Travelling: incongruities #2

I love to discover incongruities when I travel, as I told you. Like the coffee-seller using a shiny Italian espresso machine in Aleppo's medieval souq, I like this image of two guys working a Turkish doner kebap stand in Beijing. It wasn't something I expected to see in downtown Beijing. For me, it was out of context, that's all. And there lies its disarming charm. For me, food is another source of joy when I travel. And I enjoy eating 'foreign' foods in countries to find out how that culture has adapted and reinterpreted another culture's dish to suit its taste. Although nothing beats trying food that's typical of a country's cuisine, those dishes that are representative of a culture and identity, that its people are proud of, that are served with love. I'll never forget my first time in Paris. My friend Sandrine invited us to stay at her place and we arrived to a breakfast of warm croissants, fresh from the bakery. Sure we'd had croissants in Sydney, even in Abu Dhabi, before. But these were Parisian croissants our French friend was proudly serving us in Paris. And to us they were the most delicious, flaky, buttery croissants we'd ever eaten. I can smell them now.

Travelling: incongruities #1

One of travel's delights for me is discovering wonderful incongruities. Like this coffee-seller in Aleppo Souq. While there's nothing unusual about finding coffee-sellers in Syrian souqs, they're usually armed with a traditional coffeepot or thermos, tiny ceramic or plastic cups, and a container of fresh water to wash them in. What's so incongruous about this image is that this young entrepreneur is operating a shiny Italian espresso machine. It's somehow misplaced in a souq that's almost medieval. But why should it seem out of context? It's 2007 after all. And maybe it's not so incongruous to you? Perhaps it's only me. Because while I've been to souqs and bazaars all across the Middle East, I can't recall seeing one with an espresso stand. (I'm discounting Istanbul's Grand Bazaar where there are several contemporary cafés under its vaulted ceilings and other modernities all around.) So while this scene makes me smile, perhaps it's not of any interest to you. The guy's coffee is great, by the way.

Travelling: textures

There are a few reasons as to why I keep thinking about that turtle crossing the road in Syria: one, as I said, was because I'd been reading about Freya Stark's 'virtues of travelling'; I've also been thinking about the things that make travel exciting (unexpected events, the element of surprise, those serendipitous moments, incongruities); and I've been thinking about textures. Since that moment with the turtle, I've not been able to get an image out of my mind... more often than the picture of the turtle slowing crossing that Syrian country road, another image persistently enters my mind. It's a close-up of the turtle's shell, and the extraordinarily beautiful texture of the thing. And like a slide show screening in my head, a whole array of memories of textures in close-up follow... sculpted desert sands (Liwa, Mhmed), seashells on a beach (Ajman, Essaouira, Monkey Mia), and the shiny slippery white of marble rocks polished by the steps of time (Dubrovnik, Hvar, and a host of archaeological sites that have blurred in my mind).

Travelling: virtues put to the test, example 1

Our 'travellers' virtues' were put to the test on our recent road trip in Syria. We'd hired a driver as my partner and I were both busy researching and shooting pics and had enough to do (although my partner reluctantly ended up driving a few days anyway). We were cruising along a remote country road in the northern Kurdish region of Syria - the scenery was spectacular. We'd just dropped off a kindly, craggy-faced old Bedouin man to whom we'd given a ride, when we spotted a small turtle crossing the road. We asked our driver to stop the car and we scrambled out to take a look at the little guy. The three of us stood and watched the turtle ever-so-slowly crawl across the road to seek cover in the undergrowth. Our driver said: "I wish I knew what turtles ate. I'd take him home." We had a few ideas as to what turtles might eat but, as fond as we'd become of our driver, we weren't about to share them.

Travelling: virtues of a traveller

I'm reading the biography of the great female traveller Freya Stark, 'Passionate Nomad: the life of Freya Stark', because I'm writing a book on Syria and Freya spent time there. I'm up to an enlightening chapter about Freya's time in Yemen when she was the leader of an archaeological expedition. She intensely disliked her two British women travelling companions because they weren't interested in the locals and learning about their culture; they were only interested in the piles of rocks they were there to dig up. As a result, Freya formed a list of 'seven cardinal virtues for a traveller' which still strike me as being relevant: "1) To admit standards that are not one's own standards and discriminate the values that are not one's own values; 2) to know how to use stupid men and inadequate tools with equanimity; 3) to be able to dissociate oneself from one's bodily sensations; 4) to be able to take rest and nourishment as and when they come; 5) to love not only nature but human nature also; 6) to have an unpreoccupied, observant, and uncensorious mind - in other words, to be unselfish; and 7) to be as calmly good-tempered at the end of the day as at the beginning." What do you think? Is Freya missing anything?

What happened to the the journey?

I asked: what happened to 'the journey'? Is the process of getting 'there' no longer as important as it once was? My friend Greg says: "Get me there as painlessly as possible. That is still important, but airports are airports, and other than the quality of food, and perhaps the entertainment system, planes are planes. Once landed, then the journey becomes, or can become, important... land and sea travel afford many more 'memory' possibilities. Running around Saigon in a 1968 Honda 90cc motorcycle with two duffle bags hanging off each arm (passenger). Taking a small long tail to go to Ko Lanta Island in South Thailand. Taking the train from Kuala Lumpur up through Malaysia and into Thailand. Trekking across 6 countries in Africa in the back of a Bedford truck. Taking the subway from Charles De Gaulle into Paris. Taking any TGV fast train in France. Riding around Melbourne in a Tram. Hitching to the step pyramids of Sakarah (Egypt) in old diesel lorry, sitting on a crate of dates, a chicken on my lap. I think ground transportation has elements of excitement, adventure, and most importantly a closer look at people and their culture in a 'real' every-day environment." I found this photo I took on a road trip in Morocco. Greg, is this what you mean?

It's the people you meet

It's the people you meet that makes travel cool for you. Not star sights or great restaurants or lively bars, but it's the people you meet at those places, the people you meet on your moves, that makes travel so great. These were the results of my 'what makes travel cool for you?' poll: 80% said it was the people they met; 65% said it was the things they saw; 50% said it was the places they went, stuff they did and what they ate; 45% said it was where they drank; and 25% said it was the stuff they took home and how they moved. If people are so important to our travels, why don't guidebooks tell us more about the people of the places we're going to? If we knew more about the kinds of people we might expect to meet in a place, I wonder if it would inspire and excite us more about that destination? Maybe because there's less written about the 'people factor', because our meetings are 'serendipitous', because there's that element of surprise... maybe that's why our encounters with people on our travels are so memorable. Like this water-seller we met in Alexandria. Would the impact of his surprising warmth and smile been lessened had I have read that I might meet friendly water-sellers in the backstreets of Alexandria?

Dubai: best backstreets vol 2

Not far from Dubai's gritty Karama and Satwa 'hoods is Al-Musalla Rd, Bur Dubai, the city's ‘Little India’. The side streets are lined with Bollywood tape shops and boutiques selling bejewelled and sequinned numbers modelled by kitsch mannequins. There are cheap Pakistani, Azerbaijani and Russian eateries, and Indian sweet shops. There's a tea shop one block from Al-Fahidi roundabout with plastic stools on the pavement out front. On Fridays big groups of expat workers from the Sub-Continent gather outside to share stories from home and, in season, watch cricket on the black and white television. Equally as interesting, in the nearby neighbourhood of Mankhool, near Al-Adhid Rd, local families live in big villas with half a dozen cars out front, there are diminutive white mosques on the corners, and children ride bicycles down the quiet street. This is as close as Dubai gets to an ordinary middle-class 'burb. If you're staying at a beach resort, it's worth wandering around Umm Suqeim, between Jumeirah Beach Hotel and Umm Suqeim beach. In this low-key Emirati neighbourhood of whitewashed single-storey houses and bougainvillea-filled gardens, you'll be sharing the sandy lanes with straying chickens and scrawny cats. Don't worry, it's okay to help yourself to a cup of water from the coolers out front. That's what they're there for.

Dubai: best backstreets vol 1

Travellers to Dubai tend to come for sun, sand and shopping. Few seem interested in exploring anything more than the hotel beach and nearest mall. Yet, like Hong Kong, Dubai's backstreets are endlessly fascinating. While the city's critics complain that Dubai has no culture or soul, they only need to get out of their five star resorts or luxury apartments and wander the backstreets to find the 'real' Dubai. On weekends we like to stroll around Satwa, a laidback neighbourhood of vibrant-coloured houses with gates painted with palm trees. Only a block behind the sleek skyscrapers of Sheikh Zayed Rd, Satwa has a narrow main street lined with second-hand stores, Indian sweet shops and Pakistani eateries, and in the evenings it's just as bustling as the busiest souqs. In the side streets you'll find hole-in-the-wall Afghani bakeries and on Fridays the expat Filipino workers play volleyball on the vacant sandy lots just behind the plush luxury hotels. Not far away, Karama's gritty backstreets are some of Dubai's poorest and yet some of the city's friendliest. Shopkeepers chat on the footpath outside their stores and neighbours stand around on street corners sharing news from home late into the night - the guys, freshly-showered and relaxed, with just a sarong wrapped around their waists. Nowhere in Dubai will you find such community spirit. And such great Goan curries.

Hong Kong: what's to love about the backstreets

I've been thinking about what I love about Hong Kong's backstreets: dried seafood stores with their just-arrived produce laid out on the pavement; down-to-earth eateries with delicious glazed ducks hanging in their windows; medicinal herbalists selling snake skins, animal tails, herbs, potions, and other oddities we can only guess at; tiny shops carving bespoke wooden, ivory and jade seals, a unique souvenir; cluttered second hand stores with whimsical bric-a-brac waiting to be discovered; self-serve bakeries where you take a tray and tongs to select your snacks of choice from an array of tasty Chinese buns and golden Portuguese tarts; textile shops crammed with shoppers bargaining for rolls of gaudy fabrics; tea shops with tins of aromatic teas lining the walls; tiny temples heady with incense like Man Ho Temple, Hong Kong's oldest... What do you like?

Hong Kong: it's all about the backstreets

It's all about the backstreets, isn't it? Whether it's Hong Kong (pictured), Shanghai or Dubai, it's the backstreets of those cities that are the most fascinating. That's where I like to think we find what's 'authentic' - a term in itself that's up for discussion, right? But to really see how people live, we need to get off the high streets and stylish boulevards. I'll admit I love my galleries, restaurants and shops, but I also like to leave the chic streets and get lost. The more I travel the more inclined I am to leave the guidebook at the hotel and just take a map and phrasebook. I'm bored with the term 'off the beaten track' (can we try to find another?) but getting off the tourist trail and wandering around an everyday neighbourhood, even an unfashionable suburban mall, can be just as compelling, don't you think? My favorite big cities to get lost in would have to be Hong Kong, Beijing, Dubai, Damascus, Mumbai, Marrakesh, Milan, Venice, Antwerp and Amsterdam. What are yours?

Hong Kong: local colour, part 2

On the subject of 'colour', I still think of Hong Kong as the classic 'vibrant cosmopolitan Asian city'. Don't you? Bangkok and Tokyo may share that title, but Hong Kong has something special, an effervescence other cities don't have. The city may not have the flamboyance of Shanghai or the audacity of Dubai but Hong Kong has a certain sizzle all its own. Once a city other Asian cities aspired to be, a city every traveller wanted to see, I wonder now if Hong Kong hasn't lost its appeal to some. Revisiting Hong Kong a couple of years ago, the city's biographer Jan Morris said: "Not long ago Hong Kong was one of travel's absolutes - history's absolutes, too. A city-state like no other, spectacularly unique, with the tallest buildings, the most extravagant shops, the grandest hotels, the busiest port and the most terrific airport - a marvellous anomaly, a historical epitome, a boast, a marvel and a show, whirling away night and day in the South China Sea. Traveller, just look at it now!" Her description of Hong Kong could apply to Shanghai or Dubai, but is that still how we see Hong Kong?

Bangkok: local colour, part 1

I'm always looking for colour when I travel, whether it's that sense of vibrancy, energy and immediacy of life on the streets, or a sense of 'local colour', that the neighbourhood I'm exploring is real, gritty and authentic, or simply the riot of colour and sound that can be experienced in cities like Hong Kong, Tokyo and Bangkok. Like this street in Bangkok's Chinatown. Do you know what I mean?

Thailand: as imagined

Don't you love it when you travel and arrive at a place that's exactly as you had imagined? Do you think to yourself "this is exactly how I imagined"? This image of little houses shaded by palm trees against a backdrop of limestone hills near Khao Sam Roi Yot national park was the Thailand of my imagination. My Thailand had nothing to do with hammocks on white sand beaches. Nor blue skies obviously because it was drizzling and moments later the rain was pelting down. The thing I find fascinating about travel is that, like a good film, it's as much about having your expectations met as is it is about the incongruities, chance encounters and serendipitous moments. What do you think?

Thailand: the missing palm trees

I located my missing palm trees. I knew I hadn't imagined them. They're in Thailand, on the coast somewhere between Hua Hin and Khao Sam Roi Yot national park. We'd hired a car in Hua Hin and driven down to the park to see the limestone hills, the monkeys, and the amazing bird life. On the drive back, we followed the coast as much as we could, stopping at creamy sand beaches and tiny fishing villages. It started to rain. I remember thinking at the time that the dramatic contrast between the gray-blue sky and the rust-red soil reminded me of Broome in the north-west of Australia. That's why I took this picture. So how did this memory converge with my Moroccan one? Does that happen to your travel memories?

Morocco: how my memory deceives me

I was wrong about those palm trees that I told you about. The three palm trees on the road to Mhmed near the edge of the Sahara. Take a look. I'm amazed by my memory and how it deceives me at times. How is it that I remember the boy's face below, that I vividly recall those moments and see him in my mind? Yet my memory of the palm trees is fuzzy. Yet I do remember three palm trees rising from the one base... where were those palm trees?

Morocco: the people you meet, part 3

On the road from Zagora to Mhmed, near the edge of the Sahara, we met these children. We'd stopped to take a photo of three palm trees, fanned out as if growing from the same trunk. A group of cute kids ran to the car, their little hands grasping for whatever we had to give them... candies, oranges, gum, coins... When we'd distributed what we had they ran away, but two stayed... out of curiosity? Or humanity? The child on the left just kidded around, pulling faces, smiling... the one on the right studied us inquisitively. His wise gaze has stayed with me. I wonder if we'll meet again some day. On our travels.

Syria: the people you meet, part 2

We'd been searching for Qasr al Heir Al Sharqi, the isolated ruins of a magnificent Umayyad palace, some 120 kilometers in the desert north-east of Palmyra, Syria, and we'd found them. After a failed attempt the day before, we were elated. At the end of our ambles we saw two young boys striding across the desert toward us. One, who was the caretaker of the castle, was named Mohammed. The other was his cousin. Also named Mohammed. The first Mohammed had come to collect our money, give us our tickets, and write our names in a book. He spoke perfect English: yes, we were the only people to visit that day, and, yes, he'd met our Dutch friends there the day before, and he was most impressed with their motorbikes. He asked us for a ride, just to the intersection near their house and on the way we discussed his career aspirations. We were still smiling to ourselves when we slowed to let a herd of sheep cross the road. The friendly Bedouin shepherd, sitting casually on the back of his white donkey, smiled and waved to us. His name could have been Mohammed. It didn't matter. That smile, that wave... that was all we needed. As I asked before, have you had those feelings on your travels?

Alexandria: the people you meet, part 1

It's people that make my travels so memorable. And I don't necessarily mean the people I befriend. Sometimes it's a person I merely see on my travels, an exchange of knowing looks as we walk down the same lane, as we leisurely stroll the same route, as we nudge each other out of the way on a busy shopping street. Sometimes it's a person I meet fleetingly - in a souq, in a restaurant, on the road - someone I may never see again. And yet, that moment - a smile, a stare, a wave, a tear - may leave an everlasting impression. That sounds corny I know. But it's true. I'll never forget the slight smile and glint in the eye of the woman on the right as we passed each other in the backstreets of Alexandria. Do you have those memories from your travels?

Taroudant: the hot chip man

Taroudant is a wonderful walled town east of Agadir on the way to Ouarzazate in Morocco. If you're doing a road trip from Marrakesh to the Sahara make sure you stop overnight. There's a small bustling souq that rarely sees foreigners, and yet the stallholders have a relaxed demeanour. The best buy here is handmade leather sandals. But that's not what I want to tell you. On the main square is a man - a man with a mouthful of shiny white teeth who is exceedingly generous with his smiles. He cooks up fresh hot potato crisps in a wok-like deep-fryer. He's just as generous with his servings - and with the salt. It was chilly the evening we bought our chips from him, wrapped in paper. But I'm not sure what I remember most... the chips or his smile. Both warmed our souls.

Aleppo: souq pharmacy

This is a little shop that's typical of many in Aleppo's atmospheric souq, selling everything from medicinal herbs and dried lizard skins to Clairol hair colors and loofahs for the hammam. it's a bit like a Boots pharmacy really, only the service is better.

Have you ever tried to carry your groceries on your head? What's the best strategy?

Marrakesh souq midday Friday

This is Marrakesh souq around midday Friday, when everyone is at prayers. It's the only time you ever really notice the light filtering through the roof and how wide the 'narrow' lanes are. When the souq is in business it's chaotic. A cacophony of colour, sounds, and smells. You can't think. You can't move. You can't do anything except get caught up in the chaos and commotion of the place. Can you handle it?

Morocco: Marrakesh Mona Lisa

What do you think of her? She's beautiful, right? She's like the Mona Lisa, is she not? No matter where I walk, her eyes follow me. I want to tell you where to find her but I'd rather you discover her for yourself. That's the thing I hate about guidebooks... if I was was writing a guidebook I'd have to mark her out on a map, write an essay about signage/graffiti in Marrakesh, and create a walking tour so you could locate her. But don't you want to discover her for yourself? Go look. Do you know where she is?

Aleppo: no practicalities

I want to share with you the things I find cool when I travel. The things I can't share with you in the guidebooks I write. Take this scene from the Aleppo souq. It's two in the afternoon and this man's asleep at his shop. It's a cane shop. And they certainly look like nice canes. But that's not the point. I can't write about a cane shop in a guidebook. Who wants to buy canes? Canes don't make great souvenirs. And regardless, including this man's little cane shop would be a headache. It doesn't have a name. There's no phone number. I can't even remember which alley it was on, so how do I answer the editor's query about the practicalities (you know, that practical information in fine print). But what I want to tell you is to make sure you wander the Aleppo souq during siesta when the shopkeepers are taking their naps. You won't be hassled. You won't have to fight your way past boys on donkeys. And you'll witness these moments. A slice of souq life. Of humanity. They're touching. These are the moments that make travel cool for me. Tell me about your cool travel moments.