Travel Stories
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Stockholm, Sweden: If the spirit moves you
27 Apr 2014 | 2 min read
The song on the sound system couldn't have been more appropriate. Or more inappropriate. Playing quietly in the restaurant-cum-bar is the Pogues' boozy and woozy Fairytale of New York which may seem appropriate in Stockholm's Museum of Spirits which documents Sweden's encounters with alcohol. But in the elegantly designed room where patrons dine on beautifully prepared dishes and... > Read more
Jordan: The country at the crossroads of history
20 Apr 2014 | 5 min read | 1
Far below us a camel train makes its way slowly across the bone-dry dirt of the valley floor carrying its precious cargo. In times past this burden would have meant silk, spices, fruits and pottery from distance places. But today, here at the ruins of Petra in southern Jordan – where the Nabatean civilisation pre-dated their Roman conquerors in this long hidden place – the... > Read more
River Jordan, Jordan: The land where saints and profits walk
30 Mar 2014 | 4 min read
On this bright morning when a barely visible film of rain evaporates before it hits the dry desert floor, the River Jordan – down the long path past the empty Pepsi stand – is an unremarkable sight. Today this river – which runs between Israel and Palestine to the west, Jordan to the east, and through the pages of religious history – is little more than a... > Read more
Niue, South Pacific: The world according to Tony
9 Mar 2014 | 2 min read | 1
There's a simple phrase for what Tony Aholima does. It's "sustainable living", but for him it's more complex than that. As a young man he left his homeland, spent three years in New Zealand, then moved to Australia. As best as I can understand it between the laughter and sudden bouts of homegrown philosophical seriousness, he ran a company and employed quite a few... > Read more
Madrid, Spain: Our man in Madrid
6 Mar 2014 | 3 min read
Over the last drink in our night of bar-hopping James mentions in passing the reason why you always see food visible in Madrid's bars. “It goes back to when people were illiterate so couldn't read a menu,” he says. And then later as we are walking the busy streets of Latina at 1.30am he drops another piece of relevant information. That at the time of the Spanish Civil... > Read more
Belvedere Estate, Republic of Ireland: When families fall out
1 Mar 2014 | 2 min read
When posh people fell out in the old days they often did it with a grand statement. Not for them cutting up the clothes or taking a key along the side of the car. They went for the big gesture -- at least Robert Rochfort, later to become the very nasty first Earl of Belvedere in County Westmeath in Ireland, did. When he and his wife Mary, the mother of his four children, split... > Read more
Hobart, Tasmania: Where the past is present
16 Feb 2014 | 4 min read
On the foreshore of Sullivan's Cove – the tourist hub of Hobart, Tasmania's capital – is a collection of interesting bronze statues. The largest is of a man holding aloft a wind-blown flag, his other hand patting a dog at his side, and they are posing before an old squeeze-box style camera on a tripod. This heroic figure – whipped by spray in winter, burned by... > Read more
Dover, England: History in the rear view mirror
16 Feb 2014 | 3 min read
Deep in the dark belly of Dover Castle – from which on a clear day you can see France just 35kms away – there is a place forever on the cusp of war. Down here is where the voice of a shaky Neville Chamberlain tells the British people they are now in mortal conflict with Germany, then there is King's famous speech and Sir Winston Churchill's bulldog rumble. I... > Read more
Cairns, Queensland: Getting away from it all
31 Dec 2013 | 2 min read
Nah, she said emphatically as our flight descended into Cairns. “I'm in the Atherton Tablelands now. Used to live here. Fifteen years. Got sick of the rat race.” Maybe Cairns – 26 degrees on a cloudless June day when bitterly cold Auckland was being drenched – is hectic in tourist season, but a “rat race”? Traffic moves at an easy pace... > Read more
Kyongju, South Korea: The Sleep of the Just
29 Dec 2013 | 3 min read | 1
The middle-aged man was upset I had woken him at the unacceptably early hour of noon. But I guess that's the kind of inconvenience he has to expect if he runs a yogwan, one of the cheap travellers inns in South Korea which are easily identifiable by the sign which is like a U with three wiggly lines coming out the top. I had seen his sign---which represents a bath---as I wandered... > Read more
Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei: The Sultanate of Slow
25 Dec 2013 | 7 min read | 1
Short of being accosted by a wild-eyed mariner, I can't say I wasn't warned. “There's a reason why people don't go there,'' barked an e-mail the week before I was due to go: “It's boring!'' Another simply said, “Don't bother''. There sounded little promising about Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei. But I was convinced I knew better. If others said it... > Read more
Vancouver, Canada: Sex and the City
15 Dec 2013 | 1 min read
The bar-cum-restaurant in Vancouver's trendy Yaletown district was a sports shirt and sunglasses kind of place. At the outdoor tables office workers took off their jackets, and a few groups of tourists carrying shopping bags of their purchases sat down to enjoy the afternoon sun and the excellent beer. Both men at the table next to me were in their 30s. They were well-groomed, neatly... > Read more
Dover, England: Just passing through
25 Nov 2013 | 3 min read
For generations of tourists and travelers, Dover – half of the year within sight of France just 35 kilometers away across the Channel – was the town that never was. Hardly more than a name on the map where boats came in or departed from, Dover was a place glimpsed in the memory's rearview mirror or seen across a blanket of water and spray as clusters of buildings huddled... > Read more
Essaouira, Morocco: The world according to Muhammed
10 Nov 2013 | 3 min read | 1
The words most travelers hear in certain countries, and understandably shy away from, come from street people or those with something to sell who ask, “Where you from?” But in Morocco you need to be wary of waving people away, even street vendors carrying stuff you have spent all your life avoiding, because many locals seem genuinely curious and want a conversation. So... > Read more
Mumbai, India: A day in Bombay; an in-depth report
15 Sep 2013 | 3 min read | 1
It's a joke of course, ticking off things to see in a day in Mumbai (which many still call Bombay). Here's a city of around 18 million souls where it can take three hours in stop-start traffic to get across “town”. Just a day? But with an English-speaking driver – as cheap as $20, you tip extra, hotels will find one – you can pick off a number of must-see... > Read more
Highway 101; West Coast USA: My way or the highway
25 Aug 2013 | 5 min read
Frankly, it doesn’t come much less glamorous than Crescent City in northern California. Fast food outlets encircle our motel and cooking oil hangs heavy in the night air, so I wander the vacant streets. In a nearby bar two overweight, heavily made-up women are impaled on bar stools like meatballs on toothpicks. One tells me they are waiting for something to turn up, and later it... > Read more
Maharashtra state, India: Riding the rail, Part Two
18 Aug 2013 | 4 min read | 1
It's strange but true: Some of the most important discoveries of historic sites have been remarkably recent, and have often come about by accident. It's hard to believe, for example, that it wasn't until 50 years ago when a couple of road workers near Laura in northern Queensland decided to climb a hill for a bit of a look-around . . . and discovered Aboriginal rock painting dating... > Read more
Niue, South Pacific: A whole lot of lovely nothing
18 Aug 2013 | 2 min read
There is a truism about travel: Get up early rather than stay out late. That way you see the people, village or city starting to go about its daily life. In the early morning – rather better than through 2am beer-goggles – you can more closely connect with the world you have dropped in t. The fact is though, there's not a lot that would keep you out late on the wonderfully... > Read more
Savannah, Georgia: Midday in the Gardens
11 Aug 2013 | 12 min read
Mary's words float, wisps of cloud in this hot Georgia afternoon. She speaks in a charming, slow drawl, her voice rarely rising with inflection. We walk through Columbia Square in the old heart of Savannah where Spanish moss hangs like whispers from dogwood trees. "Now, we had a gennel-man down he-ya one tahm recently," she says, her words dragging like slow woodsmoke in the... > Read more
Holly Springs, Mississippi: A Little Less Conversation
28 Jul 2013 | 6 min read
Holly Springs in north Mississippi has some interesting historic attractions. Probably. I wouldn't know. I didn't bother looking for them. Holly Springs is a bit out of the way even if you happen to be in the state, but this picturesque town -- which apparently changed hands 62 times during the Civil War -- is a useful midpoint on the Elvis Trail between his birthplace in Tupelo... > Read more