Ooh La La

Ooh la la, exclaimed our driver as we hurtled down the dusty street, weaving between the cars, bikes, trucks, buses and the odd camel like a dodgem. La la’s tuk-tuk was always parked outside our hotel waiting, always waiting. Business was slack as canny tourists were using Uber. It was cheaper with no haggling about fares. With his long white hair and toothless grin one could be forgiven for thinking his driving days were almost over. 

So that first morning he looked so happy at the prospect of customers. Ushering us into his ancient tuk-tuk he confidently turned the ignition key - to no effect. He laughed and tried again. Nothing. He got out and rummaged in the back, waved a piece of old rope in the air and, smiling at our concerned expressions, enlisted another driver’s help. After a few tugs of the rope, the engine sprang to life and he hopped inside. We were off. Driving in India is a skill to behold. Basically you aim your vehicle in the desired direction and sound your horn at whatever gets in your way. Since everyone blasts their horns all the time I’m not sure why it works, but it does. Well most of the time anyway. The only rule of the road is that bigger vehicles go first and since tuk-tuk’s are very small they are far down the pecking order, but this didn’t put La-La off – he acted as if he were driving a truck! We soon realised where he got his name as each time a car came too close or we bounced over a bone shaking hole, La La would utter, ‘Ooh la la,’ in a passably good French accent. Wherever we wanted to go it always cost 100 rupees and his tuk-tuk would never start without the ‘rope’ technique. With La La at the helm the trips were always fun and exhilarating. 

La La

We spent almost three weeks exploring Rajasthan, starting and ending in Jaipur and staying, along the way, in Bundi, Pushkar, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer. We visited unforgettable monuments, including the extraordinary  Hawa Mahal in Jaipur, which the Maharajah built for his nine wives in the late 1700s so they could look down on the town without being seen; the atmospheric palace at Bundi; Jodhpur’s magnificent fort and restored stepwell and the magical, if very touristy, fort of Jaisalmer. But the most enduring memories will be of the people that we encountered along the way.

Jaipur traffic seen from the Hawa Mahal

In the days before we met La La we hired a car to take us around Jaipur. One sunny Sunday afternoon my eyes were drawn to a splash of colour on the grimy pavement. A smiling woman was cradling a man’s head, oblivious to the traffic hurtling by. For a moment I thought he was ill and then I saw her hands smoothing his hair and realised she was giving him a head massage. Around her was dirt and diesel fumes, but the yellows and reds of her sari were vibrant and clean. A small girl, in an old jumper and ragged skirt joined them, jumping over  her father and laughing as he tried to grab her bare feet. She clutched a fat orange in her hands. He reached for it, but she snatched it away, triumphant as she started  peeling the skin with grubby fingers. A  boy joined her and they shared the juicy segments. Was this busy road junction home? A pane of glass between you and the outside world  allows you to observe, un-noticed.

So many colours!

Highlights of Oman - February 2019

February is the perfect time to go to Oman - the temperature is a steady 25 degrees and the sun shines every day! In our rental car we bumped along roads that would suddenly peter out or smart new highways where no one had got around to putting up signs for the exit roads. A lot of the time we guessed which direction to take and if we went wrong we would stop and ask someone. Without exception, the Omanis were friendly, helpful and welcoming. We met and made lovely new friends along the way.

There were so many positive experiences from our visit, but for me the turtles in Ras al Jinz remains the highlight. Such a privilege to watch these creatures haul themselves up the sand to lay their eggs on the same beach on which they were born. The reserve is run and protected by the government. Demand outstrips supply so rooms are often fully booked and come at a premium. There are also tents, which are even more expensive! But, an overnight stay includes two tours with a guide – the first one at night (very popular) and the second in the early hours of the morning (less popular probably because you have to get up at 4.30 am!)

Turtle Beach!

It wasn't the time of year for Green Turtles to lay their eggs so we were lucky to see one burying her eggs and another one actually laying her eggs - in fact, two popped out before my very eyes. No photography was allowed on the night tour as the lights from the flash confuse the baby turtles and cause the adults distress. The seashore was alight with phosphorescence - magical.

The morning tour was even better. We helped release baby turtles and watched as they wriggled to the water's edge and vanished into the waves. These little ones had got confused in the night, following the lights of the visitor centre, located about a kilometre away.

The guide led us to a turtle in her nest. At first, she was so still we feared she was dead, but our guide reassured us she was merely resting. It took over an hour for her to start to make her way back to the seashore.  As dawn broke she finally heaved herself from the nest. Deep ruts, like tyre tracks, marked the sand showing where she had crawled from the sea to lay her eggs over two hours before. She paused several times on her way before finally disappearing into the waves. It was an experience I'll never forget. 

There she goes!

Next on my list of highlights was the sight of camels roaming through the hills and desert. This one wasn’t the least bit photo shy! 

We didn’t go into The Sharqiya Sands desert, but we glimpsed the enticing orange dunes from the motorway. We were put off staying there by the huge resorts advertised in the guidebook. We’ve since been told of smaller outfits where you can stay with Bedouin families – definitely something on our agenda for a return visit! 

If only all the road signs were this clear!

Wadi Shab was lush and green with clear, almost turquoise water.  It was a beautiful but popular spot, although there weren’t many walkers who continued past the rock pools. 

Sur, located on a pretty part of the coast, had a laidback vibe and made for a relaxed stopover. They still build and repair Dhow boats here. There were hardly any tourists wandering the souk and curious children called out to us “hello, how are you," and before we could answer they would say, "I am fine, thank you." We ate at Zaki’s restaurant – the best Indian food we have eaten outside India! 

The mountains of the Western Hajar were stunning. Who would have thought that beauty could be found in such an arid landscape. The village of Misfat al Abryeen (Misfah), a group of ochre coloured houses huddled on a hillside above date palms, was beautiful. We stayed at the Hospitality Inn, a typical Omani guesthouse with mattresses on the floor, open communal terrace and shared bathrooms.

Staying here meant we were poised for a walk in the mountains (there aren’t many trekking maps, but the routing for the W9, which leaves the village was clearly signposted with splashes of paint marking the way). 

Walk W9

A Falaji

To stay in Misfah was like stepping back in time. Pathways twisted amongst ruined houses and through date palms. Occasionally a donkey would stumble past carrying a heavy load.  Its popularity with tourists is highlighted by the signs at the village entrance warning visitors to dress appropriately. Many of the six hundred-year-old crumbling mud-brick houses are being restored and one gets the feeling change is imminent. The hillside is terraced and criss-crossed with waterways or falaji, as they’re called. Life revolves around this important water source, which we were told never runs dry. Every available space is used for growing produce including, pomegranates, bananas and papaya. There are 25 different varieties of date palms here and we watched a man take a flower from the male date tree and deftly climb up a female tree to fertilise it with the flower. The modern village sits on the opposite side of the gorge, steadily expanding under the watchful gaze of its old neighbour. 

Misfah

We spent three nights in Nizwa. Our stay coincided with the famous Friday Goat Market in the souk. The event is popular with tourists and locals alike. People gather around a central area to watch the occasion. As well as goats, there are cows and occasionally one of them would break free to run through the crowds. They even had baby camels for sale! 

We also visited our only fort – there are a lot of forts in Oman, but the one in Nizwa is impressive and has lively cultural displays. 

Hide and seek, Omani style!

A wander around the ancient ruined village of Al Munisifeh was very atmospheric as we had the place to ourselves and were able to go inside the buildings to climb rickety staircases and admire the arches and doors that had endured. My obsession with Omani doors began here!  

Al Hamra is another ancient village of mud-brick houses, but here they have a living museum, which was interesting and we learnt about the Indigo trade.

Muscat, the capital, is a pleasant city. The buildings are low-rise, which was a surprise. The Grand Mosque, the only mosque in Oman open to non-Muslims, was incredible.  

We were only able to explore one small part of Oman and there remains so much more to discover, so we will have to go back!

Park Life - Shanghai, China, November 2018

The parks in Shanghai are social centres – calm oasis in the middle of the modern frenetic city. Wandering around the parks of a morning I would stop to watch people practising tai chi, their movements calm and fluid. The same couldn’t be said for the group doing some kind of contorted face exercise. In another area a spot of ballroom dancing was the order of the day as couples took to the pathway twirling their partners accompanied by music. In a discreet corner old men sat hunched over a serious card game. Children, too young for school, ran through the throng usually accompanied by a grandparent. 













In People’s Park we happened along a particular spectacle - rows of elderly parents behind opened umbrellas. Pinned on the umbrellas was a piece of paper giving their child’s age, height, weight, zodiac sign, career prospects. All this detail provided in the hope of attracting the interest of the parents of a prospective suitor. According to the guide book, they come most weekends in the hope of finding a life-partner for their unmarried children, often without the knowledge of their offspring! It was a poignant sight – so many people with umbrellas looking sad and slightly desperate. We presumed the majority were looking for wives for their sons as there’s a shortage of men due to the one child policy, which was only relaxed a few years ago.  

Following the meandering path-way we happened upon an old lady in a wheelchair singing to her family. Her face radiated with pleasure as her family joined her in the chorus.

The Pyrenees - October 2018

Back in August 2005 we walked the whole length of the Pyrenees from the Atlantic coast to the Mediterranean. The weather was terrible with many violent storms so, for some of the time, we had to drop down to lower levels.  It meant we had missed this stunning area full of lakes and high mountain ridges. This October the weather was perfect for a high-level mountain walk.

Lac D'Oredon

The road to Lac D’Oredon is signposted from the village of Fabian.  We parked near the lake at 1,856 metres. And then took a footpath straight up. It felt good to be in the high mountains. The views made the climb worthwhile. 

Near the top, at Lac D’Aumar  (2192 metres) we met the GR10 – this was the long distance path we had followed all those years ago and it was like meeting an old friend. 

The red and white flash of the GR10

The path hugged the lake for a while eventually climbing to col d’Estoudou at 2260 metres where we stopped to drink in the view - layer upon layer of mountains.  Then we left the GR10 for our long descent to Lac D’Oredon and our car.

Walk summary:- This walk was number PR9 from the TopoGuide Les Hautes-Pyrenees a pied. It’s classed as medium difficulty and should take 3 hours 45 minutes. Total ascent is 400 metres.

Los Picos De Europa - September 2018

Years ago, as we sheltered from a thunderstorm in the Spanish Pyrenees, a fellow walker told us about the Picos De Europa. She said it was a paradise. So the seed was sown and last week we went – it was well worth the wait!

  

We approached the Picos from the city of Leon, where we had spent a couple of nights in an old monastery  Leon is on the Camino de Santiago pilgrim route. For me, the cathedral and pantheon were the highlights. The Gothic cathedral was built when the city had a population of only 5,000.  The ancient stained glass windows have retained their intense colours and cast an atmospheric glow over the interior.

From Leon, the Picos was a two hour scenic drive away. We stayed in comfort and luxury (very different to our normal mountain retreats) at Hotel Eigon in the village of Posada de Valdeon. The village sits in the centre of the valley hemmed in by mountains and feels very remote. On our first day we did a beautiful hike to the via ferrata – one look at the bridge suspended over a long drop, told us it wasn’t for us so we decided to save that experience for another day (or maybe never!) 

In the evening we ate at Casa Begona – a family run, inexpensive place with rustic food, eclectic decor and a very entertaining waiter.

The next day we walked the famous Cares Gorge, said to be one of the best hikes in the whole of Spain. The 22km walk (there and back) runs between Cain and Poncebos with a total ascent of 400m (100m there, 300m back).  It divides the central and western massifs, opening a pass between the high mountains. Starting from the village of Cain I wondered what all the fuss was about but as the path continued, wending its way through tunnels and limestone arches, we eventually emerged to a view of limestone crags against a cerulean sky and it was paradise. It is the combination of gorge walking and mountain walking that makes it special. 

Although the path is broad there is no protection at the edge from a drop of several hundred metres, but I have a good head for heights and never felt scared. The bad weather held off too, although we were a lot faster on our return journey as storm clouds threatened!

A long way down!

Sadly our third day in the Picos was stormy so we were forced to sample a carajillo or two and relax in the comfort of the Hotel Eigon and plan walks for our next visit!

Japan

Finally, here is my blog post on my trip to Japan, which I visited back in October 2017 (I've been busy writing my novel, which was one of the reasons I visited the country!)

Japan, efficient, clean, friendly and safe was unlike any place I had ever visited.  It wasn’t on my bucket list until I started writing a novel set there.  The more I read about it the more it fascinated me. 

We spent our first three nights in Tokyo (The Intercontinental in Tokyo Bay) adjusting to the jet lag and the culture.  We took a river trip to Asakusa, explored Ginza, visited the famous fish market where we huddled under umbrellas and munched on eel kebabs.  Then it was a two/three hour ride on the efficient bullet train to Kyoto.

Kyoto was larger than I had imagined.   And it was very much on the tourist trail.  We had found a delightful Airbnb to stay in on the outskirts of the city in a traditional Japanese home with tatami mats and shoji screens.

Our traditional room at the AirBnB

Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine

Our host, Atsuko made us feel welcome and was a font of all knowledge, telling us the best places to visit and guiding us on the workings of the bus system, which was invaluable!  If only she’d been on hand at the local laundrette where we managed to tumble dry our dirty clothes!  With her help, we were able to get off the tourist trail and discover serene temples and shrines.   We ate some of our best food in Kyoto, visited our first Sento (Japanese bath and worthy of its own blog post) and experienced our first typhoon.  In fact, it rained most of our five days there. 

Tenryu-ji

From Kyoto we were meant to take the train to Kinasaki where we had booked a night’s  accommodation to experience the public baths, but fallen trees blocked the line.Instead, we did a day trip to Nara (30 minute train ride from Kyoto).  Nara was smaller than Kyoto so it was possible to explore the major sites on foot.  It is very much on the tourist trail, but the main attraction, the Giant Buddha in the Todai-ji Temple, is so big it absorbed the crowds effortlessly.  The deer were a little overfriendly and one took a bite out of our map. 

The Giant Buddha was impressive, but the highlight for me was the lantern temple, which was atmospheric - row upon row of stone lanterns covered in moss.   

From Kyoto we took the bullet train to Hiroshima, a city with wide boulevards and hardly any high rise. The atomic dome, one of the few buildings to survive the atomic bomb, is a stark reminder of the city’s tragic history.   The Peace Memorial Museum was extremely moving and well done.  I will always remember the image of the children’s memorial surrounded by school children learning about the city’s past. 

The Atomic Dome

From Hiroshima it was a short train and ferry ride to the island of Miyajima, which is famous for its Torii gate one of the most photographed sites in Japan.  We were to stay one night on the island in a Ryokan, a traditional Japanese style hotel.  And we had chosen the right day - the sun was blazing as we walked up to the summit of Mount Misen (535 mtrs).  A cable car can get you within reach of the summit so it is a popular spot, but there weren’t many people hiking up so when we arrived at the top we felt a little smug at having got there on foot.   As night falls on Miyajima, the tourists leave and it’s possible to wander the narrow streets on your own, apart from the odd deer.  At the hotel we were given tracksuits to wear – guest even wore them to dinner!  Here we experienced our second Japanese bathing experience!

View of the Torii Gate taken from the Itsukushima Shrine

From Miyajima it was back to Hiroshima to catch the bullet train to Kobe where we experienced our second typhoon!

We arrived in Kobe on a rainy Saturday afternoon and I think the weather clouded my feeling for the place.  Thank goodness for the Oriental Hotel, with its remnants of a by-gone era, it was the best place we stayed in.  During the typhoon we visited the earthquake museum set up as a memorial to the 1995 Kobe earthquake when over 6,000 people lost their lives.   It is also there to educate and we were the only foreign visitors.  Thank goodness the sun came out on our last morning in Kobe and we were able to walk up to see the waterfalls, which were spectacular and a real asset to the city.  This meant I left with a very different opinion of Kobe to the one I arrived with. 

The culmination of our trip was Yokohama, the setting for my novel, which is inspired by a real person – my husband’s great aunt, Agnes Salvesen, who lived in Yokohama in 1913/14.  Much of Yokohama was destroyed in the 1923 earthquake so I feared there wouldn’t be much left from Agnes’ day.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover an area, called The Bluff, which still had some of the houses from 1900 and, some of them were open to the public. The house below was exactly as I had imagined the house Aggie stays in on her arrival in Yokohama.

From The Bluff we took a taxi to The Sankeien Gardens.  The gardens were built in 1906 so would have been there when Agnes visited.  It was a beautiful, serene place to wander and a fitting end to our stay in Japan.

Spring arrives in Le Midi!

Today we did a magnificent 15km walk in the Tarn et Garonne.  It was taken from the book 38 Randonees.  We parked the car at St Project and headed downhill on the main road to pick up a narrow track on the left (signposted with yellow Sentier Communale signs).  The chateau de la Reine Margot looked splendid against the clear blue sky. 

Chateau de la Reine Margot

For the most part the route was along beautiful shaded paths with only a little bit of road walking.  This time of year the fields looked lush and green (there has been a lot of rain) and the dandelions are growing well!  For the whole walk we didn’t see a soul, apart from a lady who passed us in her car with a cheery “belle promenade.”  And, for once, we didn’t get lost!    

 

Moss!