Easy Riders
We’ve been exploring Cat Ba island, which splatters like a Rorschach blot off the northern coast of Vietnam, trailing 300-odd islets in its wake. It’s...
Tagged: single mum
Unschooling. Or Learning as You Go.
It’s a truism that one learns by travelling, and a cliche that travel broadens the mind. From the days when English noblemen embarked on that...
The Inflatable Waterpark
This technicolour dream palace is indisputably special. Possibly a little “special needs” too. What is it? You may well ask. For this, my friend, is...
Working Girl
MJ’s been working bars since she was fifteen. Standard shifts. 6pm to 6am. She was an Avon Lady before that, but this pays better. She’s...
Full Fathom Five…
There is a sepulchral magic to a shipwreck. Viewed from underwater, with russet filigrees of sea ferns flourishing on the fractured edges of a shell...
Cargo Boats and Commandos
I’m a great fan of authenticity in travel. Travelling, where possible, as the locals do, which, given the wealth divide in the Philippines, means either...
A Serpent in Paradise
The labyrinth of reef-fringed karsts around El Nido, Palawan, must be one of the best island-hopping destinations in the world. Whether above water or under...
Maritime Woes
There are many things unique and wonderful about the Philippines. But the boatmen here are phenomenal in many of the wrong ways. Right now, sat...
Here Comes the Rain…
Maybe it’s El Nino. Maybe it’s climate change. Maybe we’ve brought the English summer with us. But it feels like the rains have come early...
Short Trousers…
Why is it that someone capable of the Wildean (or Timmy Timpson-esque) remark — “I’ve just been stung by an aquatic delicacy; I am hardly...