Tag Archives: environmental portrait

Finally! The day dawned clear, and while the mists cloaked the distant mountains, the extensive green hills covered in tea bushes and silver oak trees that surrounded my ‘resort’ had at long-last come into view. I had booked myself in for a week’s stay above Munnar, a town in the Western Ghats in India’s southern […]

View full post »

If you Google “French” and “food” you will get chapter and verse on culinary artistry, precision techniques, high-quality ingredients, and deep cultural significance. On my first trip to France – many, many years ago – I was working for some friends at a small auberge in Parignargues. There, I was introduced to concept of the […]

View full post »

The best way to visit the Maluku’s (Malakas, Moluccas) in the eastern part of Indonesia is by ship. These were once known as the Spice Islands. The nutmeg, mace, and cloves that grew here – and nowhere else – attracted the attention of 16th century European colonial powers. The Spice Wars of the 1500s were […]

View full post »

The breadth and impact of the Roman Empire always amazes me. And I marvel at the remarkable endurance of the artefacts left behind. Walking on roads that were laid over three thousand years ago never ceases to fill me with awe. I was travelling around Morocco in a bus with a small group of seasoned […]

View full post »

I’ve heard it described as a chocolate-box scene: you know, like those pastel-painted views of idealised or conventionally pretty locations that were on the front of old-fashioned chocolate or sweet tins. They are not wrong! Dal Lake, Srinagar, in India’s Kashmir, is impossibly beautiful. The way the autumn light filtered through the willow trees at […]

View full post »