DORSET - What's So Amazing About Poole?

Now, you see, the problem with having a blog about traveling rather than about yourself (except in passing) is that when you're not traveling, it gets rather hard to find things to write about. However, until I give in my stubborn insistence not to bore the world with my personal ramblings (and, really, it would be a very scary place. I mean, this is meant to be the more user friendly version of me and look how many incomprehensible, run on sentences I've managed this year) I shall remain on topic. And that topic today is Poole, Dorset.

Where? Ah yes. Run your finger along the southern coast of Britain west of Southampton and east of anything which looks like the end (like, y'know, Land's End) and eventually you'll find it. Poole has a few claims to fame. One of them is its natural harbour. Which may be the biggest, second biggest, or just one of the many biggest in the world. Which puts it on the same lists as Rio de Janerio, Sydney and San Francisco. Yeah! And then there's Brownsea Island in that aforementioned harbour, which is where Lord Baden Powell took some boys on a camping trip and decided it'd be a jolly good thing for every boy to know how to camp and so created the Scouting Movement. But, aside from these little contributions to the world stage, Poole has remained relatively out of the eye of the rest of humanity except those of us who live here or who used to visit an older relative here (which, based on the folks I've met over the past few years, seems to be the entire population of Bristol)


Boats!...

Poole is a great place to be a boat spotter. Having a large natural harbour (it's possibly the biggest in the world, so I've heard) means lots of boating potential. And of all types. From the mighty passenger ferries which daily make the five hour chug to Cherbourg to the tiny but fabulously expensive yachts, sitting watching the workings of the harbour has passed the minutes of many a long, cold afternoon. It's strangely restful; really. Poole, being a British sea side town, has a fine selection of tacky harbour side amusements to accompany your stay. Sadly the most interesting of the tourist traps (the fabulously dingy aquarium and the astonishingly overpriced model railway) have long since given way to trendy wine bars but, if you look hard enough, you can still find candy floss (cotton candy, Yankee readers) and 2p slot machines.

These devices, common in various forms throughout the world, give the pleasure of being wonderful and useless all at the same time. Like all such machines, you shove in 2p coins in the hope of being skillful enough to win more coins based on the way your coin falls. But, since all you can win are 2p coins and since 2p coins are useless apart from being used in 2p machines, the whole thing is nothing more than a glorious waste of time. In other words, typical British rainy day at the seaside entertainment. There are precisely five people in the world who find 2p machines tremendous fun. I'm glad to say that I am one of them, and that I know two of the others.


... and beaches! Incidentally, these pictures aren't the products of some seventies photo documentary of the town, but of my first and most awful digital camera and the days before I discovered that 'Night setting' you've all come to know and fear in my photography.

Should the sun ever appear in Poole (and it does for, literally, minutes in the summer) then you can go to the beaches. Miles and miles of lovely sandy beaches flying EU blue flags to demonstrate their cleanliness. Despite the fact, like many British beaches, you can't get over the fact that both the sand and the water seem to be tinged a dull grey colour. (Reminiscent of the Gangees at Rishikesh. I'd like to think that the British variant doesn't contain piles of ashes and decomposing body parts but, really, I can't be sure) As such, except in the height of midsummer you can always wander along Poole's beaches in relative peace. Especially in the middle of the night, lit only by moon and starlight.

Because, you see, that's really what's so amazing about Poole. Not the harbour, not the beaches: but the fact that not a lot of people know that it's all there. You can travel the world looking for beautiful solitude; but you're more likely to find it around 11pm out on the rocks at Sandbanks beach than pretty much anywhere else.

BRISTOL - Same Old Bread and Rolls

Bristol is a funny place to come back to. On the one hand, I spent two very happy years here doing a job I enjoyed a great deal with people I get very giddy about at the thought of seeing. Especially when they have some potentially very exciting new hair. On the other hand, Bristol was the place I was in when I felt my very strong and urgent need to collect my moneys together and leave the country.

For me, Bristol has a history of being a place where I get things done. Much of this is due to people. Staying with Charity for a couple of days and having Jutta (she of the most impressive new hair this visit), among many others, very insistently asking about my future life plans has a way of making all those little thoughts rearrange themselves in my brain into targets, goal sheets and little spider diagrams written in different shades of purple pen.

It was most exciting to be back for the launch of the Bristol University Multifaith Chaplaincy. A project which was a buzzword when I first arrived in town, a catchphrase during my second year and has now become a state of mind. Half a decade may sound like a long time in a town where things get done: but anyone who's ever tried to get people of different religious dispositions to even agree what to eat and drink in the same company can appreciate the enormous blood sweat and tears (some English, many German) which went into a two hour presentation in a very nice university room to lots of very interesting people.


All the faiths, together at last in Powerpoint format!

Working back in the chaplaincy for an afternoon, though, did handily remind me why I don't work in chaplaincy anymore. When you're done, you're done. And there are plenty of lovely people (even more now) who will do wonderful things there until they too get the call and leave into their respective yonders. Also, I cut myself cutting fruit: I've shed way too much blood for this job already. It's time to share the love somewhere else.

The other moment which inspired some concrete future planning was at the commissioning of my friend David as a local Methodist preacher (or initiation into the coven, as Charity puts it) A lovely service in the Welsh border town of Chepstow, with some curious turns of phrase during the sermon. "There isn't just one culture in this world, but many cultures!" was one moment where, still having vague memories of having been on a different continent less than a week before, my universe suddenly felt it was closing in around me. The thing with living on an island? Island mentality. It's a scary thing to re-encounter when, the last time it scared you, you went off for a year.

So I resolved to be off again, soon. I already had the incentive but it was time to add a little resolution. I shall be in Cincinnati again by the end of this year or early next, seeing the winter with my American girl. Hurrah for Bristol! Travelers need a place which inspires them to make each trip and Bristol, the big city with a scary provincial underbelly, is my personal traveling muse. Also, it is a place of new and exciting hair. In this case, mine. But, boy howdy, did it *hurt*...

LONDON - Like the Murphys

It was either on the second frisking or when they took away Sarah's souvenier walking stick never to be seen again that we decided the Indians really wanted us to get the heck out of their country. Why is there such a disparity between the love and attention bestowed by the volunteer host family leader or school teacher, and the smirking indifference of anyone in any position of authority? It may be that I am destined never to truly understand the complexities of the Indian psyche, but I do plan to spend some more time on it before anyone starts trying to cremate me into Gangees sized chunks.


A no-points extra bonus question for you all. Which Greater London landmark, on the final approach into Heathrow Airport, is this? I'll give you a clue: I actually don't know. Windsor?

Britain produced its usual no-holds-barred welcome. The London Underground still refuses to operate according to the rules of logic, and the heavens opened for showers of monsoon proportions which had me fishing into my backpack in the middle of a flooded Walthamstow station whilst waiting for a bus to come and be overcrowded. Yet nobody beeped, nobody stared and nobody stepped on anyone else's face despite the pretty awful conditions outside. Natural disaster in Britain is an inconvinience and is treated with the same indifference and maybe a little grumbling. After having spent several months witnessing end of the world excitement at the selling of fruit and vegetables, it actually felt relaxing rather isolating (as travel in Britain eventually becomes)


Final photo of yours truly for the trip. Pop back to that first New York post and witness the differences in hair and weight. A good session with some clippers will remedy the former, the latter may mean going back to a life of sweating at the gym but this time self rather than Dehli inflicted.

The crossing of London to visit my grandmother took three hours: which is about how long it takes to fly over Europe these days. I am always astounded how much of a London identity everyone who lives here has, even when it takes the best part of a morning just to get into the centre of the place. But yesterday was one of those times when you can't mind it. Just trundling along a familliar bus route I haven't seen for a year bringing back memories going back two decades before that (travelling around London with my grandparents was my earliest travel experience) All very nostalgic and, eventually, rather wet.


The most important first stop for Sarah and I upon returning home: the regulation pint of bitter at J.D. Wetherspoons. God bless Heathrow Airport for catering to alcoholics and nervous fliers everywhere. And the most expensive drink I have ever bought, too.

Returning to Dorset was much the same; although seeing lush green countryside by the motorways for the first time since New Zealand reminds me why I shall never be living permenantly anywhere which can't provide me with at least a hill, a field and a tree out of my left hand window. Poole is much the same. A few trees got chopped down, my parents bought a new dining room table and the hideously ugly and inoperable IMAX cinema on Bournemouth sea front still hasn't been torn down. But only a few days to appreciate it all and start processing the experience before I start off on the wedding/visiting march.

Was I in India two days ago? I can barely remember.

RAJPUR - Twenty One Years Later

Conversation classes with a bunch of bright Tibettans are a speedy and fun process. Aside from a little shyness at communicating in a second or third language, a few prompts are all that is necessary to start long discourses on the state of modern Britain and Tibettan relations with China, the current composition of the England football team (I've *missed* guy conversation...) and comparisons of ideals of love in life, relationships and literature. They're smart cookies. And musical, as well. We've been serenaded in Tibettan and English. Everything from the Eagles, to Boyzone and Take That. And Celine Dion. But you can't have everything, right?


Karma plucks away at some of the finer chords in Back For Good. That song will never die.

Talking to Stephen about how he sees the future for his boys, it's clear that he is in somewhat of two minds about the whole thing. On the one hand, it's clear that the House of Peace is a terrific project and that the lives of everyone who comes through it have been dramatically turned around for the better. And it's enabled Stephen himself to become immensly well connected in the west (he was sitting next to the President of Croatia at George Dubya's prayer breakfast this year. How cool is that?!) On the other hand, though, hope for the future doesn't necessarily extend to Tibet itself. The current Dalia Lama is now 71 and s clearly not going to be around forever. His leadership has been inspired: but it comes at a price in that the Tibettans believe firmly in the principle of the Dalia Lama and so, when he does die, the process of finding his successor will begin. Who will be a child. Then, after the twenty one years of maturing and education, he will take on the mantle and pick up Tibet's cause. But what will the world look like after twenty one years? China has modernised the Tibettan territory in ways which have made it unrecognisable in just a few decades, and it will soon become either the biggest or second biggest superpower. It's showing no signs of wanting to leave, and every year that passes makes it all the more unlikely. India, as well, will reach a population of a billion and the question of whether it should still keep hosting the Tibettan Government in exile is sure to arise.

The Tibettan identity seems to have been made secure in so many ways, but it seems that the identity cannot come with a homeland. Nobody really knows how long it can last with one and not the other. But with organisations like the House of Peace to help it along, there will be little pieces of Tibet somewhere for a long, long time.


Sunset over Rajpur. I do never tire of ending countries with a sunset photo. I'm sure everyone else did sometime back at Camp Aldersgate. Sorry about that. I won't trouble you with them again!

And so we reach the end of India blog. Words cannot describe it (except for, you know, the words I've been using thus far to describe it) and my mind will take some time to adjust to not being here. One week to go in a land with much staring, few road rules and rather few scruples about public urination. The land of the limeys awaits. I'll see you all on the other side.


Yes, it's the India line-o-map. Kinda wiggly. Kinda small, but I think we hit all the best spots, right?