Books to read

I am starting a list to keep track of books to read. I'll add to it as I go along and hopefully make a few notes on the books as I read them. I have also started a pinterest 'board' to keep track of them. If you have any suggestions for a good read, let me know.


Whole Trip
From Here to There
The Well and World's End
Long Way Round
First Overland
Passenger to Teheran
Singapore
Malaysia
Thailand
Cambodia
Laos
China
The Silk Road: Xi'an to Kashgar
A Year in Peking
Wild Swans
Kyrgyzstan
Kazakhstan
Uzbekistan
Carpet ride to Khiva
Turkmenistan
Iran
Persepolis I and II,
Embroideries
Turkey
Italy
Germany
France
England
Scotland

Latin the pony

In late October, my year 9s asked me what I wanted for Christmas. It was in the middle of class and I said 'A pony!' and thought no more of it.

And in the last class they presented me with a pony. They named him Latin and I am tempted to take him with me on my travels. Partly to do that thing where you have pictures of a stuffed animal at all the sites. Partly to take a little bit of my old life with me. Partly because I think he will make quite a handy pillow.

The bear behind Latin has travelled with me to China, Madagascar, Canada, the US and Tibet. He would argue that he should go for continuity's sake. Certainly, he would be a well travelled bear by the time he got back.

I already can't fit in all the books and knitting I want to take, so the notion of taking both is something I am toying with, but trying to discard. 

Visas

Singapore
No visa required - need ticket out
Malaysia
No visa required - need ticket out 
Thailand
No visa required for less than 15 days if arriving overland - need ticket out
Cambodia
Apply for "e-visa" no more than 3 months before - enter 17th May, earliest I can get visa 14th Feb, possibly get visa at border, Poipet.
Laos
No more than 2 months before. Possibly get one at border - 15 days USD20.
China
No more than 3 months before - enter 4th June, earliest I can get visa 4th March.
Kyrgyzstan
Hopefully can obtain one on arrival, you can get one at the airport. £60 1 month. All nationals (except nationals of the UK) are required to register with the department for visas and registration within three days of arrivals, hotels will normally carry out this service for their guests.
Kazakhstan
Can get one there? Or from London? £35
Uzbekistan
Very painful.
Turkmenistan
Organised by tour company?
Iran
Nationals of Israel or holders of passports containing a visa for Israel (either valid or expired) will be refused entry under all circumstances. Women judged to be dressed immodestly will be refused entry.
Women over nine years old should wear a headscarf in their visa application photo in accordance with Islamic custom.
No more than 90 days before - enter 23rd August, earliest I can get visa 23rd May. Can take 4 weeks to process.
Turkey
Available on arrival. £10 for 90 day, multi-entry vias
Greece (Crete)
Some Schengen Convention thing
Croatia
No visa is required for stays of up to 90 days
Italy
Some Schengen Convention thing
Germany
Some Schengen Convention thing
France
Some Schengen Convention thing
England
Possibly that Ancestry visa thing.
Scotland
Possibly that Ancestry visa thing. 

Detritus

I am looking at my life in stuff, trying to sort into 'keep/give away/throw away'. The knowledge that I am away from my flat for a year and that anything I don't throw out I have to pack up and move is providing marvellous incentive to get rid of stuff.

I am examining what is important and what's behind the urge to buy more yarn or books. I know I have more books than I can read before I leave, but I am still getting the urge to buy more (particularly Liar, by Justine Larbalestier). I know I have more craft projects than I can complete in two years, but I still think 'but I NEED that' when I look at Sanguine Gryphon [worse yet looking at the Ehrman tapestries, they would take two lifetimes to finish].

It is remarkable how this squiggly red line is making me reassess all the stuff.

Most recent Itinerary

Melbourne, Aust.
Brisbane, Aust. 17th April 2011
Singapore, Sing. 1st May
Johor, Malaysia. 

KL, Malaysia.
Bangkok, Thailand. 15th May

Phnom Penh. 19th May

Angkor Wat. 22nd May
Luang Prabang, Laos. 30th May
Pu'er, China. 5th June (tea!)

Xian, China. 27th June

Urumqi, China. 12th July

Kashgar, China. 16th July (which is, yes, a Saturday). Stay for the Sunday market.
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. 24th July
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 07 Aug

Samarkand, Uzbekistan. 9th Aug
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. 20th Aug
Shiraz, Iran. 29th August
Takht-e-Jamshid (Persepolis), Iran. 29th Aug

Tehran, Iran. 3rd Sept
Istanbul, Turkey. 13th Sept
Efes, Turkey. 

Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Naples
Pompeii
Ostia Antica
Rome
Florence
Venice
Paris
London
Sheffield
Inverness
Orkney
Shetland

Initial tentative itinerary.

Melbourne, Aust.
Brisbane, Aust. 17th April 2011
Singapore, Sing. 1st May
Johor, Malaysia. 3rd May
KL, Malaysia.
Bangkok, Thailand. 5th May
Laos.
Vietnam.
Xian, China. 7th May
Urumqi, China. 10th May
Kashgar, China. 13th May (which is, yes, a Friday). Stay for the Sunday market.
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. 17th May
Samarkand, Uzbekistan. 20th May
Mary, Turkmenistan. 24rd May
Tehran, Iran. 26th May
Shiraz, Iran. 29th May
Takht-e-Jamshid (Persepolis), Iran. 31st May
Tabriz, Iran. 2nd June
Istanbul, Turkey. 6th June
Efes, Turkey. 9th June
Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Naples
Pompeii
Ostia Antica
Rome
Florence
Venice
Paris
London
Sheffield
Inverness
Orkney
Shetland

Okay, so it starts turning into a wish list at the end there.

The MSC Palermo

Today I booked my spot on a container ship heading for Singapore.

 













She is the MSC Palermo. I am terrified.

Yesterday, the year 10s said goodbye to me and the other Latin teacher leaving at the end of the year. They made a card and gave me a bunch of yellow roses and Justin made a speech. I am so sad to be leaving those guys, and my year 9s. Plus, last week the school offered me what was pretty much my ideal teaching job, if only I would put off my leave for a year. I am horribly conflicted.

But it is too late now.

It seems like the accommodation will be quite comfortable. Not living in a container for 13 days, as more than one student suggested.

I booked through Freighter Cruises. The woman I spoke to, Julie, was very helpful and let me know important information like: If I don't have a ticket out of Singapore on me immigration won't let me get off the boat there.

Latin

genius

home again home again jiggety jig

Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001
From: Ceels
Subject: home again home again jiggety jig

We did the census last night. If it had only been a little earlier I could have put down 'English teacher' and 'Beijing' for occupation and residence the week before. Then I would have felt cool and then when people read the censuses in 99 years time, they would have thought 'hey, she's cool.'

I have started life after China and feel (aside from a lingering feeling of "where are all the people/oh look at how clean it is/which way is the damn traffic coming from anyway/big brother is watching") largely unchanged.

I have started Uni and am studying a subject I love, with a lecturer I adore. He is the type of lecturer who makes me want to do my homework. And when he speaks Latin he sounds just delicious. Latin being the subject I am studying, hence 'delicious' not 'pretentious'.

I have found a new cafe to call my own. It’s quiet and the man who owns it bakes his own biscuits. It feels like you are sitting in his lounge room having a cuppa. Perfect place to sit in the window seat and study.

I am getting to know my new housemates. It is fun watching how everything is shifting around with my arrival. It is a share household, which will be a test for me, as I am not good at sharing.

Life is slower at the moment. I spend much of my time sitting in cafes around the university translating Latin into English. It is lovely to feel relaxed, the only demands on me being to saunter into class on time and wake at a reasonable hour.

love you
ceels

not for all the chickpeas in china

Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001
From: Ceels
Subject: not for all the chickpeas in china

I hate packing. I seem to have six times as much stuff as I have room. You should see China Post people pack. They defy the universal laws. If I didn't have such big feet I could fit way more in my suitcase. It turns out that Chinese men don't like big feet, no matter how big your bottom is. Dammit. Now I am going to have to go back to being liked for who I am.

The other night there was a full moon and a clear sky and I saw the man in the moon for the first time. Until now I have only ever seen a rabbit sitting at a table. It was very exciting. (Yeah, I know).

So I am leaving Beijing.

I have changed a lot, you know. I can now dodge traffic with an ease that few who have seen me cross a road would believe. Because of the lack of full-length mirrors I now have a self-image that consists of two pairs of limbs and a face in the tiny bathroom mirror. I can project my voice over a room of forty yelling students. I can catch Beijing buses at peak hour. Food in all its guises does not faze me (except the stinky tofu). I can sing along to aqua, backstreet boys, n'sync, Christina and Britney. And I haven't watched television in six months.

And there are lots of things to miss. No more 35 degree heat and 75% humidity. No more waking up at 3am in a tangle of soggy sheets. No more men falling off their bicycles trying to get a better look at how white my legs are. No more catching a glimpse of my reflection on the train and realising that not only am I twice as big as everybody else, but also the neon light is making me glow like Christmas. No more walking into a shop and declaring that I have something, instead of saying that I want something. No more chewy-air days. No more cheap fresh lychees. No more watermelons that would make you cry for how sweet they are. No more being cheated because I am a foreigner. No more being stared (pointed/ laughed/ spat) at because I am a foreigner. No more squashing the mosquitoes on the wall by my bed (that really annoys mum). No more Chinese lessons from the guards at the gate. No more lots of things, but I can't think of any more.

It will be good to come home. I am going to eat pizza and steak and one of mum's hamburgers and I am going to spend all the money I have saved on clothing. All of it. I went to the bank yesterday to change my money. Unfortunately I didn't have the seven billion bits of paper and three eyewitnesses that Chinese bureaucracy needs to do any thing, so they wouldn't change my money. Another Australian teacher came in just after me. I tried bursting into tears and he tried raising his voice. We neither of us got what we wanted. I have to go back today with my plane tickets, contract, residence visa, passport, foreign expert papers and all my money (in cash, in brown paper envelopes). They are all in the one bag. I am experiencing hyperparanoia about someone stealing it.

Well, I must run, I am about to go head to head with my suit case to see if I can't convince it that it is bigger than it is.
all my love
china blossom

Olympic Games

Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001
From: Ceels
Subject: Olympic Games


I have been having a good read of the age, and stuff about the Beijing bid. It is very interesting. One of the strongest arguments for giving Beijing the games was because it would mean there was greater focus on them and greater incentive for them to clean up their environmental and political act. And the last speaker for their bid actually played that card, with faintly ominous undertones of what might happen if Beijing didn't win.

One day at the start of the year all the grass was sprayed a foul green colour and I just found out that was for the IOC inspection. And they also shut down various factories to make the city seem less polluted. Just as well the inspection didn't come a month later, with all the dust. The dust was a nightmare. You would no sooner clean it up than it would appear again behind you.

In a lot of ways Beijing frightens me. Apparently there have been 1781 public executions in the last three months. All this stuff happens that is hugely inconvenient to people (like tearing down their place of residence or employment) and there is not much they can do unless the have connections in the party, in which case it wouldn't have happened in the first place.

None of it really affects me, and I suspect I know very little about it, it makes my head hurt trying to understand.

Another thing mentioned in the bid is how friendly Beijing people are. Which is and isn't true. To short term visitors 'hosts' will be excessively friendly. On the other hand people selling stuff will generally try to fleece you, unless you have been their customer for a long time (a month for dvd stores, four months for fruit and veg sellers) or have established your 'in-ness' (friend of a friend). People stare at you in the street with varying degrees of suspicion and dislike, a heavy weight to bear.

On Friday a taxi driver tried to fleece me by taking a circuitous route to my destination, making the taxi fare twice what it should be. I got really mad (I was having a bad day) and waved my hands and stuttered out a few phrases to the effect that I knew exactly what he had done and I’d be damned if I was going to pay the full amount. He seemed to find humour in the fact that I knew what was going on, and dropped the fare without argument. Perhaps encouraged by the fact that I had written down his cab number and the phone number for complaints.

Which is not to say that there are not just as many lovely people in Beijing as there are in Melbourne, but the (now rescinded?) government policy of overcharging (cheating) foreigners is a tenacious one, encouraged by three things. Everyone assumes that foreigners have plenty of money and so should pay more (maybe this is true?); the vendor gets extra money and is very unlikely to cop official reprimand; and a majority of foreigners aren't in Beijing long enough to realise how much extra they are paying. Paying 10 quai for a watermelon (roughly AU$2) isn’t that much, it’s just that everyone else is only paying 2 quai.

Beijing 2008

Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001
From: Ceels
Subject: Beijing 2008

Well.
Beijing has the Olympics. The decision making process was broadcast live on about 16 of the 24 channels my television picks up.
I could make many cynical comments about Beijing’s presentation, but I am keeping a tight hold on them. It is very easy to be cynical in China.

The decision was announced at around 10:10pm and the entire city went bananas. Fireworks (illegal in china's big cities) were going off for the next three hours around the school. People were running through the streets. I went down to the gate to say congratulations to the guards, but my Chinese must be worse than I thought, because they thought I wanted to go out into the street and became quite distressed. It led to a waving of arms and 'you must not go out by your self'. It is nice to know they care about my well-being, but I did feel just a little like a big kid (which is what they call me, the other day one of them told me in tones of great appreciation 'you are so large and white and beautiful', mmmm.)

Yesterday and today the backslapping and self-congratulation were still going on. If I hear Beijing er-ling-ling-ba one more time I am going home.

Okay, I will just say two little things. One major point of the presentation was that they are nearly finished a three year tree planting project with something million trees put in. but I would like to point out that I have seen them planting the trees and in another three years they are all going to have to be chopped down because they will interfere with power lines, or buildings or roads or water/gas pipelines.
And the footage from the promotional video is all from the southern and eastern parts of Beijing (quite affluent) and must have been filmed last year, because we have only had one day that clear of air pollution since I’ve been here, and it was only a couple of weeks ago. So either they had a clear day last year too, or the whole thing was done on a computer.

hope everyone is well
love ceels

wanting

Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001
From: Ceels
Subject: wanting

On the off chance I can get a flight out of China before Uni starts, and assuming I do decide to come home now, I don't suppose anyone knows of anyone in Melbourne who wants a housemate (me) for next semester?

unwanted

Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001
From: Ceels
Subject: unwanted

Yesterday the newspaper made me redundant. The other part time guy just moved closer to the paper, so he can work full time now so my services are not required.

They made me redundant!! Apart from it being a crushing blow to my ego, they've known about this for weeks, so if they had just told me last week instead of last night, I wouldn't have re-signed my contract on Friday.

So now I am stuck in China for another six months.