notes from the land of insanity.

India. As the cliche goes, westerners come to India to 'find themselves'. Although, after being here for nearly two weeks myself, I honestly have no idea why people expect India to be the place in which this will happen. There is so much other (four letter word) to deal with that I can't fathom how anybody would find the time to even search for themselves here. What it does teach you however, or at least what it has taught me so far, is that home is a beautiful, beautiful place. In fact, more than any other place I have visited in the course of these travels, India has made me appreciate the land of Oz the most. Imagine, a place where locals and foreigners are charged the same price....where people genuinely want to talk to visitors, not just score the contents of their wallets....where locals will help you and not hold out their hands for compensation....ahh just imagine! Is it not beautiful? It is. And thankyou to the great subcontinent for helping me realise this.
This description may seem cynical...I don't mean it to be. It is genuinely how I feel about this place, or what I have seen of it so far at least. But, of course, so far I have been in major tourist areas visiting major monuments and landmarks, so this is only one representation of a very varied land.
After spending about twelve days traversing Rajasthan (yes, we saw the Taj Mahal and yes, it is actually something you have to see in real life to truly understand it's beauty), we are currently on a night stopover in Mumbai, the most westernised city in India, before we have two overnight train rides down to the southern state of Kerala, where will be met by my lovely mummy who will then take us to the school she is volunteering her time to. After I have seen this side of the country I am sure I will have a lot of different things to say about it. We'll see.
(P.s Sorry, no photos this time, India doesn't seem to have caught on to the wifi craze yet (at least in the budget hotels) so I am using public computers and can't upload anything.)

snapshots of turkey.

swimming in a rich person's hotel in a small wine making village



boats and mountains of the mediterranean



balloons in cappadocia


a pot tree



the cats and fairy chimneys of cappadocia


street

turkey.

A snapshot of the country that connects two cultures...

Your gender and hair colour have a great affect on how people respond to you in Turkey. Being a blonde female is both good and bad...you get a lot of gifts, you're self esteem will go through the roof, and by the end of three weeks you will give up being polite and just ignore all men completely.

Apart from this aspect the people are generally very friendly and hospitable and generous. Spend a bit of time talking to the waiter in any cafe and you will most probably end up at their house for dinner, or at least out in a tea house with them for a conversation that will involve varying degrees of charades (depending on their English skills).

You will come to love Turkish tea, especially if you are a man...sitting and chatting in tea houses for hours on end is a major part of the male culture here. The women are all behind the scenes working of course.

Although this is a predominantly Muslim country- I think 97%- there is certainly a division between east and west Turkey. The west has been influenced by Europe and welcomed the decision of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (the founder of the Turkish Republic) to westernize the country and turn Turkey into a secular state. Come to the west and see people drinking, dogs are everywhere, women can wear what they like and you can even buy bacon if you so wish. The east, though, is completely different. Heavily influenced by the surrounding countries of the Middle East, Islamic rule is almost absolute here. Women have no autonomy, there is no drinking, no tattoos, no kissing before marriage. If you are a man, probably quite a strict lifestyle. If you are a woman, an impossible lifestyle.

So visitors, stick to the west! It is safer and a lot more fun I think.

The food here is good. All of it. I am definitely leaving with a little something extra in the stomach area...the men here all have what they call 'Turkish muscle', which actually means they all have little pot bellies from the food their mothers cook them. There is a strange salty yoghurt drink called Ayran, and a delicious traditional ravioli dish called Manti.

Cats are everywhere. In every single town I have been to, cats roam the streets. They don't belong to anybody in particular, but generally people are tolerant of them and lay food out at night and let them hang around.

There are some strange and beautiful landscapes here. There are a lot of old palaces and mosques here. There are a lot of people here. In Istanbul alone it is estimated between 15 and 20 million people...coming from Australia that is impressive.

Turkey is a very unique place. It is trying to be a westernized, secular, Muslim country. I am not sure if it is succeeding completely but it is certainly different. A book called 'Snow' by Orhan Pamuk is very insightful, I recommend it.

short and sweet. 6

Reunion.

After two grumpy days in London I had to escape, and luckily an old school friend whom I hadn't seen for 5 years was living a mere two hour train ride away, so I was out of London and up to Newbury for a long awaited reunion

I was met at the train station by my old friend and after hugs and screaming and giggling, she took me back to the staggeringly rich family she nannies for, and showed me around their enormous house/estate (with pool, art gallery, cellar, summer house...I could go on).

Then we reminisced about the good old days, gossiped about everyone we went to school with and, being in upper class England, went to a pub called "The Snooty Fox" for a night out.

A lovely escape from London and a brilliant reunion with an old school friend.

short and sweet. 5

London.

A tired yet excited greeting at Heathrow, and I am back in London once more. I'm really not sure what it is about this city but I just generally don't enjoy myself when I am here. The extortionate cost of everything, mixed with other sentiments, surround me with an aura of permanent frustration whenever I have to spend time here.

On my recommendation, because I had absolutely had enough of public transport, we rented a car for our British sojourn. Not a brilliant idea, as it turned out, as I should have probably predicted, London traffic is a nightmare and when you are a visitor it takes an age to find anywhere (thankgod for GPS) and then when you do, another age to find a park.

The first day in the great British city I napped and ate and sat, then when I tired of that I suggested we should be oh so very English and go and see some theatre. There is an open air theatre in Regents Park and that night they were showing The Comedy of Errors. So we gathered up our energy, found the park, found a park and went to be sophisticated with the genteel English folk.

I drank Pimms, felt under-dressed and enjoyed the play. Dad managed not to fall asleep after his 20 hour flight and everything was good.

short and sweet. 4

Oxford once more.
My final night here, England won their match so everyone was happy, and when I met my couchsurfer host of the evening he was slightly tipsy from two hours of being patriotic down at the local pub. (As I am in the UK and it is World Cup time, football is a major thread of a lot of these entries...usually I don't care about it, but over here it's hard not to get caught up in the atmosphere.) Speaking of which, Australia played their only winning match on this night and of course there were no other Aussies around for me to get excited with.

My CS host took me to a famous 13th century pub, hidden in the back alleyways of Oxford, absolutely packed with tourists, locals and lots and lots of students. The Turf Tavern...a tiny little pub that looks almost unchanged since it was built 600 years ago, it has been used in the filming of lots of TV shows and is a major draw for tourists in Oxford (of which there are many, all the time, everywhere.)

The next day it was up at 4.30 to catch a bus at 5, to meet Pa at Heathrow and be absolved of organisation or worry for the next month (or so I had hoped).

short and sweet. 3

Aussies in Chester.

Because I like to suffer, I decided that I would take a 5 hour bus trip up to the city of Chester to meet an Australian friend and stay for the night, then catch the bus back to Oxford the next day. (I had to come back to Oxford because in a fit of over planning I had prebooked my bus from here to Heathrow to meet Pa).

But the bus ride wasn't so bad and the night was worth it. A bronze elephant, outdoor couches, sugary cocktails, headbanging, an impromptou dance off and a good friend. How could this be anything but good? And I got a lovely farewell from the bus window!

short and sweet. 2

Oxford. Home to the polite, the educated and the very, very English.

I had decided before my arrival to the motherland that I was not going to be spending my last days as a solo traveller in London, as there is something about that city which I really don't enjoy. So it was up to Oxford and straight to my new couchsurfer upon arrival. A tall, gangly, pale, educated, bespectacled ENGLISH boy. Going by visual observations anyway. He was actually very cool and the one night I was planning on staying with him and his father turned into three.

I spent my days here wandering around the picturesque university city, visiting old buildings and English gardens and museums, cycling, eating scones with other genteel English folk and generally feeling unfeminine surrounded by all the gentle, proper, well-dressed Enlgish ladies. I also spent a lot of time marvelling at the ridiculous amount of importance that is placed on heirarchy and social class in England. Coming from Australia (and I met another couchsurfer from Germany who shared my sentiments) it is impossible to take class importance seriously and impossible to believe how ingrained into the culture it can be.

My nights were spent meeting new people, and learning new things. One of which was geocaching. Kind of an Internet based treasure hunt, it has been around since 2000 and seems to be quite a delight for procrastinators the world over, as according to Wikipedia (a most reliable source, as we all know) there are now 1, 114, 101 geocaches on the planet. Australians also seem to love it, but if you have no idea what I'm talking about, google it. It's way cool.

English father's day fell upon the second day of my stay, and since the English lad I was staying with lived with his father, we had a lovely father's day dinner together. I thought it was only polite to help with the cooking, as I was a guest in their home, but although my host was 23, he was only just learning to cook and hadn't really got the hang of it yet, I ended up being in charge of the kitchen. Which was actually fine by me because my bossy side tends to be on prominent display when I cook and I like to be in control.

Self-photography and reflection in the Oxford University Botanic Gardens.

short and sweet. 1

Sorry sorry sorry. That is how I should start all my posts from now on. So much has been happening and I have barely had the time or energey to put it all down in my journal, let alone up here to share with everyone. As I have moved around so much since I last wrote, this isn't going to be a mammoth, novel length post, there is too much to say and you will all get bored, so I am posting a bunch of short and sweet updates about new places and people and things. This one is first.

Ireland, Jordan style.

The tour over, we rolled into Dublin on a Friday evening, said our goodbyes and got ready to cheer on Australia in their game against Germany. I waited in line for nearly an hour to get into an Aussie pub to watch our first match of the World Cup, which, if I was any sort of 'football' fan whatsoever, would have resulted in bitter disappointment and frustration. As it was, I commiserated over our terrible game with some new American friends who were with us all the way, left all the sulking Australians and cheering Germans and went out to experience Dublin nightlife.

The next day it was back down to Cork for a few days of couchsurfing with locals. The first Irishman I stayed with was quite infatuated with sport, so I went and watched while he played a game of tag rugby, then afterwards sat in the pub with his team-mates to dissect the game and talk shop. If this was Australia I probably would have fallen asleep from boredom, but the Irish country accents and quirks of conversation more than made up for the dull discussion.

Day one in Cork, exploring on my own...I visited a 60's style American diner (of the sort I was actually hoping to find in New York, but apprently they are too cool for that), I was drawn into a vintage shop as I passed it, I got my cultural fix wandering around the city trying to find an art gallery, then did actually find it (it was tiny and barely worth the walk), I satisfied my ridiculous girly side with a terrible romantic comedy at the cinema, then I met my CS host and we went to a local pub full of character (and characters) to watch an indoor street performance show, with some very clever acts, some very impressive acts, and some kind of awkward and terrible acts. We finished up the night dancing to the live music of an old Western singer who did an excellent cover of Lily Allen's 'Not Fair'. A very well rounded day.

Day two in Cork I met another couple of Irishmen...one was a redheaded bundle of insane energy and the other was quite relaxed and easygoing. Opposites really must attract. This stay was the usual Irish drink, dance and be merry. Although I did go swimming, fully clothed, in the North Atlantic Ocean. That's something you don't do everyday.

The next evening it was back on the bus and back to Dublin for my final day in the land of the leprechaun before my journey back to fair Britain. I had a day and two nights in Dublin, but as I had spent every night in Ireland so far out drinking and dancing til the wee hours of the morning, I was using this time to rest before my next adventure. For my one day in the most expensive city in Ireland I experienced free entertainment at the Street Performance World Championships, which involved me doing nothing but sitting in a park, laughing, clapping and eating. Wonderful.