The turquoise spire of Christchurch Cathedral; the original stone one fell off in an earthquake (click to enlarge)

Written on 28 January 1997, 15 years ago.

A number of people had told me that Christchurch is easily the most English settlement in New Zealand, and from the very first moment I could see their point: as I wandered through the beautiful botanic gardens, I found myself following the River Avon, surrounded on either side by Oxford and Cambridge Terraces. The gardens themselves are a gardener's dream, with a water garden, a rose garden, a pinetum, a Primula garden, a daffodil woodland, a cherry collection, an herbaceous border, a fragrant garden, a conservatory complex, a New Zealand garden, a rock garden and more... they're certainly comprehensive. All this is surrounded by huge swathes of park, a smattering of art museums and some very posh schools, and right in the centre of town is Cathedral Square, home to a beautiful gothic cathedral with a huge spire, the top of which is made of copper after the original stone one fell into the square during an earthquake.

It's a bit strange, seeing red telephone boxes, school children in blazers and boaters, people punting down the Avon, trees like weeping willows, oaks and sycamores, and street names that are almost entirely based on roads in England... but every now and then you look through the trees and spot a tussock-covered hill in the distance, something that wouldn't crop up in the sort of English countryside that would be home to a city like Christchurch. Perhaps that's why Christchurch, beautiful though it is, doesn't quite convince; I kept thinking of a watercolour with too much water and not enough colour, or a theme park version of Little England, though perhaps without the tackiness. Perhaps actually living in one of the cities Christchurch is trying to be – Oxford – has spoilt me. But by all accounts the Japanese tourists lap it up, as you can tell by the group photo stand in the square, where busloads of Asians cram onto the platform to have their tour shot taken with the cathedral in the background. At least that part's an exact copy of Oxford...

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A beach next door to the Nut in Stanley (click to enlarge)

Written on 26 January 1996, 16 years ago.

A fuzzy Monday morning saw me return from George Town to Launceston to pick up a rental car for the week, easily the best way to see Tassie. It was great to be back behind the wheel, even if a yellow VW Beetle wasn't quite the Ford Falcon we'd rented in New South Wales: in a Beetle you really feel the corners and bumps in the road, especially if you're constantly breaking the speed limit.

Driving through Tasmania is an incredible experience, with beautiful landscapes and plenty of little towns that haven't been run over with concrete and high-rises. They say Tasmania is the last real wilderness in Australia, and during my circuit of the island I saw what they meant. The route I took was the obvious one, but going as out-of-the-way as possible: I went from Launceston in the middle of the north coast, west to Stanley on the far northwest, where I stayed a night, then halfway down the rugged west cost to Strahan (pronounced 'Strawn', to rhyme with dawn), and then cutting east through the middle of the island, past Queenstown and the Lake St Clair area (where I spent another night), and finally down to Hobart and Port Arthur on the southeast tip.

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The Hindu pantheon is full of colour, as can be seen in this amazing gopuram in Madurai (click to enlarge)

Written on 25 January 1998, 14 years ago.

In appreciating India, it's extremely handy to have a basic grounding in Indian history and the tenets of Hinduism, as there are very few places in the country that haven't been fundamentally shaped by a combination of theological and historic events.

The Hindu Pantheon

Hinduism has loads of gods – it makes Christianity look positively lightweight. However most of the stories are centred round a handful of big players, and it's worth knowing who they are.

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Surya's Sun Temple at Konark (click to enlarge)

Written on 24 January 1998, 14 years ago.

Puri is a procrastinator's paradise, but after a couple of days finding my bearings, I decided I just had to ease myself out of the restaurant-by-the-sea experience to explore the biggest tourist attraction in the area: the Sun Temple in Konark. A World Heritage site – always a good pointer, especially in India, home to loads of the things – it's a gorgeous sandstone building, smothered in intricate carvings in the way that Hindu temples often are. However, Konark's carvings have a subject matter that is a world away from the seriousness of many other temples: Konark specialises in the (t)horny subject of sex, and other equally essential aspects of life.

From intricate carvings of monogamy in a whole range of positions, to polygamy with varying numbers of women, up to polyandry and plenty of erect penises, Konark was fascinating. Created in celebration of Surya, the Sun God, it is aligned east-west and takes the form of a huge chariot, with carved wheels down the side that double as sun clocks. Eric and I took a guide, who delighted in pointing out particularly interesting sculptures, such as the dog licking a woman, and the man with an infected manhood all bundled up in a bandage; he managed to impart a lot of information, despite his heavy Indian accent, which made it hard to understand some of the more technical references to sex, an ambiguous enough subject in plain English.

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The view over Arthur's Pass from the path up to Avalanche Peak (click to enlarge)

Written on 23 January 1997, 15 years ago.

From Punakaiki I'd been planning to continue north, but the weather decided that it was going to be miserable, so I turned round, went back to Greymouth and turned inland towards Arthur's Pass, along the road back over the Alps to Christchurch. After a night in a rest area, I arrived in Arthur's Pass to surprisingly beautiful weather, and made the most of it to scoot up Avalanche Peak, a fairly steep track up to the top of a mountain with wonderful views over the pass and surrounding mountains, and well worth the effort in good weather. My timing was impeccable: as I sat at the top, chatting to a couple I met there, the clouds rolled in, and the visibility changed from tens of kilometres to tens of feet. It just goes to show that carrying all those spare clothes, even on the shortest tramp, is a good idea, because I went up in T-shirt and shorts and came down in trackie bottoms, three layers and my Gore-Tex top, and I still felt bloody freezing...

It stayed cold and miserable for the rest of the day, so I hung out in the public shelter and met plenty of interesting and chatty people (public shelters obviously being the place to be in shitty weather) and that evening, when the skies cleared temporarily, I managed to do the Arthur's Pass Historic Walk, a short jaunt round a number of plaques that describe the history of the place. The driving wind only convinced me to head back indoors, and after putting up the tent (you can camp at the Arthur's Pass public shelter quite legally) we yarned the night away while the wind whistled around the eaves.

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Yet again it all came together late on a Sunday night, this time in a little room in the Pier Hotel on the north coast of Tasmania. But this time I got the whole song out, and the listeners weren't just punters, they were the performers...

Another weekend, another folk festival: the Tamar Valley Folk Festival, held for the fifth year in the industrial town of George Town on the north part of the Tamar River. Have you any idea how it feels to walk into a completely strange town, having only been in the state for a week, and to meet loads of people you know? It's quite a buzz, but it started getting confusing when I'd go for a piss, and the bloke next to me would go, 'G'day Mark, how's the travelling going?' This happened on more than one occasion, but the scary thing was I couldn't remember meeting these people in the first place (though it must have been from the folk festival in Cygnet).

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Mighty Franz Josef Glacier dwarfs its visitors in the foreground (click to enlarge)

Written on 21 January 1997, 15 years ago.

That night after finishing the Routeburn-Greenstone Track I pampered myself with a couple of cold beers in the local pub, chatting away to a fellow tramper I'd met in the caravan park, Tim, who was full of stories of grizzly bears in North America and the desolation of Alaska. The next day, Friday 17th, was pretty desolate too, as I headed off to Wanaka over the highest road in New Zealand, 1121m above sea level at the highest point. Unfortunately it's also one of the most corrugated and disastrously steep roads I've ever driven on, so the stunning views and pretty little settlement of Cardrona were less memorable than the struggle to avoid falling off the cliffs... still, it was a worthy detour, and got me in the mood for a little driving.

I shot through Wanaka, another picturesque town on another glacial lake, and kept driving over the Haast Pass to the wild west coast, stopping off at various stunning sights such as Knight's Point (with its beautiful views up and down the rugged coast to places like Arnott Point) and the glacial lakes of the interior. There were loads of waterfalls and forest walks along the way, but after the Fiordland tramps, the last thing I wanted was more bloody rainforest and falling water, so I just drove and drove until I found a little DOC campsite at Lake Paringa, another picturesque glacial lake (complete with the usual sandflies and masses of forest). It was pretty and wild, but, to be honest, wearing a little thin after the overdose I'd had in the wilderness. And that's where the glaciers came in.

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My first view of the backstreets of Calcutta, where even the idioms are smothered in grime (click to enlarge)

Written on 21 January 1998, 14 years ago.

Calcutta has an image problem. Ask most people what springs to mind when you mention the capital of West Bengal, and the images are of black holes, excessive pollution, slums, Mother Theresa and human tragedy. The guidebooks recommend that if this is your first visit to India, you shouldn't make Calcutta your point of arrival. I can see why, but in my case it was exactly what I needed to shake the cobwebs of complacency away: it has got to be the best introduction to a country I've ever experienced. Talk about getting a buzz from travelling...

Calcutta is a calamity of humanity. From the minute you step off the plane, it's in your face, shocking and surprising at every turn. India strikes you hard: all your preconceptions are inadequate. I found I could imagine slums, beggars, pollution and sheer filth pretty well, but there's a difference between imagination and reality, and however well prepared you are, the real thing makes you think. On the other hand, I wasn't so much shocked as fascinated: I'd been gradually introduced to the squalor of Asia by going from the western world through various degrees of the developing world, and now that I was in the Third World I found I could handle it. I was actually more shocked at my lack of surprise than I was by the squalor itself: I felt almost guilty to be able to accept such shocking scenes without feeling emotional. Such is the effect of long-term travel.

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Cataract Gorge is very close to Launceston (click to enlarge)

Written on 19 January 1996, 16 years ago.

I had the number of Claire, the teacher whom I'd met at the end-of-festival party in Cygnet, jotted down in my book; she'd said she would be going to George Town, so when I got to Launceston I rang her, and got myself invited to dinner. It was gorgeous: homemade quiche, eaten in the garden with all these amazingly right-on women who lived in the house, with a view of Launceston that took the breath away. Launceston – named after the town in Cornwall that also lies on the Tamar River – is built across a valley, and Claire's house is at the top of one side, so you can imagine the view.

One of the women at Claire's, a visiting friend called Mandy, had to go off to do a cleaning job that night, so we went along for the walk and, of course, ended up helping out. Mandy had promised a beer for helping, and if there's one carrot that shifts this donkey, that's it.

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Throughout West Africa I've met people doing a similar journey to mine, but in the opposite direction. In Mali I met lots of people who came from Ghana via Burkina Faso, and the one consistent impression I got from them was that Ghana is by far the most relaxed and easygoing country in the region. Within a few seconds of crossing the Ghanaian border, I knew they were right; here people smile, joke and laugh in a way that they simply don't in Senegal and Mali. And for someone whose French is adequate but not fluent, the joy I felt on hearing English again was palpable.

Irritatingly I lost my drive in Ghana, not because of Ghana, but because I finally realised I need to go home; I therefore failed to explore Ghana in great detail, instead concentrating on the coast west of Accra, where I lazed on the beach and hid from the hassles of Africa. But even though I haven't seen as much of Ghana as I have of Mali, Senegal and so on, I've fallen in love with the place; Ghana is a perfect place for travelling, and as an introduction to African travel, it's hard to beat.

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India is the original destination for fans of flower power; places like the market in Mysore don't disappoint (click to enlarge)

Written on 18 January 1998, 14 years ago.

I've been excited about India for some time now. How can one fail to be stunned by the statistics about a country that contains one-sixth of the world's population? Check out these selected facts I gleaned from a bunch of articles in Time magazine:

• Five people die in traffic accidents in Delhi every day.

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  ]]> Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT Mark Moxon's Travel Writing http://www.moxon.net/india/thoughts_before_arriving.html http://feeds.moxon.net/~r/traveldigest/~3/3fR0goLeIO0/bicheno.html Written on 18 January 1996, 16 years ago. Saying goodbye to the Cygnet gang, Tommy and I caught a coach up to Bicheno on the east coast of Tassie, hoping to get a connection to Coles Bay in the beautiful Freycinet National Park just south of Bicheno. Unfortunately the connection wasn't possible, and after half an hour's unsuccessful attempts at hitching in the fading light, we gave up and stayed the night in Bicheno, and very pleasant it was too. Bicheno is a picturesque little port, and has a colony of fairy penguins...

  Stunning Hazards Bay is just one of the perfect bays in Freycinet National Park (click to enlarge)

  Written on 18 January 1996, 16 years ago.

  Saying goodbye to the Cygnet gang, Tommy and I caught a coach up to Bicheno on the east coast of Tassie, hoping to get a connection to Coles Bay in the beautiful Freycinet National Park just south of Bicheno. Unfortunately the connection wasn't possible, and after half an hour's unsuccessful attempts at hitching in the fading light, we gave up and stayed the night in Bicheno, and very pleasant it was too.

  Bicheno is a picturesque little port, and has a colony of fairy penguins that crawl around the coast at sunset. We hit the beach at sundown, and waited around for a while, but we couldn't see anything, except for a wicked blowhole that shot water everywhere when the waves hit it. So we went off wandering, and before long we stumbled onto a nest with a baby penguin in it. It was so cute, but it was cowering away under a rock, so we left it and returned to the shore where, half an hour later, this tiny foot-tall fairy penguin waddled right past Tommy and into the rocks. There might not have been penguins exactly everywhere, but that made it even more special to see some.

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  ]]> Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT Mark Moxon's Travel Writing http://www.moxon.net/australia/bicheno.html http://feeds.moxon.net/~r/traveldigest/~3/86tQZHCG3Mc/thoughts_on_leaving.html Written on 18 January 1998, 14 years ago. So, another country gets ticked off the list. I can't really comment too much on Thailand: despite being here for a month, I never really left the cosy confines of the tourist trail, and I have no idea what the real Thailand is like. In places like Chiang Mai, the Khao San Road and Ko Samui the locals are tainted by tourism, and as a result they're pretty miserable and offhand, and the service is terrible. However, I'm absolutely convinced that this is not representative of Thais in...

  There's plenty of fun to be had in Thailand, such as elephant trekking in the north, but I still found the place disappointing (click to enlarge)

  Written on 18 January 1998, 14 years ago.

  So, another country gets ticked off the list. I can't really comment too much on Thailand: despite being here for a month, I never really left the cosy confines of the tourist trail, and I have no idea what the real Thailand is like. In places like Chiang Mai, the Khao San Road and Ko Samui the locals are tainted by tourism, and as a result they're pretty miserable and offhand, and the service is terrible. However, I'm absolutely convinced that this is not representative of Thais in general: they're supposed to be incredibly friendly, and although I didn't experience it, I didn't exactly put any effort into exploring the real Thailand.

  There is one thing that's true, though. For me – and statistically speaking, I'm in a minority with this opinion – Thailand is no big deal. Sure, there are plenty of places to visit, but none of them really filled me with a major desire to explore, and I could have omitted Thailand from my trip without any discernible tear spillage. I'm glad I came and did what I did, but compared to Indonesia it felt tame, compared to Singapore it felt backward, and compared to Malaysia it felt downright unfriendly.

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  ]]> Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT Mark Moxon's Travel Writing http://www.moxon.net/thailand/thoughts_on_leaving.html http://feeds.moxon.net/~r/traveldigest/~3/cMIu2wDB1xI/routeburn-greenstone_track.html Written on 17 January 1997, 15 years ago. The next bout of activity I'd planned was the Routeburn Track, which starts just north of Glenorchy (itself to the northwest of Queenstown) and takes you to a point called the Divide on the Milford Road. There I planned to pick up the Greenstone Track, taking me back towards Glenorchy, but ending some 25km of dusty road and a good day's walk from the start of the Routeburn (and my car). 'Never mind, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it,' I thought. The Routeburn is...

  Scenery near the start of the Routeburn (click to enlarge)

  Written on 17 January 1997, 15 years ago.

  The next bout of activity I'd planned was the Routeburn Track, which starts just north of Glenorchy (itself to the northwest of Queenstown) and takes you to a point called the Divide on the Milford Road. There I planned to pick up the Greenstone Track, taking me back towards Glenorchy, but ending some 25km of dusty road and a good day's walk from the start of the Routeburn (and my car). 'Never mind, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it,' I thought.

  The Routeburn is interesting; before I did it I had doubts about whether it was going to be worth the effort. After the Hollyford-Pyke it looked like plain sailing, with only one extra challenge; with the huts being NZ$28 a night (it's one of the Great Walks all right) I'd opted to camp for only NZ$9 a night, but that, of course, added over 2kg of tent to my already back-straining pack. The problem with the Routeburn is that it's a bit of a surrogate for the Milford, which means it's a real tourist track; some 10,000 people a year tramp the Routeburn, and most of them aren't Kiwis. I figured I'd just have to bite the bullet and put up with masses of tourists, and although there were plenty of people on the track, the fact that I was camping meant I never had any real problems. Sure, there were some crowded spots, such as the Harris Saddle Shelter, but no self-respecting tourist is going to worry about saving NZ$19 a night for the privilege of lugging a tent around, so the campsites were pretty empty, and actually I rather enjoyed the tourist-watching.

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  ]]> Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT Mark Moxon's Travel Writing http://www.moxon.net/new_zealand/routeburn-greenstone_track.html http://feeds.moxon.net/~r/traveldigest/~3/q28ejSo9970/pouring_petrol_on_flames.html Written on 17 January 2003, 9 years ago. Ghana's economy has taken a bit of a battering over the last few years, but I still wasn't prepared me for the shock that the government unleashed on the population this morning. Today the price of a gallon of petrol has increased from 10,500 cedis to a whopping 20,000 cedis, just like that. That's an increase of over 90 per cent overnight. The main reason for the increase is depressingly simple. The state-run Tema Oil Refinery, Ghana's main refinery, is in debt to the tune of 4.5...

  A rather snazzy car in James Town, Accra; the owner no doubt is thrilled by the price of petrol in Ghana (click to enlarge)

  Written on 17 January 2003, 9 years ago.

  Ghana's economy has taken a bit of a battering over the last few years, but I still wasn't prepared me for the shock that the government unleashed on the population this morning. Today the price of a gallon of petrol has increased from 10,500 cedis to a whopping 20,000 cedis, just like that. That's an increase of over 90 per cent overnight.

  The main reason for the increase is depressingly simple. The state-run Tema Oil Refinery, Ghana's main refinery, is in debt to the tune of 4.5 trillion cedis (that's 4,500,000,000,000 cedis, or around £330 million) and the debt is getting bigger all the time. Official explanations of this huge debt are vague, to say the least, but the words 'corruption' and 'inefficiency' crop up throughout Ghana's top-selling daily newspaper, the Daily Graphic, and at least one important official has been sacked as a result.

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  ]]> Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT Mark Moxon's Travel Writing http://www.moxon.net/ghana/pouring_petrol_on_flames.html http://feeds.moxon.net/~r/traveldigest/~3/U0e3Xi6oG9E/cygnet.html Written on 16 January 1996, 16 years ago. The search for traditional Australian music was beginning to feel like an impossible task. The contemporary Australian bands I'd come across on Triple J1 were stunning, but the only rootsy music I'd heard was didgeridoo music packaged up for tourists, and myriad chill-out albums with titles like Tropical Rainforest, Red Desert and other such inspiring names. I wanted to discover music from the days of convicts and colonies, and the Huon Folk Festival in Cygnet seemed the perfect place to... Written on 16 January 1996, 16 years ago.

  The search for traditional Australian music was beginning to feel like an impossible task. The contemporary Australian bands I'd come across on Triple J were stunning, but the only rootsy music I'd heard was didgeridoo music packaged up for tourists, and myriad chill-out albums with titles like Tropical Rainforest, Red Desert and other such inspiring names. I wanted to discover music from the days of convicts and colonies, and the Huon Folk Festival in Cygnet seemed the perfect place to try.

  The coach from Hobart to Cygnet passed through truly gorgeous countryside – Tasmania is one of the most the most beautiful states in Oz – and eventually I ended up in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere called Huonville, waiting for the only bus out to Cygnet. Cygnet is very near the coast and only has a population of 960, which might give you a vague idea of how isolated it is, so I killed time waiting for the bus by buying a copy of the Hobart Mercury, to find out what had happened to the two women in the car accident. I read with a sinking feeling that they were dead on arrival, and tucked away in the depths of the photo on the front page was me, peering out from under my bush hat, gawking into the dock along with everyone else. It was rather unnerving, to be honest.

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  ]]> Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT Mark Moxon's Travel Writing http://www.moxon.net/australia/cygnet.html http://feeds.moxon.net/~r/traveldigest/~3/2BAF8AtVWKY/visiting_jimmy_moxon.html Written on 16 January 2003, 9 years ago. It was on Christmas Day back in 1998 that I first heard about Jimmy Moxon, the Gentleman Chief of Ghana. The family was gathered around the dining room table, tucking into another legendary turkey lunch, when the subject strayed onto my recent travels. This led naturally to the plans for my next trip, and when I mentioned that I hoped to travel to Africa one day, my Dad said, 'You should try to visit Jimmy Moxon while you're out there. He's a genuine African chief, you know.' I...

  The late Jimmy Moxon (click to enlarge)

  Written on 16 January 2003, 9 years ago.

  It was on Christmas Day back in 1998 that I first heard about Jimmy Moxon, the Gentleman Chief of Ghana. The family was gathered around the dining room table, tucking into another legendary turkey lunch, when the subject strayed onto my recent travels. This led naturally to the plans for my next trip, and when I mentioned that I hoped to travel to Africa one day, my Dad said, 'You should try to visit Jimmy Moxon while you're out there. He's a genuine African chief, you know.'

  I didn't really believe him at the time, but when I started planning my trip to West Africa I remembered what he'd said and asked him if he'd been pulling my leg.

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  ]]> Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT Mark Moxon's Travel Writing http://www.moxon.net/ghana/visiting_jimmy_moxon.html http://feeds.moxon.net/~r/traveldigest/~3/8o3QyI7k2KA/chiang_mai.html Written on 15 January 1998, 14 years ago. After an excruciating 12-hour journey, the Bangkok bus arrived in Chiang Mai. As with most long bus journeys, it was uncomfortable and fairly unpleasant, but luckily Charlie had discovered some sleeping pills in his travel medical kit, and miraculously they worked. Unfortunately they didn't kick in until after the obligatory full-volume Thai-dubbed American movie – arguably the most difficult part of any long bus haul in Thailand – had melted my brain. Still, with...

  The elephant that took me through the northern hills (click to enlarge)

  Written on 15 January 1998, 14 years ago.

  After an excruciating 12-hour journey, the Bangkok bus arrived in Chiang Mai. As with most long bus journeys, it was uncomfortable and fairly unpleasant, but luckily Charlie had discovered some sleeping pills in his travel medical kit, and miraculously they worked. Unfortunately they didn't kick in until after the obligatory full-volume Thai-dubbed American movie – arguably the most difficult part of any long bus haul in Thailand – had melted my brain. Still, with sleeping pills, eye shades and ear plugs it was a bearable event, and our arrival in Chiang Mai and the discovery of a place to stay wasn't exactly difficult, as the bus ticket included a free night's accommodation in one of the many guest houses dotted around. Yes, Chiang Mai is a serious tourist trap.

  Its main attraction is the trekking. I'd had absolutely no intention of going on an organised trek – an oxymoron in my book – but on arrival at the guest house, a thinly disguised tour booking operation, I began to reconsider. After all, the secret to a good trek is to go with a good group, and the bunch off the bus were as good as it gets. Before I knew it, I was booked on a three-day trek into the hills of northern Thailand.

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  ]]> Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT Mark Moxon's Travel Writing http://www.moxon.net/thailand/chiang_mai.html