Travel stories for freedom chasers
Hands wrapped around a mug of hot tea and wool-clad feet propped on the dashboard, I peered out of the windscreen as the sign welcoming us to Scotland appeared out of the low lying mist. We pulled over and jumped out to take a couple of pictures, running back through the rain to stand on the Scottish border. Behind us,…
In a myriad of hostel bars, across many countries; every traveller I had met that had been to Penang told me the same thing. Go for the food. Oh, the food. Penang is legendary amongst street foodies, and for good reason. Centuries of immigration from all over Asia have turned it into a multicultural melting pot of deliciousness, a temple…
It’s been raining for days. June is peering golden-headed around the corner, yet still the rain falls insistently from a blowsy grey sky. On the train to work, the heating blasts at my ankles despite the trickling sunshine and blossoming trees. The world smells like wet pavements, and sometimes the sunshine breaks in slices through the clouds, making the windows…
As the end of the afternoon draws close, a soft, golden light creeps through the streets of Penang. It floods doorways and casts walls in pale relief, washing otherwise vibrant colours in dusk’s gentle shadows. I walk the streets with my camera, glad that the searing heat of the day has dulled to a low warmth, the smell of hot…
We drifted, slowly; the sun hanging heavy and swollen in the sky like an overripe citrus fruit. Coconut palms swayed in a haze on the shoreline, the thrumming chirrup of insects the only sound. A bird dipped gracefully towards the water, wheeling, and then soared upwards again, wingbeats shattering the stillness of the surface with a cascade of ripples that…
The air tasted clean and faintly salty in the morning light. Town houses stood shoulder to shoulder along the canal, painted in ochre and salmon and buttermilk yellow, their crisply white window frames like eyes overlooking the cobbled streets below. Houseboats bobbed on water the colour of sea glass, moored along the banks. People with clear skin and yellow hair…
April is a month of change. A month when grey skies become blue, and bare branches become blossoms. A month of yellow flowers opening in tentative sunlight, the bitter-sweet taste of chocolate and the first fresh, early summertime sunrises of wet grass and bird song. A month of re-birth. The last time I wrote a diary post, there was snow…
At a certain altitude, around 5000m above sea level, the world shifts. The sky widens and deepens to an inky ozone blue, as though you could stand on tip toes and peer into the edges of space. The air is thin, searingly clean and burning as it hits your lungs. The world slows in obedience to the mountains, which are…
