Tag Archives: Travel Blog

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 […]

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“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 […]

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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 […]

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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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Sometimes Facebook ads get it right! I am always looking for walks in interesting places. And, I had been wanting to study a language again. But, I honestly can’t remember if I saw the ad in the corner of my consciousness before I decided on studying Spanish, or if I had decided on Spanish first… […]

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