Gargoyles and dragons — the magnificent rocks of the Cedarberg October 8, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Map, Sightseeing, South Africa, Tour, Trails, Trip , 2commentsA circular drive — almost all gravel — takes you through the rugged Cedarberg. But the section of 32 km from Wuppertal to Matjies River is a rough track suitable only for a. sturdy vehicle with a high ground clearance. Without such a vehicle this should be treated as two there-and-back day trips from Clanwilliam — as we have described it.
For the northern drive from Clanwilliam to Wuppertal, turn right at the northern end of Main Street for ‘Van‑
Rynsdorp via old main road‘, noting your kms. Keep straight past a road to Klawer on the left after 2,1 km. The tar surface ends soon after, and the road begins its gentle ascent amidst tumbled rock formations on both sides of the road — some of the rocks appearing to defy gravity by their top-heaviness. (more…)
Disappeared Inca Empire Supremacy CUZCO part 3 September 19, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Cairo, Cuzco, Egypt, India, Map, Sydney, Tickets, Travel Gear, Travelling Bag, Zanzibar , 2commentsAre ceques therefore astronomical? That is part, but only part, of the answer. The chroniclers relate that the Incas had observatories with windows through which they watched points on the horizon, and they also mention sets of towers at various positions along the skyline as viewed from Cuzco, which were used to indicate timings for planting various crops either at Cuzco or at higher elevations up the valley sides at key ceremonial times of year. The Spanish totally destroyed these towers, but years of brilliant archive and field detective work by Zuidema and A. F. Aveni has resulted in the positions of the former towers being identified, and the arrangement of ceques ‘on the ground’ being clarified to a great extent. (more…)
To the Middle of Nowhere August 26, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Airlines, Destination, Hotels, Moscow, Restaurant, Round The World, Tickets , 3commentsThe train from the Back of Beyond is about to arrive at the Middle of Nowhere. A week out of Moscow across Siberia and five time zones later you somehow land up in landlocked Mongolia.
Galloping horses, endless deserts and grassland steppes. People with faces like unworked mahogany stand around in their tunic-like costume and ill-fitting boots with turned up toes. All are heavily wrapped against searing Siberian of Genghis Khan, Marco Polo and winds which bear `living’ Buddhas. (more…)
The Pharaoh’s Curse August 26, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Cairo, Hotels, The Nile, Tour , 5commentsMONDAY
The blastfurnace heat at Aswan jumps off the tarmac and hits us like a blow as I lead my group towards the terminal building. “Keeping the River rest to clean your teeth?” nudges Doctor Whistler, pointing to my depleted bottle of mineral water. SUDAN v “Aha, that’s right!” I smile, through gritted teeth. My head’s pounding like a sledgehammer, and my stomach feels frail. I touch my pocket for the reassuring packet of Diocalm. Tour Directors aren’t allowed the luxury of being ill. Away from Cairo HQ I’m in sole charge of ninety physicians and their wives on a pre-congress beano — four days of cruising the Nile and doing the sites. (more…)
Gypsy Serenade August 26, 2008
Posted by dodo in : England, Germany, Hotels, Restaurant , 3commentsBy the time the train arrived in Madrid the Arabs had stolen my coat. I had not been long in the restaurant car: ten minutes, the length of a cognac. I was coming south from England; they were returning home from a factory in Germany.
On the way to the hotel I stopped the taxi to have a drink in a bar. Outside it was winter and raining. He was standing inside, an old brown overcoat and a white shirt buttoned without a tie, around forty. One of his sons was dancing in worn-out boots, the other singing for him, to the clapping of hands without a guitar. They looked about ten, with long hair, both so brown and handsome I could have hugged them; (more…)
London Sightseeing Pass: Westminster Palace and Abbey & St Margaret’s Church August 25, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Cars, Destination, Hotels, London, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trip , 5commentsIt is at the first sight difficult to imagine any ancient, geomantic mysteries to be present in the teeming modern metropolis that is London. There is no doubt that what may be there is well submerged both actually, beneath accretions of buildings and earth, and metaphorically, beneath layers of time. We have to look to legend, history, archaeological glimpses and the barely discernible lineaments that have survived in the present layout of streets, sites and place-names. (more…)
My Traveling Companions two Flying Horses continue… August 14, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Asia, China, Europe, Hotels, India, Money, Round The World, Sightseeing, Tour, Travellers Cheque, Trip , 3commentsThere is a sweet old chestnut about the JAL jumbo mistakenly landing on a tiny nearby private airfield in smog. On that occasion three miles of slums were levelled as a pathway along which the stranded plane could be dragged back to the International Airport runway. Only from here could it be reasonably expected to take off.
Our problem had been landing at all. The hydraulic lines had burst and the wheels had to be lowered manually. (more…)
A Slice of Big Apple August 2, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Cars, Destination, Hotels, Italy, Motel, New York, Restaurant, Travel Clinic, Travelling Bag , 6commentsSix gritty months of fumbling with biros and over-read text books in a level tedium were wiped out. Wiped out by a five-hour flight to a city where riding the subway is an act of hedonism, and where the pollution on the streets works on the brain like speed, driving people scrambling to the summits of New York City’s towers of granite and power. (more…)
The Road out of Pinjarra August 2, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Australia, England, Europe, Hotels, Melbourne, Sydney, Tour, Trails, Trip , 5commentsI am sitting in the shade of a gum tree, by the side of a dusty road in Pinjarra, Western Australia. It has taken me fifty lifts to reach Pinjarra; a name on the map you do not notice until fate holds you there.
After three months’ travelling in Australia, hitch-hiking has become an addiction; the stimulation of a new acquaintance, a frank exchange of views, and then back on to the roadside — a self-contained experience without any repercussions. (more…)
Please to make a Hotel Reservation July 23, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Beach Resorts, Destination, Flight Schedule, Hostels, Hotels, India, Lodges, Motel, Passport, Tickets, Tour , 3comments“Excuse me, do you speak English?” “Oh yes, certainly.”
“I want to reserve three seats on a train from Calcutta to Patna.” “Please?”
“I want to reserve . . .”
“Where are you wanting to go?” “Patna.”
“Have you a reservation?”
“No. That is what I want.” “Please you wait over there.”
“I want to go during the day so that we can all see the countryside.” (more…)
Not Memsahib July 14, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Airlines, Beach Resorts, Cars, Destination, Europe, Flight Schedule, Hotels, India, Lodges, London, Motel, Museum, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Rail Pass, Restaurant, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Trip , 3commentsEvery time I heard the word memsahib I wanted to take an ice-pick to the user. I’d gone on the Hindu trail clutching my libertarianism to my bosom, a cosy cocoon from which I could rationalise and contain the INDIAshrieks from the inferno — not that Dante, I’m sure, ever went to Calcutta. Very right-on. Very arm’s-length. But keep your liberal sensibilities Gandhi-pure? Emerge unscathed? Forget it.
Sympathy, empathy, had long since given way to simmering hysteria, cringing shame and a seething, at times uncontrollable rage which was generalised in its target but oh so localised in its pain. It wasn’t even a consolingly righteous anger at the pulverising poverty, the callousness of caste or the stalinisation of women — more a deep-seated disgust and hatred welling up from deep down and spewing out over all humanity, most of all myself . . . Well, OK, you try and make sense of the matchstick people of Madhya Pradesh, the execrable excrement of Bombay and Dehli, the obscene opulence of Jaipur jewellers, the blinding, vivid hues of Rajasthani women’s skirts — and all of it sinking in one great ubiquitous quicksand of suffocating, strangulating bureaucracy. (more…)
Springtime for Czechoslovakia July 14, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Czech Republic, Europe, Hotels, Insurance, Moscow, Museum, Prague, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Travel Clinic, Trip, Vietnam , 5commentsIrena lived in a late-Seventies block of flats on the edge of town, half a mile from the Russian barracks, part of an ugly outer-urban sprawl. After buying me lunch in a new concrete hotel called, romantically, The Interflora, she drove me back at high Skoda speed through the centre of town — choke full out, engine howling in second gear as we skidded across wet cobblestones, clipping kerbs and narrowly avoiding the numerous potholes and dug-up sections where slow attempts were being made to repair the water mains, shattered by the minus-twenty-five February temperatures. The only vehicles Irena took any notice of were the thin double trams, locked inscrutably into their own system, clanging their way up and down the narrow streets making unmistakable tram noises. Saturday afternoon shoppers shared the pavements with soldiers in iron-grey overcoats wandering about in twos and threes.
“You can tell the difference by their boots,” Irena told me before I’d had a chance to ask the question. Some of the Russian soldiers (pull-on boots, no laces) looked Mongolian and very young. (more…)
Passing on Victoria Water Falls, Shooting the Zambezi, Escape into Africa July 10, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Botswana, Hotels, Lodges, Passport, South Africa, Tour, USA, United Kingdom, Victoria Falls, Zambia , 4commentsA white line still bisected the bridge, but its meaning had gone and the menace with it. Now the only sentry was a baboon sitting on a fence barking at a warthog on the other side of the road.
Early morning, sun up but cool, just two of us on the bridge at Victoria Falls, between Zimbabwe and Zambia. We looked down at the pale green Zambesi 300 feet below. Cecil Rhodes had wanted the bridge built close enough to the Falls to catch the spray. Usually it does. However, this was September and the “Falls” in front of us were just a curtain of rock. The rains had been good; not good enough, though, to make up for years of drought.
Only on the Zimbabwean side did the river reach over and plunge in. Its noise was like distant motorway traffic.
We were about to go down the river on a rubber raft. We were to start at the bottom of the Falls and travel six miles down the Zambesi through zigzagging gorges . . . and over nine rapids. Why on earth had we agreed to it? Sarah didn’t even like putting her head under water in the bath. As for me, the wake of a passing launch under a scull on the Thames was the nearest I’d ever got to white water. (more…)
Hindu Trail Clutching my Libertarianism to my Bosom, Not Memsahib July 9, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Europe, India, London, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Travelling Bag, Trip , 3commentsEvery time I heard the word memsahib I wanted to take an ice-pick to the user. I’d gone on the Hindu trail clutching my libertarianism to my bosom, a cosy cocoon from which I could rationalise and contain the shrieks from the inferno — not that Dante, I’m sure, ever went to Calcutta. Very right-on. Very arm’s-length. But keep your liberal sensibilities Gandhi-pure? Emerge unscathed? Forget it.
Sympathy, empathy, had long since given way to simmering hysteria, cringing shame and a seething, at times uncontrollable rage which was generalised in its target but oh so localised in its pain. It wasn’t even a consolingly righteous anger at the pulverising poverty, the callousness of caste or the stalinisation of women — more a deep-seated disgust and hatred welling up from deep down and spewing out over all humanity, most of all myself . . . Well, OK, you try and make sense of the matchstick people of Madhya Pradesh, the execrable excrement of Bombay and Dehli, the obscene opulence of Jaipur jewellers, the blinding, vivid hues of Rajasthani women’s skirts — and all of it sinking in one great ubiquitous quicksand of suffocating, strangulating bureaucracy. (more…)
A Fair Show, happy Travelers Diaries July 6, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Aquarium, Cars, Cash, China, Destination, Dolphinarium, Ireland, Library, Museum, Restaurant, Round The World, Tour , 3commentsThrough Leinster and Munster, along Connaught lanes and highways there’s a movement. Brazenly on verges, tucked behind hedges, parked in laybys there are caravans. Not tourists but the homes of the Irish Travellers, the Tinkers. Herds of their horses hold up the traffic. Greys, chestnuts, roans, bays and the especial pride, the batty mares: great coloured, patched horses, piebald and skewbald, hooves swathed in shaggy hair. They’re all heading along roads which lead to the nub, the October fair, Ballinasloe. A convergence for horses and horsemanship, dealing and drinking, exchanging news and the “crack”. “You’ll never see as many horses together as you will at Ballinasloe. Once Seamus McGinty rode down the high street at the head of sixty, his sons as outriders flanking their wealth.” (more…)
Asian Beijing Travel and Finest Art Exhibition Tour continue… July 5, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, China, Flight Schedule, Hotels, Restaurant, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Travel Gear , 3commentsThe harsh fluorescent light made us blink. Yuhang’s wife, a frail looking girl wearing a floral shirt and black trousers, looked startled. She spoke no English, but shook our hands and smiled shyly. The room was about thirteen feet square. The walls and ceiling were white, the uncovered concrete floor was painted maroon. Opposite, a window stared like an unlidded eye into the night. The window wall was almost entirely occupied by a large double bed with a pink candlewick counterpane. Down the centre of the room was a long table covered with felt, and at one end of this was a collection of paintbrushes and ready-mixed pigments in ceramic jars. Along the wall with the door in it stood an enormous yellow-and-black tartan settee. The fourth wall was filled by a wooden dresser, behind whose sliding glass doors could be seen various personal items — photographs, a spray of plastic flowers and a toy panda. There was just room for a Chinese-sized person to squeeze between the furniture. We sat on the settee. We saw no sign of heating or air conditioning, nor cooking and washing facilities, which we assumed must be communal. Paints on scraps of paper, vibrant with colour and life, brightened the walls. (more…)
Asian Beijing Travel and Finest Art Exhibition Tour July 5, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Australia, China, Europe, Hotels, Japan, Restaurant, Tour, Travelling Bag, USA , 3commentsThe tourist coaches disgorge their contents into the forecourt of the Jinling Hotel, Nanjing. The colours and shapes of middle-class Europe, America, Japan, Australia, stream through plate glass doors and stand in dazed clusters among their luggage, whilst tour leaders completeyet another set of check-in formalities.
Polished chrome and marble reflect luxuriant indoor gardens. A pianist’s vacuous tinkling drifts from the intercommunication system. It could be the foyer of an international hotel anywhere in the world.
Outside, late autumn sunshine filters through the industrial haze. A complex of fountains makes dark splashes on patterned paving. The white-painted concrete fence marks a boundary, on the far side of which the other China, in sober-suited rows, peers with impassive curiosity at this world within their world, as we stand before cages at a zoo. We are aware of another China. It flows past endlessly on jangling bicycles; it smiles from doorways and factory workbenches when we are shown round. (more…)
Traveling alone, Rail Journey triple alliance part 2 June 29, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Cuzco, Germany, Hotels, VISA , 4commentsThe train pulled its way up onto the altiplano with its stunning emptiness and its snow-capped mountains beyond. Whatever pleasure one has in the newness of it all, the harshness soon becomes apparent. For the spectator the coruscating sodium light and the pounding of one’s temples from the 15,000-foot altitude are not conducive to appreciation. For the Indian there is a bleakness that their bright clothing cannot efface — dun-coloured landscapes, an absence of trees and shrubs, and a piercing wind setting up miniature whirlwinds which bob across the tableau. Three or four adobe houses cluster near the railway, where a dog may raise himself to give sporting chase to the train. In fixing such a picture in time, one had mood in plenty but no focal point — no dominant feature that would lead the eyes into the rest of the scene. Puno, a frontier town in both senses, on the shores of Lake Titicaca had both mood and focal point. (more…)
Traveling alone, Rail Journey triple alliance part 1 June 29, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Flight Schedule, Hostels, Hotels, Motel, Pacific, Peru , 4commentsI do not recall how much my memories of that night-time journey were the creation of fitful dreams or the stuff of actuality. The blackness of the night and my own fears were real enough as the lights of the bus probed the landscape, revealing steep escarpments and the outlines of vertical cliffs. Sometimes, peering over the side of the bus, I caught sight of the ghostly white caps of Pacific rollers coming to spit their fury at a continent. The bus swept down the hills and then ground its way up another hilltop through a succession of sandy switchbacks. I kept thinking of the drunken Cary Grant in North by Northwest, as he strove to bring his car under control. Was our driver chewing coca leaves, as so many long distance drivers did in Peru, to ease the burdens of an eight-hour journey? I looked around the bus at the crumpled figures managing some sleep. Two rows in front of me a Japanese man slumped against a girl with a shock of auburn curls. A strange couple, I thought. (more…)
Travel, Hiking, Sightseeing; one day holiday away along the Golden Road June 29, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Asia, Hotels, Kazakhstan, London, Memorial, Scotland , add a commentIt was only on the way to Samarkand, the real pearl of ancient Central Asia (now the pearl of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan). But the memories of that day in little Bukhara are more vivid, more persistent, and looking back I think I understand why, through the centuries, merchants and pilgrims and assorted adventurers, guided by nothing but the stars, were prepared to brave the Red Sand Desert, the Celestial Mountains, the look-outs on the Tower of Death and very likely the Black Pit of vipers and vermin for a look at the fabulous, forbidden town.
They say that only two Christians defiled Bukhara with their infidel gaze in the 400 years before 1840. That was the year Captain Connolly of the Bengal Light Cavalry crawled out of the pit with his flesh in tatters, to have his head cut off in the ceremonial courtyard for his pains. (more…)
