So now that I’ve got up to date about the travelling I did in the latter half of 2008, it’s time to start looking forward to what travelling I have on the horizon for 2009. Obviously in the dire ec0nomic climate – not to mention my own personally dire economic outlook – I shouldn’t really be travelling at all, but I was lucky enough to be awarded a nice chunk of money purely for the purposes of travelling to Morocco and Algeria and carrying out research for Novel #3. Hurrah! I’ve been to neither.

I’m not sure yet when I will be travelling, as I’m currently waiting to hear about work-related things that would affect timing considerably, but if the Top Secret Work Plans don’t work out, I’ll be off around the start of March, at the start of spring, by which time it will already be scorching in the Sahara, I would imagine.

I also have no set itinerary, as I am purposely avoiding planning too heavily until I know when I’m off. For the research that I’m doing I will have to visit Sale and Algiers (hmm, does that give an idea of what the book is about, I wonder?) but other than that the world – or the Maghreb, at least – is my oyster. In Morocco I am – obviously – planning to head down to Marrakech and the Atlas Mountains, and possibly further south along the Atlantic coast to Laayoune and Dahkla; I’d be very tempted to just keep heading south through Mauritania to Senegal and beyond, but sadly the funds that I have won’t stretch to that, and I have to be sensible. (In the same way I’m enormously tempted to travel down overland, but simply cannot justify the expense.) In Algeria, outside of Algiers I have no real idea what I’ll do; I’d like to get down into the desert, and kick about some Roman ruins, but Algeria’s not a place that a lot of people have been recently, so it’s tricky to get up to date advice. Still, I will persevere.

Of course the complicating factor in all of this is the fact that the land border between Morocco and Algeria is closed, meaning that the only options to travel between the two are to get the ferry from one to Spain, and back to the other, or to fly (this is discounting the possibility of trekking through the desert via Mauritania, Mali and possibly Niger, which I do not have time for, and is possibly unwise as a solo lady traveller). I’ll probably go with the latter, but it is galling to use up so much money on a relatively short flight, and I still hold to the idea that Flying Is Cheating, so it goes against the grain.

Just a quick one to say that I was down in Cambridge and London at the weekend, on the 6.50am Ryanair flight from “Glasgow” Prestwick to “London” Stansted, and it was yet another of those occasions where I shake my head despairingly about this tiny country and its infrastructure. If you are an airport in the middle of nowhere (sorry, people from Prestwick), and you have flights leaving from 6.30 in the morning, requiring check-in an hour before, wouldn’t you think that you’d actually enable people to get to the airport by public transport at that time? But no: the last train from Glasgow Central to Prestwick leaves at 12.15, after which there isn’t another until 6.00 or 6.30; there is a single bus that goes from Buchanan Street at 4.45am, but given that this is a) a bus, and b) a bus that originates in Edinburgh, there’s a fairly good chance that, if anything goes wrong, you’ll miss your check in. So when I got to Prestwick airport on the last train on Friday night, the seats were already covered with sleeping people who’d got the same idea as I had. Why is the UK so rubbish, why?! Every time I have flown with Ryanair to a marginal aiport somewhere in Europe, there have been buses to whatever city Ryanair pretends the airport is in, timed to coincide with the departures and arrivals of the flights. Why can’t the UK get its act together?

Happily, as Sleeping In Airports would suggest, Prestwick’s not a bad airport for sleeping in (quiet, and in possession of bench seating without armrests, which are my main two concerns); flight was fine, and then I arrived in Stansted to find that the bloody Stansted Express wasn’t working. Not an immediate problem as I was heading straight to Cambridge, but it did compound my frustrations. However, it did also lead to the useful discovery of the dreafully named Terravision Coaches, which seem to run airport services from central London (near, but not in, Victoria bus station), cheaper than National Express or the train, and certainly the Stansted one was quicker (well, not quicker than the train, but easier to get to for me than Liverpool Street). Would recommend.

In further dull-but-useful internal transport news, I discovered in September last year that it is entirely possible to get on an Easyjet flight from Glasgow International to ondon Gatwick with no ID other than a hastily stuck together SPT bus pass (whereas Ryanair won’t let you on with anything less than a passport). Good to know…

It feels pretty presumptuous to entitle a post “India” when in fact I only spent a few days between Mumbai and Pune, leaving the majority of the country untouched (and as such, I am very keen to get back there ASAP). Still, this is my blog, so I get to do whatever I want. Ha!

As I mentioned in my last post, I arrived in Mumbai on an evening flight from Sharjah with Air Arabia. Mumbai airport is fairly chaotic, and miles and miles from the city centre. I hadn’t fully appreciated this, and so in hindsight, it’s a very good thing that I booked the hotel I did, the Hotel Highway Residency, about fifteen minutes by taxi from the airport (and they offer a free pick-up), and perfectly decent, cheap and comfortable. (Their site is fairly difficult to navigate, but if you click on “links” and scroll down, there’s the option to book rooms – I think I found them through Hostelworld). I got in around 10pm, ordered staggeringly cheap and tasty room service, and watched the final Presidential debate on the TV. Excellent way to spend an evening.

The next morning I taxi’d back to the airport to meet a couple of friends, with whom I was travelling to Pune for a wedding the enxt day. The bride had very kindly organised a car to take us, which meant that I didn’t get to experience Indian public buses – a shame, but also more conventient, given my seriously limited time in India. The drive between Mumbai and Pune was my only chance to see any Indian countryside, and there were some nice hilly bits, as well as burning lorries (Indian driving is terrifying) and monkeys (monkeys!) by the side of the road.

In Pune we stayed in Hotel Swasti, which was very central, and again, cheap and comfortable. I have no idea what there is to see in Pune; my time there was taken up by wedding related events, and though we did have a brief wander into town, it seemed like a fairly undistinguished big Indian city (though interesting for me, given my limited experience of big Indian cities). Apparently there is a palace containing a Gandhi museum, but unfortunately we didn’t have time to visit – instead it was straight back to Mumbai for more revelry.

I’d initially been planning to return to the Hotel Highway Residency, but the fact that it took over two hours (through heavy traffic) to get from Mumbai airport into the centre, where my friends were staying, changed my mind and instead I booked into the City Palace Hotel, conveniently located across from Victoria Terminus. I actually found it excellent and well-priced, so I was surprised to come across some negative reviews of it online – admittedly the rooms are tiny, and I didn’t really have anything to compare it to in terms of Indian hotels, so what do I know? As far as I’m concerned, though, it was comfortable and convenient, friendly staff, cheap, and they were willing to (miraculously) squeeze an extra mattress onto the floor when a third friend arrived to stay (at a price, of course, but a fairly decent one).

I thoroughly enjoyed Mumbai, despite my very limited time there. Things we did included:

- a lot of eating, notably Apoorva fish restaurant, and Jimmy Boy Cafe, the latter specialising in Parsi food – I had some sort of creamy fish curry which was out of this world;

- clubbing. Completely by chance we ended up in Red Light, completely underdressed among Mumbai’s youthful glitterati. It was excellent;

- less sightseeing than gentle wandering, through crumbling colonial squares, down to the bay and the Gateway of India, tea at the Taj (and it was a real privilege to be one of the last to take advantage of such a gorgeous hotel – it was only a few weeks later that the terrorist attacks destroyed the place, and I still worry what happened to the charming and hospitable staff that served us there), and a hike along Marine Drive by dusk.

I flew home (much, much too soon) with BA – probably the most comfortable flight I’ve had in a while, though their security was a little ovger the top (or perhaps not, in light of what happened in Mumbai shortly afterwards) and I was nearly not allowed on my flight because the crediot card I’d booked it on had since been cancelled and so I didn’t have it with me. Arrived back in Heathrow in the evening, and then had a horrendous overnight journey back up to Glasgow with Megabus. Very, very cheap, but NEVER AGAIN. (As I’ve mentioned before, overnight buses are things I’m more than happy to do when abroad, but seem beneath my dignity when in the UK…)

Picking up where I left off in my last post:

You wouldn’t necessarily think that it would be possible to attend one wedding in Khartoum on a Wednesday evening and be in Pune in time for another wedding on Friday evening, and you’d probably be right, if it weren’t for the magic of Air Arabia. Based out of Sharjah, they were able to fly me out of Khartoum in the small hours of Thursday morning, landing in Sharjah a few hours later, and then out of Sharjah that afternoon, landing in Mumbai around 9pm, all for just over £100. Very highly recommended, even though booking the Khartoum – Sharjah – Mumbai flight did cause my credit card company to freak out and put an immediate stop on my card; I guess it’s a route beloved of terrorists.

Sleeping in Airports doesn’t rank Sharjah airport particularly highly, but I would beg to differ – in the seating areas, the space under the seats is large enough that you can build a small nest and kip down quite happily there for a few hours, as I did on arrival (there were some Sudanese women there who seemed so comfortable I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d been there for several days). Sleepinginairports also doesn’t rate the friendliness of  Sharjah airport’s staff, but again, I had a very different experience – being the genius I am (and admittedly rather sleep-deprived) I managed to lose my ticket and passport within the airport (I left them in the bathroom) and it was a few hours, after my nap, before I worked out what I’d done. The airport staff were in fact lovely, and very calming, when I rocked up at the information desk in a state of panic, and were able to trace my travel documents with relative ease (I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if they hadn’t been found – would I still be in Sharjah airport now?).

I had several hours before my flight to Mumbai, and so the plan had been to get a taxi into Dubai to meet a Dubai-based friend for lunch. This plan probably would have worked out brilliantly if it hadn’t been for my nap; as it was, by the time I got through immigration (again, very easy and straightforward, none of the retinal scans that the sleepinginairports people are on about), there’d been some sort of accident on the motorway between Sharjah and Dubai. The journey’s supposed to take 15 minutes if the road’s clear, but my taxi driver was estimating upwards of an hour, and when she found out when my flight for Mumbai left, she advised me to turn around and go straight back to the airport, which I did, meaning that all I’ve seen of the UAE is a stretch of road alongside the Sharjah – Dubai highway. Still, I’m sure I’ll have a layover there again someday, and will plan my transport more carefully…

One of the few bright spots in an otherwise gloomy autumn 2008 was a flying visit to Sudan in October, for part 2 of the Northern Irish-Sudanese wedding mentioned in my last post. You may know that I lived in Sudan in 2006, and have been meaning to go back ever since, so obviously I jumped at the chance, despite it being financially unwise in the extreme.

I flew to Khartoum via Tripoli with Afriqiyah Airways. One of the problems with flying with marginal airlines is that it can be difficult to book, as most of them don’t take online bookings. I initially made the mistake of not reading the fine print and assuming that this was Afriqiyah’s official website. I dult went and booked through them, only finding out a few weeks later – and after several prodding emails, as I got concerned that I hadn’t received a ticket – that it’s actually owned by a Netherlands-based travel agent who doesn’t take credit card bookings, and I could only pay through direct bank transfer. I wasn’t interested in that, so told them to cancel my booking, whereupkn they had the gall to demand a cancellation fee, despite having happily given every impression of accepting my credit card when trying to book through the site. I snippily informed them that, since the only way they could get money from me was if I did a bank transfer, and I had no intention of transferring any money to them, they wouldn’t be getting a cancellation fee out of me, and then gracelessly climbed down, but still. Not impressed. Would not recommend. I ended up booking through Affordable Holidays, whom I found through a random google search, and they were excellent.

The flight with Afriqiyah was absolutely fine, despite the fact that all the films were cut to ribbons and had any hint of cleavage or similarly tempting lady-parts blurred out on the screen. And the food was surprisingly excellent! Transferring through Tripoli was slightly scary (and also frustrating, as I would have so loved to have broken my journey there – sadly impossible, owing to lack of time and money) – largely because I didn’t have a Sudanese visa in my passport (long story – I did have an entry permit, which was transformed into a visa as soon as I arrived) which confused the immigration staff, and also because Tripli airport decided to give me a heart attack by getting the time of my departing flight wrong on the departures board, making it look like I only had five minutes to transfer. Still, it all worked out fine, and I turned up at Khartoum airport in the small hours, to be met by my friends are spirited through customs and immigration.

Blimey, but Khartoum has gone upmarket since I was there last. The airport now has the luxury of baggage carousels, rather than just flinging your luggage on the concourse and leaving you to pick through it! And there are swanky cafes all over the city now, rather than just Universal and Ozone and Solitaire, which were the stand-bys back in 2006. I was most impressed by Aroma (it’s on Facebook!) and Barista (an Indian chain with a branch in the Khartoum suburb of Riyadh), and particularly the palacial Assaha Village (Arabic only), a Lebanese-owned hotel and restaurant with gorgeous food in dramatic surroundings. It even has valet parking! Not in my day, etc.

I was also able to indulge my taste for Stim, the world’s best softdrink. I really should set up some sort of import/export business.

Anyhow, most of my time was spent in Khartoum, seeing the sights, which are admittedly fairly limited. However, the highlight of the trip, aside from the wedding itself, was an overnight trip to Karima, about four hours’ drive north of Khartoum, on a bend of the Nile. Karima itself is none too exciting, but on the outskirts of the town is Jebel Barka, a massive rocky outcropping into which is built a Temple of Amun. There’s a little museum there with a few artefacts from the region, both from the temble itself and, rather susprisingly, from some monasteries that used to be in the area. Nearby there’s also a collection of pyramids, which aren’t quite as impressive as the Meroe pyramids near Shendi, I don’t think, but are still definitely worth seeing. We also drove out to El Kurru to visit the tombs, which were truly spectacular. The best thing about the whole experience was the fact that we were the only people there – sites like that would be swamped in Egypt, whereas in Sudan it was just us, our (I believe compulsory) guide from the Ministry of Tourism, and, in the case of El Kurru, an old man from the nearest village, with a portable fluorescent tube, lighting our way.

My photos of the trip are on my flickr account, as ever, but there are some rather better photos of the area here.

Well, not quite tomorrow, but at least within the same week…

Anyhow! Travel in the latter half of 2008, then. In late August I had a fairly whistlestop tour of Ireland, which was less touristy than friend-focussed – and, as with most of the travel I did last year, centred around weddings. I flew from “Glasgow” Prestwick with Ryanair to Belfast City, which is not patricularly convenient for central Belfast, but was, happily, pretty convenient for Bangor, where I was staying. Bangor’s about half an hour north of Belfast, on the sea-end of Belfast Lough, a nice little seaside town with a funfair on the waterfront. It is also, I believe, where all Belfast people really live; every single person I know from Northern Ireland initially told me they were from Befast, before admitting that they were actually from Bangor. Anyhow, I was there for a couple of days, and the weather was utterly appalling, but I still managed to have a fantastic time at what may have been the first ever Northern Irish-Sudanese wedding.

The day after the wedding, I trained from Bangor West to Central Belfast, a nice little journey beside the Lough, to meet a couple of friends for the Belfast Mela in the Botanic Gardens, which was again, very enjoyable despite the pelting rain. Then I was on the bus from Belfast to Dublin, which, rather surprisingly stopped for passport checking at the border. Whither the Common Travel Area? I was unimpressed.

My couple of days in Dublin were spent largely seeing friends, visiting pubs and wandering the city, which is what I believe Dublin is best for. I did also have the privilege of tasting the best bacon sandwich in the world at Bram’s Cafe in Merino, so named because it’s on the same street where Bram Stoker was brought up. (Unfortunately I didn’t have the chance to take in the Bram Stoker Experience, which sounds delightfully tacky.) And then I was on the bus again, down to Cork – or more accurately Carrigaline – to see old friends I hadn’t seen in years, before getting a flight back to Glasgow, again with Ryanair (and nearly missing the flight because security insisted on screening my laptop separately. WHY don’t all airports have the same security regulations, WHY? It is ridiculous).

All in all, a great trip, but not one made for a fascinating travel blog update, really. Sorry about that. Stay tuned, though: Sudan comes next!

Hi all, long time no…this, I guess. Sorry about that; unfortunately the latter half of 2008 descended into a bit of a morass for me, which wasn’t really conducive to travelling, or indeed thinking or talking about travel, as it just made me sad about the amount of travel I couldn’t afford. Woe!

BUT now it is 2009, and onwards and upwards, right? So I’m reviving this blog, as I have some things to report back on (trips to Ireland, Sudan and India last year, for example), and 2009 is shaping up to be a very travel- and adventure-filled year.

Back tomorrow…

Where was I? Ah yes, Bergen. Bergen was in many ways lovely, but the relentless rain did take the shine off the experience a little, and meant that we had to spend a fair amount of time indoors. The Leprosy Museum was definitely a highlight, both for its insight into the history of leprosy in western Norway (yes, I know that doesn’t sound tremendously thrilling, but was actually very interesting) and the chance to wander round an old, and beautifully-preserved Norwegian building. We also went to the West Norwegian Museum of Decorative Art, largely by chance (it was pouring, and that was the nearest open museum), which was a fairly random collection of exhibits, but did have a very interesting furniture and textiles section.

We stayed in the Alkoven Guesthouse, which I would highly recommend, especially if you can book the Red Room (which has a view and a television, though we were in the Green Room and it was perfectly fine): very well-located, slightly out of the centre and close to some very picturesque streets full of traditional houses, and only about ten minutes walk to Bryggen. Kitchen facilities meant that we could cook for ourselves (i.e. prepare our own cheese sandwiches) before going out for a leisurely beer at Cafe Kippers in the USF art centre, watching the midsummer bonfire burning on the other side of the water.

After a couple of days in Bergen we headed on by bus to Ålesund. I had been mistrustful of Nor-Way Buses‘ guaranteed seating (no pre-booking, you just turn up fifteen minutes before your bus and buy a ticket) but it did work out, and I imagine the bus journey (which involved four ferries crossing various fjords) would have been gorgeous in good weather, but was rather grim amid the mist and rain. Still, by the time we came into Ålesund, the sun had finally come out, which made us rather well-disposed towards the place.

And deservedly so, as Ålesund is absolutely lovely: thank you, JEB, for making me go! Mostly we just wandered about admiring the art nouveau buildings, but we also exerted ourselves enough to climb Aksla Hill, which was well worth doing for the sake of the view. We also went to the absolutely wonderful Art Nouveau Centre, which was a genuine highlight of the whole trip. The Centre itself is in a former pharmacy that has been beautifully preserved; downstairs there’s an interactive exhibition about the fire of 1904 which destroyed the city and caused it to be largely rebuilt in art nouveau style, and upstairs there’s a gorgeous exhibition of art nouveau furniture and textiles. The museum is connected through an underground passage to the art museum next door, which, quite by chance, was housing a rather magnificent exhibition by a local sculptor, Lillian Torlen. (And I ended up buying a pendant by Janniche Torlen, inspired by the exhibition, which was an excellent birthday present to myself.)

Getting back to Oslo from Ålesund was a bit of a trek, but the scenery along the way made it worthwhile. We got the bus from Ålesund to Åndalsnes, and the route was simply gorgeous, alongside crystal clear fjords reflecting the snow-covered mountains (the bright sunshine certainly helped, too). After several hours in Åndalsnes (where there is not much to do other than marvel at the surrounding scenery – unless you have a car, that is), we took the Rauma Line, almost by accident – it was simply the easiest way to get back to Oslo, but good lord, the scenery was almost frighteningly magnificent.

Oh! And in Ålesund, we stayed in the HI Hostel, which was also very good: well located, cheap-for-Norway, with a hearty breakfast included in the price, and we had a double room (with bunks rather than a double bed, but still) complete with en suite, kitchenette and fridge (for storing our illicit beer) and even an antiquated telly on which we could watch the Turkey-Germany European Cup semi-final. Recommended.

I am safely returned from Norway, and a whole decade older! Or something. And it was fabulous.

Things to know about Norway:

1. It is expensive. INSANELY expensive. PAINFULLY expensive. After a day or so the best thing to do is just stop mentally converting the prices; I found that on my first day there I was like: “£5 for a beer? That is HIGHWAY ROBBERY!” and by the time we were leaving I was all: “hey, a coffee for £2.50! I am so thrifty!”

2. It is gorgeous. On the penultimate day, on a bus between Ålesund and Åndalsnes, I found myself thinking hyperbolically Norway is the most beautiful place I have ever been! And it is possibly even true.

3. The weather is about as unreliable as you’d think it would be. We had glorious sunshine in Oslo, snow and ice in the mountains between Oslo and Bergen, relentless rain for one day in Bergen, followed by a day of intermittent rain and sunshine, relentless rain and mist between Bergen and Ålesund, increasingly good weather while in Ålesund itself, glorious sunshine again on the penultimate day, turning into torrential rain as our train swept back into Oslo. Pack layers, umbrellas and waterproofs.

Flew in and out of Torp (from Prestwick) and got the Torp Ekspressen bus into the city, which was conveniently timed to meet the flight. We were only in Oslo for two nights and one day all together, and we did little but just wander around. Oslo’s got a really nice feel to it (and is way, way more ethnically diverse than I would have expected), but it’s the sort of city where you just want to hang out in cafes and bars, and that was somewhat beyond our budget.

Stayed in the Anker Hostel, which was perfectly fine for our purposes (double room with en suite for 500kr – cheap by Norwegian standards), and I’d probably recommend it, though next time I may plump for MS Innvik: beds on a boat! In terms of food, we didn’t set foot in a proper restaurant the entire time we were in Norway, but there was good felafel to be found in the Grünerløkka district nearby.

On the second day we got the early morning train from Oslo to Bergen. I’ve got to say that NSB really puts UK trains to shame, largely due to the ease of online booking, and the rather superb service they offer of picking up the tickets while on the train. Brilliant: you make your reservation, sit in your allocated seats, and then a nice conductor comes along and gives you your tickets. It is awesome, and every country should have this. Also, the Bergen line is pretty spectacular – as we headed into the mountains we were excitedly photographing every smudge of snow we saw, but by the time we reached Finse, the highest point of the railway, the trainline was surrounded by drifts of snow and half-frozen lakes. Fairly impressive, given that it was the day after midsummer.

Photos are available here. At some point I’ll get round to labelling them, not to mention removing the embarassing ones…

More tomorrow.

I’m planning on having a few days in Ireland over the summer, to do some research for the novel that I’m supposedly ghost-writing. The original plan was that I’d spend a few days with my parents in South Wales, and then get the Swansea to Cork ferry, allowing me to visit an old friend in Cork whom I don’t see nearly enough. But it turns out that the Swansea Cork ferry doesn’t run any more (yes, they say they hope to resume operations in 2008, but I haven’t found evidence of this). Boo. I had an awesome time overnight on that very ferry in 1996, where I met an American blues band and played poker with them all night.

But all is not lost! I can get the train to Pembroke instead, and get the ferry to Rosslare, which is significantly quicker, and gives me the chance to have a look at Pembroke, where I have never been, but which I have heard good things about. And from Rosslare, I can easily head across to New Ross, the very place I have to visit for my research. Hurrah! (Well, at least in theory it should be easy, but Bus Eireann annoyingly doesn’t have searchable timestables. Bah.)

Then surely it would be a shame to go all that way and not visit my friend in Cork, so I could head across there for a day or so, and then up to Dublin for more research and friend seeing. And, you know, if I have gone that far without increasing my already-gargantuan carbon footprint, why not keep it up? I can get the train from Dublin to Belfast, the ferry across to Stranraer, and the train from Stranraer back to Glasgow. ALl that travel, and I can be environmentally smug, to boot! Excellent.