“LANDSCAPES AND TRADITIONS OF BULGARIA”

 REGENT HOLIDAYS JUNE 2023   

      

     

I thought of simply writing a few key words, leaving you to draw your own conclusions as I didn’t keep a diary this time (too hectic a pace, plus the fact that the novelty of writing a blog is beginning to wear off after 30 or so!) So, here are those words…… followed by brief descriptions. If you’d like to know more, read on afterwards as I’ve had second thoughts!

BULGARIA – Beautiful. Basic. Brave. Biblical…… and Bent!

The simply descriptive: Surprisingly, a member of the EU (till you study the map of E Europe and think about it!); rather refreshingly unsophisticated; agricultural/rural economy; old-fashioned; sparsely populated – around 7 million (can you imagine, 1/10th of our population in about half the space?); a long, turbulent history of conflict, occupation and war-mongering; wine and rakia (brandy) -producing; visible reminders of 20th C Communism architecturally, linguistically, culinarily and culturally; hearty food; the world’s leading producer of rose oil; AN EARTHQUAKE!! 

    

The good news: Woke-free!; cheap; beautifully, lusciously mountainous; lovely Black Sea beaches (apparently); good skiing (apparently); rose oil; impressive historic churches and monasteries with even more impressive and historic frescos; interesting cave complexes; charming historical towns; AN EARTHQUAKE!! 

The bad news: corrupt – 72nd of 180 on the Corruption Perception Index ’23 “Trading Economics”. (Somalia is at the top – most corrupt, still – Denmark remains the least corrupt and the UK is 18th, down fr 11th when I last looked a couple of years ago); backward/old-fashioned services and service; Communist mind-set; appalling breakfasts; quite a lot of stuff that doesn’t work (air-con, lifts, loos etc;); 1950’s style kiddie gender-stereotyping; AN EARTHQUAKE!! 

          

In retrospect, I might call Bulgaria charming. With an air of “pre the fall of the USSR”, a distinctive history and character and refreshingly different from its neighbours (Romania – with which it bears some comparison – Serbia, Macedonia, Greece and Turkey) it’s been, and is, quite in the thick of things geographically, politically, religiously, historically. Mostly it felt old-fashioned, things often didn’t work or weren’t available (I got excited at the prospect of a spa at one hotel but it had shut down), food was plain (basic, no choice, plonked down in front of us), service and attitude were often poor – though in a way this was refreshing as it reflected the fact that B is relatively new to tourism (apart from skiers and sunbathers on hen n stag week-ends).

Oh, and the very worst breakfasts I’ve ever had the misfortune to pick at, anywhere. Although people at historic sites and in museums were a bit more friendly, indifference and/or surly attitudes were, sadly, the order of the day. Quite often we felt as though we were in 1970s Russia. The bus I think was from the 1970s, though its driver was excellent (lots of fag breaks – him, not his passengers). Generally, places were clean and graffiti- and litter-free. Landscapes were unspoiled and very beautiful.

     

I fly directly to SOFIA, pronounced SOFF-ia, the capital, then make a triangular loop by road, diverting north en route to and from the northern border with Romania. In the south we’re four fields from Greece.

Day 2 And we’re off! The weather is cool and dull, a relief after my last two trips (Saudi A and Ghana). The first hotel is A Sign of Things To Come facility- and service-wise ie not much of either! Still, I’d made myself comfortable last night by rearranging the bedding and bits of furniture and this morning am raring to go. The Group is pretty typical (see the end of blog). One good thing – the daily start time is never earlier than 9.

Through surprisingly pretty countryside to Bulgaria’s Mediaeval capital, Veliko Tarnovo. On the way we stop at the first (of very many!) monasteries, The C17th Troyan Monastery. Historic, striking, interesting and the country’s third largest, it’s home to the much revered icon, The Three-Handed Virgin (don’t ask! Pics not allowed so here’s one off t’internet)……..

   

……..and many, MANY wonderful frescoes. It’s pouring with rain and a bit dismal as we’re treated to a long, extremely detailed, occasionally interesting (more like an academic series of lectures than a summary for only fairly interested tourists), tiringly long-drawn-out tour of the site by our guide S. Little do I realise – at this stage – that this will become the norm everywhere we go and that the word “Thracians” is to crop up so many times over the following days that I’ll come to dread it! To relieve the boredom today I count the number of times it crosses S’s lips and now know 100% more about these admittedly admirable and important peoples than I did before. (But if I never hear their name ever again I’ll be happy).

      

[I tell you the above to give you an idea of S’s depth of knowledge, the lengths to which he went to impart his extensive – and passionate – understanding of these ancient colonisers (and other, more recent ones: the Greeks, Romans, Ottomans and Russians) who had such direct, often dramatic, sometimes detrimental, effects on his little country. The hours seemed endless as we stood patiently – in our Very British Way – not wanting to be rude by shouting out what we were thinking (“GET ON WITH IT! 200 yrs back is more than enough, thanks mate”) as he recounted 11 centuries’ worth of history in the rain, in the sun, in the wind, at the start, in the middle, at the end of the day every day, in churches, monasteries, mosques, fields, towns, up mountains, in museums, homes, farms, ….. well, you get the picture. We, tummies empty/bladders full/legs aching/brains foggy, politely feigning interest or sneaking off to pretend to take photos of cobbles and cars, quietly grumbling that it was more than anyone should be asked to bear. The record, non-stop, standing-there-trying-to-look-vaguely-interested-yet-longing-to-take-the-weight-off-our-feet session was 37 mins! One of the group, a qualified London Walking Tour Guide, tried to help – but made things worse! – by revealing his rule of thumb is “5 mins max chat at any one time!”]

Tsarevets Castle was home to a line of Bulgarian Kings/Tsars who ruled, on and off – mainly off – between the C1st AD and WW2 (in 1946 a referendum was held and the monarchy abolished).

     

To Asen’s Fortress and Bachkovo Monastery, perched on a crag above a river at the narrow end of a dramatic gorge. Like many such sites, this one occupies a stunning, prominent, defensive position above woods on a hillside with sweeping views down the valley to make spotting marauders a mile off easy. Today, the part-ruined site sits peacefully above the river, the walls of its tiny church covered in frescoes – naturally – and with an air of tranquility. High up in the clean clear air, I look down on carpets of daisies and wooded slopes and listen to birdsong. (I’m also sweating as it’s been a long climb!) Unlike in the UK there are no warning signs to WATCH YOUR STEP! to BEWARE! or to KEEP OUT!!, although there is one little knee-high notice advising, with a child-like drawing of someone with arms flailing, not to jump over the (made-of-2-wires) fence! The drop the other side must be 1,000 feet…..

     

[All this makes me look – not for the first time – more closely at the UK’s history and be thankful for these small islands’ position on the edge of Europe, far from troubled areas such as this. If you’re thinking “Here goes Veronica, exaggerating again”, may I tell you – if you didn’t know already, as I didn’t – that Thracian-Occupied History in these parts stretches from the 10th C BC to the C1st AD so there’s a lot of it!  S, impressively, is not only extraordinarily familiar with 90% of it but determined that we should be as fascinated by it as he is, hence his lecture-ritual being repeated several times a day, for the duration. Yes, I did feedback to the company, though I had to word it carefully as S was simply over-keen – and over-qualified].

Veliko Tarnovo, despite being a touristy town set higgledy-piggeldy (rather like an Indian Hill Town) overlooking a spectacular river valley, is – unusually for here – a bit scruffy, neglected, run-down and littered…..

……but it’s also architecturally charming, unusual, picturesque and historic. When a HUGE, left-over-from-Communist-Days, Brutalist-style, peeling cream-painted hotel is pointed out to us across the gorge (and we suggest it might be worth preserving as a memento of Russian Occupation Times) S is angry and dismissive. It takes a few days for us to realise that a Western European View of Things may be a very narrow one and that nostalgia and admiration for architecture that reminds citizens of recent invasions by foreign powers is not something that those on the receiving end can view with dispassion. What a world of difference there is between we Brits, gazing from the perspective of centuries on, at – say – a Roman Theatre in St Albans or a Roman fort in Cumbria, and Bulgarians looking at a still-standing, abandoned-by-occupying-Russians-in-1991 hotel. Lesson learned for the rest of the trip.

     

Next, an open air museum, Baldwin’s Tower and the ancient “Throne City”, perched on another hillside, all photogenic, unspoiled by visitor crowds and with interesting back-stories. Our itinerary promises “a delicious lunch” – which is pushing it a bit though we’re hungry and can’t complain. Portions are enormous, if samey, and I wonder how and why this poor country wastes so much food. Perhaps it’s trying to impress…….or do Bulgarians have hearty appetites?

Our hotel in Arbanassi promises much: caged peacocks and quails, a pool, decorative pointless little wooden bridges and a kiddies’ playground (er, no thanks to any) and is described as “rustic” which means nothing works and the breakfast is rubbish. I move room as the air-con in the first has conked out. The second is hardly better but I daren’t say anything. The room cost on the back of the door is so cheap that I take a pic as proof. (There are around 2 lev to the £). Breakfast is unappetising (cold floppy toast or watered down artificial apple juice, anyone?) The toaster is “Kaput!” (the owner), the hot water for tea and coffee is tepid and there’s no sign of anything cereal-like, though there are scowls and eye-rolls a-plenty from the staff. (And why does nowhere have fruit when we’re surrounded by rich agricultural land and they boast about producing the best cherries on the planet?)

         

Next day, a fresh sunny morning and UNESCO-listed rock-hewn monasteries at Ivanovo in Rusenski National Park and Cherven Castle. A pretty, steady climb on foot up mountain paths, past wild flowers, breathtaking views, trees clinging to slopes, birds swooping and singing – and a group of chattering Taiwanese Tourists who, being younger than us, just beat us to said rock-frescoes and we have to wait our turn, the spell of the clear quiet morning half-way up a mountain now cruelly shattered.

       

As we wait, I try to imagine how – and why – any human is motivated to dedicate his allotted time on Earth to an imagined god, thus forgoing his only chance of LIVING A LIFE. Luckily for us, the time these monks devoted to decorating the rough, cream-coloured cave-walls here was well spent; they’ve left magnificent frescoes for us to enjoy centuries later. I get up close, marvelling at the detail, delicacy and delight of these “primitive” works……  I could buy pamphlets, earrings or little icon fridge magnets from a small woman behind a small table, but don’t.  

We lunch outside at a simple restaurant in what the itinerary describes as “the city” (more a very small town) of Ruse. The food, already familiar in its dull sameness is, sadly, once again disappointing. The view across The Danube, 150 m away – here a border – is the opposite, revealing Romanian fields and docks. We’re just a few miles south of Bucharest!…..

  

Tuesday, so it must be Plovdiv. Our journey takes us through the gorgeous Shipka National Park and a 4,000 ft Pass in the Balkan Mts. We make a welcome stop half-way up, the prettiest of locations for a caff and petrol station (free, clean loos in such places are a boon) and photograph The Liberty Memorial, symbol of modern, liberated Bulgaria – freed from Ottoman Rule at the end of the C19th. (S has almost nothing positive to say about this interlude in his country’s past).

 

The magnificent Shipka Memorial Church sits nearby, onion domes glittering in the bright sunshine, half-hidden within a thick grove of trees. Regent‘s travel notes describe it as “exquisite” and truly it is.  On to Kazanlak, and a Thracian Tomb, another UNESCO World Heritage Site. Discovered – buried on a hillside – only in 1944 this C4th BC little gem (beehive-shaped and brick-built) is so delicate and ancient that the tiny tomb-like building we have to crouch to enter (“Four at a time only!“) is a perfect replica, the original – behind bricks, bars and locks alongside – being too rare, delicate, precious and unstable to allow curious tourists into. Once again, the frescoes are astonishingly beautiful, delicate and detailed. I feel as awestruck as I did in Tutankhamun’s Tomb in the Valley of the Kings. It’s as if these artists have just popped out for lunch too. 

     

The Rose Museum, as you’ll imagine, is fragrant, fascinating and fabulous – there are old photos and etchings of valleys bursting with sweet-scented bushes and of hard-working labourers; maps of ancient trade routes exporting the precious, labour-intensive oil to Western European capitals (there’s a replica of a shop-front in one of London’s Victorian Arcades where the imported oil – and a host of by-products – ended up); equipment used to harvest, process and export this extraordinary natural product and beautifully displayed “stuff”: ancient barrels, old drawings, scent jars, sieves and other tools, baskets, machines, costumes, plant samples, labels, phials and elaborate bottles…….plus (early) photos and (later) videos of Rose Queen Festivals, held annually for hundreds of years apart from – yes, you’ve guessed it – 2020. As a bonus, the whole museum smells sweetly, unmistakably of ROSE.

Outside, a gaggle of noisy, elderly, overweight Greek tourists are organising themselves for a group photograph. A Greek Orthodox priest snaps them on his i-phone as they squeeze into too-small toy-town train seats, before trundling off on a tour round the museum grounds. I buy a tiny phial of rose oil for a friend and rose-flavoured (what else?) Turkish Delight for myself!

 

 

 

The Valley of Roses, Bulgaria’s (the world’s!), leading exporter of rose-oil and home to dozens of small farms, is like a vast, well-tended vineyard. Kilometer-long lines of shoulder-high plants reach far up the valley and vanish to a point like an exercise in perspective drawing. It’s peak harvest time and every bush, laden with precious flowers, is drooping wearily, branches bobbing and leaves trembling in the breeze. In the mid-afternoon sun, the air is heavy with floral sweetness, reminding me of childhood summers (and pointless hours) spent in the garden trying to create “scent” by mashing rose petals – with a wooden peg! – in a tea-cup. (Yup, I am 97!)  Now, plucking a full-blown, velvety-petalled, dusky-pink, delicate flower feels like sacrilege, but I do it anyway and breathe in the heavenly, heady perfume. I muse that every time I smell a rose from now on I’ll be reminded of this moment, this place……..

Back on the bus, I slide my rose into the pocket on the back of the seat in front of me, leave it there and watch it fade over the next few days. On the way to the airport I gingerly – and sadly – remove it, papery petals turning to dust in the air – and between my fingers – as it disintegrates into nothingness. I’d sniffed it every time I’d returned to the bus for 6 days; the scent never diminished, even as it shrivelled and died.

[“It takes 60,000 roses to produce 1 ounce of oil. Because of the high cost of organic rose production and process of extraction, Bulgarian rose oil is considered the best in the world. Its export complexity and labour-intensity of its production makes it so expensive. Out of 150,000 species of rose – yes really! – only 5/6 are used for essential oil and 2 of those, Damask and Cabbage are the most cultivated. In 2019, a kilogram of rose oil was worth between $8,200 and $9,400, which made it more expensive than gold”. ecomat.co.uk ]

In the tiny village of Kalofer we’re guests of a local folk-dance teacher and her farmer husband. Sitting in their orchard on little chairs in dappled sunlight under ancient fruit trees, we sample home-brewed Rakia (fruit brandy), sour-tasting yogurt and traditional bread as we gaze over cultivated farmland and listen to their tales of close-knit communities, family ties, handed-down traditions, skills, country ways and attitudes and I think “I have an inkling of where it might all going wrong for our “multicultural”, fragmented, self-obsessed society back home“. Nearby, pretty, classy, not-working-horses graze – which seems a bit odd. When I ask what they’re for, I’m told “I’m not sure. The farmer who owns them isn’t either, but he receives EU subsidies for breeding them ….. and for growing acres of runner beans”. I think “Remind self to check Waitrose’s runner beans’ labels when I’m next in”. You must draw what conclusion you will on the horse-breeding thing……….

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plovdiv – such an unfamiliar word to shape your mouth around! – is, with good reason, Bulgaria’s City Jewel in their Crown and was European Capital of Culture in 2019. Dating back to C5th BC Thracian times – of course! – via the Romans, the Ottomans and everybody else, the present-day Plovdiv is arguably the prettiest of Bulgarian cities, boasting impressive, extensive – and very visible – Roman ruins (a huge, well-preserved amphitheatre to start with, now used for musical concerts), iconic Russian Brutalist–style public buildings (Post Office etc), pretty tree- and proper-arty-graffiti-lined shopping streets and……..

          

   

………..the walled Old Town, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, with delightful, steep cobbled streets, quirky cafes, old churches and beautifully distinctive, Farrow and Ball coloured, C19th houses (still occupied) with charming walled gardens. (It reminds me very much of the fairy-tale villages in Transylvania). We spend our free afternoon traipsing, enjoying drinks in artsy coffee houses, souvenir-shopping, admiring the prettily-painted everythings, the churches, homes and gardens, getting lost and snapping away at every turn with our cameras and phones as though there’s no tomorrow. The grander homes have been turned into museums – but museums of the accessible “Let’s make them look as though the families have just popped out to visit their neighbour” sort. Look at Chazza, sitting on a bench downtown!

 

In the middle of a guided tour round one of these museums IS WHERE I HAVE MY FIRST – AND LIKELY ONLY! – EARTHQUAKE EXPERIENCE!!

Standing with the site guide in a cosy carpeted room, P, R, S and I are taking in his description of the furniture and the plumbing when, out of the blue, there’s a perceptible trembling in the air and a loud, unsettling rumble. (Not, I’m told later, The Earth itself but the shifting house foundations. Yikes!). At one and the same time ordinary and extraordinary, this unsteadiness – and the rumble – continue for a few seconds, as if a lorryload of boulders is being dumped in the road right outside the open window. The guide has paused and I hear myself blurting out…… not what I’m thinking, but something instinctive, a feeling that hasn’t consciously registered. 

“Was that ……erm, an earthquake?” Bizarrely, I seem to know that ………

……… it WAS!!!  A 4.9 on the Richter scale, real live ‘quake (epi-centre, a mere 4 km away) deeply but gently rocking us, the furniture, the old house, the whole of Plovdiv and its environs (not for the first time! Earthquakes are not uncommon in these parts; we’re close to Turkey and Syria, after all, and we know about their earthquake histories), all shifted for ever on this soft, warm June afternoon, the ground below our feet briefly but determinedly rearranging itself and re-settling without a by-your-leave. The rest of the group, shopping or sightseeing or sipping tea somewhere, thought “something happened” but weren’t sure – till we tell them!  The four of us hereafter think of ourselves as “Earthquake Buddies”. (My pointy finger marks the spot where I was standing!)

   

Next, TRIGRAD GORGE with its 250m overhanging cliffs, as dramatic and unspoiled as anywhere in Europe and two stunning Cave Complexes – both freezing (6 degs – which I alone think is a perfect temperature). We “enjoy” a dripping, echo-y, dank and dark, somewhat creepy tour with an on-sight guide. 21 km of natural deep-underground tunnels (we scramble and slide an hour of them) hide us from the mountain above and the daylight. Luckily, although we often have to stoop, sometimes have to watch our step, occasionally have to climb metal stairs, 3 or 4 times have to stop, shivering, to listen to impressive facts and figures and once pause to peer, in the light of the guide’s mobile phone torch, at a dozen or so naturally-formed, tiny “pearls” – geological curiosities, mere millimetres in diameter – nestling in a small indentation on a rock-sill and protected from vandals and thieves (imagine!) by an ugly Perspex box. It’s all fascinating and different. There are no frescoes!

 

            

The cave statistics are astonishing. Those related to TIME – incomprehensible aeons of it – are truly scary and hard to get your head around. The caves, their 100s of 1,000s of years old stalactites and stalagmites clinging to or reaching for the ceiling, the weird rock formations (“See The Devil’s Throat? See the giant’s profile. the alligator, frog, leopard-skin?” Leopard-skin??!), the underground lake, the somewhat creepy stories (dead bodies in underground rivers, disappeared explorers making me want to shut my mind to everything that’s not NOW and trivial) aren’t quite as impressive as those I visited in Lebanon, but they are second best. (OK, I’ve only been to 3, ever…., But these are memorable).  Excellent guided tours by site guides who have attended different Tour Guide Training Schools from S – thank heavens – so to the point, succinct and relevant; short, sharp stops along the way. It’s nice to be back in the fresh mountain air, to saunter along the winding wooded road to lunch even though, OF COURSE, its the ubiquitous, boring by now, Chopska salad as a starter and indeterminate “meat” to follow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I haven’t mentioned the vineyards and wine-tasting experiences in Melnik as the trip was rather perfunctory and disappointing – and should be taken out of the tour if you ask me. Also, my air-con didn’t work in the pretty but unreliable hotel so I didn’t sleep and was tired and bad-tempered the next day.

In the S W, the RHODOPE MTS and “There’s Greece, 200m away. Get a pic, quick!” as if it’s going to disappear! In DEVIN, 2 members of the local Folk Singing Club, one a piper, the other a singer, entertain us over supper (in the hotel that advertises itself as a SPA hotel but where the SPA is closed), surprising us with their sudden appearance, proximity, extreme volume and bouncy enthusiasm. Their performance is ever-so-slightly-embarrassing at close eye-meeting quarters but authentic and moving – if, like me, you’re a fan of huge, sheep-stomach bagpipes and a female voice so boomingly powerful that it’s wasted in the hotel dining room and should be heard from across a valley like a Swiss Alphorn.

Some of the group try to keep straight faces while others find excuses to go to the loo or to move further away. Despite our awkwardness, the performance knocks spots off the terrible touristy tired n pretentious shows I’ve had the misfortune to have to endure in places like Istanbul and Cairo….. This delightful couple seem genuinely pleased to be performing for us, are charming, friendly, speak not a word of English (why should they?) and seem proud of their talents and culture. Which is how it should be!  Just as well as the hotel feels on its last legs and sharing our Last Supper with hordes of excited, out of control, unsupervised 11 yr old school kids, left by their teachers (sitting at the bar) to run free for hours is no-one’s idea of a great final night, especially mine!

Last Day and we have a whistle-stop, tantalising tour of SOFF-ia which should have happened on the first day (so as to give us a flavour of the country’s history). A beautiful city with French-style public buildings, an Opera House (best seats £17 – I told you Bulgaria was inexpensive!) and theatres, ancient mosques and churches, a magnificent Cathedral……

…….classy shopping streets, boulevards, parks, posh hotels, coffee shops, Parliament, Royal Palace, all you’d expect from a European Capital. Oh! and a wedding!!!  (I ALWAYS manage to see a wedding on my trips!) I’d like to re-visit Sofia at leisure. I can’t tell you very much about it here, except that it was very appealing, reminded me a bit of Vienna and that it has a main road (badly damaged in WW2) which is paved with yellow bricks made in and transported from Budapest, for reasons I’ve forgotten. Sadly, I’m too tired to enjoy the city fully – and yes, I have fed this back to the company! 

     

   

And finally, Bachkovo Monastery is home to the most impressive collection of frescoes I think I’ve seen anywhere outside Italy. The price to be paid, you’ll have worked out, is very many minutes – tired and on our last legs – of enforced-listening to over-long explanations. This sums up our week’s experience neatly……  

…….Shiroka Lake would be lovely if it weren’t tipping down with hailstones the size of tooth-fillings bouncing off the verandah and with a storm closing in until the lake itself disappears. So…….time to go home.

      

And so we do!

READ ON IF YOU’RE INTERESTED IN THE PEOPLE IN THE GROUP.

There seems to be A Typical Collection of People on the tours I do. This one was true to form. I daren’t imagine what they say about me as a group member, but My Blue-Print For Participants, built up over many years, goes something like this:

1 amazing, elderly individual, eccentric, independent and adrift of the group (no, not me!) This person is indomitable, has been everywhere (prob in the 1970s or even 60s), is polite but not really a joining-in person and has travelled on his/her own to places you and I couldn’t point to on a map or that no longer exist – or, if they do, they now have a different name. If you’re lucky, this person will spend time with you, dropping amazing, scarcely credible tales about their travels over half a century into their conversation. (If you’re not lucky, they will keep themselves to themselves). They’re now forced, through sheer unwelcome Old Age (and/or chivvying from Gen Z family members), to join Group Tours. This indignity they bear with fortitude. They’re always fascinating and sometimes become your friend when you get home, unless they live in Orkney, which was my experience once.

     

1 Couple Who, Despite Being Well Past 50, Insist On Holding Hands At Every Opportunity, (Whaaaat? And why?) They also do everything at the same time and choose the same things off menus – even telling each other what they’ve chosen. They’re almost always dull and you try to avoid sitting next to them for the duration as you don’t want to chat about gardening, grandchildren, knitting or – very common this one – illnesses and dying.

1 Couple Who Think They Are “A Cut Above”. This manifests itself in their sitting separately on the bus and at meals and wandering off on their own at sites, mainly because they think they know better than the rest of the group (and sometimes than the guide!) They let everyone know they are experts in local wines, that they speak the language, have likely been here before, when it was more authentic – and there were no direct flights – and wear John Lewis’ “What To Wear When Travelling To Slightly-Off-The-Beaten-Track Places” label clothing, often matching.

1 Delightful Couple who are really kind, generous, easy-going, good company and rather “dark horses” travel-wise (ie Russia in 1968) with a great sense of humour. They are often Northern and invite you to sit with them at meals if you look lost.

I Rather Bad-Tempered Elderly Person who is a bit of a know-all, gives you the impression s/he wishes they were on a different tour at a different time with a different company and with different companions. (Again, not  me!) They’re often eccentric, divorced/separated, professional and defensive. Sometimes, but only sometimes, they grow on you. 

1 Slightly Odd Single Person – often female – who’s a dark horse: much more interesting than they consider themselves to be and usually with a hidden talent (speaks the local lingo fluently, keeps alpacas, is an expert Marriage Guidance Counsellor, or who has written a book (but doesn’t tell you till the last day!) on S American Opera, East European Politics, Glaciers or Tropical Birds of SE Asia – depending on where the trip is headed. They are slow to warm to the whole trip but can turn into A Life-long Friend. They also quite often Know More Than The Guide. 

1 (Almost always) Female of a Certain Age who is easy-going, fun, friendly, and all-round Fabulous. This person you click with at the start, seek out on walks, climbs, free-time and meals as they are generally THE best company. Quite often they turn into friends, regardless of where they live! These are the best people to sit next to whenever you can.

                                                                        THAT’S ALL FOLKS!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charles III Coronation. May 6 2023 (in email form, as sent)

 

 

 

Hello Friend! 

Hope I’m not intruding into yr Bank Hol w/e w this? 

Here’s MY FAVOURITE CORO PIC – of Hazza, obscured by Anne’s huge hat-feather – his M M Candle Moment!! Not a coincidence he was seated there, surely?

And Yes, I woz there w Kate by the Cenotaph in the pouring rain. Don’t regret going but it was quite the commitment: up at 4.45 am, wet, cold, corralled by “Security” n unable to leave for 1/2 hour afterwards, no food/drinks within sight, banned access to porta-loos and a position right next to the yellow Not My KIng-ers. (No, we didn’t choose…..) They kept themselves under wrap before bursting out, like crumpled, damp daffodils, just b4 the parade, tho they were pretty obvious fr the start, munching on carrots n cucumber sticks (while K n I stuffed our faces w croissants, choc biscuits n sweets, I’m ashamed to say) and there was much amateurish (“Over n Out, Roger Roger“), suspicious mobile-collaboration between them n other groups scattered along the route. It looked a bit like a B movie “Oooo we’re not suspicious, not us” or a Carry On film.

              

I had a short conversation w one to whom I said “I don’t like football but I don’t go to Man Utd matches w placards saying “Not My Team”, I just…… er, stay away, so why come here and spoil things for us?” To which he replied that we live in a democracy so we’re free to do so, to which there was no response other than well that’s true! When I asked him what alternative Republican leader he’d choose, he cited Mary Robinson who was very good if i remember rightly – n better than all those who were in my head! – but he was annoyed when I knew who she was n when I said “Good choice, but you might also get Kim Jong Un or Tone”. It was not a happy exchange. 

        

In contrast, there were lots of royal supporters among us – fr Wales (he kept quiet re Drakeford during the President discussion!), Isle of Wight, USA, Indonesia, Manchester, Aus n Edinburgh – the two rather posh ladies of a certain age in this pic, certainly “on-side” n anti-Nicola n Useless Youssef, demonstrated their loyalty to the UNITED Kingdom n Chazza by sporting Barbour coats n B hats with plastic toy tiaras on top!, smiley n determined in the downpour. 

It all looked far better on the TV than it felt in real life and the music over the loudspeakers (there were no Big TV Screens, why not?) which we thought was overlong, too religious n droning on, actually turned out to be a treat when I tuned in to Kirsty Young n her highlights – both hair-wise since I last saw her a decade ago and OB Coverage-wise. I thought everything about the service was brilliant, esp the P n P of Wales n kiddies, the foreign dignitaries, Chazza‘s sausage-hand squeezed into one glove (bit creepy), Penny Mordant stealing the show (what was that about?), Camilla looking as though she wouldn’t have minded staying at home with her Jack Russells, a GnT n a fag and the symbolism, tradition, history, glamour n general timeless weirdness of it all. (Tho I still think Chazza shld have worn gaiters). He looked knackered, moved, elderly and committed I thought, not necessarily in that order. 

  

Loved all the guests, except the whingeing, cruel, disturbed, vengeful second son (thank god Megain “Its me, it’s me! Look at ME” M stayed away, even tho this meant there was no opportunity for me to BOOOO! as I had at the St Paul’s Jub service). Adored n admired the music, the moment Wills pledged his allegiance n kissed his dad on the cheek, the magnificence of Kate n how she’s grown into her role w/out any fuss, the sweet Charlotte, the timeless pageantry, glamour, colour n quirky Britishness of it all – tho Welby needs to retire – and having something to be proud of – for a change n for the first time since Queenie’s funeral. 

That’s my take on it all, yours will be different. 

Hope yr Coronation Day was just how you wanted it to be. 

Why is the sun now shining brightly?? 

Vx

PS Oh, and I missed The Queen and often thought of her and how she’d have loved it all n been so proud of everyone.

Berlin, Christmas 2022: Family, Xmas markets, Art Galleries, Concerts, Ballet, Opera and………….

…….um, a Concentration Camp?

Here we are, full of Christmas spirit, strudel and stollen – tho not yet goose and gluhwein – on a bleak morning, on a bleaker site on the outskirts of Oranienburg, a small town 22 miles north of Berlin. It’s Boxing Day morning at home; for us it’s a walking tour of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.

    

   

We’re frozen. The only one among us who is appropriately dressed is our guide, Steve, an Aussie. His first comment on meeting outside a Starbucks in Berlin is……… 

    

………”Are you all prepared for a cold, wet time?” “Er NO!” is my thought but I shout “Yes!” (Silly me has a dress, a jacket and one of those thin macs that keep you neither dry nor warm – and that you hardly ever wear for this very reason – and no hat as I’ve forgotten to pack one). Steve, of course, is wearing all the right gear and considerately doesn’t comment on some of his group members’ lack of dress sense!  We train it out of the capital, passing a section of the graffitied Berlin Wall, proving that, within 60 minutes, it’s possible to bear witness to the best and the worst of a nation. And of humanity itself…….

     

Thus we find ourselves standing, shivering, inside Sachsenhausen on Roll-call Square, listening to Steve’s vivid description of desperate prisoners in sub-zero temperatures and one layer of cotton clothing for hours on end (as they tried to work out what cruel games the Nazis would play today to keep them on their metaphorical toes) and it seems entirely fitting that we’re ill-prepared and uncomfortable dress-wise.

     

A short train ride from the capital, Sachsenhausen (“Saxon house“) boasts the dubious distinction of being the camp where, “in the early years of the war the SS practised methods of mass killing that were later used in the Nazi death camps”. (N Y Times). It was also the site of Operation Bernhard, one of the largest currency counterfeiting operations ever recorded. This model camp was used for the training of SS guards and was the Central Administrative Office for all concentration camps in the territories controlled by Germany, 

One of the earliest and least-known camps (none of us had heard of it when we researched “Walking Tours, Berlin“), this, er…… Detention Facility was established by the Nazis after they’d gained power in 1933 following the appointment of Reich Leader SS Heinrich Himmler as the Chief of the German Police. Set in 200 acres of cleared forest in what was then Prussia, Sachsenhausen was in use as a Concentration Camp from 1936 until it was liberated by the Red Army (you may recall I’m an Honorary Member, enrolled in Minsk a few years ago) and Poles in April 1945. It’s situated, a kilometer-walk from the modern train station, adjacent to neat, middle-class homes – currently decorated with Santas, Xmas lights and seasonal decorations – on the edge of town. 

     

“Sachsenhausen was a labour camp, outfitted with several sub-camps, a gas chamber, and a medical experimentation area. Prisoners were treated inhumanely, fed inadequately, and killed openly”. 30,000 – mostly Russian prisoners of war – were murdered here. 33,000 inmates were forced on a Death March around the time of liberation, from which there were few survivors (who were then shot). There were British, Dutch and Ukrainians and Nazi dissenters, Allied escapees from other camps, homosexuals and Jews – of course – all the usual suspects there simply because of who they were. Sachsenhausen was the centre from which the Concentration Camp System was organised, administered and run.  As in other camps, many inmates were victims of exhaustion, disease, malnutrition and pneumonia as well as of firing squads. These latter deaths, as well as those by gallows and experimentation, were the order of the day as were mustard gas killings, starvation, public hangings, experiments on twins and other unspeakable horrors.

                  

One block, The Killing Rooms, housed an elaborate and hideous mock-up of medical rooms which allowed trusting prisoner-victims to be taken through a cruel ritual of “normal” appointments, check-ups, examinations, measurements and testings before arriving – of their own accord – in the last, comfortable, “consulting” room. Here they were summarily executed (a gunshot to the back of the head through a hole in the wall so the executor never saw the face of his victim)………..  Soothing music, played loudly and continuously, drowned out tell-tale noises and kept the block’s murderous intent secret.

          

Here we stand in shame and silence next to a small monument depicting skinny humans being brutalised by Nazis, bedraggled bunches of flowers and a few damp wreaths left by visitors, paying our respects. It crosses my mind that all Gen X-ers should be forced to share our experience and stop their “I’m offended, me, by your incorrect usage of my preferred pronouns” – and similar woke crap – FORTHWITH and that they should GET A GRIP and think for a fleeting moment of the privileges they enjoy, in part thanks to the human beings whose ghosts we sense here. 

  

    

Another building (brick ones, such as medical and kitchens, have survived pretty well intact, others are either reconstructed or absent, barring their foundation stones) was the centre for experiments on inmates’ bodies in order to discover…..well, all sorts of sordid stuff, not only involving the notorious investigations into twins but also to find out what happens to the human body under extreme stress and cold. Tests involving ice baths, dunking-seats and scarcely-credible and cruelly imaginative levels of inhumanity are best not dwelt on here. (Fortunately, or otherwise, depending on how you look upon it, this experiment is generally accepted as the only positive thing to come out of the wholly grizzly business, the results having informed modern-day, extreme survival/rescue practices).

          

After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, Sachsenhausen became  known as Special Camp No 7 and was used by the Russian Secret Police Force for a further 5 years to house political prisoners and Nazi functionaries. Today, as part of modern-day Germany, it is open to the public (we uncomfortable 20-odd foreigners on this damp, dreary, deserted and depressing December morning) “as a memorial”.

That’s a description.

As you can imagine, the experience was something else entirely.

Elsewhere, not in another world, just a different version of this one, we attend a wonderful, comfortingly traditional Swan Lake at the Staatsoper on Christmas Day! (Stuart finds himself sitting next to the conductor’s daughter. She’s given a little wave by her Dad from the orchestra pit at the start………….)

   

……..The Berlin Philharmonic (Prokovief) is thrilling, a production of La Boheme is the finest I’ve seen – despite the tenor having a cold and struggling to be on top form – and the Christmas Market on the next block to our hotel is as traditional and German as you could hope for.                            

Here, in 2016 on the very day we’d chosen to arrive in Berlin for Christmas, a lunatic Tunisian terrorist hijacked a truck and drove into the crowd, injuring over 70 and killing 12. You will remember this pointless horror. A little Timperley Pilgrimage Thing has developed since then (we’ve missed just 2 of the 6 yrs) so we stand and remember. Since we were last here, Berlin City Council has poignantly marked the zig-zaggedy, random, uncontrolled death-route the madman steered someone else’s truck along as he put his foot down – no doubt shouting “Allahu Akbah”, though that detail is not recorded for posterity. An inlaid, squiggly brass line traces, in the flagstones, the last few meters and seconds of the attack, recording for ever the last moments of lives lived – and lost in an instant. The five step risers bear, in brass too, the names of the multinational victims.The perpetrator was one Anis Amri, “an unsuccessful asylum seeker”.  I’m saying nothing.  “Four days after the attack, he was killed in a shootout with police near Milan in Italy”. Good riddance. Photos, flowers, candles, poems, prayers and memories strew the church steps, right next to the kiddies’ roundabouts, the jewellery and hat stalls and umpteen Currywurst, Bier and Gluhwein huts. Please don’t ask what he thought he might achieve…..

Like you we, the lucky ones, continue to enjoy the Christmases we choose. Conversations, trivia quizzes by log fires, gift-giving and receiving, walks, food prepared by others, sight-seeing, toasts to Absent Friends, shopping (if you can afford it), theatres, reading and the rest.

  

I wish you all a Happy and Healthy New Year and leave you with the thought that the NHS still isn’t working, the UK is strike bound, hardly anyone will publicly state WHAT A WOMAN IS – apart from my pals Kellie-Jay Keen and JK Rowling – over 45,000 illegal immigrants entered the UK last year and we now have a generation who know next to nothing, tell “their truth” –  whatever that may be – regardless, and are impressed by Harry n Meghan whose names I will not put in bold.

OH MY….  

 

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN – oops THE KING (the end of an era) Sept 2022

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN – oops THE KING (the end of an era) Sept 2022

The sad demise, death and funeral of HMTQ from a personal standpoint, as experienced from W1 rather than afar. 

     

   

I was packing for a trip to Bulgaria the day the queen died. So To Go or Not To Go, that was the question. What a decision, although it took only a few seconds’ consideration. Where to BE? On foreign soil, wondering for the duration what was happening back in London? Or close to home and the action? And the emotion. And the historic significance. And the pageantry.

I wavered a couple of times (full, unrefundable costs lost, for a start) but the decision was easy when it came down to it. Instinct was telling me that I should remain in my capital city for the next few days – whatever they may bring. (How funny, I thought, that I should feel that). Little did I know then just how much it would turn out to be the right decision. The choice to remain and be in the right place at the right time for the right reasons, to be witness to a uniquely special event seems, in retrospect, so obviously the correct one, that I now think (you may be thinking) “Why on earth would I NOT stay here?”  Of course Sofia, and the rest, will still be there after all this is over – if I feel them beckoning, I can go another time.

So I rang the travel company and pulled out. 

(I met a couple of young people today Tues Sept 20, the day after the funeral, who told me that despite being in London they “didn’t bother to do much” over the 10 day mourning period. I wondered whether this sort of thing, this lack of interest in the death of their 96 yr old Head of  State after her unprecedented 70 year reign, might be a generational thing? I expect there’s an element of that. Still, I’m surprised that these two weren’t curious, if nothing else….)

    

SEPT 6: The first indication of what’s to come dawns the moment I see, on the TV News, someone, somewhere (Balmoral Castle, it turns out) shaking the hand of our PM. Of course, I know it’s the Queen, but it isn’t the queen I recognise, the queen I’ve known all my life. Even from a distance, on a bad day, in poor light, dressed in anything from a cardigan to a cape to a crown, The Queen is someone you always recognise. Always. This can’t be her! (Googling items of clothing beginning w “c” for a bit of alliteration, I found catsuit, cowboy boots, cut-off shorts, crop-top, clogs and crotchless panties!! Er….NO to all images of Liz in these outfits, thank you!) 

  

I squint at the screen, do a double-take and think I’m mis-hearing when the voice-over tells me this is “The Queen, shaking hands with new PM, Liz Truss”. Who is this tiny, thin, wasted almost-stranger? The broad smile, the coiffed grey hair, the proffered hand, even the walking stick …… yes. But the overlarge glasses, the stoop, those bruised hands? The frailty? This isn’t MY queen, nor is it THE queen. Surely? But it is, and barely 48 hrs later there are worrying statements from Scotland. HM’s health is not good: “There are Concerns for The Queen” pronouncements. “Her Majesty is under medical supervision” updates and bulletins from The Palace. This we’ve not heard before. How dare they? It feels serious. Unbelievably, our beloved, always there, reliable, wonderful, healthy queen seems suddenly to be on her way out.  We sense that what’s happening is something we’ve feared for a while but have been in denial about, joking that she’ll go on for ever. But now it’s not funny…….We prepare ourselves, ring family and friends for reassurance (and – oddly – comfort). And wait.  But not for long………..

SEPT 8: Two days later I’m at the hairdressers where – of course – we talk about nothing other than Eliz The Second being gravely ill. Could it be the end?

Late afternoon and there’s an announcement. The Queen, our longest reigning monarch, has died.

Shock, disbelief, disorientation, sadness. We all agree that we’re taken aback by how taken aback we are. An official ten-day mourning period is declared as the much-awaited, finely planned “Operation London Bridge” (what happens if The Queen dies at Balmoral) is immediately implemented. 

Family members, good and bad, rushing to her side. Only Princess Anne and Chazza are with her at the end, which seems appropriate, though I feel sorry for Edward who always appears quietly stalwart and a bit on the fringes (TV’s It’s a Royal Knockout notwithstanding) and Sophie, who I understand was much loved and respected by HM. I do not enjoy learning that, by very unfortunate (for TRF) coincidence, H n M happen to be in the UK n so will be visible (and very audible, knowing the ghastly pair) for the duration.

There are confusing – even conflicting – snippets about what happens next – some unsettling. Surely – SURELY – Meghan won’t have the gall to scurry up there?  As we know, the Narcissistic Minx absolutely would, but a royal foot seems to be stamped and she stays away. For now. Whilst I’m thrilled at this, I’m astonished that she isn’t wangling her way in (“Those PHOTO OPS at the largest event the world has ever seen, and I’m not there?!”) despite Oprah and EVERYTHING.

Harry turns up alone – by all accounts too late to say his farewells to his grandmother, which is also appropriate as he refused an invitation to Balmoral a few days ago and has been a thorn in HM’s side – the part-cause of her demise and her main problem really – since he married. Catherine stays away to do the school run which says it all and is a clever move. Chazza (sorry, The KING) seems devastated at losing his “Darling Mama”. “The Queen is dead, long live the King” is a wonderful, seamless, ancient, wise, comforting thing.

SEPT 9: To Buck House with Kate. We clutch a droopy red rose each. Uncertain what to do, we wander down to The Mall, passing small crowds, a number of police/security guards and the C16th St James’ Palace where we learn, from an already-staked-his-place-for-tomorrow’s-TV-coverage meedya person, that the previously held-in-private ancient ritual (the Official Declaration of the New Monarch) will take place on the balcony of the unassuming, small, red-brick brick-red Tudor Proclamation Gallery the following day. We stare at it aimlessly for a few minutes then turn round for an uncomfortable selfie.  Curious crowds are beginning to gather everywhere.

 

This being the C21st we’re to be treated, though don’t yet know it, to a series of “firsts” as technology allows us, The People, to witness ancient, never-before-seen ceremonials, rituals and procedures.

We casually saunter along, the significance of the occasion almost passing us by. (It’s unlike anything we’ve experienced before and there’s no template). We stroll over to Buck Palace where we find ourselves among a select few early bird mourners and place our flowers – awkwardly – at the palace gates. We’ve queued for what we consider far too long – i e about 15 mins. (Accounts of grander, busier, more onerous, LONGER BY LITERALLY MILES queues to come!) It feels eerie, unreal, odd and reminds us of Diana’s funeral response 25 years ago. (25 YEARS!) From tomorrow, all flower tributes are to be taken to St James Park nearby. A slight, understandable “misjudgement” by the police/security/Royal Staff/organisers at this early stage is the first sign that we’re about to witness something enormously complicated and significant that is unprecedented and may prove difficult to manage.

I’m thinking “I hope there’s no terrorist attack or Save The Planet idiots gluing themselves to the hearse”. Crowds, queues, emotions, turn-out, patience, patriotism, respect, enthusiasm, dissent, determination, co-operation, Republicanism, Royalist nutters  – all unpredictable. As it turns out it all passes without a hitch, apart from one sad “attack” on the Lying in State coffin, a military faint by Wellington Arch and one sailor’s white ankle bandage coming loose as he hauls the gun-carriage up The Mall. That sounds as though he’s doing it on his own but you know what I mean.

         

SEPT 10: Odd, in-between times. Media at home and abroad full of The News. We keep in touch with family and friends as though we have lost someone very close.

Things are happening in Scotland – The Queen’s hearse travels by road from Balmoral to Edinburgh, this most beautiful of British cities at its absolute best under clear skies in the early-Autumn sunlight. “Unexpectedly large” crowds are gathering to pay their respects. HM lies in state in St Giles Cathedral, a landmark I know well from my EdFest trips. (Who’d have thought I’d be seeing it on my TV screen so soon after passing it on foot several times just 5 weeks ago?) Even Sturgeon in her address – I don’t think “through gritted teeth” – sings Elizabeth’s praises. (I thought of writing “Lillibet” there, but that would be presumptuous and rude as it’s not mine, or anyone else’s, to use. Surely no-one on the planet would be so crass as to use the pet name The Duke of Edinburgh gave – in private – to his darling wife? Surely?)

   

I’m pleased for folks N of the border and wonder if the queen decided to remain in her beloved Scotland to die – the first monarch to do so since 1540 – a quietly effective “Please don’t leave The Union” last plea?  (Just googled monarch’s deaths and discovered that Liz 2’s earlier namesake died of “frailty and insomnia” (?) when she was younger than I am now, though a good innings for 400 years ago). See Trafalgar Sq cordoned off and deserted. We can’t work out why.

Kate n I go to the cinema, as we’d already booked, and sit though a very average film whose title I can’t recall.  Piccadilly Circus ad-spaces and Leicester Sq cinemas display gigantic electronic images of The Queen. It’s all weird, a bit Lockdown-like, unfamiliar and odd. We wander about, like everyone else wondering what we’re doing and what we’re supposed to be doing. At this moment I’m not convinced I’ve done the right thing by cancelling Bulgaria. (Stuart chooses to do things his way, in case you’re wondering……)

        

SEPT 11, 12: Not much happening, apparently, though “everything” is to run so perfectly in the coming days that I should realise that behind the scenes, now, it must be FRANTIC. Every day (and some nights) leading up to the funeral, traditionally 10 days after the death of a monarch, is one of immense activity, organisation and rehearsal. Kate and I go to the cinema again. Once more I can’t remember the film.

Today I should be in Plovdiv. Instead, I’m pretty well glued to my lap-top, phone and tv screen. The world is responding, touchingly but not surprisingly. Our Queen seems to have been held in very high regard everywhere and by almost everyone. The Scots pay their respects and I hold it together until those pesky bagpipes are brought out, when I fall apart. (Is there any instrument more mournful, more beautiful, more heartbreakingly sad than bagpipes? Please don’t write a note at the end, naming one – I don’t believe you!)

SEPT 13: Suddenly, it’s all feeling very real. The Queen’s body, accompanied by P Anne, is flown from Edinburgh to Northolt. I know the cortege will pass within walking distance of Dorset St so make my way down to Marble Arch and line up, 3-deep in the dark and drizzle. An hour and a half’s banter with a Met Policeman and an an unpleasant exchange between two blokes in the crowd – one demanding that the other “be respectful to Her Majesty or else I’ll down you, right there mate, copper or no copper”. This results in a verbal warning from our officer and an outraged “But ‘e woz SINGING!” from first bloke about second bloke to the PC.  I don’t know who, of several people – including the police officer and myself – to feel most sorry for. 

Soon, a thumbs up from our bobby, ear-piercing whistling from outriders on motorbikes, a hush…….. and the hearse is approaching. 5 seconds later it’s come and gone in a flash, whizzing round M A and down Park Lane into the dark, skimming the glistening road and followed by hesitant waves of clapping plus a bit of unconvincing (in the sense that folks seem uncertain of its appropriateness, not that they aren’t keen) cheering. It isn’t until later that the nagging thought “What did that remind me of?” is answered when it pops into my head that the dazzling, fluorescent-lit, fast-moving little vehicle looked like a fairground side-show, all lurid colours and flashing lights.  Tonight feels like The Start of Something Big and I wander home feeling ……. different and dejected.

SEPT 14: I go with an old friend on foot to view the flowers in Green Park. Much to my surprise, it’s a wonderful, moving sight. The heady floral scent is unexpected and overpowering in the warm, late-afternoon sun, the messages from HM’s subjects, young and old, only faintly tacky here and there. Rather too many marmalade sandwiches and toy Paddington Bears for my liking (a nod to HM’s little scene where, during her Platinum Jubilee Celebrations* earlier this year, she and the iconic bear appeared together on TV) but you can’t begrudge the heartfelt wishes and the million thank yous. Early floral offerings, now wilted and withering, poignantly symbolise the inexorable passage of time, whether a few days or 96 years. 

       

• [ HM’s Plat Jub Celebrations! Now she’s died, those joyous times in early June seem to belong to a different world, a world in which HM seemed immortal. I shall remember “being there” when she struggled, but managed – as was her way – to make her final appearance (as it turned out) on “that” balcony. The 20ft high image on screens lining The Mall of Her Majesty in her bright green outfit and hat and her inimitable smile will stay with me for ever. That was literally the last time any crowd anywhere would sing “God save the Queen” in her presence, though we didn’t know or think it. How long, barring accidents (STAY WELL AWAY, MEGHAN “I’M ONE PLANE CRASH AWAY FROM YOUR THRONE” MARKLE) until Brits sing it again? ]

The Mall is predictably “full” with nutters who’ve spent several nights camping out, as they do, and we’re turned away. We can’t therefore repeat our Jubilee experience of being near the front for the procession (of the coffin from Buck House to Westminster Hall for the Lying in State) so skulk into Green Park to find a space on the sun-baked grass with a decent view of one of the giant screens. The crowd is mixed in every way, everyone is solemn. It’s eerily quiet, very different from a regular London Wed. The broadcast begins. All heads turn to the screen. Silence descends. We’re fine until the coffin, on its gun-carriage, slips through the gates of Buckingham Palace, just a stone’s throw away in reality. Colours bright, horses clip-clopping, sergeants yelling, a muffled Big Ben tolling every ten seconds, a baby grizzling, black-draped drums beating their solemn beat and the ground-shaking 96 gun-salute in near-by Hyde Park all accompanying HM’s progress. Everything is simultaneously beautiful and heartbreaking. Tears are impossible to hold back. 

        

We make our way home past Wellington Arch where, unbeknownst to us, on Monday The Coffin will be transferred from the gun-carriage to a hearse for HM’s journey from London to her final resting place in Windsor Castle. I wonder, fleetingly, what I’d be doing in the Rhodope Mountains.

SEPT 15: Our wedding anniversary. (Not telling!) But also THE DAY WE JOIN THE QUEUE. THE Q. The Elizabeth Line. The longest queue anywhere, ever. A Guinness World-Record breaking, spontaneous, unbroken for 4 days and 5 nights, unplanned, exceptional QUEUE. The Mother Of All Queues. A Very British …….. Queue. A QUEEN OF QUEUES. 

     

We officially join it at 8.15 pm in Southwark Park, our eyes on Parliament Square about 4 miles away but with an extra 3 miles of zig-zag queuing at each end. We pick up our Q-jumping, cheat-beating wristbands about 2 miles in. (Mine is number 93791!! And I’m here on night No 2 of 5……!) Tomorrow I’ll learn that folks are selling them on e-Bay for 2 grand!

Full of beans, fully prepared and optimistic, we laugh at the first security volunteer who, when we ask “How long to go?”, replies “7 hours!” “Oh Hahaha HA, that’s a good one!”, we chortle, ploughing ahead innocently. (We’re laughing on the other sides of our faces when around 6 am – just as the sun is rising – we stagger exhausted into Westminster Hall where our dear monarch lies in state, waiting for us). Kate, who broke her toe a few days before and is wearing a surgical boot (nice!) deserves a medal. Our companions throughout – two charming young men, brothers from Essex, are going straight in to work afterwards and deserve a medal; people with babies in prams deserve a medal (and a free sanity test!); hapless tourists caught up in the fray without really having a clue why deserve a medal; OAPs with walking sticks deserve a medal; ex-military types sporting medals deserve another one; four elderly ladies who fall over in their enthusiasm deserve medals (as well as medical aid) and a Chelsea Pensioner, too busy accepting handshakes to make much progress in his wheelchair – he deserves a special medal. Two potential Q jumpers, each well-sozzled at midnight, think we Proper Queue-ers won’t notice so they definitely do NOT deserve medals.

           

Despite the descriptions in the media about The Uniquely Wonderful Britishness of The Queue (the good nature, the camaraderie, the inclusivity, support, warmth and general bonding) the fact is that, quite often, ours is none of those things! It’s even, occasionally, short-tempered, fractious, selfish, bickering and un-British. We see more than one close-to-fisticuffs, hear quite a lot of swearing and shouting and are witness to several insults (including a fat East-Ender, taking a moment to relieve his legs of their 18 stone burden by sitting on a low wall, yelling at two morbidly obese, obstreperous American women: “Hey you! This is Great Britain! We queue here. You’re not in the US now, so SHUT UP or SHOVE OFF!”).  Bet you saw none of this on BBC News…… At 3 am we grind to a halt opposite the lit-up-like-fairyland House of Commons with its reflection in the Thames, get fed up, consult our phones and discover that Westminster Hall is closed for an hour for cleaning and wish we’d plumped for day-time visiting. But, eventually, it’s over Southwark Bridge at a trot and then a km of zig-zagging. Outside The Hall, after a worse-than-the-strictest-of-airports security check, a Young Person With An App tells us that we’ve walked almost 10 miles. And that it’s taken 10 hours. YIKES!

Inside The Great Hall it’s all the cliches and more. Silent as, er….. the grave. Surprisingly warm, architecturally stunning, spotless (see comments above about Q hold-up), reverential, extraordinary. The scene is startlingly, brightly surreal, like a wax-work tableau, a Fauve painting or a stained-glass window. Colours are jewel-like (esp the actual jewels!) – dazzling, intense, hyper-defined. Everything shines and reflects and sparkles or is softly cushiony, silkily shimmering, multi-textured or gaudily patterned. It also cries out “Keep your distance!” whilst at the same time tempting, daring you to approach. At one point I think I might not be able to resist the urge to leap forward to pat or handle something! (Luckily, it’s not a dream or I might!) Nothing and nobody moves, apart from the shuffling queue. Only for a second do I detect a shimmer from a drop-diamond on her crown and there’s an occasional, barely perceptible waft of an eagle feather on a silver helmet as breaths of air pass through. I stare to see if the Beefeater just a few feet away is real!  I can – just – discern his shallow breathing and faint eyelid flickering. And I can’t help but imagine Her Maj inside, oh dear. On the way out I find myself turning, waving and blowing a kiss. Which isn’t like me at all!

     

(Of course, I didn’t these photos as it was, quite properly, a “Phones off” zone. These two stills are from the TV coverage). We’d made the decision at the outset that we’ll bow our heads, not deep curtsy. (Although I’d admired P Anne‘s ditto, when I’d attempted it in practice I’d struggled to stand up again so we decide not to be overly ambitious). Because Kate has to be helped down the steps inside the hall (broken toe, surgical boot and a whispered “Ooooh! You should have gone in the disabled queue. That’s only a 6 hour wait” from her aide) there’s a space in front of us so we have our few moments at the coffin-side to ourselves. As I move forward, encouraged and directed by a white-gloved, slo-mo hand, a bit of me wishes I was here for the eerie ritual of the banging of official stick on stone step (the signal – every twenty mins – for a Change of Guard). Or see The Queen’s Children’s Vigil.  Or witness the (only, as far as I’m aware which is astonishing, given the tens of thousands of people) “incident” when some poor deluded bloke throws himself onto the dais, imagining the Queen in her coffin to be alive! (On TV/You Tube, you can see the police and security men on him in an instant). But then I realise that this solemn, understated expression of public gratitude for Her Majesty’s Reign and Devoted Service is all the more powerful, touching and personal for being silent static simplicity itself.

Everything everyone says when they come out of Westminster Hall is as true as it’s hackneyed. “Worth every minute in the queue! Inspiring! Am-A-zing! WOW! I’d do it all again” etc etc etc . And we’re no different, gushing enthusiastically into a Radio London mike thrust in our faces as we emerge into the weak morning light that “We’d happily repeat the whole experience!! It was FUN! Tiring? Nah! Cold? Nooo! WE LOVED EVERY STEP OF THE WAY and would do it all again. NOW! Hahahaha!” The miles of airport-type zig-zagging, the cold and dark, the smelly Portaloos, the stop-starting, the back-ache, the wind off the river, the impatience at 4 am when we’re seriously flagging, the not-so-gentle teasing of one another with word fantasies of gloves, hot water bottles and feather pillows, cups of tea, Big Macs (“We don’t BUY Big Macs normally though!”), the almost-scraps to bag a place to sit for two mins that isn’t concrete or metal, the longing for a chnge of footwear – and so on and so on………“All a doddle!”

 

SEPT 16: We emerge as dawn is bathing Big Ben and Parliament Square in soft morning light and watch as several just-off-duty Gentlemen at Arms Ceremonial Unit Queen’s Body-Guards (lead toy-soldier-like with bear-skins and red jackets) board a coach to return to barracks nearby. They look funny: not statue-like and stiff, as at the coffin corners, but animated and relaxed. Silver helmets tucked under arms, over-knee boots stamping, fingers running through hair, they idle-chatter, in a way ruining their image. We go home by tube – all those people at 6.30 am already halfway to work!! I watch the live-streamed Queue – OUR QUEUE! – later in the day, in part to keep myself awake (the Nap from 7 – 10 am when we get in being not enough to make up for lost sleep), in part to check that last night wasn’t a dream. I drop off wondering what I’m missing at the Trigrad Gorge.

SEPT 17/18 pass by in a sort of limbo, apart from a 2 min silence dutifully and effectively respected by the restaurant where S n I are having dinner on the night before the funeral. Lights dimmed, “Please – 2 mins silence for Her Majesty The Queen”, each of us alone with our thoughts in flickering candlelight. Perfect. (By coincidence, Sept 18 is the date my aunt died, two years ago. It was also my father in law’s birthday. Strange……)   I go to the cinema, again. “See How They Run” is OK, if not as clever or as funny as it thinks it is, but at least the title registers……

SEPT 19: QUEEN ELIZABETH THE SECOND’S FUNERAL. By now, with wall-to-wall TV coverage, we know what to expect. Sort of. I’ve booked a seat in a cinema for the service itself as I imagine – and I’m right – that the scale of the event merits the largest screen possible. I also feel I’d like to share such a public event with, er…… members of the public. The day dawns perfectly with sunshine, sadness, a sense of reverence and a sensation that we’re about to experience The Biggest Public Event of Our Lifetimes. London’s skies are helicopter-buzzing, its streets HEAVING, the crowds good-natured (endless foreign accents and voices from around the UK). Most people, including me several times, don’t know where they’re going – or, if they do, have no idea that they will be denied access to various points as they’re swept along. Police persons who know less than I do, shipped-in as they are from around England, remain good-natured if hapless. One has a Geordie twang, another tells me she’s from Exeter and a third, in answer to my question about whether I’ll see the procession in person from Hyde Park Corner, shrugs and in a broad Yorkshire accent booms “No idea, love”!

 

You will have seen it, the funeral service: pitch perfect from start to finish, timed to the second, grand, regal and magnificent (without for one moment being pompous or self-conscious). It’s extraordinary, moving, desperately sad, personal, touching and, best of all, Makes Us Proud To Be British again – a feeling I’ve almost forgotten how to recognise. There aren’t words (well, there are, but I’m no Shakespeare) to describe what you know I’m seeing, so I’ll leave you to remember your own experience if you’d rather not read mine as follows.

The service is impeccable. Westminster Abbey looks brighter, bigger and more beautiful under TV lights than it does in real life. (I do a tour round it on the Fri of Funeral Week as entrance is FREE! – instead of 25 quid!) The faultless precision, majesty, pageantry and regimented beauty of it all – especially the glorious music – speaks volumes….. and sends just the right message abroad. The eight young military pall-bearers (usually six, I understand, but this special lead-lined coffin calls for eight) perform their duty in front of the eyes of the world absolutely perfectly – and unquestionably deserve medals.

I’m most moved by the sight of the 148 members of The Royal Navy pulling on foot the gun-carriage. All are dressed in similar uniforms to the one that my father is wearing in his wedding photos. (If only he were here to share this momentous occasion). As for the bagpipes (especially the lone piper at the very end of the service), DO NOT PLAY THEM AT SAD MOMENTS PLEASE, ITS UNBEARABLE.

  

The Royals do themselves proud, especially the little ones. Ex-Royals H n M should be ashamed of themselves on every level. The rest of the invitees are put in their place both literally and metaphorically. Biden is on Row 42 behind guests from the Commonwealth, European Royalty make a rare appearance and no-one is quite sure who is who, “ordinary folks” from the NHS, the Forces etc all take precedence over Celebs who have to grit their teeth and put themselves second for a change. All cos Liz had a hand in designing everything and we know she never puts – put – a foot wrong. Over FOUR BILLION world-wide watch this wonderful service, more than any other event in world history. It seems that The Queen is/was as popular abroad as she is/was at home. One thought: “I don’t envy Charles. What an act to have to follow”. I leave the cinema when Alan Titchmarsh is wheeled on to contribute his two-penn’th. Any one of us could do better – and we’d be reverential, not obsequious. I’m convinced the Duke of Ed couldn’t bear it whenever A T popped up on royal programmes, which he did far too often. But the standing-two-mins-in-silence in the Curzon Mayfair on its own made the effort worthwhile (the seats were free).

           

                

Meantime, some wag on t’internet suggests that the huge candle obscuring Meghan Markle‘s face for much of the TV broadcast should be awarded an Honorary Knighthood! (I just love that Boaty-McBoat-Face reference sense of humour, soooo British!)

HM’s road journey from London to Windsor, her last, is sedate, beautiful and moving; the last few miles along English country lanes especially – and unexpectedly – poignant. The 30-deep crowds lining The Long Walk are astonishing, the service in St George’s Chapel moving and final. It sounds sentimental but there’s something comforting about “Lilibet” coming home for the last time.

Queen Elizabeth the Second is laid to rest after an official helps KING Charles poignantly to remove the regalia from the top of her coffin (the orb, the sceptre, the crown – Offices of State next to be seen at Charles’ coronation). For all our lives associated with Elizabeth, now transferred to her son.  Ending yet never-ending……

Buried alongside her father, mother, sister (fleetingly, I wonder why – singularly – Margaret was cremated) and her recently passed-away beloved Philip, she has finally left us.

SEPT 20 ONWARDS: NOW what do we do? I find a nice quote for comfort: “The Queen adjusted to her age without being defined by it”. 

To the Queen: “THANK YOU, MA’AM. YOU’LL BE GREATLY MISSED BUT WE’LL BE OK THANKS TO YOUR LEGACY”

And to King Charles……..”LONG LIVE THE KING” (though you hadn’t better cock things up, Chazza, Queenie’s watching you).

And finally. Why can’t the folks who organised The Greatest Show on Earth step in for a while and run the country? Just askin’………

 

 

GLORIOUS GHANA “Festivals of Ghana” tour. Native Eye, May 2022

      

The kiddies above, and scores of others, loom large in my head as I begin to remember this trip. The shy boy Daniel and the bright, chatty Faye (children are typically named after biblical characters or given quaintly dated British names) although, thanks to Covid, unfamiliar with white people were eager to interact and communicate. (One rarely-acknowledged advantage of Colonial Times is the fact that English is taught in all schools in Ghana. For we six English  speakers this made a huge difference to how were were received everywhere, but especially in remote areas. For four of the six – Australian and American and me – it was our first language and the Italians spoke enough). The boy fascinated by my white skin hung onto my hand for several minutes – in diseblief. I think people, one way or another, form my most abiding memories of this West African country, formerly known as The Gold Coast.  Strategically placed between Cote D’Ivoire and Togo, it was central to the slave trade. (More, lots more, to come on that).

 

Twice-postponed – Gee, thanks again Covid – this trip was even more unexpected than I’ve come to expect from my travels. In retrospect fascinating, educative, delightful, colourful, moving……. and hot hot HOT. (36 degrees doesn’t sound that bad – it was 40+ in Saudi A – but the humidity levels at around 90% were simply too much). Luckily, all hotel rooms had fierce air con and, once again, I caused some confusion by asking for the setting to be lowered to 16. Once there was an electricity cut and I suffered midnight to 5 in a sweat. I have no idea what I’d have done if there hadn’t been air-con, even in the beach resorts. Go home would have been my preference. To be fair to me, the locals – who found my puffing, panting, heavy breathing n sweat-ridden red features highly amusing – spent much of their time wafting, dabbing n fanning.

In case you’re wondering why any tour company worth its salt would subject their customers to such conditions, it’s because “The Festivals” bit – of the “The Festivals of Ghana” tour title – take place around this time of year. On t’internet, wise advice from those in the know suggest that “Oct to March” is the best time for visits, though being technically “tropical” is a bit of a clue as to year-round climate tendencies. Anyway, it was too hot for me by far n I have several little videos of Veronica not in a mirror reminding a puce-faced, exhausted Veronica in a mirror to look more closely at itineraries and weather conditions when she travels in future and to “Never do this again!”  The heat was debilitating, exhausting, limiting and unpleasant and was on my mind from dawn to dusk: “Hope my room’s not on the lift-less top floor/Pray it’s not miles from reception/Wonder if the thermostat will turn down far enough?”

 

Or “HOW many hours in a cramped vehicle w pathetic cool-air system did you say?” or “This restaurant may be rubbish, but YAY! It’s air-conned!” or “Please hurry with your noon tour around your palm oil/coffin-carving/bead-making business/busiest market in W Africa/the 7th mid-day, minute by minute exploration of  yet another fort” – even though all were fascinating – “as I’m about to collapse”.  The other 5 mostly very nice people in the group were from Milan, Washington DC and Sydney so weren’t nearly as badly affected by the conditions as this poor Brit. (I’m writing this 20 days before Midsummer’s Day. My computer tells me that, at 3.05 pm it’s “12 degs w rain coming” That’s how used we are to fine weather). The fact that they had taken all the right clothes and I hadn’t explains only some of it!

Our time was spent in the safe south touring a triangular shaped area (the S side of the triangle being Atlantic Ocean coast).  Beginning in Accra, we travelled by road NE to Akosombo on the shores of the huge Lake Volka (at 250 miles long, the largest artificial reservoir in the world)  From there, N-W to Kumasi then S to the coast and Elmina, Winneba and back to Accra. Accra is, um…. not the most charming or memorable of capitals; in fact, I struggle to remember it even though it’s where we began and ended our adventure and where we spent some time exploring, buying, listening, photographing and touring around. I remember iconic sites – most reflecting its colonial history – rather than the city’s people, character or atmosphere which is unusual.  Jamestown – the port area – is the oldest in Africa to handle the slave trade so Old World signage, such as Lancaster and Queen Victoria Streets, is common; there’s a building with two replicas of the lions in Traf Sq,

 

and the enormous Independence Sq with a stand based on the design of one of Queenie’s handbags! As well as meeting people with old-fashioned British names, here we met several with exotic ones: Nice One, Topaz, and Casablanca!  We discovered the city’s history as a trading, then slave port and explored cemeteries – final resting places for many high-ranking European victims of skirmishes or malaria.

Accra is where I flew into and out of, on Dreamliner aircraft comfortable, smooth and surprisingly busy. On both legs I was very much in the minority as a white female passenger. Luckily there was little talk of Covid, despite the horrendous bureaucracy preceding the trip, hardly any mask wearing and no pandemic-nonsense entry requirements. The biggest nuisance on arrival was the l-o-n-g queue to show our Yellow Fever Certificates. Odd but great to be somewhere Covid was taking a back seat…… The shambles of a road scene here is Accra’s ring-road.

We didn’t meet any other tourists at all for the duration and the only foreigners were either the occasional businessman (including a ghastly, rude, phlegm-snorting, disrespectful Chinese bloke* throwing his weight around in a restaurant) or the odd European NGO worker. I sat next to a Frenchman at breakfast one morning who explained (he spoke some English luckily as my otherwise excellent O level education had not included foreign language versions of obscure botanical terms!) that he was researching a rare spore which has the ability, at a certain temperature/humidity, of rendering an entire tropical farm-crop poisonous. Something about 15 parts per million being enough to kill an adult if it infiltrated (my word) millet husks as they were drying.

* [At the start, I asked about the inevitable “Chinese presence” in Ghana. Although this was denied initially – through pride or ignorance I couldn’t work out –  by our wonderful Togoan guide, 5 minutes after declaring that “the gov aren’t going to allow what’s happened in Europe to happen in Ghana. Oh no!”, we drove past two gigantic concrete factories with Chinese writing on the chimneys. “What’s that, then?” we spluttered. “Well, THEY don’t count, it’s to help build our houses” (formerly mud huts, then wood ditto, now corrugated iron, already beginning to be …….er, Chinese concrete. These real eyesores are about as “African” as a Cumberland sausage). Later in the trip we got stuck behind a – literally – house-sized load trundling along at 5mph on a two-lane highway, 2″ to spare on either side and a police escort: Chinese Mining equipment. Even in the face of this evidence, our guide continued to insist that “it”, whatever he thought “it” was, wouldn’t be going on here. “Good luck with that” chorused the Americans, the Italians, the Aussie and this Brit. Poor Ghana, poor Africa. (Poor the world in general)]

 We were warmly welcomed in various markets by friendly women – it struck me that women dominate, even run, Ghanaian society. Lots of powerful, fun, capable matriarchs – we even met a “Queen”, ruler of one of the many “districts” run by tribal bigwigs and local royalty. One meeting, which singularly failed to gain us access to a “palace” (not the picture in your head, I can assure you!) in a small scruffy town, involved a long hot 45 mins of negotiations by our guide, the local “fixer”, the royal translator, the royal advisor and what I judged to be the power behind the throne, a stern full-figured Queen Mother – the king’s wife so Queen and Mother to the people. (Negotiations – well, any verbal communications in Ghana – are complicated due to the number and diversity of tribal dialects, even languages. Things were made worse by our guide having to translate into English and then Italian. No wonder some of the days seemed long……)  Today’s carry-on went on and ON and turned around the number of bottles of alcohol we were willing to barter with (sorry, offer to) the king to secure entry to his home/office. Even though we ended up talking in CRATE numbers, eventually all offers were off and we were frogmarched away not sure who’d insulted whom! 

Another king granted us an audience in the “grounds” of his residence – a small, ugly, concrete house on a suburban, Ruislip commuter-belt-like road with a paved-over back-yard and an hour-long, triply translated run-down of what seemed to be the equivalent of a local council situation. Except that King was attended by two semi-naked youths wafting a fan n wielding a fringed parasol respectively. HRH wore HUGE, clearly fake, pieces of yellow-gold jewellery in the shape of spiky hedgehogs, lions’ heads, snakes, dogs and The Stars in Heaven and insisted on various rituals, including standing up and down, shaking hands, muttering, removing shoes, bowing and nodding and other niceties – of which we were totally ignorant so came away hoping we hadn’t been offensive or sparked an international incident.

    

Having begun in the unremarkable Accra we drove, on roads that had seen better days, N-E to Akosombo, homeland of the Krobo people who are renowned for their bead-making skills. There’s only one railway line in Ghana so you’ll imagine the very heavy traffic that highways take. (When the Brits departed in 1957, Ghana opted – pointedly? – to drive on the right). Often we’d be bowling along a reasonable tarmacked surface only to find ourselves suddenly bumping along at 20 mph on pitted, pot-holey, dusty red-sand tracks. Such journeys are always fascinating as you see the “real” country and its people going about their daily lives. In this case surprisingly hard, physical, poor, tough, short-lived ones. Ghana has a reputation for being better off in all sorts of ways than much of Africa. Frankly, I struggled to see how: for instance, life expectancy is 64 (UK 81) and infant mortality rate 34 per 1,000 live births (UK 3).

Hotels were variable. One of the nicest was by the shores of Lake Volta, the perfect setting. It would have been a haven if it weren’t for the humidity and heat. Even the breeze gently wafting over the water and across the gorgeous gardens was damp and warm – though the little private bungalow-bedrooms, like all we stayed in, were fiercely air-conned. A leisurely boat-ride gave an hour or two’s respite and close-up views of the impressive dam, engine off, drifting, monkey-chatter from a nearby island, made this interesting as well as one of the more relaxing afternoons of the trip. But the food was appalling – worst breakfast ever, only soggy bread, brown vegs n gloopy noodles – not even cereal. Like elsewhere, there was a peculiar shortage of……. er FRUIT. How come, when you travel for mile after mile on roads lined by thousands of acres of mango and pineapple farms, you can’t get fresh juice, or fruit, in the nearby very good hotel? Maybe it’s because Fruit For Locals, even Fruit For Local Good Hotels, isn’t prioritised over Fruit For Export.

The novelty of snapping people with loads on their heads wore off after about 5 mins as no-one who’s anyone, or is carrying anything at all, would dream of using their hands, so pics of head-loads (men, women n children carrying anything from bottled water – on sale at red traffic lights – to ribbons, fruit, fabrics, chickens, tissues, tyres and pots) were two a penny.

       

The Dipo Festival: Under plastic sheeting in a scruffy corner of a scruffier village are gathered about 20 girls aged between 10 and 18. All are preparing for their once-in-a-lifetime, “I’m about to become A Woman” (don’t tell the trans community) initiation ceremony. Pretty, chatting, nervous – but not self-conscious – they’re half-dressed in vividly-coloured patterned fabrics and are looking a bit apprehensive. Surrounded by friends and family, mothers with babes on their backs, toddlers, kiddies, dogs, cats, scratting chickens, the initiates are disparate in age, character and size……though they have two things in common – natural beauty and proudly attentive mums. One or two have shaved heads with a tuft of hair on the crown – I imagine this to be an age-old tradition which modern girls are resisting as it’s a big statement and will take months to grow out.

   

It’s dirt poor – rubbish, brothers and male cousins peering over or leaning on walls, grand-mothers, mums, aunties and female neighbours banging drums, rattling gourds, ululating, singing, laughing, welcoming. All the initiates are, of course, wearing BEADS of many colours, some many more than others. These highly-prized, symbolic decorations denote a girl’s, and therefore her family’s, status, wealth, commitment, marriageability. It’s an absolutely fabulous sight and a privilege to be here!

I wonder why the babies, tied with cloth round their (often very young) mothers’ waists, legs splayed around Mum’s body, heads bobbing and flopping for entire days at a time, don’t grow up deformed. The only time I hear one crying is with shock as he sees me approaching! This is a sign of what life is like closer to nature: unsophisticated, “uncivilised” and contentedly communal. It couldn’t be more different from all we know, yet it seems just right and to be envied. Little ones wear (charity donated) T-shirts with slogans in English – some heart-breaking in the circumstances – “Living the dream” and the like. Oh, did I mention it’s ROASTING HOT? Even they are fanning n wafting themselves as they tell me it gets even warmer in Summer (to 45 degrees with ridiculous levels of humidity).

    

Despite initial uncertainty, we begin to mingle, to smile, chat, ask questions. As is going to be typical of what’s to come, a few dominate, their command of English an advantage. (One, her confident personality and sense of fun obvious, we meet again the next day and greet one another as though close pals!) “Come! COME!” – to ask and answer questions, to examine beads, to take pictures, to pose for their pictures, to dance. (A, the American bloke, joins in enthusiastically!) We’re all very welcome. The girls look on shyly for this is a Big Day, Their Day – but who are these interlopers with their cameras and red faces, this motley crew of white-faced strangers? (If they mind, they don’t show it).

Among the detritus, small kiddie-relatives play, laugh, stare. Women natter, sing, wave, smile, prepare their daughters. And their neighbours’ daughters. And their nieces and grand-daughters. Some come to talk – I chat with Faye, the bright-eyed 9 year old in her Sunday best at the top of this blog. Shy, clever, inquiring, sweet – I wonder what her chances are of fulfilling her ambition of becoming a doctor. Over in the corner is a makeshift Hairdressing Salon – much the same as here with bowls, huge combs, towels, shampoo and much gossiping and laughter. Only this is all outside and the equipment has seen much better days – but who cares? We know we have much in common as we point, laugh and share.

  

On a nearby trestle table are displayed The Beads – thousands strung, in bowls, in piles, in boxes, all glittering in the sunshine. Originally made from crushed Venetian Glass (presumably connected to the goods the slave traders brought in) they are now produced by much the same recycling process, though from old beer n lemonade, sauce, oil, and anything else that comes in a bottle bottles. The process, which is complicated, protracted and hot, involves several firings in outside kilns-set-in-the-ground. I know this as we had a long-drawn-out demonstration by a charming chap “Cidi” – named in the 80s when CDs had just been invented! As often with such processes, I wondered how they figured out which glaze, temperature, material and length of time it took to make The Perfect Bead and how many hundreds of experiments before they stumbled upon The Perfect Formula. I bought two pairs of earrings.

This process and these beads, typical of this area, are highly prized status symbols. Later we are to see girls festooned with so many that they struggle to remain standing and can hardly walk! A competition to see which most decorated, pretty (and heaviest!) girl can be hoisted onto a young man’s back and, at-a-run, paraded through the village fastest. The noise, laughter, drum-banging, shouting, screaming, puffing and panting (these girls weigh LOADS!) racing – heaven knows what the rules are! – is phenomenal. We make sure we don’t get in the way as we join the fun and take pics in the melee. There must be some rhyme n reason for it all but we never find out. (It’s no different I suppose from trying to explain Trooping The Colour rituals, the rules of Maypole Dancing, the sense of drunken Hen Nights or why everyone in the UK under 40 gets tattooed). I recall the atmosphere and action as I sit here and remember it all, vivid as can be.

   

The afternoon and another village, more beads and a stultifying couple of hours in an outdoor, but enclosed, space where I think I might expire. This time, more initiations – though with communal singing, plant-pot-shaped straw hat things, much sitting on the ground in rows with legs stretched out in front of you – that’s the girls, not us – and the village priest wielding razor blades (no, I have no idea and didn’t like to ask). A 3 yr old boy catches sight of me n runs screaming to his mum. I know I look a fright, but even so….  Then it dawns on me I’m highly likely to be the first white person he’s ever seen. Not only the remote location but Covid.

Another day, more celebrations and continued sweating. A 7-hr journey westwards takes us to Kumasi, Ghana’s second city, situated in the old Ashanti Kingdom. Once one of the most powerful kingdoms in the region, the area is now nondescript and scruffy. BUT!! Another festival of the title of the trip – we’re off to a funeral! Yes you read that correctly; we are to muscle in, as guests, on the celebrations for some poor 92 yr old’s final appearance on earth. She‘s accompanied by a GIANT soft toy Labrador, a huge picture of herself as a young woman….and acres of artificial grass and plastic flowers as well as 100 mourners and we interlopers. Somehow it seems OK  for us to turn up, not uninvited exactly (much negotiating between our Togoan tour company, the guide, local fixer and, surely, discreet monetary donations easing and legitimising our attendance) but definitely peripheral. The funeral, it quickly becomes clear, is A Middle Class Affair. Well-to-do relatives and guests, several bands (one consisting of a group of 8 topless, be-skirted, beautiful sweaty muscly young men rhythmically – and ear-splittingly, right next to us – banging a selection of drums with hooked sticks held between their knees. The drums not the sticks. While formal – in the sense that you had to stand and sit, bow, shake hands, smile etc to the right people (local dignitaries) at the right time (anyone’s guess), it was also relaxed, welcoming, unusual and fun.

I sit next to an elegant woman of around 50, who looks fabulous in her full-length, gorgeous red and black, patterned, puff-sleeved best mourning outfit. She, unlike me, is coolly elegant. (Though I am wearing red n black as we’d been advised to pack clothing in these colours to show respect should we be lucky enough to attend a funeral). As at our meeting-that-wasn’t with the king, the senior officials here are receiving bottles of alcohol (“No photos please!” even though, or perhaps because, their accepting and consumption of these offerings is shamelessly enthusiastic). Luckily, our American friend is gyrating his hips and bopping with the best of them (the pounding beat’s deafening and I think “Imagine dancing at a funeral in the UK!”) so I can relax and get stuck into a conversation with Madam next to me.

“How are YOOO?” (The usual opening gambit). “Well, thank you” she beams. Over the noise, “DID YOU KNOW THE LADY WHO HAS DIED?”, thinking “deceased” may be beyond her. A nod. And “My auntie“. “Oh!   I    am     very     sorry”.  A pause for a look around, to enjoy the drummers – sorry drumming – then a tentative “Do    you    live ……”  (waving pointy finger around so she can understand) “…… in    this    village?” Another nod in acknowledgement and a smile. Suddenly, with a huge grin and in an unmistakeable London accent: “Though not all the time. I live in Richmond. Well, Barnes actually but Richmond sounds better! I’m here for a week for this family occasion, arrived a few days ago“. And we both burst into giggles. You can knock me down with a feather as she hoots with laughter n we chat for 20 mins about pals we may have in common, where exactly I live in Marylebone and the fact that she comes back here two or three times a year and feels equally at home in both very different places.

A Voo-doo ceremony…….

……during which I had a private consultation with the priest. Another scruffy village setting. Another “financial contribution” I’m sure, though it was all very discreet. The main attraction? Two middle-aged male villagers there to be “de-cursed” after some disgruntled woman had put a spell on them following a fraudulent business deal. For us it was all a bit of a novelty, even fun (though somewhat scary fun) but for these these two guys it was serious stuff. They looked really frightened. And worried. And were ashamed, we were told.

My 10 min, thrice-translated consultation was one I’ll never forget – a bizarre, unnerving mix of anticipation, novelty, excitement and sheer anxiety – see the pics for a start! I’m obviously NOT going to tell you what question I asked – though I will say it was not When am I going to die?! After tossing a few raw hens’ eggs onto the ground (the layer cowered, tethered by a leg against a wall, minutes from death herself – which I thought a bit unkind), the Voo-doo priest examined the mess – as a fortune-teller might examine tea-leaves – stared at me, asked me my name and my question, channelled a spirit or two, shook uncontrollably, shouted a bit, took a swig of alcohol and gave me some (rather satisfactory as it happens!) analysis and advice. I donated 10 cedi (about £1) to the cause. My photos and videos are a treat. It was stifling.

Our 84 yr old US travel companion A, now a retired astro-physicist, worked in the 60’s for NASA. A. was fond of announcing “I have a story to tell you” – a sweet, if slightly heart-sinking, statement as we sat down for supper. Once though, it was REALLY worth tuning in: he told us he’d “had a hand in a tiny research effort, one of the experiments on board the 1969 moon landing craft”!!! This stopped us in our tracks – moaning about no sparkling water, intermittent electricity, the unbearable heat or our mundane, low-level careers seemed……unseemly. Imagine being able to say such a thing or to have been involved in something so historic and unique! On the other hand, he had to ask me how to loosen and tighten the bracelets the company had presented us with on the final night! A simple “pull to tighten, push to release” fastening clip was beyond his comprehension and expertise! I felt a bit less inferior after he’d failed, three times, to master this simple skill.

Other fascinating things:

a roadside wedding in a car-park where our A. again does us proud by joining in the dancing (thus excusing the rest of us!)  Sandwiched between two buxom women of a certain age gyrating rhythmically to the loudspeakers, he was in his element. My pictures prove it!

   

cocoa-plant orchard where our guide whips out a bar of supermarket milk-chocolate for us to taste and photograph after we’d been given a lesson in “from seed to shelf” production; a palm oil “factory”, actually a clearing in the jungle with slave workers (some, children), stinking fires, barrels of gloopy liquid, rusty croaking machinery all turning piles of tiny palm-oil seeds into stuff that’s added to everything from body cream to petrol; a coffin-carving roadside business where you take your drawings of the design of coffin you want to be buried in to Eric who, within 3 weeks, has customised your perfect coffin-dream into a custom-made, built-for-you, brilliant reality. His workshop (a hut on sticks) was full of half completed coffins: a heart (? love, or cardiac arrest?), bag of flour – both pictured above – colourful plane, Coca-Cola bottle, canoe, Cadillac, parrot, packet of fags (Eric didn’t understand when I asked him whether the customer simply enjoyed smoking or whether he’d died of lung cancer) and many more. You pays your money and you takes your choice. (If you’ve ever thought of it, what would be yours?). President Nkrumah’s Mausoleum  (remember him? G’s first president) and beheaded statue. Vandalised in 1966 during a CIA backed coup, the body and head – picked up by one of the crowd at the time and kept safe for decades – were brought together when the political climate was more stable. They now sit on plinths beside each other. (Now you’ve read that you’ll be able to answer a Pub Quiz question that no-one else can).

  

Bruised skies and a violent thunderstorm moving in from the horizon before torrential downpours – it’s the beginning of the rainy season. I’d like to tell you it freshened the air but it didn’t. Then there were pretty beach hotels with glorious sunsets, hammocks slung between palm trees, white sands, great rollers and a warm Atlantic Ocean, though with dangerously powerful undercurrents these waters are practically un-swimmable. (The blurred one is because it was early morning and my straight-out-of-an-air-conned-room camera lens hadn’t adjusted to the 103 deg difference outside).  We arrived at the hotel so late and left so early we wouldn’t have been able to take advantage anyway. Its setting was idyllic but the 4 km, 3 mph drive on pot-holey tracks to get there off the highway, a 6 hour power-cut (another sweaty night), poor food (my chicken kebabs never arrived) and Fawlty Towers but not funny service quickly dashed hopes, dreams and website promises.

 

  

A lunch stop where we meet a gaggle of Amonite women – sorry, Mennonites (tho completely different, I really do get the two words mixed up) – by a hotel swimming pool. They hail from the US, wear long skirts and little triangular headscarves, have a load of children – although they look about 16 – and try to tell me that they’re not “missionaries” as they don’t proselytise. I’m sure they expect nothing in return for their interfering Christian good works. They have their work cut out – the creeping of Islam from Burkina Faso to the north of the traditionally Christian Ghana is already evident.

And finally – whew! for both of us – the two most affecting experiences of the trip: The Brush With The Slave Trade tours and The Day I Ran Out Of Camera Batteries debacle.

The drive south to the coast took us into our last few days. These were the most difficult to negotiate as all ports embody the currently newsworthy topic of The Slave Trade. Our time here felt, and was, different. Less welcoming, less sweetly traditional, less innocent, less forgiving. And who can blame it/them with hundreds of years’ turmoil, cruelty, occupation, evil human trading and colonial rule (perceived and experienced as almost entirely negative). For we white tourists, several moments were excruciatingly uncomfortable, both physically and emotionally, others were laden with guilt, some were uneasy, a few neutral and one or two, to help balance things, uncomplicated even positive. I found the tours round the ports, castles, forts and graveyards at best disconcerting, at worst almost impossible to bear as I was faced with the reality of what we’ve been learning about in the news for the past couple of years. Until now, “The Slave Trade” for me was a couple of history lessons at school followed by decades of nothing then 2020 – and on – BLM shenanigans (leading, sadly, to a more divided world) and, more recently, quite a lot of reading up. But nothing prepares you for the stark reality. Here, where it began, all was brought astonishingly and cruelly to life and into focus.

   

   

[In Haiti in 2015, I’d seen where these poor devils ended up. The island formerly known as Hispaniola, now Haiti and The Dominican Republic, was the first stop at the end of the Slave Ships’ trans-Atlantic journeys. One of the slave museums there (the only museum I’ve ever found myself crying in), originally a slave plantation, is where Alan, one of my fellow-travellers, planted the idea that I should see where all these desperate souls had come from. You will have to do your own research to discover the sheer numbers involved (tens of millions over hundreds of years) and the levels of cruelty].

On The Cape Coast the consequences – even now – of this appalling trade were uncomfortably “in our faces” at every turn; a constant reminder of West Africa’s human history and man’s inhumanity to man. On a personal and moral level, it was tough to see and hear the evidence and to deal with its legacy. From aggressive fishermen denying us photos (white tourists patronisingly snapping them at work) to gentle, learned guides excusing appalling acts of brutality by colonising forces, there was no avoiding it – and why should there be? – real people bear the brunt of history. On my return, the tour company told me (when I’d complained that one demanding, selfish couple in the group had taken advantage of our lovely guide’s patience and that I thought he should have been stricter with them): “It’s very difficult for a black tour guide to order white tourists about”. What a shocking thing. (I first wrote “What a shocking thing in this day and age“).

 

St George’s Castle, Elmina – like dozens of others along the coast here, was a holding place for slaves awaiting deportation. Lighting our way with his mobile phone torch down one of the dank, dark, airless tunnels leading to the water’s edge, the site guide helped us shuffle, bent double, for a couple of minutes. It seemed wrong to be playing at this but it did give us a fleeting sense of what millions of black slaves had suffered before us, although – OBVIOUSLY – without our full tummies, general good health and an escape hatch. As we emerged, chastened, the guide said, “Please, don’t feel bad. You’re not responsible for your ancestors’ actions or mindsets. We’re not bitter, just hopeful that everyone learns the lessons of history”. (I felt awful, even as he spoke, knowing that’s never the case).  

I learned that the Danes had been involved in the slave trade and was reminded that the Portuguese and Dutch (whom I knew about) had preceded the British. Thus we, by a quirk of fate, place and time found ourselves inheriting their castles, forts, harbours, habits and cruelties – and remaining prominent in The Cape Coast Peoples’ Collective Memory as the most recent perpetrators of this ghastly, shameful business. (The fact that we were the first to abolish it seemed to count for little). Someone asked me, when I got back, whether I’d asked who had brought the men, women and children to this coast, to these traders, these holding-prisons and a fate worse than death. Which tribes, families and individuals had benefited from selling their brothers and sisters, and why? I replied that I hadn’t dare ask. It seemed impertinent even to think it.

  

Air-starved captives clambering over one another to access fresh air from a tiny barred-window 12 feet above their heads, the shiny-grey floor beneath their – and now our – feet rounded upwards and consisting (lab analysis is revealing) of human STUFF : excrement, sweat, blood, toe and fingernails, hair, vomit, all compounded to raise the floor on which the prisoners crowded. The tunnels, secretly swallowing innocent men and spewing them out, away from the sight of locals, at the lapping sea’s edge so they could row themselves to the waiting sailing ships – if they were strong enough. Manacles, chains, ropes, cannons, solid wooden doors, grilles, shackles (12 prisoners joined together, tethered at the necks by stiff wooden planks so that if one collapses, falls, is diseased, mad or dying, they’re all in it – literally together). In obscene contrast, cool, delicately-decorated castle towers, white-washed and high above the lapping sea, providing perfect accommodation for the Masters and their wives (and erstwhile dark-skinned mistress-victims). Breezes wafting though elegant sitting rooms, shuttered windows open to stunning sea views and a small church – to pray for forgiveness to their cruel god? Three floors below, dungeons – the Bosch-type Hell On Earth where scratchings on walls, putrid air, the ghosts of millions, echoes of unimaginable cruelty and hideous reasoning linger.

  

The currency for all this? Mirrors, fabrics, coins, jewellery – an exchange so appallingly degrading that, despite the evidence piling up (sometimes literally) it was hard to take in and impossible to comprehend. Once or twice I felt a panic coming on – in an airless cell, “trapped” for maybe 30 seconds with the disgust, the echoes of human cruelties, the sense of wrong-doing. And the guilt, pointless but unavoidable. I heard myself apologising for no better – or worse – reason than that there’s nothing else to be said. I felt worse than I thought I would and was aware of a strange, unbidden sense that I was more guilty than the others in the group who seemed separated, not as human beings but as Americans, Australians and Italians, from the worst of it. Intellectually I knew this didn’t make sense but still I felt myself to be in a uniquely upsetting situation with an unavoidable awareness that enveloped and followed me long after I’d left.

Winneba and, in some ways, the best festival: The Aboakyer (“deer hunting”) Festival. It was of course, crowded, exciting, colourful, chaotic, and above all roasting hot. I thought my head would explode n seriously worried about my blood-pressure, heart and the fact that I might pass out! We were the only Whiteys there and so some sort of curiosity. I was interviewed as i was carried along – almost literally off my feet – by the crowd but managed to tell the local newspaper guy how “AMAZING!!” it all was. (Camera battery on RED ALERT at this stage).

   

A km long, disorganised and emotional procession followed a bizarre ceremony where an already half-dead deer, hanging from a stick (as well as onto its life for the time being) was shown off by a team who’d caught it – don’t ask why or where – and would soon slaughter it. The parade that followed was far too long and visually, aurally and culturally brilliant to describe properly or do justice to, so I’d like instead to refer you to my photos.

Except I can’t! As my battery drained, I discovered I’d left my spare ones on the bus and so don’t have any pics!!!!!

(Here I must thank sincerely my newly acquired on this trip pal L from Sydney who very kindly, and extremely generously, sent me some of her photos for the record. Those of The Parade (and one or two of the deer hunt) are hers. I can’t thank her enough)

Instead of being pragmatic, I beat myself up. Instead of being calm, I cried. Instead of enjoying the FANTASTIC parade for its own sake, I watched and thought – a million times over 4 hours – “THERE’S a fantastic shot”, “What a GREAT pic that would make” or “Brilliant close-up there!” Sitting on a dilapidated balcony for an overview of what I couldn’t photograph, I watched frustrated as a sort of Tableau of All Things African passed by beneath me – kings, witch-doctors, (simulated – I think!) copulating couples, life-sized carved horses with more kings astride, bands, drums, The Great n The Good, dignitaries, whirling dervishes, dancers, statues, a small boy dressed in camouflage uniform with a real rifle, masks, fancy dress, screaming, shouting, singing, laughing, fun, formality, fancy dress, leopard skins, Sunday best – hundreds of people all celebrating sober and uninhibited. We were the only white people there and got some Curious Looks as well as some Big Smiles.

  

 

It was literally about 100 degrees, I was sweating like never before on my blue plastic chair on the dilapidated crumbling balcony and just had to sit and watch, like in the olden days. It was a memorable, wonderful, genuine, exceptional, amazing afternoon – and I don’t have one single picture of my own to prove it as my gear was on the bus, driving away before I realised that the guide hadn’t meant it LITERALLY when he’d said “It’ll be really busy so just take your water, hat and cameras”. Lesson learned? I hope so, and I have got over the upset now. Just.

 

Oh, Did I mention it was really really hot?

I did?

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally finally some pics I just like. (Yes, they’re all mine!)

       

 

 

 

 

 

Queenie’s Plat Jub celebratory w/e June 2-5 2022

We all knew it was coming but still, it caught us a bit by surprise.

Deciding what to do (if anything) where, how and who to do it with took a bit of working out – and brought out our family members’ character, loyalty, energy levels and degree of enthusiasm for Things Patriotic. This meant that, apart from me and Daughter No 2 (I’m sure DN1 would have been up for it if she didn’t live in Zurich), only The Son in Law stepped up on one day so we two Represented The Timperleys for the duration.

 

It turned out that rising at unearthly hours, deciding where to head, trying to second-guess the hordes, sneaking in where less bold/creative/committed/wily citizens hadn’t the foresight to go and generally trying to beat everyone at their own game, all of which was quite hard – if not impossible – to do was the only way forward. We were novices, school-record holders at an Olympics, amateurs pitted against the Torvill n Dean or Mo Farrar professionals (more of all three later!) How did we not realise you have to train for years, Be Prepared physically and emotionally and be creative, pushy, tactical and Committed. (Next time……) Generally, the waits were tedious though we knew we had no choice but to turn up 4/5 hrs early if we wanted to have as good a view as we’d get on the telly. We thought we were a bit canny – until we turned up on……

….. DAY 1 – THURSDAY JUNE 2, 2022 : TROOPING THE COLOUR 

….. and discovered what rookies we were! We arrived at The Mall at 7.30 am for the 11am start of Trooping The Colour only to find all front row positions and most 2nd rows were already occupied by the truly devoted – fans from the UK n far-flung foreign parts who had been there not HOURS but DAYS! Yikes! (Couldn’t decide whether I was envious of their experience and skill or annoyed that I hadn’t thought of “it” and camped out for 3 days beforehand myself…..) 

 

We snuck in halfway up The Mall with the help of some woman on t’internet’s web-site where, from her vast experience – and the sensible comfort of her home – was generous enough to Give Us Tips re tube stations, timings, positionings, pacings, directions and general Ways To Beat The System. Except that nearly everyone else had read her website too, so we should have done a double-bluff.

We were surrounded by – and came to resemble very quickly – Serious Liz Fans, the like of whom I’d seen on TV at such events and had always thought of as nutters. At least the weather was clement. Several hopeful later-comers, with little sense of fairness and no qualms (sadly British) tried to edge n elbow their way in front of us. One brazen bloke had his 2 yr old on his shoulders and used the “her grandparents are on the front row, there. Look, mate, right there!” excuse. (They didn’t exist). “We” all considered this to be very un-British and totally infra dig. We didn’t budge and were punished by having him breathing down our necks – literally – and doing a lot of swearing for 5 hours. Nearby Port-a-loos were a boon, as long as you checked before entering. Mobile snack trailers were ditto though none took cash and I paid £11 for a tea and a hot chocolate whilst wondering what tourists must think. Police persons were friendly in the main and a source of information about such things as why some forces sported old-fashioned helmets (not popular with the wearers) and others the hats that look like St John Ambulance ones. (Not interesting enough to elaborate…..)

 

We commented quietly about the diversity of The British Police Force and I don’t mean racially but height-wise (didn’t you used to have to be 6ft?), gender-wise (lots of women, no trans – as far as we could ascertain but who knows and it’s a wonder not) and weight-wise. We passed the time by testing each other on what chances PC 745 would have of catching an offender when he himself was so obese his uniform struggled to fit him and he sweated a lot just standing there watching us. Later, we were given the answer which was “Very high” – surprisingly and comfortingly – as idiot Animal Rights protesters threw themselves under all the queen’s horses, Emily Davison-like, right in front of us! Each of the dozen or so (wearing  paper crowns and wrapped in Union Flags so they could masquerade as genuine fans) were leapt upon immediately, handcuffed n dragged away. I wondered why this impressive action isn’t deployed with XR twerps. I was going to ask but thought it would be a bit rude – even for me. Personally, I’d have left them to be trampled under the hundreds of hooves…. their choice n all that.

 

Kate entertained us with an on-line Royal Quiz (I won by 294 points, surprising myself how much I knew and remembered). Someone nearby quipped No wonder, at your age. The sun popped in and out, the atmosphere was relaxed, friendly, pro everything to do with the Queen and very tolerant of the rest of the royals – although Andrew got a verbal drubbing in his absence and not a single person could say anything positive AT ALL about The Markles. And I should know as I conducted a poll among my immediate neighbours along the lines of “Can you tell me one good thing about Meghan, just ONE?” and no-one could! I retold my “Proof that H is thick” Art A Level anecdote more than once.

Still on Day 1. The Trooping The Colour parade itself was spectacular. The clouds cleared, the huge flags lining The Mall fluttered, the screens flickered and the speaker-system – which I hoped would give a commentary but didn’t – crackled with “One two three four five” about 300 times for some reason. This was a bit of a missed opportunity, we felt, as we had no idea which Regiment was which, what the significance of this belt or that sword or those flags or the other breastplate was and had to guess which part of the Commonwealth, if any, was represented, although the tongue-wagging, bare-foot, semi-naked, prancing Maoris – if we’re allowed to use that word in these Woke times – were obvious. Or is that racist?

The hooves clip-clopped and ……

……..here I’ll insert the letter I was lucky enough to have published in the Daily Tel last week as it hopefully gives a flavour.

 

The best bits for me were the bagpipes (never can’t not cry at the sound of bagpipes), Catherine n the kiddies in the carriage a few feet away, (see pic on left below), William, tall n straight (n unrecognisable initially in a bearskin and on horseback) and Anne in her green tricorn hat. We all went berserk n nearly burst blood vessels. (I was going to write “embarrassingly” but surprisingly it wasn’t).

 

DAY 2 – FRIDAY JUNE 3, 2022 : SERVICE OF REMEMBRANCE, ST PAUL’S CATHEDRAL

We got there early but not early enough to secure Front Row Seats. The crowds on all sides were a long way from the cathedral steps and any decent views. In fact, we turned out to have chosen the exact and only place you couldn’t see anything from as Queen Anne blocked our view. (We moved place during the service). Still, the general location was amazing with St Paul’s, its turrets and bells towering over us, Q A – monarch when the building was completed – staring down at us (I wondered she hadn’t been toppled on some spurious grounds), seagulls wheeling overhead, a general chattering and an air of expectation.

Two elderly Canadians –  over here especially and decked from head to toe in Red, White n Blue – had bagged The Front Row last night. With a professional air of Right Royal Supporters, they regaled us with very many tales of previous encounters with British Royalty; well-rehearsed – n oft-repeated I’d wager – stories of encounters with Senior Royals around the world. They managed to entertain us (till we got bored) before, to their delight, catching the eye of professional reporters and TV camera operators/interviewers. (A chance to tell their tales all over again). Several photographers had set up nearby with their ladders, tripods and lenses the size of chimney pots. Tourists: two young French people, keen fans of our Royal Family. One on the front row wearing a Homburg singing the praises of “All this” with a sweep of his hand in a way no Brit ever would; several visitors from far away – Scotland, N Ireland, Cornwall; loads of Londoners. And us! All of one mind and one heart. 

 

First to enter the cathedral were the two and a half thousand invited guests – the great and the good, the charity workers, the revered and honoured Ordinary Folks who for today are Big Knobs. Then politicians, all of whom – apart from Boris, (hair), Priti (colour n stature, or lack of it) and Tone (whom I despise, so am tuned in to recognise at 100 paces) – I couldn’t distinguish one from another. The general sense was to cheer unless you were certain it was someone you disapproved of, in which case – guiltily – you BOO-ED. (Of course, when H n M turned up by car there was no guilt in letting them know They Were Not Welcome. He distinctive with his bald-patch ginger head, she with her smirk and insistence on holding hands as though she’s 14 not 40).

Then foreign and British Minor Royalty rather surprisingly arrived in huge, black, dark-windowed coaches: Scandinavian, Greek, Danish monarchs – cousins and distant family members perhaps – and friends, mostly unidentifiable, but we whooped and shrieked anyway. Then peripheral but-must-be-important almost-unknowns – some very elderly – struggling to disembark and tip-toing gingerly over the cobble-stones. One or two I recognised: “Princess Pushy” for instance who could scarcely walk and looked less glamour-girl, as was, than doddery OAP. I thought how time marches on for all of us regardless of rank, position, blue blood, character or ……anything. We cheered again, regardless. Then up turned Eugenie n Beatrice dressed, as always, as if starring in a Matthew Bourne production of Alice in Wonderland, and then it was silent till the Senior Royals razzed up in black limos with huge clear (bullet-proof)  see-everything windows. At no point was Andrew missed or mentioned. Hope he’s recovered from his bout of, erm….“Covid”.

 

Sophie, Edward, Lady Thing and her awkward-age brother, Anne and hubbie, Wills n Kate and the final sweep of Chazza n Camilla. All hats and slo-mo waves. We got great, if fleeting, glimpses of them all smiling at the peasants and we responded out of all proportion to our feelings about royalty. Then it was silence for an hour (or rather, partial silence for the St Paul’s Great Bells pealed for 20 mins for some reason we couldn’t fathom and I wished again that there was a commentary) so time for a squashed sandwich and a neighbour-natter.

Having moved to a better position (ANY was better!) we had the treat of watching the whole thing in reverse as the thousands departed the cathedral. This time we could see their faces and were able to be discriminating in our pleasure, approval or disapproval. The BBC accurately reported that there was “some booing” for the PM but INaccurately said that Hazza n Megain “were welcomed” with cheers. Not the H n M I saw at St Paul’s that day! There was a definite and heartfelt BOO-ING session – and I should know as I started it up in the little section we were in! This was the one thing that had motivated me to attend The Service of Remembrance: the rare chance to BOO! the appalling couple who, almost single-handedly in my view, have been responsible for the sharp decline in Her Majesty’s health. So I got my wish and led the jeering – something I will never regret, indeed will be proud of until my dying day as I know they deserve it. I also noted they were the only Royal Couple who couldn’t be arsed waving at the crowd – the only ones so concerned with themselves and so selfish n unaware that they did their usual of being attentive only to each other in the moment. I shall waste no more time, effort or words on this despicable duo.So that was it – the Fri of Jubilee w/e over.

DAY 3 – SATURDAY JUNE 4, 2022 : THE PLATINUM PARTY AT THE PALACE 

I used this day to recover from early rises and full Days 1 n 2 and enjoyed a massage. Elsewhere there were Jub Tea-Parties and the main official event, The Party at Buckingham Palace evening event which was televised and made me realise our decision not to attend was the correct one. I watched it on TV and wasn’t that impressed, though the holograms and drone pictures in the sky were innovative, eye-catching and made good TV. Where, for instance, was Tom Jones? Or any mention of The Beatles? Or even Kylie? What about The Stones, Shirley Bassey, Alfie Boe or even – again – Michael Ball or the newly – and fashionably androgynous – Harry Styles? Why was Diana Ross the headliner act? (Apart from Chazza fancying her for 5 mins in 1993). She couldn’t even mime convincingly. Who on earth – and why on earth – is Ed Sheerin? And so on. I was faintly amused by Paddington, the Queen and marmalade sandwiches though i thought it was slightly cringey in a way that her James Bond Olympics 2012 performance definitely was not.

DAY 4 – SUNDAY JUNE 5, 2022 : THE PLATINIM PAGEANT PARADE Thank goodness for effective alliteration! 

We’d got very excited reading about Personal Appearances By Iconic Figures From The Queen’s Reign and were embarrassingly keen to catch glimpses of Basil Brush, Tony Blackburn, Bonnie Langford, Wayne Sleep and anyone else old enough to be of curiosity value. 

   

The Pageant began – eventually. By now Kate and I had learned the ropes so turned up at “our” spot on The Mall at 8.30 am (for a 2.30 kick-off). Weather was damp, cool, dreary. Unlike the fast-gathering crowd which was the opposite. We bought a tuna sandwich for 8 quid and wondered – again – what tourists and out-of-towners were thinking. A moustachioed gent next to us had brought a well-thumbed Order of the Day page from his Daily Mail which gave us an idea of the schedule as well as enabling us to pass the time by testing ourselves – and our memories – on how, why and when we knew these people and what they’d been famous for, sometimes fleetingly. We didn’t do well on the detail. 

The Parade began with Military pomp and circumstance – the Army, Navy (reminding me of my father who was married during the war in his Royal Navy uniform) and Air Force at their best. Marching, music, horses, regiments, all the pomp and circumstance we’ve some to expect. The Gold State Coach, which had carried Her Maj to Westminster Cathedral for her coronation, newly renovated, managed to looked gaudy, almost tacky as it trundled its yellow-gold way past, a waving hologrammed young Princess Elizabeth (on her last journey as such) “sitting” in the window. (My paper reported, rather snootily, that “Some of the crowd waved”. Of course we did!)

Then “National Treasures” in painted, open-topped buses – despite the chill – which brought the house down as we screamed recognition of favourite stars such as Johnny Ball, Angela Rippon, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell, Rylan (who he?), Ru Paul, CLIFF RICHARD!!, Prue Leith and Joan Collins, Darcy Bussell, TWIGGY!!, Zandra Rhodes, Debbie McGee, Noddy Holder, Martin Lewis, Floella Benjamin, Valerie Singleton, Peter Purves and Peter Duncan (upon whose knee Kate once sat at the Ed Fest but that’s another story), Mo Farrar, TORVILL and DEAN (told you you’d hear more later – why do we know them by their surnames?), Alan Titchmarsh for his sins (of being an arch groveller), Pete Waterman, Gyles (“I was a friend of Prince Philip”) Brandreth, Wayne Sleep and Bill and Ben The Flowerpot Men! Couldn’t help marvelling that most of them are still alive, never mind waving furiously and jumping up n down on the top of double-deckers. Though WHERE WAS MR BLOBBY?

We were beside ourselves, for strange unfathomed – possibly unfathomable – reasons, at the REAL LIVE SIGHT of people we’d forgotten we’d forgotten.   

Mr Whippy vans, 50s dance groups, Punks, Vespas, Fashion, Daleks, hula-hoops – the exercise  rings, not the snacks (though they might have been there as well), animatronic corgis by the dozen, statues of the Queen’s favourite horses, kites, roller skates, paper jungle animals, beautiful 30ft tall swans, women dressed as English tea-tables, complete with tea-pots and fairy cakes, James Bond cars, Jaguars and Minis (“We had one like that!”), reggae groups, jazz bands, trick cyclists, Dames (each in her own vintage car). 

And following, a colourful, carnival-type run through the key themes from Her Maj‘s reign – an excuse for All Things Gaudy (good visually) and Diverse (questionable, as not truly representative of her reign) – a chance seized upon by crazy designers who’d almost lost sight of the fact that The Delightful Royal Duo were actually the BRITISH Queen and her consort, not some Disneyfied 21st C amalgam of All Things Woke.

Of course, it was an unique opportunity/great excuse to go berserk ticking all those boxes! The attention on all things from abroad made for a spectacular, fun, sometimes witty interlude but it struck me as odd – and stretching it a bit – that tableaux such as “The Queen and Prince Philip’s Wedding” should be thought best represented by a group of Bollywood Dancers…….

 

………when there was neither hide nor hair of Morris Men, Irish Dancers, Scots 8-some Reelers, Welsh Male Voice Choirs, Yorkshire Brass Bands or indeed much to do with any traditional (ie British) Arts, Crafts, Music, Theatre, Architecture, Engineering, Inventions, or Innovations. Perhaps you’ll think I’m carping but it seemed to me that this magnificent parade was skewed, very modern in its concept and not really reflective (except for The National Treasures and Old Things such as Vintage Cars, fashions, nostalgic TV shows n personalities) of the sweep of Liz’s reign – and I can have a view as it more or less parallels my own life!

But I also proudly wondered what other country, of any size, could muster so many achievers, influencers, trend-setters, performers, inventors and ground-breakers? 

   

We ended up, hours later, in the iconic traditional rush into The Mall itself along with tens of thousands of well-wishers, party-goers, Royalists and Nationalists and those there out of curiosity. Rumour was having it that Her Majesty might, just MIGHT, be making A Balcony Appearance so we stopped by a giant screen just short of Victoria in front of Buck House. Suddenly, unexpectedly, colourfully (in bright green with matching hat), metres tall in front of us, THERE SHE WAS! Smiling as ever, familiar as ever, majestic but never snooty as ever, and we all joined the band, somewhere unseen but close, in a heartfelt, “Might this be the last time……?” rendition of the dirge AKA The British National Anthem.We could not have been more proud. There was nothing left to say or do so we walked home, via a Union-flag-bedecked Bond St, on a high.  We didn’t articulate any thoughts we may have had about ends of eras.

                                                   GOD SAVE THE QUEEN! is what I say

SAUDI ARABIA: SUN, SEA, SAND and SOUKS

“SUN, SEA, SAND AND SOUKS”

Wild Frontiers Oct-Nov 2021. (Twice Covid-postponed)

Officially “INSIDE THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA”

(Draft title: “ FIRST TOURISTS INTO S.A. ON WHAT THEY DIDN’T KNOW WAS A RECCE TRIP TRIP”)

      

I’m writing this at the start of a bonus few days off following one day at Southwark Crown Court preparing for Jury Service. Having endured an excessively dull 5 hour introductory session with over 100 other potential jurors – yes, I counted them! – I found myself rejected or, more accurately, not selected. (Actually, strictly speaking I’m on the reserve reserve list so I might have to stop this and dash off if I get a text).

I’d spent half a lifetime thinking I’d love to do my public duty, as they put it, but I’m now realising – if Day 1 is anything to go by – how lucky I am to have escaped the chore. I can now, as the Jury Officer put it as we sat in our serried Covid-secure rows, “get on with all the things in my head” that I wanted to be doing rather than waiting several hours not to be called. Top of my list as I gazed out of the window, past fluttering yellow tree-leaves, across the glittering Thames, beyond the gun-metal grey HMS Belfast and the glinting Shard to the cornflower-blue backdrop, was “Write S A blog!”

So here I am.

     

What a trip! An early idea for the title was “The Turned-Away Tour” as early experience was being refused entry to abandoned villages, museums, cafes, shops and mosques – but that would give a negative impression and be unfair overall. W F’s official title is accurate but unimaginative so I invented my own which I think gives more of a flavour. The trip (not holiday, I never call my travels “holidays”) was at times physically testing, occasionally lonely (see group comments below), often frustrating, oddly comforting (now I know more about S A’s relationship w the West and how crucial that is, despite everything), fun in part and always fascinating. The experience of visiting a country of excessive, indecent wealth contrasted with extreme Islam and 6th C law on what turned out to be a reconnoitre tour was discomfiting – and a first. (And last!)

Pre-departure shennanigans were a nightmare – weeks and weeks of form filling, expensive visa application, security portals (whatever they are), invitation letters, flight bookings (US$34 to move 10 rows forward), track n trace apps, letters of introduction, currency exchanging (waste of time as I didn’t buy anything! Another first. Nothing to buy as the trip was all-in and there’s not only no tourism but no idea what to provide or offer foreigners who aren’t pilgrims, workers or ex-pats. All very weird). On top of the more or less now-normal rules of travel was the drag of COVID STUFF (tests, jabs, evidence, bookings, up-datings, down-loadings, payings – Grrr…..), warnings about Saudi cultural sensitivities to absorb (alcohol, religion, attire, manners and more), packing (out of the habit) and general organising, booking and DO-ing. (Remember the days when you turned up at the airport an hour before your flight with your passport and case?)

W F’s pre-trip PDF advised me to “be prepared as although the infrastructure and local conditions might look sophisticated” (blingly gaudy might be more accurate), “please don’t be misled as it can be a bit of a facade”! The bit that worried me most cautioned “Being an atheist is considered blasphemy and is a serious crime”. This I knew but it was startling to see it written. One of us, when asked in Medina if he was a Christian (he isn’t) yelled enthusiastically, “Yes!” judging it to be the safest of several not really safe options!

To begin at the beginning……….. (I’ve added general country info at the end)

 

The scene was set at H’row. “Allah Bless You”, emblazoned in fancy Arabic and English script under the cockpit window of the Dreamliner sitting waiting for me on the tarmac, caught my eye n was worth a pic. Since flights there (to Jeddah) and back (from Riyadh) were safe, smooth and uneventful, he clearly did – even tho he’s not supposed to as I’m a non-believer. The service on board was fabulous; are you listening BA? We were plied with free meals, snacks, ice-cream and non-alcoholic drinks throughout by a charming crew who turned out to be not Saudi but Romanian, Belarussian and Lebanese (although all the females wore the distinctive hijab-type Saudi Air uniform. One of them told me they were very well paid so she didn’t mind).

Just before we flew over Mecca, less than 50 miles fr Jeddah, there was a sudden rush to the loos as men – only men – raced to change into their holy “ihram” pilgrimage garb. (Looks to the uninitiated like white, casually-slung bath towels or Roman togas in a school play). A voice announced the exact moment that the plane would be entering “holy air space” over this holiest of Islamic sites so everyone started praying under their breath and reading the Koran. I was reminded that the (almost!) exact same thing happened when I took an El Al flight to Jerusalem.  Same superstitions, same rituals, different god. (Or is it? I’m never sure). Anyway, this was all very diverting, though the biggest surprise was a few minutes later when, coming in to land, these long-bearded devotees started chattering excitedly to one another………..in a broad English Midlands accent! Yikes!

 

Being kafir – non-Muslim – and therefore banned from even approaching Mecca (Saudi: Makkah) the birthplace of The Prophet Mohammed (here I’m supposed to add PBUH but I won’t), we never got nearer than this precious airspace. Though we did get to the gates of the Quba Mosque in Medina, the second holiest Islamic site (a first for any non-Muslim visitors). Its foundation stones were, allegedly, laid by Mohammed himself when he arrived from Makkah. This still-existing but much-modernised mosque (well, it was the 6th C) was completed by his companions after his death. Great store is set by the idea that The Prophet spent 14 days here, praying. It’s also revered as Mohammed’s burial-place. We weren’t allowed in……..

     

……..despite lengthy discussions, suggestions of bribes, pleadings and we three women looking like cartoon Islamic characters, enveloped as we were from head to foot in “respectful” day wear. (This was the only occasion we had to cover our heads; quite why, since we weren’t inside the holy inner sanctum, wasn’t clear. The surprising bit for me would have been if we HAD been let in, frankly). A middle-aged guard/security bloke had started to waver when a young, enthusiastic chap turned up n said “Certainly not!” (Obs I don’t speak Arabic, but I can body-read and our guide translated. When we were back on the bus). I wondered if, like here, it’s somehow become the job of the younger generation to question progress and modern-day thinking and to monitor and “up-date” established values and hard-won liberties (or RELATIVE liberties in this case) by metaphorically turning the clock back. Whatever, we didn’t even get to one of the gates to peer in, so unclean and inappropriate were we.

A Bangladeshi man ran up to us shouting “You are welcome! Welcome! Are you Muslim?” “Er, no”.  (I stopped myself from saying “Do I LOOK like one?” the moment I realised I did!) “So Allah has brought you here!” There was nothing to say that wouldn’t have got us arrested. Seconds later, a delightful woman from Marrakesh ran over to chat to us in French. Luckily, I had a good grammar school education waaaaay back, so I got the gist. She was on her 44^th pilgrimage ! so I assume her access to heaven is highly likely, if not guaranteed. (What about her poverty-stricken fellow countrymen and women? Or poverty-stricken anyone-elses?) I’ve yet to tally up what she must have spent – and, as a middleclass citizen, has been able to afford – and thought for the millionth time how unfair (apart from anything else) all religions are……..

Still, I got some good pics of female religious souvenir sellers sitting on the warm pavement, clad head to toe in thick black abayas, the tiniest portion of their “disgusting” female flesh on show being ONLY their eyes. I wanted to ask someone, preferably an Imam, why his god created females so attractive to men that they can’t be resisted or why, if he’s all-powerful, he created men incapable of NOT lusting after women? I know the reply would be evasive nonsensical misogynistic laughable rubbish but I’d love to see their faces and hear the drivel, just for fun. Except it’s not funny. I must say, otherwise, that it was a relief to get through each day without being bothered by gender pronoun usage, cancel culture war references, BLM, Cop 26, the UK’s illegal immigration problem, Covid crap and the rest. S A seems not to be suffering from issues of this sort, which is either refreshing or concerning, depending on your view.

 

Anyway, we flew into Jeddah, Saudi A’s second city, commercial centre and ancient port on the western warm Red Sea coast. Day 1 and we toured the clean, pleasant and sort of sea-sidey place boasting a corniche – not unlike Nice’s or Beirut‘s but less well-known – and a rocky, palm-tree decorated coastline. It has a pretty, “sitting on a promontory appearing to hover over the sea” floating mosque; a colourful, if stinking, market where we (well, everyone else) selected newly-landed fish for our first lunch together; a half-built, soon-to-be-the-tallest-building-in-the-world structure (hotel, offices etc, a showy-off, “because we can“ thing in the desert outside the city); a currently-being-renovated Old Quarter and an Islamic port serving the nearby holy cities of Mecca and Medina. I wondered what passes through that can’t be dealt with by non-Islamic ports but didn’t like to ask.

 

I decided early on that this country, whilst fascinating for being new to tourism and being a disconcerting yet intriguing mix of extreme wealth and extreme Wahabi Islam, has much to offer but little that isn’t available, better, elsewhere. eg Better nearly everything Islamic, but esp mosques, in Uzbekistan, better dunes and rock art in Namibia, better forts in Oman, friendlier people in Cambodia, better souks in Turkey, better historic sites in Lebanon, better ancient cities in Jordan and better food almost anywhere unless you’re a fan of camel burgers and rice and chicken at every meal.  As a bonus, all the loos apart from those in hotels were more or less revolting. What IS it with foreign loos? (Apart from Scandinavian and Swiss)

   

Also early on, in response to the question I ask all around the world “Is there any Chinese investment here?”  I was told “No!”  5 mins later I found myself en route to Medina on a spanking new high-speed train which is er…..Chinese built, funded and no doubt run.

 

All toiltries in hotel bathrooms had “Made in China” labels. I didn’t go shopping so can’t vouch for anything else. (Is there nowhere immune to the creeping Chinese influence? Answers on the back of a postage stamp pls…….) Much more of a presence, of course, is the U S, evidenced in fast food and fashion retail outlets, even in villages: Baskin Robbins, Dunkin’ Donuts , KFC, McDonalds (for which we were eternally grateful one morning when the hotel had forgotten to prepare Breakfast Boxes and we were starving. It turned out to be Far From Fast Food but tasted – Ssssh! – delicious!) and Nike, Gap and Calvin Klein. Sainsbury’s and Burberry’s are opening up, apparently, but I didn’t see evidence. In one Riyadh mall, bizarrely, H&M (the Swedish clothing outlet, not disgraced ex-royals) sat in between a Michael Kors outlet and a Ferrari salesroom. There were very many high-end international chain hotels (we stayed in 4 and 5* Intercontinental, Oberoi and Rotana), European fashion stores (Gucci, Gaultier) and flash cars from anywhere that exports them. Globalisation as we know it………… I didn’t ask about the arms trade.

    

Our small but disparate group of just seven never really gelled. The most intriguing member was a fit, self-sufficient, interesting German bloke of very few words on his way (via Socotra, an island off the S coast of S A of which I’d never heard) to walking alone in the Karakoram Mountains for three months. This 60-something would rather have been on his own of course, but needed an official group and guide in the hardly-yet-opened-to-tourism S A simply to get around. There was A Very British Middle-Aged Couple with whom I had little in common. A. asked if I was being met by my husband at H’row, even though our flight got in at 5.50 a m (not that that makes any difference). I always wonder, like the couple on another trip who wanted to know what my husband does for food when I’m away (!), if they’d ask a single man the same Q. NO THEY WOULD NOT!

Then there was a single, extremely annoying woman of a certain age who talked non-stop, flounced about in fancy Dubai-purchased abayas, tossing and flicking her provocatively blond hair, flirted inappropriately with bemused local males, was a complete know-all and hogged 4 front seats on the bus every day. (There’s always one…..) The other two were very pleasant single men but men-on-their-own are, well…….. men on their own.

    

We were accompanied from start to finish by a Wild Frontiers tour guide who was in every way fantastic; we could not have managed without him. My admiration for him grew by the day as we tried to negotiate our way around this bizarre country of untold oil wealth coupled with 6th C religious law, NO experience of tourism, an inhospitable climate, well-meaning but haphazard service, rather dull terrain and 5x daily breaks by everyone everywhere for prayers (* at the end). “S” was amazing on every level and at every turn, his calm demeanour getting us through many an awkward moment, even a couple of potentially dangerous ones. He remained patient, sensitive, polite and professional – quite the opposite to me! – even under stress. At the height of his frustration, 10 days in and after having tried to negotiate access to a museum – and failing – he muttered a 4 letter swear word under his breath in sheer exasperation and anger – then apologised! Thinking how we might have reacted, we “forgave” him, insisting he deserved a medal. He ended up doing the work of the useless local guide and occasionally that of the driver on top of his own responsibilities. His help with apps, registrations, permissions, loggings-in (even to enter caffs), checkings-in, translatings and the rest was unquestioning, never-ending and invaluable. (Look closely at the dark centre of the next photo!)

We toured around in a great upside down u-shape fr Jeddah to Riyadh (capital, in the middle), staying en route in Medina, AlUla, Ha’il and Buraydah. We travelled between them by, variously, an ultra-modern High Speed Train (at 300 kph, coincidentally the same speed as HS1 fr London to the Channel Tunnel), a ridiculously conspicuous enormous luxuriously n garishly-appointed 52-seater coach decked-out in crimson and gold with fringed curtains, a loo and air-con but no seat belts, and spanking new 4x4s – sometimes accompanied by blaring Arabic music as a “bonus”. The coach was ludicrously unsuitable for everywhere we went apart from cruising along the very good highways and we regularly held up traffic in back-streets and got stranded on U bends. (Also see bit on Getting Stuck Up To The Axles In Desert Sand At Noon For 3 hrs further on!) We never worked out why we had this coach, so drew our own conclusion that it was to do with status. On the bus and off, we caused quite a stir, drawing astonished stares, sometimes small crowds, from everyone: ex-pats to pilgrims, camel-herders to kiddies, businessmen to builders. Throughout, there was no sign of the famous oil fields, they being located in the East near The Gulf and Kuwait. One day we drove 420 km!

 

S A is completely unused to and unprepared for tourism and there’s little to no provision so in most places we were a novelty and the capability to cope with us was almost non-existent. We did not visit, as scheduled, The National Museum in Riyadh or the remote abandoned village (mysteriously, a policeman and vehicle were waiting to say we couldn’t “enter”, though he wouldn’t say why. As we walked away, disgruntled, we asked ourselves how he/they knew we’d be there, and when. Scary. I was reminded of NK) or The Oldest Mosque in the World or several museums and more than one restaurant. All were suddenly and inexplicably closed, even though WF had cleared our itinerary with the Saudi Tourist Board, presumably formed 5 mins before we left the UK, and they – and we – had apparently been given the green light.

 

 

 

 

 

Temperatures were in the 30s almost continually, reaching 40 briefly and always feeling (even) hotter as the air blew in from deserts, bounced off fine-sand dunes or baked us as we toured forts, markets and old cities. I found it far too hot and uncomfortable. Temps are supposed to fall in Oct, though they didn’t this year, and anyway they’re variable in such a large country; the average in Riyadh in Summer is 44 (the record is 53 – 128 in old money YIKES!) in Winter, 15. No wonder they all come over here in August to cool down! I was surprised to learn, though I don’t know why as my Geog teacher drummed extreme temp. factoids into my head for years, that in Winter some places drop to -5

 

A front-desk guy at one blissfully air-conned hotel laughed in disbelief when I told him that I turn the Central Heating thermostat in my home up to a lower temp than I was turning the Air-Con thermostat down to in my room. Rainfall in the capital in June, July, Aug is zero! And not much more in the rest of the year – the mean national amount is four and a half inches. (The UK’s is THIRTY-four and a half!) In case you’re wondering, as I was, we passed more than one de-salination plant on the Red Sea coast.

No alcohol was to be had anywhere at any time. The manufacture, sale, possession and consumption of alcohol is forbidden and drinking is punishable by public flogging, fines, lengthy imprisonment or, in certain cases, deportation. In passing, I wondered what the punishment is for assassination – for ambushing, suffocating and dismembering journalists – for example. I must look up that name starting w K and ending in i……..   

On return to the UK I learned that two of the group reported going down with a dreaded gastric infection, Giardia: (“diarrhoeal disease with foul-smelling, greasy poop”. Gee thanks, Wikipaedia). Never heard of it and do not want it – by all accounts appalling and protracted.

We visited deserts, rock formations, holy cities, UNESCO World Heritage Sites such as Hegra (like Petra but not quite as spectacular) and the iconic Elephant Rock (in the dark as the sun had gone down by the time the – scheduled! – tour began). 

 

Natural rock/sand formations at AlUla were impressive though I wondered for how long the serene, natural beauty will be preserved. We razzed up in 3 new 4x4s n whizzed around in the sand. Soon, no doubt, the aeons-old landscape will be buzzing with hundreds a day. Who am I to object?

A  trek round the rim of the gigantic Hutaymah Volcanic Crater in the searing heat of mid-day was difficult, and silly, especially since afterwards our Great Big Bus got stuck in the sand. We were rescued, after 3 hours in the middle of nowhere, by The National Guard (strictly “No photos!”) as two Land Rovers and one haulage truck from a distant village and town had managed to dig us deeper rather than pull us out. I’ve a great video of a thick-as-a-wrist nylon rope pinging like a cotton thread, dangerously whipping and snaking in the air as it snapped under the strain. Already done-in from the 39 deg, 5k walk (“Moderate” said the itinerary, “Extremely challenging in the heat” said Veronica) we waited, sheltering from the noonday glare in the shrinking 18” of shade provided by the bus, musing over the headlines back home should the rescue fail and at the foolishness of being where we were when we were. 

   

Throughout, hotels were excellent. From delightful desert camps set among gigantic rock formations to international-chain, 4/5 star city sky-scrapers, accommodation was very comfortable, though room service varied from efficient to non-existent. (Perhaps this was the “façade” the tour company had been referring to). We sometimes had to turn on our own hot water. This was the single concession to, or even awareness of, anything remotely “green” that I noticed during my entire stay. Otherwise, the lack of anything to do with trying to Save Our Planet was concerning and depressing. In fact, it was often the other way round – a sort of “How can we take this beautiful natural rock-formation/gorgeous landscape/delicately balanced eco-area and turn it into A Theme Park with a concrete visitors’ centre, plastic pathways, artificial grass, mini-buses to save your legs even though things are right next to each other and a KFC outlet?”

     

Wherever we travelled, discarded plastic water bottles by the million littered the landscape, lying strewn by the wayside, dumped at beauty spots, discarded in the middle of nowhere and tossed out of car windows in town centres. A sense that S A has never heard of, far less cares about COP 26, Greta, destruction of Amazon rain forests or diminishing CO2 gases dawned almost immediately. I wondered several times a day what on earth is the point of the UK doing whatever it’s doing when China, Russia and very many others including, I now know, the wealthy Saudi Arabia, neither know nor care. Are we fools, idealists or geniuses?

   

In another remote beauty spot (an astonishing natural escarpment a two and a half hour, off-road, 4×4, bone-breaking ride over volcanic rocks’ distance from the nearest village) we were told that “In 5 years, this place will be even lovelier as it will be home to a Saudi Disneyland Theme Park with” (puff of real pride here) “multi-coloured neon lights outlining the rocks, five star hotels, fairground rides and laser beams into the sky”. As our hearts sank along with the red sun, we wanted to cry but couldn’t so someone spluttered “Why?”  The answer, an arm-wave and “Why not? There are another 200 kms of ridge that way…..and that”, rendered us speechless. Cultural differences? Maybe…..

 

Talking of which, At the 1^stC Nabatean royal tombs site at Mada’in Saleh we took one huge coach, then a second, to cross a car-park the size of a tennis court! WTF?  Later on I learned that S A’s target tourist audience isn’t The West – silly me – but The Muslim World – nearby Egypt (100 m potentially) and Pakistan, India and Indonesia (600m). Suddenly, my view of things – and S A’s plans and future – changed dramatically. A trip to Mecca followed by Disneyland? A divine package if ever there was one.

On the plus side, I can’t tell you the relief and joy I felt to be Woke-Free for the duration. Even the thought of trying to visualise explaining gender pronouns, cancel culture or Eddie Redmayne’s apology for playing a transgender character in a film drama (though not, bizarrely, Steven Hawking) was too much.

At the stunningly located Shaden Desert Resort – easy access to AlUla and Hegra historic sites – we stayed in fiercely air-conned, private-terrace-with-couch-and-uninterrupted-views-across-a-pale-desert-to-the-horizon, detached Bedouin-tent-style rooms. Mine was the very last, at the end of a kilometre-long sandy way, so remote that I rode by golf-cart to and from breakfast (took a little video leaning out to try to capture the ancient rock formations towering above my head in the just post-dawn light and the deafening silence). 

This place was like heaven on earth – until the spell was broken by the Philippino restaurant manager whispering, in near-fluent English, that – heartbreakingly – he’d been working in S A for 3 years without ever seeing his family and had “one year and 7 days” to go before returning home. As with other rich M E countries such as Oman, Saudis themselves – many of whom are literally royal princes, albeit minor ones – don’t do work. (Demeaning I suppose). The labour force, drawn from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Indian sub-continent as well as the Philippines, are modern-day slaves really. (Why are you not turning your attention this way, BLM supporters?)

In eating places other than hotels (sometimes outside under swaying palm trees) we sat cross-legged on patterned carpets, lolling on coloured cushions, eating with our fingers (never the left hand, rude), sampling bizarre dishes such as the aforementioned camel (surprisingly tasty, even moreish – until I thought about it!), “meat” and vegetables that were mushy and never green. Once, deliciously thick pancake-things, drowning in sweet syrup, were cooked specially for us right under our noses. My drink of choice, since there was no Prosecco!, was pomegranate juice – which I’d acquired a taste for in Oman. In restaurants, we were corralled into individual group eating spaces/rooms, like horses in our own stalls, many with curtains or shoulder-high walls for privacy. When I got home, it was – briefly – odd to eat in close proximity to other people!

   

  

We met charming Saudis of all ages, laughed with school-kids who mostly spoke a bit of English (or a lot if they were bright and had paid attention in class!), ate dates under palm trees, got sunburned and frightened to death driving along the edge of an escarpment in the dark over lunar-like volcanic landscape where, the night before, 4 Italian ex-pats had died when the brakes on their hire vehicle had failed and they’d plunged over the edge. Our Saudi guide who, despite first appearances (excellent English, friendly, obliging and experienced), turned out to be along for the ride and the prestige, had photos of the bodies on his phone and seemed surprised and a bit disgruntled when we weren’t interested in having a look! He must be inured, I thought, by all those attendances at public stonings. Despite – let’s hope not because of – being a cardiac surgeon in London in a previous life (truly), he told me nonchalantly that he regularly attends these, er……. entertainments. I know, I know……. On tours round sites we bumped into a few ex-pats, all surprised to meet tourists. They hailed from Canada, the US, Australia, India – but none from the UK. I asked them what they thought of S A as a place to live (in compounds, of course). The best, slightly shifty, answer to “Do you like it here?” was “Qui-ite”.

   

    

Almost all Saudis, men and women, wear national costume, the ever-black, all-covering abaya for women, the flattering thawb (white full-length robe) and keffiyeh (red/white headdress, or tea-towel if you’re a Newcastle fan who’s delighted his club is being financed, to the tune of £300 MILLION – just Googled – by Saudi dosh) for men. The keffiyeh is secured by an agal, the camel-hair head-band (a black rope originally used to tie up Bedouin tribesmen’s camels. You learn something every day).

 

I’ve a 30 sec video of our smiling Saudi guide demonstrating different ways of wearing his keffiyeh whilst explaining that – surprisingly – his fellow-countrymen thoroughly approve of Newcastle football fans jumping around in their makeshift home-made versions (let’s be honest, the family tea-towels). In it, he makes it clear that Saudi people are “delighted – flattered even – at English footie fans’ joy and their enthusiasm for Arab culture. Why not?” Quite. So much for Wokes thinking our Saudi friends might be offended by the idea of the cultural appropriation of their dress. I thought, for about one second, of trying to explain why er, these Wokes (“Um, sorry, who are they?”) might be offended (“Er, why?”) on Saudis’ behalf (“Whaaat?”) but knew I’d be in trouble before I started! 

In the town of Ha’il, close to the UNESCO World Heritage site Jubbah (rock art, carvings) and home to the pretty sandy-orange and white Aarif Fort,

we were the centre of attention once more, curiosities even (well, we were a motley British crew standing out like sore thumbs!) and found ourselves approached by locals, esp women, who wanted to know where we were from, who we were, what we were doing and why. They were completely bemused, though very friendly. Some had basic English (school), a few were almost fluent (university, jobs). Not for the first time abroad I was grateful to be a native English speaker. Most were desperate to take our photos – everyone had a mobile, of course – and to be in ours! It soon became clear that they were as keen as we were to communicate, though judging who was relaxed (“Hello! What’s your name? Where are you from?”) and who was NOT PLEASED (a couple of mums pulled their small, curious children away) was difficult as all you have to go on 90% of the time are the eyes. (Men generally weren’t as interested in us. That’s an observation, not a judgement). The sexes didn’t mix, even though we had hit Ha’il on a Friday eve at dusk when the whole town was out socialising, meeting friends, shopping and sort-of flirting if you were 16 ish, although some teenage boys were holding hands. Firm friends, not ill-advised gays. Otherwise, it was quite like a week-end night out anywhere – though the total lack of alcohol and the warm air and welcome made it feel safe and relaxed.

A mid-morning stop-off at a desert small-holding; coffee and dates and a warm traditional welcome (apart from “NO PHOTOS!” from the elderly widow) plus a 120 yr old giant tortoise, rheas in an enclosure, a wolf trap in the orchard and a 10 yr old boy who spoke fluent English. (I’d introduced myself in words of one syllable, asking “What….is ….your….name?” 15 mins later he was giving me a guided tour of his grandmother’s farmstead using words such as “incubation, illegible and contented”. Yes, I did feel a fool…..)

 

Towards Riyadh, we traversed vast deserts that were less Sahara, more Moonscape (rocky, sometimes mountainous, greyish, rough and ready).

   

The capital sits in the middle of the country, minding its own business. It looks, and is, more modern and international than Jeddah and is set out, like New York, on a grid plan with skyscrapers, glamorous shops, modern museums, ring-roads and the rest all plonked, for no discernible reason, in the middle of nowhere.

      

Here we gawped at wealthy malls; strolled through gorgeous green gardens; slept in gigantic beds with duvets the size of football pitches: looked hard to find the few remnants of The Old City Walls  – neglected, crumbling remains squashed between a bank that would have looked at home on Wall St and an office building worthy of The City; ate in sophisticated restaurants (though it was still basically Rice and Chicken with a smattering of other cultures’ dishes such as tortillas) and took a breath-taking trip up the 99-storey Kingdom Centre (or “Bottle Opener”), like The Shard or The Walkie-Talkie in London only bigger, with stunning 360 degree panoramas over Riyadh to faraway sandy horizons. The 2-stage fast lifts made my ears pop. The views from the arched platform at the top did the same to my eyes. Our tickets cost 60 riyals (£12. The Shard is £32). Riyadh is where we were turned away from The National Art Gallery despite S explaining to the guards that we had permission from The Saudi Tourist Board!

 

Towards the end, just when I thought I may not this time see a wedding (I’ve been lucky almost everywhere I’ve visited) I came across one in our second desert hotel. During dinner outside on a well-watered English lawn, I heard the near-ish pounding of drums and wondered what it signified. As the others went to their rooms, I sneaked about n found – A WEDDING PARTY in full throttle!!

In the huge, beautifully-decorated ballroom thronged dozens of men. In formal National Dress, naturally, they were dancing in lines and swaying in time – to one another and to the rhythmic beats of about 20 drums which, slung round shoulders or set on the floor, created a deafening, exciting, filling-the-space sound. They danced in a formal line, brandishing and SLASHING great silver curved swords – or scimitars – up and down, round and round, swishing the flashing blades and cutting the air. Round the edges of the room, other male guests slouched on patterned, tassled black and gold cushions while others moved around mingling, chatting, laughing, greeting. In amongst them, hotel staff – also in spotless white robes, held aloft gigantic silver platters piled with finger-food. The atmosphere was electric despite – even because of – the lack of alcohol, with everyone in high spirits and full of joy. Peeping round a door, I wondered if I was intruding – in a way that I would if I’d gate-crashed a British wedding but with the added concern of unknown expectations, behaviours and customs. Especially as a female.

Having no idea how they’d react to my presence, yet utterly intrigued, I was overjoyed when, on catching sight of me, they began shouting in English “Come in! Come! You are very welcome!” I couldn’t believe my luck – or my eyes – and I don’t know who was more surprised, the wedding party or me!  I ended up with a few mins of badly-lit, shaky video and several poor pictures but, as I write this, my head is filled with the colour, atmosphere, movement, vibrancy, drum-beat, to-ings and fro-ings, friendliness, welcome and excitement, all as vivid as they were at the time – and nothing can take that away.

It was only when I left – it began to feel as though I might be intruding, despite the pyramids of chocolates, great whorls of silver-plattered dates, bite-sized cakes and glasses of fruit-juice being insistently offered (and accepted!) – that it dawned on me that I was the only female present. I had, and have, no idea where the women were. Not in the hotel, I’d wager. Perhaps they were at home or, if this was a stag night equivalent, rolling round as hens in a near-by gutter the worse for wear. (Er…..no!) The groom and the bride’s brother (at 6’6” tall) were elegant, classy, proud and handsome. I felt self-conscious, humbled, old, obviously inappropriately dressed and a bit of a twit.    

The next morning, a fabulous out-door camel market (worth setting the alarm at 5.15 for, despite the evening’s wedding party thrills!) On the road out of Riyadh, thousands of animals of all colours from nearly-white – much valued – to almost-black and all sizes (1 week old babies to fully grown 20 yr old mature beasts) though seemingly with only one personality: grumpy.

 

The sight of complaining individual animals being crane-hauled out of trucks and dumped unceremoniously on the sandy ground; unfamiliar smells magnified in the clear dawn air; the plaintive sound of mothers calling their young; loud-mouthed auctioneers brandishing whips and yelling into microphones; fine quality animals and no-bid poor ones cheek-by-jowl (I couldn’t tell the difference, of course); non-Arab-looking Yemeni herders from across the border who stood out like sore thumbs – with their different features and clothing – almost as much as we did, couldn’t believe their eyes and spent 2 hours following us and staring unblinkingly. (“Probably the first non-Arabs they’ve seen” suggested our Saudi guide). All camels, barring babies, were hobbled with one – at least – leg bent under their bodies and tied with rope to prevent escape or fighting. I thought of animal rights activists at home and how they would explain their kindly-meant but misplaced views to these people for whom camels mean – literally – everything and wondered how the conversations might go.

Smelly, noisy, a bit frightening, fascinating, unusual, exciting and memorable.

The souks in Saudi I found disappointing. Unlike elsewhere in the M E, these “markets” were simply narrow streets lined with tiny glass-fronted stores. OK, they sold everything and anything but they weren’t exotic, shambolic, fragrant (or stinking) stalls as in most sunny countries. Mostly, they sold fabrics (for abayas, so predominantly black but also glittery stuff) but also under-abaya clothing and shoes. There was a very busy American candy store

and groceries, bread, coffee, tea, spices, fruit etc.  Every second shop seemed to be jewellery, the windows glittering with GOLD!!! Any item you’d care to imagine, fashioned out of that yellow-gold that manages to look cheap. Name any piece of jewellery at all and there it was, displayed in all its tasteless glory in each narrow, garishly-lit, white-marble-and-plastic emporia with – always – a male attendant in a thawb and very few customers. Luckily, the idea of hassling we tourists didn’t occur to them. (“Who are they and what are they doing here?”)

        

Only once did we find a sort-of souk as we know it – one balmy evening in a small, enclosed town square. Trestle tables groaned under the weight of all sorts of stuff, including piles of junk – or fascinating, unfamiliar, second-hand objects as seen through our foreign eyes – displayed for inspection before an auction. Iraqi War gas masks, old copies of The Koran, dried snakeskins and sheep-tails and strange musical instruments were, for sure, unusual lots and sights. The microphoned-up auctioneer, his white robe startling as snow in the arc lights, strolled in a circle, his sing-song pleas for bids from the small crowd sounding like poetry.

   

One man, accompanied by five wives and several children, lolled about on carpets and cushions in a “pen”. He didn’t react to us but the women proffered wrapped cookies with a generosity, insistence and welcome smile – I assume! – hard to imagine in most countries. I took a couple. (Little did I, or they, know how grateful I’d be the following morning – the one when the hotel forgot to supply breakfast boxes. So Thank You, anonymous Saudi girlfriends!)  The heady aroma of rose-petal tea, sweet coffee and toasting almonds, the background chanting of the auctioneer, the pounding of a drum and as always, somewhere distant, the evening call to prayer: all this in 75 degs under an ink-black starry night sky making for a magical experience.

Further on, three girls caught my eye as they sat on a bench by a pedestrianised road. They  were giggling and looking over – trying to pluck up courage and gather their little bits of English to interact with us. One, age 16, was fully covered and self-conscious. A second, 13 and uncertain but friendly enough, wore a hijab but no face covering. The out-going 15 yr old in the middle wore only an abaya (every post-puberty female wears an abaya), head and face uncovered. (Later, I asked our guide why the differences. It depends, he said, on how traditional – or otherwise – families are, which I found intriguing as I’d expected “religious”). She told me immediately, in very good English, that she wanted to be “a teacher, an art teacher”!!!

         

These few minutes were such a surprise, such a treat and so special that this episode, almost above all others, has stuck in my head and seems to represent Saudi Arabia, its past, present and future. When folks ask “Why did you want to visit (wherever)?” I want to describe these illuminating personal encounters even more than I do views, townscapes or iconic buildings. Or looong loaves of flatbread!

FINALLY, UNDER THE HEADINGS…..

“The Expected”

Segregated restaurants (as a mixed group we had, infuriatingly and humiliatingly, to sidle in via back doors); oases; boy racers (see ** at the end); deserts; Riyadh’s gorgeous ultra-modern architect-designed National Art Gallery – even though we were refused entry – date farms, camel herders, heat, Islam, sand, friendliness.

“Expect the Unexpected”

An abandoned steam train (left over from Ottoman times, next stop Istanbul);

Medina doing a great impression of a mini down-town Las Vegas – really;

a camel burger fast-food chain;

wonderful folklore museums, some opened specially for us at night;

 

Camel Crossing” and “Beware, Sandstorms!” road-signs;

first-rate motorways and hundreds of roundabouts, almost all with weird sculptures;

luxury city hotels; excessive heat.

And “The Completely Unanticipated”

My “30 km round trip in huge bus to find a village with a pharmacy in the mid-day heat with driver, S and a swollen, red, weeping, right eye after picking up a tiny piece of grit on a windswept orange sand-dune” experience. This incident made me cry and wish I was at home. Leaving the group to gawp at rock drawings in the middle of nowhere in 40 degs Omar, S and Yours Truly drove round in circles (this happened a lot on this trip, so no surprise but annoying) searching for a chemist that wasn’t closed for prayers. Arriving at a shed in a remote desert village, my heart sank………but it was a Dr Who’s Tardis moment! Inside the biggest, cleanest, best-stocked chemist I’ve ever been in, anywhere, ever, and in fierce air con, a white-coated pharmacist stood waiting for me.  I could have hugged him. Around me, all you could want or imagine, from motorised wheelchairs to contact lenses…… AND A CHOICE OF ABOUT 58 DIFFERENT EYE DROPS/CREAMS/LOTIONS!! Whatever it cost would have been worth it as I was in agony and the dumps (under a tenner for two products as it turned out). Did they work? YES!

Being the oldest in the group for the first time and, much worse, being treated as such! This was a shock, troubling and depressing. Think I may have arrived at a travel cross-roads – and an age! – without realising it; the 3 a m return flight.

AS PROMISED

* 5 x a day Prayers: Petrol stations (usually with tiny mosques),

shopping centres, desert oases, back streets, remote sites, museums, everywhere and everything stops five times a day for prayers. (“Several mins, quarter of an hour, however long it takes”, I was told). Mostly, as I spied on devotees from bus windows or out of the corner of my eye on the ground, it seemed to be an automatic, rather pointless ritual-habit, but who am I to criticise or to see inside people’s hearts or heads. One thing I was sure of, it was predictably routine, as anything becomes when, like cleaning your teeth, you do it so often. I’m no good at maths but if you start at, say, 10 and are devoted for your 3 score years and ten – maybe it’s different in The Koran? – then performing a ritual 130,000 odd times must surely quickly become simply a habit?

** Boy racers. Before I left home, I met someone who, when he learned I was going to Riyadh, said “Why?” He’d been there and the only observation he’d made was “The rich-lad boy racers think it’s fun in the flash car their dad bought them to tail-gate around the ring road at 120 mph” which sounded idiotic and lethal. Surely, I thought, even if Riyadh turns out to be no Paris, Venice or London – which it did – there must be something more distinctive to say about it. It turned out not really, except for………….

………….  If you’re a young man denied the thrills of what young men get up to in freer societies (everywhere on the planet, apart from N Korea) then tail-gating at 120 mph would be mightily attractive. If you can’t legally drink, have sex, take drugs, go to a pub, bar, cinema, theatre, rave or club, fall in love with someone of the same sex, or……. well, anything normal young people would want normally, then what on earth do you do for a thrill?  Why, Drive the car Daddy’s just bought you very very fast in the middle of town so all your mates can see you dicing with death (is the only one I can think of, though am open to suggestions).

Riyadh, second last night. On the coach, evening – after a long day – middle lane of the ring road. Rattling along at 50 mph, minding our own business. Our driver suddenly slams on the brakes and yells something unrepeatable and un-Islamic.  It’s the boy racers I’d been warned about! Half a dozen of them playing the “Drive at high speed from the outside lane across four lines of fast-moving traffic to the next exit, all the while weaving in and out of traffic to avoid other vehicles by the narrowest possible of margins” game. Every now and again, there’s a violent jolt, a screech of brakes, a puff of smoke and the smell of burning rubber as the teenage driver of a white car (all vehicles in S A seem to be white) cuts and swerves his way from the overtaking lane to the slip road by the skin of his teeth. We gawp in horror and fear from behind our gold-fringed red curtains, wondering if this is a metaphor, neatly summing-up perhaps Saudi Arabia and its ambitions as it moves into the mid 21^st C.

COUNTRY FACTS – Just a few!

S A is the largest country in the M E – it’s roughly 9x the size of the UK – and is bordered by the Arabian Gulf, UAE and Qatar to the east, the Red Sea to the west, Kuwait, Iraq and Jordan to the north and Yemen and Oman in the south and has no rivers!

Capital: Riyadh

Population: 35m, a quarter under 15!

Religion: 93% Sunni/Wahabi Muslim

Petrol Prices – There are just under 5 riyals to the £, so here’s proof of how cheap a litre is! (UK is £1.50)  

Oil: Whilst it’s generally agreed that oil states have to look to their laurels as the future goes green, here the supply is far from drying up. S A can keep its options open as it’s the second biggest producer after Venezuela (didn’t know this. Canada comes third; why does that surprise me too?) with 298 BILLION barrels – 17% of the global total – in reserve. It’s also home to the world’s largest oil field. The Saudi Royal Family’s majority-ownership of Aramco, the world’s most valuable company (WOW!) explains a great deal. All this is worth remembering if Greta doesn’t get her way.

Saudi Arabia’s history is unusually straightforward. I struggle to think of anywhere I’ve been whose narrative doesn’t, somewhere along the line, involve invasion, colonialism, civil war, occupation, annexation, resistance, genocide, incursion or oppression (sometimes, as in poor Poland’s case, all of the above) by foreign powers, but here, apart from inter-tribal skirmishes and a couple of romantically-recorded episodes – Peter O’Toole and the film “Lawrence of Arabia” spring to mind – dissent and squabbling over the centuries seem to have been mainly internal and tribal.

The modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman, known in the West as Ibn Saud.  He united the four existing regions (occupying the world’s largest peninsula) into a single state through a series of conquests, beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family The House of Saud. (Get it?) The rest, as they say, is history. Salman bin Abdulaziz, Ibn Saud’s 26^th son (all those wives!) and the 6^th to have reigned, has been King since 2015 and is generally credited with S A’s drive towards modernism.

LASTLY, A QUOTE FROM THE QUORA WEB-SITE

Q “Can I pretend to be a Muslim upon arrival to Saudi Arabia, and visit Mecca as any other pilgrim?“

A “I suppose one could try it, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend it. Note that if you do not have a Muslim name, a certificate is required from an Imam attesting that you are a Muslim. On the highway between Jeddah and Mecca, there is a government check point where the credentials of all travellers are verified. The Saudis do not take it lightly when you get caught with fraudulent documents or make false statements to anyone in an official capacity”.

And to show that despite everything, Saudis are much like us and have a sense of humour!

PS I’M SIGNING THIS OFF ON MY BIRTHDAY!

 

ESSENTIAL LEBANON: “Of course, all the shops are closed because we’re in the middle of a revolution”.

               ESSENTIAL LEBANON:  “Travel The Unknown” Oct. 2019

    

  

As a traveller, you’re always surprised, one way or another. But this trip had more up its sleeve than most. Before I left home I knew there was widespread social unrest throughout the country but was advised – and judged – the risk to be small.  Before I landed, it was clear (chatting to a stewardess) that I was lucky to be visiting at all as, due to worsening political instability, several travel companies had pulled their tours. (The plane was far from full). After I arrived in Beirut the aircraft – and its bemused crew – were diverted to Cyprus for security reasons. Once in the hotel I realised the holiday itinerary was highly likely to be irrelevant and things would, or would not, happen on an ad hoc hourly – even minute by minute – basis.

One unexpected thing was Lebanon’s high cost of living. On the first evening two of us partook of a drink in the hotel bar. Normally we might have ventured out but it was late and this was easier. We ordered a soft drink and a local beer. When the bill came we had no idea what the very large number at the bottom meant, how it translated into ££s, or Euros, so we left what we thought was a reasonable 10% tip. WELL! You’d have thought we’d committed the most appalling, insulting faux pas. (As it turned out, we had). The bar man, in a theatrical, dramatic, OTT response yelled “600 LIVRES??? 600 LIVRES??  This is nothing. NOTHING!” Startled and embarrassed I asked how much is usual, percentage-wise. “25%!”  Oh. We didn’t know what to make of this so wiped the insult off the bill to demonstrate our disapproval, harrumphed a bit, sympathised with each other at being new, green visitors (tho savvy enough, we thought, to know when we were being ripped off) and went to bed.

  

You may be ahead of me here but the next day we discovered that he was right, we were wrong and that we had indeed left him a derisory amount. (Or, rather, hadn’t!) Corruption at all levels from Government down to our waiter is why the cost of living in Lebanon is high, currency volatile and the economy unstable. For example: because of illegal practice, including backhanders to franchisees and authorities, two coffees at a caff in the airport cost nearly £11! And the demonstrations we’d seen on news bulletins at home and were soon to experience for ourselves, although deep-rooted and serious, were triggered by President Aoun’s plan to charge for Whatsapp! So I hereby apologise to the barman for the paltry 27p he didn’t get.

 

 

If talk of revolutions, inflation, diverted planes and cancelled tours sounds a bit disconcerting to you, as it did to me at first, not to worry.  Any anxieties our twelve-strong group may have been harbouring were pretty much dispelled by Katya, the stand-in guide who was relaxed and jolly (the proper tour leader was unable to reach our hotel because of road-blocks): it’s her opening – straight-faced – comments on the unusual circumstances we found ourselves in that I’ve used in my title. On Day 1 the weather was sunny and warm and a walking tour seemed the sensible – only? – alternative to the planned but impossible drive south. I began to rather relish the unpredictability.

(For the most part, and somewhat against expectations, I felt safe in Lebanon. Generally, I take the view that it’s more than the travel company’s reputation is worth recklessly to send tourists off to dangerous areas, though I appreciate, it being a matter of judgement, that mistakes can be made. This time, although I didn’t realise it at the outset, I really might have had cause for concern – though not from the revolutionaries in the middle of Beirut as you might be thinking).

  

 Bit of background, as always for those of you interested.  You don’t want a history lesson here – and I’m certainly not qualified to pontificate – but I think it’s important to understand a little of the context (thanks Google, and my holiday diary) as it explains historic frictions and gives meaning to the current political instability – which seemed very real to us as visitors and made us think.

According to Wikipaedia, Lebanon (when did it drop the “The”?) is a “military confessional parliamentary republic”. I have no idea what that is. It has borders with Syria to the N and E and Israel to the S – so it’s already in trouble. The Mediterranean sits to the W.  It’s tiny, about TWENTY-THREE times smaller than the UK! Population is just under 7 million, half and half Christian/Muslim. Official Language is Arabic although there’s a linguistic legacy from the French occupation in the early 20^th C. Leb gained independence in 1943. Most people speak some English.

  

For complex religious, ethnic and political reasons the Lebanese parliament is bound by law to be formed of an equal number of various Muslim and Christian denominations: “Under Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system, the president must be a Maronite Christian, the speaker must be a Shia Muslim and the prime minister a Sunni Muslim”. (Al Jazeera). Due to the changing demograph, Muslims – now a majority – feel aggrieved, so tensions abound; this was one of the contributory factors to the Civil War 1975-90.

The country’s complicated, long and often bloody history is reflected in its politics, people, language, culture, architecture, traditions, arts and food and is the result, like other countries but to a more extreme extent, of its strategic geographical position. Occupied by the Romans, Crusaders and Ottomans over centuries; more recently invaded by Israel; governed by France; suffering assassinations, a Civil War (120,000 fatalities and 17,000 kidnapped or “disappeared”) and currently on the edge – literally and politically – of the Middle East conflict (including war in neighbouring Syria), its capital has been destroyed by an earthquake, a tidal wave and a fire and, as I write, finds itself in the middle of a revolution born out of anger over taxes and government corruption. Since none of my blogs would be complete without a snippet from my favourite Corruption Index List, here’s the sad news about Lebanon: it’s 138^th out of 180.

  

(When I’m fact-checking t’internet for these blogs I come across some ridiculous as well as helpful stuff. I’ve just seen the question, “How much milk does Lebanon consume annually?”!)

 You will see then that this has been, and remains, a very troubled place.  In any article or on any website about Lebanon the following words are depressingly scattered: war, army, PLO, refugees and Hezbollah (more to come), protests, Iran, occupation, Israel, assassination, Roman militia, instability, corruption, Ottoman, unrest and diaspora (there are twice as many Lebanese living outside the country than in, which is a world “best”. Currently between 8 -12 million displaced persons do not have an automatic right to return to their homeland). Worst of all is Lebanon’s refugee problem – of which more anon.

  

Of course, there are also wonderful things: fabulous ancient-world and archaeological sites, beautiful cedar tree plantations, breath-taking cave complexes, the sparkling Med, good food, impressive mountains, lovely valleys and vineyards and, despite it all, warm-hearted, hospitable people.

So here we are on Day 1, not driving south out of Beirut to two ancient cities and a temple. In the itinerary they all look interesting: Sidon, “located at the meeting point of three continents”; Tyre “the most important Phoenician city of ancient times” and Eshmun, a 7th C BC temple complex boasting “a wealth of different architectural and decorative styles”. Initially we’re disappointed to be missing these sites but within minutes we realise we have a unique opportunity to not only see Beirut at an important moment in its history but to be a (tiny!) part of a country’s political reform.  Or at least first-hand observers of.  A chance not to be missed, especially after Katya has informed us that “For Lebanese people, demonstrations are like parties. We’re good-natured and smiling”.  We believe her and so set off on foot to explore a city under siege. It’s only later that we see, feel and understand the extent of Lebanon’s very serious underlying problems, appreciate what’s driving the revolution and feel the energy, passion and indignation of a people trapped by their geography and history and let down by their government.

   

Physically Beirut, once known as The Paris of the Middle East, is for me a bit of a disappointment. The fact that the centre has been taken over by “revolutionaries” for several days isn’t the only reason it’s hard to see why it should ever have been named so. Mountains of litter, hundreds of small tents, graffiti by the square meter, broken shop windows, barricades, armies of young people clearing rubbish or racing about on motorbikes trailing flags and a sense of uncertainty make it difficult to imagine what might otherwise be a dignified, perhaps beautiful capital. I understand the effect all these crowds and this disruption have had on the city and try to picture it as it would be in non-revolutionary times but even then, I think, it wouldn’t be especially lovely or memorable.

There’s a very large mosque adjacent to the pleasant main square – “Martyrs’ Square”, naturally –  some interesting Parisian-style, turn of the 19^th C architecture, a few pretty streets with ancient Roman, even Phoenician, ruins, and the arty Hamra district where we’re staying. Situated close to The Green Line (the tree-lined “Demarcation Line” of civil-war-headlines for you oldies) is the wonderful, partly-funded-by-Italy-and-therefore-gorgeous National Museum, a gloriously modernised classical building with a lovely shop and magnificent exhibits (golden jewellery, sarcophagi, pre-historic sculptures). 

There are elegant Italianate facades, tree-lined avenues and an expensive Gucci/Ferragamo mall-area a bit like H’row Terminal 5 in the sun, all presumably attractive enough normally but now occupied, vandalised, shut or boarded up. Parliament buildings are cordoned off and nearby roads guarded by armed military who seem relaxed and friendly, considering.

Of course, Beirut boasts a sea-front, The Corniche – which I thought may have resembled Nice or Cannes but doesn’t. On the outskirts, sprawling unchecked it seems up the mountains, are thousands of beige-stone, half-completed or unlived-in new builds, scarring what would otherwise be a pretty backdrop. Sorry Beirut, and all you folks who love it, but it didn’t do that much for me. Perhaps I’m being unkind. (A Room with a View? Well sort of. This building is right outside my decent hotel bedroom!)

 

In the square, I’m taken aback when suddenly, in the midst of the demonstration area, someone flings his arm round my shoulder: a fit (in the old-fashioned sense), hippie, hung-over, topless young guy insists on us posing for a photo! Later, I’m interviewed by a group of students who seem thrilled when I say I’m aware, from the media in the UK, of their struggles against corruption and taxes. We mingle, smile, sympathise, photograph, and give the thumbs-ups. (The latter, along with a couple of prominently-displayed national flags, come in handy later on the bus when we’re stopped at roadblocks in remote areas).

  

The following day and our proper guide Pierre has joined us now that one or two routes in and out of the city are open. The words “road closure” are a bit misleading as the blocks turn out to be gestures really, consisting as they do of a few tyres, the occasional abandoned car or scattered traffic cones. All of them could easily be moved or driven round and it takes a while for the penny to drop that it’s not a case of the road blocks being physically impassable but of them being symbolically so. We soon realise that the authorities responsible for keeping the peace normally – the police, the military – are standing by because they are on the side of the people, not the government: “The People As One”. This I find encouraging, touching even (though it’s very frustrating when this solidarity means that a simple 22 km motorway drive takes four and a half hours along grid-locked twisty back streets). It’s amazing to know that everyone – more or less – is on the same side; the contrast with the Brexit-divisive UK is startling and enviable.

We’re off, out of the city, northwards up the coast. Uncertain at first as to how we’ll be treated at road blocks, we wave and grin like mad things out of the bus windows to assure our safe passage through and past dissident groups. In the daytime it seems pretty harmless, even friendly. At night it takes on a different atmosphere. People, mainly young men, gather in the dusk and it’s all a little bit unnerving. We find ourselves reminiscing about Terry Waite and John McCarthy who were headline-hostage held in Beirut for 1,763 days in 1987-91 by an Islamic jihad organisation. (Not sure I was aware of that last detail at the time). Their first four years were in solitary confinement, chained for much of the time, if I remember rightly, to a radiator.

  

At one point we drive along The Road to Damascus. It crosses my mind, very briefly, that I might experience a conversion of some sort.

We stay in the pretty, arty town of Byblos, a small port with a walled harbour, craft shops, good restaurants, ancient city walls, museums, archaeological remains and a ruined but impressive Crusader castle. Founded 7,000 years ago this innocuous little Phoenician coastal town, hardly credibly, was once the epicentre of the ancient world’s shipping trade. It’s considered to be the birthplace of the modern alphabet, giving its name to words such as bibliography – from the Greek “biblion“. (“Byblos”, Egyptian papyrus, was exported to Greece from here). It lays claim to being “the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world”, though when I was in Iraq they claimed that for Erbil, so who knows.

Outside an old church from which the bizarre sights and sounds of a Catholic Mass conducted in Arabic waft into the air a tiny, wizened woman in traditional long dress and head scarf accosts us, shaking a stick: “Tourists? Where are you from? Do you speak English?”  Toothless, thin-haired, weather-beaten and frail – but keen to practise her language skills – she foists herself on the group for fifteen minutes. Surprising us, she bursts into almost-fluent English and regales us with Tales From Long Ago: her British father, wars, history, her town and her “love of The English”. (Not Scotland or Wales which she dismisses with disdain and a wave of her hand!)  She er……. isn’t shy and is hard to get rid of without being rude but our kind guide manages just that, eventually. She has a goitre the size of a tennis ball hanging from her neck which is very distracting and is bent double with a hump back but (and?) is indomitable and entertaining. I work out she’s about two years older than me!  Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra were, apparently, regular visitors to Byblos in the ‘60s, sailing in on sunshine and optimism.

East of Beirut lies The Qadisha Valley, a UNESCO world heritage site. This beautiful mountain area is home to caves, ancient rock shelters, hermitages, cedar groves, winding rivers and stunning views; it makes a lovely contrast to the coast and the capital. Half-way up a mountainside we visit the bizarre Khalil Gibran Museum – gallery and burial place of the well-known, internationally best-selling (and rather disturbed, judging by his artwork) Lebanese-American author, poet, artist, alcoholic and all-round inventor of quotable quotes and homilies (as well as Elvis, Beatles and Ghandi influencer!)

  

Depending on your view, Gibran’s writing is either admirable: “Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them” or mawkish: “Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair” and “Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky”.  (Think Shakespeare said it all long ago and rather better). Still, it’s a nice surprise and break, even in the rain. Touring the shop and slightly spooky art gallery (full of female nudes and eccentric self-portraits) alongside his bedroom – complete with his tomb-in-the-wall – I suddenly realise that an extract from one of his not-schmaltzy poems on love and marriage is what my younger daughter asked me to read out at her wedding! This seems a bizarre coincidence so I buy a copy of his book “The Prophet” (9 mill sales in the US alone) to take home as a gift.

Located in the Bekaa Valley, Zahle (“City of Wine and Poetry” and a mountain retreat) is Leb’s third largest city. It too holds a few surprises. First, it’s less than 20 km from the Syrian border – not that anywhere in the country is that far from the S border. Second, our delightful hotel is an ex-monastery set beside a lovely river.

  

And third, we have the worst meal of the trip in a sadly pretentious, over-priced, French restaurant owned by a pal of our guide. On the plus side we tour the pretty Ksara Winery which produces what the wine-tasters in the party tell me are very respectable wines indeed. (Wine producing goes back to Phoenician times, 1500 – 300 BC for you history, or alcohol, buffs).  The vineyard’s wine-cellars are natural caves, even-temperatured in all seasons. (During the Civil War they acted, like London underground stations, as safe havens). We (they) enjoy an extended wine-tasting session and, as in Moldova, several of our party make it worth the winery’s efforts by buying from the shop afterwards.

 

We spend a muddy hour walking the trails in a today drip-dripping but normally beautifully-shaded Cedar Grove. This – not the largest but the oldest in Lebanon – houses thousands of the gorgeous, spreading tree whose image is so synonymous with its homeland that it takes centre stage on the national flag, as you very well know. (Trivia flag Q:  Only one country’s flag depicts human beings. Which one? Answer at end).

Anyway, we pick our bedraggled way along undulating footpaths, side-stepping puddles, clambering over giant roots, gawping at the mighty flat-topped, bottle-green individuals some hundreds, even thousands, of years old. At the exit we’re hassled by souvenir stall-holders whose trade has hit rock-bottom with no tourists to speak of. We muse about how they can afford to pay shop prices that are higher than Swiss ones (which is saying something) but don’t come to a conclusion.

Aanjar, Leb’s only fully-walled ancient city, is in ruins but it’s well-enough preserved for us to see what the guide means when he describes the kilometre-square site as “a Roman shopping mall” – his colourful, if less accurate, version of the itinerary’s prosaic “Umayyad (caliphate) ruins dating back to the 8^th C”.

 

 For me, the second-most memorable site of the trip (the most memorable one I’m leaving till the end) is the cave complex Jeita Grotto, situated just 11 miles N-E of Beirut. This completely misleading title conjures up a picture of a few twee caves someone at the travel company thinks might be a good excuse for breaking a journey, or the little St Bernadette niche at Lourdes. How wrong can that be!

This spectacular complex of interconnected limestone caves stretches underground for nearly nine kms and consists of three breath-taking chambers, two of which we explore. The Lower Chamber – nearly four miles long! – was discovered by an American explorer in 1836 and holds, apart from fantastic geological formations, an underground river. The Upper Chamber, 2,130m long, houses the world’s largest known stalactite (8.2 metres!) and was found only in 1958.

 

This wonder is surely one of the world’s best-kept secrets. (I can’t be alone in never having heard of it). If you think I might be exaggerating its credentials, I can tell you that the whole site – one of Earth’s true natural wonders – was a finalist in the 2011 global “New Seven Wonders of Nature” competition. Among the chosen seven were The Amazon Rain Forest, The Iguazu Falls and Table Mountain. (Other finalists were Kilimanjaro, The Grand Canyon – why not in the seven? – The Great Barrier Reef and Uluru). So little Lebanon’s Jeita Grotto was in pretty impressive company! Unaware of this claim to fame, my expectations on arrival are pretty low.  Apart from the caves, which you can’t see at first, there’s a mini zoo, random sculptures, a toy-town shuttle train, cable car, cafes and rows of souvenir shops, all of which hardly gladden the heart.

  

But wait! What’s this enticing us in? An entrance lined with lockers where we must leave our cameras (so no photos of my own but I’ve borrowed some off the brochure to save you the trouble of Googling and to prove I’m not exaggerating the site’s wonders) from which we step into a cool, wide tunnel. A few seconds in and the passageway dramatically and abruptly opens up into a staggeringly beautiful, majestic space the size of ……what?  St Paul’s Cathedral? (which is actually 20m lower).  A football field? (6 times shorter!)

Overall, this “Top Chamber” is 2 km long but only (only!) 750 m are accessible to the public. It’s up to 120 m high and between 66 and 145 million years old. There are formations the size of churches, rounded and cushion-like; long spindly icicle-type dangly ones; beds of what look like toadstools; stalactites and stalagmites that have joined to form great columns and others that collapsed in great lumpy stone heaps untold aeons ago. Some areas are dark-hued, greys and browns, others creamy, several red (oxide). Some are so smooth and shiny that they sparkle, others are rough, pock-marked and earthy or sooty. The “Lower Cave” is different but equally amazing. We glide silently in battery-powered flat-bottomed boats on the slow-moving, glassy river water which has formed a transparent turquoise lake.  Its beauty is enhanced by subtle, Italian-designed lighting systems. We have to dip our heads to avoid low-hanging formations, the walls are encrusted and undulating, above us are myriads of rock formations covered in millions of tiny blobs, elongated spikes and smooth furls of limestone. The roof disappears into darkness. I think “I’ve seldom been anywhere so unusual and beautiful”. The scale and majesty of both chambers are jaw-dropping and stop us in our tracks. Literally. There’s a real “Wow!” Factor. This spectacle is right up there with the very best of my Great Travel Moments.

Statistics aren’t much good on paper or screens but it helps, perhaps, to know that the large formations here – stalactites, stalagmites, columns, “mushrooms” and “curtains” – began life while dinosaurs roamed! Each grows about 1cm every 100 years – so the littlest stubby ones started to form when Leonardo was working and the slightly bigger ones when the Romans ruled the world. I can’t even imagine the sort of world that existed when the huge, thick columns began forming. We try to do the sums: one cm every hundred years. This one’s six, seven meters high/long, so it’s um……. very, very ancient! I wonder what all those people who believe their god made the world a few thousand years ago make of what they see before them.

The simple slatted-board walkway snakes around, sometimes affording us long vistas – indoor 3D landscape paintings – other times forcing us to squeeze through narrow passageways, dip under the cave roof or sidle round a tumbled formation. It’s a feast for the eyes but my brain struggles to grasp the facts of the age, growth-rate and implications of this astonishing natural phenomenon. We’re very quiet, awestruck in the silence. It’s gorgeous, moving, thought-provoking, a rare treat but also, frighteningly, a reminder of…… how can I avoid clichés here?…… our mortality, the insignificance and pointlessness of our existence, the enormous stretches of time involved and the awesome nature of Nature. Best not to dwell on such things, but try to appreciate and savour the moment.

In order to maintain religious balance, a brief comment on a Christian site, the shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon. On top of a hill overlooking the capital, and all very Catholic, stands a gated enclosure. Inside, access to a cable car ride, outdoor altars, a cafe, mawkish statues of saints, kiddies’ fairground rides and, smack in the middle, a huge blindingly white-painted bronze  statue of The Virgin Mary.

  

I’m surprised to hear that she, it, is visited by “millions of faithful Christians and Muslims from all over the world”. (I had no idea, mainly cos I hadn’t thought about it, that Muslims revere the mother of Jesus. How complicated and pointless is all this religious guff?) Anyway, here she stands, open-armed, welcoming the flock and facing the Med over cedar trees. She sits on top of a stone-built helter skelter-like structure, the base of which is a tiny church. She reminds me of her son in Rio though she’s 4 times smaller and much less famous.

In the church, I’m meant to cover (or uncover, can’t recall) my head and the guys in our group who are wearing shorts must cover their indecency, or lack of respect, by borrowing a shiny, voluminous dressing-gown thing. Why and how any god or mother thereof should be offended by creatures created in his/her/their image is quite beyond me. At least I can see her up close when I climb up and round as the sun is shining, which is more than I was able to in Brazil where rain and cloud made JC invisible, even up close. For the whole of your visit piped choir-y religious music blasts out, ignoring the “Please be silent and respectful” notices and the air is heavy, despite the breeze and Nature’s aromas, with sickly-sweet incense.

 

Last, but by no means least, the jewel in Lebanon’s Ancient History crown, the Roman site of Baalbek. But first – so I can end on that positive note – a word about what I alluded to earlier: the sense of unease.

As we drive along a dual carriageway east towards the scruffy town of Baalbek (after which the Roman ruins are named, or is it the other way round?) and Syria, I become aware of tall poles from which are fluttering enormous yellow and black flags. The nearer to the town we get, the more of them there are. Close to the centre they’re joined by huge posters of imams and individuals (well, men) who, the guide informs us, are 1970’s Islamic “martyrs”.  Or terrorists, depending on your view.  It dawns on me that, of course, not only are we only a very few kms from the border with Syria – just over the mountains ahead – but we’re in Hezbollah territory, hence their flags. (Hezbollah – in Arabic Hizb Allah, “Party of God” – is, as you will know, a political party and militant group that first emerged during Lebanon’s civil war after the invasion of Leb by Israel in 1982).  The situation hereabouts is worrying; despite the ordinariness of the place, and the daylight, I feel uneasy and begin to notice check-points and armed military road-blocks. Once, we have to stop for the guide to show papers and we hold our collective breath. Am I surprised? I’m not sure, but I do know that Mr Corbyn is not unsympathetic to Hezbollah.

  

A smattering of refugee camps (I wonder what the collective noun is) begins to appear beside the road, some small enough to occupy a corner of a field, others stretching for kilometres. Together, they cover thousands of acres along this eastern stretch of the country and house Syria’s dispossessed: the people you’ve seen on countless news bulletins fleeing their homeland in endless sad lines since the crisis burst dramatically onto the world scene in 2011.

Funded by the UN, these white-canvas enclaves are stuffed with scruffy tents and scattered with telegraph poles, dangling electric wires, water pumps, satellite dishes, washing lines, piles of rubbish and dispossessed men women and kiddies. (I get occasional glimpses inside as we pass an entrance or stop at traffic lights and the height of the bus enables me to see over – or through – damaged perimeter sheeting: peeks into a nightmare world).

  

You’ll remember that the population of Leb is just under 7 million: these people are currently trying to absorb over one and a half million refugees (the highest per capita rate in the world), three-quarters of whom lack legal status. Given the delicate balance of Christians and Muslims in the country, and that 87% of these refugees are Islamic, the situation is serious as well as desperate. These are extremely troubled and troubling times and places. “In 2018, 300,000 refugee children were out of school”. (Human Rights Watch) And “Lebanese refugee policy is ostensibly driven by the country’s crumbling economy and high unemployment. But it also stems from a deep-seated culture of xenophobia and sectarian nationalism” (FP magazine).

  

I’ll leave you to take this in and to imagine the implications. The figures are staggering, the statistics frightening but the reality of seeing this urgent problem up close and first hand is moving and unforgettable too. Now you know why I wanted to end on a high note.

 Don’t know whether this is the best or worst place to insert a paragraph about an overload of superb Lebanese food.  Towards the end of the trip, just as I’m wondering where the amazing meals I’d been told to expect were, Travel The Unknown treats us (great idea, take note rival companies!) to lunch in a sort of greenhouse restaurant out of town. It’s packed with local families, always a good sign. Dozens of dishes of colourful, fresh, fragrant, mouth-watering courses from fresh olives, kibbeh, tabbouleh, kafta and hummus to baklava, milk puddings and date pastries appear one after the other. It’s all delicious. We leave far more than we eat, despite trying hard, and wonder if someone has thought to take the left-overs to the refugee camps………

And so to Baalbek, “The Jewel in Lebanon’s Crown and possibly the finest Roman site in the Middle East”. And yes, that includes Palmyra in Syria, according to two members of the group who have been.  Baalbek (“Lord Baal” – Phoenician god of the sky – “of the Beqa Valley”) was founded nine thousand years ago and is a shining example of the skill-set and sophistication of the Roman Empire at its height. It’s incredibly well-preserved.

 

Our visit is enhanced by the fact that, apart from 5 Italian archaeologists on a coffee break, we’re the only people here! This is, of course, a fantastic bonus: no jostling for the best photo-spot, no selfie-obsessed tourists to get on your nerves, no strangers to sneak their way into your shot, no noise, no hassle, no distractions, nothing to absorb but the silence, beauty and history of the most magnificent Roman ruin I have ever had the privilege to visit. I realise I’m taking this for granted when someone from our group dares to get himself in one of my pictures and I’m really cross!

A taste of what’s to come is hinted at by “The Stone of the Pregnant Woman” (?!), one of three mysterious, unusual and ridiculously large monoliths adjacent to the main site. These were discovered as recently as the 1990s and 2000s and are thought to have once been a part of the main site – or were intended to be. All lie more or less horizontally, one remains partly buried and another is thought to be the largest ever quarried (76 m long and 4 m square). All weigh a ludicrous amount (one, an estimated 1,650 tons!) How on earth would you excavate, carve and – esp – transport such giants nowadays, never mind 2,000 or more years ago? (Who were these ancient people capable of such feats?) We stand gob-smacked next to the monoliths, like ants.

  

Set on the edge of town, Baalbeck proper comes at you by stealth. One minute you’re parking, the next getting your tickets, all the while aware of crumbling high walls, a few columns against the bright blue sky, a portion of some old stairway, a bit of an architrave tumbled down and overgrown. I think “Oh well, it’s nice to stretch my legs, have a bit of fresh air. It seems a pleasant enough site and a nice way to spend a couple of hours”.

My first glimpse of the whole site takes my breath away. After climbing a huge flight of stone steps I survey the dramatic scene below. Before me lies a beautiful, perfectly planned (ruined maybe – but pretty complete) Roman city. There are great temples that appear as though they were built yesterday, tiers of steps, courtyards, statues, amphitheatres, squares, city walls, sacrificial altars, homes, roads, all that you would expect and more. It’s like Pompeii but better preserved, smaller (3 sq miles) but grander.

I imagine the markets, the worshipping, the meetings, the hustle and bustle, the sounds, the smells, the animals and the 82,000 citizens. I wonder about their lives and all that they shared, aspired to, worried about, enjoyed and feared. Just like us.

  

I imagine the gods they revered and the history they made without even trying.  I peer closely at a fallen column which has an exquisite, life-size carving of Cleopatra – complete with asp – and a tiny, arbitrary mermaid (the stonemason’s signature, joke or message? Who knows).

  

There’s a great temple  wall almost filled with ancient graffiti which manages to look, with Roman numerals and serifs, elegant, intriguing and attractive. Architraves are precariously balanced still, and despite everything, on top of elegant rows of fluted columns, there are giant flights of stairs, great stone gateways, huge slabs of fallen, engraved masonry. The beautiful, almost complete, Temples of Bacchus and Jupiter are “two of the most magnificent Roman temples anywhere”. Despite wars, invasions, in-fighting, sackings, up-datings, lootings, weathering, battles, even an earthquake, this city stands proud.

 

And today we explore, clamber, climb, ogle, photograph, admire and wonder. It’s absolutely magnificent, beautiful, thrilling and surprising. The site is the human equivalent of the Jieta Cave complex: equally awe-inspiring and just as breathtakingly beautiful. I feel privileged to be here.

All these words hardly do it justice, so I’ll end by saying “GO!”  To Baalbek, certainly, but the whole country is waiting for you to visit. It’s less than a five-hour direct flight away…….

We have to set our alarms for 4 am on our last morning to catch an early flight but hey, who cares! Lebanon? Go for it!

 Snippets:

5 days after my return President Hariri resigns, declaring “Today I’ve reached a deadlock”.

 Alexander the Great conquered Baalbek in 334 BC and re-named it Heliopolis

 Whilst not criminalised (great, I’m sure) adultery in Lebanon is, in 2019, punishable by imprisonment. There are longer terms for women than men. What a surprise.

I’ve just read this on line. “Protesters took to the streets across Lebanon and one was shot and killed”.  So, not so much like a big party after all………

And finally:

Flag with human figures? Belize

MOLDOVA: “Independence Day in Transnistria”

 

    

MOLDOVA: “Independence Day in Transnistria”

Sept 2019 Regent Holidays

Another trip to E Europe wasn’t what I’d planned – after all, I’d been to Romania earlier in the year and I’m going east to Lebanon in October. But this tour fitted in nicely time-wise, I was intrigued by the idea of attending independence celebrations in a country, Transnistria, that technically doesn’t exist and, as you know, I’ll go anywhere that I don’t have to wear a headscarf.  So, off I trotted, flying Air Moldova, complete with civilised flight times, free meals and smiley service (paying attention, BA?) and met a lovely group of people, learned lots, sweated (it was 35 degrees most of the time) and once more failed to find any litter. (See previous E European blogs). I did see a beggar – but only one.  I had wondered whether this, the poorest (and least visited) country in Europe could sustain even a short visit but, almost as always, my fears were unfounded; it turned out to be a fascinating, unusual and enjoyable tour.  First, a bit of context. (Skip to “Our visit begins………” if you just want an account of my experience).

 

Geography : With an area less than 1/7^th that of the UK (and a population of only 3 ½ million), the boot-shaped  Moldova is squeezed between Romania to the south and west and Ukraine to the north and east and is land-locked. A tiny slither of land in the S E lies between it and the Black sea; across which lies Crimea, barely 100 miles away. This accident of geography accounts for Russia’s interest in this region in general – its strategic and political significance – and its interest in particular in Transnistria (more to come on that). Moldova is predominantly flat and featureless. Despite everything, it hasn’t got a single mosque.

History : Moldova’s history stretches back millennia; ancient tools have been found that date back 1.2 million years!  Like most of this part of the world, this long history is troubled. The usual suspects – from empire-building marauders to modern-day despots – have made life rough, tough, and unhappy for generations. Our 30-something guide had first-hand tales to tell of Russian oppression and tough economic times: an aunt failing to survive the post-WW2 famine, hard-won, lovingly-tended family land snatched by the Soviet Union, food shortages, ill-health and corruption, all had affected her life and informed her views. The worst aspect is that Moldova didn’t exist as a country at all until after the collapse of the Soviet Union. (Unlike other E European countries, which were autonomous before and after “Soviet Times”, poor little Moldova only became itself in 1991. And then not entirely logically or to everyone’s satisfaction).

  

So, today, Moldovans perhaps feel a sense of not belonging and of being hard-done-by, even persecuted. Until the mid 19^thC, the country was part of Basarabia and then Romania, which is not only why everyone in M. speaks Romanian but why there is no such language as Moldovan. Russian is used (especially) by older people and in areas geographically or culturally close to Russia (more of them to come). ”Gagauz” – related to Turkish – is a “critically endangered” language spoken in another funny little enclave, Gagauzia, in the S-W.  English is taught in schools and spoken a little. Our guide was tri-lingual (not uncommon) and spent hours translating Romanian to English and back or Russian to Romanian to English and back. This doubled our time spent on museum and gallery tours which was tiring. I gave her a fat tip!

Politics : Moldova is a parliamentary republic with a president as head of state (currently, one Igor Dodon, whose stern face and no-nonsense name appears on billboards in, and outside, the capital Chisenau – pronounced Kitchinau) and a prime minister as head of government. Unlike Romania, but like Belarus and Ukraine – places I’ve been lucky enough to visit – Moldova is not in the EU. On my first day I was puzzled, therefore, by the very many EU flags on display, usually next to Moldovan ones. (The latter, bizarrely, include an image of an auroch, an extinct species of wild cattle).  Turns out Moldova is an “Associate Member” (I wasn’t aware there was such a thing), rather optimistically aspiring to full membership. For those of you wondering, as I did, what you have to do to gain entrance to the increasingly non-exclusive EU club, I’ve added some info at the end.

 

Language round these parts is not just a way of communicating, it’s symbolic, tribal even, determining what and who you are and where your roots lie. (At one point language was the trigger for a civil war).  No wonder our guide was keen to tell us that she speaks Romanian and therefore “is” Romanian, and that, despite carrying a Moldovan passport (as well as a R. one) and despite having been born (and lived her whole life) in the capital of Moldova, her heart is Romanian!

       

You will gather from all this that on a day-to-day level politics and language define Moldova, its people and your experience as a visitor more than they do in many places. (Very) unlike its neighbours Romania (picture-book pretty) and Ukraine (how about Chernobyl for a USP?), Moldova’s other attractions are modest.

Our visit begins in Chisenau’s litter-free central park early one warm, very warm, Sunday morning; not a cloud in the sky, a slight breeze, long tree-shadows, the Arch of Triumph, Bell Tower and Russian Orthodox Cathedral lining the square square. We wander like primary school children after our guide, feeling relaxed and keen to explore. I begin to adjust, as you do, to the unfamiliar sights, sounds and smells of a strange country. Dappled shadows fall onto neat paths, bells begin to toll and a black limo pulls up in front of the Cathedral. Huddled on the steps outside, on a green “red carpet”, is a small crowd of locals; mainly women, mainly elderly, mainly wearing triangle-shaped, brightly coloured headscarves and old-fashioned, full-length clothing.

     

An important-looking bishop emerges from the back of the car and is greeted by a gaggle of priests. Everyone here, dignitaries and locals, is white. There are fast-motion exchanges of cheek-and-hand kissing, raised 2-finger blessings, embracings and bowings before they disappear up the steps into the gold-glistening, cool, colourful interior followed by their flock.  And me. What a way to start a trip – and I’ve captured it all on video! (You’re not meant to film inside churches if services are in progress but I get a few sneaky seconds of this display of incense-waving, deep-bass chanting and genuflecting without anyone spotting me).

  

So, I’m on my way.  A walking tour of the capital as the temperature rises. In 1940, the city was destroyed by an earthquake, so most of the buildings are restored. Still, the Grand and Classical mix with Soviet Brutalism, Art Nouveau with 1960s, Traditional with Modern.

 

There are few high-rises, which is nice and some quirky 19^th C public buildings – Post Offices, Rail Stations – as well as a wonderful 6 days/week market complete with a huge white-and-blue-tiled, dedicated cheese hall and stinking sloppy-fish section. The produce is magnificent and dirt-cheap. Stall-holders are almost exclusively women, everywhere is spotless. As always, anything and everything from saucepans to scallops, pigs’ trotters to petticoats, walnuts to watering cans. Everyone is curious (“Tourists?”). Occasionally I hear a “Hello!”, sometimes I’m greeted with a smile, mostly they’re indifferent or puzzled by these strangers in their midst. I’m busy working out how all this is possible in “Europe’s poorest country”.

  

In the wide streets there’s little traffic and every vehicle stops to let us over crossings. We pass many statues, one of St Steven (Mediaeval ruler, image on the 20 Lei bank note), and saunter along tree-lined boulevards. There are trams galore, a library, a Concert Hall “in the 70’s style”, an Art Nouveau Opera House with moulded stone sheaves of wheat (stirring memories of pre-Revolution Russia) and government buildings on an appropriately grand scale. One, with “The Parliament – Republic of Moldova” emblazoned across the front in Latin script – no Russian sympathies here! – is designed to look like an open book and has little privet hedges spelling out MOLDOVA in front of the steps. The president’s residence across the road is a blindingly white, rather beautiful, modern, 8 storey, marble fantasy construction: “LOOK AT ME!”  One curiosity: a dilapidated concrete ex-ice-cream parlour designed in the Soviet-style but left to rot (squabbling local town-planners no doubt). It reminds me of Chernobyl.

Several streets bear significant names: “31 August 1989” Street, for example, celebrates the date of a mass demonstration in which citizens demanded that Latin, not Cyrillic, Script be used. The people won! (If this sounds a bit petty, remember the importance of language here, how Latin Script represents Moldova’s European inclinations – as opposed to Cyrillic Script Russian ones – and you’ll see the significance). “Veronica Micle” St. is named in memory  of the lover of one of the country’s great poets. A café has “Warm Welcome To Russia” and “Not So Cold After All” painted on its window, in English. Not sure what to make of that. There are no beggars and yes, you’ve guessed, an absence of litter. I’m impressed. And, to repeat, EU flags are everywhere. Chisinau appears surprisingly prosperous.

   

Next day, with the sun still shining, it’s a drive to Transnistria, the “independent” state at the centre of our visit. I put inverted commas around independent as the breakaway “Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic” – thanks Wikipeadia – that runs the length of M’s eastern border with Ukraine is only acknowledged as independent by a couple of themselves-suspect places. Otherwise, it’s “internationally recognised as part of Moldova”, though no-one seems to have informed the Transnistrians. We need an “entry card” as well as our passports to go in but on returning to Moldova proper we just drive out (after returning our entry cards, thus left with no evidence) as M doesn’t recognise the border as a border! The half million people who live here look Eastwards to their history……….and, presumably, to their future. The official language is Russian, they have their own currency (T. roubles) and are recognised by 3 UN non-member nations Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia. Which sort of says it all.

  

So, watch this space.  (If you’re wondering why you should, perhaps think again. The locals are pro-Russia; Russian oligarch “investment” dosh by the billions of roubles is evident wherever you turn; the company name “SHERIFF” is everywhere: on petrol stations, hypermarkets, hotels, building sites and, most notably, on the National Football Stadium, details later. Russia maintains a military presence on T. soil…….. and, don’t forget, Moldova is waiting to join the EU).

 

Transnistria – dark green on the map of Moldova at the start – immediately feels different. (Sneaky pic at the border, or “border”, above). Firstly and most apparently, all the signage is in Russian, then we have to change our Lei for roubles. (OBS you can’t buy their currency anywhere but here). Also, everyone speaks Russian which is nice for the couple of people in the group who have a working knowledge of that language, sadly not me. No-one knows Romanian. (And remember, Moldovan doesn’t exist!)

It’s still roasting hot, mid-30s. The Transnistrian capital Tiraspol is neat and tidy (naturally), medium-sized (the entire state has only half a million citizens) modernish and non-descript. Still, as we’re here primarily to attend their Independence Day Celebrations, who cares. Hotel is quiet, clean, comfortable and has the bonus in this weather of having air-con and an out-door seating area. The staff are sweet, friendly and inefficient, the food and drink inexpensive. No-one, apart from front desk staff, speaks much – any – English so my international mimes for bill, menu and the like are much called-upon. I struggle, but have fun, miming an apple! The food is international-average.

   

We do a bit of a walking tour; shop-lined boulevard, a park and memorial garden with a tank on a pedestal, marble gravestones, poignant lists of the dead, an eternal flame, a Museum, statues of course. In the evening we drive out of town; good enough roads, flat dull countryside, the only landmark, a small hill – we get excited when we cross a bridge! – and arrive at a Monastery, hidden by high walls. We’re greeted by a young Russian Orthodox priest-guide wearing full-length black robes, sandals and a crucifix. He sports a long black beard and even longer black hair pulled back in a fetching pony-tail. His English is halting and his voice soft.  He is good-looking and has startlingly bright, pale-violet eyes. I wonder at his choice, in the 21^st C, of the celibate life.

   

Founded 150 years ago, partly in protest against the ban on the use of the Slavonic language in worship (remember the significance and symbolism of language around here), the Noul Nearnt monastery – which was transformed into a hospital during Soviet Times for obvious reasons – is self-sufficient. Behind the imposing gateway with beautiful gold/blue icon decoration, sit 3 glittering, domed churches (one Summer-cool, one Winter-warm and a spare) in pretty rose-gardens. Around us are orchards, allotments, graveyards, storage sheds, a winery, beehives, living and catering quarters, a simple hotel for pilgrims and the like ………… all overseen by an abbot. In one small crypt are laid out the skull and bones of a 19th C monk. Ooo-er.

  

We dine with The Abbot, who resembles a film casting director’s impression of An Abbot, not that I know anything about abbots: good-looking, charming, mysterious, talented (during supper, he sings what sound like drinking songs in his warm baritone voice after checking that we have no intention of posting him on Facebook – as if!) and with a mischievous sense of humour despite his lack of English. We tuck in to an amazing spread and drink many glasses of the Monastery’s home-brewed wine and vodka. Well, I don’t or I’ll be sick. The A. has no problem downing my share as well as his own and several others’; should I not be as surprised as I am? Our guide seems mesmerised, flirtatious, smitten even, by this Abbot, which seems inappropriate yet is understandable. When we leave 2 hours later, it’s pitch dark as we stumble back to the road to find the coach. In our distraction, we’ve left one of the group behind in the loo! It’s a full ten minutes before he’s found. He’s furious, the guide’s furious (likely, to cover her embarrassment at forgetting herself and her charge and frustration at the fact that The Abbot has taken a vow of chastity) but all’s well that ends well.

 

Back in the city and lunch in a Russian Canteen, a throw-back (even for the residents of Tiraspol!) to Soviet Times. A sort of worker’s caff above a 1950s-style furniture store. About 110 degrees. Buxom, Russian-looking wenches serving meat balls, dumplings, stew and the like. I long for a Prosecco and salad but end up with coke and soup. Lenin, Stalin and Engels staring out from pages-of-Pravda papered walls and all things old-USSR adorn surfaces: telephones, hats, magazines, flags, medals, books, photos, military uniforms, posters, portraits and propaganda. I never got to Russia when it was the USSR but now I think I know exactly what it was like! Taking our empty trays to the Formica slops table in the corner made me a) feel about 13 and a schoolgirl again and b) glad Communism failed, or we’d all be doing this daily. (Will be again if JC and his Momentum pals find themselves forming a government, ha ha – though that wouldn’t be funny………)

I thought I was going to write about the Independence Day Celebrations only, but it’s these unexpected, ordinary little moments that stick in the memory and present themselves when I’m recalling and writing.

Ah, the parades! Next morning, Sept 3 and Transnistria’s Independence Day, an early start walking into town to bag a good vantage point. There’s an air of excitement, the parade time has been brought forward to 8.30 as it’s so hot and last-min preparations are under way.  Stall-holders arrange their wares, cafes prepare their food, locals gather in their finery, drones hover in readiness. I spot a raised area with clear views up the parade ground (which is in fact the closed main – very wide! – street leading up to the War Memorial) and make a bee-line. Patriotic songs blare from loud-speakers, open-topped jeeps scurry back and forth across the expectant space, I can see troops massing 300 m distant, there’s a white-uniformed band tuning-up in front of the Big-Wigs’ Stand (I never found out who is Transnistria’s equivalent of the Queen or Boris), mothers scramble to find little gaps in the crowd which their smartly-dressed, proud offspring can squeeze into, veterans stalk up and down, jackets weighing heavy with medals, and conscripts muck about, not yet disciplined.

Kiddies and trendy young people sport T-shirts with English slogans, some of them nonsensical (“Trill Hoodby To Airy World” and “Elastic Stone”!) and I’m joined by a Welsh woman who turns out to have lost her tour group but who is an (ex-army) expert on Things I know Nothing About such as why women march at the back (shorter stride; if they didn’t, they’d hold things up), military music, marching styles, uniforms, formations and so on. A real bonus as a neighbour today!

 

To be honest, the parade itself is a tiny bit underwhelming. If I’d have thought about it more carefully it might have occurred to me that there would hardly, from this not-even-independent little enclave, be an almighty show of military strength. This event was never going to match those shows you see on TV in Pyongyang, Beijing or Moscow: thousands of well-drilled troops, hundreds of tanks, gun carriages, bands, missiles, weapons. Once I realise that – about 3 mins in! – I stand back and appreciate it for what it is: a rather sweet representation of a people denied their perceived right to freedom showing off their few assets and parading their soldiers alongside their patriotism.  Today is more about national pride, identity and hope than hardware – and that’s rather touching. There are a few fascinating things. One, the difficulty the Transnistrian forces have in turning a simple right-angled corner as a battalion (? regiment? I don’t know what they’re called, but a group of about 100 men). I think of the Edinburgh Tattoo with soldiers performing very complicated manoeuvres whilst whirling, skirling, playing bagpipes in unison, at the double on a slanting esplanade in the rain and feel sorry for the T. army and air force if they ever get called to battle as they seem a mite, erm…….amateurish.

 

Patriotic Russian songs (I catch the word Republic several times) keep us amused in quiet moments when nobody seems clear what’s happening. There’s a giant screen which helps (me to see the dignitaries and details better) and hinders (magnifies the out-of-steppings, the stumblings and the panic-stricken expressions). The best bit is when the Generals, standing in the back of their jeeps, inspect the troops.  Slowing to a halt in front of each group, they salute. The men respond with a very, very, VERY loud “Hoo-rah, HOOO-RAH, HOOO-RAH” in unison. A sort of audio Mexican Wave ripples up the parade ground as the officers proceed. I have never seen – heard, more accurately – anything like it. Great! And I get it on video too………

Then after an hour, it’s all over. By now the crowd has swelled, the noise increased, the atmosphere relaxed and so I wander about in the bustle of the celebrations and the heat. From various stalls I buy a lime green, nylon cushion with a transfer of a tank and a church for £2.30, a fridge magnet for 7p with a smirking Putin and the message/brag “The Best” (thanks for that to a passing student!) and Moldovan chocolate, which I guess is in a different category from Swiss but you never know.

An amazing bookshop makes me feel as though I’m stepping back 50 years as it’s packed with stuff I haven’t seen in decades: dip-in pens, old-fashioned exercise books, politically-incorrect, gender-stereotypical, non-diverse school posters and textbooks (I know, why would they be any different, but it’s still a surprise), vintage – and vintage-priced – pics of Stalin, Engels, Lenin and Tiraspol.  I buy, for 65p after some embarrassing miming, a wonderful hard-back, illustrated, knitting-pattern book.  I’m convinced it’s from the 1930s/40s but it turns out to have been printed in 1983!  That’s right, then as now 50 years out of kilter. I get a few postcards but there are no stamps. That requires a trip to The Main PO to get Transnistrian ones which aren’t internationally valid so you have to get Moldovan ones too. There are 3 sq cms left for “Wish you were here” but more change from your rouble-notes than you’d get most places. I stick them on with Transnistrian Pritt Stick, supplied!

Outside in the humid, hair-style-ruining, 90 degree streets the locals are having fun in their Sunday best and 1950s mind-sets. There’s country dancing, choirs in national dress, loudspeaker-booming pop and traditional (Russian-sounding) music, decorated veterans, historic costumes (from 1729 when Tiraspol was founded), sweet candyfloss and food stalls, the smoke and smell of barbequing meat, flowers, balloons, kiddies, grannies, cut-out cardboard shapes of soldiers and girls that you stick your head through to get a picture, like at a seaside town (yes, I do). There are tatty souvenirs (popular with locals are crocheted things, Russian nesting dolls and embroidered felt bath-hats!), a jolly atmosphere and no litter.  Honestly! I feel happy, safe (security isn’t even a thought) and about eleven years old. So, that’s it for today, but Tiraspol, Transnistria and the trip have more to offer.

     

The next few days, lots of interest. First, long-drawn-out tours of museums (all that translating, of course, but also determined, old-fashioned gallery guides talking for 10 minutes a time about the contents of a hundred show-cases) before an al fresco supper at a local farmstead with a warm, welcoming, bottle-blond, overweight, smiley baboushka hostess you wouldn’t want to argue with. (Guide translates her views, and our questions, on politics and daily life in Transnistria very carefully!) As the sun goes down, we sit on hand-crocheted cushions in her hand-tended garden, giant hand-sown sunflowers bobbing in the breeze, and tuck into home-grown vegetable soup, hand-reared chicken stew, home-pressed pomegranate juice and home-brewed wine, and all seems well with the world. So well, Brexit doesn’t even cross my mind. It’s idyllic. Until a Q n A session in the little knick-knack-filled farm-house. A young female journalist, who runs a nationalistic website from her office nearby, sings the praises of everything Transnistrian and I marvel, ever-so-slightly jealously, at her contentment and this idyll.  Then she tells us that she’s about to emigrate to Moscow where she will have far more prospects and be paid more than double! Our (staunchly Europhile) guide’s face is a picture.

Another treat: a Sheriff-owned caviar farm. 194 indoor tanks of various sizes housing beluga sturgeon of various sizes and ages farmed to produce this most expensive of luxury goods which is exported mainly to (you’ll never guess) Russia and China.  Not for nothing is it known as black gold – it costs tens of thousands of £££s per kilo.  We learn a lot, from someone who looks as though her name is Olga, about breeding programmes, milking the females for their roe, how they live for decades, hibernate (still-as-statues on tank-bottoms for months on end) and how scientific, as well as lucrative, the business is. (Quite what the attraction of the stuff is, I have no idea; I tasted it once and was not impressed).  We have to dress up in white coats, cover our shoes with plastic bags, trail around in watery (though surprisingly un-fish-smelly) hangars and take great care not to touch, disturb or infect the stock. I watch as some young Russian blokes disregard all this, and lean over the chest-high tanks to tease the fish by splashing the water and take selfies with the sturgeon nearest the surface! I kid you not. We’re not offered a free tasting, unlike at the Kvint brandy factory.

This is a fascinating tour during which it occurs to me that Russian-funded enterprises like these may represent, if not the face of the future for Transnistria/Moldova, then at least the face of competition as the state/country finds its feet. Everything about this factory – the set-up, the aromas, the science, the production lines, the sales shop, the glamour and expense, even the quality – is comparable to the equivalent in France or Spain; except, of course, for the things that (Russian) big bucks can’t buy which are heritage, provenance, reputation and class. For now anyway………    We sit at a gigantic mahogany table with several fine glasses each and spend two hours getting merry, in both senses. A deceptively naïve-looking girl in her early twenties mesmerises with her precocious knowledge and experience. The “liquid gold” impresses too, though for me only visually as I’m not a brandy drinker. I don’t know the first thing about it so I sit and watch, not even tasting. What a shame! Five beautiful bottles of increasingly mature (and, therefore, increasingly dark) brandies are lined up on a trolley, beautifully darkening from pale butterscotch to deep bronze (1 to 10 or more years of age). Smooth and silky, expensive and alluring, it looks – and smells – delicious as it’s poured.

Most of our party are quite happy to swig back several quarter-full glasses even though it’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon! And why not? I thought you spat mouthfuls out into a tureen at these tastings, but not here! (The company more than makes its money back as most people buy a bottle or three afterwards in the shop, their flushed cheeks and enthusiasm testament to the clever ploy of entertaining visitors with free samples). For sale is a range of brandies including a Kosher variety (!) and, behind locked glass-cabinet doors, a single glitzy, gold-leaf labelled, doe-skin-boxed, crystal and mother of pearl giant of a bottle with a price tag of the Tr. rouble equivalent of just under a grand!

On the final eve, another tasting, this time in a wine cellar with dinner. Very much the same format – ie me left out of a merry evening, basically! The event is slightly spoiled by 2 Trump-supporting American women who for some reason join our group, ruining the dynamic and atmosphere as they show-off about how much they think they know about wine production. After questioning our charming host’s knowledge, rudely throwing doubt on the quality of his Moldovan wines, we tell them they are out of order.  We fall out and end up ignoring one another. So much for that “special relationship”.

The blinginess of the brandy factory pales into insignificance when, the following morning, we tour the unexpected Sheriff Football Stadium Complex, home to the national (Transnistrian) football team. We travel there on a No.19 tram, numbered in memory of a group of nineteen women who, during a serious political skirmish in the 1980s, had bravely resisted invading Soviet forces by forming a human shield. Set in almost 100 acres outside Tiraspol this extensive, vulgar, ostentatious sports facility (we’re told, by the young site guide Irina Bling-Russian – trout-lips, boob job, silver high heels and peroxide hair) was financed by “Russian money”.  You don’t say! There are two 17,000-seater football stadia and several indoor and outdoor training fields all with self-watering, heated pitches, 20 tennis and other courts, Olympic-sized swimming and diving pools, a 5* hotel, a soccer school, on-site residences, a merchandise shop, a Skoda car showroom (?), rose gardens and walkways and a full-sized Swiss Chalet to house, erm………….someone’s collection of birds. Yes, really.

 

Constructed twenty years ago, but appearing pristine, even unused, the complex reminds me of N Korea (though superior quality!). That is, all for show and built to impress with dirty, or at least suspect, money.  An entire room is filled with huge gold-plated cups, representing the national team’s global successes. If, like me, you can’t remember seeing Transnistria featured in any competition you’ve watched or read about, all I can say is that things here aren’t quite what they seem. The largest, goldest cups are engraved with nonsense like “Awarded to the Junior Team 2014 for reaching Round 1”! We bump into one of the first team’s forwards, returning from a training session. He’s from Cameroon.
If you’re wondering whether I’ve now gone beyond even my own limits of exaggeration and are thinking, not unreasonably, “I thought she said “the poorest country in Europe” but all I’m reading about here are caviar farms, award-winning brandy factories and multi-million rouble sports facilities” well, you make a good point. That’s what I was thinking, too, for much of the time. As well as “Eat your heart out, Watford Football Club”.

To bring us back to earth, we head S. in the rain to visit the “Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia” which I mentioned at the start in the bit about language. Folks around here are pro-Russian but culturally and genetically Turkish (another surprise). They’re hanging on with their fingernails to a way of life that seems to be slipping away even as we stand and watch. Christian rather than Islamic, Gagauz rather than Romanian-speaking, this seems to be a sect within a culture within a race within a nationality that has about 5% chance of survival. The people we meet, whilst proud and positive, are also hopeless, isolated, backward-looking and struggling. Following a referendum in 1991 this area voted “almost unanimously” to remain part of the USSR but they never got what they wished, sorry voted, for and remain part of Moldova to this day. The parallels with………er, somewhere very close to home are surprising/frightening/fascinating/amusing/puzzling/worrying/shameful –  tick as appropriate.  (Perhaps, by the time you’re reading this, Brexit will have happened! If not, take heed, folks: Gagauzia has been waiting nearly 30 years for its democratic decision to be delivered).

  

In Comrat, the regional capital, we visit a very old fashioned, even for here, Museum of History and Ethnography (a word to strike terror in any traveller’s heart); entrance fee about 3p, tickets written out by hand and with a million and one artefacts which, to be honest, your local Oxfam shop would turn their nose up at.  Of course there’s a protracted tour by an old lady whose pearls of wisdom have to be translated n re-translated back and forth (our tour guide earning her fat tip here) as she points to every thimble, piece of farm machinery, old book, knitted doll, ancient print, ear of musty corn and funny felt hat, describing bit by bit her people’s 800 yr old history. We try to look fascinated and also not to ask any questions. Then, just as we think it’s all over (she waves goodbye, scuttles off and we heave a collective sigh of relief), we’re ushered into a stuffy, musty room with moquette and chenille covered 60 yr old chairs and sofas and she reappears, in National Costume, as one of her own ancestors! She and the other six women from the village community perform a much under-rehearsed “Culture Show”.  Rather surprisingly, and inexplicably, it’s a pagan homage to ………. the garlic bulb. Yes you read that correctly. (I can prove I haven’t made that up as part of the ceremony involves we tourists cradling a clove of garlic, dressed up in a shawl like a baby – and I have a video).

  

It’s saved from being too embarrassing by its sincerity and the fact that we’re undoubtedly witnessing the death-throes of a once-vibrant culture. As they twirl their spun yarn, crochet, sing their dying-out songs, turn up their little trannie (for those of you under 60, that’s a transistor radio – Google it! – not a cross-dresser) better to hear the accompanying music, it’s hard not to laugh. Or cry.  On behalf of the group I write nice things in their grubby little visitors’ book and am sad not to be able to read the other comments, which I hope are kind.

We pop into a library, sponsored by the Turkish president, and listen to the librarian reading a poem about a soldier’s love for his mother in Gagauz, their “critically endangered” language. I rather meanly wonder what Mr Erdogan’s motives are in sponsoring this place.  Outside, a bust of Attaturk smiles benignly but I think “He must be spinning in his grave, with what E’s doing to his beloved secular country…………”

     

We also visit the offices of a collective farm (“Victory Farm”, what else) – in practice an entire small town – and enjoy, as you do, a Q n A session with The Collective Farm Manager (collectively voted into position of course). Also of course, he sings the praises of collective farming – and “Collective Farming” – its merit, its success, the quality of its produce, its fair wages, the workers’ involvement, the shared-ness, the moral superiority, equality and ideals of it all. It sounds perfect and I’m thinking of writing to Boris to recommend we adopt such methods here when someone asks “How many Collective Farms are there in Gagauzia?” A pause, a shuffle, an embarrassed “Er, only this one.  All the others have gone bankrupt” !  Are you listening, Jezza?

  

The Fortress at Bender, whilst impressively large and historically of interest, turns out also to be completely restored (and so looks like a film set or something from Disneyland). When I ask where the millions of T. roubles came from for this massive project, I manage to work out the answer for myself a nano-second before the site guide says “The work was funded by Sheriff”!

So, there we are, a rather long account of a rather small country but, I hope you’ll agree, a fascinating one.

Postscript:  EU Membership: Full EU Membership criteria, known as the Copenhagen criteria, require aspiring countries to commit to economic, judicial and financial reforms. These include an ability to sign up to “a free-market economy, a stable democracy and the rule of law, and the acceptance of all EU legislation”, not-unreasonable demands I think you’ll agree. But sad little Moldova appears to me to be a long way from fulfilling them any time soon; for a start, it’s 117th/180 on Transparency International’s Corruption Index – my favourite list!  Oh dear…….  Bottom, ie most corrupt: Somalia. Top, least corrupt: Denmark. (Britain? Guess! See below*).

In 2014, among other measures, Russia imposed retaliatory trade restrictions on farming exports from Moldova and suspended 19 provisions of the Russia-Moldova Free Trade Agreement in response to M’s signing of the EU Association Agreement, which speaks volumes.  Interestingly, the aforementioned Mr Dodon, elected president in 2016, campaigned on holding a referendum to cancel the EU agreement – and was in favour of joining The Eurasion Economic Union instead. I don’t know what the outcome was, but wonder if their Parliament refused to implement the referendum result. Can you imagine? Ha ha.

(*11^th, which is OK I suppose, though I’d hoped for better. Perhaps Brexit has affected things……..)

 

 

TRANSYLVANIA: The Good News/Bad News Trip

 

                                   TRANSYLVANIA: THE GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS TRIP

                                               March 2019  Exodus Tours

 

  

Transylvania, which I think you’ll agree sounds romantic, literary and mysterious, is the historic region of the semi-presidential republic of Romania – so-called as the area was colonised by Ancient Romans in the 1^st C AD. In my head and probably, from what I’ve been told, in reality the rest of the country is none of these things but I only visited Transylvania. The country’s modern-day reputation as poverty-stricken and crime-ridden is, I was to discover, largely undeserved; however, behind its physically attractive tourist-face lie undoubtedly dark secrets. I had expectations, as you do when you travel; these were dashed, met, exceeded or contradicted more in Transylvania than almost anywhere else I’ve been.

Before I went, I met a couple of people who’d been and they said very complimentary things about it: mountains, horses and carts,

  

Dracula, bears, Mediaeval villages, forests and gypsies. I remembered the dreadful Nicolae Ceausescu (this one-time Communist country’s notorious leader, 1965 – 1989) and recalled watching a heart-breaking TV film, when my daughters were small, about state orphanages full to bursting with neglected, abandoned, damaged children. What I didn’t know, as you can work out, was almost everything about this unexpected destination. What I learned and experienced when I was there changed my views and understanding, not just of Romania, but of the rest of Europe – its politics, history and character. (As I write, the UK is in the middle – or it might be the beginning, or even the end – of the almighty mess they call Brexit. The EU is a not irrelevant aspect of this story).

Romania, just a 3 hr 15 min flight from the UK, is roughly circular with a lip to the East bordering the Black Sea. The area known as Transylvania (trans – across, sylvan – forest) lies roughly in the middle of the country which is surrounded by Bulgaria (border, the Danube River), Serbia, Hungary, Ukraine and Moldova..

  

Those of you of a certain age will struggle perhaps, as I did, to remember what these places were called, or which larger nations they were a part of, when you were growing up and copying maps of Europe in your Geography lessons. (Those were the days, folks!)  If you imagine pictures in Victorian children’s story books, colourful traditional pantomime sets or illustrations for Grimms’ fairy tales – well, this is what Transylvania is like physically: red-tiled roofs, pretty castles, cobbled streets, dark forests, city walls, wood-choppers (and wicked step-mothers?) It looks gorgeous though appears stuck in a time-warp. Its tourist potential is enormous.

 

It occurred to me what a world of difference there is between island states like Britain and landlocked ones. How tough it must be constantly to be repelling invaders, fighting off enemies, battling marauding armies and generally defending your territory from all directions simply because of the location of your home, village or state. I thought how these things must have shaped Romania’s character in the same way that hard-ruling kings, religious upheaval, land-grabbing dictators, occupying forces and Communism have informed its history.  A long-time victim of Roman, Saxon, Hapsburg and Ottoman Empire building, it has struggled to preserve its identity – and dignity. After centuries of trouble, in 1877 it gained independence from the Ottomans and, in 1989 following a revolution and the overthrow of Ceaucescu, from Communism. Today, this turbulent past is evident in its culture, folklore, language, architecture, politics, religion and national character.

   

The (unexpectedly?) Good News Bit

Violent crime in Bucharest is among the lowest of any capital city in Europe. The country’s economy is growing faster than the UK’s and the cost of living is low. It has produced four Nobel Prize laureates and the 14 yr old Nadia Comaneci, who was awarded gymnastic’s first perfect 10 score in the 1976 Olympics. (I think we all remember that milestone). It produces decent wines, boasts seven UNESCO world heritage sites and is home to Europe’s largest a) mammal, the bison, b) area of virgin forest, c) gold reserves! and d) open air museum. Here we enjoyed a late afternoon wander, admiring the scenery and the feats of engineering that had allowed architecturally-worthy but disintegrating farms, homesteads, churches, schools and the like from around the country to be rescued, transported and reconstructed in this natural woodland setting. (What a great idea).

  

Romania has an extensive rail network, a good road system and a faster 4G speed than almost anywhere. The movie “Cold Mountain” was filmed here. The smoker in our party was delighted to find the price of fags was about a third of that in the UK. It has been a member of the EU since 2007. (Has that surprised you as much as it did me?)

It was early March and Spring was late. The countryside, overwhelmingly rural, agricultural and pretty, was open, unspoiled. Stunning mountain ranges, forests and quaint Mediaeval (and I mean Mediaeval, not Mediaeval-style) villages and towns were the order of the day. Fledgling ski resorts were unexpected.

  

The Carpathian Mountain Range dominated the skyline as well as many of my camera long-shots

  

and there were meadows, clear skies, timber-built farm buildings, hilltop castles, fresh air, impressive churches and, surprisingly, 14th C style 3-field rotation and strip farming. The occasional coal mine or old Soviet cement factory came, like the ski resorts, as a bit of a shock.  Many towns and villages are fortified; most have, within these walls and at their heart, fortified churches which acted as a last-resort refuge from invading enemies.

Everywhere seemed to have an atmosphere, a palpable sense of lives lived and times gone by; some places looked and felt as though their occupants had just fled, leaving behind the trappings of daily life. In Transylvania it seemed as though history was breathing over our shoulders at every turn.

All this is very interesting (I hope!) but I’ll get on with the description of my visit, leaving more facts, some dubious, till later.

Our group of eight made a circular, clockwise road tour starting and ending in the capital. We stayed for one or two nights at a time in well-located, perfectly adequate – even charming – hotels in towns and villages en route. Everywhere was spotlessly clean. (I discovered that, as in many countries – though sadly not my own – in Romania you have to do public service jobs such as litter collecting and road sweeping in order to claim unemployment benefit. I will never understand what argument there could possibly be against this).

  

The tour began with a look around Bucharest, a solid, confident place at ease with itself as a cross between an old Soviet and a 21^st C EU capital: grand parliament buildings, wide boulevards, university blocks, art galleries, opera houses and the like, all neo-Classical or Gothic in style. We wandered about, listening to the tour leader’s chat as he strode along wide grey pavements and crossed wide grey streets, craning our necks to admire and photograph grey balconies and steep grey-tiled roofs.

  

Dotted around, unobtrusively yet significantly, were several ancient Russian Orthodox churches. Their claim to fame, their achievement, is that they were moved brick by brick, sometimes only a hundred meters, to allow room for the expansion and aggrandizement of the city during Communist times. Strolling through grand formal gardens, circling stern government buildings and hurrying past great blocks of public housing, we every so often stumbled across these tiny churches tucked up alleyways or sitting on small plots of land, remnants of their previous lives (garden implements, abandoned bells, a stray cat or two) sustaining them in their new, alien environments.  It was a Sunday. At one little church I was invited to join the pious few at Mass. I stood listening to the Orthodox chanting – the deepest drone of bass voices underpinning the hymn-singing – and the chatter and scuffling as people came and went among the prayer-mumblings, signs of the cross-ings, genuflecting, scarf-adjusting, baby-hoisting and child-chattering. The heavy, sweet smell of incense hung in the air.

  

Outside, I squinted in the bright light flooding the enormous main square, Piata Revolutiei – Revolution Square, of course – with its bullet-pitted flagstones and more recent sense of history.  I imagined the sounds and smells of uprisings, populist rallies, angry crowds and momentous speeches; these echoes were so real and present that I felt I could actually hear them. Suddenly, I realised that I actually could hear them as demonstrators were protesting round a corner!  Modern anti-government protests are an everyday occurrence in these parts. During the rest of the trip I more than once fell asleep to the sound of chanting and drumming and singing and horn-blowing and frustrated demands from crowds in some square somewhere.  Whenever I asked what was being demonstrated against, the answer, always, was “Corruption”.  I wish I’d counted the number of times our guide used this word or had a pound for every time it cropped up in conversation: from the guy at the till to the president himself it seemed that corruption is a sort of national sport, a given, a pervasive unstoppable force, part of the country’s DNA even. The good thing I suppose is that, unlike some of the places I’ve visited, political gatherings are at least not illegal in Romania, though how effective they are I couldn’t determine. (Hopefully more so than the UK’s anti-Iraq march I went on………..)

The People’s Palace, with its inhuman proportions, sits adjacent to Revolution Square – of course – lording it over everyone and diminishing everything in its gaze as it proudly stakes its peculiar claim to being the heaviest building on the planet and the second largest administrative b o t p (after The Pentagon). Conceived by Ceaucescu – who else – after a massive earthquake, its construction gave him the opportunity to complete his vision of grandeur.

Work began in 1977. Taking 100,000 people to build, it’s 12 storeys high, 240 m long (Buckingham Palace is 108), has 1100 rooms and an annual heating bill of £4.6 m.  It contains 700,000 tonnes of steel and bronze, a million square feet of marble, 3500 tonnes of crystal and 900,000 square meters of wood. There are eight underground levels and a nuclear bunker linked to other government buildings by 20 km of tunnels – all this adds up to 365,000 sq m. Each year, the work consumed – disgracefully – 40% of the Romanian GDP.  Very unfortunately, our scheduled tour round the inside was cancelled due to some visiting dignitary’s greater need.  More accurately, the Romanian president Klaus Iohannis (an ex physics teacher and school inspector!)’s perception of his greater need.

  

After Bucharest, pronounced Bucharesht, we visited Sibiu and Sighisoara, then R’s most beautiful Mediaeval town Brasov and the villages of Viscri, Vulcan, Medias, Bran, and Magura. The first three, all typically Transylvanian with their ubiquitous city walls and fortified churches, were ridiculously charming, historic and quaint. There were towers (Sibiu has 39!), traffic-free centres, cobbled streets and squares, guildhalls, colourful buildings and the rest. By now, you’re able to fill in the details yourself.

For me, Sibiu represented the good in everything that Romania stands for.

 

Sighisoara (“Siggy-shwara”), a UNESCO world heritage site, is the birthplace of Vlad The Impaler, a very real 15^th C Transylvania ruler on whom Bram Stoker’s literary and fictitious vampire character Count Dracula was based. (This I hadn’t known).

   

This utterly charming little town, set on a hill, was the most touristy place we visited, although everything’s relative; I’m talking here about half a dozen sweet little shops with a few themed T-shirts, mugs and dolls.  All I could think, as I spun round trying to find the most flattering of very many potentially beautiful camera angles, was “This must be exactly like the place that Rapunzel was kept prisoner, Geppetto brought Pinnochio to life, Sleeping Beauty dreamed away a century and Rumpelstiltskin kept them all guessing. Why aren’t there more tourists?” (But very, very glad there were not!)

 

Brasov, (“Brashof”), first settled by Saxons 800 years ago and situated “between the Ottoman Empire and Western Europe”, is ringed by the Carpathian Mountains and known for its medieval Saxon walls and bastions, the towering Gothic-style Black Church and lively cafes. The beautiful Council Square in the cobbled old town is surrounded by colourful baroque buildings. Once again, everywhere looked like a film set, magical even – especially? – after dark. We didn’t begrudge our guide spending an evening with his fiancee here in their home town which rather bizarrely boasts its own version of The Hollywood Sign. Quite why, I never found out.

  

This being Romania, however, you will know that all is not quite as it seems here in Brasov, as elsewhere. Behind fairy-tale facades lurk dark secrets: this most attractive of towns was where the first mass protest in the history of Communist Romania took place, The 1987 Rebellion. More than 20,000 workers gathered in the town centre to protest against the regime; a massive bonfire of party records and propaganda burned for hours in the city square and live shots were fired.

No-one was killed but there were serious injuries and some 300 protesters were arrested. Although the uprising did not directly lead to revolution (the authorities underplayed its importance) it dealt a serious blow to the Ceaușescu regime and contributed to the leader’s downfall. Mr and Mrs C were executed by firing squad on Xmas Day 1989. The death penalty was abolished two weeks later. (I thought this grisly episode should be in the Bad News section but then realised it shouldn’t).

Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s castle, Bran Castle, is located near Brasov. We did the tour – which is more than Mr Stoker did, writing his tale of Dracula and vampires without ever visiting the place! – on a busy Mothers’ Day Sunday. (The hotel receptionist had given us each a single flower; I got a sweet-scented hyacinth. What a nice gesture).

We climbed a lot of steep steps, ducked under a lot of low doors, nosed around the living quarters (Bran Castle was, in the mid-20^th C, a royal residence and home to Queen Marie whose daughter ran a hospital here during WW2), popped out onto balconies, scrambled up secret stairways and admired tons of mediaeval weaponry, costumes, period furniture, old photos, oil paintings and the views. For us – and the hundreds of local visitors – it was a fascinating, atmospheric place. Of course, it resembled a fairy-tale castle in every way.

   

Prince Charles owns several guest houses in Transylvania, including one in Viscri, another  UNESCO site. Arriving there one (unusually dreary, damp) day was like stepping back several centuries. (Indeed, the village was founded in the 12^th C and not a lot has changed). It was as pretty as a picture: pastel-painted mediaeval houses, small allotments, un-made streets, abundant orchards, dogs, hens pecking at our feet, horses and carts,

  

a fortified church with its fairy-tale tower and view over the countryside, all as photogenic as can be. We had lunch at a homestead-café: log-burning stove, bowls of steaming-hot spicy soup, platters of boiled vegetables, floury potatoes, salad, doughnuts and jugfuls of the ubiquitous Schnapps.

  

The climb to the open-air museum at the top of the church tower was a bit of a challenge afterwards and the lack of health n safety precautions less a comfort than a concern. But we survived, on our way reading a sympathetic letter of condolence from The Prince of Wales (to a newly-widowed neighbour) displayed with other artefacts in a cabinet not unlike my 93 yr old auntie’s. Scattered willy nilly – sorry, “displayed quaintly” – over several floors were old beehives, tools, toys, trunks, cradles, cutlery, dog kennels, farm implements, books and clothing. It was all sweet, authentic and old-fashioned and a stark reminder of how the outside world, which is changing – has changed – almost beyond recognition and for ever, used to be like this.

  

Suddenly, I understood why this sanctuary of a village should hold such an attraction for Chazza, representing as it does all he holds dear. A villager told our guide, “We know he comes here, but we’re not bothered who he is”. I imagined him in his element digging, pruning and pottering about. (The PoW not the villager – he has to make a living. The villager not the PoW). “It’s the last place in Europe that has the same extensive landscape that existed in the 18th century or even mediaeval times. It’s probably why Prince Charles likes it. It’s like the Cotswolds would have been in the 18th century.” John Akeroyd.

  

In Medias we were amazed to come across a dilapidated synagogue. Left to its own devices after WW2, it was like a really, really authentic film-set commissioned by Speilberg, then forgotten about. Bird droppings, splintered floors, peeling walls, decaying pews (movingly inscribed with names of long-dead faithful congregation members), collapsing stairs and ceilings, piles of mildewed clothing, poignant black and white photographs and thousands of musty old books.

 

(I held a 600 yr old, flaky-paged Bible!). It was a sad, poignant, unusual site – and sight. Seven decades ago there had been a thriving Jewish community in Medias but then – same old story – the persecuted chosen people were driven out. Now there are just three, yes THREE, individuals remaining. And yet, surprisingly, an air of optimism prevailed thanks not only to an international group of dedicated restorers and archivists (who, with the financial support of an American philanthropist, are dedicating themselves to the synagogue’s preservation) but also to glorious sunshine.

In Magura, a hamlet miles from anywhere in the mountains, we walked through stunning, quiet as the grave – apart from occasional birdsong and faraway sheep-bleating – scenery

  

before I fell up a step in a café and cracked my knee on an orange and brown 70’s-style tiling floor.

Wherever we went we dined locally, never in our hotels – except for breakfast – which is how it should be. There were hardly any tourists. We photographed everything, climbed hundreds of clock-tower steps, toured guild-halls, sat in pews in freezing temperatures (no new-fangled heating!), gawped at old books, 300 yr old organs, paintings and statues, and admired exquisite stained-glass windows in churches of every size (though not of every style, just Gothic, Baroque and Renaissance).

 

   

We peeked into old town halls, took photos across ancient roof-tops from tiny, lead-paned windows in our antique hotels, ate meals of varying quality served by staff ditto, slept in beds of very varied comfort, complained of blown bulbs, missing towels, over- or under-heating and lack of staff. Most were charming, old and unusual. The hotels, not the staff, ha ha. We went on several walking tours (from graveyard strolls to a full-blown hike – see later) in villages, towns and the countryside. We listened to, and dutifully obeyed, our tour leader – an intelligent, educated, politically aware, 40 yr old bloke who was well-travelled and spoke 5 languages. He looked and sounded like the tough-guy sergeants on those SAS Who Dares Wins TV progs and his very un-PC views, especially about the Romany gypsy population for whom he had not a good word (see The Less-Good News bit below), were at the same time shocking and refreshing.

 

We met, and occasionally chatted with, strangers in the street, farmers, priests, site guides, chambermaids, shop assistants, waiters and one wonderful wine producer, whose generous samples at a tasting session in a cellar one afternoon resulted in rather more raucousness than he, or we, were planning. (I thought you were meant to spit out the mouthfuls!)

The Less-Good, Even Bad, News Bit.  

Sixty per cent of Europe’s brown bear population live in Romania. In the Carpathian Mts we visited a sanctuary, rather cringeingly called “Libearty”, which houses over 70 animals. Supported by, among others, Brigitte Bardot, and set in 170 acres of attractive forest it charges you a week’s wages to photograph the inmates with your camera. (Using your i-phone is free for some reason). Rescued from exploitative, dire circumstances – cages, chains and electric prods in petrol stations and restaurants (whaaat?) – rehabilitated bears now live a peaceful and natural life doing what they were born to do, which is admirable.

On the other hand, there was quite a show of sentimentality and anthropomorphism, such as the naming of individual bears plus graves and headstones for dead favourites. Don’t want to be rude, but we were shown a sad, cleverly-edited film with violin music and emotional, rather than scientific, commentary and the little shop sold heart-tugging posters and soppy photographs of celebrity animal-lovers. This rather undermined their message – and my experience – and did little to help their claim to be a serious concern. Generally, modern practice and 21^st C ideas seemed a bit lacking. Not that I’m an expert on bear-care (obs!) but I am a big fan of David Attenborough and wild-life TV programmes, which makes me as good as! Perhaps I’m nit-picking; most visitors were enthralled and some were reduced to tears. Libearty is doing a good job, I’m sure.

In the last decade, out of a population of 22 million, over 2m (mainly young people) have upped and left Romania to work abroad, thanks to EU Freedom of Movement Directive opportunities. This migration, and its effect on Romania, became a running “joke”: every time we asked why there was a shortage of labour in hotels, on building sites, in hospitals and on shop-floors or why there were no beggars (conspicuous by their absence) the guide’s answer, soon to become a chorus, was “Because they’re all in your country!”  While this was quite funny, no-one was immune to the serious reality that poorer EU nations are losing, have lost, a dangerous proportion of their skilled manual and professional workers to Western Europe, with devastating economic, and other, results. (Unemployment rates, for example, are kept unrealistically low by Romanians in search of work elsewhere). Whichever way you voted in the Brexit referendum, you may not have thought of this, even if you live in an area where you’re surrounded by East Europeans of both the hard-working and criminal sorts.

On village/town high streets there were a few international brands such as Starbucks and Zara but mainly a plethora of small specialist shops as in Britain 30 years ago. Food was OK if you like hearty meals. (One “meat soup” consisted of lumps of boiled pork in greasy water. Someone’s portion had tough cubes of dark-brown pig-skin with wiry grey hairs sticking out!) Locals were a bit wary, keeping themselves to themselves, though most were happy to communicate if you made the first move.

  

Romania is one of the most corrupt countries in Europe, according to Transparency International, despite EU-inspired efforts to clean up its political system. When I googled to find examples there were too many cases to list here! One will suffice: Adrian Nastase, ex-Prime Minister, was convicted in 2012 of hiving off nearly £1m from public funds. (As I’ve written before, Come back UK duck-house expenses scandal culprits, all is forgiven). The country has an “interesting” financial relationship with the EU. Between 2007 and ’17 it contributed 13 billion Euros to the EU budget ….. and received 39 billion in return. This despite the fact that, during that time, Romania’s GDP increased by 60% and foreign direct investment doubled. (Out of interest, the UK’s net contribution in 2017 alone was over 10 billion Euros. European Commission’s own figs).  Recently, presidential adviser Leonard Orban admitted that “a discussion could be had about whether the money had been spent wisely or not”! One of our group was on a mission to take a photo of a Romanian flag not hanging right next to an EU one. She failed. As did I! Interesting……….

Amnesty International has criticised Romania for its prejudicial treatment of the Roma community, which the organisation says makes up as much as 10% of the country’s population. The 2011 Rom. census put the figure at just over 3%. (See “corruption” above). In the country’s defence, it is generally accepted that Romanies, originally from the Indian sub-continent and nothing to do with E Europe until they emigrated there in the 8th C, have failed to integrate. Romany snippet: We drove past what looked like a Barratt Housing Estate – hundreds of detached, brick-built homes sprawling over many road-side acres. On close inspection (guide not needing any encouragement to pull over and make the most of this find) we saw that, oddly, the place was devoid of any signs of life. Guide then delighted in informing us that the houses had been built and were owned by Roma. As we all know, Roma prefer travelling to settling down so, immediately, we all formed the same thought in our heads and were about to ask: “How can they possibly afford to buy this land and build these properties?” when we realised we already knew the answer! (The running “joke” continued).

Other less-than-positives: Human, including child, trafficking remains a problem; low wages; suspicious political activity (though they’re hardly alone there……… that reminds me, it’s a while since I mentioned Donald in my blogs); an out-of-kilter economy (our guide’s 2-bed flat, at 40,000 euros, cost less than his imported Japanese family car, 50 ish grand); an unstable currency (R is not in the Eurozone); endemic corruption (politics as mentioned, police, business and personal) and unsightly and unsafe Soviet housing schemes.

   

30% of schools still have outside loos, nearly a quarter of the population live below the poverty line, there is significant tax evasion and poor health care. To top it all, the Chinese are in there, “investing”. (Is there anywhere China hasn’t got its tiger paws on?) Tourism is yet to take off.

A 6 mile walk across meadow-land and through forests. At one point we were threatened by three enormous shaggy white guard dogs protecting a flock of casually-grazing sheep. The guide told us the dogs were nervous (not as much as we were, ha ha) as, with warming weather, bears were emerging from hibernation! Our guide was confident and experienced but struggled to hold his nerve, and to obey his own instructions (“Stand firm, close together, and don’t look them in the eye!”) when the dogs got close and became aggressive. I think he panicked a bit but naturally he denied it afterwards and boasted at his skill in keeping us safe. Later, one of our party failed to follow orders to keep exactly in line across open ground. He sank up to his knees in a bog which was only funny afterwards.

  

The same group member was accosted one mid-evening on the hotel steps (in the safe and charming town of Sibiu) by a pretty young prostitute. Watched by her pimp from the shadows a few yards away, she tried to relieve our friend of his wallet, luckily in a zipped inside pocket, whilst whispering sweet nothings in his ear and fumbling in his trousers. He said it was an invasive, unpleasant, shocking few seconds. (Yes he did!)

And finally (as someone somewhere used to say): “Romania is responsible for the world’s longest sausage. How long? You wouldn’t believe us if we said 39 miles – but it’s true”.

And finally finally. My favourite details? One, the “Push” sign on a supermarket door and another. “It’s Our Tracey, all that way away!” Grrrr……..

DESPITE THE TITLE OF THIS BLOG, I LOVED TRANSYLVANIA! GO!