Would you dare enter Saudi Arabia without a passport? No, me neither. But I did. The first time I went to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was on a business trip. I was honoured to be the keynote speaker at the first ever conference and exhibition on the creative economy in the country: the Ejadah Confex. …
Category: Travel
Getting around the islands of Cape Verde
There are many worse places than Cape Verde to get stranded, but it’s more likely to happen here than most other countries. Cape Verde is made up of 10 islands 400 or so miles off the coast of Senegal in West Africa. I had to decide which one to fly to, which ones I’d like …
Kidnapped in Mexico
I was outnumbered: it was three of them against one of me. I was in Mexico City after dark. I didn’t have a choice; there was no point in putting up a fight. They took me in a car to a gated house in one of the suburbs. I wasn’t blindfolded but I might as …
What I Learnt from a Birthday Party in Shanghai
It was only after the birthday party that I learnt why some people we had invited came and why others didn’t. Even during the celebration I was puzzled and a bit rattled because of what had happened just a few hours earlier, in the afternoon, before the birthday meal in the evening. At the time I …
A Decision at a Spanish Port
Sometimes we are at a junction, unsure which way to go, and it’s only many years later that we reflect on how a particular choice of path took us in a direction that changed our life irreversibly. I was in Spain without a plan, travelling solo, just me and my backpack, taking each day as …
Kyoto in the snow
It sounded like a call to prayer, an incomprehensible voice from a loudspeaker somewhere nearby. I looked around but I was disoriented, confused. I was carrying my backpack, on the road again, but where was I? I was no longer in Malaysia; this was Japan. This isn’t a Muslim country; there are no mosques here. So …
On an active volcano in Sumatra
The first explosions awoke me in the middle of the night, in my tent on the slopes of an active volcano. We were in Sumatra, one of the largest islands in the world, that sits on the equator and is the home to volcanoes, tropical forests and a population of tigers greater than the rest …
Coming home in Beirut
“Welcome Mr David. Why are you so late?”, Mady said as she opened the door to the apartment that was to be my temporary home in Beirut. After showing me around the place and giving me the three keys I would need to get from the street to the apartment, Mady gave me the schedule …
A Sense of Place
As someone who loves to travel and experience different countries and cultures, it has been easy for me to be envious of those people whose childhoods had been spent overseas, travelling from country to country, exposed to more than one language, and being educated in international schools along with the children of diplomats, military officers and corporate …
From Mount Errigal to the Blue Ocean
The views from Mount Errigal to the blue ocean were spectacular when I reached the summit. It was a perfect day to climb the highest peak in Ireland’s County Donegal in the Derryveagh mountains. I had stayed overnight in the nearby Errigal Hostel and woke early under a blue sky. Later, some clouds appeared but …