Author: CBT
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Why do Canadian First Nations have casinos?
The coach from Calgary to Banff didn’t just pass through prairie and forest. There were a few settlements on the way too, one of which was a First Nations* village of the Stoney Nakoda, its buildings scattered across a wide area. One of the buildings, I noticed, was a casino. This surprised me. I had…
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Canada
Day 1 The first thing that strikes me about Toronto is the similarity to the New York of the movies. It’s a proper city of skyscrapers, of straight angles of glass that stretch ever upward. I can’t help but gawk a little at the sheer scale of it all, like the country bumpkin that I…
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Why do towns and villages in France look so much older than the ones in Wales?
One of the great appeals of travelling in France is its antique towns and villages. Anyone looking up places to visit in France online can easily end up wandering among a plethora of pictures of castles and timber-framed houses that look straight out of a fairytale. I saw these places myself, in Foix and, to…
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France
Day 1 France! Western Europe! Well-developed infrastructure! This should be a pleasant change of pace from jungles and deserts. I can travel with ease and comfort. Well, that was what I thought right up to the moment when I got lost searching for the hotel in the dead of night and all the streetlights suddenly…
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Why are white palm fronds painted on Amazigh houses?
Tiout was quite an ordinary village, but in a way I found very appealing. It was so ordinary that it formed a perfect archetype of what an Amazigh village should be, with its lush palmery, half-pristine, half-ruined kasbah, and hilltop marabout. The stripes of purple or blue paint that outlined the occasional doorframe and window…
Wandering/Wondering 