The Thailand Creative and Design Center (TCDC) opened in Bangkok’s Emporium Centre in November 2005. This enterprising organisation aims to let the world know that Thailand wants to compete in the contemporary world of design. There is a large library that, during the January weekend that I was there, was full of youth (who apparently would otherwise have been shopping) sitting and reading.
Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category
So much has been written about Venice – what is there to add? But of course there is always something new and for me, initially at least, it was the rain. It poured. “The vice in the air, otherwise, was too much like the breath of fate. The weather had changed, the rain was ugly, the wind wicked, the sea impossible” (Henry James The Wings of the Dove).
To continue reading article at Timesonline click here
A literary tour of Patmos
Inveterate traveller Sarah Anderson again packs her trunk with books, this time bound for the Greek Islands
At least I thought I was alone but I quickly realised that I was sharing the house with a variety of cats, nothing new as I read: ” … and passed some score of cats, most of them yellow (I afterward learned that there are forty monks and sixty cats in the monastery” - (The Isle that Is Called Patmos, William Edgar Geil, 1897).
To continue reading article at Timesonline click here
From the moment that I heard that Louise Nicholson was leading a tour up the Ganges, following in the footsteps of 18th and 19th century European artists, I knew that I wanted to go. We started in Kolkata: “It is a huge city and fine, and is called the City of Palaces. It is rich in historical memories; rich in British achievement - military, political, commercial; rich in the results of the miracles done by that brace of mighty magicians, Clive and Hastings” (Mark Twain in Following the Equator). To continue reading at Timesonline click here
A literary tour to Scotland
Sarah Anderson turns to her ancestors and Scotland’s “booktown” for inspiration after the nightlife is a let-down in Scotland’s Dumfries and Galloway
An invitation to the Amazon Rainforest was something I couldn’t resist.
On our first night, we stayed at Augustu’s Hotel in Altamira, south of Belem at the mouth of the Amazon in Brazil - the only hotel in town with a swimming pool. While there, we watched the last day of the annual Amazon Olympics between several Indian tribes, many of whom succumbed to heat exhaustion – this made me feel slightly less wimpish as I dissolved into pools of heat.
Arriving at the Central Station in Amsterdam means being able to walk to any hotel near the centre. We were staying at the Hotel Rho - conveniently located off Dam Square; the rooms are fairly basic but it had once been a theatre so you walk into a large airy atrium.
Click here to read full article on Timesonline
Much has changed since “unbroken beech-forests clothe the mountainside up as far as the line known as the upper tree level” (E.Lucas Bridges, Uttermost Part of the Earth, 1947); now there are practically no trees left and there are many differences since Bruce Chatwin wrote In Patagonia in 1977 when “The blue-faced inhabitants of this apparently childless town glared at strangers unkindly”.
By the end of next week I shall be back in England. So much has happened in the last three months yet I’m no closer to knowing what I want to do next with my life. I had hoped I would bump into something or someone that would help give me some inspiration knowing that, in reality, arriving back at Heathrow with my life sewn up would be a bit too neat - although I have thought of giving lectures on the history of travel literature to tie in both the bookshop and the Online pieces I have been writing.
Click here to continue reading at Timesonline
On a promontory between two rivers in the jungles of northern Laos nestles a small, gentle town of mouldering villas and shuttered shopfronts. By day the dawdling streets of Luang Prabang are dotted with parasols. By night, the black skies are clotted with stars and thick with the scent of frangipani,” wrote Christopher Kremmer in Bamboo Palace. Things have changed. In 1995, Luang Prabang was designated a World Heritage site; many of the ‘mouldering villas’ have been renovated and building work on the others is in full swing. Shops are open and the night market, a traditional event banned in 1975, is again a daily occurrence.
Click here to read the rest of the article at Timesonline