The Sultan and His People

by Anne Rothwell

We edged along the shoreline as the plane descended into Brunei Darussalam and landed close to the capital, Bandar Seri Bagawan. We were on our way home from a wonderful holiday in Sabah, Borneo. We hadn’t travelled far, but needed to change planes in Brunei. Our hearts sank when we were told that we had missed our connection and there would be several hours to wait before the next one - then rose again when we were told we could pass the time with a city tour. This was free and clearly a great offer from the tourist board.

We started off on a coach tour to see all the major sights: the beautiful Hassamil Bolkiah mosque built for the 29th (current) sultan; the even more beautiful Omar Ali Saifuddien mosque built for the 28th sultan; and the royal palace. Next we took a boat for Kampung Ayer, the water village. This is a huge network of houses on stilts linked by wooden walkways. Around 30,000 people, half the population of the capital, live here and not in poverty! We went into one of the houses and were astounded by the size of the rooms. I found the kitchen particularly impressive and loved the idea of the large trapdoor in the floor, used to catch fish - straight from the water to the pan! We were offered tea and snacks and had the opportunity to ask the family lots of questions about their lives. They loved their life, visiting neighbours along the walkways and taking a boat if they wanted to go further afield.

The sultan, one of the richest men in the world, clearly looks after the people and there is free healthcare and no taxes, crime or unemployment. But also no alcohol! Certainly, when we returned to the city, everywhere looked very clean and spacious and there were no beggars. Instead of a flourishing nightlife, there was an amusement park and some excellent shopping malls. We still had some time so we wandered round a mall and into the gardens of one of the mosques, where we saw a full size model of an elaborate royal boat and a large number of big black and white butterflies.

At 6 o’clock, we were shocked by the deafening report of the gun to signal the end of fasting as it was Ramadan. Before we left for the airport, I turned round and saw the silhouette of the mosque against a blazing sunset, and remembered that it was my birthday, one that I would never forget.

First published in VISA 93 (Oct 2010)

I Captured the Castles

by Neil Matthews

Note: Since the original publication of this article, Torosay Castle has changed hands and it is currently closed to the public. A pity, as the tea room served the most delicious simnel cake!

Above the main entrance is a tiger’s head, with a dozen deer’s heads either side of it on the walls, and additional antlers above each deer’s head. A note explains that the tiger was “Shot by my grandmother in India in 1922.” Adding to the surreal atmosphere is the strong smell of potted hyacinths.

Torosay Castle Gardens

Torosay Castle, on the east coast of Mull, is not a castle at all. It’s a Victorian mansion built in Scottish Baronial style, completed in 1858. The Guthries, the family who own it, have had many political connections. The family tree is displayed with the caption: “Being an MP seems to be a hereditary complaint.” In the library there is a portrait of Pamela Harriman – Winston Churchill’s daughter-in-law, President Clinton’s Ambassador to France and the aunt of the current Laird of Torosay, Chris James. This is not just a visitor attraction but a family home. The library houses some reference books such as the Dictionary of National Biography, the Statistical Accounts of Scotland 1791-9 and various ornithology works, but there is also literature such as A Passage to India and the Waverley novels. A sense of self-parodic humour is in evidence from the presence of Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle.

The Castle’s hospitality is not what you might expect if you’re used to National Trust properties. There are no personal guides, not even in the car park where an NT property can boast an army of pensioners signalling to you every 20 yards. “Please sit down if you wish,” reads a notice in the Central Hall. If you have musical talents, you can try your hand on the Steinway grand piano in the living room.

In the dining room, you can study the fossilised head of an ancient Irish elk above the fireplace. One room is dedicated to displays of the Finnish four-masted barque Viking in which Chris James’s father David Guthrie James sailed round the world in 1937-8. David’s eventful life – including escape from a PoW camp in World War II, polar expeditions and time as a Conservative MP – was featured on This is Your Life in 1962. You can flick through the red book used by Eamonn Andrews for that broadcast, and other scrapbooks which give a glimpse into local life over the past 50 years.

The Castle is set in Italianate gardens, with statues imported from Padua; my favourite was the hunting dog delivering its prey to its master. Also on the estate there’s a farm, with highland cattle, cheviot and blackface sheep, and there are two holiday cottages available to let. If you’re a train buff, you can get to Torosay by 260mm gauge railway from Craignure, with views of Ben Nevis on the way.

Aros Castle 

Torosay is one of three contrasting castles along the east coast. Aros Castle, near Salen, was once the administrative centre of Mull. The castle was probably built by the MacDougalls of Lorn. For 230 years from the defeat of King Haakon of Norway at the battle of Largs in 1263 the Western Isles and seaboard were to form a semi-autonomous state within the kingdom of Scotland, the Lordship of the Isles. The castle dates from the 13th century, which is why it is likely to have been built by the MacDougalls, but by the next century it had passed into Macdonald hands and during the Lordship it was a residence and seat of government of the dominant clan. After the ending of the Lordship (the estates and titles of the Lords of the Isles were forfeited to the Scottish crown in 1493) the castle fell to the MacLeans, who in turn were ousted by the clan Campbell. Now Aros perches silent on a small headland, its one main surviving wall overlooking sheer drops down to the Sound of Mull. A few seagulls, and a small boy on a red bike, were our only fellow visitors.

Duart Castle

The third castle is Duart, which dates back to the 14th century. It is the historic base of the Maclean clan. The first recorded mention of the Macleans of Duart is in a papal dispensation of 1367 which allowed their Chief Lachlan Lubanach Maclean to marry the daughter of the Lord of the Isles, Mary Macdonald. The match is supposed to have been one of true love – though Lachlan helped to persuade Mary’s father of his intent, by kidnapping him. This incident seems typical of the chequered history of the castle, involving battles for various causes, captures and recaptures and, in the 18th and 19th centuries, ruin.

The Maclean family history says that Sir Fitzroy Maclean (b.1835), who was brought up in Gibraltar and Malta while his father served with his regiment, saw Duart on a family holiday in the 1870s and decided there and then to buy and restore the castle. So he did. It’s not that simple, of course – restoration work continues today. But you can see an Edwardian kitchen and pantry; dungeons where officers of a Spanish Armada galleon were imprisoned; and an exhibition on the Clan Maclean at the top of the keep.

First published in VISA 85 (Jun 2009)

A Chinese Cameo

by Anne Rothwell

The slant-eyed Santas looked out of place, beaming at us from either side of the entrance to the Friendship Store. In the tourist haunts, we could have been in any western country, preparing for Christmas. Elsewhere of course, it was a different story. The ordinary populace of Beijing was not beguiled by our overindulgent yuletide.

The city was still unspoiled and strangely innocent. Traffic-wise, it was a relief. As private transport, the bike still ruled with parking lots filled with row upon row of them. The people wearing smog masks were not protecting themselves from traffic fumes, but from the ubiquitous 'Peking throat' which circulates continuously, aggravated by the very cold, dry air.

Eating was fun and cheap. On many street corners were stalls cooking a kind of huge pancake containing egg, spring onions and soy sauce, folded into four and handed to us in a paper holder: tasty and filling. The night-market food stalls were even better. At home, we’d never dream of eating in the street on winter nights, yet here in the north of China, in similar temperatures, we loved it. We walked from one end of the street to the other, tasting all manner of goodies. With portions at 7 or 8 pence each, it didn’t matter if we didn’t like it, and I balked at the skewered songbirds and scorpions. Carrying our own chopsticks, we moved along, throwing any leftovers in the bins provided by each stall.

Learning something about the people and their culture helped to increase our enjoyment of the usual tourist experiences. We watched the early morning Tai-chi in the park, the kite-flying, the older people playing Mah-Jong and Chinese chess or bursting into impromptu song. Their natural exuberance has returned since Mao’s repressive regime vanished and his little red books were relegated to the antique markets. We saw Mao’s embalmed body as everyone filed silently past in his mausoleum in Tianenmen Square and surely it’s only a matter of time before his huge portrait is removed from above the Gate of Heavenly Peace, fronting the Forbidden City.

First published in VISA issue 66 (April 2006)

The Dunfermline of the East

by Malcolm O'Brien

I have never been to Dunfermline. One of my colleagues hails from just down the road, and has very little that’s good to say about it. One of his favourite comments is that “Dumfermline is like downtown Beirut on a Friday night”. Being of the age where news relating to bombings and other incidents in and around Beirut was regularly reported, my mental image of Dumfermline was not particularly rosy.

We found ourselves scheduled to be in Beirut over a 3 day period in August 2008. A glimpse at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website did little to allay any concerns, and the drive from Beirut International Airport north along the coast up towards the city centre showed a city that bore obvious scars of its previous troubles; some buildings were at best pock-marked with bullet holes, or at worst (assuming that they were still standing) had huge holes where it looked as if a shell had hit. Contrasting with this was a huge amount of building work, a lot of new development alongside what appeared to be repair work such as re-skinning the outside of many buildings to cover up the marks of the damage.

From the moment we arrived at the airport and continuing on throughout our stay, there was an excitement, a buzz, a real sense of welcome about the place. We found that we were constantly being engaged in conversation with locals who were keen to ask us how we were enjoying our stay, and to point out that Lebanon had now overcome its old difficulties.

With a day spare during our trip, our company kindly provided us with a driver to take us on a day trip out of Beirut. On the way out of the city, driving south of the airport before turning east to climb inland, we passed through what seemed to be one of the poorer areas of the city, with people living in shacks or small buildings by the side of the roads, with many stalls lining the road selling fruit, vegetables, bottles of water, and many other items – it seemed that almost anything that someone thought might sell was on sale on one stand or another. I vividly remember the bright colours of some of the vegetables standing out in the hot dusty day as we drove along this road, occasionally seeing stall-holders sprinkle water on their wares to keep them looking fresh.

A high range of hills separates the coastline from the higher plateau inland, and the road snaked round whilst seeming to continually climb until we came to our first stop for the day, Moussa Castle. Stuck on the side of a hill by the side of the road, Moussa Castle is relatively new-looking, whilst trying to look quite old. Owned and developed by one man since the 1950s, inside the castle are some animated doll-like figures that try to depict Lebanese life in olden times. The castle also has a quite impressive collection of guns and other weaponry.

After Moussa Castle and a further drive, we disembarked at Beit Edine, another historical building in the calm peaceful plateau. Beit Edine has many purposes; part of it is used as a residence for the Lebanese President. Other parts are open to visit and have many interesting features such as many local mosaics that have been brought there and restored. On the day we were there, preparations were being made in the grounds for a big classical concert the same evening – Mica, the Lebanese-born singer was to perform there one evening during the summer as well. A guide showed us round some of the parts of the facility to start with. One particularly impressive feature was the spa and sauna, with the holes for sunlight in the ceiling looking innocuous until we were shown their reflection in a pair of sunglasses, when a craftily-designed Maltese cross could be seen.

After a while, our guide parted from the small group and we were left to look at the mosaics and beautiful gardens on our own. The mosaics were brought to Beit Eddine from Jiyyeh, a town 30km south of Beirut, and date from the 4th to 7th Century. The town of Jiyyeh was prosperous, with terrain at low altitude providing good terrain for olive groves, but also due to its location on a relatively narrow plain between the sea to the west and mountains to the east, placing it en-route between Antioch and Ptolemais. Some of the mosaics are attractive and in very good condition still.

After a long drive back to the hotel and a quick shower, it was time to explore downtown Beirut. Following the recommendation of the hotel receptionist, we took a taxi to an area of Beirut city centre called Solidere, which has been restored over the last few years, but still has a feel of being an old part of town about it. With restaurants lining a central street, set back underneath balconies and a large dining area outside each of the restaurants (with virtually nobody using the inside seating due to the heat and humidity), I was reminded of the Cote D’Azur, or perhaps the Plaza Mayor in Madrid. Sitting outside eating, enjoying a bottle of Lebanese red wine, listening to the chatter and laughter of people walking past, we reflected that this was not the Beirut we had expected to find.

Taxis are interesting in Beirut - as well as the cars with “Taxi” written on them and with meters inside, a large number of other people offering rides for pre-negotiated fares appear, in cars that range from being comfortable 4x4s to ones that almost certainly wouldn’t pass an MOT back in the UK.

After dinner, a short walk past the spot where Rafiq Hariri was assassinated in 2005, and the Mohammed al-Amin mosque, brought us to Jamayzieh Street (spelt differently on street signs in the street itself, and on maps). We stopped at Molly Malone’s Irish Bar, next to the pock-marked police station, for a traditional glass of Lebanese...no, sorry, it was Murphy’s, before walking on and sampling another couple of bars. Friday night, downtown Beirut, lively, vibrant, exciting – and then 2 Iraqis from London came up to us and said: “You’re not from round here, are you!” We chatted to them and then walked on to Monot Street, another street recommended to us by the hotel staff. Monot Street has more of a mix of nightclubs and bars than Jamayzieh Street, which is mostly bars, and many of the nightclubs don’t even open until 10.30 or 11.00pm. We tried first the Red Door, where a birthday party was in full swing, with Arabic dance music pumping out at high volume.

We walked back down Monot Street and went into the “Hole in the Wall”, where more music was playing at a good volume. The bar staff and some locals soon started chatting to us, and suggested that we get there a little earlier the next time as we’d “missed the best bit of the evening”.

So all in all, my impressions of Beirut were very good. We were there the weekend that the new government was appointed, and the general feeling amongst all the people we met was of hopefulness for the future, and a warm welcome. Tourism was once a big industry for Lebanon, and it seems as if they are once again ramping up this side of the economy. There were a couple of minor irritations in the hotel we stayed in that we thought might have been due to the inexperience of the staff – we wondered if some of them were quite new to the role to cope with the rise in tourism. Overall I would have no hesitation in recommending Beirut as a lively, fun and interesting place to visit.

If downtown Beirut on a Friday night really is like Dunfermline – then I must make a trip to Dunfermline as well.


First published in VISA 84 (Apr 2009)

The Roof of the World

by David Gourley 

We first visited the Himalayas region in 1998 (a trip described in VISA Autumn 1999). This year we decided to return, thereby revisiting Nepal, and adding Bhutan and Tibet to our ‘list of countries visited’. Cathy thus realized a long-held ambition to visit Tibet. For me, on the other hand, the main selling point was the opportunity to visit the remote mountain kingdom of Bhutan, as yet little penetrated by tourists. 

We flew to Bhutan via Delhi, the first part of the trip with Royal Jordanian Airlines, changing planes en route at Amman. The flight to Amman went smoothly, bur from there to Delhi was something of a performance. It was necessary to go though Indian customs, even though we were not for now staying in the country. Nor can Delhi’s Indira Gandhi terminal be classed as one of the world’s more customer friendly airports. We had to find our way to the poorly signposted departure area, necessitating going outside the terminal, then lugging our reclaimed luggage up a long flight of steps, as the solitary lift was out of action. Checking in was also good fun!

But we enjoyed our flight with Bhutan’s national airline Druk (meaning dragon) Air. There were marvellous views of the Himalayas, including of Everest. The in-flight hospitality was excellent. On this fairly short flight, we were served a tasty curry. It is interesting that this very small airline can provide such fare when all BA can come up with on its short haul flights to the Continent are tired-looking salads.

Bhutan was, until recently, almost entirely isolated from the outside world. Paro has the country’s only international airport and it opened as late as 1983. Previously they depended on the road to the Indian border, a 7 hour drive from the capital, Thimphu, as their main link to the rest of humanity. Paro, spotlessly clean and built in the form of a Bhutanese dzong (a fortress-cum-monastery), is one of the nicest airports we have been through. I wondered why it was located here and not in the capital. The reason was obvious when we moved on to Thimphu: there is simply no room in its narrow valley for an international airport. Only the Paro Valley is wide enough; even here, steep ascents and descents are necessary.

We stayed for the night in the Gantey Palace hotel, a little outside the picturesque town of Paro. This really was built, in the nineteenth century, to resemble a palace, so is the kind of place that in England would have been converted by now into a luxury country hotel. It was actually fairly basic, but we liked it: it was decorated in the distinctive Bhutanese style and here, as elsewhere in this tiny country, the people were charming. Hotel meals in Bhutan are invariably buffet style. During our stay, we experienced the good and the not-so-good. One can count on any buffet including the national dish, a lethal combination of hot chillies, cooked as a vegetable, with cheese.

Tourism is still in its infancy in Bhutan. Until 1974, visitors could only enter the country as a guest of the royal family. Nowadays tourists are welcomed, but the industry is managed in such a way as to keep numbers fairly low. There is no use expecting the full array of Western-style tourist facilities. There is a hit and miss aspect to getting a decent bath. Going to the toilet is often a case of ‘fertilizing nature’ as our Bhutanese guide, Kado, put it. On the other hand, McDonalds, Benetton and so on have yet to discover Bhutan!

This remains an unspoilt country and the Bhutanese are one of the friendliest people anywhere - many were the waves from passers-by as we drove along, not our experience in the other countries visited. Bhutan is a poor country, though less so than Nepal. But we saw no stomach-churning poverty and begging is virtually unknown. On one of our stops, I expressed concern that a window in our unattended bus had been left open. “But this is Bhutan,” remonstrated Kado. There is scarcely any risk of being robbed or attacked, at least by the two-legged variety of animal (the four-legged variety i.e. the packs of wild dogs that roam freely around night-time Thimphu are another matter). Our small group of six had taken Bhutan to our hearts by the time we left.

Bhutan is not a democracy in the modern Western sense; rather, it is a paternalistic monarchy. As far as I can judge, the King, who apparently has a fairly simple lifestyle, has the good of his people at heart. I was impressed by the emphasis placed here on what is termed “gross national happiness” - spiritual as well as material. This makes a pleasing change from back home, where Tony Blair drones on endlessly about ‘modernisation” as if that were an end in itself. (Is all this “modernisation” worth it if we all end up more stressed-out than we’ve ever been?) 

There is also emphasis on preserving the country’s traditions and culture. There is even a requirement that, for their daytime jobs, men wear the national costume, comprising a gho. Any Bhutanese reader will, I hope, not be offended if I say that our nearest equivalent is a dressing gown. Kado wore his with a Nike T-shirt changing in the evening to a pair of tracksuit bottoms!

There are aspects of Bhutanese culture which might give us in the West problems. Certainly being obliged to walk around in national costume would not go down well in our country! Less acceptable still is that, to earn themselves ‘merits’ and thus stand a better chance of being reincarnated as something other than an insect, parents can decide to put their young children into monasteries. Moreover one has to stay a monk for life - “this is not like Thailand,” Kado told us.

Our programme in Paro included a visit to the National Museum, worthwhile for the architecture alone. A substantial area is set aside for an impressive collection of stamps. Bhutan is renowned in philatelic circles for its numerous and striking issues - there is even a ‘talking stamp’, to be played like a gramophone record. 

We then travelled up the scenic Paro Valley, as far as the mined Drukgyel Dzong. En route, we passed what is perhaps Bhutan’s most well-known landmark, the Taktshang Monastery, also known as the Tiger’s Nest, perched atop its cliff. In happier circumstances, we might have climbed up to it. But it was devastated by fire a couple of years ago. The King has decreed that it will be rebuilt, but the authorities have yet to set an auspicious date for work to start.

We moved onto Thimphu the next day, staying at the Riverview Hotel, which almost manages to meet the usual expectations of a western tourist. There are fine views over the city, though we were some distance from its attractive centre. Thimphu became the capital only in 1961 and is still more of an overgrown village than a city. Alone among world capitals, it has no traffic lights. Some were installed a few years ago, but the residents did not like them, preferring the traffic to be directed by gesticulating policemen in their picturesque pavilions. An unusual attraction in Thimphu is a petrol station shaped like a small dzong!

Dzong in Punakha

Thimphu has a large and impressive dzong, but we could not gain access as the monks were currently in residence. They spend half their year here and the other half in the dzong in the old capital, Punakha. It was here we headed the next day, returning to Thimphu in the afternoon. This entailed a day of serious travelling but the scenery en route was magnificent, including a pass with stunning views of the Bhutanese Himalayas, so no-one minded. 

One somewhat bizarre aspect of the Bhutanese rural scene, probably not replicated anywhere else in the world, is the adornment of the exterior of some houses with a depiction of the external genitalia of the human male. I surmised that this might be part of a family planning campaign, comparable to the jolly-looking condoms seen on posters in Nepal. Not so. The phallus evidently helps to ward off evil spirits.

Punakha does not in truth offer very much apart from its magnificent dzong. Much of it was, a few years ago, rebuilt in a new location nearby following disastrous foods. But given our fascinating tour of the dzong, as well as the superb scenery en route, we considered our day to have been very well spent.

Next day we headed south to the Indian border, pausing to visit another picturesque dzong, Simtokha. The road was wonderfully scenic though the going was hard in places as much damage had been caused by the devastating monsoons which had swept this part of the world a few weeks earlier. Possibly one of the most spectacular changes in landscape anywhere in the world is the descent from the Himalayan foothills (which are still very high) to the Plains of Bengal. 

We stayed overnight in the town of Phuntsholing. This is still in Bhutan but right on the border and feels more Indian than Bhutanese. It forms a single urban area with the Indian town of Jaigaon, the boundary being marked by a ceremonial arch across the main street. The immigration offices on both sides are located a good distance further away, so foreigners and locals alike can go back and forth across the border with no let or hindrance. Jaigaon is part of a strip of territory, known as the Duars, which used to be in Bhutan but was annexed by the British in the 1860s.

We next headed for the Indian hill town of Darjeeling. An Indian guide, Louis, took over from Kado. But he did not look very Indian, resembling more a Nepalese or Bhutanese. He explained to us that the Darjeeling area, whose population is predominantly of Nepalese descent, is trying to break away from the Indian province of West Bengal, whose main city is Calcutta. They are happy to stay in India, but want their own province, Gorkhaland. There has in the past been unrest in the area. When our daughter, who travelled round India during her gap year, wanted to go to Darjeeling, she found that it was off-limits to tourists. But all is peaceful now.

The scenery today was very different from any encountered so far, taking us through the flat Bengal plains, albeit with the mountains of Bhutan, and then Sikkim visible to our right. At one point we paused to look at some ladies picking tea. I felt we were being a bit voyeuristic, but Louis assured us that they didn’t mind and that it was OK to photograph them. Theirs must be a wearying task though at least, unlike rice pickers, they don’t have to stoop as the bushes grow quite high. They nevertheless managed, in their colourful saris, to present a picture of serenity.

After a while we were again climbing up into the foothills, along a road with, it seemed, countless steep hairpins. For the last few miles we followed the route of the celebrated Toy Train, which mostly runs along the road. This is by no means ‘touristy’. It is a vital link for this remote area, running all the way to the city of Siliguri, down in the Plains, to connect with the rest of the Indian rail network.

Darjeeling has grown considerably since the days when British settlers fled here to escape the heat of the Plains. The adjective ‘tranquil’ is not really applicable anymore! But our hotel, the New Elgin, still seems clearly rooted in bygone days. It’s charmingly old-fashioned, yet is still going strong. The nearby Windamere (sic), another Raj-era hotel which we popped into, looks, by contrast, as if it has known better days. 

Just one thing was wrong at the New Elgin - no plug for the bath. Reception told us that they don’t give guests plugs as there is a drive to conserve water. But we’re not shower people. Cathy, a member of the Guide movement for many years, had packed our own plug!

We had two nights in Darjeeling and I had fancifully supposed that at least for one day we could take things easy and maybe have a bit of a lie-in. So we got up at 4.00am! This was to go up Tiger Hill to see the sun rise. The punishingly early start was well worthwhile. This was a magnificent spectacle. The Himalayas stretched before us, with Kanchenjunga, the world’s third highest mountain, right in front of us and Everest visible in the distance. Afterwards, we came across some Indian tourists who’d organised an impromptu song-and-dance session, which they invited our party to join.

We did have a bit of spare time later in the day, partly spent browsing round the town’s historic bookshop, which has just about every publication going on the Himalayas Region. Our visits included the Tibetan Refugee Centre. This was a moving experience and neither Cathy nor I were able to stay entirely dry-eyed. It was set up by the sister-in-law of the Dalai Lama, just after he fled to India in 1959. 

It’s a going concern with a range of articles on sale, credit cards accepted. But it is sad indeed to see old ladies who fled with the Dalai Lama, and who will surely never see again their land on the other side of the mountains, though they dare to hope otherwise. The various workshops are adorned with pictures of the current (14th) Dalai Lama, which are strictly forbidden in Tibet itself. One finds, too, pictures of Indian Prime Ministers, starting with Nehru, out of gratitude, no doubt, for India’s hospitality.

This inevitably rekindled my doubts about whether going to Tibet is consistent with ethical tourism. On balance, I still think it is. The presence of tourists is a means of ensuring that the Chinese behave in relatively civilized fashion, compared to past misdeeds (nay, crimes), though the situation is obviously very far indeed from ideal. On the other hand, I definitely would not go to Burma. Is this being consistent? Perhaps not.

Next day we again descended to the Plains, closely following the route of the Toy Train for almost its whole distance, right into the suburbs of Siliguri. Then we veered right to the Nepalese border, where we said farewell to Louis. All we had now was a Nepalese driver who spoke no English. Our objective was the airport at Biritnagar, Nepal’s second city. It cannot be said that this was one of the more enjoyable parts of the tour. Our driver hared along at breakneck speed. At first we gave him credit for wanting to get us to the airport in good time but, before long, it became apparent that our bus had run out of brake fluid. A duck waddling across the road barely escaped with its life. It’s as well we did not collide with a cow. These animals are sacred in Hindu Nepal and killing one can result in a jail sentence. At the next town we came to a dramatic, but fortunately harmless, halt and some brake fluid was acquired.

Our journey was not through a part of Nepal that tourists come to see. This region, in the southeast of the Nepalese rectangle, is generally flat and uninteresting. All in all, we were glad when we finally got to the airport, a scruffy and rather chaotic place where we finally got our plane to Kathmandu.

Nyatapola temple, Bhaktapur 

It was still early afternoon and there was time for an unscheduled trip to the city off Bhaktapur (sometimes known as Rhadgaon), a dozen miles or so along the Khatmandu Valley. We had been here during our previous visit and were delighted to have the chance to go a second time. It is widely regarded as Nepal’s most beautiful city and may well be one of the most beautiful in all of Asia.

This is an unspoilt city, frozen in time. Thanks to our charming Nepalese guide, Mukesh, our tour was more comprehensive than last time. He left the very best bit to last, Durbar Square. Unlike in Kathmandu’s equivalent, one can wander round without being hassled by the world’s most assertive traders. We enjoyed a good dinner in our hotel’s Indian restaurant located on the top floor of this high-rise building, so affording fine views of Kathmandu by night.

Next morning we were off on our travels again, this time to Pokhara, to the west of Kathmandu, entailing a scenic drive of some six hours. We had done this same drive during our previous stay in Nepal hut on that occasion I had been in a somewhat apprehensive frame of mind for our accommodation that night was to be a tent - definitely not my scene (we were starting a four day trek, which turned out to be very enjoyable). This time our accommodation was to be very different. 

A little before reaching Pokhara, we turned off down an unmade track which continued a good couple of miles or so, past outlying settlements and farms. This did not look at all promising - where on earth were we heading? At the very end of this track was a surprise - a splendid new five-star hotel, the Fulbhari Resort.

I did have qualms about enjoying this five-star luxury in the midst of one of the world’s poorest countries. The fact is, though, that the Nepalese economy is vitally dependent on tourism. A number of new jobs have been created by this hotel. It was owned by a Nepalese entrepreneur, not an international chain, and has been sensitively designed to reflect the local culture. In the evening we enjoyed a show by Nepalese dancers, held in an outside courtyard.

Pokhara is the second most visited tourist destination in Nepal, though in my view it is not a particularly interesting or attractive city. “It’s not like Bhaktapur,” Mukesh told us, a trifle unnecessarily. People do not for the most part come here to admire the city itself, but for its location, which is alongside beautiful Lake Phewa, with the Annapurna range providing a spectacular backdrop. This is the starting point for a good many treks.

Local sights included a temple, our enjoyment of which was not exactly enhanced by the sight of a cockerel being prepared for sacrifice. We managed not to be around when they chopped its head off (In Kathmandu’s Durbar Square, by contrast, a living sacrifice is maintained, in the form of a goat tethered outside one of the temples. There is no threat to the animal’s life and it is well looked after. If I were that goat, I’d resent the loss of freedom to roam around.) The main highlight was our trip by canoe across to a small island in Lake Phewa, on which there is a Hindu shrine.

We would have loved to have at least one more night in Pokhara, to enjoy the hotel and draw breath after our whirlwind itinerary. But it was back to Kathmandu the next day. Our journey did not lack adventure. We had got out of Pokhara, and a bit beyond the river where coach drivers in underpants wash their vehicles, when we came to a queue of traffic. This was most unexpected and something, clearly, was wrong. Mukesh went to investigate. The Communist Party had decided to organise a demonstration against rising prices. As a result the road would be blocked for a couple of hours.

We were relieved that it was Communists, not Maoists, who were causing the hold-up. The difference is important. Nepal prides itself on being a Westminster-style democracy - yes, they do use that expression - and the Communists are fairly respectable, being the main Opposition Party and having actually been in power for a period during the mid-nineties. Maoist insurgency, by contrast, is developing into a serious problem for Nepal. It is confined to remote regions in the western part of the country so does not affect any of the areas which we visited. Maybe it is not surprising that there is unrest, given the extreme poverty in the regions concerned. But, in view of the proximity to Tibet, and the cruelties inflicted on it in the name of Maoist doctrine, I am rather surprised that anyone in Nepal signs up to, let alone fights for, that selfsame doctrine.

Mukesh wisely decided to head back to Pokhara for lunch. Here, in one of those startling contrasts one so often finds in this part of the world, we emerged from a noisy and crowded street into an oasis of calm, a restaurant on the shore of tranquil Lake Phewa, where I enjoyed, or all things, an excellent Wiener Schnitzel. Our second attempt to travel back to Kathmandu passed without incident, the demonstration having finished on schedule.

Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, was our next port of call. The flight over the Himalayas from Kathmandu must be one of the most spectacular anywhere. One gets far closer to Everest than on the special sightseeing flights. The landscape changes abruptly, once one reaches Tibetan airspace. The mountains give way to the vast, flat and barren plain, which is treeless because of the altitude. We really had arrived on the Roof of the World.

Passage through Lhasa Airport was remarkably smooth. No searches were made of our luggage albeit I’d assumed that they’d make sure we weren’t smuggling in pictures of the Dalai Lama or suchlike. Right outside was a tall post flying the in-your-face-red flag of the People’s Republic of China; the visitor is left in no doubt who are the masters here.

The airport lies a remarkable distance, a good fifty miles or so, from the capital. One travels along just about the only decent highway in Tibet. On our way into town we had the usual three tourist stops. First we were shown a monastery which had been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution - political correctness, Chinese style, nowadays permits this to be mentioned. We were told that there are plans to rebuild it. Next, as we drove along the shore of a large lake, we stopped to admire some yak skin boats, proudly displayed by their owners. Thirdly we came to the Stone Buddha, carved out of rock face. Soon in the distance the unmistakable image of the Potala loomed in the distance.

Lhasa was at first something of a surprise, with its wide tree-lined thoroughfares and modern buildings. In fact we were in West Lhasa, not part of the traditional city and mainly inhabited by Han Chinese immigrants. Here was our hotel, the Lhasa Hotel, formerly the Holiday Inn. That really is what the sign at the entrance says! The Holiday Inn chain pulled out in 1997, under pressure from pro-Tibet groups, but the brochures in the Lobby for their other hotels in the People’s Republic led us to surmise that some sort of link still exists. It is virtually the only hotel in Tibet which attains, more or less, the standards generally expected by westerners.

Shortly after booking our holiday, I’d stumbled across an interesting and entertaining book in Waterstone’s, Running a Hotel on the Roof of the World, written by Alec le Sueur, who’d spent five years as a manager at the Holiday Inn. Here he’d invariably been known as Mr Alec as the Tibetan employees could not cope with his Channel Islands surname. His stint had started in the late eighties but, as far as I could see, little had changed since. He clearly regarded the employees with affection, at the same time finding them exasperating. Trying to get them to understand what was expected of them in a four-star hotel was a major undertaking, which to this day has not been entirely successful. For example, a notice in the foyer proclaimed that there was a choice of no less than five restaurants. Three of these had closed down, presumably for the winter. This came as news to the receptionist. We suggested that she had the notice changed but of course nothing was done.

Similarly there is a fine new leisure centre. Pity though that the two restaurants there were also closed. And that the well-equipped gym was in darkness, as were the changing rooms. This was despite the fact that I had come (to have a look, not to exercise!) during the rather extraordinary opening hours, announced on the door as being from 5.00pm to 1.00am. There seemed to be some sort of staff presence, so I suppose someone would have switched the lights on had they been asked.

In the afternoon we explored the Jokhang temple. Our drive took us past the Potala. Someone in our group, who’d been to Beijing, remarked that the adjoining open space resembled Tiananmen Square. This is no coincidence. It never used to look that way. The Chinese had actually paved over a river in order to create this square. They are to be thanked too for a hideous statue of a golden calf, sorry yak, built to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Tibet’s ‘liberation’.

The Jokhang by contrast lies in old Lhasa, the eastern half, and is utterly Tibetan. Cathy remarked how surprised she was that it felt so Tibetan - there was no discernible overlay of Chinese influence. It is an amazing place, almost medieval - yet one emerges into adjoining Barkhor Square to see a sign pointing one towards Internet and e-mail facilities! Monks go about their business and pilgrims pour in from remote parts of the “Tibetan Autonomous Region”. 

The smell of yak butter lamps, a new one for us, is all pervading. Religious tolerance exists, it seemed, and one could almost believe that Chinese rule is after all benign. The excesses of the Cultural Revolution are long past and some monasteries and temples have been rebuilt and repaired, including the Jokhang itself, which did not escape the attentions of the Red Guards. (The Potala was untouched only because Chou En-lai, the human face of Maoist China, personally ordered his own loyal guards to protect the building.) But one should not be lulled into complacency: this is a vicious police state still and the devout face continuing discrimination, albeit of a more subtle kind than in the past.

In the evening we dined at the Hard Yak restaurant, back in our hotel. What else could order in such a place but yak? (I hasten to add that the menu does offer other choices.) During our stay in Lhasa I had yak three times in all - yak in pepper sauce, sizzling yak, and yak with walnuts. But I didn’t get round to trying our hotel’s most celebrated offering, the Great Yakburger. I didn’t make any of the last bit up. Yak tastes a bit like beef and I enjoyed all three meals.

The next morning was devoted to exploring the Potala. This really is a magical mystery tour, an amazing experience. We paid a bit extra to go up on the roof, which, as might be imagined, affords fine views over Lhasa. The afternoon visits left us feeling sad and/or angry. Firstly we visited the Norbulingka Palace. Built as recently as the fifties, this is where the Dalai Lama lived before he fled to India. 

Close by was the newly opened Tibetan Museum. Insofar as this signifies that the Chinese do now accept, and maybe even respect, Tibetan culture, it is, I suppose, a good thing. But the political spin is sickening. The Tibetans are, one is invited to believe, a happy people enjoying the fruits of forty glorious years of socialism. Not a word about the Cultural Revolution, the desecration of countless monasteries and the persecution of their inhabitants, and the deaths of over a million Tibetans. 

One should not view pre-1959 Tibet through rose-coloured glasses: this was no Shangri-la. It was a needlessly backward and impoverished state, a theocracy in which the monks resisted just about any form of worthwhile change, including the establishment of an army worthy of that name, which might have provided some form of effective resistance to the Chinese invaders. None of this justifies the imposition of Chinese Communist rule, or the resultant excesses. The Tibetans should have been allowed to work out their own destiny. 

Historically China has exercised some form of suzerainty over Tibet, a point made ad nauseam in the Museum. But, under the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, China did not assert its authority and Tibet was effectively independent. Under Mao, it was not just Chinese rule, but Communism - a form of government to which Tibet is peculiarly unsuited - that was ruthlessly imposed, with devastating consequences, albeit in Lhasa, as elsewhere in the present-day People’s Republic, capitalism now thrives.

Will the Chinese ever leave? Even a dozen years ago, scarcely anyone believed that the USSR would ever let Czechoslovakia, say, go its own way, let alone constituent Republics such as Estonia. But it is hard to imagine China imploding in the same way as the USSR. The Tibetans’ best hope is that some day a Chinese Gorbachev will rise to power.

When we had booked this trip, we were supposed to have had a third night in Lhasa, the extra day to be spent visiting two important monasteries just outside the city, Drepung and Sera. Just a few days before departing our tour company informed us that our return flight to Kathmandu had been cancelled. The only alternative was overland with an overnight stop somewhere in Tibet. We were advised that the journey would be “arduous” and the accommodation “basic”. We would supposedly be travelling through “spectacular mountainous terrain”. We did not wish to cancel or postpone at this late stage a holiday to which we had greatly been looking forward, and the overland trip would be an interesting adventure.

All was at first well as we headed firstly towards the airport along the one decent highway. A metalled road of sorts continued as far as Shigatse, Tibet’s second city. Here we briefly paused, to admire but not visit, the city’s sumptuous monastery. The scenery was not at all mountainous or spectacular. Tibet is not a pretty place. For hour after hour, we were driving along the flat, treeless plain - barren, monotonous and really rather depressing. Moreover, away from relatively sanitised Lhasa, we were now perhaps seeing the real Tibet. The people in this oppressed country, to an extent we’d never seen before, even in the poorest of places, looked impoverished, dirty, downtrodden and unhappy. Here begging is the most aggressive that we have yet encountered.

Beyond Shigatse we found ourselves, despite being on the grandiosely named Friendship Highway, travelling along on an unmade road which, in many places, was little more than a rough track. Some three hours later we stopped for a very late lunch in a godforsaken dump called Lhatse. We ate in a truckers’ cafe and the meal was...interesting. I wished I’d remembered the advice in a guidebook: when in rural Tibet, go vegetarian. Any form of meat, even chicken, invariably turns out to be an unwholesome combination of fat, bone and gristle. Our party gave a couple of bowls of soup to some beggars, pleadingly peering into where we were sitting with arms outstretched. The toilets were grim, too, though we were forewarned.

The scenery was more of the same as we went on - and on and on - to our overnight stop in Tingri. Our accommodation here was, we knew, going to be “basic” but we still expected, reasonably enough, a room that was clean, if simple, in a tolerably pleasant lodge or whatever. What we got was the Amdo “hotel” - a squalid slum, which even the most hardened backpacker would try to avoid. The place was a nightmare and neither of us slept. 1 tried to keep my spirits up by thinking of Kathmandu - never was a word such music to my ears!

Some may think that this is a bit of whinging by a pair of cosseted western tourists, afraid of meeting ordinary people in their own surroundings. I do assure readers that we are not like that! This was not a chance to savour a bit of local colour. There was nothing redeeming about this place.

We counted the hours to 7.00am - and departure. The scenery was still uncompromisingly barren and the road very rough. An added bit of fun was that one of the tyres on our land cruiser burst, miles from anywhere. Fortunately our driver had a spare! We paused in the town of Nyalam - about the ugliest we have seen anywhere - to get the damaged tyre fixed. From here on, the scenery at last lived up to the tour company’s promise; this was now a spectacular drive through the Himalayas, though the road was still of very poor quality. The border town of Zhangmu is rather more pleasant than others we had driven through. It is spectacularly located on a switchback road on the mountainside and its long, straggling main street is very narrow. Trouble is that it is ill suited to bear the heavy volume of freight traffic that passes through - there is no by-pass! The bureaucracy at the border is not bad, but one can get considerably delayed just by the logjam of trucks.

At last we made it into Nepal, walking the last few yards across Friendship Bridge, with young kids gamely carrying our heavy suitcases. Somehow the air really did feel sweeter. We were back in the Free World! How great it was to see the smiling faces of Mukesh and of our friendly driver. The contrast between Nepal and Tibet is not just that between beautiful and barren scenery. Somehow the latter really does seem to be of a piece with the mood of the country. 
I had been struck by, and on occasions depressed by, the undoubted poverty in which all too many Nepalese live. And yet...there is, relatively speaking, an animation, colour and joie de vivre among the folk here, as well as in India and Bhutan, which is simply not to be found in an oppressive police state such as Tibet.

First published in VISA issues 40-41(spring - summer 2001)

From Vietnam to Laos

by John Keeble 

“Does anyone know a good restaurant round here?” 

The voice is a low growl, powerful but indistinct, words forced through a mouthful of pebbles. It is Ged, the first time we have seen him, causing a tremor of excitement through the female backpackers despite his beautiful blonde partner draping herself over him. They, like us, are waiting for a minibus from Hue in central Vietnam to Savannakhet in southern Laos - for us, a mere 12 hours into a 36 hour trek that started with a noodle soup breakfast in Hanoi, 500km to the north. Ged has just got the same good news that we have been given: the minibus is going to leave at 9pm instead of the promised 6.30 and he needs a meal. 

We - my wife June and I - leave our bags at An Phu, our favourite Vietnamese travel shop, and take a last look at the old royal city. Around 9 we are all back, waiting to go: two young Scandinavian women, an Australian traveller who looks like he has been on the road forever, Ged and his girl. Plus a crew of two, who jam in our bags and us around them. Great. But we then we’re off: it is easy to tell, because apart from the motion there is the usual headlights coming, head to head, straight at us mile after mile until, around 11pm, we stop for a drink and try to unfurl our legs.

Ged falls in beside me as I amble back a forth, leaving the others to drink tea and watching the night traffic roar past. We talk about the journey, about how long it might take, about where we have been and where we are going. 

“You are French?” 

No. English. Where are you from? 

“Israel. Tel Aviv.” 

I liked Tel Aviv when I was there. 

“It is terrible. Industrial.” 

Oh, it was 1976 when I was there last..
. 
Ged’s girl slips across to him, feline grace, and drapes herself. He strokes her. I think I hear her purring. If she could speak English, it would be interesting to hear what she had to say about life on the backpacking trail. 

We get back into the minibus and go head to head with the Hue-bound traffic until we reach Lao Bao, where Vietnam will jettison us into Laos. It is high in the hills, chilly despite the time of year. After a few false turns, the minibus pulls into a tiny, black lane. Why? None of us knows. The minibus stops, the driver gets out and tells us to get out: this is where we are going to spend the rest of the night. There is a choice: some can stay in the minibus, the others can sleep on thin plastic mats on a tiled floor in a small villa. 

One of the Scandinavian women says she thinks we would be better off in the minibus: they would take the floor. And I suddenly realise how the youngsters had been looking after us, an unlooked-for kindness that makes us feel our 55 years but, also, appreciate how nice they are. We slip back into the minibus and take the two back seats; Ged and his girl entwine on the front seat. I know I will never get to sleep and slowly wake, hours later, looking into the curious face of some passers-by peering at the foreigners. 

Twenty minutes later, we are in the main part of the village, waiting for the border to open. The crew has left us in the van to sort out something. And the first of the money changing touts arrives, a young woman who points and abruptly says: “You!” OK, she has my attention. “You change dong to kip?” No. She tries all the others. Then comes back to me. Then tries the others again. Ged changes some money. So does one of the Scandinavian women. I decide to wait and change money at the border: it is easier and I have totally lost track of how much kip I should get for my dong. Or my pounds. Or my US dollars. The journey is taking its toll on my brain. 

The crew returns and we set off. As we pull away, we see where they had been - having breakfast with the traders, the border guards, the other drivers. Ho, hum. You rarely get what you expect in Vietnam, especially if you have paid for it. A mile further on, we stop again and watch as the border guards walk past. The Scandinavians and the Australian buy food; Ged and his girl have brought their own; we fish out the veggie spring rolls picnic we had bought from our favourite Hue restaurant and eat them messily. No one knows what will happen next. 
We had been told the minibus would take us all the way to Savannakhet. But suddenly, the crew starts to throw off our bags. And, within a few minutes, we start to lug them to the Vietnamese border controls a quarter of a mile away. ‘’Shall I take one of those?” growls Ged, already carrying his enormous backpack and the smaller pack of his protesting girl. Thanks, Ged - I’m OK. He strides off easily. We approach the border control, fill in the forms. 

June goes to the window first and the soldier, an officer with three million medals and badges, smarms her through; then he glances at my papers and nods without looking. And we being another ¼ mile walk to the Lao border crossing, fill in the forms, get out passports and visas examined with what seems like infinite care and finally we are free to cross, picking up a wheelbarrowful of kip in exchange for US$100 on the way. 

Finally, we arrive at the point where the border posts end and the track into Laos proper begins...and a furious scrum of motorcyclists intent on getting us to ride to the bus station. A woman frantically tries to drag us towards a biker with crossed eyes and an evil grin. It is a couple of kilometres to the bus. We cannot walk it. The crush and pull gets worse; and one biker tries to drag a bag out of my hand. 

OK. Take control. I pick the two safest looking bikers, ask how much: 10,000 kip each (90p). June gets on, without camera bags but weighed down with her day sack. I clamber on, one big bag on the handlebars, the other wrenching my arm and balance, and the camera bags slung round my neck. And we rocket off, over rutted roads, June disappearing ahead, our back wheel sliding, gripping, slowing within inches of a 20ft drop from a makeshift bridge, and finally lurching into the Lao village where the bus is waiting. 

We stop suddenly. The weight is too much and I fall off backwards, scraping my hand and causing a roar of laughter among the Lao onlookers. I forget to feel glad I am back in Laos.

Ged and the others are already on the bus...no, not a bus: a truck-bus, a Lao instrument of torture that does anything and goes anywhere. They are tough, old beasts that have about 40 Lao-size seat places jammed in and you share with 60 or more people, assorted livestock and huge amounts of agricultural and industrial goods. The bus pulls out with us and what seems like 58 other people; we have not discovered the name of the village and no one who speaks English has any idea how long it will take to Savannakhet. 

The others from the minibus are dotted around, engulfed in the crush and cacophony, and the bus, without suspension, slams over appalling roads - except where the roads are too bad and then it goes over rough country instead. We think of Star Trek’s worst moments and know how the Enterprise crew felt.

In a quiet moment, a man sitting in front turns round and smiles; he wants to communicate, we want to communicate, but language defeats us before the next bout of slamming through deep ruts left by logging lorries. We stop for passengers, a few getting off, even more getting on; and we stop for goods: tonnes of fabricated steel, manhandled on to the top of the bus with the rest of the goods, including out bags; a live iguana-like creature; and enormous amounts of fruit and vegetables. 

At one stop, the man in front bids us farewell and gets off - proudly taking, with the help of the sweating, heaving bus crew, his new Chinese mini-tractor engine that was just behind us near the door. And once we stop at a little village with places to eat and drink for those who can face it. The step down to still ground seems huge; and we speculate that compaction injuries have knocked off a few inches of our height. 

Finally, unbelievably, eight hours after setting off, we reach Savannakhet and we ease ourselves, shellshocked, from the bus. By the time the crew get our bags down from the top of the truck, we find our plans have been overtaken by the good-natured young backpackers who have included us in their plans for tuk-tuks and hotels. ‘’We negotiate together,’’ said Ged. ‘’This gives us power. We can get better deals.’’ We do not especially want better deals: more a good shower and a comfortable bed, not necessarily in that order. But we like them and, even after the journey, we are fascinated by our inclusion into a backpacking world of which we had, for years, travelled on the edge. 

So we end up in a tuk-tuk with Ged and his girl, following another tuk-tuk carrying the others. We arrive at the first hotel, look around it, shudder at the lack of windows in the rooms, the dreary surroundings - at 20,000 kip (£1.80) a night, it is not bad, we supposed. 

“Do you like it?” asks Ged’s girl. Eh? Perfect English? No. We think it’s awful. She responds firmly: “I agree.” 

Ged emerges, too, from the hotel. 

“This is all right?” No. 

His girl: “No.” 

Ged: “It is for just one night. A good price.” 

Suddenly the pieces fall into place. Ged had said she had not travelled like this before, but he had; he had cycled through Thailand, stayed at wonderful and wildly uncomfortable places. So, she enjoys him but not this strange way of travelling. She wants somewhere comfortable, maybe luxurious, maybe by a beach with cool drinks at hand. “No,” she says again, firmly, no decorative drapery at all. We agree with her. So Ged agrees to go on. The tuk-tuk driver wants more money. Ged pulls him up. We are so tired we do not care one way or another. “He told us a price and he must stick to it,” says Ged. 

So off we go to another, slightly better, sleeping place. Ged likes it, his girl says OK; they are there for the night, as he says, and tomorrow they are heading into Thailand to find an island with sparkling seas and swaying palms. 

We make our excuses and leave, sneaking off to the best hotel in town. We reckon we deserve it. It is not expensive by developed world standards but, in southern Laos, it is wildly extravagant: a huge suite for US$44 (£31) a night. It is wonderful...

First published in a special issue of VISA for the TravelSIG 'Travellers' Tales' event at the Annual Gathering in London (July 2001)

Wadi Rum day and Night

by Rosie Jefferson

In early March 2011 I had the unforgettable experience of spending 24 hours in Wadi Rum desert: on a jeep tour during the day and in a Bedouin camp for the night.

Wadi Rum is the magnificent 720 square kilometres of desert and mountain landscape in south-western Jordan (about 300km south of Amman) described by TE Lawrence as ‘vast, echoing and godlike’. There is only one road into Wadi Rum and that ends at Rum village. After that, to explore the area, one needs a four-wheel-drive vehicle and a guide. But what an area to explore! Towering cliffs of weathered sandstone, basalt and granite rise out of vast open swathes of rose-red sand. It is vast, it is silent. It feels empty but is not. From the jeep we spotted paw prints of hares and foxes, s-bends of vipers, and carpets of very small blue flowers.

Our seven-hour jeep tour included seeing the remains of an ancient Nabatean Temple near Rum village, scrambling to cool springs amongst the rocks, surrounded by shading vegetation, and making our way through deep narrow fissures between high-sided rocky walls. We stopped for lunch on the shady side of an imposing rock bridge, examined ancient rock carvings deep in the desert, and marvelled at the sheer scale of the whole area. But it is the vast expanses of sand stretching in all directions, punctuated by the imposing rock formations, that come to mind when I think of Wadi Rum.

The jeep tour finished at a permanent Bedouin camp, set up for visitors, in the middle of the Wadi Rum area. I had expected open-sided tents but in March it’s still cold at night and my tent was a 10 foot cube frame covered with a double layer of woven material. The heavy outside cover was, I believe, made from goat’s hair and dyed black and white; the lighter-weight lining, made of heavy-weight cotton in red, white and black stripes; the doorway was formed by the inner lining overlapping by about 6 feet across the front of the tent; the floor covered by brightly coloured woven matting. On the floor of the rear half of the tent were four closely packed sleeping pallets, each with a pillow and a warm eiderdown.

There were about 16 people staying at the camp the night I was there, including an elderly couple en route to family in the United States but currently living in Alice Springs, three young Japanese men who had been climbing some of the Wadi Rum mountains, and an Estonian woman with two teenage children. We met in the large community tent, similar walls and floor to the sleeping tents but with a large open fire around which we sat, shoeless, on thin mattresses. We sipped the traditional hot sweet tea poured from pots kept hot by sitting on the edge of the fire and were entertained by the staff playing softly on lute and drums. I climbed a large dune behind the tents to take photos of the sunset before returning to the community tent for a buffet supper of rice, meat balls and bean stew cooked by the Sudanese chef. By 7.30pm diners were drifting off to look at the magnificence of a starry desert night and to their tents where a low energy light bulb powered by solar panels on the camp’s admin tent stayed on until 8.15pm (no light switch – all centrally operated). My tent was at the end of the line and not as sheltered from the wind as some of the others. I managed to stop the door from continuously blowing in by weighing its bottom edge down with a spare eiderdown but I lay in the dark for a long time listening to the loose tent walls flapping and the tent frame creaking before falling asleep.
I rose before dawn to climb onto the nearby rocks and take photos of the early morning mists and the sunrise. I could see for miles but not see any other person or creature. A breakfast of boiled eggs, bread and hummus and then the driver was ready to drive us over the sands back to Rum village. En route he stopped the jeep to talk with his ‘cousin’ (a term used so frequently that I believe it’s used instead of ‘good friend’) who was bringing racing camels into the desert to practise for the races.

Endless sand, imposing rocks, a night sky of a billion stars – what a 24 hours!

First published in VISA 99 (Oct 2011)

The Fjords of Oman

By John McGhee

I suspect others who have visited this small Arab country will have had a similar experience to me, as it has only recently opened up to tourists since a progressive Western-educated sultan came to power and built roads, schools and hospitals. Oman didn't even have electricity until around 40 years ago - but they had oil, so once this was tapped the country's infrastructure grew at an enormous rate. The Omani people were subsequently provided with free education and healthcare to help them make their country prosper in the modern world.

It was while staying in Dubai with my wife that she suggested a trip to see the fjords of Oman as an interesting day out. With the likely alternative being another day browsing around expensive shopping malls I enthusiastically agreed. We prefer making our own way rather than travelling in large package groups, so we booked seats on a minibus leaving for Oman the following morning.

Arrival at the United Arab Emirates (UAE) border crossing involved a lengthy wait in a reception area before going through Oman customs. But it was a pleasant surprise to find it full of wonderfully ornate displays of Arab art and artefacts, including portraits of some important sheiks and sultans.

 We were surprised to discover that the landscape on the Oman side of the border differed significantly to the UAE side, with quite spectacular mountain roads encircling the coastline, occasionally with sheer drops to the sea. The boat which was to take us on our cruise through the fjords departed from Khasab, a port on the southern tip of the Strait of Hormuz and local capital of the Musandam peninsula.

When we arrived at the cruise boat or dhow, there were no other tourists except ourselves and four people who'd shared our minibus. We stepped on board onto what resembled a vast magic carpet with the decks and walls adorned with a rich variety of rugs, carpets and cushions which made us feel we were back in the days of The Arabian Nights.

Oman is situated extremely close to Iran. The two countries are friendly and there is a lot of smuggling going on between them. Western contraband, such as American cigarettes,  has been smuggled into Iran on a daily basis for many years and the authorities ignore the practice, so long as drugs and weapons aren't involved. We saw some of these smugglers dashing across the gulf in speedboats covered with plastic covers. We were told by the guide that the Omanis often offer goats as payment for goods and that some of the speedboats subsequently make their journey to Iran loaded up with live goats. A bus load of western tourists eventually joined us on the dhow and their lively company was rather welcome as we sailed off into unknown waters.

through the fjords was awe-inspiring. Whilst Norwegian fjords are covered with green forests and vegetation the Oman fjords are completely bare, providing an opportunity to observe the volcanic rock patterns, ridges and jagged contours in multiple shades of red and brown which sweep majestically and quite violently down to the sea. This barrenness is the result of Oman being one of the hottest countries in the world.

 At one stage some small fishing villages were visible on the shoreline but we were told that cruise boats were not allowed to sail close enough to take photographs. This was accepted by all as there was a constant awareness that we were merely guests in a monarchy governed under Islamic sharia law.

 In the middle of the fjords is a landmark called Telegraph Island where a telegraph cable was laid by the British in 1864 to connect Britain with India. Dolphins now congregate around this area and we watched them diving and jumping playfully into the air. We also enjoyed the spectacle of four of them racing alongside our boat for several miles, an activity which dolphins enjoy as a sport.

During the trip we were served sweet tea and a type of scented coffee served with sticky dates and fruit. The boat stopped for lunch and there was an opportunity to go swimming. Not wanting to leave our bags unattended we took turns and my wife was the first to jump into the water, as she never misses an opportunity to swim. It was a while before anyone joined her, though, due to caution about sharks  or jelly-fish, despite the guide having assured us that there weren't any. A second person eventually jumped in, followed by a young couple, but others seemed content to stay on board, basking in the sun and taking photographs. At the next stopping place the sea was full of multi-coloured fish.

Although I had no snorkel I'd brought some goggles along and dived in to observe the fishes more closely, but on opening my eyes there was just clear  water. I thought I'd frightened them away, but this wasn't the case. My wife had thrown bread from her sandwiches into the water near my flapping feet and a shoal of tropical fish in all shapes, sizes and vivid colours were eagerly chomping away on it behind me.

On turning round I found my head swamped amid fish and bread crumbs and I remained there transfixed and fascinated until I finally needed to come up for air. On surfacing I became aware of applause and looked up to see a large group of onlookers merrily cheering me on. They'd apparently been watching my antics and joined in with the bread-throwing to see how long I would stay under the water.

 On the way back to the port we observed more smugglers boats speeding along but this time they seemed to blend in admirably with the scenery, all part of the daily routine of this picturesque corner of the gulf. We stepped off the boat exhilarated, suntanned and happy to return to the comforts of Dubai. So far as day trips go it was a most memorable one and would certainly qualify for a point if I were to start my own 'Country challenge' list.

First Published in Visa 113 (Feb 2014)