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A Small Change
Just to say we’ve made a small change to the site here. There’s a new heading above: “Travel Stories”, where you can now find the stories we’ve been remembering from previous travels, in one place, which we are posting whilst there’s no current travel to post. There may be some you missed…
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Photo #20: The Reality Of Poverty
No matter how much you know before you get there, the poverty you will witness on your first trip to India will still shock you to the core. So many people live on the city streets that there are entire runs of pavement which have become temporary homes, and every sheltered area such as a flyover or an underpass is occupied by families. This photograph captures a typical scene, and the very fact that it is typical, is itself shocking. Multiple families live here, on an active railway line, running for cover as each packed train rumbles through, right in the heart of Kolkata, just yards from 5 star hotels…
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Beautiful Places #5: Zanzibar
Without doubt Zanzibar is one of those evocative place names full of romance, the very mention of which creates images of an exotic island, paradise beaches and the dreamy blue of the Indian Ocean. The reality doesn’t disappoint: Zanzibar is indeed an idyllic destination. We split our time on the island between the capital Stone Town and Nungwi on the north coast, and the two places proved to be very different experiences. Stone Town, aka Zanzibar Town, is a bustling town in an unmistakably colonial style with grand old buildings and ornate gardens standing shoulder to shoulder with cramped townships. If you want anything in Stone Town, from excursions to…
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Travel Stories #2: Into The Unknown
Sitting on the rocks at the top of the waterfall just at the point where the river drops over the top to cascade to the plateau way below, hundreds of square miles of flood plains and sugar plantations stretching out to the horizon, seemed like as good time as any to ask. After all, Hamadi had made it very clear that we could add anything to our itinerary. “Hamadi, we’d like to see an ordinary African town, if possible”. “Really?” He was surprised. “To see what?” “Just to see a different way of life, to learn culture”. “OK, Johnson will take you. He knows his town well”. As if on…
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Photographic Memories #19
As every traveller knows, when you look back through old travel photos, many of them trigger wonderful memories. With lockdown incomplete and travel still on hold for a while, we currently have no new adventures to blog; we do though have many such memories… Photo #19: The Sundarbans This photograph is special to us because of the moment it represents, possibly one of the most exciting travel moments of all our experiences to date, capturing an auspicious point in one of our most adventurous journeys. At this stage of our first trip to India, we had now left behind the amazing cities of Delhi, Agra, Varanasi and Kolkata, and were…
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Haggling & Bartering: Our Guide
We have often read, in posts by all kinds of travellers including the most experienced, that they don’t enjoy or feel comfortable with the practice of haggling over prices in bazaars and markets in certain cultures. On one level, we find this really surprising, as we have had great fun doing this in places as disparate as Turkey, Morocco, India, Jordan and even Singapore, and without fail we have enjoyed the whole experience. On the other hand, we think we perhaps do understand what it is that the British in particular don’t like about the practice. So here’s our 5-minute guide to how to enjoy. Firstly, don’t think that you…
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Beautiful Places #4: St Petersburg
The whole point of our visit to St Petersburg was to see a winter city in the depths of winter and therefore to see it as it is meant to be seen. We weren’t disappointed. During our visit temperatures dipped to minus 27, there was heaps of snow on the ground and the river was frozen, but each day was blue sky and wall to wall sunshine: it really couldn’t have been any better. St Petersburg is both beautiful and majestic, and enchanting. The imposing Hermitage with its unbelievably opulent interior; the majesty of the city’s architecture exemplified by the wonderfully named “Church Of Our Lady On Spilled Blood”, easy…
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Photographic Memories #18
As every traveller knows, when you look back through old travel photos, many of them trigger wonderful memories. With lockdown incomplete and travel still on hold for a while, we currently have no new adventures to blog; we do though have many such memories… Photo #18: Peace Amongst Madness This photograph is special to us simply because it represents an atypical moment in the crazy city of Marrakech. With its souks buzzing with activity, its streets choked with slow moving traffic and a main square which is amongst the most exciting and lively places in any city on Earth, Marrakech is an onslaught of sight and sound from dawn till…
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Beautiful Places #3: Valbona
Quite some distance before we made it to Valbona, the hair on the back of our neck was starting to stand on end, such was the magnificence of the scenery unfolding around us as we left the major roads and headed northwards towards the Accursed Mountains in northern Albania. The road to Valbona hugs the river as it cuts through the deep gorge, climbing steadily until the canyon opens out to the plateau within which lies the village itself, a village which is both tiny and unassuming, with precious little which you could call civilisation. But its beauty is in its setting. We have visited quite a few mountain village…
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Photographic Memories #17
Photo #17: Cornish Sunset Our last photographic memory featured a sunset, and whilst on that subject we shouldn’t move on without mentioning Cornwall. I have been a regular visitor there for over 40 years now, and still get a feeling of excitement every time we cross the River Tamar and pass the Cornwall boundary sign. Having travelled to many wonderful places around the world, the Camel Estuary, with its heart at Padstow, remains one of our very favourite places on Earth. There’s actually two photos today, in the first you can see the twinkling evening lights of the village of Rock across the estuary dwarfed by the glowing sky, and…
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