Ruth Sowter discovers Estonia and its unique people carved from a turbulent and romantic history, straddling the past and present and leaping into the future.
I had planned my visit to Estonia to fit in with my first trip overseas, nonchalantly slipping it into my itinerary between Sweden and Lithuania, to conceal the huge importance visiting my mother’s homeland had for me. For most of my life I told people my mother was Russian to avoid the difficulty of explaining where Estonia was, why it was part of the Soviet Union and how on earth to say my mother’s name (Tiiu). Stories had trickled down from my grandparents about bits cut out or blacked out of letters from relatives, how many of them had died fighting Russians, how empty the shops were and the people who were bullied by vulgar Ruskie types. Boney M seemed to have it right when they groaned, “Oh those Russians…”
The ferry from Stockholm was massive and could have been anywhere in the world except for the number of blondes aboard, and the announcements being made in Swedish, English and Estonian. We disembarked in a remote-feeling (or perhaps that was just me?) wharf full of men in black leather jackets standing around cabs. Our chosen cab quickly had us at the borders of Tallinn’s old town, with the driver explaining that cars could not enter. Despite getting down to –30 degrees in winter, in October the weather was mildly in the mid 20s. A fresh breeze came off the Baltic sea.
I had read that Tallinn was the ‘new Prague’. The Tallinn I found was a style-conscious city of medieval charm, determined to defy the post-Soviet, or actually any, stereotype. As tourists trampled the globe searching for places un-trampled, Estonia is one place still relatively fresh – a blend of former Soviet edginess and Scandinavian cool, naturally beautiful and intriguingly mysterious.
Tallinn is now famous as a party town. Brits and Europeans flock like Aussies flocking to Bali – chasing cheap beer, anonymous nightlife and locals. Trendy spots abound, but one bar that deserves a special mention is the more off-beat Depeche Mode bar, an underground grotto devoted to the band. Popular with backpackers for years, it feels like an 80s themed party and the spot to meet other people looking for something more than another trendy night spot.
Centuries of occupation by Danes, Swedes, Germans and Russians have galvanised Estonians into fiercely independent, quietly ambitious people, wary of allegiances and highly political, if somewhat hard to read. Fortunately I knew not to take it personally if people didn’t jump down my throat with friendliness the way they sometimes do in Australia. There’s a saying in Finland about two old Estonian friends who haven’t seen each other for ten years bumping into each other in a pub. “How’ve you been?” asks one. “Not bad,” the other replies. They sit and drink in silence for some time. Suddenly the first man exclaims, “Well, did we come here to talk, or to drink…”
The heart of Tallinn is Toompea, a hill where its first fortress was built in 1050. The two churches on Toompea represent both sides of Estonia’s past – a very simple, 12th century cathedral with the stone faces of its saints mostly vandalised, and another more dramatic church, Russian Orthodox with large glistening dome and tacky icons for sale.
The city is one of the best remaining examples of medieval architecture, its cobbled streets and alleyways nestled behind huge grey walls and turrets. Markets are still held in the walls (that’s how big they are), where you can buy incredibly long knitted socks, silver, amber jewellery, boots, carvings from Juniper wood and even white fox fur mittens. At the centre of the town is ‘freedom square’. Loud music, generally American, blasts out of the square’s shops and the exuberance of freedom is palpable.
To say the internet is big in Estonia is an understatement. In a country so practised at secretly pursuing liberty, the internet is the ideal portal to the world. This year the country was the first in the world to conduct its presidential elections using an electronic voting system, and all government legislation can be viewed by the public online.
After three days in the old town I was ready to explore further. Braving a five- or six-lane unmarked intersection to catch a tram, I headed for the outskirts of the city. The small, blue tram ticket cost me about three Aussie cents. Leaving old-town Tallinn, I found a different world of sprawling concrete and older, timber housing. Here was the post-Soviet grimness I had feared.
An old lady sat by the side of the road on an upturned box. Wearing only a cotton dress and headscarf, she was hunched over the wares she was selling: a few bits of old-looking apple and cabbage. It was an image I was to see repeated throughout the Eastern Block. Further out, abandoned houses, rubbish, stray dogs and bored looking youths edgily regarded the passing tram. Rusty flag holsters on the houses were a grim reminder of Soviet occupation. This place was a pin up for anti-communist sentiment, with signs everywhere of desperation, repression and poverty.
The smell of poverty was inescapable and the landscape dotted with another thing I would see all through Eastern Europe – pale, blue kiosks selling cigarettes, chewing gum, sweets, and dozens and dozens of varieties of vodka.
Estonia gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, culminating in what is known as the ‘singing revolution’. This began in 1987, with a cycle of demonstrations where people sang national songs and hymns that were banned by Soviet rule. They began broadcasting the songs on TV and the radio, and at its peak 300,000 people participated. In 1991 the Soviets sent tanks to quell the resistance and the Estonians formed a human chain around the TV and radio stations. At the same time, parliament passed legislation proclaiming the restoration of independence. Estonia had its revolution without any bloodshed, a fact of which they are justifiably proud.
A government statement in 2004 quipped that Estonia sang its way out of the Soviet Union in 1991, and then into the European Union in 2004 when Estonia came to the world’s attention by winning Eurovision. Since then, it has exploded with life with an economic boom and a taste for European sophistication, creating a strange contrast against the old Estonia.
Many of the Russians in Estonia still refuse to speak Estonian to this day, but having been born in Estonia, they refuse to return to Russia. In a weird twist, a significant number have become like gypsies – not eligible for citizenship or passports from any country, they stay around like ghosts, waiting for a return to Russian Imperialism that may not even recognise them anymore.
Four days is enough to take in the old town and outskirts, so on Day Five I took the train to Tartu, Estonia’s second largest city. Here was a different Estonia. The countryside, if not spectacular, was gently beautiful, all autumnal golden grasslands and dark fir tree woods.
People seemed to relax as we moved away from Tallinn; passengers chatted to each other and to the driver. There were no tourists, but there might have been more had they known how cheap the train was, less than one dollar Aussie.
Its hard to talk about former Soviet-occupied countries without it turning into a rant about Russian imperialism. One method the Russians used to keep people under control was by letting the infrastructure run down, leading to demoralisation. This was evident in the Estonian trains. Although clean, the huge steel car doors didn’t shut properly – instead, they spent the whole trip swinging back and forward, smashing with a tremendous clang whenever we rounded a corner. The train seemed to pull up anywhere, once or twice in the woods with not even a platform. The passenger would leapg a few feet down into the grass with a wave to the driver.
Tartu is Tallinn’s smaller, friendlier, if less sexy, sister. Home to Estonia’s oldest university, it is very much a cosy student town. A running joke in the town is immortalised in a statue of one of Estonia’s most famous poets, Wilde (pronounced Vil-de). He lived about the same time as Oscar Wilde, and the similarity was evidently amusing enough for the Estonians to have a themed Irish pub named after the two men, with an accompanying bookshop. This was one of the best pubs I visited, pumping with students, good food, more cheap beer and lovely wooden interior.
Traditional Estonian food is all about black bread, sauerkraut (pickled cabbage), fish and potato. Being a vegetarian, I had to put up with family jokes for years about how a good Estonian blood sausage would sort me out (that is, it would exorcise silly vegetarian notions), so I was nervous about local food. How wrong I was! Anyone who likes garlic would love the Estonian black bread served at Wilde – toasted, buttered and rubbed with garlic. Also, Estonian ice cream is like no other – it is all real cream and fresh local fruit.
After independence, we asked my grandfather if he would consider going back. He shook his head. “Too cold.” Estonia, like my grandfather, is looking forward – focused on a future that sees the country becoming ever stronger and more secure in Europe. If you want to see any remains of the old Estonia, you had better move fast. After waiting decades for freedom and self-definition, this country ain’t waiting around for no-one.
Fourteen hundred and twenty steps. I lost count around three hundred and fifty, but figured we were about half way there. My legs felt heavy and I could hear blood pumping through my ears. My partner and I were in deep in darkest Transylvania, in search of Dracula. At the top of our climb lay his roost, a fifteenth century castle.
My imagination raced ahead, conjuring up images of swirling, screeching, black bats. A slight breeze whistled through the pine needles while a pack – no, more like a gang – of mangy dogs trotted incessantly behind us, their nails clicking tick! tick! tick! on the empty steps. The scene was straight out of Bram Stokers’ Dracula: Jonathon Harker, the young solicitor sent to stay with the Count, surrounded by howling wolves as he approaches the vampire’s lair.
Well, almost. Not exactly howling wolves, but the dogs did seem dangerous in a rabid kind of way.
Confusing myth with reality is easy to do in Transylvania. The legend of Dracula (meaning ‘the Devil’) entices tourists to drink from a potent cocktail of folklore, history, landscape and literature. Everybody knows of Count Dracula, the bloodsucking neck biter. But only Romania can boast the man behind the myth.
Vlad Draculea, a fifteenth century Romanian prince, is said to have been the inspiration for Bram Stokers’ shapeshifting character. He impaled victims – Turkish prisoners of war, disobedient subjects and treacherous lords – on sharpened stakes. Thus he was named Vlad Tepes – Vlad ‘the Impaler’.
‘Dracula tourism’ is prolific in Romania. Any building, town or toilet remotely connected to either the fictional Count or the historical Vlad is exploited.
We, however, were determined to experience the ‘real’ Dracula, a search that would take us through student clubs, rural villages and gothic architecture to the heights of the Carpathian Mountains.
We caught an overnight train from Prague to Cluj Napoca. Coincidentally, this was Jonathon Harker’s first stop on his journey to the Count’s castle. Our train was late, so we alighted on the platform near the stroke of midnight. Much to our disappointment we didn’t stumble across black caped creatures emerging from crypts. We did, however, encounter night dwellers of another kind – students.
Cluj Napoca (known simply as ‘Cluj’) is the hub of Romania’s burgeoning intelligentsia. During the school year, students make up a third of the city’s population. And, like any place in the world where students gather en masse, partying takes precedence over studying.
The Fashion Club, Diesel and the Basement Bar are just some of the clubs in which Paris Hilton lookalikes groove to the latest European dance anthems. Young men wearing designer labels sip Black Russians with an air of arrogance which often clings to the rich, like cologne. Models pass out free packets of Vogue cigarettes while ‘Fashion TV’ plays on a big screen behind the bar.
This came as a surprise to us. Romania is one of the poorest nations in Europe, recovering from a long and brutal dictatorship. However, the country has recently joined the EU and seems to have finally broken the shackles of Ceausescu. A few long nights in Cluj proved that young Romanians are quickly moving away from their nation’s troubled past and can party with the best of them.
The nights blurred together and we became distracted from our quest to find the real Dracula by a slightly scarier quest to find the real Paris Hilton among the lookalikes. It was about then that we decided to re-focus, re-hydrate and hit the road. We caught the train to Sighisoara, Vlad Tepes’ birthplace.
On the train we met Anna, a music student returning home for the holidays. She gave us the lowdown on a changing, progressive Romania. “You used to be able to smoke on trains,” she said, tapping her knee to the rhythm of the tracks. Anyone who has traveled through Eastern Europe will understand the gravity of this comment. The country was in a flux: no smoking in cramped, public places; Russian was out, English was in; people can now vote.
We questioned Anna about opulent Cluj: “Higher education is only available to those whose parents can afford to send them to university,” she explained, “or those lucky enough to be awarded a scholarship.” Herself a scholarship student, Anna revealed that 40% of Romanians live agriculturally, many in abject poverty.
The train lumbered past a Stephen King landscape of yellow haystacks, never ending cornfields and ragged scarecrows flapping in the breeze. The horizon occasionally provided a silhouette of post-communist perniciousness: disused factories, abandoned collective farms and silent power stations. Our alcohol enhanced impression of Romania as party central quickly dissolved like an aspirin.
We said goodbye to Anna as she hugged her parents on the train platform in Sighisoara. Her comments were correct: horse-drawn carts cantered down the dirty street and grubby children raced each other on rusty bicycles; a marked contrast to affluent Cluj.
However, Sighisoara is experiencing an economic boom of its own. In the centre of the town rises a 13th century citadel, listed as a UNESCO world heritage sight. Tourists stroll through the maze of sloping cobblestone streets, marvel at the fortified walls and sip coffee in the town square, once the site of public proclamations and gruesome executions.
A clock tower built in 1648 still keeps time and a climb to the top provides spectacular views over one of the best preserved medieval towns in Eastern Europe. Interestingly, people still live inside the citadel; one of the old battle towers is occupied by a local radio station.
The central attraction is Vlad Tepes’ childhood home. Situated in the town centre, it has recently been converted into a (surprise, surprise) Dracula themed restaurant. The mass of associated merchandise, including vampire t-shirts, Vlad Tepes’ stubby holders and oddly, Star Wars memorabilia, evoked a sense of nostalgic kitsch. Sighisoara, although architecturally incredible, just didn’t rate high enough on our Draclometer. We were after the scent of blood.
Perhaps blood would stain the streets of Brasov, the second largest city in Romania. Flanked by steeply rising, forested hills, and overlooked by a Hollywood style ‘Brasov’ sign, travelers are attracted to its medieval ambience and proximity to ski resorts in the Bucegi Mountains.
On St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1459, Vlad Tepes executed 30 000 dishonest merchants and nobles in the town square. He arranged the stakes in concentric circles and sat in the middle of the grisly scene, lasciviously eating his dinner.
We didn’t find remnants of Vlad’s mass impalement, but were astounded by the spectacular gothic architecture of the Black Church. Its towering steeple, daunting in the night sky, provided an eerie atmosphere to a dark night in Transylvania. The ‘Brasov’ sign, lit up on the hillside, gave the impression of a film set. Once again, our search for Dracula distorted fact and fiction.
The two sides of the Romanian coin continued to beguile us in Bran, a small town which was a 30 minute bus ride from ‘Brasovwood’. Our guide book told us that it was here we could explore ‘Dracula’s Castle’.
I clung to my sharpened stake, expecting the rank smell of open crypts and garlic to permeate the walls; instead, a musty, odour hung in the air like an old noose. Further consultation with my guidebook revealed that the Dracula reference is due to the castle’s classic appearance: it is unlikely Vlad Tepes ever visited here.
However, the spirit of Vlad was to be found in a nearby haunted house where shrieking ghouls and the moaning undead frightened those brave enough to venture in. A market stall sold fake blood and plastic vampire teeth. A bar, complete with coffin-shaped lounges, sold slightly overpriced drinks. Further exploration revealed a cheaper local alternative down a flight of stairs under an internet café.
More a museum than horror show, an exploration of the many rooms in Bran Castle revealed an elaborate collection of antique furniture. A recreated traditional Transylvanian village was nestled in a field below. The red roofed castle fronted an evening sky of setting sun and coloured clouds, a memorable visual experience.
We decided to bite the silver bullet and journey onwards to Poenari, site of Vlad Tepes’ actual domain. Built by slaves and servants in 1456, it is, as Jonathon Harker correctly described, “in the midst of the Carpathian Mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe.” While not completely inaccessible, the castle is difficult to reach, and as such, sees few tourists.
Three bus rides from Bran took us into Romania’s rural heartland. Through the city of Pitesti, the town of Court de Arges and a truckstop called Poenari. Cows roamed the streets and the sound of hens clucking was intermittently interrupted by the growl of passing road trains.
After an anticipatory night’s sleep, we walked three kilometres to the base of the mountain where we had to search for the first step that would take us to ‘the Devil’s’ lair.
Eventually we emerged from the gloom of the forest into bright sunshine. Vlad Tepes’ castle perched precariously on the side of a cliff. Crumbling ramparts and aging battle towers loomed ominously overhead.
There were no swirling bats, yet Bram Stoker’s evocation described the scene well: “The castle is on the very edge of a terrible precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything! As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green tree-tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm. Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests.”
Our long search had finally alchemised fact and fiction. Overwhelmed by the view, we stood silently on the ramparts of the real Dracula castle looking out over the precipice into the rugged Carpathians. The air that swirled beneath our feet was scented by fir trees and we were dizzy from the height, or was it the spirit of Vlad circling us?
We had also seen the spirit of a poor, post-communist nation emerging into the wider world with a garish sense of humour and the inventiveness to take what it has and run with it. It all merged on top of that mountain to produce a moment of sheer exhilaration. We had drunk from the potent cocktail and were now His minions.
It turns out that Vlad Tepes’ first wife threw herself from these ramparts into the Arges River far below, to avoid being captured by invading Turks. Our impaling anti-hero escaped, only to be killed later in battle. His body was decapitated, his head sent to Constantinople. However, his legend lives on in castles, villages, and tacky t-shirts all through Romania. RIP.
Fast Facts:
• It is possible to travel to Transylvania by train from almost any major city in Europe. Connections, however, in Hungary and elsewhere can be unreliable, so patience is required.
• Train travel within Romania is reliable and frequent. There are slow trains, which are old, dilapidated, and as the name suggests, very slow; and fast trains, which are modern and more expensive. Ticket prices for the fast train average between 20 – 40 Australian dollars between destinations. Buses are regular and very cheap.
• Expect to pay between 20 and 40 Australian dollars per night for double accommodation. Hotels are available in most major towns; pensions and home stays in smaller towns and villages.
• Australian citizens require a visa which costs $65. The visa is NOT available at the border, but from Romanian consulate in Canberra.
Being single can be tough anywhere, but in Korea it can be downright confusing.
No sound of mail dropping onto the doormat. No carrier pigeon beating his wings against my apartment window bearing joyful messages of love. Not even a flippin e-card. Nothing. Zilch.
I had begun to think my admirers had forgotten about me. Not even Beckham (who I like to think of as my cheeky bit on the side) bothered to send me a card, not that I care though, I’m still waiting for his voice to drop and what with his recent fall from grace he’s no longer the catch I thought he was.
However, while I was bemoaning my lack of romantic appreciation and wondering how indeed the world could be so cruel (AGAIN), one of my students pointed out a cultural difference that put a smile on my face and stopped me from heading for the two litres of ice cream I keep in the freezer for ‘emergencies’ of this nature. It turns out that on Valentines Day in Korea it is the GIRL who buys presents for the guy!
What the?
I was thinking this was perhaps another example of Korean male chauvinism, the guy gets the presents, the girl gets to cook dinner and wash up, that kind of thing. However, I was wrong. Apparently my time will come next month on March 14th, which is known in Korea as ‘White Day’. On White Day guys return the favour and buy the girls the presents, normally candy and flowers.
Hallelujah! I was simply being insecure, of course my admirers hadn’t forgotten me! They’re just aware that I respect the cultural differences between Koreans and Westerners and, not wanting to look stupid, decided to wait until White Day to send me a gift. Phew, I can sleep easier now.
The story, however, doesn’t end there. While investigating my lack of gifts, (for obviously a trauma of this gravity requires seeerious investigation) I discovered that Korea has many ’special days’. Now whether these days can really constitute as special isn’t really for me to say however I do think the motivations for creating such days may have been a little dubious. In the UK we moan that Valentines day simply exists to line the pockets of retailers and to strike fear into the heart of the average British male who’s single brain cell malfunctions with all the stress and causes them to think a pink teddy from a card shop is an acceptable gift (it isn’t, and neither is a voucher from a high street shop that can buy nowt more than two pairs of tights..but let’s not get into that…)
In Korea they go that step further. Here goes..
*14th January- Diary Day- when you exchange diaries so that you can plan the year ahead. Obviously the Koreans must anticipate a major New Year hangover and therefore the first two weeks has them drunk, disorganised and diaryless.
*14th February- Valentines Day- guy gets pressies.
*14th March- White Day- girl gets pressies.
*14th April- Black Day- all single people moan about the fact they are single and eat black noodles called Jjajangmeon.
*14th May- Rose Day- another day that has florists rubbing their hands with glee.
*14th June- Kiss Day- you get to snog the face off your beloved today, however it isn’t prohibited on the other days of the year. Perhaps they have a special type of kiss for Kiss Day, the mind boggles…
*14th July- Silver Day- you exchange gifts of the silver variety.
*14th August- Green Day- modern life is stressful- get yourself to a place with greenery today.
*14th September- Music and Photos Day- couples take photos of each other or you gather all your friends in a nightclub and take photos.
*14th October- Wine Day- you gotta get yourself and your better half to a fancy restaurant and drink red wine today ( there needs to be a special day for that?!)
*14th November- Movie/Orange Day- go watch a movie with your boyfriend and then, erm, drink orange juice ?
* 14th December-Hug Day- because it’s cold in December we should all hug each other to keep warm. Think penguins.
Apparently the majority of Koreans don’t have a clue when these days actually are and it took one of my students to look on the internet for me to confirm, however it is strongly believed that the rampant consumerists who created these crazy days were targeting that most naive, gullible and impressionable of creatures, the high school girl.
So what did I do on Valentine’s? What any self respecting singleton should- went out for lunch with a girlfriend, ate to excess, increased my waist size by at least an inch and then went home and felt sick. A job well done – and I get to do it all again in a month on White Day!
So many Young Australians pack their bags and head to London with a Working Holiday visa in their pocket. Lance Richardson delves into why they do it and why some don’t want to come home.
Homer wrote in The Odyssey of The Land of the Lotus-Eaters, a place where people take up a narcotic lotus and fall into addiction at the expense of their past and future. It’s an analogy for many things – not least, I think, of the temptation to expunge responsibility and remain a child. My lotus was my working holiday in London.
At first glance there is something oddly perverse about the pairing of ‘Working’ and ‘Holiday’ on those British visa forms. Surely, one thinks, the embassy has got it wrong. Surely a holiday denotes a stretch of time absent of work, and work denotes a stretch of time absent of holiday. Surely, together, they cancel each other out and you’re simply left lying in bed wondering what it is you’re supposed to be doing.
But it quickly becomes clear that Holiday is almost certainly a misnomer. Somebody’s made a typo. Call the embassy. Because shouldn’t it really say something like Working Travel Experience? Anybody who’s ever been ferried to the beach by their parents and then gone backpacking with friends on a budget will know what I mean. Holiday and travel are often different kettles of fish: holiday is automatic, safe, battered flake with chips; travel is cast from rough clay and boiled over an open fire, and the fish in this case are piranhas waiting to bite off your extremities.
So with this in mind, why bother with the oxymoron that is the Working Holiday? Semantics aside, the obvious answer is, of course, because it’s fun. It’s fun to experience a different environment, to stretch out your cultural legs and match three-dimensional reality with movie fantasy, a holiday from life as you know it.
One reason young Aussies flock to London depends more on the Working aspect of the supposed holiday. Sarah, a friend of mine, took the opportunity to go to London and cement her ambition as an interior designer. Something indelible remains of the image of Australia as a bucolic backwater, devoid of satisfying jobs, against which the allure of international opportunity is a strong temptation.
Most interesting, however, is the Working Holiday as a convenient diversionary tactic. I speak from experience here. Those late teenage years when you find yourself suddenly considered an adult, independent, can seem nebulous and lacking in forward motion. Without university or any reasonable short-term goals, it’s easy to stagnate in a haze of anxious indecision. A Working Holiday provides an alibi for two years of meandering or fantasising, an escape clause from the pressures of career and responsibility.
This was my own tacit thinking when I grabbed a visa and headed for London, selected for its proximity to Europe as well as its appearance of a cultural Mecca. All my favourite writers had intimate experience with London – to live there, even for a short period, seemed like an opportunity to connect with like-minded people in an environment I found exhilarating. Australia and I had never quite got along in this respect; I hoped London would prove a better fit. This led to a naïve imagining of myself as a sort of Dorian Gray, capable of stowing away my cardinal Australianess in favour of something else, acquired, controllable and distinctly European (something to do with confidence, perhaps). I reasoned that if you control the base elements you’ve gone a long way to controlling outcomes. This is only a short step from feeling like your future’s being shaped rather than shaping you.
My goal was quickly decided then: to use the Working Holiday as an opportunity to reconfigure myself – everything else would hopefully follow in painless compliance. So I got a room in a share-house near Holland Park. I landed an interesting job working the world-class museum circuit thanks to a prominent agency that earned more from my exertions than I did. While on assignment I distributed tickets beneath a Chihuly chandelier. I greeted John Galliano in a Vivienne Westwood retrospective. I watched a technician maintain the priceless lapidary of the Rosetta Stone while my hippie boss, in candid admission, declared that though he may have been high at the time, he did in fact dance in a nightclub with both of the Minogue sisters simultaneously. Basically, I submerged myself in a series of low-responsibility positions that fostered a feeling of achievement while actually leaving me in the same limbo of aimlessness that had sent me abroad in the first place. I awoke each morning excited, glad to be a Londoner, but increasingly aware that I was wearing a costume in a game that could never really be won.
I suspect it’s not until the day your visa expires, however, that you realise just how much you’ve come to rely on the specious sense of achievement. With the parents remarking on how much your accent’s changed, and the formidable approach of an uncertain future, it’s easy to feel nostalgically attached to a surrogate home where everything’s ‘easier.’ Certainly on this point I’m not alone – take Nadine, for example, a friend who found herself illegal and handing out nightclub flyers in a vain attempt to stay an unofficial citizen. Or Sarah, the interior designer: ‘I felt I had made a life for myself in London and that I had fully immersed myself into my life, my work and my friends,’ she says. ‘I was happy and I was not ready to come home. I did not want to come home . . . to step back in to my old life.’
For a while the lotus consumed my thoughts; this unfettered life in London was my real life; the Australian me was all a prologue, a test-run. For myself and others who take the visa as a diversionary tactic, it’s easy to fall for this illusion, and it can last long after you’ve made the obligatory voyage home. Even now I miss London – in terrible, homesick pangs – but I’ve gained valuable perspective in retrospect. I didn’t lose the experience gained in England on the return flight to Sydney. If anything, it led me to seek out similarities here and I’ve found things in places I wouldn’t otherwise have thought to look. As with Sarah, now working in interior design in Melbourne, the Working Holiday actually illuminated an entirely new direction. ‘It made me a better person – I only had to let it go and embrace the uncertain future to realise that.’
There is a Chinese curse that says, “May he live in interesting times.” If cities can fall prey to curses too, then, without a doubt, the bustling Chinese city of Shanghai is a victim of this one.
Whether they like it or not, the people of Shanghai are living through perhaps their city’s most interesting time. In short, if you’re seeking adventure, shopping, partying, culture and inspiration, all on a budget, then Shanghai is the city of you.
The story of Shanghai is much like the old Hollywood faithful about the innocent little country girl who moves to the big smoke and becomes a star. Unfortunately, her path to stardom is marred by evil Hollywood money men who want to exploit her natural good looks and country charm for their own fame and fortune. Eventually, after trials and tribulations aplenty, she triumphs and becomes a star in her own right, without the money men pushing her on stage, and without anyone holding her hand.
With her past as a small fishing village in the eleventh century and her present as a modern masterpiece, cultural centre and financial hub, Shanghai’s story mirrors the country girl’s. In the mid-nineteenth century, English, French and Japanese colonists all arrived to exploit the city’s valuable portside position and by the 1930s it was the financial centre of Asia.
But the fame was short-lived, and during the communist years, the eyes (and wallets) of the world turned instead to Hong Kong. Since 1992, however, Shanghai has reclaimed its global status and emerged successful, sophisticated and sexy. As China propels into the twenty-first century, Shanghai begins to look much hotter than Hong Kong, which is just what the Chinese Government wants.
This turbulent and culturally diverse history only makes Shanghai more appealing to visitors. Its unique blend of past and future is its most intriguing feature. Amazingly crafted and architecturally outstanding office buildings literally seem to scrape the sky, sitting alongside tiny street stalls where you can buy a fresh and authentic Chinese breakfast for less than a dollar. One bank of the Huangpu River is lined with grand 1930s European buildings and hotels in glorious sandstone. The other is a virtual poster child for the combinations of steel, glass and stratospheric heights that is modern architecture.
In this way, a visit to Shanghai can be akin to experiencing China’s history in a nutshell. Every traveler has to visit the French concession. Like many areas of French colonisation, the concession is set out an easy-to-navigate grid. Although now mostly absorbed into the hustle and bustle of greater Shanghai, the area retains a faded 1930s European charm. Increasingly, its small alleys and quieter backstreets are filled with ex-pat cafes and art galleries that, although expensive, provide a glimpse of the ongoing cultural diversity of Shanghai.
Nestled in this concession is the old girls’ school where, in 1921, Mao Zedong helped found the Chinese Communist Party. The site, now an outrageously propagandist and rather dull museum, marks Shanghai as the birthplace of Chinese Communism. In 1966, the city was selected by Mao as the launch pad for the Cultural Revolution in the hope of transforming it from a symbol of pernicious Western opulence to one of Communist reformation and zealous Maoism.
Today, Mao memorabilia can be bargained down and bought in the Yuyuan Gardens and Bazaar. If you’re lucky, you might even get an original in the Dongtai Lu Antique market.
Fast-forward to 1992, when the city’s most recent makeover into an investor’s dream and property developer’s delight really began. Pudong, on the eastern bank of the Huangpu River is the best example of this. In 1990, the area was nothing more than muddy marshlands supplying vegetables to Shanghai’s markets. Now the area supplies to the global market and is crowded with gleaming silver skyscrapers and hi-tech factories in all shapes and sizes that light up like neon Christmas trees at night.
This penchant for light shows is also on display in the Bund ‘sightseeing tunnel’ that takes visitors under the river. Contrary to its name, the tunnel does not allow one to ‘sightsee’ or even promote places to ‘sightsee’ in Shanghai. Instead, travelers clamber into futuristic train modules and are treated to a bizarre tunnel ride of flashing lights, dancing holograms and bad video-game music.
By far the best way to enjoy the expansive grey of this side of Shanghai is from the warm insides of a Western hotel. Although not privy to the hallowed halls or luxurious lounges of the formidable Hyatt Shanghai, this writer can attest to the quality (and value for money for a hungry backpacker!) of its buffet lunch – enjoyed 54 floors up from the world of commerce and construction and overlooking the misty grey of the river.
Yet, in the true tradition of the newly minted grown up, Shanghai is experiencing some growing pains. The city’s hotpot combination of a uniquely Chinese, agrarian past and its decidedly Western-looking future occasionally causes an awkward and amusing cultural clash.
Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the Xiang Yang Clothes Market where signs that state, “we are collectively responsible for the protection of intellectual property rights” hang, resplendent in red and gold, above a bustling marketplace selling in overwhelming abundance all the fake European watches, wallets and wearables we know and love.
Luckily, my Mandarin-speaking friend was able to disperse many of the vendors of forbidden goods with their oft-repeated call of “Hey lady! Hey lady! Watch? Bag? DVD?” However some were so persistent that our joking demands to buy a cat were met with one man’s earnest promise he would sell us his family cat if we came back at the same time the following day. In spite of our desire to experience all of Shanghai, from early morning to tai-chi to late night cocktails, this was one offer we could refuse!
But the growing pains are part of the city’s charm. For all its grandeur, the quirkiness of the Shanghainese manages to slip through. While out for a dinner one night, our hot steamed dumplings and chicken with chili and pinenuts were not only accompanied by the now familiar noise of fellow diners hocking up phlegm, but by a garishly Western-infused Chinese wedding. With its pink balloon archway and game show-like MC, the wedding, was a corny imitation of the most kitsch Western traditions. Like much of China’s – and Shanghai’s – rapid imitation of the West, something is just not quite right.
These Western-pretenses seem to reveal a city that is still deciding whether to embrace its Chinese heart or Western mind. The result is a city with a skyline than is a more ostensible tribute to capitalism than any skyline in Australia, yet a rather unworldly population where the sight of a blonde, brunette and redhead walking along the river is one to capture on camera.
Despite these growing pains, Shanghai is a truly world-class city on the brink of something beautiful. And although having a Mandarin speaking friend was a definite bonus, the metro is easy to use, taxis are cheap, the street vendors are pleasant rather than pushy; the majority of the street signs are in English and, overall, the city feels safe, not shifty. This feeling is undoubtedly increased by police tips such as, “Avoiding being stolen should always be remembered. Be prepared for danger in times of safety,” and “When getting off with your lover, watch your bag!”
My friends and I were lucky enough to be in Shanghai at Chinese New Year. As we walked home in the wintry cold of our first night, we were greeted by the sounds of fireworks exploding. Everywhere you looked fuschia, lime green and gold sparks lit up the sky and the towering Shanghai skyline.
This amazing, albeit arbitrarily policed, spectacle is an ancient Chinese method for warding off evil spirits and their malicious curses. To me, such warding seems a little premature. If Shanghai wants to keep growing into global superstar it can be, then perhaps the supposed “curse” of interesting times should be allowed to linger just a little longer. Well, at least long enough for me to go back and buy that “genuine” Gucci bag.
Welcome to Forrest, Western Australia. Population: two. A remote airstrip on the Nullarbor Plain managed by the town’s only inhabitants, two crazy ex-tour leaders, Suzy Browne and Paul Conway.
With a postcode of their own (that’d be 6434) and a whole lot of desert for their neighbours, Suzy and Paul live in one of the most remote towns in Australia. “Sometimes we just go out onto the airstrip and do wheelies because no one can hear us scream. And no one can tell us not to!” says Suzy, laughing.
Australia has some of the most formidable and desolate landscape on earth. Only 14 per cent is forested and 70 per cent is arid or semi-arid. The majority of Aussies are clustered on the coast, and while we know that vast areas of our country are remote and isolated, few of us have experienced it firsthand.
The Nullarbor Plain is one of the most famous of Australia’s desolate places, and a trip across it is one of our most iconic road journeys. The plain sits on a 250,000 square metre chunk of limestone, the largest of its kind in the world that, unfortunately, isn’t too conducive to growing anything more than a few random saltbushes and low-lying scrub. The actual word ‘Nullarbor’ is derived from the Latin for ‘no trees’. It is, in short, a very, very treeless place.
The turnoff to Forrest is approximately halfway across the Nullarbor Plain, and 120km inland via an ‘unconstructed’ track. Basically, you gotta bush-bash it to get there by road in a hard core 4WD. “It is so hard describe Forrest in words. It’s an experience, not a place. When you get out of the cities and come somewhere like Forrest, it blows your mind. There is a whole ‘other’ Australia that so many of us have never seen, that is so awesome,” says Suzy.
Tired of touring Australia and the South Pacific by air with elderly passengers, Suzy threw in her tour leader job and applied for a 12-month position as Airport Manager at Forrest. She was old-peopled out, and knew she had to find something pretty special to keep her entertained. Having been to Forrest a few times before, Suzy says she just couldn’t get it out of her head.
“The outback is magic. Because the desert is so flat, you sit on the water tank with a glass of wine and watch the sun set on one side and the moon rise on the other. The storms, the stars – wow! The weather out here is so incredibly beautiful; there’s no way you can forget about it,” she says.
She convinced her friend Paul, a tour leader in remote Cape York, to apply with her for the dual position. A few months later they found themselves managing Forrest, the largest tarred and lit airstrip outside the capital cities, and the emergency landing stop for Virgin Airways.
Forrest was built in 1917 as one of fifty maintenance stops on the 1700km steel ribboned Trans Continental Railway from Kalgoorlie to Port Augusta. As technology improved, the dodgy high maintenance tracks were gradually upgraded, shutting down many of the new townships.
However, in the age of early aviation, Forrest had its uses. Western Australian Airlines began using it as its overnight stop on the 16-hour flight between Perth and Adelaide in 1929. Thus began Forrest’s life as a vital stopover point for light aircraft travelling across the vast Nullarbor, providing fuel, terminal facilities and accommodation.
Accessible by plane, train and automobile, when the traffic is flowing, Forrest is not so lonely. “Three weeks is the longest we’ve gone without seeing anyone but each other.
We are both very intense and determined people, which means we definitely clash at times. Those times are the hardest because there is nowhere to go except into the space and more aloneness. But the great thing is, Paul doesn’t tend to talk, and I am a talker. In a town of two that works really well,” says Suzy.
When they are desperate for a break, Paul and Suzy lock up Forrest, and drive for three hours to Eucla, on the coast. “We drive at night after the day’s work, just to see the ocean. We camp out under the stars on the beach, and then head back at dawn for any arrivals that day. After being in the desert so long it’s amazing to be near the water,” says Suzy.
Suzy and Paul order their groceries from Kalgoorlie and get them delivered on the Indian Pacific Train, which runs four times a week between Sydney and Perth. The Indian Pacific doesn’t stop so they have to do the whole Chariots of Fire thing, running alongside the train to collect their mail and groceries. “If we’re lucky, the drivers will chuck a newspaper out the window as they go past, but it sucks trying to catch the cartons of beer,” Suzy says.
Because of its isolation, and Suzy and Paul’s hospitality, Forrest is a tourist destination in its own right, attracting an incredible array of visitors. “The isolation is harder to deal with than I thought,” Suzy says. “You rely on who comes in, and you have to wait for the world to come to you. But then everything will change in a split second and you forget you were ever alone.”
The desert Aborigines from Tjuntjunjarra drop into Suzy’s place for cups of tea and cake on their way between settlements. They remember being removed from Maralinga, the site of Australia’s controversial nuclear testing between 1952 and 1963. Suzy says they are quite shy, but occasionally speak of their memories of being transported from the nuclear testing site in strange vehicles and trains, to other desert areas.
Other recent visitors include a couple of young Parisian pilots, who hired a light plane and flew to Australia to clock up their flying hours. After Suzy and Paul took them high-speed dingo chasing, they didn’t want to leave. “They were going nuts about the dingoes! They were blown away by the dark and so much space,” says Suzy. “We took them four-wheel driving into the desert to see the giant eagles’ nests and the awesome meteorite sites. There is just so much cool stuff in the desert that is indescribable.”
Suzy and Paul have also had their fair share of science nerds to hang out with.
Aside from its aviation duties, Forrest functions as a meteorological watch station, and as part of the new tsunami warning system, has had its seismic station upgraded.
“Recently we had a London meteorite scientist here (who called everyone ‘Lord’ and ‘peeps’) and three scientists from Prague, who couldn’t speak much English. We did a camp oven for dinner by the fire, and as the sun went down they jokingly said, ‘Oh yes, we’ll have a gin and tonic with sunset,’ thinking we were a bunch of yokels! So I delivered six Blue Sapphires with tonic and a wedge of lemon. Yokels we ain’t!”
