Roaming Tales

Vintage clothes, art and stuffed squirrels on Brick Lane and Columbia Road.

Brick Lane, at the eastern edge of the square mile that is the City of London, is one of the most vibrant parts of London. It’s best known for the Indian and Bangladeshi restaurants that line the street and if you go at night you can barely move for the restaurant touts trying to entice you inside with various bribes of free drinks or samosas.

I prefer to get my curry elsewhere - at places such as New Tayyabs, a Pakistani restaurant behind the East London Mosque. And I prefer to visit Brick Lane during the day, especially on a Sunday when the Sunday UpMarket is on in the Old Truman Brewery and Columbia Road Flower Market is on up the road in Bethnal Green.

The Sunday UpMarket has great food - from Japanese to Ethiopian - in one half and secondhand and handmade clothes and other assorted flea market goodies in the other. It’s all under cover, which is perfect when it’s grey and drizzly outside as it so often is in London at this time of year.

As you wander further up the hill, you pass great cafés, famous bagel bakeries from the days when Brick Lane was a Jewish rather than Bangladeshi enclave, cool art galleries and around half a dozen great vintage clothing shops.

As you exit the northern end of Brick Lane and cross Bethnal Green Road, check out the contemporary furniture studio Unto This Last. Their best stuff is made to order as apparently they have had some problems with theft.

From there it’s just a hop, step and a jump to Columbia Road, which hosts a flower market every Sunday. I prefer to go late, around 2pm, when the crowds have died down and the flowers and pot plants are often on sale. This street is also full of funky independent shops. There’s the cupcake bakery Treacle (although cupcakes are not really my thing), a few gardening and homeware shops, and Nelly Duff gallery selling cool limited edition prints to name a few. If you’re still hungry after the Sunday UpMarket, the bagel bakery and cupcake shop, there’s a good Spanish restaurant called Laxeiro and the Royal Oak Pub.

There’s always something new to see in the East End. On my most recent visit, this past weekend, my eye was caught by the window display to a vintage clothing store halfway up Brick Lane, modestly called This Shop Rocks. The window display had two mannequins in dresses, one with a stuffed badger on a lead and one with a stuffed fox. There were also six stuffed squirrels wearing clothing dancing in a circle.

Have I missed something here? Is taxidermy back? Even though I’m sure they’re antique and not freshly stuffed, I actually found it a little disturbing, especially since they were rare, native red squirrels rather than the more common, foreign grey squirrels. They were cute but creepy.

It certainly got my attention but when it came down to it, none of us wanted to go in. Maybe the shop does rock but I might never know.

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Congratulations to BeWILDerwood, Africa’s Eden and Ngong Ping 36O and all the award-winning travel writers.

I have been a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers for about a year now. It’s a professional organisation and you are only eligible to join if you can demonstrate that you are making a living substantially from travel writing, whether that be books or articles. Membership entitles you to have your name listed in the Year Book, which goes out to all members and other industry professionals who pay to receive it, and use of the snazzy new website where you can build a mini-website or network virtually with other members. You also get a membership card and various discounts but I think the biggest benefit is the opportunity to network with other writers and travel professionals at the regular Guild events.

The star event on the Guild calendar, apart from the AGM, is the annual awards dinner. It was hosted last night at the Marriott in Grosvenor Square and it was a great night. We started with a champagne reception with Jersey oysters and then moved into the main room for dinner. The food at awards events can often be a bit rubbish but last night’s meal was really good - it was a collaboration between the Marriott’s restaurant Maze (part of the Gordon Ramsay empire) and the island of Jersey (one of the sponsors), so we had Jersey crab for starters and Jersey vegetables with our lamb for main course, and Jersey cream with our dessert.

There were actually two sets of awards - the Tourism Awards where members vote on the best tourism projects around the world and the Members Awards for travel writing published in the past year. The Tourism Awards were announced before dinner, the Members Awards between starter and main course and then the raffle (to raise money for the Back Up Trust, a spinal injury charity) before dessert.

I’d come along to a Guild meeting a few months ago to hear the nominations for the Tourism Awards and vote on the short list. The final winners were then determined by a vote of the entire membership by post and email. So I was familiar with the nominations but I didn’t know who had actually won until the night. I was really thrilled because all the projects I voted for won their categories! So congratulations to BeWILDerwood in Norfolk for best UK project, Africa’s Eden or Loango National Park in Gabon for best non-UK project, and Ngong Ping 360 in Hong Kong for best global project.

BeWILDerwood

I’m almost tempted to borrow children and take them to BeWILDerwood as the description of this place really captured my imagination. It’s a treetop adventure playground - with treehouses, aerial ropewalks and zipwires, boats and boardwalks - built on 50 acres of woodland and marshland. It’s very eco-friendly - it’s all built from sustainable wood, the entire site is pesticide free, and they’ve planted a lot of trees as well. Among the magical creatures who live there are Mildred, the vegetarian Crocklebog who lives in the Scary Lake, and Swampy a March Boggle. There is nothing modern about BeWILDerwood, although the guy who built it has said he was partly inspired by 90s computer game Myst.

Africa’s Eden

If it weren’t so expensive, I would book my ticket to Loango National Park in Gabon tomorrow. The fact that I can’t is partly the point - they are trying to keep tourism numbers low so that it’s sustainable for the park’s ecology and the wellbeing of the people who live there. Rombout Swanborn, the director of Loango National Park, has said: “We will never have 20 Jeeps around a waterhole shining lights into animals’ eyes.”

The president of Gabon set aside 11% of the country as a national park in 2002 - only tiny Costa Rica has preserved a greater proportion of land. Before then tourism was virtually unknown in Gabon but they began developing the industry at this point with the ethos “ecotourism pays for conservation”. Loango National Park opened in 2007, covering grassland, rivers, forest and mangroves and featuring spectacularly varied wildlife, including whales, elephants, hippos, leopards, reptiles and primates. Visitors are accommodated in the eco-friendly lodge and satellite tented camps and wildlife viewing is small-scale with pirogue trips, forest treks or savannah drives. There are 500 Gabonese in the area with nearly 100 employed as eco-guides etc, while local farmers sell produce to the lodge, and their children attend a new school built by the park.

NgongPing 360

Ngong Ping 360 in Hong Kong combines an existing attraction - the Giant Buddha built by the nearby Po Lin monastery on Landau Island - with a new one. Previously there were so many tourists coming to see the Giant Buddha and the strain on the monastery was too much, with monks spending their whole time providing refreshments. Now Ngong Ping 360 is actually bringing more tourists but they’ve actually managed to reduce the impact on the environment and the monastery. The tourists arrive via a 5.7km cable car skyrail - the world’s longest without a car change - so they didn’t have to build a road through the forest. While tourists can still climb up to see the Buddha, Ngong Ping has also built a Chinese cultural village with dining facilities, which has reduced the burden on the monastery. A win-win situation!

Highly commended

• * Runners-up in the UK category were the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool and Thanet Greeters in Kent.

• * Runners-up in the overseas category were Highland Paradise, Cook Islands and Palazzo Falson, Malta.

• * Runners-up in the Globe Award were Musee de Quai Branly in Paris and the Dinosaur Gallery, Museum of Natural Sciences, in Brussels.

Members Awards

All Guild members are eligible to enter their work for the travel writing awards and entries are judged anonymously. The winning pieces are published in a glossy booklet, which made highly entertaining reading on my Tube ride home at the end of the night. I believe they will also be posted up on the BGTW website at some point as well. Congratulations all!

• * Nicki Gardner for Best Destination Feature under 850 words
• * Alan Hart for Best UK Feature over 850 words
• * Nigel Tisdall for Best European (non-UK) Feature over 850 words
• * Mike Unwin for Best Overseas (non-European) Feature over 850 words
• * Matthew Teller for Best Business/Trade Feature
• * Sarah Woods for Best Transport Feature
• * Will Gray for Best Guidebook Award
• * Rosemary Bailey for Best Narrative Travel Book
• * Tim Richards for Best Radio Feature
• * Carmen Roberts for Best Television Travel Feature
• * Jeremy Hoare for Photograph of the Year
• * Brian Jackman - Runner-Up for Travel Writer of the Year
• * Peter Hughes - Travel Writer of the Year
• * Jim Dunn for Lifetime Achievement Award

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The reason I went to Syria in July was to write an article about Iraqis crossing the border to have weddings in Syria, due to the unstable situation at home.

I was invited to the wedding of Sami and Hind (pictured) through a personal connection and I ended up staying with Hind’s family in an apartment in an Iraqi part of Damascus. It was quite an intense cultural experience!

They were happy for me to tell their story and the article was published in the Guardian last week, with a three-page spread in G2 (the features lift-out).

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Damascus, Syria; July 2008.

Where the Great Umayyed Mosque is about peace and sanctuary, the Sayyida Zainab Mosque is about pilgrimage and intense religious fervour. In a Shia part of town, about 10 kilometres from the centre of Damascus, this beautiful mosque is patronised by many Iranians and Iraqi Shiites.

I had to cover myself from head to toe to enter, removing my shoes as you do in every mosque. There is a separate entrance for men and women and inside the mosque is divided. The women’s half was completely packed at 10 o’clock in the morning with women clamouring to touch the tomb of Lady Zainab, the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammed.

Outside, the gold dome glinted in the sunlight, offset by the minarets decorated with geometric designs in white and aqua blue. Inside, the walls shimmered with silver and chandeliers hung from the ceilings. All around people were praying, prostrating themselves with a small stone tablet for their forehead.

I was accompanied by a Muslim friend who encouraged me to take photographs. It was only on the way out that I noticed the ‘no photography’ sign.

This post is part of Photo Friday, hosted at DeliciousBaby.

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Damascus, Syria; July 2008.

The Great Umayyad Mosque in Damascus was originally built as a Byzantine church, with a long oblong sanctuary where John the Baptist has his tomb and the adjoining high-walled courtyard. To enter, you must remove your shoes and anyone who is not dressed from head to toe must don robes that are given as part of the entry ticket. The courtyard is a lovely refuge away from the bustle of the market and many locals use it as a place for rest and relaxation, propping themselves up against the walls and columns. Meanwhile children run up and down the vast expanse of marble, laughing and shouting - it would be heaven for heelies if shoes were allowed.

This was submitted to Photo Friday, a new feature fellow blogger Debbie has introduced at DeliciousBaby. Head over to see this week’s submissions.

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I didn’t need 80 days to travel around the world but the last month still feels pretty epic.

Since leaving London in early March, I have been to eight countries on four continents. First stop was Australia, where I spent a couple of weeks visiting friends and family in and around Sydney and Brisbane. I then flew to Houston via Los Angeles to make connections to Nicaragua for a week researching a travel story. Back to Los Angeles for one night, and then a 15-hour flight to Hong Kong. Still on assignment, I went from Hong Kong to Thailand, then a loop around South-East Asia that also took in the Angkor Wat area in Cambodia and a day in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, before returning to Bangkok. I flew back to Hong Kong for my flight home to London (the itinerary had changed but the ticket didn’t).

I was only in London for one day - just long enough to visit the laundromat since the washing machine had packed it in during my absence. Then I caught the train down to the Arvon Foundation centre in the Devon countryside for a fiction writing course. It felt like a retreat after all that time on the road, staying in a pre-Domesday thatched cottage, with lots of time to be creative and go on long rambling walks across the fields. The hope of seeing otters in the river did get me down there at 6.30am - I didn’t see the otters but I did see this beautiful sunrise.

Now I’m back in London, very glad to see my partner and looking forward to getting back to normal life - and the eight stories I have to write from the trip. Travelling is fab, even though the schedules can be intense, but I’m always happy to return, knowing that the next adventure is not too far away. Mongolia might be next.

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This is my first time hosting the Carnival of Cities event here on Roaming Tales. I’m delighted to be invited to host and welcome anybody who is here for the first time, as well as regular readers.

This is a blog carnival; one blog hosts, and other bloggers send in one of their posts that pertains to the carnival topic. The readers get links to lots of interesting posts and the participants benefit from increased traffic. It’s a nice way to build community among bloggers, which is something I have been trying to encourage on Roaming Tales.

The Carnival of Cities is about any aspect of a single city (or mid-sized town). If you’re interested in learning more, the main Blog Carnival site has over 3000 carnivals listed.

So without further ado, here are the entries for this week’s Carnival of Cities. Thanks to everyone who took part.

• Seattle: Mary Jo at the Seattle Traveler shares the inside scoop on WhirlyBall, a bit of inside fun when the winter weather is getting you down. It’s a team game played in small cars, like bumper (dodgem) cars.

• Guam: Bill at ProjectsPossible has written about the island of Guam and the unique sculptures by artist Michael R. Genereux made out of a rare Micronesian wood that he takes only from fallen trees.

• Male, Maldives: Maldives Island Travel has written about flora and fauna on the islands. Not surprisingly for a tropical island paradise, colourful fish are a star attraction, so don’t forget to pack your snorkel and flippers or your diving licence if you have one.

• Monterey, California: If you want to see fish without getting wet, head to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, described by Patricia on the Kango blog. While you’re there, check out the rest of the family-friendly attractions the city and surrounding area has to offer, from the Dennis the Menace theme park to the Hansel and Gretel architecture in Carmel.

• Rotterdam: Sheila at Family Travel shows us that there is more to Rotterdam than you might think. The Dutch city is not just an industrial seaport but also has some interesting architecture and cool activities for kids.

• Paris: Stefan, the assistant art director at Intelligent Travel, spent a year in Paris as a student. Here he shares his Parisian museum picks - we’ve all heard of the Louvre but what about the Musée Gustave-Moreau?

• Barcelona: Me, My Kid and Life shows us how to enjoy Barcelona on the cheap, from graffiti art to chocolate. Meanwhile, the Spanish Language Site blog lets us know about a gourmet tapas walking tour in Barcelona. Food and sightseeing? Now that’s my kind of tour.

• Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Provence: It’s not quite a city, but I’ll always make a detour for wine, so let’s visit the French countryside, for this post on an organic vineyard in Provence on Diary of 1.

• Venice, Italy: Venice is one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in Europe but also one of the most expensive. Less Than a Shoestring shows you how to enjoy it without breaking the bank.

• San Francisco: Photos from Oak Grove in San Francisco, from Cat Synth.

PS I rejected a couple of entries that were either completely off topic or overtly commercial. Also, please accept my apologies for the fact that I am late posting this - I’ve adjusted the time stamp to reflect when it should have gone live.

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Last September I travelled to Singapore on assignment for Anyway. The magazine has a regular feature called MyPlace, which explores a city in the company of an expat showing us their adopted home. Our guide to Singapore was German designer Niko von Saurma who gave us insight into Singapore’s artistic and cultural life. I had been to Singapore previously and my original impression was of a giant air-conditioned shopping mall so I was surprised and pleased to discover a different side to the city.

I have now published the article here on Roaming Tales, and an accompanying city guide. Although I worked with a photographer for the magazine article, these are my own photographs.

Comments are not enabled on the article itself but you are welcome to leave a comment here.

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Happy Chinese New Year and welcome to the Year of the Rat! It might not sound very appealing but in Chinese mythology the rat is revered for its cleverness and loyalty and the Year of the Rat is considered very auspicious.

Although today is New Year’s Day in the Chinese calendar, the Spring Festival celebrations last a week. It’s a really big deal in China, more so than usual this year because of the coming Olympics in Beijing. Virtually everyone in China returns home to their family, although this year not everyone will make it thanks to the big freeze that has kept most of China icebound.

When I first went to China in 2003, we neglected to check the Chinese calendar, and ending up travelling on Chinese New Year, along with millions of locals. We flew with Air China from Shanghai to X’ian - the home of the Terracotta Warriors, some of which are currently on display at the British Museum.

The situation was not quite as grim as the current extreme weather, but guess what? Our flight was delayed by 12 hours due to fog. Faced with hordes of angry customers who were anxious to get home to their families, the airline treated us to a free banquet in a hotel near the airport. My travelling companion fell ill and one of our fellow passengers went with me to help me buy medicine at the pharmacy - Chinese medicine, of course. The flight finally left around 10 o’clock at night and we arrived at our hotel in X’ian just after midnight.

We rolled out of the taxi, cold, tired, hungry and a little grumpy and, in my friend’s case, a little nauseous and weak. Our taxi driver beckoned to us, went to the back of his car and pulled out a bag of firecrackers, which he presented to us as a gift. We thanked him and accepted the gift but at that point all we really wanted to do was get to our hotel room as quickly as possible and collapse in bed. As it turned out, fate had other things in store.

The clock had just struck midnight and there was no one at the reception desk so we went back outside where half a dozen people were milling around. We asked the first person we saw if they spoke English and if they could help us with our reservation. “Yes,” she cried, grabbing my arm. “But first we play!”

It was impossible not to be swept up in the enthusiasm as we joined the Chinese hotel staff and our taxi driver letting off fireworks in the hotel carpark. Everyone was having stacks of fun, despite the bitter cold and the fact they had to work on New Year’s Eve. At one point, one of the fireworks went too close to one of the cars and the alarm went off. My friend and I started laughing and one of the Chinese staff turned around and looked at us in astonishment. We pointed at the car with its alarm blaring and they looked, and started laughing as well. It was a great ice breaker!

X’ian had a festive atmosphere all throughout the week of Spring Festival. It’s an important regional city and the town was packed with holidaymakers from more remote parts of western China. We were the subject of quite some curiosity as we explored the town, visiting the medieval city walls or the Bell Tower and Drum Tower in the centre of town, or making the trip to the site of the Terracotta Warriors excavation by public bus (and passing the No. 1 Terracotta Warrior Factory on the way). And we were equally curious in return, visiting the Muslim Quarter to pay our respects to the Great Mosque and eat some mutton as a welcome relief from the constant barrage of pork, and watching families fly their kites in the main square.

The Chinese diaspora is vast and Chinese New Year is a holiday you can celebrate virtually anywhere in the world. There is certainly plenty to do here in London.

1. Saturday 9 February - Chinese New Year celebrations at the British Museum, to include dance and music displays, shadow puppets, story telling, film, gallery talks, craft and lots of Chinese food. From 2pm to midnight.
2. Sunday 10 February - Chinese New Year parade in Trafalgar Square and Chinatown area. The day includes plenty of Lion Dancing and you can watch the paper lions jumping for lettuces around the shops of Chinatown - this is a community fundraising activity and the prize is actually the wads of cash hidden inside the lettuces. You can also partake of Chinese street food and have fun throwing firecrackers - simply gun powder in paper - and hearing the loud and satisfying crack as it hits the pavement. The photo is from the 2005 parade and shows a glimpse of the fabulous costumes and characters you might encounter. From noon until 6pm.
3. Now until 6 April - China in London season of events running the Olympic Torch passes through London in April en route to Beijing. Includes arts, cinema, performance, food and drink, a writing competition for children, and special events at the London Zoo, National Portrait Gallery, the Museum in the Docklands, and other institutions around London.
4. Any time - There is plenty of good Chinese food in London. Chinatown (the area between Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue, north-west of Leicester Square) is packed with Chinese eateries and food shops. There are also top Chinese restaurants such as Hakkasan (recently voted the best restaurant in London by Time Out magazine). There is plenty of dim sum, including at the trendy Ping Pong chain or at more traditional establishments in Chinatown. Or visit a Chinese tea house, such as Yauatcha.

How do you celebrate Chinese New Year in your home town? Let me know in the comments.

Read my travel article on Shanghai.

Read my recipe for festive Chinese noodles.

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Tibet has always seemed a magical, mystical place to me. I saw the Dalai Lama speak in Sydney when I was about sixteen, I have seen films like Kundun and read books like Seven Years in Tibet. But I have never been to Tibet, or indeed anywhere in the Himalayas.

It seems that plenty of others have. Tibet has been hammered by high-impact tourism for several years now and in 2007 for the first time, the annual number of visitors has exceeded the total population of Tibet. Even in the best of times it would be hard for Tibetan culture to survive, let alone thrive under these circumstances. Sadly, Tibetans don’t live in the best of times.

Since 1950 when the Chinese seized control of Tibet, there has been a steady exodus of Tibetans and an equally inexorable influx of Han Chinese into this tiny Himalayan kingdom. The population of Tibet is only 2.8 million, while the population of China is close to one billion, so outnumbering the Tibetans is not a difficult task. The rule is oppressive, according to both Tibetans themselves and outside observers, and many Tibetans feel compelled to make the terrible, risky journey across the Himalayas to live in exile in Dharamsala in northern India.

Yet China has been promoting Tibet as a tourist destination. There are new air and rail links bringing in more tourists than ever before. Most of the tourist industry in Tibet is run by Chinese and the Tibetans see little benefit. The earthly paradise of Shangri-La is no longer a myth but a marketing ploy (a few years ago the Chinese authorities renamed an existing Tibetan city as Shangri-La and it’s now full of resorts and shopping malls).

As far as I can see, there’s no real way to visit Tibet as a tourist and be part of the solution, not the problem. It would make me far too sad and I don’t want to be complicit in the Chinese occupation. I would rather go to Nepal or Bhutan for the Himalayan experience, and Dharamsala for the Tibetan cultural experience. My friend Vanessa Walker has spent time in Dharamsala and wrote a rather wonderful book called Mantras and Misdemeanours, which has inspired me to make the trip one day.

If I ever do go to Tibet, I hope it will be in happier times, or to make a genuine difference to people’s lives, whether by reporting on the situation as a journalist, or with immediate, practical assistance.

Speaking of the Himalayas and making a difference to people’s lives, Antonia at Perceptive Travel has posted about the death of Sir Edmund Hillary, reminding us that he should be remembered as much for the work he did to help the people of Nepal as for the fact that he climbed Mount Everest.

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