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 tagged travel writer
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Coconut Odyssey – AustraliaR...
At Thala Beach Lodge near Port Douglas on the north east coast of Australia, where the Coral Sea meets dense forest and foliage-covered mountains, you can learn all about the humble coconut .
The ‘Coconut Odyssey’tour is the only one of its kind in Australia. It’s led by passionate coconut advocate Carl Johanson, who was once listed as one o [...]
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 [...]
