We were searching for a comfy but affordable place to stay during our four days of exploring Lisbon. ‘Perfect For Two’ - the VRBO site said.
We knew we wanted a small apartment with a kitchen and not a hotel room. We also knew we wanted to be in the heart of the old city.
So when we found this listing, we studied the photos, the reviews and the approximate location on a map. It seemed a good fit so we booked it.
After hiking nearly 100 KM on the Via Francigena, and when my toes turned to Fall colours, I stayed in Siena while Kees continued hiking. I had planned a nice little writing retreat in this history city.
In response to an invitation to speak at international schools across Asia, I set off on a long trip. My first stop is Seoul, South Korea.
As always, I set my watch for Seoul time right away as my plane departs. If it’s early morning when I arrive, I try to sleep, or at least doze, on the plane. If I get in late at night, I try to stay awake. And taking my No-Jetlag pills helps me to adapt to the time change quickly.
The train ride from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to Beijing takes 22 hours. There is no dining car and, coming straight from the Gobi Desert, we didn’t bring much food with us. At 11 PM we stop near the border between Mongolia and China. To our delight, the station has a small store so we stock up on chips, some bread, bananas - hallelujah! - and two cartons of noodles to which we can add hot water. We reuse the cartons to make tea.
Even though we are relatively experienced travellers, planning our time in Greece was daunting. In most countries or cities there are a few major attractions that you know you ought to see. But the sights of Greece are overwhelming… In a country with this kind of history, what do you want to see in a few days? And how do you get around without speaking the language or being able to decipher the signs?
How do you get to Slovakia? We were already so close, in Switzerland. But we discovered that to get to Bratislava, we’d have to spend a fortune and fly via Dubai…. So we ended up flying to Vienna instead, which was cheap and easy. I’ve always wanted to see Vienna but , unfortunately, there was no time. From Vienna, we took a bus to Bratislava, we walked the countryside and ate traditional food.
"You are not really going to Pakistan alone? As a woman?" that was the reaction of many when I decided to visit Pakistan. I am writer. And a lovely fellow writer invited me to her country, her home, to be part of her family for a while. We “met” while doing research for a book. She was kind and helpful. And she, too, was a booklover, a teacher. What an opportunity to see a new part of the world.
