Blood Scent

The street was bathed in pale light from the dipping sun as I slipped out through the cemetery gates. I left the ghosts of fusiliers and Belgian sailors for the ghosts of Albert Road.

It has been an eventful day so far. I have come to expect a few dog owners to ignore the legal notices about dogs on leads, but I was a little more surprised that a party leader, no stranger to legal briefs, would, without pause, choose not to uphold Human Rights Article 10 and let his own hounds lose, entirely at odds with his election platitudes about unifying my party. However, if I was to say that to Julian Assange at this time, I think I might get back a wry smile. 

Beyond the surprise, the no surprise really, the dismay and the rage, I entered a period of reflection. It was at this time that I recalled the words of an extraordinary Honduran teenage girl whose reaction to the brutal extrajudicial murder of her equally extraordinary and beloved mother, Berta Cáceres on 3 March, 2016.  

"My mother has not been killed. My mother has been planted and she is born and reborn and this, which they tried to put out today, this fire, that is the struggle of the people - The only thing they did was ignite it more because they tried to put out the fire with gasolene."

Laura, teenage daughter of Berta Cáceres.

https://www.wordsinthebucket.com/berta-caceres

Corona virum days - 1

I spent most of my time backing off from the advancing six foot not bothered youth with phone stuck between hunched shoulder and ear. The yellow and black diagonal tape markings on the floor were clear and respected by most of the night hawks. Either they meant nothing to him or respect and concern for others was a a concept for his evolutionary future, if he should make it that far. Having enquired of the kind assistant of the whereabouts of the shelf for rice, we established that Uncle Ben's smiling-faced marketing-ramped-priced sachets were the only option. I headed for the alcohol aisle for consolation. A bottle of 7.3% McEwans Champion Special edition and a 2017 Montepulciano D'Abruzzo would ease my disappointment. All was going well right up to my payment at the till. Spot on, I thought as I transacted my purchase with my first ever cashless payment card at the check out, impressed with the substantial new glass barrier in front of the smiling check out human. I was feeling good. As I turned to make my exit, the architect of doom was heading towards me ignoring all ante and in-play crisis norms. I instantly and understandably surmised that his Hello sweetheart greeting was not for me but for the gracious cashier now over my shoulder. My martial arts were somewhat rusty and I had foolishly left my Gletcher Parabellum under my pillow that very morning. My senses disoriented by nine days of glorious solitude I became the passive recipient of the advancing intrusion of this don't give a fuck geezer. And so my fate was sealed. I am presently attempting to fend off all manifestations of virulent assault with the rice substitute purchases while upgrading my skills with a re-watch of Enter The Dragon. Be like water, my friend.

To be continued ...

As I carefully negotiated the riotous loveables spilling onto the tear-stained road outside the Festing Hotel, I wanted, tentatively to reach out in a comradely Pompey way, but constrained as I was by my bicycling status, a consoling brotherly hug was not an option. I left it to the boys and girls of the local constabulary, in flashing blue. I ventured a cheery "Ease up mush." to the roaring youth in the middle of the road but didn't wait for his (no doubt eloquent) response. I parked up my pedalatory vehicle at my Southsea lodgings and sought answers to the night's most troubling questions in the pages of a small volume, generously donated by a friend of the revolution. I consoled myself in chapter five,The Economic basis of the Withering Away of the State. It was whilst in deep reverie of such vexing challenges to the spirit that I finally figured out what's coming home (a certitude of which I have been confidently informed by complete strangers in recent days) I confess I have been behind the curve on this one. Well, of course, my comrades thought it best that I discover the answer for myself, when the time was right. And so, as the dawn inched up over the city's weathered chimney pots, and cock crow heralded a new day, the ocean of truth (a nod to Sir Isaac) swept over me. Not it's, but they - chickens. And why were they coming home? Need I say more?

Dar Es Salaam - Morning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZs1GIPZ2p8

(Dar Es Salaam by Richard Peirce - A Tongues and Grooves Project: poems by local poets who perform regularly at the Florence Arms in Portsmouth UK, set to music by Philly and visualised by Kino Cult)

FreeImages.com/Jeff Knepper

Dar Es Salaam - Morning

A gecko ornaments the whitewashed wall.

A ceiling fan cools my skin.
The gabble of the cleaning women
unfamiliar sound to my European ear
draws my attention 
through the mesh-covered window
where chattering finches 
fuss among the acacia blossom
that spills through the razor wire 
coiled along the wall.

Time slows 
to the rhythm 
of the fan 
and the featherstroke 
of your breath 
on my neck.

Bus Station at Ubon Ratchathani

It looked familiar as I stepped down onto the sunbaked concrete. The single line of coach parking. The platform with rows of seats, food stalls. Where the public phone had been, there was now a blank wall.

  

The experience was the same as eight years before, but this time I was prepared. The tuk tuk drivers crowded round, some shoving to the front, others hanging back. The more in my face someone chooses to be, the more I tend to be disinclined to consider their services. Adopting the detached mask and unfocused eye of a Tai Chi practitioner, I slowly moved through the bustle, pick up my rucksack which was already deposited on the ground by the bus driver and walked away - anywhere - but away. 

My companion, Greg, apparently looked like a better bet, but the reverse baseball cap and macho stance of the driver, posturing, close up, cut less than no ice with him. May, our Thai co-traveller, intervened, but with a clear message from Greg that if a tuk tuk it was to be, it had to be anyone other than the pushy man before us. We were a little surprised when, after a brief exchange, May had turned on her heels, walked away to the other side of the station platform and was opening a taxi door. We followed with the bags and were soon pulling out onto a busy road, heading into the city. This was May's home town and we relaxed in her capable hands as she engaged the driver in laughing conversation. 

Twenty-five thousand days

Alone for the first time in a month of my Asian travel, I sat in the small garden restaurant across the street from the condo. Last night my travel companions had raised a glass to my twenty-five thousand days on the planet.

I finished the meal of khao pad moo and pak boong fai daeng (pork fried rice and greens with chilli).

The second bottle of Beer Lao eased the pain in my knackered foot.

The waxing moon was within hours of its perigee, closer to Earth than at any time since I was five months from entering this wondrous world.  

King Bhumibol the Great, Rama IX had been less than two years into his reign. The National Health Service was not yet begun. A catastrophe was about to unfold on a peaceful people in the Middle East. 

One John R. Pierce was soon to suggest a name for a new device, the transistor, that would eventually lead to the transformation from fifty ton valve computers to the small laptop and smartphone sitting on my table.  So I had flown ten thousand kilometres to sit in an atmospheric local eatery in an exotic country - and what was I doing with these amazing tools?  Scrolling through a day's Facebook posts.

I was rescued from my banal idleness by a small lizard, taking a chance against discovery, that darted out from under a kitsch table ornament to check out the remains of my meal. 

The ascending moon lit  the silvern scene.  If that was not enough to nudge me into a greater consciousness, a yellowing leaf fluttered onto the keyboard, followed by another. 


No more tapping or scrolling tonight. It was time to wake up.

Bereft

การไว้ทุกข์ - Mourning
On the death of the king, Thailand, October 2016

At sunset over the water meadow
buffalo settle - an occasional bellow.

Geckos chup-chup-chup
to a crescendo of cicadas.

The cockerel waits 
for its moment and

flitting bats 
are silent to my ear

A doleful bell and evening chant 
for the people's beloved king.

There is no comfort 
in the Land of Smiles.

Roi-et, Thailand, 31 October 2016

On Lad Phrao Road

On the death of Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 
the world's longest-reigning monarch.

In the market place
the rails are awash
with black. They knew 
this day would come.

The 7 Eleven store 
has a No Sale sign 
on the beer fridge door
but Coca-Cola is OK. 



An eatery discretely serves
a Chang Classic
to a solitary Farang
who updates his travel blog

before a slow walk
back to his room. 
On the footbridge,
a young woman


a few coins in a plastic cup.
Her infant looks out 
at the traffic below,
child of a new reign.

The sociable restaurateur

Lured to the Nazar Börek restaurant by the thought of gözleme (savoury pancakes), I can't find them on the menu. I choose instead a main course of saҫ tava, a metal plate of fried, diced meat, peppers and garlic with fresh tomato and parsley, suspended over flames. The food is excellent. The red wine is as smooth and elegant as its name.

At first, I am the only customer in the small, unassuming arched interior, but a couple arrive, soon followed by a handsome group of young French men and women.  Reverse baseball capped man spots my flaming, sizzling plate and presents a questioning thumbs up. I respond with an affirming thumb, though some authoritative sources assert that this would have meant a swift despatch for the gladiatorially defeated in ancient Rome.

The owner, Refik, fluent in several languages, takes time to chat about the local wine. He reveals his plan for another restaurant with a different style, but this is perfect for me this evening.

The music varies from traditional Turkish to hip and cool French tracks for his other guests. Dancing and drumming is required.

Click on the link: http://youtu.be/h5TjLVQVCZ4

The barber of Göreme

The sign on the wall said "Berber" and an arrow directed me round the corner. I found it soon enough. Inside, a boy of about eight years greeted me and ushered me to a seat. I remained standing.

"How much for a shave and haircut?" I asked. 

He seemed to understand my request. "Fifty". 

"Too much." I replied and moved towards the door. He looked anxious and barred my way with raised, but placating hands. With no one else in sight, for a few seconds, I entertained the thought that barbers started young in Göreme. Then, amongst his words I picked up "patron" several times and inferred that he was an apprentice or shop minder and that I should await the arrival of the boss. I said "OK" and sat down. The boy then scooted out the door. A minute later a man appeared with the youth in tow.

We negotiated ten lire for a shave, twenty for a haircut and I sat down, banishing all thoughts of Sweeney Todd as my face was carefully lathered. As I sat with a beard of foam, the boy watched intently, gave me a reassuring massage on my shoulder and responded to instructions from the patron. I was shaved once, twice without the slightest nick. Hair was washed and expertly cut. I was relaxed. 

Then came the pitch. A facepack, only ten lire. Seemed ok. Then green goo that I thought was hair conditioner was produced for my 'broken' hair. Now my guard was down and I acceded without checking the price. The goo was applied. While my ears were singed with flaming cotton buds, a call from the street distracted the barber and he lingered a split second too long on my left lobe. I recoiled from the pain. Then hot wax was applied, ripped off and I realised that this attention was not going to come cheap. Twenty minutes and a massage later I was a new man. I was shocked to see in the mirror that the conditioner, in reality, had been dye.

I stood up. "That's a hundred" the barber smiled.

I left the shop, hair darker, pockets lighter.

I thought wistfully of Jean Rochefort as Antione, in Patrice Leconte's La mari de la coiffeuse watching Anna Galiena as Mathilde, sitting in the barber's shop window. I yearned for those moments of intense fulfilment - to be a hairdresser's husband, to be at one in the now and beyond life itself.

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-hairdressers-husband-1990

The road not taken, from Göreme to Malatya

"No bus to Malatya! You must go to Kayseri." The surly ticket agent ushers me to the map of Turkey on the wall. "From there you must go to Kahta, then from Kahta to Malatya." He taps the map on Kahta circled emphatically in ball-point ink as if to give it more importance than the mapmaker had thought it merited. I stare at the map in disbelief. It's like being told at Portsmouth Harbour Station that you have to go via South Benfleet to get to London. Has someone ripped up the Silk Road?

"OK" I say sceptically, "I will go to Kayseri today." determining to find a direct bus from there. No further information is volunteered while the agent fills out the ticket.

"How much?"

"Fifteen"

If he is right about the buses, my friend Ayse is heading east, this very moment, on a non-existent coach. 

As I leave the ticket office, I am thinking I'm smart, not to be outwitted. That is before I go for a shave and haircut.

Transcendentalism on the Silk Road, Göreme, Cappadocia.

The Köy Evi Restaurant took some finding. I toiled up the winding streets past the Arch Palace Hotel, away from the centre's shops and bars. An occasional sign on a stone wall spurred me on past dilapidated rock houses until these petered out. I turned back for a moment, with the thought that it might now be one of the rubble strewn plots I had passed. Had the latest edition of the Lonely Planet guide let me down? One last attempt was rewarded when I rounded an extra corner. 

There it was. At the entrance, an affable youth offered me portions of warm, freshly baked flatbread. I took a seat at a garden table surrounded by kitsch statuettes under shady apricot trees. A woman in traditional dress sat cross-legged nearby preparing more home-baked bread on a large stone. I looked out over the narrow valley. The late evening sun cast the conical rock forms in dazzling yellow light. They, in contrast, pitched the lanes into sombre shadow. 

Having ordered the et testi kebabi, I enjoyed the evening birdsong, reflecting on the day. I had spurned the quad bike tour for obese western yabanci, though baulked at the three day hiking tour on the pretence that I hadn't brought the appropriate footwear. I had opted, instead for the contrasts of the leafy Melendiz river canyon of the Ihlara valley and the labyrinthine Derinkuyu underground city that my friend Chris had explored on his drive with Ken from Karabörtlen to Cappadocia a few years before. He had written so eloquently of their trip, casting magical spells in my imagination of these places and summoning the ghosts of the travellers making their stops at the caravanserais strung like pearls, each separated a day's journey by camel, along the Silk Road, all the way to China. I was envious, back then of his brilliant weaving of place and history and a sense of ever present spirits of the past. I envied, too, the companionship for travel he had evidently forged with Ken. I have not met Ken but I have an image of a big man, perhaps a courtly man, rather self-contained but with a big and true heart. 

The waiter had brought a plate, cutlery, a basket of bread, a yogurt-based appetiser and a glass of local red wine. Now he arrived with a bowl of bulgur and an unglazed, sealed pot. With a sharp, firm tap, he broke off the top to reveal the slow-cooked beef. I made short work of the tender meat and ordered a rice pudding and bottle of Dark Efes. 





I asked for a Turkish coffee with the bill. A chilling breeze made me wish for my fleece. The arrival of several women at a table nearby failed to warm my blood. Suddenly, the clatter of hooves on the stone road yanked me out of my self-absorption. I looked up to see horseriders rounding the curve of the street, cantering up the hill. I marvelled at their confidence on what seemed a treacherous surface. 

Later, at a main-street restaurant, with an Efes Pilsen, my thoughts return to the day's events, meeting Memrut, the tour guide, who said his name meant 'Happy', and the mother and daughter from California. I had talked about nature and a progression from my youthful days of a sense of separation to a growing feeling of connectedness with all things. My words now seem to mock me as I notice that I was the only lone customer in the place. Nevertheless, I reflected on my wellbeing in this visually attractive region, its dreamlike landscape and warm hearted people. I am increasingly relaxing into a kind of normalcy of a traveller, trusting that there will always be a place to stay, a toilet round the next corner, a cash dispenser and a ticket office for the next bus trip or flight. Perhaps I can also trust that there will be another friendly hotel receptionist, waiter, bar owner or tour companion to connect with for a short while. 

For this traveller, however, to travel alone is to trade companionship, with its inevitable chatter, negotiation, irritation and compromise, for self-containment, self-negotiation and self-determination. I wondered how it might have been for Henry David Thoreau during those two years in the cabin at Walden Pond, his writings about individualism, self-reliance and the unity of all things in nature. I resolved to read my old leather bound copy of Walden; or, Life in the Woods, upon my return home. 

Tomorrow, I will catch a bus to Yukari Ulu Pinar - or not, as I wish. The night breeze carries the mezzuen call out over the town. The air is chill, the beer is drunk, my bill is paid. I look around to see it's couples on every table. I am done.

Palawan

Traditional boat (Banca) off the coast of Palawan
09°30′N 118°30′E / 9.5°N 118.5°E





Palawan


Snorkelling off the beach

where Magellan’s starving remnant

leapt from their landing boats.

 / 9.5; 118.5

In the leafy shadows

a lazy water monitor flicks its tongue

to sample the morning air.

Curious pouting fish,

like the brilliant flags of nations,

flutter over indigo starfish nestling in the coral

that grows its filigree on the bones of the lost of Bataan.

Above, the cliffs.

From the Tabon caves

ancient ghosts mark the unfolding histories.

Photos: Kate Peirce, Richard Peirce
Words: Richard Peirce