Exploring the Philippines

 I have just returned from a trip to the Philippines.  It is four years since I was last there, and I had forgotten just what an enchanting country it is. I got out of Manila as quickly as possible (the traffic and pollution were just too much); and went on to explore some of the other islands of this diverse country. Firstly to Boracay where the white sand beaches have enticed a number of new hotels to open up along its shores.  My favourite was the Discovery Shores – a new five star option, and the best on the island until the Shangri-La opens at the end of the year. Continue reading »

Love in the Time of Cholera

There is a new film coming out soon, starring the recent Oscar winner Javier Bardem -”Love in the Time of Cholera” from the famed Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It is set on the beautiful Caribbean coastal city of Cartagena – a gorgeous, historic setting. Not only will this promote interest in the fabulous destination of Colombia but it also has a brief cameo appearance from our ground agents! They appear in traditional finery in a scene set in a house of ill-repute where they are surrounded by a multitude of lovely ladies. If you want to find out more about this go to our Colombia pages in the Latin American section of our website.

Read more about the film

Website launch party

After many, many months of work, the new Audley website is up and running. It’s always a bit of an anti-climax when a project you’ve been working on for so long comes to an end.

In the days and hours leading up to the “big day”, colleagues around the Audley office would come up to me and ask if we have some big red button which we press to make it all live! They had visions of the old website dissolving into the great internet abyss, lights dimming and flickering as the new website gradually takes form on the screen.

The truth is much less exciting than that – we edit a number on a screen and…erm, that’s it. Within a few hours the new site is live around the world. End of story!

Of course the anti-climax of it all didn’t stop us from having a little launch party here at the office. Everyone from around the building was invited for a lovely buffet lunch and a game of Nintendo Wii tennis which we beamed onto a large wall with an overhead projector!

As with all websites, there isn’t really an end. Websites are never complete. After a couple of weeks of settling in, fixing the odd bug and improving the way things work, we will start on the next phase of the site.

This is but the start and we have some great ideas lined up to make the site truly unique. Watch this space!

Somebody stole my idea!

Once upon a time, I had a great idea. An invention that was to revolutionalise travel. I was in the middle of a backpacking sojourn in 1990 – which was, incidentally, regarded as exotic and adventurous by my friends and family at the time, but is now merely called a ‘gap year’, filling the space between university and a proper job. Continue reading »

I’d forgotten how much I liked Windhoek

Last week I was in Windhoek for four days of meetings. After dark, cold, rainy Oxfordshire it was brilliant to spend 4 days under blue skies with temperatures of 30°C and cooling down perfectly in the evening. I stayed in a small guesthouse I hadn’t stayed in before, the Olive Grove, which is in my opinion is currently the best place to stay in Windhoek. Continue reading »

Reflections on my trans-Atlantic crossing

It’s now nearly two months since we arrived into St Lucia, brackish and battered after sailing across the Atlantic. It has to be said that it’s only been in the last fortnight or so that I’ve begun to think of the trip with a degree of fondness and pride. In the immediate aftermath of our arrival I just felt tired and wanted to get home to unwind in my own house. Once back in the UK, I didn’t really speak about the crossing that much, only to let people know how hard I’d found it. Continue reading »

Tamil Nadu is India’s hidden gem

Joe

Joe Parkes has recently joined the Audley team and has been entertaining us with his travel tales and his love of all things south Indian so I thought I would ask him to pen a few words so you can you share in his enthusiasm for this wonderful region.

“India is a country that never fails to amaze me. I have been lucky enough to travel the length and breadth of this beautiful, enormous country and have a lifetime of memories. Highlights include trekking in the mighty Himalaya, snorkelling in the seas off Goa, hurtling through the thronging streets of Calcutta, Delhi and Bombay in an auto-rickshaw, an early morning boat cruise along the ghats in Varanasi, and glimpsing tigers in Ranthambhore National Park. However, it is the South of India that has captured my heart. Continue reading »

Exploring Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford

If you’re ever in Oxford then an hour or two at the Pitt Rivers anthropological museum is definitely well spent. Not a lot has changed here since Victorian times, and this is part of the pleasure. Shrunken heads from west Africa sit alongside intricately stitched fur Inuit suits from the Arctic, all in big glass cabinets, and in a half light to protect everything from UV light. Most artefacts were collected by explorers in the 1700 and 1800s, although the museum also holds the 20th Century explorer, Wilfred Thesiger’s photographic collection. Indiana Jones would certainly feel home at the Pitt Rivers! www.prm.ox.ac.uk

 Cheating slightly, I’ve ‘cut and pasted’ the museums description of their collections:

‘Pacific island objects, including a magnificent Tahitian mourner’s costume, collected during Captain Cook’s Second Voyage in 1773-74; Hawaiian feather cloaks in brilliant shades of red and yellow; a wide range of handwoven textiles and looms; a collection of ceremonial brasses and ivories from the Kingdom of Benin; a fine group of early masks worn by actors in Japanese Noh dramas; more masks from Africa, Melanesia and North America; sculpture from all over the world in wood, pottery, metal and stone; boats, ranging from full-sized sailing craft to model canoes; baskets in all possible shapes and sizes; pottery from Africa and the Americas, including many pre-Columbian pieces; costumes from North America including Inuit fur parkas, Plains skin shirts decorated with porcupine quills, painted coats from the Northeastern Woodlands and a range of decorated moccasins; magic objects including amulets and charms; jewellery and body decoration; locks and keys; tools and weapons; musical instruments.’

Delicious food in Japan

Anybody who has met me for more than about half an hour would vouch for the fact that food is right up there on my “reasons for travel.” So you can probably imagine how my eyes bulged when I heard that Michelin have now declared Tokyo to be officially the cuisine capital of the world, with an astronomical total of 191 stars (compare that to Paris’s meagre 98!). I think that my 3 night stay in Tokyo this May to catch up with our local agents will have to incorporate some fine dining – all with a mind to being able to recommend the best restaurants to our clients of course.

The Tokyo Michelin guidebook is out now and provides a mouth-watering insight into dining in Japan’s capital.