Photos

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Singapore

Singapore is a lively mix of cultures. I arrived at the Sri Mariamman Temple in time to watch an elaborate Hindu ceremony where they pour copious amounts of creamy yoghurt, honey and other foodstuffs over an idol, wave fire around, then rinse the statue off with pots of water. This ritual is repeated over and over again to a vigorous musical accompaniment in front of a packed crowd of devotees. Down the road there was a presentation of fruit and flowers at the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple.

The hawkers here are considerably more upmarket than the usual trinket-sellers. Tailors offer to make you a suit in a few hours. And you can't walk along Boat Quay without being accosted by waiters trying to lure you with laminated photos of exotic dishes.

I've been pretty careful with my diet throughout Asia. When I told my helpful Cambodian driver I'm vegetarian, he asked "You like snake?"

Angkor

I've spent the last two days visiting magnificent Angkor Wat and other temples in the area. The sheer scale and elaborate decoration of many of these buildings is amazing. A lush jungle setting helps make this experience one of the highlights of my trip. My absolute favourite is Ta Prohm, where enormous trees cover ancient stones with an unrelenting tangle of roots.

Few tourists visit the less spectacular sites. At Preah Pithu I had the place entirely to myself, apart from a group of playful monkeys who didn't seem to my mind my intrusion on their territory.

I've enjoyed this opportunity to observe rural life in Cambodia. Tall palm trees tower over bright green rice paddies. Somehow the place doesn't seem that poor - perhaps because the people are so cheerful.

In Siem Reap the shops advertise their prices in US dollars rather than the virtually worthless local currency. When I offered to pay for a few items in Cambodian riel, the shop assistant had to use a calculator to work out the amount.

Bangkok

Asian foot etiquette has some quaint variations. When visiting a mosque, you take off your shoes, but can leave your socks on. In the Hindu temple at Amber Fort they ask you to remove your shoes and socks, as well as leather belts. And in Thai temples you're expected to sit with your feet facing backwards. A sign says "Do not point your toes at the Buddha."

I'm happy to go along with these practices. I'll even rub a bronze elephant's head for luck, jump high to ring the bell at the entrance to the Delhi's Birla Temple or ring a whole series of bells on the way up Bangkok's Golden Mount.

Beyond these superstitious rituals the one thing all these religions share is uncompromising devotion. Bahai appears to be the only faith that acknolwedges this common ground. I admired their magnificent temple in Delhi, shaped like a giant lotus blossom. The most lavish temple complex here in Bangkok is Wat Phra Kaeo, a kind of spiritual Disneyland with it stunning array of colourful pagodas and statues.

Today I took a train trip to Ayutthaya to see the poignant ruins of the ancient city, a pleasant contrast to the hectic bustle of modern Bangkok.

India

There's an idyllic section of New Delhi called the Diplomatic Enclave where traffic flows smoothly along broad garden-lined avenues. Drivers don't need to keep blowing their horns all the time to avoid hitting cows, dogs, goats, pigs, donkeys, water-buffaloes, tuktuks, rickshaws or overloaded buses with passengers clinging to the sides or the roof. If the diplomats want to see the real India they should visit Karol Bagh or central Agra or Jaipur. But then it would be difficult for them to accurately describe the squalor and remain diplomatic.

As a variation from my usual independent travelling style, I'm taking a guided tour here, absorbing interesting facts such as "A woman passenger on a motorcyle doesn't need to wear a helmet, but a man does" and "A tour driver has to put his uniform shirt on before entering Jaipur or the traffic police will fine him."

The Taj Mahal is genuinely elegant, as expected. But I was equally impressed by Agra Fort, the abandoned city of Fatehpur Sikr and the gigantic astronomical instruments at the eighteenth-century Jantar Mantar observatory in Jaipur.

I've been very lucky with the weather. Recent heavy monsoon rains came to a halt the day before I arrived. The last few days have been dry, occasionally overcast and not too hot.

India has been quite a culture shock. But I'm learning not to be judgemental. On my first day in Delhi I frowned at the signt of a man urinating against a wall in a crowded street. But just an hour ago when I saw several men doing the same thing here in Jaipur, I realised some walls are actually open urinals.

Zurich

Every so often the bellringers of Zurich compete to decide who can ring the longest and loudest. (At least it sounds that way.) This is only one of the quaint touches that gives the Old Town a medieval feel with its winding cobblestone streets, elegant spires and sculptured fountains.

From my hotel window you can watch graceful white swans gliding along the sparkling clean river that neatly divides the city in two. Nearly everything is orderly here. If the Cabaret Voltaire, former home of the anarchic Dadaists, has been tagged with graffiti, surely that's only fitting.

Protestant zeal stripped the local churches of all images, leaving them as bare as a mosque in Amman. But the museums make up for this sparseness with extraordinarily rich collections. Speaking of wealth, the expensive stores are closed on Sunday (more Protestant rigour)- less temptation for the window-shoppers.

There's a relaxed, cosmopolitan crowd at the lakeside this evening. Only a distant brassband and the occasional applause for marathon runners disturbs the serenity.

Brussels

Rubens and Van Dyck have been cropping up all over the place on this trip. So it's not surprising to find more of them on their home turf in Brussels. The art here ranges from lavish Baroque in Gothic churches and swirling art nouveau at the Horta House to the fantastic visions of the symbolists and surrealists.

Extravagance also appears in the weird saxophones at the Museum of Musical Instruments, where you automatically hear the instruments you're standing in front of playing through programmed headphones. These collections are housed in a glorious art nouveau building called Old England. The view from the restaurant terrace on the roof helps make sense of the city's quirky layout.

There's plenty of live music on the streets this evening with a loud rock concert in the Grand'Place and impromptu performances in the surrounding area.

(Special thanks to Susanne Bentley for providing me with my first home-cooked meal in six weeks.)

Marseilles

The thing I like most about this trip is the variety. On Saturday I attended a chariot race at the hippodrome in Jerash. On Sunday I felt the fresh sea breeze on a boat from Marseilles to the Chateau d'If, the prison island that no one ever escaped from except the fictional Count of Monte Cristo. On Monday I watched a couple of justifiably ornery bulls being unloaded at the amphitheatre in Arles in preparation for the bullfight that evening.

The connections can be just as interesting as the contrasts. After Jordan I find myself staying in the Arab quarter in Marseilles. I've been able to compare the Roman theatre in Arles with the ones I visited in Amman, Petra and Jerash. The bleak prison cells at the Chateau d'If remind me of the ones I saw last week at Kerak Castle and the week before at the Tower of London, where the saddest prisoners are the ravens that have their wings clipped so they can't fly away.

My favourite birds are the swifts I watched soaring and swooping at lightning speed perilously close to a tower in Milan. It wasn't just a brilliant acrobatic display. It was a celebration of joy and freedom.

Jordan

My reason for visiting Jordan was to experience the ancient city of Petra, famous for its stunning coloured rock formations and elaborate tombs carved out of the sandstone. I'm glad I scheduled two days to explore the site at a leisurely pace, hiking along dusty trails under a blazing sun.

Language is no problem and the locals are very friendly. Children on donkeys approach you, saying 'Taxi?' A Bedouin woman encouraged her preteen son to offer me a cigarette. I declined the smoke and the rides. I felt sorry for the poor donkeys, forced to lug hefty tourists up steep flights of rugged steps.

The riverbed in Petra is bone dry and the whole country is desperately in need of water. When the people are living in such poverty it's hard to be too judgemental about their treatment of animals. But if a camel is obviously struggling to kneel down under its heavy load, is it really necessary to keep thrashing its hind legs? In another disturbing incident I watched a horse just give up and refuse to go on. Unsteady on its feet, it let the carriage it was pulling roll back a few metres and collide with the canyon wall. Pushed and prodded, the horse was clearly in distress. But the passengers stayed put! I've heard of remaining with your vehicle after an accident in the desert, but this was ridiculous.

Maybe I'm too sensitive. I even regret terrifying the lizards that scamper out of my way. I know how they feel. I've survived crossing the street amongst the traffic in downtown Amman.

London

I've been using London as a base for a few leisurely daytrips - by boat along the muddy Thames to Greenwich and by train to impressive Windsor Castle and the glorious spires of Oxford.

Back here I've seen performances at both Theatre Royals. At the Haymarket a dramatic new musical, Marguerite, updates the Traviata story to Paris during the Nazi occupation. At Drury Lane a spectacular production of the Lord of the Rings is genuinely enthralling. (Sample dialogue from Rosie to Sam: "Who's this Galadriel woman then? And what's she doing giving you presents?")

London is living up to its reputation as the city with the highest cost of living in the world. A single journey on the tube costs £4 (about NZ$10) - fifty times as much as in Mexico City! A multi-day travelcard helps me zip all over the city. At least the British Government provides free entry to most of the museums and galleries.

Milan

Milan is a city of contrasts. Dolce & Gabbana stands next door to a Renaissance seminary. From the centre of the Galeria arcade you can see a statue of Leonardo da Vinci turning his back on Prada on your left and Louis Vuitton on your right. He should be grateful to modern technology for rescuing his fading Last Supper.

Yesterday I took a morning stroll on the roof of the huge cathedral. The fourteenth-century architects kindly provided a picturesque walkway above the flying buttresses and gargoyles.

In the afternoon my passion for neoclassical sculpture was rewarded with a wonderful Canova exhibition at the Palazzo Reale.

I spent the evening watching La Traviata at La Scala. Like me, the Milanese prefer their opera traditional with authentic period costumes. Counting two thirty-five minute intervals and endless bows after every act, the performance clocked in at three and a half hours.

Berlin

My hotel is just around the corner from the famous Checkpoint Charlie sign "You are leaving the American Sector," reminding me that I'm no longer in the USA. There are few other signs of the former division between East and West Berlin. All that remains of the wall is one forlorn 200-metre stretch, now preserved as a historic relic.

During my first visit in 1994 Potsdamer Plat was a desolate wasteland. Seven years later it had been transformed into a hypermodern shopping complex. Now, another seven years later, the construction boom is over and the city seems to be trying to come to terms with its grim past. Between elegant Potsdamer Platz and touristy Brandenburg Gate there's a controversial new Holocaust Memorial: a vast forest of stone slabs of varying heights laid out in a strict symmetrical grid pattern. A similar stack of slabs at the new Jewish Museum is set at a slight angle from the vertical, intended to disorient visitors or at least make them feel slightly queasy. These monuments are impressive examples of urban landscape design, but I find them rather impersonal. You get more emotional impact at Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam.

Tourists love the 3000-year-old bust of Nefertiti in the Altes Museum here. In spite of having a chipped right ear and missing the pupil from her left eye she's incredibly lifelike. My favourite artworks are the neoclassical sculptures, particularly a wonderful double portrait of Princesses Luise and Frederike, proving that realism and romanticism can coexist in the hands of a skilled sculptor working from beautiful models.

Germans have a particular love for musical theatre. The other evening I saw a performance of the popular hit "Elisabeth", the story of the last empress of Austria. I've come across her in my travels before, having visited her bedroom in the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna (complete with nineteenth-century exercise equipment to keep her figure trim) and the site where she was stabbed to death by a maniac in Geneva.