Face-to-Face with God

“Do not bow at the head. Do you understand?”

I nod. My guide licks her lips anxiously. “Not-the-head,” she reiterates, pointing a perfectly-manicured finger at her temple. “Very disrespectful.” I nod the same nod, and she replies with an uncertain smile. “Then let’s go meet him.”

It’s my third day in North Korea and we’re outside Kumsusan Memorial Palace: the once-residence and now mausoleum of ‘eternal president’ Kim Il-sung. A colossal white-brick cathedral to the revolutionary leader, its reputation as the country’s most important pilgrimage site is cemented by the long queue of personally-invited, immaculately-turned-out Koreans eagerly awaiting a glimpse of their Great Leader. Continue reading

Top Marx: When Socialism Meets Tourism

I’ve had a new travel article published in the July issue of stalkingElk – a comedy satire mag, for which I’m the ‘roaming correspondent’ – all about when socialism meets tourism. Here’s how it begins:

“Look at the condition of communism today and it’s easy to conclude that Karl Marx has been forgotten. China is now home to twice as many KFC outlets as giant pandas. Vietnam is famed for its vast income and gender inequalities. And while Laos’ clampdown on the media is a big commie tick, its free market policy is like defecating directly into Lenin’s cold, dead gullet. Each of these states, a mere two decades after some vexed Germans shouted at a wall, are now about as socialist as Joseph McCarthy in a kaftan.

However, not every socialist state has opened its arms and spread its legs to greet rampant capitalism: there are still three corners of the globe where hard-line communism stubbornly prevails. Three of the most unique and alien places on earth. Which makes them three of the most interesting places to visit…”

If you’d like to read more of ‘Top Marx: When Socialism Meets Tourism’, you can click here for the whole article. Or if you want to read more of the kind, you can visit the stalkingElk website and buy the whole mag for just £3. Bargain!

Socialism & Tourism #3: North Korea

Prior to the release of my new travel article about socialist tourism, I will be previewing a few of the commie states featured. This last one is North Korea.

If travel is about experiencing other ways of life, then it doesn’t get more ‘other’ than this. North Korea is the most isolated country on earth, cut off from reality by a totalitarian communist government that imprisons its citizens in a 1950s vacuum. This not only means North Koreans have never questioned Lady Gaga’s gender or not shut up about The bloody Wire: they have no idea man has been to the moon.

Consequently, visitors must accept strict limitations on what they say, as well as what they see. But that doesn’t mean the tourism is humdrum – not a bit of it. Visit the Democratic People’s Republic and you’ll get to board a captured US warship, be dwarfed by a colossal bronze dictator and witness the largest gymnastics festival on earth. Oh, and you’ll get sneaky peeks of reality too, like malnourished workers in rice fields and legions of rats scurrying through the metro. Continue reading

Socialism & Tourism #2: Transdniestr

Prior to the release of my new travel article about socialist tourism, I will be previewing a few of the socialist states featured. This time, it’s Transdniestr.

Following Poland’s 1989 overthrow of the commies, Soviet states toppled like pissed dominoes. Within two years the USSR had gone and socialism in Europe was finished. Or so you might think. Actually, as Poland and co. marched towards democracy, one sliver of Eastern Europe was left behind.

Transdniestr, a teensy region in the east of Moldova, broke away from the then Socialist Republic in 1990, following ominous rumblings of reform from Chişinău. After a two-year girly fight, a fresh yet familiar socialist system was formed under cuddly, pastry-faced autocrat Igor Smirnov… and it’s one which continues unopposed to this day. Continue reading

Socialism & Tourism #1: Republic of Cuba

Prior to the July release of my new travel article about socialist tourism, I’ll be previewing a few of the commie states featured. First up, it’s Cuba.

Let’s begin with the most visited communist state in the world. In many ways, Cuba is your classic Caribbean paradise isle: home to pristine beaches, poncy hotels, sweaty nightclubs and overpriced trinkets. Yet with socialist giveaways on every corner, from omnipresent Che murals to dilapidated American Buicks, it doesn’t take Tony Robinson levels of surface-scratching to see that Cuba is an island unlike any other.

Socialist since 1959, the country now boasts over two-and-a-half million tourists – including law-dodging Yanks – each year. While most stick to the bespoke capitalist bubbles along the coast, sipping mojitos, smoking Montechristos and swaying to samba music, an intrepid few venture inland to see Castro’s Cuba for what it really is: a steaming great mass of socialist contradictions. Continue reading

Transdniestr: Last Kid on the Bloc

I’ve recently had a travel article published in the latest issue of Shoestring Travel Magazine. It’s about Transdniestr – the last remaining communist state on the old Eastern bloc – and here’s how it starts:

“1989 was a watershed moment for Europe. It was the year when Poland, after 44 years of stringent Soviet rule, finally turned its back on the communist ideal. This act of defiance was the spark that lit the fire of revolution across Eastern Europe, and within the next three years East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania and more than a dozen other socialist states – including Russia itself – had overthrown their respective governments and entered a new era of capitalist democracy. Communism in Europe was dead and buried.

Well, almost buried. For as the world watched Poland and co. march towards a bright new dawn, no-one seemed to notice that one tiny piece of the Eastern Bloc had been left behind…”

If you’d like to read more, simply click here for the whole article. Or you can visit the Shoestring website to read the entire issue for free. I’ve also been commissioned to write for the next Shoestring Magazine, so watch this space.

Coming Soon

I apologise profusely for the delay with this page but I promise you… this travel blog is coming very soon.

WATCH THIS SPACE!

In the meantime, why not take a look at a small but tasty selection of my published travel articles and blogs?

Or if you’re looking for a bit of aural stimulation, you should give The Chop House comedy podcast a whirl!

And if there’s anything else, just get in touch. Cheers!