House-to-House

Fri, Sept 16th -- Shanghai... last day

2011-09-17T11:01:00.001+01:00

Sights: none, unless you count shopping as sightseeing :-)

Our last day in China was planned from the outset to be a free day...
our first since arriving two and a half weeks ago. We had a lazy
morning, then met a venture finance colleague of mine, who had
recently relocated to Shanghai, for lunch at an excellent dumpling
restaurant in a trendy area of restaurants, cafes, boutiques, and
galleries called Xintiandi. It reminded us of Quincy Market in
Boston, which was, my colleague told us, not unsurprising: it was
designed by an architect who also worked on Quincy Market.

My colleague's fund has a number of investments in Shanghai startups,
one of which is doing a high-profile IPO and another of which, at the
same time, is going out of business... so he is a busy guy at the
moment. It was interesting to hear his description of the business
world in China: in a word, cut-throat. The winding down of the
second company shouldn't affect the IPO of the first -- VCs always
have companies that are going out of business, it's the nature of the
game -- but in China such a thing if it became known would be seized
on by competitors of the company doing the IPO to cast doubt upon its
financial viability and motives for going public... and this, whether
logical or not, might spook potential investors. So, after lunch he
left to do some dancing on eggs.

Afterwards Madeleine and Lidia wandered around Xintiandi and
Tianzifang (another similar area), while I weighed the alternatives of
doing some more sightseeing, or going back to the hotel and reading
and finishing up blogging the trip. No prize for guessing which
alternative won out :-).

Around 8PM the intrepid shoppers showed up, having (as they had pre-
announced) bought very little, their goal having been to see what was
fashionable in Shanghai and to get a better feel for the city.
Shortly thereafter Bella arrived to shepherd us to the maglev train to
the airport, which we had decided to take in preference to the
minivan. The fastest train in the world, the maglev takes under seven
and a half minutes to go 30km from the outskirts of Shanghai to Pudong
airport, hitting a top speed of 431kph (268mph). It was
simultaneously exciting and underwhelming, since, as I had sort of
expected, you can't really appreciate the speed from the train,
particularly at night.

The formalities were handled quickly and efficiently, and after a
dinner of noodles and fried rice in the business class lounge, at
11:40PM our plane took off for the eleven and a half hour night flight
back to Munich. Our Chinese trip was over.

I'm a little zonked as I write this, a few hours after getting home
after the night in the plane, so I'm not going to try to draw any deep
conclusions or to generate brilliant insights at this time (unlikely,
I'll grant you, even when I'm not zonked!). I'll just give my spur of
the moment response to the question I posed, and gave an interim
answer to, before Xi'an: would I come back to China again? And the
answer is (Madeleine is going to love this): yes and no. I didn't
really have any negative experiences, other than finding the poverty
and grime off-putting, so I would feel quite comfortable going back to
China, but I don't feel like I either have to or particularly want
to. On the one hand, I had enough positive experiences, particularly
in Xian, Chongqing and Shanghai, to outweigh the initial negative
impressions of Beijing and Shanxi, but on the other there was nowhere
I fell in love with, nothing which I really want to see or experience
again. I'm glad I went, it was thought-provoking, I saw some
beautiful things, and many interesting things, but given a week to
spend in Paris (or London, or the Alps, or northern Italy...) or a
week to spend in China, I'd go to Paris.

Thu, Sept 15th -- Shanghai

2011-09-17T06:26:00.001+01:00

Sights: Shanghai Museum, 88th floor observation deck, Old Town, Yu garden, Huangpo cruise, acrobatic show, nightime walk along the Bund.

Despite the number of sights, Bella had suggested a later start -- 10AM -- so we were well rested by the time we got into the minivan the next morning. On the way to the museum she proceeded to tell us most of the things that she had told us the night before on the way to the hotel, so when we arrived and she proposed letting us wander around by ourselves for a couple of hours (saying that there were English labels and information panels) we didn't suggest that she accompany us to provide more explanation. A pity, because while the exhibits did indeed have English labels, they generally didn't provide any context or explain why the exhibits were important and/or interesting. On the other hand, with her version of the IvyIvy disease it isn't clear that it would have been better with Bella....

After a feeble lunch (not a tragedy because we had eaten breakfast... and buffet breakfasts followed by generally good restaurant lunches and dinners each and every day have been doing a number on my waistline -- as soon as we get back, I'm going on a diet!) we crossed the river to Pudong to be lofted to the 88th floor of a building for a panoramic view of the city. First, however, we had to negotiate a rather small revolving door, which wouldn't normally have presented much of a problem, had it not been for a gaggle of Chinese tourists (from the provinces, I'd guess), who were trying to enter at the same time.

Now, the Chinese, despite their many and manifest talents and achievements, have never learned how to queue, so despite the fact that there was no rush (the inside lobby was empty) they were all pushing and shoving to get into what should have been a one person at a time revolving door, with the result that, when six managed to cram in to one section together, it jammed. Sigh. I think it's about time to go home.

Eventually, though, we did manage to get in and up. For practically the first time during the whole trip the skies were blue and visibility excellent, so the views were stunning... except to the east, where an even taller building (another 22 stories, I believe) was in the way. And shortly the view to the south will also be affected, where yet another "tallest building in Asia!") is under construction. From which you may conclude that Shanghai is yet another Chinese city being modernized and developed at hyperspeed.

As in Xi'an, however, the urban planning department seems to be excellent. Pedestrian areas and small parks have been left along the riverside in many places, trees have been planted throughout the city, many of the new buildings are very attractive, and there are some lovely early 20th Century commercial and residential streets that have been left with plane trees on both sides. Shanghai, or at least the tiny part of it that we have seen, seems to be a very liveable city.

After an ear-popping descent in "the fastest elevator in China!", we drove over to and then wandered around the Old Town, a bazaar-like tourist trap of largely new Ming and Qing style buildings. In the middle of it, however, is a genuine Ming dynasty garden with a maze of paths, pavilions, rocky outcrops, and pools packed into two acres that achieves the unlikely feat of seeming much larger while remaining claustrophobic. The mid-afternoon heat and swarms of visitors didn't help -- this was one of the few times in China that we have felt crowded. Crowds aside, the garden was interesting, but not my style. I like rocks to be smoothly rounded and massive, points of interest in a garden of trees and plants, whereas the Chinese like their rocks full of holes and rough karstic surfaces, with the trees and plants as the foreground figures framed by artificial rocky outcrops.

One interesting thing that we did learn from Bella, however, is that the Chinese, among their many other superstitions, believe (or in this case, perhaps, believed) that zigzag paths are lucky because ghosts can only travel in straight lines. And just outside the Yu garden was a pool crossed by a nine zigzag bridge. Quite lovely.

Another superstition that the Chinese have is that the number four is unlucky. So, rather like with with the number 13 in the west, buildings don't have a fourth floor. But the Chinese go much farther. For example you rarely see a car license plate with a "4"... It would have near-zero resale value That is of course relatively harmless, but when expressed as an obsession with the healing properties of parts of rare and endangered animals such as tigers and rhinos, their superstitious nature can be very pernicious... Chinese demand for traditional medicinal remedies is one of the main forces behind illegal poaching the world over that is driving some species to the brink of extinction.

Next we took an hour-long cruise along the Huangpo River, with lovely views of the city from angles complementary to the panoramas we had seen from above. Here too Bella left us alone, explaining that it was hot outside on the open top deck, which is where we wanted to stand because it had the best views, and that anyway she had taken the cruise many times before. Not going to get the Guide of the Year award, I'm afraid....

Dinner was better than lunch, although not wonderful, and then we saw the acrobatic show which was. Wonderful, I mean. Cirque de Soleil caliber acts... entrancing. And we finished up the evening with a walk along the Bund -- the old European waterfront promenade that is the best place from which to watch the light shows on the Pudong skyscrapers on the other side of the river. Many other people, mostly Chinese, were doing the same, a few street vendors plied their wares, brighlty lit boats went back and forth along the river... and if it hadn't been for the incongruous larger than life statue of Mao, one wouldn't have known that one was in a communist autocracy.

Sent from my iPad

Weds, Sept 14th -- Three Gorges Dam and travel to Shanghai

2011-09-16T17:28:00.001+01:00

Sights: the DAM

Last morning on the boat. Last batch of 7AM announcements. I don't think I'll miss IvyIvy. We packed and I settled the bill and decided on tips. Our itinerary for the day kindly laid out what was expected from us (about triple what the travel agency had told us should be the maximum), justifying their figures with a crew number (125) that had to be at least double, and maybe 4x, the actual crew size. In addition they wanted us to compensate IvyIvy separately... which wouldn't have left her a rich woman if she had not had a conversation with Lidia in which she explained what a hard life she had (which we believe -- she seemed to work around the clock), and which rendered her human in our eyes.

After breakfast we set off for our tour of the DAM... by many measures the largest in the world. After the amazing locks yesterday night, I was hopeful... but once again it was foggy/hazy, so we couldn't see that much. For example the other side of the dam was invisible, which rather limited its size wow factor. And the already poor visibility was not helped by the fact that the viewing sites were set quite far back from the dam itself. What we could see looked impressive, but I wasn't blown away. And the information center was (typically for China) primarily focussed on selling us stuff. So, disappointing.

We were met at the boat by our new guide Daniel, who reminded me a little of a relative of mine who can't stay still -- always jumping up and down or fiddling with something. He didn't have much to do -- basically to ferry us through town to the airport -- which was probably just as well, because I'm not sure that we would have gotten much of interest from him if he had had sights and history to explain to us. We are supposed to fill out and sign assessment forms for each guide, then sign and seal them in envelopes (with another signature over the seam) and give them back to the guide to be sent to the travel agency. Few guides actually followed through on the entire procedure... usually withholding the envelope, which left one a little inhibited about giving unvarnished feedback. Daniel was the winner in this department -- he just wanted the signature... said we didn't have to fill anything else out. Efficient, I suppose....

The plane was delayed an hour (which makes three of four flights in China -- something to bear in mind if you are planning a trip there), but once again books and iPad made the time (even if not the plane) fly. In Shanghai we were met as reliably as always at the exit from baggage claim by our next guide, Bella, one of those ageless Chinese women who could be 25 or 40. Her English seemed fairly good, but what we have come to call a "Chinese conversation" on the way to our hotel revealed limits.

A "Chinese conversation" is one in which you ask a question, and you get an unclear answer that leaves you unsure whether or not the question was understood. So you ask again, with different phrasing to try to make your question clearer... only to get another, usually different, response that leaves you as confused as before. We went around three times on the question as to whether she had ever taken the Maglev train from Shanghai to the new airport before I gave up. We've had a lot of these conversations during the trip....

We ran into some traffic on the way to our hotel, which was on the edge of the Old Town in the center of the city, an experience that was repeated several times the following day. Although Shanghai has clearly been building and widening roads at a frenetic pace, it hasn't kept up with traffic growth. Lots of of lights and color on the buildings, lots of advertizements for global brands... the first impression was that it was glitzy, but we couldn't see too much in the dark. We checked in, had an OK dinner in the hotel, and then spent the rest of the evening catching up on the world after three days without Internet access.

Tue, Sept 13th -- Yangtze

2011-09-16T07:09:00.001+01:00

Sights: Gorges, Shennong Stream, Locks on Three Gorges Dam

We were woken again before 7AM by the dulcet tones of IvyIvy announcing breakfast (four times -- twice in Chinese, and twice in English). Since we weren't planning to go on the morning excursion to the nearby city, we could have gone back to sleep... except that we knew that there would be at least a dozen other announcements before the excursion left at 8, that breakfast would be cleared away by 7:45, and that lunch wasn't going to be until 1PM. So we threw on some clothes, had breakfast (with everyone else, none of whom planned to go on the excursion, but who had reached identical conclusions)... and then we all went back to bed. I'm not sure that repeat visitors is one of the metrics that the cruise ship company tracks....

We started the passage of the first gorge around 10:30AM, but I have to say that although I liked it I didn't find it dramatically more impressive than the river valley upstream. There were two main reasons: first, it was particularly foggy/hazy (as opposed to just normally foggy/hazy) so we couldn't see very far, and second, the dam downstream has raised the level of the water by 60-80 meters in the gorges, which perhaps isn't that much compared to the at times several hundred meters high rock walls, but which has eliminated any visible current, making it more like going through a fjord than a river gorge. On the other hand, perhaps it was just a case of having too-high expectations.

After lunch we went on an excursion up what was described as an idyllic side valley, first on a fair-sized ferry, then on a small wooden boat rowed by four or five men from the Tujia "minority people". The side valley and turned into a canyon and was quite scenic, although it too was much less impressive (at least in the parts we went through) than it would have been when the water level was much lower, and the men instead of rowing would have stripped almost naked and pulled the boat up rapids (as shown in the photo on the front of the brochure we were given...). Not the first time sights in China have been oversold.

And the idyllic nature of the area was also somewhat impacted by the astounding concrete towers (which soared at least a couple of hundred meters above the river) that are being built to support a new superhighway that will cross the side valley just before the entrance to the canyon. On the other hand, the construction was truly impressive!

The most interesting thing about the excursion was perhaps the thoughts it provoked about China's minority peoples. To start with, it may be a bit of cliché, but at least to this outsider they really do all look the same... or at least, similar: there's enough variety in appearance among the Han majority that (with a couple of exceptions) I wouldn't know that someone was a member of an ethnic minority unless they either dressed up in traditional garb or told me so.

Next, I suspect that for many members of minorities (with a couple of major exceptions, such as Tibetans or Uigurs), their ethnicity is irrelevant except in so far as it confers advantages. For one thing, it allows them to make money in ways that normal Chinese couldn't (such as by rowing boats up the Shennong stream... which may be hard work, but almost certainly is less hard and significantly more lucrative than working in the fields, which is probably what these guys would have been doing otherwise). For another, they are permitted two children instead of one (although this might be a bit misleading, since the one child policy was relaxed some years ago in the countryside (i.e., outside of towns and cities)... which is probably where most of the minorities live).

In sum, there may be pervasive discrimination in other ways against minorities in China, although I haven't seen or heard that this is the case, but on the surface it seems like their situation is not bad.

A last observation: we saw very little wildlife -- animals or birds -- while going up the side stream... and in fact we have seen very few animals or birds anywhere in China thus far, quite striking when compared with suburban and country areas in Europe or the US. Pollution? Hunting? Avoidance of noise? Too many people? All of the above?

In the evening after dinner we started our four-hour passage through the five-stage locks of the Three Gorges Dam. Each lock is 280m long, 35m wide, has gates over 40 meters high, and can raise or lower ships 20m (for a total of 100m). The scale is awe-inspiring, almost too big to take in until the ship was actually in the lock... along with five other large ships. I thought our cruise ship was fairly large... but it was dwarfed by the locks. Tremendously impressive.

But long, and with another 7AM wake-up ahead of us we went to sleep in mid-transit around midnight.

Mon, Sept 12th -- Yangtze

2011-09-15T07:36:00.001+01:00

Sights: the Ghost City of Fengdu

We were woken at 6:45AM by the ships PA system, thoughtfully piped into our cabins, announcing breakfastbreakfast (it was IvyIvy again), and so we (but not Madeleine... are you serious?) dressed and went to the restaurant. We had been assigned to a table, so we got our food and took stock of our table companions (who it turned out we were to sit with for the rest of the cruise). A motley bunch, but, it turned out, quite compatible -- the social interactions were perhaps the best part of the trip.

From youngest to oldest: a German student nearing the end of a two month summer internship teaching English in a Chinese Kindergarten in Chongquing, two tall and very blonde Norwegian nurses in the midst of a three month world tour (they had reached China on the Transsiberian railway), an Australian couple (the quietest of the group... I didn't learn much about them), and a retired American couple from Phoenix, he knowledgeable and charming, she funny, loud, very opionated (but not abrasively so), and very, very social (as she told us, you can take the girl out of Brooklyn, but you can't take Brooklyn out of the girl!). We laughed a lot and also hung out together when away from the table.

About half the passengers were foreigners, and half Chinese, which was good, because although we didn't mingle, it didn't feel like a "made for foreign tourists" experience.

At 8:30AM we left the ship to see the Ghost City, which was mostly a disappointment -- despite being a real Buddhist temple, it felt a little Disneyfied (an impression which was heightened by our useless local guide, whom we abandoned shortly after getting into the site), and then the rest of the day we spent relaxing for almost the first time since getting to China. Madi and Lidia got pedicures or facials or massages or some such beauty treatments, I caught up on blogging (I had fallen behind due to the hectic pace of the previous days and to the fact that I had battled a cold for a couple of days, which left me with less energy for creative work... yes, this is both creative and work!), and from time to time we sat on our deck and admired the views.

The Yangtze is a huge river, and even when it isn't going through gorges, it has cut itself an impressive valley. On top of that, there were many towns along the banks, with stunning bridges from time to time across the Yangtze... almost all of which (towns and bridges) were new, because the construction of the Three Gorges dam (about which more later when we see it) raised the water level all the way back to Chongqing... some 450km upriver... flooding many old towns and roads, requiring them to be rebuilt higher up the valley sides. Officially some 1.3 million people were relocated... but I wouldn't be surprised if the figure was much higher. Although the valley is not as densely populated as other places we have seen in China (the terrain is often very rugged), there were a lot of good-sized towns along the way.

All in all, I found it very impressive... and again I found myself reaching for fantasy and science fiction for comparable images -- I can't think of anywhere else that I have seen in the real world that is quite like it. The books that came to mind was Robert Silverberg's Majipoor series, set on a world with an immense, world-girdling river, along which the main character makes his picaresque way. If you have read them, it felt a little like that. If not, forget this paragraph ;-).

In the evening before dinner there was the captain's welcome cocktail party. I've never been on a cruise before, so this sort of organized social event was new to me, but I suspect that even if I had been on cruises, I wouldn't have seen something quite like this. The captain after being introduced by IvyIvy, stepped forward and barked at us for a few minutes -- more Japanese than Chinese it seemed to me -- before signalling the end of his speech by applauding himself in the best communist style (or at least, so I am informed by Lidia, who saw many such events while growing up in Romania). Then some of the other crew members were introduced, and duly applauded. Then the individual cabins and groups were called up to have their pictures taken with the captain, with a beautifully dressed hostess kneeling on either side in front and holding up a gaudy banner with the name of the cruise ship. It was all quite surreal....

One last thing: unfortunately there is no Internet on the boat, so this, and the previous blog posts I have caught up on, won't be sent until we get to Shanghai. Sorry for the delay....

Sun, Sept 11th -- Chongqing, boarding the Yangtze Cruise boat

2011-09-15T07:34:00.001+01:00

Sights: Dazu rock carvings, Huguang Family Association

After a short night we woke up and opened the curtains of our 30th floor window to enjoy the view only to see, well, not much, because we were surrounded by even higher buildings. Next door, for example, a 70 story building was being finished, but that, our new guide -- Alan -- informed us, was nothing special: the tallest building in Asia is under construction in Chongqing.

And that's the city in a nutshell: built, and being built, on a huge scale. For a start there are the two massive rivers coming together (it wasn't clear to me at first which was the Yangtze!), then there is the almost mountainous terrain upon which the city is built (from the rivers and the bridges the city rises up around you like a bowl -- so you can see much more of it than you can in a city built on flat ground), then there are the hundreds of skyscrapers and the massive new civic buildings, and lastly there is the sheer size of the central city -- some 8 or 9 million people, Alan said. Breath-taking. The only city that I've seen that is comparable, at least in size and setting, is Istanbul.

Alan was in his early thirties, spoke pretty good English, was friendly and helpful, and didn't seem to be infectious (but it is probably still to early to tell for sure :-(. I asked about earthquakes, thinking of the major quake a couple of years ago next door in Sichuan, but he said that that the city isn't in a seismic zone and had suffered no damage from the quake. Since, however, it is surrounded by two concentric rings of mountains (which is odd geologically-speaking... I'll have to read up on it when I'm back) there must have been some serious upthrusting at some point. Hope it's over....

Dazu is about two and a half hours drive from central Chongqing, so we had plenty of time to observe the Sichuan countryside. Well, technically it isn't Sichuan, but that's only because the powers that be carved off eastern Sichuan and defined it as Chongqing... geographically and historically it is part of Sichuan -- a large and fertile low-lying region with a strong regional identity due to being cut off from northern China and the eastern coastal plains by high mountain ranges with 3000+ meter peaks, and with a lower, but still significant mountain range to the east, and steep hills to the south.

Anyway, the countryside seemed fairly prosperous, at least in comparison to Shanxi (which we had seen from the trains to Datong and Pingyao). Like Shanxi it was being intensively farmed, with every little bit of land, it seemed, in use. But unlike Shanxi, which has large flat areas, much of the land seemed very uneven -- unsuitable for modern, mechanized farming. Knowing that the young are abandoning the countryside for the cities I asked Alan who was working the farms these days. He said, mostly old people. As they retire, I wonder what is going to happen to China's agricultural production....

The carvings in Dazu were more amusing than stunning, educational rather than devotional. Made during the Ming dynasty, they were intended to teach visitors correct Buddhist behaviour (such as vegeterianism, teetotalism, and filial piety) as well as the consequences of not doing so. I've not seen depictions of hell in Buddhist art before... very amusing, with monstors sawing off legs, chewing on body parts, and doing various other depraved things with those flawed souls heading away rather than towards Nirvana. Heaven seemed very dull in comparison.

On the way back to Chongqing, when not napping, I tried to derive the rules underlying the apparent chaos of Chinese traffic etiquette. For while it appears chaotic, we have only seen the aftermath of one minor accident in forty plus hours of driving in China, so I figured there must be an underlying order. As far as I could tell the basic principles are:

o smaller should give way to larger unless ahead
o drive fairly slowly under normal circumstances, and more slowly if there is the possibility of misunderstanding
o beep your horn if there is any possibility that you has been overlooked, or might be overlooked, by other traffic participants
o overtake wherever and whenever -- somehow it will work out
o do not wait for a gap in traffic when joining flow, changing lanes, or crossing a road: a gap will form without fuss (perhaps due to the importance of community and conformity in Chinese society, other drivers are remarkably tolerant of this sort of thing)
o pedestrian crossings and indicators are only relevant for pedestrians -- cars turning right or left over pedestrian crossings have right of way
o however, stationary pedestrians and cyclists will be calmly detoured around even if in the middle of traffic
o everyone is calm -- nobody gets angry
o all traffic signs and controls, except for speed limits, are optional

Totally different from Western traffic culture... the first couple of trips in Beijing were nerve-racking, and even after getting used to it I wouldn't have wanted to drive myself. But it seems to work well for the most part. Only the last rule is impractical... at least in cities, where there is the possibility of gridlock (which we saw happen in Xi'an).

We had some time before we needed to board our Yangtze River cruise ship, so Alan suggested we go and see one of the few older buildings remaining in Chongqing (what Japanese bombing didn't destroy in the Second World War, or was "modernized" during the Cultural Revolution, has mostly been replaced by high-rise buildings during the frenetic development of the last 15 years).

The building, actually more a compound covering a couple of acres, was built by a family association in late 17th Century in the early years of the Qing dynasty when Chongqing was being repopulated after the war that ended the Ming. A family association was like a location-based guild: families moving to Chongqing from another city would live with and be helped by former immigrants from that city, and as they became more settled and prosperous they would do the same for those who came later. It was a beautiful place, in which descendants of the families had lived until it was turned into a museum in 2003, with large and elegant rooms for gatherings both formal and informal, and even a couple of small theaters. As the excellent museum guide explained, much of the original furniture and art had been preserved by the families, who buried it during the various upheavals and then dug it up again when things settled down, and it had avoided damage in the Cultural Revolution because it was used by the Red Guards as their headquarters.

The museum guide made one of the few political jokes, or even references, that we have heard in our time here in China. I'm not sure if our regular guides are schooled against it, or if people in China (as used to be the case in Eastern Europe and Russia) are afraid to talk about politics with foreigners, or if everyone is so focussed on getting ahead and making a living that politics is for the moment comparatively unimportant, but we have heard almost no political comments during our time here. The joke came as she pointed out a perspective in which we could see the old buildings, some 10-20 story apartment buildings from 70's (many of which, apparently, were built without elevators!), and new skyscrapers behind them. "Qing, Mao, and now", she said, "and Mao will be gone soon". Respect. We liked the guide.

For dinner we went to a popular restaurant to have hotpot -- a local specialty we know from France and Switzerland as fondue chinoise. The place was full, mostly of locals, and it was cacophonous. The Chinese are a noisy people -- and have a great tolerance for noise -- and for them a successful social gathering is a loud social gathering. Between the fiery spices, the steam rising from the hotpot, and the din on all sides, we felt quite battered afterwards as we drove down to the river.

We boarded our cruise ship, which was a decent size -- I'd guess 150 passengers (although it turned out to be only half-full) -- let ourselves be upsold to one of the Presidential Suites (much more space and a private deck at the front of the ship... well, we told ourselves, we'd probably only cruise the Yangtze once :-), and then attended an amusing orientation given by Ivy, a girl hardly older than Madeleine who was the hospitality director. We called her IvyIvy thereafter, due to her habit of repeating everything twice when speaking to a group. At 10PM we cast off and surrounded by the neon and laser nighttime lightshow of Chongqing (that science fiction feeling again) we motored off downriver.

Sat, Sept 10th -- Guilin and travel to Chongqing

2011-09-14T20:48:00.001+01:00

Sights: Yang Mountain temple, Reed Flute cave, and Elephant Trunk hill.

We were originally supposed to fly out to Chongqing in the late afternoon, but while on the boat the previous day (and five minutes after Madeleine had expressed a desire to get up late for a change), we received a call from the travel agency saying that our flight had been cancelled, they had rebooked us on a late evening flight, and so our morning program would be shifted to the afternoon. We asked Madeleine not to express any desires for exciting things like earthquakes or typhoons....

So after a lazy morning in the hotel Lily picked us up and over lunch discussed the plan for the day. Basically the problem was that the scheduled activities wouldn't fill the available time. So we added a cablecar trip up a nearby mountain (and turned down a several times reiterated offer to visit a government South Seas Pearl shop (we did the pearl thing in French Polynesia a few years ago...)), as well as a walk around downtown Guilin.

It was, with the exception of the caves, a forgettable day. The haze was back with a vengeance, so we couldn't see much from the top of Yang Mountain. The temple had fallen into ruin centuries earlier and so there was nothing else to see up there. Elephant Trunk hill was just a stone arch next to the Li River. The walk through downtown Guilin was unexciting. And the meals were so-so. On top of that I had the impression that Lily kept pushing souvenir purchase opportunities onto us... and she didn't do a particularly good job of informing and entertaining us either.

The caves were impressive in size and in the variety and complexity of the stalactite and stalagmite formations therein, but the technicolor lighting (very Chinese -- they love color) was a bit garish, and the local habit of spitting everywhere is even less attractive in the echoing location of a cave.

So, all in all we were pleased to have seen the landscape, but we weren't unhappy to leave Guilin... or Lily... behind us.

We arrived at Chongqing airport -- a massive place, as you'd expect for a city of 31 million -- around 11PM, picked up our luggage, met our driver (our guide sent a note apologizing for not being able to be present -- he had a fever, but promised to meet us the following morning (we weren't sure if that was a good thing, but what could we do?)), and were driven to our hotel. In the night Chongqing looked like something out of the movie Blade Runner -- built on a scale far too massive to be real. We checked into our hotel after midnight and were asleep 30 minutes later.

Fri, Sept 9th -- Guilin

2011-09-14T20:46:00.002+01:00

Sights: Li River cruise, countryside visit

Our hotel in Guilin was fine, and after a good night's sleep and breakfast Lily picked us up and we drove through Guilin to the boat docks on the Li River. Guilin is a smaller city -- of some 700,000 -- and has the typical tropical/sub-tropical indoor/outdoor lifestyle with open storefronts and restaurants spilling out onto the street. It looks a little scruffy compared to Xi'an, and the town parks seem a little cheesy. But of course the city is not why one comes to Guilin: one comes for the landscape.

The area around Guilin is limestone, and something about the rock and the rainfall has resulted in the formation of thousands of steep sided hills, shaped like skinny watermelons, jutting at times several hundred meters out of the plain. The surreal landscape is one of the iconic images of China, and the boat trip down the Li River showcases many beautiful peaks.

We were fortunate with the weather -- it had rained the night before and the habitual haze had cleared somewhat, so we had good viewing conditions. Actually, aside from the nearly omnipresent haze and/or smog and a few hot days in Beijing at the beginning, we have been very fortunate with the weather on this trip. The only day that it rained was the first day in Xi'an, and then only in the morning and only lightly.

The boat, which could perhaps have seated about 125 people was half-full, with plenty of foreign tourists, and heavily air-conditioned. Fortunately there were several open decks so I spent most of the time outside in the warm breeze (the day was noticeably cooler and less humid than the night before). Sampans, sometimes made of bamboo, more often of PVC pipes (apparently the local authorities want to preserve the big bamboo stands), puttered past, water buffalo and their calves grazed freely in and out of the water on both sides, and a steady parade of tourist boats chugged down the river. I think I mentioned how popular the area is? And despite the parade it was a lovely cruise.

After about four hours we disembarked in Yangshuo, a small town that has developed into a backpacker and adventure tourism center. It was a zoo -- full of souvenir shops, aggressive street vendors, calls to come and see from all sides, and even some disfigured beggars. It wasn't pretty. After fighting our way up from the boat landing and along the main road we hopped into an open taxi for a drive into the countryside to "see rural life". Actually the tour offered us the option of renting bicycles or the taxi but "fortunately" I had hurt my knee again the previous day bicycling on Xi'an's walls (I'm going to have it looked at once we are back in Germany) and so we took the taxi. "Fortunately" because it was a hot and humid mid-afternoon, the traffic was heavy for a few kilometers along the main road until we turned off along a country lane, and the lane afterwards was appallingly bumpy: we wouldn't have had fun if we had cycled.

And suddenly we were in the deep countryside. Small plots of land on each side, some flooded (growing rice, lotuses (the roots are edible), and water chestnuts), some dry with all manner of crops. Many of the houses were still made of mud brick (although new brick and concrete ones were being erected here and there). There was even a farmer ploughing a small plot with a water buffalo. And at one corner there was a gaggle of old and not so old peasant women who punced upon the taxi and tried to sell us things. When that failed, they started to beg. Lidia, always empathic and with a good heart, wanted to give them something, but once she did their begging rose to a fever pitch and she was mobbed... she was almost crying at the end, so buffeted was she emotionally, and so bad she felt for not being able to help them more. I pointed out to her as we drove away that before she goes to India she is going to have to find a way to deal with her emotions as regards beggars... because if she starts to distribute money there, they will gather like flies, and she will end up being buried alive and/or torn apart: there is no end to beggars in India.

We drove off with the women running and screaming behind us, but they soon gave up, and after a few minutes more we turned into the yard of a small farm on the edge of a village. The tour company has an arrangement with the owner of this farm, a widow with more than a little business acumen (she had managed to bring up five children on her own after her husband died young, and now she has struck this deal...), that she keep it more or less in its original rural state (the "less" being the flatscreen TV on the wall of the main room) and welcome tourists like ourselves. In other words, it was real and not real, if you know what I mean.

There was a hand-powered stone mill outside, a similarly powered water pump, pigs in a pen, chickens wandering around, and a small market garden, while inside the walls were bare except for the aforementioned TV, cheap portraits of communist luminary (ultimately farmers did pretty well out of communist land reform compared to their previous status as serfs), and little pictures drawn by her grandchildren. Jars with pickled produce of various sorts and home-made spirits, lined the walls, and there was the absolute minimum of furniture. There was electricity (rural electrification was another major achievement of the Party), and in the kitchen she cooked with gas (produced from decomposing pig manure we were told!). Felt very authentic overall.

It had taken us perhaps 20 minutes along very bumpy roads to get to the farm, and I wasn't looking forward to doing them again, nor to seeing the peasant women once more, but I had a feeling that we might have taken a roundabout route to "set the scene". And indeed when we left the farm it took all of two minutes, along a well-surfaced lane, to get back to the main road. So, file this under "most things in China are both what they seem and not", along with the Xi'an Ming walls I talked about yesterday.

We drove back to the hotel and had dinner with a very nice Indian couple we had met and talked with on the boat earlier in the day. From New Delhi, well educated and with two daughters married and living in the USA, the conversation ranged widely and it was a charming evening.

Thu, Sept 8th -- Xi'an and travel to Guilin

2011-09-14T20:45:00.000+01:00

Sights: Xian City Walls, Great Mosque

After a jam-packed day yesterday we were pleased to have a more relaxed program today. Our first stop was at the imposing Ming dynasty city walls -- 15+ meters high and 12 meters wide at the top -- that completely surround the old city (they are 17 km long). Actually, although they are called "Ming dynasty", like many things in China their actual age is a matter of definition. They were originally built in the Ming (1368-1644) but large stretches had become half-ruined, or even dismantled entirely, prior to being renovated and rebuilt in recent years. So, are they Ming or modern?

And if you think the answer is Ming, what about the Tang imperial palace -- four times larger than the Forbidden City in Beijing -- that has recently been rebuilt north of the city? It was apparently so completely ruined that it was rebuilt from foundation traces and contemporary pictures and documents... one can't talk about renovation here. So, is it new or is it Tang? And in many temples the cult buildings are made of wood with tile roofs... which are regularly rebuilt after destruction by fire or rot. How old are they?

It seems to me that in some ways the question "how old" doesn't really make sense for many things in China, and after a while one gives up asking it and just learns to recognize period styles. At any rate, the Chinese don't seem to worry much about whether or not something is original or rebuilt... the Tang palace mentioned above is a major attraction for Chinese tourists (although apparently not (yet?) for Westerners...).

Interesting side note (or, at any rate, interesting to me) -- I've never been that concerned about the antiquity or lack thereof of things I own. I'm just as happy with a new edition of an old work as I would be with a first edition; it makes no difference for me whether a piece of furniture is antique or a modern reproduction (as long as the quality is the same). I must be Chinese at heart :-).

Returning to the walls... very impressive. We rented bicycles (Madeleine and Koko initially sharing a tandem and much laughter -- they are about the same age) and rode along the top of the wall enjoying the views on the inside and the outside. The walls are surrounded by a wide moat, full of water, set within a beautifully landscaped park... just well done, like many other things seen and glimpsed in Xi'an.

Afterwards we had lunch and then drove to the Great Mosque in the center of the city, which, it turns out, is an Islamic quarter (there are about 40,000 Muslims in Xi'an). Once again, very interesting... although this time less for what it was than for what it wasn't: at first look, one doesn't realize that it is a mosque. Architecturally it is very similar to Daoist and Buddhist temples. And then one notices the occasional piece of Arabic script (among the many Chinese inscriptions), and the absence of figurative sculpture, then one sees the washroom.... Apparently when Islam came to China the then Emperor was unconcerned about the religious choices of his subjects... but he cared a great deal about aesthetics. "You can worship who you want, but you'll do it in my architecture" seems to have been his attitude! Says something quite profound about China, actually.

And then it was time to leave Xi'an and, more difficult, to say goodbye to Koko. We really bonded with her over the course of the two days we spent there -- such a sunny character, full of youthful energy but suprisingly wise in many ways. I think we would have liked Xi'an anyway, but Xi'an with Koko we loved. We exchanged cards, promised to stay in touch, and separated with a few tears on both sides.

The flight to Guilin was delayed an hour or so, as Koko had said it probably would be -- the airline (one of several domestic ones) apparently having a poor reputation for being ontime -- but with books and the iPad we weren't bored. There were many other foreigners on the flight... the first time since Beijing that we had seen more than the occasional Westerner: Xi'an and Guilin are two of the "must see" destinations on any tour of China and tourists often make up a significant proportion of the airline passengers between the two cities. In Guilin we were met by our new local guide, Lily, a Chinese woman in her mid-forties, married to an American from Oregon, who did not impress at first, or, unfortunately, later. We came out of the terminal into the late evening and ran into a stifling wall of hot humidity... Miami in summer, we said to one another. Already we missed Xi'an.

Weds, Sept 7th -- Xi'an

2011-09-14T20:43:00.001+01:00

Sights: a government souvenir factory, the Terracotta Warriors, the Shaanxi Province museum, the Great Wild Goose Pagoda temple, and the Tang Dynasty Music and Dance Show. In other words, a very full day!

Koko picked us up after breakfast and we headed off to the Terracotta Warriors (or, in Koko-speak, the "Turtle" Warriors... there were a few words she had difficulty with :-). This is one of several sights around the world that tout themselves as being the Eighth Wonder... but Xi'an really has a good case to make. More than 8000 larger than life-size pottery statues of soldiers have been unearthed at the burial site of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi -- the first ruler of a united China. But before I talk more about them there is the drive through Xi'an and the government souvenir factory visit to recount.

I like Xi'an! It is furiously modernizing like other large Chinese cities, but here the old seems less run down and the new seems more harmonious. There is a lot of green -- trees and parks -- and the overall impression is of elegant relative prosperity. Very different from Beijing. Perhaps it is just further along the path of modernization, but I don't think that that is the explanation. I may be anthropomorphizing, but it feels to me as if being the capital city of 13 dynasties over 1100 years has left Xi'an with a combination of relaxed self-confidence and good taste that the other cities we have seen so far in China just don't have. Of course, the revenues from the streams of tourists coming to see the Terracotta Warriors probably don't hurt either....

Before we got to the excavation site, we stopped at a dingy-looking building, ostensibly because there one can see scale reproductions of the terracotta warriors being made with the same techniques that were used over two thousand years ago. In reality, of course, it was a shopping opportunity. Our tour company has actually handled that aspect of things pretty well overall -- taking us to a fairly high-class and (important in China!) reputable shop every few days, usually with some sort of educational spin. And despite its dingy exterior the government souvenir shop was actually very good indeed, with some beautiful furniture that, had we had more time and measurements from home, we would have been sorely tempted to buy.

And now, ladies and gentlemen... the Terracotta Warriors! Stunning. First you walk along winding stone paths through beautifully landscaped grounds, then you come upon several large buildings. You go in the first and there, in front of you, in serried ranks in partially excavated pits under an arching roof as big as a football stadium, are thousands of 2+ meter high clay figures. Each figure has a different face, both in features and expression, and there are many different body types. Archaeologists believe that the figures are modelled on real soldiers in the Qin Emperor's army, and they are all lined up facing his tomb mound a few kilometers away, ready to accompany him in the afterlife.

That tomb mound is also fascinating, because despite knowing exactly where it is, and despite having historical accounts testifying to the wonders that are interred within, it has not been excavated. The official reason is that archaeological techniques are insufficiently advanced to guarantee the preservation and protection of what would be unearthed. Apparently the clay figures come out of the ground brightly painted, but almost all of the paint quickly flakes off when exposed to oxygen and humidity, and they want to avoid similar things happening when they open up the tomb. And, who knows, this might indeed be the real reason. But the self-control required of Chinese archaeologists, or, perhaps more likely, their acquiescence when faced with the dictatorial powers invested in the long-tenured site director who refuses to allow the dig to commence, is remarkable.

The Terracotta Warriors were found by chance some 37 years ago by a group of farmers sinking a well. They -- and we -- were very lucky: had the well been 3 meters to one side, it would have missed the pit and the soldiers might still be slumbering underground. Unlike with the emperor's tomb, there were no contemporary accounts of the Warriors that might have led archaeologists to search for them. They actually have no idea how many soldiers are still underground... they have identified over 50 pits... but only a few have been excavated so far. The whole complex, including the tomb mound itself, may be over 50 square kilometers large... the vast majority of which has yet to be explored. The emperor was clearly a world-class megalomaniac. Pretty damn impressive.

On the way back into town to go to the Shaanxi Province museum we stopped for lunch, which was once again very good. Actually, as with shopping opportunities, this is another thing that the tour company has done very well. The tour price includes lunches most days, but rather than pre-ordering fixed "take it or leave it" meals, instead the agency has selected good clean restaurants, set a per-head budget, and then lets us order a la carte from the menu. If we go over the budget, we pay the difference... but the amounts have been so generous that we have, I think, only gone over once... and since we are always trying new things, we usually end up leaving food on the table. It's an excellent system, and we have been very pleased with the quality (and taste!) of almost all of the food we have ordered.

The museum was large, modern, with a good collection and well laid out, but it paled a little in comparison with the sights before and after. The most interesting thing, for me, was how similar the development of Chinese civilization seems to have been to the apparently independent and roughly contemporaneous development of civilization in the Middle East and Meso-America. Why, despite being anatomically modern tool-makers with rituals and art some 50,000 years ago, was it only several thousand years ago that more or less at the same time multiple geographically dispersed groups of humans began putting together the technologies that enable modern civilization (phew! Long sentence...)? Did climatic factors block earlier development (but in places as far apart as Mexico, Egypt, and China?)? Or did it take that long for genetic selection to produce sufficiently sophisticated intelligence (but in parallel in different isolated populations?)? Or were the initial discoveries so unlikely that it took over 40,000 years for someone to make them (in the Middle East), and then subsequently there much more interchange than we know about between the different areas? At any rate, it is an intriguing question....

After the museum came the Great Wild Goose Pagoda -- a delightful Buddhist temple with monks (the first we have seen) and an active community of believers. We climbed the 7 story, 64 meter high pagoda for a great view over the city... which is huge! In fact, despite the temple being at the intersection of several long boulevards (allowing us to see great distances), and despite knowing that the buildings in the sixteen square kilometer old city center were zoned to be much lower than elsewhere, I could not tell in which direction the city center was. As far as one could see, in every direction, there were skyscrapers. Impressive. I think the city has 9 million inhabitants... which isn't large in comparison with Beijing (20+ million) or Chongqing (30+ million), but city population figures are always difficult to compare: sometimes they include vast suburban hinterlands and satellite towns and cities, sometimes they are just the metropolitan core. At any rate, from the top of the pagoda Xi'an seemed no smaller than Beijing. Funny Koko anecdote: at some point she told us that she wouldn't like to live in a big city like Shanghai... :-).

On the way out we passed through the temple gift shop (a standard and unavoidable gauntlet) and, for a change, were captivated. Local artists support the temple by donating paintings and other works that the temple gift shop then sells... and there were some excellent works on display. We ended up buying a beautiful painting of a village in spring-time in what feels to me to be a classic spare style... I'll be interested to hear what you think about it when you see it. We also were given a fascinating short calligraphic demonstration of the development and composition of Chinese characters. Some characters are made up of other, simpler characters. Some "words" or concepts are expressed by multiple separate characters that each have their own meaning but whose meanings are subsumed in the larger "word" (but without obvious boundaries delineating the "word"). And then there are the, to us almost indistinguishable, vowel "tones" (that aren't musical tones) and the fact that despite all these tones so many characters are homophones of one another, and the parallel existence of a (unique?) Pinyin representation (using Latin letters) for each character that Chinese speakers also know.... It was all so interesting that Lidia the linguist has vowed to learn Chinese... or at least enough to have an understanding of how the language works and to say and understand some simple phrases.

The last stop of the long day was at a Las Vegas style custom-built theater where we had dinner and saw a performance of Tang Dynasty music and dance (the Tang was Xi'an's golden age, when for a couple of hundred years it was the largest city in the world). For a change, the food was distinctly unimpressive, being a fixed menu that they had unsuccessfully tried to adapt to Western tastes, but the delightful show more than made up for it. Very graceful dancers, and some virtuoso musicians.

We didn't stay up long after getting back to our hotel around 11PM....

Tue, Sept 6th -- Taiyuan and travel to Xian

2011-09-14T20:42:00.001+01:00

Sights: a noble family complex in the countryside on the way to the Taiyuan airport.

We took our leave of Pingyao and drove north towards the capital of Shanxi province, Taiyuan, where we would catch a plane to Xi'an. We were originally scheduled to visit the Double Pagoda Temple in the center of Taiyuan, but we had seen enough from the train to be less than enthralled by the idea of braving the traffic going into and coming out of the city, and Lidia had read in our guidebook about a large family compound with 300 rooms on the way that one could visit. Our guide, Joan, told us that that compound wasn't so interesting, but that there was another compound nearby that was good... so we went there instead.

And indeed it was very interesting. Such family compounds seem to have been comparable to Roman villas, or stately homes in the English countryside -- noble residences with all the comforts available at the time. And in this case with a fair amount of the original furniture and art collection of the family that had lived there. Very impressive, and devoid of tourists since it doesn't yet seem to have made it into guidebooks or travel agency itineraries. We were also fortunate that there was a TV crew filming a period piece there when we arrived, and they had decked the place out with objects and costumed extras that brought the place to life.

Speaking of film stars, we have discovered that we have one in the family, at least according to the Chinese. People are continually coming up to Madeleine and asking if they can either take a picture of her, or have someone else take a picture of them standing next to her. From time to time Lidia and I are hired on as extras, but most of the time it is just Madi. One theory is that those who ask have never seen foreigners before, and indeed it seems like there are more photo requests in places with few Western tourists, or from Chinese tourists at major sights (such as the Great Wall) who probably have come from untouristed places. However, the focus on Madeleine and the fact that a disproportionate number of the requests come from young Chinese men suggests a more flattering explanation. At least, flattering for Madeleine :-(

The flight from Taiyuan to Xi'an, our first in China, went without a hitch. We were met at the exit from baggage claim by our new guide, Koko.. who looked suspiciously young and was in fact just 23, and, as she told us, the youngest employee of her company! Not a good sign, I thought... but fortunately it turned out that I was totally wrong: Koko was a gem. Pretty good English, very well prepared to show and explain things to us, very funny at times, charming, engaging, said when she didn't know the answer to a question (an infuriating habit of many guides is to give you an answer to any question you ask... regardless of whether or not they actually know the answer!) and then checked on the Internet either right then or later to find out what the answer was. As said, a gem.

And the hotel was good too, and dinner the best so far (finally a good Kung Pao chicken!). China seemed better already....

Mon, Sept 5th -- Pingyao

2011-09-14T20:37:00.001+01:00

Sights: Pingyao Old Town, an early bank, a couple of temples, and the town administration complex.

We spent the day walking around Pingyao with our guide, Joan. Pingyao, both Joan and our guidebook told us, is one of the best preserved old towns in China, and, if you can ignore the profusion of souvenir stores and hotels and restaurants along the main streets, I suppose that it is, in that there are very few modern buildings within the old city walls. But well-preserved doesn't mean attractive... unless you are attracted (or at least not bothered) by grime and mess and people spitting, and children pissing in the street and the omnipresent reek of coal smoke!

Soooo... this is probably a good moment to give an interim answer to the key question to be posed about anywhere one visits: would you go there again? And for now, for me, the answer for China is no. I didn't much like Beijing as a city, Datong was objectively pretty ugly, and now I'm not exactly loving Pingyao. The Great Wall and the Temple of Heaven were impressive, and I'm glad I have seen them, but I'm generally not interested in seeing sights a second time. Landscapes such as the American West, the Alps, and the English country-side draw me back time and again, as do beautiful and/or fascinating cities such as Paris, London, or San Francisco. But I haven't yet seen any such beautiful landscapes or cities in China. Early days of course -- we are only a third of the way through -- so let's hope it gets better!

Back to Pingyao: the early bank was quite interesting, especially the map showing the network of branches across China... and further -- they even had a branch in London by the mid-19th Century. The Daoist temple was also amusing, because in contrast with the low-key, no-pressure approach of Buddhist temples it seemed much more, well, Chinese. Incense sticks were pressed into my hands, after lighting them I was led through a triple bow in front of the cult figure, and my fortune was read from a book (in Chinese and English) where I was invited to riffle the pages, choose one, and then was shown how that page contained a good fortune while the pages before and after did not. Nice bit of sleight of hand, whose effect was slightly diminished by being repeated... perhaps to show me that it wasn't chance? And then I was invited to sign a guestbook that listed next to each guest's name the amount they had donated :-).

The town god's temple was interesting, both because I hadn't realized that every town in China had a local god to protect it, and also because there was a small shrine to one side dedicated to the architect who had, during Ming times, designed most of the major town structures (wall, administrator's complex, etc.). A very pragmatic people, the Chinese.

And, at times, quite brutal. The town administrator's complex had three main functions: to store taxes, mete out justice, and house the administrator himself. There was a rather unpleasant display of corporal punishment tools and techniques, kindly divided into two sections -- one for normal crimes and one for those meriting the death penalty. They were, apparently, not content with simply killing the condemned... no, they had various ways of almost indefinitely prolonging agony (one panel proudly told us that they could inflict more than 3000 wounds with a knife before the prisoner succumbed). The jail was in use until the latter part of the 20th Century, although one hopes that punishment techniques had become more humane by that time. One last interesting thing: if judgement went against you in a non-capital case, soldiers would beat you with heavy sticks shaped like oars. If your relatives bribed the soldiers, they would beat you with the flat sides, if not, the edges. As said above, a very pragmatic people, the Chinese.

Lunch was good, dinner was better, and once again we went to bed early.

radio-silent ?

2011-09-11T09:32:00.001+01:00

No WiFi in hotel in Chongqing, boat cruise on Yangtze starts tomorrow, may be radio-silent until Sept 15th.

Sun, Sept 4th -- Datong to Pingyao

2011-09-11T09:16:00.001+01:00

Travel day to Pingyao.

Up early -- we left the hotel at 7:30AM to catch the train to Pingyao. We probably should have travelled during the night, so as to have an extra day of sightseeing, but when we reviewed the travel agent's itinerary before the trip we didn't realize that "soft sleeper" was a class of travel that could be taken at any time of the day. However, since I have always enjoyed seeing a country from a train, I didn't mind much.

It took almost 8 hours to reach Pingyao, which is towards the southern end of Shanxi province (Datong being at the northern end). Now, Shanxi is big, but it isn't that big -- the train just wasn't that fast. Apparently the same journey can be done in 5 hours by car (but the train is much more comfortable). There is a growing network of high-speed rail lines in China, but they are spreading out from the coast and don't yet link most interior cities.

We went through some hilly and mountainous areas, but for the most part we crossed intensively farmed plains, dotted with grimy and dilapidated-looking villages and small towns. The uneven pace of modernization in China was very evident. In the countryside, except for frequent half-finished interstates (autoroutes / Autobahnen / motorways) there wasn't much sign of progress -- the villages looking like they hadn't changed since imperial times, and the small towns stuck in a gray, dispiriting mid-20th Century communist time warp. The few larger cities along the way, in contrast, seemed to be being developed at a breakneck pace, with forests of cranes throwing up modern buildings and roads in all directions. It is easy to understand why hundreds of millions of people have left the countryside to try their luck in the cities.

As to the land, it was thick flood-plain soil, primarily growing corn. We aren't quite sure what the Chinese do with it all, since it doesn't seem to play a large role in their cuisine as far as we can tell from eating in restaurants, but at least this year there won't be a shortage -- every field was full and green.

We arrived in Pingyao in the middle of the afternoon. Our Datong guide, Joan, had travelled with us (although in a different compartment), and she quickly identified our new driver. Before going to the hotel we visited the Shuanglin Buddhist monastery, which, like every temple and monastery we have seen so far seems to be devoid of monks and priests, and is now primarily being used as a storage place for wooden sculptures and friezes that are unfortunately falling apart. On the plus side there was a gaggle of art students making clay copies, some of them very good, as a way of learning sculpture and the Buddhist tradition in China. They had been there for a week, and perhaps one can hope that somewhere a seed was planted in an artistic temperament that will later lead to better care and maintenance of the country's religious heritage.

Pingyao is a small town of about 100,000, and its outskirts were like those of the small towns we had seen from the train -- dispiriting. Things perked up a little as we got closer to the old town in the center, which is surrounded by an impressive 7km long and 10m high Ming dynasty wall, and the old town itself seems to be being, for the most part, tastefully renovated, although the renovations don't yet seem to have penetrated more than a few steps off the main streets.

Our hotel, the Yide Guesthouse, was a renovated old village house with 18 rooms scattered around a few atmospheric courtyards -- a couple of categories lower than the hotels we had stayed in in Beijing and Datong, but charming and very clean. I took a nap while Lidia and Madeleine went for a short walk, then after a pleasant dinner in the hotel we went to bed early.

Sat,Sept 3rd -- Datong

2011-09-04T10:20:00.001+01:00

Sights -- Yungang Grottoes, Heng Shan Hanging Temple... and a meal to forget.

Interesting coincidence in the train the previous evening: in the compartment next to ours was a French couple of a certain age, who until three or four years ago owned a Mas in Eygalieres. To add to the unlikelihood, they live in Vichy, which is (they told us) twinned with the town of Bad Tölz in Germany (for those who don't know, our county in Germany is Bad Tölz / Wolfratshausen). And the most surprising thing? They weren't Romanian.

We arrived at 9:15PM and were met at the door of our carriage by our new guide, Joan, wearing bright purple pants (very useful -- I quickly got into the habit of ignoring faces and just looking for legs in a crowd when we were with her :-). Around 30, forthright, proud of her city, speaking good English, and above all knowledgeable, she was a dramatic improvement over our Beijing guide.

As we drove through night-time Datong on our way to our hotel she told us a few things about the city. 3 million people, capital of the Northern Wei dynasty in the mid/late fourth Century, it was an important frontier city (to the north lies Mongolia) during the Ming dynasty (13th-16th Centuries) and was massively fortified then with a 25km long city wall (!). The wall still exists... and is remarkable... very high and thick and with projecting bastions every hundred and fifty meters or so... it almost doesn't look real. It appears to be in superb condition -- apparently it has been renovated by the current mayor as part of a larger plan to attract more tourists to the city. Datong's primary economic activity is coal mining, but the seams are almost worked out (the mines are over 1000 meters deep) and the future will be difficult if they don't diversify.

Our hotel was luxurious and almost brand-new, 28 stories high. From the top-floor breakfast room the following morning we had a good view over the city and of a long section of the wall. Massive construction ongoing everywhere as older areas of single story buildings are replaced by 10-20 story appartment blocks and the occasional villa subdivision for the rich (we drove by one that would not have looked out of place in Miami Beach named "Platinum Mansions"). Whether this will prove to have been a wise decision remains to be seen... to be sure many of the older areas look like slums, but in the West we haven't always been happy with the "projects" that have resulted.

Our first sight of the day was a sandstone bluff to the north of the city into which have been carved grottoes filled with a riot of Buddhas. On the way we drove along and over a large dry riverbed -- apparently they are "mining" water from deep underground and even now, at the end of the rainy season, the rivers and streams are often dry... which doesn't bode well for the future. This is the Loess plateau -- high (Datong lies at over 1000 meters) and dry, with deep, sandy and friable soils (the Loess) that erode quickly and are carried away by winds to become a bane of life in Beijing and other Eastern cities.

The Yungang grottoes are spectacular, with tens of thousands of figures up to 17 meters in height carved out of sandstone in artificial caves (competently explained by Joan), but for me perhaps even more spectacular was the newly built temple complex between the grand visitors' entrance and the grottoes, complete with lakes, forests (of 30 year old transplanted trees), courtyard after courtyard, and building after building with monumental Buddhas, some still being finished. The whole thing was done in the last 18 months (the Chinese build faster than anyone else in the world), and while there are already signs that not all of the work is of high quality, overall it isn't bad and one cannot fail to be impressed by the quantity and the intent to make this a first class tourist destination. The ensemble of old and new is definitely worth a visit... and on the evidence I wouldn't be surprised if the mayor succeeds in his economic diversification efforts.

A side note: throughout the grottoes there were high-quality metal-stamped information tablets in Chinese and English... well, a sort of English. This is something that we have seen at various tourist sites: I'm amazed that they spend so much money on material, but can't find a decent English translator for text.

Another side note: Lidia wishes me to add at this point that the Yungang caves gave her skin-thingies (goose-bumps, I think :-). She loved the sculptures and the decoration in the caves, and artistically for her yesterday was the high-point of the trip so far. There were more details than we saw in most of the Beijing sites, and more cross-links to our cultural traditions (tree of life, angels, etc.), and many of the sculptures were very well done, so it was much more interesting.

After lunch we drove off into the Heng Shan mountains to visit the Hanging Temple, a small complex of buildings clinging to a cliff face under an overhanging cliff 60 meters above a small river gorge and surrounded by mountains. Charming and enjoyable.

The same unfortunately cannot be said about dinner in the hotel yesterday evening. I wasn't very hungry but a poster in the hotel advertizing their Korean/Japanese restaurant showed a nice-looking steak, which after several days of Chinese food was appealing. Trouble was, only one of the half-dozen serving girls spoke any English (and although she bravely did her best, she didn't speak much). Nice big menu with many pictures... but no steak. Finally I found it, without a price. I asked how much, and was quoted an exorbitant figure. I thought, what the heck, and ordered it anyway, along with some fried rice and a bottle of wine (Lidia ordered a soup and some seaweed, Madeleine had opted to sleep). A few minutes later the steak arrived... about two mouthfuls worth. Excellent quality, but, well, not quite what I was hoping for. 90 seconds later the steak had been consumed, 15 minutes after that the wine arrived, followed a quarter of an hour later by the fried rice. During all this time there was only one other couple in the restaurant, and the serving girls much of the time stood with their faces to the walls interacting with their mobile phones. I don't see a Michelin star in the restaurant's future.... Construction is clearly easier than education!

Fri, Sept 2nd-- Beijing

2011-09-02T23:11:00.001+01:00

Sightseeing -- Lama Temple and New Summer Palace; travel by "soft sleeper" train to Datong.

Nice dinner in the hotel restaurant last night (including our first Peking Duck... well, I guess it should be called Beijing Duck, but since they don't, I won't either). First stop this morning: the Lama Temple. Totally different aesthetic -- Tibetan Buddhism -- buddhas and bodhisattvas everywhere, clouds of incense, and an active community of believers.

Subtle political messages here and there -- chairs from which the two spiritual leaders of Tibetan Buddhism lectured when they were in Peking in the 1950s, on the Panchen's a picture of the then Panchen Lama, on the Dalai's... nothing. More chairs around the Panchen's than the Dalai Lama's. The state is atheist, so perhaps one shouldn't read too much into the fact that the Lama temple is set up as a tourist attraction with tickets, but do they also charge a fee at the Christian cathedral? I suspect not. And I also suspect that the prominently displayed Guinness Book of Records plaque, which attests that the 18 meter high Buddha carved from a single sandalwood tree is the largest in the world, has a second message -- namely that this is a curiosity, not a vital spiritual community that elsewhere does double duty as the keeper of the flame for Tibetan's dreams of independence.

Politics aside, religions are hermetic things, aren't they? Buddha after Buddha... but why? And what are the differences? And which differences matter, which are just superficial choices of the sculptor? Just as with saints in a Catholic Church, if you don't know a great deal, your eyes quickly glaze over. Or you could have a good guide, I guess... and with that, on to the Summer Palace!

Which was... more of the same. As in strikingly similar to almost everything (except the Lama temple) that we had seen. Same architecture, same sculptures, even the same half-dozen types of trees -- although here with a particular emphasis on Junipers, which symbolize long life and which were apparently a fetish of the later Qing dynasty rulers. Once again no access to the interiors, and so only those paintings, pottery, and furniture visible through small windows of darkened rooms. No details! Makes one wonder what is going on, in a couple of ways.

Let's start with the simplest: why all the same? Probably because Chinese Imperial culture was more or less static for a long, long time. Change was bad, generally associated with mega-deaths, stasis was good. Hence the omnipresent emphasis on Peace and Harmony. Ever more rigid ritual, ever more limited artistic palette. And thus, for the tourist, after a while ever more aesthetically boring.

More difficult: why no access to the interiors? Has the ascendancy of the masses been accompanied by a total loss of aesthetic sense and interest in details? Or maybe that's irrelevant and the point is that the masses shouldn't be interested in aesthetic details because that would be elitist? Is the point of being able to physically walk around these places, from the perspective of the Party, simply and wholly to make the political statement that the Empire, and all it held holy, is dead? Or are they just not interested in spending more on the upkeep of these relics beyond the minimum necessary? Intriguing... but for the tourist, frustrating. Bottom line, I wasn't upset to leave Beijing after two and a half days of sightseeing.

We've remarked to one another all along that Beijing has seemed emptier than we would have expected... the traffic is bad, but there aren't many people on the streets or in the stores or visiting the sights (although the last is easier to explain -- it costs money to get in, after all). Well, we thought that we might see more of the fabled masses at the Beijing West train station (one of four around the city), and there were a fair number of people... but less than I saw often at the Gare du Nord in Paris, or even Munich Hauptbahnhof at rush hour. Now, it was 3 in the afternoon, so a bit early for rush hour, but it was Friday, and anyway, there are 20 million inhabitants! Simple truth is probably that there may be 20 million, but there aren't that many who can afford to travel very often via long-distance train. Still don't know where they all are though.

The countryside on the train journey was interesting. At first (after getting out of Greater Beijing) a long section through mountains and along river gorges -- very scenic -- and then out into an area that reminded me of Romania in the first years after the fall of Ceaucescu -- a combination of industrial grime and ugly, apparently impoverished, poorly built and poorly maintained villages and towns. Different was the intensive agriculture -- corn planted into the last corners of small plots, terraced near-vertical hillsides... at times it seemed as if everywhere that could be made flat had been made flat and had something growing on it. The life and energy of Beijing was totally absent. Not a surprise, but striking nevertheless.

And now the sun has fallen and everything outside is black. Perhaps we are in tunnel? Perhaps this part of China is uninhabited? Or perhaps when the sun goes to sleep the Chinese countryside does too... just as it has done for thousands and thousands of years. We'll get to Datong around 9:30PM, where with luck our new guide will meet us at the train. With even more luck they'll be better than our previous one. And tomorrow the Yunyang grottoes with massive buddhas and the Hanging Monastery of Hang Shen (names might be wrong -- I'm relying on memory here)....

Thu,Sept 1st--North of Beijing

2011-09-02T23:08:00.001+01:00

Second day of sightseeing... Ming Tombs and Great Wall.

8:30 departure today (yawn... we still aren't over jetlag). Driving north out of the city I noticed that the southbound lanes of the main highway we were on were almost empty of traffic, with police at each exit blocking entry. They were probably keeping the road free for the official cavalcade with the President of the Philippines who is here on a visit. I know other countries do similar things... but it seemed as if the Chinese police cleared the road a long time in advance (producing massive traffic jams on the parallel roads). Not behaviour I've ever appreciated elsewhere... and although we weren't inconvenienced, I didn't appreciate it here either. Politicians should be discouraged from adopting Imperial habits....

Later a sudden storm of beeping, we swerve to the side, and a sedan with white number plates surges through the traffic. Military. Apparently they ignore most traffic regulations and although not outfitted with sirens they behave as if they were. I commented that it probably wasn't the best way to ensure popular support for the institution. I think the muffled response was agreement....

North of the Beijing plain mountains rise abruptly, and, since it had rained fiercely in the night, (Lidia says... I was asleep) the sky and air were clear so we could see them well. Beautiful and very rugged. First we went to the Ming Sacred Way, the local equivalent of the Egyptian Valley of the Kings, which was peaceful but for me not very interesting -- a dozen or so pairs of life-size statues (four of which were human forms, so maybe I was too quick to draw the parallels with Islam) on either side of the walkway.

After we went to one of the tombs -- Dingling. Very interesting! For one thing, I find it amazing that the tomb had not been robbed in the 400+ years since it was closed. Of course, Imperial rule was in place for most of that time, but I bet that in Egypt a 30 year break would have resulted in the place being stripped. Ancestor worship? Residual respect for the emperor? Superstitious fear of the dead? I don't know (and as expected our guide couldn't enlighten me). But interesting.

Next interesting thing: large scale (of course) beautiful marble stonework in the underground rooms, but then wooden tombs for the bodies, and wooden boxes for goods and bullion (gold and silver) for use in the afterlife. All had rotted away by the time they were found. Did they reckon the dead weren't going to be in the boxes for more than a few days? Did they want the bodies to rot quickly? Did they think they wouldn't rot if they were underground? Don't know, but the contrast between the tomb itself and the inside packaging was intriguing.

By the way, they found all three coffins (of the Emperor and his two wives) in the same room, although by all appearances a separate room had been prepared for each coffin. Last minute change of plans? Immediate lack of interest in yesterday's emperor? Corrupt and lazy underlings? Would have been nice to have had a truly competent guide.

Lastly, while digging apparently the archaeologists found a tablet giving exact directions to the entrance to the tomb (x meters in, y meters down). Left for the benefit of future grave-robbers? Or sublimely confident that there would be none, and instead left in case anyone wanted to add (or subtract?) more coffins or grave goods later? Again, the contrast to Egypt is stark -- where the Pharaohs went to great lengths to hide the locations of their graves, with false shafts, dummy tombs, and so on.

After a good lunch (we've eaten very well so far) we went to the Great Wall at Badaling. It will probably come as no surprise to hear that we found it VERY IMPRESSIVE. The countryside is so rugged, and the wall winds and turns its way along the tops of ridges -- at times taking 1000 meters to go 100 meters as the crow flies. Beautiful stonework, tall and strong. Lots of people, mostly Chinese: apparently Mao was here, and commented after climbing up to a tower along the wall that no man can call himself a hero who has not climbed the Great Wall... so of course all the Chinese want to do what Mao did so they can call themselves heroes. The other direction along the Wall was deserted. However, not being immune to challenges ourselves, we did the same, hiking about an hour along the at times very steep top of the Wall, surrounded by Chinese (mostly), of all ages and dress (yes, including high heels on occasion) and degrees of fitness, to the highpoint Mao visited. A great experience... highly recommended.

And now dinner awaits....

Weds,Aug 31st--Beijing

2011-09-02T23:05:00.001+01:00

First day of sightseeing... Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Government Silk Shop, Kungfu show.

Did I mention that Beijing is hot? And humid, which makes hot VERY hot. It was like walking around in a steam bath today. And how about big? Did I say that Beijing is big? Well one reason is because it has really big things in it... such as the first three sights above. Way bigger than it feels like they need to be. I mean, they say that Tiananmen can hold a million people (which feels like an underestimate), and that it was expanded from the old square that "only" held 250,000... but who needs a million people in one place at a time? Especially in China where there is always a concern that the masses might decide that those who speak for the masses should no longer do so?

And that reminds me of something else -- apparently one of the sites that is blocked by China is this blogsite... so a) I can't check these posts after I post them, and b) I don't even know if they are making it to the blog! I might be all alone out here, talking to myself....

Back to Beijing. What else to say about Tiananmen? Squads of young soldiers marching across it to unclear destinations. Young women cadres with megaphones telling people where to line up in order to see Chairman Mao's Mausoleum. X-ray scan of bags when entering. Fairly aggressive hawkers. A fair number of people but far from crowded. With two huge new (80m long) widescreens showing Chinese landscapes. Flanked by the aforementioned Mausoleum, the Hall of the People (parliament where they meet once a year for two weeks, according to our guide about whom more later), and the National Historical Museum, both of the latter executed in fine Soviet Neoclassical style (I didn't look back to Mao to see what his place looked like). In short monumental and monumentally unattractive. If not for the Forbidden City complex on its north side, it would have been on balance disappointing.

But the Forbidden City, now THAT is interesting. Monumental, of course, way too big for a palace (even for the Emperor of China), but aesthetically interesting, and at times even beautiful. Massive courtyard after massive courtyard, massive building after massive building (at least along the main axis), all named some exhortatory variant of Harmony. Interesting that this predisposition to exhortation seems to be a cultural constant -- just as prevalent in the times of the Emperors as it is today.

Interesting also to read forty word English translations of four Chinese characters (suggesting either that character to meaning mapping is much more fluid than word to meaning, or that the translators wanted to make sure that the "right" meaning was understood, or, more likely both).

Interesting also that the signs in English were all marked as sponsored by American Express... highly suggestive that the Chinese government is more than a little ambivalent about one of its greatest pieces of cultural heritage (consider: it is unthinkable that English signs in Mao's Mausoleum would have been allowed to have been sponsored by AMEX!). This conclusion is only confirmed when one wanders off the beaten track of the central axis and finds meter-high weeds growing on roofs and in between paving stones.... Or when one peeks into the largely unlit interiors of the main buildings and sees peeling paint and barren spaces (with only a couple of exceptions)....

Interesting also how the Emperor seems to have been a prisoner of his court and established ritual... along the same lines as the Japanese emperors during the time of the Shogunate (most of the exhortations were addressed to the emperor!).

And I could go on but you get the point: interesting!

Not, however, that we learned much that was interesting from our guide. She is very nice, even charming, helpful, friendly, about 28, studied politics then English... who parroted party talking points as regards the modern Tiananmen buildings, then either didn't know or got wrong various points about imperial times, and had an annoying habit of repeating the things she did know. I don't think it was an act... I think she is fairly typical of modern young Chinese (at least based upon the limited reading I have done): näive and rather uninterested in history. Oh well, at least I'm doing better with her accent than I was on the first day.

Wow, this is getting long. So many impressions from this day and I've got to get some sleep before our Great Wall trip tomorrow. Guess I'll leave the rest until later...

...and it is now later.

The Temple of Heaven was... wait for it... huge. 260+ hectares of grounds, several monumental temple complexes (although of simple plan, so not complex, if you know what I mean). We liked each of the three main ones, and in particular the spectacular Temple of Heaven itself. Once again the inside of the building was poorly lit (and inaccessible -- you could only peek in from the door), but the state of repair seemed better. One interesting point -- the representations of the gods were non-representational tablets with a a few characters upon them. And when I stop to think, there were no human statues anywhere in either the Forbidden City or the Temple of Heaven. That coupled with the emphasis on writing as art makes me wonder how much influence Islam has had on Chinese culture... or vice versa? Certainly the riot of bodies one associates with Indian art has no counterpart in Chinese architecture or art from the Ming and Qing dynasties, which is all we have seen so far.

On to the Government-run silk shop. Lovely stuff but even if you hadn't known it was government-run you would have guessed: massively overstaffed, employees standing or sitting around, sometimes sleeping, when they weren't engaged with a visitor, marble walls and crumbling floors, and big portraits of Jiang Zemin with one foreign potentate after another -- Jiang always in red, the foreigner in blue (I wonder if blue is associated with clowns or barbarians? At any rate Jiang always looks as if he is on the verge of breaking out laughing...). We bought a couple of nice light silk summer coverlets, which we will now proceed to schlepp with us all over China :-).

The Kungfu show was impressive, with some acrobatic and strength moves I had never seen before (such as headsprings -- like handsprings but you do it on your head -- and supporting yourself on a spearpoint set at your navel, or three spearpoints at throat and thighs).

And thus ended the first, very full, day.

Tue, Aug 30th -- Beijing

2011-09-02T22:59:00.003+01:00

Arrived around 11AM after an 8 hour overnight flight with Lufthansa from Munich. Business Class, thank goodness, but still tiring because unlike on British Air the seats do not recline fully to horizontal. I'm aware, however, of our good fortune that we weren't in Economy!

Beijing airport is immense... and pretty empty. Still growing into it, I assume. Border control uneventful, customs minimal, and our tour guide met us at the exit. Anna seems to be around 30, pleasant, but a fairly strong Chinese accent, which I was having difficulty with yesterday. Hope only because I was tired. She comes from near Harbin in the north... which apparently now has a population of 16 million! First of many such size-related shocks, I expect.

The drive in was uneventful. A fair amount of traffic on the main arteries, but the rest of the roads seemed surprisingly quiet. Beijing is surrounded by 6 concentric ringroads... number six being outside the airport... an hour's drive from the city center! But with a population of 20 million, I guess this isn't excessive (urk... 20 million!).

First impression of Beijing: very smoggy. Coupled with the tinted windows of our car, I couldn't see that much when driving in. Lots of big buildings, of course, but honestly it felt as if we could have been in the US. Same impression in the hotel (a very nice Crowne Plaza about 1km from Tiananmen).

Lidia and Madi went off to see the Olympic buildings, I went to sleep. In the late afternoon they came back and went to sleep (I read the guidebook), and then in the evening Lidia and I had a very nice Chinese dinner in the hotel restaurant before going for a walk around the neighborhood (Madi continued to sleep). From which you can deduce the relative vitalities of the members of our family!

We are on one of the main shopping thoroughfares of Beijing... western brands and advertizing everywhere. Even the Chinese brands advertize with Western models and text. Perhaps not too surprising given that the West has been focussed on consumer marketing and luxuries for 50 years or more while China has been doing the opposite.

First impressions of the Chinese? Well, from their appearance, if you don't look at their faces you wouldn't know that you weren't in the West. Clothing pretty much identical. But then you look at how they behave and differences start to appear. They are calmer, it seems to me, more easy going about things. Cars intermingle with bikes and pedestrians with little fuss, people drive and ride and walk a little more slowly.

We walked by the cathedral (set back, understated, and overwhelmed by the huge commercial buildings around it), in front of which there was an open area full of people doing a half-speed local equivalent of the macarena... about 500 I'd say. An hour later they were still there. Vacant looks, of all ages... modern Tai-Chi?

We walked by a long open street-food market. Among the more bizarre dishes: dogmeat stew, fried silkworms, snake on a stick, centipedes... they really do seem to eat everything!

Fewer people around than I expected... felt much more empty than the typical big city in Europe. And very few people in the stores. Significant? Don't know yet... I'll watch and think some more before drawing any conclusions about China's consumer economy or lack thereof.

Back to bed now for a couple more hours of sleep... lots of sightseeing on the schedule for tomorrow!

A few post-SWCP thoughts

2011-06-13T16:53:00.001+01:00

Great hike, great group of people to hike with. Leaves me looking
forward to the H3H next summer... and hoping that everyone who came
along on the SWCP will also want and be able to come along next summer
too.

First, a weather summary. Since I have heard from many of you that my
posts gave you the impression that the weather was poor, I feel I need
to set the record straight. Of the 26 days hiked (actually 24.5 -- we
skipped one and a half days due to the weather), 12 were lovely, 10
very windy and another 3 fairly windy, it drizzled for most of 4 days,
we had a few showers on 4 others, and only one day (the last, short
one) was there rain, and that was light. All told, I think that we
were pretty lucky with the weather -- except if you, like Lidia, don't
like wind.

Next distance for the top three participants. I reckon I did about
375km and 16,000 meters of ascent and descent. Russell did 250km and
9,500 meters. And Lidia did about 110km and 5,700 meters. Not H2H
figures, but not bad either. For those who might be considering
coming along on the H3H next summer, here are some comparisons:

o Porlock to Lynton was around 21km and 1,050 meters ascent/descent.
o Clovelly to Hartland Quay was around 17km and 900 meters.
o Newquay to St. Agnes (Driftwood Spars Inn) was around 19km and 740
meters.
o I expect the average day on the H3H to be about 18km and 1,000
meters.

As to whether the hike lived up to expectations... yes, I'd say that
it did, at least for me. The coast was as beautiful as books and
people had said. The food was the best I've ever had on a long hike
(including hikes through Switzerland and France) -- I put on about
three pounds! The other hikers were well prepared (well, almost all
of them :-) and universally cheerful. There was no significant strife
that I am aware of, and people seemed reasonably happy with Yours
Truly's choices of accommodation, restaurants, and hiking stages. No
one got injured (wear and tear doesn't count :-). The weather was
pretty good. The only thing that I would have liked to have done more
of was visiting stately homes and gardens, but weather got in the way
a couple of times and there aren't that many of either on the North
Coasts of Devon and Cornwall -- when we do the South Coasts in a
couple of year's time (Penzance to Poole) we'll pass (and visit!) many
more. No mines there though :-( (I like mines :-).

And now I'm looking forward to spending the summer in Provence... and
planning the H3H!

Stage 26 -- Lamorna Cove to Penzance

2011-06-10T23:14:00.000+01:00

A short hike, mostly in rain, but ending in sun.

So, that's it: one month along the SWCP completed pretty much as planned. The SWCP goes on from Penzance along the southern coasts of Cornwall and Devon to Poole but for me that will have to wait for another year.

I feel... like I could continue hiking but I don't feel unhappy to stop. I don't feel any great sense of accomplishment... perhaps because on the SWCP the journey really was the goal. The beautiful coastline, the lovely villages and towns, the conviviality of good friends, the excellent food and mostly excellent places to stay... all of these were parts of the journey. And on the other hand there is nothing particularly special about Penzance as a goal... even from the perspective of the SWCP, for which Penzance is one town of many along the way.

So, just as each day's hike along the SWCP was lacking the preeminent goal of a summit or a pass, so too did the SWCP (or the part of it I hiked this year) lack a preeminent goal and concomitant sense of achievement upon completion. But on the other hand, here each day's hike was a richer and more varied experience than a day in the Alps because the coast changes continually and thus the day is full of many different beautiful vistas, whereas in the Alps hikes are usually much more static -- often you'll have one view as you climb, and one other as you descend. In sum, very different experiences, and for me each has its attraction.

The journey was the goal... I like that. And I liked this hike too.

Stage 25 -- Sennen Cove to Lamorna

2011-06-09T19:13:00.000+01:00

Lots of up and down today, a few light showers, ending in sun, sauna, drinks by the (heated pool), in short the Lamorna Spa experience!

As usual we walked a little faster than planned -- 5.5 hours instead of 6. Also as usual, the coast was beautiful -- lots of natural arches and boulder stacks today. We had a picnic lunch on a headland overlooking the English Channel... yes, we passed Land's End this morning. We watched a hawk hovering 8 meters away for a couple of minutes until it became aware of its audience and moved on. And around 3:30PM we arrived at The Cove at Lamorna, our luxury spa accommodation for the evening.

I know what you are thinking: pretty cushy, this hiking life. Well, not so fast. Russell limps in the morning and has swollen knees after each hike (as does Rochelle). Thomas takes a couple of Voltarene pills (diclofenac) each morning to manage some tendinitis in one foot. My buttock pain (probably due to a pinched nerve) resurfaced today. That's a walking wounded tally of over 50%. Perhaps it is just as well that tomorrow is the last day... and a short one at that.

What else to tell? Well, there's the new tongue-twister I came up with on the hike today. It goes like this.... You know the Cornish bird called the Chough? Well, choughs could have ticks, right? And ticks are tough and ticks are chicks (at least, the blood-sucking ones are... hmmm, just like mosquitoes... there's a lesson here somewhere, but anyway back to the mainline), and if a chough tick had stuff it might keep it in a trough (hang with me here with the vernacular pronunciation), and if that tick were a witch, she might keep a magic wand with which to do tricks in that trough... in which case you'd have a Tough Chough Tick Chick's Stuff Trough's Trick Stick!

As I said, maybe it's just as well the hike is coming to an end ;-).

Stage 24 -- Pendeen to Sennen Cove

2011-06-08T23:27:00.000+01:00

It poured with rain at various times during the night, and the forecast for today was showers, so although the morning started off sunny, I was a little leery of committing to a long hiking day. Instead, therefore, of the optional visit to Chun Quoit and Castle in the morning, we decided to head towards Sennen Cove directly after breakfast.

It was probably a good decision, since although we saw numerous showers, both ahead of and behind us, we only caught a couple of edges... not enough for me to put my raingear on.

The coast was at times spectacularly rugged today, and the path at times almost Alpine in character... which didn't appeal at all to Rochelle, who has a little vertigo. But with great focus and determination (and more than a few groans and curses!) she persevered and gets today's Good Soldier award. Not sure how much of the coast she saw, however!

One funny thing along the way: on the headland of Cape Cornwall (which is where the Atlantic currents split to either head up to the Bristol Channel and the Irish Sea, or down into the English Channel), there is a monument that looks like an old-style Ketchup bottle. For a good reason: it was built by Heinz (and I think the headland was at the same time also purchased for the National Trust by Heinz) on the occasion of the company's 100th anniversary. Since Heinz is based in Pittsburgh, PA (USA) and Marcus and Rochelle live in Pittsburgh, it was an amusing coincidence.

Sennen Cove is just before Land's End and very nice -- a lovely broad beach and some good restaurants, including the Old Success Inn, where we are staying and had lunch, and the Beach Restaurant, where we had dinner. In the afternoon some of us played games, others relaxed and read or wandered around the village.

Second to last day tomorrow... and the last serious hike (probably around 6 hours) since we'll only need a couple of hours to get to Penzance on Friday. A month on the trails goes by quickly!

Stage 23 -- Treen to Pendeen

2011-06-07T19:31:00.000+01:00

Sun, clouds, showers... twice, then sun. Breezy. Short hike (3.5 hours) then the afternoon at the very interesting Geevor tin mine.

First, a couple of errata:

o the pub yesterday, the Tinner's Arms, was in fact 13th Century, and was built to provide accommodation for the masons who built the next door church of St. Sennara (which we looked around after lunch, and which was charming).

o the water-powered ore crushing device at the Blue Hills tin mine near St. Agnes that I referred to as a beam engine is nothing of the sort. I'm not sure what its proper name is, but it isn't a beam engine.

Dinner at the Gurnard's Head Inn was excellent, as were the rooms and breakfast, and we set off this morning in good spirits. Such good spirits indeed that we immediately took a side trip down the Gurnard's Head itself -- a promontory that from the side looks like the head of a Gurnard, a type of fish. We, all except for Rochelle, who has a touch of vertigo, went along the Striding Edge-like spine and then did some impromptu rock climbing onto the top of headland some 60 meters or so above the sea... whereupon it promptly started to rain. So we put on our raingear and walked back to the main coast path... and by the time we got there the rain had stopped and the sun was shining again. Clearly the Gurnard prefers to be left alone!

We got to Treen and the Geevor mine around 1:30PM. It's an interesting area, this extreme end of Cornwall -- much less well kept and twee than most of the coastal areas we have been walking through. There are mine workings all over the place and it has a distinctly blue-collar feel to it. I don't think that it has ever quite recovered from the end of mining -- no other economic activity appears to have sprung up to provide a new basis for the local economy. There are no large beaches to attract tourists or the builders of second homes. The land is granite, which weathers to an unattractive dark grit, and there are few trees. All in all, and especially in the rain, it feels a little like Newcastle, the depressed post-coal mining, post-ship building, town where I grew up.

The mine was fascinating. They have a room-sizede three-dimensional model of the shafts and tunnels and stopes that were mined in the immediate surrounds of Treen... stunning. There must have been two hundred shafts, with a myriad of underground levels and tunnels, up to 600 meters deep and stretching over 1.5 kilometers out under the sea. All of this dug through granite, following seams of tin that in this area were rarely more than 1 meter in width. And the model is almost certainly incomplete -- there has been underground mining going on in the area for a thousand years or more, and when a mine was closed because of depth or water or inadequate quality or quantity of ore, it was more often than not forgotten.

A good example of this was the mine we went into and spent a half an hour underground in -- the Wheal Mexico. It was dug out around 300 years ago, closed, forgotten, and then rediscovered by chance in the late 20th Century shortly before the Geevor mine closed. There must be thousands more like it.

It is sobering to think of the conditions under which those early miners labored. Working with hand tools, in the hard granite of this part of Cornwall they could drive a tunnel (sized to their own bodies -- which makes them pretty narrow and low for someone like me) less than a foot a day, their working area lit only by a tallow candle or two. At least they were largely spared the problems of explosive gases and cave-ins that plague coal-mines, but it was tough work and the life expectancy of a miner was around 45 years up until the beginning of the 20th Century.

One last interesting statistic: after the collapse of the tin and copper prices due to the development of alluvial (i.e., cheap to mine) deposits elsewhere in the world in the mid 1800's, 20% of the male population of Cornwall emigrated each decade for four decades in a row... a higher rate of exodus than Ireland. I think that level of emigration marks an area and a people for a long, long time.

Well, enough of mining. The sounds of boule outside -- yes, there is a boule court here for some reason, and Russell and Sally despite wind and intermittent rain have managed to convince Thomas and Marcus and Gabi to play with them for the last couple of hours -- have faded, so dinner must be imminent. And while I'm not expecting a gourmet meal like last night, the pub apparently prides itself on its curries... Cornish cuisine at its best ;-).

Stage 22 -- St. Ives to Treen

2011-06-06T17:51:00.000+01:00

Early morning museum visit in St. Ives, followed by a pleasant walk along the coast to Zennor, lunch, then a last hour to the Gurnard's Head Inn at Treen. Very nice weather once again!

Everyone is in good spirits today. The hike was relatively short (at least at our pace :-), but at around 4 hours long enough to leave with the impression that we had done something. Most minor ailments were improved or had disappeared over the rest day and energy levels were higher. Just a great day.

The museum in St. Ives was pretty interesting. They had some working models of mine equipment that were fascinating, and some pictures of pilchard fishing that were stunning. The amounts of fish that were landed back then were astounding -- they had 100,000 hogsheads of fish at a time in the St. Ives cellars... and each hogshead held 3,000 fish that were kept and pressed for 6 weeks before being shipped. Those are massive numbers....

Lots of people on the trails today... more than we have seen before. The stretch from Zennor to St. Ives seems to be much travelled. The pub in Zennor where we had lunch -- the 14th Century (?) Tinner's Arms -- was very good, and tonight's dinner in The Gurnard's Head promises to be excellent... #1 Dining Pub in Cornwall a couple of years ago.

Yup, we are having fun....

Rest day in St. Ives

2011-06-06T08:00:00.000+01:00

Nice place, St. Ives, particularly when the weather is as fine as it has been the last few days. The little beaches scattered around the headland are charming, the tangled little backstreets the same. It feels, despite the presence of a fair number of weekend visitors, peaceful. A good place for a rest day.

Dinner in The Loft restaurant just along from our B&B the evening of our arrival was excellent, with the added bonus of three nests of baby seagulls on wall- and roof-tops visible about 15 feet away outside the window next to our table. Cute little speckled beasties with stubby winglets... Sally in particular could hardly take her eyes off of them.

I thought, however, less positively of the species at 4:15 the following morning when a group of adults greeted the dawn outside my open window! Not that I was sleeping (I had once again made the mistake of having coffee after dinner), but they made such a terrible racket that even repose was impossible. I got up to try to shoo them away... but they just stood, two feet from the open window, and looked at me. I did not have the sense that appropriate respect was being paid... so I went back to bed and eventually they stopped, and some time later, the coffe finally metabolized, I got a couple of hours of sleep.

The nights are, even when coffee is not a factor, short here at this time of the year. It is still light after 10PM, and dawn breaks as said around 4:15. Made me think of growing up in Newcastle, 350 miles or more north of here, where at the solstice you could still read outside towards midnight and it started to brighten again around 3. One paid for it in winter of course.

In the morning some of us walked around St. Ives, visiting the Tate (a uninspiring set of temporary exhibits in an uninspiring building) and failing to visit the local museum (closed on Sundays... but we'll go before the hike on Monday). Russ and Sally volunteered to do laundry for anyone who needed it in the local laundromat. And a few errands were run, phone calls made, email answered and so on.

In the afternoon we watched Federer conspire with Nadal to lose the French Open, Gabi, Thomas' wife arrived, and then we all went out for another nice dinner in a 14th Century pub down on the quay.

Nice place, St. Ives.

Stage 21 -- Marazion to St. Ives

2011-06-04T16:35:00.000+01:00

Walked along St. Michael's Way today -- a branch of the great tree-like Route of Saint James that runs all the way from the pilgrimage church of San Juan de Compostela in Northern Spain to, among many other places, Ireland.

Great weather once again, great breakfast, great views of both coasts (at the same time from the Iron Age fort on Trencrom hill). And again the hike was shorter than planned (I've got a bunch of athletes with me right now) -- just over 4 hours instead of 6, but St. Ives is a lovely place, so nobody complained about arriving early. In fact, if I think about it, no-one has complained on any of the days that were shorter than planned... it seems that only I find sub-5 hour hikes a little disappointing!

This was our coast to coast day -- an homage to our C2C hike of five years ago. Much easier, and much quicker this time. Russ and Sally have gone off to swim (in 12C water... brrrr). Thomas is doing laundry, Marcus and Rochelle are walking around town, and after finishing this, I think I'll take a nap. We have a free day tomorrow, so I'll see the town then.

Stage 20 -- Portreath to Marazion

2011-06-04T16:20:00.000+01:00

Shorter hike than expected (the current set of hikers is fast!)... but that allowed us to visit St. Michael's Mount after we got to Marazion in the afternoon, which was great, so all was well.

Once again, the weather was perfect -- sunny and warm, little or no wind, shorts and short-sleeved shirt all day. In addition, we all seem to be healed of minor ailments, except for Russell, who overindulged on the alcohol front yesterday evening, pleased as he was to see his friends Marcus and Rochelle who joined us last night.

We left at 9AM because I thought the hike would take around 5 hours (not including breaks) and we needed to be in Gwithian to catch the bus to Marazion by 3:15. In fact it took us about 3.25 hours, so we had a light lunch then took a taxi to Marazion arriving around 2PM. This was actually quite fortunate, since it allowed us to visit hyper-scenic St. Michael's Mount (SMM).

SMM is like Mont Saint Michel in France, except smaller. An island except at low tide, when it is joined by a causeway to the mainland, SMM is topped by a lovely pocket castle. The island has been inhabited since Neolithic times, and seems to have been known to the Romans as a tin-exporting port as early as the fourth Century BC. The current castle is built on the foundations of an 11thC Benedictine Abbey, and is quite delightful.

Since we arrived shortly after low tide, we were able to walk across the causeway, but an hour and a half later, after visiting the castle, Sally and Thomas waded back in water up to their waists (tides here can range up to 20 feet). Marcus and Rochelle and I took the ferry, and Russell, well, he never made it to SMM -- having opted to take a nap in the hotel to recover from the night before!.

By the way, the Mount Haven Hotel, where we stayed, was very nice indeed... excellent rooms, fantastic view over the bay to SMM, friendly service, and very good food. Joins Porlock, Martinhoe, Clovelly, and Padstow as the best accommodations we have had so far.

Last couple of comments. Russell was drinking Coke at dinner this evening, sensible fellow. And I didn't write a timely blog because we were watching the great Federer/Djokovich tennis game before dinner... and afterwards I watched the highlights of the Nadal/Murray game before going to sleep.

Stage 19 -- St. Agnes to Portreath

2011-06-02T21:39:00.000+01:00

Half day in St. Agnes and the Blue Hill Tin Mine, half day walking to Portreath.

Dinner last night was a bit hit or miss -- apparently one of their chefs called in sick and the other(s) weren't able to keep either quality or timeliness in his/her absence. The rooms, however, and the ambience in the pub, were excellent. And the cove and bay were great, so I'll give Driftwood Spars a B+.

The visit to the tin mine and St. Agnes this morning was not as attractive to the troops as expected: the only one to partake was yours truly. Their loss: St. Agnes was nice enough, but the tin mine was fascinating.

I think that the Blue Hills Tin Mine is the only one still operating in Cornwall. They don't produce much (around 10 tons / year, I believe), but together with entrance fees and tin jewelry sales it is apparently enough to support the family running it. They use a mixture of medieval and modern technology, although modern is a relative term: there are no computers, or anything, in fact, which couldn't have been built 80 years ago. And they do everything with around 3.5KW of electricity... which seems a surprisingly small amount.

The most interesting machines, IMHO, were the beam engine and the various separators.

The beam engine first: this is powered by a water wheel and alternately lifts and then drops a set of heavy iron rods (the beams, I assume) on to fist-sized chunks of ore to reduce it to the consistency of fine sand. Water flows continuously through the crushing area, carrying away sufficiently crushed ore. So simple, so effective.

The crushed ore and water then flows to a series of separators, the simplest of which is just a helical ramp down which the ore suspension flows: the heaviest grains (tin and other metals, called the heads) stay close to the axis, and the lightest (waste, or tailings) are washed out to the edges. The intermediate grains (the mids) are sent to another machine (basically a tumbler with hard pebbles in it) to be further reduced in size before being run through the helix again. Brilliant!

No chemicals are used in the separation process, and the ore in the valley is so free of toxic substances that trout live in the tailing pond!

There were many other interesting aspects of the mine, the smelting process, and the history of mining in Cornwall, but I suspect I might have exhausted the interest of most readers of this blog by now, so you'll either have to ask me the next time we see one another, or, better, go to the Blue Hills Tin Mine and see for yourself.

In the afternoon we walked along the coast -- as lovely as ever -- for 3-4 hours to Portreath, a rather uninspiring little town. Our accommodation here, The Portreath Arms, makes a similar impression... whereby the food was better than the rooms, and the service was excellent.

Stage 18 -- Newquay to St. Agnes

2011-06-01T19:27:00.000+01:00

First warm day... first swim! By Russ, Sally and Thomas B., not me... it's only about 15C to cold for me :-).

After my middle of the night activities, I was a little tired this morning. In addition, I had developed a couple of irritating ailments overnight -- left foot and right buttock, if you must know -- perhaps a touch of gout and a slightly pinched nerve somewhere in the lower back, so today's planned six hour hike was a bit daunting.

Russell also has a few dings -- as he put it at breakfast, he's "a mass of bruised meat". The other two are either indestructible or don't talk about problems short of hospitalization.

But the weather was fine, with little wind, so we set off in good spirits.

The start of the hike was inland along the Gannell River to a tidal footbridge. First time I've encountered one of these -- it is covered at high water, but can be used for a few hours on either side of low tide. We then walked back out to the sea along the south side of the river... quite idyllic, one would never know that bustling New Quay was just over the crown of the ridge to the north.

Afterwards, lots of sand walking -- across some smaller beaches, mixed with heather and turf covered headlands, then past an ugly Ministry of Defense installation, then down onto the immense expanse of Penhale Beach -- almost two miles long.

We had a surprisingly good lunch at a beach cafe in Perranporth at the end of the Penhale sands, then climbed up to the top of the cliffs for the last stretch to St. Agnes.

Once again the landscape changed -- now we were in mining country. I'd guess that there was an igneous intrusion here -- at any rate the rocks were completely different from anything we've seen along the path so far. When you looked at the sea cliffs, they changed color every 30 feet -- iron red, copper blue/green, yellows, greys, whites... tons of different minerals, and holes in the bare rock faces like Swiss cheese. On the surface mine shafts scattered around, and tailings everywhere.

And that's it for now... dinner beckons.

Stage 17 -- Porthcothan to Newquay

2011-06-01T03:51:00.000+01:00

Fine hiking weather, easy stage (shorter than expected), marred only by the tackiness of central Newquay.

After a full Australian breakfast with our host Noel (complete with an impromptu rendition of Waltzing Matilda... by Russ and I) at Trevemedar Cottage in Porthcothan we set off around 9:30. Light wind, sun and clouds -- shorts hiking weather. The coast this day consisted of shallow inlets around which the path wove, so there was relatively little up and down and we advanced quickly. Too quickly: we were at Mawgan Porth where I'd expected we would have lunch by about 11:15, and that was too early for hunger. So we stopped for tea and pushed on at noon, arriving in Newquay a couple of hours later.

Before I do the obligatory "Newquay puts the Key in Tacky" (well, phonetically at least) routine, I should note that the coast is really very beautiful around here. One golden sandy beach after another, backed by steep rocky cliffs and with free-standing isolated rocks that are islands at high tide scattered photogenically. Look up Bedruthan Steps for pictures of how it looks. Quite understandable that this was one of the Victorians' favorite places to visit in the Southwest.

But what is it with Anglo-Saxons that they build and, judging by the crowds, so obviously enjoy such classless places as Newquay? Think the New Jersey shore, or old Las Vegas, or any other game arcade studded, cheap souvenir shop strewn, fast-food littered tourist trap area of which there are so depressingly many examples. "Anglo-Saxons" because I can't, right now, think of comparable places in France and Germany, although I'm not quite ready to declare them totally free of similar eyesores -- it might just be that I haven't gone where they are. At any rate, we were pleased to get to our hotel on Pentire Head, in a quiet section of town on the far side of Newquay by mid-afternoon.

After taking care of a little administrative business and watching Federer dismantle Monfils, we walked over to the excellent Lewinnick Lodge on Pentire Head for dinner -- great food, friendly service, wonderful position and views -- one of surprisingly many excellent dining experiences along this hike. England has certainly come a long, long (long, long...) way gastronomically.

Someone wrote to me commenting how this hike seems much less painful (weather aside) than the H2H... and indeed it is. Shorter hikes on average than on the H2H, with much less up and down, and lighter packs due to the availability of a luggage transfer service, make for a much less strenuous experience (although still quite tiring enough for most of us!). And that is as it should be: this hike was intended to be a walking holiday, whereas the H2H was an expedition. Different beasts, different challenges.

Last note and then I'm going back to sleep (it is the middle of the night, and I couldn't sleep because my room was too hot, because I was too stupid to work out how to open the windows, and hoped the room would cool off but it didn't, so eventually I got the night receptionist and he opened them, so now I'm waiting for the room to cool and it is almost there...). And that's a wrap. :-)

Stage 16 -- Padstow to Porthcothan

2011-05-30T19:40:00.000+01:00

Spitting in the morning, clearing to sun and clouds in the afternoon. Many more people than has been usual -- partially due to it being a Bank Holiday Monday, partially because there are many good beaches along this part of the coast, so there are lots of holiday cottages and holidaymakers.

Cliffs not as high as has been typical, but with fascinating forms. Something about the way the rock strata are oriented and their differing hardnesses has produced as succession of narrow inlets along this part of the coast. The process seems to begin with the formation of a deep sea cave at the bottom of a cliff, in which waves erode the roof until it collapses forming a steep sided hole linked by what is now a tunnel to the ocean. The holes are surprisingly big -- as much as 30 meters across, and similarly deep. Further erosion then eventually wears away the rock above the tunnel and the inlet is formed. We saw a couple of these holes... most impressive!

I must also report that the new set of hikers are disturbingly fit... I don't think I'm going to be able to wear them down....

Tonight's B&B is close to the other end of the spectrum from the one we stayed at in Padstow. Coswarth House in Padstow was, together with The Old Rectory in Morwenstowe the nicest place we have stayed... large rooms, recently and elegantly redecorated, comfortable beds, luxurious linen, great showers... etc., etc., etc. Trevemedar Cottage is old, has small rooms and smaller showers (shared of course), wonky floors and stairs, and so on. It is also the only place to stay within an hour in each direction, so we love it ;-).

Rest day in Padstow

2011-05-29T22:17:00.000+01:00

After six straight days of hiking (and 12 days in two weeks) this was much appreciated. Thomas and Suzi left, Thomas (of Thomas and Gabi) and Sally arrived.

Padstow was packed -- Sunday of a bank holiday weekend... I saw more people than I've seen in weeks! Went to see the lobster hatchery, which was interesting, and otherwise did little other than allow my legs to rest.

We are off tomorrow to Porthcothan... about 6 hours... weather predicted to be wonderful!

Just kidding.

Stage 15 -- Port Isaac to Padstow

2011-05-28T19:38:00.000+01:00

As usual lovely coastal scenery, but 5.5 hours of intermittent wind and cold driving drizzle... so enough about the hike. Instead I propose to write a bit about Cornwall.

Yesterday evening after dinner we went out to listen to the 10 man singing group "Fisherman's Friends"... and they were very good indeed. They sang on the foreshore, with microphones and amps, sometimes a capella, sometimes accompanied by guitar and/or accordion, and it was easy to see why they have become moderately famous. So far, so good, but then they sang a song that struck a deep chord with the audience and with me, called "Cousin Jack".

The song is about the exodus of Cornish men and women that started in the mid-18th Century when mining and fishing, the primary economic activities, declined -- the former due to cheaper mines being developed elsewhere in the world, and the latter due to overfishing. At least, that's what it starts off as... but by the time it finishes it has become a powerful lament for a Cornish nation that may not have had much of a political existence, but which clearly had a cultural and regional identity.

Lines such as "our language is no longer spoken", and "the English live in our houses and the Spanish fish in our seas", have particular resonance when you see second/holiday homes going up on the outskirts of most villages and towns, and so few fishing boats in the ports.

The bulk of Cornwall's land, in the center, is poor moorland, unsuited to much other than sheep farming, so agriculture is not a major source of revenue. And after over 4,000 years of mining, Cornwall's reserves of tin and copper, which used to produce over 50% of the worlds supply of those metals as late as the early 19th Century, have been largely exhausted. The seas seem never to have recovered their once astounding fertility (the figures and descriptions of the pilchard industry during the 19th Century are mindboggling)... or if so, the fish are being caught elsewhere (there are not only few boats in the ports... there are also very few visible at sea). And so tourism and real-estate related activities seem to be all that is left... and that clearly rankles (we have, for example, seen various signs calling for an end to holiday homes).

There is a political movement to have Cornwall declared as a Celtic nation, with some regional autonomy going in the direction of that in place for Wales or Scotland, but the small size of the population (around 530,000), and the fact that many of those are non-Cornish immigrants, means that the movement has never developed much momentum.

But if they should one day, I think that the Fisherman's Friends, all but one of whom grew up within a half a mile of Port Isaac harbour, and in particular their song "Cousin Jack" may be seen to have played a significant role. At any rate, the intensity with which the song was sung, and the applause it received, were higher than for anything else they performed. It moved me... and I think that if I were Cornish, it would do much more than that.

Stage 14 -- Trebarwith to Port Isaac

2011-05-27T17:44:00.000+01:00

Another fairly windy but sunny day, with more great cliff hiking, and a delightful old fishing village as the goal.

As usual, we'll start with last night, but that won't take long because after dinner I fell asleep almost instantly despite fairly loud live music being played in the bar directly underneath my bedroom. Breakfast this morning was excellent, and we set off under blue skies.

And what more is there to say that I haven't already said? It was a lovely hiking day along a lovely coast. The greenish-blue water looked Mediterranean (although the waves crashing against the rocks belied that impression somewhat), the wind was manageable, the sun just warm enough without being too warm, the hiking time (just over four hours) long enough to work up a good appetite (and work off breakfast!), but not too long so as to produce exhaustion... it was just a nice day.

We are staying the night in Port Isaac (from the Old Cornish 'Porth Issec', meaning Corn Port -- a major export in times past), which is a beautiful little fishing village -- still with a vibrant local community (as attested to by signs saying "Say No to Second Homes!", and the fact that the last time a local pub came up for sale it was bought in a flash by a group of locals for 400,000 pounds so as to avoid it falling into the hands of strangers).

Our hotel here dates from the 1500s and has a wonderful view of the just across the road harbor... which reminds me of something. If you want to see photos of the hike, you should "friend" Russell and Lidia on Facebook -- both of them have posted a fair number of photos there (and Russell continues to post them almost every day). If anyone needs their Facebook IDs or email addresses, just email me.

And speaking of Russell, we always knew he was gregarious with people... but today it became clear that this social touch also extends to animals. In fact, Russell is a cow whisperer! After ascent number 5 or 6 of I don't know how many but it was a lot (have I mentioned that the Coast Path delights in dropping down into and then climbing back out of valleys?), Russ and I were waiting for the others in a sheltered corner of the trail opposite a field with a herd of perhaps 40 young calves. Who, upon noticing us, came over. Russell plucked some clover and soon had them eating out of his hands... subsequently followed by them licking his fingers and elbows. Maybe it was just salt sweat, but personally I suspect a deeper affinity ;-).

Later on he was to demonstrate similar powers with a very free range chicken that we encountered walking along the cliff edge.

And I shouldn't forget to report on my own animagical persona: I am, according to Russell, the god of caterpillars. We come across many on the trail, as in literally on the trail and in danger of being trodden on, and if they are particularly large or colorful I stop to pick them up and place them out of harm's way. However, I can also be fickle -- nudging a caterpillar off a stone wall, for example -- for as the Lord giveth, so doth he taketh away. Not yet a jealous god though :-).

This evening there apparently will be another outside concert, given by a group called The Fisherman's Friends, who have, I am told, achieved some significant degree of fame recently. They are either going to sing directly opposite our hotel on the boat slipway, or out in the bay on sand that is currently underwater (but one hopes will not be by the time they start at 8:30 this evening). The forecast is for windy showers, but I doubt that'll deter either performers or audience. It is England, after all.

Interim Thoughts

2011-05-27T09:00:00.000+01:00

A few things I've forgotten to note in the post-hike pre-dinner haze.

Yesterday was the halfway point in the hike -- 13 stages done, 13 to go. But compared to the halfway point of the H2H it was much less significant. Why is that, I wonder? A combination of things, perhaps:

o unlike on the H2H, I'm the only one doing the whole hike here, so there's no-one who shares the sense of importance of the halfway point.
o the fact that I've approached this as a walking holiday rather than an expedition weakens the sense of accomplishment. Yesterday, for example, we hardly hiked because of the weather. Ditto Mortehoe to Braunton. Somehow that makes the mid-point less important.
o although a month of hiking is a lot, it pales in comparison with the H2H... and perhaps therefore the halfway point just doesn't seem like such a big deal. On the H2H, two weeks was still just the beginning.

Whatever the reason(s), I didn't even think to celebrate yesterday... but having written this now, perhaps I'll have a celebratory cup of tea this morning :-).

And that's all I have time for now...

Stage 13 -- Boscastle to Trebarwith

2011-05-26T21:57:00.000+01:00

Another excessively windy day... partially abated by taking a bus.

After an unexpected nouvelle cuisine dinner in the Wellington Hotel in Boscastle last night, we bid goodbye this morning to Francoise and Jean-Paul (who headed back to Eygalieres today -- volcanic ash permitting -- Francois: let me know if they arrived as planned).

Outside the wind was howling, and the sky was dark, threatening rain... would we hike? I think we would have done, if we hadn't already had a similar day from Hartland Quay, and maybe also if Russell and I hadn't hiked so hard the day before... but as it was, we decided to skip the optional valley walk, and to take the bus to Tintagel, where we'd look at the castle that is King Arthur's putative birthplace, then walk the last hour and a quarter or so along the coast to Trebarwith. So that's what we did.

TIntagel's visitor center is perhaps the most tasteful thing in the town -- a good presentation of what we know of the real history of Cornwall during the time King Arthur is supposed to have lived, coupled with the legends. The rest of the town is a bit of a tourist trap so we didn't linger.

We then walked down to the site of the castle, or rather some reconstructed ruins on a dramatic headland. Less than impressive... but more than made up for by the sight of massive seas pounding against the cliffs and sending fountains of spray 10-15 meters into the air.

The wind along the coast walk to Trebarwith was strong, but not stronger than on the Hartland Quay to Morwenstowe day. We had some soup in the atmospheric Port William pub at Trebarwith beach, before wandering inland to the Mill House Inn, where we are staying the night. Nice big rooms, but a little unprofessional in some ways (service, food, common areas). We played some games in the afternoon, and after dinner went up for an early bed... despite not hiking that much, we were nevertheless outside for about 3 hours in the wind, and I think that left us all tired.

Stage 12 -- Widemouth Bay to Boscastle

2011-05-26T07:51:00.000+01:00

Long day... but beautiful, weather and countryside.

This was one of those stages that I sort of guessed how long it would take. Unlike with the H2H, where I was obsessive about working out how much ascent and descent and distance each day's hike comprised, this time I was a little um, well, lazy. I had two books which gave times between various points along the way, and I roughly interpolated to come up with estimates for the stretches we actually did. In some cases the hikes we did were the same as those in the books (e.g., Clovelly to Hartland Quay), in other cases, such as today, they weren't. So, it was perhaps just as well that even my estimated time for today was long (7.25 hours), because as a result Thomas and Suzi opted to take the day off (walking around Bude and Boscastle) rather than hike. Actually the true estimated length should probably have been around 8.5 hours....

The remaining four of us (Russ, Francoise, Jean-Paul, and I) started around 9:30 under lovely skies -- cirrus and another type of cloud whose name I don't know but that looks like wedding dress trains in the sky. After a half an hour along the beach in Widemouth Bay we started to climb above cliffs and soon felt once again far from the world. Sea, rocks, gorse, broom, heather, fields, and cattle... that was about all we saw. No houses, almost no boats, an occasional road, and very few people.

The path had a lot of ups and downs today -- about 1250m, I worked out, using the map, after the hike -- and at 21km it wasn't short. We made it to Crackington Haven (a little less than half of the way) in four hours, but it was clear that Francoise was tiring and also finding the increasing winds troublesome. While enjoying a late cream tea lunch, I looked at the map and realized that at the current pace we probably had 5 hours still to go... it was time for an executive decision. I "suggested" to Francoise and Jean-Paul that given the situation, they might prefer to take transportation to Boscastle and walk around there rather than hike the rest of the way... and they agreed. So, Russell and I set off at 2:10PM by ourselves.

I'm in pretty good shape at this point -- both from the hiking and from working out and losing weight from Jan to April, as is, for similar reasons, Russell, so we went fast, finishing the hike in 3 hours. The pace might have been a little fast for Russell -- at any rate he did say with a slight edge at one point that he thought we were hiking faster than we did on the H2H (and I think he was right!), but he soldiered through anyway and we arrived in Boscastle at 5:10PM footsore and tired, but quite pleased with ourselves for what we had achieved.

There were one "interesting" moment along the trail today. At one point we went along the edge of a field in which a herd of cows was grazing... one of which was not a cow. It was, I realized about half way across the field, a huge, concuspicent, double muscled bull, which both during and after a momentary dalliance with one of the cows eyed us, and I thought me in particular with what seemed like disfavour. Not good. There was a thin wire fence -- one wire -- between the herd and us, but that looked as if it might stop the bull for, oh, a micro-second or so. Very not good. I looked right to see what would happen if I jumped over the edge of the cliff... pretty steep drop... and the next stile was about 80 meters off uphill. Pretty much maxed out the not-goodness at that point. But fortunately the bull decided that we weren't worth bothering about and lumbered slowly off. Oof.

Stage 11 -- Morwenstowe to Widemouth Bay

2011-05-24T19:01:00.000+01:00

Sunburn weather, easy hike, pleasant interlude in Bude.

But first... BEST CHIPS IN YEARS IN THE BUSH INN, MORWENSTOWE. Sorry, had to get that out of my system. For the untravelled Americans among us, "chips" are "french fries". And the rest of the meal was excellent too....

And second, Lidia left this morning as planned. She's off to Cambridge to help Madeleine do some end of the year packing, then she'll be in London for a few days and then... perhaps Provence, perhaps Bavaria, but probably not Cornwall unless the UK Meteorological Office promises her that there will be no wind during the last week of our hike.

But it was too bad she wasn't with us today because, of course, today was a perfect hiking day. We ambled along, through increasingly gentle terrain, had a nice light lunch at the "Life's a Beach" cafe in Bude, and sauntered into our Inn around 5PM. I'm sure there's more to tell, but I'm yawning too much to think. Maybe more later.

Stage 10 -- Hartland Quay to Morwenstowe

2011-05-23T22:13:00.000+01:00

Wind? In retrospect, not until today had we really seen wind.

But first, back to yesterday evening. I was sitting on the bed before dinner when I heard what sounded like a band. Someone's got their TV turned on high, I thought... because they can't be outside, can they? But, just to be sure, I opened the window... and they were indeed outside. We went down to dinner, and there, nicely arrayed in front of the sea wall, was a brass band playing very well. In fact, amazingly well, considering that there was a Force 6 gale blowing. And they had an audience! Albeit an audience sitting in cars with their windows down halfway, and who, when applause was due, honked their horns. I said to our French and German friends: very English. Synonymous for insane, you know.

Dinner was acceptable... not great, but that didn't matter much because I wasn't hungry -- that cream tea at the Stoke-Barton tearoom was far from digested. And it was pretty cheap. We were all back in our rooms by about 9:30.

All night long the winds moaned and the surf pounded, so I wasn't too surprised when I looked out the following morning to see... pounding surf and powerful winds (but no rain). The weather forecast for Northern Ireland and England sounded like a hurricane -- 90 mile per hour winds (150kph) and torrential rain -- but the southwest, although affected by the same system, wasn't anywhere near as bad.

So, after breakfast we went outside to measure people's appetite for hiking. Lidia, feeling something in her chest, decided on the spot to take a taxi. Francoise made it to the first exposed spot before the wind took her breath away and she also turned back to go with Lidia. The other four of us pushed on.

It was pretty impressive. The wind was mostly from in front of us or onshore -- fortunately -- so it didn't feel unsafe. But we were pushed all over the place, at times staggering like drunks so strong it was.

The day before Suzi had complained of not enough pauses for rest and refreshment, so when we came to a picnic table on an exposed headland I made sure to call a halt. But as we were sitting around the table, holding on to avoid being blown off our benches, she said that she wanted to go on. There's just no pleasing some people....

After about three hours, and just after we crossed the border from Devon into Cornwall, it started to rain. Not particularly hard, but enough to break out the rain gear. Given the wind I put on a rain jacket, but all Thomas had was a poncho (some idiot had suggested to him that this is what he should take :-) and it whipped around like an epileptic on speed alternately blinding him and catching the wind to make him even more unstable. At about the same time the frequency and steepness of the ups and downs suddenly increased... and after an hour or so of this Suzi announced that she had had enough (with the implication being that I should do something about this... a task at which I failed, miserably).

Shortly thereafter we (Jean-Paul and I) lost track of them (Thomas and Suzi) when they took off along a track they thought we might have gone along....

Yes, a fine time was had by all.

Still, we got to Morwenstowe more or less in the time expected, to find Lidia and Francoise ensconced in the 800 year old Bush Inn. As those of us not staying there walked towards our B&B a taxi drove up... and out popped Russell, fresh from 26 hours of travel from Salt Lake City. The B&B (The Old Vicarage) was very nice, and those of us who were cold and wet took satisfyingly hot showers. The friendly owner agreed to do a batch of laundry for me. Russ and I played a game of snooker (possibly the lowest scoring one in the history of the game). And then we went back to the Bush Inn and had an excellent dinner with much merriment in three languages.

Yes, a fine time was had by all.

Stage 9 -- Clovelly to Hartland Quay

2011-05-22T21:32:00.000+01:00

Lovely hike... sunny, but a bit breezy.

So, the idea today was to get an early start, hike 5 hours to Hartland Quay, have a cream tea in the Stoke Barton tearooms, and then visit Hartland Abbey and St. Nectan's Church.

Beautiful things, ideas.

First, the Red Lion hotel, in all other respects delightful and well-run, had only one server at breakfast. Second every one in the hotel decided to have breakfast at 8:30 on Sunday morning, with the result that the poor lone server was run off her feet and still woefully slow. So, instead of starting hiking at 9, we were an hour late.

Then the fresh hikers were troopers... but not quite as fit and fast as the guide book assumed... so instead of 5 hours, we took closer to 6. And so, although we were parsimonious with breaks (too much so, according to some!), we only arrived at the tea room at around 4:20... and at the Abbey at 5PM, too late to see the inside. We did see the outside though, and the church afterwards, so overall we did pretty well... and certainly as well as possible given the constraints.

The hike itself was glorious. The coast is particularly rugged and the strong West wind piled up big swells that were impressive as they struck the rocks and the cliffs. That same wind, however, was pretty constant and at times very strong -- as strong as we've seen it, but because the sun shone most of the time (scattered clouds), we weren't cold until the very end of the day. It did, however, at times turn the Lidia frog into a flying Lidia frog.

As said, the new hikers were troopers, but it was interesting to note how just one week of hiking has already made us so much fitter. When we started, we also weren't keeping up with the guide book times (most clearly on the Porlock to Lynton day), but yesterday to Clovelly we were faster than the guide book, and today even at the end of the hike we (Lidia and I) felt strong. In fact I was bounding (like a frog too, now I come to think of it :-) up the climbs for the last hour and a half. Encouraging!

The cream tea at the Stoke-Barton tearooms was the best so far -- excellent warm scones, and gluttonous amounts of clotted cream and strawberry jam. Oh, and good tea, of course. I think I may have overdone it a bit with the clotted cream... at any rate, I'm feeling cream-tead out for now :-(.

The church, St. Nectan's, has the highest steeple in Devon (125 feet) and can seat 600 people. It felt very archaic -- still with private pews in a side chapel for the lord of the manor, his family and guests, and with a beautiful 400 year old carved wooden rood screen. A nice guide to the church in English, French, and Germany, which was convenient.

The Abbey, which I am told has never been sold -- it was built by Augustinian monks in the 11thC., confiscated by Henry VIII and given to one of his knights, and since then in the same family -- was a bit of an architectural mishmash from the outside... and since we were too late to see the inside, that's the impression we are going to go away with, unfortunately.

Hartland Quay, and in fact the whole area, feels a little like it is at the end of the world... and it is at the end of Devon: tomorrow we cross into Cornwall!

First rest day -- Clovelly

2011-05-21T22:33:00.000+01:00

Well, first offical rest day. And very nice it was. Some email, some Internet surfing, some reading, a walk through Clovelly, and of course the fresh set of hikers arrived! Fed them well, sent them off to bed early, and we'll see how they perform tomorrow on the way to Hartland Quay.

Stage 8 -- Appledore to Clovelly

2011-05-21T10:42:00.000+01:00

Still some wind and clouds, but no rain, a fair amount of sun, warmer, and a beautiful hike.

We took the bus from Appledore to Westward Ho! (a somewhat tacky 19th Century marketing village -- built to capitalize on the popularity of Charles Kingsley's novel of the same name) because the walk there would have been flat and relatively uninteresting and there were 6 hours to hike afterwards anyway.

The day started off quite windy and cool -- as one wild-haired chap scudding towards us said, "It's a bit breezier than I thought it would be!" Lidia did her frog imitation, bundling up in a fluorescent green wind-stopper fleece, hood up to keep out the wind, and we marched resolutely westwards. But after half an hour or so the wind slowed, the sun came out, and it became a lovely day-- Lidia's best day so far, she says.

Me, I'm English: as long as it isn't raining, I'm fine. Oh, I prefer sun and warmth with no wind, but I'm not really bothered unless it is raining. So I've been enjoying every day, even when it drizzled (because, of course, drizzle doesn't count as rain :-). It also helps that I'm not a fair-weather hiker -- something I found out on the H2H. Most people are fair-weather hikers -- nothing wrong with that -- but I'm not.

All the above detail because, based on emails I've been receiving from some of you, I've been leaving the impression that we have been suffering due to the weather. Well, at least for me that's inaccurate, although clearly others have not been as sanguine.

Back to the hike. A fair amount of up and down, into and out of wooded valleys, as well as long stretches through ancient woodland (big old twisted oaks and beeches and ash with lichen and moss and ivy and ferns growing on them), lots of green tunnel hiking (with high hedges on both sides) but still plenty of views of the huge bay -- during the day we could see back to Foreland Point (which we went round on Day 5), and forewards to Hartland Point (which we will go round on Day 10).

We only went through one village (and for that matter only passed one other house) before Clovelly -- a lovely little hamlet called Buck's Mill, tucked away in a deep cut wooded valley.

And around a quarter to five we arrived at Clovelly, reputed to be the most beautiful in Devon... and as far as I can see, deservedly so. We walked down the 30% incline of the cobbled main street, enjoying the views of one lovely stone house and miniature well-kept garden after the other. Lidia, having forgotten the description in my document (and people ask me why I don't write more! Most people don't read what I write and those who do don't remember it!) was both surprised and delighted.

Our hotel, the Red Lion, on the rocky foreshore next to the miniature harbor at the bottom of the village, is charming, our room (and shower) excellent, dinner was hearty and well-prepared, and after a walk along the pier in the dusk, watching fisherman setting up for an all night vigil, we retired and went to sleep well pleased with the day.

Day 7 -- Braunton to Appledore

2011-05-19T21:06:00.000+01:00

Not a hiking day either, but at least it wasn't supposed to be one. Beautiful day -- sun and a few clouds -- would have been great for hiking, but was good for sightseeing too, which was what Lidia and I did.

Chris left at the crack of dawn to catch a flight back to Ireland from Exeter airport. Lidia and I took a taxi via Barnstaple, where we dropped off Franz and Ingrid at the train station for the first stage of their journey back to Germany. We continued on to the Rosemoor Royal Horticultural Society gardens, which were very nice, but two weeks later (when the roses will be in full bloom) will be spectacular. Found a few plants and trees we want to add to the Bavarian and Provence gardens, though, so that was good. Saw my first Dawn Redwood -- living fossil from China, discovered in the 1950s in a few remote valleys after previously only being known from the fossil record, and, remarkably, from fossils north of the Arctic Circle. Also saw a shattered stump of a Cedar of Lebanon that was apparently flindered by a lightning strike two weeks ago. Sic transit....

After a couple of hours wandering about the 68 acres of gardens, we walked up to Great Torrington for a quick bite of lunch. Seemed like a nice place (I particularly liked The Haggis and the Mole Bookshop), but quiet... like everywhere else today, probably because it is mid-week and not summer. From there with the bus to Bideford -- a nice little town but everything seemed to be closed -- and finally on to Appledore (ditto).

We wanted to eat at a highly recommended restaurant called 9 The Quay... but it had gone out of business. My second choice, Benson's, was shut because the cook was ill. So we had fish and chips instead and watched the tide come in. Which is, by the way, VERY impressive around here. When the tide is out there are huge expanses of mud flats and sand banks with stranded boats scattered here and there. When it comes in the water level rises about an inch a minute (necessary when you have 8-12 meter tides), changing the view everytime you turn around. Fascinating to watch.

Also fascinating to watch the few people around act as if it were summer, despite the temperature being about 15C (60F). There was an ice cream truck, which was suprising enough, but there was also a line in front of it, which was borderline insane. And light summer dresses, flip-flops, shorts, and people sitting at tables outside. I guess I used to be like that when I was a kid in England... but now I walk around in a sweater and long pants and hug the radiator when I get back to the hotel room (after turning it on, of course -- not something that occurs to English proprietors apparently :-).

Day 6 -- Mortehoe to Braunton

2011-05-19T20:34:00.000+01:00

Really fast. By taxi. Sigh.

Well, it is sort of understandable. We woke up to driving drizzle (is that possible?) -- standing outside was like flying through a cloud, only without the comforting embrace of an aeroplane. The weather forecast said it might clear up later, but no-one was inclined to put too much faith in that. And the hike was a pretty flat 28+km... through a couple of small towns (Woolacombe and Croyde Bay) and with a long trudge through dunes to finish off. Not that inspiring given the weather.

So we all piled into a taxi and 20 minutes later we were in the George Hotel in Braunton, sipping scrumpy (cider) or Guinness, checking email, playing games, while outside the weather slowly improved. Come mid-afternoon the sun did indeed show its face, so Christine went off for a walk to the dunes, Franz & Ingrid & Lidia walked around town, and I did email. In the evening we passed up award winning fish & chips in favor of the superb Thai food served in our hotel. Perhaps the best I've ever had... which is saying something, since I've had some great Thai food before.

Perhaps not the best way to spend a hiking day, but not the worst either. I still need fresh hikers though :-).

Interim Thoughts

2011-05-18T08:20:00.000+01:00

Some things I meant to write yesterday but forgot.

When planning and thinking about this hike I tried to compare it with Alpine hikes I/we have done before and suggested that the key difference was likely to be the absence of a big daily goal or achievement such as a peak or a pass. That has definitely proven to be true... and although many small ascents and descents are physically easier, I find, they are for some people psychologically more difficult. For them, I think, the ups seem pointless... because they don't add up to something like a peak or a pass. Instead height gained and lost becomes like distance... just something that you do on your way to the end of the day. Only the ascents are more strenuous than distance... and are thus resented more.

Another thing I left out was the weather. I've talked about the wind, but I didn't talk about the drizzle / fog that we had yesterday and, looking out of the window, today. Classic English weather... at least classic for me having grown up in Newcastle in the north east of England where my memories are that it was like this three days out of five. You don't really get wet, just damp, so it's much better than rain, but it is much worse than sun. Coming around Morte Point yesterday late afternoon it was heavier so that my hair and clothes started to drip, but usually it just makes you damp. Great for moss, less good for visibility and morale.

No Internet in the B&B last night, and minimal phone reception... which is why this post and the last are appearing (I hope just) one day late.

Bipolar B&B by the way -- Victoria House in Mortehoe. Our bedrooms and the common room/lounge are elegant, neat, clean, and spacious... top notch. The private areas of the house, however, based upon what we have been able to see through windows and partially opened doors, are incredibly messy: they look like a bomb has hit them. Very surprising.

Off to breakfast... more later after, perhaps, today's hike. "Perhaps" because I haven't yet seen the state -- physical and psychological -- of the troops... it may be that today's hike will be either truncated or (horrors!) even called off !!!

Day 5 -- Berrynarbor to Mortehoe

2011-05-17T17:46:00.000+01:00

I need a fresh set of hikers! All four of them took a taxi from Lee Bay after lunch instead of walking the remaining distance to Mortehoe. Oh, they claimed to have reasons -- Franz and Ingrid knee problems, Lidia hating the wind again, and Christine, most creatively, said that she had been dreaming about work and needed to spend an afternoon working in order to stop the dreams -- but after all the explaining and excusing was done, the fact remains that only yours truly finished the hike.

We had had a suprisingly good meal the night before in The Olde Globe Inn in Berrynarbor, followed by an early night, so I was expecting great things of the troops today. But the weather didn't cooperate (light drizzle and once again windy), and by Ilfracombe (around midday) they were starting to lose focus, and as we walked down into Lee Bay it was clear that they were done.

We had a nice lunch in the 14th Century Grampus Inn, and then I left them to their taxi and walked the remaining few miles alone. Glad I did, because it was a great walk -- up and down coastal bluffs, on well laid paths or across close-cropped sward, past impressive rocks and cliffs and a working 800,000 candlepower lighthouse at Bull Point, to the aptly named Morte Point -- said to be the place that God made last and the Devil will take first.

It's about as raw and rough as that description suggests, with a current flowing past its tip so strong that standing waves were forming for 100 meters out from the shore. With the wind driving waves across the current to break on the point, and various reefs off-shore, it isn't surprising that several ships a year used to be wrecked here before the Bull Point lighthouse was built.

And now I'm showered, clean, toasty warm... and I need fresh hikers!

:-)

Day 4 -- Martinshoe to Berrynarbor

2011-05-16T21:32:00.000+01:00

Tired today... maybe this 6 days in a row to begin the hike wasn't such a good idea (knew you'd like that, Sally). Actually, I think the real problem is the wind -- it is pretty draining to have 60+kmh wind gusts in your face (or at best from the side) for much of the day. Lidia hates it, and so again broke off the hike early -- about halfway through. This time Ingrid joined her, while Franz, Christine and I soldiered on. No rain though, thank goodness.

But I'm getting ahead of myself... dinner yesterday evening was a merry affair with two friends of ours from London joining us. They have a place on Exmoor and he was there for a 100 mile charitable horse ride he was/will be doing today and tomorrow, so they were able to drop by. Dinner was gastronomically good too.

The hike took about the time expected, was beautiful even if windy, and took us up to the highest point on the trip -- 315m on the encouragingly named Great Hangman hill. The B&B this evening seems adequate, but suffers in comparison with the wonderful place we stayed at last night -- The Old Rectory in Martinhoe (Dad -- tell Gunther and Myra that the owners say hi).

Dinner solid, clothes wash negotiated and completed, blog done, going to bed now... a longer day ahead tomorrow.

Day 3 -- Lynton to Martinhoe

2011-05-15T17:54:00.000+01:00

We set off, as has become our wont, at around 10AM, but headed east instead of further west along the coast. 18 years ago Lidia and I went for a lovely walk up a valley that comes down to Lynmouth, and I thought it would be fun to try to repeat it... and it was.

We first climbed up above the valley, going along the Tarka trail with lovely views over the surrounding countryside, then dropped down to the National Trust property at idyllic Watersmeet (where we had superb cakes as a lunch-ersatz), before returning to Lynmouth, arriving around 1PM.

Franz, perhaps channelling his inner Russell or Sally (who between them purchased 5 new pairs of boots while on the H2H), thereupon bought a new pair of hiking shoes (his orthotic inserts had been slipping in his other pair), and then we took the Cliff Railway up to Lynton (a neat piece of Victorian engineering -- it has two cabins attached by a cable, and runs by filling the tank of the upper cabin with water, then letting enough out of the tank of the lower cabin so that the weight differential pulls the lower up as the upper drops). It has been running without any external energy input since 1890... quite brilliant.

From Lynton it was a pleasant (although once again windy) walk along the coast to Martinhoe, where we are spending the night in an elegant B&B called "The Old Rectory".

And, in case anyone is wondering, thus far everyone has been getting along wonderfully... no loss of faith in the tour guide, as far as I can tell, at all!

The full story of Day 2

2011-05-15T17:36:00.000+01:00

After a delightful dinner at the Piggy in the Middle restaurant -- notable for, aside from its good food, very creative ironmongery on the walls, including an adjustable dog carrier with muzzle at one end, corkscrew at the other -- we didn't really need (although very much enjoyed) a massive and nigh-on perfect breakfast at our B&B.

That perhaps, plus visits to the post-office, and butcher (to buy a massive cornish pasty for lunch), plus Lidia's upset stomach, led to our getting a somewhat slow start... and a slow continuation as well. According to the guidebook, it should take about 5.5 hours from Porlock Weir to Lynton... it took us about 6.5 hours with another hour from Porlock to Porlock Weir and perhaps an hour of breaks and stops along the way. And then we had to climb up the 150m from Lynmouth to Lynton because the cliff-railway closed at 6PM and we only got there at 6:30.

So it was a long day, and a tiring one too since we had an at times gusty, at times pretty powerful headwind all day. Lidia doesn't like wind at the best of times, and feeling somewhat under the weather anyway, she finally threw in the towel at Countisbury, about 45 mins before the end (going into the pub there to order a taxi and have a beer while waiting for it :-).

Just prior to that we had come down to the Foreland Point Lighthouse, only to discover that the path back to the Coast Path was steep, exposed, next to a pretty steep cliff, across and under scree, and all told pretty "interesting". Ingrid's comment upon seeing the path was, roughly translated, "We aren't going up there, are we?"... but of course we were. She concentrated on Christine's feet (she has vertigo) and did fine.

We were all pretty tired after the hike. Watching us going up after dinner you would have thought you were looking at a bunch of octogenarians! But we all recovered well enough by this morning.

Day 2 -- Porlock to Lynton

2011-05-15T08:26:00.000+01:00

Just a quick note for now because breakfast starts in 5 minutes. I didn't get around to posting last night because, due to various factors to be elucidated in a later post, we didn't arrive at the hotel until 6:45PM, and upon arriving were told that we had to be down for dinner by 7:15... which didn't leave much time for blogging. Then I almost fell asleep three times at dinner, and did fall asleep within 5 minutes of getting back to our room afterwards. And more later!

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Day 1 -- Minehead to Porlock

2011-05-13T18:40:00.000+01:00

A day of sun, clouds, wind, flowers, showers, the first cream tea, and an unexpected encounter.

Before anything else however, I must say one thing: the South West Coast Path, at least thus far, is just as beautiful as I hoped. And the weather just as fickle as I feared!

After one of the best full English breakfasts I've had, at The Quay Inn in Minehead, we set off without any great sense of urgency at 9:50. At 9:51 we stopped for the first photo op... closely followed by the second at 9:52... closely followed by the third... you get the picture.

The tide was out, which in the Bristol Channel means waaaay out... the tidal range can be as much as 14 meters... the sky was mostly grey, but with a few blue patches, and it was cool when the wind blew, pleasant otherwise. The path stayed close to the shore for a while, then climbed to 200m, where, aside from the odd descent into and climb out of valleys, it stayed for most of the rest of the hike, giving us nice views over to Wales.

We had two rain-showers that were heavy enough to justify putting on rain jackets and ponchos, but more to get the rain to stop (via the umbrella principle) rather than because we were in serious danger of getting very wet. But the wind did whip around at times and it was chilly enough to put fleeces on.

Ther occasional discomfort was, however, more than compensated for by the lovely flowers (masses of bluebells, various small trees, foxgloves, and gorse just coming out.

After a few hours we descended into the lovely village of Bossington, where we stopped for cream teas (scones, jam, clotted cream, and tea) at the first place we saw -- Kitnor's Tea Rooms, in a picture-perfect 15th Century thatched cottage. Turned out that the owner was German... from the same small town as our friends Franz and Ingrid (who are hiking with us)... and we worked out the she and Franz were probably in high school at the same time (although not the same year). The small world principle strikes again!

We arrived at the Gables, our lovely 17th Century thatched cottage B&B around 4:20PM, having hiked perhaps for four and a half hours instead of the expected five and a half. But nobody complained, so the planner didn't feel too bad.

Shortly we'll be off to have dinner at a rather unusual restaurant... about which more tomorrow.

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Minehead

2011-05-12T17:59:00.000+01:00

After a nice evening in Cambridge visiting Madeleine, and another yesterday in London having dinner with relatives, we caught the 9:06AM train from Paddington this morning, changed to a bus in Taunton, and then to a steam train in Bishop's Lydeard for the last stage to Minehead.

The steam train was a hoot -- we think they have a minimum age for employees of at least 60... and they all seemed to be having a great time. The branch line from Taunton to Minehead was rationalized out of existence in the early 70's, resurrected as a "heritage" railway 5 years later, and now carries more passengers a year than it ever did during its days as an official part of the British railway system. It isn't fast, but it is very atmospheric, and the countryside is quite idyllic. Saw several pheasants, countless sheep and cows, little villages, copses, hills and valleys... a lovely start.

Also nice to be met on the train by our friends Franz and Ingrid, who came a few days early and have been enjoying the area by car. Christine arrived a couple of hours later (as I was in the midst of a 2.5 hour conference call), so we are all set for the first day of hiking tomorrow morning.

And the weather, you ask? Today, excellent -- sun and clouds, fairly warm -- tomorrow, I don't know yet... ask me tomorrow :-).

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I'm off to the UK...

2011-05-10T08:21:00.001+01:00

Leaving in about an hour. Quick visit to Cambridge to see Madeleine,
dinner with relatives in London tomorrow eve, then off to Minehead on
Thursday. Hike starts Friday and the current weather forecast is...
cloudy with showers and a high of 14C. Sigh. Well, at least they
aren't predicting non-stop rain (they are saving that for next week).
Prayers to the weather gods are not yet working! Redouble efforts!

Pondering Packing

2011-05-05T19:41:00.001+01:00

Hikes like the H2H are actually much easier from the packing
perspective: you take as little as you possibly can because it is all
going to be on your back every day. Using a luggage service like we
are doing on the SWCP introduces too many options into the
calculation. I find myself looking into my gear cupboard and thinking
things like "Well, I could take those gaiters and wear them on those
days when long pants would be too warm but the paths are overgrown
with brambles and nettles." Or Lidia says "You could take three nice
shirts with you, oh, and a couple of pairs of long pants for
restaurants as well." and little does it avail me to say that I don't
have room in my bag because she of course does in hers. And then
there are the books and games... how many times have I taken too much
of both with me on normal vacations? Well, I'm about to do it again.
No, there's a lot to be said for iron-clad constraints... and today
I'm missing them.

The South West Coast Path

2011-05-03T15:16:00.001+01:00

For those who don't know the long distance trail we are going to be hiking, here's a short summary.

The longest hike in England, the SWCP starts in Minehead, Somerset, goes all the way around the Devon and Cornwall coasts, and finishes, over a thousand kilometers and 35,000m of ascent and descent later, near Poole, Dorset… just a few miles from where I used to spend my childhood summer holidays at my grandparents' house.

Along the way, it passes through five Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, seventeen Heritage Coasts, a National Park, two World Heritage Sites, a UNESCO Geopark and Britain's first UNESCO Biosphere reserve. We'll only be doing the northern half of it in 2011… but both coasts are equally stunning.

The SWCP is, first and always, a coast walk… only very rarely out of sight of the sea… and what a varied and beautiful coast it is! From rocky headlands to sheltered coves, from towering cliffs (the tallest in England – almost 250m – are found along the path) to deep-cut river valleys and wide estuaries (17 large ones with ferries, and innumerable smaller ones crossed by bridge or waded), from long sandy beaches and extensive sand-dune systems to shimmering rock-pools, from moors to woods to marshes to farmlands, from bustling towns such as Padstow and St. Ives to tiny fishing villages such as Clovelly and Boscastle, the coast is astoundingly varied and continually changing.

And then there's the history and culture. Southwest Britain has been inhabited since the Stone Age and every people and culture seems to have left remains. There are Neolithic standing stones; Bronze and Iron Age hill-forts; Roman roads; Celtic and Saxon and Norman and Tudor and later castles and manors and churches; farmhouses, inns, and town-halls from the early Middle Ages onwards; harbours and lighthouses and other structures dedicated to shipping and fishing; mines and mining relics from pre-history to the present day; steam trains, water-powered funiculars, canals and locks, and other creations of the Victorian Industrial Age; and many beautiful gardens and arboretums. Yes, there's plenty to see along the way.

And let us not forget the pleasures of daily life. From ancient inns with log fires, to friendly B&B's with full English breakfasts, to cream teas with home-made scones, strawberry jam, and local clotted cream, to Cornish pasties and fish and chip shops, and the many fine restaurants that have made the British gastronomic wasteland an unlamented thing of the past, the needs of the flesh will not be ignored!

However, since I've only been to the area once, and that in 1992, perhaps you might like to read a few independent assessments? Here's what some other people have said about hiking the SWCP (copied from the official website of the path -- www.southwestcoastpath.com -- which is very well-done and which I strongly recommend you browse through):

o When the readers of Country Walking magazine, Britain's biggest-selling walking magazine, were invited to vote for Britain's Greatest Walk, the South West Coast Path was a clear winner, with their reporter, Jenny Walters describing the path as "630 miles of unparalleled gorgeousness".

o Travel writers and photographers Clare Jones and Steve Watkins picked just 30 classic walking routes for their book, Unforgettable Walks to Take Before You Die published by the BBC. They spent nine months traveling to 24 countries on 5 continents to find the world's most inspiring, spectacular and beautiful trails (but despite this inexplicably left out the H2H). Their book ranks the South West Coast Path alongside experiences such as New Zealand's Routeburn Track, and hiking the Inca Trail in Peru. When asked why they had included the Coast Path, Steve enthused: "Throughout a whole year of walking around the world, I was hard pressed to find anywhere that matched the natural drama and stunningly beautiful light along the South West Coast Path. You can't beat it for the sheer diversity of landscapes and the chance to experience some truly wild and beautiful coastal scenery."

o Drawing on the knowledge, passion and miles traveled by Lonely Planet's staff and authors, Best in Travel 2009 highlights the best places to go and things to do around the world and includes the South West Coast Path as one of their world's best walks. "Along its route, you'll find Mediterranean-turquoise bays, historic ruined tin mines, a rock-hewn abbey on its own island, surf beaches, deserted beaches, grey seals and basking sharks, and the best Cornish pasties in the land." Sarah Baxter who wrote the chapter has spent the past six year's writing, trekking and travelling the world for Wanderlust magazine, where she is currently deputy editor. She's fond of water in all its forms, having snorkeled with killer whales in Arctic Norway, floated among glow worms in New Zealand's caves and touched the snows of Kilimanjaro. But, she reckons, "nothing beats standing on a cliff, pasty in hand after hiking a chunk of the South West Coast Path."

Can it really be that good? Stay tuned....

Well-wishers... or "How can I help?"

2011-05-02T09:40:00.001+01:00

Our very good friend Christine, who will be hiking with us for the
first week, has had some blister issues while training and asked,
perhaps because she has been spending a lot of time in Ireland
recently, if there are any saints for the footsore. After many seconds
of research, I came up with the following list of saints for whom, if
you are so inclined, you could light candles to help us along our way:

o Saint Christopher -- patron saint of travellers. A 2.3m tall
Canaanite, martyred in the 3rd Century, he provided a one-man river-
crossing service (he carried travellers across on his back). Also
patron saint of bachelors, transportation, gardeners, and storms, and
his name is invoked epilepsy and toothache.

o Saint Petronilla -- patron saint of mountain travellers. French,
1st Century, said to have been the daughter of the well-travelled
Saint Peter. Also patron saint of French dauphins, and the treaties
between Popes and Frankish emperors, and for good measure her name is
invoked against fever.

o Saint Bernard of Menthon -- patron saint of Alpinists, mountain
climbers, mountaineers, skiers, mountain travellers, and the Alps in
general. Born in Savoy in 923, died 1008 (long life no doubt due to
lots of mountain hiking). He established hospices at the passes that
later came to bear his name (the Great and Little St. Bernard) from
which monks accompanied by specially bred dogs sortied to find and aid
travellers caught in storms.

...or perhaps most appositely (given the proximity of Cavaillon to our
village of Eygalières in Provence):

o Saint Veran of Cavaillon, about whom it is written: "Ordained in
540. Hermit in Vaucluse, France. Pilgrim to Rome, Italy. Bishop of
Cavaillon, France in 568. Godfather of King Theodoric II. His
miracles, which included freeing a captive dragon and miraculously
healing the foot of a nobleman, which had withered after the nobleman
had kicked Verano for not delaying Mass as requested, are mentioned by
Saint Gregory of Tours."

Itinerary and hikers

2011-04-30T21:23:00.001+01:00

In case anyone is going to be in England between mid-May to mid-June and is interested in dropping by to visit us, here's our itinerary, as well as who is going to be hiking each day.

G = Guy, G&L = Guy & Lidia,

R = Russell, S = Sally, R&S = Russell & Sally

C = Christine

F&I = Franz & Ingrid

T&S = Thomas & Suzi

JP&F = Jean-Paul & Françoise

TB = Thomas B., T&G = Thomas & Gabi

M&R = Marcus & Rochelle

Stage Date Hikers Accommodation Address / website

0 Thu May 12th G&L, C, F&I The Quay Inn, Minehead. www.quay-inn.co.uk

1 Fri May 13th G&L, C, F&I The Gables, Porlock. www.thegablesporlock.co.uk

2 Sat May 14th G&L, C, F&I The Cottage Hotel. www.lynton-cottage.co.uk

3 Sun May 15th G&L, C, F&I The Old Rectory. www.oldrectoryhotel.co.uk

4 Mon May 16th G&L, C, F&I The Lodge, Berrynarbor. www.lodge-country-house-hotel.co.uk

5 Tue May 17th G&L, C, F&I Victoria House, Mortehoe. www.victoriahousebandb.co.uk

6 Wed May 18th G&L, C, F&I The George Hotel, Braunton. www.thegeorgehotel-braunton.co.uk

7 Thu May 19th G&L The Seagate Hotel, Appledore. www.seagatehotel.co.uk

8 Fri May 20th G&L The Red Lion Hotel, Clovelly. www.clovelly.co.uk

9 Sun May 22nd G&L, T&S, JP&F The Hartland Quay Hotel, Hartland Quay. www.hartlandquayhotel.co.uk

10 Mon May 23rd G&L, T&S, JP&F, R The Old Vicarage, Morwenstowe. www.rshawker.co.uk

11 Tue May 24th G, T&S, JP&F, R The Bayview Inn, Widemouth Bay. www.bayviewinn.co.uk

12 Wed May 25th G, T&S, JP&F, R The Wellington Hotel, Boscastle. www.boscastle-wellington.com

13 Thu May 26th G, T&S, R The Millhouse Inn, Trebarwith. www.themillhouseinn.co.uk

14 Fri May 27th G, T&S, R The Slipway Hotel, Port Isaac. www.portisaachotel.com

15 Sat May 28th G, T&S, R Coswarth House, Padstow. www.coswarthhouse.com

16 Mon May 30th G, R&S, TB Trevemedar Cottage, Porthcothan. 01841-520185 (no website)

17 Tue May 31st G, R&S, TB The Pentire Hotel, Newquay. www.pentirehotelnewquay.co.uk

18 Wed June 1st G, R&S, TB Driftwood Spars, St. Agnes. www.driftwoodspars.com

19 Thu June 2nd G&L, R&S, TB, M&R The Portreath Arms, Portreath. www.portreath-arms-hotel.co.uk

20 Fri June 3rd G&L, R&S, TB, M&R The Mount Haven Hotel, Marazion. www.mounthaven.co.uk

21 Sat June 4th G&L, R&S, TB, M&R Cornerways Guest House, St. Ives. www.cornerwaysstives.com

22 Mon June 6th G&L, R&S, T&G, M&R The Gurnard's Head, Zennor. www.gurnardshead.co.uk

23 Tue June 7th G&L, R&S, T&G, M&R The North Inn, Pendeen. www.thenorthinnpendeen.co.uk

24 Wed June 8th G&L, R&S, T&G, M&R The Old Success Inn, Sennen Cove. www.staustellbrewery.co.uk

25 Thu June 9th G&L, R&S, T&G, M&R The Cove, Lamorna. www.thecovecornwall.com

26 Fri June 10th G&L, R&S, T&G, M&R The Union Hotel, Penzance. www.unionhotel.co.uk

South West Coast Path upcoming...

2011-03-18T23:22:00.003+01:00

After long silence... I'm back! And with another long hike planned: the South West Coast Path around Devon and Cornwall. I'll just be doing the northern half this time -- Minehead to Penzance -- and will take about a month from Friday May 13th to Friday June 10th. About 15 friends and relatives will join me for various stretches, and I'll be writing all about it on a daily basis here.

Stay tuned....

Russell's afterthoughts

2008-07-15T17:17:00.001+01:00

Day #4 ONE YEAR POST REMINISCENCE

Today was the day that we met Rickard Maerz whilst avoiding the original plan of ascent descent repeat ascent and gondola down. In fact, thank Neptune, as the whole thrust of the journey was to avoid mechanized transport, the group decision based upon individual pain/ torrential suffering, not to take mechanical adjunctive intussusception, was maintained. Sally rightfully points out that the original plan was to take the gondola back up to the previous day's ending point; however, the temperature of group response as outlined by our leader in his blog one year ago, suggested a somewhat chilly reception to the whole "hike more rather than less" attitude.
Even in the earliest days of our hike, it was clear: Guy was out to test us. 'Twas equally as clear, we were out to test him right back! Mr.Exercise, (does situps during any free moment, Mr.I'll-put- as- much- stuff- in- my- backpack- as- possible I can carry anything including your stuff Mr.Opthamologist -Nutritionist sees the truth in the question do you think you can afford to eat that ? you fat phuk Russell ) independently polled both Sally and I with such questions as:

Is he serious?
Does he have a death wish?
Why are we going back up?
Why are my fricking feet starting to hurt ? (telepathically communicated)(rhetorically constructed)

Our paranoia at this point however leads us to believe that perhaps Dave's conversations with Guy were as follows:

Are they serious?
Are they that out of shape?
Why are they complaining so much?
They keep telling me their feet are fricking hurting perhaps because they are overweight heifers!?

We however remain convinced that on Day #4, today one year prior, Dave's feet were in agony and he expressed this to us in many both non-verbal and visually intepreted ways.

The day's summary in retrospect has to be in praise of precipitation. Due to the overwhelming droppage of water, the group decision, highly ruddered by neophytically whining ( later we we're to become much more accomplished) back-seat sea-kayakers, was, after cowering (whilst treading water) under the eaves of some nameless building (floating on pontoons) near a road *whereupon many motorcyclists seemed to be enjoying the slip factor upon some most dangerous of bends), to paddle around an endless lake (in retrospect probably two or three times", until we reached our destination, a harbor slip. My sentence construction abilities are exceeded only by my typing thumb eptitude!

There was no lake view from our room at the Inn. The only view was of a never to be taken gondola station. The room smelled of the sweat from our shoes placed in the window sill. Dave's fat consumption overload gauge read flaming greasy-yellow, though his breakfast-ometer was still in the tolerable but please no more zone. My rash precluded any further thought or capability of hiking and my and Sally consumption of prophylactic, yet considered needed, narcotic cough preparations began. One for you, two for me, I am fatter and need more.

Pain wise. the only possible applicable measuring stick, ratings were as follows: Day four terrible. Day 1-3 worse still. The only saving Grace within days 1-3 were friends & company (fantastic 4), BEA ARNULF, & the ever repetitively transient Fritzl the Schnitzl Ditzl Yeah! Day 5 presumptively heralding worse to come. In addition, light showers out of the northwest, barely an inch per hour expected.

Earliest Best of Show Statuette presentation:

Highest award of participant participation to A & B without whom we never would have survived (Mrs.Voltaren (Mrs. let me translate your need for cream to hotel reception BEA!(Mrs.Yodel the name Sally throughout the Alps))).

Highest award for claimed most willing to frequently participate ":Herr Schitzl Bily! Mr. I will be there for 10 days!". Little did we know he meant only for the party at the end!

Most Valued Player - The Eyeball

Best Leader - Gaius Maximus Caesar

Most willing follower - She who is the ROCKn'ROLL foot massager without par.

In the words of the immortal Paul Simon,
"Still whining after all these years (1), still whining after allllllll theeeeese years.".

That's a wrap. Post it on the site.

Last Day... much, much later

2007-12-07T16:57:00.001+01:00

Friday December 7th, 2007

Well, I think I'm almost ready to start the post-H2H work -- correcting / completing the website, transmuting the base material of blog into an elegant and entertaining narrative, deciding what to do about the photos and the GPS logs, and so on... -- but first some unfinished business: the short tale of the last day of the H2H.

After one of the best breakfasts we had had on the entire trip, at the charming B&B La Demeure, we started from Eyguieres around 10AM... in the rain. This was both unusual, since it had hardly rained in Provence since Spring, and appropriate, since it had also rained on us during our first day of hiking so many months ago. But we didn't care much... it was, after all, the last day.

We walked for the most part along fairly quiet backroads on the south side of the Alpilles until Aureille. There the showers stopped and we turned north to climb over the hills... although since our maximum altitude was barely 200m higher than Aureille, it is perhaps a little bit of an exaggeration to call it a climb. Around midday we stopped for a picnic lunch by the side of the road, and soon, after one last look backwards, we started our descent towards the lovely village of Eygalieres.

Some time later, a couple of hundred yards before we got to our house, we were met by a procession led by Lidia (aka Penelope), who was unable to withstand temptation any longer. Richard was there, and Bea and Arnulf, and various other friends and relatives, and after many greetings and hugs and photos we finally walked through our gate at around 3:30PM.. four months and four days after we started... exactly as planned.

It was quite a feeling.

And then came the Neverest Fest, which although not totally Dionysiac, ran for near on a week instead of the three days that were planned. Ah well, nobody's perfect. :-)

And that's about it for now. I'll post intermittently over the next couple of months as there are new things to see on the site, or as (and if) the narratative takes shape. I hope that you have enjoyed reading about the H2H as much as I enjoyed hiking and writing about it. Many thanks to you all!

Last Day Quick Update

2007-10-26T16:24:00.000+01:00

Done.

More later.

Neverest Fest calls.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Stage 91 -- Merindol to Eyguieres

2007-10-26T07:53:00.000+01:00

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Thursday, Oct 25th, 2007

I can't quite believe it myself: the penultimate day. Tonight we have our last dinner on the hike, and spend our last night sleeping in strange beds. Tomorrow evening at this time we'll be home.

Wow.

Fittingly, it was a long hike. We left Merindol and crossed the Durance, bypassing Mallemort on our way to Alleins, mostly along roads. There we temporarily lost Russell, Sally, and Dave, who had fallen behind far enough to not see the rest of us turning onto another road. But cellphones saved the day and we were soon reunited. This was only the second time on the entire trip that something like this happened... and Dave was involved both times. Hmmmmm.

From there we climbed for a while then discovered a discrepancy between our map and reality, which led to us standing in front of a locked gate with a sign on it saying, in French, "No Trespassing". What made it more interesting was that the sign was on the other side of the fence and facing the way we wanted to go. We managed to outflank the fencing on either side of the gate and continued, now legally, along the path to come out exactly where we wanted to be, and more efficiently than had we taken the planned route. :-)

After a picnic lunch next to a ruined 12th Century chapel we walked through woods and between vineyards for a long time until a descent to cross the Marseilles / Paris axis (Autobahn, railway, canal). Then through a flatter land of orchards to Lamanon where we stopped for hot chocolate in a seedy cafe.

And still we weren't done.

From Lamanon we climbed up through Neolithic dwellings carved out of soft sandstone, then via an ancient wain road along the top of a low ridge that was the beginning of the Alpilles -- the last barrier to be crossed on the H2H.

But the crossing was to be left until tomorrow, and we descended in light rain (after a cloudy day) into the village of Eyguieres for one last night.

One day more.

Stage 90 -- Oppede-le-Vieux to Merindol

2007-10-25T18:15:00.000+01:00

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Wednesday, Oct 24th, 2007

Simply a lovely hike today. It started with a fairly steep climb up to the top of the Luberon (about 500m above Oppede), which had our guests huffing and puffing. Ok, we were huffing and puffing too, but I think we would have been able to keep going for four times the distance, whereas I suspect that our guests would not :-).

We stopped for lunch on a rocky outcrop with dramatic views over the southern Luberon, which was much more rugged and jumbled than I would have expected (having only seen it up until now from below), and across the Durance. Dad and Stefan, who both suffer from a little vertigo, sat well back, while Russ and Dave, who do not, hopped and stumbled around on the edge of the precipice in a way that bothered even me!

After a steep initial descent, we walked out of the mountain along a wonderful slot canyon called les Gorges de Regalon, with walls up to 50m high and no more than a couple of meters apart... all the way up. It was like going through a cave at times. Most impressive. Fortunately Dad decided to come down it instead of taking the alternate route along the road. He had no difficulty with the scrambling necessary in places, and he would have missed something spectacular otherwise.

Our B&B in Merindol was also very nice, with comfortable beds and sumptuous bathrooms. They weren't serving dinner themselves that night, so they took us in their minibus to a local restaurant. Nice people.

Around 5.5 hours, so not too tiring.

Two more days!

Stage 89b -- Cabrieres d'Avignon to Oppede-le-Vieux

2007-10-23T17:11:00.000+01:00

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Tuesday, Oct 23rd, 2007

Today's hike was a bit of a crusher for Sally, I'm afraid, at least that is my impression based on her miming being stabbed in the heart. You see, we arrived at Robion, at the western end of the Luberon range, from which you can almost see Eygalieres... and turned back east to hike to Oppede.

Worse, tomorrow we are going to climb up and over the Luberon, so that we can the day after cross the Durance south of the Alpilles, in order to climb up and over the Alpilles to come down into Eygalieres from the south.

And it was when she realized that instead of the straight hike across flat ground we were going to hike in the opposite direction and then cross two ranges of hills that she got out her make-believe dagger.

Of course, I could hardly have planned these last few days otherwise. After all, in a way this recapitulates the entire H2H. As I put it to Dad, for a start, I chose to walk rather than driving or flying or taking a train. Then I chose to walk over passes through the mountains, rather than along valleys. And lastly, there is the small diversion to Montreux, and the much larger one to Monaco, both of which make the hike much longer than it needs to be. Clearly the H2H was not conceived of as an efficient hike from House to House!

Nevertheless, despite Sally's heartache, it was another lovely hike today. A little warmer than the last few days, and a little hazy, but the views were still superb. We had lunch in Robion, which has a beautiful old village center, and then followed an up and down trail along the Luberon to Oppede-le-Vieux, which is even more beautiful than Robion. In fact, I think it is more spectacular and atmospheric than Gordes, and I will certainly be coming back here to explore the vast ruins of the upper village and the castle.

Our B&B, La Belle de Nuit, is very nice, and Stephan Goessl arrives this evening to join us for the last three days.

Tick, tick....

Stage 89a -- Roussillon to Cabrieres d'Avignon

2007-10-23T16:53:00.000+01:00

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Monday, Oct 22nd, 2007

Apologies for the mistaken number yesterday, in fact it is today which is the first half of a stage. Rather than do a long hike and a rushed lunch in Cabrieres with Nicole, I decided to sacrifice a rest day and split the stage over two days. We thus had a short hike today -- around 4hrs -- and will do about the same tomorrow on our way to Oppede-le-Vieux. And this way we can have a leisurely dinner with Nicole... whose cooking merits no less!

The hike was easy, although Dad did complain somewhat about the steepness of the climb to Gordes, where we had lunch. The whole village has been declared a national historical monument, and one understands why, particularly when you climb up to it from the valley: most impressive.

Nicole met us shortly after Gordes to show us the local Mesa Verde equivalent: an olive mill built into a cliff at half-height where there was an overhang. Apparently it was in use until well into the 18th Century, and you can still see the various grinding surfaces, cisterns, troughs, etc. that they carved into the rock to handle the olives and the oil. Tres interessant!

The rooms in the Vieux Bistrot in Cabrieres were excellent, as was dinner at Nicole's place. We were nine around the table -- the six of us, Nicole, and her two sons -- and conversation was good, there was much laughter, and we ate and drank way too much. In particular Dave let himself be goaded into eating two plums that had been steeped for ages in near 100% alcohol (% not proof!) -- most amusing (except perhaps for Dave the following morning :-).

Oh, one more thing: we had our first view of the Alpilles the day before, and the first clear view today. The excitement is mounting! Only four more days of hiking....

Stage 88a -- Rustrel to Roussillon

2007-10-22T07:34:00.000+01:00

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Sunday, Oct 21st, 2007

Dave and his brother arrived Saturday evening, not exactly as planned -- due to a railway strike in France -- but in time for dinner nevertheless. Sunday morning we set off bright and, well, late, after 10, much to the disgust of Dave who demanded to know what had happened to the Spartan days of leaving before 8AM that he had experienced at the beginning of the H2H.

But these are the gravy days, we told him. The hikes are short, the weather is perfect, we aren't in the mountains so if something goes wrong we don't need the extra daylight time to recover... there just isn't any reason to get up early. He was, I think, only partially mollified. Having not suffered through the entirety of the H2H, he has the typical guest-hiker's eager initial desire for exercise and effort. Whereas we grizzled and experienced hikers value every short and flat stage as a gift.

Lots of road walking today, as expected and as typical for these last days: the Luberon and the Alpilles are densely populated, at least in comparison with where we have been, and so there are fewer trails. As compensation there are many beautiful villages -- we had a two hour lunch in one, Saint-Saturnin-les-Apt -- and spent the night in another -- Roussillon.

The newer parts of Saint-Saturnin didn't seem to be particularly special, but it is overlooked by remarkable ruins that cry out for exploration, both physical and online (i.e., I don't know their history). Roussillon, perched on its ochre cliffs, is one of the most beautiful villages in France, for which we forgive it its tourists, of whom there were still many around when we arrived shortly before 5PM.

Our hotel, the Clos de la Glycine, is excellent, and after watching Hamilton choke his way out of the Formula One drivers championship, and then some Sumo, the meal last night in the Bistrot was also very good. Unusually, for me, I ate relatively little -- it seems as if the couple of hours hiking in the afternoon were not enough to rebuild hunger after eating an entire pizza, a fair-sized salad, and a dessert at lunch. Grin.

Another short day today, with lunch in Gordes and dinner promised tonight at Nicole's in Cabrieres-d'Avignon. Sigh. It's a rough life :-).

Urs finishes his report

2007-10-20T14:37:00.000+01:00

I'm not sure what happened to his theory about aliens... but Urs seems to have reached a state of peaceful acceptance as regards that strange trio of Alpine wanderers. I wish him well....
---

Strange Things in the Alps
by Urs Ruefli, Alpine Alien Agency, Lausanne

AAA: Today, we have set up a phone conference with various participants who might help us to understand the events in the Alps in the past months. First, I would like to introduce one of the leading long term experts on Alpine expeditions. Mr. Ötzi, what is the attraction of doing such exhausting projects?

Mr. Ötzi: Well, in my experience, there is nothing that compares with arriving at a mountain hut after a demanding 7-hour march, and sitting in the evening sun and watching the ice melting from ones bones. Such a peaceful feeling can subjectively last for centuries.

AAA: So, you feel that it is a kind of "Carpe Diem" philosophy that is motivating this extraordinary group?

Mr. Ötzi: I can only speak for myself, but at the top of a mountain, a split-second and a millennium are almost the same. You arrive with pained muscles, with a hungry stomach, and maybe completely wet to the skin. But then you start to relax, you celebrate a simple meal as if it were a royal dinner, and you enjoy some pleasant conversation with your fellow travellers. Suddenly, all the pain is forgotten. You look down at your trim body and you don't see a gram of fat. It is so gratifying to be a mountain traveller.

AAA: Thanks, Mr. Ötzi. Let me include our next guest in this conversation Mrs. Paris Hilton, what is your personal view on such challenging projects? Have you ever been to the High Alps?

Paris: First, I'd like to say how much I admire this group. Always out in the fresh air and every step is a step towards fame and mystery. I wished I could join them.

AAA: If you join them, what would you tell them?

Paris: I would encourage them to always move on. We famous people are the beacon of the ordinary people. Without us, they are lost in their small daily lives, without hope and without future. This expedition shows especially to young people that there is more to life than just playing computer games and wasting their nights in discos. Instead, they can walk up and down the mountains and see real stars at night.

AAA: It sounds like you are really excited about this expedition. Is there any person in the group that you would like to greet especially.

Paris: Yes, absolutely. All the media are talking about this big giant, who is taking all this pain to follow his fearless leader. I'm sure he deserves all this admiration. In fact, if he ever comes to Santa Barbara, he should definitely stop by for a drink. But, there is also this woman in the group. In my view, she is the real hero. She is walking for months with these two men. It would be so much easier for her if I would be with her and could cheer her up. But she is basically alone, I mean as a female. But she never complains and she always walks up and down each mountain. This is so amazing. I hope that at the end of each day, she gets at least some Caipirinha from these men. I mean, that is the least she can expect.

AAA: Thank you, Paris. I'm impressed how emphatically you are. Finally, I'd like to introduce Mr. Dalai Lama to this conference. You have heard Mr Ötzi's comments about his High Alpin experiences, as well as Paris' thoughts about the importance of a little bit of alcoholic encouragement every while. What are your thoughts?

Dalai Lama: This expedition is a symbol for the diversity of life. For some of us, every day is just getting us one day closer to the end. For some of us, every day gets us up at some high mountain. For some of us, every day is filled with pain and hunger. For some of us, every day is a step forward on our dream path. All of us share the same days and the same paths, but our perception is so completely different. And suddenly we realise, that we are suddenly getting close to the last day of our journey. We turn around and look back, where all the tall mountains of the past stand up high into the sky. And we recognize that all the pain and all the hunger disappeared. What is left is what we make out of it. Was it good? Was it bad? It is all up to us. We recognize that we will never take the same journey again. We are happy that we did. Life is short and there are not so many opportunities to experience all these sentiments.

AAA: Long-distance projects, like the Way of St. James (Jakobsweg) are becoming more and more popular. Are you suggesting that all of us should start such as expedition?

Dalai Lama: I'm suggesting that all of us are already in such expeditions, although not all are so physically demanding. Not all have clear objectives, not all show daily progress. But in the end, we will all be united at the final destination and will share what we have experienced. It is up to us, what we can tell.

AAA: Thank you. Let's conclude this report by wishing our fine travellers that they will reach their destination soon and that they can enjoy looking back to every single day of the journey, every mountain top, and every piece of pork.

"Rest" day in Rustrel

2007-10-20T14:26:00.000+01:00

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Saturday, Oct 20th, 2007

Well, that was impressive. Just got back from a hike through the former ochre quarries and you can count me among the converted: they are truly spectacular.

Dad and I struck off from one of the main north/south paths and took a meandering and poorly maintained trail through a fairies' playground of bluffs and dells and micro-canyons and hills and grottos and spires and hoodoos, heavily eroded and displaying the most remarkable variety of colours -- from white to yellow to orange to red to dark umber and all offset by the bright green of vegetation.

It was a challenging path for Dad, continually going up and down, at times next to drop-offs, often steep, and with many roots and branches to clamber over and under, but he soldiered on until we came to a steep and eroded section down a dark red ochre wash that he declared to be his limit as far as difficulty went.

I'll definitely be coming back: there must be 10 times as much to explore as we saw, and judging by the state of the trail there aren't many who do so At any rate, we saw not a soul along the side trail, despite it being a Saturday and there being a fair number of other walkers around.

Dave DeRose and his brother are going to be joining us this afternoon for the rest of the hike. Since Dave was our first guest-hiker, with us from when we walked out of our front door in Bavaira until he left us at Hohenschwangau, there is a pleasing symmetry in his return for the final week.

The. Final. Week. Wow. A week from today we will wake up in our house in Provence after our first post-H2H night. To paraphrase Vizzini from the lovely movie, The Princess Bride: it's inconthievabubble!

Stage 87 -- Viens to Rustrel

2007-10-20T14:02:00.001+01:00

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Friday, Oct 19th, 2007

Sort of a mini-stage today: only 2.75h and most of that downhill. The original idea was to then go out in the afternoon and walk for a few hours without packs through the abandoned ochre quarries of the Colorado Provencal.

However, since we are going to take a rest day tomorrow, and since Dad is disinclined to sit around for the whole day "doing nothing" (it may be that to truly appreciate the beauty of "doing nothing" one has to have done the whole of the H2H :-), we agreed that we would take the afternoon off and go hiking among the ochre hills tomorrow.

"We" being in this case Dad and I, since Russ and Sally refuse to thus profane a rest day.

We therefore allowed ourselves a couple of bottles of wine at lunch, which led to the expected proliferation of afternoon naps. Also as expected we weren't terribly hungry come dinnertime. Not that some of us let ourselves be distracted from the serious business of dining by such unimportant matters :-).

Rustrel, by the way, is not a particularly impressive village. The center is practically non-existent and without charm; there isn't much in the way of commerce; and the surrounding houses and streets, although neat, seem as if they were extracted from somewhere around Poole or Bournemouth in southern England and then plumped down here. Not that there is anything wrong with those areas, but houses that belong there just don't seem to fit in here.

The ochre quarries, however, are supposed to be spectacular, so perhaps redemption is waiting in the wings.

Stage 86 -- Montfuron to Viens

2007-10-18T18:24:00.001+01:00

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Thursday, Oct 18th, 2007

Somewhat shorter than expected, today's hike was again about 5.5 hours. After an hour along a semi-busy road we were pleased to spend the rest of the day on farm roads and quiet country lanes. Another cloudless, warm day, enlivened by a moderate Mistral wind especially in the afternoon: perfect hiking weather.

We crossed into the Luberon and spent the morning walking along the top of a slowly descending ridge parallel to the Luberon hills themselves. Beautiful countryside, at times with little villages, at times almost deserted with just the odd farmhouse.

We reached the village of Cereste around 1PM and stopped for lunch in an excellent little restaurant called La Pastorale, run by a young Dutch couple. For my money (and it was not expensive), it is at least as good as the much better known restaurant run by a Dutch couple in Eygalieres: Chez Bru (which has two Michelin stars). And the owner and her boyfriend are charming and love cats: what more could one want? Definitely worth going back to!!!

Well-fed and quite contented with ourselves and life in general we ambled off around 3PM, past fields of lavender and an ancient ruined priory, and arrived in the dramatically located village of Viens at 5:30.

Sigh. Almost makes one wish that the H2H will not soon be over....

Stage 85 -- Greoux-les-Bains to Montfuron

2007-10-17T18:41:00.000+01:00

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Wednesday, Oct 17th, 2007

Ditto. As in: nice weather, easy hike, 5.5 hours, good conversation, excellent lunch, nice place to stay for the night. One significant difference was that we spent most of the day walking along roads, including about 45 minutes on a very busy main road, which was quite unpleasant. In addition we aren't staying in a hotel this evening, but rather at a B&B which doesn't offer dinner; so we'll be eating some quiche that we purchased in Manosque at lunchtime.

I was a little tired this morning, having stayed up until around 1AM talking with Oliver with whom I shared a room last night. He left this morning, much to our regret: with his humour and conversational skills he is an excellent hiking partner!

Manosque is the biggest place we have been in since Monaco, and the traffic was the worst we have seen since then too. At other times, however, I suspect that I would regard Manosque as being a small and somewhat sleepy town -- which shows how much time we have spent in the wilds recently.

Dad is holding up well. This was his third day, and apart for some intermittent ankle pain and sore shoulders in the evening, he seems to be handling the hikes. He is more sensible about walking at a reasonable pace than he was last year: i.e., he doesn't charge up the hills and get tired out and have to stop after five minutes, as he did on the C2C.

He is still pretty beat at the end of the day, though, as witnessed by his falling asleep next to me as I was writing this (pre-dinner). And snoring. Which if he does tonight might result in a radically shortened life expectancy. Grrrr.

Tomorrow will be slightly longer hike (although it will be shorter than planned -- we'll cut out the walk around the Gorge d'Oppedette, so it will be about 6.5 hours, an hour longer than we have done so far). We'll be watching him carefully.

Otherwise everyone is in pretty good shape. Russ's knee continues to give him some problems, but ice, drugs, and a support bandage seem to be keeping it under control. Sally's feet hurt at the end of the day, but not so much as to impact her overall sunny mood. And I'm much as ever, fully recovered from the post-Monaco low.

The days are rushing by now....

Stage 84 -- Riez to Greoux-les-Bains

2007-10-17T18:09:00.000+01:00

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Tuesday, Oct 16th, 2007

Another easy and relaxing hike. Another very good lunch in a restaurant in a tiny village. Another sunny day. Another picturesque town in which to spend the night. Another nice hotel and another excellent dinner. Hiking through this part of Provence may be a little monotonous, but we have decided that monotony is good :-).

About 5.5 hours of hiking, as yesterday. Interesting conversations. No hunters seen or heard. Forest and farm roads for the most part, with about a km along a larger road into Greoux-les-Bains at the end of the day.

A little touristy, but otherwise a nice place, Greoux. Dominated by the ruins of a Templar castle (which, as usual, we did not have the energy to go and visit), it has a charming old center. Another place to go back to.

Gravy days.

Urs Ruefli calms down

2007-10-16T07:30:00.001+01:00

Not a word about aliens... must have changed his meds ;-)
---

Strange Things in the Alps
by Urs Ruefli, Alpine Alien Agency, Lausanne

I met again with Prof. Dr. Bruno Kirchgraber, the expert on stochastic and probability theory.
You might remember his earlier interview. Since then, Prof. Dr. Kirchgraber has spent a lot of time with additional research.

AAA: Prof. Dr. Kirchgraber, it has been almost three weeks since out last interview. What new insights can you report about?

PDK: Well, there is so much wrong information in the media about this group There are more reports about their appearances than for Elvis. But there is a strong indication that they left Bavaria a long time ago and have now moved deeply into France.

AAA: Are they still in the Alps?

PDK: That is my assumption. There is a consistent pattern in their travel path. They always move up and down. For some unclear reason, they seem to like to take difficult routes, even if shorter and easier ones would be available to them.

AAA: Do you have an explanation for that? Do they try to hide?

PDK: If they would look for protection they could also take other paths. There must be some other motivation.

AAA: Is it related to pork, as all media assume?

PDK: This pork thing is hugely overvalued. As a matter of fact, it seems the group didn't eat any pork for many days. The main ingredient of their nutrition seems to have changed towards cheese, which is no surprise as they seem to be in France now.

AAA: Are you saying that Porkie abandoned pork?

PDK: The name Porkie and all these stories were initially made up by the tabloid press, like Bildzeitung. Both the name and the stories are misleading The person referred to as Porkie is an unusually tall and strong individual. But he is not 8 feet tall, as some reports suggest. He is quite strong, and certainly has a quite low fat percentage. Otherwise, he could never move so quickly through all these mountains. And all these stories about pigs and pork were extremely exaggerated.

AAA: These are surprising news. So what is the name of this giant if it is not Porkie?

PDK: Hard to say. French press starts to refer to him as Monsieur Le Fromage. But that is a simplistic attempt to promote their cheese industry. From a purely statistical perspective, it is most likely that his first name is Mohammed and his last name Chang. But statistics is not always so helpful.

AAA: Do you have any new information regarding their destination?

PDK: Obviously, they entered the Alps in Bavaria. From there, they crossed the whole of Switzerland and then entered France. Since then, they walked constantly towards South. It seems they want to get to the sea. From there, their next plans are not clear. They might turn towards Italy, towards Spain, or even get on a ship.

AAA: Prof. Dr. Kirchgraber, what would you do in their place?

PDK: I don't think that my preference is a good indication. Whenever I have to go from Bavaria to France, I take a plane. Obviously, this group has a different taste. You can not predict their behaviour by asking ordinary people like me.

AAA: Whom could we ask?

PDK: I don't know. Maybe the Dalai Lama? Maybe Paris Hilton? Maybe Ötzi the Iceman?

AAA: I'll think about it.

Stage 83 -- Moustiers-Sainte-Marie to Riez

2007-10-16T07:16:00.000+01:00

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Monday, Oct 15th, 2007

After two much appreciated rest days in Moustiers, during which Dad and Oliver arrived, we set off around 10AM on our way to Riez. Another perfect hiking day, sunny but not too warm. The hike started with a climb of about 220m up out of the Moustiers valley and onto the Plateau de Valensoie. Peanuts to those who strove with the Alps, but quite significant for the Florida-adapted (Dad) and the unprepared (Ollie).

From the top we could see back to mountains, which stretch without a break all the way from here to the Po plain in Italy. They looked beautiful, impressive, even hyperbolically adjectival, but I felt absolutely no urge to go back into them. Maybe in a month or so, but not now.

The Plateau is flat agricultural land with many fields of lavender, which although not in flower were still fragrant in the hand. We walked across it at a comfortable pace, talking of this and that. Lunch at the village of Roumoules was in an unprepossessing roadside restaurant that, however, served excellent food (it's in France, after all), and there remained under two hours until we reached the Chateau de Pontfrac, where we were to spend the night.

A day, when all was said and done, like the landscape: easy, pleasant, congenial.

Second try... Stage 82 -- Chalet de la Maline to Moustiers-Sainte-Marie

2007-10-13T14:29:00.000+01:00

(posting problems rear their ugly heads again)

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Friday, Oct 12th, 2007

It took us 2 days to get to the mountains, and 80 to hike through them. Today we finally came down out of them for good. Oh, there are still some hills to be crossed ahead of us -- the Luberon and the Alpilles -- but both are separate from the Alps through which we have been hiking for so long.

The feeling when we came up to the top of that last ridge and saw ahead of us the flat Plateau de Valensoie stretching out into the hazy distance of an autumn afternoon was for me much more satisfying than seeing the sea from the heights above Monaco. Then I knew that we still had a significant amount of tough hiking to do. Now all we have ahead of us are gravy days, or at least that's the way it seems.

Today is also significant for two other reasons: we only have 10 stages left until the end of the hike, and today is the last day the three of us will hike alone, since our father will join us tomorrow for the remainder of the H2H.

But seeing the flat plain was the most remarkable thing: I can't get over it. The mountains had come to seem endless and it ws if I had forgotten what the world could look like away from them. The sea didn't count somehow -- perhaps because it is always that way and there is no difference between near and far. But the plains -- it felt like you could see for ever....

And it was another great hike. The first hour was along the road on the northern edge of the Gorge du Verdon, with continual spectacular views across and down into it, then came a couple of hours along a trail about 2/3 of the way up the canyon walls. After that a steep climb to a ridgeline to the north, then after a couple more hours through the endless emptiness of eastern Provence we came to the final descent into the valley of Moustiers-Sainte-Marie.

The village itself is lovely, almost picture-perfect set into a cleft of the mountain with a river tumbling down a ravine through its center. We'll stay here for the next couple of days, meet Dad and our cousin Oliver, and then walk to the west over flat farmland to the Luberon.

We are out of the mountains!

Stage 82 -- Chalet de la Maline to Moustiers-Sainte-Marie

2007-10-13T13:56:00.000+01:00

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Friday, Oct 12th, 2007

"Rest" day at the Chalet de la Maline

2007-10-12T17:59:00.001+01:00

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Thursday, Oct 11th, 2007

For, I believe, the first time so far on the H2H, we hiked on a day that wasn't a hiking stage day. Around 11 we went down into the gorge once more, crossed a graceful arching bridge over the pitiful trickle of water that in other years and seasons is the mighty Verdon, and hiked downstream along the Sentier de l'Imbut.

Whoa! The Sentier Martel was impressive, but this was even better. The gorge became ever narrower and the path ever more rugged. At times we hiked in a gallery cut into the rock walls, holding on to cables, a hundred feet above the stream. Neither Dad nor Mel would have enjoyed it :-).

At the end of the trail the river disappeared under a jumbled mess of huge boulders, which I would have been tempted to explore further if I had not been alone: the other two had refused to hike any further after lunch, apparently remembering what rest days have been traditionally used for on the H2H.

So, the hike took about four hours in total for me: an easy day. For dinner we (Russ and I) had raclette -- and Brigite assured me that despite appearances she had not given us what would usually be given to four or maybe six people. I'm feeling rather rotund.

Tomorrow we hike to Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, where I should have cellphone contact once more. This will be good for three things: I can upload these last couple of posts to the blog, I can check and see if the acquisition of a company on whose board I sit went through as planned, and lastly I can let Lidia know that we were once again not shot by hunters.

Assuming, of course, that we aren't shot tomorrow.

Stage 81 -- Rougon to Chalet de la Maline

2007-10-12T17:55:00.000+01:00

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Wednesday, Oct 10th, 2007

Well, les Gorges du Verdon and the Sentier Martel lived up to their reputation: a wonderful hike. We started late because the baker in Rougon overslept and bread wasn't ready until 9:40. Then Russell couldn't find his camera (eventually he went back to the Gite and retrieved it from his bedside table). So we didn't really set off until around 10... which was just as well since the fog didn't dissipate until around 10:15.

We went down past Point Sublime into the gorge -- a mere 10m or so wide at the point of entry. From there the trail went up and down stairs and ladders, through tunnels (the longest of which was over 1km), at times right next to the river, at times far above it, for about 12km until the climb out to the Chalet de la Maline where we were to spend the night.

Unlike the past several days, we saw, as expected, many other hikers -- the trail is one of the more famous in Europe -- but it didn't feel crowded. The terrain is extremely rugged: after seeing it one understands why the gorge was first explored in the 20th century.

The Chalet de la Maline is one of the least well sound-insulated buildings I have ever come across: sitting in our bunkroom I can hear every word being said in the dining room below, or the rooms on either side for that matter. Furthermore, both the building and its gardienne are somewhat quirky, the former having, for example, 6 showers, 14 wash-basins (plus a wash-basin in each 8 person bunkroom), but just 2 toilets... for 80 beds... while the latter gave Russell his first "Doreen Whitehead" moment on this trip.

Those who have read my account of our hike across England on the Coast-to-Coast trail (see c2c.eurohiker.net) will recognize the name Doreen Whitehead as belonging to one of the true dragons of our times. Brigite, the gardienne, does not come close to attaining Doreen's terrifying rigidity, but she has her moments.

Such as when we arrived and she asked if we would like some split-pea soup (which we did), and then when Sally requested hot chocolate along with the soup (the day had ended a little cool) Brigite made a pained face and explained that, since soup and hot chocolate so didn't go together, Sally could have either one or the other now, then the other or the one in an hour or so if she still wished, but not both at the same time. Sally, perhaps because of her years in the military, quickly recognized the futility of protest and opted for soup :-).

At dinner, which was quite nice and all home-made, she forbade Russell to salt his meat before cooking it on the mini-barbecue on our table -- no, no, she said, afterwards -- the salt afterwards. Russell, having not been in the military, restrained himself only with difficulty, and was heard to mutter after she left that if she was going to make him cook his own dinner she ought to let him cook it as he wished!

Stage 80 -- Castellane to Rougon

2007-10-09T15:41:00.001+01:00

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Tuesday, Oct 9th, 2007

After a satisfyingly immobile rest day in Castellane we started late today because I had to handle some business. After buying lunch (I have become very fond of having a piece of Quiche Lorraine) we set off around 10:15 through mist down the deepening Gorge du Verdon. However the sun soon burned its way through and we were able to see the landscape in all its glory: VERY IMPRESSIVE. Already. And it only really gets spectacular tomorrow.

It was a short hike, about 4.5 hours, and it seems as if one of the consequences of this is to leave Russell with too much creative energy. As we were walking down to Rougon towards the end of the hike he suddenly motors by me following, apparently, a stick he was holding in an outstretched hand. "Follow the stick", he kept intoning, "Follow the stick."

For those who know Russell well enough, which for the purposes of this reminiscence is a group that is probably limited to his immediate family, there was no practical or conceptual difference to the invisible dog he used to have dragging him around when he was 12. Looks like he has had more than just a metabolic reset....

Rougon, the village where we are staying for the night is tiny, charming, medieval, and superbly positioned high over the Verdon River with a view into the narrow part of the gorge to the West. Very nice. Even better: their restaurant is open for the night so we will get dinner!

Oh, and for those who have let me know that they are concerned by my accounts of a countryside teeming with hunters: we saw and heard none today. Apparently they are much more active on the weekend, so we should be ok for another few days at least.

Another poetic contribution -- Dreamers of the Alps

2007-10-08T17:23:00.000+01:00

Once more our aunt Rosalind has put pen to paper, at least metaphorically, and crafted an H2H-themed poem. Enjoy!

----

Dreamers of the Alps

They are the Talk of the Alps, that plodding line of three
Together where'ere they go, in stalwart unity,
Almost, indeed, a trinity!
The locals speak in solemn tone
Of gallant feats with not a groan!
Such steely brows, such earnest souls
Speak volumes of their lofty goals!
The first in red, the giant last, the valorous girl between
Surge onwards, at one, through the Alpine scene.

But cows have this gift, it is said,
To hear what is in the human head.
Our thoughts, our feelings fly to them
That buzzing tide they cannot stem!
And those fed on the mountain streams
Hear each and every of the dreams.
Of the trinity of three.

"I long for a taxi in the valley"
Surely that's Sally?
"Pray God there's no Porkie in the shower
With a snout both leering and dour"
We're betting that's Russell, so prone to cower!
"If only Mont Blanc had glaciers of cream
Whipped and with nuts and soft jelly beans"
Such visions must come from the guy in red,
Who thinks with his stomach more than his head!
"I just wish it were over, I'll then lie in clover
And paint my toe-nails pink"
That's Sally, we think!
"I have to report to the Alpine Alien Agency
Re a matter of porcine urgency,
Our meaty limbs are under threat!"
That's Russell, whom we just now met
(Is he crazed or just dazed?)
"I hear there's a wonderful bar in Nice
Where glorious fare will put me at peace"
Their leader, of course, that avid feeder!!

Knowing nought of airborne revelation
Our glorious team greet hikers from every nation
Who gaze in jelly-legged admiration
At the trinity of three,
So wonderful to see!

But, lo! There booms a choir of bovine bells
Across the peaks and vales
They're telling frightful tales
About our doughty males …………(and damsel)

"Their dreams are like candy floss
And that includes the boss!
We hear their airy-fairy thoughts
Laced with desires of every sort!
Leisure and pleasure abound in their dreams
A bed lined with silk, a pillow rich in down,
A sumptuous restaurant in the best street in town
Cakes topped with cheese, they're not hard to please!
Ignore those lofty brows, just listen to us cows!

But the folk of the Alps and the weary walkers
Don't have a clue about bovine talkers.
Transfixed, they watch that noble line of three.
"Just watch them go and go!" They cry,
"The first in red, the giant last, the valorous girl between
Surge onwards, at one, through the Alpine scene!"

Stage 79 -- Brianconnet to Castellane

2007-10-08T12:05:00.000+01:00

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Sunday, Oct 7th, 2007

A mixed bag, the hotel in Brianconnet: on the one hand they served the largest, most heavily laden pizzas that I have ever seen (and charged a pittance for them), but on the other the beds were like bananas, and the owner was incapable of providing us with a packed lunch. It seems as if Sally had the best of it: her chambre d'hotes (B&B that also does dinner) was very nice, the food good and plentiful, the bed comfortable, and the company congenial. Worth the walk, she felt.

Dinner table conversation apparently turned to hunting and her hosts told her a couple of things. A little disturbingly, they said that the hunters shoot one another all the time. And amusingly they said that the wild boar appear to be way smarter than the hunters: when the hunt is on the south side of the valley, they regularly see boar trotting by their place on the north side heading upslope into the forests. I wonder what the kill ratio is of hunters vs. boar? And vs. hikers?

The hike was very like the day before: beautiful countryside, no other hikers, frequent sounds of hunters, and lots of whistling. We went over the watershed between the Var and the Rhone (well, actually the Verdon, but it ultimately flows into the Rhone) at a village called Soleilhas around midday. All downhill from here! We wish....

We got lucky with lunch: there was a restaurant in Soleilhas, and it was open, and it served plentiful and hearty food, so we were not forced to eat the slowly defrosting loaf of bread which was all that our host in Brianconnet had given us. That cast a completely different light on the afternoon than I had feared, and it was with a significantly improved attitude that we walked off after lunch over the highest remaining point on the H2H: the 1365m Col de Saint-Barnabe. Quite a change from the Pas de Cavale!

On the way down along a forest road we stepped aside to allow a convoy of eight vehicles to pass, one of which was a pickup truck transporting two dead wild boar. Apparently the hunters do win from time to time. On a related note, I saw no dead hunters or hikers.

After a long downhill, shortly before we got to Castellane, we stopped for a few minutes to rest our tired feet. It was another fairly long day -- almost 7 hours -- and since it was the fifth in a row our feet and legs were starting to feel severely compromised. Russell being Russell expressed his feelings at this state of affairs in a series of loud incoherent cries, prompting the lady of the house behind which we were sitting to come and see what was wrong.

One thing led to another and we spent a pleasant hour chatting with her and her husband over coffee and orange juice in their garden. We talked about the usual subjects -- our hike, the drought, hunting, and wild boar. He works in Nice and he said that it has only rained twice there in the last 12 months and that the trees are starting to die. They said that they detest the hunters, and also whistle whenever they go out into the woods at this time of the year, usually when looking for mushrooms, but that there haven't been any this year on accont of the drought.

On the subject of wild boar, he pointed to his rooted up lawn and said that if he had a gun he would have been able to shoot a couple from his living room window the night before. Apparently there are tons of the destructuve little beasties around, and, one assumes, would be even more if the hunters didn't kill a bunch each year, so maybe the hunters are something of a necessary evil.

Castellane is a slightly larger village than those we have seen over the last few days, and with a spectacular setting on the Verdon River just next to a huge rock monolith (200m high) on the very top of which is perched a church. Another time I'd be interested in climbing up there. But not today. Today, our rest day, I'm going to do as little as possible!

Stage 78 -- Aiglun to Brianconnet

2007-10-06T18:16:00.001+01:00

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Saturday, Oct 6th, 2007

A very nice hike today. Tiring, but very nice. Beautiful countryside with cliffs and gorges, autumn colors, the trails led over several shoulders and up and down some scenic valleys... just a very nice hike. Took around 6.5 hours, so another fairly long day.

As expected, we saw no other hikers. On the other hand, we did see several hunters, and heard but did not see several more. They are hunting wild boar, of which there appear to be many around, judging by the number of patches of rooted-up ground I have seen.

It is a little unnerving at times to be walking through a hunt, hearing shots, and rounding corners to see orange-hatted men standing around cradling guns, but they have all been very friendly.

Of course, their pleasant characters won't help us much if they shoot us accidentally, but we whistle non-stop (which they recommend) and they do seem quite professional. If we make it through tomorrow unscathed, then we should be OK for a while: they mostly hunt on the weekends.

We haven't seen much in the way of wild animals since leaving Monaco (although this is perhaps not surprising given my whistling :-), but Sally did almost have a head-on collision with a Mouflon today -- a powerfully built type of wild mountain sheep with impressive curling horns. She says it came charging down the trail, screeched to a halt when it saw her, and after a few seconds in which they eyed one another, turned around and bounded off.

From which you may deduce both that Sally is way scarier than a mountain ram, and also that she has been hiking out front again.

Today was another day for which rain had been predicted but failed to materialize: blue skies and almost uninterrupted sunshine. The locals tell us that the weather forecasters have been predicting rain every three or four days since June, but that they have had nothing yet. However, although the forests are clearly quite dry, they don't seem to be parched and we have seen no smoke or signs of recent fires.

So I suspect that despite the complaints of the locals there has been some rainfall, just not a soaking rain. In consequence, the fire risk has been manageable but the rivers are extremely low.

We arrive at the hotel this afternoon and Russ takes one look at his and Sally's bed and says, we won't fit in that. I'm not quite sure why: it is a normal double bed and I'd feel quite comfortable sharing it with Lidia. On the other hand, they are both quite broad-shouldered, and Sally says that Russell is like a Thresher Shark when he sleeps, prone to lay waste to anything and anyone around him when he "turns over", if such a violent motion can be so described.

So since there is nothing else free in the hotel, the owner of the hotel gets on the phone and arranges another room with a local B&B. In fact, there are several rooms free in the B&B, and the hotel owner initially assumes that we will all move over there.

Nope.

I have already unpacked and anyway the B&B is several hundred meters away, so there is no way I'm moving. Amusingly Russell decides he also doesn't want to walk any more, so he is staying too. And most amusing of all, Sally is thrilled to be on her own for the first time in months, and is more than happy to walk some more for the privilege! So off she goes and we'll see her tomorrow morning.

Tough hike, the H2H.

Stage 77 -- Bezaudun-des-Alpes (Coursegoules) to Aiglun

2007-10-06T09:57:00.001+01:00

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Friday, Oct 5th, 2007

I just realized that my stage numbering for the blog entries has been one off from the numbering on the website since Chamonix. Oops. I'll try to remain consistent from now on.

So, I felt better than the last couple of days, it didn't rain, and the hike was "only" 6.5 hours. Jackpot!

Little or no connectivity here, or yesterday in Bezaudun, so you might not see this post, or the previous one, for a day or two. This is wild country: deep-cut valleys, towering cliffs and mountains (over 1000m difference at times between the tops of the mountains and the rivers between them), just the occasional road and village, and nigh on nobody on the trails.

The first day out of Monaco we saw two hikers, the next day one, and today none at all. It perhaps plays something of a role that we have spent much of the last couple of days on secondary, i.e., non-GR (Grande Randonnee) trails, but I suspect that we wouldn't have seen many more on the GRs: this is France's empty quarter.

Aiglun is another of these tiny medieval perched villages, and is among the most isolated that we have seen on the whole trip. We were apparently fortunate to find accommodations here: the only place to stay reopened under new ownership (after a prolonged hiatus) just yesterday. On the positive side, I assume that this means that the ingredients used to cook dinner will be fresh :-).

There is little or no farming here -- the terrain is just too rugged for that -- and neither is there much animal husbandry it seems, probably due to the perennial lack of water. Basically the local economic activities seem to be forestry and a little tourism. So it is perhaps not surprising that it is so thinly settled.

We have two more days of this country until we get to Castellane: I'll bet we won't see a single other hiker on the trails.

Stage 75 -- Colomars (Aspremont) to Bezaudun-des-Alpes (Coursegoules)

2007-10-04T17:49:00.000+01:00

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Thursday, Oct 4th, 2007

Our accommodation challenges continue. Unable to contact the only place I had found to stay in Coursegoules (nobody ever answered the phone!), we instead came to a B&B in the little village of Bezaudun-les-Alpes, about 7km east of Coursegoules. And for various reasons this has turned out to be a good thing.

The first reason is a direct result of yesterday's heroic hike: I was still tired when I woke up this morning. My heels and knees hadn't recovered and I felt even slower than I had felt the previous day. Memo to self: don't take breaks longer than a couple of days when on a long hike -- when you start again it is almost like starting anew!

And so it was with some pleasure that I realized that today's hike would be much shorter than the planned 9.5h -- in fact it took us under 6 -- in part because we had done some of the hike the day before, in part because Bezaudun was closer than Coursegoules, and we took different trails in order to get there which turned out to involve less up and down.

The second reason is that the B&B here is just charming, as is the owner. Ruth McIntyre is an American from Missouri who has lived in Europe for 40 years, most of that in Barcelona. She and her then husband, a French painter, bought this place several years ago -- it is a classic medieval village house, with many doors and steps and courtyards and thick walls -- and renovated and redecorated it with excellent taste.

She has also offered to take us to the nearest restaurant for dinner (there is none in Bezaudun, nor, for that matter, is there any other shop that sells food -- there are only 80 inhabitants and that is much more than there were 30 years ago). And it turns out that the nearest restaurant is in Coursegoules, so we'll get to see it as well.

Tomorrow, however, will almost certainly again be a long day, since our goal -- the village of Aiglun -- is far to the west of Coursegoules, and we are 7km east. We'll take a different route, which will save us some up and down, but I'm still expecting at least 7 hours of hiking. On top of that, it is supposed to rain and there may be thunderstorms. Hope I feel better tomorrow morning than I did today or else it is going to be one of the worse days on the H2H!

Urs Ruefli reappears

2007-10-03T20:59:00.000+01:00

Perhaps he/she/it was also in Monaco?

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Strange Things in the Alps – Porkie, the new hero
by Urs Ruefli, Alpine Alien Agency, Lausanne

During the past week, Porkie has become the center of the global media attention. There are now dozens of helicopters over the Alps that look out for the group. While initially the public opinion considered Porkie as dangerous pork killer, he is now usually seen as a victim of the red guy. Let me summarize some noteworthy publications.

The Union of Meatworkers suggests that Porkie should be treated like one of their members. They claim that the red guy is violating various rights of Porkie. Meatworkers must not work longer than 6 hours without a break. They are entitled to 2 rest days per week. Their work place has to be dry and clean. Overall, they list 12 worker rights of Porkie that are constantly violated by the red guy. As a result, they plan a big strike of the Meatworkers across Germany.

The Catholic Church states that Porkie is not just a giant, but also a human like all of us. Nobody knows what he did to receive all that torture, but, like anyone of us he deserves a chance for rest and peace. The Church organizes special events where people around the world can gather and pray for Porkie.

George Bush announced that he would send rescue teams to Porkie. He stated that the Alps are now on the axis of evil. Would they be in Texas, he would tear them down and pave them like a huge parking lot. But since he was told that they are in the middle of the plots of Angela, this Australian guy, and the chocolate country of which the name he can never remember, he feels that a more subtle approach is required. He asked Arnold to head the rescue team. Arnold told him that he knows the Alps better than anyone else. He is now putting together his team, consisting of 600 armed actors, led by Sylvester Stallone, Tom Cruise, and Charles Bronson.

Amnesty International teamed up with Greenpeace and also sent out their combined troops. Included are 16 helicopters that throw down encouraging letters in 34 different languages, as well as pork packages in 34 different wrappings. They applaud Porkie for not eating whale flesh and for being outside so much, but without consuming any natural resources besides pork. They also provided some statistics that show that pork is the one natural resource that can be renewed without any problem. Thus they also demand that nuclear power plants have to be converted into pig farms. Porkie has become their figure head for this global campaign.

Stage 74 -- Monaco to Colomars (Aspremont)

2007-10-03T20:46:00.001+01:00

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Wednesday, Oct 3rd, 2007

We were unable to find rooms at either Aspremont, where we originally planned to spend the night, or at Tourrette-Levens, which would have made the day shorter, so we had to lengthen an already long day by another 45 minutes or so. My hiking time was therefore around 8.5 hours... not really what I needed after several days off!

Russell and Sally, the former to spare his knee and the latter because the former wasn't doing it :-), chose to skip the climb from Monaco that retraced the route we had come down last Friday. Instead they took a taxi up and met me at the Col de Guerre where we first saw the Mediterranean. It took me about an hour and three quarters by foot, and it took them about 25 minutes by taxi -- testifying both to the density of traffic in Monaco, and to the inefficiency of the street plan.

It became a long day. Perhaps it was our heavy hearts at leaving Monaco, perhaps it was our heavy stomachs after several days of gastronomic excess, or maybe it was something else, but what is certain is that both Russell and I felt very slow and listless today. On the other hand, Sally seemed unaffected and strode ahead for much of the day.

We considered ourselves fortunate to find a place to eat around 2PM in Cantaron, after having failed in Drap, even if it did not exactly inspire confidence as to quality or even cleanliness. But the food turned out to be copious and solid, even if not quite what one would call haute cuisine (meatloaf at Alan Ducasse? Unlikely...).

We arrived at our hotel around 6:30PM, and after a shower and a light dinner (lunch was still squatting in our stomachs) we retired to our rooms at 9. Tomorrow looks like it will be another long day....

Stage 73 -- Peillon to Monaco

2007-10-02T18:01:00.000+01:00

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Friday, Sept 28th, 2007

Sorry about the lack of posts for the last few days: we're in Monaco and the H2H has seemed far away. But tomorrow we go back on the road again, and so my thoughts have returned to the blog.

The hike from Peillon was exhilarating. The first view of the sea from about 620m as we came up to the crest of the last ridge was deeply satisfying. As we came down into Monaco, we passed La Trophee des Alpes, a victory monolith erected to celebrate Rome's subjugation of the Alpine tribes almost 2,000 years ago. I understand sort of how they must have felt. After more than three months hiking along the great southwestern arc of the Alps, we had finally won. Very, very satisfying.

And Monaco. Well, what can one say? Monaco is never disappointing, and when one reaches it after a journey such as ours, well, it seems like a little bit of paradise on earth.

We were met in front of the Casino by Lidia and Madeleine, both dressed to the nines and looking immensely chic and sophisticated, and then, after several photos, we walked through the revolving doors of the Hotel de Paris and stood in the vast and elegant entrance hall savouring the moment.

Lidia had done an excellent pre-arrival PR job and so the doormen knew who we were and thus did not try to evict us out of hand. We checked in, went up to our rooms, and since then have been enjoying a truly sybaritic interlude. Dinners in some of the finest restaurants in Europe, cabaret and gambling in the Casino, walks along the ranks of the mega-yachts in the port, and through the alleys of the old town, visits to the superb acquarium and exotic gardens, lounging by or in the salt-water pool, massages... it goes on and on.

In addition to Lidia and Madi, Christine rejoined us for four days, and our friend Francois -- a true gourmet if I have ever met one -- came to town for a memorable meal at Alain Ducasse's Louis XV and pronounced the meal and service and ambience -- the whole experience in fact -- flawless and quite possibly the best meal he had had in his life.

It has been that kind of a stay here in Monaco.

But all things have their time, and some must come to an end, at least for a while. Lidia and Madi left yesterday, we leave tomorrow. We have several long and tough days of hiking ahead of us before we meet Dad and Oliver in Moustiers-Sainte-Marie and the easier, shorter, flatter days of the end of the H2H are upon us.

On the injury front, Russell had his knee injected with steroids and was told to not hike for 15 days if he knew what was good for him. Apparently he does not know this. However, we will try to find some ways to shorten some of the longer hikes for him.

The weather here on the Cote-d'Azur has been hot the last few days, but I hear rumours that it is supposed to get colder and rainier later on in the week.

Although there are "only" 19 stages left, we clearly still have some challenges to overcome. And so I'll be blogging again more regularly until the Neverest Fest begins on the 26th.

Stage 72 -- Sospel to Peillon

2007-09-27T18:29:00.000+01:00

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Thursday, Sept 27th, 2007

It rained all day yesterday; lucky it was a free day :-). Today dawned clear and sunny, but clouds quickly gathered and it became a game of dodge the rain. For most of about 5 hours there were either thunderstorms or showers visible somewhere ahead, but the only time it rained more than a couple of drops on us was when we were standing chatting with a couple of English tourists outside our hotel in Peillon. So we went in.

Some tricky trails today. For a change we didn't hike along the path of a Grande Randonnee (long distance hiking trail), but instead took secondary trails. They were marked on my map as hiking trails, and there were in fact signposts and trail-marks from time to time, but the overall quality of the navigational aids was pretty poor. Despite this we went astray only once, however, and were fortunate to immediately be caught trespassing and thus sent straight back to the right path!

The vegetation is getting more aggressive as we get closer to the Mediterranean: it seems as if every plant or bush we pass has thorns or spikes. This is the first day I have arrived with bloody scratches on my legs.

We passed through Peille -- a lovely medieval perched village -- around 2PM and stopped for cups of hot chocolate at a cafe: even though we didn't get wet from the rain, it was still quite cold, around 4-8C, I'd guess. Unusual for this area at this time of the year: we are only a few km from the coast, and the highest point on the hike was only around 1000m. There was snow visible on the some of the higher peaks around us: good thing we aren't crossing high passes now!

Our hotel, l'Auberge de la Madone in Peillon, another beautiful medieval perched village, seems exceptionally nice: an old inn with large rooms, and, at least according to the Michelin Guide, which gave it a star, an excellent kitchen. The only problem: dinner is at 8PM. I ate my last Snickers bar about two hours ago and am by now (7:20) starving, as is typical by this time of the day when we hike.

If you hear reports of earthquakes on the Cote-d'Azur, don't worry: it's only my stomach.

The reports keep coming...

2007-09-26T15:41:00.001+01:00

...as Urs Ruefli remains hot on the trail of those mysterious sightings in the Alps!

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Strange Things in the Alps (for Dummies)
by Urs Ruefli, Alpine Alien Agency, Lausanne

Today I interviewed Prof. Dr. Bruno Kirchgraber, an expert on stochastic and probability theory. I gave him all the known facts about Porkie and asked for his explanations. He put all the information into his computer network and ran a number of simulations and what-if-analysis scenarios. Here is the interview.

AAA: Prof. Dr. Kirchgraber, you have studied all the data about Porkie. Where is he, who is he, and what is his intention?

PDK: Let me answer your questions one by one. There are now 100s of people looking out for Porkie. But he seems to behave like a quantum particle. Either his location or his time are always hidden.

AAA: I'm sure you are right, but what do you mean by that?

PDK: Well, when someone can tell about his location, then he is already gone, when the location gets checked. It seems he is moving incredibly fast. If someone knows when he is, then he cannot specify the location. This is the typical behaviour of a quantum particle.

AAA: Right, I guess. Do you want to suggest that he is not human?

PDK: That is already the 2nd question. I cannot exclude that he is human, but if he is human, than of a completely inhuman kind. You have to remember that he must have walked through the mountains now for more than 40 days. That is no typical human behaviour.

AAA: Agreed. But what is his intention?

PDK: This is the most difficult question to answer. What motivates Porkie besides pork? Why is he taking all this pain and effort on him? To understand this, we have to look at the group as a whole.

AAA: Right, I guess you refer to this red guy and the other person that walks in between, right? What is your take on them?

PDK: The red guy is obviously their fearless leader. It is reported that he never looks back. I believe he is the one with the mission. So, I focused more on him in my simulations. And I found out surprising things.

AAA: Like what?

PDK: One of our simulations told us that this group constantly followed the route with the most terrible weather in a 300 km radius. That sounds interesting, but there is much more behind it. It is extremely difficult to predict the weather in the mountains even for short period of time. Our best computers can do this only for about 3 hours. It would take all the computers in the world, to make such accurate predictions.

AAA: What does that mean? What could a person with such capabilities do? Is he dangerous?

PDK: Well, he could predict anything. He could make a fortune with the stock market. He would know what people are thinking. He would know whether Porkie walks behind him or not. That's why he never has to turn around.

AAA: Amazing. But why would he seek the most terrible weather? Sounds like an inhuman idea, doesn't it?

PDK: There are various options. He might energize himself from lightning. He might want to make sure that all their trails are washed away. Or, for whatever strange reason, he might want to punish his followers.

AAA: Could he be a kind of vampire?

PDK: Not in the classical sense. This is all a mystery. We have still too little data about his strange group. But I will start my own explorations now…

Stage 71 -- Col de Turini to Sospel

2007-09-26T15:34:00.000+01:00

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Tuesday, Sept 25th, 2007

Whereas the previous stage was mostly uphill, this one had over 2100m of descent. Knowing this, Sally tried to book a taxi to take her from the village of Moulinet, at about the halfway point, to Sospel, but without success. It turns out that although there are in theory taxi services in Moulinet and Sospel, in practice you have to book them a few days ahead of time if you want to have a chance of actually using them.

So instead she opted to walk along the road after Moulinet -- a distance of about 12km that took her 2.25 hours, but which saved her a good 750 meters of additional ascent and descent, including some very steep downhills which would have done a number on her shin-splints.

Russell, however, was feeling his oats, and decided to accompany me on the (exceedingly scenic) trails. Interestingly, although he said at one point that he thought it would be a day to ice his injured knee, at the end of the day I think that I was significantly more tired than he was. I'm not quite sure why -- one possibility is that I stress my legs more because I descend faster than he does, but maybe I just had an off-day.

I'll tell you one thing, though: even though I am still enjoying every day we hike, I'm sure looking forward to those four or five days off in Monaco.

Stage 70 -- Belvedere to Col de Turini

2007-09-26T15:29:00.001+01:00

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Monday, Sept 24th, 2007

We spent a nice relaxed rest-day with Mum. She got to see how we spend our time when we are not hiking (which largely consists of doing nothing, interspersed with a few chores and errands), as well as to see how we spend our nights (in the company of strangers, as two other hikers showed up during the rest day, checked in, and in the wee hours proceeded to snore, not loudly, but annoyingly creatively). She very much enjoyed the day, but I think the night left her unenthused about any such future experiences!

The following morning, after saying our goodbyes, we hiked off via La Bollene-Vesubie, another charming perched village, to the hamlet of Col de Turini. It was another beautiful day, warm, but not overly so, and we all found the hike fairly easy, in spite of the 1450m of climbing that it entailed. In the meantime, I think, we are in such good condition that we take pretty much any amount of uphill in stride. Downhill is, however, another matter, as the counterpart to condition seems to be wear and tear, and there is much more of the latter when descending.

Both Belvedere and La Bollene appeared to be prosperous and bustling, which is good to see given how close they came to being depopulated during the first half of the last century. However, the madcap antics of the local children leave one a little less optimistic about the future: in Belvedere we saw one pair, a boy of about 7 and a girl of maybe 5, zip by on their little bikes down a steep road, then turn sharply onto an upslope (the girl in particular wobbling scarily as she fought to keep control) directly into the path of an oncoming car. Which stopped, thankfully, just in time.

On the other hand, thinking back to my own experiences on bikes as a child, and later, maybe it is a wonder that any of us reaches adulthood!

Col de Turini is a funny little place -- a group of a half-dozen or so hotels at a low pass in the middle of nowhere. There is obe one rusting tow lift, but it is not skiing that provides the place with its raison-d'etre. As far as I can tell, the only reason people go there is because it is the end-point of one of the most famous rallies in the world: the Monaco to Col de Turini race, which is held each year in winter.

The race is both historic and extremely challenging, not least because the spectators like to dump snow and ice on the curves to make things a bit more interesting. After reading about this in our very pleasant hotel, which was filled with rally memorabilia (in addition to the main race itself, there are apparently many other events held along the same course throughout the year), I think I understand those kids in Belvedere a little better: they are just continuing the local tradition in their own way!

2007-09-23T15:18:00.000+01:00

Stage 69 -- Saint-Dalmas-Valdeblore to Belvedere
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Saturday, Sept 22nd, 2007

A big day in a couple of ways. To begin with, this is the three month anniversary of the start of the H2H. Three months... that means we have been hiking for a quarter of a year! And the longest break I have taken has been two and a half days in Montreux: no wonder I sometimes feel tired!

Second there was a fair amount of "hidden" altitude in today's hike: i.e., ups and downs that weren't visible on the map. As a result despite the fact that we by now walk much faster than the estimates assume, the hiking time was almost 7 hours, and by the end of it everyone was flagging. Russ's knee was acting up again. Sally's shin-splints ditto, and her feet were aching My partially ingrown toenail was a significant irritation, and having run out of water about an hour and a half before the end of the hike didn't help things either.

It was a hot day and when this parched trio arrived at Belvedere we headed straight for a cafe and ordered a total of seven drinks plus a large bottle of mineral water, much to the amusement of the owner.

A nice little village, Belvedere, but with way too many cars parked on its few navigable streets and an astoundingly loud church bell tolling the hours. The French habit of ringing the bell for a second time two minutes after the hour (perhaps in case you lost count the first time?) was not appreciated.

After rehydrating we set off to try to find our Gite. The fellow I spoke with when making the reservation had said that he would be away and that he'd leave the door open, so when we arrived at a place named "Gite Communal" and with the reception closed we thought we had arrived. It was only after entering the building and wandering through an appartment whose door happened to be open that it sunk in that this couldn't be the place. Luckily the owners weren't around.

One phone call, and a follow up question and answer session with a couple of women on the street, later and we arrived at the correct Gite... to find our mother there waiting for us. She, apparently, had had less trouble finding the place than us. So much for my supposed French language competence :-).

The Gite leaves me, thus far, with contradictory impressions. On the one hand I have to duck to go through most of the doors as well as in the bunkroom, and it smells a little of mildew, breakfast is not offered, and the toilets are outside and have no seats.

On the other hand there is outdoor seating, a couple of additional rooms for us to use, cooking facilities, and very pleasant and welcoming owners. On balance I guess that it is a good way of showing our mother how we have been living for much of the past three months.

This is, by the way (I worked it out during my middle of the night wakeful period) the 28th Gite / Refuge that we have stayed so far on the H2H. I believe that I am not misrepresenting Sally's sentiments when I say that for her this is around 27 too many.

Dinner was in a charming little pizza restaurant perched on the edge of a cliff in the fortunately thoroughly sanitized, premises of a former abattoir Unfortunately it will be closed Sunday night, and there is nowhere else to eat in Belvedere, so we are lucky that with Mum's car we are mobile and can go down to the valley town of Roquebilliere to have dinner.

Four days more hiking to Monaco!!

Stage 68 -- Roure (Refuge de Longon) to Saint-Dalmas-Valdeblore

2007-09-21T16:48:00.001+01:00

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Friday, Sept 21st, 2007

A very pleasant hike today, with, once more, very pleasant weather. Perhaps a little too pleasant at times, especially after the roast leg of lamb at lunch... but I am getting ahead of myself.

The hotel in Roure I have decided, upon reflection, to downgrade from "little gem" to "very nice". The reasons? Little things, mostly attributable to a poor choice of interior decorator, such as showers that were too shallow and lacking a curtain (so the floor got flooded), sink taps that were too close to the edge of the sink, doors that closed automatically with a bang (and couldn't be closed manually softly unless you waited for several seconds), and so on. Nevertheless, it was definitely very nice.

The descent from Roure to Saint-Sauveur-sur-Tinee was also very nice, winding down the hillside through fields and woods (including lots of sweet chestnut trees -- it reminded me of Tuscany). The main street of Saint-Sauveur was nothing special, but then the climb to the village of Rimplas was spectacular, ending with a lengthy stretch cut into fairly sheer cliffs.

Rimplas is a beautiful little village, spectacularly located, and with an excellent little restaurant ("Le Pous-Cafe" or some such), where I had the aforementioned leg of lamb. By the time we were done, and after also consuming a liter of red wine, it was 1PM, quite hot, and we were quite full. The initial descent was bearable, but the prolonged ascent afterwards was not.

We were thus more than glad to find our hotel in Saint-Dalmas, complete with a fat cat, friendly owners, showers and cool drinks. And dinner? Gigot d'agneau. Can't wait.

More from Urs Ruefli...

2007-09-20T20:41:00.001+01:00

Strange Things in the Alps: Many theories

by Urs Ruefli, Alpine Alien Agency, Lausanne

Things are escalating. All major papers started with report series about Porkie. Some describe him as a danger. Some describe him as an evil force. Some have pity with him. Most were wrong. They assumed that he is a bear, killing all the pigs. But now they are coming around and recognize that this is not an animal. The behaviour is too consistent.

Some experts analyzed the path based on the casualties. The general opinion is that it is pointing towards Portugal. They have identified a huge pig farm in the North Portugal as the most probable target of Porkie. A Portuguese army general was quoted with the words: "We will protect our national pigs at any cost. This Porkie might be able to kill hundreds of Austrian pigs. But he will not get a single one from us." Of course he is wrong. At least in that the pigs were mostly Bavarian and not Austrian. But who can stop Porkie and his fearless leader in red?

But I am not convinced that Portugal is really the target. If aliens want to attack Portugal, they have better options than to start in Bavaria. For instance, they could start in Spain. Logical, isn't it? Logic is the base of all outstanding journalism. There has to be some meaning to all of this. And I will find out. I will speak to the experts.

Stage 67 -- Roya to Roure (Refuge de Longon)

2007-09-20T20:34:00.001+01:00

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Thursday, Sept 20th, 2007

Hard to get very sozzled when you go to bed before 9PM. Dinner at the Gite in Roya was acceptable, breakfast quite good, but the mattresses were very thin. Overall, a B.

A loooooong hike today, longer than planned because the Refuge de Longon was full and so we had to walk a couple of hours further down to Roure. The day was as a result one of the longest hikes we have done: +1390m, -1740m, 25k, and a total of 8.5 hours hiking time even for such fit hikers as we currently are. I don't think I have felt this tired since the day I met Mel after racing through what should have been a 10 hour day. My feet feel as if they have been pounded flat. Poor Russ: it was his birthday today and I'm not sure he appreciated the present :-).

Roure, by the way, is a charming little perched village, and our hotel, whose name escapes me, but there is only one in the village, is a little gem. Definitely a place to come back to.

No doubt lots more to write and report, but I'm knackered. G'night.

Stage 66 -- Saint-Etienne-de-Tinee to Roya

2007-09-19T17:13:00.001+01:00

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Wednesday, Sept 19th, 2007

Sitting at dinner last night, in the second very good restaurant in Saint-Etienne, I asked our waiter why it was that there were at least two good restaurants in the town, and, as far as I could tell, not hotels of equivalent quality. He laughed and said that he didn't have an answer (but that he basically agreed). On balance, though, I think I'd rather have good restaurants than hotels :-).

Lidia has in the meantime informed me that I misunderstood her request for more detailed information about cuisine: she actually wants me to say nothing more about food. Unfortunately, for her, she has only limited enforcement capabilities at the present time....

So, last night I had a very nice Confit de Canard, with pommes sarladaises that were not quite how I prefer them (which would be super-thin and heavily caramelized), but which had lots of garlic as partial compensation. Mmmmmm. The previous night the highpoint was the salad, or more precisely the salad dressing. I'm not quite sure what they added to the basic vinaigrette (and they refused to tell me, citing the official secrets act), but it was intoxicatingly good. And the dessert (nougat ice-cream, laced with caramel sauce, in a bed of whipped cream on a crepe) came in a close second.

And that's probably enough of that, at least if I want to keep using this keyboard: too much saliva dripping on the keys will have negative long-term effects, I'm sure.

Just a short hike today (maybe 3.5h, I'm not sure, it went so quickly), up to the Plateau d'Auron, whose purpose-built ski-resort was actually much nicer than expected, and then over the Col de Blainon (2013m) before a short descent to Roya (1500m). Californian landscapes -- everything golden due to the long drought -- plus picturesque European ruins (the valley has clearly known better times). Very nice.

We arrived around 2:30 to find the refuge shut and a message from our host announcing that he'd be back around 5PM. Luckily the weather was near-perfect, there was a nearby fountain for rehydration, and I had had the unusual foresight to buy a paper in the morning, so the enforced lounging about on the patio in the sun was more than tolerable.

I felt unfit and bloated at the beginning of the walk today -- a result in part of the two days of inactivity and twice a day restaurant visits, and in part (it turned out) because I really was bloated (too much garlic last night). As a result, I tried to maintain a decent distance to my fellow hikers :-).

The Refuge here in the tiny hamlet of Roya seems very nice: newly renovated, run by a young couple (he is from the area, she is from Montreal), and with a cat and a wine cellar. The cat just brought in a lizard, and I'm going to start drinking the highly barrique (oaked) Corsican red wine the owner recommended. Given my choice of subjects above while sober, I feel that I should perhaps stop now.

Rest days in Saint-Etienne-de-Tinee

2007-09-18T16:56:00.000+01:00

<reminder: photos now available at:
http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?q=h2h&m=names
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Monday / Tuesday, Sept 17th / 18th, 2007

So, I'm sitting on my bed after hiking Sunday night and think to check my resting pulse rate as an alternative way of assessing whether or not all this hiking is making me fitter. My preferred method would be to look in the mirror and see someone whose belly and BMI (Body Mass Index -- a measure of the amount of fat versus lean muscle and bone that one is carrying around) are like Kristof's... but since that doesn't look like it is going to happen by the end of the H2H (although Russell keeps assuring me that I look much thinner, as I do him), I am forced to resort to secondary measurements.

So, I take my resting pulse: 46 beats per minute. Astounding. I haven't been that low in my life, as far as I can remember. Perhaps there has been something of a cardio-vascular reset after all.

It is now midway through a second day of enforced laziness in Saint-Etienne Frankly I would have preferred to hike today, and even Russell said yesterday evening -- unprompted -- that he felt like he could easily hike today, but I think that for Sally these days remain psychologically essential (quote from dinner yesterday evening: "I just wish it were over.").

It doesn't help that the weather forecast has been proved wrong once again, and both yesterday and today were sunny. Which makes me a little worried, since they are currently predicting sun for tomorrow as well.

Fortunately I have a number of things that I need to or want to or can do on such days. I typically pick up an English paper or two, blog, handle email, make reservations for upcoming days, make a few phone calls, and, as is the case today, have the odd conference call. In fact, today's conference call starts in one minute, so toodle-oo.

A fifth anonymous post

2007-09-18T16:53:00.000+01:00

I'm starting to get an inkling about what this might be about...

----

Strange Things in the Alps: Getting closer
by Urs Ruefli, Alpine Alien Agency, Lausanne

Today I spoke to another witness. Actually to two of them. A father with a young son at the age of 11. Two days ago, they were hiking in the mountains That is noteworthy, because it was raining all day. When asked why they went out at such a terrible day, the father only pointed to the poor boy. I assume he referred to his weight. At a height of only about 150 centimeters, the boy had a weight of at least 88 kilos. Not a nice picture, I can tell you. I found out that the father had threatened his son that he would hike with him every day, if he ever crossed the 90 kg line. That was the case 3 days ago. That's why they went out at that terrible day. They walked for three hours and didn't see a single soul. The rain became stronger and stronger. The father finally decided to seek shelter under some big tree. Suddenly the man noticed that his son had stopped crying. He looked at him and saw him staring into the distance. When he turned around, he noticed three figures walking towards them. The first one was wearing a bright red something. The next one was close behind. The last one was a giant who seemed to walk under great pain. As they came nearer, they could hear the giant moan at every step. Both father and son were stunned. The group came slowly nearer and nearer. When the red guy was about 5 meters away, they could see his more clearly. He had a happy grin on his face for no obvious reason. The father greeted them loudly. The red guy did not even seem to notice him. He passed by in less than one meter distance with this happy grin on his face and an aura of energy and purpose. The father told me that he was so glad that he was not exactly in his way. "He would have run straight over me", he said. "He knows where he wants to go and nothing can stop this guy." The next figure seemed to be a woman, although difficult to say with all the rain and heavy raincoats. She also passed by without a word, simply staring at the back of the fearless leader. Then the giant came up. First they thought he would also simply pass by. But when he was a few steps away, he stopped and looked at the boy. "I grew quickly uncomfortable by his stare at my boy. First I was not sure, what it reminded me of. But then I realized that it was the stare of a predator, looking at his bounty. Slowly, he lifted his enormous arm and pointed at my boy. I could not really hear him, but read his lips. P_O_R_K." The father still shuddered when he talked about it. "I shouted to him that this was my boy and that he should leave him alone. I could see that he was not listening. His tongue was licking over his lips. My boy didn't make any sound. Then the giant started to move. In that moment, I knew what I had to do. After all, I am a good father, even if I'm unable to control the appetite of my son. I quickly dropped my backpack and threw it towards the giant. I shouted "PORK, PORK, PORK" and pointed to the pack. Then I grasped my boy and we both started to run. The giant looked after us and then turned to the backpack. We ran for 10 minutes until we both fell down exhausted. Since then, my son has not eaten a bite. We will never forget this day."

Shocking, isn't it? And do you know what? Porkie is not a bear, he is a giant. But he is not from this world. And I will find out why he is here and what he wants.

Stage 65 -- Bousieyas to Saint-Etienne-de-Tinee

2007-09-18T16:49:00.000+01:00

<reminder: photos now available at:
http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?q=h2h&m=names
>

Sunday, Sept 16th, 2007

Our host at the Gite in Bouseiyas was as good as her word: she was back at 7 and dinner was at 7:30. Next to us sat a very nice couple from Holland, who we were to see a few times over the next couple of days because they were also hiking along the GR5 (Grande Randonnee #5, a French long-distance hiking trail that the H2H is identical with at this point).

The following day we opted for the shorter option to get to Saint-Etienne (although this still took around 5.5 hours); after four straight days on the trails there wasn't much appetite among my fellow-H2H-ers for hiking further than necessary :-). As a result we had lunch in a nice little restaurant in the charming village of Saint-Dalmas-le-Selvage, nestled in its wild valley.

Afterwards we walked on to Saint-Etienne, passing various hikers, picnickers, and even five kids on off-road motorbikes: clearly we are returning to civilization.

Saint-Etienne is a pleasant little backwater, for the most part overlooked by tourists who in the summer go further into the mountains, and in the winter stay at the purpose-built ski-resort of Auron a few km to the south. In consequence it is not exactly chock-a-block with good places to stay. Our hotel, le Stephanois, is probably the best in town, but even so has no en-suite bathrooms. Not quite what I was hoping for when we decided to spend two consecutive rest-days here. But at least the toilet (one for all the guests, as far as I can tell!) is of the western type and the place is clean and the owner friendly.

And since tomorrow and the day after are supposed to stormy, it looks like we have timed things right for a break anyway.