Inspiring Travel Writing from John Borthwick: Page 8 of 14
Articles by John Borthwick: Page 8 of 14
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Namibia: Deserts and Diamonds
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John Borthwick
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Namibia
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Namib Desert Region
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Sperregebiet
"Diamonds were so plentiful that early 'mining' was done on one's stomach," says our Namibian guide. "Prospectors just lay there and plucked gems from the sand." We're standing on the edge of a wild dunescape in southern Namibia known ominously as...
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The Legendary Ghan
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John Borthwick
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Australia
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South Australia
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Adelaide
'They arrive with a ten pound note and one shirt - and they don't change either of them.' The sardonic old publican from Alice Springs in Australia's Northern Territory was referring to the first rail tourists to reach his isolated settlement.The...
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Chariots of Hire
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John Borthwick
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Philippines
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Luzon Islands
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Manila
If evolution were a card game, the Joker would be mutation - the chance element through which a species defeats the boredom of reproducing identical copies of itself. As we know, in World War II, 4WD evolution made a quantum leap when, out of...
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Among the Hmong
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John Borthwick
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Thailand
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The North
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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. Our own documentary crew director wishes the woman would stay in the area he has lit for...
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Kakadu National Ark
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John Borthwick
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Australia
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Northern Territories
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Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park seems to have more creatures per metre than anywhere since Noah’s Ark. 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...
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The Nullarbor Whale Crèche
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John Borthwick
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Australia
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South Australia
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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. In case any lesser creatures of the...
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Surreal Waikiki
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John Borthwick
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Hawaii
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Hawaii
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Waikiki
By Waikiki's circus sands the remnants of a surf aristocracy - a statue of Duke Kahanamoku and the cochineal-pink seraglio of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel - gaze wistfully over a mutating empire. Honolulu Lulu "Queen of the Surfer Girls" has been...
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Tasmania: Australia's 'Other Half'
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John Borthwick
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Australia
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Tasmania
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Tasmania City
For a moment, think of Tasmania as Australia in miniature - a bonsai Great Southern Land sampler. So much of the best of the mainland can be found here: mountains, beaches, creatures, history, great food... almost everything but deserts and coral...
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Sri Lanka Rediscovered
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John Borthwick
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Sri Lanka
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South Coast
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Galle
Samuel Perera remembers the day that Alec Guinness and David Lean dropped into his village in a helicopter and made him a movie star. "I was eight years old - it was 1956 - and our country was still called Ceylon," recalls Samuel, as we follow him...
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The Road to Shangri-La
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John Borthwick
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China
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Yunnan
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Zhongdian
Will the real "Shangri-La" please stand up? The prototype for this happy valley celebrated in James Hilton's 1933 novel, "Far Horizons" is found - depending upon who you’re talking to - from Hunza in Pakistan’s Karakoram Ranges to Bhutan, Mustang...
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