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 [...]
Posts in category Travel Lessons
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
A Canadian First Nations Sense of Pla...
A First Nations sense of place
It has often been said that Canadian literature, especially the novel, is distinguished by “a sense of place” which reflects in a very distinct way the historical and geographical realities of this nation.
In part, this is the result of Canada being a vast land of “regions” that are clearly demarcated by formid [...]
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 [...]
Travel less, connect more
“I’ve been to something like 98 countries”, said the seasoned traveller, dusting off a well-worn passport.
“OK, so, who’s the most memorable person you met in your travels?
“Met? What do you mean, ‘met’? I didn’t actually meet anyone!”
If this mini-dialogue makes you squirm uncomfortably, then congratulations! You’ve just joined the ranks of [...]
Top Eleven Travel Blogs
Everywhere on the Internet you’ll find listings of “Top Ten Travel Blogs”. But hey – we’ve gone one step better! Here are our Top Eleven Travel Blogs. The quality is so even that we’ve listed them alphabetically rather than giving a 1 to 11 rating; but they all share one thing in common – that is, EXC [...]
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 [...]
The Spatial Sense and Sensibility of ...
Architectural travel and playfulness
At The Westin Resort & Spa in Cancun, you are never entirely sure whether you are inside or outside; and this is the fundamental enigma and challenge that award-winning Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta has not only conceptualized but internalized in this very human-friendly space.
It is a place in [...]
From onlooker to change-maker
Travel writing is dead. So say many. Ralph Waldo Emerson went so far as to say: “Travel is a fool’s paradise.” Or as Foreign Policy magazine writer Graeme Wood puts it, “travel is a sickness that afflicts those who don’t realize that wisdom is inward. Instead of broadening the mind, travel narrows it.”
(Ma [...]
Antisocial media?
Much is said about the rise of Social Media. Never before in history have so many people written (or blogged or twittered or in-your-facebooked) so much about so little. But how much has this detracted from real communication with your next-door neighbour, or the person sitting opposite you on the train?
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From the Killing Fields to a Future: ...
At the age of 14, Ponheary Ly died and came back to life. At least, that’s how she describes it. The year was 1977, and the Khmer Rouge was on its deadly rampage in Cambodia. After seeing her father killed, along with 13 other family members, Ly was on the run and in hiding when some soldiers accused her of stealing food. They marched her dee [...]
