Itineries

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June 25, 2012

Northern Italy: Venice and Florence

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We made the first of our two motoring tours of Italy in 2001. We took the shuttle train through the channel tunnel on a Friday evening late in September, stayed the night in Calais, then drove down through France to Italy, arriving at dusk in Milan.

On Sunday we drove on to Verona, taking a detour along the shores of Lake Garda on the way. In the afternoon we visited the art museum in the Castelvecchio. The castle was completed in 1376 and is a superb setting for a museum. The fortified bridge that crosses the river here is a restoration; the original was destroyed at the end of the Second World War. In the evening we joined the passeggiatta, taking a stroll through the streets to the arena, before heading back to our hotel for supper.

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May 17, 2012

Travels through a Dry Land

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Outside the air-conditioned car, it’s 100 degrees. The Mojave Desert stretches away on either side of the highway. We have been maintaining a steady 60 on the clock for quite a while. But we are, nevertheless, in a queue. The same vehicles have been in front and behind since our last stop at Baker and will still be with us when we get to Las Vegas. It’s Sunday afternoon, and the traffic is solid in both lanes on our side of the highway. And it’s the same on the other side for traffic heading back to Los Angeles.

This is the first stretch of the most ambitious of our motoring trips. The idea is to drive inland from Los Angeles through Nevada, a corner of Utah and a corner of Colorado to Santa Fe in New Mexico, and then return by a southerly route through Albuquerque, Flagstaff and Phoenix. We arrived in Los Angeles late on Friday night, and did very little on our first full day, except relax by the hotel pool and book the hire car, a compact Ford SUV.

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March 16, 2012

Central Java

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It’s convenient that Borobudur and Prambanan, the two principal UNESCO world heritage sites in Indonesia, are located close together, Borobudur a few miles to the north west of Yogyakarta and Prambanan out in the eastern suburbs just beyond the airport. They were probably built at around the same time in the 8th and 9th centuries CE, but they couldn’t be more different in character.

Borobudur is an artificial mound, a set of ascending platforms and stairways leading up to a single bell-shaped stupa. There are terraces of smaller stupas at each level of the climb. In many cases they are broken, revealing inside stone-carved Buddhas gazing out over the plain to the mountains. It’s not known why is was abandoned, but because of its proximity to Mount Merapi, it was buried under ash for centuries before being rediscovered by Stamford Raffles, briefly governor during a period of British rule, in 1815. It is now set in well maintained parkland and we were fortunate in our guide Anit, one of the large number of guides accredited at the site.

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January 26, 2012

Along the Mekong

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Luang Prabang is the former capital of Laos. It sits on a promontory where the Nam Khan flows into the Mekong. We stayed at the Apsara Rive Droite (*), which is on the far bank of the Nam Khan. You get to the main town by the hotel’s small motor boat. A local ordinance insists that the presence of the hotel should be disguised, so to look like part of the village the garden is surrounded by banana groves and bamboo fencing. Out of season in June, we had the place entirely to ourselves.

The town itself is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and still largely undeveloped. The national museum was formerly the royal place until the kings were deposed by the Pathet Lao in 1975. The museum collection is made up largely gifts to the king, including, from the United States, the Lao flag carried to the moon on Apollo 11 and a small piece of moon rock. Round the back in the garage is the collection of royal motor cars: a couple of Lincoln Continentals, a Ford Edsel, a beaten up Citroen DS, a Toyota jeep and a speedboat, used to visit the orchards across the river. The museum has information on the lives of the royal family up until 1975 but nothing later. The last king in fact died a few years afterwards in a re-education camp. The museum also houses the Pra Bang, the small statue of the Buddha that gives the town its name. It was made in Sri Lanka in the 1st century and was a present from the Khmer empire in the 14th century.

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January 23, 2012

Chinese New Year in George Town

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Today is the first day of the lunar year in the Chinese calendar. The nomenclature of the years is based on a sixty year cycle of five elements and twelve creatures. This will be the year of the water dragon. This is the third festival in a run, following Diwali in October and Christmas in December.

Like the Indian, but unlike the Gregorian calendar which is solar and the Islamic calendar which is lunar, the Chinese calendar is lunisolar. The solar New Year falls at December 21st, the winter solstice. The twelve months of the lunar calendar are anchored to the solar calendar because the winter solstice always falls in the 11th month of the lunar year. The 1st month of the lunar calendar will therefore start sometime between January 21st and February 21st, depending on which date in the 11th month the winter solstice occurs.

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January 10, 2012

Angkor Archaeological Park

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At the end of this month we will be making a second trip to Angkor in Cambodia. There are too many sites within the complex to cover in only one visit.

Angkor was the capital of the Khmer kingdom for 600 years or so from around 800 CE. Most of the structures were built in wood, but the religious monuments were built in stone and it is these that have persisted. At its height in 13th century, the Khmer empire covered most of the area of present day Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. In subsequent centuries it lost ground to the empire of Siam based at Ayutthaya and, possibly as a consequence, the capital moved to Phnom Penh in the 15th century and the importance of the site declined. It became known to Europeans when the notes of the naturalist Henri Drouhat were published in 1863.

The finest carvings are found at Banteay Srei, dating from the reign of Rajendravarman (944-968). Angkor Wat itself was constructed during the reign of Suryavarman II (1113-1150). The larger city of Angkor Thom, the name means great city, was built nearby in the reign of Jayavarman VII (1181-1220). Many visits end at sunset on the hill top of Phnom Bakheng (907). Further afield, it is worth travelling to Kbal Spean, upriver of Angkor, where reliefs of Vishnu and Brahma and thousands of Shiva lingam were carved into the river bed during the reign of Udayadityavarman II (1050-1066). Preah Vihear, up on the Thai border, dates from the reign of Suryavarman I (1002-1050), but because of the border dispute, is not easily accessible at the moment.

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