Category Archives: Travel I love the old cobbled cities of Europe, and the historical stories they tell. I spent some of my school years living in the French-speaking parts of Eastern Canada where the historical root and ties were to France. When I was studying the history of the early European explorers and settlers in Canada, their names […]  The annual Mount Hagen Sing Sing brings out a mind-boggling array of unique tribal dance troupes. Papua New Guinea has to be one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world! Although there are just over 7 million people (July 2020 est.) living on the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and […]  “Send us more camels!” Last year when I was in Jordan, that was the exhortation of every second person I met, once they heard I was from Australia (see: Desert Rains and the Seven Pillars). Who knew we actually sell camels to the Middle East? I knew there were feral camels – at least 300,000 […]  Every society that has been studied by history, anthropology, or sociology, celebrates the passage of its individuals from one social or religious status to another. The ceremonial events that mark these rites of passage can take very different and colourful forms. Many are private affairs, with elders initiating others into secrets that are not shared […]  Patan, or Lalitpur (ललितपुर), or Manigal, is an ancient Newari city of just over 200,000 people. It sits on the southern plateau of the Bagmati River, eight kilometers south of Kathmandu, and was – up until the conquest and unification in the late 1700s, under Prithvi Narayan Shah, the Gorkha Prince and future King of […] |
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