Carlo Sarion Profile

My enthusiasm for UNESCO World Heritage Sites is rooted in my love for travel, geography, cultures, and conservation. I am originally from the Philippines but now live in New Zealand. I trained as a biologist, dabbled in human resources, and now works in policy.

https://www.instagram.com/carlo.sarion/

Visited Sites Carlo Sarion

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Legend

  • Cultural
  • Natural
  • Mixed

Recent Reviews Carlo Sarion


Uxmal

Carlo Sarion Philippines | New Zealand - 06-Jan-25

Uxmal

I visited this site in January 2025, my first for the new year. I had initially planned to check out Labna, Sayil, and Kabah as well, but after all the holiday travel, I decided to focus on Uxmal and make it a laid-back day trip from Merida. 

Touring the site

I arrived at the site well after lunch and spent about three hours exploring. The weather was perfect, and the crowd was much smaller than I remembered from my visit to Chichen Itza two years ago. This was consistent with what I had read in various blogs about Uxmal, though I had anticipated a more crowded experience, especially considering it was peak holiday season. The main structure in this site, many of which depict the rain god Chaac, are as follows: 

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Sítio Roberto Burle Marx

Carlo Sarion Philippines | New Zealand - 12-Nov-24

Sítio Roberto Burle Marx

We visited Sitio Roberto Burle Marx in Sep 2022, when Rio was experiencing several days of torrential rain. I had to cancel our first two attempts to visit due to the weather, but the rain hadn't stopped even on the day we finally went. Although this review is two years overdue, I thought I'd document my experience visiting the site and share some thoughts about Burle Marx, whom people have both criticised and revered.

Getting started

We took an Uber from our accommodation in Ipanema to the site, and the trip took a bit longer than the usual hour-long journey. As previous reviews have emphasised, it’s essential to book ahead since the guided tours have limited capacity. We checked in at the gate and waited at the administration building

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Red Fort

Carlo Sarion Philippines | New Zealand - 19-May-24

Red Fort

Three reviews out of 400 visitors, with the last review written more than a decade ago… Surely, the Red Fort Complex deserves better, given how important and popular this site is (emphasis on the word ‘popular’). Although I visited the site both in Dec 2013 and Dec 2023, this review is based mostly on my second visit.

Inside the Red Fort

Shah Jahan, the Mughal Empire’s 5th emperor, founded Red Fort (aka Lal Qila) to serve as his fancy residential palace-fort, only to be later imprisoned by his son Aurangzeb in Agra Fort. The fort later became a British military garrison and is now a crowded tourist site with museums that hold art exhibitions such as the India Biennale, which was quite enjoyable and ate up half of the time we were there.

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Jantar Mantar

Carlo Sarion Philippines | New Zealand - 15-May-24

Jantar Mantar

Jantar Mantar in Jaipur is an 18th-century observatory built to study the sky with the naked eye (yep, no telescopes). It's a small, accessible, and quite straightforward site to visit, and you get to tick both this site and Jaipur in one go. I visited Jantar Mantar twice (Dec 2013 and Dec 2023) and spent no more than an hour on both visits.

1. A UNESCO site within a UNESCO site

I used to share the opinion that Jantar Mantar as a separate site from Jaipur seemed confusing. I mean, it is well within Jaipur City’s core zone and is an integral part of the city palace’s compound. However, Jantar Mantar as a separate site has its own merits, and as I see it, India intended it that way. Its OUV rests on being an excellent example of an 18th-century architectural ensemble of scientific and technical instruments. It is also a testament to the monarch's (Jai Singh II) patronage of astronomy and cosmology, and sort of a reflection of the rich artistic and scientific culture at the time

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Qutb Minar

Carlo Sarion Philippines | New Zealand - 13-May-24

Qutb Minar

This complex of mosques, tombs, towers, and other structures was the first site we visited on my “revenge” trip to India in Dec 2023, having missed this back in Dec 2013. The site is located in the Mehrauli neighbourhood in southern Delhi and is adjacent to the Mehrauli Archaeological Park. This site is a pretty solid testament to early Islamic art in India and it deserves to be a part of everyone’s itinerary in Delhi.

We went mid-morning, hoping that the smog would be gone by that time. The ticket booth, shops, food stalls, and toilets are located across the site’s main entrance. We paid INR 500 for the entrance ticket (as foreign travellers) and went straight in to avoid the influx of visitors, which were mostly students. We visited all the main structures within the complex

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Profile Data

Name
Carlo Sarion
Country
Philippines | New Zealand
Ranking
406
Most Impressive
Quite a few: Namib Sand Sea, Cappadocia, Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras, Ancient Thebes, Memphis and its Necropolis – the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur, and Te Wahipounamu – South West New Zealand, Machu Picchu, Iguazu Falls

Recently Visited WHS

Update 04.01.25

1 Countries Complete

Singapore .

Rating Stats
Angkor 5
Bagan 5
Iguacu 5
Borobudur 4.5
Cuzco 4.5
Arequipa 3.5
Hoi An 3.5
Ping Yao 3.5
Prambanan 3.5
Sigiriya 3.5
Sukhothai 3.5
Trang An 3.5
Vigan 3.5
Yazd 3.5
Bolgar 3
Kandy 3
Lima 3
Nikko 3
Puebla 3
Ahmadabad 2.5
Hué 2.5
Meknes 2.5
My Son 2.5
Rabat 2.5
Sviyazhsk 2.5
Tequila 2.5
Chavin 2
Macao 1.5
  1. Archaeological site of Laodikeia (T)
  2. Auckland Volcanic Fields (T)
  3. Bahá'í House of Worship at New Delhi (T)
  4. Brazilian Fortresses Ensemble (T)
  5. Central Park (T)
  6. Chapultepec Woods, Hill and Castle (T)
  7. Chocolate Hills Natural Monument (T)
  8. City Walls of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (T)
  9. Civil Rights Movement Sites (T)
  10. Colonial Urban Plan and Fortifications of the Walled City of Manila (T)
  11. Corregidor Island and Historic Fortifications of Manila Bay (T)
  12. Delhi - A Heritage City (T)
  13. Desert National Park (T)
  14. Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo's Home-Study Museum (T)
  15. Egyptian Museum in Cairo (T)
  16. El Nido-Taytay Managed Resource Protected Area (T)
  17. Ellis Island (T)
  18. Etosha Pan (T)
  19. Former M-13 prison/ Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (former S-21)/ Choeung Ek Genocidal Centre (former Execution Site of S-21) (T)
  20. Great Sandy World Heritage Area (T)
  21. Hikone-Jo (castle) (T)
  22. Inle Lake (T)
  23. Jame' (Congregational) Mosque of Esfahan (T)
  24. Kahurangi National Park, Farewell Spit and Canaan karst system (T)
  25. Monuments, Sites and Cultural Landscape of Chiang Mai, Capital of Lanna (T)
  26. Mount Vernon (T)
  27. Mt. Pulag National Park (T)
  28. Napier Art Deco historic precinct (T)
  29. Nasqsh-e Rostam and Naqsh-e Rajab (T)
  30. Palais de la Culture, ancien siège du Ministere de l'Education et de la Santé, Rio de Janeiro (T)
  31. Persepolis and other relevant buildings (T)
  32. Rural Temples of Cusco (T)
  33. Salt Mines of Maras (T)
  34. Shwedagon Pagoda on Singuttara Hill (T)
  35. Sigatoka Sand Dunes (T)
  36. Sites along the Uttarapath, Badshahi Sadak, Sadak-e-Azam, Grand Trunk Road (T)
  37. Sites of Saytagrah (T)
  38. Sun Temple, Modhera and its adjoining monuments (T)
  39. That Luang de Vientiane (T)
  40. The Lijiang River Scenic Zone at Guilin (T)
  41. The Padang Civic Ensemble (T)
  42. Vali-e Asr Street (T)
  43. Waitangi Treaty Grounds (T)
  44. Waters and seabed of Fiordland (Te Moana O Atawhenua) (T)