A whistle-stop tour through Andalucia – One day in Seville
As with all whistle-stop tours, I guess, there is very little time to stop and soak up all the sights and plant the memories of each place and this is particularly true of our day in Seville.
I do have two very distinct memories. The first was a visit to the Plaza de España, built to showcase Spain’s industry and technology at the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 and restored in the noughties. It is in the form of a huge semi-circle with a moat, criss-crossed by four bridges and with a fountain at its centre. What struck me most were the fabulous blue tiles covering almost every surface, including the bridges and the four alcoves which represent different provinces of Spain (look out for the photo of the Jaén alcove).
Following our visit to the Plaza de España, we were dropped off in the centre of Seville to have some lunch and visit the Cathedral. I see from my diary that I had a very pleasant lunch of shrimp tortillas and croquettes with another passenger before we made our way to the Cathedral. We didn’t have much time, you can tell that I didn’t stop to take any photographs. After a rather hurried visit we tried to leave but kept getting lost and arriving back at the entrance, the trouble with this being that it was a one-way system and they wouldn’t let us out! We came across three others from our coach and together spent twenty minutes, increasingly panicking, trying to find the exit. When we finally got outside, the main group had left and we had to hurry through the streets until we caught up with them at the Golden Tower just in time for a boat trip up the Guadalquivir river (which we had seen a couple of days before when we were in the mountains outside Baeza).
After our run through the streets, the river trip was pleasantly cool but we then had another rather hot walk back to the coach and we were off once again, this time to Jerez. It will be no surprise to learn that we were met at our hotel – the Sherry Park Hotel – with a glass of sherry.
A whistle-stop tour of Andalucia – Ubeda, Baeza and on to Cordoba
I am only just picking up the second leg of my tour, having been mired in my own and family health matters, various household emergencies and trying to improve my input at the creative writing course that I attend.
So, back to Andalucia…….
Despite the hectic day at the Alhambra and the evening watching some even more hectic Flamenco, we were up and on our way bright and early. Our first stop was the small town of Ubeda, which is a World Heritage Site. We were met by a local tour guide who took us around the town. A quick check of the Andalucia Tourist website (www.andalucia.org) tells me that there is so much to see in this town but my main memory is of a large square with a church at one end. This is the Holy Funerary Chapel of El Salvador del Mundo. It is the interior of the church with its breathtaking golden altar which sticks in the mind. I don’t think I have never seen its like anywhere else that I have visited.
Our next stop was in another World Heritage Site, Baeza, where we stayed overnight. Another single visitor and I had a rather unsuccessful self-directed tour as we found the cathedral closed and a little train, which thought would take us for a tour around the town was not running. The highlight of the afternoon appears to have been the Kit-Kat ice-cream, which we discovered at our hotel.
Next morning we set off from Baeza for a tour of some of the local countryside. We drove up through a Natural (not National) Park to a stop atop the hills with a view of the Guadalqivir River and visited a small town (name unknown, I’m afraid). We returned to Baeza to spend a second night and left for Cordoba the next morning.
Ubeda and Baeza are both in the Province of Jaén, which is an are known for its olive oil and so we stopped en route for a tour of an olive oil museum, including tasting and a chance to buy some of the delicious varieties grown there.
After rather a strange lunch at a motorway services (omelette sandwich – shouldn’t have worked but did!), we continued on to Cordoba and a brief tour of the walled city.
Next day we went on a walking tour of Cordoba, I discovered the Mezquita, which I was surprised to find even more beautiful than the Alhambra. Constructed as a mosque in the 8th century, the Mezquita was developed throughout the following centuries by Muslim rulers until it was appropriated by the conquering Christian army in the 12th century and then re-dedicated as a Catholic cathedral in the 13th century. It has been designated as a World Heritage Site since 1984. I found the interior absolutely breathtaking, especially the beautiful lines of the structures from the Muslim era.
After more walking and a spell back at our hotel to escape the afternoon heat, we were dropped off to make our own choices of restaurant for dinner. As the temperature gradually cooled, I joined with some of the other lone travellers and sat outside a restaurant, watching the world go by and enjoyed shrimp salad with lettuce, broad beans, tomatoe jam and a curry sauce, followed by calamari, prawns and chips and finally a light mousse. Then it was time to return to our hotel to prepare for another prompt start, heading for Seville.
A whistle-stop tour of Andalusia– Granada and the Alhambra Palace
Phew! I have been caught up in Christmas and all its arrangements and the aftermath of general lethargy in January. I have decided to ease myself back by concentrating on a whistle-stop tour of Andalusia which I enjoyed in 2013. It was both excellent and exhausting and I don’t think I could repeat it now! But it gives me the opportunity to break a fortnight into easy chunks and an excuse to show a lot of photos.
Sometimes, I see a place on TV or amongst someone else’s holiday photos and I know I have just got to go there. It was looking at a relative’s photos of their visit to the Alhambra Palace in Granada that made me want to see it for myself. However, in addition to Granada, I was going to visit Ubeda, Cordoba, Seville, Jerez, Cadiz, Chiciana de la Frontera and Ronda.
Granada and the Alhambra Palace We arrived via the airport in Malaga, which is not so far from Granada. The tour started as it meant to go on. We hardly had time to settle in at the hotel, when we were whisked off for a walk around the city centre, visiting the cathedral, which was formerly a mosque (a recurring theme). I also made a brief visit to the hotel’s rooftop bar and caught a view of the snow, still on the peaks of the Sierra Nevada in early May.
The following day was our visit to the Alhambra. To call it “a palace” is rather selling it short. I’m looking at the huge visitor guide that I was given and remember that it actually comprises several palaces. Between them, they were everything I had hoped for. Set on top of a hill and looking down on Granada, the building was started by Muhammed Al Ahmar in the 13th Century as both a fortification and a palace. The Comares Palace and the Palace of the Lions, filled with more elaborate and beautiful decoration were built during the reigns of his successors. In the late 15th Century, Granada was captured by Catholic monarchs. Isabella and Ferdinand undertook extensive repairs and renovations, although I must say that I saw more beauty in the earlier parts of the building. Charles V commissioned a palace which was to be named after him In 1870, the Alhambra was declared a National Monument and, after more restoration in the 1920s and 30s, it was designated a World Heritage Site in 1984. Here are some photos, I cannot say exactly which part of the palace they are but just soak up the magnificence!
Coach visits were allocated to either morning or afternoon and, unfortunately, our slot was in the afternoon. As we walked round it became hotter and hotter and I missed the visit to see the palace’s gardens, choosing an ice-cream and a sit down instead.
This day wasn’t finished, though, as we spent an exciting evening in a bar (built in a cave), on top of another of Granada’s hills, watching and listening to traditional flamenco dancing and singing. I have written the word “passionate” in my diary!
So I had already achieved what I came to see but there was so much more to experience over the next couple of weeks. We left Granada early the following morning, heading towards Ubeda……
This is a tale of both a huge disappointment and a bit of a fright. It happened in 2007 when I was on my fourth holiday, visiting Kenya and achieving that dream of seeing some of Africa’s wildlife that I’d had since I was a little girl and I’d first started watching natural history programmes in black and white on our tiny TV screen. This time I was travelling with a well-known over-50s travel company. I have been on many of their holidays but this was the only time I have been on one of their solo holidays. I should stress that the definition of a “solo” holiday is quite different from that of a “singles” holiday and you shouldn’t make any assumptions based on that word. Anyway, the two men, for some reason, mostly kept very much to themselves except when forced to mingle with 12 women at mealtimes and on safaris.
The first part of the holiday was already over. We had spent a couple of days in Nairobi, where we visited the house of Karen Blixen, she of “Out of Africa” fame, and I had been kissed on the hand by the long, soft, purple tongue of a giraffe in a nearby sanctuary. We had travelled on to Voi on the edge of Tsavo East national park, which is famous for rehabilitating and releasing the orphan elephants from the David Sheldrick orphanage. We had had many adventures on our twice-daily safaris. We had seen a variety of animals from the tiny dik-dik to the mighty giraffe and four of the “Big 5”, lion, leopard, elephant and buffalo. We had even spent half an hour staring into the distance at a large rock, which our driver was convinced was a lion which would “get up and move at any moment”! We had also visited Tsavo West national park, where we caught a tantalising sight of Mt Kilimanjaro, with its snow-capped peaks just sticking up out of the clouds and we drove through an enormous rhino sanctuary, without seeing a single rhino (which was lucky as I was asleep most of the time). The local guides provided chalk and talks and even walks and talks and in the evenings we enjoyed our cocktails on a bridge with a herd of elephants wandering below us.
At the end of ten days, eight of the company left for home and the remaining six of us set off on a hair-raising seven hour drive, heading for the coast, weaving around potholes like volcano craters. We would then suddenly hit a few miles of good surfaces in an area where, I think, China’s influence was starting to be felt. Eventually we boarded a ferry which took us across to the Island of Mombasa and we drove on to our resort. This place was more conducive to holiday hanging around, enjoying the excellent food and drink, swimming and avoiding being pounced on by the traders as we checked out the beach. Whatever we had done in the day, I would meet up with five other ladies in the evening, for dinner and entertainment, such as a display of dancing by Masai warriors and, on one occasion a talk about snakes which involved one climbing up my arm!
On our second evening, I had gone to bed and fallen asleep, only to be woken around 1am by the sound of fireworks. I checked the time, fought my way out of the mosquito net, jumped out of bed, muttering something about people who thought it was alright to set off fireworks in the middle of the night (or the language might have been something stronger) and hurried to the window. It only took a few seconds to realise that there were no fireworks but that the building opposite mine, which was another block of bedrooms, had huge flames leaping from its thatched roof! I threw on my dressing gown and rushed out of my room banging on the doors of the adjacent rooms, where my friends were sleeping.
“Wake up! Wake up! Come on! There’s a fire and we need to get out!”
They emerged one by one, sleepy and shocked. When we were all standing outside, we agreed to put some clothes on and meet again outside our rooms, which luckily were on the ground floor. We managed to do that pretty quickly and we were all about to leave when we realised that amongst all the noise and milling about, most people leaving our block had taken the time to pack their suitcases first! So, although the fire was spreading across the rooftops towards the main hotel building, from where it would possibly move on to our block, we agreed to go back into our rooms to do the same. I have never done such a quick pack of all my favourite items and essentials. We joined the other guests, gathering on a grassy area in front of but well away from the main building, down towards the beach. I phoned our tour manager, who we had only met the previous morning and who was very surprised to hear from me in the middle of the night. “The hotel is on fire”, I said, trying to sound calm. At first, I don’t think he quite grasped what I was saying but, as soon as he did, to his credit, he got straight in his car and drove for over an hour to check on us. (I hope he learned never ever to give out his personal phone number to guests). We really couldn’t see what was going on as far as firefighting was concerned but eventually the flames began to die down and it appeared that the fire had been confined to the thatched roofs of that one block and to some of the staff accommodation. Meanwhile, some of the staff were passing among us, serving cups of tea and the manager was reassuring us that we were quite safe – and so we were!!! Of course that didn’t stop some of the guests shouting at the hotel manager and each other, rather than sitting back and appreciating the tea and biscuits as most of the rest of us did. At last, as the block where our rooms were situated was undamaged, we were eventually allowed to go back to bed and, back to sleep. The guests from the smoke-damaged rooms were taken to other hotels.
When I got up, breakfast was in full swing in the dining room as if nothing had happened. Afterwards, we sat down and discussed with the tour manager whether we should stay at the resort or move elsewhere. Our own rooms were not touched, the pool was being cleaned and was available later that morning and, as people headed off in droves, it looked as if the hotel needed as much support as it could get, so five out of the six of us decided to stay put.
A couple of days later, we had a day out to visit Mombasa. The contours of the coast mean that the easiest way to travel into the city was to get on the ferry again. We first visited Fort Jesus, built in the 16th century by the Portuguese and, apparently the first successful attempt by a Western power to establish influence over the Indian Ocean trade. The fort is considered a masterpiece of late renaissance military fortification. However, as Fort Jesus was captured and recaptured at least nine times between 1631, when the Portuguese lost it to the Sultan of Mombasa, and 1895, when it fell under British rule, this claim might be subject to some question. The British converted the fort into a prison but later declared it a national monument and, in 2011 it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From there we hit the centre of Mombasa to do the usual tourist things and buy overpriced items that we were never going to use at a local market, when we all succumbed to the patter of the owner of a spice stall. I also purchased two oil pastel paintings from an artist who I saw working inside the market.
I was so excited about the next stop that I hadn’t really stopped to think it through. We drove along Moi Avenue to see the famous elephant tusks which were installed to mark Princess Margaret’s visit in 1952.
We got down from our coach and walked up to get a close look at the two tusks arching across the road. Well, to say I was disappointed was a huge understatement! The tusks were made from aluminium plates fastened together by bolts! Had I really been expecting the real thing? You might well laugh and I deserve it because I consider myself an intelligent person but I had not for a single moment considered that expecting to see real tusks of this size was, well ridiculous!
Moi Avenue and “those” tusks
My spirits were restored by our final visit of the day to a craft co-operative, where we could see artisans working and where their goods were then sold for a fair price in the showroom, with profits then returned to the them. Sadly, or maybe fortunately, I had no room left to carry anything more.
And, with that, our time in Kenya drifted slowly to a close. I made it home with my paintings and a collection of gorgeous painted wooden birds, all of which still have a home with me.
Soon after I arrived home, I was watching my local TV station and saw a family talking about the “dreadful fire we experienced on our holiday in Kenya”. They said that we had all been placed in tremendous danger, while the hotel staff did little or nothing to help us. The events they described were far from what I remembered but, try as I might, when I phoned the TV station to tell them about the fire from my perspective, no-one was interested. I shouldn’t have been surprised because, at the hotel, we had all overheard people saying that they were going to exaggerate and even lie about what had happened in order to get some compensation out of the hotel or their holiday company. In truth, the only people who suffered were the hotel employees, several of whom were laid off because there was not enough work for them with the hotel only half full. It left a bad taste in my mouth!
The five of us who had stayed on agreed that we would send very positive feedback about our holiday in general and about our experience at the resort in Mombasa, especially our kind and dedicated tour manager. I asked, if possible, that there should be some compensation for the staff who lost their jobs. I was delighted to receive a lovely bunch of flowers from them by way of thanks.
“I did not climb Mt Everest…but touched it with my heart”
Nepal 2012
I was back in the airport where I had arrived only two days before, although I was feeling much wider awake this time and very excited about being there. When I landed, I was at the end of around twenty-four hours of travel. I had been collected on a September afternoon to drive to Heathrow. Two other travellers were already in the taxi and I was pleased to discover that they were going to be on exactly the same holiday as me. We caught an overnight flight to Indira Gandhi Airport in Delhi, followed by a long wait and a second flight to Kathmandu. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy long-haul travel and, in my mind, my holiday starts the moment I step out of my front door. I enjoy people watching at the airport, seeing the latest films during the flight, I usually quite enjoy the food and then there is the anticipation of what I am going to be doing when I arrive. But, even with a lot of napping on the planes, I was feeling pretty exhausted by the time I made it out of the airport, met the other eleven people on our trip, together with our guide and climbed onto the minibus to travel to our hotel.
The following day was packed with visiting some of Kathmandu’s most famous landmarks. Our morning was spent visiting the World Heritage Site of Pashupatinath Temple, Nepal’s most sacred Hindu shrine and then the Boudhanath Stupa, a centre for Nepal’s community of local and exiled Tibetan Buddhists.
The Boudhanath Stupa
This was followed by a lovely lunch of mixed vegetables in Nepali spice with rice and then a walk around Durbar Square, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, which is important for both Buddhist and Hindu ceremonies. In the evening, we were taken for a traditional Nepali meal of several delicious courses accompanied by traditional dancing and some very strong alcohol.
Nevertheless, I was up at 5am the next morning for breakfast and a departure for the airport at 6am. I think that I have mentioned before that I am usually very keen to go on most of the trips which are an important part of the type of holidays I like. So – why would you come to Kathmandu and miss out on a flight around Mt Everest? I seem to remember that it was an expensive trip but, as an experience, you cannot put a price on it.
We passed quickly through the internal flights check in and I was re-assured to discover that we were travelling with Buddha Air. Surely, he would keep us safe? We were escorted to a small plane. It had just sixteen seats, each at one of the windows. It was cloudy and so we didn’t hold out a great deal of hope of seeing much but we took off and climbed through the clouds until, all of a sudden, we were emerging through them into a clear sky with a view of a range of snow-capped mountains. We flew alongside the peaks as the anticipation grew until we reached Mt Everest. From our window seats we could see the mountain from different angles but then, to everyone’s surprise, we were invited to leave our seats one by one and go to stand beside the pilot to get a better view and take a photo. We then flew back, alongside the peaks again, then across the green fields and, finally, we saw the tiny buildings of Kathmandu before everything disappeared into the clouds and we landed safely.
It was the most wonderful experience and one that still stays in my mind after all these years. Buddha Air even presented us with a certificate to prove we had actually done it!
However, no allowance was made for our early start and we were met by our bus and whisked straight off to visit the ancient city of Bhaktapur, where we spent the morning exploring the little alleyways, more temples and shrines.
Bhaktapur
Our exciting day finished with a talk about the next stop on our tour, Tiger Tops Tharu Lodge, tucked away in the jungles of Chitwan National Park.
If Costa Rica was a person, I would describe them as being “Comfortable in their own skin”. This is a country which displays artefacts from 1200 years of cultural history in its National Museum in San José, accessed by walking through a flurry of free-flying butterflies of every imaginable colour. Not far away, in one of the town’s squares, there is a sculpture on a plinth celebrating the patriots who successfully defended the country in 1857 from annexation by the Texans, who were constantly trying to extend their borders. Today Costa Rica is the most stable country in Central America, with one of the lowest poverty rates in Latin America, a long history of democracy, and with no standing army. I learned this from our Tour Manager, who was also a lecturer in ecology, when I managed to engage him in a conversation about politics while the other travelers were off shopping.
In the Butterfly House at the entrance to the National Museum in San Jose
Costa Rica’s Heroes!
Another thing about Costa Rica is their commitment to the environment. We had plenty of information about this from the Tour Manager, of course, and we learned to tell the difference between a natural forest and a managed forest, where trees had been replanted following eruptions from any of the country’s still-active volcanoes (there are 5 of them).
Costa Rica is certainly one of the most beautiful countries I have visited. It offers the traveler jungles, forest canopies, rivers, and two amazing coasts, the Caribbean and the Pacific, as well as the volcanoes, of course. Its wildlife, which is usually my reason for visiting a country, is magnificent. It is home to over 900 species of birds, including the scarlet macaw, which is actually blue and yellow as well as red and which will screech at intruders (like us) who swing up high into their home in the forest canopy. More welcoming were the tiny birds of many colours who joined us every day at breakfast to feast on pieces of fruit put out for them by the staff. There are four species of monkey, of which I saw spider monkeys, capuchins and howler monkeys, who reminded me of angry neighbours shouting at each other in the street. We came across one group trying to defend its territory and a huge battle of the voices had begun. I would have given them all an asbo. And then there were the monitor lizards and crocodiles! It was the first time I have ever come across monitor lizards while wandering around the grounds of a hotel and it was the first time that I have stayed close to a river, just a few hundred yards from my room, which was home to crocodiles, who occasionally came out to bask – and eye us up as a tasty treat, perhaps! In fact, it seemed that you couldn’t drive alongside, cross over or sail on any river that wasn’t bursting with crocodiles.
Those crocodiles!
…. And a Monitor Lizard
Some of Our Sweet Breakfast Companions
One thing I always do at the start of a holiday is to sign up for all the available trips. What is the point of visiting a country if you don’t visit the country? This holiday was certainly action-packed, with walks through the jungle in Manuel Antonio National Park and across walkways suspended in the canopy, ascents up through the canopy in trains and gondolas and, for some brave souls (not me), a zip-wire descent afterwards, then boat trips on some of the country’s rivers.
The first one, on the Rio Grande de Tarcoles, was a fairly sedate outing. We sailed up the river in a sizeable boat, eventually visiting a large mangrove forest. We saw a lot of different species of birds, and I was pleased to have my binoculars with me and to make them work for me. I’m not the best with bins’ and other people have often moved on to look at something else before I have managed to focus on the first bird. On this trip, I became aware that there were some very serious birders among us. We had all been given sheets to keep a record of all the mammals, birds, insects and reptiles we had seen. The birders, however, were also recording not just species but sub-species in their serious looking journals. I enjoyed seeing the birds, of course, but was rather disappointed not to see any animals – other than the ubiquitous crocodiles.
When we had moved on to the second part of the holiday, in the centre of the country and close to the Arenal Volcano, two trips were particularly notable for very different reasons. About ten minutes from our resort was the San Carlos River and, on a day when I had already been on a crocodile hunt and then, by contrast, had an amazing reflexology treatment, we arrived at the river bank by coach in the afternoon. There were several large dinghies waiting for us and we were issued with lifejackets. We swept down the river through a series of small rapids and sometimes we got stuck in shallow areas. There was much banter among the oarsmen when this happened and a jolly atmosphere everywhere. I was happy to see both birds and howler monkeys, while enjoying the scenery on the riverbank and the eye-catching sculpture of old tree trunks where they had been caught as they washed down the river. I thought that the birders were missing something as they seemed to spend their time ticking off bird sightings and some began to complain that they were not seeing all the species they had expected to see.
Swirling Down the River (I should have known it wouldn’t end well!)
We were heading for an eco-farm established over 60 years ago by two brothers. Sadly, the last brother had died only two weeks before at the age of 101. However, his family had asked that we still visit. The dinghies arrived one by one at a small pier and everyone climbed out. Mine was the last dinghy to arrive and, as I took my turn, my legs suddenly went from under me, the dinghy shot backwards across the water and I fell in the river up to my chest, taking with me the two men who were trying to help me! My camera went in too. We eventually made it out of the river, luckily there were no crocodiles in our vicinity and, dripping with water I climbed the steps to Don Pedro’s house, where there was a welcome cup of coffee and some tasty treats waiting for us. The family seemed to be touched by our condolences and spoke to us about the work of their farm, most of which I must say went over my head as by now I was very aware that everyone knew what had happened to me and I was concerned about the opacity, or otherwise, of my wet clothing. It was a relief to get back in the dinghy and climb out safely to get on the coach, where I had to sit on a carrier bag in order to protect the seat. Arriving back at my room, I threw my dirty clothes on the floor and headed for the shower. To cheer myself up and try to regain some dignity, I dressed in my best outfit, and I had a couple of large pina coladas at the bar. Some of my fellow travelers told me about saving my camera by burying it in grains of rice and I managed to beg a small amount from the kitchen. And it worked! Not for a couple of days but it was a great relief when it eventually turned on, and I was snapping away again before the end of the holiday.
After that, it might seem rather foolhardy to opt for another river trip but I am nothing if not adventurous when on holiday and so it was that, a couple of days later, I set foot in a rather larger boat to head up a tributary of the San Juan river. We saw the usual bird, primate and reptilian suspects, although the monsters were, on this occasion, not crocodiles but cayman. We came to a rather abrupt halt and were told that we had crossed the invisible and rather porous border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. We pulled into the river bank and landed, back on Costa Rican soil, where we were directed to a small gap in the border fence and told that we could slip through and photograph ourselves standing quite safely, if illegally, in Nicaragua. As I filmed myself stepping back through the gap, I was greeted by our smiling Tour Manager who said, “Welcome to Costa Rica Madam. You have just entered the country illegally, and I must ask you to accompany me to the police station”.
Would I ever go back to Costa Rica? Well, I survived my first viewing of “Frozen” and a hectic three-hour transfer through Miami airport on the way there. I survived a trek through the heat and humidity of the Manuel Antonio National Park. I survived my river dunking and I survived the inevitable embarrassment when someone decided after all to tell me that, yes, my clothes were almost transparent after my dip. I survived being arrested by our tour manager after my moment of anarchy. These were only a handful of the adventures we had. More than anything, I survived a holiday soon after finishing 3 weeks of daily radiotherapy, so I felt invincible! Altogether, I saw some amazing sights and some beautiful animals and birds, I learned something about Central America and I laughed a lot. Unlike some of my earlier holidays, I never had to eat alone and I made two special and lasting friendships. And so, yes, I would go back again, in a heartbeat!
I have always had a list of animals that I really wanted to see for myself, in their own habitat. Since this trip in 2005, I am pleased to say that I have seen quite a lot of them, although there are still a few that I haven’t seen. I have always had a special place in my heart for Orang-Utans, as usual it’s down to the wonderful David Attenborough and his TV series’ stretching back almost 70 years to the days of Zoo Quest. I had never thought I would get to see them living free lives in the jungle but, after the success of my trip to New England in 2004, I decided to let my ambitions run wild and decided that my next holiday should be in Borneo.
I arrived in Malaysian Borneo a few days before the “very special visit”, via Dubai airport and Bandar Seri Begawan (the capital of Brunei) airport and in the safe hands of Saga Travel. I had had a tour of the capital, Kota Kinabalu, including the main mosque, a Chinese temple and the city museum. I had thrown some pottery, visited a batik factory and explored the lower slopes of Mount Kinabalu, where I saw a huge variety of plants, including many species of orchid. Some were similar to the orchids we see at home, some were so tiny you could hardly see them and one (and it was visible only from behind tall railings) was worth, so we were told, $10,000.
I had settled in to an enormous room, which had a large patio with a view of a small stream from which, one day, an large monitor lizard emerged and looked me straight in the eye. I had also done battle with a cockroach which refused to succumb to being sprayed by deodorant or hairspray but finally fell to my blows with a waste bin. I had been so horrified that I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the remains and left it in my bathroom while I went for dinner. Imagine my horror when I returned, to see that it had disappeared. Had something else even bigger come along to devour it? It was a while before I calmed down and realized that my bed had been turned down and that the person who had done that must have been brave enough to do what I daren’t. Looking back at my diary, I also seemed to have consumed a very wide range of coctails, with ridiculous names.
Finally, although everyone had been very friendly when we were out and about, no-one had invited me to join them for dinner at the hotel. I had learned the year before to be prepared for this and had a supply of books with me so that I would not feel uncomfortable and they came in very useful when I dined alone. This was only my second solo trip and it was, in fact, the last time that I didn’t share all my meals with fellow travellers. I think I got more confident and found it easier to ask “Do you mind if I join you?” It works! People are on holiday are kind, by and large so, if you find would prefer not to dine alone, give it a try.
Anyway, back to the visit…..
On the day of the trip I was up at 4am, ready for my flight to Sandakan.
In the Plane What a relief! I’d been expecting a tiny plane, which worried me a bit but here I was, sitting in the middle of a half empty cabin of at least a hundred seats. I was on the 7:00am flight from Kota Kinabalu to Sandakan, hoping to fulfill one of my long-held dreams. Around me there was a rustling of paper and foil and a pleasant spicy smell started to emerge as some of the other passengers unpacked their breakfast, and I was rather envious. Of course, a forty-five-minute flight doesn’t come with a meal, just a tiny packet of nuts, so the smell reminded me that I had already eaten most of my breakfast, provided by the hotel, while I was still sitting in the airport at silly o’clock. That is, except for the hard-boiled egg! Why does every hotel, wherever it is in the world, think that a hard-boiled egg is a mandatory component of a packed breakfast or lunch? Mine had gone in the bin, so I was beginning to feel peckish!
The other passengers appeared to be people travelling for work or travelling home, perhaps after a shopping trip to the capital, judging by the bulging bags and parcels they carried with them onto the plane. And, of course, the passengers included my companions for the day, a couple who were staying at the same hotel as me and our guide.
In this half-empty plane, I had taken a window seat. We were flying over some of the densest jungle in the world and I had to see it. The trees couldn’t all have been the same height, but the canopy looked flat from the plane, like countless heads of broccoli. It undulated up and down hills, a luscious dark green. Then it happened. Of course, I had read about this, I had seen the TV programmes, but it still came as a shock when, suddenly, the trees stopped and were replaced by bare, brown earth. Bare, brown earth punctuated by rows and rows of stubby palm oil plants. And so it went on, mile after mile until we reached Sandakan. There were odd glimpses of forest here and there and I was able to see how different the trees were. Some must have been more than 100ft tall, while others nestled below them, perhaps stunted by the lack of sunlight. This awful destruction was the reason I had come on this holiday and taken the flight.
In the Classroom Along with my companions from Kinabalu and a local guide, I had arrived at the Sepilok Visitor Centre, where we were shown past the inevitable (if small) gift shop to a room rather like a classroom.
We joined a number of people who must have been waiting for us to arrive. It was extremely hot and the noisy ceiling fans did little to cool it down. Around the walls were photographs of some of Sepilok’s residents past and present. We were not allowed to visit the little ones who lived on the premises in case we brought them our germs, and this was why we were sitting in this room waiting to hear about them instead.
We heard the terrible details of how many of the babies were found, often clinging to their dead mothers and barely alive themselves. And we heard about the work of the rescue centre, its wonderful staff who are surrogate mums, and the many satisfying outcomes when orangs were eventually released back into the forest.
Although we had all tried to avoid sitting too close to each other, I was getting pretty hot in this airless room. I’m sure everyone else was too so it came as a relief when it was announced that it was time to go out into the reserve and, hopefully, see what we had come to see – orangutans swinging through the trees.
In the jungle It was even hotter as I stood with my video camera on the edge of Sepilok Forest Reserve. But not the dry heat of the room we had left, it was jungle hot and damp. The forest was no longer the flat canopy that I had seen from the air but trees of different species and heights, trees with enormous wide trunks stretching up as far as I could see, dark green leaves blocking out the sky; some with shorter, spindly trunks, more like the trees we are used to at home with paler leaves. Many had creepers hanging down or tying them to their neighbours. The smell was of the damp earth, as if it never quite dried up after a downpour. In front of us was a wooden platform built around the base of two trees and on it were two small orangs rolling about it in play like a large red hairy sphere that occasionally broke into two and then re-joined. They must have been aware of the men coming towards them carrying buckets of bananas and long sticks of sugar cane because they broke off from their play and were soon helping themselves to bananas before the men even had a chance to climb onto the platform.
They kept everyone entertained for a time as the two men ruffled the youngsters’ hair and handed them more bananas and sugar cane but suddenly, a movement caught someone’s eye, there was pointing and there were voices saying “Look. Look over there!” No-one shouted but everyone seemed to have heard and soon we were all looking towards the distance where we could see trees were bending and waving.
The anticipation was growing. This was something that had not been promised but we had all hoped would happen, after all the orangs are free to roam in the forest and whether they choose to visit the food bonanza is up to them. The shaking amongst the treetops got closer and closer and at last we saw a young orangutan swinging towards us until it joined the little ones on the feeding platform and helped itself to sugar cane. And they kept coming, sometimes announcing their arrival by the vibration of a rope snaking between the trees. If they noticed us, they didn’t care. The bananas and sugar cane were all that mattered. Some ate them on the ground, some ate them swinging upside down and hanging by their feet. Some stayed to play on the platform and others took their bounty and disappeared back into the forest. And finally, a fine maturing male with a long, thick red coat and a broad, flat face with those characteristic flanges on his cheeks, moved slowly towards us between the bowing trees. He paused in front of me and lazily performed some acrobatics in one of the trees before moving towards the platform. All the others, acknowledging his presence, moved out of his way and, totally ignoring them, he swung towards the food. He grabbed two long pieces of sugar cane and, holding them between his toes, he disappeared back into the forest as quickly as he had arrived.
It seemed the right time for us to disappear too. An hour had passed while we stood there and I was noticing large wet patches appearing on t-shirts everywhere, including mine and sweat was running down many faces. Our guide suggested that we should move on and, reluctantly, I turned to go. Shortly afterwards and without the slightest hint of irony, the four of us were sitting, eating fish and chips, bread and butter, with a cup of tea at the nearby “English Tea Room and Restaurant” (a relic of pre-independence days) and swapping our new memories.
After booking this first solo holiday at the start of the year, I waited, with growing anticipation as the months ticked by, until suddenly, there I was, dropped off at a guest house near Manchester Airport and about to set off on my first big adventure. Was I more scared than excited or more excited than scared? I’m not sure, although the fact that I was already awake before my alarm went off at 5:30am might give you a hint. My host, who hadn’t been too enthusiastic when I had told him what time I needed a lift in the morning did, after all, turn up on time so that, at 7:30am, I was arriving at the airport ready for my flight to New York.
Before going any further, I should explain that I do not have a phenomenal memory, but a holiday diary has always been a feature of the weeks, (even a month on one occasion) that I have spent away. I try to write something every day, even if the day has been fairly uneventful and certainly when something unusual or amusing happens. Reading them always takes me back and often sparks off other memories. I have a box full of notebooks and envelopes containing tickets, leaflets, brochures of places visited, receipts for meals, information from the holiday company, etc. However, I have not been so good at keeping track of pre-digital photos, so early holidays are not very well illustrated.
Back to Manchester Airport, where I had some breakfast and then decided that I absolutely must venture into the Duty Free shop. It was a pleasure to look around Duty Free, since there had been so many years when our mainly EU meant no duty free prices for us. I made the obligatory perfume purchase before I hurried to the gates, arriving just in time to learn that there was going to be a half hour delay. When we finally did get away, the flight was rather bumpy due to the bad weather and we landed, now an hour late, through grey clouds and rain.
There was an enormous queue through immigration and customs, not unusual when visiting the US, I came to learn (and heard from others). When I had successfully, if slowly, passed through immigration, it was another great relief to discover that my luggage had also arrived in one piece at same destination as me. Then, finally, I was out of the arrivals hall and looking for someone holding up a sign that meant they were there to meet me. I headed for the person holding up the name of my tour and was eventually joined by 10 other travellers from the UK. We were driven down 5th Avenue, through Times Square, past Radio City and the Rockefeller Centre, to the Sheraton on 7th Avenue. It was late afternoon by the time we had checked in and I decided, quite bravely I thought, that I would head out to have a look around and get something to eat. Much to my relief, I bumped into two others from my party who had decided to do the same and we joined forces. We walked for several blocks and then ventured into “Brennigans Irish Restaurant and Bar”, where we had our first experience of plus-size portions. After consuming chicken strips like girders and a refreshing beer, we left with a shout of “Have a great night!” ringing in our ears. We walked back via Broadway, had a quick coffee in the hotel foyer and by 8pm my “great night” was well and truly over. I woke at midnight thinking it must be morning, then again at 3am but eventually I snatched a few more hours’ sleep before obediently leaving my suitcase outside my room, as instructed at 7am.
After breakfast we met our Tour Manager, climbed on the coach and set off down Madison Avenue, past Central Park, through the Bronx and on to Interstate Highway 95, heading for Newport, Rhode Island. Truth be told, I was pleased to be heading out of the city and towards the autumn colours of New England.
I loved this holiday, mostly driving through the countryside and seeing the trees changing their colour as the time went on. I particularly enjoyed a (very cold) whale watching expedition off Bar Harbor and standing at the top of the ski jump at Lake Placid, which hosted the 1980 Winter Olympics. I don’t think I skied down it but somehow I got to stand in the gold medallist’s place on the medal winners’ platform. (I did try to convince my 5-year-old granddaughter through clever use of my video camera but she wasn’t falling for it!)
I did learn a lot about travelling alone though:
Be prepared to eat on your own and take a good book to keep you company.
If you book a holiday that doesn’t include most of your meals, don’t do anything foolish like going off on your own in the dark looking for a restaurant. On our first full day, I had already eaten lunch alone in Newport and, after we had checked in to our hotel, I had to look for somewhere to eat again. I left my room hoping to bump into someone whose face I recognised, but there was no-one in sight, so I found my way, rather nervously, round the rear of the hotel, across a grassy area, to a TGI Friday where I had my first seafood meal and a very large beer, which I think means that I misinterpreted the menu! I had to find my way back in the dark, which was uncomfortable and I vowed not to do it again.
Be wary of suggestions from the Tour Manager that you buddy up with another solo traveller. You could end up with someone who is pleasant and kind but who has nothing in common with you. You can say “No”.
If you are on a coach tour, learn the etiquette around sitting at the front. A strict rotation is the usual practise! And some people can get very sniffy if you deviate from that.
You will meet some lovely people on your travels but the worst whingers and complainers will always be in the seats behind yours.
You will meet some lovely people on your travels and enjoy their company on holiday but there will be very few who become lasting friends. This is something that I continued to learn over many years, sometimes quite painfully.
Maple syrup does taste good on sausages!
You will have an absolutely wonderful time because you are exactly where YOU want to be, doing what YOU want to do.
As soon as you get home, start looking for your NEXT SOLO HOLIDAY!!!
There is nothing like a two-and-a-half-hour flight sitting next to two people discussing interior design to make you wish you were safely tucked up with your headphones watching a good film on a comfortable long haul! Mind you, I did once make the mistake of choosing a Tom Hanks film (because he’s always so good), momentarily forgetting that it was the one where he is a pilot landing a packed plane in the Hudson River. It was a good film but perhaps not the best choice at the time.
I had been forced to pause my solo travels, first by the pandemic and then by a nasty fall and I was dipping my toe back into the world of international travel, in a very gentle way, by flying to Italy and joining some family members who were already there on a long holiday. The trip so far (I was typing this while on the flight home) had been a great success and it had re-ignited both my love of travelling and the desire to travel to far off places again. I managed to arrive home without any incident, an absolute win for me, considering my usual track record for holiday accidents.
I am used to people telling me how brave I am and how “they couldn’t do it”, as if I was a female adventurer from the 19th century. Travelling alone these days is not in the least brave, it’s just what some people prefer. In normal circumstances, I like to have the ultimate choice of where in the world I go, when I go and what I do when I get there. I know that sitting in an open jeep at 6am looking for tigers in a national park or flying over Everest in a 16-seater plane is not everyone’s cup of tea but it’s MY cup of tea and I’m bloody well determined to drink every drop.
I have always had a desire to see wild places, ever since I fell in love with David Attenborough at the age of 7 after seeing him on Zoo Quest. I wanted to be his assistant and travel around the world with him but, as with most people, life did not pan out like that and visiting far flung places, was something that I only dreamed of.
Eventually I did make it across the Channel at the invitation of my French penfriend who, 60 years later, remains one of my closest friends and we exchanged regular visits until we both had our own families. As far as my family (self, husband, 3 children) was concerned, exploring France became our regular holiday, often combining it with a visit to our friends. Time went on and the children grew up and went on their own holidays and my husband and I continued to travel around Europe by car and coach. As he got older, my husband developed a fear of flying and nothing could persuade him to try out the holidays which so tempted me when we saw them on holiday programmes. We imagined that, as we got older, our future holidays would consist of more leisurely and longer explorations around our favourite places.
Then, sometimes life just comes and kicks you in the gut, a kick that makes you lie on the floor winded, at least for a time and this happened to me when my husband died suddenly in the spring of 2003, when he was only 55. But eventually there also comes a time when you must pick yourself up and carry on with your life. I was in my mid-fifties, self-employed and getting used to being independent. Much as I love my children and appreciated their offers to join them on holiday, I knew that this was not going to be the way forward. A long-haul flight to stay with relatives the following spring convinced me that I was ready to take a big step and start to explore. I decided to investigate travelling to some of the places on my bucket list. I told myself that I would never have that “We could have been here together” moment because I knew we would never have been together in any of the places that I wanted to go to.
My first visit to a travel agent was not very inspiring. They suggested a cruise, because:
“You’ll not have to be on your own, there are always gentlemen on cruises whose job it is to dance with unattached ladies.”
I pictured myself dancing with a man who had been paid to travel or had at the very least got a free holiday on the back of dancing with “lonely” women like me and I retreated hurriedly with a pile of brochures for every possible type of holiday except a cruise.
One of the brochures provided me with an idea for my first solo trip. I was reminded that I had once seen a TV programme where the presenter drove in a convertible, through miles and miles of New England countryside during the time when the trees were changing through browns, yellows, oranges, eventually to wonderful deep shades of red. The scenery was beautiful and the idea really appealed to me, even if the part about the convertible was not going to happen, so “New England in the Fall” was my choice for my first solo holiday.
As a precaution and in case solo travel turned out not to be my thing, I booked a ten-day coach tour and skipped the optional additional stay in New York. I decided that, amongst a coachload of people, even if no-one spoke to me, I would at least feel safe. And, if I enjoyed this holiday, then I was ready to unleash myself across an unsuspecting world…..
Ready for the re-make of “Bridges of Madison County” (and for the advent of the digital photo!)
One Anne and Her Dog 