Author: Adrian's Got the Moose

Wadi Rum, 07/11/2019

Made famous through the writings of T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) and the movies based on his writings. Filmmakers often use Wadi Rum as a substitute for Mars in science fiction movies, as well as other Earth desert settings. Scenes from the Star Wars franchise ,as well as the upcoming Dune movie have been filmed there.

I spent two nights at Wadi Rum Nomads Camp. I slept in a small cabin made up to look like a tent, and we took our meals in a similar, larger building, often to the sounds of the owner’s music act.

The landscapes were simply breathtaking. Massive sandstone edifices rising up from the almost impossible flat landscape. Minimal vegetation, except for a handful of trees around springs and within canyons, almost everything was below a metre, but all to my botanical eye perfectly adapted to the harsh environment.

Ancient springs were marked with inscriptions in stone in multiple languages to inform travellers, a courtesy that would have saved many lives.

One canyon had permanent standing water, and inscriptions in multiple languages pictogram forms .

On the second day we took a hike to the top of one mountain, from which you could see the very edge of Saudi Arabia, as well as sea life fossils caught in sedimentary rock.

Before we headed back down, of course we had tea. I think it’s tribal law that whenever two or more Bedouins gather together, tea must be brewed and consumed. Often complete with herbs picked nearby.

It didn’t matter how many times you throught that you had seen it all, taken photos of it all, you would turn around and see another amazing vista.

The nights at the camp were cold, but incredibly quiet, insects being almost entirely absent compared to the Australian bush. There was also no Wifi or phone reception, which was good for a social media detox.

But all good things come to an end, and the next stop in my trip was Petra, an ancient city surrounded by a tourist trap.

Aqaba, Jordan- 4/11/2019

My three night stay in Aqaba was uneventful except for some time hanging out with some excellent backpackers, However I do want to talk about Jordanian hospitality.

I arrived at my hostel ludicrously early in the morning, something like fourteen hours before my proper check-in. I found all the lights out, and the host, Baha asleep on the couch in reception. He woke up and set to fetching me some tea, and trying to sort out a bed for me, despite my suggestions that a couch somewhere would suit my jetlagged arse just fine. Baha ended up making a bed for me on the floor in a common room while I brushed my teeth and took out my contacts. After I assured Baha that everything was perfect, he left me to it, and I fell into a peaceful sleep.

In the morning after a breakfast of falafel, omelette, and bread washed down with strong Turkish coffee I checked in properly. Baha informed me that he wouldn’t charge me for the extra night, and after arguing for a short while, I realised that further offers of extra payment would cause offense. Due to cultural restrictions, the traditional Australian gift of beer was not a good idea, so I bought Baha some nice Swiss chocolate instead.

When I woke from my first night in Aqaba, the jetlag I held at bay with alarming levels of coffee and adrenaline demanded its dues. I spent most of my first day chilling at my hostel, before a late lunch of chicken and almonds on a bed of hummus. The next day I went to the beach with Sam from Canada and Colin from Newcastle, then dinner with some lads from the hostel that had adopted me for the duration.

The next day I went to Wadi Rum in a shared taxi with three of the same lads. Florian had talked me into joining him for part of the tour and Bedouin camp stay, so off I went on my next adventure

Istanbul- 04\11/2019

I stayed at my hostel long enough to shower, shave and change clothes before inflicting the streets of Istanbul with my wanderlust. I spent a happy hour getting lost in the winding streets of Galata, watching a youth dance act, and attempting to pat some of the famous cats of Istanbul, before starting to make my way to Sultanahmet. This is where things started going awary- The hostel manager inforrmed me that a marathon was on today, and much of the tram network had been shut down. This lead to what should have been a ten minute tram ride into a forty minute walk, much of which was along the marathon route.

Which was more interesting than a tram ride. There seemed to be quite an international contingent , who seemed to take it more seriously than many of the Turks. I good time was being had by all, with bands, people cheering on and encouragement via loudspeaker. It was also interesting to note how many Turkish women ran with full headscarfs, managing to look  quite glamorous.

Once in Sultanahmet I went straight to the Basilica Cistern, the largest of hundreds of underground cisterns that stored water for Constantinople, built in the 6th century CE. The base of two columns feature medusa heads thought to have been reused from late Roman temples.

But my favourite part is the view down rows of columns.

When I visited in 2008, they kept a few feet of water in the cistern, complete with frolicking carp, and a cafe, where a small child stole my sprite. For the movie buffs, scenes from the James Bond movie From Russia with Love were filmed here, amongst others.

Due to the marathon, I spent half an hour trying to travel the few hundred metres to Hagia Sophia. Eventually I retreated to a nearby cafe. While consuming tiny cups of Turkish coffee I discussed life with the cafe owner, as well discussing my favourite Turkish dish, a type of stew cooked in a earthenware jar, and served, still sealed, with a hammer and chisel for your convenience.

By the time I consumed enough coffee to kill a lesser backpacker, the marathon had began to wind up, and machine pistol-wielding police started to let people through, so I made my way to Hagia Sophia with only mildly bruised ribs for refusing to get out of the way for a Chinese matron.

I feel Hagia Sophia is the perfect example of the layered history so common in Turkey. built in the year 360 CE as a Greek Orthodox cathedral, after the Ottoman Empire took control of Constantinople it was converted into a mosque, then turned into a museum. When originally built it was the largest single building known.

A ramp leads to the upper gallery, which was traditionally reserved for the Empress and her court.

Apart the incredible architecture , the old Christian mosaics, with typical Turkish pragmatism, were plastered d over rather than destroyed. Many of them now have been partially uncovered and restored.

This is probably where I should sum up Hagia Sophia, but you don’t get a lot of poetry from me when I am jetlagged, so please accept a few more photos instead.

Hong Kong – 02/11/2019

After an excellent brunch of shrimp and pork dumplings at the only Michelin-starred restaurant I could ever afford, and catching up with my friend Claudia over bubble tea, I headed straight for Chungking Mansions. After walking past it on my last stay in Hong Kong, I read everything I could get my hands on this building- It’s shabby melting pot of low-end globalization right in the heart of Hong Kong is a fascinating counterpoint to the sanitized extravagance of the rest of this place.

Annoyingly, I was already footsore and exhausted at that point, so I limited myself to a few lazy walks around the first two floors, a beer outside the shop I purchased it from, an excellent Indian meal, and a handful of ill-conceived photos.

What struck me is how tight-knit the staff seemed to be, relationships  enforced by calls across stalls, and quick handshakes, all surrounded by Indian music and smells of cooking. the tourists I saw seemed mostly in a hurry to get to their accommodation on the higher floors, as if they were removed from the whole situation- In a famously expensive city, Changking and Mirador Mansions are widely known as the cheapest lodgings in the city.

None of the usual harrasments I have learned to expect seemed to be evident, and I felt just by sitting, eating and drinking a beer without rushing to somewhere more polished I felt like I was in some small way accepted by the community.

As the light started to fade I walked around Tsim Sha Tsui. in front of shops selling Rolexes, I was offered fake ones, as well as drugs, tailored suits and massages. I was wanting to witness some of the riots that had gotten so much attention in the western media, but apart from graffiti, there was not a riot police or a masked protester in sight.  Everyone seemed to be busy with having a good time, or getting somewhere else as quickly as possible.

Eventually my attempts of voyeurism left me mildly unimpressed with myself, and I had to make my way back to the airport.

In the metro stations the situation seemed more tense. Groups of riot police kept a watchful, if bored eye on commuters, and PA announcements delclared disruptions to services that I could never quite catch. The riot police seemed to be ignored by most, but I did notice a few older, I assume mainland Chinese men approach them and thank them.

I approached an infomation desk, where I was informed that yes could get on the airport express from that station, except when I found it it was all cordoned off, and a bored transit worker sent me to another station. When I got there I found all but one of the accessways were blocked off, and when I got to the one that was not I had to show my passport and boarding pass before getting to the platform, a process that I had to repeat as I exited the train station. This procedure must have been implemented after the disruptions a month ago at the airport.

Once safe in the airport, drinking an overpriced imitation orange juice, I messaged Claudia that I had gotten to the airport. Apparently in Central, the most obnoxiously fancy part of Hong Kong , some friends of hers were watching rugby and were bizarrely tear-gased from police responding to something a short distance away. Earlier while nearby this area, Claudia pointed out boarded up storefronts yet to be repaired from previous riots.

Perth International Airport- 01/11/2019

Due to my lovely Perth family dropping me off to the airport after a lovely Indian meal, I have half an hour until I can check-in. So obviously its a drink at the airport bar overlooking the check in counters, and indulging in some people watching. The only people who don’t seem stressed are the flight attendants, I’m amazed how many people are wearing jeans, and how many families seem unable to fly without their entire worldly possessions stuffed into suitcases.

So Check in was more complicated that expected. Apparently, when the airline changed the flight times after booking, my payment became disassociated from my ticket, and I couldn’t get my boarding pass until this was sorted.

While trying to pass through Security, the nail scissors that were ignored the last half a dozen flights had to be inspected. The interesting thing is that I could not touch my backpack until it been cleared, and to make things quicker I had to give instructions exactly where the scissors were located. Apparently, I impressed the lady by giving clear instructions, but a better airport ninja would have put them onto the tray in the first place.

Second beer now just above my gate, hopefully nothing dramatic happens until I land in Hong Kong, which may be interesting due to the current state of civil unrest.

Yes, that’s me, drinking alone at a bar. Still in work clothes, twenty-year-old paperback being read between sips of pale ale. practically, I am here to have a meal from the food van outside and to listen to the blues music I failed to get anyone else interested in. While I’m enjoying the beer, the food and the music, the real reason I am here is that if I wasn’t, I would have bought some depressing take away on my way home from work, and stared at a computer screen until I summoned the energy to shower and go to bed, all entirely alone, instead of alone in a crowd.

Here the barmaid who flirted with me last time is absent, but I did have a conversation with the bar manager about Vietnam. Apart from a quick chat with the one-man band on my way out about my novel, and half a dozen nods with regulars, that’s the limit of my social interaction. But it still beats home.

It’s strange that I do this all the time when I travel, but it seldom occurs to just show up at a bar alone and eat and drink in my own city.

Due to the normally freakishly accurate algorithm YouTube uses to tell me what video they think I would be interested in watching next, and to my nihilism, last Tuesday night I found myself watching a video titled something along the lines of “Depression Isn’t Real”  Further watching within the same channel revealed videos titled “Why Fat-shaming isn’t Real” and ” Dear Black People” , so that’s reassuring. Instead of rolling my eyes and moving on to some nice cheerful porn, I got angry.  So rant ahead.

The lady in this video claims that depression is simply being sad, and people claiming to be depressed just need to cheer up, get over it and move on with their lives. Sadly this is not a unique viewpoint, its common in religious groups, Big Pharma conspiracy nuts, and people who struggle to see anything from outside their own experience.

The fact  that these people seem to be unable or unwilling to understand is that there is a difference between being sad due to an event or situation and being depressed because your brain sucks at being a brain.

 

For example, I am currently sad due to being unable to bugger off for an overseas trip until November.  This leads me to longingly flip through my passport, and rereading flight booking information, and moping around.  I suffer from clinical depression because my brain has a malfunction to do with the secretion and absorbing of serotonin. When not sufficiently medicated, this leads to me feeling worthless, having anxiety and insomnia, generally being miserable to be around, and on one memorable occasion, a strong desire to drive a perfectly decent car off a perfectly good road and into a healthy native tree at 100 kph. Spot the difference?

Not the video in question, just an excellent example of how this shit stews inside you.

The YouTuber in question seems to just try being as obnoxious and as offensive as possible, trying to upset reasonable people and delight trolls. She also disables comments on her videos, which to me is the YouTube equivalent of farting in an elevator just before you step into men’s accessories.

I’ll keep taking my green and pink pills, and do my best to ignore ignorant arseholes.

 

You finish work, you had a shitty day, which involved the loss and then destruction of some expensive and vital pieces of equipment. It was not exactly your fault, but local government has a tendency to blur and confuse the concept of responsibility.

A beer before dinner sounds good, this turns into a second. While you are not trying to get drunk, you sure don’t feel like being sober. After you finish the second, delicious, full strength beer your brother and landlord hands you a lychee beer, which turns out to be as vile as it sounds, but it’s also not the night for leaving a beer half-drunk. Now you are still not drunk, but the world seems a tad less focused, which doesn’t help as much as you were hoping it would. After watching the first fifteen minutes of a dozen movies, you give up and head to bed, This would be a good idea, if you could sleep even with a little pink pill. Which you fucking can’t.

Before I left Cebu I finally booked my accommodation for a single night in Hong Kong, accommodation is expensive in Hong Kong, and my funds were running low. The place I ended up booking was the Pearl Premium Guesthouse in a building called Mirador Mansions.

I landed in Hong Kong at midnight, tired and irritable. I exited the train station and discovered that while I could view offline maps on my phone, I couldn’t get a GPS location, So I headed towards a busy building, to get a bearing. which turned out to be Chungking Mansions.

While I stared at the address on the building and trying to orient myself with the map, I was viewed as easy pickings by the Mansion’s dealers, pimps and touts. A guesthouse tout approached me, extolling the virtues of his place, pressing a business card into my hand, which he took back when I told him I already had a booking, then ominously wished me good luck. An exquisitely smelling woman offered to help me, which quickly turned into a sales pitch for the most beautiful women in the world Hong Kong dollars could buy. I was offered dope, meth and cocaine in urgent whispers.

Once I worked out which direction to go, I started moving and it only took a few minutes to get to Mirador Mansions

Which was almost comatose compared to Chungking Mansions. I rode the elevator almost disturbingly alone to the 16th floor, where the reception to my guesthouse is located. An Indian receptionist photocopied my passport and handed me a keycard, and gave complicated instructions to get to my room, which I mostly ignored, opting for wandering around the 7th floor until I found the right door. One swipe of the card granted entry into a hallway with a shared kitchenette, another into my room, which turned out to be cozy, and clean.

The bathroom was a standard and cramped affair where you just about have to sit on the toilet to have a shower.

After a good night’s sleep and some 7-11 coffee, I did some research into both mansions. They were both built during the sixties, originally intended to be purely residential, but quickly morphed into something more interesting. The first few stories became retail, including electronic shops, jewellers, tailors and souvenir stores. The rest is a mix of cheap restaurants, residential and guesthouses. Chungking Mansions in particular became famous in the backpacking world as the cheapest accommodation in Hong Kong, with a flotsam of down scale immigrants from many countries, with a liberal sprinkling of drugs and prostitution. At one point, one-third of second-hand phones in Hong Kong passed through Changking Mansions. Many Chinese residents of Hong Kong refused to even walk past the place. in the early 2000’s , both mansions were at least partly cleaned up, with fire regulations imposed, CCTV cameras installed and many ladies of the evening evicted.

Despite this clean up, both mansions still contain a strong sense of marginal lawlessness, the immigrants are still there, I suspect you could spend hours in the corridors and only hear Cantonese or Chinese from the more adventurous or down at heel Chinese travelers. Many consumer goods from South East Asia and the Subcontinent are only available in Hong Kong from these two mansions. I suspect that the spirit of the now demolished Kowloon Walled City lives on here, if not many of the same residents.

I’m looking forward to visiting again during my next layover , as long as I keep my wits about me.

So I consider myself a fairly experienced traveller. I have had my blood sucked by leaches in Thailand, scammed by taxi drivers in Turkey, gotten Bali Belly in Indonesia, been abused by T-shirt sellers in Vietnam, perved on German belly dancers in Dubai, been propositioned by ladyboys in the Philippines and in Laos, and been maliciously herded by hermit crabs while heartbroken in Cambodia.

Now that I have laid out my credentials, there is a problem- the more you travel, the more the places, experiences and people tend to blur together, often aided by the culture and infrastructure travellers tend to want and expect.

This poor bastard trying to sell counterfeit Ray-bans to tourists at Alona Beach could be plying his trade in Indonesia, Thailand or Vietnam with no changes to his sales pitch. In any SE Asian island you can walk around in a day, you will find a Reggae Bar, where it is as easy and as acceptable to buy dope and light up a joint as it would be to buy and drink a beer. The middle-aged white guys with their young, pretty, local girlfriends could be at any country where the realities of economics makes the line between dating and prostitution a lot more hazy than in most western countries. The rooms I stay in tend to be the same as well, no carpet, a slab of foam on a low frame, power points in inconvenient locations, and cold water showers.

 

During quiet moments its enough to leave me wondering why I bothered leaving home.

But then I have another beer and get over it. A few beers later I start to wonder if I am a standard issue short-term traveller, clinging to my private rooms instead of dorms, spending too much time at beaches rather than exploring the countryside. My tan a tad too light to be convincing, staring at exquisite Korean women for too long, and thinking of home a little too often.