Story#301
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.
Travel stories, quotes and fun facts, part 4
30 stories, 50 fun facts, 20 quotes on this page. It covers Greece, Malaysia, Asia, Borneo, Portugal, Singapore and 47 other places. Page 4 of 10.
Page 4 of 10
30 stories, 50 fun facts, 20 quotes on this page. It covers Greece, Malaysia, Asia, Borneo, Portugal, Singapore and 47 other places. Page 4 of 10.
Countries on this page
Every country page collects its entries in one place, with a fact sheet and the guides for going there.
Entries on this page
Fun fact#302
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.
Quote#303
Don't be satisfied with stories
Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.
Fun fact#304
Borneo hosts one of the oldest rainforests
Parts of Borneo's rainforest are estimated at 130 million years old, far older than the Amazon.
Story#305
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.
Fun fact#306
Singapore is growing
Singapore has expanded its land area by roughly a quarter since the 1960s through reclamation, importing sand from abroad.
Quote#307
As you start to walk
As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.
Fun fact#308
Singapore banned chewing gum sales
Selling chewing gum has been restricted since 1992, with therapeutic gum available only from pharmacies.
Story#309
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.
Fun fact#310
Philippines has more than 7,600 islands
The Philippine archipelago counts over 7,600 islands, and new surveys keep adding a few more.
Story#311
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.
Fun fact#312
The Philippines has an underground river
The Puerto Princesa Subterranean River flows more than eight kilometres through a limestone cave straight into the sea.
Quote#313
There are no foreign lands
There are no foreign lands. It is the traveller only who is foreign.
Fun fact#314
Banaue's rice terraces are 2,000 years old
Carved into the Cordillera by hand, the Ifugao terraces are still farmed by the descendants of their builders.
Story#315
The lighthouse keeper's cat
The lighthouse is automatic now, but the cat still patrols as though it has responsibilities. The keeper's grandson runs a cafe next door and tells the story eleven times a day.
Fun fact#316
Kazakhstan is the largest landlocked country
Kazakhstan covers 2.7 million square kilometres without a coastline, larger than all of Western Europe.
Fun fact#317
Baikonur launches from a steppe
The world's oldest and largest operational spaceport sits on Kazakh steppe and is leased to Russia.
Quote#318
To awaken alone
To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.
Story#319
Cold water swim club
Six people in dressing gowns at eight in the morning in February. They swim for four minutes and drink tea for forty. We were invited on the first morning and did not miss a day.
Fun fact#320
Uzbekistan is double landlocked
Uzbekistan is one of only two countries surrounded entirely by other landlocked countries, the other being Liechtenstein.
Fun fact#321
Samarkand sat on the Silk Road
Samarkand's Registan square was the commercial and intellectual heart of Timur's empire in the 15th century.
Story#322
The tram driver's tour
The tram was nearly empty so the driver pointed things out as we passed, in three languages, without slowing down. At the terminus he apologised for talking too much.
Quote#323
The beckoning counts
The beckoning counts, and not the clicking latch behind you.
Fun fact#324
Turkmenistan has a burning crater
A gas field collapse near Darvaza was set alight decades ago and the Door to Hell has been burning ever since.
Story#325
Fog on the Camino
We walked in fog for two days and saw the same twelve metres of path. Then it lifted on the last morning and Santiago's towers were exactly where they were meant to be.
Fun fact#326
Kyrgyzstan is nearly all mountain
Over 90 percent of Kyrgyzstan lies above 1,500 metres, and summer pastures are still reached on horseback.
Fun fact#327
Tajikistan's highway climbs to 4,600 m
The Pamir Highway crosses the Ak-Baital pass at 4,655 metres, one of the highest paved roads on Earth.
Quote#328
Solitude of travel
Solitude, I have discovered, is not a lack of company but a different kind of it.
Story#329
One key, five hundred years
The guesthouse key was iron and the size of a forearm. The owner said it had opened the same door since the eighteenth century and asked us not to lose it, understandably.
Fun fact#330
Afghanistan hides blue lakes
Band-e Amir's six lakes are dammed by natural travertine walls and glow a deep mineral blue.
Fun fact#331
Iran has wind towers older than air conditioning
Yazd's badgir wind catchers funnel breeze down into homes and over underground water, cooling rooms without electricity.
Story#332
Christmas market discipline
There is a correct order: sausage, then gingerbread, then gluhwein, then a second gluhwein. A local corrected our sequence firmly and then bought the second round.
Quote#333
We shall not cease
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
Fun fact#334
Persepolis was burned by Alexander
The ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire was destroyed by fire in 330 BC, which ironically baked and preserved its clay archives.
Fun fact#335
Iraq holds the first cities
Uruk and Ur in southern Iraq were among the first true cities, and the world's earliest writing appears there around 3200 BC.
Story#336
The gondolier's shortcut
He avoided the Grand Canal entirely and took us through back canals where the water was green and the walls were close enough to touch. He sang exactly nothing and it was better.
Fun fact#337
Jordan's Petra is carved, not built
The Nabataeans cut Petra's facades directly into sandstone cliffs and engineered a water system that supported thousands in the desert.
Quote#338
Only those who risk
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
Story#339
The last train to Kyoto
We ran the length of the platform and made it with four seconds to spare. A salaryman already inside held the door with his briefcase, then bowed slightly, and neither of us mentioned it for the next forty minutes.
Fun fact#340
The Dead Sea keeps dropping
The Dead Sea surface falls around a metre each year as the Jordan River is diverted, exposing sinkholes along the shore.
Fun fact#341
Israel has three seas
A traveller can swim in the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Dead Sea within a single day's drive.
Story#342
Vending machine dinner
Everything closed at eleven and we ate hot corn soup and a boiled egg from a machine on a residential street. It was the least romantic meal of the trip and the one we still talk about.
Quote#343
Ithaka gave you the journey
Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey. Without her you would not have set out.
Fun fact#344
Jerusalem's old city is tiny
The walled Old City covers less than one square kilometre yet contains sites central to three world religions.
Fun fact#345
Lebanon has cedars on its flag
The Cedars of God grove holds trees over a thousand years old, remnants of forests that supplied ancient Egypt and Phoenicia.
Story#346
The convenience store test
A local told us you can judge a country by its convenience stores. We ate egg sandwiches from a Tokyo konbini at midnight and understood immediately what she meant.
Fun fact#347
Syria's Aleppo souk was vast
Before the war, Aleppo's covered market ran for roughly 13 kilometres of vaulted alleys, one of the largest in the world.
Quote#348
Keep Ithaka always in your mind
Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you're destined for.
Story#349
Cherry blossom in the rain
The petals came down with the rain and stuck to everything. Nobody left the park. People simply opened umbrellas over their picnic blankets and carried on.
Fun fact#350
Saudi Arabia had no formal borders for years
Parts of the Saudi desert frontier remained undefined into the modern era because the sand simply had no landmarks.
Fun fact#351
Dubai's tower needed new pumps
Pumping concrete 600 metres up the Burj Khalifa required specially developed mixes that would not set in the pipe.
Story#352
Onsen etiquette lesson
An older man wordlessly demonstrated the whole sequence: stool, bucket, scrub, rinse, then in. Then he nodded once, satisfied, and did not look at me again.
Fun fact#353
Abu Dhabi's mosque holds one carpet
The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque contains what is considered the largest single hand-knotted carpet in the world.
Quote#354
Ask that the way be long
Hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery.
Fun fact#355
Oman has no skyscrapers by design
Building height rules in Muscat keep the skyline low and white, preserving views of the Hajar Mountains.
Story#356
Silence at the temple gate
The cemetery has two hundred thousand graves under cedar trees. A monk walked past at six in the morning and the only sound in a kilometre of forest was his sandals.
Fun fact#357
Qatar is mostly desert and coast
Qatar has almost no natural fresh water and produces most of its drinking supply through desalination.
Quote#358
The land of literature
A person susceptible to wanderlust is not so much addicted to movement as committed to transformation.
Fun fact#359
Bahrain means two seas
The name refers to fresh springs bubbling up within the salt sea, once the basis of a famous pearl industry.
Story#360
The ramen counter
Eight seats, one man, no menu in English and a paper form with boxes to tick. He looked at my form, changed one box, and handed back the pen. He was right.
Fun fact#361
Yemen has a mud skyscraper city
Shibam's tower houses of sun-dried mud rise up to eleven storeys and date from the 16th century.
Story#362
Cycling Shimanami
Seventy kilometres over six bridges between islands, with a blue line painted on the road the whole way. You cannot get lost, which leaves you free to look at the sea.
Fun fact#363
Socotra looks like another planet
A third of Socotra's plant species exist nowhere else, including the umbrella-shaped dragon's blood tree.
Quote#364
Travel is like love
Travel is like love, mostly because it's a heightened state of awareness.
Fun fact#365
Pakistan has five peaks over 8,000 m
Pakistan holds five of the world's fourteen highest mountains, including K2, widely considered the hardest to climb.
Story#366
Bathhouse in Busan
A woman scrubbed me with a mitt until I questioned several life decisions, and I emerged feeling like a new person and slightly smaller.
Fun fact#367
The Karakoram Highway is the highest paved border crossing
The Khunjerab Pass between Pakistan and China sits at 4,693 metres and closes with the first heavy snow.
Quote#368
Movement and stillness
In an age of speed, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow.
Fun fact#369
Bangladesh has the largest mangrove forest
The Sundarbans span roughly 10,000 square kilometres of tidal forest shared with India, and shelter Bengal tigers.
Story#370
Seoul at four in the morning
The city does not really stop. At four we ate fried chicken with people finishing work and people starting it, and nobody could tell which was which.
Fun fact#371
Bangladesh's rivers braid and move
Hundreds of rivers cross Bangladesh, and some shift course by kilometres in a single monsoon season.
Quote#372
Two tramps
We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfilment.
Fun fact#373
North Korea uses its own calendar
Juche years count from 1912, the birth year of Kim Il-sung, and appear alongside Gregorian dates.
Story#374
The DMZ tour
The most surreal part was not the soldiers, it was the gift shop. We bought a fridge magnet at the edge of the world's most fortified border.
Fun fact#375
Siberia has a pole of cold
Oymyakon has recorded temperatures near minus 68 degrees Celsius, the coldest for a permanently inhabited place.
Story#376
Hutong hospitality
We took a wrong turn into a courtyard and were handed sunflower seeds by three grandmothers who wanted to know our ages and marital status in that order.
Fun fact#377
The Trans-Siberian takes a week
Moscow to Vladivostok is 9,289 kilometres and takes about seven days without stops, crossing 87 cities.
Quote#378
The whole object of travel
The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.
Fun fact#379
The Gobi is a cold desert
The Gobi can drop below minus 30 degrees in winter and sometimes gets snow on its dunes.
Story#380
On the wall at dawn
We started at five to be alone. For two hours the only people on that section of wall were us and a woman selling water who had walked up ahead of us and was not out of breath.
Fun fact#381
The Himalayas hold fossils of sea creatures
Ammonite fossils found near Everest prove the range was once seabed before India collided with Asia.
Quote#382
An adventure is an inconvenience
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered.
Fun fact#383
Asia holds the lowest and highest points
Both the highest land on Earth, Everest, and the lowest exposed land, the Dead Sea shore, sit on the same continent.
Story#384
The overnight sleeper to Xi'an
Six bunks, thermos flasks of hot water, and a card game we did not understand but were dealt into anyway. By morning we had lost imaginary money and gained four contacts.
Fun fact#385
Chai is a shared word
From Turkish cay to Hindi chai and Russian chai, most of Asia uses a version of the same word, carried overland from China.
Story#386
Tea horse road
The old caravan route is a hiking trail now. In one village a man was still pressing tea into cakes by hand with a stone and a cloth, exactly as the museum described.
Fun fact#387
Monsoon means season
The word monsoon comes from the Arabic mausim, meaning season, used by sailors who timed voyages to the reversing winds.
Quote#388
How you climb a mountain
How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top.
Fun fact#389
Bamboo can grow a metre a day
Some bamboo species grow up to 90 centimetres in 24 hours, which is why it is used for scaffolding across Asia.
Story#390
Rice terraces at flooding
In February the terraces fill with water and the whole mountainside becomes a mirror in fifteen hundred pieces. Then the rice grows and it is just a hillside again.
Fun fact#391
The Mekong feeds four countries' fisheries
The Mekong supports one of the world's largest inland fisheries, and Cambodia's Tonle Sap reverses direction every year.
Quote#392
It's not the mountain we conquer
It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.
Fun fact#393
Tea ceremony is a form of meditation
The Japanese tea ceremony can take four hours and is judged less on the tea than on attention, hosting and restraint.
Story#394
Hong Kong at eye level
We took the Mid-Levels escalator up through the city and looked into offices, kitchens and living rooms. It is public transport that is also a documentary.
Fun fact#395
Asia has the most megacities
More than half of the world's cities over ten million people are in Asia, led by Tokyo, Delhi and Shanghai.
Story#396
The night market rule
Pick the stall with the longest queue of people who are not holding cameras. It worked five nights out of five.
Fun fact#397
Africa spans two hemispheres twice
Africa is the only continent crossed by both the equator and the two tropics, so it touches all four hemispheres.
Quote#398
We knocked the bastard off
Well, George, we knocked the bastard off.
Fun fact#399
The Sahara is bigger than Australia
At roughly 9.2 million square kilometres, the Sahara is about the size of the United States and larger than Australia.
Story#400
Sleeping in a ger
The stove goes out at three in the morning and someone gets up to feed it. On our second night it was my turn, and I got it wrong, and the family were extremely polite about it.
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Propose your travel story
The missed ferry. The stranger who handed over a key. The meal that ran until midnight. If something happened to you on the road and you still think about it, send it - a few sentences is plenty, and we do the tidying up.