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A Leeward Breeze | John Borthwick | French Polynesia, Society Islands, Tahiti
The collective noun 'Tahiti' loosely refers to the totality of French Polynesia - five archipelagos and some 120 islands, scattered over four million square kilometres of ocean
A Slice of Hunza High | John Borthwick | Pakistan, North West Frontier, Karachi
They've never heard of Hunza Pie in Hunza...Instead, I settle for a mountain-style cappuccino made on a tiny machine that an enterprising young Hunzakot has shipped up from Karachi, far to the south
Adrenaline on the Rocks | John Borthwick
The brochure promised "Blades gently breaking the water; nature all around.'' Too right it was all around. White water poured over the sides of the raft which now was slewing down the wave, broadside into a maelstrom
Among the Hmong | John Borthwick | Thailand, The North, Mae Tho
A pair of Japanese anthropologists crouch in video ambush. A pig's head sits on the floor, staring blankly past the cameras pointing at the female Hmong shaman…
Ayers Rock Resort | John Borthwick | Australia, Northern Territories, Ululru-Kata Tjuta National Park
Uluru remains visually, if not socially, magnetic. The largest monolith in the world, it sits like a giant paperweight, pinning Australia to Planet Earth
Bali Self-Driving | John Borthwick | Indonesia, Nusa Tenggara/ Southeast Islands, Bali
It's a familiar morning scene in Bali: a vehicle buried to its hubs in sand and sea-water. The driver had attempted a midnight shortcut along Seminyak Beach, just north of Kuta
Buenos Aires: Tango Town | John Borthwick | Argentina, Buenos Aires and the Pampas, Buenos Aires
A tango town of once-fabulous wealth and now of nostalgic mansions gone to delicious decrepitude. City of jackbooted generals and the Mothers of the Disappeared, of Maradona and even, briefly, of Madonna...
Cancun | John Borthwick | Mexico, The Yucatan, Cancun
The first time I saw Cancun it wasn't there. In the early 1970s, this strip of coast on the north-eastern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula was just a strand of white sand quilted with coconut palms and jungle
Chariots of Hire | John Borthwick | Philippines, Luzon Islands, Manila
The flamboyant decoration of jeepneys leaves one lost for adequate metaphors: like metal frescos a go-go, like pop rivet art, these Day-Glo bemos charge all over the archipelago
Chasing Gauguin's Ghost | John Borthwick | French Polynesia, Society Islands, Tahiti
'What are you here for? Looking for the lost Loti Lotus Land or the Gauguin ghosts?’ demands a melancholic barfly, a European drifter in The Grapes of Paradise, an H.E. Bates story set in Tahiti
Cities of the Gods: The Glory of Ajanta and Ellora | John Borthwick | India, Maharashtra, Ajanta
Around 2000 years ago, forgotten sages picked out favourable temple sites at these rock cliffs. Generations of disciples laboured with hand tools to hew giant temples, intricate statues and monasteries - cities of the gods
Coach, Car or Campervan? | John Borthwick | New Zealand, North Island, Bay of Islands
Mid-way along the beach, a Honda sedan juts from the sand like an old metal road-kill. Smothered to its sills, the Honda is an epitaph to illusions - of some driver's excessive faith in his own skill and in two-wheel traction
Cool Grey City of Love | John Borthwick | United States, California, San Francisco
Rudyard Kipling described 19th century San Francisco as "a mad city, inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people whose women are of remarkable beauty"
Crocodile Man Meets Kodak Clan | John Borthwick
This is as close as I’ll get to flying on a wing and a prayer. Below our tiny Cessna the Upper Sepik River glistens like a jade serpent, twisting and looping back on its own coils
Dales and Ales | John Borthwick | United Kingdom, Midlands, Oakham
The M1, England's best-known motorway, offers plenty, especially to the traveller who pulls off the motorway and turns straight into, say, the 15th century
Desert Islands De Luxe | John Borthwick | Maldives, Maldives, Malé
The blue abyss beyond the reef is littered with mug lair fish of every hue. With visibility of up to 30 metres, you’re diving in waters so gin-clear you're tempted to say "Cheers!" and drink it
Driving the Red Centre | John Borthwick | Australia, Northern Territories, Alice Springs
The highway from Alice Springs to Ayers Rock is no longer the infamous track of yore, but its perspectives are still a humbling reminder of being a mere dot amid all this space, all this time
It's like sailing through the middle of the Andes. As if that weren't enough, we're slaloming down a field of ice-floes, dodging bergs as big as apartment blocks
Kakadu National Ark | John Borthwick | Australia, Northern Territories, Kakadu National Park
With its 50 species of mammals, 280 types of birds and 75 kinds of reptiles - not to mention over 1300 plant varieties - I sometimes think of this as Kakadu National Ark
Karakoram Highway: The High Road to China | John Borthwick
A brief night in this crumbling, colonnaded ghost is a fitting start for a Karakoram Highway journey, from Pakistan to China, that's much about seeing time - both cultural and geological - in rewind
Kiwi Coach Potato Syndrome | John Borthwick | New Zealand, North Island, Rotorua
Clutching his old plastic travel bag Norman Gunston, that one-man Aussie razor gang, used to swear he suffered not from jet lag but bus lag. I know the feeling.
Lagoon Blues | John Borthwick | Fiji, Yasawa Islands (North), Tavewa Island
The low volcanic peaks of the Yasawa group - located 50 kilometres north-west of Fiji's main island, Viti Levu - lie scattered for some 60 kilometres down the ocean like a tumble of uncut emeralds
Leewards, to the Islands of Dream | John Borthwick | French Polynesia, Society Islands, Tahaa
Unlike some of its more developed neighbours, Tahaa retains a quality - both energetic and ethereal - which once gave these islands the title of Les Iles du Rêve, the Islands of Dream
Life of Pai | John Borthwick | Thailand, The North, Chiang Mai
Having morphed from Buddhism to Buddha Bar, from Shan to Shakhira and from opium to cappuccino in the space of one generation, Pai is riding a wave of prosperity...
Midnight in Serendip | John Borthwick | Sri Lanka, West Coast, Bentota
Midnight in Serendib. The moon hangs above the sea like an apostrophe. From the balcony of the hotel, a watcher - last drink at hand - feels the thud of waves against the granite rocks below
My Perfect Day in Bali | John Borthwick | Indonesia, Nusa Tenggara/ Southeast Islands, Bali
It’s dolphin hour and I’m up early, stumbling into an outrigger canoe; the boatman jerks its outboard to life and, along with a score of other boats, we set off in pursuit of the pods of small grey dolphins
Namibia: Deserts and Diamonds | John Borthwick | Namibia, Namib Desert, Sperregebiet
The Namib Desert rolls in a cataract of dunes down to meet the ice-blue Atlantic. Shrouded by fog and littered with the ribs of ships and whales, this is a place of legends rather than of train rides...
Nature Rules | John Borthwick | Australia, Queensland, Heron Island
Ancient Hindus thought of the world as supported on the back of a giant turtle. As a ponderous Loggerhead turtle scrapes her way up the midnight sands of Queensland's Heron Island, I can see how the idea arose
New Caledonia's Loyalty Islands | John Borthwick
Next, after visiting a beautiful vanilla plantation at Mucaweng, I blow it by suggesting that the house specialty, a subtle, vanilla-flavoured coffee, tastes to my cappuccino-ravaged Sydney palate rather like Nescafe. Rose looks at me as though I were indeed son of a son of a blackbirder.
New Zealand Thrills | John Borthwick | New Zealand, South Island, Queenstown
New Zealand, once thought of as a somnolent English suburb in the South Seas, has reinvented itself as the adrenaline capital of the Southern Hemisphere
Norfolk Island | John Borthwick
Tiny Norfolk Island has no income taxes, McDonalds, foreign debt, dole or graffiti. There has been no major crime since 1855, and there's only one street light. Norfolkers can proudly say, "We don't have it all"
Of Art and War on Broken Hill | John Borthwick | Australia, New South Wales, Broken Hill
We're standing on a desert rise north of town. overlooking a sea of shining gibbers and crow calls that's known as The Living Desert. 'Mamofa,' he explains. 'Old African term - Miles And Miles Of Fuck-All'
Otago Peninsula: Poets, Ghosts and Penguins | John Borthwick | New Zealand, South Island, Otago
There's more to the 33 kilometre long Otago Peninsula than shades of Gothic gloom. Its fertile green slopes have long been a haven for people and creatures
Out of Africa, into the Philippines | John Borthwick | Philippines, Visayas, Palawan
It sounds like a Genesis Joke. In the beginning, Eden was a Pacific island under martial law. Then the President said, "Let there be zebra” — and there were zebra, plus giraffe, gazelle and impala
Palawan: Nest of Dreams | John Borthwick | Philippines, Visayas, Palawan
The islands of El Nido can seem like a chain of dreams. For two days we explore by banca boat and kayak a world where jungle-clad islets jut from the sea crowned by an untamed topiary of witch's hats and mitre caps
Penang | John Borthwick | Malaysia, West Coast, Penang
Captain Francis Light once fired a cannon full of silver coins into the Penang scrub in order to motivate his reluctant workers to clear the land. It worked
Persian Nights, Iranian Days | John Borthwick
Shimmering in the desert light, a two-square kilometre maze of avenues, alleys, homes and a Zoroastrian fire temple is made entirely of mud brick and is crowned by the battlements of a citadel
Pho Quoc Island | John Borthwick | Vietnam, Southern Vietnam, Phu Quoc
Back at our three-star resort the menu’s English spelling is a bit eccentric; “chicken poured down by hot animal fat” and “slided steam with flagrant weed (elephant snail)” turn out to be far more succulent than their descriptions suggest
Phuket Recovers from TV Tsunami | John Borthwick | Thailand, Southern Thailand: The Andaman Coast, Phuket
The local and expat community in Phuket regard the subsequent economic damage from this mis-information as "the second tsunami."
Right Royal Hua Hin | John Borthwick | Thailand, Southern Thailand: The Gulf Coast, Hua Hin
This is known as "the sunrise side" of the Gulf. The sea here is calm, as are the streets. It's an especially good place for golfers; in fact, in Hua Hin, history and golf are uniquely linked
Saddle Soaring in Guangdong | John Borthwick | China, Guangdong, Guangzhou
As I pedal through the back blocks of Guangdong Province it strikes me that, due to the garish cycling garb we are wearing, my ten companions and I may well be regarded by the Chinese as the 'Lycra minority'
Saintly Stones, Fading Bones | John Borthwick
Today I find a ruined city where the surviving churches - enormous, moss-bearded, laterite structures - recall the Jesuits…
San Diego | John Borthwick | United States, California, San Diego
San Diego, California's southernmost city, is the gateway to Mexico or - if you're on the other side - to the Promised Land. Like all frontier towns it has its share of both rags and riches
Seychelles By the Sea Shore | John Borthwick | Seychelles, La Digue, La Digue
Behold La Digue's beaches - silky littorals guarded by massive, eroded granite pillars straight from the daydreams of Henry Moore
Sikkim: A Not-Quite Fairytale | John Borthwick
The wide-eyed children who come out to wave at us don't yet even know the mantra that rural infants from Kashmir to Kathmandu seem to be born chanting: "One pen, mister, one bon-bon." It is innocence like this that makes Sikkim, in a sense, "the new Nepal"
Some Like it Hot | John Borthwick | New Zealand, North Island, Rotorua
The mud of Rotorua boils like killer porridge while geysers vent their steamy spleen. This might be a magical landscape of dragons exhaling, even down to the pervasive, sulphurous aroma
Sri Lanka Rediscovered | John Borthwick | Sri Lanka, South Coast, Galle
The movie men chose his inland village, Kitulgala, for the filming of the World War II POW drama, Bridge on the River Kwai. Tripping over Kitulgala and the story of its brush with celluloid is the sort of serendipitous event that can happen to the traveller in Sri Lanka
Surreal Waikiki | John Borthwick | United States, Hawaii, Honolulu
If the spectacle of surfer girls, and boys, with Oriental features and bleached-blond manes seems bizarre, so are many things here, including even the provenance of Waikiki's hallowed, narrow sands
Tasmania: Australia's 'Other Half' | John Borthwick | Australia, Tasmania, Tasmania
Perhaps because of Tasmania's reduced scale, things Taswegian seem to have clearer definition: the oysters are more luscious, the cheeses taste sharper, the air seems tangier, the peaks more gothic, the past darker
The Best Worst Job in the World | John Borthwick
Any travel writer who stays home long enough to actually converse might tell you that they would be wealthy if they had a dollar for every time someone insisted, 'You've got the best job in the world'
The Demon Slayer of Kuta | John Borthwick | Indonesia, Nusa Tenggara/ Southeast Islands, Bali
Three weeks full of nothing but Kuta Reef and Ulu Watu point surf lay ahead of me. And so it was. Black rice porridge at Mades Restaurant. Hibiscus heat and dragonfly mornings. Massages on the beach
The Grand Tour: Style on the Nile | John Borthwick | Egypt, Cairo and Giza, Cairo
Teeing off from, or even climbing, the pyramids is no longer permitted, but the Giza circus that swirls around them hasn't abated a jot since the Duke of Windsor's day, if not the pharaoh's
The Great Ocean Road | John Borthwick | Australia, Victoria, Melbourne
If the Great Ocean Road were a symphony, it might be an al fresco blast of Dvorak's "New World" alternating with Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" - such is its span of mood and images
The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu | John Borthwick | Peru, Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu, Machu Picchu
The old pistons wheeze out an eponymous pant - "machu-picchu-machu-picchu" - as the train inches up a series of switch-backs towards the lip of Cusco Valley, then ramps off into the bright Andean sky
The Island of Romance | John Borthwick | United States, California, Santa Catalina
Catalina's "capital", Avalon is an amiable mutation of the American Dream - a California village with Spanish touches, cataracts of bougainvillea, and great huevos rancheros breakfasts
The Land of Heart's Desire | John Borthwick | Ireland, East Coast Ireland, Dublin
Where else could you drive through a green-on-green landscape, looking for somewhere like Tubbercurry or Ballygally and end up instead in Ringaskiddy or Ballylickey – and not mind at all?
The Legendary Ghan | John Borthwick | Australia, South Australia, Adelaide
A train that runs across the flattest, oldest, driest, hottest, dustiest, most deserted bit of earth on Earth - Central Australia - and names itself after a bloke from Afghanistan, must have a tale to tell...
The Many-Hued Danube | John Borthwick | Hungary, Budapest, Budapest
The dining options veer from veal paprikash to, well, Burger a la King. Meanwhile, the background music might be Franz Liszt or a busker doing goulash Johnny Cash. Oddly, nowhere do I hear the Blue Danube Waltz
The Melanesian Aisle: Vanuatu and New Caledonia | John Borthwick
From the last of the Conquistadors to the last of the cannibals, Vanuatu spans a Melanesia of kastom villages and five-star resorts, of "nambas" (the world's briefest underpants) and tax-haven bankers
The Nullarbor Whale Crèche | John Borthwick | Australia, South Australia, Nullabar
A Southern Right whale is doing the marine equivalent of wheel-stands. It bursts vertically from the sea, until most of its huge body is airborne, then crashes back into the waves of the Great Australian Bight
The Road to Shangri-La | John Borthwick | China, Yunnan, Zhongdian
Zhongdian now promotes itself as the mythical "Shangri-La". But first you have to get there…
The Transcendental Escalator Banaue | John Borthwick | Philippines, Luzon Islands, Banaue
I stand dwarfed amid these colossi, convinced that none of the other human-made pretenders to the "Eighth Wonder" throne approaches the grandeur of this "stairway to heaven"
Tonga: Linger Longer | John Borthwick
The minister looks pleased by the donations the yachts crews leave in the plate, hopefully for the upkeep of the church and village school. Later it is hinted that the donations are mostly for the upkeep of the minister
Trekking to Kala Pattar | John Borthwick
Glancing above the dark eaves of the monastery I see an extraordinary sight, a pantheon of Himalayan mountain gods - Everest, Nuptse, Lhotse, Ama Dablam, Kangtega and Thamserku - huddled in conference
Vigan: A piece of Spain in Asia | John Borthwick | Philippines, Luzon, Vigan
In the beautiful city of Vigan, about 90 minutes drive south of Laoag, I find pony-drawn calesa carriages clattering along cobble-stoned streets that are overseen by shuttered windows and iron lace balconies
Walking Maria Islands | John Borthwick | Australia, Tasmania, Tasmania
We're soon striding south along one that must be a finalist in the Best Least-Known Beach Anywhere category. There's no one but us to revel in the three and a half kilometre curve of bone china sand and crystal waters
Where to Stay in Bali | John Borthwick | Indonesia, Nusa Tenggara/ Southeast Islands, Bali
When winter seems as long as a life sentence, Bali beckons as the perfect escape clause. But, is Kuta Beach's melee of hawkers, jeep jams and ghetto accommodation really the answer
Wild at Heart Wyoming | John Borthwick | United States, Wyoming, Cody
Indeed, hot rods and music have significantly influenced fashion in parts of Wyoming. In roadhouses from Spotted Horse to the Snake River Valley you meet men who look like hopefuls at a ZZ Top audition
Wyoming: True West and Weird | John Borthwick | United States, Wyoming, Cody
‘Truckers out there,’ drawls the husky voice coming over our car CB radio, ‘Anyone wanna kill an hour or two, see where the deer and the antelope play?’