A weekend on the road to Besi Sahar

We got back last Sunday from a weekend overnighter to Lamjung district, 120km west and 40km north of Kathmandu. We went to a small town called Besi Sahar where a Dutch UMN doctor has been working for the past couple months so mum and Carolyn (an American lady) went to see her as a kind of pastoral visit. So there were five of us in the jeep (mum, dad, Richard, Carolyn and myself). The jeep was definitely the most appropriate form of transport though the roads were generally in relatively good shape.

We stayed in the Tukuche Peak Hotel which was a basic but nice and clean trekkers lodge. The staff were friendly, the food good and the beds hard but clean. We left Kathmandu at 7.30 on Saturday morning and had a slow start getting out of the valley off the ring road. There is one road out of Kathmandu for all traffic going west. It is a one lane each way road that has been dug up at the main junction off the ringroad where there is a small roundabout and a stressed out policeman. The queues of buses and trucks go way back down the road and the minibuses and vans and cars and taxis and motorbikes are all unhappy about being behind them and so try to overtake the larger vehicles. This creates a second and sometimes a third queue of traffic on the one side of the road. At times this even manages to block the oncoming lane as the vehicles are unable to get back in the queue and still want to get to the front. A very stupid minibus driver managed to keep driving and went into a vehicle coming the other way (well on his side of the road). This of course caused a line of traffic to back up the road as the problem was sorted out with some yelling at the stupid driver who then proceeded to try and overtake on up the road in exactly the same fashion. We were a small vehicle too and it was much quicker in that second ‘lane’!!

Friday was a warm sunny day. It got very sticky in the jeep where your back touched the seat. The open window let a pleasant breeze in along stretches of road that cut into steep hillsides that were worn into valleys by a clay grey river which meandered and raged along its varying stretches. Other times the heat of a closed window was preferable to the nauseating clouds of black smoke that belched out of the orange fronted Tata trucks ahead which were loaded down with stones or large logged trees; or to the dust which rose along short stretches of unsealed road that reduced visibility to a few metres.

The verdant greens of the end of the monsoon vegetation accompanied us the whole day. From terraces, evidence of agriculture on improbable slopes to low lying paddy fields of vibrant green highlighted by the red sari of the lady working in the field. By the hospital in Besi Sahar we walked by rice fields where the ripe basmati gave off a heady scent that was so strong we thought at first we were smelling rice cooking. It was very rich. Apparently there are places particularly in the west of Nepal where the rice has not been planted this year some places because the monsoon never arrived and others because people have been leaving through fear of the Maoists. The lack of rice will soon cause hunger where it is the staple for the whole population. It makes the fragrance of ripened rice all the sweeter.

Along by the road we passed small clusters of houses where all the village seemed to be involved in the physically demanding work of breaking stones. The trucks in the river below are filled with rocks from the river bed by men standing in the water that almost reaches the axle of the trucks. The large rocks are brought up to the river and road sides. Here people squat under makeshift shelters of blue plastic or natural matting erected on four wooden posts and break rocks all day for a pittance to pave the roads as they stretch towards the west.

Buses full of passengers lurch around blind corners passing slower trucks. We saw a couple close shaves. Though not all are reckless there are some bus drivers who appear to take their lives, and those of their passengers, lightly. Along the road there are a few broken down trucks. These are marked out with rocks to warn other vehicles to give them a wide berth. When fixed the trucks drive off leaving their grave like markings as a hazard to other users of the road. I remember many years ago going to Kathmandu on the back of my dad’s motorbike and we were victim to one of these rocks! A good story after the occasion.

The green hillsides are scarred with red gashes like giant cuts where monsoon logged swathes of land have uprooted all the green and tumbled into the river or valley below. The road has places where the clearing away of landslides is still in evidence. On our way back in the rain we saw a team and their bulldozer clearing the road of some earth. They are very quick now at reopening the road. A little way along the road to Besi Sahar, past police checks where police in blue uniforms sit and check red coloured little vehicle registration “blue books”; past women carrying bundles of foliage at least three times their size on their back with the weight taken by a strap around their forehead; past suspension bridges which provide contact for people isolated by white water possibly cutting hours or even days off access to the road; past shops selling plastic containers tied and lined up outside, blue, white, red, green and yellow, we drove by a little old woman who was sitting at the roadside in the middle of apparently nowhere with bunches of bananas laid neatly on a cloth as the vehicles belched their noisy way by. A checkpoint manned by bored soldiers held us up for about five minutes as a young soldier took the opportunity to relieve the boredom of four months checking vehicles on a small road.

We stopped in Mugling to buy some fruit. It marks the half way point between Kathmandu and Pokhara and its main trade comes from the passing trucks and buses. It is a long street lined with eating places furnished with tables and benches holding people feeding on pre-cooked dahl bhat served on stainless steel thalis with water served in stainless steel cups. There are shops with piles of samosas, jalebis, syel roti and other Indian sweets; stalls with bananas and guavas; boys carrying round trays of neatly sliced coconut washed in tap water; makeshift stalls selling packets of wai wai noodles and chewing gum; carts piled with chickpea snacks and peanuts sold in newspaper cones and measured out in blackened tin measuring cups. This visible town front backs onto a busy invisible town of brothels, typical of an arterial town on the main route to anywhere.

As we neared our overnight destination we passed a stretch of brightly coloured houses. They were all typical of those built by returning Gurkha soldiers who invest their money in building houses for their families. One particularly gaudy one was covered in tiles, each one coloured from white to pink. A pastel palace! There were also more attractive traditional mud houses with thatched roofs and mud washed red walls. In Besi Sahar itself we saw the hospital which is still under construction/renovation though still operational at the same time. It was very interesting to see.

Having anticipated the good views of the mountains we had glimpsed as we arrived and hoping for some good photos I was rather disappointed to wake up to it still raining. There was low lying cloud with misty wreaths decorating the lower levels of the hillsides, the tops being obscured by thick clouds. The mountains were just a memory. Despite the rain we were fortunate to make it home safely, the hardworking road maintenance men having cleared the road by the time we made it to the landslide. It was a short trip but well worth getting out of the Kathmandu valley and seeing a bit more of the country.

We went to have a meal with a family who I am old friends with on Friday night. Frankie was a friend at school and the year above me. He is in Nepal for another couple of weeks so it has been good to see him a couple times. I got to see photos of their daughter Marilyn (one of my best friends through my teenage years) 's wedding. It was good to catch up a bit on old friends lives. Their mum Sangi was always kind of like another mum in that we were always at each others houses so it was good to see her again too.

On Thursday mum and I were both off so we went to a newish coffee shop called Jivin' Joes. There aren't many places like it in Kathmandu. After walking through a covered entrance you start climbing up these dark, narrow and dingy steps wondering what on earth will await you at the end. A very pleasant surprise to walk into a bright open space with terracota tiled floors, nice tables and chairs and even a few sofas. We passed a very pleasant afternoon there. We also met the manager who is a Nepali called Rajan who I knew (though don't have a good memory of) when we were about 7 in Pokhara and went to Sunday school! You never know who you will meet up with and where!!

I was asked to consider on Friday whether I would stay any longer to help out at KISC (my old school). I have been helping with the art for the older class. They have an art teacher in the pipeline but she is having trouble getting her visa, so I will just help out a bit next term, which means I will be in Nepal until mid - late December. I was open to my trip being flexible and expected things to change, I just didn't quite expect it to happen after 2 and a half weeks! I am quite looking forward to it, though it is slightly daunting too!

Better go, my dad is back and we are going to see a wee art gallery, try to find an art supply shop and then I am going into the school with a couple other teachers to paint a bit more of the scenery for the musical which starts in a week and a half!

School Days

Back in 1987 I was the first student to be registered for a new school that was starting called KISC (Kathmandu International Study Centre). A guinea pig for a new idea where we were being educated through self-study supplemented and assisted with tutorials. 15 years later it has changed significantly but there are still some things that seem similar. It is now more like a regular school with classes most of the time and it has grown with over 80 students now. The building(s) are also bigger now. However as Frankie, a friend from when I was at KISC noticed the other day, they still use the original school bell. It also still has a nice atmosphere and that flavour of an international school.

My mum thought it would be a good idea for me to help with the painting of their set as they really needed some help so I went out last Tuesday (just over a week ago). It feels like I have been there longer than a week. As well as helping with the scenery I have ended up helping with the drama part of the musical they are putting on, as the teacher responsible for this had to suddenly go back to the UK for a while. Fortunately there are others helping too!! I am also teaching the AS level art classes as they only had a teacher for one period out of five. So all in all I’ve ended up quite involved and have one day a week that I don’t go in, as well as the weekend of course. It has been fun though and quite similar in a way to the work I was doing back at home. So much for being on holiday. However I am enjoying it, they need some help and term finishes in a couple weeks after which mum and dad and I are going to Pokhara. We are also eagerly anticipating our Tibet trip in October.



“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life”
Jack Kerouac ‘On the Road’


Festival for Women

Monday was a day of reds and golds. It was Teej, the annual festival for women. They all dress up in beautiful deep reds and bold pinks with threads of gold weaving patterns through the soft folds and over the shoulder hanging ends of the saris. They look freshly scrubbed; their faces have been powdered and matching their lipstick is the line of red powder down the center parting of their neatly combed and well oiled braids. Many have fancy doree in; black or red cotton three standed hair adornments that are braided in through the hair and have fancy dangling decorations at the end. The women go and do puja at their local temples but many also go out to Pashupatinath, one of the big temples in Kathmandu to do puja. The vendors were out in force along the sides of the roads: there were men selling beautiful glass bracelets that sparkled in the sun on carts, there were some snacks, a man sat on the ground printing beautiful red patterns on hands and feet, there were some clothes on sale, there were lots of sheets of plastic laid out with stainless steel plates and pots of many shapes and sizes and there were gaudy poster sized framed pictures of gods and holy men. There were the requisite real holy men wandering around too wearing saffron yellow with artistically made up tikkas on their foreheads and their metal alms pot. Ever aware of the money making potential of a camera I am approached by a yellow robed holy man whose photo I take who sends another man away as I have already been ‘got’ by him. They are mostly there for the generosity of the women on festival day who will be in a good mood and wanting to notch up their merit by giving to the holy men.

As well as the religious aspect of the day the women are there for a good time. There are clusters of women standing around watching while those in the middle play the madal (a Nepali drum) and sing as one or two dancers move gracefully in the middle. At another group there is a number of men on the outside of the ring and a load of them on the nearby slope looking down with fascination at the women dancing, intrigued but yet still apart from this day where the women are central. It is really important in a culture where women are so restricted and still seen as second class citizens. It is also a day where women get to go home to their mothers. In Nepal when a woman is married she has to go to live with her husbands relations and often doesn’t get to see her family, maybe even from one year to the next, so this is an important festival. I remember as a child always enjoying Teej. We would walk up to Batulichar, the next village from where we lived, to where the women would all congregate on the village green to meet and dance and enjoy themselves. I loved the colours and the new clothes and especially I remember the hair ‘doree’ with their fancy decorations that I loved as a little girl. It was all so pretty.



Today I am off and taking the morning to catch up on some emails and read. This afternoon mum and I are going to head into town. That should be fun. I will just have to continue exercising restraint as I keep seeing lots of lovely, affordable things!! I will just have to enjoy using my new camera that I bought with the money I was given (for that purpose) from Oasis for my leaving present, to record all those lovely sights and things.

Musings on hanging out in Kathmandu

The valley is surrounded by hazy blue hills that in N.Ireland would most certainly be called mountains. Here they form the rim of the smog filled basin that holds the city of Kathmandu. Even in early morning the snowy mountains are still hidden behind a low lying layer of white clouds. By mid afternoon the blue of the sky is mostly erased by the gathering dark clouds that bring the downpour which signifies the monsoon is not done yet. The nauseating fumes of the manic Kathmandu traffic mingle to provide a healthy ride home. You can almost feel the carbon monoxide poisoning seeping into your body. Caught out in one of the afternoon downpours we decide to give up on the shopping and get a taxi home. After a short journey in a breaking down tuktuk (we are convinced he just didn’t want to go all the way to where we were going) we got into a taxi as the previously chugging tuktuk sped off. The taxi had a very wet back seat that left me with a very wet backside. Due to the many new one way systems in Kathmandu we went down through narrow back streets along roads with shops selling clothes, or vegetables, or meat with heads beside it (to prove what the meat is). The tarmac long since broken up we bumped our way along streets that had turned into rushing rivers as the failing city drainage was overloaded with an hours rain.

In the back of the three-wheeler tempo buses, the new gas or electric run form of public transport there are ten people squashed onto two bench seats. A pretty face with fuscia lipstick on looks out of the small window on the side and an elderly man in a Nepali topi (hat) holds his bag on his knee as he looks out the back door. Hanging out of the front is the young conductor calling out their destination to passersby who are all potential custom. He looks like he should really be at school. At the recently installed traffic lights a man on a motorbike talks on his mobile phone before the lights change. Further up the road the traffic is directed by a policeman in a blue uniform with orange waterproofs over the top and with white gloves. As he changes shifts with another policeman he hands over the all-important gloves and takes off the orange hood that he has tied over the top of his peaked uniform cap. The new man gets the sequencing wrong much to the frustration of the waiting motorcyclist who starts angrily beeping his horn.

Shops seem to crop up in areas. There are the usual little corner shops and quite a few more larger mini supermarkets than there used to be. Others come in groups. You know where to go when you want to buy beads, or shoes, or light fittings or cameras. The bulk of the nice craft shops seem to be on the Pulchowk hill near where we are living, though a few can always be found elsewhere. A new phenomenon since I was last here are flower shops. These are still few however and seem fairly well dispersed. There is a proliferation of food shops or wee restaurants which range from a hole in the wall selling a few snacks to some quite fancy places with every variety in between. No shortage of food to try and a plethora of shops with neatly stacked mounds of tempting Indian sweets.

In Thamel, the main tourist area, we sit and have a light lunch. My vegetable momos are delicious and a nice treat for someone who has become vegetarian since I last had meat momos aged 15 and really wants to savour some familiar tastes. The streets of Thamel are familiar and lined with shops that may or may not have changed hands over the past 11 years. Some shops seem expanded, others have different signs and some may have new things to sell. Essentially though there are restaurants, quality postcards, cheap and tempting clothes (which I have to mostly resist and which make me think of several friends back home), well stocked second hand bookshops, Tibetan carpets, bags, Indian imported crafts and shops which sell a mixture of everything. We wander with only the usual minimal hassle of a tourist area where you are the hope of a sale. In a season where tourism should be entering its highest numbers there are only a reasonable amount of foreigners around. The local politics of Maoist insurrection and a political vacuum and the regional politics of unrest in India and Pakistan have all contributed to the general flow of tourism redirecting elsewhere. Coming from Belfast a few small bombs aren’t enough to make you too nervous. There are small reminders of Belfast a number of years ago as our bags are checked entering a shopping centre. However there is no specific threat and foreigners are not targets. The political situation in the country is very sad though. Corruption reigns supreme and along with the violence is bringing the country to its knees.

People are on the whole as friendly as ever. Being able to talk in even very rusty Nepali is a plus. How nice it is not to just be an ignorant foreigner who only speaks English (as I will be on the rest of my travels). The men are dressed mostly in trousers and shirts, but the while some women still wear saris, many now wear kurtas (or Punjabi outfits). These are long tops / dresses over baggy trousers. They are colourful and look very attractive and range from plain cotton to some quite elaborate embroidery and fabrics. The long scarf they wear that hangs over their shoulders and down their backs gives it a touch of elegance. I myself am on the look out for a beautiful sari.

xx

After a wonderful Greenbelt full of lots of old and new friends, good food, music, dancing, hedge diving, bundles, contemplation and late nights (or rather early mornings) I got to finish off the weekend with a lovely lunch with friends in Cheltenham. The staggered goodbyes having started the evening before, continuing with a Belfast friends chorus of Jayne McConkey to the tune of Danny Boy and the Hokey Kokey and several other hugs, tears, prayers and blessings. The last meal over and down to three we made it to Guildford in time for a five minute turn around, dropping Stevie to the train station en-route to Heathrow. Andy dropped us off and I got the say bye to Mark on Andy’s mobile (having said my emotional farewell to my own mobile earlier in the day). Then there was Nikki and I, and after getting out dollars and buying some leave-in conditioner (the important last minute details) we got to sit down and have half an hour of quality goodbye time before I had to go through the departure gates!

Qatar airways was fine. We got our own personal screens and I watched a movie as I ate my dinner, mostly I slept though. The manic-ness of the past month catching up on me a little. The food was fine, I was sitting next to a tall tanned teacher who was going back out to Dubai where she was starting her fourth year at a private British curriculum primary school. She loves trashy magazines where she keeps up on all the latest gossip on the ‘stars’. They are apparently very expensive in UAE so she had a wee stack of Hello and Heat. Mostly we slept. We arrived in Doha at 6.30am their time and it was 30 degrees already. Getting back on the plane at 8.30am it was hotter already. Midday must be unbelievable.

We circled over the approach to Kathmandu for an hour. A little frustrating though I kept dozing, but he told us on the second attempted approach that there was a red patch on his radar. So we kept circling. Caution was definitely preferable to speed. Especially after hearing upon landing that last Thursday a small plane had crashed killing all 18 on board including 13 Germans, a Brit and an American. There was also a bus knocked over a hillside killing 45 (the first rock came down and killed the driver, the second knocked the bus over), and another at least 50 or so were killed in a landslide that washed almost an entire village away. A bleak last Thursday that helps keep things like an hour delay in a lot more perspective.

Driving through Kathmandu from the airport we passed a lot of familiar places that are the same and also different. It is a strange experience to pass places that are a part of your past and yet somewhat unfamiliar at the same time. Traffic is as bad as ever. Dad apparently commented last week that it is so strange that Nepali’s who are so laid back in every other area of life, get behind the wheel of a vehicle and just have to get in front of the car ahead of them. The Japanese have recently introduced traffic lights. They work!

Mum and dad have a lovely wee flat. I get the guest room for the next couple of months. I certainly slept well there last night. I haven’t gone out yet today. I may just have a sleeping day, but it is good to be back in Nepal. I have a wee feeling of not being able to get around as well as I should. I imagine it will pass after a day or so. I did explain stuff to the visa man in Nepali as it was easier to communicate than in English. It should be a good couple of months!

I will no doubt blog some more soon. I shall head to have a water conserving shower (Kathmandu has water shortages though experiencing the worst monsoon for many years!) and get dressed. It is 2.30 in the afternoon!

My days in Belfast are rapidly drawing to a close. Clearing out feels like it is the order of the day and I would like it to be done so I could enjoy my last couple days!! At this moment an unlikely prospect. I have yet to pack for going away but much is already sorted. I have had a very busy but also fun and fulfilling last four weeks. One week with 11-14s followed by two weeks with (75+) 6-11 year olds and then last week with the youth in Joel's Place. I had a really good week and enjoyed getting to hang out so much with the young people during my last week of work!

Many goodbyes. A few tears. Lots of kind words - treasured and unexpected. Blessings from close and unanticipated sources. Happiness and smiles tinged with endings and the unknown. Chapters merging.

It’s Friday evening and we have just finished a week of summer scheme for 11-14 year olds. It went really well. A very high leader to young person ratio meant it was possible for the young people to have a lot of attention. The best way.

Last night I was driving a minibus of girls from the girls residential I was helping out at, to visit Kathy’s new house out in the country. On the way we passed a long line of tractors. A gathering of vintage tractor owners, and I imagine fanatics. The men riding them were mostly older with jaunty caps on and proud smiles on their faces. We beeped the horn and waved and were waved back at! A fun day out for them and for us travelling in the opposite direction, but for the long line of traffic queuing behind them a nightmare stuck behind not one tractor but fifty!

Kathy’s new place is fantastic. It has great potential as she says but is already amazing. We saw instalments of an amazing sunset that seemed to paint the sky for a couple of hours. A fabulous panoramic view over hills and fields with an evergreen treeline. We watched and chatted and went inside and came out and watched some more: the glowing skies and wide horizons where the sun metamorphosed from golden white to burning crimson as it sunk behind the trees. By standing on the fence around the sand school you could catch the descent of the star for longer. As it sank its rays caught on the ivy around the top of the chimney and caused a couple of the girls to run in and call us out to see the soft sunlight dancing like fairy lights on top of the house. The world was bathed in a golden glow that gradually crept higher up the trees, lazily chased away by the bluer shadows of twilight. The final pastel streamers of light hung across the horizon as we drove back towards Belfast. Cana and I drank in the view from the front of the minibus and agreed that sunsets definitely were good for the soul.

The weather was sunny yesterday. An uncommonly summery day for Belfast this July. I had a long over due car wash. The foam squirting from both sides cocooned me in a candyfloss pink, blue and yellow world. The hot wax ran quickly in serpentine charades down my windscreen. A coating of illusory protection. My car shone in the sunlight and my wing mirrors showed a very clear rear world.

I was in Dublin at the weekend. I stayed with a friend Treena and had my first experience of going to see people playing Cricket. Merv was 'playing' so we sat with him having a beer and chatting. We left when his team went out to field. Nice afternoon but I wasn't converted to what seems a long, slow game. Did I say the word 'boring'?

I sat in a small cafe early on Sunday afternoon. It was a very small cafe and I got a seat at a small two seat round metal table by the window with my back to the door. The cafe was painted aqua blue. The trimmings were modern and silver. A large silver framed mirror hung on the wall above the wall length bar table, and reflected the vase of white lilies, only one of which had opened yet. Outside there was a small square table with nine sachets of white sugar on it lying against each other. One of them had been neatly opened with a diagonal tear across the corner. The waiter cleared them and the coffee mug rings away when three middle aged men came and sat down outside in the sun to have coffee and brunch. Three blond girls in red t-shirts sat at the far wall by the mirror and had a coffee before heading out to drive past in their t-shirts red beetle promoting a local radion station. I sat and wrote in my beautiful journal from Trevor and Jenna (made by a very talented Andy Harding) and then read some of my book 'The Art of Travel', also from Trevor and Jenna.

I went and saw my Granny. She was at home for the afternoon, Ruth had brought her out of hospital. We celebrated her birthday. Presents, cake, banner and balloons. She was alert and in good form. Old age can be a very undignified process though. She has become completely dependant. At least she can eat herself at the moment. It made me think a little about what it will be like to be old.

Last night I had to collect a boiler and teapot that we had borrowed for camp. I ended up sitting outside Clements on Botanic Avenue with Jonny Cunningham drinking a smoothie and chatting. Carl came by on his bike to have a quiet read of his book. It was never opened but we had a great evening.

Random Acts of Kindness. Experiment One. Conducted 11.30pm 18th July 2002. Completed successfully from our side. We handed out the random encouragements. Whether the people we 'made contact' with passed them on we have no way of knowing. but... We had fun. We were creative. We acted in the moment. We lived, and hopefully let live, a little. Success.

Some thoughts from books I'm reading:

“Against the infinity if the cosmos and the silent depths of nature, the human face shines out as the icon of intimacy. It is here, in this icon of human presence, that divinity in creation comes nearest to itself. The human face is the icon of creation. Each person also has an inner face which is always sensed but never seen. The heart is the inner face of your life. The human journey strives to make this inner face beautiful. It is here that love gathers within you. Love is absolutely vital for a human life. For love alone can awaken what is divine within you. In love, you grow and come home to your self”.

John O’Donohue (Anam Cara)




“The anam-cara experience opens a friendship that is not wounded or limited by separation or distance. Such friendship can remain alive even when the friends live far away from each other. Because they have broken through the barriers of persona and egoism to the soul level, the unity of their souls is not easily severed. When the soul is awakened, physical space is transfigured. Even across the distance two friends can stay attuned to each other and continue to sense the flow of each others lives. With your anam-cara you awaken the eternal. In this soul-space there is no distance”.

John O’Donohue (Anam Cara)




“In the Sonoran desert there are ponds. You could be standing in the middle of one and not know it, because the ponds are usually dry. Nor would you know that inches below your feet, frogs are sleeping, their heartbeats down to once or twice per minute. They lie dormant and waiting, these mud frogs, for without water their lives are incomplete, they are not fully themselves. For many months they sleep like this within the earth. And then the rain comes. And a hundred pairs of eyes pop out of the mud, and at night a hundred voices call across the moonlit water.
It was wonderful to see, wonderful to be in the middle of we mud frogs awakening all around. We were awash in tiny attentions. Small gestures, words, empathies thought to be extinct came to life. For years the strangers amongst us had passed sullenly in the hallways; now we looked, we nodded, we smiled. If someone got an A, others celebrated, too. If someone sprained an ankle, others felt the pain. We discovered the color of each other’s eyes.
It was a rebellion she led, a rebellion for rather than against. For ourselves. For the dormant mud frogs we had been for so long”.

Jerry Spinelli (Stargirl)




“Nowhere is the appeal of the airport more concentrated than in the television screens which hang in rows from terminal ceilings announcing the departure and arrival of flights and whose absence of aesthetic self-consciousness, whose workmanlike casing and pedestrian typefaces, do nothing to disguise their emotional charge or imaginative allure. Tokyo, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Warsaw, Seattle, Rio. The screens bear all the poetic resonance of the last line of James Joyces ‘Ulysses’: at once a record of where the novel was written and, no less importantly, a symbol of the cosmopolitan spirit behind its composition: ‘Trieste, Zurich, Paris’. The constant calls of the screens, some accompanied by the impatient pulsing of a cursor, suggest with what ease our seemingly entrenched lives might be altered, were we to walk down a corridor and on to a craft that in a few hours would land us in a place of which we had no memories and where no one knew our names. How pleasant to hold in mind, through the crevasses of our moods, at three in the afternoon when lassitude and despair threaten, that there is always a plane taking off for somewhere, for Baudelaire’s ‘Anywhere! Anywhere!’: Trieste, Zurich, Paris”.

Alain de Botton (The Art of Travel)

27th June – 2 July (England)
28th June –1 July (A field in Wales)

Friday the 28th June. I turned 27. Flew into Heathrow on Thursday. The flight served mixed nuts and I had a glass of water with ice and lemon. I am a water baby anyway and all advice recommends against alcohol on flights. That didn’t stop the people sitting beside me. They got on well with the airhostess who slipped them a couple baby bottles of champagne as well as their beer's'. On the bus to Worcester Park there was a longhaired chatty guy handing out questionnaires for all passengers. He was looking forward to going back out on the road travelling and used my backpack as a good flirting starter. Very helpful though…can I free your hair from your backpack! (?!?)

Friday 8.30am, Nikki brought heated croissants birthday breakfast in bed. Nice. After lying in the sun on the roof we headed to Watford. I sat in Wimbledon station looking after the bags people watching. Had a classic movie experience of watching a couple sitting on a bench across on another platform. They were part of my scene. A train pulled in and when it pulled off they were gone! I scanned the crowd mildly frantically and found them getting on another train. How easy it would be for someone to completely disappear like that. Random thoughts of a people watcher!

After a jump start on George (Nik’s van) we finally headed off about 5pm to join the Friday rush hour traffic on the M25. Solid traffic for an hour and a half. The five of us in the back (Nikki, Debi, Jono, Rob and myself) passed the time laughing and munching on a bag of food from Sainsburys. The two in the front (Nik and Justin) got to have the pressure of the traffic and then several hours later the joy of navigating around 10 feet high hedged lanes that suit one vehicle and even then at times are a squeeze. At one am we found a farm with lights on. Not the farm we were looking for but the one waiting for us. We never looked for the other farm again. We had found a great field with a stream, sheep, a friendly farmer Rob and his dogs, a beautiful view of being surrounded by forested hills and good walks. A time of relaxation and friendship and celebrating Debi’s (and my) birthday around a camp fire and snug in a van with the rain pouring down outside; walking through a small village and on a Tolkien-esque hike up a beautiful hillside and through the forest. We were sustained on our walk by a well prepared Justin who at an opportune moment produced a bar of fairly traded chocolate and a bag of peanuts, raisins and chocolate chips. How to be popular.


Jono read my journal and then I got him and some of the others to write entries in my beautiful book. (extracts)

‘We’ve been here in a little field 2 nights now; we’ve had 2 vegetarian and 2 meat breakfasts. Last night we had trout steamed with chilli, lemon and apple juice. Jayne and Debi made little parcels of carrot, onion, mushrooms and peppers in cabbage leaves. Yum Yum. We had baked potatoes and they were very nice. Nik played his didgeridoo around the fire and Nikki and I sang together. I liked it. We went to Abergeveny yesterday and I couldn’t find a water pistol like the one I bought in Wales 14 years ago’.

‘Great Wind blowing; Great Earth rising beneath our feet, filling our eyes; Great Sun, warming our skin; Great Water flowing by, above and beneath. The life of the Creator, Spirit of the elements, animating and sustaining all things in this place! We have been enriched by the peace and solitude of this place, the enlightening nature of the river, the inspiration of the gnarled trees, wisdom of the ancient hills, and the amusement of our following fleecy friends. The company of friends, old, new and re-acquainted; lives shared around the fire, stories told, food cooked in the embers; talk of farming, music, food, travelling and fairies! We sang songs of freedom’.

‘Our birthday weekend. Pyrgad, South Wales – Rob’s field. It has been so beautiful to be amidst friends – such a wonderful walk today – likened to the scenes in ‘Lord of the Rings’; a fellowship of friends; a host of beautiful greens with the occasional magenta foxglove breaking up the hues’.

‘Rustling trees, the swish of rain,
The stream slips by, bobbing through the rocks,
A blanket surround of green and blue
Ripple of laughter blending with the silence
Holding friendship with an intimate embrace
White fluffy friends watch on and time pursues tomorrow
Hold back the time, drink in the now
Store life and love in memories, for future days to come’.


We stopped in Bristol on our way back to London. Walk by the water, drink in an art house cinema bar and then a lovely coffee from a Barista on a corner. Talk of everyone moving to Bristol in a couple of years. I may end up with friends in Bristol as part of an arts collective. How fun would that be?!

I read this last night in Anam Cara by John O’Donohue. A book that is special to me and has inspired my painting, but I have never actually finished. I have restarted it and intend to finish it this time.


Beannacht
(for Josie)

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the curach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

I am very excited today because I got my passport through the post. Having sent it off on Monday to get my Australian Working Holiday visa and having been told by the website that this took 4-5 weeks, I was worried I had sent something wrong! But NO! I am now the excited owner of an Australian Working Holiday Visa. Amazingly smooth! My passport will go back in the post today enroute to the New Zealand High Commission in London.

It's now definite. No... "If I get my visa" or "I'm hoping to..." Quite exciting really. It helps with the packing up and looking ahead well. But, back to focussing on our video project with the Probation guys tomorrow!!

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far we can go"
TS Eliot


"He who seeks to find new land must first consent to lose sight of the shore for a very long time"


"One's mind once stretched by a new idea, never regains it's original dimensions"
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Sunny Belfast

I seem to have brought a little of the weather back with me. It's not hot but after a lot of rain the sun has started to shine. It is good to be back. I mean that! I think that because I am working through the leaving process I appreciate the opportunity to see friends more after having had a pre-travel trip away.

I have decided that I am going to enjoy work this summer. The leaving factors are all pull rather than push (there's that GCSE geography). I really love my job and plan to enjoy it for the final few weeks. So a full and hopefully fun summer ahead. I got back to find one of our young people (Dee) has become a dad (at 18). He is very proud! A little (8lb, full head of hair, dimple and his ear!) girl. 'Destiny'. Another one of our young people (Abba) has broken his back! It's always good to be back in touch with the lives of the young people I work with. They can be difficult but I do love them all.

My mind is having to also work towards leaving and travel. There is a lot of sorting to do in the house. (Car boot sale this Saturday as a fundraiser for summer camp so I will take a £5 table and try to get rid of some stuff). I blame it on my artist self that I always have so much stuff. I find it hard to throw things that "I could make something with that!" Even when I know that a lot of it will never get made into whatever greater thing it could become. It is time to invoke the long-distance help of my mum and get ruthless! I also sent off my passport to get my Australian Working Holiday Visa. Once I get that things will feel very much on the move! It does take 4/5 weeks though!

In the meantime I will work, play, laugh and dream on.....

BRUNEI

My last entry from this trip. I leave this evening to fly back to the UK. It will be an 18 hour trip from Bandar to London. The way out was very spacious. One of those flights where you get to stretch out into the next seat to try and get some awkward, cramped and dried out airplane air sleep, but sleep none the less! I hope for more of the same tonight.

They have purple buses here. One of those little things that excites me. A purple bus!! It costs a dollar for any distance of journey along the line between KB and Seria. I don’t know if it is the same around the rest of the country, but I know I get to the swimming pool for B$1.

Tuesday night there was a fancy dinner in the officers mess for some general whom it was a big deal for them to have apparently. My aunt did NOT want to go. We did however go for a walk along the beach so that we could get to enjoy the good bit which was the Gurkha band playing the pipes and drums. We were apparently spotted skulking in the floodlit bushes, but it was worth it.

I went into school to see Priscilla’s class on Tuesday. The children were very friendly and the girls all tried to sit next to me and were stroking my skin and playing with my hair. I was trying to get them to listen to the story Priscilla was reading to them! They were very sweet though and when I went in to meet Priscilla at the end of school yesterday a couple of them spotted me sitting at the picnic table outside the staff room. I was surrounded by about six little girls. “Hello Mrs. James” (which I had now become), “Your hair is so curly”, “Why were you not here yesterday?”, “See you tomorrow?”…

We were invited to Lal Kumari Guruama’s for a meal on Wednesday evening (one of the Nepali teachers). I had been looking forward to a real dahl bhat but it was even better than that. We had syel roti to start with which is a Nepali bread/donut style thing. Very delicious and I haven’t had it in years. We also had a couple curries and onion bhajies. This was all to start off. We then had the rice and dahl and veg! The meal was finished off with a plate of fresh fruit. We were absolutely stuffed but very happily so! It was good to be in an environment where Nepali was being talked. My Nepali is so rusty! It felt a bit awkward trying to use it, but it will still be there. I look forward to spending some time in Nepal at the end of August and getting it back!

We went up to Jerudong Park Playground yesterday. It was a thwarted Take 2. We had done up on Tuesday to be told they were closed on Monday and Tuesday. So, we returned yesterday (Thurs) at 3ish to find they didn’t open until 5pm. We went into Bandar, and it was already raining at this stage. The Regalia museum was open until 5pm so we got half an hour in here and saw lots of photos of His Majesty the Sultan, as well as his amazing very golden coronation crown. A cup of coffee and soaking walk through the puddles and pouring rain later, we drove via the palace (unintentionally) to Jerudong. By this stage the lights were on; bright red lit up roller coaster and multi coloured rides of various descriptions could be seen over the fence and through the wet and blurry windscreen. There were about 10 cars there and with Priscilla not even wanting to go on a ride we drove on, through the heavy rain, back to Seria. Not to be!

I have not really got to meet many Bruneians, but that is how life is for my aunt. We meet them in shops and even then many are Chinese and Filipinos. I have met quite a few Nepalis though! Our main time with a local was with David, but even he is Bornean and not Bruneian! The country seems very nice though. There is a not load to do and tourism is purported by expats to be lower because of the no alcohol laws of the country. Many people cross over to Malaysia for a liquid break away. With the prospect of oil running out in about 30 years the sultanate is looking more towards tourism, but it is in its early stages. If anyone does come through Brunei though, get in touch with David and go into the jungle, even for an afternoon! A definite highlight!

Saturday 8th – Wednesday 12th (Fri 14th) June

Negara Brunei Darussalam – BRUNEI ‘The Abode of Peace’

Bandar Seri Begawan is the small capital of Brunei. I’m sure it extends beyond what we saw but when trying to follow directions off a map of the capital we kept missing our turn because what looked like a reasonable distance was actually hardly any distance at all. There are a couple of main streets in the centre, which lead down to the waterfront. From here you can get into the afore-mentioned ‘flying coffins’, the taxi boats that race around the narrow watery alleyways of Kampung Ayer, the water village. There is a beautiful white and golden mosque, ‘The Omar Ali Suifddien Mosque’ in the central part of Bandar just by the water. It is according to my guidebook at the heart of the city and the sultanates Muslim faith. Apparently it was completed in 1958 at a cost of US$5 million. There are some shops and the ‘Regalia’ museum that I didn’t get to see but not a lot more in the centre.

We came back to Brunei early Saturday evening and made it to the Empire Hotel just in time to be served English Afternoon Tea. Priscilla and I shared one. It costs B$15 (about six quid-ish) and is very reasonable, especially for where you are. The Empire Hotel is what the Sultan’s younger brother is in disgrace over (or that and his drinking and womanising and general squandering of wealth). It is a six star hotel; huge, grand, opulent and yet absolutely amazing. It isn’t too much because it’s not tacky as it’s the real thing! The three tiered afternoon tea came with real silver. There are about five restaurants a couple of which are outside by the pool which spreads like a mini lake with coves and islands, just a few metres from the real beach and the ocean. Inside there are the best big windows – big doesn’t actually describe them. We arrived just in time to see the sun setting through them. The different levels go down three lots of escalators to the ground floor with open plan space all around. From the ground floor there is open space up to the ceiling the height of about three tall three-storey houses. One of the sides is all window. That’s the kind of big windows I mean! It can be kind of hard to know what to think about a place like that. It’s OTT, exorbitant, way too elitist, exclusive, extravagant and yet it’s also quite spectacular. Ah well, with rooms starting at B$500 for a deluxe room and going up to B$30,000 (about 12,000 pounds!) for the Emperor Suite (yes per night!!) I don’t think I will ever have to make a moral decision about whether I should stay there or not!

My aunt lives between Seria and Kuala Belait in the south of Brunei. The houses here were mostly built by Shell who still have a large presence here in this oil rich sultanate. As such it has a kind of strange feeling to how it is set out. It is very much like a planned suburb of neatly laid out houses. The houses fit the impression of a military camp in the way they are laid out. They are nice houses though and there is some variety in different areas (the officers and big bods have bigger houses!). Unlike the large built on stilts Bruneian houses we have seen in other parts of the country these are mostly more compact bungalows. I haven’t got a real feel for the community here but the military has a strange culture. It’s all about rank and position, not necessarily who you’d get on with. Even within the ex-pat civilians in the community it seems like a hard and not very constructive environment to have to live in.

My aunt lives in a nice wee flat in a block of flats. She is about one minute from the beach. Unfortunately you can’t swim here as there are jellyfish which if you are stung by one you will die in three minutes. Not really a good idea to risk i! Fortunately there is a pool nearby and the beach is a great place for a walk to watch the sun go down.

Sunset is incredible. It inspires words like stunning, amazing, big & beautiful and yet these flounder in trying to describe what its actually like: the burning orange, the reds and pinks, the blue and green and streaks of yellow; the red hot clouds reflecting the vanished orb of the sun and the smaller blue-black silhouetted clouds giving texture and form to the sunset. The scene conjures up images of kingdoms, myths and epic stories and yet there seems to be a simplicity in the midst of it all that can be missed. Sitting on a plastic bag on the damp sand with the waves breaking a fluid rhythm and the wind carrying a warm breeze I feel surrounded by the unfolding drama of the sky. It seems to be the bigger part of the world and everything else feels small below. An excellent way to savour the end of a day.

Tuesday 4th – Saturday 8th June

Kota Kinabalu, SABAH (The Land Beneath the Wind), Malaysia

Monday and Tuesday
After a relaxed afternoon and a morning around Bandar Seri Begawan we got to the airport in good time for our flight. After 45 minutes sitting on the runway waiting for a missing passenger his luggage was found and removed from the flight. Twenty minutes later we arrived in Kota Kinabalu (KK) in Sabah (Malaysia).

We had the first night booked in a hotel where we ended up staying for our four nights in KK. It was called the Promenade Hotel. Not the sort of place I will be staying when I go travelling but very nice. Not just a generic nice hotel, but it had that wee touch above. At about eleven pounds a night the hotel was not exorbitant either!!! The staff were very friendly and we had an extra-friendly doorman who was dressed in a shiny green outfit with a headscarf that looked liked a fancily folded napkin. He kept us up to date on all the World Cup scores after finding out that we were supporting Ireland.


On Wednesday we wandered along through the Filipino, food and fish markets by the harbour on our way to the buses. We found where the local buses congregated under a row of trees opposite the GPO. Trees become so much more important when you are in heat. There is a welcome drop of temperature in the shade they bless with. We went out to Sabah State museum. A fifteen minute and 50 sen (10p) bus ride away. The museum is set in lovely gardens full of examples of rainforest vegetation and with examples of traditional houses built out of bamboo around a little lake. The exhibition centre housed a variety of sections including a history Sabah; an ethnography section that included skulls from headhunter tribes; traditional artefacts including household items as well as weapons and musical instruments; traditional costumes and a small section of traditional and contemporary art.

Mobile phones are everywhere here. It is slightly bizarre to hear the same ringtones as at home. I have found myself hearing a text message coming through and though knowing I am not using my phone here still registering a trigger in my brain that the sound sets off. A kid was sat at the museum canteen playing with ringtones for over an hour. Some things transcend national boundaries.

We returned to the hotel to discover the swimming pool, sauna and jacuzzi.


Thursday morning our guide collected us at 7.30am. We were expecting a minibus and a group but it was to be just Patrick (our guide) and us in a car. It made for a very flexible and relaxed trip. Despite his name he has no Irish roots, just Chinese and native Sabah heritage. He turned out to be a great guide. He was very informative, chatty, patient and accommodating. Once he realised that I wanted to stop for a few photos he even started stopping at various places and saying “Photograph Jayne?”

We stopped at a suspension bridge, a local vegetable market village and several vantage points for a good unclouded view of Mount Kinabalu on our way to Poring Springs. All of these places are within the vast 750 square kilometres of Kinabalu National Park. We called into a conservation area where the milk Patrick had got us to buy was used to call Suzie and Vera down to visit us. They are two young orangutans. We could hear them swinging through the trees to come and see us and get their milk and fruit. After finishing hers Suzie reached out and was pulling my hand wanting to play! It was great.

At Poring Springs I went up to the canopy walk. You climb a hill through rainforest to get to the canopy walkway which is a secure but swinging one plank wide walkway through trees in the canopy of the rainforest (surprisingly enough!). A great place for a view over the top of the rainforest. After getting very sticky on the canopy walk it was a welcome relief to get into the Japanese style thermal baths of Poring Springs to cool off and freshen up. The sulphurous hot spring is piped to individual wee baths/pools where you can sit and soak.

We had a delicious curry lunch and then headed to the Mount Kinabalu Park entrance where the 100 climbers permitted on the mountain each day start the two day climb of Mount Kinabalu. We were happy to just see and photograph the highest peak in South East Asia. At 4101m it is half the height of Mount Everest. Here we were taken on a half hour tour around a plant conservation/research garden. Some of the plants were used in traditional medicine and we saw a few of the 1500 varieties of wild orchid (one that can fetch US$1000 and one the size of a pin head). My favourites I think were the pitcher plants. I like their form. The largest ones of these can hold up to three litres.

It rained on our way back and Mount Kinabalu was surrounded in swirling wreaths of cloud. We saw a great storm over KK as the car climbed back down the road that had taken us up into the park.

The same wee band as every night were playing in the hotel bar with an oriental flavoured rendition of western hits from the 60s with a couple Corrs songs mixed in.


Friday we got a boat to Sapi Island, one of the five islands in the Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park. We had a very relaxing day lying on the beach and snorkelling in the sea. I haven’t done a lot of snorkelling but this was the best I’ve ever done. There was a lot of interesting coral but it was the fish that were really amazing. A beautiful one that was pink and green and blue whose colours would be gaudy anywhere else; stripy black and white ones; shiny blue ones and black and white ones with a big yellow strip and a floaty fin. Just out past the coral there were shoals of fish that were all around. It felt like I was inside one of those paperweights with the snow shaken up and sparkling all around me.

It was amusing to watch the tour groups of Japanese tourists who were really enjoying the snorkelling but looking rather humorous for they all kept their life jackets on. This not only meant that there were all these matching little jackets and bodies floating around in the sea, but they kept them on while walking around the beach too. It was the matching bags or hats or something phenomenon of tour operators!

There were also some monkeys on the beach. The interest or novelty factor soon turned to nuisance. They stole my biscuits while I was away and poor Priscilla was trying to scare them off. They were in a gang of about 12 and quite aggressive and were not scared of any of the tourists. When a couple of the local guys came along though they backed off very quickly. Fascinating.

It rained on our way back to the mainland. It’s not a very long trip but they managed to run out of petrol. There we were. Adrift in the South China Sea! A passing boat let them siphon some fuel to get us back to shore.

We returned to Jothy’s Banana Leaf restaurant and had a delicious curry served on a banana leaf.


Saturday was taken up with shopping a little in the markets. Little knick knacks for pressies as well as the requisite little treat for yourself! We then spent our last couple hours at the swimming pool before heading to the airport.

Sun 2nd June

“What is the difference between exploring and being lost?” (Dan Eldon)

from journal entry:
‘Sitting – one of three people out in the jungle tonight. 26,000ha of rainforest – primary and secondary rainforest of seven different types; peat swamp forest, mangrove swamp forest, fresh water swamp forest, mixed dipterocarp forest (dipterocarp meaning a 2-winged seed), beach forest, heath forest and montane forest.

I’m sitting here by candlelight, sometimes using a torch to brighten the page. In so doing creating a cocoon of light that separates me from the vibrant darkness of the rainforest night. I prefer the more porous membrane of the candlelight.

It has been an amazing day. Our campsite is a wonderful location. We are about forty minutes walk from the car, which is parked on the side of an unsurfaced road which in places requires 4WD to make it up the loose surfaces and water routed holes of the red earth roads.

The site is a shelter of wooden trunks covered by plastic sheeting. Below are wooden branch slatted tables and benches and a wee set up kitchen area. There is enough seating space for the scientist and university student research teams who this place is mainly set up for. David (our guide) is the only company allowed to bring people in to this part of the jungle and tourists are brought in in small groups. There are a couple 2/3 person tents set up.

Down below is a small flowing river with a couple benches at this side made of branches. You sit and look up at a tranquil green scene of classic ‘geography lesson’ rainforest layers. I went skinny-dipping. It seemed somehow wrong not to. I was nibbled by fish the first time. We later fed the fish with bits of bread. They all came up to the surface and pulled bits off the larger pieces of bread while gobbling up the smaller ones.

‘Tarzan Dave’ or ‘Crazy Dave’ as he says he is often called has been a great guide. Interesting, very chatty, full of stories and as well as knowing the jungle very well hew conveys his love of it. His passion for the jungle and for the conservation of its wildlife is infectious. He is involved in all sorts of conservation projects from orangutans to turtles. He has grown up in Borneo and his knowledge is mostly self taught / learnt from the jungle having left school at the age of 12.

Being here makes me think of ‘Desert Solitaire’ (by Edward Abbey). Though a completely different environment, yet the state of ‘wilderness’, the experience and love of a natural environment in its natural state, somehow connects across habitats. A special feeling. A fragile moment. A wealth. A treasure.

The incredibly noisy silence. There is constant noise but apart from the occasional plane overhead and our voices, silent of ‘man-made’ noise clutter.

The quote for today was definitely, “What is the difference between exploring and being lost?” David did and didn’t know where we were. He tracks animals and enjoys exploring new ways. Wandering up steep slopes exclaiming about how busy this road was. A great person to go exploring in the jungle with because you completely trust him. He knows how to read the signs.

We made a hide-out from a few fan ferns and sat for about an hour on a hillside. It was incredibly peaceful. We saw a blue-beaked bee eating bird and a couple of Gigantic Forest Ants, as well as the ever present mosquitos, though we could hear a grey/silver leaf monkey a little ways off.

I feel full of information and experiences. I look around more and can start to hear more of the sounds of the animals.

A record of what we saw and heard:
We saw tracks / evidence of…lesser mouse deer; wild boar; porcupine;bear; orangutan.
We heard…grey/silver leaf monkey; hornbill; Borneo gibbon; clouded leopard; orangutan; red leaf monkey.
We saw…gigantic forest ants; thick thumbed pipistrelle (bamboo bat); black scorpion (v. dangerous); a type of leaf frogs mating; fire flies of different colours; a rare and very poisonous long legged centipede.
also saw…termite mounds (3 types); lots of bugs and insects; purple wild banana (no fruit); a yellow delinia – the national flower; a few types of liana (a creeper/climber of which there are over 300 varieties); pitcher plants.

There are over 100 species of snakes, 85% of which are not venomous. There are over 560 species of birds. There are over 80 species of rattan found in Brunei (2 are endemic – only found here) and there are 140 species of palme. (See why my head’s full?!)

I didn’t sleep a lot – not quite sure why. There was a mosie in the tent and it was noisy too. If you are going to have a night awake though – what a wonderful place to have it. The sheer size of the jungle is amazing and inspiring. It’s not permitted and would be dangerous as well as scary to be here by yourself, but it’s also somewhere that inspires me to want to sit alone…and just listen. I’d like to get some of the earthy, noisy stillness inside my head. There is truth here, and wonder. It feels almost tangible but still eludes me. Yet I feel blessed.

I am having real trouble getting used to working this. I edited my last entry but it put up the wrong one.

Sorry!! I have now sorted this entry I think - if anyone is reading this, don't give up on my confusion just yet!!