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Whisky business at the Laphroaig distillery

It is a small but committed cross-section of drinkers that has found itself arranged along the tasting room bar. We are here because we have missed the tour: my wife and I accidentally, having thought it was scheduled to begin

A Journey Into Thailand’s Separatist South, Part Four: Escaping Thailand’s Violent Separatist South

Hat Yai is what Sungai Kolok wants to be: an actual den of sin and iniquity. It oozes sex, which runs along its gutters like gunk, clogging them in the rain. The latter hasn’t stopped yet, and won’t before I

A Journey into Thailand’s Separatist South, Part Three: In the Eye of the Storm of the Muslim Rebellion

The Pattani bus stand is a little out of town, swathed in greenery, which trembles slightly on the breeze, seemingly excited by the prospect of rain. I take a motorcycle taxi into the center of town, hanging off the back

A Journey into Thailand’s Separatist South, Part Two: Inside the Border’s Violent Den of Sin

The Cityline bus from Kota Bharu takes an hour and a half to cover fifty kilometers and stops with a start fifty meters from the border. Rantau Panjang is alive with activity characteristic of border towns the world over: roadside

A Journey into Thailand’s Separatist South, Part One: A Quest for Booze in the Land of Sharia Law

This story begins in Malaysia. It begins in Malaysia, in Kota Bharu, the capital of the north-eastern state of Kelantan, on a dusty train platform at the edge of the city, not far from the river, which leads to the

You must remember this: Myth-making in Morocco

In 1969, Jimi Hendrix visited Essaouira, Morocco, a blue-and-white-washed village on the country’s Atlantic coast. Tales have been told of his visit ever since: that he ate here and stayed there, that he nearly bought the nearby town of Diabat,

Gibraltar suffers an identity crisis as Brexit breakup looms

If it weren’t for the flags, and perhaps the bored-looking woman waving me through from behind plexiglass, I’m not sure I would have been able to tell you at what point I left Spain behind me. The border between La

Watching home unravel from abroad

People often ask me about Australia. It doesn’t matter where I happen to be—Vietnam, India, Morocco, South Africa—there seems to be no end of interest in the massive but tiny country that Paul Keating once memorably described as “the arse-end