Singapore Without a Sari
There are two vastly different ways to buy a sari, probably more, but as foreigners in Singapore, there are two: In a posh store where...
Endless Lunch With Our Men in Africa
We’re talking about writing, old style journalism. I’m sitting with three veterans of African journalism; two ex newspaper editors and...
Shamian Island: Lost in Time
Is it the absence of direct sunshine, the oblique, halfhearted way the frail light falls, that makes this island float in and out of...
Paris at an Angle
Montmartre has always been a 'mont' and the streets around it reflect a peculiarly flamboyant disregard for anything straight. Some even...
Thailand: Poop and Jasmine
Here’s what I told my daughter about Thailand. It smells of jasmine, I said. Dreamily. Mom, she said, three months later when we met at...
Where The Wild Things Were
When you’re young, you’re more immortal right; immortality measured on a continuum from bulletproof to just a tinge. I thought so when I...
Dancing Into A Hong Kong Sunset
The sky has turned a dusky pearl and now there are hundreds of us out here walking. Across the water the glitter of Hong Kong Island at...
What Mexico Made Us Do
We are sitting on wickedly reclining chairs with our feet in the fine white sand. We are different now. Opposite is our brand new...
Tartan Troubles
I am Scottish, and some other more complicated things. But I am, on one side, one side of my father’s side, quite simply, Scottish. That...
Forgiving Las Vegas
I look out the window onto Tuscan gold stucco smiling blearily at me after an early spring thunderstorm. The sky is water washed blue,...
