answer soon!
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
wishful thinking...
Where I desperately want to go...
... but buckley's chance of going!
One day.
*(mending slowly - many thanks to all those who have expressed concern.)
... but buckley's chance of going!
One day.
*(mending slowly - many thanks to all those who have expressed concern.)
Friday, February 15, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
shane alan tondelstrand
13.12.1972 - 11.01.2008
The brightest light in my world has been extinguished.
I will miss you.
Terry.
*I will not be blogging for a while, but I will return.
Please check in occasionally to see.
Friday, January 11, 2008
amazing coincidence #4
Saturday 23rd October 2004
Palmyra is a dot in the Syrian desert.
A dot with a lot of history.
Formerly known as Tadmor, with a history dating back more than 2,000 years before even the Romans showed an interest in the region, Palmyra was also allied closely to the Decapolis which was predominantly located in the Jordan region.
ruins of palmyra
ibn ma'an castle palmyra syria
bev, ben, terry and steve
ben and bev from the castle
I arrived at this dot during Ramadan, and pretty much had the place to myself.
(Well I did have Ben, Bev and Steve who I'd picked up en-route for company)
After checking into hotel ‘The New Afqa’ (I didn’t ask what happened to the old one) and being satisfied that the water in the bathroom was hot enough to make tea with, I left my backpack and ventured out into the main street for lunch.
There was a choice of two restaurants in town so I selected the one that showed some semblance of sentient life within.
The owner, a slightly sweaty and overweight Arab who was nevertheless charming and effusive, bustled about my pavement table sweeping off the sand and laying out the menu and cutlery, all the while smiling and ever so slightly bowing. I figured trade was a little slow.
After giving my order, the owner deposited 3 large volumes on my table for me to browse whilst waiting for my lunch. They were visitors’ books.
Normally I don’t bother with these as they are usually full of either ingratiatingly fatuous comments about how ‘utterly gorgeous’ and ‘simply superb’ the food/waiter/restaurant/salmonella was - or contain obscene genitally inspired sketches.
But out of boredom I picked up one and fanned its pages in my face to give me at least some respite from the hot dry wind that was blowing.
Suddenly my eyes fell on an entry.
It was made by a friend of mine from The University of NSW back in Sydney (I was there in the early stages of my PhD) who had visited Palmyra the December before. I had no idea she had even been in the Middle East or Syria, let alone Palmyra.
Aussies - you can’t get away from them.
visitor's book
terry in palmyran restaurant
Palmyra is a dot in the Syrian desert.
A dot with a lot of history.
Formerly known as Tadmor, with a history dating back more than 2,000 years before even the Romans showed an interest in the region, Palmyra was also allied closely to the Decapolis which was predominantly located in the Jordan region.
ruins of palmyra
ibn ma'an castle palmyra syria
bev, ben, terry and steve
ben and bev from the castle
I arrived at this dot during Ramadan, and pretty much had the place to myself.
(Well I did have Ben, Bev and Steve who I'd picked up en-route for company)
After checking into hotel ‘The New Afqa’ (I didn’t ask what happened to the old one) and being satisfied that the water in the bathroom was hot enough to make tea with, I left my backpack and ventured out into the main street for lunch.
There was a choice of two restaurants in town so I selected the one that showed some semblance of sentient life within.
The owner, a slightly sweaty and overweight Arab who was nevertheless charming and effusive, bustled about my pavement table sweeping off the sand and laying out the menu and cutlery, all the while smiling and ever so slightly bowing. I figured trade was a little slow.
After giving my order, the owner deposited 3 large volumes on my table for me to browse whilst waiting for my lunch. They were visitors’ books.
Normally I don’t bother with these as they are usually full of either ingratiatingly fatuous comments about how ‘utterly gorgeous’ and ‘simply superb’ the food/waiter/restaurant/salmonella was - or contain obscene genitally inspired sketches.
But out of boredom I picked up one and fanned its pages in my face to give me at least some respite from the hot dry wind that was blowing.
Suddenly my eyes fell on an entry.
It was made by a friend of mine from The University of NSW back in Sydney (I was there in the early stages of my PhD) who had visited Palmyra the December before. I had no idea she had even been in the Middle East or Syria, let alone Palmyra.
Aussies - you can’t get away from them.
visitor's book
terry in palmyran restaurant
Thursday, January 3, 2008
of llamas and lost luggage
29th September - 2nd October 1998
If there is one thing I have learned from travel it is a sense of perspective.
This is especially important when things go wrong.
They can. And they do.
So when you find out that the restaurant has run out of rice for the meal you wanted (granted it WAS a Chinese restaurant, which is like a pub with no beer - Shigatse, Tibet 2002) or your plane has been delayed/cancelled/damaged (see just about every long trip I’ve taken) all one has to do is recall that 10 year old boy selling breadsticks during the day to help support his family when he should have been at school (Konye, Turkey 1990) or that land mine victim who was missing both arms and a leg (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 1993) and your problems seem paltry if not completely insignificant.
And so I arrived in Lima for a trek to Machu Picchu.
My luggage didn’t.
It had obviously decided it wanted its own holiday and had taken itself off to Baggage Bermuda or wherever missing backpacks go.
When I questioned the airport staff in Lima about it, they looked at me as if I was trying to explain Einstein’s Third Law of Thermodynamics. (Which states that the entropy of a pure perfect crystal is 0 at 0 K: 'delta' S(0K) = 0. But you knew that.)
Getting them to understand how awkward it was going to be having to trek to Machu Picchu with no luggage and just one T-shirt and the undies I was standing in was as good as trying to explain Belgium to a cactus.
So I left them my address in Cusco, hoped they would find my bag - connect the two, and forward it to me within the next 2 days, as by then I would be on the Inca Trail.
I should mention that by this stage I had been suffering with a very bad head cold for a week, and my flight from Sydney via Los Angeles was interrupted by Hurricane Helene which necessitated a layover in LA.
Standing in line for my connection to Cusco, a small town high up in the Andes Mountains, I found myself chatting to a young English couple on a 3 month South America jaunt.
Inexplicably (and somewhat inappropriately) I started telling them about a film I had just seen on video back in Sydney called “Alive” about a Peruvian football team that crashes in the Andes and the survivors end up eating the dead to stay alive. The film is based on real events.
Where we were standing waiting for our plane was alongside large glass windows and doors right beside the runway. So we were able to watch as our plane landed and slowly rolled right up alongside us. We were close enough to see in its windows.
A small dark man rolled the staircase out to the (rather small) plane and the front cabin door swung open.
And we watched as a Peruvian football team disembarked.
The flight was short and uneventful. Except it felt like I was in a 1960’s Peter Stuyvesant Travelogue.
The woman sitting beside me, obviously Peruvian, was silent and well dressed. When our meal came (on what looked suspiciously like a bakelite tray) she modestly tucked in and eventually finished everything in front of her.
She then proceeded, much to my astonishment, to wipe every bowl, plate, cup, utensil and the tray itself with her serviette, and one by one place them into her handbag.
So now there I was in Cusco, (altitude:3,310 M or 10,859.6 FT) one day short because of the hurricane, with no luggage and with only the clothes I was wearing. My planned high-altitude acclimatisation was cut from 3 days to 2 and my head cold was as bad as ever.
Still, I was ecstatic about actually being there in Peru. I had two days to try and replace everything I was missing.
Apart from trekking clothes and a sleeping bag (as well as the backpack) there were a myriad of minor things I had gone to great lengths to pack to make the trip more comfortable.
Such as decanting 2 weeks supply of sun lotion, mozzie repellent and liquid soap into small portable containers. (Yes, if you must know, I AM anally retentive. I prefer however, to call it being very well prepared.)
Fortunately I found shops where I was able to hire a pack and sleeping bag, and for clothes I made do with some cheap tourist T-shirts, and alpaca everything else.
Except Reg Grundies.. Couldn’t find any to fit. Peruvian men are rather diminutive and consequently all the locally made men’s underwear would have suited a 12 year old boy back home.
I developed a headache on arrival, which I put down to the high altitude, as well as a certain amount of anxiety.
High altitude is funny in that it makes you terribly conscious of your own breathing. You have (at least initially until you become familiar with the feeling) the constant sense of a slight struggle for breath.
Nothing suffocating or panic inducing, just the need to inhale each breath with a little more effort than usual. This can heighten anxiety as I found out. Normally having to race around and replace all of my bits and pieces would not have caused me any worry, but the altitude made me a lot more anxious about it.
I was fortunate to meet, right at the start of the trek, some great people - most notably Pierre from the UK and Helga and James (of the Amazing Coincidence #2 tale) from Holland.
Pierre and a young Danish lad he had befriended called Michael and I were generally out the front on the hike. Helga and James were in a different hiking group but were on the same itinerary so I was able to catch up with them each day at the campsite.
inca trail campsite
The first days walk was exciting and visually stunning with sweeping panoramas, terraced hills, ancient ruined towns and bracing weather. Walking was relatively comfortable and I arrived at the first campsite relaxed and happy. (Except for the fact that I discovered that the battery in my sister’s video camera I had borrowed was dead. So I had to carry its corpse with me for the next 4 days.)
Day two was another story. On this day we had to climb up to Dead Woman’s Pass (which should have offered at least a little insight into the impending effort) which took us from 2,800M to 4,200M.
All of it uphill. No flat bits and certainly no down bits.
To make things worse, about a hundred metres from the pass, you really start to be affected by the altitude as well as the accumulated tiredness of having already been walking uphill for 4 hours.
Suddenly each footstep becomes a leaden plod, each breath is harder to draw, and your backpack begins to feel like some ancient mythic burden (Sisyphus springs to mind.)
On this final stretch of the day I had caught up with James. He was on his own as Helga had gone bounding over the summit like a startled gazelle. We, on the other hand, were lamely inventing reasons why this should be so.
“Oestrogen I expect” I offered. “Gives them superhuman powers - that’s why they can have a baby and do the ironing at the same time”
“She a Stewie” replied James “She lives most of her life at high-altitude”.
“Hmmm…I expect that’s it.” we both muttered.
So the two of us, each leaning (metaphorically AND physically) on each other for support, wearily trudged up the mountain, whilst lava boulders fell all around us, the slippery ashen slope impeding our progress. “The ring I gasped, it must go into the Cracks of Doom…”
Sorry, went off track there for a moment.
The final 50 metres were really some kind of punishment. We found we could manage about 15 steps and then we had to sit and rest. Right near the summit we found ourselves in cloud so the air turned cold and clammy.
The apex entailed a climb through a natural stone tunnel and then suddenly it was downhill.
dead woman's pass
Then the strap on my backpack snapped.
And James fell and twisted his ankle.
I hastily made some repairs to the strap to make it useable again, and then offered to help James down the other side.
“No, you go on, save yourself, it’s too late for me. I’ve had a good life. Can’t complain. Just give this photo to Helga and tell her to remember Aberystwyth” he said wistfully in a fashion I thought a little dramatic.
So I headed down to the campsite which was about an hour away. James eventually hobbled down about 30 minutes later.
the pass past/passed
The third day was easy by comparison - a little up and down and a lot of across. A large part of that day seemed to be heading across some vast plateau where were literally in the clouds for much of the time.
twiggy bridge
That evenings camp was alongside a permanent shelter which also offered us the luxury of a hot shower, hot chocolate and hot sex. (Well…no not really I made that last one up. But the hot chocolate was as good as…)
The final morning turned out to be brilliantly clear. We were up before sunrise and I made sure I walked ahead of the group for the 90 minutes to the Sun Gate as I really felt like peace and quiet.
first view of machu picchu
I arrived at the Sun Gate to find Helga and James already there. This is where you get your first glimpse of Machu Picchu and it is a stunner. Breathtaking and worth every ounce of effort to get there.
terry and pierre at the sun gate
We soaked up the view for a good hour before setting off down to the ruins along a kilometre or two track.
terry and dolly llama
macho terry and machu picchu
We were at the ruins around 7 in the morning which meant we had it to ourselves (ie the hikers) for about 3 hours before the first trainloads arrived from Cusco.
In hindsight - I think this is really one of those “the journey is more important than the destination” trips. Don’t get me wrong, the ruins are impressive, but they don’t have some of the Ooh-Ahh” factor of say, Angkor Wat.
Their beauty is in their isolation and their mountaintop setting. Arriving by train and catching a bus up the mountain to the entrance, I dunno, seems to lack a certain something.
incas carved stones to imitate mountain views
Once the hoards began to arrive we (James, Helga, Pierre, Michael and I) head down to the town of Aguas Calientes at the foot of Machu Picchu to celebrate my birthday (that day) with lunch.
Much to my delight the café we sit in quite by chance plays a tape of Nina Simone (my favourite singer) and the day is made truly perfect.
group birthday photo
* my luggage finally turned up 2 months later in Sydney 3 days after I arrived home. It looked fit and tanned and had evidently enjoyed itself.
If there is one thing I have learned from travel it is a sense of perspective.
This is especially important when things go wrong.
They can. And they do.
So when you find out that the restaurant has run out of rice for the meal you wanted (granted it WAS a Chinese restaurant, which is like a pub with no beer - Shigatse, Tibet 2002) or your plane has been delayed/cancelled/damaged (see just about every long trip I’ve taken) all one has to do is recall that 10 year old boy selling breadsticks during the day to help support his family when he should have been at school (Konye, Turkey 1990) or that land mine victim who was missing both arms and a leg (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 1993) and your problems seem paltry if not completely insignificant.
And so I arrived in Lima for a trek to Machu Picchu.
My luggage didn’t.
It had obviously decided it wanted its own holiday and had taken itself off to Baggage Bermuda or wherever missing backpacks go.
When I questioned the airport staff in Lima about it, they looked at me as if I was trying to explain Einstein’s Third Law of Thermodynamics. (Which states that the entropy of a pure perfect crystal is 0 at 0 K: 'delta' S(0K) = 0. But you knew that.)
Getting them to understand how awkward it was going to be having to trek to Machu Picchu with no luggage and just one T-shirt and the undies I was standing in was as good as trying to explain Belgium to a cactus.
So I left them my address in Cusco, hoped they would find my bag - connect the two, and forward it to me within the next 2 days, as by then I would be on the Inca Trail.
I should mention that by this stage I had been suffering with a very bad head cold for a week, and my flight from Sydney via Los Angeles was interrupted by Hurricane Helene which necessitated a layover in LA.
Standing in line for my connection to Cusco, a small town high up in the Andes Mountains, I found myself chatting to a young English couple on a 3 month South America jaunt.
Inexplicably (and somewhat inappropriately) I started telling them about a film I had just seen on video back in Sydney called “Alive” about a Peruvian football team that crashes in the Andes and the survivors end up eating the dead to stay alive. The film is based on real events.
Where we were standing waiting for our plane was alongside large glass windows and doors right beside the runway. So we were able to watch as our plane landed and slowly rolled right up alongside us. We were close enough to see in its windows.
A small dark man rolled the staircase out to the (rather small) plane and the front cabin door swung open.
And we watched as a Peruvian football team disembarked.
The flight was short and uneventful. Except it felt like I was in a 1960’s Peter Stuyvesant Travelogue.
The woman sitting beside me, obviously Peruvian, was silent and well dressed. When our meal came (on what looked suspiciously like a bakelite tray) she modestly tucked in and eventually finished everything in front of her.
She then proceeded, much to my astonishment, to wipe every bowl, plate, cup, utensil and the tray itself with her serviette, and one by one place them into her handbag.
So now there I was in Cusco, (altitude:3,310 M or 10,859.6 FT) one day short because of the hurricane, with no luggage and with only the clothes I was wearing. My planned high-altitude acclimatisation was cut from 3 days to 2 and my head cold was as bad as ever.
Still, I was ecstatic about actually being there in Peru. I had two days to try and replace everything I was missing.
Apart from trekking clothes and a sleeping bag (as well as the backpack) there were a myriad of minor things I had gone to great lengths to pack to make the trip more comfortable.
Such as decanting 2 weeks supply of sun lotion, mozzie repellent and liquid soap into small portable containers. (Yes, if you must know, I AM anally retentive. I prefer however, to call it being very well prepared.)
Fortunately I found shops where I was able to hire a pack and sleeping bag, and for clothes I made do with some cheap tourist T-shirts, and alpaca everything else.
Except Reg Grundies.. Couldn’t find any to fit. Peruvian men are rather diminutive and consequently all the locally made men’s underwear would have suited a 12 year old boy back home.
I developed a headache on arrival, which I put down to the high altitude, as well as a certain amount of anxiety.
High altitude is funny in that it makes you terribly conscious of your own breathing. You have (at least initially until you become familiar with the feeling) the constant sense of a slight struggle for breath.
Nothing suffocating or panic inducing, just the need to inhale each breath with a little more effort than usual. This can heighten anxiety as I found out. Normally having to race around and replace all of my bits and pieces would not have caused me any worry, but the altitude made me a lot more anxious about it.
I was fortunate to meet, right at the start of the trek, some great people - most notably Pierre from the UK and Helga and James (of the Amazing Coincidence #2 tale) from Holland.
Pierre and a young Danish lad he had befriended called Michael and I were generally out the front on the hike. Helga and James were in a different hiking group but were on the same itinerary so I was able to catch up with them each day at the campsite.
inca trail campsite
The first days walk was exciting and visually stunning with sweeping panoramas, terraced hills, ancient ruined towns and bracing weather. Walking was relatively comfortable and I arrived at the first campsite relaxed and happy. (Except for the fact that I discovered that the battery in my sister’s video camera I had borrowed was dead. So I had to carry its corpse with me for the next 4 days.)
Day two was another story. On this day we had to climb up to Dead Woman’s Pass (which should have offered at least a little insight into the impending effort) which took us from 2,800M to 4,200M.
All of it uphill. No flat bits and certainly no down bits.
To make things worse, about a hundred metres from the pass, you really start to be affected by the altitude as well as the accumulated tiredness of having already been walking uphill for 4 hours.
Suddenly each footstep becomes a leaden plod, each breath is harder to draw, and your backpack begins to feel like some ancient mythic burden (Sisyphus springs to mind.)
On this final stretch of the day I had caught up with James. He was on his own as Helga had gone bounding over the summit like a startled gazelle. We, on the other hand, were lamely inventing reasons why this should be so.
“Oestrogen I expect” I offered. “Gives them superhuman powers - that’s why they can have a baby and do the ironing at the same time”
“She a Stewie” replied James “She lives most of her life at high-altitude”.
“Hmmm…I expect that’s it.” we both muttered.
So the two of us, each leaning (metaphorically AND physically) on each other for support, wearily trudged up the mountain, whilst lava boulders fell all around us, the slippery ashen slope impeding our progress. “The ring I gasped, it must go into the Cracks of Doom…”
Sorry, went off track there for a moment.
The final 50 metres were really some kind of punishment. We found we could manage about 15 steps and then we had to sit and rest. Right near the summit we found ourselves in cloud so the air turned cold and clammy.
The apex entailed a climb through a natural stone tunnel and then suddenly it was downhill.
dead woman's pass
Then the strap on my backpack snapped.
And James fell and twisted his ankle.
I hastily made some repairs to the strap to make it useable again, and then offered to help James down the other side.
“No, you go on, save yourself, it’s too late for me. I’ve had a good life. Can’t complain. Just give this photo to Helga and tell her to remember Aberystwyth” he said wistfully in a fashion I thought a little dramatic.
So I headed down to the campsite which was about an hour away. James eventually hobbled down about 30 minutes later.
the pass past/passed
The third day was easy by comparison - a little up and down and a lot of across. A large part of that day seemed to be heading across some vast plateau where were literally in the clouds for much of the time.
twiggy bridge
That evenings camp was alongside a permanent shelter which also offered us the luxury of a hot shower, hot chocolate and hot sex. (Well…no not really I made that last one up. But the hot chocolate was as good as…)
The final morning turned out to be brilliantly clear. We were up before sunrise and I made sure I walked ahead of the group for the 90 minutes to the Sun Gate as I really felt like peace and quiet.
first view of machu picchu
I arrived at the Sun Gate to find Helga and James already there. This is where you get your first glimpse of Machu Picchu and it is a stunner. Breathtaking and worth every ounce of effort to get there.
terry and pierre at the sun gate
We soaked up the view for a good hour before setting off down to the ruins along a kilometre or two track.
terry and dolly llama
macho terry and machu picchu
We were at the ruins around 7 in the morning which meant we had it to ourselves (ie the hikers) for about 3 hours before the first trainloads arrived from Cusco.
In hindsight - I think this is really one of those “the journey is more important than the destination” trips. Don’t get me wrong, the ruins are impressive, but they don’t have some of the Ooh-Ahh” factor of say, Angkor Wat.
Their beauty is in their isolation and their mountaintop setting. Arriving by train and catching a bus up the mountain to the entrance, I dunno, seems to lack a certain something.
incas carved stones to imitate mountain views
Once the hoards began to arrive we (James, Helga, Pierre, Michael and I) head down to the town of Aguas Calientes at the foot of Machu Picchu to celebrate my birthday (that day) with lunch.
Much to my delight the café we sit in quite by chance plays a tape of Nina Simone (my favourite singer) and the day is made truly perfect.
group birthday photo
* my luggage finally turned up 2 months later in Sydney 3 days after I arrived home. It looked fit and tanned and had evidently enjoyed itself.
Friday, December 28, 2007
sailing on an ocean of sand
September 19th 2003
At this time of year I think it appropriate to tell you about the time I rode into Bethlehem on a donkey. The missus was preggers and I had to find a hostel ... oh wait a minute, that wasn't me.
It wasn’t Bethlehem, it was Jaisalmer, and there was no donkey but a camel. But the story is similar. Oh ... and no wife up the duff. ('A bun in the oven' for all you Seppos. Seppos...septic-tank ...Yank. Do I have to explain EVERYTHING?)
Anyway, I WAS riding a camel, and it was bloody uncomfortable let me say. It is one thing to sit on one for a quick 50 metres up the beach and back for the novelty, yet another to have to sit on the damned thing for hours while meandering along in the desert dunes looking for the campsite.
I was in India. Jaisalmer to be precise, in the North-Western part of the state of Rajasthan. Jaisalmer was pretty much one of the first places I visited after arriving in the country.
And it was spectacular.
terry under a jaisalmer arch
Often referred to as India’s Golden City because of the colour the sun turns the abundant sandstone in the late afternoon. The fort and many of the city’s temples and ornate buildings are constructed of the stuff.
local architecture
more of the same
and more
and a bit more
the local kwik-e-mart
The heart of Jaisalmer is dominated by the fort built in 1156. A magnificent edifice which gives the entire city a feeling not so much India, curry and Swamis and Sadhus - but of Arabian Nights.
the fort
I was in Northern India for a month travelling with Jane and Shane and we were generally travelling in a circle around Rajasthan with a side trip to Agra, Varanassi and Chandigarh.
Our hotel in Jaisalmer was built into the castle walls - the drop out of my room window was considerable. The hotel also had a sitting area on the top of one of the fort’s myriad bastions - which was perfect for sitting around at sunset and ruminating on the days sightseeing.
good coffee spot
view from the roof
The camel trip in question was a ride for several hours out into the Thar desert, which borders India and Pakistan.
them thar desert dunes
It was pleasantly hot and very dry, and the camels were not spitting too much. (Though for long periods of the journey out, the one on front of me was spitting considerably and continuously from the other end. Touch of Delhi-belly I suspect.)
on board s.s.camelus
at the helm
It was a jovial jaunt, mainly because those of European heritage without years of riding experience and the appropriate genetic make-up look bloody stupid on camels. Occasionally one of the creatures would take off on a lolloping lope and then things would really become amusing. Especially when one of our group came a cropper and a riderless mount was seen being chased across the desert by a group of wildly yelling Indians.
jane looking quite the part
Eventually we reached an area where we were to ‘set up camp’. This term, in certain desert regions, could suggest a huge white billowing marquis with pennants, and embroidered silk bolsters casually strewn on the ornate woven rugs. Trestles laden with exotic fruits and spicy Indian delicacies, and perhaps fanners, waving large feather creations creating soothing gentle breezes for us while we gossiped excitedly about the days adventures.
as good a spot as any
What we got was a subcontinent swag - a rug on the sand for our sleeping bags and a bowl of dhal Darl!
It actually was much better than it sounds. Sleeping under the stars in the desert is something to cherish. The sky was so cloudless and clear I doubt I have ever seen the night sky more full of stars than that night in the desert.
I woke the next morning after a really good nights sleep with a large exotic looking frog sleeping in the palm of my hand. I received such a shock that it immediately became an airborne amphibian and disappeared over the crest of the nearest sand dune. Where the hell it had come from is anyone’s guess - I always though frogs liked to be near water. The hills were alive with the sound of dung beetles - but a frog?
It could’ve been worse; I could have woken with a frog in my throat.
some eg's of my Indian 'one a day' artworks.
At this time of year I think it appropriate to tell you about the time I rode into Bethlehem on a donkey. The missus was preggers and I had to find a hostel ... oh wait a minute, that wasn't me.
It wasn’t Bethlehem, it was Jaisalmer, and there was no donkey but a camel. But the story is similar. Oh ... and no wife up the duff. ('A bun in the oven' for all you Seppos. Seppos...septic-tank ...Yank. Do I have to explain EVERYTHING?)
Anyway, I WAS riding a camel, and it was bloody uncomfortable let me say. It is one thing to sit on one for a quick 50 metres up the beach and back for the novelty, yet another to have to sit on the damned thing for hours while meandering along in the desert dunes looking for the campsite.
I was in India. Jaisalmer to be precise, in the North-Western part of the state of Rajasthan. Jaisalmer was pretty much one of the first places I visited after arriving in the country.
And it was spectacular.
terry under a jaisalmer arch
Often referred to as India’s Golden City because of the colour the sun turns the abundant sandstone in the late afternoon. The fort and many of the city’s temples and ornate buildings are constructed of the stuff.
local architecture
more of the same
and more
and a bit more
the local kwik-e-mart
The heart of Jaisalmer is dominated by the fort built in 1156. A magnificent edifice which gives the entire city a feeling not so much India, curry and Swamis and Sadhus - but of Arabian Nights.
the fort
I was in Northern India for a month travelling with Jane and Shane and we were generally travelling in a circle around Rajasthan with a side trip to Agra, Varanassi and Chandigarh.
Our hotel in Jaisalmer was built into the castle walls - the drop out of my room window was considerable. The hotel also had a sitting area on the top of one of the fort’s myriad bastions - which was perfect for sitting around at sunset and ruminating on the days sightseeing.
good coffee spot
view from the roof
The camel trip in question was a ride for several hours out into the Thar desert, which borders India and Pakistan.
them thar desert dunes
It was pleasantly hot and very dry, and the camels were not spitting too much. (Though for long periods of the journey out, the one on front of me was spitting considerably and continuously from the other end. Touch of Delhi-belly I suspect.)
on board s.s.camelus
at the helm
It was a jovial jaunt, mainly because those of European heritage without years of riding experience and the appropriate genetic make-up look bloody stupid on camels. Occasionally one of the creatures would take off on a lolloping lope and then things would really become amusing. Especially when one of our group came a cropper and a riderless mount was seen being chased across the desert by a group of wildly yelling Indians.
jane looking quite the part
Eventually we reached an area where we were to ‘set up camp’. This term, in certain desert regions, could suggest a huge white billowing marquis with pennants, and embroidered silk bolsters casually strewn on the ornate woven rugs. Trestles laden with exotic fruits and spicy Indian delicacies, and perhaps fanners, waving large feather creations creating soothing gentle breezes for us while we gossiped excitedly about the days adventures.
as good a spot as any
What we got was a subcontinent swag - a rug on the sand for our sleeping bags and a bowl of dhal Darl!
It actually was much better than it sounds. Sleeping under the stars in the desert is something to cherish. The sky was so cloudless and clear I doubt I have ever seen the night sky more full of stars than that night in the desert.
I woke the next morning after a really good nights sleep with a large exotic looking frog sleeping in the palm of my hand. I received such a shock that it immediately became an airborne amphibian and disappeared over the crest of the nearest sand dune. Where the hell it had come from is anyone’s guess - I always though frogs liked to be near water. The hills were alive with the sound of dung beetles - but a frog?
It could’ve been worse; I could have woken with a frog in my throat.
some eg's of my Indian 'one a day' artworks.
Friday, December 21, 2007
amazing coincidence #3
14th May 2001
Flying always excites me. Even after years of being squashed in seats designed for 5 year olds, being served food that barely deserves the label 'food', and having to sit next to a variety of extras straight out of a Fellini movie, I still get a thrill out of walking down that rectangular metal tube that leads to the plane.
I do, however, tend to get a little bored. Once I have examined everything in the seat pocket, rung the flight attendants bell enough times until I get from them a smile that can be best described as 'tight-lipped' and eaten all of my fruit mentos and kit-kats, I begin to look around for other means of distraction.
On this particular trip I ran into a friend at the customs gate in Sydney (this is not the coincidence - this is well within the realms of the distinctly probable.) I was heading for New York on an overnighter and was intending to sleep on the flight as much as I could.
I knew it was pointless trying until after they had served dinner as no matter how much I make myself look unapproachable (wearing of sleep masks, blanket pulled over head, big cardboard sign around neck saying 'wake me and you're dead') I am always shaken awake by the 'hostie' with a big sarcastic smile announcing "Your special meal Mr. Culver". (Perhaps the constant pushing of the attendant's bell is NOT such a good idea.)
But what I needed was a distraction to fill those long slow minutes between doing up the seat belt and graciously receiving my dinner tray of boiled and sliced cardboard and polystyrene.
I opened the in-flight magazine. It was probably filled with rivetting travel-oriented articles like "How to Overcome Long Haul Constipation with No Second Language" or "50 Exotic and Exciting Places You Have Bugger All Chance of Ever Being Able to Afford to Visit".
Flicking very quickly through said magazine (creating a small zephyr to flutter my neighbours warming face towel) I stopped at the crossword.
If you know me at all, you will be aware that I DO love a crossword. And this one proved fiendishly difficult. Lots of clues about Major League Baseball or minor Fox television celebs. But it was sufficient to keep me occupied for 20 minutes.
I realised it was time to stop when the Flight Attendant flung my meal tray from the aisle on top of it. (And I was by the window no less)
I managed to sleep the remainder of the flight arriving (relatively) fresh faced the next morning at La Guardia (which I thought was a tropical disease). I spent an engrossing 5 days 'doing' as it were, New York.
One evening I was standing on 103rd Street station. Whoever had the job of naming Manhattan Streets must have been the MOST unimaginative person imaginable:
"Lets call this one '5th Avenue'. That sounds exciting."
"Well ok. Then what shall we call this next one?"
"Oh What about '6th Avenue'?"
I happened to notice a group of four Europeans standing next to me - mainly because they bore an uncanny resemblance to The Mamas and the Papas. Well two days later sitting in a downtown diner with a New Yorker friend of mine, the same four came in and sat down at the next table.
(No, this isn't the amazing coincidence. It's just kinda cuteishly improbable.)
I finally left NY for the UK from JFK, again on United. Once buckled in and ready to go I decided on a whim, to return to the crossword I had attempted on my inward flight.
I turned towards the back of the magazine (which was the same monthly edition) to the correct page and.....
'drumroll please'....
IT WAS THE EXACT SAME CROSSWORD I HAD PREVIOUSLY WORKED ON!
All my answers (perhaps 15 or 20) as well as the scribbles I had made in the margins were there. I instantly recognised my own illegible scrawl.
(Now THAT is the amazing coincidence.)
I was so taken aback that I even showed the flight attendant. She murmured some equally astonished words of agreement (which sounded a little like "Why do I always get them in my aisle?)
I even tore the crossword out and have it tucked somewhere into the back of one of my travel diaries. What does it mean?
Well nothing really. It just goes to show that strange things happen.
As Professor J.A.Paulos, from Temple University in Philadelphia, and best-selling author of 'Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences' says:
"Believing in the significance of oddities is self-aggrandizing ... It says, 'Look how important I am.' People find it dispiriting to hear, ‘It just happened, and it doesn't mean anything.'"
Lovely.
A couple of weeks later I was standing in one of 15 lines at the ticket counters at Clapham Junction station in London when I received a tap on my shoulder. It was a very old friend from Sydney who had moved to London about 5 years previously who I had completely lost touch with.
Hmmm...
(image: from my 'one a day' artworks.
See more here.)
Flying always excites me. Even after years of being squashed in seats designed for 5 year olds, being served food that barely deserves the label 'food', and having to sit next to a variety of extras straight out of a Fellini movie, I still get a thrill out of walking down that rectangular metal tube that leads to the plane.
I do, however, tend to get a little bored. Once I have examined everything in the seat pocket, rung the flight attendants bell enough times until I get from them a smile that can be best described as 'tight-lipped' and eaten all of my fruit mentos and kit-kats, I begin to look around for other means of distraction.
On this particular trip I ran into a friend at the customs gate in Sydney (this is not the coincidence - this is well within the realms of the distinctly probable.) I was heading for New York on an overnighter and was intending to sleep on the flight as much as I could.
I knew it was pointless trying until after they had served dinner as no matter how much I make myself look unapproachable (wearing of sleep masks, blanket pulled over head, big cardboard sign around neck saying 'wake me and you're dead') I am always shaken awake by the 'hostie' with a big sarcastic smile announcing "Your special meal Mr. Culver". (Perhaps the constant pushing of the attendant's bell is NOT such a good idea.)
But what I needed was a distraction to fill those long slow minutes between doing up the seat belt and graciously receiving my dinner tray of boiled and sliced cardboard and polystyrene.
I opened the in-flight magazine. It was probably filled with rivetting travel-oriented articles like "How to Overcome Long Haul Constipation with No Second Language" or "50 Exotic and Exciting Places You Have Bugger All Chance of Ever Being Able to Afford to Visit".
Flicking very quickly through said magazine (creating a small zephyr to flutter my neighbours warming face towel) I stopped at the crossword.
If you know me at all, you will be aware that I DO love a crossword. And this one proved fiendishly difficult. Lots of clues about Major League Baseball or minor Fox television celebs. But it was sufficient to keep me occupied for 20 minutes.
I realised it was time to stop when the Flight Attendant flung my meal tray from the aisle on top of it. (And I was by the window no less)
I managed to sleep the remainder of the flight arriving (relatively) fresh faced the next morning at La Guardia (which I thought was a tropical disease). I spent an engrossing 5 days 'doing' as it were, New York.
One evening I was standing on 103rd Street station. Whoever had the job of naming Manhattan Streets must have been the MOST unimaginative person imaginable:
"Lets call this one '5th Avenue'. That sounds exciting."
"Well ok. Then what shall we call this next one?"
"Oh What about '6th Avenue'?"
I happened to notice a group of four Europeans standing next to me - mainly because they bore an uncanny resemblance to The Mamas and the Papas. Well two days later sitting in a downtown diner with a New Yorker friend of mine, the same four came in and sat down at the next table.
(No, this isn't the amazing coincidence. It's just kinda cuteishly improbable.)
I finally left NY for the UK from JFK, again on United. Once buckled in and ready to go I decided on a whim, to return to the crossword I had attempted on my inward flight.
I turned towards the back of the magazine (which was the same monthly edition) to the correct page and.....
'drumroll please'....
IT WAS THE EXACT SAME CROSSWORD I HAD PREVIOUSLY WORKED ON!
All my answers (perhaps 15 or 20) as well as the scribbles I had made in the margins were there. I instantly recognised my own illegible scrawl.
(Now THAT is the amazing coincidence.)
I was so taken aback that I even showed the flight attendant. She murmured some equally astonished words of agreement (which sounded a little like "Why do I always get them in my aisle?)
I even tore the crossword out and have it tucked somewhere into the back of one of my travel diaries. What does it mean?
Well nothing really. It just goes to show that strange things happen.
As Professor J.A.Paulos, from Temple University in Philadelphia, and best-selling author of 'Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences' says:
"Believing in the significance of oddities is self-aggrandizing ... It says, 'Look how important I am.' People find it dispiriting to hear, ‘It just happened, and it doesn't mean anything.'"
Lovely.
A couple of weeks later I was standing in one of 15 lines at the ticket counters at Clapham Junction station in London when I received a tap on my shoulder. It was a very old friend from Sydney who had moved to London about 5 years previously who I had completely lost touch with.
Hmmm...
(image: from my 'one a day' artworks.
See more here.)
Monday, December 17, 2007
once was nancy
Today is another sad anniversary.
Four years ago my oldest friend Snjeza died from pancreatic cancer only a few weeks after diagnosis.
She was one of those friends with whom it did not matter how often we caught up our paths forever travelled in the same direction.
Different paths granted, but parallel nonetheless. Some friends paths diverge so that at some point in time you lose sight of one another. But I could always glance across the road, so to speak, and catch sight of Snjeza.
We first met in Year 11 (5th form) at high school and immediately became great friends. She was Nancy back then, but soon reverted to her real name.
terry and snjeza 1976
terry and snjeza 1976
We had many laughs together.
Like the time she taught me some Croatian.
Apart from the usual 'hello...how are you...good morning' etc she also taught me a swag of expletives in that particularly juvenile way that one does when learning a new language. (C'mon - I bet every single one of you knows at least one foreign swear word - if not 20)
The first time I went to her home and met her mother I thought I would greet her in her native tongue.
Unfortunately I mixed up good morning with another popular reproduction-based profanity and effectively told her mother to 'F*** off'. In her own language.
As if this wasn't bad enough, a month or so later her mother had to spend the night in hospital for a minor test.
Eager to make up for my howling error at our first meeting I decided to accompany Snjeza, and by way of a conciliatory peace offering I took a large bunch of chrysanthemums.
When I walked into her hospital room, Snjeza'a father visibly paled with a look of shock on his face.
How was I to know chrysanthemums are Yugoslavian funeral flowers?
But Snjeza and I never really travelled much together. As this is a travel blog I will mention one of the few trips we did do back in 1982.
I had recently finished a Eurail trip around Europe and was at the tail end of my travels. Snjeza was just setting out on her own trip so we arranged to meet up in Yorkshire, England where some family members were living at the time.
We had a brief excursion to Ilkley where we clowned around on the moors ("Heathcliffe ... it's me Cathy ... come home now..") generally acting like 6 year olds.
It was wet and muddy on the moors and Snjeza found it particularly amusing that our English word 'bog' meant 'God' in her Croatian dialect.
("Watch out Snjeza - don't step on the God.")
But the biggest laugh I had was when she and I took a train up to Edinburgh. On the way, following the journey on our map, I managed to convince her that the border between Scotland and England would be clearly visible from the train.
"You see Snej - what they have done is to cut all the hedges, dig the fields and build stone walls along the border so it resembles a huge dotted line right across the country. That way people will know when they have crossed over."
Bless her, she looked and looked and looked - desperate to see us crossing between the two countries.
malcolm, snjeza and terry - eating, drinking and being merry, yorkshire 1982
snjeza with a bit of god on her jeans, ilkley moor.
snjeza, mandy - and me (looking clearly moronic) on ilkley moor.
Four years ago my oldest friend Snjeza died from pancreatic cancer only a few weeks after diagnosis.
She was one of those friends with whom it did not matter how often we caught up our paths forever travelled in the same direction.
Different paths granted, but parallel nonetheless. Some friends paths diverge so that at some point in time you lose sight of one another. But I could always glance across the road, so to speak, and catch sight of Snjeza.
We first met in Year 11 (5th form) at high school and immediately became great friends. She was Nancy back then, but soon reverted to her real name.
terry and snjeza 1976
terry and snjeza 1976
We had many laughs together.
Like the time she taught me some Croatian.
Apart from the usual 'hello...how are you...good morning' etc she also taught me a swag of expletives in that particularly juvenile way that one does when learning a new language. (C'mon - I bet every single one of you knows at least one foreign swear word - if not 20)
The first time I went to her home and met her mother I thought I would greet her in her native tongue.
Unfortunately I mixed up good morning with another popular reproduction-based profanity and effectively told her mother to 'F*** off'. In her own language.
As if this wasn't bad enough, a month or so later her mother had to spend the night in hospital for a minor test.
Eager to make up for my howling error at our first meeting I decided to accompany Snjeza, and by way of a conciliatory peace offering I took a large bunch of chrysanthemums.
When I walked into her hospital room, Snjeza'a father visibly paled with a look of shock on his face.
How was I to know chrysanthemums are Yugoslavian funeral flowers?
But Snjeza and I never really travelled much together. As this is a travel blog I will mention one of the few trips we did do back in 1982.
I had recently finished a Eurail trip around Europe and was at the tail end of my travels. Snjeza was just setting out on her own trip so we arranged to meet up in Yorkshire, England where some family members were living at the time.
We had a brief excursion to Ilkley where we clowned around on the moors ("Heathcliffe ... it's me Cathy ... come home now..") generally acting like 6 year olds.
It was wet and muddy on the moors and Snjeza found it particularly amusing that our English word 'bog' meant 'God' in her Croatian dialect.
("Watch out Snjeza - don't step on the God.")
But the biggest laugh I had was when she and I took a train up to Edinburgh. On the way, following the journey on our map, I managed to convince her that the border between Scotland and England would be clearly visible from the train.
"You see Snej - what they have done is to cut all the hedges, dig the fields and build stone walls along the border so it resembles a huge dotted line right across the country. That way people will know when they have crossed over."
Bless her, she looked and looked and looked - desperate to see us crossing between the two countries.
malcolm, snjeza and terry - eating, drinking and being merry, yorkshire 1982
snjeza with a bit of god on her jeans, ilkley moor.
snjeza, mandy - and me (looking clearly moronic) on ilkley moor.
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