Sitting in an information session about sending N away for summer holidays. God sessions like this are dull!

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First time in 2 yrs. we won't win

Holiday over - am standing in queue for passport smart gate, which I swear is slower than dealing with a customs official.

Kandalama, where I'm spending next 2 nights is magnificent. Built into the side of a hill overlooking a lake, it has monkeys and bats roaming the open corridors and secluded pools for romantic rendezvous. Watching a red sunset from the rooftop garden was spectacular.

I know why Arthur C Clarke chose to stay on this country. And is wasn't just brown ( Read more... )

... And you can't buy alcohol. Even in 5-star hotels.

This is a surreal visit. I have not left my hotel since arrival, except in hands of chaperones but I'm being treated like a visiting head of state. The speech today was to 80 odd CEOs and received widespread media coverage, as apparently it did last week in the lead up to the event.

I am now about to be introduced to the association of Sri Lanka ( Read more... )

First time to a game this year. We are slack members.

Feeling a bit buggered on account of 19 km run in Blue Mountains this morning - a race I came all but last. Still managed to go almost as fast as I wanted to but the hills were crippling.

My but shoes are cheap over here.

Santa Monica was surprisingly nice...

Places where I spent at least one night away from home in 2011

Alice Springs
The Larapinta trail (2 campsites)
Perth
Canberra
New York
Washington DC
Paris (twice)
Ouarzazate, Morocco
The Sahara desert (4 campsites)
Venice, Italy
Mexico City
Oaxaca
Tehuantepec
Palenque
Flores, Guatemala
Antigua Guatemala
Panajachel
Guatemala City
Copan
Tegucigalpa
Leon, Nicaragua
( Read more... )

My last holiday post comes from one of the most obscure places I've ever visited. A nature reserve set of chalets on Omotepe Island in lake Nicaragua.

We got here by car ferry with around a dozen cars and maybe 200 people. Legal capacity for the ferry felt like perhaps one-third that amount. The chalets, which face directly onto the lake, which we' ( Read more... )