On the maps, the California-Nevada border goes through Lake Tahoe. But geologically and biologically speaking, Nevada begins a few miles east, at the peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountain range where the lush Californian forest turns to dust and brown rocks. When the highway reaches these peaks, Nevada is visible through the windscreen. This is mainly because suddenly there are no more trees blocking the view, and there it is – Nevada, stretching out all the way to the horizon, down the mountains and across valleys until, somewhere unseen, Utah happens. I’m reminded of the geography textbook from my first year of University and the term ‘rain shadow’ comes to mind.
A few weeks earlier I was on a bus going to work at Sierra-at-Tahoe, an out-of-the-way snow resort with decent trails but killer tree runs, as well as the best half pipe on the West Coast. I was silent and moody because it was early morning, when suddenly my travel buddy Simon (who reminds me of Point Break and is also a devout Christian), points to the snow-capped peaks beside the highway and announces, “Over those hills lies… Carson City.”
Carson City is the capital of Nevada. It is full of crazy saloon bars with swingin’ barn doors, reminiscent of Western films, complete with neon signs of cowboys advertising cheap beer and steaks. Shimmering casinos tower over the saloon bars, which themselves are next to serious-looking government buildings and diners. The diners are a mix of locally-owned businesses and corporate joints, such as Denny’s and IHOP, where the waitresses call me ‘honey’. Amongst all of this madness is Comma Coffee.
When you walk in, the first thing you see is a massive, old school espresso machine. It is sitting on a long glass bench top displaying fudge brownies, pecan pie, chunky muffins and all sorts of tasty baked goods you would expect from a country where cake batter ice-cream is mainstream. On the counter are brochures explaining the origins of the name: how the comma, which signifies a brief break in a sentence, (just like that), can also be used to signify a brief break in our hectic modern lives.
The elaborate and mismatched tables and chairs work perfectly in this environment. So do the mirrors on the walls, which hang beside framed portraits of people I’ve never seen. My ‘regular’ cappuccino is served in a huge mug large enough to bathe in. Cosy and warm, Comma Coffee might be the only decent coffee shop in the entire Silver state. Even though none of the wait staff call me ‘honey’, they make me feel welcome. After a long drive doing a road trip from San Francisco to Salt Lake City, this is the place to stop.
The streets are narrow, forcing cars to squeeze between one another. My breath stops and my eyes scrunch as each car navigates past another. The concentration needed is like that used to thread a needle, a few millimeters are all that separates them. The buildings, whose facades show the ravages of time and the dampness of the climate, are bathed in the last remnants of golden sunlight. The delicate sea breeze carries a hint of salt that can be smelt and tasted. The surroundings begin to cool, and with the tingle of erect hair on my neck, yet the temperature is heating up in the Tres Villas Restaurant. Arms are waving, voices rising and the atmosphere is intense as Barcelona FC draws closer to victory. The great rivalry between Real Madrid and Barcelona hangs in the balance as Santiago Ezquerro Marín effortlessly weaves in and out of the Real Madrid opponents, like witches hats. Will goalie Iker Casillas be quick enough? Despite the tension and anticipation that everyone can feel in the room, it is not the loyal supporters who are stirring – needless to say, their eyes are glued to the TV. No, it is not Spanish or Catalan that the crowded restaurant could hear. It is me, in my attempt to make my English more understandable to the non-English speaking waiter.
Barcelona, the largest capital city on the Mediterranean was my third stop, with previous adventures in Canada and New York, with Paris as my next and final destination. Barcelona meant no more friendly Canadians who would talk as if they hadn’t had a conversation is years. It meant no more pushy New Yorkers who were always rushing, yet if they told you to get out of the way you would have no problem understanding them. I was heading way out of my comfort zone. With the Rocky Mountains of Banff National Park and Time Square behind me, and the city of love ahead of me, you can imagine how surprised I was to find all I wanted from a new destination in a small, unkempt tavern that was saturated by the presence of men who weren’t so small, yet upheld the unkempt nature of the place. It was my hidden delight; I just didn’t know it yet.
“Uno….er a Coca Cola,” I pleaded with my hand rattling the glass in desperation.
“And umm….uno Pe…Pa..Pealla,” I stammered.
“Paella?” the waiter questioned as he attempted to hold back a grin.
“Si, Si, gracias,” I muttered in a wacky version of a Spanish ascent.
“De nada, senorita,” he replied. (You’re welcome.)
This poetic phrase could have been the waiter telling me that I had a huge nose or that he planned to serve me rat tails instead of prawns for all I knew, but all I could muster was a smile and a nod.
It had been a long day of exploring the work of the great artistic figures that Barcelona has given birth to, with a final visit to Antoni Gaudi’s famous Temple de la Sagrada Familia. Its skeletal appearance in the form of a Latin cross with five naves, three facades, an apse and a transept was eye opening. This temple which is famous for its slender towers, which soar nearly one hundred metres over the building and are crowned by ceramic pinnacles, was not enough to distract me from the continual noise erupting from my belly. Traveling on a budget was not agreeing with my stomach; neither was attempting to place an order without ending up with callos a la madrileña – or, in English, tripe.
Despite the initial struggle with ordering – I know the waiter understood what I meant by Coca Cola, but my pronunciation of Paella and patatas fritas seemed to be a source of amusement to my neighbouring table. Nevertheless what was ahead was something that my tastebuds would never forget.
While waiting for my meal with my fingers crossed, I took the chance to absorb my surroundings. Seated towards the back of the tavern, I was the only person waiting for a formal meal. All the men had their eyes transfixed on the TV screen. The room was clouded with Spanish chatter and occasional cheers. Luckily for me, the Barcelonian team was winning, so everyone was in good spirits as they threw back their wine and tore at their bread. The bare brick walls were adorned with the ugliest tapestries and the crockery was as plain as a blank canvas, yet it was on these plates that something truly artistic appeared. Paella. A frypan was placed in front of me and I tossed its contents onto the blank canvas. I had a mouthful and felt my insides tickle with joy. It was a combination of colours and smells, with a new flavour in every bite. It was the elaborate tastes of chicken, prawns, mussels and fish with a hint of red pepper and saffron in rice, with a side order of hand crafted chips, that finally saw my stomach forgive me for what it had previously endured.
That night I could have tried to experience Barcelona by visiting the Palau de la Musica Catalana. Or I could have strolled along the Port or the Rambla, another popular tourist destination. Instead, I lived like a Barcelonian, doing what they would do, eating what they would eat. Even though I couldn’t understand them, I listened to what they listened to. All it took for me to find what I was looking for were middle aged men, a football match, a laughable attempt to speak Spanish and a satisfied stomach.
Festival organiser Meegan Jones talks about what it’s like to travel the world for work and to be behind the scenes of some of the world’s most famous and trashiest fests.
London, with side trips to Ireland, Morocco and Belgium, as well as a stopover in Hong Kong for a few days on the way home to Australia, is a rough outline of Meegan Jones’ last working trip. She’s a festival organiser who, after years of working on events in Australia, now works on events such as the Glastonbury and Leeds/Reading festivals in the UK.
Meegan’s first leg of work in the New Year will be based at her office in London. After the logistics have been finalised, she will then move onto the festivals sites, living at each of them for about a month. Onsite at last year’s Glastonbury Reading and Leeds Festivals,traveling between the two, she was living in a Bunk-a-Bin: little portable cabins complete with hot shower and toilet. She also worked at the Latitude Festival based in Suffolk/East Anglia, spending a month onsite. Before transforming the sites from farms to festivals, organisers have a month of English countryside visits and excursions to tiny villages close by – which in most cases, also means the pub.
Meegan’s main job is making the festivals sustainable. Working through all the day-to-day operations and assessing whether they are being conducted sustainably, her role is to suggest ways in which festivals can be more green in terms of energy, transport and waste.
Out of all of the UK festivals Meegan has worked at to date, the highlight has been at the Reading Festival. Her satisfaction with the project came from being able to implement several new initiatives that had considerable impact on the event. Glastonbury Festival was also an amazing festival, a “must-do for those interested in festivals,” she says. “Latitude Festival was in its second year, and is the style of festival I would put on if I were to create one from scratch,” she continues. “The attention to detail was amazing. It is an exquisite festival and was just voted the most fan friendly festival at the recent UK Festival Awards.”
Hedonistic crowds of thousands infuse the festivals with adrenaline. Meegan recalls lying in her bed one night listening to huge waves of cheering going across the site, “like a Mexican wave of cheering. It was so electric,” she says, “I got up and wandered the site with a couple of other workmates until 4am. Just being in it was incredible.” This adrenaline, however, is denied an outlet once the music ends on the Sunday night of the Leeds and Reading Festivals. It can then turn into something ugly. Meegan calls Sunday night ‘riot time’ – when “fences go down, portaloos get set on fire, tents get set on fire with people in them, the ‘angry mob’ rove the site creating chaos, gas canisters are thrown in the fires created by burning tents and mini-bombs go off,” she explains. “Lots of people have been injured over the years – eyes out, major burns, et cetera.” In a bid to protect the survival of music festivals and events, the Love Not Riots campaign was born. Created some years ago by some of the festival fans and patrons, they continue to promote safety and peace during the events. Free merchandise are given to festival goers, with the tagline ‘Love Not Riots’ printed on them.
As for festivals back home, Meegan has noted that there is an emergence and an embrace of uniquely Australian festivals, including camping festivals such as Woodford, Meredith, Falls, Peats Ridge and The Great Escape. There are also many boutique events, some with cult audiences like Folk Rhythm & Life in Victoria. Newcomers like Festival of the Sun and Gumball are also having a go. She also ‘bush doofs’ or psytrance festivals like Exodus and Earthcore.
When in the UK, Meegan recommends the Big Green Gathering and Sunrise Celebration. “Due to the number of people in the UK,” she explains, “the festival scene is really healthy and festivals can be quite specific in their style. I really loved the horse-drawn cart camp, with travelers [gypsies] living onsite, tattoo stalls selling their bits and pieces.” The big Kahuna of them all, if it’s big and pure rock concert power you’re after, is the Reading Festival. “It is legendary and the original. Glastonbury, of course, is Mecca, and you can’t say you’ve really been to a festival until you’ve been to Glastonbury.”
Back home though, Meegan loves the Peats Ridge Festival. There are no “big headliners, but the spirit of the festival, along with the natural setting, is amazing.”
With festival work being seasonal as well as on opposite ends of the globe, Meegan has unique opportunities to travel. Her favourite travel destination is Turkey. She describes the country’s natural beauty as mind-blowing. “The Aegean Sea and the south/west coast areas are stunning,” she says. “The crystal-clear water and stark cliffs and valleys right on the coast were amazing. I had some incredible times in Butterfly Valley – a must visit for anyone wanting an idealic chill space. Mostly backpackers are there, so it’s not a mix it with the locals scene, but it’s an Eden, that’s for sure.” Her cultural experience was heightened by the pride the Turkish people take in creating earthy, comfortable spaces to relax in. For Meegan, these havens engage a higher level of interaction between people. Just imagine… floor cushions and lowered tables, grapevine terraced roofs and outdoor clay ovens. These earthly comforts have inspired Meegan and she has emulated these spaces in every place she has lived in since.
Amongst all the bustle of travelling, her favourite mode of transport is train travel as it is much more relaxed than buses. “I like a bit of comfort,” she explains, “but I don’t mind bus travel when I’m backpacking. It is always fun to discover chickens under your feet or a goat at your side.” Meegan always gets excited about international flights. “I find out in advance what movies are showing so I don’t see them beforehand at the cinema,” she says. “I get all my snacks and books sorted, plan what I will wear, check in online and try like crazy to get the best seat.” Meegan recommends the one next to the window behind the exit seats – this way, you can leisurely stretch your legs and get up easily. What can’t she travel without? Chocolate and something to read. And Vegemite of course – it reminds her of home when she is away.
Even dolls love getting stuck into a cold beer in Bamberg, the home of smoke beer and reputedly more breweries per capita than anywhere else in Germany.
Wirrulla, South Australia: The one shop in a remote one-shop-town has too fill many shoes – newsagent, travel agent, post office, bank and grocery store.
Ever wondered what Damascene women are wearing under those long black robes? Syria has a reputation for making the wildest underwear in the continent – it’s said to be exported to Italy and France, where it is relabeled “Made in Italy/France” and then sold on for megabucks.
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.
Filed under: Travel
Beats, beers, confetti and caipirinhas at Berlin’s Karneval der Kulturen (25th-28th May, 2007)
It’s over for another year. On the streets of Berlin, the last of the confetti has been swept away, the last of the empty bottles have been traded in for hard cash, and the last diamante g-string has been sent to the dry cleaners.
Berlin’s Karneval der Kulturen (Carnival of Cultures) lasts only four days, but still manages to pack a serious party punch. Part of the city’s social calendar since 1996, this year’s festival featured more than 4 500 artists from 70 nations, a good chunk of whom are from Berlin itself. The Carnival has a strong emphasis on topics German refer to as ‘multi-kulti’, and attracts over a million visitors every year.
The merriment revolves around Bluecherplatz in Waterlooufer, where the Street Festival hyperstimulates all the senses. Four stages and countless roaming performers entertain the crowds, who wander aimlessly from stall to stage to stall, clutching their cut-price caipirinhas and munching on exotic treats. Every culture you can think of seems to have a stall representing its food here, and this diversity is echoed in the voices of people around us.
All of the hippies of Germany and the surrounding nations appear to have assembled here to sell beads and other trinkets, and there’s an entire stall devoted to selling Orgasmatrons, surrounded by tire kickers who are there for a free head scratch. There’s a van selling over a hundred different international beers, and over at the Greens stall, they’re drumming up support by handing out helium balloons to messy-hair boys with suspiciously high-pitched voices. There’s a stall run by a school trying to improve its profile after an in-class kidnapping, and an Australian stall disgracing the nation by selling Fosters, XXXX, faux road signs, bamboo didges and other pieces of ‘traditional’ Australiana.
We hang out at the African stage, and watch women dancing to frantic beats with unhappy looking pythons strung around their necks. Handsome African fellas in extravagant shirts flog scam bags while we watch what appears to be a three metre high dried grass skirt perform a tarantella on stage.
All the while, the sky has been growing darker, the humid air ever more pregnant with threat of rain. We decide it might be a good idea to go home, and we try to work out if we have time to make it to the train station before the sky makes good on its threat.
The air dies. Fluttering leaves become perfectly still. Slowly, the thousands-strong crowd realises that the clouds aren’t joking. All of a sudden, everyone starts running towards the limited scraps of shelter within the park. We race over to a nearby building, and stand under a small roof while the sky falls in.
There are a lot of people in this little dry patch, and we are glad to have a large caipirinha to tide us over. The rain is hitting the swamped grass with almost tropical violence. Then it starts to hail. Big hailstones, as big as bantam eggs, pelt down hard enough to bruise anyone foolish enough to be still outside. Children are passed through open windows for safekeeping. This is kind of fun.
The storm eventually passes, with little more fallout than a few fallen branches. The night is filled with parties, official and otherwise, and we go and see some average reggae and ska in a venue that could have hosted any of your high school socials.
The next day is Sunday. We arise with reluctance and eventually leave the house mid-afternoon to see the Street Parade.
Partly filling the emotional gap left by the loss of the Love Parade, the Street Parade is the pumping, thumping, skip-a-beat heart of the Carnival. This year, the parade has over ninety floats, two thirds of which we miss due to our tardy arrival. We buy a cheap, warm beer, and a not-so-cheap, chilly caipirinha, and throw ourselves into the pulsing crowd. It seems we’ve missed all the boring floats, with at least 30% of the last third being devoted to large sound systems and extravagant costumes.
“Poor but sexy” is the slogan the Berlin mayor has coined to sell the German capital to the world. Which must be the explanation for the float with the tarty-looking giant papier-mâché woman attacking the pig with a hammer. Today at least, the slogan isn’t too far off. Behind the Nicacaraguan float, men flounce about in open-chested shirts, while saucy-looking women in colourful costumes feverishly gyrate, one waving a rubber chicken around her head. Hippies that could have come straight from an Aussie forest blockade parade about waving a graphically illustrated poster advocating eco-porn – “Fuck for the Forests!”. Strait-laced looking middle-aged Rheinish belly dancers jiggle their way down the street to traditional German Karneval music, their lurid costumes protected from the occasional cloudburst by plastic sheeting. And on the electronica trucks, mini-clubs run mini-bars, where disco-bunnies with mega fros and micro-fishnets shake it like the proverbial to thumping house and ragga.
The street parade is like visiting a dozen clubs over a few hours, except the drinks are cheaper and the entry is free. The boundary between audience and performers is blurred, with people stepping in and out of the parade at will. Locals sit sipping cups of tea on their specially decorated balconies, and wags on the top storeys of flats periodically lob water bombs at passing floats. We spend some time stumbling along behind a float playing traditional Caribbean Carnival music. “soca, Soca, SOCA! soca, Soca, SOCA!” The beats are infectious, relentless, and with enough alcohol, make everyone dance like monkeys on heat.
Our short exposure to the joys of Soca lead us to the Carnival’s Glow Party. Said to be an important part of Trinidadian Carnivals, glow parties are held under black lights, and everyone is encouraged to wear white for the full luminescent effect. This one is at the Lido, a popular venue for various flavours of electronica.
At the club, the floor is alive with a mass of glow worms bouncing to the music. There’s loads of Soca, hands-in-the-air house and really late, really cheesy electro. Clemens is two metres of glowing divinity, in his full-length white Damascene robe, dancing like a fool to the beats and beer. We dance until it’s light, which isn’t that late, but scares the hell out of us every time we go outside to use the loos.
Too late, we begin the stagger home. We sleep through the rest of the Karneval, but don’t feel like we’ve missed a thing.
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.
My mother always used to say, “What doesn’t kill you, can only make you stronger,” but as a rebellious teenager, I never used to believe nor listen to her advice… until I was fortunate enough to participate in a two-month reciprocal student exchange program to France.
For me, a two-month reciprocal exchange was particularly appealing because it would provide minimal disruption to my studies back home. The opportunity to also experience a white Christmas was simply too hard to resist! But I never thought that spending two months on the other side of the world and living with a group of strangers would completely change my perception of the world, and indeed, change my life.
Every day was a constant challenge, from trying to understand my teachers at school to trying to buy a stamp at the local post office. However, my very limited vocabulary was the least of my problems…
I was placed into a family, with a situation completely different to my own here in Australia. As an only child, I’d always dreamt of having siblings, and my wish was granted when I went to France. My host family comprised of seven people; my host parents and five siblings, all of which were under the age of twenty and all of which had an extreme passion for winter sports – they lived in the French Alps.
Having grown up on a rural property in southern Australia, my knowledge of winter sports was very minimal, but as part of a cultural experience, I agreed to try skiing.
On reflection, I seriously believed that learning to ski was going to kill me, and as a result, I would frequently read the fineprint of my travel insurance policy. It seemed that every time we went skiing, someone would always get hurt. On one skiing outing my friend broke her wrist, on another my host brother dislocated his thumb… and they were experienced skiers. Nevertheless, with some encouragement from my host family I rose to the challenge. After all, I couldn’t let one snow-covered mountain get the better of me. I will never forget the moment when I finally mastered the beginner’s slope, much to the relief of my host family.
A year on from my exchange experience, my fond memories of skiing, school life, and trying to buy a stamp at the local post office are still fresh in my mind – small accomplishments that seem so insignificant to others, yet mean the world to me. Exchange has taught me so much, and I’ve made so many lifelong friends in the process.
Being an exchange student certainly isn’t a piece of cake; the prospect of leaving your friends, family and everything that is familiar to you is a massive challenge for any young person, but the immense linguistic benefits, sense of independence and accomplishment that you will feel and the many new lifelong friendships that you will make, will help you become a much stronger person.
I grew tired of cynical people long ago, when I was around two years old in fact. By that meek and tender age, I had already discovered that cynicism is among one of the most horrible temperaments that a person can possess. Cynics sit on an unusual kind of seat which is wobbly with doubts, but unto which their backsides are firmly planted, never rising to venture into any of the wondrous places within the human heart. I do feel sorry for such people however, knowing that unless they change their ways, they will never be able to experience the joy of embracing anything in its entirety.
When I informed my school careers advisor that there were three things that I would like to do in this lifetime, she wasn’t impressed with my choices. I would like to travel to Mongolia, I told her, I would like to become a nun, and I would like to find God. “Do you believe in God?” I asked her.
“I’m not sure,” she said, “but I don’t think you should joke like that about your future.”
“I’m deadly serious,” I told her.
“Apologies if I sound somewhat cynical,” the careers advisor said sarcastically, “but travelling to Mongolia, becoming a nun and finding God are not concrete career paths. Becoming a nun is not economically viable these days. You are a smart girl, and It would be sad if you didn’t utilise your intelligence to find a real job.” She was also serious, but did not possess enough spirit within her wrinkled heart to be as deadly serious as I.
Ignoring her advice, I booked a flight to Mongolia, departing the day after I completed my exams. I found a placement working with children. The woman who ran the children’s home where I worked was a nun of her own style. I didn’t entertain much attraction towards most of the other nuns that I met; they seemed as cynical as my careers advisor. This nun, however, dressed in saffron robes and told me that she didn’t belong to any religion. She was a nun of spirituality, with scriptures that held no borders, like Mongolia’s fenceless countryside.
“Can I join your club?” I asked her, attracted to her style of renunciation.
“Sure,” she replied, “but unlike the other churches around here, we don’t give money or free opportunities, we make you work! This might explain why we don’t have many followers!”
So work I did: sleeping on the floor, feeding babies in the nights, disciplining wild, snotty-nosed children. The babies vomited on me, one of the children threw his full potty at me, another bit me until I bled. After the initial stage, we grew to like one another. We would walk to school together, hand in dirty hand, and then I would walk them home again, past mounds of rubbish that piled up under the great sky.
At the end of the winter, when it was no longer so cold that you would freeze to death if the car broke down, I drove out to the countryside with my nun friend.
She stopped the car, and we climbed out to scale the mountain, our faces exposed to the icy gusts of wind that lingered from winter. At the top of the mountain, looking out onto the valley below, lungs filled with the thin air, I thought of my careers advisor. Mentally, I composed a letter to her and wrote it onto the mountain side with my blood:
Dear careers advisor,
The wind is not a cynic, even if it is mighty cold. Mountains aren’t cynics either; they simply stand and watch as life passes by.
I’m standing atop a mountain now, with a vast blue sky above me, the vengeful wind tormenting my uncovered ears. Everything is silent and frozen and empty, and if I were lost here alone I would almost certainly die. The only thing that could possibly fill the space around me is God. Under such a sky as this it is impossible not to believe so, because human beings are nothing here.
Do you believe in God yet? I hope that you do, but I don’t expect so. Perhaps you need to climb this mountain in winter and freeze to death to wake up with a clearer mind. It would be a lonely death and no one would find your body. You wouldn’t even be able to breathe in the earthy scents of the countryside with your last breaths, because ice has no smell, and when the world is frozen, there are no worldly perfumes mingled with air.
Thank you for your considered advice, and for increasing my own determination to reach my career goals.
Sincerely,
Yours under a blue sky (in red ink).
A quaint barber shop window in Wyoming, USA, where small towns
still carry the air of a western frontier.
Filed under: Creative Non-fiction, Get Creative, Red Letter Days, Travel, Vietnam
She could hear the rooster’s crowing and smell the intoxicating salty scent of the ocean as she opened her eyes. It was still dark outside. She brushed her teeth and tucked her increasingly unruly hair under her filthy old hat and headed out the door to meet her trusty tour guide.
It was 5:30am in Mui Ne – a small fishing village on the south-central coast of Vietnam. At the driveway she was greeted by Vinh, a Vietnamese university graduate who had offered to show her around in exchange for some English practice. She swung her leg over his motorbike and held on tight for the journey ahead.
Off they roared, out of the alleyway and onto the main road, which was silhouetted by coconut palms. In the darkness, she glanced up at the sky. It was still full of bright twinkling stars, and to her right she recognised the Southern Cross – a beacon of familiarity in a land so foreign. With the crisp morning air lashing her face, she stretched her arms wide and let the air glide between her fingers. She felt alive for the first time in months.
Suddenly she could see the Pacific Ocean. Shadows cast from the pre-dawn light danced across the waves, beckoning her to play with them. The incandescent outline of salty sea puddles stretched for miles along the shore, like a snail’s slimy trail.
The motorcycle veered up and over a hill and all at once the scenery changed. They were surrounded by enormous sand dunes. It was like the deserts of Arizona meeting the seas of the Caribbean. She jumped off the bike and ran up the dunes, sinking deeper with every step.
The sun was beginning to rise and as its first rays caught the ripples of the dunes. She was overwhelmed by the beauty before her. For a moment, everything seemed clear.
We go through life worrying about each ripple, without appreciating the overall majesty of the dune. The journey is not about climbing to the next level, but about appreciating the overall picture – the gift of being on this Earth, if only for a moment in time.
Tearing herself away from the sunrise, she saddled the bike and they took off. After several minutes of speeding down the highway, only slowing for the occasional goat or cow, they arrived at the White Dunes.
Accompanied by a friendly desert canine, she hiked to the top of the dune and did a 360-degree swivel. The dunes stretched for miles – like white marble meticulously carved into the Earth. She turned to her guide and tried to explain how she felt. No luck, so she gave him a grin and the universal thumbs up.
Back in Mui Ne, she sat on the beach and watched a group of children playing makeshift volleyball in the sand. As the waves lapped the shoreline and the palm trees bent to shade her. She felt a tremendous sense of gratitude to be alive and enjoying her morning in paradise.
Stray dogs eagerly awaiting a few cuts from the market butcher in
the highland town of Nebaj, Guatemala.
A fresh fruit and vegie market in Havana, Cuba. A rare find in a
country where most fresh produce is exported. Even when you stumble
across a market, the selection is pretty grim.
Los Milagos in the Mexican precinct of Pilsen – bursting with
religious icons and other cultural paraphernalia, Chicago, USA.
As dawn softly breaks, shards of sunlight stream through loose bamboo walls. Shaking off a dream, the warmth gently wakes me.I feel them watching me before I open my eyes. Giggles, unsuccessfully stifled by tiny hands clamped tight over tiny mouths, waft up the ladder of the rickety hut and into my consciousness. Eyes closed, I am relieved to hear laughter in this land.
I roll over. The thin hut floor creaks in protest. The giggles abruptly stop. A few moments pass. Patter, patter. Small bare feet approach the ladder. I roll over again. The second creak sends the footsteps scuttling back in the direction they came from. I want to take my time in waking up. Time to reflect on the weeks I have been in this beautiful land.
***
Yesterday I sat under the Piggy Tree near the market in Baguia. Deep in the interior of East Timor, Baguia is a village carved out of the dense forest and steep shaly cliffs. The village straddles a small mountain ridge that is dwarfed by Timor’s highest peak, the imposing Mount Matebian.
Above me, hung piglets. Vertically from the trees branches, the piglets swung in harnesses made from dried palm fronds. Grateful for shade, I had stayed with them. While they waited for their middles to be squeezed and tested for plumpness, I waited for the tropical afternoon rains and the glorious cool that they bring.
The jungles of East Timor tumble down the mountainous interior into a magnificent blue ocean. Ancient coral reefs create a kaleidoscope of blues that disappear into the deep navy of the Timor Sea. The people are slight and eclectic. Over a dozen indigenous groups of Malay and Papuan origin exist in this Eden. Intermarriage between the various tribes and Portuguese and Chinese settlers has created a unique diversity in physical features, but despite various ethnic backgrounds, the people are one.
Past the Piggy Tree sat a group of boys. There was a hardness in their eyes. They’ were not boys, but little men. The first generation born in a peaceful East Timor for over 400 years. They missed the years of Indonesian occupation, the years of unimaginable brutality that normalised death and fear. They missed the uninvited Japanese troops in World War II penetrating the jungle, and the women. They were born in a land of incredible beauty, resilience and abject poverty. Despite the hardship of life, it seems the fighting spirit of the people and the memory of past struggles have made the people hard, but happy.
The piglets didn’t like the rain. They squealed as the slipped and swayed in their harnesses. The boys laughed. Fresh and clean their skins had soaked up the moisture. They looked alive.
The market stopped for the shower. Patterns of colourful flowers and shapes peeked through carefully stacked potatoes and carrots. The traditional cloth or tais acts as a barrier between earth and vegetable, and folds over as protection from the rain. Behind the Piggy Tree, three generations of women sat under a single banana leaf. Their fragile frames swimming in faded batik sarongs imported from Indonesia. Whatever they made that day would support their families for a week.
***
I open my eyes. The air is thick with ancestors.
Silent, the children stare from the protection of the Uma Lulik, a sacred place for worship of the dead and the centre of all village life. They stop giggling and seem to be waiting for their first glimpse of a malai (foreigner). There have been no foreigners in Dare Lare village since a Portuguese battalion sought food and shelter here thirty years ago. The children are understandably excited. Afraid enough to seek the comfort of their ancestors, they peer through the low hanging roof of the Uma Lulik.
We had trekked to the village after the market in Baguia. One hour by foot. Through thickets of jungle, permeated by streams and banana trees, lay a cluster of huts, Dare Lare.
I have seen many villages like Dare Lare travelling through East Timor. I have been welcomed countless times into people’s homes and lives. I have shared simple meals with curious children and hard working women, and listened to the lore of the elders. I have travelled through some of the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen and into villages whose hospitality is matched only by their inhabitants’ strength of spirit.
It is time to get up. I climb down the ladder and the children gasp. They step further into the protection of the Uma Lulik. ‘Ba nebe?’ I say in their direction, laughing. Where are you going? They start giggling as I climb into their hideaway. The beginning of another incredible day in East Timor.
