The city is blue, blue of the Brahmin caste we were told, but I can’t help wondering if there is another reason for its popular -nay ubiquitous-shade. I heard one rumour that it was due to the blue paint putting off the mosquitos. However, I am more inclined to believe it is to challenge the other brightly-coloured-city it is most often confused with (Jaipur, which is bright pink!) I leaned back on the bed and spied out of the window at the huge cliff-wall behind the hotel, and then up, up and eventually to the turrets of the Mehrangarh Fort high above.

It towered over the entire city of a million people, ever watching like a sleeping dragon turned to stone by some mighty magic, frozen with one eye open and brooding over its faded dominance.

The city’s name? Where else but Jodhpur: the blue city of India set amongst the stark landscape of the Thar Desert.

Actually, as nice as post cuddle snoozes are, I could have murdered a beer and so I dressed and headed out to sit with her. I found her sitting on the roof with the owner and a clearly English woman of about our age. They greeted me and I joined them. The owner waved me up a beer from a passing staff member and continued telling us about the city.

“The city is known as the “Sun City” because of the fine weather,” he said, “It was the capital of the Marwar Kingdom founded by Rao Jodha. The wall goes all the way around.”

I remembered our arrival a few hours before, Jodhpur is indeed a walled city with a tight maze of very narrow streets full of wandering cows and tiny stores of all descriptions.

Travelling through it in a tuk tuk, one cannot help but feel that westerners stand out a little too much amongst the backdrop of a city whose sheer cramped size and ancient structure is hugely resistant to modernisation. Not that this is stopping the tuk tuk driver attempting to break the speed of light.

I turned to Cesca, the wind buffeting her hair, “If we travel any faster, we will go back in time!”

She grinned a response.

Eventually we made it to the large haveli or converted palace that you will find all over Rajasthan. It had enormous doors in a giant wall upon which we knocked mightily and were greeted by a staff member who directed us to the young owner. He was the same man holding court with us now and part of the family that had converted the old edifice of residence into the magnificent guesthouse before us.

Suddenly I realised that the reason he was paying us all such attention was that he fancied the English girl speaking with Cesca. At least I hoped it was she and not my baby as this was a very high roof from which to be flung…

Anyway, we espied the city and he told us of the sights to be had in its investigation. He then offered us himself as a guide. We agreed and he took us through the streets and temples showing us the sights. It was all quite excellent really.

That night we stayed up quite late, eating the great food prepared at a moment’s notice by our host, and chatting to the English girl. She was a Doctor by trade, on her travels and heading further into Rajasthan until reaching the desert city of Jaisilmere. We very quickly hit it off and decided we should all go together. Indeed, like all the incredible people we met, it was my darling wife they immediately took too – she just has a very impressive skill of putting people at their ease, which is formed of her intense innocence and classy way.

The next day we walked up to the castle-like Mehrangarh Fort and took a long look around.

Like the palace in Udaipur this was very impressively preserved and indeed still in use by the ruling family. We enjoyed another exquisite audio tour and visits to armouries, ballrooms and private antechamber of the Princes found in this part of India.

It never failed to impress. Outside I filmed the city and animals living on the walls and Cesca, dressed in her traditional and bright orange Indian clothing (bought way back in Mumbai), made friends with locals who were soon chatting to her in excited and animated conversation.

Later we realised that we wanted to stay a few more days here and so we made to find a cash machine. This required a long walk through the city until coming across only two working international choices. The first was out of money, which worried us mightily. Rushing to the other, we found that it was not working properly and took 20 minutes to count our money, but it eventually spat out enough funds to cover our adventures for the next few days.

Now we could go shopping!

The Handicrafts industry has in recent years eclipsed all other industries in the city. By some estimates, the furniture export segment is a $200 million industry, directly or indirectly employing as many as 200,000 people. Other items manufactured include textiles, metal utensils, bicycles, ink and sporting goods. A flourishing cottage industry exists for the manufacture of such items as glass bangles, cutlery, carpets and marble products.

WIKIPEDIA

We asked around for where to buy fine silks in the city (something that it is famous for) and were directed to a slightly tattered looking shop with enormous piles of silks of every conceivable type. There we spent the best part of half a day ordering up bed coverings as presents for our families.

This was an experience that was at one moment highly pleasurable; full of “ohh’s and ahh’s as they laid out the wares for us and claimed everyone from London boutiques to Richard Gere himself bought from this store; and the next moment was sheer pain; as we were pressured to make decisions (something Cesca hates doing) and agree a price. Eventually we bargained down to a fair price, but as always you know that you are being fleeced somewhere and somehow. Still the silks are lovely.

“How can I decide which goes to which person?” Cesca asked me.

“You can’t really baby, people will always like a different one than the one you picked out for them. Just let them do the fighting.”

Therefore, I paid the (massive) bill and the company posted the entire lot home. I remember at the time wondering if it would actually arrive back in the UK, but it did and quickly.

Then we went tea hunting. Jodhpur is also justly famous for its spices and high quality teas. We had a fantastic couple of hours trying all sorts of brews and listening to the happy proprietor explain their many health benefits.

We bought some spices (which I only got half way through after a year) and teas (which Cesca has never opened!).

This bounty, plus a few other gifts we posted back to the UK through the torturous Indian postal system, which requires you to wrap all you items in cloth and seal them with wax. Or rather it requires someone to do this, just not you. No, in another gouge, you must have someone trained in the required technique do it or your package will go missing.

It’s not the cost that prickles, but the time wasted trying to find a suitable merchant to do this for you.

After another fun night talking to Wendy, we decided to move onto the next town together. We found a suitable bus and headed out into the long road into the desert and the sand mountain that is Jaislemere.

Regards,

Basho

Shame I don’t live there then!

Cesca and I have written many articles on the subject of New Zealand and also made a “love letter” of a short-film celebrating the country (found under “films” in the navigation bar). However, I have always wanted to do more to speak of our time driving around these islands.

Well, our wish has come true.

About a two weeks ago I was approached by a company working for Air New Zealand. They wanted to license all our content on New Zealand for use in the official Air New Zealand iPhone app!

On the go and in the air, Air New Zealand’s free Spot-On Travel Guide App Series help you make the most of your visit – even offline.

Browse hand-picked activities, events and destinations by region, then save them for quick retrieval upon arrival. Handy travel tools and social network integration make finding and sharing amazing spots a cinch.

Be a tourist without looking like one.

It’s the Kiwi in us – Air New Zealand.

We jumped at the chance of being involved because we loved our time in New Zealand and the idea of that being celebrated “officially” made us very happy. It gives us another way to share our experiences and give something back. Hopefully, this will have a positive effect on the places we experienced and make sure that people visiting the country for the first time don’t miss out.

I cut down the articles to 150 word long chunks with one picture per chunk. I then uploaded them to a custom CMS provided by my contact. A few days ago they were approved and went live on the app!

We uploaded articles on the following topics:

• See the splendour of Pahia and the Bay Of Islands
• Walk endless sands of 90 Mile Beach
• Be blown away on the cliffs of Cape Reinga
• Walk to the falls of Waitonga
• Cycle up Mount John.
• Walk the Hooker Valley for a view of Mount Cook
• Visit the Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Centre
• See the wild waters of Hokianga harbour.
• Wonder at the Giant Kauri Trees
• Brave the unpaved roads to Waikawau Bay
• Get washed up in Cathedral Cove
• Bath in Mud at Hell’s Gate
• Dip in the Polynesian Spa at Lake Rotorua.
• Wander around the history of Rotorua museum.
• Early morning at Lake Rerewhakaaitu
• See the wondrous colour palette of Wai-O-Tapu
• See the huge Lake Taupo
• Walk the Queen Charlotte track
• Visit and stay at Furneaux Lodge
• Dig your own spa at Hot Water Beach
• Wonder at the strange Moeraki Boulders
• Get wet at Punakaiki’s Pancake Rocks
• See whales by helicopter in Kaikoura

I have created a special “landing page” for use in the iPhone in-built browser. This can be found here: www.outsidecontext.com/new-zealand

If you are thinking of, or planning, a visit to the best country on the far-side of the world, then get this app and read up on some of the above. We did so much in New Zealand. In two months we travelled one end to the other taking in mountains, beaches, volcanoes, islands, cities and vineyards. We walked on its glaciers, jumped off its bridges, worked on its farms and skydived over its mountains. We didn’t want to leave.

So, get this app and then you too can fall in love with New Zealand.

Just like me.

Download from here

Basho.

PS. If you do get the app, and you like it, then please leave us a comment here to let us know – it would mean a lot to us to hear of your visits to NZ.

Sandals.

I hadn’t worn shoes for 2 months. A new adult first, meaning that my feet were always dusty; the ever present Indian dirt and sand sticked to my toes. Every night I showered and a torrent of black washed off my feet. I turned onto my side and spied Cesca on the next sun lounger, she was taking in the sun by laying on her front, her bikini open at the back to allow a tan, but – since I had rubbed in some cream for her – no white line or burning. I reached to the table between us and took down my beer and my book. It was called The Master of Go, by Nobel Prize winning author Yasunari Kawabata.

Then my phone rang. It was my best friend Mark.

I thumbed the screen and the call connected, “Mark!” I exclaimed, genuinely please to hear from him, “It’s great to hear your voice. Where are you?” From over the connection I could hear what sounded like traffic and men talking; the sounds of London. The sounds of home.

“Heyya, I thought I would give you a call,” his voice was raised like he could not really hear me and was compensating by shouting; he must be at work on a building site, “I’m in a man hole at the moment sorting out foundations for a new tube station.”

“Wow,” I said, interested.

“Yeah, it’s for the Olympics and all that. Anyway, it’s cold, wet and horrible and I am down this smelly hole and I thought I could do with cheering up. Where are you?”

I could well imagine England in February and being stuck out in the legendary English wet winter could not be much fun. I looked at the majestic view around me. The beach stretched off to the right and ran into a high line of cliffs with chalets atop the jagged rocks. This had a path running down that ran right behind us giving access to the twenty or so beachfront guest houses. A sort of motley collection of flop houses that serviced the lower order of traveller and would only be reviewed in backpacker bibles such as the Lonely Planet. These ran past us to the left and on down the endless beach, which was also home to a couple of dozen bars of all levels of coolness, before rounding the headland in the hazy distance. The beach itself was dotted with people playing in the surf, lounging on beds like ours, doing yoga and drinking. Everyone looked like they were on a sort of the-morning-after-we-are-the-cool-kids vibe that only a night spent drinking, going to parties and getting laid can get you.

Sure enough, for a certain type of person Goa was a seductive paradise.

“Oh,” I said to Mark, who in my mind was struggling in the cold and wet down a big hole; traffic running all around, “I’m in Goa, India…”

“I see.”

“On the beach…”

“A-ha.”

“Drinking cool beer in the sunshine.

“Is it beautiful?”

“Most definitely. Wish you were mate,” I said honestly, “you would love it.”

“Thanks-“ he then shouted something to someone off the phone that ended in swearing, then he was back on, “Look. I have to go.”

“Sure. Hope the kids are well.”

“We are all looking forwards to you coming back. The lads too, we will all share a beer with you at Ground Zero.”

“Deal, can’t wait.”

“OK, bye!”

And then he was gone.

“Bye, buddy.” I suddenly realised that I was really missing him and the rest of my friends.

I looked at the sea again.

Like I said, a certain type of person would love Goa. Just not me.

A week previous we had left Ellora and headed back towards Mumbai, before jumping off at a junction in the middle of the night and catching the connecting train down into Goa.

Goa is split up into different parts. The area around Colva in the south is all family places. No drugs, no happy pizzas or topless girls and not much yoga. Then there is Manadrem, roughly in the middle, which is chock full of middle-class Indians. Then there is the wilder northern town of Arambol, which has been given over the travellers. Arambol is famous. Moon parties, drink, drugs and lots and lots of pizzas; happy and otherwise. We had started in the southern end as it was closer to the station and after buying a very expensive taxi ride had ended up in a family resort/guesthouse with beachfront  views. The idea was to chill out down here and then work our way back up to the north before heading inland towards Hampi and Mysore. It was good plan.

This guesthouse was fun, in a sensible sort of way, and the food was really nice. We chilled, read some books, had some fun and then made plans to find a good hotel for Valentine’s day.

Valentine’s day is big news in India, but not normally for the right reasons. The Indians have many customs that on the one hand might feel quite liberated and on the other are not. Public Displays of Affection (PDA’s), for example, are fine between men. That is between pals; what the British now call bro-mances. But, PDA’s are not fine between men and women. The highly sexed western valentine’s day, rubs Indians up the wrong way something chronic. Which is to say that it causes all sorts of tension and in India where there is tension, passion and public sexuality then there is violence. Goa is the worst flashpoint for this.

And it is all the westerners fault.

I am going to sound like a “granddad” now, so before I do let me say some things in my defence. I am a modern Londoner. I am confident sexually, comfortable with women and in every way a liberal minded person. This liberality has been the driving force that enabled me to find my religion of Daoism – that and my philosophy degree – and as such I am cool with people cutting loose. I can cut loose too and I like Mary J as much as the next Philosophy Graduate.

Right, so, as I said this is all the westerners fault.

There is a certain type of person looking for something in particular when they go travelling. Goa attracts these people like flies. Serious Ergophobics or, as Douglas Adams called them, “Fart Arounds”. They moved in around the late 70’s and never left. This influx has given rise to an entire enclosed culture that exists in the north of Goa. A culture that doesn’t exist anywhere else in India (that I saw). India is still a very closeted country when it comes to sex. White smooth-limbed western girls with their boobs out are a massive cocktease that the average gently-repressed Indian male finds hard to deal with. Goa is chock full of people that think two things. Firstly, that they can do what the hell they like and to hell with anyone else. Secondly, that India is the same as Thailand.

Believe me, it is not.

The only reason that the Indian government doesn’t roll out the riot police and throw the lot out, is that the tourists bring in a lot of money to a poor country. And that is the big thing for me. When I see westerners mistreating a culture and exploiting it through the power of their money I get angry in a little place inside. And if I feel it, the Indians definitely do. Those not too turned on to think straight.

While in Mumbai I read in a national newspaper about the “worry” regarding Valentine’s day in places such as Goa. That the licentiousness would cause flashes of violence.

It has done in the past.

It was reported that in 2007 a couple of European girls and their boyfriends had been beaten up outside a local bar where they had been drinking all day. The inference of the article was that the lady in question had been underdressed, was drunk and very abusive to the locals’ feelings. In India, you have to watch the public mood carefully. This event had shocked the west and been played down as local trouble, easily sorted, but I can almost guarantee that what happened was instigated by a locals reaction to their attire, their attitude, their rudeness, their drunkenness and probably all of the above.

We wanted none of that.

I never forgot that almost all the police in India have a sub-machine gun.

So we attempted to book a great hotel in the middle of Goa, used by the Indians themselves, so that we might avoid any unpleasantness. We did avoid it, but unfortunately we booked an absolute dive of a hotel that was extravagantly expensive and we hated every moment there that was not spent in our room. Take my advice, unless you want to spend your days eating bad food covered in flies with terrible service, high costs and a small beach then stay away from Mandrem.

After Valentine’s day we bit the bullet, caught a Taxi to the North, and got stuck in. The town of Arambol is basically three long roads leading down to the beach. Each road is absolutely lined with guest houses, bars and tourist shops all selling authentic crap to westerners and catering for the traveller crowd. Mile after mile of this leads finally to the beach and more bars and beach clubs before another spate of guesthouses. It was to one of these we made our way by trudging through the searing heat toward a large blue converted house inches away from another identical copy.

Our room was tiled like a bathroom and had whitewashed walls. Quite romantic in a down to earth kind of way. We unpacked our mosquito nets and made a bed tent to protect ourselves overnight.

We then went shopping and looking for beer and food.

As anyone who reads this blog must surely know, I am somewhat of a culture-vulture when on the road and, since Cesca does not partake of the magical herbs, this left me somewhat at a loss for something to do, until I managed to pull up some WIFI in a great cafe and get on with some writing, followed by browsing an excellent and well stocked second hand book store. Cesca was not in love with this idea. Indeed we only finally reached agreement when I put the laptop away and laid on the beach.

And melted.

On the flip side, the sea was great fun and we found a fantastic Italian restaurant just off the beach. It was near here that I saw my first Ahsram-Girl.

An ashram is a religious hermitage. Additionally, today the term ashram often denotes a locus of Indian cultural activity such as yoga, music study or religious instruction, the moral equivalent of a studio or dojo. WIKI

Ashram-Girl is a term I invented for the very white and thin western girls you occasionally see wandering around places in India. They are easy to spot as firstly, they are very thin after weeks/month/years spent in Ashrams. Secondly, they have that genuine beneficial smile of the believer in whatever it is the ashram teaches. Finally, they only wear Sari’s. I saw a number when I was in Goa and they all have something else about them too, they take your breath away. They are beautiful – In the way that only the content and happy can be. Radiant I guess you would call it. The first one I saw literally parted the crowd drawing bows, smiles, nudges and “wow” statements from all the male Indian shop keepers. She smiled like a painting of the Madonna and willowed her way to wherever she was going.

Whatever they are doing in those Ashrams, and some of them are all about sex to the point that you get a HIV test when you arrive, I don’t suppose they need to advertise. There are all sorts of legends regarding them, and all sorts of terrible tales as well. Abuse, rape, enforced drug taking, starvation and even death. There exists an entire trade in kidnapping these people back to their families and many Hollywood films on the subject too. I had known a true believer when I was in school (in her case a Christian) and while she wasn’t naturally beautiful, she was radiant in the same way that these girls were and I admit that it is a little scary. They look a little lost in another world. That they wear this one lightly. I could picture Cesca in such robes, lost to herself, her family, living a strange life in India, living some true spiritual life of yoga and I didn’t like the idea one bit, but I won’t deny that the part of her that would embrace that life is one of the many parts of her that I am attracted to.

Over the next few nights we partied, ate, drank, shopped and sat in the sun. I went through book after book from the shop until I came across one that would change my life.

The Tao of Pooh and Te of Piglet (Wisdom of Pooh) is not a real Daoism book. It is not exactly well thought of in terms of intellectual Daoist studies, nor is it in line for any sort of prize for accuracy, understanding or factualness. Nevertheless as a starting point for a long mental journey it was perfect. The book is about the Chinese Religious Philosophy of Daoism. Or more accurately, it is about the Westernised version of the Chinese Religious Philosophy of Daoism. The writers claim that Winnie the Pooh is Daoist. It is a such a strong idea that millions of people have read and instantly understood – or thought they have – Daoism without reading anything else about the religion. For most that is the first time they receive “knowledge outside the scriptures” and as such most come away with a self satisfied sense of having “got it”. They then get back on with their own lives and that’s that.

Daosim. Sorted.

For a few others this leads down a rabbit hole and after a very long journey, into wonderland. I will have much more to say on this subject in a later Philosophy post, but suffice to say, that while I have listened and read Alan Watts for many years by this point, only the talk of Zen had really interested me. His common reference to Daoism had not, at that point, stirred me. This book, about a fictional bear with very little brain and his identification with an ancient Chinese Philosophy was the first time I really considered it.

Eventually Cesca and I booked a train ticket from the nearby town of Panjim and caught a taxi out of Amabol. I was finally feeling relaxed, and little sun burned. The atmosphere of the place made it impossible not to chill out. We arrived in Panjim and booked into a guest house called Park Lane Lodge.

The owner was very eccentric, and the guesthouse was basically a room in his large house. It was the only place I stayed that had a curfew and the room was not particular well cooled, so we walked around and found an ATM.

Panjim has a very nice feel of colonial architecture and a Portuguese vibe to it.

It was a nice place to wander around before tucking into a meal of grilled fish at the towns top hotel.

Then we walked back to the guesthouse and I started to feel thirsty. Like I really needed a cup of tea. We got back and tucked into bed.

Then a hole opened up and I fell into hell.

The first thing that happened is that I need to use the facilities about half an hour after turning in. As I sat on the seat I suddenly felt wrong and threw up. Then both ends of me threw up for about 5 minutes. I had Indian food poisoning. Bad. Feeling that the worst was over I showered and managed to make it back to bed.

But, only for ten minutes.

My body was then wracked with pain in the stomach and I had a terrible thirst. I tried to sleep but every ten minutes I was forced to drag myself to the loo in agony. I drank and drank our reserves of water to no avail. I eventually had to wake Cesca to go and get some more water from the guest house owner, who thankfully was very helpful and kind. After a very long night I was feeling even worse. I couldn’t get up in the morning, I couldn’t really see anything, nor keep anything down. I was drifting in and out of a nightmare dream that I remember well, it was of a vampire/devil character biting me and smiling a toothed grin. The super strong sun was now on the room’s roof and heat started to radiate into it.

It is fair to say that I suffered that day. I had drunk 8 litres of water through the night and I was starting to worry.

Cesca went out and bought me all the cold drinks she could, electrolyte powder and cokes. These kept my sugars up and replaced all the minerals I was losing rapidly.

I then decided to pop an antibiotic. We had brought with us a small collection of Ciprofloxacin, which is a strong antibiotic used for serious gut infections.

Ciprofloxacin (INN) is a synthetic chemotherapeutic antibiotic of the fluoroquinolone drug class.It is a second generation fluoroquinolone antibacterial. It kills bacteria by interfering with the enzymes that cause DNA to rewind after being copied, which stops DNA and protein synthesis.  WIKI

I couldn’t read the instructions but I knew what was the dose as I had taken them in Cambodia. It was 500mg for gut infection and 700mg for tuberculosis!

Though that day I was delirious and didn’t know myself or Cesca. I can remember being locked in a short repeating dream that was coming and going like a wave and constantly repeating itself.

The next day I felt a little better, but I was as weak as a day old lamb. Cesca took me to the famous Panjim church and we tried to climb the steps, but I couldn’t.

I was so weak. After a hour climbing steps that should take less than a minute we went back to the guest house and I tried to eat something.

I couldn’t. My appetite was ruined.

I made a promise then and there. Next time someone gets that ill, we are booking into a top hotel and getting air-conditioning and room service. It sucks to be ill in an Indian Guest House. It is the worst possible location short of the middle of the Indian jungle. It wasn’t until the next day that I felt well enough to travel. We waved goodbye to the guesthouse owner and passed out of Panjim towards the train station.

We clambered aboard a train and I considered our time in Goa. Beach holidays and laying in the sun was not the reason I left home. However, having said that, I think Goa has almost everything that a beach holiday could offer. Goa has a massive massive range of accommodation and beach styles and you are sure to find something that suits you, just keep moving if it doesn’t. As for Panjim, well I had been purged by Panjim, it was a very nice looking place, but I can never forgive it for trying to kill me.

Now we were heading to the one of the most memorable parts of our trip to India, indeed the world. We were going to the countryside for a rest cure in a UNESCO village on the banks of the river Ganges.

The train stopped, we had arrived in Hampi.

Regards,

Basho

So what kind of place is it and how does it make one feel to be in one of the most “holy” cities in the world?  This short film considers just that by showing the city as it wakes and as it goes to sleep.

Varanasi: City of Gods from Basho Matsuo on Vimeo.

Varanasi is not a city for the beginner traveller.  There are many dangers to being in such a place, both physically and spiritually. While we were there we unwittingly saw the results of a murder, were followed and threatened by a local targeting tourists, eyed up by countless armed police and got into some heated arguments with the local Tuk Tuk drivers who attempted to rip us off.  For us, having travelled for so long, this was taken all in our stride. The other dangers in Varanasi appear to be spiritual.  The entire place is full of European Yogic converts who live in Ashrams up and down the banks.  That you could lose yourself here was for me the real danger I sought to avoid.

There is a definite sense of this being a holy city.  It is filthy and downtrodden like many Indian cities, but its immense ancientness is captivating.  I have tried to show some of that in this film. The ceremony shown at the end of the film is known as the Varanasi Dashashwamedh Ghat Agni Pooja Ceremony and practiced daily in honour of the gods:

“Dashashwamedh Ghat is located close to “Vishwanath Temple”, and is
probably the most spectacular ghat. Two Hindu mythologies are
associated with it: According to one, Lord Brahma created it to
welcome Lord Shiva. According to another, Lord Brahma sacrificed ten
horses in a yajna here. A group of priests daily perform in the
evening at this ghat “Agni Pooja” (Worship to Fire) wherein a
dedication is made to Lord Shiva, River Ganga, Surya (Sun), Agni
(Fire), and the whole universe.”

If 24 hours was not enough time to get to know San Francisco then 3 days is hardly enough to come to terms with the wonder that is Sydney. I was at first a little shocked with how at home I felt here. This we decided was due to the large English influence on Australia. When in San Francisco I couldn’t help but notice the differences; they stood out all over, but here I can’t stop seeing the similarities. Little things like the feel of the underground. For example there is the fact that you have to stand to one side on the escalators just like in London, only here you stand on the left. Another thing like home is the large ‘cityboy’ feel to the centre of town.

A lot of people work in Sydney and they have all the top end shops just like Bond Street and the like. After a while I had to consciously stop trying to compare Sydney to London and that is when it got to me. The harbour here is one of the best I have ever seen with fantastic light and very clean. The opera house backed by the bridge is an almost incomparable photo opportunity that can stand amongst a small group of the world’s best. We took a large amount of film and footage here despite the near gale-force winds. The sky is a pure shade of blue and simply wonderful to behold.

Backpacking in Sydney is everywhere, but nowhere more so than Kings Cross. Like its UK namesake this area is lined with the dregs of the city and along one street is a litter of strip joints and all sorts of commercial sleaze. Our hostel was one street away but may have well been a light-years distance. The glitz gave way to quiet streets of large houses among tenements and an avenue-like feel of trees. Similar to Amsterdam; one minute its all neon lights and sex, the next it is quiet and peace. The Jolly Swagman was our first port of call and we grabbed an early breakfast before heading to bed and loosing most of the day to Jetlag. The JSM hostel is full of younger world travellers all boasting of their Jack Daniels prowess and how many steps they fell down while drunk. I didn’t mind the place, but at this point we hardly know any better. Speaking of drink, one thing that I found funny was that you couldn’t buy alcohol in the supermarket. In fact I had to wander for a good 20 minutes before I could find one dinky little shop that even served the devils drink. Spying the usual tattle of Fosters and Stella I asked the guy to recommend me something local,

“Cooper’s mate, the rest is all shit,” he said pointing at a pack of pale ales, “Don’t worry about the bits in the bottom of the bottles, that’s normal, just roll the bottles before drinking and don’t shake it”.

It may well be normal for you mate, I thought, but I held my peace and paid the man. The price of beer is high in this part of town and 6 beers cost me 8 quid.

They were, of course, very cold, very nice and bloody strong.

The next day we headed into town by foot. Sydney is small enough to walk across without a major trekking licence and we quickly found ourselves in the Royal Botanical Gardens, which are fantastically beautiful. The light was idyllic and the rustling trees were all new to me. Wildlife abounds here and we saw some huge spiders nestled in the bushes and our ears rejoiced to strange exotic sounding bird calls. When at home birdcall is something that you get so used to hearing that you simply filter it out and it becomes simply background noise unable to grab you attention. When here you find all the calls completely new and each one pulls your attention skywards as you try and spot the bird that could have made that noise. To me they all sounded very strange and very loud, I wondered: do visitors to London think the same about the pigeons? One thing we don’t have in London is gigantic bats, but here they hang from almost every tree. Apparently a real pest? I love bats myself and was spellbound for a good few minutes watching them swoop and hoot about the treetops. I also saw something as large as a cat, bound across the grass and up a trunk. “What was that?” Cesca asked a local. “Just a squirrel mate,” came the reply. If that was a squirrel, I thought, then they grow bloody big here!

The gardens gave way to a path along the bay leading up to the Opera House that was lined with a large flock of school kids in identical blue sun hats. They were all picnicking before tackling the harbour and they had picked a great view of the Opera house. We stopped alongside them and took in the view ourselves before getting closer. The Opera house sits on one point of a small bay with the bridge on the other. It is smaller than perhaps you would imagine, but it has a universal appeal and is bathed in light. We wandered through strong winds whipping around the structure and innumerable Chinese school kids all screaming with excitement.

In the middle of the bay is the main transit ferry terminal that grants access to the many other bays, islands and Isthmus that lead out to the ocean. We had been advised to try Watson’s Bay so we paid for a ride on a SuperCat for a few bucks each. Unlike UK ferries this thing moved like a speedboat and we were zoomed across the waters towards the bay far in the distance. In what felt like record time we arrived and disembarked at a lovely looking beach front with a world class fish and chip shop. I don’t know what it was that was in the batter we ordered, but it was crackingly good. We decided to walk off the luncheon and took a very long stroll to Rose Bay. This was deceptively marked as close on the map, but actually took a good few hours. Still it offered amazing views of the bays, the distant harbour, some interesting local streets & houses and some more bloody huge spiders in the bushes. I don’t know if they were dangerous, but I wouldn’t like to find out. We eventually came to Rose bay and played with a local pelican before grabbing the next light-speed ferry back to the Circle Terminal.

The next day we headed to Bondi. The famous beech, even on this winter day, was full of surfers and we snapped away while laying on the golden sands. I find sand boring but I relaxed listening to my iPod and Cesca wrote up her Journal for a few sunny hours. After all this sun had gone to our heads we retreated a few streets away and found an amazing cafe inside a second hand book shop called Gertrude and Alice. The lunch there was very welcome and I munched away merrily while reading a book about Tarantino. After lunch we took in the walk from Bondi to Coogee beach, which again was deceptively marked on the maps as close by. It was not close. However such a walk was beautiful to behold and by the time we made it into the Coogee beach area the sun had dipped magnificently over the horizon. This time of year it is dark by 6pm and this means the evening’s light is spectacular. We stopped for supper in a beach front restaurant and had a great pasta repast before catching the bus back into Kings Cross.

By this time we had both had enough of the Jolly Swagman and moved on to the more famous Eva’s Backpackers. Eva’s was a much nicer hostel, but far more basic. Our room was bright and clean but had no sink or TV. It simply held a big bed. On the roof was the laundry room and a view over the city to die for and we spent a few hours doing our washing before heading into town to buy me a new daysack, my Nanue Pro Bag having really dug into my shoulder over the last few days. Surprisingly the Nanue became the first casualty of our trip and was binned. We walked around the Darling Harbour but quickly decided that it is was a tourist trap and passed on it to come back to Eva’s and a good night’s rest.

As I write this it is the next morning and we have left Sydney and are heading on the train up to the famous Blue Mountains. I relish this chance to get away from buildings. Perhaps it is because I come from one of the world’s premier cities, but I long for some countryside. The Blue Mountains should more than make up for the last weeks’ city hopping!

We will be returning to Sydney in the fall of our Australian journey and I am going to reserve any judgement of the place until then. I really liked my time there and as a starter to this trip it has led us gently into the larger journey.

The mountains await!

Regards,

Basho

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

[singing] San Francisco, San Francisco … not “San Fran”, no, apparently not! I didn’t know that, I would’ve said “San Fran”, but you’d go, “No, we don’t like ‘San Fran’, fuck it!” Or what’s the other one you don’t like? Oh, “Frisco”! You don’t like that either. [audience hisses] And you’re a city of snakes, I see! Hsss! …So you just call it [rolling eyes] “The City”. Oh, right, “The City”. And Oakland’s just a collection of houses, is it?

Eddie Izzard

I think the only thing we proved in our whistle stop tour of “The City” is that you can’t get a grip on any significantly large place if you are jet-lagged and have only 24 hours.  We did, however, give it our best shot.  Landing in San Francisco I was expecting the US customs to seize me on sight.  Not that I have done anything, but I read enough on the news and blogs about TSA nightmares (such as arresting a guy for having a Mac Book Air – “That’s not a laptop!”) to expect the worst.  In the end of course they just waved me through.  I was almost incensed!

The ride into the city was performed on auto pilot, but I was awake enough to be amazed by the SanFran architecture, which is very eclectic.  Flat roofed Mexican style houses blot the landscape and then give way to the standard American urge to build everything bigger.  Large, tall, just like in the movies were the three things that ran through my mind.

A short walk later we were at the hostel.  It is 2:30pm US time.  God knows what time it is in London.  Sleep took us and we wandered out of space and time so that each passing second was as like a lifetime on the Earth.

6am.

We wake.  Food is needed, but first security.  Struggling to pack our kit in the mandatory PacSafe wire mesh protectors was not fun.  Clearly something you need to practice.  Well, we have plenty of time for that.  Neither Francesca or I even suggested leaving the packs “unmeshed”.  It was not that the hostel was that dodgy but rather I believe it was we both could hear Arabella’s voice in our heads warning us with the dire arching tone of the older sister.

Food was best described as shit.  I know the US love their pancakes, but to my English pallet it tasted like eating soft foam packing topped with sugar.  Still, it filled a hole.  It would have done equally well filling a mattress.

We ventured out into “The City” and at first glance I was underwhelmed to say the least.

Our Hostel

San Francisco has that high sided building feel that you get in all US cities and which London rarely achieves, but it also has a very visible divide between those who have and have not.  Beggars are everywhere and in all guises.  Simply looking like you don’t know where you are, squinting at signposts for example, will have them swarming over you in packs all vying for the largest tip you can muster.  I would like to say that I was able to resist, but one such likely fellow, a “veteran” he claimed – although of what war I couldn’t say; possibly the civil war, collared us and was very helpfull in pointing out the way, placing a good map in my hand, smiling and laughing about our journey from London and charging me a fiver.  I hope the cash went some way to helping him buy a pair of trousers.

We visited the camera shop then STA travel (the guy in STA was a god-send and booked all our seats for the next 4 flights) and then headed onto the nearest cablecar and uptown towards Fisherman’s Wharf.  This was more like it.  The cablecar holds some sort of mystic charm that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but was definitely affected by. Perhaps it was the banter of the driver, which was cool as mustard and obviously the musings of someone who has been driven mad by his job, or perhaps it is the quaint wooden feel and the low tech approach?

Nevertheless I really enjoyed my journey on what was an absolute 100 year old deathtrap and had me hanging on for dear life.  Fisherman’s Wharf is nice if a little touristy.  We wanted to buy some food from the market, crab being the speciality of the area, but on passing the very first restaurant my stomach grabbed hold of my legs and made me keel hard right.  I didn’t realise how hungry I was until we had polished off two baskets of bread as we waited.  Cecsa did the math.  Apart from the mattress filling earlier we had not eaten for 24 hours.  When they placed down the crab in front of me I just knew that I was going to shuck that little fucker for every single morsel of flesh I could get to.  Cesca liked hers too.

Sated we started to enjoy ourselves and booked onto the mandatory cruise across the bay, under the bridge and around Alcatraz.  Mark Twain once noted that the coldest winter he ever experienced was a summer in San Francisco.  How right he was.  It was bloody nippy, but we had a fantastic time.  The commentary was all pre-recorded, which in England would have spelled disaster, but here in the land of Hollywood even dodgy little ferry journeys get the proper treatment.  It was all very well done.  The bridge was large and imposing, but not as large as I imagined.

Alcatraz was far most interesting and could only imagine how being an inmate on that island must have felt.  The mainland is so close, it would be maddening.  Everything you would want, freedom, people, conspicuous consumption – IE the American Dream, would have been just a short swim away.  Past the machine guns, sharks and freezing cold waters.  I wouldn’t have liked it much for sure, but the commentary suggested that, since the island held the worst of the worst, in fact being incarcerated on Alcatraz was somewhat of a badge of honour for the inmates.  Something to brag about later on when comparing scars.

And so ended San Francisco.  We headed back into town via a different route and then collected our bags and made our way back to the airport.  Again I was waved through customs with barely a glance.  I was almost looking forwards to the experience of being searched, which goes to show how tired I was, but hey maybe next time?

The Qantas plane was much nicer than the cramped BA one (at least in our class) and we soon began the 14 hour trot towards our next leg of this adventure!  To Australia and beyond!

Tune in next time, same bat place, same bat channel.

Regards,

Basho

I leave work tomorrow for good – can’t wait!

The bags are packed – full to the brim for a year’s worth of travel!

Basho is going global.

On the 22nd of June, Cesca and I are leaving these shores to go on another adventure:

Bilbo: [voice] It’s a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no telling where you might be swept off to.

We will be visiting Australasia, Indochina, China, India and Japan and are expecting to spend at least a year on the road (but who knows?)  The only things we have booked are the flights and will be winging everything else, so it should be a real adventure!

From tomorrow I will be writing an entire new series of articles about this little jaunt.  Outside Context will be a true journal with writing, video and photo’s of our travels.

So, what brought all this about?

For Cesca the urge to travel is seemingly in her blood and something totally innate.  The question is actually a non-question; why travel?

Why not?

For me it has always been different, for while I have been abroad many times, just dropping out and leaving for a long time has never been high on my “life-list”

But then a few things happened.  Not enough in isolation but together they formed a flood.  One of my friends got cancer.  My Grandfather died.  My father got made redundant.  Cesca and I struggled to find a happy life in the city. We came into a little cash.  The housing market went into insanity (and looks like it’s about to die of a heart attack).  The UK continued to become a surveillance state.  etc, etc…

So the questions I want to answer are: “Is there a better life out there?” and “What do I want to do with my life?”

Should be nice and easy…

You see, I couldn’t help but notice that many of my friends took a real long look at their life upon turning 30. Almost as if the famous “mid life crisis” had, in my generation, started early.  As soon as you hit the-big-three-o.  It certainly happened to me and these thoughts continued in me until they built enough inertia to make changes.

Morpheus: I know *exactly* what you mean. Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Cesca and I sat down and had a chat and the wheel of life started turning.

Naturally, I started reading travel books, came across the works of Alan Watts and realised that I had always thought of life with analogy to a journey.  A pilgrimage with some sort of big reward at the end and the meaning was to chase that reward until you caught it.  Hence I went from school to University and then into work and that led me to the city as the junior member of an IT department and up until becoming the manager in 2005.

But now I see it a little differently and have realised that it is a musical thing and the meaning of life is to dance along the way. So, that is what we shall be doing.

No doubt after a year in smelly backpackers’ hostels I will rue that thought!

So, please join with me and share in the upcoming highs and lows of international travel; the delays, the sights, the smiles, the tears, the thoughts and feelings, the new friends, excitement and amazing vistas!

If you have ever wondered if dropping out of the rat race would be more fun, this is your chance to find out without leaving your seat!

Regards,

Basho

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