Sukhothai sojourn
Sukhothai is one of the top World Heritage sites in South East Asia. We spent a weekend in December 2005 exploring the wondrous ruins.
Penang
The first time I visited Penang Island was in 1989 on a backpacking trip through South East Asia. Returning in 2005, I was a bit concerned that the charming old town of Georgetown might have been bulldozed in line with the headlong development taking place in the rest of Malaysia. My worries were beginning to be confirmed in the taxi from the airport as we were whisked along concrete scalextric tracks with views of the latest Tesco Lotus superstores and…
La Marsa
Some photos of the cats that adopted us from the minute we moved in and our small villa by the beach.
Tunis
This page is a bit strange. I worked in Tunis for two years. I explored the historic Medina many times and wandered the labyrinthine streets. However I took very few photos. I didn’t even take many photos in the historic and lovely suburb of Sidi Bou Said where I spent many happy days wandering its alleys and drinking in its cafes and restaurants. But here are a few. This is looking up Avenue Bourguiba towards the old town. And this…
Kerkennah Islands
We’d first heard about the Kerkennah Islands from Paul Theroux’s book about his trip around the Med. Theroux is known as a crabby individual who seeks out places to visit where no one else goes – usually with good reason. He went to the Kerkennah islands for two days in winter and described them as desolate, flat and arid with dying palms and ratty fronds. However I also read the more charitable Rough Guide which informed me that many people…
Sahel
The Arabic name ‘Sahel’ means coast or margin. In the case of the sub-Saharan Sahel it is the margin of the desert, but in Tunisia it is the little bulge in its east coast. Ranging back from the east coast these fertile plains have long been the heartland of the country’s agriculture and an important power base – both Habib Bouguiba and Ben Ali come from this region, and it contains Sfax, the country’s most prosperous city. As far as…
Malta
Maltese Christmas (2004) Christmas in Tunisia is the antithesis of that in the UK. Being a Muslim country there is no Christmas cheer but also no rampant commercialism. The only similarity is the weather – cold, damp and grey. We decided to risk the commercialism and enjoy a bit of Christmas spirit by heading to Malta for a week. Within a few hours of leaving our cold damp house we were enjoying a bit of luxury, having managed to get…
Kairouan
‘What a hell of a place to put a holy city’, wrote the Times’ military correspondent in 1939. It’s certainly true that for a lot of the year the place bakes on its barren plain. We therefore decided to take the trip to Tunisia’s oldest Arab city and Islam’s fourth most holy city in October. We were well rewarded with certainly the most architecturally interesting city of the region and justifiably a UNESCO World Heritage site. We didn’t stay in…
Sicily
We were living in Tunisia at the time and wanted a total change of scenery. In fact we fancied a change in continent and Sicily was only a relatively short ferry ride away. Perfect, we thought. I suppose the fact that it had taken us 4 months to get the papers together to legally drive our car in Tunisia didn’t augur well for actually trying to take it out of the country. I was right. Mind you it was my…
North West Tunisia
This was a trip we did driving along the north coast to Tabarka, then heading south to the Roman ruins of Bulla Regia, onto El Kef and then stopping off at more Roman ruins at Dougga before heading home. All in five days in Spring 2004. We headed off on Monday 5th April. It was a glorious day’s drive across the north coast amid green rolling hills carpeted with wild flowers. We passed through a small forest before arriving in…