I like to see things for myself. It can give me a sense of place or scale that one doesn’t get from books or the internet. It also gives a chance to spot something new, that whoever might have photographed the original, wasn’t thinking about.… Read more
All posts tagged “Travel”
Searching for Smyrna in Izmir, Turkey
So where the heck is Smyrna? I’d heard a little about the awful days of 1922, but despite having made a few trips to Turkey, I’d never noticed Smyrna on a map. It wasn’t until I read Giles Milton’s book: ‘Paradise Lost: The Destruction of… Read more
Nominated: Content Catnip award for Most Interesting Blog on WordPress!
Last week I checked my email, to find that I had been nominated for the Content Catnip award for Most Interesting Blog on WordPress. That was a nice start to the day – thanks a lot! Content Catnip describes itself as “a quirky internet wunderkammer… Read more
A Chilling Thought about Travel – is it mostly Hoarding?
Seven months of travelling nearly done, and I’m siting in a plane, about to watch a documentary on Martin Phillipps of ‘The Chills’. My trip started in Ukraine/Belarus. Then I moved south to Turkey – more precisely the Kurdish far south-east. An underlying theme was… Read more
Belarus – and that ‘Registration Thing’
The passport control officer at Minsk Airport seemed genuinely shocked to see me (well, OK, I can have that effect on people). For so long, Belarus had seemed to be the hardest country in Europe to visit. This changed suddenly for citizens of many countries,… Read more
Desperately Seeking Cool Cafes in Odesa, Ukraine
My first impression of Odesa was not good. It was back in 2006 when I was merely transiting on the way to neighbouring Moldova and Transdnistria. From the train, I needed to jump almost directly onto a little shuttle bus. After an overnight trip from… Read more
Magic on the Night Train to Odesa, Ukraine
“Only First-Class!” Well darn, that wasn’t in the script – there were no other berths on the train from Poltava to Odesa. I had tried to be organised, and buy them earlier in New Zealand. Buying Ukrainian railway tickets on line is essentially quite straight… Read more
The antifragile (?) tree-ferns of Omatepe, Nicaragua
“We’ll follow these guys – they’re three local hoodlums”, This from my local guide on Omatepe Island, Nicaragua. I was sitting behind him on his trail bike, and we were burning down the road after walking up Volcan Maderas, the smaller of the two volcanoes… Read more
One Night in San Salvador (El Salvador)
The first Salvadorean who I asked about visiting his country advised me to avoid its capital, San Salvador, entirely. “I love my country, but….” He urged that I get a bus direct from Guatemala (where I was based) to a beach town, chill there, and… Read more
Yes – Go to Nicaragua now
The news coming out of Nicaragua back in October 2018, was uncertain. Violence from the political situation seemed to have abated, but various travelers and locals were reporting that the tourism infrastructure was in chaos. Hostels had closed down, buses weren’t running, etc. I went… Read more