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 [...]
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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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
Burma regains a place in the sun
Burma is the latest destination to be (re)discovered by the western world, basking in the warmth of a new-found approval by the PC brigade.
Young woman, Burma
The last time reporter Zoe Daniel from the Australian current affairs program Foreign Correspondent visited Aung San Suu Kyi, she had to sneak into the country under the guise of a tour [...]
Negotiating the labyrinth – a v...
I’m heading back to India soon, an opportunity too good to miss. But first, the formalities…
Indian border security conjures up images of khaki-clad troops and paramilitary police, propped on folding chairs outside semi-permanent tent camps, flipping idly through passports or fingering their cumbersome rifles. Flies buzz, gaunt ca [...]
In Search of Sisi
Young, pretty and adored by all, she married her handsome prince far too soon. The princess was soon estranged from a much older husband and sought every opportunity to slip away from the stifling formality of the court.
No, not Diana, but the life and times of another European princess a century earlier were equally romantic – and tragic.
I [...]
To the Manor Born at Hartington Hall
Our latest home exchange in Britain was drawing to a close. By now we had explored much of the Midlands from our base in the ‘Black Country’ between Birmingham and the Welsh borders, so it was time to venture further afield – except that this would prove to be the wettest April recorded in England for a hundred years.
Hartin [...]
Desert dreams, discoveries and dallia...
This is less about places I’ve been than places I may never reach – but we all need to dream, sometimes. The Egyptian deserts forming the backdrop for the movie The English Patient (okay, they made the movie in Tunisia) are as inhospitable and as fascinating as anywhere in the Sahara or the Arabian deserts.
The Great Sand Sea in Egypt’ [...]
Is it safe to go to Egypt?
Honest, officer, I’m a big boy now. I can do it all by myself… but the Tourist Police officer seemed less certain, as he walked me to the public toilet in Cairo’s bustling Khan el-Khalili quarter and positioned himself outside the cubicle.
Khan el Khalili quarter, Cairo
Foreign governments urge us to ‘reconsider your need’ to visit E [...]
Home exchanging allows you to live li...
Living rent-free in London… too good to be true?
“Yes, I would be interested in an exchange… our two-bedroom apartment is less than a mile east of Tower Bridge. The Tube station is opposite – one change gets you into central London within half an hour…”
The novelty of driving in snow…
Jack, a retired motor company executive, meant busin [...]
Wonders of the Universe: Shaivites Ru...
One night recently I sat down in front of the box to watch an eager and boyish British scientist explain the origins of the universe in just four episodes. I confess I was mainly watching because I had caught a glimpse in the trailers of Pashupatinath, the great Hindu pilgrimage and cremation site, outside Kathmandu, where I had recently spen [...]
Bloggers and bludgers
Kamchatka and the Kurile Islands in the Russian Far East are amongst the most amazing places I’ve been. Read all about my journey there, with the readers of The Star in Kuala Lumpur; and here (since removed) and here again.
Annihilate, annihilate...
Hold it right there! Quoting selectively for the purposes of review is an accepted pract [...]
Merhaba! Images from Turkey
A selection of my Images from Turkey in May/June 2011 – with more to follow. Plenty of story material to hand!
Aya Sofya, the Hagia Sofia of the Byzantine emperors
With only hazy memories of Turkey in the Seventies, a waystation on the overland road to Kathmandu, Turkey this (northern) summer came as a revelation for me. Long, balmy nig [...]
So you STILL want to be a travel writ...
For better or for worse, the world has changed hugely since 1972, when Lonely Planet founders Tony and Maureen Wheeler waded ashore on an Australian beach and kicked off their stellar career as guidebook writers and publishers.
I’m currently enjoying the humorous memoir Turkey: Bright Sun, Strong Tea of former US Peace Corps volunteer T [...]
