All Aboard the Taj Express!

It was early and already the heat of the sun radiated through the dust, creating a milky haze over the city.

We made our way slowly through the traffic to the railway station entrance, weaving through other travellers, hawkers and those who had nothing better to do than just watch. With tickets in hand we pressed on along the platform and over the railway bridge to our awaiting train, the Taj Express.

The train, scheduled to leave at 7:15 a.m. was already packed with people on wooden seating, their faces pressed against the metal grills of the open air windows. While our section of the train was allegedly air conditioned, a worker patrolled the aisles periodically, menacingly tapping a screwdriver against the rusting pipes in the ceiling.

The train pulled out of New Delhi on time and an open window at the end of the compartment acted like a viewfinder on the passing landscape. The "express" made several stops along the way allowing us to take in the activity on the always crowded platforms.

Food sellers touted their wares cooked on makeshift grills and char wallahs poured their tea into earthenware pots to grateful customers, chatting loudly amongst themselves twenty to the dozen. After several hours we reached Agra and the highlight of our trip - the Taj Mahal.

We have all seen pictures of the Taj Mahal, the mausoleum constructed by Shah Jahan in 1631 in honour of his favourite wife, Mumtaz, but nothing prepares you.

As one approaches, the building's actual size becomes apparent, seemingly built as an optical illusion on the banks of the Yamuna River.

We walked towards the perfectly formed ivory-coloured shrine through the gardens. Before we climbed the steep stairs to the mausoleum we donned cotton shoe covers and went inside to view the exquisite marble screen inlaid with semi-precious stones which surrounds replicas of the tombs of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal. The actual tombs lie below ground level.

In the Yamuna River below, water buffalo lazed while locals busied themselves with laundry. Upriver, the Red Fort glowed in the afternoon sun.

As the sun began to fall from the sky we returned to the Taj Mahal and took up our places in the gardens to watch the glow of the setting sun against the marble dome and its minarets. Many others were doing the same and a silence came over the crowd as if transfixed in their thoughts at the spectacle before them.

The planned early morning train trip back to Delhi the next morning was scratched because of a broken down locomotive so we clambered on board a bus for the five-hour drive. Before doing so, some of us took the opportunity to watch dawn break over the Taj Mahal. Below us, two hurriedly assembled cricket teams battled in the early morning light. A peacock strutted and scratched its way through a ruined building. Pinkish red bougainvillea framed many a picture as the impact of the sunrise's changing light and the noise of an awakening city set the scene.

All aboard the bus, we journeyed through Agra's early morning rush, passing schoolchildren on their way to their day's lessons, transported on motorized rickshaws and bikes. Men cycled with containers strapped to their mode of conveyance - some had collected milk from various farms and were delivering it to market for sale.

General chaos reigned, horns constantly blowing, every description of hand and animal drawn cart criss-crossing the road transporting sugar cane, hay, blocks of marble, dung cakes and people. The road, which was in the process of being widened felt like a battlefield with drivers happy to play chicken with the oncoming traffic.

A far cry from the serenity of the final resting place for Shah Jahan and his beloved wife.

Auckland New Year

In planning our trip to New Zealand, something had caught our eye - small yacht charters that take travellers out for a jaunt in Auckland’s harbour.

It was a glorious evening that New Year’s Eve and as we motored away from the dock we looked back on another memorable Auckland attraction – the Maritime Museum.

There were 17 passengers of various nationalities on the Pride of Auckland that evening and we all took turns manning the helm and trimming the sails. We dropped anchor for dinner and sipped wine, exchanging stories with our travelling companions.

After dinner, we sailed under Auckland’s harbour bridge, coming about to return into the main harbour. It was now dark and the skyline quite beautiful. It was still a few hours before midnight, but the excitement of the day had caught up with us and we went back to our hotel.

We had a rude awakening some time later when we shot up in bed to flashing bright lights strafing our hotel walls. A spectacular fireworks display had begun atop the Sky Tower at midnight, across the street from our hotel. Dubbed “Moulin Rouge” by the locals, we moved to the window and enjoyed a ringside view of Auckland’s New Year’s Eve light show. Over 35,000 people were on the streets below doing the same thing. We must have been dead to the world until our awakening - there was no mistaking the fireworks and cheering crowd.

If you find yourself in Auckland and have limited time, the Maritime Museum is a must.

A few hours wandering around the various displays will give an appreciation of the importance of the sea in New Zealand’s history – from early Polynesian navigators to whaling ships and the mass immigration of the 20th Century. Pride of place is also given to celebration of New Zealand’s America’s Cup victory and the life (and untimely death) of Sir Peter Blake, Black Magic’s captain.

A short distance from the Maritime Museum is one the Auckland’s most beautiful buildings – the Ferry Building.

Nowadays this 1912 Edwardian baroque building is the focal point for commuter ferries. Devonport, one of Auckland’s north shore suburbs is a short ten-minute ferry ride away.

Waiheke Island is also worth a visit - and we discovered that the ferry ride alone was worth the visit. On New Year's Day we enjoyed the white sandy beaches overlooked by cottage vineyards.

New Year’s holiday is a day for Aucklanders to pack a picnic, hop the ferry to Waiheke and laze the day away on the beach. It was fun being wrapped up in that atmosphere. We were on to do more serious things – explore three of the Island’s boutique wineries. Set among trailing roses, lavender bushes and olive trees it was an enjoyable afternoon.

Shades of England as we stopped for a lunch break – the tinkle of the ice cream van, meat pies, fish and chips – and the mainlanders enjoying their day out. We partook of the meat pie – bad decision after Doug renamed his snack dog meat pie.

We rejoined the holiday hordes for the return ferry trip to downtown Auckland and after a refresh at the hotel, it was time to eat. We found a backstreet Indian restaurant with friendly, talkative owners, non-stop Bollywood movies on the TV and a Maharajah’s banquet to die for.

On our way back to the hotel we experienced what nutty Kiwis have become famous for. Four insane people were strapped in a device resembling a sofa. A sort of reverse bungee jump had been set up in a car park.

Moments later the device hurled the screaming group into the air and we were left staring along with other passersby, wondering why. It didn’t look very safe, but Auckland is the city where people bungee jump off the Sky Tower for entertainment whether or not its a New Year's dare.

Terracotta Army – Silent Sentinels

As the story goes, in 1974 five farmers were working in the collective excavating for a new well.

In doing so, they unearthed the broken fragments of what was a silent army. Having no appreciation for their find, the farmers discarded the broken terracotta but kept the unearthed bricks that formed the base on which the famed Terracotta Warriors had once proudly stood to build pig pens.

The rest of course is history. The archaeologists moved in and the farmers became famous.

Over 2000 years ago several hundreds of thousands of workers spent 3 years constructing the Terracotta Army that was subsequently destroyed and plundered. The Army’s resting place is located near the Mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang.

A visitor to the Museum today will see many of the figures restored and exhibited in a hall built above the excavation site. Figures are grouped in battle order, rank by rank, some alongside horse-drawn chariots. Others are in infantry groups armed with spears, swords and crossbows.

Vault 1 houses 6000 life-size warriors, chariots and horses. Vault 2 contains formations of soldiers as the flank force and Vault 3 illustrates military headquarters.

The first sight of the contents of Vault 1 rendered us all speechless. The scale was much more expansive than we had expected. In fact there was a sense of occasion somehow as we looked down on those 2000 year old warriors so perfectly lined up, silent yet seemingly ready for battle.

At the Museum one of the farmers who had made the discovery posed for photos and autographed absolutely anything so long as it had been purchased in the Museum shop. However, local entrepreneurs looking for part of the action had managed to get beyond the security point into the Museum complex and were actively marketing their own crude version of the warriors. What the figures lacked in quality they more than made up for in price.

Intense negotiations went into high gear between the Museum shop and the bus door.

There were fourteen people on our bus which rattled with terracotta as it pulled away from the Museum. At breakfast next morning some people had had a change of heart, attempting to give their figures away because of the meagre weight allowance at North West China Airlines. There were no takers – everyone in the party was stocked with terracotta memorabilia for the trip home.

One wag suggested that all unwanted warriors could be tactfully disposed of in the excavation site for a new tower block across from our hotel. Who knows, in time this could end up being the next modern wonder and X’ian attraction.

Go Over The Wall. On Us.

We used to have a wonderful National airline called Canadian. Sadly it is no more. Before its demise on one sunny March afternoon in 2000 we just happened to be seated in Row 2 of a 747.

As the Canadian Airlines flight taxied from the gate I opened the in-flight magazine – an advertisement for the airline’s frequent flier program declared “no matter where you want to go, the best way to travel there is for free”. It pictured people climbing the Great Wall of China with the caption “Go over the Wall. On us”.

Doug and I were about to take them up on their offer - using the last of our frequent flier miles and just enough for two business class tickets.

“You are not a man if you have not been to the Great Wall” so the saying goes in China. The Great Wall extends some 3000 miles and is one of the few objects on earth visible from outer space. It was conceived as a gigantic defensive project as far back as the 7th Century BC and required a force of almost a million workers to construct it.

What makes the Great Wall all the more spectacular is the way in which it was constructed on the ridges of mountains, rising up and down with the contours of the terrain. On the top of the Wall a road paved with square bricks is wide enough for six horses to go abreast. Watch towers, built at intervals of a few hundred yards line the Wall. These two-storey stone and brick structures were used as beacons and a means of communication to warn of an enemy’s advance – using smoke during daylight and fire at night.

During the Ming Dynasty whenever a signal was sent, one or more warning shots were also fired. According to the military regulations of 1468 a single shot together with a single fire or smoke signal warned that the enemy was about a hundred strong. Two shots and two signals warned of five hundred, three warned of over a thousand. In this way a message could be transmitted very quickly.

These days the invading barbarians of old have been replaced by barbarians of a different kind – tourists.

We accessed the Great Wall at Badaling. While Badaling offers awesome views because of its proximity to Beijing it is very crowded. The Badaling section of the Wall was mainly constructed during the Ming Dynasty – the Ming Great Wall averaged 30 feet high, 25 feet wide at the base and 18 feet wide at the top.

Once we had arrived at Badaling we realized there were two choices – an easy climb or a more challenging one. There were fewer people on the steeper portion so off we went.

The climb proved to be difficult because the steps were very uneven and of different depths. Coming down was harder because some portions were slippery from wear and tear.

At the highest point of the climb we stopped at one of the towers and said hello to a Chinese family enjoying a picnic.

Despite the throngs of people, we didn’t have to go very far to be alone and take in the isolation of the place. Looking from one of the guard towers out over the barren mountains the Wall snaked off into the distance. We couldn’t help but feel small and insignificant.

The Fairy Tale City of Luang Prabang

We heard recently from long time travel companions that they were planning a trip to Asia and that Laos would be part of their itinerary.

That got me thinking about our own introduction to Laos when we visited the capital city of Vientiane and the ancient royal capital of Luang Prabang several years ago.

Despite the fact that after the Vietnam War Laos had the dubious distinction of being the most bombed country in the history of warfare, there is some irony in the fact that in 1995 UNESCO designated Luang Prabang the best preserved city in Southeast Asia - and what a treasure it proved to be.

The old capital lies sleepily on the banks of the Mekong river and is home to 33 Wats (or temples) and over 500 monks.

Luang Prabang has a fairy tale quality about it.

One of my lasting memories of our stay in the old capital was the daily ritual just after dawn when the monks walk solemnly from their monasteries to collect alms. Built in 1560, the monks' procession begins from Wat Xieng Thong where Lao kings were crowned and cremated. Beautiful murals constructed from glass fragments adorn the city's most famous temple.

Statues of Buddha in the Calling for Rain attitude line the Chapel of the Funeral Chariot.

Hmong embroidery and glass inlaid mosaics depicting village life in the hill tribes are very striking and form a rich tapestry.

Catching sight of a flash of orange in the distance I realise this is the beginning of the monks' daily procession - a snake of saffron robed men walk in single file toward me - first elderly monks with wizened faces, then novices of all ages, some as young as 6 or 7 years old.

Local women kneel at the pavement's edge holding containers of sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves while men (and the few visitors present) stand barefoot. As the monks pass we drop portions of rice into their alms bowls. The monks have a dreamy, distant look on their faces.

Every night near the entrance to the Royal Palace local vendors and hill tribe villagers display their wares along the street. The affair has the feeling of a social gathering with high energy.

There were so many wonderful things to buy but sadly I had to be dragged away from this shopping extravaganza, Lao kip and Thai baht unspent, because apparently we were well over the airline's meagre weight allowance. Never mind, I had my three-headed elephant Airavata. This symbol is associated with the old Lao Kingdom and the country's former flag which expressed the ancient name of the country "land of a million elephants".

And of course I had already loaded up with textiles at the Vientiane morning market - a large area with a huge selection of silk, fine cotton, Hmong embroidery, silver and gold. The quality of the hand-woven silk scarves with their iridescent hues was particularly good value and it soon became a question of "how many scarves is enough". All those gifts for friends back home. I have to confess I kept them all .....

Another must do in Luang Prabang is to climb the 300 winding steps to the top of Mount Phou Si. Get there well before sunset to stake out your position - its a popular place. The views as the sun sets over the Mekong, the lush vegetation and the temples with their stupas and sloping roofs is not to be missed.

As the light fades, the fast-moving Mekong's colour changes from milk to dark chocolate beckoning one to spend a day on the river and enjoy perspectives gained through watching life along the river bank in what seems to be a bygone age.

Cocktails in Punta Arenas

Punta Arenas in Chile is the southernmost city on the South American mainland, located in one of the wildest and remotest regions on earth.

The city has enjoyed two heydays in its history – the first lasted from 1850-1914 when the port was the principal supply station for ships rounding Cape Horn. By virtue of its strategic location Punta Arenas was one of the busiest ports in the world but its golden age ended abruptly when the Panama Canal opened in 1914. Punta Arenas languished until oil was discovered in the 1940s.

After a morning in town we set off to the Martime Museum but were puzzled when we arrived at what looked like a junk yard. Guards monitored the locked gates and beyond we could see a number of rusted shipwrecks stretching out into the sea.

No problem it seemed, the gates were opened and dodging pieces of tangled metal and other discarded maritime materials we ventured towards a cavernous hulk.

What happened next was one of those magical travel moments.

Peering inside the wreck we saw that a walkway had been constructed within its hull. Gingerly we stepped inside, careful not to bang our heads on the girders that criss-crossed overhead. Turning a corner we discovered that the walkway continued through a second wreck.

Through rusted portholes we could see Punta Arenas on one side and the open ocean on the other. The sun shone brightly enhancing the ocean’s deep marine blue colour.

Completing our walk through the second hulk, a third wreck beckoned. This time it was a three-masted vessel named the County of Peebles – an iron transporter ship launched on Clydeside (Glasgow) in 1890. Sadly the ship had ended its days washed aground by the unpredictable weather of the southernmost tip of the South American continent.

At the aft of the County of Peebles we entered a cabin which looked remarkably in tact. Still unclear as to what awaited us, smartly dressed waiters greeted us with trays of pisco and all sorts of interesting snacks. We were in the Chilean Navy’s Officers’ lounge!

The original helm, compass and figurehead from the County of Peebles graced the cabin which was lined with the ship’s original wooden seating and an attractive window through which Tierra del Fuego beckoned.

Our host explained the history of the County of Peebles adding that the Chilean Navy used all three rusting hulks as a breakwater. As we listened to the story, the structure moved gently with the incoming tide. We discovered that the visit had been made possible by the boss of the local travel bureau who happened to be a good friend of the local Naval commander. The very fact that we were able to sit within the confines of the County of Peebles and hear its history was a bit of a fluke.

As we ventured back through the convoluted series of walkways to shore one of our travel companions - a flamboyant art dealer from San Francisco - grasped Doug’s arm and gushed “Wasn’t that the most original cocktail party you’ve ever been to in your life!”

There was no denying that.