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In Madagascar & Yemen |
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the many faces of
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Where have I been to
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Routes
Countries Maps - Click to see larger images |
"there are
places in the world where one is mysteriously magnified on arrival or
departure by the emotions of all those who have arrived and departed
before...It is a sadness we do not experience today: our journeys no longer
take years to complete, we know exactly where it is going, and our chances of
coming back are so much greater." Cees Nooteboom in Roads
To Santiago More Travel Quotations below - click here I do not consider myself a writer, but a traveller
who happens to write. I am not a hardship traveller, or at least
no longer so. I hardly climb mountains; I do not camp in
the outdoors these days; And I don’t do much trekking. I am
essentially a city guy who enjoys café, shopping in flea markets, checking
out local supermarkets and browsing in local bookstores. As a keen
observer of politics and economics, as well as a history bluff, I enjoy
historical sites, political oddities, conversation into local issues and a
back-of-the-envelope assessment of local business opportunities. Even then, I do occasional forays to the wilderness. I do have a
soft spot for historical sites or spectacular scenery located in the middle
of nowhere, and would brave minor discomfort to
visit such places. I like remote or difficult-to-reach places, more for
the journey there than for what’s to see at the end
point. However, I would not do endurance treks to get there. If I
could, I would organize a quick and easy way to get there. I tend to travel
on the budget, but have increasingly resorted to
expensive but fast and comfortable ways of reaching exotic locations. As I get older, I feel that comfort matters more. I have long
abandoned staying in hostels – they are too noisy for me. I prefer nice
boutique hotels where I can contemplate life, enjoy clean facilities, clear
my emails and do some work with privacy. Sometimes,
I even stay in expensive, exclusive places with extraordinary setting that I wouldn’t dare contemplate when I first
began my travels. I still enjoy interacting with locals and other travellers. Hence I would
avoid expat enclaves and would just drop by travellers
inns and cafes from time to time. When the term “flashpacker” appears, I thought that is the word to describe me, as
well as many of us who began as backpackers but have since upgraded for
quality experiences and aesthetics. In fact, I am a regular chap who has a 9-to-5 job. I am neither
a full time writer nor a real nomad, though I like
the spirit of being the latter. Perhaps, I am merely a nomad wannabe.
My passion for travel means that I try my best to arrange my life
around my travels. I use all my work vacations for travel, and I have also
gone on extended journeys between jobs. I had taken two career breaks
of one year each time to travel. In my current job as a university
lecturer and business consultant, I am able to
travel for as much as two months in mid-year and several weeks at the end of
the year. Freedom and flexibility have become key in this stage of my life. Some people wonder if I had spent too little time in the many
countries and territories I have visited. The answer is, yes and no. Now look
– I have been travelling for almost 2 decades now. If you have been
utilizing all of your available work breaks solely
to travel, you could certainly cover a lot of ground in 2 decades. When
I first began travelling in the early 1990s, yes, spurred by an urgent desire
to experience a wide kaleidoscope of imagery and cultures, I rushed through
many places. Over the years, however, I have also learnt to appreciate the
subtleties of places and cultures, especially ethnic minorities at the
periphery of nations. I began to cultivate an interest in festivals and
local histories. In the last decade, I have spent a lot of time in the
places I visit - at least what could be considered a fair bit of time for
someone who continues to have a career beyond writing and travel per
se. Certainly, I cannot go away for 3 months at a time like many
continental Europeans do because of the peculiar work vacation system they
benefit from. In fact, I often return to the countries I have been, to visit regions I hadn’t gone to, or to experience
festivals and cuisines that I did not in my earlier visits. I do not spend two months in a small country. My other
commitments simply do not allow me to do so, especially when I am not a
full-time travel writer or traveller. But I
do try to spend time to appreciate aspects of places which are worth learning
about, and my extensive pre-journey planning allows me to experience these
things when I get there. Am I trying to break any record? No, the record of visiting the most number of countries has already been broken a
long time ago. I keep track of the numbers partly because they are of
statistical interest, and partly because of my interest in nations and
places. The reality is, I often return to places I have visited before
and spend quite a bit of time in such places that do not increase my country
count. In an era where rising incomes have allowed many Asians to travel and
see the world, I hope my experiences could be useful to them. Asian travellers do have peculiar priorities and preferences
which differ from those of Western travellers.
I hope that my travels would also provide them with
some ideas. Writing is neither my career nor a key source of income. My objective is to encourage independent travel. I do not consider my travels extraordinary. I take public transport, hardly treks or cross dangerous rivers and brave tall peaks. I even keep a regular job connected to neither writing nor travel. I hope all these encourage others to do the same. That is the essence of my writing and the key objective of this website. I have listed below the countries I have been to, with the year of visit and links to my travel reports (which were to only some of my trips). Have fun reading! For what I count as a country and what constitutes a visit, see my Country-Count Criteria page.
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East Asia, Southeast
Asia, South Asia & Oceania South East Asia: East Asia: Japan (2006, 2013, 2015, 2023) plus Okinawa (2010) North Korea (2004) ; South Korea (2003 & 2017) ; Mongolia (2002) South Asia: Australasia: American Samoa (2010), Cook Islands (2010), Fiji (2010), Kiribati (2010), Nauru (2010), New Caledonia (2010), Norfolk Island (2010), Papua New Guinea (2010), Samoa (2010), Solomon Islands (2010), Tonga (2010), Tuvalu (2010), Vanuatu (2010), Wallis & Futuna (2010) |
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Central Asia, Middle East & Africa Central Asia: Middle East/North
Africa: Sub-Sahara Africa: |
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Europe Central & Eastern: Western Europe: |
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Places To Visit:
Parts of
Russia (Tuva, Yakutiya, Kamchatka, Altai, Northern
Caucasus, Volga region) Algerian Sahara, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome &
Principe, Democratic Republic of The Congo, Angola Northern and Central Brazil ; Falkland Islands India (Tamil Nadu, Hampi, Northeast, Sikkim and Buddhist monuments of India) Following parts of China: North-West/Silk Road, Guizhou, Tibet Kachin State & Eastern Shan State
of Myanmar ; Parts of Thailand: Isan South Island of New Zealand ; Canada's Nunavut & Yukon territories |
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Favourite Places |
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Favourite
Country/Regions - Libya - Thailand |
Favourite
Large Cities (population >1 million) - Cape Town - Esfahan - London -Taipei - Vancouver |
Favourite
Small Cities/Towns (population <1 million) - Thimphu
(Bhutan) |
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Unique
"Small" Places/Sites (Culture & Heritage) -exclude those
already listed elsewhere - Dogon
Country (Mali) - Ghadames
(Libya) - Khoima (Nagaland, India) - Pushkar
(India) - Wadi
Hadramawt (Yemen) |
Unique Places (Nature) |
Weird Regimes |
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Various
quotations from John Simpsons in A
Mad World, My Masters: "Once we had a planet. Now… we’re left with a suburb." "There are
three bad times: the night before you leave for somewhere difficult, and you
sit with your lover or your family trying to behave entirely normally in
order to show how safe everything is going to be; the following morning, when
the car comes to take you to the airport; and the moment when the plane
touches down at your destination. Of all these moments, the last is by
far the worst. It is also more unpleasant than anything you are likely
to experience later." "Even if you find yourself under long intensive shelling, which is the nastiest thing I know, or are attacked by an angry crowd, which is the second nastiest, it never quite matches that dreadful sense of foreboding when the plane jolts, the tyres scream, and the trip begins to unfold: the separation from the comfortable, safe, familiar world of an aircraft, the cold air, the uncertainty of standing in line at the immigration desk, defenceless against all the fears you have been suppressing. And of course if shelling, arrest, or angry crowds materialize – and they usually don’t – you are much too busy to worry about the outcome." "Serious traveling is never comfortable or safe, and is very rarely accompanied by champagne, unless, that is, you have brought your own. Serious traveling is difficult, and the enjoyment is in direct proportion to the degree of difficulty. By which I mean, it only starts to be really enjoyable once it’s over." |
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Icons of Travel |
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Zhenghe |
Ibn Battuta |
Marco Polo |
Lawrence of
Arabia |
Bruce Chatwin |
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Aspiring Nomad |
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Kykkos
Monastery, Troodos Mountains, Cyprus |
Helsinki
Bay, Finland |
Georgian
Military Highway, near the Russian/Chechen border |
Train,
Ukraine, near the Moldovan border |
Torres
del Paine National Park, Chile |
