Down Under

Birds Eye View of the World Sailing Champioships

Here we are back in Australia, we’re on a small farm near Bridgetown in the SW at our latest ‘Helpx’, in fact our first since September and we have been looking forward to it. 

When we first arrived in Oz we did all the things you would expect, swimming in the sea and Mark’s pool, having a few beers and re-acquainting ourselves with the sights and sounds of Fremantle – though after India it all seemed very quiet!  We stayed a house belonging to a friend of Mark’s so many thanks to Joe for his kindness.

At the Party

We have also been out for a couple of walks in small national parks, one of them up along the Serpentine River to some small cascades where we had a picnic and at the bottom cascade, guess what?  Megan had a swim in the pool, there’s a surprise!

Wild Flowers

Feet Dangling

The night life has been great as well, some BBQ seafood with a few beers, a 50^th birthday of a friend of Mark and Raewyn’s at country and western bar, live band, dancing and for some reason English Premier League football, Arsenal vs Everton, what’s that all about?? Also, a magical free concert on the Esplanade in Perth by the West Australia Symphony Orchestra, the party piece - the 1812 overture with the Swan Bells and real artillery guns, it was amazing.

The World Sailing Championships have been taking place in Fremantle, just off Bathers Beach where, guess what, we like to swim, one day our swim was thwarted by a flotilla of sailboards just off the beach milling about waiting for the start of the race.  There were a few people around to watch, so we settled down to see the spectacle.  The signal for the start sounded and all the sailboarders set off in one direction (well most of them anyway) and kept going and going and going till they were just specs in the distance (don’t worry, they did come back!).

Our Home for 4 Weeks

Alpacas

Large Skies

 So back to the small farm, Heidi and Troy have 4 children, Lucas 6, Kaylah 5, Sharlene 14 months and Evelynne 8 weeks, so you can imagine the nice quiet time we had when we arrived.  Troy works away, one week on one week off, and he was away.  So we were picked up from the bus stop by Heidi and the kids then shopping, then to the farm 25 minutes away by car, this is when we learn that they are all going away to Geraldton (north of Perth) to see Troy’s parents for a week and could we house sit, (do bears s**t in the woods) of course we can.  So here we are, house sitting, dog feeding, sheep and alpaca watering and doing our jobs.  

Chicken Run Repairs

Pruning Roses

Meg has been mostly gardening and I have been securing the chicken run to stop them escaping, it’s a good job I found a fly net to go over my head as the little blighters kept getting up my nose and in my ears – the flies that is not the chickens.  It is very peaceful here and the weather has not been too hot yet, in fact we have had some rain almost unheard of in December, yet another indication in a long line of people we have met on this trip that the weather patterns are changing all over the world.  So, on that cheerful note we say goodbye and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you, we will be here with young children at Christmas… ahhh, I remember it well.

The Serpentine River Walk

India Moving On

Diu Beach

I am writing this blog while we are still in India and wondering when we will be able to post it.  We are moving to Australia via three flights and one train journey, the first flight from here, Diu, to Mumbai and this evening, Mumbai to Kuala Lumpur, from there we catch a train to Singapore and stay the night (30^th Nov) and the next day fly to Perth.

We have been in India for a month and for the most part struggled with the squalor, although we are more acclimatised now than at the start of the stay.  The last 13 days here in Diu have been a welcome seaside respite.

Working Donkeys

Peacock

Looking back at the places, the things we have seen and people we have met, I hardly know where to begin.   So I will just talk about the worst; the poverty, you never get away from it, we couch surfed with a couple from Denmark who lived, even by our standards, in relative luxury and from their living room window on the tenth floor you can see a family living on some waste ground in a shelter, no services, water from communal taps, squatting at the side of the road to go to the toilet, cooking on an open fire.  People live on the pavements, not just a few here and there, whole communities.  As you pull into and out of the stations on the trains there are hovels in and amongst the endless rubbish heaps.  Since leaving the UK I have concluded that the greatest sin heaped on this world by ‘civilisation’ is the plastic bag.  There are 1 billion people in India, if every day one and only one bag is given away to for each person and half of those are used to dispose of rubbish imagine the result.  Megan and I don’t need to imagine we have seen it.  The worst of it is that a high proportion of those have organic waste in them, which is consumed by the 1 billion animals, including the sacred cow, that live on the streets, but first they have to open the bag or eat the bag as well.  This is balanced by the seemingly endless capacity these people have for the joy of being alive, they all have a smile for you and a hello, want to know where you are from and welcome you to their country of which they are very proud.

Megan the Beach Bum

Wetlands

Sketching

Kite Strings for the festival

Couch Surfing here has taken us across the social scale, from Guvinder in Delhi who I told you about in the last blog, the Mehta family in Ahmedabad and Henrik and Barbara from Denmark.  The Mehta family are three generations living under one roof, mother father, three children all over 20, and the grandmother.  They gave us one of the two bedrooms and at least one meal a day, a very delicious one cooked by the grandmother, for the four days we were there; you could say they were fortunate in comparison to many. 

The Road to Diu

TYrain Travel Indian Style

On the continuing sandal saga: the story so far; I purchased a very superior pair of Merrill’s in Ellis Brigham’s, Manchester.  These lasted 2 weeks on Crete!  However, after some long range discussion they refunded the cost and I bought a pair of standard cheap ones that lasted till we left Turkey, when they were then binned.  I then, after much searching, bought a pair of ‘Woodland’ (India’s finest) in Jaipur.  These lasted 10 minutes when the plastic buckle broke.  Good enough, they repaired them so you couldn’t tell and we set off again.  In India, and other places, it is polite to leave your shoes outside when entering a home.  When staying with the Mehta family in Ahmedabad I left them outside in the shoe rack on Friday night.  In the morning it was discovered that a dog had eaten them!  Hey, great news, this was ok as a dog eating your shoes on a Saturday negates all your bad luck – apparently!

O'Coqueiro

So to Diu, an escape from the cities, a small island just off the coast of Gujarat, sun, sea and sand and a rest.  We had been packing and moving every three days or so from the middle of September, seen more ruins, churches, temples and hotels you can shake a stick at and it was very tiring.

Diu Fishermen

Australia here we come, a few days with my brother in Perth and then Helpx volunteering on the Blackwood River on a homestead till after Christmas.  

India

Supper with the teacher

I have held back writing this blog to give us time to acclimatise more to India.  Nothing can prepare you for the onslaught on your senses this country throws at you.  We had heard about how crowded it is, especially the cities, and the smell is legendary, the one you are not prepared for is the noise.

We arrived in Delhi early in the morning and had to wait for the Metro to open; when it did we caught the link into the city to change lines to go to the area where our couch surf host lives.  The equivalent underground station in London would be Kings Cross, if you think of the crowds there and multiply by 10 then add in no automatic ticket purchase, then throw in a security check for every person and every bag, the security line for women was 10m long the one for men was two lines about 100m long, all this a cross between an English queue and 250 a side rugby match!

Delhi street scene

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ghandi's last journey

It is fair to say that we have both struggled with India, the mixed smell of traffic and industrial pollution with humanity living on the streets is one thing, plus the incessant noise of vehicle horns, train whistles and the sea of people everywhere makes you very weary.

On the flip side of this are the individual people who in general are very friendly and happy to see you in their country, engage you in conversation and tell you where to visit.  Our first couch host, Gurvinder was very nice and he introduced us to his sister-in-law who runs a free school for children whose parents cannot afford to send them (It costs more to send a boy to school than a girl, encouraging girls to be educated.).  Whilst there we ate supper with them and learned a little about the Sikh religion, played cards with their son (old maid) and were given wrist bangles to protect us on our travels.  All this whilst we lived with Gurvinder in a slum area.  His home was clean and welcoming, but clearly he did not have much money, his family lives in Shimlah, up in the hills, where we British once had our summer homes. 

Pigment for sale - mark your forehead

Baskets for sale

Charm a photographer - IR10/-

So where have we been and what have we seen?  From Delhi we travelled west to Jaipur, the ‘Pink City’, where we stayed in a very nice hotel and teamed up with Wasim an auto rickshaw driver/tour guide, he was very nice and for a day, cost RS 350 (£4.66) to tour around in his vehicle.  We saw some of the sights including the Jaipur observatory (too complex to explain, google it) and the Amber Fort outside the city.

We walked through the old city or the ‘Pink City’ visited the City Palace and looked in some of the shops (it felt like all them to me).

Then to Chittorgarh, just to see the famous fort, from there to Udaipur, which was smaller and less frantic. Some of the James Bond film Octopussy was filmed there on the lake and in the streets, the residents are still proud and in some local rooftop restaurants they show the film every night.

Wasim and his Putput

Running repairs

Take an elephant to the top

That just about brings us up to date, we are currently in Ahmedabad, and I am wondering how I’m going to publish this blog as our current hosts do have internet at the moment – perhaps an internet café might be the answer.  We see India so far as a country of polarisations, it is either, very clean or very dirty, very quiet or very noisy, the people are helpful or ripping you off, the list goes on.  I read in the Times of India a report by a UN agency that states that 52% of India’s population is very poor, living on less than a dollar a day, so when you go onto the streets and see the teeming masses and the people being born and living beside the roads and railway lines, it makes you think very hard indeed.

Sacred cow crossing

Jordan

Our first camel ride

Whilst driving through the country here in Jordan I saw a dust devil, maybe a whirlwind.  Our time in Jordan has felt like a whirlwind; it has, except for the first and last day, been packed with seeing the ‘sites’.

Jerash, Um Qays, two days in Petra, Qasr Mushatta, Umm ar Rasas, Madaba, and Mount Nebo.  Plus a swim in the Dead Sea, an experience not to be missed!

Horse ride into Petra

The Treasury

Jerash and Um Qays are both ancient sites with large amounts of Roman ruins.  Um Qas was interestingas the city was mostly built from black basalt, it is next to the Golan Heights, still held by the Israelis and you can see the Sea of Galilee from there. We stopped at Mount Nebo where Moses was shown the ‘Promised Land’ and so of course you can look out over Palestine from there.  In Madaba we saw a very early map of the world on the floor of a church in the form of a mosaic, other mosaics we have seen are in the ruined churches at Umm ar Rasas and in a Byzantine church in Petra.  

The Monastry

Place of High Sacrifice

Sometimes it feels like we are ‘all ruined out’, as they say, then you walk into Petra through the narrow Siq, which is a narrow wadi dammed by the builders of the city, the Nabataeans, diverting the water through a tunnel they carved to create the entrance seen today.  This gives the city the amazing entrance seen many times in films and on the television, though this still does not prepare you for the actuality of it.  For visitors in the past it must have given them a first glimpse of the majesty and power of the people they were going to visit.
  
The famous image of the treasury tomb is what you se as you emerge into the sunlight, however, there is much, much, more to see; rock cut tombs in abundance from small simple ones to huge elaborate ones, carved into the sandstone rock face.  Sandstone of some amazing and beautiful colours glistening in the sun and in swirls in the ceilings and walls of some of the tombs, of course it has some Roman stuff as well, they get everywhere in this region, it will make a change to get away from them into India and beyond.  

Megan and Sue

Dave and Chris

Sue and Charlie

During all of this we were staying with the lovely Dave and Sue Purse (and their amazing and enormous cat, Charlie), friends I had not seen for 27 odd years and Megan had not met them at all, but she made up for lost time as usual and we really enjoyed our stay with them, the list of people to stay in contact with and see again gets longer and longer.

Um Qays

Lebanon

War Torn Building - Beirut

Pre-conceived notions are something that we all are guilty of at some time or other, thinking of Lebanon before we arrived, I guess I was and I think Megan was as well.  We both had memories of the TV pictures and radio reports over the years and we were nervous as well as excited by the prospect of seeing Beirut and meeting the people who live there and in the country as a whole.

We got off to a very interesting start.  First hurdle Late arrival at the airport, then taxi drivers; we were besieged, well two anyway, $50 downtown!  Me ignoring them and saying ‘too much money’ through our negotiating team, Megan, till we arrived at $25, change in dollars, yes, OK.  Taxi, not the guy we negotiated with, driver very poor English, didn’t know where we wanted to go, dropped off at the UN building (near where we were staying), no dollars change, big discussion, more negotiation, successful outcome.  Then we experienced the legendry Lebanese hospitality.  First a guard/policeman came across to help, then a smart couple, in the end we had about eight people round us, our phones didn’t work so one girl telephoned Stuart, our couch surf host and he came to find us and take us home, phew!

Bullet Ridden Statue Martyrs Square

Beirut is a big, noisy, dirty city, difficult to get around but we walked a lot through the new downtown quarter with designer shops, visited a museum and saw some of the buildings damaged by the troubles, The Holiday Inn where the journalists stayed is just a shell covered with bullet holes.  Every where we went the people said welcome to Lebanon and passed the time of day talking about their country and the UK, very friendly and warm.

Look How Tall It Is

Baalbek

To escape Beirut was the next option; but how, bus, train, taxi?  Taxi too expensive, no train system, buses difficult to the region we wanted, so brace ourselves, hire a car, reasonably cheap.  We found good accommodation, hostel for two nights and hotel, off season rates, for three.  We stayed in Bcharré up in the mountains, we walked, we visited Tripoli and Baalbek.  The walking in Qadicha Valley is through a deep ravine with ancient churches and caves where hermits lived and some still live, the valley is very green and beautiful, not at all like we expected from the Middle East.

Driving is - how can I describe it? Interesting, you need nerves of steel and eyes in the back, side and maybe even the top of your head.  How we got the car through Beirut (twice), Baalbek, Tripoli, round the mountain roads and the highways without a scratch, was through a slice of luck and a huge amount of skill. Baalbek in the Beka’a Valley is the head quarters of Hezbollah, we passed through an area covered in their flags before negotiating our way through the town to almost stumble on the ancient ruins (Heliopolis), fantastic perhaps the best we have seen, including Ephesus!  

The Cedars

Wood Sculpture - The Cedars

Tripoli is a great place, we saw the Crusader Citadel and walked through the old quarter, everyone smiled and said hello, looked into a bakery where they were cooking flat breads, the man invited us in to see them working, talked, invited us for coffee, the coffee seller came round and we all had small, strong, sweet coffee out of small plastic cups, conversed in broken French a little English and lots of hand waving, looked in the oven with burning wood inside, ate the bread, lots of smiles and laughing, what more can you say.  We were walking a route in a guide book, but were soon taken in hand by Lebanese guy, a teacher, great English, he took us round ‘his quarter’ visited his mosque and talked about Lebanon and in particular the problems in Tripoli which erupt every few days with fighting in the streets between supporters of different politicians – guns and bloodshed.  He says Tripoli is fantastic with lots of places to visit, down the road in Byblos (where we also went) they have lots of visitors as the Christians keep the peace so people go, in Tripoli they don’t because of the fighting, he was very disgusted. 

Wood Burning Bread Oven

Well here we are about to leave, flying to Jordan, our impressions of Lebanon are very good, for a while you forget your unease in the warmth of the people, the only time Megan was scared was when close to steep drops (lots of those) and both of us when in the car, heart in the mouth jobs!

Almost Complete Temple Baalbek

Sea of Clouds