TRAVEL WRITING
The World at My Feet: Solo Travel in Central and South America
MY GUT DECIDED that I was going travelling long before my head agreed.
Photographer: Will Chin
Under African Skies
AFRICA HAS been over exploited and over explained – usually in terms of what it is not. It has been described as a dark star and a heart of darkness. It is an absence to be filled and a dilemma to be solved. “The problem with Africa” is a line I heard repeatedly when I arrived in Tanzania.
Photographer: Will Chin
On the Crest of a Mexican Wave
Last year RÓISÍN SORAHAN wrote about leaving her good job and comfortable life to travel through Central and South America. Moving north, to Mexico, she found a fiesta-filled country that puts its best foot forward.
MEXICO LOVES to party. Any excuse and it’s off: no snobbery, social nuances or age restrictions. Everyone is invited.
Photographer: Will Chin
On the Trail of Rwanda’s Mountain Gorillas
IT FELT LIKE I was watching an old cinema reel. Thick mist cloaked the volcanic peaks. Trackers with machetes led the vanguard. Exotic plants with exaggerated genitalia leered drunkenly. Dense vegetation threw up its almost impenetrable shields. All the while, a cricket banged on about the silence.
Photographer: Will Chin
Hottest Ticket in Town
RÓISÍN SORAHAN joins the volcano tourist trail in South America.
VOLCANOES aren’t something we think about too often in Ireland. Carrauntoohil, our highest peak, is a sleepy, docile creature; the most threatening thing about it is probably the name of its access route, Hag’s Glen.
Photographer: Will Chin
Only Thrill Seekers Need Apply
From white-water rafting to diving with sharks, RÓISÍN SORAHAN on the holiday experiences that set the heart hammering but are definitely not for the faint-hearted.
A SENSE OF self-preservation and power of reason are some of the weightier items we often leave at home while holidaying. It seems that when we’re out of our norm, the tendency to behave out of our minds is greatly increased.
Photographer: Will Chin
In Search of Shangri-La
A townland in southwest China has changed its name from Zhngdiàn to Shangri-La. A shameless marketing ploy? Certainly. Is it working? Absolutely, writes RÓISÍN SORAHAN.
SHANGRI-LA. The name rolls around your tongue like a ripe plum.
Photographer: Will Chin
‘There is no feeling of humanity. People are sick of their lives’
For the 25,000 living in a square kilometre, the Balata refugee camp is a place of despair and death, writes RÓISÍN SORAHAN.
Photographer: Will Chin
What a Wonderful World
In 2001 a campaign was launched to update the list to a modern catalogue.
Photographer: Will Chin
Mighty Time in Yosemite
Our breaths lingered in the chilly air as we muddled our way through the labyrinthine camp and pitched our tent under a cluster of pinewood trees.
Photographer: Will Chin
Why quitting my job and moving to China was the best thing I ever did
WE WERE directed under an ornate red arch which straddled a narrow street that heaved with motor-bikes of all shapes and sizes. As we wandered the length of the strip, the traders’ faces transformed from dour boredom to full-beam excitement. We weren’t just potential customers; we were the foreigners in town.
Photographer: Will Chin
Drama in the Desert
Retrace the steps of T.E. Lawrence, and lodge with a Bedouin family in the magnificent desert of Wadi Rum in Jordan and you are sure to be smitten, writes RÓISÍN SORAHAN.
I COULDN’T understand a word, but their intimacy was obvious. Black-kohl eyes danced above the glow of a cigarette. Her deep, coarse laugh blared confidence. Her husband, capable and strong, smelled of camels and desert sands. The cigarette passed between them and we were forgotten for a time as we lounged on the mattress spread by the fire, eyes smarting as the smoke thickened the air of the Bedouin tent.
Photographer: Will Chin
Hiking the Himalayas
RIVERS CAN’T keep secrets. Over time they spill onto their banks. Even the old dark ones that have remained hidden for centuries.
Photographer: Will Chin
Chi Chi’s Hotel
At Chi Chi’s Hotel in Honduras, everything is for sale. Love, sex, family, lodgings, writes RÓISÍN SORAHAN.
THE UNLIKELIHOOD of Chi Chi’s epitomizes the wanderer’s destination. It’s the reason I travel. It’s what I miss right now. The shock of being surprised. Of being intentionally lost.
Photographer: Will Chin
White Rat in India
I travel to tumble down the rabbit hole. I don’t want a predictable world. I don’t want to say that this city reminds me of that one. I want to be unbalanced. Feel lost, writes RÓISÍN SORAHAN.
IT IS a feeling completely other to the disorientation suffered by so many who have stumbled into a dark, confounding tunnel during this pandemic. And Alice is still plunging.
Photographer: Will Chin
The Changing Faces of Hong Kong
I was 20 the first time I boarded a plane. A flight from Dublin to Boston, with a J1 visa in my pocket and a head full of adventure, writes RÓISÍN SORAHAN.
FOR NOW, I content myself with poking over past escapades and unraveling the changes in our world. I am hopeful, and eager to sally forth once again. I want to see new places. I also want to revisit some that continue to confound me. I miss being bewildered.
Photographer: Will Chin
