Travel stories, quotes and fun facts

The taxi that collected everyone

The shared taxi left when the fourth passenger arrived. By the end there were six of us, a crate of tomatoes and a goat, and the driver charged the same as if it had been four.

Luang Prabang wakes before dawn

Hundreds of monks collect alms in silence at sunrise, a daily ritual that has continued for centuries.

Highlife on a Sunday

Music came out of every second doorway and none of it was the same song. A man selling fried plantain kept time with his tongs without appearing to notice.

Myanmar has thousands of temples in one plain

More than 2,000 brick temples and stupas still stand on the Bagan plain, survivors of over 10,000 built between the 11th and 13th centuries.

The moon and sun are travellers

The months and days are the travellers of eternity. The years that come and go are also voyagers.

Indonesia has 17,000 islands

Indonesia is the largest archipelago in the world with around 17,500 islands, roughly 6,000 of them inhabited.

The carpenter's coffins

In the workshop stood a coffin shaped like a fish, one like an aeroplane and one like a cocoa pod. Each was a life summarised in wood, and the carpenter explained every choice.

Bali's calendar has a day of silence

On Nyepi the entire island stops. The airport closes, lights stay off and nobody goes outside for 24 hours.

Travel brings power

Travel brings power and love back into your life.

Komodo dragons live in one place

Komodo dragons are found wild only on a few Indonesian islands and can grow past three metres.

Waiting out a strike in Athens

The metro stopped and the museums shut. We walked eleven kilometres, ate three lunches and found a rooftop where the Acropolis appeared between two air conditioning units.

Krakatoa was heard 4,800 km away

The 1883 eruption produced possibly the loudest sound in recorded history, audible in Australia and on Rodrigues Island.

The olive harvest

Nets under the trees, sticks in every hand, and a family arguing pleasantly about branch technique. We picked for three hours and were paid in oil, which was a good deal.

Malaysia's towers are still the tallest twins

The Petronas Towers remain the tallest twin buildings on Earth, joined by a double-decker skybridge at level 41.

Don't be satisfied with stories

Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.

Borneo hosts one of the oldest rainforests

Parts of Borneo's rainforest are estimated at 130 million years old, far older than the Amazon.

Nightfall in the Alentejo

The nearest streetlight was eleven kilometres away. We ate outside and by nine o'clock the sky had more stars than the guidebook had words.

Singapore is growing

Singapore has expanded its land area by roughly a quarter since the 1960s through reclamation, importing sand from abroad.

As you start to walk

As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.

Singapore banned chewing gum sales

Selling chewing gum has been restricted since 1992, with therapeutic gum available only from pharmacies.

The train that stopped for a cow

We waited eighteen minutes. The driver walked back along the carriages explaining the situation to each one personally, and by the time we moved everybody knew everybody.

Philippines has more than 7,600 islands

The Philippine archipelago counts over 7,600 islands, and new surveys keep adding a few more.

A festival that found us

We arrived in a village for lunch and left at midnight. Nobody told us it was the patron saint's day, and nobody could believe we had turned up by accident.

The Philippines has an underground river

The Puerto Princesa Subterranean River flows more than eight kilometres through a limestone cave straight into the sea.