12 Homes 12 Months

ADVENTURES IN VACI STREET; BUDAPEST, HUNGARY AUGUST 2011

2011-09-22T07:11:00.000-07:00

Rain can do things to a person.

It can soothe you into a soporific slumber, it can cool a hot temper.

Too much of it can begin to have a depressing effect.

But for me, sitting in my apartment in downtown Pest, I was experiencing boredom on a grand scale.

After 6 days, there had been but one very short fine afternoon. Every morning and evening it had rained. It had rained softly, gently, like snow falls slowly here in winter. It had rained hard and long; one night I was caught in it and absolutely drenched within what seemed seconds. And then you have the guerilla type rainstorm, where you think it has passed, and you go out in it. It then hits you in short sharp bursts, just like some of the snipers that hid in these buildings in times gone by.

Boredom is not a good state for me to be in. But, I’d slept and slept, and then slept some more. I was fully recovered from the semi-emaciated state I found myself in when I returned to England from Morocco. I read all the books I could find. I spoke to friends and got this blog up-to-date. But I had very little to write about Budapest once some history and general impressions were out of the way.

I walked across the green bridge every day and climbed the Gellert hill in the rain. I went to Marguerite Island and ran on the synthetic 5k track with other fanatics and tore my left hip muscle again. I just found myself feeling a little antsy, a little stir crazy. Too much energy, and nothing to do with it.

The city itself was very quiet. This was the height of summer, the tourist season, but there was little evidence of it. The Formula One Grand Prix was here in a week, so perhaps that would pick things up.

But the Rain!

Normally, I’m a very disciplined person. I watch what I eat, I don’t smoke, I don’t drink very much or often (things can change though!). I am scrupulous in my fitness, and I try and keep a balanced view of things, I don’t get over- emotional or lose my temper. But Boredom drives me nuts, and it causes me to think a little irrationally at times and take on risks that I normally wouldn’t. It’s the kind of state, for me, where you could make a life-changing decision that you live to regret, something that could possibly change your life forever, for the worst. The reason you remember these bad events is because you overlook the times it all works out well, and you feel like a hero or the smartest guy on the block.

I was reaching that stage now, and it was the rain, the damned rain.

I had done some research on scams and con jobs that were run regularly in Budapest. Many people had stories of taxi drivers, and tram conductors, sometimes police, and the odd pick-pocket or two. Of course there were also the gypsies and the ubiquitous ladies of the night.

Most nights after I had eaten, I would go for a wander down Vaci Street. It was the next street over from where I was staying, and it was the main area tourists would go. There were plenty of Italian restaurants, fashion stores and Hungarian souvenir shops with women dressed in the traditional way standing outside with pained expressions on their faces. It was a mall, and at night the cobblestones glistened wet in the artificial lights. There was rarely anyone else walking around; it was wet, and cool without being cold. Of course when you reached the area close to the strip clubs, the mainly female touts would do their best to persuade you to enter their club. It was the only way these women were paid; heads through the door. And every night as I made my way back to my apartment, a street girl would run across the street to me from the corner where she plied her wares. At first she was almost friendly;

“Hello, darlink. I can keep you company tonight. Do you want me”?

It was probably the wrong question to ask, you generally get a ”No” from a stranger, it’s a trust thing. But as the nights wore on, and we developed our relationship around my indifference and her frustration, her tone changed.

“What’s the matter with me? You not vant me? Am I not beautiful”?

If it was a ploy to make me feel guilty about my lack of interest in her, it didn’t work. But I felt sorry enough for her to assure her that she was certainly beautiful, and that if I wasn’t married I would certainly go with her. Well, you should all know I’m not married, but it was either that or play the “gay” card. I feared she might try and set me up with a guy in that case, for a “referral fee” of course.

“When zee wife’s away, the husband can play” was her answer to that one.

I pondered on delivering a lecture about Sexual Morality in the 21^st century to her on that lonely street. But as there doesn’t seem to be much of it going around these days, I said “szia” and walked on.

I mentioned the street-girl to a friend of mine back home.

“She’ll get you eventually” he said.

“If that rain doesn’t stop one night she’ll catch you out, I’ll bet”

I could see what he was getting at. I was jumping out of my skin looking for some kind of stimulation.

I emailed Luke, an Australian who owned an apartment in Budapest which I was going to rent for a while, a couple of kilometers from where I was currently staying.

He said “Go to some Folk Dances, they’re fun, and you’ll meet people”

I actually looked into it. But it seemed they were all closed for the summer. Just my luck.

So, things were getting desperate. If I didn’t do something, make something happen, the hooker was probably going to get me, it seemed.

And it was then that I came across the Vaci Street Music Bar scam.

I’ve told you that boredom is a dangerous state for me, but I must say I felt anything but bored as I strode down the Vaci Street mall.

I had a plan, I had a purpose.

I had a risky adventure in mind.

It was getting late, a little after 11pm. It was cool without being cold. It was quiet on the River Danube, all of the dinner-dance-buffet boats seemed to have docked early, it was that kind of night.

Literally, no-one was out but the same strip club touts. They eyed me up and gave me the usual lines, but I didn’t even stop to converse tonight, I had a big fish to catch.

And it didn’t take long.

I was wandering rather aimlessly it must have looked to the untrained eye. Walking slowly, dressed rather smartly I might say in black, dress trousers, a white shirt with blue, vertical stripes, and a black leather jacket, I looked at women’s fashions in Gucci windows and gave the occasional tuneless whistle. Just another middle-aged guy out on his own, probably on a business trip, and ripe for the plucking.

I saw them come out of one of the side alleys that run off the mall, about a hundred metres away.

Two blondes.

I tried my best nonchalant, I’m not aware of you look.

I could hear them approach as I intently studied a t-shirt in the store window which had “I Love Budapest” emblazoned across the chest.

“Ezzuse Me, we are looking for the Bacchus Bar, do you know vere it is”?

“mmm..not bad English”, I thought.

It was the slightly taller one of the two that spoke. She was also the better looking of the two, with a straight posture and a good physique, but a kind of vacant look in her eyes, that when you looked intently there was really nothing there.

She smiled, and she was Elly. The other woman looked a little stressed, with a furrowed brow which said she was a little worried about something, but still, she smiled and put on a friendly face.

She was Vera.

They were two thirty-somethings in Budapest to celebrate a friend’s birthday on the weekend. They came from Lake Balaton, some 80 kilometres away and were not familiar with Budapest. They were out looking for this “Bacchus Bar” as supposedly they were live music fans.

Their dress fitted the situation. Jeans, casual tops, flat shoes. Elly even wore a cardigan.

Nothing flashy, just a couple of country girls looking to kill some time in the big city.

“No, I haven’t seen any live music pubs down this way” I replied,” but I do know of one at the other end of the street that’s ok”.

This was obviously the wrong answer.

“Oh, we just passed one back there, maybe we go to that one” Vera said.

“Do you want to come with us”?

Bang.

I felt like I had just hooked a shark.

Now I had to keep my wits about me and be very, very sharp.

“Sure” I replied “Let’s go!”

As we walked they took turns asking me about myself, where I was from, was I married, what was I doing here, the general sort of things I suppose you’d ask a stranger.

But I had my own questions.

“What is your job”? I asked.

Well, Elly was a beautician in a salon in a big hotel, and Vera had just lost her job, poor dear.

There was something about these two.

If you looked really closely, it was a worn look, like a faded, almost jaded beauty.

They both had breast implants.

They laughed in all the right places at any lame joke I attempted.

If I didn’t know better, I might have begun to have wild sexual fantasies about having both of them back to my room to do some chandelier swinging after a couple of drinks to loosen everybody up. They walked either side of me and casually rubbed shoulders with me and smiled.

We turned a corner and they made for a strange lift, which stood completely on its own surrounded by pavement. It looked to go about 3 stories up, and attach to a cantilevered extension from the building that was 25 metres away.

“Nice” I said to no-one in particular.

“What is this?”

“Oh, it’s the bar”

“How did you manage to walk past this and hear live music?”

It was obviously a question that hadn’t been prepared for. They looked at each other for a second.

Vera smiled, “Oh, we were walking in the shopping mall up there this afternoon and heard the music. Let’s go up, it’s good.”

Nice comeback Vera.

So the 3 of us squeezed into the lift, and when the doors opened, there was a red carpet that led across a concrete patio to a door. Inside the door was a woman at a coat check counter. She didn’t smile and avoided my eyes.

Inside the “pub”, it was all red carpet and red leather booths and a dark mahogany bar.

There was a guy with a swathe of Roland keyboards punching out a one finger melody over the canned, recorded backing music to “Girl from Ipanema”.

“Let’s cha-cha” I said.

They looked at each other as if to say “who is this guy”, recovered composure, gave a nervous laugh and motioned to a booth where we all sat down, with me between them.

A humourless, plain Drink Frau came over to take our orders.

The girls ordered big.

Energy drinks and big cocktails.

“Vat vood you like, sir?”

“I want, a beer thanks, in a bottle, and can you please open it at the table”.

She looked at me as if I was a cockroach who had just crawled out from under the table; the girls looked at me too.

“Oh, sorry, I just have a bit of a germ phobia, and I like to open beers myself. I hope it’s not too much trouble.” I said.

She grunted and went away. The girls rattled on a bit about how far away Australia is, and kangaroos and such.

The drinks came and my beer was surprisingly good.

The girls sculled their drinks before I’d barely taken a sip, and the waitress was back again.

This time, more cocktails, and fancy Irish whisky cappuccinos.

“You’d better be careful with those” I said. With the energy drink and the coffee, I don’t see you getting much sleep tonight”.

They laughed heartily at that one, as if it were a dirty joke and made sure to give me plenty of encouraging eye contact.

A Fat girl singer in a tight fitting silk pantsuit that emphasized her lack of physical discipline had joined her Father on the bandstand and was unenthusiastically trying to pump out “Three Times a Lady”. She looked bored. She sang so badly, only a Father could have liked it.

“Great music, you girls really know how to show a stranger a good time.” I said with more than a hint of sarcasm.

And then the Drink Frau was back.

“Any more drinks”?

Given the amount of liquid these girls had put away already I was surprised they hadn’t paid the toilet a visit half-a-dozen times. But, they’d had enough.

With that and a theatrical flourish, the bill was presented to me.

The End Game.

“Ah, eight thousand Florints” I said “Gee that’s expensive”. It’s about $40 US or Australian.

“No”, she thundered, “Seventy-Eight thousand Florints”

I looked again. Hungarians do a funny “seven” with a stroke through the body, to me it looked like a backward “f” or florint sign.

So this was it.

This was the scam.

About $400 or 300 Euros.

The girls had had 4 drinks each, and I had had one beer.

I looked at each of them.

“What’s going on?”

Vera put her head in her hands and started to cry.

Elly was as cool as a cucumber.

“I don’t know, I don’t know anything” she said.

“You must pay”! thundered the Drink Frau.

“OK” I said, “let me look at the bill. It’s outrageously expensive, don’t you think’?

“You should have checked the prices when you came in, they are available at the door”

“Oh, I see. I should have checked them”.

“Ya, and you must pay”.

“OK, so” and I ran my finger down the drinks list till I found my beer. 4,000 Florints. About 20 bucks.

Expensive, but it was a good beer all the same.

I pulled out 4000 florints.

“There you go, that’s my beer”.

They all looked at each other. This wasn’t the knight in shining armour they’d been expecting.

There was an embarrassed silence.

“Well, you girls did insist on this bar, and I’ve got to say the music was terrible”.

The Drink Frau stood there, she didn’t know what to do.

“Now, I think you’d better leave us so that we can discuss this bill together” I said.

“No, it must be paid”.

I raised my voice.

“If you don’t leave us right now so that we can discuss this confidentially, I will call my American friend in the Tourist Police and get him to come down here now!”

It had the desired effect. She left and went to the other side of the room where she gestured towards us with two other women bar workers.

One of them came over to us.

“The bill must be paid” she said.

I had to tell her in no uncertain terms to leave us. I had noticed that the only other man in the room was the keyboard player, and he didn’t look like he was up for anything very physical tonight.

“What’s going on girls? Anything you want to tell me?”

They both looked at each other, Vera said “They will get the police if the bill isn’t paid”.

“Well, you guys had better find some money because I’ve paid for my drink” I said, “and if anyone gives me any hassles, I will call the police myself and report this scam”.

They looked at each other.

Elly pulled out 38,000 florints from her purse.

The drinks Frau came over.

“You can go” she said to me.

“I had wanted to stay and hear the next bossanova set” I said “Perhaps we could have danced”.

She just stared. I know when I’m not wanted.

So I left the girls and walked the red carpet to the lift.

While I was waiting Elly came out.

“What’s going on” I asked.

“I have to go home to get the money, and my friend stays till I bring it”.

In the lift she made a call, and spoke in Hungarian to a man with a very deep voice.

Fortunately, he wasn’t waiting when the doors opened.

I went home.

The street-girl was chatting up someone else when I walked past.

She saw me and left him and ran to catch up with me.

“You have nice night? You take me with you now?”

I just shook my head, “You have a customer there, go with him”.

“He just a friend”.

“Sorry Darling, not tonight”.

I walked off into the misty darkness and left the seediness that is a dark spot on Budapest’s soul behind me.

I had satisfied my urge for some excitement to break the bored funk that I was in.

I was lucky.

There were no goons in sight when we entered the bar. It was a quiet night. So I didn’t have to run or fight, and I didn’t get my neck broken.

And don’t feel sorry for the girls.

As you have probably worked out by now, the whole thing is a scam.

The girls go out in twos looking for likely pickups. They split the bar tab with the bar. Most men pay it to be manly and to save themselves from trouble. Because I convinced them I knew someone in the tourist police, and made a fuss, they played along with it and wanted me to think they had to get the money. I don’t even know if they have tourist police in Budapest.

But next Saturday night Vaci Street is busy with men in red Ferrari jackets who have drunk too much at the Grand Prix. I spot perhaps six groups of two girls working the street. Two ask me if I know “Bacchus Bar”.

And I see Elly and Vera with three Italian looking men in tow, leading them to the lift that stands on its own in the street.

This rain needs to end.

Soon.

2011-09-11T00:40:00.000-07:00

Let it Rain; Budapest, Hungary August 2011

”Hungary is the best place in the world” she said.

“It has the most beautiful city; Budapest. It has the most beautiful language. It has the most beautiful music and the best culture of any place in the world”.

“Yes, but what about the weather”? I ask.

Maria is a proud Hungarian. Born in Slovakia, she is one of the 5 million Hungarians that found themselves outside of Hungary as a result of the carving up of Europe by the Allies and Russia after World War 11. Well, probably her grandparents, as Maria is in her late 20’s.

Maria is well travelled. She has studied in Milan as well as Hungary. She has a degree in Landscape Architecture and a passion for design.

But there are no jobs in Hungary for Landscape Architects.

Maria moved to Vienna to find work, but she got so homesick for her beloved Hungary she moved back to Budapest. Now she works for Tibor, who runs the suite of apartments that I am staying in, in downtown Pest.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that the country that has produced more Nobel Prize winners per capita than any other country has a massive underemployment problem.

Wages are low, taxes are high.

VAT is 25%, the highest in Europe. Income tax is 46%.

A doctor working in a hospital takes home around 600 Euros per month. Not much by other first world standards. Other workers average 350 Euros take home pay.

I decide to patronise the “free communist walk” of Budapest.

Our tour guide talks about having her two children in Hungary’s public hospital system.

“The first time, I think, I am not going to pay bribes to the Doctor and hospital staff to look after me with the hospital equipment I have paid taxes to buy. So, no one looks after me or comes to see me and I have terrible labour. The second time I decide to pay. Each visit to the gynaecologist I pay him an extra 40 Euros cash, and for the birth I pay him and the mid-wife an extra 200 Euros each, and I have the best of care and a very good labour”.

Low wages and lack of work have many effects here. The trained and educated work in other countries where they are paid very well compared to Hungary.

There is a large homeless problem here. People are sleeping in doorways out of the rain, or next to air-conditioning outlets which provide some heat. Luckily it is quite warm; it is the height of summer. I can’t imagine how you would survive outside during the harsh winter.

Every time the garbage bins are put out in the street for next-day collection, the street below my window is a constant night industry of rubbish rifling. One person will go through a bin then move to the next, and then another goes through the bin that has just been looked at, hoping something’s been missed.

There’s a paradox here though. Hungarians are a well dressed, sartorially splendid nation, from my observations. It’s actually a little unsettling when I walk outside my apartment to find a well-dressed and coiffed woman in her mid-30’s going through a bin. She is wearing heels and makeup and I can only deduce that Budapest has the best dressed homeless people going around.

You can still see bullet holes in some Budapest buildings from the Nazi occupation, the Soviet occupation and the 1956 uprising put down by the Soviets. This city is often used as a Word War II set for Hollywood films, and it is so cheap to film here. In fact, Brad Pitt is due here next month, my guide informs us.

The 50 years of Communism were the dark years in Hungary. The Terror Museum sets it all out in the actual building that was used as the headquarters of the ruling party, which includes prison cells, and torture or “information extraction rooms”. Neighbour spied on neighbour. You could be arrested and sent to a forced labour camp just because you were suspected of having thoughts that were anti-regime.

These years of suppression seem to be foremost on the minds of many Hungarians. Invariably, it is brought up in most conversations I have with them. But, one thing I know for sure; to move on you have to leave the past behind.

Never forget, but move on.

If you keep re-living the past, that is exactly what you do; relive it, and you can’t escape the misery that was wrought on Hungary in those years.

But Hungary is a young Democracy. The last Soviet soldier left Hungary in 1991. So, many of them categorise the nation as a “post-communist democracy”; meaning they haven’t quite got there yet.

Every day, I walk across the River Danube to the Buda side, across the green Franz Josef ll bridge, and climb the maze of interwoven paths on the steep Gellert Hill, keeping the arms of the Libertie Statue in view so I don’t get lost like many of the tourists who ask me for directions.

The view from the top is stunning. I can’t think of another city that has a view quite like this actually in the city. You can see a 270 degree panorama of Budapest from up here, and perhaps 100 kilometres into the distance. It’s no wonder their Austrian Haspburg masters built a citadel here back in the 1500’s, which contained a garrison and a prison. Now, it contains a restaurant and a museum, and some old Nazi artillery guns. The Soviets “donated” the Libertie statue to Hungary, and there used to be several other statues showing muscular women and men fighting the dirty proletariat and playing the roles of working-class heroes in factories and in the fields. However, as soon as the Soviets left, the Hungarians tore down the statues along with other Stalanistic reminders around the city. They now live in a tourist park somewhere outside Budapest; I can’t imagine there are many visitors to it.

Budapest is a low-rise city; there is not much over 10-12 stories high, and certainly no high-rise. It gives it the feeling of livability; high-rise may be practical but rarely is it a thing of beauty. It blocks out a sun that rarely shines in many places, and has a tendency to make humans feel insignificant.

It is my first Saturday night here, and, in between showers I walk the green bridge to the Buda side in search of some non-tourist nightlife. It is on Bela Bartok Utca, I enter a lounge bar and strike up a conversation with Ferenc and David. A lawyer and a teacher, they are waiting for Adam, an architect, and his girlfriend Vicki, an economist to join them. They are around their late 20’s to early 30’s. We drink beer and they introduce me to palinka, the fruit vodka-like rocket fuel that Hungarians chase down their beer with, and keep warm in winter with. They say you should wait for half an hour before having another shot, as the alcohol content varies from 50-75%, and two strong ones in quick succession may completely knock you out . I ask Ferenc his thoughts, as a lawyer, on Hungary.

“It is shit” he says. “There are no opportunities and there is very little work. The city is nice, but you go outside it and it is shit that the communists built.”

Vicki asks me why I have chosen Budapest to come to, “you don’t come for the sex, do you”? She says with an edge to her voice.

“Well, if I have I haven’t found any!” I reply.

She is referring to the reputation that Hungary has gained for porn movies and strip clubs. English and German men come here for weekend Bucks parties.....they wear t-shirts saying “The Hungarian Triathalon; Eating, Drinking and Fucking”.

Adam asks me some deep and meaningful questions about my motivation for writing about my travels and what I am trying to achieve. But, it is too happy an evening, and all my answers are pretty shallow and not well formed; I blame the palinka.

We have a great time, a lot of laughs, a few drinks and I think “maybe Hungarians aren’t all that bad”. Most of the Hungarians I have met have had few good things to say about their fellow countrymen. “Hungarians are fucking rude!” is a sentiment I would get used to hearing during my month long stay.

David leaves first, as he has a young family at home. The rest of us stay till the bar staff kick us out at 2am. We resolve to meet up again. The guys want to take me cycling on road bikes. Ferenc is a little unsteady on his feet and his bike. They ride off into Buda, I walk off to Pest.

We never see each other again.

Travel can be like that.

A Note to the Reader

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Lost and Found August 2011 Looking for Lost German Friends; Anja, Aleks, Andrea and Stefan.

2011-08-20T16:35:00.001-07:00

It is completely against my sense of blogging order to post something before it should be posted, but I find myself nursing a sense of guilt here. I will write ad-infinitum about the amazing Sziget Music Festival in Budapest soon, but I must send out a message to some new friends I failed to meet on the last night there.

On Saturday night, we five drank a lot of beer, and if I recall correctly, palinka shots.... that may or may not have been with this lot, it could well have been with some Hungarians..it’s all a little fuzzy now.

Anyway, Stefan must shoulder most of the blame, I feel, as he kept insisting we stay and drink more beer, and more beer; such is the German way, he assured me. And I do have some German ancestry. But in order to leave Sziget by 4.30am, I promised, as leverage to a 106kg German drinking machine, to meet this quartet on Sunday night and buy Stefan 10 beers!

Believe me, it was the only way to get out of there before daybreak.

But that night I was sneezing a lot, you may recall. The dust hanging in the night air from the daily 100,000 music lover’s trail tramping from stage to stage (and there’s 48 of them), coupled with the smoke from the circus’ heavy oil fuelled torches triggered a massive allergy attack by the time I returned to my lodgings. Black gunk flowed like oil from my sinuses in the hot steam of the shower, and of course, I ended up with sinus and throat infections.

That’s why I didn’t turn up on Sunday night and I had no way of letting anyone know.

“Soft” I hear you say.

I completely agree, but this allergy turned viral infection would not be denied.

So, I owe you 10 beers Stefan. And I intend to get them to you somehow, whether it’s Oktoberfest or a local pub in Stuttgart.

And if Anja, Aleks, Andrea or Stefan read this, could you please leave your contact email as a comment to this post, and I will be in touch with you.

Hungry in Budapest ; Late July 2011

2011-08-19T05:38:00.000-07:00

The Easyjet flight was about to take off; the captain said so.

We just had to wait for the fuel re-fill to complete, get clearance, and we were off to Budapest, Hungary.

Thankfully, someone noticed a leak in the Hydraulic System.

So we sat on the tarmac for an hour, while a new plane and crew were organised. Then we walked through the rain back to the Luton Terminal, and sat there for another 2 hours.

Vacant seats were sparse. But I found one at the end of a row, sat down and promptly fell asleep. It is a new skill I have recently acquired; the ability to sleep on planes, trains and in airports.

Gone are the days of 14 hour flights LA to Melbourne and eyeballs that feel like someone’s sandpapered them down to the nerve-endings.

Now, when I’m in that vacuum of space-time-continuum in between destinations, and stimulating conversation is non-existent or has just run dry, I turn off, tune out, and drop in to a dreamless sleep.

We waited near 40 minutes for the luggage to appear on the carousel at Budapest Terminal 1. The advertisement on the column holding up the roof of the place said a lot in a strange language I took to be Hungarian. There were images of clear glass bottles containing wildly different colours of some kind of fancy liquor; and one sentence in English which said “Pahlinka, you will not ignore the noble fruit”.

It was a statement that was to prove prophetic for the coming month. Oh, how I wish I had taken heed of this sign, given to me by the universal gremlin that exists only to say “I told you so” once the damage has been done.

The couple next to me were fighting; their brats climbing all over the carousel, taking no heed of their Mother’s warnings. He was English, she was Hungarian. He was unperturbed, she was having a meltdown. She said he lost everything and they couldn’t afford his forgetfulness anymore; his wallet last week, his credit card the week before. He said everyone in the airport could hear she was a whinger, and that she always got like this when they came over to visit her parents.

I decided to exit the situation and empty my bursting bladder, would this luggage never come?

So I opened the door to the men’s room which was situated directly behind the baggage carousel, and there were 4 men, percy-in-hand, merrily pissing into the urinals, now in full view of the 200 plus passengers. There was no two door policy here!

Welcome to Hungary!

I shared a shuttle bus with some Spanish women for the drive into Budapest. Every third bill-board seemed to be advertising a “men’s club” with women so scantily clad that most men not used to this would be putting the car into a ditch. Luckily our driver was used to this, and as he kept his eyes firmly on the road, we passed seamlessly from countryside through suburbs to city.

If I could design a city, like the character in the Leonardo De Caprio movie “Inception”, I think it would be Budapest. Two cities; Buda and Pest, on opposite sides of the River Danube.

Wide, clean streets. Not so many people, not so many cars. A low-rise city with not much above 10 stories high. Neo-Classical, Neo-Gothic, maybe a touch of Art-Deco, but the term “Eclectic” probably sums up the architectural style. The rewards of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire were spent here and in Vienna, and, despite two world wars and a communist occupation that lasted 50 years, thankfully most of it still survives.

I arrive at Veres Palne’ Utca, two streets back from the river on the Pest side. I had booked an apartment here, but it was 6.30pm and I was about 5 hours late, due to the Easyjet fiasco.

It had started to rain heavily as I stared at the 15 foot high ornate wooden doors that guarded the entrance to my new home. I buzzed the number I was given; no answer. A guy came to the door from the street, punched some numbers on a key pad, he pushed open the door and I followed him in. At least I was inside now and could camp in a corridor somewhere till morning if need be.

I took the circular stairs to the second floor, as the wire cage lift, looking like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, and enclosed by ornate, black iron-work, had a hand-scrawled cardboard sign which said “meghibasodott” which I took to mean it didn’t work.

I reached the door and buzzed again, but no sign of life.

I dumped my gear on the floor, and pondered my next move.

A woman came walking down the stairs.

“Excuse me, do you speak English”

She looked slightly startled and unsure of the situation she had suddenly found herself in.

She looked at me intently, opened her mouth wide, and stuck her right index finger into her mouth. She shook it in there several times, and I realised she was pointing at something.

So I moved a little closer and thought I could see; a tooth filling!

“You have a filling”?

She nodded her head and pointed her now saliva covered pointer up the stairs.

“Dentist”

She nodded her head violently now. We were really communicating now.

“You just came from the Dentist upstairs and you can’t talk”

She nodded again.

“So you do understand English”?

She nodded again and pointed to her tooth and then again up the now darkened stairway.

She had no idea what I was saying.

I nodded and gave her a Thai wai, slightly bowing forward with the palms of my hands together.

I don’t know why.

She seemed to understand and walked off down the stairs.

There was a door across the landing from this one, and I thought I had nothing to lose by buzzing the people there.

I did. The door opened. And there was Maria.

She was waiting for me, confident I would find her there somehow. And she could let me in.

So, I settled in to my new home in Pest. The rain was tearing down. People rattled through garbage bins on the street below that were waiting for the early morning pickup. The small bars that lined the street both sides filled the street with laughter and yelling and general conversation which drifted up through my open windows.

Maria gave me a map, and said she would be back at work here in the morning, with an offer to help me orientate myself in the land of the Maygars.

The Art of Travel; Marrakech to London to Budapest July 2011

2011-08-17T04:28:00.000-07:00

Unless you can step out of your front door and straight on to a luxury cruise ship touring the Mediterranean, you are probably going to suffer physically and mentally when you next travel.

There is nothing easy about travel, except perhaps the thought of the things you have left behind that you are glad to be rid of.

The body is not designed to cope with the rigours of travel well. You are constantly on the move through alien environments whilst every cell in your body is screaming “this is not right”.

The temperature, the noise, the language, the decompression/recompression of the plane, going through customs, the airport food, and the anxiety over whether your luggage will appear on the conveyor belt by the 4^th time around. The time zone changes, the currency changes, the humidity changes and the spare change from your last country.

The sensual assault when you walk out of the airport clutching your bags and looking for the clues given from your Lonely Planet guide and you realise you are hopelessly disorientated, it’s late, you are exhausted from a 10 hour flight and there’s not a friendly face in sight.

But this is why I travel.

This is when I am at my best and my most resourceful.

After two nights of saying “goodbye” and getting a send-off in various ways from my new-found Morroccan friends; I wake at 6.30 am and pack for leaving. The boys that run the Riyadh have had a big night, No-one is stirring and it doesn’t look like I have any chance of getting coffee. So, I leave without saying goodbye to my hosts and head outside for a taxi. After adventures too numerous to mention here, including a near head-on collision with a donkey pulling a cart, I arrive at Marrakech Airport. I don’t realise that it marks the beginning of 20 solid hours of travel before I arrive at my hotel in Luton, England the next day.

So the day goes; taxi to the airport, flight to Gatwick airport, then 3 trains before I arrive at Limehouse station, London. I need to get some clothes from my daughter’s apartment before Budapest, so I trudge with my bulging backpack and my laptop bag through the London summer cool and light rain to visit Kate and Wayne. I can’t stay the night as they have other guests; Wayne’s family is visiting from Australia.

It’s late July and for 160 British Pounds you can get yourself a shoebox or a wardrobe for a night’s accommodation in London. That’s about it. It’s the height of the tourist season and the place is full of palace and cathedral gawkers. So if I bypass London and go to Luton, I can stay near the airport and embark from there for Budapest. It seemed like a really clever idea at the time.

It’s great to see Team KW again. Unfortunately, Wayne has broken his foot after jumping the fence to their apartment one night. I have had one beer in a month in Morocco teetotaller territory, but my exile from alcohol ends exactly now as Wayne hands me what seems like a giant green beer can.

The cold foam hits the back of my throat with a rush, and things start to go a little hazy from herein.

I can remember going to the local pub for traditional English Fish and Chips with Kate, Wayne, Dave and Janet, and Lisa and Simon.

I can remember Dave and I thrashing the lot of them at pub dominos, and also the resident pub German Shepherd coming around for food, not pats.

I can remember tearing myself away around 10pm and, with extra clothes on board, trudging back to the Tube station, again through the rain.

I know I am fading fast; I’m carrying about 28kg which represents my whole life at this stage. I start to ache all over and wonder if I am coming down with the ‘Flu. I take the first train and get to Victoria station. It’s cold, bleak and deserted. I sit down to wait for the train to Luton which arrives at about 12.15am. I can’t fall asleep....I want to...but I must catch this train.

Finally it comes.

I find a seat and can’t help but sleep fitfully, trying to watch the stations, and having the woman sitting in the seat across from me laugh every time my head tumbles onto my lap and I wake, startled, checking that I haven’t slept through my stop.

Finally, Luton appears; nearly there. Through the rain once more. Through the car park. Find a taxi.

15 minutes later I get to the hotel, then check in, then get into the room and collapse.

I wake 13 hours later and feel like I’ve been run over by a freight train.

I look at myself in the mirror.

I can’t believe how much weight I’ve lost, maybe 6 or 7 kilos.

The shorts that fitted so snugly when I bought them in Thailand actually fell off me when I put them on last week in Marrakech.

It’s time to start eating again.

I found the breakfasts I was given in Morocco to be almost completely lacking in nutrition. Based on the French style; croissant and white bread rolls with butter and jam, and Mint Tea and Coffee just didn’t suit me. I resorted to making myself eat half a roast chicken most days, but still most of the muscle I normally carry just disappeared.

Staying healthy and fit is one of my greatest challenges while travelling. I feel that if I lose my fitness, to a great extent I lose my edge. I don’t feel as good, and I’m not as capable when it comes to pushing physical boundaries or getting out of the tricky situations you often find yourself in, if you are up for adventure, that is.

Just the look of a strong, fit physique is enough to give you free passage through most places. The reality is, in most of the places I have been, most of the men are quite soft physically, and they are looking for soft targets if they want to rob, rip-off or cause harm to you.

So, for me, the physical enables the appreciation of the Art of Travel; the emotional, the spiritual, the mental.

I have met so many fellow travellers for whom fear was a constant companion. There were places they wouldn’t go and experiences they wouldn’t have. They travel like a day at the office; 9 to 5, and then hunker down in the hotel looking for a TV channel in their native language, after sloshing down a meal little different to that of home.

I have begun to call it the 2 day syndrome.

Most people only stay in one place for 2 days then move on.

Up early to make the hotel breakfast buffet or the hostel toast and tea.

Get the sneakers on the bus or the pavement.

Experience a cornucopia of visual stimulants created or preserved for the travelling tourist.

And unless your destination is for a specific reason; such as a bull run in Spain or as a stand-in Jesus Christ to be nailed to a cross at Easter in the Philippines; your experience will probably be about Art.

Art Galleries, Architecture, Sculptural Statues, Museums and Music. With the odd day at a Writer’s Festival or a visit to William Shakespeare’s ink pot. The Art of a well-engineered bridge, or the Natural Art of a landscape.

Hell, even if you just lie on a beach you read a book!

Perhaps these are the things we deny ourselves in our normal daily grind. That we feel the need to fill our spirits with images that inspire us with their sheer beauty that we can take away with us in our minds. These things that are so visible and that mostly represent the best of Human creative expression and inspiration. We nibble away at this food for the soul to provide the succour we need to get through the next period of purgatorial penance, the wasteland of our everyday lives, until we have the opportunity and the time to do this again.

But, is this merely a sugar-hit you pick up from a Thomas Cook drive-through?

A new friend who has travelled far more widely than I have, piqued my interest in this subject when she said " I've travelled to so many cities, but to each one, I'm still a stranger".

Is this the Art of Travel?

The Arab Spring; Marrakech Scorecard July 2011-08-12

2011-08-13T03:18:00.001-07:00

It was a typical Marrakech evening.

Hot and dry, with a calamity of characters offering taxis, bananas, a horse-drawn cart or hashish, I set out across the Grand Square to the road which leads to where the gates of this walled city once stood, so that I could run outside the walls where the heat was less and the wind vainly tried to clear the air of the acrid diesel fumes which burned your lungs.

All of a sudden I found myself in the midst of a demonstration. There was some scuffling going on which was concerning until I realised it was just some overzealous organiser insisting that the banners be carried in a particular order. I pushed through quickly to the front of the mob. Men and women at the front were carrying large framed photographs of the King. These were older people, and I knew this was one of the “staged” rallies in support of the King, who had been forced to offer the people a referendum, a vote to change the constitution and have free elections. Till now, the King selected the parliament and the Prime Minister. Now he will select the Prime Minister from the winning party.

It occurs to me that at this moment in Syria there are people getting shot by their own security forces for demonstrating for political and economic change. A chill runs through me, it hasn’t happened in Morocco, yet.

Younger people are calling for greater division of Religion, Monarchy and State, but you never hear of it in the media. But I know the movement is gathering momentum and the hunger for change is palpable, you can feel it in the air, spreading across the Middle-East.

I tear a muscle in my left hip, running on the hard, uneven tiles that line the footpath outside the fortress walls, and limp back to the tranquillity of my Azahara Riyad. Ibrahim rushes to me when I enter, and asks if I can take a look at Ali, he is unwell. I walk across the marble courtyard to where Ali sits, his face grimacing in pain and his hand holding the side of his right cheek.

“Salaam, Ali. Votre visage? Qui est de la question?”

“Oh, la dent la dent”

I take his hand away and his cheek is hard and swollen and he is in a lot of pain.

I ask Ibrahim if it has happened before.

“Oui, but this time is the worst”

Ali has a tooth abscess. He needs to see a dentist who will probably just pull the tooth out. That is how they deal with these problems here.

I give him some strong paracetamol tablets with codeine for the pain, and instructions to take them 4 hourly.

It is coming to the end of my time here.

At the end of my first week in Marrakech, I would have been happy to quit and go somewhere else. But now, I feel reluctant to leave. I have made some good friends, and I almost feel a part of this place. I think and speak in French now, and have become accustomed to the pace of life here and the often crazy ways things are done. If I had any issues with what I thought Islam was before I came here, they are now gone. The Moroccans are a pious people, and basically good in their core beings, much like most people, I guess.

So now comes the scorecard for Marrakech/Essaouira as a potential home;

Environment (natural and un-natural) 5 (out of 10)

Food (ok, but not as good or as spicy as I expected, issues with freshness) 5

Social (friendliness, helpfulness, welcoming, social opportunities) 8

Security (trustworthy, physical safety) 6

Weather 6

Accommodation (quality, comfort, cost) 8

Value for Money (living costs, entertainment) 7

Visa (availability and cost) 6

Total 5/80 66%

Standard visas are valid for 3 months from entry for most British Commonwealth nation’s citizens. Longer visas can be obtained but you need to show proof of sufficient funds to support yourself.

Obviously, security is a major issue in Morocco. The bombing that occurred just weeks before I arrived was denounced by every person I spoke to. They brought the subject up, as if they felt outsiders need to know how the average Moroccan feels about the subject. I did not encounter anyone I would term as “fundamentalist”, but that does not mean they don’t exist. However, I did not encounter any situations where I was at risk, despite my sensitivities.

If I were to live here, I would divide my time between Marrakech, and a beach city, perhaps Agadir. Marrakech can have poor air quality due to the bowl-like effect the surrounding mountains give. This place has gotten under my skin, and I am reluctant to leave.

But the journey must go on, for my quest to find the best place to live.

Next stop Budapest, Hungary. Home Number 4.

Home to Marrakech July 2011

2011-08-07T11:26:00.000-07:00

It was the perfect homecoming.

Crowds milled around groups of musicians and snake charmers just as I remembered.

There was a fire on the sausage barbeque stand again; the fat was spitting out of the broken skins and flames were dancing in the acrid smoke, as the barbeque boy vainly tried to move everything to the side.

The call to prayer from a hundred minarets echoed through the square, and a donkey pulling a cart loaded with watermelons rebelled against the sharp sting of the whip, and bucked and kicked the underside of the cart, and then shat unceremoniously on the concrete as a palpable symbol of protest. A car, then a motorbike ran through the shit almost immediately and spread it like mustard on a kebab. The crowds then filled the space and spread the shit to the four corners of Marrakech.

Yes, it felt like home.

Hot and noisy, smoky and chaotic, pungent and urgent.

Women walked by in tailored silk pantsuits of pastel blues and greens and pinks with matching head-scarves and straight backs and heads held high.

The touts were scanning the crowds for new arrivals; tourists, the most valuable and sort after commodity in Marrakech.

A woman cleaning hotel rooms seven days a week earns 1,000 Dinars or 100 Euros a month. It was relatively easy to pick up 50 or 100 Dinars from a new tourist, before they became immune to the constant stream of beggars and pleaders, before they lost the guilt that most from the first world experience when confronted with the third world.

I walked down the alley off Le Place to Hotel Cecil, and was greeted like a prodigal son returning home.

“Salaam Aliekaam, Bonjour, welcome, welcome”

Everyone wanted to know about Essaouira, and I was given a room for 4 people at 50 dinars less than I previously paid. Most travellers stay only 2 nights, then are never seen again, so I was a rare commodity.

So I caught up with Nouradine, and Houda, and one night at the ginger tea stand I met the Cambridge twins; Robin and Rob.

They had just finished degrees in Mathematical Biology, and apart from being genuine genius’s they were really great guys. Robin is the opening batsman for the Cambridge First 11, and was about to tour India with the team. Rob, who is fluent in French, was taking a year off study and going to French Guiana to teach kids maths. We had a lot of laughs and agreed we would try to meet up when we were all in London again.

I spent a scorchingly hot afternoon looking at the 2 palaces in Marrakech with Eve. She had just completed a post-graduate business degree in Oregon, and was travelling her way through Morocco and Europe on her way back home to Bangkok, where she had previously worked as an accountant. We had an enthusiastic tout offer to take us to see an auction at the spice market, but when we got there it was just a room, and any auctions were long finished. We were then palmed off to the spice shop next door, and my sinuses nearly exploded when I had a bag of pure menthol almost shoved up my nostrils “to try”. Eve then nearly exploded with laughter when I told the tout she was from Siberia. “Velly nice,welcome, we love Sibleerlia”.

I moved to a new Riyadh called Azahara. It was away from the square near the outer walls and was much quieter and like moving back into medieval times. There were woodworking shops where craftsmen painstakingly carved intricate Arabic designs based on sacred geometry into cedar and pine, much as their forefathers had, and shops where women made carpets on looms, or cut out fabric to be hand sewn into shirts and Habibs.

Azahara was sumptuous. A large courtyard of marble tiles and columns, and a marble fountain. Five-pointed brass stars were inlaid in the floor, and under a canopy of intricately painted geometric patterns were heavily cushioned couches where breakfast was served, and mint tea or “Moroccan Whiskey” could be taken during the day. My room was the size of a house, with Berber carpets, a bar, and a ceiling I can only describe as breathtaking. The cornices and ornaments were so finely detailed, I had never stayed anywhere even remotely like this, it was so beautiful.

And I was the only guest.

Ibrahim, Ali and Rasheed ran the small hotel for a Frenchman, who lived in Paris and visited once a year. There didn’t seem to be much marketing going on to fill the other rooms, but I wasn’t complaining!

So the next week passed in a flurry of socialising with my new found Moroccan friends, and a disastrous two day trip to Rabat, the capital of The Kingdom of Morrocco.

The Spy who Loved Me (Almost); Marrakech, Morocco July 2011

2011-08-02T06:32:00.000-07:00

I felt like I was a character in a John Le Carre cold war novel.

Every time I entered the ancient souk that surrounds le Place Jmaa El Fna I had the sense that I was being followed.

I could have been Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, hell that’s just down the road! Or an undercover man, maybe even a double agent!

I was entering enemy territory. They knew. I knew it.

If I wasn’t cool, if I didn’t keep my wits about me they could capture and torture me, and draw every important piece of strategic information from me, and I would leave a broken man.

Broken and Broke.

I would probably have a large Berber carpet rug, 3 pairs of goats leather shoes with the toes pointed skywards, a sliver tea service set, a tagine or two, enough spices for the next decade, a camel leather bag to carry it all in, emerging back into the blinding midday sunlight looking like Demis Roussos in a long, white, hooded Arab Jelaba.

They would use underhanded tactics to confuse and entrap me.

Like suddenly a swarthy man would materialise next to me, and holding out his hand (for a handshake) say “bonjour Monsieur , comment ca’ va’? If I responded “ca’ va’ bien” he would say “ah francais” if I refused to speak or said something like “non parlez francais” he would say “Espana, Non, English? “Where are you from” “Auslalia?” Welcome, to Maroc. Auslalia is beautiful, no?

And if I returned his handshake he would invite me to come and meet his family and take mint tea with them “as fliend” and watch a berber rug being made on a loom in the traditional way.

Then he would lead me into the darkened depths of the labyrinth, through archways and laneways, up stairs and down stairs, till we would come to a non-descript hole in the wall.

He was just the go-between, paid to deliver me to a team of super-salesmen in a Marrakech market megastore who were probably the direct descendants of Ali Baba’s forty thieves!

So, a strategy was needed.

Firstly, never shake their hand.

The swarthy sales man would get agitated and offended but I was not their “effendi” or friend. Their hand was usually pretty dirty anyway.

Secondly, have some fun with them.

Go round a corner and duck into the shadows of a deep, dark doorway, and watch the panic as they run after your ghost down the alley.

Or, when you are asked where you are from, just say “Siberia”.

“Sibeerlia, we love your country”!

Welcome to Morocco, Welcome to Marrakech.

Essaouira, Morocco ; July 2011

2011-07-31T09:41:00.000-07:00

...sssooiira

The Berber woman purses her lips, she breathes it like a sigh, like cool air that comes from the north to tame the heat that bears down from the Sahara.

It sounds like an ancient lost breeze that comes with the sea mist that blankets the town and blurs the shapes of the white walled Kasbah and the blue of the window shutters that frame women leaning out to hang their washing, or men propped on their elbows smoking thoughtfully and watching the maelstrom of the markets below.

In 1506, the King of Portugal ordered the building of a fortress here. It lasted only 4 years before local Berbers overran the garrison and took control of what was then called Mogador. It was important for the exporting of sugar and molasses and also was a safe haven for pirates. Essaouira was a strategic port, the closest to Marrakech, and control of it was much desired by Spain, England, The Netherlands and France. All were unsuccessful in gaining territory, or favourable trade terms until the French signed a treaty with the Sultan of Marrakech in 1631. It was during this time that Christian slaves were used to build more fortifications around the bay.

The present city was built during the 18^th century by Mohammed 111, and became the principal port of Morocco. The caravan trade offered their goods to the world through this harbour. From Sub-Saharan Africa to Timbuktu, through the desert and over the Atlas Mountains to Marrakech, and then down to Essaouira on the Atlantic coast, caravans of Tuaregs and Berbers and Arabs on camels and donkeys brought cloth and spices, rock salt , dried fruits, and slaves to be traded with the world.

Initially it was called “Souira” or small fortress, but it was changed after the rebuilding to “Essaouira” or “the beautifully designed”. 18^th century Dutch cannon still line the walls and battlements as if time has stood still and a wooden Portuguese warship is lying off the coast in the mist.

I had booked a week at “Les Coins Des Artistes”, a small 8 roomed hotel or Riyadh in the centre of the Kasbah. Air-conditioners aren’t needed here and windows are opened to greet the breeze. There is a central courtyard that all rooms face into, and breakfast is taken here in the mornings.

A Dutch woman came in with a Morrocan man, who went straight into the kitchen. She sat down at the table next to mine and smiled at me with her eyes. She started a conversation and asked if I wanted to go down the coast to a beach called Cidi Kagi. My appointment book wasn’t full at that stage, so we ran in the dust for the local bus, and an hour later we walked off into a hot dry easterly wind, and a long beach, with beginners trying to surf waves which held up in the off-shore wind, but were never going to be powerful enough to propel a board to the shore.

Getting a drink from a local store a fight erupted between the owner and 2 Moroccan customers. The owner was going off his nut and pushing and threatening the 2 guys who seemed to have no idea what was going on. As usual, the faithful rushed in and calmed him, kissed him, tried to lead him back into the shop, but it was a full 20 minutes before he calmed down again. I was getting used to this volatile over-emotional behaviour.

There wasn’t much to do so we decided to get a grande taxi back to Essaouira, as the next bus wasn’t for hours. We shared it with Aziza, who was in Cidi Kagi checking on her Belguim bosses house. We had a great chat about life for women in Morocco, and the fact that there is no separation of church and state, and she kindly invited us back to her house to meet her family. Life is tough economically for most people here; wages are low and expenses high and good jobs difficult to get. We agreed to catch up again, said our goodbyes and returned to the Kasbah.

In Marrakech, I found it difficult to do any running; it was really hot with diesel fumes that burned your lungs as the concrete burned your feet, and this was at 9pm in the evening. So, it was great to be able to get out every afternoon and run down the beach, with the wind in my back past the camels and the furtive lovers holding hands and each other, several kilometres down the beach where no-one could see them.

The countryside is not fertile, but the sea is. A sea current that runs past the Canary Islands dredges up nutrients and makes the sea here brim full of conga-eels, small sharks and massive schools of sardines. The fish market could be a major tourist attraction, with the music festival over most of the tourists had left, but the fishermen were in the habit of cleaning their catch on the wharf, and throwing the guts and blood on the rocks and on the road that led through the fish market. It stunk, it was disgusting to walk through, and it attracted thousands of albatross who dive bombed any onlookers with shit as local boys dived off pontoons into putrid brown water and fisherman greedily tried to overcharge any non-Morrocan fish-buyer. The fish are expensive, there is no refrigeration, and I found the whole situation puzzling, whilst being on guard for any “new friend” who would offer to take a photo of me with my camera, and then obstinately demand money for doing it.

So the week rolled on. I met Younnis, a local musician and surfer. He brought a couple of guitars into the hotel, and we played for an audience of 4 people. I found his style hard to follow, as he is left-handed and learnt to play a right-handed guitar upside down! Only the third person I have ever seen do this. Younnis met a French girl on holiday here a couple of years ago. They fell in love, and when it was time for her to leave, they went to the airport together. She never got out of that taxi, and they returned to Essaouira, got married in a Muslim ceremony, and she fell pregnant. 3 months later she had to leave to go back home and continue her university studies in medicine. He sees them occasionally on a Skype call. He says “Inshallah” one day they will be re-united. So in the meantime, Younnis surfs when there is surf, plays guitar in a restaurant when there is work, and unceasingly smokes hashish, going through the ritual of rolling the joints and burning the hash block to make it dryer and easily crumbled.

The Dutch lady wanted me to come along to a dinner she had been invited to by her Moroccan friend, at the family house of one of his friends. I thought that finally, I would get to experience some real home cooked Moroccan food, however, when we got to the 3^rd floor dingy room, we found 6 Moroccan men, no family, and the money I had, with reservations, contributed to purchasing the food, had actually bought all the food. The Dutch girl’s money had gone missing again. Every time something had to be paid for it seemed she didn’t have enough, or she just forgot to contribute. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was just getting too routine, for me anyway. The kitchen was dirty and dingy and the food was just put out on a large platter from which everyone ate with their hands. I felt a little uneasy, and scoped out an escape route out of the window if we needed it, but there was nothing to be concerned about. Out came our host with the biggest lump of hashish this side of Afghanistan, and he placed it on top of a large, glowing coal and into a shisha apparatus. The guys then all grabbed a hose and started happily puffing away, and we left.

Now I knew why Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley were here. It wasn’t to take in the sea air. It was just to get wasted. There were some sad people around the Kasbah alleyways, begging, and talking to imaginary friends. Some were ex-pats who had stayed too long and perhaps couldn’t go home, like a modern Brideshead Revisited, where Charles goes to Morocco and finds Sebastian in an appalling state.

The woman I had walked away from in the square the day I first travelled here had become a nuisance. Every day, it seemed she would find me somewhere in the souk, the square, or even at the beach. I was in the habit of saying “oh, it’s you again” or “oh, c’est encore vous”. She was persistent, if nothing else.

Essaouira was beautiful but flawed. After 5 days I ran out of things to do as the waves never got big enough to surf, and the days I wanted to kite surf the wind didn’t co-operate. I would like to be here in the winter and experience some of the epic surf swells that roll in from the Atlantic. But, unfortunately, a week was too long and it was time to return to Marrakech and the heat.

My last night in Essaouria, I went out to dinner with Aziza and her boyfriend Abdul. We ate some fish and I drank my first Moroccan beer. They left to go home and I walked across the square to where the cannon still pointed out to sea. It was cold, the wind was strong and cold and the mist was rolling in to once again blur and blanket the Kasbah. The families that had promenaded through the square and up and down the beachside road had all gone home too, and I could just hear the hint of a guitar playing through the sound of the crashing waves, and I wondered what would have happened if Bob and Jimi had met here, in Essaouira?

Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix and Essaouira, Morocco July 2011

2011-07-24T09:01:00.000-07:00

I had been advised by my friend Dominic to have a look at Essaouira, some 4 hours away from Marrakech, on the south Atlantic coast of Morocco. So, it was on a fine Saturday morning at 7.30am in the grand square Jmaa El Fna, awaiting my minibus, I observed an old woman collecting and rinsing out water bottles left empty by thirsty drinkers the day before. I had read that some unscrupulous operators refilled spring or distilled water bottles and sold them as unused. So, it was true.

I had booked a day tour of some valleys in the Atlas Mountains, ending up at Essaouira. But an hour into the drive it became obvious, when we drove straight past the turnoff to the Atlas Mountains that we weren’t going there. In fact, this was a return trip to Essaouira only.

I was becoming a little used to these things happening; either oversight, undersight or the booking I desired actually wasn’t available today. “Oh, we’ll just book him in for this one then”.

We passed through semi-arid country with small rolling hills, olive groves with stone-washed walls to keep out the drying winds, and the occasional vineyard. The country became dryer and hot, and more sand and stone and less olives. The ones that did exist struggled to hold on to life with many of their former fellows just greying timber, like driftwood in the sands.

This country is very reminiscent of the mid-north of South Australia. Harsh, dry and hot, it is a place of death and broken dreams. And in Morocco, buzzards, which can be clearly seen circling in the distant sky most days.

A scrubby, bushy, small tree began to appear in abundance, the Argan tree; this is the only place in the world it is found. Soon we stopped at “Le Argan Co-operatives La Femmes”, a small factory in this desertscape, where women picked and processed the latest “wonder oil” to hit the world scene; Argan Oil.

Cold-pressed, it is in great demand for cosmetics and hair treatments. This is the “Moroccan Oil” that everyone is talking about. Hot-pressed it is used as a health-aid, with supposed healing qualities, or just as salad dressing. It is expensive at around 75 Euros for 500ml of pure oil.

The process of extraction is almost medieval. Goats are encouraged to climb in the wild trees and prune the tips back, thus stimulating growth and the amount of fruit. The fruit looks similar to a small apricot, and it is the kernel inside the shell of the fruit that contains the oil. The fruit is picked, the shells are cracked and broken and set aside as cooking fuel, and the kernels are then ground by hand in a circular motion, by a wizened old crow of a woman, who sits in the same spot for 10 hours a day.

Oil is not plentiful, in fact 60 kg of fruit gives 1 precious litre of the stuff, I was told. Any oil left in the ground kernels are squeezed out by hand, and the remaining paste is used as stock feed. Only women perform the work, it is not considered fit for men. I had heard that China is planting thousands of acres of Argan trees. I suspect in a decade they will probably control the world supply of this magic stuff, and another opportunity will have passed these poor, hardworking Moroccan women by.

Essaouira appeared in the distance and we stopped at a lookout and took photos with a couple of camels for company. On the mini-bus with me were Shaz and Aziz; two young guys from London taking a week’s holiday in Morocco. It turned out Shaz worked for the same bank as Wayne, and Aziz was a doctor about to move into General Practice. We had a lively discussion and a few laughs which made the journey pass more quickly.

Stepping out of the bus at the sea wall which separates Essaouira from the cold Atlantic Ocean, was like breathing for the first time. The air was cool and fresh and salt. It was like getting an instant energy boost after the hot, dry and dusty Marrakech environment. The beach was more brown than white, different to what I had expected. Close to the town it was thronged with children and young people enjoying the sun and the water. The island of Mogador lay perhaps a kilometre out to sea, and sheltered the bay from Atlantic swells. The French-built forts were clearly visible from the beach; this was once the major port in these parts, and the closest to Marrakech.

Both Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix had come here in the 60’s. It was when I came here to stay two days later I discovered why.

But this day I walked through the crumbling stone archway into the walled town, through the square, and into the Kasbah. This place seemed so ancient that I half expected Ali Baba to materialise at any moment. The main street or laneway was filled with people shopping at the markets. Men were chopping up carcases of goats and sheep by hand, and vainly flicking away the flies they were attracting. There were watermelon, cherries and plums, and cartloads of pain; flat bread that women would sort through by hand until they found the one that felt the freshest or least stale.

This is where the Arabic world begins to meet the African world. There were large black men dressed in amazingly bright blue and green and yellow fabric, and Tuareg men from the Sahara Desert with their distinctive blue turbans and long robe-like outfits. They sold silver jewellery, jelabas, scarves and curved daggers in carved wood and silver sheaths. It was noisy and bustling and smelly, with storeowners singing the praises of their produce to the crowds, and customers arguing and haggling with them. I wound my way through alleys and eventually found a small hotel or Riyad which was the right price with wi-fi and breakfast included, and booked it for a week.

This happened to be the last day of the annual Gnaoua Music festival, dubbed the “Moroccan Woodstock”. It is an African and Arabic mix of artists, mainly, and many were familiar to me, having appeared at Womadelaide in my home town. The concerts were free, with a large stage in the town square and then another a kilometre away at the beach. I saw a West African band play a set and felt a pang of homesickness; I was half-way around the world but I had been here before.

I was determined to get to the beach and walk to a strange small island I could see in the distance, at the water’s edge. So I set off through the town square. The square is surrounded by a wall with ramparts and battlements, and brass cannon still sit there pointing out to sea, perhaps expecting Sinbad the sailor or Blackbeard the Pirate to attack the town some time soon. I was in a bit of a dream I suppose, taking all of this in when I was stopped by a woman, a Moroccan woman, probably in her late 20’s.

“Bonjour Monsieur, comment ca va”?

I was completely surprised at her boldness. Women just don’t approach strange men here.

“Ca va bien, tu est?”

I was struck by three things. Firstly, she was smoking; I don’t think I had seen a local woman smoke. Secondly, her head was uncovered. And thirdly, she had bad teeth, stained and decayed, which is unfortunately the norm with most of the people I had met here. Dental hygiene is not the priority here that it is in the West.

My initial French conversational skills had picked up to a point I could fool most Moroccans I was French. For about a minute, that is. Then my vocabulary and comprehension ran out rapidly. But, it was fun for me!

It didn’t take long to get to the part where I confess not to be French, and request the conversation now take place in English, of which she turned out to be completely fluent.

“Would you like to take a coffee with me, and we could talk and enjoy the view” she asked.

Well, paint me as sarcastic but I had the feeling coffee was not what she was after. I know I’m an attractive man, but even at home women (in a completely sober state) don’t hit on me randomly as I’m walking down the street!

“I really want to go to the beach” I said, “I don’t have much time as my bus leaves at 5 to go back to Marrakech”.

“I understand then” she said, “I have a hotel room, let’s just go there”

I was completely stunned and speechless, this was so out of character for a local woman. Plus it is against the law for an unmarried woman to be in a hotel with a man.

She opened up her purse and took out a card. It was a hotel card. She handed it me.

“Here, see, we can go here, what do you think?”

“You’re right, it’s a hotel card” I replied, “but I think I’m just going to go on to the beach”.

She looked completely devastated.

“But why, why go to the beach?”

“I guess I’ve got my reasons. Au revoir et bon chance” and with that I walked off and left her standing there, mouth agape, in the middle of the small square that precedes the Kasbah.

There was a cool, northerly breeze blowing at my back, and lines of small surf pushed their way across the bay onto the brown sand. This place was painted in soft pastels of blue and white and brown in contrast to the sharp reds, yellows and browns of Marrakech.

I walked past camels carrying tourists, and came to a large group of locals gathered around 50 or so men on magnificent white and grey and black Arabian horses wearing red turbans and carrying lances with flags of different colours. They put the horses in a rough,moving line across the beach and a cannon exploded and belched a smoky boom and they were off, racing down the beach, neck to neck. They turned perhaps 400 metres away throwing plumes of brown sand into the air and each other, and galloped back to the finish and a rapturous roar from the crowd. I kept walking south, I never found out what the horses were doing there, and I never saw them again. When I came back to stay 2 days later, no-one knew anything about them.

They just looked at me rather strangely.

In and Around Jmaa El Fna: Marrakech, Morocco June 2011

2011-07-12T08:37:00.000-07:00

Around Le Place Jmaa El Fna, or Grand Square, rooftop cafes provide a safe haven for tourists. La Bohemia, Le Glacier Cafe, Le Grande Vieux and others are packed at night with onlookers who order pizza and water minerale and are spared the hassle of the professional beggars, the touts and the motor cycles and cars which catch the unwary or the unknowing in their headlights as they create their own pathways through the crowds.

The Cafe Argana was one of these havens, until a man walks up the stairs on a warm April day, places a brief case at a table, and leaves. Each day the scaffold that supports the damaged rooftop structure grows a little, things are added; today it is a kind of hessian cloth that attempts to camouflage the damage wrought by the bomb. I thought long and hard before travelling to Marrakech, and I must say the reports of the deployment of Army personnel throughout the square gave me some comfort. But I rarely see anyone in uniform here.

I understand now why my booking at Hotel Cecil kept coming back to me as one night, rather than the seven I was trying to book. Visitors generally spend only one or two nights here, then move on to other places. They visit Marrakech, the Sahara Desert, the Atlas Mountains, perhaps Casablanca, Tangiers and Fez and then go home. They tour Morocco for one to two weeks; see the souks, the mosques, the palaces and the Roman ruins, but all the time on the move. Many I meet are here for a long weekend, having flown from a cool summer in Europe to this North African swelter.

Greg and Brit are American college students involved in a Spanish language exchange program in Barcelona. They are here for three days. I meet them over a lunch of chiche kebab and fries at an outdoor cafe. They are from cold states; Oregon and Philadelphia, and are melting in the 40 plus heat. However, they have a swimming pool at their hotel, and spend their time cooling off there.

Ornella is a photographer from Rome. She is an animal lover extraordinaire, here to rescue a dog from the local pound. Her dog of 17 years has recently passed away; she emotionally shows me a photo of a medium-sized long haired dog of indeterminate breed. We communicate in my broken French and her limited English, plus the small amount of Italian I possess. Ornella is appalled at the treatment of animals here; the cart-pulling donkeys that buck and kick at the sharp sting of the driver’s whip, the street dogs that are poisoned, the starving litters of kittens that abound. She has found a small dog, and is in the process of completing the paperwork to get him back to Rome and her family of 2 dogs, 3 cats and a husband.

I can feel my fitness fading, a combination of the after effects of the flu I had in London and the heat here in Marrakech, which makes it difficult to keep up my running regime. When I can, I walk outside the Medina and run the perimeter of the city and the ancient rose-coloured terracotta walls, past unsuspecting couples sitting on park benches, holding hands and savouring rare private moments.

It’s getting late for dinner, around 10 pm. The light has faded with the heat. My favourite chiche kebab restaurant is filled with diners, but I am treated like a regular and they greet me with a “Bonjour mon ami, comment ca va”? and a gentle handshake. Table space is limited, so chairs are rearranged and diners moved to accommodate new arrivals. I am seated at a table with a French couple on one side, and 3 young Moroccan women on the other. The French are not inclined to chat, so I strike up a conversation with the girls who have come into the Medina from the suburbs for Saturday night, Houda, her friend and a younger sister. They are interested in Australia, and I am interested in understanding Moroccan culture from their point of view. They are fashionably dressed in jeans, close fitting tops, heels and jewellery, much the same as young women in their mid-twenties in any European city, but in a tastefully understated way, not glam or garish.

They head off home to beat their 12pm curfew, and Houda offers to show me through the Medina tomorrow night, my last for the moment in Marrakech, as I’m off to the southern coastal town of Essaouira for a week. We swap phone numbers and agree to meet Sunday night.

Nouradine has become a good friend to me since I have arrived. A native Moroccan, he has lived in France and Spain, and has a good grasp of English. He is married with children and works in hospitality. Through him I begin to get some kind of understanding of this place. It is so confronting and in your face that after my first 4 days I feel I may have made a mistake in coming here. How can I possibly stay for a month?

Surprisingly though, on the 5^th day everything begins to click into place. It’s like I a revelation; my eyes are opened and suddenly I begin to understand. I realise I have been in a kind of denial since I have landed here, trying to view this country through my sanitised western Christian-based logic. It is a trap that travellers commonly fall into. I don’t agree with the way many things are done here, but I don’t have to. I just have to accept and embrace and go with the flow of life.

It is Sunday night. Houda arrives at the square and we walk through the crowds to eat at an open-air restaurant. We are sat opposite to each other, and down the other end of the long bench table sits a pasty-faced, lanky American. He seems a little disorientated with the heat and the surrounding hustle and bustle and noise. He asks for the bill and a swarthy man who looks like the fat comptroller spits out “fifty”.

“oh, fifty euros” he says compliantly in a nasal accent that would be recognisable anywhere in the world as New Yorkian.

The hint of a smile appears on the dark cheeks, and he nods.

He pulls out a wad of euros and is about to hand them over. The man’s eyes glitter gleefully.

“Sorry mate” I interject. “He means fifty dirhams not euros”, and I help him count out the notes and coins that amount to 10% of what he was about to fork out.

He has just arrived here today from Berlin. Bryan has gambled everything and relocated from New York to the edgy ex-German capital to live and pursue his dream of a career as a painter. He is in Marrakech for the weekend “to check it out”.

We swap stories and he leaves for the relief of an air-conditioned room.

The fat-comptroller and I laugh when he leaves.

“fifty” he says, “fifty euros”. The scoundrel would have taken it too.

We finish dinner, and Houda leads me through the darkened alleyways of the ancient souk, which some say is the most famous of all in the Arab world. We pass stalls of spice and perfume, leather and brass. She links her arm through mine; it is not socially acceptable for a woman to walk with a man she is not connected to. Customs and appearances are everything here. I ask her about head coverings and scarves, and she says she is not compelled to cover herself, she is a modern young woman, but if she marries she will wear the habib out of respect for her husband.

Inside the souk is exotic chaos as locals crowd the lanes and alleys, and motorcycles roar through the centre of the crowds, which split and then close again behind the exhaust fumes. For the first time here, I’m not constantly harassed, as the company of Houda offers me some protection from the tenacious traders and touts.

I thank Houda, and return to Hotel Cecil. It’s late, but still hundreds crowd the square, and the smoke drifts from charcoal sausage grills in the light breeze. Tomorrow I leave at 8am for the 4 hour journey to the coastal town of Essaouira, my home for the next week.

Marrakech Express, Morocco June 21st 2011

2011-07-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

Three and a half hours from London and it’s like I’m on another planet.

Flying into Marrakech you can see the sand and the dust like waves in the air, blanketing the olive groves and the pinkish, terracotta walls of village houses and mosques.

An easy, quick stamp of my passport and I’m out of the airport hailing a taxi for the Medina at the heart of the ancient Berber city of Marrakech. The contrast from London is black and white. The heat is intense; it’s over 40 degrees, dry and dusty, but with a great similarity to some of the scorching summers we can have in my home town, Adelaide. So this I understand.

But when I am dropped off outside the grand square that is the centre of the ancient narrow lane-wayed Medina, and have to make my way through what seems a mass of Moroccans, I am reminded in no small way of my experiences in Bangkok. Fortunately, there is far more room to move here and water pistol snipers are not evident. I manage to find the small “Hotel Cecil” some 50 meters down a narrow laneway off the grand square. The first thing I noticed when I booked my accommodation over the internet was a prominent declaration that “it is forbidden for Moroccan couples to be offered accommodation without a valid marriage licence”. I emailed the hotel 3 times, wanting to stay for a week, but only receiving confirmation for 1 night. We don’t get off to a great start; the room I booked is not available, and there is only one room available without air-conditioning or even a fan. With, what I feel is “local knowledge” I bet tonite will be an absolute stinker. To my dismay, I am completely correct. Sleepless, and after a dozen cold showers, I negotiate a change for tomorrow when another room will be available, and the man behind the counter goes back to reading the Koran to himself out loud and rocking in his chair.

I have memorised a few Arabic expressions, but I find I am generally addressed in French; it is the second language here, a relic of 44 years of former French colonial rule that ended in 1956. One year of schoolboy French comes in amazingly handy as few speak my native tongue.

It is nine o’clock and still light and I walk out into the grand square of Jemaa El Fna. At the edge of the square you can see the demolition site that was once the Argana Cafe. It was destroyed 6 weeks ago by a terrorist bomb. 16 people, mainly Europeans sipping cafe latté’s and watching the snake charmers and the general goings on, were killed. Some 23,000 bookings were cancelled in the month after the bombing, and its clear there’s not an awful lot of tourists here at the moment.

The setting is exotic if nothing else. The pipes of snake charmers combine with traditional tunes played on ouds and drums. Crowds gather at impromptu boxing matches that onlookers are urged to join. There are dancers and stand-up Morrocan comedians. A black Tuareg man in the magnificent blue turban of that desert culture, extols the virtue of his virility tonic to spell-bound local men, as snake oil salesmen have done since humans first gathered in carnival atmospheres. There are belly dancers in full burqa, and they dance far more sexually suggestively than any I have ever seen. The mainly male audience are goggle-eyed and respond to the dancer’s flirtatious entreaties. It is then I realise the dancers are men in a Moroccan Drag show!

Thousands of locals throng the square nightly. They come to promenade up and down in their family groups. Groups of young men hold hands or link arms as they walk, as do groups of young women. This is the place for couples to be seen. They hold hands or link arms; this is the extent of public affection displayed in this society. They cannot be alone without other family members present.

The first time in the square brings a blast of sensory overload.

There are fresh orange juice stalls lined up together, each end of the square. You can get a large glass for 4 dirhams (40 cents or 25p) and you drink it at the stand. There are carts that serve bowls of hot, broiled snails; and approximately 60 hot food eateries where you can sit down on benches next to strangers and chose from tagine, couscous, kebab or fish dishes, freshly cooked. The touts that work for these stalls are particularly aggressive. They are generally young men with a lot of Moroccan charm who speak four or five different languages. They coax, they plead, they try to physically lead you to their stand before you get to the next group of persuaders. They are almost rabid in their enthusiasm, and I am bemused when I learn, from a local, that they are paid a commission of up to 40% of the cost of your meal!

I meet Hien, a Vietnamese girl in a polka dot dress at one of the open air eateries. She is taking a break from her studies in France and is travelling through Morocco. We decide, with equal amounts of courage to enter the bazaar; that labyrinth of shopaholic heaven that makes up the ageless market-place of Jmaa El Fna. You can get lost in here; I manage to frequently. The lane ways snake in unpredictable twists and turns. You easily become disorientated; I wonder if perhaps some go in and never return.....

There are handcrafted leather goods of camel and goat, earthenware Tagines with Arabic designs glazed in an array of colours, spice shops, silver jewellery, berber rugs, tea shops and dried fruit. Ahmed is nice enough to show me around his spice shop. He blends up to 44 different spices for the curries and the marinades he sells to local chefs. The smells are overwhelming when he twists open the containers. It seems spice blending is a true art. Hien and I decide it’s time to go back to the square. I’m sure I know the way, but we come out in a completely different place and my head spins trying to work out the GPS co-ordinates. We are back at the square but I’ve no idea how!

Hien leaves as she’s off to tour the north of Morocco for the next week, and I drink another OJ in the heat.

Alcohol is not freely available as Islam forbids drinking; men approach me from various alley-ways and whisper “sh-sheesh” in my ear.

But this is not Amsterdam, and I retire back to my small Riyadh down the laneway, off the square, and revel in the coolness of my new room.

London: Hot Property or Not? Final Scorecard June 2011

2011-07-08T06:02:00.000-07:00

The rain spits, and the clouds struggle across the 2012 Olympic skyline before a grey wind that makes every colour grey; except for the brown bricks that hold up the flats and council estates and small shops that make up East London. The new buildings are of brown bricks too; and the white of the affluent citadels of penthouses, and the glass of the castles of commerce become also inescapably grey.

It seems few places are free of deterrents to those who might intrude on the private spaces of the unseen inhabitants of the area known as the Isle of Dogs. Gates are barred; they are unlocked only with electronic devices. Private security is in residence or patrols the perimeters. CTV cameras record every movement. At the entrance to Canary Wharf police have a permanent presence. No vehicle gets in or out of here without their inspection. No-one can walk into the office buildings here without either a pass, or a challenge to their presence.

As I stroll in the grey wind along the Thames Path to Canary Wharf, I see a man with a striking resemblance to David Bowie jogging past. South Korean au pairs push prams over the pavement and plead with precocious four year-olds in their care to behave themselves.

I am coming to the end of my stay here.

James and Mia have generously donated the use of their futon for the purpose of my sleeping pleasure, for the last 6 weeks. James is leaving his job at the investment bank, for self-employment adventure land, and I am invited to tag along for celebratory drinks. My recent discovery of the pleasures of sobriety has lead to a full recovery of my liver from the spanking it took in the first 3 weeks here. London beers are Big! I can attest to that, and to the ease with which, in the company of other fellow inebriates, they can disappear down your gullet.

I am asked several times for my opinion of London. I am delighted each time as Wayne jumps into the conversation, pre-empting my reply with “He hates London, He thinks it’s shit!” and letting me off the hook. Philip has perhaps the final word for the evening when he says “sick of London, sick of Life”.

But London is so multi-faceted and richly diverse, it’s not my place, nor do I have the authority to pass judgement on the second largest city in Europe and the world’s largest financial centre behind New York.

The day before I leave I take the tube to Maida Vale in West London to visit my friends Dominic and Angela, fellow Australians who have made London their home, and who have just had their first child, Isabella. I am an hour late; I still haven’t mastered the topography of London. It’s a different world here. The streets are wide and bright and there are white house’s which all boast 12 foot high entrance doors, Grecian porticos and bay windows. Large green plane trees give the feeling of an almost park-like setting, and then there are the expensive European cars. The sun seems to shine a little brighter this side of town.

My friend, the intrepid English Polar adventurer Tim Jarvis and his wife Liz, have moved their family from London to Adelaide, and they have just had their second child, Jack, in Australia. You can check Tim’s exploits out at http://www.timjarvis.org

Is there a universal balancing force at work here?

London has more visitors than any other city, according to Wikipedia. They come to see the great houses of the Royalty; their churches, their parks, their castles, and their jewels to somehow make a connection to the sanitised but still bloody stories that History Masters have imbued to school boys and girls throughout the former British Empire.

But to ignore the reality of the plundering and the misery wrought on those who were weaker in strength and knowledge by their British colonial masters would be the perpetuation of a romantic falsehood. The Royal jewels come from throughout the former Empire, but mainly India and South Africa. The tributes paid to the Caesars that sat the English throne were immense. Gold, silver, and the profits from far-off lands and spices and slaves were all repatriated back to this city and are still clearly visible. The Elgin Marbles lie in London still, despite requests from their true Greek owners to return them to their Parthenon home.

And the Great city has seen better times. The British economy is weak, some would say dangerously so. Unemployment is high, and the Bank of England continues to print pounds to prop up and stimulate business activity. Whether it has worked or will work is a question not yet answered. But hard times have predicated a rise in nationalism, and a more inward looking Britain than the model of tolerance we have previously seen. Immigration numbers have been slashed, and working visas are extremely difficult to obtain, for any non-EU citizen. This is the new trend throughout Europe; those they brought in to perform cheap labour in the boom times are now surplus to their needs; the jobs have disappeared but the immigrants are still there.

I wonder if Australia will take heed.

But London is a survivor if nothing else. Fires and plagues and bombing blitzes, booms and busts, Royal, Political and Premier League infidelities, and the rise and fall of pop and movie stars; London has seen it all.

For me it has been an enjoyable 5 weeks. Reconnecting with Kate and Wayne. Meeting Antony and the Mensa club that make up the Investment Bank Quant team, and the Teachers who were such great fun. Nick Harper was an absolute highlight, and all the other music and shows I saw. I had seen all of the touristy attractions on a previous visit, so I was spared the agony of tramping around London with a camera again.

So, here’s the East London scorecard for a potential home;

Environment (natural and un-natural) 4 (out of 10)

Food (pretty average really in taste, freshness, healthiness) 4

Social (friendliness, helpfulness, welcoming, social opportunities) 8

Security (trustworthy, physical safety) 4

Weather (sorry) 3

Accommodation (quality, comfort, cost) 5

Value for Money (living costs, entertainment) 6

Visa (availability and cost) 7

Total 41/80 51%

Now, I know I will cop some flak over this (except for the weather, that is), however, I would contend that when you stay in a place for an extended period, you adapt to a new norm. New eyes see things a little differently; they don’t have the same emotional attachment, nor do they feel the need to defend or justify their reasons for living there. Obviously, career opportunities are not on my list, and this is a big one for most. Currently, as an Australian citizen, I get an automatic 6 months tourist visa. It would then be easy to skip out and back in again and renew this.

So, I leave London behind and leave for the great unknown of Morocco. Wimbledon is just beginning and it looks like the weather is finally coming good.......pity.

It would be amiss of me if I did not make mention of Paige. Paige is the15 year-old daughter of my good friend back in Adelaide, Trish. Paige was diagnosed with a particularly nasty Lymphoma one week before I left on this trip. I have been getting regular updates and it is so great to hear that she is doing well, and things are looking particularly positive for her. So, I know Paige, many good wishes are headed your way, and we all hope you are completely recovered soon, and back to your normal life.

Now, off to Marrakesh!

Rumble on the Night Bus and other Scary Stories; London June 2011

2011-07-02T10:59:00.000-07:00

An awareness of things potentially sinister began to creep into me from day one in London.

Not that I thought London was a bad place, but there seemed to be an undercurrent of angst and violence amongst particularly the youths and young men I crossed paths with on a daily basis around East London.

I experienced several incidences of “chicken”; a kind of brinkmanship game on the streets, where, usually 3 young men, often hooded, headed head-to-head with me on the pavement. They would deliberately try to test me, and see if I would be the one to step out onto the road.

Often someone would spit on the ground just in front of me, as if to provoke a reaction; another test.

I had come across this spitting behaviour, when, as a teenager in the mid 1970’s, my school in Adelaide, South Australia, experienced a large influx of English immigrants. The boys sported skinhead haircuts and baggy jeans, things which we had never seen or heard of. We were sport crazy not girl crazy. Lunchtimes were cricket and AFL football matches, and sometimes basketball and tennis. The English boys introduced what we called soccer; the round ball game. We all thought it was a bit of a game for girls as there was a distinct lack of rough and tumble. Our games would often involve fights between competitors over some rules dispute or over-rough tackle. But things usually sorted themselves out quickly; boys would pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and get back into the game as young warriors do.

The other boys that were new; the Poles, the Hungarians, the Greeks and Italians, the Dutch and the Latvians all joined in and became one with us. We didn’t see them as different.

But there was something different about these English boys.

They seemed to mooch around like lost souls; many had what I would call a “chip on the shoulder”. They were quick to anger over things which we were unaware of, and seemed to hold a grudge forever. Many struggled in the classroom and were unable to bring themselves up to the standard to which most of us had been schooled.

But I couldn’t blame them.

I wondered what it would be like to be ripped out of your school, your home, your environment. To come from a place of cobble-stone streets, gun-metal grey skies and coal mines; to have to start all over again in a foreign land with no friends.

But I couldn’t understand the spitting.

At every opportunity, these lost boys would spit on the ground. Not great gobs of mucus or saliva. They had it down to a fine art. They were accurate and could have probably hit a pin-head at 3 metres. But it was an anathema to us. It was dirty and distasteful.

Fortunately, they grew out of it. The sunshine and the air and the beach in summer were stronger than their ties to their former life. They lost their accents and they changed their hairstyles; girls didn’t like their look. Some became surfers or footy players. Some went to University. Some went home to England and felt lost again, and came back to Australia and stayed forever.

We met Eddy and his friend Edwina at St Pauls Cathedral one Sunday. As usual, it was English summer cool, and the wind off the Thames was living up to its reputation as a natural refrigerant. We parted ways at Southbank, and Team KW and I headed off to another destination. We were walking down the street. There was a young man walking with his girlfriend slowly ahead. He wore his jeans so very low, and I was moved by how proud he seemed to be of his underwear; perhaps Calvin Kline was actually his name. Wayne, being taller than Kate and I combined, turned back to me, and, over Kate’s head said “Neither of us thought...” he was suddenly cut off by the pants man;

“wot the fuck did you just say...wot did you say..did you say wot I fink you said”

We were stunned. My radar went off and I was on high alert status. Calvin’s girlfriend was trying to pull him back, and he was fully in-Klined to fight Wayne. He was a little taller than me, he was fit, and some sixth-sense told me he was dangerous. Wayne repeated the word “neither” in his Australian accent and Calvin reduced himself to a poncy, chest-puffing show-off. It was a lucky non-encounter, I felt.

One sunny afternoon, when the team are at work, I walk to the local Tesco supermarket. I buy some things and stand at the pedestrian lights waiting to cross. An attractive, young , coloured lady stands next to me. A car slows right down and six brown youths hang out of the rust-bucket’s windows and bawl and bellow disgusting insults and suggestions at the young woman. They drive off only because the traffic forces them to. The young lady is stony faced, like nothing has happened. The lights change and she quickly walks across the road. I follow, and as I come around a corner near Limehouse Station there is a black man face down on the concrete slab. There is blood on the concrete and blood on his face. He struggles to his feet. He is perhaps twenty years old. He staggers off the footpath and straight into oncoming traffic that aren’t going to stop; this isn’t Holland. So I lurch for him and pull him back just in time. I manoeuvre him across to a fence and prop him against it. His pupils are dilated and he is going in and out of consciousness. An Indian couple have called the ambulance, and we wait and I hold him straight, till they arrive and we can leave him in their care.

Some weeks later, having just begun recovering from my London ‘flu, Kate invites me out for Friday night drinks at Brick Lane, with her buddies from Barking Abbey School, where she taught for a term, and who have now offered her a permanent job. Wayne comes along, bringing Richard and Antony from work, and everyone settles in for a good night of drinking, laughing, and playing practical jokes.

Except me.

The size of English beers and my weakened state of health result in a decision to only have 1 small beer. I find it enjoyable and enlightening, as everyone else gets hammered and I stay sober.

I chat to Roxanne, who is leaving teaching to complete a PHD, and who won’t go back to her home country of Iran because, in her words “I would become a second class citizen”.

Jim is a rough-around-the-edges socialist archetype. “I feel like I should buy ya a beer, but I’m skint” he offers. Someone tells me he’s a French teacher, “I’m not, I’m an Englishman who teaches French”. He’s for the union and workers revolution, he rides his push-bike everywhere, and has a kind of open house format where he lives, with people coming and going as they like. He’s a character, scruffy in the way of benign self-neglect, and a genuinely funny guy that I warm to.

Toni is an Art Teacher from New Zealand. She wears her black Docs, her black stockings with black short skirt and long black hair cut in a fringe, with attitude. She’s a free spirit, riotous, raucous and ribald. She is two years away from the coveted UK Resident certificate. This is where she wants to be.

We repair to one of the many Indian Restaurants that line Brick Lane. When you walk this street you run the gauntlet of the touts who try to entice customers inside their establishments with offers of “25% off the bill and 3 free rounds of drinks” or “35% off the bill and one free round of drinks; you can choose anything on the menu”. That is, as long as it’s not the King Prawns!

Jim orders a black tea, in a futile attempt to sober up. He dozes off, and awakes from the petit power nap to claim a glass of red wine as his free drink; “no sir, sorry sir, but you have already had your free drink”. Tea is obviously very expensive here!

It’s midnight. Everyone goes home. Wayne, Antony and Richard want to kick on. This means we miss the tube again, but what the hell, you only live once!

We take a damp walk to the end of the street; yes it’s raining again! We enter a small, packed club with red lighting. The boys have another beer. Anthony has an intelligent discussion with me about electronic music, and informs me of the Berlin scene. He looks sober, the other two are falling asleep on their feet.

So, Team KW and I trudge again through the misty rain to the bus stop, and wait, along with other early morning revellers for our double-decker rescuer to arrive.

We sit on the top deck with thirty or so others, all in their own state of Friday night trance. The young man next to me is asleep with his earphones still blasting away. They say you only really become a Londoner when you have slept through your stop, and awaken some hours later at the end of the line, as the sky begins to light up with the new day.

Wayne and Kate sat together down the back; I could see Wayne was asleep already. A girl behind me began talking to another girl across the aisle from her. I had noticed them at the bus stop. A young man behind them joined in the conversation, it was not English. To diminish my boredom, I tried to pick the language. Italian, yes. And now, Spanish? Two men in their early to mid-twenties emerged from the stairway. One looked Arabic, fit, maybe 5’10”; the other was big but rangy in build; about 6’7”, and black in an African or Caribbean way. The black man sat directly across the aisle from me; the other sat behind. They both began talking in Spanish to the girl behind me. Everything seemed perfectly normal, in a sleepy, night bus kind of way.

In a moment though, everything changed.

I couldn’t see him but I heard the Arabic man speed up his speech, switch from Spanish to English to Arabic and start yelling “puta, puta”. I heard him get out of his seat. I turned and saw him approach the girl behind me. She was cringing and holding herself in the way that you might if you expected to be hit.

The black man across the aisle put his hand on me “stay out of this, it’s ok, I’m his backup”

The Arabic raised his open hand, as if to slap her. He was yelling at her, she was whimpering “no, no”. A young Chinese looking guy about the same age in the seat behind the girl stood and said “you can’t do this to her!”

The not-so-dynamic-duo turned their attention to him. The Black got in his face and slapped his face. The Arab was making a right-handed fist and I could see exactly how this was going to go. The two had him trapped against the window and were going to smash him. The guy next to me was still pretending to be asleep. Mayhem broke loose, the other girl was screaming. I went over the top of the first girl and put my hands on the Black’s arms and began pulling them back.

“Stay out of this it’s not your business”

“You need to leave him alone, I can’t let you do this”

He was looking at me, I was looking at him. We are all pressed together with the Arab trying to get a hold on the Chinese and the Chinese struggling. The girl is somewhere beneath us and frozen in her seat. There are screams and shouts and I feel the bus come to a halt.

Then I’m being dragged backwards. Kate and Wayne have grabbed me, and, quite rightly are trying to get me out of here “Dad, don’t get involved, let’s get off the bus, come on!”

But I can’t come on or off. I can’t let this go. I can see the Duo have taken heart from my temporary absence, and are getting ready to do some serious pounding.

So I break free, and somehow, it is not clear to me now, I get the Black out of the way and grab the Arab. I have the feeling he is probably very right-sided, so I pin his right arm so he can’t use it. With my other arm I grab his jacket and start trying to pull him away. He struggles. I start talking in his ear, “Come-on you have to get off the bus”

“No, I want to talk to heem, I want heem to come outside with me”

“No, I can’t let you do that, you know you have to get off, the police are coming, you don’t want to get caught”

He struggles but I have him; I run monotone hypnotic language patterns into his ear. I feel his strength diminishing and I am able to pull him away and start moving him, backwards, towards the stairs and out of the bus. In the heat of it all I shout at the other girl “get her out of here now!” She gathers her still cowering friend and they leave.

I am in some kind of a zone. I feel no fear, no emotion only clarity. For 3 seconds I consciously contemplate twisting the Arab’s arm into an arm lock, and with my left arm locking his neck and then dragging him backwards. It’s a dilemma. I know I will up the stakes. Violence begets violence. But I am getting somewhere with him. So I just keep pouring the words into his unconscious mind.

The Arab still yells abuse at the Chinese but it is less convincing. I tell him I want him to get off the bus so that he doesn’t get into trouble. The Black is looking at me from the back of the bus, he doesn’t understand what is going on, but he still looks dangerous.

Just then I feel someone come over the top of me, and Wayne punches the Arab in the chest. It’s perfect timing.

The Arab fires up at Wayne, Wayne yells in his best Australian “If you fucking touch that man I’ll kill you”.

I still have the Arab in a hold.

Kate is screaming for someone to call the police.

I see the fire go out in the Black’s eyes, now we are three.

The Chinese has more courage now and yells abuse at the Arab. A Pakistani man begins to hurl abuse at the Arab.

I say to the bus in general “come on every-one if we all work together here we can stop this” but I get only groans and disinterest. One well-built Englishman stands up and says “please stop this, we all just want to go home” to the duo and sits down. It’s not much, but it’s something.

The Arab makes a last attempt to rush the Chinese, but I manage to get hold of him again and this time forcefully pull him backwards, all the way to the top of the stairs. I’ve really had enough of this now and am struggling to keep my own violence under control.

The bus has been stopped about 20 minutes I think; no sign of any police. The bus driver has been up three times but won’t get involved. I keep repeating the mantra into the Arab’s ear “we have to get you off the bus, you know you have to get off the bus now before the police come”.

The girls have long fled.

I get him on the stairs. The Black is already there. Control the General and you control the Soldier.

The Arab turns to me. We have built a strange rapport in the time I have had his body in my control. With obvious emotion he says “you know, you are the only good person on this bus”. The irony of this escapes me in the moment. Now, I just really want hurt him, and fear I will, if he makes one more move.

But, with a spit from behind the protective wall of the stairs, he hurls a final torrent of abuse at the Pakistani in a face-saving attempt, and smashes his plastic coke bottle against the rails, showering those in the front seats with a mixture of cheap rum and cola.

Then they are gone.

Wayne and I run down the stairs and check the lower level. Yes, they really have gone. We tell the bus driver and he starts the bus again.

Back upstairs is an eerie silence. I feel like I’m in a void or a vacuum. I just feel empty. I go back to the Chinese and put my hand on his shoulder ; ”you showed real courage there, you should be proud” I tell him. But he is in a kind of shocked state now, and emotional. He just stares and says nothing. You often only realise how dangerous a situation really was after the fact. I look back at my fellow passengers sitting in their seats. They avoid my eyes and look down. I feel ashamed for them. I am twice their age, my youth is long gone. They just would have let it happen to the girl, to the Chinese. The Englishman says simply “thankyou”. That’s all that is said.

Team KW and I alight one stop past ours. There is concern the Duo may still be lurking somewhere. Kate brings up the proliferation of knife fights in London. The adrenaline still courses through my veins and I am feeling particularly antsy.

We get home. Kate goes to bed. Wayne and I stand around the dining table, leaning against the wall, drinking endless glasses of water, and going over and over it, debriefing the way men do after a battle. We share our thoughts and speak of the nuances and the drama of what we have just been through.

When I finally go to bed, the light is seeping through the curtains, and I sleep fitfully and dream of devils, and armies of children being marched through mist into ovens.

Caught in-between Nick Harper and Dave Graney and other Tricks of the Mind, London June 2011

2011-06-30T04:35:00.000-07:00

Unless you’ve been asleep somewhere for the last century, you’d know that London is probably the pre-eminent centre for music, arts, fashion, and entertainment in the Western world. Yes, I know you scream, what about Milan for Fashion, New York for Broadway, LA for film, Paris for art? But, London has everything, it may not be at the top of each art discipline, but I would put it forward as the centre that is the best of all things.

For me though, you can have your Art Galleries, your Philharmonic concert halls, your Grande Ballet pavilions, your Opera houses, and your “walking coat-hanger” Cat Walks....Rock Music is my thing!

And London has been the place for popular music for over 50 years. This town has an appreciation for talent and has given birth or life to most of the greatest sounds heard on the airwaves. Jimi Hendrix was a nobody in the USA, and London embraced him, gave him a band, a manager, and immortality. The Beatles, the Stones, Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd, The Clash, Radiohead and countless others( who do deserve to be named, but I don’t have the space, but, ok then two of my all-time favourites; Yes and King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer...ok, so that’s three!).

London is like a melting pot of sounds and possibilities. So much of this music comes from the North and the West of the country, but it all seems to gravitate to London eventually. This is where the money and the people, the venues, and the influential rock magazines all co-exist and together create “the scene”.

So, it was with great expectations that I arrived back in London, and, on a cool Sunday night in Camden with Team KW in tow, saw Nick Harper, a singer-songwriter, acoustic guitar genius, and innovator; I had discovered him in a round-about way some years ago. His father, Roy Harper, is an absolute legend in this country. It is coming up to his 70^th Birthday this year and he has sold out the Royal Albert Hall in advance for the occasion. Roy sang the lead on Pink Floyd’s “Have a Cigar”; the only time (to my knowledge) that Dave Gilmour didn’t on a Floyd song ( and I know you are going to say “Great Gig in the Sky”, but that doesn’t count for obvious reasons!). Nick grew up with the likes of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd members popping around for tea and scones, and many of the greats of this time played on Dad’s albums for free under assumed names to avoid contractual obligations; such is the esteem Roy Harper is held in.

Nick has trodden his own path, and developed his own style and his own following. He is a guitarist’s guitarist, and has developed a unique tuning/re-tuning technique during songs, refitting his guitar with banjo string winders with stops. His music moves from traditional folk influences to rock and classical; Frank Zappa to Elvis and Led Zeppelin. He is a joker, a communicator and a bit of a showman when he’s on stage. He takes the stage tonight and has the audience in fits immediately as he teases a woman about her need for a “bum cushion” to get through the show. I’m hoping he breaks a guitar string; I’ve seen footage of him breaking a string, and changing and retuning it without missing a beat during a song. He does, but its right at the end of a song and we miss out. The people standing behind us are waiting to see the same thing, so we all swap stories about Nick’s antics when he takes a break and Kate brings back more beer.

He runs through the songs familiar to most of the sold out crowd: Two Way Thing, Aeroplane, and Blood Song. He does the “Guitar Man”,” Whole Lotta Love” combo, complete with screams and heavy, distorted guitar....not bad for a solo, acoustic performer. So, Nick rocks the house, finishes to a standing ovation, and the gig ends. I am determined to meet him; why, I’ve come from Australia just to see him for Christ’s sake, and I’ve set my guitar up the same as his.

We wait as everyone files out. Some stop to buy CD’s or enquire after Roy’s health, and eventually I get to meet him. Nick is as congenial as he looks, and before you know it we’ve missed the last train home, our conversation goes on for so long. We really hit it off, Kate takes a few photos of us together, and he hits me with a bombshell. “Do you know Dave Graney? I think I’m his biggest fan”.

What? The Rock-Noir comedic, smooth singer from my home state, South Australia. Well, yeah, I know him, or of him; in fact, I said hello to him last year when he played a gig in Adelaide, so does that qualify?

The man from Harper-Space has a dream; to go on tour with Dave Graney around Australia. Dave Graney was massive in Australia in the mid-90’s. He had a big hit with “Rock and Roll is where I Hide” and Nick intersperses our conversation with quotes from Dave’s songs.....”my shtick is bigger than your shtick”, “an undercover man, maybe a spy”. Things are getting spooky for me, I wonder if this guy is possessed by a misunderstood Demon- from-Downunder. He asks me with a hoarse whisper before we go “could you contact Dave Graney for me”?

So I chased Dave Graney down. He has a web-site but no email. He has no manager or phone number. But I found his Blog. And I wrote on it, you know, in the comments section. Dave Graney probably thinks it’s a deranged former Spice Girls fan who got lost and mistook him for David Beckham (you’d have to have eyesight problems as well). But Dave Graney..you’re on notice!

Two nights later, the Team drag me along to The Roundhouse, to see indie-pop band Belle and Sebastian. I admit I wasn’t all that enthusiastic, but the crowd and the love and happiness they exuded enveloped me, and overwhelmed my BS state-of-denial. I admit it, I think I fell in love with Belle and Sebastian that Tuesday night, that is, until I found out their names are Stuart and Stuart and they are from Glasgow, not Provence.

A late drink, a Byron Burger, and home to bed.

I wake up the next morning in a pool of sweat, and spend the next two weeks trying to recover from a bout of very strange ‘flu. Just a raging temperature, and the feeling a wire brush has torn out half my lungs and larynx. At least this gives my liver some time to recover.

It’s freezing in London and I’m sick. So, I play a trick of the mind on Team KW and introduce them to Derren Brown. I show them replays of his shows until they are hooked and hypnotised and guess what? Derren Brown has a live show at the Shaftsbury theatre while I am here! The magician, misdirectionist, author, showman, artist and skeptic is not all that well known outside of the UK, but he’s a big crowd puller in London, and I’m a big fan.

Derren doesn’t disappoint. He has the audience write down their most embarrassing secret, and randomly draws some from a bowl. He scans the audience after reading the secret out and is able to pick out the young lady who has” sexy dreams about animals” much to the audiences delight. He randomly hypnotises, reads body language and inner thoughts. Kate is having an anxiety attack thinking she may be called on stage after Wayne and I tell her we have written her secret and sent it to the front whilst she has gone to the toilet . But it’s all a tease, poor Kate!

It’s coming to the end of my London sojourn, and we catch the train to Leeds. It’s a Saturday night and Nick Harper has put tickets on the door for us at his Headingly Stadium gig. There’s more space here, and people seem a lot more relaxed than London. There is far less ethnicity apparent, but when we to go a local pub for dinner, the food is very average and we are accosted by a roly-poly bumble-bee and an ostrich; and a host of Oompa-Loompas, superwomen, and spidermen seemingly all with muffin tops. It’s an annual pub crawl for the Leeds Saturday night faithful the bumble-bee informs us; after apologising for looking at us-we must really look out of place here!

16 pubs in one night with a double shot or 2 drinks at each swilling station. They are about half-way there when we happen upon them, both in pubs and blood alcohol levels, and I can see the penultimate pub, the aptly named “Dry Dock” will literally be pouring punters out on to the streets at closing time.

We head down to the gig, the crowd is light tonight, it seems all of Leeds are out with the Oopa-Lumpas tonight. We say hi to Nick and have a chat before the show. Tonight is cosier and more intimate, he knows just about everyone by name, and he plays a couple of my requests, in particular “Like a Vampire”. It’s a great show, I don’t think this guy would ever disappoint. He plays Dave Graney’s “Rock and Roll is Where I Hide” as his closing encore song. We chat for a while after the gig, and the promoter shares stories of other UK rock legends that he has worked with. It seems Ian Hunter, of 70’s band Mott the Hoople and a massive solo career, has finally hit the jackpot after being out in the music and financial wilderness for 30 years. Barry Manilow recorded his song “Ships” on a very early album nearly 40 years ago, before he was really known. Everyone has forgotten about it except Barry, who has included it on his recently released “Greatest Hits” album. The album sold something like 5 million copies in the first week of release giving Ian Hunter his greatest success at the ripe old age of 72. It just goes to show, persistence pays off, well, eventually.

And it’s never too late.

A quick trip to York the next day, then back to London on the train. My time here is almost done, but I must finish by saying;

Do yourself a favour and check out Nick Harper; www.harperspace.com

And Dave Graney, if I don’t hear from you, Derren Brown will hypnotise you from this side of the world, and you may awaken to find yourself doing the chicken dance onstage at your next gig!

Dunker Wel Den Haag! June 1st 2011

2011-06-26T07:55:00.000-07:00

The next 5 days go by fast in a swirl of activity.

We visit Delft, a quaint old-worldy Dutch town, kept in the traditions of the 1500’s when, going by the dates on the bridges over the canals, it was built. Cobblestones, twisted, leaning renaissance houses and towers and magnificent church architecture; all on a day when the sun shines brightly enough to make you believe that Holland will have a summer this year!

Eddy takes me back to Sheveningen Beach to meet his friends, Lenny and Ramon, at Ramon’s house.

Lenny is a trainee pilot, who hopes to get a job with an airline in the next year. He and Eddy grew up together, and they recall nostalgically some of their adolescent exploits.

Ramon has studied in Australia, works in film production and editing, and relates his surfing experience at idyllic Byron Bay on Australia’s east coast. New to the sport, and not feeling well the morning after an Aussie drinking session, he paddles out not realising that the surf is huge, and soon is swept dangerously close to rocks and a bleak end. So, with great determination he uses the last of his strength to paddle out to sea, and sits there in peace, trying to pull himself back together again before another paddling attempt to shore and safety. Pretty soon though, the coastline begins to fade into the distance as the currents push him further and further out into the Pacific Ocean; next stop South America if you miss Fiji! Luckily, someone had raised the alarm, and a Coast Watch light plane sights him, buzzes him and guides a rescue boat to him, where he is gratefully taken on board.

The afternoon is dying quickly and, with a clear sky, the temperature drops to freezing. That is, for me, the other guys are sitting around in t-shirts. They are talking of going to Woosers, a nightclub on the beach. I can only think of a snow party, it’s that cold. So we walk to the beach; it’s deserted and it’s colder with another of those North Sea breezes that turns a man’s genitals blue, if you can still find them! But no, the boys insist we need to march on, and we do, down onto the beach and a concrete walkway; we go past the bars and restaurants that are hastily put up along the beach to take advantage of the brief summer. It is dark and if it’s possible, it gets colder. The beach is deserted and I’m beginning to wonder if Lenny and Ramon are planning to murder Eddy and I, it’s the perfect setting. But Lenny is a funny guy, he jokes and fools around and unbelievably, after 20 minutes of walking we come to Woosers; it’s packed and pumping, the drum and bass reverberating the timber and glass structure. It’s warmer inside but even the Dutch feel this cold and keep their coats on till they heat up with the energy the bodies in this place release. So we drink beer, jig around, take turns in silly dancing competitions, try flirting with the Dutch ice queens and have a bloody good time. All things come to an end, however, and we find ourselves, at 2am, ordering patats (french fries) with curry sauce and mayonnaise from a man who looks like a brown Sumo wrestler. Work the next day is not looking so good for our beach party hosts.

Most days I travel by bus to the library in the city centre to write, do some day trading, and get internet access. The library is large and extensive, with books and resources on many subjects in several languages. Almost everyone in Holland is multi-lingual, and they speak English well. The edges of the library rooms have single desks, for private study, and this is where mainly Muslim students, young men and women, come to interact with those of the opposite sex. It is a place away from prying eyes, no parents or brothers to enforce the strict protocol that these girls are forced to live with. They wear minimal habibs or none at all. At almost every desk there is a boy and a girl of the same culture furtively holding hands and lovelornly staring into each other’s eyes. It is very cute to witness this, but I realise the how little freedom these young women have when I overhear one say to her boy, “careful, do not leave any marks on my wrists, my mother will check them”. I am filled with a kind of hope, that this generation is taking the first steps towards a freer, more accepting version of their belief system; one that may benefit their children and others. Holland has had some trouble with extremists; a politician and a film director were both murdered for speaking out against certain religious practices. Unfortunately, it is one of the most pressing issues of this time in Europe, and France has recently moved to ban the burqa entirely in public.

Den Haag has the feel of a place I could easily slip into and lose myself in. The people are friendly but reserved, and they are extremely tolerant with a laid-back nature. Most days I run in the beech forest that surrounds the Queens residence. It is the oldest forest in Holland, but it still has the feel of something created by man, such is the Dutch penchant for remaking the landscape. The soft trails wind past small lakes, and bridges cross canals as locals walk their dogs and themselves through this enchanting forest.

I am invited to a going away party held for Eddy at his sister’s house. There I meet the Filipino side of his family, his mother and sister, and all the aunts and uncles and cousins. It is an amusing and raucous occasion, with Uncle Lito playing the clown and an amazing array of traditional Filipino food on offer. Eddy’s sister is heavily pregnant, and trades ribald jokes with the best of the men. I am touched by the hospitality that these people show to me; their offers to stay with them should I return here, which after 8 days I am already feeling nostalgic about. I thank them all, and we take our leave and go into Den Haag again, it is my last night and Eddy feels we should finish with a couple of quiet drinks and then home, as I have an early flight to catch. At around 4.30am we stagger into the flat at Mariahoven. Eddy’s insistence that I chat to the group of women from the small village near Utrecht that have come for a weekend to “celebrate life” has dragged on far too long. They and the Dutch beer take their toll, and, 2 hours later I am up and ready to take the train back to Amsterdam and the flight back to London.

I have really enjoyed Den Haag, thanks to Eddy and Thor, Lenny, Ramon, Eddy’s family, the girls at the Arts Centre cafe and so many others. I will return here; but I feel 8 days doesn’t qualify this laid-back city as a “home” in my scheme of things. So, it’s back to London to finish off my experience there.

Sunday Morning- Den Haag

2011-06-24T10:23:00.000-07:00

I need a converter.

You know, something to plug your foreign plug into that then plugs into a local electrical socket. My lap-top, phone and MP3 play were all dead or dying and, if I couldn't recharge them I would lose contact with the outside world.

I made my way into Den Haag as people had told me I would find a converter there. But the shops did not open till 12. So I strode across the square to seek shelter out of the cold. I was not dressed for the weather and felt out of place in the chill wind that came from somewhere in the North Sea and had made its way into Den Haag like the Germans must have when they swept all before them in the blitzkrieg invasion of 1940.

The cafe’s lived inside the shopfronts surrounding the square. The tables and chairs that filled the square were empty of people and even birds this Sunday morning. I sought shelter out of the cold inside a Bier Huis and ordered cafe au lait. Women in groups told their stories to each other before they manned the department store counters. Well-dressed and beautiful to my eyes, they talked the way women do everywhere; debriefing, repairing bruised hearts and souls, rejoicing in some small, sweet gesture or milestone or plan, and offering sisterly support and sympathy. They talked and gestured and smiled; dabbed an eye, then laughed raucously- this world that men can never understand or enter, the mysterious covens that have been suspiciously and enviously viewed by outsiders and given rise to dark rumours of spells and poisoned potions and witchcraft by those who could not join or understand them.

Men sat mainly alone; some read papers, novels, or just stared blankly, lost in some reverie, drinking their coffee, waiting for 12 when their day would begin.

I thought of someone I had been close to, and wondered if she was at the Sunday markets with her trolley picking out bunches of herbs and flowers in a place where the weather was kinder than this place. But that was half a world away, and deep into the night, and wondering what may or may not be was a melancholy, useless exercise.

The women were all talked out and left in unison as if a signal had been given.

The sun shone through the leadlight windows illuminating the brown brick walls and grey cobblestones of the interior, and promised a better day.

A young waitress with a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder brought me more coffee and said “there you go” in perfect English, sensing I was not from here.

The next shifts of women were arriving. I finished my coffee and left the Bier Huis for the electrical store, to get myself reconnected to the world.

8 Daze in Den Haag, Holland May 2011

2011-06-24T08:28:00.000-07:00

Eddy is a true citizen of the world.

The product of Dutch and Filipino parentage, he was born in Singapore, spent his early years in Australia, moved to the USA, then spent his teenage years in Holland with regular sojourns in the Philippines; and then another move, back to Australia in his early twenties ,where he now lives in Sydney.

It is there that he met my wandering sons, Chris and Jon, who, after spending far too much time in Byron Bay surfing and contemplating their navels, decided a job in Sydney may just alleviate their cash-flow problems .Eddy became good friends with them, and I have had the pleasure of knowing him for several years now.

By chance, Eddy happens to be in London, and we meet up. He offers me a place to stay in The Hague, his home town; his mother has an empty flat. So, on a Friday evening in May, myself and Team KW (Kate and Wayne) take the train to Stanstead Airport and fly into Amsterdam Schipol Airport. We take the Sneltrain (fast train) to Den Haag; about 30 minutes.

“God made the Earth, the Dutch made Holland”, so goes the Netherland proverb. The flattest and lowest country on earth slips past the train in unending manicured lines of trees, hedges and fields. There are no wild places here, and I doubt there is one square meter of earth not touched by human hand.

Eddy greets us at the train station and we hop on a tram to Mariahoven where I will base myself for the next 8 days. Everything is well ordered here. The streets are straight lines crossing at right angles. Cycle lanes are everywhere, in fact your are not considered Dutch unless you own a deadly treadly; cars must give way to cycles, although the Dutch are such gentle drivers I hardly imagine there are too many collisions. Public transport will take you everywhere here; bus, tram or train you are never more than 2 or 3 minutes walk from a stop or a station.

We take a bus to Den Haag Central. The night is cold and there are few people on the streets of this city of half a million. A university city, it is also the seat of Government for Holland, the home of the International Court of Justice, oh, and the Queen lives here too!

Eddy takes us through winding cobblestone streets of renaissance and baroque shops with living quarters above them. We come to Cremers, a cafe’ in the true Dutch sense. Here they will serve you a herbal tea, or a beer or something stronger should the mood take you. But everyone is here for the weed or the hash, which comes in various quantities and qualities. It is a jovial place in a truly laid back way. But, they are health conscious here, smoking cigarettes is not allowed, you have to go outside to smoke, past the retail shop which sells sweet dreams to passers by.

After sampling the local product, we make our way to a number of small bars and clubs. Time seems to stand still. Much Dutch beer is drunk and all of a sudden it’s 3am and time for sleeping.

Next day we take a tram to the beach. I eat pickled herring with raw onion and broodjes with smoked salmon and remoulade sauce. Bon Appetit! It’s a beautiful day, the best I’ve had in Europe so far. We sample the sand and more food and head back to Den Haag. Team KW leave me and head off to Amsterdam. They have to be back in London for work on Monday so they leave me to my own devices. I run to a local supermarket pick up some food and milk, and jog back to eat and sleep and recover from the last 2 nights.

All is quiet and still apart from the occasional empty Saturday night bus which cruises by. I crash out and dream of pickled herrings and broodjes and giant spliffs that go to work in suits.

London Calling May 8th to 21st 2011

2011-06-22T07:15:00.000-07:00

Eleven and a half hours flying time from Bangkok sees me in Heathrow Airport retrieving my bag from the wrong baggage carousel....I think we are destined to be apart!

Navigating the London Tube system when a little lagged and disorientated at 7am is a fun way to start the day. Fortunately, I make it to Holborn station where Kate and Wayne are waiting for me, and they help me carry my stuff through a few more tunnels and up and down several hundred stairs and voila! I have arrived at their place at Limehouse, The Isle of Dogs, East London.

I haven’t seen my Daughter for 14 months, and it’s really great to be here, I’ve missed her. Wayne and I have been good friends for a long time now, and it’s good to see him again and catch up with their lives. They live in a 1 bedroom apartment that fronts the Limehouse Basin, a safe harbour off the Thames, with a lock system to that leads into Regents Canal. It’s a picturesque outlook from their window, with moored yachts that double as homes for many owners.

Wayne has scored a great job with an investment bank as a quantitative analyst, and Kate has been sought after as a teacher at various schools, and has just been offered a permanent job; but they need to secure a residents visa which is very difficult now, the new coalition government has turned protectionist and anti-immigration.

The mighty Thames lies nearby, and I am immediately taken by the power of the tidal surge. The tide is rising and the water is a labyrinth of cross currents and rips. Wayne says that people regularly try to swim across, but invariably drown due to the freezing water, the severe currents, and the fact that they are usually exceptionally drunk. There is a story in the news the week I arrive. A homeless Somalian refugee sees an English woman jump into the Thames attempting suicide. He takes his clothes off and leaves his bag with some meagre possessions on the wharf, and plunges into the icy torrent. He is a strong swimmer and manages to save the woman, who has changed her mind and now chooses life and a hot bath over a muddy grave. He is a hero, but someone has stolen his clothes and all his worldy possessions while he was risking his life in the swirling surge. The great Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe is in town to present him with the British Swimming Association’s “Swimmer of the Year” award. The former vagrant now has a flat, and the promise of a job as a lifeguard once he finishes the training course the BSA are putting him through.

Kate & Wayne take me to Brick Lane, a narrow street of wall-to-wall Indian restaurants, with a Sunday market scattered in alcoves and closed off streets. I am in culture shock here. The masses of people, are mainly young 20-35 something’s. This is a cool place to be seen. But I’m not used to the madding crowd and the constant sidestepping to avoid a human collision.

I am struck by the young men, who, in their struggle to assert their individuality, have ended up in the same uniform. They are soft, almost effeminate. They wear fake reading glasses with black frames, skinny black jeans tucked into Dock Martins, coiffed hair brushed to one side with a lot of height in the centre and held there (obviously) with spray or product. They then accessorize with scarf and bracelet, ring and necklet. They are soft spoken and soft looking: this is the “nerd look” and this is the “new thing”. I’m sure it will make its way somewhere from here.

I settle into a routine again. Kate & Wayne go off to work; I check the markets and keep up with family and friends. I shop, and I cook Thai food as I find the blandness of the British food like a depressant to my palate.

Nights are social. London has the greatest concentration of pubs and bars of any city in the world. They love to drink here and drink often. There is no drink driving problem here, only a drunken commuting problem. You can buy alcohol everywhere. The local “off-licence” general store, the supermarket, hell even the Mexican takeaway joint will sell you a Corona or pina colada to wash down your burrito. I tag along to works drink nights, friends drink nights and even go out on my own for a drink. In a place where space is at a premium, people are jammed and crammed together and stuck inside most of the time, because, frankly, the weather is terrible. It’s understandable that cabin fever is an epidemic here, and pubs, bars and clubs offer an escape.

We go to Favela Chic, a club in Shoreditch. It’s small, it’s packed, it’s Tuesday night. A couple of interesting bands play. I spot a middle aged guy at the bar dressed in just an apron, with a naked torso obvious. Kate thinks he’s come from the kitchen and I muse about food preparation laws in this country. But, no, next thing we know he’s on a podium playing air guitar and he’s let the apron fall down revealing a chest that needs a bit of work before the next Mr Olympia contest. He’s the DJ.

Charlotte is a patent attorney specialising in construction patents. I thought everything had been covered since the Greeks and Romans invented a building design that has rarely changed for 2000 years. She says of her job “it’s really boring”. She’s catching up with her friend Laura, who is a stage producer in the West End. I ask Charlotte if she is feeling ok, as she has massive black rings around her eyes and is noticeably unsteady on her feet. 5 minutes later she’s off to the toilet, and when she gets back she goes home. Laura gives it to her “oh, you are rubbish”. But she goes, and we stay and drink a bottle of Pinot Grigio in her honour.

I walk home along the Thames. A stiff, freezing wind pushes through me even though summer is about to begin. The lights reflect off the water with a cold beauty, and, in the distance I can see The City, where giant phalanx-like buildings thrust upwards into the sky in tribute to the Gods of Finance that have lured so many to this place. This country has been in financial trouble now for four years, and things really aren’t getting any better for most people. Financial power is moving from the West to the East. I wonder if the London has seen its halcyon days and an era is complete.

Tomorrow, I’m off to The Hague, Holland for 8 days.

Nai Harn Scorecard May 7th 2001

2011-06-19T16:28:00.000-07:00

Three weeks can go rather quickly when you are enjoying yourself.

During my stay at Nai Harn Beach I didn’t;

Miss one day swimming or body surfing at the beach

Eat any European food

Feel any need to leave this rather sleepy Thai village

The guys at the bar in Patong bet me 100 baht that I’d get bored and wouldn’t last a week in Nai Harn. I had to go back there before I left Thailand to pick up some shirts from a Burmese tailor and I collected the money from them.

As a potential home I would have to rate Nai Harn as follows;

Environment (the beach, the lake, the jungle the mountains) 8

Food (spicy, healthy, low fat, varied, extremely delicious and cheap) 9

Social (friendliness, helpfulness, welcoming, social opportunities) 8

Security (trustworthy, physical safety) 7.5

Weather 8

Accommodation (quality, comfort, cost) 8

Value for Money (living costs, entertainment) 7.5

Visa (availability and cost) 8

Total 64/80 82%

A pretty good scorecard!

I really did enjoy my stay here, leaving was not easy. I had made some good friends. I was always in a good frame of mind here, the attitude of the Thai people is infectious. There were always things to do or other places I could go if I felt like it. The scuba diving is amazing and cheap. Phuket is an hour from Singapore or Kuala Lumpur, and Air Asia has good inexpensive flights everywhere from here. With an exchange rate of 31 baht to the Aussie Dollar you can live quite well on a limited budget. The language is a difficult one, tonal in the way of other Asian tongues. The word “mai” means ‘no ‘ in its most popular usage, but there are 5 other meanings if you use different tones, and reading Thai is almost impossible without making a study of it. But, fortunately, many Thai’s speak English, everyone wants to learn it, so if you can master the basic greetings and requests, and return the respect you are shown, it is relatively easy to get by.

Visa’s are not available for working except for Teachers (mainly English), Diving Instructors, or Real Estate Salespeople (time share mainly, but it seems the government’s tolerance of some dodgy practices in this industry has run out. There are signs warning tourists of unscrupulous operators). Many of these people do a “visa run” over the Burma or Malaysian border once a month to get a renewal. Otherwise, if you are a business owner you can get a 12 month visa, or if you are over 50 you can get a retirement visa for 12 months.

There’s plenty else to say, but I’ll leave that for another time.

I am actually wondering if I’ve found my perfect abode here, in Nai Harn, Phuket, Thailand, first up.

But, I must be off to the airport and the long flight to London and the next home on my journey!

Nai Harn Dreams April/May 2011

2011-06-17T10:55:00.000-07:00

My routine in paradise is now fairly well established and I am getting to know people here.

The guys at the Rasta Bar are now used to me walking or running past their bar/workshop/ganja joint. 2 older men sit out near the roadside by a thatch hut and make leather boots for sale. The younger men have been busy putting up a sign “Black Moon Party Saturday Night”. One of them has a large curved knife he is using to notch the coconut palm trunk so that the rope will sit there and hold up the sign. He sees me, and in mock anger runs at me brandishing the thing above his head giving some kind of Thai war cry. I play along and take up a martial arts fighting stance to defend myself. We have a bit of a standoff then fall about laughing as the traffic is stopping to watch, curious that this farang might be about to be butchered.

Tim and I have developed a platonic friendship of sorts. She is usually in the water when I get there around dusk at 6, and we chat in a 2 language way, and I go off and do some swimming. She usually gives me a ride back on her motorbike and a couple of times she has taken me to Rawai Beach to eat seafood on the water where the fishing boats tie up. It is busier there than Nai Harn, and it’s the other side of the island even though it’s only a 10 minute ride. There’s some bars and restaurants, mechanical workshops and travel agents. It faces the mainland and mangroves are dotted around the bay. The fish comes big and steamed or deep fried with whatever spices and sauces you wish. There are banana prawns as big as a small child’s arm and strange, small conical shellfish that are new to me. The water laps beneath a bamboo matted platform, and sends small waves beneath the floor when boats cruise past. Siamese cats brush against me, purring enthusiastically but aren’t interested in the scraps I offer.

Saturday comes and I am invited to the Muay Thai fight night on the island in the lake. I arrive to find that farang tickets cost 1,000 baht whilst a Thai pays only 200. I question this and am told “farang have more munnee”.

The ring is set up inside a circle of chairs, and a makeshift wooden stand is already full of local Thai men. I see the Rasta Bar owner, his dreadlocks tied up so they don’t trail on the ground, and some other locals I know from the beach or the running track. There is barbecued chicken and satays and phad thai noodles to be washed down with cold Chang beer taken from the big plastic tubs full of ice. It’s a warm night, and most Thai’s are showing some perspiration, but they still wear jeans and shoes and dress themselves up for the occasion. Local dignitaries, police, businessmen and government representatives are given a podium seat next to the ring. Groups of Australians and British who have come to Phuket to train in this kickboxing fighting art sit together in groups to yell support for their fighting gym. I sit with Thai’s who, when they are not smoking , argue the merits of each fighter on the program. Betting is the main reason they have come, the fighting is secondary.

The fights begin with small boys, who look like they should be home in bed, climbing into the ring with the help of their handlers. They glisten in the hot lights, their brown skin oiled to make gripping them difficult. There is the blue corner and the red corner. They do their strange dance within the ring, rocking to the music played by wooden flutes and drums in an ancient modal improvisation, and jog to each corner where they bow their wai to the corner and the crowd, and then wai to the trainers and the judges. Their discipline reeks of tradition and respect.

There are 3 or 4 of these fights, with the larger boy having the strength advantage winning the fight.

Then come the young men.

They look like warriors must have looked, when the Kings of Thailand sent their armies against the Kampuchean, Burmese, and Chinese invaders, riding war elephants into battle, centuries before Christ walked the earth. They wear traditional braided headbands, and battle each other with kicks to thighs, and knees into the ribs as they grapple and are pushed apart by the referee and tap their dominant leg to the rhythm of the music before the next assault on their opponent.

The crowd around the ring are buoyed and ebullient with excitement. Every knee or elbow that connects is greeted with a large “oi,oi” from the supporters of the blue or the red. It is the knee and elbow that is scored the highest in Muay Thai boxing, rather than a punch or a takedown. Men stand and shake fistfuls of baht notes above their heads calling out “blue, blue” or “red, red” looking for someone to take the other side of their wager. A woman in front of me bets aggressively with the men on every fight and I count only one win out of eight. She leaves without much to show for her night. There is one fight that the farangs have come to see, a Danish woman fighting an Australian woman. The Dane has her blonde hair plaited as is the way in that country. She is stocky, heavily muscled in the thighs and calves and looks to be fitter and more confident. The Australian has red hair cropped short in the fashion of a man, she looks softer, and less defined than the Dane, but is big and solid just the same. I think the Dane has the edge here, and I’m right for the first two rounds, the Aussie just keeps taking punishment but won’t go down. Then, in the last round the Dane runs out of puff. She takes a hit on the nose and the blood runs freely. The Australians in the crowd are urging the red head on to finish it, but she can’t, and when the bell sounds the Thai judges make it a diplomatic draw.

The last bets are settled and the children are sleeping on their mother’s laps. A fight between two rival gyms breaks out, but it is brief. Everyone slowly walks back across the bridge.

A girl I met at the beach offers me a lift on her motorbike. We leave the lake for the Rasta Bar, which is full of drunk, stoned farangs with back moon t-shirts; some dancing to the trance music blaring from the speakers, and others crashed out on couches and the floor. An American yells political slogans into my ear and looks agitated and reeks of ganja and wants me to go to a party somewhere and discuss world issues. I go home, this place seems too far away from the rest of the world to have those conversations tonight.

1st Home; Nai Harn Beach, Phuket, Thailand April 23rd 2011

2011-06-16T13:22:00.000-07:00

It’s time to leave Kalim Bay and travel south to Nai Harn Beach where I will stay for almost 3 weeks.

The new credit card has arrived from Australia and I finally have some cash again. I have a local taxi driver Adisak, nickname “E”, collect me and off we go in his souped-up, lowered, re-engineered Honda for the 40 minute journey. E dresses fashionably, has the sharp-angled hairstyle over one eye that is common with the Justin Beiber generation. His car doors have been modified so that they lift vertically and bizarrely above the car roof, not out and away from the car as is standard. It reminds me of the ill-fated Kerkorian car of the 80’s. You have to squeeze through the small gap when the doors are lifted, careful not to scratch the duco. The roads have seen better days in many cases and E navigates his machine through short-cuts and long-cuts in order that there is no bottoming out, or fender or tyre damage. He is 26 years old, his father bought the car so that he would have a job, and he puts all of his earnings into this re-invention. He’s quiet, well-mannered and has the passive nature of most Thai males. I want to practice my Thai, he wants to practice his English, so the conversation goes back and forth between two very poor proponents of each.

We travel the winding coast road. Past Karon Beach, then Kata Noi, then over the jungled hills, past the elephant camp, then we leave the main road and come into Nai Harn. I had found a place here, a reasonable sized apartment with views to the green mountains of the west. It is about 1mile from the beach; a walk around a lake which is the local running track and down to the stunning white sand.

My new home is in fact quite new. Tiled floors, aircon, kitchen, king-size bed and large ensuite; it is perfect. Cleaned daily, new linen and towels, bottled water and tea/coffee supplied. It has a small kitchen with a sink, microwave and large fridge. There is a sitting room with chairs and cable tv and wi-fi internet. The cost? 800 baht per day, or roughly $25...everything included.

And guess what?

Today the airline found my lost luggage! The day they had to write it off and pay compensation, they found it. I had to do a 2 hr round trip to Phuket Airport to pick it up at a cost of $60 taxi fare though.

Thanks Qantas/Jetstar.

So, I begin my life here.

I slip into a routine of rising around 9am, checking emails, composing letters and talking to family and friends in different time zones. I then look at the financial markets and do some day trading and try to make some money. I may wander down to the beach at 12 and buy some fresh fruit; mango, pineapple, banana, watermelon and other exotic fruit cousins. Around 5pm the sun is disappearing over the hills and the temperature is dropping a little. Most days it is 30-35, dropping to 25 at night.

I change into my running shorts and shoes and jog down to the lake where I join others in the endless pursuit of physical perfection through exercise. It’s too hot to wear a shirt, but at least the sun is gone, so sunburn is not a problem. The lake circuit is about 2.2km and is a footpath that runs next to the road which is also used by some people training on road bikes. Traffic is light and the mainly Thai locals with the occasional farang (European) smile and nod when you pass them. The heat and humidity are stifling and, even though I’ve acclimatised through a week’s running on the beach from Kalim Bay, it’s very difficult to do much more than 20 minutes so close to the equator. My body overheats, and unable to cool down I head to the beach, throw my shoes on the sand, and plunge into the lukewarm surf. I then do some swimming up and down the beach and gradually cool down.

Head-high sets of waves hit the outside sandbars and I revel in a bodysurfing session....ah, this is living! I really feel alive here.

Nai Harn is a little gem. The Buddhist monastery owns the beach, so apart from a small development on the headland nothing else can be built here. Europeans mainly holiday here in family groups and spend their days soaking up the tropical sun. Every day I see someone badly burnt, but no one seems to mind, such is the craving those from northern climes have for solar rays. There are a few open air restaurants under the she-oaks on the flat above the beach, there are lifeguards here, and regular drownings; such is strength of the rips that can run up and down this beach. Surfers inhabit the break at the south where the river mouth seems to hold the waves up a little longer so that they can barrel briefly and completely cover a rider who has sought that inner sanctuary. There are some bamboo frames which hold some thatch and shade a couple of platforms open to air and the sea and everyone on the beach. There you can have a matronly Thai lady pull apart your joints and pound your muscles till you reach that state of nirvana-like relaxation that only a good masseur can bring you to. And for 400 baht ($12) you can afford this regularly.

A big set lines up on the horizon. I dolphin dive through the first wave and come up to see the next setting up perfectly. I turn and kick and pull myself into it and feel that amazing sensation of freefalling down the face of the wave and then feeling it pick me up at the hips and hurtle me towards the beach with just my head out of and ahead of it and the beach rushing towards me like I’m on a London train and then I’m under and it’s passing over me and I can feel the sand again beneath my feet. My face breaks the surface and I must be grinning like a Cheshire cat because I see a girl, a woman, watching me from in the water with a kind of quizzical amused look.

Unusual, because she’s Thai. Thai’s generally can’t or don’t swim, there are no learn-to-swim schools here like I had as a kid. Whilst this isn’t the wildest beach by any means, there are still regular drownings here. And many of the Europeans that come here are alien to the power of the sea.

I smile and give the universal greeting “sawadee krap”. She returns a “sawdee kha”. Krap is masculine, kha is feminine and it relates to the speaker, not the subject.

“I see you come from water, you.....” and she imitates what my face must have looked like with a big cheesy grin.

Her name is Tim in the anglicised nickname way of Thai women. Men don’t seem to do it to the same extent, and women will often take a celestial nom-de-plume like moon or earth, or a fruit like som (orange) or sometimes just Nancy! But Tim in the world’s number 1 country for transgender surgery is, well, interesting?

It turns out she has left her 2 sons with her parents and has come to Phuket to take over her sister’s massage platform on the beach, “good munnee, munnee mak mak can send to Mama take care famillee”. This is a familiar story in a country where there are no child alimony laws; couples separate and the women are left to bring up the children any way they can.

She is from the country north of Bangkok, but does not want it to be Isaan, the poor north-east, for the stigma attached to that place would reflect on her badly.

I offer to teach her to swim but she declines with a shake of her wet hair and, with a wave, walks from the shallow surf and up the beach to her work.

The waning sun is pressing gold and crimson against the horizon, the beach is darkening. I stroke out to where it is deep and tread water and see the scores of camera flashes breaking up the thickening darkness to capture the spectacular sunset from the top of Promthep Cape. The lifeguards are whistling for everyone to leave the water before it is truly dark, so one last wave and I collect my runners and begin the walk back.

The candles are being lit and put out on the tables beneath the she-oaks, the lights glittering in the breeze. The smells of Thai spices cooking add to the ambience of this place and I begin to think of dinner. The fruit lady has packed up and gone and so have the motorbike taxis. A man sets up a stall with a large flat steel plate that he will turn out crepes from filled with banana and mango and chocolate. I reach the lake, and the island with the small bridge is lit too and seems like a fairyland with the orange oriental roofs of the few buildings there. A motorbike goes past in the dark and stops up ahead. A woman’s face turns, “where you go”? It is Tim.

“You have motorbike? Why you walking walking”?

It seems strange I don’t have a bike. Most farangs hire one as soon as they get here and 1 in 3 end up in hospital or worse. Driving in Thailand is not the same as home.

I hop on the back behind her and we go past the Rasta Bar that is having a black moon party next weekend and she stops.

“kawp koon krap”

“kha”

She rides off into the night with her black hair caught up in the breeze. I head for a shower and then across the road to the restaurant of the seven sisters and eat Tom Yum soup and Gaeng Pah with rice, sweating with the heat of the night and the heat of the chillies and gingers and lemongrass and drink cold Singha beer and play dominos with the young sisters till midnight when I head back to my room to sleep.

Thai Tales April 2011

2011-06-15T06:58:00.000-07:00

Phuket is the largest island in the Kingdom of Thailand.

The ”Pearl of the Andaman” is about as far west as you can go before the sea beckons you to join the ancient shipping routes to India and the Spice Islands that traders and pirates lost in the mists of time once sailed.

The Thais are very proud of their heritage. They have their own language, culture, and calendar. And they are the only country in Indo-China that was never colonised. This has enabled them to keep most of their Buddhist traditions and culture intact and authentic.

There is a 543 year difference between the western Gregorian calendar and that of the Land of Smiles. 2011 is the year 2554 in Thai time.

It’s another warm. balmy night. The Muslim women have their street food stalls on the edge of the road by the sea wall across from where I am staying in Kalim Bay. At high tide the waves collide with the rocks below and spray their habibs with foam. They barbeque chicken, and in woks they deep fry fish cakes and stir fry Phad Thai noodles. It costs $2-$3 for a meal here, you sit on plastic chairs on the roadside or choose the sea wall if the swell is small.

I walk the winding coast road 5km to Patong Beach. This is the main destination for tourists here, and Bangla Road is the epicentre of this party town. This street of wall to wall bars and clubs stretches about 400 metres from the beach and is closed to traffic from about 6pm each evening. The area was almost completely devastated in the tsunami of 2004 when an earthquake thousands of miles away in the Indian Ocean sent a series of tidal waves smashing into this coast. They claimed more than 5,000 lives from this and surrounding areas.

The street throngs with tourists; English, Scandinavians, Russians and Australians openly gape at the Ladyboys dancing on the table at the entrance to one of the soi’s. They are amongst some of the most beautiful women a man will ever set eyes on; except they’re not women. They flirt with the crowd, soaking up the attention with an ever vigilant eye out for any “farang” who has become mesmerised and transfixed by these ersatz sirens and has the smell of easy money about them.

Couples on honeymoon, families, groups of girls or guys on holiday for the sun and fun this place offers all promenade up and down Bangla Road. T-shirt touts, ping-pong show vendors and buy one-get-one free drink voucher in-your hand thrusters all vie for attention. Bar girls grab young men’s arms and try to entice them into the small drinking places where they will persuade them to buy “lady drinks”, tip them, and perhaps take them back to their hotel.

“Andy” we’ll call him, is an Australian guy, mid 50’s, used to run pubs and nightclubs back home. He retired here, tried trading the markets, then internet gambling, and finally settled on a career as a bar owner “to give myself an interest and to get cheap beer”. He lost his leg several years ago in a bizarre accident, whereby he came off his motorbike coming down a steep hill careening off into the jungle where he lay for 3 days severely injured until a Thai man riding an elephant happened to pass by (as you do). He was hauled off to the local hospital, whereby it was discovered he had an infection from a rare bacteria that there was no cure for. They shipped him off to Bangkok because they didn’t want him. Bangkok didn’t want him either; the risk of infection for other patients was too high. So, he tried to get back to Australia, but no airline would take him. He wasn’t being well looked after, but he couldn’t get anywhere for treatment being, literally a medical persona-non-grata.

An Australian friend managed to bribe someone in an airline to the tune of $100,000AUD, and, finally he was flown to Sydney in an extremely weak state. The major Sydney hospital freaked when they discovered his infection, and they, to get rid of him, and because he was originally from the state of Tasmania, chartered a plane just for him, and flew him to the Hobart hospital. They freaked as well, but in Australia we have universal health care, so they were forced to set up a special ward to house just him. For over a year he was here on his own, no-one could visit him and staff could only attend him in full isolation suited garb. His left leg was removed because the infection was that bad, however, when the doctors came and told him they wanted to remove his right leg, he refused and checked himself out of the hospital. He looks pretty healthy these days drinking a cold beer and relating stories of his sailing adventures in many exotic places. The infection is still there in his right ankle, but as long as it stays there he is fine. You come to Andy’s bar and you meet banker’s, programmers and accountants. The conversations are intellectual and jovial until the later hours and the beers begin to take their toll. I wander back to Kalim Bay in what’s left of a balmy night, avoiding the ladyboys that call to me from darkened doorways and sleep in dreams of surfing elephants and dancing coconut palms....

Broke and Busted in Bangkok April 2011

2011-06-14T06:26:00.000-07:00

Starting from Tuesday 12/4/11 when my son Chris dropped me off at the Sydney airport I had the 24 hours from hell.

Checked my luggage in and waited for the boarding call. The flight to Melb left over 40 minutes late and after a Stawell Gift run from the domestic to the international terminal, I just made the flight to Bangkok.

I' d checked my baggage through from Sydney, otherwise I wouldn't have made it.

The 9 hour 30 min flight went fine...I hadn't realised how exhausted I was from the last month or so, and I slept for most of the way.

Arrive Bangkok 9pm, and whilst waiting for my luggage I'm approached by airport staff to say (in Thai) " we;ve lost your luggage, we think it went to Singapore"

Great, all my clothes and toiletries are in there, for London as well, everything.

They give me a report, ask me to call them tomorrow and they'll deliver it to my hotel.

So, I get outside, it's getting late and I'm going to take the shuttle bus to Kao San Rd....the touts are telling me it's not running, heard that one before, and.....it's not running.

So I think, "what the hell" and take an overpriced unmetered taxi. This young guy takes off, we get onto the cloverleaf type bridge and he weaving in and out of the traffic like a madman. I tell him to slow down but he just say's " yes Kao San Rd"...I see he's doing 150 km in a 60 zone!

So, after taking me on dirt roads and shortcuts through building sites to get around the Bangkok gridlock we arrive.

He pulls over, everywhere are people blocking the road, thousands of them. I deduce from my map that Kao San Rd is somewhere through this crowd and we aint going to get there any other way but by foot.

So, I climb out with my laptop in one hand and my carry on bag in the other, put my head down and enter the combat zone.

It's Song Kran, the Thai New Year, the water Festival. The road is packed with young Thais, and to a lesser degree, mainly English Backpackers, all with buckets of water, giant water pistols and a gooey mixture of flour and water which is promptly pasted on to my bald head.

There is no way I can fight it as I struggle into Kao San Rd. Mike suggested I stay at D&D's aprox 100 metres down the road, I make the 100 metres but no sign of D&D's, and in a desparate attempt to save my laptop from drowning and my self from a prison sentence for GBH against several thousand thai's, I duck into an alley way, out of the madness and into a peaceful courtyard with a guest hotel.

They have only one room, you guessed it, a bed like concrete with hardiplank walls and a shared toilet and shower way down the hall.

I take stock, it's steamy hot here, and all I've got to wear is a pair of jeans, boots and a t-shirt. I go to the front desk to ask where the ubiquitous clothing stalls are, he meets my eyes with a blank stare...."elvry one close for Song Kran"

Great, I'm saturated and covered in this flour mixture...can't get into the shower, so I resolve to get something to eat. I duck through a lane way to the next street. It's just as crazy but up ahead I see traffic and make my way into a square that they've cordoned off from the revellers. I get some street food, think about what's going on and head back to my room and another drenching.

I completely forgot that in 2007 I caught gastro in Chang Mai, missed the last bus to Laos, and was stuck there for 6 more days.....everything stops for the New Year celebrations.
I am regretting coming here already, it hasn't felt right since I got off the plane and I really want to get out, I don't like it.

Well, back at the room I fall into a fitfull, exhausted sleep, even though the ceiling fan sounds like a 'Nam chopper and the bass from a club somewhere cuts through the bare thin walls and rattles my teeth until 5am.

I get up at 7, and hit the streets determined to find some clothes....2 hours later I've got a pair of thongs, a pair of shorts and 2 t-shirts. I head back and call the airport,,,they have no idea where my luggage is. Im determined not to stay in this hotel another night so I go hotel knocking and find one who may have a room available at 12.

The revelry is starting up again, as, bags in hand I try to stay on the sidewalk to get to my new home, but, they have no room.

I sit down and try to think this through, in fact I sit there for about 30 minutes as the storm rages just outside on the street. British boys and girls, all still tanked from the night before, are drinking already and the hordes are literally pouring into the street, there are thousands.

I know if I go out there everything will get saturated and floured again, but I can't stay here any longer.

I try and bust the crowd open like a rugby scrum but they just gobble me up. People are shouting at me, everyone's throwing water and flour and within 30 seconds I'm completely saturated again.

I'm trying to protect my laptop, I've got a bag in each hand and I'm pushing, twisting, head-butting ; anything to get out of here. I run into the biggest crush yet as 2 Lady boys have gotton on the top of a table and are grinding away to Thai pop that everyone seems to know but me. I almost can't get through but somehow manage.

I finally make it out to the street against the thousands that still pour into the precinct. It's taken me nearly half an hour to go 200 meters.

There's no taxi's around, so I grab the first guy on a motor bike, and,hanging onto my bags we head off to the Skytrain that will take me to the airport.

5 minutes down the road I suddenly know something is terribly wrong.

I can't feel my wallet in my bottom pocket. I yell at the guy to stop, I get off the bike.....my wallet with $4500 and all my credit cards...gone. The buttons undone....in that freakin' crowd!

So, here I am 1 week later in a peaceful Muslim area of Phuket called Kalim beach. It's about 4km from Patong beach but very quiet.

There's a surf break out front that I regularly see boardriders trying their luck, over a shallow coral reef. I found out that this is where the sewerage from Patong is pumped, so I don't fancy a swim here.

I'm still trying to get something out of Qantas/Jetstar. When I can get through to them (rare) they don't call back, they don't answer emails. They say if it isn't found by tomorrow, they will have to compensate me.

Thankfully, both Wayne and Jonathan sent me some money via Western Union as I was almost skint. You don't realise how much you depend on your credit cards till they are gone.
I can't access any cash, or my internet banking until my new card arrives, hopefully on Thursday.

Visa International were no help at all...I used up so much of my precious few baht I had left calling them and going through their complete process and they havn't even sent an email to me.

Try emailing an airline.....you can't.

So, I'm not doing very much as I need to keep as much money as I can in case the new card doesn't show up in 2 days...you could say I'm not particularly confident!

So, I've done a mountain of technical reading and thought and analysis.

I have developed a new system to take to London, and am working on a couple others.

I have come up with some pretty intersting stuff re Cycles/Lunar cycles and their effect on Human psychology.

It's been good, but I'm starting to get a little bored with little socialising going on.

I've found a place at Nai Harn Beach to stay for a week or so, just to give it a test run. It's beautiful down there...a 2k walk around a lake to the stunning beach. Had a body surf there Sunday.

I bought a really cheap pair of running shoes and am running daily and going to the gym 2 times a week....that's my budget!

So, at least my fitness is good and I can feel my muscles thickening....I don't know if it's the weather, the food or what but physically I seem to thrive in this climate.

So, I'll sign off for now....

Email to my Daughter-about to board the Plane 12/04/11

2011-06-13T11:39:00.000-07:00

Hi Kate,

I'm at Sydney Airport about to board the plane to Melbourne...then to Bangkok arriving at 8.30 tonight.

It was great staying in Sydney with Chris and Cat...they are doing really well and were completely gorgeous to put me up and all.

The settlement went through whilst I was in the air...arrived Syd to frantic messages etc but they sorted it all out.
Everything has gone relatively smoothly...had giant garage sale last Sunday made $1300!

I'm down to 30kg of total possessions and my bank account..that's the sum of me now!
Flying to Phuket Saturday, will check out apartment in Nai Harn etc for later in the year.

Nothing has sunk in yet.

I've been so busy and trying to cover every detail..just about done it all I think.
I'm keeping a journal...thinking of writing a book...quite a few people I don't know all that well want to follow my travels and progress.
Maybe a travel blog, if I can make it interesting and compelling, could make me a little money as well..but I'll wait until I get somewhere I have internet access in room till I spend some time on that.

Actually, I'm glad to be leaving here for a while...watching the news last night with the pathetic dramas that captivate our country, and the amazing level of petty bureaucracy we have come to accept that seeks to control our lives on a minute by minute basis.

Well, I had better go, ..flight leaving soon and internet running out.
Can't wait to get there and see you.
I'll skype you from Thailand.
Lots of Love,
Dad