Two miles high, actually. Lhasa is 3,700 metres above sea level which is, I think, there or thereabouts.

“Prohibition leads the room the tablewares”, or so the sign prominently displayed in the roof-top restaurant of our Lhasa hostel warns. At least I think it’s a warning.

Julia and I have often been amused by the standard of English displayed in some of the signs we’ve seen on our trip but China seems to be in most need of a sign consultant. This is despite the fact that the Chinese government is putting great emphasis upon its population learning the language and, since arriving here, every second native speaker (and some non-natives) we’ve met have been making their livings teaching English. And TEFL isn’t even an issue. Julia even tried her hand at it – exchanging English for Chinese lessons with Wendy, a woman we met in a park in Guangzhou.

During our recent fabulous cruise through the Three Gorges on the Yangtze River, the children and I (Julia has returned home to see her sick father) met two English sisters - Rachael and Laura - who had just spent the previous six months teaching their mother tongue in Beijing. We shared table 11 for meals and had a laugh about some of the English signs that we’d each seen in China and elsewhere. They told us there was a major effort underway in Beijing to replace all the dodgy ones on display before the Olympics. That message hasn’t made it to Tibet if the communications policy of the Phuntsok Khasang International Hostel in Lhasa is anything to go by. Although marketed as an “international” hostel, the people in reception seem unaware of Beijing’s policy and, neither they nor the usual signs that are displayed about the place, have much in the way of English to inform what they’re about. At least the restaurant has provided English translations.

 

Fancy some “Harsh Potato Silk”? Or maybe some, dangerously sounding, “The Onion Explodes the Mutton”? Or how about some “Explodes Fries the Yak Meat”. Could they be some sort of Tibetan IED’s? Or what about some “Red-Roast Hairtail”, some” Burns the Chicken on Rice” or some “Burns the Pig to Set the Table on Rice”? Or maybe you’d like to try “The Onion Pig Digs Up” or “The Iron Digs up the Chicken Leg” (Tom and I have tried it. It’s delicious) or simply some “Explodes the Chicken Leg”? Or even “The Black Mustard Honey Chicken Digs Up” or some “Double Colour Bottom of the Pot”? Hungry anybody?

Despite the warning that the western breakfast included Ham Intestines, I took the chance and was relieved that it really was some half decent rashers (which have been few and far between on this trip).But they were only half decent.

China has been an eye-opener in many ways. If we’d expected dull, grey post (or even mid)-communism we got gaudy, loud neo-consumerism. Most cities, other than Lhasa which is small and low rise, have been the same, same (but different) and could have been any western metropolis. Hong Kong is – well Hong Kong - and is a pretty unique city worldwide and we really enjoyed our time there. Its love affair with capitalism has not been dented by Beijing’s take-over and we were struck by its Las Vegas style lights on the evening of our first arrival from Laung Prabang in Laos. We were also surprised at how little English the people there spoke.

Hong Kong’s highlights were the Art, the Science and Technology and the History of Hong Kong Museums, (the space Museum was a bit of a disappointment) and, of course, Disneyland. That could have been a bit of a washout itself ( we had to sploosh through an incredible downpour when there) had the crowds not been thin on the ground so that we didn’t have to queue at all and got to go on many of the rides a number of times. If you go, don’t miss the shows which were very professional although Samba’s Story outshone The Golden Mickeys by a golden mile.

The lowlight of Hong Kong was definitely our excursion to Gold Coast City, a time-share resort that we got suckered into visiting and on our last day and all. Say no more. We put the experience down to learning and another step in the healthy scepticisation of the children which has been proceeding apace during this trip

I must confess that I was concerned about spending two and a half months in China – a result of a visa miscalculation. Originally, our main motivation in coming here was to see the solar eclipse on August 1^st although, later we decided to see a few Olympic events, seeing as we’re here anyway. But we had wanted to spend more time around south East Asia and visit Cambodia and Vietnam feeling, as we did, that China would be – well - dull, grey and post communist. The reality has been so different and we have felt as at home here as we have felt anywhere given that we’re nowhere near home.

China is a place of contrasts which is really on the move and we have experienced such a mix of entertainments and spectacles here that it’s hard to know where to begin. We have also met many more Irish people here that we’ve met on the rest of our entire trip

The amazing circus in Guangzhou (see Paul’s blog on the subject) and the very imaginative light and water show in Yangshuo are two superbly memorable events which are vying for supremacy in our minds. The designer of that latter show has been commissioned to create the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics and, if Yangshuo is anything to go by, everybody should be glued to their tellies on August 8^th. The Chinese really know how to stage a show.

During that show, Julia and I had one of those same, same moments that, I think, people who have spent much time together must often have. So overawed by yet another spectacle was I that I leaned over to her to say that we should book to see a few shows while we’re in Beijing. She was just thinking the same thing. We’ve seen a few advertised and I’m really looking forward to seeing some.

 

We also saw a less spectacular but just as interesting performance in Lijiang when we went to see an amazing traditional Naxi orchestra where most of the instruments were over 100 years old and many of the forty or so members were not much younger.

There is much else about China that has fascinated us; the practicality of the people, the police presence which doesn’t seem to bother anybody or inhibit their activities (mostly concerned with making money), the building going on everywhere, their transport methods and their energy. Everyone is friendly. We meet people everywhere who say hello and who want to speak to us so they can practice their English.

The Chinese (despite their sign writers having such a long way to go) are totally into getting on in life and, to them, learning English is an essential part of that. There are things called English corners in every major city where Chinese students meet and talk to native speakers to improve their language skills. On the 15^th July three teenager students who wanted to speak English approached us in a square adjoining the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa. They explained, in pretty good English, that they were students in a local English language college and, as part of their home-work, they had to come to the square and seek out some unsuspecting native speakers to talk to. I assigned one child to each of them and for almost an hour they chatted embarrassingly.

Wherever we have travelled, our children have been tourist attractions in themselves with people coming up to shake their hands, hug them or have their photographs taken with them. They always give rise to smiles and we are regularly congratulated, by gesture, upon their good looks. I also wish to add (proud father and all as I am) that any of the, mostly adults, that have gotten to know them as we have stayed in hostels have also commented on their fun loving nature, their intelligence and their good manners (Julia will tell you that the latter trait has nothing to do with me). The hostel we are in at the moment is no exception. As far as I can make out, the Chinese think that a family with three children is a happy family. I’m saying nothing.

The square where we met the girls is a really lovely place and is surrounded by market stalls where the produce is mostly very good and quite reasonable – if you bargain.

Even though our first market was the Russian one in Tallin, our first real lessons in market awareness started in Morocco where the markets (they call them souks) are places that are warrens of covered alleys so vast that you could easily get lost. And we did. They have everything under the sun for sale and a line in hassle to match it. But they do have some great stuff. Never express an interest in anything and never make an offer. That was the first lesson. But we really enjoyed it.

The market in Cairo was much the same and we’ll always joke about that little boy who ran up to us and said “Don’t waste your time. I have exactly what you’re looking for.” It was only when we got to Thailand that we began to get seriously drawn in. Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai have great markets and we bought all around us. Laung Prabang in Laos was even better with some really nice artisan stuff but China has been different. The only city market we visited in China was in Kunming and it was strictly a Chinese utilitarian market; second hand tools, bits of engines, catering utensils, unfashionable garments, mobile phones, fake designer handbags. I enjoyed it and was even dragged back there by, of all people, Julia (see our Tallin blogs) who regretted not buying yet another badly needed fake designer handbag. We did see the tourist stuff in Yangshuo and Lijiang but Lhasa, to me, has the best market stalls yet in (or around, for the PC among you) China. Yes it’s TT (our code for tourist tat) but it’s pretty good TT and we’ve bought some stuff.

I was looking at a stall and was curious about an item that looked like a pipe made from a human shin bone. It was beautifully engraved and had its extremities plated in silver. It turns out that it’s a sort of horn as I learnt by, coincidentally, thumbing through a book in the hostel. Anyway I picked it up and held it up to my own shin to ask the stall holder, by gesture, whether this could possibly be a human shin bone. Oh yes, he assured me and immediately asked whether I wanted a skull. I looked to where he was pointing to realise that he had the tops of several; human skulls on sale, all also beautifully engraved and one also plated in silver. With that, Tom asked whether we could move away from that stall which we promptly did. Since then we’ve noticed loads of beautifully engraved human skulls on sale and several more shin bone horns. What’s the story?

Also worth a bit of comparison with the rest of the world are China’s taxi drivers. They are the best we’ve experienced. On the scale of cabbies that has the homicidal maniacs of Cairo with their death traps of rusting vehicles at one end through the rip-off, shop-visiting conveyors of India, the cabbies of China are very definitely at the other extreme. They are numerous, cheap, well regulated and polite.

In fairness to Cairo’s cabbies they possess incredible skill and have nerves of steel. Even driving one of their junkers requires bravery and should require an engineering degree (just like my first Mini). But bravery is not the only thing that’s required to be a taxi driver in Cairo. Their ability, not only to see where the gap is but to judge where it will be in five seconds (as 25 other cabbies also make the same calculation) and then to accelerate, chicken-playing like to that spot requires a Hawkins’s-like understanding of quantum mechanics. We had thought the cabbies of Marrakech scary but......

India was different. Some were great but we met a classic example of a rip-off artist when we had just arrived in Mumbai. We got a driver who quoted 750 Rupees to bring us to our hotel and who wouldn’t turn on his meter (saying it was broken. It was a brand new car and there was no way it was broken) which led to a standoff with J saying she’d only pay what was on the meter when we arrived, us refusing to get out of the halted taxi till he found us another one, him being told to move on by airport security and us eventually paying one third his price (including tip) for an admittedly scorching non air-con trip to our hotel.

But all that is just a fond, bad memory. Maybe they’re just afraid of the authorities here but in China the system works, the drivers are friendly and fair and the cabs prominently display signs telling you where to complain if anything’s amiss. In Kunming they even had a very imaginative way of helping you complain (or at least remembering the identity of the driver, just in case you wanted to. Again the Chinese creativity).

Besides the usual photo and number etc in English and Chinese, they each had a simple identification method. Some taxis had a picture of a panda with a number, another might be a donkey with a number and yet another, a pig. Each sign said “do you know what this (animal) is?” So if you needed to complain you only had to remember Panda 26 or Pig 17 or whatever. It was also in Kunming that we saw cages in cabs for the first time, presumably to protect the drivers from attack. I’m slightly sad about that. It was also in kunming that we had our first experience of a driver who wouldn’t accept payment (the second was today – 17^th July when the driver accidentally drove over Catherine’s foot. No damage, thankfully, but some tears).

Our Kunming hero was to take us to the train station (Julia had shown him the tickets) but we became concerned as he appeared to have passed the vicinity where I knew the station to be. Anyway another ten minutes later and I again showed him the ticket (verbal communication was not an option) and he nodded assuringly. But when he began to drive up the ramp at the airport and (panicking) I showed him the ticket again, it all sunk in and we all began to panic. He was obviously very worried on the way back until I showed him the departure time on the ticket and he relaxed a bit. He got us there on time (in a downpour but we can’t blame him for that) and we just joined the end of the queue as it moved off on to the train, all the while Julia giving us one of her speeches about always leaving plenty of time for appointments. Phew!

We travelled to Chongqing by overnight train to catch our Yangtze cruise and, for the first time in China, had to share our compartment with another soul. It was also the oldest train we’d been on in China yet but, even so, was “perfectly adequate”.

China’s trains are the best we’ve travelled on, followed by Thailand’s and then Egypt’s. India’s are definitely at the bottom of the list. If only they would just clean them. When there, I was reading about efficiencies being introduced into the system whereby the average turn-around time for a train was now five days instead of eight. Michael O’Leary (Ryanair) would be horrified. But why couldn’t they just clean them in that time. We definitely travelled on trains in India that hadn’t been cleaned in years. Thailand was different. As we left the train after our only Thai railway journey – from Bangkok to Chiang Mai - they were already washing down the its outside.

In China we have always travelled overnight and we’ve always picked hard sleeper class. As a treat, we’re descending from Tibet in a soft sleeper cabin. But hard sleeper is great. And, by the way, the beds not hard at all. They are three tier, with six to one enclosure and a corridor down one side of the carriage, not unlike but very different from three tier AC in India. The most basic difference is that the trains are really clean and each compartment is supplied with a thermos of boiling water (which can be refilled from a boiler in each carriage), a litter bin, a small table with table cloth and a litter bin, the latter two being replaced and emptied regularly. The other great thing is that, whilst the luggage storage areas are over the corridors, they are accessed from within the sleeper compartments. The corridors also have small tables with fold down seats and are carpeted while each carriage has two toilets and a two sink washing station. The Chinese are meticulous about hygiene. There are also proper dining cars, although as these are some of the few places where passengers can smoke, they are sometimes a little smoky.

The other thing the Chinese railways do is that they require all passengers to wait in a waiting room for their train until they are called. So the platforms are spotless and, unlike the craziness in India, anybody who is on a platform as you are walking to your carriage is also getting the train so there’s no confusion, no crowds trying to pass in opposite directions, no hustle and bustle and no chance of the train leaving without you. Tomorrow morning, we take what is the newest and is said to be one of the world’s most amazing train journeys as we descend, over 36 hours, from the heights of Tibet’s Lhasa to China’s ancient capital, Xi’an. The line has only been open since 2006 and we are told that this train is even more super-duper than the ones we’re used to. So whether or not the railway is an instrument of the People’s Republic’s imperialism , we’re all looking forward to the trip, if slightly guiltily.

China’s natural spectacles have been as awe-inspiring as their performances. On our way from Guilin to Yangshuo on a four hour boat journey down the Lei River we savoured some of the country’s famous Karst landscapes with these improbably steep limestone hills emerging out of the ground everywhere like giant zombies’ heads might do in some B horror movie. You may have seen these types of landscape represented on some types of Chinese crockery and thought What imagination, what artistic license. Well, they are very real as they tower in all their majestic beauty although how they formed, geologically, is still a mystery to our household – even with its beautiful geologist – so what hope have you got. We later hired bicycles and cycled through the muddy lanes of this dream-like countryside to our guide’s village where the children and I got a tour of the local farmland as Julia stood watch over the bikes.

From our base in Lijiang, we undertook a three day trek into and along the cliffs that form one side of the *(insert appropriate superlative) Tiger Leaping Gorge in the mid reaches of the Yangtze River, staying in two guesthouses - The Halfway and the Naxi Family – along the way; a brilliant and forever memorable experience. Then there was the three-night, two day cruise from Chongqing to Yichang through the Three Gorges in the lower part of the river. Alas, Julia had left us by then but the four of us had a fabulous time on a really lovely river-boat, The Cn Victoria, which we shared with about 100 Taiwanese, the two English sisters mentioned earlier and a Korean couple. The trip was * and the staff * and the gorges, although diminished by the effects of the world’s biggest dam which is being completed down river, were still spectacular. The backup for the dam is over 150Km long and the water has risen by 80 metres so far with another 10 to go. The gorges must have been spectacularly spectacular and * before the dam was built. It’s building involved moving whole river-side cities up the slopes including the removal of hundreds of millions of tons of topsoil uphill to create terraced farmland where only rocks existed before. On the last evening we descended through four Loughs at the dam which were each 120 X 32 metres in dimension and which could accommodate many ships. There is a ship-lift under construction which will be a box 120 X 18 metres into which single ships will be able to drive to be lifted or lowered in a shorter time than the three hours that the, eventual, five Lough system will take to negotiate.

But the natural spectacles of China were outdone by the awe-inspiring man-made landscape which is the paddy fields of The Dragon’s Backbone mountain of Guangxi near Yangshuo. These ancient paddy-fields, carved out of mountains by generations of farmers are so aesthetically beautiful and technically marvellous that we loved them and would love to return. It’s not only the fact that the beauty of the water-filled fields was created by levelling and building terraces on such steep slopes, it is the also how they are irrigated with little streams and ponds everywhere so that the farmers can fill one field, some of them tiny, and empty others at will all from the captured rainfall

And we saw all of this before ascending to the top of the world, Tibet. Although we have been unable to venture far outside Lhasa, we have really enjoyed our stay here. The Chinese government only announced that the “autonomous region” would open again to foreigners from the 25^th June, on the previous day. We were quick off the mark and arranged our tickets and pass within two days. We must have been among the first of the foreigners to arrive – even though that wasn’t till the 11^th July as we saw only one other European wandering around in our initial days - although we’ve been joined by more in the last week.

Lhasa is small, low-rise and friendly but the air is too thin. Here we have visited The Potala Palace, a number of Buddhist temples (one where, this morning, we sat and watched the monks chanting), a sacred lake and the Tibetan museum (giving Chinese version of its history) as well as wandering the backs streets and sharing tea and some unknown food items with locals. Everywhere we have been made to feel welcome and, although the signs of the riots earlier this year - broken plate glass doors everywhere, new steel shutters, burnt out buildings - are everywhere to be seen, we have never felt threatened or in danger. There are soldiers and police everywhere, not doing anything as such; just a presence.

All of this is China so far, and we haven’t even seen the terracotta warriors and ancient city of Xi’an, the Silk Road, the solar eclipse in Hami, or all Beijing’s sights; the Forbidden City, The Great Wall, the Olympics. All of this has yet to come before, tired and elated, possessed and depressed, we return home on august the 19^th. See you then.

We started our trek at Tina’s Guesthouse then we walked to Halfway Guesthouse.  It was a 4-hour trek to Halfway where we saw many lizards, horses and large brown bulls.  Many people were staying at the Halfway and we played with some nice Chinese who were interested in hide-and-go-seek chasing.  We had a very nice time with them.

The next day, we started our walk to Naxi Family Guesthouse.  The trek to there was 6 hours!  On the way we passed many travelers coming the other way.  We stopped for a bite near the Naxi Guesthouse, then we trekked on to the Naxi Guesthouse where we stopped for the night.  The next day, we trekked for only 1 ½ hours to the village where we got a bus to the Panba Guesthouse. The trek was nice.

Tom

We trekked in Tiger Leaping Gorge for 3 days.  The landscape was magnificent and the trek was a great experience.  Altogether we walked for 12 hours – 3 hours on the first day, 7 on the 2^nd and 2 on the 3^rd.  On the first day, we got a bus for 3 hours to a place called Tina’s Guest House – the ending place for 90% of the trekkers – and started from there.  We walked up the mountain for about 30 minutes, but nothing too hard.

I think my best memory from that day was when we came across a path cut into the stone by the ancients.  We could see a line where the mountain across from us had been cut, but I didn’t expect our mountain to be cut.  Unfortunately, we saw no more of this on our mountain. 

When we reached our guesthouse, called the Halfway House, we met 3 kids.  Their names were: Tiger, Lily and Jimmy.  We played on a small toy, where one person would sit on a small metal seat and somebody else would push them until the person who was pushing would fall over, the person on the toy would fall off, or the person pushing would fall on top of the other person.  We played until it was time for bed.

The 2^nd day:  My best memories from this day were – Getting chocolate at the bottom of the 28 bends, a long and steep partt of the mountain, which takes 1 ½ hours to walk up and 30 minutes to walk down.  My 2^nd memory was when I saw two butterflies,  one was green but kept changing colours when its wings moved and the other was black and electric blue.  My 3^rd memory was when we got to the Naxi Guesthouse where we stayed the night.

The 3^rd day was short and easy but it had rained the night before and it was slippery.  Unmistakably my best memory from that day was getting into the nice comfy mini van and driving. Those 3 days were great fun and really good for people trying to see the real China, and get away from the hustle bustle of the city.  I recommend this trek if you are only coming to China for 2 weeks or so.  It is Yunnan Province, South West China.

Paul

On the 30^th June we went trekking to Tiger Leaping Gorge. We got a mini-bus to Tina’s Guesthouse and had lunch there. We climbed uphill from Tina’s until we reached a high rocky path. We walked for three and a half hours and looked at the wildlife. The plants are a lot like the plants in Ireland. We were walking the opposite way to most trekkers so we met lots of people on the way. We reached Half-Way Guesthouse at 4.30. We went for a walk in the village and met two pigs in a pen and we fed them grass. Later we met three Chinese kids and played chasing with them. In English their names were Tiger, Jimmy and Lilly. Then we had dinner and played with them again. Then we went to bed. There were lots of trekkers staying in the Halfway Guesthouse.

In the morning we said goodbye to the Chinese kids and started walking again. This day we walked for over seven hours and had our lunch in The Tea Horse Guesthouse Then we had to walk to the 28 bends which is the most famous part of the trek. It was a steep climb up for over two hours and then we came down the 28 bends which is a very steep descent. We met loads of people on the second day coming in the opposite direction who were all going to stay in the Halfway Guesthouse..

Tiger Leaping Gorge is a huge steep valley surrounded by high mountains with the Yangtzei river flowing through it. Along the way we saw lots of terraced fields growing corn and peanuts and some villages. On the second night we stayed in the Naxi Family Guesthouse. There were only two other people staying there. We played badminton and finished a game of elevenses that we had started the day before. Paul won. We went to bed and all slept very well

The next day we trekked for two hours and were picked up by a mini-bus and driven back to the Panba Guesthouse in Lijiang. The drive took about two hours and mum gave out to the lady driver for not driving safely. We were all tired when we got back and we watched a DVD, National Treasure 2.

Catherine

The shop attached to the Museum of Art in Hong Kong is lovely.  Full of books, prints and things unusual and lovely.  As well as the more common art gallery/museum tat - fridge magnets, mugs, notebooks and diaries.  But I was disappointed.  The children were buying lovely Chinese zodiac pictures.  Lovely simple watercolour prints.  Paul a pig, Catherine a rabbit (we got this wrong – she is actually a tiger.  Much more appropriate).  Tom – who is a rat – bought a dragon (he wants to furnish his bedroom dragon style when we go home).  I looked at the beautiful prints of the cockerel with subtle swooping circular tail feathers, the simple outline of the snake, the strong ox.– but there is no escaping the reality that I am a rat.  Je suis un rat.  The picture shows those cunning eyes, that spiteful mouth, that long ‘you can’t catch me’ tail.  I don’t buy it.  I am not just ready to face my inner rat.

I’m not too sure where my fear of rats has come from.  Despite playing in fields for most of my childhood, I hardly ever saw a rat.  But I think about rats a lot of the time.  On the beach, at a picnic, walking through a field; the same little slogan sings itself in my ear  “you’re never more than 9 feet away from a rat”.  Rat avoidance has influenced my garden design and my choice of pet for the children (guinea pigs have no tails).  I notice gaps under doors…and block them.  Once in Woodtown, Anto and I watched an injured rat making slow progress across our patio  “I wish I hadn’t seen that” I said.  “So do I” arsa Anto.

There were many things wrong with the neglected, elegantly faded house that we moved into in Booterstown in 1978.  The red kitchen ceiling which bled through coats and coats of grey undercoat and white paint. The basement full of paintpots and whisky bottles, large rooms divided into dark rabbit warrens, a jungle in the back garden, a high ‘forgotten house’ hedge in the front.  The back door didn’t close.

The house looks large – it’s a wide house, but shallow – but there are three bedrooms.  A girls dormitory (for the 5 girls), a boy’s dormitory (for 4 boys – Francis got a matchbox in the basement) and our parents room.  Asleep in the girl’s room one night shortly after we moved into the house, I hear something large, HUGE, scrabbling on the floorboards.  I flee sobbing into my parents room and Dad dispatches the – don’t think about it.  Next night, in bed, same scrabbling noise.  It’s come back.  This time I’m hysterical and I rush to Mum and Dad.  Dad goes to evict the intruder.  Mum minds me.  We have to move.  I can never sleep in that room again.  I can’t stop crying – deep sobs that I can still feel.  After a few minutes Dad comes back.  He’s got his grey Crombie.  He’s holding something.  He brings it nearer to me.  I am terrified and screaming.  He opens the coat – and there’s a cute hedgehog all curled up and terrified.  The back door got fixed pretty quickly after that.

I have tried to deal with my fear of rats in a logical way.  “If you are never more than 9 feet away from a rat, you may as well be in a nice place” is my usual thought.  Psychologists call this cognitive somethingoranother.  And, to a certain extent, it works.

And so, setting off on this trip, rats were big in my mind.  Would there be rats in the campsite we were going to stay in?  And India – would I be able to cope with ALL the rats.  My brother, Danny, decamped from his hotel in India when a rat came to visit – what if the same thing happens to us?  And the rat is between us and the door?

So – to the rat tally:  Outside the beautiful, clean, campsite in Orebro, Sweden I saw a rat cross the road – from one ditch to another.  I saw one rat at our funny little unmanned convention centre campsite in Riga.  In India I watched carefully.  The train from Agra to Varanasi was 3 hours late and there were rats a plenty in Agra train station, coming up out of a drain and running across to a dark place.  I also saw one rat at the train station in Puri.  I saw something running along a deserted lane in Jommu – but it was too dark to tell, and it could have been a small somethingelse.  There were some rats retrieving food from the park in Pondicherry and bringing it into the hedge.  None of the Indians batted an eyelid.  I forced myself to walk close to the hedge (as I was beating a retreat).

In Chiang Mai our riverside hostel had rats a plenty – Anthony has written about this.

Anthony and the kids have seen much more rats than me.  But there is a conspiracy of silence. Occasionally, I catch them whispering to each other, or pointing out something when my back is turned.  So although I am on the ‘qui vive?’ for rats, in fact, I seem to filter them out.

Until Guangzhou.  Guangzhou is a 2-hour train ride from Hong Kong.  A large commercial city built on a river, with oodles of neon lights.  Our hostel, The Riverside Hostel, was in a beautiful location.  Close to the ferry.  Beautifully lit  - a lovely place to walk at night.  A wonderful park lining the river designed for people to dally.  Benches, an array of playthings and keep-fit gizmos for adults and children – tough, iron replicas of things that would only see in a gym in Europe – cross-trainers, exercise bicycles, twisting machines, leg stretching machines…  Typical Chinese practicality.

The kids loved the hostel – a big place built in a square – it took us ages to get to our rooms.  The food was lousy but there were some young English guys and girls who are staying in the hostel long term and lent our kids their Nintendos and impressed them with their easy wit and funny stories.  These guys drank a lot of beer and ordered take-aways in the evening which they ate on the picnic tables outside.  Lots of space – a big dining room, large reception area, lots of couches to curl up on.  Very easy going.  People leave things around – books, laptops, used crockery/cutlery, the clothes that were on airing racks when we arrived, were still on those airing racks when we left a week later.   There is a sign saying ‘this is a hostel, not a budget hotel.  We are happy to help those who help themselves but we are not here to clean up after you’. I see the receptionist cleaning up the picnic table after the night before… loads of beer bottles, food wrappers, cigarette butts…

I’m glad I was with Anto when I saw the rat.  We were on our way downstairs and it was on its way up.  That shape, the teeth, the tail.  It had most likely come in through the open doors at the bottom on the stairs.  There were lots of open doors in this place – at the bottom of the stairs, in the easy couch area, the reception doors were always open, open doors at the back near the laundry.  Tom had noticed a mouse that morning, going under the door to the bedroom opposite ours.  We tell the receptionist about the rat.  She hesitates then tells us “we are trying to deal with this problem”.  She assures us that there are no rats upstairs.  We tell her about Tom’s ‘mouse’.  She turns to deal with some visitors.  I’m wondering how all these open doors, dirty dishes and fast food wrappers constitute ‘dealing with the problem’.  Having dealt with the visitors (human) she turns to us with an eyebrows-raised ‘is there anything else?’ look on her face.  There isn’t really.  We have two more nights in the Riverside.  Thorough searches are made before retiring and a towel is pressed even more firmly than normal into the rat flap.

The life we experience is, of course, largely a mirror of our internal selves.  We (I?) notice that in others which bothers me about myself.  I get angry with my kids for the things that I do wrong.  And Anthony should do more with my time.  I recognise my mother’s martyr.  And I’m always most critical of the actress playing MY part.  And so I must face up to my inner rat.  Cunning, devious, a survivor – and only ever 9 feet away – I might just need to hold that mirror up a bit closer.

 

(I assume that you know this is by J.)

 

We went to a chinese circus yesterday evening (June 12th 2008) and it was amazing!  There were all sorts of animals in the circus:  white tigers monkeys, dogs, horses, a hippopotamus, swans, doves, goats, bears, pelicans and pigs. The performers were also ranged:  acrobats, clowns, 3 ballerina-like women and all the people backstage dressed likke bumblebees.  There were lots of acts and the show lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes.  My 3 favourite acts were:

 

1) 4 guys in these 4 huge spinning wheels on a huge spinning frame.  They would climb on top of the wheel, under it and in it with no safety harness or net.  After a while, they produced ropes and started skipping on top of these wheels. Then one took out a rope about 1 metre long and jumped over it, the wheels still spinning.  Then out of nowhere, they produced small black bags and placed them over their heads and continued their acrobatics blindfold.  After about 5 minutes, they took off the bags and jumped off.

 

2) My 2nd favourite act was really cool, but it required no skill but lots of courage. there were about 8 people on a huge swing, all lit up, jumping off in nice shapes, when the swing got high enough.  They jumped into these huge sheets at the side of the stage and their lights went off.   Later on, they came on as acrobats.

 

3) This act came on near the start and, like the last one, it required no skill but lot of courage.  Loads of people jumped down from the ceiling with bunjee ropes on.  they had nice blue lights tied to their suits.

 

The stage was really cool, the best I've ever seen.  There wre really life like trees and a river around it.  In one of the acts they called someone up from the audience and pushed him in!  Overall, I think the performers added up to 130 people.

FEELING BETTER NOW, THANK YOU

If, as they say, a trouble shared is a trouble halved, then my recent fit of ennui (described in Blah Blah Blog) lies shattered in quarters on the floor.  But, as soon as I had written it I felt better.  10 minutes after I’d posted the blog, I picked up my email – including one from the principal of the childrens’ school (I had dreamed that she’d forgotten me).  Lots of good news coming from Dublin including my brother, Danny’s engagement to the beautiful Jacinta and a wedding planned for September 5^th. 

May 16^th.   We are in the town of Chiang Saen in the very north of Thailand.  We rented a car this morning and drove up here in a wonderful rainstorm which gave way to drier weather after a while. This is a two-street town – the main street and the street (parallel to it) which runs along the river.  Nothing to write home about.  Earlier, walking down the street, a group of men greeted us. They were sitting on the terrace outside an empty room – some kind of restaurant? - around a table full of crockery and glasses.  Mostly glasses.  (The Thais are divils for not clearing a plate or glass away until your meal is over.  You practically eat your ice-cream out of your soup bowl).

There was music playing and somebody was singing.  They beckoned us over and invited us to sit down.  A glass of weak whisky was pushed into Anthony’s hand – lots of ice, water and soda water.  I was offered – much easier for me to refuse – and a glass of water was pushed my way.  There was lots of nodding and smiling.  The singing was obviously karaoke – but where was the singer?  I scanned the empty room but no success.  Nobody on a stage, nobody standing up.  Then I noticed him sitting at the table, about 3 down from Anto.  Microophne in hand, crooning away.  And the microphone was passed up and down the table.  Sadly, they did not press us for a song as I was in the mood to give them a blast of ‘Nell Faherty’s Drake’ which the whole family can sing (but mostly doesn’t).

Our guesthouse is lovely – it’s a while since we’ve shared the same room but we have a beautiful room with wonderful views which is plenty big for five. We’re up one floor in a kind of annexe – a wonderful wide entrance hall with amazing teak elephant-shaped chairs. Their ‘saddle’ is the seat. Nice occasional furniture in the bedroom – wicker tables and chairs. A dainty dressing table.  And – like so many places in Thailand – beautiful wide teak floorboards.  Oh the wood in Thailand!   We peek into the bathroom – a good size with a bath!  This makes a welcome change from the wetrooms which we have got used to since we left our camper van behind. The wetroom is a small bathroom where the shower is close to the sink/toilet – and there’s no shower curtain.  Well designed – they are great – but badly designed, the drain running the wrong way, the toilet paper not covered...  We all mentally slide into a warm bath. Then we notice the floor of the bathroom.  It’s lined with stones. real stones. Big ones. Cobbles which crunch and slide and are difficult to walk on (even on the thoughtfully provided pair of flip flops).  It feels and sounds like Killiney Beach and suddenly the bathroom’s a whole lot less attractive.  None of us even had a shower.

Before this we spent May 13^th and 14^th trekking in the wonderful Northern Thai jungle.  What I will remember most about Thailand is how green and lush it is.  While there are exotic flowers everywhere (birds of paradise, orchids to name but a two) in a profusion of bright colours – orange, purple, crimson, mauve, pink, yellow – it is the foliage that has really taken my fancy.  Whether driving by a forest, walking along a street or trekking through the jungle, the leaves are so beautiful and so varied.  Coconut leaves - long and spiky – outlined against the sky.  Banana leaves – long, curly ribbons.  .  Other trees that I don’t know the name of … but the leaves – even the larger ones – are so elegant and delicate.. And 150 shades of green.  So the hours that we spent in the jungle, really stand out for me.

In our white, pinko-liberal, bleeding heart, middle-class, eco-friendly way, we have been agonizing over whether to visit hill tribes.  The travel and tour agencies all over Thailand scream “Bamboo rafting, Elephant rides, Jade Buddha, Gem factory, Long Neck”.  Only trouble is ‘Long Neck’ are real people – the Karen tribe where the women wear rings around their neck which push down their collar bones and appear to elongate their necks.  So… back come the questions – is it right to go and gawk?  Will an encounter with ‘Long Neck’ or any other tribal people be in any way meaningful – either for them or for us?  Who will get the money?  Does this tourist money encourage the continuation of a slightly barbaric practice (the women cannot remove the rings as their necks become weakened), or does it facilitate the continuation of a unique way of life?  Etc. Etc.   Anyway we found a tour provider which employs hill tribe guides and ensures that the money is shared in the village in a fair way (although we did hear different stories about how the money is shared.  One person told us that the money went into a ‘village bank’ from which villagers in need could draw.  Another told us that tourists were shared among different families so everybody had their turn of getting paid.  .You heard right.)

So, we were picked up at 9 am in a minibus by Kim (Karen tribe, Christian, male) and his student Big (Thai, male, religion not disclosed).  We were brought to the pier and were swept up river for about an hour in a long boat, sitting two abreast, the boat man expertly and seemingly unconsciously moving the boat from side to side of the river that he obviously knew all too well.  My first view of the Karen village was not promising.  20 chained elephants waiting for customers. 20 mahouts (elephant handlers) lying in a bamboo shelter, some smoking, some sleeping, waiting for customers.  And stalls – rows and rows of stalls. Some selling woven goods (made in the village) and some selling imported stuff.   

Anthony has described our trip and I don’t have much to add except to say that I think that the experience was good but not great. The trekking was wonderful.  The hilltribe bit – was good – but mostly because I enjoyed the company of our guides and the other tourist, which brings me to...

MEDIATED EXPERIENCE

Anyway, this brings me to something that has been on my mind for quite some time - mediated experience.  Who decides what your experience of something is?  As tourists, effectively, for one year there is an army of people who want to mediate our experience for us.  Michael Palin, in his book ‘From Pole to Pole’ in which he and a team travel from the North Pole to the South Pole along a particular line of longitude (can’t remember which but I know he went through Tallinn and Cairo)  travelling as much as possible by public transport; At one stage in the book, Palin says ‘but we (Palin and his crew) are travellers, not tourists’, meaning that there experience would be somehow different to that of the common tourist.  His underlying suggestion that his experience would be somehow more meaningful jarred with me..  My brother-in-law, Alan Kennedy lent Anthony a book called Culture Jam which is about the extent to which our experience of life is mediated (Mainly through the media, of course).   The book is good – if slightly over-written, but it struck a chord with me and probably would with anybody who has seen those ‘photo point’ signposts that appear in tourist-y places. They are designed to point out an interesting or beautiful place (well, somebody’s idea of an interesting or beautiful place), but tourists stand beside them and have their photo taken with the pole! 

And so on this trip, in Kashmir, Ahmed (aka Expensive and Glum) got the driver to stop the car where there was a gap in the trees and one could see beautiful countryside. But we couldn’t see it from the road where we were driving.  So what is that photo about?  Here is a beautiful piece of scenery that we couldn’t see until we drove over to see it.  We just drove over here to take a photo – and here is the photo.  When we went to the Karen Village, there was a huge python in a cage. The cage was topped with photos of happy people – on their own, singles, groups – with the python strung over them.  But what is their connection with the python.  “Well, this is a python whose only purpose in life is to be strung over people’s shoulders so that they can take a photo.  We strung it over our shoulders and got a photo – then the python went back into its cage.  The experience is completely mediated.  The python is only there for the photos - otherwise, he’d be python burger.

So how ‘real’ versus how mediated was our trip to the hilltribe?  We ate in the Head man’s house, and his wife was around.  A number of times I tried to make eye contact, to say good evening or smile.  She walked around us as if we weren’t there – not rudely, just quietly, and we were having a lovely meal with our guides and with Atsushi, the lovely Japanese tourist who was staying in the Head Man’s house too..  The next day, selling her handicrafts, she was all smiles and eye contact…

In fact, I think that the most real experience that we have as travellers is our own experience as a family – how we manage being together for all of these days, weeks and months – and our experience of talking to other travellers.  But to expect a ‘real’ insight into the lives of Latvians, Indians, Laos… no.  I don’t expect it.  This is not to suggest that our experience as a family is not valuable – it is hugely valuable, I just feel that it presumptious to suggest that we can get an insight into cultures and ways of life In the short time that we spend at these places.

Our trip to China beckons and we must enter the country by June 6^th.  When we applied for visas in India we had not realized that Visas are issued with a 3-month expiry date.  We asked about delaying our entry date but were told that we’d have to apply again, and pay again, for visas with a later entry date.  We completed all of the paperwork and Anthony went of the Embassy only to be told that we had to show them our entire itinerary  - every town we were visiting, hotel bookings for each night of our stay, etc.  So we’ve decided to go to China on June 6^th.   This means that we have 2 ½ months in China and we have been investigating the possibility of doing some voluntary work – maybe teaching people English or doing something more practical.  We have been looking at volunteering sites but some of them require quite a large payment.  The children are indignant that you have to pay to volunteer. Tom says that it is like paying an admission fee into a room with a donation box inside it. 

But here I’m opening another philosophical can of worms and the last time I did that (when I reflected on ‘what is the purpose of a blog?’) nobody responded and then I had a hissy fit (I’ll never blog again says 5goglobal mum).  My advice when you pass this blog?  Cast your eyes modestly downwards and pass quickly on.

BUACHAILL BAN

I’m not sure why, but I really liked the bus station in Chiag Mai.  Only visited twice – once to book our tickets and once to get on the bus – but each time we were there for a while, and I liked it.  I don’t normally like places of transit – airports, hotels, train stations, even circuses.  I feel uncomfortable in very transient surroundings  And I hate Busarus.  But there was a nice feel about this bus station.  Central seating area surrounded by ticket booths of the various travel companies.  Lots of bustle. Buses lined up outside, tuk tuks depositing people.  Even the TV that people idly watched while waiting for their bus.

The attendant on our first class bus was all elegance.  We bought first class tickets so that we would be guaranteed seats on the 4 ½ hour bus journey.  And I was impressed when I saw the attendant, beautifully dressed and made-up, moving quietly and gently through the bus, checking tickets, showing people their seats, carefully placing a small bottle of water and a wet wipe sachet at each place.  Long black hair pulled into a pony tail with a shorter fringe held in place by cute hair clips.  A touch of pink blusher, discreet lipstick, long manicured nails.  He was easily the best dressed person on the bus.  The bus started and he made a short announcement in Thai.  His work done, he stepped off the bus and walked off, clipboard in hand.

Out for a meal a couple of nights later in Chiang Rai, we had opted for a nice-ish place. Very brightly lit, but with some interesting water features, nicely dressed tables and the waiting staff – in lovely traditional skirts and tops.   We had lots of difficulty and a lot of fun ordering our meals..  Our Thai… their English... But this is nothing new.  Our waitress spoke no English.  When we asked a question, she blushed and called the manager who helped us.  The manager then explained to her in Thai. But when our waitress spoke to him... her voice. And then we looked a little closer... her hands, her upper lip...

RULES AND REGULATIONS

It is of course entirely predictable that, staying at a variety of guesthouses, hostels and hotels, as we do, that we will be met with lists of rules and regulations posted in the room.  In Jansom House, Chiang Rai, for example, the Guesthouse had thoughtfully provided a price list for all of the items in the room ranging from 450,000 bhat (air conditioning unit) down to 50 bhat (drinking glass). So we knew that if we wanted to make like rock stars and trash the room, it would cost us. Fair enoughski  Here in the Aloun Savath Guesthouse in Luang Prabang the ‘Accommodation Regulations’ are provided not by the guesthouse, but by the State.  The laminated sheet (placed on shelf inside bedside locker – discreet but not hidden) is headed ‘Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Peace Independent Democracy Prosperity).  Police Department, Luang Prabang Provincial.  (There is space for a PD number and for the date, but these have been left blank).

Frankly, if the Laos are hoping to build up their tourist market (and let’s not forget – there are no beaches in Laos), then they had better hope that not too many tourists read them.   Here they are:

 

Accommmodation Regulation

Accommodating in hotels, Guesthourses and resorts for domestic and international tourists is to make sure that safety and security procedures in place to response to emergency cases for both domestic and international tourists who have accommodated and promote the Lao tourism policy.

The Tourism police office has issued accommodation regulation for tourists and accommodation provider to implement and follow as below:

1.      Tourists have to your own accommodation at 2400 hrs (mid night)

2.      When you are check in hotels, guethouses and resorts, you have to show your passport to receptionist that you are stay.

3.      Every time when you are check in hotels, guesthouses and resorts you must register your belonging.  If there are value things you have to give to receptionist to look after for you and both party have to sign for acknowledgement.  If not in case something lost it will be your own responsible.

4.      Do not bring any illegal things come into hotels, guesthouses and resorts, it is not allow include ammunitions except the official who have the permission only.

5.      Do not any drugs, crambling or bring both women and men which is not your own husband or wife into the room for making love.

6.      Do not allow domestic and international tourist bring prostitute and others into your accommodation to make sex movies in our room, it is restriction.

7.      Please always lock your door when you are coming in and going out and bring your room key to receptionist every time when you are going out.

8.      Checking out hotels, guesthouses and resorts as 1200 hrs (mid day) and please check your belongings before you leave.

9.      Do not take the hotels, guesthouses and resort property form room, when you check out.

10.  Please meet your guests at reception area, do not bring your friends or guests into the room before you get permission from hotels, guests and resorts staff or receptionist.

11.  If you do not follow this accommodation regulation, you will be fight based on Lao PDR law.

12.  This regulation take effect with official signature and stamp.

And the clever Laos have, indeed officially signed and stamped the document even though they have neglected to number OR date it.  So it is Lao law which will pertain if, for example, we do not check out by noon or forget to leave the key with the receptionist when we go out. 

Now, my husband is a lawyer and we have combed through these regulations for loopholes.  It seems to me that a good legal team could drive a coach and horses through Regulation 5.  Would we risk running a poker school in our room and tough it out that we have never heard of ‘crambling’.  What about if we just invited ONE guy or ONE girl which is not our  own husband or wife into the room for making love and pretend that we thought the regulations only forbad bringing BOTH women and men (which is not, etc). 

We’re not so unhappy about regulation 6 as we decided not to carry a video camera on this trip (but it is OK to bring a prostitute and NOT make a film?)  Anthony has been poring over these regulations.  I think he senses a business opportunity.

LAST WORD – SHOPPING IN CHANGMAI

We enjoyed our two weeks in Chiang Mai.  I now speak fluent Thai massage “beautiful movement, double thumb press, latissimus dorsi, sen sib paths” while Anto and the kids learned to cook.  And we also shopped until we dropped. Chiang Mai is a great shopping town.  As well as ordinary street shops and shopping centres, there are many markets including the Sunday Walking Market, the Saturday Walking Market, the Night Market, the Night Bazaar, JJ Market, the early morning fruit and veg market, stalls along the side of the street...

But these markets are not just about shopping.  Our eyes were caught by a beautiful girl twirling and gently moving in a Thai dance.  She wore a hilltribe head-dress, her face was beautiful – and beautifully made up.  Red lipstick, blusher.  She looked around at the tens of people watching her and smiled.  Eyes flickering up and down, fingers bending back, twirling and dancing.  And she is extremely watchable. But she’s only about 5 years old and I’m not sure whether she should be dancing on the street and whether we should be watching her.  We move on.

It’s sometimes hard to walk through the markets.  People stop to do card tricks, crowds of friends stop and chat.  And there are the blind musicians who sit in the middle of the (pedestrianised) road, one tucked behind the other, and play music.  They have interesting instruments – drums made from buckets and tins, percussion instruments made from bamboo, a very basic guitar.  They also have some electronic support.  One of the group normally sings and the rest play – or maybe just sit this one out.  The person at the front cradles a tin into which donations can be dropped.

But my favourite market act in Chiang Mai is the puppeteers.  They sit near the restaurants and play haunting Thai country music – duets between men and women.  The young man operates the male puppet – about 3 feet high, manipulated by rods and strings, operated by hands and knees. The young woman operates the female. They can move the puppets’ heads, arms, legs and fingers.  They are clearly singing about longing and love – the puppets turn towards and away from each other delicately moving their hands and fingers.  As  they performed, I found myself looking not at the puppets, but at the puppeteers – their movements as delicate as their puppets, their gaze calm and loving..  And I wondered what they thought about as they played out these love dramas night after night.  And, yes, I wondered whether they are a couple.  I hope they are.

TTFN

As I start this blog, we are on a slow boat travelling down the Mekong River from Huan Xia – on the Laos side - to Luang Prabang, Laos’ ancient royal capital. The journey will take two days with a stop-over this evening in the electricity-less village of Pak Beng. This part of the river separates Thailand – on our right – from Laos and, with some sadness, we left Thailand two days ago by taking (one day late) a small river boat from Chiang Khung ,on the Thai side, to Huan Xia, an official  entry point to Laos for falang (foreigners)

We are passing dense jungle on both river banks and constantly see the thatched huts of the various hill tribe peoples who inhabit this part of south-east Asia. Just now, we have passed a herd of buffalo drinking on the Laos shore which caused a little stir and some camera clicking amongst the mainly English speaking fifty or so passengers on board. The children have spread out and are interviewing - as only they can do - the other passengers. Tom has just finished a book, The three Investigators Mysteries, that he received along with  one other as a swap for a book entitled Eldest from a bookseller named Peter of Oran’s bookshop in Chiang Rai (ref; The Lonely Planet).

We are told that, tomorrow, as the river continues west into the heart of Laos, the topography will change and the gentle hilly jungle covered slopes will give way to sheer gorges and dramatic cliffs, but the road (or river) ahead of us is as much of a mystery to us as at any time during our journey of exploration. We have arrived in Laos knowing little about the country (although we now know that there are about 13,500 Kip to the Euro) and less about our own intentions for it. We have decided to head south, even though our eventual destination is probably north, to see the ancient capital which, by all accounts, is well worth a visit. Many, we are told, stay much longer then planned but our Chinese visas require that we don’t tarry for much longer than a week or so.

We applied for them on the 7^th March in Delhi and I collected the passports from the, by then, un-stormed embassy.  Three days later as Anna prepared the children for travel and Julia sought out train tickets to Agra where we later visited the Taj Mahal. It was only as I sat in the back of the Tuk Tuk on my way back to our lodgings at The Smyle Inn that I opened the books to inspect the new documents in our rapidly cluttering and impressive looking passports. But there was no turning back when I realized that the 90 day visas required us to enter China before June 7^{th -} about a month ahead of our desired crossing. We got the train as planned and vowed to try and change the visas at a later date. Perhaps in Mumbai.

It was in Bangkok before I again visited a Chinese embassy by which time the pro-Tibetan disturbances had started and the regulations for granting visas had been changed dramatically. So, in the heel of the hunt, we will enter China before June 6^th and will spend the last two and a half months of our travels exploring that emerging world. We hope to see Hong Kong and Tibet and have booked five days lodgings in Xian towards the end of July which we want to see before travelling the 2000Km west to Hami - deep in the Gobi desert - to see the solar eclipse on August 1^st. We will also spend the last five days of our trip in Beijing where we have also booked accommodation and some tickets to see the women’s finals of the artistic gymnastics and the synchronised swimming events in the Olympics. Then, we fly home to Dublin, via London, on August 19^th.

That, at least, gives us some points of reference in the next part of the trip but Laos, especially after Thailand, feels like a sort of a stopgap country: something that’s there and that everyone says is a great place to visit before we enter the now awakened bear. Perhaps it will turn out to be one of the highlights of our trip - who knows? That will be the subject of another blog, but right now it seems that it will be hard to beat Thailand

By the time we left India we were ready to move on and our arrival in Bangkok was something of a triumph Somebody had remarked to us that Thailand would, after India, seem like returning to Europe. And so it was – sort of. Bangkok’s new airport is a stunning architectural edifice and the smiling oriental faces that greeted us contrasted with the dark ones of the colourfully dressed and curious Indians. We had booked an apartment in a great five star complex called Sivalai Place but only for a few nights as we were determined not to waste too much of the month long visit that the Chinese had permitted us on the capital But, as it turned out, we loved Bangkok (Julia says she’d like to spend a a year there) and stayed for eight days.

Certainly, some of the reasons we loved the place so much were the lovely people and excellent facilities in our apartment complex. But mostly it was the city itself; the river busses, the immaculately clean Metro, the safe food stalls and the impressive temples. It was certainly a change from India. We visited the Jim Thompson Museum, inspected the royal barges, saw the impressive Wat Phra Kaew (ref Bangkok Blunder) and handled some scary snakes in a snake farm attached to a hospital where they collect venom to make antidotes to snake bites. We also saw the huge weekend market as well as visiting a local food market where some of the items on display do not go easy on the delicate European eye. As Dr Nick (an interesting character that we later met in Chiang Rai) commented “When Europeans cut out the offal, they throw it away; Here they hang it up on proud display”. Apparently, offal is more expensive in Thailand than the muscle meat that we Europeans eat.

After a wonderful week in Bangkok it was time to move on and we took an overnight train to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand where we booked into the Holenda Fungi Guesthouse (the names have been changed to protect the innocent) - “where the rats are friendlier than the staff” - and stayed there for a week while Julia did a five day Thai massage course and the rest of us learnt the ancient art of Thai cooking for three. On our two free days, I took the children to see an uninspiring hill tribe museum and for a visit to an elephant “refuge” where we fed, admired and rode elephants before watching a show where they played football, darts, and mouth (well, trunk, actually)-organs and painted pictures. And they really did paint the pictures, the results of which can be seen in the “elephants and Gibbons” picture album.

Julia is now a level A Thai masseuse and the children and I can whip up a green curry with ease. Alas J has had little opportunity to practice her art which, according to her is a mixture of assisted yoga and acupressure. She did give me the all over treatment once and it seems more like a cross between wrestling and Chinese torture. I did, however, feel the energy flow and felt great the next day having discovered all the strange contortions into which my body can, with some assistance, be sculpted. I look forward to more flowing energy when the opportunity presents itself but will, alas, only be able to repay her with a mere duck in Thai green curry paste.

Although we loved Bangkok, we probably loved Chiang Mai more so but, even as we continually postponed our departure from that ancient city, we decided that we could no longer postpone our departure from Aloada Grumpy guesthouse. And, believe it or not, the deciding factor wasn’t the fact that on three of the nights when we sat on their river-side deck-restaurant we were joined by a rat – once dining from the dog’s bowl. The problem was the way in which the owner was talking to the children and the things that she was saying to them when we weren’t around.

The first question on Catherine’s lips when we arrive in any hotel is whether or not they have a cat or a dog. Most do and Hole Enda Grumpy was no exception. Catherine would, if let, play all day with whatever animal is available and so it was in this riverside abode. There were no cats but two dogs, one of which was a tiny puppy. Maybe she was too much in her playing with the pup but the owner clearly didn’t like it and when, on day five, the owner told her that the she couldn’t play with him because he didn’t like her, she was inconsolably upset even though the suggestion was clearly absurd. But it was her two unacceptable interactions with Paul that finally convinced to us move on.

The first involved her telling him that he smelled and asking him whether he had had a shower that morning (and, in case you’re wondering, I can testify that he did). When he assured her that he had showered that day and, in answer to further questioning, that he had also washed his hair, she asked that he let her smell his hair to check. When he refused his consent (fair paly to him) she said that he was lying to her It was only upon our return from checking out alternative accommodation at The Seven Suns Hotel - a much better option by far - that he told Julia and I of another incident that had happened when we were out. She refused to give him any mayonnaise (for which, incidentally, she charged 10 Bhat extra) with his BLT because, she said, he hadn’t eaten all the mayo that she’d given him on previous occasions. Amazing stuff, eh?

They were all quite unfriendly there anyway (in great contrast to the warmth that we’d experienced in Sivalai Place) and we felt no compunction in checking out with little notice and making no contribution to the tip box that was so prominently displayed on their counter. I suppose I should acknowledge that their food was excellent and reasonably priced and that, being located beside a river, it’s hard not to have rats. But even so. Maybe they should have thought about getting some cats.

The Seven Suns had four of them, three of which were kittens. It also had very welcoming staff and the children, pain and all as they can sometimes be (a bit like their parents), were always happy there. They loved playing with the cats (which was no problem) and the ice cream and the hot chocolate were delicious. We loved the clean and cleverly themed rooms (ours was the “Hello kitty” room, theirs was “Asian Hats”), the real coffee and mint tea and the reliable food. The Seven Suns is owned by an Australian woman named Kerry with some other partners and we became quite friendly with her before she left to visit her home country during our stay.

Chiang Mai, besides having more temples per square inch than Bangkok, is a shoppers’ paradise with everything from high end produce to more modest offerings on offer and, on our first evening there, we explored the famous Sunday Walking Market where many local Thai and hill tribe artisans exhibit their handy crafts. The originality and quality of the produce on display captivated us and it was not long before we were imagining ways of financing regular trips to this part of the world by buying, exporting and selling some of their creations at home. So we visited this and many other markets during our two weeks stay in Chiang Mai and, later, in Chiang Rai and have posted several large boxes of goodies home. So let our friends and relatives beware; the south-east Asian travel fund has been launched.

As days turned into weeks, we knew that it was time to move on. But move on to where was the question. We had spent longer then planned in both Bangkok and Chiang Mai and China was looming just over the hill so some executive decisions had to be made. Firstly, Vietnam had to go. They require visitors to apply in advance for visas cost €40 apiece for the privilege and would entail us spending at least four days in some country’s capital city. Dr Nick had advised us not to miss Cambodia and we’re a little undecided about that even now. Laos was next door to Thailand, would issue a visa on arrival and has a land crossing into China for falong so it won the last toss.

Then, Chiang Rai, being between Chiang Mai and Chiang Khung and a mere four hour bus journey through beautiful hilly countryside suggested itself and so it was that, on a rain sodden Sunday, we took that bumpy trip into the unknown. But not before we had “done” The Gibbon Experience. It was expensive but it was fun and its core involved us travelling from tree to vertigo-inspiring jungle tree suspended beneath wire cables for a two kilometre journey that lasted about three hours. There was also a trek up to a spectacular waterfall but none of us swam in its pool. At least not in that pool at that falls.

In Chiang Rai, we spent two nights in The White House Hotel – attracted bytheir swimming pool and free wifi - but then moved on to stay in The Jansom Hotel where the staff were much less inquisitive about our daily plans and where we did not feel pressured to book any local tours with them or to answer questions about the price we had paid for the tours that we had booked. The Jansom has very friendly staff (several of whom want to marry Paul) and they genuinely loved our children. But, alas, they had no pets. We stayed there for four nights in three different tranches punctuated by a two day tour/trek including a stay in a hill tribe village and a visit to Chaing Saen where we stayed in Gin’s Palace Guesthouse.

The Hill Tribe Museum in Chiang Rai is a much better affair than the one in Chiang Mai and its free slide show taught us (this time including Julia) infinitely more than the 50 Bhat inane film of costumed natives dancing which the children and I viewed in the Chiang Mai version. There, we bought a few souvenirs booked that two day trek into the jungle and had lunch in the associated Cabbage and Condoms Restaurant. The next morning, we were collected by the van and, having acquired that night’s dinner at the local market our guide, Kim - who was from the Karen tribe - took us to the pier on the river from where we took an hour and a half long boat trip to his own riverside village Rueonit from where, after reviewing the tourist offerings, we took an elephant ride into the woods, returning by coming back, astride our beasts, up the river itself. Then a short minibus drive to another Karen village, Pant Klart for lunch followed by a four hour trek through the jungle and the scorching heat with Bic, a Thai apprentice trek-guide while Kim brought our bags ahead by motorbike.

We arrived in Ja Uh, the Lahu village just as the rain started and sat chatting on the verandah of the head-man’s raised bamboo house, as pigs, dogs, cats and chickens scratched and scavenged for food below. The head man made catapults for the children which, due to their subsequent overuse, have now been sent home We met Atsushi, a Japanese trekker, and Tom, his Karen guide, both of whom accompanied us on our five hour trek over the hills and along (literally) the rivers of the dense surrounding jungle, the following day. Atsushi was, surprisingly, a Roman Catholic whilst Kim, in common with all of his villagers, was a protestant Christian leaving Tom as the only Buddhist among us.

After a fabulous dinner, prepared by Kim and Tom, we settled down to several cups of Thai tea and some fascinating conversation. During our travels we have used many guides and those of you who are familiar with previous blogs will know which of them has been voted the worst. But these two were undoubtedly the best so far as they proved that night and again and again during the long and, sometimes disheartening, trek through the rain, heat and insect swarms of the following day. They really knew the jungle and its ways. The next day as we walked they constantly pointed out various things to us about our surroundings and collected ingredients from the jungle’s bounty that they would later serve to us for lunch. Atsushi was also an interesting character and, as we parted the next day, he asked us to visit his country soon.

We slept that night in a raised two-room bamboo hut with hard mosquito-netted mattresses on the floor and , when we were ready, we called out to Kim to turn off, from the head man’s house, the single low energy light bulb which we shared and which was powered by one of many solar panels that the government had given this tribe as part of a package of incentives to encourage them to stop growing opium poppies and to settle in a single location and cease the practice of slash and burn agriculture. The next day was hard work and we journeyed through another Lahu  village, Bang Ko, where we took a short break before continuing on our gruelling trek to a Chinese Shan village, Nam Ron Bong, where we had another delicious lunch. Then, on to a much more spectacular waterfall where Julia and the children swam. I kept myself for the warm springs that came later and took the photographs.

Having finally returned - filthy and exhausted - to The Jansom later that evening, the next day was designated a chillin’ one and we did little except school work and visit the excellent Connect Net internet cafe where the coffee, tea and smoothies are great and the chocolate fudge cakes are something to write blogs about. We intended going to Chiang Sean, by bus, the following day to visit the world renowned Hall of Opium Museum and then down the river by boat to Chiang Khung to depart for Laos but, upon learning of the exorbitant prices being charged for the boat trip, we decided to return to Chiang Rai by bus and then to get a separate bus to Chiang Khung at a fraction of the cost. In the end, we splashed out and rented a car for our Chiang Saen trip and arrived in time to check into the Gin Palace before wandering around town and its market and sampling, among other things, fried insects.

Chiang Saen is a crossing point between Laos and Thailand for natives of either country only and remains an important trading post between both countries and China. We saw several Chinese barges being loaded and unloaded and generally savoured the subdued delights of this frontier town. The next day, after breakfast and a walk to a local Wat, we headed off to see, first, the House of Opium (an old modest museum) and, then, the Hall of Opium which is a very impressive affair built with Royal sponsorship. That evening we slept our last night in The Jansom before lessons, another visit to the post office and Connect Net followed by the two and a half hour journey by local overcrowded bus to Chiang Khung where we arrived at 5.20 on May 18^th – the day that our Thai visas expired.

We spent that night in a huge solid teak guesthouse overlooking the Mekong where they had a caged monkey as well as some cats and where the owner was lovely and the food excellent. In exploring this border town, that evening, we came upon what looked like a league of an interesting local game; a sort of a cross between football and badminton and we watched the incredible skill of the three man (they were all men) teams as they kicked and headed the coconut-sized wicker balls over the net sometimes launching themselves into the air to whack it with round house kicks that would drive any premiership crowd wild. We would have watched them for hours had the mossies and our rumbling stomachs not intervened.

On our way back to our hotel we were attracted to the blaring music emanating from a riverside Wat  (temple) and, upon investigating, we discovered a party in full swing. Whether it was a local wedding or a celebration on the eve of the Buddha’s birthday, we never discovered but we did crash the gig and the watched  locals dancing and getting a little merry as the children gorged themselves on 10 Bhat pancakes.

Later that evening in our guesthouse, we met an American man -let's just call him Dr Watson  - a US spy (or so we jokingly speculate) who lives in Chiang Khong and one French, one Swiss and two Scottish fellow-travellers. They were all interviewed in turn by the children and it was a fascinating evening in many ways. It was late the next day when we presented ourselves at the Thai immigration (and, as it turns out, emigration) booth near the crossing point of the Mekong where the sympathetic official pointed out that our visas had expired the previous day. We had known this and knew that, strictly speaking, Julia and I might have to pay a fine of 500 Bhat apiece but the Looney Planet had advised us that we shouldn’t need to if we were only one day late.

In the end we did have to pay but the children (who had no choice but to be led astray by their parents) didn’t. We signed documents wherein we were described as “the accused” noting that our cases had been settled upon our agreeing to pay 500 Bhat fines. Phew. Lets hope they won’t throw us in the slammer when we, as we are sure we will, return to see more of Thailand.

But none of what I have written can adequately describe the essence of Thailand or properly capture the alluring sights and sounds of the place; the food, the Temples or the devotion to the King and the Buddha or the different ways that they do things here. Perhaps that can only be captured with one’s own eyes and ears. And as we looked back at that kingdom from our small local boat as we first crossed the Mekong to one-party Laos, we knew that it was up there with Italy as one of our favourite places visited. So far anyway.

Anthony

 

FROM CHIANG RAI, NORTHERN THAILAND.  MAY 16^TH, 2008

 

A  FEW DAYS AGO WE WENT TREKKING FOR TWO DAYS. 

IT WAS REALLY GOOD FUN.  WE HAD REALLY NICE TOUR GUIDES.  THEY WERE CALLED BIG AND KIM.  BIG WAS A STUDENT AND IN A MONTH’S TIME HE WILL BE A REAL TOUR GUIDE.  AT 7.30 THE BUS COLLECTED US AND BROUGHT US TO A PIER WHERE THERE WERE LOTS OF LONG-TAILED BOATS LINED UP.  WE WENT ON ONE AND SPENT AN HOUR ON THE BOAT.  WE WENT REALLY FAST.  PEOPLE WERE COLLECTING GRAVEL FROM THE RIVERBED AND IT WAS SELLING FOR 60 BAHT (€1.15) FOR A CUBIC METRE BOX.  

THEN WE ARRIVED ON THE BOAT TO AN ELEPHANT CAMP.  WE BOUGHT SOME BANANAS AND THE ELEPHANTS REALLY LIKED THEM.  I GOT A WOVEN WRIST BAND FROM A KAREN WOMAN.  WHEN WE WERE RIDING THE ELEPHANTS, WE FED THEM BANANAS.  THEY LIFTED THEIR TRUNK BACK ONTO THE TOP OF THEIR HEAD AND WE GAVE THEM THE BANANA.  THEY KEPT ASKING FOR MORE.  WHEN WE WERE ABOUT HALF WAY THROUGH THE BANANAS, THE BAG DROPPED AND THE ELEPHANT ATE ALL OF THE BANANAS IN ONE GO.

I SAT ON THE ELEPHANTS HEAD FOR ABOUT 15 MINUTES UNTIL WE WENT BACK TO THE ELEPHANT CAMP.  WHEN WE GOT TO THE ELEPHANT CAMP, WE SAID GOODBYE TO OUR ELEPHANTS AND CROSSED THE RIVER WHERE A JEEP WAS WAITING FOR US.  THERE WERE PLANTS THAT WERE CALLED ‘TOUCH ME NOT’ BECAUSE WHEN YOU TOUCH THEM, THE LEAVES CLOSED IN.  THEY EAT LITTLE INSECTS (TINY ANTS). 

THEY DROVE US TO THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE AND WE HAD TREK FOR ABOUT HALF AN HOUR TO GET TO A RESTAURANT.  IT HAD THREE YAPPY DOGS BUT THE LUNCH WAS REALLY REALLY NICE.  IT WAS RICE AND CHICKEN AND FRIED GREEN BEANS.

THEN WE WENT TREKKING FOR THREE AND A HALF HOURS.  KIM CUT BAMBOOS FOR WALKING STICKS FOR EACH OF US.  WE CROSSED RIVERS AND WE WALKED ON ROCKS AND CLIMBED THROUGH VINES AND THROUGH THE MUD.  I FELL INTO THE RIVER.   AND WE SAW A 500 YEAR OLD TREE.  THEN WE GOT TO THE AKHA TRIBE VILLAGE WHERE WE WERE SPENDING THE NIGHT.   THE WEATHER WAS GOOD BUT AS SOON AS WE GOT THERE, IT STARTED LASHING (THE WEATHER IS ALWAYS ON TIME).

THEN WE MET A JAPANESE GUY CALLED ATSHUSHI.  HE WAS REALLY NICE.  ATSUSHI WAS DOING A ‘NO PLAN’ TOUR WHERE IF HE WANTED TO FLY OVER THE HILLS THEY WOULD GET A HELICOPTER AND HE COULD RIDE A BUFFALO, RIDE A HORSE, GO ON ELEPHANTS – HE COULD DO WHATEVER HE WANTED BECAUSE IT WAS A NO PLAN TOUR.  HE WAS WITH A TOUR GUIDE CALLED TOM.  TOM WAS REALLY NICE AND HE WAS KIND OF LIKE A TOUR GUIDE TO US AS WELL.  AND KIM AND BIG WERE LIKE TOUR GUIDES TO ATSUSHI AS WELL.

WE HAD TEA AND HOT CHOCOLATE.  THERE WAS A CAT IN THE HOUSE AND OUTSIDE THERE WERE CATTLE, PIGS, DOGS, CHICKENS, ETC.  THEN WE HAD DINNER, IT WAS REALLY NICE.  THEN WE WENT TO BED.  THERE WAS NO BATHROOM.  IF YOU WANTED TO GO TO THE LOO, YOU HAD TO GO OUTSIDE AND WALK THROUGH VERY MUDDY MUD THAT PIGS HAVE TROTTED ON AND IT STANK OF STINK.  IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT THERE WAS LOUD MUSIC AND SOMEONE WAS CHATTING VERY VERY LOUDLY.  THEN IT STOPPED FOR ABOUT 5 MINUTES AND THEN A MOTORBIKE CAME AND MORE MUSIC PLAYED. 

IN THE MORNING WE HAD MORE HOT CHOCOLATE.  FOR BREAKFAST, WE HAD OMELETTE AND RICE.  THEN THE WOMEN OF TH. E VILLAGE SOLD HANDICRAFTS.  THEY WERE REALLY NICE AND WOVEN.  I BOUGHT A  MULTICOLOURED WOVEN BAG AND A BELT.  MY MUM BOUGHT TWO BAGS AND TOM BOUGHT A BAG AS WELL AND PAUL BOUGHT A WOVEN WRIST-BAND.

THEN WE SET OFF TREKKING AGAIN.  WE TREKKED FOR ABOUT 4 ½ HOURS AND DID THE SAME THING AS THE DAY BEFORE = WALK, CROSS RIVER, WALK OVER STONES AND MUD, WALK, WALK, WALK, WALK.  I FELL INTO THE RIVER TWICE AND GOT REALLY ANGRY AND FRUSTRATED AND WAS ALL GRUMPY AND PLOD, PLOD, PLOD ALONG THE WET MUDDY PATH.  (IT WAS NOT AWFUL).

THEN WE HAD LUNCH – NOODLES AND HERBS.  THEN WE WENT TO A WATERFALL.  WE SWAM IN A POOL AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WATERFALL.  IT WAS REALLY REFRESHING.  THEN WE WALKED BACK DOWN THE HILL AND A TRUCK WAS WAITING FOR US.  THEN WE WENT TO A HOT SPRING.  WHERE THE SPRING CAME UP IT WAS 87°.  THERE WAS A PLACE WHERE THEY COOLED THE WATER DOWN, AND THEN THERE WAS A POOL WHERE PEOPLE SWAM.  IT WAS 47° ON THE COLD SIDE AND 50° ON THE HOT SIDE.  THEN WE WENT HOME.

 

Thai Cooking Class (Paul’s Blog)

Chiang Mai, Thailand, April 28^th 2008

Today I did a cooking course in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand.  I learned how to cut tomato skin into a rose, cut a tomato into a lotus flower and cook six dishes:

·         Clear Soup with Minced Pork

·         Spring Rolls

·         Red Curry with Roast Duck

·         Chicken with Ginger

·         Chicken in Pndanus Leaves and,

·         (for dessert) Mango with Sticky Rice.

The carving was really hard and finicky. I got very frustrated and I couldn’t do the last carving  It was supposed to be a leaf, made from a slice of carrot.

 

Afterwards, we started on the dishes. First we went to a classroom and they would tell and show us how to make it.   Our first dish was Clear Soup with Minced Pork.  It was tasty and very, very salty.  Then we did spring rolls.  When we had the right ingredients, it was easy.  It was tasty, healthy, vegetarian and the highlight of our class.  Then we did red curry with roast duck.  I thought it was disgusting and not worth the work.

Next dish – Chicken with ginger.  It was really not exceptional.  Chicken with Pandanus leaves was very easy and delicious.  Last – mango with sticky rice.  I thought it was horrible and even the pinch of salt made it sweet and savoury.

 

I really enjoyed our cooking class and definitely recommend it.  I found the instructors were big showmen and got annoying after a while.  But I definitely recommend it.

 

Thanks,

Paul

BLAH BLAH BLOG

Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand.   May 8^th 2008

I feel called upon to write a blog.  Sentences have been going around in my head for a while.  My husband is gently suggestion that maybe it’s time… But I don’t want to write a blog.  “But your gentle readers, your friends, your family?” he urges.  “Tell them to go on their own damm world trip”.   (As I write this, a couple of monks file past our guesthouse.  Three young men, dressed in amazingly bright orange robe, on their morning alms round).

 

The truth is I’m tired and some of the things that I’m tired of just make me sound ludicrously spoiled; tired of finding new restaurants, tired of wondering whether they’re clean, tired of having to read a menu before I can have breakfast.  Then when they do do toast and jam, it’s sweet bread, melted butter and glutinous jam (I long for the crunch of real raspberry jam). Tired of moving on to new places, tired of chivvying the children.  Ah… the children.  They are tired too.  After busting our ass about the fact that we are only away for 365 days (but only because it’s a leap year) (“so we can’t really say that we went away for a year”) the children are now clamouring for home.  Tom sent a postcard home to his class saying how much he was looking forward to China – and being on the plane home.  I was too tired to even do some face-saving arguing with him “Tom, maybe you could just mention your elephant ride”..  Catherine cried bitterly the other day over a trifle and said that she wanted to go home.  And Paul gave me his usual guff the other day about how he’d prefer to be doing Irish with his friends AT SCHOOL.

 

What else am I tired of?  Tired of wondering where we’ll go.  How we’ll get there.  Where we’ll stay.  What we’ll do.  How can we make this time interesting and worthwhile.  How can I make it sound clever and interesting for the blog (admittedly fairly low on my priorities).  Where is our dollar going – does the owner of THIS restaurant/shop/hotel exploit his workers/local people/the environment?  What book can I read (and here I’m talking fiction, I’m talking bedtime reading, damm it) that will deepen my understanding of the country that we’re in.  Sometimes, I feel a bit like ‘The Girl’ in Rebecca who spends her time wandering aimlessly around European hotels.  And I dream too (but rarely).  Last night I dreamed that I warmly greeted a very old school friend – and she hardly acknowledged me.  Worse – somebody noticed it and commented on it.  Then, the principal of my children’s school had to be reminded who I was. (I reminded her in the good old tradition of telling her whose mother I am).  And the truth is there’s just too much to absorb.  Too much history, too many wars and influences and customs and subtle nuances of Buddhism.  So, much of the richness is getting lost.

So I’ve kind of switched off a bit and Thailand – puh, a pretty place, good shopping, nice food.  Next?

On a lighter note, I have decided to start referencing my work.  This is to make the work of any possible future biographer easier.  Here’s how it will work:  If I write a sentence which I know is influenced by a literary figure or book, TV series, well-known personality, I will write their name in brackets after the thought.  I may include footnotes (not sure whether I’ll put them at the foot of the page or have a list of notes for each blog at the back).  This actual blog My current blog is influenced by Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat Love Pray fame and if you haven’t read that book – do it now.  Where a thought is purely original – and here the philosophers can back off, you all know what I mean – I will just write original in brackets, like this (original).  (Gilbert).  Am I confusing you? 

 

(The ice-man has just left a train of Hansel and Gretal drops as he delivers a sack of ice).  (Brothers Grimm).

 

My fear is that my references will be few and, in fact, will help my biographer very little.  It is a truth universally acknowledged that anyone in possession of a world trip ;and a diary must be in want of a publisher (original).

I change the subject again.  This is quirky me.  I have read the three prison diaries that the appalling Jeffrey Archer wrote and published and informed Anthony that the man is completely self-obsessed.  I announce (brightly of course) “And I should know, being horrifically self-obsessed myself).  Reader – surely you have better things to do.

Here’s the changed subject.  As we move from place to place, my list of possible jobs I could do, possible businesses I could open continues to grow.  In the first part of our trip, surprise surprise, I daydreamed about opening a campsite.  Easy business to make a lot of money out of.  You buy incredibly expensive land and use it for 3 months of the year.  No problem.  Ours would be a wholesome campsite – all home made food, good value shop and promoting the local economy.  Then opening a restaurant, possibly a hotel – a nice, funky place. People would come to sit and play backgammon or chess, sit in the unglazed terracotta tiled conservatory on wonderful wicker furniture.  I would make scones several times a day which would be served, hot and just slightly overcooked so that the raisons on top had got a little crunchy, with butter (cut into dinky triangles),  jam and cream from dainty little pottery dishes.  Also, my famous shortbread, which even though I say so myself, is astonishing.  In fact, few people ever get to try it …Or a tour guide.  I would bring bus loads of people to Ireland and give them a fantastic 10 days getting down to the heart of Ireland.  I would bring them to Sunday mass in the country and point out the men standing outside the church.  I would also ask them to notice the exodus once communion is over.  I would make a CD (or 10) of Irish music – Clannad, Sinead O’Connor, Six, U2, various members of the Black family, Dolores Keane, those two McGarrigal sisters, John Field, heck even Mary O’Hara.  This would be played on boring bits of the journey.  Then MY tourists could go into a music shop with some idea about what they want and not make eegits of themselves because they are American (Maeve Binchy).  I would teach Americans to be self-deprecating about themselves and refer to themselves as ‘Yanks’ no matter what part of the US they are from.  I would bring them to see an ordinary 3-bed semi-detached house on an ordinary estate and talk to them about house prices, UK chain stores, the Irish textile industry (which one?) so they’d get an all round view of Ireland.  I would never bring them to these awful shops with marble leprauchan keyrings, CDs of cheesy music, Irish linen imported from abroad, brightly coloured tweed skirts with even more brightly coloured linings that should have been (I hesitate to use violent images in my blog)… that should never have been made.

 

But my favourite new career is (and has been for a while), to open a training (you know – work, management) (Gilbret) centre – a place where the physical environment – the room size and shape, the furniture, the nooks and crannies where people could work or just sit and chat, the garden with places to sit – alone or in groups, or wander -  would help people make the mental changes they need to make to be better managers, team leaders, top team members… Where on the lintel to the door of each room there would be a word that might provoke thought – or might not – wisdom, foresight, stillness, compassion .  (I’m trying to find nice gentle new age’y ways of capturing concepts like strategy, long-term and profit – any help appreciated).  Where as well as spending time in training sessions, meetings, and away days, a small team of alternative health practitioners would be on standby –masseurs, reflexologists, beauty treatments – so that there would as a whole (holistic – I think it’s called) approach   There would also be a bedroom block with small, simple, comfortable bedrooms.  Nothing fancy but some homely touches where people could be relaxed and comfortable. Everything spotlessly tidy and white.  Reading lights by the bed (sorry – but nobody in the establishments in which we stay provides a pair of lights, one on either side of the bed, so I obsess about them a little).

 

For the sake of making ends meet, I feel sure that I would have to rent it out to yoga retreats, watercolour courses – but this would add nicely to be vibe of the place.  The food served would be fresh and wholesome.  Light but rewarding – making people feel that they were being truly looked after body and soul.  We would do interesting things with bits of driftwood and nice stones.  And while I would not be doing the actual training, facilitation or whatever, nonetheless my presence- calm, reassuring, mothering – would help the participants to learn.  I would have little chats and walks with people who were finding the going tough and they would never know that I was coaching them.  But somewhere in the back of their mind, I would be lodged as someone very important.

 

But my thoughts have turned to money (making it – not losing it) (maybe because we don’t have a guaranteed income stream) and home (maybe because we don’t know where we’ll be living in August)  In Morocco I left a little of my heart in a carpet warehouse with unimaginably beautiful carpets.  (I could definitely get over my snobbish “I don’t ask people to remove their shoes when they come into my house” and would happily ask people to remove their shoes when they come into my house (although I would casually point out to any visitor embarrassed about foot odour or tatty socks that there is a basket of clean socks “just there” so that they would feel comfortable and relaxed oohing and ahing over the calm, tastefully designed homely (but not messy) haven that I have created). Plus I wish I’d bought some outdoor lanterns.   I also drooled over the ceramics – beautiful small bricks, glazed patterned tiles and small square floor tiles which the Moroccans lay in beautiful simple patterns – not quite square, brass sinks, silk tassels.  In India it was Kashmiri chain stitch rugs and wall hangings, beautiful stone carvings in Mamallapuram.  I so (as in sooooo) regret the beautiful green/blue chain stitch rug that, at €50, seemed too expensive – we had been fleeced on our Kashmiri tours so I wasn’t thinking straight.  Here in Thailand, I covet the stunning bowls and vases, silk wall hangings, and strings of cheap coloured lights . 

 

So that’s about it.  Thanks for listening.  Anthony and I have just finished parallel books:  Anthony has been reading ‘A Theory of Everything’ by Stephen Hawking (now he’s a man I’d like to reference) which discusses the origin and fate of our universe (physical).  I’ve been reading ‘The Seven Laws of Spiritual Success’ by Deepak Chopra which is about our place in the universe (quantam).  It feels good to have the whole thing covered. 

Bangkok Blunder

 

We have arrived in Bangkok and are staying in some civilized apartments. Actually the name is the Sivalai Apartments and they are the height of luxury. The little bit of Thailand that we have seen is quite unlike India and the colours of the saris have been replaced by the colour of the temples and wats, given that the population of the city sports western garb. But as far as “dangers and annoyances”, as described in the Lonely Planet Guides go, plus ca change…

We sat alone, on our second day in Bangkok, in front of “the lucky Buddha” (click – “there are no lucky Buddhas” according to TAT – the Thai Tourist Authority), a huge golden coloured idol in a beautiful temple, when a helpful Thai man sauntered along and, like most people we’ve met in the last eight months, asked us where we are from. He wanted to know the usual things about us including how long we’d been in Thailand, what we had done so far and where we would go after Bangkok. Of course, we weren’t sure because we are never sure what we will be doing beyond a few days into the future. We did, however, have vague plans to go north at first and then to the south.

What we were glad to be warned about was the impending Buddha month and the fact that the holidays were about to start meaning that non-inferior accommodation would be hard to come by unless we booked well in advance. And inferior accommodation meant lots of mosquitoes which would not be good for the children. Fair enough. Wouldn’t be too good for the adults either, I dare say. What we also learnt was that, at this time of year, internet bookings carry a 20% commission. Before sauntering off again, our helpful friend advised us to go to TAT and to book lodgings pronto. (click – that same authority is the self same one that warns innocent travellers to be wary of helpful Thais - “wily strangers”.- offering unasked for advice)

There was a dull clicking sound when we returned to our Tuk Tuk driver who was waiting (free of charge) to bring us back (for the bargain basement round trip charge of 20 Bhats) to see the Emerald Buddha from where we had been diverted to see the lucky (for some) one and particularly when he announced, totally coincidentally, that he was going to bring us to a TAT office. Julia and I exchanged an almost knowing look but, after all, we did need to see the TAT people and it is a government organisation (so probably was straight) and we had another half hour or so to kill before the temple at Wat Phra Kaw, which houses the Emerald Buddha, would, once again, be open to tourists after the ceremonies that were being performed on that day were finished (click).

The evening before we had dined, in a karaoke restaurant, with some Chilean people who intend going to India soon and we had shared some of our experiences with them and had given them the usual warnings about Indian Tuk Tuk drivers diverting them to hotels of their (the driver’s) choice or stopping on the way to the agreed destination to look at shops, visit their family or stop somewhere for a cup of tea. “It is usual” we advised that they might be told “to ring the booked hotel upon arrival so as to ensure that your booking is confirmed”. And when the obliging driver would ring the hotel on their behalf they would, of course, know nothing of the booking necessitating the driver taking them to a different establishment altogether. Or maybe the hotel had burnt down two days beforehand or perhaps even the temple that they may wish to visit will be closed that day for some ceremony or other (click). The lonely Planet guides for both India and Thailand contain these warnings, the boxed section in the Thai version being headed “preludes to a rip-off”.

The clicking sound became decidedly louder when the TAT office turned out to be a TAT approved travel agent where we saw many other suckers (sorry clients) and when our agent became less than helpful and even hostile once it became clear that we weren’t going to book anything that day and wanted to think about it. “No brochure. You want something, you come back to me” he said as he aggressively thrust his card at us and walked out of the office.

When we left the t(w)at, our driver, who still waited patiently, announced that he would just bring us to one shop (we just about had time) before returning to old green eyes. Another glance passed, this time more certain in its knowingness. And when we pulled up outside a shop and he told us it was a high couture outlet, I refused to go in but he asked us to do it ‘for him’ showing me an Esso card the meaning of which both we and the Chileans knew. For every shop he brings us to, he gets petrol vouchers whether or not we buy.

We did go in, for him, and looked around. And Julia was, maybe, becoming half interested in getting a suit made but the interview ended abruptly after I heard her asking the assistant whether he wanted us to leave. As we left, Julia explained that he had been politely rude – avoiding eye contact, not answering questions, etc..

 Just as well not to buy anything. As the brochure in our bedroom advises “normally, tuk tuk driver will work as a team.  Nice people walking along the street…do not trust them… suit shops are either fake or low quality”.

We sat into our Tuk Tuk and demanded to be taken straight to Wat Phra Kaw but when he insisted upon one more shop ‘for him’ we abandoned ship and took a taxi.

The taxi driver brought us directly to where we wanted to go and, like the previous one, pointed us to the gate through which many other tourists were, and had been, coming and going. It was deja vu all over again but this time, having gotten out of the taxi, we did not meet the first helpful man (click) who had diverted us to buy entry tickets at a second gate, further down the road. He even saw us safely across the road and ensured we were on our way (click). And, this time, we didn’t meet the second helpful man (click click) at the gate signposted “not for tourists – use other gate” who had helpfully advised us about the Buddhist ceremony that was, then, ongoing within temple meaning that tourists weren’t allowed enter till 3.30 which, in turn, meant that we had an hour or so to spare. Nor did we meet the helpful Tuk Tuk driver who happened to be waiting at the “not for tourists” gate and who would bring us to the lucky Buddha and back for a mere 20 bhats. He never got his money.

We saw the Emerald Buddha that day but had little time to see the whole complex of temples and royal palace before it closed. Our adventure had cost us nothing except time and a little private embarrassment although  it gave the Chileans a good laugh.

Anthony

About 6.30 AM April 11^th Varkala North Cliff, Kerala, South West India

 

A beautiful cool morning; crows cawing loudly;  In front of our hotel, the large paved triangular shaped area – part parking lot, part taxi stand, part turning point is dotted with puddles after a spectacular lightening storm and torrential rain last night.  We just got home in time after a lovely dinner at a Tibetan run restaurant down the brick paved lane which wends its way along the cliff top.  To the left, mostly unprotected, the steep fall down to a picture postcard perfect beach. To the right a ribbon of restaurants, shops, travel agencies, yoga schools, beauty salons.  Coconut trees everywhere – clusters of fruit ripening high up, close to the trunk.

 

In front of our hotel, in this large triangular space, a group of young men play cricket.  Most in flip flops, they fly across the space through the puddles to catch the ball.  Like most men here, many wear a type of sarong.  Often a cream or white garment with a blue or green stripe along the edges, it reaches down to their ankles.  For playing cricket, working or just to cool down, they pick up the two ankle length corners and tie it around their waist.  Others stand over at the top of the cliff doing breathing or light yoga exercises.  A human version of Prince Charming (from Shrek) jogs around the cliff top. Blonde, bronzed, toned and coiffed to within an inch of his life, he wears immaculate training clothes and punches the air as he jogs along.  He stops to do exercises at the cliff top, not wasting a second as he works arms and legs at the same time before skipping for a while (the rope tucked into the waistband of his shorts at the back) and then doing push ups.  He lifts his backside too high.

 

The sun is up but the sky is still a bleached blue-grey, merging with the colour of the sea.  By day, there seems to be nothing on the sea, just the odd tiny, grey shape.  As soon as it’s dark, the lights of hundreds of boats are visible a couple of miles off shore like a string of Christmas lights strung across the bay.

 

Varkala is a normal Indian town but the North Cliff is purely for Western tourists.  We’ve been here for four nights and, again, don’t want to leave.  We have two rooms in a lovely unpretentious hotel.  Two rooms with a magnificent sea view.  A large balcony In front of each room and a third, even larger balcony with a hammock strung across it, between the two rooms.   A great chunky wooden backgammon set which allows us to fling the dice, sending them spinning and rolling across the board and then to slam the counters into place with satisfying  vigour.  Catherine is a mean opponent.  As it’s the end of the season, we pay €10 per night for the five of us.

 

Like all of the beaches we have been on in India, this is not a swimmers’ beach.  Strong currants make swimming out dangerous.  But, again, the waves are wonderful and the water is pretty warm and we’ve all enjoyed our time on this beach.  Catherine met a lovely 9 year old French girl and a couple of French-speaking Swiss girls and enjoyed a couple of days playing on the beach with them, eating breakfast together, playing cards, digging holes.  Paul and Tom, as usual, chat together as if there was no tomorrow.

We are enjoying our time here and, as usual don’t want to leave.  We tend to get up late-ish, play some backgammon or read and then go for a late breakfast taken in one of the sea-facing restaurants which serve good food at (for us, anyway) reasonable prices.  We then do some schoolwork, mostly Irish at this stage, although Anthony sets maths tests for the kids that even I can’t do.  (the “even” referring to my age, not my great intelligence”)

 

We eat twice a day – as we have been doing this since the beginning of the our journey.  It’s also what we do on holidays in Ireland and at weekends.  It feels much more natural.  While Southern Indian cuisine is quite famous, we have found that the restaurants in this part of India serve a much more varied menu than in the North – lots of fresh fish, pasta, pancakes, juices… Here it’s lovely to wander along the cliff top, and while the odd motor bike or even tuk tuk may pass, it is nice to be away from constantly watching your back (rickshaws, tuk tusk, carts, bicycles, …) and your feet (mud, litter, cow shit, fresh spit) as you walk along.  But we will probably go tomorrow (April 12^th).

 

IF EVERY BLINK OF THE EYE IS LIKE A PHOTOGRAPH, WHO NEEDS A CAMERA?

“Every blink of the eye is like a photograph in India”.  I started a blog a couple of weeks ago with these words.  I liked these words.  I felt that they captured the amazing visual feast that greets you no matter where you are in this country.  When Anna visited us in March we often said it as we passed along an interesting street; when we saw monkeys climbing along the balconies in Delhi; through the narrow streets in Varanasi; watching people worship at a temple in Sarnath; families sitting together on the train or at the station; waiters clustering around the counter in Flury’s posh restaurant in Calcutta  “Every blink”.

 

A pity then, that we have been so unlucky with our cameras.  We started the trip with two cameras.  A digital Acer that Sophie gave me some time before the trip.  And a ‘Traveller’ that Anthony picked up in Aldi and which turned out to be a great buy.  Then Amy bought Paul a camera and Catherine commandeered my Acer  I was happy enough about this as I found that the kids enjoyed sightseeing more if they able to take photos.  Three cameras and counting.  So far so good.

 

Then Tom received a camera for Christmas and a memory card for his birthday 3 weeks later. So four cameras, four sets of batteries, four charging cables, four cables that link the camera to the computer, four camera cases, etc. 

 

Disaster 1: The Traveller camera is damaged when Tom jumps onto Anthony’s back not bypassing the camera which Anthony keeps on his belt.  Now it works but only on longer distances and it needs to be manually focussed, and, and, and….  Camera count: 3 ½.

We buy ourselves an Olympus (You Tube Compatible!).  We now have 4 ½ cameras.

Disaster 2: Tom’s new camera stops working.  We are in Morocco and think that there may be some sand in the lens.  Difficult while we are travelling to start invoking guarantees or even to be in a place long enough to get it repaired.  We send it home.  3 ½ cameras.

Disaster 3: Our new Olympus stops working. 2 ½ cameras.

We bring the Traveller and the Olympus to a camera place in Srinigar, Cashmir.  .The Traveller still needs manual focusing.  The Olympus is not working and we sent it home.  2 ¾ cameras.

Disaster 4:  I am 48!

We’re in Kolkata and it’s my birthday and I insist on visiting the wonderful Marble Palace.  So we go along to the Indian Tourist Authority to get the permit (don’t ask – we don’t know the answer).  The lady advises us that the metro is the best way to get there and we’re happy to experience Indian public transport.  The Marble Palace is a majestic though run-down house crammed to the gills with Victoriana – paintings (including Sir Joshua Reynolds and other notables), beautiful marble busts, clocks, chandeliers, chinoiserie plant stands, huge vases, mahogany furniture, statues, incredible marble floors – all the marble imported from Italy.  There is no catalogue, no little cards to tell you what it what.  A young man showed us around pointing out objects of special note.  And in a sense this place captures Kolkata – the faded glory, the tired elegance and yet so rich and so beautiful.  We spend a happy two hours wandering around and fervently hoping that nobody decides that the place needs an overhaul. Back on the metro, it’s crowded and we stand and hold on to the children. All tired now. Our stop – Park Street and only 5 minutes to Flury’s   and the lemon tart, iced fancies and ice-creams that we have been dreaming of.  We get off the train. In the moment he alights, Anthony realizes that the Traveller camera has been stolen out of its waistband case – despite his arm placed over it (he remembers being jostled). Packed with a week of photographs of Anna ’s visit – Some time in Delhi, our trip to the Taj Mahal in Agra, our wonderful days in Varanasi and Sarnath, our days in Kolkata – all gone  (Anna – luckily bought herself a camera at the airport on the way over and captured lots of what we saw).  Down to 2 cameras.

We buy ourselves a new camera – an Olympus.  While this has a nicer hand and makes a satisfying clunk sound when you take a photo, it has to be worn around the neck.  With his Nike cap, sun glasses, check shirt and camera around his neck, Anthony looks like a Yank.  Back to 3 cameras.

 

I’ll keep you posted.

More India  By  Anthony

The well spoken and impeccably dressed man standing on the platform pleaded with us to change our minds. The plan of action which we had, not exactly hoped but rather were being forced by circumstances, to pursue was not, according to him, a safe and suitable course for westerners and especially not for ones accompanied by children. He beseeched us (his words) to change our arrangements and, with his concerned pleadings ringing in our ears, we finally capitulated and decided to take his advice convinced, in no small measure, by the armed soldiers who stood guard and maintained order over the queue of people that we had decided not to join.

It was7AM on the 20^th March and we were standing on platform 22 of Kolkata’s railway station waiting to board a general class carriage of the 7.30 train to Baripada. From there we planned to take a taxi the 90 or so Kilometres to Similipal National Park where we had booked two nights accommodation in the hope of seeing some monkeys, elephants or even tigers We had learnt, by then, that we couldn’t book a sleeper on a train on the day of departure and then only if there was space left. But we had only finally decided to leave cosmopolitan Culcutta the night before and, try as we might, we were too late to get tickets that evening

There are several classes that can be chosen from on Indian trains and negotiating them is a trial in itself. We did learn about an excellent resource, to use some management-speak, - a book entitled “Railways at a glance” - and I had walked, a few mornings previously, the several kilometres through the sweltering city heat to the only place in Kolkata - the railway administration office - where it could be acquired. On some trains there are first class carriages which, as yet, we have not savoured. Then there is second class AC (air conditioned. I assume that first class has this facility) seated. Of the sleeper type carriages there is two tier AC, three tier AC and ordinary sleeper class which also has beds stacked three high but which, while not being air conditioned, has three fans above each sleeping alcove and lots of open windows.

To book any of these classes one must reserve a ticket, (at the reserved tickets counter, of course) the day before for sleepers and at least four hours in advance for a seat. There is, surprise, surprise, a form to be filled out which one must first get by excusing oneself to the top of the queue and asking the cashier through the grill for it. Then, armed with the completed document, one must queue up whilst keeping an eye out for pickpockets and queue skippers. I don’t think that I have once gotten to the top of a queue anywhere in India without someone from behind thrusting their money ahead of me towards the teller at the last minute. I have become very forceful about this behaviour now and always successfully challenge it. If you can’t get a ticket for the class you want, you can go on a waiting list for a seat or a bed in the event that someone doesn’t turn up and can get on the train with your waiting list ticket.

If you do manage to obtain a reserved ticket, you know that you have a seat or bed on your chosen train because there seems to be a good if tedious system of reserving places in these “upper-class” carriages. One person, one assigned bed/seat although you may have to awaken a slumbering native (whether pretending or not) to access your place.

Not so in general class. They seem to sell as many tickets for those carriages as there are takers without regard for the consequences and, as we stood on that Kolkata platform, the consequences were all too clear to our Indian beseecher. There was a very long queue - temporarily orderly as they, overseen by the soldiers, awaited the train’s arrival and there was, we had been told, only two general class carriages on the train. I was unhappy about travelling even before our Good Samaritan intervened. The journey was to be eight hours long and we already knew that the 11.30 train had only waiting list tickets left for reserved seats. At our friend’s suggestion, Julia and Tom took a tuk tuk to the railway administration office to see if we white Europeans could get guaranteed seats on the later train as I watched the increasingly restless throng and our luggage.

We had once before bought general class tickets – from Delhi to Agra - but, as events transpired, we didn’t savour the pleasures of sardine travelling. In Delhi Paul, who was very sick, and I accompanied the cycle-rickshaw carrying our luggage while the others went ahead to get tickets. Julia waited in the ladies’ queue in the unreserved section and even though another man had told me that she was queuing for a ticket which would oblige us to stand the whole journey, I ignored him having been warned of the many scammers that inhabit railway stations in India.

Knowing that we had no reserved seats and brought to a certain carriage by our porters (who were dissatisfied with the payment we were tendering) we had rushed onto train to grab seats in the scramble, mistakenly believing that it was just a question of first come first served. But as the train filled up, the reality of our situation gradually dawned upon us. We were in a sleeper class carriage and every seat was booked. And sardine class was, by now, surely, well and truly canned. After being evicted from a few places in turn we made our way down the moving train, with dread in our hearts, to the John West carriage. But the way to sardine class was blocked by a roller shutter. It seems that the plebs shall not mix with even the mere sleeper classes in India.

We piled our bags beside the toilets and settled down on them for the long journey but, eventually, Julia Anna and the children seeped back into some empty berths in sleeper class leaving me to guard the camp and read my book. I was accompanied there by several general class types whose numbers swelled as the journey continued.

Eventually, the ticket inspectors arrived, one of whom was very physically aggressive in Hindi to some of my fellow stowaways whilst ignoring me. At the same time, I could hear, through the throng, someone speaking in English to Jools and Anna saying that he was doing them some sort of facilitation. In the end, we paid a fine for not travelling in the right carriage, the women having unsuccessfully argued that Indian Railway’s porters had led us to the wrong carriage and that it was all some big innocent mistake.

Julia arrived back to the Calcutta’s platform 22 without having seen anybody at the foreign tourist counter of the railway administration office (which didn’t open till 10 AM) and without having spoken to the senior administrator for whom our Good Samaritan had advised us to ask. And the train was still standing on the platform with sardine class alarmingly bulging to bursting point.

While she was away I had toyed with the idea of just getting on to the three tier AC carriage which was so conspicuously inviting and just paying the fine when the time came. When I suggested this to Julia she agreed without hesitation and so we started our journey with me in toilet class, cooled by two open doors with Julia and the kids in air-conditioned comfort on the few empty berths that undoubtedly awaited passengers that would get on the train down the line.

When the ticket collector did eventually arrive his approach was subtle and refreshingly understanding and, anyway, we were ready with our defence. We saw him slowly make his way down the carriage and by the time he arrived in toilet class, Julia and I were reading our books and looking as uncomfortable and forlorn as we could manage. Yes we had general class tickets and yes we were in a three tier AC carriage but we were physically unable to get into our “chosen” class carriage and so we had just mounted the train in the expectation of moving later when the sardines thinned out.

Our lone inspector was very understanding and told us that he could give us berths in two tier AC – for a price. We said that we would be happy to stay in three tier AC if he could find us some places and so we were distributed around the adjoining carriage with no talk of payment at that time. However, 20 minutes later Julia called me out into toilet class to discuss our dilemah with him and his accomplice. We are still unsure of what transpired due to the language barrier but he did take our tickets and 1,100 Rupies and seemed to indicate that if asked, we were to be the people who had booked the various berths where he had deposited us. Who they might be and how we would do that was not clear but, in the end, as we alighted at Baripada, he returned our tickets to us together with 200 Rupies. Did we pay a fine or a bribe? We still don’t know and are happy in our confusion.

Similipal proved to be something of an expensive damp squib as a brilliant cartoon in Tom’s diary testifies. We stayed in a “hotel” in the forest with very old looking solar panels and a diesel generator for power and the electricity went off each night at about 10.30. We have gotten used to sharing our accommodation with various forms of fauna and ants and mosquitos being our hosts in that place, we used mosquito nets for the first time there. The main expense in Similipal was the entry fees into the park, the driver and the mandatory guide (although the guide was provided free after we pleaded with the park ranger about being enticed to the place by false entry charge information). In the end we had a very long and expensive day driving through the woods and, although we did see some monkeys. (they’re everywhere in Kolkata anyway) the elephants and tigers proved elusive.

Three days later we were again standing on the platform of Baripada station – this time with reserved tickets which we had purchased on our arrival there – in the sweltering heat. And it was Holi, also known as colours day in India. Holi is one of the most important Hindu religious festivals in India. In fact, there was a clutch of religious celebrations that weekend with Holi, the prophet’s birthday and Easter all falling on the same weekend.

Colours day means colours, literally, and, it seems, the consumption of a great deal of alcohol. As we took our taxi from park to station we were stopped by groups of multicoloured children and gangs on inebriated adults who demanded money for safe passage. Those who refused to pay, and even some who didn’t, where drenched with electric blue, shocking pink or fluorescent green water. By a combination of rolling up our windows and the taximan’s adept evasive driving we managed to make it to the station sporting just a few faint tints.

Holi was a difficult day for us. The taxi that we’d booked for 8 AM didn’t turn up and our stress levels rose as the hotel manager tried for over an hour to get us transportation. In the end we shared a taxi (although we paid) with a part time farmer who told us something interesting about the over-use of water to fuel the growth in agriculture here. The rains, when they do come, do not, according to him, replenish the groundwater and although he once drilled his well only 600 feet deep, he now had to drill 900 before reaching the precious commodity. This seems to me to be ominous.

The train was three hours late and the station master allowed us to enter the “upper-class waiting room” which had a toilet, a shower and was air conditioned. That was the class room for that day during which we learnt another thing about Indian trains. Late trains get later by the minute. That is because any train going anywhere in India will meet several others along the way going in the opposite direction and one or other will have to stop at an appropriate siding until the other passes. This is all expected and calculated into the timetables. However, a late train will meet ones that it would not normally do and the convention is that the late train always has to wait for the on time one to pass. This sometimes involves stopping in the middle of nowhere for a half an hour or so while the other one approaches. So with every announcement the ETA of our train became later and even after we did board it, the process continued.

Our train took us to Bhubaneswar by 10PM and we then had an hour long cab journey to Puri where we had accommodation booked in the Hotel Ghandra. There, we stayed for longer than we had planned and just chilled out after our previously hectic schedule – swimming in the sea each day and eating in the excellent and cheap restaurants each night bar one.

On our first day on the beach I was approached by a young man from the adjacent fishing village asking whether we would like to eat fresh fish in his house that evening. I went to see where he lived as he lead me through a slum like compound where women sat talking and preparing food  on the mud paths and chickens and naked children wandered freely. We dined that night in his tiny house – no bigger than our bathroom in Woodtown – and we paid too much for the meal. However it was a very interesting experience and we got to meet his beautiful young wife and baby and learned a little about their lives while Catherine got her nails painted. Jet black and all as he was, his family were Catholic and her’s Hindu. When she became pregnant, both families were against the union but he “took” her anyway and three months before the birth of their adorable little boy they both got baptised as Catholics and married. He had built his tiny house with 36,000 Rupies  (about €450) borrowed from a German friend and now survived by fishing and coaxing tourists to eat overpriced meals in his humble abode.

After a relaxing five days in Puri and travelling on one of the days to see that wonderful Sun Temple at Konark it was time to move on and the next leg of our journey – to Chenai (Madras) was by plane. That too was delayed by several hours and we arrived in Chenai airport late at night feeling tired and unruly. We had no accommodation booked in target destination - Mamallapuram - and the decision had to be made as to whether we would get a place in Chenai for the night or take a taxi the 60 Km to our chosen resting place. The children, and especially Catherine, just wanted their beds – wherever they might be - and groaned when we decided to bite the bullet.

 But we fell on our feet. The taxi was big and spacious and although The Siva Guesthouse, as recommended by The Lonely Planet, was full the manager helpfully brought us across the road to The Vinodhara where we got two beautiful rooms.

Mamallampuram is, like Puri, a beach tourist town and we spent six more days relaxing, swimming and dining on fresh fish in its many fine restaurants. We also saw a temple or two aswell as some very interesting rock carvings there. Mammallampuram has been a centre for carving in stone for millennia and it was only the weight of the piece that prevented me from buying a lovely statue of The Buddah carved in black marble. The biggest fly in the ointment there was that I got severely sunburnt on my back which obliged me to stay out of the sun for a few days and to cope with the blisters, the nausea and the I told you sos. In fairness to Julia, even though we had had many discussions about sun cream application, it was the children who were the biggest pains in this regard. At least Catherine has had hours of enjoyment peeling the loose skin off my reddened back. I am now fully recovered

For no other reason than that it had featured in a book , The Life of Pi, that Paul, Julia and I had read, our next port of call was the old French enclave of Pondicherry where we spent three nights in the lovely Park Guest House which is part of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram movement. It has beautiful meditation gardens and is beside the sea, expects its guests to be quiet and pensive and its gates are locked at 10.30 each night. Smoking, drinking alcohol and the taking of drugs are prohibited within its curtilage.

Surprisingly, there is little enough to do in Pondecherry itself except walk along the promenade or visit the meditation ashram where Sri Auribindo and The Mother are interred. According to The Planet this ashram, which propounds spiritual tenets that represent a synthesis of yoga and modern science, was founded by Sri Aurobindo  and a French woman (the mother)in 1926. After his death, spiritual authority passed to The Mother who survived until 1973 when she died aged 97. Nowadays the ashram underwrites many cultural and educational activities in Pondy and the pairs photographs can be seen displayed everywhere. Another interesting thing about Pondicherry is that it was there that we spotted the first wheelbarrow we’d sighted in India.

There are no wheelbarrows (well not many) and no JCBs in India and their shovels and spades are all bent backwards like deformed pickaxes as if they had suffered some horrific accident. Probably because labour is so cheap in India (a sign informed us about the building of a road which quoted 75 Rupies - €1.10 – per day) there is lots of it utilised everywhere. Building materials – sand, cement, gravel and bricks - are carried on the head (mostly women’s heads) in wok-like bowls placed upon doughnut shaped tea towels for padding. The bowls are filled with loose material by holding them with the shins and dragging the required substance into them with the mutilated shovels. Then the filler-upper assists the carrier to raise the bowl onto her head before she transports it, often up bamboo scaffolding to its destination. In this way all building material is transported sometimes only a few feet. In the case of bricks they are piled 20 high in the woks and the rest of the process is the same. On the other hand, all the chambermaids in India are male.

We left Pondicherry three days ago and took the overnight train (sleeper class) to Thiruvananthapuram in the south-western state of Kerala near the very southern tip of India. We are now staying in beautiful Karala where we swim in the Indian Ocean and shop and dine among the many restaurants and shops. The tourists are thin on the ground now having been driven away by the searing heat and overpowering humidity and the resort is slowly closing down until next November when the impending monsoons will be well and truly over. This state has experienced unseasonably early rains this year with two weeks of daily downpours which have, apparently destroyed one third of the rice crop.

Here we will stay for a day or two more before flying to Mumbai from where we plan to take an overnight train to see the famous caves at Ajanta and Alora before returning to the metropolis from where we leave India for Thailand on the 19^th.

Already our thoughts are straying to that next leg of the journey and our Thai Planet is, by now, well thumbed. We have loved India; its madness, its temples, its people and its spiritualism but we have seen enough of it for a first trip and when we do leave we will be happy to move on to the next part of our adventure.

THE BURNING

by

Paul Harris

As I trudged through the alleyways of Varinasi, I could smell the stench of burning bodies. We were close. When we got to the burning ghat, I laid my father’s body into the Ganges.  We recited a few prayers, brought him up the steps and put him down beside the fire, to let people say their last goodbyes.  They put my father’s body on the fire.  I looked around.  I saw my brothers, my uncles, my cousins, family friends.  But there were no women.  They would be too emotional.  The men around had a stern look on, but I knew they were crying inside.  When I looked back to the fire, I could see my father’s burning face.  It was a truly heartbreaking sight.  When the body was completely burned, we threw the ashes in the river.  As we walked back up the steps, I smiled.  The day had been devastating but triumphant.  My father was finally in heaven.

Varanasi, India, March 14^th, 2008

 

Proud mother’s comment:  Paul wrote this story after a day in Varanasi.  In the morning, we had read a little about Varanasi – one of India’s seven holy cities – and the children made notes.  We were staying about 15 miles away in a lovely hostel (hotel really) in the town of Sarnath.  Sarnath is a centre for Buddhists and there are lots of temples. We enjoyed eating in the garden and just being away from the cities which are oh so very crowded.  One day we took a taxi into Varanasi and spent the day exploring the city.  The River Ganges (regarded as holy by Hindus) is lined by all sorts of ghats.  Ghats are platforms or landing stages built along the river.  Typically, they are stepped down to the river.  There are , washing ghats – from where people bathe in the incredibly dirty water, ghats with beautiful houses, temples, shops, cafes, oxen and other with animals bathing/drinking, people washing clothes.  Then of course there are the burning ghats where people from all over India are brought in special train carriages or airplanes to be cremated over an open fire.  The male relatives (women do not go to burnings) then carry the brightly covered stretcher through the streets of Varanasi, chanting prayers before soaking the body in the Ganges and then burning it.  Meanwhile, only feet away the men who tend the fires search the mud on the river bed for gold jewellery (they have a kind of panning basket) which may have been thrown into the river with the ashes.

The roads around the ghats are really narrow – just enough for a bicycle.  We wandered down to the river and engaged a man to row us along.  He brought us to a burning ghat – apparently the fire has being going for thousands of years.  There is a huge weighing scales on the ghat to calculate the (really expensive) wood which is used for burning.  There is an elaborate ritual which is followed before the fire is lit by the eldest son (if it’s the dad) or youngest son (if it’s the mum).  We did not go too near the ghat but were able to see body parts including legs sticking out of one fire, a leg and foot and even a skull/upper torso.  In fact, it was a lot less grisly than it sounds and we were all fine about it.  A man tends the fire, turning the body and the ashes so that everything burns away without wasting the precious wood.  We also saw a body being rowed into the middle of the Ganges to be dropped in.  Certain people are not burned including Holy Men (Saddhus) – who are already pure, children under 13 and pregnant women (innocent or carrying the innocent), lepers/small pox victims (not sure why).  One man we met in India told us that there was a Saddhu in his family and disposing of his body was a real problem.  They went at midnight and threw the body into the sea but the tide would not take it out – and then they got a puncture.  He laughed and said that they felt like criminals. 

 

Anyway, the day after we had hoped to go into Varanasi for the dawn bathing which takes place (to watch – not take part) but the Prime Minister was due to visit that morning.  The place was crawling with police and army (literally thousands of them drafted in) and we reckoned that it would be next to impossible to get around.  So, the following morning, as part of their schoolwork, I gave each of the children a task (30 minutes to write a description or story about Varanasi).   Above is what Paul came up with.  I cried and gave it A+.  Anna cried and gave it A+.  Anthony only gave it an A.  I think he was slightly bothered by the subject matter!

 

Tom’s contribution is below.  An extract from ‘The Lonely Planet’ might help to explain some of his reactions to what he saw.  “The Ganges River, or Great Mother as it is known to Hindus, provides millions of Indians with an important link to their spirituality.  Every day about 60,000 people go down to the Varanasi ghats to take a holy dip along a 7 km stretch of the river.  Along this same area, 30 large sewers are continuously discharging into the river.

“The Ganges River is so heavily polluted at Varanasi that the water is septic – no dissolved ogygen exists.  The statistics get worse.  Samples from the river show the water has 1.5million faecal coliform bacteria per 100 ml of water.  In water that is safe for bathing, this figure should be less than 500!”

 

My Day in Varanasi by Tom Harris

Today I took a taxi into town.  It was expensive - €6!

When we got to town we found that it was ridden with cows and (gulp) bulls.

We saw a bull mounting a cow… ewww.  When we went on a boat ride, the driver started off at 900 rupees and we got him down to 300 rupees.  It was a nice peaceful ride viewing all the ghats: the café ghats, the bathing ghats, the washing clothes ghats, the (blechhh) drinking ghats but most of all burning (cremating) ghats which a man told us about. Then we went to a restaurant where I had pasta with pesto and where Paul got sick (editor’s note: don’t ask).  Then we got two auto rickshaws back to our hotel when we read Calvin and Hobbes and went to bed.

 

 

These are just some memories and experiences that seem interesting to me…

 

MADE TO MEASURE (SOMEBODY BIGGER)

We were in the Khan al Khali Market – probably the best known bazaar in Cairo.  It is not mostly full of stuff for tourists – t-shirts, perfume, glass bottles, spices, jewellery and souvenirs.  While it is touristy, there is a real Egyptian bustle here.  Goods coming through on carts, boys delivering glasses of tea to shopkeepers and stall holders and, everywhere, shopkeepers trying to get you to visit THEIR shop.  “Good price for you”  “It costs nothing to look” or our personal favourite (and already quoted in this blog) when a young boy shouted “don’t waste your time.  I have exactly what you are looking for”.  A favourite ploy is to ask you where you are from as a way of engaging you in conversation.  Whether you buy or not, they remain friendly and polite and like to have a laugh.   A couple of times when I was looking around for Anthony and the kids, stall holders would point me in the right direction.  We looked for a t-shirt for Paul.  The price started at 50 LE (Egyptian pounds) and came down to 15.  Good thing too as most of the dye ran out in the wash and I reckon getting your money back is almost impossible.  The market is noisy.  We are continually dodging carts and trolleys.  Making space for black-clad women with huge bags on their head,

In Egypt, I have been trying to outwit the stall-holders. They were especially… er… assertive in Luxor.  There, they walk into your path, blocking your way.  “Here we first came across the “why not?” tactic.  They offer you something, you say no and they ask “why not”.  You engage in conversation and get hooked. And so I tried to find a way to outwit them. I have found that the best thing to do is always to smile and agree with them.  “Welcome. Please, come inside my shop”.  I smile and nod.  “Lovely t-shirts”.  “Yes they are lovely”.  “Good price”.  “Yes, I am sure that your price is very good”.  That normally leaves them a bit stuck and me smiling graciously and moving on.

Back at Khan al Khali market, we turn left off the main thoroughfare onto a smaller alley.  Walking down, my eye is drawn by a beautiful silk midnight blue dress. Simple, elegant and classy.  (You have to say “classy” in a Coronation Street accent).  Tragically, there is not a silk dress shaped space in my rucksack but I have been looking at how dowdy and sloppy Western women look compared to their Arab counterparts in Morocco and Egypt (not to mention the men who often dress magnificently).  I feel that I have been in jeans for six months.  And (whisper it) I have lost weight and these jeans are baggy and unattractive.  So in to the shop we go and discover that we are in the Khan-al-khalili women’s tailors shop.  (Or is he a dressmaker?)

Mr Hagay is middle-aged and grey-haired.  He’s impeccably dressed western style.  He has a quiet, ‘umble manner.  There is no pressure and no rush.  He speaks in a hushed whisper. We look at styles and samples of material and he agrees to make me a plain silk jacket, two tops (one in matching silk and one in black silk) and a pair of black trousers for about €60.00 (including delivery by taxi). 

And I wonder how we’re going to handle the measurements part.  Will he call a woman or risk the job himself?  He’s up to it himself and ever so delicately measures my bust, waist and hips.  I hold the top of the measuring tape on that all important inside leg measurement.  He’s more relaxed measuring my back, shoulders and arms.  I’m now worried that the stuff will be big for me but reckon that he’s factored his ginger fingers into the equation.  A couple of days later I’m back and trying everything on.   As I feared, Mr Hagary’s fingers have been too delicate and everything is a bit too big.  “I will have it adjusted” whispers Mr Hagary, nodding and smiling.   That evening, it arrives out to our apartment by taxi.  I look stylish for a couple of days – then it’s time to wash everything.  The cream stuff comes up fine but, like Paul’s t-shirt, the black clothes seem intent on running themselves down the plughole.  The trousers also shrank a bit.  Perhaps I need a more Buddhist like attitude towards these earthly objects.

WARDROBE OVERHALL CONTINUED:

Ditch the Dolce and give away the Gabbana.  Abandon the Armani.  Chuck the Chanel.  Purge the Prada.   I am having a complete wardrobe revamp when I get home.  The reason? : Our visit to the beautiful Marjolles Gardens in Marrakesh.  These gardens had been developed but neglected until the 1980s when Yves St Laurent bought and revamped them before handing them over to a charitable trust.  We spent a wonderful few hours there – a cool and stylish oasis of greenery and calm in that city which is hot, dusty and bustling.   The gardens are not big but beautifully planted with cacti, palms, flowering plants.  Cool canals run through and garden the painted flower pots provide splashes of colour.  Definitely a place to go back to.  And how to thank the man who made it all possible. A guilt-free reason to buy designer clothes so it’s in with Yves.  Certainly more of Saint and Lots of Laurent when I get back to Dublin.

A FACE THAT HAUNTS ME

We were crossing the Atlas Mountains in Morocco.  The scenery in Morocco is superb, but this day surpassed everything.  The snow-topped Atlas Mountains all around us, roads winding their way up and down steep hillsides.  Bright blue sky with white clouds. The far away mountains black, capped with snow, the nearer ones brown, ochre, orange, deep red, even pink. This was probably the most beautiful day that we had seen in Morocco.  There was about four hours driving to be done that day and we passed through many villages and towns – people going about their business, drinking tea at roadside cafes, shopping at stalls, fixing cars, herding animals.  Between the towns, people offered brightly coloured mineral fossils for sale at the roadside.  They looked incredible – lime green, turquoise, deep red, magenta.  And indeed they were unbelievable – the sellers had ‘enhanced’ them with a little paint.

In one village through which we drove, the weekly fair was in full swing.  The road was absolutely crowded: farmers filled bags of hay from a truck, fruit and vegetables were sold from stalls, herds of goats and sheep were driven through the village, cars, bicycles, carts, pedestrians all competed for space.  We found a space to park the camper van at the end of the village and went out to have a look. To the right, slightly above the village, a ‘car park’ for donkeys and carts . Up the street and into the left, a small souk.  Stony, uneven dirt paths.  This was not a souk for tourists, but, like most souks, it was organized according as to what was being sold – fruits, vegetables, shoes/clothes, tailors, etc.  Just in and we were watching a guy cook fish and chips outside a restaurant.  A man, dressed in the traditional jelabbah walked up to Anthony and shook his hand.  Abdul seemed friendly and spoke English and he offered to show us the Souk.  We were a bit reluctant but he was persistent and the path was narrow – there weren’t a lot of places to go.  I explained to him that we weren’t going to buy anything from him and that we didn’t want to waste his time.  “No problem, I show you 4 star restaurant.”  But as we walked along, he began to show me jewellery from his bag.  I again explained that we did not wish to buy anything.  The 4 stars awarded to this particular restaurant were for interest, authenticity, value and uniqueness.  It was truly a film set.  We walked into this smoky room with mud walls.  A fire burned in the corner and in the absence of a chimney, the smoke billowed around the room, swirling in the sunlight which streamed through two low windows.  There were no chairs free but space was quickly created for us and we sat on orange crates around a table and ordered Berber tea. Abdul again pulled out his bag and tried to sell his jewellery.  At this stage we were getting cheesed off with him and, on finishing the tea, we told him that we would leave him.  He then started telling us that he had children, was poor, etc.

Anthony wanted to buy ear-rings for Catherine and allowed Abdul to broker the deal, hoping that this would be enough to get rid of him.  Despite our very clear request, he would not leave us alone so Anthony eventually gave him some money to go away.  We went into the fish and chip restaurant.  While our waiter there was lovely, we have never eaten in a place so filthy and I swore that we never will again.  A space was cleared for us on the terrace (by moving goods, not people) and our waiter did his best to make the table presentable.  We had a perfectly adequate fish and chips and drank water. Glad – God forgive us – to be rid of Abdul, the terrible pest.     

Time to hit the road again and we left the restaurant and went into the crowded street.  A hooded man walked along with us for a while – Abdul in disguise.   The selling beginning again, the pleading, the persuading.  And the question all the time in your head.  Is he really desperate or is he putting it on?  We have seen beggars walking up side-streets and then shuffling along the main street on their behind, we have seen mothers pinching their children to make them cry, we have seen children walking on to trains and then crawling through the carriages on their hands and knees, begging.  We have seen able-bodied people pretending to be disabled.  But there is also real poverty.  And then the advice not to give money to people who beg on the streets as it “just encourages them”. 

We arrive back at our van and a couple of children congregate around the door. We produce a bag of sweets and the children – and Abdul – all put their hands out.  I cannot believe that Abdul wants his share of this childish offering.  The sweets run out and there are more children so I produce a packet of biscuits – again Abdul’s hand is in there.  I feel amazed at how low he is prepared to sink, at his lack of pride.  But I also keep wondering whether a small hand out would have made a big difference.  Abdul’s sad eyes as he watched me close the door of that campervan, haunt me to this day.

PRIDE COMES BEFORE A FALL

In my last blog, I waxed lyrical about India and, especially, about Indian food. But we have travelled South and West and the weather is getting hotter.  All of us have had various encounters with Delhi Belly (I fear that there was a slightly unhealthy focus on toilets in earlier blogs, and will therefore spare the details). And as we have travelled from city to crowded city, I find myself thinking of home.  Imagining Irish food – rhubarb and custard, stewed apple and cream, cream crackers, a tender fillet steak, mashed potato, real toast, bacon and cabbage or Italian food.  As the weather gets hotter, the idea of a glass of white wine or a cool beer becomes more inviting (we are off the booze this year).  As we travel from one crowded city to another, I find myself thinking of quiet places in Ireland – the beach at Inishbofin, Marley Park, the Canals…

We are all better now and hopefully immunized against further outbreaks – but we won’t count on it and we’ll hopefully chalk it all up to our Indian experience.

PRIDE COMES BEFORE A FALL (2 AND 3)

Friends, I may have to return to Dublin early as this trip is having an impact on my looks.

Pride comes before a fall 2 – Srinigar, Kashmir, Northern India.

You may remember Abdul (aka Expensive and Glum – our guide in Kashmir.  Crossing over the lake to our houseboat on Lake Dal, the issue of Abdul (our guide’s) age comes up.  Abdul asks us to guess.  We both guess late 20s.  In fact he’s early 20s.  We then ask him to guess our ages.  He guesses Anthony first – 55. I suppress a self-righteous smirk. Anthony pays little attention to his health and only applies sun-cream after extreme nagging and placing of the bottle of sun cream in strategically easy places. On this trip, he talks about building up the skin’s natural protection (e.g. going brown).  I hope that Abdul’s over-estimation of his age will help bring him to his senses.

Abdul then guesses my age.  Holding nothing back from the devoted readers of this blog, I must be honest and admit that I always pride myself on looking younger than 48.  Good skin inherited from both parents.  Non-smoker.  Generally get the recommended 8 hours shut-eye, norralorra sun and I’ve always ‘taken care’ of my skin.  In Aswan, having run out of our factor 50 sun cream, I bought  myself a factor 100 from the ‘Pale and Lovely’ Pharmacy.  I have also, without particularly trying, lost weight on this trip.  Abdul studies my face for a second.  ‘56’ he guesses.  I hear a chuckle from Anthony and put it down to the early start that morning.

Pride comes before a fall (3) – Kolkata, India

We are now in Calcutta and Anna and I go to see the doctor for our Delhi bellies which are not getting any better.  We sit with the young doctor in his consulting room.  Catherine is in with us.  I describe my symptoms and he takes my blood pressure (which is low), checks pulse (which is high) and listens to my belly.  He prescribes three medicines.  On to Anna – who doesn’t seem to be as bad.  “But maybe that’s the age thing” he mutters.    I think that he must be very perceptive doctor to work out that that I’m five years older than Anna.  He writes out the prescription for Anna and explains to me that “your daughter” is not as sick and doesn’t require as much medicine (which raises the question, who does he think Catherine is?  Clearly my grand-daughter).   So I got dressed especially carefully this morning.  And one dose of tablets and we are both as right as rain.  Wonder can he prescribe anything for looking younger…

My Kolkata Birthday

I have always been scared of going to India.  Afraid that I could not face the poverty and that I would lie awake at night racked by guilt and worry,  I was especially frightened of Kolkata – tales of Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying, the street dweller, beggars, shanty towns…

 

In fact, I am both relieved and a little worried to find that I can mostly cope with seeing the poverty.  The warm climate makes a huge difference as people are rarely cold and there is a long tradition of people living on pavements.  Sometimes you see a family – grandparents, parents and children all settling down for a night under a plastic tarpaulin which has been tied to a fence.  Early in the morning, the streets are full of men showering at pumps.  The Government gives these people nothing. Perhaps it’s just a way of coping, but I have decided not to give money to beggars but rather to give money to a charity which helps the dispossessed of India when I get home.  (and feel free to check up on that).    Anyway, it seems that the most serious poverty is rural – mostly unseen by tourists.

In Kolcata, five minutes from our Sunflower Guest House (Anna is treating us to a posh place) we find Flury’s Restaurant – cool, stylish, great menu, lovely food (including a wonderful tarte au citron), not expensive by European standards.  We go there almost every day for breakfast.

I start off my birthday with a second visit to the Calcutta Laughing Club.  Yesterday, just Anna and I made the 6.30 class. Today Paul and Catherine join us.  Chuckling like laughing policemen (not), we have a short walk and make our way back to the Guesthouse.  Anthony and Tom are just up.  I’m on my best spoiled girl behaviour today and Anna, Catherine and I go on down to Flury’s.  Anna gives me two bags of Flury’s truffles (one dark, one light chocolate) to start me off.  The boys arrive.  Paul has bought me two Hindi music CDs – popular Bollywood stuff which I can’t wait to listen to.  Tom, who obviously craves a more Hermione Granger type of mother, has bought me a book on ancient runes.  Catherine presents me with a wonderful Black Forest Gateau with ‘Happy Birthday Mum’ written on top.  Two days previously, Anna and I had gone shopping for a pair of good walking sandals for me which she has wrapped and now produces.  A beautiful cream on cream embroidered shawl from Anthony.  Beautiful cards which I place on the table. Texts from my sisters Amy, Sophie and Eve.  Now some presents from home:  A wonderful pink/purple scarf from Mum and Dad which exponentially increases my glamour factor.  From Sophie a lip balm, a little packet of sticky notelets with a flower pattern and a nylon tiger-print  tanga.  I was just saying to Anthony the other day that I needed a nylon tiger-print tanga – so maybe this cosmic ordering stuff that Noel Edmunds goes on about does actually work.

 

These are just some memories and experiences that seem interesting to me…

 

MADE TO MEASURE (SOMEBODY BIGGER)

We were in the Khan al Khali Market – probably the best known bazaar in Cairo.  It is not mostly full of stuff for tourists – t-shirts, perfume, glass bottles, spices, jewellery and souvenirs.  While it is touristy, there is a real Egyptian bustle here.  Goods coming through on carts, boys delivering glasses of tea to shopkeepers and stall holders and, everywhere, shopkeepers trying to get you to visit THEIR shop.  “Good price for you”  “It costs nothing to look” or our personal favourite (and already quoted in this blog) when a young boy shouted “don’t waste your time.  I have exactly what you are looking for”.  A favourite ploy is to ask you where you are from as a way of engaging you in conversation.  Whether you buy or not, they remain friendly and polite and like to have a laugh.   A couple of times when I was looking around for Anthony and the kids, stall holders would point me in the right direction.  We looked for a t-shirt for Paul.  The price started at 50 LE (Egyptian pounds) and came down to 15.  Good thing too as most of the dye ran out in the wash and I reckon getting your money back is almost impossible.  The market is noisy.  We are continually dodging carts and trolleys.  Making space for black-clad women with huge bags on their head,

In Egypt, I have been trying to outwit the stall-holders. They were especially… er… assertive in Luxor.  There, they walk into your path, blocking your way.  “Here we first came across the “why not?” tactic.  They offer you something, you say no and they ask “why not”.  You engage in conversation and get hooked. And so I tried to find a way to outwit them. I have found that the best thing to do is always to smile and agree with them.  “Welcome. Please, come inside my shop”.  I smile and nod.  “Lovely t-shirts”.  “Yes they are lovely”.  “Good price”.  “Yes, I am sure that your price is very good”.  That normally leaves them a bit stuck and me smiling graciously and moving on.

Back at Khan al Khali market, we turn left off the main thoroughfare onto a smaller alley.  Walking down, my eye is drawn by a beautiful silk midnight blue dress. Simple, elegant and classy.  (You have to say “classy” in a Coronation Street accent).  Tragically, there is not a silk dress shaped space in my rucksack but I have been looking at how dowdy and sloppy Western women look compared to their Arab counterparts in Morocco and Egypt (not to mention the men who often dress magnificently).  I feel that I have been in jeans for six months.  And (whisper it) I have lost weight and these jeans are baggy and unattractive.  So in to the shop we go and discover that we are in the Khan-al-khalili women’s tailors shop.  (Or is he a dressmaker?)

Mr Hagay is middle-aged and grey-haired.  He’s impeccably dressed western style.  He has a quiet, ‘umble manner.  There is no pressure and no rush.  He speaks in a hushed whisper. We look at styles and samples of material and he agrees to make me a plain silk jacket, two tops (one in matching silk and one in black silk) and a pair of black trousers for about €60.00 (including delivery by taxi). 

And I wonder how we’re going to handle the measurements part.  Will he call a woman or risk the job himself?  He’s up to it himself and ever so delicately measures my bust, waist and hips.  I hold the top of the measuring tape on that all important inside leg measurement.  He’s more relaxed measuring my back, shoulders and arms.  I’m now worried that the stuff will be big for me but reckon that he’s factored his ginger fingers into the equation.  A couple of days later I’m back and trying everything on.   As I feared, Mr Hagary’s fingers have been too delicate and everything is a bit too big.  “I will have it adjusted” whispers Mr Hagary, nodding and smiling.   That evening, it arrives out to our apartment by taxi.  I look stylish for a couple of days – then it’s time to wash everything.  The cream stuff comes up fine but, like Paul’s t-shirt, the black clothes seem intent on running themselves down the plughole.  The trousers also shrank a bit.  Perhaps I need a more Buddhist like attitude towards these earthly objects.

WARDROBE OVERHALL CONTINUED:

Ditch the Dolce and give away the Gabbana.  Abandon the Armani.  Chuck the Chanel.  Purge the Prada.   I am having a complete wardrobe revamp when I get home.  The reason? : Our visit to the beautiful Marjolles Gardens in Marrakesh.  These gardens had been developed but neglected until the 1980s when Yves St Laurent bought and revamped them before handing them over to a charitable trust.  We spent a wonderful few hours there – a cool and stylish oasis of greenery and calm in that city which is hot, dusty and bustling.   The gardens are not big but beautifully planted with cacti, palms, flowering plants.  Cool canals run through and garden the painted flower pots provide splashes of colour.  Definitely a place to go back to.  And how to thank the man who made it all possible. A guilt-free reason to buy designer clothes so it’s in with Yves.  Certainly more of Saint and Lots of Laurent when I get back to Dublin.

A FACE THAT HAUNTS ME

We were crossing the Atlas Mountains in Morocco.  The scenery in Morocco is superb, but this day surpassed everything.  The snow-topped Atlas Mountains all around us, roads winding their way up and down steep hillsides.  Bright blue sky with white clouds. The far away mountains black, capped with snow, the nearer ones brown, ochre, orange, deep red, even pink. This was probably the most beautiful day that we had seen in Morocco.  There was about four hours driving to be done that day and we passed through many villages and towns – people going about their business, drinking tea at roadside cafes, shopping at stalls, fixing cars, herding animals.  Between the towns, people offered brightly coloured mineral fossils for sale at the roadside.  They looked incredible – lime green, turquoise, deep red, magenta.  And indeed they were unbelievable – the sellers had ‘enhanced’ them with a little paint.

In one village through which we drove, the weekly fair was in full swing.  The road was absolutely crowded: farmers filled bags of hay from a truck, fruit and vegetables were sold from stalls, herds of goats and sheep were driven through the village, cars, bicycles, carts, pedestrians all competed for space.  We found a space to park the camper van at the end of the village and went out to have a look. To the right, slightly above the village, a ‘car park’ for donkeys and carts . Up the street and into the left, a small souk.  Stony, uneven dirt paths.  This was not a souk for tourists, but, like most souks, it was organized according as to what was being sold – fruits, vegetables, shoes/clothes, tailors, etc.  Just in and we were watching a guy cook fish and chips outside a restaurant.  A man, dressed in the traditional jelabbah walked up to Anthony and shook his hand.  Abdul seemed friendly and spoke English and he offered to show us the Souk.  We were a bit reluctant but he was persistent and the path was narrow – there weren’t a lot of places to go.  I explained to him that we weren’t going to buy anything from him and that we didn’t want to waste his time.  “No problem, I show you 4 star restaurant.”  But as we walked along, he began to show me jewellery from his bag.  I again explained that we did not wish to buy anything.  The 4 stars awarded to this particular restaurant were for interest, authenticity, value and uniqueness.  It was truly a film set.  We walked into this smoky room with mud walls.  A fire burned in the corner and in the absence of a chimney, the smoke billowed around the room, swirling in the sunlight which streamed through two low windows.  There were no chairs free but space was quickly created for us and we sat on orange crates around a table and ordered Berber tea. Abdul again pulled out his bag and tried to sell his jewellery.  At this stage we were getting cheesed off with him and, on finishing the tea, we told him that we would leave him.  He then started telling us that he had children, was poor, etc.

Anthony wanted to buy ear-rings for Catherine and allowed Abdul to broker the deal, hoping that this would be enough to get rid of him.  Despite our very clear request, he would not leave us alone so Anthony eventually gave him some money to go away.  We went into the fish and chip restaurant.  While our waiter there was lovely, we have never eaten in a place so filthy and I swore that we never will again.  A space was cleared for us on the terrace (by moving goods, not people) and our waiter did his best to make the table presentable.  We had a perfectly adequate fish and chips and drank water. Glad – God forgive us – to be rid of Abdul, the terrible pest.     

Time to hit the road again and we left the restaurant and went into the crowded street.  A hooded man walked along with us for a while – Abdul in disguise.   The selling beginning again, the pleading, the persuading.  And the question all the time in your head.  Is he really desperate or is he putting it on?  We have seen beggars walking up side-streets and then shuffling along the main street on their behind, we have seen mothers pinching their children to make them cry, we have seen children walking on to trains and then crawling through the carriages on their hands and knees, begging.  We have seen able-bodied people pretending to be disabled.  But there is also real poverty.  And then the advice not to give money to people who beg on the streets as it “just encourages them”. 

We arrive back at our van and a couple of children congregate around the door. We produce a bag of sweets and the children – and Abdul – all put their hands out.  I cannot believe that Abdul wants his share of this childish offering.  The sweets run out and there are more children so I produce a packet of biscuits – again Abdul’s hand is in there.  I feel amazed at how low he is prepared to sink, at his lack of pride.  But I also keep wondering whether a small hand out would have made a big difference.  Abdul’s sad eyes as he watched me close the door of that campervan, haunt me to this day.

PRIDE COMES BEFORE A FALL

In my last blog, I waxed lyrical about India and, especially, about Indian food. But we have travelled South and West and the weather is getting hotter.  All of us have had various encounters with Delhi Belly (I fear that there was a slightly unhealthy focus on toilets in earlier blogs, and will therefore spare the details). And as we have travelled from city to crowded city, I find myself thinking of home.  Imagining Irish food – rhubarb and custard, stewed apple and cream, cream crackers, a tender fillet steak, mashed potato, real toast, bacon and cabbage or Italian food.  As the weather gets hotter, the idea of a glass of white wine or a cool beer becomes more inviting (we are off the booze this year).  As we travel from one crowded city to another, I find myself thinking of quiet places in Ireland – the beach at Inishbofin, Marley Park, the Canals…

We are all better now and hopefully immunized against further outbreaks – but we won’t count on it and we’ll hopefully chalk it all up to our Indian experience.

PRIDE COMES BEFORE A FALL (2 AND 3)

Friends, I may have to return to Dublin early as this trip is having an impact on my looks.

Pride comes before a fall 2 – Srinigar, Kashmir, Northern India.

You may remember Abdul (aka Expensive and Glum – our guide in Kashmir.  Crossing over the lake to our houseboat on Lake Dal, the issue of Abdul (our guide’s) age comes up.  Abdul asks us to guess.  We both guess late 20s.  In fact he’s early 20s.  We then ask him to guess our ages.  He guesses Anthony first – 55. I suppress a self-righteous smirk. Anthony pays little attention to his health and only applies sun-cream after extreme nagging and placing of the bottle of sun cream in strategically easy places. On this trip, he talks about building up the skin’s natural protection (e.g. going brown).  I hope that Abdul’s over-estimation of his age will help bring him to his senses.

Abdul then guesses my age.  Holding nothing back from the devoted readers of this blog, I must be honest and admit that I always pride myself on looking younger than 48.  Good skin inherited from both parents.  Non-smoker.  Generally get the recommended 8 hours shut-eye, norralorra sun and I’ve always ‘taken care’ of my skin.  In Aswan, having run out of our factor 50 sun cream, I bought  myself a factor 100 from the ‘Pale and Lovely’ Pharmacy.  I have also, without particularly trying, lost weight on this trip.  Abdul studies my face for a second.  ‘56’ he guesses.  I hear a chuckle from Anthony and put it down to the early start that morning.

Pride comes before a fall (3) – Kolkata, India

We are now in Calcutta and Anna and I go to see the doctor for our Delhi bellies which are not getting any better.  We sit with the young doctor in his consulting room.  Catherine is in with us.  I describe my symptoms and he takes my blood pressure (which is low), checks pulse (which is high) and listens to my belly.  He prescribes three medicines.  On to Anna – who doesn’t seem to be as bad.  “But maybe that’s the age thing” he mutters.    I think that he must be very perceptive doctor to work out that that I’m five years older than Anna.  He writes out the prescription for Anna and explains to me that “your daughter” is not as sick and doesn’t require as much medicine (which raises the question, who does he think Catherine is?  Clearly my grand-daughter).   So I got dressed especially carefully this morning.  And one dose of tablets and we are both as right as rain.  Wonder can he prescribe anything for looking younger…

My Kolkata Birthday

I have always been scared of going to India.  Afraid that I could not face the poverty and that I would lie awake at night racked by guilt and worry,  I was especially frightened of Kolkata – tales of Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying, the street dweller, beggars, shanty towns…

 

In fact, I am both relieved and a little worried to find that I can mostly cope with seeing the poverty.  The warm climate makes a huge difference as people are rarely cold and there is a long tradition of people living on pavements.  Sometimes you see a family – grandparents, parents and children all settling down for a night under a plastic tarpaulin which has been tied to a fence.  Early in the morning, the streets are full of men showering at pumps.  The Government gives these people nothing. Perhaps it’s just a way of coping, but I have decided not to give money to beggars but rather to give money to a charity which helps the dispossessed of India when I get home.  (and feel free to check up on that).    Anyway, it seems that the most serious poverty is rural – mostly unseen by tourists.

In Kolcata, five minutes from our Sunflower Guest House (Anna is treating us to a posh place) we find Flury’s Restaurant – cool, stylish, great menu, lovely food (including a wonderful tarte au citron), not expensive by European standards.  We go there almost every day for breakfast.

I start off my birthday with a second visit to the Calcutta Laughing Club.  Yesterday, just Anna and I made the 6.30 class. Today Paul and Catherine join us.  Chuckling like laughing policemen (not), we have a short walk and make our way back to the Guesthouse.  Anthony and Tom are just up.  I’m on my best spoiled girl behaviour today and Anna, Catherine and I go on down to Flury’s.  Anna gives me two bags of Flury’s truffles (one dark, one light chocolate) to start me off.  The boys arrive.  Paul has bought me two Hindi music CDs – popular Bollywood stuff which I can’t wait to listen to.  Tom, who obviously craves a more Hermione Granger type of mother, has bought me a book on ancient runes.  Catherine presents me with a wonderful Black Forest Gateau with ‘Happy Birthday Mum’ written on top.  Two days previously, Anna and I had gone shopping for a pair of good walking sandals for me which she has wrapped and now produces.  A beautiful cream on cream embroidered shawl from Anthony.  Beautiful cards which I place on the table. Texts from my sisters Amy, Sophie and Eve.  Now some presents from home:  A wonderful pink/purple scarf from Mum and Dad which exponentially increases my glamour factor.  From Sophie a lip balm, a little packet of sticky notelets with a flower pattern and a nylon tiger-print  tanga.  I was just saying to Anthony the other day that I needed a nylon tiger-print tanga – so maybe this cosmic ordering stuff that Noel Edmunds goes on about does actually work.

 

 

 

Chapter 1

As I write we are on a train (two tier AC – second class) from Jammu - the second city of the state of Jammu and Kashmir - to Amritsar in The Punjab where we will see, among other things, The Golden Temple which is said to be very beautiful and is the most important shrine of the Sikh religion.

Since arriving in India on the 24^th February we have spent just two days in Delhi where we stayed in the Smyle Inn, a budget hotel just off Paharganj - the main bazaar of the city - before flying to Srinagar high in the Indian Himalayas where we spent a relaxing but bank-breaking four days on a house boat on Dal Lake. We had planned to go trekking in Nepal but a combination of the earliness of our visit, our single entry Indian visa and some unrest there changed our mind. We had hoped to go trekking in Kashmir instead but the expense scuppered that plan too. Maybe later.

Since leaving Spain we have been blessed with very warm weather but, although we definitely noticed how cool the nights were up in Kashmir, since returning to the plains, the temperatures of 27°C are giving us a hint of what lies in store for us.

On our way to Delhi from Cairo we had a five hour stopover in Bahrain where, confined to the airport, we noticed the obvious wealth of the populace compared to Egypt: whilst the women still wore body covering jalabas – mostly black or dark colours – they were trimmed with coloured sequents and very stylish looking, the men wore immaculately white flowing robes and were crowned with traditional Saudi type headgear which, combined with the impeccability of their grooming, made them look more effeminate than the women.

However the greyness of the Muslim garb has now given way to the riotous colour of the Hindu saris and even the Muslim women of India sport some wildly colourful clothes. In our short time here we have seen many fascinating sights: There are, literally, “cattle in the marker place” wandering unhindered and fed by some locals, presumably Hindus and the bustling streets are punctuated with Food vendors – all with huge gas fired woks where they cook an array of battered foodstuffs in ghee ; In Jammu we saw men cleaning peoples’ ears and a “dentist” on a filthy street corner attending to people’s mouths.

It is some measure of how far we have travelled - both geographically and culturally - since leaving Europe that at a market in Muslim Srinigar (when our guide was at the mosque), Catherine complained to me about what she saw as the cruelty meted out to some live chickens as they were weighed before being sold.

Our first taste of this trade in live (but with limited life expectancy) animals came in the sook in Mackness in Moroccan where the children reported having seen and heard squawking chickens being presented to hungry customers before turning their backs to look away as the poor birds fell ominously silent. We have, by now, seen this spectacle on many occasions and it has become something commonplace. In Cairo, on a walk from our apartment to the nearby pyramids of Giza, we saw such a shop where live birds (including pigeons sitting on a grid whose feet were tied to the mesh) were on offer and witnessed a similar dispatch before coming across many bags of fish heads on the road. In later joking discussions these locations became known as Fish Head Alley and Chicken’s End.

In the Muslim market in Srinigar the trader had picked up two chickens which were squawking and attempting to flap their wings but before putting them on the scales he tied their wings together behind their back presumably to stop them flapping about and making the weighing process. “Did you see that? Dad” Catherine complained to me about this treatment. “That is just so cruel. They could at least have chopped their heads off before weighing them” What a girl!  It will probably be a relief to spend some time among the vegetarian Hindus of the southern states.

Speaking of live birds, it was the bird life of Kashmir that has most impressed me, particularly the golden eagles which are everywhere in massive numbers. On Dal Lake 50 or 60 at a time would circle and dive, soar and swoop and lone specimens would perch majestically on fence posts where boats are tied up. In the city of Srinigar they roost on trees in large numbers in the same way as pigeons or crows would loiter in Dublin. I am unsure whether they are the exact same breed of golden eagle that is being re-introduced into Donegal after an absence of over 100 years but it is surprising to note that they exist in such vast numbers in this part of the world. Kashmir also has birds that look like our common grey crows and at least two species of king fisher – one similar to our own colourful but elusive version, another plainer but larger brown type.

Kashmir was a relaxing place after our short stay in teeming Delhi and our longer one in hectic Cairo. During our two days in Delhi we saw a Sikh and a Hindu temple, the remains of a Muslim Mosque and far too many artisan shops.

Having arrived at 5AM on the 24^th and having endured two queues for customs and immigration lasting well over an hour we went directly to our hotel which, thankfully, allowed us into the rooms that we had booked for that night allowing us to have a much needed sleep till lunchtime. After our slumber, and having organised ourselves a little, we wandered through the Bazaar where we came firstly upon Invicta Tours and then Mr Singh, a Sikh auto-rickshaw owner (all male Sikhs are called Singh) who convinced us to allow him bring us to Gurdwara Bangla Sahib, a Sikh temple constructed at the site where the eight Sikh Guru, Harkrishan Dev, visited in 1664.

It is a truly fascinating place and, having removed our shoes, covered our heads with the colourful scarves provided and washed our feet (well compulsorily dipped them in a small “stream”) we had a tour and explanation of the goings on before visiting the open-air and volunteer-manned kitchen where thousands are fed, free of charge, every day.

But before returning us to base, and having interrogated us about our travel plans, he brought us to two more tour operators who could, he said, rival what was being offered by the Invicta Tours crowd. In the end we returned to the ITs to book our onward passage to Kashmir. But before leaving for Srinigar we spent another day with a person who we were told was Mr Singh’s nephew and visited the colourful Hindu Lakshmi Narayan Temple and the remains of the Qutb Minar mosque which, including as it does a massive and hugely ornate 73M high tower, is a world heritage site.

Next day the alarm sounded at 5.15 AM (we are used to early rising – our earliest, to go to Abu Simbel in Egypt, was at 2.30 AM) to catch our flight to Srinigar. There we stayed on a large house-boat where we had a house servant and were fed three delicious meals each day. We had a tour of the locality (more temples) and arose at 5.15 one morning to be rowed to visit a floating market. The house boats of Lake Dal can only be accessed by small boat and there are many floating taxis waiting at the lakeside. All residents have at least one boat of their own and the children had lots of fun paddling about on the ones owned by our hosts.

Next stop was Amritsar and, rather than enduring a 10 hour journey in the crush of one of the rather dodgy looking local buses, we decided to take a short flight to Jammu from where we took this train but not before spending a fascinating night staying in dorm 206 of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi hotel which we shared with four Indian families. All were very friendly and, in common with many Indians, were fascinated by us. Indeed, we are regularly asked to pose with Indian people for photographs.  Since arriving in Morocco the children have taken to giving away their pocket money to begging children or adults and Paul continued this practice by buying 10 packets of crisps from the hotel cafe and distributing them to as many children as he could find.

This lunchtime we experienced the bureaucracy of the Indian railway system. Having queued at the second class counter to get “two tier AC” tickets, we were told that we had to get them at hatch 15 on platform one. We had already noticed that the second and first class booking offices were in different locations but knew we didn’t want first class. So, up to platform one and hatch 15 where we were told that we must first get second class tickets – back at the original hatch (why they hadn’t told us this in the first place is a mystery) so off back I go to queue again for them before returning to hatch 15 and much form filling, by hand, before our upgrade tickets were actually issued. Then over to platform two from where we were told our train would leave. In fact, it left from platform three but that’s a whole different story.

On the train, men constantly walk up and down offering us things to buy: Books, tea, water, omlets and various forms of Indian food. It’s a five hour journey but we are constantly amazed at how good travellers the children are. They never complain, they rise as early as is necessary and the sit quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) playing or just reading a book, talking to other passengers or just sleeping. They have lost their shyness (you remember their shyness, don’t you) and are quite happy to question shopkeepers, to ask for directions or to haggle over the price of something. Tonight we are booked into a hotel and we look forward to seeing the Golden Temple.  

Chapter 2

Well, we arrived in Amritsar and were taken by taxi to our pre-booked Heritage Inn Hotel beside the Golden Temple. Having settled in we went for what was supposed to be a half-hour stroll but which turned into a three hour journey of discovery. The Golden Temple is a truly spectacular sight which combined with the sounds of the music, the chanting of the faithful and the sights of the many colourfully dressed pilgrims makes for a lovely experience. As we go, we are learning about the Sikh religion which seems to be quite attractive. There is total equality between men and women and there is no caste system. Everybody is welcome in their temples (gurdwaras) which, as two separate Sikhs who took a considerable amount of time to talk to us explained, are always entered by going down stairs where one’s gaze is concentrated downwards to signify humility. One of those – Dave Singh – helped us to book a room in the temple itself where we stayed for three nights for the princely charge of 50 Rupees (less than €1 per night) for a  rather basic but en-suited room. We have eaten for free in the amazing open air kitchens which feed 80,000 people a day and are, in a fete of incredible organisation (if only the Dublin Food Co-op were capable of one thousandth of the effort), manned entirely by volunteers. In fact the whole place is run on donations and with voluntary help. Everywhere people are cleaning and sweeping, taking in shoes and offering head scarves, cooking and serving food. The floors are constantly being cleaned so that when they finish one cleaning session they simply start all over again. Those sleeping in the passageways of the temple must get up at 3AM to facilitate this cleaning although many of the pilgrims would be getting up at that time anyway in order to take part in the activities. The Temple is going 24 hours a day and although there may be a lull in activities in the early hours of the morning the place is constantly abuzz.

The Sikh religion was founded by Guru Nanak - the first of ten human gurus - in 1469 and he was followed by nine others, the last of which - Guru Gobind Singh - ordained that, henceforth, Guru Granth Sahib, The Sikh Holy Scripture, would be the ultimate spiritual authority of the religion. This book is kept in the Golden Temple and is treated by the Sikhs as a living person and, with great ceremony (something that the ten gurus would, it seems, have rejected) is put to bed each night at 10PM. We saw this ceremony performed on our first night and happened to be in the part of the queue that was actually inside the temple for the final part of the event. We stayed in the Temple for three nights before moving back to Delhi where we must get Chinese visas and where we’re meeting Anna on the 8^th.

Chapter 3

We are now back in The Smyle in where they had found and kept for us the wash-bag containing all our malaria tablets which, in our rush to get our flight to Srinagar, we had left behind. We arrived yesterday and this morning I went to the Chinese Embassy to leave in our passports to get Chinese visas. This afternoon we must go to a doctor to get the second of a series of five anti-rabies injections for Paul as a result of him having been bitten by a dog in Amritsar. The children love animals and have so often picked up cats and dogs to pet and play with them as we went along. We have many photographs to prove it. Anyway, this has been a lesson to them all and, although we have promised them a dog (and a cat) when we return home, there will be no more playing with strays on this trip. Paul, incidentally – generous soul and all as he is – says that he bears no grudge against the dog in question who, he says was just frightened.

Anthony     

  

 

 

Every blink of the eye is a photograph in India.  Yellow earth contrasts with lush green grass, a family of four weaving through dense traffic on a motorbike.;  Dad holding the toddler in front of him while he drives, Mum elegantly sitting side-saddle, serenely holding her newborn infant.  A gaggle of schoolgirls in immaculate uniforms, a rickshaw slowly making its way through the city, a huge pile of wicker products balanced on the back.  People stretched out on the pavement, covered by brown blankets.  The list goes on and on and it’s wonderful to be here and take it all in. Primary-coloured bags of crisps arranged outside a shop, layers of biscuits arranged petal like in huge glass jars, old fashioned tins with transparent fronts, filled with packets of biscuits, heaps of spices, nuts, samosas….. blankets spread out to dry beside the railway line, brightly painted busses bearing signs on the front like ‘good luck’ or ‘trust in God’

And the textiles – sarees, scarves, shawls, bolts of material, jumpers.  The first thing that hit me about India was the colours.   Especially the women’s clothes.  Through the crowded bazaar streets they walk along – elegant in sarees or a tunic/pants/scarf combination.  Bright blue, turquoise, lime, tangerine, crimson, yellow, mauve, ochre.  Beautifully co-ordinated with dainty slippers, glamorous sandals, caste and religious jewellery and bindis.  Women coming through the crowded bazaars in a rickshaw.  Serene and erect, their scarves flutter in the breeze.  Jewelled noses. Bangles and ankle bells, hennaed feet and hands. Women on building sites wear the same beautiful clothes.  They carry bricks on their heads and come back with a basket of rubble, adjusting their long scarves as they go.

They’re a handsome race, the Indians.  And friendly – so friendly to us – and anxious to have their photos taken with us.  We arrived here on February 24^th and spent a couple of days in Delhi.  Our flight from Cairo, via Bahrain was uneventful.  Interesting to spend a couple of hours in Bahrain watching immaculately Middle-Eastern men and women go about their airport business.  The men immaculate even at that late hour in white or cream garments.  Beautiful head coverings.  The women glamorous in their full-length coats and head-coverings. 

 

Into Delhi early on the 24^th and through a long immigration queue.   Taxi into Delhi.  We had been warned that the Delhi traffic was even worse than Cairo’s – but it hasn’t turned out so.  Beautiful rounded old cars from the 50 and 60s.  Into our Hotel – the Smyle Inn which is in Delhi’s main bazaar. I have become a devotee of websites such as Hostelbooker.com and Hostelworld.com which allow us to access cheap accommodation which has been rated by other travelers.  In Delhi, the Smyle Inn is cheap (about €3.50 per night each) , central and especially given the price, had OK ratings for things that we value (e.g. location).  The websites also ask travelers to rate the hostels for ‘fun’ – but in true ‘bah humbug’ fashion I always ignore this one.

Leaving our lovely apartment in Cairo, I had promised the children something ‘cheap and cheerful’ in Delhi.  Well – the Smyle Inn photos on the website do not tell a lie.  The rooms are very small. The en-suite bathroom is a wet-room with excellent drainage.  There is an internet café on the 4^th floor and a ‘perfectly adequate’ roof terrace where breakfast is eaten.  With rucksacks and various bags now getting tacked on, and schoolwork to do, bigger rooms would be nice.  Tom reminded me more than once about my cheap and cheerful promise – his big blue eyes looking reproachfully at me.   Not making any progress, he decided to see the funny side.  ‘Cheap and Glum’ he announces in his Patty and Selma voice every time the name of the hotel is mentioned.

On our first day in Delhi, we spotted a sign outside a temple “you’re never fully dressed until you put on a smile”.  This fits beautifully into the ‘cheap and glum’ joke and the children repeat this slogan followed by their best grimaces.  “You’re never fully dressed without a Smyle” is our slogan.

And Anna is coming tomorrow (March 8^th)… we have been counting the days.  Anna is a stickler for table manners and I am trying to do one of my fairly regular (but ultimately not that successful) table manners blitzes.  But it’s so hard in India.  The food is DELICIOUS and we scoff and gobble, taste each other’s food and order more and try something else off the menu and … We met a man who has put on 1 ½ stone in 1 ½ months in India.  We have two months here…

 

On our first day in Delhi, we went walking in the bazaar and met Mr Singh.  Mr Singh is a Sikh – almost all Sikhs are called Singh.  Sikhs never cut any of their body hair.  Mr Singh wore a beautifully wrapped turban and had wrapped his beard into a special comb which was secured under his chin.  We took off in his tuk-tuk (a motorized rickshaw with a 150 cc engine) and he brought us to a wonderful Sikh Temple.  We took off our shoes, donned colourful head scarves and went in to have a look around.  It was interesting to see the temple – we sat inside and Mr Singh explained about Sikhism and then we went to have a look at the kitchen.  In the temple anybody and everybody can come to eat a meal and all of the work – cleaning, cooking, washing up – is done by volunteers.  We were particularly interested in the chapatti-making machine which takes dough, rolls it and cooks it in about 5 minutes, turning out thousands of chapattis per day.

Mr Singh also asked us to look into a shop – as he would be given a coupon for a fill of petrol just by bringing us there – and commission if we bought anything.  He was charging hardly anything for the tuk-tuk and his time – so we agreed.  The kids took turns sitting in the front of the tuk-tuk with Mr Singh.  He also took us to see two travel agents (we had expressed an interest in going to Kashmir to trek) – but we weren’t as impressed with either of them as we were with the lovely Shafi.

We had met Shafi on our earlier stroll through the bazaar. Everybody is touting for business and Anthony got talking to a guy outside a travel agency.   We went in and were presented with incredibly warm letters of commendation from many visitors – many accompanied by photo albums.  Shafi was fun and a great salesman.  We booked a 3-day trip to Kashmir to stay on the family houseboat.  “You will meet my Daddy.  My brother will collect you from the airport”.  We wanted to go trekking and Shafi recommended that we make those arrangement once up in Kashmir.  We agreed, booked our flight for 2 days hence and three nights accommodation.  Ate in a busy, Westerner and Indian frequented restaurant next door to Shafi’s.

The following day, Mr Singh had arranged for his Nephew to drive us around Delhi for the day.  The deal was that we would pay hardly anything for the car (a couple of Euro) and that we would ‘play the game’ by visiting a number of shops that would provide him with petrol coupons (anyway) and commission (if we purchased anything).  We arranged to meet Mr Singh the next day at 10.00.  “Don’t be late” I joked with him – he was a slightly gruff soul and needed a little joking.  Back to ‘cheap and glum’ and to bed after a pretty good first day in India.  The next morning, I awoke in a lovely, sleepy daze and listened to the sound of the market waking up.  The bed was comfortable and warm, pigeons coo-ed, some traffic noise, sounds of goods being moved.  I lay there for quite a while just enoying being awake early in this lovely place.  Looked at my watch – 10.30. But had I moved it forward the 2 hours from Bahrain?  Was it 8.30 or 10.30?  I ran down to reception to check.  It was 10.30 and we were dead late for Mr Singh.  Anto went up and groveled and asked for a bit of time while we got the kids ready and met Mr Singh at 11.30.

Indians use relation terms like ‘father’ ‘brother’ and ‘nephew’ fairly loosely but I think that even Mr Singh had stretched things by describing this guy as his nephew.  Anyway, the guy had a beautiful old Ambassador Classic car and we had an OK day going visiting a couple of places, including the beautiful Qutb Minar tower and visiting a few shops.  It’s easy to get into those shops but Oh so difficult to get out.  Carpets are rolled out, tens of scarves are unfolded and displayed, tea is offered, relationships are struck up… We managed to get out of three shops with one arm as long as the other.  In one shop we succumbed and Sophie and Alan will finally get a wedding present.

‘My brother will pick you up at the airport’ Shafi had promised us.  We arrived at Srinagar airport after a very early morning flight from Delhi, to find Ahmed our guide waiting for us.   Unlike the Smyle Inn, Ahmed was expensive and glum.  He wore a very tight beard (or was it three days stubble?), a leather jacket and looked like one of those lean, mean good-looking Russian/Iranian/Kazakstan/anyofhthestans baddies in any James Bond movie.  Lucky he missed my earlier rating of guides as he would have found himself right down at the bottom.  Despite the horrific prices quoted by Abdul, we had arranged to go on a sightseeing tour of Srinagar on the day following our arrival.  Abdul was – I shall try to be kind here -  monosyllabic and getting information out of him was like getting blood out of a stone.  We gave him plenty of cues: 

Us: ‘What is that building?’ 

Him: ‘It is a palace’ … (silence)

Us: ‘who build it?’

Him ‘The Moghuls’  … (silence)

Us: ‘when did they build it?’

Him: 15^th Century … (silence)

And so on…After lunchtime on the first day, we decided to cancel the trekking trip that we had booked for the following day and difficult conversations with Abdul and Ahmed ensued.  We also had the feeling that we were being watched.  One day I managed to slip over to a travel agency to enquire about tours and Ahmed asked me not to mention it to Abdul as he would get into trouble.  He accompanied us everywhere keeping an eye on what we spent and where we spent it and explaining that he, personally , would get no commission.  “My commission is the tip”.  Despite my extensive and detailed “gift of feedback” – (training term) Abdul continued to be pretty monosyllabic – he did rouse himself to volunteer the odd bit of information but his guiding was a big disappointment.    

We enjoyed amazing food and the lovely slow pace of life on the lake reminded us of our beach on Inishbofin.   Tens of golden eagles hunted on the lake and I enjoyed a solitary sun-rise watching them glide overhead and then swoop down to catch their food.  Actually, the sun has so far to come up over the Himalayas that I never actually saw it rise – but it was definitely on the way by the time I went back to bed. Anthony and I had the Honeymoon Suite  - a 4-poster bed with cloth roses selotaped onto the bed head, a dressing room and bathroom.  The children had a double bed and single bed, dressing room and bathroom.  Heating was provided by a wood stove in each of the bedrooms, although the rest of the house was fairly cold.  Lassa (we called him Lassie for two days) was the ‘boy’ who looked after us.  Abdul – Shafi’s good looking ‘brother’ (did that mean cousin) the business point of contact.  . 

 

 We had an early morning trip to the floating market where farmers come to sell bags of onions, mounds of spinach etc.  Up at 5.30 am, we left our houseboat at 6 am on a small flat boat.  One wobble and you felt that you were going to end up in the drink.  We paddled along for about 30 minutes, through the ‘backstreets’ of the lake until we reached a place where the canal widened and about 30 of these long low boats were bobbing and jostling as they visited each other and struck deals.  Hand-held scales were used to weigh onions, carrots and spinach which were then tossed into the buyer’s boat.  The men hunker down on the front of their boat and paddle  - one side only - deftly and expertly over to the next ‘shop’.  Later that day we went on a water cruise on the lake and it is always interested to see how people adjust to their surroundings.  Children are taken to school on a boat, there are shops with jetties outside that boats can moor to, and shops that serve directly into your boat.  Or the boat comes to you.  We were visited every day by the fruit and veg man, the floating supermarket, the laundry man.  People tried their luck with seeds, jewellery, postcards and clothes.    The Kashmiris wear a long woolen poncho called a firn.  Anthony has bought one of these and Catherine has tried to extract a promise that he will never walk her to school in it.  Sadly we did not have room to buy this season’s must have poncho accessory: a ‘winter wife’ – a charcoal burner made of a small earthenware flower pot set into a wicker basket with handles that is carried under the poncho.  Like much of what we have seen in India, it is cheap, it is simple and it works. And you don’t even have to quote your passport number or visa number to buy one.   Nor do you, as you have to when you take the train, disclose the gender and age of every person in your group.

(Saturday 1^st March) It is time to leave Kashmir and we take the boat across the lake for the last time and take the jeep to the airport.  There are numerous searches – both body and bags.  These searches (men are searched in public, women inside a curtained off cubicle) and trips to the toilet, always provoke consternation among the Indians.  Paul and Tom – both with shoulder length hair – head for the men’s.  The Indians point and gesture, panic setting in.  “not here.  Over there”  Paul and Tom disclose their gender and this generally ends up with everybody laughing.   At the airport we meet some female soldiers that we had encountered a couple of days earlier at a Hindu Temple. The temple was positioned on the top of the hill and it seems that every top of every hill is occupied by the army. Therefore – we were searched and cameras and mobile phones were left with ‘expensive and glum’.  As usual the boys are directed into the ladies’ cubicle and there is the usual hilarity when the soldiers discover that they are boys.  The soldiers produce their mobile phones and photos are taken.  There is some good humoured joking about   ‘No mobile phones, no cameras’ and we all enjoy this couple of minutes.

Back in the airport my bag is searched.  We have been careful to pack anything that could be used as a weapon (our guns, knives, etc) in our backpack.  But I have to turn everything – EVERYTHING – out of my bag and the little kit for repairing my glasses is discovered.  The tiny screwdriver is a no-no and in the tense Kashmiri political situation, it is headed for the bin.  But luckily, one of my new best friends from the Hindu temple is on the table and she brings me over to the male soldiers who decide that seeing as the screwdriver came out of my bag, it can’t go back into my bag – but it  can go into Anthony’s bag and, well, an Indian solution to an Indian problem.

We arrive in Jammu and need to stay overnight before taking the train to Armritsar.  We ask the tourist information lady (“there is nothing to do in Jammu”) for cheap accommodation.  She takes us at our word and we stay in a Hindu hostel, sleeping three on one side and two on the other, of a room with 15 beds lined up one against the other.  We pay about 75 cent each for the honour and all enjoy a great night’s sleep.  Up the next day and onto the train for Armritsar. 

(Sunday March 2^nd) This is our first experience of traveling by train in India and we are baffled by all of the classes, tiers, air conditioning or non air conditioned.  Tens of different kinds of trains.  Not having received any kind of information about the trains that we can understand, we plump for 2^nd class 2 tier and find ourselves on these wonderful long seats – 2 people face 2 people on a really long bench (with a bunk above – hence 2 tier).  Paul opting for the  single seat on the other side of the aisle and hides himself, Wizard of Oz like, behind the curtain for most of the journey.  Lovely train ride to Armritsar.  Men passing by every 10 minutes selling tea, newspapers, fruit, crisps, samosas, minerals, water… 

We arrived early evening in the bustling city of Armritsar and made our way to our hotel.   We decided to walk up to the Golden Temple  (the centre of the Sikh religion) for a couple of minutes before bed.  A couple of hours later we left, having booked a room in the Golden Temple complex  (90 cent per night for the five of us in one room)  and enjoyed a wander around one of the most incredible places that I have ever been to in my life.

But it is late and Amy – if she has got this far in the blog – will no doubt have other things to do.  So I will write about the Golden Temple soon.

Lots of love

j.

 

The first thing that hitsitting sere

 

 

February 17^th – Cairo

Despite the incredible Egyptian museum, the amazing pyramids (which we can see from the children’s bedroom), the wonderful mosques and the teeming bazaars, it is the street life in Cairo which has gripped my fancy more than anything else.

We are staying out in the suburb of Giza (a couple of kilometers away from the pyramids) in a beautiful 5^th floor apartment on a busy thoroughfare.  This is not a tourist area: Most of our fellow residents are “ordinary” Egyptians and we never see other tourists around here.  All day long and all night, traffic barrels past – horns blowing.  And not just one or two toots – it’s a constant racket.  There is a lull around 6 am to 8.30 am when things quieten down (relatively speaking) but then things get going again.  Tom counted the seconds between beeps at rush hour and got as far as three.

Anthony’s friend David, an Egyptian living in Dublin, has been incredible in making our stay easy and enjoyable.  He organized this apartment for us, organized for us to be collected from the airport, provided a few friends for us, organized a driver for a few trips and we feel lucky to experience Cairo in a way that is different to most tourists.

Despite the noise, the mosquito bites and the dust in our hair (Cairo is bordered by the desert), we are as happy as Larry here.  Anthony sits on our noisy balcony and drinks tea.  Given any excuse, we wander down to the street to see what’s going on. 

To be happy in Egypt, there are a couple of things that you need to reconfigure.  In Ireland a beep is seen (mostly) as aggressive.  We might give a very gentle beep if somebody has fallen asleep in front of us at the traffic lights or a louder beep if somebody hasn’t seen us and is about to crash into us.  In Cairo - which has a permanent population of 20 million and millions of tourists passing through each year-  drivers use their horns in a very generous way.  The driving is absolutely amazing.  Lanes are painted on to the road and there is even the odd zebra crossing.  All of these are ignored as drivers hare along as fast as they can.

So the beep means “I’m coming through”, “watch out on the left”, “go a bit faster”,  “move over” or “get out of my way or I’ll knock you down” (pedestrians only).  Cairenes don’t get annoyed or angry.  It is fully accepted that this is the way to drive and there are no nasty looks or finger gestures.

Outside our apartment, drivers speed by, changing lanes (I use the term ‘lane’ loosely), and skillfully avoiding the donkey pulling a cart of vegetables and three passengers making their way slowly along the fast lane, weaving around the cyclist carrying a tray of bread on his head, avoiding the road-sweepers who stand with their back to the traffic and carefully sweep up the dirt from the meridian, miraculously missing the single breeze block that the men building the apartment block down the road have placed in the slow ‘lane’ to secure space for their work and avoid the pedestrians who walk out from behind busses and claim their right to cross, the double-parked cars, the taxis and busses that stop to let off and pick up passengers and the very odd car driving down the road on the wrong side (don’t worry – they always stay in the slow lane).

That’s not forgetting the amazing speed bumps – high and unsignposted, the odd gap in the road, the spaghetti junctions with thin metal fences along roads which are  10 metres above the ground, the ‘no headlights at any time of the night or day’ policy  For pedestrians, crossing the road can be a hair-raising experience.  With few exceptions, the cars will not stop but will speed past you with ¼ inch to spare.  Zebra crossings and traffic lights are completely ignored unless there’s a traffic policeman.  The trick is to walk a bit into the road and as the cars rearrange themselves into fewer lanes, they maybe slow down and you take advantage of this.   Arm up and looking directly at the traffic comingatcha, you confidently walk across the road, lane by lane.  If you’re unlucky you have to lose your dignity and break into a run.  Outside our apartment block, two 5-year old girls, barely visible above the bonnets of the cars, make their through the traffic, running and laughing.

Life on the path, while slower, is also interesting.  Near us, there are kids selling tissues and good naturedly asking for food and money.  We buy tissues and give them sweets.  Miraculously another three or four appear out of nowhere, standing close and giggling.    They especially like Paul and Tom with their long hair.  Paul normally buys them some sweets.  In the coffee house next door men sit and play backgammon or dominos.  They drink tea and smoke their elaborate water pipes.  The shoe-shine boy touts for business.  Across the road, the dusty, crowded supermarket displays water, detergent and other bulky products on the footpath.  The supermarket itself is small and crowded and I wondered how they had the time and space to get everything back in.  But this is Egypt and labour is cheap.  A nightwatchman is employed to keep an eye on stock while the shops are closed which will probably be between 3 am and 8 am.  Our local pharmacy closes at 5 am.  Walking along the paths you can see into the shops.  The bakery – a simple stall selling loaves for about 3 cent each.  Behind, a flour covered baker sitting on sacks of flour.  Behind him again the ovens. There is a wonderful nut and sweet shop across the road.  Containers piled high with cashews, pistachios, sunflower seeds.  Behind is the roasting machine and one of the workers runs out onto the path to cool a basket of newly roasted nuts

Last week, Egypt won the African cup (soccer).  Sadly, we were in the train station waiting for the train to Luxor for the final, but boy the semi-final was fun.  Tom and Catherine were asleep.  Paul, Eve and Anthony had gone out as Eve was going home the next day.  I sat in the apartment writing to Mum and Dad and listening to the roars from the café below.  When the final whistle blew, I went out onto our balcony .  Scores of young men ran into the street brandishing the Egyptian flag.  They stopped the traffic – shouting, waving, clapping.  They got chants going in the busses going past, they shook hands with drivers (who of course were celebrating in the time-honoured Cairene drivers way).  They hopped onto the back of busses and hitched rides down the road.  I laughed out loud on the balcony.

My laughter was short-lived however when Paul and Eve returned with Professor Snape what (he of ‘curtain of greasy hair’ fame) about 20 minutes later.  They had gone out with Anthony to do some last-minute shopping – and Anthony will explain all in his blog.

As we left our apartment to go into town last week, the lobby was full of dust.  The mattress renewing men had set up shop.  They opened the old wool stuffed mattresses.  Passed the squashed wool through a fluffing machine.  The wool goes in in great stuck-together lumps and comes our light and fluffy.  Then the men re-stuff the mattress and sow it up again, using their elbows to make indents in the mattress.  We stand and watch and chat with Rania who is there with her two children and who speaks a little English.  We have two words of Arabic and can say hello and thank you.  We offer sweets to the workmen.  Ragan, our devastatingly handsome doorman, is there with his four beautiful sons and his wife who has taken a great shine to our kids. “Welcome in Cairo” Ragan says every time he sees us and himself and Anthony laugh and shake hands.  Ragan and his family have an apartment on the ground floor.  I think it’s small because, every night, either the eldest son or Ragan sleeps on a mattress which protrudes through their front door.  We sometimes see him in the morning.  Head completely covered by a blanket snoring away.  He also has a bed just inside the front door.  Later, we see him in his long robe with a scarf tied around his head.  He’s been helpful to us firstly when we had to move from our 11^th floor apartment to the 5^th floor (apparently a problem with the electricity) and again when we locked ourselves out of the apartment. 

His three eldest sons are polite and friendly. The youngest (about two) is heartbreakingly beautiful and playful.  The eldest speaks a little English.  If we offer sweets, they always refuse first, touching their heart and shaking their head “no”.  If we press it on them they’ll take them.  Catherine has made friends with the middle son and they race up and down the stairs together, pushing each other. As in Morocco, Children here are entrusted with much more responsibility and freedom than we allow our children.  These children clearly know everybody in this community and I would say that they are well watched.  Many children here work for a living.  Shoe-shine boys, a boy in the bazaar with a tray of tea on his head, carpet makers in a small village that we visited. “Don’t waste your time, I have exactly what you are looking for” a 10 year old called to us in the Khal el Khalim market.  I’ve seen children searching through bins, collecting cardboard, delivering goods on donkeys.  And some beg. 

Mostly the people are incredibly friendly. Walking through the market in Alexandria, all of the stall holders tried to sell us something.  When we were not interested they called out ‘welcome to Egypt’ and some wanted to have a chat.  Elsewhere – Luxor and Aswan (major tourist areas) those with something to sell are more assertive – but we could learn something from their sales techniques.

It’s a labour intensive country.  6 people do the work that 3 might be employed to do in Ireland.  In a tiny neglected museum that we visited last week, there was a director (sitting in his office reading the paper and chatting), and a curators office.  There are policemen everywhere – police police, tourist police, traffic police, antiquities police.  Sitting smoking, chatting, drinking tea.  Conductors on trams sell tickets.  Farming is done the old-fashioned way – by people! Our local (small) supermarket seems to employ 10s of people.  The tailor in a tiny quiet shop, who made some clothes for me, sent “his man” to show us to the ATM, a 10,000 person village that we visited had guards who worked through the night (guns an’ all).  

99% of the women dress in ankle length skirts and have a full scarf around their head.  About 5% of the women are fully veiled, only their eyes showing through a slit.  Some wear gloves.  In Morocco, the women mostly wear a light scarf on their head which is tucked into their jelabayyah, a tunic-like garment about 7/8 length.  Their clothes look feminine, comfortable and practical.  Here in Egypt, women are much more covered.  The fashion for teenage girls seems to be to wear two scarves pinned around the hair and ears and covering the neck. The clothes – an ankle length skirt possibly worn with a cardigan, jumper or ¾ length tunic are fashionable.  Older women may wear a loose, waist length hooded or full length hooded garment above an ankle length skirt.  Many garments are very plain – cream, brown, black – but some are very ornate and richly decorated with embroidery and sequins.  Contrasted against this very modest dress are the shops and stalls selling incredibly racy gear.  Not talking about the belly dancing outfits which are sold to tourists, these are see-through/net/low-cut garments on sale in shops in town and stalls in non-touristy areas and I’m dying to find out what they are all about.  (Answers on a postcard in a plain brown paper envelope please)

The mosques spring into action at about 5 am every morning with the sunrise call to prayer.  The call always comes through a loudspeaker and you can generally here your local Imam plus a couple more from up or down the road.  The call comes a couple of times more per day.  Some mosques are quite ornate, with a high tower, often decorated with green/pink/blue neon lights.  Others seem to be much more local – our local one is in the mall of shops across the road.  Often you see people praying in a park or train station, the waiter in a local restaurant said his prayers after he had served us last week.  In Luxor a policeman took off his gun and then turned his back on it while he washed himself and proceeded to pray on a wall.  Praying and the mosque seem to be very much a part of everyday life.  Many men have callouses on their foreheads from touching the ground/prayer mats and religion plays a big part in people’s lives. 

It’s interesting how the old sits beside the new here: Fully veiled women on their mobile phones; Cars share the roads with donkeys; People walking past slick shopping emporiums carrying goods on their head – trays of bread, plastic bags, baskets, boxes.  In a village that we visited, a woman sat on a building site while 10 layers of two bricks each were arranged on her head.  She then turned and gathered up her skirts to walk up the stairs with the bricks on her head. 

We’ve had a great time since we got here 2 weeks ago.  After nearly four weeks in Morocco – which is so beautiful, where we felt so safe, where the driving was so easy – we made our way to London, via South of Spain and Gibralter (for our around the world airline tickets we needed to  start from London so that we can finish in London next August 19^th).  I’ve also booked Aer Lingus flights home on August 19^th.  Seats that started off being quoted at €5 each – ended up costing more than 300 euros!  Perhaps Aer Lingus could teach the Egyptians about selling.   We plan to spend a couple of days over on the Red Sea next week – we’re hoping to go snorkeling.

We were joined for our first week in Cairo by my sister Eve (who writes this month’s ‘Guest Blogger’ column).  Great as usual to be joined by family/friends and Eve was love-bombed by her nephews and niece who all wanted to sit/walk/eat beside her. 

 This morning (16/2) we returned from a 6 day trip to Luxor and Aswan.  We felt very glamorous taking the overnight train to Luxor.  The reality was not quite the Orient Express but it was nice and comfortable.  Luxor was great.  We were nabbed at the station by a guy organizing tours and we spend two days in the company of his guides and drivers, visiting temples and tombs.  I was most impressed by the tombs – which were airy, bright, dry and very pretty with their beautiful hieroglyphics.  Tom had bought a book on hieroglyphics so we had a bit of fun identifying some of the words.  Our trip to Luxor was definitely a highlight of our trip so far.  And our hotel was wonderful – absolutely budget (we paid about 50 euros for the five of us for two nights) but with a wonderful top floor/roof terrace where breakfast and snacks were served.  There were some computers and games of backgammon, chess and a pool table.  A lovely relaxed feel.

 On to Aswan a couple of hours further up the Nile. Aswan is a bigger town.  A budget hotel with a wonderful view of the Nile.  Our main sightseeing expedition was catching the 3.30 am police escorted convoy to Abu Simbel (a 3-hour drive) and  the great temples of Ramses II and Nefertiti.  We also “did” the Aswan Dam, the beautiful, tranquil Temple of Philae and the rather underwhelming unfinished obelisk. 

Back to our apartment via the sleeping train and this afternoon we revisited the pyramids at Giza.  Having walked there the last time we visited, we decided to take a taxi this time.  As we were driving, two men hopped onto the back of the car – a Peugeot 504. One of them jumped off every time the car stopped and stuck his head in the driver’s window to try to sell us a horse or camel ride of the pyramids (there are 9 pyramids, tombs and a sphinx at Giza.  We ended up having a horse ride around the pyramids which was really nice.  But the amount of “unofficial” business that goes on – tourist police asking for bribes (not to us, but of our guide): Offers to bribe the security man to turn a blind eye while we climb the pyramids (we refused). In Luxor we were impressed by how the attendants at the tombs and temples had found ways to augment their small salaries – in some very hot tombs, fans (cut from cardboard boxes) were provided, attendants jumped into photos, offered to take group photos, shone a mirror onto a special part of a carving, showed you something special – all in the hope of getting a pound or two (15 or 30 cent).  When we’re hiring a guide or taking a tour, we try to think everything through – but the Egyptians are always (at least) one step ahead and we take these as lessons that are not to be repeated again.  Today, we were quoted a price of 350 Egyptian pounds (about 40 euro) for five horses for a 1 ½ tour of the pyramids.  “you happy, you pay me at the end”.  It turned out to be 350 up front for the horses and whatever we wanted to pay the guide at the end.

That’s it for now.