Neill

Favourite places

Nearly anywhere underwater. I am a big fan of South East Asia both for the diving and the culture and am slightly obsessed with Indonesia where I plan to go again and again as there is so much to explore. The Middle East also fascinates me and having lived in Egypt for some time, the culture is in my blood. And then of course there is India, where my father is from, and where much of my family still live.

Travel things I want to do before I die

A lot of these revolve around water such as diving the sardine run in South Africa, or ice diving in Antarctica, or snorkelling with humpbacks in the Caribbean (the list could go on!). On land an ambition of mine is to one day live in India long enough for me to learn Bengali though I’m not sure when I will have time.

Best moments

Diving in an extinct volcano at dawn in the Galapagos with just one other person was pretty special as was snorkelling with seals and penguins. Sitting on a beach with my wife, Milly, in southern Goa watching dolphins jumping at sunset.

Worst moments

Crashing a motorbike on a dirt road in the Philippines while wearing shorts and flip flops and taking two months to recover is probably top of the list. Closely followed by the time I was travelling with my father and sister in Ladakh, northern India early one March, when I stubbornly forced upon them a trip over the third highest road in the world in a jeep without 4×4 or chains on the wheels only to find that a jeep like that doesn’t cope well when it snows. We were stranded at the top in the dark at over 17,000 feet and had to (almost literally) slide back down while my sister cried constantly and I had to keep getting out to push the jeep out of the snow in rarified air!

Strangest trip

Inter-railing with a friend aged 18, trying to do too much in too little time and ending up in Tangiers, Morocco exhausted and slightly afraid. Our first experience right off the boat was to be led by a new ‘friend’ to a carpet shop where the owner pulled out a knife to show us his indestructible carpet. Only one of drank the peppermint tea in case it was poisoned so the other could run for help. After that we ate some eggs with yolks that were more green than yellow, stayed the night on a campsite with a pool the colour of wee and went straight back to Spain. I have since been back to Morocco and loved it.