Over the years I’ve returned sporadically to places like Penang, Chiang Mai and Kathmandu, those watering holes where I and so many others ‘chilled out’ (in today’s parlance) along the great Asian overland route in the 1970s. Once or twice I have sought out those same fabled flophouses, the seedy Chinese hotels and the [...]
Tell Them to Get Lost: Back on the Ba...
Over the years I’ve returned sporadically to places like Penang, Chiang Mai and Kathmandu, those watering holes where I and so many others ‘chilled out’ (in today’s parlance) along the great Asian overland route in the 1970s. Once or twice I have sought out those same fabled flophouses, the seedy Chinese hotels and the [...]
Japan: Still Sometimes Lost in Transl...
These beds were relatively comfortableFive in the morning, still dark beyond the rice-paper windows, but I’m awake, snug under my futon (quilt). Need to get up and leave the room, but must try not to wake my companion: sleep doesn’t come easily to middle-aged Anglo-Saxon limbs when forced to do without mattresses.
As in most ryokan, tra [...]
Run a Half Marathon in Port Douglas: ...
Training run in Samoa. Image Cam Cope Photography camcope.com
A blank look and extended silence is all I got when I told my Mum I was going to run a Half Marathon. The Solar Eclipse Half Marathon in Port Douglas no less. She didn’t get it. And quite probably thought it was just one more half-baked idea from a middle child who’s m [...]
Travel Writer: ‘That’s my...
OK, so there are some perks to travel writing – champagne being one of them
Travel Writers. You’d think we had it all, wouldn’t you? Travelling professionally, it’s all in a days work dropping into obscure landscapes before sunrise, disappearing over the horizon before the sun sets, whizzing through throbbing cities, s [...]
Image Gallery: Samoa, Savaii Island
Coconut Man at Taga Blowholes Savaii Island Samoa
Fiona Harper travel writer/photographer explored the Samoan island of Savaii. Check out her stunning images in this gallery
Fiona Harper travel writer/photographer
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The Way of Tea in Japan
Tea ceremony, Kanazawa Japan
Tea is not to be trifled with. Indeed when you’re the tenth generation entrusted with creating pots for ritualistic tea ceremony, tea is life. Master potter Chozaemon Toshiro, known simply as Tenth Generation, and awarded a Person of Cultural Merit award from the Emperor, has serious clay credentials. With lineage [...]
Taiwan: Lanterns & Dumplings
Taiwan Lantern Festival in the Year of the Dragon
Tantalising steaming broth shoots onto my fingers as my chopsticks pierce a delicate, perfectly formed dumpling. Catching the juicy flavours of pork, shrimp, ginger, garlic in my spoon which also contains soy sauce, vinegar, slivers of ginger and slices of chilli, it’s an enticing combination [...]
Image Gallery: Hiking with Polar Bear...
Fiona Harper travel writer/photographer joined Churchill Wild’s Arctic Safari to hike the tundra with polar bears at a time when they’re in a sort of walking hibernation, waiting for Hudson Bay to freeze over.
Polar bear and Seal River Lodge
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Flavour Trail of Prince Edward Island
Pot of steaming clams and crabs
The chilly North Atlantic Ocean worms its way through the gaps between skin and wetsuit. I’m chest deep in water that can’t be much above 12 degrees Celsius. I can feel liquid ice oozing down my neck as I duck my head beneath the surface.” At least the harbour is free of icebergs,” laughs Captain Perry Gotell w [...]
View from the Village
PNG villager in traditioal dress
Sylvester is looking for a wife. Sort of. Chatting in his Grandmothers kitchen, as other family members lurk inquisitively in the shadows, he tells me he’s single. I get the impression he’s pretty happy about it. Tradition, however, dictates that he find a wife to bear his children who will in turn care for t [...]
Revisiting The World’s Most Liv...
Lately I seem to have become a tourist here in my own town… yes, the one which styles itself The World’s Most Liveable City (even if recent events have sorely tested that smug assertion).
Having the company of two young Japanese house guests, one after the other, has taken us out and about to see the local sights through fresh eye [...]
Art of Arnhem Land
Morning Star Pole Dancer, Elcho Island Northern Territory Aust
Fiona Harper travel writer/photographer cruised remote Arnhem Land in Australia’s Northern Territory with Orion Expeditions on an Art of Arnhem Land tour. Voyaging between Darwin and Thursday Island, she visited Tiwi Islands, Maningrida, Elcho Island, Wessel Islands a [...]
Sir John Soane: The Art and Mind of a...
Fine idiosyncrasies
Sir John Soane was one of Britain’s most famous architects; he was also an art lover and collector who created one of the most eclectic and personal museums in the world.
Located in central London, a short stroll from many other London treasures such as Covent Garden, the British Museum, and the West End, Sir John Soane’s [...]
Indigenous tours share Mossman Gorge ...
Indigenous performer Robbie on Dreamtime Walk
The official opening in September of the swanky new $20 million Mossman Gorge Centre eco-tourism business north of Cairns has turned a 20 year dream into reality for the Mossman Indigenous community of the Kuku Yalangi people.
Indigenous Land Corporation Chairperson Dr Dawn Casey said construction [...]
Chasing the Dalai Lama
Most of India swelters in July-August, but there’s no better time to make tracks for India’s ‘Little Tibet’. The Dalai Lama thought so, too.
Flying over Nun and Kun in the Hindu Kush, en route to Ladakh
The fabled land of Ladakh, a geographic and cultural outlier of Tibet, fits somewhat uneasily within the State of Jammu & Kashmir. [...]
