Travel A to Z

I was challenged to produce a travel A to Z based on places I'd been to.  Here it is - with photographs as evidence.

Alesund,  Norway (2012)

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (2009)

Colombo, Sri Lanka (2011)

Delhi, India (2007)

Estoril, Portugal (2010)

Florence, Italy (2004)

Geiranger, Norway (2004)

Helsinki, Finland (2008)

Istanbul, Turkey (1999)

Jaipur, India (1992)

Kandy, Sri Lanka (2011)

Lerwick, Shetland (2011)

Madrid, Spain (2008)

New Orleans, USA (2012)

Oslo, Norway (2012)

Perth, Australia (2007)

Quendale, Shetland (2010)

Reykjavik, Iceland (2007)

Santiago, Chile (2011)

Torshavn, Faroe Islands (2012)

Utrecht, Netherlands (2011)

Vancouver, Canada (2007)

Warsaw, Poland (1996)

Xinjiang, China (2009)

Yala, Sri Lanka (2011)

Zagori, Greece (1998)

Still Watching the Waves

Last winter, while I was travelling, I did a Saturday post each week to let anyway who was interested find out what I'd been doing when I didn't need to be based in the south of England.  The blog is still there if you want to go and have a look at it.

Having spent a splendid day watching boats and waves around the southern end of Shetland, I felt inclined to  generate another short post about this Saturday - maybe I'm doing this because I had intended to get on with some writing projects this weekend.  I just hadn't reckoned on the weather.

I sat at Aberdeen airport yesterday morning watching the dark clouds overhead, and made the mistake of looking at the weather forecast for Shetland. It assured me that the rain would be starting about the time I was due to get to Shetland, was going to carry on pretty much relentlessly for the next three days.

Remind me to get a better weather forecast next time.

The shone brightly yesterday, and with the exception of one shower last night the skies were clear. Clear enough to remind me just how many stars are visible when you get away from the city lights. This morning the  skies were pretty clear again, a picture from Lerwick harbour is an indication of the cloud cover.

Ocean Researcher in Lerwick Harbour

Scalloway Castle

Having convinced myself that it was sunny in Lerwick I headed from the modern capital of Shetland to the old capital at Scalloway.  Still sunny. Still blue skies.

So back down to the south end of Shetland.  There is a little harbour at Grutness, but there isn't usually anything there - unless the Good Shepherd IV from Fair Isle is around.

What there often is at the south end are great waves.  These can be particularly dramatic when the wind is from the southwest (which it was), and there is bright sunshine around (where there was).

Breaking Waves at Quendale Bay

One of the interesting quirks of travel around Shetland is the runway extension that was built in the late 80s. Not only is there a level-crossing set of gates where the main road crosses the runway, I'm told there is only one other airport in the world that has this.  The other quirk is that when the wind is from the southwest the waves break over the western end of the runway.

Waves breaking over the runway at Sumburgh.

And my one mistake this weekend - other than reading the weather forecast. I really should have realised that I was going to need sunglasses. On Shetland. In November.

BTW. There are a few more pictures from today on Shetland on Flickr

Going to the Dogs

Never agree to be the last sledge out.

They don't tell you this when you sign up for a day driving a team of Siberian huskies.  Huskies are wonderful animals, huge amounts of energy, astonishing stamina and a nature that is remarkably forgiving of the novice sledge driver.  What they don't have is patience.

I was deep in the Finnish wilderness close to the Arctic Circle at a dog farm run by Marika and Lauri Sassali. "I wasn't allowed a dog when I was a boy, so now I've got 60 of them."

The sledges are tied to trees along a lane beside the farm.  Marika, "It's better if she does this, the dogs listen to her" says Lauri, works her way along the sledges attaching a team of dogs to each.  The mushers don't know what's going to happen next, but the dogs do. Their excitement builds. They know they're about to spend the next few hours doing what huskies were bred to do -  running in the snow. 

Once all the teams are harnessed, the farm hand releases the front sledge with Lauri driving. The sledge tears off down the lane, round the corner and disappears from view.  This is too much for the next dog team, they want to go too. They get released. Then sledges three, four and five.  Suddenly my rope is released. The sledge surges forward. I'm standing on the brake and hanging on but we're going faster and faster.  My only printable thought. "No wonder Amundsen got to the Pole first."

After a few minutes my dogs get sight of the teams ahead, and relax from their frantic chase into a long distance trot.

After each stop during the day, my dogs see their companions head off first and they want to go too. Each time, I'm desperately standing on the brake until the sledge ahead is far enough away to give me some running space.

And every now and again when we're running I step back on the brake to let the other sledges pull away into the distance. Confident that my team are going to see this as a challenge and, when I release the brake, put in that extra turn of speed that gives me that little extra adrenalin kick.

As I said, never agree to be last out. You might find that it's addictive.

Hotel Mälardrottningen, Stockholm

"Your room is on the waterline, don't leave the porthole open".  

Not the usual welcome at the check-in desk. However, the Mälardrottningen Hotel in Stockholm isn't your usual city centre hotel.

The hotel, a 90 year old motor yacht once owned by a Woolworth heiress, is now permanently moored in Gamla Stan in the centre of Stockholm and provides about 60 rooms with more character than any of the surrounding traditional hotels.  The rooms, or rather cabins, range from compact "Sailor's" cabins down on the waterline, through to the luxurious "Owner's" and "Captain's" cabins.

As soon as you walk up to reception you know that you are on the water.  The yacht isn't rigidly attached to the dock, so as the tide changes and other boats pass by, the hotel rocks gently on it’s moorings.  Throughout your stay you will expect to hear the sounds of the engines getting underway and of the ropes being cast off.  The maritime feel of the hotel is magnified by the profusion of bright brass and dark mahogany - and the navy blue and gold carpets ensure that you think nautical at all times.

When you check in, particularly if you're down on the waterline make sure you ask for a waterside rather than a dockside cabin. The waterside cabins have views across Riddarfjärden, and in the winter at least provide all the evidence you need that you are in Scandinavia.

In winter, at the Mälardrottningen you don't have the normal city centre noises to keep you awake, instead you get the ever-changing creak and grind of the sea ice in the harbour against the hull of the ship to lull you to sleep.  Your dreams will be of the exploits of Scott, Amundsen and Shackleton and your early morning wake-up call will be the local ice-breaker clearing the way for the harbour passenger ferries. 

The traditional fittings don't get in the way of needs of the modern traveller.  The cabins might shout 1920s, but the Scandinavian en-suite bathroom and the facilities are very 21^st Century.  There’s really efficient heating (useful when the temperature outside is -20°C, as it was when I visited in early February), satellite TV and wi-fi. 

And of course, this being Sweden, there's a snug wood-panelled sauna just down the corridor.

Independent Traveller

Travel in India is always a challenge.

The sheer volume of people places huge pressure of every aspect of every journey.  As a western visitor, or as one of India’s growing wealthy classes, it is possible to sidestep some of the crowds, but doing this throughout a visit misses the opportunity to sample real India.

Our opportunity came in the form of an invitation to visit friends in Vellore while staying in Bangalore just over 200 km away. “An easy train journey, just come for the day”.

The first challenge is getting a ticket.  The number of travellers mean that you can’t just turn up and travel, and buying a ticket means you seem to need to talk to most of the 1.4 million people employed by Indian Railways. You need to find the right booking office. You need to pick a train, there a lots of choose from.  You need to pick a class of travel, it’s not just first or second.  You need to decide if you want a confirmed booking or just to be wait-listed.  All these decisions should be easy, but everyone involved in the transaction has an opinion, as do lots of bystanders. “First Class air-con.Very comfortable”.

Eventually we find our way through the station crowds, a mix of travellers and others apparently just milling around watching the travellers, and start to negotiate the complexities of the ticketing scheme.  We identify a train. We decide on “non air-con”, previous experience telling us that air-con means you can’t see out of the windows.  We even get a confirmed ticket for at least part of the journey. Success.

We haven’t got anywhere yet, but we’ve managed the first step of being an independent traveller in India.

Slow in Vardo

It’s four o’clock in the afternoon and it’s already been dark for hours.  Today, as every day at this time, the south-bound Hurtigruten steamer stops briefly in the little Norwegian town of Vardo.

Not much happens in Vardo. Particularly in winter. The temperature is way below zero. The air is cold enough to sting as you breathe in. Everything is quiet.  The layer of snow on the ground deadens all sound.  The gently falling snow keeps everyone inside the brightly lit houses.

Through the treble-glazed windows of the “Nord Pol” bar I can see, but not hear, the locals sipping “Arctic” beer from the Mack brewery.

The only sign of outdoor activity in Vardo is down in the harbour.  A few packages are winched off the steamer and deposited into the snow on the quayside, before being hauled into the warehouse.  Further along the quay, a solitary small fishing boat comes in out of the darkness, and its two man crew unloads the fresh cargo in thickening snow flurries.

After a few minutes, the ship sounds its plaintive warning hooter summoning any stray passengers back aboard.  After another few minutes, the gangway is hauled away and the ship pulls out into the fjord.  The harbour gate clangs shut and lights start to go out. Vardo fades back into silence. The snow continues to fall.

Railway Lunch

Coonoor Station - Nilgiri Mountain Railway

"Would you like to share our lunch?"

We were sitting in an ageing carriage being slowly pulled by a wheezing steam train up the Nilgiri Mountain Railway in southern India. In the time of Empire thousands of colonial families would have used the same railway, and quite possibly the same carriages, to climb from the heat of the Indian Plains, up to the relative coolness of the hill station at Ooty.

We had started our journey from the Plains in a trusty Hindustan Ambassador before joining the train to complete the journey as it would have been done in the past. Our travelling companions were an Indian family escaping the hustle and bustle of city life in Madras to spend a few days in the hills.

The already slow train got slower and slower. After spending many hours on a mainline train before changing to the mountain train, the children were getting restless so their mother announced that it was now lunchtime. We were the only other travellers in the carriage, so the invitation came.

Palm-leaf plates were produced along with rice and an array of home-made pickles and chutneys. "They're not too hot", we were assured.  As the tea plantations slowly passed below the windows we had our first real taste of genuine home-cooked Indian hospitality.

If this scene had appeared in one of Michael Palin travelogues, we'd have been convinced that it was staged. In our travel anecdotes this lunch is now filed under "Palin moments".

Flavour of Svalbard

My trip to Svalbard in summer 2010 provided the opportunity to get really close to some of the polar bears there - I've put together a series of short blog posts about some of pictures I took.

1. Bear One

2. Bear Two

3. Bath Time

4. Being Watched

5. Planning a Picture

And if you want more words there is a blog post from 2010, or more pictures there is a set of images on Flickr.

Planning a picture

Just occasionally I manage to visualise a picture long before I get the chance to take it and then actually get to go and do it.   This picture falls into that category. 

I had a mental picture of a group of birds in silhouette flying across a glacier.  The opportunity was on the west coast of Svalbard where we had gone to watch a colony of little auks. 

Little auks build their nests underground, and every now and again a group would race out from under rocks and fly off round the bay, before coming back into the rocks to wait for the next swarm. 

Eventually I found a suitable perch, close to the colony, where the usual flight around the bay would lead the birds across a suitably icey backdrop.  After that it was just a matter of sitting wait for the sunlight to strike the glacier as the birds was coming back into the colony, and then pressing the shutter.

Being Watched

It's nice to be the centre of attention.  We thought we were here to watch the bears. We'd clearly got this bit wrong. The young bears get brought to watch us as a bedtime treat.

We had ventured out in the zodiacs for an evening watch, to see what was going on in the bay.  A mother with a couple of yearling cubs was out at the top of the bay.  The cubs were big enough to be curious about everything around them, but young enough to still need the reassurance that mum was going to be there to keep an eye on them.

As we drifted slowly to the head of the bay the three bears headed in our direction. They headed confidently across the floating ice getting as close as they could to us. Then the cubs just sat down and watched us watching them with mum in the background.  These guys were clearly very happy that this was their turf and we were interesting but temporary attractions.

Eventually mum decided that enough was enough and the cubs were reeled back in to get some sleep.

Bath Time

The zodiac crawls slowly round the headland and into the bay.  We've had a tip off.  There are bears here.  

We creep slowly in, eventually the bears come into view tucked away on the right hand side of the little bay.  They are right on the waters edge - mother and cub looking down onto an old bare whale skeleton.  They see us, we see them. Everyone stops. They try and figure if we are either a threat or a meal. Eventually they decide we are neither and everyone in the boat starts breathing again.

Then the show starts.  The stage is a old whale carcass, blown in on a storm many months ago.  From where we sit it's a bare skeleton, although we can see that the vertebrae are still connected.  From where the bear stands there is still lots of meat on the carcass - although it is underwater.  No problem for a polar bear - its not called ursus maritimus for nothing. 

Mum drops down onto the skeleton then dives under the water before coming up with a mouthful of meat - and soaks junior in the process. He has ventured along the spine too, picking his way tentatively along the vertebrae so he can stay as close to mum as possible. The inevitable happens - he get a little bit too ambitious in his scrambling, and finds out just how warm the arctic water is.

Bear Two

The first bear was seen on day one. The trip's going to be good.  We're ready for more. "We'll cruise the edge of the sea ice for a while, and see if anything turns up."  Sure enough - within a few minutes one of the old hands glances up from her book in the observation lounge, leans forward just to be sure, and cries "Bear, 9 o'clock". She's spotted an adult bear swimming strongly in the water just off the port side of the ship.  The message goes up to the bridge, and the boat heaves to. The next move is up to the bear.  

We're easy for the bear to spot - a 6000 tonne converted Russian spy ship is pretty obvious even when running quietly.  The bear comes in for a look, but decides that we're of limited interest -and certainly not edible - so soon swims away resuming his track towards the edge of the ice.  Lots of years of experience amongst the crew mean that we opt to sit still, in gathering mist, just to see what happens next.  We wait. The bear waits. Time passes.  Eventually the bear moves off inland away from the waters edge to explore a bit further.  We move in a little closer to the ice edge, and stop fast against the ice.  More time passes. The bear eventually decides that we deserve a closer inspection. So he picks himself up from his snooze and wanders towards us.  There's a  sudden cacophony of noise, every camera shutter fires. 

This is the close up chance of the trip. We might never see a bear this close again. He wanders closer and closer.  He follows the leads in the ice around the ship. Are there any of those nice Goretex-wrapped snacks around, so tempting in their bright yellow packaging.   He stands up to get a close look at the folks leaning over the edge - again the barrage of camera shutters. We get a really good look at him, he gets a really good look at us.  If there had been a gangway he'd probably have come aboard. That would probably have resulted in some great photographs, but would have been a problem to resolve.

In the absence of a gangway the bear eventually decided that it was time to stride majestically off over the ice.  He clambers over a nearby pressure ridge in the ice, and suddenly loses his footing, and slumps clumsily down though the ice. He then does exactly what you or I would do in the circumstance, he's looks round to see if anyone has noticed. Or course we had.  There were 100 Nikons or Canons pointed directly at him.  His majestic exit has been rumbled. 

Bear One

"There - just in from the back of the ice." "Where?" "I can't see anything." "I think you're imagining it." "No, really." "The slight creamy blob just to the right of the dark smudge on the ice face." "I think you might be right, good spot!"

The bear spotters dialog. Probably heard on every polar bear spotting trip to Svalbard.  Particularly around Bear One. The first bear of the trip.

Bear One on any Svalbard trip is always a big deal. It sets the tone of the trip. Is this going to be a good trip, or a great one. Did the first bear come early? If it did the trip was going to be a lucky one.

For first timers on the trip, it's always challenging to pick out the first ivory smudge in the far distance. For the old hands, its pretty easy. They've seen bears before. They know what empty ice looks like, and they know if there's a bear around.  Having spotted the bear, the next challenge is to take photographs.  Yes, it's just going to be a faint blob a few pixels across, but it is Bear One.  How many pictures of Bear One do you need? A few more will always be good.

  

Round the World in 20 days.

Having established that east is best (see previous post), how long would it really take to get round the world mostly by train?

Let's assume for the sake of argument that I'm going to set off eastwards tomorrow - at midday on Monday, 10th September 2012.

I'll catch the 12:01 from Oxford to London Paddington, then cross London to St Pancras to catch the Eurostar at 15:04, I'll be in Brussels just after 18:00, and in Cologne in time for dinner before catching the 22:28 heading eastward towards Moscow.

After a couple of nights and the intervening day, I'll get into Moscow's Byelorruski station at 09:37 on Wednesday morning.  The best direct train to Vladivostok, the Rossiya, runs every other day, so I've given myself the luxury of a static bed and time to have a look around Moscow before heading to Yaroslavski station on Thursday evening for the 23:45 departure and the long haul to Vladivostok, via Perm, Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Ulan Ude and finally, after 9258 km, into Vladivostok in time for breakfast on Thursday 20th September. 

I'm going to forego the delights of Vladivostok, and head to the airport to catch the Korean Air flight to Seoul, where I’m going to reward myself with a static night before the overnight "time travel special" from Seoul to Vancouver (AC064) where by the quirks of the International Date Line I'll both depart and arrive on Friday 21st September.  Vancouver is one of my favourite North America cities so I’m going to make the longest stop of the trip and have a two night stop-over, before heading to Pacific Central station in Vancouver in time for the Sunday (23^rd) departure of 'The Canadian' at 20:30.

I'm expecting to haul into Toronto station at about 09:30 on the 27^th, before catching Train 60 to Montreal, then changing again for Train 14 to Halifax in Nova Scotia. That's another overnight train ride, which gets me into Halifax just after 17:10 on the 28^th.  This time there’s not really enough time for sightseeing before I head to airport for the Air Canada (AC860) flight to London which gets me back into London at 09:35 on the 29th September, and I would expect to be back in Oxford by mid-day, about 456 hours after I left.

I played with a few variants of this trip, and found that the real trick to doing the trip quickly is getting the long train journeys to connect.  The Rossiya runs every other day, and the Canadian appears to run twice a week at this time of year.  A variant of this trip starting from Oxford on Sunday 9^th got me back into London on Monday 24^th – only 16 days.

If you're trying to track me down over the next few days email is probably the best bet, I’ll probably be in the office, but you never know. It'll all just depends how I feel tomorrow morning. 

The information in this post came from lots of websites – including Trainline, Man in Seat 61, Real Russia, Expedia, AirCanada and ViaRail.

My ‘final’ itinerary was

1	Monday 10 Sept	12:01 from Oxford, arrive Cologne 20:15,  train to Moscow dep 23:45
2	Tuesday 11 Sept	En route
3	Wednesday 12 Sept	Arrive Moscow 09:37
4	Thursday 13 Sept	Depart Moscow 23:45
5	Friday 14 Sept	Perm (at 20:08),
6	Saturday 15 Sept	Omsk (14:03),
7	Sunday 16 Sept	Krasnoyarsk (09:36),
8	Monday 17 Sept	Ulan Ude (09:50)
9	Tuesday 18 Sept	Still on the train
10	Wednesday 19 Sept	And still on the train
11	Thursday 20 Sept	Arrive Vladivostok 06:17, to Seoul (KE982)
12	Friday 21 Sept	Dep Seoul & Arrive Vancouver (AC064)
13	Saturday 22 Sept	Static in Vancouver
14	Sunday 23 Sept	Depart Vancouver 20:30
15	Monday 24 Sept	Jasper (16:00), Edmonton (23:00)
16	Tuesday 25 Sept	Saskatoon (09:10), Winnipeg (20:30)
17	Wednesday 26 Sept	On the rails
18	Thursday 27 Sept	Arrive Toronto 09:30, dep 11:35 Arrive Montreal 17:07 dep 18:30
19	Friday 28 Sept	Arrive Halifax 17:10, Depart 23:45 (AC860)
20	Saturday 29 Sept	Arrive LHR 09:35, back to Oxford by 12:00

Travellers Torment

I usually really enjoy travel planning, but last night I lay awake trying to get my head round a travel conundrum. Should I do a round-the-world trip eastward or westward?

Narvik to Boden - not quite
the Trans-Siberian

Yesterday I found myself thinking again about the Trans-Siberian railway.  The guide book has been on the shelf for a few years, and every now and again it comes to hand, usually when I'm looking for something else.  I started browsing it again, and the contemplation developed into the idea of how much of a round the world trip can be done by train.  Across Europe and Asia - Oxford to Vladivostok - no problem. Eurostar to Brussels, overnight to Moscow, then TS to Vladivostok.  Across North America - Vancouver to Halifax- easy. The Canadian to Toronto, then on to Montreal and Halifax.  And I don't have a problem with accepting that the Pacific and the Atlantic need to be crossed by plane or ship rather than by train. 

What I do have a problem with is the International Date Line.

Vancouver - Coal Harbour

In addition to travelling I also take a lot of pictures, particularly I have a serious picture-a-day habit.  This means I need to take at least one photograph every day.  For the last couple of years I've been posting these on Blipfoto, but my uninterrupted picture a day sequence runs from 24th December 2004. As of 8th September 2012, that was 2816 days and I'm not keen on breaking the sequence. That was what was keeping me awake last night.  What's going to happen when I cross the International Date Line?  In the wee small hours I just couldn't figure out what was going to happen to my days as I crossed the line, and what difference the direction makes.

In cool light of morning, and with a little assistance from the other half, I think I've convinced myself that provided I keep travelling east, the worst that can happen is that I get the same day twice (at least that's what happened to both Phineas Fogg and Michael Palin). If I travel west I might, depending on when during the day the clocks actually get changed, wind up skipping a day completely and wreck my photo sequence.

Or I could just leave my camera clock permanently set to UK time, and just make sure I take at a picture every few hours, just in case.