A Traveller’s Eye, A Thinker’s Heart
I like to tell stories. I like to take photos.
And I like to share them. Enjoy.
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THE MAGICAL SOUK OF ALEPPO
The Al Madina souq is one of the most magical places I have ever visited. The bazaar is a labyrinth of covered markets in the heart of Aleppo’s old quarters which would stretch out 13 kilometres if the streets, alleys and paths were laid end to end. When you enter the souq you walk back…
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LOST IN THE SOUK
I used to have a recurring dream of being lost forever while driving in the labyrinth of narrow streets which is the old quarter of Aleppo, Syria. It was one of those dreams where nothing would go right, and you’d wake up sweaty and in a panic. One day my worst nightmare came true. As…
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ALEPPO’S COPPER SOUK
You will hear Aleppo’s copper souk long before you arrive. BANG BANG BANG PING PING PING BANG BANG BANG. On a narrow street in Aleppo’s old quarters, copper craftsmen in the Souq Khan al-Nahhaseen congregate as they have for hundreds of years and pound out copper products. It is a drab and filthy area where dust,…
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THE BRIDGE OVER THE AFRIN
About 70 kilometres northwest of Aleppo, and just a stone’s throw from the Turkish border, a Roman bridge crosses the Afrin River. I came across it one day while a mate and I were trying to find the Greek – and later Roman – city of Cyrrhus. We came to the bridge and stopped the…
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HANS AND THE SELVA LACANDONA
Yesterday was an exciting day as I became reacquainted with an old travel companion. Thirty two years ago I was trying to sort out some train schedules at the Ciudad Juarez station in northern Mexico as I wanted to travel to the southernmost state of Chiapas. I was 23 and had a couple of months…
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AN OVERNIGHT IN HELSINKI
Noon in Helsinki. The sun hardly makes an appearance at 60 degrees North and barely gets much above the horizon. As we’re right near the winter solstice we only got about six hours of light, but it was hardly light as it was overcast and dark and dreary all day. A lot of ties to…
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TRAVELS WITH JOHN
Facebook today has reacquainted me with a long lost friend and travelling companion. In 1978, I stumbled into a losmen (guestroom) on Samosir Island in northern Sumatra. I saw this seasoned traveller there – a skinny, long haired bearded man wearing Coke bottle bottom glasses and eating porridge and bananas. John Ducedre was a Canadian…
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THANKS FOR THE RIDE
I was going through some old stuff and found my old hitchhiking card, designed and printed by my brother-in-law Duane Miller, which brought back a rush of memories of simpler, safer and more carefree days. I started hitchhiking in 1976 to get home from college and in the late ’70s used my thumb to get…
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METEORA
In May of 1993, Padma and I and our VW camper van passed through Meteora in our journey from Syria to Germany. I didn’t write a story about the trip but here are some photos. Meteora is a collection of monasteries in the centre of mainland Greece. The region has what appears to be inaccessible…
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