Category Archives: Landscapes

It can be risky travelling through Southeast Asia during the southwest monsoon season: – daily rains can almost be relied upon, and when they come, they tend to be sudden and torrential. They make getting around difficult, especially for tourists who are not necessarily used to wading through the deep, dirty waters that often come with routine […]

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I loved New Mexico. What’s not to love about a state that reveres spiritual ancestors, country and western legends, Mother Mary, and extraterrestrials – seemingly in equal measure! It’s not that I have any particular affiliation with any of the above, but I admire a culture that allows for – and celebrates – such diversity. […]

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It is only a short hop from Singapore to Indonesia by boat or plane, but it may as well be a whole world away (q.v. From Resort to Reality). Last month, after a week in the ultra-modern high-rise city-state of Singapore (Magical Flying Machines and Gardens by the Bay), my husband and I took a side-trip to […]

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The writers at the Lonely Planet call it: “one of the world’s most spectacular coastal drives”. They are not wrong. Officially starting in Torquay, gateway to Victoria’s “Surf Coast”, and hugging the rugged coastline along the Southern Ocean for 243 kilometres (151 miles) to Allansford, just outside the Victorian regional centre of Warrnambool, The Great Ocean Road is worthy of its listing […]

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What an amazing place Bagan must have been in its heyday! “Bagan is a gilded city alive with tinkling bells and the swishing sounds of monks’ robes” – attributed to Marco Polo‘s late-12th-century account. Probably founded in the mid-to-late 9th, the city was the political, economic and cultural capital of the Pagan Empire for 250 years, and would […]

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