India, love it or hate it, so they say. Rajastan was getting me down. Its sights are amazing, but along those well-trodden tourist-routes, from the minute you head outside your room, til the time you head back at night – you are pestered. If it’s… Read more
Tourism – good thing or bad? I’ve written about Develi before –a town in central Turkey, where I was based, along with my geological colleagues. It’s a culturally conservative city, where women tend not to be on the streets. Not because they can’t, it’s just the… Read more
Over ten years ago I taught visiting American classes at the University of Queensland. The itinerary of one lucky class was to be taken to a remote location for what was a pretty genuine ‘wilderness experience’. It was located on the ‘Youth Enterprise Trust’ property… Read more
The French woman had parted the curtains, and was peering out into the stormy night. *** There are up-sides and down-sides to travelling in the European winter – there are, of course, less tourists, but to compensate for this, the locals tend to shut up… Read more
Honey, honey, honey – it seemed Adygea oozed the stuff. Everywhere we looked it seemed someone had set up a road-side stall and in total, were trying to sell more jars of golden honey than there were inhabitants of the Caucasian republic. Honey is nice… Read more
Our Indonesian guide, with a parang (machete) in hand, dropped vertically in front of me, just brushing my face, while out of my peripheral vision I saw someone cartwheeling down through the trees. Then, within about two seconds, six people had vanished. I was alone… Read more
In all my outings in Mongolia, I never saw a wolf – I only heard them howling while camping out one night (you can read about that here). Wolves, so I was told, are not a danger to humans – mostly. They are smart enough… Read more
Those who know me will know that I can recount more than my share of what are commonly known as ‘ghost experiences’. They happen after I’ve gone to bed, turned the lights off and am drifting off to sleep. Usually they are the momentary glimpse… Read more
I admit it, I was lurking in the back streets of ‘Old Tartarstan’, Kazan. Trouble is, I like old buildings, and particularly quirky old doors and gates. Short of bubble-wrapping them and shipping them back home to New Zealand, I have to make do with… Read more
In about 2014 some genius decided to plant a peacock in front of the Kazan Kremlin. Kazan is the currently the capital of Republic of Tatarstan, part of the Russian Federation. The city is relatively recent, but for over a thousand years there has been a… Read more