Sitting here in my unexpectedly pretty room in the Hospedaje Familiar in San Juan del Norte, I feel a very long way away from anywhere.* It’s not the remotest place on the planet, I’ll admit, and I’ve probably been to places that took longer to reach, but there’s something about being in a little town on a big continent which is only accessible by inland waterway – and even then only if you have half a day to devote to it, always supposing that you’ve already reached the head of the river, itself fairly remote by any standard – that somehow exaggerates the remoteness: a sense of “so near, yet so far” perhaps. The only way out of here is the way I came yesterday, by boat; and there are only two directions, six hours by ... read more

“No entiendo,” I smiled apologetically at the unshaven, be-vested skinny man in front of me. He looked at me blankly. “Momentito…” I had had an idea. I pulled out my Mexican Spanish phrasebook (originally acquired for a swine-’flu-kyboshed trip to that part of Central America two years’ earlier) and turned the pages looking for the “Accommodation” section. “Umm… ¿Puedo verla?” I looked up hopefully. “Si, si,” he replied (somewhat to my astonishment – he’d understood me!) and led me down the path. I peered into the room he pointed out, and finally understood what he’d been trying to tell me at the outset. Yes, they did have a room, but it hadn’t been cleaned yet. Then, rightly doubting my understanding of Spanish numbers, he pointed to a handwritten notice on the back of the door: this ... read more

This blog describes a particularly eventful night in Mumbai nearly eighteen months’ ago. I don’t usually blog about events so far in the past, but, in writing up this volume of my journal recently, I realised that it demonstrated so many of the contradictions and frustrations and fascinations of India that it might just entertain, despite its length… A couple of names have been changed to protect the innocent. The photographs are unrelated to the evening, but are included for decoration. Ten days earlier, on my way through Mumbai en route to southern Karnataka, I had met Anna, the cousin of a friend back home. She was working in Mumbai for an international fashion magazine that had newly launched in India (we’ll call it Fashionzine). We chatted over a delicious but sanitised Western salad lunch, and ... read more

“You would have kicked yourself had you not got to Baalbek (or I'd have kicked you!!),” promised Nick who lives in the Middle East. For anyone with any knowledge of Roman ruins and/or the Middle Eastern history, Baalbek is a must-see. For me, ignorant of Classical remains despite the best efforts of two Classicist parents, this was my first “real live Roman ruin” and, quite literally, it took my breath away. Relatively few man-made creations have that effect on me. The natural world, scenery and wildlife: yes; man’s efforts, generally no. Maybe it’s because the impact and scale of impressive scenery cannot be conveyed by even the best television cameras. Maybe it’s because our relatively higher exposure to the world’s great monuments makes them familiar long before we see them for ourselves: a film scene set ... read more

With A difference? With a HUGE difference, more like. Make that a multitude of differences. For starters, I was, with one exception, entirely without family or friends of more than a few days’ acquaintance. For another, I was in the Tropics. On a Caribbean island. In 24/7 five-star luxury. Oh, and I started the day with a yoga class. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Having reluctantly resigned myself to a summer of that nasty w-o-r-k stuff, by the end of April I was finding that it wasn’t all going quite to plan. Yes, I was lucky enough to have been taken on by a City firm’s innovative locum-lawyer programme, but the paperwork was dragging its heels and the initial apparent plethora of opportunities seemed to be drying up. So, when Kate mentioned over pizza and ... read more