Slideshows

Gill Suttle MA (Oxon), FRGS

The following last for about an hour, or as requested. Slides can be varied to suit the interest of a particular audience - e.g. horses, history, travel in general. Fee is by arrangement, and travel expenses at current Inland Revenue rates.

I bring my travel books for sale. Futher information on the slideshows and extracts from the books are available via the links below.

Other requirements are a spare projector in case of breakdown (this is an absolute essential), a screen and a table for book display.

I can usually be available at short notice in the event of cancellation by other speakers.

 

STEPPE by STEPPE: Travels in Mongolia

A journey in Mongolia a few years after the fall of Communism. A look at the emergence of a new state and its relationship with the old, including the National Festival of Wrestling, Archery and Horse-Racing; travels by truck, jeep and horse to meet the Reindeer People of Mongolia's far north; a visit to the re-introduction site of the Przewalski Horse, extinct in the wild for a quarter-century; and the resurgence of Buddhism, the former national religion of Mongolia.

 

 

CELESTIAL HORSES: Travels in Turkestan

Central Asia through a camera lens, re-inventing itself after Independence from the Soviet Union. A journey around the great Silk Road cities of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. The present-day role of the Turcoman Horse - Akhal-Teke and other strains - and the story of one special horse; his Silk Road journey from Nisa to Merv, his subsequent starvation and rescue, and his "Thank you": an epic fund-raising marathon for medical research.

A unique glimpse of Central Asia in the brief "window" between the collapse of totalitarianism and the new strait-jacket of dictator-led states.

 

 

IRON ROAD TO SAMARKAND:
A Trans-Caspian Journey

Across the Caspian Sea into Central Asia, following the Trans-Caspian railway via ancient Silk Road cities to the fabled capital of Tamerlane's empire: a journey undertaken by few Europeans in the last century.

 

 

SCORCHED EARTH:
Bedouin of the Syrian Desert

On and around the Hamad, a plateau which is part of the Badiat ash-Sham (Syrian Desert), bedouin of the Bani Khaled farm dairy sheep to produce cheese. This is the record of a journey starting from Palmyra and crossing the Hamad to the Jordanian border, including a period spent living with the bedouin. It follows the fortunes of the Bani Khaled through the springs of two years, during which time terrible drought has come to threaten their entire way of life.

 

 

RIVER, MOUNTAIN and DESERT:
A Syrian Journey

A journey on horseback through the rich and varied landscapes of Syria: starting in the Orontes Valley, with its lush cornfields, Roman water wheels and Crusader/Arab Castles; through the coastal mountain range of stone walls, terraces and Mediterranean-type villages; and finally the long road south through the fringes of the Syrian Desert , past the Christian villages around Ma'aloula (where Aramaic is still spoken) and down to Damascus, the world's oldest continuously inhabited city. The companionship of an Arab stallion and the generous hospitality of a people for whom the law of the desert still holds strong.

More details of books and slideshows are available here:

Celestial Horses: Travels in Turkmenistan
See also Black Sands and Celestial Horses   Tracks over Turkestan
(book published by Scimitar Press)

Between the Desert and the Deep Blue Sea
(Published by The Long Riders' Guild Press: www.HorseTravelBooks.com).

 

Gill Suttle  Tel/fax 01600 890730

http://www.gillsuttle.co.uk/

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