Poor Kathmandu
26 April 2015 | Places
In the 24 hours since Nepal was hit by a huge earthquake I’ve been waiting for news from various friends who either live there or have Nepal connections. Over the years I’ve added up more than six months of my life in Nepal – lots of days on lots of trekking routes in...
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Islamabad
27 October 2012 | Places
Before my recent trip up the Karakoram Highway through northern Pakistan to Kashgar in China I spent a day on a side trip to the Murree hill station and looking around Islamabad. On my last visit to Pakistan in early 2006 I went to the ancient Buddhist site at Taxila,...
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Back to Haiti
3 May 2012 | Places
I was in Haiti before the earthquake, so my April trip, kicking off from the Dominican Republic, was a return visit. Things are still a long way from back to normal. The tent camps are still everywhere although one right in the centre of the capital, Port au Prince, ...
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Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad
1 May 2011 | Places
◄ The Faisaliah Tower in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The tower was designed by UK architect Sir Norman Foster and built by the bin Laden family’s construction company.
After all the talk about Osama bin Laden hiding out in a cave in the unpoliced badlands along the Pakis...
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Poor Haiti
14 January 2010 | Living
I visited the country in 2008 and despite the many problems the Caribbean nation faced I had an extraordinarily interesting time there and never felt unsafe. Even when I had to find a ride back to my hotel in Port-au-Prince on the back of a motorcycle taxi in the ear...
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