Senegal, The Gambia and Guinea (of the Conakry variety). Those (few) people who had visited this part of the world had warned me about the incessant delays, false dawns, fallacious promises, and rough terrains. They were only half-right. Yes, travel could be slow, but there were often solutions (e.g. paying for the empty seat of the souped-up Peugeot 305 ‘bus’ that is your only mode of transport). Yes, there were lies (e.g. The Gambian footballer who claimed he was a national treasure and everyone in his home country knew who he was: they didn’t). Yes, the terrain could give…
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Dogs, everywhere. At least that is how it felt. Not necessarily in the whole of Indonesia, but in Sideman. However, that is a story for later. So: Indonesia. The world’s largest country, speckled with islands both large and small, and resplendent with blue coral, green mountains and razor-red raw Australians. Given the vast size of Indonesia and our compressed timescales, we focussed our visit to three islands: Lombok, Gili Air and Bali. Lombok One long tedious flight to Jakarta from London, immediately following by a shorter but equally tedious flight to Lombok later, we stayed one night in…
Let’s play a game. What do you get when you mix Destiny’s Child’s Bootylicious with Aphex Twin’s Windowlicker? No, not a Channel 5 post-watershed movie or a character from 50 Shades of Grey. No, you would have no other than the President of Algeria: Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Ladies and gentleman, please remove your hats and take a bow: So, my next major trip has taken me to the land of Bouteflika: a charming chap who has ruthlessly ruled Algeria for over 15 years (despite some health complications). And well, why not? Sure, the name Bouteflika may be a misnomer…
Ayatollahs. Head scarves. Fanaticism. Nuclear bombs. Perhaps even revolution. These may be the first words that come to mind when you think of Iran. A country which is estranged from the West, which has seemed (at least until recent years) to rejoice in flouting the demands made by the UN and other international bodies, and which seems to revel in stoking its own concept of Islamic rapture: it is not that surprising that most people looked on in dismay when I told them that I would be going on vacation there with three friends. But if there is one revolution…
Imagine walking in a verdant vista. You are almost fully enveloped by nature; by foliage, which bristles overhead in the gentle breeze or which crunches underneath your feet as you shuffle forward. Through the small gaps of light peering through the trees you can make out that there is not a single cloud in the azure sky. And then you hear a rumble. The ground shakes. You keep still. Nothing. And then, another rumble. The ground shakes again. There are still no clouds in the sky, so you deduce it cannot be a brewing storm. Another rumble. It is…
According to Greco-Egyptian myth, when the brother of the Goddess Isis – who was also her husband – was murdered, the tears she wept resulted in the Nile River flooding every year. Now, over 2000 years later, it appears that Egypt is being haunted by a namesake of the Egyptian Goddess. This time, however, the acts of savagery haunting not only Egypt but the Arab world at large (plus more), is not resulting in an abundance in the same way Isis’ tears generated a torrent of water. Rather, the converse is materialising; it is resulting in scarcity, as parts of…
Think of South Korea or, specifically, its capital city, Seoul. What images does this evoke? Cherry blossom trees? Radiating neon signs? Kimchi? Or, most likely: None of these are incorrect by any means, although like most stereotypes, they contain grains of truth and harvests of imprecision. Actually, from my (unfortunately very) brief stint in Seoul, the following graphic neatly sums up the city: (Courtesy of Quartz) The city was vibrant; pulsating at every moment. It also felt safe. Whether that was because South Koreans were always in a moment of serene enlightenment courtesy of the soju (which neatly…
Expectations tend to lead people astray. Utopia to one person is perdition to another; paradise lost may be deemed to be paradise gained. Equally, the grapevine is often thorny and any opinion, although usually taken at face-value, should be unbundled from the context in which it is given. Returning from Southern Africa in August (and having time to reflect on the same) gave rise a series of difficult dichotomies. Race, class, nationality: they all matter, but to differing degrees to different people. The one nightmare which nobody can escape, however, is history. For example,…
On 12 September 1974, Haile Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia, was captured by the Communist DERG forces that had descended upon his palace. What subsequently happened to Selassie became the source of vivid speculative rumours. This much was known: he had disappeared. But was he dead or alive? Had he been spared by the DERG and exiled or was he slaughtered and scorched like the land he once ruled over? Rumours ran amok, exacerbated by how the ‘ring of Solomon’ which once adorned Selassie’s middle finger, was subsequently donned by Mengistu Haile Mariam, the undisputed leader of the DERG…
Let’s play a game. Guess how many people you can fit into the following vehicle: The answer is below, just after the video of the car. So, following on from the previous entry, after my second foray in Rwanda’s Kigali, I went to Musanze. This town was my base for gorilla tracking. I had no plans to go gorilla tracking before I arrived in East Africa, but became seduced by superlative stories people told me once here. The problem is that it is notoriously difficult to obtain a permit to do this: in Kigali, the tourist office…