Tag Archives: blog “A fast horse and a soaring eagle are the wings of a nomad.” –Kazakh proverb The animals in Western Mongolia are as wild as the landscape: the horses are unruly and the hunting eagles are never fully tame. I suspect that the ethnic Kazakhs who live there prefer it that way. The Kazakhs are descendants of […]  Music makes everything better! The annual five-day Easter long-weekend musical feast that is Byron Bay Bluesfest always delivers up such a range and variety of wonderful talent that it is hard to know where to start. Rubbing shoulders with big names from around the world, lesser-known Australian performers proudly hold their own. I look forward to these […]  “Any fool can carry on, but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time.” – Joseph Conrad I’m not a great sailor: my favourite part of sailing is making a safe landfall. This is especially true when the landfall is somewhere new and different, and when the sailing has been a bit fraught! […]  (Double click for: Elkesh Herself by Kugyershin Family’s Songs) It is said that if you want to see traditional Kazakh culture, you should go to Bayan-Ölgii province in Mongolia, rather than to Kazakhstan. In the 1800s, the expanding Russian Empire pushed the semi-nomadic Kazakh tribes into neighboring countries, including Mongolia – where members of the Middle Jüz Kazakhs […]  It is no wonder that Budapest is called one of the most beautiful cities in Europe! Approaching it from the Danube River that runs between what were originally the separate cities of Buda on the right bank and Pest on the left, renders it magical: this section of old city along the Banks of the […] |
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