Category Archives: Landscapes One of my Australian friends is heading to the States next month: “Las Vegas!” she told me, with some excitement. I guess it is an exciting city: there are bars and clubs, live entertainment of every description, and of course the gambling. But, after a day or so, I’m ready to escape. The best part of Vegas, in my […]  It’s no surprise that every Brit, regardless of age or gender, owns at least one pair of gumboots or wellingtons. You can’t get far in the English countryside without them. Winter in England has a reputation: grey and bleak and wet. While it is true that the whole time I’ve been here, it has been wet, at least […]  They say you are a long time dead and buried – Well, unless you are buried in Switzerland, where your plot is reclaimed after 25 years to recycle available land. Or, unless you are in a traditional Chinese cemetery, where your bones should be taken out and washed annually… In India, honouring the dead can take many varied […]  Just two weeks before my husband and I visited the island of Sumatra in February 2014, Gunung Sinabung erupted, killing at least 14 people. The province of North Sumatra is not that big: Mount Sinabung is in the Karo Plateau, only 40 kilometres away from the Lake Toba Supervolcano, and in the general region where we would be travelling. When we arrived at Bukit […]  It is easy to hit over-load while travelling: too many wonderful sights, engaging activities, interesting people, and novel tastes and smells… This can be especially the case after spending time in an environment so sublime that it transports you, producing a nature-induced “peak experience”. We had just driven the length of Australia’s Great Ocean Road, a drive through scenery so magnificent that […] |
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