24 September 2006
Postcard from Stellenbosch
Our guidebook has not been written to encourage peace of mind. “South Africa”, it states, “has weak drink-driving laws, and does not enforce them anyway. So be prepared to take evasive action if you see someone driving erratically. The police will just look on, but the most they will do is perhaps offer a hand to rescue a car from a ditch”. We’re off to try a few of the wines in Stellenbosch and although after reading this I’m still going to spit the wines out after tasting them, it does not make me feel more relaxed about driving.
Overall wine consumption in South Africa is apparently declining – as it is in many countries – but production is at an all-time high, with the balance being taken up by exports, which are doubling every 5 years or so. 25 years ago, there was really only one well-known vineyard – KWV – which sold its mostly rather indifferent wine around the world. There are now hundreds of vineyards, and the number is growing all the time, as is the quality. There’s even a book, the Platter’s guide, which reviews South African wines and is published every year. “You may call it a book, we call it our bible” as one vineyard owner put it. The book is getting fatter every year, and there are signs of new wineries opening up. I even get excited about the idea of buying a 30 hectare wine estate in Franschhoek, asking price £1M, until Pamela points out that enjoying wine consumption is not necessarily a good apprenticeship for wine production.
We start by exploring Hermanus, which looks like a cross between an American coastal town and somewhere on the English South Coast like Worthing. It’s attractive in an odd, poorly built sort of way. We visit the Wine Village, a shop which has reputedly has the largest range of South African wines. The manager, Paul, is a man after my own heart; he starts by asking me to explain what wines I like and why, so that he can build up an idea of the best wines to recommend. I could spend a fortune in this shop and, as they ship to anywhere in the world, perhaps I will… “This is the wine for you”, he says as he lovingly strokes the label of the extraordinary Chocolate Block, “but I’m going to need to work on the owner to allow me to sell it to you – it’s so rare”. Sadly, shipping from South Africa is uneconomic at the kind of quantities I’m interested in – about 100 Rand a bottle. Sea freight becomes worthwhile from about 400 bottles, but that’s too many for me.
The accommodation is a delightful Bed and Breakfast in central Stellenbosch, called the Villa Grande. It’s more of a hotel, even to the point of (soon) having its own in-house restaurant. After the financial excesses of the Grootbos, this is great value. The owner is a keen wine buff, points us in the direction of some good vineyards and lends us his copy of the 2006 Platter’s guide. He even recommends the Wijnhuis (Wine House) restaurant, where the wine list is enormous and the waitresses all quite happy to be chatted up by Michael.
We start the tasting at Thelema, a relatively new winery (it’s not even on the map). The girl managing the tasting sports the rather implausible name of “Chateau”, and she knows her stuff. The whites are excellent, with 2 crisp Sauvignon blancs and an unusual lightly-oaked Chardonnay called Ed’s Reserve. The reds are also good, with 2 Merlots: a standard one which at 90 Rand (£7) is better value then their award-winning reserve at 225 Rand (£17); two Cabs both of which are fantastic (one is intriguing in that it has a slight flavour of mint and is most unusual) and a well-made Shiraz. This is a great start.
The neighbouring vineyard is Tokara, which is a bit chi-chi with manicured grounds including waterfalls, modern art on in the entrance hall and a top-class restaurant attached to the vineyard. There’s even an open fire in the tasting room, which interferes with one’s palate during tasting. Despite this, their two ranges of wine – Tokara and Zondernaam – are both good and the latter in particular, excellent value.
De Trafford was unfortunately closed, but we were able to try a number of their consistently excellent wines in the shop. Rust & Vrede (means Rest and Peace), was another high-point, including a tour of the cellars, which were simple bins with chalked board identifying the wine: the way it should be. We also bought the 2004 Pinotage from Kanonkop, which was released the day before our visit. It’s one of the very best of this varietal, which is unique to South Africa, and supposedly originally a graft of Cinsaut vines onto Pinot Noir roots. The wine is luscious and fruity, possibly to be confused with a Shiraz to an inexperienced palate.
The only disappointment of the day was Ernie Els, where a celebrity sportsman has teamed up with a local winemaker to produce good wines, which are over-priced, limited in range and served in a snooty atmosphere. But overall we had an amazing time.
The best wine we tried was probably the Chocolate Block. It’s an intriguing mixture of Rhone grape varieties (Syrah, Cinsaut etc) with Cabernet Sauvignon, creating an intense chocolate taste.
Stellenbosch itself is a delightful town, whose white buildings are mostly turn of the century Dutch architecture. The University taught exclusively in Afrikaans until about 10 years ago, but has now started teaching more and more in English. With 10 official languages, the South African education system could easily be a quasi-social barrier, so a move to English in Higher Education seems like a good move.
Next stop: Bushman’s Kloof, a nature reserve.
Overall wine consumption in South Africa is apparently declining – as it is in many countries – but production is at an all-time high, with the balance being taken up by exports, which are doubling every 5 years or so. 25 years ago, there was really only one well-known vineyard – KWV – which sold its mostly rather indifferent wine around the world. There are now hundreds of vineyards, and the number is growing all the time, as is the quality. There’s even a book, the Platter’s guide, which reviews South African wines and is published every year. “You may call it a book, we call it our bible” as one vineyard owner put it. The book is getting fatter every year, and there are signs of new wineries opening up. I even get excited about the idea of buying a 30 hectare wine estate in Franschhoek, asking price £1M, until Pamela points out that enjoying wine consumption is not necessarily a good apprenticeship for wine production.
We start by exploring Hermanus, which looks like a cross between an American coastal town and somewhere on the English South Coast like Worthing. It’s attractive in an odd, poorly built sort of way. We visit the Wine Village, a shop which has reputedly has the largest range of South African wines. The manager, Paul, is a man after my own heart; he starts by asking me to explain what wines I like and why, so that he can build up an idea of the best wines to recommend. I could spend a fortune in this shop and, as they ship to anywhere in the world, perhaps I will… “This is the wine for you”, he says as he lovingly strokes the label of the extraordinary Chocolate Block, “but I’m going to need to work on the owner to allow me to sell it to you – it’s so rare”. Sadly, shipping from South Africa is uneconomic at the kind of quantities I’m interested in – about 100 Rand a bottle. Sea freight becomes worthwhile from about 400 bottles, but that’s too many for me.
The accommodation is a delightful Bed and Breakfast in central Stellenbosch, called the Villa Grande. It’s more of a hotel, even to the point of (soon) having its own in-house restaurant. After the financial excesses of the Grootbos, this is great value. The owner is a keen wine buff, points us in the direction of some good vineyards and lends us his copy of the 2006 Platter’s guide. He even recommends the Wijnhuis (Wine House) restaurant, where the wine list is enormous and the waitresses all quite happy to be chatted up by Michael.
We start the tasting at Thelema, a relatively new winery (it’s not even on the map). The girl managing the tasting sports the rather implausible name of “Chateau”, and she knows her stuff. The whites are excellent, with 2 crisp Sauvignon blancs and an unusual lightly-oaked Chardonnay called Ed’s Reserve. The reds are also good, with 2 Merlots: a standard one which at 90 Rand (£7) is better value then their award-winning reserve at 225 Rand (£17); two Cabs both of which are fantastic (one is intriguing in that it has a slight flavour of mint and is most unusual) and a well-made Shiraz. This is a great start.
The neighbouring vineyard is Tokara, which is a bit chi-chi with manicured grounds including waterfalls, modern art on in the entrance hall and a top-class restaurant attached to the vineyard. There’s even an open fire in the tasting room, which interferes with one’s palate during tasting. Despite this, their two ranges of wine – Tokara and Zondernaam – are both good and the latter in particular, excellent value.
De Trafford was unfortunately closed, but we were able to try a number of their consistently excellent wines in the shop. Rust & Vrede (means Rest and Peace), was another high-point, including a tour of the cellars, which were simple bins with chalked board identifying the wine: the way it should be. We also bought the 2004 Pinotage from Kanonkop, which was released the day before our visit. It’s one of the very best of this varietal, which is unique to South Africa, and supposedly originally a graft of Cinsaut vines onto Pinot Noir roots. The wine is luscious and fruity, possibly to be confused with a Shiraz to an inexperienced palate.
The only disappointment of the day was Ernie Els, where a celebrity sportsman has teamed up with a local winemaker to produce good wines, which are over-priced, limited in range and served in a snooty atmosphere. But overall we had an amazing time.
The best wine we tried was probably the Chocolate Block. It’s an intriguing mixture of Rhone grape varieties (Syrah, Cinsaut etc) with Cabernet Sauvignon, creating an intense chocolate taste.
Stellenbosch itself is a delightful town, whose white buildings are mostly turn of the century Dutch architecture. The University taught exclusively in Afrikaans until about 10 years ago, but has now started teaching more and more in English. With 10 official languages, the South African education system could easily be a quasi-social barrier, so a move to English in Higher Education seems like a good move.
Next stop: Bushman’s Kloof, a nature reserve.
23 September 2006
Postcard from Grootbos
The temptation with Africa is to dismiss it as a failed continent, where nothing works nor ever will. On arrival in Johannesburg, the BA lounge reinforces this view, with leaking shower head, pipes that are not firmly fixed to the wall, chipped plates and a faulty coffee machine. 25 years have passed since I was last in South Africa and, on the face of it, not much seems to have changed. There is already a lot of excitement about the World Cup in 2010, but will that new terminal really be ready on time? Will all the stadiums be built?
South Africa has, of course, always been the richest and most developed country in Black Africa, with its natural resources, extensive infrastructure and developed businesses. But since I was last here, Apartheid has gone without bloodshed, Zimbabwe has collapsed into famine from being the farming capital of the continent, Mozambique is no longer at war with itself, and astronomic rates of population growth have been slowed as AIDS takes its toll throughout the region, with Botswana for example having 1/3 of its population supposedly HIV positive. The continent has not stood still, but progress has not all been positive.
Having collected the keys to my hire car at Cape Town airport, I hesitate in front of the Ford Focus, then dash back into the Avis office. “Just two questions”, I say. “Kilometres or miles?”, “kilometres” is the answer. “Drive on the left, or on the right?”, “left”. They look bemused, but I feel relieved that I know the basics.
Grootbos is a Nature Reserve on the sea about 40km east of Hermanus, itself about 100km east of Cape Town. “Grootbos” means “Big Bush” in Afrikaans, the name of the scrubland that surrounds the area. The owner, an energetic German, has spent a small fortune developing the resort. The centre is a farmhouse with thatched roof, impressive internal timbers, and wavy external walls. It might be called over-designed, but it works. The food is good and the service faultless. The accommodation is in 16 bungalows spread out over the garden, with private terraces and spectacular views over the sea. Ours has two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a sitting room, and a wood fire that we still need as the nights are cold and the days are wet. Michael assumes that his bathroom cannot be finished, in that there are two taps on the shower, one of which sprays water all over the floor. But on closer investigation the part of the shower that he thought was not connected turns out to be a tap for washing feet, and the bathroom if fine; it just has more equipment than he is used to. The views from the room out to the sea are spectacular, and with the changeable weather, we are able to observe rain storms and sunshine at the same time, out at sea.
There is a resident botanist called Nzuzo to show us round the gardens, where anything not indigenous has been removed, and he shows us how the different plants are pollinated, which ones smell, and why. The surrounding Fynbos (“fine bush” or heath) has been left to develop naturally, part of the natural cycle being fire. The most recent one was particularly fierce, but regeneration has been swift and strong. However, the resort lost its conference centre and a couple of other buildings. The damage would have been worse had the fire’s progress not been checked by a large Milkwood forest – one of the largest remaining in Africa apparently – whose sap is so liquid that the trees do not burn, so they act as a natural firebreak. The new conference centre, which is about to open, is very impressive and unashamedly modern (although I’m not sure about the need for a pool right next to the seminar rooms). It’s just the sort of place for someone with a large budget to take a group of 20-30 for an unforgettable getaway.
There is also an entomologist / zoologist, who brings Michael lizards, snakes and spiders for him to admire. Like Michael, he seems quite impervious to the danger. “This is a Baboon spider”, he tells us as he shows us a spider with a body about the size of a bar of soap. I blanch and back off. “Don’t worry, it’s only the 4th most poisonous spider in South Africa”, he says, stroking its back. He reminds me of the character Hagrid in Harry Potter and his collection of venomous and aggressive creatures. I wonder whether he has a pet called Fang.
The resort has a number of community projects, including a horticultural school and a kitchen garden. The school teaches 12 under-privileged local teenagers each year the basics of botany, how to identify plants, as well as how to look after them. Afterwards they find jobs as gardeners, farmers or nature guides and the thoughtful and knowledgeable Nzuzo who shows us round the Fynbos and the gardens was one of the first graduates. The scheme is a great success with 10 times more applicants than places. So now a football pitch to improve the skills of local children and to encourage teamwork, as well as a life-skills college for women, are planned. Each of these is sustainable, in that the revenue from running the projects offsets the outgoings, although the setup is paid for by sponsorship. So the school sells plants and earns a finder’s fee for placing its graduates, and the football club will let out the grounds to other teams and for tournaments.
The whole resort has a positive, ecologically aware, environmentally and community enhancing approach, all within the framework of making money. It’s enough to make one proud of being a capitalist.
Talking of capitalism, the next stop is the wine district of Stellenbosch, one of South Africa’s main wine growing regions, and a short drive from Cape Town.
South Africa has, of course, always been the richest and most developed country in Black Africa, with its natural resources, extensive infrastructure and developed businesses. But since I was last here, Apartheid has gone without bloodshed, Zimbabwe has collapsed into famine from being the farming capital of the continent, Mozambique is no longer at war with itself, and astronomic rates of population growth have been slowed as AIDS takes its toll throughout the region, with Botswana for example having 1/3 of its population supposedly HIV positive. The continent has not stood still, but progress has not all been positive.
Having collected the keys to my hire car at Cape Town airport, I hesitate in front of the Ford Focus, then dash back into the Avis office. “Just two questions”, I say. “Kilometres or miles?”, “kilometres” is the answer. “Drive on the left, or on the right?”, “left”. They look bemused, but I feel relieved that I know the basics.
Grootbos is a Nature Reserve on the sea about 40km east of Hermanus, itself about 100km east of Cape Town. “Grootbos” means “Big Bush” in Afrikaans, the name of the scrubland that surrounds the area. The owner, an energetic German, has spent a small fortune developing the resort. The centre is a farmhouse with thatched roof, impressive internal timbers, and wavy external walls. It might be called over-designed, but it works. The food is good and the service faultless. The accommodation is in 16 bungalows spread out over the garden, with private terraces and spectacular views over the sea. Ours has two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a sitting room, and a wood fire that we still need as the nights are cold and the days are wet. Michael assumes that his bathroom cannot be finished, in that there are two taps on the shower, one of which sprays water all over the floor. But on closer investigation the part of the shower that he thought was not connected turns out to be a tap for washing feet, and the bathroom if fine; it just has more equipment than he is used to. The views from the room out to the sea are spectacular, and with the changeable weather, we are able to observe rain storms and sunshine at the same time, out at sea.
There is a resident botanist called Nzuzo to show us round the gardens, where anything not indigenous has been removed, and he shows us how the different plants are pollinated, which ones smell, and why. The surrounding Fynbos (“fine bush” or heath) has been left to develop naturally, part of the natural cycle being fire. The most recent one was particularly fierce, but regeneration has been swift and strong. However, the resort lost its conference centre and a couple of other buildings. The damage would have been worse had the fire’s progress not been checked by a large Milkwood forest – one of the largest remaining in Africa apparently – whose sap is so liquid that the trees do not burn, so they act as a natural firebreak. The new conference centre, which is about to open, is very impressive and unashamedly modern (although I’m not sure about the need for a pool right next to the seminar rooms). It’s just the sort of place for someone with a large budget to take a group of 20-30 for an unforgettable getaway.
There is also an entomologist / zoologist, who brings Michael lizards, snakes and spiders for him to admire. Like Michael, he seems quite impervious to the danger. “This is a Baboon spider”, he tells us as he shows us a spider with a body about the size of a bar of soap. I blanch and back off. “Don’t worry, it’s only the 4th most poisonous spider in South Africa”, he says, stroking its back. He reminds me of the character Hagrid in Harry Potter and his collection of venomous and aggressive creatures. I wonder whether he has a pet called Fang.
The resort has a number of community projects, including a horticultural school and a kitchen garden. The school teaches 12 under-privileged local teenagers each year the basics of botany, how to identify plants, as well as how to look after them. Afterwards they find jobs as gardeners, farmers or nature guides and the thoughtful and knowledgeable Nzuzo who shows us round the Fynbos and the gardens was one of the first graduates. The scheme is a great success with 10 times more applicants than places. So now a football pitch to improve the skills of local children and to encourage teamwork, as well as a life-skills college for women, are planned. Each of these is sustainable, in that the revenue from running the projects offsets the outgoings, although the setup is paid for by sponsorship. So the school sells plants and earns a finder’s fee for placing its graduates, and the football club will let out the grounds to other teams and for tournaments.
The whole resort has a positive, ecologically aware, environmentally and community enhancing approach, all within the framework of making money. It’s enough to make one proud of being a capitalist.
Talking of capitalism, the next stop is the wine district of Stellenbosch, one of South Africa’s main wine growing regions, and a short drive from Cape Town.
15 September 2006
Postcard from Urumqi
Located on the Silk Road – which stretches from the Gulf to the Yangtze – Urumqi (pronounced Oo-Roo-Um-Chee) is a melting pot of cultures and peoples. One of the local dialects is Uyghur and is written in Arabic. Another is Russian. So the signs are not just in the usual Chinese & English, but often in Arabic and Cyrillic too. Historically this is a Muslim city, but the influx of Han (ethnically pure) Chinese in recent years has, as in Tibet, put the locals in a minority.
The food is Chinese, but reflects the ethnic mix and Muslim culture. Bacon for breakfast is made of beef for example rather than pork; many of the main dishes are made of lamb; there’s Russian Borscht on offer; Nan bread as found in Indian restaurants is made on every street corner; alcohol is available but not pushed and the locally grown fruit is served at every meal. I mentioned before that this should really be two or three timezones further west than it is, as China has a single timezone. So dawn is at 08:00 for example. The locals get round this in a very pragmatic way – they just shift everything by two hours. So people work from 10:00 to 19:00 for example, lunch is at 14:00 and the night market, which is the best place to go for dinner, opens at 21:00.
I am staying at a 5 Star Hotel called the Silver Star at a cost of RMB600 per night, which is not that cheap considering similar quality can be found in for example Germany at that price. It has 25 floors and is quite well equipped, with a bank, shops, swimming pool as well as conference centre. The room is a touch dingy, with inadequate lighting, smelly drains and connecting walls to the rooms on either side that have the acoustic dampening quality of Bible paper. There’s broadband, but it is so slow that it had to left on all night to download a 2MB email. The laundry service is of the usual high quality; each item comes back beautifully and individually wrapped in tissue-paper, held together by a sticker, with the hotel’s seal. The slight resistance to alcohol extends to the mini-bar, which has no beer or alcohol of any sort, but does have condoms, with the great strapline: “Be Love, Do Love”. The loo-paper holder brand is also noteworthy; it’s “Bum Han”. Han of course means Pure Chinese, so perhaps it could be literally translated as “Pure Chinese Bum”. On that limitless subject of Chinglish, I saw a couple of signs at a picturesque lake (more about the lake later), both promoting a boat ride to the other side. “Take the seat yacht and go from this” is perhaps clearer (although not a great ad for the lake) than the more confusing “The pleasure-boat rides the seat place”. Poor translation is not a function of development; after all in Nagasaki last weekend the warning label on my hairdryer said “Please do not use for the other purpose”. The mind boggles. Anyway, I digress; back to Urumqi.
Urumqi is in the Guinness Book of Records as the city in the world furthest away from any sea – about 2,500km. It’s the capital of China’s largest province, Xinjiang, which is mostly desert. There are mountains to the north near Russia, and a river running across the state, going nowhere. In its recent history, the province was the first conquered by Mao, who persuaded the local warlord to join the fledgling Red Army in about 1945. It became a regional military stronghold, and there was an influx of Chinese to build the Red Army, and who then settled.
Apart from its military and trading roots, Xinjiang’s economy is mostly agriculture focusing on fruit – especially grapes – and cotton. The conference is being held there because my Chinese host spent 5 years in the province in his youth, and developed an affection for it. On the first night we are taken to an enormous restaurant with stage show, including dancers, tightrope walkers, and singing. The stage backdrops show different mountain and river scenes. The dancing reflects the cultural soup: there are stretchy men doing Cossack-style Russian dancing; long-haired Kazak girls dancing with four bowls perched on their heads, the top one with water in it; and some Uyghur songs that many sang along to. I am told that the Han Chinese are shy people, so they like to have “ethnic minorities” to liven the party up. I’ve never been called an ethnic minority before, but it’s probably good for me! So an American and I are picked to go up on stage and help with the dancing. It’s bait and switch, though, as the luscious girl who persuades me to join her on stage passes me over to a rather muscular Russian man, who makes me copy his every dance-move. And move he certainly can. I’m still stiff from the experience, writing this two days later.
There is an outing to Tianchi (Heavenly) Lake, so called because it’s where the gods are supposed to come for their holidays… It’s at 2,000m altitude, and the locals live in round brightly coloured huts called yurts. Around the lake there are racks of local traditional costumes, which you can put on and be photographed with the lake as a backdrop. I think we should try that in Annecy: berets and striped crew-necked shirts all round.
After Tianchi we drive another few hours to the local development zone, where we look around an extraordinarily large cotton mill and spinning factory, all automated; a water conservation project; local military history museum (perhaps best described as “somewhat biased”, I can’t quite bring myself to describe the victory of the Communists in 1949 as “liberation”), culminating in a lecture from the local development chief (lots of graphs pointing upwards, not sure whether these measure sales, profits or pollution) and a lunch, complete with Karaoke. Fortunately the resident ethnic minority (me) managed to wriggle out of providing that entertainment. It’s all reminiscent of communist-era propaganda, but I suspect here there is real substance behind the claims. But why anyone would want to locate their business in this particular business zone, 2 hours from the local airport and 4 days by train from Shanghai is beyond me.
It’s been a great experience, but now for the longest part of my journey: Urumqi -> Beijing -> Hong Kong -> Johannesburg -> Cape Town -> Hermanus.
The food is Chinese, but reflects the ethnic mix and Muslim culture. Bacon for breakfast is made of beef for example rather than pork; many of the main dishes are made of lamb; there’s Russian Borscht on offer; Nan bread as found in Indian restaurants is made on every street corner; alcohol is available but not pushed and the locally grown fruit is served at every meal. I mentioned before that this should really be two or three timezones further west than it is, as China has a single timezone. So dawn is at 08:00 for example. The locals get round this in a very pragmatic way – they just shift everything by two hours. So people work from 10:00 to 19:00 for example, lunch is at 14:00 and the night market, which is the best place to go for dinner, opens at 21:00.
I am staying at a 5 Star Hotel called the Silver Star at a cost of RMB600 per night, which is not that cheap considering similar quality can be found in for example Germany at that price. It has 25 floors and is quite well equipped, with a bank, shops, swimming pool as well as conference centre. The room is a touch dingy, with inadequate lighting, smelly drains and connecting walls to the rooms on either side that have the acoustic dampening quality of Bible paper. There’s broadband, but it is so slow that it had to left on all night to download a 2MB email. The laundry service is of the usual high quality; each item comes back beautifully and individually wrapped in tissue-paper, held together by a sticker, with the hotel’s seal. The slight resistance to alcohol extends to the mini-bar, which has no beer or alcohol of any sort, but does have condoms, with the great strapline: “Be Love, Do Love”. The loo-paper holder brand is also noteworthy; it’s “Bum Han”. Han of course means Pure Chinese, so perhaps it could be literally translated as “Pure Chinese Bum”. On that limitless subject of Chinglish, I saw a couple of signs at a picturesque lake (more about the lake later), both promoting a boat ride to the other side. “Take the seat yacht and go from this” is perhaps clearer (although not a great ad for the lake) than the more confusing “The pleasure-boat rides the seat place”. Poor translation is not a function of development; after all in Nagasaki last weekend the warning label on my hairdryer said “Please do not use for the other purpose”. The mind boggles. Anyway, I digress; back to Urumqi.
Urumqi is in the Guinness Book of Records as the city in the world furthest away from any sea – about 2,500km. It’s the capital of China’s largest province, Xinjiang, which is mostly desert. There are mountains to the north near Russia, and a river running across the state, going nowhere. In its recent history, the province was the first conquered by Mao, who persuaded the local warlord to join the fledgling Red Army in about 1945. It became a regional military stronghold, and there was an influx of Chinese to build the Red Army, and who then settled.
Apart from its military and trading roots, Xinjiang’s economy is mostly agriculture focusing on fruit – especially grapes – and cotton. The conference is being held there because my Chinese host spent 5 years in the province in his youth, and developed an affection for it. On the first night we are taken to an enormous restaurant with stage show, including dancers, tightrope walkers, and singing. The stage backdrops show different mountain and river scenes. The dancing reflects the cultural soup: there are stretchy men doing Cossack-style Russian dancing; long-haired Kazak girls dancing with four bowls perched on their heads, the top one with water in it; and some Uyghur songs that many sang along to. I am told that the Han Chinese are shy people, so they like to have “ethnic minorities” to liven the party up. I’ve never been called an ethnic minority before, but it’s probably good for me! So an American and I are picked to go up on stage and help with the dancing. It’s bait and switch, though, as the luscious girl who persuades me to join her on stage passes me over to a rather muscular Russian man, who makes me copy his every dance-move. And move he certainly can. I’m still stiff from the experience, writing this two days later.
There is an outing to Tianchi (Heavenly) Lake, so called because it’s where the gods are supposed to come for their holidays… It’s at 2,000m altitude, and the locals live in round brightly coloured huts called yurts. Around the lake there are racks of local traditional costumes, which you can put on and be photographed with the lake as a backdrop. I think we should try that in Annecy: berets and striped crew-necked shirts all round.
After Tianchi we drive another few hours to the local development zone, where we look around an extraordinarily large cotton mill and spinning factory, all automated; a water conservation project; local military history museum (perhaps best described as “somewhat biased”, I can’t quite bring myself to describe the victory of the Communists in 1949 as “liberation”), culminating in a lecture from the local development chief (lots of graphs pointing upwards, not sure whether these measure sales, profits or pollution) and a lunch, complete with Karaoke. Fortunately the resident ethnic minority (me) managed to wriggle out of providing that entertainment. It’s all reminiscent of communist-era propaganda, but I suspect here there is real substance behind the claims. But why anyone would want to locate their business in this particular business zone, 2 hours from the local airport and 4 days by train from Shanghai is beyond me.
It’s been a great experience, but now for the longest part of my journey: Urumqi -> Beijing -> Hong Kong -> Johannesburg -> Cape Town -> Hermanus.
11 September 2006
Where the Fukuoka am I?
It’s 6:30 in the morning as I walk to Nagasaki station to take the Limited Express to Fukuoka. The train is surprisingly busy for a Sunday morning, and we speed through some gorgeous countryside; mostly mountains on the left and sea on the right (logically, with Nagasaki being in the extreme South-West and Fukuoka in the North-West I rather expected these to be the other way around). I am sitting on the right (sea) side, and there are a number of fishing villages and small ports. The beaches are all a bit grubby and, other than a single sandy beach, not enticing for a swim. As Nagasaki is holding its annual Jellyfish festival, perhaps that’s just as well.
Breakfast bought at the station and eaten on board the train is the Japanese version of the sandwich: Mother’s Pride type ultra-white bread, unrecognizable contents, and shrink-wrapped in clever plastic that opens itself at the right spot however you pull at it. It’s washed down with peach juice. It does look more edible than most Japanese food, I suppose, and it slips down.
Two hours later, we pull into Hakata station; Fukuoka airport is another 10 minutes away by metro. I’m glad I’ve allowed an extra hour, because buying the metro ticket and taking the bus between terminals take rather longer than expected.
I have no idea why Cathay runs a flight from Fukuoka to Hong Kong. There are 6 people in Business Class, and Economy is not full either. But they serve some excellent Burgundy, so I’m not complaining. We stop briefly in Taipei to refuel and take on more passengers, where there is an intense tropical storm. The Captain warns us that he will be doing a “full-power take-off”, which the more fragile of us might find disturbing. The Airbus 330 certainly picks up speed at quite a lick, and with a very short run we take off and power our way successfully into the stormy sky without any screams from the passengers.
In Hong Kong the weather is beautiful and for once, the pollution levels are low and the view good. It’s late afternoon already and there’s not much time for anything. I buy a wallet to replace mine which has fallen apart and in true HK shopping style get superb pricing, an additional discount and a free gift. What a great place this is for shopping.
It’s another early start on Monday morning. Train to the airport, and plane to Guangzhou, which is just over the border in the manufacturing heartland of mainland China. From there I change terminals with the help of a keen teenager who carries my bags and chatters away in rudimentary English as he shows me the way, and is delighted with his 60p tip, although clearly wouldn’t have refused more. The airport is new and impressive, reminding me a bit of San Francisco with smooth tiled floors and metal frame dome roof. I have time for lunch in a café near the gate, and try and order something as safe as possible. “Shanghai noodles” sounds good. It turns out to be boiled fatty belly of pork, swimming in an unappetizing brown soup, with some unidentifiable vegetable with a brownish tinge. But it’s delicious. The green tea arrives in a glass mug and rather like a larva lamp has about half its leaves floating at the top and half at the bottom, with some going down or up at any one time. I have to drink it by using my teeth as a sieve, and spend much of the 5-hour flight to Urumqi picking the bits out of my mouth.
Urumqi must be bigger than I expected, as this is a wide-bodied aircraft and I’m in row 41. It’s very full, and I’m the only non-Chinese as far as I can see. The approach is all desert, with some of it marked out in perhaps 500m x 500m squares, but with nothing inside most of them. Is it for later construction, perhaps? There is quite a lot of strip mining for what looks like construction material. The airport is communist-era compared with the splendour of Guangzhou, with dingy lighting and low ceilings. The advertisement for the local Sheraton looks out of place. I have trouble finding the person picking me up and have to phone round to find out where they are, or if they are there at all. It turns out the sign for me is written in Chinese, so no wonder I couldn’t find them. We eventually meet up, although she can’t speak any English, other than the words “taxi” and “hotel”.
Riding to the hotel in a taxi is the usual dodgem-style Chinese driving as we overtake on the inside, weave in and out, and hoot at everything that moves. It’s such a surprise that we not only don’t hit anyone, but also the seatbelts have clearly never been used.
Urumqi is an oasis, and the surroundings are a mixture of dust, sand and greenery. There’s some new construction, and lots of what look like run-down factories but which I suspect are apartment blocks. A lot of the writing is in Cyrillic (Russian), which is perhaps the way the local dialect is written. The oasis makes the region quite agricultural, and there’s oil too. We pass a hillside with houses built into the side of the hill, but I’m not sure whether I’m observing ethnicity or poverty. The timezone here is the same as Beijing, even though we are geographically about 3 zones west, being quite close to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and even Pakistan, so the sunrise / sunset is out of kilter.
I’m here for a conference, and hopefully to do some sightseeing. I will write some more as things unfold…
Breakfast bought at the station and eaten on board the train is the Japanese version of the sandwich: Mother’s Pride type ultra-white bread, unrecognizable contents, and shrink-wrapped in clever plastic that opens itself at the right spot however you pull at it. It’s washed down with peach juice. It does look more edible than most Japanese food, I suppose, and it slips down.
Two hours later, we pull into Hakata station; Fukuoka airport is another 10 minutes away by metro. I’m glad I’ve allowed an extra hour, because buying the metro ticket and taking the bus between terminals take rather longer than expected.
I have no idea why Cathay runs a flight from Fukuoka to Hong Kong. There are 6 people in Business Class, and Economy is not full either. But they serve some excellent Burgundy, so I’m not complaining. We stop briefly in Taipei to refuel and take on more passengers, where there is an intense tropical storm. The Captain warns us that he will be doing a “full-power take-off”, which the more fragile of us might find disturbing. The Airbus 330 certainly picks up speed at quite a lick, and with a very short run we take off and power our way successfully into the stormy sky without any screams from the passengers.
In Hong Kong the weather is beautiful and for once, the pollution levels are low and the view good. It’s late afternoon already and there’s not much time for anything. I buy a wallet to replace mine which has fallen apart and in true HK shopping style get superb pricing, an additional discount and a free gift. What a great place this is for shopping.
It’s another early start on Monday morning. Train to the airport, and plane to Guangzhou, which is just over the border in the manufacturing heartland of mainland China. From there I change terminals with the help of a keen teenager who carries my bags and chatters away in rudimentary English as he shows me the way, and is delighted with his 60p tip, although clearly wouldn’t have refused more. The airport is new and impressive, reminding me a bit of San Francisco with smooth tiled floors and metal frame dome roof. I have time for lunch in a café near the gate, and try and order something as safe as possible. “Shanghai noodles” sounds good. It turns out to be boiled fatty belly of pork, swimming in an unappetizing brown soup, with some unidentifiable vegetable with a brownish tinge. But it’s delicious. The green tea arrives in a glass mug and rather like a larva lamp has about half its leaves floating at the top and half at the bottom, with some going down or up at any one time. I have to drink it by using my teeth as a sieve, and spend much of the 5-hour flight to Urumqi picking the bits out of my mouth.
Urumqi must be bigger than I expected, as this is a wide-bodied aircraft and I’m in row 41. It’s very full, and I’m the only non-Chinese as far as I can see. The approach is all desert, with some of it marked out in perhaps 500m x 500m squares, but with nothing inside most of them. Is it for later construction, perhaps? There is quite a lot of strip mining for what looks like construction material. The airport is communist-era compared with the splendour of Guangzhou, with dingy lighting and low ceilings. The advertisement for the local Sheraton looks out of place. I have trouble finding the person picking me up and have to phone round to find out where they are, or if they are there at all. It turns out the sign for me is written in Chinese, so no wonder I couldn’t find them. We eventually meet up, although she can’t speak any English, other than the words “taxi” and “hotel”.
Riding to the hotel in a taxi is the usual dodgem-style Chinese driving as we overtake on the inside, weave in and out, and hoot at everything that moves. It’s such a surprise that we not only don’t hit anyone, but also the seatbelts have clearly never been used.
Urumqi is an oasis, and the surroundings are a mixture of dust, sand and greenery. There’s some new construction, and lots of what look like run-down factories but which I suspect are apartment blocks. A lot of the writing is in Cyrillic (Russian), which is perhaps the way the local dialect is written. The oasis makes the region quite agricultural, and there’s oil too. We pass a hillside with houses built into the side of the hill, but I’m not sure whether I’m observing ethnicity or poverty. The timezone here is the same as Beijing, even though we are geographically about 3 zones west, being quite close to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and even Pakistan, so the sunrise / sunset is out of kilter.
I’m here for a conference, and hopefully to do some sightseeing. I will write some more as things unfold…
Postcard from Nagasaki
It’s been a bit of a blur since leaving San Jose after little more than 36 hours in that great place. Two of the highpoints were lunch at Mings with Paul (who is settling in well to his new home here) and dinner at The Blue Algarve Club discussing Bentleys (the cars) and salmon (the fish) with David, Betsy and David's niece. Another highpoint of course was Avis deciding to upgrade me to a Ford Mustang (“sorry Sir, you requested a Ford Focus with stick-shift, but we only have Automatics here [for “here” read the whole of the US], would you accept a Mustang instead? It is automatic though”). It’s a good head-turner, sounds great and goes like stink, but otherwise it’s a bit of a disappointment, especially the suspension and handling.
American Airlines is apparently stopping their service between San Jose and Tokyo Narita, and I can see why. The rather oddly designed (too much legroom, but not enough reclining seats made out of 80’s over-sombre blue leather) 777 is barely half-full, although I do meet an old Phoenix colleague on board.
Narita airport is, as I’ve observed before, rather a long way from Tokyo. I have 3 hours until my next flight, which leaves from Haneda, Tokyo’s national airport. The only trouble is that, according to the train timetable, it takes 2 hours to switch airports and trains are not frequent. Fortunately the omnipresent “Friendly Airport Limousine” steps up and offers me a bus transit which leaves every 10 minutes and takes just 70 minutes. The hostess bows to us as the coach pulls away exactly on time, driven by a man wearing white gloves. This is definitely Japan.
Haneda airport has a shopping mall above the terminal, which is very convenient for my couple of hours until the flight to Nagasaki. I drink tea and eat pasta for err… is it dinner? Not sure. I get another typical Japanese mannerism on leaving the restaurant, with all the waitresses and waiters chanting something unintelligible (“Goodbye”, perhaps?) as I leave. It’s almost in harmony.
The flight to Nagasaki is absolutely packed and I seem to be sitting next to a sumo wrestler. As he oozes over onto my adjacent seat, it’s getting very tight for those of us who weigh less than 200kg. If I had a tape measure, I would work out how much, or rather how little space I have. It’s inhumane and probably contravenes EU guidelines on veal rearing in Holland.
I believed from the map I downloaded from the Internet that Nagasaki airport is right next to the city, but it is a long taxi ride that exhausts me and most of the Yen cash I am carrying. The hotel, a Best Western, is quite grand and has some nice touches including free (yes, free) mini-bar and broadband.
Nagasaki is on the south west-most tip of Japan. Discovered by Portuguese and Dutch traders in C15, and still with a Dutch garden is one part of the town, the town nestles in a valley surrounded by mountains, leading to a port at the estuary.
The next day, Saturday, Dan is on time to meet me in the hotel lobby. We head out to the Ropeway, a cable car that leads up to the mountains that surround Nagasaki. It has spectacular views of the town, port and surrounding mountains. Dan takes a photo of me next to the cable car operator, who is dressed in a rather fetching orange striped uniform. She is half surprised, half shy, but smiles anyway. There are photos at the top to compare the view with earlier years, and we spot a bridge which clearly has only recently been built, leading to an extension to the port on the other bank.
The architecture of Nagasaki is typical post-war Japanese, with many of the buildings looking rather like the inside of a cheap bathroom, having white tiles, or perhaps white bricks, on the walls. Somehow every building seems to lack a little something, with some combination of rusty window frames, dirty windows, a ramshackle outhouse or dirty walls. Rather like Italy, it could do with a good lick of paint, but there’s no denying the underlying charm.
Our next stop is Dan’s flat which is about 20 minutes north of the centre, and we take the tram. It’s a fixed price of ¥100 – about 50p – irrespective of the distance traveled. The trams are similar to those found in many European countries and, other than the Kanji symbols on the outside, the trams would look at home in Zurich or Vienna. On the way to the flat we pass one of Dan’s 3 schools where he is teaching, and we are invited to watch a basketball tournament. We are cheering for the right team (called rather quaintly the “Team of Boys”), but watch them get slaughtered 21-8. Dan is quite the centre of attention, with pupils trying out their English on him, mostly “do you like basketball?” and “do you play basketball?”. I think Dan may need to work on expanding their vocabulary a bit. Outside the school the various teams each have their own large mat, where they change, eat, drink and wait for their turn to play. It’s like a huge picnic outing.
Dan’s flat is on the 1st floor of a relatively modern block. He has his own front door, leading to an outside walkway. On the other side of the flat is a narrow balcony about the width of a hanger and, with an unexciting view of the opposite building’s car park, I’m sure its primary use is to dry clothes. The flat is laid out like a hotel room, with a bathroom on the left and a miniscule kitchen on the right, where in a hotel you might normally have clothes storage. It’s so small that the fridge blocks the door into the main room. The living room / bedroom is covered in Tatami mats, and Dan in good Japanese fashion stores his bed in the cupboard during the day. At the balcony end, there’s a sofa, TV (with 5 Japanese channels only, but a Playstation) and a small table. It’s small but functional, and Dan is quite house-proud. Once his washing machine arrives and the broadband is connected, he’ll be in good shape. After spending rather longer than we intended fixing his light (not helped by taking too much of it apart and struggling to put it back together), we leave for the Peace Park.
The monument to the Atom Bomb consists of a memorial, park and museum. The memorial is a marble pillar at the bomb’s epicentre, with circular pavestones depicting the radiation, and the reconstruction of part of the nearby catholic cathedral that amazingly was not completely destroyed. Nagasaki was not the first choice of target (the other was obscured by smoke) and the bomber mistook a munitions factory in the suburbs for the town centre. The surrounding mountains also cushioned the effect somewhat, so ‘only’ 75,000 people died, about half that in Hiroshima, where the bomb was within metres of the intended target. The museum is less political than the one in Hiroshima, focusing on the human suffering that was caused. It’s a necessary but pretty gruesome place to visit and in my view should be compulsory viewing for any head of state or senior politician. The park on the other hand is delightful, with a large statue depicting peace, a fountain in the shape of a dove, and some statues from countries that were at the time probably trying to curry favour with the Japanese, but have since disappeared or had their borders radically redrawn: USSR, GDR and Yugoslavia.
We head back to the hotel for a mammoth 2½ hour Skype session for Dan, who has barely spoken to his parents and Katie since arriving in Japan. Afterwards, we go to the seafront, where there are a number of restaurants, which Dan is eating his way along. The Mexican restaurant gets the thumbs-down, and we choose instead one that is called a Coffee Shop, but is really an Italian restaurant. We eat Japanese lasagna, made with rice instead of pasta; Fettuccine Carbonara, which includes some of those delicious Japanese mushrooms in the recipe, garlic bread and err… Spring Rolls. Odd perhaps, but it hits the spot.
Dan is having a great time in Japan, has made many friends (called A.L.T.s whatever that means). He even claims to be enjoying the food. I leave him to go the Crazy Horse bar to meet the others and head back to the hotel for a relatively early night before another long journey tomorrow.
American Airlines is apparently stopping their service between San Jose and Tokyo Narita, and I can see why. The rather oddly designed (too much legroom, but not enough reclining seats made out of 80’s over-sombre blue leather) 777 is barely half-full, although I do meet an old Phoenix colleague on board.
Narita airport is, as I’ve observed before, rather a long way from Tokyo. I have 3 hours until my next flight, which leaves from Haneda, Tokyo’s national airport. The only trouble is that, according to the train timetable, it takes 2 hours to switch airports and trains are not frequent. Fortunately the omnipresent “Friendly Airport Limousine” steps up and offers me a bus transit which leaves every 10 minutes and takes just 70 minutes. The hostess bows to us as the coach pulls away exactly on time, driven by a man wearing white gloves. This is definitely Japan.
Haneda airport has a shopping mall above the terminal, which is very convenient for my couple of hours until the flight to Nagasaki. I drink tea and eat pasta for err… is it dinner? Not sure. I get another typical Japanese mannerism on leaving the restaurant, with all the waitresses and waiters chanting something unintelligible (“Goodbye”, perhaps?) as I leave. It’s almost in harmony.
The flight to Nagasaki is absolutely packed and I seem to be sitting next to a sumo wrestler. As he oozes over onto my adjacent seat, it’s getting very tight for those of us who weigh less than 200kg. If I had a tape measure, I would work out how much, or rather how little space I have. It’s inhumane and probably contravenes EU guidelines on veal rearing in Holland.
I believed from the map I downloaded from the Internet that Nagasaki airport is right next to the city, but it is a long taxi ride that exhausts me and most of the Yen cash I am carrying. The hotel, a Best Western, is quite grand and has some nice touches including free (yes, free) mini-bar and broadband.
Nagasaki is on the south west-most tip of Japan. Discovered by Portuguese and Dutch traders in C15, and still with a Dutch garden is one part of the town, the town nestles in a valley surrounded by mountains, leading to a port at the estuary.
The next day, Saturday, Dan is on time to meet me in the hotel lobby. We head out to the Ropeway, a cable car that leads up to the mountains that surround Nagasaki. It has spectacular views of the town, port and surrounding mountains. Dan takes a photo of me next to the cable car operator, who is dressed in a rather fetching orange striped uniform. She is half surprised, half shy, but smiles anyway. There are photos at the top to compare the view with earlier years, and we spot a bridge which clearly has only recently been built, leading to an extension to the port on the other bank.
The architecture of Nagasaki is typical post-war Japanese, with many of the buildings looking rather like the inside of a cheap bathroom, having white tiles, or perhaps white bricks, on the walls. Somehow every building seems to lack a little something, with some combination of rusty window frames, dirty windows, a ramshackle outhouse or dirty walls. Rather like Italy, it could do with a good lick of paint, but there’s no denying the underlying charm.
Our next stop is Dan’s flat which is about 20 minutes north of the centre, and we take the tram. It’s a fixed price of ¥100 – about 50p – irrespective of the distance traveled. The trams are similar to those found in many European countries and, other than the Kanji symbols on the outside, the trams would look at home in Zurich or Vienna. On the way to the flat we pass one of Dan’s 3 schools where he is teaching, and we are invited to watch a basketball tournament. We are cheering for the right team (called rather quaintly the “Team of Boys”), but watch them get slaughtered 21-8. Dan is quite the centre of attention, with pupils trying out their English on him, mostly “do you like basketball?” and “do you play basketball?”. I think Dan may need to work on expanding their vocabulary a bit. Outside the school the various teams each have their own large mat, where they change, eat, drink and wait for their turn to play. It’s like a huge picnic outing.
Dan’s flat is on the 1st floor of a relatively modern block. He has his own front door, leading to an outside walkway. On the other side of the flat is a narrow balcony about the width of a hanger and, with an unexciting view of the opposite building’s car park, I’m sure its primary use is to dry clothes. The flat is laid out like a hotel room, with a bathroom on the left and a miniscule kitchen on the right, where in a hotel you might normally have clothes storage. It’s so small that the fridge blocks the door into the main room. The living room / bedroom is covered in Tatami mats, and Dan in good Japanese fashion stores his bed in the cupboard during the day. At the balcony end, there’s a sofa, TV (with 5 Japanese channels only, but a Playstation) and a small table. It’s small but functional, and Dan is quite house-proud. Once his washing machine arrives and the broadband is connected, he’ll be in good shape. After spending rather longer than we intended fixing his light (not helped by taking too much of it apart and struggling to put it back together), we leave for the Peace Park.
The monument to the Atom Bomb consists of a memorial, park and museum. The memorial is a marble pillar at the bomb’s epicentre, with circular pavestones depicting the radiation, and the reconstruction of part of the nearby catholic cathedral that amazingly was not completely destroyed. Nagasaki was not the first choice of target (the other was obscured by smoke) and the bomber mistook a munitions factory in the suburbs for the town centre. The surrounding mountains also cushioned the effect somewhat, so ‘only’ 75,000 people died, about half that in Hiroshima, where the bomb was within metres of the intended target. The museum is less political than the one in Hiroshima, focusing on the human suffering that was caused. It’s a necessary but pretty gruesome place to visit and in my view should be compulsory viewing for any head of state or senior politician. The park on the other hand is delightful, with a large statue depicting peace, a fountain in the shape of a dove, and some statues from countries that were at the time probably trying to curry favour with the Japanese, but have since disappeared or had their borders radically redrawn: USSR, GDR and Yugoslavia.
We head back to the hotel for a mammoth 2½ hour Skype session for Dan, who has barely spoken to his parents and Katie since arriving in Japan. Afterwards, we go to the seafront, where there are a number of restaurants, which Dan is eating his way along. The Mexican restaurant gets the thumbs-down, and we choose instead one that is called a Coffee Shop, but is really an Italian restaurant. We eat Japanese lasagna, made with rice instead of pasta; Fettuccine Carbonara, which includes some of those delicious Japanese mushrooms in the recipe, garlic bread and err… Spring Rolls. Odd perhaps, but it hits the spot.
Dan is having a great time in Japan, has made many friends (called A.L.T.s whatever that means). He even claims to be enjoying the food. I leave him to go the Crazy Horse bar to meet the others and head back to the hotel for a relatively early night before another long journey tomorrow.
06 September 2006
Dallying in Dallas; cheated of Chicago
The airline industry is not used to the new security regulations. One of those seemingly-infinite British Airways announcements has the old message asking people to put their large wheelie bags in sideways in the overhead locker, to allow space for others. But as we are now restricted to a single bag little larger than a toaster, there’s enough room on board the 747 for anything and everything, even the odd kitchen sink. The announcement “If you have two bags, please put one under the seat in front of you” must be a wind-up.
There is still the odd poor soul wandering around the airport with his passport, ticket and wallet in a see-through plastic bag. It reminds me of France at the start of the Single Market in 1992. One of the many changes then was for France to give up its yellow headlights, which had been on all cars since the 2nd World War, as part of an EU product standardization drive. Unfortunately no-one told the determined British tourist who, with a whimsical view of France involving bicycles, baguettes and berets illuminated by yellow headlights, continued to paint his headlights yellow well into the late 90s, when the French decided they’d had enough and started issuing on-the-spot fines for cars with yellow headlights. Similarly in today’s world, I wonder whether we will still see the passport-in-a-plastic-bag phenomenon in 5 years’ time. It’s perhaps not fair to imply that the English have a monopoly of being feckless tourists, as I have been asked at times by French visitors in London “mais, ou est le brouillard?” (where is the fog?), and never been completely convinced that they were joking.
The search for liquids, gels, lighters and other newly-banned substances at Heathrow is still not effective, evidenced by a passenger at the gate meekly handing over his lighter just before boarding, saying he’d “forgotten” he had it. The current measures may be excessive, but it would be nice if they were at least universally enforced, or perhaps enforceable.
Washington is the first stop on my Round The World tour, through the USA, Japan, China and South Africa. It’s a total of 31,500 miles of flying and by the time I land in Washington, I’ve done just 11.6%. The longest sector is Hong Kong to Johannesburg (6,634 miles) and the shortest at just 74 miles is Hong Kong to Guangzhou, or Canton as it used to be called. I’m away 22 days less 4 hours, so my average speed during this trip will be almost exactly 60 mph. Pre-South Africa my average speed is over 85 mph, which seems right as that is work-time. I will have lost a day by going the wrong way over the International Date Line, and according to Einstein’s concept of personal time, I will be very slightly older (or younger, I’m not quite sure) than I would have been had I stayed at home.
I’ve spent so long with Barry’s patient and professional help planning this trip, that I’m convinced nothing can go wrong. I’m wrong: in fact it starts to go awry as soon as I land. Both the place I am staying and the meeting I’ve come for are in the Ritz Carlton, but it becomes clear that there are three Ritz Carltons in DC, and I’m not staying in the right one. Having ironed that out, and with the meeting successfully accomplished, it’s off to Dulles airport for the next leg. There I have to check in my bag, because I’m carrying toothpaste, a newly banned substance (I can’t help thinking: what are all these others with their wheelie bags doing about cleaning their teeth?). After saying goodbye to my bag (I hate checking bags in), I’m told that the flight to Chicago is delayed, so that I will miss my connection to San Jose. I can reroute, but my bags will not arrive until the next day. After some gnashing of teeth and a promise that the check-in clerk will be sent off to re-education camp (I have after all just finished a book on Mao, and it’s given me the idea) American Airlines send off a team to interrupt my bag in the bowels of the airport, and reticket it on my new route via Dallas Fort Worth to San Jose. They claim success; time will tell.
Dallas is a seriously big airport. I have a gate change from C2 to D28, which involves a 15 minute train ride. Heathrow may be proud of being the World’s Biggest Airport, but in order to stay the right side of the truth, they have had to add the word “International” before “Airport”. Dulles feels like Heathrow spread over a space not much smaller than Surrey and is apparently the airport with the most passengers and flights in the world. Perhaps one day that prize will be earned by Shanghai or Beijing, but today it’s the republican-voting oil tycoons of Texas who are in the top slot. It’s also hot, which makes a change from Washington, where it was unseasonably cool and raining.
Next stop: Silicon Valley.
There is still the odd poor soul wandering around the airport with his passport, ticket and wallet in a see-through plastic bag. It reminds me of France at the start of the Single Market in 1992. One of the many changes then was for France to give up its yellow headlights, which had been on all cars since the 2nd World War, as part of an EU product standardization drive. Unfortunately no-one told the determined British tourist who, with a whimsical view of France involving bicycles, baguettes and berets illuminated by yellow headlights, continued to paint his headlights yellow well into the late 90s, when the French decided they’d had enough and started issuing on-the-spot fines for cars with yellow headlights. Similarly in today’s world, I wonder whether we will still see the passport-in-a-plastic-bag phenomenon in 5 years’ time. It’s perhaps not fair to imply that the English have a monopoly of being feckless tourists, as I have been asked at times by French visitors in London “mais, ou est le brouillard?” (where is the fog?), and never been completely convinced that they were joking.
The search for liquids, gels, lighters and other newly-banned substances at Heathrow is still not effective, evidenced by a passenger at the gate meekly handing over his lighter just before boarding, saying he’d “forgotten” he had it. The current measures may be excessive, but it would be nice if they were at least universally enforced, or perhaps enforceable.
Washington is the first stop on my Round The World tour, through the USA, Japan, China and South Africa. It’s a total of 31,500 miles of flying and by the time I land in Washington, I’ve done just 11.6%. The longest sector is Hong Kong to Johannesburg (6,634 miles) and the shortest at just 74 miles is Hong Kong to Guangzhou, or Canton as it used to be called. I’m away 22 days less 4 hours, so my average speed during this trip will be almost exactly 60 mph. Pre-South Africa my average speed is over 85 mph, which seems right as that is work-time. I will have lost a day by going the wrong way over the International Date Line, and according to Einstein’s concept of personal time, I will be very slightly older (or younger, I’m not quite sure) than I would have been had I stayed at home.
I’ve spent so long with Barry’s patient and professional help planning this trip, that I’m convinced nothing can go wrong. I’m wrong: in fact it starts to go awry as soon as I land. Both the place I am staying and the meeting I’ve come for are in the Ritz Carlton, but it becomes clear that there are three Ritz Carltons in DC, and I’m not staying in the right one. Having ironed that out, and with the meeting successfully accomplished, it’s off to Dulles airport for the next leg. There I have to check in my bag, because I’m carrying toothpaste, a newly banned substance (I can’t help thinking: what are all these others with their wheelie bags doing about cleaning their teeth?). After saying goodbye to my bag (I hate checking bags in), I’m told that the flight to Chicago is delayed, so that I will miss my connection to San Jose. I can reroute, but my bags will not arrive until the next day. After some gnashing of teeth and a promise that the check-in clerk will be sent off to re-education camp (I have after all just finished a book on Mao, and it’s given me the idea) American Airlines send off a team to interrupt my bag in the bowels of the airport, and reticket it on my new route via Dallas Fort Worth to San Jose. They claim success; time will tell.
Dallas is a seriously big airport. I have a gate change from C2 to D28, which involves a 15 minute train ride. Heathrow may be proud of being the World’s Biggest Airport, but in order to stay the right side of the truth, they have had to add the word “International” before “Airport”. Dulles feels like Heathrow spread over a space not much smaller than Surrey and is apparently the airport with the most passengers and flights in the world. Perhaps one day that prize will be earned by Shanghai or Beijing, but today it’s the republican-voting oil tycoons of Texas who are in the top slot. It’s also hot, which makes a change from Washington, where it was unseasonably cool and raining.
Next stop: Silicon Valley.
