The Psychology of Travel

My First Day at School

How long can I stand in the burn until my feet go numb? Too long. Better to keep throwing stones into the deep bit. Maybe I’ll wake up a fish. I wonder where all this water comes from? Up that …
Bizarre Airport Experiences

Bizarre Airport Experiences

I travel a lot by plane even though it’s environmentally destructive and increasingly boring. Airports in places like Bucharest or Tirana used to be so different from anything we’d seen in the west – the airport terminal in Tirana, a …

The Transylvanian Forest

The taxi wound through Transylvanian forest and dropped me in Brasov. I ducked through slim alleys into an underground restaurant. Over pickles, polenta and goulash, a couple described bears swaggering down streets, sniffing the air and picking any tit bits...

The train from York

A man in an anorak shuffles down the carriage. He sits heavily as if cut from a rope. A girl looks up, shifts and frowns into her book. He glances at her. His face looks shrunken, as though once bigger.…
I Love to Cycle in Kathmandu

I Love to Cycle in Kathmandu

My brother’s house in Kathmandu is old, narrow and tall. At the bottom of the house is a dark room which doubles up as an entrance hall and bicycle garage. This is where I am, getting ready to cycle across …