Green Family Travels
3 - 6 March, Ian
On Friday we flew out of Bhutan. The experience
of threading our way out through the mountains was different from that coming
in: then the whitewashed monasteries that sit in isolation on remote hill-tops
were completely mysterious; now we've visited several of them. If I ever come
again Starbucks and McDonalds will be stamping over the local character and the
unquestioned belief in Buddhism and the sanctity of the revered gurus will be
compromised by TV cynicism. The terraced potato fields at the centre of Paro
will become "real estate" that's too valuable for growing simple crops: there
will be a yak petting centre, or a cultural centre with "interpretative"
displays explaining local customs from a subtly alienating anthropological
stance. Maybe I'm wrong and Bhutan will protect itself as effectively as The
Galapagos Islands - but The Galapagos have the sense of being artificially
preserved. If you want to go to Bhutan, go
soon.
You needn't rush to Bangkok: it's already fully international. We checked into our backpacker hotel for the fourth time on this trip and caught up with our chores, which for me included getting the girls' Laos newsletters on line and posting some photos of Bhutan on our homepage. We also unwound with some swimming in the hotel pool and reached the end of the season of 24 that we'd bought in Laos.
It's interesting to compare the "suitability" for children of the four DVD sets that we've had with us this year. Both 24 and West Wing are targeted at adult audiences but considerately have no swearing or explicit sex or violence. On the other hand Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which is aimed at a teenage audience, is packed with violence and has more sex than any other regular TV show that I can bring to mind, though I'm not an authority. EvenThe Simpsons, despite being a cartoon, is far from innocent. Paradoxically, though, the cautious cataloguing of content correlates negatively with my assessment of how suitable each show really is for the girls. They're all very entertaining and well produced. 24, though, offers an ultra right wing view of the world in which the lead character played by Exec Producer Keiffer Sutherland is shown to be justified in summary execution and routine torture in the course of his hunt for (foreign) baddies because his snap judgements are infallible. Human rights organisations ("Amnesty Global") that object are depicted as weak-minded people being manipulated by evil men. Thankfully, the girls naturally question the moral backdrop to much of this without me having to labour the point. While watching this series I recalled that Keiffer's father, Donald, who is one of my favourite actors, is also a staunch Republican.
West Wing (which might more appropriately be called Left Wing) also excuses the inexcusable - in this case policy formation and the control of government by unaccountable PR specialists - on the unspoken grounds that they are more intelligent, conscientious and patriotic than the career politicians whom the electorate chose.
The Simpsons is the perfect antidote to both of these extremes. But while insightful cynicism is a preferable attitude to either pole of idealistic corruption, for an affirming view of human relationships you can't do better than Buffy: I can think of no better model for Zoe and Heidi as they approach their teenage years. The foundations of all of the graphic straight and gay (and human and demon) relationships are friendship, thoughtfulness, consideration and loyalty.
In contrast, I received a short email from my manager while we were in Bangkok reneging on his promise to find me a new job upon my return home. This is not the place to express my reflections on this. It presents me with some interesting choices. Although in reality I'll probably end up sticking close to the doubloons, as PG Wodehouse might say, I've also dwelt on fantasy alternatives that would enable me spend much more of my time in the beautiful South West. After this year quality of life considerations loom more concretely in my thinking, and if I could wean myself off the big cheques Somerset would be a more promising place to nurture these than Canary Wharf and Heathrow. We'll see.
This year I think we have all found more importance in such softer issues. For example, Zoe and Heidi have become much more aware of environmental matters, especially since staying at the Black Sheep Inn in Ecuador. Zoe now asks a lot of questions not only about eco-impact but also about the work of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. There is an irony that it's taken a planet-harming trip around the world to foster this, but I console myself that by staying in each place for a month we've minimised the air miles, and by camping or staying in houses or local guest-houses we've avoided the grosser resource abuse of the big hotels. And greener living is happier living: I read this in yesterday's paper, and it's true. Take for example the types of places we've stayed in: there have been four: (1) under canvas; (2) in a rented house; (3) in a guest house; (4) in a hotel. Taking them in turn... We camped extensively in Africa and again in Bhutan and enjoyed every single night of it. We rented houses in Fez, Corsica, Maine, Alaska, Chile and here in Switzerland - apart from the one on Chile, they've all been superb. I distinguish a guest house from a hotel using the criterion that a guest house is run by the owner, while the hotels are large enterprises, usually chains, run by hired staff. The guest-houses we've stayed in in Zambia, Cape Town, Ecuador, Argentina, Rangiroa, Tasmania and Thailand were all big successes. Only in the last category - hotels - is the record patchy to poor, and these are the bad-karma planet rapers.
Meanwhile, we have a month left of our travels. On Saturday night we had our last long flight - from Bangkok to Zurich. We were driven to the airport late at night by a cabbie who claimed proudly to be the only singing taxi driver in Thailand. First he softened us up with some Juilio Inglesias (Crazy is the one track I recall; they were all standards) before launching into an Elvis number, then Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (a favourite of mine) and finally My Way. He had a unique style. To give him his due he hit most of the notes, and celebrated each one by holding it for an inordinate time. He got some of the words wrong, which is forgivable, and even when he knew the word he was reaching for he had only a lax sense of the English consonant sounds. We applauded each number and encouraged him, for he told us how beneficial singing is for his health.
Partly as a musical corrective, before our flight I downloaded the CD Somerset by Ilya and then I listened to it on the plane. You might think of it as a cross between Portishead and Morcheeba and I'll have to play it a few more times to see how I like it. My last plane movie of our travels was Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which I enjoyed after I'd stopped myself getting irritated by it.
As we flew into Zurich the snow was phenomenal: seen from the plane through wispy low cloud it was like something from Raymond Briggs' The Snowman. It lay deep on the fields at the airport and it was surprising that we could even land. We transferred to a flight to Geneva and were delayed as the baggage carts couldn't get around the runways and all of the planes that made it out (for several were cancelled) had to queue to pass through the de-icer pad. When we did get away the plane didn't leave the clouds until it landed in Geneva.
On this flight I finished Ian McEwan's Saturday. It's had all the plaudits but I'm not sure that I enjoyed it as much as his other books; the only thing I know I've taken from it is a recipe for fish stew. Not a tremendous amount happens, and what does is very metropolitan. Although I lived in London for several years myself the literary set that it spawns seem to me to have a deficit of talent relative to their congratulatory group self-esteem, and to lack touch with the realities of English life. For example, the central character of Saturday, a neurosurgeon, refers to "the kind of daily routines of polishing, dusting, vacuuming and tidying that were once common, and these days are only undertaken by patients with obsessive compulsive disorders." This aside, I do like Ian McEwan and imagine that he would be a nice guy to spend time with: he seems intelligent, competent, considerate and reflective. In fact, I suspect that it's his all-round balance that impedes him as a novelist. The common vehicle of success in many quarters is a powerful motor of self-obsession driving a diaphanous chassis of actual skill. McEwan may not have the flaws to be great.
At the airport we were met by our friend Steve (not the same Steve who joined us with his family in Maine!), who has flown out from London to stay with us for a week, which is a treat. The delay synchronised our arrivals in Geneva perfectly. There we picked up a black Audi 4X4 estate, which has so far been a joy. The snow that we saw from the air has raised Switzerland to its ideal: the mountains are white, as the day warmed up the skies turned blue and the sweeping vistas up from Lake Geneva as we drove to our destination were postcard perfect. People say of Bhutan that it's like Switzerland, being remote, mountainous, of a similar size and with chalet-style homes; but the Switzerland we're seeing is not like the Bhutan that we saw. Happily, "Alpine" is an anagram of "Nepali" and although the peaks here are not nearly as high they currently have the snowy grandeur that we associate with the higher Himalaya. (Tangentially, I keep noticing that there are some very apt "homotexts", or whatever the word is for two words that have the same phone key-entry sequence. One example is "kiss" and "lips" - there are countless others.)
We're staying at a small place even Swiss friends haven't heard of in the South West of the country. The final ascent to our chalet is on a narrow road up a steep hill. Yesterday, when we arrived, it was more like an unpisted ski run than a road and I hesitated to attempt it; but when I did the Audi was superb. Much better, actually, than the specialised ski-country-edition Volvo that I drove last time we came here when conditions were easier.
The chalet is superb, too; uniquely for our year of travel we're renting a place we know. When we walked in I had my first glass of water from the tap this year. I'll write more about the chalet, perhaps, another time. Likewise I'll write more about the skiing when we've done more. For now, it's enough to report that after the first day we all had fun and no-one was hospitalised, which my friends might recognise as a relief for me after previous experiences. I don't know how the March weather will hold up but right now it couldn't be better. When we defrosted the car and drove back down the scary track this morning the temperature was -14 degrees, but with decent gear we had a wonderful time on almost deserted slopes under an azure sky. If the Eskimos really do have all of those words for snow I can't imagine that there's a type that you might prefer.
Before we even got out in it the girls were so excited when they awoke this morning and looked out of their window. They were also very pleased last night when they saw their newsletters printed out for the first time. On the computer it can all seem a bit abstract and it was rewarding for them to see the real copies that Steve brought over with him.
This is, I think, going to be very good month, insha Allah.
You needn't rush to Bangkok: it's already fully international. We checked into our backpacker hotel for the fourth time on this trip and caught up with our chores, which for me included getting the girls' Laos newsletters on line and posting some photos of Bhutan on our homepage. We also unwound with some swimming in the hotel pool and reached the end of the season of 24 that we'd bought in Laos.
It's interesting to compare the "suitability" for children of the four DVD sets that we've had with us this year. Both 24 and West Wing are targeted at adult audiences but considerately have no swearing or explicit sex or violence. On the other hand Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which is aimed at a teenage audience, is packed with violence and has more sex than any other regular TV show that I can bring to mind, though I'm not an authority. EvenThe Simpsons, despite being a cartoon, is far from innocent. Paradoxically, though, the cautious cataloguing of content correlates negatively with my assessment of how suitable each show really is for the girls. They're all very entertaining and well produced. 24, though, offers an ultra right wing view of the world in which the lead character played by Exec Producer Keiffer Sutherland is shown to be justified in summary execution and routine torture in the course of his hunt for (foreign) baddies because his snap judgements are infallible. Human rights organisations ("Amnesty Global") that object are depicted as weak-minded people being manipulated by evil men. Thankfully, the girls naturally question the moral backdrop to much of this without me having to labour the point. While watching this series I recalled that Keiffer's father, Donald, who is one of my favourite actors, is also a staunch Republican.
West Wing (which might more appropriately be called Left Wing) also excuses the inexcusable - in this case policy formation and the control of government by unaccountable PR specialists - on the unspoken grounds that they are more intelligent, conscientious and patriotic than the career politicians whom the electorate chose.
The Simpsons is the perfect antidote to both of these extremes. But while insightful cynicism is a preferable attitude to either pole of idealistic corruption, for an affirming view of human relationships you can't do better than Buffy: I can think of no better model for Zoe and Heidi as they approach their teenage years. The foundations of all of the graphic straight and gay (and human and demon) relationships are friendship, thoughtfulness, consideration and loyalty.
In contrast, I received a short email from my manager while we were in Bangkok reneging on his promise to find me a new job upon my return home. This is not the place to express my reflections on this. It presents me with some interesting choices. Although in reality I'll probably end up sticking close to the doubloons, as PG Wodehouse might say, I've also dwelt on fantasy alternatives that would enable me spend much more of my time in the beautiful South West. After this year quality of life considerations loom more concretely in my thinking, and if I could wean myself off the big cheques Somerset would be a more promising place to nurture these than Canary Wharf and Heathrow. We'll see.
This year I think we have all found more importance in such softer issues. For example, Zoe and Heidi have become much more aware of environmental matters, especially since staying at the Black Sheep Inn in Ecuador. Zoe now asks a lot of questions not only about eco-impact but also about the work of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. There is an irony that it's taken a planet-harming trip around the world to foster this, but I console myself that by staying in each place for a month we've minimised the air miles, and by camping or staying in houses or local guest-houses we've avoided the grosser resource abuse of the big hotels. And greener living is happier living: I read this in yesterday's paper, and it's true. Take for example the types of places we've stayed in: there have been four: (1) under canvas; (2) in a rented house; (3) in a guest house; (4) in a hotel. Taking them in turn... We camped extensively in Africa and again in Bhutan and enjoyed every single night of it. We rented houses in Fez, Corsica, Maine, Alaska, Chile and here in Switzerland - apart from the one on Chile, they've all been superb. I distinguish a guest house from a hotel using the criterion that a guest house is run by the owner, while the hotels are large enterprises, usually chains, run by hired staff. The guest-houses we've stayed in in Zambia, Cape Town, Ecuador, Argentina, Rangiroa, Tasmania and Thailand were all big successes. Only in the last category - hotels - is the record patchy to poor, and these are the bad-karma planet rapers.
Meanwhile, we have a month left of our travels. On Saturday night we had our last long flight - from Bangkok to Zurich. We were driven to the airport late at night by a cabbie who claimed proudly to be the only singing taxi driver in Thailand. First he softened us up with some Juilio Inglesias (Crazy is the one track I recall; they were all standards) before launching into an Elvis number, then Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (a favourite of mine) and finally My Way. He had a unique style. To give him his due he hit most of the notes, and celebrated each one by holding it for an inordinate time. He got some of the words wrong, which is forgivable, and even when he knew the word he was reaching for he had only a lax sense of the English consonant sounds. We applauded each number and encouraged him, for he told us how beneficial singing is for his health.
Partly as a musical corrective, before our flight I downloaded the CD Somerset by Ilya and then I listened to it on the plane. You might think of it as a cross between Portishead and Morcheeba and I'll have to play it a few more times to see how I like it. My last plane movie of our travels was Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which I enjoyed after I'd stopped myself getting irritated by it.
As we flew into Zurich the snow was phenomenal: seen from the plane through wispy low cloud it was like something from Raymond Briggs' The Snowman. It lay deep on the fields at the airport and it was surprising that we could even land. We transferred to a flight to Geneva and were delayed as the baggage carts couldn't get around the runways and all of the planes that made it out (for several were cancelled) had to queue to pass through the de-icer pad. When we did get away the plane didn't leave the clouds until it landed in Geneva.
On this flight I finished Ian McEwan's Saturday. It's had all the plaudits but I'm not sure that I enjoyed it as much as his other books; the only thing I know I've taken from it is a recipe for fish stew. Not a tremendous amount happens, and what does is very metropolitan. Although I lived in London for several years myself the literary set that it spawns seem to me to have a deficit of talent relative to their congratulatory group self-esteem, and to lack touch with the realities of English life. For example, the central character of Saturday, a neurosurgeon, refers to "the kind of daily routines of polishing, dusting, vacuuming and tidying that were once common, and these days are only undertaken by patients with obsessive compulsive disorders." This aside, I do like Ian McEwan and imagine that he would be a nice guy to spend time with: he seems intelligent, competent, considerate and reflective. In fact, I suspect that it's his all-round balance that impedes him as a novelist. The common vehicle of success in many quarters is a powerful motor of self-obsession driving a diaphanous chassis of actual skill. McEwan may not have the flaws to be great.
At the airport we were met by our friend Steve (not the same Steve who joined us with his family in Maine!), who has flown out from London to stay with us for a week, which is a treat. The delay synchronised our arrivals in Geneva perfectly. There we picked up a black Audi 4X4 estate, which has so far been a joy. The snow that we saw from the air has raised Switzerland to its ideal: the mountains are white, as the day warmed up the skies turned blue and the sweeping vistas up from Lake Geneva as we drove to our destination were postcard perfect. People say of Bhutan that it's like Switzerland, being remote, mountainous, of a similar size and with chalet-style homes; but the Switzerland we're seeing is not like the Bhutan that we saw. Happily, "Alpine" is an anagram of "Nepali" and although the peaks here are not nearly as high they currently have the snowy grandeur that we associate with the higher Himalaya. (Tangentially, I keep noticing that there are some very apt "homotexts", or whatever the word is for two words that have the same phone key-entry sequence. One example is "kiss" and "lips" - there are countless others.)
We're staying at a small place even Swiss friends haven't heard of in the South West of the country. The final ascent to our chalet is on a narrow road up a steep hill. Yesterday, when we arrived, it was more like an unpisted ski run than a road and I hesitated to attempt it; but when I did the Audi was superb. Much better, actually, than the specialised ski-country-edition Volvo that I drove last time we came here when conditions were easier.
The chalet is superb, too; uniquely for our year of travel we're renting a place we know. When we walked in I had my first glass of water from the tap this year. I'll write more about the chalet, perhaps, another time. Likewise I'll write more about the skiing when we've done more. For now, it's enough to report that after the first day we all had fun and no-one was hospitalised, which my friends might recognise as a relief for me after previous experiences. I don't know how the March weather will hold up but right now it couldn't be better. When we defrosted the car and drove back down the scary track this morning the temperature was -14 degrees, but with decent gear we had a wonderful time on almost deserted slopes under an azure sky. If the Eskimos really do have all of those words for snow I can't imagine that there's a type that you might prefer.
Before we even got out in it the girls were so excited when they awoke this morning and looked out of their window. They were also very pleased last night when they saw their newsletters printed out for the first time. On the computer it can all seem a bit abstract and it was rewarding for them to see the real copies that Steve brought over with him.
This is, I think, going to be very good month, insha Allah.
Posted: Mon - March 6, 2006 at 01:59 PM
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Published On: Mar 07, 2006 03:28 AM
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Published On: Mar 07, 2006 03:28 AM