Two months of travelling around the western half of Russia and talking to people gave me an insight into life ignored by the news coverage, with a few surprises and some surprisingly normal aspects. If you’re old enough to retain images of Russia from the forlorn queues of the latter days of the Soviet Union or the grim economic distress of the 90s, modern Russia is going to come as a bit of a shock. Finding even a hint…
Of all the current nations in existence, it is perhaps India that has the best claim to an uninterrupted link to its ancient past. Both Egypt and Iran lost something of their origins in their conversion to Islam, as did Greece and Rome with Christianity. China certainly retains real connections with two millennia ago, in its written language and philosophies such as Confucianism for example, although communism did reject and try to suppress some of what its leaders saw…
Taking a good, hard look at India’s erotic, temple carvings. Many would imagine that liberated sexual attitudes are much of a modern creation but Hindu history has a bit to say about that. While contemporary India is known for relatively conservative values, this is more a result of the preceding 500 or so years of Muslim and British colonial rule, that were much more squeamish about any public reference to the possibility of sex actually being something enjoyable. Muslim artistic…
Brightening up the roadsides of some of my travels around southern India were a multitude of colourful, geometric patterns that appeared around the time of festivals such as New Year or Pongal, Tamil harvest festival. These decorative, religious images are an ancient, Hindu tradition designed to invite the goddess Lakshmi to bring prosperity into the home and protect from evil spirits. Traditionally they were made of edible materials such as grains, rice, flour and vegetable dyes, as they would provide…
Recent travels had alas, taken me nowhere near the destinations mentioned in Ian Dury’s classic tune, hit me with your rhythm stick to further my pointless quest to visit all of them. Although Japan had always been on my somewhat nebulous list of places I ought to get around to visiting one day, I’ve never been a Japan obsessive, as many who celebrate particular aspects of its culture can be. However, being in the region made it a more reasonable…
On a hill overlooking the small town of Banaue in northern Luzon sits a rickety shack, cobbled together with random timber left-overs and a corrugated iron roof. Improvised wooden seating around two sides of a hard packed, dirt floor arena hold an eager crowd of local men, anticipating today’s action in the cockpit, as the cock fighting space is known. Naturally there’s more to the event than just the sport, or Sabong as it’s known here, it’s a…
Although modern forms of art and design are being used more and more, the traditional hand painted signs for shops are still common in much of Africa. Benin has largely retained the distinctly African style of commercial shop painting developed during the last century, whereas in Ivory Coast for example, you see a lot more work that seeks to portray people and objects in an overtly realistic fashion, as is more typical in the West. Although some would describe the…
Why would you want to stay in an African village in a country like the Ivory Coast? There’s little immediately evident appeal: no big sights to see; limited or no electricity and certainly no plumbing – your shower will come out of a bucket and if you want a crap you’ll have to squat over a pungent hole in a dingy shack that’s steaming hot in the day and roach infested at night; you’ll get to sleep on an…
Learning what its like fasting for Ramadan, living with a Muslim family in West Africa
In Egypt, bread is so much more than something to eat, it is life itself and plays an essential role in Egyptian culture. Most days on Nasr street you can find a few old ladies begging and they are always polite and grateful for whatever modest offering I leave them. One morning recently, I apologized to one lady I’d given to before that I didn’t have any change to offer, but as I was going to the stall at the…
