Articles by Crikey

This week the world’s spotlight was on Washington D.C., to watch the second inauguration of President Obama. Freelance journalist — and former local — Robert Baird dishes on the best secret spots in the Capital.

A former tour guide, Carla Pratt figured it took a lot to rattle her when travelling. But a simple bus trip in Albania was enough to make her question all her travel skills.

It’s such a cliché to say a city is “sprawling”, but sometimes, it’s the only word. And when it comes to Wuhan, China, home of 10 million people and a whole lot of smog, sprawling seems appropriate, says Alexandra Patrikios.

William Jackson was determined to try a bag of Taiwan’s famous stinky tofu. But it smelt like he’d just slurped down a load from a baby’s nappy.

Born in Siberia, but of German descent, Eugen and his family returned to Germany when he was seven, following the footsteps of many compatriots at the time. Since then, Eugen has travelled to 52 different countries.

It is a bumpy, unpaved road and our driver carefully maneuvers around the potholes. Joan laughs and says this is her weekly massage. We pass dry, dusty shells of buildings, box-shaped with flat roofs. It seems as though it hasn’t rained in forever. Joan points to a truck coming the other way. “That’s our weekly water delivery”, she says.

As a native English speaker I was hardly expecting language difficulties in the US, a nation that’s smeared my mother tongue across the globe like Coca-Cola on a Southern-glazed ham. Yet my wife and I had a heck of a time getting coffee up, eggs easy over and our point across in a recent trip.

Bite. Chew. Swallow. It is easier said than done. Particularly when faced with a deep fried tarantula the size of your hand or an embryonic egg, sevens weeks in the making. Travelling through Asia can challenge many of your attributes but none more acutely than your tastebuds and, perhaps, gag reflex. If you’re game, start chewing through this list and see where you end up.

Emma Koehn’s stay at a Buddhist monastery in Japan was a puzzling affair, with monks dressed in Foo Fighters tour t-shirts and Japanese MTV available in her monastery guest room.

Laos hit the headlines recently after three Australians died in the space of a month in the tourist towns of Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang. But there is plenty more to say about this little landlocked country than these tragic reports suggested.