Sarah does London

London is my fourth country within a year and I felt very tired of moving when we held the latest farewell party. I'm getting old! But obviously it's great - as always! Actually it's almost better than the last three places I called home this year. There is so much to do, I wouldn't know where to start. So let me give you some impressions.

What is London?
London is...

• the global village described in Anti-Globalization Books (and the proof that they might be wrong).The same international crowd hangs around here, but this time this crowd seems to have taken over this wonderful city.
• polluted, pretty dirty and the badly maintained tubes give you the creeps.
  
• Arty. Galleries, Museums, Theatres, Events... If art can be life, than it must be London.
• beautiful, especially when the sun is shining... which in fact happens more often than you think (I suppose, you think "never")
• expensive. The pound is what counts and you better become an investment banker. Being a workaholic is the second nature of a Londoner.
• lively, at 3 am there is a rush hour on all major nightbusses to get the first half of the party crowds home.
• dead, after 11.30 its difficult to find an affordable drink... so you get send home earlier then you want to leave most of the time
  
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Turkey 2007

Finally another trip. Finally out! After five months of nothing much but Western European normality, I took a trip to Turkey. A package holiday country indeed, though individual tours are as easy as it could possibly be... even Thailand seems more difficult compared to it. Busses are cheap and most hostels provide pick-ups – so no carrying a backpack if you don’t realy want (40 degrees might make you appreciate this facilitation).

We did the normal Lonely Planet loop from Istanbul heading south up to Capadokia (wiki). And guess what, surprise, surprise, the hostels where packed with the usual bunch of Kiwis and Aussis – the best travellers nations!

In Turkey I found myself confronted with my own prejudices and misinformation. I still believe, that the negative image Turkey got in Western European media has a true core (for the sake of peace and diplomacy I sneaked out of the Armenian genocide debates). I haven’t seen a lot of women participating in public life. I have not been to normal Turkey, off the sights, where there is “nothing” to see but real people and normality. Haven’t been to the East, where things work according to different laws and follow more of the traditions than in the western part.

But I have seen a country with ambitions and potential (Coca Cola and the advertisement giants realized that aswell). I have seen a country that does not differ much from any other Southern European country. I didn’t see too many women inhabiting the coffee houses of Greece back in the 1980s. What were the economic conditions of Spain before it joined the EU? There is potential for change and development.

Turkish people deserve a price: they are the most hospitable people I have met on my jurneys. (I consider the fact, that each and every man wanted at least to be my one-night bf, but still!) People in Istanbul tried to show us the way whenever possible. You could turn to anyone with any question! Now being back... it´s lonely here.

My trip rating:

• Istanbul is my absolut favourite city, still on second sight. Istanbul is lively and young bussling of culture and activity and a vivid club scene. I bet it´s going to boost in art and taste of music soon! It´s the most beautiful city I know (sorry Hong Kong, you miss out by far). (Sad to mention, but a fair must: poverty, gated communities and a complete lack of public transportation ;)
• Pamukkale became my favourite in terms of beautiful sights!
• Olympos was my favourite party place – Mel, it was a realy nice evening in deed!
• No go: Kusadasi taught me not even to consider to go to any of the other mass tourist hot spots invaded by Dutch, Germans and British. I fled form blinking lights, souvenir shops and Aqua Parks.

My unanswered trip question:

• If there is no water in Turkey ... WHY is every city immediately building fountains and parks with grass as soon as they can afford it? And shouldn’t someone stop the insane desire for Aqua Parks and pools?

Brussels 2007

Belgium has something to offer, that is extraordinary in Europe: cheap trainrides. In politics, we call it best-practice: pick the South African constitution, the Scandinavian social system and definetly Belgian train prices when you become dictator (?) of your own state (www.nationstates.net). One can buy ten tickets for €65 (45 if you´re younger than 26).
So I´ve been to our wonderful European capital quite a few times lately. The European Quarter is pretty much occupied by serious people in suits and overpriced bars, but there is also the African quarter or the touristy market square (with a freaky café: the tables are replaced by real coffins!) and its cute tiny streets around.

(I´ll add some pictures as soon as my camera, which I forgot in Beligum, will be returned to me after finishing a Europe trip Belgium-Czech-Netherlands... this camera is behaving like the dwarf in Amelie lately....)

Queensday

30th of April - Queensday. It is the birthday celebration not as you would expect of current Queen Beatrix but of her mother Juliana who was Queen from 1948 till 1980. People are carrying orange rather than the colours of the Dutch flag. It's the same orange well known of football jerseys. Especially in Amsterdam it's just one gigantic party and one can enjoy people in all kinds of dresses one being more crazy than the other. There is a Queen who knows how to party!

Queensnight, the evening before Queensday, bands are playing all over town and masses of people are inhabiting the streets of Amsterdam. Queensday morning the whole city is transformed into a fleemarket. Its allowed for anyone to do buisiness that day so it's a good opportunity for a crazy purchase. In the evening the parties of the previous night are restarted. Before Holland returns to complete normality.

My city of residence shows a certain ignorance towards Queensday, as do they show it to almost all Dutch holidays, therefore we left for Amsterdam and went nuts there. It was an awesome experience comparable with Berlin Carneval of Cultures or Christopher Street Day. It had a slight touch of Carneval but the music was significantly better.

LONDON

London, a small city somewhere in Europe. Europeans claim it's big, people from Shanghai laugh about them. Nobody laughs about the prices. In 2000 (UK National Statistics) :

• overall prices in London were 6.8% higher than the UK average
• goods tend to be only 2.6% more expensive but services are 13.0% more expensive
• housing was 53% percent more expensive than in the total UK (and 74% if one excluded London from this calculation)

The good news:

• local passenger transport by bus was 28.8% cheaper
• sewerage collection was 19.6% cheaper
  

So though in London you have to live under a bridge and work your a** off and still will not be able to afford a hair cut service, you can at least drive around by bus and use the toilet as much as you want. In relation to the rest of the world London ranked No.5 on the globe. Top 10 most expensive cities are
1.Moscow
2.Seoul
3.Tokyo
4.Hong Kong
5.London
6.Osaka
7.Geneva
8.Copenhagen
9.Zurich
10.Oslo, New York (tied)Nevertheless I dropped by that awesome city the other day to meet a friend who was living in Hong Kong (No.4) at that moment. Guess who?
=No, its the girl to the right. The girl to the left can laugh at small London with its few people.

(time) Travelling back to Cambodia

Seeking Pitty: Its been some time. I'm so sorry. One could wonder what's the point of it.... but there is an explanation, I am not trying to sneek out of my responsibility as a writer. I am not trying to arouse pity. Its just first I was kidnapped by aliens for a few weeks and now my precious, my computer, is refusing cooporation.

Recently I came back to the "Great Temples in the Jungle" quite frequently, so I would like to post some pictures dated back a few months ago.

Angkor are several capitals of the Khmer empire (9th-15th century). It's an astonishing, gigantic temple complex most likely to be included as one of the New 7 Worldwonders. The temples, that have regained some fame in Tomb Raider, were Hindu shrines and later changed into Mahayana Buddhist temples.

We arrived in Cambodia from Vietnam with one of the notorious and so much beloved tours. Our Mekong Delta tour ended in Pnohm Penh. Greeting to Juho at this point, who is still there and supposably writing his thesis - Good luck, my friend and thanks for the visit in your appartment. Our jurney was a type of 80 days around the globe rush: There was a deadline to be met: Bangkok airport on the 5th of January. So we did not take enough time in Cambodia's capital, nor devoted much time to its country side or people. We were heading for IT: Angkor! Like a million other people each year, we wanted to see what that ancient civilization has left in the forest. We arrived in Siem Reap a place crowded with tourists (most of them wearing more or least inappropriately short shirts and trousers like myself). And like all these others we took hotel rooms and bargained with the local Tuk Tuk drivers for the upcomming daytrip.

What to say about Angkor? You have to be into "old stones". I cannot imagine what people populated that place. I do not understand the "confusion" of Hindu legends. But what these people built in this hot and partly hostile climate is seriously impressive. These faces, these figures, these forms! It's amazing!

The other side to Angkor is that Cambodia as a former war-torn country suffers from extreme poverty, lack of development, corruption and war relicts. Children are begging around the temples and mines turn acres into deadly fields. It's a poor country at this point and I doubt about the positive contribution trourism can make.

about terrorists and climate...

Terrorist activity can have a positive impact on the environment. Studies, if they were politically not unimaginably, would probably show, that terrorist attacks on planes can reduce flying and comparatively make train jurneys more attractive.

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Train jurneys have high opportunity costs in form of the amount of time one needs. Secondly the costs are very high especially since the emergence of cheap airlines like Virgin, Easy Jet, Rude Air or Air Berlin (I am talking Europe here).

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Air planes are known for reducing travelling times within Europe to 30 min to 1.5 hours and tickets can be purchased from 20 euros onwards (including taxes).

On the other hand espcially short distance travelling by plane has a destructive impact on our climate. Because of the hight in 9-13 km the emissions of kerosene have a two times to four times bigger impact than similar emissions at ground level (Bund, 2003:1). My latest flight produced 0.08 tonees of CO2, but luckily emissions in europe are cheap and it only cost 15 euros in CO2 emissions, my flight from Hong Kong though was only 12.24 euros and produced 1.09 tonnes of CO2 (British Airways provides a nice emission calculator).

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I have probably clearly stated that flying is bad, but its time efficient and cheap.

Since governments seem able to restrict smoking but not yet the fun of flying, terrorists have stepped on the stage.

Terrorists have changed some of the advantges of plane jurneys, making train jurneys wise to be reconsidered.

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• Flying has become considered with a certain fear of finalizing the flight in somebody's office instead of the airport. Threatening airport announcements remind you that unattentded luggage will be pulverised and that their is a bag without the passenger underneath your a** in the plane which needs to be searched before it could explode.

• Flying has become time consuming, humilating and annoying. The European Union regulation only allows you a very limited number of fluids in your hand luggage which makes the handluggage-only flights rather difficult. If you managed nevertheless to fit everything in the tiny 20x20 cm bag AND they did not throw away your perfume nevertheless as being potential explosives, THAN you can pack out your laptop, your MP3, your digital camera, get rid of your belt and can have close peronal contact with a security officer nervertheless. Than you can hopp with all your things in your arms on one legg, take off your shoes and run on socks to catch your flight in the last minute.

• Security procedures take you so much time that instead of 1 you should definetely consider 1.5-2 hours waiting before beginning your flight.

If I can I take the train, you don't even need to be on time because they are always late. Taking trains is better for our climate and its opportunity cost is significantly lower now!

Upcomming blog: How terrorist activity increases emissions from tornado jets

Southern Vietnam

From Hoi An it was a murderous 30 hours bus ride down to Ho Chi Minh City(HCMC) (the inner city is famous Saigon). I can highly recommend the Reunification Palace in HCMC, the architecture and interieur is hard to find in South East Asia, truely impressive 60s style.
Christmas was strange, or let me say different; cultures merge! Continental European retail industry has discovered Halloween as a promising market gap so do Vietnamese celebrate Christmas. On Christmas Night, people with their scooters populated the streets of Saigon, making a crossing slow and nerve wrecking. Turning around the whole Father Christmas story the kids are dressed up as Father Christmas. Call it globalization: Same same but different.


We joined another one day tourist tour to visit a Chao Dai Tempel and the Vietkong tunnels (what a genious mix!). The tunnels gave me an impression of the horrors of the Vietnamese war and though truely tempting I think its SICK to shoot around with AK47s at such an occasion and in general and anyhow... (please refer to my Lebanon war post).

Another tour (I am sufficiently tour tortured for long time to come) got us around the Mekong Delta. It was terrific countryside, photo objects and foreign things to see. With all the other tourists (you never walk alone...) we had a look at floating markets and the djungel of the Delta!


My travelling group split at this point and we left Leila and Choralie in Vietnam and continued with three: Jaquim, Sophie and me. By boat we left Vietnam to Cambodia on the Mekong. I said good bye Vietnam but the Mekong I revisited again thousands of kilometers up its stream weeks later.

In conclusion: This Post and my stories do not sufficiently reflect Vietnams most important feature: its people. I saw impressive things and got a grip on the geography of Vietnam. I learned about the history, saw the living standards and realized some of the problems. I did not sufficiently get in touch with the people and the Vietnamese society, but in my own defense - on a holiday its hard to achieve that.