Blame it on the rain

Storm clouds gather in Copenhagen, Denmark

The weather can make or break a place. No matter how majestic, picturesque, or well renowned a place is, it has the potential to fail miserably if the weather is off key.

Daylesford, Victoria – the postcard rolling hills, quaint shops and boutique restaurants. Countryside as seen in a lush period drama. But not so pretty with slashing rain, gale force winds and thunderous grey skies. Unfortunately, the weather helped generate a rather gloomy slant on Daylesford – a grit your teeth, just shut up and like it, kind of forbearance.  My niece and I had some excellent meals, a fantastic time at a Hepburn Springs spa and in general, enjoyed our stay. But we also sighed a lot. We drove to the pretty lake ready for a brisk walk, but instead sat silently in the car enjoying the view through persistent drizzle before driving away for another latte. The lavender farm driveway required a sturdy four-wheel drive vehicle (we didn’t have one) and when we got to the property entrance we discovered it was completely flooded anyway. We were also creeped out by some odd things. At a lovely restaurant there were prints from local artists on the wall. We shared a table with a scribbled ink drawing of ‘Marianne’. Marianne seems to have been locked up in the attic and fed raw tuna and rotten tomatoes. The look of anguish and torture on her face almost put us off dessert. Marianne, beloved of someone, sent shivers up our spine. Then we had to walk out into an icy dark country night, full of whistling winds and unfamiliar squeaks.....

Beijing was equally ‘ruined’ by below freezing temperatures that inhibited walking and breathing, let alone proper, joyful sightseeing (see Beijing Disconnect). But it’s not always the cold that has an effect on your holiday happiness. In the Spanish Sierra Nevada mountains I was on a walking tour and every day it climbed to well over 30 degrees Celsius. Had I been at home I would have been sitting under a pleasant air conditioner sipping iced tea. But if you sign up for a walking tour, you really should go walking. So every day I would slip on my warm chunky hiking shoes, grit my teeth and go out into the Spanish countryside.

It was glorious and fragrant with herbs and citrus trees. The blue sky was grand and overwhelming. We picked our own cherries and mulberries and dipped our grateful hands into cool fountains. But we also walked up a bare and shale covered mountain with the sun beating relentlessly. The back of my legs were so burnt I could only sleep on my stomach that night. My feet were swollen and my head pounded with a killer headache.  The thing that irked me was the British tourists who kept looking at my quizzically and snorting incredulously if I dared to say something mild like, ‘Good God it’s hot’. ‘Surely’, they said, ‘you would be used to this heat?’. Oh yes, I know what this heat feels like – I just don’t like it! Apparently, because I’m Australian, I should be immune to unpleasant feelings of being fried by a demonically hot sun. Surprisingly then, I confess I am not.

Overcast but recognisably pretty - Ponza 'before'

Unfortunately, I think the rain is always worse that the heat. When the sun grills you, at least you know it’s summer/holidays and that’s the proper way of things. In Ponza, it was summer but it rained in biblical proportions. Mum, dad and I had arrived for an overnight stay on the little island just down the ‘road/sea’ from Capri. You can see it can’t you – white washed stone, idyllic blue sea, Campari and lemonade. We sat on low wall at the beach, watching kids kick around a soccer ball and eating cheese and bread. Ah bliss.

The next morning it was grey. Nothing serious. Nothing to worry about.  Just overcast. We managed a little sightseeing, and then, just before lunch, it started to pelt down. Bucket down. Niagara Falls. It  creating spontaneous cascades down the quaint white washed steps. We collected our luggage and headed towards the ferry terminal. The ferry was at least two hours away so we huddled together under a veranda wretchedly wet and gloomy, the rest of our sight seeing written off as just too hard. The restaurant who’s veranda it was took pity on us (or, if your cynical, spotted an easy sale) and opened early just for us. We sat contentedly eating steaks and translating signs for the lovely restaurant owners until it was time to head to the ferry terminal. They kindly offered us giant black plastic rubbish bags, so we scampered across the terminal carpark in our impromptu raincoats, luggage flapping, arms waving, shouting in consternation. I tried to tip toe through the water but I looked down and realised it was half way up my calf anyway. At that point I laughed my head off, gave in and splashed happily through the rain.

Ponza 'after'. Barely recognisable. 

The thing about extreme holiday weather is that it’s association is never forgotten, good or bad. Never mind the spectacular scenery, the picture perfect setting, I’ll remember Ponza as the island on which we could have relaunched Noah’s Ark.

Rome | Home

Colosseum, Rome

When I visit Rome, I have a sense of being home, of coming home. Why this should be is curious. I do have an Italian passport but no Italian would ever regard me as such. Ever. I accept that, I understand. I am Australian first.

Perhaps I feel a sense of comfort because Rome looks so familiar, even at the first visit. Almost everyone in this world would have some sense of what Rome looks like. It’s large. Rome is so large in many dimensions  – time and space. But also less conventional ideas of dimension like memory and connection. There are so many layers of history in the buildings  and under your feet and they’re not neatly layered one on top of the other but merged together to create one overwhelming present. The Roman practice of rarely knocking anything down but rather, enterprisingly, using the existing structure as a foundation creates so many mesmerising tableaus – the modern day apartments merging with a classical structure like a vine that hugs a trellis.  

At the centre of Rome (for me) is the Colosseum. It’s broken, but it’s solid. I’ve only ever experienced Rome when it’s shimmering hot and the cicadas are deafening. Walking towards it from the train station, the Colosseum emerges from bright heat, curved and grey against an achingly blue sky. You try to shut out the tourists masses (of which you are one) and picture the gladiators and lions, etc., a task made harder by the fact that there are chubby modern day Italians wielding plastic swords and smiling for the cameras. Inside the Colosseum it’s ugly. It’s ugly because it’s all cavities and unfinished walls and yawning arched doorways. But it’s beautiful too. Because it’s standing, because it’s a real thread of connection which we can follow, hand over hand, back into the past. Because the outer walls are delicately layered like wedding cake tiers. Because the colonnades are lofty and grand. Because there are gasps of astonishment and smiles of incredulity. People stand around gazing and shaking their heads (and laughing and taking silly photos). It seems as though once you have seen the Colosseum, you can say you’ve seen Rome.

The British Grand Tourists of the 18th century were equally enamoured of Roman history but their experience was raw. The Roman Forum was referred to as the Campo Vaccino – the cow field –because indeed it was full of cattle and goats and rubble and rubbish. Rome was dirty, dusty and hot, very hot, when compared to London. When I see Rome, I see the togaed Senate, but I also see pale young Englishmen, dressed in wool suits, pulling charcoal and sketchpads from their satchels. They must have walked around the Forum with their superior swagger and sophisticated sensibilities, dutifully appreciating the heck out of every monument but without really seeing them. I see them wrinkling their noses at the unfamiliar, head constantly dipping into a guide book which told them exactly what to see, what to avoid and how to feel about both. I see their shocked and disappointed faces when they look up– ‘oh, there are live Italians and they’re lazy, poor and trying to swindle me of my money!’.

On the contrary, Romans seem enterprising, forthright and self-assured. The Roman character was crystallised in my mind when I watched a scene unfold in Piazza Venezia. A clean cut kid, maybe ten years old, was sweetly playing classical music on a violin, busking for change in prime tourist hunting ground. The carabinieri came by, had a quiet word and gently asked him to move on. I was too far to hear why – perhaps he didn’t have a permit? His reaction was comical and shocking at the same time. He started shouting and waving his hands around, angrily, with vehemence. His indignance – he wasn’t doing anything wrong! His disdain for authority (so young!) his passion (so vibrant!). His cunning and entrepreneurial air! But the carabinieri were firm. Surprisingly patient, but firm; completely accepting of his outrage and indolence but casually threatening too. Move it. Now.

View from the Duomo, St Peters 

I can sympathise to a degree though – with being shocked by the present. I remember climbing the 320 steps to the top of St Peter’s dome, my body bending to accommodate the curvature of the structure. Inside the dome it was light and surreal. The fantastic height already takes your breath but then you shake your head in astonishment as you realise that all the cherubs, saints and angels you first viewed from far below are not merely painted (as if that was easy) but in fact, depicted in complex and detailed mosaic. Outside the dome Vatican City was laid bare for me. The colonnades and streets formed an easily recognisable key shape – the key to the church, Pope and heaven itself. My head was full of Michelangelo and Bramante, of 16th century Popes and political religious power struggles. I stood for a moment of contemplation alongside my friend, eating sweet summer peaches and nectarines, utterly at peace and content.

And then, strangely, I hear cheap dance music. Someone up there, an Italian, was blasting bad Italian pop on a little radio. I was immediately annoyed and outraged – such a modern intrusion on such a spiritual place and moment! But then I laughed. This is Italy today, not two thousand years ago, not six hundred years ago and not even two hundred years ago. I was being one of those an insular and blind Grand Tourists I mocked, and I had no right, no right at all. I had to accept all of Rome. We sometimes think time has stood still. We don’t like to remember that Romans need to embrace and respect their past (I don’t think they can’t avoid it), but somehow they move forward too. We need to move with them.

Group tour. It’s not a dirty word. (Or even a dirty phrase made up of two otherwise clean words.)

Yes travel is all about novelty, adventure, pressing back the boundaries of our ordinary lives, meeting new people and discovering new things. Why isn’t that possible within the safety of an air-conditioned coach? It doesn’t have to be all umbrella wielding guides, generic food and fifteen countries in nine days. There are some tremendous experiences to be had within the confines of an organised schedule.  

Small is delightful

 

A suspect gaggle of tourists in Macau

When researching our Canadian holiday, my cousin and I honed in on the phrase ‘small group’. Twelve max. Great. A personalised, four-wheel drive around British Columbia. We waited patiently to be picked up on the first day, were warmly greeted by our jovial guide and led to a van. An empty van. ‘Are we picking up the rest now?’, we asked timidly. ‘Nope! It’s just you two this time round. We’re going to have a whole lot of fun’. Big grin. Teeth. My cousin and I looked at each other a tad nervously – was this perhaps a kidnapping instead? Should we ask for ID? And we were also a tad disappointed too. This concept of ‘small’ just seemed a little too small.  

It turned out to be one of the finest tours I’ve ever experienced – back roads, introductions to locals, getting to know whole families, and dinners and movies that weren’t part of the program. It was very much like driving around the countryside with well informed and well connected friends. We were eventually joined by two other Australians from a rival state. The lovely and easy going Canadian guide was constantly taken aback by our light hearted by ruthless and scathing banter about football. And I don’t even follow football. It’s just the Australian way.

A walk in the country

Walking tours are like therapy in the sunshine. Hours of meandering along, getting to know yourself, each other and plenty of time to confront the big questions of life. There’s bonding and a slow focus on every hour of the day. Lovely. Of course, that’s the ideal. That was the Spanish Sierra Nevada mountains for me – I read books on my white washed, wrought iron balcony, danced around my cool tiled lounge room and ate mulberries and cherries right off the tree. Sangria, sunshine and good fresh food. Bliss.

I confess, it wasn’t ideal on the day it was 38 degrees Celsius, when I struggled up a shale covered mountainside and severely burned the backs of my legs. It definitely wasn’t ideal. There was little dancing after that. But overall, walking tours are slow and intense – in a good way! You don’t see a lot of a country but what you do see is authentic and concentrated.

Day tour

Short and sharp, this is the perfect way to politely acquaint yourself with a city fast. It only takes up a couple of hours in your day, you learn a bunch of stuff and sometimes they’re free. Travelling on my own it has been the perfect way to meet folks. From one such two-hour tour of Chinatown in Singapore I met a fellow Australian, who invited me to lunch and introduced me to a fascinating American cancer survivor/writer/actress, and later another friend of hers who lives in Singapore. The next day we visited other sites, hung out in my suite at the Marina Bay Sands, went to high tea at the Raffles, cocktails at the Fullerton and then, finally, for dinner on Clarke Quay.  And I thought I’d be on my own for my birthday!

The “noble” solo travel experience can be a quiet and lonely one. When you’re travelling on your own, the day tour gives you a chance to talk to people without making any commitments. This opportunity to flirt a little, to go out on a date but not give your phone number at the end is perfect for commitment phobes.

 

 

If you're going to be herded like a gaggle of sheep, it might as well be in a rural setting.

(Sierra Nevada mountains, Spain)

 

Contiki/ Topdeck

Failing all other civilised options, you can fall back on the tried and true – the debaucherous, raucous, clichéd, obvious and tactless Contiki or Topdeck.

Yes, you have to get up at the crack of dawn and eat stale bread rolls with jam. Yes, you have to slouch in a coach, half asleep and bored for hours each day. Yes, you will have to stay close to a loud and fearless guide who carries some sort of beacon (umbrella, flag, etc etc) and herds their flock of sheep safely through piazzas and churches, markets and museums. There’s petty but tearful arguments about the front seats, there’s ruthless time keeping to stay on schedule and, in that big crowd of people, there is, without doubt, going to be someone who irritates the crap out of you.

But you can also be anonymous and blend in with the crowd. You can let your hair down and really revel in that anonymity – be someone else for a little while. You can still challenge yourself and you will definitely learn something about yourself. You can meet people from many different countries and background and if you ask enough questions, you’ll learn something cultural and thought provoking. But you will only get bite-sized, pre-packaged pieces of countries – high in sugar and fat and alcohol.

There’s nothing essentially wrong with this. Will you have a great time? Probably. Will you remember Ireland? I certainly don’t.

 

Maybe just a little slice - travelling and food (or food and travelling)

Outdoor dining: Clarke Quay, Singapore

Food and travelling go hand in sticky hand. It doesn’t have to be high end or even particularly exotic (though it does seem to be more acceptable to spend a disproportionately large amount of cash on dinner when you’re travelling than it does on any given Friday night at home – see ‘'Two girls'). It’s just lovely when it helps you connect with a place and with the people in it. In Hong Kong, my friend and I stopped to buy pepitas and marvelled at the fact that this was common in three different cultures (Chinese, Venezuelan and Italian) and that something as simple as a dried and salted pumpkin seed could make three disparate people smile and chat. Aw, see – so warm and fuzzy!

When travelling, however, there’s often a tug between wanting to try the local cuisine and opting for the safe and familiar. When it’s tripe and offal, sometimes we flinch a little. When the local cuisine is pizza and gelati, it’s not such a great tussle. Although when I was with a group of folks eating pizza in Venice, we munched on the thin crust scantily clad in tomato, cheese and basil in silence.  None of us wanted to say what was really in our hearts – the pizza was rubbish.  Yeah, yeah we were in Italy but the pizza was rubbish.

A little piece of Mickey at
Hong Kong Disneyland

It is, however, the thing you have to try. Each place has one of these ‘things’. Peanut butter and jam on thick sliced white bread in Canada was surprisingly heart melting. Sangria was festive in Spain, Hainese chicken was delicious in Singapore, and the chocolate cornetti and lemon granita were decadent in Rome. But the borsch in Russia made me frown, and the prospect of frog soup in Singapore made me twitch (I didn’t actually get to try that one). I did try snails in France and in my dad’s village in Italy (predictably garlicky but surprisingly hard and nuggetty), and how could I have left Scotland without trying a little pile of haggis.

But it’s the homemade meals that count the most. That’s when connection with place really kicks in. When staying with my aunt in Formia, Italy for a few weeks, food was always quite an item of discussion. First, there was the giant box of Cornflakes she showed me, smiling knowingly, when I arrived. She thought that this was compulsory Australian breakfast food and it was her way of saying welcome, and here’s a little piece of home. Then she decided that actually, it would be far more lovely for me to have a squidgy warm sugared donut from the local bakery for breakfast. She would walk down there before I woke up and then present it to me with a strong espresso. Heavenly. I mean heavenly. However, one cannot eat a donut the size of one’s face every day for weeks without feeling a little unwell. I had to go on a donut hunger strike before she would really take no for an answer.

At my aunts, we had feasts for lunch – exquisite local seafood, oversized bowls of pasta with fresh sauce, and buffalo mozzarella and prosciutto with crusty bread. But one of my favourite dishes was her tomato salad. It was just tomatoes with slithers of onion, basil, salt and oil. I questioned her time and again about her secret ingredient that made this tomato salad so mouth watering but she would just laugh. I snuck into the kitchen one day to discover her splashing some water into the salad. ‘Ha! You caught me!’ she said. ‘It’s just water. I add a little and it draws more juice from the tomatoes.’ She shrugged, almost apologetically.

So simple.

But, back home, every time I make that salad (and yes, I add a splash of water) I remember the warm summer sunshine of Formia and I connect.

What food reminds you of place?

Niagara Falls please, with lots of cheese

The Whirlpool....at your peril

Niagara Falls is an enigma. On the one hand here is a place of natural wonder. There is an enormous river, a fierce whirlpool, and not one, not two, but three amazing waterfalls. On the other hand, there is the dreaded and hard core commercialisation. Concentrated around the waterfalls are an enormous adventure park, a fierce ferris wheel, and not one, not two, but three colourful casinos.

The best idea is to let go. Just let go. Embrace your inner cheesiness and have some plain old good fun. It’s good natured Canadian cheese. The commercial element may be hard core, but it also comes across as an earnest commitment to make Niagara Falls as darn pleasant as possible.  

Niagara Falls is also perfect. I would have to say perfect in slightly disquieting way. Lawns are manicured, flowers grow regularly and with just the right happy shade of violet. There is no litter, there is no traffic chaos. There was a particularly unnerving corner cafe, Applebees, which ran a friendly and welcoming message on loudspeakers mounted outside. The message was something along the lines of ‘Please, come on in! We’ll welcome you like you’re the returned prodigal son and try to make your dreams come true with pancakes and maple syrup’. Everyone goes about their day in a friendly and orderly way. And did I mention this is Canada – stereotyping I know, but everyone is easy going, smiling and helpful.

You have to visit the Falls. (You really can’t avoid them. Let’s face it, that’s probably why you’re there.) Your options for visiting are surprisingly vast. They are, of course, milked for all their worth, but they are worth it. Waterfalls are just running water, really. But what Niagara makes of them commercially is pretty impressive. Along the river bank downstream, you can gaze transfixed at the Class VI rapids and imagine yourself being violently swept away on a tiny rubber raft. You can press up against like-minded tourists in the crowded tunnels set behind falls – yep, to view rushing water through tiny reinforced windows. If you’re adventurous / crazy, there’s a cable car that will swing you perilously over the Whirlpool – a roiling, seething bend in the river. Or you can even enjoy a decidedly damp (and far more sedate) re-enactment of the Falls’ creation in the interactive movie show ‘Niagara’s Fury’.

Perfect town. Disquieting.

The highlight, however, has to be the Maid of the Mist boat tour. Since 1848, passengers have donned blue plastic raincoats, drifted past the American Falls and crept right up to the base of Horseshoe Falls. (The cheese here involves resembling a posse of Smurfs. I’m only 5ft nothing so this analogy is particularly apt.) A journey of a few minutes, the boat chugs confidently up to the Falls, turns around and just powers the motor against the current so that people can enjoy the unique perspective. The noise is astonishing. I was soaking wet in an instant (despite the Smurf coat) and barely able to open my eyes against the spray. Try, try to take photos.

The tendency is to laugh nervously because, in its direct line of fire, I could feel the unbelievable and destructive force of the water. The Horseshoe Falls is not the tallest in the world, but it certainly is one of the most powerful. Surprisingly, of the sixteen people that have deliberately attempted to go over the falls (many in the requisite barrel and one with their pet turtle, yes, a turtle), eleven have survived. When you’re trapped in this vortex of liquid power, it’s terribly hard to imagine intentionally throwing yourself over the edge. Let alone with a turtle.

When you’ve experienced the Falls in every legal way possible (it is now illegal to attempt a tumble –without a license), there is plenty more to do in Niagara. There’s the butterfly conservatory, printery and newspaper museum, historic McFarland House, an adventure park, a Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum, nightclubs and casinos.  There are two minigolf courses – one Dinosaur themed and the other glow in the dark – gaming arcades, a haunted house, a Strike bowling alley and tourist shops galore. All this squeezed into a town you can just about walk end to end, if you’re really keen (and fit). Just remember to smile and say ‘cheese’ and you’ll have a wonderful time.

And if you’ve truly had enough of the decidedly good intentioned but hyped up, glittery, shiny tourism bauble with jacked up pricing you can just sit by the waterfalls all day long, soaking up the spray. And it won’t cost you a cent or stink of cheese!

Souvenirs

Lovely but useless Murano glass.
It's not even real Murano glass!

When purchasing souvenirs on holidays, most of us lose our heads. We just want to capture the moment with something tangible – a little bit of sparkly magic we can cling on to when we go back to our routine lives. Even though we know, most of us know, that souvenirs are inevitably rubbish and carry no magical powers whatsoever. Oh no, we tell ourselves, I’m not buying plastic trinkets made with cheap child labour. Oh no, I’m going to buy something real, something authentic. Say, a tiny Murano glass figurine from Venice that costs half your shopping budget. That sits on the shelf. Collecting dust. Made exclusively for the tourist market.

I’ve bought a stack of useless things both for myself and for others, in the spirit of souvenir buying. In Canada I loaded up on bear poo (chocolate coated sultanas), maple leaf key rings and maple syrup soap, butter, candles and tea. In Spain I bought hand painted plates, in Russia I bought lacquered trinket boxes and in every country I’ve visited I’ve collected a pen, key ring, postcard and/or magnet. I bought $20 worth of bead jewellery in Brazil and paid $60 to get them treated at Customs.

I’m ashamed. I’m ashamed when purchasing my cheap Taiwanese import spoons at the counter, but tell me what else I can give my aunts. Let’s face it, they’re convenient and don’t take up any important space in your suitcase. In Hong Kong my niece actually spent seven days and nights searching for damn tea towels for her aunts. They were, incredulously, nowhere to be found. Cheap jewellery, pashminas, imitation handbags and purses aplenty. But tea towels, forget it. She ended up finding one at the airport as we were preparing to head home.

Perhaps my parents take the biscuit in terms of impractical souvenir buying. My Italian parents living in Australia visited their homeland in 1977. As gifts for themselves and other family members, they brought back with them four (that’s four) La San Marco espresso machines from Milan. Orange and chrome. Four. My father estimates a good 6 kilos each. In one suitcase. My parents were clearly well ahead of their time with regards to home espresso machines, but right up there in the ‘crazy’ category as far as souvenir buying is concerned.

I scrounged around for a photo of this coffee machine that used to sit in our kitchen. I failed to locate one, so I casually asked my aunt, one of the espresso machine recipients, if she had one. She had one better - the actual coffee machine, still in plastic. I took this photo last week. Needless to say, my aunt is a bit of a hoarder....

You think this is just a 21st century malady? Not so. On the Grand Tour in the 1700s the English hoards invading Italy packed up extraordinary booty to take home. Keep in mind, those on the Grand Tour were mainly male 20-somethings with money to burn and an aching desire to prove to those at home that they were now learned and cultured young men. They took home plaster busts and portraits of themselves sitting idly by classic Roman scenes. They carried off with them an enormous amount of sculptures, medals, paintings and books. Some of them started museums. Possibly the most disturbing to our modern sensibilities – they chipped off hunks of marble from the Roman Forum relics that they would later convert to a lovely coffee table.

But like us souvenir suckers today, the English regularly fell for fake antiquities. Enterprising Italians quietly rustled up some half decent marble Roman torso, scrounged up some suitable limbs and then tinted them all with tobacco water to age them consistently. ‘Come this way sir. Of course it’s real!’

I had my own Grand Tour / crazy souvenir moment when visiting Hobart in Tasmania. I walked into an antique map shop and stopped dead in my tracks. On the wall were four framed engravings of Rome in the style of Piranesi. They were at least half a meter in length and height. Each. They were straight out of the 1800s and I instantly fell in love with them. I recalled my parents epic journey with four coffee machines and thought, I can’t really buy four framed 19th century engravings can I? No, I decided, that’s too silly. My souvenir from Hobart will be restricted to fudge and chutney from the market. And maybe a hand painted bookmark. But no 19th century engravings.

Six months later, home in Adelaide, I was still thinking of those engravings. They called to me like no other souvenir ever had. (Except for maybe a pair of Prada sandals in a Hong Kong outlet store that I still dream about now and then). So I called the store and, yes, they were still available. A few days later I was hanging them on my office wall. Best souvenir I ever bought. 

One of my beautiful engravings. No regrets about this souvenir.

Beijing disconnect

Temple of Heaven

When I meet a new city, I’m so willing to fall in love with it. I try to give it a warm hug and ask it to bear its soul immediately. I’m demanding. When perhaps I should hang back a little and let it come out from behind the curtains in its own time.

I went to Beijing wide-eyed and eager to swoon but left feeling a little rebuffed and disorientated.

When my friend Michelle and I arrived, mid-November, mid-afternoon, the sun was an amazing golden ball, hazy but intense. It was cold. There was snow and ice on the ground and tree branches. The air felt crisp and fresh but surely that lovely hazy light was just pollution?

We were staying in a rather lovely hotel but it sat on a ring road – a vast, multi-laned ring road with no pedestrian crossing in sight. We gazed into the middle distance from our windows and wondered how anyone ever managed to get to the other side. There was an observation tower seemingly only meters away but after much deliberation we decided it just wasn’t worth risking our lives for.

Like the beacon in The Great Gatsby....

We took a short walk outside, laughing at the minus zero temperatures for the first few minutes, and then grimacing and struggling to inhale. We just wandered down the street and in and out of little shops. Certainly we didn’t feel unsafe, but the curiosity and interest from passers-by was not playful. It wasn’t tempered with the innocent joy of the unknown and the shy possibility of connection. It was, instead, a little suspicious and closed. Even though I tried to grin pleasantly at everyone (I admit, that may well have been the problem).

The communication breakdowns we found endearingly funny were just sources of consternation to service staff. At the hotel we ordered something like a Bailey’s on ice, and a vodka and lemonade. The waitress returned with a Black Russian and a Kahlua shot in a martini glass. But no smile.

Michelle and I took the inevitable Great Wall tour. It was only a small group – a very quiet Indian couple, and an American Chinese couple with elderly parents. Our Chinese guide, Eric, was lovely and engaging and helped us believe we could still fall in love. The tour group itself was from one of Dante’s circles of hell. The one were people responded to questions in monosyllables and didn’t bother to ask any in return. The one where people on holiday were depressed and depressing, uncommunicative and closed. These were folks who audibly sighed with joy and relief, and pounced eagerly, when fries were brought to the table at the end of an excellent Chinese lunch. Even, to my dismay, the elderly Chinese Americans.

Michelle and I drank all the alcohol at the table – our glasses, the Indian couples’, the elderly Chinese parents’ – and left to wait outside.  

Maybe it was the cold. Beijing was cold. The cold was sometimes unbearable. My fingers hurt, I couldn’t feel my face well enough to speak. I was standing, walking, waving but only because my brain was still functioning and sending the correct messages to my obedient limbs.

Finally we get to the Wall. It is an impressive and beautiful structure. It’s just a wall but it’s built across mountain tops and the idea of hundreds, thousands, of Chinese building this enormous monument by hand, brick by brick, of surviving winters in the dark and freezing watch towers is truly staggering. I struggled up the wall – icy steps and gale force winds. I lost my balance and slid to the ground. I stepped carefully and all the while thought of those who built and guarded it. What resilience, what fortitude. And what misery and despair they must have felt, surely.

The next day, our last in Beijing, I was restless and cantankerous. Like a selfish traveller I was looking for the familiar. I like to think it was in search of connection, but maybe it was just a comforting blatant search for the familiar. The city seemed soulless, the people hesitant. We had met a few warm people but we were kept at a distance. When I like to be close. Of course, that’s my problem, not any other nation’s.

So we headed for the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven. You can find any information you like on both of these astonishing places – go look for it if you like – but not just yet. In a moment. Because one of the most interesting episodes for me was the walk through the park to get to the Temple of Heaven.

Here was life. A sheltered gallery where groups huddled together playing cards, slapping them down, jeering and triumphant or frowning and defeated. There was karaoke – a serious looking sing-off between two men. Another woman putting her whole heart into her song and all the expression into her face.

And then there was an open air ‘disco’. I love music and I love to dance. So I watched transfixed at a group of folks gathered together in an open space in the park. All these people, young and old, dressed in heavy coats, moved in various ways to loud speaker music. It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Sunday. Minus 8 degrees. A middle-aged couple danced a tango so gracefully and beautifully you’d think they were competing. They were so earnest and light at the same time (remember, minus 8). Everyone was beaming, content and patient. It wasn’t a wild party; it was a sedate but passionate appreciation of dancing and music.

I smiled. I smiled and smiled. Strange how these few minutes influenced all my perceptions. I knew this, I knew dancing. And I knew community, and togetherness and warmth when I saw it. Even if I didn’t necessarily feel welcome to join in, that was ok. I’d witnessed it. That was enough to connect.

Even if just for a moment, only connect.