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You may discern in the attached photo, taken outside the Longmen Grottoes, that the majority of the people are wearing blue “Mao suits” – this photo was taken on my first visit to China in May 1978. It is perhaps worth recalling the historical background of the time. In late 1976 Mao Tse-Tung had died and the hard line communist “Gang of Four” had been arrested by Hua Kuo Feng who was still prime minister at the time of our visit. On the other hand Deng Shao-peng was still a “non-person” after proposing supposedly “rightist” views in 1975 (but would re-emerge in the next few months, pay a visit to the USA in Jan 1979 and ultimately replace Hua’s “Soviet planning” approach with more pragmatic economics). China was “on the cusp” as it tentatively moved towards opening up – and the rest as they say “Is History”!

It was fascinating to visit China at this pivotal time – all the outward shows of strict Communist rule were still in place – the Mao badges, the collective farms, the neighbourhood committees. Yet among the people we met one sensed a strong desire to change. As part of the “opening up” small groups of tourists were “invited” (but paying!) as “Foreign Friends”. This gave us a status which unfortunately was soon to disappear in China’s dealings with foreign tourists! We were asked what we wanted to see and it was arranged. So schools, universities, hospitals, factories, mines, collective farms and workers flats …

Lamu is an own world, little planet by itself. Time runs slower, the heat forces You to a slower path. The streets so narrow that no car can pass, but still, look out not to be overrun by a donkeytransport. Its like Africa 100 years ago, with some mix in of the 21th century. People of all tribes can be seen in town, if lucky even half bare-breasted Maasai-woman may walk down the beach front, with all her traditionel jewellery around her neck. Bearded black arabs with their "Fez", totally black muslim woman with only their eyes visible and less conservative swahili woman with their colourful dresses add a special touch to street life. Now, in may 2005, there are few tourists and the beach-boys try every trick to get a little busyness off You. Tell them very clear "sitaki" ( I dont want") and then "salama" (go in peace). Dont take a map in Your hand, otherwise You have instantely a crowd of young men arround you offering help, You ount get rid of them! But the ambiance of the town is unique - its the place to shoot those pictures one uses for this expensive high glance calendars, the place where lovers pass hoeny-moon, as we did ....

The Pantonal is an enormous area of flat lands in the basin of the river Paraguay in Western Brazil. Within it areas have been designated as a National Park or Strict Reserves. From Oct to Mar it is flooded and inaccessible to ordinary tourists. At other times it provides a good opportunity of seeing a number of the typically S American animals/birds in what are probably easier viewing conditions than Amazonian forest. It is also quite a relaxing place to visit with a number of Fazendas or ranches offering accommodation for a chill-out stay accompanied by non-vigorous walks or horse rides. You can easily arrange stays at these and transport in/out using local agents in nearby cities.

Since it covers such a large area and transport around/across the region is limited you really have to decide which part to aim for. If you are crossing to Brazil from Peru/Bolivia then you will probably settle for the southern section. If however you are “coming in” from the east and continuing elsewhere in Brazil then you have the choice of 2 main entry points – the cities of Campo Grande or Cuiaba. We chose Cuiaba, and I suspect that this is the more popular. Whether it is the better I cannot say. I can say however that we were satisfied with what we saw in 3 days and in the ease of arranging something quickly on arrival and in getting out (Ciuaba has very good transport connections, particularly by air). Cuiaba …

It seems that it hasn't become much easier to visit Mount Athos than it was decades ago, and if you happen to be female, it's evidently impossible. But there is a way to see Athos from the sea, which should be enough for most people who aren't obsessed about Byzantine history and Orthodox monasteries (although these are very interesting), and that is to take a cruise alongside the Athos peninsula, making many monasteries perfectly visible from the ship. These cruises can be easily arranged in the tourist areas of the Chalkidiki Peninsula, and usually take in a break in the pretty port of Ouranopolis.

I don't really understand why the area was also inscribed as a natural site, since I didn't notice any particularly noteworthy natural monuments, but Athos' importance from a historical, political (an autonomous community for almost a thousand years!), religious, and cultural perspective is undeniable.

Nevertheless, I hope to be able to see Athos from the "inside" sometime in the future when they relax the rules. Until then I think I won't count it as a fully visited WH site.

The Agra Fort - the second of the city of Agra’s main tourist attractions – was founded in 1565 and is a virtual copy of the Red Fort in Delhi. My understanding is that the latter is now also underway to also become a World Heritage Site, which is not more than fair.

The Agra Fort is huge and still mainly occupied by the Indian Army. Its massive sandstone walls rise over 20 meters and 2,5 km in circumference. Inside the fort you find different palaces and semi-palaces, Harem quarters, Halls of Public and Private Audiences and everything else needed to run an Empire in 15th century India. And also the Musamman Burj, were the aging emperor Shah Jahan spent his last years and where he lay on his death bed, gazing at the distant Taj Mahal where his long lost love, Mumtaz Mahal was buried.

The Agra Fort is an interesting visit but one can’t help that after having visited Agra’s major attraction, the Taj Mahal, it’s hard to see the same beauty in this still very exquisite palace. My recommendation when visiting Agra is that you FIRST visit the Agra Fort and then the Taj Mahal. Otherwise the almost unreal beauty of the Taj might distance you completely from what beauty the Agra Fort actually has to offer you.

I was thrilled to see the Tower after hearing so much about it and seeing photos all my life. My husband didn't want to spend the money to climb it, but he changed his mind. We weren't sorry--ther were fantastic views, and we could very much sense the leaning while we climbed. I ended up climbing many towers in Tuscany because this was such a great experience.

Belorussia might be considered to be the last communist state in Europe but despite its dictator Lukashenka and all it is actually a very friendly, nice and partially also a very modern country. During a cold week in November, when staying in Minsk, I hired myself a guide and a driver to take me for an excursion to the two World Heritage Sites of Belorussia – The “Mir Castle Complex” and the “The Architectural, Residential and Cultural Complex of the Radziwill Family at Nesvizh”.

Today, you can admire the castle and its impressing red brick-walls from the outside as well as from the courtyard. Refurbishment is ongoing and according to my guide there is both a museum, a restaurant and a small hotel with conference facilities in the pipeline here. Also the nearby village of Mir is an interesting visit even though it is quite obvious that the town square houses have been thoroughly painted for tourist purposes. It is however interesting to conclude that the town of Mir (=Peace) had people of not less than four religious persuasions before WWII and within walking distance you find a Russian-Ordodox, Jewish Synagogue and a Polish-Catholic Church. The Muslim mosque was demolished during the war. Perhaps a good example for some regimes in the Middle East to learn from…

All 3 of Armenia’s WHS are churches or monasteries! Apart from “ticking off” additional WHS one must ask whether there is a great deal of extra benefit to be gained from chasing all 3 since the non-expert is probably not going to discern the differences in style. Indeed you will see many more than those on the WHS (and there are several more on Armenia’s “Tentative List” too!)

We did and have no regrets at doing so. The Armenian church lies at the heart of this country’s uniqueness (together it should be stated with its alphabet/language and the sense of “difference” and “oppression” which its geographical location and history of persecution and survival have given it) and seeing its monuments and the people worshipping in them is an essential part of gaining a feel for the country.

Each of the sites is in a different setting and Geghard’s is in a delightful deep valley. Dating from the 12th century the structure is half building and half cave. Its rural location was emphasised by the sellers of bread and fruit lined up outside and the slaughtered sheep hung up for skinning nearby. It was busy – but with Armenians on pilgrimage not tourists and a quiet reverence was maintained inside. The explanations of Armenian inscriptions and of saints with strange (to us) names largely passed us by but the atmosphere of peace and tranquillity stayed with us. (Visited July 2000)

Honduras has its merits as a tourist destination but lacks the appeal of Guatemala with its indigenous peoples, historic sites and scenic variety. However, if you are basing a self drive holiday on Guatemala you can still easily visit one of Honduras’s 2 WHS at Copan since it lies very close to the Guatemalan border. We started from the motel (recommended) at Rio Hondo, crossed at El Florido and left our car at the border post as it is not worth the costs of taking it across the border (even if your rental company/insurance will allow it). Next pay the personal exit/entry charges for each country (you will need to pay some of them again on the return but not too excessive! Tell the both sets of authorities that you are only going to the ruins and thus avoid the need for a Honduran visa and make it easier to get back to Guatemala), change $ for a few lempira at the border and take a truck/minibus the 14kms to the Honduran village of Copan Ruinas (they go when full but pretty frequent). From there it is only a couple of kms to the ruins (many buses). Check the border closing times for your return before you set off as the countries don’t operate to the same timetable! It all sounds quite complicated but we really found it very easy.

Copan as a destination does not, in my opinion, rival Tikal – one could easily spend 2 days wandering …

The main glories of Yemen are to be found in Sanaa and the mountains. On either side of these however are 2 other sights – to the east the desert ruins of Marib which are currently only on the WHS Tentative list and, to the west, the WHS inscribed old town of Zabed,

The West side of Yemen consists of a flat low-lying strip of semi desert called “The Tihama”. This area is hot, hot, hot! Facing Africa, it feels very different from the rest of Yemen. If you go there you will probably overnight in the port of Al-Hudayda and Zabed lies a few miles south.

Zabed is one of those WHS which, if it justifies its inscription, does so because of what it has been rather than for what you can see now. From the earliest years of Islam a Koranic university flourished there. It is said that the word “Algebra” (Al-jabr) was coined by a scholar from the town. The very first mosque in Yemen was founded nearby by a local leader who actually visited the Prophet Mohammed in Medina.

The old town is surrounded by walls in mixed state of repair. The main entrance is through a medieval gate and inside there is an area of suqs, a few mosques and a “palace” (19th century). Pleasant enough but, in the heat, not anything to get excited about! The centuries of Islamic scholarship do not come across to the casual non-Islamic visitor!

We were however invited into …

Bustling and busy Dehli can prove to be quite a challenge for the first time visitor so entering the gates of Humayun’s Tomb felt like quite a nice relief from persistent rickshaw-drivers, touts, beggars, snake charmers and other annoying elements you are confronted with. It’s a cultural shock that any European have to go through but after some weeks of travel on the Indian continent I promise that you will see them as part of a wonderful and massively colourful society that draws you back for another visit.

Humayum’s Tomb was built by the grief-stricken wife of emperor Humayun in 1565. It took nine years to complete the tomb and it is said to be a landmark in the evolution of early Mughal architecture and legend tells that it’s been a model for the mighty Taj Mahal in Agra.

I visited Humayum’s Tomb on an early December morning when only a few visitors had entered the site and the contrast between the city and the peaceful garden and the monument was truly stunning. With several adjacent palaces and tombs, make sure you take at least some 2-3 hours to fully enjoy this wonderful place.

In our trip to Germany we have visited the Roman fort of Saalburg, part of the 220 kilometres Limes barrier Raeatian section, one of the walls that have been marking the boundaries of the Roman empire for some centuries. The original fort (90 AD) covered an area of about 0,70 hectares and had a rectangular plan with corner towers. In 135 AD was built a larger fort, of 3,2 hectares (221 by 147 metres), over the earlier one, with four gates, a stone and timber defence wall with rampart walk and a double ditch. The remains of many internal buildings have been excavated and entirely reconstructed in stone and timber under the emperor William II. There are the granary, the commander’s quarters, the barrack blocks for the common soldiers and the headquarters buildings with the monumental assembly room the colonnaded courtyard, the rooms, the offices and the armouries. Interesting are the reconstructions of a barrack room, home to a squad of eight soldiers who lived in close quarters, of the richly decorated officer’s dining room, of the regimental shrine, the spiritual and religious centre of the fort, of the ovens and of the “restaurant”. Between the remains of the civilian settlement just outside the fort there is a bath house, a guest house, the cellars and the wells of the private houses and the reconstructions of the Jupiter column and of the Temple of Mithras. Near the fort there is a reconstruction of the limes at an ancient border crossing …

Mesa Verde was the highlight of my trip to the Southwest. I had decided I wanted to see it after reading about it in a book about wonders of the world. Although I was looking forward to touring the cliff dwellings, I had no idea just how much there was to see at this wonderful site. We drove into the park first thing in the morning and spent one very long, perfect September day there, but we could have spent more time easily. Entering the park involves a 25-minute drive up into the hills, which is lovely in its own right because of the views. There are many interesting ruins all along the tops of these hills, but the truly spectacular ones are the famous cliff dwellings built into the walls of the canyons. There is a surprisingly large number of these structures; in fact, there is one viewing point where as you scan the length of a canyon you can see at least half a dozen dwellings all along. The more you look, the more pop out.

The tours are excellent, and are indeed a bargain. I'm admittedly an acrophobe, so I was a little nervous about the ladder-climbing necessary, but my desire to see everything was stronger than my fear of heights. Because we arrived in September when the crowds had thinned out considerably, we were able to purchase tickets to tour both Cliff Palace and Balcony House, which one is not able to do in the height …

I just took the train trip from Qinghai to Lhasa. Due to the influx of tourists from this new train service, the visiting hours to Potala Palace is now only one hour, although they increased the daily inflow from 1,000 to 3,000 people so everyone can get a chance to see inside. The result is a rush through the palace, with barely sufficient time to take in the art and monuments. The tickets are officially 100 RMB (US$14), but scalpers ask for up to US$100. So plan carefully with your travel agent.

One politically incorrect comment: While we see the current 14th Dalai Lama as a wise, benevolent, sagacious leader, the theocracy that ruled Tibet over the last 400 years were no angels. A system of absolute power over every phase of people's lives in a almost hermitically sealed region, with no checks and balances always lead to abuse of power. Look at what happened in the Catholic Church over history...men are men.

The WHS additions in July 2004 were a mixed lot in my opinion but 1 stood out for me –the “Cape Floral Region Protected Areas”. Alongside the usual litany of uninspiring/mediocre European sites (Liverpool, Muskauer and Andorra Valley?) and shady political dealings (The Koguryo China/N Korea “compromise”!) here was a site whose selection showed real imagination. A site of genuine uniqueness and justifiable preservation. Yet it took UNESCO from the year 2000 with 2 “deferrals” to get this nomination accepted! So typical of bureaucrats to concentrate on “Dotting the I’s” rather than on the value of the concept!

To quote

“Although the smallest of the world’s 6 principle floristic regions and in a temperate zone it has a degree of species richness comparable with most tropical hotspots. In less than .5% of the area of Africa it has nearly 20% of its flora and in less than 4% of the area of Southern Africa it has nearly 44% of the sub-continental flora of 20367 species. Nearly 69% of its vascular species do not occur naturally anywhere else in the world”

From within this “kingdom” 8 areas have been inscribed stretching as far as 450kms from the city of Capetown. The most famous and easily accessible is that of the Cape Peninsular itself although this is the second smallest - you will go through it if you go down to the Cape of Good Hope (as we did).

To quote again “The distinctive flora which contains 80% …

Currently Uruguay possesses but a single WHS : at Colonia Del Sacramento on the banks of the River Plate. In summer 1999 we were journeying from Buenos Aires to Iguassu and didn’t want to miss such a close new (for us) country with another WHS so took an indirect route by hydrofoil across the Plate. The next day we continued by bus through the rolling pastures of Uruguay via Fray Bentos (not then even on Uruguay's T List) to cross back into Argentina at the Salto-Concordia frontier.

On arriving at Colonia the vast majority of hydrofoil passengers jumped onto waiting busses and continued to Montevideo. We found ourselves in a small town with plenty of hotels and restaurants and obviously heavily dependent on serving Porteno tourists - so many indeed that we had problems finding an unbooked room.

The town is pleasant enough with a number of cobbled streets bounded by low houses in colonial style together with a few ruins in the form of town walls/gates overlooking the River Plate (it is said that the lighthouse is the only “high building” -photo). The town is supposed to reflect in its layout and architecture its origins as the most southerly Portuguese colonial settlement but I can’t say that this aspect was particularly noticeable to us. It was originally founded in 1680 and changed hands a few times before its final incorporation into the Spanish empire in 1777.

It was a pleasant stop-over but whether the town really …

We have visited all three of the listed tels in Israel, plus many more besides. These three all share the fact that the sites were first settled around 5000 years ago, and have experienced multiple layers of occupation since then; in the case of Hazor and Megiddo, around 20 layers, and Beersheeba about 9 layers.

Tel Hazor is the most northerly, located near Rosh Pinnah. Buses heading north towards Kiryat Shmona and Metulla can drop you at the access road, but do not get confused with Hazor kibbutz which is several kms south. It is a hot, dry and dusty site most of the time, but there are a number of excavations opened up. To find some shade at the site, you can descend into the water works chamber. There is an interesting museum a short distance away.

Har Megiddo (Mount Megiddo or Armageddon) overlooks the Jezreel Valley, and is best accessed by buses travelling between Haifa and Afula. We have been here several times and continue to find it fascinating. Of particular interest are the sunken grain silo, the huge water cistern, and the tunnel (which you can walk through in the shade) which leads to a spring outside the defensive wall. An important occupier was King Solomon, abouth three thousand years ago, who had most of the structures built that can be seen today. The most recent occupiers were the British forces during the First World War.

Tel Beersheeba, is about 5km away from the modern city of …

After the noise and pollution of Buenos Aires across the river, Colonia was a breath of fresh air. So laid back and relaxing. On the wide, tree-lined streets even the motor vehicles were in keeping with the surrounding buildings; not a car to be seen built after 1950!

We went across the river on an early ferry, and it was like entering a ghost town. But around 11am the locals began to appear, and very friendly they were too.

We loved the colourful old Portuguese cottages around the Plaza Mayor, and the pinted blue tiles that appeared everywhere.

Just visited in May, 2004. More moose than humans. Breathtaking waterfalls and lakes and stunning snow topped mountains. Rocky Harbor has some good hotels all with spectacular sunsets. Don't miss the Western Brook Pond trip and a hike among the rocks from the earth's mantle.

Uxmal is near Merida on the Yucatan peninsula. Uxmal is less frequently visited than nearby Chichen Itza. This ruin is indicative of the Puuc style of architecture and was built around 300-950 AD. The pyramid of the magician is crisply restored as are many other buildings but others are still in complete ruin. The Palace of the Governors is built on the highest point in the area and has some unusual carving. Look for the grotesque carved masks and chak carvings. Also, don't miss the separate site of Kabah nearby. The arch has some original hand prints on it. Some comfortable hacienda style hotels are nearby. I don't think you can get here on a public bus but you can book a tour from Merida and maybe even from Cancun. The place was deserted when I visited in 2003.