Blog from the Blue: World's best

Planet Earth is full of colours. The nature decorates itself with a myriad of colours in its full bloom. But have you imagined a situation when you are overwhelmed with a particular colour, so much so that you see it everywhere as far as you can see and feel, as if you’ve gone colourblind, literally!

The guest post on my blog -World’s best Technicolor destinations provided some food for thought. Why don’t I write about some destinations which give us a colourblind like feeling without actually falling into colour blindness?

So what are you waiting for? Let’s zoom past some spectacular places where the beautiful nature makes you feel colourblind with a single colour all the way as if till infinity.

Canola Fields
Colour Yellow| Season Spring | China

It’s the season of spring at the Luoping County in Yunnan, China. The air is refreshing and the breeze is carrying with it a humming sound of bees. The flowers are in full bloom, and you are standing in front of a vast Yellow Sea. ..Yes, that’s how you would feel if you happen to visit these sprawling fields of blooming Canola flowers. The Canola or Rapeseed flowers, engulf the farmland making it appear as a virtual golden yellow sea that stretches till horizon where the yellow meets the blue. After a breathtaking view of the vast canola fields, if you close and reopen your eyes, you’d surely be flashed by yellow everywhere!

Canola fields. CC Image Courtesy: flickr.com [License]

Shibazakura, Japan
Colour Pink | Season Spring | Japan

Hitsujiyama Park, Japan. CC Image courtesy:flickr.com [license]

Pink is the colour of beauty and love. It also symbolises romanticism, and when thousands of Shibazakura flowers bloom at the foothills of mount Fuji in Japan, your heart cannot stop pounding at the beat of the mild air that sways the nearby cherry blossoms. The season is spring, which brings with it different shades of pink to decorate the Shibazakura moss phloxes and cherry trees of Japan’s Hitsujiyama Park. What more can I say than calling this pink paradise a pretty lady adorned in all sorts of ornamental buds. Here’s a word of caution – some mosses are so intense pink that it might dazzle your eyes causing colour blindness! Who knows!

View of mount Fuji from a Shibazakura garden. CC image courtesy: flickr.com [license]

Lavender Fields
Colour Purple| Season Summer | France

Lavender Fields, France. CC Image courtesy: flickr.com [license]

Come summer, when the Lavenders bloom in the fields of Provence, southeastern France, and you can do only one thing- just stand at the middle and get speechless and mesmerized at the beauty and vastness of the infinite view of the perfumed gardens. ..And maybe, when you are back to the senses, click a few photographs to capture this unforgettable view of the colour purple at its best. Rest assured that it would be a treat to all your senses.

Pamukkale
Colour White | Season Any | Turkey

Pamukkale, Turkey. CC image courtesy: flickr.com [license]

White – a colour without colours, a colour that symbolises purity and light- is the prime theme of our next landscape – Pamukkale in Denizli province of southwestern Turkey. The giant’s teeth like white terraces formed by white calcium and limestone, coupled with 17 hot springs means a rejuvenating experience to indulge in. The best time to visit is spring/ autumn as the summer is too hot and winter is too cold and snowy. So, get ready to take the plunge into a warm spring, let the sunshine sparkle on the white and be colourblind with the brilliant colourless colour.

Pamukkale, Turkey. CC image courtesy: flickr.com [license]

Aurora Borealis
Colour Green | Season Winter| Norway

Aurora Borealis. CC image courtesy: flickr.com [license]

Aurora Borealis or the northern lights as it is commonly known, is a supernatural phenomena witnessed in the land of midnight sun. When highly charged electrons from the solar wind get in touch with Earth’s magnetic field, they collide with the oxygen and nitrogen atoms of the atmosphere generating surreal lights mostly green accompanying with blue, red and purple. The lights can be best seen during winter from arctic and Antarctic. Apart from Norway, tourists also flock to Alaska, Northern Canada, Iceland and other Scandinavian countries to witness these enchanting lights.

Aurora Borealis. CC image courtesy: flickr.com [license]

Antelope Canyon
Colour Brown | Season Spring-Summer | United States of America

Antelope Canyon, USA. CC image courtesy: flick.com [license]

It’s hard to believe this geological wonder on hard brown rocks is a creation of water streams. The flow shaped walls of the Antelope canyon is primarily a result of thousands of years of flash floods that had been eroding the sandstones and sculpted such unique designs. What makes this space otherworldly is a enchanting beam of sunlight that peek through the upper opening of the canyon adding a heavenly touch to the curves and making it a true photographer’s delight . The radiating beam of light is though visible during April to September only. But the risk of flash flood, during the monsoon (July-September), cannot be ruled out.

Red Seabeach
Colour Red |Season Autumn| China

Now it’s time to get colourblind with red – intense, dark, crimson red at Panjin, China. Red sea beach, which derives the name from the red grass of Chenopodiaceae that grows in the Chinese wetland, is a complete treat to the eyes particularly for those who are passionate about the colour red. Located in the delta of Liaohe river, it’s also the world’s biggest wetland and a resting place for a number of species of migratory birds and a variety of wild animals. The green grass of this shallow sea turns red during autumn and envelopes the entire 25 km stretch with flaming red colour as if somebody had laid a royal red carpet to welcome you!

Panjin Red beach, China. CC image courtesy: flickr.com [license]

Salar de Uyuni
Colour Blue |Season Autumn (March-May) | Bolivia

Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia. CC image courtesy: flickr.com [license]

Also known as the world’s largest mirror, this flat salt bed with a whopping 10,500 sq. km setting, located at southwest Bolivia creates stunning reflections on it as if somebody has photoshopped the lanscape. Whenever there is a little rainfall, the bright white bed of salt turns into a gigantic mirror and starts reflecting the objects on it…And when you stand on the bright rocks, you can feel the blue sky all over – up and down beneath you. It’s a unique phenomenon on earth and the best place to see the colour blue in its all encompassing form.

Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia. CC image courtesy: flickr.com [license]

Fall Foliage
Colour Orange | Season Autumn | Canada/ North America

Color of fall.CC image courtesy: flickr.com [license]

It’s a magician called the season of autumn that colours the nature by painting all its trees and the entire setting turns into a blazing fair of vivid orange. It’s orange, orange and orange all the way, albeit with a lesser mix of red, yellow and purple. The autumn phenomenon of Fall Foliage can be seen in many places but the most flamboyant of all are best witnessed in the gorgeous rocky mountains and Québec (Canada), Glacier National Park, Yellow stone national park, Colorado and Vermont (USA) to name a few.

Color of fall.CC image courtesy: flickr.com [license]

Moonlit Sky
Colour Black | Season Any| All throughout the globe

Night sky. CC image courtesy: flickr.com [license]

If I had to name a new colour, it would have been the moonlit black. Yes it is our ageless sky which appears the same for rich and poor and offers the same view wherever you are on the planet. The night sky is black as hell but the heavenly sublime lights from the moon and the endless stars accentuate the beauty of the night sky into a view which is surreal, divine and simply out of the world, literally and metaphorically.

So, do you agree that sometimes it’s not that bad to get colourblind, at least fleetingly?

Cover photo is distributable under Creative Commons license

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An exclusive guest post by:Holidaylettings – TripAdvisor

So weird, so vivid, so Photoshopped? Some landscapes are just so dramatically shaped and coloured that you can’t believe they’re real. Holiday Lettings travels round the world’s most rainbow-bright places, from strawberry lakes to yellow tulip roads.

Zhangye Danxia Landform Geological Park, China

OK, it took some time to convince us that that this layer cake wasn’t an impressionistic painter’s masterpiece. It’s actually 6 million years’ worth of compressed rock and minerals spanning from colours of deep magenta to maroon and lemon. The impact is even more powerful during sunset when you can admire the shadows and rays of light across the formation. After rainfall, the rocks are like a blazing spectacle of kaleidoscopic colours.

You can hike some of the way around the park, or take a sightseeing car to the four viewing platforms. They’re around 8 km apart and you’ll need to allow about one hour to travel from one point to the other. The second viewing platform is the highest and the panorama is well worth the 666 steps.

Tulips fields, the Netherlands

The Netherlands have blossomed since the first tulip was planted in 1593. Every spring, red, pink, purple and orange flowers completely cover the area outside Amsterdam. The ‘roads’ of yellow blooms reputedly make it look just like a scene from the Wizard of Oz.

The best way to enjoy this landscape must be on an iconic bike ride. Routes through the picturesque fields lead you from the ancient town of Leiden to the gorgeous city of Haarlem. Visit the world-famous Keukenhof Gardens: its 7 million tulips, daffodils and hyacinths fill over 32 hectares and offer you plenty of opportunities to take your own still-life picture.

Namib-NauluftPark, Namibia

No, it’s not an art installation. It’s the Namib-NaukluftPark. The tinted orange hue is due to the morning sun touching a towering dune – it makes a spectacular backdrop for the hulking camel thorn trees.

Do stay overnight in the park if you can. You can venture into the stark and striking desert terrain and walk amongst the tallest sand dunes in the world in the cool of the morning. Later, witness the breathtaking sunset before spending a blissful evening stargazing.

Lake Retba, Senegal

Photo credit: Jeff Attaway (license) via Flickr.com

It looks like a strawberry milkshake spill or the aftermath of a fuchsia dye disaster. In fact, the water’s high salt content attracts algae (dunaliella salina), which has a pigment that turns the water red. The lake is a striking contrast with the golden sand dunes and bleached mountains of salt stacked up on the shore.

When you visit the lake, you can cruise the dunes, try salt harvesting or just float effortlessly on its surface. You can also go out on the water in a vibrantly decorated wooden canoe (pirogue) to see other boats bobbing around and quaint settlements on the water’s edge.

Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park

Photo credit: James St. John (license) via flickr.com

The spring’s multi-hued waters make it the ultimate real-life watercolour with a centre that fades from deep to light blue. Green algae grows along the shallow edge, and a bold strip of yellow deepens to orange around the outside before meeting a rusty red border. As the steam emerges from the water, it turns blue and green. Don’t be tempted to get in though: the spring’s water is too hot to sustain life.

Still fancy a dip of fire and ice? Try a natural hot tub in the Park’s Boiling River. Here a large, hot spring enters the Gardner River, mixing hot and cool waters so that it’s a comfortable temperature to bathe in. Soothe yourself into the warm water and soak up the natural beauty of your surroundings.

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