Yep I'm in Paris and I've got to say I'm getting much better at booking hotels over the internet. With the Pantheon right outside the window of the hotel and a view straight down the street to the Eiffel Tower from the front door I'm loving this little hotel already, plus it's got a lift. Lifts in French hotels are a big plus cause without fail your room will be nowhere near the first floor and after lugging your luggage up what the French choose to call a staircase arriving at a hotel with a lift is a bonus. Though at [View Full Entry]

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Well that's what one of my friend's daughter calls Turkey, but İ'm lucky enough to be back here again. Although this trip has been a bit of a hard slog as far as setup goes, but at least ıt dıdn't raın untıl ıt was tıme to pack up. I've now added packıng up ın the freezıng cold raın to my lıst of least glamorous thıngs about trıppıng around the world makıng thıngs go bang. But I do enjoy comıng to Turkey, especıally now that I've been here a few tımes. Although after spendıng sıx month [View Full Entry]

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İ'm still trying to decide if Singapore is a place to come back to or not, but as a place to jump off the plane for a while it's not all that bad. One thıng that's for sure though ıs that the tourısm mob ın Sıngapore really markets ıtself. If you've got more than a couple of hours they are happy to put you on a bus tour of the cıty and away you go. Mınd you for a place that's only 40 km by 20 km the fıve mıllıon people that lıve there seem to have a lot of stuff [View Full Entry]

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Living on an island with a varied history makes for some interesting excursions on the weekends. Apart from the usual trips to the pool at one of the almost swanky hotels or to the beaches with the shipwrecks there have been a few trips to see the leftovers from the battles that took place in the 1940’s. The tensions that took place in the early 2000’s have meant that some of the plaques have been melted down for scrap, robbing the area of that little link to history. So instead of seeing a brass plaque that tells you what was there, [View Full Entry]

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Well that’s what they keep telling me about this little place in the Pacific that I’ve parked myself in for a while. The more you wonder around the island, the more the statement starts to make sense. There are a few things that have got lost in the translation somewhere along the line. While the local people are trying to make it work, for some reason the country just can’t get over the line. Whether it’s the spending of the aid from the Asian countries that coincidently have logging licences and fishing rights in the area or the saga over trying [View Full Entry]

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You would only send people you don't like to Kuala Lumpur from Dubai via Karachi, it's definitely up there as one of the worst flights ever. The staff at Karachi airport are not all that keen on attracting visitors to Pakistan as they don't even let you off the plane while the hordes of cleaners give it the once over. Then there's the Customs guys who were having a little counting issue which resulted in them counting everyone left on the plane over and over again since there was allegedly one passenger who forgot to get off at Karachi. They must [View Full Entry]

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Dubai has been an eye opener in more ways then one, although the journey here like always has been an adventure. Given that I only had less than 26 hours in Dubai it was best that I made the most of it. Fortunately I had a contact on the ground in Dubai to organise things for me. But that meant a mad dash from Sharjah airport to my Dubai hotel, then onto the venue of the Ball all within three hours of hitting the ground. Given that it took an hour to get out of the airport I had it against [View Full Entry]

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Just getting to Iran has been the biggest challenge of this little sojourn. With visas required for the four of the countries I intended to visit this time round the visa chase before departure was a little insane. As soon as the passport came back it was off to another consulate. All in a set sequence as some of the visas were valid for three months from the time they were issued. Add to this was the last minute decision to go to Iran due to Dubai looking way too expensive for a week (even if the Rugby Sevens were on) [View Full Entry]

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It all started with a much delayed train from Agra, after finally leaving Agra we managed to arrive at Jaipur only two hours late. Fortunately the auto-rickshaw guy from the hotel was waiting to collect me because even at 1am the touts and the scammers are out and about. If you ever feel that no-one loves you come to India cause everyone wants to know where you're from, what's your name, where are you going so they can build up a profile on you to help convince you that you should get in their auto-rickshaw. Talk about persistent little buggers. Although [View Full Entry]

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Dehli was the first stop on the way to the Taj, which is the whole purpose of this leg of the sojourn. I was half expecting to be overwhelmed by Delhi, but it somehow failed to happen. Sure there's about fifty people packed into an area of a postage stamp at times and everyone wants a part of you but it's not that much of a struggle. It's also a place of contrasts with Old Delhi being packed to the rafters plus some and New Delhi having more space than it knows what to do with. Add to that the casualness [View Full Entry]

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