Fast Food Around the World

Fast food – your typical American chains. Yes, I’m talking about McDonalds, KFC, Burger King and Subway. As a traveller you might get very depressed when you’re at the entrance to the Terracotta Warriors and you see everyone going into KFC to eat, or perplexed at the presence of KFC and Pizza Hut by the …

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Sunday Spotlight – Samarkand

Welcome to the sunniest of Sunday Spotlights, concluding this week’s look at Central Asia. Samarkand is a city full of rich history and beautiful Islamic architecture. Bukhara has a more clear distinction between old and new cities, but Samarkand’s ancient treasures seem to be weaved into the modern city a lot more than the equally …

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West African Memories – Burkina Faso and Malaria

Howdy again. Just for one little day I’m taking a break from the Central Asia theme and returning to the ongoing story of my time in West Africa in 2006, reviewing my old blog entries and reacting to reading them again. And we’re at the tipping point today, when I contracted malaria. Actually it’s been …

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Bishkek – Culture and Character

As Central Asia week continues, I bring you a little photo journey though he capital of Kyrgyzstan, little Bishkek. Not as big as the other regional capitals, Bishkek has a charm of its own and is actually a quite attractive city with some beautiful parks, lots of theatre, a strange museum which suggests that Kyrgyzstan …

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Sunday Spotlight – Krakow

Poland has a number of great cities, but I think it’s pretty hard to go past Krakow in the country’s south as the best city going around. Which is why the Sunday Spotlight is shining straight at this lovely city, filled with alleyways and hills, with a stunning central city square where everyone congregates and …

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West African Memories – Niger into Burkina Faso

Continuing on with my flashback to 2006, we start this week in a country many people don't know much about - Niger, a giant, desert-like country north of Nigeria. Tuesday, February 07, 2006 A way away Well a post has disappeared.... It wouldn't save a few days ago and now it's gone.... I noticed In …

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Scammed in India – Mumbai

How quickly would it take on my second visit to India to be in strife again? Well, as it turned out, not long! The flight from London was, to say the least, ‘bouncy’. I’d taken dozens of flights in 1999, but somehow I must have missed any sort of decent turbulence. Not so in 2000-01, …

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