Anchored down in Anchorage“Texas always seemed so big, but you know you’re in the largest state in the Union when you’re anchored down in Anchorage” (song by Michelle Shocked, theme to this summer, sung by Mary McCarthy) Lumpy air buffeted the plane as we coasted over a choppy looking sea and threaded …
- How dumb can you be ? 2
It can be quite a surprise to discover how quickly someone who has high level responsibilities can abandon their sense of self preservation, observes Bob Cranwell. It’s just one example of how day dreamy some people can get when they are relieved of day to day responsibilities at work and …
- Quetta train to Chaman – Ceri
Train to the Afghan border. The big adventure, the first of 1985, began the next day, on Weds 2nd. We’d had the idea to go to Chaman, a small village about 70 miles away, very close to the Afghan border. We’d heard various exciting stories, including one from a young …
- Story behind the Picture #7 Getting Away from it All
There is a humourous anecdote I recall from years ago, where a somewhat puzzled child asks their father why Grandma spends such a lot of time reading just that one book. “It’s the bible, son, there are lots of lessons for us all in there.” A beam of enlightenment crosses …
- Please, what is this fellow saying . . .
Ticket to Delhi: Even being understood was part of the trickiness, as I found out myself when wishing to travel from Agra, where I’d been staying with my girlfriend, back to Delhi to meet a new group. Now Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal must be one of the …
- Story behind the Picture #8 The Country Bus
The BBC recently broadcast a series of one or two hour films on #slowtravel, one was a canal journey, another a reindeer sleigh trip in north Norway and another entitled ‘The Country Bus’ featuring a local bus journey through the narrow lanes and wide landscapes of the Yorkshire Dales. They …
- Do you see what I mean ?
As an aside (before I’ve even started !), I’ve had an attack of synchronicity – today I got through the post a card from my opticians, reminding me of a sight test due (I have them every year, sometimes more often as I have glaucoma in the family), and also …
- A little local difficulty
The first book I remember reading that involved travel to far flung locations was one written by an old colonial hand, Fred G Merfield, with the alluring title ‘Gorillas were my Neighbours’. Looking back, I now see it as the memoirs of a casual racist, (amazingly quite acceptable at the …
- Story behind the picture #9 Water and Women
‘Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink’, as the Ancient Mariner bemoaned. Of course he was surrounded by seawater, but for a large number of the world’s people the same issue of lack or inability to use water dogs their lives. Simple bonds of hydrogen and oxygen (H2O), create …
- Sahara Central
Art and Survival in the Tassili Plateau As I’d spent my formative tourleading years in Morocco, when one of the rarely operated tours to the middle of the Sahara came up for grabs, my managers and I both made a beeline for it. The tour involved taking everything …
