I dont particularly like this time of the year . The mornings are cool. The skies are like a grey blanket covering us and keeping the sun out. When the suns does appear it swelters . It is so muggy that the trousers I wore this morning are discarded for shorts . The thin jumper thrown back in the cupboard and the T Shirt dug out . The air feels still . The sun burns down . High summer has arrived Read on...
Although they eat some very unusual shit in Thailand, cooking with poo is, thankfully, not literal. Its the cooking school of Poo, a lady from the Khlong Toei slum in Bangkok. Before starting her cooking school, Poo spent 14 hours a day cooking food and making money, about 200 bhat ($7usd) a day. But a bubbly personality, a pinch of tenaciousness, a dollop of help from an Australian missionary, Read on...
Cyperus Papyrus was originally from Syria, Palestine and Africa, but it also grew along the banks of the rivers Anapo and Ciane. It is an elegant swamp plant that grows close to abundant water and in hot climates.
The ancient Egyptians used the internal part of the stems to make the famous Papyrus that they used as paper.
The techniques the Egyptians used to make sheets of Papyrus was the only c Read on...
On the road again this time to another site near Rouen. We are making our way back home and cannot decide whether to get the ferry or the tunnel let alone what time we are going to cross. The journey to this campsite was a bit different as we needed to get a ferry across to Jumieges where our next site is and then found out that the height limit was 3 metres. Well our rig is 2.89 metres and then a Read on...
The end of three relaxing and summery days in Dalyan. Well, they were relaxing for all but one of us - Im so amused by Beebs interpretation of her forced bathroom incarceration that I cant let it pass. She got stuck in a bathroom at a restaurantit was very traumatic, pliers were involved in the rescue, there were tears etc etc, but every time she brings it up (which is a LOT, even more than the vo Read on...
As the door closes on the cacophony of the street, there is the sound of tinkling water and the smell of lemongrass. A smiling lady with kind eyes wais (bows) and hands me a thick menu. On the first several pages are soothing images of gold masks, aroma oil rubs, body scrubs, and head and foot massage packages. It isnt until page 4 that the human spatchcocking is finally pictured – suspiciously Read on...
Leaving Auckland, we headed a couple of hours south to Matamata. Nearby, on what used to be a 506 hectare (1250 acre) sheep farm, Sir Peter Jackson found what he felt was the perfect site to locate his set for The Shire. In particular, a large tree matched a tree described in Tolkiens works. He built the set using temporary materials for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. By agreement with the landown Read on...
Sunday was about the two other famous museums in Amsterdam: the Van Gogh and Rijksmuseum. The Van Gogh is structured as a narrative which takes you through his development as an artist. Fascinating, engrossing and ultimately overwhelming in its detail. I had heard that many of his famous works are elsewhere which seems to be true. Much of what is on the wall is developmental; i.e. he was working o Read on...
After my time in Mt Isa, I met Will at the Townsville airport. We picked up our hire car and started the trip North to take us as far as Cooktown. On the way, we passed farms of sugar canes lining the roads and a long thick snake, dead and sprawled across the road. We stopped in Tully, famous for its banana farms and labour from backpackers eagerly working off their farm hours on their working hol Read on...
Travelling in the post pandemic world is full of stress and uncertainty- cancellations, staff shortages, queues. It is, then, a miracle to behold that two travelling parties, their origins on two separate continents can agree to meet on a third continent and arrive within 30 people in the passport queue. Particularly when one of those parties can answer with genuine ignorance when hes asked upon b Read on...