Travels in KwaZulu Natal

By John Page

Dawn Patrol

It was seven in the morning and by chance, my birthday, so I had expected to be having a lay in with my wife, Rosemary. Instead I was looking into the eyes of a matriarch African elephant at about half a trunk’s length distance and she (not Rosemary) seemed intent on sniffing at my neck. We had been on a game drive in thick bush since five o’clock and had stopped for a flask of coffee fortified with the local milky Amarula liqueur, which is similar to Baileys. The elephants appeared from the trees in single file like the Dawn Patrol in Disney’s version of the Jungle Book. Our ranger, Sipu, had reversed the open Land Cruiser to clear their path but had come up against a boulder so they came rather closer than intended. It did not feel threatening as the elephants’ posture was clearly relaxed; the younger ones commenced tussling with each other while the adults trashed the surrounding trees and browsed on their thorny leaves. After a few minutes, they ambled off and magically disappeared into the bush again.

We were staying at Amakhosi Lodge, an excellent five-star establishment within a vast private game reserve. It has eight “villas” and we were initially disappointed to be allocated number eight which was a fair trek from the restaurant and reception area but turned out to be the honeymoon suite with its own “Do Not Disturb” gate and private plunge pool on the veranda. We were ten days into a tour which had been dogged by electrical storms. During our first night at Amakhosi, the lightning knocked out the air conditioning and wall sockets in our suite. When the alarm wakes you at four o’clock and covered in perspiration, you fumble sleepily through the mosquito net in the darkness for the alarm clock and a bedside light switch which doesn’t work anymore, it is not the best start to the day. The coffee, elephants and breakfast make it all worthwhile.

The number and type of animals on South African game reserves are regulated according to their area and type of vegetation. The reserve may cover several thousand acres but it is ultimately enclosed by fences nine feet high, so the only large animals which can range freely across the area are leopards. Amakhosi has more elephants than they should, but it is not permitted to sell them (transporting them would also be difficult) or cull them. In a humane attempt to control the numbers, a local vet calculates a suitable dose of contraceptive which is darted into selected females and lasts for twelve months. The land here is forest, unlike the open plains that I had previously seen in Kenya, so spotting animals can be more difficult but encounters are frequent and sometimes very close.

We had already booked a holiday in Italy when a brochure arrived from Titan Tours which including a new tour of “Battlefields of KwaZulu-Natal”. Having limited interest in battles, I put it to one side until Rosemary inserted it between my eyes and computer screen. She has the patience to read itineraries properly. The attractions were its unusual mixture of history, native culture, scenery and animal watching, so the children’s inheritance had to be raided. The party size is limited to fourteen; there were thirteen of us of whom only two were battlefield tour veterans. The eighteen seater bus was a little “cosy”, but we later realised that a larger vehicle would not have been able to access some of the places we visited.

After arriving from an overnight flight to Johannesburg, we drove out past the Marikana chrome and platinum mines where strikers were fired on by police in 2014. I was impressed by the high standard of the national highways, many of which are toll roads developed to support the football World Cup in 2010. They are four lane roads with modern, clean service areas and are extensively regulated by average speed cameras and traffic police. In two places, like all commercial vehicles, we had to pull off the road to drive slowly over automated weighbridges which have removed from the roads unsafely overloaded vehicles from countries to the north.

First port of call was Kedar Lodge set on land which was once the farm of Paul Kruger, the last Boer President who had declared war on the British Empire in October 1899. The owner of the Lodge is claimed to have the most extensive collection of Boer War memorabilia in the country and one has to believe that. The public areas of the lodge are covered in armaments, uniforms, photos, documents and cases of smaller items from the war. A talk was arranged with Major Pennyfather, an elderly historian who laid out the reasons for the war and gave details of some of the more interesting artefacts at Kedar. The lodge offers air conditioned huts and excellent food. Thanks to President Zuma wrecking the currency, a bottle of beer in the bar cost just under £1 which increased the country’s attraction.

Within the lodge grounds were numerous life size bronze and steel statues of personalities associated with the war including Gandhi, who led a first aid detachment, and Cecil Rhodes. In view of the controversy in Britain, it was interesting to note the prominence of Rhodes’ statue and the descriptions of his life which were mounted behind it. Our tour manager confirmed that many South Africans have a balanced view of Rhodes as an unscrupulous, imperial manipulator who caused a lot of trouble whilst lining his own pockets but was also a man of vision, planning a railway from the Cape to Cairo, who eventually left his wealth for good causes. The description given of him behind his statue erred on the kind side. It claimed correctly that his man, Dr Jamieson, had treated Zulu King Lobengula, but neglected to mention the allegations that he had addicted him to morphine in the process, allowing a degree of leverage over the mining concession that was then negotiated.

A small game reserve around the lodge has no large predators, so we were able to take a walk amongst the termite mounds to irritate the antelopes. After a pleasant minor game drive next morning, we visited Kruger’s original farm buildings. His first house still stands with its floor of mud and cow dung. There are a few artefacts from his time including a completely hairless old lion skin, his first game kill. A photo shows him sitting in a meeting at the end of his cabinet table with his feet resting on the bible. It is claimed to be the only book he ever read and he consulted its teachings in all his decisions. His two subsequent houses, still quite modest in scale stand nearby along with a chapel come schoolroom where he arranged for all comers to receive an education. The corrugated chapel roof was interesting as too few sheets had been ordered from Europe and took weeks to arrive before the error was discovered. They solved the problem by visibly stretching out the corrugations slightly to increase the sheets’ width.

The next morning, we were due to move on but delayed breakfast slightly as a horde of camera flashing Chinese had appeared, occupied all the tables and swept the buffet bare. The staff were struggling to replace things fast enough.

We reached our next stop, Spion Kop Lodge, in a sudden violent hailstorm which slowed our bus to a crawl. South Africa was suffering a severe drought but it seemed a pretty wet one to us. The first thing we noticed was a memorial seat to the Hillsborough disaster- British football kops take their name from this place. Our room was in the building which had been Winston Churchill’s billet as a young lieutenant in the Boer War and had been preserved, externally at least, in the same style. The Lodge’s owner, Ray Heron, had studied A Level history in his youth under the British Empire and found little of the Boer War in his syllabus, so he joined a local history group. He had been able to meet a few old men from an earlier generation who had witnessed the Battle of Spion Kop and gave first-hand accounts. He led our visit to the battle site and clearly had a real feel for his subject. The battle had been fought in an effort to relieve the siege of Ladysmith where Baden Powell had led a bold defence but it turned into a disaster for both British and Boers.

On Alice Hill, we stood where British General Redvers-Buller had watched through binoculars as his men were being slaughtered four miles away across the valley. We then visited the Kop which had been taken by the British in a night attack which had then left the troops exposed, in hot sun on a small, barren rock, under shell and bullet fire from an adjacent peak where, as the sun rose in their eyes, the soldiers could not even see the enemy snipers. It was not possible to dig trenches in the rock. The Boers had previously dynamited some shallow depressions for their defenders which the British captured by bayonet charges. After the battle those depressions were turned into mass graves, mostly for unnamed soldiers. The army issued wool weave tunics with first aid kits built in to their breast pockets containing a paper showing their only identification. In the heat, the tunics had to be abandoned. As night fell, the Boers withdrew, fearing that their artillery was in danger of capture and the British withdrew due to their losses.

The Boer War was described as the last of the “civilised” wars; there was no fighting on Sundays and both sides were allowed to recover casualties the day after a battle. One officer was identified as he was about to be placed in an unmarked grave when Churchill saw him and recognised him as a school friend. Standing there amongst the memorials was an evocative and emotional experience.

We unwound with another short game drive before departing towards the Drakensberg Mountains. Their name translates as Dragon’s Back in Afrikaans but they are known as the Wall of Spears in Zulu. They rise to over 11,000 feet and the approaching view was spectacular. The Cathedral Peak hotel complex was excellent and there were numerous marked walking trails in the surrounding mountains.

When we awoke next morning, the weather had caught up with us again and the peaks were lost in cloud. A planned visit to a raptor and reptile sanctuary was cancelled because the eagles could not fly without thermals, so we decided on a “short” walk on a trail labelled as Ashlea’s Amble. It was said to take twenty minutes.

An hour later, having crossed three streams and helped (make that hauled) Rosemary up some of the inclines where rough steps had been dug into the slope, we decided we were off track on a different trail. A further forty-five minutes brought us back to the hotel, passing a grazing antelope next to the track which seemed quite unperturbed by our presence. The planned afternoon walk was cancelled due to the danger of lightning strikes so we visited a small centre with exhibits of the San people. They were Stone Age hunter gatherers who moved down the south east coastal area as the Sahara advanced and they left cave art of animals such as the eland which they both hunted and worshipped. It seems that the last of them died early in the twentieth century and they interbred with the later Bantu population, passing on their features of high cheekbones. Nelson Mandela was believed to have some San blood in his veins.

We passed hundreds of modern Zulu settlements which typically consist of three or four single room square, breeze block buildings with flat roofs set apart from a small privy. Amongst them there were frequently two or three round, usually mud walled buildings with thatched or occasionally corrugated conical roofs. I assumed these to be store rooms but was wrong. One is a spirit house where the ancestors’ spirits dwell and the others are dower houses. The head man of the family lives in the largest of the square blocks; his wives occupy the smaller ones with their children.

The circular buildings are built for Granny and are shaped to protect her from a mythical creature called the tokoloshe. He is a small, hairy, brown coloured creature who likes to lurk in dark corners from where he spreads malevolence and misfortune – I had a boss like that but we called him Roger. The round houses have no dark corners for the creature to hide. Some Grannies have their beds raised on bricks to prevent him from biting their toes. When a Granny dies, it is not uncommon for her hut to be left to decay naturally and she may be buried beneath its dirt floor.

The next port of call was Durban where we stayed on the twelfth floor of a twenty-one storey edifice overlooking the broad sea front. It was a fine hotel but it, along with the city, felt a bit sterile after our previous lodgings. After a showery city tour and visit to the botanical gardens, we were happy to move on to Shakaland.

Shakaland was originally set up as a film set for a 1982 TV series and movie called Shaka Zulu so we were sceptical, expecting a Disney World Zulu experience. Our tour manager, Doug Hawkins, turned out to be a qualified guide who had written a book on Zulu culture and history. He assured us that the clan we were visiting were real and lived in huts on site. They certainly seemed authentic and demonstrated their traditional skills and dances with enthusiasm. The young “warriors” were certainly competing with each other in assegai throwing and the high kicking, stamping dances where they kicked so hard they fell over backwards. The drumming and stamping made the ground shake. One instrument in particular was interesting. It had a cylindrical drum case with a cowhide stretched across one end, its centre pierced by and fixed to, the end of a wooden rod about a centimetre in diameter. It was played by inserting the hands into the open end of the drum case and stroking the internal rod as if milking a cow to produce a sort of rhythmic wail.

One of the Zulu demonstrations was of beer production. Maize and a millet-like grain are ground up and boiled in water which is strained off after cooling by squeezing out through a woven rush mat. The murky liquid, wort to a modern brewer, is then left to ferment naturally for two or three days in the heat. The spent grains are thrown to the chickens who cluster round as the straining operation takes place. A ladle of beer was passed round after the dancing but most people just sniffed it politely. Small beer was widely drunk in Britain in earlier times because, having been boiled and containing alcohol as an inhibiter of micro-organisms, it was safer to drink than water. On that logic, being reluctant to pass up free alcohol, I took a swig. It tasted quite pleasant but more like cider than beer with no ill effects.

Shaka was the illegitimate son of a clan leader called Dingiswayo and was subject to bullying treatment by his half-brothers as he tried to defend his mother’s name. He left to join an inferior clan which paid tribute to his father and became a warrior there, rising to be a general. He introduced formal military tactics to them and realised that the traditional assegai throwing spear had limitations. If one missed, the spear could be returned, sharp end first. Accordingly, he had a short stabbing spear forged, its Zulu name ikiwa being the equivalent of ‘squelch’, based on the sound it made when inserted and retracted.  After Dingiswayo’s death, Shaka returned with his troops and took over as chief, naming the clan Zulu. He remained chief, conquering other clans and incorporating them into his empire until he was eventually murdered by one of his half-brothers. The Zulu were thus founded and raised as a warrior race with a formal army structure. Regiments had their own leaders and were distinguished by the patterns and colours of their shields. Young warriors, on the wings of horn shaped battle formations, had brown shields while the more mature fighters had lighter colour shields and fought in the centre of the formation.

We stayed overnight in comfortable thatched huts and awoke surrounded by horned cows and chickens. After breakfast, we moved on via a two-hour cruise on the St. Lucia estuary which is rich in bird life, crocodiles and hippos. The water is brackish, with mangrove swamps along part of the banks. Hippos do not swim, but rather bounce along on the mud, coming onto land only at night to avoid sunburn. They browse vegetation and move through the local town, smashing garden fences and devouring the plants. It put my own annoying badger incursion problems into perspective and made a pleasant break on the way to the aforementioned elephants and wildlife of Amakhosi.

Our final stop was Isandlwana Lodge, built into the rocks of a mountain from which, in 1879, the Zulu general commanded his 24,000 troops as they slaughtered and disembowelled most of the British 24th Regiment of foot. He had completely outmanoeuvred Lord Chelmsford, the British commander by diversionary tactics, leading him off into the hills with half his forces then attacking his base camp. Chelmsford had been warned by friendly Boers that the Zulu were superior to the other natives that he had encountered. He ordered the commanders of his three invading columns to make a defensive laager of wagons and build ramparts whenever they camped but then disregarded his own orders at Isandlwana. Adding to that he left in command Brevet Lt. Colonel Pulleine, a talented staff officer with no combat experience, as he marched off to where he thought his enemy was.

Many errors were made as the battle commenced, including not striking the tents by kicking out their centre poles. That was standard military policy as it prevented the enemy from hiding behind the tents and signalled to the telescopes of any relief force that the camp was under attack. One of the few errors that Chelmsford did not make when eating his breakfast in the hills was to send a naval officer with his telescope to check their rear. The officer reported that the tents still stood, so no serious attack was imminent.  The ensuing battle had everything, including a partial solar eclipse at its height. Our historian guide was Colonel Rob Gerrard who first gave a military-style briefing on the Lodge’s terrace overlooking the battlefield. He described the key terrain features, dead ground, tall grass and marsh areas, along with the disposition of forces on both sides. The lodge walls behind us were covered in photographs of the participants and Victorian era paintings of the battle.

Descending to the battlefield, the experience was more affecting than Spion Kop had been. The battle’s progress, with the detailed actions and heroic last stands of individuals whose photos we could recall, was outlined blow by blow. “Colonel Durnford made his last stand here. He had only one usable arm so raised his sword as his remaining men rallied around him. His grave and theirs, is just over there.” It made the hair stand on end as we moved amongst the cairns marking the graves of around 1,800 souls.

Towards the end of the battle, two young Lieutenants Melvill and Coghill gained posthumous Victoria Crosses when they were ordered to retreat on horseback with the Queen’s colours. They fought through the Zulus, but could not take the track back to Rorke’s drift as it was blocked by four thousand warriors. They were pursued over a hill to another river crossing, now known as Fugitives’ Drift, where they rode into the Buffalo River which was in full spate and they were swept away over rapids to land, still clutching the colours onto Coffin Rock along with a third fleeing officer. The colours were eventually swept away as they staggered, wounded to the far bank where the third officer climbed the hill and located three run away horses. As he urged his exhausted comrades on, they were hacked down by local Zulus out for revenge against the British. Their graves stand out on the hillside where they fell.  A cavalry patrol later recovered the colours when they spotted the pole amongst the riverside boulders.

We eventually moved on to Rorke’s drift, famously portrayed in the film Zulu which made Michael Caine a star despite him lacking the whiskers of the real heroes. The film was not made on the battle site but was largely accurate allowing for artistic licence. I recalled the film showing the hospital building being defended and escape holes being made through its walls from one room to another. I was never clear where the patients came from, or why they had to break through the walls. The original building was burnt during the battle, but a replacement has been built on its site with the same layout and it serves as a small museum.

The hospital had been the accommodation block for Rorke’s trading post and after his death by suicide (he was an alcoholic who ran out of gin), it was taken over by missionaries who created a chapel there. The army requisitioned the site to take wounded soldiers from a minor early action. A local Zulu clan chief had committed crimes against the British and Chelmsford had detached some of his local troops to attack his kraal in revenge as he wished to test their mettle. They were backed by a few regular troops and when the clan made a last stand in caves, the regulars had to finish them off at close quarters, resulting in some casualties.

The hospital building must have been built originally as a store, because it had several small rooms around the outside walls, most with no windows and each accessible only through an exterior door. There were no interior doors so as the defences were prepared, a volunteer soldier was placed in each room behind the barricaded outer door to protect the patients.

Unlike in the film, there was no debate between the officers as to who should take command. Lt. Chard had been placed in charge by Major Spalding, the detachment commander who had departed in search of a company which was overdue. Chard had gone forward to Isandlwana to clarify his orders and returned to Rorke’s Drift by wagon to warn them that Zulus had been observed locally. Given the choice to fight or flee, impeded by the wounded, they decided to make their famous stand which resulted in the award of eleven VCs.

The attacking Zulus were disobeying the orders of their king, Cetshwayo who wanted the British driven from his land in a decisive manner so that he could negotiate a settlement of their dispute and he had ordered no incursions to be made across the Buffalo River into British territory. The attackers consisted of a regiment of 4,000 men who had blocked the line of retreat from Isandlwana where they had seen and heard the battle but taken no part. Their blood was up and rather than have them rampage, their commander led them in an organised assault.  At both Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift there are memorials to the Zulu dead in addition to the British soldiers’ graves. The Zulu removed their dead for burial at home and their numbers are uncertain.

We made our way back to the airport via a coffee stop in Ladysmith whose name has an interesting origin. In the 1812 Peninsular War against Napoleon, Wellington had laid siege to the Spanish town of Badajoz which he eventually shelled. When the town fell, two fourteen-year-old Spanish girls who were known to one of Wellington’s officers made their way to his headquarters where, in a scene reminiscent of Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels, they met a smart officer decked out in the green uniform of the Rifles. He fell for one of the girls, Juana Maria, and within three months, they were married. His name was Harry Smith and she followed him throughout the war, combing the field after each battle in case he was wounded. He was eventually knighted and became a Provincial governor in South Africa. Harrismith was named after him although he was never very popular, unlike his wife in whose honour, Ladysmith was named.

The trip was both exhausting and stimulating. It was also timely – like many places, South Africa is changing rapidly. Land claims by natives who can show that at some time their ancestors lived there, maybe a hundred years ago are threatening the game reserves. The historians who so vividly guided us to the battlefields are growing old, so we are moving a generation further away from the first-hand accounts. If anyone is tempted to go, then go soon.

First published in VISA 128 and 129 (August - October 2016)

Angels, Fairies and Wizards

By Rachel Kruft Welton

It was a long way, so we (Saskia, Eartha and I) set off early, collecting Lynn, Faye, Megan and their friend Sarah on the way. The top box was still on the car from our trip to Norway, and we managed to fill it, despite only planning to be away for two nights. The trip to Northumberland was 285 miles, which is why we haven't been for years. It takes less time to get to pretty much anywhere in Europe, even including checking in time at the airport.Highlights of the journey included ordering ‘Dulux’ hot chocolate at a Little Chef (Eartha's mispronunciation) and eating our picnic next to some propane tanks at a petrol station. There were probably better, more photogenic picnic spots available, but we felt we hadn't properly adopted the mantra of “It's Grim Oop North” if we went about looking for pretty bits all the time. As we got back on the road, we passed a caravan with a sign in the back window reading: “WE ARE SORRY FOR HOLDING YOU UP. UNLESS YOU ARE JEREMY CLARKSON.”

Poison Garden at Alnwick Castle

Driving along, we suddenly saw signs to the Angel of the North. This huge iron sculpture has been guarding the A1 at Gateshead since 1989. I have always wanted to see it, but it hadn't occurred to me that we would pass it on the way. We swung off the road and went for a nosy.The Angel is 20m tall, made of rusting red steel and spreads its wings 54m, making it look as though it is top heavy. We sat on its toes for a while, then went down the hill to take photos. You have to go right to the bottom before you can get the whole Angel in the picture. A gaggle of Chinese tourists were down there also taking photos, and they took some of us too. We did some stupid Angel poses, much to their amusement.

We arrived in Rothbury by about 4pm and settled into the bunkhouse by the river. We were in a room of seven bunks above a cafe. It was crowded but not uncomfortable. There wasn't a huge amount of room to put things, but it didn't matter for just two nights. Lynn, with a foresight I hadn't possessed, had cooked and packaged some bolognaise and brought some pasta to cook for us all. On the down side, the kitchen contained one egg saucepan, a pair of hotplates that didn't get hot, no colander or saucepan lids and enough plates for a small army. Lynn stormed downstairs and threatened the chef in the main cafeteria that she would disembowel him with a fork if he didn't hand over some equipment pronto. The chef produced a large saucepan, developed a fear of cutlery, and went home sharpish as soon as he could. By the time we realised we needed a colander, he'd legged it out of the building.

Options for straining boiling pasta when you have no lid or colander:
a) the wastepaper basket. This fine wickerwork item will certainly separate the pasta from the water, however it may suffer water damage and is not all that hygienic.b) the plastic cutlery tray. Small holes in the bottom of this tray may allow straining, but pasta and water is likely to slop out all over the sink, as the tray is not very deep. Precision and patience will be required.c) fishing out the pasta from the water with a fork. Life is too short to chase seven portions of slimy pasta shapes around a large saucepan. If you do choose this method, the finished product will be stone cold by the time you have collected it all.d) a plastic container holding cleaning items under the sink. With a good scrub, this item could be the answer to your prayers. Its sides rise to a depth of around 4" and a floral cut-away design allows good drainage.We went for option d, once Lynn had disparaged my other suggestions. Necessity, as they say, is the mother.We needed to stretch our legs a bit, after so long in the car, so we went for a wander around Rothbury, which has a selection of the weirdest shops I have ever had to try to describe. There was one selling plastic animal figurines and stuffed taxidermy specimens, another sold skulls and dumper truck toys. Maybe the small boys of Northumberland have a peculiar taste in toys. We took some photos on a bike tied to the railings outside a shop with a huge wallpaper coated giraffe in it. The whole village was full of little shops, established before the outbreak of war (possibly the Crimean). Only the Co-op seemed new.   

  
We skirted the gas-lamp and memorial before taking a look at the river. Back at the hostel, the girls painted their toenails for a while, except for Sarah, who flaked out immediately in all her clothes and didn't move again until the morning.

Breakfast was served in the cafe downstairs. The petrified chef didn't make an appearance, but sent out extra toast. We purchased some ham and wraps in the Co-op and then left Rothbury on a road called Town Foot. I couldn't make it up.After a couple of loops of Alnwick, we eventually found the entrance to the car park and made our way into the castle. The place is quite sizeable and the gardens are worth a day trip on their own. It quickly became apparent that we wouldn't be able to see it all. One of the reasons for coming to Alnwick had been to see the Poison Garden. It is actually quite a small, fenced area to one side of a cascade of waterfalls down a hillside. We had to wait for a guided tour, as for some reason they don't like people wandering around, fingering the lethal foliage.

The tour was around 15 minutes, and in that time we learnt how to inflict pain, suffering, blisters and possibly death using various methods and diverse plants. Some of the species we saw included the mundane: rhubarb, catnip and rosemary; the illegal (Kat and cannabis); and the less well known, in the form of angel's trumpet, giant hogweed and castor bean. I shall no doubt be using my new found knowledge to off some unwanted characters (in my writing! What did you think I meant?).The next area we took a look at was called the Serpentine Garden. It's theme was water and it was very cleverly done. Each fountain or water feature explored a different characteristic of water. Water formed a vortex here and a curtain there. It bulged with a meniscus in one place, and reflected off its surface in another. The hydrostatic pressure fountain took a long time to fill, and we spent the time listening to cruel parents telling their offspring that they wouldn't get wet if they stood right in the centre. Judging from the dampness of the floor where the children were standing, I guessed the parents were lying. They were, although many seemed to have brought towels, so I guessed they'd played this joke before. The pressure reached the top of the tubes and with a whoosh, the entire area shot fountains up from underfoot, soaking the children, who ran about with squeals of delight.

Our teens explored a bamboo maze, while Lynn and I sat and had a cup of tea and a sneaky bit of cake (the girls will never notice). Afterwards, we decided to spend some time over at the castle, before coming back and doing some more of the gardens.   The castle has been the home of the Percy family for many generations and can be spotted in series such as Downton Abbey and the Harry Potter films. After lunch on the wall, we toured the grand state rooms. I spent some time admiring a pair of ornate 400 year old cabinets with Sarah. I also want a library like theirs, with ladders and balconies.

Eartha and Saskia discovered there was a lion trail. In each room, a small stuffed toy lion was hidden and they needed to find it, in return for a badge at the finish. Needless to say, they would have collected the badge anyway, regardless of the answer. I sometimes forget, when they are with their older siblings, that they are only 12. Sometimes it is good for them to have some time apart from their siblings, so they can just be their own age, instead of trying to be three years older than they really are all the time.On that thought, we found ourselves out in the courtyard watching a group of children and several adults being taught how to ride a broomstick.  It was the area where the same scene had been filmed in the first Potter movie. There was a lot of running up and down with brooms between the knees and humorous banter from the chief wizard and his sidekick. After a while, Saskia and Eartha joined the end of the line, quietly grabbing unclaimed brooms from the cart. We managed to get some decent pictures of them making their brooms float, and finally both of them flying, once they had got the hang of it.Lynn and I split up at that point, as my two wanted to continue with some of the children's activities and the older girls (all 16 already) were less interested in such things and wanted to visit the dungeon and meet the Duchess. Saskia, Eartha and I headed off to the Knight's Quest, past Sir Henry Hotspur and the girls got to dress up in medieval princesses costumes for a bit (even though the dresses were a little small). They made soap from what looked like lard, porridge and bits of lavender and saved Ralph Percy from imminent destruction in the Dragon Quest. By the time we'd managed such heroic deeds, the dungeon had shut and we headed back to the gardens via the gift shop.There was still much to see, but the day was getting late. Eartha wanted to do the Fairytale Trail, which involved a route around the entire site, I think. I loved the ornamental garden, and the musical bench, which played a tinkling sound if you held hands across it (forming a circuit). There was a tree with three blind mice in it, and a long zig-zag through the cherry trees. Humpty Dumpty sat looking glum; a lion lorded over the path and fairies hung in tree branches. There was a room of mirrors and a little witches hut. It would all have been better at a slower speed, but the place was closing. 

We never did get to the Treehouse and cafe. That will have to wait for next time.

First published in VISA 125 (February 2016)

Read more of Rachel's travel blogs here.

After the Resistance

By John Keeble

If I were a cat, I am sure I would have lost eight of my lives having fun in Hanoi, a city I became reacquainted with after 20 or so years.  When I first visited, it was a city of grim-faced people still suspicious of Westerners after half a century of French colonial domination and the Kháng chiến chống Mỹ (Resistance War against America).This time Hanoi was filled with bright, welcoming people, sophisticated restaurants and the eagerness to give every visitor a good time. Even the soldiers, armed with automatic rifles as they guarded the big military base in the city, had a friendly smile and salute for me.But it was more than seeing a city serving the tourists. The Hanoi people looked like they were enjoying life in their beautiful city of greenery and lakes, fascinating shopping streets and elegant architecture. For me, the city was so relaxing, so much good fun, that I did not get round to visiting the tourist landmarks like the Temple of Literature and Uncle Ho's mausoleum.However, I did meet a man, who looked quite sane and reasonable, who offered to take me on his motorbike to a particular market. I did not realise that, on his motorbike, he would have been regarded as too reckless for suicide missions. Maybe that's a little harsh... he was on the right side of the road for at least a few hundred metres of the 4km journey there - to the wrong place - and 4km back. And he did show me some fighting cocks, which I really did not want to see.

A couple of years ago, I popped into Hanoi for work for two days and felt a change then. But this trip, with time and leisure, I could see the difference and enjoy it. The welcome began on arrival at Hanoi's super new international airport. I was staying for only a week, so I did not need a visa. The pretty girl at immigration just stamped my passport, smiled and waved me through.

After a couple of days in Hanoi, a tour organiser tailormade my Halong Bay cruise with one night on board and a two-night stop on Cat Bar island for a very good price. It even included meals and return transport from Hanoi to the boat.I cannot remember ever being more impressed with the efficiency of any operation. Everything worked in an easy-going style that masked the complexities of treating every passenger as an individual… different lengths of cruise, different islands to spend time on, different meals (my table of six included one celiac, one vegan and one vegetarian).Cruising in Halong Bay – a less eroded stretch of the same karst formation much loved by everyone visiting southern Thailand – is a peaceful, engaging experience that includes opportunities to jump overboard and swim, kayak, visit a pearl-cultivating farm, wander through a spectacular cave system turned into an art gallery with imaginative lighting and see communities who live on the water.Throw in some good beaches for those who like them… beautiful night skies… and an atmosphere of Asia. Oh yes, and a cold beer at the right time.  It was a great mix.•

First Published in VISA 124 (December 2015)

Shock of the Truth in Saigon

By John Keeble

The very concept of truth is mostly a lie in practice, isn't it? There are exceptions - the Holocaust and Hiroshima are examples. But usually when we travel we are falling into set-piece constructions, even fictions, and happily conspiring with them to enjoy our leisure, to forget for a time our own realities with our own localised ‘truths’.
 

Just sometimes, essential truths escape from museum and tourist constructions of preferred overall realities and stare uncomfortably into our eyes: can you see them, can you steel yourself to take them in, or do you weave a ‘yes, but’ fiction to soften them to an acceptable lie? I remember three women, decades ago, looking at brutally honest newspaper photos of starving Biafa children and agreeing it was not so bad because African mothers got used to their babies starving to death.

Amid the winner's truths in the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, inside the building away from the American hardware, the blisteringly uncompromising faces stare, frozen in real truth, into the unprepared eyes of tourists and Vietnamese visitors alike. Some people stare back, some are shocked into anger, some bounce off the truth to read the explanations marinated in chosen perceptions.

There are, in these real moments frozen in time, essential truths that cut through the reality presented from one viewpoint. For me, the starkest image in the museum showed a group of women crossing a river, trying to find safety, the stress and fear on their faces. I did not need to be there in the water with them to understand the emotions, the horror of being a helpless human being - forget the labels of civilian and non-combatant and all the rest of the truth-obscuring claptrap. They were desperately caught in bloody conflict where death could come at any second. The image was so powerful that it arced like lightning to Syria and from there to all the other places where the defenceless are pawns or less in games played by men with guns.

The horror of another image was the description itself: Ron Haeberle, famous for his My Lai massacre photos, is quoted as saying: “Guys were about to shoot these people. I yelled ‘Hold it’ and shot my pictures. As I walked away, I heard M16s open up. From the corner of my eye, I saw bodies falling but I didn’t turn to look.” A few seconds more life for the convenience of the soldiers’ photographer.

In another gallery, away from the immediacy of violence, the images show, portrait style, the Agent Orange legacy of deformity and lives wrecked and twisted into misery from the moment of conception. On the ground floor, young adults affected by Agent Orange earn a living by making and selling jewellery and cards. One girl has a face without eyes or even eye sockets. They laugh together, help each other, interact with people from around the world.

Wilma, a Dutch visitor, said after touring the museum: "I wanted to see the photographs, but they shocked me. They made me feel sick, but I am pleased they are shown here. I wanted to know the truth and I felt these photographs told the truth. The Agent Orange photos show how the people still suffer. They made me sad and angry but now I know the truth.”

Tiger, a Saigon guide who knows the museum well, told me: “The photographs are tough but they have a lot of information for my country’s young ones, the students learning about what happened in our country. They understand that war is terrible. Tourists are very sad when they see the photos. I always ask them how they feel and they say sad, terrible, and war should not happen.”

The museum also has a large collection of aircraft, tanks and other weapons plus a re-creation showing imprisonment, interrogation and punishment equipment ranging from the French colonial guillotine to barbed-wire 'tiger cages' from the war against the Americans and their allies from the Philippines, New Zealand, Thailand and Australia.•

CITY & AROUND

Ho Chi Minh is enjoyable but does not have many sites to see. On a tight time budget, I would allocate three or four days maximum.  Attractions:
 
● Reunification Palace, aka Independence Palace. The iconic building from the surrender of South Vietnam as the North Vietnamese troops swamped the city.
● Coffee culture with many attractive places to suit your mood.
● China town is spread over three districts - fascinating major market (sharpen your elbows and wear your thickest skin). Motorcycles are the major means of transporting goods in incredible loads, sometimes impossible loads (yes, the loads fall off with or without the rider).
● Restaurants. Definitely a city tempting visitors into adventure. Even vegans like me. Many foreign cuisines but Vietnamese and Japanese predominate.
● Notre Dame cathedral. The outside is OK, the inside plain. A big image representing the 8% catholic population of Vietnam.
● Colonial-era Post Office. Opposite the cathedral, very photogenic and culturally interesting.
● War Remnants Museum.

Out of town

Tours are very cheap -- whole days for $18. The tours go to a limited number of places with enormous numbers of tourists in the stream. Buying a 'small group' tour is OK but when you reach each attraction you will probably join a heaving mass of other tourists who bought small-group tours and coach outings.

Delta tour (day): It was a cheap and easy way to see some of the delta, cross the Mekong by boat, see a beautiful pagoda with enormous Buddha images, visit some touristy things that were fun, have a truly exceptional included lunch. Some of the tourist places were excellent for buying presents (locally made and better prices than in the city).

Cao Dai Great Temple

Cu Chi Tunnels and Cao Dai Great Temple (day):  I joined a small group, one of nine drops of rain contributing to a flood of tourists at the tunnels. Interesting, informative, takes heavy-duty imagination to think the crowds out and the soldiers in. Mostly above ground for viewing but a chance to crawl through tunnels to get the feel of it. Mass production tourism... but enjoyable enough if you play it for what it is. Cao Dai Great Temple was a different experience. There were far fewer tourists and we were allowed in during a service for several hundred local people. The building was very beautiful, inside and out, and the people using it made the living experience meaningful and immensely interesting. Do not miss this! We also stopped at a centre where 100 disabled people work on highly-skilled craft processes and in a cigarette factory. The centre's simple layout shows the immense skills in making products by hand, rather than emphasising the disabilities. There is a chance to buy quality pieces in different sizes, designs and prices ... it is their only sales outlet, so tourist cash keeps the centre going to provide good employment for those who might not find it elsewhere.

Scams: Coconut seller puts his bamboo carrier on your shoulder. Fun with photos. Then gets you to pay three times the right price.  Wrong change: notes look similar, so 10,000 instead of 100,000 ... a taxi driver tried it on me

Risks: phone, camera  and bag snatch. Everyone warns you. I did not see or hear of it happening but took more care after warnings.

Taxis: use only the most numerous taxis – Vinasun and the green taxis. If you use other taxis, they might have a meter but they set the rate themselves and a 40,000 fare can cost 200,000. Beware hotels getting you taxis... better to go out on the street and hail one.

First Published in VISA 126 (April 2016)

Under Down Under

By Maxine Bates

As part of a month long trip to Australia in December 2015/January 2016 my partner and I booked a backpackers tour of Tasmania with a company called Under Down Under. Correspondence was minimal. Just one email confirming receipt of payment back in April and another confirming our pick up time and location when I chased for that information prior to leaving the UK. However, the tour itself was well organised and we had an informative driver/guide.

Cradle Mountain and Dove Lake

As the last night of the tour was spent at the Hobart YHA we booked the same accommodation for our pre-departure night as we knew pick up would be around 7am. The staff were helpful and friendly, the rooms clean, but it was quite noisy with street cleaners and bin men at all times of night plus the nearby town hall clock chiming on the hour. But Hobart is as busy as it gets in Tasmania. 
 
Having picked up our group of 24 travellers originating from Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, France, Germany, Switzerland, Malaysia, Japan and China – we were the only Britons – our first stop was Mt Field National Park. We took our first one of Tasmania’s “60 great short walks” which was a 30 minute easy walk to Russell Falls. We also strolled by Lake St Clair taking note of the sign saying “snakes will not readily attack unless accidentally trodden on, cornered or threatened, so simply watch where you put your feet.” Tiger snakes are active on warm and sunny days and this was one of them. Despite Tasmania usually experiencing six days of rain out of seven we didn’t see any rain during our week long stay on the island. (Though Sydney had a tornado whilst we were there and enough rain one day to make the news headlines so topsy turvy weather!)

Our first and second nights on tour we stayed in the pretty town of Strahan (pronounced strawn) on the west coast. Despite being another YHA, because we had booked a private room rather than places in a dorm we were given one of the six small wooden lodges all named after wildlife. Thus our home became “Platypus Lodge”, quite appropriate considering a stream ran through the hostel grounds and a wild platypus lived there. Unfortunately there were no sightings of it during our stay despite us sitting quietly on the viewing platform for a while.
 
Next day we were given the choice of a long hike or an optional boat trip. I opted for the latter which sailed through the narrow “Hell’s Gate” channel and past a salmon fishing farm to Sarah Island. The island was a penal settlement between 1822 and 1833 and housed convicts who re-offended upon arrival on mainland Australia. Despite having a surgeon and nurses living on the island and convicts being taught shipbuilding, conditions were the harshest of all the penal settlements and many tried unsuccessfully to make their escape. Our guide was the highly entertaining Kaya whose father had researched and devised the tours and since his death three years ago she has continued running the tours in his memory. During the hour long walk around the island she brought to life the ruins with some audience participation.

Back on board our ship a buffet lunch was served including Tasmanian smoked salmon (as seen earlier!), Tasmanian cheese (similar to Brie) and Tasmanian wine (served in their standard 150ml size). It was all yummy so guess who was quick off the mark once seconds were offered!? We then sailed along the Gordon River which is part of the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park to Heritage Landing. This is a landing stage with boardwalk around the small island to view the flora and fauna. Highlights were seeing a tiger snake and the tall huan pine trees. Back at the dock in Strahan there was a pine processing demonstration in a mill narrated by Kaya.

Rejoining the rest of our group we drove the short distance to Henty Dunes. These 30 metre high sand dunes are growing year by year and our guide suggested a walk. Well, it was two steps up and one step back as the gradient was steep and the sand fine. After a stroll across the top we “sand skied” down an even steeper gradient. All good fun once we had got over the shock of the descent and getting covered in sand!

There was just time for a quick change before some of us opted to watch The Ship That Never Was in the Richard Davey Amphitheatre in Strahan. This is Australia’s longest running play and is staged at 5.30pm every day from September to May currently tallying over 5,000 performances over 20 years. The play is based on a true story about convicts who built ships on Sarah Island with just two actors – one was Kaya - and much audience participation. A great laugh from start to finish and the best 75 minutes entertainment you can get for AUS$10. If you’re in Strahan don’t miss it!

Next stop was beautiful Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park where once again we were given varying walk options. Half of our group chose to walk the two hour circuit around Dove Lake whilst others attempted a steep climb at Marion’s Lookout. Cradle Mountain itself is 1,545 metres high so a little too high for the time we had available. Those doing the easier route also had time to ride the shuttle bus around the park and could hop off/on at any of the five stops. Ronny Creek made the ideal picnic stop next to a babbling brook. Although that area of the park is known for wombats we actually saw echidnas instead. Before this trip I’d never heard of echidnas, let alone seen one, but they are native to Australia and look like an overgrown hedgehog. The visitor centre contained exhibits and a film show about the park. There are all types of trails including the “enchanted walk” for families with very young children. Just take your own food and drink as the one café is crowded and overpriced!

We continued to our overnight stop in Launceston (pronounced lorn-cess-ton rather than our British lorn-ston). They both have the Tamar River flowing through them! We did find that Tasmanians are not very original when it comes to place names – Derby (pronounced der-bee rather than the British dar-bee), Bracknell, Beaconsfield, Exeter, Sheffield… The latter is known as the “town of murals” as the locals have painted most buildings as a way of putting themselves on the map and attracting visitors. Our guide recommended the British “Cock And Bull” pub as a good place to meet and eat, so some of our group went there in the evening. In my opinion Launceston YHA was the worst place we stayed on tour as rooms had no wifi, no towels, no plug sockets and no mirrors. Guests sat in pyjamas in the corridors charging phones!

Next day we said goodbye to a few of our group who were flying from Launceston to Sydney to watch the New Year’s Eve fireworks. After a pleasant walk along Launceston Gorge we  continued to the east coast with various scenic stops en route to Bay Of Fires. We had a couple of hours at the beach with its gorgeous sand and clear blue water, although no facilities and not much shade. The arrival of our small group made the beach as busy as it ever gets. Then it was onward to Bicheno on the Freycinet Peninsula. A seaside town with a population of just over 800 people, so we weren’t anticipating a wild and exciting New Year’s Eve! We arrived just in time to grab pizzas before the take-away closed for the year as there weren’t many other food options. Our itinerary was supposed to include a visit to watch the little penguins come ashore to nest but, because it was New Year’s Eve, the visitor attraction was closed. However, we were told some penguins came ashore at other places than this rookery, so we wandered down to the beach for some penguin spotting and to watch the last sunset of 2015. When the wind picked up and we started getting cold most of us headed back to our accommodation to hold an impromptu party. It was only the next day we discovered the few people who had remained on the beach had seen penguins arrive! We welcomed the New Year with wine, beer, nibbles, chatting, card games and watching the Melbourne fireworks on TV.     
 
We were up at 6am on 1 January as our driver wanted to beat the rush to Wineglass Bay. Being New Year’s Day there was no rush and we were just about the only idiots up at that time and walking another of the “60 great short walks” to a viewpoint over Wineglass Bay! As compensation we stopped at a lavender farm selling homemade lavender ice cream that many of us sampled. Very purple!

In the afternoon we visited Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary which was one of my personal highlights. The staff clearly cared for their animals and we were given talks at the wombat and koala enclosures and allowed to do some petting. Koalas sleep for 20 hours a day and spend the rest eating only eucalyptus leaves. Very cute but also very lazy! We also had a talk at the Tasmanian devil enclosure but no petting allowed as these creatures can be quite vicious. Their lunch included a whole dead chick so we were told to look away if squeamish. Unfortunately the Tasmanian devil is in danger of extinction due to a contagious facial cancer that is spreading amongst the species. Unfortunately too around one third of Tasmanian devils that are rehabilitated at the sanctuary and released back to the wild then become road kill, due to their lack of road safety and being black in colour, not being easily spotted by motorists at night. Research is taking place into this new form of cancer but it may be too late. We were then given a bag of feed – compressed grass pellets – and allowed to enter the kangaroo enclosure to hand feed these lovely marsupials. A wonderful experience! The gift shop sold “kangapoo”, a combination of kangaroo poo and leaf mulch for AUS$3.00 per bag with all proceeds going to assist wildlife conservation projects. The perfect present!?

We then returned to the capital of Hobart where more of our group departed whilst some stayed an extra day to visit Port Arthur, 100km south east of Hobart. This is another penal settlement and actually replaced Sarah Island when that closed. We had several hours here to take a 40 minute guided tour, then a self-guided tour of the rest of the site including ruins of the penitentiary, hospital, surgeon’s house, churches, dockyard, etc, and finally a boat cruise around Isle Of The Dead and Point Puer. Both these places – a cemetery for convicts and prison for boys respectively - were disembarkation stops for anyone booking additional guided tours. En route to Port Arthur we had a brief stop in Richmond to see the oldest bridge in Australia built by convicts in 1823 and still in excellent condition. 
 
Back in Hobart the “Taste Of Tasmania” food festival was in full swing. In addition to a huge wharf shed and gazebos full of stalls selling a variety of food and drink there was free musical (bagpipes) and family film (Shaun The Sheep) entertainment on the lawns with large beanbags provided to sit on. Unfortunately we missed the arrival of the yachts taking part in the Sydney to Hobart race by one day. 

In my opinion Tasmania is nothing like any of the other Australian states or territories. More wild and rugged and far less densely populated. If you like the outdoors and ever get the chance to visit, then please do so.

Where Am I? In the Village

By Neil Matthews

The file is slammed down on the desk and he strides out of the office, back to freedom. The accelerator feels good beneath his feet as the car eats up the miles. He is unaware that another car is following...as he packs a suitcase in his flat a feeling of wooziness overwhelms him. His last conscious thought is: gas. He awakes on the floor, pulls aback the curtains and sees...

I have a theory that part of the reason for the popularity of The Prisoner lies in its expression of a wish we've  all harboured from time to time: to walk away from a job, telling our employers to get stuffed. Or, then again, maybe not. But, having seen the TV series, a chance to visit the location for its filming, Portmeirion in North Wales, was too good to miss.

If only somebody had done the same for my wife Helen and me as they did for Patrick McGoohan and spirited us straight to Portmeirion. As it was, we struggled  up the M40 through hail and driving gales, pausing only to shudder as the lorry in front of us overturned...still,  the rest of the journey was pleasant, passing through Shropshire on our way over the border. The Welsh road to the coast is long and winding and extremely pretty.

By this time, we were tired and ready for bed. The next morning, I pulled back the curtains and saw...well, not quite the same view as that credit sequence. But it still sent a shiver down the spine.

The bell tower,  just as  steep and forbidding as expected; the dome (no longer green, due to a redecoration a few years ago);the Roman remains; the pool in the centre of the Village; all combined to produce a theatrical effect. It was hard not to think of the surroundings as a giant set, awaiting a cue,  even in broad daylight. The architect of Portmeirion, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, once said that he wanted "to show people, with a sort of light-opera approach, that architecture could be fun, could be entertaining, interesting, intriguing."

The Village is all of those things. If the art lies in concealing art, then the Village is a work of art; a architect weaving all the tricks of his trade,  concealed by natural beauty. Look at the buildings, breathe in the sea air, walk down to the estuary through the palm trees and you could be by an Italian lake. Yet one of the most startling qualities of Portmeirion is its ability to deceive. False perspectives, fake windows, life-size figurines are everywhere. Two-storey houses turn out to have only one floor. The walk up the hill is steeper than a casual glance might imply. Even the small shops have a vaguely unreal air to them; the assistants might be speaking fluent Welsh or,  then again, they might not.

Although one can take a walk through the nearby woods or go down past the hotel to the stone boat near the estuary, everything revolves around the Village. Given enough sunlight, a peek through the Camera Obscura at the southern end of the resort will produce a clear image of the Village, as if viewed through a television camera.

It was a pity when the moment came to wave goodbye to Portmeirion - farewell to fantasy, back to drab reality. At least once in a lifetime you should resign your top-secret job and come to see the Village. Who knows - you might never escape.

First published in VISA 16 (1995)

Morocco 2001

By Michael Bell

In the autumn of 2001 I was single and newly retired and I wondered what I should do next. I decided to put myself to the test. I would go to Morocco because it is not very far away, but a fairly alien culture. I took a big rucksack and stayed in cheap hotels, but mostly in youth hostels.

On my first day in Casablanca I was swindled. I am ashamed to tell you the simple trick he used. It wasn't a lot of money, but it overshadowed the whole of my trip and soured the first half. A European stands out, especially one of my colouring and build and maybe dress too. It wasn't too bad in Casablanca - you just attract a few swindlers - but in Fez and Meknes, hordes of children and touts of all kinds swarm round you like flies. You can't get rid of them. Well actually, there is a way, you hire a guide to shoo them off. But there are "faux guides" - "false guides"! It's a nightmare.

Casablanca is hardly "typical Morocco". It is a big modern city, women are unfettered and it is full of cafes, with the TV high on the wall. Here I got a nasty fright. There was an aircraft crash near New York. A second 9/11? For an hour or two people watched the TV tensely. Then relief. It was an accident! They don't want trouble. It was with sadness that I heard a few years later that there had been an Al Qaeda bombing in Casablanca.

But I had to see more of Morocco. I took the train to Rabat the capital and the most traditional of the large cities, and then I went on to Meknes and Fes. I saw the abandoned Roman city of Volubilis. It seemed very out of place here in North Africa, but on second thoughts maybe less out of place than Hadrian's Wall in my home city. I saw water being used to irrigate fields - surely there are better ways of doing it? I saw olives being harvested and the amazingly crude way they are crushed and the oil squeezed out. Despite all the praise-talk about the olive being the foundation of Mediterranean cooking and culture, really they are one of the few things that will grow in this climate and they have an unpleasant taste and all this praise is simply making the best of a bad job. I ate fresh dates, to Moroccans the equivalent of apples to us, and a very different experience from the dried dates we eat.

I saw museums where the buildings were as interesting as the things on show; the lines, curves and lighting lead the eye in a very seductive way to make you savour the space. I saw displays of Arabic writing, not just in museums but on workaday things like the lettering on the sides of buses. Their writing obviously give Arabs pleasure far more than ours does to us and second only to Chinese writing.

But the touts and urchins were like flies around all the tourist spots; I tended to avoid them. So, a different kind of doubtful person latched onto me. Mostly young they claimed to want to talk to a foreigner, and Morocco is not a totally free society so there might be some truth in that, or simply have a stroll with interesting conversation. But I was always in doubt as to their motives. By "pure chance" they might call in for a cup of tea at a carpet shop run by an old friend. Too damned obvious! But travelling with only a rucksack meant that I really could not buy their goods. I walked a long way talking to a chap I met in the street, then he asked me for the taxi-fare home! Had all that been to soften me up to give him that money? I felt dirtied. They weren't all like that, but I could never be sure. So, I never got to see the famous dyeing vats of Fes. I ran away!

I took the train from Fes to Marrakech. The trains are French '70s stock, super-fast for their day, but in Morocco they run at far below the speeds they are capable of. The train moved through the landscape with the dignity of a ship at sea. It took all day.

It took me too long to realise that Marrakech and whole of the south of the country is wholly different from the north of Morocco. There was none of that following me around, offering me this deal, that deal or simply wanting to walk with me, with very uncertain motivation. I had put up my guard against that kind of thing, and I probably missed some good opportunities before I learned that there was no need for it here. I got talking to a music-shop owner who was ashamed of that behaviour and was sadly aware of how harmful it is. The tourist guidebooks say that you should be willing to be overcharged a bit, it's not much loss to you, but a big gain to them. Is this saying somehow that they can get a free lunch? But there are no free lunches, somewhere somebody must be taking a loss, probably the country as a whole because tourists don't like to be swindled. Nor does anybody. No wonder Thailand has set up a special tourist police to stop this kind of misuse.

As the bus from Marrakech to Ouarzazate drove out a roll of tear-off bags such as you find in supermarkets was passed back along the seats and the passengers tore off a bag or two. What for? I soon realised. The bus was a modern vehicle in good order, the road had a reasonable surface, but it swung from left to right along the side of the valley and if anything went wrong it would be a long way down. These were local passengers on a service bus, and those bags were sick-bags and they used them! I just enjoyed the ride as a Valkyrie-ride.

On the Sahara side of the Atlas mountains, Ouarzazate looks as if it is there as an act of human will. It is hard to see what it makes a living out of. But it has a hotel which I stayed in. The hotel was in the form of a hollow rectangle but there was no roof, no need for one in a place with (almost) no rain. But one morning there was a little bit of water on the landings.
After the only bit of hustling I got in the south, I went all the way into the desert. Along the side of the road are the amazing oases, valleys where the water that has fallen on the Atlas comes to the surface and there is mile after mile of date-palms with sandy desert on both sides. What a sight! And onwards south to a camp specialising in nights in the desert and camel rides for the foreigner. The camp's GPS coordinates were printed on the owner's card; really sensible in the desert. All the way, and here as much as anywhere else, I was impressed by the local knowledge of geology and fossils, all discussed in purely European terms.

Taking care not to get lost and using compass bearings, I walked out on the sand. It's not just sand, this is a land which was green and fertile in historical times. The "sand" is soil with the dark organic matter oxidised away. The wind can only blow away the small particles, so in places I walked over gravel pavements, in other places the sand had gathered in great dunes, which move with the wind. There was just the sun, the wind, the sand and me. What is it that is so special about that? Is it the fact that you are the only living thing in sight, and you might kick sand or stones as much you like, but there is nothing that can make a response? The only thing you can get a response from is yourself.

On the way back I decided to stop at the town of Taddart. I ordered a tagine (stew) and ate it on a very pretty terrace beside a tumbling stream and asked about the hotel I was aiming for. Ah, there was a problem! That hotel was closed for Ramadan (mindful of the tourist trade the Moroccan government tries to insist that at least one hotel in every place stays open during Ramadan, but evidently its writ doesn't run to these parts) Ah! But they had an idea! I could stay with the restauranteur's family!

So they took me in. It was a fairly modern concrete house, it didn't look out of place set into the rock face, and like so much else in Morocco, it wasn't finished. I'm sure I was a financial windfall to them. They were the grown-up children of elderly parents who lived next door. Each grown-up child had a family, and lived with that family in one room and they locked the door of each room with a padlock. They provided me with the same for my room. They were the sweetest people, but the need to lock the doors like that stuck in my throat. I stayed a couple of days with them. In the evenings round the fire we talked. It was getting on to December and bitterly cold and they shivered. They didn't think of closing the door!

I walked out on the mountains, where the rock is poor quality crumbly stuff. I saw the base of something I couldn't understand and I asked the senior brother about it. It seems that just after the war German prisoners of war were made to build a Swiss-type cable-way which ran all the way from Marrakech to Ouarzazate, but it was scrapped in the 60s. What a shame, it would have been a huge asset to the tourist industry today. There were areas where trees had been planted, not too difficult because although the mountains seem to be bare rock, if you drive a pick into it, you can very soon turn it into pocket of shale which you can put a small tree into. But tree planting had come to a stop. There was a dam and irrigation canal, expensively built on the money of those who had gone to Marrakech for work, but hopelessly badly laid out and very wasteful: and a good job too because, if it had captured and used all the water, the city of Marrakech would have gone dry. I saw fields which had been planted in the hope of rain. If rain didn't fall, then the seed and work would have been wasted, but that's life in the Atlas.

I got talking to a man in his 40s, who said how life was so hard. There is very little for anybody in the Atlas, his family, parents, brothers and sisters and their children had all gone to Marrakech to try their luck in the big city, but he had to stay behind to keep a hold of the family lands now that the family had gone and not let others seize them. Not that the land had any real value. I didn't ask, but it seemed plain that he was the bachelor of the family - always put upon.

And so onward to Marrakech on the Valkyrie-bus. My rucksack was put in the luggage compartment under the floor with the goats, front and back legs tied together, on their way to market and the goats piddled on it. A very authentic experience!

Marrakech is really a fun city. There are all sorts of cultural highlights, from high-brow museums and galleries to street musicians and jugglers, there are shops of all kinds, at night (during Ramadan, anyway) stalls are set up in Place Djemaa El Fnaa where you can eat any kind of food you want and watch all sorts of entertainments. Now that the bad impression of Moroccans that I had picked up in Northern Morocco had been cleared, I enjoyed Marrakech better. But you can't settle when you're on holiday. I took the bus to Essaouira.

Essaouira was the nicest place in the whole trip. All motor vehicles stop at bays outside the city walls and unload into hand carts which deliver or collect from the city. A very few building vehicles, diggers, forklift trucks and the like are allowed into the city, but apart from them, it is pedestrians only. The municipality is obviously in firm control. You can meander through fruit shops, cafes, fruit and vegetable shops, spice shops (always a splendid display), anything. Without the roar of traffic, people talk on the street. I found it easy to start and finish conversations. There is a fishing harbour and dunes and beaches and good hotels and shops selling interesting things. Tourists could safely bring young children here.

I stayed in a hotel in the old city. A young man, also staying there told me he was expecting a visit from his "father's wife". That's a strange way of putting it because normally you father's wife is your mother, and I wondered if I had got the words wrong, but then I realised: This is a Muslim country and this must be his father's other wife.

I also had a fright. I went to the hole in the wall to get out money. "Sorry, we cannot handle this transaction" came back the message in French. Oh dear. I went to another hole in the wall and got the same. And another! Something must be wrong with my account back home! A sick feeling arose in my belly. I was hundreds of miles from Casablanca airport and no way of getting back in a very foreign country. Then I saw a man walk away from another hole in the wall with a look of exasperation on his face. It was a general failure, not just mine. And in an hour, all the machines were working again. But it had been a nasty fright and a reminder of how thin a thread you hang by in a foreign country.

And by bus back to Casablanca. This being Ramadan, the bus loudspeakers were playing recitations from the Koran. The voices are very strange: one of the boys at Taddart had been like that; he looked 17 or 18 and his voice hadn't broken, giving his voice a not-child, not-man, not-woman quality we don't get in Europe From the youth hostel I went round the corner to cafe I had been to when I was first there. Some of these cafes are like French bistros, and like them, there can be good conversation or none, it's pot luck. A good evening in this case.
I must say I was impressed by some of the young people. So keen on their learning. Maths? Not my strong point alas! English? Ah yes, real English conversation. Geography? Where have you been? What did you think of it? Their thirst for knowledge was very impressive. But will their keenness do them any good or will it turn to frustration and sourness? I fear that the aim of many is to leave the country, and it is easy to see why. Morocco is not a desperately poor country, but it knows that very much better is possible, and not very far away, in Europe. For many years it has been the wish of some sections of Moroccan society for Morocco to join the EU. Many cars carry number plates with "EU" on them. Not only do they want European economic standards, they also want European standards of health, justice, culture. Several times it was aggressively put to me that Morocco was being denied the right to join the EU because it was a Muslim country. My answer that it was not being allowed to join because it is not a European but an African country was met with a lot of scepticism. Well, seeing that their view of Europe must mostly come from France, maybe that's not too surprising. 

I saw a market barrow, very like a market barrow in Britain, selling bananas. A crowd of men stood round it buying the bananas, in a city where women are not allowed out of the house, the men have to do the shopping. Half a dozen men bought their bananas and took them away. That was all. No more action! The other men drifted away. Their interest had been to watch other men buying bananas! They must have too little to do. Knowing nothing else, do they accept it? Or does it cause a deep inner frustration or anger?

In my time in Morocco I was offered hash at least 6 times, a woman to marry 4 times, and I am fairly certain at least one attempted homosexual seduction. I brushed them off of course. All the women were all under 20 and the youngest surely only 14. Somehow the girl would appear and father and/or elder brothers would say "Would you like to marry her? Nice girl! What are you shy about?" and the girl would smile winningly and put her hand out to me. Of course I said "no". But in their eyes it would be a good deal. However "well" or "badly" the marriage worked out, on any calculation it would better than what she would get in Morocco - looked at coldly, that is probably a correct calculation - and I would die in her young middle age and she would be a free woman in a first world country. And the family would have a finger-hold in a first world country. They took no offence and showed no surprise when I said "no"; no doubt they'll get a taker in the end.

Does it hurt to view yourself and all you know as so much less than the foreigner?

First published in VISA issue 72A (April 2007)