Advent 2011: Door 15

Yesterday's hint was SING.  Today's hint is - write.  Am I a Lady Traveller because I write, or do I write because I'm a Lady Traveller?

I have had days and seasons when I really wanted to pack in this blog.  The effort - particularly when juggling multiple work projects or when (and the irony doesn't escape it) the actual travel left me too tired to face my computer - sometimes seemed to outweigh the reward.

But every time I planned to end it, I would find myself re-reading older entries.  Hours would pass as I relived my adventures.  I may never again find myself having spray-painting lessons from a 'professional' tagger / street artist, or jumping off a cliff into a Zimbabwean river, or taking the Shimabara Choo-choo, or seeing wild brumbies at dawn - but I can always read about it.

Worried you have nothing to say?  The hardest part is the blank page.  Start writing, even if it's drivel and the ideas usually follow.

And take inspiration from your fellow travel writers.  I've mentioned before (but it's worth mentioning again) a book that provided endless hours of comfort and inspiration on my travels.  So much so that I cried when I realised I'd left my first copy on a plane in Japan.  The book (I'm currently still on copy #2) is Unsuitable for Ladies, an anthology of travel writing by women, edited by Jane Robinson.

Unsuitable for Ladies introduced me to Lillias Campbell Davidson, whom I like to think of as a kind of guardian - or concierge - of this blog.  The words on the banner at the top of this page come from (where else) her Hints to Lady Travellers.  The full passage is:

Emancipated womanhood is a term too often of ridicule and reproach, and – alas! That it should be said – is not always undeservedly so.  Women may abuse the privileges too long withheld from them, in the first bewilderment of feeling a new power in their hands.  But none, perhaps is less open to abuse, and surely none is more excellent in itself and its results, than the power which has become the right of every woman who has the means to achieve it – of becoming her own unescorted and independent person, a lady traveller. 

To many the power thus obtained fails to bring with it the pleasure it would otherwise bestow; since lack of experience or ignorance of the comforts and conveniences to indispensable to the real enjoyment of travelling form an actual drawback to their thorough appreciation of its joys and benefits.  To such persons the experience of others may be a great help, and save them from many disagreeable bars to the full pleasure of their journeyings at home and abroad. 

And so I continue to write - so that my experience may be a great help to others, yes, but also because my experiences are a great source of comfort and inspiration to myself.

Advent 2011: Door 14

The hint for today, December 14th is ... sing.  Singing along has got me through some challenging moments on my travels.

Singing Let It Snow got me to the top of Mount Kosciuszko.
My Baby Just Cares For Me helped my nerves the first time I had to drive a car up the ramp onto a ferry (don't laugh - one lady traveller's challenges are not another's.)
Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa got me round the scary hairpin bends on the road to Queenstown, NZ.
I Whistle a Happy Tune was a regular anthem for me as I walked the streets of Cape Town (and an homage to Anna Leonowens, an excellent Lady Traveller role model).

Distant Sun and The Long and Winding Road (reminding me that the miles will eventually pass) have got me through some long nights in the air.

In short, I have a song for every occasion and it really does help.  I don't know if it's because it regulates your breathing or calms your mind but next time you have to touchdown in Harare Airport with the tumbleweeds blowing by [insert similar situation of panic], you should try a verse or two of The Lonely Goatherd.   (I find it's not necessarily the coolest of songs that spring to mind when I'm nervous.)

Works like a charm.  Sing!

Advent 2011: Door 13

Today's hint: Prosecco at lunchtime makes you too sleepy to blog in the evening.

I know, I know - poor excuse.  Alternatively, here is the very first hint I posted: wear warm clothes in French supermarkets. 

Seriously, they keep those hypermarchés super chilled - to protect the fromage, perhaps.

Advent 2011: Doors 10, 11 & 12

Oopsie.  This is the second weekend in a row I've forgotten that Advent includes Saturdays and Sundays!  I'll try to remember next weekend.


By way of apology, here are three festive stories and a hint.


#1 Thanksgiving

... I preside over a whirlwind group effort to make a Thanksgiving stuffing, as best as I can remember the recipe, made from the crumbs of some high-end Italian bread, with necessary cultural substitutions (dates instead of apricots; fennel instead of celery.)  Somehow it comes out great.  Luca had been worried about how the conversation would proceed tonight, given that half the guests can't speak English and the other half can't speak Italian (and only Sofie can speak Swedish), but it seems to be one of those miracle evenings where everyone can understand each other perfectly, or at least your neighbour can help translate when the odd word gets lost. (Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love)

#2 Christmas

It was the last week in December, and Dr. Macdonough together with Lieutenant Douglas, the only other white resident at Isiolo, pooled with us on Christmas Day, and on our community table there appeared an amazing assortment of tinned delicacies, some that had been sent only recently from England to this forsaken outpost and treasured for association as well as contents.  In addition to game we had fine, juicy steer steaks, we introduced our British friends to hominy grits - and the royal feast wound up with English plum pudding ablaze with brandy. (Osa Johnson, I Married Adventure)

#3 St Stephen's Day

The day after Christmas (which, true to my Irish roots, I refuse to call Boxing Day – it’s St Stephen’s Day, that is all) Robbie and I set off on our road trip to the Eastern Highlands. We were headed for Nyanga, just over three hours from Harare, going east towards Mozambique. We were equipped with banana bread, mince pies, Christmas cake, wine, beer, baked beans, coffee, eggs, lots of water and a few other bits and pieces ... The landscape was very Swallows and Amazons, in a surreally African way. We were in a cottage called Mpunguzungu (say that 10 times fast), overlooking a beautiful waterfall.

The first night we were in Nyanga, we went for dinner with some friends of Robbie’s, the Calders. To get there we drove along a very bumpy track, me balancing a plate of melba toast and paté on my knee. I managed to hang on to all but one tiny piece of toast and subsequently decided it should be a new Olympic Sport – one in which I would excel. The Calders were lovely (incidentally, my only New Year’s Resolution is to find a good alternative to ‘lovely’ – please help) and we had a great time. We went to bed by candlelight because Mpunguzungu has no electricity. (We had a dishwasher though - his name was George. This is what I call the Zimbabwean paradox.)  The next morning, we had breakfast outside: coffee made in AJ’s thermos, toast with honeycomb, fried eggs. We were joined by some cows with bells – this made it a strangely Alpine interlude. (Hints to Lady Travellers, December 2009)

Oh, you'd like a hint?  After careful consideration, I can offer this: the likelihood of travel disrupting your favourite festive traditions is great.  The ingredients, the facilities, the climate will conspire to change things.  But this isn't a bad thing.  However much you're convinced that it is the details that make the holiday, if you're lucky you'll discover that the spirit of the holiday is bigger than any one detail.  

Advent 2011: Door 9

Hints to Lady Travellers is busy preparing for the five mile run she has rashly undertaken to go on tomorrow.  But that doesn't mean the day will pass without a hint, oh no.  I wanted to take the opportunity to flashback to the cautionary tale of woe first posted here by Lady Traveller's Little Sister: the sad story of the (imaginary) bedbugs.  In a nutshell, the hint is: do bring plastic bags with you if your travels include budget accommodation; don't bring bedbugs home with you - it can be expensive.

Advent 2011: Door 8

Today's hint comes from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, writer, traveller and all-round broad-minded person.  In the early 18th century she accompanied her husband, ambassador for the Court of St James to the Ottoman Empire, to Constantinople.  Her stories - of hammams, smallpox parties and cultural differences - are fascinating and funny.  

Her hint - well, less of a hint and more of an observation - is this:

"We travellers are in very hard circumstances. If we say nothing but what has been said before us, we are dull and have observed nothing. If we tell anything new, we are laughed at as fabulous and romantic."

But I think she and I would agree: better to be thought a fabulous and romantic Lady Traveller than a dull and unobservant one.

(Lady Mary Wortley Montagu by Charles Jervas; painting at the National Gallery of Ireland)

Advent 2011: Door 7

Welcome to Door 7!

Magazines are always running features on what to carry on board to make your long-haul flight more bearable.  (They tend to interview supermodels and so the answers run to cashmere scarves, rose water,  own spoon for the 1st class caviar - that kind of thing.)

A while back I posted about my top tip for long flights - a thick pair of socks.  But I'd like to add to the list.

First of all, the best carry-on bags have wheels.  I own a lovely soft weekend bag but fill it up with all of the things I need for 24 hours and it gets uncomfortably heavy to lug around airports.  Also, bags with wheels tend to be sturdier and can go in the hold if necessary.

In my carry-on I pack all my gadgets (camera, laptop, phone), a change of clothes and these essentials:

1. Thick socks
2. A scarf or blanket of some kind (cashmere is nice, but not necessary.  Bear in mind that you may well want to wash it after it's been wrapped around you for the duration of the flight.)
3. Eye mask and ear plugs (no longer standard issue in economy; make all the difference when trying to sleep on a noisy plane)
4. A kindle / e-reader 
5. A trashy magazine to read when your e-reader has to be switched off at take-off and landing - bonus is you can leave this on the plane
6. A water bottle (bring it through security empty, then fill it up from a water fountain - most airports have these.  Alternatively - but less eco-friendly - just buy a bottle once through security.  You will be grateful for your own water when you wake from a fitful sleep with your tongue glued to the roof of your mouth and find egress is barred by the enormous - sleeping - man sitting in the aisle seat.)
7. Some paw paw ointment (works as moisturiser, lip balm and first aid for all owies.)
8. Make-up or baby wipes

Obviously you will include any other must-haves like glasses, contact lens cases, medicines - but toiletries can be kept to a minimum since airlines do stock the basics like toothbrushes.

I realise this list is sadly unglamorous.  But, then, the sad truth is that flying is DEEPLY unglamorous for most of us.  All you can do is lie back, watch trashy movies and dream of your destination.