A Journal of Travel Tales Across 72 Countries
The most fascinating journeys are those that lead you backwards – in time – step by chipped, cracked, crumbling step. If you manage not to trip or slip through the cracks, a world of wonder awaits you. These are places that tease and tantalize, excite …
May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome and dangerous, wrote a friend. No, not a curse, but a blessing. My wild trails have been all this and more; if only you care to walk with me, you will track the frustratingly elusive orangutan mom as …
If Charles Lamb were to live in modern times, he would amend his famous quote to say, “the automobile has entered my soul”. It clogs up our cities, sprays carbon into our lungs, turns our environs into a dreadful cacophony of blaring horns, screeching tyres …
Adventure & Trekking - Confront your fears before they conquer you, they say. I did. What does it take to jump out of an aircraft flying 15000 feet as the ground rushes toward you at the speed of light? How does it feel when your instructor pushes you off …
Cities - Cities boggle, baffle, bluster, overwhelm, intimidate. Yet they are also dynamic, vibrant and above all, inclusive. Holding out hope to the millions who throng to them from everywhere, never turning anyone away, cities offer refuge and the promise of a better life. Like alchemists, they …
Enchanting Islands - Islands are magical. They often are quirky, funky, wilful, eclectic and more. Islands are never insular even when isolated. Vibrant, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual or pidgin, multi-cultural in a way mainland can never be, islands are the stuff of legends and lore. They are too independent to …
Exciting Rail & Boat Journeys - My love of train journeys began in 1981 when I travelled all the way from London to Moscow, by train crossing the channel by ferry and resuming the train ride in Belgium to reach Paris. We stopped in Paris, Frankfurt, Berlin (those days it was …
Mystique of Mountains - Mountains are majestic and irresistible. Linking the plains and plateaus with the skies; reaching out to suspended droplets of water in the clouds and gathering them in glaciers and snow peaks; sheltering the treasures of the sea floor in their crests; cherishing unfathomable secrets in …
People - What will this planet be without that singular species at the top of the evolutionary pyramid? People – caring, creative, and co-operative as well as aggrandizing, avaricious, entitled and demanding – they are its very essence. They may be destroying the rich tapestry of our …
Sliding Off the Map - Our planet is hopelessly trodden upon. There is hardly a spot untrampled by human feet or unclaimed by human greed. Even in the remotest jungles of the Amazon or Borneo, or the wastelands of Patagonia, our insatiable race is digging for buried riches – oil, …
The Stragglers (Work in Progress) - There are journeys that defy definition or slotting. They happen, often without aforethought. And bring a wealth of unanticipated pleasures, pain and perspectives. Perhaps they happen for a reason. Every trip need not be a themed one. Leave some to serendipity and see what it …