Amar Grover takes a walk in Morocco’s Anti Atlas mountains. Morocco’s mountain regions abound in great drives and some of the loveliest roads wriggle through the southern Anti-Atlas range near Tafraoute. The Gorge d’Ait Mansour is among the best known but two years ago I headed down another route, one of several which cut through… Read more »
Stuart Butler ponders the mysteries surrounding the Ark of the Covenant. Overshadowed on one side by the modern skyline blotting Church of St Mary of Zion and on the other by the fortified old Church of St Mary of Zion, it would be easy to walk right past the small, squat chapel without ever realising… Read more »
Lawrence Mitchell reflects on the changing face of Yugostalgic Belgrade Although Josep Broz Tito was half Croat and half Slovene, he spent most of his time as the Yugoslav hero in the Serbian capital, Belgrade. It is here, in the leafy Topčider suburb of South Belgrade, where you can find the former leader’s memorial complex –… Read more »
Toby Wallis travels to Myanmar, the land of his grandparents, with Travel The Unknown. Read his blog on his 2016 Myanmar tour here. See his full itinerary here.
Sarah Gilbert celebrates the Day of the Dead in Oaxaca with an altar-building Despite its name, Mexico’s Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is far from a macabre festival. Combining pre-Hispanic traditions with Spanish Catholic influence, the Zapotec Indians believed that the spirits of the dead visit the living once a year… Read more »
Sarah Woods returns to the sacred lands of Colombia’s San Agustin to marvel at ancient carved monuments and troglodyte tombs etched with mythical winged monsters, wild cats and serpents. According to a local fruit seller, San Agustin acquired its megalithic sculptures via an earth-bound alien space-ship. However, historians suggest South America’s largest group of religious monuments… Read more »
Ron Emmons encounters the unique ethnic communities of the Central Highlands in Vietnam While the ethnic minority groups of North Vietnam like the Flower Hmong and the Red Dao are renowned for their flamboyant outfits, those that live in the Central Highlands, such as the Bahnar and the Giarai (also spelled Jarai), tend to wear workaday clothes,… Read more »
Vanessa Betts ventures deep into India’s remotest state to meet the Apatani tribe For me, Arunachal Pradesh had always meant Tawang Monastery and nail-biting mountain passes, and it was only my second visit that I experienced the unique tribal culture of the central valleys. My boyfriend and I had a free afternoon in the… Read more »
On Andrew’s first visit to Iran in 2003, he learned that the kindness of strangers can redefine one’s idea of hospitality. I didn’t know what to expect from spending Christmas in Iran, but I wasn’t expecting to be standing by a dusty road in Khur, an oasis townin the Dasht-e Kavir desert, waiting for a bus… Read more »
