Free CSS Templates

Travel to Exotic Lands

My favourite travel destinations are the Serengenti and other national parks in East Africa with their magnificent wildlife, which aroused a life-long passion in African wildlife conservation in me. I was also lucky to travel eight times to Burma, both as a tourist and journalist, when the country was still closed to visitors, as well as to stay in Rangoon for over a month with the UNDP office when only seven-day visas were given. The ancient Buddhist sites like Pagan with its 2,000 pagodas and temples in Upper Burma made an indelible impression. Other memorable trips were discovering Abu Simbel, Luxor and the ancient historical cities of Cairo in the days after Nasser, before tourists travelled there. Taking a ten-day cruise down the Volga -- along the Golden Ring with its ancient towns, golden-domed churches and monasteries -- during the White Nights  in 1991, the early perestroika years,  gave a foreign visitor a first-hand glimpse into a Russia rarely visited before. Visits to British-era Hong Kong and post-Deng Beijing provided interesting counterpoints in political systems.