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Chiloe: witchcraft, mermaids and saltwater
Chiloe is damp. The heavens opened to greet me as soon as I arrived and by the time I reached my hotel, I was drenched. But it was somehow ok. Chiloe is perhaps at its most atmospheric when the clouds roll in and the islands are wrapped in mist, hidden, Brigadoon-like, from the mainland. It’s located off the coast of Chilean Patagonia, only a few hours from the town of Puerto Montt, but it feels like an entirely separate world. The Chiloe archipelago has a distinctive culture formed out of its maritime roots – it’s a land of fog and saltwater, where mermaids lurk and a ghost ship glides silently…
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Travelling around northern Laos on the ‘vomit bus’
When I was dithering about whether or not I should travel to Pai, a small hippyish town in northern Thailand favoured by Western backpackers, one of the marks in the ‘no’ column was the fact that the bus ride there was pretty hairy. So much so that there are plentiful reports of hapless tourists becoming extremely sick during the journey, thanks to being crammed into a minibus that’s speeding around multiple hairpin bends. When I did eventually make the journey to Pai, I was amused to see sick bags tied to the back of each seat of the bus. Fortunately, no-one needed to make use of them. However, the same…
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Lanna food: the flavours of northern Thailand
I thought I was already familiar with Thai food. You know, green curry, pad thai and all those kinds of delicious things. Then I actually travelled to Thailand and found that I was so wrong. Yes, there’s plenty of green curry and pad thai in Thailand. But there’s so much more. I spent the vast majority of my time in Thailand in the north of the country and it’s there that I discovered the joys of Lanna food. This is the regional cuisine of northern Thailand, named after the ancient Lan Na kingdom. It’s hearty food with bold, punchy flavours and is one reason why I’m pretty much always counting…
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Why you need to visit Pondicherry
Delhi. Rajasthan. Kerala. Goa. It’s a safe assumption that pretty much all of these places are on the “must see” list of most visitors to India. And rightly so because they’re all incredible in their own unique ways. I’ve been to India twice, spending just over three weeks there on my most recent visit, and I’ve still only seen a fraction of what this vast and wonderful country has to offer. So I completely understand why first (and second) time visitors gravitate towards the big names, the places they’ve already heard of. But I want to tell you about another part of India that you might not have considered visiting…
