Archives: Guide

What better way is there to see a country than by train? Having already experienced the 24 hour train journey from Hong Kong to Beijing, with its postcard-perfect rice fields and run down villages...

Having survived emergency uplift in a plane courtesy of the dog on the runway, being locked in a coach toilet for 4 hours travelling through the mountains of Bolivia when the flush was broken, a 14 hour flight...

Andrew, an office colleague, convinced me to accompany him and some explorers on a relaxed rafting trip down a stretch of the Pongola River, on the border of the Ithala Game Reserve in Kwazulu-Natal.

It’s the damned lock. As cutely antiquated as the key is, the lock doesn’t respond to any form of manipulation. I rotate the thing clockwise in the keyhole until I hear the click, and then twist the doorknob.

We are dressed in full outdoor gear; down jackets, thermal underwear, hats and gloves. Temperatures in Gangwon Province, South Korea can dip to -30 degrees Celsius in winter and we are taking no chances.

My mother screamed as a jet of blood erupted from her hand. I stumbled over to her, slipping on the wet deck. I was drenched. “Get back to your father” bellowed my mum above the storm.

She was the Scarlett Johansson of buses, glamorous, curvaceous and beautiful. Her silver skin glimmered in the high Andean sunshine, the interior oozed opulence, from the fully reclining leather seats to the over stocked bar.

I landed on my ass – HARD. Jet lagged and grumpy, I was jolted out of my sleepiness with a rude bump – Literally! I had barely arrived in New York before my grandiose plans of living it up in the Big Apple unraveled.

I’d imagined being greeted by a group of young, upbeat travellers excited to experience a place renowned for its anachronistic politics, its managed poverty and its thrusting, fluid hips.

This story happened in Romanian town Sinaia where after seeing the local sight – Peles Castle my friend and I decided to come back to the seacoast. We chose the bus which would arrive in town at 3.20 a.m. and then...