Hushed silence on the email. All quiet on the blogging front. What’s happened to her? Has she been sucked back into the real world? Is she somewhere so remote that even her usually pretty resourceful ability to find an internet connection has failed? Or is she struck down by some ghastly lurgy somewhere? No, strange to say, there have been multiple sightings of one Elizabeth Weir in the United Kingdom over the last four months. Most of the reported appearances of this rare migrant have been in the central London area, although we are hearing reports of sightings at various locat [View Full Entry]

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My trip to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu was brief, but, in the course of ten days, I dipped into a millennium of history at some fascinating points. From the Gangas to the Hoysalas to the Wodeyars, from the tenth to the twentieth century, each culture has left us fabulous evidence of the skills it harnessed in celebrating its gods and its rulers. And, of course, the British left their mark on this part of the former Raj. My first stop was Hassan, a town that does not have much to commend it apart from its location, an hour away from several [View Full Entry]

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I fell out of love with India. Temporarily, anyway. In Bangalore. Bangalore was my first stop in a fleeting trip around the south-western state of Karnataka. The irony of visiting this capital of outsourcing more than three years after I resigned my job as an outsourcing lawyer initially amused me, particularly as it wasn’t out of choice, but necessity: being also the state capital, it’s the easiest place in the state to fly to from Mumbai and a good starting point for exploring some of the variety that the south of Karnataka has to offer. But it has an ugly side. [View Full Entry]

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...just a few more that I couldn't resist uploading too... [View Full Entry]

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The second night of the trek we camped on a school playground. This was the school in the village of Adha, the first sign of human habitation we’d seen in twenty-four hours, six hours’ walk away from the nearest doctor, and where electricity is, at best, generator-driven - that’s if someone has managed to get enough fuel for the generator here by mule. The school’s catchment area extends to settlements three days’ walk away, so many of the children board, girls in one dormitory, boys in the other. Lights out is at dusk, though the some of the children do have [View Full Entry]

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Imagine a Switzerland cut off from the rest of the world until very recently, where internet and television have been permitted only in the last ten years, where 19 languages are spoken by a population smaller than that of Glasgow, where more than 600 species of orchid and more than 50 species of rhododendron grow, where the monarch’s crown features a bird not jewels, and where Buddhism suffuses each facet of everyday life. A country so mountainous that the only way to get from east to west was, until recently, to cross the border into the neighbouring country. Where one of [View Full Entry]

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Remember the buzz of Asia, the bustle of activity, the panoply of trinkets and T-shirts and food for sale, the maelstrom of traffic? Remember the way the air in southeast Asia assaults you, the humidity palpable even in this, the “cool”, season? Remember the smells, the chillies, the frangipani, the incense? Remember the lives lived outside, the smiles, the welcoming, the generosity? I had to change planes in Mumbai. There the sweet smell of India, distinctive even at midnight, hit me as I emerged from the plane. A crowd of attendants was waiting at the bottom of th [View Full Entry]

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As usual, I couldn't decide how I could further narrow down the collection of photos to illustrate the latest blog... so here's some more, if you're interested... [View Full Entry]

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Christmas abroad rocks! This was my third, and on yet another different continent. I didn’t know what to expect, although my Christmas cards and emails described my hope that at least part of the time would be spent in the company of the elephants I have got to know over the last few years. A couple of weeks’ earlier, this looked like an empty wish: the heavy early rains in Namibia had caused the ephemeral rivers of Kaokoland to flow and effectively prevented access to the research area. It was also possible that the animals would have dispersed, relishing the fresh, [View Full Entry]

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..and not forgetting my home country... With enormous thanks to Jen and Ross for a truly fabulous few days at Brodie Castle, and to Lisa, Lorraine and Bonnie for giving me several great excuses to explore - and even go out in - my home town for the first time in, err, more years than I care to remember... [View Full Entry]

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