Ceci n’est pas une fraise

It looks like a fraise. When you squash twenty of these into a punnet they bruise and leach just enough juice to sort of smell like a strawberry. But when you cut them open, the white, pithy heart of the subject is revealed. This is not as it should be. The heart of a strawberry – the most frequently referenced fruit in highbrow erotic fiction, I’m told – should throb scarlet and smell of wet sun. Whizzed up with one of these, a smoothie might turn an anaemic shade of pink; chopped up with ripe orange fruits, these made a pretty weak claim to a place in my fruit salad this morning. Otherwise, they’re useless pieces of aerated matter, ripened too fast, stored in a too chilly environment and bumped and bruised to buggery. Balsamic, caster sugar, Pernod, they’d be wasted trying to salvage these. These were cheap strawberries, they’re not organic, and my hazy memories of Riverina and Corsican strawberry picking tell me that the season hits its peak in mid-summer. Mental note, etc.

I purchased these oh-so inadequate groundberries yesterday but this morning’s disappointment does not constitute the first relearnt Lesson of the day. No, after rushing home from yoga, the first relearnt Lesson I learnt on this day, the 19th of February, was never to believe a word any removalist says about arrival times. I rushed through Bondi Junction, ur-lieu of fantasy consumption, without even a glance at the new surfaces which have made last year’s old this year’s mesmerising new. I’m reading through some of Ballard’s novels from the early 70s and trying to draw together a set of ideas on shopping centres to write a paper or a short story or somesuch. I could have done research at sashay pace. Instead, I pierced my post-yoga calm and zipped home with barely a sniff to smell the berries. And for what? A phone call telling me there’s been a bit of a problem in the yard. Sigh. If I had a zoom lens, I’d take a photograph of the dog lolling on my neighbour’s balcony, the size and shape of an imaginary shaggy lion to cheer myself up. Oh well, I'm borrowing another neighbour's wireless connection to post this blog and that seems to be doing the trick.

And so I wait for the arrival of a bed and the long-awaited consummation of a plan to make my bed and lie in it. This particular enactment of the scene will have to unroll without any bedbound and languorous mastication of strawberries. Alas.

Reading the entrails

I made it back to Sydney and so did all my bags. Waiting in the long queue for customs, an official started chatting and asked me what I did for a living. I told him I taught English Literature and he waved me through the gates. Even though I didn’t have the satisfaction of exceeding the duty-free booze allowance, this struck me as a particularly good omen for re-entry into terra Australopithecus. This blog has been sorely neglected but I’ve managed to get a job and find a place to live since hitting the ground. I’ve also eaten variously formatted trout several times and righteously emptied a number of glasses of sauvignon blanc. There’s ceviche marinating right now and a zillion photos of the Taj Mahal to putter through.
Oh look, here’s one. My guide ran into a friend in the gardens at the back-end of the Taj and they spent half an hour taking winning photos like this. If only I had a picture of the Harbour Bridge to match it.

Halfway there

I've been here before...
Last time I was in Kuala Lumpar airport, I got stuck in the twilight zone and didn't leave for ten hours. I browsed the racks of durian chips and pondered the paucity of gin on offer in the duty free shops. The only significant change I note eight months later is the availability of top shelf Beefeater gin and a lamentable absence of Cointreau. If my plans happen to coincide with those of the airline, I'll be on a plane and back in Sydney in less than twelve hours.

Kafka over the Red Sea

I arrived in Delhi this morning on a plane full of drunken Chinese businessmen on the way to Beijing. Their antics included that old chestnut, 'No! I won't wear my seatbelt, miss' and a whole series of steal-the-wine-from-the-trolley hi-jinks. It was all so exciting, I was just clean unable to sleep.

This aside, arriving in India was no problem at all. I'd filled in all the visa forms in Addis and had my passport stamped for a six month stay. 'No, you don't need an onward ticket,' said the lady at the embassy. 'You just need to show you have the means to leave the country. A credit card will do.' It has been my experience that the onward ticket requirement to enter many countries is treated with some flexibility. So I arrived at Bole Airport in Addis all set to check in and sort through shawls and faux-Lalibella crosses at the airport.

All of a sudden, bureaucratic insanity descended upon me, retribution for all of my oversights, inconsistencies and misrepresentations on forms. It transpired that whilst the Indian Embassy (conveniently closed at the late-night conflict hour) was happy for me to enter India without an onwards ticket, Ethiopian Airlines wasn't. No ticket, no fly, that was that. Indian immigration is tough and they would suffer as much as I did if I was refused entry. Business is business. A ticket operator had to be summonsed in order to sell me a ticket out of India. I was far from thrilled with this development and indeed gave a pretty good performance of over-tired, slightly hysterical, demanding and selfish foreigner. I placed my problem right at the centre of everyone's concerns, hands on hips, and stamped my feet so that everybody knew how unhappy I was to be about to fork out US$800 for a ticket out of India. I'm sorry to say a small number of tears, a bit of shouting, and a lot of flouncing were concerned.

When the travel agent man finally showed up, it took a while before we understood each other. The lack of English language speaking staff wasn't making anything any easier. All of a sudden, he gave me a ticket from Delhi to Bangkok and refused all payment. I was confused. 'It's not a real ticket,' he said. 'I know you don't want to buy a ticket and this reservation will be enough for them. Just show it to immigration and the forget about it.' It is a Pyrrhic victory, using meaningless bits of paper to satisfy projections of non-existent bureaucratic strictures.

And of course, when I arrived in Delhi, no one even so much as asked for a glimpse at my onward ticket.

The raise in blood pressure this little episode produced might also have had something to do with my sleepless journey. So now, a wee bit delirious, I'm waiting for the arrival of the troops from the airport and hoping very much that I can find an opportunity to eat another bowlful of the tomato and coriander soup I had for lunch. Indian food. Indian food! For weeks and weeks!

Lunar retreat

I caught a boat from Zanzibar to Dar Es Salaam, planning to fiddle with some flights there before starting the slow haul to Kampala. The boat arrived four hours later than expected and the travel agent had closed for the weekend. There was no way that I was going to stay indoors in dodgy Dar as the full moon rose so I decided to hot-foot it up the coast to Bagamoyo, the nineteenth century capital of Tanzania, a dhow building centre, an old Swahili town and certified sleepy beach precinct.

I had tried to find out about transport to Bagamoyo online but alas, my searches were fruitless. So, for the benefit of the next poor fool who keys the words ‘getting from Dar Es Salaam to Bagamoyo’ into the Google search box, here’s what you need to know. Dala dalas (which are little private vans, think family mover…) and mini-buses to Bagamoyo leave from Mwenge terminal. Dala dalas for Mwenge leave all the time from the Old Posta stand near the port; the trip costs 250 shillings (25 cents! Bargain!) and takes about half an hour. Mwenge is a dustbowl interchange point heaving with dala dalas and minibuses. Anyone can point you to the Bagamoyo departure point. Here, things get a little crazy. You can, like me, allow yourself to be rushed into the nearest dala dala by a charming gent who smilingly shouts ‘Bagamoyo? Bagamoyo!’ at you and whisks away your pack before you have time to demur, grateful only that you’ve got to approximately the right point in the hot throng of whirring vehicles without losing your foot under a wheel. Then you’d be stuck in the heat with nineteen other passengers in a van that seats ten for a bit over an hour. You’d start to think about the tens of thousands of shillings you’d pay to get out of a van that it only cost you 1500 shillings to board. Were I to make the trip again, I’d smile graciously at Mr Charisma-tout and sail over to the larger mini-buses with Bagamoyo emblazoned over the windscreen, possibly cop a 3000 shilling fare and a twenty minute wait, and enjoy a whole cracked vinyl seat to myself.

Bagamoyo and Dar are only seventy kilometres apart but the journey felt a whole lot longer. It transpired that there was no room for my pack in the back of the van so I was squashed in bearing the entire weight of my pack on my knees. When the back door of the dala dala swung open mid-trip and someone else’s bags tumbled out onto the highway, it seemed like half a blessing. For a while, maybe for ten minutes, I entertained myself trying to find the right sitting position such that I could sit up straight, lean into an embrace with my pack and somehow find a point of gravity to balance me. Then the van braked suddenly and I wound up on my knees on the floor. Somehow, I heaved myself back into the seat and the whole balancing game rapidly ran out of steam, mainly because my knees and ankles were beginning to ache. I remembered my mother telling me that a snapped Achilles tendon is one of the most painful injuries one can endure and became certain that the combination of strange angles and pack pressure was going to snap the back of my legs in two. This passed the time for a while.

Knowing that Bagamoyo was a Swahili town, I had taken the precaution of wearing long sleeves for the trip. This turned out to be a wise move. The van was full of robed Swahili men, none of whom looked particularly thrilled at my infidel presence. As I was squashed in, I became extremely conscious of the brazen, conspicuous bareness of my legs from knee to toe. As soon as I was plonked next to him, the man on my left started to pray, whether for himself or for me, I could not tell.

Happily, I made it, knees ahoy, ankles unsnapped, bag intact. I needed a cup of coffee to recuperate, and this is what I got.
A thermos, a jug of hot milk, a tin of instant coffee (containing half a teaspoon of coffee), some sugar, a cup, and a pile of spoons.

All said, Bagamoyo is delivering solidly on the sleepy, undercaffeinated promise. There’s almost no one here so I have made friends with two very charming, hopefully non-rabid dogs. I’ll watch the full moon rise over the Indian Ocean tonight and I won’t know about the outcome of the election until tomorrow. Has the Rodent scurried through again? Should I tear up my passport? Will November’s full moon signal a new celestial era for the Antipodean Federation? Will Australia ever again be lead by a man with the temerity to refer to his country as ‘the arse end of the universe’? Yikes!

About last night

How hot is it in the hold under a Kenyan bus? Terrifyingly, it’s probably hotter than in the passenger area. It’s hot enough to melt a tub of shea butter, that’s for sure.

At some ungodly hour this morning, I boarded a bus direct from Mombasa to Dar Es Salaam. The hour was ungodly, I’m well known to be damned, but the bus, like most of the buses leaving Mombasa, was holy, the words ‘Gospel Runner’ being painted on the back window. The cushy foreigner friendly buses with airconditioning and legroom that I’d counted on catching don’t run from Mombasa to Dar. Instead of bussing back to Nairobi and then down to Dar, adding at least a day’s travel and a night in big bad Nairobi, I opted for the bone-rattling dust buggy and somehow, eleven hours later, I’ve made it to Dar. Thank the Lord.

Being occasionally prone to such fripperies, I’d purchased a tub of shea butter in Nairobi adulterated only by that truly splendid fragrance, ylang ylang oil. Shea butter is like the pawpaw ointment/tiger balm/echinaecea/snake oil of the Rift Valley – with messianic fervour, its adherents allege it a remedy for everything from mozzie bites and stretch marks to sunburn, old age, and unhappiness. It contains anti-oxidants. My thinking was that shea butter is soft and my elbows, heels and fly-pocked feet are hard. The ylang ylangified version was produced by some Sudanese wimmin’s collective. Bingo. How could a bleeding heart like me say no?

Anyway, the ride from Mombasa liquefied the once solid shea butter and, typical bloody shonky NGO production values, the tub leaked. I’ve now got the best smelling pack in East Africa, not to mention the most moist and supple. Most of my underwear is now dual purpose too: it will attract mosquitos thanks to the ylang ylang and cure any bites and stings thanks to the shea butter.

I’m staying in a hostel called Luther House near the port run by a the church and hymns are being sung nearby. Hallelujah. Outside my window, an American pastor is making loud and grandiose statements about Strategy. Closer by, on the floor next to my bed, a herd of raucous cockroaches are mucking about. There’s a mozzie net over my bed but I’m tossing up whether or not to eat my last mango and trick the roaches away from my soon-to-be sleeping self by means of the skins and pips. Everything smells of ylang ylang. It’s all looking pretty funny from this side of the screen.

In the morning, I’ll hit the port to arrange a ferry ride to Zanzibar. If all goes to plan, tomorrow night, I’ll be floating off to another set of fragrant dreams in the Spice Islands.

Three strikes

Well, surprise surprise, the airport is looking neither as rosy nor as fascinating as it did seven hours ago.
I took a nap on the floor. I ate dahl for breakfast. I didn't find any Malacca gin. Why it is that one can purchase fifteen different varieties of cognac, countless blends of scotch and forty five gazillion flavours and grades of vodka in duty-free shops but only EVER five types of gin (Beefeater, Gordons, Bombay, Tanq Normale and 10) I do not know. Plymouth? Millers? All the rest?

I'm existing in the land of global blah and purchased a glossy magazine to keep my eyes open. I've obviously been on the nod as far as flashy advertising is concerned: Mikhail Gorbachev is a posterboy for Louis Vuitton! (And Green Cross, it must be said.) What next? I can sort of envisage Clinton doing a sportchic number for Ralph Lauren or Armani. Bush as the avuncular figure in a Hilfiger ad? Blair twitching around with a posse of disaffected, well-groomed types in a Burberry ad? John Howard as the face of Ferragamo?

One of the slogans of Dubai Airport: Step into our caring world. If I turn my head slightly to the left, I spy a large banner which expands upon the promise of a caring world as follows: 'We are always there to hear you out. Allow us to make you feel special.'

Right now, I do feel quite special. Hang on, is that a boarding call?

TTT: 15:00

Scareport the Second

I've got eight hours in which to savour the various pleasures of Dubai Airport. Me voilà, mid-savour.
I am, as Eddie Vedder once sang, still alive. Right now, I'm not a little dazzled and I haven't even eaten my free transit meal. I thought my vision of the metaphor of the marketplace had been sufficiently tweaked by the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. It's 2 in the morning in Dubai and this enormous airport is open for business. The shops are thronging with jetlagged customers from all over the world and faux stars are twinkling from faux windows high up above my head. I'd be willing to wager a liver I'll find a bottle of Tanqueray Malacca gin somewhere! Who knows what a smashed body clock and a working day's worth of neon transit will do to my peppiness? Right now, everything that appeals to me about airports is abundantly available in Dubai International. Weird impermanent limbo, bright lights, an out of state intersection, forty flavours of distortion! Hooray! Travel via Dubai today! Or tomorrow...

And whilst I'm making broad and premature claims, I'm thinking that Emirates might be the best airline I've ever flown with, and not just because I watched The Philadelphia Story on the flight. The plane? She was yar.

Once more, Hooray!

Total time spent tottering and teetering through transit: 8:45

Airport the First

The excitement begins.

I've made it to Ataturk Airport. My flight to Dubai has been delayed for half an hour. I have no concerns about missing the connecting flight to Kenya as I'm looking forward to ten hours in transit in Dubai. The pleasant people at the Emirates check-in desk pointedly presented me with information about the airport hotel at Dubai. There's a kilo of Turkish delight from Haci Bekir in my hand luggage and an airport priced cup of coffee next to me.

Total transit time: 2:00*

* Since leaving hotel.

Not the Orient Express

I left Romania on the most comfortably appointed sleeper train in which I have ever had the pleasure to travel. Wood panelling! Soft mattresses! A distinct and welcome absence of grime, disinfectant, stale cigar smoke, lime, insects and cold draughts! The Chisinau-Bucharest train had undermined my affection for a good long train trip so much so that I had thought of flying to Istanbul rather than braving another stinky rattle-trap and slightly threatening cabin-mate. This time, I booked my ticket through a travel agent at Bucharest station, decided to splurge on the second snazziest grade of travel (three in a cabin), and insisted that I sleep in a wimmin only cabin; 56 euros and 20 hours of travel later, and here I am in Istanbul, my commitment to long-haul train travel reaffirmed.

I stared out the window as the sun turned the fields and forests and hills and sky from green and yellow and brown and blue to the most extraordinary shades of purple and orange and red and white. Men in hats sat in hay-carts driven by donkeys, kids played soccer in fields just harvested and little groups with baskets sat under trees and picked mushrooms. In between times, I had Daniel Deronda and an old Guardian to entertain me.

The internet had provided me with a number of different and contradictory factoids about the visa requirements for entering Turkey. I was pretty sure, if not entirely certain, that I could buy a visa at the border but had no idea how much that would cost or what currency would be needed. The blogs yielded stories of dodgy border guards refusing various currencies and requiring a little extra currency to lubricate the process. I spent my last Romanian lei on beer and took a handful of euros and US dollars to the visa dealer at the border. Here’s my addition to the factoids. If you hold a British passport and you are entering Turkey by train, a visa will cost either £10 or 15 euros or US$20, making it most economical to pay in euros (I think). Woman of experience I may be, but I haven’t yet bribed a border guard. Someday.

Transparent as the process was, there was still a lot of waiting around to be done. The train pulled into Bulgarian border control at about 1.30am and left the Turkish control two hours later; most of that time was spent shivering in queues. I’ve had ample opportunity of late to observe the social habits of people in queues and particularly to wonder at the overwhelming urge that many people seem to have to form groups and committees and engage in chit-chat. I think I missed out on that gene. At any rate, I was on autopilot and had forgotten to pre-program small talk and so didn’t really join in the banter. I was cold and I didn’t really want to tell my life story in five easy chunks* to some strangers in the dark. And, misanthrope that I am, I didn’t really want to hear a set of soundbites about the English speakers around me. I’ve never really needed to talk to kill time and forming bonds with other people through complaint is a habit I’m trying to break. Solidarity in the face of adversity is one thing but the kinds of connections I see wealthy westerners like myself forming with each other when they are stuck in a new environment don’t really appeal.

Oh, the clock doesn’t work. Look, that clock there shows different time to this one here. It’s just not like home, is it. Gosh, these clocks that don’t work, you’d think they’d get onto it. Is that other feller there working or just loafing? Oh, complained the Australian couple, nodding to each other, you wouldn’t get this kind of trouble with immigration at home, would you? We-he-he-heeeelll, blustered a drunk and whiskery American gent apparently exploring his second youth, they told you this was gonna be a sleeper train, did they? We-he-he-he-heeeell! Don’t believe a word they say, that’s what I say. And always, I say always, always watch your pockets. I’m going to ask the conductor whether he knows what time it is. Is that all we’re waiting for? For them to stamp our passports? What about that other feller? What’s he doing?

And so it went on. I don’t suppose anyone is much good with sparkling repartee at three in the morning.

I watched locals who had made the trip before bring out thermoses. I envied the squat old ladies their fur lined boots and lurid headscarves; they looked warm and I was cold. I’d made friends with the conductor, a round man with a very impressive walrus moustache, and his offsider, an impassioned Romanian patriot named Orlando, and they told me how bad EU membership was for Romania and Bulgaria. I got to wishing that I was still a smoker and tried to whistle the theme tune from ‘Cabaret’ instead but it was too cold to stay on target. The slightly loopy Romanian lady with whom I was sharing a cabin gave me the low-down on her cats and her June to November fruit and vegetable pickling program in the Ceaucescu years. Comatose small talk is easier in French. ‘Dearie me,’ a middle-aged Australian man intoned loudly and dramatically at least five times within a twenty minute interval and I resolved to eliminate the expression from my expostulatory vocabulary, so silly did he sound.

Eventually, everybody got their passport stamped, everybody got back on the train, everybody got to Istanbul. The last twenty minutes of the trip sheared by the coast, the view broken from time to time by the remnants of the old walls of Constantinople. Walking down the platform, I passed the stained glass windows of the Orient Express café and remembered that I’d been at the other end of the line in Venice six weeks ago. The first thing I noticed when I left the station was what claimed to be a baklavaria, an omen which portends very well, I’d say.

* My life in Five Easy Responses
1. I’m Australian. 2. I’ve come from Bucharest. 3. I’m going to Istanbul to meet a friend. 4. Yes, I’m travelling alone. 5. No, it’s fine, I like travelling on my own.

Sayonara Moldova

I made it from Odessa to Chisinau and posting this from Bucharest is a happy sign that Chisinau and Moldova are well behind me. Twenty four hours is not enough time to refine an informed opinion about any country, I know. Underinformed as my gut instinct may be, I am nevertheless bound to state that Moldova is not the country for me. I had wanted to travel from Odessa to Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, on the train. Not being sure whether this train was actually operational, I took the advice of a friend and posted a query on the Lonely Planet Thorntree site, a very useful resource if one is travelling in these parts or indeed anywhere off the proverbial beaten track. I was overwhelmed with useful responses: not only did I discover that the train was no longer running because of the trouble in Transdniestr, I found out the particulars of the correct bus. Transdniestr is a region in the east of Moldova (ie, the part near Odessa) which is still faithful to the ideals of the former Soviet Union (yes). Trains from the Ukraine no longer run through there and loopy foreigners like myself are strongly advised not to travel through at the moment as a fee will be levied for the privilege and drama, ranging from low level official corruption to low level incarceration is the norm. In spite of the firm belief of the distinguished upper echelons of my family to the contrary, I’m always happy to heed a travel warning. My LP interlocutor advised that only the 11am and the 3.30pm buses to Chisinau from Odessa go through Palanku and hence not through Transdniestr. Got that? Now write it in Cyrillic. I ignored the fifteen other buses to Chisinau and bought a ticket on the 11am bus (or so I hoped). I found the bus, the driver took my bag, I even bought a cup of sweet sweet instant coffee with powdered milk: everything was looking so good that I thought I’d get on the bus. Unfortunately, I took leave of my Ukrainian street-smarts and opened the door of the bus on the left. What I opened was the door to the driver’s seat. Ooooh, how we all laughed! Ooooh, what a great opportunity for cross-cultural charades that was! Did I want to drive the bus to Chisinau? Noooo, I did not! Was I feeling like a conspicuous foreign silly? Ooooh, yes I was, particularly after someone decided to do a kangaroo hop.

I slunk onto the bus and submerged myself in Ivanhoe until the border checks. As the only person on the bus who wasn’t either Ukrainian or Moldovan, I was sure that the delays (an hour leaving Ukraine, an hour entering Moldova fifty metres later) had something to do with me but when the bus arrived in Chisinau an hour before schedule, that certainty abated. I know that a number of conversations about me took place very near me, I just have no idea what the substance of those conversations might have been. Happily, I didn’t get summonsed for interrogation by border guards, unlike many of my fellow passengers. You know, you never know how much a passport can mean until you’ve given it up at a place where it might really come in handy. Like the Ukraine-Moldova border. The situation demanded meek compliance and in turn I gave my passport to the cross looking Ukrainian border guard and then to her Moldovan counterpart and just sat there waiting hopefully. Both times, the passports were returned to the bus in a big bundle and a schmick looking Moldovan lad took it upon himself to distribute them. ‘Caaa-Try-Ooooh-Nya,’ twice he smirkingly read, waiting for a solid snicker from the gallery before handing my passport back to me with a great flourish. Being engrossed in a novel about the chivalric code, I lowered my head like a proficient damsel, nodded gratefully, murmured ‘spasibo spasibo’ and demurely, smilingly received the proffered passport.

Shift a few hours forward to the reception desk of the hotel at which I planned to stay the night, cheapish and near the train station from whence would depart the sleeper train to Bucharest the following night. Apologising for the fact that I had to use English (my Romany and Russian both being blunt instruments), I asked whether they had a single room for one night, all smiles and cultural diplomacy. ‘When are you leaving’ asked the older woman of the two staffing the desk, immediately taking charge of the official welcome. ‘Um, I don’t know exactly,’ I demurred.
Hatchet-face (for in truth, she was possessed of such a face.): (Early triumph of logic.) Well, if you don’t know, you can’t stay.
Catri (for ‘tis my name.): (Suddenly a bit desperate and tired, actually.) Um, I don’t know but I can leave as early as you want. (Smiles.)
Hatchet-face: (Mildly threatening.) We need to know.
Catri: (Beseechingly.) When…?
H-F: (Authoritatively.) Ten am in the morning, no later.
C: (Bright and conciliatory, ignoring tautology.) OK, fine, that’s TERRIFIC! Can I leave my bags here for the day tomorrow?
H-F: (Scoffing.) Where?
C: (Lost.) Here?
H-F: (Once more with the upper hand.) Here? Here,—ha!—no. We have no luggage room here.
C: (Pauses. Slightly baffled. Bright idea finally sparks.) Is there a luggage room at the train station?
H-F: (Reluctantly.) At train station, there is a luggage room.
C: (Earnestly wanting to be triumphant, but instead opting for a conciliatory smile, smiles.) Great. Can I check in?
H-F: (Sternly.) PASSPORT?

And so it went on, and so I found myself in a pretty marginal hotel room, muttering away to myself in a most unladylike fashion. I won’t go into detail about the trouble the hotel had processing my credit card nor will I expostulate against organizations which advertise their rates in one currency (say, US dollars, ready money in any country in the world) and demand payment in another (say, Moldovan lei, current ONLY in Moldova and worthless elsewhere). I’ll also leave to your imagination the number of ATMs which rejected my card, the non-funny banter I exchanged with the bank staff at the joint where I had to withdraw money on my Visa card and exchange it, thus paying double fees, and the slightly terse interchange I had with my receptionist friend on finally returning with Moldovan hard cash to pay the bill. Oh yes, and that twenty dollar note that I’d brought with me from the Ukraine which I couldn’t change because it had a crease down the middle. Ah, the memories.

I'm sure the wineries are beautiful and that if you happen to speak Moldovan the locals are lovely... For the brief duration of my stay, being in Moldova was like being in a bank queue and forever being shunted to a different counter and told to return in an hour, tomorrow, when the cleaner has returned from holidays, perpetually. Pure Kafka.

I left Slovenia this morning, catching an train from Ljubljana to Budapest. Nine and a half hours in a carriage moving slowly through the mountains and plains of Slovenia and Hungary, in which apple trees and haystacks feature prominently, did nothing to shake my conviction that long train trips are Good For The Soul. I shared my compartment with a chatty Slovenian curtain saleswoman on her way to a trade show for an hour and then later in the day with a young Hungarian couple more interested in each other than me or the scenery. I read a very out of date New Yorker and a book of short stories by Lorrie Moore, Birds of America, bits of which I really loved. I also took several pleasurable snoozes. A good thing I do enjoy train trips as they are likely to feature prominently over the next few weeks.


Anyway, I bid farewell to Slovenia with a photo of the first Slovenian town I stayed in, Piran. Piran is located but an hour away from Trieste and is conspicuously scenic, being possessed of hundreds of boat moorings and many old churches. Alas, like many conspicuously scenic and indeed perhaps charming seaside towns, it is swarming with tourists. If you need proof that not all French and Italian people are tall, willowy, cultured, well-mannered, well-dressed and under-thirty, go to Piran.

I last glimpsed the sea in its Adriatic incarnation in Piran. I will next lay eyes and perhaps dip toes in the great briny either in Albania or the Ukraine. For now, I'm landlocked in Budapest and trying to work out how best to pun on my being in Hungary.

Breaking news

Ah, technology, the shrinking world, logistics. Here I am in Genoa and somehow I've managed to book a flight from Istanbul to Nairobi. So it's official, I'll be in Nairobi on the 26th October. I now need to sort out the following logistical challenges:

1. Get from Genoa to Milan tomorrow. And then from Milan to Padova or Verona. And then to Venice. People tell romantic stories about the craaaazy Italian trains. Nothing is on time! The platforms change every ten minutes! Abandon hope all ye who enter here!

2. Get from Venice to Odessa. Five weeks should be long enough to do this, hopefully via Vienna, Budapest, Transylvania, Bratislava, Sofia, Pilsen, Kiev and the Crimean coast. Hmmm.

3. Get from Odessa to Istanbul. There's a ferry across the Crimean which links these two ports. Catching a ferry across the Crimean will count as a significant life experience. Plenty of How to questions to answer in the interim.

Emirates offers an impressive selection of meal types to their passengers. I have until 24 hours before my flight to make a final decision as to whether I want a Jain meal or not. What I do know now is that I will not be selecting the BLAND meal that is, I swear by the grave of Brillat-Savarin, an option.

Touchdown

Forty six hours later, I arrived in London.

Twilight Zone

Weary me! Hip hop hooray! Deck the halls with boughs of holly! I’m still in Kuala Lumpur Airport! The slogan of KLIA is ‘The Airport in the Forest and the Forest in the Airport.’ I tell you, I can’t see the wood for the trees.

My flight was cancelled at three in the morning and the passenger body put up for the night in a hotel called The Palace of the Golden Horses. Six hours surrounded by gilded horseshoes made interminable transit seem almost bearable.

Someone must have told the friendly PR people at Air Malaysia that the best way to calm an angry mob is to feed them. Not only have I been bombarded with meal vouchers, I’ve been plonked in front of a buffet breakfast and told to eat. As a point of rigorous principle, I never knock back a free meal. Several platefuls of smoked mackeral later… My circadian rhythms are entirely confused. I am confused. I have no idea what timezone I am in. I have no idea what timezone I left, I have no idea what timezone I will fly into. I have spent approximately thirty minutes of the last twenty four hours in a non-airconditioned environment. I have lost track of how many meals I have eaten. The only physical exertion I have undergone is laps of Kuala Lumpur Airport. I am beginning to feel twitchy and paranoid. Perhaps I am being stuffed like a Christmas goose for a reason. Will my liver be harvested? Are They conducting experiments? I blame Thomas Pynchon.

As ever, watching other people deal with a minor crisis is moderately entertaining. My cohort includes those infused with Righteous Outrage (Who do these people think they are? How can they just cancel MY FLIGHT?), the Bitterly Experienced (I knew it, Air Malaysia… ), the Pep and Information Squad (Look, don’t worry, I’ve just got an update from one of the managers…) . I count myself as part of the Blithe and Resigned contingent. I’ve met a semi-retired computer scientist from Devon who is still wondering whether abandoning his Cambridge PhD on the Social and Economic impact of the Non-Conformists in Victorian England was the right idea. He’s part of my team.

Fear not, comrades. I’ve descended to blather but I’ve still got the Edge. I’ve got a weapon and I’ve got a camera.
Here’s me, post a mediocre croque monsieur, mid mediocre cappuccino wielding what looks suspiciously like a blunt knife. Upon my word, your Honour, it came with the meal.

Friends, I hereby pledge to drink three Bloody Marys on boarding the plane. This will break a long asserted but often feebly regarded rule of mine about drinking in the air. Such is life. Flexibility is the answer.

Over and out.

Live from KLIA

Kuala Lumpur Airport was judged the best airport in the world (15-25 million passengers per year) in 2005. I have had ample opportunity to investigate all the facilities on offer. I've been here for eight (8) hours. I only just discovered the wireless facilities.

Yep, so, transit for eight hours in KLIA. What delights do tempt the global commuter! This is apparently the world's first environmentally sound airport. I'm not sure how the reception of aviation fuel burners is factored into this great achievement. I am actually quite a partisan of the airport experience for reasons that I cannot coherently explain or defend this early in the morning. I like the limbo-ness of airports. I'm fascinated by their similarities. I like the way the same old questions arise in every airport.
Bombay Sapphire or Tanqueray? Bombay!
Do I change my signature scent? No!
What's on offer at the Made in Malaysia shop? Spicy tapioca crisps and Beryl's Durian Cookies! (Digression. Has anybody ever noticed that you can buy caskwine at Sydney Airport?)
What to do when the fair use policy for the free internet terminals is violated? Remain passive!
Is there anything decent to eat? No! Wishing to be attentive to the local cuisine, meal #1 was, of course, a Penang Laksa. A vat of oily, bland, awful laksa. Meal # 2 was a freebie, some feeble recompense for the dire delays being withstood by a generally unhappy body of passengers. Imagine the worst tuna mayonnaise baguette in existence and leave it in the sun for a few hours. Then bite into it and wonder whether to name the debacle in your hands the product of a vicious ooze or a restrained explosion.
What overpriced magazines will I buy? Vanity Fair! (June issue.) The New Yorker! (Early June issue.)
Yep. Consumption under neon lights. Riveting stuff. I must confess, my fascination with airports is somewhat diminished. I may not even stop to admire the trolleys at Heathrow tomorrow morning. I have discovered a new facet to the term 'terminally bored.' I've been trying desperately to get lost whilst wandering around in order to have something to do. I'm getting a little shrill and hysterical. This is what my webcam tells me it looks like.
Hang on. Is that a boarding call?