Job spec: ability to drive and to get on with people (including the boss) essential; knowledge of relevant data collection techniques valuable; knowledge of the local elephant population helpful; love affair with Africa optional, but preferred. Go figure. Yes, having slowly made my way up the ladder of the Namibian desert-dwelling elephant project from Earthwatch volunteer last August to assistant/part-time research assistant in May, I was now promoted to the level of full-time research assistant in order to help with the sixth and final Earthwatch project of the year. Keith Leggett [View Full Entry]

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[With the exception of the first couple, I'm leaving the photos in chronological order so that you can get a better idea of the changing landscape.] I could write a book about the scenery, but I'm going to let the photos speak for themselves, with only a brief word here. Up to Lanzhou, the scenery was dominated by agriculture with every available square inch growing some form of crop in fields carved in steps out of the landscape. Only after Xiahe did we really feel that we were heading into parts, if not unknown, then at least less frequented. The road [View Full Entry]

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We attracted a lot of attention wherever we went... thanks to The Truck. Work stopped, heads turned and eyes stared wherever we went. We became used to smiling, waving and calling hello's (which we'd mastered in each of the three main local languages, mainly thanks to Matt's diligence) to all and sundry. One of the biggest thrills was when a blank-faced stare suddenly cracked into a smile or an all-out grin in response to us and our smiles and waves. At best, an entire team of people working on the road would down tools, laughing and waving at us. You really [View Full Entry]

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[I am going to publish this in three sections, although it is only one story, as it were. I'm conscious of length... and the number of photos I'd like to include, so this seems a more palatable way of doing it!] After numerous long trips on the roads of southern Africa, I had become hooked on the idea of overland travel: "the journey ... in its truest and grandest and messiest sense, as a continuous line upon the surface of the earth that connects two distant places", to quote an article I read recently. If a 2,000 km round trip on, [View Full Entry]

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First, an apology: for being so dilatory in my blog-writing this summer. You should have received two blogs about my trip to South Korea (which I have just republished with photographs), and I battled with Microsoft China in Xi'an to try and send you at least a short summary of my trip to Mongolia. For some reason, the fonts and character-spacing spontaneously changed when I tried typing directly into the travelblog website, so I changed to Word with the aim of then cutting and pasting my text into the website. However, there too the fonts went haywire. Now, I thought I [View Full Entry]

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When I started planning what to do around my trip to Mongolia, I quickly realised that, although geographically perverse, it would be easiest to fly to the country's capital, Ulaanbaatar, with Korean Air via Seoul. (For any airline nerds out there, of the two other airlines that fly from London to UB, Mongolian Airlines cannot be ticketed in the UK - an indication of its perceived (un)reliability - and Air China's flight times were not ideal.) Rather than have Seoul be another Singapore in my travel life - I have still never left Singapore airport, despite flying via the city state [View Full Entry]

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The most heavily guarded place on the planet. Six hundred US- and Republic of Korea (ROK)-led UN troops face - literally - the vanguard of 1.7 million North Korean troops across a border that is, at one point, represented by a strip of concrete about 5 inches high and 5 inches wide. Not surprisingly, the UN troops' motto is "In front of them all". The reality of this situation was only brought home to me when, at an initial briefing by a word-perfect sergeant of the US Army ("Questions at the end only, please. I AM Infantry, so if you interrupt [View Full Entry]

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The most heavily guarded place on the planet. Six hundred US- and Republic of Korea (ROK)-led UN troops face - literally - the vanguard of 1.7 million North Korean troops across a border that is, at one point, represented by a strip of concrete about 5 inches high and 5 inches wide. Not surprisingly, the UN troops' motto is "In front of them all". The reality of this situation was only brought home to me when, at an initial briefing by a word-perfect sergeant of the US Army ("Questions at the end only, please. I AM Infantry, so if you interrupt [View Full Entry]

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[Once again, my apologies for the lack of photos. The internet cafe in Ulaanbaatar in which I am currently working - to the background of the electronic bangs and crashes of computer games which seem to be favoured by young Mongolian men, and the odd wordless shout from one of the human participants - does not seem to allow me to connect any other technology to their PCs. At least, my flash drive didn't work and, to be honest, I left my camera cable at the hotel. As usual, I'll republish this as and when I can get the photos loaded.] [View Full Entry]

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The fish eagle's cry. A peregrine falcon meticulously plucking and eating his breakfast of what appears to be a wader of some description, given the length of avian legs hanging off the branch. The self-important chattering of a giant kingfisher as it takes up its perch on the dead tree near the Lake shore... but only once the falcon has vacated the premises. A bearded scrub-robin hammering the local ant population, with our vocal encouragement. A slender mongoose with his reptilian breakfast hanging out either side of his mouth. The dassies among the rocks, playing peek-a-boo [View Full Entry]

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