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Some of Graham's travel stories with an emphasis on odd destinations, or a different view of the familiar. Must-see places and some to avoid in Elsewhere. All stories copyright Graham Reid.
Vancouver, Canada: A user's guide
To be honest, I can’t tell you whether you can get a decent cup of coffee in Vancouver, coffee doesn’t interest me much. What I can tell you however is that you won’t be short of a cup. On fashionable Robson St right outside my hotel was a Starbucks, and two blocks down on the corner of Thurlow a couple more faced each other across the intersection. Within an hour... more >>
Added: 14 Mar 10
Kuching in Borneo Malaysia: Big city, small town
“This is my kind of Malaysia,” says Bob from laidback California as we enjoy Tiger Beer at the James Brooke Bar and Bistro near the relaxing riverfront in Kuching. “It’s got just the right mix of a quiet old town and all the modern amenities.”We clink icy glasses in agreement. Like me, Bob had travelled down Peninsula Malaysia from Kuala Lumpur,... more >>
Added: 1 Mar 10
Golden Triangle, Thailand: Where the girls are
Pale fingers of mist weave through the tree tops of the jungle. At just past dawn it is almost silent, only the faint call of birds and the distant putter of a long-tail boat on the Mekong River beyond the hill. I step onto the terrace of my hotel room into the balmy air. Already you can feel that the rains will come later today. I sniff in the humidity and gaze across at Myanmar no more... more >>
Added: 1 Mar 10
London, England: With a pinch of snuff
Curious what you find in the bottom of your bags -- and maybe keep -- after a trip away. I usually turn up napkins with scribbled addresses and notes, postcards and receipts, fliers from concerts or galleries, and the odd article torn from a local newspaper because it seemed so brilliantly incisive at the time. Mostly I throw such things away after a period of grace, but sometimes bits and... more >>
Added: 1 Mar 10 
1 Comment
Norfolk Island: An island of great Bounty
“So, here we are on Norfolk Island,” said Richard as we stood by the baggage carousel and beneath the sign which read “Welkam tu Norf’k alien”. “Welcome to Norfolk Island,” I said pointing to the weird wording in the local dialect. He took it in, then added with the raise of an eyebrow: “And why not?” It is easy to be cynical about... more >>
Added: 22 Feb 10
Guangzhou, China: The sour smell of respect
When you travel to foreign parts it is good to be respectful of local customs, and usually they are common courtesies or pretty obvious: you don’t wear shorts or a halter-top to St Peters -- or in various Muslim states -- and you should always take your headgear off (or put something on, depending on the faith) when you enter a place where people communicate with their God. In parts... more >>
Added: 14 Feb 10
Vancouver Island, Canada: Cocktails by the highway
My Canadian friend Bob would often tell me that there was a highway right outside his house, and then he’d laugh loudly. I didn’t think that was a laughing matter -- until I went to his beautiful ocean-side apartment in Victoria on Vancouver Island. As we sat on his patio sipping cocktails in the late afternoon he swept his hand towards the blue harbour in front of him and... more >>
Added: 8 Feb 10
Uluru/Ayers Rock, Outback Australia: Into the great wide open
Uluru at the close of another cloudless day in the desert. In the designated “sunset viewing spot” a few kilometres from the big red rock, campervans and cars are arriving. In this tiny part of the seemingly endless landscape, largely silent except for the whistle of wind through scrubby Spinifex and myrtle trees, the air is alive with the sound of beer cans being cracked... more >>
Added: 7 Feb 10 1 Comment
London, England: Pub preconceptions
The Moon and the Sixpence in Wardour St is much like many pubs in London these days. Whatever genuine historical features it might have had have been air-brushed in a sanitising make-over. The artists, poets and musicians whose portraits are framed on the walls may, or may not, have some connection with the area, and the pub menu is almost identical to that of most others. You have to look... more >>
Added: 7 Feb 10
Edinburgh, Scotland: Connected in the family
This may seem unusual -- especially given I was born in Scotland -- but it is true: my godfather was Italian. And I say that hoping never to be troubled again by pesky creditors or door-to-door religious groups. When I was born my parents, who weren’t especially religious, had me baptised and asked their good friend Dominic Valente -- whom we always called Uncle Dom -- to be my... more >>
Added: 7 Feb 10
Belfast, Northern Ireland: Ghosts of the old missing shippery
For many decades, out of some kind of misplaced shame, many simply didn’t want to talk about it. In Belfast’s shipyards the name of the vessel once so proudly built there -- but which sank in 1912 to become the world’s most famous shipping disaster -- simply went unspoken. Even today, a century after the Titanic was being constructed and although there are over 300... more >>
Added: 16 Nov 09
Dumfries, Scotland: Oor Rab
One of the most cherished books in our house when I was a boy was a collection by Robert Burns, or “Rabbie Burrrns” as my mother said. The book was little bigger than a matchbox, its cloth cover an increasingly threadbare tartan, and the edges of the pages were painted gold. It was as much a treasure to look at as for the ringing songs and poems within. Peculiarly... more >>
Added: 11 Nov 09
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Old and new, the same but different
In Kuala Lumpur which offers a colourful multicultural tapestry of life, it was a small but significant image: just before the expensive frockshop in the up-market Starhill Gallery opened the middle-aged cleaning woman in a headscarf snapped off the vacuum cleaner and answered her cellphone. Behind her on a massive flat-screen a barely dressed blonde gazelle in high heels hip-swayed down a... more >>
Added: 26 Oct 09
Paris, France: Clubbed by culture
We were -- with a few exceptions in the café -- exhausted foot soldiers in the Art Wars. The small café where we found ourselves that late afternoon, on the corner of Rue de l’Universite about 15 minutes walk from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, was our r’n’r refuge for an invigorating pastis, cold Belgian beer or coffee. Time to recover from a day of big ticket... more >>
Added: 24 Oct 09
Melaka, Peninsula Malaysia: The cuisine capital of Malaysia
Bong comes out of her busy kitchen in the elegant Seri Nyonya Peranakan Restaurant to explain how she learned the Baba-Nyonya culinary style unique to the town of Melaka, here on Malaysia’s west coast. “No, they do not teach this in any schools,” she laughs. “You have to learn it from when you are very young. I learned this style from my family in the kitchen at... more >>
Added: 18 Oct 09
Hong Kong: When the rain comes they run and hide their heads
When the serious rains come, that end-of-days Flood you may have heard about, the question won’t be, “Would I get on Noah’s Ark?”. It will be, “Quick, where is it?” In this, I can help. Noah’s Ark -- and you won’t believe this -- is in Hong Kong and if you’ve ever been to that exciting city you probably drove right over the top of it... more >>
Added: 18 Oct 09
Bushmills, Northern Ireland: The sweet smell of morning
This is how every working week should start: it’s 10am on a Monday and already the aroma of fine Irish whiskey — people around here would say “the finest” — is filling our lungs. Outside the North Atlantic crashes on ragged rocks and the wind whips over green fields, but here inside Bushmills Distillery on the northern coast of Northern Ireland the air is... more >>
Added: 18 Oct 09 1 Comment
Samoa: A stranger in paradise (2001)
As a tourist carrying stress into Samoa you notice things by their absence. Ordinary, boring stuff like clocks and timetables, cellphones and power-dressers in black, graffiti and rubbish, and haste and urgency. And surprisingly, New Zealand accents. In 2000 fewer than 7000 New Zealand tourists flew the 3 1/2 hours to Apia, Samoa's largest town. In the same period almost 50,000 chose... more >>
Added: 2 Oct 09 2 Comments
Bordeaux, France: Paradise and lunch
As I looked across the manicured box-hedge to the garden where peacocks ambled, and then on up the orderly rows of grape vines marching towards the 18th century chateau, the thought occurred to me: if the prettiest part of Paradise -- with a cellar of more than 15,000 wines -- were transported to our world then it would look exactly like this. The thought didn't linger however because my... more >>
Added: 13 Sep 09
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii: Sunday morning, coming down
The sky is a perfect and pale comic-book blue, the breeze as warm as a whisper. Palm trees line the white sandy beach, the very image of a Pacific cliché. In the downtown streets before the shops and offices open people make their sleepy, slow way to work. It is the start to yet another balmy December day in Honolulu. And on just such a morning, I remind myself as I wait for a taxi,... more >>
Added: 24 Jun 09
