Back to backpacking... back home!

So a quick recap of what I've been up to in the UK is in order, before I start thinking about getting back to Oz... where curiously I will no longer be living like the virtual gypsy that I am right now!

First: Southampton. Now don't get me wrong, I can say whatever I like here because my Dad and his wife Barbara live in Southampton, and yet frequently articulate their dislike for the place. My dad's theory is that whatever the Luftwaffe didn't destroy during WWII, Southampton City Council must have set about destroying immediately afterwards.

Now, I'd always sort of forgiven Southampton its lack of looks because as a teenager it often made for a more exciting day / night out than Winchester could ever provide. And of course there is the awesome Saints FC. However as I walked around the city centre on a Monday afternoon (for the first time in years) the overwhelming feeling I got was one of "Christ, this place is down on its heels". Too many empty shops and tons of chavs hanging around. Haven't they got anywhere better to go? Probably not.

Despite offering to help my Dad out with funeral-related tasks, it transpired that there really wasn't much for me to do in Southampton. So on Tuesday I caught the train over to Bath for a rendezvous with Hannah, the first time we'd seen each other since early May! I don't think I'm giving too much away publicly if I say that we had a lot to talk about, so we stayed overnight. Having the best part of two days to wander around Bath, drinking coffee and beer in the sun, eating out, and generally behaving as tourists (yes we even went round the roman baths!) was great.

On Wednesday I headed back to Southampton, where I met my brother at his office (i.e. Arup Southampton) and we drove back to his flat in Winchester, from where we were driving to Lincoln the next day for the funeral. But not before I helped him and his mates win the pub quiz at the Fulflood Arms, for the first time. My knowledge of Australian deserts proved surprisingly useful, and I particularly enjoyed the 'cheese round', which involved each team being given a plate of cheese and attempting to identify which was Double Gloucester (easy - it's orange), Wensleydale, Caerphilly, Cheshire, or Lancashire (a bit harder - they all look/taste the same)! Could I come every week? Not likely, sorry.

Granddad Bill's funeral on Friday went well. The words spoken by the vicar in between the two hymns were exactly appropriate for an 88-year old and there was a decent turn-out of remaining family members, neighbours and a smattering of other people who knew him. My Dad coped well and has been doing a great job of sorting out all the details as well as preparing to have the bungalow cleared. As I headed back towards London in my brother's car in the late afternoon, I couldn't help but think how there was nothing like returning home for a funeral to bring the carefree traveler (yeah right that's me) back down to earth with a bump!

After the funeral I went to London and, apart from a day trip to Chelmsford to catch up with my 10-month old nephew Adam and his parents, stayed there until Wednesday. Catching up with mates, and Hannah, on the weekend was welcome relief, as was Paddy's roast lamb and going round the shops. Why is it that I can find stuff I like much more easily in London than Sydney? (don't answer that...)

I also spent some time wandering around Holloway with the intent of taking some ironic photos to show the peeps back in Sydney what a beautiful part of London I call home. But then I thought some of the photos weren't that unattractive. Anyway see which of the following are the 'ironic' and the 'actually Holloway isn't that bad' photos...

On Wednesday, after visiting my office to discuss the what, the when, and the how of when I might return to work in London, I found myself on a train down to Devon, where I stayed at my mum's place in the small village of Bradninch for a few days. It's a pretty part of the world, but it also means I've been able to reunite myself with my record collection! (when my bag was stolen in Argentina, I didn't just lose my passport and camera, but all my music too)
So I spent probably too much time indoors ripping CDs. Hence why I found time to start writing this blog post.

Anyway here's a few pictures of Bradninch to make up for all this drivel...! (I think they complement the Holloway ones, don't you?)

So after returning to London on Sunday morning and spending the whole afternoon picnicking in Hampstead Heath on the hottest day of the year so far (31 degrees C in London, and humid with it, phew) I'm now sitting at Paddy's flat in Holloway on Monday morning. I fly back to Sydney tonight. I'm very grateful to Paddy for letting me crash at his place, having spent six nights here now... it's made the stop in London a lot easier than it might otherwise have been. And although I returned to the UK for sad reasons, I've definitely enjoyed catching up with family and friends. It had been a while!

Robin

A temporary hiatus...

I ended my last post by saying that I might be back in the UK sooner than I expected. Well, that's exactly what's come to pass - and explains why I'm sitting in the garden of my dad's house in Southampton writing this post!

Unsurprisingly last week was a bit manic. Dad confirmed on Tuesday that granddad Bill's funeral will be on Friday 18th July, and I made up my mind on Wednesday that I should return. My flights were paid for by Thursday morning and I left Sydney on Saturday morning.

After discovering that the terms of my secondment to Sydney didn't include for any specific entitlement to flights home, even for a family funeral, I had to hunt around for flights myself. Prices were moderately horrifying, and so I asked Arup's travel agent to have a go too. They came up with a slightly odd routing via Tokyo with JAL that saved me $600 against the next best fare I could find. After I had paid up, I received some verbal support from my superiors in Sydney - beyond them granting me permission to take the necessary time off - along the lines of them paying for my trip (especially as they didn't have to pay for me to get out to Sydney in the first place). So here's hoping that by the time my credit card bill is due for payment, that little matter is resolved.

So this explains why, after quite a scenic flight out over the central Queensland coast (photo above) and the great barrier reef, followed by passing over Papua new guinea and Guam, I found myself at JAL's expense (due to the next flight to London being at noon the next day) at one of their hotels at Narita Airport - not really in Tokyo - in fact 66km from it. I thought half-heartedly about attempting to get into the city but then got talking to a fellow transit passenger - an Irish girl also living in Sydney - who was happy enough to have someone to talk to over dinner. As was I. Dinner was fun - the hotel had a garden fitted out with round picnic tables with Korean-style gas barbecues installed at their centre. The deal was DIY BBQ Japanese style, with all-you-can drink booze thrown in. I think we westerners handled this latter aspect a little better than some of the Japanese travelers - more than one of whom had to be carried up to their rooms at the end of the night!

The beer dispensing machines were so typically Japanese, in that they were ingenious - you retrieved a chilled glass from the fridge, placed it under the nozzle, and pressed the button next to a cartoon drawing of a foaming jug of ale. Then - this is the clever bit - the machine tilted the glass by about 45 degrees, so dispensing the beer down the side of the glass. As the glass filled, it slowly tilted back to the upright position, creating just the right amount of head on the beer. What a fantastic country Japan is.

The next day I continued on to London, twelve and a half hours from Tokyo (which in itself was nine and a half hours from Sydney). I sat next to a talkative Aussie girl called Kylie (really!) who was on her first big trip out of Australasia. I was impressed that she managed to point out Wembley Stadium as the plane banked over London, lining up for the landing strip at Heathrow. The view of the city was spectacular, and it was then that I was reminded that I'd been treated to the equivalent view of Sydney just a week or so before, the last time I'd flown up to Brisbane (didn't get such a great view leaving Sydney on this trip). Suddenly it felt very odd to be back, landing at a city that I know extremely well, when a week earlier I'd had no intention of returning until late November. Barely an hour and a half later, thanks to my brother's driving, I was at my dad's place in Southampton.

So having decided to come back for the funeral, it seemed sensible to take care of some other family business while here... obviously Hannah is one person I need to see - we've not seen each other since early May and a lot has happened since then! I'm also planning to get down to Devon next week to see my Mum, who is getting re-married in August, and even went to the trouble of sending me a wedding invite in Sydney. If I can't make it to the wedding - I can't really hang around in the UK for that long if I'm supposed to be working in Sydney - then the least I can do is go visit her!

Anyway I called this post 'a temporary hiatus' as that is exactly what being back in the UK feels like... it's like some kind of out-of-body-experience! I definitely wouldn't want my round-the-world trip to end as suddenly as this... so it's a good thing I bought a new ticket for this trip and left my flights from Oz-India and India-UK unaffected. And there would be the small matter of all the stuff I've left behind in Sydney...!

Robin

Exploring Sydney and news from home

So after being away from Sydney for two weekends out of the previous three, I wasn't too disappointed to find myself back in the city, without having planned too much for the weekend, on a gloriously sunny Saturday. It may be winter here, but on a good day it still gets up to about 20 degrees in the daytime - noticeably warmer than Melbourne!

The Biennale of Sydney is currently on until September, having kicked off the previous weekend. It's Australia's biggest art exhibition, held every two years (hence the name, duh). This time around, amongst other venues across the city, it's taken over the former naval shipyard of Cockatoo Island, which is also the biggest island in Sydney harbour. I later found out that this odd place has only been open to the public for a couple of months, and gloriously unrestored it is too - the abandoned steelworks, power station, sheds and dormitories made for fantastic 'spaces' for the art.

I spent about four hours wandering around Cockatoo Island, and think I managed to see every bit of the art. Even the video 'art'. Which is saying something for me. The lasting impression for me though was just how unexpected it was to see such rusting, decaying, industrial space in the middle of a city like Sydney, which like a lot of urban Australia seems sometimes just so shiny, clean and new that it gets almost, well, boring. I liked it.

To be honest I probably enjoyed the island more than some of the art, and part of the fun was getting there... the harbour ferries are probably the most scenic way of getting around town (more fun than the buses at any rate) and the exhibition organisers have laid on free ferries from Circular Quay for the duration. Free boat rides are always good, especially when they involve going under the harbour bridge and giving you a good view of all the amazing harbourfront houses that seem to be a Sydney specialty.

I saw more of what the rich of Sydney spend their money on Sunday up at Palm Beach, the poshest of the posh northern beaches suburbs, and the furthest from the city centre - 40km away in fact, fact fans. Had I really thought this through, I probably would have chosen to rent a car to get there - instead I took the only other alternative, the 'express' bus, which despite being an 'express', took over an hour and a half! It still staggers me that a city of four million people relies mainly on buses for public transport... god knows how the place is going to cope when the Pope (and a couple hundred thousand of his fans) arrives next week!

Anyway Palm Beach is also the real-life location for the ridiculously popular soap Home and Away. There is even a surf life savers clubhouse where you can buy crap T-shirts with said soap's name printed badly on them. This explained why when I arrived around lunchtime, after an hour and a half on the bus, leaving the touristed heart of the city behind, I found myself having practically to wrestle with a coachload of Irish teenagers just to buy a pie. Not quite what I expected that far out of the city.

The headland at Palm Beach is topped by an old lighthouse that looks out over not only the northern beaches and the Pacific, but also Broken Bay - the next bay north from Sydney harbour and where the Hawkesbury River meets the ocean, and Pittwater - another ridiculously beautiful stretch of water. On Sundays you can climb up inside the lighthouse and get an even better view of it all. Which is exactly what I did, and that (and the sweaty slog up the hill to get there) was worth the trip. By the time I got back into the city it was dark!

Work saw me back in Brisbane on Thursday and Friday but (unusually) I was able to get back to Sydney for after work drinks. Which was so much fun that with a couple of other partners in crime I ended up out on the tiles until stupid o'clock, completely writing off my Saturday. The only thing I managed to get done was get my hair cut and then spend over an hour over a coffee with one of said partners in crime, dissecting the previous night's shenanigans. At a housewarming party later I drank only water and lemonade and probably made the worst conversation in years.

So this morning (Monday) I was sat at my desk, just starting to get over a minor hangover from a few drinks on Sunday, when I got an email from my dad. His dad (my granddad Bill) had passed away in the night. Sad news. He'd been in hospital for about a month for something relatively minor and had just deteriorated from there. Poor bugger. So watch this space, I may find myself back home a bit sooner than I thought.

Robin

I've gotta lotta catching up to do...

Lets see where should I begin?  I'm writting this retrospectively by some weeks now. Anyway I'll do my best!

 

The Studio:

Working at the studio has been a real eye opener, into the luxury that Gaurav has by having employees who do the weaving for him (wonderful Gopal the master craftsman and Sujawadin,  his apprentice), but also into the many sides of the textiles industry. definitely food for thought for the future....

 

Pam and Kerela

Kerala was beautiful, it is green and luscious and vibrant and has 100% literacy (apparently) which shows in how the streets are just a little bit more organised and the people very approachable.  We did a mini tour, flying into Ernakulum, about an hour 1/2 north east of Kochi.  We stayed in the old town of Kochi, Fort Kochi, in a very nice guest house. A very hot guest house at that as we were on the top floor and as you know, heat rises. As did the humidity as the days wore on....

In Fort Kochi we saw the 'famous' chinese fishing nets and the men who work them from about 5am until 2pm.  Their catch is proudly displayed (often still twitching) on ice to be sold to passers by and cooked to your liking.  I even climbed up on one, and although they look rickety they are in fact quite sturdy.  We didn't buy any fish, worrying about the health and hygene - unnecessarily so. As it happened poor Pamela was struck by a dodgy tum not from the yummy street food we had munched but the yummy (it really was) meal we had had at the restaurant on our first night. Oh dear.

 

 

 

On another evening we went to a performance of Kathakali, where the costumes, make up, music, and facial expressions play the major parts, so much so that the 'producer' spent much time explaining to the audience the importance of each. Watching the make up being applied was fascinating, as was (most) of the performance.

 

 

We spent 2 nights in Fort Kochi, so Pam could recover, and on the 3rd day caught a bus to Aleppey, the epi centre of the backwaters and the ketu vellem house boat holiday industry.  The bus ride was a little nerve racking, but the 'natural air con' certainly was a refreshment from the heat and humidity. There are no windows on Indian buses. No worries - except for that of falling out of the window when the bus hoons it around a corner and overtakes an auto at the same time!!

Once at the backwaters we boarded our own beautiful little Ketu Vellum.  These are traditionally made boats (no nails or screws at all!) that were once used for taking rice around the region on the waterways. Now thee is a strong holiday trade in hiring them out for overnight stays. Which is just what Pam and I did. And it was well worth it.  It was off season, so the only other holiday makers were Indian families with their children. This time of year is not one when you will see a lot of westerners, the monsoon is imminent mid June, something I was glad for, as the backwaters were a lot quieter than usual (the rows of resting Ketu Vellums were evidence of this).The views over the little settlements on narrow strips of essentially embankment  that separate rice paddies from canal from lakes was serene and one that we were to have the pleasure of again 3 days later.

 

 

 

Refreshed, relaxed, well fed and thoroughly looked after ( the boat came with cook, waiter and captain) and with only a couple of mosquito bites each (miraculously, as we were on the water and there were at least a gazillion of them buzzing around) we went on to Varkala.

 

Varkala is a place somewhere between a backpackers hangout and a spa resort for those mad enough to have a herbal enema in the name of Ayerverda (traditional herbal therapies).   The first night was literally a wash out. The most tremendous storm cam lashing down with the loudest thunder ever. One of the few cafes/bars made a feature of it, calling the evening  ' Moonsoon Night' and with the power cut that followed and the rain dripping through the palm leaf and corrugated metal roof, they certainly had all the atmosphere that night. A group of us, probably all the holiday makers in the village, huddled around candles and supped beer for many hours making for a fun evening.  Once the rain had subsided Pam and I, armed with the handy in-built torch on my mobile phone (Nokia really have thought of everything!), gingerly hopped over the puddles (and waded through some) back to our guest house.

We woke early the next day, fearful that monsoon really had started, and surveyed the beach that lay beneath the cliff top that Varkala sits on. Maybe we'll get to have a lie on it?....More tomorrow.