Cultures, food, heritage and the people who give a place its soul - across Africa, the Middle East and Asia, in the spirit of the old Silk Road.
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New dispatches from the road, roughly once a month. No noise.
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Hi, I'm Iréné
Rwandan by origin, raised in Brussels, I've spent my life moving between worlds - and I've turned that in-between into a way of travelling. I go looking for the markets, kitchens, languages and traditions that a guidebook skips, and I write them down here.
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The charcoal is lit before anything else. Someone sets a low brazier down on the floor, feeds it, and waits for the coals to settle into an even orange. Nothing about the next three hours will be hurried, and that is the first thing to understand about buna. Buna is the Amharic word for coffee.…
Read moreAn Ambassador's Astonishment During the 17th century, Sir Thomas Roe — one of the most successful and well-traveled English diplomats of his era, and the first official English ambassador to India — wrote to Charles I from Agra about the Mughal empire, which was not only known for its wealth and military strength, but also…
Read moreHow Dubai Replaced Geneva as the Vital Node of the Modern Energy Silk Road For decades, the lakeside city of Geneva was home to many of the traders who sold Russia’s oil to consumers around the world. But since Switzerland joined the embargo imposed on Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine, much of that trade…
Read moreA small Swahili town on the coast, the Indian Ocean to its right, where Islam and Christianity live side by side - peacefully, without fuss. Few people, much calm: a place for anyone in search of a certain serenity.
Inland lies Arabuko-Sokoke, the largest coastal forest in East Africa, home to rare residents - the Clarke's weaver, the Sokoke scops owl, the golden-rumped sengi.
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