Istanbul

Leaving Adam and Dez in Bar, Montenegro, I jumped on an overnight bus to Ohrid, Macedonia. The beers we had whilst watching the football before the bus didn't help me sleep as planned. My eyes were closed for most of the trip though, so I didn't see anything of Albania.

Ohrid, my first taste of Macedonia, was a pretty, old town on Lake Ohrid, which connects Macedonia with Albania and Greece. There's not much one can do at 5:30am, so I just wandered around until I eventually found a little cafe that opened earlier than the rest, and accepted my euros. I needed, and indeed ordered a coffee, but the local men were sitting around drinking their tea. This was the first time I saw this kind of hanging serving platter: the owner would load it up with tea and coffee, then jump on his bike dangling the platter wih one hand to go and deliver them, presumably to other shop owners starting their day. A nice community feel.

I jumped on a bus that afternoon to Skopje, capital of Macedonia, where all I did was have a good feed. The highlight was a kind of cottage cheese cooked in a dish with capsicum, tomato, 'erbs and an egg on top. I then got straight back on another bus, this one being an overnighter to Istanbul. I actually slept quite well on this journey, though if I learnt a lesson from spending two nights on buses, it's to change my underwear in between journeys; or at least wear something more comfortable than jocks.

Would I have done anything else on my first day in Turkey other than get a kebap? Of course not! Just a basic one, for 2TL, chicken on a roll with tomato, lettuce and seasoning. I'm sure there's entire websites dedicated to the kebap, so while I like the idea of speaking all day about the kebap, I'm not going to spend the time researching it. I can at least tell you about the ones I had though. A great, chilli chicken kebap in pide, another chicken in pide, and an 'iskender' (aka Bursa) kebap, which is a doner kebap on a plate with tomato sauce and yoghurt on top - this one was a bit dissapointing actually, but the venue I chose was the reason. Holy cow! Only 4 kebaps! Well, I'm obviously going to have to sample a couple more doner kebaps before I leave Turkey. I should perhaps make a quick comparison of the kebaps I had to their Australian counterparts. In Australia the 'kebab' is always enormous - I can only justify eating them when I'm sloshed - where as those I've had here are a more sensible size. Also, the meat I've had, and especially seen here, seems to me a much better quality than the uniform density doner meat in Aus - here you can always see the layers of actual meat.

Ok, so where to start with Istanbul? Again, you can do your own research, but it's a city of close to 20 million. It straddles the continents of Europe and Asia. It's been around for aaiiiges, was once the capital of the Byzantine empire until the Ottomans took it and made it the capital of theirs. How can anyone possibly absorb all that history?

Istanbul is expensive, at least compared to the Western Balkans I had been travelling through. I spent a fortune in one day seeing three of the main sites. That's a poor way to talk about such amazing places though - first of all was Topkapı Palace, home to the Ottoman Sultans for centuries. The interior was beautiful, with a lot of tiles, in particular delft tiles, indicating a progression towards Western influences. The 'Summer Pavilion' was also the place where the Crown Princes were circumcised - I loved the contrast! The court of the concubines was less interesting to look at than to think about the goings on. I believe one Sultan fathered more than 100 children! One highlight for me was seeing the Imperial Council, where the Ottoman Viziers held heir meetings, and the metal grill up on the wall behind which the Sultan sat and observed. I'd heard about this grill, this place, where so many shaping events in the Ottomans history had taken place. It was amazing to think about how all those things happened, right there, just a few hundred years ago!

The Basilica cistern, built by emperor Justinian in the 6th century, was a nice cool place to visit in the heat of the day. Amazing that something built so long ago, had been used to store the cities water for so long, and is still in such good condition today. Also built by Justinian was the Aya Sofya, originally as a church, then converted into a mosque, it was then converted into a museum by Ataturk. I've never been inside anything like it. The enormity of the main dome and the whole inner space just takes your breath away. On another day, I headed out to the Chora church museum, which had some pretty gnarly Byzantine mosaics - which had been covered up by plaster for hundreds of years when it was converted into a mosque.

While out at Chora, I treated myself to a fancy lunch at a restaurant called Asitane. They claim to have carried out extensive studies of traditional Ottoman cuisine, and go about recreating them. Some stuffed vine leaves (with sour cherries - is that what made them Ottoman?) were average - not worth their price. But the main, a melon half stuffed with mince, rice, almonds, pine nuts and currants, was fantastic, especially the cooked bits of melon sitting beside. Other meals of note included a couple of fish sandwiches down by the water, on the 'Golden Horn' - apparently an Istanbul institution. Fresh fish, grilled, chucked on a roll with some onion and lettuce - excellent. There are plenty of veges around, which I found great, but the problem for vegetarians is they are always served with meat!

I never got to a 'meyhane', where mezes and raki are the order of the day, but I did drink enough raki to determine it's just a Turkish version of ouzo, pastis, or any other aniseed liquor out there. One raki fuelled night started with some expats I met in a brew pub, in which I was ostensibly sheltering from the downpour outside. One member of the party was an expat Yank, who co-ownded a hostel in Istanbul - he'd been living there for five years on tourist visas, walking across the border to Greece and back every three months! We ended up at a bar with some great live music. It was (I guess) somewhat traditional, but they were all young musicians, obviously passionate, and had a great energy about them. At one stage they sung in that wavering way in which the call to prayer is made five times a day. It really captured me, as did hearing the call to prayer, though I'm sure it would wear thin after awhile.

One morning I jumped on a ferry, and for little more than a dollar crossed the Bosphorous from Europe to Asia. Cool! I searched out a recommended coffee shop, where I had a mastic turkish coffee (interesting) and also a regular turkish, also good. The Turks don't actually drink much turkish coffee - they appear to prefer their black tea, çay. It is always served in little tulip shaped, stemless glasses. My guts decided they weren't overly happy with me in Asia, so after walking through the neighbourhoods north to another terminal, I got a ferry back to Europe and chilled out awhile. In the evening I visited the çemberlitaş hammam, which was designed by Sinan, a famous Turkish architect who also designed the Süleymaniye Mosque among many other things. I received a vigorous scrub down by a Turkish man, followed by a wash (with a lot of bone cracking, the good sort) then a massage. I'd never felt cleaner! It was a fabulous way to wind down after a couple of busy days.

On the road with Norm

Norm has a chequered past. He originates from the UK; I'm not sure of his precise lineage but he is of the Ford family. His recent history is quite tumultuous, in particular the replacement of his engine in Port Grimaud, France.

I was pleased to make the acquaintance of Norm in Zadar. He provided plenty of comfort with 3 of us on board. He wasn't a huge fan of the hills though. The Bastow-pioneered way of travelling up inclines was to 'just tractor'. It was actually a real pleasure to pop him into 2nd gear and just mosey on up the hills.

Norm sure saw some great scenery in the last coupla weeks we were travelling together. The Adriatic coast was breathtaking; one could not decide whether to gaze out to sea or look up into the precipitous mountains.

The back road from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik was a real gem. It started with a AU$0.60 espresso (for serious). It continued through a series of luscious green valleys, speckled with limestone cliffs and outcrops, then opened up into some 'proper' mountains, some with snow atop. Norm was happy uphill as long as he was just tractoring. I was astounded by the scenery. I had no expectations - all I knew about Bosnia was the little I knew about its conflicts - so I was taken away with the beauty of the countryside. At a roadside lunch stop I looked at all the ridgelines above me, and I though how great it would be to go hiking here. No crowds, and much cheaper than Western Europe. The daydreams were somewhat quelled by the ongoing existence (so we had been told) of land mines in Bosnia.

Down out of the mountains, a policeman in the form of a Bosnian Jean-Claude Van Damme pulled us over, eventually pointed to my bare feet and the front of he car, and asked for 20€. When I walked over to their car with a 50 in my hand, he pulled an enormous wad of cash out of his wallet (is that your lunch money officer?), and got 30€ change ready. I proceeded to ask for a slip of paper, hoping they'd either not bother wih the bribe whoops I mean fine at all, or at least make it legit. They deliberated for some time, wrote me a slip of paper, and instructed us to go back to the Gacko post office to pay. Which we did: 15€, the correct conversion. During this time, they also felt the need to keep all three of our passports.

Returning to the police on the road, said BJCVD was going nuts and pointing at the front of the car. We had no idea what we was banging on about, but eventually figured out that our lights had not been on when they should have been. Well, this finally explained one half of the initial fine, but now they wanted to fine us again for the same offence! I just sat by their car, acted polite as I could, and sat there moving my hands and pointing and all that, until he eventually gave back our passports and told us to keep going. All in all, a loss of and hour or two's time, but at least we injected 15€ into the Bosnian economy rather than pay for a months worth of coffees for BJCVD and co.

Down at Dubrovnik, we paid a fortune for the only camp ground around, but I would not have skipped a visit of Dubrovnik's old town for anything. Dubrovnik is an absolute jewel. As Branka had suggested, right up there with Venice. They seemed similar to me in several ways: absolutely lovely, but I couldn't spend too much time there unless I was rolling in cash, and there with a partner. Dubrovnik fended off the Ottoman Turks, and many other aggressors, for centuries, and remained its own city state for a remarkable amount of time. When you see the city walls it's easy to imagine how they managed this. I sweet talked my way into a heavily discounted student ticket, and spent a couple of hours circling the walls.

The following days were spent at a more relaxed pace, with another night in the south of Croatia, before entering Montenegro. We knew nothing about Montenegro, but all three of us thought that they seemed a mostly unhappy (outwardly, at least) people. A few of them did open and smile once we talked a bit. There is obviously a huge amount of money going into Montenegro. This is evidenced in all the buildings popping up. We drove straight through the larger town of Budva - it looked disgusting. Any charm it may have had is being eaten up by the consumers desire for more, bigger, better. By chance, we happened across a lovely little campground away from all the Paris Hilton look at me's, where we spent a couple of nights. It was holiday mode - lazing around at the rocky beach, with all the Montenegrans, Serbs and their deck chairs. We saw next to no foreigners in Montenegro; most other countries have plenty of travelling Euro's in them (e.g. Germans on the Croatian coast!)

From Montenegro it was time to say farewell to Norm, and thus Adam and Dezarae also. We'd only been together for about ten days, but on account of them being held up for four weeks to mend Norm, they'd missed out on more of central Europe than they would have liked. So while they are ferrying over to Italy, I am continuing east.

A change of mode

Falling in with Adam and Dez meant that we were now all travelling in 'Norm', which they'd driven thus far from the UK. We took it very easy on our first day together - they'd been on the move for a few days, covering a lot of ground in order to catch up with me. Adam and I went for a long stroll throuh the little village we were in, observing how just about every house was growing a combination of produce. A swim in the sea was a nice prelude to dinner, which was cooked in Norm and complimented well with some drinks I'd brought with me for the occasion.

We made three stops on our first day on the road. Zadar was a beautiful place, set on a mostly flat island, but was very touristy. Sibenik was a gem, a conglomerate of narrow laneways on a fairly steep hillside. We caught a boat that night from our camp site across to Trogir. Trogir was similar to Zadar in being an old city on a flat island, but to me had a lot more charm. The laneways were narrower and less grand. We had a nice dinner that night, ostensibly for Dezarae's birthday, the highlight of which was a black (squid ink) risotto. It's on the menu all down this Adriatic coast, but one we had more recently proved how bad they can be.

Split was next on the itinerary, the major city of the region. In the centre of town is an old palace that dates back to the roman era. It's quite well preserved, and was a pleasant place to stroll around within. I got some dried figs from the market - they use beam balances and weights to weigh everything! A nice touch, but I'm sure many a tourist gets stung.

We stayed at a camp ground right by the water, not far south of Split. It really is an incredible coastline. The sea is punctuated with islands and jutting peninsulas, then turn around and limestone mountains rise up hundreds of metres, often in striking ridge lines and sheer cliffs.

We went away from the sea after this. The morning started with another sour cherry strudel - they're everywhere, and fantastic. Then we crossed the border into Bosnia and Herzegovina. First stop was Mostar, which had a beautiful old centre - though a lot of it is rebuilt. Shrapnel wounds on the buildings are a very common site. It was quite touristy actually, and my thoughts were that seeing something first hand is always different to the opinion you form of somewhere from the media.

In Sarajevo the next day, seeing men cut the grass with a sickle was to me an image and indication of a country still 'catching up'. The tram ride into town was interesting, observing the people as well as the buildings outside, some intact merely covered in shrapnel wounds, others damaged so badly only a skeleton remained, and brand new German car dealerships next to it all.

The city still has a lot of beautiful old buildings, but shrapnel wounds are ubiquitous. Observing all the mosque's, churches and synagogues next to each other goes some way to explaining many of the problems that have arisen in the region. I did a tour that focused on the most recent war, but it didn't provide a great deal of insight. I, of course, went to the place where Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. I saw a couple of Sarajevo Roses, which are particularly large shrapnel wounds in the ground that were filled in with a red resin. Apparently a famous poet labelled the people of Sarajevo as roses. I felt very uncomfortable taking a photo of one of the more public ones - I'm sure a lot of locals would be offended at the tourists interest in such horrible events that were so recent. But personally, I only wish to gain some understanding of what it must have been like, which is a difficult thing, having grown up in such comfort and safety.

Croatia, climbing, and a kitten's best friend

After a few days in Slovenia, the weather proved itself to be the driving force in my decision making. I sadly dropped any ideas of hiking in the Julian Alps, and instead jumped on a train to Croatia. In Zagreb, the capital, I walked my way through the rain to a hostel that was just off the main square.

My hopes of catching some museum/gallery time went down the drain - it was a Monday and most of them were closed. Instead I enacted that favourite pastime of mine. Walking, a lot, or at least until I began to saturate, all around the city. The old city was really beautiful, and could justify a lot more time in better weather. As with so many cities over here, there was a great, indoor market in the centre of town. I had an espresso in a tiny bar in the corner of it. It was all of about 8m2, filled with locals, all of whom were smoking. You can't capture that in a photo.

In the afternoon, a bunch of us from the hostel went to a local brew pub to watch the football. What else to do on a rainy afternoon? The beers were ok, the food hearty, and the company entertaining.

Myself and two Canadians headed to Plitvice lakes the following day. They were quite stunning, but like Iguazu falls, I couldn't help but be put off by the hordes. We chose a longer track, partly to get away from all the people, but found ourselves wondering 'where are these lakes then?'. We were at least following a marked path, but when we finally came over a rise, we were greeted by a view of fields and a few houses rather than any lakes! It ended up being a nice opportunity to stroll amongst some rural Croatian houses; one had their own hams curing outside. It was one of many indicators that people in this part of the world are quite self-sufficient. We made it back to the lakes without too much hassle, and got a bus down to Zadar, on the coast.

The next morning, from where I was staying, I got a local bus to the terminal - but I missed the stop. The bus driver was rather humoured by this, and at the outskirts of town where we had ended up up, pointed out some wartime remnants. A destroyed church there, the tank that most likely did the damage there, bomb shelters there, all amongst peoples houses. He said that though Croatia is now a much improved country, it is only really the youth that are free from the war. Those that were in it, such as himself, who had been injured twice in seven years of service, could not easily forget these things.

After this I managed to make it out to Paklenica national park, where I got a nice view out to the water (and imagined myself overwatching the trade route that went through there in the middle ages, as the sign instructed me to), before heading up to the climbing areas. It was all quite spectacular, steep limestone cliffs rising out of a narrow gorge, and much more to my taste than lakes and cascades. I fell in with a jolly bunch of Bulgarian climbers from Sofia, and got a couple of nice climbs in before hitch hiking back to Zadar.

Back in Zadar, wondering what I would do with myself that evening, I had the pleasant surprise of seeing Adam and Dezarae as I walked out of my room. We had plans of meeting the following day, but they had pushed on through Slovenia to arrive and surprise me that evening.

Never go to Slovenia

I was in a terrible state when I arrived in Ljubljana - whatever throat infection I had had robbed me of my voice. Luckily Branka, a friend I'd met in Argentina, did most of the talking.

My first day there we jumped in the car and drove a whole hour to Trieste, Italy. A 1€ mortadella roll from the supermarket was as enjoyable a lunch one could ask for, and a macchiato afterwards from one of illy's own cafe's (they're based in Trieste) was the best I'd had since leaving Aus. I must confess that the coffee's I was getting in Melbourne before I left, and what I get from my favourite cafe's in Sydney, are far superior to my taste buds to what I've had so far over here. But with this point it must be remembered that where I had been getting coffee's in Aus were the 'crema de la caffe' - the typical coffee's from these places was very rich, syrupy espresso, where as the roasts over here (so far) have been more mellow and rounded. And before anyone feels the need to attack me over the above comments, I think an important difference to note is that you're likely to get crap coffee in an overwhelming majority of cafe's in Aus, where as in Italy the median coffee quality is going to be satisfactorily high. The price of coffee also reflects a more historical, ingrained coffee culture in many of these euro countries, where you can get an espresso for around AU$1.50 - this should be ubiquitous.

We only had a short wander around Trieste. The piazza was quite grand, but the waters edge was mediocre, the city's prominence as an inustrial port city shining through.

Next stop was Koper, back in Slovenia, all of about 10 minutes away. It's another old Venician city, yet distinctly different for all of it's proximity to Italy. Of note was that it used to be an island but is now connected to the mainland. The main, old town consists of three main streets - I walked most of the city in 2 hours - but it's really lovely, all narrow, winding cobblestone lanes.

Only slightly further down the coast, we parked the car and walked around to Piran, another of Slovenia's three coastal towns. It was absolutely beautiful. Of course it was touristy, but only slightly so, it felt very casual and relaxed. We grabbed some take aways and enjoyed a beer up on the hill by an old citadel, with a view to the Italian coast line in one direction and the Croatian coast in the other. Seafood for dinner, right by the water, wasn't exorbidantly priced at all, and it went down well with some local Malvazija.

In Ljubljana, Branka's place was only 10 mins stroll from the city centre, which itself is only 20 mins walk across. It's a beautiful little city, with an extremely laid back casual feel - a rarity amongst European capitals - though it's population is only around 200,000. It just has such a great atmosphere, with plenty of bars lining the river; there are also some wonderful markets that are a fixture every day of the week. I can also say that I have never seen a greater concentration of beautiful women anywhere else in my life.

We went for a short day trip to Bohinj where I refused to pay 2.50€ to see a natural waterfall in a national park, but some barley stew 'with sausages' for lunch - a traditional Slovene alpine dish - was fantastic. Lake Bled was spectacular, but unfortunately the sun was nowhere to be seen. We watched Slovenia play USA in Bled. I particularly noted that noone clapped when USA scored - read what you will into that.

And that was pretty much Slovenia. I would have stayed longer for some hiking in their beautiful alps, but the weather has been incredibly average, so instead I've gone to Zagreb, capital of Croatia, for some culture (yes, I am having beers with a concentration of anglophiles). I am indebted to Branka, for putting my sick self up and showing me such a great side of Slovenia. So - Slovenia in summary? Well, you can't beat it really. An eclectic mix of Mediterranean, Continental and Balkan/Eastern Europe, all of which it borders. It's so nice and quiet compared to everything else 'round here'. So make sure you tell everyone, never go to Slovenia, stay well away, and it may maintain some of it's charm.

Ever the optimist

I flew with Air China from Sydney to Frankfurt. The flight was surprisingly cheap, especially given the time of year, and the fare also included one stopover in Beijing. Arriving in Shanghai, we were lucky enough to spend a substantial amount of time on our feet thanks to a requirement of having to go through customs, rather than simply transferring straight through.

Our good luck streak continued when we were given the opportunity to watch the start of the Socceroos vs Germany game. This came about because rather than jump straight back on the same plane we'd arrived on and set off within the planned hour transfer time, we were delayed by seven hours due to inclement weather in Beijing, our next port of call. I didn't see the whole game, but did get to see the second goal, which will surely be one of the best goals of the Cup.

This delay meant I missed my connecting flight to Frankfurt. Dealing with Air China was a pain. Several of us had been booked through on the same flight to Frankfurt. Your typical airline would notify you before you disembark what you have to do in order to continue on, but not Air China, oh no. I could say though that the headache involved in dealing with the uncommunicative Air China was good preperation for what to expect upon my return to China in August.

Given a further eight hours to wait until the next flight to Frankfurt was a perfect opportunity to really appreciate the architecture of Beijing airport. It really is an incredible space. I got a quite comprensive view of most aspects of it in the hours wandering and sitting. Some congee went down a treat, too.

By the time I got on my flight to Frankfurt I was beginning to realise that 30 hours of air conditioning (and counting) is not good for us humans. I like to think that this observation merely furthered my preference for the natural world over the built environment. I should point out that my time at Beijing airport also gave me a chance to go outside and breathe some, uh, smog.

Not having my own movie screen for the 10 hour leg to Frankfurt provided an opportunity to draft this post. Great.

I won't say anything about the disgusting consumeristic nature of all the airports I went through, because that would just put too negative a spin on this post. Nothing positive I can say about it really. Maybe: "good to see the economy's going strong!"

And then Germany. Ah, familiarity. How easy it was to be here, just another western country where most people speak English. How lazy of me! It's brought back the 'language guilt' though - I hate having to ask everyone if they speak my language, seeing as I don't speak theirs.

I spent the night in Frankfurt. At a comfortable hostel a stones throw from the station. My perception that euro hostels are full of Australian guys who's primary interests whilst travelling are getting drunk and picking up, reinforced while at the reception/bar, was somewhat dispelled when I discovered my room mates to be a South African teacher and a German fella who was jetting off the following morning to St Petersburg for a chess tournament. Out on the street, World Cup fever was evident at all the bars, each one of which had a TV facing onto their outdoor seating. I liked that the Turkish restaurant was broadcasting Turkish commentary, the French hangout French (bien sur!) and I think I saw an Italian joint at one point.

I'm now staying with a friend in Ljubljana (Solvenia) after getting a train here from Frankfurt. It feels good, after three days in transit, to actually feel like I'm at the start of my trip.

A year in a minute or two

Following straight on from my last post: was a period of rest and recuperation. I had two physio appointments a week for around 3 months. I couldn't do much - at all - which I was ok with. In hindsight I didn't read nearly enough books. One highlight was when the scar was healed enough to actually submerge my hand in water and give it a good wash - several weeks without washing a body part is a long time. Now, it's back to more or less normal, albeit with quite a scar. I tried tying my shoe one handed the other day but failed - it's amazing how quickly some things are forgotten.

Being back in Sydney gave me a chance to be inducted to The Epic BBQ. It is an event that has turned into something of a tradition, involving a BBQ at Kim and Lyndal's house where all guests are asked to bring something, be it anything of their choosing from a dish to cocktail ingredients, along for everyone to try. No, it doesn't turn into a day of degustacion, but is much more reminiscent of La Grande Bouffe - minus the hookers.

I've been getting into my beer much more than my food in the last year. I've steadily been working my way through a plethora of interesting craft beers, mostly from Aus and NZ but also abroad, and I have also started home brewing. So far so good - but there's so much more to be learnt, and much improvement to be made. At times I almost wish I could get rid of the beer quicker so that I can justify a new batch (anyone want to share my company and my home brew? I can't just palm the beer off alone....)

Once my hand hit the three month mark, I was given the all clear to get back climbing again. I haven't gotten as much in as I would have liked, but have still had plenty of great outings.Though with all this beer, food, work and travel interest I find it too easy to forget how pleasurable a day on the rock is.

With my hand mostly mended, I had no more excuses to not be working. I picked up a surveying job with an old employer, close to home, a few days a week. The casual roster suited me, as I still had the odd physio appointment, and was partaking in weekly Spanish lessons to boot. My situation wasn't enlightening, however, and when an opportunity arose to get back to mine surveying, I took it.

It was this work that has kept me busy for about the last twelve months. It was a role which was convenient to me: NSW mine sites, using my registration for mostly short-term work, and a flexible roster. I (in my typically unrealistic, dreamy way) foresaw my time divided evenly between work, climbing, and Sydney. I did get a lot of free time in, which I made the most of with climbing trips, Sydney time, Epic BBQ's, a Melbourne visit; but after awhile, whilst working at a mine near Parkes, I decided that rather than take a holiday, I'd resign and take an extended holiday.

Which brings us to now. I jet off this Sunday, first stop Ljubljana - where I intend to learn how to pronounce the name of Slovenia's capital!