Into the WopWops

This is our intended route I sent to my Mum, slightly tongue in cheek it remains to be seen if we manage to find our way out of town.

"we fly to china tomorrow: Kunming, the plan is to head straight off to Lijiang, then west maybe with a small trek to Weixi, then north up the mekong but not far to Cizhong, a wierd tiberan catholic church then west into the hills and trekking across to the Nu Jiang a little tibetan village called Bingzhongluo or something, then one more valley west to the Drung, its a small pocket of china near Myanmar. Its otherwise known as the valley of death. Then back to Bingz and hopefully a big trek across the mountains towards Deqin and the mountain range callled Kawa Karpo, we might encircle this possibly. The locals call it a kora or pilgrimage. Then back down to Shangri-La (or Zhongdian). Will try to keep in touch with cell and internet. We have some of our flights back, pk gets back to well mid nov, I am staying on a couple of weeks and back in chch 6 dec."

Yeah China Yeah

I wouldn't have said that 16hours ago when we were wandering the streets of Kunming in the rain. The mission was to find a stove and a method of creating drinking water then the long distance bus station. We had been stoked to get through customs a breeze, despite last minute stresses caused by an out of date check in girl at Bangkok telling us we needed tickets out of the country. (Penny now has a rushed ticket from Hong Kong). but by the time taxis abandoned and snobbed us in a rainy rush hour we were half wishing we had been deported.

Kunming, the spring city of China, is massive. Apartment blocks cover the huge valley like didymo covers the stones of the Buller. Peter Jackson scale. The taxi driver didn't quite believe our ignorance of mandarin. After much gesturing he resorted to writing down some scrawled Chinese characters...haha, good luck. We eventually stumbled upon a store by walking round, and a stove and gas which will help warm our bellys on the cold nights when no chinese hospitality can be found. The lonely planet city map then guided us to the bus station where we boarded early upon a sleeper bus bound for Lijiang.

Sleeper bus's are great, they even gave me a space designed for a long person, and I curled protectively round Penny who even had a window. Even the Chinese man edging me from behind didn't stop a comfortable sleep making up for those hours of jet lag in Bangkok. It was just before dawn when we alighted. Lijang to quote the groovy old map I have beside me "is located in the crossing of Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet. It was also the crossroad at the South Silk Road and Charma Ancient Road", just out of town and not yet visible in this grey day is Yulong Snow Mountain (or Jade Dragon Mountain) which "erects high in the sky with huge profile and charming purity".

Lijiang Old Town which we strolled around this morning is what I imagined Japan might be like but wasn't, and even has a touch of the atmosphere from Diagon Alley (the wizards shopping mall for any non Harry Potter fans). Early in the morning the air lies thickly on the quirky cobbled lanes riven by clear flowing streams. Arched stone bridges with worn slippery curves provide a perch for staring at the goldfish swarming below. Chinese lanterns beckon visitors into the courtyards of cosy looking inns. Mandarin characters look so much better on gateways and doorways than they do tatooed into the shoulders of fashionable westerners. We stopped briefly at the "loyalty and righteousness" gateway celebrating the alliance between local leaders and the Ming dynasty.

After missioning back to our hostel, Penny now naps, waiting for me to wake her for our afternoon bike ride, which should feature Tibetan Monasteries, lovely lakes and hopefully a 1000 year old lucky Camellia tree. Will be great to do some exercise anyway. Better go wake her up!

Bookshelves

Ross's bookcase in Narvik

I have been meaning since Ross's to blog on bookshelves. It was fantastic in Narvik to enter the home of a kiwi, the little things, korus, kiwi music and a familiar space. But what really attracted me was the bookshelf, rows of it (not all in English mind you). It got me thinking of the way bookshelfs shape you and some of the bookshelfs that have shaped me.

First I remember my parents bookshelf in the hall at Waitati. The hall seemed so long, you could play hockey up and down it when you were 7, and the books stretched 2/3 of it on one side. I didn't really get many of those books then, except Alistair McLean, I was addicted to them, the Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare still pop into my head. So do the boys own adventure stories, and my all time favourite Charles Upham's "A Mark of a Lion" The bookshelf at my grandparents at Bowenvale was less fruitful for a young eye, too many books about alpine plants;-) I do remember a couple of books though, one a fictionalised account of oil drilling in the north sea, the other a story of someone who had 12 kids, later made into the film "cheapest by the dozen".The best thing about their bookshelf was its mustiness and mysteriousness, it felt like the books had been there forever.

My other grandparents had rugby books galore, and all kinds of other stuff, which I have only come to appreciate later. Indeed their books have a bad habit of ending in my bookcase, I can think of a couple of goodies; Michael Kings "Hidden Places", a lesser known work by the brilliant NZ historian reflecting on his early career and some of the people he metand John Glubb's "A short history of the Arab people" a fascinating and readable record of the spread of Islam.

Overtime I developed my own bookshelf, overfill with political ravings and natural history, short of the fast paced novels (which keep disappearing). Still half full of books I intend to read. Occasions such as the 24hr book sale or the re-organisation of the Amerley Public library, leave a long backlog. Its sitting in boxes around the country at the moment.

Other bookshelves of note, include that of Tom (six mug) Riley my twice flat mate who has enough in common with my tastes, but not too much, so there are new challenges, and Zoe and Nicks little collection I was known to retreat to during long winter Gisborne nights talking about medicine. Family friends Bruce and Dinah also deserve a mention for their bookshelf, and their Footrot flats and Bogor collections.And yeah Marquita (not Garden) has some good books to, I submitted to Harry Potter there and Tuesdays with Morrie.

But yeah I'm missing the point about bookshelves really, its not so much the reading, its the browsing, the hunting, the curiosity of eclectic collections. The feel and smell of the books! The shelves themselves, the arrangement, the neatness or messiness, piles or symmetry, the shelf of bigger books with pictures to flick through....heres a toast to bookshelves and all that have them!!!

Finding Meaning

Ok, heres an arty farty, existential post about mortality and our narrow grip on it.

Penny, Matt, Lara and I probably saw a man die the other day in Narvik. He was plopped in a roadside verge, scruffy, overweight and a paper bag in his hand. Another Norwegian man had his cell phone out...

"is he drunk or heart attack?"

"I'm not sure, I rang the hospital 10 minutes ago, they're not here yet"

The mans colour was death. The same colour as the bottom of the sea. There was a pulse and struggling air movements. We cleared the garden from around his face and attempted to rouse him. I grabbed the paper bag, a box of heart medication not cheap booze. Funny how we make assumptions. The paramedics arrived as his heart stopped. We hadn't been looking forward to desperate CPR. The lifted him out of the garden, ripped his shirt off and shocked him with the defibrillator. We stood around. A second group arrived, with white suited medical students in tow. We stood back further. They huddled around, chest compressing, 15-2. We looked at each other and picked up our bags and wandered down the street to the train station.

We don't know what happened next, or indeed what had happened before. Was he a good man? Was he a Norwegian or was he one of the many refugees that have turned Narvik into a multi-cultured ice-box. He was a nearly dead man lying in a roadside garden as we walked past.

The train ride to Kiruna was grey and scenic. Winding round the fiord or canyon. Norway turns to Sweden when the seaside influence ends, when the final canyon fades into the plateau of Lapland. Summer houses site beside small tarns. There is a sense of permanence in this landscape except for the trees which now have their last throes of colour. Yellow now clumps the woods where greens and golds flared when we entered this country 10 days before. It is easy to understand the worship of spring gods when travelling through an environment like this.

Kiruna was shutting down to. The bus service had ceased for the season when we were in the hills, and the owner of the Yellow House backpackers had decided that he had done enough cleaning for the year. It was just a night there, before we flew to Stockholm and went our seperate ways. Penny and I bound for Helsinki then Bangkok, Lara and Matt for Goteburg, America then home. By flying south we had rejoined the indian summer, the gold was just beginning to strike the leaves of Stockholms inner suburbs as we strolled through them to our ferry, the Silja Symphony.

The ferry was big, comfortable and completely unsophisticated. Duty free alcohol left the shop in trolleys. Bollywood tunes, banners and costumes littered the ships mall. The overall feeling was kind of like being in Willy Wonkas factory. Lifts hoisted people to the upperdecks like syringes.Meanwhile outside we glided through the Stockholm archipelago silently and effortlessly 30 metres up.

We woke up in Helsinki, and alighted. It was Sunday morning and people were out walking with their dogs around the waterfront where we found coffee. It seems Finnish people are allowed to smile on Sundays, even to scruffy strangers. In fact even the trees in Finland smile on Sundays.

In no hurry we strolled into the city centre. Heading eventually for the Kiasma, Finlands premier contemporary art gallery. There were wierd types there and wierd type. To explain a blank image "some of the meaning can be traced back to the structure of the image and our initial perceptions of it when faced with a lack of figurative motifs". Meanwhile I was making profound notes myself"whirring kaliedoscopes, industrial video and the glow of a golden rabbit did not show me the way out of a darkened room as I bumped my head in the corner".

I guess it all comes down to whats art? And if theres no such construct as art, can one construct such thing as a purposeful life? So identifying art might help us out of an existential dilemma, but can you? Which of the following photos are a) "art" b) pieces of a building c) pictures of me d) a moomin..........

Answers at a later date. But meanwhile I'll have to conclude with an observation that we all hang to life by a thin thread for a short time. So go hard.

(UPDATE) Oh yeah some answers: top row, art - building - building, bottom row, art - moomin - art....yeah thats actually art not me being erotic. So if you scored 100% I think that your art identification skills are such that maybe you can live a life that you believe is purposeful. If you didn't you might as well just have an absurb journey. I recommend reading a bit of Camus here.

Where in the World are we???

I think all travellers wake up in the morning (or middle of the night) sometimes and wonder "where the hell am I". The senses become a bit dislocated at times. Sometimes friends and family start to wonder where the travellers are as well, "haven't heard from them in a while". Thats really what this is about, a bit of real life Carmen Sandiego. The photos give clues as to where Penny and Jamie are and what they did today! (which wasn't really much at all as they woke up jet lagged at about 11am local time).

We are somewhere with patterns...and perhaps flowers, although I think they probably have flowered patterns places where flowers are now extinct, like Iraq (don't worry we are not in Iraq!

Somewhere with reflections, indeed multiple reflections of beautiful people. Is it just me or are reflections always beautiful?

Somewhere where there are monks? But what is unusual about these monks? They look very concerned about some harmless, and flightless kiwis?

Somewhere where they were doing the haka way before the All Blacks, Te Rauparaha, or indeed any polynesians.

Somewhere where the white witch of Narnia still rules and Che Fu is under her spell (when was his last album?).

And finally the answer.....Bangkok, and more specifically the Grand Palace, mass tourism at its finest on the banks of the lovely Chao Phraya river.

For Another Take...

Just checked out Chris and Em's blogspot "Silly Billys Roam the World", Em has written of our recent shared adventures, attending a Swedish wedding and kayaking the Stockholm archipelago, as well as some good stuff on the World Mountain Bike orienteering champs and World Rogaine champs recently held.

Sifting through Lofoten

We were so close, it just felt like we had to. We went to Lofoten. It was only for an evening and a morning with lodgings in the ugly Solvaer (the problem with developing an aesthetically pleasing and quaint fishing village for tourists, is that it inevitably loses whatever charm it had. We were left with a tantalising glimpse of the adventures that lay in the surrounding areas if one had time, a good rope and a full rack, or some sea kayaks.

The mountains rise out of the sea like the teeth of a giant saw, and travelling at night the skylines look surreal, mountain patterns cut in profile by the vivid imagination by a child.

A brief google found some more adventurous stories from Lofoten, from some friends of ours Clare and Greig who climbed here a couple of years ago, check here for general stuff and here for climbing info.