Ukraine’s atomic past of Chernobyl and mutually assured destruction If there was one day trip to get the warning klaxons honking, you would have thought that a visit to the world’s biggest nuclear disaster in a country at war with Russia would be it. Reality suggests otherwise: the site of the Chernobyl disaster has already become a well-worn tourist trail and the war bit of Ukraine is the best part of 500km away and shows little sign of extending an…
A visit to the house of Ukraine’s former president Yanukovych With the success of the Maidan square protests in Feb 2014, President Yanukovych beat a hasty retreat to friendlier pastures with the aid of a Russian helicopter from his property on the outskirts of Kiev (or Kyiv as the Ukrainians would prefer to the russianised version we are familiar with). The citizens of Kyiv immediately jumped at the opportunity to find out for themselves if the rumours of the opulence…
Chaotic tangles of cables nesting above the pavements may be a common sight in South Asia but the Bangladesh capital Dhaka is certainly a prime contender for the International Excessive Wiring Award. For us tourists it can be treated as the light entertainment of an indigenous art form but for the residents it is more of a sociopolitical statement that goes to the heart of everyday life, a visible reminder of what’s wrong with the country. The imagery is not…
Being the kind of guy that my government would denounce as a lefty liberal wuss I would normally praise with great fanfare a country that had managed to produce, not only a female prime minister but a leader of the opposition as well and particularly so when it’s a Muslim country. But, alas in this case, the two ladies have decided to take on all the characteristics that male leaders the world over have excelled in to ensure that they…
$56 million is a lot of money, unless  you are a Saudi prince or a US arms manufacturer but, in a country as poor as Bangladesh, it’s a shit load of cash which could be spent on no end of worthy projects to help those suffering from poverty. But rich film-maker Ahsanullah Moni had a better idea to help the poor, he would build them a replica of the Taj Mahal. No doubt the masses were dancing in the streets…
The pair of young men gunned the throttles of their bright, scarlet motorbikes as they hurtled past me over the damp, beach sand. Cool kids in black and shades. Their girlfriends behind, clinging tightly, their black burqas streaming with a wild flutter in their wake. Back they raced to the throng of well to do families, having found the kind of seclusion at the far end of the beach that young couples seek everywhere, away from protective families. Just north of…
A shocking anomaly in the art world surely has to be the tragically overlooked form of the hay stack, where euro-centric critics have dismissed it as an agricultural craft discipline, devoid of true creative flair. If they only left their ivory towers long enough to travel to Bangladesh or eastern India they would surely realise the error in their ways and recognise that Bengali culture has devoted centuries to the perfection of hay stack construction as a higher art form….
Just what are the fickle demands of tourists that relegate Bangladesh to the bottom of the tourist league in South Asia? People tend to respond to negative news but the country’s media profile has sunk into such a quiet backwater, that even the bad news, so demanded of media outlets, has been left on the international news margins, unlike India, Myanmar and Thailand, with the inherent risk to tourist numbers. In fact it’s never had enough of a profile to…
If the pub can be said to be at the heart of British social life, the same can be said of the tea house in Myanmar. Both may have a male focus but the tea house has none of the drunken bravado of its counterpart, as Buddhism tends to frown upon a lack of sobriety. Sweet, milky tea is dispensed to the masses from the early morning, usually to some time in the afternoon. It is where tales are told,…
The most useful characteristic for a traveler that is rarely mentioned, is having a nice fat arse. Not for any reasons of sexual allure but to provide cushioning on substandard public transport. Staying within the confines of the guidebook routes in Myanmar is demanding enough on the posterior as it is but never was a point so sorely made than after twenty-eight hours on a motor boat up the Chindwin river, in the north-west of the country. If you are…
