There are a few reasons as to why I keep thinking about that turtle crossing the road in Syria: one, as I said, was because I’d been reading about Freya Stark’s ‘virtues of travelling’; I’ve also been thinking about the things that make travel exciting (unexpected events, the element of surprise, those serendipitous moments, incongruities); … Read more about Travelling: textures
Our ‘travellers’ virtues’ were put to the test on our recent road trip in Syria. We’d hired a driver as my partner and I were both busy researching and shooting pics and had enough to do (although my partner reluctantly ended up driving a few days anyway). We were cruising along a remote country road … Read more about Travelling: virtues put to the test, example 1
I’m reading the biography of the great female traveller Freya Stark, ‘Passionate Nomad: the life of Freya Stark’, because I’m writing a book on Syria and Freya spent time there. I’m up to an enlightening chapter about Freya’s time in Yemen when she was the leader of an archaeological expedition. She intensely disliked her two … Read more about Travelling: virtues of a traveller
We’d been searching for Qasr al Heir Al Sharqi, the isolated ruins of a magnificent Umayyad palace, some 120 kilometers in the desert north-east of Palmyra, Syria, and we’d found them. After a failed attempt the day before, we were elated. At the end of our ambles we saw two young boys striding across the … Read more about Syria: the people you meet, part 2
This is a little shop that’s typical of many in Aleppo’s atmospheric souq, selling everything from medicinal herbs and dried lizard skins to Clairol hair colors and loofahs for the hammam. it’s a bit like a Boots pharmacy really, only the service is better. Have you ever tried to carry your groceries on your head? … Read more about Aleppo: souq pharmacy