Photo Shop Blog

Tiger Temple, or Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua, is a Buddhist temple in Western Thailand which keeps numerous animals, among them several tigers that walk around freely once a day and can be petted by visitors. The Theravada Buddhist temple is located in the Saiyok district of Thailand's Kanchanaburi province, not far from the border with Myanmar, some 38 km north-west of Kanchanaburi along the 323 highway. It was founded in 1994 as a forest temple and sanctuary for numerous wild animals. In 1995 it received the Golden Jubilee Buddha Image, made of 80 kilograms of gold. Conservation organizations charge that the tigers at the temple are not rescued wild tigers, but are obtained by illegally trading with black market tiger farms. They say the real purpose is making money, not helping tigers. The groups also criticize the Tiger Temple for interbreeding different subspecies of tigers, which they say violates conservation principles. Abuse of tigers at the temple has been reported by ...

Although ice hotels now exist in several cold countries, the Ice Hotel in Kiruna, Sweden is best known as the earliest. Since its creation in 1989, the hotel has featured in many television travel programmes, newspapers and magazines. With the exception of the beds, the entire hotel is made completely out of ice blocks - even the glasses in the bar are made of ice. The ice is made from water taken from the River Torne. The hotel features more than 60 rooms and suites, a bar, reception area and chapel. The hotel only exists between November and May.

In the dining room of the Hotel de Sal Playa in Bolivia, the salt is always on the table. In fact, at the world's only hotel made of salt, the salt is the table. Located near the famous Uyuni salt mine in the southwestern part of the country, Hotel de Sal Playa's roof, and bar are built of salt. Even the floor is covered with salt granules. The hotel was built in 1993 by a salt artisan who saw a mint in the number of tourists looking for places to stay while visiting the nearby mine, which is one of the world's largest of its kind. The lodge has 15 bedrooms, a dining room, a living room and a bar. The hotel walls are made of salt blocks stuck together with a cement-like substance made of salt and water. During rainy seasons, the walls are strengthened with new blocks, while the owners ask the guests to avoid licking the walls to prevent deterioration.

EVER SEEN A WATER BRIDGE ? Water Bridge in Germany... What a feat! Six years, 500 million euros, 918 meters long.......now this is engineering! This is a channel-bridge over the River Elbe and joins the former East and West Germany, as part of the unification project. It is located in the city of Magdeburg, near Berlin. The photo was taken on the day of inauguration. To those who appreciate engineering projects. Taking six years to build and costing around half a billion euros, the massive undertaking will connect Berlin's inland harbor with the ports along the Rhine river. At the center of the project is Europe's longest water bridge measuring in just shy of a kilometer at 918 meters. The huge tub to transport ships over the Elbe took 24,000 metric tons of steel and 68,000 cubic meters of concrete to build. The water bridge will enable river barges to avoid a lengthy and sometimes unreliable passage along the Elbe. Shipping can often come to a halt on the stretch if the river...

Great train journeys provide a return to more leisurely days, when travel was a decorous adventure rather than an irritant endured between home and holiday. Between them, this list carve up the most spectacular scenery on the planet. Switzerland: The Bernina Express This takes you over the highest rail summit in the Alps – 7,405 feet up – at anything but express speeds between St Moritz and Tirano. The curves on the climbs are so sharp that you can photograph the train going in the opposite direction. The final highlight is the viaduct near Brusio that helps the railway corkscrew its way down the river valley. Canada: Rocky Mountaineer Vacations The three train routes – Kicking Horse, Yellowhead and Fraser Discovery – operated by Rocky Mountaineer Vacations’ air-conditioned, dome-car day trains offer the best way of seeing the most spectacular parts of the Rockies. Coach links over the Columbia Parkway allow a 10-night circuit: Vancouver–Whistler–Quesnel–Jasper...