Lesley Downer Lesley Downer first went to Japan as an English teacher in the late 1970s. She immersed herself in the language and culture and developed a keen interest in the Edo period, especially the poetry of Matsuo Basho. Years later, she returned to Japan to follow the same route the poet had written about in his 17th century book Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North)...
The Narrow Smile by Peter Mayne Peter Mayne was a Royal Air Force liaison officer with the Pathan tribes of India’s turbulent North-West Frontier in 1941. This harsh and barren region is home to the Pathans (or Pakhtuns), an ethnic group split into mutually hostile and often warring tribes ruled by an inviolable code of honour, who controlled the mountain passes that were the sole means of...
Justin Marozzi I’d always thought of Temur as a cut-rate Genghis Khan who burst out of the Asian steppe, conquered a sizeable chunk of territory, and then failed to hold his empire together. It was only when researching a trip to Uzbekistan that I discovered Temur — or Tamerlane, as he was known in the West — was one of the world’s greatest conquerors. He was a strategist on a par with Alexander...
Alex Kerr I’ve often thought of Japan as one of the world’s most misunderstood countries, not because it is uniquely inscrutable but because it’s so beset by stereotypes. The casual visitor rarely sees beyond their image of geisha, Buddhist temples, hyper-modern electronics and anime. This exotic projection seems especially prevalent here in Germany and in France. The truth is more...
Kyzylkum Desert views from Toprak Kala A great civilization existed in Khorezm from the 7th century BC to 1230 AD. Its people farmed and traded in a broad river delta south of the Aral Sea, thriving for nearly 2,000 years between the Karakum and Kyzylkum deserts until Genghis Khan’s human storm swept in and put them all to the sword. Today this desert is scattered with the ruins of more than 300...
Louisa Waugh Louisa Waugh lived in a village in the far west of Mongolia in the late 1990s and wrote a remarkable book about her experience. It’s a world of drought-stricken spring, lush summer pasture and brutal winters when fetching water meant hacking holes through river ice. In this harsh and stunningly beautiful landscape, villagers lived on mutton, dairy products and vodka, and met...
A visit to Japan is a gastronomic delight. It’s even more of a treat when you live in a meat-and-potatoes place like Germany, where abendbrot — bread and butter with cold cuts and cheese — is considered a brilliant supper innovation (‘It’s like breakfast…. without the muesli…!’). I particularly miss the availability of fresh fish living in an inland city like Berlin. We get freshwater fish...
David-Eimer – Photo by Gilles Sabrie David Eimer is the author of the critically acclaimed The Emperor Far Away: Travels at the Edge of China, and A Savage Dreamland: Journeys in Burma. He was a Beijing-based correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph from 2005 to 2012, and the Southeast Asia correspondent for the Daily Telegraph between 2012 and 2014. You can also find his...
As I wrote in the prior blog, I still don’t know how I found the “guesthouse” where we spent that first night in Rangoon. At first it seemed like a great value. But in the end we got more than we bargained for… It was a small place owned by Indian traders, on the second floor of a decrepit colonial building lost down a forgettable side street. We had to trudge up a dark...
Of all the places I traveled in Southeast Asia, I liked Burma the best. It was by far the most traditional country in the region. It was free of Thailand’s 7-11’s, paved roads and fast food. Free of Vietnam’s scams. And it lacked that uncomfortable undercurrent of violence and broken psyches that seemed to blight Cambodia. Burmese people were quiet and kind. Old men in the...