Beam me up, Rakesh

Tags

biodegradeable waste, birding, birds, Centre for Science and Environment, conservation, environment, forests, friends, garbage, holidays, India, Indian National Parks, Kudumbasree, Mars, Mars orbiter, Mission to Mars, plastic bottles, politicians, pollution, solid waste, sub-continent, The Hindu, tourism, travel

Pristine forest near Thekkady

I like India a great deal and love travelling there but it’s been difficult to whip-up enthusiasm for my recent sojourn amongst friends and acquaintances. Despite everything the sub-continent has on offer a fear of flying is commonplace; one said that he’ll only go if he carries his own food and another that he feared he’d be injured in a traffic accident and die in a foreign land surrounded by flip-flops. On the other hand, birders warmed to reports of my seeing 125 species in two days – including the very hard-to-see Wynaad Laughingthrush – whilst justifying their own reservations on the absence of cornflakes. By and large, though, the mere mention of the place evokes visions of chaos and a foreboding of parting company with bowel control.

I readily agree that standards of hygiene and driving are not what many of us are used to but both dangers can be avoided with a little care. After many visits and a reasonable amount of immersion in the culture, I’ve never felt that either presented a terminal threat. No, the thing that distresses me each time I visit is India’s apparent inability – and this is putting it simply – to sort itself out. Poverty is still rife, infrastructure is inadequate or absent and the consequences of corruption are widespread but the thing that irks me most; the issue that has me ranting into my masala dosa and coconut chutney is the ever-increasing and ubiquitous spread of garbage. It doesn’t seem to matter where you are in India but all around you, in the streets, beside the buildings, lying in heaps and just getting under your feet is the detritus of 1.2 billion people. In Kerala alone an estimated 6000 tonnes is generated daily and most of it is apparently lying around.

It was alarming to find plastic in the dung of wild elephants and plastic bottles, paper plates and food wrappers deep in pristine evergreen forest. When I asked about it friends and even individuals involved in the management of national parks shrugged their shoulders at failed collection legislation and offered rueful excuses. Most blamed corrupt local government; local government apparently blames the State. In 2000 the Supreme Court of India issued a directive based on advice provided by the Centre for Science and Environment in Dehli. This called for all local governments to set up proper waste processing facilities by the end of 2003. Whilst several took some action the majority merely ignored both the directive and their garbage-strewn fiefdoms. In Kerala, NGOs and Community organizations such as Kudumbasrees* have been motivated with initiatives such as the ‘Clean Kerala Mission’ but despite success in some areas such as Paravur and Kozhikode [which was declared India's first litter-free city in 2004] the heaps of solid waste and their associated pollution continue to increase.  

Black-shouldered kite

Sundown in Kochi

I took to browsing ‘The Hindu’ while I was in there. The local English language newspaper is a serious publication and a good read, with a history going back some 130 years and a circulation of nearly 1.5 million. It reports on issues like the problem of garbage, fly-tipping and landfill disputes in a fair and balanced manner as well as other aspects of life in southern India; fascinating stories of Bollywood stars sat alongside vacuous promises from government officials and reports of yet more fatal road traffic accidents. The seriousness of the reporting and the depth of detail were seductive – from reading the accounts of how problems were being identified and how officialdom was dealing with them I was beginning to  think that there was real concern for getting to grips with the carpet of plastic bags and bottles. That was until another report caught my attention and I’ve been wondering about it ever since. There was positive and expansive news that India is progressing well with its planned mission to Mars. Yes, Mars. Out of the heaps on non-biodegradable waste and open sewers is emerging an orbiter that will be sent to Mars in October to survey the Martian atmosphere. In collaboration with NASA it will attempt to detect the presence of methane, which I found ironic given the mountains of waste generating it down here.

Try as I may I can’t understand why India, with its breathtaking cultural diversity but so many earth-bound problems, is spending billions on a space programme – and one that is hell-bent on exploring Mars, too – when so many of its populace have to crap on the ground that the water table is being polluted. Could it be possible that the search for methane is just a ruse and that this mission is really a disguised effort to find the ultimate landfill in the sky?

Space might be the Final Frontier but I hope by the time India’s base on Mars is in operation the Intergalactic Garbage Police are fully in control.

*Kudumbsree – this is a worthy initiative set up by the Keralan government in 1998 with the aim of eradicating poverty through the empowerment of women. Its literal meaning is ‘prosperity of the family’ and it enshrines microcredit, empowerment and entrepreneurship.

View inside the Biodome of India’s Mars base

 

 

No problem Sir!

Tags

auto-rickshaw, bad driving, buses, car and driver, crowded streets, divine intervention, drivers, driving, fatalities, holidays, India, Kerala, Kollom, Kumily, pedestrians, pilgrims, Raviz hotel, Raviz resort, road accidents, road signs, traffic, traffic accidents, travel, tuk-tuk, Western Ghats

Polished, waiting and ready to serve

Anyone who’s spent any time on the roads there will know that traffic in India is an absolute nightmare. Road discipline is patchy at best and the application of basic common sense breathtakingly absent; vehicles hurtle into blind bends or career towards each other in hoards down the centre of bumpy, narrow and fragmenting roads before lurching aside only to avoid a collision. For the remainder of the time they are, well, anywhere on the road but most frequently in the oncoming lane. Drivers continually sound their horns while ignoring road signs, line markings and speed limits; more worryingly, received knowledge is that any obstacles in the way – be they cows, people, cycles, carts or other vehicles – must be either ignored or passed, depending on what speed they are moving at. Crowds of pedestrians spill out into the roads due to badly parked vehicles and rubble-strewn verges, vying for space with innumerable ‘two-wheelers’ and seemingly suicidal truck and bus drivers – especially those ferrying pilgrims.

And most numerous of all, the ubiquitous auto-rickshaws – ‘tuk-tuks’ – weave in and out of the traffic trailing clouds of blue smoke and constantly tooting their horns to generate a of noise and chaos. Put simply; it’s bedlam. There are rules, of course, but as they are ignored with single-minded thoroughness by everyone, including the police, foreigners require a car and driver if they aren’t up for any of the public transport options that the sub-continent offers. And anyway, my days of sitting three to a seat with people that don’t use underwear were over years ago.

In Kerala this week we left the relative safety [and luxury] of the delightful and highly recommended surroundings of the Raviz for a few days in the forests of the Western Ghats, a mountainous region away from the humid coastal plain. Our driver, supplied by the genuinely helpful people at the hotel, was selected, I’m guessing, for his command of English rather than his ability to coordinate hand and eye movements but we didn’t know that at the time. Smiling and positive in the hotel coffee lounge where we were introduced, he readily agreed that our journey of some 160km would be a benign but wondrous adventure, punctuated with invaluable local knowledge, pearls of cultural insight and occasional roadside stops for fresh pineapple juice or opportunities to snap shimmering vistas. To each of my questions he smilingly replied, ‘no problem, Sir! I should have known better.

As we set off I asked him if he was clear about the journey, the route we’d take and so on – the kind of amiable banter that one enters into in order to bond with someone who will, after all, be an enforced travel companion for the next four or five hours. His response was to gaze serenely into the middle distance, raise a finger in assertion, and, with a gentle shake of his head, reply, ‘God will take us there’. That, I believe, and the accompanying whimsical smile, was meant to reassure us but my faith in divine intervention, frail at the best of times, had evaporated with the fumbling gear changes and sudden braking. A brief shadow of alarm passed over Mission Control’s face and, as our little car meandered erratically across the tarmac I was advised in the most unambiguous terms that I was expected to wrestle control of the vehicle from him in the event of a confrontation with a truck, overloaded two-wheeler or washed-out road.

From previous experience I know that driving in India can be somewhat eccentric and I’m not a nervous passenger but I was already fighting the urge to grab the wheel and drag the car back onto our side of the road, especially after a bus full of shrieking worshippers avoided us by so narrow a margin that the car was filled with an intoxicating aroma of incense, garlic and body-odour. Interspersed with changes in velocity and sudden lurches, our progress became increasingly hesitant and he clearly sensed something in my tone when I asked if he actually knew the way, especially after he’d stopped and engaged in animated conversations with several taxi drivers, a shopkeeper and, at one point, a cyclist who pointed back in the direction we’d come.

At that point the road was climbing through 2000m on hairpin bends alongside precipitous drops into forested ravines. We should have been about 15km from our destination and less than an hour from the hotel but we passed a road sign that informed us we still had over 60km to go – two hours at least. Rather than invoke a spiritual solution in the face of my polite irritation our driver, clear now that my patience had gone the way of the setting sun, merely refused to answer me when I asked where the hell we were and when the hell we’d reach the hotel. I clearly wouldn’t take silence for an answer and my persistence eventually elicited a slow, deep breath and the adoption of an appropriately formal tone before he replied with dignified resignation, ‘I have no absolutely no idea, sir.’ This was surprisingly disarming and took us both aback as this is the last thing you’d expect your driver to say when you are high in the mountains of a foreign land with darkness closing in and an unknown distance still to cover. After all, that was the only reason he was there.

Well, we eventually arrived and it was dark, some two hours later than planned and a mysteriously unaccounted-for 75km extra on the journey. 

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in India tells us in its latest statistical report [for 2011] that 140000 people were killed in road accidents during the year [cows, dogs and elephants are not mentioned] as the consequence of ‘one road accident every minute, and one road accident death in less than four minutes’. It also lists the causes of fatal accidents and, while acknowledging that the majority of these are due to the fault of the driver, a significant number – I calculate that to be around 20% – is due to other related causes that include issues with passengers.

I can’t find the data but I suspect a great many of these involve the driver being murdered.

Flipping heck

Tags

apartment rental Dubai, art, Design Days, Dubai, flipping, Helidon Xhixha, money, spiked shoes

A swaggering confidence surrounds us in Dubai; the hotels are full and traffic is once again forming long, impatient queues at intersections. They have even extended the Palm Jumeirah to make another building site. Slicked individuals with tottering, spike-heeled companions once again scent money in the air while in the background the evils of greed and self-interest are beginning to stir after the brief hiatus of global financial collapse. As 24-hour construction activity recommences and piles are driven throughout the night the crash of 2008 is being spoken of as a momentary blip in the progress of this phenomenal and fabulous city-state.

A few evenings ago we were at the opening of Design Days, a part of the Dubai Culture initiative whose patron is the Crown Prince. He was there, actually – but very briefly. The reception was set against a backdrop of the Burj Khalifa, with the shiny towers, lights, fountains and music of Downtown Dubai combining to produce a venue that is both opulent and impressive. Regardless of what one might think about the moral character of this place – and anyone who has read earlier posts will know that I sometimes have something to say about that – today’s Dubai is quite fantastic and developing the ambience of a major international city.

Dubai, embarking this week on the annual culture fest of Art Dubai, is of the moment and very much a place to see, drawbacks aside. But hard on the heels of the upturn and the irrepressible feeling of ‘we’re back!’ comes a familiar and odorous occupation – flipping. This is where high art flourishes because the denizens of Dubai have turned this distasteful practice into their very own version of it. Houses and apartments in projects that are nothing more than notions in computer generated imagery have been purchased before the construction has started with the clear expectation that they can be sold on at a profit as inflation jacks up the prices. That, in turn, is driving costs and rents higher and tenants are once again being pressurised into leaving accommodation so that unscrupulous landlords can install a higher-paying incumbent. The renting laws have been amended to afford some protection against this but in a land that is over-regulated and under-legislated money still rules so, in reality, nothing has really changed since 2008.

Cultural events like Design Days struggle to be anything other than passing entertainment [and a further opportunity to wear those shoes, of course] and in a place that has its mind on money most of the time they are soon forgotten as the next takes over the interest of the media. Reviewing the opening next day on ‘Dubai Eye’, the nearest thing Dubai has to a ‘serious’ radio station, the presenter was asked to recall what impressed him most. His answer was the Audi 7 that was placed, courtesy of a sponsor, at the rear of the exhibition. Astoundingly, nothing relating to the exhibits or artists was mentioned in the programme and that, in many ways, is Dubai in a nutshell.

I found several of the exhibits original, many innovative and all of some merit. In particular, the stainless and Core-10 steelwork of Helidon Xhixha was beautifully executed, an engaging and temporary installation by Andrea Mancuso and Emilia Serra was very original and kinetic pieces by Frederik Molenschot, Ritchie Riediger and Humans Since 1982 had huge potential.

Maybe to fully appreciate Dubai you don’t need to know about art, you just need to know what you like.

Sicily – a last fling; Modica

Tags

Aeolian Islands, Agrigento, Ashleigh Brilliant, Baroque, birding, birds, cathedral, Cefalù, Donna Carmela, Driving in Sicily, Etna, food, Frederick III restaurant, friends, holidays, Marinella di Selinunte, Modica, Modica road race, Palermo, Polpi in Umido, Pozzillo, Ragusa, Selinunte, Sicily, Taormina, Tenuta Gorghi Tondi, tourism, tourists, travel, Valle dei Templi, Vallo di Mazara, Villa Sogno, wine

A blog ought to make a reasonable effort at being contemporaneous; this post isn’t – it’s more an excuse for posting some photographs. As soon as I’d left Sicily I was travelling again and a note closing the island adventure was put on the back burner. Our last flirtation – and perhaps a determining factor in ensuring a return visit – was the superb Modica, where antiquity and ambience provided a perfect counterpoint to the noise and pointless urgency of Dubai.

The long drive from Taormina to Palermo provided time to consider what Sicily had been for us. We were captivated but had been ambitious in attempting a brief glimpse of every part of the island; it was just too big and with each region having such a strong identity, pin-balling from one location to another had proven frustrating and self-defeating. The uncomfortable autostrada to Palermo – Sicily’s main route – was little better than we’d experienced elsewhere. We never quite got used to the bumps in the surface but, ruts aside, the journey wasn’t too unpleasant; lots of tunnels, Etna beyond the mountains on one side and misty views to the Aeolian Islands on the other. But Pollina and Sicily’s remaining forest were relegated to the bucket list as we’d arranged to meet Greg and Vibeke for dinner, who were flying to Palermo that evening for our few days together.

Along the way there was time for a nervous peek at Cefalù and its Romanesque cathedral. The coastal town is described as the ‘second most popular tourist destination’ in Sicily and the immediate impression as the view opens up across the bay goes some way to explaining why. Its picturesque setting and medieval profile, nestled in the lee of the rock from which its ancient Greek name and original settlement originate, suggest why all the tourists that weren’t in Taormina were here. Even the guidebooks offer gentle warnings about the crowds but mass tourism and narrow streets make for an uncomfortable marriage so you’d need to be tolerant of the hoi polloi to enjoy spending time there. The number of visitors dwindled significantly as the sun went down and there followed an enchanted hour when the streets quietened and became populated only with local residents. Most would have been of an age, I guess, that could recall an economy based on fishing and a life centred around the port and communal wash-houses; I wonder what they make of it all now.

In Taormina, where we’d enquired about our forthcoming evening in Palermo, Villa Belvedere had directed us to a restaurant where we and our friends could have a ‘real’ Sicilian dinner, free of tourists. It was called Frederick III and located way off the beaten track in a neighbourhood marked by seedy streets, darkened shop doorways and occasional eye-contact with a brooding picciotto. We were welcomed like old friends; an open bottle of wine was set on the table and replenished until we protested that we really had to leave. In between, animated conversation with the other customers punctuated with a variety of excellent fish dishes made every aspect of the evening memorable. It was interrupted only by the arrival of three suited men who sat briefly around a table at the far end of the room, engaged in a hushed conversation over a glass of vino bianco and left without eating or saying a word to anyone else. Maybe I’ve watched too much American television but I had the feeling, as they slipped silently into the night, that they worked in waste management and were about to make someone an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Palermo was regrettably a short visit so we limited our outings to walking the markets and visiting the superb Norman cathedral at Monreale, yet another site that deserved more time than we afforded it. Mission Control had found us bed and breakfast on the south coast at Selinunte so we drove through a vast expanse of olive groves, vineyards and rolling hills where EU funds were replacing trees with wind turbines. The Villa Sogno was ‘award-winning’ [there are a lot of award winners around these days, aren't there?] due to its high standards of accommodation and home-made food and, indeed, that’s exactly what we found. The manicured garden was set in a walled compound and it proved a tranquil place to swim and enjoy wine, cheese and salumi from the store in Selinunte; a pity, then, that our hosts dealt with the garbage – in a manner common in Sicily but by no means limited to it – by throwing it over the fence into the olive grove next door. Villa Sogno delivered on comfort and food but pleasant as that was, our hosts clearly had an eye on the next award as they were just a little too busy making it the best bed and breakfast in the region to tolerate, with any degree of enthusiasm, encumbrances such as guests.

Just down the road however, the little port of Marinella di Selinunte was far more welcoming. It was quiet in the off-season but relaxed and very pleasant without tourists to trouble the friendly residents. We ate one evening at a local hostelry with the unlikely name of ‘Boomerang’. It looked a little dubious but was busy and clearly very popular. No one managed to explain where the name came from but the fish – fried or grilled in more varieties than you could shake a stick at – was as fresh as it was unpretentious. This part of Sicily caters mostly for local visitors so development tends to be limited even if occasionally, er, illegal. The coast, archaeological sites and small towns are unencumbered by the hoards witnessed at Taormina and Cefalù, which was very pleasant.

Throughout our tour of Sicily we had been surprised by the number and variety of good quality wines that were produced. Some were very good indeed. Greg is something of an aficionado when it comes to matters oenological so in short time we were at the excellent Tenuta Gorghi Tondi, tasting some of the quality wine produced at this small, local casa vinicola. The south-west corner of Sicily and the Vallo di Mazara in particular is a principal area of viniculture and as a result the island produces about a sixth of Italy’s total.

Nearby Mazara del Vallo is described as being the town with the largest immigrant population of Arabic origin on the island, harking back to its roots when it was occupied by Arabs in 827;   it’s further south than Tangier and nearer to Tunis than it is to Rome or Naples. The centre of town is known as the Kasbah and it does have the feel of an Arab town even though there are remnants of several occupying cultures. And typically, while the Polpi in Umido might just have been the best we had in Sicily, the driving was certainly the worst – we saw two serious accidents as we parked.

We wanted to see Modica before we left Sicily; it would be the last stop so we drove the interesting and at times picturesque coastal road that would allow a pit-stop along the way at Agrigento and the Valle dei Templi. This is an impressive site and worth seeing but it’s popular and very much on the tourist bus route. That means crowds, souvenirs and expensive gelato but at least you can take comfort in the knowledge that someone, somewhere, from Japan or Korea will have captured your embarrassing image as you crouched in diaphoretic inquietude whilst trying for that one photograph of the Temple of Concordia that didn’t have a small crowd leaning against it.

The route from there, through Licata and Gela, before the land rises to the west of Ragusa and Modica, is a microcosm of the chaos and uneven distribution of wealth that’s prevalent on the island; a seemingly random pattern of new and unimproved roads, uncontrolled development, an occasional high-quality villa juxtaposed with a decrepit ruin, piles of rubble and garbage, agriculture that is, on the one hand, well-funded and thriving or, on the other, almost medieval in its lack of facility. It made one wonder how those people not on the Sicilian gravy-train could ever improve their lot. Ashleigh Brilliant had it about right when he wrote ‘I either want less corruption or more chance to participate in it’.

After winding our way up from the coastal plain and traversing the Ponte Irminio – 140m above the valley floor – Modica came into view, raking down the hillside in a breathtaking, Baroque backdrop. Not content with seducing us with its pastel splendour, the townspeople were preparing for an annual street race that had filled the centre with every living soul in the region. Our spritz on the crowded terrace along the Corso Umberto was taken amidst hoards of runners; young and old, experienced and novice. Teams in matching tee-shirts exchanged banter with shopkeepers and waiters while individuals in Lycra shorts – altogether more serious and focussed – worked their stretching routine. And in-between, coaches, water carriers, mothers, hangers-on, small children and dogs wandered between participants. We watched with growing enthusiasm as the motley throng sped easily or, in some cases, limped back and forth up the road, the event eventually being won by a very slim and very competent young woman. As the evening drew on the crowds were supplemented with students from the local university, filling the pavements, cafés and bars. We picked our way through the milieu for the essential visit to Modica’s famous chocolate shops and especially L’Antica Dolceria Bonajuto, where it’s made in a fashion said to date back to the Aztecs. Cadbury’s it isn’t and the shop is an experience in itself. Modica’s sense of self was further reinforced when we ordered dinner after the race; the offerings on the menu at Osteria dei Sapori Perduti were described in the local dialect, served with enthusiasm and were superb examples of local cuisine.

That was our last evening with Greg and Vibeke before spending a couple of nights in relative luxury at Donna Carmela before heading to Catania and the Emirates. Sicily had delivered. There were some aspects that irked us – the stripping of the native vegetation and loss of natural habitat [not unexpected after a couple of thousand years of cultivation, I guess, but still an issue]; the shooting; the corruption and the consequences of nepotistic and self-interested authorities. But there was so much more to savour – the history and the culture; in the broadest terms a friendly populace; a unique cuisine; a surprising variety of wine and, eventually, more birds than I’d expected to see with no ‘serious’ birding on the agenda; 109 species in all. Yes, we’ll be back.  

Dubai and Sicily – growing old gracefully

Tags

Arab influence, Arab Spring, Costa del Sol, Dubai, Dubai Marina, fire, fire regulations, Florida, Marsala, Mazara dell Vallo, Middle East, Northern Emirates, Sicily, tower block, towers, travel

Travelling in the weeks leading up to Christmas was interesting as it allowed informal cultural comparisons between Sicily and Dubai. Last month I was standing alongside the water at Dubai Marina, a spectacular and very impressive melange of towers, contemporary construction, neon light and retail outlets. It’s a new and artificial inlet that frequently appears as a backdrop in Dubai’s publicity and was created, I suspect, simply because it could be. At night the coffee-shops and cafés that border the promenade are filled with the conversation of the dispossessed and translocated of the Arab Spring and the air is apple-scented with the smoke of shisha. Nonetheless, it still manages to feel a lot less Middle Eastern than one might expect. The stainless steel and machined copings are as far removed as they could be from the worn quay faces of the harbours of Marsala and Mazara dell Vallo in the south-west of Sicily and the irony is that those towns also formed the bridgehead for an Arab influx that, unlike in Dubai, brought with it a culture and style of building that still characterises the region.

In Sicily you experience history and a built environment that has substance; a cultural background and a population that can trace its roots back to 800BC. In Dubai, the vista is one of a city-state that exudes such a redolence of newness and impermanence that one begins to doubt it might even be there on the next visit. In December the President announced that all homes in the northern Emirates less than twelve years old would be demolished and replaced with new and one anticipates that all the new buildings will be the same shape, same size and same colour. And probably similar to what you might see in Florida or on the Costa del Sol.

And so Dubai pushes on but is guilty of forgetting one or two minor details in its headlong rush to cement a permanent presence in the 21^st century. Thirty years ago the buildings we designed took on a form that reflected the local climate and traditions while meeting the exacting standards that were used in the West. [Much to the chagrin, I might add, of finance departments in our clients’ offices that were trying to keep costs low]. With more questionable probity and a worrying reflection on the greed all too commonly seen here we have recently discovered – well, some of us knew already but it’s now in the public domain – that some of the material used in some of Dubai’s iconic towers isn’t fireproof. That’s bad news if you purchased an apartment off-plan and probably cause for some sleepless nights if you live above the first couple of floors. Talk now is of new fire regulations and improved vigilance but I wonder if my reverie at the Marina will prove prophetic – will they start taking the towers down when they’re twelve years old?

Back in Dubai

Tags

Back in Dubai, biggest shopping mall, Dubai, Dubai Country Club, friends, nostalgia, off-plan sales, Sal Davies, shopping mall

It’s always fascinating being back in Dubai; the pace of life here is fast and changes mount up at an extraordinary rate so I’m always forced to spend my first few days scanning the horizon for new towers, making certain our favourite restaurants haven’t been replaced and asking the same old questions of why anyone with a modicum of commercial acumen would open a shop that sells only decorative dried fruit and flower petals.

We’ve been sandwiched between the Islamic New Year holiday and the 41^st National Day celebrations – JLo has just strutted her stuff and we are enduring the world skydiving championships, which will be warbled to a close by Katy Perry. Dubai is feeling good about itself if a bit too glitzy but thankfully, from a personal point of view at least, we have an evening with Al Jarreau later this week.

The Government has just confirmed that the recession is over – officially. A new city is to be built on the outskirts that will include just what Dubai needs – the biggest shopping mall on the planet; Universal Studios will headline a new leisure park and the Dubai Mall, currently the biggest mall on the planet, will be expanded. No one in this den of iniquity needs further encouragement; new villa projects are being purchased off-plan within 48 hours in a repeat of the mayhem we experienced in 2008 and a planned extension to an estate called Arabian Ranches is already 80% sold. That’s before a put-upon labourer from Kerala has even stuck a shovel in the ground.

How times move on. Back in the day it was pleasant to return to a country that hadn’t changed while you were away and where consistency was held as a virtue. Life was filled with the same old friends and the same old haunts and there existed a reassuring sameness. These days I experience an increasingly pervasive feeling that most people alongside me in the queue at the traffic lights are simply mad or three-quarters of the way to it.

A popular song then was Back in Dubai, sung by a guy called Sal Davies. On one occasion after returning from London I was at dinner in the Dubai Country Club, where he was playing. What I didn’t know was that my friend and host, a significant Pakistani businessman, was an old friend of Sal. After starting his set he moved on to tell the audience that he’d had a request for an old favourite and, as the lights went down the spotlight came up on our table, and Back in Dubai was sung to us as I wriggled uneasily in excruciating embarrassment. The tune isn’t memorable for much more than that evening at the Country Club, but as I hear about another US$1 trillion being committed to new projects I get a little nostalgic and miss the way it used to be.  Here’s Sal in a recording made a few years later.

Sicily – Taormina, tourists and tears

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crowds, DH Lawrence, Fontana Vecchia, food, good service, Hotel Villa Belvedere, Isola Bella, Mendolia Beach, narrow streets, Sicily, Taormina, Teatro Greco, tourism, tourists, travel, Truman Capote, wine

We were advised to avoid Taormina and – to not miss it; it would be spectacular, we were told, but crowded; awash with tourists but with a Teatro Greco [which is actually Roman but never mind] not to be missed. We decided to take a look but side-step, if it were possible, what makes Taormina famous and Mission Control managed this with huge success; the Hotel Villa Belvedere is outside the main centre on Via Bagnoli Croce and tucked away beside the peaceful and shady public gardens, so it allows guests to avoid both people and traffic but still enjoy the precipitous views. Driving up to find the hotel meant going through the town and then looping back on narrow, one-way streets. Murderous drivers made that a hair-raising and uncomfortable experience but the streets – all polished, ancient stone and secret stairways – had plenty of character. They were also filled with a slow-moving and apparently aimless mass of humanity that ebbed and flowed from alley to parapet. Neither of us was quite prepared for the shock and immediately regretted our decision to visit. Taormina’s capitulation to the tourist is quite awful and, I thought, a little sad but the hotel rescued us. Villa Belvedere was actually about as good as it could get and, if we were ever to visit the town again – most unlikely – it would be the only place to stay. It’s small

and has an intimacy that makes staying there very personal. The attitude of the staff was immense whether it was just gossiping or volunteering tips and advice that helped us navigate the multitudes in our own way – it exuded what you might call good, old-fashioned service. This sounds like a promotional brochure but the point is no sane person could stay in Taormina without a bolt-hole of some kind. The hotel was ours but even so, it did cater for groups so despite breakfast being more sumptuous than the Italian tradition of coffee and cornetto there was an air of ‘Cruise Mediterranea’ about it. The cappuccino was superb even if we were surrounded by American accents and elastic-waisted leisure suits.

The centre of Taormina is wholly given over to tourism. It has form, after all, and was on the grand tour in the 1800s when visitors came to escape the winter in northern Europe. Cheap air travel in the 1970s brought changes and the season now runs from spring to autumn. We were supposedly ‘out of season’ and were led to believe that it was quieter than at other times and if that’s the case then heaven help it. It was full enough for me and although there is clearly a certain quaintness to the winding paths and hazy vistas Taormina, at least in the centre of town, has long-ago sold its soul. We did find some little alleys and rows of private gardens that conjured-up visions of al fresco lunches and DH Lawrence in the shade of lemon trees but then we’d suddenly be confronted with a baying throng looking for souvenirs, pizza and cheap ice cream. I’ve read some awful tales of cruise ships unloading hundreds of visitors at a time and a local resident told me how shops will lurch from having more people than they can handle to closing in winter because they can’t afford the electricity bill.

The spectacular location does provide a few photo-ops and it’s easy to see why figures from the arts and the world of literature have waxed lyrical about Taormina down the years. The hotel concierge advised us to be first into the Teatro Greco in the morning as it would be least crowded and cooler than later in the day and so it proved. That didn’t prevent us from being hustled by street traders along the way, probably because it was a new day and the strength-sapping efforts of turning a tourist buck hadn’t then taken its toll. The dilemma now, of course, is that its economy is a monoculture, demanding ever increasing numbers of visitors and the more people that visit the less pleasant it becomes. Even the shoulder-to-shoulder perambulators are exploited; brochures list ‘people watching’ as a visitor activity, which says more or less all you need to know about the place.

We were tipped in England to have dinner at L’Arco dei Cappuccini where the food was very good and the chatty staff entertaining – try googling it. But our experience was mixed and didn’t rank with the rave reviews that this highly-recommended restaurant usually receives. I ate marinated baby shrimp to start and it was simple and superb but the scorpion fish [scorfano] that followed and which was a recommendation from the waiter was, although good, very overpriced; Mission Control had tuna carpaccio, also excellent but her swordfish [spada] cooked with wild fennel arrived as a thin pasta sauce with little actual fish in it although she had ordered it grilled. At that point the staff had disappeared so trying to get it changed would have dislocated the meal completely. We had waited something over an hour between courses and acquiesced only because we could take time to enjoy the excellent vino rosso from Etna. Diners on adjacent tables were far less patient and there were a lot of frayed tempers and raised Sicilian voices by the time the evening drew to a close. Of course, charming waiters and the ambiance of a balmy evening in ancient surroundings make for a memorable occasion but if you’re not local and not a regular when something goes awry, as it clearly did on this occasion, you become very aware very fast that you’re just another tourist.

When we travel we tend to follow the mantra of keeping things simple and trying to stay within the limits of what can be screwed-up least; it’s saved us from disappointment many a time. So we stayed out of town, swam off the shingle beach below – which has wonderfully clear water but is crippling if you walk on it – and enjoyed a very passable lunch at Mendolia Beach. With Isola Bella shimmering before us Mission Control got her grilled spada and for a lot less than they were asking further up the hill, too.

Taormina must have been wonderful before the masses descended and when it embraced DH Lawrence as he wrote The Lost Girl. Well, we can say that we’ve seen it and if I need to know anything more I’ll read Truman Capote’s Fontana Vecchia and imagine myself back in the heat and elevated views across the Straits to Calabria. I was very glad to have Taormina behind me even if it meant having to deal with Messina and its traffic.

Sicily – a tantalising taste of Baroque

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autostrada, Caffé Sicilia, Capo Passero, conservation, Driving in Sicily, environment, food, forests, guns, holidays, Isola delle Correnti, La Corte del Sole, masseria, Noto, Portopali, sardines, Sicilian Baroque, Sicily, tourism, tourists, travel, UNESCO World heritage, Vendicari, weapons

Although we were aware of just how big the island was the poor quality of the roads, appalling traffic in towns and difficulty in parking when we actually got somewhere meant that we were in the car far too much. It was an important point that we’d remember for next time as it became a little frustrating, especially when we didn’t get as much time to explore as we would have wished. We’d planned a trip that would take us through as many places as possible and while that has good and bad aspects, on balance we were satisfied that we were seeing as much of Sicily as we could and were getting a real impression of the place.

We liked the south-east corner of the island and before embarking on the long, circuitous drive north and west to meet Greg and Vibeke in Palermo we spent a few more days looking around. We stayed at the very pleasant La Corte del Sole. This is a country hotel in a rebuilt masseria, set on the side of the flat river basin of the Val di Noto. A masseria is a farmhouse that is fortified or, at least, capable of being defended and typically dates from the late middle ages. The appellation is used somewhat loosely but then the marauding hoards that invade Sicily these days come with easyJet or Thomson so a degree of poetic licence is forgivable. To be fair, Le Corte doesn’t look old and actually feels pretty new but it has a satisfying solidity that we liked nonetheless. The rural location balances country walks to the relatively empty beach with a short drive to nearby Noto, one of Sicily’s Baroque towns. It’s also well-placed to see most of the region between the Riserva Naturale Orientata Oasi Faunistica di Vendicari and Isola delle Correnti, Sicily’s southernmost point. A very pleasant dining terrace overlooks the verdant valley and has views to the sea. We had a memorable dinner; spada alla griglia con finocchio selvatico [grilled swordfish with wild fennel] for Mission Control and maccheroni con le sarde for me. This is one of my favourite Sicilian dishes – local pasta, sardines, saffron, currants, pine nuts all turned in fried bread crumbs. The food and substantial breakfast were actually very good. La Corte del Sole is a bit off the beaten track and quiet but well worth finding.

Noto is a particularly attractive town that was largely rebuilt after the 1693 earthquake and we liked it a lot. The splendid buildings are faced with the local honey-coloured limestone that develops a unique luminosity in evening sunlight. It’s laid out on a grid and this adds a formality to the ornate architecture that is frequently absent elsewhere on the island. Noto’s UNESCO world heritage status is apparent when wandering its streets; taking time with a cool aperitivo delivers, in many respects, both the charm and the acute fascination of Sicily in a single bite. During our visit it seemed that all of Noto’s residents were either strolling back and forth along the Corsa Vittorio Emanuele or watching life pass by from church steps or the piazzas. And Caffé Sicilia produced simply the best cannoli that we found, with the finest scorze [that’s the pastry shell]. Equally interesting, however, was to walk off the main streets and find, as I did, evidence of a less comfortable side to life away from the mainstream. Browsing a row of local shops I found myself gazing at a display of weapons. Not small guns for target shooting or keeping the sparrow population in control and not a few but dozens of AK series assault rifles, carbines, Berettas, machine pistols and shotguns – the kind of weapons that are used to kill people. And there they were, on open display between a hairdresser and a pharmacy. It was sobering to ponder what ‘I’m just popping to the shops, dear’ might mean in Noto.

We resolved to return as the town deserved far more time than we were able to give it but we had a rendezvous and there were more places to visit on the way. I wanted to see Messina again after gazing at it under a smouldering Etna from across the straits as a student. And now that I’d finally decided to visit the island there was also that remaining piece of endemic woodland in the Nebrodi Mountains.

Getting to Palermo from Noto was tortuous; driving between the ‘three points’ of Palermo, Messina and Catania makes travellers heavily dependent on the autostrada network, which peters out away from these centres. Fortunately Noto is linked to it and getting to Palermo by way of Messina would take about the same time as using the cross-country route through Enna we’d arrived on. We headed for Messina and north of Catania the autostrada became a toll road. The rates are not high but not for the first time I found myself wondering about how the fees don’t appear to resurface as improvements, maintenance or repairs.

While we were thinking about that and trying to keep our Autogrill coffee in the cup – almost impossible on Sicilian roads, by the way –  Taormina and its teetering, cliff-top buildings came into view.

Sicily – birding a bare island

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birding, Birding in Sicily, birds, birdsong, CABS, conservation, corruption, environment, forests, holidays, Lago della Priola, listing, politics, Selinunte, Sicily, Sicily birding, tourism, tourists, Trapani, travel, Vendicari, wind energy, wind turbines, wine, WWF. Mazar del Vallo

There are birds to see in Sicily although it doesn’t appear so at first glance. Aside from some crows and starlings we saw none on fence posts, none flying overhead and none in the fields during our initial bumpy introduction to Sicily’s autostradas. Birding the island is patchy so you must be reasonably single-minded and cover it all. You need inside knowledge and careful timing, too, all of which made it difficult for me given the nature of our visit and that neither Mission Control nor our companions were birders. I had to get my birds where I could and adopt an opportunistic approach to osservare gli uccelli. Before we travelled I’d assumed I’d see very little and although it wouldn’t be entirely honest to say I was pleasantly surprised I did record 109 species and could have done better. Nonetheless, I found the total birding experience in Sicily to be less than the sum of its parts.

The island gets a bad press and deservedly so because by and large it doesn’t give the birds much chance. Areas described as riserva naturale have virtually no protection and those not yet cultivated or developed live a charmed life as the authorities can be exceedingly – to coin a phrase – malleable. The current favourite is wind energy, where Italy pays a whopping €180 per kwh generated. Last year police disrupted corrupt plans to erect a discordant backdrop of wind turbines overlooking the World Wildlife Fund [WWF] reserve at Trapani and, in Mazara del Vallo, arrests have been made for bribing officials for permits to erect unapproved turbines. You’d believe that someone outside those deals would notice a 100m tower being erected so what on earth were they thinking? The travesty is that minimal protection and management could transform Sicily but it has its head so far up its nepotistic backside that the chances of conservation even making it to the agenda are non-existent unless ‘opportunities’ are exploited. That said, I can appreciate that a lot needs sorting out before a put-upon and disenfranchised population can be encouraged to embrace the esoteric values of wildlife conservation.

Organised trips that target specific sites provide notable birding and are necessarily supported by the rest that Sicily offers – Mediterranean weather and scenery, great food, historical culture and all those gaily-painted fishing boats. But if you are serious about your birding there are other places to go and there’s the rub, because Sicily has a lot going ornithologically; this spring a Bar-tailed lark and an Atlas flycatcher were recorded – very special birds for European birders. Sicily holds the only wintering group of Pallas’s gulls in Europe as well the only Italian-breeding Bonelli’s eagles. Migration across the Straits of Messina can be spectacular and an internationally important population of Lanner falcon and endemics such as the Sicilian Rock partridge and Long-tailed tit are worth the air fare alone. Why is it then that conservation and its consequent nature tourism – given all the other delights on offer – isn’t a better deal here? I concluded that Sicilians mostly don’t like birds – unless they are served with a passable Nero D’Avola, that is. In Pozzo di Mazza we were woken early on Saturday morning by continuous blasts from propane cannon bird scarers before local hunters went on to spend the weekend shooting across the adjoining fields and above our heads in an alarming barrage. The coordination of explosions from cannons and shooting led me to suspect that the former weren’t used to scare birds away from crops [after all, they didn’t use them during the week] but instead to keep them in the air for the benefit of the latter. Just ponder the logic of that for a moment. The same thing happened at Corte del Sole near Vendicari, suggesting it was common practice. At Lago della Priola, another WWF reserve, even putative birders are denied unaccompanied access for fear of them secreting guns into the bird hide or using the tiny remaining piece of endemic woodland for firewood. You wonder how that could be a concern when Sicily employs over 26000 people in its forestry department – more than they employ in British Columbia.

It appears that, a few good men such as Andrea and Antonini at WWF or the hard-working volunteers at CABS notwithstanding, no one who can really make a difference gives a flying whatever; especially where money can be made. I was humbled by Antonini’s calm determination and persistence in the face of insurmountable barriers – he represents WWF locally and has been working with them for twenty years – but confess to being less than comfortable with the brand of nature tourism we bring. It provides a pleasant sojourn in the sun, holiday-island accompaniments, that list of interesting – and sometimes exciting – birds and, probably, a very nice set of photographs but it doesn’t give much back. I couldn’t, for example, find one reference to contact with conservation organisations on any of the birding holiday websites. Certainly some money trickles into the economy but it’s channeled neither into conservation nor a local organisation that might eventually ease these issues onto the agenda. Trips that target a list of species in pleasant surroundings merely perpetuate an archaic and ultimately self-defeating situation.

When we stayed near Selinunte we awoke each morning to a silence broken only by the sound of occasional passing cars. There was no birdsong at all, not even a chirping sparrow. The adjacent fields were liberally covered with spent shotgun cartridges and although it might be different in spring the picture was there to see. Sicily is unique and has huge potential but it needs to find a way for conservation and appreciation of a rapidly-diminishing natural heritage to gain at least as much kudos as self-interest and destructive machismo.

 Without that, even the listers and nature tourists won’t have anything to come for.

 

Sicily – the boys from Syracuse market

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food, Greco-Roman, holidays, market, mercato, Norman, Ortigia, Piazza Duomo, pistachio, Pozzo di Mazza, ravioli, ricotta, risotto, Ristorante Il Porticciolo, Sicilian Baroque, Sicily, Siracusa, Spritz, tomato, tourism, tourists, travel

I avoid being an itinerant tourist, preferring to stay in one place and getting to know it inside out even when it means missing something just down the road. Sicily made that difficult; with so much on offer we’d decided before we travelled to get as big a picture as possible and, if it delivered on its promises, come back and stay for a while. Consequently, we didn’t plan anything in detail because on the one hand there would be so much to see and on the other, plenty to avoid; we’d stay light on our feet.

We’d arranged to visit with friends and had initially set out to spend a couple of weeks together but despite best intentions and a year talking about it over ‘Sicilian-themed’ lunches the plan was disrupted by business commitments, migration in Sweden and our forthcoming trip to Dubai. By the time we’d eventually fixed flights it worked out that they would arrive a week or so after us and we’d have to leave several days before them, leaving just a few days together in the middle. Mission Control eased us through this by booking a few places to anchor the Grand Tour, between which we’d drift in the direction the wind took us.

Pozzo di Mazza was perfect for our introduction to Sicily. As well as being handily located to visit some of the sites recommended by Andrea Corso, it was close enough to Siracusa to spend plenty of time in the city. The agriturismo provided a relaxing and authentic springboard to the south-east corner of the island.

Agriturismi are a popular and relatively inexpensive way of holidaying in Italy. The term, in a statement of the obvious, means ‘agricultural tourism’ and was formalised in the mid 1980s as a means of putting some life back into the rural economy by allowing working farms the opportunity to supplement their income with tourist accommodation. Given this basis it means that standards can vary and whilst that is clearly part of the charm our experience in using them over many years has been excellent. And so it was at Pozzo di Mazza. We were provided with good and satisfying food derived from local produce and near-perfect preserves, a lot of which we’ve hauled back. The rooms were spotless, the staff simply charming and there was also a refreshing and welcome absence of television. That meant that guests were left to their own devices although it clearly didn’t suit one Dutch couple who bleated about the place being too quiet, too isolated and too far from any bars. It was actually very pleasant to sit under the quiet, shaded terrace outside the room or in the garden although I was frustrated at the lack of internet access, as all my information for the trip sat in the cloud and was consequently inaccessible.

We knew something of Siracusa before we arrived but weren’t prepared for the sheer magnificence of the crumbling and decrepit buildings, matched in intricacy of detail only by the service and communication cables strung along and between them. Siracusa and its adjoining island Ortigia were largely rebuilt in 1693 after a devastating earthquake in a style that became known as ‘Sicilian Baroque’ and this forms a chiaroscuro backdrop to Greco-Roman and Norman relics. Together they create an intense ambiance of history and immediately we’d absorbed the initial visual impact we knew we’d be back for a longer stay. Like many Italian cities, Siracusa makes one want to live and breathe it. We walked narrow streets and courtyards and, in the Piazza Duomo, watched a Siracusan tableau unfold as its residents married or enjoyed an evening stroll or, like us, simply sipped a slow Spritz.

Siracusa was established on Ortigia in about 734BC and was the most significant city-state in the Mediterranean. I guess the vendors in the market were probably shouting much the same thing then as we heard when we squeezed between the stalls below the market hall. That isn’t in use these days – due, I suspect, to the endemic lack of maintenance – but we did spend a lot of time in the not-to-be-missed delicatessen I Sapori dei Gusti Smarriti. Our only regret was that we didn’t have a nearby kitchen as I can’t wait to get back to the widest range of Sicilian wines I’ve ever seen and an exquisite olive oil scented with orange juice, but that will be remedied next time. Walking Mercato di Ortigia and coming out the other end without buying something was a frustrating experience but in brief but sublime compensation we had lunch in a market restaurant supplied by one of the fish vendors; Ristorante Il Porticciolo in via Trento. We ate fried baby fish, risotto with saffron, pistachio and prawns and ravioli of minced prawn in a tomato and ricotta sauce. The [of course] local wine was recommended by the restaurant and was exactly matched, making the entire experience perfetto.

A lot to see and come back for but before that we’d be taking a long, circuitous drive north and west to meet Greg and Vibeke in Palermo.