The Kurdish new year, Newroz, is a spectacle to behold. Celebrants in Akre ascend the mountain that overlooks the town, amid music and dancing. Come sundown, fire torches are lit, zigzagging their way in lines down the paths. Its meaning is clear: light over darkness.

Tea plantations or “gardens” are a major employer in Sylhet region. Employees live on the sprawling estates rent-free, indentured to small wages and the land. There is of course a photographic beauty in all of this, some of which I captured.

The brickfields of Narangaraj, just outside Dhaka, operate in the dry season. Silt is dredged from the river to make bricks, shaped and carried by hand to the enormous kilns. More than a place of work, entire communities live here.

There’s a Romania beyond that which we read about. Here in the bucolic rural region of Maramureş, life continues as it has for centuries. But it is at risk: the older generation is fading, and the young have moved away to the cities and overseas.

Beyond the glitzy malls and aquaria lies a different Dubai. Deira is a bustling port area, full of local life, immigrant workers from South Asia and a sense of authenticity that is hard to find elsewhere in this modern, redeveloped city.

Kochi, or Cochin, is one of the biggest cities in southern India - yet next to the water is the charming and relaxed Fort Kochi. Families play in the rough waves of the Arabian Sea, street vendors ply their wares and there’s a feeling of peace.