Sydney Cove, Pendle Hill, Footscray House, Boomerang Snack Bar… reminders of a far country, indeed its most mundane corners, often materialise on an unlikely Mediterranean island. 

Malta’s post-War migrants made good in the Antipodes, and they and their children often return to a mother country now firmly aligned with Europe.  For us and them, Malta remains an enjoyable destination blending aspects of North Africa, Sicily and even England.  European holidaymakers flock here for the sunshine, but the rest of us savour fine food with an Italian touch, and other legacies of a long and tortuous history.  Indeed, for the capital of a small island nation, Valletta boasts a cultural and architectural legacy as compelling as those of many better-known European destinations.  Images

by Graham Simmons

   There’s an unusually large amount of gold in Kanazawa. From golden chariots to the world’s first gold-leaf plated house, the precious metal seems to be everywhere. It’s even used as a food garnish. Maybe this gold-fetish is due to the city’s having two rivers – one male and one female; and how can there be a marriage without gold? See image preview: http://www.photographersdirect.com/simmons/search.asp?lb=9563

by Thomas E King

Tree-lined streets named after French governors, police officers wearing red caps like their continental counterparts, stained glass churches where hymns are sung on Sundays and villas which appear as if they were transported directly from Paris are only a few of the many reminders of the nearly three centuries of French rule  over four small territories in India.

Fronting the Bay of Bengal in southeast India, Pondicherry is the best known and most tourist-ready of these.  However, Yanam, Karaikal and tiny Mahe – also in southern India – also welcome visitors interested in seeing yet another aspect of multicultural India.

An illustrated feature on French India can be written on assignment from 1000 to 2000 words, depending upon editorial requirements.   

by Graham Simmons

A trip from Japan’s manufacturing hub Nagoya northwest to the Hida district is not just a trip through some of the country’s most picturesque scenery. It’s also a trip back through time, to a somehow still-existing era when/where life proceeds at a slower and gentler pace.

In Hida no Sato village, 91 year-old Suezo Yamaguti demonstrates the ancient craft of shingle-making. He painstakingly shaves a hardwood slab using a hand-adze, using precise and steady strokes as befits a master craftsman.  The 22^nd Century may have already arrived in Tokyo, but in this part of Japan, the old ways of doing things linger on.. See image preview: http://www.photographersdirect.com/simmons/search.asp?lb=9564

by Graham Simmons

After 200 years of official repression, the Ainu people of Hokkaido in Japan are at last within reach of achieving their goals. But recognition of the Ainu as an indigenous people came as late as June 2008, just before the G8 summit at Hokkaido's Lake Toya-ko. Ken'ichi Kawamura, son of legendary Ainu elder Kaneto Kawamura, welcomes visitors to the rustic museum/cultural centre established by his father in the city of  Asahikawa. Kawamura was also  a demonstrator at the G8. “Recognition is not enough” he says. "I won’t rest until we get both land rights and hunting rights too.”

This story visits three Ainu museums - the Kaneto Kawamura Ainu Memorial Museum in Asahikawa, the Ainu Museum in Shiraoi and the Ainu Centre in Sapporo - and includes also detailed information on other Ainu cultural resources.

See image preview: http://www.photographersdirect.com/simmons/search.asp?lb=9678

by Roderick Eime

The ancient art of the Kimberley could be the oldest rock art in the world. Roderick Eime comes face-to-face with an ice-age warrior.

"Blank faced and expressionless, he stood there staring at me. His slender arms adorned with intricate tassels hold a clutch of boomerangs as if inviting me to hunt with him. Literally frozen in time, this ancient gent has held this pose for perhaps 20,000 years."

As part of a luxury adventure cruise aboard "True North"

Story is ready to run at around 1000 words

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by Philip Game

Waiting for a bus is rarely fun.  On this Mediterranean island nation, at least, there’s the novelty of wondering just what much-loved relic will come lumbering down the road.  The motley fleet of public buses – often decades-old models boasting an abundance of chrome and proclaiming the owner’s faith in the Virgin Mary, or even commemorating the Antipodean suburb where he spent his earlier years – is paralleled in the veteran saloon cars maintained by enthusiasts like Harry Caruana.

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by Karen Halabi

There  I was hanging by the neck in water.

I was at a spa in Slovakia, and traction is just one of the treatments recommended here, along with mud baths and hot thermal waters

I stood naked shivering looking down at the medieval style torture apparatus, then the assistant arrived. "Yah, come in!" she beckoned as she pointed towards the water. I stepped gingerly in then made my way to the edge of the platform. She strapped me in and then pushed me forward till I was dangling by the neck - a bit like Ned Kelly at the end of his tether.

Cruising around the palm-fringed motus or islands of Rangiroa atoll in the Tuamoto Archipelago of French Polynesia takes a lot of beating -- particularly with an idyllic climate, constant sunshine and peaceful vignettes of a slow-paced island life – all played out around an impossibly blue lagoon.

                                                                                                                  

See image preview: http://www.photographersdirect.com/simmons/search.asp?lb=8942