Global Travel Writers: Articles

Vietnam War veterans work together to create a national museum

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 03:51:00 -0400

On the outskirts of Newhaven, Phillip Island, stands an unlikely visitor attraction, housed within a starkly industrial aircraft hangar. The National Vietnam Veterans Museum stands as a tribute to what can be achieved by a dedicated group of volunteers.

Not only those who served � and their families � will gain from visiting this sprawling collection; so will anyone who lived through those tumultuous years from 1962 through to 1972.

The Museum soon outgrew its first premises and ranges from documents � letters home, diaries, photos, maps and personal effects � to a Huey Cobra helicopter gunship, a Centurion tank and a Canberra bomber. Especially poignant are the tributes received from the Vietnamese-Australian community. And there�s even a caf� and a souvenir shop, so you can take home a teddy bear soldier or a model F4 Phantom fighter jet.

Trieste: the end of an empire, or two

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 03:21:00 -0400

The slow train eastbound from Venice hugs the craggy, forested Adriatic coast as it nears the city of Trieste, affording tantalising glimpses of the Castello di Miramare, a fabulous folly built out on a promontory in the 1860s by the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Maximilian and his wife Charlotte. With his fairytale castle barely complete, the young aristocrat took the opportunity to become Emperor of Mexico, an adventure which would soon end in tragedy.

At the station in downtown Trieste, we find ourselves a stone's throw from the Serbian Orthodox church, the old synagogue and much else to remind us that this was once a most cosmopolitan port, the only sea port for the sprawling Austro-Hungarian empire, dismembered after the First World War. Veteran travel writer Jan Morris enthuses over this somewhat cryptic city, not quite Italian, no longer Austro-Hungarian, and now tucked into a pocket of Italian territory almost encircled by Slovenia.

Trieste lacks the must-sees of other cities in northern Italy, in spite of a history extending back to Roman times, but in some ways that is part of its charm. Launches bob at anchor in the Grand Canal whilst caf� patrons nibble cicheti appetisers and sip Campari spritzes on the nearby Piazza dell�Unita d�Italia, an imposing town square laid out by Austrian town planners.

Image gallery online at www.pbase.com/travelgame/trieste

Civilised Seisia

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:58:00 -0400

Having sailed along the coast of Arnhem Land, traversing the Gulf of Carpentaria and into one of the most remote towns on the Australian coast, I hungrily anticipated a return to civilisation. Dropping anchor near the town jetty at Seisia on the western tip of Cape York, I discovered that civilisation comes in many surprising guises. We had arrived in a �dry town�, which meant slaking one�s parched throat with a beer involved a rather long taxi ride to the closest restricted liquor outlet, far down the highway.

Though fortunately we had arrived on the one day of the week when it was possible to purchase a beer. Donning a pair of shorts and t-shirt, and retrieving my best thongs from the dinghy, we walked down the beach to the Fishing Club for Friday night barefoot dancing beneath the stars with the locals.

Contact Fiona Harper if you'd like to commission this article. Images are available.

Mount Wutai goes World Heritage

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:27:00 -0400

From Taiyuan, the capital of the Central China province of Shanxi, a spectacularly tortuous road winds north-east through the mountains, twisting and turning upon itself like a drunken snake. Farmers here still wear Mao-style caps and jackets, as though the reforms of the last twenty years havce never happened. Finally, our convoy reaches the South Peak of Wutai Shan Mount Wutai), from where a panoramic view of China�s greatest temple complex opens up in a far-off valley.

Mount Wutai, said to be home to the Bodhisattva Manjushri, is ranked the greatest of China�s Four Sacred Mountains. Stretching in a broad arc around the village of Taihuai there used to be over 200 temples, the first dating from around 630 AD. Now, some 108 still remain, of which 47 are open to visitors.

In June 2009, Mount Wutai was officially inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage register - a fitting tribute to a site of outstanding world significance, and a place that makes a huge impact on even the most blas� or blas�e of visitors.

Malabar Magic

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 01:10:00 -0400

India dances to a different beat throughout the scenically diverse, historically varied and culturally rich Malabar region of northern Kerala. Maharajas built grand summer palaces at the edge of forested hinterlands while mighty forts of laterite were constructed along the coastline to protect the resource rich area from conquests.

Vast tea plantations stretch for as far as the eye can see while privileged guests staying at unique properties like Pranavam Home Stays can watch skilled dancers attired in colourful costumes perform age-old folk dances.

The region also boasts of the Edakkal Caves which date to the Neolithic Period. Farther afield are wildlife reserves where dark forests may yet reveal more exotic plant species.

An illustrated feature on the diverse Malabar region of northern Kerala can be written on assignment from 1000 to 2000 words, depending upon editorial requirements.

A separate feature or a sidebar can also be written about the unique cultural attractions of southern Kerala including Trivandrum and Cochin as well as houseboat holidays along peaceful backwaters in this lovely state.

Finding Dylan Thomas in Old South Wales

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:22:00 -0400

You don't have to go searching for Dylan Thomas in Old South Wales. Quite the contrary - Dylan Thomas will come looking for YOU. Through exhibitions, museums, festivals, statues, cafes, pubs, street names, paintings, posters and snatches of words still hanging in the salty air.

Good Celts them all, the Welsh share the Irish bent for tale telling and, around Swansea, so many of the best ones concern the man Hollywood legend Shelley Winters dubbed "The Horny Welshman'. In 1950 she took him home for dinner where he drank pitchers of gin martinis served up in milk bottles by flatmate Marilyn Monroe while singing Welsh songs; the sort of ditties he'd learned at The Mermaid and The Antelope, his Swansea pubs of choice when "this sea town was my world."

I came late to the Welsh bard. Before Under Milkwood and Do Not Go Gentle, at least for me, it was Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Thomas is there on the front cover of the 1967 Beatles album, in Peter Blake's esoteric collage above Marlon Brando, beside Aldous Huxley, nearly clipped by cowboy Tom Mix' hat. Blake has confirmed that John Lennon - who is said to have sometimes carried a battered volume of Thomas on his person during his Hamburg and Liverpool leather years - was insistent on the inclusion.

As I leave Swansea and wind around its bay to Mumbles and the Gower Peninsula, on the pilgrimage trail to the Dylan Thomas boathouse and writing shack at Loughnarne, there's a copy of his Selected Poems on the car seat beside me. The back cover blurb is the right length for a traffic light stop. "Most notable for his verbal inventiveness, image-making power and almost pagan metaphysics, Dylan Thomas celebrated the glorious particulars of inner and outer landscapes in the face of weakness, mortality and decay." Not hard to see why Lennon liked him.

Far-flung to the Falklands

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:43:00 -0500

It's a long umbilical - 8,000 miles from Britain, 'the motherland', to the 200 islands which comprise the Falklands, deep in the South Atlantic Ocean, 400 miles east of the South American coastline, a thousand miles north of the Antarctic Peninsula. From the moment of first sight of the seemingly featureless panorama from an aircraft window it is hard to imagine two of the world's mighty nations going to war over what one claims under the name of the Falklands and the other Los Malvinas.

Over 25 years on from the war over sovereignty that claimed nearly a thousand lives, it is again an important port. Not just for its distinction as having the smallest and most remote capital city in the world but as a centre of the booming fishing license and burgeoning oil exploration industries, and as a gateway to the Antarctic Peninsula. There are no five star hotels on the Falklands but there are comfortable guest houses, decent meals at the Upland Goose Hotel and Malvina House Hotel and sufficient watering holes for an actual pub crawl to be possible.

Life in the Round

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:27:00 -0500

You can�t really blame the US surveillance satellites. Or rather those monitoring them. After all, these strange square and ring-shaped structures looked sinister. Especially when you consider they were hidden in valleys directly inland from Taiwan � and it was 1985, the height of the Cold War.

Believing they had discovered a �group nuclear base�, the US sent in spies who trekked south and inland to photograph the evidence, only to swiftly leave again, embarrassed.

No doubt on entering each �reactor� they were offered noodles and cabbage. The only offensive weapons they discovered were knives used to dispatch chickens and pigs; ducklings scratched on the clay floors of the four-storey earthen fortresses, and tea and persimmons lay drying in the sunshine outside.

The peaceful inhabitants had already lived here for hundreds of years. They had come from the north seeking safety, and war was the furthest thing from their minds.

To visit a �tulou�, one of 1500 added to the UNESCO World Heritage list last year, is to step through a portal into another culture, another time zone. Big enough for up to a thousand people, these �houses� are complete villages, compact and efficient.

Sally & Gordon Hammond visited here late 2008.

�Sally Hammond 2009
Pictures: Gordon Hammond

Bernier Where?

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 03:18:00 -0500

As white man's diseases starting spreading through Australia's Aboriginal population at the end of the nineteenth Century, the government decided to establish remote hospitals for those suffering from venereal disease and leprosy. Back in 1909, the islands of Bernier and Dorrier offshore from Carnarvon on the mid-west coast of Australia were sufficiently remote to make them entirely suitable for the purpose. While Carnarvon today is a thriving regional hub, visitors to Bernier Island can now camp under exquisite wind-sculpted dunes that are, presumably, much as they were a hundred years ago.

Contact Fiona Harper if you'd like to commission this article. Images are available.

The Buddha is alive and well in Central China

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:10:00 -0500

During China's infamous Cultural Revolution, anything smacking of religion was brutally suppressed. But now, things are very different. In Henan and Shanxi provinces, the country's rich Buddhist heritage is once more delighting and astonishing the world.

Discover the spectacular stone Buddha sculptures of the Longmen Grottoes and the Yungang Caves. Practice Kung Fu steps with the Shaolin monks. Climb the rickety steps of Sakyamuni Pagoda, the world's tallest wooden structure.

These are just a few of the delights that await on a cultural journey through central China.