A Travel Reading Holiday in Lorne (Part 1)

Every couple of years I take a short summer holiday in Lorne, on the Great Ocean road here in Victoria, Australia.

It's always a few days about two weeks before Christmas, as that's a period before the festive season rush; when room rates drop while everything in the seaside town opens.

As I've done before, I made it a tech-free break, putting the phone in a drawer once I'd checked into the hotel. The objective - in addition to swimming and walking - was to read as many books as possible.

So here are some reviews of my travel-themed reading, starting with two books about Africa...

1. Walking the Nile; by Levison Wood

There's something slightly irritating about this adventurer who decides to walk the entire length of the Nile, from Rwanda to the Mediterranean. He exudes a subtle air of outdated British imperial folly, perhaps, though he is good mates with the Africans he employs as guides along the way.

There's something meaningless about the goal, though it does lead him through an interesting variety of landscapes and nations, and into difficult encounters which make for dramatic reading. One specific episode within this true story is shocking in its outcome, and nearly brought the walk to an end.

In fact the Nile is never fully walked, as Lervison is forced to skip a section of South Sudan after civil conflict comes too close for comfort. And Egypt, the final country, is something of a damp squib as his progress there is so closely monitored and regulated by the authorities.

Having said that, it is an entertaining journey which reveals a lot about the cultures encountered and landscapes crossed.

[see this book at Amazon]

2. The Last Train to Zona Verde; by Paul Theroux

Some people aren't fans of Paul Theroux's travel writing, as they detect a cold misanthropy in his on-the-road observations. I'm not sure about that. It seems to me he is fact deeply invested in the places and people he encounters, but has a naturally detached way of relating them.

He also has a knack of getting people to speak to him, which seems the opposite of misanthropic.

In this follow-up journey to an earlier book about an overland trip from Cairo to Cape Town, he travels from Cape Town to Angola and talks to plenty of people along the way: shanty dwellers in South Africa, elephant handlers in Botswana, San tribesmen in Namibia, random strangers in Angola.

What Theroux doesn't do is suffer fools gladly, and if he takes a dislike to someone or something you know it. He's not a fan of Western culture in its incarnations as mass tourism or rapacious capitalism, and he's particularly scornful of international aid agencies.

He doesn't mind giving African people a serve over their societal shortcomings either, which can make for uncomfortable reading; though he's just as scathing of Europeans who fail his measures of decency.

The journey itself is fascinating, especially since Angola in particular is little visited by Westerners; partly because of its dependence on its misused (in Theroux's eyes) oil wealth. Indeed, it's in Angola that the trip - originally aimed at reaching the Mediterranean - falls apart and is abandoned.

Theroux, as if feeling awkward about not completing his stated quest, spends far too much time justifying himself at the end of the book. It didn't bother me; the journey as it was was intriguing, and I would've myself dropped out after the first difficult Angolan day.

[see this book at Amazon]

Next: Two more reviews - one of a hapless hike through the Andes, the other about the mysteries of a three-nation border region...

Mind the Gap: The Novel & the Art of Travel

Two days ago, my debut novel was published by Harper Collins. Entitled Mind the Gap, it's a fast-paced adventure novel spanning continents and worlds.

To give you some of its location-hopping flavour, here's the official blurb:

Darius Ibrahim is not having a good week.

He's been threatened by a knife-wielding maniac on a London train, interrogated by a mysterious warrior woman beneath the city's streets, pursued by a military death squad in Melbourne, had his new girlfriend kidnapped and held hostage in Prague, and been captured and taken to another world.

And it's barely been three days since his life started to fall to pieces.

On top of all this, he's developed a bizarre ability that allows him to teleport in quite unusual circumstances - an ability that several deadly enemies will do anything to gain control of.

In a desperate struggle involving alternate worlds, Egyptian mythology, ancient prophecy, malevolent felines, underground railway stations and the power of dreams, can Darius long survive the arrival of his newfound power?

It's great to see it finally out there under the umbrella of a major publisher.

An interesting fact is that I started writing this book over ten years ago, during my final, unloved, salaried office job. To keep myself sane, I wrote 500 words a day at work, and emailed them home to myself.

By the time I visited Wellington, New Zealand for a holiday late in 2003, I'd written 15,000 words or so. In NZ I wrote a good chunk more, and it became inevitable that I'd actually finish writing the whole damn thing.

There's a lot of travel in the book, and it inevitably reflects the places I'd travelled to by the time I started writing it.

So Darius, the hero, starts off in London. In fact he's riding the London Underground the first time we see him, and the Tube and other underground railways play a major role in the plot.

The Tube fascinated me from the first time I rode on it. Dating right back to the 1860s, it seems to be a vast creature with a personality all its own - and a subtle air of mystery in its subterranean tiled passages.

He then pitches up unexpectedly (read the book to find out how) in Melbourne, Australia. Melbourne is my adopted home town of 16 years now, a city I love passionately.

It was an absolute delight to include some of its attractions - its trams, its alleyway bars, its majestic State Library - as part of Darius' only relatively quiet interlude.

He next appears in Prague. In 2014 that's a city I haven't visited for 21 years; but back in 2003 it was relatively fresh in my memory and I had fun placing spy-like intrigue, a kidnapping and a dramatic chase scene among its beautiful cityscape of elegant spires.

Our hero is then snatched away to Terra, a parallel version of Earth in which magic is an everyday part of life. The city he ends up in, Kahe-Ra, is a parallel version of Cairo, in which I lived for two years in the 1990s while teaching English.

The parallel name borrows from the Arabic name for the Egyptian capital, El Qahirah, and hints at the name of the ancient sun god Ra. Egyptian gods feature significantly in the plot, as it turns out.

Terra's Bubastis takes the same name as its Earthly counterpart (now an excavation site), which was a centre of worship for the cat-headed god Bast. She is also key to the plot, much more so than Ra.

Rome features later in the book, as does its Terra parallel Eternus (a play on the "Eternal City" nickname). I'd visited there only two years before commencing the book, so memories of its piazzas and ancient monuments were fresh in my mind. As was a cat refuge set among old broken pillars, something I couldn't resist adding to the story.

It was a lot of fun slotting my fictional characters into those oh-so-real streets I'd visited in the years before, and a chance to relay the cities' distinctive charms to the reader.

I only became a travel writer in 2004, so there are a great many new places I could include in a sequel. For plot purposes they should ideally be cities with underground railway systems, so that could take in the likes of Warsaw, Berlin, Shanghai, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles and Sydney.

Sydney's defiantly retro Museum station keeps asking to be placed in the sequel each time I pass through it (as I did a few hours ago on the way to Sydney Airport).

But so does Kings Cross station. Yes, Kings Cross has potential. Time will tell.

Mind the Gap is available from your favourite ebook retailer for a mere $2.99. You can find more information and download links by clicking here.

The Unpublished 8: Sham El Nessim, Egypt’s Rite of Spring

As it's spring here in the southern hemisphere, I was reminded of this piece about a memorable Egyptian rite of spring I wrote some years ago, though it was never published. Enjoy...

Many cultures have a way of welcoming the coming of spring. After the long cold nights of winter, the light and growth of the new season feels like something that should be celebrated.

In many countries, Easter has supplanted older rites of spring. Though it is now a solemn Christian commemoration of Christ’s death, it has retained the eggs that symbolise new life.

The word “Easter” originally came from the festival of Oestre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, fertility and new life.

Rabbits and eggs have always been seen as symbols of fertility and rebirth, so it’s not surprising that they have remained the main symbols of Easter.

Of course, Australian Easter falls at the beginning of autumn, which removes the direct link with spring. We are, however, keeping up a tradition which dates back thousands of years.

Back to the Pharaohs

Egypt has an even older way of welcoming spring, a day of celebration as old as the Pharaohs. On the Monday after Coptic Easter (celebrated later in the year than our Easter), Egyptians take to the outdoors to celebrate Sham El Nessim.

Literally “sniffing the breeze”, it's a day of welcome to spring that has been observed for almost 5000 years. The ancient Egyptian harvest season was called “Shemu”, so there is another link in the name.

Sham El Nessim is a picnic day. People swarm outdoors, to settle down on any piece of grass they can find. In a city like Cairo, this is no easy task. Over the last few decades, the city has exploded in size, increasing to over 17 million inhabitants in a densely-packed area.

Green space has given way to housing, and very few public parks remain. This doesn’t stop Cairenes from enjoying Sham El Nessim. Every grassy area right down to highway median strips is occupied by family picnics.

Lettuce, eggs and fish: symbols of life

The traditional foods eaten on the day - lettuce, eggs and fish - also reflect the coming of spring. The green lettuce suggests new life, the eggs suggest renewal and the fish are a symbol of fertility.

A fascinating echo of Easter is the practice of dying eggs in beautiful colours, believed to have also been done by the ancient Egyptians. Children are also given new clothes on the day, another recognition of the “newness” and change of spring.

Egypt has a way of reminding you how ancient a civilisation it is. The crumbling stone monuments of the Pharaohs are one example of this, but Sham El Nessim is, quietly, more impressive.

It’s a living connection to the people of 50 centuries ago, a good-natured testament to human optimism. And a reminder that the world’s diverse cultures are not all that different in what they find worthy of celebration.

Sham El Nessim next falls on Monday, 25 April 2011.

The Unpublished is a random series of my never-published travel articles. For previous instalments, click on the The Unpublished Topic tag below, then scroll down.

The Readers Strike Back

This week I'm featuring responses from Aerohaveno's followers to two recent competitions - one about travel disasters, the other about travel to movie locations.

First up, let's hear from the readers re their experiences when travelling to silver screen locations:

Justine: "I'm embarrassed to admit it now but I went on the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg when I was a wee lass. And I loved it! Made me want to make a dress out of old curtains and hang out of a tree. The locations were stunning. Austria is gorgeous."

Alison: "Bells Beach was a location in Bruce Brown's epic surf film Endless Summer and is one of the great surf spots anywhere, anytime. Although it comes to life at the Rip Curl Pro held each Easter, the best time to enjoy its waves are when the surf circus has moved on, the autumn winds and lowering water temperature have sent the sissies north and it looks like rain.

Then as the corduroy sets roll in, it's just the other desperados and yourself carving your names on the waves. You come in when you can't recall how many waves you've caught, your arms are like spaghetti from paddling, your feet are blue and you can't feel them any more. Bliss."

Carole: "My movie location was Universal Studios in Los Angeles; lots of action, actors and scenes from great movies. It was fun to wander around and see Marilyn Monroe and other greats, ride the train around the set, and see duels, action and the flashing lights of movies. Next stop Universal Studios in Osaka, as I'm in Japan."

And finally, here's the winning entry in the competition to win a copy of Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?. The task was to write about a memorable hassle while travelling. The winner is Serehfa, with this fine remembrance:

"Quite a few years ago now I took a holiday in Egypt, partly on the invitation of my North African boyfriend who was going home to visit family in the next country and would meet me there.

Booking a trip went smoothly, my departure flight and arrival posed no issues. The trip however held some challenges. I actually managed to stay healthy for a few days before succumbing to the usual, 'Egypt Belly' in this case. That was manageable.

Snorkelling on the Red Sea coast was amazing; desolate desert above the waterline and coral paradise beneath. However when you forget to put sunscreen on the back of your legs, it can be awkward. By evening I couldn't walk. I was very surprised not to have blisters but somehow I escaped.

It was agony though, and I couldn't sleep and could barely eat my dinner. Of course, there was no help to be had - the tour guide only stopped places where the tour company got a kickback and was not the least bit interested in helping any of the party who got into trouble. She was an Aussie too!

Two days later we had a scheduled camel ride through some mountains; I lasted about 30 seconds before experiencing agony from the 'saddle' - actually a bundle of small logs with a rag draped over them, presumably designed to be as uncomfortable as possible for mount and rider!

Once again no assistance was forthcoming; I slid off the standing camel to the ground and was left to walk back to the highway, and sit for hours in the middle of nowhere until the tour returned and the bus showed up.

Even that, though, was manageable.

The final joy was the boyfriend. We had some new people join the tour for the last week, one of whom was a wealthy Rhodesian woman who was obviously there for a good time. Boyfriend started flirting with her to the extent that at one point they disappeared together in the evening... and at the same time he started to become physical towards me in an unpleasant way.

I had been warned about cultural differences, and here were my first row seats to the show. He had earlier insisted we say we were married to save his pride - so I was caught between the twin humiliation of revealing a lie or putting up with the antics.

There were parts of the trip that were excellent, however, and some lovely people on the tour with whom I did not get to spend enough time.

All up it was an unforgettable experience; no matter how hard I try!"

Thanks to all who entered the competitions!

The Unpublished 4: Taxis of Cairo

This month's travel article that I've never been able to place takes us to the Egyptian capital, Cairo, where I lived from 1992 to 1994. The following piece is based on my impressions from those years.

When I lived in Cairo, I caught plenty of taxis.

There were no companies to phone, just thousands of black-and-white vehicles plying the streets. Some were bright and new, some the worse for wear, some held together by wire and prayer.

They all had meters but the drivers didn't use them, as they were set to unrealistically low rates from years before. Payment was instead determined by the generally accepted fare to the chosen destination, though its flexibility caused the odd disagreement.

But the Cairo taxi experience was worth any small quibbles over the appropriate fare.

I had some memorable taxi rides in the two years I lived in Al Qahirah. The most notable coincided with an earthquake which rocked the city in October 1992. Travelling along a flyover, the driver pulled over, got out and kicked the tyres. A young student later got in, and explained in English about the quake. I’d had no clue. Which went to show that a jostling Cairo taxi ride could mask tremors.

Another time, an unexpectedly magnificent taxi pulled up. Rather than the usual battered Fiat, it was a venerable Mercedes-Benz. The wood panelling gleamed, the seats were comfortable leather. The grey-haired driver explained that he’d owned this gem since World War II.

The most interesting ride was in the company of some fellow teachers. We piled in, to be surprised by a female taxi driver. Wearing a higab (headscarf), she explained in Arabic that she was divorced and this was her means of support. She was a little nonplussed by our questions, but she was the only female taxi driver I ever saw in the city.

And one day I got into a cab for a short trip, to discover an Australian behind the wheel. He’d brought his newborn child back to see his Egyptian family, and was killing time by driving a taxi. We had a chat about Sydney, an unexpectedly mundane conversation considering our setting.

One driver, in the fine traditions of Arab hospitality, even handed over the cassette of the music he was playing in the car, after a passing comment from me that it was good. That's the kind of service I call helwa (sweet).

Note: As this article is based on personal experience from some years ago, the author takes no responsibility for readers' reliance on the information within. Always check on the current security situation before travelling to Egypt.

The Unpublished is a random series of my never-published travel articles. For previous instalments, click on the The Unpublished Topic tag below, then scroll down.

Have Yourself a Foreign Little Xmas

The period between Christmas and New Year is not necessarily a quiet one for a freelance writer. As newspaper staffers go on leave while there's still a daily newspaper to produce, it can be a good time to pick up work.

In previous years I've written during this period for Melbourne's broadsheet daily, The Age. This year, however, I'm tackling a writing assignment for Lonely Planet.

One perennial of the holiday season is people complaining about the holiday season: its commercialism, its tacky muzak, the pressure to shop with crowds and be cheerful about it.

Which puts me in mind of past Xmases and New Year's Eves when we've been overseas, and how refreshing it was to step outside the usual hectic formula and celebrate year's end in a different way.

Some of the most memorable...

Xmas in Cairo, 1992 & 1993. Christmas in Egypt is naturally low-key, as it's a predominantly Muslim country and the Coptic Christian minority celebrate the day in January. This naturally made it far more attractive, as Xmas commercialism was entirely absent. The only glimpse of the Western-style Santa was in the foyers of five-star hotels.

One year we had friends around for Christmas lunch, including Texan fellow English language teacher James (who we referred to as Mr James, after the style of our students) and Mohamed, a local student. One exotic item on the menu was a taste of the Australian yeast-based spread Vegemite, on a piece of toast. It was universally reviled; though as this is the usual reaction to Vegemite from those not raised on it, we weren't disappointed.

Vegemite was, incidentally, one of the items we required from the decadent West whenever someone came to Egypt to visit us. The others were Twinings Earl Grey Tea and Branston Pickle, proof of our Anglophile tendencies.

New Year's Eve in Cairo, 1993. This remains the most impressive New Year's Eve I've ever had. The party was held on a houseboat on the banks of the Nile, bobbing slowly as the music played loudly and guests clambered above and below deck. It belonged to a friend of a friend, and was also home to two fat cats who seemed oblivious of the commotion.

Xmas in Berlin, 1994. We were living in Poland by this time, still teaching English, and had hopped on the overnight train from Kraków to Berlin. It arrived at Lichtenberg station in the former East Berlin, where trains had pulled in from Poland in the communist era, so it was a less than flash entry.

We were staying with fellow members of the Hospitality Exchange, wherein members trade each other free sleeping space when they travel. Our two German hosts had kindly arranged for us to stay in an empty apartment belonging to a friend of theirs, so we slept on a mattress on the floor and placed a gigantic bottle of cheap French wine on the window ledge to be chilled by the snow outside.

As Germans have their main celebration on Xmas Eve, we shared a salmon with the guys that evening. Back in Kraków, we were startled by fireworks being let off prematurely in anticipation of Sylwester - which Poles call New Year's Eve, it being the feast day of Saint Silvester.

Xmas in Kraków, 1993 & 1994. Although Poland is a deeply Christian country, Christmas there was also surprisingly uncommercial (though this may have changed by now). And very authentic to our Australian eyes, with small wooden stalls selling mulled wine around the edge of the snow-covered market square. The snow itself was something we'd only seen briefly once before, in Vienna.

There were other subtle differences. Poles place more weight on St Nicholas' Day, 6 December, when St Nick appears in the garb of a bishop, distributing treats and rewarding good behaviour. Kraków even had a special Xmas tram running the rails, on which St Nick made appearances.

Another difference was its duration. Not much in the way of Xmas decoration appeared before the first week of December, but the celebratory mood carried on to the end of the Epiphany season in January. As a result, it was not unusual for the concert hall to schedule a performance of Christmas carols well into the New Year.

On reflection, what was most enjoyable about these Xmas and New Year celebrations was the removal of the societal pressure to enjoy them in a set way. It's another reminder of something I'm always banging on about - the power of travel to make you see the world through fresh eyes.

What about you? Any memorable festive events overseas?