Tag: holiday

When stars align

Jaipur

The first time we visited Jaipur, somebody recommended we visit Jantar Mantar.

‘It has all these ancient astronomical instruments. It’s very interesting,’ they told me, ‘and it’s a world heritage site.’

Don would like that, I thought, he’s a science nerd. So I added it to our list of things to do in Jaipur.

It was searingly, crushingly hot when we visited that day in 2012. We entered the archway to a flat expanse of pale yellow concrete with numerous pale yellow concrete structures spread throughout. Concrete on concrete. We had no idea what anything was other than the giant sundial as there were no signs in English, and the blinding white pages of my guide book were hurting my eyes. Luckily the star signs were labelled, twelve sets of random concrete steps and arches. We took our photos near Sagittarius and Cancer and left dazed, sunburnt and no wiser than when we’d entered.

‘Well,’ I said last week to my sister Nat, who’d had the exact same experience, ‘Jantar Mantar is not on our list of things to do in Jaipur this time.’

However the City Palace, right next door to Jantar Mantar, was definitely on our list. Beautiful and ornate palace buildings built by the Maharaja on a sprawling royal site. Trees, hedges, lush grass, fountains and a gift shop.

We walked to the City Palace this morning, glancing at the giant astronomical structures as we passed by the open doorway on our way.

‘There’s that sundial place we went to last time,’ I said to Don, ‘remember?’

‘We’re not going there again are we?’ he asked in alarm.

‘Hell no!’

We lined up for our palace tickets, had them clipped and headed through the entrance. Excited to see the glorious City Palace before me, I looked up from tucking our tickets in my bag to be confronted by an enormous sundial.

‘What the fuck?’ I exclaimed.

Don right behind me took a moment. ‘What’s going on? What’s the matter? Where’s the palace? Hey, is that a sundial? Woah, wait a minute, where are we?’

We had not bought tickets to the City Palace. We had bought tickets to Jantar Mantar. We had not walked through the ornate entrance to the palace, we had walked through the concrete entrance to Jantar Mantar.

Oh how we laughed as the hot sun beat down on us.

‘Well we can’t leave until we’ve got our four dollars worth,’ said Don, ‘we’ll just walk around for a bit. Maybe there is something here for us.’

‘Have we got our four dollars worth yet?’ I asked a minute later as we stared in bewilderment at a giant concrete cylinder.

We took a selfie, found our star signs and deemed it done.

After heading out the exit (dazed, sunburnt and none the wiser) we walked further along the road until we found the correct ticket counter, and spent a fabulous couple of hours marvelling at the ornate buildings, the beautiful old clothes and textiles and the intricately decorated doors of the City Palace.

I am sure that there are many enthusiastic astronomy types, history buffs and mathematical geniuses who would find Jantar Mantar totally worthwhile and absolutely fascinating. And I’m equally sure that there are new and interesting things for any tourist to learn by visiting.

After having now visited twice, all I have learnt is to check in with Don on what activities are science nerd suitable.

However I am no closer to understanding why Cancer’s representation at this significant site is a group of giant concrete steps and walls with a concrete fence.

I mean, where even are the claws?

Foggy Mountain Breakdown

Kathmandu

It’s hard to describe the feeling when you arrive in a brand new country for the first time. The excitement of somewhere new, the anticipation of exploring the streets, tasting the local dishes, poking around in museums, shops and galleries.

We flew into Nepal this morning, our first ever visit, and we had all of these feels; marvelling as we passed the Himalayas and descended over the sprawling Lego like buildings of Kathmandu. We held hands as we landed, grinning at each other in delight.

Of course the short journey was not all sunshine and lollipops.

It’s likely a well kept secret that I used to be terrified of flying. Scared spitless. I would cling to the armrests every minute of every flight, refuse all food, and arrive at my destination with cramped muscles, starving and prepared to find a job in order to avoid the flight home.

Through sheer determination I have mostly overcome this fear, and I quite enjoy flying now. Except for taking off. I still hate taking off.

This morning in Delhi a heavy fog had settled over the city. Should be gone by the time we leave the hotel, I told myself.

The fog was not gone. If anything it was worse. Through our taxi ride, check in, clearing customs and security, I kept telling myself the fog would lift, or the flight would be cancelled. Either of these options would be fine with me.

The fog did not lift and the flight was not cancelled. Instead we were shuttled across an airport we couldn’t see to a plane we couldn’t see, up some stairs we couldn’t see and told to take our seats.

A litany of sabotaging thoughts and desperate responses ran through my head as we sat on the tarmac waiting to leave.

How can the pilots see the runway? How can they see anything? I can’t see anything. NOBODY CAN SEE ANYTHING!

Everything runs on computers and radars and technology these days, the pilots don’t need to see.

OF COURSE THE PILOTS NEED TO SEE! WHAT IF ANOTHER PLANE GETS IN THE WAY?! WHAT IF WE GET IN THE WAY?

There’s no way we’d be leaving if this wasn’t safe. This must be safe.

WHY DID AIR CANADA CANCEL THEIR FLIGHT? WHAT ARE THEY NOT TELLING US?

Everybody here knows what they’re doing. This is a huge airport.

THIS IS A FUCKING HUGE AIRPORT! NOBODY IS SAFE!

The flight attendants look calm, it must be fine.

THEY’RE PAID TO LOOK CALM. DO NOT TRUST THEM!

Don’t look out the window, don’t look out the window, don’t look out the window. I’ll just look out the window.

IT’S A COMPLETE WHITE OUT! IT’S WORSE THAN I THOUGHT!

Calm down Angela, you’re perfectly safe.

HOW CAN I BE CALM WHEN MY LAST INSTA PIC OF THE FOG WILL BE ON NATIONAL NINE NEWS?

Don made an attempt to distract me with some fun facts about Star Trek or Cheezels or who invented the mountains. I don’t know. I wasn’t having a bar of it, and he soon gave up. Instead I clung ferociously to his hand the whole time we were taxiing blindly across the tarmac, squeezing my eyes shut when the engines roared, the pilot having miraculously found the runway. God, my heart is pumping just writing this.

Without a word of a lie we broke through that cloud and into brilliant sunshine three seconds after taking off. Maybe two seconds.

It amazes me how bloody fast my whole body can pivot from abject terror to complete chill. My eyes opened and I loosened my death grip on Don’s hand.

‘I told you,’ he said, ‘it was just some low lying cloud.’

Even if I had heard him say this I wouldn’t have believed him.

We landed, we disembarked. Out visas were stamped and we collected our bags. Sanity and calm had well and truly returned. Sunshine and lollipops re-engaged, I was again filled with excitement and anticipation, chatting away to Don, the ground crew and anyone else who would listen.

‘It’s our first time in Nepal,’ I said to the man sorting out our taxi voucher.

‘Welcome to Nepal, Madame,’ he said.

‘Thanks,’ I said happily as he handed me the voucher.

‘You’re welcome. Could I perhaps interest you in an early morning joy flight over the Himalayas?’

A Roaring Start

Never underestimate the power of a rest day when you’re travelling.

Yes ok, a rest day on the first day of our holiday may seem a bit much, but I planned this knowing we needed to recover from our gruelling flight schedule from Australia. Let us never forget The Zombies of San Francisco or Hours of Entertainment. Besides, Don is older than he was the first time we went to India.

We left Brisbane at 10:30am yesterday, and arrived in Delhi at 2:30am this morning. Knowing we’ll be back on an early morning flight again tomorrow, I scheduled only two things for today’s itinerary – rest and buffet breakfast.

Still, it hasn’t been easy.

We had to set an alarm so as not to miss said breakfast after falling into bed at 3:30am. Having eaten at least one of everything the buffet had to offer, we then went on a post breakfast walk to check out the neighbourhood. We followed this up with a well needed nap, which was followed by a post nap walk to check out the neighbourhood again when things were actually open.

We rested some more in a local cafe over coffee and salted Ajwain cookies. Then Don had another nap while I had a massage at the hotel spa where a small woman tortured the bejesus out of any deep vein thrombosis in my calves and anywhere else thrombosis might lurk, including apparently my eyeballs.

We’re now in the midst of afternoon rest time, before deciding on where we’ll go for dinner.

We certainly are off to a roaring start.

Budapest

This visit to Budapest has been astronomically different to our last visit.

In November 1993 we caught a bus from Istanbul to Budapest. The snow had only started when we left Istanbul, but several hours in it was a full blown snowstorm. It was a hair-raising trip through Bulgaria and Romania, snowing the entire way. There were moments when enormous trucks were sliding sideways down icy hillsides towards us; at one point Don told me to hold onto my bag and when he said run, I should run. What was meant to take 20 hours took 48 hours.

There was only one other English speaking passenger, and I was one of only two women on that bus. There was no such thing as non-smoking, a haze of permanent acrid smoke filled the air. After maybe eight hours, despite his protests that we were in the middle of nowhere, we had the driver make a toilet stop. Somehow we convinced him through gestures that the whole world is a toilet. Hours later at a border crossing I gave the other woman some money when the guards refused her currency and weren’t going to let her pass.

We were the only people to get off the bus in Budapest so they dropped us in a random location. We stepped off the bus into a metre of snow, with no idea of where we were. Somehow we found a tram into the city centre. We had no Hungarian currency so we couldn’t buy a ticket. Then we trudged through the snow to the cheap university accommodation, following the tiny map in our Rough Guide to Europe. It was bitterly, bitterly cold.

At the university they told us there was no heating but they’d give us some extra blankets. We turned around, fought our way back through the snow and caught the very next train to Vienna.

Fast forward 30 years to this visit. Three days compared to three hours – Budapest, what a spectacular city.

We walked the streets and saw the magnificent buildings, squares and statues. Heroes’ Square, the Hungarian State Opera building, Central Market Hall, St Stephen’s Basilica, the heartbreaking Shoes on the Danube Bank memorial, the incredible Hungarian Parliament Building.

We went on a food tour; hot langos, delicious raspberry strudel, pastries and chimney cake, tasty sausages, stew and a straight shot of pálinka that nearly took my head off.

We walked across Széchenyi Chain Bridge and caught the cable car to Buda Castle and Fisherman’s Bastion. And of course we surprised Ruth at the Christmas markets and celebrated her birthday with the most wonderful meal at local restaurant Pörc & Prézli.

Budapest, all is forgiven; we love you! You’re still pretty chilly, but no need for extra blankets.

The bathroom

Navigating showers in homes and hotel rooms in other countries is an exercise in physics, stamina and perseverance.

They’re hit and miss to start with, but the addition of multiple knobs and levers to control on, off, pressure, heat, bath spigot and shower rose needlessly complicate what should be a simple endeavour.

Our current hotel has a hand held device attached to a shower pole, in a bath tub, with three controls. Unfortunately the device is connected two thirds of the way down the pole, ready to spray water at belly button level.

Our first night I dragged it up to the top of the pole and tried to tighten it in place. It rattled straight back down the pipe like one of those mechanical climbing monkeys at the Ekka.

Don came in to help, and with his superior muscle managed to get it to stay in place. Pleased, I climbed into the bathtub and turned it on. The water pressure was outstanding. So outstanding in fact that the force of the water caused the handle to spin suddenly outwards, spraying the whole bathroom and everything in it with water. I did not notice, I was busy examining the single soap container.

‘Hey! Hey, stop! TURN IT OFF!’ Don yelled from behind me, where he had remained to supervise the results of his work.

I slammed the water off and turned to look at him. He was head to toe fully clothed and dripping wet. Like somebody had turned on him with a full throttle fire hose.

I couldn’t help it. I laughed so hard I nearly wet myself (pun intended).

Don not so much.

And then the handle slid back down the pole.

Tune in next time when I tackle ‘How to adjust your hotel room temperature when it’s freezing cold outside and boiling hot inside.’

Fun souvenirs

We’ve bought some cracking souvenirs so far on this trip.

A pair of gloves for my cold, cold hands.
A toothbrush for Don when he lost his at Heathrow airport.
Long sleeved fleece t-shirts for each of us, mine labelled the wrong size that I can only exchange by schlepping all the way back to Uniqlo in Oxford Street.
Two cheap umbrellas for the Cologne drizzle.
A pair of fleece lined tights when I realised my thermals weren’t up to the challenge.
A pair of thermals for Don when he realised he wasn’t up to the challenge.
Reading glasses for Don (to replace his broken pair).

I cannot wait to get home to Brisbane and show everybody what we’ve bought!

A Rest Day

United Kingdom

We’ve been having such a lovely holiday. Two fabulous days in Singapore eating and wandering before we got to the UK. Catching up with Tim and Ruth, walking Bertie their exuberant Cockapoo, another crack at FitSteps (same results), a day trip to Canterbury and a tour of Windsor Castle. I’ve barely had time to sit down, let alone write.

Finally yesterday we stopped for a moment. And being the 1st of December, Ruth suggested I help her put up the Christmas decorations.

‘Of course,’ I said, ‘what fun! I love Christmas.’

And so I found myself standing at the bottom of the ladder to the loft while Ruth handed down bag after bag after bag after bag of Christmas decorations.

‘There cannot be anymore,’ I said after an hour and a half and at least eight trips up and down the stairs.

‘No, that’s it for the loft,’ said Ruth, ‘I’ll come down now and get the rest of the boxes from under the bed, and Tim can get the tree from the shed.‘

Of course.

Once everything was finally in the living room there was not an inch of room to do anything. Boxes, shopping bags, tinsel, plastic bags and baskets covered every available space. The floor, couches, coffee table, book shelves, mantel and dog had disappeared under an avalanche of Christmas storage. We could only stare at it all and wonder where to start.

This was when Tim suggested that we should have packed up autumn before we started on Christmas. Good grief.

And so we clambered through the towers of boxes and quickly stuffed hedgehogs, conkers, autumn leaves, mushrooms, pine cones, orange cushions and pumpkins into bags and carted them upstairs.

And then we started.

Now I thought my mother had cornered the market on excessive Christmas decorations, but Ruth is in another league.

It took us over three hours to unpack, position and hang everything. And I mean everything. As I sit on the couch today, let me attempt to work through it all for you. There are fourteen reindeer, five Christmas cushions and two Christmas throw rugs, three hedgehogs (different to autumn hedgehogs), an owl, forty-seven pine cones of various sizes and colours (different to autumn pine cones), seven stockings, four giant stuffed toys, five candles, six candle receptacles, hanging things, LED things, glittery things, furry things.

Hundreds of baubles, including themed baubles – Leeds United, a hamburger, a dog, a heart and a Pinocchio pipe cleaner cone.

One full size Christmas tree and three decorative trees that light up when plugged in. A huge neon star in the front window.

A stuffed felt rolling pin with Christmas bakers, a full size cardboard cut out of English celebrity Jenna Coleman. More Santas than all of the shopping centres in England. Tinsel, holly, stars, ribbons, bells.

In the kitchen there are Christmas paper towels, seventeen Christmas mugs, a Christmas apron, two Christmas cake tins, Christmas oven mitts and tea towels and Christmas plates and platters.

In the bathroom there’s Christmas toilet paper, a Christmas hand towel, Christmas liquid soap and a reindeer. Mistletoe is wound around the balustrade up the stairs.

Apparently Ruth is yet to put out Bertie’s Christmas water bowl.

It’s exhausting just thinking about it.

I was kind of hoping today might be the real rest day. But I’ve just been told that on the second day of December we put up the second Christmas tree.

The second Christmas tree.

What a week

Bali

And so it is our last day in Bali.

What a week. We started our holiday in a low key resort by the beach, some nearby shopping, relaxing by the pool. It was calm and peaceful and slowly we got used to taking our time, wandering instead of rushing.

Then to Ubud, and our villa nestled in the paddy fields, the beautiful views and the constant sound of water and birds. Markets, swimming, food, and massages to turn you into a limp noodle.

To experience all of this with two of my best friends has been magic.

For our last night we went for dinner at Honey and Smoke. We had a banquet, with multiple luscious dishes dropped in front of us one by one and cocktails that arrived in a cloud of smoke, with big red chillies, flowers and pieces of seaweed adorning them.

By the end of the night Jen was convinced a bug had flown into her cocktail that turned out to be the remnants of the seaweed, Gab was convinced that no food arriving at our table had been on the menu and I was explaining the nuances of flavours to rival a MasterChef judge. None of us could get on or off our stools, and we all wondered how we were going to balance on the back of the scooters on the ride home. When we did get home Jen found IDR 100.000 stuck to her boob.

You’ll have noted from reading that we’ve been in sync the whole time, happy to just hang with one another. I haven’t even mentioned couples massages, the pesky grasshopper, swimming in our underwear, the restaurant that was never open or our glamour birds nest photos. Some things are best just left.

It’s been wonderful; the people, the landscape, the temples and most of all the company. I admit it, I was wrong to wait so long to go to Bali, or to think I might never go!

And that thing I said before I left, about having curbed my enthusiasm for scooters and batik?

Spectacularly wrong.

Kajeng rice field

Bali

We left the beaches of Bali a few days ago, and are now in Ubud, in a beautiful villa nestled in the paddy fields. In Ubud we have spent lots of time swimming, reading, relaxing by the pool, shopping and having spa treatments.

We’ve been hitching scooter rides to get into town, but yesterday we decided to walk down. There is a short walking track through the Kajeng rice field popular with tourists that starts not far from our villa, so after being reassured by Gab that her ankle would be fine, we set off.

Bali is an absolutely beautiful island. There are waterfalls and streams, beaches, lush forest. As we walked we had the paddy fields spread out around us, rimmed by palm trees and dense tropical greenery. It’s the beginning of the planting season, so the fields were full of water with the bright green stems of early rice only just emerging. The brilliant morning sun made the water glisten. Beautiful.

We chatted, took photos, stopped to look at a small stall of baskets and spotted many birds.

It was flat and easy most of the way. And then we came around a corner to find the path had suddenly narrowed to a small tract of mud with a sheer drop to the side.

Gab reassured us that her ankle was fine, and so on we slithered.

Then we came to an unsecured dodgy looking plank of wood across a gap in the mud path.

‘I’ll go, ‘ I said as I stepped forward, ‘it seems sturdy. Ok no a bit spongey. Walk quickly everybody!’

Then we came to a vertical mud drop in the path.

‘Here…if you hold my hand….just….’

‘I’ve got it….can you just….hold a sec….’

‘Ooh, that gives way.’

‘Maybe if you go down sideways….’

The rice fields were far behind us, we were now at the top of a canyon. Ok maybe more a valley. And even through the treacherous terrain we could appreciate the crystal waterfall tumbling into the verdant gully below.

‘We’re here now,’ Jen reassured us only to find we weren’t at all anywhere.

Another bridge of wonky dodgy wood, an even narrower pathway and an alarmingly steep set of mud steps and finally we emerged into the bustling main street of Ubud.

‘Coffee?’

‘God yes,’ said Gab.

And she doesn’t even drink coffee.

The bird, the monkey and the cockroach

Bali

The Bali wildlife has been engaging us these last few days.

First a bird shat on me at breakfast from the tree above. A big red berry splat that landed on my arm and ricocheted onto Gab. Nothing that couldn’t be solved by all of our napkins, soap and water and a bucketload of sanitiser.

Plus I hear this is meant to be good luck.

Later that day at Uluwatu Temple, as Gab sat minding her own business, a monkey stole her sunglasses from the top of her head. We had been warned about the monkeys, and instructed to remove earrings, hats, sunglasses, scarves and necklaces, and hang on tightly to our phones and bags. Poor Gab was just distracted by another monkey stealing something from another tourist, obviously a diversionary tactic.

Bad luck for Gab, but solved with a little fruit bribery by a local.

And then there was the cockroach.

Now I wasn’t there for the cockroach adventure, but much as I loathe cockroaches, perhaps it would have been better if I had been.

‘It was huge,’ said Gab telling me of her horror at finding a cockroach in the middle of her hotel door when she got back to her room.

‘How big in centimetres,’ I asked.

‘Oh, it was big,’ said Gab, ‘enormous. I couldn’t open my door, so I messaged Jen to come help.’

‘And I brought one of the hotel slippers from the room,’ Jen continued.

‘The thin towelling ones? Why didn’t you bring a proper shoe?’ A thong even? Mortal enemy of the cockroach?’

‘So I had this slipper,’ Jen continued, ignoring my question.

‘No, wait, out of all the things in your room, you thought a flimsy slipper was your best bet? What did you even do with the slipper?’

‘I threw it at the cockroach!’

‘And?’

‘It missed and kind of just fluttered to the ground,’ said Jen, fluttering her hands to demonstrate, ‘like a piece of paper.’

‘Or a flimsy slipper,’ I muttered.

‘So we tried throwing it again,’ Gab picked up the story, ‘but we couldn’t even hit the door with it. Have you ever tried to throw one of those slippers?’

‘No. And the cockroach?’

‘Didn’t move.’

‘And yet you didn’t think to go back and get a decent sized shoe to smack the thing with?’

‘So instead of throwing the slipper,’ Jen went on as if I hadn’t spoken, ‘we thought we’d tap on the door with it, see if we could get the cockroach to scurry away. Tap, tap, tap,’ Jen started acting out tapping on a hotel door with a paper slipper. In case I was confused. I was, but it wasn’t over how one might tap on a door.

‘So how did all that tapping work out for you?’

‘It moved!’ said Gab triumphantly, ‘but just up the door a bit more.’

‘To get further away from the crazy women with the paper slipper perhaps.’

‘So then we didn’t know what to do. We’d exhausted all of our options.’

‘You certainly had,’ I agreed, ‘after all, if you can’t solve your cockroach crisis with a hotel slipper, I don’t know what’s going to work.’

‘We called security!’

Two of the strongest, most capable women I know overcome by a paralysis of incompetence.

‘And then they arrived in hazmat suits…’

‘Really,’ I said, ‘hazmat suits. Exactly how many drinks did you have?’

‘….and plucked the cockroach from the door. Finally I could get into my room.’

‘Thank goodness for security,’ said Jen.

‘Thank goodness,’ I repeated.

‘You should have been there,’ said Gab, shaking her head as she relived the relief at being able to finally access her room.

Maybe I should have. I guess it’s good luck for me that I wasn’t.