Global Travel Writers: Articles

Tales from a Tall Ship

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:35:00 -0400

Admiring the graceful elegance of this grand old lady of the sea, guests onboard Star Clipper watch languidly from their sunlounges as the crew scrabble up the rigging, unfurling yards and yards of billowing sail cloth. As the sheets that control the sails tighten, it feels as though Star Clipper lifts slightly higher in the water, picking up her skirts as she scoots across the deep blue Indian Ocean.

Star Clipper is a 115m Tall Ship, carrying just 170 guests in pampered comfort. She cruises out of Phuket during the southern summer, relocating to the Med in March to cruise the Med during the northern summer.

Onboard for an Indian Ocean crossing, Fiona Harper will join Star Clipper in March 2010 on her repositioning cruise. Contact Fiona (fiona@fionaharper.com.au) to confirm in principle support in commissioning an article based on this voyage.

Images will be available from Fiona Harper and Star Clipper.

Aground off the Pilbara coast

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 02:07:00 -0400

Living onboard a cruising yacht is a remarkably satisfying experience, offering the rare opportunity to be totally self-supporting. Daily life revolves around keeping the ship safe, the complex essential systems operating and the yacht moving towards its destination. Oh, and there�s plenty of sundowners on arrival, usually beneath an unashamedly scarlet sky as the sun disappears over the horizon. Arriving at an anchorage late afternoon, its not unusual to run into cruising buddies who we may not have seen for months, but who immediately invite us to join them on the beach to share a cold beer or two as soon as our anchor is down and secure.

But there is a frustratingly accurate saying amongst these same yachties: there are those who have run aground and those who soon will. As I found out just a few months into our Australian circumnavigation.....

Please contact Fiona Harper to commission this article or others along a yachting theme. Images are available.

Mahouts' Course

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 01:50:00 -0400

There is no elegant way to climb up onto an elephant. Tricia Welsh learns this very quickly after many unladylike attempts and several hours of instruction at a mahout�s course in Northern Thailand.

The course is run by the elephant camp at Anantara Resort and Spa in the Golden Triangle near Chiang Rai. It is home to 34 elephants and is set up like a traditional mahouts� village that used to exist in the hills of Northern Thailand when most of Thailand�s elephants were employed in the logging industry. The Thai Government set up the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre (TECC) to ensure the well-being of elephants; the camp at Anantara is the northern extension of the TECC and offers guests a great chance to get to know these massive pachyderms

ART OF TEA

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:58:00 -0400

Karen Halabi escapes the city for the peace and contemplation of a Korean tea house.

The ancient art of preparing tea is a deeply meditative process that forces one to calm down, relax and lose the worries of the day in the process of making and consuming tea.

In Korea, the art of tea preparation and the meditative ritual of the tea ceremony has been revived in the rash of tea houses that are springing up across the country.

I head to the forest outside Icheon to a Confucian retreat to don a hanbok and find out how it�s done��..

Making a difference

Mon, 04 May 2009 07:09:00 -0400

The town of Cunnamulla, in SW Queensland (outback Australia) is one of the most disadvantaged communities in the country. But the efforts of one remarkable teacher - Neil Spencer, who has been art teacher at Cunnamulla State School for the last 17 years - have led his talented young students to produce some quite extraordinary artworks. Spencer manages to get equally good results from both his Aboriginal and other pupils, and as a result he has succeeded as few others have in bringing the different communities of Cunnamulla together.

Islands of Mystery

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:13:00 -0400

The sacred Marae Taputapuate'a, on the island of Raiatea in French Polynesia, is widely regarded as the birthplace of Polynesian culture. From here, warriors rowed their big war canoes as far as New Zealand. Today, Polynesians from across the Pacific gather every five yeras at the Marae to pay homage to their ancsetors.

Diu Island in Gujarat, India has a history going back even further. It is said that in the era of Satyuga (between two and three million years ago, a time when �the gods walked the earth�), a certain King Jalandhar ruled over the island. According to legend, he was a real bad dude, and accordingly was disposed of by the aforesaid gods.

In Estonia, the ancient culture of Hiiumaa Island was home to the �Mad Baron� von Ungern-Sternberg. He is said to have led troops in Mongolia, treating the Mongols with �unparalleled savagery�. Eventually, in 1921, Ungern-Sternberg was handed over to the Bolsheviks for execution. Even today teachers at Suurem�isa College (the baron's former manor) and electricians working on the manor house claim to have seen or heard his ghost.

What, if anything, do these three widely separated islands have in common?

Roads to Damascus

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:27:00 -0500

From Damascus all imaginations, if not necessarily all roads, lead eastward to the mammoth Crac des Chevaliers, the Castle of the Knights. Syria has only 183km of Mediterranean coastline and the only natural break in the mountain range that runs along it, from Beirut in Lebanon to Antakya in Turkey, is the strategic Homs Gap, where sits the imposing Crusader castle that so entranced a 20 year old T.E. Lawrence that he is reputed - acting out every schoolboy's dream of his day - to have climbed its outside wall barefooted. You don't have to take your shoes off to appreciate Syria - all that's needed is a willingness to be astonished at every turn.

Built from basalt and limestone in the 12th century to garrison thousands of troops, The Crac ders Chevaliers has thirteen towers, and inner and outer walls separated by a moat. Though not long in the possession of its builders (who eventually handed it to the Turks and went home), it was famed throughout the warring world as an impregnable edifice. From its ramparts now, on a quiet day between tour groups, when sole occupancy is a not unreasonable delusion, it seem as if the known world could lay futile siege for a year without dislodging a stone.

Southern Comfort

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 18:50:00 -0500

As we boarded our plane for Rome I realized I was really nervous. In the weeks leading up to this trip, I�d immediately opened every Italian guidebook we had come across to the Safety and Security section, to see if my unease was justified. I wanted to find out if our planned trip � self-driving around southern Italy � was foolhardy.
Privately I thought it was.
I�d even quipped to friends: �So long as we get back with our bags and passports, I�ll be happy.� Then I�d add, �And the car!�
The plan was to drive south from Rome, where (good sign) it turned out the rental company had upgraded us to a natty little navy blue Alfa Romeo, then south to Naples, heeding warnings galore about pickpockets and worse.
From there we planned a quick lap around Sicily (watch out for the Mafia, friends said) then back to the mainland, outlining �the boot� of Italy and the back of the leg, crossing back from a point on the east coast, level with Rome.
Four weeks, we�d given ourselves, to do all this. That�s if we lasted the distance. Word was the locals weren�t too fussed about tourists. That was yet another thing, and I wondered why I wasn�t simply packing up and heading for Paris. My mood was as black as a Calabrian widow�s dress.

Borderlines

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 02:06:00 -0500

Who doesn�t get a buzz, an adrenaline rush, from walking or driving across a foreign frontier? So often, two cultures come face to face here, perhaps clashing, perhaps blending, perhaps mingling like oil and water, as the communities either side of the line draw life and purpose from each other.

Explore the mystique, the adrenaline rush, the paranoia even, which characterise border towns around the world, from Narva, Estonia, to Ivangorod, Russia; across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, USA to the sprawling Mexican metropolis of Ciudad Juarez; from Mae Sai at Thailand�s northernmost point into Tachileik, Burma.

More images.

Finding attitude in Hungary

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 05:40:00 -0500

Following the collapse of Communism in 1990, Hungary was faced with the task of finding a new identity for itself. Unlike some other eastern bloc countries, Hungary has "capitalised" on its Communist past. Grim Soviet-era statues have been moved to a bizarre "theme park" on the outskirts of Budapest.

Hungary's rich cultural heritage is also being revisited. Ruins in the Aquincum precinct date from Roman times, and the city's Turkish, Jewish and Austrian cultural roots are also being highlighted.

However, as Hungary takes its place within the European Union, the country has to balance its new European future with its ancient Central Asian past. Maybe the youth of the country will show the way, through music and continent-straddling attitude.