Category: Travel

In the heart of the night of travel

On By cjx07sterIn TravelLeave a comment

Bubbles of small pain like the bends rising from the depth of sleep, make me wake. I messed with my neck on a chair the other day ow ! Through the dark wet window are the gumtrees scribbly lines and smudge against the dark misty sky and below the sill line, way below, a shellowing creek rushes along down the rocks and through the fallen trees, grass, bark and creek paraphenalia.

It is the dark heart of the bush out there, and on the roof, slight soft raindrops fall, in the house, the only sounds are the clocks, tick in bathroom, tock in loungeroom, clunk in den.  Clocks, its 3.30am on the quiet bedside digital, the radio alarm has a few hours to wait. I’m awake and the dark heart of the night is time to think over what just happened out there, time to pray for the kids.

A lone bird whoops down the creek and the frogs croak, then go back to sleep.  There are no peepers here, where I live, but I know they used to be there when I woke in New England, no Sydney frogs are a bit different, like the people I suppose.

So here in the heart of the night, with the clocks and the creek, the occasional frog, and bird, and the sounds.  I get a chance to reflect on the things that happened in the last rush of a crazy trip where the minarets cry Allah, and the sands fill your pockets, and the trains go fast, and the limo drivers smile, and the tourists are stressed.

Sand, hot wind and sand, i felt it, brought in from the Kingdom’s Al Khobar’s hot streets and Brighton’s sunny beach, I didn’t declare the grains in my clothes. But what happened to the chalk smooth pebble I found on the beach in Worthing ?

The sounds of the people in Brighton, where the new pier is brightly lit, alongside the old one, burnt out,  with traces of the past still clinging to it.  In England the South Downs looked familiar with green hills and narrow roads, and nice places to get lost, and traffic jams to get stuck in.

But don’t forget Paris, didn’t you go there for the weekend ? Didn’t you meet so many people, etrangere, passer’s by ?

Yes the Eurostar, got on at St. Pancras International, and was fine headed for Paris, under the channel separating Albion from Gaul and not providing the fine view of the chalky cliffs of dover, but then speeding out from ground at Calais and over to Lille, where turning sharp south it travels fast down map into Paris.  At the Gare du Nord, the train pulled in.  Paris, ah, so full of people from all over the map, and so Parisien. I stepped outside the Gare, to use  my phone, and others also were there on their blackberrys.  Salesmen in suits with an earpiece, talking to themselves in the sunshine, talking of gas fields in Algeria, and Turbines, and such. Inside getting Metro tickets in a queue, since the machines don’t like my Australian bank. For this trip I tried the cheapest hotel I could find in Paris, and at 39E + tax for the night it was a good one.  The hotel, out near the Universite Rene Descartes, was a Formule1.  Excellent value really.  So alone for the evening I walked by and by down the rue ‘Porte de Chatillon’ from Metro Porte D’Orlean and checked into my little automated room. Clean, quiet, and a place to call home for the evening.

It was in the evening around 7pm I went walking and got a crepe on the street down to Alesia, and then decided to take it easy that evening and go back to the hotel.  Walking back, on the way to the hotel, I was stopped by a lady, who might have been from somewhere in North Africa.  Initial thoughts on someone stopping you, is they want money, which is generally the case, so I generally prepare a phrase in my mind, that goes, ‘Non !, Merci !’ or somesuch probably quite rude thing to say when you think about it, but you don’t have time to think normally.  Anyway In this case, the woman asked ‘as tu un plan pour la route ver a Porte de Chatillon?’ So I said ‘Non ! Merci !’ and left walking back, and then thought about what she said.  It took a while for me to figure oh okay, she wanted a map or wanted to find her way to the Porte de Chatillon.  I guess I could have helped out really.  I should have quickly pulled out my blackberry, and called up google maps and then showed her how to get there on the blackberry.  Still it was just up the road, so she probably would have made it ok.

The next morning came, and it was my dear son’s birthday, he lives in Paris now, works at the Polytechnique in Palaiseau, so glad to have been there that weekend.  We ate at the restaurants at the top of the rue ‘de la Butte aux Cailles’, in the southern 13th Arr. part of Paris, where the food is great, and the people are Parisien, but not too crowded. The Fete de la commune was having a singing dancing affair that day in the square that saturday, complete with stage, minstrels, hurdy gurdy player, singer and lutes and dancing caroles. 

He has a black mantlepeice in his small apartment in Paris, not far from Glaciere Metro.  Thats where the chalk pebble is now,. I remember I put the round white grey thing down carefully arranged.  It looks good there now, along with Gabrielles bit of polished gumtree wood beside.

On my return to the UK, and at the Gare du Nord, an american tourist from San Francisco was out of breath, panicky, and lost at the Eurostar terminal.  A french lady was trying to help her in english and figure out where she should go.  I joined the conversation and the french lady spoke to me in french on behalf of the american, I replied in my best French and this was then translated to English for the American.  I said ‘hello’, the french lady said ‘merci bien, tu parle en anglais ?, ‘oui madame, je suis Australien’.  The french lady didn’t mind but smiling back, left me to the help out the American, who badly needed a smoke, in a non smoking Gare.

Flying is so convenient of course, but my Saudi visa said in small arabic writing, that I could only enter the Kingdom by land.  I guess my booking clerk didn’t do the figuring right, and couldn’t read the visa, so I got stranded, had to be driven over instead.. lovely Bahrain..Al Khobar,..mysterious kingdom of oil under the sands, where in the streets the women wear dark, and the men wear bright.

So here in the heart of the night, in the dark, and in the morning, it is evening in Brighton where the lights are still burning with laughter on the pier, and it is later in Paris, but the bars are still full, and it is even later in the Kingdom, where the oil still bubbles up like nitrogen into the pipes to power the planes that get me around the place, and the Gare du Nord is still busy with tourists lost and stressed no doubt about it… en francais, en anglais and other lingua.

Still the heart of the night here in Sydney is restful, and dangerous, because the creeks can flood, the gums can burn, and the wind can blow.  So I am thankful that it is still tonight, and I am home again. A kookaburra starts the dawn.

His chair in the canyon…

On By cjx07sterIn Sunday Posts, TravelLeave a comment

Down in an orange county canyon, there was a bar not far from the foothill towns. I was with a local, we had got some  beers in the afternoon, and now with the sun setting beyond the darkening hills, and the bar, noisy with a few people, dressed in leathers, where there are mountain lions, and cougars, and panthers, which give an air of danger, the possibility of an insecurity, not felt, or perhaps not imagined in the city around about.

It might be more dangerous with the humans around.  Who can tell a foreigner, in a strange place.  I have walked into bars in Boston, with closed windows and dim lights, where on enquiring, “do you know the way to route 93”, there will be a sideways look, a shrug, and not a word is spoken.  It is then you feel the danger, and the naivety of a stranger wandering into somewhere, other wise local people would never tread.

In the canyon bar, with the bikes in their heavy chrome jackets out there. Something wild, like from before, perhaps before the goldrush, or before the strip malls came, but wild all the same.  After the first beer, and you get to look around.  Enough sense of security to make eye contact, and read the notice board, and listen to the conversational hum, outside and in.  The engines and the leather, and the noise of the Harley’s arriving one by one, in groups of two or three.

In the middle distance, against the fence, just near another table, a chair with stencilled in red paint “Security”.  The chair was unusual,… it was the only metal chair out in the dusty courtyard, it was a nice design – polished alumium, with an art deco flair.., but it was there, heavily secured to the fence, with a padlock and a chain. The padlock, like most padlocks in the universe, had probably not been opened for some time, perhaps the key was lost.  The chair like the key, looked unique in the courtyard, populated by wooden tables and other things under the sun.

We wandered around the courtyard, looking over the bikes, chatting to the owners.  On returning to our bench, I noticed an older guy had turned up drinking beer in a large black leather tankard. Had sat himself down in the chair stencilled “Security”. Not talking, but secure in his position and role in the courtyard.  While all the younger people on bikes and in the bar, were talking and making life, here he was sitting on the secured designer chair, like he owned the place, if not for himself, for the security of the place, and I thought of a place in singapore, there was a guy there, who came in each evening, to play pool.  He was thin, and keen of eye, but possibly well into his eighties, and this guy could beat anyone at pool, and he drank a stack of beer, big schooner glasses one by one.  He would carefully place the beer on the side of the table, take aim and then pull the pool queue and let go, changing the universe once again with the successful sinking of balls, one by one.  Never said a word, never smiled, just played pool, with a kind of happy look in his eye.  He had his place, he came there every night… he probably still does…

There is something about having an older wiser guy, who’s lived through life, seen it all, and happy to not chatter away, making noise, but still keen to be there among the younger people who do, perhaps making the place a bit more secure, like a guardian angel in a way, a guardian about to become an angel of sorts, with old thoughts, and old ideas, of a world gone by. Thinking, drinking his beer, like everyday, sitting in his unique metal chair, with his name on it, in the yard, in the canyon, with the sun going down.

Redwood Trees Jade Rocks – the Condor and the Chipmunk

On By cjx07sterIn TravelLeave a comment

You really don’t worry too much about the weather when you only have a weekend do you ?  You just get in the car and drive, dont take much food really, a bottle of water, a leather coat, a camera – phone and a couple of key numbers.

 I started out that Saturday in a hotel in downtown San Jose.  I didnt get a lot of sleep, a domestic in the hotel room two doors down. The fight was colorful, and violent, with the boyfriend, the girlfriend, the friends of the guy, and the bitch inside, with bits of smashed plates littering the corridor, and piled up against the door.. tomato sauce spots, like animals had been searching for food scraps, but not blood at least..

The coast road route one, is perched halfway up cliffs winding south down through redwoods, and along the steep face of mountains highly indignant of the push of the pacific ocean plate, and rising up over it all, with the waves crashing politely down below, accross bridges and gullies with numerous turnarounds to take photos, and listen to the sounds of it all, in the quiet.  You have the sounds of the waves below, periodic in their motion, coupled with the sounds of cars passing by, with the odd car door shutting, and foreign voices muttering, about the cold and the bleak grey fog which comes in from the ocean.  You travel down and see that many have been here before, with names carved in seats, and bridges built during the 30s, to allow the road to continue south through and past Big Sur, and down through the county into SLO county beyond.

Living in Big Sur, some of the great thinkers and writers, people who came to think.  Henry Miller came to Big Sur to settle down and write, along with poet friends, and others who needed the environment to help them sort things out.  At least that’s the impression on me, just spending a day there. The giantess of the redwood trees and the rocks and things, that pass by as you drive.  I stopped a limited number of times, I know, that it was somewhat less than 82 times, because that was the number of pictures or video snaps I captured along the way.

A sense of huge forces then, shaping the earth on the edge of the pacific, and solid rock with jade poking through in Big Sur, and giant rocks and stones tumbling down into the water below. Beware the rocks my son, which gyre and gimbal in the waves.  The green Jade rock of metaphysics, which allows worries to be absorbed, must surely have assisted having past so many tons of Big Sur and the central coast, just feet away from the car.  Jade stones and salt water, the cure for all worries in metaphysical stone theory, I have  it on good advice.

Those things we do with video cameras to make life interesting, we worry about Zoom and Pan, and now worry free, I set the camera on the tripod on the stones, for which only an earth tremor would move.  For now I would set my Flip camera up on it’s red Eddie Bauer tripod, and just turn it on.  Hoping to extend the moment of the picture, with infinitesmal movement in the sky and in the grasses that moved in the foreground with the breeze.  Suddenly among the Jade and color of the blue ocean and the grey sky floated a condor, that rare californian bird of prey, so majesticly soaring.  It crossed the corner frame of the still camera, just in an instant captured, and then past.  The scene returned to normal.  I ran for the camera, grabbed it, and then with tripod in hand started tracking the condor as it floated past on the cliff face below.  Then it circled back, looking for something, and flying very close to the turnaround at the top of the cliff and road level, and accross the frame, about 20 feet in front.  Its wingtip feathers perfectly in control of its effortless flight.  It was looking for something near my feet, its head watching while soaring, and heading toward me.  Flashing through my mind, the injunction – don’t get closer than 150 feet to a condor – and here it was coming from left front to right back.  In the end it was too fast and flew right past the camera and down the cliff and out of sight. 

Quiet resumed, a chipmunk darted out of the grasses into the turnaround.  He was looking for tourist food or scraps, and then was chased back by a rather large seagull.  The drama over, there were no plates broken, no life lost, no one ate anything, no tomato sauce, and life returned to the quiet steady roll of the waves far below and a car or two passing occasionally. The man, the chipmunk, the seagull, and the condor, none of them worried, among the jade and redwood of the cliffs on the coast road at Big Sur.

See Saw Marjery Daw

On By cjx07sterIn TravelLeave a comment

This story is about how people meet, and discover and bounce off each other, each on their own way to somewhere in life. Happens a lot when people travel, this kind of thing don’t you think ?

His speed and risk taking had been no bother to other drivers, he really enjoyed life, and loved pushing the limits, almost testing life to see how it might end, even at the end of a working day.  There would always be tomorrow to try it again. So gunning the car into the drive, found a park, turned off the radio, got out, slammed the door, opened the back, got laptop, slammed other door, pip-pip’ed the car lock, walked into the hotel portico, through the auto doors, out of the sun, and into the cool of the lobby run.

Tired of thinking.  Past desk. Press button. Up elevator. Into room, change clothes, get down to the spa… sit on the edge. How brilliant, how frustrating the second last day, at the office by the bay.  Tomorrow at least he would check out and be on his way elsewhere.

The spa was quiet the water was ripply with the sun, in sunset over the fence and the parking lot beyond.  The fence now enclosing them in a pool bbq area.  She smoked and had a cup by her side.  Not dressed for the pool, but like she should have been, with her smile and look and now a question parted her lips in his direction.  She had on a nice shirt, shorts, but maybe looking for peace and quiet to chill for the evening. They were doing the same now, sitting on the other side,. her with her bare feet and red toenails waving under the surface of the still warm spa, in shorts and T-shirt, with book, and drink beside. Him, his legs, poking out of silly shorts with business shirt and strange fast social habits, and mobile phone besides.

Clock ticking, heart beating, what do they say ? what do they say ?  see-saw marjorie daw.. tick tick tick…boom boom boom … tick tick …

He took a breath, then another one, staring down into the spa pool. After the day had begun and ending, he thought it might be nice to just be quiet and relax a bit, however the presence of another there messed him around and made him tense. His mind constantly on the next task, the next job in life.  He ran a race, constantly in motion, against himself.  Whenever faced with an opportunity to connect to another, he tried to fit it into his task oriented life… perhaps he might spend half an hour playing with the person on the other end of the see saw in the spa.

Yet there she was, having hoped to say goodbye to the cruel world quietly, goodbye to the silly job she had for thirty years, and goodbye to other things as well.  She had come down to the spa pool, in the nearing darkness, having checked into a hotel, far out of the way of others, with a cup of wine, and a smoke, and a determination to just chill.

“What are you reading”  He asked

“Oh, just filling in time”.  She told him,

“I’m an engineer” He said,

“Me too”, She said,

“Long day” He said,

“Right, and not over yet” She said,

“ok”

“ok”

“Wrong, it’s over for me at least” He said,

“Short day really”, She said,

“You look like you are taking it pretty easy ?”, he asked,

“they don’t like me drinking here in the pool area”, she brandished the blue paper coffee cup as if she had fooled them for at least one more evening.

“My name is Fernando”, he said.

“Christine”, she said, “would you like a beverage ?” she asked. She got up, and dried her legs a bit, setting off to the hotel lobby.

It was getting dark and the light was far less when Christine returned, and this time with two paper cups of wine.

The evening wore on, the more Ferdinand talked with Christine, and the darker it got, the light and the conversation both.  The darkening and the wine brought with it an edge to the conversation, gradually developing to one of individual fears and tragedy, bad break ups, sadness, stories, and still with the sparring of bare feet together under the water. Christine, about having to stop, and take measure of life, about having a vacation, what is a vacation, why keep working, why not go to the continent, and meet someone handsome to lie around with for a while, and sit in sleepy cafes on the boulevardes of Paris or the vias of Roma. Ferdinand about stuff he had no idea about, feeling more and more out of depth.  The conversation was not the usual see-saw, but had become a slippery slide, down into the depths of a soul, down into the tragedy of the other. He did not know how to pull out, how to just lightly say good bye, nice to meet you etc etc, how to say, why not just come up to his room, and have some adult fun perhaps.

It was Christine who decided that enough was enough, there was in her meeting with Ferdinand a kind of tilting in two dimensions at once.  On the one hand, she had gone to the pool, to wait for the moment, when she would return to her room, her departure from the world intended, but now she was no longer sure about that.

It was Ferdinand, who woke the next morning, dressed for the day, down the elevator, into the lobby, laptop in hand, and blackberry buzzing, who grabbed a paper, and looked around, to see Christine again, at breakfast….and expecting to see Christine at breakfast, found no trace, although he had dreamt that she had promised to be around.