Travel

In Dublin’s Fair City

We caught a plane to Dublin from London. Here we had our toughest passage through Customs yet. Admittedly Heathrow is difficult; it’s being renovated and we had to catch several buses to reach our terminal. Also, the Customs woman seemed to think I was on a false passport and fired questions at me: “Do you know anyone in Dublin?” “Yes, my girlfriend is studying writing there at the moment.” “Are you staying with her?” “No, at the Fleet Street Hotel.” “When’s your birthday?” “19th November.” “How old are you?” “69” (Looking at my terrible passport photo) “You don’t look that old”. I felt like being rude, but I’ve made it a rule never to argue with a Customs officer. And I was too tired by this stage: really feeling my age after the long queues and exhaustive bag searches.

statue-oscar-wilde

To make things worse, an American woman with her hen-pecked husband was saying in a loud voice; “It’s all the Muzzlems’ fault, you know!” Once allowed to pass through, we muttered something quickly and hurried in order to put distance between us and the Americans. Luckily, the plane trip was not very long, highlighting the closeness between this tiny country and its one-time nemesis, Great Britain. It’s even smaller than Tasmania.

Kay, my friend from Australia, was there waiting for us. We three hugged and kissed, then caught a taxi to our hotel. Fleet Street Hotel is very central, a block away from the Liffey River and surrounded by pubs with patrons flowing out onto the city streets. Our hotel room was small and plain, with a view onto an eighteen century looking roof area that looked like works had been called off due to lack of funds. We found a pub restaurant with expensive food that was not very good: bacon is on all the menus, but it’s more like bully beef or boiled meat.

Kay invited us for dinner the next evening at her spacious apartment in a Georgian building near St Stephens’ Green area. This is the most attractive area of Dublin with vines spreading out over the facades of the buildings and beautiful gardens and open spaces. Many of the other Anglo type buildings were torn down after the republic was born.

Trinity College

One of the highlights of our visit was being able to see the Book of Kells, which was on show at Trinity College, opposite our Hotel. We were very lucky not to have to line up, since one of Mark’s colleague acquaintances works at the university there. We felt priviliged to be able to see these amazing ancient texts. Also, we were able to visit the medieval library with its fascinating articles hearking back to classical times and before. Mark’s friend told him that all public servants, lecturers and teachers included, have to take a thirty percent pay cut because of the bail-out by Germany. I also noticed more beggars in Ireland than in any other European country we visited. The anti-abortion laws are medieval, and women often have large families. And yet, the country is open to gay marriage, according to my friend: just one of the many contradictions in Ireland.

The Gaol Tour

A must when you’re in Dublin is visit Kilmainham Gaol. It’s where the Easter Rising rebels were executed in 1916, which led to Ireland becoming a republic. I felt terribly depressed afterwards. Like all gaols, even though it’s a museum, it’s depressing, but this one more so because of the executions that took place here. The pretty blond guide dramatised the events,and brought home to us the magnitude of what happened here, but it’s the only way to really understand the “Irishness” of the country’s people. The British leaders at the time, stupidly started to execute the leaders of the Rising. By the time they’d got to twenty, the dye was cast, and the people rose up: the Republic of Ireland was born.

A real pleasure was walking around the city looking at the gardens and streets, often coming across statues and plaques devoted to famous writers and icons. Writers are revered in Dublin. Another must is to hop on a green bus and do the tour of the city, which includes a visit to the huge Guinness factory and various museums, including the Writers Centre.

Dublin Castle was the fortified seat of British rule in Ireland until 1922. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

July 3, 2013 0 comment

Travel Writing

A Travelogue

As I Was Flying…

We just flew over the mountains of Eastern Europe en route to Frankfurt from Dubai. Qantas have teamed up with the UAE airline, so we did the first leg from Sydney to Dubai with Qantas, and the second one from Dubai to Frankfurt with Emirates. I really enjoyed stopping over at Dubai this time, as we were able to marvel at all the strange dress codes in the shopping arcade corridors, and then relax in the Emirates flight lounge until our flight was due. They’re much better than Qantas in terms of service.

Looking down on the snow-tipped mountains just now, I thought of student days travelling by deux chevaux from Paris to Ukraine during the Cold War in 1968; and of how we were stopped from visiting Prague by the Russian troop invasion.

We’re going to have another six hours’ delay at Frankfurt airport before the flight to Dubrovnik in Croatia. From there we’ll be picked up by Suzanna “Queen of the Adriatic” Speech Path Business — and driven to Cavtat. Mark and Suzanna have been preparing this Conference by Skype. The Conference hotel is situated on the cliffs overlooking the Adriatic: “the Mediterranean as it used to be!” I have nothing to do with the Conference, so I just come along for the ride. And the sightseeing and serendipity!

From the map Cavtat peninsula looks like a giant crustacean. And the colour of the sea is turquoise on this map, just like in reality. It’s this colour I remember from those far away days when we camped along the coastal villages and travelled in a run-down small French car: three Aussie girls from Paris with the hood of the car open to let the wind and sun in our hair.

The clouds below the plane now look like whipped cream. Not the sort I’d imagine skipping over. We’re about to land at Frankfurt. Then we catch a Lufthansa Flight to Dubrovnik, another favourite place.

Watch this site!

Dubrovnik, Croatia: part one (thetraveledit.com)
Submission: Qantas bans pork on in-flight menu to adherence to Islam (atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com)

May 24, 2013 0 comment

Travel Writing

Favourite Places in Brisbane

I’d stayed in the Brisbane CBD previously, also in the south-eastern suburb of Morningside, when I used to visit my late brother in Georgina Hostel there. And I’d stayed in the southern suburb of St Lucia at the University of Queensland once. Never before in Toowong.

But my favourite place in Brisbane is South Bank Parklands, just across the river from the Central Business District. I love the fact that you can find a large beach for open air swimming just across the river in a city of more than 2 million people. The weather wasn’t good, but there were still people swimming in the pools there that range in depth from one metre in the children’s paddle areas, to more than two metres in sections watched over by a lifeguard. The Parklands also boast rainforest gardens, grassed areas, plazas, riverfront promenades, a Nepalese pagoda, restaurants, shops, fountains, and busy markets held on weekends. South Bank was opened to the public in 1992 on the site of the former World Expo 88 site.

While my partner was attending a conference south of Toowong, I caught a rivercat northwards along the Brisbane River, which turns like a snake north, south, north, south and north again until it reaches the ocean. I got out at New Farm and caught the next ferry–they come every fifteen minutes in either direction–back as far as South Bank.

After exploring South Bank, I took the rivercat back to the Regatta Ferry stop and had lunch at the grand-looking Regatta Hotel across the road. I’d made the mistake of thinking the weather would be warmer than in Sydney; after all, I’m originally from the New South Wales town of Grafton, 600 km north of Sydney and only 300 km south of Brisbane. It’d always been subtropically warm when I was a kid. So I’d underdressed for this trip.

It was cold out on the River; I was now hungry and thirsty; I ordered a XXXX beer on tap and a garlic pizza. It was amazingly good, although I could only eat half the pizza, and it was too smelly to cart back in my handbag to the less grand hotel. We were staying in the centre of the commercial precinct of Toowong.

When I got back, I read up on Toowong to discover that in 1965 two women, including a certain Merle Thornton, had chained themselves to the bar of the Regatta Hotel in protest at public bars in Queensland being restricted to men only. Merle is the mother of Australian actress, Sigrid Thornton. It threw me back into memories of Dad handing a drink to Mum through the window of the car, while he went back into the bar to drink with his mates.

Another interesting find in Toowong, was coming across a huge tropical fish tank in the Shopping Plaza that looked, apart from this, like any other Westfield shopping centre in Sydney.

I’d been reading about Baz Luhrmann in the newspaper, and the upcoming premiere of his movie ‘The Great Gatsby’. Looking at the fish in the tank reminded me of the scene in his ‘Romeo and Juliet‘ movie of the young lovers first catching sight of one another through the glass and water of a large fish tank with its creatures swimming past their faces seen through the water in the tank.

It seemed weird that I was the only person in the centre staring into the tank at the beautiful creatures and taking photographs of them.

May 12, 2013 2 comments

Emotions and Health Travel Writing

Buddhism for Westerners

In 2008 I attended a Convention in Singapore for followers of the New Kadampa Tradition of Buddhism, introduced to the West by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso in 1977. He now resides at the mother centre in the UK. These festivals are annual events, and I was a novice, trying to understand in more depth what this form of Buddhism is all about. The master, in this case Geshe-la, teaches highest meditation practices and gives empowerments, which must be handed down in a “pure” state by the teachers of the tradition. The title of “Geshe” means “Spiritual Friend” and he is known as “Geshe-la” by his followers.

Monks and nuns of this tradition devote their whole lives to meditation and sacrifice to the spiritual needs of their followers.

October 12, 2012 0 comment

Art Travel

The British Museum

English: The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum. Français : La Pierre de Rosette, dans le British Museum. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I started off in the Egyptian part of the Museum, which houses the largest ancient Egyptian collection outside Cairo, and found myself before the Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta Stone (below) is from the Ptolemaic Period, 196 BC. It was discovered in 1799 at Rashid (Rosetta), a harbour on the Mediterranean coast in Egypt renamed by the French during Napoleon Bonaparte’s campaign in Egypt. It had been moved there in the fifteenth century to be reused as part of a fortress, after Christianity spread to Egypt. It entered the British Museum in 1802 as part of the Treaty of Alexandria The text of the Rosetta Stone is a decree from Ptolemy V describing the repealing of various taxes and instructions to erect statues in temples. It contains the same text in 2 Egyptian languages and also in classical Greek. In this way, experts were able to decode the ancient Egyptian language.

The lion statue in the central courtyard of the Museum once sat at the top of a building and weighs 7 tons. It once had a much fiercer look, with shining jewelled eyes and a fuller jaw. Its softer look appealed to me and reminded me of the lion in the Wizard of Oz.

A two-handled amphora decorated with black figures was made by the celebrated Athenian vase-producer Execias circa 540 BC. It depicts the death of the Amazon Queen, Penthesileia at the hands of the Greek hero, Achilles during the Trojan War. The tragedy of the scene, which represents the couple’s falling in love at the very moment of Penthesileia’s death, is captured skillfully by the artist.

Yamantaka Vajrabhairava is a fierce Buddhist deity for overcoming evil and death. He is a frightening manifestation of Manjusri, the Bodhisattva of Knowledge Tsong Khapa (1357-1419), he became the tutelary deity of the Dalai Lamas and of the de Gelugs Pa schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Here he is shown embracing Vajravarahi, his wisdom partner, representing the spiritual passion for Enlightenment. It dates from the reign of the Chinese Emperor Jiaqing (1796-1820).

The Leyly sculpture (below) of Venus (Aphrodite) from the 2nd century AD, shows the Goddess surprised by a mortal while bathing.

The Gneiss Sphinx (see below) is from the Twelfth Dynasty of Ammenemes IV, 1795 BC. The face was reworked during the Roman period.

From the area of the current Iraq, the ancient statue in blue and gold of a goat eating leaves, is also one of my favourite pieces from the Museum.

From 1500-1070 BC, (Early 18th Dynasty-New Kingdom) royal figures were no longer buried in pyramids. This below is of a queen whose mummified body is inside the rock-cut tomb with the statue on the top. They were found in the Valley of Kings, known as “Set Maat”: Place of Truth.

Aphrodite

September 27, 2012 0 comment

Travel

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