Sydney

I hadn't been back in Beirut long when myself and Nia decided to take a trip to Australia. We had been toying with idea of going to UK and even started applying for Nia's visa but then her Australian visa came through - which she had already applied for - and her aunt in Sydney was insisting that she go. So to Sydney it was.

I was in Oz over ten years ago on a one work visa and spent a good ten months of that time living in Sydney where I had a whale of a time so I was very much looking forward to going back and checking out my old haunts. On top of that a good uni friend of mine lives in Sydney, I have two friends in Adelaide who I met last time I was in Oz and another uni mate living in Darwin. So I had plenty of people to catch up while I was there.

After a mammoth 22 hour journey we arrived exhausted at Sydney. Nia was staying with her aunt, but that wasn't really an option for me since as far as her family new we weren't seeing each other so instead I was staying with my old university mate Mark. Mark came and met me at the airport which I thought was pretty good of him considering it was the early hours of the morning. I said a temporary goodbye to Nia and headed out with Mark. It was grey, cold and drizzling - maybe we have should of gone to the UK instead.

Mark dropped me at the flat and went off to work; because our trip had been organised at such short notice Mark hadn't been able to get any time off work. I decided that I wasn't that jet lagged and could probably stay awake for the day. I lay down on the sofa put the TV and promptly went to sleep for five hours. I woke up at 2:30 in the afternoon but according to my body clock it was the middle of night. I knew if I went back to sleep now it would be fatal and I'd be awake all night so I forced myself to stay awake, got out of the flat and wandered down to the beach. Mark lives in Coogee about a ten minute walk from beach, which is one of the nicest beaches in central Sydney. It is also the location of the Coogee Bay Hotel (or CBH) which was the site of many an all night drinking session last time I was here. It was great to see the beach again - it hadn't really changed at all. The CBH meanwhile had had a refurb in the back bar and was looking very bright and clean - not the dark, dingy drinking den I remembered.

My first few days in Sydney were spent taking it easy walking around town and visiting some familiar places. I saw the house I used to live in. My local pub which was in staggering distance from the house and Charcoal Chicken - my favourite eating establishment. In the evening I would go out for a few beers and food with Mark somewhere either in Coogee or nearby Randwick. My stay in Sydney would involve an awful lot of drinking and eating out. I put on a fair bit of weight whilst I was here.

The weekend came and Friday was ANZAC day - a bank holiday in the Australia. I suppose it is a bit like Remembrance Sunday in the UK except here it is another excuse for a almighty piss up - not that the Ozzies really need an excuse. Myself, Mark, Nia and her cousins had some food in the Rocks - a quite funky part of central Sydney up near the harbour bridge. After the food the girls went home to get changed so myself and Mark headed to the Australian pub for a game of 'Two-Up'.

The Australian was ram-packed and had a great atmosphere. There were a few games of two-up going on. This game by law can only be played in pubs on ANZAC day. A referee stands up on a raised platform and someone from the crowd, usually a good-looking girl is called up to toss two coins. Before the toss you can make a bet with anyone in the pub for any amount of money and go with either heads or tails. If two heads come up heads win and if two tails come tails wins. If a head and a tail come up it's a no result and another toss of the coins is required. I took a twenty dollar bet on heads with a guy next me and after four re-tosses I came out victorious. Rather amusingly if the person tossing the coins gets three no results in a row they have to do ten press-ups in front of everyone in the pub. The game is a lot of fun and made for an amazing atmosphere in the pub. Two guys had a 200 dollar bet going on. I was pretty happy with my winnings and we had to move to another pub before I had the chance to squander them which was probably a good thing.

We met up with the girls who tried to get us in into a rather swish drinking establishment. The girls choice of bar was somewhat different to mine and Mark's. The place was for some reason closed on one of the busiest nights of the year so we settled on another bar in Darling Harbour where we drank and danced the evening away. At the end of the evening we made to an establishment called Harry's Cafe de Wheels for the greatest pie experience known to man.

Royal National Park

The next day Nia had some family commitments so after a late start and a hearty English breakfast Mark drove me down to the Royal National Park in his souped up boy racer Ford Fiesta. It was really beautiful here and very peaceful there. We found a pretty secluded beach and had a quick dip. It was really tranquil here. I couldn't believe such a beautiful place so close to Sydney was so quiet on a bank holiday weekend. In the UK a place this would be crammed. The roads in the park were narrow and twisty with little traffic and Mark had a lot of fun driving me round them. We went to a lookout point and I bought myself a nice ice cream then Mark took us back to Sydney.

In the evening we went to Nia's aunt house for a barbeque. Now this was a Lebanese barbeque so I was expecting a fairly grand affair but I was not prepared for the full lamb on spit roast. I was soon put to work oiling the lamb so it didn't dry out with Nia taking lots of photos. After a little while I managed to pass my oiling duties onto someone else and could sit down and enjoy a nice cold beer. The food came out and it was all very delicious and of course there was lots of it. Meat kept getting dumped on our plates. I had been expecting this and paced myself very cunningly. Mark on the other hand was unaccustomed to Lebanese hospitality and was struggling with numerous morsels arriving on his plate much to my amusement.

The following week Mark was at work so I had to amuse myself. Mark was however kind enough to lend me his car on the proviso that I get my arse out of bed in the morning and drive him to work. Having a car at my disposal was a real boon giving me a lot more freedom to visit places that otherwise would have been very difficult to get to. My first use of it was to pick Nia and her younger cousin Rawan up and take them to Manly for a surfing lesson. It was pretty overcast miserable day but at least the were waves small - perfect for learning on. Despite the cold conditions the girls seemed keen and we were soon wet-suited up and ready to go. I assumed the rule of surfing teacher and passed my somewhat limited surfing knowledge onto the girls then we took to the waves. It was pretty cold but we all stayed in for a good couple of hours and had a lot of fun even if we weren't particularly good at it. Once out of the water Rawan was so numb she couldn't pick her board up or hardly even walk. We got changed, had a nice cup of tea and a burger and to warm ourselves up and headed back to Sydney.

The following day myself and Nia did the Harbour Bridge climb. The whole affair is extremely convoluted and takes much longer than it need do. There are loads of health and safety issues to make sure people don't throw themselves off the bridge or drop stuff out their pockets onto the cars and people below. We had to get decked out in very sexy boiler-suits and had to remove anything from our pockets. About the only thing we could take with us was our sunglasses and a handkerchief issued by the people organising the climb, both of which were tied onto our bodies so we couldn't drop them. We weren't allowed cameras even though I'm sure we could have tied these to ourselves - which meant they could then take photos of us and sell them back to us for an extortionate price. Next we were hooked up into harnesses which we would be able to clip onto a railing so we couldn't kill ourselves by taking a jump off the bridge. We then got a lesson in how to climb up ladders. After what seemed like an inordinate amount of time we were finally let loose on the bridge. Our guide Shamus was a wealth of information and told us a good deal about the construction of the bridge. Two teams of construction worker built it starting from opposite ends. The ends were suspended by cables. When the two ends were complete they were lowered till they met and then riveted together - and so they have remained joined together ever since. Apparently there about six million rivets in the bridge. Shamus also had plenty of non-bridge trivia to bombard us with as we made our way up the bridge such as telling us that glacial ice melts at a slower rate than normal ice. I'm glad to say the view from the top was worth the long drawn out affair of getting there. Our descent was a much a swifter affair. All in all the whole bridge climb experience took a good three to four hours and I'm sure we could have done in about twenty minutes. Nevertheless the climb was definitely one of the highlights of my time in Sydney and comes highly recommended. One final nugget of information passed onto us by Shamus was a list of where to go for a drink after the climb we took this advice on board and went to a lovely pub with a roof terrace overlooking the bridge and the opera house.

We went to the opera house the following evening to see some classical music. I believe it was some Schubert and Tchaikovsky. Not something I would normally do but when traveling you seem quite often to do things you wouldn't normally bother to do at home. It was well worth doing. The opera house looked just as awesome from the inside as from the out and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Afterwards we went to the Opera Bar for a few drinks. It's a lovely outside bar on the harbour overlooking the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.

I continued to make good use of Mark's car and took Nia back to the Royal National Park. This time we hired a canoe and made our way along the river. It was so secluded and tranquil. The waters were absolutely still and reflections of it were just totally amazing. I've never seen anything like it. We also used the car for a visit to the blue mountains. We were a bit pushed for time but still managed to see a few sites.

Randwick Races

The other big highlight of Sydney was our visit to the Randwick races. Nia and her cousins were very much looking forward to this event and had got themselves hats and were planning on getting dressed to the nines. So Mark and myself felt we ought to make the effort as well. Now being a backpacker meant my wardrobe consisted of very little in the way of anything that could be described as smart. Luckily Mark was able to lend me a smart pair of trousers and shoes and Nia bought me a tie so I managed to cobble together a vaguely presentable outfit to deck myself out in. Suitably attired we made our way to the racecourse. Being avid race fans me and Mark were there by 11:30am in time for the first race and immediately started on the beers. The girls of course took a lot longer to get ready and didn't turn for a couple more hours. But all the time they spent getting ready most certainly paid off - they all looked tremendous.

I've only been to the races a couple of times and have tried employing a number of different gambling strategies all of which have been equally unsuccessful. I left Mark studiously perusing the form guide and just went on the horses names to pick my winners with the predictable result of me becoming parted with my hard earned aussie dollars. I got bored of losing my money and stopped gambling about four races in. I then started making bets with Mark on the races - the loser having to get the next set of beers in. This was a much more fun way to bet on the races. It was a gloriously sunny day and we all had a great time. After the last race the girls made their way back home and Mark and myself wandered back towards Coogee stopping for a curry along the way and then carried on drinking into the early hours. At about 1am we tried to get into the Coogee Bay Hotel. The bouncer decided to ask me how many drinks I had had - I was obviously looking the worse for wear. I had no idea how many I'd had (counting back the following morning I think I must been about 16 beers to the good by that point) so I cautiously ventured "Errr... three or four?". "Now come on, how many have you really had?" the bouncer replied. "Ooooh about six or seven I suppose". That seemed to satisfy him and I was let in albeit on a warning not to get drunk while in the pub. I took that admonishment on board and promptly went to the bar and ordered two more beers.

The next day Nia flew home so I went to airport to see her off. I was staying in Australia for a couple more weeks to visit other friends I had out here. Having seen her off I retreated back to Mark's to spend the of the day on the sofa with a hangover watching DVDs and playing on the PS3.

I had another week in Sydney and spent it walking around the coastline and went surfing a couple of times. I had a particularly scary incident surfing at Bondi when I caught a wave that was a lot bigger than I had initially thought. In fact the wave was huge and I was plumetting vertically downwards clinging to the board for dear life. There was no way I was going to try and stand on the board. Somehow I managed to ride it out without dieing and made it to shore. An Irish guy had seen this all take place. He came over to me said "Jaysus, what happened there. You were upside down at one point!". I had no idea what happened, I was just happy to have survived.

I borrowed Mark's car again while he was at work and took it up to the Hunter Valley - a famous wine region just outside of Sydney. I had a nice drive round the quiet twisty roads and bought a couple of bottles of nice wine to give to Ben our friend in Darwin whom me and Mark were planning to visit. People round here also have this strange habit of putting scarecrows up outside their houses. It's all rather unsettling. I kept the car windows closed, the doors locked and was stopping for no one.

Thanks to the joys of facebook I got contacted by an old school friend whom I hadn't seen or heard of since leaving school. He's now living in Manly - probably the nicest place to live in Sydney. I caught up with him one evening for a few beers. It was a lot of fun to reminisce on school days and catch up on the gossip about what every is up to nowadays.

On my last weekend in Sydney we went to the Royal National Park again and hired out mountain bikes. We started off up a very steep hill and nearly killed ourselves. Once up the hill though it was a much easier affair and we had quite a pleasant ride, stopping off by a little river for lunch. We even found time to hire a canoe and went a little way down the river before heading back to Sydney.

I had a great time in Sydney and if it wasn't so far away from friends and family I could seriously consider moving here. But my time here was at an end and I had friends whom I had first met here in Sydney ten years ago to visit down in Adelaide.

Slideshows

I just discovered that I can put slideshows from smugmug in my blog and I wanted to test it out.

Royal National Park Sydney

Mumbai

And so it was time to leave Kamshet and carry on traveling. I’d had a great time here, learning to fly and spending time chilling out on the roof top overlooking the lake, but after three weeks here and with it being so quiet during the weekdays I was happy enough to be on my way.

My original plan had been to catch up with Phil and Merryl and celebrate Phil’s birthday. But with my paragliding course over running I now only had a few days left on my visa and Phil and Merryl were in the north of India. I didn’t really have enough time to get up north so decided instead to spend my last couple of days checking out Mumbai or Bombay or whatever you want to call it.

The traffic was terrible getting into Mumbai and it was certainly a lot hotter here than in Kamshet which was at a higher elevation. After being dropped off in Colaba – the main tourist area in Mumbai - I wandered around to find a hotel. The place recommended in the lonely planet was full so I looked at another place which was a bit shabby so carried on my search. By now a local had attached himself to me in the hope that he could take me to a hotel and get commission. He was pretty annoying and I couldn’t shake him off. Luckily I found a nice enough place and the staff there knew this guy was trying it on and told him to leave.

Having got a room, I dropped my bags, had a cool shower and with night closing went off in search food. It was still very hot and muggy. It’s the main tourist centre in Mumbai and there are loads guys hassling you. I found a nice restaurant and had some pasta – my first European food in three weeks. Afterwards I ducked into an Internet café to avoid the heat and hassle. I had a mail from Phil telling me about Mumbai; he said it’s hot, hassly and I probably wouldn’t enjoy it. That was a fairly accurate assessment.

I was due to fly from here in a couple days and didn’t really have

Elephanta Island

time to go elsewhere so decided to stick it out here and make the most of my time. I took the ferry to Elephanta Island the following morning. I met a Dutch guy on the ferry over called Martin and we explored the island together. There are a load of tombs and rock carvings on the island that were fairly interesting. There was aslo a baby monkey playing with a puppy that I found far more interesting. We got back to the mainland and Martin decided to do a city walk in the afternoon but I was tired so went back my hotel for a nice lie down. I did meet up with Martin again in the evening for a few beers. We got quite pissed and talked about Philosophy and whether god existed and other such weighty subjects. Later in evening in the same bar there was a local couple having a rather amorous snog. They tried to sneak into the toilets, presumably to get even more amorous, but another guy spotted them and was having none of it and stopped them going in. I got talking to this guy and it turns out that the girl in question was his girlfriend and the guy she was snogging was his best mate. He wasn’t very happy so I bought him a beer and commiserated with him.

I woke up the following morning with quite a hangover and that combined with a hot humid climate inspired me to spend the day in bed under the ceiling fan. The next day was my last in India. My flight was in the evening so I had time to walk round the city, see some of the colonial buildings and spent a pleasant few hours sitting in a park watching the locals play cricket.

I’ve spent two months India. My time has mainly been spent lounging around on the beaches in the south of the country and paragliding. I’ve had a wonderful time here but at same feel like I’ve hardly scratched the surface of the place. I haven’t visited any of the spiritual places in the north of the country or seen the most famous sights. I’ll surely come back here at some point to see some more of this amazing place.

But I am booked on flight to return to Lebanon. I met a girl called Nia last time I was here and have been quite taken with her. So now I am going back to Beirut to spend some more time with her...

Paragliding in Kamshet

To get up to Kamshet from Anjuna I first took a flight to Bombay - or Mumbai if you prefer. As the plane I came in to land I could see the slums of Bombay and they are truly massive. I think Bombay has a population of around 14 million and half that population live the slums. I didn't intend to spend any time Mumbai just now but did plan to come back after my paragliding course. I came out of the airport and had a pre-booked taxi awaiting to take me to Kamshet. My driver didn't really speak any English but was very friendly.

The traffic in Mumbai was terrible. It was the middle of the day and boiling hot. I was sweltering in the taxi. I was glad when we finally got out of the city, got a bit of speed up and got some air flowing through the car. Once out of Mumbai and on the highway we got up to Kamshet pretty quickly. After turning off the highway I thought we'd be at our destination in a few minutes. We drove through Kamshet out the other side and then continued along a pot-holed road making very slow progress. After continuing along for forty minutes or so Kamshet had disappeared behind us and we seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. I was a little worried as to where the hell we were going but held my tongue and trusted that the driver knew where he was going. And lo and behold a few minutes later it appeared he did know as he pointed out across a lake the place where I would be staying.

I arrived at 'Native Place' - the name of the place I was staying at - just as the sun was setting. They were doing dinner up on the roof top, which consisted of a buffet and chicken cooked in the tandoori oven. I grabbed myself a cold beer, watched the sunset behind the lake and then tucked into some delicious food. It was a Saturday and the place was busy with lots people here to fly for the weekend so I had plenty of people to chat to.

I wasn't due to start my course until the Monday so the next morning after a hearty breakfast I just watched some paragliding videos and sat in on a theory class. I headed out with the other students in the afternoon to the flying site just to watch. Rather than see some paragliding I discovered a different sport known as parawaiting. This is what you do when there is no wind and you can't fly. The site we fly at is a ridge site. In order to get lift here which allows you to stay in the air you need a wind that is blowing directly towards the ridge. If there is no wind or the wind is across the ridge or, for that matter, if the wind is too strong then you can't fly. A paraglider generally flies at 35km/h. This means if the wind is 35km/h or stronger the glider won't be able to move forwards relative the ground. On this particular the day there was very little wind and what little wind there was was blowing in the wrong direction.

The next day my course began in earnest with a 6am start. Had a nice cup of tea and some eggs on toast for breakfast and then headed out to some training. Well unfortunately it was another case of the wind being a load of rubbish and we got nothing done. I was very happy at getting up at 6am in order to do nothing. We went back to Native Place for lunch and then headed out again in the afternoon. This time thankfully conditions were better. Being my first day I didn't get to do any flying; instead it was an afternoon of ground handling. This requires a flat or gently sloping piece of ground where you inflate the canopy by running forward. Once the canopy is inflated and above your head the idea is to keep it there. It's a lot harder than it looks and extremely tiring. I was exhausted by the end of the day. I was also pretty rubbish at ground handling.

The next there was, thankfully no 6am start, so I had nice lie in, followed by the usual breakfast of champions - fried eggs on toast and a nice cup of tea. Then I did some theory with my instructor Steve. Steve is a geordie guy and a pretty good instructor. He is helped out by some local guys who are also very good paragliders and instructors. We headed out again in the afternoon for more ground handling. it was another tiring afternoon. My ground handling was improving but still not particularly great.

As the day was nearing a close and I was weary and slightly disillusioned Steve said to me "Are you ready to fly?"

"Yep!" I replied enthusiastically.

"Well pack up your glider and get up the hill then." And that's exactly what I did. Well actually I didn't pack my glider up. There are loads of local kids who wait for us to turn up at the paragliding site. They will pack up your glider for you and carry it up the hill to the launch area - all for a very small fee.

I got to the top of the hill got my glider unpacked and hooked myself up to it. When learning to fly you obviously have to do all your flights on your own, but you are in constant contact with the instructors the whole time by radio. Steve gave me the following talk before my first flight. "Marcus, when we tell you 'OK you can take off now' we aren't telling you have to fly. That decision is always yours. We are just telling that these are good condition for a pilot of your ability to launch in. If you don't feel comfortable or don't want to fly you have to say so. You'll be in direct radio contact with us the whole time and should be perfectly safe. But if you don't do what we tell you to do, or if you fuck it up in some way then there's nothing we can do for you. OK do you want to fly?"

"Yep!" I replied once again enthusiastically although the butterflies were churning a little. Just then the wind went slightly across the ridge and I wasn't able to fly. I then had what seemed like an eternal wait to see if the wind would go good again. It was awful it gave me plenty of time to think about all the things that could go wrong. The first flight is pretty scary because like Steve said it is up to you to respond to the instructions they give you. When you're out there flying no one can take over if you mess it up or it goes wrong. Finally the wind straightened up and I was good to go. I had a good take off and once in the air my nerves dissipated somewhat. The hardest, and most dangerous, parts of paragliding are the take off and landing. The actual flying bit is pretty simple. You hold in each hand a left and right brake. They are attached by lines to the back of the glider. Pull the left brake to turn left, pull the right brake to turn right and pull both to slow down. Don't pull down to far on them though or you may stall the wing! My flight was just a short top to bottom so no looking for any lift to stay up in the air. I had a short 3 minute flight and landed perfectly. It was a great feeling when I landed. All I wanted to do was run up the hill and do it all again, but the light was fading and we had to finish up for the evening.

From then on the days fell into a bit of a routine. Egg on toast for breakfast. A bit of theory and reading in the morning. Practice a few PLF's (parachute landing falls) and maybe mess around a bit on the climbing wall. After lunch we would usually head down to the flying site at around 2:30 or 3pm. On the Friday - my fifth day of flying - I got my first really long flight in. It lasted for about an hour. I practiced a lot of different things while up there. I did some big ears; this is when you pull in the tips of the glider to make it smaller. This is a way to loose height quickly. You can't use the brakes when in big ears but can still in turn by shifting your weight. I also used the speed bar which pulls the front of the wing down slightly and allows the glider to travel at a faster speed. All in all it was a really great flight. Well that was until I came in to land. There was no wind on the landing area. Usually you land going to wind so your ground speed is slower. In no wind conditions you have to come in quickly then apply a lot brake just before you land. I did the coming in fast bit but for some reason didn't do the applying lots of brake bit which meant that on touching down I went splat into the ground and grazed my knees up rather nicely. Other than that I was fine. That was a mistake I didn't intend to repeat.

Over the weekend lots of people turned up to fly so the wind decided to die down, leaving a lot of pissed off people. On Monday as if by magic the wind came back. Later in the week we ran out of the luck with the wind and I had a good four or five days of turning up to the flying site and parawaiting for about three hours and then going back to Native Place without any flying.

On one evening we stopped off in the village where all the kids who carry our packs lived. There was a birthday party going for a little boy who looked like he was only two years old. He had a big birthday cake in front of him and seemed very bewildered by the whole village cramming into one tiny room. More worryingly he had been given a big knife to play with, although he was being supervised by two four year olds so I suppose that was OK.

As time went on the wind picked up again and I was able to complete my course - although it took me about a week longer than expected. By now I was able to take off, fly and land with virtually no input on the radio at all. I had some really wonderful long flights staying up for over an hour and seeing some beautiful sunsets whilst up there. Added to that Native Place was a really great to place stay with a roof terrace overlooking a lake and fantastic food served three times a day. I had a great time in Kamshet and can't to wait find my next place to go flying.