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After a long search for my perfect beachfront property on the Caribbean island of Guanaja, my husband and I had found it. And apparently our new home was good for cocaine. One of the Bay Islands off the north coast of Honduras, Guanaja is laid-back, forested and surrounded by coral reef. With only one paved . . . → Read More: Square Grouper on the Cocaine Coast The elephant’s bulbous black eye fixed me in alarm. He stomped and prepared to rear up, flailing his trunk and tusks. Startled out of my daze, I jammed on my handbrakes and skidded zigzagging over the gravel to a messy halt by his columnar forelegs. A truck tore by, tinseled deities dangling from the rearview . . . → Read More: Cycling India’s Wildest Highway I’m going to tell the story of how I came across my first tiger in India. Yes, I know this subject is not directly involved with the ‘Overland’, but indirectly, or at least as far as I’m concerned, it is ! Around the age of 11 or 12, I started reading Jim Corbett’s fascinating . . . → Read More: MY FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH TIGERS Rebuilding from rubble Reaching the outskirts of Kabul from the east, my first introduction to the city was of the various international military bases that line the road. This was soon replaced by endless rows of damaged buildings, mostly apartment blocks. It was not at all uncommon to see a building . . . → Read More: Kabul Afghanistan Sacred shrines – Ancient settlements [Photo right: Shrine of Hazrat Ali, one of the Islamic world’s most sacred buildings and Mazar-e-Sharif’s number one attraction.] Mazar-e-Sharif, in the north of Afghanistan and some 400 kilometers northwest of Kabul, is the nation’s second largest city and is in better shape than much of . . . → Read More: Mazar-e-Sharif Afghanistan Kali Kandaki valley from Pokhara to Jomsom According to Rory Maclean in his book Magic Bus by 1973 there were 250,000 French nationals alone in India. I don’t know where they all were but I remember seeing very few westerners once we got over past the Pudding Shop and over the Bosporus. My purpose in . . . → Read More: INTERTREK OVERLAND LONDON TO KATHMANDU FEB 1973 The strange feeling of financial shock for sending one small document via DHL Delhi, had me rushing for New Delhi’s Post. It was hidden away on the second floor of a building opposite the Relax hotel in Paharganj. A strange place for a post office, I was sure there was one away from the . . . → Read More: Dealing with New Delhi Post Office The Khyber Pass: quite honestly the name alone did it for me. A legendary journey such people as Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great traveled. Even now, the journey from Pakistan to Afghanistan is heavy in magnitude. War, gun running, smuggling, and just about every other reason most tourists would avoid the place like the . . . → Read More: Last Trip through the Khyber Pass |
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