Civet is an animal whose anal secretions are used in perfumes. Why would anyone do that, you ask? Well, the initially pungent and repulsive smell, when used in small amounts, has a warm floral character when used in smaller amounts. If you don’t believe that something like this can smell nice, you should know that Chanel, Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Givenchy have all used this note in popular perfumes like Coco, Chanel No.5, Diorissimo, Kouros, Gentleman, and more.

Mount Sinai is the mountain that Moses climbed to receive the 10 commandments. Located in the Sinai Peninsula, this mountain is sacred in both Christian and Islamic religions. It is an important pilgrimage site and stands at 2,285 meters ( 7,497 feet) high. It is here you’ll find the UNESCO World Heritage Listed Saint Catherine Monastery that we mentioned above. 

King Tut is probably the most famous of all the ancient Egyptians, but very little was known about the boy king who died at the young age of 19 until British archaeologist Howard Carter found the tomb in 1922. King Tuts Tomb is the smallest of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings but it was filled with great wealth.

It was believed that Hieroglyphs on the wall of King Tut’s tomb had the curse of death. I’m glad I didn’t know about this curse before entering King Tut’s tomb during our visit or I may not have entered this unassuming tomb.

Did you know that the longest river in the world is located in Egypt? The Nile River cuts through Egypt and about 95 percent of the population of Egypt resides along the Nile River. With much of the country being occupied by desert, this fact about Egypt isn’t all that surprising. 90 percent of Egypt is made up of desert and the River Nile divides that desert.

The ancient Egyptians divided Egypt into two lands, the desert, and the Nile Valley. Contrary to what you would think, upper Egypt is located in the South and Lower Egypt is north. That is because the Nile flows north towards the Mediterranean Sea.

This is one of the more unusual facts about Myanmar that you’ll notice quite often when you're visiting and traveling in the country. People, especially women, tend to carry things on their heads rather than using their hands. Foreigners are shocked at first and automatically think back to the travel shows on Africa. But, carrying things on the head is quite popular and is a more convenient method of transport. You can expect to see vendors carrying food on a large metal plate or even a basket full of the weekly shopping on their heads.

When writing about the braille code, the name should be lowercase, according to the Braille Authority of North America. When referring to the proper name of Louis Braille, capitalize it. 

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) mandates that all ATMs must be accessible to people with visual impairments, and drive-through ATMs aren’t exempt. This mandate ensures that blind passengers traveling in the back seat of cars or taxis can reach the ATM and independently make a transaction without assistance from the driver.

Each night more stars and constellations begin to appear in the eastern part of the sky at dusk before moving across and disappearing over the western horizon by dawn. Likewise, those constellations which we had been able to see low near the western horizon after sunset will vanish from our view only to be replaced by constellations that had been higher in the sky at sunset just a few weeks earlier. The constellations which appear in the east have a daily shift rate close to one degree per day, as completing a 360 degrees circular journey around the Sun in 365 days produces roughly that rate. One full year later, the stars subsequently return to the same position and rising time as the year before.

Meat-inspired perfumes are more common than you might guess. While definitely not gourmands, these scents are still weirdly food-like. Que Cologne from Pork Barrel BBQ is described by the brand as a mix of smoke, meat, spices, and "sweet summer sweat", and there is a perfume called Bacon Classic that smells exactly like fried and salty pig mixed with cedar, orange, and pepper.
Wild, right?

So many popular perfumes contain musk, but the origins of this scent will shock you. Musk is a reddish-brown secretion from the "musk pod" of the male musk deer. It is such a popular ingredient that it is even mentioned in Kabir’s poems. However, since its popularity encouraged the hunting of this endangered deer, its scent is now replicated synthetically.

You probably don’t know this, but the calendar that we use today was invented by ancient Egyptians. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the first calendar known to humankind was invented in Egypt. In fact, it is the year 6264 in the Egyptian calendar.

The ancient Egyptians used the 12-month calendar like we do today. However, each month was always 30 days which meant that their years were only 360 days in total causing the years to fall out of sync with the seasons. So to make up for the lost time, they held a 5-day festival at the end of each year.

We actually have a lot in common with the ancient Egyptians and one of the more fun facts about ancient Egyptians is that they too loved board games. It wasn’t just the wealthy that played board games either, even the commoners enjoyed a good board game.

The most popular board games were Senet and Mehen. Senet was a game that involved throwing sticks and was so popular that even Pharaohs were buried with the game to keep them occupied in the afterlife. These board games date back 5000 years. What is your favorite board game?

 

The country is home to more than 135 different ethnicities. If you look into the geographical facts of Myanmar, you can see that several groups live in different regions. Each has its own culture and traditions. You can find some with a special one-legged rowing technique at Inle Lake and others wear heavy rings to stretch their necks. The main ethnic group, the Bamar, makes up about 70% of the population.

Myanmar is a cultural melting pot of ethnicities. This can make it perfect for a cultural travel experience and gives you the chance to meet and interact with lots of different people.

This Amazing Facts About Hindi feature distinguishes it from other languages. When Hindi is written, it is pronounced precisely. This signifies that there are no silent letters in Hindi.

The large pagoda in Yangon is iconic of Myanmar and attracts pilgrims from around the country. Tourists marvel at this giant, gold plated complex in the centre of the former capital. When you visit, you can understand why it’s so valuable. More than 60 tonnes of gold cover the exterior of the pagoda. And if you look up at the top of the main stupa that extends up into the sky, you’ll see a giant diamond sat inside the hti. This is a real 75 carat (or 15 gram), practically flawless diamond on top of the pagoda. And not to mention the thousands of others that decorate the statues and pavilions.

There’s a special version of braille just for mathematics called the Nemeth Code. It was invented by Dr. Abraham Nemeth and can be used to transcribe math, algebra, and calculus.

An asterism is a pattern of stars that are widely recognized and contained within an official constellation but is not counted as a true constellation in itself. The Big Dipper, for instance, is a famous asterism but the seven stars in this arrangement of stars represent less than half of the whole constellation known as Ursa Major. Another famous asterism is the three stars in a row that form Orion’s belt.

The biggest constellation is Hydra which extends over more than 3% of the night sky, while the smallest is Crux covering a mere 0.165%. Centaurus contains the largest number of visible stars at 101; while Canis Major contains the brightest star in the celestial heavens, namely Sirius, which has an apparent magnitude of -1.46 and means ‘glowing’ in Ancient Greek. Mensa, on the other hand, is the faintest constellation in the night sky as its brightest star has a visual magnitude of just 5.09.

The leathery smell in Chanel’s Cuir de Russie comes from an ingredient originally derived from the abdomen of beavers. Called Castoreum, there’s a fruit-scented extract that is taken from the abdominal glands of beavers and used in perfumes. It is supposed to smell sweet, warm, and animalic. However, since the animal has to be killed to remove the sac which contains this “castor”, perfumes that contain this scent use synthetic recreations of the note.

When perfumer David Holtz spoke to the Cut about making a genuine lily fragrance, he talked about how his initial scent smelled like soap—flat and flowery—far from the actual smell of fresh lilies. That’s when he realized that live lily flowers have a note which smells like “ham or baloney.” Then he took notes of clove, which has the component eugenol which gives it a smoky character and added them in. That’s how he got his lily scent, proving that animalic notes are necessary to add depth to generic florals.

Travelers know the confusion when arriving in a country that’s in a different time zone. You tend to either gain or lose a few hours. Myanmar is a little different. Rather than adjusting their clock to correspond with the gain or loss of a whole hour, like most countries, they do it with 30-minute intervals. The official time zone is GMT +6.30. Very few countries in the world do it in this way making Myanmar somewhat unique.