from Bhubaneswar proper up to a village at the shore of Chilika Lake. (It was my first time to see the graceful flamenco birds.)

Listed in UNESCO World Heritage, Chilika Lake is a brackish water lagoon within Odisha state, whose capital is Bhubaneswar. We then boarded a boat to visit some coastal fishing villages. What was so spectacular about this trip was we ended up at Chilika Lake’s mouth in the Bay of Bengal. The gradual change in ambiance and/or scenery from a lake to a marine environment was simply amazing. On the other side of Bay of Bengal, of course, is the eastern side of the great African continent.

The second article is about St. Matthew’s Church situated in East Tambaram, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. This is more of a religious reflective discourse. Among the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ, St. Thomas is the most intriguing to me. He was called as the ‘doubting Thomas’ with regard to Christ’s resurrection. Yet in the end, he travelled all the way to India to spread the gospel – and was eventually martyred there.