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From Our Own Correspondent: Travelling Woes

Travelling woes: it can be hard to get around...

18/01/2014

Travelling Woes

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Travelling Woes

Correspondents brave the pitfalls of travel, from Burma to Vietnam, Greenland to Israel

Correspondents from around the world brave the pitfalls of travel, in Burma/Myanmar, Egypt, Vietnam, Greenland, the then Soviet Union and Israel.

Foreign correspondents travel for their job, and going on assignment can involve anything from flying to far-flung places, driving in dense traffic, or even just trying to cross the road. All that is not as easy as it sounds. Becky Palmstrom sweats as she learns to drive in an old taxi in Burma, or Myanmar as it is also known. Christian Fraser braves four-lane traffic on two-lane roads in Cairo. David Hargreaves tries the locals' hair-raising technique to walk across six lanes of roaring motorcycles in Vietnam. And, James Fletcher finds it takes five days to board his plane home from Greenland. 

In the Soviet Union back in 1974, Philip Short struggled with the quirks of Communist planning that included hotel lifts stopping at 11pm, or bath water being heated only on Fridays. And, also in the early 1970s, Michael Elkins found it impossible to engage a surly petrol station attendant in polite conversation in Israel. 

(Photo: Helicopter flying in Greenland)

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