Read this blog: The one where Robert finds the Drunk Monkey without Matilda’s assistance Friday 14th March 2025 Robert had planned a route to help us become more familiar with Kuching; the capital of the Malaysian state of Sarawak and the largest city on the island of Borneo. It is often referred to as the ‘City of Cats’ and Kuching has embraced this, installing cat statues [see feature photo] and even opening a Cat Museum. The Waterfront Hotel, although not strictly speaking on the Sarawak River, is very close to the waterfront walk along the southern embankment. It is also adjacent to some of the most famous historical buildings of the city including the Old Court House Complex. Many of these old buildings were the product of the rule of the White Rajahs, a British family which became the hereditary rulers of the Raj of Sarawak. James Brooke, the first of the three White Rajahs, helped the Sultan of Brunei to suppress a rebellion against a very unpopular Governor in 1841 and was rewarded with political authority over the area and the title of Rajah of Sarawak. After James Brooke’s death in 1861 his nephew, Charles Brooke came into the […]
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Read this blog: The one where Robert prefers to watch Friday 5th April 2024 The day started well. A young boy came down for breakfast while we were eating and to amuse him, the receptionist turned on the overhead model railway, which was complete with scaled versions of the Bridge over the River Khwae. We think we were probably more excited about this than he was. Having travelled over the bridge over the River Khwae Yai yesterday on the train, Robert wanted to go to the bridge itself to watch a train pass. He firmly believes that watching the trains is a more satisfying experience than riding on them. There is a station on the south side of the river called the River Kwai Bridge Station [see below] surrounded by stalls selling all manner of souvenirs. We have been struggling to find a standardised spelling of Khwae/Kwai. It seems the former is usually used for the rivers the Khwae Yai and the Khwae Noi which meet in Kanchanaburi. But it also appears that the Thai’s are happy to use the Anglicised version popularised by the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai to make things easier for the tourists. […]
Monday 30th May and Tuesday 31st May 2022 Leaving Washington, we took the subway, which is extensive and has tracks on multiple levels. The subway took us to Washington Union Station. This is another great example of American railroad architecture, both inside [above] and out [below]. It also has sweeping staircases to rival those in the Rookery Building in Chicago. Our Amtrak service took us to the William H Gray III, 30th Street Amtrak Train Station, to give it its full title, in Philadelphia which is another imposing edifice. Having walked to our hotel and settled in we took a stroll and, curiously, Robert’s route seemed to lead straight to the Hard Rock Café. We then dropped in to Brü where, with a little help from the quizmaster who advised us not to gamble too many of our point score on the final question, we won the quiz. The prize turned out to be a voucher for $50 which came in very handy when it came to settling our tab. The next day we set out to discover the delights of Philadelphia. No visit to the City of Brotherly Love would be complete without seeing the J.F. Kennedy Plaza, better known as LOVE […]
Tuesday 2nd April 2019 In 1950 Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India commissioned the building of a new city to serve as the state capital for Punjab as, when India gained Independence and East and West Pakistan were created, Lahore became the capital of West Pakistan. Chandigarh is a city and a union territory, governed directly by the Union Government, and serves as the state capital of both Haryana and Punjab. We visited The Le Corbusier Centre, the Old Architect’s Office, which was one of the first buildings to be constructed in Chandigarh and was used for its original purpose until 1965 when the Department of Urban Planning relocated elsewhere. It includes many interesting documents about the commissioning process and the building works. Nehru engaged the French-Swiss architect Charles Edouard Jeanneret [who adopted the name “Le Corbusier” and seems to have received most of the accolades and kudos] but his Swiss cousin Pierre Jeanneret, together with the English husband and wife team of Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew were also responsible for much of this large civic architecture project. The city is laid out on a grid pattern and divided into 57 sectors, though we could not find […]
Thursday, 30th August 2018 Melk is a picturesque town in Lower Austria overlooked by a beautiful and imposing monastery. On arrival we decided to forego the meal on the boat again in the hopes of letting Jaime have a choice of vegetarian options and set off for a day in the town. Between 2004 and 2008 the Waldzell Leadership Institute held annual meetings in the Abbey of Melk “giving international speakers from the fields of science, economy, art and spirituality a platform of dialogue with political and economic leaders“. The Waldzell meetings have welcomed renowned speakers like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Paolo Coelho, Isabel Allende, Frank Gehry as well as several Nobel Prize winners to share their knowledge and their visions. Now the Travelling Herd has followed in these illustrious footsteps and it was good to see Jaime getting up to her old tricks again. The views and the interior are spectacular, but no photographs were allowed inside the building. The second room of the library, which houses the Waldzell Collection, was particularly interesting, featuring the traditional two globes – one of the earth and one of the heavens. This room is also home to the Waldzell sculpture, shaped like the […]