Tag Archives: blog

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 […]

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Support your local musicians! In Australia, this is easy, for in the world of music – as with just about every other creative endeavour – the country is extraordinarily well represented, per capita, with talented individuals who work hard at their craft. Although I love getting to see the international “big names” whenever I attend the […]

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Pashupatinath, three kilometres northwest of Kathmandu on the Bagmati River, is home to one of the most sacred of Nepal’s Hindu temples and cremation sites. One of the “seven groups of monuments and buildings” that make up the UNESCO-listed Kathmandu Valley, Pashupatinath Temple and the Bagmati Cremation Ghats are also on just about every tourist’s itinerary while in the city. So, the site hosts a mix […]

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“Spring” – that season of new life and fresh growth – is a concept originating in the temperate regions of Europe.  There is nowhere quite like an English country-garden to herald Spring in all its traditionally subtle beauty. The gentle rains – for which the countryside is so well known – coupled with slowly increasing sunlight, give […]

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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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