Or should I rephrase to sound less grumpy? So here we are explaining to the tourists in Paris the fucking rules of "vivre ensemble" so that the locals don't despise them so much. That sounds a little long to me.
So, as they say here, pourquoi tant de haine? Poor tourists, visiting one of the most beautiful cities in the world, generally with cheerful good humour and injecting billions into the local economy, what have they done to merit such snootiness and disdain? I'd love to say that "it's not them tourists, it's us Parisians." It's partly true, due to the mentality and character of your basic Parisian. Read here for my analysis of this. But this is not the subject today.
To understand why Parisians get so annoyed with all things tourist it's important to understand how the city works. Paris is an incredibly dense city, with around 2,1 million inhabitants living in just over 100 sq. km²; that makes it nearly 21000 people per sq. km², and the 33rd densest city in the world, and four of its closest suburbs are in the top 20. (Thanks wikipedia). And that's just the people living there. As you can imagine millions more commute in and out of it every day for work. Like any ant nest, with all this to-ing and fro-ing, a certain amount of rigourous organisation is required and like a perfect Swiss watch, the force of things has made every individual move and routine interlinked.
Allow me to illustrate.
I start work at 9 o'clock in the 17th. This means I must leave the 10th at 8.15 to be comfortable and 8.21 if I'm pushing it. Anything after and I'm late. At 8.21 there will be a metro that takes me to Arts & Metiers station. The front of the train will be packed due to all the people getting off at République, the back relatively empty.
At Arts & Metiers I will see some regulars: the old man with a potato nose, the young smooth guy with a briefcase, a orthodox jew dad with his two kids and a few others. On the westward train, I know that the back of the train will be packed, but a lot of people get out at the next stop where they start work at 8.30. You almost always get a seat then.
At St Lazare, where the platform is packed and passengers risk falling on the rails, two-thirds get off and then everybody crams in. They work at Levallois at the end of the line (the 13th densest city in the world btw, and top in Europe) and start at 9 - 9.15.
When I get out and walk the rest to work it's five to nine and parents are running with pushchairs, a little late, to get their kids to the nearby school. It's all incredibly predictable, and one immediately knows when it's the school holidays, or a long bank holiday, or if there is something amazing happening like the Tour de France, because the pace and the routine change ever so slightly. And so it continues for every journey, every day, in public transport or on foot or in shops.
It's also how everything ticks along, because there is a place for everyone at a certain time and a certain place. And somehow, Parisians instinctively know all of this. For commuting, for going out, for relaxing, for eating.
And there are basic rules to apply to avoid clogging the smooth flow of people. Everything is geared for maximum efficiency.
The first is DO NOT IDLE ALONG IN THE STREET, taking up all the room on the pavement, ambling as if this were a beach or something. "Hellloooooo? I do not have time to crawl behind you; I need to grab a sandwich and be back at the office in 20 minutes."
Second, the same as above in the metro, DO NOT STAND AND GAWP GORMLESSLY IN THE METRO. It's not difficult to buy a ticket, and even if it is, you don't have to stand there consulting a map in the middle of a busy subterranean intersection.
RESPECT THE RULES OF THE METRO.
These are simple: you let people get out before you get in. To do that you stand on the platform on one side of the door. When the last person is off you may charge in.
You do not sit on the folding seats if it is packed.
If you have bulky pushchairs, suitcases and so on, you push your way to the back, away from the door so you don't prevent flow of people getting on and off.
If you are next to the door and a lot of people want to get off, YOU get off, pushing your way into the front of the queue which has formed on the platform by the side of the door.
In the metro mothers with huge pushchairs are usually quickly and
efficiently helped up or down the stairs without a break in anyone's
stride.
DO NOT ACT LIKE SHOPS ARE MUSEUM GIFT SHOPS. If you want cheese, buy it, don't stand there taking pictures of them all admiring their mould. If you don't know what to buy, ask the fromager in passable french for what you want, then take the ticket, go to the cash desk and pay. It should take between 20 seconds if you know what you want, and 4 minutes if you don't.
On ESCALATORS STAND ON THE RIGHT AND WALK ON THE LEFT. This applies to everyone, with or without luggage, pushchair, obese, etc.
With these rules, Paris never stops (none of this applies to traffic of course, you'd be mad to drive), people are constantly moving, generally pushing to go a little bit faster.
Tourists appear like clots at Christmas, Easter, late spring, then all of July and August in their masses. Suddenly the population seems to be wearing trainers and carrying maps, shouting on café terraces with huge shopping bags at their feet. They break the flow of the waiters and the shop assistants, the flow of the streets and the metro. They take pictures of the metro and stand in the middle of the street, or ride bicycles on the pavement.
One must also remember, in the poor Parisian's defense, that we would also like to hang out in Montmartre in the summer, or on the Champs de Mars, or in the Tuileries, because it's been a long winter and we really don't have that many green places to hang out in.
I was in the Tuileries, which runs from the Louvre to the place de la Concorde, last wednesday as the weather was good. Actually the sun was shining for the fist time in about 3 months and armed with book and water I went to find a chair and a spot. All the chairs were taken and, I regret to say that this is the absolute truth, taken by families of tourists who were using them as picnic tables or lying with their feet on them or just for resting their bags. "Yo guys! There's potentially 21000 of us needing a chair here! WTF!"
I asked for one and got it, brushed of the crumbs and crap and went for a quiet read in the sun. An incredible-looking Parisienne, in her late 60s, obtained a chair nearby and took out her magazines. She had short, perfectly bouffant red hair, and full make up: foundation, blue eyeshadow, red lipstick and nails like Rihanna, square and about 4 cms long. She had a coral crocodile handbag, 10cm beige stilettos and a pink silk shirt, with a matching carré Hermès tied around her neck. She sat there in the sun, I was amazed she didn't melt.
Nearby was a typical Parisian water fountain, the type you find in all the parks. Short, green, with a metal handle you turn to get the water flowing. Great fun for kids of course. So when a Spanish (?) family started to have a water fight a few meters from us, laughing and shouting and then picnicing loudly nearby, old Parisienne turned around and gave them a severe reprimand in pretty good english. She told me she lived Avenue MacMahon, right next to the Champs Elysées and Arc de Triomphe and she couldn't wait to leave Paris for the summer. It seems a bit mean I agree, but it sure was nice to be able to lie back in the sun and snooze a bit. None of us has a garden, a small terrace at best.
So dear tourists, it's not that the Parisians hate you per se, it's just that they think you take up so much room in an already tiny city, and when you block the streets by day and bellow in the streets by night, it's actually right on their way and under their windows. Paris looks like a museum but loads of people live here, and they don't like to have to queue at local shops or get stuck behind you in the metro. So if there can't be fewer of you, maybe you could be a bit less loud, or walk a bit faster, or stand up in the metro if it's packed. And stop asking the waiter for the bill, he'll bring it when it's ready.
Affichage des articles dont le libellé est travel. Afficher tous les articles
Affichage des articles dont le libellé est travel. Afficher tous les articles
dimanche 22 juillet 2012
dimanche 6 novembre 2011
So here we are cussing Tunisia
This is such a negative title for my first post of the year. Let's start with what was good about our 4 day trip to Tunisia, which took place at the end of October.
Well the wine was really nice.
OK, so back to cussing Tunisia.
To be fair, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. In order: Air France was on strike, we got badly ripped off the second we arrived, the weather was catastrophic, we got the runs, the museum (that was dry unlike the rest of the country) was mostly shut...
You could argue the Air France strike was not Tunisia's fault, and that we got there in the end. You could argue that the weather was not Tunisia's fault either but it certainly didn't help.
We'd chosen Tunis, and more specifically its suburb Sidi Bou Said, a pittoresque cliff top village all painted in blue and white as a base to escape the onset of cold and grim weather in Europe. The plan was to relax in the North African autumn sun, going for beach side strolls and visiting the incredible Roman sites around the capital, more specifically Carthage which is part of Tunis and Dougga, the Tunisian Pompei which is about 150 km away.
The worst rain to hit the country ever put a bit of a damper on these (pun etc...). Though we realised at the time that it was bad, we later heard that people had died as the equivalent of 2 months rain fell in 2 days, putting severe pressure on the country's medieval infrastructure (exploding drains anyone?), flooding the city and generally causing a lot of damage.
We experienced this when, eager and rested after an easy afternoon wandering around and snoozing, we ventured off on the Sunday to Carthage, the suburb town just a few minutes train ride away and former capital of the Punic civilisation that occupied this part of Tunisia 2000 years ago before getting sacked and destroyed by the Romans.
We got the little train at Sidi bou said station, a few minutes walk down the steep hill on which the village is perched overlooking the marina. Less than a dinar (0,50 cents) for the two of us to get to Carthage, four or five stops down the line. When we got to there we realised that the rainwater was forming huge puddles every few feet by the side of the road and that making it anywhere with dry socks was going to be complicated.
We ended up cutting our losses and wading, and then set off in search of Carthage museum, one of the many sites we were going to visit that day. A good twenty minute walk up a hill, past huge designer houses with black window tinted Jeeps outside and we got to a huge soggy and flooded archaelogical site with an impressive 19th century mansion overlooking it. We spent a shivery hour in the Museum before we realised that we were coming down with pneumonia. Found a taxi outside who cheerfully announced that he would drive us back to Sidi but for a more expensive fee than usual as it was raining and we were clearly desperate. At least he was open about it.
The next day was crisper, cloudy but with the occasional sunbeam so we put on our dry clothes and set off back to Carthage. We started with the temple of Tophet, a site with three distinct layers of Punic and Roman remains, though we only ever really identified two. According to the Romans, the inhabitants of Carthage would sacrifice babies here, burning them in a kind of brick oven (which is still distinguishable) after slitting their throats. Ashes would then be put in clay jars stacked row upon row. Some historians argue that these sacrifices were actually stillborn or deceased children.
Saw some Punic columns with inscriptions and representations of Baal scattered around and hundreds of bits of broken clay pots crushed in the ground.
These amphoras dating back two millenia are so common that they are ground up and used on tennis courts, or used by local fishermen to weigh down their nets. We saw dozens neatly stacked up on the site of the Punic war port, which is a perfectly circular harbour giving on to the sea,and is still used today by fishermen.
As we settled down on a seaside terrace for a frugal lunch of fish and red wine, the storm rolled in from the jade couloured sea. It started slashing it down but we refused to be abashed, as at this rate we would have seen sweet piss all of anything; We trudged to another site, again of depressions in the earth, columns, wells and flashes of mosaic on the ground when the heavens opened. We took refuge in a hut with a couple of other glum tourists wearing T-shirts and flip flops. Feeling more confident in our anoraks, pullovers, umbrella and sensible shoes we decided to persevere and go to the Antonin Roman Baths, a huge site just down the road. We got there and went in to the vast area, which is like a Mediterranean garden with tombs and columns scatterd around, and the vast Bath buildings to the right. These are ruins but one can see the cathedral high columns which once supported the roof and make out the various bathing rooms and underground passages that carried the water, as well as the incredible drainage system (which failed to work that day). It was magical having the place just for us but as the water rose and we got wetter and wetter, the situation was pretty quickly ridiculous. We ignored the notices saying we couldn't climb on the ruins as it was the only way to stay above the waterline.
Once again, we cut our losses, and standing in the middle of the overflowing intersection got a cab home.
Our last day, we went to Bardo, a town just west and more or less adjacent to Tunis to see the renowned Bardo museum, home to many ancient mosaics. They are absolutely fabulous, covering scenes of feasting and myths and incredible sea creatures and allegories and scenes of everyday life.
We saw the later (Christian era) stuff, whichwas actually much less intricate, especially when it came to portraits. This is because early Christianity forbade depiction of allliving things- like Islam- and so portraits could only be done for tombs once the person was deceased which led to a lack of practice and loss of certain techniques.
We inquired how the mosaics got from the sites to the museum ( rip it up and reassemble jigsaw style?). It turns out that superstrong glue is poured on the mosaic, covered witha sheet of something, and the whole thing is ripped off. Kind of like waxing it would seem. It is then laid out on a new surface -concrete like the floors of the museum which are also covered in them, plaster like the walls- and the glue is dissolved off. .
We went into Tunis and walked around the Medina, having gone past the heavily barb-wired place Kasba around whichthere are a coupls of ministries and official government buildings. A tank was parked in the flower beds and there were soldiers with machine guns,but all around life rattled on. There were a lot of election posters of all the candidates (over 75) and some elderly women were yelling at soldiers. The medina is made up of zigzagging narrow streets, sometimes outside, sometimes under plastic sheeting , sometimes under a stone roof. There are shops, which become very dense as you hit the souk, but also little courtyards, artisan shops, houses, schools and a lot of people scurrying around in this maze dodging puddles with plastic bags on their heads.
That evening we made it to the airport in time to relax a little before boarding. saw several young men, severly wounded and either in leg casts or bandaged up in soggy looking cloth that dripped red. A plane from Tripoli had come in and we wondered if they came from there. Lots of Libyan flags and badges for sale. We had time for a final half bottle of lovely Nuit et Jour red wine, a fruity and peppery Shiraz, Cab sauv mix.
Also good as we found out as we spent fortunes in various restaurants for lack of anything better to do during our trip were the hearty Magon and Chateau Magon reds, but also the flowery Muscat white. It all goes perfectly with the best of Tunisian eating (once one has got past the excitement of briks, couscous and endless fresh fish served grilled), which are the nibbles one gets at the beginning of a meal. Little chunks of tuna in oil sitting on a mound of fiery harissa. Pickled sliced vegetables not unlike Korean kimchi. Little triangular goat cheese briks, carot sticks and chili and sliced boiled eggs. In one place we even got a palm sized whole fried fish.
Full of Tunisian red wine we hobbled back to Paris, actually feeling quite relieved to get home. It's put us off travelling for a bit, which is lucky cos we can't afford to go anywhere!
Well the wine was really nice.
OK, so back to cussing Tunisia.
To be fair, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. In order: Air France was on strike, we got badly ripped off the second we arrived, the weather was catastrophic, we got the runs, the museum (that was dry unlike the rest of the country) was mostly shut...
You could argue the Air France strike was not Tunisia's fault, and that we got there in the end. You could argue that the weather was not Tunisia's fault either but it certainly didn't help.
We'd chosen Tunis, and more specifically its suburb Sidi Bou Said, a pittoresque cliff top village all painted in blue and white as a base to escape the onset of cold and grim weather in Europe. The plan was to relax in the North African autumn sun, going for beach side strolls and visiting the incredible Roman sites around the capital, more specifically Carthage which is part of Tunis and Dougga, the Tunisian Pompei which is about 150 km away.
The worst rain to hit the country ever put a bit of a damper on these (pun etc...). Though we realised at the time that it was bad, we later heard that people had died as the equivalent of 2 months rain fell in 2 days, putting severe pressure on the country's medieval infrastructure (exploding drains anyone?), flooding the city and generally causing a lot of damage.
We experienced this when, eager and rested after an easy afternoon wandering around and snoozing, we ventured off on the Sunday to Carthage, the suburb town just a few minutes train ride away and former capital of the Punic civilisation that occupied this part of Tunisia 2000 years ago before getting sacked and destroyed by the Romans.
We got the little train at Sidi bou said station, a few minutes walk down the steep hill on which the village is perched overlooking the marina. Less than a dinar (0,50 cents) for the two of us to get to Carthage, four or five stops down the line. When we got to there we realised that the rainwater was forming huge puddles every few feet by the side of the road and that making it anywhere with dry socks was going to be complicated.
We ended up cutting our losses and wading, and then set off in search of Carthage museum, one of the many sites we were going to visit that day. A good twenty minute walk up a hill, past huge designer houses with black window tinted Jeeps outside and we got to a huge soggy and flooded archaelogical site with an impressive 19th century mansion overlooking it. We spent a shivery hour in the Museum before we realised that we were coming down with pneumonia. Found a taxi outside who cheerfully announced that he would drive us back to Sidi but for a more expensive fee than usual as it was raining and we were clearly desperate. At least he was open about it.
The next day was crisper, cloudy but with the occasional sunbeam so we put on our dry clothes and set off back to Carthage. We started with the temple of Tophet, a site with three distinct layers of Punic and Roman remains, though we only ever really identified two. According to the Romans, the inhabitants of Carthage would sacrifice babies here, burning them in a kind of brick oven (which is still distinguishable) after slitting their throats. Ashes would then be put in clay jars stacked row upon row. Some historians argue that these sacrifices were actually stillborn or deceased children.
Saw some Punic columns with inscriptions and representations of Baal scattered around and hundreds of bits of broken clay pots crushed in the ground.
These amphoras dating back two millenia are so common that they are ground up and used on tennis courts, or used by local fishermen to weigh down their nets. We saw dozens neatly stacked up on the site of the Punic war port, which is a perfectly circular harbour giving on to the sea,and is still used today by fishermen.
As we settled down on a seaside terrace for a frugal lunch of fish and red wine, the storm rolled in from the jade couloured sea. It started slashing it down but we refused to be abashed, as at this rate we would have seen sweet piss all of anything; We trudged to another site, again of depressions in the earth, columns, wells and flashes of mosaic on the ground when the heavens opened. We took refuge in a hut with a couple of other glum tourists wearing T-shirts and flip flops. Feeling more confident in our anoraks, pullovers, umbrella and sensible shoes we decided to persevere and go to the Antonin Roman Baths, a huge site just down the road. We got there and went in to the vast area, which is like a Mediterranean garden with tombs and columns scatterd around, and the vast Bath buildings to the right. These are ruins but one can see the cathedral high columns which once supported the roof and make out the various bathing rooms and underground passages that carried the water, as well as the incredible drainage system (which failed to work that day). It was magical having the place just for us but as the water rose and we got wetter and wetter, the situation was pretty quickly ridiculous. We ignored the notices saying we couldn't climb on the ruins as it was the only way to stay above the waterline.
Once again, we cut our losses, and standing in the middle of the overflowing intersection got a cab home.
Our last day, we went to Bardo, a town just west and more or less adjacent to Tunis to see the renowned Bardo museum, home to many ancient mosaics. They are absolutely fabulous, covering scenes of feasting and myths and incredible sea creatures and allegories and scenes of everyday life.
We saw the later (Christian era) stuff, whichwas actually much less intricate, especially when it came to portraits. This is because early Christianity forbade depiction of allliving things- like Islam- and so portraits could only be done for tombs once the person was deceased which led to a lack of practice and loss of certain techniques.
We inquired how the mosaics got from the sites to the museum ( rip it up and reassemble jigsaw style?). It turns out that superstrong glue is poured on the mosaic, covered witha sheet of something, and the whole thing is ripped off. Kind of like waxing it would seem. It is then laid out on a new surface -concrete like the floors of the museum which are also covered in them, plaster like the walls- and the glue is dissolved off. .
We went into Tunis and walked around the Medina, having gone past the heavily barb-wired place Kasba around whichthere are a coupls of ministries and official government buildings. A tank was parked in the flower beds and there were soldiers with machine guns,but all around life rattled on. There were a lot of election posters of all the candidates (over 75) and some elderly women were yelling at soldiers. The medina is made up of zigzagging narrow streets, sometimes outside, sometimes under plastic sheeting , sometimes under a stone roof. There are shops, which become very dense as you hit the souk, but also little courtyards, artisan shops, houses, schools and a lot of people scurrying around in this maze dodging puddles with plastic bags on their heads.
That evening we made it to the airport in time to relax a little before boarding. saw several young men, severly wounded and either in leg casts or bandaged up in soggy looking cloth that dripped red. A plane from Tripoli had come in and we wondered if they came from there. Lots of Libyan flags and badges for sale. We had time for a final half bottle of lovely Nuit et Jour red wine, a fruity and peppery Shiraz, Cab sauv mix.
Also good as we found out as we spent fortunes in various restaurants for lack of anything better to do during our trip were the hearty Magon and Chateau Magon reds, but also the flowery Muscat white. It all goes perfectly with the best of Tunisian eating (once one has got past the excitement of briks, couscous and endless fresh fish served grilled), which are the nibbles one gets at the beginning of a meal. Little chunks of tuna in oil sitting on a mound of fiery harissa. Pickled sliced vegetables not unlike Korean kimchi. Little triangular goat cheese briks, carot sticks and chili and sliced boiled eggs. In one place we even got a palm sized whole fried fish.
Full of Tunisian red wine we hobbled back to Paris, actually feeling quite relieved to get home. It's put us off travelling for a bit, which is lucky cos we can't afford to go anywhere!
samedi 7 février 2009
So here we are in London and an Egyptian tomb
Chook and I went off to London for a birthday weekend and it wa sabsolutely great. We saw the Rothko exhibition at Tate modern, ate pub lunches and English breakfasts, saw my family and met up with some old uni friends for a couple of drinks. We went to the Britsh museum and plodded around in the snow which fell in abundance in London and the South East on Sunday and Monday.
We had an amazing time and one of my highlights was visiting the new Egyptian gallery in the BM. I've always loved their Egyptian wing and when I was a child would spend ages with my poor suffering mother looking at the Rosetta stone and animal mummies, the dried out corpse of Ginger and other slightly gruesome displays. Later I also started to appreciate the statues and artefacts, pottery, jewellry and so on, and know a bit more about Ancient Egyptian history and archeology.
This new gallery is like nothing I have ever seen before. It is a actually an average sized room that is solely dedicated to the tomb of an temple accountant who lived three and a half thousand years ago. The famous Egyptian tombs are typically royal ones : from the valley of the Kings to Tutankhamon's, or the even more ancient pyramids. The lives and deaths of the everyday Egyptians are comparatively unknown. A few years ago the Louvre had an exhibition on the people who made the pyramids, not slaves as it turns out(contrary to popular belief) but highly skilled craftsmen, experts in stone cutting, woodwork, engraving, painting and so on. It looked in to the lives of the Egyptian working classes, neither pharoahs nor farmers nor slaves.
In a similar way, this tomb is the tomb chapel of Nebamun, a "scribe and counter of grain" who died in around 1400 BC. His tomb chapel was discovered in the 1820s by a Greek grave robber who later sold the incredible paintings that are on display. Though we know the tomb was located near the city/temple devoted to Amun, where he worked, in Thebes (today Luxor),the exact location is today lost. Though it is a tomb, the paintings are a celebration of Nebamun's life, with paintings glorifying his everyday activities, from fishing to family and his job. The eleven large fragments, which have been restored and preserved over the last decade, are beautiful in colour and the level of detail in each one is captivating; the artist is unknown but has been called an "ancient Egyptian Michaelangelo".
One painting shows a young Nebamun fishing on the marshes and surrounded by spieces of birds and reeds and fat fish. Amongst the reeds his cat is somersaulting and hunting. The different species symbolise life, rebirth and vitality which is what the painting inspires.
In another, we see Nebamun at work. His name literally means "he works in the service of Amun", to whom the temple which employed him was dedicated. Here he is counting and inspecting cattle, who have been painted in such a way that you can hear the clatter of their hooves and the shouts of the servants driving them.
In another, slave giirls entertain at a banquet: a display of luxury, sensuality and wealth.
The exhibition also has a terrific 3D video that explains the tomb chapel's probable location and layout, and has some nice artefacts such as toys, jewelry, games and preserved offerings. The explanations are great and fascinating (such as the fact that the word "Amun", present everywhere in the hieroglyphs, including in Nebamun's name, was smashed centuries later) and to top it all the whole gallery, like the rest of the museum, is free.
We had an amazing time and one of my highlights was visiting the new Egyptian gallery in the BM. I've always loved their Egyptian wing and when I was a child would spend ages with my poor suffering mother looking at the Rosetta stone and animal mummies, the dried out corpse of Ginger and other slightly gruesome displays. Later I also started to appreciate the statues and artefacts, pottery, jewellry and so on, and know a bit more about Ancient Egyptian history and archeology.
This new gallery is like nothing I have ever seen before. It is a actually an average sized room that is solely dedicated to the tomb of an temple accountant who lived three and a half thousand years ago. The famous Egyptian tombs are typically royal ones : from the valley of the Kings to Tutankhamon's, or the even more ancient pyramids. The lives and deaths of the everyday Egyptians are comparatively unknown. A few years ago the Louvre had an exhibition on the people who made the pyramids, not slaves as it turns out(contrary to popular belief) but highly skilled craftsmen, experts in stone cutting, woodwork, engraving, painting and so on. It looked in to the lives of the Egyptian working classes, neither pharoahs nor farmers nor slaves.
In a similar way, this tomb is the tomb chapel of Nebamun, a "scribe and counter of grain" who died in around 1400 BC. His tomb chapel was discovered in the 1820s by a Greek grave robber who later sold the incredible paintings that are on display. Though we know the tomb was located near the city/temple devoted to Amun, where he worked, in Thebes (today Luxor),the exact location is today lost. Though it is a tomb, the paintings are a celebration of Nebamun's life, with paintings glorifying his everyday activities, from fishing to family and his job. The eleven large fragments, which have been restored and preserved over the last decade, are beautiful in colour and the level of detail in each one is captivating; the artist is unknown but has been called an "ancient Egyptian Michaelangelo".
One painting shows a young Nebamun fishing on the marshes and surrounded by spieces of birds and reeds and fat fish. Amongst the reeds his cat is somersaulting and hunting. The different species symbolise life, rebirth and vitality which is what the painting inspires.
In another, we see Nebamun at work. His name literally means "he works in the service of Amun", to whom the temple which employed him was dedicated. Here he is counting and inspecting cattle, who have been painted in such a way that you can hear the clatter of their hooves and the shouts of the servants driving them.
In another, slave giirls entertain at a banquet: a display of luxury, sensuality and wealth.
The exhibition also has a terrific 3D video that explains the tomb chapel's probable location and layout, and has some nice artefacts such as toys, jewelry, games and preserved offerings. The explanations are great and fascinating (such as the fact that the word "Amun", present everywhere in the hieroglyphs, including in Nebamun's name, was smashed centuries later) and to top it all the whole gallery, like the rest of the museum, is free.
samedi 18 octobre 2008
So here we are in Africa again
Ooooh, it's getting cold in Paris. The heating is on, and I want to snuggle with Chook under the duvet. So it seems like a good time to get back to the heat and dust of the Africa diary. Another extract is here.
This extract from the African diary recounts most of Olivia's and my experience in Djenné, a village in the middle of Mali famous for its Mosque and considered the most beautiful in black Africa by LP.
8.07.04 The day we go to Djenné
We had arranged to meet the Americans at 9.30 at Sévaré’s bank to share a car to Djenné as the bus there doesn’t leave until Monday. Woke up with a thumping hangover and poisonous guts from the toxic whisky. Luckily, omelette sandwiches are a great morning-after food. It was already getting hot when we piled off with our huge rucksacks and many bags, and we were sweating heavily at the end of our two kilometer hike to the bank. By the time we arrived, the crisp looking Americans, Ted and John, had already changed money and found a car to take us. 10000 each for a 140 km drive! It was wonderfully fast; a couple of times we picked up some people and dropped them off at various villages. After barely two hours, we reached the Carrefour de Djenné. From there we took a small car ferry over a stretch of river in which men were washing down their donkeys.
There are two hotels in Djenné: one is expensive, one is cheap. We opted for the latter, Baba’s, and our room is very basic, with a couple of straw mats and no electricity. It’s on the top floor and overlooks the lively street on one side and the courtyard on the other. We slept most of the afternoon away from the baking heat while Ted and John visited the town; they left before we got up. Around 9 we went to get something to eat, following two children to a cheap restaurant. We had couscous grains with a pile of skinny chicken bones. There is no light in Djenné after dark, so we went back to bed.
9.07.04 The day we get settled in
I had promised Ousman, the elder of the two kids that I would look at the necklaces he sells. He arrived at 7, and I allowed myself to be ripped off, knowing that at least he wouldn’t spend it on booze. I made my way to the loo, which is behind a wooden door in the corner of the terrace at the top of the stairs. It is a sit down bog, but as there is no plumbing you just crap in to a pit below. In this heat, the smell hits you like a concrete block. As I went in I saw a cat- sized rat dive down the hole.There’s no way I’m going in that. Time to explore the hotel. Djenné, like Mopti, is built of grey mud but is famous for still being a small, functional village with many of the original traditions still going. Unlike Mopti, it has never grown beyond 20000 or so in population, cannot take cars in its narrow winding lanes, does not have electricity except for a couple of private generators. It is also famed for its buildings, which have stood in place for hundreds of years despite being made of a mud the dries and crumbles in the sun. Talking of which, it’s 8.15 and stunningly hot.
After breakfast, Olivia and I decided that we needed a loo. We walked around town looking for the nice hotel, away from the centre where the mosque and the wide market square are, and deeper in to the maze of streets. Everything is made of the usual grey mud, the colour and texture of elephant, dusty and cracked. The tiny little alleys are open sewers full of sand and rubbish. We quickly got to the end of the village and went round the edge, one side a dense race of people, the other side deserted countryside dotted with pools of water from the recent rains. It is boiling hot and cloudless today though. Back in the labyrinth kids started following us shouting “toubabs!”. This town is strange, much smaller and narrower than I expected, much more littered and unkempt too. We found the hotel and allowed ourselves to use a sparkling bog in exchange for a second, overpriced, breakfast.
For lunch, sick and tired of stringy chicken we went to a guide book restaurant on the square in front of the mosque. Everything was off except bloody chicken so we tried “tion-tion”. It was just horrible: sticky clumps of rice with a bit of chicken leg smothered in dried-fish sauce and onions. It’s awful to complain about the food in such a poor country but it really is a nightmare. Nothing keeps in this weather and fridges are rare; provisions come only once a week on market day. We were choking on our tion-tion when the sweet young waiter came over and asked us if we would like to pre-order a pizza for tomorrow. Would we hell?! “What’ve you got? Sure!”, we drooled, “Cheese and tomato?”. He looked amused. “Oh no! you can’t get cheese around here, and tomatoes are hard to find, but we’ve got aubergine.” Aubergine it shall be then.
It was almost time for Friday afternoon prayer so we decided to get close to the mosque, which is as always forbidden for us. The little boy we had seen the night before told us we could go up on to someone’s roof to get a look over the wall. Only two stories high, and practically next door to the enormous mosque, we mainly got a good view of the surrounding neighbourhood. From here we can see the village, made of mud and the odd wooden beam. Back at the room we took care of laundry and have been sitting up on the roof since the late afternoon. Olivia is crimson. It’s rapidly getting dark, a single light is flashing from the top of the mosque which looks increasingly like a elaborate square sandcastle, with three buckets of sand at the front and a low outer wall around it, and pieces of wood scaffolding sticking out of it. It’s absolutely beautiful..
A man we had met the day before (the Americans’ guide) and who called himself “l’historien” came up to our room to see if we wanted a tour of the town. As we did, we decided to see Djenné properly again tomorrow with him as well as nearby Djenné Djenno. We’d arrange to go to a nearby Peul village the day after. It was time to work out a price; he let it slip that the Americans had given him 6000 an hour. Everything was about to work out very expensive indeed and we negotiated for an hour before he suddenly changed his mind and told us that as friends we could have it for free. Now we’re just confused. We also need to find a donkey and cart for our Sunday visit to the village. As the two little boys are sulking because they wanted to be our guides we could try and sort something out with them. Though to be fair the little boys seem to know nothing about their town, and l’historien is a teacher.
For supper, tired of chicken bones, we got ourselves a coal stove and a saucepan and made some of my emergency powdered minestrone in mineral water. With a candle, two spoons and some chewy white bread we had a very atmospheric meal under the stars. Despite this I am in a bit of a state. I just don’t know whether this not-paying-the-historien-thing is going to turn out to be a nightmare. He says he’ll be our guide for free, but why? What does he want? Nothing is free over here, only more-or-less explicitly sold whether for money or otherwise.
The hotel bog is now clean but still scary and the rats are scurrying in the rubbish filled streets. Christ, if this is the most beautiful town in sub-Saharan Africa…
10.07.04 The day we learn about Djenné
We met l’historien for breakfast at 8.30 and after omelettes and coffee started our tour. We had convinced him to take 1000 off us over our meal. First we set off to the “quartier marocain” where he showed us three taller houses that had intricate window screens carved with stars. These allowed the women to look out but not the men to look in. They houses date from the 8th century when Moroccan merchants from the other side of the desert started trading with Djenné. At the top of the house are little turrets and windows that represent penises and vaginas; the number of turrets says how many kids there are in the family. If one dies or is born, a new one can easily be destroyed or added. Next we saw a mound of ruined, 9th century cottages on which goats were grazing. They were destroyed because their inhabitants hadn’t carried out the “crépissage”, the annual adding of a new coat of fresh mud on the building’s walls. This is done after the rainy season which we should be in the middle of, when the rains wash away the top layers of the walls. L’historien then took us to the village chief’s house which is a little wider and taller than the others. In the surrounding streets, we met some women who weave and sell blankets to raise money for local projects, mostly weddings it seems. Olivia liked the indigo blankets and said we would return later.
The oldest school in the Mopti region was nearby (4th oldest in Africa), and was built on the site of an ancient mosque. In a town of 16000 people, there are six secular schools and over 40 coranic ones, some of which we passed. Small boys sat outside scratching verses of the Koran in to their wooden tablets. The final thing we saw on our tour was a roofless mud room built by the side of the town. In one of its walls is the body of a 8th century 15 year old Bozo virgin who was walled in alive as a sacrifice, a town protection dreamt up by some marabout when the walls of Djenné kept collapsing. She had screamed until her father told her to stop dishonouring him. A toothless old crone looks after the place- she is the direct descendant of the poor girl. A man stopped l’historien in the street and gave a brief speech before walking off. It turned out he went from person to person giving them the Muslim equivalent of thought for the day. Our guide then went on to say, rather bizarrely, that he wanted to convert and be a Protestant. The population of the area is 100% Muslim, usually with a bit of animism and ancestor worship thrown in. He believes that there are too many rules in Islam that aren’t respected, he wants a religion that can impose its laws. After this very odd speech, he took us to one of his students whose uncle could loan us a donkey and cart tomorrow morning.
Uninspiring lunch of semolina and green beans. Nevermind, pizza tonight. We were surrounded by copulating lizards during our whole meal. The males are really extraordinary- the size of Coke bottles with bright blue bodies and orange heads and tails.
When the sun had dipped a little we set off for the archaeological site of Djenné Djenno which is just outside the town, and which is the site of oldest town in Africa.
Once we got out of the tangle of Djenné’s dusty streets we found ourselves in luxuriant green countryside and crossed a bridge. Lots of people including small children and old women were busy carrying mud bricks from the riverbank up the steep banks to the town. Apart from a dead donkey lying bloated in a field, the view as we got further away from the village was just stunning, waving green grass and flowery trees either side of the road. The air got cleaner. Rather than going to the actual site of Djenné Djenno which is closed to visitors, we stopped at the Museum, waiting for the curator, Samaké, to finish with another pair of toubabs. We sat under a tree in the courtyard, next to a man reading the Koran. Another man appeared, a drunk rasta who reminded me of Max back in Dakar.
The museum is small, a couple of rooms and a corridor full of pictures and photos. The first room gave information about the archaeological site. The first pottery found dates from 250BC and there is evidence that the inhabitants lived off fishing, hunting and farming. Iron work from the same age wrecks the theory that the iron age was imported from Asia Minor. The second room is about Djenné today. It confirmed what we saw this morning: the Moroccan houses are the taller ones with wooden shutters, the original Sudanese-Berber ones have open courtyards and split level-terraces, and the colonial ones are ugly little shoeboxes. We saw pictures of the mosque, the largest mud building in the world, and learnt about its crépissage, when hundreds of volunteers both local and international come to help every year. We also learnt why non-Muslims were not allowed in. Fifteen or so years ago some crazed Italians got caught having sex in it, which understandably enraged the local population. I felt deeply ashamed of my fellow Europeans. Some old pictures showed Djenné in the late 19th and early 20th century. Without the town’s plastic litter and sewage problem the beauty is startling. The packed buildings around the huge central square and the imposing, grey mosque look like a smooth sandy rock formation and blend in with the countryside. Samaké told us that an NGO and a team of Germans had decided to install running water in Djenné. Traditionally the population walked 300 meters down to the river and only those too old and sick had water brought to them. The Germans installed a tap outside practically every house, hence the presence all over town of stinking stagnant puddles, miniature swamps full of mosquitoes and open sewers. The NGO is now looking in to providing an underground evacuation system, but because of Djenné’s UNESCO World heritage status, no sewers can be dug. Samaké was a fabulous guide. Thanks to his obvious love of Djenné, I began to see how this isolated town dominated by its incredible mosque could be considered the most beautiful in black Africa.
The sun was setting as we walked back to Djenné, the fields were green and damp and the village glowed beige against the soft blue sky. People seemed more brightly clothed than usual in shades of indigo and blue. Felt peaceful and content, and rather sad that the place had ever been discovered by white men, who had enslaved it, colonised it, and now were melting it by trying to bring it up to some kind of international comfort standard. I don’t think Mali is compatible with global influences. Things here are based on family and sharing, everyone is part of a huge, explicit network. Huge amounts of time are spent strengthening status in order to look after one’s community; how is this compatible with frenzied individualism and competition?
Pizza time! We went back to the restaurant. Certainly an interesting if not particularly authentic effort: a pastry case with a very salty onion filling inside -a change at least! Tonight we are going for tea at l’historien’s.
Have just had one of the most traumatising experiences of my life. After the pizza, I felt my guts shifting uncomfortably and decided it was time to vanquish my fear of the loo. All the stodge we had been eating made me want to it down with a good book for a couple of days but this, not least because it was dark, was impossible. I took the torch and saw the rat leap in to the loo. “Dammit”, I thought as I went to fill up the water bucket, “it’s more scared of me than I am of him. The rat does not exist, the rat does not exist.” I was mid-shit in the dark when I heard something in the room with me. Before I could get the torch back on (it’s important to save batteries), the creature had jumped on my leg, scuttled up my thigh, and dived in between my legs. I just screamed and instinctively ran for it. Olivia wept for laughing after I had run back in to the room, trousers round my ankles, and told her what had happened. I’m never going to the loo again. It’s one thing if the rat lurks about, another if it’s tame.
This extract from the African diary recounts most of Olivia's and my experience in Djenné, a village in the middle of Mali famous for its Mosque and considered the most beautiful in black Africa by LP.
*
8.07.04 The day we go to Djenné
We had arranged to meet the Americans at 9.30 at Sévaré’s bank to share a car to Djenné as the bus there doesn’t leave until Monday. Woke up with a thumping hangover and poisonous guts from the toxic whisky. Luckily, omelette sandwiches are a great morning-after food. It was already getting hot when we piled off with our huge rucksacks and many bags, and we were sweating heavily at the end of our two kilometer hike to the bank. By the time we arrived, the crisp looking Americans, Ted and John, had already changed money and found a car to take us. 10000 each for a 140 km drive! It was wonderfully fast; a couple of times we picked up some people and dropped them off at various villages. After barely two hours, we reached the Carrefour de Djenné. From there we took a small car ferry over a stretch of river in which men were washing down their donkeys.
There are two hotels in Djenné: one is expensive, one is cheap. We opted for the latter, Baba’s, and our room is very basic, with a couple of straw mats and no electricity. It’s on the top floor and overlooks the lively street on one side and the courtyard on the other. We slept most of the afternoon away from the baking heat while Ted and John visited the town; they left before we got up. Around 9 we went to get something to eat, following two children to a cheap restaurant. We had couscous grains with a pile of skinny chicken bones. There is no light in Djenné after dark, so we went back to bed.
9.07.04 The day we get settled in
I had promised Ousman, the elder of the two kids that I would look at the necklaces he sells. He arrived at 7, and I allowed myself to be ripped off, knowing that at least he wouldn’t spend it on booze. I made my way to the loo, which is behind a wooden door in the corner of the terrace at the top of the stairs. It is a sit down bog, but as there is no plumbing you just crap in to a pit below. In this heat, the smell hits you like a concrete block. As I went in I saw a cat- sized rat dive down the hole.There’s no way I’m going in that. Time to explore the hotel. Djenné, like Mopti, is built of grey mud but is famous for still being a small, functional village with many of the original traditions still going. Unlike Mopti, it has never grown beyond 20000 or so in population, cannot take cars in its narrow winding lanes, does not have electricity except for a couple of private generators. It is also famed for its buildings, which have stood in place for hundreds of years despite being made of a mud the dries and crumbles in the sun. Talking of which, it’s 8.15 and stunningly hot.
*
After breakfast, Olivia and I decided that we needed a loo. We walked around town looking for the nice hotel, away from the centre where the mosque and the wide market square are, and deeper in to the maze of streets. Everything is made of the usual grey mud, the colour and texture of elephant, dusty and cracked. The tiny little alleys are open sewers full of sand and rubbish. We quickly got to the end of the village and went round the edge, one side a dense race of people, the other side deserted countryside dotted with pools of water from the recent rains. It is boiling hot and cloudless today though. Back in the labyrinth kids started following us shouting “toubabs!”. This town is strange, much smaller and narrower than I expected, much more littered and unkempt too. We found the hotel and allowed ourselves to use a sparkling bog in exchange for a second, overpriced, breakfast.
For lunch, sick and tired of stringy chicken we went to a guide book restaurant on the square in front of the mosque. Everything was off except bloody chicken so we tried “tion-tion”. It was just horrible: sticky clumps of rice with a bit of chicken leg smothered in dried-fish sauce and onions. It’s awful to complain about the food in such a poor country but it really is a nightmare. Nothing keeps in this weather and fridges are rare; provisions come only once a week on market day. We were choking on our tion-tion when the sweet young waiter came over and asked us if we would like to pre-order a pizza for tomorrow. Would we hell?! “What’ve you got? Sure!”, we drooled, “Cheese and tomato?”. He looked amused. “Oh no! you can’t get cheese around here, and tomatoes are hard to find, but we’ve got aubergine.” Aubergine it shall be then.
It was almost time for Friday afternoon prayer so we decided to get close to the mosque, which is as always forbidden for us. The little boy we had seen the night before told us we could go up on to someone’s roof to get a look over the wall. Only two stories high, and practically next door to the enormous mosque, we mainly got a good view of the surrounding neighbourhood. From here we can see the village, made of mud and the odd wooden beam. Back at the room we took care of laundry and have been sitting up on the roof since the late afternoon. Olivia is crimson. It’s rapidly getting dark, a single light is flashing from the top of the mosque which looks increasingly like a elaborate square sandcastle, with three buckets of sand at the front and a low outer wall around it, and pieces of wood scaffolding sticking out of it. It’s absolutely beautiful..
*
A man we had met the day before (the Americans’ guide) and who called himself “l’historien” came up to our room to see if we wanted a tour of the town. As we did, we decided to see Djenné properly again tomorrow with him as well as nearby Djenné Djenno. We’d arrange to go to a nearby Peul village the day after. It was time to work out a price; he let it slip that the Americans had given him 6000 an hour. Everything was about to work out very expensive indeed and we negotiated for an hour before he suddenly changed his mind and told us that as friends we could have it for free. Now we’re just confused. We also need to find a donkey and cart for our Sunday visit to the village. As the two little boys are sulking because they wanted to be our guides we could try and sort something out with them. Though to be fair the little boys seem to know nothing about their town, and l’historien is a teacher.
For supper, tired of chicken bones, we got ourselves a coal stove and a saucepan and made some of my emergency powdered minestrone in mineral water. With a candle, two spoons and some chewy white bread we had a very atmospheric meal under the stars. Despite this I am in a bit of a state. I just don’t know whether this not-paying-the-historien-thing is going to turn out to be a nightmare. He says he’ll be our guide for free, but why? What does he want? Nothing is free over here, only more-or-less explicitly sold whether for money or otherwise.
The hotel bog is now clean but still scary and the rats are scurrying in the rubbish filled streets. Christ, if this is the most beautiful town in sub-Saharan Africa…
10.07.04 The day we learn about Djenné
We met l’historien for breakfast at 8.30 and after omelettes and coffee started our tour. We had convinced him to take 1000 off us over our meal. First we set off to the “quartier marocain” where he showed us three taller houses that had intricate window screens carved with stars. These allowed the women to look out but not the men to look in. They houses date from the 8th century when Moroccan merchants from the other side of the desert started trading with Djenné. At the top of the house are little turrets and windows that represent penises and vaginas; the number of turrets says how many kids there are in the family. If one dies or is born, a new one can easily be destroyed or added. Next we saw a mound of ruined, 9th century cottages on which goats were grazing. They were destroyed because their inhabitants hadn’t carried out the “crépissage”, the annual adding of a new coat of fresh mud on the building’s walls. This is done after the rainy season which we should be in the middle of, when the rains wash away the top layers of the walls. L’historien then took us to the village chief’s house which is a little wider and taller than the others. In the surrounding streets, we met some women who weave and sell blankets to raise money for local projects, mostly weddings it seems. Olivia liked the indigo blankets and said we would return later.
The oldest school in the Mopti region was nearby (4th oldest in Africa), and was built on the site of an ancient mosque. In a town of 16000 people, there are six secular schools and over 40 coranic ones, some of which we passed. Small boys sat outside scratching verses of the Koran in to their wooden tablets. The final thing we saw on our tour was a roofless mud room built by the side of the town. In one of its walls is the body of a 8th century 15 year old Bozo virgin who was walled in alive as a sacrifice, a town protection dreamt up by some marabout when the walls of Djenné kept collapsing. She had screamed until her father told her to stop dishonouring him. A toothless old crone looks after the place- she is the direct descendant of the poor girl. A man stopped l’historien in the street and gave a brief speech before walking off. It turned out he went from person to person giving them the Muslim equivalent of thought for the day. Our guide then went on to say, rather bizarrely, that he wanted to convert and be a Protestant. The population of the area is 100% Muslim, usually with a bit of animism and ancestor worship thrown in. He believes that there are too many rules in Islam that aren’t respected, he wants a religion that can impose its laws. After this very odd speech, he took us to one of his students whose uncle could loan us a donkey and cart tomorrow morning.
Uninspiring lunch of semolina and green beans. Nevermind, pizza tonight. We were surrounded by copulating lizards during our whole meal. The males are really extraordinary- the size of Coke bottles with bright blue bodies and orange heads and tails.
*
When the sun had dipped a little we set off for the archaeological site of Djenné Djenno which is just outside the town, and which is the site of oldest town in Africa.
Once we got out of the tangle of Djenné’s dusty streets we found ourselves in luxuriant green countryside and crossed a bridge. Lots of people including small children and old women were busy carrying mud bricks from the riverbank up the steep banks to the town. Apart from a dead donkey lying bloated in a field, the view as we got further away from the village was just stunning, waving green grass and flowery trees either side of the road. The air got cleaner. Rather than going to the actual site of Djenné Djenno which is closed to visitors, we stopped at the Museum, waiting for the curator, Samaké, to finish with another pair of toubabs. We sat under a tree in the courtyard, next to a man reading the Koran. Another man appeared, a drunk rasta who reminded me of Max back in Dakar.
The museum is small, a couple of rooms and a corridor full of pictures and photos. The first room gave information about the archaeological site. The first pottery found dates from 250BC and there is evidence that the inhabitants lived off fishing, hunting and farming. Iron work from the same age wrecks the theory that the iron age was imported from Asia Minor. The second room is about Djenné today. It confirmed what we saw this morning: the Moroccan houses are the taller ones with wooden shutters, the original Sudanese-Berber ones have open courtyards and split level-terraces, and the colonial ones are ugly little shoeboxes. We saw pictures of the mosque, the largest mud building in the world, and learnt about its crépissage, when hundreds of volunteers both local and international come to help every year. We also learnt why non-Muslims were not allowed in. Fifteen or so years ago some crazed Italians got caught having sex in it, which understandably enraged the local population. I felt deeply ashamed of my fellow Europeans. Some old pictures showed Djenné in the late 19th and early 20th century. Without the town’s plastic litter and sewage problem the beauty is startling. The packed buildings around the huge central square and the imposing, grey mosque look like a smooth sandy rock formation and blend in with the countryside. Samaké told us that an NGO and a team of Germans had decided to install running water in Djenné. Traditionally the population walked 300 meters down to the river and only those too old and sick had water brought to them. The Germans installed a tap outside practically every house, hence the presence all over town of stinking stagnant puddles, miniature swamps full of mosquitoes and open sewers. The NGO is now looking in to providing an underground evacuation system, but because of Djenné’s UNESCO World heritage status, no sewers can be dug. Samaké was a fabulous guide. Thanks to his obvious love of Djenné, I began to see how this isolated town dominated by its incredible mosque could be considered the most beautiful in black Africa.
The sun was setting as we walked back to Djenné, the fields were green and damp and the village glowed beige against the soft blue sky. People seemed more brightly clothed than usual in shades of indigo and blue. Felt peaceful and content, and rather sad that the place had ever been discovered by white men, who had enslaved it, colonised it, and now were melting it by trying to bring it up to some kind of international comfort standard. I don’t think Mali is compatible with global influences. Things here are based on family and sharing, everyone is part of a huge, explicit network. Huge amounts of time are spent strengthening status in order to look after one’s community; how is this compatible with frenzied individualism and competition?
Pizza time! We went back to the restaurant. Certainly an interesting if not particularly authentic effort: a pastry case with a very salty onion filling inside -a change at least! Tonight we are going for tea at l’historien’s.
*
Have just had one of the most traumatising experiences of my life. After the pizza, I felt my guts shifting uncomfortably and decided it was time to vanquish my fear of the loo. All the stodge we had been eating made me want to it down with a good book for a couple of days but this, not least because it was dark, was impossible. I took the torch and saw the rat leap in to the loo. “Dammit”, I thought as I went to fill up the water bucket, “it’s more scared of me than I am of him. The rat does not exist, the rat does not exist.” I was mid-shit in the dark when I heard something in the room with me. Before I could get the torch back on (it’s important to save batteries), the creature had jumped on my leg, scuttled up my thigh, and dived in between my legs. I just screamed and instinctively ran for it. Olivia wept for laughing after I had run back in to the room, trousers round my ankles, and told her what had happened. I’m never going to the loo again. It’s one thing if the rat lurks about, another if it’s tame.
mardi 2 septembre 2008
So here we are holidaying in Bulgaria
Chook and I went to Bulgaria for the last ten days of August for romantic European cultural, natural and beachy relaxation.
Started in Sofia, the capital
and moved down to Blagoevgrad, the district capital and university city surrounded by foresty hills.
From there we took a day trip to Rila Monastery, the biggest in the country, alone in the middle of a valley and up in the mountains.
We then went to Plovdiv, the "Paris of the Balkans" with cobbled streets, Roman ruins and numerous art galleries.
From there to Burgas, on the coast, from whence we went first to Nesebar (international touristy beachy and UNESCO world heritage site)
and then Kiten (Bulgarian touristy beach). here are assorted highlights and descriptions.
One modern, luxurious department store near the former communist headquarters (roughly six times the size of the Parliament) was deserted; another, selling mainly food in a turn of the 20th iron and steel building, was packed.
Blagoevgrad is a nice pedestrian student town dedicated to concrete and 
set amongst rolling forested hills. Our hotel was overrun with wedding and birthday parties. Place was vaguely shabby but had loads of restaurants and we checked out the jazz club.
*****
From there we took a bus to Rila Monastery (rebuilt in 19th)
which is stunning and set in a valley sided with mountains of forests and torrents. It comprises a church, loads of arched galleries and lurid murals.
Best thing ever though was when we explored an old abandoned building nearby, which was a former restaurant/hotel from the Soviet times. It had just been locked up and left, and we stepped back in time into the restaurant, the kitchens and in the old wallpapered bedrooms (still partly furnished) before getting told off. Even found a crate of vodka bottles saying "Made in USSR"! Missed the last bus back to Rila village (22 km away down forest road) and hitched a ride with a tourbus of Bulgarian pilgrims.
It's a strange mix : roman ruins, loads of art galleries, long pedestrian shopping roads, squares with cafés, winding cobbled streets that climb around the hill, brightly painted museum/houses from the 19th. Lovely, except for huge motorway that zooms under the hill (we had a romantic dinner overlooking it). We visited a house/art museum full of beautiful antique furniture and Bulgarian paintings from the 19th onwards, saw Roman amphitheater
and a small roman stadium which is now surrounded partially built over with concrete blocks and is semi-submerged under a shopping street.
It was also in Plovdiv that we were confronted with the worst, most disgusting cocktail ever, which I ordered because I couldn't figure how it could be drinkable; it wasn't.
Sweet sin: whisky, peach liqueur, Bailey's, pineapple juice.
for Nesebar which is exactly the same only has monuments instead of the beach (actually it does have one, which we tested : rocks and algae but good waves). Lots of old churches filled with icons and little streets lined with traditional wooden houses.Very touristy but does have a few interesting old buildings scattered about and a very lovely coastline though, must be nice out of season.
*****
And finally in Kiten we did absolutely bugger all except lie on the beach, surf the waves, get sunburnt, eat (including excellent calamari) and laze by the pool. This latter we had access to, having the choice between the nicest and most expensive hotel in town and the Hotel Balkanika, which could have been the setting for a movie on abandoned mental asylums in the 1930s. It was cracked, peeling, overgrown and had a view over the municipal rubbish dump. So we went to the other.
On the way back to Sofia, we stopped for the day in Burgas from where we were going to take the nighttrain. It's a coastal city but not touristy, so we checked out the beach, the ethnographical museum and the archeological museum. The beach had its share of rather dingy looking parasols but also a concrete jetty, an abandoned water slide, and Burgas international shipping port. By the beach were
more abandoned buildings from Soviet times, including a large boat/restaurant which, according to a guy we got chatting to, was once a fashionable spot for Communist officials from all over the eastern block. Impossible to get close too unfortunately.
*Food: two kinds of cheese : white (Sirene - feta) and yellow (Kashkaval- bland cheddar). Menus also proudly boast "processed cheese".
*Bulgarian girls, despite diet of pizza, hot dogs and cheese, are all incredible slim and stunning. The preferred uniform is micro-shorts, micro top, huge 80s haircut, long painted nails and high heeled sandals. Gulp. the men are plump, non descript and apparently hairless (study undertaken at Kiten beach).
*Bulgarian wine is drinkable : Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon from Melnik region is well known. We liked the Chateau Boyar and drank Chateau Karnobat. Zagorka beer is good too.
* Food : a traditional salad is Shopska : cucumbers, tomatoes, onions topped with grated sirene
*The best thing in Bulgaria is Vishna Sok- cherry juice- which is usually sugar and water and about 10% fruit juice. Massively addictive.
* Bulgarians are obsessed with ghastly singing+ dancing in traditional folk costumes amongst mountainous scenery. At any given time two TV channels are playing some.
* Food : usually some kind of grilled meat (chicken, lamb or pork), either on a stick or just a chunk or meatballs. Fried potatoes (topped with cheese), various salads, Tarator (yoghurt, cucumber, dill and walnut) soup. Stuffed vine leaves and cabbage leaves. Bluefish (size of sardines) and many others by the sea, trout in the mountains. Endless supplies of junk food, from McDonalds to pizza, to homegrown burgers (revolting - plastic pig eyeball ham in panini bread and containing Russian salad and cabbage) and hot dogs and various sweet and savoury pastries. HOW do the girls do it? Most food comes in two possible portion sizes.
* Everything is written in the cyrillic, which is fun to learn and even better when you decode
words that mean something to you (office, McDonalds, garage and a lot of words are linked to French too).
*Bulgarian night trains are cold, uncomfortable, overbooked and loud Soviet pieces of shit that threaten to derail every second. Not recommended.
*To say "yes", the Bulgarians shake their head, not a side to side wobble like the Indians but an actual (to us) "no". Impossibly confusing.
*Beware, upon checking into a hotel, the plastic keyring : it means they are giving you the worst room ever. Twice we changed rooms after plastic keyring and the rooms were infinitely nicer.
*Food: Sach: a hot plate full of meat,onions and pickles. Nice.
*When someone dies, A4 pages are stuck around town with their photo, dates and so on. Lots outside churches (see photo) but also in the street, on front doors, in the churches, etc.
Started in Sofia, the capital
and moved down to Blagoevgrad, the district capital and university city surrounded by foresty hills.
From there we took a day trip to Rila Monastery, the biggest in the country, alone in the middle of a valley and up in the mountains.
We then went to Plovdiv, the "Paris of the Balkans" with cobbled streets, Roman ruins and numerous art galleries.
From there to Burgas, on the coast, from whence we went first to Nesebar (international touristy beachy and UNESCO world heritage site)
and then Kiten (Bulgarian touristy beach). here are assorted highlights and descriptions.
******
Sofia is a boring capital city of which we saw two parts : the center with its big roads, plazas, communist buildings, cranes and renovations and domed Orthodox churches; and a nicer, small streets and less trafficky part to the North.
One modern, luxurious department store near the former communist headquarters (roughly six times the size of the Parliament) was deserted; another, selling mainly food in a turn of the 20th iron and steel building, was packed.
*****
Blagoevgrad is a nice pedestrian student town dedicated to concrete and 
set amongst rolling forested hills. Our hotel was overrun with wedding and birthday parties. Place was vaguely shabby but had loads of restaurants and we checked out the jazz club.
*****
From there we took a bus to Rila Monastery (rebuilt in 19th)
which is stunning and set in a valley sided with mountains of forests and torrents. It comprises a church, loads of arched galleries and lurid murals.
Best thing ever though was when we explored an old abandoned building nearby, which was a former restaurant/hotel from the Soviet times. It had just been locked up and left, and we stepped back in time into the restaurant, the kitchens and in the old wallpapered bedrooms (still partly furnished) before getting told off. Even found a crate of vodka bottles saying "Made in USSR"! Missed the last bus back to Rila village (22 km away down forest road) and hitched a ride with a tourbus of Bulgarian pilgrims.*****
Plovdiv, a couple of hours away by bus is in the center of the country.
It's a strange mix : roman ruins, loads of art galleries, long pedestrian shopping roads, squares with cafés, winding cobbled streets that climb around the hill, brightly painted museum/houses from the 19th. Lovely, except for huge motorway that zooms under the hill (we had a romantic dinner overlooking it). We visited a house/art museum full of beautiful antique furniture and Bulgarian paintings from the 19th onwards, saw Roman amphitheater
and a small roman stadium which is now surrounded partially built over with concrete blocks and is semi-submerged under a shopping street.
It was also in Plovdiv that we were confronted with the worst, most disgusting cocktail ever, which I ordered because I couldn't figure how it could be drinkable; it wasn't.
Sweet sin: whisky, peach liqueur, Bailey's, pineapple juice.
*****
Time to hit the beach. Bus to Burgas on the black sea coast and then to Nesebar, UNESCO world heriage site. It is a kilometer or so away from Slanchev Bryag, or Sunny Beach, which is overrun by the mafia, fluorescent British tourists reading the Sun, touts and shops selling beach equipment. We spent less than ten minutes there (time to walk through it) and headed 
for Nesebar which is exactly the same only has monuments instead of the beach (actually it does have one, which we tested : rocks and algae but good waves). Lots of old churches filled with icons and little streets lined with traditional wooden houses.Very touristy but does have a few interesting old buildings scattered about and a very lovely coastline though, must be nice out of season.
*****
And finally in Kiten we did absolutely bugger all except lie on the beach, surf the waves, get sunburnt, eat (including excellent calamari) and laze by the pool. This latter we had access to, having the choice between the nicest and most expensive hotel in town and the Hotel Balkanika, which could have been the setting for a movie on abandoned mental asylums in the 1930s. It was cracked, peeling, overgrown and had a view over the municipal rubbish dump. So we went to the other.
On the way back to Sofia, we stopped for the day in Burgas from where we were going to take the nighttrain. It's a coastal city but not touristy, so we checked out the beach, the ethnographical museum and the archeological museum. The beach had its share of rather dingy looking parasols but also a concrete jetty, an abandoned water slide, and Burgas international shipping port. By the beach were
more abandoned buildings from Soviet times, including a large boat/restaurant which, according to a guy we got chatting to, was once a fashionable spot for Communist officials from all over the eastern block. Impossible to get close too unfortunately.
*****
And other :*Food: two kinds of cheese : white (Sirene - feta) and yellow (Kashkaval- bland cheddar). Menus also proudly boast "processed cheese".
*Bulgarian girls, despite diet of pizza, hot dogs and cheese, are all incredible slim and stunning. The preferred uniform is micro-shorts, micro top, huge 80s haircut, long painted nails and high heeled sandals. Gulp. the men are plump, non descript and apparently hairless (study undertaken at Kiten beach).
*Bulgarian wine is drinkable : Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon from Melnik region is well known. We liked the Chateau Boyar and drank Chateau Karnobat. Zagorka beer is good too.
* Food : a traditional salad is Shopska : cucumbers, tomatoes, onions topped with grated sirene
*The best thing in Bulgaria is Vishna Sok- cherry juice- which is usually sugar and water and about 10% fruit juice. Massively addictive.* Bulgarians are obsessed with ghastly singing+ dancing in traditional folk costumes amongst mountainous scenery. At any given time two TV channels are playing some.
* Food : usually some kind of grilled meat (chicken, lamb or pork), either on a stick or just a chunk or meatballs. Fried potatoes (topped with cheese), various salads, Tarator (yoghurt, cucumber, dill and walnut) soup. Stuffed vine leaves and cabbage leaves. Bluefish (size of sardines) and many others by the sea, trout in the mountains. Endless supplies of junk food, from McDonalds to pizza, to homegrown burgers (revolting - plastic pig eyeball ham in panini bread and containing Russian salad and cabbage) and hot dogs and various sweet and savoury pastries. HOW do the girls do it? Most food comes in two possible portion sizes.
* Everything is written in the cyrillic, which is fun to learn and even better when you decode
words that mean something to you (office, McDonalds, garage and a lot of words are linked to French too).*Bulgarian night trains are cold, uncomfortable, overbooked and loud Soviet pieces of shit that threaten to derail every second. Not recommended.
*To say "yes", the Bulgarians shake their head, not a side to side wobble like the Indians but an actual (to us) "no". Impossibly confusing.
*Beware, upon checking into a hotel, the plastic keyring : it means they are giving you the worst room ever. Twice we changed rooms after plastic keyring and the rooms were infinitely nicer.
*Food: Sach: a hot plate full of meat,onions and pickles. Nice.
*When someone dies, A4 pages are stuck around town with their photo, dates and so on. Lots outside churches (see photo) but also in the street, on front doors, in the churches, etc.
So here we are summering in the south II
Aaaah Ampus! Every year a bunch of us, old friends, head down to Ampus, to Olivia's dad's house. Ampus is a haven of peace and quiet : a stone house on the south side of a hill covered in olive groves that overlooks Draguignan and, in the distance a sea. See last year's post for more photos. After staying in M. I headed down to Les Arcs - Draguignan, a 40 minute drive to the house, which itself is three kilometers from the village of Ampus.
This year was a diferent crowd from last time. Arnaud, the pater familias, and Véronique, his girlfriend, were there, as were his daughter Olivia and her son Romain. Quentin, Olivia's brother and bassist of Furykane, and Axelle were there.
Furykane's two guitarists, Max and Kris, and Kris' girlfriend Jeanne were also there, so pretty crowded. Jeanne and Kris left and were replaced later in the week by Géry and Amélie.
Highlights include epic chess games with Quentin, roasting chickens and grilling pork chops in the fireplace for long boozy evening meals, going to the lake and regressing to being five with the huge bouncy trampoline and slide combo, crashing down the hill in the dark after supper to check out a 1000 year old olive tree. Also lounging in the sun, reading, practising English teaching on Arnaud and on one day a truly epic walk.Arnaud's nephews (Olivia and Quentin's cousins) were down for the day and we had implicit instructions not to be too stoned and drunken and depraved as they are staying with the graddad who disapproves of the youth in general and us specifically (he doesn't know us but he has no time for left wing bobos suh as ourselves, musicians and people who like to drink on holiday. They came to lunch, after which we decided to walk to the village, about three kilometers away. So cousins, Olivia, Quentin, Axelle, Max and myself set off, armed against dehydration with a liter and a half bottle of [diluted] pastis, the strong, fennel-tasting drink of the South of France. We got to Ampus in a hour or so, having followed the road over the curved and craggy countryside, and slightly tipsy. There is nothing to do at Ampus so we had a beer and set back. The cousins didn't want to walk, so Romain came to get them in the car; Olivia joined them.
The four of us, armed with a freshly bought bottles of Pastis and water, and armed with some hash and rolling material started walking, and drinking. Soon we were watching massive clouds appear on the horizon, but were too light headed to care. So we started to do relaxation techniques, sing stupid songs and roll joints. We got caught in the mother of all storms and took refuge under a solitary tree. More drinking. The storm cleared a bit and we damply ontinued walking, and drinking, and stopping to sing and play games. Details aside, it took us over four hours to get back, night had fallen and we were as drunk as lords. "We must be dignified" we giggled hysterically as we entered the kitchen. Chaos ensued, everyone looked slightly taken aback. Quentin broke everything as he tried to demonstate he could do a triple dancing leap. Axelle, usually dignified and calm, was cackling hysterically. Max was crashing around pouring more drinks (later trying to carve a piece of pork in the sink). I filmed the scene...
Arnaud was not amused and the cousins seemed scared at the dinner table.... I can't think why
A brilliant holiday with my brilliant friends, on remet ça pour l'année prchaine!
The only downer was on the return journey, when Géry, Amélie and I got stuck in the worst cock up the SNCF has known for years: due to a technical fault tens of thousands of people got stranded in the South of France.
We never even made it to Marseille to catch our TGV to Paris, being stuck for hours near Toulon. Finally in Toulon we simply got on a train for the capital and settled in first class. Got to Paris at 5 A.M., eight hours late...
Inscription à :
Commentaires (Atom)
