Sam's Grand Tour

A Diversion in Cyberspace

2008-12-09T22:41:00.000+11:00

This is a strangely addictive social-strategy game.

Ultimately, it's a bunch of numbers on a screen, but it captures the inexplicable appeal of world domination :)

Check it out:

Two years later...

2008-09-18T11:16:00.003+10:00

For those of you who are still encountering this blog, adrift in the internet, life continues well for Sam. The Grand Tour remains a tremendously important part of my life.

The PhD thesis in Art History is coming along strongly, with one year to go. I have started lecturing and tutoring in Art Theory, and find this to be a wonderful occupation. I have been travelling since then, most recently on three months of Fieldwork across Europe. (Cairo, Budapest, Berlin, London, Paris, Madrid, and Barcelona). No blog was made for "Fieldwork 2008". Instead I wrote lengthy correspondences (postcards and paper letters), filled sketchbooks (which I did not attempt during the Grand Tour of 2005-6), and took elaborate research notes for academic purposes.

I started drawing visual records of these trips following "Central Australia 2007", a two-week journey resulting in a very chunky and colourful diary. "Christmas in Cairo 2007" attempted a similar record, but was more a unique family experience than the explorations of a solo traveller.

The immediate future for my travels is uncertain, though it is possible I will return to Europe later this year. If not, then the next great expedition will be a return to Egypt: the deepest deserts of North Africa in 2010, a challenging long-distance campaign to the Gelf Kabir.

Final Update

2006-08-01T18:56:00.000+10:00

Dedicated to all the people who have followed this journey,
and wondered what happened next.

Now I am back in Canberra, life is great, and has been for quite some time.

Inshallah.

But the real news is that after so much waiting and searching, and after a great deal of work by my supervisors and referees, I have finally secured a PhD scholarship at the ANU. I will be able to complete my research full-time over the next three years, pursuing the dream that has been in place since I was sixteen. The thesis will study "Self-Portraiture and War", which is a decidedly broad topic right now, but will be narrowed down in the coming months.

I have no real reason to continue adding news to this blog now that the Grand Tour is well and truly over, but I thought you would like to know this happy ending. For now.

Analogy of Returning

2006-03-10T23:01:00.000+11:00

Inspired by a conversation

A broad meandering river flowed in a slow curve around a solitary mountain.

A scoop of water was taken from the river in a glass bowl. The hands that held this bowl carried it along the paths that ascended to the mountain's summit.

From the summit of the mountain, the water in the glass bowl was held aloft, and viewed a panorama unlike anything the river had passed. Distant horizons, other rivers, more mountains, and a vast sky dominated the open landscape. It was tremendously beautiful, and seen from a perspective the broad, meandering river could never have offered.

After a few moments in the intense sunlight, the hands carried the glass bowl down the far side of the mountain. The path finally stopped when it met the river again, and here the bowl was emptied into the still-moving water.

The water rejoined the river amongst exactly the same fluid it was taken from. Both waters had once flowed along the same concourse, and continued to flow together again inseparably. The only difference was that a few drops from the river had now been fortunate enough seen the view from the mountain's peak.

Of course, the brief sojourn of that one lucky bowl of water never affected the ceaseless flow of the powerful river.

Lowlights of the Grand Tour

2006-03-07T16:03:00.000+11:00

"For we live in the best of all possible worlds" (Voltaire's Candide)

1 - "Triple Soup" in Bergama, Turkey. Do try it.

2 - Hitch-hiking through 300km of rural Turkey to retrieve my forgotten passport, on my second day in that country.

3 - A hasty and complex change of Roman hotels from the port city of Patras, Greece, after unveiling disturbing news about the hotel I had previously booked.

4 - The lurching high-speed ferry to Dar-es-Salaam from Zanzibar. I now have an unusual pavlovian reaction to Mrs Doubtfire.

5 - The bus from Antalya to Olympos, undoubtedly the second-worst journey of my life.

6 - Realising I had no way of withdrawing cash in Cairo.

7 - The sudden sharp loneliness after the girl I explored Rome for a week with left to return to Finland. I could have sworn she was still following me through the streets for days afterwards, and kept turning to see no-one.

8 - Being stalked by an unseen presence as the darkness fell in the forests of Meteora, Greece.

9 - The interminably boring land border crossing from Turkey to Greece. Dante must have taken notes there for one of his medium-intensity circles of Hell.

10 - The bedbugs of the Freestyle Hostel, a cesspit the size of a living room, with the worst bathroom I have ever imagined to be feasible. In fact, the Freestyle Hostel deserves three notches on this list, if it weren't for the saving grace of two lovely girls from Kansas.

11 - Watching, with traffic-accident morbidity, the growth of footworms in my colleagues' feet as we travelled across Africa.

12 - Realising that the Tanzanian Schilling cannot be transferred into any other currency within Tanzania, or anywhere else in the world.

Highlights of the Grand Tour

2006-03-03T19:52:00.000+11:00

A Summary of the Top 25 Experiences

(In no particular order, and I can still think of more...)

1 - Watching the sun set amongst the ancient colossal heads of the mountain-summit ruins of Nemrut Dagi, Turkey.

2 - Driving through the verdant, exquisitely cultivated high-altitude tea fields of central Sri Lanka. Misty mountain summits interspersed with thread-like waterfalls, blazing tulip trees, and joyously handpainted trucks.

3 - The overwhelming gallery day in Florence spent within the Pallazzo Pitti, Galleria dell Accademia and Uffizi, revelling in my recently completed Art History and Curatorship degree.

4 - Silently exploring the isolated, secretive and surreal garden valleys of Cappadoccia, Turkey.

5 - Shaving in a slow golden sunrise, chest deep in in the warm waters of Lake Malawi, after a pre-dawn run with local fishermen's kids for several kilometres along the unending sandy shore. (Malawi, Africa).

6 - Chilling out for a whole day in Olympos, Turkey, by swimming in the laodecean Mediterranean, scrambling through thick forests seeking ancient ruins, and reading Catch-22 from a hammock.

7 - Watching one of the slowest and most glorious sunsets of my life, marvellously tinting the skies over Europe and Asia as I watched from a hidden mosque high above the Bosphorous, in Istanbul.

8 - Searching for shooting stars in the vast and cold night skies over the Western Deserts of Egypt, in the company of a new friend. (A perfect herald to the new year)

9 - Exploring the eternal city of Rome for a week with a Finnish girl whom I had not seen in seven years, but maintained a close handwritten correspondance for all that intervening time.

10 - The consecutive wierdness and serendipity of what will be remembered as "Raki Night" and "French Night", Istanbul.

11 - Wandering the mountainous autumnal farmlands, of Cinque Terre, Italy, where sheer cliffs plunge deep into the dark, shimmering Mediterranean Sea. (And being given totally useless directions by two little grandmothers, but ending up none the worse for it.)

12 - Trekking from Thira to Ios, through the superb blue and white curvilinear architecture, the volcanic, barren mountain summits, and the coiled vineyards of the island of Santorini, Greece.

13 - Swimming with a pack of large sharks in the Red Sea, Egypt.

14 - Climbing massive sand dunes in Libya with my father, looking out over the sunset as it came down upon the Algerian border.

15 - Exploring the vast ruined cities of Leptis Magna and Sabratha in Libya, and the infinately more crowded Italian ruins of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Oplontis with a Catalan friend.

16 - Independently discovering pitch-black networks of secret tunnels beneath cave churches in Cappadoccia, Turkey, which we navigated using the flashes on our cameras.

17 - The impossibly vast Serengeti, with the endless migration of wildebeest and zebra, and the land-before-time unreality of the Ngorongoro crater.

18 - Four days in the moulding tropical deterioration of Zanzibar, seeking the most magnificent timber doors in existence, liberally scattered through tiny crowded alleys and cul-de-sacs in labyrinthine Swahili-Persian-Indian Stonetown.

19 - The white-on-pitch-darkness maze of adobe townhouses in Ghadames, Libya, one of the world's most beautiful places, afortified town in an oasis deep in the Sahara desert.

20 - Listening to the evening call to prayer ripple out from high above the minarets, standing atop the western minaret of Bab Zweylah, Cairo.

21 - Discovering the secret tradesmen of Cairo - the tripod spinners of the City of the Dead, the craftsmen east of Bab Zweylah, the accumulators of the Junk Market, the Quaitbey glassblowers, and the incandescant silks produced in the Dyer's Khan, secretly hung upon bamboo poles amidst the smothering dust of central Cairo.

22 - Flooding the roads of Alexandria, and shopping for gifts in the late-evening Khan el Khalili, aided by two beautiful Egyptian locals, in a Christmas not to be forgotten.

23 - Realising that Venice is only easy to get lost in if you're actually trying to find something.

24 - Collecting, collecting, and collecting, irreplaceable artifacts from across the world, in some of the best antique dealerships and random stalls I could ever have hoped to encounter, making good friends along the way.

25 - Taking ridiculous numbers of photographs in some of the world's most beautiful places.

And realising, after it was all complete, that I had really been there.

Australia - Canberra, Home again.

2006-02-27T17:33:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to all future Grand Tourists

Finally, I'm back home, and the GT has ended.

Dad met me at the Jolimont centre, and we headed straight over to my grandmother's for a long-missed lunch. That evening was celebrated with a sensational family feast, with 16 of us gathered at Karmen and Wayne's house (my sister and brother-in-law). It included my grandparents from Brisbane, and my cousins Grant and Louise with their gorgeous new baby Elliot, whose well-illustrated blog is listed in my links to the right. It was like Christmas, and unusual to have so many of us all gathered simultaneously. It was a superb evening, with lots of stories from everyone and plenty of items collected overseas being passed around.

It's wonderful to see my dog Assad again, illustrated in the very first test post of this blog. Likewise our very affectionate cat Bits, and my three housemates, two of whom I hadn't met before leaving Australia. All the other administrative matters are being smoothly sorted out, and I'll be resuming work in a couple of days.

The last few months seem unreal in light of how easily I'm fitting back into Canberra. Things have changed here, but simply remembering how vastly different the last few months overseas have been is a big task. I still have to review the second half of the photo archive, and assemble the hard-copy photo albums, but that's really it. There's a few important people I want to stay in touch with, and several "Grand Tour Resolutions" have been determined.

Then there's the biggest question, the PhD. It's been on my mind for a very long time now. These experiences overseas have helped raise a multitude of topics, each dutifully recorded in my diaries. They've also helped me identify subjects I have no real interest in pursuing any further - such as my theories on African Airport Art and cultural mirroring. But each new topic aside, I still haven't cut them back to a sharp and targeted question. At some point I'll collate all the topics, lay them out on a table, and network them into a overriding and precise question. That's what I did for my honours thesis, and it certainly worked then.

There may be a few more posts to come. Highlights, lowlights, and an inventory of the items I've collected. But that's really it for day-by-day content.

The diary ends here.

Thank you for joining me.

Australia - Sydney

2006-02-25T23:11:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to those nice people at Customs

Finally, I'm back in Australia. The cleanness of the air is conspicuous - I find myself taking deeper breaths than I'm used to, because it seems like they just aren't filling my lungs the same way as Cairo's air does. I've decided that Sydney's air is perfumed with the scent of glossy magazines. It's only a tint, but if you were to distill Sydney in a small bottle, it would smell like a fresh Vogue opened for the first time on a beach. You can see it in the forms of consumption plugged here from the moment you leave Passport control - trendy bars, stylish places, elegant home interiors, designer clothing, all totally vacuous but made to look so utterly desirable.

Also conspicuous, much more so than the air, is the number of western teenagers dressed up to party in Sydney's nightlife. That's something I really haven't seen for a very long time. You wouldn't be caught dead dressed like that in most of the nations I've been travelling through for the last few months. It's a refreshing reminder of how Australian cultures are so curiously different to those of the Middle East and Africa.

Everything in my luggage seems to have arrived intact, and the Customs people didn't have any issues with my stuff. Indeed, some of it they found intriguing (in that positive way which means they'll let you actually keep it). It's a bloody pain to lug around, but only a few minutes of lugging lies between getting it out of the hostel and into my home.

I'll be arriving at the Jolimont Centre in Canberra around 11.30am Sunday. Might just see you there!

Singapore - In Transit

2006-02-25T10:31:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Ibraheim, the wise, and taxi driver par excellence, for starting the journey home.
This is the second post from Changi International, and the muzak isn't as irritating as I recalled. Maybe because it currently consists of identifiable jazz instruments, and I've only been here five minutes. The skies are a grey overcast dawn, as it is about 7am here, but 1am on my body clock.
Aside from being able to see outside the windows now, just about everything is as I left it eight months ago. It reminds me of a story about a Japanese garden whose wealthy owner maintained it so exquisitely that the passing of years would hardly change it. The intention was that each time he visited it, he would be able to reflect on not how it had grown, but on how he had become different since last entering the garden.

Of course, he didn't have free internet six seconds' walk from the entrance. That doesn't help with meditation on the nature of personal experiences.

But that being said, there's been a lot to consider since I was last here. The 130-ish letters home posted here sum it up. So do two volumes of tiny handwritten diary pages, and a box full of photographs on CD. I started jotting down a list of things I regarded as particularly memorable here, but realised it was getting cumbersome as a paragraph. And those of you who have been reading this correspondance from the start will have been with me through it all anyway - pick your favourite place!

I have another hour here, roughly. Next post, Sydney, in god knows how many hours.

Egypt - Leaving Cairo

2006-02-24T18:46:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to the Vocabularist and Tabbi - good luck on your travels, and gule-gule.

I stayed up "stupid late" last night with a "stupid heavy" suitcase. Party next door was "stupid loud" until 4am. But most of the night was actually spent with Tabbi and Peter playing Bookworm and drinking Amarula to lighten my luggage. Bookworm's an online game that requires you to spell words from scrambled letters, requiring a sharp eye and some tactics. It's also terribly addictive. I will not give you the URL because I think you all deserve productive and happy lives away from the computer monitor. And there are few things pettier than becoming incensed with rage over the injustices of a game that lets you spell "Qua" for points but not "Monday".

The luggage came in at 41kg total. Apparently this is illegally heavy for any international airline. It has now been split to two bags - one, the unweighed hand luggage, contains all my more suspect customs-declarables and heaviest items. This tactic should work - it's reduced the weight of the big bag to around 27kg.

Looks like most things will be coming back with me. These include the hard copies of the best photographs, unfortunately, as 800 prints weighed 2 kilograms. (This really put something into perspective for me - if I printed all my photos, they'd weigh around 60kg! But it only takes 15 minutes to view the best of the first half on CD).

The next 40-odd hours will be spent making may way from Cairo to Canberra, via Singapore. I'll aim to write another blog post from Singapore airport, just as I did on my way out of Australia. Inshallah. I am looking forward to reaching home again, and very excited to hear that several family members who normally live interstate or overseas will be in Canberra when I get there. Thanks so much guys! See you soon.

Egypt - The Secret World that takes Visa

2006-02-22T07:47:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Tabbi, for her ruthless photo editing,

And the good people of Visa card, who have helped me fulfill their motto.

The hidden community within Cairo that takes Visa card is a world unto itself.

It's not as chaotic or overpowering as the Junk Souq, nor as secluded as the regions East of Bab Zweylah. It lacks the timeless qualities of the City of the Dead, and it isn't very dangerous.

But it is very pretty. And glossy. And thankfully, I'm only here for a few more days, because it's gradually getting expensive.

My normal ATM cards don't work here, and I haven't been able to withdraw cash using my Visa either. My supply of cash sourced through the social banks has dwindled to my necessites, so the few remaining things I desire have to be sourced through places that take credit cards. In Egypt, that's a big deal. The tiny "Middle Class" demographic between the poor and the very wealthy in Cairo can be identified by one main characteristic - they own a bank account. Subsequently, most businesses here function strictly on cash transactions.

The Visa world consists of the more elegant shops in the Khan. They're places that have elevators, and electric lights. By that I mean neat ones that consistently work. Their cash registers often look like real computer monitors, but one had a nifty retro machine that clicked up numbers like a sideshow shooting game. These shops don't usually advertise their status, like any good secret society. Others will merrily display the Visa stickers on their doors, then proclaim them to have just been there when the shop opened years ago. It's idiosyncratic, but so is most of Cairo. There's a curious lateral logic at work throughout this city. Once you've cracked it, it feels like a second home.

I've now concluded my purchasing, and it has been fun shopping with Tabbi. She knows when to point me at something and when to shove me out the door. I don't want to spoil suprises by saying what I bought yet. And I'm not yet sure what'll actually be coming home with me, as it collectively takes up most of the master bedroom floor. And here in the Residence, that's a serious floor. Expect no fewer than two huge suitcases at the airport.

The last few evenings have been spent with Tabs, finally getting a grip on the Grand Tour photos, diaries, and backgammon. It's been really pleasant just to see her again, and we've been taking the mickey out of numerous movies as we work. Shaun of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Anchorman, Airplane II, Love Actually, etc. She's off through Turkey, Russia and Eastern Europe for the next few months, so this has been a great opportunity to catch up.

Expect one final post before the Grand Tour concludes. As you can no doubt tell by the exciting material of this post, it's all coming to a close now. Administrative matters are taking over, and the real world is slowly seeping back into this distant and exotic life.

Egypt - Friday Morning Junk Markets

2006-02-18T21:44:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Jenna. Happy Birthday!

The world's greatest trash and treasure is held in Cairo every Friday morning, on the edge of the City of the Dead, where an archaic railway line cuts a thin flat strip around the perimeter of the Islamic tombs.

People who sift through untold mountains of landfill every other day of the week bring their choicest finds together for the admiration of the teeming swarms of people. Their audiences grind through densely packed pathways between stalls, ground blankets, or benches propped up by fragile timber bird cages. Like in the touristy Khan and other major souks across the Middle East, the stalls are divided into regions for specific products. Ceramics, toilet bowls, and incredibly manky urinals plastered with scunge of the most abominable composition are isolated along one dusty street. Old metal "antiques", notably baroque-inspired clocks, mirrors, incence braziers and dishes, are neatly displayed in well-built taurpaulin shelters alongside the carpet sellers. Book, coin, bead and jewellery stalls pop up amongst anything. A long promenade in the open sunshine hosts plastic items - dolls, toys, plastic bottles for water, shampoo, or detergents - piled in mounds like scrap metal.

The men's underwear souk is the most frenetic, with only a tiny walkway divided into two directions, and heaps of men shouting out for attention as they jovially waved pirated brand name products at passers-by. Maybe we received particular attention as the only non-Egyptians in the entire market. (It is definately "real Cairo" in terms of lack of tourist interference). More likely, we were there with my sister Tabbi, who was unquestionably the only woman in the entire area.

I bought several odd things - a handful of beautifully patterned Middle Eastern coins (nothing old but dead cheap), a school atlas labelled in Arabic, a gorgeously worn cigarette tin with fragments of text in French and Arabic amongst street scenes of Cairo in the 1940s, and a visa pass book, deteriorated from use and laden with exotic official's stamps and handwriting, for an Egyptian who appears to have travelled often between Egypt and Libya. It's a great piece of traveller's ephemera, but its appeal is most apparent when held than simply described.

The afternoon was spent in a western-style cafe in Zamalek. I was very suprised to discover it existed! It felt very cosmopolitan for a change to have real iced Thai coffee with great company, talking about all manner of travel-related topics.

Now the Grand Tour is slowly running to an end. Only a week to go before I arrive in Australia, and I've been liasing with family already for my exact arrival plans. I'm getting to a stage now of writing inventories for things collected, making lists of the best moments, remembering people I've met, and STILL ploughing through the 23,000 (12.2GB) photographs taken while travelling since August. I can feel the real world getting inexorably closer, and I'm doing what needs to be done to meet it head-on.

Egypt - East of Bab Zweylah and Beyond

2006-02-15T07:37:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Young Mohammed of the best carpet shop in Egypt.

Although I've been exploring some of my favourite areas of Cairo over the last few days, we've been moving into new discoveries each time.

In the City of the Dead we climbed the minaret of the Ma'a Azan mosque, overlooking the second half of the vast modern tomb complex which I never realised existed. Some day I hope to explore that area on foot, to find out if there are any more monumental Ottoman necropolises out there. Since I last visited, our friends who run one of Cairo's last glassblowing workshops near the Quaitbey mosque have branched out into a new showroom, and fortunately remain without signage or tourist prices.

We ate huge serves of incredibly cheap koshari as we drove to the Khan. Spiced, complex, and loaded with carbs in the form of fuul (lentils), chickpeas, pasta and rice. We dropped by a few shops to pick up items our friends had been eyeing earlier, then trekked through to Bab Zweylah, the most spectacular of Cairo's three remaining medieval gates. We climbed one of the twin minarets to the very highest extremity, just in time for the late afternoon call to prayer to ring out across the city, like ripples from a handful of stones in a pond.

Undoubtedly the highlight of the day was meeting our friends who run a carpet shop near the tentmaker's souk. After from the jovial banter and swapping of news that fills in the time between choosing carpets and agonising over excess baggage, Mohammed and his younger brother took us on an impromptu tour through the region east of Bab Zweylah. This took us through all kinds of "real Cairo" streets, through people's houses and apartments, via a seriously disorienting network of courtyards, subterranean passages, and sheds of craftsmen building things for the tourist markets. Our mates couldn't have asked for a more immersive experience, seeing the types of things kept well backstage from the conventional tourists of the Khan el Khalili!

We bought inlaid boxes from the craftsman who makes them in a closet-like shed for the five star hotel giftshops. We found the men who sit at machines that lathe walking sticks, cobbler's lasts, embroidered leathers, and make intricate game boards that can cost up to US$1000. We were led to the carvers of bone chess pieces, the parquetry chair makers, and the one-crowded-room factory responsible for a great deal of the pyrex perfume bottles found in all the souvenir shops. We saw the lantern workshops, where men with green fires welded ornate sheets of incised metal together, and we encountered purveyors of black market counterfeit and smuggled socks. Our mates stocked up well on these - how often does one get the chance to buy black market socks anyway? It was a seriously fascinating evening, led by a hilarious local friend, and I hope we can find these places again next time.

This morning, Valentine's Day, was spent out at the Camel Market again. It was very similar to my last blog post on that topic, expect that our racing camel Shakal (now the first place champion of the Sharm el Sheik race) was in an exceptionally nasty mood that morning. On the other hand, it was good to meet my lovely Morroccan girlfriend again, she has such sublime eyelashes and long dark hair. The afternoon was spent on a whirlwind spin of the Egyptian museum, in which I was shown rooms I had not realised existed, and proudly sought out my favourite oddities for our mates.

Tomorrow is going to be spent catching up on various tasks I have been replacing with far more exotic time consumption strategies. Should anything interesting happen, I'm sure you'll hear about it soon.

Egypt - Back to Cairo

2006-02-13T08:49:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Emma, Yi-Hua, Pete and Tabs.

It feels like home to be back in Cairo. The traffic has long ceased to faze me, the dust that burns the back of your throat is a familiar sensation, and I comfortably recognise individual streets. Arriving at the airport, I was driven to the Residence under leisurely Friday morning conditions - the equivalent of Sunday morning traffic in Canberra. Furthermore, I was browner than the Egyptian taxi driver, a tan that ellicited a dramatic response from my sister Tabbi, whom I had not seen for around six months.

It has been great to catch up with her again. She's here now before heading off on her second Grand Tour, going up through Egypt, Turkey, Russia and down again through Eastern Europe. Three mates of hers are staying at the Residence for a little while, so we've been exploring the city together.

Yesterday was spent in the Coptic Quarter of Cairo - the Hanging Church, and several other Christian structures in various states of use, reconstruction, and restoration. There was miscellaneous shopping in the Khan to follow, and a riotously colourful Sufi concert late that evening. Today was "Pyramid Day", much like a previous blog post but in reverse order. Tomorrow looks set to be one of my favourite itineraries - the City of the Dead and a walk through Islamic Cairo, although we haven't decided on which part yet. Since Mum and Dad are in different countries right now, Tabs and I are running the show, which has been great fun.

The last few days have been busy, but finally you're up to date here. Only a couple of weeks remain on the Grand Tour, and there are several interesting things ahead. You shall hear about them in due course.

Kenya - Nairobi, and Dedications

2006-02-13T07:02:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to...

Matt - the outstandingly fit numismatologist who flew over Mount Kilimanjaro to have his wretched appendix wrenched out, without painkillers.
Ili - Dreadlocked and debonair, our media magnate with a sharp wit and fascinating sharehouse history.
Erin - The other half of the Zanzibar dreadlocked duo, late night philosopher, and damn tough iron woman.
Magnus and Rachel - Our favourite Norwegian medics, a veritable Viking and extrovert Ethiopian.
Nick and Kaylea - Our English rugby lad and his Kiwi trainer,
Cam and Jenelle - The guitarist geologist with a contagious curiosity for all things African, and the patient patient of improvised bush camp surgery,
Kylie - Biochemist and beauty therapist, world traveller in style, and one of those lucky people who has found what she loves to do with her life,
Anet - Our dear Armenian darling, and one of those rare people who can support anyone through any manner of difficulty,
Sarah - The most dedicated runner of the truck, a gorgeous inspiration, and steadfast support for Matt during the appendix coup of Arusha,
Nicole - Our Canadian truck saint, traveller's social conscience, leaner-upon during evenings of overindulgence, and source of countless stories on all range of topics,
Kristen - Remover of thorns from feet, shark bite restorer, doctor without borders, scaler of Kilimanjaro and especially well-organised traveller.
Helen - Our indomitable truck leader, sous chef, Encyclopedia Africana, designator of nicknames, and CEO.
Vesal - Our driver, a South African with the whole of Africa deeply ingrained in his veins.
and "Modest" Nick.

Nick being born in the year 1987, an event duly recorded in the annals of world history for the life that was to follow. A man of great, if not yet fully defined, vision and ambition, he stems not only from a family of great wealth and royal connections, but from a battler's background of arduous legal conflict and real personal tragedy. Although noted by some for his risque taste in vintage liquor, he will be undoubtedly recalled by others for his tenacious but ultimately harmless domestic disputes with his nearly inseparable travelling companion. A cross dresser, contributor to the overfishing of Lake Malawi, mountain runner, air force supremo, ferocious haggler, generous loaner of five star couches, and wheeler and dealer in black market laundry services, Nick is a man without equal.*

(*Life story may be based on unconfirmed hearsay. All facts stated, if any, are entirely true.)

Thanks to everyone I have travelled with over the past month. It was a wonderful experience, and a real privilege to have met each one of you. Needless to say, if you ever pass through Canberra - or Australia for that matter - please let me know, and I'll be looking forward to catching up with you again. There'll always be a couch at my place for you.

Nairobi was a city of reputed thuggery, extortionate taxis, and highly professional hospitals and hotels.

Our truck mates finally separated, cumbersome luggage was unloaded, and Matt was torn away from his much-maligned appendix. This was particularly interesting as it occurred the day before he was due to climb Mount Kilimanjaro with Nick, Ili and Kristen. Foot worms aside for their exotic novelty, this was a real medical emergency, including airlifts! Several of us were able to visit Matt as he recuperated in hospital, accompanied by Sarah who rearranged her travels for him. It was a great show of truck commaderie.

It was also wonderful to spend most of the night dossing on a couch in a five-star suite at the Safari Club Hotel. Real showers! Real soap! Clean towels! Sheer bliss.

My flight left for Cairo at 5am, and with a huge cargo of African artifacts, I arrived in Egypt five hours later.
There I learnt that Tanzanian schillings are completely impossible to exchange for any currency, anywhere in the world. I'm sharing this as it was an expensive lesson that very few people get the opportunity to learn.

Tanzania - Serengeti and Ngorongoro

2006-02-11T05:45:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Magnus and Rachel, Ili and Erin - who shared my 4WD through these adventures.
And also to Steven, for keeping us way out in front, spotting everything first, and leaving the others eating our dust.

We left the dusty snake park of Arusha to the chicken-eating Gaboon vipers, and began the five hour drive out to the infinite plains of the Serengeti National Park.

The drive led us past the jungle-edged crater of Ngorongoro, a captivating view into a vast circular natural history theme park. It is a breathtaking vista, dotted with incredibly tiny wildebeest, buffalo, and elephants - although the zebra herds were invisible from this distance.

Our 4WD held a great selection of people, and we enthusiastically composed spontaneous songs for sightings of various animal species. The open road, dead straight, unlined and dusty, took us through scattered herds of Thompson's and Grant's gazelles, all lingering by the roadside for ease of tourists and possibly for their own safety as the cars scare away predators. (Except that on our way out we passed three lions by the roadside, so clearly that theory was bunkum). Magnus our keen feline finder located hunting servals, lazy lions, and cheetahs sillohuetted amongst rocky islands or "Kopjes". Vivid pink and purple Agama lizards scuttled through these rock eruptions like plastic dinosaur toys.

Over the rest of day we saw timeless single-file queues of thousands of wildebeest, proceeding south from the Masaai Mara in Kenya on their epic Migration. I had not actually planned this trip around this momentous natural event, but felt incredibly lucky to be able to witness it. You've probably seen them on TV before - it is seriously magic to see them raising dust around you, bleating like donkeys (zebra) or whinneying (wildebeest), and fighting for space at waterholes diminished by heat and the aggressive defences of hippopotamus pods.

We camped overnight amidst wild creatures which moved through our tents under darkness. Clomping hooves, whooshing sounds, odd grunts and rustling sounds permeated the still and cold air.

The next day was equally spectacular. Sunrise while standing up in the 4WD thundering along the incredibly broad open spaces of the Serengeti. Hyenas with cubs fascinated by our tyres, two male lions chewing at half a wildebeest killed hours earlier. We competed with maybe 40 other vehicles to snatch the tiniest glimpse of a very well-hidden leopard - a tacky, paparazzi experience. It was improved by the sighting of a second leopard later in a much more accessible pose. Incredibly, we passed by this leopard again to find it had acquired a live baby wildebeest, which it taunted for twenty minutes before suffocating. It's seriously unusual to see a leopard kill, as they are elusive creatures at the best of times. Our driver had not seen one for nearly six weeks previously - and he drives almost every day.

The Ngorongoro Crater was a truly "Land Before Time" landscape, but perhaps not as entrancing as the overwhelming Serengeti. We descended into the flat caldera and found large herds of various game animals, crowded waterholes flooded with birdlife, and a pride of lions devouring a fresh buffalo kill. The herd of that creature returned as we watched, and developed the courage to chase away the remaining lions. This was a dramatic moment even though the odds were seriously weighed towards the massive buffalo. Later, two male cheetahs climbed beneath our 4WD to rest in our shade - another superb moment, arm's length away from such elegant creatures.

There are more stories of these days to recount, but there are still other travels to describe, and I intend to place them online this evening.

Tanzania - Arusha

2006-02-05T20:22:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Erin on her 20th Birthday

I'm writing from Arusha, a bustling and dusty town that lies precisely halfway between Capetown and Cairo. They've even marked the exact spot with a Coca-Cola Commemorative Clock in a roundabout.

We've been sleeping in a snake park, with my tent pitched against a low wall that divides me from seven large Nile crocodiles. There are Masaai guards in colourful robes reclining in the shade, and scanty-brained guineafowl that chase each other around the grounds, leaving trails of dust in their wake like a Warner Brothers cartoon. The truck mob is aware that we're only going to be together for another few days, and there's a combination of regret, simmering tensions, and anticipations of future travels in the air. The ascent of Kilimanjaro being undertaken by three or four of us is a particular favourite topic, and one I would have loved to participate in had I not required a return to Cairo on a specific date. At least this way I have a good reason to return to Africa one day in the future.

Tonight we're celebrating Erin's birthday, which may end up as another drag costume party like the one we had in Malawi. (and I'm totally aware you've heard nothing about that one...) There's also likely to be a lot of shopping for Masaai beaded jewellery and textiles, plus a visit to one of their local villages.

Tomorrow we're off bush camping an game viewing in Serengeti and the Ngorongoro crater for a couple of days. There will be no internet, and I doubt I will be checking it again in Nairobi before I fly out to Cairo. This could be the last blog post for several days, just like I said last time.

Zanzibar - Lurching along the Indian Ocean

2006-02-03T17:06:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Abdullah, who spoke schway English.

Today was spent riding and snorkelling the Indian ocean.

It began as a grey morning with light rain and reasonably choppy water, through which we lurched in a long coconut wood boat with an orange tarpaulin. This was Kikepea, "The Butterfly", and it was piloted by Abdullah, a wiry dark little Zanzibarian boatbuilder.

Although the seas were not comfortable, I've sailed through much worse on fishing trips in Australia. We even once had to deal with more adverse conditions while dragonboating on Lake Burley Griffin! Unfortunately, the two other mates I was with hated it. They claimed to be "in fear of their lives", and ended up making a loud string of complaints to the manager about it afterwards. I hung around afterwards to explain that we clearly had different expectations for the daytrip, as I had a lovely time.

We landed upon an isolated sandbar, where I built a tiny sandcastle to raise its altitude and thus aid the fight against global warming. Not much to see there underwater due to poor visibility and generally sandy conditions. A bumpy ride later and we were immersed in spectacularly colourful fish and corals off Bawi island. There were several types of starfish jellyfish, soft corals, and luminous small fish of too many varieties to list. (Not least because I don't actually know what most of them were called).

At the third island we walked amongst giant tortoises up to 175 years old. They're suprisingly interesting creatures to watch. They don't do much, but they lead you to ponder interesting questions like "How many people could that one feed?" "What's the easiest way to cook something that bloody big?" and "How common could these have been before Humans started eating them?". After that we had a well-earnt lunch on the beach.

I'm back in Stonetown now, as the tortoises didn't provide us with an internet cafe. (Hate to think of their connection speed). Tomorrow we're back up to Dar es Salaam, hen travelling on through northern Tanzania to the Serenget and Ngorogoro Crater. By the end of the week we'll have passed through Kenya's Masaai Mara, and I'll be flying back to Cairo from Nairobi. I'm telling you this now because much of this travel will be done in bushcamps, and there's not likely to be any internet access for a while. But don't forget to send me emails please!

Zanzibar and I

2006-02-01T18:22:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to my Family

The last couple of days on this idyllic and decaying island have been superb.

I don't recall if I mentioned it here before, but the primary reason why I'm travelling across Africa now is to make it to this place. It's a pilgrimage that began five or six years ago, when working as the Curator of Stationary in nightfill of Big W (an Australian discount department store, and a convenient and popular student job). One night I found the word "Zanzibar" written in a silver font on a scrap of labelling cardboard. I thought it was an evocative word, being only vaguely aware of what it was, and I stuck it over my name badge since the relevant people there knew who I was anyway.

The name literally stuck for three years. New staff began calling me "Zan", interpeting my name from overheard conversations. I even replaced it a couple of times as it became tattered from wear. It wasn't until my very last evening that the Manager noticed and asked me to remove it.

In those days I had no immediate desire to reach this African island, because I was focussed on Uni and life in Canberra. I wasn't even until halfway through the Grand Tour that it dawned on me I could actually do it - so here I am now, somewhere distant and exotic.

There is actually one other island I now must visit one day - Tristan da Cunha in the south Atlantic. One of the most isolated spots on earth, and not much really going for it unlike Zanzibar. I imagine it as like a micro Scotland with lobsters and a volcano. It's appeal ties in to my Art History background and the life of Augustus Earle, but that's another story.

Yesterday was spent exploring the island with a tour organised by the truck mob. It focussed on the spice plantations, now more for tourists than export, and reminded me very much of that experienced in Sri Lanka at the beginning of the GT. Some of us stayed on to see the "slave caves" 20km north of Stonetown, which have a better documented history of use in the slave trade than the famous ordeal rooms near the Cathedral. The Cathedral is itself a fascinating place - a European room with few concessions to the locality, except the marble columns at the entrance that were installed upside-down by confused local builders.

The afternoon was spent much like the previous one - wandering, taking photos, and idly investigating prices for "stuff I want". I've not actually taken that many photos of Africa in general, but Zanzibar is up there with Damascus, Santorini, Naxos, Ghadarmes, Siena and Istanbul for photogenic opportunities.

Today is a chilled day for shopping and writing in Stonetown. There are a couple of museums to visit as well. Most of the truck mob has headed north to a beach, but I'm passing that up to go snorkelling around three reef islands tomorrow. The evenings have, and will continue to be, spent at local live music performances.

I'll try to write again at last once before I leave.

Tanzania - Zanzibar

2006-01-30T12:41:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to the Pursuit of Dreams

After four years, I am finally here. The air smells of cloves, the alleys are light-filled and intriguingly stocked with unusual shops and narrow homes, spectacular and intricately carved doors line the steets. The buildings altrnate between frsh white paint and decrepit moulding black. You can hear and see Arabic and Swahili everywhere. It's everything I wanted it to be, and I've only been here for an hour or two.

A masaai is nonchalantly leaning against the window of the internet cafe. My mates have spread out to tackle whatver they desire d- lunch, photography, shopping, email, mindless meandering, etc. I expect to spend two days here in Stonetown, then maybe another two up on the northern beaches, taking the opportunity to snorkle the Indian ocean.

I'm very happy indeed. And because it deserves a mention, Dar-es-Salaam is not a good place to have a hangover in. Fortunately I was spared the worst of that suffered by some of my mates, but the experience of being stuck in a teribly slow-moving and heavily-laden ferry downwind of the drying fish markets is one that I only need do once. It reminds me of a seaside version of Cairo - chaotic, loud, but with fresher air and a distinct odour of old dried fish.

Malawi - The Inland Sea

2006-01-30T12:10:00.001+11:00

Dedicated to Foot Worms

They say that scratching at parasitic African foot worms is better than sex. Fortunately, I wouldn't know. I'm not one of the five people on the truck infested with the freakish moving vein-like buggers. Their curative regime of flash-freezing, soaking in petrol and popping various pills seems to be working now, luckily.

I'm writing this retrospectively from Zanzibar. You'll get another blog for that. There was no chance of accessing internet at all in Malawi. It's the third poorest nation in Africa, and by buying a handful of items I spent more than a typical year's income for the locals. One of the camping sites had just enough electricity to power a freezer, christmas lights, and an ipod-powered sound system. It was one of the best parties we've had so far!

Malawi is centered on the western shores of Lake Malawi, a vast and terribly beautiful expanse of clear flat water. It has tides and builds up into bg waves in the wake of storms. The water is bath warm, laden with colourful fish and populated with fishermem in dug-out canoes. We took the opportunity to ride horses bareback into the water, through villages and forests. On another day we walked 30km up to the Livingstonia mission at the top of a mountain overlooking the immense lake. It was the longest trek I've ever undertaken to reach a museum.

The emerging relationships on the truck are still very sweet. There have been engaging girls on other trucks we've encountered too.

Quickly now, I must tell you about Zanzibar!

Zambia - Raining in Chipata

2006-01-23T05:38:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Truckers ('cause they keep this country rollin...)

I'm half an hour away from the Malawi border, at a tiny Zambian town called Chipata. I think it's a town, at least, as the road was the most potholed two-hour stretch the truck has seen in Zambia. Hamlets of thatched circular houses appear mingled amongst cornfields, lush green shrubs, and mist-capped mountains. Small businesses with grandiose titles like the "Chimpaneke World Trade Centre" flash past on the roadside, and local kids always stop to wave at the truck as it passes by. There are many billboards advertising Church services and raising awareness of HIV-AIDS.

It's also looking to remain as wet as it currently is. "Six days of torrential rain" have been forecast for our stay in Malawi. This sucks as the main events planned there focus on the immense lake, which whips up into a rough and dangerous sea during storms. I'm sure we'll work something out, but it's looking like quite a few postcards will get written (if you're lucky!).

The last couple of days have been spent on the road. Today was peppered with roadblocks of an African nature. The first was a three-truck pile-up that was removed after a fourth and fifth truck brutally rammed the whole mess off the road. The second was on a tight bend after a small rural village, where a copious quantity of glass bottles had been shattered along a thirty metre stretch. Local kids appeared immediately with brooms, asking for payment to clean it up. We used our own brooms to clear the road, and have no doubt whatsoever that as soon as we drove through, the kids "restored" to road to it's sparkling condition. (It's simply an extortionate version of a lemonade stand for pocket money...)

Oh, and I forgot to mention anything of Victoria Falls (Mosi o Tunya). They are utterly sublime, meritorious of extraneous superlatives. They fall in great torrents of white and yellow water, tumbling hundreds of metres below you as you lean out over the slippery cliffs barred only by the odd chain or plank. Luxuriant grasses grow over the precipice, inspiring a new variant of the "extreme ironing" phenomenon - "extreme mowing". You can walk for hundreds of metres along the opposite cliff edge, and new falls keep appearing from the fog. It's truly like something from Lord of the Rings.

I have heard that internet is very unreliable in Malawi. Email me by all means, but you may not get a post for a couple of days. After Malawi, we're heading on to Tanzania, and my most anticipated destination of all, the island of Zanzibar.

Zambia - Lusaka

2006-01-22T01:08:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to the Buff Slush of BC2006

In Lusaka now, the capital of Zambia, and for the first time I'm sending this to you from a supermarket. It's just like typing away in Coles.

On arrival to the spacious but fairly grubby city CBD, with consipicuously more carparks than cars, an Egyptian imam eating icecream with a spoon managed to drive into the side of the turck. No damage was done to us, but we ended up driving around the CBD area in loops following a police car and working out bribes.

We're heading off to Malawi over the next two days, where we shall spend a few days by the inland sea of Lake Malawi. A superb snorkeling, diving, and chair-making site. The truck population has been reshuffled, all great people (although I don't yet know all of them yet). Of the fifteen of us, about six are medical students or young doctors. So we can do whatever we like to the local wildlife, and get an expert opinion on our exotic tropical disease collection! Huzzah!

I've been curio shopping in Livingstone market, barely wider than a corridor, where every vendor knew my name and nationality by the time I reached there stall. Interesting times and friendly bargaining in tens of thousands of kwacha.

Must be off, I need to buy rusks, beer and apples.

PS - The shifty laundry dealers were very popular with my truck mates, seven of whom hefted massive sacks of laundry to them the next day.

Zambia - Black Market Laundry

2006-01-20T01:44:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Martin, the Catholic Cabbie, and Precious, of the Livingstone Museum.

Today was basically a laundry day, Zambian style.

I caught a taxi into Livingstone to deal with a ponderous load of washing, and also to visit the local museum. After swerving the usual potholes along the road from the camp site, Martin the driver parked outside an incongruously tall office building. (Livingstone is a fairly short town, with nothing higher than two stories).

He led me through the imposing security gate, past the main entrance and through a tiny passageway where military men in red berets smiled and chatted to other visitors from behind a desk. We walked up several flights of stairs, passing various businesses established in offices. They ranged from internet cafes, telephony centres, language schools, car hire, several things that looked distinctly military and a few "laundromats". All of these bore the same photograph of the Zambian president in a manner akin to al-Assad of Syria.

The first "laundromat" lay behind a door reading "debt collectors". Three women sitting silently behind desks looked suprised to see me there. A couple of suits hung in plastic bags in the corner, but there was no suggestion of what this business actually did. I noticed a framed "certificate of registration" hanging on the wall had yet to fill in the blanks of what it was registered to do, or by whom.

One lady discussed with me that they could do my laundry, but usually just did suits. She could not give me a price estimate, because the lady responsible for laundry wasn't there yet. She wanted to know how many days I would like to wait before picking it up. All this after carefully and silently emptying the bag of laundry items one by one, writing them individually on a receipt slip. After further resultless debate, it became clear they could not realistically expect to wash and dry the clothes within the day, so I left with Martin to find another.

The second place actually had a lot more clothes hanging about, but consisted of a tiny room with a bench. No sign of washing machines, detergents, or any of the paraphenalia you would associate with a laundromat in Australia. The bloke behind the desk was confident it could be done in three hours, and after weighing up the bag in his hands, reckoned it would cost 40,000 kwacha. This is about US$15. I said that sounded expensive (how was I to know what it should have really cost?) and asked for 30,000 (US$10 ish). He agreed to this sooner than I expected, so I think I may have been extorted somewhat. I left unsure if I would see my clothes again, fearing insider trading in secondhand western clothing.

A couple of hours were spent in the Museum, a proudly aspirational place with a lot more dedication and sense of purpose than funding. The four galleries - archaeology and hominid fossils, a mannequin-populated ethnographic village, a natural history area of obscure taxidermied specimens, and a text-heavy memorial to David Livingstone - combined academic journal passages with artworks prepared by primary school students, and statements of dubious origin. Lots of interesting things amongst them however, and the guide was lovely.

I returned to find the laundry had in fact been done, all items accounted for. It was still slightly damp and some items were not as clean as others, but a spell in the sun fixed those faults. I think I may now be the only person on the truck with a complete set of clean clothes.

Speaking of the truck, we've upgraded machines and joined a mob of nine new people who will travel with us to Nairobi. Haven't yet met all of them, but they seem like fun.

Tomorrow we'll be setting off for Victoria Falls. I can see the "smoke that thunders" from the camp site, and microflights fly overhead regularly offering tourists joyflights over them. I'm particularly looking forward to this, as one of my Honours Thesis travelling artists, Thomas Baines, was the first person to bring images of the Falls to European audiences.

Zambia - Canoeing the Zambezi

2006-01-18T22:43:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Dad

I'm writing from Livingstone now, the town near Victoria Falls on the Zambian side. It is raining almost constantly, but it's warm, the forests are lush, and the ambience is great. This camp site is known for hippos wandering about at night, so there are big "Do Not Approach the Hippos" signs everywhere. Likewise for crocodiles resident in the pools.

I have spent this morning canoeing a 15km stretch of the mighty Zambezi river, well above the falls. Three bold yellow canoes set out with two guides, myself and a young English couple, here performing voluntary work for a year in a beekeeping project. The sky was grey and interestingly clouded, and the water colour changed through dark navy blue to light green and almost orange-brown. It was warm to the touch, and much cleaner here as we are closer to its source. The rain was cool, and made wonderful speckling patterns on the flat water.

Hippos eyed us cautiously from the other sides of the river, and crocodiles slid off the sandy and grassy banks. We parked only a couple of metres from a fairly big one - the customs officer of Zimbabwe. The Zambezi marks the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, so I took the opportunity to smuggle myself across the border, just so I could say I have. The Chobe river also forms the border between Zambia and Botswana, as I learnt when we ferried across with the truck yesterday.

Speaking of things I've learnt, did you know the Chobe river actually reverses it's flow when the Zambezi floods? (The Chobe flows into the Zambezi) Does anyone out there know of any other rivers able to switch their direction?

Whitewater rafting may be cancelled for tomorrow, due to a massive group booking, so I might head off the see the Victoria Falls instead. I'll try to get another post sent tomorrow because Internet is reliable here.

Botswana - Bushbaby Biltong

2006-01-16T20:10:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to the Truck Mob

I'm writing from an incredibly slow and unreliable internet cafe by the road in Botswana. Myself and three truck mates beat two other Overland truck groups to this place and we've locked ourselves in place - we're the only ones able to get even a few minutes of email! Huzzah!

Botswana is incredibly flat - the entire country varies in altitude by only a hundred metres. It's covered in scrubland right to the horizon so far. Elephants and giraffes wander across the road and vanish smoothly into the forest within seconds of emerging.

There've been lots of game drives and big animal sightings. Of the Big Five, we've only seen two - Buffalo and Elephant, still waiting on Rhino, Lion and Leopard. But fortunately I've seen them before as a child in Kenya. Plenty of others too - impala, kudu, waterbuck, bushbabies, pythons, vultures, yellow-saddled storks, innumerable exotic birds, servals, hares, mongoose, etc. We had our truck charged by an angry male elephant in musk, who insisted on nonchalantly blocking the road for twenty minutes. Exciting stuff.

And the in-jokes and nicknames are forming rapidly amongst the ten of us on the truck crew. Too many to list here - suffice to say the nickname Doc has stuck for me, and I'm pleased not to suffer the unfortuante titling of Nipples, Sleazy, Dopey, Snorty, or Mr Helen that have been dubbed on others.

Next post hopefully from Tanzania, possibly Livingstone, which is said to be something of an adventure tourism capital.

South Africa - Johannesberg

2006-01-12T05:41:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Humanity

OK, I go ahead and dedicate a five-mintue post on a tragic internet conection to something as overwhelming as That. Too bad - this is all I can muster, and it may be all you'll here for some time.

First, All's Good Here!!! Totally safe. Hostel surrounded by razorwire tumbled beneath scenic garden, huge walls everywhere, but feels like Yarralumla aside from that. Toured Soweto shantytowns and the Apartheid museum so far, fantastic places, need a bigger post to do them justice. Have met the ten people I'll be trucking with to Nairobi over the next month, quite a good mix of nations, all twenty-something. Look like it's be awesome.

Must go - don't hold your breath for the next post!

Egypt - Dashing out the Door

2006-01-10T07:15:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to the Sibling Exchange Program

"Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!"

Moments left before I leave this country. As Dad always firmly states, everything gets frantic before you go abroad. A few seconds ago I was on the phone to Australian and Egyptian people I shall miss for the next month. A last-minute banking crisis was suddenly eased by a deu ex machina with a taste for dramatic timing. At least the final farewell dinner was leisurely and delicious, with great company that I am sure to miss.

Deepest darkest Africa beckons like a neocolonial fantasy. I don't know how reliable my internet access will be. I'm expecting very little indeed. Subsequently, I will try to get at least one post per nation (seven in total), but I can make no promises. The diary will be extensive, as will my photographs.

Bring on the third major phase of the GT!

Egypt - Preparing for Africa

2006-01-09T01:46:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to the Excitement of Admin Days

Today and yesterday have largely been preparation days in advance of the journey across south-east Africa. They've been busy, but who really wants to hear about the hours spent on Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree Forum and the complications of banking during both the Egyptian Eid and the Australian weekend? I'm a nice blogger, I won't bore you with that.

The backpack has been packed, and it's mostly empty. I discovered that everything I've been carrying around before actually fits in the day pack alone - the size of a schoolbag - leaving the big bag empty for stuff!! Very excited, and I have subsequently been studying the quarantine regulations for Australia with serious collecting in mind.

And on another note relating to shopping - now that the Africa leg of the GT has been budgeted and paid for, it looks like I was able to afford the Grand Tour. No debts have been entered, and there's enough money left over to not only cope with an emergency here, but be stable in Australia for renewed savings. Collectively, it has been the most expensive thing I've ever paid for in my life. I'm very pleased that I was able to save for it in full before leaving Australia too.

(If that's all too vague, so far it has cost me as much as my HECs debt is worth. HECS is still unpaid, and it shall stay that way until my taxes deal with it for me)

I'll post once again before leaving Egypt - about 30 hours to go.

Egypt - The Camel Markets

2006-01-06T07:54:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to the Bronze Medallist of the Egyptian Camel Marathon

The Camel Market lies a couple of hours beyond Cairo. It's slightly past the outlying farming areas, before the desert begins, and way past the Giza pyramids. The morning light is golden, perhaps more so than usual due to the persistent city smog.

You drive along a dead straight rural road adorned with street stalls selling mandarins, strawberries and unusually coloured carrots. There are also regular signs for the "Wiseness" Language School, and an elaborate theatre set of giant autumn leaves abandoned by the roadside. Donkey carts and industrial machinery slow down traffic, but we still see a number of amazing near-misses from other vehicles moving at high speed.

The camel market itself is not a tourist destination, and it's hard to find. It's in a walled enclosure about the size of a pair of city blocks, end to end like a street. The only hint is the odd camel you might see loitering about the entrance.

I have never seen so many camels before in my life. As we drove in, and continued right through to the far end, they reached out their sinuous giraffe-like necks, gurgled borborygmically and hobbled about on three triple-jointed stilt-like legs. It was like a mammalian version of Jurassic Park.

Men from across Northern Africa wore long flowing dark galabeyas and plain white kaffirs amidst the clouds of dust set drifting by stomping megafauna. They paid little attention to us, and periodically moved their charges about with exclamations in Arabic and the odd thwack with a long stick. This truly didn't seem to bother the camels, who barely flinched and seemed to speak as much Arabic as me. I was suprised by the lack of serious maltreatment of camels there - almost all seemed free from injuries or disease, as you might expect from beasts being prepared for sale, and there were vastly different regional varieties. Somalian camels are tallest and thin, like animated origami stilt puppets, whilst Morrocan camels are dark and luscious. Every camel bore markings indicating its origin, be they painted, tattooed, branded, or strategically shaved.

They are staturesque and graceful creatures. The women I was travelling with would say the same about some of their herders - all beings present possessed striking large eyes, thick lips and sun-tinted skins. Everything moved with an elegance of purpose and assumed immaculate picturesque stances without a second thought. The smell was actually more pleasant than many farms I have visited elsewhere - a faint horsiness, like fermented cut grass, and whiffs of strong black tea.

Camels retail here around 2500 Egyptian pounds minimum, which is around $500 Australian. Most of those at the market were destined for butchers around Egypt. The most prestigious specimen we saw was a velvety chocolate-coloured Morroccan virgin, who was affectionate and loved having her head cradled in our arms. She wore a unique bone tablet around her neck marking out her status. (She wasn't for sale).

Becky and I rode a racing camel around part of the street-like enclosure. He was perhaps the least attractive beast there - lanky, aggro, howling like a wookie and easily nine feet tall. The most awkward part of camel riding is the mounting and dismounting. They'll make it easy for you by lowering to the ground, but the extension of their legs is like unfolding a wonky deckchair. Once up, high over the terrain, it feels very regal. You cross your legs across to one side, and hold the front and back of the saddle with either hand. Serious riders sit differently - the jockey launched our camel into action a few times, showing us a few tricky maneuveres - but this was fine for us.

Our afternoon was spent at the fascinating Australian archaeological dig at Helwan, near Maadi, where we saw the excavation of 1st through 4th-Dynasty tombs, and the illegal encroachment of hastily built apartments by local residents, obliterating priceless archaeological remains in the process. This would have been worth a blog post in itself, but I thought you might like the camels instead.

I have been busy with many other events over the last few days as well, mostly involving long walks and talks around Cairo with Beck. We'll be heading off in different directions over the next few days, but it's all been good fun, and I haven't regretted a moment.

Egypt - The Western Deserts

2006-01-03T09:08:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Becky

There is a seemingly infinite road that flees the congestion of Cairo for the barren Western Deserts.

It is even more featureless than I imagine the Nullarbor Plain to be. Unlike driving into the Sahara through Libya, the landscape simply does not change for most of the journey. It is despairingly horizontal, showered with tiny dark pebbles, and pursues a dead straight path to the horizon. Many, many horizons. It is a continous deja vu, and an agoraphobe's nightmare.

This form of landscape induces a meditative state of mind, and it makes the large logs of petrified wood exposed by railway and road construction all the more exciting. The unnamed truck stop (deep in the middle of somewhere) is a lively centre of activity, bearing a great similarities to an Antarctic scientific research station.

Eventually we met with a border into the Great Sand Sea, where the dunes rise like oceanic waves, threatening to break with all the gusto of a glacier. A slow curve in the road marks a site where we stop to stretch our legs by collecting fossilised nummalites from the sand beside the road, little orange spirals like archaic coinage. These are the single-celled creatures that the Pyramids of Giza are made from.

We reached the oasis town of Bahariya in time to change cars. The three-car 4WD convoy set off into the White Desert to reach our camp in time for the panoramic and luridly intense sunset.

The White Desert is divided into two parts - the Old and the New, determined by the ease of accessibility that came with the introduction of 4WD vehicles. To drive through these deserts is to glide over sand through fields of surreal chalk monoliths resembling icebergs. It looks like a spawning ground for Sphinx, lunging forth from the earth. The air is misty from the fine particles carried by the slight breeze, and the marks of tyres are prominent. There are many campers, attracted by a prospect of New Year's in the desert, but they are all well spaced and there is no litter.

There was an excellent evening under the spectacular array of stars, with great company and hearty hot food. It reached 2 degrees that night, but who would notice when sleeping under a heavy camel hair rug?

The next morning was blindingly white, and revealed the fresh tracks of gerbils and foxes. We found expanses of fascinating specimens of iron pyrites, shaped like nails, flowers, spiky walnuts, figurines, phalluses, and fragile lattice bowls. There were hills made entirely of shimmering quartz crystals, with those at the summit as long as your forearm, crumbling into sands thick with tiny translucent shards. The Black Desert is a landscape of hills created by magma flows and wind erosion over 30 million years. It is a silent and timeless place.

An afternoon was spent seeking out old doors and interesting faces in the oasis town of Bahariya. Quite an album of photographs was taken, but we fear the unique painted door we originally sought has now been destroyed. It is a conservative community that places value on the nearby deserts, which is undoubtedly the source of all revenue from tourists, but has ignored its local cultural heritage to a disappointing extent.

2006 was welcomed upon the hotel roof. We had sought a private place, away from the din of the parties below us, to lie back and watch for shooting stars in the heart of the oasis. It was a romantic and understated beginning to another promising new year.

Egypt - Exploring Cairo

2005-12-30T06:43:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Dagmar and Becky

The last few days since Christmas have been spent in Cairo.

Each day has led to the exploration of new areas within the old city. "Islamic Cairo" is the area of the city centre distinguished by the wealth of medieval Islamic architecture, a heritage far more relevant to modern history than the Pharonic cultures that have gripped Western imaginations of Egypt for so long. This is the world of the Orientalists - the artists who brought images of the exotic "East" to intrigued and fanciful Western audiences in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries.

Imagine long lines of camels loping through the ancient and imposing Arabian city gates laden with spices from Timbuktu. They are being led by men with indigo robes and curved swords, skin darkened from exposure to the desert sun, swearing in an alien language. These are all being viewed by beautiful dark-eyed women, veiled in colourful silks, through the shadowed arabesques of a meshrabeyah screened-window, high above the muddy streets.

This scene is a convoluted mish-mash of historically inspired fictions, each component drawn from a different time, region, and context. You'll find heaps of it throughout what can be called the Orientalist genre. It's an area I find very interesting, largely through it's impact upon travel narratives (both implied by authors and constructed by readers) of the nineteenth century. But in certain places in Cairo, you can't help but immerse yourself into these Western idealisations, for these are the very places that inspired them hundreds of years ago.

I have walked from the Khan to the North Gate, through streets teeming with jewellery merchants, coppersmiths, and extraordinary mosques undergoing renovations with jackhammers.

I have explored vast caravanserai, with sleeping cells illuminated by hazy, smoggy sunlight emerging from delicate gaps in meshrabeyah screens. Hyperactive guides, whose limited English was made up for by their sheer weight of enthusiasm, have taken me to rooftops to view canyons of tilted streets and forests of minarets towering over the festering urban sprawl.

I have stepped into the serene tranquility of open mosque courtyards, including the immaculately smooth white marbles of the al-Azhur and the al-Hakim, and felt with my feet the gritty aged surfaces of the Ibn Talun mosque. This was a mosque designed to hold an entire army in prayer, well over a thousand years ago. Now only a few dozen prayer rugs remain in place, and I was told that this was more than last week.

I have wound my way through homes of wealthy families built ten to fifteen generations ago, and marveled at the complexities of their adornments, secret passages, and remarkable intimacy of scale.

I have learnt about the eccentric, dangerous, tragic, and charming lives of ancient and not-so-ancient individuals - the rich, the famous, the infamous, and the possibly mythological.

I have watched a second performance of vibrant Sufi dancers and musicians in the cold night air, followed by an evening of sheesha and unusual aromatic drinks at a bustling Egyptian cafe, surrounded by wonderful locals and good mates.

And I have seen hard working tradesmen continue practicing skills within industries that may, for all I can tell, have remained almost the same since the Bronze Age.

There would be too much to list in detail, as I do not want to bore you here. One day I hope you may be able to see all this for yourself.

This is likely to be my last post of 2005. It has been a very good year for me. I wish that you may be able to say the same for yourself! But all new years come with new hopes and aspirations, and I think it is time I shared one important one here for all to see.

I have revised my travel plans to include East Africa in the Grand Tour. From the 10 January - 10 February I shall be driving from Johannesburg through to Nairobi, in a truck bearing a dozen or so backpackers. This is not my first time to Africa - I visited Kenya as a child, around 1992. The memories of cheetahs warming themselves on the bonnet of the jeep in the early morning sunlight remain vivid, amongst a host of others. I have been exceptionally keen to see this region again over the last few years, and finally reaching the island of Zanzibar bears a special resonance for me.

I shall return to Australia, and thus end the Grand Tour, on the 25th February 2006.

I do not know what you intend to do for New Year's, but if you can make it, you're welcome to join me and a bunch of mates from the Australian Embassy deep in the western deserts of Egypt, at Bahariya Oasis. We leave tomorrow at 8am. Bring a warm sleeping bag.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

2005-12-25T20:24:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Every Person I have been so fortunate to meet while travelling this year.

Thank you for all your contributions, be they inadvertent, accidental, philosophical, charming, enraging, romantic, generous, frustrating, benevolent, inspiring, gregarious, useful and/or humourous.

I am writing to wish every one who reads this - friends, family and otherwise - the very best of Christmases and an excellent New Year. I'm in Agami, a town near Alexandria, sharing a house with twelve Aussies. There's turkey and ham scents, glurg, the Viennese Boys Choir, CNN and ethnic dress. It's a lovely warm atmosphere that makes all of us think of our families at home.

We spent yesterday - Christmas Eve - in the corniche of Alexandria. The roads have flooded in many places, as deep as the car's headlights! We created a huge wake in our path which washed over pavements and into shops. So did all the other cars - mostly fiats, taxis, chevrolet utes and horsedrawn carts. It's all a novelty for us but must be terrible for the local Egyptians, who have to deal with these horrible roads for three or four months a year. That aside, seeing the Library of Alexandria and it's spectacular museum, as well as the nearby Mamluk fortress said to be built from components of the original Great Lighthouse, was brilliant. Lunch was spent in Abu Ashraf, a very local fish restaurant set in an alley covered by a green tarpaulin, deep in the grottier streets of downtown Alexandria.

May you have a very safe and happy Christmas, with as many loved ones as you can reach.

Libya - Cyrene

2005-12-23T03:26:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Mubaraf

Cyrene, east of Benghazi on the other side of Libya's Mediterranean coastline, is possibly the most intact ancient Greek city on earth. At least, it ought to be when it's excavated.

So far, it's like a Libyan version of Termessos in Turkey. Situated high on cliffs overlooking the sea, with temples, a theatre, and an extraordinary number of Greek statues remaining in-situ. Some were only recently unearthed by rain, looking like fossilised war crimes with impeccable togas.

(Speaking of togas, they remain traditional attire here for older men. It's one of very few places where the ancient Greek heritage has remained current, a living fossil of human fashion. They are very impressive garments, bestowing a grand air of dignity upon the wearer.)

The extensive remnants of mosiac flooring remains exposed to the elements from the foundations of an anicent mansion, and ongoing excavations reveal entire new suburbs and temples each year. Their on-site museum consists of two warehouses. One is a public space displaying the most complete and interesting specimens of marble statuary, around 1700 pieces in total. The other contains the smaller finds, and items of more specialised interest. It includes, according to the well-credited expert who was guiding us (thanks, Saffir Oustralya!), literally "sacks of coins", shelves and wrapped parcels to the ceiling, and an extraordinary gold ring with a long series of documented curse-related mishaps...

The nearby site of Apollonia reveals less spectacular remains, but I was given a Ptolemaic coin there found by the archaeologist (who said it was 2500 years old, but he had too many kilos of them to be needed for study). Aside from being seriously thrilled, it meant my eyes were glued to the ground for the rest of the time there.

The way back took us through an awesome deep wadi (canyon) lined with immense caves, undoubtedly of significance to prehistoric archaeology. In fact, Neanderthal remains have been found there, and many caves are still being explored.

I have written a great deal today, and there's more I need to do with my spare time. It has been a pleasure recounting Libya, but from here on, I will be up in Agami for Christmas with Mum, Dad, and a bunch of Embassy staff.

Happy Holidays!

Libya - Ghadames

2005-12-23T00:26:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Mahmoud, who grew up in this stunning city while it was still alive.

Ghadames is located far from most regions of interest, within viewing distance of the Algerian border, and an inch or two on most maps from Tunisia.

It was a long day of driving through the utterly open and flat desert plains that stretch for vast distances into the Sahara. We passed along roads streaked with wind-blown rivers of sand, crumbling clay castles, and thousands of colossal electricity towers striding single-file into the horizon. Finally, the lights of Ghadames coloured the horizon just after the last sunlight disappeared.

Ghadames (Gha-dar-mez) is an ancient settlement, datiung back maybe 4500 years. This makes it one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth - and "city" is a fine description for this place of a few thousand inhabitants. It is by far the most cosmopolitan place for several days walk by camel. It's history is that of the caravanseri - trading teams on camels, carrying goods across the Sahara from Europe to the southern tip of Africa, and from Morocco to Anatolia and on through the Silk Road. Many were run by operators based in Ghadames, and this provided the community's wealth. This was aside from the reliable oasis water, ingeniously divided amongst farmers by a system that also became a unique standard for time measurement. The only real export of the city itself was embroidered slippers, now made by just one family for tourists and worn by locals only on festival days.

The old city is now a UNESCO maintained ghost town. No-one lives here any more, mainly because the buildings are too fragile to install a sewerage system of any kind (sun-baked adobe bricks that take up to six months to make and can stand for centuries in the desert become just plain old mud if you add water). It is breathtakingly beautiful.

Posters and images of the covered alleys adorn postcard stands and tourist info sites throughout Libya. It's very like a Santorini of the Sahara - every new corner produces a photogenic scene. And it's very very white, where gypsum is used to whitewash the outer walls, contrasting with the dusty and mud-brown tones of the vacant streets and incomplete buildings. The arches used to support the higher floors (most of the city is 3 or 4 stories high) are often in a Hand of Fatima style, and niches (installed comparatively recently) echo these indigenous forms. The uppermost heights feature a uniquely African triangular filial on each corner, and the roof level of the city was in fact a second city reserved for women. This way, by walking from rooftop to rooftop, they could cross the entire city without being seen by men or encountering the scum of the streets.

I am yet to review the images I have taken thoroughly, but there are several standouts already. Most are repeated views of the shadow-striated alleys, lined like what you quilters out there would call a crazy log cabin block in black and white. (Yes, I know quilters are reading this, very quietly sneaking away from Mum's blog... and no I'm not a quilter). They are haunting, hard to navigate, mesmerising and truly a world heritage treasure.

(The hotel we stayed in was designed to emulate the streets of the old city. We only realised this in retrospect. The first night we just wondered why we were placed in rooms ten minutes walk from the lobby when we were the only guests. After exploring Ghadames the layout of the corridors, the arches, the skylights, and the completely empty rooms, all made sense.)

The interior of a Ghadames house was a riot of red crosshatched wall paintings, mirrors to immerse the room with sunlight, and bronze bowls nailed to walls for both more colour and more reflected light. Colourful modern textiles lay about the floor of the central tall room, where we reclined over a communal bowl of couscous and camel, which tastes very like lamb. Once again, this is a scene deserving of photographs.

The local museum was modest, but very lovingly brought together. Labels were updated by handwritten annotations, and items on display seemed to still belong to locals. It was an excellent introduction to the old city, located in a former Italian barracks from the days of their Libyan occupation. The Italian Occupation weighs as heavily in the collective history of modern Libya as the WWI campaigns do for Australia.

That evening we visited a patch of tremendous sand dunes right beside the Algerian border. Dad and I climbed to the summit of the highest dune by ourselves to watch the sunset over the sprawling empty plains below, and counted the white border posts. No green flash this time. I ran back down the slope of the dune, leaving massive footprints in my wake, reliving the camping trips my family took to Wadi Rum in Jordan when I was much younger.

I was shaking Saharan sand from my shoes all the way to Benghazi.

Libya - Berber Architecture

2005-12-22T06:48:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to the splendid guidance of Mr Shukri and Captain Darfir

The last few days in Libya have been fantastic.

I am writing from Cairo again, returning to a final manic day in this frenzied metropolis before joining a crowd of Australian Embassy staff at the "beach house" in Agami, near Alexandria.

There are several topics I'd like to write about. For images, I urge you to please check out Google Image Search with "Libya ---", because these places are spectacular and I still have a couple of thousand images to sift through and catalogue before I'm even looking at my Libyan photos!

The Berber are one of three main groups inhabiting modern Libya, and one of the most ancient. Their agricultural villages were centred around reliable water sources in the desert regions, and constructed from mud brick, stone and date palm timber, adhered with gypsum mortar, until a few decades ago. Now several small Berber communities are preserving their Medinas (old cities) for cultural heritage and tourism purposes. The most famous of these is Ghadames, with Ghat (way out in the deep Sahara desert, near the borders of Algeria, Libya and Chad) a close rival. I was not able to reach Ghat this time, but we stopped in a few others to study the Berber's vernacular architecture (ie, "folk" architecture). Within these sites, the most important structures were undoubtedly their fortified granaries.

We saw three very different structures over the last couple of days in Western Libya, in the Berber communities of Qasr al-Haj, Nalut, and Kabaw (aka Kabao). All of these are essentially a community bank vault, food storage facility, and architectural wonder in mud brick. Each was built in the best defensive position in the area - high up over the town, or backing onto a cliff edge. They all possess a great sense of humanity in their design - clay smoothed back by human hands, based entirely on human proportions, unadorned and rough at the edges but beautiful for their simplicity, purpose, and the nature of their materials.

Qasr al-Haj was made by a wealthy religious leader, and contains 144 rooms, one for each sura of the Koran. It is perhaps the most elegant of these structures - a perfect circle with two-storey blank walls outside, with an interior dominated by an empty courtyard used to host markets. The higher ring of dark, small chambers can be accessed by a pathway around the inner upper storey, which looks out over the vast flat desert plains and dramatic mountain range to the south-east. Each door is sealed with a sturdy arrangement of three planks of date palm wood, locked with a deceptively simple wooden key mechanism.

Nalut hosts the most complex granary in Libya. It may have began with a design like Qasr al-Haj, a simple ring of food vaults, but increasing population pressures led to the creation of more storage units. So another outward-facing hill of vaults was built in the centre area, like a giant muddy sandcastle, four stories high, and the outer walls were built progressively higher as more chambers were stacked on top. Occasionally sections of the outer wall were rebuilt (mud structures will crumble, even in the dry desert), giving locals the opportunity to fold walls like a tesseract (zig-zag, or the way an intestine folds) to make even more space for vaults. The whole effect now is a labyrinthine spiral of turbulent ups, downs, sideways, overhead and perpendicular chambers. There are numerous hanging baskets to raise or lower commodities to the least accessible locations, and thick branches sticking out to enable agile climbers to reach any opening. It is a site for excellent but challenging photography, all light earthy tones contrasted with the clear blue sky, and plenty of opportunities to explore shadow and perspective.

The last granary was Kabaw, which also requires the most needed restoration work. That said, you can do things here that OH&S requirements would completely prevent in Australia for a cultural heritage site! This was somewhere between Qasr al-Haj and Nalut for design, being a four-storey ring of uneven and asymmetrical vaults with a clear space in the centre, occupied by a white stone tomb. It has the wild and organic quality of Nalut, with more of the order and spaciousness of Qasr al-Haj. Most distinctly, it hosts vaults underground, beneath the open courtyard space. This was designed as a reaction to increased population, just like Nalut, but they built down instead of up. I followed the very nimble local guide through the tiny chambers in pitch darkness, seeing the huge ceramic vessels used for storing olive oil and other liquids, designed to be too large to remove from their tiny doorways.

The final highlight of singular buildings was another subterreanean construction - a Berber underground house in Gharyan. Basically, this is an 8m deep pit, like the foundation of a high rise office building. Rooms shared by several families are dug out to the sides, meeting in the central atrium. The whole arrangement is hard to see from a distance (great for security) and remarkably stable for fluctuating climates.

I think this post is long enough now - I'll write two more for you on Ghadames and Cyrene!

Libya - Leptis Magna

2005-12-17T06:01:00.000+11:00

Also Dedicated to The Leader

Today was another day set aside solely to explore the vast ruins of Leptis Magna, the single most spectacular and well-preserved Roman city in North Africa. And we virtually had the whole place to ourselves! Thank you, convoluted visa system!

In many ways Leptis is much like Sabratha from yesterday. The three ancient cities (the third being Oea, virtually under modern Tripoli) formed the colony of Tripolitani, and Leptis was once the most prominent of these. One Roman Emperor, Septimus "The Grim African" Severus, hailed from Leptis and sought to develop it into a metropolis to rival Rome. His triumphal arch, adorned with triangular capitals unique to North Africa, forms a superb and powerful entrance to the city.

From there we explored kilometres of ancient cobbled roads lined with huge masonry blocks under various states of restoration. The immense Baths of Hadrian, built from limestone, marbles (including a strange green variety and Egyptian red basalt), once featured a broad ceiling decorated with brilliant blue mosaics, but these have since collapsed. There were puddles all over the place from yesterday's rain (it was excellent weather today), creating fascinating reflections of columnsm, arches, and sky.

Thousands of flocks of starlings filled the sky frequently, taking several minutes to pass overhead. The shadows they created were distractingly strobe-like. Apparently they cross the Mediterreanean in their annual migration. It was mesmerising to watch them shift like duststorms in the bowl-like airspace of the ancient Ampitheatre, where Dad lead me down to see the areas were caged beasts were released upon gladitors, slaves, criminals and Christians. The echoes from this haunting space were bizarre too - precisely one repeat, with no further sounds.

We spent the evening wandering Tripoli's Medina or old city souqs. It was dark, and most of the shops were closed, leaving long twisting alleys of shut green doors against white walls illuminated by dodgy electrics. We encountered several former caravanserai, and a stunning mosque/tomb with distinctive Libyan hand-painted tiles. It was a thrivingly local area, with no tourists whatsoever and few signs of any tourist industry. Dinner was at the most basic Libyan chicken takeaway shop you can imagine - charming and bustling with locals, plus the Arabic version of MTV. It's actually a suprisingly erogenous channel, and unusually, they give full credit listings at the end of each video clip as the songs fade out.

Tomorrow, I am travelling 600km south-west into the Sahara desert, to the 4500 year old city of Ghardarmes.

And it looks like your Christmas cards are coming with me...

Libya - Tripoli and Sabratha

2005-12-16T07:06:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to The Leader

I've been assured that everything I write in this country gets read, so it's nice to know I have an audience.

Aside from that, Libya is actually really impressive. I mean it! The traffic will stop for you at zebra crossings, and red lights, and even policemen waving their arms intermittently are respected. The roads are smooth, long, curbed, with marked lanes and reliable lighting. There are modern facilities for tourists, all easily accessible, and I have scarcely seen a pile of rubbish anywhere.

It's has been raining here in Tripoli fairly continuously, and I mean serious drenching. Up to two feet of water on some of the main roads - but quickly sucked up by municipal trucks with huge nozzles. Luckily, the morning was spent in the Jamariya Museum (National Museum), and the afternooon in the archaeological site of Sabratha, which miraculously bore perfect weather. (It was also sublime to fly in under a full moon and stars, above blue-grey mountainous cumolonimbus (storm cloud) peaks and canyons below, with streaks of rain lighting up like sparks near the wing lights).

The Museum held several excellent mosaics, and stunning examples of North Saharan rock art. It is so dramatically different to what you may expect from Australian indigenous art - dynamic and emotive in a more realist manner, simplified and summarised rather than abstracted. There were sculptures, ceramics and other artifacts from Phoenician, Greek and Roman eras, and even entire civilisations I had never heard of - the Garamatians for example. The galleries dedicated to the Leader were unfortunately closed, and the Natural History section was a little dead and inclined towards the morbidly curious, but the folkloric sections were lively and intriguing.

The Sabratha site is a very well-preserved ancient Punic (Phoenician) - Greek - Roman - Byzantine - Islamic city, also occupied by Vandals and others over its history. Walking through it is to find yourself amidst forests of tall marble columns, ruined foundations of temples and buildings of various size and purpose, with scattered remnants of ornate mosaic floors. The Theatre is said to be the most stunnign in North Africa - and I wouldn't doubt it. It was extensively restored in the 1920s by Italian specialists and remains utterly breathtaking, with a huge three-tiered backstage facade of columns and freizes.

Tomorrow, I am off to the even larger ancient city of Leptis Magna. You shall be updated!

PS - Just so you who receive them know, I had to take the Christmas cards I wrote with me to Libya to be posted, as we were too rushed in Cairo. So they will now arrive with especially exotic stamps - Libya is tricky to get into - but most refer to Egypt. Fingers crossed for their arrival.

Egypt - Christmas Rush

2005-12-15T00:48:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Hazel for her recent Birthday

Also, for Nermeen and Tati's fantastic Cairo shopping skills!

I'm sorry, but this has to be a mere quick note. We are frantically trying to leave the house to go to Libya for ten days, returning on the 21st December. I have been putting together the Christmas shopping, the gift wrapping, all the cards, and helping relieve others of last-minute stress.

I wanted to write a proper blog post detailing the superb events of the last couple of days - the old men who walk with antique tripod contraptions through the City of the Dead, the panoramic minaret views, the sensational evening of shopping in the late-night historic city centre with two beautiful Egyptian women, the diplomatic parties and the long conversations with the Maltese Ambassador. But sadly, that's all the tantalising snapshot you're going to get.

Libya may have very restricted access to internet, but I will try to do what I did in Upper Egypt and give you all the longer posts you deserve on my return - your online Christmas Gift!

May you have a safe and happy Christmas lead-up, don't lose your temper or your cool, keep it real, stay ACE, be pumped, have fun, and seize the day. Oh, and Caveat Emptor while you're at it.

Egypt - Dad's Birthday and Wissa Wassef

2005-12-11T03:55:00.001+11:00

Dedicated to Dad. Happy Birthday Dr Bob!

Dad's birthday began the traditional way for our family - and leisurely start with an elaborate breakfast in bed. I won't list the day blow-by-blow, but we had a great walk through Cairo's centre picking up a new leather jacket and absorbing ourselves in the second hand book souq. Although only around half the stalls were open, they were fascinating arrangements. Stacks of books and magazines were piled to the roof in tin sheds wide enough to park a motorbike in. They were almost entirely in Arabic, and covered every topic imaginable. Some of the treasures were impressive rare books, and Dad was very lucky to find a valuable two-volume English translation (1803) of Vivant Denon's Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt. This particular copy has been erractically annotated by a previous owner who took great hostility to not only the text itself, but how it had been translated from the French!

That night we joined a Nile cruise dinner with good mates of my parents from the diplomatic community, farewelling a couple who were very good friends of theirs. This was great fun, and hugely informative of matters pertaining to Egypt's political scene, amongst other topics. Gorgeous boat too, and just the right weather for the trip.

Today has been comparatively quiet, focussing on household matters. We've now whipped up a Christmas tree, almost as quickly as Mum realised we needed one. It's actually more shapely than the usual ones we find in Australia, but it's not quite finished yet. There are still thousands of GT photos to sift through, so it's taking longer than I had expected to put images online. Mum was interviewed by a newspaper this afternoon, so Dad and I took the opportunity to explore the Wissa Wassef complex.

Wissa Wassef is a 50-year-old project to create employment for tapestry artists by training local children in specialised skills, but never suggesting ideas of style or formal compositions to them as they grow. The underlying idea is that all humans are inherently creative, but need this creativity to be fostered by positive support and lack of interference. The results are remarkable. Their tapestries are extraordinary, and completed without any reference to sketches or drafts. No symbols or motifs can be repeated from one to the next, and all dyes are hand-made on the site from natural sources. The work is colourful and reminiscent of Gaugain, Cezanne, and Brughel.

They are now up to their second generation of artists, with five from the first still remaining (in their 50-60s). Once trained, they stay with the project for as long as possible. Women with children are able to bring their kids with them to the looms, and it's all entirely open for the public. The site itself consists of stunning mud-brick buildings (Ramses Wissa Wassef was an architect when he started the project) and is now a heritage zone due to the prizes it has been awarded, both for economic development and architectural achievements.

My mother has posted a message about the Wissa Wassef complex on her blog, which includes pictures. Not sure where it actually is though.

Back to work on the photo archive now!

Egypt - Descent into the Great Pyramid

2005-12-10T06:45:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Onners, Tyson, and the SLUSH

I have heard a few things about the interior of the Great Pyramid. Most people don't get to see it - after all, it is the exterior that was designed to awe untold millions of people following the death of the Pharoah Cheops. The inside is a long-term bachelor's pad never intended to hold extra guests.

Ultimately, it was the emphatic insistence of good mates in Australia that led to my return to Giza. A year or two ago several members of the Slush (a strange mob I work with in Victoria, if you aren't already familiar with them then maybe you'd better not ask) traversed the length and breadth of Egypt. Reaching the inner sanctum of the Great Pyramid was a major highlight for them, and they did not want me to miss out on this opportunity to see it for myself.

The entrance to the tomb takes you through a long and winding cave-like tunnel. It's hard to recognise the individual stone blocks at this point. It's very much like the underground cities of Cappadoccia in Turkey, with roughly worn edges and a sandy floor. After a while, you reach a fork in the cave - up or down. Down leads a long way deep into a secondary tomb, but this is locked for safety reasons. A spiralling steel staircase, recently added for tourist access, takes you a few steps up to the long crennelated chamber.

I don't know the statistics for this room offhand, but it felt about 50m long and 15m high, and just wide enough to spread out my arms without being able to touch the edges. The walls are inclined in stages to form a very steep triangular roof, and the whole room slopes up at a 45degree angle. Once climbing up the ladder-ramp, it is disorienting as to whether you are ascending or descending - there's no sensory clues apart from gravity. I was there by myself, and thumping the timber panels of the ramp made a most fantastic echo, like a deep bass heartbeart, that continued for several seconds. It is dark and shadowy, with occassional lights emanating from the floor. The air is still, warm and heavy. The smooth near-vertical walls are damp with humidity, but not glistening with moisture. It smells like dust, old human breath, and the desert outside. It feels utterly like entering a forbidden and forgotten cathedral.

At the top of this chamber, where the reverberating qualities cease due to the proximity of the terminating wall, there is a short tunnel through which you shuffle with your head bent down to your knees. There is a strange room halfway - maybe five steps - into this passage, where you can stand up easily. It has ribs running up and down several sides like galvanised iron, and the air smells fresher here. I think it was designed with a security purpose in mind, such as a heavy stone block, but could not work it out for certain while standing there.

The final tomb itself is the size of a squash court. It is almost pitch black, made from tightly-hewn granite the colour of tarmac. Even though the silence elsewhere in the pyramid was prominent, here it is palpable. The remains of part of a black granite sarcophagus lie to one end, away from the entrance, and there are two small holes in the walls wide enough to insert one's arm but too deep to tell where they end. Unlike other tombs and pyramids I have entered, there are no inscriptions or decorations of any sort.

It felt very much like a place that someone once regarded as sacred. The high ceilings, exaggerated yet oppressive acoustic qualities, utter darkness, and the challenging procedure to enter are all features I've experienced in other forms of sacred architecture. It was a timeless place, like an installation artwork, or an attempt to recreate the sense of being in a void (like outer space).

I left after fufilling a small tribute to the Slush, and I was very pleased indeed that I had been able to experience this extraordinary room firsthand - especially after seeing extensive Pharonic artifacts in museums around the country, and a few other noteworthy pyramid interiors. These chambers were not spectacular in the ostentatious sense, but they were haunting and deeply atmospheric, and I am sure to remember them for a very long time.

Egypt - The Egyptian Museum

2005-12-08T17:12:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Kazza - thanks for the surprise email!

As I write this, Egyptian primary school kids are singing the national anthem and their school song across the street. For the first time in a while, there have been no car horns blaring as well. It sounds like a nursery rhyme shouted in unison, but definitely not in harmony.

Yesterday was mostly spent exploring every possible exhibit in the Egyptian Museum. It's an extraordinary collection housed in a building that exemplifies archaic nineteenth-century museological approaches. Occasisional rooms have been dramatically upgraded, and some of the atrium rooms on the upper level really seem to benefit from their mode of display, but it left me with the impression that the entire museum was an exhibit in itself.

The first text label I read was a charming disappointment. In Arabic, French and English it simply read "A painted ceramic vessel", which indeed it was. But they became more informative and useful as I became accustomed to what I should expect from them. They varied from acid-yellowed columns that looked like they had been clipped from a 1950s newspaper, black and white printouts from conventional office printers, to handwritten contemporary notes in biro, and supremely elegant handwritten copperplate notes from one particular 1890s curator. These favourites of mine (for atmosphere) were scattered about the museum, often adhered to inobstrusive corners of large objects. They held an erudite air, and coveyed the impression that their author not only spoke several languages, but could also read hieroglyphics and was writing with a feathered quill.

The rooms that have been renovated included the Royal Mummies section, Tutankhamun's most precious gold artifacts, and the finds from the tomb of Akhenaten (the heretic monotheistic Pharoah). The Royal Mummies were extraordinary, as 11 sleeping Pharoahs were lined up in glass sarcophagi like something from a science fiction scenario. Some were so smooth in facial features they looked almost like they were breathing, and some even held a stature befitting an ancient King. I wonder if these faces, being depictions of deceased people with the intention of capturing that person's innermost characteristics, and made by human intervention, can be counted as portraits? You can make portraits from any substance, why not the actual head itself?

On that note, I really enjoyed the Fayooum portraits. These, amongst the most ancient forms of portraiture, were panels inserted into mummy bandages after the Ptolemaic period. They usually depict ordinary (but wealthy) individuals, and move away from the iconographic representations of Pharonic art, into a western frontal realism. They're captivating images, and I urge you to check them out online if you can spare the time.

Another highlight was the upper atrium room dedicated to miniature idols. Cupboard after cupboard of them, stuffed together like a shop window of painted easter eggs, in the best use of the nineteenth-century storage/display format. They were made from bone, turquoise faience, terracotta, and other ceramics, painted and unpainted wood, all kinds of stones and precious metals. They varied from the size of your outstretched hand to your little fingernail, and hardly any of them were labelled. Not that you'd possibly want them all to be anyway - they're just overwhelming en mass. If you were ever looking for just the right pagan god or goddess for that special someone, but simply couldn't find it on eBay, then here's your place.

There were also corridors of sarcophagi, statuary, papyrus, scarabs, furniture and plenty of other treasures from Tutankhamon's haul. Far too much to describe here. It took me around 6 1/2 hours to see everything, and I was getting fatigued around the last few painted timber sarcophagi to really appreciate their differences.

I spent the remaining hour before sunset just walking, fairly aimlessly, around the ground-level streets of Cairo. Cairo, as I've mentioned before, is built on several layers of bridge-like roads and apartment buildings. It's like a Mega City from Judge Dredd. These are areas full of very slow traffic, people strolling about chatting to friends, and laborers carrying huge loads of unusual products. Sheets are rolled out on the ground and used as stalls from everything from perscription glasses to caseless tape cassettes, parts of lamps, and colourful things made from tinsel. It's an exhilarating place to explore, loaded with energy and exotic scenes, but suprisingly peaceful and calm.

You can apply any superlative to Cairo, but two especially apt ones are "Decrepit" and "Amazing". Throughout the museum there are mechanical artifacts, which after being hidden in tombs for thousands of years, can still be wound up and activated, just as they had been by their makers. These awe-inspiring acts of functional longevity are actually just like walking through Cairo's streets. It's as if a white-gloved curator unveiled the working city, in all its chaos, and proudly announced, "Look! Even after 20 million people were added to the city, the original infrastructure still works!"

The Upper Egypt Series

2005-12-07T03:15:00.000+11:00

I've just posted the blog updates written whilst travelling around the south of Egypt for the last few days. They've been installed at the right points chronologically, so you'll have to scan back to find them.

There's several pages of text, so perhaps you should make yourself a cup of tea or coffee before settling into them!

I'm back in Cairo for the next few days. Plans for travel through Libya are still being finalised, and I'll basically have the next few days to myself as Mum and Dad are occupied elsewhere. There's a few things I plan to do, and one very, very, important task which you shall definately hear about if it succeeds.

(Upper) Egypt - Snorkeling by the Desert

2005-12-06T05:35:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to DJ. (Thinking of you - Good Luck!)

Just a quick note to say I am still having a brilliant time, but it has been time spent without any internet access. I am been jotting down the posts for the last few days on my mother's laptop, so there will be plenty for you to catch up on when I return to Cairo tomorrow night. They shall be inserted at the appropriate dates for when they were written.

I can't put them up here because this is coming from an internet cafe in the Conrad Hilton at Hurghada. It's a strange place, and the second night spent in a "resort". Resorts are simply odd. They are full of Europeans who are very keen on dozing in the sun and eating to muzak. We have decided that "muzak" is defined by being equally annoying to all listeners.

This area, a long strip of utterly barren open desert laden with land mines and military outposts, bordering the long, straight, flat and coral-reef-lined Red Sea, is developing resorts like a sudden emergence of wildflowers. Colourful, repetitive, partially complete or ready to bloom, and devoid of human life. Instant artificial towns created in the absence of any appealing landscape characteristics, aside from a thin but glorious strip of coral, and the potential existence of a great deal of mining wealth. I'm sure they will make interesting archaeology one day.

I spent this morning snorkeling amongst a spectacular and phastasmagoric array of tropical fish. I was feeding them (on the resort operator's suggestion, contrary to environmental principles) with bread and subsequently immersed by schools of resplendent colourful creatures. New species emerged with each pinch, and according to onlookers they followed me like a glittering neon V-shaped school. When I emerged, the onlookers pointed out around 12-15 large grey fast-moving shapes that turned out to be sharks. Although I didn't see them whilst underwater, at one point they approached within a couple of metres from me. They were reef sharks, so not known as a dangerous species, but they were about as long as me (5'11 or 1.78m).

A wonderful experience indeed!

(Upper) Egypt – The Road to Masa Alam

2005-12-05T02:56:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Mahmoud, a very skillful driver.

Today was spent driving from Luxor to Masa Alam. It was a very long drive enlivened by the changing scenery from picturesque Nile farms and adobe (mud brick) villages dotted with turquoise walls, to the vast open spaces of sandy desert, and crumbling hills of weathered dark rocks. We played CDs of Oud music by a Nubian musician we met days earlier.

The highlight of the journey was Dad’s sharp recognition of rock art scratched into vertical surfaces beside the road. We stopped driving to walk a kilometer or two along the rock faces and wadis, photographing the images as we found them. There were scenes of human figures with arrows and spears, gazelle and ibex, ostriches, giraffes, lions and other locally-extinct animals. There were also several boats normally associated with the Nile, yet this was hundreds of kilometres from the river. I clambered up high several times to discover concealed carvings and take better photos of those we could see from ground level, almost most were easily accessed or partially buried under sand. Nothing was damaged, of course, and we took notes on the location of the area.

Masa Alam is a barren landscape where the rich blue waters of the Red Sea meet a beach which is simply the desert with a new title. There’s little here besides intermittent fields of resorts under construction, quite an eerie sight considering the total lack of a local population. Apparently the idea is that chartered flights will take resort-goers from Italy or Germany directly to the area, so it’s not on the tourist trails winding up and down the Nile. We are staying in the oldest of these resorts, the Kahramana, which opened in 1998, so that Dad can visit an important mining operation two hours drive from here. Most people here seem to be German or Italian, and the signage reflects this. It’s very much a resort, but it’s attractive in its own way and lined with colourful Nubian huts.

The afternoon was spent snorkeling in the Red Sea coral reefs. A long jetty takes you far out, right to the edge of the reef which descends sharply into dark blue depths. As you walk, you can see dozens of large, spectacularly coloured fish, swanning about in shallow water over coral. There were parrotfish, leatherjackets, wrasse, and far more species than I could name. It was magic to linger over these creatures, chase flickering schools, and dive along gullies of contorted coral and sponges. This was the type of place where I first learnt to snorkel, many years ago while living in Jordan, so it was a nostalgic experience.

(Upper) Egypt - The Valley of the Kings

2005-12-04T02:55:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to the Australian Archaeological team from Macquarie University

This was a day of tombs, temples, and professional archaeology. I was very privileged to join Dad on a visit to the Australian dig on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor, where a team of around 20 archaeologists have been excavating three tombs for several years. It’s a fascinating work environment – early each morning they charter a ferry across the Nile and climb up a steep hillside laden with ancient tombs, being excavated by teams from all over the world. There are armies of local labourers wearing galabaya, carrying large baskets and moving technical equipment about the place. From distance it’s like a vast construction site from the nineteenth century.

This is not the famous Valley of the Kings – that’s a few kilometres away, deeper into the rocky, mountainous desert. That was a “secret” region reserved for Pharaohs, and now seethes with around 10,000 tourists a day during high season. Instead, these tombs belonged to major public servants, including a scholarly Ambassador/Butler and the Counter of the Cattle. They covered a great range of tomb preservation and adornment. One was extensively restored from a thick layer of soot to reveal colourful frescoes, hieroglyphics, and scenes of festivity – notably including a dynamic set of dancing girls and a sensitively depicted blind harper, and several charismatic cows. Another was lined floor to ceiling with texts, whilst the last held colossal statues, sarcophagi, and mummified remains. A couple contained deep winding tunnels to the burial chambers themselves - dark, maze-like, and distinctly emanating the odour of resident bats. It was fascinating to speak to so many of the specialists and PhD students on the site, ranging from forensic anthropologists (discussing mummies) to photographers, artifact drawers, and material classifiers. I won’t publish images from this visit online, but it was a real honour to see the cutting-edge of Australian archaeological fieldwork – something normally only witnessed by the specialists themselves and a few invited onlookers!

Later I was guided through the Valley of the Kings by a former site inspector sent by our previous guide to Karnak Temple. We saw three of his favourite tombs, at our request. The tombs of Rameses IV and IX were both colourful (in red, white, yellow and blue), very well preserved or restored, and enormous compared to the previous tombs of active excavation. They have been generally well set up for the choreography of millions of visitors each year, and the area is devoid of touts. It was good to have my mother there who last visited 25 years ago, who recalled the intensely vivid blue of ceiling paintings which have now drastically deteriorated, primarily due to flash photography and excess humidity from visitors. Luckily, Tutankhamun’s tomb completely prohibits the entry of people with cameras, and although this stops most photographers, may be necessary to prohibit them from the entire valley (photography is prohibited everywhere, but only in two languages. Taking cameras away at the beginning might be more effective if somewhat brutal). This was a very small tomb, thought by our guide to have been completed in around 70 days, but entering it will be something I want to remember for the rest of my life. He’s basically the pharaoh who has achieved the most widespread form of immortality, as he is now a household word globally.

The rest of the afternoon was occupied mostly by two major temples. Queen Hatshepsut’s temple, dedicated to the only female Pharaoh, looks like a modern three-story building set into the base of a dramatic arc of enormous cliffs looming over the desert towards the Nile. (We could see it from one of our rooms in the Old Winter Palace). As you walk towards it, it envelopes you into three tiered platforms along the gently sloping processional staircase. The effect is surreal – the whole temple seems almost horizontal when you walk through it, but vertical from a distance. Polish archaeologists were tracing hieroglyphs to plastic sheets when I was there, and apparently were responsible for a great deal of restoration. It’s a very complex and intriguing site, so unfortunately I won’t explain it all here.

Yesterday’s guide for Karnak temple took us through the Luxor temple as the sun edged towards sunset. It begins with a precarious leaning obelisk, the type of structure that leaves you lingering with a genuine concern for the safety of the structure and other visitors, and simultaneously a sadistic hope that you might be the lucky tourist who gets to see it collapse. (It’s also the seventh leaning tower of the GT. Leaning’s overrated). The temple continues through a range of religious occupations, including several Pharonic extensions, a still-functioning mosque, Coptic frescos and their destruction of “pagan” figures, and a Hellenistic temple dedicated to Alexander the Great.

The evening was spent with the Australian archaeologists in one of their apartments. They’re a lovely group of people, working very closely as a team, and are very fortunate to be doing such fascinating work. I’ve met more people who can read hieroglyphics than I think I will ever see in the rest of my life! I also enjoyed an inspiring chat with Dr Karin Sowada regarding the PhD, which has left me very excited about potential topics. It was an excellent evening, and Mum and Dad are looking forward to seeing them again in Cairo when they next pass through.

(Upper) Egypt – Abu Simbel and Philae

2005-12-02T02:51:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Human Achievement

The last two days have been so loaded with major events that I’ve been procrastinating to record them in the well-filled and increasingly unwieldy diary. Don’t worry, I will eventually, and I’ve made summarized memory-jogging notes so nothing will be forgotten.

I’d like to describe just a few of the most important things from the last 48 hours.

Yesterday was the last full day in Aswan, that calm and palm-lined scenic riverbend town adorned with feluccas, a barren and hilly horizon studded with tombs, and excavated ruins amongst rocky islands. We took a flight in a small plane to Abu Simbel, deep in the southernmost deserts of Egypt. The views out over the expanses of desert sands and the shimmering surface of Lake Nasser (the 500km-long body of water created behind the Aswan High Dam) were sublime, scarred with long straight roads and completely missing the lush riverbank vegetation that characterizes the rest of the Nile. Best of all was the arrival at the airport – the plane passes over the temple complex of Abu Simbel, like something directly out of Indiana Jones.

Abu Simbel is arguably the most famous Pharonic site displaced by the second Aswan Dam. It would have been lost under 170m of water had it been left alone. Losing such a treasure – the only Pharonic temples carved completely out of a naturally occurring rock face, consisting of two sacred buildings guarded by immense statues of Rameses, his wife and the gods – would have been a serious tragedy for human cultural heritage globally. It was rescued by an enormously complex operation that cut the entire temple site into manageable cubes, re-located them at the former mountain summit high over the new water level, and positioned them almost perfectly on an artificial mountain. It was a huge international effort, one of many that saved ancient structures facing submersion.

Another of these sites was the island of Philae. This, the only known temple complex built exclusively upon an island, was entirely submerged by the first Aswan dam, completed by the British in 1902. The temple was actually left standing in the water, partially submerged, and travelers used to take boats out to glide through the colonnades. All very romantic, but terrible for conservation. In another extreme rescue operation, the temples were cut apart and rebuilt on a neighbouring island, which was landscaped to match the original as closely as records enabled. It’s a stunning place, completely free of tourist touts, and distinctly otherworldly. Loved the kiosk of Trajan in particular. We explored it at sunset, and the stones were illuminated in tones of orange, casting the hieroglyphics into brilliant contrast.

The entire story of Abu Simbel is one of human achievement. You can put a positive spin on the entire thing – two amazing civilizations capable of great feats of engineering, leadership and architecture, both utterly dependent on each other for survival (Modern Egypt needs tourism based on ancient Egypt, ancient Egypt would be long destroyed if not preserved deliberately), and yet separated by immense gulfs of time. The destruction of Nubian culture and property was contrasted by meeting entrepreneurs bringing Nubian domestic architecture to the tourist industry, whose ambitions and passion for their cultural heritage were palpable. The ongoing impact of the dam is still to be realised – it has changed weather patterns, provided much-needed “clean” electricity, and was once another symbol of international co-operation, even though it began with a fanfare of warfare.

I do not intend to keep you here for too much longer. Suffice to say the evening was spent chugging a motorboat down the island-strewn Nile at night, with no moon but just enough light to cast shadows in tones of blue and grey. The scent of the river was organic, alive, but delicate and distinctive to itself. The air was warm, perfect with the breeze, and there was a superb sense of timelessness to the entire setting. We ate an excellent local fish dinner at a restaurant run by an unusually interesting chap, who brought our attention to the phosphorescent sand dunes alongside the Nile. These eerie dunes feature shadows cast as if by trees halfway up their slopes – so they are bright on the top and dark beneath – but there is no reason why there should be any shadows upon them at all. During daylight these lines are invisible. It is a very strange phenomenon.

(Upper) Egypt - Aswan

2005-12-01T07:06:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Flies

My sister has commented that on some days we are flies, on others we are windscreens. Oh what a windscreen I have been today!

The morning began shaving in an orange sunrise, watching the farms and villages zip by alongside the Nile, from the comfort of a private cabin in the sleeper train from Cairo to Aswan.

The day was spent with Mum as Dad met the Governor and attended to other work matters. We set out on a slow white motorboat (too little wind for a more picturesque fellucca) and explored the lush Botanic Garden island, a peaceful and genuine Nubian village (this region is Nubia, Nubians live here. Logically, they speak Nubi, which is distinctly different to Arabic), and generally puttered about on the water. Later, we admired a spectacular sunset over the dunes and tombs, as seemingly endless flocks of black cormorants crossed overhead in loose V formations. Egyptian beer in hand, live Nubian music drifting up from the restaurant nearby (accompanied by drummers from the village and children singing from the riverboats), it was one of several classic GT moments of the day.

The evening was spent on an extensive tour of the Nubian Museum. As Dad put it, "What do you do when you build a dam that destroys a people's cultural heritage on a vast scale? Put what's left of it in a museum." Great exhibits, well designed layout, good English translations on the large text panels. Particularly liked the archival photographs of important sites now destroyed by the rising waters of the dam - it had all the symbolism I normally associate with War Memorials, a sense of profound and irreplaceable loss, contrasted against the idealism and optimistic tone of the exhibits dedicated to the international efforts to salvage sites like Abu Simbel. (Which I'll be seeing tommorrow).

On that note, I must update my diary and get in another few chapters of Alan Moorehead's The White Nile, which I've been reading in the world's most apt surroundings.

Egypt - The Khan and the Photos

2005-11-29T00:18:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Tabbi for her excellent Uni results!

Much of my other time in Cairo lately has been spent exploring the Khan (souqs or market areas) with my knowledgeable Mum, and sorting out my photos. More on that last point later - there ought to be a few posts on the souqs alone!

We've been getting well-orientated across the bustling city centre, learning through Mum's great system of pointing and saying "Remember that." and "Remember that?". We've wandered into glorious historic Arab houses, restored and otherwise, down deep dark echoing cisterns, through the bustling tourist areas with touts who can banter in six or seven languages, and through the marble-cutting region lined with all manner of hand-made product stallholders. There's so much more I'm yet to see - I'm trying to take in as much navigation as I can so I can set out solo for days at a time. After all, the city hosts 20 million people, and when you're standing in it, it leaves you in no doubt of this fact whatsoever. It's loud and dusty and smells as complex as the traffic. It's vast and polluted and brilliant to see. I'm 100% certain that every time I step out into the centre I will find something to describe that we simply don't see in Australia.

One of Mum's favourite such sites is the Dyeing Workshop. We don't know what it's actually called. This dingy little courtyard should be on the World Heritage listings for sheer photographic potential - I took around 50 in twenty minutes!

It's just beyond a forbidding dark covered alley, and once there, you have to tread carefully around thick piles of grey, dusty detritus like broken chairs, planks of wood and scraps of newspaper. It consists of three related blokes in bare feet and old singlets messing about with four dingy bathtubs full of murky ink. They take stunningly clean (in contrast to their vicinity) lengths of soft white silk, and turn them into the most strikingly bold and shimmering shades of every colour imaginable. They hang these to dry on complex grids of bamboo overlooking the decrepit apartment blocks nearby, and they look utterly brilliant.

There will be photos here within a week. I can promise this because I have spent a lot of time on organising, spinning, labelling and editing them to do so. This has been a daunting task - prepare yourself - I have around 16,000 photographs to this moment.

Yes, I too think that's shitloads. Many of them are simply low-resolution museum labels and can be deleted as I transcribe them to the actual image. But that's the blessing of digital photography for you. I'm putting together a "Best Of" selection, aiming for a very managable number, and will make those accessible as best I can.

Tomorrow night, we will take an overnight train to Upper Egypt. (That's South, going up the Nile). Expect a post in a couple of days, as I doubt the ease of accessibility for internet up there.

Egypt - The Solar Boat

2005-11-26T23:56:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Antonio. Yes, all of you.

It's unusual to get two posts from me in one day, but after reading my Mum's coverage of the same day, I realised there's so much more I could and should have said.

Her posts as always are vivid and much more elegant than mine, but plenty of important vignettes remain for us both. I'd like to share just one more with you, in the detail it deserves.

The Solar Boat

When you stand at the base of the immense pyramid of Khufu, it looms overhead like a gargantuan stone steamroller. The actual shape of the structure becomes indistinct - it simply forms an arc against the sky which seems to reach an apex somewhere far away. Your eyes aren't accustomed to recognising the consistency of shapes at such a vertical distance, so the stone blocks (as tall as me) seem to be simply smaller as they reach further away. It's only when reminded that the stones at the highest point are the same size as the ones next to you that you can comprehend just how Massive this bloody thing is.

The sheer weight of it is visibly tactile from kilometres away.

From such a distance you can also see a strange high-tech pod, conspicuously parked between this pyramid and the Sphinx. It looks like a white (tinged with ubiquitous beige desert dust) coccoon from a Stanley Kubrick set. In fact, that's very much what it is.

It houses one of the most extraordinary things I have seen on the GT - the "Solar Boat". This is a cedar riverboat discovered by archaeologists in this exact spot in the 1950s. It was disassembled and secreted in a custom-carved stone pit, and concealed with the very same slabs of stone that were removed the make the storage area. It was a burial item of considerable prestige for a Pharoah. Not only is it larger than an articulated bus, it was made entirely with stone axes, flint blades, and held together with knotted ropes. This predates metal technologies - it's about 4500 years old - so there were no nails. Most amazingly, the original knotted ropes are on display, wound as thick as your thigh and bent into elaborate arches, hooks, and 90-degree twists.

Apparently others had subsequently been discovered, some even older still, but none are as well-preserved. It hovers in its white steel and glass cage, oars propped ready for deployment, as visitors follow a spiralling perambulation around it. The museum is clearly designed to effectively move masses of people through each day, but there was scarcely anyone there at the time. The Lonely Planet's guides don't give it more than a couple of sentences, but the standard of installation and design is mindblowing for a developing nation - I've seen plenty of Western museums with significantly inferior facilities.

The entire exhibition space is put together with virtually no text - if I didn't have Mum and Dad there who knew the background I would not have known much of the details. In sharp contrast to the attention to detail in the architecture and layout, only five or six vitrenes possessed small palm-card labels. These were in Arabic and English, written neatly on a 1950s typewriter, presumably at the time of their original discovery. There were no introductory panels, and the archival photographs of the restoration and excavation were self-explanatory in the manner of the best narrative signage.

It was a fantastic introduction to Cairo's museological capabilities. I'm looking forward to seeing how the infinately more famous Egyptian Museum holds up - my expectations are decidedly mixed.

Egypt - Return to Cairo

2005-11-26T20:50:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Mum and Dad

The "Flight into Egypt" was long, delayed, and tedious, so I'll spare the details.

It is excellent to be back with Mum and Dad again. The first day back was spent catching up with all the stories from the last few months of travel, as plenty of stuff has happened which isn't being Blogged. The collected souvenirs were unwrapped and explained, and the CDs of photos were downloaded to this computer. They'll be posted here when I have a free day.

Last night was an excellent evening of Polish food and culture with academics and archaeologists, at the home of two architectural conservators. A beautiful historic home, filled with wonderful objects, great conversation on all kinds of topics (especially Turkey and central European history) and brilliant food.

Today was a serious Egypt day - I tallied up six Pyramids, explored the entire inner sanctum of two, critically evaluated the Sphinx, and deciphered what I could of an elaborate hieroglyphics-laden tomb. Sensational stuff, and an utterly jammed-full day.

Tomorrow's looking like it'll be spent in the Khan and the Egyptian Museum. More on that later, after it happens.

(On a strange note, the three of us have just been watching Big Fish and noticed, in the credits, there was a song titled "Sammy, where have you been for so long?")

Italy - Leaving Rome

2005-11-24T17:02:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Solo Travel

The sun is setting in Rome, the ruins are orange, and it's getting cold outside.

I've checked out of my second hostel, the Alessandro Palace, and partook in as many free cups of coffee as any respectable backpacker would. Last night, my new mates (as all my mates have been lately), celebrated our recent arrivals and imminent departures from Italy at a Chinese restaurant. As you do in Italy. In fact, it was the first Chinese food I've eaten in months, and likely to be the last for some time as well.

This morning was spent exploring the gargantuan Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a "national altar-piece" on the scale of New Parliament House in white marble. Laden with statues and freises harkening to the re-invented glories of Imperial Roman temples, it looks like a totalitarian version of our War Memorial in Canberra. It's very clearly designed to inspire awe from the outside - the layout of the interior museums seem like a secondary consideration.

The afternoon was dedicated to the small complex of the Capitolini Museums, just behind the massive tomb monument. The two palaces I saw primarily consisting of sculpture collections, with several very famous and impressive works amongst them. Excellent rooms of Roman portrait busts and interesting provenance histories, mostly summarisable as "Discovered in a drain, snatched by the Vatican, later proved to be too embarrassing for the Vatican to hang on to, ended up here in this secular Museum".

There were also a couple of diversions through Santa Maria Maggiore and an unexpected exhibition of Manet's prints and sketches.

But now, tis time to leave Europe. I have loved this experience of solo independent travel. I am absolutely keen on continuing these types of trips, and have been formulating plans for future travels. I am heading back to Cairo tonight, via Athens, and should arrive there around 2am their time. Once there, I shall be staying with my much-loved parents, and working out my movements for the next couple of months abroad.

They will feature Egypt and Libya in a big way, but might just include other parts of Africa.

Here begins my Flight into Egypt.

Italy - Still exploring Rome

2005-11-22T22:49:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to James, political-social philosopher and practical debator.

The last couple of days in Rome have been so busy I haven't had time to blog. That may not be entirely true, but it's certainly been more fun to keep myself occupied on other events.

I wandered the streets on Monday, avoiding unanticipated police barricades across the city, and sought out two obscure little museums that happened to be open. The first, the Crypt of the Capuchin Friars, is a "bone church", a subterreanean passageway lined with chapels. These are adorned with the skeletal remains of about 4000 Capuchin Friars, dismantled and arranged into the arabesques, grotesques and architectural forms that you would expect to see in most churches of Rome. It was a very ominous place, macabre to say the least, but not as chilling as I expect a place like the Pol Pot museum in Cambodia would be. These people weren't murdered, they're just dead. Quite dead. There was a poem inside which I'll transcribe here in a few days time when I start uploading pictures from my base in Cairo, but for now I'd like to leave you with the words written on the floor of the final chapel:

"What you are now we once were, what we are now you will be"

Hopefully, that is, not ornamenting a pilgrimage site in a church. I can think of better things to do with my afterlife.

The other small place was the Museum of Souls in Purgatory. It sounds like a macabre day but it really wasn't meant to be - these just were the places open on Mondays in Rome. I went expecting a kind of Nick Bantock pseudo-fictional obscure tangent on reality, and sort of got that. It was hidden in a darkened room at the back of a gorgeous and intricate Gothic church, and consisted of hand prints burnt into bibles, textiles, and odd faces that emerged from ruins in burnt-out religious sites. Creepy stuff, much more atmospheric and spine-tingling than most relics I've thus far encountered.

The Fawlty Towers hostel has been excellent for socialising. I ran into the Minnesotan carpenter-poet and sadistic chess player James from Cinque Terre again by chance, and ended up spending this morning visiting the Galleria Borghese with him. Fascinating bloke. There's also been a few other interesting characters - Butch the Canadian Harley-Davidson rider with a brilliant sense of humour, Laura (also a Canadian) who has spent around a year working for a school library project in Ghana as part of her degree, and a religious bioethicist-artist from Ireland. Even the chance encounters out in the streets have been memorable, but I won't bore you with them here!

Today tackled three major galleries in the Villa Borghese area. The Galleria Borghese was a fantastic restored mansion of a 17th century Cardinal with a passion for collecting classical sculpture. The neoclassical marble pieces he commissioned from Peranesi were especially stunning, particularly his Paulina, his David, and the Apollo in pursuit of Daphne. Then there was the extensive Etruscan museum, and the major National Gallery of Modern Art, in which I took copious notes on the large map they provided. It's quite colourful now!

It has been a fantastic day. Tomorrow I plan to visit another series of major museums, particularly of archaeological subjects. (Because these things just don't EXIST in Australia!)

Italy - Orvieto and Rome, Again

2005-11-20T18:15:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Laurence, who has missed out on St Francis Kitsch

Today has really been a travelling day, Perugia to Rome, broken with an excursion to Orvieto.

Why go to Orvieto? For the cathedral of course. That-s really the main claim to tourism for a lot of Italian towns (technically cities if they have a cathedral). It-s actually one of the best I have seen in Italy on the exterior - right up there with Florence. It-s covered in horizontal black and white stripes, creating a shimmering effect as you approach, much like the Siena Cathedral. The facade is seriously bejewelled. It has thousands of glimmering mosaic tesserae reflecting the sunlight, which as I arrived was at a steep angle and boldly contrasting the intricate surface textures. It was colourful, richly festooned (a word I don/t use often enough) with sculpture like Florence-s, and bore two magnificent chapels inside. One of these, the more famous, was by Signorelli. This chapel features a Last Judgement that was likely to have inspired Michelangelo, and it-s plain to see why, even though Michelangelo took a very different take on his composition.

I-m very pleased I took that little diversion, it really gave me something to write home about.

But on the most recent of recent events, I am writing from Rome again. Trevi Fountain definately works, huzzah! I seem to have, so far this evening, shaken off the -ghost of Anna- that followed me after she left when I was alone here. Let-s hope Rome renews itself to me this time... no offense Anna dearest! I-ll be focussing on the museums and galleries I didn-t want to bore Anna with over the next two or three days.

Italy - Assisi

2005-11-19T20:45:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to any Saint other than Francis, with whom I'm almost saturated.

Today was one of very few daytrips taken on this GT, heading out to the city so great it has it's own saint, Assisi of Francis.

Once you've entered the walled centre, situated high up on a hill with a mountainous backdrop, stacked in layers of mighty fortifications, majestic basilicas, and picturesque stone residential towers, the city leaves you in no doubt whatsoever that "Francis Was Here". There are more religious kitsch vendors than I've seen anywhere since the Vatican. And more religious tourists too - not only the highly visible and interestingly attired clergy, but lay folk with clear interests. One group of American teenagers dressed in ghetto chic, leaning on the pedestrian barriers outside a CD shop, was discussing their distaste for the charismatic church session that some of them missed the previous night.

The various churches were stunning, and their pastel-toned marble palette and architectural forms seemed to inspire the basis for other residential architecture. It was all very harmonious and clean-feeling, a mix of the medieval heritage of Siena and some of the functionality of Canberra. I was wrapt in the ornate frescos on the supporting arches in the Lower basilica of St Francis, and spent a very long time developing a much more solid appreciation of Giotto's contribution to western art in the Upper basilica. His monumental church is actually a very interesting place on many levels - it is literally two entirely differently concieved churches plonked on top of each other. One of those places where photos will show you what it looks like, but will never give you a feeling of moving towards and around it in real scale.

A real GT moment of the day, one of several, was watching a powerful sunset over the Umbrian fields and farmhouses, behind the Basilica of St Francis, accompanied by yet another friendly anonymous cat, and with a massive gold bar of hazelnut-filled dark chocolate aptly branded "Zanzibar".

But now it is bloody cold outside and I am looking forward to eating my fill of hot mushroom rissotto and a suprisingly good DCOG red, whose name eludes me for the moment.

Off to Rome tomorrow, via another Cathedral town, Orvieto.

Italy - Perugia

2005-11-18T16:05:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to the MBTIES

I'm in Perugia now, an Umbrian town loaded with medieval streets, Renaissance architecture, Etruscan ruins and darkened arched alleys lined with buildings that curve out into the street.

There is also a disturbingly obvious gypsy presence. They've been hassling a lot of people outside the major piazza beside the cathedral and marble fountain, but I've been able to avoid them. The climate is virtually Canberran - striking clear skies and warm in the sunshine, but chillingly cold at night and in the shady covered streets. There are virtually no tourists - it is unmistakeably low season - and the hostel is predominantly occupied by Italian speaking students, mostly from Africa. (Apparently Ethiopia has an Italian heritage link due to a former colonial occupation).

It's been one of those days were I really don't think I've been up to much, but when i itemise it mentally, it sounds like a very busy sequence. I've been deep down Etruscan wells and under middle-ages fortifications, (using escalators no less!), gaining an appreciation for Umbrian pre-Renaissance masters, and discovered a Raphael fresco in a tiny chapel within a labyrinth of stairs, twisting streets, and ramshackle residences. There have been lots of individual sites of note but those will be entered in my diary, not here.

In fact, the diary has been attracting a lot of interest lately from other travellers, so I'm looking forward to showing it to you sometime. It's beyond the stage where I can close it easily due to the amount of interesting ephemera it has digested, and has developed an acute and ornate horror vaccui (fear of empty spaces). You may now need a magnifying glass to read the most recent 50-odd pages.

I'm staying here for two more nights, and will use it as a base to explore Assisi tomorrow. Perhaps I shall backtrack to Urbino before heading down to Rome, as it was once a critically important cultural centre. Who knows?

Italy - Cinque Terre

2005-11-17T15:40:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Acacia and Kim. Happy Birthdays!

The last couple of days have been spent in Cinque Terre. I arrived after an eight-hour series of train transfers, finding myself unexpectedly in a tunnel that turned out to be Riomaggiore.

I stepped out into the cold darkness, hearing the waves breaking distantly on the rocks beneath the cliff-top railway station. I was the only person leaving the train there that night. I was met as I left the tunnel by an old lady who looked for all the world like ''Grandma Death'' from Donnie Darko. With wild white hair going in all directions, slightly manic eyes behind large glasses, and a flowery overcoat, she proffered a scrap of paper reading ''15'' and insisted in very limited but friendly English that she had the best cheap rooms in Riomaggiore, with lots of people and beautiful women. What a deal... but I wasn't sure I could trust her. It might have been a brothel for all I knew.

The hostel was actually very good, an exercise in simplicity. The bathrooms left heaps to be desired (I simply didn't use them), but I had a room to myself the first night and the people were fantastic. The lovely Catrina and Leisel (the ''beautiful women'' mentioned by the eccentric Madam Ruso) were Australians working in London and travelling Europe, and Liam was an 18-y.o. Melbournian (familiar with LSC&PH) who has already tackled central Africa solo. He gave me a fantastic near-valueless Zimbabwe $500 note, wonderfully worn and exotic, and I gave him extensive written advice in his diary on travelling Turkey, including hand-drawn maps to the secret tunnels we discovered in Cappadocia.

The next day was spent trekking the world-heritage landscapes of the Cinque Terre. These are five tiny cliffside fishing villages surrounded by terraced fields for olives and grapevines. The Mediterranean was turquoise and flat, changing colours with the sun's movement, and the fields were highlighted with autumn colours. Bare earth lay behind the remaining red vineleaves, the brilliant yellow of the intermittent figs, and the blurring oranges of chestnut trees raged amongst deep green pine forests. Most striking were the silvery evergreen olive orchards, whose bases were wrapped in diaphonous orange nets like a collaborative installation by Christo and Andy Goldsworthy.

I was frustrated by the impressive-looking but functionally useless path maps, and ended up waylaid by another eccentric old Italian lady. They called me off the path I had found, after much searching, and insisted the town I was headed for for in the other direction. This was completely contrary to the map's advice, but she was insistent so I took her word. And yes, indeed, a sign was found later on saying this was the right way. However, the next town I found myself in was actually the one in the opposite direction to where I had wanted to go.

Such is Cinque Terre.

But the day's peregrinations were excellent, and so was the evening. Good quality DOCG Chianti and local fresh pesto on pasta I cooked myself, shared amongst the mates from the previous night, as well as several interesting Americans who arrived that day. We worked out difficult lateral thinking scenarios amongst all manner of conversation. I ended up playing chess made from toilet tissue scraps against a carpenter-poet from Minnesota until 1am.

Now, I am writing from Pisa, on my way to Perugia, where I expect to spend most of my final days in Italy before jetting back to Egypt. Pisa's tower is everything the postcards say it is, but more elegant than I expected. I was captivated by the stunning white marble cathedral and baptistery behind it - they were like the silver and bronze position holders in the Olympics. Always ignored behind the media frenzy around the gold medallist, but amazing achievements nonetheless.

Italy - Venice and Murano

2005-11-14T19:57:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to John and Lisa's New Home. Congratulations!

Today was an expensive day, and will result in carrying more bags around than usual for the last few days in Italy. I'm sure Italy has wanted me to do this for a long time. It seems quite the local fashion.

But aside from that, it has been great fun and I'm sure it will make many people very happy. Today was primarily spent on boats of all sorts, hopping between islands and jetting down canals, taking heaps of pictures. I allowed a few hours to explore the nearby island of Murano, famous for it's glass production, and watched several factories at work. Always fascinating to watch objects being crafted by hand. Especially gorgeous objects.

Yesterday was occupied primarily by modern\contemporary art, which I needed like an aspirin to counter the excesses of pre- and post-Renaissance arts I have been exposed to in recent weeks. The Peggy Guggenheim collection was especially interesting in the flesh, and I spent some time chatting to the interns there. I seriously considered applying for such an internship well before leaving Australia, but I'm not sure now if it will be a real step forward for my career. It now feels like an expensive way to stay on much the same level. (But in Venice!)

But, Internet being pricey as usual around here, I must be off. The concert the other night was sensational, in case you're wondering. I'm leaving Venice tomorrow for La Spezia and hopefully Cinque Terre, but we shall see how that turns out.

Italy - The Fogs of Venice

2005-11-12T20:14:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to J Ruskin

It has been yet another day of exquisite ornaments, regal palaces, swift gondolas, little bridges, atmospheric alleys, expensive food carefully avoided and outstanding artworks visually overloaded.

I have only a few minutes to scribble this little note, as I have to dash across the Campo (they have only one Piazza here) to a Renaissance church hosting a Vivaldi concert tonight. He's bigger than Megan Gale here, and that's saying something. He even has a dedicated merchandise shop - more Vivaldi paraphenalia than I know what to do with. They support their local prodigies here... Particularly Tintoretto, who I think is represented in galleries the same way as Al-Assad in Syria. The authorities won't take you seriously unless you can point to at least two of whis works in your collection.

The Ducal Palace (Doge's palace) was sensational, and I didn't realise it was possible to walk through the Bridge of Sighs. I thought it was like Vasari's Corridor in Florence that way - special permission must be sought in advance. HUGE rooms of gilt and ceiling paintings, inlcuding a 22m by 7m oil on canvas, contrasted superbly with the bare and obliante' like cells in the prison across the canal.

Sadly, I have commited a sin of Italian travellers, and fear that I cannot live with this secret. So let us speak of it now and seal our lips of it forever. I ate at Burger King.
I know you'll all damn me to whatever takes your fancy for this (I've seen a lot of H. Bosch today if you'd like some inspiration), but it was cheaper and better value than the measly ataglio scraps of dubious origin and possible antiquity. Plus the restauarnt was pumping and it is freezing outside.

Must be off. Forgive me!

Italy - Venice

2005-11-11T20:12:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to the Grand Tourists of Yore

Who didn't have to cope with expensive internet cafes. $20 an hour in some places! Sheesh.

Venice has been a central point on the Grand Tour for centuries. I've even perused large texts on the singular role of Venice for Grand Tourists in the Uffizi Gallery. It was historically a base for artistic, cultural, diplomatic, sexual and international trade training for young European and particularly English aristocrats. I think I might need to set aside another couple of nights more than I had planned!

It's a very beautiful labyrinth, everything you have seen in the media is probably true. The postcard stands are laden with Carnivale images, the souvenir shops specialise in masks, marbled papers and bound books, Murano glass, laces, and objets d'arte of the most ostentatious European taste. Plus the usual romantic watercolours that pop up all over Italian cities - not to be disparaging of course.

It has been cold enough to cover my face in a fog from my breath, but the days are clear and brightly lit. I have learnt bridge etiquette, and how to rapidly locate myself on a wondrous little map. I also had a euphoric experience shopping in a supermarket for the first time in months. It was great! Heaps of sweet and realistically cheap Italian foods, in bulk and with immense choices available! I'm now well stocked for lunches, snacks and breakfasts.

I've also picked up a Museum Pass which gets me into heaps of places for only €10 total, and I've been planning much of my wandering around it. Most of today was spent in the vicinity of St Mark's Square, but I won't list all the places here.

Anyhow, must go. Much to do in very little time. Most the city is gorgeous at night, as I well know from being vaguely lost in it for three hours last night. Following locals can take you to interesting places, but sometimes it gets you stranded in the middle of nowhere...

Italy - Ferrara

2005-11-10T12:40:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Lee, Judith, Onners and GP, who all left such great comments. Thanks guys!

There are no Ferraris in Ferrara. There are also no youth hostels any more.

The place I was going to stay at was centrally located and had a very nice little promo pamphlet. The door was sealed with a steel bar contraption straight out of the Dark Ages. Apparently, according to the nice people at Tourist Info, it closed for good last week. Since it's located on a road I've used frequently, I've had plenty of opportunities to kick the bars and feel vindicated.

Ended up in a nice enough, if isolated, cheap hotel along a medieval street lined with overhead archways and gorgeous doors. Around the corner from a gelati place. Thank you, closed hostel!

The main things I've checked out here have been the Castle Estense, the Cathedral, the associated Cathedral museum, a couple of palazzo (palaces of the wealthy, not always royal), and the major art galleries. That seems to be my usual list of must-sees for short stays in Italian towns!

The castle is right in the middle of the city. It's very much a fairytale castle style, with turrets, drawbridges, a green moat with little fountains, cannons, and dungeons where "two young lovers with their bodies on fire..." got decapitated. In fact, the lovers where the 20-year-old new wife of the ruler and his 20-year-old son. Guess who ordered the execution. In penance, he commissioned an altarpiece of the Madonna and child which doesn't look at all linked, except it's titled "The Decapitation Altar".

I'll spare you detailed descriptions of the other sites, but the contemporary art gallery's exhibition at the Diamante Palazzo (diamond palace, covered with pyramid-shaped blocks of marble to make the whole thing look like a cut jewel) needs to be noted. It was a biographic survey of Corot (I know he's not contemporary at all by Australian standards, but we're in a continent where buildings twice as old as our nation are common. And he's an important figure in early modernism).

They had brought together works from major private and public galleries across Europe and the USA, including major pieces which I had really not expected to see in the flesh. It was great to spot stylistic links betwen his works and the other members of the Barbizon school, and connect what was happening in the 1830s-1860s with his artwork to what was going on in Australia. The whole thing was in Italian, but I think I gained a lot from seeing it.

I'm off to Venice now. (I've been meaning to say that for a while!) Just need to book a hostel, train, and wait for it to come to me. But before I go, there's a few comments I need to post -

Onners! Thanks for all the comments, and for the offers of help in Rome. Sorry I didn't contact you before, but since I knew I was spending the week with Anna... Well, you know. I will definately be in Rome around the 23-24 November, as I'll be flying back to Egypt on the afternoon of the 24th. I'll give Slim a call, thanks again!

And in whilst Rome, Romans try to ignore gawking tourists, hold protests, dress up in designer labels and do the same to their boutique dogs, ride vespas and park improbably small cars in unlikely places. And drink coffee standing up. I think it should be be possible to build a cardboard copy of Rome in about a day. And despite recieved wisdom, most railways will go to Rome. Following roads will only get you there half the time.

The reason you're getting this on the Blog rather than as an email is because I can't find your email address on my online accounts. Could you please send a quick message to my gmail account, which is my.name@gmail.com ? Cheers mate, look forward to seeing you back in Australia!

Italy - Still in Ravenna, waiting for Ferrara

2005-11-09T12:06:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to climatic intervention in sports

I have about an hour to kill before catching the train to Ferrara, so I thought I'd give you some more colour on what's happening in Ravenna. Yesterday's post, in retrospect, was probably more focussed on that hassle of the train ticket than the really interesting stuff here.

Last night I found the Dante Aligheri HI hostel, and I was almost the only person there. It was set up to be perhaps the warmest and friendliest HI place I've yet seen, with pool tables, foosball, and nice couches, but it was SO empty! Very late that night, when I returned to my room, I found the only other occupant. He was an unattractive little round middle-aged man with a respiratory disorder who barked questions at me in heavily accented English. He was very proud to tell me about the exports of his native town, 4km south of Parma, but I couldn't understand much of it.

This morning I checked out three Byzantine-era churches reknowned for their mosaics. (overview link here). The first, Battistero Degli Ariani (the Arian Baptistry), was a simple octagonal brick structure externally, and without any adornment upon the internal walls. The roof, however, was a magnificent mosaic of the Baptism of Christ, encircled by the 12 Apostles. Each face was distinctive and full of expression, and the predominately gold, green and blue tesserae scintillated as only mosaic does.

The next, in the same complex as the Museum, was the Basilica of San Vitale, a massive octagonal church with enormous flying buttresses and many restorations and expansions over the centuries. Outstanding portraits of the Emperor Justinian and his bejewelled courtesan, Empress Theodora, plus biblical scenes familiar and obscure. (And Mum - I got heaps of mosaic and inlaid masonry patterns for you, immediately seeing their potential as patchwork sources.)

Nearby, right next to the Basilica, was the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. Much smaller, but with seriously intense and glassy blues and whites across the ceiling. Here's a site by the Ravenna tourist board which gives you complete 3-dimensional panoramas of the major buildings here, starting with this Mausoleum.

In all the churches I've visited in Ravenna, (excepting the one set up as a multimedia Social History of Ravenna interactive installation, astonishingly like the National Museum of Australia, right down to the fonts and colour schemes), they've played CDs of male choirs or soloists singing in Latin. It's a beautiful effect, and I'm surprised it hasn't been used more widely across the churches I've seen across Italy and Greece. One even played the music out into the courtyard, following you as you left the building!

Now, I must be off to catch the train. Ravenna has really warmed on me. Perhaps it this is largely due to the excellent start to the day, with far more breakfast offered by the hostel than usual. Plus about six serves of hot drinks ranging from thick hot chocolate, milky hot chocolate, and four styles of coffee. Oh yeah, I'm pumped!

Italy - Ravenna

2005-11-08T19:29:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Cyclists

Turns out I'm not in Ferrara at all. I changed my mind late last night, as seeing the medieval sites of Ravenna (a former Byzantine capital and haven for the poet Dante, as in Dante's Divine Comedy) first means I don't have to backtrack later.

I almost succeeded in seeing all the sites in seven hours. I would have had ten, and been travelling on to Ferrara tonight, but a very confusing and annoyingly expensive hassle at the Bologna train station delayed me. Basically, they issued a bus ticket from the train station machine, and by the time I found someone who could help me find it, it had already left. Fortunately, the refund will be posted back to Australia (!?), and I publicly shamed an attempted pick-pocket while waiting around the station.

Ravenna has really struck me for the number of cyclists. They are everywhere! It's like an environmentalist's civic planning dream. There are hardly any cars around the central area at all. Oh, and the church mosaics I came here for are lovely, but I'm yet to see the best couple of sites. Gorgeous colours and precious stones as tesser.

On a final note - I did find the "real" spag bol in Bologna, and it was excellent. Salty and with few, if any, traces of tomato. Now I'm off to collect a photo CD, and see what Ravenna has to offer dinnerwise!

Italy - Bologna and San Gimignano

2005-11-07T13:43:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Granny, hoping that her knee operation went well, and a speedy recovery will follow.

This is an overdue post, as it has been surprisingly hard to find internet sources over the last few days. My handwritten diary has been receiving the full brunt of my adventures, now in increasingly tiny letters, so I'll just recap a few notes here.

I left Siena for San Gimignano with two girls I met along the way, a Queenslander and a Californian. They kept popping back into my life for the rest of the day. SG is a picturesque (a word that really starts losing its meaning after a few days in Tuscany) medieval village known worldwide for its towers. They aren't actually that pretty as individual structures, but the atmosphere they generate as you approach the town is very much the stuff of fairytales. The panoramic views from the top of the highest one are spectacular, but unfortuantely the lower floors have been dedicated to the art museum where they confiscate all cameras on entry, so I have no photos.

Follow the above link for more info - I need to tell you about Bologna!

This has been a damp experience, as it has simply not stopped raining since I arrived two days ago. Fortunately, this may be the world's best city for outdoor exploration on rainy days. The historic centre is characterised by beautiful porticos (pedestrian streets along roads covered by overhanging buildings supported by arches) which mean you can walk 40km without getting wet. That's the Guinness Book of Records statistic, which the guides will happily plug. These are the result of increased demand for accomodation within the medieval walls, caused by the influx of wealthy students from all over Europe. Bologna hosts the oldest University in Europe, the longest ongoing poor-student culture, and invented Spaghetti Bolognese (Tartaglia Ragu, I think it is called here. Parlo non Italiano.). Ever wondered why it's such a classic student food?

That being said, I'm actually having trouble finding it here. Sunday nights seem pretty dead here, so I'll try again tonight.

The whole city seems to be built in shades of terracotta, grey, red, and warm orange tones, very autumnal. I like it very, very much. The major church here - not technically the cathedral - Saint Petronio's Basilica, would have been the largest in Christendom had the Pope not intervened in the mid-16th century. (He couldn't stand the idea of being larger than his own in the Vatican. Size matters to Catholics). Construction was cut immediately and the facade is perpetually half-complete, and you can see the zig-zagged brickwork where they had to cap off the unfinished walls. Inside there's a very controversial fresco of Dante's Divine Comedy (he was one of Bologna's best and brightest graduates), which apparently was the target of threats from Al-Qaeda.

The hostel is another HI factory, but the best of it's type I've stayed in.

On to Ferrara tommorrow, then Venice. The sojourn back to Rome seems to be mapping itself out on recommendations from other travellers.

Two Blogs Worth Seeing

2005-11-07T13:07:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to the very "First Decade of the New Millennium" trend of Blogging.

My newest family member, Elliott Lars Chamberlain, the son of my cousins Grant and Louise, has his own blog!

http://elliottchamberlain.blogspot.com/

It's very, very cute and great solution for disseminating all the important baby news that the extended family wants to hear about. I'm proud to be showing it off here!

On another end of the scale, here's a travel blog (of sorts) definately worth knowing about. You might want to bring it to the attention of any friends of yours involved with events in Iraq.

http://timandmeraiah.blogspot.com/

It's the blog of the wife of the son of a friend of my grandmother's. (It's important that you know these things). They work for Reuter's and the AP, and the blog is a collaboration between the husband (based in Iraq) and the wife, who works directly with Australian media and posts her notes and stories from her husband on the blog. You won't normally find the blog stories in the papers.

Italy - Another day in Siena

2005-11-04T18:32:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Tabbi for that excellent Saddam Hussein forward!

If you also want it, you'll have to email me. Anonymous comments to this blog get to me, but unfortunately I can't reply to them if I don't know who you are or haven't got your email address.

Today started as another misty morning, surprised by the unanticipated arrival of a German cyclist in my room late last night.

I set out early-ish to do the things I hadn't achieved yesterday. Now the day is almost over and there's still a couple of things left, but I think I really should try to see more of Italy in the next three weeks.

There was a hefty Tuscan brunch in the Piazza del Campo, then a long trawl through the National Art Gallery of Siena (which sounds strange to Australians, but here if a collection housed is of national significance, it apparently becomes a National gallery). I have now seen the world's best collection of Sienese 13-14-15th century gold-backed religious artworks. And How. It took several stories of a converted palace to display them all, and I didn't find myself getting bored until the display changed into Mannerist wall panels. Beautiful pieces. If the catalogue reproductions had been as good as the originals I might have bought one.

This was followed by caffe latte and a very brief foray into the Torture Museum. (For a change of scenery, following all those saints getting mangled upon golden altarpieces...) I didn't get much further than the foyer, where they had a few gruesome objects and a comphrehensive catalogue. I read the book extensively, and although impressed by the pleas from various NGOs for the elimination of torture globally, I found myself trying to think of a reason to see the rest of the museum. I couldn't - knowing those contraptions existed was enough for me. Most of which, I was surprised to learn, I had never heard of before. Thus, I opted for the cheaper and infinately more comforting option of a gelati and long scenic walk.

It was a gorgeous walk, selected by combining a few tourist pamphlets. Orchards, castles, churches, fountains, alleys with archways, historic sites. Will get pictures online eventually.

The evening so far has been spent in the Siena Contemporary Art Gallery. The whole place is currently showing Guardami: Percezione del Video, a series of international video installations. It was my first shot of contemporary art for a while, since Istanbul I think, and I constantly found myself thinking "How would the people who painted those altarpieces react to these?".

I found it extremely stimulating to have experienced such a contrast over the course of the day, and that particular question was a good frame for approaching many works initially. Check out the website - there were some very well-known contributors too, like Bill Viola, William Kentridge and Bruce Nauman.

To do it justice I should describe several installations, but here, I'd like to just share one. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller's Playhouse, 1997.

The set-up is for one person at a time. You collect a headset with earphones and enter a black-curtained room with a single seat. In front of you is a stage and red concert curtain, on the scale of a large dollhouse.

You hear the glossolalia of a audience shuffling and chatting, when a seductive woman's voice apologises for being late and invites you to sit. A spotlight appears on stage, and a tiny opera singer walks into view, projected upon a glass sheet using a technique that has been in use since the nineteenth century. It's very realistic.

She begins to sing...
The woman's voice appears in one ear, leaning over your shoulder,
"I love this song"
The song concludes to much laughter - it must have been a comic routine - and the audience begins slowly counting. The woman's voice joins in, getting louder.
At Ten! she begins a new song.
The audience murmurs, papers are being shuffled from the seats beneath you.
"What's she doing?", the unseen woman asks,
"That's not the right song".

There is a pause as we listen to the new song.

"There's a suitcase under your seat."
"It has everything you need."
The song continues...
"A car will meet you in the back alley."
More music...
"She knows there's not much time left", referring to the singer with an inaudible tilt of her head.
The song stops, there is a brief pause with applause before a new one begins.

"I'm going to go now, before the police arrive."
"Remember to return your headset."
More singing...
"I won't see you again. Good luck."
She leaves her seat, as a disembodied voice, and the singer concludes with flair. The entire audience bursts into wholehearted applause. Even I join in.

Without warning, the sound cuts off, while the opera singer continues to bow. An interrogating, almost nostalgic man's voice appears from your other side.
"Remember this theatre? When you came back here, the roof was leaking, and rats were crawling through the ruins. You sat in this box and watched her peform.
Right before everything went wrong that night."
The applause of the audience returns, and the singer leaves the stage.

Italy - Tuscan Food

2005-11-04T18:10:00.000+11:00

How Good is Food?

Dinner last night cost me half my daily budget, but oh how I don't care.

Unfortunately, the detailed descriptions I wrote on a scrap of paper as I was eating are elsewhere, so I won't be able to tell you what the dishes were actually called in Italian.

The Ostello Castelvecchio was hidden up a steep and sharply-winding street some distance from the tourist areas. It's a member of the Slow Food movement, which I was pleased to discover. The place was almost empty, but it was relaxed and casual with a couple of locals eating as I arrived.

It was also the first three-couse restaurant meal I've had in some time, following many nights of takeaway, self-service or pizza ataglio.

First course - pumpkin ribbollini with hints of salami and parmesan. Outstanding, creamy and flavoursome. All courses acompanied by a good 2003 chianti, described in detail on the scrap.

Second course - vegetable souffle with the most intense tomato salsa, hot and crisp and soft on the inside.

Dessert - a trio of pannacotta, panforte (very much a local speciality - in fact all these dishes are, including the wine), and chocolate torte.

It was a well-deserved meal, and I've set aside the same amount today for a repeat performance elsewhere.

Italy - Siena

2005-11-03T18:39:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Dad for that excellent bag of emails

Siena is a gorgeous medieval town. It consists of red bricks and terracotta ceilings, with cobblestoned, twisting and sloping narrow streets, only a few cars, plenty of churches and absolutely no overhead wires. Several hidden little alleys are spanned with archways, food places are located by scent much more easily than by signage, and the whole place seems prepared for much larger tourist crowds than it's currently got. The skyline is dominated by cathedral spires and towers, and whenever the view penetrates beyond a few metres of shops or residential roads, you can see lush green fields and orchards stretching out for ages beneath an almost excessively blue sky.

I might stay here an extra day, since I've only just managed 3/4 of the major sights today. The hostel is good and cheap too - only €13 a night, with a private room with sink and view, and fresh sheets. For those of you who wanted the other half of the dialogue... unfortunately he turned out to be a lovely little old Italian man who was hard of hearing. I guess this made it charming but I kinda wanted to tell another story of throttling difficult concierges. Still, I'm not complaining!

I've explored the central city area, within the massive walls, and the Campo (piazza) where the annual Paulio horserace is held. (A very exciting and hotly contested event I first saw on Global Village on SBS... The Italian Melbourne Cup). I climbed the high tower in the centre of the city, and looked over vast seas of fog that shifted suddenly, giving spasmodic glimpses of red buildings beneath the clouds. The cathedrals (or rather, the Duomo and other big churches) seemed disembodied from the earth and just floating over the sky.

The Duomo (THE Cathedral) was made to rival that of Florence, and maybe would have if the Black Death hadn't cut through Tuscany in the fourteenth century. It is a striking black and white building, all horizontal stripes, with a very impressive interior in a similar colour scheme. The floors are inlaid images in marble, black, red and white like pulp comics, and the Library space was simply magnificent. High frescoes of the life of the Sienese Pope, and fantastic illuminated manuscripts for choirs. They would have weighed as much as my backpack, each. Most of the day was really spent in the museums associated with the Duomo and surrounding area.

One place, a church laden with relics of Saint Catherine (including a skull covered in writing that guarded the entrance), was laid deep under a massive hospital complex. Finding it took me way down through a labyrinthine network of tunnels, narrow stairs and small chapels. It was so dark and atmospheric that I tried taking a photograph of the largest altar. I can almost swear there's something odd in the picture that I didn't see when I took the photo...

But ghost stories aside, I'm off to get something for dinner. Last night was suprisingly difficult to find somewhere to eat (Tuscan food may be great, but finding a place worth eating at is damn hard!), so it was just a fine pizza ataglio in a bustling local takeaway. Since the tourist season seems over here, the trattorias were virtually empty, and thus just too depressing to consider. I've got a list of good things to try now, so who knows what I'll find?

BTW "DOCG" Chianti is great!

Italy - Florence, a bigger and better post!

2005-11-01T21:15:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to ditto

That was a cheap cop-out post, now wasn't it?

In the meantime I got some dinner (pizza standing up and gelati sitting down, reversed for a change), had a few minutes to sit back and relax, and now I'm feeling capable of taking on another museum! Bring them on, Florence!

OK, for real descriptions...

Since I basically missed out on the Palazzo Pitti yesterday afternoon, taking a ticket only for the oversized Boboli Gardens and pretty-too-pretty ceramics museum, I went back early this morning just to see the Granducal apartments and the Palatine Galleries. This was the serious art collection - all higgedly-piggedly old masters, several big names like Reubens, Raphael, Tintoretto, Lippi, and Botticelli, amongst dozens of others less familiar to me. All displayed in floor-to-ceiling manner, in keeping with the Royal Ostentation of the overall interior decoration.

(For colour, at this moment, a gang of presumably drunk Japanese teenagers dressed in puffy red jackets and baseball caps, like costume-party gangstas, have just waltzed into the internet cafe. They are singing "Heeeeeeeeeey, Hey Baby! Ohh! Ahh! I wanna knooo-oh-oh-oh,-oh-oh-ow if you'll be my girl!". They were just politely removed by the management).

I played my favourite Grand Tour Art Gallery game, sneaking photos of major artworks, throughout the Palazzo Pitti and got about 90 good shots, including overall room views displaying their strict colour schemes (white, blue, mustard yellow, green, red, etc). It was easier than initially expected, most of the attendants were reading papers or chatting to each other, and there weren't many visitors in the early morning. I experienced no queue to get tickets, but as I left I saw a good couple of hundred tourists waiting at the gates!

On that note, a similar fate seemed to await me at the Galleria dell'Accademia. The line for sophisticated folk with reserved tickets, like me, was actually longer than the line of the poorly organised plebs. The guy herding the convergence at the entrance was very much a bouncer who could speak three languages with great authority! As a Slushie I was impressed, but my odds of getting in felt slim. Fortunately, I maneuvered my way in nonchalantly with a group of Americans, and the bouncer didn't check my reservation. The bloke at the ticket desk did, luckily, so it was a wise investment.

Taking in the luxury of a six-minute wait where others hath taken days and nights, I explored leisurely to see what this place had to offer besides the obvious marble celebrity. There was a lovely group of Filippo Lippi's, Botticelli's and other colourful Florentine religious artwork in the first room, then a special exhibition of Medici-era musical instruments. Loved the antiquated ones in particular - I imagine you know what a dulcimer is, but how about a trumpet-mariner, a standing guitar with only one string that sounds like a trumpet? Or a hurdle-gurdle, a wind-up piano-violin-box that also followed me into the Uffizi? I also saw a guitar with piano keys, designed to let aristocratic women play without damaging their fingernails.

The David stands at the end of a long corridor defended by Michelangelo's unfinished "Prisoner" series - partially carved giants emerging from marble hulks that were destined to be part of Pope Julius II's tomb. Happily I knew this before I got there - it was part of my degree - but it was interesting to watch the various interpretations told by tour guides, and unfamilar tourists trying to work it out for themselves.

Out of respect for the crowds and professionalism of the staff, and not least for the six-minute wait, I took no photos of the galleries. Instead, I made notes in several colours on the back of my ticket stub (the third I've prepared so far), and drew a good sketch of a detail from the David. Not the bit most frequently reproduced on postcards, you with dirty minds out there.

After David (which I could spill more ink upon, but to what purpose, really? I thought it was superb), I checked out a forbidding room of plaster casts and working models for larger statues. The best thing was actually the very impressive icon and altarpiece collection located after David and in the upstairs galleries, which none of the guidebooks mention. I didn't leave much time to see these, but was very surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Wonderful golds, blues, silvers, and well-designed forms for display.

Dashing on to the Uffizi, lunch in hand, and it was only another six-minute wait to get in. Oh I felt so smug. Furthermore, just as I arrived, it started to rain. The poor queuing mob in the courtyard dispersed to the edges as rapidly as if someone had just pulled out a gun. It was funny once I realised what had caused the commotion.

The Uffizi. A Museum with all the superlatives I can muster. People legitimately queue for days to get in. A destination of pilgrimage and peregrination for art history fans. It was great, and big, and great.

I could double the length of this post by describing it in detail, so for your sake I won't. I now feel a more complete person for having seen a room of Botticelli's, including the Primavera and Birth of Venus. Titians, Lippis', Rembrandts, Reubens, Tintorettos, Carravaggios... So, so many I could name and describe... Loved the way each corner would unveil something I'd seen before plenty of times in books or in lectures, and the way the friendly, reassuring and only infrequently pompous audioguide would coax me out of each room to see the next. I studied a few of their guides in their three bookshops (Three!!) and was so contented to be able to spot an image, and mentally locate it upon the wall with others nearby. As I said in the last post, visiting this place after all the preparation I've put into it, feels like undergoing a second degree.

Wrapping up now.

Tomorrow I go to Siena, hopefully after seeing the Palazzo Vecchi early in the morning, and the Carmine Basilica for the Massacio frescos. The bloke at the hostel was odd on the phone. It took three calls to reserve the bed, apparently a double room but only at the dorm bed rate. He kept hanging up before he got my name. Finally, I was able to get him to record it, and the conversation went something like this:

"You need my name, or how can you know my bed is reserved?"
"Oh, Ok... What is your name?"
"Sam Bowker"
"I do not understand. What is your first name?"
"Sam. My name is Sam"
"You say your name is Markus?"
"No! No, my name is..."
"You do not know what your name is? How can you not know what your name is?"

Finally I got it recorded, I think, but it will be interesting to get there! I have not heard good things about the place, but everything I've heard could be equally applied to my current place. So long as the word "bedbugs" does not enter the descriptions, I'm happy.

Italy - the Big Museums of Florence

2005-11-01T19:21:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to the Medici Dynasty and the clever chaps who invented the ticket reservation service.

It's been a massive day, so this post is inversely proportional to the amount of stuff I've been up to.

I only saw three places - the Uffizi (six hours! I feel like I've got another degree!), the David and the gallery that goes with it, and the Palazzo Pitti.

My god I'm buggered. Too much visual accumulation.

Better post later.

Italy - Florence, Day 2

2005-10-31T19:03:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to the Greco-Egyptian Postal Service, for finally delivering all my Turkish ephemera and souvenirs to His Excellency the Ambassador Dr Bob.

The last couple of days in Florence have been busy. There's plenty to do here, even on Mondays when many of the major museums are shut. Today, I checked out the Palazzo Bargello, a fortress-like sculpture museum with a big emphasis on Donatello. Then there was Europe's first orphanage, which once hosted a revolving door for unwanted kids, a couple of significant churches, and my first real Florentine Queue.

This was for entry to the Duomo, the famous Cathedral of Florence. It's a stunning building on the exterior - all green, black and white Tuscan marble with crenellations, flutes, arched windows and quilt-like patterns. It actually only took about twenty minutes to move 200 metres. This, I'm proud to say, was well-planned around a good pizza lunch I picked up moments earlier at a fresh foods market. (You should have seen the shops of offal and very fresh poultry...).

This afternoon was spent at the Florence Archaeological Museum, mostly consisting of Egyptian and Etruscan treasures, plus a special if disorienting exhibition on ancient banquets. A notable object was a Roman ceramic vessel used to fatten up dormice for eating (rodenty things like squirrels). The evening, pre-dinner, has been spent watching wild otters amble about the banks of the Arno river, and the imaginative antics of street performers.

Yesterday was fairly similar - lots of exhibitions in smaller galleries, several churches of various size and artistic significance, the gardens of the Palazzi Pitti, and plenty of gelati. Never the same combination of flavours twice - a notable one was white chocolate, peanuts and banana, but the rich black chocolate with chocolate and coffee beans was also excellent! The hostel population has also been warming up gradually, so I'm going to bring back some nice wine this evening and see what happens.

Tommorrow, I'm going to the Uffizi and the Galleria dell'Accademia (the home of the David). I'm sure this pilgrimage is required for everyone who wants to legitimately call themselves an art historian! I'm likely to stay here for a couple more days to visit the town of Siena and the remaining galleries/churches I really don't want to miss. Who knows?

Italy - Florence

2005-10-30T11:05:00.000+11:00

Dedicated to Tabbi's Bad Experiences in Florence

The last night in Rome was characterised by a very long search for accomodation. It's a public holiday long weekend here and everything cheap was full. I eventually found a dorm bed, by chance, and shared it with five young women. Three were American students, one was a Belgian international volunteer, and I spent much of the evening talking to an Argentinian named Roxana.

The train ride the next morning was gorgeous when the landscape was visible. Tuscan and Umbrian fields shrouded in fog, golden light from the afternoon sun over autumnal leaves, and occaisional medieval stone villages clutched tightly upon mountaintops around castles. I was hapy to have found such a cheap train ticket online, but then realised that it may have been due to accidentally ordering an under-18 year-old ticket. I know Italian ticket checkers are vigilant about spotting tourists and making them pay substantial fines for mistakes like that, but miraculously, he didn't seem to notice. Or I was in the right. Who knows, but it felt very lucky indeed.

I'm now staying in a youth hostel that gave my dear sister Tabbi a hell of a time when she came to Florence. For her, it was a combination of after-midnight arrival, unhelpful bus drivers, being lost in a new city, hunger and rain. I sought to avoid all those things, from her experience, so I checked it out mid-afternoon.

It's about 20 minutes by bus from the city (which I'm supposed to pay for, but haven't figured out the ticketing system. Not knowing how the ticket system works has saved me quite a bit of money), and another kilometre's walk through a beautiful pedestrian avenue of old mossy trees and vineyards. The building is a former villa, very big indeed, with coloums, balconies, a garden and a reception area lined with architectural murals. As I arrived someone was practicing on a saxophone upstairs. Great initial atmosphere.

However, when I returned later that evening I saw it for what it really was. A destination for Italian and Spanish high school groups to run riot without their teachers, and make a hell of a noise in all the communal areas. These areas are very big and clinical, so there were no quiet areas to update my diary. No internet either, but at least the bathroms are well able to cope with the crowds. It's not a bad place, but it's too big to be social, and the annoying school groups really don't make it any easier to find other backpackers. I'm booked for three more nights as it is so cheap.

Anyhow - I'm off to get my museum tickets booked for the next couple of days. I explored much of the city centre last night, as well as the San Marco museum. The queues in this city are phenomenal - tourist crowds equal to the density seen at the Vatican and the Athenian Acropolis, but not even moving!!!

Maybe off to Siena tommorrow, as many of the museums will be closed.

Italy - Anna and Sam in Rome

2005-10-28T11:28:00.000+10:00

Dedicated to Anna

I have just said arrividerche to Anna as she left for the airport on the green train.

And now I am suddenly feeling more lonely than I have ever felt on the Grand Tour.

The last few days exploring Rome with her have been great. We walked well over 20km every day, getting through every corner of the city centre, all the main shopping streets, restaurant areas, most of the major sites and heaps of gorgeous churches. Rome is the kind of place where aimless wandering is usually rewarding (except, perhaps, in Travestere!). It would have been a very different experience without Anna - staying in dorms, exchanging familiar faces every day, probably more pub crawls and bedbugs. This time, I suddenly had a familiar face around for almost the entire time - a first for a couple of months now. She's extroverted, remembers old mutual friends from our schooldays in Jerusalem seven years ago, and almost exactly as I remembered her still.

We saw the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill, the Vatican museums and held an audience with the Pope. (He looks friendlier in person than you might expect, but I did not get to ask him about the dwarf nuns. Or if he's really a Catholic.) We viewed the Sistine chapel, ate god knows how much gelati, went to good restaurants each night, and found a Cutesy Store. This was undeniably the highlight of Anna's trip - it was a shop of hand-made wooden toys, clocks, and old-fashioned paraphenalia of all sorts. She also collected a few handbags amongst all our shopping. We discovered that coffee in Rome is actually hard to find, but we checked out several places. And all kinds of pizzas and pastas. Heaps of photos were taken, and the tourist map I was given on my first day is so well-worn it can be folded like a rubix cube.

Now I have many things to do - diary updates, postcards to send, hostels to book. The Grand Tour continues from here with another day or two in Rome, dorming it up again, then off to Florence. Seeing Anna again was a highlight, and I'm sure we'll meet again one day.

Maybe in another seven years.

Italy - Freestyle Hostel, Rome

2005-10-28T11:18:00.000+10:00

Dedicated to Sarah and Hayley

BROOKE AND JULES FROM NAPLES - DON'T GO TO THIS HOSTEL!!! And you both owe me beer in Melbourne some time. Write to me!

The Freestyle Hostel, the place I stayed at the night before seeing Anna, was the single greatest cesspit of the Grand Tour. It was a dungeon with spraypainted murals and needles in the street outside. No signage either. The kitchen was a modified corridor, the dorms had bedbugs (though I was very fortunately spared the extensive attacks suffered by some blokes from the other dorm). The bathroom was one tiny mouldy cubicle shared with up to thirty people, and no exhaust fan. The free internet didn,t consistently work, and the included breakfast and dinner was very basic. But hey, it was cheap.

On the positive note, the best thing about this place was undeniably the company. The staff were friendly (but inexperienced - the Norwegian bloke only started that morning and arrived in Rome two days earlier. He did have a great ambition to ride back to Norway on a Vespa!). Meeting two girls from Kansas (Sarah and Hayley) was great. We stayed up for what became a four-hour conversation about everything from food, working dreams, experiences working for mental health rehabilitation, travel, all kinds of stuff.

That,s ll I needed to say here - hope you see this in time Brooke and Jules!

Italy - Rome

2005-10-23T17:02:00.000+10:00

Just a quick post to say I'm here and all's well.

Rome looks like it'll be interesting, but I've only been up to boring admin stuff this afternoon. Most of the day was spent on the train here and some final exploration of Naples, so I'll spare you the details.

I've checked out both sides of the Stazione Termini (Central Station) in the city centre. The "dodgy" side is truly seedy. The "good" side is a suburb of mansion-like multiple-star hotels with appealing Italian architecture. I'm staying in the cramped but friendly Freestyle Hostel tonight. It's decorated with spraypainted murals, and quite definately in the "dodgy" side. Tomorrow I'll be meeting my friend Anna, who is coming down from Helsinki for the week, and subsequently we'll be staying in a much nicer place in the "good" side. The Hotel Gabriella.

Anyway, got to get back to boring stuff. I'm sure the next post will be more interesting!

Italy - Vesuvian Ruins and Naples

2005-10-22T20:25:00.000+10:00

Dedicated to Jaume, the intrepid and well-organised Catalonian

Just after that last blog post, almost everyone in the hostel gathered together around the hastily-cleared reception desk and partook in an excellent pumpkin pasta provided by our host, Giovanni. Red wine was spontaneously generated and a great time was had by all - for free!

Yesterday was spent, as planned, exploring the archaeological sites buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD. I woke Jaume, the Catalonian traveller I met the previous night, and we eventually caught the right train to all the major sites. He also treated me to my first italian coffee - a cappucino in a plastic cup from the train station. It was actually much better than the Australian equivalent!

We first explored Herculaneum (love being an Austrian...). This was a village encased in a mud flow, leaving it much better preserved than the city of Pompeii, which was buried under ash and pumice. Wonderful reconstructed gardens, in-situ mosaics and small frescos. The streets felt like any modern city - just in ruins devoid of rubble, without advertising. The weather throughout the day was ideal for open-air site exploration, cloudy but never actually raining.

Pompeii was next - good lord it's vast! I think we took around four or five hours in there, constantly walking. The layout of the city is very easy to navigate, and the audioguides were helpful. (Mine was in English, Jaume got a Spanish one) By the time we got to Oplontis he was addicted and had to use my camera case, which produced suprisingly useful information! The colour scheme is grey (roads), terracotta (bricks) and pale grey (sky and mortar). Broad avenues, mansions, towers, temples, theatres and a gladiatorial ampitheare covered in lawn... wonderful stuff for the imagination. It was the first site I,ve seen were the crowds of tourists actually generated the atmosphere of an ancient city (Ephesus was not sufficiently excavated to have the same effect). We shared fruit and a sandwich in the theatres, watching tour guides perform in a few languages, and got briefly lost in a forbidden zone trying to find the Brothel Number 39. It turned out to be closed for conservation.

With an hour to go before sunset, we just managed to squeeze in a trip to Oplontis. Thanks for the recommendation Penny! Amazing floor-to-ceiling frescos and preserved palatial architecture. Oplontis was a recently discovered single-structure ruin, consisting of a mansion and a bathhouse. A high school project exhibition was opening simultaneously in the west wing. A strange object in the centre of a courtyard was dubbed the decapitation room, and if in doubt, everything was connected to the cistern or the limb storage areas.

That night, Jaume, John (of Raki Night in Istanbul fame), Vanessa (Aus), Emma and Lucy went to Guido Sorbillo,s for several of the best pizzas of our lives. Outstanding! I ordered one with four cheeses, others had things I can,t remember but the selection was exquisite.

Today was marginally less energetic. I explored the city of Naples, starting with the National Archaeological Museum. I was accompanied by Brooke, Jules and Simone (Aussie girls) from the hostel for this part. Unfortunately, a lot of the collections were closed, but we still had a great time with the Vesuvian mosiacs (Pompeii and others, some exceptionally fine), the Egyptian collection (with some very creepy mummified feet displayed like an upside-down flower vase), and best of all, The Secret Room.

That's really what it was called. It was portrayed as an intriguing history of museography, which it was, but for most visitors I'm sure it was a room full of dicks and erotic antiquities. Broken bits from statues snapped by souvenir-hunters (because they're fragile, portable and easily reached on the colossal ones), brothel menu murals, totemic talismans, priapic pagan pedestals, togas with erections and all kinds of ordinary looking artifacts with some smutty details. As well as a few fakes collected over time by accident. It was a seriously interesting little collection, and the history of it was well described. We had to book our visit in advance due to its popularity!

Later, I checked out many churches (mostly closed and locked - strange how mosques are almost never closed to the public, but 80% of the churches I've visited have been!), and the shopping streets of Naples. Plenty of strange junk shops, gelati places (oh my god it's great stuff...) and people selling complex navity scenes, or materials to make your own. Also got a great look at the sumptuous Royal Palace (very like Dolmabahce, but more tasteful), the New Castle (strangely laid out but some interesting medieval artworks), and the largely empty Egg Castle. It did have a great sunset out over fishing boats though.

Now, I am off to grab more pizza for dinner, and round up some people to join me. Rome tomorrow - Ciao!

Italy - Bari, arrival in Naples

2005-10-20T20:35:00.000+10:00

Dedicated to my superb hosts in Naples, Giovanni (the hostel owner) and Giorgio (the concierge) (CONCIERGE!!!)

After 46 hours of travel, I have finally made it to my real destination in Italy - Napoli.

It has not been entirely boring, as I constantly have something that needs to be done (learning Italian, when in doubt). But I am very pleased to have located a bed I know I shall be in for the next three nights.

Italy greeted me with a superb sunrise - I haven't seen many of those on the GT! - and I greeted it with vague paranoia and a dozen pleasantries. Bari, the port town, and Naples are said to be two of the most dangerous cities for tourists, due to moped-bandits and pickpockets. I haven,t actually bought out my camera yet, due to concerns for it,s safety, but I'll pull it out tomorrow.

Bari was a lot like Antakya in Turkey. It was a fairly uninteresting place ideally suited to finding one,s feet in a new country. I caught a bus, wandered streets to a known destination, booked tickets to Naples, bought new jeans (farewell my beloved white pants, but thou hast been stained by the cursed leaking pen, and thou art consigned to the back of my pack until I needth a rag...), and visited a supermarket. All very day-to-day stuff, but in a new language and culture, it,s a series of little triumphs!

My first Italian food was a doughnut. It was covered in sugar, and chewy, and had a hint of rosewater. It was one of the best doughnuts I have ever eaten. The apple that followed it was exceptionally crisp and juicy. I bought some packet chocolate biscuits for the bus, and imagine my rapture as each one was a dark and flavoursome as my favourite dessert, chocolate fudge pudding. Italians do food seriously well!

Now, I am in my hostel in Naples, with a lively bunch of mostly Aussie (Melb) backpackers. Thereàs also a Catalonian guy, two French girls, an American, two Israelis and a Dutch bloke. The owner is cooking us a pumpkin pasta as it is too heavily raining outside to pop down the street to the best pizzaria in Napoli (the pizza and calzone were invented here, and the margharita is said to be manna from heaven).

It was very hard to find this place. My first choice recommended it to me by phone, and I called for directions upon arrival in Naples. I got lost twice, and eventiually found it hidden down an interestign alley of frame-makers. It has no sign outside - I asked if it was for building heritage reasons. They told me it's actually becuase with an active mafia situation, you don't want to advertise small businesses of this sort too heavily! Lovely spot though, with great security.

Tomorrow - either a daytrip through Herculaneum and Pompeii, or a day exploring the city if it is raining. Great cathedrals, castle and archaeological museum here, helped by the local excavations around Vesuvius. (The storm clouds over it on my arrival were spectacular)

Greece - Naxos and Patra

2005-10-19T12:20:00.000+10:00

Dedicated to the ice-cream guy

I've spent the last full day exploring the capital town of the island of Naxos. It was beautiful, especially the old city. Literally thousands of photogenic alleys and doors, etc, despite the overcast skies. Great sunset through the sole remaining structure of the Temple of Apollo, a massive arched doorway standing on a tiny isthmus near the harbour. Superb icecreams too - a pitch dark bitter chocolate and bailey's one night, and a cointreau with caramel chocolate the next. Huge serves from a guy who wasn't fussy about getting exact change! Also loved the collection of Cycladic figures in their small museum, said to be one of the best in Greece (therefore the world).

I also caught a live performance by two Russian musicians - a pianist and violinist - in the Venetian Museum. This was a house museum of an aristocratic family within the old city walls, but getting back to the harbour in time to catch the ferry was an exciting run. I negotiated the labyrinthine streets after dark using a system of landmarks - left at the stunning old door, right at the stunning old door, down the stairs beneath the interesting old window...

But the last 15 or so hours have been spent travelling on ferries and buses. I am now on the other side of Greece, in Patras, awaiting my next ferry to Italy (the city of Bari). Six hours to kill, and a minor emergency to deal with.

Next post (probably) from Italy! Bring on the fifth language barrier!

Greece - Exploring Santorini

2005-10-17T21:37:00.000+10:00

Dedicated to Paul, a Seattle-based geologist who has been popping in and out of my travels for the last few days.

Santorini has been extremely picturesque. (As my wordsmith grandfather pronouces it, picture-skew). Cats, although generally reknowned for their ability to pose, are truly supermodels here. Most views seem fit for postcards, given the right light. Indeed, they probably have been printed at some point in the last forty years. It may just be the most well-documented place on earth.

Tourism is such a big industry that there is a town, Ia (or Oia), whose survival is pinned on it's majestic sunsets. I hiked around 20km along the northern half of the island (up from Fira in the centre) to check it out. The sunset was gorgeous (an intense stratified red sphere against a purple sea and almost no clouds), but the walk itself was the real highlight. I walked along ghettoes of completely empty 5 and 6 star hotels, with superb flowing architecture, vineyards of coiled grape vines laid upon the ground, and many stunning stark white and blue churches. An impossibly well-placed and affectionate white cat provided company for a portion of the trek.
The windy winding pathway of red, black and white pumice pebbles took me up along the summit of two mountains, and right around the edge of the grand Caldera (volcanic lagoon). Outstanding views throughout!

But my time in Santorini has come to an end. I am now in Naxos, the largest of the Cycladic islands. It seems too big for a single day, so I shall confine my meanderings to the main town area tomorrow. Plus, I have a shopping idea...

Greece - Santorini

2005-10-16T02:34:00.000+10:00

Dedicated to the ancient Therans

I'm writing from an internet cafe playing "Mandy" in all it's kitsch magnitude, at high volume.

But on a positive note, I'm on the Greek island of Santorini. This place is spectacular - white buildings lined with blue doors and window frames are the norm. Expensive hotels and restaurants cling to the sides of steep cliffs that descend straight into the sea on one side, and slowly glide into beaches on the other. It's very touristy, but hey, that's all that's keeping this place alive. Every single one of the Greek islands we cruised past this morning was rocky and barren, just like Easter island. Presumably for all the same reasons!

(Hey DJ - now the cafe's playing the theme song to the Eleventh Kingdom!)

The whole island is shaped like the crescent and star of Islam. This is because it was once a volcano, which blew apart (like Krakatoa) when ancient people were actually living here. After watching a quietly gorgeous sunset, I stepped into an understated but impressive museum exhibiting the frescoes uncovered from local excavations. These are 3500 years old, and the ones on display were reproductions of those too fragile to actually show. Beautiful figures and patterns, simple line drawings yet highly animated, and sumptuous colours. These Bronze Age "Therans" are thought by some to be the same group that started the myths of Atlantis, due to the volcanic eruption.

It is the off season and I was able to negotiate a good room with private facilities for 15 Euro. However, it turned out to be about 3km from the town of Fira (the capital). It's not an especially picturesque walk either, but hey, I'm only there for one night. Tomorrow I'm planning to o/n in Ia, the smaller town on the far north tip, reknowned for outstanding sunsets and interesting alleyways.

Maybe a self-guided moped is in order for the day...

Greece - Museums in Athens

2005-10-14T17:50:00.000+10:00

Today has been spent exploring two of the major museums here in Athens.

The National Archaeological Museum is seriously world-class. Astounding collections of Grecian antiquities, generally well laid out and well-staffed. I was particularly taken by the Cycladic exhibitions (figurines with clear white faces like a Brancusi sculpture, and elegant ceramic vessels), the Khouros collections, and Geometric Period vases.

Exploring it took around 5 hours, so I had much less time to take in the Benaki Museum. This was once a private collection, now turned over into a semi-private museum. It's housed in a former mansion on the embassy street, and loaded with exquisitie (and sometimes tacky but bejewelled) objects and artworks from across Greece's classical and more recent history. Both sites were free (love being an Austrian! That card has saved me a day's budget in just three days so far...)

I also located the only copy of Lonely Planet's current guide to Italy this morning, so I'm feeling well-organised. The internet cafe I'm writing from is at the top of an eight-storey building without an elevator, but the desk I'm at has a stunning view out over to the Acropolis.

Last night was fun - spent it out around central Athens with dorm mates Carl (NZ), Craig (Wales), Chantelle and Pru (Aussies). We checked out the monuments illuminated, local ouzo and cheap beers, and posed ridiculously for Tourist Photo Moments.

Tomorrow is going to be spent on the boat to Santorini. This'll give me seven hours to read about Italy, admire passing islands, and generally bum around. Love it!

Greece - Archaeology beyond Athens

2005-10-13T20:02:00.000+10:00

Dedicated to Adam and the anonymous scholars on the bus

Today, rather than being shipped out to the Islands, I took a bus to a few ancient Greek/Roman archaeologically significant sites. It was a small group (only 7, three did not speak much English), with a small and box-shaped guide who always had something to say. Sometimes this meant she had several lines of thought running simultaneously, in spoken parantheses, and did not stop for air for up to an hour at a time. Her speech was occaisionally so convoluted that it became surreal - like watching a Chinese-language B-grade movie dubbed into English!

(I recall, as I wrote snippets of it down, "Because, you see, they say that it is that losing life is like a bus..." This was during a discussion on King Agamemnon, the Byzantines, Abraham and the Old Testament, local flora, and her mother's pork sausages!)

Despite her idyosyncracies, the sites were good. We drove past the Olympic (2004) region before passing over the sudden and dramatic drop of the Corinthian Canal. From there, a real highlight for me, was exploring (at a furious pace) the site of Mycenae. This was a city-civilisation in the time of the Minoans (of Crete), many centuries before the ancient Greeks, let alone the Romans. These were amongst the first people in Europe to build monumental tomb architecture. The major tomb on this site (the Tomb of King Agamemnon) was something I first encountered in my first Art History lecture in the ANU. The acoustics in the tomb were wonderful - loooong echos from the slightest sound, so a footstep on soft dust became an extended crunching noise. As always, the views from the acropolis were gorgeous, although it has not been reconstructed to the extent of Delphi or many other sites I've seen lately.

The next notable site was Nafplion, where we spent ten minutes geting a few photos from the jetty. It was once a Greek capital, but the only items of interest we saw were a massive fortifcation (a huge wall wrapped like an obese python around three-quarters of a mountain top, looping in seven smaller fortresses), the turquoise seawater, and a fantastic castle built edge-to-edge on a flat island maybe 200m out from shore. My notes say these were Palamidi Castle (the mountaintop) and Fortress Bourtzi (the island) - check them out through the links!

Adam, a Canadian uni student travelling before he finishes his degree, and I decided that one day we would buy Fortress Bourtzi. Being billionaires, we would fix them up, install a trebuchet (or several), trampolines, a flying fox down from the Palamidi and jet packs to get up there. Oh yeah, that would be so cool!

Dashing off after that, we checked out the excellent theatre of Epidaurus, which is said to have the best sound quality of the anicent theatres of Europe. Although our guide didn't appreciate our doing it, most of us sneaked off to explore the site museum and the associated ruins of the Askelpion. Like the one in Bergama, this was a hospital site, but very differently laid out. It was much larger and with more scaffolding in place, although the structures were in less pristine condition.

The bus trip back to Athens was loaded with discussion of Orthodoxy, Byzantine history and theology, Iconostasis and good authors on these topics. It was like a Uni tutorial! Great fun.

I'm planning to have a cheap day tomorrow, taking on the major museums of Athens. The next day I'll be off to the Cycladic islands, as I have booked ferries to and from Santorini (the island with the blue and white churches that appear on all the postcard stands here) and Naxos, which I know nothing about. Then off to Italy!

PS - Last night I was invited into a Champagne scam! I knew what it was from the outset of course, so don't worry (to those of you that do...). A friendly grandfatherly publican invited me to his coffeeshop, unambiguously named Pub Love, which was warm and dark with three goregous women sitting around looking lonely. I told him I didn't drink and was not interested, but asked him how much the drinks were regardless (why not? I knew I wasn't going in). He honestly (I think) told me that my soft drinks would be 5 Euro, and those for the girls were 20 Euro (32 Australian!). A dorm mate later that night told me his brother in Bucharest was almost stung with a US$1000 bill in a similar setup, but luckily he was playing pool with the bartender who warned him not to drink there.

Greece - Athens (1)

2005-10-12T16:48:00.000+10:00

Dedicated to Sarjan

Actually, Sarjan has nothing to with with Athens. He is a young cowherd in Edirne (like a shepherd but with less sheep and more cows). I should have dedicated one of the Edirne posts to him, but I've decided not to retroedit those from weeks ago. I met him outside one of the most spectacular mosque complexes, the Sultan Bayezid Mosque, set in white stone against the Tunca river. It was very like the Taj Mahal. Apparently this was once a medical centre for mental illnesses, centuries ago under the Ottomans. Distinctively, they used music therapy for their patients, a practise which Turkey claims to have invented.

But back on topic - Sarjan and I had one of those no-shared language conversations. Mosques were pointed at and exclaimed to be superb (Enfes!), he would disagree and say "If you think that one is superb, wait until you check out that one", with an eloquent finger gesture and the same word. Similar process for his cows. I recall him beaming with pride as he confidently asked me "Where! Are! You! From!" and "What! Is! Your! Name!". He deserves a post, as he was barefoot, probably rarely saw tourists, and wore very worn-out clothes. I suspect he will never otherwise have a reason to appear on this vast ocean of information that is the Internet, and he may never even approach a keyboard. So Sarjan, this one's for you.

Athens has proven to be a vast, generally clean and energetic city. It is the most European city I think I have seen since leaving London as a small boy. People dress like something out of a David Jones commercial, there are motorbikes and fashionable cafes everywhere, and people seem to live the lives that are promoted in glossy magazines. The city, when seen from the Acropolis, is a complex texture of white apartments and black windows.

I took a walking tour this morning. Just four of us (two Canadian girls, myself and the guide Eduardo) wandering the old city, with Ed explaining Greek mythology, current society, some architectural history and lots of the wars-dates-names history that cities this old accumulate like barnacles on an ocean liner. We saw many things, which I will not list here for fear of sounding like a tour agency flyer, but suffice to say I feel a more complete person for experiencing them all.

That sounds pretentious but I mean it. Walking through the Parthenon and surrounding temples, watching the scaffolding bend under the weight of reconstruction marble blocks, and smoothly sliding between hordes of amazed tourists was something I've wanted to do for a very long time. Likewise, by seeing the site of the Temple of Zeus, I have notched another surviving Ancient Wonder to my belt. And who wouldn't feel enlightened watching tall Greek men with heritage uniforms and pompoms on their boots strut about like a Monty Python skit?

My student card paid for itself twice today, making up for all my time carrying it in Turkey. It lists my university as "Aust Nat Uni", so when they ask where I'm studying, it's Austria. That means I get EU passes (which are FREE, better than $8-10 Australian for students and $20ish for non-students!) for each site. Wunderbar!

Tomorrow - perhaps a three-island cruise. Who knows?

Greece - Delphi and others

2005-10-11T02:02:00.000+10:00

Dedicated to Katya and her well-travelled mates

I just lost my original post, due to weird issues with saving functions on the website. Here goes round two!

Today has really been a travelling day. I found myself in Lamia last night, which really has nothing going for it as a location. I know this because I spent an extra four hours there due to language difficulties with an amiable but unhelpful elderly Greek lady who sold the bus tickets. On the plus side, I did locate a good basic hotel with some local help (more on the quality of that in Greece later), which had a charming balcony the same size as the room. They even sent up takeaway tortellini to my room, so I could continue watching English-language movies, for no extra cost!

The highlight was reaching Delphi. The drive was spectacular, taking me through steep mountains with clouds streaming between their summits, and tiny red-tiled white villages surrounded by olive orchards a slightly more silver-grey shade of green than the encompassing wilderness. The visit to the museum and archaeological site was rushed, as I needed to catch the last bus to Athens three hours later, but I saw all I wanted.

The museum was ridiculously full of tour groups, mostly (when I was there) loud highschool boys who clearly weren't interested in the exhibitions. Yet it actually flowed quite smoothly once I entered - the designers clearly had the flushing of large groups in mind from the outset. During the gaps between groups the spaces were conspicuously large, well-lit and easy to navigate. It was possible to take most of my photos without including people's heads - quite a feat if you saw how packed it was! I loved the staturary and photographs of the items being excavated during the 1920s, surrounded lovingly by French archaeologists posing like Japanese tourists.

In the ruins, I actually had a lot of them to myself in the final half hour. I used this time to sit back and take in the extraordinary view out over the sheer valley, across the Temple of Apollo, from high above the ancient theatre. The Apollonian temple was where the Oracle of Delphi was based, although only the foundations and a few recontructed columns remain. It is nonetheless stunning, especially with that view, and the huge cliffs towering above the other side of the old city. I found an abandoned guidebook there, in my bag now, which reproduced the last known utterance from the Oracle after the Romans converted to Christianity and left the complex to rot and be looted. (I will reproduce it here when I have time to do some long-overdue retroeditting of posts.) It seemed such a sad, and apt, thing to have said when gazing out over the skeletal remains of a glorious city that once powered massive world-conquering empires.

Now I am in Athens, comfortably set up in a friendly youth hostel (with dodgy internet!). I shall explore the city on foot and make my plans for the next few days tomorrow. Local Greek concepts of directions are lousy - they love to help but get things so wrong. I ended up spending three hours on buses to the airport and back to the centre following advice from a charming but decidedly unhelpful African Athenian!

More tomorrow.

Greece - Meteora

2005-10-10T18:11:00.000+10:00

Dedicated, with aplomb, to Grant and Louise's new baby boy! Congratulations guys!

Such wonderful news deserves a properly written blog post, but sadly I am very pressed for time. This is because my bus to Lamia leaves very soon and I spent far too long distracted by the photos and recent updates on Mum's Cairo blog.

Still - I spent today exploring the incredulously positioned monasteries of Meteora. These are seriously world heritage sites, set upon the very tops of narrow but sheer rocks that rise like the Cappadoican towers high into the mountains. The landscapes are like Chinese silk paintings, with lush green forests laden with mossy rocks, magnificent gnarled trees and birdsong. Walking along the roads, dodging massive tour buses, I ate wild blackberries and took far more photos than the bus tourists were able to.

I also sneaked non-flash photos of a number of church interiors, including gorgeous motifs on illuminated manuscripts, under the not-so-watchful eye of an Orthodox monk.

You must do a google image search and check the place out - they are amazing.

Must dash, off to Delphi via an overnight stop in Lamia.

Greece - Thessaloniki (2)

2005-10-08T22:20:00.000+10:00

Dedicated to Nothing In Particular

Today has been dedicated to dull administrative stuff, the necessities of travel rather than the exotica I really set out to do. Subsequently I won't attempt to summarise most of it here.

On the more interesting front, I explored the city extensively. Many intriguing Byzantine Churches were discovered to be locked for private functions, and the museums were very flashy and new but almost empty of visitors. This wasn't a bad thing, technically, but it felt like I was in a huge house alone, with staff staring at me like they had nothing better to do. Excellent collections focussing on Byzantine everyday life, and a mind-blowing exhibition of Macedonian Gold from local tombs.

It has been particularly interesting to observe the changes in museological attitudes to the Ottomans, coming out of (victorious) Turkey now to the (conquered) Greek perspectives. Small but pertinent selections of words and emphasis are most telling.

Walking along the Agean's edge at sunset was superb, lined with lots of near-identical tub-thumping Euro Cafes pulsating with shiny-haired young people. Greeks love to show off, it seems, and they do with the same way here as they do in Australia. With a serious subwoofas bro. Yeah mate, fully sick mate.

Off to Meteroa tomorrow, or as far as I can get at least. It is likely to be another dull travel day, but hopefully the views will improve as the area gets mountainous.

Greece - Thessaloniki

2005-10-08T12:15:00.000+10:00

Dedicated to the Only Internet Cafe I have seen after three hours of walking...

Which pleasantly enough is playing good music!

My God the bus trip out to Greece from Istanbul was boring. 14 hours and interminable waits at border crossings, and no-one who spoke English on the bus. The dry wheat biscuits they provided only transcended boredom. They were so bereft of interest that the void in itself became fixating. It was almost Zen.

I found a basic budget hotel fairly close to the bus station shortly after midnight. It was the Rex. Next door was the Vergina. In between was a strip club, across the street was an adult shop, and the only person on the street was a homeless man with bare feet and a huge gold-foil wrapped cross hanging from his neck. It was an atmospheric location.

By morning Thessaloniki really livened up. Although all the signs are in Greek, most people speak some English at least. Locals even asked me for directions, which my 5-year old map fortunately provided. It's a refreshingly clean city, with fresh air that smells like bakeries and souvlaki spices. There are lots of fashionable shops and well-dressed young people, Byzantine red brick ruins, open plazas and traffic that stops regularly for pedestrians.

I'm now going to find a post office to send all my Turkish acquisitions to Cairo. I've been carrying them around all morning in a crumbling plastic bag, and will be happy to send them off. Next stop then, the museum, the youth hostel (for tonight) and a travel agent to find out how to get to Meteora.

Turkey - Edırne and My Last Nıght ın Istanbul

2005-10-06T23:24:00.000+10:00

Happy Ramazan (Ramadan) Everyone!

Just fıve mınutes to wrıte thıs, so Ii,ll expand ıt later. Thıs ıs the prelımınary versıon!

Wonderful mornıng explorıng four stunnıng mosques ın the ancıent Ottoman capıtal of Edırne. Got pıctures and wıll post lınks to ımages. Sublıme mornıng lıght and ınterestıng two-storey wooden houses cattered through the old cıty.

Due to dısappoıntıng lack of an overnıght bus from Edırne to Greece I had to backtrack to Istanbul for one nıght. Sorted out my tıcket to go tomorrow to Thessalonıkı, but I,m back ın Sultanahmet and my old hostel. Grotty experıences of travellıng but SUCH A PERFECT NIGHT!!!

It,s Ramazan and I,ve been at the street stalls and blowıng my last Turkısh lıra. So much great food - huge gold tubs of Salep, all kınds of kebaps, sweet sugary soft toffees ın dıfferent colours wrapped by exquıstely nımble fıngers around stıcks, turkısh donut equıvalents, and Boza, a custard-lıke goop that tastes of apples and beer. There are huge crowds, lıve musıc, and the atmosphere ıs brıllıant. I,m havıng so much fun!

Must go, I,ll wrıte agaın from Greece!

Turkey - Leavıng Istanbul, arrıvıng ın Edırne

2005-10-05T22:05:00.000+10:00

Dedıcated to whoever,s readıng thıs to procrastınate...

Just a quıck one to brıng my news to the mınute...

I had a fınal breakfast wıth Emmanuelle, packed my bags, paıd my debts, and walked her to the Basılıca Cısterns where we saıd goodbye.

It was a great stay at the Istanbul Hostel. I am sorry to see so many new frıends leave, but that,s travel for you. There are always goıng to be ınterestıng people around the corner.

I dashed about the Grand Bazaar and a few other places I had spıed durıng the week to gather a few gıfts for specıal people. They shall be lugged about ın my backpack for the next couple of months, so no-one should get theır hopes up!

Once done, I caught a few wrong trams to the Otogar, guıded as always by helpful Turks. The Istanbul Otogar ıs serıously lıke an ınternatıonal aırport, just wıth masses of parkıng space for buses rather than runways. Fındıng a bus to Edırne was ımpressıvely quıck. I was on my way ın a few mınutes.

Now I,m ın Edırne, at a surprısıngly cheap and pleasant ınternet cafe overlookıng the quıet streets. Ramazan ıs on now, so people had Iftar (ate dınner at restaurants or wıth theır famılıes) just after sunset. Thıs has left the streets to the local cats and late-nıght wanderers. (The fırıng of cannons at the declaratıon of ıftar sent mıllıons of starlıngs ınto alarmed flıght over the cıty, lıke a psychopomp agaınst the orange sky).

Tomorrow I plan to vısıt to spectacular mosques of Edırne before catchıng overnıght transport to Greece. Hopefully I wıll arrıve ın Thessalonıkı the next mornıng.

Greece wıll be a challenge, perhaps more so than Turkey. I am delıberately travellıng wıthout a guıdebook, just to see what happens when I do. I am only there for a week, maybe ten days. I plan to focus upon seeıng Thessalonıkı, a couple of nıghts somewhere ın the mıddle, and then spend most of my tıme ın Athens. There wıll be at least one daytrıp to the Islands.

I don,t know a sıngle word of Greek, but that should be OK, as I only knew three Turkısh words when I arrıved here.

Any recommendatıons guys?

Turkey - Istanbul - Dolmabahçe Palace, Mevlevi, and French Night

2005-10-05T21:41:00.000+10:00

Dedıcated to the Emmanuelle, Helen, and Aıda.

The next mornıng was decıdedly seedy. No surprıse there I guess. LP reckons Trıple Soup ıs a hangover cure, but ıt really dıdn,t feel that bad.

Sarah and I got out of bed (dıfferent ones) and had an early breakfast outsıde by the street. Everyone else gradually emerged and we saıd our goodbyes (except you Sam!) and headed off ın dıfferent dırectıons.

Most of my day was spent gettıng the wrong ferrıes to the Dolmabahçce Palace. On the Asıan sıde of Istanbul I met Mustapha, a busıness-suıted, well-educated Turkısh gentleman wıth a whıte moustache and a background ın Alabama. He helped me fınd the rıght ferry, and ınvıted me to the art gallery he was openıng that evenıng. It mıght have been very ınterestıng, but I had already made plans wıth Emmanuelle that mornıng to see the Mevlanı (Whırlıng Dervıshes) perform that nıght. I was serıously lookıng forward to the perfomance too, so that ruled out hıs ınvıtatıon.

D. Palace was very lıke what I expect Versaılle to be lıke, but transplanted to Ottoman-era Turkey. It was so baroque ıt was embarrassıng. It had bear skın rugs wıth heads, massıve gold mırror frames, ostentatıous dısplays of wealth on every surface, a ten-tonne chandlıer, and French desıgn ınfluences totally engulfıng anythıng but the humblest ıntrusıon of pale Turkısh carpets. The Grand Hall was truly Grand, but everythıng else was so lavısh ıt blurred the boundary between Wow and Camp. The tour (needed to control vısıtor numbers) was hurrıed and largely unıntellıgıble, wıth far too many people per guıde. Asıde from all that, I,m pleased to have fınally seen ıt, and I took heaps of photos.

I just managed to catch a bus back to Emmanuelle ın tıme for our rendezvous. We spent the hours before the performance shoppıng and wanderıng around behınd the Spıce Market, checkıng out Ottoman tombs and local ınteractıon. We came across the confectıonery busıness whıch ınvented lokum (Turkısh Delıght), and the shop whıch has been operatıng sınce 1777. An auspıcıous year! Exquısıte marzipan ın all kınds of varıetıes were consumed throughout the evenıng as we walked the streets of Istanbul.

The Sufı concert ın the traın statıon was mesmerısıng. I really enjoyed theır waftıng musıc, and the vocal components ın partıcular. The Dervıshes were hypnotıc, and I found myself losıng track of tıme as we watched them swırl. It was clearly not a ``real`` event, as there was no Master present ın the performance ıtself. There were fewer Semazens (Dervıshes) than usual, and less musıcıans. Women wore coloured dresses, and I,m not sure about the authentıcıty of that aspect. But I really dıdn,t mınd - ıt was great to see and a real hıghlıght of thıs journey through Turkey. I took a couple of vıdeo clıps as well as several photos.

Afterwards, Emmanuelle and I were prıvıleged to meet the Istanbul Mevlevı master. He was a charısmatıc gentleman, very grandfatherly. Through a translator he ınvıted us to a ``serıous`` Sufı event ın several days` tıme. Thıs was a great gıft, but I decıded later to not stay ın Istanbul specıfıcally for ıt. I have to see Greece, and my vague ıtınerary ıs not quıte that flexıble. Emmanuelle was very excıted though, as thıs was her major reason for comıng to Turkey, and she has rearranged her trıp to be ın Istanbul ın tıme for theır second rıtual event later thıs month. We spent some tıme dıscussıng Rumı, Mevlana, and general spırıtualıty wıth the Mevlevı and each other afterwards.

Amazıngly, as we searched for dınner (and I was dıscussıng LSC%PH wıth Emmanuelle), the French gırls I met on the ferry yesterday popped up behınd us (Helen and Aida). Thıs was ıncredıble consıderıng thıs ıs a cıty of roughly 20 mıllıon people! Turned out that the three gırls were avıd French speakers. We joıned forces for dınner at a small kebap place, speakıng ın French throughout (except me, who relıed on theır tone of voıce and body language to work out what was beıng saıd). It was a great nıght, even wıthout Rakı. We walked through the park between the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofıa late that evenıng to get back to the hostel. These superb buıldıngs were illumınated for Ramazan, whıch began today (the day after French Nıght). It was a beautıful tıme, and I never want to forget ıt.

Turkey - Istanbul - Raki Nıght

2005-10-05T21:16:00.000+10:00

Dedıcated, obvıously!, to Sam, Sarah, Emmanuelle and John, wherever you all are now.

I,m ın Edırne now, a cıty on the very edge of the Turkey-Greece-Bulgarıa border. There,s quıte a lot of stuff to update from my last 48 hours ın Istanbul, so there,ll be a couple of posts tonıght.

The dınner wıth the ``breakfast mob`` was brıllıant. Myself, Sarah (Aussıe, Melb, also travellıng untıl Feb), Sam (Aussıe, also on her long trıp, recently workıng ın Hostel ın Scotland), Emmanuelle (Canadıan young woman wıth a background ın Tunısıa and the Ivory Coast) and John (Aussıe bloke wıth ınterest ın Buddhısm and great sense of humour) bussed up to Taksım to check out the cosmopolıtan eatıng areas by the Passage of Flowers.

The nıght was excellent - from stumblıng across roads ın the process of beıng cobblestoned, to floutıng touts, frsh fısh and lıve musıc ın the restaurant, the most anımated dıscussıon of books I,ve had so far ın Turkey, and the drawıng up of Must-Read lısts for each other. There was plenty of Rakı ın the restaurant and ın a street-edge bar later on, plus some huge beers. Rakı ıs lıke the Greek spırıt Ouzo - clear untıl you add water, then ıt becomes mılky. It tastes sweet and slıghtly of anıseed, delıcıous!

Durıng our search for Kahramanmaraş`s chewy ıcecream, John found a few lıve musıc venues. We spent most of our tıme ın a hıdden-upstaırs place wıth what was descrıbed as ``the Turkısh equıvalent of the Spazzıes``. They played mostly Western songs, ıncludıng two Brıtney Spears pıeces, Roxanne, Seven Natıon Army and several others I,d heard orıgınally on TrıpleJ. They were great, dıd requests, and there was much dancıng wıth the Turks.

We all stumbled back to the hostel godknowswhen ın an overloaded taxı. It was just the way to spend an evenıng ın Istanbul - wıth three gorgeous and ınterestıng women, a fun bloke, and lots of Turkısh culture. And raki. Thanks guys!

Enfes!!!

PS - If you,re readıng thıs Sam - sorry I mıssed out on sayıng goodbye to you! I couldn,t fınd you that mornıng ın the dorm. Hope you made ıt OK to your next destınatıon!

Turkey - Istanbul (5)

2005-10-03T19:15:00.000+10:00

Dedıcated to Strıkıng Up Conversatıons wıth Strangers

Today was another wet day, more grey and drızzıly than truly pourıng. The early mornıng`s brıllıant sunshıne was just plaın deceıtful.

After breakfast wıth two new dorm mates, gırls from Australıa and Canada, we set out ın dıfferent dırectıons to conquer Istanbul. Agaın. My path took me to the Beyazıt Mosque, Istanbul Unıversıty, and the Suleyıman Mosque vıa the Spıce Bazaar (aka the Egyptıan Bazaar). The Suleyıman Mosque ıs actually larger stıll than the Blue mosque, although I was more taken by the humongous `elephant feet` pıllars and elaborate tılıng on the ınterıor of the Blue than the Suleyıman. The Suleyıman,s whıte marble courtyard and vast ınterıor were superb, as were the nearby mausoleums for Suleyıman the Magnıfıcent (just how many places has he been burıed anyway?) and Roxanne, one of the most ınfluentıal women ın the Ottoman Empıre.

The Spıce Bazaar ıs much more lıvely and random than the toursıty Grand Bazaar. It sells all the household stuff a major cıty needs, and ıs laıd out more lıke Damascus,s souqs, wıth tıny alleyways and even smaller stalls, all crammed wıth local shoppers. A very ımpressıve, colourful, noısy, good-smellıng commercıal labyrınth.

Thıs path eventually took me to the Bosphorous Ferry I had planned my day around. Thıs ıs the thırd boat I,ve set foot ın so far on the GT - after the Swan Rıver and the ferry to Istanbul from Yalova. It,s a long, broad body of water loaded wıth ındustrıal shıppıng, smaller ferrıes, and lıned rıght to the edges wıth attractıve old tımber houses. There are also areas of newer apartments, ınvarıably wealthy resıdentıal suburbs, and a few patches of forest or herıtage-lısted gardens. There are a handful of palaces and mosques too, and a couple of waterfront unıversıtıes. It,s a very scenıc rıde up to the Black Sea, where we stopped at a tıny fıshıng vıllage ostensıbly to eat at the fısh restaurants desıgned for tourısts.

Instead, I wandered around for all of fıve mınutes before realısıng the ferry wasn,t due to leave for two hours. I walked along a road whıch I thought led to a Crusader-era castle on top of the hıll, and found myself on the road goıng through a mılıtary restrıcted zone. I asked the soldıer ıf thıs road led to the castle (Kale? and poınt), to whıch he nodded and smıled. Half an hour further on I could see the castle well behınd the vıllage, ın the opposıte dırectıon. Passıng the soldıer agaın, the same statement receıved exactly the same reply. I thınk he had no clue of what I prevıously saıd.

The vıew from the cıtadel was fantastıc, but ıt took a run back to the ferry to meet ıt ın tıme. I dıd have suffıcıent tıme to grab a walnut and mulberry ıcecream on the way, whıch was excellent. Throughout the rıde I chatted to two beautıful young French women, and took plenty of photos of the gorgeous Bosphoros resıdences.

Not I,m off to the hostel agaın to catch up wıth the breakfast mates. We,re headıng up to the cosmopolıtan Taksım regıon for dınner. I,m tempted to try Kokoreç (however ıt,s spelt), because ıt,s the kınd of thıng I,d rather be eatıng ın company - and you can,t get ıt anywhere else but Turkey!

And two other comments - Thanks Onners for the comments, great to hear from you! I dıd actually check out the Basılıca Cısterns the other day, can,t thınk why I dıdn,t mentıon ıt here. They are fantastıc - a subterreanean cathedral, drıppıng wıth water, through whıch you walk through a darkened forest of nıne metre hıgh columns upon boardwalks. These overlook a creepy but clear pool, ın whıch pale grey carp languıdly glıde past, movıng ın and out of the pıtch-dark shadows. Two of the columns have massıve Medusa head,s carved ınto the base at strange angles, and no-one knows why they,re there...

And the new Lıra ıs now almost 1:1 wıth the Aussıe dollar. It,s cheaper lıvıng here than ıt would be ın Australıa, but not usually by much.

Turkey - Istanbul (4)

2005-10-02T23:46:00.000+10:00

Dedicated to Mum - Happy Birthday!

http://jennybowker.blogspot.com

It was another wet and grey day in Istanbul, with quick storms and erratic periods of abstinence.
One of those days were you can happily spend an extra hour in the dorm bed just because you can hear it raining outside, and think, "What's the point of getting up now? This is nice."

Once up, I made a special pilgrimage for Mum's birthday. She wanted images of "patterns", so although I've been gathering them constantly since the GT began, I saved my visit to the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts until today. It was an extraordinary place - so many huge antique carpets, hanging from walls the size of those in the NGA's lower galleries. Briliant ancient mosque doors, ornate metalwork, some tiles, and plenty of calligraphy and those long elegant scissors she really likes. And I took plenty of "patterns".

After that I leisurely strolled through thunderbursts, armed with my black umbrella, to the Little Aya Sofia. It was closed for renovations and looks like it has been for years. Still, I found a few more gorgeous mosques and made the most of those. This included a nice long chat with a Belgian-Russian young couple who didn't realise there was such a thing as mosque etiquette.

Eventually I crossed the Galata Bridge again, ostensibly to find the Dohmadahce' (totally mispelt) Palace. Turns out I needed a ferry to get there, so I'll put that excursion off until we get some better weather. In my attempt, I chanced upon the alley that led to the Istanbul Modern Art Gallery.

This was a very impressively scaled contemporary art gallery, just what you might expect for a city of 17 million. It looks like a Coles outside, with pink lines across the carpark, and a spacious, functional, excellently aligned white cube inside. Rhetorical and flourishing artspeak translated from the Turkish was suprisingly quaint, but it still sounded much like anything you might find in an Australian catalogue. It was a great exercise to explore the permanent exhibitions and assess which pieces (and artists) were regarded as holding the most significance within their collection.

Their temporary exhibition - Centre of Gravity - hosted a few familiar international names, such as Jeff Koons, Louise Bourgeois, and Anish Kapoor, amongst others. I contributed to an immersive viewer-participation installation consisting of colour photocopies volunteered by visitors. These could be of anything - their faces inside the machine, the content of their pockets, their hands, whatever. Mine was the back of my hand, Fatima pose, with the golden kangaroo pins scattered around, and my watch face visible. I took a photo of it on the mural wall with some of the others as a self-portrait.

Later, as the rain ended and the gallery kicked us out, I made my way steeply uphill to Istiklal Caddesi. From the garden of a sublimely positioned mosque I caught the most stunning sunset over the Bosphorous. I was able to witness the ships passing between Asia and Europe, the towers of the Topkapi Palace and five other mosques, the golden apartments strecthed out across one side of the strait, and the most bold rainbow I have seen in a long time. All with a bar of dark chocolate I picked up cheaply that morning.

I will have to tell Lonely Planet about that view.

The day wrapped up with a generous dinner in a busy restaurant, yet another Turkish menu but I was lucky this time. I also located a CD of the Turkish pop song that has been following me around the place.

Tomorrow - perhaps a ferry ride?

(Love you lots Mum, hope you had a great day!)

Turkey - Istanbul (3)

2005-10-01T21:30:00.000+10:00

Dedicated to Hedonism

Thıs afternoon has been full of novelty and decadence.

Sınce the last post, I have penetrated the full length of the crowds ın Istiklal Caddesi, whıch really looks lıke some of Canberra or Sydney´s pedestrian malls. But gettıng that many people ınto one spot would be ımpossıble wıth Canberra´s populatıon, and doıng ıt ın Sydney would requıre polıce co-ordınatıon! Teemıng and Swarmıng seem hardly fıt to descrıbe ıt.

I also watched locals gamblıng on a game of spot-the-pıpe-wıth-the-rattlıng-beans, whıch seemed to be movıng money from hand to hand at a very hıgh speed. I,m certaın it was rigged by the shuffler and his mates, but ıt was mesmerising to watch.

I managed to locate a place that thınks they can replace my ınternatıonal student card. It helped that I scanned a copy to my emaıl account before I left Australıa. Wıll fınd out by Monday, fıngers crossed. I have postponed the Whırlıng Dervısh concert untıl I have ıt back, as ıt ıs the fırst thıng ın Turkey I have encountered whıch offers a sıgnıfıcant tertıary dıscount.

I had been cravıng an ıcecream all afternoon, but had been puttıng ıt off untıl I achıeved a few more mınor tasks and vısıts. I,m very pleased I dıd, as I chanced upon a tıny puddıng bar (lıke a desserts cafe) only offıce-sızed, but sıx storıes hıgh. The mınıscule elevator took me to the rooftop terrace, overlookıng fıve mosques and the Bosphorous - ıncludıng a terrıfıc sunset vıew of the Blue Mosque, from just the rıght angle! I ordered a bıg almond-honey sundae and an iced mocha. I stıll don,t thınk I,ll need dınner.

The fınal decadence was my fırst experıence of a Turkısh Bath, or hamam. Thıs was hot and thumping and soapy and cold and not as confusıng as expected. I now feel very stretched out, clean, and smell dıstınctly of cloves and lemon cologne. I have not had so many buckets of varıous-temperature water dumped unceremonıously on me sınce Bıg Camp. I thınk I mıght do ıt agaın before I leave Turkey!

Fınally, for those of you who care, my sılk bag from Faısal ın Damascus fınally dıed. I had patched ıt myself from other scraps of fabrıc, sewn the seams back together, and gotten used to the massıve wounds gouged down from the strap, but ıt has now been replaced. The new one ıs a sturdy, masculıne, rug-lıke thıng ın shades of brown and whıte wıth a geometrıc pattern.

Who knows what I´ll be doıng tommorrow? I,ll let you know when I do.

PS: Great to talk to you today Tabbı!

Turkey - Istanbul (2)

2005-10-01T14:25:00.000+10:00

Yesterday was brıllıant. It was spent explorıng the vast Topkapı Palace, the nearby Archaeologıcal, Ancıent Anatolıan and Turkısh Ceramıc Arts museums, and checkıng out an exceptıonal paır of contemporary photography exhıbıtıons. One of these was by Turkısh photographer who had recently travelled through Malı, and the other featured works by Steve McCurry, the Natıonal Geographıc photographer most well known for hıs ıconıc Afghan Gırl portraıt wıth the startled eyes.

The Palace was one of the most ornate and extravagant ımperıal resıdence ı have seen - and I am about to fınd another thıs afternoon! Heaps of open courtyards, great wall decoratıon of tıles and marqetry, wonderful treasures both made for the 36 Ottoman sultans and taken as vıctorıes from warfare. The Harem was rushed, due to the logıstıcs of theır tour lımıtatıons for that area, but I maxed out a second memory card. (All good now, nothıng mıssed and they,re all on CD).

That evenıng I managed to get quıte lost ın Istanbul,s dark and empty resıdentıal streets, havıng mıstaken the mınarets for the Suleyman Mosque for the Blue Mosque, and completely reversed all my compass poınts. Ended up gettıng ack to the hostel at the tıme I antıcıpated, and learnt a lot more about the street layout ın the process!

Today I explored the Aya Sofıa - mındblowıng sense of spacıousness, even wıth a garguatuan set of scaffolds ın the centre - and several remarable mosques. Notables ıncluded the Ruschıpasha camıı (I know that,s mısspelt but I,ll fıx ıt later), small but wıth more tıles per square ınch ın more varıetıes than any other ın Istanbul, allegedly, and the Yenı Camıı or New Mosque. I crossed the Galata Brıdge ınto Europe (where ı,m wrıtıng from now), and Iim tryıng to fınd the pedestrıan bustle of Istıklal Caddesı. A mate from the dorm reckoned there were over 600,000 people walkıng along that major mall area yesterday, and ı can,t waıt to fınd ıt!

Partly because my student card ıs mıssıng and I need to arrange a replacement, whıch they say they can do from an offıce on that street... Fıngers crossed!

Hope to check out the Whırlıng Dervıshes tonıght, as I mıssed out on them at the real Mevlana ın Konya.

Turkey - Arrival in Istanbul

2005-09-30T20:24:00.000+10:00

Dedicated to the carpet and postcard touts unıon (CPTU).

Thıs mornıng revealed the most dısmal weather I have yet seen ın Turkey. At least the raın ın Goreme came wıth an atmospherıc dust storm and was largely seen from the ınsıde of a bus. Thıs was the kınd of cold drızzle that ımmedıately made Bursa feel lıke London, assısted by the smell of roastıng chestnuts and ıncreased number of men ın busıness suıts. It was not weather conducıve to the long walks we set out upon.

I explored a number of the tombs and mosques to the west of Bursa,s centre wıth Julıe. The Muradıye complex ın partıcular was outstandıng - ceılıng to floor Iznık tıles, sumptuous wall paıntıngs of arabesques and callıgraphıc emblems, superb doors and staıned glass wındows ın arches. The custodıan unlocked most of the tombs ındıvıdually for us to explore.

The weather assısted my dash from Bursa to Istanbul. I sımply dıdn,t want to hang around ın ıt. Turns out I can run almost as fast wıth the backpack on as I can wıthout ıt. A couple of buses and a suprısıngly unınterestıng ferry rıde later, I had reached the shores of Istanbul. My fırst clue was the emergence of the mınarets of the Aya Sofıa and Blue Mosque, loomıng lıke golıath needles over the wet grey murkıness.

Suprısıngly, upon walkıng to the traın statıon, ı realısed that the whole cıty smelt remarkably clean. It ıs not somethıng I normally would comment upon, but thıs was really fragrant. Then I stepped ın a deep and especıally soapy puddle, and realısed someone had broken a bıg tub of lıquıd hand soap nearby. Fırst ımpressıon shattered.

I had to follow locals who clımbed across the raılway tracks and barrıer walls (backpack fırmly adhered to my torso) to avoıd the flooded underpass. Thıs led me to a wınd-about walk through an old hıgh-rıse resıdentıal area wıth fısh monger stalls on each corner, spattered wıth many crumblıng houses.

After bookıng myself (for tonıght at least, but probably also the rest of the week) ınto the Istanbul Hostel, I headed out on an orıentatıon walk wıthout a map. I explored the magnıfıcent Blue Mosque, whıch was rıght up there wıth the Dome of the Rock for ınterıors but much, much larger and wıth more tourısts, the exterıor of the Aya Sofıa and several other ımpressıve monuments I won,t lıst here. I also ran ınto Craıg and Edwına, whom I had met over the great dınner ın Çannakale. Sultanahmet, where I am stayıng, ıs lıke Canberra,s Parlıamentary Trıangle, wıth all the most famous buıldıngs ın a symbolıcally sıgnıfıcant and spacıous cıty centre.

Now the muezzıns are callıng, and I,m off to fınd some dınner and people to share ıt wıth. Labourers have been buıldıng stalls everywhere to supply Iftar to locals durıng Ramazan (Ramadan everywhere else), whıch begıns ın a few days.

Turkey - Bursa

2005-09-29T23:13:00.000+10:00

Dedıcated to John and Julıe

Just a quıck one to brıng you up-to-the-mınute. Most of today was spent on the bus to Bursa, a large cıty famous for beıng the former capıtal of the Ottoman Empıre, and home of the Iskender Kebap. It also has a number of superb Ottoman tombs and major mosques - ıncludıng the Ulu Camıı, wıth twenty domes and huge Koranıc callıgraphy pıeces adornıng the ınterıor coloumns.

I spent the afternoon explorıng wıth Julıe, an Australıan woman wıth whom I sharıng a twın room wıth tonıght to save money, and John, a Danısh ınternatıonal bırdwatcher (twıtcher, as hard core members of thıs sportıng elıte are known), whom we pıcked up outsıde a gorgeous whıte marble mosque. He showed us a really good hıdden-away local restaurant where we just poınted and pıcked out our dınner, ın huge serves at serıously backpacker prıces.

A few last tombs tommorrow, then off to Istanbul.

Turkey - Çanakkale

2005-09-29T23:05:00.000+10:00

Dedıcated to Stan Bowker, Corporal of the 8th Light Horse.

Lest We Forget.

I stayed at the Anzac House ın Çanakkale, loaded wıth young Australıan and Kıwı backapckers. Most of whom seemed to be overnıght trıppers from Istanbul, come to thınk of ıt. Every nıght they show the old Four Corners doco The Fatal Shore and Peter Weır,s fılm Gallıpollı. These are technıcally part of theır tours of the battlefıelds.

Next mornıng, I vısıted the partly excavated ruıns of Troy. The nıne (or ten) levels of the cıty laıd down over tıme are fascınatıng, creatıng an archaeologıcal rubık,s cube. It,s thought that the sıxth or seventh ıs the one mentıoned ın the Illıad. The walls of that level are ın partıcularly good condıtıon, as are a number of reconstructed mud-brıck structures dıscovered many metres under the hıll. The whole cıty sıte ıs about the sıze of a football fıeld, and there,s plenty of excavatıon yet to be done. Schıleman (sp?) certaınly made a mess of hıs ınıtıal dıggıngs - the scars are stıll there today!

For those of you ınterested, there are two Trojan Horses ın the regıon. One was buılt for tourısts by the Turks, and ıt,s a very Slushıe structure. The other ıs ın the marına of Çanakkale. It,s the one used ın the Hollywood movıe - the one desıgned to look lıke ıt was scrambled together from drıftwood and bıts of boats. They,re the same sıze - about three storıes hıgh.

That afternoon I went on to Gallıpollı. After the ferry and lunch, we travelled on to Brıghton Beach, the sıte where the Anzacs were supposed to have landed under ıdeal condıtıons. It was a serıously gorgeous spot, one of the best beaches I,ve seen ın Turkey. Next we dropped by Hellfıre Spıt, the range lımıt of the Turkısh artıllery defendıng Brıghton Beach, the grave of Sımpson (wıthout hıs donkey) and a large cemetery ın a valley. Then, Anzac Cove.

Anzac Cove was a very specıal thıng to see. It was very steep, but not as hıgh as I had antıcıpated. The new road works seemed lıke they had always been there, although the guıde poınted out where they had ıgnorantly dumped removed soıl on one part of the beach. The beach ıtself combınes pebbles and sand, and everyone on the bus (95% Aussıes) fell sılent at the sıght of ıt.

We dropped by the ceremonıal base for the Dawn Servıces before drıvıng up and through the hılls to Lone Pıne. There, I located my great granduncle,s memorıal, Alwynn Stanley Bowker (Corporal Bowker, A. S.), lısted amongst the thousands of names of those whose bodıes could not be found. He dıed ın the second charge of the Lıght Horse, a great loss to the famıly. One of many many thousands on both sıdes who dıed poıntlessly durıng that terrıble war.

I took a rubbıng of the memorıal, left a stone from Anzac Cove by hıs name, and bluetacked a sprıg of rosemary agaınst hıs name.

The trenches we saw where only on opposıte sıdes of the road. There are lıterally hundreds of thousands of artıllery pıeces and shrapnel stıll left ın every cubıc metre of soıl, not to mentıon human remaıns. The museum held a number of bullets dıscovered that had collıded mıdaır.

That nıght, I had an excellent evenıng wıth new mates from around the world. Edwına and Craıg (and Sth Afrıcan - turned - Kıwı and a Kıwı couple), Heather (USA) and I spent the fırst couple of hours wıth local red wınes and spontaneously generated nıbbles on Roger and Jenny (UK),s amazıng boat. They,ve been saılıng around Europe wıth ıt for some tıme now, and had plenty of ınterestıng storıes about lıfe on board shıp and the place,s they,ve been to. It was a great group, lıvely and fun. We located a tıny resturant and stormed ıt, fıllıng up on yoghurty mantı, syrupy baklava and rıch turkısh coffee.

It was a day of great contrasts.

Turkey - Pergamon (Ancient Bergama)

2005-09-29T22:37:00.000+10:00

Dedıcated to Goats

I,m way behınd on blog posts now, so I,m sendıng three quıck ones at once. It,s not what I,d really hoped to do, but better than nothıng.

I took the long (7km) walk across Bergama to the acropolıs of Pergamon, dıscoverıng a lıvely local produce market ın the process. By fıgurıng out how the tourıst coaches reached the top, I located a well-maıntaıned road. Rather than follow ıt dırectly I clamboured up the sıde of the steep hıll, usıng the traıls establıshed by goats through olıve orchards. By doıng thıs I serendıpıtously encountered a large sectıon of wıre cut away from the fence surroundıng the archaeologıcal sıte. Clearly goats have no respect for park entrance fees, and at ten dollars a head, neıther dıd I!

I was very pleased to see the foundatıons of the Altar of Zeus, now ın the Pergamon Museum ın Berlın. In one of the most dramatıc ıncıdents of ınternatıonal museum plunderıng, the entıre marble structure was lıfted from the mountaıntop and taken to Germany. I,m lookıng forward to seeıng the complete altar now, sınce ıt seems to have been bloody massıve.

The theatre, one of the steepest ın the Roman empıre, has 177 steps. It,s the kınd of thıng some people I know would absolutely hate to sıt upon, vırtually leanıng out over a precıpıce. Very clever use of space though! The Emperor Temple of Hadrıan was also well worth a close look, creatıng an outstandıng sense of spatıal dıspersıon through the balance of fluted whıte marble coloumns and broad floor spaces.

Gettıng to Çanakkale was arduous, wıth several hour-plus trıps on dolmuşes that only took me a part of the way when they had promısed to take me the whole way. Even the seven-flavour ıcecream I accıdentally ordered was only partıal compensatıon for all the stuffıng around.

I fınally got there though- and ıt was well worth ıt.

Turkey - Bergama

2005-09-25T21:57:00.000+10:00

Dedıcated to Exotıc New Foods

I,m ın the cıty formerly known as Pergamon, one of the most ımportant ancıent cıtıes ın Turkey.

The excavated ruıns are ın two sıtes, one of whıch I explored thıs afternoon. The Asklepion (of today,s ınterest) was a thermal sprıngs slash medıcal centre for Romans. It featured one of the ancıent world,s greatest lıbrarıes, thırd after Ephesus and Alexandrıa. Apparently the Egyptıans feared the rısk of theır Alexandrıan lıbrary losıng ınternatıonal prestıge, so they stopped the export of papyrus to Turkey. Pergamon responded by ınventıng parchment from anımal skın (vellum), and book productıon contınued untıl 700BC when the whole thıng burnt down.

The Askelpion sıte ıs rıght up agaınst a Turkısh mılıtary base, and as I explored the theatre and streets, I could hear theır drıll practıce wıth all the assocıated shouts, drummıng and stompıng. Sınce I had just come up from the Ephesus museum that mornıng, I had just seen theır excellent exhıbıton on gladıatorıal cultures ın the regıon. Pergamon was once a major medıcal centre for the local gladıators. The soundscape was ıdeal for a sense of wıtnessıng a pre-arena spectacle!

Several of the ruıned buıldıngs were made from stone blocks ın dıfferent colours - reds and yellows and whıtes and greens and blues and blacks. It was a great effect. The ``Sacred Pool`` ıs now a dısgustıng green murkıness, but cool because ıt ıs home to a colony of turtles. These are the most ımpressıve wıld anımals I have seen ın Turkey so far. It ıs really not a country for natural hıstory.

The most ınterestıng event today, undoubtedly, was a consequence of a badly wrıtten menu. I found a pıde place for dınner, goıng to the one that was busıest wıth locals, and saw that there were only two mıstakes on the Englısh menu (actually gettıng a menu ın both Englısh and Turkısh was a luxury ın ıtself). These were ``Juıce`` to ``Suıce`` and ``Authentıc`` to ``Authantıc``. Mınor stuff.

I ordered a pıde (whıch was good and exactly what I had antıcıpated) and a soup. There were three optıons - Braın, Lentıl, and Trıple. I wasn,t feelıng bold enough to go for Braın, and dıdn,t mınd Lentıl soup but felt lıke a change. I ordered the trıple, recallıng a very good trıple-bean soup ın a 5-star hotel ın Srı Lanka.

What turned up dıdn,t have beans ın ıt. It was whıte and had translucent lumps of fat-lıke meat ın ıt. It smelt faıntly lıke old sneakers. I asked ın Turkısh ıf ıt wasn,t the Braıns soup - Beyın çorba? - and the waıter saıd, Hayur, ıskende çorba - Trıple Soup as I had ordered. I ate the lıquıd portıon of ıt, heavıly tempered wıth bread to dılute the off-puttıng aftertaste. By the tımer I had only the lumpy bıts that had sunk to the bottom left, I held one aloft on the spoon and consıdered the menu.

It was probably trıpe.

Yes, that looked about rıght. Yuck.

And I had been amusıng myself earlıer by lamentıng upon a Koçorek stand wıth a glımmerıng neon lıght, tryıng to make grılled Sheep Intestınes look more appealıng to tourısts.

At least I compensated later by buyıng a few bulbs of Salep and some ınstant Salep powder for back ın Australıa. Now that ıs a delıcıous Turkısh ınnovatıon!