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Along the Peage | Justine Hardy | France, Provence, St Remy
Sometimes the promises may be a little hollow and the veneer on the reproduction furniture a touch too thin, the pillows a bit hard and the sauces reduced just too far, but other times it is all run as if Madame La Duchesse had just left for a quick flurry to Versailles to teeter amongst the courtesans.
Alónissos - The Silent Island | Justine Hardy | Greece, Aegean Islands, Alonissos Island
On display in the shop was a blown-up article from an international newspaper. It listed the places where you could really hide from the attentions of the world if you needed to become removed and anonymous.
Amsterdam Hashville | Justine Hardy | Netherlands, Amsterdam, Amsterdam
There is no value to being a narcotic virgin in Amsterdam. The point of decades of ‘no thank-you’, and passing the joint right along, is utterly wasted on the free bicycling and bell-tringing residents
An Alentejano Vineyard | Justine Hardy | Portugal, Alentejo, Alentejo
'You have to remember that this is a very local winery. The people come with their flagons and fill up straight from the barrels. This is an important part of the life of Mouchão.' And away the villagers and the estate workers go with the red froth on the new wine still bubbling in the necks of their flagons
Artists or Freshwater Sharks? | Justine Hardy
The silence of snow has a quality that most of us crave. Everything is softened, dirt, rubbish and scarred landscapes are smoothed over, made ageless, returned to innocence as the flakes fall
Assam: Tea and Terrorism | Justine Hardy
The smell of rain on the bright tea was sharp and clean, hinting of the aroma that comes from a cup; the backs of the tea-pickers were burnt in the white, midday heat, even in the shade of their umbrellas
Chicago | Justine Hardy | United States, Illinois, Chicago
I was beginning to turn against the Midwest, so returning to my hotel I perused the room service menu. I was hoping to find a snack that might not be double-chunked, supa-sweet whipped or Hi-Lowed
Contemporary Indian Writers | Justine Hardy
Diwali is festive warfare, an almost narcotic experience of noise and cordite ingestion. This festival of lights, this evocation of Maha Lakshmi, the mother of prosperity and good fortune
Delhi Coffee-Chai Culture | Justine Hardy | India, Delhi, Delhi
There is a nearby chai-wallah whose name is Manmohan Singh. If you are new to his stall he will tell you this as he pours his liquid fudge mix of tea, milk, sugar, cardamom and black pepper from one pan to another
Diwali | Justine Hardy | India, Delhi, Delhi
To fly into this Festival of Light is to enter Indian culture by many doors at the same time. This is not a festival of just one religion but of three; Hindus, Sikhs and Jains celebrate simultaneously in late autumn
There is an air of permanent Sunday about the island, as though the quality of a soft summer week-end afternoon sits across the serrated contour of the landmass
Escaping Christmas | Justine Hardy | India, Rajasthan, Udaipur
I close my eyes and smell frangipani on the evening air. A place where it is warm enough to wear a flimsy dress, many thousands of miles away from the cold dankness I intend to leave behind on the Piccadilly Line
Ghee and Nike | Justine Hardy | India, Delhi, Delhi
West clashes with East: this time it's a death match between ghee-nurtured cholestrol and the giant, cross-training, pump-up shoe-selling sports corporations
Here's Bollywood | Justine Hardy | India, Maharashtra, Mumbai (Bombay)
At Indigo the joint was thrusting and grinding. The midriffs on display were not the kind on the postcards home of 'Rajasthan woman carrying a water jar in the bright colours of the Madwari tribe’
India's Festivals | Justine Hardy
Every month another corner of India celebrates a festival bringing out the traditional dancers as the tabla drums and sitars push back the dark of the night
India's People | Justine Hardy
You often hear earnest foreigners talking about the "real India." They mean village India, relatively untouched by modernity and the outside world
Island Wild Child | Justine Hardy
The capital of the island is Roseau, a town of bright painted shutters and Creole cafés, where the dreadlocks swing and fine large ladies laugh like avalanches
Judges Court, Kangra | Justine Hardy | India, Himachal Pradesh, Kangra
Judges Court is a beautiful small hotel that is also an organic farm set in orchards and wheat fields, in the Kangra Valley, a rocky, rolling place of high speed rivers and manicured tea estates
Karmic Cruising | Justine Hardy | India, Kerala, Kerala
High-octane materialism created a void in our lives, and now high-octane spirituality has come along to fill it. Take an inner journey to an outer destination, find a guru, learn to meditate
Letter From the North West Frontier | Justine Hardy | Pakistan, North West Frontier, Peshawar
Letter from Bali | Justine Hardy | Indonesia, Nusa Tenggara/ Southeast Islands, Bali
I am told I am on Prospero's Isle, where the scent of the cempak flower is said to ease the pains of the world, where frangipani blooms rain down as harbingers of a storm, where even the poverty is wrapped in shiny banana leaves. But I can’t see it for the golf buggies...
Letter from Delhi | Justine Hardy | India, Uttar Pradesh, Agra
Those of us who went to catch the sunrise through the dust haze, picking out the swoops and swirls of Shah Jahan’s brilliant vision, got to pay $20 for the privilege
Letter from Goa | Justine Hardy
There is a modern sickness in Goa, the coconut palm-petticoated tourist trap on the west coast of India. But Goa still has its moments of glory
Letter from the Northwest Frontier | Justine Hardy | Pakistan, North West Frontier, Wana
Those historic, hirsute North West Frontier warriors of South Waziristan had been throwing bricks and firing their Kalashnikovs at the helicopter of the area commander of the South Waziristan Scouts, who in turn had just been flying through to check out the lay of the land
Life Beside the Lake | Justine Hardy | Switzerland, Zurich, Zurich
I go to Zurich because it is everything that most big cities are not. It is Ariel to London’s Caliban...
Mumbai | Justine Hardy | India, Maharashtra, Mumbai (Bombay)
Beneath the lengthening high-rises the heaving throngs jostle for space, high end finance side-by-side with the millions pouring into the city in search of work, survival and a place to bring their families in the hope of a better future
No Room at the Top | Justine Hardy | India, Delhi, Delhi
The food and beverages manager of a certain five star hotel in Delhi is what is faintly charmlessly referred to as an RNRI, a Returned Non-Resident Indian
Post Olympic Sydney | Justine Hardy | Australia, New South Wales, Sydney
The passing of the Olympic bandwagon gives visitors an unrivalled opportunity to sample some of Justine Hardy’s favourite Bondi hang-outs.
Riding with the Berbers | Justine Hardy | Morocco, Atlas Mountains, Ouirgane
We were given Barbe-Arabian horses to ride across the High Atlas. The Berbers speak of them in hushed tones as if they are referring to deities. They are pretty little things with floating manes and dished faces
Shopping and Faking | Justine Hardy | India, Delhi, Delhi
Five thousand miles may be a long way to go shopping but, let's face it, there are those among us who have travelled further
Surving with the Yogically Smug | Justine Hardy
You feel over-dressed, red-faced, and sweaty among the barely-dressed yogi folk wafting past in the Om peace reception area. Jetlag is hitting and the ‘shanti welcome’ chai that you have been given
Sydney | Justine Hardy | Australia, New South Wales, Sydney
The Harbour is the pulse of the city and the people of Sydney are proud of the polyglottal, multi-cultural melting pot that has grown up around this sometimes blue, sometimes green, shimmering central organ
Take New York | Justine Hardy | United States, New York State, New York
Spring in Central Park is like everything else in this city. It roars through town without looking to left or right
The Boy from the Ghats | Justine Hardy | India, Uttar Pradesh, Varanasi
The ghats in the evenings are a huge dhal pot of sound and smell simmering with all the scents and echoes of my life; the bells and the drums, the cymbals and pipes of the puja
The Boy from the Ghats II | Justine Hardy | India, Uttar Pradesh, Varanasi
If you scan the hyperbole written about Varanasi it’s enough to put you off Divine River toe-dipping for life
The Egoless State | Justine Hardy
The swami rolled his angel eyes and asked why we had a film crew with us if we were searching for a state of diminished ego. That would not help, he said
The Song of the Spiti Valley | Justine Hardy | India, Uttar Pradesh, Spiti
You can cross the Himalayas to reach the Spiti Valley, hidden beyond some of the most ragged peaks of this high-altitude reach. What you find is a cupping bowl of Buddhist life and learning that has survived intact
Understanding Hinduism | Justine Hardy
'Hinduism is as big as your mind or as small as your mind,' said the smiling sadhu, stroking a belly that was as swollen and smooth as a space-hopper
Unsuspecting Tourists | Justine Hardy | India, Delhi, Delhi
Just when the visitor is expecting a ravishing sunset over the blushing stone of Mughal monuments they get stuck in a grinding traffic jam amidst a sea of flyovers and clogged city roads
Upside Down in Sri Lanka | Justine Hardy | Sri Lanka, Cultural Triangle, Ulpotha
As experiments in organic living go this one is absolutely nothing to do with mung beans, cheesecloth or patchouli oil
Yoga Holidays | Justine Hardy | India, Kerala, Varkala
Yoga has returned to the limelight, coinciding nicely with modern man's feelings of spiritual emptiness and physical exhaustion, arriving just in time to rescue us from darkness
Yoga Retreats: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly | Justine Hardy
There is a mat moment when you look around (by mistake) and realise that you are not in a yoga asana session but at the Cocky Contortionist Olympics