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Tag Archives: Asia
Turn Left at Lenin’s Statue: Travels in Central Asia.
It’s taken three years, five revisions and a list of rejections as long as Donald Trump’s comb over, but at long last Turn Left at Lenin’s Statue is here – or, rather, on Amazon. Here’s a little bit of a … Continue reading
Posted in The Book
Tagged Amazon, Amazon self publish, Asia, Book, Central Asia, China, Ebook, Kazakhstan, Kindle, Kyrgyzstan, Lenin's statue, Literature, Pamir, PRC, Russia, Self Publish, Tajikistan, Travel, Travel writing, Turn Left, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang
44 Comments
Behind the wall.
It takes a while for me to get the hang of Checkpoint 300. Eventually a corridor in nude concrete and steel, half prison half abattoir, delivers me in a street cul-de-sac’d by the wall. Closed shops and scraps of paper … Continue reading
Posted in Israel, Middle East, Palestine
Tagged Abu, Aida, Amman, Arafat, Army, Art, Asia, Banksy, Bethlehem, Bibi, Camp, Concrete, Flash bang, Graffiti, Hamas, Hezbollah, Holy Land, Islam, Israel, Jesus, Manger, Middle East, Nasrallah, Nativity Square, Palestine, Peace, Peace in the Middle East, People, People watching, Photography, Rachel, Rain, Refugee, Religion, Road, Roadblock, Security Wall, Segregation, Settlement, Skunk water, Sponge granate, Stencils, Stinger granade, Street photography, Terrorism, Tomb, TWA 840, UN, Urban photography, Wall, Walled Off, Walled Off Hotel, Yassin, Yitzhak Rabin
41 Comments
Monochrome Kashgar.
I had plans for more stories from Xinjiang; however, the more I try to put pen to paper the more I realise I don’t want to add words to what I’ve already said. What I do have are some photos. … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, China, Xinjiang
Tagged Army, Arrests, Asia, Border, Border patrol, Brainwashing, CCTV, Central Asia, Chairman, Chen, Chen Quanguo, China, Concentration camps, Foreigners, Id Kah, Irkeshtam, Irkeshtam border, Islam, Islamist, Jiefang, Kashgar, Kashgar old town, Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyzstan - Xinjiang, Land crossing, Mao, Mosque, Mountains, Music, People, Peter Robb, Photography, Police, Qomuz, Re-education camps, Religion, Repression, Soldiers, Street photography, Surveillance, Terrorism, Tourism, Travel, Truck, Turkestan, Turkic, Urban photography, Urumqi, Uyghur, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang, Zedong
15 Comments
Nobody speak. A Xinjiang journal.
Why coming here? I loathe the term dark tourism. Yet why am I here? I’m not an activist, a journalist, somebody with a higher sense of purpose. My only answer is because it’s there. Because I want to see it with my own eyes. … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, Central Asia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Xinjiang
Tagged Army, Arrests, Asia, Border, Border patrol, Brainwashing, CCTV, Central Asia, Chairman, Chen, Chen Quanguo, China, China Cables, Concentrated Education and Training, Concentration camps, Foreigners, Id Kah, Irkeshtam, Irkeshtam border, Islam, Islamist, Jiefang, Kashgar, Kashgar old town, Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyzstan - Xinjiang, Land crossing, Mao, Mosque, Mountains, Music, People, Peter Robb, Photography, Police, Qomuz, Re-education camps, Religion, Repression, Soldiers, Street photography, Surveillance, Terrorism, Tourism, Travel, Truck, Turkestan, Turkic, Urban photography, Urumqi, Uyghur, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang, Zedong
44 Comments
From dusk till dawn. Life in the Pamirs.
In my teens and early twenties this place would’ve been hell. Life in a tiny village where farm animals outnumber men by a wide margin. Where the main past-time is to sit down and watch the clouds move around Pyk … Continue reading
Posted in Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan
Tagged Alpine, Asia, Central Asia, Children, Clouds, Cow, Cube, Goat, Grass, Hitchhike, Hitchhiker, Hitchhiking, Huckleberry, Izba, Kids, Kyrgyz, Kyrgyzstan, M41, Mountain pass, Pamir, Pamir Highway, Pamirextreme, Pass, People, Photography, Sary Tash, Snow, Summer, Switchback, Travel, USSR, Village
19 Comments
A Huck Finn state of mind.
What does it feel like to be floating on the mighty Mississippi with no worries but where to moor for the night? How does it feel to be absolutely unconstrained by timescales, worries or need-to? In a nutshell, what does it … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan
Tagged Aeroflot, Airplane graveyard, Airport, Alpine, Antonov, Asia, Basmachi, Breakdown, Central Asia, Clouds, Container, Cube, Daewoo, Finn, Fuel, Gagarin, Gulcha, Hitchhike, Hitchhiker, Hitchhiking, Huck Finn, Huckleberry, Ilyushin, Kamaz, Kyrgyz, Kyrgyzstan, M41, Mark Twain, Marshrutka, Matiz, Mountain, Mountain pass, Osh, Osh airplane cemetery, Osh airport, Osh Bazaar, Pamir, Pamir Highway, Pass, People, Photography, Rubik's, Sary Tash, Shared Taxi, Statue, Summer, Switchback, Taldok, Taxi, Travel, Truck, USSR, Village
25 Comments
Vapur abstraction.
There’s a concept I sometimes hear from my software engineer chums: abstraction, or the process of removing all sorts of attributes – be them physical, spatial, temporal – to get to the root of something (usually a system, since we’re … Continue reading
Posted in Europe, Turkey
Tagged Asia, Atatürk, çay, Balat, Bosporus, Conscript, Crow, Eminönü, Europe, Eyup, Fener, Ferry, Golden Horn, Istanbul, Karaköy, People, People watching, Platoon, Sea, seagull, Sehir Hatlari, Soldiers, St Mary of the Mongols, tespih, Turkey, Turyol, Vapur, Water, Yusufpaşa
13 Comments
Six Photos in Search of a Story.
A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. Never let photos in the way of a good story, I say. Ask anyone who’d read Thubron or Robb, writers of books without as much as a picture, and ask them … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, South Korea
Tagged Admonition, Asia, Beer, Bukchon, Bukchon photographer, Calvino, Dress, Food, Hanok, Hanok village, Incheon, Incheon Free Economic Zone, Italo, Korea, Old men, Pensioners, People, People watching, Photography, Pirandello, Rain, Republic of Korea, ROK, Seoul, Silence, Six photos, South Korea, Street photography, Sun, Tourism, Travel, Urban photography
33 Comments
Live fish and fried shrimp. Searching for dinner in Noryangjin.
The sun was setting over Yeongdeungpo. The sun was setting; lights on a legion of buildings were turning on and I couldn’t pronounce the name of the neighbourhood not even if it helped to save my bacon. Speaking of bacon, … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, South Korea
Tagged 7-11, Asia, City, city life, Crab, Dusk, Fish, Fish Market, Food, Fried, Korean cuisine, Live fish, Lotte, Lotteria, Molluscs, Night, Noryangjin, Noryangjin fish market, Overpass, Prostitutes, Prugio, Restaurant, Seoul, Shrimp, Snow crab, South Korea, Street food, Tsuijiki, Urban, Yeongdeungpo
21 Comments
