The story of the world’s best beef: How Kobe conquered the globe October 2, 2019 Wedged between the Rokko mountain range and Osaka Bay, Kobe is the sixth largest city in Japan with more than a million and a half people. Its namesake beef doesn’t come from the city itself but from the surrounding farmland of Hyogo Prefecture where Kobe is the capital and the key port. As the story [...]
From sunken sculptures to rusting Soviet planes, Grenada is an island brimming with mystery October 2, 2019 There’s a human silhouette looming out of the depths. The waves above have churned up the sand below, and now the sediment coils above the seabed like a strange mist, like something out of a Stephen King novel. I pop my head above the surface to fill my lungs with as much air as they [...]
Silversands Grenada review: The longest pool in the Caribbean, the most luxurious hotel in Grenada September 30, 2019 The one hundred metre long infinity pool that joins Silversands Grenada’s atrium style lobby to the pristine sands of Grand Anse Beach is the longest in the Caribbean. But that’s not the first clue that this modern hotel is a unique proposition on this historic island. That would be the moment you’re collected from the [...]
Why did the US Navy sink its own vessel off the coast of the Cayman Islands? September 27, 2019 The sound of whirring rotor blades carries across the bay. I’m staring at a framed photo of Tom Selleck inside the office of Cayman Island Helicopters, while its proprietor, Jerome Begot, readies the chopper. Jerome is a Frenchman who, inexplicably, flew in the US Air Force decades ago, and Magnum PI is his hero. After [...]
How a tea estate is helping to conserve Rwanda’s rich biodiversity September 27, 2019 There are only two things that most people think about when they hear “Rwanda”: the country’s unfathomable genocide, the 25th anniversary of which is in 2019; and, to a lesser extent, the critically endangered mountain gorilla. But Rwanda is unrecognisable from how it was in the mid 1990s, and although the gorilla population is steadily [...]
What is frankincense? And where does it come from? September 27, 2019 The sun is blazing and the air is hot, dry and dusty. Gazing out over the horizon, there’s nothing but parched, rocky land as far as the eye can see in any direction, except for the strange-looking trees that shoot up from the ground like gnarly, overgrown bushes. You wouldn’t think much could thrive here, [...]
The magic of Macao September 26, 2019 | Sponsored The saying goes that good things come in small packages, and nowhere lives up to this more than Macao, the diminutive Chinese region located on the country’s south-east coast. Measuring at just 13 square miles, it still manages to pack a vibrant cultural punch, with its Portuguese-Chinese heritage creating an eclectic backdrop on which everyday [...]
Hunting the hunters: We go on safari with the Serengeti’s canine anti-poaching unit September 13, 2019 We bounced along at high speed, our eyes glued on the dramatic chase unfolding on the Serengeti plains. An agile, golden-coated beast bounded forward in pursuit, its rowdy team striving to catch up. The target now cowered in a small thicket of acacia tree, a fairly lame strategy but it looked to be all it [...]
70 years after the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, we visit Orwell’s remote Scottish island home September 6, 2019 The Hebridean island of Jura has a particular fascination with 1984. Time seems to stand still here, like the early morning mist that lingers about the island’s rolling valleys. But that’s not to say that the small population obsesses over the goings on in Dallas, wears leg warmers, or puts up with Madonna’s Like a [...]
How the fall of Mugabe allowed Zimbabwe to reclaim the future of its tourism September 2, 2019 We discussed him in hushed tones, out of earshot of anyone else. Always the conversations were the same: “one day, maybe…,” swiftly followed by, “don’t say this where anyone else might hear.” Mugabe’s spectre loomed over even the most innocuous of chats, just like He Who Must Not be Named. And then, 24 hours later, [...]