Category Archives: Landscapes The Marble Mountains: I kept calling them “Magic Mountains” by mistake. But they are a bit magical! Near Non Nuoc Beach, nine kilometres south of Danang in Central Vietnam, five marble and limestone outcrops rise up dramatically from the flat plains around them. According to legend, a dragon climbed out of the East Vietnam Sea onto the beach and laid […]  After five days of bumping across the rough roads of Mongolia’s seemingly endless grassy steppes, it was with a sigh of relief that I watched our Russian UAZ (Ulyanovsky Avtomobilny Zavod) four-wheel-drive vehicle climb into the Altai Mountains that run along the north western border of the country. Mongolian guides G and Segi of Shaman Tours were looking after myself, a small group of photographic […]  Think of Mongolia, and you think of nomads. Nomads on horseback, driving their herds of goats, sheep, cattle and horses across the vast, rugged expanses of Central Asia, are still an important feature of the Mongolian landscape. In spite of a 2.78% annual rate of urbanisation (according to the CIA World Factbook), Mongolia still has one of the smallest urban populations in […]  Travelling around Switzerland is like luxuriating in a box of the rich, truffle-filled chocolates that the country is famous for. Everywhere you go, picture-postcard scenes meet you. And, if you have Swiss friends to guide you and a Swiss Travel Pass in hand, you don’t even have to work hard: accessing these magic places is easy. […]  It was a long day. Long, bumpy, and noisy. I’ve said it before: Cross-country travel in Mongolia is not for the faint-hearted – or for those who are weak of bladder! The Russian UAZ (Ulyanovsky Avtomobilny Zavod) four-wheel-drive vehicles that are tough enough to negotiate the matrix of mud, rocks, dirt and potholes that pass for a road network across the expansive steppes of […] |
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