Random Rambling

Washington DC

2012-01-26T19:13:00.000+11:00

Leaving Sydney

The USA trip started, as most trips from Down Under do, with an interminable arse haul from Sydney Airport - in our case flying to Washington, via LA, surely the most awful airport in the first world. After arriving at 6am and what seemed like hours of queuing we finally made our way into Terminal 3; only to discover the choice for breakfast was Starbucks or Burger King. Luckily we persisted and found a great seafood restaurant, Gladstones, which served a spicy Mexican breakfast - accompanied by a mean Bloody Mary !

Bloody Breakfast

At Washington Airport we were enthusiastically greeted by Angus and quickly made our way back to Arlington where Caren and 4 month old Lochlan were waiting for us. A 4 hour house tour followed - Angus and Caren have got some work ahead of them to fill up their place - although Angus has already started knocking down walls luckily.


Lochie

Speaking off renovations, Saturday was also dedicated to gardening and preparing for a BBQ with some of Caren and Gus's local friends. An overgrown corner of the yard was turned into a seating area; plants were transferred and fertile soil was saved and re-used.

Before

During

After

In between the social activity there was also time for seeing the town. Friday morning after arriving we headed into the mall to see the prime sites - White House, Congress, Lincoln Memorial - and the Washington Monument from 27 different angles.


Jefferson Memorial

WWII Memorial - Pacific

Abe


Washington Monument

The last full day in Washington was spent at the Smithsonian - fewer photos indoors (none at the National History Museum), although we managed to visit the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and saw some great old rockets. Amazingly the only food available in the museum is provided by McDonalds - so Ilaria relented and had what she calls a 'dirty meal' - fittingly an Angus burger.

Dirty Burger

Sputnik - or similar !


Rocket

Finally - the two most famous buildings in Washington - if not the USA.


Congress

Chez Barack

We also found time for a trip to Alexandria - with so many photos it gets its own blog post. The rest of the Washington photos are here.

USA Trip 2011

2011-09-14T21:25:00.000+10:00

July 2011 saw me travelling for pleasure for a change. As my cousin was getting married in Montana, we decided to take a trip to the United States built around the wedding. It quickly became an Epic in 6 Phases - built around the wedding, visiting friends, some fun cities and a 2500 mile road trip !

Phase 1 of the trip saw us visiting friends in Washington DC (photos). The 5 nights spent with Gus and Caren (and 4 month-old Lochlan) were the longest stay we had in the one place all trip. A mostly social visit, we also managed to see the main sights of DC, visit a few museums and check out the old town of Alexandria.

Phase II was a too short two night visit to New York City - staying in the famous Chelsea Hotel, which shortly after was closed to paying guests. We still had enough time to catch a show; walk from Chelsea to the tip of Manhattan; then from Chelsea to the middle of Central Park via way too many shops on Fifth Avenue.

Glacier National Park

Phase III, the wedding was next; in Whitefish Montana for 3 nights. There was just enough time between all the formalities to pay a visit to Glacier National Park - even if the weather wasn't our friend. Sunday lunchtime, after the post wedding brunch, we drove to Whitefish Airport and picked up our friend Rachel who had flown from Vancouver to join us for Phase IV - the road trip.

Livingstone

Phase IV was big enough to be broken up into multiple sub-phases; 1 per National Park. From Whitefish we drove all the way across Montana to Gardiner at the North Gate of the Yellowstone National Park, via the scenic town of Livingstone.

Yellowstone National Park

From Yellowstone we made our way down the Grand Teton National Park, staying in Teton National Park and finally seeing the long hoped for bear.

After Teton was the longest leg of the road trip - around 550 miles from Teton Village to Bryce Canyon; from Wyoming, touching Idaho and crossing a large part of Utah - including lunch in the slightly bizarre town of Provos, where the cafes don't serve coffee.

Roadside Trains in Idaho

Finally we arrived in Bryce Canyon village, staying the mega-hotel-complex of Ruby's Inn.

Bryce Canyon

From the amazing Bryce Canyon there was a shorter drive into Zion National Park, along a spectacular road that comes out into the middle of the Canyon. We were only there for a day, which was still time enough for some exhausting hikes in the National Park; including wading chest high up a narrow canyon.

Zion in the mist

After Zion Canyon it was time for the spectacular grand finale of the Grand Canyon - we visited both the North and South Rims of the Canyon. It's 22 miles to hike between the two rims or 220 miles and 5 hours to drive. Monday night we dined at the El Tovar lodge before Tuesday's 5 mile hike in and out of the canyon before breakfast.

After driving the main look outs of the South Rim in the morning, it was time for the final leg of the road trip - to Las Vegas, which appropriately enough followed part of the old Route 66.

Phase V in Vegas was over in a flash. Two nights in a suite in Vdara Hotel was a much appreciated luxury after 10 days on the road; the one day in Vegas was spent wondering the streets and checking out the famous outlets. Strangely it was me who out-shopped the girls.

We said goodbye to Rachel and made our way to Las Vegas airport; for 1 hour flight to San Francisco and the sixth and final phase of the trip. Somehow we lost nearly 30 degrees on the flight as well; and it was only after arriving in the 12 degrees mid summer's day did I hear of Mark Twain's supposed quote 'The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco.'

The final three days - spent with Ilaria's cousin Nicola - were over in a flash; and the iconic bridge never fully emerged from its foggy shroud. Sunday morning was spent in a Castro night club before getting back to the airport for the long flight back to Sydney.

Over the next few days I'll be sharing more photos and stories from each of the phases ... stay tuned !

6 Months 5 continents

2011-09-07T20:15:00.000+10:00

Guess where !

In January 2010 I blogged about the previous 12 months travels where I'd ended up visiting 5 continents with my trip to Egypt on the way home from an Irish wedding. Little did I know that 18 months later I'd be visiting my fifth continent of the year mid-July - on the start of our USA trip. I now have 4 months to get to South America - not likely, but never say never :)

Early January, work took me to Qatar for 4 hours of meetings. By chance I was staying in the same hotel as the Socceroos; unfortunately the unexpected call up to replace injured stars never came. I did however manage to score tickets to the Asian Cup Final match between North Korea and Iran (playing for the Axis of Evil cup) which was quite an experience.

Axis of Evil Cup

From Qatar we jumped via Kuwait to Cairo for some customer meetings. Despite their proximity, Cairo is very much in Africa whereas Qatar is considered part of Asia. I stopped the taxi on the way back from the meeting to take the photo below of the Pyramids in the rain - a far cry from the beautiful weather I had a year earlier. A couple of weeks later, all hell broke lose in Cairo, of course.

Wet Cairo

By May I'd been not once but twice to Europe; managing to visit countries as varied as England, Ireland, Bulgaria and Sweden. On the way home from Sweden I stopped in on Mumbai - from 4 degrees to 44, which made for interesting packing. A few days after the first trip I was up in Jakarta - meaning I'd covered West Asia, South Asia and South East Asia by April.


The Liffey in Dublin

I happened to be in the UK the weekend of the Champions League final - though once again I missed the last minute call-up I was secretly hoping for.

Of course, the fifth and final continent is also home sweet home in Australia.

Hill End

12 Months 5 Continents

2010-01-16T00:52:00.008+11:00

Jan 09 in Machu Pichu

In the last 12 months (and 2 days short of being able to say calendar year 2009) the balance in my travel between work and life was for once skewed in favour of life; and I managed to visit 5 continents (all except for North America and Antartica - although I did get to the town, Ushuaia, where the Antarctic boats leave from). Included in this travel was the only existing Ancient Wonder of the World (Pyramids of Giza) as well as two of the 'New Seven Wonders of the World' (Taj Mahal and Machu Pichu).

Taj Tourist

... and in Giza

The year started in Argentina, with New Year's Day spent hiking Cerro Fitzroy near the Patagonian town of El Chalten and finished (for the purposed of this note) flying to Egypt on New Year's Day 2010 after spending New Year's eve in Clonakilty.

In between I managed to visit South America (Chile and Peru in January), Asia (India in July / August) and Europe (England, Ireland and Switzerland in December); as well spending the rest of the year in Australia - travelling to Melbourne multiple times for work; and Euroa in Victoria on the October long weekend. There were also stop-overs in New Zealand (first year in 7 that I didn't visit NZ) Dubai and Singapore. All this before finishing in Africa (Egypt).

Best not to think of the carbon footprint all that flying might have left; at a rough calculation 30 flights + 5 or so Melbourne returns, and instead reflect on a great year's travel.

Umpire Gonzalez

2009-11-11T22:27:00.012+11:00

A small crowd gathered at Erskineville Oval for a challenge cricket match to celebrate the end of bachelorhood for one of their friends, Captain Mackay, shortly to sail the wedded seas in the good ship Caren.

Esteemed umpire Gonzalez, R dusted off the whites and came out of retirement for the day. Retirement has done him no harm at all; and his characteristic posture was still in evidence as the players waited for the start of the afternoon session.

Captain Mackay won the toss and elected to bat, resplendent in the baggy green.

Farmer Adcock, up for the weekend from country Victoria, opened the bowling from the Kurajong end, and soon had the assembled crowd reminiscing about great Sri Lankan 'spinners' of the past.

Singing Murali Murali ...

With the 6 stitcher moving around in the early afternoon breeze, it wasn't long before Mackay was tempted by one down legside; clearly collecting a top edge. The team went up as one, confident they had bagged their buck ...

... but Umpire Gonzalez was unmoved.

Next up Mad Matheson flashed at one outside off stump; the sound of the nick even waking up the old geezer asleep at the bar at the neighbouring bowlo.

Umpire Gonzalez was, however,

unmoved.

By now the bowling team was getting frustrated. Star batsman Slee was called in to face the music, and could only poke at a sharp lifter at his body. The ball lolled up in the air; and was safely taken by the bowler. The fielders appealed in unison ...

Umpire Gonzalez was,

however,

unmoved.

Evo played all over a straight one from the opener, and the death rattle was heard in neighbouring Newtown.

Clean bowleds rarely require confirmation from the umpire; however all eyes turned in anticipation. Surely this time they had their man.

Umpire Gonzalez

was,

however,

inexplicably,

unmoved.

To the onlookers delight; last man in Dubbers poked at one, only to see the bootbail dislodged, provoking one final raucous appeal.

Dubbers dislodges the boot-bail

Umpire Gonzalez ........

... under the spotlight

.... was

... frustratingly,

... but stubbornly,

.... unmoved.

Time was running out and Captain Mackay swung wildly at a short one.

... the runner ducked

... the fieldsmen scattered

... the ball was straight as an arrow

... all eyes turned to the umpire;

... and umpire Gonzalez,

... ever so slowly,

... and unexpectedly,

moved.

Euroa Over-Engineering Part 2

2009-10-09T18:49:00.014+11:00

In part one, your three adventurers managed to lay the foundations for the bridge over Castle Creek. Day two dawned with two tasks ahead: laying the floor of the bridge between the new supports on sandy bank and the landing root; and constructing the ramps up to the bridge and from the bridge to the far bank.

First the side supports need to be made roughly parallel, involving some work on the trunk on the right hand side. The left side log was remarkably straight and required little work.

There was an old dismantled wooden fence that the team had identified as suitable material for the bridge floor. It had been dumped in a 6 pile high mound near the homestead. In pulling the pile apart, we disturbed a local who'd been enjoying a long winter's slumber.

However, the fencing was perfect for the bridge, and the idea to hold the fence together and attach in slabs saved a heap of time, even if a large number of the nails had to be replaced with new ones. From downstream you can admire the efforts to provide a straight edge on the far edge, at the same time observing the supervisory efforts of Espie.

Despite the day being shortened by compulsory attendance at the Euroa Show and Shine show, day 2 came to an end with a pretty substantial looking bridge.

The only casualty of the day, despite the careful attention to relevant OH&S standards, was a tool utensil that, in the parlance, 'copped a hammering':

All that remained for day three was the construction of the ramps; and peripherals. There was enough fencing for the ramps, the only challenge was to build up the supports;

which was easy enough on the Sandy side, using (once again) old fencing supports ...

.... but somewhat more challenging on the Root side, with both an angle and dead tree to negotiate.

If you look carefully, you can see the Root side construction involved some fairly unconventional but ingenious woodwork, using, as always, off-cuts and property timber only:

The finished product positively gleamed in the late evening sun; and the last minute attention to detail from junior engineer made sure that nothing was left incomplete.

Proud of mission complete, we sat on the bridge, admiring our handy work and waiting for the much deserved gin tonic.

Euroa Over-Engineering Society Unlimited

2009-10-07T22:34:00.009+11:00

Project time again ! During the October long weekend, on a visit to a tree-change friends' place, we decided to change a few trees ourselves; change them into a bridge, precisely. Mike and Nicola have a picturesque property just outside Euroa in country Victoria. It's a great place, but there was one challenge Nicola faced when feeding the horses in the back paddock - getting across the improvised bridge (copper pipes below) - carrying a new-born, with a three year-old in tow.

For three engineers, that was too good a challenge to resist, and plans for the bridge got under way. With the exceptions of the nails, the bridge was to be built just using what could be found on the farm. The roots on the far bank make a natural landing point; step one was to construct a platform on the house side of the bank, mostly sandy, that would not get washed away.

OH&S Approved Concrete Carrying Posture

In she goes...

The solution was to use two concrete filled oil drums (previously used to hold a water tank aloft), and lay across the top of them a miscellaneous piece of concrete, next to the silo, that was earmarked for the tip.

Next stop was choosing the branches to form the underlying frames to carry the bridge. There was a large storm flattened gum tree in the back paddock, but finding 18ft straight pieces (there are no metres in an old-school project like this) was still a challenge. Eventually a first piece was identified, and the cutting technique apparently agreed upon.

I told him to cut this way ...

.. cut this way

Moving the log was no easy matter though; barley shifting the cut branch was a challenge, even for three lads in the prime of their early middle-age. Luckily there was a ute and a gold chain, and that combination was put to good use in transporting the said log closer to the creek - which also allowed some log-surfing.

Surfin' E.U.R.O.A

Next challenge was getting the log in place; the ute couldn't drive across the copper pipes dragging the log behind it; so a complicated manouevre ensued to slide the log onto the copper pipes (aka the old bridge) relying on momentum and ropes to get it across the creek before it slipped off the copper and jagged into the bank.

This somehow achieved, it was time for some mid-creek chainsawing to remove unwanted knobs,

... before the whole process had to be repeated for log number 2, which ended up being an even heavier mother.

Much to the amusement of the locals ...

what are they up to ?

And finally, at the end of day one, we have the two side supports in place, solidly supported, and ready to be built upon.

to be continued ...

Newtown in the Duststorm

2009-09-26T11:33:00.002+10:00

The dust storm that swept through Sydney on Wednesday also left its mark on Newtown. I woke up at 6am, and noticing a strange glow outside, jumped on his bike to take a few snaps. King Street was surprisingly busy considering how early it was, but the combination of the dust and lights created quite an atmosphere.

King Street almost empty.

Even the lights were orange !

I headed to Sydney Park, hoping to capture the CBD surrounded by haze. Fat chance of course, as visibility was about 200m, but Sydney Park itself still provided some great photo opportunities.

Can't blame the chimneys for the haze !

Erskineville Oval

The view from Erskineville Bridge

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Just got the new Peter Temple

2009-09-24T20:35:00.001+10:00

I just bought Truth - the latest book by Peter Temple, and sequel to the brilliant Broken Shore. Now the trick is how to avoid reading it in one sitting.

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Photo Rendering in Posterous

2009-09-23T23:15:00.001+10:00

There's seems to be quite a difference in the photo rendering on Posterous and other sites. I've been playing around with Posterous today with photos from the Sydney Dust storm, and there's a noticable rendering effect in the Sydney Park photos in particular, that is quite pronounced here but not nearly as much so on Fotki or Facebook. Even the large versions (e.g of Chimleys) have the swirly effect that just isn't there in the originals or on other sites. Hmmm.

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Sydney Park in the storm

2009-09-23T23:01:00.001+10:00

Approaching

Taking photos from a moving bike ...

Rolling

Chimleys !

Sydney CBD is over there somewhere

View South

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Puzzle Time

2009-08-31T21:27:00.010+10:00

I decided I'd make my niece her 8th birthday present this year, rather than buy something. She loves animals and puzzles, so after seeing this idea from PhotoJojo, I decided that animal photo blocks using my own photos would be the go. The idea was to go from this:

... to this:

(I've used the Fotki Stacks feature, which I blogged about here, to illustrate the transformation from the originals to the solved puzzles. Just click on the photos to navigate through them.)

It seemed pretty easy; in essence the instructions were buy blocks, print photos, stick photos, cut photos. Repeat the last three steps to do more than one side. Of course, it was not quite so easy ! For a start there were no blocks to be found so I decided to make them out of balsa wood. I had no idea how difficult it would be to create accurate cubes - luckily my mate Angus was there to give a guiding hand. We're at the opposite spectrum when it comes to attention to detail; sometimes it's too easy for me to say close enough is good enough, whereas Gus's tendency to perfectionism borders on extreme. In this case perfectionism was required as the blocks really needed to be perfect cubes for the photo stick and cut to work.

Gus's brainwave in this case was to tape the blocks together so that the rough edges were top and bottom (above); then sanding all the rough edges flat together. However this could only be done once the blocks had gone through a painstaking measure cut and first sand basis.

Production Line

Once the blocks were done, it was a matter of choosing and cropping the photos (to 15cm square, 3 lots of 5cm sided cubes), printing them on photo paper, then pasting them to the blank sides of the blocks.

Ready for the chop

After than, a painstaking cut with a stanley knife to separate the blocks; tricky the first time and even harder for the latter sides as it was important to avoid scratching the existing sides when cutting.

Shiraz Workbench

The final step was to apply multiple layers of lacquer to protect the puzzles, about 9 coats in all, outside and with an hour's drying time !

And then create a box lid with a Picasa mosaic (which created the first photo at the top of the post) and instructions and labels on the inside (below):

Great fun, but certainly not an exercise of one or two hours - lucky I started a week before the birthday. Below are the original animal photos I chose.

Toucan from Iguazu, Argentina

Chicken from Sacred Valley in Peru

Monkey from Pushkar India

Peacock from Jaipur City Palace India

Cow from Pushkar India

Llama from Salta Argentina

Sydney Film Festival 2009 Highlights

2009-06-14T21:07:00.005+10:00

So it's all over for another year - being the shy and retiring type I didn't go to the closing night party (and film - An Education) and instead finished the festival with the 5 hour Che epic. As usual, my reviewing is running well behind viewing, so to make sure I don't forget anything there's a quick summary of the films I've seen here, and I'm going to write up my overall festival impressions while it's all still fresh ! Individual film comments may or may not follow.

Overall it was probably the most consistent film festival I've been to. While there were no absolute killer films, there were, for the first time in memory, no duds either; the closest being a mere let-down (The Girlfriend Experience) that really didn't live up to it's promise or director's reputation. I believe I promised I wouldn't mention the website and ticketing problems again - so I won't !

My favourite documentary was the The Cove - for being everything a good documentary should be - but a special mention here to Big River Man, the story of an overweight alcoholic 52 year old Slovenian who decides to swim the entire length of the Amazon, which came very close, telling a remarkable story at once personal and global; with a much smaller budget and none of the rich and powerful connections that the makers of The Cove enjoyed.

The Beaches of Agnes was a delightfully unexpected treasure and beat out Che Part 1 for favourite bio-pic (really I just created the category so I could mention it). Understanding the history, character and motivations of Agnes Varda also added enormously to my appreciation of Cleo from 5 to 7 the next day - I just love seeing those old 'new wave' black and whites on the big screen.

The winner for best big budget Chinese propaganda piece (in the face of terrific competition) was Red Cliff - and what a pleasure to see John Woo in person - so humble and proud of his work.

And finally, my overall favourite was probably Wake in Fright - despite (or because) of it being nearly 40 years old. The back story added to the enjoyment, of course, but the film absolutely stood on its own as an unflinching look at part of the Australian psyche. I'm really hoping a lot of people will go and see this when it gets its cinema run soon.

PS The full set of my 2009 Film Festival entries are collected here; and those for past years here - starting to build up quite a collection now, definitely helpful in remembering what I've seen !

SFF 2009 Films Seen Still to be Reviewed

2009-06-13T22:33:00.001+10:00

Below are films that I've seen but not yet written up. Really just notes for me at this stage but feel free to take a peek ! It may well be that they get no further.

Disgrace - loved it, haven't read the book, maybe in about 6 months. Brilliantly done, it will be interesting to see how the South Africans react to Australians making a South African story - and compare it to how Australians reacted to Wake in Fright (Canadian director) all those years ago (it lasted 7 days in cinemas in Sydney - compared to months in France !

The Beaches of Agnes - best bio-pic I've ever seen. Unexpectedly delightful, original approach and her character really shines.
Cleo from 5 to 7 - from Agnes Varda above, 'cute' new wage film from the early 60s; original and fun.

Parque Via - slow but lingers, the second 'Latin American live in help' film of the festival after The Maid. Not as immediately appealing as The Maid.
The Missing Person - interesting take on film noir. Stylish even if the plot was light.

The Missing Water - ambitious and lots of admiration; the 'gimmick' didn't work for me, as much as I wanted to like the film. There was a lot of good will in the State Theatre for the young director and many loved it. A great achievement at any rate.

Red Cliff - fantastic John Woo fun, big Chinese propaganda push !
Big River Man - magic story, worked as a film as well. Highlight was the standing ovation the Big River man himself got when he surprised us after the film (last we saw of him was in an alcoholic stupor on his couch in Slovenia - a few months after completing an extra-ordinary swim the length of the Amazon that took him and his team to the mental edge.

The Girlfriend Experience was pretty ordinary - didn't say anything really. Probably only disappointment of the festival.
Wake in Fright - absolutely brilliant, powerful and spectacular, deserved the hype.

Che Part 1 was a great telling of the story. I've forgiven Soderbergh for the blah-ness of The Girlfriend Experience.
Che Part 2 - works as a stand alone film but not I'm convinced the same impact couldn't have been had with an extra 15 minutes on part 1. Still completely watchable though; but given there had to be two films why not more on the trials of establishing a government in Cuba directly post revolution ?

Mercury Rising

2009-06-11T22:55:00.003+10:00

Two quite different 'environmental' films share this review.

The Cove is what great documentary making is all about. Passionate, exciting and revealing, the Cove both exposes the shameful annual dolphin massacre in the Japanese town of Taijii, and tells the exciting story of the work of dedicated activists over the years (including Ric O'Barry, the (human) face of Flipper) to expose this story to the wider public. Also check out the official website for more background on the campaign to save the dolphins, and inform the world of increasing problem of mercury poisoning in fish (and therefore humans).

Altiplano takes another path altogether. Superficially the movie tells the story (based on true events) of a traditional Peruvian village suffering mercury poisoning from a new mine in the area, with a side story of a Belgian couple whose lives become caught up in the conflict. However the film-makers have a greater ambition, which is to draw attention to the problem (in their eyes) of the decline of the spiriual in modern western lives. Maybe it's my rational side, but for me, the film worked best at the more mundane level. Three quarters of the way through I was loving it - beautifully filmed, interesting and important story, opening us up to a new world. However the last quarter (or so - it seemed longer) the self-indulgent mystical pieces over-took the film, unfortunately losing some of the impact of the rest of the film.

Judge for yourslves though - either by seeing the film (which I still recommend - especially anyone interested in South America) or by exploring the official website which spells out better than I have the film-makers philosophy.

SFF2009 - The Rude Ones

2009-06-11T17:08:00.001+10:00

Well not really, but the two films here certainly shared a certain fruitiness of language - and Britishness - if not much else.

The synopsis for Bronson, which would be familiar to any Australian thanks to Chopper, was enough to convince my mum that it was not for her and so I gratefully accepted her ticket for the Sunday afternoon screening. Based on a true story, Bronson (SFF link) tells of 'psycho' prisoner Michael Peterson, in and out of (but mostly in) jail for 34 years from the age of 19, adopting Bronson (from Charles) as his alter-ego; and, like Mark 'Chopper' Read, becoming something of a media celebrity.

In reality the movie has more in common with A Clockwork Orange and One Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest than Chopper; thematically exploring both violence and society's sometimes dehumanising reaction to what it can't control, as well as our bizarre celebrity obsession. Stylistically the film is stunning - the use of colour, light, sets and music place it in another league altogether to Chopper. Simply a brilliant piece of cinema, and an acting tour de force (apologies for the cliché, but it's needed here) from Tom Hardy. And mum, the violence was more stylised than real; and although the language was pretty fish and chips, you would have coped !

In the Loop is simply a great British comedy / political satire - also not for those with sensitive ears. Drawing strongly from events around the time just before the second (US) Gulf War, the story follows a variety of bumbling politicians and advisors on both sides of the Atlantic, with not one but two foul-mouthed Scottish operatives scaring the bejesus out of all and sundry. This one will definitely get mainstream release and is well worth seeing - you won't learn much from the satire if you have even a vague interest in politics, but you'll sure get a good laugh.

Fighting the Festival Website

2009-06-11T11:00:00.006+10:00

I alluded in my opening Sydney Film Festival 2009 posting to problems with the 2009 website. I won't turn this into a whinge-fest - but in the interests of - I hope they get it better next year - here are the problems with the website I have found - purely through attempting to use it, not through any active fault-finding exercise !

There are two main areas of frustration - film browsing and ticket purchasing - both fairly essential activities on a film festival website.

Browsing films is slow slow slow; the most common activity I use the website for is to see what films are showing on a given night at the State Theatre. This isn't possible; but using the calendar navigator you can at least select all the films on a given day. Unfortunately, the website makers have decided to limit the display to 5 per page, further more there is no next/previous option to navigate between the pages, nor is the current page identified. Instead there are just the numbers 1-5/6/7 at the bottom of the page. If you are looking for a specific film (and there is no search by title option, believe it or not) you have to guess on which of the 5 or so pages it might fall; and this task is further complicated by the fact that alphabetisation used puts all the 'The ...' films together contrary to almost all accepted practice.

On a slow connection, and with the poor performance of the festival site's servers, what could be just a minor irritant suddenly makes planning a night's viewing a very slow process; it can take 10 or more minutes just to see the titles of the films on show, much more if you want to read the details of an individual film as well.

For next year, an easy option would be to provide a 'Single Page' view option, on top of existing functionality. Even better, enable search by title (rather than navigation by first letter of title), modify the sort functionality to ignore 'The' (actually A-Z search has done this, unlike the calendar search) and give a sub-search option on the calendar navigation of day-time/evening and venue.

Print your own tickets is all the trend these days and the festival have jumped on the bandwagon - which given the queues at the box-office is an essential step in the right direction. Unfortunately there are a few irritating issues that make this harder to use than it should be. The most annoying 'feature' is the seat reservation process that forces you to chose where you want to sit - up to nine options (Stalls/Mezzanine/Dress Circle and Front/Middle/Back). This is great for unpopular films but as a film approaches selling out it can require 20 plus clicks to navigate to a spare seat. There is no cursor/feedback after clicking on 'find seat' either, nor any indication that the 'no tickets available' response relates to the most recent search or a previous one.

Similarly when trying to purchase chosen tickets, there is no acknowledgement of click (such as change in cursor/hourglass). If you're uncertain whether a click has taken or not (after waiting for more than a minute for any sort of feedback), you end up adding extra tickets to your cart. Want to remove them ? Sure, but you have to cancel the whole transaction (not just remove the extra 2 tickets accidentally added) and go through the above process again. Thus did I spend more than an hour (really) attempting to buy a pair of tickets to 2 popular films - thankfully on a boring work phone conference at the same time.

In comparison the login screen is a relatively minor annoyance - a pop up that won't remember your password, and is too small to display a normal length email address (the only login possible). It took me three attempts at the box office to link my 20-ticket flexi- pass to my online account - at one stage my password was set blank (and emailed to me as such in confirmation) but the login window wouldn't allow a blank password to even be submitted. With no phone support for website problems or ticketing the only way to fix this is to join the queue at the State.

Finally (thankfully you say) - although I have 3 redeemable tickets left and am trying to get my last 4 tickets the system will only let me redeem 1 of them, forcing me to use the credit card for the others ($17 each instead of ~ $10) and leaving me with 2 unusable tickets - unless I join the queue again again - or attempt to on sell them somehow.

I do hope someone reads this and takes in feedback for next year. I know there's a human behind the design of the website - which is why I've to focus on the functionality issues rather than cutting criticism for its own sake. I also know that I forked out more than $230 for my tickets (that I could have spent on music, mainstream film or football) and don't really expect it to be such a painful and time consuming task to redeem them.

I would also suggest that next year a help-desk style phone support is provided (even better, online phone sales - even with a surcharge a la Qantas) especially when going live with a new and untested web system. For anyone trying to buy tickets during the festival, the only alternative when the website doesn't work is turning up an hour early and hoping the queue clears in time.

I promise it's the last you'll hear from me about the ticketing !! Next post some films I loved ...

Sydney Film Festival 2009 - Here we go again

2009-06-07T00:24:00.012+10:00

It seems to come around faster every year; like everything else I guess. Suddenly it's the June long weekend and time for the Sydney Film Festival again. I've already seen 10 films without putting pen to paper (or mouse to pad, or whatever the 21st century equivalent will be*) so it's time to get scrawling.

First, the changes. The Film Festival has been reduced to 11 days from the previous fortnight, which I think is a good thing. Reasons given vary from the GFC to aligning with other festivals around the world - regardless, 11 days over 4 cinemas is plenty of time to absorb some great cinema from around the world without demanding too much of a sacrifice.

On the downside, the ticketing and website have both changed - and not in a good way. Replacing Ticketmaster with a hand made solution - apparently used by 'other festivals' has caused serious grief - and the re-jigged website to support this is several times less user-friendly than that of previous years. Added to that, the new system requires each ticket to be printed out on an A4 sheet after about 5 minutes of data entry - resulting in ridiculous queues at the box-office, which has been relocated to a bunker. I feel sorry for the staff having to deal with frustrated festival goers - some of whom can get pretty (unreasonably) stroppy.

On the upside though, the films have been better than ever and after 10 films I've yet to see a dud ! Hopefully there'll be no Not So Positive reviews this year ...

I missed the opening night 'Looking for Eric' - which hopefully I'll catch on local release, so my first film was the Chilean film La Nana - The Maid. This 2009 Sundance World Cinema Grand Jury prize winner is set in an upper-middle class Chilean family and focusses on the relationship between the family and their aging and increasingly bitter and erratic maid, Raquel, played by a Chilean television star Catalina Saavedra.

While the opening phase of the film was clever in exploring the middle class guilt that inhabits the complex relationship with live-in help, and there were plenty of gags as we watched Raquel undermine her 'helpers' - at a certain point in time, I was left thinking, 'sure - but what's the point'. That was answered for me in the delightful and unexpected final third of the film that really gave the film its meaning.

Afterwards we were treated to a better than usual Q and A session with director Sebastián Silva and actor Catalina Saavedra. Silva in particular charmed the audience with his frank discussion and admission that the story was 60-70% based on his family experience, as well as being a very common scenario in Latin America in general. Asked how the real-life Raquel has reacted to her on screen depiction he replied simply: 'She dyed her hair blonde, quit her job [after 20 years with the family] and got a boy-friend' !

A great start to the Festival.

*The twitterati have decided that fingers to keys is the new pen to paper. Obvious really !

Cycling Websites

2009-05-06T15:14:00.004+10:00

Since I've started cycling to work I've been investigating websites with recommended cycle routes. Drawing on the experience of other cyclists is invaluable to work out how to avoid major roads and bastard hills.

The two most common sites I've found are Bikely.com and MapMyRide.com. They both seem relatively similar in functionality - more of my friends use MapMyRide, but it's more agressive in trying to sign you up and the user view is cluttered with ads. Bikely seems more chilled to just let cyclists use and share. To really do a valid comparison I really need to sign up to MapMyRide as well and test out some of the more fancy printing options.

In the meantime, here's the embedded version of my morning commute from Newtown to Rhodes. Clicking on the title takes you to the ride on Bikely.Com; hover your cusrsor over the map and little red pins appear; click on them to see my location specific notes. The usual google maps functionality also applies. All in all - pretty handy !

Newtown to Rhodes

Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

This ride takes about 50 minutes in the mornings. Use more or less the same route home with variations on where I turn south - sometimes Norton Street, sometimes Catherine St all the way through to Stanmore Station to avoid hils.

Below is the route I took this morning, mapped on MapMyRide, which gives 3 embedding options - small, medium - this one, and large.

Rhodes to Newtown Route
Find more Bike Rides in Canada Bay, Australia

I'll plot the other alternatives soon, and report back on the extra functionality.

Salta II - Quebrada de Humahuaca

2009-03-09T23:33:00.009+11:00

After the 14 hour epic excursion to the altiplano Saturday, Sunday was a much needed sleep-in (relative term after 4am bedtime and 10am start) and rest day. Sundays are taken pretty seriously in this part of the world, and pretty much everything of note bar a few restaurants was closed for the day. Thankfully an exception was made for Salta's premier museum, the Museo de Arqueología de Alta Montaña (MAAM). MAAM is most famous for the Llullaillaco children, young Incans sacrificed to the mountain gods 500 years ago and discovered by a combined mountaineering/archaeological team in the 90s.

It's one thing to read about child-sacrifice but quite another to see the amazingly preserved (they were left at 6730M of altitude) bodies and above all faces of little kids, faces you could also see today in the surrounding town. My friend Brendan wrote of the impact stories of Incan child sacrifice had from the perspective of a father of two school-aged girls, also noting some of the more recent (if less physically violent) cruelty the church inflicted on young girls and their families. The impact is no less on a father-of-none ! Easily the best museum of the trip - notwithstanding the triple-priced entry ticket for non-Argentineans (grrrrr).

Monday morning was another 7am start for the second epic mini-bus tour of the area around Salta. The make up of this group was quite different from that of the Saturday tour - apart from an Irish couple, everyone else on the bus was Argentinian, all of them (apart from Salteño Fernando the guide) from Buenos Aires. I took advantage to tune my ear to the peculiar dialect spoken by Porteños and shamefully kept my nationality (and supposed proficiency in the English language) hidden from the Irish pair until quite late in the trip !

Monday's Bus is full of locals ...

The highlight of this tour was visiting the famous Quebrada de Humahuaca, a UNESCO heritage listed gorge running about 100 km from the town of San Salvador de Jujuy (itself 2 hours north of Salta) to the eponymous Humahuaca. First stop was the little market town of Purmamarca, the last stop on Saturday's tour. The light was a little better this time, showing off the towns famous backdrop, the Cerro de los Siete Colores:

Seven Colour Hill

The gorge (Quebrada) is famous for multi-coloured mountains and picturesque villages, and didn't disappoint on either count. Unfortunately though stops were in towns rather than on the roadside so photography was mostly of the through the bus window variety:

Lunch was in the village itself, where it appears a deal has been established to have tours conducted by local males. As we approached the bus was waved down and a local lad hoppped in and introduced himself to our guide - and the rest of us. You can guess which one he is in the photo below:

The town itself is a pleasant combination of colonial architecture and adobe streets - with a super-tacky memorial to the indigenous people (the vast majority of the population up here) dominating the main square.

Momumento a la Independencia

Humahuaca Markets

Remains of Iglesia Santa Barbara - destroyed for the monument

The 'up yours' cactus

Ancient Incan Photography Company

At the Artists Palette

After brief stop for the tiny but pretty one church town of Uquia, the bus, by popular vote, deviated from the planned Jujuy town tour and expressway home, opting instead for the picturesque single lane (but two way) jungle mountain road back to Salta.

As always, a few more photos from Salta, including many more bus-window snaps of the colourful gorge and mountains, are here.

Of Engineers and Gutters

2009-03-09T14:25:00.012+11:00

In a recent article, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Elizabeth Farelly laments the damage caused to trees in the urban environment by 'perfect' non-leaky guttering. Her argument is that evil 'un-civil' engineers, in designing gutters that are leak proof (and root proof) are responsible for thirsty trees struggling to survive, therefore not providing shade, therefore increasing global-warming, while rainwater rattles off wasted into the harbour.

In her highly enjoyable opinion pieces, Ms Farelly often uses exaggerated imagery and colourful language to emphasise a heartfelt opinion on urban design, and this article was no exception. In blaming engineers for this problem with inflammatory language equating them to terrorists, she predictably caused a storm of protest, and may well have laid the groundwork for the formation of a new corollary to the famous Godwins's Law* - we'll call it Farelly's Law - that automatically renders any argument invalid when the object of the author's scorn is labelled as, or compared to, a terrorist.

Of course, engineers aren't actually to blame for this particular problem. Engineers, for better or worse, are given problems and asked to build solutions. If they have designed gutters that don't leak, it's because they were asked by the council or road's authority to design gutters that don't leak. Indeed, it's a common lament of the engineer that they are not engaged earlier in the process to be part of the problem definition phase, rather than receiving half-baked requirements, then copping it for the resultant solution not making everyone happy. Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything ...

The fallacy of her argument is exposed by the counter-example in the same article - praising the (yet to be built I believe) gutter solution in Sydney's Green Square that makes clever re-use of storm water. Clearly, however, these gutters were also designed by engineers - albeit as a response to a more environmentally sensitive statement of the problem to be solved.

Approved Guttering

Apart from the unjustified engineer slandering, the author makes a valid point about the waste of rainwater in our cities, and the sadly missed opportunity for more thoughtful solutions. The problem, I would suggest is far greater than just thirsty trees - the waste of storm water in dry Australian cities is a problem crying out for creative engineering solutions - if only someone would ask !

One place that has a creative guttering system is the Argentinean town of Mendoza, which I visited in January. Lying in a desert at the foothill of the Andes, Mendoza takes advantage of an ancient Incan irrigation system with a series of linked open gutters running through the city.

Non leaky gutters ...

...that still let trees drink

You can see that Mendozan trees don't go thirsty. As the run-off comes from melted ice in the Andes, the result is a city permanently cooled in summer by a giant open air cooling system, that also maintains very healthy trees - so much so it's hard to believe you're in a desert.

Leafy Mendozan Streets

One downside to this solution can be gleaned from the gutters' nickname - Gringo traps, in reference to unwary (and possibly inebriated - the areas around Mendoza, also irrigated by melted Andean ice, produce 70% of Argentina's excellent wine) foreign tourists falling into the gutters. For this reason it's hard to see this particular design ever being adopted in an Australian society increasingly being dominated by litigious American style lawyers - who deserve to be the true villains in this story, rather than those poor (and definitely not terrorist) engineers :)

*PS There's an interesting article by the epnonymous Mr Godwin to mark the 18th 'birthday' of his famous law. The law initially stated (indeed still states) that as a discussion (in usenet - a proto-online-forum) goes on and on, the probability of someone mentioning Hitler or the Nazis approaches 1 (i.e. 100%). These days most people assume the law refers to the far better known corrollary, which states that the first person to resort to such parallels in a discussion automatically loses the argument.

Trip by Numbers

2009-03-04T14:19:00.000+11:00

Following an idea of Letizia's - here's a numeric summary of my trip, accompanied, for the non-numeric of you, by some vaguely relevant photos.

Planes Trains and Automobiles ... and bloody busses

Total hours spent in a bus: 86.

Number of nights 'slept' on a bus: 3.

Longest bus trip - 22 bum numbing hours. You could fly from Sydney to London in that time.

Elapsed hours flying home: 52 - as part of a total of 120 + hours spent flying or in transit.
Number of flight legs: 12 (Sydney - Auckland - Buenos Aires - Bariloche - El Calafate. Ushaia - Buenos Aires. Puerto Iguazu - Buenos Aires - Lima - Cusco - Lima - Buenos Aires - Auckland - Sydney).

There were also 30 hours spent in mini-bus tours - around Salta alone. Throw in another 20 in Mendoza and 20 or so in Patagonia. And finally, there were 4 boat trips - 3 in Patagonia (including the Beagle Channel and the Magellan Strait) and a cruise on the brown waters outside Tigre.

Magellan Strait

Kilometres hiked: 80 odd (42 Inca Trail, 40 or so in Patagonia)
Maximum altitude reached of 4200 metres - in the Andes near San Antonia de los Cobres, on the Chilean - Argentinean border (RN40), and at the delightfully named Dead Woman's Pass on the Inca Trail. I know which one I'll remember getting to the most !

4170M up the Andes

Dead Woman's Pass - 4215M

Christ the Peacemaker at 4200M on RN40

Miscellaneous

Days - or nights - camping: 6 - during which it rained: 6 (maintaining what seems like a life-long record, but there might, just might, be a dry night there I've forgotten)

88 (ochenta y otto) is the name given to this butterfly, although this particular one looks more like an eighty !

Number of public chunders: 2 - caused by dodgy Pisco Sours: 2.
Number of lessons learnt regarding raw egg: 0.
Number of guinea pigs eaten: 1. Number of guinea pigs I want to eat in the rest of my life: 0.

Number of bees who missed a golden chance to sting me: 100s.

Bee Ware !

Pairs of dorky hiking pants bought in Buenos Aires 2 - pairs of which left in a hotel who then denied all knowledge: 1. Number of times I looked like a fisherman on tour: 4

Fisher D

And while we're on fashion, number of days unwisely impersonating Axl Rose: 2.

Value of belongings nicked: $0, despite all warnings - or because of all precautions. This not counting the money spent on outrageous ATM fees: ~$150 (roughly AUD7.50 a pop - with a $100 withdrawal limit)

I took 2020 digital photos - and 12 rolls of slide film - another 430 odd photos. 1 camera battery died - conveniently on the eve of the Inca Trail. Number of power points on the Inca Trail, to recharge remaining camera battery: 0.

1 tour led by a lady carrying a flag (my first ever) - with an outrageous Peruvian/Russian/Chinese accent. Visiting, appropriately enough, Saqqsaywamman (say it out loud).

Who am I, the red teletubbie, to laugh ?

Nights on the road: 42 (or 43 if you count December 23rd twice).
Best not to ask how many kilograms of steak eaten, but the first night (and second 23rd of December) there were 1000 grams consumed in a single sitting.
8 kilograms left behind in South America - of which only 2 have come back after a month (notwithstanding the above, but see also food poisoning and kilometres hiked !)

Number of comments on this post: surprise me !

Sneak Preview ...

2009-02-25T22:42:00.002+11:00

First Glimpse of Machu Picchu

Stay tuned for the story behind the trip ...

Back Home !

2009-02-25T18:50:00.010+11:00

It's probably not news to anyone - but I got back to Sydney a few weeks ago. Since then, apart from settling back to Newtown life and work - which has been remarkably easy - I've also been trying to work out what to do with my photos (surprise !) and find time to finish this blog - at least as far as Argentina and Peru are concerned ! Given that it's taken me 5 years (and counting) to sort out Cuba, I'm not too worried yet - but I am hoping to finish while the stories are fresh.

The last leg of my travels threatened to be very painful. The joys of South American airline scheduling had lined me up with a 54 hour trip home from Cusco to Sydney, with a 7 hour stop-over in Lima, before leaving at midnight and arriving in BA at 7am for the ... 3am flight to Sydney the next morning (no qualms about curfews for the Portenos) - via Auckland of course !

The reality was a lot less harrowing. For a start, four of us from the Peru group were on the same LAN Chile flight back to Lima (all with similar waits until post-midnight flights) - enough to form a quota for a trip to the centre for one last Ceviche. As seasoned Peru travellers (after a week there) we negotiated a decent rate in a hire car and strapped ourselves in for the never dull dodgem ride to Miraflores, roughly 45 eventful minutes from the airport. During the trip we arranged for the driver to pick us up a couple of hours later - imagine our surprise when he waved away our attempts to pay for the trip, saying we could settle up after the return. Such trust !

Last sunset in Lima

Dinner was sensational - and with the backdrop above and great company it was infinitely better (or very nearly infinitely) than 7 hours waiting at the airport. Of the four of us I had the earliest flight at half past midnight, and only 5 hours later I was lucky enough to be met at Buenos Aires international airport by a friend who'd kindly offered to pick me up and offer me a place to shower and change on my 20 hour stop-over.

Unfortunately my dreams of one last 1kg steak - not too mention shopping at the Sunday San Telmo markets and generally enjoying one last day in BA - were cruelly thwarted by an untimely and embarrassing (especially the public train chunder) attack of food poisoning, which at one stage threatened to delay my trip.

Drugged up, I arrived at the airport around 1am, checked in and got through customs in about a minute and a half, and looked for ways to kill 2 hours, too weak to walk and too tired to read.

There was time for a further surprise however, with a most unexpected and welcome upgrade to business class as I boarded, and even though I wasn't capable of profiting from the fine food and wine on offer, the almost horizontal seat was just what the doctor ordered for the 13 hour flight across the pacific - and I can thank that for the complete absence of jet lag since my return, not to mention my complete return to health in 24 hours.

There was time for one final surprise back in Newtown Tuesday morning (after leaving Cusco 3pm Saturday) - my coffee mug, purchased in the sacred valley in Peru, was just a little worse for wear ....

Carefully Wrapped Peruvian Pottery

So what's next ? Well, I've uploaded most of my photos now - on my fotki site (Argentina and Peru), cut down from 2000+ digital photos to less than 600. I still need to caption most of them, but feel free to have a snoop around. I'm also planning to write up the rest of the trip (on this site), to present some of the best photos in context, and share some more stories. And finally I have 11 boxes of slides to start scanning, which should help keep the post-trip glow glowing for some time yet ! I'll share the best ones here, of course.

Jumping to Salta

2009-02-16T22:18:00.016+11:00

The next stop after my Mendozan flying experience was the north-western town of Salta, a mere 16 hours away by bus. Salta is not immediately captivating the way Mendoza is, but has a quiet elegance and easy-going feel; and with a large indigenous population in has in many ways more in common with Bolivia, a few hundred kilometres to the north, than Buenos Aires nearly 2000km to the south-east.

While town itself has a certain colonial charm, the real attraction of Salta is the landscape of the surrounding landscape, with stunning multi-coloured gorges (Quebradas), picturesque Andean villages, salt planes, wine districts and cacti-filled national parks all competing for your attention. I opted for two all day tours to try and maximise my appreciation of the area.

The first trip was a monster 14 1/2 hour epic, and followed the route of the famous Tren a las Nubes (train to the clouds), which was an old railway track built to service the borax mines in the salt flats high in the Andes.

The train line has been closed for repairs for a while, but in many ways the mini-bus is a better way to see the line, as well as stop in some of the cute villages along the way and generally admire the scenery.

After winding through the valley outside of town, the road leads up to the High Planes - Altiplano - or Puna, as the Argentineans call it, where horizons go forever, and you never know who is watching you:

After crossing a pass at over 4000M, our lunch time destination was the sleepy mining town of San Antonio de los Cobres. As can be seen -

Peak Hour San Antonio de los Cobres

- not much happens here, although at the table next to us, two people fainted from altitude sickness. After another two hours in the bus, we arrived at the stunning Salinas - or Salt Plains. More photos here.

Believe or not, there was still more to see, and after crossing another high pass

we dropped back down the Cuesta de Lipan, to the UNICEF World Heritage Quebrada de Humahuaca - destination of my next tour -

Cuesta de Lipan leading to Humahuaca Gorge

before arriving at the town of Purmamarca, ostensibly to see the beautiful (from bus window) Seven Colour Hill, though in reality we were subtly dropped at the craft markets. Another 2 hours later, at 9:30pm, it was a relief to finally get out of the bus that had been home all day, knowing that dinner was only 2 hours away !

Mendoza Wine and Flying

2009-02-04T22:31:00.006+11:00

I could get used to luxury wine touring the way they do it in Mendoza. On Mendoza day 3, for a decent fee, we had a minibus limited to 8 visitors, along with a driver and guide (trained enologist), and private tasting rooms in all 4 wineries that we visited, where we got to taste better wines that what are normally offered to passing tourists, as well as a 4 course lunch with matching wines.

9am Tasting

The first winery we visited was the Bodega Mendel, a modern winery that left most of us a little flat - not sure if it was the 9am start of the fact that the winemaker himself preferred to drink wines young, and the wined we tasted really lacked depth and character; especially for the prices that were being asked.

The next vineyard, Bodega Sottano, was also very modern, and our host highlighted the advantages of the steel vats over the more traditional French style concrete ones. This vineyard was architect designed and pretty fancy; and as well as an excellent if traditional Malbec, provided a tasty Cabernet Sauvignon that I most certainly would have purchased if I wasn't lumbered with a backpack.

Modern Vats Good - Concrete Bad

At the penultimate vineyard, the Spanish operated Bodega Belasco de Baquedano, apart from the excellent wines, there was an aroma room, complete with tubes containing every possible odour that could be present in a wine - including bad wine (corked, mouldy ...). At the end were 6 test tubes (pun intended, sadly) where visitors could guess the odours stored in the unlabelled tubes.

Odour Room

As well here we were provided with the 4 course lunch with matching wines, which created quite the wine glass forest:

The final Bodega, Bodega Benegas, was my favourite. It is based in a 120 year old vineyard that a previous bankrupted (in the 70s) winemaker, Federico Benegas Lynch, had bought and lovingly restored, maintaining the original cellars and building and keeping much of the original equipment as museum pieces. For a change we didn't try the Malbec; instead tasting a very dry Chardonnay and an unusual pure Franc, as well as a Cabernet Franc.

Old School Concrete Vats

Para Man

What better way to follow up a day in the vineyards than by learning to fly ? Paragliding is something I've always wanted to do and finally I got my chance on my final day in Mendoza. Ultimately it was far easier and less scary than I expected, for whatever reason the only reason the only time I was nervous was on the road up; possibly due to the driver, in true Argentinian style, facing me talking animatedly while opening a pack of cigarettes and navigating the 4WD by what must just have been experience.

The Road up seen from above

As far as the actual gliding was concerned, the instructions were ridiculously simple. 'Just start running and don't stop until I say'. 'What about landing ?' I ask. 'Don't worry, I'll tell you when we get there'. So I'm running off a cliff, feel a great whoosh, and I am them suspended, running road-runner like over (very) thin air ! Once up, the views (up, down, left, right) and the sensation of freedom and flying were just sensational, and this won't be the last time I do this.

Looking Down

Looking Up

Landing, when it came, basically involved standing up as I hit the ground, two steps forward on my safety boots (sandals) and it was all over.

Mendoza and the Alta Montaña

2009-01-17T10:05:00.017+11:00

Typical Mendozan Street

After Patagonia, it was time to visit the magic town of Mendoza, near the Andes and 1000km west of Buenos Aires. It's both an Argentina's adventure capital (Queenstown style) and wine capital, meaning there's no shortage of things for a visitor to do; but above all it's the town's laid-back personality that is the real charmer. Even though there are more than a million inhabitants, there's not the big city edge of Buenos Aires, and despite being in the middle of a desert, every street in the town is tree lined and the innovative gutters, built on the original Inca irrigation plan, act as a giant air conditioning system, cooling both the town air and (it seems) the tempers of its inhabitants.

Outdoor Air-con

I travelled here on an overnight bus from Buenos Aires with a fellow Australian from the Patagonia trip (more on Patagonia later) and despite having no accommodation organised, we quickly settled into the town's vibe and eventually found quirky over-flow accommodation in a musician's grandmother's house, barely renovated since she was a teenager, or so it seemed. The barely functional bathroom was more than adequately compensated by the peaceful garden, a real oasis given the property was on Mendoza's main bar strip.

Granny's Garden

Within another hour or so, showered and refreshed, we had the following day's activities organised and settled down for a fantastic outdoor home-made pasta, accompanied by an excellent local Malbec (Trapiche Reserve). With it's tree lined streets, mild climate and wide footpaths, Mendoza is made for outdoor dining, both dinner and lunch.

The first activity was the Alta Montaña tour, following the main highway between Chile and Argentina (RN7, which connects Buenos Aires to Santiago de Chile) and climbing the stunning Andean foothills. The road was significantly upgraded in the 80s, but previously operated on a one way system (mornings West, evenings East) as it was basically a one lane (more half lane) goat track. We got to travel the most spectacular part of that route, rising up to the 4200 M mountain pass, site of a statue at the border to mark Argentinian-Chilean friendship - not always a given.

Christ @ 4200M keeps the fractious Chileans and Argentinians apart

The road has such a reputation amongst the drivers of the many tourist mini-vans here that they have developed a new hand gesture, best referred to as the shitting-oneself, formed by holding the hand that should be on the steering wheel out the window palm down, and generating droppings by opening and closing your fingers. This is gleefully produced to every passing van (there were at least 20 in the 8km half hour ascent) and some drivers have gone as far as obtaining a roll of toilet paper to wave at passing driver, in case the 'shitting-oneself' gesture was too subtle !

Give way to ascending traffic - and anyone waving toilet paper

The tour was comprehensive, with stunning views, interesting Andean villages, scenery (such a natural bridge used by the Incas, and a stone one used by the Spanish), and a view of Aconcagua, the Western hemisphere's highest mountain and a climbing mecca.

Somewhat over-rated (and touristed) Spanish Bridge

Puente del Inca

Mountain Man, previously only found at Rugby matches and beer commercials

Aconcagua - highest mountain in the world outside the Himalayas

Andean Scenery

La Boca Boxing Day

2009-01-12T07:27:00.008+11:00

La Boca is a rapìdly gentrifying port-side barrio, famous for its artisitic community, painted buildings and for its soccer team - Maradona's Boca Juniors. The painted buildings come from La Boca's heritage as the first port of call for the waves of Italian immigrants to Argentina - who used paint left over from the ships to colour their houses. Now days it's part of the area's identity and photos of the coloured houses in the tourist area feature prominently in most Buenos Aires tourism promotions.

The tourist area though is still in the middle of a barrio that is considered dangerous; and Porteños go out of their way to make sure that visitors are fully aware of this, quite unlike any other zone a tourist is likely to visit in this city. It started at the hostel, where the girl at the desk dramatically drew scribble on my map over the area to avoid passing on my way to La Boca. Lonely Planet has 'area unadvisable for tourist' on their La Boca map in several places, and emphatically warns not to cross 'the bridge' - whatever you do. It got even more serious when I asked for the restaurant that had been recommended at the hostel (with no address). A concerned and nervous look passed over the face of the barmaid at La Perla, who then asked her manager before pointing it out on our map, but insisting we take a taxi there (500m or so away). The taxi driver in turn inisted that we not leave the restaurant until we'd called another taxi; a (by now unneceassary) warning repeated by the waiter as we settled up !

Still, the lunch was fantastic. El Obrero is a traditional worker´s eatery whose walls serve as a shrine to Boca Juniors. Simple but delicious steaks (of course) and salads and amazing desserts - made by the proud waiter's mother - in fact he 'corrected' our order to make sure we got the right ones. To be honest, it was hard to see from the taxi back to the centre what it was we needed to be scared of in La Boca, but we were certainly happy to take the advice so insistantly given, and even happier to have persisted in finding this gem of a destination.

Apart from just wandering the streets and being accosted by tango dancers, artists, hustlers etc while looking for that one shot not yet taken, La Boca has a hyper modern exhibition space called the PROA Foundation which had a Marcel Duchamps exhibition on, inlcuding (a version of) his famous urinal. This, I'm afraid, is the closest I was to get to an art gallery in Buenos Aires.

Quick Update

2009-01-07T02:25:00.002+11:00

There are not a lot of internet cafes in the Patagonian Alps, and travelling with a social group doesn´t leave a lot of time for blogging - so here's a quick photo free update of where I am and how it's going so far.

Today (Jan 06) we're leaving the Chilean city Puerto Natales (capital of the aptly named Ultima Esperanza or 'last hope' province) to travel to Punta Arenas, the last town of any siginificance in the area. The last 6 days in Patagonia have been great - in Argentina we had the best weather imaginable for our three days hiking in sensational scenery, whereas in Chilean Patagonia it really didn´t stop raining while we were camped in the Torres del Paine National Park. Needless to say, the return to civilization in the form of warm showers beds and laundries was most appreciated ! The group I'm travelling with is fantastic, everyone gets on well, there's a good range of ages and nationalities, and that spirit has helped us deal with a few of the challenges in the Chilean leg of the trip - more later ! My body is mostly coping with the rigours of the 9 hour hikings, though a small shin injury means it's probably good news we're back to towns for a couple of days (including 12 hours in a bus to Ushuaia tomorrow !)

It's hard to believe there are only 5 more days left in Patagonia, before my true independent travel begins.

Happy New Year to every one !

Digesting Buenos Aires

2008-12-27T04:09:00.010+11:00

Digesting Buenos Aires requires a certain amount of effort. Firstly, the city is enormous - 13 million residents in the greater metropolitan area, nearly a third of Argentina's 40 Million inhabitants. Thankfully most of the areas a foreign visitor is likely to visit are situated in an area near the coastline (or river mouth, more accurately), close enough together to be almost walkable - and easily navigated with metro, cheap taxis or busses.

But the digesting that gave me most trouble came in the form of Bife de Lomo, massive slabs of tender steak that Argentina and particulary Buenos Aires and the surrounding Pampa are justly famous for. Possibly unwisely, I made my first assault on one of these only a few hours after stepping off my 16 hour plane trip from Sydney via Buenos Aires. Airport, transport and hostal check-in simply were navigated without any fuss, so I made arrangements to meet up with Chris and Kath - travelling incognito as Paco and Conchita on their way home to Sydney from New York via too many exciting places to mention here.

Christmas dinner at El Territorio in San Telmo

After a few hours at a local bar sampling the local brew - Quilmes - and wine (various Malbec labels) and a nice Spanish strength gin tonic, we decided that we´d hit the restaurant previously planned for Christmas lunch at once (Conchita isn´t big on waiting once a good idea enters her head).

The place recommended (La Cabrera) is very popular with the locals so we supped on a glass of bubbly waiting for our table to come free - which it did sometime after 11pm. The waiter raised his eyebrow when we ordered two full and one half steaks -which should have sent off a few warning bells, but it wasn´t until two giant metal trays (tastefully cow-shaped) arrived, each with a one kilogram, inch thick slab of meet on them. The half kilo steak looked modest in comparison. Out of pride we polished off most of it, leaving the salad and fries untouched. I don´t think my jet-lagged body will forgive me in a hurry for that !

In general Buenos Aires is a place for strolling around, enjoying the cafes and sites. There are plenty of musuems and galleries, but none come particularly recommended. Instead on Christmas Eve I met up with with Pablo from Madrid (but originally BA) for a much more modest lunch and catch up and walked about 4 hours around the up-market districts of Palermo and Recoleta, visiting the cemetery where Evita (and hundreds of other famous Argentinians I really hadn´t heard of) are buried, before passing back to the hostel via Puerto Madero, the recently revitalised Buenos Aires port area.

Casa Rosada and the famous Evita balcony

Argentinians celebrate Christmas Eve rather than the 25th, so the Hostal put on a roof top BBQ grill and party for guests, staff and other random strays in the area. That finished at 6am (further impressing my jet-lagged and steak digesting body) so Christmas Day really started with a Christmas lunch of a steak sandwich with chips at Chris and Kath's hotel, before starting an afternoon's bar and tapas hop.

Boxing Day was in La Boca, which I'll save until I can get my photo uploading process going more efficiently than it is now ! Back into civilisation today so contact may well become more frequent.

Off to Argentina and Peru

2008-12-25T08:25:00.006+11:00

Welcome to installment one of the South American series. After the time-travelling experience with Cuba and Mexico, it's now time to attempt some real-time travel blogging. At this stage, I'm not sure how effective this will be, as a lot will depend on internet access in the more remote locations and how much fun I'm having - and how little spare time I have !

One thing for sure, I won't be posting all my photos real time. As with my last big trip, I've decided to take a combination of cameras - one digital and one film. Sadly, I'm not taking my grandfather's old fully manual Pentax K1000 this time as I really couldn´t justify the extra weight. So there'll be no photos from Peru in 1932. I was always going to bring my compact Pentax digital camera for city and social shots, but I was in a dilemma whether to get a new digital SLR for the nature shots (especially from Patagonia and the Inca Trail), or to stick with slide film. In the end I've stuck with slide film, not because I'm any sort of luddite (I only play vinyl records for a laugh) but because I still think that slide film better captures light than all but the most expensive digital cameras, an opinion that seems to be shared by many experts (by no means all) in the inter-world. But I´ve certainly created a whole lot more work for myself on my return in February by that choice - hopefully that will help with the post trip depression !

The reason I've found some time today (Xmas Eve) is that there´s a brief lull between my first day wondering around and Xmas Eve celebrations - which are the main Christmas celebrations in this part of the world. Although I've only been here 24 hours, I've already managed to catch up with Chris and Kath on their slow way home from New York, and Pablo, a friend from Madrid on his trip home for a family wedding, as well as walking all round Buenos Aires in the blazing sun.

I'm staying at a hostel (yes, a 40 year-old backpacker) - called the ArtFactory on account of the themed and painted rooms - for the first 5 days in Buenos Aires. Following that, I'm on a 2 week trip to Patagonia which should give my fitness a good work out ! After that, I have two un-planned weeks that will cover some or all of the Iguacu Falls, Salta/Jujuy and the Andean Northwest, and Mendoza; before finally skipping up to Peru to walk the Inca Trail - a touristic cliche for sure, but not one I'm prepared to miss out on.

Finally - Merry Christmas to all from Buenos Aires, and stay tuned for hopefully some further updates !

Trinidad and Trains Revisited

2008-12-04T23:01:00.008+11:00

So when last we were in Trinidad, I mentioned a train trip through the Valle de los Ingenios to a town called Manaca Iznaga, famous for its tower. Given that (5 years after the event) I still hadn't finished scanning my slides, the photos were a little limited. Finally that can be rectified. Without (too many) further stories, here are some more snaps from the train trip.

Firstly, the train itself:

On the move:

Not the one we were afraid we might have to take:

The first stop was a Hacienda called Casa Guachinango, just after a railway bridge:

It doubled as a sort of bar, and I guess the intention was that we stayed there and lined the pockets of whoever was working there. I took the opportunity to check out the surrounding countryside:

... and luckily, as I explained in the previous Trinidad post, I managed to jump back on the train as it departed, unannounced, for what was to be the final destination, Manaca Iznaga, famous for its tower:

from which there was a pretty view, including of the local hamlet itself:

... in which not much happened, although they were pretty casual about a steam train crossing,

a tractor seemed to be more interesting to the locals.

Next, I revisit Camaguey , from where my first impressions of Trinidad were written, so long ago !

Cuban Propaganda Badge

2008-12-03T16:19:00.002+11:00

Following from my previous post, this is what a Fotki badge looks like when applied to an album of political propaganda from all over Cuba.

It might be more effective applied to an album with more photos in it, such as this one from the Urban Sights album. The size and background colours are also configurable.

All in all, cute, but not as much fun as the Stacks:

Stacks of photos from Mexican Bus Windows

2008-12-03T15:01:00.007+11:00

I store my photos on the website Fotki. I can't remember now how I found it, but at the time (2001) it was far away the best (and most reasonable) of the photo websites around. Today I have more than 5000 photos there so I won't be changing any time soon. I actually prefer its interface to Flickr, and the multi-album facility to that of Picasa. Picasa wins with its desktop software you use to synchronise albums, which unfortunately is not available on the Mac. It also has a cleaner interface, but is not as well suited to storing large numbers as fotki is. One day I will spend more time doing a more rigorous comparison.

Fotki has come out with a new feature called widgets, which give you ways of emdedding collections of your photos on websites (such as blogs). There are 3 at the moment, and I'm using this entry to test out the Stack feature, which represents a fotki album as a stack of prints with an intuitive flickability to browse the album.

This stack comes from my album Mexico from the Bus Window which is fairly self explanatory. You'll notice that one of my busses has wings. If you find the little arrow icon on a given photo, it will take you back to that photo in fotki. You can also vary the size of the stack, and set the background to any colour you want. You can see a stack of my photos from Palenque, Mitlan and Mont Alban below.

Next post I'll test out the badge and slideshow (yawn) widgets.

Birthdays 2.0

2008-11-15T17:03:00.005+11:00

The other day I crossed the big 4-0. It was less traumatic than I'd expected, which might have been helped by it falling on a Monday. These days though it's hard for a birthday to go unnoticed, especially for those with Facebook profiles. A few years ago, it was really only family and close friends who would remember the exact day. If I organised a party (which I often did), or someone at work managed to find out, then a few more people would find out and maybe wish me a happy birthday in person, but that was it.

This year I was struck by how many different ways there are to wish someone a Happy Birthday ! In fact the most frequent way I was wished a happy birthday this was via people scrawling on my Facebook wall (36 in all), a method of felicitations that didn't even exist two years ago. Facebook (for those who aren't familiar with it) gives you 3 days notice of impending friend's birthdays, which is enough to ensure that most people are aware of it. At the other end of the scale, I received exactly one card in the mail - kudos to my cousin in England who managed to time it to arrive on the exact day. The next most common method was text messaging - a grand total of 8 messages, or 9 if you count the text from my local pub, telling me they'd added $10 to my card for my birthday (at least 0.1% of my annual spend).

Apart from that, just a couple of in-person greetings (maybe helped by being out of the office for most of the day) and surprisingly few emails (4, mostly from family) and phone calls (3 to fixed lines and 2 to mobile). Quite a contrast to only a few years ago. Despite having recently signed up to Twitter, I'm still not active, so there's a possibility of yet another new means to be commiserated with next year.

Below a summary of Duncan's 2008 greetings !

Facebook Wall	36
Facebook Message	2
Normal Email	4
Snail mail Card	1
Text Messages	9
Mobile Phone Calls	2
Home Phone Calls	2
Work Phone Calls	1
In Person	5

Creative Graffiti

2008-10-17T16:34:00.005+11:00

There's someone (presumably a Newtown local) who goes to quite an effort to create some cleverer than usual graffiti. The first effort was on the safety sign outside the substation in the car park behind Vintage Cellars, creating a more literal warning in the process:

The good folk at Energy Australia didn't take to kindly to that, and sadly the sign was returned to normal shortly after I took the above snap last year. However, our mystery tagger has recently struck back, albeit with a slightly more paranoid tone:

I'm assuming the same person is also responsible for this postural advice, several of which have appeared in the same area.

There are a few more pictures of Newtown graffiti here, and a collection of some of the Wilson St artworks, mostly near the rail sheds here. Anyone interested in random Newtown bits and pieces should head on over to Nosey in Newtown.

Final Reviews - Sydney Film Festival 2008

2008-10-09T15:12:00.000+11:00

All in the fullness of time ... or not. Time has got away from me once again so the final Sydney Film Festival reviews for 2008 will be in semi note form !

In Bruge was always going to get mainstream release and commercial success, and certainly pleased the full house at the State Theatre. It's hard not to like this intelligent crime buddy movie from Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, although the ending could be considered unnecessarily graphic. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson match the razor sharp dialogue with pitch perfect acting and there are enough non-PC, Belgian and American jokes to keep even the grumpiest bum happy.

Lake Tahoe is - well, a different kettle of fish. Slow moving but moving, beautifully shot Mexican story of a young boy dealing with loss. Not a lot happens yet this film held my attention effortlessly.

Lemon Tree has also since earnt a wider release. It tells the story of the Palestinian neighbours of the newly appointed Israeli defence minister whose centuries old lemon grove is considered a security risk. With elements of The Castle (!), Lemon Tree uses human stories to tell a larger political story, without resorting to stereo-typing or over-sentimentality.

Stop-Loss is Kimberly Peirce's long-awaited follow up to the hard-hitting Boy's Don't Cry. The title refers to a little-known clause by which the US Army can over-ride the standard break between tours of duty and send recently returned soldiers straight back to Iraq. This film, inspired by Peirce's brother and his friends experiences in the US Army, un-ashamedly takes the side of the soldiers while sensibility avoiding the subject of the war's validity or otherwise.

The opening scenes, showing US soldiers responding to an attack on the roads of Baghdad, use a clever mix of actual war footage and shot film, to deliver a frighteningly view of the complexities of the war in an urban setting. The rest of the film doesn't move at the same pace, yet still delivers a rivetting story. Highly recommended.

Cuba in 1932

2008-09-17T16:50:00.011+10:00

My grandfather Charlie was a keen photographer. Rummaging around his belongings the other weekend I found some old photos from an early trip of his to Cuba in the 30s. They were old, scratched and faded but had a certain charm, so I thought I'd scan them and see if they were salvageable. Age has done some damage, but you can still see some of what grandpa was trying to capture ...

Ok, so that's not strictly true !

What really happened is not quite so interesting, but nevertheless merits some explanation. Firstly, my grandfather was a keen photographer - as an explorer in the New Guinea highlands in the 1930s (including accompanying the Leahy brothers on their famous 'First Contact' trip) he documented everything he saw; and donated his photographs to the Australian musuem, as well as his journals and collected artefacts. One day I'll go through his collection and scan some of the best ones to share with the world.

I inherited his Pentax K1000 in the 80s and I've always used it as my 'Black and White camera' - being fully manual it's better suited to more arty shots, though of course it's a great camera whatever the film. Once I shot a roll in Paris mistakenly thinking i had black and white film in the camera. The resultant prints were better than any I've taken with my automatic Canon.

I took the Pentax to Cuba, but, as the heaviest of my three cameras (the Pentax, the Powershot Digital and the Canon SLR), it often got left back where I was staying, and I only managed to shoot two rolls. Unfortunately, for one of those I had the film speed incorrectly set on the camera - 400 ISO instead of 100 (all cameras these days read film speed automatically) so all my shots were over-exposed. In 2003 I tried to find a camera shop that could develop the prints compensating my mistake, without luck. Even the good folk at the aus.photo newsgroup (remember them) couldn't recommend a solution - short of using a darkroom.

Fast forward to this year and I found the roll unloved in my draw. Hoping that developing technology had improved, I tried my luck at the local shop in King St (who do at least do develop black and white film on site). The lady there claimed that they could compensate the 2 stops needed; nevertheless the photos came back looking like they were 70 years old. Whether that's a result of the age of the film (5 years), or her not understanding my request (or both) I'm not sure - nevertheless the photos still have a certain charm so I thought I'd share some of them.

I also had some issues with the scanning (while I'm being vaguely technical). I use the Vuescan product for scanning (rather than proprietary software that comes with the scanners and is usually shit), and although the menu system is clunky and counter-intuitive, the resultant photos have always done the trick. However I now have a new printer (all-in-one with fax and scanner) and I was struggling to force the programme to generate decent sized files. Even on the archive setting - which normally produces multiple MB files, I was getting 200k scans. I guess this is probably because black and white scans store a whole lot less colour information - but these files weren't zooming in to the level I expected.

To get around this, I tried scanning one photo as a colour photo rather than black and white. I got the resultant larger file I was after, but it seems to have injected a pinkish tinge that really wasn't in the original at all !

I guess I probably need to get an upgraded and dedicated scanner if I'm going to continue with scanning black and whites.

There are a few more photos here.

More Splinters

2008-09-17T16:04:00.004+10:00

Day 2 of Splendour in the Grass dawned with more talk of early starts, but in the end the beach won out over the charms of Van She and British India, and by the time we got there Vampire Weekend were half way through their set. I'd listened to their self-titled album a couple of times during the week, and the general impression was of up-beat Afro-pop, with a couple of stand-out singles. It's a style of music that translates well to the stage, and the big blue tent was packed with kids happily bopping away, without going really ballistic apart from for the main single.

No such problems for The Wombats though, whose high speed pop-punk had the crowd going nuts from beginning to end. They've had a lot of air-play for the catchy ditty Let's Dance to Joy Division, and judging by their gig and the crowd's reaction to it, there are plenty more hits when that one came from.

I had time for half The Grates gig and I have to say I was disappointed. There's no doubting the energy and enthusiasm of band or their fans, and I really wanted to like them, yet the songs don't really do them justice - at least yet. Anyway, Robert Forster was up next, so there was no need to hang around.

I'd had great expectations for seeing Robert Forster - at the G.W. McLennan tent no less - and they were more than met. Probably the only disappointing factor was the small size of the crowd, however that was mostly a bonus as it meant I could get up the front and still enjoy the gig without being knocked over by drunken dick-heads.

Forster covered his entire catalogue from early Go Betweens to his most recent solo releases. The sound was crystal clear and his voice was strong and clear. Particular highlights for me were Spring Rain, one of my all-time favourite songs, which I hadn't heard live in close to two decades, and Surfing Magazines, for its sheer cheesieness (especially when sung along to by a crowd of mostly 40 plussers). I traipsed back to the main stage with a huge smile on my face.

The night's finale was a strange triple-header in the Supertop: The Vines, Sigur Ros, and Wolfmother. On paper, it resembled the ridiculous to the sublime, and back again. The reality was no different, and ideal scheduling would have had us leaving after the near perfection that was Sigur Ros, rather than with the ears ringing to Wolfmother.

It was hard to imagine how Sigur Ros's ethereal music would translate to the stage, but I was blown away by the clarity and dynamics of the music and the soaring vocals. How singer Jonsi can speak after a gig is beyond me. It wasn't all operatic however, several tracks on the most recent album, including the aptly named Gobbledygook, are pretty poppy and the crowd responded in kind. A magic experience, and the highlight of the festival.

The Vines, back together after singer Craig Nicholls' much publicised difficulties, threw together a patchy set. When they rocked they really rocked, yet some of the more psychedelic numbers were just too self-indulgent, losing the good will of the crowd.

No such subtlety for Led ... I mean Wolfmother, of course. It turns out this was their last ever gig, the band announcing their break up shortly after Splendour. The music, as derivative as it is, makes for a great head-banging and body-shaking experience, and despite the protestations of my ankles, I got right into my first slam-dance in years ! I'm not convinved though, that it's practical for one member of a three piece to play both bass and keyboards, often in the same song, as Chris Ross attempted to. Anyway, lucky to see them before the end.

I decided not to risk my camera on day 2, so no photos this time round, sorry !

Sydney Film Festival 2007 - Final Reviews

2008-08-12T11:17:00.002+10:00

Originally posted 24th July 2007 on last.fm.

Here's the final batch of mini-reviews / notes from the 2007 Sydney Film Festival. First the worst - Don't Touch the Axe - a slow, boring, pretentious, try-hard French film. I lasted longer than it deserved before walking out because I couldn't believe that it wasn't going to get better and reward me for my patience; but people I spoke to later who went the distance want that part of their life back. Gerard Depardieu jnr (his parents call him Guillaume) has the distinctive facial features but none of the acting talent of his father; and hobbled (literally) through the film with a single pained expression on his face as he attempted to justify the absurd story he was trapped in. An unbelievable (in the literal sense) love affair between unsympathetic characters; I'm not sure I've ever seen a worse film, at least not with the same pretence of being worthy.

Luckily I didn't know much about Black Snake Moan, although the presence of Justin Timberlake in the cast didn't really give me much cause for optimism. However this is a surprising and powerful story; inspired and driven by the blues. If you get a chance to see this, do. If you can, avoid the trailer, which puts a misleading slant on the film, and destroys the surprise of one of the scenes with the greatest impact. It's also highly recommended to see it in a cinema with the best sound system possible. I'm no Blues fan, but the music makes this film, and I ended up buying the Soundtrack, in which Samuel L. Jackson demonstrates an impressive talent as a Blues musician.

My other unexpected highlight was Beaufort. I didn't have high hopes for the story of an Israeli army camp, and I only attended reluctantly. The press attaché of the Israeli consulate in Sydney had been invited to speak on behalf of the Consul General; and, demonstrating a woeful ignorance of his audience; launched into a political speech defending Israel's recent (2007) incursion into Lebanon. He was roundly heckled for his troubles; but most of the audience remained and were rewarded with an intensely powerful (again !) and tense personal story. Almost documentary like; the film focuses on the young commander of the Israeli military base - Beaufort - built on an old Crusader fort, and his relationship with his team. The commander had the challenging job of attempting to motivate his soldiers to defend the camp with their lives, given the knowledge that his government was contemplating abandoning the camp to give the peace process a chance. Politics was by definition present in the story but the film maker chose not to take a political position; instead focusing on the personal impact of the situation on the soldiers. In doing so, the audience was left with far greater sympathy for the plight of those soldiers than any propaganda piece (or ill-considered speech) could have done.

Danish film After The Wedding is a taut modern mainstream film that will certainly get wider release later in the year. Starring 'Maddie' (Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen) popular in Oz due to the SBS hit Unit One (and now a Bond star), the film follows the story of a Danish volunteer teaching working in India who is lured back to Denmark with the promise of funding for his orphanage. Highly recommended.

Finally, another episode in the Sounds on Screen series, Scott Walker - 30 Century Man, a bio-pic of former The Walker Brothers member Scott Walker. My knowledge of Walker came mainly through his covers of Jacques Brel songs; although I was also aware of his earlier fame, and vaguely that his later work was non-prolific and 'difficult'. This film covers the full range of his career and gives a great picture not only of the artist and his music, but also an insight into his motivations and extreme difficulty in concluding any artistic endeavours as he gets older. Other artists such as Jarvis Cocker, Radiohead, and importantly David Bowie (his involvement released much needed funding for the film) spoke of Walker's influence on their career. And the pig carcass slapping scene is not to be missed !

Sydney Film Festival 2007 - More Films

2008-08-11T16:13:00.000+10:00

Originally posted 16th June, 2007 at last.fm.

It was a triple header at the Sydney Film Festival last night on a rainy, stormy Sydney Friday. My wish for rainy weather for the film festival has been amply rewarded - and it can stop now. Please. Sorry to anyone inconvenienced by the storms - I'll be more careful with what i wish for in future.

Before I get to last night's films, here are some more notes on films seen and half a real review.

Two films I omitted from my first report were The Dead - John Huston's last film, and All In this Tea. The latter is a moderately interesting documentary about Californian Tea enthusiast David Lee Hoffman. I was expecting a more general documentary on tea in China (and no price jokes) so to me this was a slightly lazy effort - telling Hoffman's story without any further research or perspective. Maybe my disappointed expectations were the fault of the promoters. The other notable point (again, made in the publicity) was that it was shot exclusively digitally. Unfortunately that equated to washed out and blurry on the large screen at the State Theatre. Hopefully that won't be such a problem on television, which is where it really belongs. As filmmaker Les Blank was a guest after the presentation i feel like a bad host to be critical of his work - so sorry Les.

The Dead, on the other hand, surprised and moved me - a gentle, small scale film, shot almost exclusively at a genteel dinner party in Dublin at the turn of the century (19th to 20th that is) and based on a story from Joyce's The Dubliners. Although the setting represented a fast disappearing world, and Irish politics (the film is set only a decade before 1916) rate the barest of mentions, the final scenes pack a powerful punch and the entire film was engrossing. The Dead was only released in 1987 but its languid pace is from another era altogether.

I was apprehensive about Half Moon (Niwemang) as Iranian films have not exactly been my cup of tea. After a hard day's work and a hard week's film watching I was worried I'd get an attack of the nods, no matter how stunning the scenery and unusual the story. I needn't have worried though - the only people suffering attacks of the nods in the theatre were characters in the film itself - a beautifully filmed road movie, with impressive performances from mostly non-actors. Half Moon is about a family of Kurdish Iranian musicians travelling to newly liberated Kurdish Iraq for a music festival. Being a road-trip you won't be surprised that we barely get to see the destination, but on the way we are treated to a fascinating insight into life in those parts, more than a few laughs, as well as a serious story. Although the realities of the political situation were ever-present in the story (the film is set on the Iraqi/Turkish/Iranian border) they never get in the way of the human story being told.

Kiwi cinematographer Nigel Bluck was presented before the film (as an Australian - much to his displeasure !) and told us how director Bahman Ghobadi wanted an outsider as cinematographer in order to get a different perspective on the Iranian landscape. What Bluck couldn't admit was that his cinematography was inspired by Iranian cinema, and thus he was not ideally suited to deliver to Bahman's vision. Thankfully he still got the job as it is beautiful looking film, on top of everything else.

Life Is All About Friends has a pretty twee title that seems to have been chosen just for this Festival - it's known as Unni in IMDB. The story of four primary school boy friends set entirely in their school and surrounding village, it is a mostly light-hearted look at childhood in rural India, with darker themes such as the caste system and alcoholism lurking in the background. It's a very funny film, with beautiful scenery and endearing characters, so it's hard not to like this film (although the 'festival virgins' sitting next to me weren't so impressed!)

The first film in the Friday trifecta was from Spain - Mallorca to be precise. Yo was classic festival fare – dark, complicated and slightly obscure ; basically about melding/losing identity. At some stage during the film it really annoyed me but it was certainly original, and by the end of the film i was converted. First time director Rafa Cortes was there and spoke afterwards. He's quite a charmer and even resorted to a self-contained Q&A when questions from the (slightly bemused) audience dried up.

Next film was pure pop, a great English comedy – Death at a Funeral, which will definitely be a mainstream hit. Despite it being completely predictable and somewhat derivative, I haven’t laughed so much in ages. Perfect for a rainy Friday night and a great antidote to the seriousness of Yo.

The last film of the night was Shut Up and Sing, the Dixie Chicks film. I’ve never been a fan, but those girls are pretty cool – especially the lead singer – Natalie Maines – who is feisty-ness personified. I have to admit it’s always fun to laugh at rednecks and GWB as well, and there's plenty of that on offer here. A well made and surprisingly interesting documentary, Shut Up and Sing following the girls from the fall out over their Bush/Texas comments to the release of the recent album, Taking The Long Way. Am I tempted to listed to more Dixie Chicks ? Almost !

Great Australian Albums - Born Sandy Devotional

2008-08-11T15:37:00.000+10:00

I knew him as a gentle young man,
I cannot say the reasons for his decline
We watched him fade before our very eyes
And years before his time, and years before his time.

With these sadly prophetic lines from Tender Is The Night, the moving Great Australian Albums - Born Sandy Devotional concluded with a dedication to David McComb (17/2/62 - 2/2/99). The film, which tells the story of The Triffids, in particular focusing on their classic album Born Sandy Devotional, is part of the Sounds on Screen strand of the Sydney Film Festival, and screened to a nearly full Metro Theatre, more traditionally a music concert venue.

It will also be the last episode in the Great Australian Albums series to be screened on SBS (Australian television channel) from late July. The series features one classic Australian album per decade, the other albums to be featured being:

Silverchair - Diorama
Crowded House - Woodface (not the most obvious choice of album, IMO)
The Saints - I'M Stranded

After the screening tonight, there was a Q&A featuring filmmakers Martin Fabinyi, Toby Creswell, Danielle Kelly, and Larry Meltzer, hosted by SMH music critic Bernard Zuel. Hopefully a sufficiently enthusiastic reaction to the series (and DVD - good news for overseas fans) will encourage SBS or others to document more of Australia's music heritage.

The film itself has a low-budget, home movie feel, which tied in with the home made aesthetic of the Triffid's album (if not reflecting the production values, which are excellent, especially obvious in last year's re-mastered release). As well as some great archival footage, it features interviews with remaining band members Robert McComb (David's older brother), 'Evil' Graham Lee (described as the keeper of the The Triffid's flame), keyboardist Jill Birt, and finally drummer Alsy Macdonald, who got the laugh of the night describing his isolation stuck with his drum kit in the attic at the Mark Angelo studios in Farringdon as the band recorded the album (and had all the fun) downstairs.

Also featured are Australian musicians such as Paul Kelly, Steve Kilbey from The Church, and former The Go-Betweens Amanda Brown and Robert Forster. Paul Kelly describes how he has tried and failed to cover Wide Open Road, unable to find a new angle on the song, considering it perfect as it is. Steve Kilbey, a passionate fan, described it as Australia's Born to Run, but I guess he doesn't share Paul Kelly's opinion on covering the track, given there's a version on the Church's latest album, El Momento Siguente.

As well as focusing on the music and making of BSD, the documentary delivers a brief history of the band and its position in Aussie rock history. Much is made of the sense of light and space in the Triffids music, and many of the fans and friends of the band recalled how evocative of an Australian childhood the music is.

In that sense, much is made of how Born Sandy Devotional is not just a great rock album, but a Great Australian Album; but this tribute (really the best term for the documentary) is for all fans of great song-writing and great music, whatever nationality.

Originally published 13th June, 2007 on last.fm.
The DVD has now been released; and all 4 documentaries can now be purchased as a box-set. At the 2008 Festival, the first instalment of Great Australian Albums Series 2 screened, featuring Nick Cave's Murder Ballads. Other albums in series 2 are:

Powderfinger - Odyssey Number 5
The Go-Betweens - 16 Lover's Lane
Hunters & Collectors - Human Frailty

Splinter in the Arse 2008

2008-08-08T16:52:00.001+10:00

For seasoned punters, Splendour in the Grass, a Byron Bay music festival considered by many to be the best in Australia, is synonymous with gumboots, and many of the shops in Byron Bay stock up in June in anticipation of a July windfall. There was no need this year though; since moving the festival into the first weekend of August last year, Splendour in the mud has become Splendour in the dust (there are those who are convinced that shifting the festival by a single week is responsible for the improvement). Don’t worry about the shopkeepers though, the gumboots still served for the nearly-washed-out writer’s festival the weekend before.

This was my first Byron Festival experience since the Byron Bay Arts and Music Festival in 1995. Memories are hazy, although I do remember The Dirty Three being absolutely brilliant. I also recall that the festival back then had a real ‘Byron’ feel to it, with all that implies, and I was looking forward to the chilled out crowd – as a contrast to all the 20 y.o. dickheads running around at the last two Homebake Festivals in Sydney I've been to. Unfortunately the dickheads have discovered Byron; lots of drugged up Brisbane boys with Rugby League brains and Rugby League manners, pushing everyone out of their way were a real downside to this event. Not enough, however, to spoil the enjoyment of the great music and venue !

We arrived at the venue just in time for the end of Operator Please. Not much to say about these guys; they’re not my cup of tea and I’m sure they don’t care. The kids certainly seemed to like them though, judging by all the high pitched screaming from the Supertop ! The Music, on the other hand, are very much my cup of tea live – and – it seems – everyone else’s. The big blue tent was packed to the rafters of heaving bodies swaying to the music (capitalised or otherwise) and they got the best fan reaction of the day. The only puzzle is why they were on so early. Musically, The Music's music can be a little repetitive (in the lounge room at least), with all the high pitched arm punching choruses, driving beats and angry guitars; but it's tailor made for a short set at a festival like this one, and they were for many the highlight of the day.

Gyroscope and The Fratellis came and went. I wasn't really familiar with either of these bands, and already their gigs are blurred in my mind, but I do remember enjoying both of them despite the lack of familiarity. Gyroscope in particular played with a real energy which suggests bigger things to come. I had heard great things about Band of Horses and had been meaning to give them a spin for a while. I wasn't disappointed - the show was great, both musically and as a spectacle; and even if the crowd reaction at the smaller 'GW McLennan Tent' wasn't as passionate as for The Music, this was my highlight of the day. These guys are a band I'll be keeping an eye on.

I'd also heard great things about The Polyphonic Spree and was looking forward to seeing their much praised live show. On paper it sounded great; multi-instrumental, with operatic influences, parallels to the Beach Boys and Flaming Lips, and (according to a recent interview) 'definitely not a gimmick'; it sounded right up my musical alley. The show itself was spectacular, from the build up behind the red curtain; the colourful stage props, through to the exciting light show. However (you saw it coming, didn't you) the music itself let me cold. Tuneful and happy, yet somewhat soulless; it reminded me more than anything else of a musical meeting a church choir - think Godspell - and I certainly won't be rushing out to buy the CDs.

Which brings us to Devo, the headline act for Day One if not the entire festival. It was a strange choice of headline act, and certainly the crowd was noticeably smaller and more subdued that for The Music and the other bands earlier in the afternoon. Although they'd resent being called a novelty act (and certainly their longevity belies that tag) it has been literally decades since Devo had done anything musically significant, and even an oldie and almost fan from the old days like myself was struggling to recall more than a handful of songs.

First things first - yes, they still wear the flower pots and boiler suits. While that's to be admired, there's no hiding age, and what was quirky on 20 year-olds looked - as much as I hate to say it - pretty ridiculous on a bunch of middle-aged guys.

Musically the gig was fine without being inspirational. Whip It was whipped out early and rushed through, and their version of Satisfaction, so inspirational in its time, seemed limp. Girl You Want and Beautiful World were better - and I'm definitely glad I saw them, yet somehow I expected more from Devo.

In good news just to hand, the Byron Bay Arts and Music Festival is being resurrected in the New Year after a 12 year absence. Stay tuned for part 2 of the Splendour in the Grass review ... and sorry about the crap title, if you've got this far.

Not So Positive

2008-06-17T10:10:00.000+10:00

The first film review I remember writing was a high school English class assignment. While almost everyone in the class wrote gushing reviews of recent Hollywood blockbusters they'd seen and loved, I chose instead to bag Steven King's Christine, which had left me cold. I got top marks for that review; probably for the original take rather than any particular insight into the faults of Christine.

What is true is that it is (unfortunately) easier to criticise than to praise; and often more entertaining as a result. I really enjoy Bill Bryson's light-hearted travel books, but I didn't enjoy his book on Australia, Down Under, (released as In a Sunburned Country in some markets) nearly as much. The problem was he seemed to like Oz too much; and while he still managed to unearth some great anecdotes, it just wasn't as cuttingly funny as his trips around Britain, the USA and Europe had been. Some critics take this too far; and go out of their way to mercilessly exaggerate every fault in the book/restaurant/movie that has passed their way; causing considerable damage or hurt to the author/chef/director involved in order to show off their cutting wit.

All of this to say that, unlike my first set of reviews, there are some definite duds in the second set of films I saw at this year's Sydney Film Festival. First and worst was Girl Cut in Two, the latest offering from French veteran Claude Chabrol. It's hard to explain in just how many ways this film sucks. For a starter (and this will surprise you) it deals with a love triangle; in this case between a pretty and ambitious local TV weather girl; the spoilt rich son of a deceased local tycoon, and an intellectual three times her age. Given Chabrol's vintage, there are no surprises who Gabrielle really 'loves', and in fact a lot of this film plays out like a dirty old man's fantasy. The characters were all clichés; the story predictable; and the 'dilemma' of the film's title was literally enacted in the film's ludicrous conclusion. The heavy-handed attempts to satirise the French television industry, seen by some as a redeeming feature, were completely undermined by the fact that the film itself was a potpourri of French cinematic clichés.

I feel meaner criticising Slingshot; especially as the director himself was present for the screening - an Australian premiere. The film opens in a rush; and indeed the first 5-10 minutes are a dramatic and gripping ride through the slums of Manila following a police raid. The style and energy of this opening are reminiscent of a music video clip; unfortunately this can also be said of the depth and characterisation of the rest of the film. While the film is effective in capturing the desperation (and sad reality) of life in the slums, there doesn't seem to be any attempt to say any more than this. Most of the characters in the film are not likeable; in fact there is too much skipping between stories and characters to build any empathy with any of the characters at all. This is apparently director Brillante Mendoza's sixth feature film in two years - hopefully if he slows down a little he might come up with a film where the depth of character and story match the intensity of the action.

Finally for this post is Vogelfrei, definitely the first Latvian film I have seen. This film tells the story of a solitary Latvian male (Teodors) in four stages of his life, each directed by different directors. Not only is this take unusual; but there is no attempt to make his life chronologically consistent: Teodor is a shy child, an awkward teenager, a cold businessman and a lonely old man all in the early years of this century.

Teodors has a somewhat difficult, outsider's character which he gradually comes to terms with over the course of his life. The first part of the film, showing a pre-pubescent Teodors, owes a lot stylistically and thematically to My Life as a Dog. How many coming of age films show children playing on railway tracks ?

Teodors as a teenager was probably the least interesting (and effective) of the film's 'ages'; after-all, the teenager as a socially awkward outsider is hardly new territory. As a seemingly successful businessman, Teodors has developed a defence mechanism that allows him to interact with the rest of the world; even though he is still disturbed by this inability to relate personally to people. The austere style of this part of the film is in keeping with the tight control Teodors has learnt to keep on his character. It's only as a retired falconer that we finally see Teodors 'free as a bird' - interestingly in this, the most original of the 4 ages, he doesn't talk at all.

Despite the use of 4 different directors (and obviously actors) for each age, Vogelfrei works as a whole; and is noteworthy both for its unusual structure and character study, as well as an insight into a country most of us know little about.

IMDB Links
Girl Cut in Two
Vogelfrei
Tirador

Sydney Film Festival 2007

2008-06-12T12:15:00.000+10:00

My music listening has taken backseat to the movies over the last few days as it's Sydney Film Festival time again. There's actually an entire 'strand' dedicated to music, called Sounds on Screen, but I've not limited myself to that by any means.

So here, pretty much in note form, are some of the films I've seen so far. Hopefully this will help me remember them after 2 weeks immersion in the world of film !

12:08 East of Bucharest, is a dry 'post-revolution' film set in a small town outside of Bucharest, with a surprisingly funny finale that had us all in stitches.

Daratt is an unusual revenge story from Chad, with a great insight into some of the society there. One of the things that can sometimes get on my nerves in films, is a scene where great secrets are revealed, and yet in the next scene the characters are getting on without any apparent reaction or change in relationship as a result of the previous conflict. This film is full of scenes like that yet they didn't annoy me at all, and although it was mostly a low key film it still had me on edge right up to the final scene.

I Served the King of England is a riotous and absurd Czech film - based on a Hrabal novel that i'm going to have to hunt down. Apparently the largest budget Czech film ever made, it's possible that it could be mistaken as celebrating the life it portrays (the way rednecks have adopted Born in the USA for example) but in reality it's a wonderful satire on the delusions of Czech high-society during the first half of this century, visually rich and entertaining yet with serious ideas.

I'm still trying to work out if Antonia was a Brazilian Spice Girls or something deeper ! Often judgement gets suspended for foreign films, and i suspect that's the case here. I know my parents hated it - but i knew that would be the case from the first scene, which had Brazilian rap music shaking the State Theatre to its venerable bones !

More mainstream were the American films Bella and The Walker. I'm not really sure what The Walker was doing in the festival. While it's more overtly political that your average Hollywood release - with politics that please festival goers, of course - it had the cast (and budget) that you would think ensures a release into the chains later this year. Nevertheless, an enjoyable political thriller, and an outstanding performance by Woody Harrelson (tour de force, as they like to call it) as the eponymous walker, that is, friend and confidant of Washington's bored and rich housewives.

Bella is a different case. It too had the mainstream budget (the credits thanked 20 plus sponsors for the privilege of having their products prominently placed in the film) and production values of The Walker; and while the ethnic twist to the story (a USA/Mexico co-production apparently) adds to its festival appeal, i'm not so sure that the not-too-subtle pro-life theme would be so appreciated by that crowd.

Lastly (for now), the Chinese film How Are Your Fish Today was a kind of two-for-the-price-of-one deal, a chinese road-trip movie with bonus making-of weaved into the film. While not quite as funny nor original as its title deserved, nevertheless it's an interesting journey into a modern Chinese film-maker's world and motivations, as well as a visit to an older, more traditional village, Mohe, in China's far north.

Originally posted on last.fm June 12, 2007. And yes, it helped me remember these films so well I'm doing it all again this year !

Sydney Film Festival 2008 - First Reviews

2008-06-09T20:18:00.000+10:00

They've snuck the festival opening forward this year, holding it on a Wednesday rather than the usual Friday night. I'm a bit of a traditionalist though; and with other plans for Friday night I kicked off my 2008 film festival viewing Saturday morning at the un-godly hour of 10am at the State. My selfish appeals for rain were ignored, and it was a glorious Sydney winter's morning as we settled down to watch the opening film, Quiet Chaos.

Directed by Antonio Grimaldi, Quiet Chaos stars Nanni Moretti and is very consistent with his earlier work; particularly in the exploration of the theme of family grief from The Sun's Room, and the conversational style of Caro Diario (amongst others) which in fact came out in Italy while I was living there. An easily likable film, it follows the way the protagonist (Moretti, of course) copes with his wife's unexpected death and the impact (or lack thereof) it has on his daughter, while offering a broader observation on some of the absurdities of modern life. It's lightly told and mostly subtle, with the exception of a surprisingly graphic sex-scene that seemed out of place with the feel of the rest of the film. This will most certainly get a run in the art-house cinemas later this year and is well worth seeing (that horrible expression from my travel diaries pops up again !).

The film festival is slowly expanding geographically - later in the year a sub-section of the films will tour regional Australia; and even during the Sydney fortnight, the festival now claims two screens in the George St Greater Union complex and one in the Dendy at Opera Quays. Next stop on the filmic agenda was Andalucia, down among the homeboys in George St. I'd assumed from the title it was a Spanish film, but in fact was a French film, which told the story of an Algerian immigrant, Yacine, trying to straighten out his life in Paris. This film can be accurately described as 'typical film festival fare' - with many unexplained scenes and random plot evolutions it's not at at all to everyone's taste. However I really enjoyed it, both for it's original view on life on the peripheries (literally and figuratively) of Paris; interesting characters (many played by non-actors) and particularly the talents and expressive face of the lead, Samir Guesmi. The ending (and link to the title) was really taking the piss though !

To take advantage of the weather, and complete the trifecta of festival venues, next stop was the Dendy in the Toaster building next to Sydney's Opera House (via a couple of glasses of bubbly watching the sunset behind the Bridge at the Opera Bar - a terrible day). On our agenda was a Swedish film, chosen mostly for my companion who was keen for a chance to practice her language skills. It was an inspired choice - I haven't laughed so much in a film in ages (much to the displeasure of my 'alien' a.k.a hernia). Du Levande (You, The Living) is a delightful series of loosely connected vignettes set in a run-down area of Stockholm. Initially purely humorous (and with unexpected outbursts of song, accompanied by a brass band), the film moves into exploring darker themes of history, guilt and human misery, while never losing its light touch and original world view. The soundtrack, credited to Abba's Benny Anderson of all people, is also a delight.

Finally (for this review set) a Monday film (once again accompanied by holiday rain) that was both worthy and enjoyable. Son of a Lion is an Australian produced and directed film set and shot completely in the Pashtun areas of the North West Frontier of Pakistan. The story itself, of a sensitive and artistic son rebelling against his traditional father is far from an original one; however it's in the telling that this film is special. The filming was mostly surreptitious; while the film makers had the full support of the villagers who appear in the film, they could not get permission from the government and needed to be constantly aware of interference from soldiers and officialdom. Consequently, most of the filming was done on a hand-held camera often relying on natural lighting (unintentionally following some of the rules of the Dogma manifesto.) Despite those constraints the film is physically beautiful; and with a soundtrack of traditional musicians masterminded by former Go-Between Amanda Brown it also sounds fantastic.

At the screening itself, which was the Australian premiere, we were lucky enough to have the presence of the film-maker, Benjamin Gilmour, and producer, Carolyn Johnson, for a Q&A. Unlike many Q&As at the Film Festival, this one was brief, informative and contained (mostly) actual questions rather than the usual festival-goer showing off. Modest, yet justifiably proud of their work, Benjamin and Carolyn treated us to amusing anecdotes about the filming and some fascinating background covering the inspiration for the story, the contributions of the villagers to the plot evolution, and some of the issues regarding the filming of women in such a traditional area. The film-makers were visibly moved when a member of the local Pashtun community stood up and stated how much the film meant to him. All in all, a great experience.

IMDB Links:
Son of a Lion
You the Living (Du Levande)
Andalucia
Quiet Chaos (Caos Calmo)

Sydney Film Festival 2008

2008-06-09T18:05:00.000+10:00

One of the highlights of my year (when living in Sydney at least) is the Sydney Film Festival; which kicks off on the June long weekend, promising 2 weeks of travelling the world via the cinema. Ticketing for the festival gets more complicated every year, but basically there are two main ways to see the festival - via a subscription which reserves you a given seat for one or two weeks (further split into day and evening streams) at Sydney's stunning State Theater, or by buying a wad of festival vouchers and then exchanging them for tickets for individual films. I've managed subscriptions a couple of times in the past, but lately with the unpredictability of work and work related travel, I've gone for the wad approach. Typically this means seeing between 15 and 25 tickets in a fortnight - and selfishly praying for rain on the long weekend so that sitting in a dark cinema for 6-8 hours doesn't seem quite so criminal !

The downside of seeing so many films in such a short time is the risk of the films blurring into each other, or even forgetting altogether a given film (or at least not recognising the title in the video shop or SBS guide !) I use two techniques to avoid those problems. The first is the Internet Movie Database; one of my all-time favourite internet resources (along with CricInfo - yes, I'm a cricket tragic).

IMDB is simply a database of pretty much every movie ever made, with cast, director, year, actor profiles awards etc, all nicely cross-referenced. User maintained, individuals can contribute reviews, add websites and make corrections to almost any entry in a manner that's far more prevalent now with the fashion all things Web2.0, but was quite innovative for its time. One of the site's features is the ability for users to give a film a rating on a scale of 1-10. The accumulated votes are used to to generate charts, including the all-time top 250, which is calculated using a top-secret weighted average formula (to avoid rigging). As you can see, several of the films have been rated by more than a quarter of a million users.

I'm not a huge believer in summarising a film with a simple score out of 10 - yet by voting on films I see (especially the more obscure ones), I have a self-maintaining list of my film going history which I can even share with the general public. If you take a look, don't get too hung up by my ratings; although I try and maintain some sort of consistency in my ratings, I don't spend too much time on it - as my goal is recording before rating.

Of course, a simple mark out of ten does not help me remember what a film is about (although the Vote History feature comes with convenient links to full film descriptions). Last year, in order to address that problem, I started writing mini-reviews of Festival Films I saw; posting them on my journal page on the social music site last.fm. One day I'll transfer the reviews over here; but for now it's festival time again, so my Cuba trip will be put on hold while I try and keep up with my film viewing over the next two weeks. I hope you enjoy travelling with me.

Snapped around Santa Clara

2008-06-05T08:15:00.001+10:00

Your Man in Havana

2008-06-02T18:46:00.000+10:00

It was with great trepidation that your correspondent arrived at customs and immigration control at Havana airport. The guide books and web forums were filled with stories of hour long interrogations; not so subtle requests for bribes, and particular scrutiny to check that expensive state owned hotels had been reserved as a condition of granting visas (which I hadn't done, of course). There were two other obvious solo travellers on the plane, so we hooked up together for safety in numbers. In the end we needn't have worried; but Andy, Janet and I got one so well together we ended up travelling together for multiple stages of our respective trips !

Customs safely navigated, we shared a taxi into town to our respective accommodations. The best option for independent travellers in Cuba is to stay in Casas Privadas - private homes that function more or less as Bed and Breakfasts. Although mostly legal, the Casas take away business from the sterile and over priced stated owned hotels; and as such are subject to much harassment and exorbitant taxation from state officials. I'd arranged to meet up with a fellow solo-traveller at a Casa Privada in the old part of town so I said a temporary goodbye to my new friends and made my way there.

The next day was the first chance to really see Havana. Storms the previous night had cleared the air and the city had a fresh washed feel to it. Apart from the historic old town (Havana Vieja), which has been renovated to within an inch of its life, Havana is in a desperate state of disrepair. Depending on which guide book you believe, 100s or even 1000s of buildings a decade simply crumble through a combination of neglect and corrosive sea water. The roads (outside of a few key areas) are pot hole ridden warrens; and walking at night-time (street lighting is at a premium) requires real concentration not to end up going for 6.

Havana Vieja, on the other, hand, has been subject to years of funding from UNESCO and Spanish provinces, and is considered the best example of colonial-era Spanish architecture anywhere in the world (including Spain). It's the only part of Havana many of the European tourists get to see, and as such is strictly policed and almost completely free of the hustlers and scamsters that proliferate in the rest of the city. While this makes for a stress free tourist experience, there is a slight Truman Show feel to this part of Havana; as beautiful as it is it would be a travesty to miss out on the real feel of the town, which can be found walking 10 minutes in any direction.

I also made a visit to the Necropolis Cristobal Colon (or Christopher Columbus, as we know him), Havana's main cemetery. I was looking for the grave of Jose Raul Capablanca, a former world chess champion, who was supposedly buried here. I failed in that search, but the scenic cemetery was still worth the visit - not least for the bizarre story of La Milagrosa, known as Cuba's unofficial saint !

Trinidad and Trains

2008-05-28T07:48:00.001+10:00

As I mentioned in my last post, Trinidad is a spectacularly pretty colonial town. While there are run-down parts, in general the historic centre is beautifully kept and worth a few hours stroll. The most common accommodation option for budget travellers are rooms in beautiful old houses built around interior courtyards, in a style similar to that seen in Andalucia in Spain. Ceilings are high, and the rooms are gloriously cool, even in the heat of ... early spring !

One of the unexpected highlights of the afternoon occurred at an impromptu rum bar on a footpath in a rundown part of town. The bar consisted of a folding card table, some rickety chairs; bottles of rum and much used glasses; filled (2-3 shots worth) for 1 or 2 cents. Staff, owners and clients were all men in their 60s or older. We pulled up a perch; and once we'd adjusted our ears to their unusual Spanish accents (and they'd done likewise to ours) we had a great afternoon chewing the fat and enjoying conversation with locals, motivated purely by mutual curiosity.

Apart from visiting the beach, and strolling the town; the main tourist attraction here is a steam train that runs through the sugar cane fields of the Valley de los Ingenios. The train trip itself was an authentic Cuban experience. Depending on who you asked, it was leaving at 2:00, 2:30 or 3:00 pm. At 1pm the ticket office closed as there was uncertainty as to whether the train was going at all.

Trinidad Ticket Office

And we were afraid that the train would be substituted for some more humble transport:

However we were saved by the toot; a puff of black smoke and a roar as the train finally pulled in (at 3:30).

The chaos was by no means over, however. There were no official communications during the trip; and although the various staff were happy to answer some questions, the answers were random, frequently contradictory and often wrong ! Thus, at the apparent last stop; the train lurched off up the valley. Those left behind had to wait 3 hours (in a one horse shit-hole) - luckily i jumped on as it was pulling out, mostly out of curiosity !

The scenery and experience was well worth it; however (as is often the case with tourist steam trains) the return trip couldn't go fast enough, especially after the sun set and we were travelling in pure darkness.

First Impressions from Trinidad

2008-05-26T20:08:00.000+10:00

Trinidad in Cuba that is ... I haven't jumped across the Caribbean. Trinidad is an extremely picturesque colonial town near the south (Caribbean) coast of Cuba, a couple of hundred km from Havana. I'm spending some Saturday morning time in the super slow USD6/hour internet cafe, prior to taking a steam train through the sugar cane fields that are in a valley (Valle de los Ingenios) to the north of here.

Cuba has of course been an experience ... not extraordinarily different to what i expected. In some cases it has been easier ... the soviet style visa controls at the airport have been relaxed; and getting into town was a cinch, especially after befriending the two other solo travellers on the flight. There is however the impression common to travelling in other poor countries in that you the tourist are seen by many as a walking ATM; and sometimes it's a challenge to stop that from colouring every encounter that you have with the locals.

The Internet has spread in Cuba since my guide book was written, but still only one or two outlets per town and beyond the reach dollar-wise of any Cuban not in the dollar economy. The government are still pretty paranoid about the power of the web: that big central computer in Havana must be getting tired monitoring all the tourist emails it has to read ! Power comes and goes so a rigorous saving technique is called for.

I'm now in a town called Camaguey for 24 hours, on my way to Santiago de Cuba, Cuba's second and supposedly most scenic town. Camaguey is quieter and not very touristed, which is great, much less hustling on the streets and more of a chance to see real life here.

Camaguey Cinema

The shops are nearly evenly split between dollar shops versus peso shops, and the peso shops are quite similar to what i saw in Russia 10 odd years ago. I've only managed to buy snacks and rum (which was rough as guts) for pesos so far; all 'meals' accommodation, and travel must be paid for in dollars. Even the local donkey taxi wanted dollars to take me into the city ! Instead, I came into town in a 74 year old ford (possibly and L-class), powered by a 10 year old Lada engine which was quite a cack ! The driver was a real character and popped into the first destination (it was a shared taxi) for a coffee while I waited outside in the car.

I also went to the beach yesterday for my first dip in the Caribbean, in a place called Playa Ancon. Not quite yet the April Sun in Cuba (originally written March 30), but getting close. The beach itself was pretty but nothing too spectacular; it was also pretty distasteful watching the fat rich Italian and German men cavorting with teenage girls - apparently the northern (Atlantic) beaches are a lot worse for that, but it was bad enough. The immense 50 year old Russian lady with her lithe African 20 year old was not much more pleasant either, but unfortunately this is a reality of Cuban tourism (not the independent kind !) at the moment.

Playa Ancon

We took a 'cocotaxi' to the beach - this basically being a motorbike powering a yellow plastic cocunut shell shaped two seat contraption. They're very inventive with the transport here and i've experienced most of them - including the 1950s chevvy that is emblemic of Cuba. I'll save the pictures of that for the Havana post.

Missing Monte Alban

2008-05-22T22:47:00.000+10:00

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

In the excitement of the escape from San Cristobal and the mammoth dash across the Yucatán Peninsula, I forgot to tell you about my first encounter with Mexican ruins, at Monte Albán. These ruins, located not far from Oaxaca, are of a Zapotec settlement, as opposed to the more famous Mayan ruins of the Yucatán Peninsula.

The Zapotec civilization pre-dates the Mayans, and Monte Alban is considered historically the first major city in the Western Hemisphere. It was founded in 500 BC, rose to dominance some time after 200 BC, and didn't lose its regional pre-eminence until the end of the Late Classic Era (500-700AD - as you all know !).

As (hopefully) you can see from my photos, it's a spectaular place to visit; as is often the case, best to get there early to avoid tour busses full of ageing and spreading Americans, and the Mexican sun.

Mexican Wrap

2008-05-22T18:31:00.000+10:00

Generally, western travellers in Mexico, even those on a budget, take the first class busses to get from A to B. The reason for this became clear to me as I took my first second class bus (if that makes sense) Friday out to the village of Piste, which is town that is used base to visit the ruins of Chichen Itza, the most famous ruins in Mexico, and probably the best - although I personally preferred Palenque, for its 'romantic' jungle setting, and more practically, for the shade that the jungle provided !

Anyway, the first class bus from Merida to Piste takes 1.5 hours, the second class one 2.5 hours. It soon became clear why, as 10 minutes after we took off from Merida, we stopped - in Merida still. This was the pattern for the rest of the trip, in every village we passed we stopped at least once, and normally twice, and locals would struggle on with all sorts of things (no chickens yet though) and then struggle off again at the other end of the village. In addition street vendors would regularly wave the bus down, come on board with trays of cakes, ice-creams, fruit or whatever they had, walk up and down the corridor, and then wander off ! The upside is that you get a real chance to see the villages, and gardens as you pass them, especially as the bus had to slow down almost to a complete halt before what must be the world's most vicious speed humps. I took very few photos, as I was sitting next to the people who lived in these places and felt a little self-conscious.

Surreptitious Bus Window Shot

These busses are also 'speed limited' by virtue of a red light and buzzer that come on if the driver exceeds 95. Travelling between towns, you get used to the pattern of waking to a beep, flashing lights and then a surge as the driver takes his foot off the accelarator, then puts it down again to repeat 40 seconds later ... very peaceful !

At Piste we were surrounded by a horde of kids, trying to shepherd us to a local 'posada' (somewhere not quite classy enough to be a hotel, which given what I've experience so far here in Mexico is fair warning). Obviously if the guys needed kids to round up suspects, the place was pretty dodgy, but as the other place in town that might have been an option was at the other end of town and hidden, we relented and went to the Hotel Posada Maya.

The owner showed us to our cells, and we were too tired to argue or look for others (we had slept the previous night on busses) so we accepted. The only other guests in the venue (the Texan documentary makers from the Chichen Itza post) said they had seen three other places in town that were more expensive and worse, so i guess we weren't too badly off. The perils of a tourist trap !

Not the worst accomodation in Piste, apparently

Our host, short, fat and topless, returned to his hammock, rolled up newspaper in hand, where he was watching a discovery channel documentary on mosquitoes. It reminded me of the Leunig cartoon with the parent and child admiring a beautiful nature scene on their television, while outside, visible through the window in the room, is exactly the same scene. This guy (thwack) whacked himself every 30 seconds to get rid of some of the swarm of mosquitoes around him (thwack) as he watched intently more mosquitoes on the box. I was glad of my malaria tablets and spray - miraculously i haven't been bitten yet (no Mexico tummy either). *

My cell had been recently sprayed, but the shower was ventilated with a hole in the roof (covered by a slab of concrete supported by bricks) which was a fairly inviting entry for our buzzing friends. Anyway, i was exhausted and managed to sleep reasonably well until 6am wake up - again to avoid the ruins heat.

There are, of course, many more tales to tell, but it's getting late and time for dinner, so you'll have to wait until the slide show(s) on my return.

Mexico has been a tiring but fascinating experience. I knew I was in for a bit of a rushed trip, in order to get to Cuba in time and that turned out to be the case, but only as much as many other travellers. I saw as much as I expected, and everything that I really wanted except some of the villages around San Cristobal, but the early departure from there gave me today's rest day which will be used as preparation for Cuba.

So thanks for getting this far, and you'll hear more from me hopefully some time (internet cafes permitting) in the middle of my Cuba trip.

* One of my Danish friends ended up contracting Dengue fever - we suspect from here.

Random Rambling ? A note from the present ...

2008-05-21T11:40:00.000+10:00

You may have noticed that this blog has changed names from 'Crapping On' to Random Rambling. Hopefully this hasn't mucked up anyone's reader settings etc.

I always envisaged that any blog I'd create would refer to crapping on somehow; as indeed I promised Brendan when I briefly mentioned the idea in Christchurch recently. However, a few days after the debut, I decided it was a little too self-deprecating - even for me; and mightn't encourage the curious to pay a visit. Hence the Rambling, which I like as it refers to the travel aspect - both in space (obviously) but also time; as well as maintaining the sense of non-thematic musings.

I wasn't surprised that Random Ramblings was a common enough blog name after searching; however it was a little disappointing to see just how common, so I may need to change again. I will wait until I've had a chance to get used to RR; in the meantime, any suggestions for alternative titles appreciated.

Documenting Chichen Itza

2008-05-20T18:52:00.001+10:00

Chichen Itza is another site that deserves its own post. Whereas Palenque takes the prize for the steamy jungle atmosphere. Chichen Itza impresses by the sheer size and variety of ruins. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Chichén Itzá (as it written in Spanish), was major Northern Mayan centre from about 600AD until its unexplained decline around 1000 AD.

Mil Colonas at Chichen Itza

Chichen Itza Detail

Pelota Goal

Apart from the spectacular ruins, my visit there was enhanced by the company of some American documentary makers we'd met at the accommodation, who kindly transported us to the ruins and back, both in the morning and for the night time light show (well worth it !). As naturalists, they pointed out some of the rare birdlife and fauna in the surrounds, and we joined in the chase for the hard to find Motmot bird.

Wildlife

The Elusive Motmot

The 'price' for their generosity with time and transport was our participation in 'interviews' - in case their documentary, about Mexican sea turtles, turns into a more general Mexican documentary.

More photos.

Palenque

2008-05-19T23:26:00.000+10:00

My favourite ruins so far deserve a post all to themselves. With their setting surrounded by the jungle, and in varying stages of disrepair, Palenque ruins are the archetypal American ruins.

What might amaze you is that the ancient Mayans worshipped a dog-like animal who has since been adopted by modern North Americans; and answers to the name of: Snoopy !

I've posted many more photos here.

San Cristobal Surprise

2008-05-17T18:45:00.000+10:00

In a previous post I'd alluded to my first brush with the dodgier side of the Mexican travel experience. Although I did indeed escape lightly it could have been a whole lot worse. It went something like this:

On our way home from the bar in San Cristobal (around 1am), my Belgian co-traveller Philippe and I were stopped by two men in uniform, waving badges and claiming to be police. We had been taking the recommended precautions, walking together in a brightly lit square, purposefully, two males, but it was to no avail, as the only other people in the area were taxi drivers in on the game (as were at least some of the local police). The 'police' attempted to strip search us and asked for money cards etc, being quite aggressive and threatening violence.

We eventually got away - giving the signal in French so they wouldn't understand ! I was grateful that I was wearing heavy boots - good for kicking and sprinting on cobble-stones, and as I had prepared for going out by leaving everything of value in the hotel , all I lost was a phone card. Philippe suffered a bit more, losing a camera and his bag, but we were lucky (after being unlucky, I guess), and we eventually claimed sanctuary in a hotel on the square, with help of an American/PuertoRican couple who were guests there (the guy on the desk wanted nothing to do with us). We spent the night on the floor of the hotel, and at dawn sprinted back to the hotel, then to the bus station and onto the first bus the hell out of there !

It was a shame, because it was a nice town, but clearly corrupt and we wouldn't have been safe there anymore, the guys (6 in all) were expecting a much greater haul. But we were unharmed and determined to stay positive and enjoy the rest of the trip. Here then is one of the few photos from San Cristobal:

So back on the busses, to a town called Palenque, that exists really only for the Mayan ruins of the same name, 7km out of town. The trip is less than 200 kms, yet takes about 5 hours, even with a maniac behind the wheel. That gives you an idea of the roads - winding twisting through
beautiful mountain scenery, small Indian villages and breathtaking views. Unfortunately Cyriana, and one of the danish girls sitting next to us were green for the entire trip, and couldn't quite appreciate the scenery. But for me the trip was a real highlight, and fired off some speculative shots through the windows (which, of course, didn't do justice to the scenery).

Outside Palenque (a very ordinary and reputedly dodgy town), on the road to the ruins, is an ex-ranch in the middle of the jungle, now given over to various accommodation venues, ranging from a hut for hammocks, camping sites, through simple cabañas, through hotel quality rooms and serviced apartments. Purists look down on it as a bit of an enclave, but we'd had enough of the genuine mexican experience for a while, so we jumped into a combi-van and headed out there to claim the last three rooms of the site.

I had a fantastic, peaceful sleep in a clean (and enormous, for one person) room, with only the noise of the jungle outside, and I woke up feeling a lot better about everything, ready for an early attack of the ruins (to avoid the suffocating midday heat).

San Cristobal to Merida

2008-05-16T13:48:00.000+10:00

Amazingly enough, my travel diary is all but up to date ... 10 pages now. One of the advantages of travelling alone is that you actually get time for recording your experiences. I'll extract some 'highlights' for you - until my hands get tired, or my credit at the cafe runs out !

Merida Doorway

I am now in Merida (same place as the previous post). I arrived here on Friday morning after an overnight bus trip from Palenque. This the bus trip with the worst reputation in Mexico, and i was hoping to share it with two Danish friends I'd met on my previous bus trip, for safety in numbers. It wasn't to be, so I waited for a couple of hours until they turned up on the later bus.

My first impressions of Merida were very negative ... Lonely Planet's charming colonial town was a dirty noisy crowded crumbling dump with very narrow and crowded footpaths, speeding busses and very aggressive street vendors who can spot a tourist from a hundred miles (and let's face it, two Danes and i weren't going to fool anyone, even without our backpacks).

So we did brekky, had a wander and went into the only shop that didn't physically try and manhandle us in, as the girls wanted to buy some of the hammocks that this town is famous for. This was the scene of my negotiating skills, after the guy gave us his final, already given you a big deal blah blah blah offer of 1800 pesos for the package', i offered 850 (the girls were willing to pay 1500) and wouldn't budge - bingo !

Merida is a few hours from the beach resorts (notably Cancun) and used to get many Americans, who have stopped coming since September 11, hence the over aggressiveness of the vendors. My opinion of the town has improved drastically today (Sunday) - the streets were closed to traffic, there are people everywhere in the main square, free concerts and even the vendors seem to have taken the day off (as i have, from travelling - two nights in the same bed for the first time in more than a week !). So come here on a Sunday if you plan to at all !

My favourite town remains Oaxaca, from where I last wrote. The pictures below might give you an idea of the feel of the town:

Oaxaca Kids

Miscelanea

I've posted some more photos here for your enjoyment.

That night I visited the museum, then saw a free concert of traditional Indian musicians from the various tribes of the area, dressed traditionally. The next day I took a tour to visit three places: El Tule, famous for its big tree (!), Tlacalula, famous for Sunday markets, and Mitla (main destination for me) for its ruins of a Zapotec temple and mausoleum.

Big Tree at Tule

Chooks at Tlacolula Markets

Stairs at Mitla

I'm not a big fan of organised tours but this was the only way to see all three places in a single day. Our guide was useless, and tried to divert the tour to another market town that sold carpets, and then rushed us through the ruins with a very basic guide that covered half of what Lonely Planet had to say ! Still, good ruins, and I got to meet Philippe and Cyriana, a Belgian couple with whom i ended up travelling for the next few days.

Next stop was San Cristobal, a colonial town, also a student town and the capital of Chiapas state that was briefly occupied by the Zapatistas 8 years ago. We arrived at 7 in the morning after my first overnight bus trip and found a place to stay, but the rooms weren't ready until after lunch so we had a nice morning wandering around in smelly travelled-in day old clothes, until we could finally shower and we took the opportunity to have a siesta.

That night we went out for dinner and found a great bar 'El Revolucion' with live music and a driendly vibe. Cyriana eventually went home (she's expecting in 4 months) and Philippe and I stayed out for a few more bevvies and songs.

That was our mistake ...

In the Mierda in Merida

2008-05-14T18:49:00.000+10:00

Welcome to part two of Duncan's travel dispatches. It's been a while since my last post, but between overnight bus trips, staying in the jungle, etc it's not been so easy to get to the keyboard. I can't blame a lack of internet cafes though, as they seem to be on every corner. In a country like Mexico computer ownership is not an option for many people so the cafes serve a real purpose, and are nearly always full.

Thanks to everyone who replied to episode one .. all replies read and appreciated. I haven't had time to reply (see above) so sorry, but keep them coming ...

I'm writing this from Merida in the Yucatan Peninsula. Tonight is my last night before i fly to Havana tomorrow (Monday) morning. I have been told that internet access in Cuba is rare, slow and expensive so i might disappear for a while.

Ok, first the summary for the impatient ones:

Food: getting better. Even tried gapuchines (not a Spaniard with a cold ordering capuccinos, but grasshoppers) which are surprisingly tasty, drowned in guacamole anyway. This is as close as i get to a Mike style scary food story.

I still haven't managed to order a dish without getting a bowl full of tortillas, but it happens to others as well, so I'm feeling better about that. While travelling the regions the food has got tastier and more interesting.

Corona: yes. Anyone who tells you how cheap coronas are in mexico is lying ... even in the dodgiest of bars you won't get one for less than 9 pesos which is probably $1.60 ish aussie (90c US) - not the 20 cents of legend ! The standard price in moderate restaurants is double that. My new favourite beer is Montejo, and the Modelo negra is pretty nice as well (like a classy Tooheys Old, if you can picture such a beast).

Tequila/Mezcal: yes as well. Mezcal is slightly smokier, from a different type of cactus and is nicer. Strangely even an order of beer always arrives with salt and lime, although i haven't seen anyone use the salt with their beer - yet !

Wine: no.

Coffee: universally disappointing. As far as coffee is concerned, the USA has won over Spain in the battle of the influences. Even if some parts of Mexico are now producing coffee beans. There is the occasional Starbucks-style cafe around, but ... well, it just ain't coffee !

Weather: bloody hot ! Reading my guide book, the towns I have been in recently have March average maximums of around 20 - yet it hasn't got below thirty during the day at all the whole trip. It rained last night (for the first time all trip) which was a relief, but it was straight back to blazing hot sun by 11am. This is playing havoc with the clean clothes and laundry schedule !

Transport: getting mighty sick of the busses. I spent a good 40 hours getting across the country to Merida (where I am now), and i'm glad i changed my Havana flight to leave from here instead of Cancun, a further 4-6 hours away on the coast. More about these busses in the detailed version ...

Ruins: yes, heaps and they're great ! I've taken too many photos of them though - be warned. Some nicely restored (not really 'ruinas' anymore, but that's what they call them), and some fantastically jungle strewn, with trees growing out of them etc.

Obligatory Mexican crime experience - yes. My (unusual for me) paranoia and preparation stood me in good stead and my losses were limited to one phone card. Don't worry Mum, I'm completely ok !

Jungle - yes ! No mossie bites so far, amazingly. Great monkey noises at night time but haven't seen any monkeys yet.

Prison cell - sort of. It was called a hotel room, but with the rotating clanging fan, naked bulb, swarms of mossies and concrete walls, you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. I can recommend a great place not to stay in Piste (near the Chichen Itza ruins) if anyone is interested.

Negotiating skills - managed to haggle 70% off initial offering price for hammock and jewelry (my Danish friends were buying). Haven't got much myself as i over-packed and have limited room, plus i really hate the hustlers.

Ok, more detailed than expected. Stay tuned for part two ...

Oaxaca and Mexico City

2008-05-14T12:22:00.000+10:00

Me again - how time flies ! I've already used 40 of my 60 minutes at the internet cafe - this 'long version' mightn't be so long after all ! I'll try not to repeat the summary too much - and no more whinging about the flight. I did sleep well on my first night. After I arrived about 10pm Mexican time I had a bite and a beer, and then crashed. I woke up at 8am next morning and thought i had jetlag beat, but i forgot about the dreaded second day (and the street party that decided to take place outside my window until 4am on the second night - thanks guys !). One of the highlights of my hotel room is the excellent bathroom, which just has to be shared:

Mexico City is an overwhelming place. From the air it goes for miles and miles.

I'd read so much about the crime, how they targetted tourists, how you should always leave your bank and credit cards in the safe, never take the metro alone, etc etc, that i found it hard to relax. I just wandered round the 'Centro Historico' on day one, visited the Templo Mayor (Aztec temple that they only uncovered in 1978 doing gas works) and the excellent associated museum.

I brought my camera bag with me, but wished i hadn't - there's nothing especially photogenic in the city centre, and it became just another thing to worry about, not to mention a heavy and sweat inducing load on what was the hottest March day in 50 years - above 35, and this is still winter. Next time just the digital camera and a bottle of water, and I'll leave the rest at the hotel - if i dare ! Anyway, here's a photo of the temple to justify the effort:

After my crap second night's sleep i decided i'd had enough of Mexico City and took the first bus out to Oaxaca, 6 hours west. Great bus, very comfy, and luckily the sound on the tele above my head wasn't too loud. On the bus I finished an excellent history of mexico I had been reading with a much better understanding of the place, and some questions about our own history !

My book contained an interesting paragraph about the American government, and how the Republicans in charge at the time were the party of big business in general, and the oil industry in particular; and most of their foreign policy resulted from that ! This in the 1920s.

Anyway, it was a great move leaving Mexico city. Oaxaca is a very cool place, full of colonial architecture and loads of Indian culture (16 different tribes, the most varied in all Mexico). It's also known as the home of finest mexican cuisine (although it evaded me last night), mescal and modern art. I took a shit load of photos today (more to come when the light gets better later) and did a fascinating tour of the botanic gardens - it lasted 2.5 hours which went in no time. They are in the gardens of the old domincan monastery (my next stop - now a cultural museum) which was a military base for 150 years. Gretat cactii, and did you know the frangipani was a native mexican plant ?

My hotel is newly opened so clean, an old convent (what a great move stripping the church of all its property in the 1860s) with all the rooms around a sheltered courtyard. I found it by accident, a sign already that things were on the up ! Next stop San Cristobal, but i have two more days here first, so i'll fill you all in in the next installment.

Greetings from Oaxaca

2008-05-13T23:11:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone from Oaxaca, a very cute town in the south east of Mexico. Saturday afternoon my time, Sunday 7am for those of you in Australia, so (hopefully) you won't be reading this for a while.

For those of you with time constraints or jobs, i have prepared short and long versions of this email (now post). This is the short version:

Trip - bloody long and painful.
LA Airport - see above. 2 hours of queues
Mexico City Airport - see above, with more pushing.
Dallas Airport - nice and organised (get them to run LAX) - but no one was drinking in the lounge (at 4pm) except me and one pommy guy.
Door to Door - best part of 24 hours.
First Scab - taxi driver, asking for a tip on a prepaid trip clearly marked tipping not required.
Tequila/Mexcal - not yet, tonight maybe (Oaxaca is the home of mexcal - the difference is in the type of agave)
Corona - no. Sol, and Modelo Especial (my favourite) yes !
Food - so far, disappointing. Keep being given bloody fajitas even when i don't order them. I have a nice place lined up for tonight though.
Mexico City - dirty smelly chaotic.
Hotel - noisy, mossies, itchy sheets.
Aztecs - bloody and violent.
Spaniards - likewise.
Temples - only ruins so far.
Oaxaca - rocks. If i lived in the states i'd come here all the time. Like the most attractive spanish town you can think of (most like Salamanca) except a lot more colour and a lot more
run down.
Next stop - San Cristobal, via Tabasco (not stopping there as the main town - Villahermosa or Pretty Town is apparently anything but). San Cristobal is capital of the Chiapas state, some of you might remember a disturbance there a few years ago. Apparently all is ok now, but we'll see. Looking forward to my 12 hours overnight bus trip - the cheap trips are 16 hours !

Original Date: March 9, 2003

Bartleboothing

2008-05-13T21:37:00.000+10:00

A while ago I found my old group emails sent from unreliable internet cafes in Cuba and Mexico during March and April 2003. It's a miracle they survived given both my personal and work laptops have died in the last 6 months, but they were still there in my yahoo sent file, rusting away. I somehow doubt my friends have saved them as great works of literature.

If I were to do such a trip again, I'd use a blog to keep the world (or at least those interested) informed of my progress. So I'm going to re-do my 2003 trip virtually; sharing it with whoever may stumble across this as I go.

The exercise is lightly inspired by the character Bartlebooth in George Perec's novel Life - A User's Manual who travels the world for 20 years, painting a picture every fortnight which is then turned into a jigsaw puzzle. Upon his return, he spends he next 20 years doing the jigsaw puzzles to re-create his trip.

I doubt I'll have the patience to do my Cuba and Mexico trip in real time - the goal is to get to know some blogger tricks; as well as maintaining a record of my trip for 'posterity' (whatever that means in the digital age). Knowing me, I'll be lucky to stretch the exercise over a week.

In my designs on posterity, I won't be mimicking Bartlebooth, whose paintings were ultimately returned to the place they were painted to be dissolved into blank sheets leaving no trace of his life's endeavour. Like so many 1s and 0s breaking up into the ether ...