Perils of Peru

By Anne Rothwell

Darkness was approaching as we skittered down the mountainside in the little bus.  It had started to snow and the narrow roads were covered in icy sleet, but that didn’t slow down the driver, who clearly wanted to get to our destination as soon as possible.  We finally arrived at the top of a hill which gave a great view of the lights of Puno and the black space of Lake Titicaca down below.  Turning into a narrow road leading downhill, the driver almost immediately decided this was the wrong road and attempted to reverse back to the main road.  I could feel my heart hammering with alarm as he struggled with this difficult manoeuvre on the ice, skating from side to side, but he eventually succeeded.

The snow had stopped, but now we were assailed by torrential rain and the most violent thunderstorm I’d ever experienced.  It was clearly straight above as the vivid lightning and deafening thunderclaps coincided.  As we got lower towards the lake, the water gushed down the streets in a torrent, so it felt like it might lift the bus and carry it down.  People stood on the edges of the high kerbs, clearly wondering how they could cross the road.  I later learned that this was a fairly common occurrence, which washed the city clean, but was responsible for much pollution in the area of the lake closest to the shore.

Fortunately I was dropped close to my hotel and I stumbled inside with relief.  Once in my room, I unzipped my bag.  Alas, it had been travelling on the bus roof during the storm and hadn’t managed to withstand the tempest so that everything within, at one side, was soaked.  This was not the best  of days for me and very long.  At 3am the previous night, I’d had to get a plumber as the water from the endlessly flushing toilet was beginning to ooze up through the floor tiles.  At 5.15, my promised wake-up call never came, but fortunately I was awake.  I know I travel for the interesting experiences, but sometimes I wonder why!  On the plus side, I’d managed to see two condors soaring both above and below the rim of the Colca Canyon as we crossed the Andes, so not altogether a bad day.

I hung up my clothes, then, too tired to eat, I fell into bed.  I’d planned my schedule so that I could visit the floating islands on Lake Titicaca and hopefully sail in a reed boat, on my birthday, which was the following day.  Who knew what problems the weather may have caused?

The next morning I woke to sunshine, dry streets and the best day of my whole trip.

First published in VISA 118 (December 2014)

Chocolate Bar

By Anne Rothwell

 

As we approached the boat, we heard our names being called over the loudspeaker. They were almost ready to sail and we were the only people missing - not that we’d forgotten the time, but we’d just been getting into the swing of things with some local people and were loath to leave.
 

"We were in Sevastopol and had been sitting in a little bar on the quayside. We’d got into the habit of drinking Russian champagne, which was very good and very cheap. This bar was a little different. When we ordered, they wanted to know whether we wanted chocolate. Seeing the look of bemusement on our faces, the waiter disappeared, returning with a tray containing a box of chocolates and a bar of plain chocolate. We chose the bar and found it a very enjoyable accompaniment to the bubbly.

We then got into ‘conversation’ with a group on the next table, who’d been watching us with interest. With barely a word of common language, we managed to get very friendly with them and were soon roaring with laughter, which always seems to happen when we’re communicating with exaggerated signs and even drawing. Eventually I looked at my watch and decided that we really must go, in spite of the fact that they were doing their best to persuade us to forget the boat and stay with them. We ran up the gangplank and straight up to the top deck to wave goodbye to our new friends as we sailed away.
 

Although ocean cruising has never appealed to me, we’ve found river cruises very enjoyable. You’re always in sight of land and can spend much more time ashore, soaking up the culture. Here in the Crimea the previous evening, we’d been to see the Black Sea Band singers - a great male choir singing rousing Russian songs and sounding very similar to the group we’d seen Michael Palin singing with in his epic series ‘Full Circle’.
 



Opera House, Odessa

We’d already visited Odessa, where we climbed the huge Potemkin staircase and went to see ‘Madame Butterfly’ in the beautiful Opera House, designed by a Viennese architect, where the tickets cost the equivalent of around £2 for visitors and 60p for locals. We’ve found that culture is very accessible to the local people in all the Russian and former Russian states that we’ve visited. Also in Odessa, we’d seen the Memorial to the Unknown Sailor, with four schoolchildren on guard at the corners, both boys and girls in uniform.  They were allowed out of school for this duty and at hourly intervals, a new group came goosestepping down to replace them.
 

We still had Yalta to look forward to, among other places, and a return to Kiev whence we’d started. And now, years later, whenever we have anything to celebrate, it’s down to the shop for a bottle of Cava and a bar of Cadbury’s Bourneville.

First published in VISA 106

Big Bus Safari

by Janice Booth

It was too good to miss. When the new pensioners’ England-wide bus pass was announced early this year, we decided to celebrate in style. We sharpened a pencil and drew a beautiful straight line on a map of England, linking the far west (Land’s End) to the far east (Lowestoft). The other half of “we” was my friend Hilary Bradt, of Bradt Travel Guides, whose journeys more often involve exotic destinations like deepest Madagascar; but she gulped bravely and down-sized.

Our plan was to start from Land’s End on 1 April when our passes became valid and take eight days travelling along our pencil line to Lowestoft, using various local buses and with spots of walking and/or hitching thrown in. We checked out the main buses via www.traveline.org.uk and www.visitbritain.co.uk, pre-booked half of our overnight stops and planned some “treats”, otherwise left the details to chance. Carrying just small backpacks made us flexible.

Land’s End on 31 March was grey and stormy. Avoiding the brash, unappealing tourist “attractions”, we reached the cliff path that would take us down to Sennen Cove for supper. On the way we passed England’s true southernmost tip: the hunk of rock called Dr Syntax’s Head. As the views unfolded, wind in our hair and breakers lashing at the rocks below, we spotted a pair of choughs and our spirits rose. Over supper we watched surfers in the bay, playing the waves like a pack of exhibitionist seals. Our B&B (Weavers) was a chance “blind date” that quickly became a friendship: traditional farmhouse, cosy room, friendly owners and lots of thoughtful touches.

1 April was even stormier. Hilary was to write the trip up for The Observer and they’d sent a photographer; cold, windswept and dishevelled we posed for him against stone walls, bus stops, sign posts and the bleak horizon. Our bus arrived, and the driver submitted – with some surprise – to being photographed as we flashed our passes at him. Then we were off, along one of Cornwall’s prettiest routes, heading for St Ives. Our Big Bus Safari (safari means “journey” in Swahili) was under way.

The sun began to squeeze through the clouds as we rattled along narrow, twisty roads, between high hedges, past hidden hamlets of pastel cottages and finally through the beautiful, golden landscape near Zennor, with its soft hills and open fields. No time to stop and visit Zennor’s mermaid, but at St Ives we swapped wheels for feet and took to the South West Coastal Path, stripping off anoraks and sweaters under the now hot sun. We pampered our feet by paddling along Porthminster beach and eventually spotted the spire of Lelant church – our next bus location – in the distance. Never able to resist an old English church (St Uny’s dates from Norman times, and a few centuries ago was almost buried by sand blown in from the shore) we went inside, and found the choughs had followed us from Land’s End: there they were again, in one of the stained glass windows!

What with the sun and the paddling and enjoying St Uny’s we’d become over-relaxed about timetables; our bus from Lelant reached Truro too late for our planned connection to Bodmin, our overnight stop. As we were walking to the central bus station to look for alternatives, we spotted our Land’s End photographer on his way home to Tavistock – and begged a lift to Bodmin. No, it wasn’t cheating: we’d always intended to hitch if necessary, and how could we possibly ignore such blatant good luck?

In fact we did then end up in jail, but only because the old Bodmin jail (www.bodminjail.org) houses one of the town’s best restaurants. The imposing jail itself, already a popular tourist attraction, is being imaginatively restored by its present owners, both as an educational resource for schools and – eventually – as a Museum of Cornish Life. Completed in 1860, on the site of an older jail built in 1779, it was in use until 1927. It’s among the UK’s most haunted buildings (you can spend a scary night there...) and, during World War I, the Domesday Book and state papers were held there for safety. In the dark, atmospheric warren of passages are tableaux and panels illustrating the Victorian conditions: treadmill, oakum picking, diet, punishments, executions and suchlike. The prisoners’ stories are documented and some are sad; for example, one young woman killed her child because she had no home or money and couldn’t feed him, and juveniles were jailed for small crimes like stealing apples. Of the 56 hangings at Bodmin between 1785 and 1909, only 26 were for murder; others reasons included sheep-stealing, forgery, bestiality and burglary. A 23-year-old man was hanged for stealing a watch. Harsh times...

We also ended up in a really super B&B (www.bedknobs.co.uk – just say “Bedknobs B&B in Bodmin” quickly a few times and you’ll remember): a rambly 168-year-old house, carefully renovated, wrapped in a deep-green garden with secret corners. Landlady Gill entered wholeheartedly into the spirit of our safari (we’re still in touch) and has just emailed proudly to say she’s been listed in Alastair Sawday's 2009 Green & Organic Europe Guide.

Bright sunshine the next morning gave us itchy feet; we abandoned our bus in a village just beyond Liskeard and set off along smaller lanes. From the bus we’d spotted The Hurlers, a group of local villagers turned to stone by St Cleer many centuries ago because they’d skived off from church on a Sunday and gone hurling, so we were careful to think good and sober thoughts. Our aim was to walk for a couple of hours cross-country to Callington and catch a later bus from there. It was a green and golden landscape, the sun picking out the beginnings of spring and fields stretching gently into the hilly distance.

Now, Hilary has this tiresome adventurous streak. She’s 67 to my 69 and doesn’t she know it. Just as I’ve settled into a comfortable rhythm and am ambling along happily, a glint comes into her eye and she veers off piste. In this case, she took a sharp right turn down what looked to me like a gully carved out by a flash flood: steep, wet and stony. Not uncomplainingly, I followed. It ended in a stream. Hilary insisted it was a legitimate footpath (actually she was right) so we took off our trainers and waded across. Clear fresh water, sunlight, mossy tracks, birds, the whispering of woodland around us – and I stopped grumbling.

However, we were cutting it fine for our next bus. A couple of muddy fields or so later, we hit a road and decided to hitch. A woman in a capacious 4 x 4 beamed happily at us as she revved past, but an elderly Sir Galahad was kinder, piled us on board and stepped obligingly on the gas. It wasn’t his fault that we missed our bus by two minutes. We bought hot pastries and munched them in Callington’s bus shelter beside the Town Hall – which sported a neon decoration of Santa and his sleigh. Well why not, in April. Passers-by stopped to chat and our next bus was superbly punctual. As usual, the driver examined our passes with interest: the first he’d seen.

We were into the swing of it now. In the mornings we caught the first bus for which our passes were valid, then sat back and enjoyed the passing views until we wanted to stretch our legs or explore. These were small local buses, winding their way through villages, so there was always something to watch: gardens, trees, thatched cottages, old churches, small market towns, farms, strangely named pubs and just the gentle beauty of rural England. We were never bored. People were friendly and chatty, both in the buses and at bus stops, and most days had some new treat built in.

The next of these was Glastonbury, which I had feared might be tacky or over-hyped but which won me over completely. The view from the top of the Tor is a stunning panorama of greens and browns and misty distance; while among the ruins of the massive abbey, where H V Morton wrote in 1927 that “the shadows of the yews lie in long pencils over the smooth grass”, echoes still linger of the town’s ancient importance as a religious centre and place of pilgrimage. Frances Underwood described it so well in VISA 80 that I won’t start again here; but yes, as she says, “whichever way you look, the people are different”, and the sense of history and legend is very strong.

Avebury (photo: Helen Matthews

Avebury took us even further back in time, with its prehistoric stone circles. Part of the village is actually inside the biggest of them, up to 400 metres across, originally consisting of almost 100 rough sarsen stones averaging 3–4 metres high. They were placed around a deep circular ditch whose bank rose nearly 17 metres above its base. Inside are two smaller circles. From the large circle, an avenue with up to 100 pairs of stones stretches southeast for about 2.4km. Although many of the stones are missing, strolling among the remaining great, grey guardians of this ancient landscape is still a heart-stopping experience. There’s also a good museum, and a peaceful little church, St James’s, dating back to about 1000 AD. The National Trust owns 1,500 acres of Avebury land, and manages the museum and archaeological sites in tandem with English Heritage (www.english-heritage.org.uk). Nearby is mysterious Silbury Hill: it’s the tallest prehistoric man-made mound in Europe, but no-one knows why it was built.

The helpful little Tourist Information Bureau, tucked away inside a church, recommended us another gem of a B&B (www.tealcottage.co.uk), just outside Marlborough, for the coming night. Our bus driver dropped us at an obscure turning; we crossed an old stone bridge over a stream, passed a tiny village green, and rounded a corner to find a stylish, welcoming stable conversion in a pleasant garden. Later we strolled along leafy lanes and across a river into Marlborough for supper, and in the morning ate far too much breakfast because it was so good.

That afternoon, we watched the Grand National in a betting shop in High Wycombe! Two wrinklies with backpacks didn’t quite match the rest of the clientele, but they shifted up companionably to make room for us. Of course we didn’t win. The following morning we awoke to a cold white world, and crunched our way through deep virgin snow to our first bus stop. In Aylesbury, damp and frozen-fingered, we found a Café Nero complete with hot croissants. After more coffee and cake with friends near Leighton Buzzard, we arrived at Whipsnade Zoo; it was planned as one of our “treats” but turned out a pretty chilly one, with animals crouched in dejected huddles and ring-tailed lemurs trying sadly, arms agape, to bask in intermittent rays of wintry sun. Delays for roadworks in Luton meant that we watched our connecting bus pull away just in front of us, despite our kind driver flashing his lights to make it wait. We dived into a nearby Pizza Express for more comfort food – it was that kind of day – and sheltered there until another bus came. This wasn’t exactly the prettiest part of our trip and it was hard to feel enthusiastic about stopping somewhere for the night, but in Hitchin the church bells were ringing a Sunday serenade out over the central square, so we settled there.

Until now, local buses had gone wherever we wanted, with only small deviations from our pencil line, but getting from Hitchin to Bury St Edmunds without using National Express, where our passes wouldn’t be valid, looked harder. Traveline told us by phone that we’d have to go via London, which seemed silly, so we caught a bus to a few miles beyond Hitchin and then – yes, started hitchin’. Sorry. A businessman took us to Saffron Walden, choosing the scenic route in order to show us various attractions. I remembered the etiquette of hitching from almost 50 years ago: make conversation in such a way that the driver enjoys your company and feels good about having stopped for you. In Greece in the 1960s, I even learned enough Greek to praise the car and its performance, which was always a winner! Maybe I’m a touch more sophisticated now.

After a stroll around Saffron Walden, and a visit to St Mary’s (the largest parish church in Essex), we found our bus stop – complete with chatty fellow passenger – and continued towards Bury St Edmunds, via Haverhill and (unexpectedly) Cambridge, because we missed a connection at Haverhill and had to improvise; this was the only time during the safari that our bus was crowded, with afternoon shoppers and commuters. In Bury there was still just enough daylight for us to explore the extensive ruins of the old Abbey, hazily grey in the dusk, where birds treated us to an evening concert, before indulging in our biggest luxury: the Angel Hotel (www.theangel.co.uk), just across from the ruins. It has been sheltering travellers and pilgrims since the 15th century, and does it in great style and comfort. Good restaurant too, with prices lower than the quality suggests.

The Bury tourist office bustled helpfully the next morning, setting us off on one of my favourite days: visiting village churches. I love these peaceful, patient little buildings, blending so completely into the English countryside, some crouched low in their graveyards, some with spires peeping above the treetops, all filled with the centuries-old ghosts of worshippers who trod the same path to their doors as we tread today. I hope the ancient craftsmen who built them, lovingly, stone by back-breaking stone, can look down on their work and feel proud. Visiting them is an endless pleasure; each one offers some different charm or quirk or discovery. Partly by bus and partly on foot we went to All Saints’ in Beyton, its churchyard a designated wildlife site with more than 50 species of wild flowers and grasses; St Ethelbert’s in Hessett, with medieval stained glass and lively original paintings; and wonderful St Mary’s in Woolpit, with wing-loads of benevolent carved angels and a fine medieval porch. I’ve since discovered the very browsable website www.suffolkchurches.co.uk, full of temptations for a future trip to the area.

At the approach to Hessett village, a sign had warned us to “Beware of Children” (whatever do they get up to, those Hessett kids?), but far more intriguing were the green children of Woolpit. Sometime in the twelfth century, so the story goes, harvesters found two frightened children crying in a field. They wore strange clothes, spoke an unknown language and their skins were green. Initially they would eat nothing but beans. The boy soon died but the girl survived; eventually her green colour faded. When she had learned English, she said that she and her brother had come from a land of twilight where the sun never shone and the people were green. The legend appears in various forms; it’s well covered on http://anomalyinfo.com. A similar event allegedly occurred seven centuries later, in Spain, but descriptions of it are suspiciously like those of the Woolpit tale.

We were due in Lowestoft that night and time was running out. Hilary had arranged with BBC Radio Suffolk that we’d reach Lowestoft Ness, the official easternmost point, at 10.00 the following morning, where they would interview her live by mobile phone. We caught a bus to Eye (beautiful church) and another to Diss, but onward connections from Diss’s bleak bus station weren’t promising. Traveline suggested we go via Norwich, arriving in Lowestoft late at night, which wasn’t appealing. A woman waiting at the bus stop for her husband spotted that we were in trouble, popped us in her husband’s car when he arrived, and drove us to Harleston. There we unearthed our black felt marker, wrote our hitching signs “Direction Lowestoft, please”, stuck out our thumbs and waited, smiling sweetly, beside the relatively busy A143. Three lifts later we were in Lowestoft, in good time for supper.

The next morning we walked from our B&B to England’s easternmost point and reached the end of our safari. Hilary had her radio interview. A student was sitting in a car, revising, and we roped him in to take our photos by the marker plaque. Then – I hesitate to admit it – we caught a train back to London and went our respective ways.

Had it been fun? A resounding yes! Would I do it again? Like a shot! We’ve already had one “bus day” since then, just catching buses and walking in between routes, out of nostalgia. We plan to do it in the Lake District, round the Cotswolds, in Northumberland... the possibilities are endless and enticing. What did we learn? So many things! That the English countryside is wonderful (well, we already knew that), that the Traveline phone number (0871 200 2233) given on bus stops is a good source of information, that it’s wise to go to the loo whenever the chance arises, that missing a bus needn’t be a disaster if you’re flexible, and that strangers can be wonderfully kind and helpful. We’d worried that we might be taking seats from fare-paying passengers, but this never happened; many buses were half empty. Despite government subsidies, some district councils have expressed concern about the cost to them of refunding bus companies for so many non-fare-paying passengers, and who knows what cuts may be made in the future; so, if you’re old enough for a bus pass, do make 2009 the year that you dust off your backpack and climb aboard...

First published in VISA 82-83 (Dec 2008 - Feb 2009)

Seoul Stopover

by Maxine Bates

Having decided to visit Hong Kong over Christmas 2013, we discovered it was as cheap to fly via Seoul than direct and having never visited South Korea previously booked that option. The BA sale at the time of booking also meant it was cheaper to fly World Traveller Plus rather than World Traveller. So a win win situation! We had two nights outbound and one night inbound in the Korean capital and these were our highlights….

We stayed at the Noble Hotel in the Jongno-Gu district. Having arrived in temperatures of minus 6C the underfloor heating in the bedrooms was much appreciated. In fact it was so warm we had to open the windows at times! The hotel was good value considering the handy location for the airport bus and metro and although they do not serve breakfast there was an adjacent shop where we could purchase hot drinks, pastries and snacks.

Our first destination was the Namsan cable car which took us to the North Seoul Tower for fantastic views over the city. Although cold temperatures there was blue sky and glorious sunshine. We arrived at the end of some sort of dance demonstration, but just in time to have my photograph with a guy in traditional Korean costume. There were Christmas trees adorned with hundreds of padlocks. We could only assume this was some romantic gesture as we had seen the same in Kiev where newlyweds chained padlocks to a certain bridge. The observation deck atop the tower had city names on the windows with distances. We were amused to see that London was 8,954.45 km away. Very precise! The view included the River Han winding its way through the city, the stadium used for the 1988 summer Olympics and the mountains circling the capital. We tried our first street food of a sausage on a stick with potato spiralling round it. Very artistic! We also had something that looked like sponge cake off a griddle but when bitten contained a fried egg inside. No idea what that was called as the vendor did not speak English and we did not speak Korean. But all part of the randomness of travel!       

We then headed over to the infamous Gangnam district where we watched skaters on the rink in the shopping mall, considered entering the Lotte World indoor theme park, but decided against it and went exploring the shops lining the underground metro pass instead. We saw moving statues of the Korean singer Psy. So although his infamous ‘Gangnam Style’ song was actually written to poke fun at the residents of Gangnam (equivalent of London’s Soho) they are obviously cashing in on it!

There are five palaces in Seoul and due to limited time we opted to visit the largest so next morning walked to Gyeonghuigung Palace. We arrived just in time to watch the hourly changing of the guard which was an elaborate affair with musicians (including one playing some sort of large shell) and flag carriers. I can only assume they had lots of layers under their dresses as despite the bright sunshine there was still ice on the ground. We joined a free English speaking guided tour though dropped out halfway as it was too cold to be standing around outdoors and you could not enter any of the buildings. The layout reminded me of the Forbidden City in Beijing. The palace grounds contains the National Folk Museum Of Korea. Even better it was free and heated! So we passed an interesting hour learning about the country’s dress, cuisine, industry, farming and culture.

Travel was mostly quite easy with a ‘beep’ card similar to the London Oyster card so we didn’t have to worry about keep purchasing metro tickets. The metro system was clean and efficient although somewhat pungent at times. I think everyone ate the national dish of kimchi for breakfast because as the doors closed there was an overpowering smell of garlic and as they opened the fresh air was welcome!

On our return we only had an evening stopover between flights and stayed at the Hotel Biz where we experienced the quickest check-in ever and wallpaper depicting London scenes in our room! We were delighted to find the nearby Myeong-dong night market in full swing despite the freezing temperatures. So more random street food, more singing/dancing Psy statues and a beauty shop selling ‘snail solution’. Apparently it’s good for your skin.       

Unfortunately our only full day in the city fell on a Monday; the only day the hop on/off bus and tours to the demilitarized zone do not operate. A shame as we would have liked to do those. Nevertheless we enjoyed our brief glimpse of Korea.

First published in VISA 114 (April 2014)

 

Like Webster's Dictonary...

By Elizabeth Johnstone

In February 2014 we celebrated my husband’s 60^th birthday with a week in Morocco.  I chose a week’s all-inclusive package at the Riu Tikida Dunas Hotel, Agadir, booked through Thomson. 

The flight left Gatwick rather early in the morning, so we spent the night at the Sofitel at the airport.  The hotel could not have been closer.  A few minutes along a covered walkway brought us out at the North Terminal check-in desks.  Sofitel likes to market itself as luxurious and certainly it was cosy and opulent.  Unfortunately, the monorail shuttles from North to South Terminals whooshed past our room all night.

The flight took three and three quarter hours, not too bad.  An efficient Thomson transfer took us to our hotel in about forty five minutes.  We were immediately impressed by the spacious lounges and restaurants inside and the wonderful landscaping and pools outside.  I had paid extra for a sea view room which did not disappoint.

Several firsts on this trip – an Islamic country, the continent of Africa, winter sun, all-inclusive programme.

For some, “all-inclusive” conjures up images of mediocre food and worse wine. I reckoned that, as a former French protectorate, Morocco would attract a large number of French tourists who would demand first-rate food and drink.  I was right.  The French pride themselves on being “exigeant”, which keeps the standard up for the rest of us.  The food was not only plentiful but excellent.  Bread and pâtisserie was as good as French (my highest praise). Moroccan and international fare was on offer and the Moroccan wines were more than acceptable.  Dining was mainly in the huge buffet-style restaurant, but on alternate nights we dined in their cosier themed restaurant.

Agadir is a major Atlantic port.  Destroyed by a huge earthquake in 1960, it was completely rebuilt.  Consequently, there is almost nothing of the “old town” to be seen.  A broad promenade stretches the length of the huge sweeping bay lined with many huge new hotels, like ours.  On the hillside overlooking the town, the words “God, the country, the king”, in Arabic, are picked out in lights.

Our main entertainment, outside the hotel, was strolling along the promenade, admiring the long Atlantic rollers which periodically broke hard enough to attract surfers.  Sunset was spectacular, as the glowing disc majestically dipped down behind the horizon.  There was little in the town itself to attract tourists.  The “Valley of the Birds” was broadly acceptable – and popular with locals – but not really up to North European standards.  The birds were generally fine, if cramped, but I felt sorry for a solitary monkey in a narrow, bare enclosure.  The Marché Central was compact but did not lack in the enthusiasm of its vendors, none of whom had embraced the concept of “window shopping”.

We booked for just one of the heavily-marketed trips, a modest coach tour round the city, super value at £12 each.  First was the town museum, with its small but perfectly formed exhibition on Berber art and tradition.  “Berber” is cognate with “barbarian” and the Berbers prefer to be called the “Amazigh” or “free people”.  Next, we were taken to the ruins of the Kasbah, or fortress, high above the town for stunning views of the bay and the port.  Less engaging were the camel handlers, who were prepared to supply camel trips or photo opportunities for the appropriate fee.  We were driven round the busy working port – the biggest in Morocco, possibly why we had sardines at every meal – and ended up at the El-Had Souk.  I thought I was an aficionado of markets, but nothing prepared me for the souk with its 6,000 stalls and barely a price in site.  A vast central hall was devoted to fresh produce and the usual hardware, household goods, fashions and souvenirs. Live poultry was crammed into tiny cages, rows of tailors sat ready for action at their machines, butchers’ stalls were draped with glistening internal organs. There was a post office and a mosque.  We were advised that photography would not be welcome.

This was my first trip to a country whose culture was so different from our own.  The dirham is a closed currency i.e. you are not supposed to take it into or out of the country.  Because of our all-inclusive package, we struggled to spend the £20 we changed on the first day. After £5 or so for postcards and stamps – a must for this Postcrosser! – we had to spend up at Uniprix on the last afternoon.  I am not one of Nature’s hagglers, so Uniprix offered a glimpse of retail “normality”. Elsewhere, vendors constantly tried to sell us things.  I spent a lot of time saying “non, merci, monsieur” on the promenade, in the market and in town.   We were not harassed, indeed most were friendly and backed off when asked to, but they were omnipresent.  There was a definite culture of tipping, for any small service and especially for photo opportunities.  Again, it is not oppressive, but it is just how things are, and you need to have a good supply of coins and small denomination banknotes (my tip: acquire one-dirham coins as a matter of priority, as that is the standard payment to the attendant at the noisome public toilets)

I was intrigued by what the local ladies wore.  Morocco is a Muslim country, but it is a question of individual choice how modestly you dress.  Most adult females wore some variant of Muslim dress. Most adhered to the principle of only showing face and hands. The younger age group favoured fashionable western styles, including form-fitting jeans and trendy tops, with the face-framing hijab or veil. Older ladies might prefer more flowing robes with their hijab.  In a week, I only saw three or four black niqabs (full body, head and face covered except for an eye-slit) A handful of younger women wore no Muslim dress at all.  The long promenade was ideal for joggers and power walkers.  Many local ladies wore a modest style of tracksuit with all the usual logos, but featuring looser trousers, baggy tops reaching to mid-thigh and a sporty baseball cap perched on top of the hijab.

Arabic, French and English are spoken in this tourist destination with some signage in the local Berber language. You can read more about this in my article in Linguasig.  As for the winter sun, temperatures ranged from about 20̊ to 24̊, with a brilliant blue sky.  A breeze came up in the afternoon.  One day, it was somewhat stronger, and blew sand into our eyes and mouth.  Like a latter-day Paul Muad'Dib, my husband started muttering about his stillsuit…

All in all, it was an excellent holiday and an intriguing glimpse into a different culture. The staff at the hotel could not have been more friendly and helpful. I will certainly look out for the Riu brand in future.

Did you recognise the allusion in the title?  Devotees of the “Road” films starring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby will remember that, like Webster’s Dictionary, they were “Morocco bound”.  My husband had to settle for me rather than Dorothy Lamour! All in all, we enjoyed our trip and felt we had done something different.

 

Now where’s that Thomson Winter Sun 2015 brochure?

First published in VISA 115 (June 2014)

Sun, Sea, Sand, Shopping, Souks and Skyscrapers

by Maxine Bates

I’d wanted to visit Dubai for a long time and having found a good deal via www.lowcostholidays.com I finally got there at the end of November 2012.

Having flown on an overnight Emirates flight - an airline I can highly recommend – we spent some of the day dozing by our hotel pool before deciding to use our metro pass and ride to the end of the red line to Dubai Marina. We had been expecting quaint fishing boats but what we found were newly built skyscrapers surrounding plush yachts and waterside restaurants. The Infinity Tower was most impressive with its 90 degree twist, although not yet occupied. It was interesting to note that the metro system is fully automated with no drivers, each train having five carriages with one reserved for women and children only.   

We had pre-booked a 48 hour ticket on the hop on/off Big Bus. Definitely a ‘must do’ if visiting Dubai. The ticket includes two routes – city and beach – plus an hour long dhow boat trip along Dubai Creek, entrance to Dubai Museum and Sheikh Saeed Al Maktoum House, two walking tours and a discount voucher booklet. The hour long guided walk through the souks was one of the highlights as we visited places we may not have discovered on our own including the fabric souk, spice souk (where we also saw the world’s first camel milk ice cream) and gold souk (although selling silver too down the side streets). Mid walk we were treated to a traditional abra boat ride across the creek. The beach route returns along Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Road which is 16 lanes wide in places yet still prone to traffic jams.

One can’t visit Dubai without going up the Burj Khalifa which, on 4^th January 2010, entered the Guinness book of records as the world’s tallest building at 828 metres. The observation deck is on the 124^th floor and disappointingly only had an outside area facing in one direction and no signage about the views from the 360 degree inside deck. It also didn’t seem that high (having already been up the second tallest building Taipei 101) but probably due to the dozens of skyscrapers surrounding it. However, whatever the cost and whatever the view there is a definite demand as tickets sell out well in advance. We had pre-booked to visit at 11am and the next availability was not until 10pm. Pre-booked tickets cost 100 dirhams (approx. £17) whereas tickets purchased immediately before entry cost a whopping 400 dirhams (so approx. £68!). The dancing fountains on Burj Khalifa Lake perform on the hour from 6pm to 11pm though personally I’ve seen lengthier and better displays.

Jumeirah Mosque is the only mosque that tourists can visit and offers tours at 10am every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday for 10 dirhams (approx. £2). However, it’s not actually a tour. A British woman who has been volunteering there for over 20 years explains the washing ritual outside before an interesting talk about their religion, including a demonstration of the five-times-daily prayers, whilst guests are seated on the carpet flooring inside.  There is dressing up opportunity too as ladies can don headscarves and the traditional black robe regardless of what they are already wearing. 

Further along Beach Road from the mosque we passed Dubai Zoo and decided to visit as admission was only 2 dirhams (less than 40p!). Although only covering a small area there are around 60 cages and we spent a pleasant hour watching lots of monkeys and tortoises, which just happen to be my favourite animals. Excellent value for money!

Dubai is host to the ‘shopping festival’ each January. If you’re a shopping fanatic you’ll be in heaven with the dozen or so air-conditioned malls. Dubai Mall is the world’s largest shopping mall and also contains an ice rink and aquarium with the world’s largest fish tank. If you prefer skiing to skating then head to The Mall Of The Emirates and get kitted out to play on their real snow slope situated among the stores. The Egyptian themed Wafi Mall is the changeover point of the two Big Bus routes and seemed awfully quiet each time we visited. We used our discount vouchers for lunch and dinner there and stayed to watch the free sound and light show projected in their courtyard at 8pm. There must have been only a dozen spectators and I can only imagine the 7pm and 9pm shows to be even quieter. Mercato Mall is Italian themed and looked even more so draped in the flag of Dubai to celebrate their forthcoming national day on 2^nd December as their flag contains the same colours as the Italian flag! Times Square Mall is not near any metro station but we made an effort to get there purely to visit the Chill Out bar. At 60 dirhams (approx. £11) it was an expensive hot chocolate but drinkers are really paying for the novelty factor of dressing up in fur lined coats, gloves and boots and sitting in a fridge with temperatures of -6C. The tables and seats (covered in fur skin) are made of blocks of ice and there are ice sculptures of animals and iconic Dubai landmarks.

We visited Vu Bar on the 51^st floor of Emirates Towers to enjoy a cocktail with panoramic views. However, the design of the building meant that steelwork obscured some of the view so not that impressive. We were handed a flyer for ‘ladies night’ on Tuesdays offering two free glasses of bubbly and a bowl of strawberries along with a female DJ. Had we known about this in advance we would have visited a day later and saved ourselves over £25 buying cocktails! Note, alcohol in Dubai is only served in hotels and not cheap. We saw the famous seven star Burj Al Arab hotel but thought their cheapest meal of afternoon tea rather overpriced. Although at a lower level I’d recommend the Al Duwaar revolving restaurant at the Hyatt Hotel for the best view. Their evening buffet costs 235 dirham (approx. £42) with the cheapest glass of wine costing 40 dirhams, but our Big Bus voucher booklet offered 25% discount on food. The menu was amazing with a huge choice of soup, salad, Chinese and Indian dishes, chefs carving racks of ribs and salmon, every type of dessert imaginable plus cheeses. Do go, but go hungry! It was the perfect end to our trip.    

First published in VISA 108 (April 2013)

A Literary Pilgrimage

By Helen Matthews

The idea of a pilgrimage for religious reasons is centuries old. People wanted to see places mentioned in the scriptures for themselves, or to see or touch what they believed to be holy relics. In the 4^th century AD a lady named Egeria wrote an account of a pilgrimage from her home (possibly in Spain) to Mount Sinai. Pilgrimages to shrines at home and abroad flourished through the Middle Ages, and such a journey to the shrine of St Thomas Becket was used as a setting for Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.  Religious pilgrimages still take place, of course, but nowadays other journeys, such as those of crowds of Elvis fans to Graceland, seem to answer a similar need to tread in the footsteps of the revered, but without a religious dimension. The literary pilgrimage is another manifestation of this trend.  More obvious examples would include the coach loads of tourists that descend on Stratford upon Avon in ‘Shakespeare’s county’, or upon the Yorkshire moors to see if the heights are indeed Wuthering.

Rye

Last Easter, I paid a visit of my own to a perhaps rather less famous shrine, but one whose literary connections are in fact numerous.  The town of Rye, in Sussex, is probably best known as one of the Cinque Ports (of which I now discover there are seven, but that’s another story).  It is also the thinly-disguised setting of the Mapp and Lucia series of books by E F Benson. I had long wished to visit Rye so that I could visualise Mapp, Lucia, Georgie, Major Benjy, Diva, Mr and Mrs Wyse and Quaint Irene in their authentic habitat.

Benson lived in Lamb House, Rye, from 1919 until his death in 1940. For a few years he was joined by his brother, A C Benson, a Cambridge don who wrote the words to Land of Hope and Glory.  He had first visited the house some years earlier, as the guest of the novelist Henry James, who lived there from 1897 until his death in 1916.  The house is now owned by the National Trust, which clearly operates according to a hierarchy of perceived literary merit.  No mention of Benson is made in the description of Lamb House in their general guide to properties, and he only merits a mention on one page of the guidebook, to James’ six (plus several full page photographs) despite the fact that he occupied it for longer, and actually used it, renamed Mallards, as a setting for four of his books[1].

The townspeople of Rye take a rather different approach.  The numerous bookshops prominently display copies of the Mapp and Lucia books and second hand bookshops also stock an impressive range of his other novels, now out of print.  Posters advertise guided tours of the Tilling locations. Henry James and other literary personalities associated with the local area, including Conrad Aiken, Joseph Conrad, H.G. Wells, G.K. Chesterton, Radclyffe Hall, Rumer Godden and Russell Thorndike, are also celebrated, but Benson is the clear winner. It was not initially clear to me whether this was because of the Rye setting of Benson’s books or because more visitors were interested in him than in James. However, the tourist information centre website settles the matter:

 

Rye's most famous and best-loved author is probably E. F. Benson whose fictional town of Tilling is based on Rye - many locals say they can still recognise some of the characters! There is a walk around E. F. Benson's Rye during the summer on Wednesdays and some Saturdays. Enter the world where Capt Puffin and Major Benjy took the tram to play golf and Mapp spied on everyone's goings-on![2]

 Henry James is described in the website as ‘Rye’s other literary celebrity’. So the National Trust would appear to be in a minority.

Lamb House

James used to write in the Garden Room, a separate room built at right angles to the main house, during the summer months, moving inside to the Green Room upstairs during the winter.  Benson, too, worked in the Garden Room, which he immortalized as the base from which Miss Mapp observed her neighbours.  My first disappointment on seeing the house was the discovery that the Garden Room had been totally destroyed by a bomb in 1940.  All that remained was a brick wall with a plaque. A small model of the Garden Room as it originally appeared was on display inside the house, along with a number of photographs, including one of the bomb damage in 1940, so it was at least possible to imagine how it would have looked.

The house itself is occupied by a tenant and only three rooms and the garden are shown.  A small room off the hall, recognisably the ‘telephone room’ at Mallards, contains a small exhibition about James and Benson. One of the exhibits is an original letter from James to Benson, inviting him to spend the weekend at Lamb House. 

On arrival in Rye, the first thing I discovered was the reason for Benson’s choice of Tilling as a name for his fictional version.  This became fairly evident as we crossed the river Tillingham to reach the town from the visitor car park.  We walked up Mermaid Street – could this be the original of Tilling’s Porpoise Street, where Mr Wyse (and the dentist) lived? From Lamb House we walked past the crooked chimney to the church, with the Norman Tower and thence to the Land Gate.  Canny Tilling artists always painted the chimney as slightly more crooked than it was in reality just so that there should be no doubt that the crookedness was deliberate. Later, walking along the High Street, I saw a middle aged woman shopping with a wicker basket. This was truly the Tilling of the books.

In some ways, Benson’s life in Rye seems very similar to that of his heroines. Like them, he supported the Rye (or Tilling) hospital.  But instead of making bandages or lending use of his car, he contributed to A Cargo of Recipes, a collection of Rye residents’ favourites sold in aid of hospital funds. His contribution was not however Lucia’s infamous speciality, Lobster à la Riseholme, which was the indirect cause of two ladies going to sea on an upturned kitchen table, but something rather more sinister:

 “Pancakes à la Borgia

 Small pieces of glass (any broken window will serve)

3 berries of deadly nightshade

¼ oz foxglove

Dessert spoon of arsenic…”

He went on to add that it was important that the host declined the delicacy himself for reasons of dieting. Benson also served as Mayor of Rye for three years, a post which Lucia eventually managed to gain in Tilling.  Apparently this was coincidental, and Benson initially tried to refuse the offer of the mayoralty as he was just about to publish Lucia’s Progress, the book in which Lucia becomes mayor, and was worried that this might bring the office into disrepute.[3] Lucia paid for the refurbishment of the Tilling church organ; Benson paid for two beautiful stained glass windows in Rye church, one in memory of his father, the Edward White Benson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the other in memory of his brother A C Benson.

As I have already mentioned, James and Benson were not the only writers to live in Rye.  Radclyffe Hall was another famous resident and who sometimes dined with Benson at Lamb House, shocking the servants by appearing in men’s clothing. Her house in Watchbell Street was apparently the original of  ‘Taormina’, the home of Benson’s ‘quaint Irene’, the artist of advanced ideas and dubious sexuality. Rumer Godden was a later resident of Lamb house.  Russell Thorndike’s  ‘Dr Syn’ novels were set on Romney Marsh around Rye.

As a result of my trip to Rye I learned a lot more about the setting of the Mapp and Lucia books, and about their author. The availability of tourist information and the bookshop displays demonstrated that I was by no means unusual in visiting Rye for its Benson connections, despite the intellectual snobbery of the National Trust.  But was my visit really undertaken for the intellectual reason of discovering more about the author and his works or was it in fact a manifestation of the age old desire for pilgrimage?

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[1] Miss Mapp, Mapp and Lucia, Trouble for Lucia and Lucia’s Progress.

[2] http://www.visitrye.co.uk/EN/rye_history.php

[3] G Palmer and N Lloyd, E F Benson As He Was, (Lennard Publishing, 1988) pp. 155-6