Author archive
3 November 2025
Return to Syria Today I return to my favourite country after 15 years, having visited in 2002, 2004 and 2010. Since my last visit, parts of the country have been to hell and back: Over 40% of Syria’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed. Some cities lost over 70% of their housing stock. 13 million+ […]
2 November 2025
I started the day with burek from the bakery across the road, and an instant coffee in my room. Today, I’m moving to Istanbul, staying near the airport at the Arnavutkoy area in preparation for a morning flight to Damascus tomorrow. I left the hotel by Uber at 0915 for the 1000 bus to Istanbul […]
1 November 2025
Uludag cable car The only thing left in Bursa I wanted to do was go up to mountains near Uludag, accessible by cable car. After a burek for breakfast, I took a 5 min shared taxi ride to the cable car station to find it deserted at 0900. The signs indicated that opened at 1100 […]
31 October 2025
Getting started After about 7h sleep, I got out of bed around 0600. I had woken up around 0400 but had fallen back asleep. Despite a 44h day from a rural Fujian tulou to Guangzhou, Kuwait, Istanbul and finally Bursa, I couldn’t sleep any more due to the time difference. I had some tea and […]
30 October 2025
Above: Kuwait Airways spacious Boeing 777 with 9-across configuration. Leaving Guangzhou My Kuwait Airways flight to Kuwait departs at 0440 so it was a pleasant surprise that check-in opened at 0100. I joined the queue 20 mins before opening and was surprised by the number of people already there, each typically having two large suitcases […]
29 October 2025
Temple Dennis, Swee and Chen came to our accommodation for breakfast at 0700 and we set off at 0830 to the temple the pretty village near the entrance to the Nanjing Scenic Area. Text continues after this gallery. My tentative plan for the remainder of the day was to call into another tulou […]
28 October 2025
Dennis bought us breakfast at 0700 and left to borrow the car and bring it back. We got going at 0930, picking Swee and Chen before leaving town heading towards Daoyun Lao in the Raoping area. Dayun Lao We arrived at Daoyun Lao around 1040. This huge octagonal 1587 tulou was once home to 600 […]
27 October 2025
Breakfast I’m nearly on local time after three nights and we didn’t head out for breakfast till after 0830. With some items not ready yet, I happily chose a pork and century egg congee. Teochew congee is meant to be like rice in hot water and that’s the origin of the Thai rice soup. Today’s […]
26 October 2025
Swatow’s old centre Dennis left around 0530 today to catch the train to Guangzhou for some errands. Kim and I, Swee and Chen had booked to go to Swatow (Shantou) for an overnight stay to explore a different part of the region. At around 0900 Kim and I walked to the Vienna hotel where Swee […]
25 October 2025
Breakfast and wet market I woke around 0600 with only one interruption around 0130. We left home around 0700 to go to Dennis’ aunt’s place. Aunt took us for a little walk to a local eatery for breakfast. The local specialty here was the Tenghun (which is literally the same words as the Cantonese Cheongfan). […]