Every other year I like to undertake a UK/Europe trip. After mulling over possible dates, I opted to get the whole thing over and done with between the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics. This meant travelling earlier in the year than I prefer which unfortunately also meant no return visit to stay with Herbert and Gil Distel near Vienna. Today, my trip took more solid shape with confirmation that my deposit for my London accommodation had been received.
My son Simon and I travelled to Palam Vihar near Delhi to celebrate his grandfather Andy’s 90th birthday. One of Simon’s missions was to buy an engagement ring for his girlfriend Nicole, which we did with help from Andy’s wife Maggie. She took us to some well-regarded jewellers shops in Delhi to which Simon and I returned the next day; Simon eventually making his purchase.
We were able to revisit some of the familiar sights such as Humayan’s Tomb, the Red Fort and the National Railway Museum (which I last visited a few months after it opened in 1977) in between watching cricket on the TV with Andy. The years have treated him and Maggie well as to appearance. We celebrated Andy’s birthday in style with lunch at the Taj Mahal Hotel, another old haunt. I happened to have a bottle of vintage Veuve in my luggage which we consumed after we returned from the Taj; Andy imbibing a now for him rare drop of alcohol with evident enjoyment. I succeeded in doing all my Christmas shopping in Delhi. We got back home on December 11.
Back from my biennial catching-up with family and friends in the antipodes. I left Brisbane on the 7th of August. Read about my travels.
London
This time cousin Leila was too incapacitated for me to stay with her, so I booked in to a hotel, excellently located in Belsize Park, for the two weeks of my London stay. For the first time in three visits I did not meet with Sandrine Meats.
This trip I did things I previously thought too out of the way. I spent a tremendous day at Chatham Dockyard, easily reached by train from St Pancras Station. Between trains I even managed to book my Vienna-Frankfurt ticket. I also attended the first day of the Oval Test between England and Pakistan, highly enjoyable and a reminder of happy days spent there in the past. On my way home I went on the London Eye, which I had avoided to date, fearing a long wait to get on board. I don’t suppose it took much more than 25 minutes from joining the ticket queue to boarding the cabin. It was worth every penny.
Simon booked our tickets to Delhi online. He got us an excellent deal. We depart Brisbane on November 30 and return December 11. The reason for our trip is to celebrate Simon’s grandad’s 90th birthday.
When visiting the travel agent last week, I was told that my airfare to Europe had gone up by $800. The outward journey involved the added expense of an overnight stop in Singapore. My plan to incorporate a visit to India to catch up with my ex father-in-law, Andy, a couple of months before his 90th birthday, was becoming unaffordable. I enquired about fares for a straightforward Brisbane/London return flight and was quoted a price $2000 cheaper. Then, following phone calls to find out if I could stay with Andy for his birthday, which I can, I today booked and paid for my UK/Europe flight with the intention of travelling to Delhi with my son Simon in December. My UK/Europe dates remain unchanged.
Received an email from Herbert Distel confirming the dates for my short stay at his house near Vienna at the end of August, to which I am greatly looking forward. I have booked my UK/Europe, August/September trip with a week’s stay in India on my way home. I was a schoolboy the last time I was in Austria.
Cambodia 22 – 29 November Of late I have visited Europe every other year with the intention of seeing another part of the world in the intervening year. Because of the global financial crisis I had no intention of going anywhere in 2009 until the lure of cheap airfares prompted me to book a week's stay in Cambodia (entry 7 April this year) to at last realise a long-cherished desire of mine to see Angkor Wat. By the time I had made all the necessary arrangements, my week overseas turned out to be just about the most expensive of any I have experienced during a lifetime of travel. But what a week it was . . .
I did not expect to see a set of traffic lights in Siem Reap (a two-hour flight north of Singapore), identical to many I had encountered in China, with an illuminated display for the road traffic, showing the number of seconds to go before the lights changed. I came to Cambodia with mixed feelings about the country (misgivings about its politics, coupled with admiration of its ancient culture), but I liked what I saw on the short drive from… Read Complete Text
I paid for my trip to at long last see Angkor Wat, taking advantage of some very cheap air fares. I will be away for a week in late November, which is just right because, given the present global economic situation, I had not intended to travel overseas this year.
As with my 2006 trip, my visit to the UK and Europe had two purposes – to further Sandrine Meats’ Whsht research as well as progressing archive spin-offs (namely video installations based on the archive) and to catch up with family and friends and tour familiar and unfamiliar places.
My trip had two purposes . . .
Purpose One
I met with Sandrine on a number of occasions, twice with artists who took part in Whsht events, and twice with Sandrine on her own. She is doing a marvellous job of documenting and making sense of what we did. One of the meetings was at Carlyle Reedy’s flat. Carlyle is a very fine poet and artist. I had not seen her in 40 years. She looked as I remembered her, but with a beauty that I had not appreciated then. It was lovely seeing her again.
Before setting off on my travels I had emailed a number of people whom I had hoped to meet, though several had not bothered to reply. However I was determined to give my Beauty DVD to the Art &… Read Complete Text
Where would we be without emails? – overlooking for a moment the annoyance caused by those people who do not bother to reply. An email has arrived from Satish Kumar whom I had contacted about six weeks ago on the strength of an article in the Guardian Weekly. He has agreed to meet me in the UK in August during my stay with Clive.