Before the food cart drags itself up behind its vanguard aroma and I allow myself to be distracted by Jermaine Clement in ‘People Places Things’ I’ll jot a few notes in some sort of acknowledgment to penmanship I have neglected and which urgently needs resuscitating. And yes, that is ‘aroma’ which you read. It’s an…
I was a migrant. Past tense if you please. At some point you stop being a migrant and become a citizen. Not because of a piece of paper received from the government, but because you decide you are no longer a guest but rather a host. That you are not just part of the place,…
The tide silently pushes still water into the upper reaches of the seeping grey green gloom of this gully. Snatches of froth and the occasional bubble betrays the silent upstream flow of water beside me. The ground is damp so footfall is muffled. That of my colleagues metres ahead is non existent save for the…
We have left the door to the balcony open and the humid morning air heats the room and tugs impatiently at the lace curtain that flicks around the settee. We are not feeling as pressed as the breeze feels we should be, and take an indolent start to the day. The sea is bright green…
Planeloads of Korean and Chinese tourists pour into the customs and immigration area with us and we shuffle along looking decidedly out of place. We lack the designer tourist clothes, hats and sunglasses and don’t have any cute toddlers in pig-tails in tow. The large crowds at immigration mean there is no waiting for our…
We are off to Okinawa. CX138, seats 47J and 47K. Well, these seats will get us to Hong Kong at least. The notes are scratched with a crayon I found in the pocket usually housing flight entertainment guides and other weighty tomes I rarely read anymore. It’s been a long time since I logged anything.…
The air frizzed and hissed and for a moment I was forced to a stop as the air vanished in a flash bulb pulse of white light. Stopped in lashing rain straight out of God’s freezer as the accompanying crack and boom erupted around me and my eyes readjusted to the light. Not that there…
Some old stone warehouses scattered across Kandahar are in surprisingly good state of repair given they were constructed by the British in the nineteenth century. The square masonry and precise lines catch my eye as does the stonework. But the slowly gathering crowd is watching us approach and I take my eyes off the building…
‘I was walking down to Pengboche. But it got dark too quickly and I got lost.’ ‘Lost?’ ‘Yes. At the bottom of that escarpment the track vanishes into that scrubland. I walked up and down the bank trying to find the bridge.’ ‘And?’ ‘I couldn’t find the bridge so I stayed out.’ ‘All night? Are…
A beautiful day and we get going around midday. In fact at 12:05 as I check my watch and do the slow snow shuffle over the flat towards the start of the track. We have been split into two teams. Group A is climbing to Advanced Base Camp at 17,600’ and will spend the night…