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Asia, India, Travelogue

Travelogue ISC 5: Jaipur

JAIPUR

20-21 November 2012

Arriving in Jaipur, we wound our way up the mountains through the ‘hotels’ that lined the streets on either side that had welcomed the traders as they arrived with their caravans of wares. The buildings are all in relatively good condition already and are planned for a restoration project that will turn them into proper tourist attractions.

Jaipur, founded by Jai Singh, is known as the Pink City because when the Prince of Wales visited in 1876 the Maharajah Ram Singh painted the entire Old City pink, which is the colour of welcome in India.

Our hotel, Mandawa Haveli, was gorgeous! We had a lovely suite with marble floors and walls, an entire lounge (which it sounds like not everyone has) and a flatscreen TV and satellite decoder on a lazy susan that swivels between the lounge and the bedroom, so you can watch from the couch, 4 poster bed or window seat in the bedroom.

We decided to eat in the hotel since our journey in hinted that there was nothing of interest in the direct neighbourhood. Turned out to be a great decision and we thoroughly enjoyed our starters of tandoori mushrooms (me) and chicken pineapple salad (Christian) and our shared main course of chicken lababdar and lamb, with garlic naans. Double victory for the hotel kitchen since we’d decided well in advance to take a night off curry and have a western dinner!

WEDNESDAY
Jaipur is one of the first planned city of northern India based on the principles of “Shilpa Shastra”, in fact “Jaipur clearly represents a dramatic departure from extant medieval cities with its ordered, grid-like structure – broad streets, criss-crossing at right anglese, earmarked sites for buildings, palaces, havelis, temples and gardens, neighbourhoods designated for caste and occupation” (UNESCO, 2015).

9 square miles within the walls, with 9 rectangular grids, length and breadth of roads are multiples of 9 and 9 gates to enter the city, emulating the 9 openings in the human body. Other reasons for the 9 are found in Hindu mythology, Vishnee the Preserver has had 9 incarnations and Durga appears in 9 different forms and so on.

We made a stop to look at the facade of a Palace where the royal ladies used to sit behind the windows and watch the royal processions. While taking pics, we were lured in by a snake charmer and I got to don turban and play the calabash pipe to get the snakes going. Creepy but cool.

We were disheartened to see the long snaking queue at the elephant rides, but it moved quite quickly and soon we were atop an elephant and climbing the hill to Man Singh’s Palace (built in 1592). Man Singh was the maharaja of the Rajastani people and a general in Mughal King Akbar’s army. The entire structure of the palace, much like the rest of Jaipur, is well preserved since the city has never seen war, having strategically aligned with the Mughals. They were generals in the Mughal army and ceded any territories won to the Mughals but brought the bounties home to fund their prosperity.

The entrance quadrangle is large with frescoes painted above all the arches and entryways into the buildings. Frescoes are painted while the plaster is wet, so lasts longer and requires more skill.

The summer palace was constructed with a primitive aircon that drew cool air from the lake on one side of the palace up 3 walls to cool, then through a khuskhus reed curtain with tiny pipes of water spraying on it to give it a light scent and cool it even further. The winter palace was lined with thick curtains that made the areas 5 degrees warmer than outside. The central area had mirrors embedded on the walls, to help the king ‘get in the mood’ when the belly-dancers performed before he was due to make heirs.

The harem had 12 apartments for the king’s 12 wives. The king had so many wives because of matrimonial alliances with neighbours to prevent fighting. The king would use a secret passage that ran behind the apartments to access them so as to prevent squabbling between the wives. Only women were allowed in this area – not even their sons could visit after a certain age. Children fathered through concubines or servants were either passed off as belonging to deceased soldiers or murdered.

Then the shopping started.

With a jewellery shop.

Not only was inner magpie on high alert, but they also greeted us with samoosas (pyramid shaped veg ones) and *cold* Cokes, so we were done for! They displayed the beautiful ruby Star of India stones that the country is famous for. The salespeople had done a good job of piquing interest by ushering us all into a darkened office and spotlighting the stones, but the chap holding the stone made the faux pas of glimmering the reflection ‘star’ toward himself so the rest of the group was quite underwhelmed. Having a solid education in such things, I picked up another stone and showed our little huddle the star and there was much ooo and aaah’ing from everyone.

Block painting fabric. The patterns are made from a series of stamps. The first lays the outline and then ensuing stamps colour in their part of the picture with a single colour. Once all the stamps are overlaid, the pattern is completely coloured in. Traditionally all the colourants are sourced from nature – green from mango leaves, red from cane, yellow from turmeric, black from gooseberries, grey from onion leaves and, least of which because of cost prohibitiveness, orange from saffron (“golden flower”).

We were also shown the process of carpet-making and the millions of knots per centimetre that make up the better grade carpets. While reassuring that they’re washable and fire retardant (they went at it with a blowtorch and then just brushed it clean), the opening price of R10k for a small mat was enough to make an easy decision. But we did accept their offer of a Kingfisher, so as not to offend and headed into their shop where their hospitality was rewarded with Christian buying half a dozen silk ties.

Pooped from shopping, we all welcomed lunch, which doubled as a trip to the Turban Museum. We had a delicious Mutton Shahi Korma (I was delighted that their korma doesn’t have nuts as normally I wouldn’t have it because of the cashews), paneer stuffed tandoori potatoes and a garlic and an onion naan.

Jai Singh was a great astrologer and mathematician, so established an awesome open-air observatory at Jantar Mantar, with a great big sundial (the Vrihat Samrat Yantra) and smaller dials that measure time with accuracy up to 2 seconds, astrological charts and monsoon forecasting. We had a lovely wander round, finished off with a visit to the Art hall, where we were demonstrated the art of miniature painting. This was a painstaking technique that required the artist to use a very thin brush (sometimes a single squirrel hair!) in order to create the finest of outlines and smoothest smear of colours. The paintings could be quite elaborate, painted on gold leaf with embedded jewels.

The artists included craftsmen of wooden items, inlaying trinket boxes by hand with brass wire to make intricate patterns or crushing semi-precious gems to adhere the dust onto glass that turned over reveals a beautiful pastel artwork, which is inlaid into the top of a wooden box. We bought a few items, but held back as the plan for the remainder of the afternoon and evening was a visit to the markets.

This turned out to be a chaotic affair. We were dumped rather unceremoniously roadside (the bus wasn’t allowed to formally pull over for fear of fines) and had to make our way back to the shops and market. This wasn’t what we expected at all. Rows of shops the size of a single garage lining either side of the road, with owners hovering in the doorway luring people to come buy their merchandise. The problem was that their wares weren’t what we wanted to buy. They were all home goods and rolls of textiles, hardware items and PEP style clothing stores.

After being given poor advice by seeming Samaritans, who really just wanted to take us to their shop no matter how ill-fitting the category, we (us and the Aussies) decided to suck it up and high-tail back to the fist bus stop we’d made in the morning (where I’d charmed snakes). Fortunately, it was quicker to get there on foot than it had been in the bus – but that’s not to say it was a pleasant walk!

Nonetheless, we found it… And with it an entire road of stalls with the tourist stuff (tees, crafts, parasols, sarees and tunics etc) that we’d all been looking for. We spent a few hours looking at everyone’s stuff and walked away with surprisingly little. Really just tees for the kids, a smattering of gifts, one or two odds and sods for us and (my coup de gras) a lovely leather laptop bag for me.

Getting home was another story. We (by now just Christian and me) walked and walked. We hadn’t realised how far we’d wandered, after the high-tailing which had only begun outside the Old City, within which we were staying. It wasn’t the distance that was the problem, but the darkness from the power failure, hawker-obscured pavements, maverick bikers, garbage everywhere, incessant hooting, puddles and filth. Still, we got back to the hotel quicker than if we’d caught any mode of transport – and we were very grateful to be back in the clean sanctum that was our home for the night.

We’d decided to eat in, and to eat ‘international’. Christian ordered a garlic chicken and noodles dish and I ordered a spag bol, then we also ordered ‘exotic veg au gratin’ to share, mostly because we were curious to see how exotic the veg actually was.

As it turns out, the spag bol was the most exotic! It was a stewy gravy with lumps of mutton (or goat?) served moat-like around a mountain of spaghetti. Not in the slightest bit tomatoey, garlicky, thick or saucy. I suppose we should have predicted that. The exotic veg turned out to be cauliflower, carrots, peas and green beans, which wasn’t really exotic (to us), but was delicious in the creamy cheese sauce with crunchy baked breadcrumbs on top.

Fed and watered, we hit the sack so we’d be rested for the next day’s trek to Surajgarh.

Asia, India, Travelogue

Travelogue ISC 4: Agra

AGRA

19-20 November 2012

As we arrived in Agra, after a 4 hour bus ride from Delhi, we crossed the bridge over Yamuna River, the western most tributary of the river Ganges. Cows and buffaloes were wallowing in it and our guide, Yusef, told that they are like homing pigeons – they go off for the day and return to their owners (in the crush of the dusty dirty town centre) in the evening to get fed and milked.

Like in much of India, the land in Agra is barren and their owners are poor, so there is little food for the livestock bar what little they are given. The water buffalo are revered because they produce more fatty milk than cows, preferred by the Indians. The cows are also seen as holy, said to stem from their role as surrogates providing rich milk for babies who lost their mothers in childbirth, which used to be a frequent occurrence.

The river doesn’t flow as deep as it once did, so there are numerous sand banks. Washer-people stand knee-deep in the water around these and thrash the washing, then spread it out on the sand to dry.

Agra was established as a more central (than Delhi) dispatch area for Indian troops around the country. There are still big army bases in the city, which even as a smaller city still claims a population of 2,6 million people.

We stopped at a garden restaurant for lunch. They had some kids in traditional dress entertaining the guests. There were drums, singing and puppet shows with marionettes in elaborate traditional outfits.

Christian wasn’t feeling 100% (churny belly, inevitable Delhi fall-out) so he had a vegetable curry to up the veg content without losing out on the house speciality entirely. I was feeling aces so had Masala Gost (mutton curry with egg) and garlic naan.

Yusef had offered the group the option to alter our itinerary slightly, moving the Red Fort tour to the next morning so as to allow more time at Taj Mahal, but also meaning we could linger over lunch and have a leisurely stop while checking into our hotel, the Raj Mahal (where we were greeted with marigold garlands). It worked beautifully – and meant we could have a few hours at Taj to include sunset so we could see the subtle change in the colour of the marble.

The monument was built by Shah Janah for his favourite wife, who he’d named Mum Taj Mahal (“Chosen Crown Palace”), as her final resting place after she’d died giving birth to their 14th child. The design was inspired by the description of the Gardens of Paradise and House of Allah in the Qu’ran and it took 20,000 people 22 years day and night to build it. It is perfectly symmetrical, in that it looks exactly the same from all 4 sides; the only deviation from this is the placement of the Shah’s body in the mausoleum, to the left of his wife’s, which is the exact epicentre.

This OCD carried through to every element and the gardens are mirrored on either side, the fountains elevate water to exactly the same height (requiring some quite sophisticated engineering for those times) and there was a mosque sitting to the West of the building that he had mirrored with a perfect replica on the East side (that was used to house visiting dignitaries).

There is conjecture about the Shah ordering the chopping off hands of the workmen when the building was completed so they couldn’t make another Taj, but Yusef claims this is just scandalous rumour and that the king had made extra effort to ensure that the reputation of the building was flawless to maintain his wife’s honour. He was apparently quite shrewd in some of his gestures, like clearing the site by offering the building material leftovers to the people – quite some feat with the high ramps it must have taken to complete the highest sections. Everything was gone in 2 days, when it would have taken months for waged employees to clear it!

Stories aside, it was clearly built to last, having been completed in 1653 and still requiring no restoration, just a river sand mask that peels off all the dirt to give it a clean every few years. It’s just a pity that the Shah didn’t get to complete his dream, which was to build an exact replica (but made from black marble) across the river to be his mausoleum, with a bridge connecting the two. His plan was thwarted when his son put him under house-arrest for the last 8 years of his life, meaning he never got to start the project.

Over time the opposite bank had become home to factories and plants, but the government has closed these down since they posed threat to the Taj not only from pollutants, but from their effect on the river flow. The Taj was built intended to be indestructible to an earthquake up to 8 on the Richter scale (even including details like angling the minarets ever so slightly outward so that in event of earthquake they fall away from the mausoleum, minimising damage), but this all rests in the firm foundation of rubble and bamboo. Affecting the river could mean that the bamboo dries up and the Taj could sink and become vulnerable and unstable.

That would be a real shame. It’s such a prolific icon. At least the authorities are protecting it adequately, with very stringent security checks on entry that even disallow cigarettes and chewing gum – to the point that there are x-rays machines, bag checks and confiscation. Good for them though; looking at the rest of India that we’ve seen so far, it’d be just another big dustbin if left to the hygiene compass of the common people. And there are lots and lots of common people at the Taj. As with at the other sites, there are discounted tickets for locals, but they have to queue for entry into the mausoleum where “high value ticket holders” are ushered in (by gun-wielding police guards) straight from the front of the queue.

After an hour’s repose at the hotel, we were bussed to yet another restaurant for dinner. We were put off by the curry all being on the bone, so opted for a radical change and went Chinese. Every menu has had an entire Chinese section, but we hadn’t even considered before. Very glad we did tonight though – we had the most gorgeous lamb with mushroom and garlic in a rich thick brown gravy as well as a chicken and pineapple in creamy lemon sauce. Both were incredible… And now we’ll have to try Chinese somewhere else to see if it was just that restaurant or if Indians are better at Chinese than SA – and possibly better at Chinese than Indian!

TUESDAY

The next morning kicked off with a visit to Red Fort. The great mughals lived there and the country was governed from there, including the treasury and mint. The mughals were descended from Mongolian mothers and Turkish fathers, hence had oriental eyes and lighter skin from their maternal side and were Muslim from their patronage. Over generations their facial features evolved and their skin darkened as they inter-married with Indians.

The Red Fort has stood in one form or another since 11th century (first written reference was 1060). Rebuild to its current red sandstone form only started in 1560, upgrading it to include additional safety features like the double moat – one with tigers and one with water – and 2 gates at right angles to retard possible charging elephant rams. Above the enormous wooden entrance gates are also windows they could throw stones and boiling oil out of; it’s no wonder nobody ever tried to force entry!

Inside the royal section, where the emperor and his most important harem members lived, was where the illicit goings-on and more indulgent lifestyle happened (opiates and wine, which are forbidden by the Qu’ran but excused in the Palace because of royal status). One of the wives attempted growing grapes to make wine, so an elaborate garden was dug, 10 feet deep with brick dividers to keep the different grapes separated. Of course, the climate wasn’t conducive, so a more conventional, although far from ordinary, garden was made from it, with a thick carpet effect delineated by the swirling brickwork dividers.

Shah Jahan’s prison is adjacent to the gardens. Not the usual jail, made from marble with floral designs inlaid with jasper, turquoise, malachite, onyx and cornellian (called fire stone because it glows when light is shone on it). The torturous part really was that he had a perfect view of his best creation, the Taj Mahal, from his prison… But he couldn’t go there. That, and being imprisoned by his own son of course.

Quite a story really since it was Shah Jahan’s 3rd and 4th sons that colluded to murder the 1st and 2nd sons so they’d be first in line for the throne. Then the 3rd son (Aurangzeb) murdered the 4th son to take out the competition. But since there were only daughters remaining, the 3rd son imprisoned his dad and seized the throne. He reigned for 59 years and wasn’t the usual money-grabber, living a simple(r) life and not taking money from the treasury. But it was he who started driving the wedge between the Muslims and the Hindus.

Back to the bus and off to the marble factory. Different merchandise (to the gemstone factory shop in Bangkok, ‘handicrap’ factory in Viet Nam, carpets in Turkey etc etc), but same hard sell. “No obligation to purchase”, but a salesman breathing down your neck showing equally unattractive pieces at escalating prices – clearly showing pieces that make more sense to his target than our tastes.

It’s a pity because the craftsmanship is painstaking (we were demonstrated the process and had a chance to try the various stages of manufacture) and it really is a fine art that would be far more enjoyable to be able to absorb the showroom like a gallery, appreciating the patience and effort it takes to conceptualise the design, shape the stones and mould the marble to fit – irrespective of how flowery the design and how unlikely it is to ever feature in our lounge (even if it weren’t hundreds of Pounds). But we were more focused on out-running our adversary and responding with vague and polite answers and glazed smiles.

Sikri is the village next to Agra that comes from the Arabic word for ‘thank you’, and was built by Akbar, considered to be the greatest of the Moghals. He ruled from the age of 14, so traded education for his royal duties and was virtually illiterate. Generally very tolerant, he was the first Muslim king to marry a Hindu – even allowing her to continue to practice her religion and build a place to worship and store her religious books in the Red Fort. Akbar also allowed a Portuguese christian missionary to build a church in the fort in Sikri.

The Palace seems a bit excessive for just the emperor and his wives until you consider that his harem was about 2000 women. There are the wives (Islam allows 4), the contract wives (marriage for a limited defined period to save widows’ virtue when their husband passes, lest she be turned to prostitution to support herself), concubines (on a good day used as human pieces in a life-size pachisi board in the recreation courtyard) and slaves.

The Palace at Sikri was short-lived; it took 6 years to complete, but was only lived in for 15 years, including construction time. Akbar had no male heirs so nominated one of his sufi’s (priest / mystic) sons and moved to where the sufi was in order to carry on the moghal line. Unfortunately there was no river here, so he built a dam, but it wasn’t sustainable as a water source so they moved back to Agra.

We left Sikri for the long bus ride to Jaipur, stopping at a restaurant for a buffet lunch, with tandoori and mustard chicken as the stars. We’d been passing through farmlands and Yusef had explained that India theoretically should be the self-sufficient from a food production point of view, being among the top producers of wheat, rice, tea, potatoes and tomatoes. They also produce vast quantities of mustard, ergo the local mustard chicken dish on the buffet.

Chicken is generally a winner as a pretty safe choice. Most of the time when you order beef, it’s likely to be water buffalo, reason being that the God of Death rides a water buffalo so they’re not sacred like cows. Similarly, the mutton is often goat meat. Add to this the fact that almost all curries are described as a combination of tomato/onion/capsicum/thick/rich/pungent/aromatic (or better still, where it is from with no clues to the ingredients), the menu is just the vaguest of guidelines as to what to expect! Today’s lunch was included, expressly for the purpose of having us taste the water buffalo.

India is such a dichotomy. So much pride taken in some things and so much blatant disregard for others. For example, most big trucks are gaily painted (permanent) and decorated with garlands of flowers (possibly just for Diwali), while the shop stalls are dusty little hovels lining streets strewn with litter. At least the cow pats are recycled, being dried and made into methane cakes for fires (we were assured that they don’t smell once dried or burnt), but India really could use more dustbins and a good “zap it in the Zeebie” campaign!

With the dirty dusty state of things, the unconventional (compared to Western) way these towns seem to operate and the vast expanses between towns, I’m very glad we got an organised tour for this part of the trip instead of fashioning our own itinerary online as we usually do. Looking at the conditions and locations of some of these self-proclaimed “resorts”, I doubt we could have come right with all our choices based on the very one-dimensional views our usual websites present – and I’d have hated to end up in dodgy accommodation in the middle of nowhere spending time and money getting to the sights these places claim to be close to.

It had been a pleasure being guided and informed on a luxury bus between the great iconic treasures that this part of the country holds, with convenient and clean hotel rooms guaranteed each night. It was a double bonus that this kind of tour is better priced for us South Africans (at ZAR 4000 a person) than our Aussie counterparts (AUS $2000 per person).

Asia, India, Travelogue

Travelogue ISC 3: Delhi

DELHI

17-18 November 2012

We had to laugh when we disembarked from the plane in Delhi and were herded to a bus that would take us to the terminal. That wouldn’t be funny, except we were directly across the roadway from it, so we alighted the bus only to literally make a U-turn and get off at the other side of the road!

The airport was a bit more inspiring than Mumbai’s. Newer, cleaner, more modern. And it was a blessing to be met by our tour driver so we didn’t have to think or negotiate transfers. The traffic in Delhi is just as chaotic, although the roads seems to be wider and better maintained in general. There’s still no adherence to road markings and cars, vans and rickshaws straddling the white line is quite common. More of the bike-riders don helmets (very rare in our experiences so far) and there are lots of “don’t drink and drive” billboards; maybe the two are connected. Also hootinghootinghooting, but with requests for hooting painted on the back of most trucks, one shouldn’t expect any less and clearly it’s seen as serving to warn of approach, not signal aggression.

Our hotel is great; nothing short of amazing as compared with the others we’ve stayed in so far! Weirdly, it had no windows because it wa wedged in the middle of a block with neighbours on all sides except the narrow slit of an entrance. I bright-sided that this should make for a good sleep, based on my experience of the inside cabin on the South East Asia cruise and how the pitchest of pitch black made for coma sleep. The hotel is well positioned and mercifully stocked with tourist street maps, so we were soon sent on our merry way to go and explore.

We caught a Metro from a block down to Karol Bagh (8 Rupees each, just over R1,30), which is a shopping district. We been briefed by the hotel concierge that we were to ask for discount in the formal shops and bargain with the stalls for as much as 70% off. We didn’t end up doing any shopping though because what we weren’t prepared for was the chaos – cars hooting their way through hordes of shoppers, not helped by the double- and triple-parked lurkers on either side; dirty with litter everywhere; spitting seemingly culturally acceptable, but entirely disgusting. We ratified the trip with a chicken Momo plate from a street vendor, who served the 6 little dumplings with a searingly hot red chilli relish. Burning aside, it was a great snack (and a bargain at R5).

Then it was back on the Metro to Connaught Place, which had been recommended to us by a chap at the shack as being civilised concentric circles of shops and entertainment. It was exactly that, big fancy shops and recognisable brand name stores (both Indian and international) – with the usual cloud of cars and spray of street vendors.

Wearied by our ‘shopping’, we accepted an invite into Knight’s, a restaurant and lounge upstairs overlooking the hubbub. Cold Kingfishers welcomed, with the sting of double the price being counter-balanced by the 2-for-1 happy hour (from midday to 8.30p m).

One turned to several and soon we’d (been) befriended (by) a soldier originally from Goa now stationed up North, who spoke little to no English. Made for laboured conversation, but we persevered. We were also in high demand to be in pictures and posed here and there with anyone who asked; all quite bizarre, but easy to comply. Got carried away a bit and ended up missing dinner entirely (fortunately we’d been compulsively eating for 4 days so were hardly likely to starve).

We were well in time for the last train though, but got hopelessly lost returning to the hotel from the Metro station (losing bearings from having mistakenly taken the opposite platform to the one on the way out, meaning we were on the block across the line from where we were supposed to be), so it ended up being quite a late night.

SUNDAY

Breakfast was adequate with a meagre buffet of chaffing dishes offering boiled eggs, baked beans, some traditional creamy corn thing, french toast and a flat bread of sorts, as well as the usual fruits, cereals, toast and juice. Was nice enough… But what we really needed was a good old greasy fry-up to get us going!

8.30 we met our tour guide, Yusuf, and the rest of our group. There are 15 people on our tour (mostly Saffas, with 3 Aussies and 2 Brits). We have a full sized bus (luxury, aircon, with a glass door partitioning us from the driver to maintain the temperature) so there’s lots of room to stretch out. Probably the least populated part of this city with its 20 million people!

The tour started in Old Delhi at the Red Fort – Captain Obvious’ly named because it’s made from red sandstone so the building is red in colour. New Delhi was built by the British, but the ‘new’ is a bit of an oversell since a large portion of the buildings were built a hundred years ago. The fort initiates with a high roofed tunnel in the fort walls housing a Chhatta Chowk (covered bazaar), which is apparently unusual in Delhi. The fort complex contains several buildings, including the Court, Rang Mahal (Palace of Colours, mahal means palace), and Diwan-i-Khas (Hall of VIPs) with its hand-made floral art made from precious stone inlays and the famous inscription “if there is paradise on Earth, it is this, it is this, it is this” (clearly this person had never been to Goa). It’s reassuring to see that most of these buildings are still all original materials in very good nick, even though tourists can walk into most parts of most buildings and through the expansive gardens.

We caught bicycle rickshaws outside the fort which took us past the mosques and temples and through some of the narrow shopping streets (grungy and dirty with electricity lines webbing between buildings), and deposited us at the main Mosque. It technically holds 20,000 people, but could exceed this on Fridays. It’s 360 years old still with all the original parts, the only difference being water piped to the central fountain for hands and feet washing, which used to be manually brought bucket by bucket from the river.

According to our guide, contrary to what I’d imagine global trend to be, religion is expanding in India. People can only be a Hindu or Muslim by birth and the population is expanding; uncertain times have people clinging to religion because they’re scared of world aggression and poverty and need something positive to believe in. Hard work though this Islam story, with its five prayer times every day!

We then moved on to Gandhi’s final resting place, a mausoleum where his ashes are accompanied by an eternal flame and orange floral wreaths atop a plain grey marble housing, with Gandhi’s final words inlaid in bronze (2 words, ‘her ram’ which means ‘my God’ in Hindi). Suitably simple structure for a fella who got by on a bowl of rice and a safety pin, with lovely surrounding gardens that speak to his quest for peace and serenity when he was alive.

On the way to lunch we past the India Gate arch, built in 1929 to pay homage to the soldiers fallen in World War 1 (India lost 80,000 men even though they weren’t officially part of the war; each one of these men’s names are inscribed on the inside arch of the monument). There are gardens and lawns surrounding it and, as the tour guide says, anywhere there’s any open space, a game of cricket will start. True to form, there were several games going on.

Way overdue, we were relieved to arrive at our lunch spot – Have More curry house, renowned for it’s award-winning Best Butter Chicken in Delhi status. Of course we had to try it and can confirm that it’s amazing, especially with the boneless tikka chicken they use. We paired it with a mutton saag wala (spinach), which was a bit off-putting being almost black, but what it lacked in appearance it more than made up for in taste. We had sides of garlic naan and garlic and onion kulcha.

We made a turn past the presidential palace (all 380 rooms of it!), but couldn’t stop because of security so it was just a ‘take snaps from the bus’ thing. Then proceeded to have a nap on the bus on the ride over to South Delhi.

We awoke on arrival at the Qutub Archeological complex, which is home to the tallest stone minaret in the world, which is over 800 years old. The minaret was a display of power by the Muslims to demarcate the Eastern edge of the Muslim religion’s reach (with the West being Spain). The minaret has 5 distinctive sections with different shape stones, balconies between sections that use screws (very advanced technology for this time) and extends 72,5 metres into the sky off it’s 14m base… And even that’s less than 3/4 of the height of Taj Mahal!

The complex also has a mosque that was abandoned before completion because the Muslims had used stones from a Hindu temple to build it and only realised half way in that this wasn’t going to work because the stones have pictures of humans and animals, which is not allowed in a mosque. You’d think someone would have noticed sooner before the poor humpers had to schlep those heavy stones around the place and the poor Hindus had to lose their temple for nothing! Nonetheless, the arches, carvings, Qu’ran inscriptions and 1600 year old iron flagpole all made for interesting enough gandering.

There was merit in group tour sight-seeing. We usually make our own plans as we go along, but the pre-organisation of the tour company has meant that we didn’t really have to think or queue, which has been a blessing. We hadn’t had to manage any ticket buying or handling at any of the sights, as these were all pre-arranged, but I imagined they get discounts for group buying.

All the sights have had different prices for Indians and for tourists (as much as 25 times more for tourists, with 250 Rupee vs 10), but good on them for making it easy for their people to experience their history and learn about their culture. Someone quoted that the average Indian has to survive on 200 Rupees a day and I had spent that before I’d left the hotel room on a bottle of water to brush my teeth with!

The group was also a manageable size so there hadn’t been any lingerers holding the group up. Typically, the (South African) Indians all seem to stick together, the Aussies have packed and we had bonded with the Brits, who were really well-travelled so it was nice to swap stories and where to and how to advice.

We had an hour to freshen up and then back in the bus to cross town to an (allegedly) famous restaurant, called Chor Bizarre. The reception was decorated with framed certificates of their awards, so they must have been doing something right. We had a veritable feast served to us plated for starters and desert and mese-style main courses in multiple dishes spread across the length of the table. We had: Popadoms Paneer (cheese) Keema (mince kebab) Tandoori chicken Dahl (lentils) Butter chicken Lamb in yoghurt sauce Paneer in spinach Aloo jeera (potatoes sauteed in onion, garlic, ginger and cumin) Rice Naan Gulab jamun

Well fed and ready for bed, we headed back to the hotel to pack and ready for our departure to Agra bright and early in the morning.

Asia, India, Travelogue

Travelogue ISC 2: Goa

GOA

15-17 November 2012

Thanks to our comfortable double sleeperbus booth and a sleeping tablet each, we got in a decent night’s rest on the way to Goa from Mumbai – no thanks to our driver who was constantly swerving and hooting throughout the trip.

We had some trepidation pulling into Goa as it seemed to just be endless rolling hills of palm trees, with pockets of ramshackle shop interspersed roadside. Our fears were fed when the bus stopped at a dusty rank, but fortunately we were steered to another bus and realised that our arrival in Goa was to the North and we had booked to stay South, requiring an extra leg.

Indian cities were all proving to be far larger and more sprawling then we’d imagined and we had another half hour on the bus to get to our destination, Margao… And an aircon taxi ride for another 10 minutes after that to get to Majorda Beach where our hotel was situated.

It was well worth it though. We were deposited on a quaint narrow lane, lined with shops (mostly jewellery, yay!), accommodation and restaurants. Exactly what you’d expect from a little seaside holiday village.

The Shangri La Beach Palace was basic, but clean and neat and we had hot water! And a street-facing private patio, which am sure was a selling point in this simple little village.

We dumped our stuff down and decided to head to the beach for brunch, finding it to be an easy few hundred metre walk straight down our main road to glorious wide white sand beach and the Arabian Sea stretching for miles and miles in both directions. A backdrop of palm trees, bar and restaurant shacks on the sand and fixed palm frond umbrellas completed the picture of an idyllic paradise that had us frolicking in the surf and sipping on Kingfishers on our loungers rather than eggs-on-toasting.

Marvelling at our good fortune, we passed quite some time enjoying our locale, wading in the little lagoon in front of us. We were allocated the loungers at the very end of our stretch of civilisation so the lagoon felt like it was just ours. I wandered back into the palms to investigate the clothing and jewellery stores… And eventually we lunched. We had to have a Goan fish curry and felt it matched with the 12 Queen prawn dish and of course a garlic naan, not bad for under R100 in total!

Back to the loungers! What a great way to spend an afternoon – reading, chilling, swimming and people-watching. Bliss!

At 4pm we headed back toward town, needing to find an ATM and wanting to be showered, clean and back at the beach for the 6pm sunset for sundowners and dinner.

The walk to the ATM (seemingly in the next village) was hair-raising with the cars driving all too close and hooting at the sight of absolutely anything and everything. But we made it, got cash and celebrated our success with a litre (the standard serving size at the convenience store) of ice-cold Mirinda before turning around and heading back.

Back at our hotel, we appreciated the small things like hot showers, flushing toilets and toilet paper and were soon clean and fresh and off back to the beach. Having stopped in at almost every shop on our way home, we were greeted by almost every shopkeep on our way back out (they sit outside their shops on the pavement and only turn on lights and aircon inside when punters go in). Majorda Beach is starting to feel a bit like Cheers, except everyone calls us “South Africa” because the inevitable first question is where we are from.

The beach is beautiful at night. All the restaurant shacks spill their tables out onto the sand in front of their shelters, resulting in a generous dotting of candlelit tables down to the water, which laps gently in the background quite hypnotically.

Despite having spent the better part of the walk to the ATM and back discussing dinner, we disregarded our predetermined choices. After having walked the full length of our section of beachfront intending to go to Albert’s for palak and butter chicken, we were put off by their only patrons – a single table of noisy Russians – and the music – blaring from next door – nondescript and tragic ballads. No harm done, we did the return journey along the water’s edge and had red snapper with prawn and egg rice instead at Mashmir’s (where we had had lunch).

There were lots of beach dogs that just curl up under the tables, are very tame and don’t really interact much. They have a clearly innate sense that every dog should have a human. There was a cute little thing that the restaurant recently found abandoned in the bushes that got more than his fair share of attention!

We had a lingering dinner, nightcapped with Kingfishers (quarts, very romantic) and made our way back to the hotel, stopping en route to have a gander at some of the shops since everything was still open. Christian’s slides weren’t made for walking so he bought some slops, I got an Indian cotton tunic top and we did some t-shirt shopping for the nephews. From all I’ve heard of India, seems a bit belated to have only begun shopping on Day Three!

Exhausted from a long day of doing little but eat and recreate, we retired to our hotel room, delighted to find we had not one but two English channels to choose from – amid a choice of 5 cricket channels (seriously), 1 other sport channel, a few news channels, some dubbed series and movies channels and a very disturbing version of MTV that only has Indian pop and Bollywood hits. Interestingly, the English channels are subtitled. In English. Between Star Movies and HBO, we found the third Transformers movie, the perfect sedative to cherry on top a rather sedate day.

FRIDAY

Not wanting to get distracted by the call of the lounger and miss two breakfasts in a row, we had scrambled egg on toast with baked beans at the restaurant downstairs from our hotel, King Crab. It’s always interesting to watch the locals, this time emptying their tea into their saucers to let it cool, slurping it up from the saucer and repeating.

Nourished and energised, we took to the beach to embark on the day’s plan – to walk South to the neighbouring fishing village called Colva. The beach makes for a lovely walk. The sea is calm, the sand silky soft and the water warm as a bath. While the sun seems more forgiving here (a full day in the sun yesterday left colour but no stinging redness), we added Factor 30 sunblock anyway seeing as we were walking on the naked beach toward the sun the whole way (probably about 4km).

We were the odd people out for so many reasons, but most notably (as in Mumbai) all the Indians are fully-dressed (whether sitting on the sand or swimming) and not pair of shades among them. It gave quite a severe reception as they walk toward you, all hiding their eyes under deep frowns and knitted brows to keep the sun out. And that’s just the ladies. The men give the impression that it’s Movember all year round!

Colva was very busy. Starting with a bigger collection of shacks on the beach at the outskirts (although this time on stilts and more square than the rectangular ones on our strip), then dozens of fishing boats moored on the shore (several with fishermen working on their nets) and culminating in a dearth of swimmers bulbing into the sea around the entrance to the town, marked by 2 bridges over a trickling river at the back of the beach.

The town itself starts with a cul-de-sac adjacent to the beach, which acts as a drop-off spot and taxi rank. It is lined with restaurants, mostly selling local and North Indian cuisine. Beyond this is a single road, quite bustling with auto and pedestrian activity, lined with shops on either side. The first few were jewellery shops and I was (very easily) persuaded into a carat and something Golden Topaz, which will make a wonderful ring to match my citrine earrings (last birthday) and pendant (birthday before last) set that Christian has given me.

We managed to navigate the rest of the high street and back without buying anything, although we have formulated a mental giftlist which we intend to fulfil in Delhi.

Resolute that we weren’t going to get any downtime in the throng at Colva Beach (disturbed mostly by the long-sleeved sun-worshippers, the fully-dressed swimmers and the lax attitude to throwing litter in the sea), we directed ourselves toward home, with the intention of taking up the first set of loungers that presented themselves. Just beyond the fishing boats, our dreams were realised at Anthony’s First Base Beach Shack.

Before you could say the “Ahtohno Cape” (the Russian version of the name on the cyrillic signboard), we had 2 loungers, 2 Kingfishers Premiums and a litre of water. Well done, Goa!

The meandering aromas from the shack’s kitchen soon had their menu as our preferred reading option du jour and we decided on Shark Ambotik Rice and Crab Curry to try something exotic. The shark was served in a spicy red tomato while the crab was in an aromatic yellow curry sauce. We were told that the Goan traditional recipes prefer a coconut-based sauce. We were a bit disappointed with the pan-fried butter naans which were more like pancakes than the flat bread that we’re used to.

The whole meals was quite messy, so it was jazz-hands to the sea to wash off. We lingered in the water, which was as calm and warm as ever, with just heads bobbing above the water.

We frittered away the afternoon, reading, chilling and napping and made our way back to our neck of the woods when the sun was setting, intent on a sundowner at our local. The beach was busier than the previous night, which we ascribed to Friday being the start of the weekend. Mothers in full regalia, with fancy saris and lots of dingle-dangle jewellery, fathers in collared shirts and slacks, (lots of kids) playing beach games, splashing in the water, chasing each other or drawing in the sand.

From the comfort of (yet another) lounger, we watched the golden topaz sun set behind the water while we plotted and planned, posited and solved the world’s mysteries. We decided that the beach looked so much bigger in Goa because it’s so flat. There are no lumps and bumps, nor rocks or coves, so there are no bays or inlets giving contour to the coastline; just an endless view of sun, sea and sand. Glorious.

We concluded the Goa chapter with a divine dinner at Pentagon; a more conventional dinner club restaurant featuring a nightly roster of live entertainment that, being a Friday, offered us a diabolical duo playing ‘treasures’ (welcomed by their rendition of “Easy”, done better than Lionel Ritchie’s, but not as good as Faith No More’s).

The food was amazing and we indulged in hot garlic mushrooms and onion bhaji starters and chicken kadai and mutton rogan josh for mains. We were right next to a table of Russians and again marvelled at how differently they do things, based on what they ordered and how they were dressing it with condiments.

SATURDAY

We made the most of our last morning in Goa, getting up early and heading down to the beach to get in some last lounger time, punctuated only with dips in the sea and breakfast at a table at the shack.

We’d already booked a taxi for 11.30 so made our way back to the hotel at 10.30 to freshen up and pack. The drive to the airport reassured us that we’d had the best slice of paradise and alleviated any concerns we’d had about missing out on other sights around Goa.

We’d asked at the shack how big the airport is and what amenities it offers (planning for lunch, of course). We were told it is medium sized… Which it isn’t really, with only 2 boarding gates! No mind, it had a restaurant and lounger, which was all we needed. We had delicious toasties – a Club with egg instead of bacon, and a chicken tikkawich.

The only things I won’t miss about Goa are the relentless demon mosquitoes and the Goan apathy about cooling beverages. With this climate and the lack of ice (due to toxic tap water), ice-cold drinks would be a complete win.

Asia, India, Travelogue

Travelogue ISC 1: Mumbai

MUMBAI

13-14 November 2012

We had the best plane ever on the first leg of our journey on Emirates from home to Mumbai via Dubai. It was spanky new, with all the bells and whistles… And the best of entertainment with 100 new movies to choose from, as well as a host of TV series (full seasons!), whole album CDs and a large selection of radio shows and TV games. The food was de-lish too, scoring with an all-time-fave Beef Stroganoff fettucini for lunch. We got the best pastrami sarmie ever at snack time; although it was served with a twin roast veg sarmie, which is weird beyond weird…

We had a day flight so got in lots of the entertainment, all the meals and a nap before landing in Dubai at midnight. The 3 hour stop-over was laborious (for an airport that size, there’s surprisingly little to do), but they had us up and off with great efficiency, so no real complaints.

Seeing it was the wee hours of the morning SA-time, we were exhausted as we got on the plane.  We fell asleep well before take off and in the blink of 40 winks we woke up and realised we’d missed breakfast. That simply wouldn’t do, so I asked the steward to bring us a tray of the full English(ish) option. He said there were only veg breakfasts left… And proceeded to bring us 2 trays that, on lifting the foil on the warm bowl, revealed a chickpea curry for Christian and a chicken curry and rice for me. That steward is my kind of vegetarian.

By the time we’d finished we were in Mumbai. We’d pre-booked accommodation (online) so it was relatively easy to get quotes from the taxi counters to get us where we needed to go. The prepaid taxi service quoted us 1500 Rupees (which sounded like a good deal because we have so far to travel from Mumbai Airport to city centre where we’re staying), but the fleet stall opposite quoted 600 + 80 booking fee (bargain at 6 Rupees to 1 Rand), so we went with them.

It feels like a longer ride than it is, with uneven roads and maverick motorists. Ladies in sari’s riding side-saddle on scooters. Tuk-tuks, kids, people, cars, endless signage with faces and Indian scribble. People and chaos. Chaos and people. Everywhere. Hooting at each other and swerving and veering. No hostility, just painstaking concentration… And no helmets. It’s no wonder that a motorist takes the highway to heaven every 22 minutes in this town (Top Gear factoid, courtesy of Christian).

And the buildings. From the pavement to as far as the eye can see in every direction. Satellites dishes and aircon units on shanties. Almost all buildings in need of a coat of paint, a large number with cranes on top, undoubtedly some evasion of tax-on-completion story.

We got to our hotel, which was very Mumbai and clearly only loosely based on the true story presented in their online ads. Nonetheless, the shower (facing away from the water, as instructed) and tooth-brushing (with bottled water) were welcome – as was the air con in the temperatures already well on their way to the anticipated 33 degree midday high.

The last bit of admin was to book the overnight train to Goa, which we couldn’t do from home because they don’t take online bookings from outside India. We got a few sets of sketchy directions, and managed to find the string of travel agents around the corner from the hotel. Only to find that all trains were sold out already! It took a series of intense ‘short questions, shorter answers’ grillings to get all the info and we decided on an overnight sleeper bus as the best Plan B.

Travel arrangements (sort of) made, we headed out in search of some authentic Indian food for lunch (they just call it ‘food’ in Mumbai), ideally somewhere picturesque so we could leisure and idle until sundown. We managed a win with flagging down a tuktuk (which we found out much later were referred to as ‘rickshaws’, hence the futile attempts to figure out the system at the travel agents earlier on) and thought we’d struck a win with a negotiation of 250 Rupees (R60) to get us to Chowpatty.

We thought we were going to Chowpatty Beach, the central beachfront, anticipating promenades and esplanades. What we got was very rustic. Drop-off from the main road (still only single carriageway either side) at a stone entranceway marked “Gorai Beach“. We walked down the dusty road – nice enough with palm trees lining, dotted with (rustic) B&Bs and (simple) eateries and locals ambling in either direction – and found ourselves on wide oily low tide beach.

There were several fisherpeople around, feverishly sorting squirming sea life (everything from small squids to eels to crabs to goldfish-looking things) into baskets. Lots of families sitting in huddles on the rocks on the edge of the beach and wading in the water (women full-saried). There were a few spreadbeagled sleeping dogs (which we left lying) and, bizarrely, more than the odd bike/rickshaw/car (not a lowered suspension nor tinted window among them) whizzing past on the sand going from who knows where to who knows where. What there wasn’t was a lounger / brolly / bar / pool deck / live entertainer anywhere insight. Uh-oh.

And we weren’t even vaguely tempted to dip or swim in the sea, which the Lonely Planet had described as ‘toxic’.

We were beyond lunchtime, so settled on the terrace (strong word) of a beachside hotel and ordered a veg jalfrezi (Christian), chicken makhani (me), butter chipatis (both) and Cokes (each, soft-drinks-only establishment, serving 600ml buddy bottles only). Gotta say, the food was great. So pleased our first curry was a win! (And a bargain at the princely sum of R40, including tip).

Played some cards to catch our breath and then hit the road again. We struggled with a troupe of rickshaw drivers to get a straight consensus answer out of them as to what we should do and where we need to go, which landed us a short tuktuk ride to the ferry and deposited us ‘on the other side’. Lost again.

We walked up the main drag leading away from the ferry port, thinking it must lead us somewhere notable. It didn’t. So – taking time to ask several people if they spoke any English and finally getting a young couple to try – we confirmed we were in the heart of a very uninteresting residential and business district in Western Mumbai. Marvellous.

We hailed a rickshaw, negotiated a rate and headed to Juhu Beach, which all the Lonely Planets (we’d whipped through at Dubai Airport) spoke of positively.

It was a hive of activity. Food stalls, kids playing cricket, mini funfair rides at one end, a wall of people ankle-deep in at the waves’ edge. Bizarrely, everyone fully dressed. Not a bare-chested boy nor a girl’s knee, shoulder or belly button in sight!

Everything I’d heard previously about Mumbai had been about the squalour and poverty, but everything I’d seen had made *me* feel like the sweaty, sticky, icky thing to their tidy fresh linens and neat and bright saris. Clearly, we’ve been that far off the beaten tourist track that we’ve gone and subjected ourselves to ordinary people. How disappointing. 😀

Not that our less-than-pristine state stopped us any, mind. With Christian refreshed from the nap in the tuktuk and me in dire need of Western ablutions, we shamelessly sought sanctum at the Citizen Hotel. A very lovely establishment with a beach-facing terrace (that we accessed by lurking at snails’ pace through the air conditioned marble-floored reception) with (too) many starch-collared and neck-tied waiters all too ready to bring us the large bottle of icy still water and chilled Kingfishers that would revive our spirits.

We did lots of people-watching as the sun set. Lots and lots of people-watching. With lots and lots of people to watch since it was Diwali and everyone had come out to play. And we were the only white people there. Not a word of a lie. How weird is that?! We did spot a little Indian boy in a Cheetahs rugby jersey, but just because someone he knew (knew someone who) has been to the Free State, didn’t make him any less Indian. Sure, we had a share of less-than-subtle stares and little kids wanting to shake our hands, but not the demi-god status that urban legends are made of.

Anyway, we left the hotel terrace, thinking we’d meander through the market and pick up some samoosas and then head to another terrace set-up with better positioning for all the action. “All the action” being the number of neon-accented ferris wheels, a pendulum ship and car carousels (all manually cranked!) and the hordes of people.

It was not to be. All the samoosas were vegetable, the eateries teetotal and there, incredibly, wasn’t another hotel with tables beach-side (seemingly for tide-consciousness). But, luckily we  found an excellent triple-storey spot across the road, called Bora Bora, which had a lovely roof garden from where we watched all the fireworks and festivities (over a few Kingfishers).

We caught an aircon blue taxi home (top of taxi foodchain in front of non-aircon black taxis and tuktuk rickshaw 3-wheelers). What a first day in Mumbai! We were grateful for the bed and the aircon room and not even the constant banging of crackers and fireworks could keep us awake even a second longer!

Wednesday

After a nice sleep-in, we hit the pavement at 10am to initiate our day of sight-seeing. Unable to get a rickshaw driver to understand where we wanted to go (or perhaps willing to take us), we resigned ourselves to commandeering a blue taxi to take us to town for 1000 Rupees. It was a 45 minute journey so along the way we adjusted the deal to 2000 Rupees to be our personal driver for the day (a little over R300). For this he would take us to all the sites, share with us what info he could (in broken English) and take us anywhere else we might like to go until we needed to be back at our hotel for our 7pm bus.

We found out that we were fortunate that today, being New Year, is a holiday and therefore a reprieve in the usual gridlock traffic, so we made good time and were soon driving over the Sealink. No busses or rickshaws are allowed on that stretch so it’s fast-moving and a pleasure.

On the way to ‘town’ (Colaba, Fort and Churchgate), we stopped in at Laburnum Road, at the house where Gandhi stayed from 1917 to 1934. Not the to be confused with the Laburnum Road in Durban where Mother and I lived from 1982 to 1985. The house (Gandhi’s, not ours) is converted into a museum with several artefacts (including a copy of Gandhi’s letter to Hitler and Churchill asking them to prevent War) and dozens of captioned photographs documenting his travels and missions. I suppose I should have already known he lived in SA for almost 2 decades, but I didn’t, so the revelation gave the great man a bit more relevance to me somehow.

From there, we drove down Marine Drive and saw how the other half lived. Wide pavements and roads, with the esplanade we’d expected, but the beach – although wide and golden sandy – still lacking something. There aren’t the restaurants, terraces, cafes and shops that you usually associate with beachfronts, nor the dotted strips of people sun-bathing.

We drove around Colaba and Fort to get a lay of the land and the driver did a stop for us at Gateway of India, a large double-arch positioned in the harbour. The famed Taj Mahal Hotel is across the road and we got snaps of that too.

By this point we were still breakfastless and starving. Lunch at McDonald’s – McSpicy burger combo – more like a KFC Zinger than the spicy chicken at McD’s at home in that it’s a chicken fillet with spicy crumbing, mayo, shredded lettuce and no cheese. A large and a medium combo totalled to about R50. Bargain! I can understand why India would be the first country to have a fully vegetarian McD’s since the menu is practically there already. Burger options include veg, aloo (potato), paneer (cheese) and egg patties and the only meat is chicken, which is listed almost as an after-thought. The happy meals and side-order options include boiled egg options as well. Points for customer-centricity, Ronald!

Fed, refuelled and sense of humour restored, we set off on foot to explore what Colaba and Fort had to offer. We plotted a route to take in the major sights and traversed the Prince of Wales Museum, National Modern Art Gallery, the Maidan Oval, Jehangir Art Gallery, David Sassoon Library, Rajabai Tower, University of Mumbai (remarking how inappropriate neo-Gothic architecture is for this climate). This brought us back to McD’s to meet our driver, who was clearly concerned about how long we’d taken and assumed we’d skarpered to avoid paying him.

More annoyed than relieved at our return, he greeted our proposed itinerary (which we’d formulated by popping into a bookstore, consulting a Lonely Planet and jotting notes) on my arm with lucklustre enthusiasm. He perked up a bit when we shared our bottle of moderately cold (seemingly the best they do around here) bottled water with him.

He took us to Mahalaxmi Station, so that we could see Dhobi Ghat – the washing station which does most of the laundry for the city’s hotels and restaurants. Rows of concrete pools that washermen and -women stand in, thrashing the dirty laundry around and slapping it into the water like they’re trying to thrash an evil demon out of it!

Rows and rows of washing lines have the washing dried in no time – and count some impressive hotel name uniforms among them! Notably, there are no Ops Managers or clipboards and these workers are brawn managing somehow to differentiate whose is whose and where it all has to go without the endless stream of paperwork and team of administrators it would take to manage the same operation back home.

We were also fortunate enough to see a Dabbawalla bustling his way around making his lunch deliveries. A stack of pots balanced on his head, he was making his way to serve his clients’ lunch, invariably a selection of pre-ordered curry options, each delivered to the right person at the right time, again sans paperwork. The Dabbawalla network deliver 200,000 lunches a day across Mumbai, with a 0,04 error rate (Top Gear fact).

Anyway, back in the car (double-parked for our convenience, as always) we asked our driver to take us somewhere we could chill and have a beer… And ended up driving through Bandra (the ‘party’ part as we were told by the previous days’ youths) to Juhu Beach at *exactly* the same spot as the night before!

We headed into the thick of it to get some authentic local fare, thinking it a sign that we were supposed to get the onion bhaji, samoosas and bhel puri I’d wanted the night before from the beachfront food market. Dubbed as a ‘must’ in all the travel books, we’d only read about bhel puri. Not sure why as it appears to be an unattractive fishy ricey thing (from the pictures, we didn’t order one).

Equally disappointing was the samoosa experience.  Imagining the cheese samoosas we thought we’d be ordering (lovely crispy triangular pastry with hot drippy yellow cheesy inside), and realising that were actually pyramid-shaped, thick-pastried cold samoosas with fish inside. Insult to injury, the shopkeep crushes the samoosa  onto a plate with his fist and pours corn all over! Yikes!

Being ‘2 out of 3 is bad’, we saved the onion bhaji for another day and headed to the Romada to soak in their pool (for medicinal purposes, to quell the throbbing mozzie bites all around my ankles). The 650ml Kingfishers were also medicinal of course.

On the way home, our driver showed us Ashwarya Rai’s house (the Bollywood star). We’d seen crowds with candles and crackers outside the driveway the night before, doing a Diwali vigil controlled by the stately home’s armed gateguards, but not realised the who or what of the address. Apparently the house is a top location and is worth about 100 million Rupees, according to our driver. The currency has a complicated escalation pyramid, where 100,000 Rupees equal a ‘lacks’ and 100,000 lacks equal a ‘close’ (sp? Only ever had verbal explanation).

The traffic back to the hotel was worse than in the morning, seeing as we were now in the 5pm throng, but we made it back in plenty of time to catch our bus, so popped across Mira Road for a quick Pizza Hut. Chicken and veg only – amazing how much shorter the menu and easier the decision is! Opted for a combo of 4 personal pizzas so we could try more options. Tikka paneer and spicy chicken masala for authenticity, chicken & corn and spicy chicken sausage with mushroom and onion for variety quotient. All good. I do miss Pizza Hut.

Collected our luggage from the hotel and made it to the travel agent with half an hour to spare. It was worth the wait when we discovered to our delight that the sleeper bus was *much* nicer than the ones in South East Asia. Our berths weren’t 2 plastic moulded luge-like mattress singles one in front of the other like last time. This was one double booth with more than enough space for both of us, our carry-on stuff (on a rack at the foot) and even to play cards on the mattress between us! Under R500 for both of us and just as comfortable as a hotel bed! A good note to end Mumbai and a good start to the Goan leg of the journey!

Mumbai Do:
1) take probiotics and Vitamin C supplements up to and through your trip
2) bring insect repellent, antiseptic and anti-inflammatory cream
3) stay in Colaba / Fort / Churchgate area
4) use rickshaws instead of cabs where you can, much cheaperl
5) drink Kingfisher
6) get a city map – the greater city is bigger than you think it is, and very confusing in its layout and perspective. There are no tourist offices and the best maps we found were in hotel lobbies, although these were each for a single area so you still don’t get a sense of where everything is relative to everything else.
7) Get a private driver for the day. The city is sprawling and then you can go where you want, when you want. It is only 200 Rupees per person for the tour busses, but then you’re stuck with the group, their timings and a tour guide who only narrates in Hindi.

Mumbai Don’t:
1) the water is lethal so don’t have ice in your drinks or eat anything fresh that might have been washed just prior to serving
2) don’t expect a conventional beach holiday. The beaches aren’t great, the people conservative (as presumably tourists are expected to be), nobody speaks English and there aren’t the usual waterfront bars for entertainment, nor the beach shops and peddlars for supplies.
3) don’t show any interest in the wares of peddlars or street children or they’ll never leave you alone (and tend to multiply)

Asia, Travelogue, Turkey

Travelogue Turkey 6: Capadoccia

1 Comment

CAPADOCCIA

20-21 April 2012

After a blissfully easy overnight bus trip from Pamukkale, we arrived at the terminus in Capadoccia at 7-ish. We were ushered off the bus, given our luggage, herded around and then loaded back onto the bus. (By ‘we’ I mean me, Mother and our 4 Argentinian friends, who spoke little to no English, were clearly bewildered by the goings on and were nervously chattering and gesturing among themselves at ten to the dozen, which was hopefully cathartic because it wasn’t even vaguely useful). Turns out that we’d arrived at the main terminus when we were supposed to meet our tour a few stops later on.

This sounded plausible as we’d become more than used to having to figure out our own way on our ‘all-in guided tour’, which had us melding and blending with other people at each stop along the way as our paths overlapped, relying on our own itineraries printed at home to get instructions of varying degrees of vagueness in Turglish from conductors, drivers and guides.

Minutes later we were again deposited, this time in a lovely little village in a valley bowl ring-fenced by sandy-coloured rock formation cliffs. The bus stop was a parking lot on a side road parallel to the main road, with the town’s tourist office on the left, a short strip mall of tour sales offices on the right and scores of hot air balloons overhead (this area is particularly known for its hot air ballooning because of the spectacular aerial views of the landscape).

It was fortunate that the view and ambiance was lovely because we had absolutely no clue where we were or where we were going.

Out (again) with trusty itinerary.

No clues.

Uh-oh.

We approached the tourist office, asking them to contact our tour company in Istanbul to find out who was supposed to be meeting us, but they couldn’t help because their telephones could only access numbers on the local exchange.

We eventually came right by getting one of the sales guys from the tour offices to call our Tour Operator – after a lengthy negotiation with him trying to sell us a hot air balloon ride for the next morning (they are a ‘mornings only’ thing), which would have been tempting had it not been for the fact that we would be in Istanbul the next morning… which the salesman was not readily accepting. Adnan in Istanbul told salesguy to tell us to stay put and he’d get our guide to come and find him.

Minutes later (just enough time for a ‘lick and a promise’ – as Grammy used to say – and a change of clothes in the public bathrooms) we were fetched by our local tour operator, complete with the area manager, a delightful and enthusiastic fellow called Sam, who insisted on taking us back to their new offices, which were quite something as they were built into the rock, so essentially had a brick face and a cave back.

He was quite excited to find out it was Mother’s birthday (and her milestone 60th, no less!) and scuttled off to forage for breakfast for us, leaving us in the company of our guide for the day, Hamida (whose nickname is Happy Day since it sounds so similar to the pronunciation of her name and matches her sunny disposition).

Sam returned with Burek, pie-like savoury treats that have a variety of fillings folded into layers of feather-light pastry, with a smattering of seeds (sesame, poppy etc) on top to indicate the flavour enveloped inside. Sam has brought cheese, mince and potato. Too big for one of each, but too intriguing to miss out on any flavour, Mother and I shared one of each. Highly recommendable!

Fed and satisfied, we were ushered to the mini-bus to go and collect the rest of the group, which as it turned out were only expecting us at 10am so we were perfectly to time despite all our detouring. Another patchwork of a trio here and a couple there.

We wound around and about through the town (Urgup, as we now knew was where we should have stopped in the first place) as our guide told us bits and bobs of trivia about this place, which has been around almost since time began so there was lots to tell).

Capadoccia (Cup–uh-doh-kia) is more or less in the middle of Turkey, in Eastern Anatolia, easily accessible from the major city Kayseri to the northeast, which has an airport and railway station service to Ankara and Istanbul bringing the scores of tourists that come to see the unique geological, historic and cultural features. The name translates back to the “Land of beautiful horses” since ancient Capadoccia was known for horse breeding.

Even before that, even-more-ancient volcanoes erupted 3 – 9 million years ago, forming the ignimbrite deposits and sedimentary rocks in lakes and streams. A soft ‘tuff’ layer was formed, 150m in thickness, by the issuing lavas in the valley surrounded by mountains. The rivers, floodwater running down the hillsides of valleys and strong winds eroded the geological formations into hundreds of spectacular pillars and minaret-like forms. People of the villages at the heart of the Cappadocia Region carved out houses, churches, and monasteries from the soft rocks of volcanic deposits, the best of which can still be seen at Goreme (which we’ll get to later).

Capaddocia lies on a high plateau, 1000m in altitude, punctuated with volcanic peaks that reach to almost 4000m. Because of the inland location and high altitude, the region has a markedly continental climate with hot dry summers and cold snowy winters, sparse rainfall and semi-arid. And yet still it is a wine region. One of the few areas in the very Muslim country that isn’t required to be tee-total (probably a hangover from the Greek regime since the Turks only settled in the Middle Ages in this area that was Hellenised for millennia before that), which is lucky since it produces some world-renowned award-winning wines.

These temperatures also made for interesting storage and insulation challenges. We passed little peepholes in the rocks that we were told were windows and vents for underground / cave storage, where people for thousands of years have been able to keep fruits and meats stocked ‘at room temperature’ without any machine assistance. The rocks are also used in producing slates and tiles for house-building, since their amazing insulation characteristics somehow manage to keep houses cool enough in searing summer and warm enough in icy winter without the aid of any heaters or fans!

Well primed on the region, we made our first stop at the Fairy Chimneys. Bizarre rock formations eroded over time into mushroom-shaped, pinnacled, capped and conic shapes. We took a short trek through a collection of the formations, each pointing out shapes that we could see in rocks or collections of rocks. Crocodile, lions, Godzilla, ugly old crone etc etc. I saw Dachshunds. Obviously.

In between the rock-spotting we were shown doors and windows high up on the minarets, some with the still-visible footholes that served as ladders for the people of the time to climb to enter their rock cave homes. These caves were intentionally hidden and difficult to access as they were occupied largely by Christians trying to escape persecution. Nowadays they are easier to spot as there has been so much more erosion over time.

We visited another area with these cave homes, but this was more of a village with communal areas and homes built alongside one another on larger rock faces rather that at periodic intervals on rock spires (think of it as a townhouse complex versus stand-alone country houses).

This village had some interesting features, like the bee-keeping caves. These were caves carved into the rock face housing boxes in which the bees would create hives and produce honey. There were enclaves big enough for people to go up into the cave and harvest the honey as and when needed.

After some time to wander around the caves, entering into the ‘apartments’ and seeing how much these people were able to ‘furnish’ by carving things that they needed out of the rocks, it was off to shop at the market… and buy a lovely locally produced stripy pashmina (silk/pashmina blend for a bargain R40).

Every tour is punctuated with the inevitable sales pitch, and this was next on the agenda. We were to stop off at the pottery factory and winery.

We were served wine on arrival. Clearly not the award-winning stuff either. Very… erm… tart. The pottery-making was fun to watch though, but not to buy apparently since the shop had mostly very high-end collectors pieces for thousands of Lira / Rands / Dollars. Hardly surprising since each piece is painstakingly hand-painted by a team of artists (one to do the outlines, another to colour, another to glaze).

Well set for an early lunch, we arrived at Suhan Hotel and Spa for a very fancy buffet feast – perfectly suited for a special occasion such as Mother’s 60th birthday! We ate our fill and drank our toasts and then set off again for more of the wonders of this ancient world.

Next on the tour was the World Heritage Site, Goreme Open Air Museum, which is the most visited of the monastic sites in Capadoccia and one of the most famous sites in Turkey. The complex contains more than 30 churches carved into the rocks, some with some beautifully preserved frescoes inside, dating back from the 9th to the 11th centuries. We were told how to identify this, that and the other from the art techniques, but the churches do become a bit samey-samey after the first few and, being a bit religiously shallow and a lot artistically challenged, I’m not strong on the detail.

More remarkable was the living arrangement in the complex. They had a very community-living orientation, with combined group kitchens and dining rooms and such. The kitchens were large rooms with dug-out areas where the round-bottomed pots would sit on the coals and there were relatively sophisticated ventilation systems allowing the smoke to be extracted from the room without telltale plumes appearing outside the caves (important since these were supposed to be secret settlements for the persecuted in hiding).

The main dining room still had its long table with benches either side, all carved directly from the rock face, easily seating 50 people or more in a single sitting, with alcove shelves carved into the walls to house candles and other dining paraphernalia. There were smaller dining rooms as well, with similar fittings, presumably for more intimate meals. Each dining room had a wine bath moulded into the floor where the grapes could be pressed, with an outflow funnel (also carved into the floor) channelling the juice into a pool from which the diners could serve their wine. Very simple and practical.

They also had literal pigeon holes carved higher up in the rocks. Each consisted of a cave with 1 human sized door and several rows of small pigeon holes by way of access. These pigeons were apparently used for courier messaging, and providing eggs and feathers. So, a post office, grocer and general store in one!

On our way back to the bus we stopped at the ice-cream wagon. There was a man in traditional dress ‘tossing’ the homemade ice-cream! Literally hoisting it out of the refrigerated cylinder on the wagon with a long metal paddle and tossing it into the air, almost like pizza-makers do with their dough. It was fascinating to watch and defied logic that creamy frozen ice-cream could take on the form of a long stringy toffee-like consistency. The method clearly works wonders though and it was undoubtedly one of the best and creamiest ice-creams we have ever tasted.

The next stop was at the base of the mountain that housed one of the ancient watchtowers that the city had on each end. There was no point in making the long trek up the mountain to the fort since it has become too unstable to enter since its soft walls have eroded over time, so we made do with taking some photos (and of course visiting the market, where Mother bought a beautiful table runner virtually for free).

The minibus then took us to a lookout point, with a breathtaking panorama overlooking the fairy chimneys and museums, with a view of the volcanoes on the horizon. We were treated to coffees and teas, with local fruit and nuts snacks… which turned into a surprise birthday party for Mother when the group proceeded to sing Happy Birthday to her in many of the assortment of our travel companions’ native languages. Sam had rejoined us and he and Hamida had even bought Mother a gift – a lovely silk scarf, which they had wrapped and everything! How sweet!

Then, the last surprise of the day. We had managed to arrange a break-away from this group (who were destined to visit – yet another – carpet factory next) to go and visit the Kaymakli Underground City!

Cappadocia contains several underground cities, largely used by early Christians as hiding places during the times of the persecution. There are 5 levels (uncovered so far) of intricate passageways and complex networks of storage, communal areas and private accommodations (rooms and ‘apartments’ that belonged to families).

Besides being a bit cold and dark, it was quite manageable to manoeuvre through the tunnels, which are only very rarely too small or low to have to stoop. The simple but effective ventilation tunnels and chimneys allow enough air to reduce the claustrophobia element, although I couldn’t imagine it was pleasant when inhabited by its thousands of occupants, with the smoke from their cooking fires and no formal ablutions facilities.

The underground cities have vast defence networks of traps throughout their many levels. These traps were very creative, including such devices as large round stones to block doors and holes in the ceiling through which the defenders may drop spears. These defence systems were mainly used against the Romans. The tunnel system also was made to have thin corridors since the Roman fighting strategy was to move in groups, which was not possible to do in the thin corridors making it easy to pick them off.

Managing to get in one last treasure in an amazing day, we found a stall selling locally mined onyx in the little market lining the road back to our waiting van. A thread of onyx beads each for an absolute bargain and we were on our way to the airport.

An unfortunate hour-long delay and a slow-moving queue with what seemed like hundreds of small Australian children (with Australian parents) made for a welcome relief when we collapsed into our aeroplane seats for the short hop back to Istanbul.

After the delays we were pleased to have pre-arranged our airport to hotel transfers and even more pleased to arrive back at our hotel (the same one as before, The Princess Old City Hotel) to drop our bags and settle in for our last night in Turkey.

We took a wander up and down our street, still a hive of activity with all the shops and restaurants open til late as they are, but soon retired back to the hotel after our long day, finishing off the day perfectly with an elaborate midnight feast picnic of all the remnants of nibblybits that we’d collected along the journey.

The morning was leisurely and we’d pre-decided that it would be dedicated to a luxurious visit to the Tarihi Vezneciler Hamami traditional Turkish Baths. What an experience! We were ushered into a wooden cubicle with thin beds lining either side of the room and served Turkish tea (a vile Cherry one this time, pity as we’d grown quite fond of the apple one) to sip on while you disrobe and drape in the traditional handmade cotton sarongs provided for the body and the hair. Then we were whisked off to the sauna to sweat, sweat and more sweat for 20 minutes before getting to the bath portion of the experience.

The Baths weren’t what I expected. I expected big indoor heated swimming pools with people wading around and socialising, like the picture painted of the Romans in such literary works as Asterix and Obelix. Not so. The Baths was a marble room with knee-high taps and ground level built-in marble basins about a metre apart along all of the walls. There were big marble blocks in the middle of the room for visitors to lie on, while being washed down by the person attending in between massage activities. The masseuse didn’t seem to hold much pomp and ceremony in the process and simply stripped down to her undies (plastic shoes), poured buckets of water over us and took each of us in turn into the massage room.

The massage was also very unique. The masseuse filled a pillow case with foam and then flicked the neck of the bag open and closed to agitate the foam such that it foamed more and started filtering through the weave of the pillow case. She then floated the foamy bag over your body, occasionally flicking it open and closed so that it lightly touched you and produced more foam. A very dreamy experience.

She then did the usual massage, working with strength on the feet and undersoles to work out tension and being more ginger with the sensitive bits. I think the Thai foot massages were better, but the foamy pillowcase thing is infinitely repeatable!

Once we were properly massaged and treated, we were taken back to the warm cabin and given more of the (dreadful) tea to enjoy while we relaxed and did a leisurely redress. All in all, a visit to a Turkish Bath is a must for travellers!

We got the driver to drop us off at the Grand Bazaar instead of our hotel so that we could get the last few things on our wishlists – and more than a few things that weren’t! I got some beautiful antique silver bracelets with marcasite and onyx detail for a few hundred Rands each – an absolute bargain for such collectors pieces! Mother got even more gifts for even more people at home, with everything so cheap the list of gift recipients easily gets out of control!

Fully laden with shopping, we again thanked our lucky stars that the tram stop is right outside the Grand Bazaar and took us to right outside our hotel.

Back to the room for the the usual panic of upping and outing, packing (and re-packing when all our newly acquired lovely things weren’t cooperating in Operation Suitcase Close), but we managed and checked out of the hotel with an hour to spare, that we decide to use wisely with a visit to our favourite restaurant, Simit Salonu. So pleased to have a last chance to enjoy the incredible Turkish food, we ordered our favourites and tucked into a lovely multi-dish meze style lunch.

Then it was back to the hotel to meet the driver for our long and unremarkable journey home. We’d seen and done so much in a short time and collected many many reasons to support the recommendation for anyone thinking of visiting Turkey to just DO IT!

Europe, Travelogue, United Kingdom

Travelogue Canada 6: Preston

PRESTON

6 -8 November 2009

Let’s set the scene for pre-Preston to get things into context…

Thursday night in London went south. Then further south. Tres typical considering the guest list. Was a laugh though, including beers, stories old and new, nostalgia, giggles, jagerbullets, photos, snacks, haircuts, cider, towel capes, seeing the whole of the moon, brandy (?) and OJ, leftover lamb, Rocky Horror Picture Show and much much more ’til 4 in the morning.

Unsurprisingly Friday morning was a dog show. And the first morning I had to wake up with an alarm at 07h30.

Faye and I trotted down to the corner shop which, mercifully, was on the closest corner to the house, making for a 3.5min round trip including acquiring the shopping – bread and tins of All Day Breakfast. Yes, finally sampled it. Although was a different brand so it had ‘egg omelettes’ instead of ‘egg nuggets’ and didn’t have the ‘chopped pork’ so this still remains a mystery. The verdict? It’s like tinned beans, but with bits in with a different texture to the beans. Not unpleasant, but not something you’d crave (distinct from craving for tinned beans).

Felt a bit better after brekkers, but this clearly isn’t saying much. The (usual and inevitable) teary farewells as was once again parted from some of my favourite people in the world 🙁 Fortunately, retained custody of Faye, who accompanied me to the tube station and all the way to Stockwell. We parted ways none too soon as was suffering from an extreme bout of claustrophobia from being squished on the Tube with too much clothing and luggage and not enough space or air. Was all too rushed a farewell from the last of my merry London friends, but probably for the best in that more time probably just opens the door for more trauma.

Took a moment or 2 to catch breath, regain normal body temperature, attempt composure, realise 2 out of 3 was good enough, and head for Heathrow. Largely uneventful and, for once, had planned so much buffer time, that arrived and 15 minutes ahead of time and headed for the check-in counter.

Am not sure why they bother with the self-serve check-ins seeing how much time the baggage check-in takes anyway – had plenty of time when i started in baggage queue and left with 5 mins until boarding closed… with my backpack which I’d planned to check-in but they made me keep since my suitcase was overweight. Got to the security queue at the gates and realised that I had all my toiletries in my backpack as this was the bag I was using for the weekend so as not to have to repack my suitcase.

What a process!

They emptied the toiletry bag, individually bagged the liquid items (which I still don’t understand seeing as the bags are clear and the toiletries can still see each other, so surely if they’re the aggro types they’d find a way to still box each other??) and put them through the scanner. Everything passed except the body lotion. Maybe because it wasn’t rose-scented aqueous cream which we know is the lotion of love…?

This mission left me VERY late. High-tailed to the gate – typically the furthest gate possible – complete with PA announcements telling me of last warnings and such other totally unhelpful things. So very almost missed that flight.

Was hot, bothered, tired and miserable by the time I sank into my seat. Fortunately a relative empty flight so I had my own row and could whimper softly to myself with no obvious loss of dignity.

Was yet another delight to be told that the flight was to be delayed because some starter function on the plane wasn’t working (very reassuring) and they had to wait for some outside unit to come and start the engines. Of course, said miracle starter was busy starting another plane (again not assured that there are so many flying machines out there requiring the AA) and by the time the starter thingie was ready we’d lost our take-off spot <sigh> ended up taking off after we wwere scheduled to land in Manchester! (which sounds a lot more dramatic than it is seeing as it’s a half hour flight). managed to grab a nap en route, which did me a world of good.

My cousin, Mikayla, fetched me at the airport and it was a giggly and excited reunion with lots and lots news (from the 16 years – yes, half a lifetime! – since last we were in the same place at the same time) to catch up on, making the drive from Manchester to Preston feel a lot quicker than it is (or should have been in my unfortunate state).

Back to Mikayla’s to chill and couch a bit while she went off to fetch her daughter, Isla (2,5 years), and whizz past her goddaughter’s birthday while I showered and tried to regain personality.

Was a gloriously chill night in, with couch, telly, easy company (Mikayla, her other half Dave, and Isla ’til her – very envious – bedtime at 19h00) and perfectly-spot-hitting curry take-aways.

SATURDAY

Saturday we did some grocery shopping (still excited by the prospect of finding a new weird and wonderful that we don’t get at home) and some banking for me and then headed off to visit our Great Grandma – a spirited little (literally, she’s like a tall midget!) old lady who turned 99 in June! I don’t remember her really, having only seen her when I was an infant and then for a quick visit in ’93, but I’m glad to have touched base with my namesake (the middle one I don’t talk about) nonetheless. And a bonus to be there during the ‘Birds of Prey’ matinee.

Was a bit of a family reunion all in all as Marie and Paula (my father’s mother’s sister’s daughters, so technically our second cousins although they’re mid-30s so feel more like cousins) came as well along with Paula’s 11 year old son, Brandon (a strapping lad who looks more mid-teens). Lots and lots to catch up with them not having seen Paula since 1998 nor Marie since 1977 (!!!)

We retired to McD’s (light snack: deli sweet chilli chicken sandwich and Caramelicious McFlurry) and more chatting and catch-up. As usual, no problems with conversation flow or speech speed, so I think that we’ve covered more ground than the amount of time normally would allow! :o)

Saturday night we were off to a tapas dinner. Just Mikayla and me, with Dave dutifully staying home to babysit. Was awesome. So well suited to my indecision by being lots of bits of lots of stuff. We narrowed our choices to end up ordering:
– fillet (medium rare) with mushrooms and Stilton cheese
– king prawns in garlic butter
– sweet chilli chicken breasts with extra chilli
– black pudding with chourico and caramelised red onions (was unsure about this one, but M’s insistence proved right)
– honey-glazed baked baby potatoes
– ciabatta with garlic oil and balsamic (that was interestingly so thick it was more the consistency of runny Bovril)

Was a great 3-hour+ dinner catch-up. Nice and leisurely. And excessive. And yum.

SUNDAY

Resolved to call Grandmother to try and go for a visit. No answer, left voicemail. No reply. So, better option: go for breakfast (at least we know we’ll enjoy that!!)

After that we popped past Great Grandmother again to drop off some lilies and then off the airport (again) to get back to London (again) and finally head for home.

Was super-ready to get back – even though I’d had a blast – after a mammoth trek of a holiday!

Europe, Travelogue, United Kingdom

Travelogue Canada 5: London

LONDON

3-5 November 2009

Nabbed a nap on the train from Wales to London – helped that we got one of those double seats that face each other with the table in middle. Light snack of roast ox kettle-fried chips, quavers (Chipnik style cheese chips) and a rocking tomato juice that was all spicy ‘n stuff and BEGGING for a splash of vodka!

Deftly maneuvered the undergrounds to get to Balham (no mean feat since Barry’s new cruise mode is 30 miles an hour, which is 50km an hour… and I now do ‘whoosh’ sounds and motions to anything faster *warning to new party car drivers!!*) and a short walk later were presenting ourselves at Lix and RoRo’s door! And Faye had missioned through for a sleepover so it was reunionreunion! Cuddles, giggles, excited chatter… and a glass of red!

Lix made a superlative Chicken a la King with rice and deep fried chicken skin bits (GENIUS!). I had brought a bottle of Jagermeister. Barry had sorted bottles of red. There were cameras clicking and flashing and the usual random assortment of (mostly non-PC) conversation topics, catch-ups on who’s been doing what (no movement left unturned, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant just in case it had bearing somewheresomehow, who’s seen who and what they’ve been up to and much general merriment! :o)

One by one, people filtered to bed. Except me and faye – seasoned experience at slumber-party giggling and serendipitously surrendering to adjoining couches.

WEDNESDAY

Woke up at some ridiculous hour (like 4 maybe?) with a dire need for a kilolitre of water. En route to the water bottle in the back of the fridge I stumbled across leftover roast pork, so I felt obliged to make sandwiches (god bless Kingsmill bread- still the best ever) for me and Faye. I think I may have saved 2 young lives (and by that I mean mine and Faye’s).

In no time at all, the house was awake and in relay doing tea, toast, showering, the odd bit of ironing etc etc. Saw everyone off: Barry headed for the tubes, Lix and Faye cycle to work. Yes, really.

Me and RoRoRo (did I mention that I gave him a gratuitous Ro from a middle name I’ve never wanted and could never escape?) did something that very few Londoners have ever done – we traversed the city.

From south west to north east to get Faye a clean set of clothes. Totally my fault <ie: took me minutes to convince her to stay and L&R the rest of the week based on first night’s dinner and promise of confirmed menu for night 2 and 3, on the proviso that I/we would trek the length of London to get enough mix-and-match workwear to make said slumber party practical). ended up being a 3 hour round trip, with a 5 minute packing at Faye’s house respite in between… oh ja, and Burger King at Liverpool Station (dbl cheese and bacon whoppers, chips and coke each, 7 chicken nuggets and 4 chilli bites to share).

Got back in time to watch Lix make dinner. Lordylordylordy. Roast salt marsh lamb, mash taters, cauli cheese, carrots, roasted shallots, garlic and brown onion gravy. G-sus. More chats around the table and then retired to Couchville for sitcom marathon. Nice.

THURSDAY

Finally the stupid body clock works for me. Sat at the table while everyone missioned around me doing the usual ironing, breakfast, head-holding, work-hating, why-can’t-we-be-rich-and-retire-now-ing etc… and then napped on the couch snuggled in purple fleece blankie and sleeping bag for an hour… to be up and fresh and head onto high street to find elusive ‘cheaper’ dry cleaner for B’s dry-cleanables, then grocery shop (too many undiscovered canned pleasures to mention), hit Subway (ham, salami, pepperoni, cheese, lettuce, tomato, jalapeno, sweet onion sauce and ranch sauce on cheese and herb italian bread) and BACK TO THE COUCH *bliss*

The kids came home and we feasted on Welsh black beef sirloin steaks, baked taters with butter and cheese, ciabatta and caramelised red onion… and then off to Bonfire Night (which I think is a sad sell-out to the infinitely more marketably-cos-more-opportunity-for-lewd-jokes Guy Fawkes) for very lovely fireworks. stopped at Threshers en route of course and almost missed everything for 4 Fosters, 4 Carlings and some Bulmers cider. nonetheless, we’re blessed folk and got there in time for a manageable amount of chinese-badly-marketed (ask Alex for details) pyrotechnics. enough for me finally to get (bad) photos of us with fireworky things (that largely look like dysfunctional hats!).

We got home, finished the Jager, had midnight snacks, chatted and laughed, laughed and chatted, commented inappropriately on FB stuff, sent the odd (both sense of the word) SMS to home… and photos of course.

Taking an ad break. Stay tuned for the next adventure in Preston.

Europe, General, Travelogue, United Kingdom, USA

Travelogue St Louis 2: London – St Louis

April 2008

Sooo…. it’s been quite a week in St Louis since Travelogue I. They’ve actually had me <gasp> working. Gggrrr. To make matters worse, there was a dark patch from bedtime on Tuesday (later than I care to remember, but late enough that I’m constantly getting thooose impression-inspired reminders!) to lunchtime on Thursday where there was no computer time at all. I KNOW!!! Can’t remember the last time I was offline for that long!!

Now, where were we? … Mmmm…. at Faye’s lounging and slothing.

Post watching bubblegum horror film, having a superlative daytime nap (which NEVER happens) and much-needed showers all round, we headed off for Lix and RoRo’s place. Plan A (some schmancy restauranty thing) had been fraught with too many possible temptations for our resident Athlete – who we all know would have been led down the evil path by us, being Satan’s children wildly and freely wherever we can as we do <throaty> hahaha – so we cast aside all idea of going out into public and headed for Plan B – the ‘burbs. What a marvy idea!

Lix outdid herself with ridiculously juicy and tender chicken Schnitzels, with the most scrumptious mushroomy garlicky white winey sauce. Which we made her make twice ‘cos it’s one of those things where you just. Can’t. Get. Enough!! Gggrrr (in a nice way). Complemented with a great vintage… erm… beer…. erm… or 7.

A great afternoon led to a great evening and into the inevitable grrreat night :o) lots of crap-speak, bonding, larfs and good times. Yay us! Got to bed way later than expected, after the usual bouncing around the lounge, with the added spice of Alex The Helicopter and a fun chapter called Clarks and Lix Fall Into The Telly. <blazing blushing stuff>

Thought I was going to die when I woke up on Sunday morning. Real early. Keeping real still so as not to turn queasy to dry heave (and / or worse). Didn’t help. After fighting for hours I had to leopard crawl to Lix to seek direction on The Strongest Drugs Known To Man Which Clearly Are The Only Thing That Could Save Me Now.

Dunno what them little effervecenty things are, but man oh man – The Bomb. The world stopped spinning, thoughts of solid food (in the distant future of course) didn’t cause shudders and shiverless thoughts of day, outside and bright gave me hope that we might actually make it to the marathon that we’d travelled 11,000kms to see. Happy happy days.

Am so pleased too ‘cos the race vibe was rocking (or maybe that was just me, being noticeably shakier than ever before) and Faye was considerately on time-ish so there wasn’t too much arsing about with all them family and athleticky types. Dry heave returned briefly when a runner in a Borat cozzie passed us. Gave me a new mental image for next time I hear “Jump Around” hahaha.

Sadly, had to hit the road straight after seeing Faye in an effort to automobile, train and plane to the States. Burger King saved my life. had a Number 1 with cheese and bacon, which was a trifle dry. Mental note to self, First World countries don’t give you any condiments unprompted. Suck suck suckedy. <how ungrateful am I>

Got to the airport on time. And was first in the airline queue, which I have never ever had before… would be the one time I didn’t need it! My colleagues (bless ’em) had checked in my suitcase so I sailed through and had time to chill with an ice cold coke.

American Airlines food is superlative. Had a chickeny cheesy pasta-y thingy. And a pizza later for a snack. Actually, if that’s what they serve you gotta wonder about what Italia serve. Mmmmm.

Got in about midnight. Great time to check in ‘cos there are no queues. I also had no strength and no power of speech and the receptionist clearly no training and no logic. So, all in all, it was a worker of a moment, missing only someone to capture it in a moooooovie to make America’s Crankiest Home Videos.

Alrighty, so now that we’ve put the ho into hotel, it’s a good time to take a repose and keep you hanging for the next gripping installment. That and I have to leave for the airport now (or you’re going to continue to get Travelogues cos i’ll never get home!!)

Toodles xxx

Europe, Travelogue, United Kingdom

Travelogue St Louis 1: Jo’burg – London

April 2008

Sooo… landed in London all safely and stuff. The pilot seemed to know what he was doing (we should really see if his natural talents extend to party-car designated driving) but the food was a bit drek. I think airline food and hospital food have flip-flopped positions on the blah scale, which is crap in context of which I am likely to frequent more (nooo! I meant ‘airlines’ for the pessimists among you).

It’s FREEZING in London and I’ve hence easily figured out what it was I left behind (you know there’s always something). It’s my gloves. You know, as in the category that I already had too much of and still bought another 2 pairs last weekend (under something I like to write-off as duress, but that was clearly somewhere more the off-handed suggestion side of the subtle persuasion spectrum).

Spent the day doing store visits. I’m pleased to tell you (more for my
enjoyment than for your edification) that our stores are waaaay
superior. And consistent. And clean. So always good to have a trump
card up one’s sleeve <bright side: don’t have to fight aforementioned left-at-home gloves to get trumpcard up sleeve> when going to one of these conference thingiemes. Or I might be COMPLETELY biased… which would ruin it for me. So for sake of argument let’s assume i’m right (that should spark a barrage of protest).

Had the world’s best chicken, ham and mushroom pie for late lunch. it was an unusual interpretation on the whole pie thing, with the base being big black mushrooms, then the chicken and ham bit being in a white wine and garlic sauce and the whole lot being topped with a light and flaky pastry cap. Had it with mash…. and an incredulous –
and scathing ‘peasant!’ – look from the waitress when I asked for
onion gravy for the mash. Good thing I stuck to my guns ‘cos it was a truly superlative brown onion gravy and made the mash really be all it could be :o)

Met up with Barry in the evening to have farewell drinks with his workmates. seemingly great bunch of people. Real modern day Londoners <read: few people actually from London, or Britain even. good representation of order proportion South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Venezuela, Belgium, Scotland, Wales and someone suspected to be from England, but who be can sure since no clue what the accent is like anymore>

A few swift pints later, we took on public transport and bussed our
way over to Faye’s. On best behaviour because of (Faye’s) impending
participation in the London Marathon, we nursed a pint. The pub we
were in had run out of everything we wanted to order for dinner so we beat a hasty retreat, it being 21h40 and most kitchens closing between 21h30 and 22h00. Tried a few spots without success and ended up at a Moroccan spot. Tres pleasant. Had a mezze of all sorts of things (I ordered lots of bits and pieces wildly and freely knowing Barry would ‘sort it out’, despite his protests of not being at all hungry). It was delightful, way too much… and all finished (of course).

After a great night’s sleep, we’re embracing a (whole day early!)
Sloth Sunday (on Saturday), with duvets and fold-out sleeper couches and bacon butties and bad daytime TV and chitchat and larfs. Later we’re going to mission out and lunch with Alex and Robbie (detailed menu review to follow i’m sure hehe), which holds the promise of madness and mayhem.

Congratulations on surviving Travelogue I. Stay tuned for more exciting adventures and misadventures in Travelogue II (to be posted at a time as yet unbeknownst to me). All feedback, commentary and news from home welcomed :o)