Living it up in London - 30 May 2006

We’ve now been living in London for a month and have settled into a soothing routine of cycling, working, cycling, sleeping, cycling, working….

The whole cycling escapade began one fine Saturday when Maria popped out for some shopping while I was at work. She came and met me after work and we had a lovely evening out (we saw ‘Good Night and Good Luck’ – it is very good). It was when we arrived home later that night that I was surprised to find I could no longer open the apartment door. Maria had failed to mention the impediment to my usual sweeping entrance. It had two wheels, front suspension, lights, bells and whistles. A minor oversight on Maria’s part, forgetting to mention this particular purchase. Honestly, she is becoming so absent minded…

My part in the great adventure happened through a sustained campaign of propaganda. Maria began waxing lyrical over the beauty and tranquillity of a genteel ride through the parks of the West End. ‘Much nicer than rubbing shoulders with the great unwashed’ she gibed as she strapped on her helmet and sped into the distance every morning. Indeed, so enthusiastic was she that I agreed to participate in a riding tour of London the following Sunday afternoon. Not being one to indulge too enthusiastically in activities involving physical exertion, I was concerned that the ride would leave me utterly spent. Little did I know that the leisurely ride was to be the least of my exertions for that day.

Having finished our ride, and puffed up with my achievement of having ridden through Westminster unscathed and in apparent fine health, we made the bold step of hiring my admirable steed for a month to see whether I could become a fully-fledged member of the crazed two wheelers. Since I still had my doubts as to the long-term viability of my legs as a form of locomotion, this seemed like the sensible option. Deciding to take the bike that afternoon however began a series of dramas of Faustian proportions.

The bike hire shop is on the south bank of the Thames, not far from Waterloo International. As we wheeled the bike from subway to bus stop, we were educated in timely fashion as to the realities of taking bicycles on public transport. Busses were not an option. The underground is fine, as long as its not underground. Problem was, we were on the south side of town, and needed to get to the north-west side. Since we had neglected to bring our map (a glaring oversight in retrospect) I couldn’t ride the bike home. Maria offered to ride the bike home, but my bike is designed for those of great height, and the length of the journey would have given her altitude sickness. We finally discovered that we needed to take an overland train from Kings Cross. So Maria rode the bike to Kings Cross whilst I luxuriated on the bus. Maria beat me to Kings Cross, which just goes to prove that she can nearly torque the pedals off a bicycle!

Having reached Kings Cross and found the Thames-link station (which is not in Kings Cross), we discovered that the trains weren’t running. Go to Kentish town, they said. It’s not that far, they said. Catch the bus – oh, not you with the bike – you’ll have to ride there. And so, I hopped onto another bus and Maria, with a great degree of trepidation and in a fair bit of pain by now (her toes were the only things that touched the pedals, she tells me that isn’t a comfortable way to ride a bike), followed the bus to Kentish Town.

She kept up with the speeding bus quite well until she got a puncture. She managed to catch up to the bus without air in the back tyre just long enough to gain my attention by banging on the window. I alighted at the next stop, and without a clear idea of where we were, we endeavoured to follow in the bus’ wake, now carrying the bicycle because the tyre had dislodged from the rim and couldn’t be rolled. A decidedly unpleasant six kilometres later, we managed to ‘person-handle’ the bike onto a rather flash looking train. We certainly didn’t look flash by this point, but after a change onto the tube, arrived at Willesden Green and decided to celebrate our day of healthy endeavour with a Chinese takeaway meal that could have fed a family of ravenous Tasmanian Devils. Then we collapsed into a state near unto death, having exercised non-stop for nine and a half hours. Suffice it to say, we didn’t ride to work on Monday.

Fixing the puncture proved a more formidable challenge than one could have expected. Having extracted the offending bladder, Maria returned it to the hire shop during her lunch break, and brought home a new tube, and a maintenance kit including a small pump. A piece of advice for young players: valves on bicycle tubes here are very strange. The pump we had came with a useful lack of instructions, and after an hour of fruitless pumping, swearing and gesticulating, we ‘googled’ the bicycle valve and discovered the problem. The pump is designed to fit both major types of valve, and had a component which, unbeknown to us, could be reversed, thus allowing the alternative valve to be addressed. More swearing, pumping and gesticulating ensued, but this time the result was an inflated tyre, rather than a deflated ego. I was really getting to love the whole bicycle experience by this point.

The next day we started riding to work together. It takes us about fifty minutes to ride to work, and I feel pretty good when I get to work (with the not insignificant exception of my posterior, which is currently suing the rest of my body on the grounds of wilful neglect). It takes an hour to ride home however as there is an uphill section (not a big hill, just a gentle incline over 4 miles) that results in me switching to first gear and hardly moving despite considerable sweating and furious pedalling. It really is quite embarrassing being overtaken by a granny with a walking frame. The ride home has been compounded this last week by gale force head winds. In addition, the stability of the weather can only be described as ‘Melbournesqe’. A nice sunny day can turn into a squally mess faster than you can say ‘nah, I won’t need my Gore-tex!’ (As we have written this blog, the weather has changed from warm and sunny, to a hail storm, to a tropical downpour, and now its bright and sunny again).

And so I pedal to work, peddle my wares and then pedal home to my lovely petal. (Sorry, I just couldn’t resist.) And that’s about all that’s happening in our little world right now. London is in drought, with the wettest May on record. Ol’ Blighty is a strange place indeed. We shall write more after our sojourn in Bruges in two weeks time. Till then, take care, and we will attempt to do the same.

PS

We wrote this blog entry in Greenwich before attending a lecture at the Royal Naval Museum. The lecture was organised by the Flamsteed Astronomy Society (Flamsteed was the first Astronomer Royal) and the guest lecturer was the 17th Astronomer Royal, Sir Arnold Wolfendale. The lecture was on the origins of the universe, Sir Wolfendale being a specialist on background radiation. It was an incredibly entertaining lecture, with descriptions of the early universe (from 10-47s) sprinkled with anecdotes about meetings with Prince Philip and Margaret Thatcher. It has been a real highlight of our London experience thus far.

Fletch’s tip for new travellers

As a learned audience, I’m sure you all understand the difference between writing in first, second and third person. Whilst both Maria and I wrote this blog entry, it was written in the Fletch person, thus allowing a more consistent telling. The Maria person is nicer than me.

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Living Large in London - 9th May 2006

Hi all. We know that you can’t live without updates on our comings and goings, so here is a brief overview of the month that was.

Since our jaunt in Paris we became increasingly disillusioned with the bustling world of hospitality, and realised that in order to escape, we had to set a departure date and trust desperation to help us find work and lodging. This tactic worked fairly well, as we are no longer enjoying the questionable luxury of hotel living. To give you an idea of how swiftly events swept us from sunny Staines, here is a basic timeline

18th April - Weeks notice given at Hotel Ugly Duckling. Slight panic ensues
19th April - Maria interviews for temp work (thanks Jacqui!) We inspect possible accommodation
20th April - We find our new studio flat and sign for 3 months
21st April - Fletch interviews for new job (successfully)
22nd - 25th April - Work 12 hour days as punishment for resigning. NB that every other member of floor staff also gave notice during this period
26th April - Maria starts first temp placement, Fletch moves house (in a Ford KA believe it or not)
27th April - Maria interviews for long term placement in patent attorney practise. Impresses the sox off them and shopping spree for suitable work-wear ensues
28th April - Fletch sees the Australian dollar conversion from the shopping spree and immediately dies. A strong coffee is waved under his nose to revive him. Heart palpitations continuing...
2nd May - Fletch starts work

So as you can see we had a busy little period. Since starting work we have been a bit too busy to do much else but work and make our apartment a cosy nest. However with the weather warming up, Fletch’s one day off per week can hardly be spent indoors, so we have been visiting various London landmarks, such as Westminster Abbey, the Royal Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and the Nero Cafe at Covent Gardens.

On our first Sunday off in 3 months (30th April), we got God. Since the only way to get into Westminster for free is to attend a service, Maria & I swallowed our Catholic sense of superiority and attended the C of E Matins service. This was quite special as the entire service, excepting of course the homily, was sung in harmonies by the all-male choir. The service was quite casual, with only slightly more pomp than a graduation ceremony. The attendants shepherded us around so that we wouldn’t accidently see more of the church than we had to as freeloading worshippers. I’m honestly not sure why they don’t just do away with religious worship entirely so that tourists can tramp through seven days a week.

Following this we jumped on the tube out to Greenwich and I took a look at the bits of the observatory that I had missed last time, including the telescope that sits on the Prime Meridian, whilst Maria strolled through the markets. We have found ourselves drawn to Greenwich and may look at moving there once our three months is up here.

Last Sunday, we found ourselves drawn once again to Greenwich. This time we had a poke through the Maritime Museum. The Museum is a very large building with not a great deal in it. It does contain Nelson’s uniform and a lot of lovely model boats, but Maria is sharing my museum fatigue, and we were drawn toward the lovely soft grass in the park outside. With summer come on, the days are lovely and the vegetation is the most curious colour (green, rather than khaki or brown. Strange huh?).

In other news, Maria has joined the ranks of the crazed two wheelers and is getting plenty of exercise dodging busses on her way to work. She believes that it is safer than braving the crowds on the underground, and if you have ever tried to beat a chav to a seat, then you know what she means. Fletch obtained a leather jacket and is now apparently giving up future teaching ambitions as he is “too kool for skool”. Spelling that atrociously almost broke my fingers...

Anyhow, we hope our loyal legion of fans are in good health and high spirits, or are at least playing up as we would expect. We shall update you again soon. Please keep the emails coming, as very few people in England are worth talking to, and we do get lonely.

PS - we now have internet at home, so we ought to be better at keeping in touch from now on.

Fletch's tip for new travellers

A secret has been kept from mankind for too long. It is the secret of the ultimate dessert. It took the courage of the team at Wagamamas to bring it to the world. It is: the Tamarind and Chili Pavlova! I can now die a happy man...

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Paris for a day - 06/04/06

Welcome to a new edition of Maria and Fletch abroad. Whilst it is true that we have been slack and not updated our blog for some time, this reflects the relatively ‘hum drum’ nature of our current existence. In the past month since leaving the Eastern European capital of Wych Cross for the Scottish/Australian Mecca of Staines, Maria and I have been working 48+ hour weeks and tying up some loose ends. Beyond a flying visit to the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, and a day at the British Museum during which I found I have become cruelly afflicted with ‘museum burnout’, our time has been used most unfashionably constructively. We found some relief through Maria’s keen powers of observation and the Daily Telegraph. Armed with four ‘passwords’ from editions of the ‘Tele’ we booked cheap Eurostar tickets and embarked on a quick visit to Paris.

Having convinced our Scottish managers of the grave necessity of our visiting the French capital, we secured a day shift on Tuesday, a Wednesday off and a Thursday night shift. They punished us by organising a Leffe tasting session for Thursday morning, but our enthusiasm remained. Thus on Tuesday we completed our shift at 5pm, and after a brief scramble to pack a minimum of essentials, headed off to catch our train.

The train from Staines to London stops at Waterloo, which by happy coincidence in the London port for the Eurostar. After a brief fight with the evening crowd, a nutritionist’s delight complete with onion rings, and a magazine grab for the journey, we checked through customs and boarded the Eurostar.

The Eurostar is a train much like any other. The seating is aircraft style and whilst relatively comfortable, the only remarkable feature it has is its length. As you walk down the platform to the ‘cattle class’ end of the train, you being to think that you are going to walk to Paris!

We arrived on time, though late in the evening, at the Paris terminal, Gare du Nord, so we were glad that we had booked a room on laterooms.com that is about 50m from the train station. We crawled into bed about midnight, French time (an hour later than British summer time), and set an alarm to herald the day of adventure we had been looking forward to.

On Wednesday morning, fortified with croissants and strong coffee, we decided to catch a bus tour around the city. An open topped, double-decker bus with multi-lingual commentary is a great way to get your bearings in an unfamiliar city. The tour let us get on and off the bus as much as we liked and services ran every fifteen minutes. Our bus tour started, where else, but the Eiffel Tower. We caught the metro, now being quite adept at deciphering what were once incoherent squiggles, but which to the experienced eye are in fact maps of the mass transit systems in a sprawling metropolis such as Paris, to a station not far from the Eiffel Tower and, surprisingly, right next door to the Australian embassy. It’s a stirring moment when you walk out of the station expecting to see a great cultural icon and the first thing you see is the Southern Cross, fluttering proudly in the cold morning breeze. It makes one walk that little bit taller (‘cause of course I’m not tall enough as it is).

The crowd around the tower didn’t seem too overwhelming so we decided to take the bus tour first and the tower later. After a quick jaunt around the Sene including the Louvre, we made our first stop the Cathedrale Notre Dame. A beautiful, gothic cathedral, the building of the Notre Dame commenced in the 12th century, but took 200 years of voluntary labour to complete. The result is a soaring, buttressed space of great proportions, with intricate stained glass and a very spiritual feel, compromised only slightly by the constant procession of tourists which abates not even for mass. Maria and I stayed for a service, and it gave us a sense of what mass must have been like before Vatican II, since we didn’t understand a word of what was being said. Obviously the spirit of socialism and denial of economic rationalism permeates even the Catholic Church in France, as it took no less than nine priests to say a midday, weekday mass. Surely some of these would be of more use in the struggling antipodean diocese where masses aren’t being said for want of a parish priest. Unfortunately I haven’t the connections with Benedict that I had with JP, so I am powerless in this instance. Anyhow, the side chapels and ecclesiastical artwork made the visit a very satisfying experience.

After a few photos it was back on the bus, with our next stop on the Champs Elysee. We took luncheon within sight of the Arc de Triumphe and, as per usual, my love of anchovies led me to a soul searching bout of menu envy. The espresso to finish my meal reinforced me for some more exploration, so we trekked the thirty odd metres to the Arc de Triumphe for a goosy gander and some photos. As a monument to Napolean’s ego, it is quite a statement and the carving is of the highest order, showing all of the restraint the French are famous for.

Back on the bus and off to the Eiffel Tower. The signage on the queue promised us less than a half hour’s wait for our tickets. ‘Great’ I thought, and a mere ten minutes later we had our tickets. What nobody mentioned was the hour we had to wait in the queue on the 2nd level in the freezing wind before being able to ascend to the very top. A large group of hyperactive, Spanish high-school kids raised the irritation levels somewhat, although I’m sure it would have been worse had I been able to understand them. The view from the top was moderately spectacular, but it was the journey in the elevator that really made the wait worthwhile. The true size of the tower can not be appreciated without that ascent.

Our obligatory visit to the tower complete, we decided to cap off our day with a visit to Sacra Cour. We caught the metro to the base of the hill upon which Sacra Cour rests, and caught a contraption called a ‘furniculari’, but which I would call a cable-car, to the summit. We entered the very eastern inspired church just as the priest was launching into his homily as we had a peek at the various side chapels and shrines around the sides and rear of the church until the priest started the eucharistic rites. At this point we sat and listened, for the dome roof, complete with painted scene of Frenchmen and angels attending Jesus in glory, beautifully augmented the real harmonies being sung by real nuns with really bad habits. This time the worshippers were disturbed by a noisy school group, but a very serious looking black man in a suit ushered them outside for a real tongue lashing. The feeling of peace and tranquillity in Sacra Cour is impossible to express in written form, and since I wasn’t allowed to take photographs, you will just have to go there to see what I mean.

After Sacra Cour, we wandered around the streets of Mont Martre before catching the metro back to Gare du Nord for a bit of kip before our 9.10 train back to London.

I write this from the Eurostar on the return journey. Overall I think Paris is a beautiful city to visit, and I’m sure I shall do so again, perhaps when we’re fabulously wealthy, so as to submerge ourselves more into the culture and culinary delights it has to offer. Anyhow, that’s all for now, so take it easy, and we’ll write more soon.

PS And congratulations to Joe and Nicole, whose 8 pound 2 ounce baby girl, Rachel Elizabeth, was born today. Good luck to you both!

Fletch’s tip for new travellers.

You may not speak the same language as the annoying adolescent trying to push in front of you, but a judicious elbow to the ear translates into any language.

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On the move...

We got sick of our jobs in Wych Cross, so we asked to be moved to somewhere more hip and happening than the middle of the forest. So, on Saturday, we packed our belongings (which took a mighty 20 minutes), hopped on a train and headed to the town of Staines, only 30 minutes from London.

We moved into our Thames riverfront address early in the afternoon. The rest of the afternoon was taken up with spending the pub's money finding furnishings that suited our taste and their budget. We had quite a successful afternoon and now have a tastefully decorated room, complete with aluminium blinds that Fletch screwed into place using only a pocketknife and a spoon. Talk about ingenuity :)

Must dash, as this update in the local McDonalds is costing us the earth. Til next time, lots of love.

Fletch's tips for new travellers
Men instinctively know that they have to own a car. I have discovered why. Without a car, you won't own a garage. Without a car or a garage you don't have anywhere for tools. Then you end up screwing things in with a spoon. I feel violated...

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Nothing interesting to read here… 17-28th February

We’ve started to get pretty bored with our jobs here at the hotel. As nice as the hotel and surrounds are, our attention has shifted to the future. Maria is spending time at the British Library, and I’m starting to reel in as many contacts as I can to get a foot into the door of the industry over here. We therefore have our heads down, bottoms up, and are spending more time staring into computer screens than serving beers. So not a lot to report at the moment.

Fletch’s tips for new travellers

Always drink the cask ale that everyone else is drinking. If you drink a less popular ale, your pint may have been sitting in the line from the cellar to the tap for a couple of hours or more.

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Time for some hum drum... 8-16 February

Well things have basically quietened down for us now. We have settled into our respective roles at the hotel, Maria doing all the work, and me chatting to customers at the bar, and a routine is starting to emerge. We have two days off every week and those two days are now allegedly Wednesday and Thursday. We therefore plan to use these days to see what’s around the southern part of England.

The week was dominated with work as the roster changed such that we worked from Wednesday through till Tuesday. As a result of the renovations currently being done on the hotel, the power and hot water have been on and off in different parts of the hotel over the past week, and we have had workmen in the roof removing asbestos as well. The result is that various parts of the hotel have been off limits, including the laundry. We had to spend a night in one of the guest rooms (don’t all offer your condolences at once), as there is some weird pulsing noise in our bedroom stopping us from sleeping, and nobody can work out where its coming from.

Our only real excursion this week was yesterday, Thursday 16th. One of the hassles we have had starting work is getting a national insurance number (kind of like a tax file number and Medicare number rolled into one.) The boss told us to ring the Eastbourne office of social security, but it is almost impossible to get through. Either the line is engaged, or it just rings forever. We decided to give up ringing them and see what happened if we just turned up. At the last minute Maria decided to try them one last time before we left to at least get directions to the office. She miraculously managed to talk to a person, and found that we shouldn’t be going to the Eastbourne office from Wych Cross, we should be going to the Woking office. So he gave us the number of the Woking office and Maria tried to call them whilst I looked up Woking on our map. Maria failed to get onto Woking, which was a good thing as I found that Woking is in fact in Surrey, about 5 miles north of Guildford. Suffice it to say that we weren’t going to find it very easy to get to Woking on public transport. So Maria tried the Brighton office instead. When Maria rang the Brighton office, she got the same person answering the phone as when she had rung the Eastbourne office. So this seemingly omnipresent voice on the other end of the phone (the telecomnicon?) arranged a 3:10pm meeting for us at Brighton.

Armed with a stack of ID and some jaffa cakes, we found a transport solution that only required one bus and one train to get us to Brighton in about half an hour, and off we trudged for a day at the beach.

Brighton is demographically quite different from anywhere else I have been in the UK thus far. It is very much a university town, and university towns always have a certain feel about them. We took a stroll from the railway station down toward the beach, taking a quick diversion to make sure we knew where the social securities office was before going to the pier.

Apparently ‘beach’ has quite a different definition here. I can understand now why Churchill said ‘We will fight them on the beaches’. Anyone invading Brighton beach would become so depressed they would turn around and go home before they could reach for the Prozac. Brighton beach was cold, rocky, grey and horrible. On a serious note though, it suited me far more than the bright sun and sand of an Australian beach. ‘Why?’ you may ask. I need no justification for avoiding it! A quick walk down the pier, a few snaps with the camera, and into the fish and chip shop for lunch.

That was a mistake. Fish was evident, as were chips. One merely had to fight through two inches of solid batter to reach them. Ordering the large cod and large haddock was also a misjudgement. Indeed these fish must be man eaters in the wild. The fish were quite tasty, under all that batter, but Englishmen merely give you a look of blank incomprehension when you ask whether you can have fish without batter. Apparently they pull them out of the sea battered. Oh well.

Once we found the relative safety of the inside of the fish and chip shop, the sun mocked us by breaking through the clouds. I haven’t worn my sunglasses since we arrived in the UK, but I could have used them then.

After some brief shopping, we had our appointment at the social securities office. The staff there have quite a harried look about them, and become very friendly and helpful when they find that you aren’t a pregnant, teenage junky wanting to yell or cry at them. We should have our number in four to six weeks, and then the formalities of working in England are over for the time being.

We caught the train/bus home and that was our big day out for the week.

Take care

Fletch’s tips for new travellers

The most popular beer here seems to be Fosters. Nobody has yet been able to tell me why…

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Goodbye Germany, hello England – 31st January to 7th February

We have been a little lax with writing the diary this week, blame it on the adjustment to a working life. Our last entry was from Germany, where we were enjoying the hospitality provided by our friends, the Jakobs. We spent a lovely final day with Gitte and Stefan on the 30th. They took us to Hanau to visit a palace, but it was closed. Instead, we cuddled up to some friendly (and sleepy) bronze lions and took a stroll around the palace gardens. We then went for a walk through the Staadtspark Wilhelmsbad, a veritable winter-playground of frozen lakes and creeks, windmills, and lookouts. We skidded along the frozen ice, walking out to a small island in the middle of the lake, upon which is a pyramid. Fletch declared it the best he had ever seen :) We had a lovely time strolling around the park, enjoying the crisp cold air and the lovely blue sky. Little did we know that this was the last sunshine we would see…


When we had exausted ourselves and Gitte’s dog, we went home. We all had an early start the next morning, us to England and Gitte & Stefan to work, so it was early to bed and early to rise. The 31st was a foggy and very cold day. We caught a train to Frankfurt’s main station and then a bus to the Hahn airport to catch our flight back to Stansted. It was mid-morning when we arrived at Hahn but the fog made everything quite dark. It was only beginning to lift when our plane took off three hours later.

When we arrived in London, it was mid-afternoon. We caught a bus into Oxford Street, where we had to attend to some banking matters. This achieved, we headed for Victoria Station to catch a train to our new home. Commuting via tube and train with backpacks during peak-hour is not an experience we would recommend. Our travel woes were compounded by line-failure near our destination, so we had to hop off the train and catch a bus to the station of East Grinstead, in West Sussex. From there we caught a taxi (having missed the last bus) to a small dot on the map that is known as Wych Cross. It is here, at a 17th century hotel, we will be living for the next few months.

Wych Cross is several miles inside the border of East Sussex and is in the middle of the Ashdown Forest. It is a junction on the A22 motorway and home only to a car-yard, a hotel, and a rose-shop. Oh, and a bus stop. This bus-stop will quickly become our lifeline with the outside world. The hotel is a lovely old building, complete with lovely old building pros and cons. The atmosphere gives an impression of a hunting lodge and has excellent heating but the plumbing leaves something to be desired. Our room is in the oldest part of the hotel and from the road looks quite charming. It is a comfortable space and we have our own en-suite bathroom. All staff rooms are along the road-side, this being the noisiest part of the hotel. However, having come from living on a main road in St. Lucia, the road here is positively peaceful.

Our first day at Wych Cross was taken up with settling in. We started work on our second day. I am working in the hotel’s restaurant and Fletch is manning the bar. At present, the hotel is a bit overstaffed, so our first days of work were very quiet. Several people are leaving around February 16th, so things should settle into a normal routine around then. Our working day is not overly strenuous. I do the breakfast shift, which lasts until 3pm, and Fletch does a split shift across lunch and dinner.

In our free time (Monday & Tuesday being our days off), we have taken a few walks around the neighbourhood. As I mentioned, Wych Cross is in the Ashdown Forest. As the area around Wych Cross is wooded, it took several days for us to discover that the title of forest is misleading: it is only called a forest because the royal family used to hunt there. It is an ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’, aka AONB (the Government’s acronym, not ours), consisting primarily of heathland. It is considered to be the best-preserved heathland in the southeast of England and is the source of some 80 miles of walking tracks. We need to get some maps of the walking paths (and the visitor centre is only open on the weekend, which we didn’t know), so we have thus far stuck a main path that goes through a nearby golf-course and past a llama farm. Today, however, we took the hotel-manager’s two golden Labradors for a walk: more precisely, they took us for a walk. They led us on a path through the woodland – we had no idea where we were but they did and an hour and half later we ended up back at the hotel.

The rest of our day today has been spent decorating our room. The interior is shabby, so we have been hanging bright calendars and the papyri we purchased in Egypt to try and cheer the room up. We’ve managed to get lots of colour on the walls: an alpine scene on one wall, a 1962 Morris Mini 850 in bright blue on the other. The camel that Fletch traded his watch for at Sinai is hanging on one of the other walls, exclaiming ‘Welcome to Egypt’, flanked by papyri. It’s a bit chaotic but does take attention away from the holes and cracks.

BTW, we celebrated our 1.5th anniversary today! We were going to shout ourselves a coffee in East Grinstead to celebrate, but we didn’t have enough money.

Fletch’s tips for new travellers

The Shandy is still a popular drink here in England, unlike Australia where it has fallen out of fashion. I have thus learnt a new thing!

Directions for making a Shandy:

Follow either of these two procedures to make the perfect Shandy

1 Fill glass to half full with lemonade. Top the glass with beer.

2 Fill the glass to half full with beer. Top with lemonade. Become overwhelmed with froth. Look awkward and embarrassed. Pour what is left of the concoction down the sink after much has already spilled on the floor. Get told off by manager for pouring beer down the sink. Use procedure 1. Then mop bar floor…

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Germany – 24th – 29th January 2006

On Tuesday (24th), we caught a flight from Stansted to Frankfurt Hahn. Both airports are located in out-of-the way places, and it took us twice as long to get to and from the airports than the actual flight between countries. Our arrival into Hahn was delayed for an unknown reason, which resulted in us having to queue outside before being able to pass through immigration. The delay meant we also missed our bus to Frankfurt’s Central station, resulting in further queuing outside. By the time we got on the bus we were frozen through and we were trying to guess the temperature. Neither of us came close – it was -7ºC. No wonder we were cold!

The purpose of our visit to Germany is to visit my friend Gitte and her family. I first met the Jakobs through a student exchange to Germany in 1997 and I have been back to stay with them several times. Gitte is now a teacher and lives with her partner, Stefan, just outside Frankfurt. Her parents, Kirsten and Joachim, live several hours away, in a town called Borken.

Our first morning in Germany was a big lie-in. Gitte and Stefan both had to work a half-day, so we did very little while they were at work. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day when they came home, so Gitte took us to a nearby village for a walk and some sightseeing. The village, Gelnhausen, is the birthplace of Paul Reis, who invented the telephone concurrently with (but independently from) Alexander Graham Bell. It is a very old village and has some lovely buildings, including one with cast-iron cats on the roof. As we walked around Gelnhausen it began to snow. Undeterred, we went to the ruins of a castle built by the German king, Barbarossa (a.k.a Frederick I). Unfortunately, we were unable to enter the ruins so we went back to Gitte’s house.

We had a wonderful evening with Gitte and Stefan, eating a delicious meal and playing Uno. The next morning, none of us felt like doing the dishes so we went out and bought a dishwasher. Gitte went off to school and Stefan took us to Flörsbachtal for some sledding. We passed several hours there, getting covered in bruises and having a great time. For novices, we found the hills quite steep enough, although Stefan assured us they barely counted as hills. Fletch had tremendous trouble NOT hitting trees, fence-posts and the like, whereas I just had trouble staying on the sled. We had a wonderful time.

On Friday, we drove to Borken to spend the weekend with Gitte’s parents. We arrived in the afternoon and spent several hours showing them photos of our trip – there are over 1000 so far! We then had a dinner party.

(Fletch subs in)

Saturday dawned bright and clear and cold. The meals here tend to encourage you to go for a long walk. Thus after extracting ourselves from the breakfast table, we grabbed some sleds and headed to a ‘real hill’ named Weinkopf. We took a delightful stroll through a snowy forest before launching from the top of the hill. There really wasn’t much snow on the ground by this time, but it was still quite icy. The result was a fast and extremely bumpy ride.

We then strolled back through the forest, past some lumberjacks with their chainsaws, to the cars.

Borken was originally a coal-mining town. Brown coal was mined underground until 1988 when an underground explosion killed at least 50 people and closed the mining operations. As a result the mines have been allowed to fill with water from natural springs, creating lakes. Each of the lakes is set-aside for a different purpose. One is for swimming, one is for wind surfing and aqua golf, and a third is currently in the process of filling and will be used for speedboats.

The first lake we visited, Singlis, has a coast guard boat moored in it. Why they decided to stick an old coast guard boat in the artificial lake I’m not entirely sure, but it is now used as a club and for small functions. This lake allowed me my first opportunity to walk on water. The aqua golf intrigued me, but I’d need to return in summer to see how it is played.

The next lake we visited is called Stockelache. In summer, thousands of people descend on Stockelache as it is the main ‘swimming hole’ in the area. When we visited, people were using it as an ice skating ring. Standing on a lake is quite fun, however the occasional growl and groan comes from the ice. The prospect of an icy bath when the ambient temperature is about -4˚C is distinctly distasteful for someone like me who will usually only swim when the temperature is above 35˚C. Thus the wonder of standing on a lake was tempered by the unease of standing on a VERY COLD lake.

We returned home for an afternoon nap before going out to a Greek restaurant for dinner. The experience of choosing food from a Greek menu can be fun anytime. Choosing from a Greek menu when the explanations are in German is much more interesting. I finally recognised gyros and was pleasantly surprised when it came with fried onion and baked potatoes.

After a lovely meal we came home for an espresso and a warm bed.

Today is Sunday and it is a lovely day, inside the house. It’s apparently bitterly cold outside, but we haven’t been tempted to find out. Tomorrow we return to Gitte’s house before flying to Stansted on Tuesday. Till we talk again, take care.

Fletch’s tip for new travellers

Don’t knock long underwear until you have tried it. Then, don’t give it back. (Danke schoen Jakobs)

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Off to London to visit the Queen - 23rd January 2006

Our final morning in Egypt began like so many on this trip – EARLY! At the gentle hour of 4am, we set off for the Cairo airport with two others from our trip. We had independently organised a taxi-driver to take us, but the doorman was very insistent that we use a different taxi-driver (he wouldn’t get a cut from the other driver). At that hour of the morning, it’s not really worth arguing, so we gave in and took the hotel’s taxi.

We were out at the airport a bit early (the other girl’s flight was an hour before ours) and we had to sit outside for half an hour before they would let us in. However, we were the first to check in, got excellent seats, and spent the rest of our time in the coffee shop waiting for the flight to depart.

The BA flight was uneventful and we arrived at Heathrow 40 minutes earlier than expected. We had psyched ourselves up for a difficult immigration experience and in the end it was a piece of cake. We had our bags and were outside Heathrow within 20 minutes of landing.

We caught the tube into London, which we paid for with £12 of small change – 1p and 2p pieces. We’re not sure how we came to possess £12 in small change, but when we moved our stuff to Caboolture we discovered a bag of coins amongst my possessions, although I’ve no memory of collecting them. Anyway, we’ve been carrying these (heavy) coins around for the past month and the tube was our first opportunity to dispose of them. The ticket vendor smiled and said “of course” when I asked if we could pay with change: the smile changed somewhat when he realised it was copper. He took the money but told us for future reference that the vendors only have an obligation to take 20p in copper. We dashed off with our tickets before he could change his mind.

The tube ride was smooth sailing, the only disappointment being that they have changed the ‘mind the gap’ recording to something more banal. We went first to Oxford Circus to open our bank account and then headed to our youth hostel. It was in a slightly rough area of London and we were not put at ease by the 6ft signs telling us that a man was beaten to death there a few days earlier. Unfortunately, the hostel wouldn’t refund our booking fee on the basis of murder, so we took a private room and then headed out to do a few more chores and some sightseeing.

In the end, the chores took longer than expected (don’t they always!) and it was dark before we had a chance to start seeing the sights. We opted to eat dinner first, so we went to a pub called ‘The Shakespeare’, which is near Victoria station. Fletch was really looking forward to trying some authentic British beers and was very disappointed to find that the offerings were all imported. He forced himself to have one anyway and we then walked down to Buckingham Palace. It is lit up at night and looks quite lovely. We walked around the Palace and along the Mall for a while, seeing Big Ben in the distance. When it became too cold for further adventures, we decided to call it a night and headed back to the hostel.

Fletch’s tip for new travellers

When we left Australia, many of our family members wanted to know why we were choosing the most dangerous places on earth as holiday destinations. Having visited London I now understand what they meant. The paranoia in London is so palpable, one wonders whether it is actually counter-productive to scare people so much.

Seriously though, I felt really secure and safe in Syria and Jordan. I also felt quite safe in Egypt, though I never took my hand off my wallet. London feels much more dangerous than the middle-east, and the ambient chatter is no less difficult to understand.

So until next time insha-Allah, shokran and ma salama.

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Cairo - 21st & 22nd January 2006

I am writing this while sitting on the bathroom floor of our hotel room in Cairo. It is approximately midday (none of the many and varied watches that Fletch has purchased over the past month are working, so I don’t actually know the time) and Fletch is sound asleep, so I’m trying not to disturb him. Our room here is like a cave – it is pitch black and very quiet. We’ve had some very noisy hotel rooms over the past few weeks, making this a pleasant change.

Our tour officially finished this morning at breakfast, although in reality it finished yesterday when the train pulled into Cairo. In many respects it is a relief to be off the tour. Some of the people were very draining to be around, so it is nice to have some space from them.

The train ride from Luxor was fairly uneventful, the only highlight being that the three most annoying people on our tour were ‘accidentally’ given tickets for a different train. With them dispatched, the trip was peaceful and we both managed to nap along the way. The train went quite slowly due to very heavy fog – so heavy that we couldn’t see the opposite bank of the Nile. However, we only arrived about an hour later than scheduled, so no major hassles.

Our first order of business when we arrived at the hotel was to sort out our washing – everything smells of either camels or dust, so we couldn’t put it off any longer. Having dispensed the clothes to the laundry, we headed to downtown Cairo to find something to eat.

There is very little to see in downtown. So we wandered back to Dokki (the suburb we are staying in) and went to the Sheraton for lunch. It was lovely to sit in their lounge and enjoy some respite from the constant noise of Egypt. It is difficult to describe in words the cacophony that is a constant companion in this country. The situation is compounded by the ever-present hawker, who just will not take ‘no thank-you’ for an answer. It is tiring to say ‘no thank-you’ all day long and it is unpleasant having people walking just a step behind you all the time. To sit by a fountain in the Sheraton, eating sumptuous Italian food, was a very agreeable way to pass the afternoon.

Last night we rejoined the group for a farewell dinner with our tour leader. He took us into the main bazaar in Cairo, the name of which I don’t know how to spell but is said something like ‘Kalid Kalily’. We walked though the bazaar for a while and then went to a restaurant in the bazaar for dinner. Later still, we went to a pub for a few drinks and some dancing. It was around 2am when we came back to the hotel.

A few hours have passed. Fletch finally woke up and we went out for a stroll. Along the way, Fletch got a shave and we got led on several journeys by people trying to get us into their shops. We were looking for specific café that we read about in the newspaper, but couldn’t find it anywhere (no thanks to the people who deliberately misdirected us). In the end we gave in and caught a taxi. Even the taxi got lost, but finally we arrived. Chocofolie awaited us :)

This café has free wireless internet and a whole host of delicious chocolate offerings. Once we’ve finished up here, we’re going to go back and pack in preparation for our journey to London tomorrow. We’ll be in Germany on Tuesday, so you can look forward to lots of interesting stories, and the Jakobs can look forward to having us there in person! We’re very excited, see you soon!!

Fletch’s tips for new travellers

Trains in Egypt are non-smoking. This means that the smokers congregate at the vestibules at each end of the carriage to enjoy a cigarette. You may find yourself seated next to the door leading to the vestibule. Egyptians seem constitutionally incapable of closing a door after themselves. Resist the temptation to ask of the latest miscreant, “Where you born in a tent?”. The slightly hurt and confused Bedouin may indeed reply, “Yes”.

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Valley of the Kings – 20th January 2006

We awoke early once more for a tour of the Valley of the Kings. We had to catch a motor boat across the Nile, which meant first climbing through a half dozen other boats to get into the one moored furthest from the pontoon. Our group met with the donkey boys on the other side who were to transport us to the site. We decided not to catch donkeys to the valley as Maria had had enough of riding animals by this point, and my feet tended to drag along the ground since the donkey isn’t an overly tall creature. Thus relatively safely ensconced in a cab, we rode in style to the valley whilst everyone else struggled with his or her wilful donkeys.

We met Saleh once again at the site entrance and he decided that another from the group would be his wife today, as he wasn’t greedy and didn’t want to deprive me of my wife for another day. This sentiment I agreed with whole-heartedly. After the usual security procedures, which involved walking through a madly beeping gate whilst the guards thoroughly ignored us, we took the short walk to the first tomb which we were to visit. Saleh was not allowed inside the tomb with us, but instructed us on the significance of the various elements within the tombs from outside, using his walking stick and the dusty ground as his chalk and blackboard. His knowledge of the tombs was extraordinary.

We visited a total of three tombs during our trip. The first was the tomb of Ramses IV. All of the tombs took many years to carve out the rock of the surrounding hills, and Ramses IV tomb took eight years just to decorate (according to Saleh – the official line is that it was completely built in eight years, but this seems unlikely considering how long the other tombs took to build).

The second tomb we visited was that of Ramses IX and the final one was of Merenptah. The Ramses tombs were both from the 20th dynasty whilst Merenptah was slightly older – 19th dynasty. Whilst all of the tombs in the valley of the kings were from the New Kingdom, they are nonetheless all over 3000 years old. What is remarkable about them is that they still maintain much of their colour. Every possible surface is decorated in carved, painted pictures and hieroglyphs. In the case of Ramses IX, the hieroglyphs indicate that it took 27 years to create the decorated tomb out of the bare rock of the mountainside.

After ogling at the ancient resting places, we decided to find a resting place of our own – for lunch that is. We jumped back in our cab with Saleh for the journey to the Africa Café. On the way we stopped for a look at the statues of Memnon. The are named Memnon by the Greeks after Agamemnon, although the statues are Egyptian and have nothing to do with Agamemnon.

Lunch turned out to be as delicious as it was extensive. Saleh regaled us with expansive tales covering topics of history, religion, philosophy and arranged marriage. We bid Saleh farewell before catching our speedboat back to the east bank of Luxor.

We had a free afternoon in Luxor which we used to pursue our favourite pastimes, (sleep and coffee – you can work out who did which). That evening we set out after some dinner. We had the cheapest restaurant meal ever. Two restaurant owners were standing next to each other outside their respective establishments beseeching custom. Having them bid for your custom was refreshing. We chose the one who offered free fresh juice and a 20% discount and ate our fill.

After satisfying our hunger, we had a look in a jewellery shop. Maria was interested in the ankhs, a symbol a bit like a crucifix, only with a loop at the top. The ankh symbolises the East and West Deserts, the Nile and the Delta, and like many ancient Egyptian symbols, influenced Christian art.

The shop was something of an anomaly in Egypt. Firstly, the proprietor, whilst very attentive and helpful, was not particularly pushy. He gave us a cup of tea and showed us some of his favourite pieces. He was obviously quite proud of his work. Secondly, the merchandise was obviously of a high quality, something rarely seen in Egypt. Finally the prices weren’t outrageously inflated. After some minor haggling, if you couldn’t afford to pay his stated price, he would let you walk away.

We discovered that the distinguishing feature of this gentleman was that he was a Coptic Christian. Usually I’m not one to use religion as a basis for comparison between people, but there are some basic cultural differences that can only be put down to religion in this circumstance (though the differences are cultural I’m sure rather than because of the tenants of the religion itself). As soon as you step into the Christian quarter of an Islamic city, it is like stepping into another city. The streets are clean. Nobody follows you down the street hawking his wares. The difference is stunning. According to our tour leader, the Christians earn on average 4 times what an average Egyptian earns and live in self-sufficient communities. The shop owner told us that the government doctors the census figures to show that there are only 10 million Christians in Egypt instead of 20 million, out of about 80 million people in total. Certainly I get the feeling that everything the Islamic Egyptians do has the feeling of transience. Nothing is made to last. Repeat custom isn’t valued, only the immediate sale.

Anyhow, we bought a quite stunning ankh bracelet made from silver and semi-precious stones, and Maria is yet to take it off. It is a wonderful reminder of our time in Egypt.

We had to run from the shop to get to the bus to take us to the train. The train left for Cairo at 10:30 pm Egypt time. So we boarded at 11pm. And left about 11:30pm.

Fletch’s tip for new travellers

Nobody in Egypt will do anything for you out of the goodness of their hearts. Either they get a cut, or they expect baksheesh. If you don’t think you want someone to take a cut, then you have to deal with locals directly. Take taxi drivers for instance. You say you want to go from downtown to the Sheraton. All he has to do is cross a bridge – probably 10 minutes walk. So he decides he wants to take a roundabout route across 3 bridges and charge you 4 times what it should be. So you tell him exactly how to get their and that you can see the hotel from where you are and that you won’t pay 4 times the price. So he takes you the direct way, sullen though he has become. When you get to the other end he still demands 4 times the correct price. To deal with this, you look very angry and tell him that his mother would be very disappointed and you shake your fist. This will generally attract the attention of the tourist police. When the tourist policeman moves to intervene the cabby will take any price.

At this point you realise that it’s just easier to get the hotel doorman to organise it even though he takes a cut.

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The road to Luxor – 19th January 2006

The Egyptian section of our tour has been very full-on. We are on the move every day and usually we leave early. Today was no exception. The convey to Luxor left at 8am from the outskirts of Aswan, so we were on our bus at 7.30am. Those of us who stayed in the hotel last night are faring considerably better than those from the felucca, so I think we made a wise choice.

Today we were the first vehicle in the convey, so after we picked up our guards and their guns, we were on our way. Our first stop was Kom Ombo temple, which was dedicated to the crocodile god. Unfortunately, the convey allowed only 20 minutes at this temple, approximately ten of which were spent getting a ticket and using the bathroom, so it was really a waste of time and money.

We charged on to the temple at Edfu. This is a huge temple that seems to be in relatively good condition. It is apparently renowned for its colourful walls, but we didn’t manage to find any. We did try to walk to the roof of the temple, but our path was blocked by a gate. We were unable to find a guide (one of the problems when you arrive at the same time as a thousand others), so can’t really tell you much about this temple as we don’t know anything about it. One of the disappointments of the Egyptian leg of this tour has been that our tour leader knows almost nothing about ancient Egypt and tells us nothing about the sites. We’ve found that when we arrive at places, the guides have been prebooked by other tours, so we are left to wander around by ourselves. Nobody brought a guidebook, thinking we’d get the information from the tour leader or a guide: it’s the blind leading the blind, to be sure.

Having spent a tiny amount at Edfu, we moved on to Luxor. This trip took several hours, broken up only by the police demanding that we stop at certain places (usually because they wanted something to eat). It was around 2pm when we arrived in Luxor, but we had to rush to get to the Karnak temple before it closed.

The tour company had arranged a guide for Karnak, and it made a tremendous difference to our enjoyment of the site! The guide, Saleh, is quite famous in guiding circles and was even in the film “Death on the Nile” (playing, of course, a tour guide). He is very knowledgeable and very funny, which is a wonderful combination for a tour guide. He appointed me as his Queen for our time in the site, and he also appointed several concubines and adopted a few sons. At the end of the visit, he divorced me and gifted me to Fletch. It was a good laugh.

Karnak is actually three temples in one and it is quite remarkable. The hall of columns was a standout – 118 columns in a space of about 400sqm. The Egyptian columns are quite different from Greek and Roman ones. There are two types of capital – a closed capital which represents Upper Egypt and an open capital for Lower Egypt (or vice versa, we can’t remember). There was remarkable preservation of colour on the columns. It is very cool being able to see what they would have looked like in antiquity.

After visiting the temple, we caught a horse & carriage back to our hotel in Luxor. We passed the evening strolling around the bazaar in Luxor. We ended up in a papyrus shop after I wrote an address down for someone on the street – he made me a bookmark as a thank-you and then of course tried to sell us lots of papyri. It was a fun night.

Fletch's tips for new travellers

Egypt is a profoundly religious country. Whether Muslim or Christian, the importance of religious devotion is very explicit. The ancient Egyptians themselves held devotion to their gods as so important that they built the most resilient structures in history as a means of delivering their gods on earth to the afterlife.

The reason for all of this devotion becomes clear as you travel through Egypt. Daily life abounds with miracles. Really it does. Let me give you give a few examples of miracles:

When you get a hot shower
When your taxi driver takes you where you want to go without having to resort to fisticuffs
When the train arrives within 2 hours of the specified arrival time
When you get all of your laundry back
And its clean
And its dry
When you manage to get out of a bazaar and you still have your wallet, your wife and your sanity

This is the reason that anything that is planned in Egypt happens “Insha’Allah” (God willing).

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Aswan - 18th January 2006

We arrived in Aswan late yesterday after our horrible train experience. It was basically time to eat dinner, so we went to the Old Cataract Hotel (of Agatha Christie fame) but were told we didn’t meet the dress standards. Instead, we had some street food and then shopped for some fancy clothes for the Nubian party scheduled for tonight. Maria bought a stunning red number – literally with bells on. I chose a dashing, Arabian number in flowing white cotton, complete with an Arafat headpiece. Having obtained our fancy dresses, I bought yet another watch, this time complete with painted date and stopwatch functions. We decided to retire for the night, safe in the knowledge that we would be the trend-setters of the party.

This morning we awoke bright and early (actually dark and early since it was 3am), for a three hour bus ride to Abu Simbel. One of the idiosyncrasies of group travel in this part of the world is that it must be done in a police convoy. This is meant to provide safety for the tourists, but one would question whether it simply paints a bigger target. However, the convoy system means that our travelling is heavily regulated and the convoy leaves whether you are on the bus or not.

(Fletch buries himself in strong coffee, Maria takes over writing blog)

We arrived at Abu Simbel at 7.30am. The convey planned to leave at 9.30am, so we had quite a rush to get through the site in time. We started with a brief overview of the site from a local guide. Abu Simbel is a collection of two temples: one of Ramses II and one for his wife, Nefertari. The site was originally on the banks of the Nile river, but the Aswan Dam meant that the whole site had to be relocated. It now sits on the shores of Lake Nasser, approximately 40m higher and 200m behind its original location.

The first and biggest temple is Ramses’. Four massive statues of him, three of which are nearly complete, flank the entrance. Inside, the walls are intricately decorated with battle and offering scenes. At the very back of the temple is a little room with four statues in it. The fourth is the god of darkness and his statue is never exposed to the light. The other three are bathed in sunlight for 24 minutes twice a year (Oct. 21 and March 21, I think). Unfortunately, when they moved the temple to its new location, they miscalculated when the sun would shine into the room, so it now occurs on October 22nd instead.

Nefertari’s temple is not as big or elaborate as Ramses’, but it is still very lovely. Her’s is a far more peaceful temple, with wonderful statues of a cow goddess. I don’t know her name, but she has a human face and body with cow ears…it is actually a very cute look!

By the time we walked through the temples and around the site, it was time to go. So, back onto the bus….

This afternoon we’ve had transport of a different kind. When we arrived back in Aswan, we got changed into our party gear and walked down to the Nile, where we hopped onto a felucca (sail boat) called the ‘Nubian Dream’. Onboard, we had a delicious lunch while we floated down the Nile. We stopped at a place called ‘Magic Island’, though it is neither magic nor an island. It is, however, the spot for the best coffee in Egypt! I think we’ve mentioned the Nescafe before…if not, coffee here comes in powdered form. Usually, they give you a glass of boiling water, sachets of powered milk and coffee, and you stir it together. It’s not the most satisfying coffee, as you can imagine. However, this Nubian coffee was incredible. No milk, lots of spices (cloves, cinnamon, ginger), freshly roasted coffee beans, served in a gorgeous little cup about the size of an espresso glass. Yummy.

We spent until sunset floating along the Nile. The felucca then docked near a Nubian village and we disembarked to visit a Nubian family for dinner. We sat on their rooftop, eating a very nourishing meal and having henna tattoos put onto our feet (well, just the girls had tattoos done). By about 8pm, everyone was starting to fall asleep, so we walked back to the felucca. A group of us decided not to spend the night on the felucca, opting instead to catch a motorboat back to Aswan. As we walked back through Aswan to our hotel, we got lots of attention from the locals because of our fancy dress – they particularly took a shine to the boys, who were dressed in the galabea (flowing robes). Fletch, particularly, looks striking when dressed as a sheik. My outfit is quite musical, as every step I take is accompanied by the soft tinkle of bells. We’ve had a fun night, but now its time for some sleep. Au revoir…

Fletch’s tips for new travellers

Whilst featuring in ancient Egyptian art, we didn’t see a single Hippo in the Nile in Egypt. Not one. Apparently they used to live in the Aswan area but died out before Christ. *Sniff*

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The train to Aswan - 17th January 2006

Today is a fairly simple post. We spent 18 hours on a train that was scheduled to take 12. Six of those were sitting in the same spot. The doors were locked and we couldn't get off - they actually threatened to shoot us if we did. And we weren't fed. And we didn't sleep. And there were mice. And the bathroom... Lets just say that the bathroom isn't an appropriate subject for this forum.

It wasn't our favourite day thus far.

Fletch's tips for new travellers

If you are on an extended train ride (and you're not entirely sure by how much it is extended) it's a very good idea to only mention the mice you've seen darting around the floor of the carriage to your wife when you are getting off the train. 'nough said.

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Cairo – 16th January 2006

What a day! We awoke and broke our fast before a tour briefing at which we met some new members of our group. We now have two more Brazilians and a Canadian in our troupe. We also met our Egyptologist guide for the day’s proceedings, which included the pyramids on the Giza plateau and the Egyptian museum.

We stumbled onto the coach and the guide started describing 5000 years of Egyptian history. And geography. And agriculture. And hotels. And sports clubs. And recent wars. When we arrived at the Giza plateau, she finally paused to take a breath.

Seeing the Great Pyramid of Cheops rise out of a quite standard suburb of Cairo was a surreal experience. In my mind’s eye, I expected a sweeping desert vista. Instead there are hotels and fast food joints within a couple of hundred metres of the great, geometric monoliths. Nonetheless, the last surviving wonder of the ancient world is an impressive sight to behold.

We had only an hour to soak up what we could of the pyramids close up, so we started by diving into the burial chamber of the Chephren’s Pyramid. Only 150 people per day are allowed into the Great Pyramid of Cheops. Since we didn’t arrive at the plateau first thing in the morning, we had to settle with the Pyramid of Chephren. The Pyramid of Chephren appears higher than that of Cheops, but that is because it is built on higher ground. It is actually a couple of metres shorter. It is the only one of the three large pyramids on the plateau to have any of its capping stones remaining.

We descended into the tomb of King Chephren one at a time, since cameras were not allowed in the tomb. This puzzles me, as the only thing to take a photo of in the tomb is a basalt sarcophagus. Surely the flash isn’t going to ruin a lump of unpainted stone? The passage into the chamber was roughly four-foot high and descended quite steeply, but this didn’t stop plenty of elderly English persons waddling their way down the path. After about 50ft, the passage flattened out and all those people less than 6ft in height could stand up straight. I could smack my head into the roof. This is a sensation I am to become accustomed to, it seems.

After this relatively short reprieve, another four-foot tall corridor led upwards to the King’s burial chamber. This chamber was about 20ft tall, and about 30x10ft in area. There is nothing in there except a stone sarcophagus, and some 19th century French graffiti. Oh, and the requisite old Egyptian guy trying with desperation to extract money from you. Since I couldn’t work out what service he’d done me, I decided to insult him with a 50 piastre note (roughly ten cents Australian). I then smiled blankly and waddled away back down the corridor.

The thing that impressed me about the inside of the pyramid was the oppressive weight of all of that stone. You could almost feel it weighing down on you. Not normally a claustrophobic person, waddling like a duck in a 4ft passage under thousands of tonnes of stone did raise a certain primal level of panic. The other thing that impressed me was the warmth of the pyramid’s interior. Outside it was about 15 degrees Celsius. Inside must have been at least 10 degrees warmer.

After emerging from the pyramid and fighting with a few hawkers, (why do they keep sticking those head dresses on my head?), and refusing the very impressive offer of 2000 camels in exchange for Maria, we went to have a look at the boat housed within a specially built structure next to the great pyramid. The boat was found underneath stone slabs buried next to the great pyramid. The slabs were found using ultra-sound, but the well-preserved remains of a complete boat found underneath were a rare surprise. The boat has been totally restored using the ancient methods. This means that there are no nails or screws. The planks of the boats are fitted together ‘tongue in groove’ style and lashed with ropes. The boat is quite large and an impressive sight mounted on the second level of the museum structure in which it is housed.

This is all we managed to see in an hour, so we got on the bus and headed off to get the famous panoramic shot of the three pyramids together. Having satisfied this requirement, we drove to the lower temple of the Chephren Pyramid, next to which is the Sphinx. The Sphinx is quite a friendly looking human headed lion. The lack of nose and beard doesn’t greatly diminish the ancient look of wisdom as the Sphinx stares towards the rising sun. The lower temple, where the pharaoh was embalmed, contains the oldest columns in human history. At this stage the architects were too scared to build the columns unsupported, so these columns are built into the walls of the temple. The temple, which was originally on the banks of the Nile, is connected to an upper temple by a causeway. The remains of the upper temple are barely recognisable.

We said ma salama (goodbye) to the Sphinx and were deposited at the Papyrus Institute, where we were given a demonstration on the making of papyrus, and then subjected to the hard sell whilst we perused some really quite stunning artwork. We managed to escape with our lives and wallets intact, and clambered onto the bus to get some much-needed lunch.

After lunch we drove to the Egyptian Museum. Our guide gave us a chronological tour of the museum, starting with the pre-dynastic period and ending in the New Kingdom. The scale of the collection at the museum is staggering. One of the guidebooks we have read tells us that if you spent one minute at each exhibit, then you would take nine months to see everything in the museum. We had less than three hours. This was just enough to get a taste for it.

The highlight of the tour was certainly the contents of the tomb of Tutankhamun. So much treasure and gold for such a minor Pharaoh! His burial mask is eleven kilograms of pure, 24 carat gold. The sarcophagi in which his mummy was contained, layered around him like Russian dolls, were incredible in their beauty and sheer weight of gold and precious stones. All matter of paraphernalia was buried with him, including chariots, food, jewellery and his beds and chairs. Evidently he wasn’t a believer in the old axiom ‘you can’t take it with you’.

Another area of interest to us was the room of mummified animals. Two enormous crocodiles and a Nile perch at least 5ft long are displayed amongst a menagerie of cats, dogs, monkeys and horses.

We were on the verge of collapse from exhaustion by the end of our adventures and were very happy to get back on the bus for the return trip to our hotel. After a group meeting we did some repacking of our bags and ducked out for some dinner. In Cairo, there are a few KFC restaurants that exclusively hire deaf people. The service is very efficient and the whole restaurant is nearly silent. The gestures to indicate hot and spicy are something I will remember fondly for the rest of my days. It also goes to show that disabilities such as deafness need not stop people from working in service industries.

Tonight we catch the overnight train to Aswan. I doubt that our feeling of tiredness will be much aided by a night spent on-board a seated carriage. Nonetheless, we shall write again soon to let you know how we went.

Fletch’s tips for new travellers

Egyptian hawkers speak an incredible variety of different languages. My tactic (learnt from another member of the group) is to say ‘no thankyou’ in Arabic (la shukran) and then look puzzled when they try to speak English to me. Finally, in an enquiring voice, I say ‘Icelandic?’ – I have yet to meet an Egyptian who speaks Icelandic.

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St. Catherine and Mt. Sinai – 14th & 15th January 2006

One of the things we wanted to do in Egypt was visit the Mt. St. Catherine monastery, which is located at the base of Mt. Sinai. This monastery is built on the site where Moses saw God transfigured as a burning bush. However, the monastery is closed on Sundays, which is the day that we will be at Mt. Sinai with the group. Tony, our tour leader, suggested that Fletch and I hire a car this morning and go to St. Catherine ourselves. We thought this was a great solution and arranged to be picked up at 8am on Saturday morning.

Mt. Sinai is located about two hours drive from Dahab, through quite desolate landscape. The area is heavily militarised, not only with Egyptian police and soldiers but apparently UN soldiers as well. The Sinai has been a source of conflict between Israel and Egypt and the military presence is to ensure that does not reoccur. For us, this meant the car was stopped frequently for checks. It was quite alarming to realise that while the car was stopped at the checkpoints, there were machine guns pointed at the driver and at us from afar.

The first indication that the morning might not run as smoothly as planned occurred about halfway to St. Catherine. The Egyptian agent who organised the car called us via the driver’s mobile to ask if we would still pay for the car if the monastery was closed when we got there. He kept assuring us that the monastery would be open, so we agreed to continue the drive and to pay for the trip.

Of course, when we arrived at the monastery, we found it was closed. We couldn’t really discern why it was closed, but we think that today must be a feast day. There were quite a few tourists and groups standing around the entrance, and we noticed that some were getting in after they handed over some money to the guard on the door. We decided to give that a try and thus engaged in bribery to enter the monastery.

In return for our cash, we were allowed to walk the path from the monastery gate to the ‘Burning Bush’. It was amusing to note the fire extinguisher sitting beside the bush. We also passed the well of Moses, although others claim that the well is on the path to Mt. Sinai. All in all, we weren’t overwhelmed by what we saw.

However, the guard noticed our disappointment and ran up some stairs to open a door. He called us inside and we found ourselves in the monastery’s museum, which houses a wonderful collection of icons, treasures, books, paintings and vestments. The earliest items date to the fourth century, the more recent to around the 18th. Of course, when other people noticed we had got into the museum, there was a bit of a stampede and the placed was packed in a very short time. We managed to stay in the museum for about 20 minutes. A monk then came in and yelled at everyone to get out, so we all scrambled out as quickly as we could. We didn’t get to see inside the chapel, which would have been the real highlight, but the museum was a fairly good substitute.

After leaving the museum, we drove back to Dahab. We passed a few hours quietly and then boarded our tour bus to drive back to St. Catherine. We arrived at our hotel around 8pm and went straight to bed.

At 2.30am we got our wake up call to get ready to climb Mt. Sinai. There is method in the madness of climbing so early in the day – we’ll see sunrise from the top. At 3am we left the hotel and we were on the path at 3.30am. There was a full moon in the sky, meaning the path was quite well lit. We were both surprised by the number of people on it – eight tour buses of Nigerians and a couple of Koreans as well. Add in the ever-present Bedouin guides and their camels and you have lots of people climbing a mountain in the middle of the night.

We set off quite determined to walk the whole path. After about 45 minutes, Tony decided that the pace for some of us was a bit slow and urged us onto camels. I got on a camel and Fletch walked beside it. He said the camel went at the perfect speed for him to walk beside. I made myself useful by holding the torch to light his way, the moon having slipped behind the mountain at that point. We continued like this for 45 minutes, until we came to the beginning of the steps to the top. When you walk up the camel path, there are 750 steps to the top of the mountain. They are the last section of the 3500 ‘Steps of Repentance’, which is an alternate path up the mountain. I hopped off the camel and we began the climb to the top.

We managed the steps in good time and arrived at the summit of the mountain by 6am. There we found a small church (which was closed), several hundred people, and very little space. Some Nigerians were, oddly, prostrating themselves to the moon and were engaged in very loud declarations of their faith. It actually seemed like they were trying to outdo each other – there was hysterical crying, screaming, beating of chests and so on. Add in the group of Koreans singing ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ and the summit of Mt. Sinai was not a peaceful place.

The sun didn’t rise until around 6.40am, so we passed the time trying to find the perfect spot to watch the sunrise. We opted to climb onto some rocks just below the summit on the eastern side of the mountain – this got us away from the crowds and allowed us to see in the sunrise in peace. It was freezing, though! We didn’t realise how cold we’d got until we went to climb down the mountain. The muscles in my left leg seized up and I couldn’t bend my knee to walk down the steps. After an excruciating 750 steps back to the camel path, I got on a camel to go back to the monastery. Paj, one of the girls in our group, led my camel down, while Fletch took the steps of repentance. His only comment about them was that they were very penitential.

It was about 9am when we arrived at the bottom of the mountain. Fletch went ahead to find some postcards of the mosaic from the church within the monastery since we had failed to gain entrance to the church the previous day. He returned with the postcards, and also with a cute, stuffed baby camel. It turns out that he had managed to trade his broken watch from Aleppo for the camel. We had time to go back to the hotel, shower and change, and then it was back on the bus to head to Cairo. That took seven hours, the only highlight being the Suez tunnel. We didn’t actually see the Suez Canal but we did see the ships floating through the desert in the distance.

Tomorrow is the end of the tour for some people, so tonight we’re having a farewell party for them. We’ll also have some new people join us tomorrow for the next leg of the trip.

Fletch’s tips for new travellers

As you huff and puff your way up Mt Sinai, you’ll find that the Bedouin guides will run past you, wearing thongs and smoking a cigarette. Having to drag a camel along with them only slows them to a trot. The only way to make sure that the camel driver doesn’t speed off into the distance with your dearly beloved is to point out as clearly as possible that you, the pedestrian, have all the cash. This will make him stick to you like a Syrian shoe polisher on a slow day.

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Dahab, Egypt - 13th January 2006

Not much to write today - we've crossed from Jordan to Egypt via ferry, which took most of the day. I have to say, air travel is somewhat easier to navigate than land-border crossing...well, it seems to be quicker anyway!

We're in the Red Sea resort town of Dahab tonight. It is very windy here, but the actual temperature is a bit warmer than it has been. People are starting to get sick, so today and tomorrow are being treated as rest days, as we've got some very long and strenuous days coming up. Fletch and I are getting better - the climbing at Petra and Wadi Rum saw my cough return, but a good sleep last night seems to have helped clear it up. We've both still got a bit of nasal congestion, but we're on the up.

Tomorrow evening we're going to St. Catherine, which is at the base of Mt. Sinai. In the middle of the night, we are climbing Mt. Sinai, the aim being to watch sunrise from the top. Climbing may actually be an exaggeration - our tour leader is trying to convince everyone to catch a camel up. We'd really like to walk up, so we'll see how we go. In our next post, we'll tell you all about it :)

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Wadi Rum – 12th January 2006

After clambering from our cold beds at some ungodly hour, we slurped down some breakfast and chewed our way through a hot cup of tea before hearing a sound indescribably unique. Apparently camels are not morning people, and a herd of 20 of them bellowing from outside the camp, which incidentally was nestled against a rocky outcrop, is an experience I shall not forget soon.

We went out to meet the camels, and before long were mounted thereon for a quick, one-hour spin around the block. The trip went uneventfully for the most part, although Maria’s camel was determined to be the leader of the pack and would not wait for the rest of the group. The ride itself wasn’t too bad, I was able to sit down comfortably again at some point during the late afternoon…

After our camel trek we jumped in the back of some utes for what was touted as a ‘jeep safari in the desert’. We clung for dear life as the ute we were riding in seemed to find the path of most resistance through the desert, usually at 90 degrees to the direction of travel. We stopped at a pile of fallen rocks. Inside the mass of debris, our guide showed us a rock with a map carved into it from Nabataean times, probably BC rather than AD. Whilst this was thoroughly interesting, it wasn’t long before we were hurtling one more through the sand dunes to a large hill covered in sand with a Bedouin tent next to it. We took the unlikely decision to climb this hill (another painful experience) and then returned to the base for a cup or two of Bedouin tea. I’m not sure what’s in Bedouin tea, and it probably is better not to ask. It braced us however for the journey back to the main camp.

Once we returned to the main camp, we made our mournful farewell to the Bedouins, and loaded into the vans for the trip to Aqaba. The trip took an hour or so, and we were thankful for the respite.

We arrived in Aqaba about 1:30pm and checked into our hotel. By this time we were ravenously hungry. Our tour leader, Tony, took us for a quick walking tour of the city at about 2:30pm. Aqaba is a duty free town in a region where four countries (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and Israel [or the occupied Palestine as it’s referred to here]) access the coast within a 100km strip of coast. As you can imagine, the town is very touristy, even more so at the moment when many Jordanians are on their annual beach holiday. Remember earlier I mentioned that we were hungry at 1:30? Well by 3:00 when we finished our walking tour we were fainting from malnutrition (no sniggering if you wouldn’t mind…) and thus our walking tour ended at the bastion of all things Arabic: McDonalds. Since I was in a foreign land I ordered two things I’d never seen at home; a McRoyale and a Double Cheeseburger. Maria also had a Double Cheeseburger, with a large coke the size of small grain silo. And there was a super size option available!

Having suitable stuffed ourselves with genuine Jordanian fare, we went in search of a massage for Maria’s aches and pains, and a good cup of coffee for mine. Maria was restored by the able hands of a little Chinese lady and I was restored by the able hands of a nearby barista. After a bit of quick shopping for supplies to make it through the potential nightmare of the water transit to Egypt tomorrow, we returned to the hotel for a quick rest before a 7pm group meeting. We ducked out for a quick kebab after the meeting. Maria rated it as the best kebab she has ever had, and all for less than an Australian dollar! I love Middle Eastern cuisine!

So now we fall into bed exhausted, but glad that we don’t have to leave the hotel till 9:30am tomorrow. But here I shall sign off until next time.

Fletch’s tip for new travellers

Three crazy Bedouins. Three four wheel drive utes. One big sandy desert with the odd dust bowl. 17 crazy westerners sitting in the tray. Lots of revs, lots of lock, dump the clutch… Instant doughnuts, instant joy!

Does my travel insurance cover this???

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Petra – 11th January 2006

The day touted as the highlight of the Jordan leg of the tour had finally arrived. After a nourishing 6:30am breakfast buffet (which unwittingly also supplied our lunch) we were off to Petra from Wadi Musa at 7:00am. This early departure proved both fortunate and painful. It was cold - the sort of cold that makes snow men wander inside to sit by the fire and enjoy a warm bowl of potato and leak. It was also drizzling. We managed to pick only the third day of rain at Petra since October. It was fortunate however in that we managed to beat the crowds.

The first stage of Petra involved a horse-ride from the entrance gate about 600m to the start of the canyon. A 600m horse-ride may sound like a waste of time. However it was compulsory for members of groups with a guide to pay the 7 Dinar (about $12 AUD) fee to ride the horses, so we were going to get our money’s worth. We then had to tip the horsemen another 2 Dinar each, which just goes to show that the Jordanians know a closed market when they see one.

Once we untangled ourselves from our respective horses, we began our descent of the gorge itself. Our guide managed to build our anticipation to breaking point by pointing out every interesting geological feature on the way down the gorge, delaying what we knew was going to be a magical first view of the building known in modern times as the ‘Treasury’.

Seeing the Treasury rise into view through the gap in the gorge was like watching a magnificent sun-rise over Uluru. Known as the Treasury because of the 19th century fixation on finding treasure in any mildly ornate looking building, it was in fact a king’s tomb, and later a temple of the Nabataeans, who built the famous city. With two levels above ground, and one below, the scale of the building is matched only by the intricacy of the ornamentation on the façade. An interesting blend of Assyrian, Greek and Roman architecture makes the Treasury a truly unique architectural experience.

From the Treasury, our tour followed the gorge downhill through the necropolis section of the city. The unique thing about the buildings in this part of Petra (including the Treasury) is that they are carved out of the solid sandstone walls of the gorge. The residential section of the city was free standing, and was almost completely flattened by earthquakes. We clambered through caves, taking some beautiful photos of the colourful mineral deposits therein. These caves lead us to the royal tombs. We climbed inside the cavernous space within the ‘Urn’ tomb, so called because of the urn like feature decorating the very peak of the outer façade. The reverb time of the interior of the tomb was extraordinary. Unlike other buildings in the necropolis, the interior of the Urn tomb has been carved out in a totally square fashion. The number of slave hours required for the creation of the buildings in Petra is truly mind-boggling.

The next item on our tour was a 2,400 foot climb to the ‘Monastery’. The climb damned near killed us, but the wonderful condition of the Monastery, and the incredible view from ‘the end of the world’ made the gruelling climb worthwhile. For those interested in seeing the monastery without quite so much pain, it is possible to catch a donkey to the summit. Having recovered sufficiently, aided by the sandwiches we purloined from the breakfast buffet, we descended the mountain. By the time we reached the bottom we had just enough time for a quick perusal of the remains of a Byzantine church. The church had quite remarkable mosaics in the floor.

We then started the long but gentle climb back to the top of the canyon. At the top, we decided to reign in a couple of horses to get us to the gate. We indulged in a Movenpick ice-cream before getting into the vans for the drive to Wadi Rum.

We arrived at the Bedouin desert camp at Wadi Rum around 7:30pm. The Bedouins were very friendly and hospitable and a lively night was kicked off with good food and drink. Once we were sufficiently fed, the band kicked up and the Bedouins showed us some of their funky dance moves; we couldn’t help but attempt embarrassing imitations. The band consisted of a lute like instrument, and two drummers. I decided that I’d prefer performing rather than dancing, and having taken over one of the drums for a couple of tunes, I think the rest of the group preferred my drumming over my dancing too! The Brazilian girl on our trip, Virginia, was showing Maria some of her dance moves. I must say that I was unanimous in my support of that exercise. Female hips can move in so many wonderful ways…

All good things must come to an end however, and the end of our night was met by an incredibly cold bed that even my thick and comforting beer coat couldn’t overcome. So shivering and tired, after a long day of adventures, we fell asleep anticipating the warming caress of the camels that awaited us the next day.

Fletch’s tip for new travellers

On a serious note, the treatment of the animals in this part of the world ranges from mediocre to atrocious. As a case in point, the rather tired looking creature I rode from the top of the gorge at Petra to the entrance gate really didn’t feel like moving along at more than a leisurely meander. This was fine with me as I wasn’t in any hurry. Unfortunately the man leading my horse seemed in more of a hurry and moved to hit my horse across the neck with a length of nylon rope. My advice for dealing with this sort of situation is this: When the cruel ignoramus attempts to hit the horse, gesture that you want the rope so that you can do it for him. Like ignorami everywhere, he is also lazy enough to hand over the whacking duties happily. At this point stick the rope firmly under the saddle and refuse to give it back. When you reach your destination, the driver will be expecting a couple of Dinar as a tip. At this point I recommend waving the notes in front of his face, and then feeding them to the horse. This will hopefully serve two purposes. The first is to show the ignoramus aforementioned that if he wants to make any money then he needs to treat his animals far better. The second is to provide the horse with probably the most nourishing thing the poor beast has had to eat that day.

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Dead Sea – 10th January, 2006

One of the major attractions in Jordan is the Dead Sea, and it was our destination today. When we awoke, it was bright and sunny, which meant that we would have a nice warm day at the beach, as the Dead Sea is 418m below sea-level.

We left Amman when it was about 7ºC, so we were still bundled up in our fleecies, jackets, and scarves. When we stopped at the sea-level marker, it was warm enough to ditch the jacket and scarf, but not the fleece. When we hopped out of the minibus at the Dead Sea resort, it was warm enough to discard the fleece. There was much rejoicing!

The rejoicing didn’t last as we realised how cold the water was. However, it could not deter us from covering ourselves in black mud and floating around in the sea. It is quite a surreal experience, floating on top of the water. You can sit as though you are in an armchair - in fact you can maintain almost posture or position as long as you don’t attempt to be vertical.

After we had spent about an hour playing in the water and covering ourselves in mud (which is supposed to be therapeutic), we went into the resort’s aqua-land and played on the waterslides. We didn’t actually remain in the pool for very long, as it was very cold! However, time in the fresh water removed any remnants of mud and salt from our bodies, which meant that we could get dressed and go to lunch.

After lunch, which was a massive buffet, we started the drive to Wadi Musa, where we are staying tonight. The trip took about three hours and was regularly interrupted by security checkpoints along the highway. Jordan is on a heightened security alert this week, so the checks were a bit more frequent than usual. The minibus had to stop and be examined by soldiers and we had to give them a cherry wave before being allowed to pass on.

Unfortunately, as we have climbed about 2000m since leaving the Dead Sea, we’re back to wearing five layers of clothing. It was dark when we arrived in Wadi Musa (the Valley of Moses), so we haven’t been able to see anything. The reason we are here is to visit Petra, which we will be doing tomorrow. That promises to be a hard day’s walking (starting at 6am), so its off to bed for us. Our love to you all…

P.S. Thanks for all the comments and emails, it is great to know everyone is enjoying the diary.

Fletch’s tips for new travellers

If you ever find yourself needing to drive from the Dead Sea to Wadi Musa (don't we all) then make sure you pack your sports car of choice. The road goes for about 100kms and climbs 1,800m. It has a nice smooth surface, more twists and turns than Pike's Peak, and no speed cameras! And I'm sure that those Humvees with the 16mm machine guns couldn't catch you... I'm really glad that I was wearing my sunglasses as, being the passenger in a Torago for this ascent, it meant that nobody could see me cry. Its enough to make you go out and buy a 20 valve quattro...

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