Takayama is a mountain town, and the river that runs through it, the Miyagawa, is a clear mountain one. Every morning on its banks stall-holders set out their wares at the town’s famous morning market, in a long-held tradition.
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Visit most countries and you will be shown their grand monuments, historic sites, beautiful landscapes. Visit North Korea and you will see those sights too. But they are also keen that you meet some of their people and see how they live. Carefully selected people, that is. In the city of Chongjin, where major sights are relatively few, we had the chance to visit two very different schools.
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It has become quite usual to see murals on many of the walls of our cities. Whether we call it graffiti or street art; whether we love it or hate it; it is part of the urban landscape. But do we expect to see it in a remote rural village in the Gambia?
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The village of Narlai in Rajasthan would be completely off the tourist track were it not for the hotel that has been created in the former hunting lodge of Jodhpur’s royal family. It is a small village which faces some of the same challenges as rural communities everywhere. Its population is declining as younger people drift away, tempted by big city life and its wider opportunities.
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'I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills.' With this sentence Karen Blixen opens her account of life on a coffee plantation just outside Nairobi. It was the 1920s, and this was British East Africa, not Kenya - part of the (by then fading) British Empire. The book presents a vivid, if at times uncomfortable, picture of African colonial life and the relationships between colonists and native inhabitants.
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It feels as if I have always loved travelling, but where did that love come from? Not my childhood experiences, for sure, although the seeds may have been sown then. My first holidays were of the ‘bucket and spade’ variety, on the Kent coast within easy reach by train of our London home.
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It was the morning after the storm in Pyongyang, and even quite small children, dressed ready for school, assembled on street corners armed with buckets, mops, brooms – all doing their bit to keep the city clean. They were engaged in a civic duty that will be theirs for the rest of their lives. Elsewhere, on the Taedong River that runs through the centre of the city, a flotilla of small boats was gathering weeds that had accumulated, washed down by the heavy rain of yesterday.
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The scent of wood smoke hangs in the air. Children play in the dusty soil. Small pigs, chickens and dogs wander at will between the wooden houses. And inside one a blacksmith is at work, shaping a machete over glowing coals. This is Phou Taen Khamu, home to some of the Khamu people, one of Laos’ minority ethnic tribes.
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A traditional Japanese feast, a kaiseki, is a thing of beauty. It isn’t just a meal; it’s an art form balancing taste, texture, appearance, and colour. The dishes are beautifully arranged and presented, on plates chosen to enhance the visual impact, and equally beautifully decorated, often with edible garnishes.
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While Pyongyang is very much a showpiece city for the DPRK, the same cannot be said of Chongjin. This industrial city in the north east of the country has only relatively recently opened up to tourism. And it’s easy to see why. North Koreans, both as a government and a people, like to show visitors the best of their country. They want us to be impressed by their progress and modernity; they want us to see the nation as the success they believe it to be.
