RED SEA ADVENTURE: EXCERPT Chapter 2 TWMH

This is a taster of Chapter 2-- Red Sea Adventure-- from my new book Travels with My Hat.  Seeking winter sunshine, I had gone back to Hurghada, a small  fishing village with one hotel in 1964. I wondered if it was still there...

...‘I want to find the Funduq Sheraton,’ I told my taxi-driver, a young man wearing designer stubble and a David Beckham 7 football shirt.

 ‘Road closed.’ His brow knitted in the rear vision mirror.

‘Izmi Hurghada thirty years ago!’ I tapped my chest with a certain pride since I had clearly graced Hurghada before he was born. But he was right. The old road was blocked by a rusty, corrugated iron fence plastered with posters advertising an ‘Eid Concert’ at the Ministry of Sound and other extravaganzas for the imminent Muslim feast of sacrifice.

‘Funduq Sheraton!’ he suddenly exclaimed, pulling up beside a crumbling circular building surrounded by leaning lamp posts and dusty trees. Grey, shabby and clearly unloved, I recognised it as the old Red Sea Tours Hotel, a large Marriott which had risen beside it being one of 160 new hotels since my visit all those years ago.

Hurghada’s long main street was still known as Sharia Sheraton, even though a new Sheraton had re-located to Soma Bay, far away from bungee jumping, kite-surfing, glass-bottom boat rides, submarine tours and other entertainments for holidaymakers flocking to the popular Red Sea resort. Wherever I looked there were hotels, cafes and shops selling tourist tat, but a sign, Harrads Hurghada, captured my attention.

On the pavement outside, glass water pipes, brass trays, wooden animals, leather pouffes, and camel backpacks were displayed beside baskets of karkady—the  dried red hibiscus flowers that Egyptians make into tea. As I raised my camera to take a picture, an intense looking man who clearly hadn’t shaved for days, got up from a dirty white plastic chair. ‘Everything inside 1GBP,’ he said, holding up a finger.

Going into his shop, I picked up a fish from a display of onyx marine life. ‘Fish 4 GBP,’ he quickly corrected himself.  Removing the stopper, I sniffed one of the half-filled, urine-coloured flagons of perfume lining a shelf. ‘Perfume 10GBP for100 grams.’ He cleared his throat. Then all of a sudden he flew into a rage.

 ‘Tourist just lookin’. No buy anythin!’  Flecks of spit appeared in the corners of his mouth as he shouted.  ‘ Every tourist fuggin Russhin. Old woman wantin sex. Fuggin rubbish. Only lookin! Pay nothin! Russhin Fuggin! Fuggin! Fuggin! Oh Allah! What we do?’

 He clasped his hands together and concerned my presence might bring on a seizure, I left him shouting to continue my walk along the Sharia Sheraton.            

 Every second shop I passed was stuffed with souvenirs. In the window of a leather-ware store, a lizard skin handbag, including the head, half-chewed away by insects, was marked 145 Egyptian pounds. I wanted to buy a plain white T-shirt, but everything had either a shark or a pyramid on it…

                 

A HARD DAY'S FRIGHT

Most travellers have hotel adventures, but few will have been frightened out of their wits by a couple climbing into bed with them in the middle of the night. This happened to me in Morocco when they mistook their room and I did the unthinkable—I forgot to lock my door.

A hotel is a home away from home for travellers and especially for travel writers. So I don't deny to being fussy about the standards. Will my room overlook the motorway or the market? Will I be over the kitchen, or under the discotheque? Will there be an Indian wedding in the garden or a buffet around the pool? IS THE HOTEL STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

Do you suffer from  xenodociophobia—a fear of foreign hotels?  An airline stewardess I know will never sleep on the ground floor after finding a snake in her room in Darwin while an interior decorator friend will not stay higher than the ninth floor in case fire traps him in his Calvin Klein’s. My London postmastman said his own particular dread was finding hard pillows on his annual holiday in Bournemouth.

Hard pillows, lumpy mattresses, slow room-service, no room-service—room-service banging in with breakfast—these are common complaints. 

 I always carry a personal pillow, but my own phobia is the colour orange drives me mad. Why does a sunburnt country like Australia have so many motels with a hot, orange décor? The same is true, I have discovered, of many hotels in the Arab world. After being out in the desert, I want the décor to be cool green. Or blue.

Do you agree that many hotel bathrooms leave much to be desired? Do you scald yourself under the mixer tap for instance?  Well, that's nothing. When I stayed in Hunza in the Northern Areas of Pakistan, the bearer-wallah brought me water to wash in a bucket filled from a dripping glacier.

I had many adventures while researching a book on Pakistan. At a canal rest-house in Dera Ghazi Khan, I awoke in the night to find the room had been invaded by saffron-coloured frogs. More than 40 were leaping about when I turned on my torch (there was no elecricity). Then in Balakot, in the Kagan Valley, I was disturbed by bush-mice chewing the orange flavoured vitamin C tablets in my wash-bag.

The service in some hotels can be truly disturbing as well. Leaving a hotel in Tangier recently, my bags were carried out to a taxi by the porter, smoking a cigarette. (who was angry that I requested he put it out).

In the 1980s when I was working in Khartoum, we had a power failure every night. On one occasion I was trapped for hours in an elevator with a 7ft tall Dinka man. Then in another hotel, this time in Port Sudan, I opened the window for a breath of air and the entire thing crashed into the courtyard.

Happily most places to stay have improved dramatically in the intervening years, but I’m sure all travellers have their tales of hotel holiday hell: what are yours?

 Images: www.copix.co.uk

Visit to the Ogaden: Excerpt from Chapter 1 Ticket to Addis Ababa

..Only the political correspondents were invited to the evening banquet in Menelik’s old Imperial Palace in Addis Ababa. Back at the hotel, I added my name to the list of journalists wanting to visit the famine belt, and next morning, escorted by Ethiopia’s portly Minister for Relief, we took off for Gode in a chartered DC3.

Gode lies in the Ogaden, a vast tract of south-east Ethiopia bordered by Kenya and Djibouti, and sharing a historically disputed frontier with Somalia. A semi-desert region, it supports only scraggy shrubs and trees, but the Webi Shebelle River crosses it before flowing into the Indian Ocean, more than 1,000 kilometres (500m) from its source in the Ethiopian highlands.

‘We’ve had no response to our appeal for medical teams,’ Shimalis told us in the Gode refugee camp where one skinny doctor, two tired nurses and three overworked dressers were attempting to care for 12,000 starving victims of the famine.

‘She will die,’ murmured the doctor of a wasted mite whose arms were no thicker than my fingers. ‘There have to be mass graves before anyone wants to help, and once you find fresh graves, we have lost our battle against the drought.’ He sighed deeply.

Times are never normal, or good in this god-forsaken corner of Africa, where Somali nomads roam in a perpetual search for sustenance. Both for themselves and their herds.

Shimalis frowned. ‘They are a primitive people who eat food on the hoof, using a special curved knife to slice steaks off the living animal, then packing the wound with mud.’

Hammered by the sun and buffeted by sand-laden winds, it had been five years since the Ogaden had received a drop of rain. Wherever I looked, sun-bleached bones punctured the desert landscape. Even the hardy camel herds were dying. Walking away from my colleagues, I came upon a small group moaning softly around a dried up water hole. One was a mother with two young whose hump had shrunk to a flab of skin.

She salivated, rolling her tongue, as the twins butted her udder in frustration. As I watched, she sank to her knees and rested her chin on the sand. A buzzard took off from a twisted acacia, then another and looking up, I saw other scavengers circling in the washed out sky. I had encountered many unpleasant situations on my travels when I’d tried not to cry, but conditions in Gode brought on tears... ..

www.travelswithmyhat.com
Images: http://www.copix.co.uk/

Coelacanths, moonshine and the scent of ylang-ylang

"When I hauled in the net …..I saw the strange fishtail sticking out and realised that it was different from anything I had ever seen...the fish was a coelacanth believed extinct for millions of years.” wrote Captain Hendrik P. Goosen of catching the first coelacanth off the Comores in 1938.

Publicity surrounding the ‘living fossil,’ - pre-dating dinosaurs by 100 million years - brought attention to the Comores, an Indian Ocean archipelago, originally peopled by Shirazi settlers who arrived with their African slaves. Comorians are descended from these early mixed migrations: 99 per cent are Muslim.

The three islands - Grand Comore, Anjouan and Moheli - lie in the Mozambique Channel. A fourth, Mayotte, while geographically part of the archipelago, opted to remain with France when independence was granted in 1975.

Moroni the Comorian capital, is located on the largest island of Grand Comore. It remains a sleepy, old ‘Indian Ocean Coast’ style town of coral-stone houses lining narrow lanes descending to a harbour filled with wooden ngalawas used for in-shore fishing. A second coelacanth caught in 1985, is displayed in Moroni’s National Museum and in order to protect the island’s only claim to fame, the government declared a section of ocean a National Coelacanth Reserve.

The Karthala Volcano on Grand Comore rises to a height of 2361 m. During a big eruption in 2005, lava ran right down to the sea and due to a shortage of building material, some village houses are entirely constructed of volcanic rock.

The south coast of Grand Comore is lined with coconut palms and pandanus trees leaning over turquoise bays. 1000 year old cycad palms are among several exotic species flourishing in rain forest in theinterior. On coastal clearings, maize, bananas and rice are grown along with the ylang-ylang flower. The Comores are the world’s biggest producer of ylang-ylang, an essential oil in many perfumes. But it takes a lot of flowers -nearly a ton - to distil a single litre.

Island life is low-key except on the occasion of a grand mariage when custom dictates the first born daughter gets a big send off.

As soon as a baby girl is born in the Comores, her family begins building her a house although it may take as long as twenty years, and their life savings, to complete. The groom reciprocates with money, jewellery and livestock. He is also responsible for the wedding feast lasting several days, with hundreds of friends and relatives invited.
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Traditional dancing is central to celebrations. Slow at first, it grows ever wilder, but is always performed in step. Women, their faces painted with white paste which is considered alluring, perform the energetic wadaha miming island chores - milling grain, sweeping, fetching water - all tasks in store for the new bride.

Images from: www.copix.co.uk

THE LEGENDARY LYRE FROM UR

Excerpt from Chapter 4: Middle East Nightmare

The next day, I took a taxi to the Iraq National Museum founded by Gertrude Bell, the great Orientalist, political officer and archaeologist who spoke both Arabic and Persian. Here under a single roof, I could finally feast on treasures from Mesopotamia and forget the crude public relations exercise of previous days. And evidently satisfied I could do no harm, the minder sat on the steps smoking a cigarette, leaving me free to explore alone.

The museum was deathly quiet except for my footsteps on the wooden floor. I passed the Warka Vase, a giant alabaster vessel engraved with processions of naked men bearing offerings to Inana, the Sumerian Goddess of Love and War. Glass cases displayed ancient pottery and sculptures, cuneiform tablets from Sumerian and Babylonian times, and stunning stone reliefs from the palace of the Assyrian king Sargon II at Khorsabad. Among this abundance of priceless objects, I wanted to find the Golden Lyre from the burial chamber of Queen Pu-Abi, who lived in the celebrated city of Ur.

Excavation of the royal tombs by Sir Leonard Woolley in 1929 had discovered a munificence of grave goods: a head-dress made of golden leaves; extravagant necklaces and belts; a chariot adorned with lioness’ heads in silver along with golden rings and bracelets. The legendary lyre had been found standing upright against a wall of the pit. Beside it lay the bodies of thirteen maidservants with beautiful adornments—retainers sacrificed to serve their mistress in another world.

‘It would seem,’ said Sir Leonard ‘as if the last player had her arm over the harp, certainly she played till the end.

Suddenly picked out by a shaft of sunlight, I saw the lyre encrusted with lapis lazuli and with the gold-bearded bull on the front representing Shamash, the Sun God and hopeless at anything musical myself, I shivered with excitement as I imagined Sumerian fingers plucking its strings some 5,000 years ago.

My thoughts were interrupted by the minder creeping up behind me. In order to reach Hatra before dusk, he indicated we had to leave. Now! He was the same pock-faced man who had shadowed me since my arrival in Baghdad and the only time he spoke on the journey north was when we passed Tekrit.

‘Saddam Hussein!’ he said, jerking a finger at the town where Saddam was born in 1937 and where Saladdin with whom the Iraqi president liked to compare himself, had been born 800 years earlier...

From a visit to Iraq in 1980: c. Christine Osborne

WAR PHOTOGRAPHY: FINE LINE BETWEEN REPORTAGE AND DEATH

YOU TUBE has removed the video of war photographer Tim Hetherington being laid out by staff at the Misrata Hospital in Libya.

The man who posted the video which also contained images of Getty photographer Chris Hondros, uploaded it in good faith, and only after much deliberation. The decision to do so took moral courage and carried a warning that it contained graphic images. Therefore, and as always, it was a personal decision whether one looked at it or not.

I saw the video before You Tube decided it was unsuitable for public viewing, a decision with which I disagree.

The images of the dead Hetherington were a closure. If you’ve ever lost someone as I have, in curious circumstances and with no corpse, there is no closure on his life. The doctors handled Tim gently and if any of his family and friends managed to see the video, they would certainly have been upset. But it was an end.

My problem with You Tube in this case, is that they allow graphic footage of wounded and dead Afghans, Africans - you name them - to be displayed, but censor respectful photos of a famous photo-journalist killed in action.

I never met Tim, but I admired his skill as a photographer and in particular his evident concern for the unfortunates displaced by warfare. I also believe he wouldn’t have minded being photographed as a dead man. He was after all, a film-maker.

May you rest in peace Tim and thank you for the many times you risked your life to depict people caught in conflict.

Tim Hetherington, 40 and Chris Hondros 41, were killed on 20 April in the battle for Misrata.

Images: Chris Hondros, Tim Hetherington, photo Chris Hondros/Getty

HAIL MR GOODFISH: World Ocean Network Campaign to save fish stocks

The protection of seafood species from over consumption must be a prime goal if ocean stocks are to last for future generations.

The Mr Goodfish campaign, launched on 18th March 2009 at Nausicaa Marine Centre in Boulogne, a coastal port in north-east France, aims to promote sustainability by encouraging better practices in every link of the seafood chain from fishermen and fishmongers, through restaurateurs and chefs to the consumer. That is from the professional, profiting from our abundant ocean-life, to "Joe Public" who is eating it.

Using the tag` Good for the Sea, good for You` the objective is to tap into public consciousness by showing how to make informed choices when buying, or ordering seafood. Several leading French chefs have committed to placing MrGoodfish stickers on their restaurant menus bearing the stark message: Si vous voulez continuer a manger du poisson, il faut bien choisir le bon poisson des aujourd`hui.

World Ocean Network members - Acquario di Genova in Italy and the Aquarium Finisterrae in Spain, are backing the initiative. With Nausicaa, they will post lists of sustainable species in their regions, adjusted according to the seasons, on thewww. MrGoodFish.com website.

`It has to work. The marine environment is under intense pressure which will only increase unless action is taken`says Stephane Henard, curator of Nausicaa which has welcomed more than 10 million visitors since opening in 1991.

I have seen a few aquariums on my travels and can say that Nausicaa, which is right in the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer, is top- notch. Its tropical lagoon, containing 400,000 litres of filtered seawater, kept at 24-26c is now the biggest indoor cultivated reef in the world, developed from 5,000 individual coral cuttings. And counting 3,500 fish from 100 different species. Other exhibitions such as Mediterranean sea-life and a Californian tank, with waving kelp and cruising leopard sharks, are equally fascinating.

50% of Nausicaa`s creatures were born in captivity. Others have travelled many miles, as juveniles, to Boulogne: barracuda from Rotterdam, a giant leopard moray, estimated by Stephane to be some 50 years old, a gift from London Zoo and a Napoleon fish from Hawaii. And I was intrigued to learn that unlike their aggressive Amazonian cousins, Nausicaa`s two large piranhas, from the Matto Gross, are toothless vegetarians.

The centre is designed so that one descends via staggered terraces into the heart of the ocean. And by viewing each tank of plants as well as animals, visitors will hopefully recognise the fragility of marine life, and commit to its preservation.

Tell a fishmonger if his fish are undersize. And that you don`t buy female crabs. Castigate Italian tourists who buy dried seahorse souvenirs, complain to supermarkets offering swordfish and tuna on their counters. The MrGoodfish campaign can work, but it needs your personal participation.

Nausicaa Centre National de la Mer Boulogne: open daily except 25th December & 10-28-2011.

Special daily activities and monthly exhibitions.

English audio-guides available.

Shop and bar/restaurant.

Accommodation on the seafront or the old hill town.

A recommended stop for families and car-drivers using the Eurotunnel, 20 minutes drive.

AFFORDABLE ART FAIR HAS SOMETHING FOR ALL TASTES AND POCKETS

The crocuses are up: it`s time for the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea Park!

I attend the fair every year and rate it as one of the most enjoyable occasions in the London Art Calendar. So do other art lovers: a record 25,000 people visited the show on its 10th anniversary in 2009.

The AAF which is now international (Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, Milan, New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney and Melbourne) is the creation of Will Ramsay whose aim was to remove the formality out of buying art.

Ever felt inhibited about going into a gallery off the street? The receptionist is sitting at a desk ignoring you. Or pestering you about what she/he likes and not what caught your eye in the first place? Or left alone, have you latched onto a painting, only to find it way above your price range?

Well yes. It happens to a lot of us which is why the AAF is so popular. There`s no pressure to buy and with prices starting at £50 and a ceiling of £3,000, it`s affordable to to all. And many artists themselves are there to discuss their work.

This year there are 120 stands displaying everything from fine art and contemporary painting, to sculpture in almost every medium you can think of and yes, photographs - woo-hoo!

Of course collecting art is a very personal experience, but I particularly liked the prints based on Iraqi folk-tales by South African-born Susan Moxley. The fine abstracts encapsulating emotion and thought, by young Worcestershire artist Kelly Washbourne also stood out among the thousands of colourful works.

Affordable Art Fair runs from 11th -14 March.

Photo: Rising young artist KellyWashbourne

Photo: Susan Moxley with her prints

Source: www.copix.co.uk

MAHARAJA EXHIBITION EXPLORES A GLITTERING LIFESTYLE

Maharaja - The Splendour of India`s Royal Courts - at the V&A Museum in London, is one of the most exciting exhibitions ever mounted in UK. The word `maharaja` literally Great King, sums up the magnificence of the display which runs until 17th January 2010.

Covering the period from the collapse of the Mughal Empire in 18th century to the end of British rule in 1947, the exhibition examines the changing role of the maharajas in an historic and social context, and looks at how their patronage of the arts resulted in splendid commissions, designed to enhance their status.

Among priceless items are three thrones, a silver gilt howdah, gem-encrusted weapons, court paintings, turban jewellery and textiles from collections in the former princely states of Udaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Gwalior, Baroda, Mysore, Patiala, Bahawalpur and others.

The Queen has also loaned dazzling gifts such as the gold sword and scabbard encrusted with emeralds and diamonds, presented to the Prince of Wales by the Maharaja of Kashmir, in 1864. A gold durbar set, for offering paan, a gift from the state of Mysore in 1875, is also on loan courtesy of Her Majesty.

The exhibition unfolds with a simulated royal procession of a life-size elephant adorned with jewellery and surmounted with a silver howdah. An early movie, whose soundtrack features drumming and the screams of the processing elephants, indicates the pomp and ceremony of such an event.

The initial displays explore the role of the maharaja as military and political ruler and artistic patron. Symbols of kingship include a gaddi (throne) from Udaipur, elaborate turban jewels, ceremonial swords and a gold ankus (elephant goad) set with diamonds.

There is a palanquin from the court of Jodhpur used to carry the Maharaja’s wife and women`s dumbells, inlaid with ivory, indicate the activities of the zenana. A chaupar set with enamel dice, inlaid with diamonds and played on a cloth sewn with emeralds, rubies and pearls, is evidence of how leisure hours were spent.

Other dazzling items are the golden throne of Ranjit Singh,`The Lion of Punjab` crowned Maharaja in 1801, and his belt, studded with pearls, diamonds and emeralds the size of Ferrer Rocher chocolates.

The exhibition ultimately looks at the period of the Raj, explored through large-scale paintings such as the Imperial Assemblage - 7.2 metres in length - and rare archival film footage of the royal durbars, including the Coronation Durbar of 1911, attended by George V and Queen Mary.

The final section, explores European influence on the Maharajas where the bejewelled elephant, carrying a dancing girl on its tusks, is usurped by a Rolls Royce Phantom commissioned in 1927 by the flamboyant Maharana Bhopal Singh of Mewar.

www.vam.ac.uk/maharaja

LUXOR HORSE-CARRIAGES. BEWARE!

Sightseeing by traditional horse carriage is a pleasant way to explore the popular city of Luxor, in Upper Egypt. For around £1 GBP, you can clip-clop along the Nile where tall-masted feluccas are moored between the massive monuments of Luxor and Karnak.

Spending a little more, buys you an hour's circuit of the dusty backstreets, passing perfume and spice shops, tailors and crafts stalls selling alabaster busts of Queen Nefertiti, onyx statues of Anubis, and other Pharaonic gods.

I went to Luxor to photograph the Coptic spring festival of Shemen Nessim. Placing my camera bag up on the carriage, I stepped onto the metal foot-plate, but it came down on my legs, slicing them to the bone. The accident required emergency surgery in Luxor International Hospital, but while my injuries were serious enough (I had to have a further operation in London) they could have been worse.

"I advise tourists not to take caleche," a Luxor tour rep told me. “You see families, with their kids perched next to the driver, galloping along the corniche and on rounding a corner, they are often thrown off."

Egyptian Tourist Police are attempting to crack down on the scores of illegal caleche waiting outside Luxor's tourist hotels. Brought in from the countryside by poor fellaheen, hoping to make a fast buck, most are unroadworthy. As I discovered.

If you do take a caleche, check it displays a yellow license plate on the rear, confirm that the driver really does know where you want to go, and don't allow him to use his whip.

The Brooke Animal Hospital, caring for tired old carriage horses, is located behind Luxor Temple.

c.Christine Osborne

Image: www.copix.co.uk