Mumbai didn’t so much welcome me as press-gang me when I arrived unprepared into its hectic, unfathomably discordant streets. On top of the record-breaking decibels of the world’s noisiest city, the air was thick and stale from the day, and my senses were tangled into a disoriented mess. By midnight I was battered under the…
The Havana Blades
Deaf to the Habaneros’ warnings, I now felt the sharp steel blade against my throat and the stench of last night’s rum breathed damp and hot into my neck. Another man stood in front of me wearing a cemetery smile and madness was etched in the stains on his vest as he stubbed out the filthy…
Between Now and Then: A Border Story
Rayvile, Delhi, Altoona, Tallulah. Names from better days in the greenlands that stick wet to the flatline i20 from West Texas all the weaving way through to the Carolinas. To me, as I peel my sweated skin from the baked vinyl seat for the millionth time, they’re the grey battered smalltowns I see on the…
The Man I Met (A love letter to New York)
This piece was shortlisted for the Bradt Guides New Travel Writer of the Year award at the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2021 In my mind he’s desperate. He’s keeping the night close and walking with a lean against the bitter wind. The barest light from the old streetlamp catches him in film-noir frame as…
Meeting Across The River
The ground is winter wet and after only a minute or two I can feel it cold against me as I sit on the muddy and soaked bank of the Taff, at a point where it widens through Bute Park, in the heart of the Welsh Capital. The park’s immaculate clipped flower beds have been…
Travel Writing’s Ugly Ghosts?
One piece of advice given to me many years ago regarding travel writing has stayed with me throughout every attempt I’ve ever made to say something meaningful in print. ‘Context is everything’. Everything has its place within a particular moment, and whilst time and the sensibilities of a more sophisticated modern culture mean we have…
Trains and Boats and Planes
Regulars to these columns will have realised that we here at TravellersWrites have a bit of an obsession with getting about. Every journey we take is a collation of many other mini-journeys within it, and every journey has myriad reasons for being made. We get a number of communications here at TW, and the ones…
I’m a Seoul Man
It was only to be a few days in Seoul, but having arrived direct from a hot and humid thirty degree Singapore and stepping out into minus eleven degrees in the South Korean capital, I was immediately thinking we could get this trip done in hours. As few as possible. But that was to do…
Electric Ladyland
There’s a buzz in the air in Hong Kong on a Sunday. Not just the hustle of the millions taking to the transport system to find the best shopping, or the best Dim Sum, or even the best hiking spots. Something else is emanating audibly as you come down from the Island’s…
Working Class Hero
My partner hates any sign of peril or danger to animals. Who doesn’t? It’s why I watch Game Of Thrones alone, it’s why every tiny creature that flies, crawls or floats into our house gets put gently outside on a red carpet, and why the Grand National sweepstake is an absolute no-no. It’s also why…
The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking
Nostalgia is a funny thing. A friend of mine calls it ‘being drunk on the past’. I’m not sure that’s wholly fair, but I’m as guilty as anyone of a rosy tint on my lenses when I look back at past trips. One of the things I miss, is the ease with which one could…
All Hail The Tour Guide
Its commonly said that we all remember the best teachers from school. The ones that made a lasting impression we carry with us today. I believe that, but I also know we remember the bad ones, such as Mr Barnett who when addressing Form 2 Chemistry described a bunsen burner as about the length of…
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