Seeing ghosts has never been a major preoccupation for me, but if ever I find myself frightened of phantoms I know exactly where to go – Marrakech spice market. Read on…

A white temple, a black house, a Disneyesque wat of gaudy giants and a town clock that gives a rousing sound and light show. Welcome to Chiang Rai. Read on…

The Spanish love a good party and there’s always a fiesta happening somewhere in Spain. Most are based on a historic or religious event – or so the protagonists would have us believe – but there are plenty that are just plain weird fiestas, an opportunity to eat, drink and be merry in copious abandon. Read on…

In 1996 the Kasbah briefly became a Tibetan monastery for the filming of Martin Scorsese’s epic, Kundun, the story of the Dalai Lama’s escape across the Himalayas from Tibet to India. Two decades later it repeated the role when scenes for the TV programme Lilyhammer were recorded in its gardens and on the hillside outside the gate. Read on…

Contrary to the myth that Queen Isobella of Spain pawned her royal jewels to fund Christopher Columbus’ adventure that led to the discovery of what was to become America, the man who actually put up the cash was Luis de Santangel, a Velencian of Jewish descent. Read on…

The next time you cower in terror at the blood-curdling scream in a horror movie, remember that it probably didn’t come from the lips of  blonde about to eviscerated in a dark cellar but from the mouth of a Foley artist in a recording studio in downtown LA.  Read on…

Dedicated to Guanyin, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, Wat Kuan Im Chokchai is one of the weirdest temples in Chiang Mai, but also one of the most playful. Read on...

the painted pigeons of Spain

They may seem like nothing more than a flight of guadily-painted lust-buckets flapping around the sky, but with the painted pigeons of the uniquely Spanish sport of columbicultura there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. Read on…

What do you do when you discover that your grandma had a box of Picasso’s drawings? Not quite what you might think. Read on...