Travel odds and ends
Short travel notes salvaged across 2018–2024. Anything already covered elsewhere on this site has been omitted.
26 September 2024 — Petra
Top three tips for exploring Petra:
- The penitent man kneels before God
- In Latin, “Jehovah” begins with an “I”
- It’s just a rock coloured bridge, Indy
21 September 2024 — Delphi
Huffing the sacred fumes and receiving prophecies from Apollo at Delphi.
18 September 2024 — Athens
Athens should’ve won the Peloponnesian War. Will never recover from what happened.
5 September 2024 — Merzouga, Morocco
I love sand, it’s soft and gentle and comforting and it gets everywhere.
26 August 2024 — Naples
Napoli! Clearly, Elena Ferrante despised this place and I can’t imagine Neapolitans liking her depiction of their beloved city.
25 August 2024 — Naples
Time for a heretical opinion. The best meal I’ve had in Naples was at a 5 euro Sri Lankan lunch buffet. (Napoli has a very large Sri Lankan community — similar weather, same driving standards.) Ate with my hands and everything. I can’t do pasta and pizza anymore! Farewell Europe.
29 January 2024 — Andorra
Skiing in Andorra this weekend… just so I can say I’ve been to this odd little country called Andorra.
22 December 2023 — Barcelona
Sacrilegious fun at Barcelona’s Museum of Forbidden Art — a collection of pieces censored, attacked, or withdrawn from exhibitions around the world.
18 November 2023 — Barcelona
What I thought studying economics in Europe would be like: Drinking cava, maybe wearing a beret.
What studying economics in Europe is actually like: Smoking cheap cigarettes on my balcony at midnight while thinking about the pros & cons of the German pension system.
1 September 2023 — Barcelona
Checking out Gaudí’s Casa Vicens and Puig’s Casa Amatller. Back when rich people commissioned nice things, died, and then you could just walk around their former bedrooms.
29 August 2023 — The Sagrada Família
Is the Sagrada Família one of the most beautiful buildings in the world? Will it even be completed in our lifetime? Well, it’s certainly proof we can build some very nice things out of mainly concrete.
25 August 2023 — Madrid
Ran around the “Golden Triangle of Art” in Madrid. Aren’t El Greco and Francisco Goya just wonderful?
Also, there’s nothing quite like standing in a gallery room dedicated entirely to Goya’s infamous, mesmerising “Black Paintings”.
Also, also, I finally got to see Picasso’s Guernica in real life and it was as big and loud and awesome and a bit dumb as I thought it would be.
15 August 2023 — The National Gallery and Tate Britain
The National Gallery and Tate Britain. Contains one of my all-time favourite paintings: “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” by Joseph Wright of Derby. Has two of my all-time favourite (white, male, asshole) British artists: J.M.W. Turner and Francis Bacon. Good stuff.
14 August 2023 — A park bench in Oxford
It was at this park bench many years ago that a 12 year old girl and her pet ferret concluded their quest to destroy an inter-dimensional Catholic empire and euthanise God. Or something. I dunno, I thought Philip Pullman did a good job with it.
3 August 2023 — The National Portrait Gallery, London
Fun fact: every Wikipedia article “profile painting” for every historical English person ever came from the National Portrait Gallery.
25 April 2023 — Pokhara, Nepal
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.— A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad
22 April 2023 — Thorung La pass
The roof of the world! After ten days of trekking, high altitude acclimatisation and masala teas I’ve finally made it over Thorung La pass — one of the highest mountain passes on earth at over 5,400m above sea level.
I think I need a nap.
21 April 2023 — The Annapurna Circuit
The Annapurna Circuit continues! Trudging our way through snow, mud, yak poop, and blisters to High Camp…
27 October 2022 — A cantina in Guanajuato
Just walked into a cantina that exclusively served the local hombres. It was a wild experience. Some guy came up to me and told me that he had “the death sentence on twelve systems.” I was super confused since I thought Mexico had states, not systems. So I meekly told him that “I’ll be careful”, to which he replied: “You’ll be dead!” Then some random bearded dude in robes told him “this little one’s not worth the effort.” Wtf dude. Rude, right? Then a brawl started and the guy’s arm got cut off with a laser sword. But, anyway, it was still an amazing experience since I was able to score a ride to Alderaan for only 10,000 credits (But I thought they used pesos in this country??).
14 October 2022 — Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Friday evening visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. It was the one final thing I’ve always wanted to see in this city. Thank god, I never have to come back! I’m finally free! The chains of desire have shattered! Sweet deliverance of Nibanna.
3 April 2020 — Memories of London
Memories of London: Eerily empty street views, circa two weeks ago. Can’t imagine what the vibe is like there now. I’ve always wanted to visit this city and I can now say I’ve touched the direct opposite corner of the world. Just a shame I could only spend two days here. But, as I’ve said before, once this all blows over, I’ll be back. I’ll be back…
24 March 2020 — Coming home
Since a few of you have been asking, here’s a brief and belated update from me: I safely landed in Australia a few days ago and I’m currently in mandatory self-isolation.
How rapidly things have changed for the worse. It was perhaps less than three weeks ago that I sitting on a beach in Egypt, debating where to go next, hoping that I could still eke some travel out of a planet that was shutting its doors. And I was devastated when I finally decided to pull the plug on my trip — the last couple of months on the road have been some of the happiest of my life.
But looking back on what has transpired in the last week, it’s clear that I made the right choice in returning. We are living in unprecedented times. This is undoubtedly the Big One: the upending of things that every single one of us will remember for the rest of our lives. I, for one, am simply relieved to be on a relatively stable footing for now.
Regardless of border closures and travel bans, I doubt I could’ve continued my travels anyway… Simply the stress of following the deteriorating news cycle was wearing me down and straining my overseas experience. I want to see the world at its best, not at its most fearful. There’s little to be gained from exploring a lonely world, a world of shuttered fronts and empty streets. There’s no point to that. No point at all.
But make no mistake: I haven’t cancelled my world trip, merely placed it on hiatus. The moment this crisis is over, however long that may take, I’ll be immediately back on the road. But for now, all that any of us can do is bunker down and weather the storm until it passes.
And it will. That’s the truth which needs to cut through the endless cycles of uncertainty. Tough times are ahead for many of us, myself included, and those times may linger, but that’s all they’ll eventually be: a thin string of moments in time. Of this I am certain. The rain will begin to die down. The howl of the wind will begin to fade. And one day the storm will pass. It will pass.
21 June 2019 — Bendigo
Took a trip to Bendigo recently. Saw lots of bats. I think I prefer the gold rush era architecture here to Ballarat? A visit to the Golden Dragon Museum on Chinese immigrant history in the area reminds you why you should never, ever trust white people.
7 April 2019 — Art Gallery of New South Wales
Further snaps of arty art from the Art Gallery of NSW. Time for sweeping statements: Lucian Freud is the best portraitists ever. Military paintings are fine as a sometimes indulgence. Contemporary Aboriginal art is the most interesting stuff this country produces. Fight me.
4 April 2019 — Heaven and earth in Chinese art
Photos from the “Heaven and earth in Chinese art” exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW. A small, but wonderful exhibition on loan from the National Palace Museum of Taipei.
Check it out if you are in Sydney and have the chance - it’s very rare that Chinese artworks of such high quality make it down on tour to little old Australia.
15 January 2019 — Hualien City
Visited my friends’ hostel in Hualien City, Taiwan and had the honour of meeting “Obama” the racist dog. No, seriously. While he barked at the other ahem white guests, he took an immediate liking to me… What should we infer from this? How far can we take these allegations?? Can these so called liberal progressives really be trusted???
10 January 2019 — The Taiwanese honour guard
Don’t mess with the Taiwanese honour guard. Their bayonets look pointy!
It should be quickly mentioned that the memorial hall honours Chiang Kai-shek, a deeply divisive historical figure who was the leader of mainland China until 1949. After being defeated by the Communists during the Chinese Civil War, his government fled to Taiwan, whereupon he became dictator of Taiwan until his death in 1975.
27 December 2018 — Cactus Jack’s, Townsville
Ah, Cactus Jack’s… Quite possibly both the very best and very worst North Queensland Mexican-themed restaurant I’ve ever dined at. Want a giant bowl of chocolate nachos to go with your tequila shots? This is definitely the place for you.
22 December 2018 — The Great Barrier Reef
Blowing bath bubbles at the Great Barrier Reef. Truly one of the natural wonders of the world, and an ecosystem of paramount importance to Australia. I’ve seen things down there that I could not believe. Giant clams, dazzling fish, fragile corals, monstrous sea turtles, furtive sharks… Incredible things.
1 October 2018 — Ballarat
Saw some art in Ballarat. The city has one of the finest collections of cow paintings in the Southern Hemisphere. Ate too much cake. Didn’t go to Sovereign Hill because gold is lame.
Favourite Ballarat fact: Lake Wendouree is supposedly named after a local aboriginal word which means ‘go away’, because when a settler asked a local indigenous woman what the place was called, that’s what she said.
15 August 2018 — Telstra NATSIAA, Darwin
Stunning artwork from the 2018 Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. Such a cool exhibition at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) in Darwin. This one was my favourite: “Seven Sisters” by the Ken Sisters.
24 July 2018 — Nadi, Fiji
Best meal I had in Fiji was, funnily enough, on my final day in the rather prosaic town of Nadi. Grilled fish with coconut cream sauce, cassava, and rourou balls (like spinach balls, but made from taro leaves). They don’t really do portion control either.
14 February 2018 — Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery
One of the many quirky looking Buddha statues at the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery in Hong Kong. The temple’s name is a bit of a loose term, in actuality. Not only is the temple not a monastery (it’s managed by normal, non-monkish folks like you and I), it also has nearly 13,000 models of beings who have supposedly attained Buddhahood.
11 February 2018 — Hong Kong at night
Visiting family in Hong Kong. The city’s colour-soaked nightscape is quite incredible, particularly when reflected off the wine-dark waters of Kowloon Bay. Hong Kong has the most skyscrapers taller than 150m of any city in the world (over 350, compared to around 270 in New York) and its skyline is among my favourites during both night and day.