The Last Post

As our last post we wanted to share with you some of our notebook pages. We found drawing an amazing way to really look at a city or a building or a moment for a long time, to enjoy it and to share it with the kids around you who have been staring and trying to get a peak for the last half hour anyway. It was a way to offer something to those around us without being the tourist who takes and leaves.

We are incredibly lucky to have meet such amazing people and places and then to be able to come back to the beautiful shores of New Zealand, quite the culture shock but a culture we love and have missed. See you all in the flesh real soon, thanks for writing and reading!

arohanui

Holly + Scott

 

Santiago y Valparaiso, Chile

 

Santiago is a place of many memories, some fond and some challenging. It’s also a place of good friends. Our friend Nano met us at the airport, we met in Chile while I studied here on my exchange 4 years ago, and he then came to NZ for an exchange too so we got to know each other well. His family welcomed us into their home. The night we arrived we found that the family are all musicians so we have had a big jam together, really fun. Nano’s mother is an artist and designer so she showed us her painting studio and her design work and enjoyed a great chat together on the roof of their inner-city apartment.

Half of our friends here are in the middle of finishing their final year architecture projects so are understandably very busy, they had a hand in last week which allowed them to spend some time together. We took up an invitation to our friend Cristian´s for an asado (bbq) is his beautiful house in Las Condes, at the foothills of the Andes with our other friends Conti, Margarita and Bernadita.  Exploring the city has been fun, including many of our old hang out spots, it has been very nostalgic like stepping back in time 4 years.

We’ve had a few chances to hang out with our good friend Margarita. Her family have also been very welcoming they had us over for dinner and had us out to their beach house yesterday that is just North of Isla Negra spending our time strolling on the beach and exploring a bit.

After a couple of days in the coastal port town of Valparaiso enjoying the sun falling on the colourful walls of the city we returned to Santiago with a hectic schedule of people to catch up with before we go on Friday, it has been amazing to see old faces again and to renew our worldly friendships.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

After having visited briefly 4 years ago and experiencing a slice of Buenos Aires culture we decided it would be a good spot to dwell for a while. A city rich in the past, at the turn of the century Argentina rivalled the wealth of the states but years of corruption and questionable economics lead to a huge financial melt down in 2001 when their peso was released from its fixed rate against the US$ and allowed to float, but it sank. All this means that Buenos Aires has the infrastructure and presence of a European city but things cost about a half what they do back home, so an amazing place to be for shoestring travellers. So we spent three weeks here, soaking up the environment indulging in cortados (espresso coffee) and media-lunas (croissants,) tango in the plazas, antique markets that stretch the length of the grid and the new wave of great art and design in the city.

After a week of roaming around on our lonesome we meet up with Sam, Judith, Hannah and Susanna all from NZ and created somewhat of a posse for the coming 10 days. This involved renting a beautiful apartment and drinking enough red wine for the line of bottles to stretch from the kitchen around the corner to the corridor. We explored most corners of the central city by 100 year old metro and bright orange bikes, as a pack we were quite the sight.

We also made a good friend with a lovely young lady (Alix) from Mexico studying her masters in BsAs and she allowed us some insight into the city from her perspective. We made empanadas at her flat/flamenco studio and delighted in her clear and beautiful Spanish. We disbanded as a pack and went our different ways on our worldly voyages

Iguazu, Argentina

Iguazú promised to be a natural wonder to behold, something with the shear force and energy to make ones mind slip into a meditative state of wonder. This attraction lead us to chose two 20+ hour long bus rides over of a short flight on our way to Buenos Aires in order to experience this natural phenomenon.

Set in the dark forest straddling Brazil and Argentina we came across completely foreign creatures who make their living on the highs of the cataratas and the constant stream of tourists and their sandwiches.

We took the top walkway first which lead us around the brink with the water beneath our feet. We traversed over the small waterfalls on the fringe before the full panorama opened up slowly to give us our first glimpse of the scale of the falls.

Standing right above the gushing water was pretty mesmerising. Next we took the lower route which had a different perspective of the panorama and then led us under the spray of one of the big falls, we offed our clothes and drenched ourselves in the flurry of water, a truly exhilarating experience.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

After 11 months on the global road, getting to Rio was an exhausting affair. The added challenge of Portugese, landing in Sao Paulo world’s third largest metropolis was cause for some headaches, but buses and metro stops later we found ourselves on the road to Rio.

We arrived in synch with the celebrations of Brazilian’s, winning the right to host the Olympics in 2016, so it was appropriate to dance the night long on the cobblestones under the city’s old aqueduct to the live, jiving, samba beats.

The next day we explored the city from the beautiful bohemian streets of Santa Theresa to a breathtaking modernist concrete cathedral and then to the café and market lined streets with samba beat backdrop. With not enough inside room for party people things inevitably spill on to the streets. Rio’s energy is infectious.

We walked from Copacabana to the famous Ipanema beach, moody skies did not hold back the beachgoers from another celebratory olympic beach boogy.

We left the following day while we still had a little money left.

Peru

After three flights we landed in late night Lima. The unfamiliar scale of the big city hit us quickly in comparison to Antigua. The next morning we wandered the streets and found our good Wellington amigas Jessie and Clare with whom we shared the next several days with travelling the south coast. We left the cold city smoggy for the blue-skied desert, with our NZ pack in full force we reminisced a little, took a long bus or 3 and ate a splash of marmite.

First stop Paracas National park, a marine wild-life reserve birdy, fishy and extraordinary.  We hired some bikes and cruised (and slogged) our way through the desert landscape to where the sandy dunes meet the wild west coast. When we arrived we ate some more marmite.

Next stop was the archaeologically significant, ripe with souvenirs town of Nasca. Home of the Nasca Lines = enormous geometric patterns and sinuous figures etched into the sun burnt desert surface, some as old as 900BC. Once again the great ancient cultures baffled our brains.

A long trip back to Lima, and a farewell to our compadres saw us to the airport again bound for hip swingin quick steppin Rio.

Antigua, Guatemala

We collected some amazing memories from Antigua in the short month that we lived in the beautiful Guatemalan city. A city whose streets are pieced together from cracked, pastel, plastered walls,  ruins of spanish influenced iglesias and cobbled streets.

Our apartment was a bit lavish, a gorgeous colonial number with timber ceiling and shutters, and a shared internal courtyard. Right on the streets edge the horns and hollars of buses and bus attendees at Central American volume, provided the soundtrack to many nights and early mornings in our abode…. a culture of noise.

Antigua is a small city surrounded by volcanoes in all directions – its intimacy may have been the reason why it stole our hearts so quickly. We spent a month here filled with 72 hours of spanish lessons, 50 hours of graphic design work, 6 hours of salsa and 12 hours of gigging in  two of our favourite bars. With a peaceful integration of tourists, latino and indigenous folk in this city, the vibe was creative and of mixed cultures and we are leaving many friends behind.

JP’s rumbar was our second home fueling us with education, great blues, and some sweet sweet New Orleans cuisine. Also JP’s the man.  http://www.academiacolonial.com

Guatemala

Happenstance and similar intentions of fleeing the rather frightening Belize City, landed us with Max from St Louis and road tripping across the border into Guatemala. The dense jungley landscape and welling dark skies made for a dramatic backdrop as we battled the metal roads.

Convincing our new compadre that it was worth his while to come to Tikal, we got a ride the whole way to the amazing and mysterious, ruined Mayan city.

Tikal First impressions: Indiana Jones 4.

Magnificent temples had been exposed with other smaller structures still jungle covered, most of them we could climb, with others crumbling under the weight of time. Some of the stone and plaster structures are as old as 700BC with others being added to until 900Ad, and their composition within the city was a fantastic reminder of the existence of Mayan people and the prominent aspects of their daily lives.

We stayed for a few days on the island of Flores in Lago de Peten Itza. We meandered through its narrow laneways and grid of pastel coloured, spanish colonial houses. The island is small with an amazing view across to smaller settlements in dense flora. We had a lot of rain in Flores, the kind that wells up in the heat of the morning and then crashes down in the afternoon. The locals here are really lovely and accomodating of the tourists, they gather in the town square every evening where they sell fruit and icecream, play basketball, play music at central american volume (!:)!) and let off explosives (We are still trying to figure out how the novelty of this hasn’t worn off…)

We moved to Antigua, a beautiful colonial town in the valley of active volcanoes, it is seducing us enough that we have moved into an apartment here for a month and are about to start spanish classes.

Already we can feel an amazing integration between foreign settlers and Guatemalans here and growing modern cultures of coffee, food, music, design and art. Guatemalan business owners that aren’t selling useless crap is an exciting and reassuring prospect for Antigua! Our amigo nuevo owns a bar and spanish school here where we will be playing gigs weekly for a bit of money but more importantly possibly the best meals in the city. We had our first show last night – a 2 hour set reaching to the far corners of our repertoire, but a great time.

More news from Antigua soon!

Yucatán, México

avocado???!!!

Ferry to/from peach heaven (isla mujeres)

We arrived abruptly into the gulf of mexico and flexed our spanish with the immigrations officers. It was 8pm Friday night, we decided upon taking on the mission of getting from the airport into town, across town to the ferry terminal, across the Caribbean Sea and to some place with a roof before everything closed for the night and all in Spanish. We succeeded. We found ourselves in the coolest hostel in Isla Mujeres and proceeded to drink icey margaritas in the humid heat of the night and make friends with a sterling Spaniard.

isla mujeres, nice neck cord

The next morning we awoke to realise that we actually were in Paradise, the turquoise waters, coconut palms scattered around water caster-sugarlike sand. We soaked it up! The following weekend was spent revelling in this splendor, we expanded our friend group to citizens of the US, France and Mexico, yay. We ate at the local restaurants, rode bikes around the island, hung out with the iguanas on the most eastern point of Mexico and played some tunes on the beach in the warm night air.

Tulum beach, view from the ruins

Atardecer en Isla Mujeres con Arianne

Atardecer (sunset), holly dunking scott

Then everyone went their separate ways, as did we. We made our way back to the mainland and south to Tulum, a city famous for its beaches and Mayan Ruins. We checked out two of the ruins, one on the cliffside of a beautiful beach and another enveloped by dense Mexican Jungle. They were nice to see, we resumed our drawing of monuments which was cool, it’s a great way to really observe instead of brushing over such splendid architecture. We will go snorkling the cenotes (water caverns) before heading south to Belize! Signing out!

Cobá Maya Ruinas

120 steps up, resting and smiling

Vancouver, BC, Canada

We arrived in Vancouver to the spring sun and falling cherry blossoms and more great family, we felt good about the prospect of this city being our home for the next four months. Bob and Wendy (holly’s Uncle and Aunty) kindly took us in where we lived with them and their two year old (yellow lab) in the beautiful tree lined streets of Kitsilano.

We looked about for some summer work, Holly found a job managing the cafe in an art gallery and eventually ended up curating a very successful spectulative architecture exhibition there. I looked for work in the archifield but eventually gave up and found a casual job fundraising for Red Cross on the streets of Vancouver which had the bonus of at least 45mins of aerobie frizbee each day! My kind of job!

Sonia, Gina, Holly Cafe for Contemporary Art

Aerobie and the Red Cross boys

Once we had our jobs in place we were ready to find our own place and we were exceptionally fortunate to find a great free room in an apartment right downtown, with Vancouver’s west end at our fingertips, beaches, parks and sushi close at hand. Tim Beals landed back into our lives as he made the move to his other homeland, and it sure was a pleasure to have that time together with him. We managed to rustle up a great network of friends, some of whom I hope we will see down south for our wedding!

Our Pimpin 80s Downtown Vancouver Apartment

We didn’t manage to get out of the city much, we’ll have to come back to see more of the countryside, but Wendy and Bob shouted us a trip out to Tofino on Vancouver Island, the Westernmost coast of Canada. There we enjoyed the wild and NZ west coast reminiscent beaches, went for walks in the Cedars, Hemlocks, Pines and Fir trees. We also got to check out W+B’s new house there which was looking like a exemplary cedar home with immaculate craftsmanship.

Summer brought the Vancouver folk festival where we volunteered (Holly serving drinks to the musicians and me cleaning up rubbish and sorting recycling, who won there?!) in exchange for free tickets to the acts. We also had many a fun time having sneaky drink fueled jam sessions in various parks across the city, some grand memories folks.

Vancouver Folk Fest !!

Four months flew by and before we knew it we were moving out of our apartment, having farewell parties and dinners and flying away ourselves to continue our epic journey in the sun soaked regions of the Americas.

Nb. We owe a huge thanks to Wendy and Bob, your generosity is so appreciated, we love you guys!

Home away from Home

The Day of the Techni-Coloured Sky

H + S happy in Canada

New York, USA

New York by snowy spring!! -We called upon  Diva, a friend we met in Mumbai, India, to stay at her apartment in central Manhattan. She is a surgeon and was working night shifts so we barely saw each other apart from a few early morning crossovers. We wandered the grid mostly. Central Park, Broadway(the real one), 5th avenue, WTC site, Brooklyn bridge, Prospect park in Brooklyn, took a free ferry to staton Island where you get great views of the Statue of Liberty, Empire state building, Chrysler Building (ironic because Chrysler is currently going down the gurgler). Exhausting our bodies not our wallets… After traveling India for so long we found our niche and friends in the Indian and Pakistani street vendors more than anyone else in the city. There is good falafel to be had here.

We surprisingly had a few kiwi friends to visit, an  old school friend of Holly’s,  Helen who is working there as a fashion designer, who took us out to dinner and a great little speakeasy underground bar (underground both figuratively and literally). Also Katie, Holly’s old flatmate from Wellington who is working for NY University and taking a creative writing paper. We went to visit her in her home in Brooklyn, and had a picnic in the park,  it was very pleasant and Cosby-esque over there. radical.  And Joseph, Scott’s old flatmate had just moved to NY and has scored himself some high paying computer software job, we went out for lunch together, it was great to see him! He is a genius.

Ontario, Canada

Ontario! Welcomed with great family, Tim Hortons and  a bit of old lingering slightly smelly spring snow our Canadian leg had truly begun. Adjusting to the cooler temperatures we spent our first few days sharing old jazz and folk classics, drinking coffee the canadian way and not spending much time outside at all. When we braved up we took walks along the lake and listened to my family’s stories of growing up in the area and the development since. Ontario is not short of condos these days.

Grampy took us to Barrie where we had guided tours of all my mum’s childhood spots, such a pleasure to be there! Gramps also got us a go at the curling club while the senior teams were playing [90 yrs + admirable effort and much better at the sport than I]

heavy rock + slippery ice + slightly ill-coordinated holly = not a magnificent curler

Spending a week with Laurel and Rob in the big smoke [Toronto] was stupendous! We got ourselves involved as photographers at a local theatre club party, art galleried and waltzed the gridded sensical streets. We maxed out our subway tickets and cooked up a storm for our masterful cousin who was masterfully magic-ing up the completion of her masters degree, and then we set off in the lacy snow to NY BIG BAD CITAY.

Paris, France

Four days in Paris.

Roaming storybook streets on a budget, red wine by day, red wine by night.
Our good friend Alain offered us 3msq, and another friend Rueben 2msq of his 16msq apartment.
We got close.
We ate baguettes and cheese in green parks, watching grass police blow up daring picnicers
We mused at the Pompidou for a day and the Paris Opera house for a night

Stealing Alain away to Versailles, we ate more cheese, we ate more baguettes, we drank more red wine.
Our time in Paris was too short and too lovely. xx

London, UK

We rounded off India with a whirlwind weeklong tour of Tamil Nadu. We flew from Bangalore and with a prayer bid our farewells to India for now.

We went from 36 degrees, curry 3 times a day to 8 degrees and cups of tea, still Ange and Scott’s fold out couch was more comfortable than anything we’d slept on in 4 months. The comforts of home and family were a splendid treat for us as we gathered our thoughts on our expansive journey through the subcontinent. Our first night was supremely excellent, family had conspired (Ange, Scott and Emma Beals) to provide us with an engagement celebration with lots of Champagne and about 30 thoughtful and beautiful cards from our friends and fam in NZ (thanks everyone, especially Tim Beals for organising that!)  Still there was no time to waste as our very own motherland lay before us to be discovered, we, the small metal car, she the monopoly board.

So on with the walking shoes, we did the rounds with Ange who had taken the day off work to be our personal tour guide, thanks Ange! First stop Waterloo Station, the London Eye, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Hyde Park, Piccadilly Circus, Shaftesbury, Soho, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square and so on. Other excursions included walking the Thames, Tower Bridge, the Swiss RE Tower, St Paul’s and the Millennium bridge.

We made a jaunt to Paris for a few days and also to Wales but in between, we checked out the vintage stores on Brick Lane and then went to the Lion King Production, which was stunningly slick. We went to the Borough markets and sampled our way round the stalls, £1000 parmesan anyone? We also caught up with a few friends, my old flatmate Jennie who is living in London, we had dinner with her, her partner Pip (ladyhawke) and Emma, before getting drunk and going to an Africa Bambada show, lots of dancing and a challenging bus ride home. We caught up with our good friend Frankie a couple of times, firstly to walk an old dog in the park and discuss the meaning of things and secondly we went to  the Tate Modern to again discuss the meaning of things, good times Frankie!

London was awesome, particularly the generosity of Angelina and Scott for putting us up and showing us there current home, as we hadn’t seen them for a couple of years it was some quality family time. Thanks guys!

Sandhaimedu, India

We managed to squeeze in a quick visit to the community class room that Tim Gittos and Alastair Upton built from the ground up. We would like to thank them for building such a good piece in such an amazing area! It was incredible walking through there having seen Tim’s film, but having a bit more background with India….. It was our personal pilgrimage to make it to Sandhaimedu.

Their friend J was awesome and rolled up to take us to the classroom even though we rang him only hours before…
It was a festival day so the kids weren’t at school, but there were a few little beauties hanging around and keen to take photos on our camera and hang out, which was coolcool.

There were some men butchering up a feast just next to the toilet, and women combing their girls’ hair on the steps of their house when we arrived. It wasn’t long before the chai was cranking and seats were pulled out for us from someone’s lounge even though we preferred sitting on the dirt. J said that the classroom is used for the housey-less in the community at night, so it oozed a good lived-in feel. The paint has acquired a magnificent Indian dust patina, and has incredible coolth on the inside.
It was such an amazing visit! Thanks again guys!

West Coast, India

We write from Fort Cochi, where huge Chinese fishing arm constructions dive and where we have just arrived after a 14 hour sleeper train journey from Goa.

Since we last wrote our adventure ship journeyed to ancient cave temples of Ellora and Ajanta, the bustling streets of Mumbai, and the coconut shores of Goa…. has it really been that long?… why yes it has.

Ajanta is a valley with a U-shaped rock cliff face, from which Buddhist caves were excavated. From the simplistic to the elaborate, 30 caves in total of painstakingly carved out rock. Some Mahayana 5th Cent AD caves had incredible and well preserved fresco paintings of scenes of the Buddha. Tu Meke.

Ellora holds the world’s biggest monolithic stone ‘sculpture.’ The Kailash Hindu temple, was almost too amazing to comprehend and now to find words to describe it… scott says: A sloping stone escarpment, had perfectly vertical cuts down to ground level. The insides excavated out, apart from the amazingly detailed temple complex left standing in the void… We tried to imagine designing architecture as a removal of the negative form … ar! India managed it in 200 years, with 10 generations of labourers who hand chiseled thousands of tonnes of rock, with the planning and design beautifully considered to the slant of the hill-scape. Ajanta and Ellora, in Maharastra, central India, were hosting mid-winter temps of 35deg, and the caves were a sanctuary providing a much welcome coolth. We spent a mammoth two days exploring the sights with enthusiasm, and crashing each night.

Mumbai was a mental mixed bag. Arriving there felt like we had lost a big part of India but hadn’t quite made it home. Areas like Colaba where we were staying were very clean but in reality half of the huge 16 mill population live in slums, intricately organised, micro cities in themselves. Parts of the city have a strong colonial presence with British civic buildings lining the main streets, while 60 storey residential high rises are going up around the scenic Marine drive. There was also a mildly strange vibe there after the Mumbai attacks, with armed guards around. Couldn’t help but jump at the sound of fireworks.

Day two we were recruited to be Bollywood extras – a common request of foreigners. We took a two hour bus to the studio with no instructions, we were then told to wear this shirt and be seated in the grandstand crowd of a game-show set and instructed to cheer occasionally. The whole experience seemed completely unorganised, we were filmed on and off from 12 till 11pm even though our scene could have been shot in 2 hours. Scott was hand selected from the crowd to act as the cameraman in the game-show, and so we enjoyed rarking him up about his special ‘promotion’ for the rest of the day.

The train journey to Goa was beautiful coconut farmed coast land, and hanging out the side of the train drinking chai, was a blissful time.

From our bamboo hutt amongst the coconut trees we could hear the sea loudly at night, and morning swims were something we could have got used to… Away from the beach the ex-hippy township of Arambol capitalised on the Russian tourist’s fashion sense … an odd collision of bellydancing and hippy wear. Before we got swept up in the gorgeous tide we moved to the city of Panaji. By scooter we travelled through the Portugese style buildings, and to nearby Old Goa where we explored many an old church and cathedral. We obtained a magnificent view from a hilltop church where we could see the white foreign monuments protrude through the sea of lush green, coconut and banana palms.

Fresh off the heels of finishing ‘God of Small Things’ we enter Kerala wide eyed and with open arms for south India’s treasures.
Read this book.
Word.

Less than one month left in India! Ark!!
Arohanui!

Holly and Scott

Gujarat, India

Latest top 10 – remaining unranked for the sake of chronology ….

Kahn and Corb and Kites:
Ahmedabad and its wealthy patrons of yesteryear got together to hire some of the greats, Louis Kahn’s IIMA management school exhibited his characteristic geometric perfection forming dramatic spaces of brick and light in the enormous complex. Le Corbusier’s ATMA textiles headquarters in stark Indian formworked concrete was a formal play of façade, rounded interior walls, cantilevered monolithic staircases and freestanding pivot doorframes. The levels get taller as you go up so you feel like you’re lifting off, we found a kite on the roof and lifted off even slightly further.

Lived at the architecture school (CEPT)
Adopted by some friendly Indian students this became our school away from school, except without the work and with better food and a ripper modernist abode.

Street Coconuts and Indian Sweets:
Enough said

Step Well:
Adalaj Baolis stepwell offered an amazing spatial experience with spaces dropping away to the up and the down.

Sun Temple Rise:
Modhera’s sun temple was worth the 5am start as we took a rode trip with our new friends. A combination of a deep open stepwell an intermediate community pavilion and the intensely enclosed temple made for a lovely composition and places to sit and contemplate/be smothered by a school group… including teachers.

I See the Sea:
The Arabian Sea to be more precise, greeted us with a silvery blue sheen in the sunny island town of Diu. A tamer salty dog, than the likes of Wellington’s shores, but it tweaked some northland nostalgia.

Scooty for Hire:
Keeping it Indian we got into the motorbike way of things. We cruised the Indoportugese streets of Diu dodging dogs, racing rickshaws and honking unnecessarily at anyone within 100 metres!

Klub Kiwi:
We tracked down our buddy Claire in Diu where she had hit a travel lull, (easy to do here) and joined her in the slow paced days of bidis, beaches and bollywoods.

Palitana:
3500 steps, 863 temples, 2 sore knees, 1 great view

Still engaged, yay,
Thanks for all of your emails!

Engagement Notice

Now for something different,
ahem
Dear beautiful friends and family,
In a burst of Indian influenced spontaneity Scott and Holly got engaged,

TO BE MARRIED

HA!!
neato,
Can’t wait to see you all back in New Zealand for the celebrations…
Love and Joy and Excitement,
Holly and Scott

Uttar Pradesh & Rajastan, India

Happy 2009! hope you all had jolly festivites and have given yourself plenty of easing back to work time. We brought in the New Year with a bout of delhi-belly, but we stayed up late enough to see some frightful Indian fireworks, a few close misses.

On Jan 1st we lined up at 6am sunrise to see the glorious Taj Mahal. … but due to fog and smog or other plans, the Taj didn’t come to the party until about 9:30am…. No hard feelings but a freezing wait as its mystical image resolved. Very funny really. As we approached she slowly appeared, as if the fog had formed and hardened to allow a soft shadow to be cast on her perfect geometry, glowing as if her stone posseses its own light.

We embarked on a whirlwind tour of the tourist destinations of the north including Fatehpur Sikri, the exquisitely designed abandoned city near Agra, the intricate temples of Jaipur, and the indestructable stone Meherangarh fort of Jodhpur.

We were greeted in Udaipur by exuberant drumming and excitable popadam handed boys, as the musim festival Hussain was to be celebrated that night. Saris lined the streets, a coloured trim to a dark grey sinuous strip. A parade of enthusiastic drummers and a team of people carrying decorated towers start, stopped their way through the street, catching power lines. Udaipur has an amazing feeling, like the Venice of India, it is a woven grid of lanes and well-used palace rooftops.

We found Scott’s friend Manesh (W) from his trip 5 years ago and made a few buddies who own stores along one of the main streets. Easing into their daily routine we did as the locals do, a lot of sitting around, drinking chai, chewing tobacco, and a bit of cricket in the gaps….

We had one day of sight-seeing, well spent at the amazing Kumbalgarh fort and the peaceful jain temple at Ranakpur. Our friend Pintu took us to see ‘Gandhini’ a new Bollywood film, and rip off of American film ‘Memento’…. With all the necessary cheese, oddly rolled up in violence and in complete Hindi, this was quite the good time!

We arrived in Ahmedabad today, comparatively metropolitan, and super exciting

Bihar & Uttar Pradesh, India

Happy, jolly Christmas time! Our thoughts went out to you all in Christian country, to kiwis, kai, and to a pukeko in a ponga tree – miraculous for a fairly flightless bird we thought. Since the last blog entry, we have pranced through the jungle on elephants in Chitwan, in the Terai, and have come across the border into India.

We came into India in Bihar, through a shitstorm of a border crossing, and tried to keep travelling until we found somewhere a little less raw to stay. 30 hours and a hellishly bumpy bus ride later, we arrived in Rajgir, a small town with some interesting ruins and hot baths in an amazing lowered space amongst a temple. Poverty hit us the strongest in Bihar, and the caste system is well and truly engrained here, but these humans are pretty much the same everywhere as far as humour goes…. Our attempts at Hindi are especially comedic it seems.

We took a 10-day meditation course in Bodhgaya – the city where Buddha attained enlightenment. It was challenging, peaceful in moments and incredibly insightful. A lot of it was in silence so we had maximum time to confront how we think about stuff and the world, and we met some incredible peeps, so t’was a pretty mental day, when we left the world of the internal and stepped out into the streets of Bodhgaya where the beggars and the street sellers are ruthless.

We spent a one night buffer period there before moving on to Varanasi, a holy hindu city through and through. On the edge of the ganges are burning ghats, where uncovered bodies are carried to be cremated in an open fire in this auspicious place. Confrontingly morbid, and beautifully honest, yet there is just as much vigour and life in these celebrations as lives in the market place.

We rose early Christmas morning to have a boat trip down the Ganges in Varanasi. We told the boatman it was our christmas day. He sang twinkle twinkle little star to us. Hah. Later we endulged in some [carefully rashioned] marmite on [hard to find] bread

Jomsom Trek, Nepal

BAD KNEES GOOD PEOPLE

Wide-eyed and wind-swepped,
we have just arrived back in Pokhara
after an eight day trek.
I feel like we’ve seen the richest of Nepal,
in the most inpoverished areas of the Himalayas.
The Thakari and Tibetan people of these village
have an inseperable mix of history, religion and their environment,
powerfully shaping their people. The hills, strongly confronted us with the Nepali caste system,
the beauty of its environment, and the fast destruction,
taking place at the hands of ill-managed tourism.
We met incredible people, local and other,
and mused over the politics of nepal,
currently in a kind of honey-moon period,
after overthrowing their King.

With silky socks, strapping tape, antishock walking sticks and a freshly baked croissant we entered the unknown insides of the Himalayas, at Naya Pul we found the first of many rock hard steps. I new friend in hand we traversed the terrain, a cold coke, and a superb view enticed us to stay at a wildly unsquare guesthouse before Ulleri where we found a mother figure in a old local woman.
She put us up in her house, shared her rooftop with us,
And communicated with us with hilarious body language.

The next morning we witnessed the felling of a tree at Bantanti, and ate our lunch cooked on its fiery demise. 3000 steps up took us to Ghorapani and the beauty of the sun setting on the surface of the world’s 7th and 10th largest mountains both over 8km above our flat sea.

A bad belly interrupted the night and the unstrapped right knee gave up on the decent, we stubbled to the next town, which happened to provide thermal hot pool health restoration in Tantopani.

Our path had merged that of the jeeps so we split the coming day about 50/50 jeep to feet, which enabled us to skip the boring bits while in walking the treacherous fun parts. Relentless dog chatter made for a restless night in Tukuche.

We walked on and feeling a bit disenchanted we called upon our education to critique some architecture in Marpha, however we applauded and enjoyed parts. We pushed on to Kagbeni and watched the sun set over the medieval Tibetan town then explored its interwoven and intimate spaces.

More friends found we chatted like old buddies and travelled by the rooftop of a jeep to the climactic Muktinath, where we found fire, water, earth and sky and a blessing to savour.

We had arranged a flight out from the top,
Which was cancelled due to windy conditions.
[a laughable 20 knots]
so we collected a global group with gusto,
to embark on a 12 hour drive out of the Himalayas.
Parts of the day were hilarious/ stomach renching/ and just quite wierd
and the jeep-jeep-minibus combo was accompanied
with an eclectic jeep soundtrack
of Pakistani metal music, nepali pop, Beyonce, and Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
Tres bizarre!

We certainly did not conquer the Himalayas but we experienced a slice of this donkey, yak and hearty peoples’ domain

Pokhara felt like home on arrival here last night.
We think we will stay for a few days before heading south

Kathmandu, Nepal

OUR ARRIVAL

We arrived in Nepal last night.
The small airport pushed us through,
quick with a warm “namaste.”
Then a smooth greeting
from the locals outside.
With the persistance and calculation
of a romantic come-on,
they lingered.
I could tell it would be a fling.

We waited for our guest house pick-up
with blind faith.
They did not come.
We played a song or two to distract
the hawkers from their attack.
We succumbed to a business man.
He owns a guest house, and a taxi,
and a trekking company, and,
he can organise it all for us,
for a good price.

DURBAR SQUARE
The square is a bustling centre.
We are entranced by everthing,
but must appear uninterested,
at all times.

The rich aromas and incense,
have the thickness of a delightful smog,
and the markets row the street
with colour.
Temples sit in every square,
A humbling dedication to religion
Resonates like the grand bell.


NEW TIBETAN HOME
We drive to Pashupatinath,
Through the fumes and bikes.
This region is the home
Of tibetan people.

We go there to see the Boudha.
This magnificant stupa of C14
Is white in the smog light,
and as the evening sets,
we circumambulate
with the monks, the mothers,
the children and men in hundreds,
and the rythym disorientates me beautifully.

We sit to draw from a higher perch.
A small boy watches over me.
After a short time he takes my pencil and notebook,
and erases my start.
I thought it was going somewhere…
He disagreed.

Arjun has a critical honesty,
So I let him draw.
As we leave to meet our taxi,
He started to beg for money.
I gave him some paper from my notebook
and my favourite pen. ———– (Tim Gittos…. this is actually your pen… i knew you wouldn’t mind…? )

Hong Kong, China

CONCENTRATED HUMANITY

We arrived in Hong Kong,

Where the thick sea of lights,

and people move.

Our room sits bed-sized,

and high in the tall building.

Its reflection across the bustling road,

Reveals its face.

Laundry hangs up its height.

This light snatching opportunist

reveals its human side.

Melbourne, Australia

DROUGHTY MELBOURNE
The sky repossesses its precious droplet shaped gifts from the day before,
so the people go on feeding their lettuces with soaping washing water.
These soapy vegies share dinner plates with those of the farm,
as the sharing of water creates an unlikely balance and an awareness of scarcity.

The ironic abundance of other earthly goods has given prosperity and shape to this flat land over the generations
The strong from the past survive as the equally elaborate new now oppose and become complementary giants,
with an inevitable scattering of mediocrity filling the vast gaps of space and time between.

Through this the people glide to their destination of a development to cope,
while they hope that this beautiful burden will to be exonerated by the Gods