A Passage to India: Part 2

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We descend the Western Ghats, down from the lush cardamom and tea plantations to Tamil Nadu and back to the sauna. This road descends around 17 hairpin bends which our driver attacks with kamikaze enthusiasm, passing anything in front with no regard for oncoming traffic or blind corners, but by now we are used to this. As we come down to flatter landscapes we pass coconut groves, miles of rice paddies and sugar cane fields. It occurs to me that India, from far north to deep south, is quite the food bowl and has the capacity, I would think, to be agriculturally self sufficient, though I’m told they still import rice, being the staple food of the population. Tariffs? No thanks, we’re good.

If you’re a Bible reader you’ll know John 14 verse 2: Jesus big-notes about his father, boasting that “my father’s house has many mansions”. He is non specific about the number but it would have to be a lot to rival Chettinad. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, fabulously wealthy Chettiar merchants and traders travelled the world buying and selling, amassing fortunes and pouring it into these homes: teak from Burma, Venetian glass and French chandeliers, Italian Carreras marble, ironwork from England and tiles from China and Spain. They’re basically India’s version of The Great Gatsby, if Gatsby had been a Tamil banker with a taste for Italian marble and decimating Burmese teak plantations. Each mansion was designed with one goal: to make sure the neighbour’s house looked like a peasant’s hut. So we now have an entire region of villages where the homes look like royal palaces but are eerily silent, except for the occasional pigeon who thinks it’s won the real estate lottery. Over time, wars, financial regulations, and the slow realisation that maybe investing everything in foreign trade wasn’t the best idea. Most of the merchants moved to cities or abroad, leaving behind these mansions, like kids abandoning their toys in a rush to go to McDonalds. 

You would think India’s new millionaires, the ones who spend absurd amounts on glitzy weddings, vanity projects, and cricket teams, would jump at the chance to restore these as another bauble to show off their wealth. Maybe – if they weren’t in the middle of Tamil Nadu’s sweltering countryside, miles away from luxury shopping and air conditioned cocktail bars. Here, stepping outside at noon feels like walking into a blast furnace running at the temperature of the surface of the sun. Secondly, restoring them is like trying to revive a dinosaur: massively expensive and requiring a PhD in heritage conservation, engineering, and patience. Also, most belong to dozens of extended family members, many living overseas and busy arguing over inheritance rights.

Out Chettinad hotel. All the mansions are built around courtyards like this. The rooms are huge.

So here they stand in their sad elegance, gathering dust. I imagine Marlon Brando in his fading days mumbling “I used to be somebody”, and you have the vibe. The upside is a street full of heritage furniture and antique stops, stocked with what were the contents of the mansions. Need a kitchen full of enamel ware? A new/old chandelier? Portraits of someone else’s ancestors? A free-standing dial telephone? Nic-nacs up the wazoo?

Today the mansions serve as backdrops for wedding photos, heritage tourism – after all, that’s why we’re here – and the occasional Bollywood drama. Some, like ours, are being bought by luxe hotel chains and the restored interiors are beautiful, the rooms enormous. Happily, our first stop is lunch in a courtyard at one of the semi restored mansions. Pressed tin ceilings, marble pillars, beautiful chandeliers and floor tiles. And food.

Chettinad lunch: served on a banana leaf – from top left – salt, garlic pickle, yam, chayote with cumin, snake gourd, potato, Chettinad vegetarian cutlet, Chettinad chicken, onion raita, pappadum. After the picture was taken there also came a whole small fish, white rice, yoghurt and onion and tomato spicy gravy.

The food, you are all asking about the food. In a word, wonderful. In a few words, delicious, deep flavour, subtle spice, not always intense. Yes, spices can be used as lethal weapons, but layering flavours gives a more delectable experience. The style varies across regions as there are different growing conditions. For example, the Chettiars are known to be traders in salt and spices and this is reflected in the Chettinad cuisine. Chicken Chettinad (spicy chicken curry) is famous (and delicious). One night we descend on a local home where the family cook for us – another banana leaf feast, this time with the inclusion of delicious Chicken 65 – this is a spicy deep fried chicken and there are as many origin stories as there are variations in the recipe. We are still waiting for our hosts to part with their family’s secret recipe. The traditional banana leaf serving “plate” is not just to save washing up, though that is a happy colab – polyphenols found in banana leaves stimulate the production of digestive enzymes, aiding in better digestion and nutrient absorption.

Family dinner with delicious chapati, okra and fabulous Chicken 65

If you are tempted by street food – restrain yourself, or end up as I did on my long ago visit – flat on my back for four days with my only outings being to the bathroom. Indian street food should be approached with caution, and the mantra “deep fried is your friend” – something you don’t hear very often, and definitely not from the heart foundation.

What else is different from my visit 46 years ago? The traffic, as described in my last post, is as chaotic, if not more so, and the level of trash everywhere is unchanged in volume, if not composition. The magical properties of the blaring horn are even more magical. What is different, and better, is the attention to personal hygiene – you didn’t expect that did you. The general populous isn’t as smelly, though to be fair I’m not on public transport this time. I remember lots of smoking and betel nut chewing with the accompanying red spit staining the ground, but this trip the only smokers I see are a couple of western tourists, and I see no betel nut stains on the street. Even better, the vape stores and vapers that plague our cities are wonderfully absent – don’t see a single one.

Life in India is messy, crowded, noisy, exhausting, occasionally terrifying, but never boring. It’s one of the few places where you can laugh, cry, eat, sweat, and have an existential crisis – all before lunch time.

A Passage to India: part one

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In March 1979 I arrive in what was Madras, now Chennai, South East India. I am 22, wearing a backpack, a sense of awe, and I am more naive than should be legally allowed. Mum kept all my letters home and I write, ”What an unbelievable place! There really are cows in the “streets” (and dogs, and chooks and beggars)”. I go on to describe the incredibly filthy streets, 35 degree temperatures, insane street numbering, and our hotel, which we find with the help of the brother of a work contact back home. Again, “The place we’re staying in has a real toilet (not a squat job), hot and cold running water, a roof fan, and it’s rather clean. It’s costing 50 rupee a night for a double room (that’s $5.60 for the two of us).”  I remember it being so hot I’d wet the sheet in the shower and lie under it with the fan going to try and be cool enough to sleep.


This March 2025 I arrive in Kochi, formerly Cochin, South West India. I am 68, fresh off business class, hand luggage only, still in awe, no longer naive but far from world weary.  My hotel is the five star Brunton Boatyard.  It not only has hot and cold running water and a real toilet, but aircon, room service, a minibar, balcony and view of the river.

After my week at the Sacred Lotus (see previous blog) I am joining a small group tour across the south, ending in Chennai in two weeks. Not being a group travel person my reservations are soon overcome as the other eight people are good company and Sarah Meikle, the founder/director and operator of All India Permit Tours, www.allindiapermit.co.nz is the consummate tour operator: experienced, organised, calm, ready to pivot if necessary, has excellent local guides, and she is ready to accommodate most whims. I choose this trip as it covers some of the same ground of my first trip, but in reverse.

I remember really loving Kerala, the south western state, especially Kochi. It’s a place where history, culture and coconut palms jostle for attention. As a port it has a long history as a trading post, and many foreign nations have had a run at ruling it – the Portuguese arrived in the late 1400s, however they were fashionably late to the party as Arabs and Chinese were already there, along with a Jewish settlement dating from 587. These days, the Pardesi Synagogue with its 1,100 hand-painted Canton tiles and Murano glass chandeliers, counts only a handful of worshippers. The Dutch arrive in the 1660s and the English in the early 1800s, making for quite the garam masala of cultural legacies of architecture, cuisine, customs and language. 

The Pardesi Synagogue

The beautifully counterbalanced Chinese fishing nets are used to this day, though once you’ve seen the filthy rubbish floating down the waterways it takes an effort of will, or amnesia, to eat the fish. The Portuguese arrived hungry to trade for black pepper and spices. They seemed to think it was a fair exchange to introduce such necessities as cannons, guns and gunpowder, and of course seminaries, because another religion is always just what the population needs. They also temporarily donated Vasco da Gama. He was buried here at St. Francis Church – his remains were later reclaimed by Portugal, which seems rude, after all the trouble he went to to find the place.

We have a night in the backwaters of Kerala, staying on an almost luxurious houseboat, a kettuvallam, which is at its most basic a thatched roof over a wooden hull. A boat trip through these waterways is less of a journey and more of a meditation – albeit in a humidity that is like an unwelcome hug from a sweaty stranger.

We’re travelling through lakes and canals fringed by rice paddies, where the overuse of fertilisers is just one of the ecological disasters to overtake these waters choking them with water hyacinth. Occasionally a few houses punctuate the narrow ridges that separate the paddies. Time moves slowly and life is lived in and on the water: we pass women sudsing their hair, their clothes, their children; kids playing; fishermen balancing on canoes. When we stop and take a walk we see toothbrushes and bars of soap sitting atop stone steps and ready for use. Next to shacks there are modernish houses, built well above flood level, experience being a cruel teacher. When we stop for the night our efficient boatmen hook us up to shore power, the tangle of cables resembling a poorly constructed spider web, but aircon trumps health and safety.

bath time

It’s a relief to head up into the Western Ghats, the hills to the east. At Munnar we’re 5,000 feet and while the temperature is still in the high 20s, there’s no humidity. It’s bliss. We are staying at Windermere, a cardamon plantation among thousands of acres of tea growing estates. I feel I should be striding about wearing a pith helmet and shouting What oh old chap! A trip to the tea factory tells me more about tea than I ever wanted to know, but if you see me, ask, and I’ll bore you about it until you surrender and order coffee.

One thing I note that hasn’t changed in the years since my last visit is the circus that passes as transportation. We are travelling in two vans, and both our local drivers are excellent. You must understand that driving in India is less of a skill and more of a survival instinct and these guys have it in spades. It’s not just about getting from A to B. It’s about navigating a chaotic, high-stakes game of chicken, where the rules of the road are more like polite suggestions. Lanes? No such thing, it’s a free for all even if there’s oncoming traffic. Horns? The universal language that replaces indicators, road signs, and human speech. Tuktuks weave through impossibly small gaps, beautifully painted buses barrel down the wrong side in overtaking moves that defy sanity, and scooters and motorbikes make full use of every inch of available space, usually carrying an entire extended family, a propane tank, and a goat. Pedestrians cross anywhere and street vendors set up shop on busy intersections. And yet, despite all logic, somehow everyone gets where they need to go, and I never once hear anyone shout at or abuse another driver. It’s a miracle wrapped in madness, sprinkled with adrenaline. Driving, or more accurately being driven, in India isn’t just a about transport, it’s a cultural experience, a test of patience, and an extreme sport all rolled into one. It’s best just to breathe deeply and avoid looking out the front window.

Trading The White Lotus for The Sacred Lotus

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If anyone had told me I would be in absolute bliss, lying naked except for a bikini version of a sumo wrestler’s undies, on a hard wooden table having buttermilk dripped onto my third eye for 45 minutes, well, I’d have thought you’d lost your mind. But that’s exactly where I am on day four of my Ayurvedic Yoga retreat in Kochi, South India.

Now, I may not have done my research very thoroughly as I was thinking of a retreat more yoga and less woo woo, but it turns out to be a happy balance. There are literally hundreds of Ayurvedic retreat centres in the state of Kerala alone. This ancient Indian style of medicine dates back over 3,000 years, and is based on the concept of dosha balance, that is maintaining harmony among the three fundamental energies: Vata (air and space), Pitta (fire and water), and Kapha (earth and water). So when in balance we experiences good health, while imbalances, not surprisingly, can lead to physical and/or mental ailments, requiring dietary, lifestyle, and herbal interventions to restore equilibrium. This isn’t to the exclusion of modern medicine and techniques when required. So not so woo woo, just the rest of the world takes a while to catch on. So what happens?

Each day starts at 7:00am, unless of course you are not me, and go for a 6:00am walk. A therapist arrives at my room with a laden tray and carries out a cleansing ritual. She says a prayer, takes my temperature and BP, then I lie down and she gently washes my eyes, places dabs of oil on my nostrils and gives them a good massage while instructing me to breathe, then a brief face massage before she hands me a glass of indeterminate liquid and sends me to the ensuite to gargle. I then drink a foul smelling ‘medicine’ and head off to yoga. 

There are three yoga sessions a day. Not a morning person, but suitably cleansed, I haul myself to 7:30 class. Maya, our trans yoga instructor, has the loudest masculine voice, so instructions sound like orders.  I baulk when she says “breathe in the fresh air from the Arabian Sea”: I have walked down to the nearby Mahatma Ghandi beach, and I’m sure the piles of trash and pollution are not what he sat down for. After a short breathing exercise we move on to multiple Suryanamaskara (sun salutes) followed by serious strength poses held for long periods. Even this early it’s hot and humid, so it’s hard work. The second session later in the morning is all breathing work, and the afternoon session is meditation – which I suck at. It’s as if as soon as I try and quiet my mind, a flash mob invades and starts dancing around, vying for attention.

Maya, the yoga instructor, me, Asako from Japan, Gayatri from Seattle and Shalini who is Indian, speaks with a Scottish accent and lives in New York

Every day brings a new, and often unimaginable, delight. Six days and two treatments a day: one hour in the morning and a half hour in the afternoon, interspersed with three yoga sessions, meals, and plenty of relaxation. It’s 30+ degrees C every day, and humid, so not much activity outdoors. There’s a pool, with water almost too warm in this heat, and as untreated water here is not safe to imbibe, each time I swim I try to avoid galloping diarrhoea by not letting any water into my mouth.  My backstroke is improving. 

My first treatment is a full massage and steam.  We start with the ubiquitous karakia which is in Hindi, so I only get to join in at the end with the singsong om shanti, shanti, shanti, and the taking of blood pressure. This happens before every treatment. The table is wooden, so not the most comfortable, and I’m lying naked but for the sumo nappy.  Two therapists, one either side, drizzle me with warm herbal infused sesame oil and begin synchronised sweeping strokes from feet, up to and across my abdomen and boobs, and down my arms. Any modesty disappears with my dignity. Once I am at peace with that, it is very relaxing, but I can’t help but feel I’m being basted ready for a spit roast. By the time they finish the table is awash with oil and I am fully prepared to engage in Turkey’s national sport of oil wrestling. But with no Turk for thousands of miles I move to the next room, where I make the acquaintance of a piece of furniture which is either an antique writing desk or a medieval torture device. It is, in fact, a small steam room.  So I sit with my head poking out the top being gently steamed – a pork dumpling ready for yum cha. Fortunately that is the only steaming of the week, as in the heat my blood pressure already rivals a SpaceX rocket’s average altitude before exploding. 

One day I think I have wandered into an S & M parlour by mistake.  In the treatment room there’s a frying pan heating four large parcels. These turn out to be poultices containing “specific rice cooked in a suitable milk decoction (sic)” Today’s treatment, Choorna pinda swedam full body, starts as usual, but after the oil slick, the massage moves into high gear. I’m slapped with the warm poultices on the way up the body, and then there’s smooth strokes on the way down that exfoliate and massage at the same time. Again my synchronised therapists are in perfect harmony, switching to a new, warm, set of poultices for each swoop. 

This is possibly the only time being beaten up feels relaxing. After, my skin is amazingly soft. Marie Antoinette was ahead of her time with the milk bath, but if she’d traded it for Takradhara, perhaps she wouldn’t have been such a bitch to the peasants. 

Takradhara, the buttermilk on the forehead job, is my favourite treatment. Despite making you smell like you’ve just come in from the milking shed, I can’t begin to convey how fabulous this treatment is. After a time your brain just liquifies and it’s like you move to another level of consciousness.

The funnel ready to pour buttermilk on my fevered brow

It should be mandatory for dictators and despots. Picture Putin lying there, shirtless (because, of course) as a steady stream of cool buttermilk flows onto his forehead. At first, he resists “I wrestle bears for stress relief.”  But the treatment cools his brain, and at the end of the session he reconsiders his life choices. The world watches in shock as he trades invasion for meditation. 

If you’re wondering about the food, don’t. The Ayurvedic doctor sets you menu to balance your doshas. As a Vata with Pitta (not the bread) she is obviously trying to tone down my hotness, so generally my food is on the bland side. At the end of six days I feel pretty good, even though the treatments took my therapists dangerously close to areas usually only visited by my gynaecologist and gastroenterologist.

Is that a tuxedo you’re wearing?

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The story continues…..

Deception Island is an introduction to the ice, and on subsequent landings further south things, get icier. And snowier. The expedition team always go ashore first and set up safe walking tracks, away from crevasses, loose banks or other dangers, marking the route with flags. We’re also to keep five metres away from the wildlife, and are grateful for the restriction when we see how far a penguin can shoot its shit. Colonies of shit splattered penguins can be seen from space, and, I kid you not, there are scientific papers about penguin poop.

It’s fascinating to watch them swimming, presumably out to go fishing. You see a broad ripple in the water, then a battalion of black torpedoes skittering across the surface before an imperceptible message, and, as one, they all dive and disappear.

Getting off the zodiacs onto land is easy enough and the crew are always there to make sure everyone is safe and doesn’t take an unscheduled swim. The snow is heavy going and using a couple of walking poles helps.  This is what we’re here for.  Kilometres of snow and ice, towering mountains, thousands of penguins. Here, as long as I keep distance from people as well as penguins, it’s possible to ‘hear’ the silence, if only the penguins would stop shouting at each other.

If you are hoping for photos of polar bears, you’ll be disappointed. Wrong end of the world. The Antarctic is a frozen land surrounded by sea, populated by seals and penguins. It also holds about 70% of the world’s fresh water. Up north, the Arctic is a frozen sea surrounded by land and therefore has lots of land mammals, such as polar bears and arctic foxes. The seals are different species, and there’s no penguins, but they do have puffins, which are really just as charming.

I am no David Attenborough, but the experts on board are many and various, so we learn a lot. Most of which we’ll forget. Enthusiastic and passionate about their specialist subjects their delivery ranges from funny and engaging – such as Magnus, an historian who has also worked in kids TV, so you get the picture – to detailed and sleep inducing – I’m looking at the geologist here. Universally, the crew from Captain to cleaner are fantastic.

The expedition crew schedule a final zodiac trip late on our last Antarctic evening. The schedule would have us depart the next day after another stop, but the Captain wants to head back across Drake Passage ahead of some foul weather that’s forecast, and we’re all in favour of that. It is snowing softly as we cruise past a lazy Weddell seal oblivious to the penguin foreplay around him. Up high, a colony of Chinstrap penguins range along the ridge, looking like an Apache war party in a B grade western. It could not be a more perfect goodbye.


So what was Antarctica like?

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It is commonly said that if you can describe Antartica you haven’t been there. I say, bullshit. I can describe it, but I can’t help you feel it, and none of us can really grasp it. A trip to the coldest, driest, windiest place on Earth offers the perfect blend of adventure and discomfort. You know you are alive. 

Someone, possibly the Captain of our fabulous Fridtjof Nansen Arctic class exploration ship, has been very, very good, and the reward is perfect conditions for the 48 hour transit of the notoriously difficult Drake Passage from Cape Horn to the Antarctic Peninsula. So good, we can land and go ashore at Cape Horn, but more on that later. 

In the meantime we all swan about congratulating each other on the flat seas and almost zero wind, as if we had something to do with it. We hear the crew, stunned and disbelieving, muttering it’s never like this, and in five years I’ve never had conditions in the Drake this calm.  The Cassandras among us foresee doom ahead. 

There are three landings at different places on the ice and several other forays around the icebergs and shoreline in the zodiacs.  I LOVE going out in the zodiacs.  Obviously it’s cold, freezing point or thereabouts. So start with a thermal layer, then another medium weight merino top, a puffer jacket, wind and waterproof top layer with waterproof over trousers, good socks under rubber boots (provided), and add gloves, neck warmer, and hat as required. Hello Michelin wo/man.  Oh, and sunglasses – it’s bright down here. We soon become expert at climbing in and out of the zodiacs with kilos of clothes on, a skill that will be useless anywhere else.

The expedition crew allocate everyone to a group, and so landings and zodiac cruises are called to the boarding deck by name.  There are restrictions on how many people are allowed on land at one time, so the crew work is very well organised, and smoothly efficient.  Our group is the Gentoo penguins – which must be better than being elephant seals.

Cruising through chunks of ice and massive icebergs is beautiful. The water is so clear it’s possible to see the bergs extend below the water line. The colours are vibrant: white ice, with a bright teal below. Several times when we’re out on the zodiacs it’s snowing, so there’s a powdery layer of fresh snow cresting the ice, giving a subtly different shade and texture of white.  

At times there’s a slash of intense blue in densely packed ice where air bubbles are squeezed out. We also see this in the glaciers carving their way down, creating future valleys. The compacted ice absorbs longer wavelengths of colours, allowing shorter wavelengths, like green and blue, to reflect the light. Science eh?

We approach massive icebergs, keeping a respectful distance as they can roll or break without notice. It’s difficult to estimate the height of a huge berg when you’re sitting in a little boat, but the largest one we approach is roughly 10 stories high. Half way back to base, I look from the iceberg to our exploration ship, and the berg dwarfs the ship. 

It is very serene, especially when you ask the zodiac skipper to shut down the engine and just sit. The icebergs crackle at times, they’re always melting both underwater and above, so it feels like they’re alive. In the same way glaciers calve, hunks of iceberg fall into the water. But without man made noise it seems silent – at least until some muppet can’t resist the urge to say how quiet it is. 

Our first landing is on Deception Island, the caldera of an active volcano – yes, I too wonder at this wisdom of this.  Visions of Whakari White Island are fresh in the New Zealanders’ minds.  However those visions are pushed aside by the excitement of landing on the ice.  There’s a welcoming committee of a couple of penguins, but they are mainly there to laugh at those who take up the challenge of a polar plunge. Yes, some fools disrobe and tempt hypothermia by briefly, very briefly, immersing themselves in the literally freezing water. My baby brother was one such fool, leaving his lovely wife wondering why she ever married him. We did warn her. 

Subsequent landings involve a lot more penguins, but you’ll have to wait for the next instalment- this is getting a bit long.

Bet you’re not so jealous now

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Fourteen beautiful, in fact unbelievable, calm cruising days and we are heading back to Ushuaia, the southernmost town/port in Argentina. Currently we’re out of the protected waters of the Antartic peninsula and into a heaving swell with 80 kph winds, we sleepily waken to an urgent announcement from the Captain: “Code Bravo, Code Bravo, all crew to stations”. 

The internet crashes as passengers start googling. What the hell is Code Bravo? It can’t be good. Rather slightly more serious than a code brown at the local swimming pool. Code Bravo is to alert the crew to a FIRE or serious hazardous incident – without alarming the passengers. Hello! Have you heard of the internet?

Before total panic sets in, the Captain is back: all crew stand down except those directly involved. In this case where there’s smoke there’s no fire, but it’s still serious. 

Long story short: we have over 700 kms to cross Drake passage (which is far from the millpond we had on the way to Antartica) and our starboard engine is out. Kaput. Dead. Off its perch. There’s been an electrical short in the propulsion system and a split hose means there’s coolant all through the unit. This is not getting fixed any time soon. 

An engineer from the manufacturer will fly down from Norway to Ushuaia. The on board engineers do the diagnostics. But none of that helps us now, wallowing in the churning seas. Heads will roll somewhere, as just prior to our trip the ship had its first five year full refit in Panama. This is three weeks when everything is checked and replaced as necessary. 

So, the adventure many people wish for begins. One engine, 6-8 metres swells smashing the ship and 70-80 mph winds. Our speed is reduced to 9 knots because a) one engine, and b) sea conditions. 

I fully understand if your envy of our trip is now schadenfreude.

So the contingency plans begin. Initially the word is we will be 24 hours late into Ushuaia. An update a day later, as the weather improves and we can go a little faster, puts our arrival at about 12 hours late. 

This still has implications for the charter flights booked to take the 300 odd passengers to Buenos Aires, many with connecting flights to home or other parts of the world. Charter aircraft have other bookings, Buenos Aires has tight landing slots, the wharf at Ushuaia is very busy, and, as we miss our booked slot, negotiations commence. Oh, and we can’t unload the luggage as only Argentinian stevedores can do that, so they must be found and booked. What an excellent union they must have.

On the bright side, while we’ll be a day late to Buenos Aires, we get an extra night on board and can drink more Aperol Sours. And go ashore and experience the thrills of Ushuaia. 

In my last blog I said we had a rare chance to land at Cape Horn. We did, so major bragging rights. However the upload capabilities on the ship mean some of you have problems with the photos. So I’ll post another blog with photos when we, finally, get back on term firma. I may kiss the ground. 

Heading South – and we may be gone some time

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We’re on board the Fridtjof Nansen, an exploration ship heading for the Antarctic peninsula*.
We embark around 6:00 pm and leave Valparaiso at 11:00pm. We have an 18 day expedition ahead.

Overview of the trip

The orientation talks start the next day. The briefing on putting on the polar suit is hilarious: our model stuffs himself into a bright orange fashion crime that is somehow floppy but all encasing. By the end, he’s fully suited up and looking like an astronaut who took a wrong turn on their way to space. It’s also unnerving, as if we ever have to do it ourselves things will have gone seriously pear shaped. 

Polar suited

The two day off shore cruise down Chile’s coast gets the better of some, and the queue at the on board Medical Centre is long, queasy and slightly green.  Not us though, hardened by many white knuckle crossings of New Zealand’s Cook Strait: we scoff at four metre swells and 80kph winds.  Then peace – we enter the northernmost part of the Chilean fjords, heading to Castro, the main town on Chiloé Island. Population about 40,000. I know, it surprises me too. We glide past a tapestry of misty cliffs and emerald hills, intrepid adventurers with all inclusive meals and drinks within arm’s reach. 

Somewhere between the rolling waves and Aperol Sours, the island of Chiloé emerges, a land of legends, ghost ships, and rainbow-hued houses that seem ready to tumble into the sea at any second. In Castro, it’s all about the palafitos – brightly painted houses on stilts, reminding you of a riot of rainbow parrots. The ship’s tenders ferry us ashore to explore the town, which stretches up a steep hill from the small port. It’s much like any other town, but it still feels like we are stepping into a quirky postcard. On the fringe of the main square, the Plaza des Armas, sits a church, Iglesia San Francisco, a simple wooden building painted a cheerful yellow, like a sunbeam from Jesus. The interior is as plain as the exterior, all beautiful wood and with a ceiling reminiscent of a boat hull. Not surprising when you understand boat builders, not stone masons, were the builders.  Not just physically, but also aesthetically, very distant from cold stone churches of Europe with their excess of tiny stained-glass windows. Those ones perfect for creating just enough light to squint through and wonder if that figure is a saint or if you’re on a bad LSD trip.

Inglesia San Francisco

Along the shore we meet a man with many, many sacks of potatoes – he tells us there are 274 types of native potato and we manage to stop him before he starts naming them or extolling their individual virtues. There’s a strip of local markets where “authentic” souvenirs abound. Here, you’ll find everything from fridge magnets and wooden llama keychains, that saw more factory than forest, and soft toy penguins and whales, so synthetic you can almost see the static electricity arc from the Made in China label. But it’s not all factory-fresh. There are lovely hefty, hand-knit sweaters and scarves, ready to shield you from the Andes winds, or in our case Antarctic chill. 

We spend another week wriggling through narrow channels in Chile’s Patagonian fjords. It’s like a cross between our New Zealand Marlborough Sounds and the Southern Alps, not at all steep as our Fiordland. But it has zillions of islands and passages are sometimes very tight. At times we have to wait for slack tide as the current runs like a river and the ship has to progress at snail pace to navigate the twists and turns.  The crew launch the safety boat to go ahead and sit in the channel measuring the speed of the tide, and we progress at the change, or slack, tide.

Waiting to pass through the English Narrows

Our viewing of the Amalia Glacier is more exciting when the Captain announces we have enough time to launch the zodiacs and take a closer look. I feel a touch of the James Bond vibe as we zip through the mini ice bergs, the skipper avoiding any ice that might damage the propeller. As with glaciers worldwide, Amalia is retreating, irrespective of climate denier opinions.  It’s an ill wind and all that, so we get to see great chunks of ice calving off the glacial face, revealing the intense blue ice within. 

The ship in this pic is a smaller cruise out from Puerto Natales

I wonder where the days go. There workshops about reading charts, photography, getting the best from your binoculars, among other things. The lectures and talks vary greatly: some are so dry the presentation slides yawn – others are funny and engaging. While the dedication and enthusiasm of the on board specialists is remarkable, their presentation styles are not uniformly winning. Marcus, the Norwegian historian has the ability to charm and inform simultaneously, while Jean the French geologist, could gold medal in the too much detail Olympics. His descriptions of the formation of the Andes were so…….I can’t remember, I must’ve fallen asleep.

On the seventh day we arrive at Puerto Natales. We have another two days at least until we get to the end of the fjords. The Captain tells us conditions look good for a landing at Cape Horn, but nothing is certain. As he says, Cape Horn is Cape Horn, and anything can happen. Can’t argue with that.

 * You can do a walk through on the website MS Fridtjof Nansen | HX Hurtigruten Expeditions.

I Would Walk, well drive, 500 miles – part two: Orkney

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When you think you are as far north as you can go in Scotland, there’s always another set of islands. And another. We take a day trip to Orkney, driving the car onto the ferry and across to the main island. There’s around 70 of various sizes and habitation. Orkney’s got a bit of everything: prehistoric sites, Viking history, WW2 sites, and breathtaking landscapes. And generally inclement weather, though the sun blesses us, eventually, for our trip. The ferry trip is an easy one and a half hours from Scrabster, west of Thurso to the port of Stromness.

arriving in Stromness

Our guide, Dave, meets us off the ferry while we are still musing about the Dog Lounge, and wondering if it’s something New Zealand’s Interislander might care to adopt.

What do they do in here?

Dave jumps in the back of our car and starts guiding, directing us first to Skara Brae. This is a village built 5,000 years ago, but undiscovered until 1850, when a big (bigger than usual) storm blew the deep sand away, proving that while Orkney’s weather might ruin your picnic, it can be quite handy for archaeology. The group of dwellings are kind of intact – it’s a bit like Pompeii without the murals. Picture a bunch of Neolithic farmers, cosying up around a central fire in stone homes that feature built-in furniture. These prehistoric Orcadians made sideboards and cupboards that have a longer life than an IKEA bookshelf.

Continuing along the Neolithic highway we arrive at the Ring of Brodgar, aka Stonehenge without as many tourists.  A stone circle, surprise, around 4000 years old, where you can ponder life’s big questions – like how the hell did they drag those stones up there. Any why? A bus tour departs as we arrive and we have the stones to ourselves. I search within for the meaning of life, or the urge to wear a flower crown and dance around the stones, but nothing surfaces.

The Ring of Brodgar, older than Stonehenge

Nearby, in a smaller area than Brodgar, the Standing Stones of Stenness another ring of racks, loom very large. Archaeologists think the stones were part of a larger ceremonial complex, but we find they’re an excellent windbreak.

The very upstanding Stone of Stenness

A more modern and much more charming surprise is the Italian Chapel. Now as a recovering Catholic I am not drawn to houses of worship, but this wee church is a gem. In World War II, Italian prisoners of war performed a small miracle, transforming two Nissen huts into a masterpiece of devotion that would not be out of place in a low rent version of Grand Designs. It just shows that by begging, borrowing and possibly stealing materials to recycle, in the middle of a dreary peat bog you can have a little slice of home. The chapel is full of intricate paintings, and ingenious use of recycled or surplus materials, such as the altar and altar rail, constructed from concrete left over from work on the barriers – more on these soon.

The Italian Chapel on Lamb Holm, otherwise uninhabited

Most of the interior decoration was done by Domenico Chiocchetti, a prisoner from northern Italy. He painted the sanctuary end of the chapel and fellow prisoners decorated the entire interior. They created a facade out of concrete, concealing the shape of the hut and making the building look like a church. The light holders were made out of corned beef tins, so corned beef is of some use. The baptismal font was made from the inside of a car exhaust covered in a layer of concrete. Chiocchetti returned to assist with the refurbishment of the Chapel in 1960.

To get to the Chapel Dave guides us over the first of the Churchill Barriers. The what? I hear you ask. I’ll try and make it brief, but go to google for more info. In both WW1 and WW2 Scapa Flow, a large bay in Orkney, was the Royal Navy’s crucial base and stronghold in the north. After a German submarine famously slipped into Scapa Flow in 1939 and sank the battleship HMS Royal Oak, Churchill decided it was time to plug the gaps – literally. He orders the building of barriers, a series of causeways made of old sunken ships, sandbags, rocks, and concrete blocks, stretching across the gaps between small islands. A testament to Churchill’s unique ability to find a silver lining, or in this case, a concrete one, the barriers would also serve as causeways connecting the Orkney Islands like some kind of WWII-era public works project. Turning a strategic vulnerability into a seaside civil engineering project: genius, though one that would not meet environmental standards today.

The barriers are now popular dive sites, if you like your water close to hypothermic, as are the German submarines, sunk here after the German defeat.

The day ends with us farewelling Dave, off to his other job, his farm, and another calm trip across the North Atlantic. I have new knowledge to take away, never having heard of most of the places we enjoyed. It’s true, travel broadens the mind, though I suspect the Italians would rather have stayed home.

Bye, Orkney, see ya later

PS – Some of you may be confused but this is not written in real time – we have not returned to Scotland.

I wandered lonely as a cloud – as if

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Cockermouth. Now there’s a name to reckon with.

Enough reckoning, you’ve had your fun. We are staying in a cosy cottage just outside a village with this very name, to spend a week exploring the Lake District. Cockermouth is the birthplace of not only William Wordsworth, who shares my birth date if not the year, and his sister Dorothy, but also Fletcher Christian of Bounty fame; John Dalton, who was the first to advance a quantitative atomic theory and to establish a table of atomic weights; and Fearon Fellows. Who? Well only the Royal Astronomer to King George IV, and who mapped 300 stars the Southern skies.  What a town! Not content with being an incubator of brilliant minds, it is cute as a button. 

To visualise how charming this town is, know that it is one of only 51 towns in Great Britain designated as a ‘Gem’ town – recommended for preservation by the state as part of the national heritage because their historic buildings and planned town layouts are considered worthy of preservation.  Which typically means buildings are decaying props in a theatre of nostalgia. Not so in this town. We are happy to find local services are also preserved, and in a town of about 9,000 there are two excellent butchers, a fishmonger with fabulous produce, and a traditional greengrocer. The butchers wear white coats, like a doctor, and call me love.  We spend an enjoyable hour poking around in the “museum”, aka collection of rusty old stuff from yesteryear, in the back of J. B. Banks & Son, the ironmongers. Yes! The ironmonger.  You can see his sophisticated accounting system is as organised as the artefacts. My father would have loved this place.

But we are not here to reminisce and go misty eyed, but to take in the majesty of the scenery.  Wordsworth may have wandered lonely a cloud, but he’d be hard pressed to do so now. We’re here in September, allegedly the off season, and there’s as much chance of wandering alone as there is of encountering Wordsworth himself. It’s not exactly heaving, like Everest in climbing season, but there are plenty of holidaymakers.

Clambering up Catbells

Against all expectations, we have a mostly fine weather week. Not so the day we walk around Derwent Water*. We drive to Keswick, and as difficult as it is, we resist the draw of the Pencil Museum, and board the wee boat to our start point. It starts pouring down. We’re huddled in the cabin of the boat, but armed with stoicism and a stiff upper lip, several Brits sit outside. There’s nothing like a good downpour to bring out the spirit of the Blitz. It’s practically a national pastime, a badge of honour, ignoring the rain. Soldier on. Our plan differs somewhat: we identify a handy pub near where the boats lets us off. If it’s still raining, that’s us for the day. Fortunately, or not, the weather clears, and the tender peace of the day is broken only by F15s doing low level manoeuvres directly overhead.

Derwent water and its mean and moody weather

Rather naively, we believe the Lake District to be flat. We are driving home from a lake ramble one day and the road narrows and ascends at an alarming rate. At first I think the GPS has betrayed us, but no. The concept of on-coming traffic is sphincter-tightening as there is a not insignificant drop over the edge. We console ourselves that this time at least we aren’t towing a caravan. This is country where goats are comfortable. Goats and sturdy hikers, who may be part goat. We stop at the top, and with teeth chattering remark on the magnificence of the landscape before scampering back to the shelter of the car. I’m fairly sure I saw a goat laughing at us.

The wind whistles around the tops – it was freezing
  • *For conflicting definitions of what constitutes a lake or a water, ask google

Blackpool – it’s a wonder

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Welcome to Blackpool, where dreams come to die. Where else can you experience the charm of a British seaside resort stuck in a time warp, circa 1970? Sitting on a long unappealing coast, Blackpool proudly boasts the world’s tallest and most bewildering collection of tacky souvenirs.  Ready to view the Blackpool Tower, an architectural triumph unashamed in its imitation of the Eiffel Tower – but without the charm.

Or perhaps you would enjoy the iconic Pleasure Beach, a name that somehow conjures a slight sense of unease, sounding as it does like a low budget porn movie.  It’s an amusement park – that isn’t on the beach – but does have ten roller coasters that look like they’re held together by wishful thinking and the occasional prayer. Our hotel sits underneath the tallest one, so we’re grateful the park is closed the day we get in. We’re only here overnight. Although I lived in the UK for four years in the 1980s, I never experienced the famous, in England, Illuminations. More on that in a minute.  

In the late afternoon we walk the promenade and it’s a lonely walk. A Monday in September is not a lively day in Blackpool.  I expect tumbleweeds to roll down the road. In the dubious season known as an English summer, Brits, apparently willingly, choose Blackpool for their holidays. The array of entertainment options on offer includes the refined elegance of the arcades, as well as a fine selection of deeply discounted plastic trinkets and polyester soft toys. Today, the three piers (north, central and south, spaced along 3 or 4 kms of beach) are empty: the amusements have no one to amuse. Except me. On a merry-go-round that’s going nowhere.

The tide is well out and exposes a deep stretch of damp grey sand – it’s a long walk for a swim, if you don’t mind hypothermia. At high tide the beach disappears completely- it’s water entry via concrete steps.

Low tide: a route march to the water
High tide: entry by concrete

But we’re here for the Blackpool Illuminations, a dazzling spectacle where the town lights up with such gusto that it practically screams, “Look, we’re fun! Really, we are”. The first show, in 1879, preceded Edison’s patent of the lightbulb by 12 months. You can imagine the genuine awe and wonder at the time. Now, even with a million bulbs festooning six miles along the waterfront, the general decay of the town makes it feel less wondrous and more desperate. This year, the Illuminations run every night from about 7:45 through til 10:30, from August to January in an asthmatic gasp to attract off season tourists.

But before we leave town, let’s not forget the gourmet dining. Blackpool is second only to Southend in having the greatest number of fish and chip shops in Britain – 71 in fact. Perfect if you want the dinner we had tonight – greasy fish and chips with a side of regret. 

Blackpool feels like the perfect destination if you’re looking for a holiday experience that will make you appreciate literally anywhere else.