We had finished dinner and the rain was setting in when I decided to put on my biking kit and head up the mountain pass. The valley I was in, the Phobjikha Valley, at 10,000 feet, is a sanctuary for the Black neck crane, a medium-sized crane in Asia that breeds on the Tibetan Plateau […]
the post office essays There is a particular magic we humans get to do. We can have an idea then translate it into a series of symbols which others, years later, can read, so that the idea enters into their mind. We can write and create books and essays and letters, and mark down our […]
Last week Conde Nast Traveler released its annual Travel Specialists list, kind of like the Oscars of the travel world. And with another record-breaking 7 Trufflepig planners with their names in lights (again), we feel more than usually justified in describing ourselves as the Tiny Company with the Great Big Nose. We are of course […]
My friend Tandin was talking to me of dragons, concubines, drunken Himalayan gods, and ritualistic funerals. I was in Bhutan, two weeks prior to the first national election proposed by the King, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, and therefore for final few weeks it could claim to be the last Buddhist kingdom (on paper at least) in the grand […]
For 10 years I lived out of a bag. It was a good bag, cordura Patagonia roller, that did me well, and it was the same size as a small NYC apt and held all the stuff I needed at that point in my life so I was happy. I started on the road without […]
This is the moment when you’ve run out of patience. You know it. We know it. All the other drivers on the salt-crusted road know it. It’s mid-February and there are minimal daylight hours at the end of the tunnel, especially under this particularly heavy avalanche of snow. We’re all just trying too hard to […]
Every November, for the past years, we’ve attended a remarkable travel show in Marrakech—PURE Life Experiences. It’s where we go to take the pulse of the travel industry (oh no, did I just use that word?), meet with some of the hotels and people we work with, and sniff around for new and noteworthy places. […]
How is it that Asia’s knack for wonderful nosh basically bypassed Bhutan? It’s like the whole country didn’t get the memo. Yes, it’s remote, landlocked, and was for centuries shut to foreign travellers and influence. But still, you’d expect a country sandwiched between India and China to have at least some sense of gastronomy, some […]