Jetting About

-- Copied from my diary 12/09/06h--

The first thing I see after I clear passport control is an electornic sign - like a departure board - listing all the flights leaving Melbourne i the next couple of hours. It's right in front of the cavournous entrance to the duty-free store, which - casino-like - you have to go through to get to your gates. I aotomatically scann the flights; I know I'm not late byut I need all the information I can to keep my nerves in chech. There's a couple of flights ahead of me - both flashing yellow Borading sings to those who might be tempted to linger around the perfume and alchohol. The I see my flight number EK0405 to Singapore and Dubai. The lights simple say, "Relax".

I do my best. I'm already feeling better as the combination of the xanax I took of coffee with mum and the 'no-turning-back' reality of passport control start to work on me. I have heaps of time, over an hour before boarding so I wander the duty-free shops and marvel at the tourist tat. (Actually though, sitting here in Dubai airport among mountains of camel snowdomes, plastic hubble-bbble water pipes and sets of 'traditional Arab dress', I realsie Austraia is a beacon of culture with its Pure Meriono and surf-wear shops. God knows what tacky horrows Egypt will bring.) I browse magazines, and avoid buying the one that has a cover-story on 'how to survive a plane crash' but I do but the Lonely Planet uide to Egupt - I'd feel naked without it, even when I'm on a tour like this time. I buy a book of Sudoku puxxles and koke with the guy at the counter about the danger of having a sharpened pencil on board a plane (he points out that if I was so inclined I could give someone a nasty paper cut with the Sudoku book itself). I'm really travelling.

The first leg to Singapore is uneventful. The xanax makes me feel like I'm flying - which is kind of appropriate - and I somehow manage to score the holy grail of ecomony seats - there's no one in the window and middle seats next of my aisle seat so for most of the flight I get to put my feet up and sleep almost flat out. I'm not sure the family with two teenage daughters who are hammed into the four middles seats across from me are so comfortable, but hey, I've been in their shoes enough times.

Singapore at 1am is a calm oasis of an airport 0 if you can ignore the men in camoflage gear wandersing the broad corridors with M16's at the ready. 'Age of Terrorism' that this is most of my fellow travellers appared simple to choose not to see them. We were allowed off the plance for half an hour, during whihc I excitedly picked up some steamed red pork buns - I love Asia! - and marvelled at all the facilliteis savailable for transit passengers; free movies; video games; a gym; swimming pool; even live music. I think most of these things are daytime only though - I'll see what it's like to sleep here when I come through again in a couple of weeks.

Lunching with Lamas in Lhasa

Much has happened since my last post. I've travelled all around Yunnan Province, hiked Tiger Leaping Gorge (although I saw no tigers, did no leaping - I was far too exhausted - I did manage some gorging on amazing food - the apple pies! - on the way), sung songs with drunken Chinese tourists, got my bag back from it's unscheduled stopover in Bangkok (can't blame it for wanting to stay a bit longer in Thailand, it's *my* bag after all), fought the crowds at Chengdu to see the pandas, and finally flew into Tibet (or the Tibet Autonomous Region - we're still in China - really!) and met up with my lovely friend Sam.

I've been taking lots of pictures but I've forgotten my USB cable so you'll just have to take my word for it - will update later.

On the surface it's hard to come up with two places more different than Egypt and Tibet. One, hot, chaotic, overcrowed, Muslim, heavy with the weight of it's place in history, male, independent and full of tourists, quietly decaying. The other, cold, isolated, open - in space and in mind, overlooked by history for most of it's existance and still mostly forgotten now, Buddhist, peaceful, invaded and colonised, rapidly 'developing'.

The thing is though, I keep finding all sorts of similarities - and not just with the rather relaxed approach to public hygeine. Both countries are populated with proud and graceful people, for whom religion is inextricable from themselves and their daily lives, both countries are have overcrowded capitals that are magnets for people from all over the country and harsh country-sides with long nomadic traditions.

Plus there's a common desire in both places to keep pet dogs tied up and cats in cages, and to 'play' with them by - in Egypt - hitting them with sticks, and - in Tibet - by throwing stones at them.

It's been lovely to meet up with Sam, she's been here 3 months now and has made a lovely home for herself. She knows her way around everywhere, and can distinguish the small comunity of ex-pat residents from the tourists (and can also helpfully point out the missonary Christians to avoid). She's introduced me to *the* cafe in Lhasa that has an expresso machine. I'm there at the moment - sipping a tall iced latte as we speak.

A lot of jaded 'travellers' don't like Lhasa. In fact they're determined not to like it even before they get here. The problem is that nowhere else in the country is the Chinese presence so clearly visable. Lhasa is still Tibetan, but it would be wrong to call it a Tibetan city. Probably though this is cos there never was such a thing as a Tibetan city - before the Takeover, Lhasa might have been the seat of government and a place of pilgramage (among many) but it was never large enough to gain city status. The Lhasa of today is definitly one, but if you took away all the Chinese, they'd be very little beyond the Potala left. I think it's hard for travellers who like to keep their rose-coloured glasses intact. Tibet *is* an occupied nation, and the state of Lhasa makes it clear that this isn't going to end any time soon, and (even harder for the rainbow people to deal with) even if the miracle occured and Beijing pulled out, Tibet would never be the same.

I don't mean to downplay the 'Tibetan question' by making it seem that the problem is all in the eyes of the travellers; I only want to explain why I'm so in love with Lhasa. It's the vital and energetic continuous of Tibetan life - the pilgrims prostraiting themselves around the temples, the country people marvelling at the shops and cars and forgeigners (and their weird hair!), the freshly churned yak butter on sale, and the updated traditional robes worn with matching chinese cardigans. Tibet may be occupied but it's not going to be drowned without a fight.

Playing Catchup

If it's Monday this must be China.

It's my birthday and I'm in Kunming. I've spent the day travelling. I woke this morning on on the floor at Singapore airport. I actually slept remarkably well with my earplugs, eye-mask and two blankets borrowed from the plane. Dragged myself groggily up and found my way onto my flight to Bangkok, and then a quick half-hour transfer to Kunming.

The best thing about all this travelling is that I got to visit Thailand - albeit briefly! Got to see the new airport, which only opened 3 days ago and was all shiny and sterile. I think our pilot got lost taxi-ing to our gate though. We did a bit circle. It was very funny.

The worst thing about all this travelling is that my bag didn't like it as much as I did. It's gone AWOL somewhere between Dubai and Kunming. I have to get my tour leader to call the airport for me and chase it up. I have insurance, so in the long run it's not an issue. But short-term it's a fair bit more problematic, I'm 6 weeks in China and have no clothes. And I'm not exactly of a size that can find clothes easily in Asia!

Anyway, I'd like to try and catch you up on some more of my time in Egypt.

If you don't recognise Luxor by it's modern name maybe you'll know it as it's old one - Thebes. Some of the greatest monuments of Egypt are here, the Valley of the Kings - which are all tombs from Middle Egypt - and Karnak Temple, the grandest of them all.

Also here are the 400 (!) cruise ships that ply the Nile from Aswan and disgorge wave after wave of pink, tourist bodies into the temples and tombs. A tsunami of tourists (a new, most suitable, collective noun). What is it about tourists that makes them all waddle instead of walk, yell instead of talk, and take photos and videos instead of interact with anybody?! Do I look like that?

But Luxor is a nice city despite all that goes along with massive tourism. We have dinner the first night at an English restaurant. Seems an odd thing to me; of all the cuisines in the world what could possess somebody to want to open a restaurent celebrating English food? And why would anyone go there? In our case it was cos our group was promised apple pie for desert and some people just can't live with out their steak and chips.

This hasn't been the most informative travelogue, I know. Where are the descriptions of the tombs, the paintings, the quaint observations of local life? Well more is coming I promise, but right now I have to find my tour leader and enlist her in the great 'bec's bag hunt 2006'!