VeoVeo Article
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13.09.2011 |
Footprints on the sea (part 6) - Philippines, Bali, South Africa, going home |
The Philippines were a blur of filth and dismal poverty. Nothing distracted from the unimaginable stench of people living in the abyss of hell. A man was spread eagle, face down, on what passed for a pavement in Manila main street. Passers-by stepped over him and some threw some coins on his back. I said that the poor man could not reach the coins. “Oh! It is not for him! It is for whoever is eventually going to bury him!” In the mist of all this hell the locals are smiling. They are polite, charming and curious about where we came from. To me, that day, it seemed that we were from planet Mars where the rubbish is collected every night at midnight and a hospital bed is only a few minutes away. We had a couple of San Miguel beers, a taste left over by the Spaniards when it was their turn to use the Philippines as a stepping stone, like so many other powers did, to reach back home from numerous useless wars in this part of Asia; leaving improvements that they had built for their own purposes without a thought for what was going to happen to the country, a high maintenance infrastructure and its people when they, the powers, were safely home to their televisions.  Bali craft school. Girls dance class and boys dance of the warriors But there is always a ray of sunshine somewhere. We visited a very special school where children are taught the traditional crafts, music and dances of their island. The youngsters looked and acted eager to learn, to please their teachers, to be good at what they were taught.  Teaching the warriors dance A welcome change from the yobbos we have in the West only eager to sharpen their knives against their teachers. It was very impressive; the offered snacks were delicious although totally unknown to our western palates. You also had to be shown how to unwrap those exquisite tiny pyramids of sticky rice. Otherwise you looked a right old nit battling with half a bamboo leaf dangling from your bottom lip.  Borneo, where the mangrove swamps meet the ocean Borneo was frightening. I could imagine the bamboo raft we travelled on turning turtle in that mangrove swamp and its passengers scrambling through a very aggressive and dense jungle. When the river meets the ocean it is not a friendly accounter. The ocean is wild and angry. The whole scenery is oppressive and even if I was told that the mangrove roots help to temper any tsunami I did not believe that for a minute. Nature seems at its most powerful here with the humans only just incidental and certainly as ineffective as those monstrous water roots. We had tea in a raft type of establishment on the bank. Too sweet a tea with pancakes and curry sauce that I could have done better at home. Chris was trying his skills with the blow pipe with no success until one of the locals told him that he was blowing it from the wrong end. A miracle that he did not throw an arrow down his throat... I have got nothing to say about Brunei, except that the money is so ostentatious that it reminded me of my Gran when she said that the real rich never have the bad taste to show it. Thailand is the Costa del Sol of South Asia, a refugee camp of hippies who have travelled back in time to the sixties, the flower people (not as fresh as daisies anymore) wearing clothes that they seem to have made themselves out of macramé. The atmosphere is money grabbing, fleecing the tourists from the cruisers of whatever currencies they might carry. The traders are pests that will stick to you for ages. The goods are shoddy, garments ill-made in China of very poor materials. Did I hear you think of Thai silk? We were taken to the Harrods of Thailand, a very impressive store where, as our bus arrived, the entire workforce, beautiful girls in uniform, about 30 of them, lined up the entrance to the store and each one of us got stuck with his/her personal assistant. Frightening and embarrassing. I made for the Thai silk counter where rolls and rolls of silk glowered in hundreds of colours and hues. My "personal assistant" was still joined to me at the hip. I touched some silk and found it of poor quality. I said so and immediately another roll was unfurled on the counter. By then I had enough of it and left the emporium without buying anything, not even the shop assistant. But one thing I brought back is the recipe of a delicious Thai salad: as a side dish for 4 you will need 1 unripe mango, very green, peeled and shredded in the finest matchsticks possible. Same with a couple of large carrots (not grated but cut mega fine in julienne) 1 large red onion thinly sliced, 1 small green chilli pepper also finely sliced, about a cup of fresh bean shoots, a handful of coarsely crushed peanuts, a few pinches of those tiny dried fish, available at any Asiatic supermarket, 2 tablespoons of white vinegar (cider, rice or white balsamic), 2 tablespoons of honey and 1 tablespoon of fish sauce, also available from Asiatic shops in the West. Do not toss. Just turn the ingredients over very carefully. Go easy on the green chilli and do not forget to wash your hands after handling it... That simple salad is delicious. Followed 7 days at sea with a humidity of 88%, a strong hot wind blowing and tempers to match. The ship could not catch any satellite signal so no rugby on TV for the men folk to pass the time. What a state of affairs when you cannot watch your favourite sport in the middle of the Indian ocean! Near mutiny.  Tea plantation in Mauritius Mauritius was exactly what the brochures say: paradise rehearsal for heaven. This extraordinary island is so full of exotic fauna and flora, fabulous views, old buildings lovingly maintained that it takes your breath away. Until the guide tells you that although Mauritius gained its independence decades ago the same French family that controlled it 250 years ago still owns all estates that export tea, coffee, rum and vanilla, the only resources of Mauritius. The women working in the tea plantations picking up the young leaves under a punishing sun earn 2 Dollars a day. The men sweating their skin off in the sugar cane shed, feeding the canes into the shredder to start the rum process, take 8 Dollars a day home.  Measuring the dried pods before packing There is very little you can do with that. Education is free until the age of 14 and it is bilingual, French/English. But there is no medical care. Tourism was a growing industry until government funds ran out and the facilities decayed. Their major attraction was the coral reef but because they have no resources to control the brainless tourists who, of course, stand on it and destroy its living creatures, the reef is dying and so is the tourism. This is no heaven and I would like to meet that French family. And a few of those uneducated tourists to give them a taste of education like a smack around the ears. Brains are nowhere to be found in those skulls. A day sailing away and the same coral reef is alive and well. The isle of La Reunion basks in the fact that it refused independence from France. It is a departement as any department in France. It is part of the EU. It gets funds from central government, subsidies from Brussels. Therefore it has a marine police to control the reef. The island is immaculate, the people lazy, the shop owners only concerned about their crafts anchored in harbour and where the hell is the consignment of souvenirs made in Indonesia? Tourism is booming. It was with some anxiety on my part that we approached South Africa. I lived and worked there in the early sixties. Those were the bad days of apartheid. The atmosphere then was sombre. That magnificent country was literally painted in black and white. This time I found that although like everywhere else their economy is not brilliant the people are keen to work, to maintain what is now THEIR country. They are proud of it and it shows.  Water buffalo on safari in South Africa We went on safari outside Port Elizabeth. The organisation was first class, our guide and driver of the open Land Rover could not have been more helpful, considerate for our old bones and a mine of information about the animals. Lunch was in a superb thatched lodge and the food was beautiful and expertly presented.  The lodge in one of the game reserve outside Port Elizabeth Cape Town had changed beyond recognition. It is now clean and elegant. The Victoria and Alfred old filthy passenger ship terminal has been turned into a very beautiful waterfront where the decrepit rat infested warehouses and old official buildings dating from centuries ago have been turned into chic boutiques and snazzy cafés/ restaurants. The ambience is relaxed, good humoured and very cosmopolitan. I asked the Cape born Dutch guide if there was any friction between the races. "None between the races but there are tribal problems." That has not changed.  Going up Table Mountain Neither has Table Mountain which is, per tradition, always wearing her tablecloth when a new ship approaches. Eventually it clears and the ride in cable car to the top is an experience of a lifetime. If you suffer from height the trick is to position yourself on the small fixed inner platform near the operator. The rest of the floor revolves and the 65 passengers have a constant 360° overview. It takes about 15 minutes to reach the top. Then all your anxieties were worth it. You are on top of the world. The coast unfurls itself some 3000 ft below. The installations up there are very beautiful, immaculate and eco friendly. With luck you might see the indigenous small mammals called "dassies". It is a type of plump rabbit but with small ears. It must be the wind...  One of Stellenbosch vineries A day in Stellenbosh, in the heart of the wine making country, was a time travel and a delight. The beautiful old Dutch architecture is superbly preserved. Streets are lined with ancient oaks, each one protected as a national monument. The guides are in period costumes and only too keen to answer your questions. The magnificence of the vineries and the quality of the wines we tasted left me speechless until the manager of the vinery where we had the wine tasting pointed out to us that most of the vineyard estates in the Cape province belonged to German business men who ran them as a hobby. Suddenly the wine tasted acid. But the vineries employ a vast amount of labour force; the workers are all on state medical care and pension schemes as well as under a company insurance. If you ever see anywhere (probably only in Germany) a red wine from Stellenbosh called “Owl Perch” buy a bottle or two. It is the best red wine I have tasted for a long time. Why the name? Because in that particular vinery they put rough wooden perches made like crosses at regular intervals amongst the rows of vines. It attracts the owls at night and those feathered warriors control the rodent population that otherwise would damage the vines. How is that for an eco friendly pesticide system? Walvis Bay, the “gateway to Namibia”, retains most of its German past. It is drawn on a grid that does allow only 90° angles. It is clean, neat, organised and boring. The town is squeezed between the ocean and a mountain range of sand dunes and salt heaps. Salt is the main export commodity in Walvis. The daily revenues come from the harbour dues. The locals are friendly but reserved. One feels that they have been messed around for decades by various powers and they are on their guard for any attempt to rule what is now their country. We had lunch in a German café. Superb oysters from the bay and fat bratwursts and chips. I asked for German mustard; it is a dark one and quite sweet. They did not have any but went out of their way to find some powdered Colman's. I mixed it with a little of my beer (German) and it was fine. Service with a smile. Surprisingly the town has some very sophisticated shops, (clothes, furniture and elegant light fittings) that would not disgrace any Western town. I did my best and most relaxed shopping in Walvis where no one was pressuring me to buy rubbish. I bought quality textiles and a much loved pair of earrings made of broken ostrich eggshells collected when the chicks hatch and painted with one of the wild birds of Namibia: the guinea fowl. Very wearable in our Western countries as opposed to some garments from the Far East which will look rather preposterous worn in a semi-detached in Essex or Yorkshire at the Xmas Eve party...  Ostrich earrings from Namibia It was then the long haul home. My toes were hurting. These old males wearing those "follow me in the desert my people" sandals (with socks) always choose them 3 sizes too big so they have no control on the barges their varicosed veins legs and feet are navigating down below. Anything approaching close shooting range gets trampled to purple oblivion. Their spouses are equally dangerous. If your toes have escaped the Velcro barges you might get a black eye when one of those old biddies turns around suddenly and her corseted 60 DDD bust meets with your eyeball. I escaped the black eye because I am shorter than those frightening female Bismarcks.  Cap Verde waterfront bar Cap Verde, off the coast of Senegal, lives by the fact that any ship venturing in the vast Atlantic has got to fill up with fresh water. It is a pretty island and soon will be on the tourist maps. Occupied by the Portuguese (they were everywhere when their kings could borrow money from the Templars to fund the expeditions) it gained a difficult independence in 1975. But the people, mostly from mainland Senegal and a good sprinkling of Chinese and Malays, are charming. They smile, they are polite, they are helpful and they walk with that "could not care less" gait whilst humming a tune straight out of Bob Marley. Passengers now were talking about packing. Southampton loomed large. At the stop in Tenerife we had to send a box of bought objects by surface mail home. The post office in Tenerife could not have been more helpful. More duct tape was supplied to secure the cardboard box one of the chefs on board had scrounged out of the recycling bin. The least fee was calculated by a smiling lady behind the counter. The result was that 20 kilos of stuff costs us only 13 Euros. It arrived 2 days before us. Tenerife is one of the playgrounds of mainland Europe. Santa Cruz is a pretty town with amazing roofs of volcanic sand where cactus grow like weeds and where the walls of some structures like the Tourism Office is cleverly covered with a system of hanging pots full of flowers which makes you think that the flowers grow out of the walls. Impressive.  Tenerife style of roofing I detested the wine in Madeira but I had to admit that the island is spectacular. As spectacular as the bill at the world famous Reid's hotel where we had tea, cakes and one glass of Champagne each. Tea for two at Reid's? 85 Euros... Raymond Chandler must have had a wad of dollars in his pocket. All his down trodden heroes stayed at Reid's. It certainly beats Conrad Hilton shacks any old time honey... The Madeira Portuguese are not very jolly. They seem to resent the tourists although they live entirely from them. But it was a swift reminder of how we are treated in the West. After ploughing the seas for 33.612 nautical miles we crashed in a budget hotel in Southampton for a night. In the morning we went to John Lewis store to buy a gadget that we cannot find at home. The girl at the counter was chewing gum and lifted her fat chin in lieu of greetings. I asked how it worked, what kind of battery and so on. "No idea" was the reply. The chewing carried on as well as the conversation about the week-end projects with the girl on the next counter. I turned the gadget upside down. MADE IN CHINA * * * THE END * * * |