Crouching Pigeon's Flight

A teardrop in the Indian Ocean

crouchingpigeon — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 05:59:37 +0000

Sri Lanka has always featured in our travel plans, in fact back in March we had initially intended to visit as part of a “Visa run” to extend our Indian visa. But as the unexpected changes of the Indian bureaucratic beast unfolded this dissolved such plans. So we were even more excited that we managed to fit Sri Lanka into our final destination list on the way back to Australia. By the time we exited Colombo airport, having walked past duty free shops offering the visiting Sri Lankan expat community the opportunity to find their local families a state-of-the-art washing machine, fruit mixer or car, was the same time European brisk autumn weather had started to take it toll on us. The humid pre/post monsoon (strangely this rather small island has quite complex patterns of weather seasons) temperatures was too much of a contrast, demanding that we were to ease leisurely into the final leg of the pigeon’s flight path. Colombo with it’s handful of sights proved the perfect remedy for a slow start. My highlights were visiting the former office building of local architect Geoffrey Bawa and munching on prawn pie’s at the Pagoda Tea Room where Duran Duran filmed their “Hungry like the wolf” clip on the very premises. Although the pies were oven fresh and after seeing the video clip again, it seems that neither the interior nor staff have changed.

Stretching our spines and bums’ last layer of patience on local bus seats, we spent the next fortnight zig-zagging around the place in relative comfort. However finding a spare seat could be a little tricky as countless rows were blocked out for clergy, pregnant women, elderly with a disability and the rest of Sri Lankans with a limp, but we managed most of the times not to sit with writing above our seats.

The tourism board labelled central Sri Lanka’s “Ancient Triangle” as a must-see to provide a superb insight into the rich historic past. Ruins and relics of the Buddha hint of great architectural and monumental achievements gives one the sense of past mighty kingdoms that are deeply revered in modern society today. Centuries old monasteries, countless temples and fresco covered caves show of ageless spiritual devotion and dedication.

Today seeing Sri Lanka in a state of flux as it moves into a new era as Hindu, Buddhists, Muslim or Christians seek strength and solace in their respective religions to overcome present day tragedies. Especially in Srio Lanka’s North and East coastal regions, the wounds of a 30-year long civil war and the horrific tragedies of the 2004 Tsunami are still raw. Refugee camps, military patrols and shiny UN vehicles are a regular presence. One hopes that Sri Lankans can leave those hardships and uncertainties behind and move forward. Their amazing kind-hearted nature deserves no less.

smiles everywhere

The lush hilly region from Kandy and beyond provided an welcomed relief from the hot dusty plains. Monsoonal clouds dumped their loads reliably in the afternoons, washing off the sweat gained from our morning hiking excursions through the tea plantations. Our enjoyment of the brew still filters down to the hard working and low waged earning Tamil ladies, who pick the lucrative tea leaf by hand. Back in the day an especially constructed, windy train line took care of the next logistics leg in transporting the roasted tea to warehouses for export. These have now been replaced with faster moving, daredevil driven trucks which leaves the train to function just as a popular carrier for local commuters, school kids and visitors alike.

In return for the equivalent of 30 cents, the immaculately uniformed stationmaster in Ella handed me a beautiful old-school, cardboard printed 3^rd class ticket for the first train of the day. Not interested in a seat anyway, I did what the locals do and took up position, hands firmly gripping on the carriage door handles, and hung from the carriage’s door frame. Despite only the first light rays poking through the clouds, we passed the mountain settlements where the daily chores were well under way for humans and animals alike. Goats and cattle chewing on the still dew laced grasses; gaggles of school kids either walking along the tracks or waiting at a crossings; housewives busily scrubbing the washing in the creek or sweeping their shack’s surroundings; and the men wading around their paddies, preparing the soil for the next rice cycle. Aside from observing all the going-ons I had to keep my eye on the oncoming potential dangers. Palm leaves, tunnels and signposts posed a constant threat of whacking you in the head. This very hour on the rickety train ride delighted me with joy and pleasure. Wind in hair and bugs in the eyes I reflected about the past 1 ½ years on the move, all the passing things, people and landscapes Katrina and I had seen and I felt really fulfilled and content with life.

train ride companions

There was plenty of additional time to reflect as, upon our departure from the hill stations we planted our white skins on the lovely beach of Mirissa in the South. We stay for nearly two weeks at the wonderful guest house Long Wave rest with a balcony sea view less than 15 metres from the water’s edge. Apart from eating local hoppers and seafood, drinking king coconut juice or fresh lime sodas, and playing countless hours of Scrabble, we didn’t do much at all. It seemed the right thing do to. After all our travels over the past year and a half it felt right to have a well deserved holiday from such a journey and begin to reflect on all the people and experiences we have encountered throughout our travels. Not to think it could be so easily done again…

Who put the Port in Portugal…?

crouchingpigeon — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 22:35:43 +0000

Well definitely Porto- or Oporto in the north; the poorer cousin of Lisbon although, just as hilly and quaint with cobblestone streets and winding laneways leading to port cellar warehouses and abandoned or crumbling buildings. At sunset, nothing was better than grabbing a bottle of the sweet fortified drink reminiscent of a grandparent’s favourite tipple and gazing at the Atlantic wondering how the hell the explorers were able to sail off into the unknown.

when in Porto, one must drink port. cheerio

crumbling and colourful

The initial reason to see Portugal for us as a closure of our own global exploratory circle was because after having visited the former colonies of Goa, Malacca and Macau we felt we needed to see this magnificent mother country. After all, Portuguese flavours were reflected in each place’s ethnicity, the looks, and architecture, central church surrounded by the town square. Our conclusion was that the black and cream wavy patterned cobblestones we saw everywhere were incredibly slippery in dorky Birkenstock sandals in the wet.

it must good fun walking home drunk in Portugal

Portugal was a mark of our last days on the European continent and as we must say feeling a little jaded and museum-ed out we were content to sip coffees and for less than 50 cents standing at the bar (seating is a little more) and to sample custard tarts pasteis des nata, and fumble our way through the Portuguese menu rather than seeing the standard tourist must-sees. One of our highlights was a number randomly picked from the evening’s menu and hope for the best that no piggy entrails or hidden ingredients were unfamiliar with our palettes. Striking it lucky, Matti indulged in a dinner plate-sized cut of beef on our last night with chips and salad on separate plates much to the envy of fellow diners. I indulged in the national dish bacahlau: a flank of dried salted cod that is rehydrated in fresh water and cooked or grilled. It is an acquired taste for someone used to fresh seafood and seems ironic that the Portuguese hold bacahlau in such reverence, as they are so particular about the freshness and the quality of all their other seafood. Having overfished their own supplies of cod, the Portuguese even have to import the stuff from Scandinavian waters. So dried cod may be the way to go in all its guises for the locals but give me anything but eating mushy tasteless fish plain or if you’re fortunate covered in a sauce.

In Lisbon the hard hikes up the city’s hills were rewarded with spectacular urban views known as miradouros as well as sampling the different districts each with its own characteristics, but you can be assured to find countless lines of washing hanging from the balconies or near misses as washing water is thrown from upstairs apartments. Gravity-defying tram rides full of thrills, spills and near misses with tourists added to the fun being in Portugal but it wasn’t filled with the same colour and chaos of other places we’ve been to and along with the need to refresh our tastebuds with chilli. Before flying back to KL, we had a weekend in London seeing friends Taz and Dave the only people we know with a backyard in inner city and our relatives Peter and Alice was great for a catch up and to have a big breakfast cook up and a lunch down Brick Lane.

everyone's happy with the big fry-up.

Switzerland ohhh Switzerland

crouchingpigeon — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 19:51:29 +0000

Ok, after a stint of exactly three months in Switzerland, and after the old adage of reporting on our whereabouts after we leave a country, I feel it is best to point out some of the highlights we’ve been up to in the land of cheese and chocolate.

The Number 1 processed meat snag: the Swiss cervelat

Firstly our arrival in the height of summer meant a lot of grilled meats and none more celebrated and revered than all is the Swiss fat squat sausage called a cervelat. Funnily enough, this snag has had a rather jagged recent history as with tradition preparation, it is speared on a stick, grilled over an open fire curls in a uniform crescent and eaten with Swiss condiments in a handy and convenient tube, mayo and mustard tube squirted generously over the end. A few hot summers back due to the popularity of this humble snag its casing sourced from the bovine variety, resulted in a Swiss supply unable to keep up with the grill demand. Here comes Brazil where cowboys and cow innards are a plenty and the cervelat was saved by its skin. Unfortunately, so did EU regulations in banning the import of beefy body parts including intestines to thwart another outbreak of European B.S.E. Apparently Uruguayan skins don’t cut it and make crooked cervelats, Argentinians too fatty and artificial and pig skins too tough. So this may be our last time of eating the endangered Swiss cervelats unless an alternative can be found, so bon appetite!

a few seconds later the sausage was a goner

I'll show you my sausage if you show me yours

Bee Keeping

The bees have been busy in an old Capuchin convent in Solothurn and by helping the eldest Lanz sibling, Kathrin we managed to extract and jar over 90 kilos of the sweet sticky stuff. Unbeknown to us, the bees also decided to work harder than ever and were awarded a bronze medal at an international honey competition in the wild honey category. Scraping the wax casing off hive frames laden with honey and placing them in the extractor was easy except for the occasional blow out with a large hole in the wax sheet from spinning too fast. So getting honey seemed like child’s play until the bees realised that their bounty was missing and along with some wayward wasps and flew around us looking for the guilty party during the process. Luckily, without a sting, we got the job done with smoko breaks courtesy of the nuns providing coffee, cake and ice cream.

wax blow out, hence work safety precaution

we've been busy

Walking

Swiss mountains go hand in hand with walking, and with public transport accessing all the country’s nooks and crannies, I feel I can’t let words do justice to all the walks we did rather whet your appetites and put some hiking boots on and goes and explore the paths for yourselves. However, the best thing about Swiss walks is the signposting. The whole path network, which at over 60,000km is almost as extensive as the national road system, is in true Swiss efficiency, well signposted. Every Wanderweg is dotted with the distinctive yellow signs. These are not just a moss-covered wooden arrow saying this way, they are immaculate metal yellow signs telling you how long a walk it is to various other points. The times given are alarmingly painstakingly accurate without breaks, and the signs really do pop up everywhere – mountain tops, town centres, train stations, valleys and roads leading to nowhere – but I’ve never seen a dirty, rusty, graffitied or incomplete one. Oh, and another reason to get into the Swiss mountains is that 2010 is the Jahr des Wanderen ‘The Year of Hiking’ but I guess you knew that already as you’re on the hop while reading this.

quo vadis?

again, a few seconds later Kat's arm nearly wrenched off

first we had to chase all the Japanese away

coffee with schnapps. after a few you don't need any more beenies

we met those Aussies hobbits on the way

claiming new land for the country

on the road to nowhere. more hobbits

The dragon of the Black sea

There was a little Swiss alpine sea

Known as the Schwarzsee,

Where our mate Wale the blacksmith

Who can’t let his artistic talents in metal be,

Whipped up a mystical dragon in a jiff

Overlooking the little Swiss alpine sea….

how to build your own huge dragon

what kind of superglue did you use?

Philippe the French Ambassador

Philippe, an eighteen year-old Greek land tortoise has been enjoying his summer residence in Kathrin’s backyard. Apart from becoming one of my favourite all time low maintenance pets, for a tortoise he’s shown a lot of personality as he eats clover and in kills slugs in slow motion, tries to escape (slowly) through gaps in the fence and snorts when he’s really mad at the world. His public appearance is usually in the warmer months in Switzerland before he hibernates under a pile of wood chips for a cosy five months. So on the last day in the country it was adieu not only for the pigeons but also Philippe with a lukewarm bath for a shit and a shave. Well a last poo and a rub with Panzeröl (tank oil) on his shell for good luck he is now ready for the winter’s big sleep.

monsieur philippe

Valliser cow fighting - the ultimate bovine supremacy in the cow battle again over all other cows?

Yes, you did read the heading correctly, I said cow fighting. For the uninitiated (which I assume is pretty much all of you), Swiss cow fighting is the traditional sport in the canton Valais, where farmers pit their prize special breeds ladies against those bovines of his countrymen in the hopes of one of his girls bringing home the title of La Reine des Reines -the queen of queens. In contrast to bull fighting, cow fighting is a bloodless and relatively tame sport: it’s more of a locking-horns-and-shoving match with much clanging of bells and a lot of local spectators necking white wine or coffee with schnapps. Held in Martigny, the finals is a perfect gladiator spectacular held in an old amphitheatre with Swiss Alps as the scenic backdrop. This breed of cow héren, is naturally more aggressive than most, and fight to gain dominance over other cows, rather than to harm them. If a cow refuses to fight when challenged, retreats or just doesn’t have the stomachs for it, she is eliminated. At the end of the day, the winner is the cow who hasn’t backed down from any of her adversaries and displayed the most fighting, mooing and kicking earth to impress one another, then locking horns and pushing. It’s more show than punch and a must-see for a real cowboy atmosphere. Really the whole of Switzerland can be summed up similarily as cows, eccentric locals and walking paths are well, more frequent than the stereotype of chocolate and cheese.

a headache coming on strong

all out lady brawl

From the Balkans and back to central Europe

crouchingpigeon — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 13:44:21 +0000

After an overdue hiatus and as an afterthought, these last few countries have been rolled into one blog because we found ourselves breezing through the Balkans and central Europe, and as we were enjoying ourselves immensely, too much in fact to be flitting around in internet cafes with where-the-bloody-hell-are-you obligations. From sleeping underneath feather eiderdowns, searching for wild blueberries and mushrooms, drinking wine and eating all sorts of continental fare, we are in short, blissful of being in a laissez fare travel mode after a year on the road.

And here's another reason why I'm no longer veggo

Having left Istanbul after we calculated a total of three weeks and Turkey as a whole of nearly three months of counted up visa entry and exit stamps, we decided to do a whirlwind tour of some Balkan capital cities. No better way than by rail, which enabled us to sleep, board and disembark at our leisure. Firstly, in what we hope to be our last long bus journey for a while, we bussed it from Istanbul to Sophia with a three hours touring around the outskirts of sprawling Istanbul thrown in for god measure to pick up passengers before we were on our way. We hadn’t chosen this mode of transport rather it had chosen us as all international trains departing Turkey have been suspended due to flooded tunnels and washed away tracks from the past rainy weeks in central Europe. Personally for the pigeons well, a cheap airline can be just too darn fast and you miss everything in between. Like the last Ottoman hurrah, we picked the fanciest bus company and settled ourselves into being served countless sachets of coffee and tea as we left Istanbul at dusk. Several hours later and on full alert for gypsy-thrown babies, we arrived in Sofia, Bulgaria. Fortunately, Sofia did not live up to our low expectations and turned out to be a rather sophisticated, hip and quaint city with all the hallmarks of being liveable: museums, art galleries, bicycle lanes, vegetarian restaurants (two!), and of course the most beautiful women on earth and no offence to the Roma, but no babies were thrown in our direction. All of Sofia’s sights were enjoyed over a weekend with some great food that didn’t involve a vertical barbecue and some sublime mojitos enjoyed in street cafes.

We then embarked on our Balkan Express train journey- departing daily at 12 with no idea of expected arrival in Budapest. After pleasantries were exchanged with Ivan our carriage’s conductor, he informed us that we must lock our door after the Hungarian border crossing, as there could be bandits on board. This had to be re-translated to a Japanese couple in the neighbouring compartment and a young American who was chilling after already having travelled for days on a Greek train. Our journey, which ended up being ten hours later than scheduled, had a couple of highlights along the way. A drug mule was frogmarched off at the Serbian border from the American’s compartment. He said he was a nice guy. Temperatures may have been mid-thirties outside but we were a sauna on wheels and adorned in only undies we, along with our fellow passengers stuck our heads out of the fogged up windows, which were our only respite for air-conditioning. Our train finally limped into Zagreb, Serbia early evening after all the occupants’ water sources were bone dry and we were listlessly counting the circling vultures. Apparently our carriage needed to be unhitched to join up with the next morning’s train. Ivan forgot to tell us about this as the boys from the carriage left in search of a moneychanger and cold beer supplies at the station. Now without going into too many locomotive technical ins and outs it was decided that all the hitching and unhitching of carriages needed to be in the farthest rail yards about a kilometre down the track. Unbeknown to Matti, this resulted in coming back from the hunt arms laden full of liquid amber yet without a passport and a word of Serbian and no train on the tracks. Luckily, the Japanese fellow came to his and the American’s aid as the Japanese has spotted the train moving out of the corner of his eye. They were rescued from stumbling aimlessly across the train tracks in the dark. One bit of wisdom we can impart with is do not chose to sleep in your carriage on platform one outside the Zagreb train station’s all-night drinking hole. We arrived in Budapest with a few odd currencies stuffed in our hand in less than a week of leaving Turkey- our passports accumulated a massive seven stamps! Ah the joys of slow travel. Note: Should you wish to experience this rail journey, a two-bed compartment on the Balkan Express is actually first and second-class rolled into one even though all of us had paid at the Bulgarian ticket counter extra for first class.

Now where is that six-letter word for ultra cool....

That Nick Cave book wasn't all that engaging

Budapest was a dream, apartment accommodation in the middle of the city with footpaths and bike lanes we were mistaken for seeing everything through rose-coloured glasses, but hey it has been a long time since we’ve seen any sort of subculture and heard decent music playing in the cafes. It was also a perfect city for getting cultured up, which included watching the Swiss win against Spain in the early games.

Now where's that subtle signage?

The best pissoir in Europe!

Arriving in Hartberg, Austria to meet Kat’s parents and Mat’s sister, Kathrin, would inevitably lead to an overindulgence of merriment after our travels. Not all can be said of what we got up to in those ten heady days; long lunches and a lot of wine consumed was the norm. However, a few highlights included eating chook off the spit cooked by our gracious hosts Willi, driving to Hungary for haircuts in a day because you can in the EU, witnessing the World Machine www.weltmaschine.at and of course, just spending quality time with our families in delightful Steiermark.

The AMAZING World Machine

Austria's version of the Big Bull with shingles

The three Musketeers back in Hungary Kat, Kathle and Peter always talking...

Afterwards Mat and his sister were yodelling all the way back to the Swiss Alps and Kat packed her bag for Berlin to spend a week’s frivolity with great friends Kari, Max and their latest edition Eli. For those in the know, since the wall came down in Germany’s famous far-east city, Berlin has become a mega-cool mecca. After bracing myself on the ins and outs of the U-bahn verses S-bahn connections, watching the locals play beach volleyball, celebrating an almost near inclusion into the finals of the World Cup, and drinking litre-full glasses of beer in 37 degrees heat, I was happy to be a Berliner. Of course, after such a long travel on the road I felt that my clothes were becoming a little worse for wear, yet anything goes in this city. After all, there were smatterings of St Kilda as the young and beautiful males were either decked out in PVC lederhosen shouting “Schatzi, komm heir mein

Liebling” to their Pomeranians, or other Berliners sunbathing on the nature strip. Anything goes in Berlin.

Tremendous Turkey

crouchingpigeon — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:36:42 +0000

We long have left Turkey behind us. Lot’s of other things had been on our minds in the months since the goodbyes from this great country. Yet the memories are still very much fresh so it won’t be difficult to look back retrospectively. After the stints in India and China we were looking forward to get to Europe. And so we did. Taking off from Goa, with an unmemorable stop in Doha, our plane landed at Atatürk Airport, Istanbul – Europe. Within an hour of arrival we found ourselves already again walking on Asian territory. What happened? Didn’t we have the required $20 at the ready for a visa and got deported on the next plane to Burma? No, nothing quite so serious, all we did is hop- on a ferry criss-crossing the Bosporus to find our Guesthouse on the “other” side of Istanbul. Asia. Living at the cross roads of Eurasia is not only a daily issue for Istanbul, it is ever present in the whole of Turkey. As are Religion: can the Turks continue with a secular system or should they embrace an Islamic-based governance system. Economy: is Turkey finally able to join the EU in the West, or is it wiser to look east for its partners? Historically: Turkey also proved major turning points and landmarks for countless empires and armies. Needless to say this doesn’t need to be told to any true blue Aussie, though.

It's religion too. pick your team carefully

That very first day in Istanbul we didn’t waste long to spoil our tummies with long awaited tastes and textures. I swear I could hear angels sings while biting in to that Balak Ekmek, a small loaf of crusty white bread with some salad and a barbequed oil dripping fillet of a Black Sea fish. Bread, lamb, cheese, chicken, fish, salad, olives and tomatoes in countless combinations and variations were our steady choice of food from that first day to the last, from breakfast to dinner. Plus scoffing the occasional kebab for a in between snack.

The two big ticket items. Aya Sofia and Blue Mosque. Both incredibly impressive.

Apart from digesting our carbohydrate laden diet, we had a great pleasure in ticking off all those numerous and majestic landscapes, historic landmarks and religious places of pilgrimage in this surprisingly huge nation. Turkey has just so much to offer. First we had leave Istanbul, which proved a difficult task itself. Over two visits, we stayed nearly a month in this fabulous city, there seemed always more to see and do, more mosques to visit barefooted, more sugary black tea to be drunk, more fishermen to be watched pulling in the tiniest catch, more ferries to catch to Europe, Asia and back and more daring galleries to track. Once we were ready to leave the town at last behind we spend another eternity getting beyond it fast crawling periphery. Currently the city counts its population at 20 million.

Galatasary. One of the uncountable districts. Like most, built on a hill.

Second national sport after soccer. Fish'n

All in all, it’s the Turkish people who really made Turkey for us. We spend quite a few nights on generous Couchsurfing hosts’ sofa/bed/mattresses. Their hospitality and motherly care was overwhelming. But also in chance meeting strolling the streets or sitting in restaurants we enjoy warm, genuine and very memorable interactions. We had long haul bus tickets paid for by people of modest backgrounds, an endless supply of Turkish tea was the norm even at military checkpoints, and evening meals paid despite our protest.

National drink, followed closely by Coke. Black tea.

It seemed the Turks have a bit of soft spot for Aussies. Gallipoli is deeply entrenched in even young Turkish minds and the knowledge of the ANZACs, despite the bloodshed; in present are seen as much-respected opponents. If the mention of Gallipoli wasn’t the answer of intrigued fellows pinpointing our origins, then dropping some hints would normally do the job: a) an obvious one “Kangaroo” or b) best mentioned in the double pack “Harry Kewell and Lucas O’Neill”. Turks are red-hot soccer fanatics and always know that these two guys play for Galatasary Istanbul as well as the Socceroos.

Too much for me. Historic pillars and a lonely tree in a kitschy sunset.

Excuse us for not going into great depth about all the ruins and mosques we have visited on foot between being spoilt with coffee and cake on bus journeys, but we need something to talk about when catching up sooner or later. Whether it be walking the shores of Australia, strolling Berlin’s Quartierläden or while diving chunks of bread into bubbling cheese in that lovely Alphut. And then we don’t want to spoil any of your future journeys to Turkey, which we naturally from our hearts recommend.

Market day in Egridir. We were spoilt with cheese, honey and fruit tasters.

Probably a very old gate. Ghingis Khan possibly passed through it.

Turkey's answer to the Big Prawn

From East Anatonlia to Baltimore, everybody loves baggy pants

very old meets old.

Cycling fanatic with bread

Kat thinks it is too abstract. Maybe. But the whirling dervishes performance was very special.

Cave life in Cappadocia.

Normally we see it from the plane. It looked as impressive on the ground. Mt Ararat with Noah's ferry.

A unforgettable feast in the far eastern corners of Kurdistan

We weren't the only tourists in town.

101 welcomes to Syria

crouchingpigeon — Sun, 16 May 2010 23:13:52 +0000

Holy flying carpet! Perched on top of a craggy mountain overlooking a seemingly barren landscape was our respite for the next few days- the monastery of Mar Musa, on the map a couple of hundred kilometres north of Damascus. This monastery is a place of religious solitude and reflection; I can see your eyebrows already raising, but believe me, it was just what the travel weary pigeons needed, a bit of Jesuit-style R&R. Of course daily duties aside such as washing dishes, serving food and chaotic Persian carpet cleaning, we were able to witness somewhat of a miracle as Arab Christianity is indeed flourishing in Syria as we stayed there with spiritual seekers and young locals alike. Mass was held in the evenings after meditation by the larger than life Padre Paulo, a Jesuit who had painstakingly restored the 11^th century frescoed church and built an attached monastery. Let’s just say it was a moving multilingual multi-faith ceremony as the father cited the liturgy in Arabic, spoke of Jesus in French and thanked the Lord in English under candlelight and smouldering frankincense late into the night. This was followed by our grumbling tummies welcoming a communal dinner of goats’ cheese, olives, pita bread and copious cups of black sugary tea, before a quick chat and lights out, the men left the safe walls of the church for their lodgings and the womenfolk could quietly sleep in separate quarters or for the more faithful, in the church itself. Nothing could beat the tranquillity of counting the stars in the desert sky in absolute silence. Of course not all was rosy and tranquil as our faith was tested by a daily task of cleaning the church’s carpets. Easy you think to just skirt around with a vacuum however, led by Brother Peter, a monk with Rasputine qualities, we were organised with the sole Arabic word of Y’alla (c’mon) which is rather limited as we were expected to understand with clarity the Syrian ways of rug cleaning with powdered Jiff and lots of water. Although chaotic it was loads of fun with the devilish thought that the wet dog smelling carpets slung over the monastery walls could potentially fly off into the secular world below.

Brother Peter got the hose, the rest are doing the hard work

High up the mountain, hidden away from the world and worldly things.

Couch surfing Aleppo style. Please sing an Australian song for us our couch surfing hosts in Aleppo begged after a good hour of Syrian classic lyrics belted out complete with dancing with an electronic keyboard in hand. Our response, apart from Matti’s usual you don’t really want to hear my singing voice, was the argument that Australian music is not so world-renowned as the Syrians may like to think and therefore not as easy to join in like The Beatles Let it Be and Europe’s Final Countdown. Yet one of the girls proudly began to play from her mobile a song one does not want to be under the spotlight for, but after the first notes of the flute we knew we had it coming- Men at Work’s Land Down Under. Good news is that neither the Syrians nor us could decipher the lyrics after ‘Do you come from the land down under? Where women [flow/grow/mow]… and men [sunder/thunder/plunder]…’ We have as some of you know been bunking it in strangers’ homes throughout our journey. It has been amazing to see the generosity that people provide where you arrive as a guest and leave as a friend. In the case of northern Syria, we were fed, led and bedded and Matti even got to kick around a soccer ball despite the unusual allotted playing time of 1 to 3 in the morning.

final countdown by europe still strikes a chord in Syria

Syrian delight. Apart from the amazing archaeological sites, sumptuous vegetarian food, dusty streets, friendly truck drivers offering us lifts and more tea offers than coffee, Syria has to be by far the friendliest place on earth. Take for instance our arrival in Aleppo after an overnight bus from Turkey to be caught up in the midst of Syrian Independence Day fever. We were literally carried off our feet in the mad milieu formerly known as the city square that had been transformed into an open-air disco with live bass thumping music, Syrian flags and portraits of the President Assad. Every Syrian man (and a few ladies) decided to get either a large framed portrait or t-shirt of the Syrian President and shimmy the afternoon away. All we got were excited cries of “Welcome to Syria” and shown the various traditional dance troupe highlights as we were dragged around for photos to take and be taken of. Aleppo itself is a grand old city purported to be the world’s oldest continually inhabited which Damascenes also claim. It’s full of winding alleys, a bustling easy-to-get-lost-in souk and crumbling and some restored Ottoman houses built on layers of history. It’s the kind of place where it’s just satisfying to wander the different quarters such as the Armenian, Christian and Muslim although it can be sometimes slower than anticipated, as tea and pastry shop titbits were continuously given with laughter and broken English.

blending in the alleys

Syrians have been shopping in this mall for centuries

Damascus and all the sights in between made us think why Syria seems to be the unknown travel destination. After jostling with cruise ship crowds in Turkey’s proudest archaeological site Ephesus, we found the Syrian equivalents such as Palmyra and Apamea were virtually deserted and thus gave a real sense to how an ancient Roman city may have looked without foreign pale legs walking around in Nike shoes and shorts. At the same time with its cultural wealth on show and dependant on tourism, the country relies on outside and paltry resources from within for conservation of these ruins, which not only you scramble and climb over but can tap dance on exposed colourful Roman mosaics. I hope that soon with considerate foresight the treasures of Syria can be rightfully preserved for everyone to appreciate. As people used to say, visit Syria before Bush does- all we can say is you gotta go!

Kat trying to straighten up history

The Assad love story

some of those 101 Syrian welcomes

India Incredible India

crouchingpigeon — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 18:10:33 +0000

Put aside that novel as we’ve decided to include some snippets to wrap up India, our own version of the Incredible India (spelt out) advertisement campaign some of you may have seen to highlight the uniqueness, complexity and of course allure of the great mad sub-continent.

TRAIN TICKET. Eight years had passed since our previous adventures in India. Slumdog Millionaire, White Tiger, Sachin Tendukar, Life of Pi and ANZ call centre calls had brought India closer to a broad amount of Australians in recent years, wanted or unwanted. According to the press and pie charts in financial papers, the country has been steadily climbing the ladder to modernity. Apparently there are now more millionaires in India than Swedes in Sweden… or something like that. Either way we are intrigued in whether or not we would be able to judge any evidence of the changes ourselves. And of course, there are noticeably more real “Rupees” in circulation, slightly fewer Hero bicycles yet more snazzy Chevrolet cars on the streets. We witnessed local travellers check their email effortlessly- wireless on a MacBook on an Indian train. Glossy lifestyle magazines promote designer jeans worth more than a combined monthly travel budget of the two pigeons. Now of course, there should be more in-depth analytical indicators to measure India’s rise in wealth but the main obvious thing, though that stands out, is that a relative minority enjoys this rise. Lot’s of people still do get by with minimal belongings and income. Caste and class will continue to hinder the world’s so-called largest democracy to obtain a somewhat sustainable, balanced growth. Ring roads, glitzy airports and brand chains just won’t do as real achievements for the future ahead. However, to bring the subject back on a more personal and lighter experience of change for the good we can compare our last trip’s train ticket experience which took a good two days’ fierce queuing (we actually witnessed a proper fist fight) at some random train station ticket counter, this time we booked and printed our precious train tickets in matter of minutes- online. No queues, no touts, no sore feet and no hassle. And it works too. This might not strike you as a very amazing improvement of Indian life but for those of you who in the past have had travelled on Indian trains, you now will nod in silent surprise and understanding.

train table not online, yet

NO WHEELBARROW. Along with the office chair (in our case office floor) based duties at Vanastree, we were also delegated with more hands-on, earthy tasks back on the farm. One of the garden beds didn’t look too healthy and provided nobody-humans or cows or pests with anything chewable. The pressure was on to turn this brown and crackly patch into a green oasis. As Sunita would be soon forced to sell off one of her cows due to lack of animal feed, which for all us including the cow would have had equally serious consequences. Fewer udders would have meant less milk to share among the neighbours, the farm hand’s family and us. In other words, less chai or coffee for everybody!!! So come our first weekend off office work we were ready to set out our plan of bed regeneration in action. We figured the soil needed some tlc, as the existing soil had all nutrition washed out. A rough weeding session and some airing of the hard soil was to be followed by adding a new thick layer of topsoil and potent and generous layering of manure. Then turning over all the new layers with a shovel and some watering. Easy peasy. As we got ready to move the new topsoil from it’s current position 300m away, uphill to the garden, we enquired about the wheelbarrow’s whereabouts. “Wheelbarrow?” “Oh no I don’t think we ever had any of those!” Right. “But we got those rubber baskets instead” Right. Not entirely surprised about the lack of an extremely helpful farming tool, at least in Western minds, yet a little disheartened in knowing we would have carry the soil and all the manure in small portions in a rubber car tyre basket to the garden. We ended up carrying about 50 basketfuls of soil and 20 basketfuls of manure at 15 kg each, Indian style on our heads…. In case you haven’t tried this yourself, it actually is quite comfortable; we even try with no hands… at least with the soil loads.

this is not a wheelbarrow

BUREAUCRATIC CHECK IN’S: Forgive us if we keep repeating this fact: Indian life seems to thrive in chaos and madness. Nothing wrong with this, really, after all it makes India such an addictive destination to visit. Yet, not all dealings are disorderly. There is a distinct flavour of bureaucracy in all things official. In our instance it is mostly experienced when checking in at a hotel. No matter what standard it is, from a $1.50 a night broom cupboard without a bed to a tree house in a delightful national park setting, one is faced with a taste of India’s love for forms. With “please fill out, madam, sir!” we are handed a number of sheets filled with multitudes of boxes and lines to be completed in triplicate. Mostly there is no limit to the degree of unnecessary enquiries: Mother’s maiden name, father’s profession, the last three visited destinations, or why do all Australians hate Indians. Despite the pain answering it all, especially after a sixteen-hour local bus journey including garage stop, we try to keep upbeat about it all. After all, with a bit of creative answering, there is plenty of fun to be had.

RIGHT-LEFT-LEFT-RIGHT-WRONG!: Indians like many folk around the world use their left hand, which is considered a no go zone for other hand business (such as eating) for their daily ablutions and it does take a little while to get used to, but once you’ve got the swing of it with a slosh of water you’re back in business. However, living with Sunita (our host of Vanastree) we were introduced to the subtleties of appropriate table manners that are quite different to other taboos involving left-handers around the world. Our first meal together had some light shed on the fact that in this part of the world there is even a more deadlier sin to commit when touching another fellow human being’s food with your left hand- your disgusting saliva-covered right hand. It is customary to serve yourself and others with your left, pass food with your left and keep that nasty germ-laden food-eating hand to yourself. Cutlery makes life so much easier!

XEROX SHRINE: Our main task during the stay with Vanastree was to improve the NGO’s communication materials, mostly in anticipation of the organisation’s big-ticket fundraiser/awareness festival, the Malnad Mela, held annually in Bangalore. This task theoretically didn’t promise to create too much hassle as it was going to take just a little to “improve” existing items. The use of ill-fitting clipart was rather liberal and equally disturbing was the existing choices and selections of colour and fonts that didn’t agree with my (and hopefully most other humans’) idea of effective communication. Yet, in practice, our work stint did turn in to a hardcore, time pressed and sometimes nerve wrecking exercise. Don’t get us wrong; it was enjoyable refocusing our backpacked trained brain cells in an alternate way, other than to read timetables, menus or hieroglyphic museum plaques. Things work differently in India; I believe nobody needs to be preached about that fact. In our case- design and general work procedures definitely didn’t quite match ones we had experienced before in our careers. Text alterations for a brochure arrived in our inboxes before we even had seen the original content. Suggested poster concepts were crippled under the heavy burden of class, cast, religious and urban/rural complexities. Printing budgets changed faster than the Liberal Party’s leadership, and the request for accurate package sizes in order to create correct sized labels raised eyebrows. However, we got there in the end, days turned into nights and nights into days as sometimes sweat and/or tear drops hit the keyboard. By the time the festival was upon us, we had proudly produced 40 plus task items. Some were small, others epic. Invitations, posters, brochures, charts, booklets, signage etc. were ready just in time for the start of the festival. The effort seemed in the end to prove worthwhile. Nearly every single product was sold out to eager customers on the first day! However, one thing nearly didn’t make it. The label designs weren’t ready, erhm there were difficulties in getting the content, until half an hour before the local printer locked his doors. Doing it the next day wasn’t an option so I was understandably nervous that the outdated digital printer wasn’t going to cope with the task drama-less. But I was wrong. Everything worked out just fine. Not a single paper jam jeopardised the process; the registration was really spot on and the colour consistency was admirable. The reason must have been that, before turning on the printer, the owner of the printing shop had performed a small puja ceremony. Incense was waived around the machine, a soft prayer murmured and a tender kiss placed on the paper drawers. Things work differently in India.

putting in late hours, in my favourite lungi

DAY IN THE OFFICE: Sunita, our boss assured us that there would only be eight attendees, instead, thirty women from surrounding villages came to the Vanastree office like a flock of seagulls. Not in search of hot chips, rather to hone in on their pickling expertise and share a day of fun away from their men folk. I had no idea pickles could take so many forms, but as the ladies cut turmeric, garlic, ginger, chilli and strange unripe fruit, the colours in the pickle jars were manifesting into that little glob of obligatory pickle placed on your plate in the Western Ghats in the ten-to-one plate position as a taste explosion for the meal of rice and curry. Of course that meant we had to taste everyone’s pickle recipe (think of a salty raw garlic, chilli and ginger combo) and lunch as a sample is placed on your plate; there are more ways to make dosas (a fermented rice flour pancake) than Indian gods. In terms of trying to do any work on that day above the chatting, singing and obligatory pickle sampling… well let’s say that not too much got done on that day from our side of things.

kat working hard, if you can find her

HOLY HOLI: Holi is truly a colourful affair. It is one of the two hundred and seventy three festivals celebrated somewhere by someone on any day in India. Theoretically an innocent celebration to announce spring’s arrival, in reality it is a mad day of anarchy. Gangs of kids and kids at heart, armed with vivid coloured powder, which is either mixed with water and bottled or just left dry, roam the streets in search of clean, to be bombarded by victims. Needless to say, tourists rank as highly prized objects. We arrived in Hampi, in peace, from a rather uneventful night’s train journey from Bangalore. Despite the wee morning hours, Holi was already well under way. Signs of colour splashes were appearing on skins, fur and walls. We sensed that we would only have two options on how to spend the day ahead. A) staying indoors, lock the door and shift the bed frame against it; or B) dress in our not nice clothing (not hard after being on the road for so long), get out and embrace it all. We didn’t chicken out and before we knew it we were among the throng of technicoloured locals and tourists, dancing to frenzied drumming, tossing and inhaling clouds of colour. Indian party time all right! We retreated after some time back to the hostel but spent the rest of the day and the following ones, scrubbing colour from rarely visited body parts.

mountains of the stuff. innocent at this stage

BANANA FIGS: Sounds intriguing doesn’t it? Well each of us got to experience a farm stay with one of the women who made Vanastree such an integral organisation for women’s empowerment in the Western Ghats. Manorama “Panorama” was a local farmer, amazing cook, seed leader and our Indian pillar as she looked after us with her family about 30 km from the nearest town. Apart from the usual farm chores such as gathering betel nut, drinking copious amounts of Nescafe, eating all the time and watching the local soapie at nine-thirty every night, there was serious work to be done. Manorama with support from her family runs her own cottage industry product from semi-wild bananas: banana figs. Our job included peeling bananas, placing on trays and cutting into pieces as well as eating the yellow things. Delicious!

Manorama bending bananas

LEGGED: Positions of the “below the hip” body parts have a strong legacy in Indian culture and heritage. Think of the cross-legged protest of Ghandi and Melbourne taxi drivers, imaginative and apparently blissful positions of Karma Sutra activities. The shame of lbw, which for no cricket followers equals “leg before wicket”, or the serene positions when seeking spiritual enlightenment during mediation. While visiting the great sub-continent one must be flexible and enduring. After three months of having the knees pressed into my chin on gruelling bus journeys, sitting cross-legged on the floor for eating, working and sometimes sleeping I (Matthias) started to repeatedly talk about the benefits of a chair. It is true that the pleasures in life are sometimes the simple four-legged variety.

EGGS: Got to love them as symbols of fertility, Easter and of course thinking about them is a sure sign of some major deficiency when your diet is just plain too healthy. Apart from our only indulgence of freshly ground coffee with creamy milk warm from the cows, our intake of food consisted of rice, vegetables, rice, vegetables, rice and more rice. The recommended daily intake of all things oily, sugary, chocolately and the sniff of protein shaped other than a lentil, had us dreaming of the little energy pockets: eggs- yep straight from the chook’s bum are all we wanted as three month’s of amazingly good organic pure vegetarian food… was well… too good for us!

India Post: Want a good way to get your kicks in spending $60 in India? Try sending an Indian god to Australia via surface mail. I (Kat) thought that the next sardine-packed bus would be detrimental in keeping a several headed papier mache god intact, so insisted that a hasty send off would be the most sensible thing to do. However, after refreshing myself with the guidebook’s comprehension of the India postal system, I, armed with god, a box and nerves of steel whilst ignoring the cries from rows of tailors to sew up the parcel (as I NEEDED to show the contents- according to the LP), embraced the Indian queue in the Mysore Main Post Office. Forty-five minutes later after much elbow and armpit to cheek action I finally made it to the front and showed my parcel’s contents and was promptly told, “Madam, you must parcel stitch up” and sent out the door. An hour later, armed with a neatly stitched and white-clothed parcel, I rejoined the queue that had become a rugby scrum with only one counter open. “Where is custom form, madam you need to fill this out?” Well, you would assume as part of customer service this might have been given to me the last time India Post and I met at the front of the queue, but no, the postal clerk apparently having no recollection of seeing me earlier enquiringly asked. So, after receiving the form (in duplicate) she raised her eyebrow and looked quizzically at me. “Um excuse me Madam, wonderful postal clerk, uhm, you see I don’t have a pen and it is most unfortunate and I… well…” I stammered. “You can buy pens outside the post office” was the reply. Ok, I told myself as I took a deep breath as I spied three pens on her desk. After much coaxing I was able to fill out my forms and believe it or not the Indian god was on the way, which incidentally arrived at my parents’ place intact.

ONE MENU POLICY: China and India, to us have things very much in common. Both being massively populous, each thinking their own nation is the greatest country on earth, setting their eyes on Nepal and needing seriously to improve their driving skills. However, another common phenomenon occurs when patrons (no matter how large the group) would gather at a restaurant table, each diner eager to read through the mouth watering delicacies on offer, yet the waiters in both countries have the tendency to only ever hand over one prized copy of the menu per table. This seems strange as everyone can see piles of menus gathering dust in the corner.

GOD FOR A DAY: Imagine sitting in the limelight and giving your boss an earful about your paltry pay, long hours and inflexible routine… Well if you’re able to get yourself in a deep trance- with wine, women and song omitted- for a good twenty-four hours beforehand you might be on the way acting as a Hindi god as part of a Theyyam ritual in northern Kerala. With its origins obscure although hinted at Voodoo and pagan practices, Theyyam is a once in a lifetime experience for participants and spectators alike. Watching the ritual being performed is not only eye opening throughout the night but also culminating into the final show in the early hours of the morning. We jumped into an awaiting Ambassador only to be driven through rural back roads to the performance, which is held on a landowner’s property. Ranging from a simple temple like house with an earthen courtyard nestled amongst banana trees, to an extravagant purpose-built performance hall with fireworks and tacky lighting. The performers, or Theyyam are already at the venue either busily making costumes or applying intricate designs on their faces as they transform into the various forms of the big ticket gods Vishnu or Shiva. Interestingly the background of the performers is the lowest of low caste and their normal day job is as a landless day labourer picking paddy or bananas for the fat cat landlord. Yet, come once a year, they are paid dearly to perform as Hindu gods. Blessing, dancing and acting as a medium for the landlord and his family for a godly pep talk: one-on-one. We became addicted to Theyyam and after four times of getting up at the ungodly hour of four, we can truly say we witnessed something special. One performance involved a god reincarnate of Shiva being dressed to the nines in a banana leaf skirt and woven hoop held under his outstretched arms. He was able to get into a trance-like state to undertake a lively performance. Apart from berating the landlord- that you can do as a god- even to make the landlord beg and act like a dog much to the amusement of the audience. This Shiva god’s finale was for around thirty times to stage dive onto a large pile of coals, each time sliding facedown on top of the smouldering fire whilst being pulled off by his consorts with a banana twine rope fastened at his waist. This is one act you would really have to trust your mates with. Afterwards, a little dishevelled and singed at the eyebrows he sat on a pedestal and gave advice or future predictions to the landlord and his anxious family. And you thought the Tokyo Shock Boys were something to see…

like a christmas ornament, singed at the edges

INDIAN PAINT: We purchased a bucket load of Indian house acrylic paint from a couple of hardware stores- not an easy task- in Goa on our last few days in the country. Apart from getting a yellow, which in reality was fluorescent green, we had a lot of fun in using the paint undertaking a community art project with an NGO partner of Vanastree. SWISH is a commercial laundry located in the grottiest industrial estate a far cry from the golden sands and dance parties Goa is renowned for. The laundry is run by some social workers that are trying to give trafficked women an alternative source of income from prostitution in Goa’s slum red light district. Not an easy task it is as some of the young women are emotionally scarred and have pending court cases after being rescued from seedy brothels. We were lucky to have the support and of course artistic talent of the girls (and some boys) with the drive of the staff to brighten an outside enclosed space that is often used for impromptu meetings. The girls and boys all got to leave a coloured handprint to form leaves of a tree. Others assisted in applying Indian mendhi (henna tattoo) or other traditional patterns on solid colours to represent the laundry’s soap bubbles and the diversity of the group as the girls came from different states of India and as far away as Nepal. For them this project was most rewarding as some had not even held a paintbrush or had the chance to go to school as they were sold at a young age. It wasn’t the easiest for us to paint, as we had to improvise with some tools such as banana leaves as paint palettes, while sweltering under a hot tin roof in 40 degrees. However, we had a lot of fun sipping chai, chatting and of course admiring the evolving art masterpiece! We are only praying that the quality of paint will hold up through the monsoon.

our own Indian chaos

SEAT RESERVED: Public buses in India rely not only on the goodwill of fellow passengers, but also the unspoken law of ways to secure a seat rather than having to endure the death defying, bumpy, dusty 9-hour journey standing upright. Indians are much obliging in assisting a stranger by catching hurled luggage through passenger windows of a moving bus as it enters the bus station. Another interesting method is the responsibility given to the neighbouring passenger in guarding the neatly placed handkerchief as the owner needs to relieve himself (never a her)/buy chai/expulse betel nut juices/bargain for snack food at the next bus stop. Our all-time favourite was at a junction station off the main drag where a small population had gathered around our bus in the hope of actually getting on let alone securing a seat. For the more agile women and men out there, the challenge was to throw oneself through the driver’s side window, push the driver forward to climb behind his back even though the bus hadn’t come to a complete stop; the ultimate prize of course was a seat adjacent to the driver with the hope of a working fan overhead.

this bus trip was ok, flat tire during solar eclipse

Goodbye Asia, welcome Europe

crouchingpigeon — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:50:50 +0000

Well, to be precise we are still in Asia, as this colourful blog entry really hails from the Anatolian/Asian side of the Bosphuros. After nine months of fantastic hospitality, unforgettable sights, encounters and experiences we would like to say our most heartfelt thank you’s to you, dear Asia. With our previous posted stories about you we have strained the patience and eyes of our readers, so in the sense of quiet celebration we have chosen some pictures in retrospective. Again, thank you for spoiling us so much.

Karkolli Village, Sirsi, Karnataka, India. Home.

crouchingpigeon — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 04:06:06 +0000

A probably welcomed change to the normally wordy entries. A photographic and hearty “Namaskara” from our temporary home in the lovely Western Ghats. After nearly 8 months on the move, living out of the backpack we really enjoy to call a place home for a while. And we could not have hope for a better spot. Sunita (the lady running the NGO we help out at) has created a real farm oases deep in the forest. The mostly home grown grub is nothing short of sensational. The noise of ever mad India is far away the only occasional sounds come from monkeys, buffaloes or Katrina giggling while catching up with the second episode of “Flight of the Conchords”. And if you consider the fact, that Matthias can wear a lungi (piece of cloth wrapped around the waist) for work, then we really wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Or at least for a month or two.

Kat and dogs, Tara and Chitti. There is a third one, Scrabbels, but he is mostly busy chasing monkeys.

Inside the bud brick home. Yep, the dogs are a fixture.

The most beautiful cow shed, I have seen around. Sorry dad.

Prasahn and Prejual, the boys from the farm hand family.

The farm is 2 km of the "main" road and driving on the dusty track is very much like cruising through an Aussie National park, minus the roos.

Our soft hands got a blistering work out, revitalising the garden patch. At this stage we dumping the a layer of cow dung. Gee, it feels great to work again.

Our bedroom and terrace above

I normally try avoiding wearing anything with "America" on it. But hey, it is India, who cares. Chitti doesn't. All she cares for are extensive patting sessions.

Commuting to work.

Everyone is waiting for the bus.

Off the bus and into rush hour in Sirsi

switched on.

Team meeting of the office staff. Manorama, Mangala, Sunita and Katrina

A normal day at the office. Pickle workshop with some of the collective's members.

We've seen a few unusual things in India, the painted cow is a new one.

this one is a bit unusual too. Not a neighbour, so no worries

As we said, after all the travels it feels great to put in a good days work. Unfortunately not one of our farm animals.

Vroom Vroom Vietnamese

crouchingpigeon — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 10:43:28 +0000

Part I: Love in the highlands of Sapa

Crossing an international border on foot is always an exciting adventure and apart from the pushiness and a barrage of questions such as you want to take a motorbike, get a hotel, buy a pineapple, have a shoe shine, hotel room, exchange money from an accompanying local, we were still relived to finally step foot into Vietnam.

Forget “Good morning Vietnam” rather, think “Good morning Touts and Souvenir Sellers” as the Vietnamese have cottoned on pretty fast into how to extract money out of tourists for, well literally anything and everything. Nowhere more so was this apparent than in Sapa, a hilly small town perched some 1800 metres above a valley of terraced rice paddies. A melting pot of northern ethnic minority groups some whom only in the last four generations emigrated from China. Black Hmong, White Hmong, Flower Hmong and Red Dzao swarm in droves to spruik their wares at the local market and to unwary tourists. Sweet-faced girls and women of all ages dressed in snazzy cotton and hemp garb: embroidered legwarmers, ruffled skirts knee high, aprons and long-sleeved wrap around tops smile as hey say “will you buy from me?” as they seductively hold up indigo-dyed embroidered textiles and hand-beaten ethnic jewellery. These ladies have an uncanny photogenic memory as they pin you down several days later on your half-hearted non-committal promise of “maybe”.

in the way, our romeo guide

We followed a local guide- Aim- on a three-day hiking taking in the local scenery and two home-stay experiences. The jewels of the valley took form in seeing the progress of a joint Chinese-Vietnamese venture to provide hydro-electricity to the valley. Small hydro-electric stations were being built with minimal impact on the villages and were seen as a welcomed project as not only electricity was brought to the villages scattered in the valley, but small roads connects otherwise isolated communities that now had a access to the medical clinic that was previously was a two days’ walk away. Despite the romanticised view of water buffalo ploughing fields and harvesting rice by hand, these improvements no longer confine the valley’s inhabitants in a timeless museum existence.

Each night we stayed with a family, however unlike our Bornean experience of sleeping head to toe with our hosts, separate sleeping quarters were provided. Like in Borneo, Vietnamese hospitality entails drinking copious amounts of rice wine with the male host; manditory for female guests. We quickly found out that Aim our guide was a) a two-pot wonder and b) on the first night was staying in the home of the family whose about to be married (in two days’ time) daughter was his first and perhaps only true love. As you can imagine the lethal combination of drowning sorrows with not the most hygienically made homebrew was a little too much to bear for alas our poor Romeo suffered from a god-awful hangover the following day. After a few grumpy low points and some short words from Matti, we all made peace as Aim sweated the rice wine out. Matti and Aim joined the village boys in a game of soccer with the opponents score resulting in the losing side doing push-ups pitch side. All was celebrated that night with quadruple the amount of rice wine joining our new host. All I remember of the night is having forgotten to pack headache tablets and the Vietnamese word for “Cheers” inbetween toasts- I think I just ended up saying “Juicy Fruit” as a linguistic blunder, but luckily we all fell into a blissful snoring slumber after a hard day’s walk and urh ehm drinking.

layer upon layer, the rice paddies

Sapa was a brilliant introduction to Vietnam including its cuisine with multiple dish meals, and a taste sensation to sate our Western cravings with great thick strong coffee laced with condensed milk, crunchy baguettes with laughing Cow cheese, and randomly choosing cakes in the local patisseries.

Part II: Inner city living

Riding on the back of a motorcycle in Hanoi is a great way to see the narrow streets, avoid navigating death defying intersections on foot and pestering fruit peddlers. Add a backpack strapped to you and it becomes an even more so exhilarating thrill. Perhaps it’s best not to mention it to our parents and travel insurance company, but it’s a must to do in the capital of Vietnam. Savouring coffee and delectable filled baguettes every morning and each quickly establishing their own favourite street vendor, enabled Matti and myself to have breakfast locals and a bit of morning solitary exploration of Hanoi. Coffee is thick, strong and sickly sweet with a good shot of condensed milk settled at the bottom that you need to stir through slowly; after the fourth cup of the day when your breaking out in nervous jitters and caffeine sweat, you realise that it’s making up for the lack of coffee in the past few months of China travels.

easy riders

I reckon that I could live in Hanoi, and as unanimously pigeon-voted as the right-sized best Asian city in our travels so far, with a compact old quarter, the lingering legacy of French colonial rule such as lounging in cafes, crazy traffic, and, of course, an amazing array of northern Vietnamese cuisine to try- apart from the Fido stuff that is. Neither did we manage to match our friends, Kari and Max’s brave attempt of roasted pigeon.

it's the shit. weasel digested coffee beans. very tasty

As usual, we somehow managed to miss the obvious tourist attractions, except we did get to shuffle silently past Uncle Ho’s resting place, the mausoleum, who had recently returned from his annual bi-monthly visit to Russia for a bit of cosmetic touch up. I must say, he looked as good as on the bank notes, serene as ever, strangely enough almost Caucasian, and as he lay in his crypt like a grey-haired grandpa should, seemed to just be taking a rather long siesta. It is amazing what red lighting can do to one’s pallor since he shuffled off this mortal coil over several decades ago.

Part III: The shot, minus the gun, wedding

We quietly sat in the back row of the bus, yet the bus boy didn’t fail to spot our light-skinned faces immediately and a too often experience situation took it’s course. Despite the protest of Tat, the bus dude wasn’t going to have a bar of it. We were Westerners, therefore expected to pay an inflated fare. Liberally applied yet slightly annoying, but an understandable tactic in Vietnam. This time the local versus Westerner mark-up was a staggering 20,000 Dong. Yes, that sounds like a lot of money but once you get your brain around to convert back to the Aussie dollar, then it is a less daunting figure. At the time A$1 equalled about 18791.23 Dong. So not worth getting work up about and, after all, we were on the way to a wedding.

The invitation to the occasion wasn’t a usual one. During our stay in Hanoi we lodged in a small family-run hostel. Which besides from having light-filled rooms, a balcony overlooking an alley full of life: selling, buying, chopping, mincing, weighing and bargaining action. It also had cable TV, packed with good channels, most notable two, all day, soccer channels called GoalTV1 and GoalTV2. What a score! Yan Tien Hotel was run by a lovely gaggle of brothers, sisters, cousins and uncles and aunties. We enjoyed putting up camp there and it seemed that the feeling was mutual, as on our second time there, being shyly asked if we would like to visit the family’s home village to witness one of their uncle’s wedding.

We, along with Tat, Cecille (a French-Swiss working for a Swiss NGO who had in the past logged for a lengthy time at Yan Tien) and her housemate- Jack the Brisbanian, were un-ceremoniously dropped off the bus in the anonymity of nightfall somewhere in the north countryside outside Hanoi. Despite that initial uncertainness, from that very moment onwards we were in safe hands. We were driven on scooters from the highway to the village and then through the whole night and the next day by an assortment of friends and family members. We felt very lucky to get an insight to Vietnamese family and rural life. But on looking back, the most we got an insight on really was rice wine.

come in, there is a party going on

Friday night sort of was the buck’s party and by the time we arrived at the groom’s family home the revellers had been going strong for nearly the entire day. Obviously, we had some catching up to do. The boys wasted no time helping us to do so- and fast. By the time were shown and stumbled into our night quarters our tummies were full of local delicacies, mostly of the liquid kind. Our sweat drenched skins from too much raucous dancing to surprisingly hard, maybe even Gabba-like techno, and the lungs recovering from smoking forced offered ciggies. And of course, we hit the pillows with huge smiles on our faces. We were granted a short amount of recovery sleep before we got gently woken with a knock on the door and to rattling noises of sewing machines. We didn’t realise on our arrival, but the family’s home we stayed at also functioned as some sort of sweatshop, with employees assembling shirts destined for Spain. We probably could have done with some new clothes too as were only dressed in our backpacking best. Birkenstocks, unironed shirts and colour-stained bottoms but nobody was going to judge us on our clothing. What mattered more was our capability to keep up drinking shots of rice wine, and more dancing. All in all the second day of the wedding start shaping up like the buck’s previous night’s, with the difference that there now heaps more people gathered at the groom’s family home. Neighbours, friends, and family soon added to around 750 invited guests. All were feasting and drinking to the occasion. Thom, the groom was moving from table to table accepting congratulations and occasionally envelopes, containing Dong’s for the future ahead. The bride was yet to appear, as she celebrated at her own family home, torn apart with the joy of joining her lover, yet sad as the day also meant she had to move away from her own family and join the groom’s family; to care for her husband and his parents equally.

hey ladies

not another round!

As visitors, all we were expected to do was sit and be served. The food was plentiful and delicious. We had rotating company joining us for the everlasting meal and in true Vietnamese tradition, those people would pick out what they deemed the best and tastiest pieces from the array of dishes one chopstick load at a time in to our individual bowls. The hardest proved yet to come as we had to find the time to eat as a queue of fellows eagerly jostled up, wide grins, pleasantries and question in Vietnamese on their tongues and a bottle of rice wine in their hand. Each one would pour our ceramic cups, raise them, impatiently urge us to do likewise and shoot the fermented goodness downwards. Lastly, upon putting our cups back on the table, everyone of the drinking round would raise to their feet to respectfully shake hands with the carrier of the bottle. And that is how it went for a long time, the next guy in the line already pushing forward ready to repeat the custom to his honour.

We got a welcomed reprieve when it was time for the groom to “claim” his wife from her place. A spirited delegation was on their way on scooters, choosing the scenic back roads for obvious reasons, ready to meet the betrothed. Upon arrival it seemed that their party had been set at a different pace. Most noticeably fragile looking jugs of tea substituted booze bottles. In general everyone sort of sat more composed on their chairs. The girl’s parents probably had last minute doubts seeing the barbarians arrive, but it was too late, as dowries had been exchanged and their gorgeous looking yet teary daughter was off. That said she wasn’t off until the DJ had finished his set. And being it appeared to be the guy from last night, the parting tunes banged at roughly 180 bpm.

dance floor action, with wed couple portray

on ya!

Hours later, having dropped off the goods safely at the groom’s home, eaten, drunk and smoked more we were back on our way home to Hanoi. Fittingly for the end of a perfect day, the flagged down bus didn’t overcharge us, the skies were painted in old master colours, and the evening air was a warm breeze. My head out of the window, taking it all in, my eyes appeared watery. I could have blamed a grain of corn, but honestly, I don’t think it was.

drinking buddies

kids of drinking buddies