I took this photo as part of an assignment for a photography course I’m taking at the moment. There are tons of pretty pictures of the brightly-coloured beach huts that dot Cape Town’s beaches, but I wanted to capture something different: the people around them. I wonder if these two friends walk along the seafront every day? How long have they been doing it for? What are their stories?

Late afternoon stroll - Fish Hoek beachfront

What amazed me was how narrow the strip of green is either side of the river. In many places it looked like there was less than 1km of vegetation before the desert took over. I was shocked to see that only a very small percentage of Egypt’s land is habitable.

Could this be in 2010? 1810? Even 10BC?

What I love about this image that it is timeless. I imagine this scene has played out along the Nile every day for thousands of years.  (Egypt, 2010)

** UPDATE: I’ve had several enquiries about purchasing a print of or licensing this image. If you are interested, please email me. **

This is why I live in Cape Town.

I wonder how long these two have been friends for?

I spotted these two canine companions in a tiny village, Rumeli Kavagi, which is one of the stops on Istanbul’s Bosphorous day trip. The boat left from Eminonu in the city and wove its way north, stopping briefly at various picturesque spots to let passengers on and off. I realised that there was a compulsory lunch stop at Anadolu Kavagi, at the top of the strait. Not wanting to be herded around with a boatload of tourists and ripped off at the village’s only restaurant, I concocted a clever plan.

I’d disembark at Rumeli Kavagi, the penultimate stop, and wait for the boat to turn around at the top and come back and collect me. Only this not-so-clever plan didn’t take into account that the boat’s captain took a 2 hour break at Anadolu Kavagi too.

Ah well, I thought I’d make the best of it and explore Rumeli Kagavi for a couple of hours. Which I did, but it took all of 10 minutes. It’s not a big place, nor is it particularly pretty. Bar a small dock of brightly coloured fishing boats, the most interesting attractions were the village strays.

Weighting for the bus... *groan*

This figure-conscious cat and her friends kept me company until one of the tiny local buses arrived. I hopped on and headed south to the next village, Sariyer, where I passed two hours quite happily exploring the local supermarkets, people-watching and gazing at mouthwatering window displays of baklava. Foiled plans and ignoring a fortune-teller’s words can turn out surprisingly well after all.   (Turkey, 2010)

So pretty it hurts.

Something magic happened when a little eight year old girl gazed wide-eyed from a Manhattan hotel window. A gruelling thirty hour journey, jetlag and airsickness were suddenly forgotten. This was it! She was in “America”! Goosebumps rose on her arms as  she took in the cacophonous, jam-packed street below.

Down on the street, the noise was even louder and everything was thrillingly unfamiliar. Pavements were no longer called ‘pavements’ – here they were sidewalks. Zebra crossings had become crosswalks, and helpful neon signs told everyone to WALK or DON’T WALK.

Cars appeared from all sorts of unexpected directions and she held her mother’s hand tightly. People walked so fast that she could imagine being swirled and twirled in their wakes. It was all so very different from her home at the bottom of Africa. She wished she had extra eyes and ears to take it all in.

Standing on a street corner outside a New York City diner, this little girl tasted peach frozen yoghurt – and adventure – for the first time. And she was hooked.

This philosophy is much easier to embrace if you’re on holiday of course – and it usually takes a few frustrating days to adapt. This “mai pen rai” sign in Ko Pha Ngan sums up the island’s beat perfectly.  (Thailand 2004)

Hope you're not in a hurry, man...

Yes, it’s just a little feature in a blog in the travel section, but it’s still National Geographic. Confession: As a young girl with writing aspirations, I dreamed of being sent to the Amazon as a NatGeo photojournalist. Perhaps that might still happen.

You can read my article here. Please do leave a comment if you like it!

Home, sweet home. Cape Town, 2012.

So this is why I try to bring a little bit of my travels back with me. I don’t mean chipping off and pocketing a piece of the Pyramids, but rather mementoes, souvenirs and skills that will remind me of wonderful experiences. That’s why I’m the first to sign up for a cooking class if I can find one. Whipping up a tom yum soup or pot of masala chai will transport me back to Thailand and India in a second.

And I pick my souvenirs carefully too. Comfy leather slippers from Fes accompany my cat on a silk rug from Marmaris. Temple bells from Chiang Mai tinkle on my deck. Spice boxes from Udaipur organise cumin, cardamom, cinnamon and more on my kitchen counter. You get the picture. These everyday items bring far-flung places a little closer to home.

I fell in love with Morocco’s pretty silver tea pots and jewel coloured tea glasses, so picked up a set in Marrakech. But for the authentic experience, I needed a big bag of dried mint leaves too. The only thing was that wrapped in clingfilm, it looked a lot like contraband! Even though I suspected that sniffer dogs can tell the different between mint and marijuana, I was pretty nervous on my flights back to London and on to Cape Town. Fortunately South African dogs have good noses and I sailed through customs. The irony is that the first thing I saw in my local supermarket was real Moroccan mint tea. But it wouldn’t have tasted quite the same.