Irresistible Istanbul

 Are you Australian? I know these things. I can see. yes, even from way over there, I can see. Your face. Freckles. You need to use my umbrella? But you are getting wet. Very wet today. You are sure? I am going to Sydney soon. An Australian lady I know, she invite me. She lives near the Opera House, I don’t really know if she has money or not, but she invited me. I helped her buy some carpets. For her house. I do carpets.

Anyway, I helped her to buy for the whole house. Sixteen million she said she paid for the place. Though it’s worth 18 now. Anyway, she wants me. Real bad. I know this. That’s okay, why would I mind? Maybe I like it. I’m married though. Not to this one here. She’s my cousin. I give you some advice. You listen to this you will not regret. When you are looking at the carpet, what you do, you ask them to hold a match to the carpet. If they refuse, you know they’re no good. It’s the fibres, you see. Natural fibres, they won’t burn. If it burns, its not good fabric. If its good, they won’t mind.

My pleasure, my pleasure, I am happy to help. You leave this place, you want to take something of quality with you. We’re Turkish. Well, I live in America, in L.A., but I’m Turkish. I’m here to buy carpets. Sellf or, say $7,000 in US, buy for 2-3000 here. I have a shop just down the road. Anyway, this Australian lady, she rings me up and says hey, why don’t you come and stay with me for a while? I say, thankyou, sure. Can my wife come too? She says Oh my god you have a wife? She really wanted me, you see, and she didn’t know.

But she’s a nice lady, so she says, okay, if that’s how it is. Bring your wife. So I will see where she put all those carpets I helped her with. I think she was a bit disappointed, because she really wanted me. Women want me all the time. You know why? It is because I am quite a sensual person. They can see that and they respond. Hey, I’m not complaining.

I’m just here to meet some American friends, show them around. I must go soon and meet them. But yes, women they are always chasing after me. Never leave me alone. Even lesbians. You know about lesbians? I tell you a story. I met this woman and her girlfriend. You tell them. Go on. Tell them. You tell them. It is better.

No, no, no. That’s not right. I’ll tell them. I’ll take it from here. I’ll tell it now. This one she is all over me, you know, oh your so great, I want you so much, you’re so sexy, you know, and I’m just saying hey, I’m married and she’s well that’s no big deal we can just have some fun. And I’m like, you are serious? You are telling me you never in your life have been with a man and you want to be with me? And she’s saying , yeah, I never been with a man but I want to be with you. So that was okay, but I say no.

But they beg me, you know, they saying come on, come on, it will be fun. But I am married, so no. Anyway, a couple of days later, the girlfriend rings me up and you know what she says? She’s begging me, she’s saying please come and sleep with us, me and my girlfriend, we can do it all together, you have to do this for us, and I’m saying no, no, I’m married and she goes on and on and you know what? Then she says but you have to. You have to sleep with my girlfriend. We want to have your baby. I’m not kidding. Can you believe it? This is how much they want me.

What? They just want me for my what? DNA? That’s um…my…Anyway, I must go and meet my friends from America. They are waiting just up at the gate for me. But they beg me, you know, They saying come on, come on, it will be fun. Of course I say no. But this is what I mean, you see, women and me. They just can’t resist.

Why? Well, who am I to say. You are a women….you can see. Something about me, maybe. The way I look. I mean, look at me. Look at this. I know I am not very tall, but I am strong. You don’t need height if you have a good solid frame, you know. Muscular, I am. Its because I look after myself. The women can see that. They respect it. They like it. You know what I think it is? It’s the way I move. Yes, its because I dance. I am a dancer. No, really. A very good dancer. You may not see it from my shape, but women, they can see it in the way I move.

But I must go and meet my friends. They will be waiting. So you are only in Istanbul for a few days? Then where? Bursa? You will take the ferry? Very good. Inegoll. Yes. Inegoll. I know it.Good meatballs. Yes, Inegoll is famous for the meatballs. So you will need to talk to someone you can trust about the carpets. Just to learn. I must go and meet my friends. From America. But my cousin here, she can take you to the showroom, its just round the corner. Ten minutes. Less. Five. You can have a look, she will explain everything. It will be nice. Have some tea. Have you tried Turkey tea yet?

It is just around the corner. Why not? No harm in looking. She will explain everything you need to know. Go with my cousin and she will show you. Nice things no rubbish. You can hold a match. Best rugs in all Turkey. My friends will be waiting for me now, but it will be no trouble, really. No really. Really.

No, I don’t know the best place for halva. Halva you get anywhere. There is no money in halva.

Lesbians.

Malta buses go green

Image:Malta today

Its pretty hard to miss the Malta bus fleet. For a start, they make a hell of a racket. The major bus terminal at the Valetta gates is a swirling mass of very large vehicles lumbering around the magnificent central fountain, miraculously managing not to mow down the locals and tourists that squeeze through tiny cracks between them. I'm sure there was some kind of  system operating in the whole parking, on-loading offloading thing, but it was pretty hard for the casual observer to discern.

Judging by the constant cacophany that greeted us whenever we opened our hotel window, leaning on the horn seems to be an essential part of the recipe. The noise usually ensued when a driver brought the whole circle to a shuddering halt by simply slamming on the brakes wherever they stood to let their passengers off. Some of them had very jaunty horns, though. At least two played a tune that went for at least five seconds. And I have never, ever, seen a more miraculous driving achievement than executing a three point turn in the midst of 70 moving vehicles in less than three seconds without killing anyone.

The drivers most admirable acheivement,though, is the buses themselves. This is the Elvis of bus fleets. Vegas era Elvis. Its big, its beefy, its got a deep voice, and its not afraid of a bit of bling. You can forgive a lot of a bus if its chrome grill is as broad and sparkly and its make-up is expertly applied.

The tourists love them. A lot of people love them. They have their own Wikipedia and Stalkbook and photo archive pages on the interweb. They drivers love them, too, not least because the driver's own them. This is key to both the loving care with which they have been maintained, and the divine diversity of a fleet. In an era where for some reason we tend to equate efficiency with monotony, every one is different. The owner operator model in Malta dates back 100 years, and as of 2009 stood at nearly 500 buses operated by 400 licensees.

But its all over now, baby blue. The service has been tendered and the old buses, and a great many of the drivers, are all set to shuffle off this transport coil. While the new consortium, Arriva, claims it will hire 1,100 people, resulting in a net gain in jobs, it remains to be seen whether the existing drivers will be kept on.

Commuters don't exactly seem to be rallying to the drivers' cause. Early comments bemoaning the loss of this iconic living museum were soon drowned by the complaints of disgruntled commuters complaining of unreliable services, fictional timetables, rudeness, dirt, heat, and smoking. Malta's Ombudsman recent found that the transport association had ignored 49 complaints of driver smoking. A quick scan through comments on news reports such as the one here gives a good summary. Unfortunately the only people defending the drivers seem to be the drivers themselves.

According the the Malta Independant Online the new fleet with include 230 brand new Euro V buses and an additional 86 buses with Euro V engines between two and seven years old. Their introduction will take the average age of the fleet down to two years, compared to its current average of 30.

The government and the tender winners, Arriva, are keen to promote the green credentials of the new deal. The fleet will include 13 hybrid vehicles for use in historically and environmentally sensitive areas. A report commissioned by the government has suggested that this, along with the replacement of the rest of the fleet, including fitting eco-driving technology to vehicles, tyre inflation monitoring and turning engines off between journeys aim to improve air quality, and deliver a 48 per cent in hydrocarbons, 94 per cent reduction in particulate matter, a 70 per cent reduction in oxides of nitrogen and a 55 per cent reduction in carbon monoxide.

Commuters have also been promised air-conditioning, on-vehicle destination and ‘next stop’ electronic displays, be wheelchair accessible and have improved safety standards in an effort to incrase bus passengers by 54 per cent over the life of the 10 year contract. Arriva Malta has also said it would support, a heritage bus museum for retired buses if one was to be established, though the extent of, and enthusiasm for, such a project remains to be seen.

Maybe taking a big gulp of clean fresh air will make up for the losing the spectacle of a hundred orange leviathans flaunting their their chrome and badges as they dance around the fountain.

Edinburgh on Lonely Planet

Hello!  Very pleased to have a little article on Edinburgh appearing on the Lonely Planet website at the moment. Swing by here to have a look.

Sheik it

So, there I am in Wadi Rum. I have climbed down from the rock where I have watched the sun set behind huge monoliths of roll-topped sandstone, the spindly legs of camels throwing length shadows across the red sand.  I have drunk hot spicy tea from a tiny cup.I have eaten hummus and tabouli and lamb slow-roasted by being buried in an iron pot deep in the desert sand. We have gone for a walk in the dark to look at the stars, until J started frightening me with stories of djinn that had be jumping at every moonlit shadow, and scurrying like a desert rat back to the deep reds and brown of the rugs spread around a warm and fragrant fire.

And then, in what should have been the pinnacle of an otherwise gorgeous evening, the music starts. This is the moment. But can I remember a single thing from my Melbourne CAE belly dancing lessons? No. I get up and jig about for a little while, while a travelling companion to my left flails his limbs so desperately that I have to duck to stop him taking out an eye. I retire from the fray as soon as it is polite to do so, just one more frozen-hipped anglo in a very fluid desert.

Fashion Bulletin: Match making in Incheon Airport, Korea

The first instance was while I was still wandering the bewilderingly indistinguishable halls of the Incheon Airport, dazed after the first 10 hour flight, and walking to stay awake until I got on the second. There they were: young, be-jeaned, and both wearing black zip-up hoodies. Nothing notable in itself, except that "All American Girl" was emblazoned across her chest in pink, and "All American Boy" in a baby-blue equivalent across his.

At first I assumed it was a one-off, a sartorial flourish that - from my cultural perspective at least - had decided to leap-frog "quirky" to leap headlong into "insane". Perhaps my lagging brain was seeing double?  But no, as I headed to the boarding gate I spotted another couple, also locked in garmented betrothal, this time with white hoodies with "love by [heart symbol]" written on the front, which seemed to make made neither fashion nor grammatical sense.

I entertained myself for a while trying to conjure a mental picture of the shock and horror that would disfigure J's handsome visage if I came home with, say, a his-and-hers pair of "Hello Kitty" hoodies. I was mentally filing his likely reaction just after his likely response if I get Born Again and before his reaction to me committing some grisly forms of serial homicide, as a his-and-hers pair of matching Ralph Lauren orange polo shirts with green lettering sauntered by hand-in-hand.

Seated at my gate, the trickle became a flood. Now that I had my eye in, I could see they were everywhere. To my left, matching white bomber jackets with gold dragons. To my right, silky blouson baseball-style zip-up jackets.  A couple near the plastic plant had eschewed the matching wardrobe, but gone with themed dressing instead: different clothes and colours, but both wearing jeans, converse sneakers, t-shirts, baseball jackets and baseball caps. Another couple had decided to go with the radical notion of swapping contrasting colours: his polo shirt was white with purple lettering, hers purple with white lettering. Some were closet (excuse the pun) match-making, hiding identical t-shirts under distinct and individual jackets. Another more shameless pair had decided that matching t-shirts weren't enough, and had paired them with identical jeans, right down to the black and red jewelled"V"s stuck on to the right buttock.

It went on and on. By the time the flight began to board, I had identified at least 15 couples committing public displays of purchasing unity. I could only speculate how this fitted into the complex rituals of young adult romance. Was there gender-based demarcations regarding who did the buying and the gifting, or was a mutual decision, a retail-based consumation? Did splitting up involve ceremonial return of the t-shirt?  Or maybe it was de-rigeur to to keep each one so that in their respective dotages they could sort through their t-shirt drawer on wet Sunday afternoons and reminisce about youthful romance? Maybe it was just that they were all going to Sydney on a holiday, and that taken the whole "Aussies are sporty" thing a little bit too seriously.

On the return trip two weeks later, the airport was again littered with matching couples.  But hitting the streets of Seoul that evening , there was nary a match to be found. The young hipsters cruising through the neon streets on a Friday night would have looked at home in any of the major cities of the world.

A better class of travel

So here I am kicking back in the first class carriage on my way to London. Free wi-fi, as well as free cups of tea and biscuits. I also have a seat tucked next to the window with a powerpoint for my PC and a little table. Its a single seat, so I don't have to rub grubby shoulders with anyone.


Not that any of the shoulders here are grubby. There are a few occasional travellers - retirees with pre-GFC indexed pensions I would guess - and worker-bee types. Everyone is looking rather pleased with themselves, the retirees because they are getting their rocks off on the free tea (as am I), the businessy types because they travel like this all the time, and they are all so terribly keen for their success to be noticed. They keep looking around to make eye contact with eachother and establish themselves as "us" rather than a "them".


I suspect that a number of the retirees are also feeling rather pleased with themselves because, like me, they have paid less for the free tea, wi-fi, and big comfy seats than they would have paid for a seat down in the other carriage with the plebs and the free air. Its one of the wierd peculiarities of the ticketing sysetm here in the UK that the price of the tickets vary from day to day, depending on demand. For some reason - I suspect because they operate as totally different booking systems - this means that if you are lucky, you can score a first class seat cheaper than a bog-standard one. Such was my luck today. Ten quid cheaper, in fact. Happy as a dog in a side-car, I am.


It also reminds me, however, that I have a little stored up pustule of disillusioned rage that I need to lance....


You may recall some time ago I had a little rant about the arrogant class-ridden elitism which seems to permeate every nook and cranny of British politics.  Well, it continues, even though we are now careening headlong into an election. That's similar to careening headlong in to a brick wall, except the wall is made of Tories. Recent recommendations in response to The Expenses Scandal suggested that MPs shouldn't travel first class. On planes, I totally agree. Trains, given the above weird pricing, I am ambivalent. At least I was, until I heard the response of one Tory MP, Sir Nicholas Winterton, who complained that this would prevent him from working on the train because "people would be looking over your shoulder the entire time, there would be noise, there would be distraction."  (Welcome to our, world, sunshine! Apparently no-one has appraised him of the ubiquity of the open plan office.)  

He added: "They are a totally different type of people." (my italics).

Apparently, ones that never need to work or concentrate. Perhaps its all that paying for our own transport to work that makes us so rowdy and unpleasant. The complete conviction that there is some qualitative difference between the 'them' and 'us' would be funny if it wasn't so sad. Well, in the words of The Great Jarvis "I don't see anyone else smiling in here".

Did you ever hear a more convincing argument for never letting any of the fuckers near any first class travel again? For that matter, did you ever hear a more convincing argument for never letting Tories near Government again? 

I just wish I was a little more confident that Sir Winterton was an unrepresentative sample of the House.....

See the Beeb for further detail, if you need it.

A rose by any other name

Cities smell.

In Vientiane, it was primarily woodsmoke. Wood is still the most common fuel, so the city always had at least an undercurrent of smokiness about it, though at mealtimes on particularly still days, it became so thick and heavy that it must be an asthmatic's nightmare. A nice smell, though. Probably terrible for your lungs but kinda homey.

Flying out of Laung Prabang, where the air is fresh and damp, except for the odd drift of incense coming from one of the many temples, we flew straight into Bangkok. I had only actually visited once before but the minute we got out of the cab it all came rushing back - mostly via my nostrils. Its a funny smell, Bangkok: complex and polyvalent as befits the massive, sprawling metropolis that is it. Its kind of sweet and kind of dirty. I would guess at a recipe that is 2 part sweet chilli sauce, 2 part fish sauce, 1 part lemon grass, mixed in with 1 cup of sump oil, a smattering of mildew, a burst of neon and seasoned with an occasional sprinkling of open drain and lightening. Not unpleasant, but not exactly something that you would dab behind your ears.

Just as homey as the aromatic woodiness of Vientiane is Edinburgh's distinctive but sporadic pong. One of the things I really love about Edinburgh is the smell that comes over the city - and I mean the whole city, including inside your own house if the window's open - when the brewery is brewing and the wind is from the west. Its a kind of yeasty baking smell, which always reminds me of the very fine beef burgundy pies that I used buy at the Schwobs in King Street decades ago as an indulgent winter treat. Its a kind of wholesome, warm smell which gives you an appetite. Makes your stomach rumble if you are hungry, though.

I am not sure the same applies to one's home town. I think you are blind to it, like you are blind to the distinctive aroma of your house. There are a few that stick in my mind though. One is the salty assault of a southerly change as it sweeps up the bay. The other is the smell of wheat or grass tinder dry and baking in the heat.

The third was responsible for one of the worst pangs of homesickness I have had since I left. I was out for a post-dinner stroll in the old part of Boulder City. This part of town is the deco era creation which sprang up as they were first building Hoover dam. Walking through the quiet streets with its palm tree-ed parks and deco houses  in the dark, I guess I had already been subconciously lulled back into an Elwood frame of mind. Suddenly there was a huge, suffocating billow of jasmine blossom. How many evenings had I got off the train or tram, or stumbled home from parties and pubs and bands and friend's houses, or driven through a summer evening with an elbow hanging out the window of my faithful car, and known that once I started smelling jasmine I was home. Being hit with it there in Nevada seemed like some cruel hallucination intended to trick me into getting lost. I think I burst into tears.

An America Legion bowling hall appeared just in time to remind me that home was still safely where it belonged, down there at the bottom end of the southern hemisphere.

"That hurts, doesn't it?"

In Vientiane, you can't go far without bumbing into an establishment offering massage.  Of the wholesome, theraputic variety, I hasten to add. The most rudimentary menu will offer you a choice of 'soothing', 'Lao1 (meaning a little more vigourous), facial and foot.  Depending on the size and ambition of the establishment, any number of variations may soon follow.

I had no real intention of indulging, having generally stuck to the principle of only sharing a massage with someone with whom I would be willing to share a bed. However, my firstThursday in the country, I woke to find my lower back completely dysfunction and the rest of me barely able to walk. By the end of the day, I could barely stand straight. It was disturbing. The next day, I was heaps better, but tap-dancing - or climbing in and out of large vehicles to go to my meetings, for that matter, remained completely out of the question. The top half of my body was tilting forward at 45 degrees like a giraffe in mid-stride.

Enter Mrs B. The minute our locally-based collegues heard of my demise, they had no hesitation in recommending her. She couldn't fit me in for two days, but it was worth the wait. A small Lao woman wearing jeans and a striped, long sleeved t-shirt, she agreed to meet me at my hotel.  I later realised I had put her in a rather akward position with this request, as it was not becoming for a massuer to be seen visiting hotels. If I had been a man she would never have agreed. I so glad she did. Within five minutes, she had not only pinpointed the spot in my lower back that was misplaced, she had also identified two other spots, including this little one at the base of my skull which I gave up mentioning years ago because no physio I had ever seen in Melbourne had made the slightest iota of difference to it.

" Mmm," says Mrs B. "That hurts, doesn't it?"
"Yes, it does."
"That's hurt for a long time, hasn't it?"  I could have hugged her then and there. By the time she proceeded to make me completely better with forty minutes of massage and gentle manipulation, I was ready to dedicate my unborn children to her Genius. All this for the equivalent of about $15US.

Ms B happens to be a trained physical therapist, as well as a great massuese, so the session included helpful information about what number vertebrae were needing attention, and a little lesson in stretching exercises to begin the next day and stop the problem from re-occuring. Excellent health care in anyone's world. Unfortunately, public sector salaries for health professionals here in Lao reflect the GDP: they are at rock bottom. A doctor's monthly wage is not much more that a single Medicare session payment in Australia, and other health professionals earm much less.  As a result, this genius of life-giving goodness has to work in the private sector to earn enough to support her family, largely ministering to the aches and pains of  the employees of international NGOs and aid organisations i.e. those with foreign incomes.

If I am ever lucky enough to be back in Vientiane, the first thing I do will be call Mrs B. I might have to borrow someone's house for my visit.

This is Wednesday, I must be in an elevator

Locals here in Lao PDR  will tell you that the PDR may officially be People's Democratic Republic, but in reality means 'Please Don't Rush'. And after ten minutes wandering around the capital, I was totally on board. Yes, drivers will ask you if you want a tuk-tuk, but chances are they will do it without getting out of the hammock that they have strung between the uprights of their vehicle. It would seem almost cruel to accept.

So, when the carpet in the elevator takes the trouple to remind me, in big capital letters that its Sunday, one can only sigh a sleepy little thank you to the proprietors. Here, I don't think it will take long to forget what day it is.

The Butterflies of Sun Moon Lake

Sun Moon Lake is the largest lake in Taiwan. Nestled up the highlands where the air is cooler and the humidity is low, it is surrounded by layer upon layer of steep hills that recede away into misty nothingness in the distance. Dawn casts an orange glow across the still waters. If you have a generous budget and a bit of luck, you can stay at The Lalu Hotel and watch the light shift and change from your private balcony, or slide back the walls and soak up the view from the bath.

It was apparently Chiang Kai-shek's favorite holiday retreat, and The Lalu is on the site of his former holiday residence. The newly constructed wing - designed by Australian Kerry Hill Architects - nestles unobtrusively into the surrounding greenery, and is simply the most gorgeous, tranquil and generally lovely hotel I have ever seen. Unfortunately, there are a number of high-rise monstrosities nearby. Still, if you are looking out at the lake, or strolling around the well maintained boardwalk that rings the lake's edge, you can forget they exist altogether.

On the weekends couples drape themselves decorously around the paths and groves, big powerpuff creations of white organza and sharp suits being snapped by wedding photographers among the bamboo, as massive butterflies gambol about overhead.

"We don't have many butterflies here," said the Hotel Guy. Was he mad? Spectacular flutter-bys were everywhere. "Oh, in Taiwan we do," he explained. "We are called the Kingdom of the Butterfly. But not so much here. Much more in the South"

The mind boggles. Its hard to imagine better butterfly action than we were getting at Sun Moon Lake.The highlights were probably the massive creature of black filigree with fillings of white, red, orange and yellow. This one took the prize for sheer gaudiness. It was flopping around amongst the Morning Glory Flowers, big as a dinner plate and frames by the azure waters of Sun Moon Lake like a little gravity-defying stained glass window.

The dull brown one liked having his photo taken. The rest insisted on hopping about in a very un-photogenic manner.My particular favorites were the huge black ones, as big as your hand, with metallic blue on lower wings fringed with a lovely rococco flourish of fiddly-bits. We had seen a number of these big black beasts, but I struggled to catch one on film. They flitted around in the shadows, hid behind ferns, pretended to be falling leaves and generally acted compulsively camera-shy.

We were at the end of our last walk before leaving for Taipei, and I had abandoned all hope of getting one on film when suddenly there it was, jet black a with dark green and bright blue splashes flashing in the sunlight. This particular one was lazier than all its cousins, and actually stopped on the lantana occasionally. All that fast-finger practice of playing arcade games on the plane came to the fore as I snapped away maniacally, though the rather blurry splash to your left is the best I could manage.

The Path of Enlightenment

"Master, when can I call myself 'Traveller'?"
"When Grasshopper, you have found The Other Way"
"To where?"
"To the Path. To Nirvana."
"As in, 'Teen Spirit'?"
"No, Grasshopper. Not that Nirvana."

I was take The Green Bus. So it was written. From Exit 4, Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT. And yet, there I went and Green Bus found I none. Waiting for me in the mountains was respite from all wordly cares, bliss and comfort. Not to mention a 60 metre infinity pool. But how to reach it?

"O Reception, I beseech thee most humbly. The Green Bus is not more.How can I get to Sun Moon Lake?"
"Go to the bus station."
"And how to I get there?"
"By taxi." (subtext: 'Of course. Dummy.')"Give them this." She scribbles characters on to a note and hands them to me. I hope that they say 'Sun Moon Lake'.

"I am Leo." said the driver. "I take you to airport."
"But I need to go to the bus station."
"There, too."
I farewell Leo at Taipei Bus Station, and sentries at the gate point me to a Ticket Keeper. She frowns and points me back out the door. On the way, I pause at the Pool of Information & Enlightenment.

"No! Wrong station. Go this one." She hands me a little pamplet on a map and circles a yellow splodge a few blocks away. I wave feebly to the right, and she instructs me with elegant swipes of her ballpoint across the little printed map: right out the door, over the supermarket, down to he shopping mall,right again....

The wheels of my carry-on clickety clack on the tiles.Why do I insist on buying books? On the overpass, I give the bobbing man with no legs $50 NTD (about £1) for luck as our paths cross above a six lane freeway. Descending back to earth, taxi drivers call from left or right, but I can see no bus stop. Round the building site, past the front end loader, two blue-clad maidens swim into view from a brown cloud of billowing building dust.

"Bus to Sun Moon Lake?"
"Yes, madam. This way." I am not sure exactly when I became a madam. I think it was about the same time I turned 40.

The air clears to reveal another blue clad vision, an oasis of cool and calm, with perfect English. I can't even remember how to say "hello" in her language, though by now I am well into day 2.

"O Learned One, I seek a Bus. To Sun Moon Lake. There my lover waits, with a massive hole in his credit card."

With a beatific smile, a Timetable was summoned, but Alas, the next bus to Nirvana was not until 15:30. Happy as I was to bask in the glow of the Lady of the Buses, I was not sure that three and a half hours in her Linoleum House of Worship was quite what I had in mind. And it meant that I would not get to Nirvana before eight. This would verily speed me on the Path of Disgruntlement, when I sorely needed the Path of Delight.

"Is there no Other Way?"

"There are Two Ways you can choose. You can take bus to Sun Moon Lake at 15:30. Or, there is a bus to Puli. From There you get local bus to Sun Moon Lake."

Verily then did I "Woo hoo". The Bus to Puli arrived within 10 minutes. Lengthy discussion did the Lady of the Buses have with the driver have, telling him all. She also inscribed a parchment with rows of characters, strange and square, and handed it to me.

"Take this. Cross the road to the stop when The Driver says. Give them this. They will tell you the bus." The Driver did as he was bid, his mind as free and clear as the seats of the bus: I was the only passenger for three out of the three and a half hours of the journey.

I enter the Puli Bus station and pass the Holy Parchment beneath the glass. She reads, she frowns. She points at me, points at the clock,writes 15.45 on the paper.
I sit among strangers, in the highlands of Taiwan. Bhuddist nuns (apologies if that's the wrong term) with shaved heads pass in and out, on and off the buses. The loudspeaker calls names I can't understand. A tiny girl of about two is the only one that stares at my funny face and skin. I wait.

Next thing I know I am called by the Gatekeeper. She is waving a telephone receiver, gesturing to me. Who on earth is calling me at Puli bus station?

"Hello, Miss Weller. This is the Lalu Hotel. You are to take the 15.45 from Puli? The bus will take about 40 minutes. We will send a car to meet you at the station in Sun Moon Lake. It is a black wagon. You wait. It will bring you to the hotel."

Already the big hole in the credit card seems worth it. And so it comes to pass. The Gatekeeper and the Ticket Seller and a third woman who happens to be sharing my bench start waving at me madly when my bus arrives. Once again lengthy instructions are issued on my behalf. Along with a large bag of persimmons, notes are passed, bearing numbers and signs. Forty minutes further on, the driver waves me off, pointing to the numbers, the note and holding thumb to ear, pinky to mouth in the universal gesture of "calling" as he pats himself on the chest. I sit on my suitcase. He ends his call, and thumb and finger join in an circle of 'OK'. I reply with the thumbs up. We wave to eachother, and off he goes.

Within five minutew the car arrives, and the bag is whisked away. Within ten, I am seated in deep couches, a fruit juice in my hand and the lake stretched out before me, ringed in layers of steep misty hills

"So what have we learned today, Grasshopper?"
"That the very fast train to Taichung and a bus from there would have been quicker?"
"True. But no."
"That its the journey not the destination?"
"Mmmm.No bad, Grasshopper. But a little unoriginal."
"That I am finally 'Traveller?'"
"Hardly. What did you actually do, Grasshopper?"
"Fair point. How about 'Never to under-estimate the kindness of strangers?'"
"That'll do."

Bridget of Arabia

As you are probably aware, dear reader, before I turned thirty I had not stepped off the shores of the Great Southern Land. It was primarily laziness that did it. Not that I was too lazy to travel, I was just too lazy to do the working and saving required to pay for the tickets.

Anyway, in 2006 the stars started falling over themselves in their keeness to align, and I found myself suddenly in possession of a silver frequent flyer card. Fancy. And that was before I moved to Europe. Since then I have been doing my best to take advantage of the incredible proximity of wonders.

I am still a bit of a nuff-nuff as a traveller, I must say, but its not for want of opportunity. In fact, as I sit here procrastinating about finishing the three jobs I must finish before I head South on Monday, I am actually thinking rather wistfully about the idea of a good long stretch of solid, stolid stick-in-the-mudness.

Imagine my surprise, then, when on Wednesday a charming young man called Simon from Wanderlust rang me to say that I have won an 8-day trip for two to Jordon, courtesy of onthegotours.

Really. I am not making this up.

What makes is triply stupendous, is that it looks like there is a good chance that we will be able to book in for a trip that coincides with a very special event. I am not going to tell you what it is, though just in case all three of you that ever read this blog jam the switchboard and steal our spots before we have been able to snaffle them.

Stay tuned!

Now all I have to do is figure out which continent my copy of 'The Seven Pillars of Wisdom' is on....

Thunderbirds Are Go!

Iceland is an unstable place. It has volcanoes and earthquakes and big huge cracks running through the ground where the North American and European continental plates tear themselves asunder at a rate of 2cm a year. That sounds like quite a lot to me, considering we are talking the movement of whole continents. We are assured, however, that Iceland itself will not fall apart, as Mother Nature, like some dodgy property developer hiding evidence of a house's dubious foundations, is kindly excreting enough molten rock to fill up the cracks.

This, combined with the fact that urbanisation is a recent phenomenon in Iceland compared to other European cities, means that large tracts of the city are squat and square and sturdy, and made of concrete. And, it must be said, quite unprepossessing. Guaranteed to stay standing in an earthquake though.

Those buildings that do stand out, however, seem to almost exclusively inspired by the Thunderbirds, with perhaps a little James Bond circa early eighties thrown in. Almost every church and gallery I saw looked like it had just landed. I was also lucky enough to dine at The Pearl. This is situated in a large rotating glass dome, where I had the tenderest piece of lamb I have ever eaten, while Reykjavik circled below. Be foolish enough to leave your purse on the outer ledge of the table and it will take 2 hours to get back to you. This place had been built on a cluster of disused water towers, but had been converted into gallery spaces, and the rotating restaurant plonked on the top. You can see the light on the top shining down over the city as you eat your creme brulee. I kept an eye out for Blofeld and his fluffy white cat, but he was not to be found.

A Novice’s Guide to Edinburgh in August

1. It will rain

Persistently. In 2008, it rained every day, for the whole month. As a newcomer, I found this a little excessive. ‘Of course it’s raining,’ said my companion, ’It’s August. It always rains in August’. So why do the good burgers of Edinburgh invite the world to visit in the rainiest month possible? Well, it’s good weather for indoor pursuits. My own theory is that the arrival of legions of professional entertainers is planned specifically to stop the sun-deprived, vitamin-D deficient locals from throwing themselves in a lemming-esque unison from The Crags in damp despair. Bring an umbrella.

2. "I'm sorry, that was the July price"

According to Edinburgh’s Evening News, a record number of residents are putting their homes up for rental during the Festival. Rents are about two-and-a-half times the normal rate during Festival season. Those creatures you see in the alleyways are not zombie’s, but sleep deprived young locals with kinks in their necks from sleeping on their parent’s couch while they make the equivalent of four months’ wages renting out their inner-city flats to tourists.

3. There’s a little problem with transport.

Edinburgh is building a little tram line. Though modest by comparison to the networks of Lisbon or Melbourne, it is causing chaos of truly gargantuan proportions, including very many large holes in the ground and closure of the main thoroughfare of Princes Street. In the city centre, there are streets completely blocked to cars, buses temporarily diverted to alternative routes, and things suddenly going one-way that never have before. Temporary barriers and fencing feature heavily. It’s not all bad news, though. Getting around on foot is fine, and most Festival venues are within walking distance of each other. It is hilly here, though, so allow an extra ten minutes for resting half way up the hills if your gym membership has lapsed. If you get bored, you can play a quick game of ‘where’s my bus stop today’ to fill in the time.

4. You’re not the only person that thought this was a good idea.

During the Festival, the population of the city swells like a boil to twice its usual size. For those who live here and are accustomed to getting from A to B at their own pace with very little difficulty, Festival time can be a teensy bit trying. The pedestrian traffic jam that occurs all year around the statue of Greyfriars’ Bobby spreads like a tumour through the Old Town, until every tiny precipitous Close is bulging with bum-bags and Gortex. You may only see one t-shirt that says ‘Get out of my way: I live here,’ but you will see a few faces wearing the same message (including mine, I must admit). If they look like they actually have a normal job and are trying to get to work on time, it’s polite to oblige.

5. You will miss stuff you really want to see

Unless of course, you can swing some weird science and do some cloning or something. This is the key festival go-ers dilemma. With the Fringe, Book, International, Art Festival, Mela and the Comedy Festivals, and probably a few others I have forgotten, all going on in August, even the most anal planners among you will have timetabling clashes. It’s that good. Just remember that for every acclaimed genius, there are probably about three undiscovered ones at bargain basement prices testing their wings in some small venue around the corner, waiting just for you.

6. You will see stuff you really want to miss

I am thinking here chiefly of hen’s parties, bucks parties, and divorce parties. These tend to congregate around the Cowgate area. If you see a large fibreglass cow’s arse sticking out of a high wall, you are in the zone. The hen’s parties tend to feature stretch limos, little headdresses of sparkly stars wobbling on springs, feather boas, and a lot of hot pink and bling. The current fashion for buck’s nights seems to be dressing up in plastic superhero costumes. Both often involve specially printed commemorative t-shirts, and so much alcohol that any attempt in conversation from those outside the circle is doomed to fail.

7. There will be singing.

People do it quite a lot, here, particularly blokes after a few pints, and not necessarily because they are good at it. Football season starts half way though August so there’s months worth of pent up football songs waiting for lusty release. Bear this and the festival-time extended licences in mind if you are an early-to-bed, early-to-rise type are deciding between a room next to a pub and a room next to a haberdashers. (Tip: If you want to join in, make sure have the right song for the right pub. Many are shared territory, but singing Hibs songs in a Hearts pub is foolish. A Celtic song in a Rangers pub is downright suicidal. )

8. You will have a great time.

Chances are that everyone you meet will be having one too. Everyone is getting festive (festering?), and it’s infectious. Every theatre, church hall, school annex, nook and cranny hides a performance, some bizarre, some mystifying, but many truly remarkable.

9. There is respite.

If the unbridled hilarity all gets too much, you won’t have to go too far for respite. Take a walk up to Calton Hill or, if you are fitter and more ambitious, up to Arthur’s Seat and check out the 360 degree views. Chill out in The Meadows, or play a spot of golf at Bruntsfield Links. For a bit of quiet art, take a walk along the Water of Lieth and Visit Dean’s Gallery and the Gallery of Modern Art, or just slip into the National Galleries on The Mound, right in the heart of town. All are free.

Before you leave, pick a vantage point, like George IV Bridge, and take a moment to look at the city. It is handsome, grandiose, and ornate. With the medieval labyrinths of the Old Town and the clean Georgian lines of the New, plenty of fiddly Victoriana thrown in, and all perched on a dramatic steepled landscape, there’s plenty to look at.

10. Yes, they do wear kilts.

For those of you unfamiliar with the British Isles, this is not just something Prince Charles does when he’s trying to get down with the Provinces, but a standard form of formal dress. If you see a chap in the pub wearing a kilt, chances are he is on his way to a ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) formal dinner, wedding, or a funeral. Or he might just be on his way to a rugby International. Unless he is one of the pipers busking outside St Giles Cathedral or the station, he is not doing it for entertainment. And no, he probably doesn’t want his picture taken.

http://www.edinburghfestivals.co.uk

WWW.EIF.CO.UK

http://www.edfringe.com

WWW.EDBOOKFEST.CO.UK

WWW.EDINBURGH-MELA.CO.UK

WWW.EDINBURGHARTFESTIVAL.ORG

The not-so-lonely Planet

I am extraordinarly chuffed to announced that, as of this morning, I am officially entitled to refer to myself as 'Lonely Planet Author'.

The good folk at LP have today posted Edinburgh in Festival Time - For Free. Swing on by for a quick run-down of what to do in this fair city during August on a non-existent budget.

Stay tuned for further Edinburgh Festival news over the coming month....

It's a jungle out there

This is Limpo the Elephant. See that nasty kink in his rear left leg? When Limpo was an unnamed baby elephant otherwise undifferentiated from the other little bundles of elephant joy, he was assaulted by an angry rhino, who had taken exception to him for a reason that probably only the elephants remember. Maybe he waved his trunk in an insulting fashion at the waterhole, or something.

The rhino in question went completely balllistic and though Limpo managed to escape with his life, his leg was severely damaged. They feared that the damage might be fatal, but he healed up alright and was able to move about and feed himself. Crisis over. Years went by, Limpo limped and ate and ate and limped and grew and grew and behaved in a generally elephantine fashion, as befitting a strong young elephant in his prime.

Then one day, Limpo went out and found the nearest rhino and beat it to death.

Well, the park people thought, its a jungle out there. Or a veldt, anyway. Shit happens. Disputes occur, hormones rage, tempers flare. Occasional tragedies ensue. A little while later, though, he did it again. Another rhino bites the dust. As months stretched into years, the park people realised that this was not a simple, straightforward crime of passion. As the death toll mounted, they realised they had a serial killer on their hands. Limpo was waging a one-elephant war on the rhino race. It was rhino-cide on a grand scale.

By the time the fifteenth rhino had died a violent and bloody death, capital punishment must have been looking like a pretty good option. Can't have your tourists coming across murder scenes when they are out to take their pretty pictures of the Big Five. Instead, though, they brought in a heavy hitter, in the form of in another elephant. A chilled old elephant from further North. An elephant with gravitas and wisdom. An elephant carrying the weight of a great many years and thus, seniority. Most important of all, The Grand Old Elephant Of The North got along extraordinarily well with rhinos.

In what must be one of the world's all-time greatest triumphs of criminal rehabilitation, after the two elephants had spent some time together, the slaughter ended. The old elephant eventually went back home, and Limpo, as far as anyone knows, hasn't harmed a hair on the rhino's head since.

I love a happy ending.

P.S. apologies to the people I sent photos to referring to 'hippo-cide': it was a slip of the brain.

The Art of Waiting

On the plane to Africa, I read the following in Ryszard Kapuscinski's The Shadow of the Sun (Penguin (Australia) 2008):

"Therefore the African who boards a bus sits down in a vacant seat, and immediately falls into a state in which he spends a great portion of his life: a benumbed waiting."

Well, I thought, I can dig it. Sounds exactly waiting for the train at Richmond station, back in the day, when I had an office to go to.

Kapuscinski goes on:

"What does this dull waiting consist of? People know what to expect; therefore, they try to settle themselves in as comfortably as possible, in the best possible place. Sometimes they lie down, sometimes they sit on the ground, or on a stone, or squat. They stop talking. A waiting group is mute. It emits no sound. The body goes limp, droops, shrinks. The muscles relax. The neck stiffens, the head ceases to move. The person does not look around, does not observe anything, is not curious. Sometimes his eyes are closed - but not always. More frequently, they are open but appear unseeing, with no spark or like in them. I have observed for hours on end crowds of people in this state of inanimate waiting, a kind of profound physiological sleep:..."

I quote it at length because this is clearly not a passing aside or a throwaway line. (Though to be fair he does note elsewhere that any statement about 'Africa' is always going to be crap because there is no such homogenous place).

It didn't make me feel any better about my trip, though. The guy lived and worked as a journalist in Africa for years, so I figured he probably knows what he is talking about. Fuck me, I thought, I am gonna be BORED.

A week later, I am in a bare and unadorned hall, with a good forty minutes to go before the Conference's closing ceremony. Delegates have been listening to learned people all week, and they are about to hear just one more. There is plastic chairs and concrete, and very little else.

There is nothing to do but wait, but like everyone else I am getting there early, because I saw how the crowd waited before the Opening ceremony, and I am hoping to see a bit more waiting. I am hoping they will wait, spontaneously, in any spare patch of floor, in sync, starting with some simple melodies back and forth across the cavernous room, gradually adding harmonies, layer upon layer, three, four, five...

The film found at the link below is my experience of an African crowd waiting. Possibly it is no more typical than Mr R's, but I defy you to listen without smiling (the vision is crap, but listen to the sound!). Better still, give it a go next time the 5.34 from Flinders Street is late.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPIh038Z3Sc

Florence luxuries.

Florence! What a luxury.

Its a luxury and a privilege for anyone to have an opportunity to go to Firenze for the weekend, obviously. As an Australian, who has spent most of one's life assuming that any trip to Italy will take a years worth of savings and probably two years' worth of accrued leave from work, I am acutely aware of just how great the privilege is.

In fact, when P first suggested I come and meet her there for the weekend, my instinctive response was 'no'. It's justs not the sort of thing one does, is it? It took J, a European and well-travelled one at that, to point out that I both could and should. So I did.

It took about the same time to get there as it used to do to drive to visit Mum and Dad in Gippsland. Andthe plane ticket cost didn't cost any more than the petrol would have, either.

And yes, the art was magnificent and the architecture grand (more of all that later). Yes, the view from the hotel window (domes and roofs and flying sparrows framed by foothills) was lovely. Yes, the food and the wine were great, and the people running the trattoria friendly, professional and often chic.

More glorious than that, though, was to have the opportunity to sit eating and drinking with family and friends. The main bit is the company itself, obviously. Lovely people who you like, who are family, whose friends and family are by extension and connection and varying degrees of separation also yours.

There is something else, as well. Its time spent with people with shared experience, shared acquaintences, shared context. Suddenly remembering what its like to skip all those laborious parts of polite conversation where you explain the backstory: where you come from, what you mean, who on earth the other characters in the story are.

The real luxury is to be able to speak in short-hand. To be able to say something like 'it was at that place in Alma Road', and have everyone there, know exactly what house you are talking about, in what suburb, who lived there, and exactly the kind of parties that were held there in the summer of 1988. All you need is one little phrase like that and the scene is suddenly peopled with the whole tapestry and characters and sub-plots that we share.

So thank you Penny, David & Romani and the Oxforshire Aussies. Thanks for the whole weekend, but especially for that lovely night at Gustavino on the Via della Condotta, where the conversation, like the wine, was full and rich and warm.

Murderous Gulls and Eviscerated Pigeons

We were concerned about the pigeons from the start, but we had no idea just how deep and dark were the perils they negotiated every day.

There's a lot of them in Venice. You don't need to go to the Piazza San Marco, where tourists stand with bags of grain and enjoy the sensation of being shat on simultaneously by hundred of Rats With Wings, to know that your average Venetian pigeon does not work very hard for its supper.

Initially, our main source of concern was their health. The squares and alleyways were dotted with pigeons so rotund that it appeared that they really couldn't be fagged trying to get airborne. We nearly trod on one more than once, but it didn't seem to bother them too much. A slightly irritated flap was about the most response we could get. And not many cats around, with all that water. J queried a Venetian collegue about it later.

'Ah, yes,' the chap replied sagely. 'We are the only city where the lions fly and the birds walk.'

Then we found remains. Curious ones, though. The pigeon in question had met a very sticky end, but whatever or whoever had killed didn't seem to have eaten it, as most of it was there on the pavement. Its not like we lingered or anything, but you could help noticing that this flying fatsos had not met a natural death. Way too much gore. Perhaps it had a coronary and exploded in the spasm? Unlikely.

Anyway, we hurried to the nearest church to check out some more pleasant portrayals of murder and mayhem courtesy of Tintoretto, Giotto et al.: a little nailing blokes to a stick here, a little Judith decapitating someone there... You know the kind of thing. We forgot our murdered pigeon.

By the time we remembered, our sympathy had worn off. We were sitting in the rose garden having a rather nice prosecco in the afternoon sunshine, when the people at the next table decided to leave. (I believe they were a father and daughter on a custody holiday. Jim believes I am, in this respect, a niaive idiot.) They left behind a half-empty bowl of chips. Within about 30 seconds the delicate porcelain was full of porky pigeons climbing on eachother, scuffling and squawking and executing some quite impressive hip-and-shoulder action to get to sit in the chips, as if it was a salty, saturated fat birdbath. When sparrows do it its kind of cute. When overweight pigeons do it, you just feel kinda soiled for even watching. And a little nervous, a la Tippi Hedren..

We were wishing they would go away. Then suddenly they did. A big gull had arrived to take a seat at the table. We didn't know why, because it seemed completely uninterested in the chips. The pigeons weren't going anywhere near it. It just sat there, looking at them. They sat on the canal wall a good three or four metres away, looking kind of hunched, like they were trying not to be noticed, and staying unnaturally quiet. I can't honestly say they were trembling, but their beady (and it has to be said, not very attractive)little eyes never left that gull. They were so scared that it took a full minute after the gull left for them to start swarming again.

I have to thank John Berendt for the answer. According to his gossipy little tome about Venice, the gulls are doing the pigeons in. The glossy gulls are nearly as well fed as the fat pigeons, so they restrict their diet to delicacies, like the Doges of old. (Obviously no-one made them eat their crusts when they were chicks.) Apparently when they fancy a light snack, they chase down a lazy pigeon, stab it through the chest and eat its still-beating little pigeon heart, discarding the rest for the Rats Without Wings to clean up later.

I don't know why, but it all strikes me as oddly Venetian.

The Bells, the Bells.

The guide book told us that the best thing to do in Venice was get lost.So that was what we did first. Not exactly on purpose, but what the heck. Anyway, fortunately the whole joint is so tiny that you can't help finding yourself again. Pretty soon you bump into some orienting bit of water.

When we did find our hotel, it was the business. J had pushed out the proverbial Gondola on this one,it being my birthday an'all, and we passed through a stone gate of a rather stark square into a little oasis of quiet green walled garden, and proceeded to be led to a small room 'on the canal'. Unfortunately it was also right next to the breakfast room and opposite a blank wall, and you had to lean out the window to actually see the water. The piles of earplugs on the bedside table did not inspire optimism. In retrospect, we reckon they probably sent everyone to this room first,in the hope they's take it. They most kindly agreed to give us an alternative, and suddenly we were crossing under a massive chandelier over a marble floor and into a door which led us to walls of red and velvet curtains stretching up to cavernous ceilings, and a little wrought iron balcony that hung above the garden. There was also an extremely large Murano glass confection above the bed. It would have killed us in an instant if it fell.

Then the bells started. There are bells in Venice like you wouldn't believe. There was one rather large one in a tower about two doors away. That one, I must admit, did kind of hurt my skull a bit first thing in the morning. But I forgave it. You can't really beat sitting under blooming roses next to the Grand Canal with the water taxis cruising by all varnished and shiny like they just that minute dropped a white-suited James Bond (Connery version) off at the Casino, while bells assail you from every direction. None of them were quite in sync, so it would start with a single clanking. The one opposite that's in the above picture was often among the first. That first ring would get answered from some where on another island, until suddenly you are in the middle of a clanging cacophany coming at you from all points of the compass.

Many, many bells, but far from saturation point.