Kieran

Beijing: Thronging to see Zedong

THE QUEUE is four wide and stretches endlessly into the distance. We shuffle along at an efficient, if not quick, pace. I’m the only foreigner among the thousands of tourists around me – curious glances are sneaked, the odd stare. We’re waiting to see the embalmed body of China’s most famous son, Mao Zedong, theContinue reading “Beijing: Thronging to see Zedong”

Beirut 2004: The good times roll

AFTER ONLY a few hours in Beirut, I wonder how these wonderfully warm and kind people could ever have fought a bloody civil war so recently. Stepping outside my hotel to take a taxi, or just trying to cross the road, and that question almost answers itself. Whether it’s homicidal or suicidal tendencies, Lebanon’s driversContinue reading “Beirut 2004: The good times roll”

Quebéc: Oasis of calm

THERE IS SUPPOSEDLY a café somewhere in Paris that offers a ten per cent discount to English tourists who don’t try to order in French. If only the French had the charm of their Canadian cousins in Québec, who are delighted by any attempt to speak the language, and whose nasal North American twang removesContinue reading “Quebéc: Oasis of calm”

Australia: Reef madness

THEY promised me millions of stars, here, on the Great Barrier Reef, many miles and an ecosystem away from the light pollution of land. They promised me the experience of a lifetime, spending the night on Reef Sleep, a pontoon moored on the edge of Earth’s biggest living organism. And they weren’t lying.

Osaka: Yen for life

WHAT struck me during my first visit to Japan was our similarities rather than our differences. A small island, lying off the coast of a large continent which it has alternatively threatened or been threatened by during its history; a population that has developed an elaborate set of manners, much of it a legacy ofContinue reading “Osaka: Yen for life”

Ethiopia: Land of legend

MY FIRST reaction is: ‘Why have a I never heard of this place?’ Axum, in the extreme north of Ethiopia, is the country’s oldest city and was its ancient capital. In the heart of Tigray province, the roots of modern Ethiopia lie in the Axumite Empire that was once one of the world’s four greatestContinue reading “Ethiopia: Land of legend”

Ethiopia: Rock of ages

IT’S BARELY DAWN and I’m cold, tired and hungry. Last night it seemed like a good idea to get up at 5am to see a Sunday service in one of Ethiopia’s famed rock churches, here in Lalibela. This morning, despite the inevitable grumbles, it feels like an even better one. Not that very much isContinue reading “Ethiopia: Rock of ages”