Blog updated, on hiatus for now.

Entries on Barga, Pisa, Roma 1, Roma 2, have been posted in the September section - my travelogue of 2007 is basically complete. So what will you be seeing in 2008 here?

Well, I've been in Britain for almost two months now, and I notice my only post has been about New Zealand! Homesick? Perhaps a little. I'm still travelling though, for a good while yet.

I have had several experiences I have felt were almost deserving of a blog entry. They include: escorting a bleeding drunk youth home in Newcastle; Ceidlhs and Scottish folk music nights in Newcastle and Glasgow; visiting my great-grandparents' graves; looking for stray golf balls at Gourock Golf Club with two adolescents who claimed they were drug-dealers; packing gourmet smoked goods into hampers 14 hours a day in Oban; learning to understand the words 'hame' 'hoose' and 'fer'. My funniest story would be getting very excited seeing a magazine in a Glasgow newsagents, coloured green, titled 'The Alternative View'. Great! some counter-cultural reading! I fish for a pound in my pocket. On closer inspection the subtitle was
'the magazine for Celtic supporters that deals with the real issues'.
Of course it was about fitba', not ecology. But what kind of place has multiple magazines about a single football club?



But I can't keep writing this blog while I'm here. There are many reasons. Sadly, perhaps unavoidably, I don't feel the wide-eyed wonder that I have had all through my trip, including the first time I was here. I think wonder is vital to good travel writing. Practically, I want to save money here, which can lead to both fatigue and monotony. To boot, a lot of the rest of my time is spent interacting with my family, and you don't want to know what we get up to!

In any case, many of you are already very Britian-savvy. You know that it is becoming more multicultural by the minute (The manuals in my last job are now written in Polish and English, for example) You know that 'security measures' both state and non-state, are ubiquitous (closed circuit television is everywhere). You know that West Scotland is wild and beautiful and England is crowded.



I do encounter things that inspire me personally, that you will be interested in, but they will be expressed in other ways than this site.

I would like to say 'Ta very much!' to everyone who has skimmed, read or devoured my tangential ramblings, and especially to those who commented, or wanted to comment but couldn't manage Blogspot's sometimes labyrinthine interface.

Hopefully this blog will rise again on phoenix wings, when I leave the UK. When will that be? Next summer, probably. Where will I go?



Across country to Southeast Asia via more of Europe (Mycenae! Amsterdam! Stockholm!), Siberia, China and Japan.
Peace.

Updates

See here and here for the recently updated last few days of my French adventure.

Kaitakitanga

Back in the UK, my cousin shows me an old news article. "Have you seen this?" I haven't. It's quite interesting.

Triggered by the recent strange events involving 'the Urewera 16' and the armed defenders, the Guardian has published a feature entitled The Maori Resistance. Its a long article, so I'll pull out the bits that leapt out at me:

Though 'much of the very iconography of [NZ's] state is maori', the Waitangi Tribunal is basically overworked and impotent,('it's decisions are non-binding') and the UN is 'unimpressed' with the government's Foreshore and Seabed Act. In the 1960's the NZ government claimed there was no race relations problem at all.

Reading about race relations in my homeland seen through the eyes of a middle class left-leaning Brit is fascinating, like seeing one's own image on closed circuit TV. Familiar, yet bizzare (or zarrebi?). Overall it confirms my conviction that we have a long way to go to harmony in Aotearoa, and it is Pakeha who need to be doing more of the listening and making more of the sacrifices.

This is old news for some, but I've only just found out about the Wellington part to the story. Wellington readers might be interested in seeing the footage of the dawn raid on 128 Abel Smith Street. Terrorism? We fix bikes and read poetry in there. Oh brother.

Hurdling the Language Barrier.

Comfortably back in a country where I can speak (almost) my mother tongue, where visiting the library provides an embarrasment of riches, I reflect a bit on the struggles and joys of learning French in France.

Bravo for the experience of going somewhere where you don't speak the language, and trying to learn from scratch. I'd love to write about this in French, but two months with little writing practice... I'd be here all night!

France, was in some ways an easy place to try my experiment. For one, not many people speak english, and even less like to. Lots of opportunity to practice speaking. Second, there is the abundance of French words (debut, hotel, sautee...) and phrases (de ja vu, haute cuisine, en passant...) that have passed into English. I learned quickly however that there are 'false friends' - 'Chef' for instance means not only the one who cooks, but any sort of boss, a 'crayon' denotes a pencil, and the 'curiosities' of an area can be major attractions.

The huge gulf between spelling and pronunciation also provides a barrier for the cold-start immersion learner. To try to hurdle it, I taught myself a few phonetical symbols to get my head around the French vowels and dipthongs.



Much to the delight of my friends, I could never master the 'r' sound. When I tried to imitate the strange growling gurgle of my teachers, I would usually end up sounding like I was trying to throw up. Some days I practiced the sound, but the motion of pulling my tounge downward inside my mouth caused me to feel nauseous!

Why do I like the language? Well, as popularly observed, there is the sexy, exotic sound to it, but that impression faded the more I learnt (perhaps it was because many of my early sentences were about dumping rotten grapes into a huge trailer). It seems like a powerful language, like Arabic, where one is capable of both the most soothing sounds and equally harsh guttural utterances.

Then there is the great French literature... I aspire to, but may never read Moliere, Apollonaire, Proudhon, Derrida (pictured), Focault, Rosseau... the list could go on and on. But at least I can say I can enjoy and understand the mighty Asterix in the language it was written in. Mais oui! Ah yes.>



It makes sense to me too, to 'miss out' the ends of words as the French do. In conversation, any ambiguous meaning can be sifted through other cues, and so shortening words is no real problem. In print, however, it makes sense to have the full word.

And I'm not sure whether it was just mon amis, the company I was with, but I learned many colourful phrases. To be egotistical is to have 'the melon', presumably for a head. To be really hungry is to have 'les croc', to have fangs, or 'le dalle', a stone block. Curiously, modern urban French slang involves switching the phonemes in certain words, an itbay like igpay atinlay. So 'bizarre' becomes 'zarrebi'.

Can I speak French now? Not really. Could I return to France and use my melange of French, hand signs and the odd stray word of Spanish to make myself understood about day to day matters, even make people laugh with me, not at me, and understand someone who speaks slowly and clearly? Yes. One thing I believe now is that communication depends on patience and creativity much more than simple language profiency. So why learn other languages at all? To be able to say "Ils sont fous ces romains"*, of course.


*These romans are crazy

Unexpectedly

I did not intend to go to Rouen. I'm glad I did. It is pretty and rich in history.

It has more cathedrals per square inch than anywhere else I have been. The one pictured was the tallest building in the world between 1876 and 1880.

I busk by the ruins of the building where Joan of Arc was executed.



I find a quote on a sculpture

'O Jeanne, sans sepulchre et sans portrait. Toi qui savais que le tombeau des heros est le coeur des vivants' O Joan, without a sepulchre and without a portrait. You know that the tomb of heroes is the heart of the living. - Andre Malraux.

Drunk French youths buy me a chocolatine for breakfast, and give me the nickname 'solamente' (solitary)

Things I learned in Paris

1) There are three types of trains in France with three types of cycle policy

a) the TGV - the high speed trains, (Train Grand Vitesse). Using them is unavoidable on some routes. The guards may fine you or threaten to throw your bicycle off the train if they find you with such contraband luggage. I ask why this is so. 'French Law' says one. Why though? 'It is forbidden' he repeats. Someone else tells me my bicycle is more dangerous than the massive sacks others are carrying. 'someone could put their leg through it'. Right.

b) the TER run on the provincial services. They love bikes.

c)the CoRails have an ostensible no-bike policy but will let you take bikes, I hear, if you wrap the item up and make it not look like a bike.

I have a vivid memory of sprinting around the Paris St Lazare (pictured, above, by Monet) station wrapping up my bike in salvaged clear polythene (no one would sell me single rubbish bags, only packs of twenty for more money than I possessed, ripping open salvaged hairties to help bind my package, ready for the last train to Rouen. In the end no-one even asked for my ticket.

2) The magnetic strip on your visa card can fail, leaving you with just 25 euros* to get back to the UK. I found nowhere I could get money out with just the card number and the right ID. Internet booking seems promising but it seems you have to swipe your card to pick up the tickets! Luckily....

3) Fellow travellers will lend you 5 euros to help you buy a ticket if they stand in line with you, watching and waiting that you don't run off and spend it on meths.

4) You can't sleep in French train stations. Unlike the hospitable Frankfurt train station, they close from 1am to 5am.

5) It's hard to do touristy things when you are finding out the above.

*1 Euro = 2 NZ$ approx.

Jealousy antidote

People sometimes express envy of my wanderings. Not surprising, I mainly write about the good things. Here's a bad day. It includes:

Biking through what used to be malarial wetlands, transformed by the order of Napoleon III to boringly spooky pine plantations.

Finding the 'piste cyclable' (cyclable road) is a cracked pavement, littered with branches that break two of my spokes.

Knocking over the camp stove and tipping hot stew onto my sock. Without access to running water, this results in a burnt ankle.

So, for me, please sleep snug in your cosy little homes.

This is probably the....

Coolest. Bridge. Ever.




(Me and William tried to bike to Peche Merle to see more prehistoric cave wonders, but didn't make it. Instead, we stopped at Cahors with the featured Pont Valentre. It was built in the 14th Century and was never attacked. C'est normal. (thats not that suprising))

Traveller to settle.... Press Release

Ewan Kingston, 27, professional traveller, has recently decided to make the UK his home for a while. Speaking from a friends house in Cadillac, Southwest France, Ewan expressed both a weariness of travel and excitement at spending time in the isle where his extended family live.

"Including within Aotearoa, Ive been travelling for almost a year. Its time to let the soul be settled and with luck, recharge the bank account. I'll hopefully be working quite hard for a lot of my time in the UK to save up money, but I should be able to see a lot of the Rennie clan as well at some point"

Ewan said he was about to head north towards the English channel by bicycle, despite the approaching winter. "Ive had enough of searching for that endless summer."

Ewan also added that he would most like to work and live in Scotland, where his maternal Grandparents came from but would also be happy to be based anywhere if the right job was available, especially if family were close to hand. The areas he will be optimistically looking to work in will be research, library work, and perhaps communications and publishing. He is prepared for the fact he will probably do some hospitality or retail work at some point.

Asked about his experience of the grape harvest, Ewan said. "The work was boring, but the conditions were ok and the people were very friendly and helpful, some exceptionally so. It also turned out to be a great way to meet interesting people and learn French. At the end of the vendange, we threw the foreman into a trailer full of grapes."

ENDS

Vendange poems (drafts)

Vendange (grape harvest) number 1 - Landiras

Team of twenty
walking ranges of Merlot
secateurs - snip, snip
graps fall to les paniers
the porteur, straining in sud-ouest sun
grapes on his back,
loaded heavy as a beast


Dix-sept a la table pour dejenuer
Parlons francais, francais, francais
Lo espagnole et moi sommes silencieux

(seventeen at the table for lunch
they speak french, french, french
me and the spanish girl are silent)

#####################################################################

Vendange #2 - Sauterne

We are working for unknowns
pas nourri ni lodgè*

we harvest grapes with mould as grey as the mist°
that rises every morning

as a porteur climbs to empty his hotte
the ladder slides from under his legs
his chest bears the weight of the grapes
and presses against the steel edge of the trailer

Now he groans alone on the grass
we keep working.

*without food or lodging: the new convention for vendange work
°Sauterne wine made from grapes, harvested late with 'the noble rot' which is meant to concentrate the sugars. It is a very sweet wine.

Ancient

Seeing the prehistoric cave art was worth a hundred bike rides up the Dordogne River, it was even worth the risk of 'feeling like a man who has been a tourist too long'. This is where words fall short, and all the pictures I see of the cave painting totally fail to convey the wonder, mystery and the sheer power of these artworks. Artworks they definitely are, beautiful forms made with masterful techniques using the contours of the cave walls. One painting of a bison in Font de Gaume uses a sort of fractured perspective. Apparently when Picasso saw it he said, "I did not invent cubism, then"




At the time of the cave paintings, about 15 000 BCE, the population of 'France' was probably around 10 000 people.

Font de Gaume is interesting for another reason. People were wandering in and out of the cave for years last century before anyone realsied there were faded pictures on the walls. There is even graffiti on the backs of one of the 80-odd bison

More impressive though, than the the beautiful paintings is the feeling of real history. There is evidence that this area has been lived in by Homo erectus, the Neanderthals as well as the Cro Magnon. It was the Cro Magnon though, who, over a few millenia, decorated a dozen or so deep caves, some rock shelters and perhaps countless other places.

Meeting Petr the Czech with perfect English (Dundee accent) helps me understand a bit more context, as well as sharing a homely dinner in the rain at the Les Eysies campground. Petr has been "flint knapping" - making tools from stone - for years, and, like Ronald Wright, sees the shift from these hunter-gatherer cultures to those based on farming as a bit of a backward step. He also worries about the future of our fossil fuel-intensive civilisation. 'We should be turning oil into foodstuffs' he says, 'instead of burning it'.

I ration myself to a couple of caves, and spend the rest of my time biking around the limestone valleys, passing the locked archaeological sites, imagining this landscape: stripped bare of trees with glacial cold, and peopled twenty thousand generations ago.

Bonne Route

I am in a small town Lilande, on the Dordogne river.

Why? You may have read about my weariness of trains and my longing for the bike. Well, with my first income for several months on the cards (Tomas jacked me up with the sweet wine harvest job) I splashed out on a bike, and locks, and rad panniers that turn into a backpack and two bags.

And so I venture forth into Acquitaine, self contained, dodging the rain, feeling a little pain, (eating le pain, but that doesn't rhyme, I am discovering)

I'm intrigued by the prospect of the river valley turning into a gorge; much more so by the fact that this area is positively chokka with Neaderthal and Cro Magnon caves with their paintings and etchings and so forth. So I'm gonna go see them, of course. When I was little I dreamed about finding dinosaur footprints in hardened mud somewhere: this, I think, might be even more astounding.

On the other hand maybe I will feel like a man who has been a tourist for too long.




So far on the trip I have had two lovely encounters. One was a French couple inviting me into their house to watch the All Blacks vs Scotland, accompanied by sausage, bread, cheese, beer, then chickpeas, onions, barely cooked meat, wine, more bread, more cheese. Jaques was keen to practice his English "What do you think of the organisation of the cup?". Joele was more hardcore. "in my house," she said (in French), "you speak French". So I get frustrated and manage a few sentences an hour, but she teaches me a Moliere quote À vaincre sans péril on triomphe sans gloire.

In Sante Foy de Grande I meet Matt, an English guy who is in the middle of a years stay at Plum Village, a Buddhist community founded by Thich Nat Hanh. Worldly and kind, he is a fascinating character. I hope I see him again, perhaps when he is travelling the world as a clown.

Salut!

I'm in Bordeaux, the city (by the way, if you are french, the region we call 'Bordeaux' is called 'Gironde') staying with the charming Tomas and Eloise, who I met in Cudillero in Espana.

I love learning French. I finally get to use my nasal twang for some real phonemes!

I have just spent a couple of hours writing up my late August travels. Tonight we will go to sit by the vast tidal Garonne (maybe I will see some more Coypu) and probably drink red wine and eat pain et fromage (bread and cheese). Voila!

Roma Part 2

Day 2

I'm very tired. And the Vatican museum is not open today. I decide to stay another day and explore 'Renaissance Rome' tommorrow.


Day 3



I am waiting in the line - a short one by usual standards: only an hour or so. I happen to be standing next to an American tour group. It's good luck - the guide is young, jovial and informed. He surprises me with his knowledge of the Arab influence on the Renaissance*.

To be honest, I've stayed in Rome for an extra day to come to Il Museo Vaticani because of one thing - the Sistine Chapel. It doesn't dissappoint. I also wonder through halls and halls of Catholic loot and gain a real appreciation for the luminous and masterful Raphael.

Michaelangleo, Raphael... These names have now lost their association with 90's action figures, but the works of these artists do seem superhuman. It's amazing to me that the same person designed both this



and this as well.



Day 4
I'm hooked now and, inspired by a chance meeting, I spend one more day in Rome, which is more about meeting locals. A gathering of couchsurfers/hosts helps. Andrea is obsessed with films, particularly (like many others on the continent) those made by Stanley Kubrick. He's lived in Rome all his eighteen years and never been to the Vatican Museum.

Giadita looks at the skyscraper-free view from the Pincio and tells me "I don't mind that we aren't modern, that the trains don't work properly... I love this city."

And Carlo is annoyed that I won't get drunk with him. Thwarted, he takes us to eat a late-night Italian specialty (fried battered fish... sound familiar?) and disses my harmonica playing. The next morning I ask him if he stands by his criticism. "I'm very open" he says. "is that an Italian thing?" I ask, searching for my nugget of cultural knowledge. "No, it's a Carlo thing" he says.

*The seeds of the Renaissance were sown by the revitalising re-introduction of previously lost Greek and Roman classics. It was through Arabic scholarship and translation that the West regained contact with many of these texts.

Roma part 1

I walk the streets of Rome like a goggled eyed kid. This world is new to me. The marble steps worn smooth by ancient Roman feet, the names I know from textbooks carved everywhere: Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Constantine, Augustus... And then there's the renaissance Rome. And contemporary Rome.
To prevent my brain exploding, I plan to limit myself to focussing on the sights of Ancient Rome during my first day, and looking at Rennaisance stuff on the second.

Day1
The Pantheon is the most intact building from Ancient Rome. (If you have a good connection, try this great 'virtual tour')
It is also one of the more mysterious buildings. Even just three generations after it was built, the writer Cassius Dio could not state its original purpose.








Pretty soon it became a church, however and this helped it survive intact: it was left alone by the (christian) Goths and other invaders at the end of the Empire. It's been a church ever since and Raphael is buried there. I loved it's spacious dome, massive columns, (pictured) but most of all the awe it inspires.

The Collosseo is spectacular but a bit sad... would we want people to revere our big tops, our cage-fighting arenas? I'm also reminded of the hands that built these monuments. The colloseum was built by Jewish slaves (or as the plaque inside euphemistically reads 'with booty from the Jewish uprising')

But listing the monuments I saw does't capture the experience I had walking these baking hot streets. Every Piazza (square) has an Obelisk, a statue, a column an arch or even a pyramid shaped tomb, all from Imperial days. So many, that guidebooks devoted to Rome must miss some out or risk being the size of an encyclopedia. Ancient debris - shattered statues and collapsed columns, litter the open spaces such as public gardens. Thomas from Bordeaux tells me that one can see a pile of broken amphoras in the (surprisingly picturesque) Tiber. I stumble upon Republic-era ruins that would be the pride of any other city purely by accident. Stray cats sleep there and are fed by a charity. Another attraction is Notte Bianca, a recent tradition. The idea is, basically, an all night party in the streets. Trains will run packed throughout all the night carrying revellers, including many familys, into the centre of Rome to wander from Piazza to Piazza, to be entertained by musicians, parades and acrobats. Highlights for me were dancing behind a batucada troupe along a street that runs through the ruins of the Roman Forum and learning "Bella Ciao" an anti-facist anthem-plus-love-song.

On leaning.

With the others heading back to their lives in the UK, I decide to be a tourist in Italy for another week or so, before making my way East to Bordeaux, to see friends and cut grapes. First stop is the nearby Pisa. The tower is cool. The other tourists are spectacular. At any one time, I can see at least three different individuals taking what one blogger calls the Obligatory-Dorky-Hold-up-The-Tower Photo.

Tourist information differs as to when the lean first happened. The 'Rough Guide' states that the lean was detected within a few years of the commencement of building, back in the twelth century, resulting in a long hiatus. The official plaque attributes the hiatus to 'unkwnown reasons' and implies the lean only began much later. Wikipedia agrees in part with the Rough Guide, stating that the lean was first noticed in 1178, when the tower was only five years old with three of a final eight levels completed. When building recommenced a century later after Pisa-Genoan wars a century later, the lean was (over)compensated for and the tower started leaning the direction it does today. Needless to say, if you are in Pisa, it's worth a look. The other buildings in Piazza dei Miracoli or "Square of Miracles" aren't too shabby either.



After an hour trying to hitchike out of a slightly grimy Pisa I give up and take the next train south to Rome. On the train I meet a young Roman student with an egyptian background and accent. Our conversation consists of him listing the English writers he likes. The romantics, the Modernists. He quotes Eliot's 'Hollow Men' for me. He doesn't like Bertrand Russell. Too analytical.

Lists have served me well for crossing the language barrier. One doesn't need translation, let alone grammar when listing proper names. He takes an interest in the little Pema Chodron book I carry and I teach him a simple meditation technique. It is a surreal experience, zooming accross the plains towards a city that was founded before humans got to Aotearoa, meditating with a new friend in an otherwise empty carriage.

It's after 2200 when we get to Rome and I half-hope my buddy will offer me a place to stay. Nope. On my own again.

The most Scottish Town in Italy

In the evening I almost miss my stop in Fornaci di Barga (the 'furnaces' of Barga). Hungry for English words, I had been absorbed into the very porous substance of a discarded Daily Mail. Fornunately, there to welcome me and signal to the conductor as I scrambled off where two of my three British uncles: Graham and Douglas... more family and friends are gathered at the rented farmhouse up the hill. We are having a little festa in Tuscany!

What happened at Barga? We regaled the birthday girls with gifts, we visited the picturesque, walled Lucca; we quaffed massive pitchers of cheap local wine. We ate fresh figs and aged cheese and salads with spelt. The boys attacked the Hungarian sausage I brought. We heard Uncle Douglas and Aunt Sarah blag their way through Italian conversations. We plaid the violence-inducing card game Racing Demon. We shivered in the mornings and sweated in the afternoons. We expolored a wild canyon and stared at dramatic skylines.



(Hillside Barga has two official claims to fame: having the second best shilloute and being 'the most Scottish' town in Italy. The first is due to its physical geography, the second, a history of 20th century migration to and from Scotland.)

It is great to have the chance to relax in the company of people I don't have to introduce myself to, to never once talk about day-jobs, and at the same time to be in this strange, beautiful, semi-wild landscape, with such an exciting culture and history.

And too quickly it seems, the week I spend there is over - it is almost time to leave.

I visit the duomo (town church) before I leave and note good signs for my future plans. The bas-relief above the door depicts the grape harvest, and inside is both a massive statue and painting of Saint Christopher - the patron saint of Barga, as well as travellers.

Frankfurt to Florence

The Zen retreat (in Aschaffenburg, near Frankfurt) is the usual mix of difficult work and unbounded joy, and worth the hitching oddesy to get there. The few days previous in Frankfurt also provided a few surprises, with a trade fair drawing multitudes to the banks of the Maim, and a thriving red light district right next to the bank which controls the Euro. Bad idea to go to the zoo though.

I miss my early train to Zurich (cheap online tickets have their drawbacks) but hitchwiki.org comes through again with a perfect hitching spot in the middle of Frankfurt and a gruff Turkish German provides me with a ride to Heidlberg, a hard house soundtrack and a salami the size of my arm.



I stay in Zurich (picturesque, smells of fondue) and get a train the next morning through the Alps to Firenze (Florence) The scenes are, as you would expect, incredible. But I also feel like it's a sort of overdose of scenery. It is, as Jerry Seinfeld put it once, as if somehow it is all happening on TV. I miss the bike, slow as it is. Even when hopping from petrol station to petrol station along the autobahn, I feel a closer connection to the landscape. Maybe it's the sense of danger of the hitching that keeps my eyes open.

Report of voyage Madrid to Frankfurt

The mission: hitchike from Madrid to Frankfurt

The reason: attend a mini Zen retreat (five participants, three days, lots of breathing), meet Europeans, not spend squillions on buses and trains.

The timeframe: Wednesday 22nd August to Tuesday 28th August

The logistics: Because most people going long distances are on one of the many many motorways, the best hitching spots seem to be busy petrol stations or tollgates. Asking people directly for rides is quite a nice change from the old thumb too

Format of report: There is a little game called 'The Rose and the Thorn' I used to play with my flatmates in Dunedin. Everyone selects one 'rose' qnd one 'thorn' experience from their day.

Day One: Wednesday 22nd August
Thorn - Walking to the 'Madrid Lighthouse' in 30 degree heat for a rare ariel view of the city before I left only to find it closed until further notice.

Rose - Understanding the Spanish of Jesus the Spanish truck driver as he explained to me about the windfarm (200 turbines, popular with the public) we were passing as we neared Zaragosa en route to Barcelona.



Day Two: Thursday 23rd August

Rose: Crossing the border between Spain and France at the South-East end of the Pyrenees. I'm sad to leave Spain but I love the fact we just drive straight through as if the border was as intangible as a line of dust. I love the EU!

Thorn: The intense heat and rattling din of Tomas the German's Mercedes truck. He is a great guy, a horse breeder who started his own company to publish his thesis, but that cab was torture. I had to get out at Nimes. I'm making good time anyway.

Day Three: Friday 24th August

Thorn: Again it is a goodbye, this time to Migal the Czech, another truck driver by trade, on a mammoth road trip from his home in Marseilles to a town beginning with 'B', past Prague to visit his family. We share very little spoken language but he is great company. He let me navigate.

Roses: The massive broadleaf forests around Southeast France and the Rhone valley are a very pleasant surprise. And round about 11pm, my ride drops me at Frankfurt airport for a train to the city. I made it... early!

Thanks to the wonderful http://www.hitchwiki.org for giving me both general tips and advice for getting out of Madrid.

Is there a culture en la casa?

I'm not sure if cultures can be mapped on to nation states very accurately at all. There seems to be much more variation within a nation than between nations. Regional differences, subcultures, countercultures, migration, all that stuff. And I was only there for three and a half weeks. But in the interests of er... general interest, permit me to make perhaps three generalisations about the way some of the people behave some of the time in some parts of Spain.

1) There is a definite melting of some of the barriers between strangers. People who had just met me patted me on the shoulder, offered their cheeks to be kissed, (including a burly Andalucian). Everywhere I have travelled I have found strangers to talk to, but it definitely seemed easier, or more relaxed in Spain than in the UK. A Portugese traveller I met in Germany thought this was an Iberian thing "people here (in Germany) want to help you, but they give you space, I like it."

2) People don't speak English, generally. This surprised me. For some reason I had assumed everyone in Europe had roughly the same level of English that one finds in the European travellers to New Zealand. Far from it. As my friend Mete put it "some kids in the Netherlands speak better English than Kiwi kids" while some towns in Spain I doubt I could find a English sentence if I tried.

I remember, in Asturias, I was out in a bar, and a young guy heard me speak a few words of my mother tongue. He bounded over to our table.... "Hello!" he gushed, "I heard you speaking English... I want to practice but I can't... this is f###ing Spain!" Mis amigos did not warm to him, and the conversation did not go much further.

3) Time is different. Nine or ten in the morning is a good time to go to work, and two is a good time to have lunch, maybe sleep a little (not too long or one wakes up groggy) 4 or 5 is a good time to start work and 8 is knock-off time. Dinner can happen between 10 and 12, after which you might go out to a bar, and then do it all again.

I like my seven or so hours sleep, so took advantadge of everything shutting around three and often had a siesta... many don't and just seem to function on less sleep. Maybe that explains the kind of shuffling laziness that seems to pervade Spain. Not that I'm complaining - it does seem to be a nice way to live. Bear in mind, however that I did visit during vacaciones. The Spanish seem to take holidays a little more er... seriously... than we do. Lots of shops, restaurants and other businesses were closed for vacaciones. My favourite 'closed for vacaciones' sign was on what seemed to be the only hotel in Balaguer.

Lived, travelled in Spain? Have a view on 'Spanish culture' Your comments, as always, are very welcome.

The Rain in Spain Falls only in the North.

The rural areas in Spain have proved to be much more fun than the cities for me. Lacking the stamina and inclination for drinking every night of the week, heading out to Cuidillero beach for a couple of nights was fantastic. It is almost as far from the touristic south coast as you can get. Still, it wasn´t a natural paradise. Loudspeakers in public places create facist associations for me, and tell us that it´s too dangerous to swim today. Like most places in Europe I have visited, autopistas (motorways) run through the country. Because Asturias is a hilly province, the autopistas often run along massive four lane concrete land bridges, looming dozens of metres above the valleys below. They are probably the largest man-made structures I have come across. I find their powerful curves equally elegant and frightening.

(just a baby one)

A more familiar sight is the forests of Eucalyptus, planted for firewood, and turning the soil acidic.

In Cuidillero I met some lovely Madrilenos and French travellers, wrote a little. Got rained on (rain? what´s that?) learnt a bit of Spanish Sign Language. (I was named! my name is ~strokes his beard~)


My second rural exursion was even better. Startled my Madrid´s sprawling noise, I took a bus 150km south to a tiny village which was hosting EcoPop... a festival of Eco... and ...Pop. Better still was the Sierra Gredos (pictured) behind, which loomed like friendly giants and enticed me to spend a night in the mountains, alone in a ´refugio´ surrounded by pines and granite outcrops. And more blackberries than I could ever eat. I definitely want to come back for more.

Balaguer

I tried to think of a clever title for this post, but I think the name of the town I am staying wins on points for exoticness.

Estoy en España. (I am in Spain). Sweat is usually pasted across my forehead, but I have managed to avoid the 50 degree heat in Seville by arriving in Barcelona, in the relatively temperate ´communidad´ of Cataluña

In Cataluña the native language is Catalan, and it was officially banned during the days (ahem, decades) of Franco´s rule. Since Franco died each ´communidad´or region has become more autonomous... as the graffito here says: ´Cataluña no es España´

This means Cataluña is now officially bilingual, which is great for the local culture, but not so good for me - when locals speak Catalan, I can understand maybe one word in twenty. And I can´t read the plaques! But people are happy to hablar Español, and I have many conversations... not just about about directions to the nearest camping/internet/amazing-park-with-buildings-and-sculptures designed by Antonio Gaudi (which are given cheerfully, but are usually very brief and vague). I can´t get very conceptual though, and if I´m tired or stressed I hope that the person I´m talking to speaks my mother tongue.

Barcelona was great, but I´m very pleased to be in the countryside. For one thing, I´m no longer surrounded by the tourists that flock to the coast from other parts of Europe. It´s also a blessing to get my hands in the earth. As well as being a permaculturist(?) my host Jordi here is a true international. He belongs to three hosting organisations, is fanatical about Esperanto (`the language of a world without borders`) and with the help of his visitors, has compiled a massive chart with a dozen sample phrases from 50 languages. (yup, maori´s there). Muy bueno.

Another list
Things I like about España

+ The storks that build their nests on buildings and perch on TV aerials in Balaguer.
+ The way the rocks rise up out of the dry earth everywhere like giant tombstones.
Everything closing at 2 in the afternoon for siesta. (even though that´s more of a southern thing)
+ Flamenco (played for tourists at our campsite... a nice change from the Busta Rhymes and Beegees I have been hearing elsewhere in Spain)
+ Paella. Mmmmmmmm... prawny.
+ The friendly old people that are always sitting outside in the sun.
+ Hand expressions. Waving of hands. It´s not just a carictature.

Paella y Postres

Some of you have sent birthday wishes... Thanks!
I thought I might tell you about my birthday, it being one of the strangest of my life.

On the 31st of July I am sleep-deprived and anxious. ¿What to do tomorrow? While walking the side streets of the Catalan capital, I decide to head north on the metro. Picking a name that sounds nice: ¨Villasar de Mar¨ from the subway map, I am whizzed 20km north of Barcelona along the coast. Being by the coast, I think, there must be a hostel where I can stay for two nights and meet travellers to celebrate my birthday with. (I´m all in for meeting local folk... but travellers usually are looking for something to celebrate anyway). No. In the end I walk about ten kilometres before settling on a moderate hotel. (the lap of luxury, for me)

So I wake refreshed, walk suburban alleys, try in vain to contact my cousin holidaying who might be in Barcelona, eat watermelon and a strange postre (cake) on the awesome swimming beach with lukewarm water and no tourists!

My hotel gives me a complimentary iced coffee. The busboys are friendly. There is one from Uruguay with a dirty mouth. ¨Your birthday? there will be a lot of f···ing, ¿no?¨ And one from Boliva, whose Español was much more polite.

It´s the metro back to Barcelona and then to the inland quarter where ´Parc Guell´ beckons. The view from the top is amazing: Barcelona a sworl of orange and brown. I meet Jonathon, another traveler on his own. He declines my celebratory Estrella ( local beer) because he is a lightweight. And tired and hungover. But we enjoy each other´s company, and stay on the hill in Guell until after sunset. That also means we see Gaudi sin turistas! We talk, in Spanish when we can, and eat a beautiful paella in La Plaza Catalunya (Catalonian square followed by another strange, gooey postre. It´s now midnight and Jonathon heads off to get lost on the bus system, after arranging to meet tommorrow, while I search for musica. I find it, not in the tacky clubs of Porto Olimpico (that comes later) but with two loco French travelers (Renault and... I forget) drinking and playing hack flamenco on the streets. We garble Spanish, play some blues together.

Its then I want to go to bed. But the train timetable has other ideas. So I go to Porto Olimpico, am dissapointed, get on a tram, then a train, and see the sun rise massive over the mediterranean with tired eyes and then collapse into bed for a few hours sleep before a midday checkout.

Ah... ¡bueno!

To cut a story...

Biking from Manchester North was good, but very wet. And British. And somewhat tame. I pack it in and decide to get a plane ticket (sorry to the future inhabitants of the globe) to Barcelona in time for August 1 ....

Train Travel

A memory: In the train from Penrith to Oxford, travelling back the 300 kms I have biked, it is slightly depressing, the speed seems somehow sacrilegous. There is hardly time to see anything, let alone understand it. And everything closer than 5 metres is a blur.

Things I have grown accustomed to

Seeing Oaks as natives, Sycamores as noxious weeds
Seeing Red Squirrels as natives, Grey ones as noxious weeds

Everyone here seeing themselves as natives, Chavs as noxious weeds

Manchester

I only got rained on, lost about three times (Buxton information centre entirely unhelpful to cycle tourists heading to Cheshire), had to bike along the hellish A6, and fell off my bike into a muddy puddle while following tracks along the Mersey to Manchester. The shame!

But I´m happy to be here. Manchester is much less grimy than I expected. Perhaps it´s the good company. But the architecture is amazing. There´s loads of red-brick mills (industrial revolution again) which have become apartments, and a few blocky art deco things, but my favourite is the osentatious Gothic buildings, built with cotton money in the 19th century. The city seems proud too. Not as cosmopolitan as London, but quite left-wing. We walk past the spot where the Labour party (I know, I know) holds its annual conference and cousin Tullis shows me where the manhole covers are taped down to prevent terrorism. (Aside: I´m sick of the paranoia here, as the graffito in Oxford says, "closed circut TV is a crime". A ubiquitous crime, extending to country pubs and parks. In Coventry I almost have my hand luggage confiscated because I left it outside for a second and it´s full of bombs, apparently, at an airport containing around 50 people.) But back to the left wing stuff. There´s also the bafflingly eclectic People´s History Museum, containing a lock of Tom Paine´s hair, much info on the Suffragist movement, films of 1930´s football matches (with pitch invasions) and, my favorite, a chance to make your own badges. I make two. Mine has a picture of a needle and thread and the words 'please don´t raise my standard of living´. I make one for Tullis that says ´I love jamming´. Tullis is on a bit of a high, planning his trip to India. Apparently it is monsoon season, but his friends over there are assuring him he´ll be fine. The monsoons must have relocated here. I do not exaggerate to say there has been perhaps three days since I arrived in the midlands that it hasn´t rained. That´s how British towns get flooded, I suppose.

I am priveleged to hear the first recording session of the Noise Upstairs band (soon it will have a real name) It comprised Tullis on trombone and laptop Anton on guitar and effects pedals and Kate on cello. These music graduates made sounds like the swollen Mersey that flows through this city. Turbulent yet graceful.

As a last night out in Manchester, Tul reccomends the Nextmen (from London) at some club I don´t remember the name of. Innovative party hip-hop. I have one of those moments of realisation that I´m in a foreign country while riding in my first British cab, and then getting patted down at the entrance of the club. Weapons? No, they were looking for drugs... but they didn´t question the existence of a tealight candle in my pocket. Inside the party is great! a good vibe, and great sounds including a Dr Dre accapella mixed with a doubletime breakbeat. Thanks, Manchester.

Wirksworth-Manchester

It is time to leave old Wirksworth. (Or `Wazza´ as some call it). I´m glad of the company of Uncle Graham, who cycles with me to Buxton, in the heart of the Peak District. The name may conjure up images of our bikes ascending alpine pinnacles a la Lance Armstrong, but really it comes from the old English ´peac´ - rolling hill, and we biked along old railway lines. Mainly flat. And it was awes, man. We bike through the White Peaks - an area of limestone jutting like teeth from the green gums of pastures. Graham tells me that D.H. Lawrence (a local boy) calls this area the navel of England. It´s where the flat grain fields of the South give way to the hilly sheep and cattle pastures of the North.

A typical Ewan late start and it´s the mid-afternoon when arrive in Buxton. I fill my water bottles from the famous mineral water, flowing free like the speights tap in Dunedin. "It tastes metallic" Graham warns. Nonsense! Then, in understated English fashion, we part and I am travelling alone again for the first time in a month.

Of hair and head-tilts

Yes, it’s been a while since my last entry. It’s not that I’ve been uninspired, in fact, I’ve been doing a lot of writing*. It’s just that I’ve been leading a rather pedestrian life, literally. My bike is in the garage here in Wirksworth and some days I don’t leave the house. Here in Wirksworth, an old town of 9000 in the limestone quarry part of the Midlands, the focus has really been family. With my Nana and Grandad (ninety-five and ninety-two) it’s flavoured by the numerous cups of tea, the stories of time spent in Malawi in 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, the bus trips to villages up the valley of the ‘mighty Derwent’. Helping them with some small challenges – opening fiddly juice containers and pesky email attachments - is a pleasure. Aunty Rosie and Uncle Graham are consistent with hugs and literature suggestions. Cousins Elliot and Alexander show me how to party – Wirksworth style. They have strange rules for pool here. And a wah-wah pedal! I also earn some pounds helping renovate houses for a local.

You may have heard of the flooding in nearby Yorkshire. Intense. Six people have died and there’s been around a billion pounds of damage. (Not nearly as bad as the floods in Pakistan, though) The rain definitely got to Derbyshire, but don’t fret, pet, we’re safe. Perched on a hill, it all drains away from Wirksworth.


What’s it like living here, in the midst of England’s countryside? You guessed it, it’s quaint. Quaint little “pooubs” quaint old shop-keepers who call everyone “duck”. Quaint houses from the local stone, strewn higgledy piggledy around the hills. And people probably think I’m quaint. Having conversations with people I pass myself off as normal; it’s the small interactions with strangers that I fumble my way through. I still haven’t completely weaned myself off the very kiwi eyebrow-lift, chin-tilt greeting and I pay the price in blank stares. And when people say “y’right?” over here, it’s a warm greeting, as Mel tried to teach me, not an anxious probe. And sometimes, like when I make jokes to strangers at the tennis court, I think maybe I’m just being too friendly, even for Wirksworth.

Even the monumental and historic buildings are quaint. I visit Cromford, a village famous for being the 1771 site of Lancashire entrepreneur Richard Arkwright’s deployment of mechanised cotton-spinning and the factory system. Some call it the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. Most of the ”mills” (really factory buildings) still stand, large they may be, but (see photo) still pink and cute. Not like the working conditions. Surplus labour from the dying lead industry was exploited, and children crouched under the water-powered spinning machines to clean or “scavenge” any debris. If you weren’t bang on time for your twelve-hour shift, you couldn’t work any of the day. Those who know about my punctuality can envisage my potential cotton spinning pay-check. Other factories were even harsher, apparently


It really is a strange place to be spinning cotton. Several thousand miles from your nearest cotton field, it was only intense secrecy about industrial practices (and the protective measures of the British government) that meant the industrial revolution happened here, rather than closer to the cotton itself.

Arkwright had one of his mills destroyed early on by anti-mechanisation rioters (hooray!) and promptly developed a militia and a cannon to guard this one. Oh, yeah, I was talking about quaint. Get this. Arkwright picked the relatively remote Cromford for his project for several reasons – but how was this foreign guy familiar with the place? He was a wig maker, and travelled to large gatherings to gather the human hair for his wigs. The story is that nearby Wirksworth had a good deal of country fairs, and thus a good supply of hair. Arkwright came for the hair, but he stayed for the prime factory location!

*If anyone is keen on reading my new Roald Dahl-(think Tales of the Unexpected, not BFG)-esque short story, let me know, and I’ll swing you an email copy.

The best conversion of energy to distance/ is when your food is your fuel and your feet are your pistons.

I cycle north on my Uncle Keith's green touring bike through the midlands from Oxford. The countryside is a green sheet, punctuated. The commas of hedgerows, stops of tiny country villages. Church steeples form exclamation points and squirrel's tails make question marks.

It is delightful. I cycle through, not past the landscape, only slightly perturbed by the hazy smog that cuts out views. Cycling through a particularly lush avenue I raise my arm in glee, like a tour-de-france winner or a baptist testifying. The horse-rider approaching is confused. "The flies are bad around here, aren't they" she says.

I passed by more riders and walkers than I am cars. Two routes of the National Cycle Network (54 and 6) take me from Oxford to Derby, with only brief stints on major roads. They are detailed on a specially designed Sus(tainable)trans(port) map. Of course I lose the snaking cycle track (marked by little blue signs) about three times in every large town, but I am very grateful for this facility. Mad props.

My bike is laden with gear, which means I can't cycle no-hands (damm) let alone Vish's no-hands-no-bum trick. But it does mean I am self sufficient. I stayed my first night in a little thicket just off the road (shush). Tenting is great but it does make the brightness of the morning (4am at this time of year) very evident.

Solo cycle touring is also lonely, but I make friends rapidly through the couch-surfing website. Dave in Northampton is an accountant when he must, and a globe-trotter when he can. He is a very generous and fascinating host. Reevsie and Zena here in Leciester are lively conversationalists. They are also conservationists committed to living "low-carbon" lifestyles. There is a label on the plugs in the house detailing their electricity use. The cd player: "9 watts (playing)/7 watts (not playing) 3 watts (standby). Their dedication to their ecological footprint is both inspiring and challenging (a quota of two long haul flights for the rest of my life? gee.) I do feel at home when I discover they don't flush their pee, for water conservation reasons.

It's not all serious. Tonight Reevsie and I are making Willa Wonka sweets.

Large things in large town

My days in London settle into a vague pattern. Mornings are leisurely, evenings are social, afternoons I usually bus into the city, and experience the first traffic jams of my life. I go with vague errands (buying a phone/tent/harmonica, unrewarding illegitimate busking) but mostly my time in central London is spent walking around and staring at old things: surprisingly low stone builidings; commerative statues and arches of all descriptions; plaques, portraits and palaces. I’m equally attracted and repulsed by the monuments. A giant statue of Achilles made with cannon won in the battle of Waterloo? Bellicose jingoism. More difficult for me is the oft-present glorification of the era of British imperialism.

The injustices of British relations with other ethnicities are still sorely relevant for many. A man waves an Ulster flag among the massive Union Jacks along the Mall. Later I meet a pan-African crowd outside the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. An impromptu protest has sprung up in the aftermath of activist Toyin Agbetu being released without charge after his pronouncements during the Abolition 200 (ending of slavery) service in Westminster Abbey back in March. Agbetu was arrested while declaiming what he has called the commemoration’s “myopic eurocentrism”. For the interested, here's a news piece on the March event.
The protest today involves a lot of drumming and pretty soon the National Gallery closes their main doors. Sympathetic and curiousI asked one of the protestors why they chose this spot. The protest started at the police station, and ended here partly by chance. My guy thought it was as appropriate a place as any. He gestures around Trafalgar Square. “Slaves built all of this” he says. I talk with him a bit, explain the phrase "kia kaha", (he hears kia kara), then move off to book my tickets for the Globe theatre.

Namvula encourages me to go to the British Museum – to “see all the stuff we stole” I do. The wizened and strangely shiny mummified Egyptian is very memorable. But it is looking at the exhibit of Viking doohickies that something hits me. The complexity of this island’s history. I present a list, familiar to most of you, but important nonetheless:

Invaders/colonisers of Great Britain
????? (Neolithic stuff)
Romans
Anglo-saxons
Vikings
Normans

Then a few centuries later, the mongrel inhabitants of this damp flat island spread an Empire to the antipodes. Bizarre. That’s what I think of when I see Nelson’s column.

Next time I write I will have tales of cycling through the Midlands.

I want to tell you about the sights I saw from the plane, 10km high flying Wellington to London via Hong Kong. I have been putting it off because, ideally, I would look up the names of places on GoogleEarth. I haven’t had a chance yet.


The first unusual sight is the desert. It is beautiful and naked. Thin ridges run like veins, ribs under the skin of red sand (or is it rock?) That’s about all. It is as if the creator, if you believe that sort of thing, had been in a remarkably austere and reckless mood. Rocks, sand, those weird ridges (let’s make them run due north, eh?) that’ll do. Oh, maybe some lichens, bacteria. Let’s make it red. This is real desert – utterly no sign of humans, for an hour. It seems so foreign. I am reminded of Ursula K Le Guins vision of the afterlife: that dry land…. But there does seems to be some water. We fly over patches populated by shallow salt-lakes, usually dry, but some seem to hold a pond in the center. Occasionally the ground below is marked with just-visible rashes of green.

The desert gradually melds into semi-desert. Now I start to see roads. Very straight roads. Roads like these that my father travelled. Days before I left, he told me, for the first time, the story of riding his motorbike, at sixteen, across the outback. Hitting sand dunes on the road and struggling to keep the bike upright. It’s a bit easier when you are seven miles up.

I wonder, marvel at the persistence and determination of our species. Who would live out here? Who could live out here? But people do. I notice some dwellings. We fly north-west, and as we near Alice Springs I see for the first time here valleys, gullies, creeks. The earth once again is shaped by water running off it, not just by the wind. It is something of a relief to see.

The landscape doesn’t change much until we leave Australia, somewhere near Darwin. I manage to see a few bejungled islands near PNG, and then the sun goes down. It’s a little symbolic. I know very little about Indonesia, the Phillipines, and we fly over them in darkness.

Going Hong Kong to London we pass over the mass of central Asia. Range after range of lumpy, forested mountains, then dry pointy mountains, then high, snow capped, gravely mountains. In between are expanses of land with little agriculture and settlement. I can see why. Sometimes giant sand dunes can be seen engulfing flat, arable land. Sometimes hills are terraced and farmed. Following the contours of the hills, these ancient techniques are visually stunning.

We fly over Mongolia, and then Siberia. Late spring up there and there is a lot of green. Serpentine rivers and lakes. Passing Novosibirsk, where Mel once lived, the cloud clears and I see a massive lake, but not the city.

The closer we get to Great Britain, the more homogenous the land below. Poland, Denmark, Gotland, the Netherlands. They all look the same from up here. Green pastures, intensely developed. I can imagine what the landscape looks like on the ground. My heart sinks a bit. I know that I am here, in Northern Europe, to connect with people, not monumental landscapes. I guess I’m just a bit greedy and want to do both at once. I will too, just wait.

Travellers congregate

(Written mainly on Monday 27 May.)

Temperature on arrival: twenty-six degrees celsius. Temperature today: ten.

What, dear readers, can I say about London? Many of you, I imagine will have been here at some point (bless our middle class cotton socks) for longer than me. I have been here for four days. At the moment I’m missing the wilderness, so let me tell you about birds and stuff.

Twice I’ve walked along the canal towards Paddington – the birdlife in the canal is impressive. Canada Geese calmly patrol the area. Most unusual are the moorhens. They have these amazing feet, with a series of round pads along the massive toes. This allows them, I suppose, to patter along lilypads and sneak through rushes. (I have to practice sneaking through rushes myself, to handle Regent Street. Ha!) By flailing their wings and pushing with these considerable paddles they can almost completely lift themselves out of the water while remaining stationary. Impressive. These dark, vocal birds are bullies: they chase birds twice their size from their very visible nests. They must do the same with predators.

Another highlight was seeing the pukekos. Yes, pukekos are found all over the world (so are sparrows. Hong Kong had a skinny, sweeter singing, territorial sparrow.) The pukekos here are much smaller, about the size of a bantam hen. They aren't of course called pukekos here. Wikipedia lists the names of this bird as: Purple Swamphen, Porphyrio porphyrio, African Purple Swamphen, Purple Moorhen, Purple Gallinule. My favourite is "Sultana Bird" - from the French - talève sultane. Porphyrio porphyrio here have more dark grey and less blue plumage, but they are unmistakably pukekos. They strut and flick their white arse like ours do.

Less similar to the antipodean version are the magpies. Here they are graceful, like large cuckoos, with a long tail. Namvula greets a magpie if it is solitary: ‘good morning magpie, how are your wife and kids?’. Not to do so brings on calamity. The crows are a bit of a favourite. Totally black, it’s as if you are always seeing them in silhouette.

Like most cities, there is not one, but thousands of Londons. Geographically, mine has centered around Ladbroke Grove where I am staying with my cousin Namvula. It is a suburb both refined and quirky. Trees, mainly plane trees, line almost every street (streets with names like Oxford Gardens) My first evening here I saw children practicing cartwheels on the pavement and a man biking with seven dogs on seven leads. Like the rest of London, he had no cycle helmet – hurrah! It makes cyclists seem much more human, much less freakish. I see posters advertising the health benefits of cycling on bus shelters. Good.

My London also has had an African side to it. Namvula’s mother is Zambian and many of her friends I have heritage in that continent. Ore, a Nigerian boy I met liked my beatboxing and we performed together at a talent quest in a South London school. I've heard a South African soul singer, Morrocan gnawa-jazz fusion, and 'Mama Africa' Miriam Makeba. This is a city of many possibilities, a city where it seems no-one is a true foreigner.

The quest for Kung Fu

The geography of Hong Kong is amazing. The city has leapt up among tall, steep hills covered in now-regenerating forest. The buildings echo the shape of the hills. Massive concrete high-rises – I estimate forty, fifty stories the norm. The up-side is a compact city - the human and wild seem very close here.

The city of Hong Kong covers a peninsula and a small archipelago. This means the water is a very important route of transport. The thin strait of Victoria harbour, (between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island), is turbulent with activity. Dozens of ferries, tub-like wooden fishing boats and even floating cranes chug through. Despite the human activity, the harbour does not seem devoid of other life. Egrets and birds of prey are common, and one fisherman is pulling up a net by the busiest commercial area. Bags not eating the fish though.

The scale of the port is simply staggering. If you take the bus from the airport you speed past it on the motorway. It still takes about five minutes to pass. Gargantuan cranes, shipping containers packed in lots two wide, four high, five long. I estimate about 50,000 containers on the docks, filled with who knows what – DVD players, shoes, rice, sofas. Still more containers out there on the harbour, sitting on the decks of floating cranes (some as large as small container ships) that lurk silently in the harbour. Sea trade is where it is at.

The smell of Hong-Kong: a delicious mix of Chinese restaurant, tropical jungle, and rubbish dump. The smell will linger on the clothes I have washed at a laundry there.

One of my ‘goals’ in HK is to see some martial arts. Kung fu is hard to find. Banners with Jackie Chan’s face, the statue of Bruce Lee on the tacky ‘avenue of the stars’. In the evening I ask at the ‘cultural centre’ about kung fu movies. ‘Oh, Chinese kung fu? People don’t like anymore.’ I mention the Bruce Lee statue just across the road. She sees my point, but makes it clear that I’m probably not going to walk into a picture theatre somewhere and see some kung fu. I’m puzzled. Come to think of it though, Jackie Chan’s image had been advertising a western style gym.

Tai Chi I do get to see. Hooray! During my brief stay I come across the classic image of a bunch of locals practicing after work in a park in Hong Kong Island. But even more inspiring is the couple practicing ‘push hands’ (a sort of slow motion combat) back in Kowloon in the evening. Powerful grace.

I depart from Hong Kong Airport, with its architecture reminiscent of a hangar and huge windows that look out to the mainland and mountainous Lantau Island. I feel sad leaving this place. The next step will be much further away in space, much closer in culture: Great Britain.