Hieronymous the Anonymous

Oh, to be...

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The last few days have been bright, Spring-like, lovely days for enjoying the sunlight. Mixed in between have been other days, days like today. It rains intermittently, heavy and soaking while it lasts, and in the distance the rumble of thunder. Then it clears to a chilly, overcast day broken up by patches of sunlight.

I have been conscious of the weather, and enjoyed both aspects of it. Last Sunday was a particularly bleak day, a cold, whistling wind that took the roofs off houses and brought down trees combined with driving rain that kept anyone sensible indoors. How I loved that, an old fashioned winters day that I felt inclined comment on, so much better than the modern rubbish we've been getting.

Not unconnected to the climatic conditions has been a growing restlessness. The warmer days woke something up in me, as if through the darkest days of winter I had been hibernating. Yesterday sitting outdoors at a city cafe waiting for a friend I watched the activity around me and felt the desire to move, to act, to go itch at me.

Yesterday afternoon I thought of Morocco again, of the souks, the markets first, then the austere countryside and the deserts and mountains I did not properly enjoy when I was there. I longed then to go back, to hoist a pack on my back and hitch a ride into the hills and to the villages there with their steep cobbled roads, and to go into the desert like I have read of a hundred times before.

This morning I woke with Turkey in my head. Will I never again see Istanbul I asked myself? Surely that could not be. I remembered Istanbul and the vibrant lifestyle the happy Turks experience. I imagined myself once more on a ferry crossing the Bosphorous, keeping out the cold as I did on the day I did that. Then laying in my bed my mind travelled, to the coastal cities and villages. I had stopped at some, but now in my imagination I saw myself on a boat idling my way along the coast, breathing in the Mediterranean air and looking upon a land history has looked upon for thousands of years.

I suspect I am yearning to travel, though I have not owned up to it as yet. Regardless it is not something I can just up and do. Can I reconcile myself to this? And will it ever be so? Will I always feel this yearning till satisfied? And will I do those things again and follow the path of my imagination?

The sun blazes again, a bird mindlessly trills. I'm heading for the city, and for now, nothing more.

About Bali

For some reason I never wrote about my Bali trip. It was only pretty short, but it was full on.

First day spent all afternoon and most of the evening in our private pool with Whisky, a couple of girls, and a bottomless pitcher of Cuba Libre and Vodka tonics. Sometime in the night I dived into the pool and my head hit an unseen step. It swelled up bleeding and I was pretty well concussed for the next 36 hours - not that I could have told the difference.

We stayed in Seminyak, in a lovely villa complex. Our villa was luxurious. We had a private pool about 6x4 metres set amid a tropical garden. Most days it was warm and humid without being too uncomfortable. On a few occasions we had tropical downpours typical of Asia. The rain would fall in sheets and the roads would flood and the drains filled with rushing water. It is part of the Asian experience, but often I would think as it fell how useful this rain would be a few thousand kilometres to the south-east.

Every night we would go to a sunset bar for a cocktail looking over the ocean towards the setting sun. Most of these places were unbelievably plush, with waiting staff both attentive and very friendly. All the Balinese were friendly and unspoiled. We would sip on our watered down cocktails and feel in our face the breeze come in off the ocean and watch the sun dip and refract it's colours on the cumulus clouds. At times it was very beautiful and led to a great many photo's.

For the most part we ate well, checking out some of the best recommended restaurants in town, but in this regard I was a little disappointed. The best meal I had was an hour after setting down on the first day. Whisky and I wandered down the road and at random went into a little restaurant that advertised cooking classes. The menu was interesting and looking at it I thought we would be in for a good time here. Because I was not so hungry I ordered modestly thinking this will come again. In fact I never saw another menu as interesting or with the same range of Balinese dishes. I saw a lot of satay chicken on menus, and other such generically Asian food.

One day we went into Kuta for the obligatory shopping expedition, typically a Bintang singlet and a bunch of pirate DVD's. We paused by the site of the Sari club bombings years ago. It is a vacant site still and seems likely to remain so as a memorial. Opposite it is a small memorial with flowers collected at its foot. It is in a typical narrow street thought, mundane in its ordinariness - but I guess then it need not be remarkable.

Indulgence was high on the list for all of us, and so besides the booze and the food each of us took advantage of the cheap massages on offer. On our last afternoon we went to a new resort on the other side of the island from us. It was spectacular, like somewhere you would expect Brangelina to be staying. We took the funicular down to the small private beach and lay upon bana lounges there drinking our usual cocktails, and later eating a lovely meal under the fronds of the restaurant/bar there that looked as if it might have been built by the Swiss family Robinson.

For me it was an enjoyable but exhausting trip. I was not feeling 100% yet and together with our hard living find myself depleted upon returning. I would go back, but it is a funny thing. The trip solidified in my mind the desire for a more modest lifestyle. I do not want to continue to live big, and do not need it any longer. For me at this point in my life the greatest pleasures are often in the small things. 

The 44 Places to go in 2009

Dream on...

For me I am due to be travelling again soon. Overdue perhaps. I didn't leave the state, let alone the country, last year.

I don't know what the year ahead holds for me, so it is hard to make concrete travel plans at this point. I would like to hit the UK mid-year for their summer.

In the meantime I have a modest trip interstate at the end of this month. For the Australia Day long weekend I am heading to Adelaide, and thence the Barossa Valley and the Adelaide Hills, checking out the wineries and the scenery, eating and drinking well.

At the end of February I'm heading off to Bali for a short holiday. Too good to turn up, the airfare is a ridiculous $180 return. We'll rent out a villa in Seminyak for the duration. Looking forward to it. Finally I get to Bali.

Foreign memories

My step-sister visited from Brisbane a couple of weeks ago. We had dinner and after went back to my place. She had never been there before and wandered around exclaiming at one thing or another – the camel leather ottoman I had brought back from Morocco, the various knick-knacks I have collected on my travels, above all she spent time looking at the various prints and photos I have picked up travelling to different parts of the world.

All these things mean a lot to me. I make it a mission to bring back with me mementoes of my travels. Laden in them are memories, and in those memories meaning – this is what I have done, this is where I have been, this is what I experienced, and this is what I learned. They are far more than decorator items designed to make the place look homely, they are part of my personal history.

Still, it is both a little strange and quite gratifying to see another pause to appreciate these things. I am tempted often to pause with them, to look upon the object of interest and give some explanation and context of what they look upon.

In my present home they line the walls of the entry hall. To the right there are the very simple and elegant Vietnamese watercolours. With a few strokes of the brush there is represented tall and slim Vietnamese woman riding a bike. In another she is wearing a conical hat. I remember buying these, in the Russian market in Saigon from a smiling girl I laughed with. I rolled the parchment up carefully and stowed these prints in my pack as I continued my journies onward.

There are moody and evocative black and white prints of Prague, like something out of the The Third Man – early morning mornings and dark nights, light shining off cobbled lanes and misty dawns. I bought these from a man on the Charles Bridge. Prague is a great city.

There are prints of Paris of a similar nature, black and white showing gargoyles and Notre Dame and narrow laneways, these purchased on the bank of the Seine.

From Hong Kong there are pretty watercolours in marine colours, greens and blues, turquoises, moody paintings of Victoria Harbour with old junks scudding across it. Each of these are numbered, original prints I bought from the sun of the painter.

From HK I also have a red and gold emblem of the Dragon – which is what I am, and another symbol for good luck.

Then there are the Turkish illustrations, beautifully rendered shots of Ottoman emperors hunting, or of his harem, bright colours including gold leaf. Each of these is old, plates from antique books cut from them to sell. On most there is on the back Arabic script. I wandered around the grand bazaar in Istanbul for days, but bought these in a shop near the old cistern.

I have papyrus waiting to frame also, plus the little things around the place that speak of my travels – a Buddha from Hoi An, a ancient wooden block painting from Luxor. On the wall by the stairs is the panoramic photo I took of Istanbul, framed in dark beaten copper. In the hallway is the rug I bought in India, in the lounge the rug I bought in Istanbul.

All these are among my most treasured possessions. I look forward to adding to them, but figure I’m going to need a bigger place.

Catching up

Cairo 8 November

Last night (Saturday) we had our last supper together as a group. Afterwards we went back to the hotel bar for last drinks, last stories, before the final exchange of phone numbers and email addresses, and the last fond farewells.

Up early this morning to catch my plane back to Cairo. As we drove through the streets we came across a bunch of kids on their way to school, little backpacks perched on their little backs, just like at home. They smiled at the taxi and then waved as is common when they saw the passengers were Caucasian. The surrounding fields were austere hard packed earth, the homes different in construction and in scale, and even the smiling faces were different, yet there was something very familiar in the scene.

I like Jordanians. They are a people proud of their country, clearly better off than their Egyptian neighbours, more organised and efficient, they even seem healthier, taller perhaps, and better looking - though this may be imagination. There are Circassians mixed into the ethnic mix, and so every now and then you see a blonde or a redhead, and freckles even.

Later, as we descended into Cairo, I looked out my window and saw below two pyramids, the bent pyramid and another. Looking down upon them gave a much different perspective from looking at them from on the ground. On the ground that loom imposingly before you, so large that it is difficult to grasp the full scale without circumnavigating them. From my window seat the pyramids seemed strange, otherwordly apparitions, rising from the flat sandy expanse of the Sahara desert. I could take them both in at a glance, and in so doing realise how much they imposed upon the environment in their angular precision. You could understand how some might think them alien in construction, for though in colour they blended into the landscape they seemed to be separate from it also, sitting upon it as such rather than within it. If the pyramids were otherwordly then by extension so to did the pharaohs claim to be, above the common masses who lived in the cities and the desert, impervious to time and the elements, gods in their own reckoning paid tribute.

Today I have had the quiet day I intended. I arrived in Cairo, booked my flight onwards to Casablanca, and then sought a hotel to spend the night. Seven hotels on I found myself at a hotel in far off Heliopolis, expensive and geared towards the western tourist - of which there are many - but with the benefit of plush king sized beds and bath Ive already checked out, complete with bubbles. Ive even had a character knocking on ,y door offering to turn my bed down. After first giving him the blank look I waved him in, by all means my good man, by all means. He turned my bed down very neatly, then tidied up a little, which included picking up my dirty jocks from where Id flung them near the laundry bag, folding them, and placing them open the table - well beyond the call of duty Id have thought.

Wadi Rum. Its a name and a place I had only vague knowledge of before. We were there Wednesday.

I read Seven Pillars of Wisdom when I was about 20 years old. That's a good age to read such a book - you re full of romantic notions and strange yearnings, a tale like this set in the desert and telling of battles against perfidious Turks by noble Bedouins led by a fey and enigmatic Englishman is the stuff of boys own adventure.

On Wednesday we saw these pillars he wrote of, craggy red rocks that gave a vague semblance of 7 pillars in a row.

We drove into Wadi Rum proper from there, hurling ourselves about in 4WD expertly driven by local Bedouins. The desert here is gently rolling, hard baked in places and in others slippery sand. Small bushes - no higher than 5 inches - grow sparsely. This is the sea. The land, the coast, are the huge rounded rock formations that rise high from the ground, dipping and curving like landlocked fjords cut from the red sandstone. Fissures in these open up into small passages where the light from the sun above does not reach bottom.

We stopped before a large sand dune of rich red. Those of us game climbed to the top, before charging down the steep side to the bottom. This is some sensation. You run, barely in control, your momentum carrying you forward, down, ever about to go head over heels, arse over friggin tit, exhilarated and terrified, both fear and joy - that space in between - as your feet plunge deep into the sand and your heart is in your mouth as the ground hurtles towards you and there is only now, this moment, beaut.

That night we spent in a Bedouin camp sleeping beneath goat skin hides. We drank sweet Bedouin tea and played cards. When it came to bed it felt some like old school camp days. Someone snored. Someone else suggested letting down the girls tent. There was banter and laughter throughout.

The next morning we were driven out of there by the big Bedouin, a crazy man of about 60 who looked like a dark skinned Alice Cooper. He drove like a rally driver, the rear end of the car swinging wide as he took everything too quick, smiling at us maniacally, his pearly whites gleaming in the dark parchment of his face.

That was Wadi Rum.

Later...

In another airport, waiting for another plane. This time it's Cairo airport, waiting for the plane to Casablanca to board - still an hour or so away.

I should be well rested, but I feel weary - perhaps it is from the lack of doing anything substantial. For the most of the day I have hung around my hotel, pleasant but bland. Still, there were compensations.

Had a sit down breakfast of scrambled eggs and pastries, a delightful change from the standard breakfast diet hereabouts of boiled eggs and packaged cheese. Afterwards I wandered outside to sit by the pool. After the attendant arranged my towel on the ... I lay there for over an hour in the sunshine reading my book (War and Peace - yes, really), feeling every inch the tourist.

Last night was similar in ways. At about 6 I had a knock on my door - it was a porter wanting to turn my bed down. After looking at him blankly for a moment or two I waved him in, by all means my good man, by all means. He entered and very precisely turned down my bed before attending to various other duties - including picking up my dirty jocks where I'd flung them near my laundry bag, folding them and placing them on the table - well beyond the call of duty in my book.

I dined at one of the in-house restaurants. I had a steak, imported all the way from Australia as I discovered. It was pleasant to have 'western' food again.

While I ate I listened to the conversation at the next table between two travelling colleagues. They discussed their work in detail, including all the personalities, Klaus the autocratic CEO, David the hard-working product manager, and so on. I've overheard a hundred such conversations before, and been involved in a few myself, but for some reason this particularly fascinated me.

In bed I read for a while before turning the light off, 9.30 local time. I sprawled in my bif bed, rolling from side to side like a kid, before very pleasantly falling asleep for a good ten hours.

So, Petra.

We drove there direct from Wadi Rum, and straight after checking in walked the short distance to the front entrance.

We engaged a guide and as a group followed him as he led us down the winding 'seek' - a dry gorge - that had been cut from the massive rocks and meandered towards Petra proper.

Our guide was a chain smoking Jordanian with a sly wit and dodgy hair. After we had walked for about 30 minutes he called us over and asked us to look at the rock wall. "What do you see there?" he asked. We stared at the blank rock. "Nothing." He nodded his head. "Now look to your left," he said. We did as commanded and there revealed to us was our first glimpse of the grand and beautiful Treasury building of Petra. We stood silently beholding it, taken aback by the sight of it.

We walked on to the small canyon - really just an open space - which housed the treasury, carved out of the cliff face with precise artistry.

We explored that and then separated. There's a lot to see at Petra - it had a population once of 40,000.

In the afternoon I started the long climb towards the other great building, the Monastery. This was a long climb up stairs that zig-zagged up the rock hill, until on top was revealed the Monastery, larger than the Treasury below, and carved once more from the rock.

By this time I was sweating and buggered, but managed to walk a little further to one of the lookouts from which spectacular views of the surrounding countryside were revealed.

Most of us set out early the next day to beat the tourist coaches. I was out soon after 7 and quickly joined up with the Kiwi's.

First stop was the High place of sacrifice, well named as once more it meant climbing way too many stairs. From there we made our way down the back way. This was very pleasant. For a start we were heading down, but better still we saw no other tourists, and were able to appreciate the interesting tombs in serenity.

After a cup of tea we checked out the Royal tombs, before deciding to make our way back by a different route.

Once more this involved climbing another 600 odd stairs. I was happy enough to do this thinking that I would be coming down the other side. Not to be.

From up top we looked down on where we had so recently been, far below. We continued on until we found ourselves looking down on the Treasury building from above - but here the trail ended.

To this point I had been fine, leading the way and nimbly jumping from one rock to the next. Suddenly I felt buggered. It was warming up, I carried a heavy pack and was soaked through with sweat. The girls had lost their water somewhere and so the 3 of us were sharing my bottle, quarter full. We back-tracked, climbing again until we found a local. He pointed yonder, and yonder we went, following a trail that petered out in the stony wilderness.

We split up separately, trying to find the path down, the girls now taking the lead. I searched the ground for footprints, but found only goat shit. We searched for over an hour every likely looking avenue, but each one closed before us.

I was all for finding away, but as that seemed less likely the further we went I had visions of us disappearing like the girls at Hanging Rock, of our bleached bones being found in a pile one way, a last despairing message carved into the hard earth. And so we turned back.

Down the stairs we went. Now my glutes burned and I thought for all the pain at least I should be getting cute buns. At the bottom we were amongst civilisation again, the bustling crowds of tourists, the camels trotting by, the 6 year old touts trying to flog postcards or rocks.

We made it back to the hotel eventually, hours after we had hoped for. I can confidently say I've never felt so absolutely stuffed in my life. By the end I was struggling to walk on the flat, let alone an incline.

That was Petra though - we saw more than most, and did it the hard way, to which my buns can attest.

Essaouira 9 November

I'm in Marrakesh now, have been for a few days, and presently on the coast at a place called Essaouiera.

This is a groovy place. I walk through the Medina and I get a sly look from funky looking Moroccans, want a smoke mate? Good stuff... Plenty f weed around here, and it is meant to be good, but so far I've abstained. I smile at these dudes, maybe later I tell them.

It's an exotic place Morocco, full of vibrant colour and bright people, more western in ways - here you can here western music - and much funkier than Egypt, which is way down low on the funk meter. It's fun.

I arrived in Morocco late Monday night. I checked into my hotel in Casablanca feeling buggered again, then was out early the next morning to check out the huge mosque. By 1pm I was on a train to Marrakesh, 2nd class, sharing a cosy compartment with 5 Moroccans. My iPod has died so I looked ou the window at the arid landscape going by. To my surprise I found eucalypts growing along a distant ridge line, them gums closer to the track. I guess they're ideally suited to a climate like his, but it seems so strange, like looking ou the window and finding kangaroos hopping by.

I had an uneventful night in Marrakesh before catching the bus here yesterday morning. I walked through the choked streets of the Medina with heavy bags hanging off of me, fighting off touts trying to lead me to competing hotels, and waving off the porters with their large barrows, offering assistance at a price.

You become conditioned to this, though it is annoying. It would have been far easier, and more sensible to accept some help, but I refused from bloody mindedness - I don't like to be hounded. And so I laboured with my packs, searching in vain for street names amidst the crush, with only a basic Lonely Planet guide map to help me. I was proud - and exhausted - when I finally found myself at the Riad I was looking for.

I spent most of the day yesterday walking up and down the Medina, fighting off the different store owners trying to flog their leather or wood work, spices and carpets and lamps. It's great stuff, individual and beautiful, and relatively cheap. Given an unlimited budge and no excess baggage I would by up big - but for now I discourage them with a smile and a shake of the head.

Last night I went to some groovy riad for a drink. A riad is basically a building buil around a central courtyard. Generally these are serene places of grace and some beauty. I sat there and drank my beer and then my daiquiri, writing postcards and reading the Herald Tribune for the latest news. Outside a larg tree sprawled in the central courtyard, centuries old, while outside the bustle continued.

I left after a cuple of hours to find a fog had rolled in. It was one of thse creepy sort of fogs which in Hollywood films herald the coming of beasties from the sea. The streets that through the day are jam packed were near empty. The stores were all shut, their blue barn like doors losed and barred. Visibility was at a minimum, and even the flagstones were slippery with moisture. It was very col.

The fog was there still when I came out this morning. I walked through the quiet streets as the town roused itself. I made my way to he ramparts that abut the sea, where I took some great shots. The fishermen were out still, and the many seagulls - bigger here than any I've seen before - circled overhead. Ths too was great.

The sun is now out, and it's nearly time for lunch.

I go onto Marrakesh tomorrow for a few days.

Later...

I wandered around Essouiera today before coming to a stop for lunch at a place called Chez Francaise. As the name might suggest it was full of French tourists - fully 90% of tourists here are French. Hot on my heels though were a couple from the UK. I watched as she translated the menu with her little guidebook. I fared a little better through a combination of guesswork and some dim recollection of school French, and that was that - we all kept mum.

At some stage that all changed and suddenly the conversation flowed. He was from Cornwall, and she Sussex, and while he was initially reserved, she gushed - excited, I think, to find someone else who spoke English, and then more excited still to find that someone had just visited the great sites of Egypt and Jordan. The conversation progressed and I found myself advising them, giving them all the necessary angles. They had spent 700 Dh getting to Essa - did they know they could catch a bus for 65?

I felt in control, comfortable and ease and as ifevery answer was at my fingertips. And yet as so often in this circumstance I found myself feeling seasoned, grizzled even, older, bigger, of a greater scale in general, more worldly, more cynical, more this and that, and somehow, at the end of it, less pure.

I left them and set out on my afternoons journies, yet this feeling sat heavily in my stomach. I walked through the narrow laneways, I bought a second hand book, stopped for a cup of tea while I read the Independent - and all the while this feeling of disquiet stayed with me.

As I walked I tried to understand, remotely at first, then with all my mind. I could not work it out, but had the notion that whatever it was it was something I had lost, or used up along the way, something anyway gone forever.

Late in the day I found myself on the main promenade just outside the medina. Like many I had the idea of catching the setting sun. I sat on a park bench waiting, watching the passing parade - a Moroccan who dropped his change; two French girls posing for photos; an elderly English couple taking a photo of a ginger cat; and so on. I watched and I mused. By now I had figured that whatever I felt was not something I could change - and so was not worth worrying about. At the same time I knew it was something that would come back to haunt me - and so I stayed with it.

Overhead the seagulls wheeled and screeched. The stench of fish and other waste filled the air. By now I had propped myself on the rampart proper. I looked towards the setting sun. I had figured much of it out by now. What was the truth? The truth was that when you have seen and done much the new holds much appeal - but where was the new?

I am lucky in that for much of my adult life - and certainly since I was 27 - I have felt much was within the reach of my outstretched hand. It has not always been so easy, but generally persistence has paid off. I carry that with me, the knowledge that if I apply myself and persist then most things can be. This is something good - and yet I felt soured by it.

This is what I felt speaking to that young English couple, in control but almost in cruise control. The words came easily, simply, the persona snapped into place. It was true enough, but it did not feel real. It is well and good to reach out and find what you want there - it is better sometimes though to reach out and find nothing, to be forced to stretch and exert and sweat.

There is little joy in certainty. There's not much fun in the predictable - and little satisfaction. The moments to value are those where there is a little tremor in the stomach. When you are not certain, when nothing is predictable, when you reach and reach and need to keep on reaching to find what you desire.

That's the value of everything in the end. How far, or how long, are you willing to live with that tremor? How much uncertainty, unpredictability can you endure before you pull the pin?

I took my shots - the sun looked good against a distant battlement. What I was talking about is a certain kind of innocence - and guess once lost that can't come again. Still though - you can put yourself beyond your comfort zone, can set yourself that challenge - how far are you willing to go? And try and avoid cruise control.

I'm blathering again - dinner including a mojito, a Leffe blonde, and a half bottle of Moroccan red will do that to you.

Speaking of which, let me segue further. French everywhere, can't poke a stick, etc. I always see French men as being compact - about 5'8" - and with wavy hair. The women I base on a particular model in my head, attractive without being beautiful, long blonde slightly curly hair. I love listening to them talk - it's a feminine language that flows beautifully, seamlessly. And I always look at French people and think I know someone just like that, except not French.

So - now you've got my stream of consciousness. Someone should keep me away from the internet in this mood.

Marrakesh tomorrow - and then? We'll see.

Singapore 17 November

I haven't written much lately, the major reason is that I couldn't be stuffed. All the usual things went through my head, I looked at things and got involved and found as is my wont that words presented themselves in my mind to describe the scene, or the sensation, words that for a little while I rolled around my tongue feeling the weight and shape of them, before - unusually - tossing them away; pretty much like any Friday night, all that effort ending up pissed against the wall.

I'm in the Qantas club lounge in Changi airport writing this, waiting for my flight to be called: I'm on my way home.I feel tired, sore even, I've really pushed things the last days. It is a satisfying feeling though, used up in a good way, like you might feel after a long day of work, knowing you've done good stuff. I may not be freh, but I feel strong.

This last week and a bit I've travelled from Essa to Marrakech to Fes and then back to Casablanca. In Marrakech I spoiled myself by staying at a beautiful Riad, managed by a French lady and great local staff. One night there I was given an hour long massage by a woman with small but very soft hands. After my travels and travails it was just the thing. Later I ate a tagine on a table sprinkled with rose petals while a little fountain tinkled.

I walked the crowded lanes of the souk and by night found myself in the main square where wreaths of smoke lifted into the blue twilit sky as the many little makeshift restaurants cajoled the multitide if tourists to stop and sit for a kebab or kofta. They cried to each passing tourist, catching their eye they would implore them to try something. It was sound and movement and smiles as it is all good natured. In between were snake charmers with their cobras, and characters in silly outfits trying to flog a glass of water, or extract a dirham from you in taking their photo.

I travelled to Fes after days of Marrakech, tired after pushing myself to the limit, walking everywhere, all the big tourist sites as well as the restaurants and bars - Marrakech has some groovy places.

I had an interesting day, starting with being interviewed for Moroccan TV, then a suicide on the tracks, and interesting conversations with a French Algerian about politics, then a couple of Yank Peace Corp, and a Sudanese UN mine clearer. In Fes I was invited to a locals home for dinner: later I was invited as the honoured guest to come to a lavish engagement party. Throughout all this I had different problems to deal with - for a start I couldn't get any cash. Then I was dealing with airlines. And so on.

Marrakesh was all flash and glitter, even if a little down at heel; Fes was more reserved, conservative, more European in look, and perhaps more Arab in outlook. As he had been when I was in Casablanca, the King was in town - big news. And that's when I left.

Plane is calling - must go. More soon.

Egypt to Jordan

Tuesday 29/10/2007

I'm well into my trip now and past the stage where I want to describe every detail. I haven't got the time, I haven't got the patience, and in any case there has been so much, so many days thick with activity that I am tempted instead to write how we did blah, blah, blah; how at a certain place we saw yada, yada, yada. This is not to downplay what has been happening - it has been great. It is more that you realise that the sum of things is greater than the parts that make it up; that the glue that holds these moments together is as meaningful as the moments themselves.

Right here and now I sit on a beach at a place called Sawa, on the Sinai peninsula. I have been reading Milan Kundera while reclining on some cushions. This is a detail that I may have overlooked before, but which means something. It provides context to the experience, reading the prose of Kundera, about driving along French roads and his slow and winding dissertation on his environment - while I deel the fresh breeze in my face, while the sun beats down on this Egyptian beach and I contemplate whether to go for another dip, or not, or whether I should recline further and order a fruit cocktail. Decisions, decisions...

This little fragment may give a false impression of thi trip, which has been very hectic and on the go. Yet it's only a few days ago that I was similarly reclining on a delucca as it sailed down the Nile. Sometimes it would stop, whereupon we would dive into the cool blue waters of the Nile to cool off. At other times I would lay there as we cruised along, listening to my music or reading my book or playing cards with the regular sharps. On one occasion I took the till from the Nubian skipper and tacked the course down the Nile, feeling the rudder heavy in my grip as the wind filled the sails and all my strength was needed to change course. It was fun.

That night the same Nubians gathered by the fire we had built along with other felucca skippers and banging on their hand drums gave us a show, including us in the performance. It was great. We drank our beer until it was very dark and only the hardest drinkers were left - about 4 of us.

We went from there to Luxor, to Karnak, which is virtually a forest of huge stone columns, 343 of them, imposing and impressive. The next day a few of us took a hot air balloon over the valley of the Kings, before climbing aboard a donkey and climbing the steep hills that protect the valley, before descending into it by foot and checking out the tombs themselves - 3 of them anyway.

We caught the overnight train into Cairo, where we had a free day. I ended up having lunch with the Kiwi girls in one of the better parts of Cairo, before they dragged me back to the bazaar. There the touts tried to flog us everything, unashamedly telling us they wanted to take our money. In between they leered at the two girls - both young and attractive - before turning to me with a knowing smile: "you're a lucky man," they would say. I nodded my head: yes I'm lucky. Then with an edge to their smile that made the girls giggle they would add: "you have much power!" "Yes," I would answer, "I have much power."

Since we have travelled north to Sinai. It was a long bus ride spent listening to my iPod and playing cards. This has become a regular occurrence now - not since I was a kid on my Christmas holidays have I played so much cards - 500, Hearts, Gin-Rummy. These are serious contests that generally come down head to head between me and one of the cocky Kiwi girls.

Sinai is rugged territory, jagged limestone hills that jut out of a barren landscape. Mt Sinai is the big attraction, being the place where Moses supposedly received the 10 commandments from God.

Moses was obviously one fit dude, with the agility of a mountain goat. We climbed the steps - 3700 odd of them - which he did not have the benefit of back then. It's bloody hard with them, a steep, rugged climb that burns in the quads and the glutes and leaves you gasping for air - and this without having to hoist a couple of heavy stone tablets. I managed to dehydrate myself, which wasn't fun, but it was a great experience of unexpected beauty.

We returned via the alternate route, a less picturesque journey along a zig-zagging series of switchbacks in the dark, our little torches shining. Earlier I had met up with some Bedouins tending to their camels, lean, humourous men of great hospitality.

Now I am at the beach. It's a small resort of simple cane huts surrounding a central communal area. It is a necessary break after some tough days.

Last night we played cards again for about 6 hours, drinking Sakara, before playing some pool on a battle-scarred table. The breeze wafted through the open sides of the building, the stars twinkled overhead.

I don't know if there is much to add. Lately I've been doing some thinking. I'm loving it here but also look forward to many things I will return to. I don't know why it is, but that burning desire that always seemed to be so much of who I am has returned in full force. There is so much I want to do, so much I want to try and achieve and just have a crack at. I am both full and hungry; I look ahead and feel the future in me like something in the heart of my heart. I don't know what the oit of life is if it is not to try and do and ultimately experience; to squeeze every drop from it.

Maybe I'm raving - sitting on a beach far from home can do that to you. All is good - I look forward to all the sights I have yet to behold; but I look forward to my return also, to begin on all that I hope and desire.

Saturday 3/11/2007

Am in a little town in Jordan called Madaba. Tomorrow I fly back to Cairo, from where I head off to Morocco.

I'm on a tight schedule so will keep this brief - I expect I'll be able to write more from Cairo.

Since I last wrote I've been to Wadi Rum, most famous probably because of Lawrence of Arabia - this is were he operated.

From there we travelled to Petra, now one of the 7 man-made wonders of the world. It was spectacular and fascinating and hard work, made most memorable by getting lost among the high peaks with the girls - but more of that another time.

We checked out Karak castle - an old Crusaders castle - before travelling onto the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea was a fascinating, odd and fun experiencing, floating on the salt laden waters as if on a li-lo. Afterwards I had a mud pack applied to me - this was after a Turkish bath in Petra - so I'm making sure to indulge my senses.

Much along the same lines I've just come from having a ritual shave at a local barber, reclining while he l;athered me up, before whipping out the cut-throat razor. With a few swipes of the blade the growth of 3 weeks was gone, leaving me looking young and innocent again. This was a great relief as I was looking too rugged for my own liking - perhaps like one of the prophets that were so thick on the ground here once upon a time. The other day in Egypt one of the touts even said I looked like an Arab, though Hannah thought much more like a Viking with my golden beard. Anyway it's off now, and the highlight of my day.

I've said little, but there is much to say. I look forward to Morocco, and striking out on my own. I couyld not possibly have managed all we have in this time by myself, but ultimately I do miss doing it myself. There is large part ego in that I think - I'm so used to managing for myself that I am affronted when someone else does it for me. I've got my merit badge in travelling, I don't need my hand held. More substantially are the way I am directed, rather than the way the adventure leads. The biggest thing though is that you are insulated from much when you travel in a group. For me part of the essential experience is to get up close and personal with the local culture, to see and feel all, the good, the bad and the ugly. It's the difference between being a tourist and a traveller (he said pompously). Anyway, I'm on my own from tomoroow - I'll miss the social aspects, but all else will be sweet.

Everything is pretty sweet anyway. Driving away from Wadi Rum the other day I looked out the window while listening to my music. Around me others were half asleep, the couples quietly talking. For some indefinable reason I felty a powerful sense of wellbeing, as if all was well in the world, and all would ever be, no matter what tribulations may come. I felt as if at that moment had you poked holes in my skin then light would emerge.

I still have sense of that. I am content almost, which is odd. Contentment is something I've always been wary of, thinking it was the enemy of achievement - why strive if you have all you need? I don't feel that now. I feel like a skier poised at the top of a long run, surveying the way ahead and excited by the challenges in view, before taking the plunge.

I'll chill out in Morocco, and then I'll come home. See you then.

Aswan

Sunday 21/10/07

I sit on the rooftop terrace of the hotel we are staying at in Aswan. It's bloody hot - the hottest day since arriving in Egypt - but I am shaded here, and a pleasant breeze blows off the nearby Nile river.

It's not even a week since I left Melbourne, but it feels much longer than that. Much more so than I expected I have switched off from the world I so recently left - it seems far diatant, both in distance and time.

These last few days have been a mad rush, with much too much to go into detail here, so I'll summarise.

On Thursday afternoon I caught up with the group I am touring with - 10 of us altogether, plus leader. We went to a local mosque later that day, and then the khan kalili bazaar. I bought some silver, which is ver cheap here, and fought off the touts trying to sell me everything else. "How can I take your money from you?" the say. "You've alrady got it," I answer.

That night we had a group dinner and then a shared sheesha - water pipe - an interesting experience I won't be repeating.

Friday was a visit to the pyramids at Giza, followed by a visit to the museum.

Hard to know what to write about the pyramids. They sit there dumbly, monumental and impassive, dominating the vista. I looked upon them, knowing that they had stood there for thousands of years, huge and timeless. To be within touching distance was a strange sensation.

I went into the second pyramid, stooping to descend first, before it climbed again, opening finally into the burial chamber. It was warm and sticky insde, and some found it hard to breathe. It is certainly not made for those claustrophobic or long-limbed, but it had to be done.

Checked out the Sphinx, before going onto the museum, where the morbid highlight was the mummies room.

That night we caught the train to Aswan. After checking in we went for a cruise down the Nile.

Aswan is a small city made pretty by it's location on the Nile. The Nile is broad, and surprisingly blue. We chugged along the river while a Nubian elder gave us the history of the area. We stopped thewn and pulled up at a bank upstream, where a few of us went swimming in the famous waters of the Nile river. On the way back we stopped again for a camel ride in the blazing heat, my mount Lulu plodding on despite my encouragement to overtake the camels ahead.

Last night we went to the home of a local tour operator to watch the RU World Cup. The match was a dud, but the occasion was great, drinking beer and talking about all manner of subjects.

At 3am we were up this morning to travel to Abu Simbel - a spectacular place. We slept on the bus on the 3 hour trip there, travelling in convoy to protect against terrorists.

Abu Simbel is a huge temple carved out of the side of a cliff. It was originally located elsewhere, but moved when the Aswan dam was built to prevent it being inundated. It was cut into pieces like a jigsaw, transported, then put together again far awa.

The engineering is hugely impressive, but overshadowed by the temple itself. You have to admire the sheer chutzpah of the Pharaohs, they thought big and then made it happen - but none more so than the greatest of the Pharaohs, Ramses II.

Ramses is the guy who drove out the Jews from Egypt - Moses included - way back when. He ruled for about 60 years, had 34 wives and something like 120 children - and conquered many new territories.

He was one of the mummies I had seen in the museum, wizened, shrunken, clearly seen better days. Even in life he was apparently quite a small guy, but this temple - and many others - are monument to the sheer overwhelming ego of the guy. He was the main man and knew it.

The temple is fronted by 4 huge statues, each an heroic representation of Ramses himself. They are colossal and mesmerising.

That's the exterior - go inside and there are More surprises. Large columns support a high ceiling hewn from the stone. On ever surface there are carvings of battle scenes and Ramses, many still in colours now muted but surprisingly vivid. Looking at them now, you imagine them fresh and in brilliant, vibrant colour as they must have been once.

From there we went to the Phylo temple, very different, set on an island in the middle of the Nile. Likewise the carvings here are remarkably well preserved, with the bonus that the crowds that have thronged to most of the sites we have visited were here absent. It was serene and peaceful.

That brings us to now.

I should make mention of our group. We have 2 Kiwi girls, expats living in London, an American couple, a Brit living in Brisbane with his Aussie girlfriend, plus the rest of us, all Aussies. It's a good, friendly group, we've already shared many laughs together. As always in the group dynamic things evolve naturally, and I find myself cruising with the Kiwi girls.

An Australian in Cairo...

It sounds like the start of a joke: there's an Australian sitting in an Egyptian hotel lobby reading a German poet...

You're tired, weary really, you've been walking all day, your feet are sore, they may even be a blister or two thanks to those new sandals, and you're done, that's it, finito - or so you figure for the moment. You return to your hotel room, shower, change into a fresh shirt, a pair of shorts - now what?

The room is no place it stay, it's dismal and dark and noisy. And so you gather up a pile of books and toss them into your laundry bag and head downstairs.

You are greeted by the waiter who looks like a friendly history teacher, bristling moustache and sensitive eyes now crinkling into a smile. Welcome, he says, how are you today? He likes you, but perhaps it is because you overtipped him arriving, not having smaller change. No matter, you'll take it, and in any case, you like him well enough yourself. What can I get you? He asks.

A beer I think, I tell him - it is beer o'clock, just. A Stella, he asks - it is what he got me yesterday, the Egyptian version. No, something different. Sakara he says decisively, t is very good. I nod my head - sounds good to me.

He leaves and I pick up my bag of books. I look first at my Lonely Planet, but by now I have read it so thoroughly I could recite sections of it word for word. Then I pick up the other book, a little bound notebook I have been carrying with me for years, now coming apart at the seams. Leaving home it was the book I threw into my bag at the last minute. Inside are the collected words of hundreds of people I have copied down over a lifetime because they have struck me in some way, or at some time. I open it at random, and falls open to Rilke:

You don't know nights of love? Don't petals of soft words float upon your blood? Are there no places on your body that keep remembering like eyes?

My waiter returns with beer. He anticipates my every desire, like every good waiter. Somehow I missed lunch. I forgot to eat. Strange. But he has brought me a plate of carrot and cucumber cut into matchsticks, much healthier fare than I would normally partake. I incline my head to him, shukran - thank-you.

I read some more and then the front door opens and more guests arrive. My tour, I think, they have the look. What look? Western, affluent, maybe a little out of kilter. One is a woman. She speaks testily to the concierge. I figure she is already feeling the foreignness of all this, is confronted, and it all comes out in her hasty words. She'll be okay.

Sitting nearby are two men speaking in Arabic. One is older, tall and bald, speaking words I cannot understand but in a tone that is perfectly clear - the tone of a man used to talking and being listened to. The other man is younger, a full head of lush hair; he drinks tea, hot and sweet in the Egyptian fashion.

I lay aside my notebook. Dusk is falling. Perhaps I'll go cheesy tonight I think, go the full tourist experience and dine on the Nile. Comme ce, comme ca... The traffic passes, incessant, like the tides. The traffic seems quieter though, I think, than it does in my room when I am laying there trying to sleep. I wonder at that. Perhaps it is the night. They say the ocean seems louder at night and they're right, whoever they are, I've never been able to explain it. Or perhaps the windows here are soundproofed when mine upstairs are not...

Another Sakara, sir?

Pause. Why not?

That was last night. It is the next day now. I slept well despite the noise and woke much refreshed. I was woken once by the muezzin in the mosque nearby, but there was something familiar in it I enjoyed. Not so in Istanbul, I remember, cursing like a bitter infidel at being woken 5am every morning...

I was out early. It was pleasant, low twenties, a light breeze. There was a smog induced haze hanging in the air, though equally it could be from all the cigarettes they smoke here. I wandered a hundred metres or so to the local equivalent of a Food Plus, and not much different. Loitering in the empty driveways were about eight in blue uniforms waiting for custom to arrive - at which point they leap into action like an F1 pit crew, one topping up the fuel, another cleaning the front window and another the rear, while another supervises and no doubt gives handy suggestions. Labour costs must be very low here.

I went inside. Looking to void the hotel breakfast - stale bread and cold boiled eggs - I ordered an escargot from the pasrty counter, and a surprisingly good coffee - certainly the best since home. That done I've been walking.

One thing I've come to understand is that Cairo is a nocturnal society. Last night as I walked down the main drag the streets were choked with people. This morning it is much quieter, and the shops are shut - which explains why I am here.

Soon I'll head off to the Australian embassy to make inquiries about voting. This afternoon I join my tour. I expect I'll be writing much less - you have been spoilt - and I'm happy with that. I enjoy this though, it's how I operate. I look at the world and receive this images through my eyes, they processed inside and then re-interpreted in my own words - much like we used to write school essays really. From all this though I find some understanding, or so I argue, and I crave thart. Whether I write or not these words will still be flowing through me - it's just a case of whether I get to record them. We'll see.

Walking like an Egyptian

At last Cairo. It's only yesterday I left yet I feel disorientated
already, from the travel and the stopovers, and from the lack of sleep
- as I write I have slept no more since I last wrote, but feel strong.
All the same, I figure I'll sleep well tonight.

It's getting on towards 7pm local time here, Tuesday - I think. That
makes it about 3am Wednesday back home. I arrived about 3.30 this
afternoon after my flight from Doha, and after a few anxious moments
was relieved to find my bag had followed every step of the convoluted
way. I was collected at the airport and very happily sat in the back
seat and watched the world go by as we travelled into the city.

Someone once said that the first view of a new city is a bit like the
first kiss with a new sweetheart - there's a lot riding on it. If
that's true then it's unfortunate that our first view mostly is on the
way in from the airport - which is rarely the most auspicious.

It was the same again earlier. As I reclined in the back seat, and
tuned out the Arabic music the driver insisted on singing along too, I
looked out the window. My first view was of rows of slightly decrepit
apartment buildings, every one of them with a wide variety of
satellite dishes sitting atop. Ahead of me the traffic merged in scary
patterns while the driver steered with one hand and chatted on his
mobile with the other. As in many places I've been to - Delhi comes to
mind - lane markers are indicative only, and more often than not two
lanes of road become three lanes of traffic.

Most of the cars were old Renaults or Fiats, mixed up with newer
Hyundais, none of which seemed in best repair - not surprising given
the driving habits. There was much tooting of horns, but in general
the mayhem was calmly received, situation normal. I noticed that there
were few traffic lights to regulate this near carnage, with white
uniformed police instead directing traffic hither and thither
according to a logic I could not discern.

We passed by some large painted representations of past battles,
glorious victories no doubt, some ancient but more modern, an
interpretation of history the Israelis may take issue with. Nearby was
a large poster of President Mubarak smiling benevolently upon his
people - later we passed by another with him in dark sunglasses,
making him appear like an Egyptian gangster - a not innapropriate
analogy many would say.

In general the buildings we passed by looked very much worse for wear,
with the worst of them crumbling, and all of them looking as if they
could do with a good scrub.

Finally we made it to my hotel, right on Ramsis street. I wandered
upstairs to my room, which I would describe as being on the ordinary
side of ordinary. Still, it was a great relief to see. I showered,
changed into some fresh clothes, consulted my map, and took up.

It was my intention to try out Khalil Khalid, the bazaar, but it began
to rain. Instead I wandered aimlessly, taking in the sights and
sounds. The sounds were particularly insistent - loudly tooting horns,
joined soon after by the muezzin at the nearby mosque calling all
worshippers to prayer. I crossed the road, taking my life into my
hands in doing so, but trusting in superior reflexes if push came to
shove. This I have learned already: when in Egypt, walk like an
Egyptian. And just to be safe, try and keep a local between you and
the oncoming traffic.

There were hundreds of people going to and fro, and thousands of
different sights. A roadside trader with some bathroom scales would in
exchange for a few Egyptian pounds weigh you. Another tried to flog
socks. I passed by a stall where the cook smiled at me and suggested I
stop. Later I said, smiling. He smiled back, and muttered the Arabic
equivalent of later my foot. I was greeted left and right, welcome,
where are you from. At a roadside barbecue plumes of smoke billowed
from the chicken kebabs being cooked while an appreciative crowd
looked on. Men smoked water pipes serenely in little nooks, while
others gathered together drinking tea and discussing the football
scores or women or whatever it is they speak of here. It was all
happening.

I returned back the way I had came, the road now greasy with the rain
from built up oil and dirt. I write this while I toy with my dinner,
soon it will be bed, before another day tomorrow.

It's now tomorrow, Wednesday, mid-afternoon. I'm sitting in an
internet cafe in a hotel nicer than mine hile a couple of blonde
German girls beside me giggle Germanically - if that's not oxymoron.

I hit the sack at about 8pm last night. I may be 5 floors up, but such
was the cacophony of noise from below that I hooked up my iPod to some
speakers and fell asleep to my chill mix. I woke up once to a
thunderstorm, like sheets of iron being bent before a mighty crack. I
woke up later again, so awake that I turned on the light and took up
my guidebook before writing a letter.

Today I have walked. I went to the Muslim quarter of Cairo, following
wherever my feet led, without real intent or purpose, simply to see
and experience.

Once again I was greeted by many, hello, welcome. A few shook my hand,
broadly smiling. I stopped to look at some of the sights, local
butchers hacking a joints of meat on a bench made from a tree stump.
Stalls of vegetables and breads. Dogs, much like the pariah dogs of
India, prowling around, and later many cats - as seems right for Egypt
- including kittens gambolling around. A kid on a bike with a large
tray of unleavened bread balanced on his head pedalled by. A guy
riding a mule, a horse pulling a cart.

Throughout it rained sporadically. Many of the roads I walked down
were the back streets, which with the rain and the traffic quickly
became large puddles and a slurry of mud. I stepped carefully, taking
it all in, remembering again what it is like to experience this.
Everywhere I looked there was something different, and everything I
saw asked questions of me in some way. It is so foreign, so different,
but then I imagine you transplant a local into Melbourne and he would
find as much to wonder about.

I was back in a groove. My resistance to being on a tour is pure
pride, just about, my travellers pride - I don't need to be led, I can
find my own way. Sure, it's a bit macho but I can't help that. And so
as I walked I felt that sense of discovery again, of seeing things
unknown to me. It's not that I forgotten what it was like - I travel
to do this again - it's just that remembering something is very
different from the doing of it.

I'll cut it short now. I visited a few mosques, checked out Old Cairo,
including the Hanging Church, have been shouted a few cups of tea from
gracious shopkeepers, and managed to buy some papyrus, haggling for my
life.

Doha

I'm living on coffee right now, and it's not like any coffee you'll get in Melbourne - not even in the office. Still, it's all I have. As I figure it, except for a few hours of light sleep, I've been up for the last 32 hours, and likely to be up for another 12 or 14 if I can manage it

I'm in Doha now after a 7 hour flight from Singapore. It's about 7am here - about 2pm back home. I'm stuck here for another 5+ hours before I take off again.

I may have complained about Changi, but the chickens have come home to roost - and so soon. One day I'll learn to keep my mouth shut. Doha airport is no Changi. It takes about 6-7 minutes to do the circuit here, and that includes stopping off at the duty free.

It's a polyglot mix of nationalities here. That's one thing you notice when you take one of the non-western routes. Barring a few South Africans, who I avoided (as you do), and a sprinkling of French, the entire plane was Arab or Asian.

It's more eclectic in the terminal. Unlike Dubai, where you can't poke a stick, there are few of the sheiks in their all white robes and turban - though there are a couple of kids dressed so in robes that look freshly pressed from the laundry.

There are a few women in burkhas, but then a few who are not as well. For some reason the French are well represented, and generally spotted a mile off thanks to some indefinable gallic quality. I bumped into a big fellow from the north of England and had a chat - those northerners love their Aussies. Also bumped into a couple of jockey sized geezers I had a few words with. But that's about it - no Aussies.

Around us is the city of Doha. Judging by the view in it is a neat, low-rise city. The terrain is flat and pale, sun-bleached perhaps, off-white to a very pale sand colour. Even the buildings are in the same tones. It looks like a giant grinder has chewed up lot of white boulders and spat out the powdery residue to cover the countryside.

It is sunny, the sky more white than blue, and hazy with the increasing heat - it was 27 when we landed at 6am.

We got off the plane and were taken by bus to the terminal, 6-7 minutes away. Right now I'm trying to figure out ways to keep myself occupied, and wondering how I can manage some rest. Guess I'll sleep soon enough.

Next stop is Cairo, that's the good news. I left home in two minds about this trip. Recent events - right up to an hour before I left - had me questioning the wisdom of all this: but by then the die had been cast.

I've found though that the further I travel from home the more excited I become. Perhaps it is a case of out of sight out of mind, but I don't think so.

It is as if I have been infused with new blood which, despite my fatigue, has reinvigorated my spirit. Maybe it is some kind of muscle memory, habit, the familiarity of the adventure afoot, and the necesity to be switched on cuts in. You've done this before, you'll do it again - and isn't it great?

I figure that once I've hit Cairo and have a good nights sleep under my belt I'll be raring to go. The only possible complication is that I'm on a tour initially. I think that's a good thing, but I'm not used to it - God knows I don't like being told what to do, and dislike being led when perhaps there are more interesting byways to explore solo. But then I'll just have to trust to their better judgement and let myself go. It may even be good for me!

I can't think of anything more to say now, except that it seems strange, as always it does, that I can leave home and so soon be in places I could never have imagined. Bloody matvellous really.

Until next time - ciao...