How learning to ride became a journey of self discovery.
My mum, the pilot
A young girl was once told that women should not fly aeroplanes. My mum just went on to do it anyway and became a teenage pilot.
Lessons in Life from a Motorbike
Getting the ring fixed
A cunning plan with a golf ball | A sunny riverbank | Nudists After that proposal in Paris 12 years…
The tablecloth sellers of the Nile
The boatmen of the Nile have a unique way of selling their goods.
Top 10 travel tips for a day trip to the Golden Temple in Amritsar
One of the great religious sites on earth, the Golden Temple at Amritsar in Punjab, India, is the preeminent spiritual…
“Vine leaves! We just want vine leaves!!”
Why do some tourists act differently in restaurants on holiday? The other day I was at a beach cafe with…
Climbing the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the summer of ’89
Travel memories | Helping a stranger up the Leaning Tower of Pisa | Having the last laugh It was the…
Just one of those days when the travel stuff goes wrong
Kuala Lumpur | Ubud to Gili Trewangan | Inventing the Lost Phone Dance I knew that my travel expertise, if…
The cat café of Borneo
Meow Meow Cat Café | Kuching | Sarawak | Borneo | Malaysia On our second day in Borneo, Life-boss said…
First impressions of a second time in Borneo
When you think of Borneo, what do you think of? Rainforests, mountain mists and orangutans? We saw all of these…
A Rainy Friday Night in Singapore
Enroute to Borneo | Sitting next to a very nervous flyer It was great to be back in Singapore, I’ve…
Words of comfort in a time of war: my father’s Polish family
Soon after my father arrived in London from India, his homeland was invaded. Solace and comfort came from an unexpected…
The rose bush that didn’t give roses
See that rose bush above? Beautiful isn’t it? It is ever so deceptive and if you enlarge the picture you…
How the cenotes of Mexico cured my deepest fear
We all have fears right? Some fear the dark, some fear flying, small spaces or spiders. For me though, ever…
No cash, no gas, 40 kms from home
A spot of bother running out of gas in Mexico
Similar objects of Assam and Myanmar: some travel notes
A couple of years ago I visited Assam, a state in north east India, and Myanmar on the same trip and noticed several similar objects.
The awkward incident of the cat in the afternoon
The lengths I go to to protect my cat. Honestly. It was so embarrassing I haven’t seen my next door…
Bird talk: how an innocent childhood hobby got the whole class laughing
Preface: in the 1980s the word bird was used as British slang to mean a girl or a woman. It…
Flying in the time of Covid
It’s not all bad news. The airport queues are short, bookshops are a breeze and even wearing a face mask…
A hike in the Himalayan snow
We left the glimmering lake at Dodital to climb another thousand metres, ascending pine forests, crossing streams and meadows to…
The whirling dervishes of Istanbul
The Galata Mevlevi Museum | Istanbul | February 2020 *** A few months ago I had the good fortune to…
The holyman, the emerald lake and the three stoned porters
I hiked through a Himalayan snowstorm and felt all tough … till we met an old holyman who had done…
Spending half a day at the bank
It wasn’t quite how I imagined the start of my Himalayan adventure. This is the second part of the blog…
Taking buses up the Himalayas
The first post of a new blog series about going up the Himalayas mainly on Indian public transport buses. Taken…
Crossing a special sea between Bali and the Gili Islands
It was a day that started serene, went chaotic and became serene again. A chaos sandwich, if you will This…
A funny incident in the men’s loo
Men’s bathroom protocol | What goes on in the men’s loos? | What is a loo? | A funny incident|…
To Bali and Beyond…
The final week of our amazing 90 days backpacking in southeast Asia arrived far too soon. In search of some…
Thoughts on returning home after backpacking around Southeast Asia for 90 days
Or … why you can never really ‘do’ a country We’ve been back now for six weeks after our 90…
Photography: Sunset over the Sulu Sea
Selingan Island | Sabah Province | Malaysia
Things that can go wrong when travel-blogging
How to blog on the go when you’re in a relationship | when your thumb decides to blog without you…
Replanning our route, re-routing our plan
A Street cafe breakfast of omelettes and rice | Chiang Mai | Northern Thailand This post is part of the…
Chiang Mai, pretty little temple town
After 20 hours of travelling from the Himalayas we got to the laid-back town in north Thailand, Chiang Mai; we…
Kalimpong and a Magical Himalayan Wedding
We woke early to see the world’s third highest peak and there she was, Kanchenjunga, at dawn, ready to witness…
A tale of a dry day in India (it must be election time)
Departure Lounge Bar| Kolkata Airport | India We’re just about to leave India and go to Thailand on our 90…
A time of unbridled joy: the Assamese bihu
Man, those Assamese know how to celebrate. It’s the spring festival of Rongali Bihu and when we arrived in the…
Where the Rhinos Roam
We’re in Kaziranga National Park in Assam, a UNESCO world heritage site which has two thirds of the world’s one-horned…
Helpful hints on how to climb a 17 foot elephant on your wedding day
From Jorhat we travelled west for one and a half hours till we got to Kohora, a small village on…
An unexpected treat on the River Brahmaputra
We got lucky. By an unexpected act of kindness we were spending the night aboard a luxury boat all to…
Things to see in Majuli, the world’s largest river island
We sailed to the world’s largest river island, Majuli, in the mighty river Brahmaputra and cycled in stunning Assamese countryside…
To Sivasagar: home of the Assamese kings
We’ve made our way to the ancient capital of Assam, full of monuments of the Ahoms. Digboi to Sivasagar |…
Digboi, the oil town in the rainforest
We’ve made our way to the easternmost corner of Assam, to a sleepy town by a rainforest called Digboi. It’s…
On the lazy man’s road: the story of Dhodar Ali
We’re travelling further east in Assam, towards Digboi on an old road that has a curious tale about it. Dhodar…
A storm in an Assamese tea cup
We’ve arrived in Upper Assam at the start of the tea plucking season; the tea-pluckers are out in full force,…
Flying past Mount Everest to Assam
Delhi to Dibrugarh, Assam, North-east India. Flight time: 2 hours 25 minutes. Blogging with a view of the Himalayas. It’s…
Travel anxiety: I’m about to go on holiday for 3 months, so why do I feel so anxious?
It’s weird, pre-travel anxiety. It’s that jittery feeling, not quite butterflies in the stomach, just a gentle fluttering of moths…
What to pack for backpacking
With less than a week to go till our 90 Days Backpacking In South East Asia I’ve started to pack…
Unexpected hosts: gorillas after the mist
After noon, we started the descent in to the mists of Mount Karisimbi, the highest peak in the Virungas, a…
Climbing Mount Karisimbi
CLIMBING MOUNT KARISIMBI , a snow-capped volcano between Rwanda and the DR Congo, the tallest peak in the Virungas, was…
Kivu: The Shimmering Lake in the Shadow of the Volcano
In the very heart of Africa, between Rwanda and D.R. Congo, is a silvery, majestic lake framed by breezy palms…
The Cisterns of Istanbul
Deep below ground are wonders of ancient Roman engineering One and a half millenia ago, when Istanbul, then Constantinople, was…
My mum the pilot flies again
A few years ago I wrote a blogpost titled My Mum the Pilot, the true story of my mum Dhira Chaliha…
The best places to watch the London marathon
A spectator’s guide to the London marathon.
End of the onboard liquid restrictions is in sight for air travellers.
Soon there will be no more need to cram those little 100 millilitre liquid bottles in to small plastic bags…
So, what does it mean to be ‘acting suspiciously’?
A few days ago I was surrounded by four policemen with automatic weapons who were asking me what I was…
Another new word from India
Today I was walking down a road in India and I saw this road sign. It turns out after a…
The F*** word, the trickiest word in the English language
F word is perhaps the most varying and interchangeable word in the English language. Mesmersing, confusing, even bamboozling, sometimes cool in the right company and nearly always crude and vulgar.
“So, where are you REALLY from?”
This week the headlines in London were about a royal aide who continuously asked a British woman of colour where…
Flying like Darth Vader with the people in white coats
Heavy breathing under a mask and wearing a visor. I’m now feeling like Darth Vader on a flight. I’m off…
Virtual London Tour: From St Paul’s Cathedral to London Bridge
This virtual online walk along the Thames, from St. Paul’s Cathedral to London Bridge features google Earth images, photos and…
Virtual London tour: Canary Wharf and Limehouse
To book this tour please click here ( via the Eventbrite website) Using google Earth images, photos and a real…
Virtual London Tour: Whitechapel, East End
Bring your own cuppa, put your feet up and enjoy this virtual walk from Let’s Discover London. Using Google Earth,…
Hey Loons 