South African Travel Guide: ‘Gem of the Karoo’ in a spacious mountain setting continued November 6, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Art Gallery, Europe, Hotels, Library, Memorial, Money, Museum, South Africa, Tour , 2commentsReinet House is now a superb period house museum, containing some of the personal possessions of the Murrays, and many fascinating domestic items. There is also a display on the town’s Reinet dolls. These were first made during World War I when many luxury imports, including dolls, could not be obtained.
In the back yard of Reinet House there is a reconstructed water mill, which can be operated by inserting a coin, and nearby is the old Black Acorn vine planted in 1870 by Charles Murray — believed to have been the thickest in the world until dead wood was removed in 1983. (more…)
A wild, rocky coast and quiet forests of mighty trees October 27, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Motel, Rail Pass, Tickets, Trails, Trip , 2commentsBetween Plettenberg Bay and Knysna the N2 winds through pine and eucalyptus plantations and patches of indigenous forest. Today’s drive, much of it on gravel, follows several side-roads, two of which lead to the coast — then turns inland to explore the depths of the primeval forest, where the last of the Knysna elephants live their secret lives.
Leave Plettenberg Bay on the N2 towards Knysna, and note your kms as you pass the Stromboli Motel on your left. After a
Further 3,7km turn left onto a good gravel road signposted ‘Harkerville’. 1 km later turn left, and after a further 500 m, at a small group of houses, turn right, passing picturesque cottages before entering indigenous forest with ferns crowding the roadside. (more…)
A Thundering Waterfall in a dry, Desert Landscape September 30, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Air Tickets, Cape Town, Europe, Geographic, Round The World, Tour, Trails, Travellers Cheque, Zambia , 3commentsKnown to the wandering Khoikhoi as Aukoerebis (place of great noise), the Augrabies Falls thunder over a great granite slash in the barren bushveld of the northern Cape. Here the tumbling waters of the Orange River go mad in a series of deep ravines and dangerous, dizzying cliffs.
The first white man to see the falls was a Swedish-born soldier named Hendrik Wikar. Wikar deserted his post at the Cape in 1775 to escape an accumulation of gambling debts, and for four years he wandered through the uncharted country now known as the northern Cape describing in a journal, (more…)
A Wealth of Wildlife in a world with little Water September 30, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Botswana, Map, Rail Pass, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Travel Gear , 2commentsThe traveler is greeted by an extraordinarily stark, sunburned landscape. The climate ranges from dry to very dry, and periods of extreme drought can be measured by the carcasses in the dry river beds. Yet there is abundant life in the harsh environment of the Kalahari — a primeval vitality that comes as a surprise amidst the seemingly inhospitable surroundings. For those who wish to see and feel an unspoilt Africa, this is perhaps the most rewarding place to visit. Here it is stillpossible to experience the wild excitement of a lion-kill, or to witness the lightning dash of a hunting cheetah — exactly as if mankind had never appeared on the scene. (more…)
Backpacking in Mani August 30, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Greece, Hotels, Tickets, Tour, Vaccinations , 3commentsFive hundred drachmas for the room: the matter was soon settled. Just over £3 for a generous bed, a vine-clad balcony with a splash of bougainvillea, two lemon trees in the garden below, and a view over olives to the sea — not a bad deal. Then the old lady took me firmly by the arm and led me into the bathroom. She pointed to a large hole in the ceiling. The sight of it seemed to provoke in her a torrent of recrimination. She spoke fast, too fast for my rudimentary Greek. What was she trying to convey? ‘You can’t get a plumber these days, not for love nor money. “You simply can’t trust the workmen any more, can you?’ Together we contemplated a knotted cord dangling from the black hole. Ipárhi Fero zestó?’ I persisted tiresomely, ‘Is the water hot?”Zestó, zestó,’ she echoed shrilly, irritated by a fatuous question, and launched into another dramatic monologue with a wealth of expressive gestures. Then suddenly she was gone, leaving me to ponder along the unpredictable and intractable nature of language as a medium of communication. (more…)
Big Safari Game in the Okavango Swamp, Kalahari Desert Travel August 30, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Botswana, Travel Clinic, Travelling Bag , 6commentsStranded in the Kalahari desert we had no water and half a packet of Marie biscuits. The bus from Francistown had broken down again and the passengers disembarked, squatting in the cumbersome shade of a baobab tree. They, like us, were shifty-eyed; there had been no rain in Botswana for four years and the lions of the Kalahari were getting hungry. In Gaborone, a week before, we had watched the mauled body of a German girl carried into the hospital. Her death reminded us of the dangers of complacency in Africa. In the shadow of the bus, a vulture wheeling overhead, I kept my eyes fixed on the bush behind us. (more…)
Secret and Scared Ancient Greece Places: World Heritage Epidaurus continue… August 5, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Greece, Hotels, Istanbul , 3commentsSouthwest of the temple are the remains of a curious rotunda-like building known as the Tholos, also described on the stele. This was built very shortly after the temple, perhaps in 360. It stood on a platform three steps high, had 26 Doric columns around its outer side and 14 beautiful marble columns forming an interior colonnade. The foundations of three inner walls seem to have formed a labyrinth, above which was a chequered pavement arranged in a spiral. The purpose of the building is unknown, but reasonable suggestions have been made that it housed a sacred well or snake pit. (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…)
Meal in India; Travelling Across Indian Crazy Kumbh; it could happen only in India July 3, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Airlines, Cars, Destination, Europe, Flight Schedule, India, Restaurant, Travel Insurance, USA , 5commentsInevitably Melas such as this also drag the weird, wonderful and absolutely berserk out of the Indian woodwork, and that night they all seemed to have appeared in Hardwar (apart from the infamous and lusty Bhagwan Rajneesh, holed up somewhere in Uruguay). There were the magicians; the Yogis; the jugglers; the preachers; the Hari Krishna devotees (looking more at home if no less limp than they do wandering down Oxford Street); and, perhaps the craziest of all, the Sadhus. Many of these supposed spiritual pioneers of Hinduism were sitting in large groups smoking their chillums (pipes) filled with marijuana, which they held high above their heads, and which were no doubt taking these holy men even higher. The Mahatma condemned this sort of hollow spirituality saying, “These men were born only to enjoy the good things in life”. However, this couldn’t be said about some of the “Naga” Sadhus who, standing near the river, painfully demonstrated their rejection of desire by piercing their penises and hanging rocks from their genitals. This extraordinary self-mutilation didn’t even merit a free radio. Maybe they should have kept their lingams in their lunghi? (more…)
Indian Tour; as a Traveler, I went Across Indian Crazy Kumbh, it could happen only in India July 3, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Airlines, Beach Resorts, Cars, Destination, Europe, Flight Schedule, Hotels, India, Motel , 4commentsIt is the largest gathering of people in the world, it happens every twelve years and it could happen only in India. They come by train, they come by bus, they come on foot. But they come. They come to bathe in the Holy Mother Ganga. This year four million come to be in one place at one time. The place is Hardwar, the time is eight minutes past two on the morning of April 14th. It is unbelievable. It is unique. It is the great Kumbh Mela.
The Hindus love a good legend and the mythological beginnings of this unparalleled religious spectacle are no exception. Many moons ago, the son of Indra, king of the Gods, managed to retrieve (not unlike some sort of celestial “Repo Man”) a kumbh (pitcher) filled with the elixir of immortality that some demons had stolen from the bottom of the ocean. (more…)
Holiday Break, Adventure Boating Hidden Rivers part 2 June 30, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Europe, Flight Schedule, London, Scotland , 5commentsBut this weekend is for costume cutting and we are all girls; pinning, measuring and sewing, lashed on by our two teachers. There is so little time and so much to learn. There are twelve of us from all parts of the country — I came down by bus from Scotland. Only the thirst for knowledge will ever force me to travel that way again, but it’s the cheapest when you’re unemployed. There’s another girl there as skint as I am, Izzie from Oxford. She’s wearing a leather mini-skirt which unzips entirely into shreds and is quite obviously pilfered from some bygone production.
Izzie’s made a special corset for one of our teachers and laces her into it at the end of the day. The peristalsis of sprung steel and canvas half swallows her down and displays a heroine of the belle époque; tiny waist and huge trembling bosom. Shrieks! — Is there a man looking in from across the road? (more…)
