It wasn’t a good time to be in Rwanda – or Zambia or Uganda for that matter - but there we were. All desperate for first contact. That magical experience.
We had already spoken to a group that had made the attempt in Uganda, only to high-tail it back down the mountain with the sound of shots ringing in their ears. Such was our need, this did not deter us.
The maximum number for a group is eight, and there are strict rules to be obeyed when visiting our distant...
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I have just returned from a two-week sojourn in Japan. I was unable to send many postcards – the Internet is revolutionising some countries faster than others...here, postcards are as hard to find as Internet cafes.
The trains and subways were easily negotiated to arrive at my hotel. The trains are scarily efficient. You buy a ticket at your starting point, and all stations have a ‘fare adjustment’ machine where you can check your ticket and add more money on in case...
Off on the shinkansen (bullet train) – it is an amazing sight seeing these dolphin nosed machines zoom through a station. We arrived at a blissfully small town, a huge relief after the concrete and neon of Tokyo. We arrived at our first ryokan. Our room was small, but appeared spacious due to the lack of furnishings. A bare tatami mat floor with a low square table holding tea-making equipment was in the centre of the room. Having already forsaken our street shoes...
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A day was never going to be enough in this famous place. At 7am I was already up and ready to catch a local bus out to the Fushimi Inari Shrine. If you have seen Memoirs of a Geisha, the little girl runs through what looks like an orange tunnel. This shrine has about 11,000 torii gates, one next to the other, all the way up the hill. I can recommend it to even the shrined-out. All along the way are lots of little shrines, many dedicated to foxes, who feature in Shinto,...
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This stunning monument is on the way to Nagasaki. It is Japan's castle-to-beat-all-castles. It is said to resemble an egret in flight with its white wings spread on its mountain perch. Impressive like Nijo, it has multiple rooms and lookouts, sometimes with mannequins to show scenes of daily life. It did have something that Nijo didn't however: a hari kari yard.
Nagasaki is very cosmopolitan, as you'd expect. It was really the only city that had any foreigner interaction for all those years Japan was locked away. The Dutch even had their own little island from which to base their trade. Funny, as it's now landlocked, thanks to reclaimed land, but the European-style buildings are open as tourist attractions. Quite bizarre.
The Peace Park and the A-Bomb museum were the obvious places to visit and they were informative,...
This cute little town just south of Beppu is home to Mt Yufu, which we climbed in a fit of utter madness, as a precursor to Mt Fuji. Although not really a genuine preview as the top is 800m below the starting point of the 5th station! Still, the view down to the valley was lovely when we could see it through mist and cloud. Unfortunately I did not have time to go to Beppu and get buried up to my neck in hot sand - the reviews I read made it sound wonderfully...
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