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Paradise forsaken
November 2008 – With the separatist movement committed to
non-violence, now is a good time to visit Kashmir.
Read on
Moving times in Ukraine
May 2008
– Ukraine is undergoing
profound change and is grappling with the challenge of finding its place, and
identity, in Europe. Read on
Signs of the times
April
2008 – New York
is plastered with notices – some of them carrying very obvious instructions. It’s
a new kind of visual pollution. Read on
Moroccan women in 3-D
April
2008 – My recent visit to Morocco
helped to flesh out, in three dimensions, what it means to be a Moroccan and
Arab woman today. Read on
Out of Egypt
February
2008 – After countless generations not venturing far from the comforting
embrace of the Nile valley, why have
millions of Egyptians have made other countries their home? Read on
Strange journeys home
January
2008 – Going home to Egypt,
I cannot shake off the sense of being a stranger in my own increasingly
conservative motherland. Read on
Cuba II –
From Trinidad to Santiago de Cuba
Part II
goes from the UNESCO-protected and picturesque Trinidad to rebellious Santiago de Cuba. Read on
Cuba –
High
Fidelity and the two Ernestos
March
2007 – Cuba
looks to the outsider like the island where time stood still – or, at least,
where it moved in a different trajectory.
It is a fabled isle where the fabric of modern legend is woven. It
went from being the infamous playground of the rich and famous to the
legendary battlefield of revolutionaries, a small land with a mysterious
pulling power for the larger-than-life: from Ernest Hemingway to Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. Read on
Flying Norse for the winter
March
2007 – Oslo
is a picturesque and progressive city which has put itself at the forefront
of attempts to build a better world. But it remains a tranquil and uneventful
backwater where nothing much seems to happen. Read on
Sicilian
getaways
December
2006 – Sicily’s
rugged beauty and chequered heritage make it an attractive getaway – in the
romantic, not in the Mafia sense of the word. In fact, far from being a
shadowy underworld populated by secretive families and deadly vows of
silence, this beautiful Mediterranean isle – with its eclectic mix of
history, culture, cuisine and laid-back living – is a charming, if often
crumbling, retreat.
Crimes of omission
Haven for conquerors
The
flavours of temptation
The (s)word of faith
Cools cats in Catania
Sulphur-breathing
dragons
Frutti di mari
Tripping down memory lane
November
2006 – Khaled Diab goes
tripping – mentally and physically – down memory lane and discovers the
multi-layered nature of reality.
Wafers of reality
Multiversal man
Cultural pie and civilisational mash
Between the reel
and the surreal
Back to school
Back to (sur)reality
No Moor blues
April
2006 – For people living in cold northern climes, Morocco is the perfect winter
escape. Wash away
those winter blues with some Moroccan red.
Part
I: No Moor blues
Part
II: Migrating to
Marrakech
Part III: ‘Little picture’
spoilt by the movies
Encounter with a celebrity saint
December
2005 – Never having believed in Santa as a child, Khaled
Diab was surprised to run into the elusive Sinterklaas on a desolate, windswept beach in the Netherlands.
Read on
Ethiopia’s hidden wealth
July 2005
– Live8 aimed to raise awareness of Africa, but it succeeded in perpetuating
the one-dimensional view of Ethiopia
as a famine-stricken land with nothing going for it. This complex land, with
its rich past and culture, impoverished present and precarious future
deserves to be explored on its own terms. Read on
Part II – Streams of conscience in Bahar Dar. Read on
Part III – G spells visionary capital. Read on
Part IV – Icons of magnificence and misery. Read on
Part V – From the heart of empire to the
margins of history. Read on
Part VI – In the eye of a political storm.
Read on. Read on
A woman’s handbook to Yemen
By Katleen Maes
July
2005 – In the first of a two-part series, Katleen Maes recounts her experiences travelling alone through
the mysterious man’s world of Yemen.
Read on
Between the grime and the sublime
By Khaled Diab
July
2005 – Istanbul
is one of those cities where a sojourn of a few days is simply not enough. In
fact, it is the kind of place where one can imagine a couple of weeks
expanding into several years. Read on
Part IV – Buddhas
and dagobas
February
2005 – After a bite of Kandy,
Khaled and Katleen check
out the Buddhist cultural triangle and Galle – which has since been
devastated by the tsunami. Read on
Part III – Savouring some Kandy
January
2005 – Khaled and Katleen
gaze as far as the eye can tea and visit the centre of Sinhalese national
pride, Kandy.
Read on
Encounter with a celebrity saint
December
2004 – Never having believed in Santa as a child, Khaled
Diab is surprised to run into the elusive Sinterklaas on a desolate, windswept beach in the Netherlands. Read
on
Where Buddha meets Adam
October
2004 – Giving up the noxious diesel fumes of Colombo, Khaled Diab and Katleen Maes head for the hills to follow in the footsteps of
Adam, Buddha and Shiva, and discover not only the beauty and magnificence of
where the world reputedly begins but also of where it apparently ends. Read on
Serendipity and the city
August
2004 – Serendib, Ceylon, the ‘tear drop’ of India all describe Sri Lanka. Despite its turbulent
present and widespread poverty, its rich and varied history, its friendly
people, and its natural beauty fill this charmed isle with serendipity. Read on
Down in the district
December
2003 – Returning to Brussels
with some capital ideas about an unusual holiday destination. Read on
An air of terror
November
2003 – The suggestion that I could strike fear into anyone’s heart would
reduce people I know to quivering heaps of uncontrollable laughter. It’s not
that – as a regular gym-goer – I’m especially weedy, but even our cat, who
has been known to hide in the washing machine to avoid guests, does not find
me intimidating enough to get out of my bleary-eyed path on the staircase in
the morning. Read
on
Uncovering Anatolia’s
delights
August
2003 – As an army of holidaymakers mount their annual beach invasion and thousands – caught in the
crossfire between sun, sand and sea – drop onto their towels, we rush the
other way to explore the charms of Antalya, the
capital of Turkey’s ‘Mediterranean Riviera’. Read on
A Belgian paradox on the Nile
July 2003
– Belgians appear to be more determined than most not to let a conflict get
in the way of their holiday plans. While concern over instability in the Middle East has kept others away, recent months have
seen a rise in the number of Belgians visiting the land of the Pharaohs. Read on
Shattered solitude
May 2000
– Khaled Diab shatters
his illusions about oases on a quest for refuge in Fayyoum
Oasis. Read on
And the abbot of the Malak Gebril
Monastery speaks about spirituality, monasticism and the meaning of life. Read on
Trouble in the Balkans
January
2000 – Indirect flights can be cheaper, but they can also be gruelling. Khaled Diab came from London the hard way. Read on
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