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

But then they are probably not trying to, instead they are after a unique chance of visiting the worlds greatest monument to romantic love ever constructed. For that is what this strange tomb is; one man’s attempt to express his love and loss. Seen in that sense, flying half way across the world just to see the sun rise here is perhaps not so crazy after all.

Cesca and I arrived a different way, a much more down to earth way; by train. Agra was one of the few places that we had phoned ahead and booked. This is because Agra has quite a different reputation amongst backpackers; a deadly reputation.

Surrounding the great tomb is, what some might call, a shanty town. In the past it probably was, just a place for the Mountebanks, snake charmers and con artists to live when they weren’t begging outside the tomb proper. Then came the era of international tourism and the arrival of backpackers. I can hardly imagine what courage it took to backpack India in those first days. I get some of the stories from fifteen years ago when my sister-in-law was in the north of India. Back then, the population was tiny compared to now and everyone much poorer. Staying in the area around the Taj, called the Ganj, was probably taking your life in your hands even just from the point of view of the water quality (drawn directly from the great river flowing behind the Taj and very polluted). You may consider this an exaggeration, but even in our more modern times there has been deaths here. The story I was told was that there was a con being played, which went like this:

Tourists would stay at a hostel and naturally enough ask at the desk for a food recommendation, the helpful staff would call up tuk tuk and direct them to a “quality” restaurant. At the end of the meal the tourists would start to feel ill and eventually collapse in pain. The tuk tuk would then take them to a doctors clinic who would check them in and claim that they had a well-known local infection that he could treat no problem. He would then give them medicine once they had called their insurance company. Over the next few days to weeks they would remain ill and eventually “respond” to the treatment. Thanking the doctor they would probably fly home none-the-wiser to what really happened to them. You see, the hotel, the tuk tuk driver, the restaurant and the “doctor” were all in on a nastily little scam. That the restaurant poisoned the tourists is obvious, but worse so did the doctor’s “treatments”. Why? Because western people are insured up the wassoo and all this money flowed directly into the doctors clinic where he would pay off the others. It worked pretty well for – I hear – a couple of years until two German tourists died from the treatment. After that the Indian government went though the Ganj area and forced out all the scammers. Or so we should hope.

Cesca and I were hearing this tale from a guy on our tiger safari whose face was covered with hundreds of painful looking bedbug bites – the result of a visit to a bad hostel in Agra. We were only slightly more concerned about the story than the painful looking bites, surely going to scar.

We later read up and found that the tale was true.

“What shall we do?” Cesca asked me, knowing that I was the more security conscious (read: paranoid) of the two of us.

I thought for a moment before the answer hit me, “we will stay with Muslims,” I announced. My hope was that the famous Muslim hospitality would prevent them from any such behaviour as it would be against one of the Pillars of Islam. So, we called ahead and booked into a hotel in the heart of the Ganj area owned and run by a Muslim family. It was very close to the Taj itself and the view out the back of the room was over the houses leading up to the great Tomb.

The view from our room / a local women takes in the street view.

We were just deciding to take a walk around the area when we met one of the most memorable people of all our travels. I stood outside in the dusty street out front of the hostel and perused my Lonely Planet. I was considering where we might find something to eat. Then suddenly, amongst the endless sounds of India; chatting in Hindu, Indian music, etc, came a vocal accent it was wonderful to hear; Scottish.

“Hey pal, may I borrow that from ye?”

I looked up to find a thin late thirties bald man standing over the frame of a road bike and indicating my Lonely Planet. He was dressed in cycling shorts and a sport top and his bike was ladened down with large specialist bags over each wheel. Clearly this was all his gear.

“Sure,” I said handing him the book, which he took without hesitation, “it’s nice to hear an accent from home.”

“Aye,” he said reading the book and not really listening. Cesca and I shared a smile. It really was nice to hear the Scottish brogue, it’s a reminder of my little island and my people who I often missed. It has occurred to me since that we spent a lot of time travelling in the company of Scottish and Irish people, I wonder if their voices had anything to do with it, or that the legendary gregariousness of these nations commutes to friendship all over the world? The man flicked through the book for a few more moments and then looked Cesca and I up and down, “Do you know where I may get a beer?” he asked.

“Not off the top of my head I’m afraid, we are new to the area, but there will be one in there I am sure,” I said.

He seemed to come to a conclusion, “Would you two like to come for a beer?”

“Why yes, we would”.

“Grand, I know a good place over there,” he gestured at a building 100 yards away.

“Basho,” I said holding out my hand to shake, “and this is my wife Cesca”.

He smiled a broad grin, “I’m Eric”.

And so we went to have a drink. We were fascinated to learn more about this strange fellow on his bike. The fact that it was early didn’t bother us at all; it was still very hot, ‘tis true, but more than that you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth when meeting people. Some of the greatest people are met in the most unlikely ways; sometimes thrown together by fate like Lenin and Bobbits in Laos, sometimes met through hardship like Gwenny in Kerala and sometimes unavoidable like Connor and Marie-Lou who we gratefully met over and over and over. Sometimes it’s just meeting someone who you just know you will enjoy the company of, like Eric.

We went to the rooftop bar/café and the owner greeted Eric like an old friend, we sat overlooking the Ganj and the Taj poking over the rooftops; all the pretence of needing a guide book was gone.

The Ganj viewed from the café.

Eric ordered us all beer from a little boy waiter,

“He has to go buy it,” he explained, “it’s illegal to serve beer, but he likes me so the lad goes and gets it. We must drink it under the table in cups, OK?”

“Sure,” said Cesca, “so tell us, what’s with the bike?”

He told us.

I’ve met quite a few courageous people in my life and Eric is right up there with the best of them. A postman in Scotland, Eric was struck down with ME; the strange and not understood exhaustion disease/syndrome that usually puts people into homes for the rest of their life.

“I recovered,” he said, “and I said to myself I wanted to do something different, so I became a Yoga instructor”.

“Of course, why not?” I said.

“Aye I did that for a while to earn enough money to leave on this journey.”

“Where did you get the bike?” I asked.

“No that’s what I mean, I left Scotland on the bike, I’m cycling across the world from Aberdeen to Adelaide in Australia.”

There was a silence as we took in the enormity of this challenge. Then my talent for saying stupid things at the wrong time came to my rescue,

“Adelaide is lovely,” I told him. You’ll love it there.”

He smiled, “I hope so”.

“You must be about half way through,” said Cesca.

“Aye, but I’m stopping here for a few days as I’m bloody exhausted from Pakistan.”

And he told us about his experiences cycling through Pakistan. They had not been very pleasant to say the least. The Pakistani government had given him a police escort through the country because they were worried that he might be murdered. This escort stopped traffic as he came to roundabouts and junctions and he felt very isolated from the people. They forced him to sleep in police stations at night and, as he tried to sleep, his “guards” ordered up prostitutes for themselves and eyed his gear.

“It was horrible,” he said, “eventually I decided to just power through it and so here I am trying to recover from the effort.”

“How long will you stay in this area?” Cesca asked.

“Oh, maybe just a few days,” he said.

Sometimes a husband and wife think as one. Perhaps it is a form of mental connection beyond cues, something psychic. Whatever it was we both knew right there and then that this guy wanted company, that he needed some help to right his mind and that this was exactly what we were going to give him.

We sat and ate and drank with Eric all that day. He talked a lot, like a man who had missed the sound of his own language. We listened and talked to and it seemed to me that we had a lot in common.

The next day we did the same. This time we met up with some other travellers (including a graffiti artist and his partner from my home city of London) and long, semi drunken conversations lilted off into the day and night on all sorts of subjects. Life, the Universe, travelling to name three of the topics. We all benefitted from the company and I guess we all needed it, but Eric most of all. Slowly I could tell he was coming right again.

In the distance the Taj still sat. Waiting. I watched it out of the window of our hotel, poking high above the buildings. It wasn’t going anywhere and I wanted to wait until we were ready.

So the next day, we agreed to meet up with Eric at dinner and went off to the Red Fort.

The fort is very large and impressive, if a little barren.

This being the part of India that fought against the British, the fort had long been looted, but still it was an incredible day with the sun high in the sky making the red bricks glow in the light. The fort had been the prison for the Khan who built the Taj for his beloved wife. Almost bankrupting the nation, his son usurped his rule and placed him here for the rest of his life. To add insult to injury the son built a special optical illusion from the prison cell that makes the distant Taj appear to grow closer as your eyes focus. I imagine the old king crying, to be so close to his love and yet unable to touch her, lost in memories.

You cant capture the optical illusion with a 2D camera, but it’s very eerie.

That night we dined with Eric and a nice American couple on the “tour” of India where you fly in and out in a few days. I don’t meet many people quite this rich in such circumstances and certainly not with the same outlook on life, and so it was interesting to spend some time in their company. However, their story of that day’s visit to the Taj was the last straw and Cesca and I determined to visit it the next day. As darkness fell the local people of Ganj had a festival and we went down into the crowd to see the procession. It was very colourful and bright, but I am not sure what it represented beyond the obvious gods.

The next morning we made for the Taj. There are a number of entrances, but only some are open early.

The early queue, with me right at the back…

I remember that tourists are charged a vastly inflated price in comparison to locals, but then; their disposable income is far less in relation. Once into the gateway, and through the very thorough search protocols, you are greeted with an outer courtyard of prodigious size which leads all the paths to the main entrance in to the famous park. Even though we were very early, the place was busy and I could tell that once the bus tours arrived it would get seriously packed in and not too much fun.

The main inner entrance.

Through the giant main entrance (where you have to leave your camcorder for some reason) you arrive in the garden proper. From here the building itself is breath-taking. Again using the optical effects seen in the Fort this is the best moment of the visit as you cannot fail but to be impressed.

In front of you is the spot that Lady Diana made famous and this is the start of the trouble because everyone wants the same shot.

It becomes an inelegant scrum very quickly. In this garden, supposed to be a private place, there is now unnumbered people climbing all over the top of each other and since these are the sorts of people up at this time in the morning they are the sort of people with “photographic agendas”.

I started to feel the magic of that first view drain away, so we approached the tomb. As you get closer you quickly realise that it is a lot smaller than it looks. The design is following some secret principle of making things look bigger, but only from particular angles. From others it shrinks.

Through the hundred meters of garden you arrive at steps and up up to the platform on which the tomb sits. As we drew closer we could see that the entire buildings façade is slight in need of repair with the fine inlaid stone being endlessly chipped off and stolen.

We walked around and spied the river running behind the structure. It is large and very dirty. We then entered inside the tomb, which was quite bare and amongst the throng of people there really wasn’t much to see. Soon we left the building and, avoiding the oncoming hordes, we went into the garden areas to the right. In these there were lots of plants and squirrels and we had some fun feeding the little blighters before deciding to leave the Taj.

Maybe the Taj can be seen in the way it was intended, maybe it is just me, but the large crowds meant that I got very little romance from the occasion and less from the ambience (which is one of busy frustration). If people visited the Taj with the quiet solemnity that one visits, say, Stone Henge then it would remain a magical experience. However, for me the Taj gave very little. What did surprise me was how nice the people of the Ganj area were and how good the food was! Surely this place has changed since the stories we had heard about.

That night we said our goodbyes to Eric. He was moving on to further adventures on his epic journey across the world. I later learned (from his blog) that he not only made it across the deserts of Australia to the wonderful city of Adelaide two months ahead of schedule, but decided to cycle back the other way! Returning to his native Scotland via New Zealand, America and Ireland. He is truly a lesson to us all, and one that was not lost on me.

Cesca and I held hands all the way to the station watching the Ganj area, and the wider roads of Agra, fly past our tuk tuk. Perhaps the Taj had some magical effect after all?

We boarded the train and took up our beds, still holding hands. Ahead was Rajasthan and the great lake city of Udaipur, with its pure quiet romance, huge forest fires and hordes of dancing virgins with giant puppets on their heads…truly.

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

Why this train?

This night on this train? The Calcutta to Delhi train is one of the classic overnight Indian journeys. In India the train service is split into multiple classes. You have the scrum and battle of unreserved third, and frankly that class scares me. Then you have reserved third that is not much better, but at least you don’t need to fight for your seat, not that you would particularly want it when you get it. Then you have 3rd sleeper, which requires a career in Olympic gymnastics to use as each birth has beds stacked in triplicate up the wall. Next comes 2nd AC, which is where we aim for. It is like 3rd, but the beds are in the much more reasonable double bunks and you get a pillow. Or at least you should. It is a very late train tonight when we join at Agra, and the rest of the hundred person carriage is fast a sleep, something that I will not be able to join them in as, (a) the snorers have started in earnest and (b) I don’t have a pillow.

Trying to be as quiet as possible I search the small berth for the missing item. The white sheets are folded in place at the end of the bed, as is the rough and itchy looking blanket, but there is no sign of the pillow.

It was at this point that my Rohan Cloudbase Jacket came to my rescue. You see Rohan gear often comes with a built in “packpocket”. This nifty hidden section allows the entire Jacket to stuff into a small zippered pocket. It is great for packing into small nooks and crannies of ones rucksack saving on space when not in use. It also makes the jacket into a neat little pillow shape. A quick rummage though my rucksack and I have it.

You never know when a something designed for one use will be perfect for another. For some, being able to pack down ones jacket into a pocket would be an over-the-top feature and hardly essential. But for me, it is the little

features that add the most weight when the chips are down. This is what I was telling myself as I tried to sleep on the train, but as I said the snorers had started in earnest and the decibel rating of the man across from me, by far the worst, is like a clap of thunder. What to do? Unzipping the packpocket I extract one arm of the jacket and zip it back up enough to secure it, thus giving me what is essentially a soft headed mace. I concentrate for a moment on what I am going to do and then swing it out across the gap between our two beds. It clonks into his body and in the same motion I snap it back and slam down my head onto it. The man wakes and looks around in confusion and anger, but I am innocently asleep. Then he turns over, mumbles something in Hindi and goes back to sleep. Only this time without snoring.

Success! Yes sir, you can never tell when a small feature can be used for a triple purpose. I will promise to keep innovating if Rohan does!

Addendum:

It’s strange, but the journeys that stay with you, the ones that matter are often the ones that were a trial at the time. Indian transport is a vital part of any visit to India; at once so efficient that web booking is possible and yet so chaotic that you end up packed like sardines. My favourite memory is getting a last minute ticket to Shimla on the mountain toy train and having to be in the locals birth. Making so many new and close (in the on-your-lap sense) friends was a lot of fun. Sometimes it is the barriers, such as language, that bring us together as much as others, such as ticket class, keep up apart.

My advice: see every time you get on a train as a chance, an oportunity, to connect in ways that perhaps, if you had the choice, you wouldn’t select.

By Basho

Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, Northern India. Escaping to the cool of the mountains was essential after the 40 degree heat of the deserts of Rajasthan. Up here the bright sun is tempered with the breeze blowing off the snow covered mountains of Tibet, visible in the distance but over 80 miles away.

Trying to plan for the unexpected, when limited to 25kg of weight in your pack, can be daunting. Warm clothes usually take up lots of space and weigh you down. Wet weather clothes often won’t pack down tight and can stay wet for days after use. Not to mention breakages. When you are doing all sort of activities from brush-cutting in the Australian Outback, crossing the sering deserts of Jaisalmer on a camel, bungee jumping off the bridges of New Zealand or hiking through the jungles of the Thai/Burma border, you need clothes that can stand up to abuse and yet still be smart enough to wear in a top Singapore Restaurant.

Thankfully, we spent the time and effort to research our choices. I knew that we would need clothes that were going to be welcome anywhere, with subtle branding that hinted only at the unspoken quality in the build and materials. After almost a year of constant travel only the Rohan clothes show little or no sign of wear and tear. My Rohan “Cross Border” trousers look as good today as they did on day one. Which is a lot more than I can say for my others from a competitor; those have needed stitching more than three times. Other great buys include the “Cloud Base” Rohan jacket that not only dries extremely quickly, but is ultra light and packs down into itself. I was able to take it into the Jaisalmer desert just in case; a freak storm hit the sands that night and I was the only dry camper. Also, when not in use, it doubled as a brilliant pillow cushion. By far my favourite item is my “Travel Linen” shirt which is very soft and as tough as nails. I wore it trekking in the Thai jungles and yet it was also smart enough to wear in a top Mumbai restaurant without raising an eyebrow.

Our Rohan clothes have performed unwaveringly, they have been washed in everything from New Zealand’s industrial machines to the hand-wash Dhobi Ghats of Mumbai and yet retain their original colours and shapes. Francesca points out that we have sent many items back to England over the months, but we both still have all our Rohan clothes. Also, that her choices retain a feminine look for the evening and yet are every bit as tough as the men’s items. Being able to throw off the “backpacker” label is vital to fitting in with the locals everywhere from the high-class wine tastings of Australia to the street vendors of Laos.

Today in Shimla, we are both eying up those snow covered Himalayan peaks in the distance and planning our next trek. I know we will be going to Rohan for our kit no matter where the next adventure takes us.

Basho

Comments always welcome!

Basho

I have always loved mountains.  Either looking up to their framing of the valleys below or being able to stand on their summits and view the distant vistas they offer.  New Zealand has offered some of the most amazing mountains I have seen outside the ski fields of Europe and I share with you now some of those discoveries here.

North Island – Mount Tongariro

Mount Tongariro is actually an entire volcanic complex and World Heritage site.  It is located 10 miles southwest of Taupo, and comprised of three active volcanoes dominating the landscape of the central North Island.  We first saw the complex from the van on our arrival at lake Taupo.  Its snow caped peeks were visible in the far distance over the lake above the shoreline.  The park itself is roughly split into two parts.  The main mountain town of Whakapapa is half way into the mountains and the base of the ski fields that sit atop its leading road.  It has all levels of accommodation and comfort but we made tracks straight for the DOC campsite that sits between the road and a river.  The average DOC site is a simple affair, but this one was much more.  It had hot water – one of the few! – powered sites, a laundrette and a shop.  All unlikely findings in a DOC camp.  It also had one of the greatest views in the world. 

Or at least it should have…

The fog was in the day we arrived and not a mote let alone a mountain could be seen. 

“There is actually a mountain around here?” Cesca asked the DOC shopping assistant as he took our camp fee’s. 

He laughed, “Yes, usually, its the big one just behind this building.  You’ll see it tomorrow!”

We did see it the next day… through the incessantly strong rain. 

The DOC have a large information centre in the middle of Whakapapa that dispenses advice about the famous Tongariro Crossing.  This crossing is actually part of a much harder 5 day walk around the base of the entire mountain range.  It is famous for two reasons, firstly it is possible – and recommended – to do the crossing in one day, making the walk the most tramped in the country.  The other reason is that because of the numbers of walkers (sometimes 2000 a day) many people drastically underestimate the difficulty.  High alpine walking is always dangerous as the weather is very very changeable.  The DOC info-centre has a sign board keeping the scores; 5 rescues, 2 broken limbs and 1 death already this year.  Given the numbers that undertake the crossing this was not a high percentage, but it was perhaps the reason for the moodiness of the DOC official at the info desk.  I asked her the weather and she almost sighed,

“Have you got mountain gear, ice axes and crampons?” she asked.

“Erm, no”

“Then its not possible today”

“How about guided?” I asked.

“There will be no guides who can take you, the weather is too bad”

She gave me a stern look, but I merely shrugged.

“Never mind then, we will do another walk, perhaps the waterfall.”

I moved off to the side and the very next man in the line  – who had overheard all of this -  said,

“What is the weather like today?”

The lady sighed again… She probably answered this question many many times a day. 

So instead of the crossing, we walked the fantastic waterfall route through the base of the mountains.  This was a 3 hours walk around a loop of very varied landscapes and well worth the effort.  Across the remains of prior volcanic flows we walked, over fast running rivers, past amazing plants and wildlife.  As for the falls themselves; they were lovely.  High in the distance the mountain played hide and seek with us and our cameras.

The crossing remained impossible the next day and so gave up on it and moved on to the other side of the mountain and Ohakune; another small village at the base of a road leading up to a ski field.  There we undertook the 3 hour Waitonga Falls walk.  This was another notable walk that passed many different types of view and terrain.  After a climb it opened over a sunken lava flow, which had a long snaking walkboard placed up on it.  It was a very clear day and we had great view of the mountains to our left as we crossed.

At the end of that section we again entered a forest and walked down for about 30 minutes before the path came to a end at a fast running river.  This river was fed by the large and beautiful Waitonga Falls.  But from our vantage point we couldn’t really see it as it was obscured by trees.  Cesca then had a brainwave and finding some timber (presumably put there to be built into a continuing path) threw it across the waters.  I looked at it balancing on two rocks.  Han Solo’s words came back to me;

“I have a bad feeling about this!” 

Falling in would not mean drowning (probably) but would certainly screw my camera and mean a one and half hour walk back while wet.  I placed a foot on the board, drew a breath and ran across.  The board twisted with my weight and then slipped!

I just made it.  Looking at the boards new position – it had somehow not fallen in – I knew that it would be a big challenge to get back.

But the better view was definitely worth it with the sun in a perfect position to highlight the spray coming off the rocks.  We stayed for lunch whilst we looked at the possibility of getting back over the river.  In the end we just went for it and my left foot only got a little wet, which was very lucky!

South Island.

Mount John. 

South island is almost one giant mountain range.  Or at least that’s how it felt to me driving around it.  We drove up to Tekapo, which lives at the base of the mountain, through the wilderness of Burke Pass.  This leads up to a large beautiful lake surrounded on all sides by mountains and forests.  On one edge is the closest of these; Mount John.  Atop this stands the Earth & Sky Observatory, which is New Zealand’s largest and most impressive.  By this point in our journey we were joined by Francesca’s older sister Arabella and had picked up a small camper to squeeze ourselves into.  Arabella has more get up and go than perhaps her small size belies.  It was the work of a few moments for her to have found a bike hire shop and have hatched the plan of getting to the top of the mountain where there lay a nice cafe in the observatory.  The bike hire guy gave us an appraising look,

“Bike much?” he asked.

“Not many mountains in the UK, but I do bike around Epping forest.  I have a Marin and Cesca has a Specialized Rockhopper” I answered.

He nodded, “Cool, ok you can take these two for the ladies and you yourself can have my bike.”

He wheeled out a very nice bike and I eagerly jumped aboard.  Then he gave us some advice about tackling the mountain,

“Head out along the rivers edge,” he said pointing to my map, “then it gets a little steep.” He looked at me.  “Then it gets bloody steep and you’ll have to walk for a few hundred meters until you meet the main road heading up the mountain.  From there its a ride to the top.”

“Sweet!”

We started the journey as proscribed by zooming down through town and passed the campsite at the mountains base.  Thence we were into the track leading around the lake. 

The colour of the water amazing.  Still waters here all exhibit some levels of volcanic residue and this lends the most beautiful spectrum of colours and hues.  I had often thought that – in this photo shopped world – New Zealand could not be the colours the adverts portray, but I was wrong.  It is.  The greens of trees and fields are brighter than in the UK, the blues of waters and lakes are either crystal clear or a wonderful mixture of blue and cyan.  Mountains are many shades of white and silver.

We made our way up to the road.  This was as windy as hell and made the ride up to the top quite dangerous and almost impossible as the many winding turns all played close to a serious drop off.  However, once to the top we all found the challenge had been worth it.  The top of the mount breaks into a collection of domes that house the telescopes.  These were amongst a low set of buildings and, up a small wooden path, the cafe.  This was a fantastic place to have lunch and we tucked into our scroggin’, which was much deserved after all that exercise. We eventually ran out of scroggin’ and so went inside to have a coffee. Our server turned out to be a university student who was one of the guides for the nightly star gazing tour.  I love star gazing and the chance to gaze through telescopes of that magnitude was not to be missed.  We signed up to the 10pm tour.

Coming down from Mount John was a contrast to riding up and took mere minutes on the tarmac road all the way down. At one point I got up to 55Kph on my odometer – breaking the speed limit!  We then rode around the base via the road and back into town to hand the bikes back.

That night we met up with the bus in town that took us up to the observatory.  Lights are banned at night due to the work of the telescopes, which are looking for new planets around distant stars.  We were driven up the same dangerous road that we had biked that day in total darkness.  We all exchanged worried looks but our Japanese driver had the measure of the feat. Atop we had a fantastic glance through the lens towards such delights as the Tarantula Nebula and Jupiter (I could count the brown rings!).  For me – perhaps more than for the others – this was a magical visit.  After – I swapped news of the possible discovery of Dark Matter (which I had read in New Scientist that morning) with the staff.

Mount Cook

This tale of New Zealand mountains has saved the best till last.  Mount Cook is the highest mountain in the country and a famous sight with its curved peak.  Generations of Kiwis have visited the mountains base, which is all DOC controlled parks, and wondered how you could possibly climb such a large mountain?  One such brave soul was Sir Edmund Hillary who used the Cook as a practice for the big push up Everest.  It is set amongst other large mountains all carved by the many glaciers that have retreated up the valley.

Getting to the park is good looking enough as you have to drive along lake Pukaki.  This lake is stupendously large and leads into one of my favourite parts of New Zealand.  Its amazing colour being a natural part of its glacial beginnings.

As any self respecting fan of the Lord of the Rings movie will tell you; the film’s climatic battle between the forces of Humanity and the Orcs of Mordor happens outside the gates of the city of Gondor.  Here the wizard Gandalf leads the Gondorians to defend their white city against 50 thousand Orcs and worse that are hammering at the gates.  It is here that the people of Rohan ride their 8000 horses down the mountain side to lift the cities’ siege.  It is a great moment in the film and it was filmed in this valley:

The Pelennor Fields themselves!

Once up to the small town of Mount Cook Village we ran into a serious rain storm and so spent the day investigating the Sir Edmund Hillary museum, which is based in the local hotel.  It had a short movie playing tribute to the Everest climb as well as the actual snow vehicles he used to race across the south pole.  Surrounding all this were many books written about the great man and smaller exhibits of his equipment.  Also on site was a small 3D cinema, which showed an interesting film about the stars (that the girls fell asleep in!) and a really cool movie about climbing the mountains (which used 3D glasses).  All in all, the museum was worth the visit – especially on a wet day – and got us all fired up about the possibilities of visiting the mountain.

The DOC information site here was especially large and took bookings for the many backcountry huts one can visit in this area.  It surprises me that DOC are so happy for people to just go wandering off into serious mountain wilds, but I guess this is the Kiwi way of things.  If you get lost and die, well, you were at least warned and given all the information you could have needed.  Arabella loves information sites like this and we spent 30 minutes or so checking that the walk we had planned was the best possible use of our time.

Braving the rain again we hunkered down at the local DOC camp site – at the start of the walk – and awaited the morning with the hope of a clear view.  When I awoke I tore back the curtains to see that our wait had not been in vain:

The walk up to the best view of the mountain is 4 hours easy.  known as the hooker Valley walk it meanders up the side of a river, crossing it once, and passed all sorts of special geological features.  We packed up lots of water, food and scroggin’ and got going.  Amazingly we received a phone reception on the walk and so I was able to call my brother back in London and describe the view.  As if my words would be enough.  I have felt small against the backdrop of nature before, but the extreme wilderness of this walk was intimidating as much as it was heaven.

It was about an hour into the walk before the river turned to face Cook itself, lending us a photo opportunity not to be missed.

The mountain holds sway over all others in this range as if it is lord over them.  Its great height is almost all in the face and so it imposes just as much as Everest would do.  As we regarded it, its peak was constantly being hidden and revealed by fast moving clouds.  Surely at the top it must be intensely windy! 

Our final destination was the iceberg rich lake at the base of the retreating glacier.  This opened up the view and gave us breathtaking vistas of the clouds playing across Cook. It was almost impossible to take a bad photo and even the iPhone’s 2 megapixel camera managed this shot:

We sat there and ate our lunch while gazing at the mountain.  To our right some kids played a game of trying to hit the small floating icebergs with the shore stones.  Eventually we went up to the glacial edge by wading through a scrabble of stones and pebbles, the pile up of which is the slope wall of the lake.  I found there some fantastic flat pebbles and took the opportunity to demonstrate my life-long passion for skimming stones.

This was not my first time at seeing a glacier, after all I have skied on top of three or four in Europe – but it was my first time of seeing the end wall of one.  They are extremely dirty at the ends – the mud and rock being crushed by its slithering splays across its face like chocolate cake on the face of a small child – but you could still sense the strength that bends nature to its will and carves whole ranges in its passing.  After seeing it I was looking forwards to visiting Fox glacier (a coming post).

Finally, having eaten our fill and taken our time – we started back along the path, back towards the starting point of our day.  Many a rearwards glance to Cook and many stops to take reflection photos in the pools lining the river broke the journey. 

However, I arrived back at the van both tired and happy.

The next day was great sunny weather and we headed back along the road we had driven up and thence off into the East of New Zealand.  Leaving the mountain behind us we could see it for miles and miles such was the clarity of the weather. 

I think Cook was my favourite mountain visit and one of my highlights of the entire journey to this wonderfully wild and very big country.

Regards,

Basho.

Having vested ourselves of the plane to New Zealand from Sydney, and having made it through the somewhat mercurial Australian security check points with its “explosive smelling device”, we came to Auckland in the grip of a rain storm.  Fat welts of rain pummelled the pavements outside the airport doors throwing up a fine mist and risking localised flooding.  Well, this is New Zealand in winter!  As (Father-In-Law) Nick put it,

“If you can hack NZ in Winter then you’ll love it in summer!”

Not surprisingly we skipped the bus – a run through the deluge to the stop and a soggy bus ride was not appealing – and hailed a transfer from the airport.  This all seemed very civilised until the second hour of the thirty minute journey.  It seemed that the driver (a loose definition here based solely on his position in the car being behind the wheel) did not know his way around Auckland, which is always a good start for a transfer.  He also couldn’t find our hostel and eventually announced that it didn’t exist. 

“You have old copy, not up to date,” he proclaimed when Cesca showed him our Lonely Planet entry for our hostel.  That was his defended position until, eagle eyed to technology, I spotted the hostel’s location saved as a favourite on his GPS! 

After that he attempted to charge us double. 

A shockingly short journey to the later we arrived at Lantana Lodge and were dumped unceremoniously on the pavement outside.  Our “driver” raced off into the rain and he is possibly still circling Auckland trying to find the motorway interchange.

As we considered our fate the rain stopped and so we trudged up to the hostel.  Lantana Lodge was initially selected for its free WIFI, but I was most impressed by the entire experience as its host was a very nice guy and the hostel had a good homely feel.  Such things are important after the cramp, ever buzzing, “cattle class” bowels of modern airline travel. 

We immediately went out looking for “real NZ food”.  When we found it (soggy chips and meat pie floaters) we quickly decided to forget local fare and have a curry. Over the meal we made ourselves a solemn promise,

“I promise to see New Zealand, to meet its people, drink its wine and spy its creatures.  I promise to enjoy this opportunity to the fullest!”

The next day I awoke eager to get out into the wilds and experience the countryside, but first came the now obligatory city visit.  I don’t quite need dragging around a city but, since I come from one of the top cities in the world, it takes a lot to impress me. 

Auckland has the bustle of a real city and the skyline to suggest money but it seemed at first to lack some of the soul. It would not actually be until I visited Wellington’s Tae Papa museum that I would get to see Auckland’s soul properly and its very strong community spirit.

We swung around the centre and enjoyed a fantastic cafe and a good bookshop then we headed into the shopping district and purchased me a new pair of sun glasses (“sunnies” as they are known here).  So far so normal.  I was just finishing this blog post off in my head when Cesca suggested a trip form the bay.  We boarded the ferry from the south harbour and departed.

Then Auckland got me and I got it. 

The trip we took across the bay to the Devonport township on the far side of an extinct volcano was an eye opener and no mistake.  The Auckland skyline that had been so uninspiring when I was in amongst it suddenly looked majestic and modern from the water.  The bridge, which is a shadow of Sydney’s, suddenly looked like an elegant bracelet spanning the arms of the bay.  Not vulgar but understated: the jewellery of a lady not the chunky penis extension of The Goldern Gate.  My memories of the city now all hark back to that journey.  Once arrived at Devonport the entire feel changes.  This is much more of a wide and gentile suburb, seemingly a world away from the city, as the car access was miles around.  It sits invitingly across the bay tempting you to commute such a distance.  I bet Cesca that the house prices were astronomical and they were.  Such water front loveliness costs the earth. 

Up the dead-volcano we walked or more accurately climbed.  From the top the sheer size of a fully fledged New Zealand city (and there is only really three like this) came to view.  Nature is just bigger over here.

But I was not sated by only this view.  After an afternoon of relaxing in Devonport we headed back and went up to the SkyCity’s highest viewing platform.  This was a great experience at the sundown and I loved watching the cars race back along the roads far below our feet. 

So, again, we are in a city and again I cant wait to leave for the mountains.   But as before I find that Auckland contains some serious aesthetic beauty and for that I enjoyed it.  Even a human city as big as this cannot swallow of majesty of the New Zealand’s countryside upon which it lays and that is its saviour and blessing over lesser cities.

Regards,

Basho