I must confess that I am a rather boring traveller. I don't have the travel bug, neither am I an enthusiastic tourist. I don't book city tours nor do I feel inclined to stand in line for hours for a museum ticket. I enthusiastically maintain that the best way to find out about a city or country is to Google it. Hallelujah... the country's history, its tourist spots complete with fascinating pictures are right there on your screen. So now I can get about my business which has taken me to the country in the first place. I must also confess that therefore my favourite part of travel is the part when it is over! This slight disdain to travel I suspect has also been reinforced by the tightening noose of security checks etc. around a traveller's neck which adds to the plight. Club this with my track record of never arriving at a destination with my baggage and you reach a situation where I groan at the thought of travel.

This was my state of mind when I embarked on my journey to Taipei, Taiwan. This was my first experience of travelling somewhere without a visa. No, I wasn't living life on the criminal edge as I patiently explained to the friendly and smartly dressed female immigration officer at Lahore airport. "You see ma'am; visa will be given on arrival there as Taiwan doesn't have a consulate in Pakistan since we support the one-China policy," I patiently tried to explain. On and on I went explaining the regional politics to the lady while all the time making a mental note to shoot an e-mail entitled "Please brief immigration staff on regional politics and its visa implications" to the FIA. The lady officer was genuinely concerned about my well being. After all here was a young lady travelling all alone to a country which has no presence in Pakistan without a visa. Yes the officer was concerned but finally was convinced by my sheer optimism that I will be allowed to enter and not put on the next flight home. I did however sign a paper stating that I am travelling at my own risk. I still do not fully appreciate as to whose risk I would have been travelling if I had not signed the paper but I digress.

I embarked a Thai Airways flight which would take me to Taipei via Bangkok. The plane was full of desis who were going to Bangkok but there were also a handful of people who were on their way to Taiwan. Most of them with the exception of yours truly of course, were in the computer business. Taipei can be loosely labelled as the software capital of the region with high connectivity, and affordable computer hardware and software. I soon found that verified by practical evidence too, as people on the streets of Taipei are wired. There are Wi Fi spots all over town... even at street intersections for God forbid you are not connected to the World Wide Web for even a minute. The scene on Taipei streets reminded me of an advertisement of a software firm which states 'We've got solutions. For the chairman of the board to the baby on board.' Mind you I am not talking about i-mates and blueberries, I am talking about small notebooks being carried around on Taipei streets .I have never seen anything like this anywhere.

Pakistanis too travel regularly to Taipei to pick up second-hand gadgets. Second-hand computers, televisions, mobile phones can all be bought from the streets of Taipei. After chatting with fellow travellers (since the on board entertainment of Thai Airways was not up to the mark) I landed at the large glistening all chrome airport at Taipei. Most fellow travellers at the airport were European with small suitcases, unlike what you see in Dubai.

Speaking of suitcases and significant events in life, mine was at Taipei. The event which initially left me stunned and than served to change my perspective on travelling and prompted me to enjoy, and explore Taipei. The arrival of my suitcase. For the first time in my ten years of being a frequent traveller, my suitcase arrived which meant I had clean clothes, my lens solution and my own toothbrush. Having your own toothbrush instantly puts you in a touristy I-will-explore-the-city mood.

And explore I did, for Taipei has a lot to offer. It presently has the world's highest building, Taiwan 101. Soaring to a dizzying height of 1,671 feet it has -- yes you guessed it -- 101 floors, with an observation deck at the 91st floor. What is slightly dizzying is that the elevator takes you up in about two and a half minutes which turns out to be a bit unsettling for those with either weak stomachs or who've had too much to eat! You can get to the observation deck for a fee which is slightly on the high side but is definitely worth it if one wishes to go to the top of the world's highest building. What was slightly disconcerting to me was that there was almost no security. I felt slightly uncomfortable given that I was at the world's highest building in September without any security!

Taipei is also famous for its night markets. Night markets are like the Sunday bazaars we have here. There are all sorts of products, from shoes to Chinese tension reducing bells, Chinese artefacts, books on ancient Chinese medicine, clothes, of course electronics (no market in Taipei can be complete without these), vegetables, dried prawns (Taipei's specialty) etc. The people are interesting everywhere but especially so at Taipei's night markets .For this is where you see the common man -- not necessarily poor. I saw people alighting from BMWs at the night market, sipping coconut juice while bargaining. That's another thing that I actually discovered I enjoyed at Taipei. Bargaining. I've never been a bargainer but at Taipei whether it's at the mall or the night market one has to bargain. They expect you to. If you're into prawns, noodles, and clams than Taipei is the place for you. The prawns impress even a prawn connoisseur like my Burmese friend living in Bangkok.

Another thing that the people expect you to do is share their love for Karaoke. I have not met such avid fans of Karaoke anywhere else. Malaysians are also into Karaoke and will dance well into the night at a Karaoke bar, followed by South Koreans of course but in my experience the Taiwanese are world leaders in Karaoke. Whether it's a frail old lady, a yuppie lad or a suited businesswoman, when a mike is handed to them, it's party time! The Karaoke bars cater to all economic groups thus enabling everyone to rock and roll.

Taipei is relatively cheap, and transport is comfortable; you can take a day pass on the bus for about US $2. Affordable hotels can also be found easily; a hotel that is a landmark of the city is the Grand Hotel. The exterior is authentic Chinese red and gold, which is spectacular, but these colours have also been used for the rooms. Maybe it's just me but who would like to wake up in the morning in a red and gold room? Plus the rooms, excluding the executive rooms, don't have any windows. The executive rooms have all beautiful balconies. The hotel is among Taipei's tourist attractions because of its architecture.

As I packed my bags to fly out of Taipei I recalled my impressions of the city when I first visited it in 2003. My impressions then could have been summarized in two words: concrete jungle. For Taipei is not very green. But now after having actually roamed the streets, scaled the heights (Taipei 101), and rummaged around in the night markets, I have again just two words for Taipei and its warm people: thank you.

The night was getting darker as we drove on the endless motorway from London to Bristol around midnight. The noise of the car engine was drowned by melodic numbers on some radio channel, and I managed to stay awake after a long flight. My cousin Usaed had driven from Bristol; about120 miles from London, to pick me from Heathrow airport.

England does to me what an old romantic song does to lovers, it instantly transports you to a realm of lyrical tranquillity. In my case, the reason being that as an avid student of English literature about 15 years ago, the love poems of John Donne and William Wordsworth and all these places where the characters of classic literature lived, were all coming to life. The names in my memory were taking on concrete shape: Avon, Cardiff, Wales, Blackpool, Liverpool, Windermere, Stratford-on-Avon, the list was endless.

An hour later we entered Bristol; silent, sleepy and mysterious, a strange eeriness and unique architectural elegance captured my attention. After spending a couple of days in Bristol I found it to be a truly vibrant city with theatres, the Downs, its university, wonderful squares and the magnificent suspension bridge across the River Avon as it wound into the heart of the city. Its waterways and beautiful countryside make it a city that will remain in my heart forever. It was small enough to explore easily, big enough to entertain handsomely with superb restaurants, choice of theatres and fabulous shopping. Bristol is a city of variety; ancient buildings set against imaginative modern civic development, and I found it to be one of Britain's best kept secrets. It's an old city with a modern outlook with centuries of history waiting to be explored.

The Lake District is famous for its stunning scenery, abundant wildlife and cultural heritage. My maiden introduction to the Lake District was Wordsworth's poem Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the banks of the Wye. As we got off the motorway and onto the meandering road amid rolling lush green hills I noticed a host of grayish dots moving across the landscape. A closer look revealed that they were sheep.

Lake District's clear lakes, tarns and rivers also have significance for their range of habitat, and various species of fish such as vendace, charr, crayfish and schelly. The landscape of the area reflects the long history of settlement: there have been people in the Lake District since the end of the last ice age. Many traces of prehistoric and medieval field systems exist. Significant archaeological monuments include stone circles, Roman-era roads and forts, and charcoal blast furnaces. Local materials, including types of slate, are a link between contrasting styles of architecture. Dry stone walls and hedgerows form a visual and historic link between settlement and countryside.

After a couple of days and a couple of hundred miles down the road I realised that humans love the places which exist in their minds; they are more attractive than those which have been seen and touched by us.