Dear friends, After the fascinating morning at the goat market I wrote about in the last blog, we also spent time in the wider market and then visited the Nizwa's Round Tower Fort. Later, we walked through a fascinating hillside village and then settled into a wonderful 'eco-luxe' hotel for the night called 'The View', [...]
Dear friends, When your day starts at 4.30 with a hot coffee in the dark hours just before dawn, the stars above and only the silence of the desert for company, you know it will be a busy day, and so it was. A couple of hour's drive across the desert to the city of [...]
Dear friends, The day we made the Wahiba Sands crossing was wonderful - the stark beauty of the desert, a few camels, a little excitement and thrills as we did some 'dune bashing', sunset on the dunes, dinner under the stars and a full moon, with music and chilled wine. Ancient and modern, practical and [...]
Dear friends, Driving eastwards from Muscat we passed through villages, wadis and towns, sometimes right along the coast, at other times flying along a smooth modern highway. We walked a little in Wadi Tiwi and also in the old port of Sur, and we arrived at the Raz Al Jinz Turtle reserved as the sun [...]
Dear friends, For a long time I have been wanting to visit Oman, the Sultanate of Oman, to give the country its correct name, and now I am here with a small group of eight companions for a 10 day trip organised by 'Wilderness Travel', and following an itinerary which takes us to cities and [...]
Dear friends, For my last blog from the Solomons, I want to take you on a visit to the village of Kolomosu on the island of Santa Ysabel, which 50 years ago used to take about three hours from our island school with three of us paddling in a dugout canoe. This year, it took [...]
Dear friends, When telling my family and friends that I was going back to where I taught 50 years ago, and that I had booked a flight out to Fera in the Maringe Lagoon off the island of Santa Isabel, they asked if I also had a hotel reservation. 'What, no hotel near there, [...]
Dear friends, As promised, here is a quick look at a trip I made out of Honiara along the north coast to Lela Beach to check out a weaving festival which I saw advertised around town. The site was right on the beach and not so many people around in the morning although I gather [...]
Dear friends, This month I had the wonderful experience of revisiting the Solomon Islands, fifty years after I taught there as a young volunteer. I spent a couple of days in Honiara, exploring the city, meeting a few people who have been my contacts, visiting the local market and a weaving festival. Honiara was buzzing [...]
Dear readers, My last blog from my recent US/Canada trip is from the beautiful Green Mountain State of Vermont where I had a brief two-day visit with my friend Lois. We had one day of sunshine and one of rain, but either way the countryside and the places she took me were grand. So here [...]