19th December 2013 We went out early to visit Manuel Antonio park in the hope of spotting some wildlife before it got busy. At 7am the place was quiet, although the usual crowd of pests had already gathered to try and scavenge money from the tourists. Some guy in an official looking vest flagged us » » »
Posts Tagged ‘people’
1 October 2012
Yee-haw
22nd September 2012 Can I get a yee-haw? We left the Yellowstone area for another long drive today, right across Wyoming to the small town of Buffalo. This is the real Wild West, home of wagon trains and cattle round-ups, shoot-outs and indian war parties. And we did flash past a group of gen-u-ine cowboys » » »
23 September 2012
Story of me
12th September 2012 There’s one behaviour Americans sometimes display that always leaves me bemused, and I’m fairly certain I’ve never found it elsewhere. I’ll call it “The Story of Me”. You meet an American, say hello, and without any prompting or further ado they tell you all about themselves, their family history, where they live » » »
23 June 2011
Incan Peru
In Cusco, Pisac, Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu we found the legacy of the Incas. Both in the ruins and remains of their splendid architecture and in the Quechua people who are their descendants. And if you’re wondering about the inclusion of any photos of colonial buildings – well of course the Spanish recycled Inca stones » » »
16 June 2011
Ollantaytambo
13th June 2011 I was awoken by the sound of the Dance of the Drunken Men, being played by a brass band as they passed by our hotel. It made me smile (despite the hour). It was just as the hotel owner had said: this festival goes on all day and all night for an » » »
11 June 2011
Inca art, old and new
10th June 2011 I am so impressed with the works in the Museum of Precolumbian Art (MAP). It’s a great museum in the first place, in a beautiful building with all the works superbly presented. Each piece has information in Spanish, English and French although I have to admit the wording sometimes resembles the incredulously » » »
11 June 2011
The new Peru
9th June 2011 And so via the rather un-travellery approach of hopping a short plane flight, we have arrived in Cusco. Tourist capital of the Andes by anyone’s account. So we’ve missed Lake Titicaca, which is a shame, although it was visible out of the window of our 737. Cusco is very different from La » » »
9 June 2011
Bolivia in brief
We only stayed four days in La Paz, with one excursion out to see Tiwanaku on the high plateau. Even with this brief glance there’s lots to find fascinating about Bolivia. Related Images:
7 June 2011
La Paz
6th June 2011 Hurray for the little old women in the tiny bowler hats! They look splendid and lend yet more idiosyncrasy to this unexpected city. Llama foetuses, blue potatoes and bowler hats. The predictable headache, shortness of breath and racing heartbeat resulted in a complete failure to sleep so we just decided to mooch » » »
5 June 2011
Chiloe, farewell
4th June 2011 Apparently it rains all the time on Chiloe, but until today we would never have guessed. Even then, the rain held off until after lunch. We took a roundabout route back to the ferry at Cachao so we could visit the church at Tenaun and stop at a recommended place for lunch » » »
3 June 2011
Fernando and Amory
31st May 2011 We went out kayaking first thing in the morning, an alternative attempt to find the rare Southern River Otter. The river was just as eye-achingly beautiful as yesterday, and just as quiet. No otters at all, but a lovely kayak trip nonetheless. We dedicated the rest of the day to relaxing around » » »
20 May 2011
A town like Alice
17th May 2011 Alice Springs is kinda depressing. For starters, it’s an entirely unattractive town with a town planner’s grid of streets and nothing at all to centre them on. A river runs through it, but as with most rivers up here it is simply a very long sand pit. The town centre is cluttered » » »
28 April 2011
Melbourne is nice
24th April 2011 We’ve abandoned the stupid trams and have been walking around Melbourne instead. Which is great, because the centre of the city is compact and attractive and has plenty of grassy spaces around it. There are no important must-visit sights in Melbourne so you can just explore. It’s Sunday today. Not only that, » » »
16 April 2011
Heart of Sydney
Sydney is a big, friendly, colourful city with a lot going on, and a lot going for it. We definitely felt it deserved more than six days, which is unusual for us in a city. Related Images:
4 April 2011
International glacier expedition
3rd April 2011 Walking on a glacier is something that you should definitely do once, but probably only once. I’ll no doubt caveat that later in the post. Our expedition was a truly international affair, with us representing the UK and accompanied by others from China, Malaysia, South Korea and Argentina. Our guides were Canadian » » »
4 April 2011
Forecast is gloomy
2nd April 2011 Despite being on the far side of the world, there seems to be no country more closely connected to the UK than NZ. People all over the world have asked us “where are you from?” and usually the answer “England” satisfies them. Here if we say England they’ll say “yeah, where?” so » » »
24 January 2011
Staying with grandma
23nd January 2011 We’re staying for two weeks with Maureen’s grandma, who lives on her own except for a servant in a house in the suburbs of Denpasar, Bali. She is a unique and wonderful old lady, with a lovely sense of humour and a great delicacy about her. It’s very different staying in a » » »
24 January 2011
Singapore impressions
21st January 2011 Four days in Singapore is hardly enough to summarise the city, but I did get some good impressions and in truth I liked the place a lot. Singapore is akin to London in having plenty of attractive old buildings juxtaposed with impressive modern architecture. The difference is in the ratios, which are » » »
17 January 2011
Mr Cultural Sensitivity
15th January 2011 We arrived on Langkawi by ferry late morning, picked up a hire car that pretty much worked, drove around looking at fleapits and No Vacancy signs until we found a decent hotel with a room left. All this accomplished, we stopped for lunch in a very local little restaurant tucked away from » » »
5 January 2011
Back to shore
3rd January 2011 Some of the people to be seen loitering on the beach at Ko Surin while we wait for our transfer back to the mainland: an orange-robed monk over for the day to bestow New Year blessings on the park HQ; muslim tourists in their tropical island wear of full black headscarf, jeans » » »
Tags: people, snorkelling
31 December 2010
Cambodia nutshell
I like Cambodia, even though things don’t work quite how they’re meant to, the traffic is chaos and the country is clearly very poor. My warm feelings may in part be due to the nice accommodation we stayed in, but getting an enormous plush villa by a pool for the price of a cosy shoebox » » »
25 December 2010
Merry Christmas
We have no festive photos to put up here, there’s nothing remotely Christmassy happening in Cambodia except for a few pretty restaurant touts dressed up in Santa outfits in the hope of drawing some more customers. And we’re certainly not exchanging presents – how on earth would we pack them?! So it’s Christmas only in » » »
23 December 2010
Battambang
Though it doesn’t have anything to compare with Angkor Wat, there’s endless interest in touring around Battambang and its surroundings. Plus of course the town has a really cool name. Related Images:
21 December 2010
Just nosin’ around
21th December 2010 Feeling energetic, we rose early and borrowed a couple of bikes to cycle off in search of a temple called Ek Phnom, downstream along the river from Battambang. The road started out winding through the suburbs of Cambodia’s second city. This is a very misleading sentence. Despite being the second city, Battambang » » »
15 December 2010
Muay Thai
6th December 2010 Why would I go to a kickboxing match in Bangkok when I’ve never been remotely interested in going to a boxing match in England? In part I suppose the oriental martial arts have a lot more “cool” attached to them than good ol’ Marquess of Queensbury rules. I like martial arts films » » »
25 November 2010
T.G.S.
“Why the f*** aren’t you making babies?!?” This is the comment from Singh (a friendly chap who turns out to be trying to lure us to a bespoke tailor for a commission) when we explain that we have been together for over fifteen years. I’m not sure whether all his swearing is natural, or part » » »
25 November 2010
Loy Krathong
The unofficial slogan of Loy Krathong (the Thai festival of lights) in Chiang Mai seems to be “Play With Fireworks!” We’re on the main bridge over the river Ping, and people are cheerfully lighting firecrackers and fireworks and flinging them out over the water, up into the air, or if their aim is bad back » » »
22 November 2010
Nepali farewell
My farewell gift from Madagascar was a dodgy stomach, looks like Nepal’s farewell gift is lost luggage. Our flight from Kathmandu was via Hong Kong with DragonAir then onto AirAsia, and the luggage was checked right through. But after 14 hours of transit I was standing wearily at luggage belt 12 in Bangkok airport with » » »
5 November 2010
Visiting Bardia
Bardia National Park is a seldom-visited wilderness in the West of Nepal, said to be the best place to see tigers. We were on the lookout for otters however… Related Images:
2 November 2010
Poon Hill trek
Photos from our 5-day Poon Hill trek with Ann and John. Related Images:
1 November 2010
Bhaktapur
Bhaktapur feels like what Kathmandu may have been 30 years ago. Parts of the city still feel positively mediaeval. We like it. Related Images:
19 October 2010
Festival time!
It’s festival time in Bhaktapur! The festival is Dashain, biggest festival in the Nepali calendar, and this morning we sat on the steps of a temple and watched them chop the heads off of goats and a bullock with a huge kukri knife. One blow – CHOP! Then they drag the body (still twitching, ewww) » » »
17 October 2010
Debating monks
Buddhist monks enjoy debating, and in some monasteries they get very animated about it. The standing monk asks a question, and the seated monk has to answer – they get a virtual slapping if they don’t get it right. I think questions like “when was the Battle of Hastings?” and “what was Chairman Mao’s favourite » » »
16 October 2010
Tibet
Tibet is a strange mixture – a land on the roof of the world, unlike any other place we’ve seen, yet with the trappings of modern China seeping in all the time. Impressions that stick with me… The scent of yak butter candles in dark monasteries, with worshippers jostling to donate money to their preferred » » »
14 October 2010
Seven days in Tibet
Written by Maureen Day One An early start from Kathmandu in order to reach the Chinese border before it is closed. After an hour our driver finds he’s left some important documents, so we go back to Kathmandu to find his brother with the docs on the roadside. The road to the border is the » » »
5 October 2010
City of frowns?
Written by Maureen After meeting such friendly people on our trip so far I found the people of Hong Kong at best… indifferent. Perhaps this is big city syndrome, but I really don’t remember getting that impression from other cities. For example, on our last day a kind Chinese lady explained that we needed exact » » »
27 September 2010
Malagasy scenes
We spent all our time in national parks, so most of these pictures were taken on the looong drives in between. PS – we’re flying out tomorrow. No-one needed their pipe carrying, but everyone was friendly and the Malagasy locals we met seemed delighted (and sadly, surprised) that we took the trouble to learn a » » »
27 September 2010
Intruding
Hilary Bradt in her guidebook talks of asking their guide to stop at a local Malagasy school so they could go in and visit the kids. Predictably everyone had a wonderful experience, some of the kids having never interacted with white folks before. It’s something I would never do, and have been pondering a lot. » » »
19 September 2010
Madagascar
We saw the most awesome thing today. Snake-eating ants. Seriously. We saw a big deep hole with ants going in and out. A snake goes into the hole looking for food, but the ants blind it then kill it and devour it! We saw snakeskin scattered around the hole like discarded candy wrappers. Also rat » » »
12 September 2010
Unhelpful
Useless people make angrybird angry! Along with all the great memories of South Africa will be the abiding memory of the uselessness of helpful people. By this I mean people we met whose job is meant to be serving and helping the public; receptionists, tourist info people, etc. A couple of examples: We checked into » » »
29 August 2010
Tillietudlem
Today there was a frost in the morning (as usual we were out for a walk by 6:30), yet by lunchtime the temperature was 30C. Anyway, Tillietudlem looked beautiful and more like a little slice of Scotland than ever. We’ve stayed an extra two days, going for a two hour dawn walk and a two » » »
24 August 2010
Hello Robbie and Carmen!
Today we drove and drove across the old Transkei region – one of the former black homelands – and stopped in the town of Matatiele. More vast, dry geography peppered with the odd ramshackle town. And truly excellent roads; you can’t cover 300+ miles in 6 hours on bad roads. There’s not much to do » » »