Nikon Studio

Professional travel connoisseur and explorer who specializes in commercial editorial and occasionally, exclusive travel companions for UHNWIs - 265 Cities and Counting

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Just look at the richness of this place! It looks so different compared to the harbor itself! Enjoy the eye candies as I take you deeper into the central part of the city!

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Montevideo offers excellent guided walking tours that showcase its history, architecture, and vibrant culture. Most tours last about 3 hours and cover highlights like Mercado del Puerto, Plaza Zabala, Teatro Solís, and the scenic Rambla along the Río de la Plata.

Here, I have Oscar guiding us along that day.

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First glimpse of Montevideo, including a watery graveyard of ships while approaching the harbour!

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As the first 15 days draw to a close on sea, it takes both determination and discipline to approach each meal! Simplicity becomes key to enjoying your food onboard.

Montevideo was our next port of call! To my surprise, Uruguay is classified as a high-income economy by the World Bank, with GDP per capita among the highest in Latin America.

Montevideo exemplifies Uruguay’s reputation as the “Switzerland of South America”: stable, progressive, and prosperous, yet modest compared to global wealth centers. While Uruguay is not the richest country in South America, it consistently ranks near the top in income, equality, and human development, making Montevideo a model of urban resilience and livability in the region.

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Interrupting my Mémoire of South America to post what was in Pontianak Indonesia while on a photo walk there.

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Last set of scenes from Salvador, Bahia. The security was tight as it could be as Military polices secured the entire harbor.

Just like the Favela, houses here on the hill are packed densely together as the poor struggles with their daily livelihood here.

Rio de Janeiro next!

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The rest of Salvador speaks for itself...the price of pretty much everything here is not cheap cheap. The disparity is huge, somewhat like India. Apart from some agriculture produce like Cocoa, she seems to survive on tourism dollars as well.

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Capoeira, the Afro‑Brazilian martial art that blends fight, dance, music, and ritual. In Salvador, Bahia — the birthplace of capoeira — it’s common to see groups of kids and adults gather in a circle (roda) with live drumming and singing, performing acrobatic kicks, sweeps, and playful movements.

Developed by enslaved Africans in Brazil as a way to train for combat while hiding it as cultural performance. In Salvador, many NGOs and cultural schools teach capoeira to kids as a way to preserve Afro‑Brazilian heritage and promote discipline, respect, and identity.

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There's so much to see and explore here at Salvador Bahia! The more I walk, the more I soak it in...

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The Lacerda Elevator in Salvador is a short but iconic ride that links the Lower City (Cidade Baixa) with the Upper City (Cidade Alta), offering panoramic views over All Saints Bay; it’s free (for now), quick (about 30 seconds), and doubles as both daily commuter transport and a tourist attraction.

The area around Salvador’s Lacerda Elevator is one of the city’s most vibrant crossroads — the lower terminus sits by the Mercado Modelo craft market and waterfront, while the upper terminus opens onto Praça Tomé de Souza, surrounded by colonial architecture, museums, and the gateway to Pelourinho.

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Salvador is Brazil’s vibrant Afro‑Brazilian capital in Bahia — a 16th‑century port city famed for its colonial Pelourinho, Afro‑Brazilian culture, music and cuisine, and a UNESCO‑listed historic centre that blends beaches, baroque churches, and lively street festivals.

She arrives like a drumbeat — loud, warm, and impossible to ignore. It’s a city where colonial facades wear bright paint like festival costumes, where music spills from doorways and the scent of dendê oil and roasted coconut follows you down cobbled streets. For a traveler or a writer, Salvador is less a place to tick off and more a place to be absorbed by: its history, its people, and the way the past and present converse in every plaza and market.

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Just when we thought that the two days' delay from leaving Lisbon was bad enough, we had another medical emergency while enroute to the Tenerife Island, meaning we had no choice but to skip that port too.

I guess it's almost inevitable that the boat was packed with mainly retirees, only whom who can spare the long absence from a work desk. I was kinda looking forward to seeing the Canary Islands for a change though.

The Broadway Cabaret will have to do for now...

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The slightly more complicated issue bears a little reminder - that multiple train routes exist from Sintra outbound. One slight misread will get you on an entirely opposite direction, though passing through identical train stops!

By the time we arrived at Timeout Market, we were so pressed for time that we could only squeeze a purchase of Portugal's finest egg tarts there before heading back to the ship.

Talk about the golden hour along the harbor that day...boy!

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At a stone's throw away lies Quinta da Regaleira, a mystical estate built between 1904–1910, famous for its Gothic‑style palace, lush gardens, underground tunnels, and the iconic “Initiation Wells” used for symbolic rituals.

Prior to the late 90s, the castle was occupied by a wealthy Brazilian‑Portuguese businessman who commissioned the estate. Today, it's owned by the Sintra Town Council, operated as a public heritage site and museum, open to the public.

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With each step comes the sense of appreciation of the beauty of Sintra, fusing rural crudeness with that hint of modern flare. Being a walking tour, opted out of paying National Palace of Pena a detour visit.

The National Palace of Sintra was swamped just like my last visit here, with tourists eager to soak in the morning sun.

[nikonstudio]

Located just outside the city limit of Lisbon lies a beautiful site called Sintra. The most famous palace in Sintra is the National Palace of Sintra (Palácio Nacional de Sintra), a UNESCO World Heritage Site known for its iconic twin chimneys, Moorish origins, and centuries of royal history. It is Portugal’s oldest palace, blending medieval, Gothic, Manueline, and Renaissance styles, and served as a royal residence for nearly 1,000 years.

Leading towards it lies an extremely picturesque walking promenade that is littered with vendors selling antiques, vinyl records and interesting ornaments. The weather that day was perfect, with the site is easily accessible by train from Rossio.

[nikonstudio]

New Addition to the Family - Triban GRVL 120 Gravel Bicycle

To cover the remaining unreached crevasses of the Singapore island and beyond, a new tool is required that neither my Felt Time Trial nor my Giant Escape bicycle can go - Gravel.

We are talking about trail networks found in Ubin Island, Batam Island, Johor, Chestnut Nature Park, Lorong Halus Red Sands, Bahtera Track etc. Capturing these locations with my camera would be one new initiative of mine this year.

The lockable clutch system (preventing chain slaps) is a welcome on this model, among other surprising feature like tubeless-ready "38" tires, carbon fork, front pannier mounts, and even a conventional seat stem that allows me to incorporate a Red Shift suspension stem!

For USD350, its a steal for a crummy 2026. With all my trips to Europe cancelled, I have nowhere else to go except for my later journey to Los Angeles and Tokyo for the second half of the year.

Let's go!

UPDATE (2 April) - Just completed two rides, with the first 45km resulting in me replacing the handle stem to a shorter 35mm variant and her pedal to my trusty LOOK pedal. The second 25km final ride got me to readjust the seat stem 3cm lower and I am all set to begin proper travel with this bicycle now.