Middle East
Waking up on Mars
Wadi Rum, Jordan
At sunrise the red sandstone lights up grain by grain, the wind combing the sand into silk. No signal, no voices — only my own footprints and a whole desert of silence.
03 — Journeys
The world, walked alone
A dozen-odd countries, most of them walked alone — here is the whole road.
Middle East
Alone, up to the Monastery
Ad-Deir, Petra, Jordan
Eight hundred steps cut into the canyon wall, the bells of the Bedouins’ donkeys fading behind me. I climbed up alone, until the vast façade they call the Monastery appeared without warning — two thousand years of wind moving through the empty hall, leaving only the sound of light and sand.
Africa
Elephants beneath the snow peak
Amboseli, Kenya
In the rains the savanna turns a wet green; a herd drifts past with Kilimanjaro’s snow cap behind them. I didn’t press the shutter much that moment — I just watched.
Africa
To the roof of Africa
Kilimanjaro, Tanzania · 5,895 m
Five days, from rainforest up into glacier. The last night I crept up the scree by headlamp; at dawn I stood on Uhuru Peak — clouds below my feet, all of Africa behind me.
Tianshan, China
A hidden realm deep in the Tianshan
East Karajun, Ili, Xinjiang
The meadows lie like green velvet combed by the wind, ridge after ridge folding away into the heart of the Tianshan. Far below, the Kokesu River curls into eel-shaped bends; for tens of kilometres there is no one — only the shadows of clouds drifting slowly across the slopes.
Underwater
Giving myself to the blue
Red Sea · Dahab · OW / AOW
Twenty metres down, sound disappears — only breathing remains. Light slants in from the surface, fish drifting like leaves in wind. A very quiet kind of weightlessness.
Central Asia
The blue of the Silk Road
Bukhara, Uzbekistan
Petals all trodden underfoot — where now to roam? Laughing, I step into the Sogdian girl’s wine-house.
On the Road
Ten years behind the wheel
Road trips, at home & abroad · 10+ years
Washboard tracks, river crossings, mountain switchbacks at night — in ten years I’ve met just about every road. The view keeps changing; what stays is the urge to see what’s a little further on.