Circumnavigating the Western Desert: Part Nine–The Last leg

The pictures are often unable to capture the beauty of nature… my wife often nags me for not having a camera, when I used to do most intense of my wanderings. I used to argue… that photograph often don’t do justice to what nature has to offer and not having a photograph entices me to re-do the wanderings yet again. So in a way not having a camera is productive.

It cannot be truer than this for White Desert. I took almost a dozen photographs of the Mushroom formation, at various time of the day and yet when describing the beauty of the place, I am often speechless. And lest I may sound unfair to other formations in the vicinity… everything was beautiful. The floor of the desert was littered with sea shells and other remains of erstwhile marine life… telling us a story of bygone era.

It was late afternoon, when we reached the New White Desert…. And we were the only people to have reached this place. Ibrahim told me that visitors from Baharaiyya often reach the place by evening, because they reach this place after seeing the Black Desert and the Crystal Hill. We had some time by ourselves, till this place becomes full with picnicking crowds.

We wandered around and saw many more places… every structure had a story to tell, a picture to depict… every structure evoked a sense of awe and left us speechless. We all were very happy to have come over here… I remembered the day when at Al Kharga – I had doubts over continuing the journey, further. I was reminded of many a time when I just pushed my willpower to the brink to see fabulous places. It was one of those times. Visiting the Western Desert is not an easy task for anybody, more so for an independent traveler… and here I was at the last and the most beautiful leg of the journey.

Soon after people started trickling into the place, picnicking around the place… camping around, singing and dancing.

I saw the beauty of the place in the evening while the sun was setting in the west… and indeed it was surreal and beautiful and if an artist had used his magical brush to impart a shade of pink and orange to the entire earth. It was one of those magical sights, which should be relished once in the life time…. And though I know that Sunsets are beautiful; I have relished the sunset at the Salt Lake in Siwa Oasis and closer home from the Phapahmau Bridge in Allahabad, but the presence of White formations impart a mysterious beauty to the entire place.

In the night we camped in a place close to the Mushroom rock. Ibrahim prepared us a wonderful meal…. Baladi bread with Egyptian cottage cheese, Roasted chicken, Potato and Tuna stew, Salads and Black Honey with fresh cup of Bedouin tea (it is black strong tea with a lot of sugar, brewed and not boiled and often flavored with a local herb).

By the time we had our dinner, the moon had come out and we just gawked at the magic of moon light.

In the night I saw a pack of Desert foxes, which often come near the bonfire expecting to eat some leftovers. They are harmless and often tend to run away even if shooed from a distance. Ibrahim told me that the only moment they can attack humans is when they sense danger to their young ones.

The morning next, I woke up early to capture the beauty of the place in the moment of sun rise…. I was fully content with the visit of mine… there could not have been a better climax. It was all so beautiful and satisfying and de-stressing.

After the breakfast, we pushed ahead to see other wonders around the place. First the Naqb Al Sillim (the pass of Stairs)….actually the level of the desert suddenly rises by about 50 metres and then remaining desert is on the raised ground. There are natural staircases that lead us from the desert at the lower altitude to the desert in the higher altitude and this is why this is called a Pass of Stairs. Till a road was not built the caravan used to use this place to ascend or descend the desert and there was no other way to cross over, in the vicinity. Then came the Crystal hills…. Not a big show stealer because the entire hill is covered by soil and you have to dig a bit or at least scrape to see the crystals that make up the hill…. But indeed it was unlike any places I had seen in my life…

And then came the Black Desert…. It is a hill covered by black dust, perhaps from some kid of erosion or volcanic eruption, Ibrahim told me that this place has been like this for millions of years… again nothing spectacular, just that I had seen something like this for the first time in my life…. In fact I feel that after having seen the White Desert, much of the rest of the places seemed to be common place…

We had our quick lunch at the Black Desert and then proceeded to Baharaiyya, where I said good bye to my Austrian friend and proceeded towards the Bus Stop to catch a Bus for Cairo… At the Bus Stop, I met a group of Japanese teenagers who were also waiting for the bus…. We patched up and took a taxi to Cairo….it was one of the loveliest drives… the terrain all along the drive was incredible…

An observation….people of Baharaiyya were unlike the people anywhere in the Western Desert….they spoke to me in a way as if a Businessman was speaking to his prospective client… everybody…Ibrahim tells me that till a few years ago it was not so… they were simple …. But then came the Tourist boom…due to White Desert and the Golden Mummies discovered nearby and then things changed for ever.

Was India the Puntland

Search for inter-civilization influences and interactions lead to fascinating results… they lead to the discovery of the common human heritage and the unity of human civilization…

These are the words of Dr. Wael a freelance researcher. He started as an architect and somewhere down the line became interested in the historical studies of the human architectural endeavor, especially the ancient Egyptian architecture….and then as they say, the rest was history…

Today I met him for the third time… and like the other two meetings… he left me as a more informed and a pondering person… I met him first at the Indian Culture Centre in downtown Cairo…when he delivered a lecture on the Ancient Egyptian Naval Fleets that visited Southern India…during the reign of Pharaohs (especially Queen Hatepshut) and how there has been a very strong relation between Ancient Southern Indian civilization and Egyptian.

His theories seem to be far- fetched…. And often lopsided in favor of India….because accepting his theory means that we may have to consider India as the oldest civilization and the fountainhead of the major civilizations of the world, especially the old civilizations that are located in the Indian Ocean Rim and adjoining areas…the Mesopotamia, the Yemeni, the Ethiopian, the Meroe and most importantly the Egyptian civilization. But the insight he provides during corroborating his theories is wonderful and sets us thinking… not essentially in the direction that he intends us to…but in many other directions… of inter-civilization interactions…

Why do we find Pyramid shapes in disparate locations of human civilization?- in South America, in North America, in North Africa, in Iraq and most recently in Europe (reports suggest that some Pyramid like structure was uncovered in Bosnia). He claims that all the pyramid like structures actually have a same root. It tried to depict a holy mountain peak… he claims that this holy peak was part of legend that connect all the civilizations… and often in all these civilization… there was a belief that mountains peaks are closest to the God… and man descended on a mountain peak from the heavens above… (In fact in Hindu tradition it is believed that Lord Shiva performed his creation dance in one of the Mountain peak…the Arab tradition also believes that Prophet Adam descended on a mountain peak… so it is just might be possible that this belief had some pre-historic root…when ancient civilizations believed that Mountain have a divine proximity to the God…)

As a disclaimer, I must say that this theory has to assume a lot of things and therefore I do not fully subscribe to this theory… there are some who say that architecturally the most stable structure is the Pyramid structure… and therefore quite a lot of civilization tried making it… that may be the case, but discovering the same stable structure cannot be a mere coincidence. So even the most acceptable theories have some preponderance, therefore a scientific enquiry must not be stopped.

He then shifts his attention to some hieroglyphics that mention… that the pharaonic civilization had very strong relations with another civilization called the Punt… which can as well be Punat because in hieroglyphics it is impossible to find the exact vowels. Some even believe that the Egyptian civilization actually originated from this place called Punt…and the first civilized people arrived from Punt (again this is just a possibilities… there are some other sources that claim that Egyptian settlement started 8000 years ago…thereby predating any known human settlement and that could have grown into something as grand as Pharaonic civilization after 2000 years).

The reference of Punt comes in Egyptian temples and hieroglyphics only and therefore there is no cross references to check the exact location of Punt… some say it is today's Somalia. But Dr. Wael has two arguments… One that there has been no ancient or pre-Christ civilization traces found in Somalia… the closest civilizations have been that of Yemen and the Axumites in Ethiopia… Axumites came much after the Pharaohs…Yemen, indications indicate was contemporary… so was Puntland Yemen? - Two he say that there was a British researcher in the early last century, who did extensive research on the length of journeys taken from Egypt to Puntland…the timings and the speed of oceanic winds… to arrive at the conclusion that the Egyptian fleets must have traveled much more than the distance from Egypt to Yemen or Somalia… his calculations indicated that in the southward direction…the Puntland must have been close to Tanzania… and Madagascar. So was Tanzania or Madagascar…Puntland?

As regards to the Tanzania being the Puntland… in the 1950s, some left historian, to fight the European colonialism, enunciated theory of Tanzania being the Puntland and that actually the Egyptian civilization originated from Negroid civilization… but this theory was severely discredited and nullified.

Mr Wael then shifts our attention to the pictures in the Temple of Hatepshut…in Luxor…where there are pictorial representations of Queen Hatepshut's visit to Puntland… the Puntland is represented as a advanced civilization, with lots of coconut trees and industry and people have a typical feature (that do not match with negroids of Tanzania or Somalia and are in fact closure to the Dravidian features)… the houses are on the sea-coast and are on raised platform (he explains it as a land of recurring Tsunamis and draws our attention to the fact that the eastern coast of Africa has very little history of Tsunami, whereas the Indian East coast has a very high incidences of Tsunami)… moreover, the clothes wore by the people are very much similar to what the South Indian still wear today.

So he believes that the Puntland was actually India… he claims that the if time and oceanic wind calculations are re-done today then it would be established that the places where Egyptian fleets used to go was India… he claims that Egyptian civilization therefore drew inspirations from the South Indian and also Mesopotamian civilization, that were contemporary to it…

So was there any ancient civilization in South India and Srilanka… we don’t have many evidences… may be it needs a thorough research….. Some days ago I read a news that the Adam's Bridge is not all that natural… it seems that it has elements of a man made structure… can it be so? Was there a thriving civilization in South India and Srilanka… that is still to be discovered… and we are not giving enough credence to Adam's bridge as a possible clue.

He left me with an interesting analysis….according to Arab traditions Prophet Adam descended in Sri Lanka at Adam's Peak. The place in Arab tradition is called Noot (نوط). In ancient Arabic the word Al (which precedes any proper noun was depicted by word Ha… if we add Ha with Noot, it becomes Hanoot (هنوط), very close to Hanood (the Arabic for Indians)

As an aside… Adam's Peak is the only place which is venerated by four religions… and where the oriental and western religion meet… the Hindu's consider it to be the place where Lord Shiva performed his dance of creation, Buddhist consider it the place where Lord Buddha gave his most important sermon while visiting Sri Lanka, Muslim consider it the place where Prophet Adam descended and Christian consider it the place where Saint Thomas came.

Circumnavigating the Western Desert: Part Eight–Reaching the White Desert.

For the last few nights, I had been intently observing the moon in the night. It was growing and growing… People say there are three best ways of seeing the White Desert. One at the sunrise…..when the entire Desert becomes pink, like a Salvador Dali’s painting…. Another at the sunset, when the shadow of night looms over the Desert and creates magical pink and black scenery…. But the best way of feeling the magic of the place is on a full moon night… when there is enough light so as to see the surreal objects and yet not enough light so as to distinguish the two objects… when the chalky formations of the White Desert merge with the background and create an illusion that…perhaps we are standing in midst of an ice field… with snow all around… as if we are in South Pole minus the chill of it.

Serendipity is not all that serendipitous. It does not occur to people who shy from experiments… it favors the brave or at least the experimenting one… When I started for the Desert Circuit… I did not look at the moon… nor did I know that White Desert is most beautiful on a full moon night… it occurred to me while talking to Eric in Al Qasr. And then every night I used to look at the moon with a request on my face…and finally as if it granted my request… Ahmed said to us…you are lucky, today is the full moon night.

In the morning, we wished good bye to Farafra… last night while strolling in the oasis, we saw a marriage procession and participated in it for a while… it was a wonderful cultural experience… Egyptian marriages… are quite similar to Indian… there is a baraat like procession, the bride called Areesa is applied Mehdi (Egyptian girls are fond of Mehdi and Indian Bindi) ….like an Indian marriage it is more of a social affair…a kind of get together for the entire extended family… Farafra was indeed a wonderful stay.

After a drive of about an hour, one starts seeing the first chalk formations on the left hand side of the road this area is called Nasser Desert… the actual White Desert is on the right hand side of the road… about 20 kilometers further down the road… The first few formations are impressive… one shaped like an ice cream cone, one like a lady turning her head to see her paramour… one like a sitting camel (of course you have to let your imagination run wild and then you start seeing these image)… and though we wanted to stay a bit more, our driver Ibrahim insisted that Nasser Desert is at best a precursor for the real thing and we should spend more time over there…

After 15 kilometers drive down the road we started seeing even more impressive chalk formations…. Much bigger, much grander and leaving little to imagination… we started behaving like children….look that looks like an old man, that like a hut, that like an ice cream cone, that like a camel and that like a horse….that like a pyramid…. The place makes you feel like a kid again…

According to a few Pyramidologists, the Pharaohs got the idea of making Pyramids from the White Deserts…. Quite a few formations look like a mini Pyramid… may be they have a point… Billions of years ago the entire Sahara Desert was a part of Atlantic Ocean… tectonic shifts caused this area to become a marshy land, then a savannah and then a bush land and then a desert…. Evidences of these changes are lying covered and uncovered in the Western Desert… A few days ago with an Environmental Club… I visited Wadi Al Hitan (Valley of the Whales)… where there is a mass fossil grave yard of Blue Whales… there are fossils of Amphibious animals also indicating the existence of Marshes… and then of prehistoric mammals… of savannah…

Desertification is a slow process, it takes millions of years for desertification to take place… today’s fertile land will become desert and the desert may become fertile yet again… but for last few years… human intervention has expedited the process manifolds… seeing fossils in Wadi Al Hitan shuddered me… over my insignificance, the human insignificance… in the larger scheme of nature…

We parked our car in midst of white desert, Ibrahim told us to take a walk around the area…. We were surrounded by a field of chalk formations… with every formation having an image to be imagined and a story to tell… millions of years ago, after becoming a marshy land these chalk formations were subjected to erosions, which like a craftsman had chiseled beautiful images out of them… Ibrahim told us a wonderful way of navigation… of locating formations in the horizon and traveling deeper into the desert, with the help of it…the entire exercise works like a GPS, where you mark a few coordinates for the sake of guiding yourself…with this method you are never lost in the White Desert

This part of the White Desert is very often visited by travelers… and therefore for the purpose of finding solace, one has to go deeper in the Desert. Some 10 kilometers from the White Desert…. There is another field of Chalk formations called the New White Desert…. Driving towards it you arrive at a place called White House…. (not much of a show stealer though… it’s a huge hut shaped formation and you have to let your imagination loose to digest what Ibrahim said was a door, a window and a chimney)… near a white house I located a borough of a desert fox… Ibrahim told me to be careful…this is the season when desert foxes rear their young ones… and can be particularly ferocious when sniff a danger for their kids…

We drove further to the New White Desert and at the horizon could see the famous Mushroom Formation….the formation which beckoned me to the place…. Which is so beautiful so as to stop you on your tracks and make you ponder over its story…. And praise the Almighty that had carved it on the yonder earth

Countering Hawthorne effect while traveling

About 75 years ago, while testing the validity of Scientific Management that had come to dominate the American Industry and Management style- Harvard University's Elton Mayo conducted a series of experiment in an electric factory known as Hawthorne works… he was trying to study the effect of illumination on a workers' productivity….His experiment led to some startling results that turned the Scientific Management theory head over heals…. These experiments were prophetically named as "illumination experiment" (for it lead the management scientists to question the Taylor's masterpiece of Scientific Management and enunciate a starkly different theory of Human Relations theory)...The Hawthorne studies have had a dramatic effect on management in organizations and how people react to different situations.

To put it simply Hawthorne effect says that people’s behavior and performance change following any new or increased attention.

Why do we travel??? Different people have different reasons to do the same… some just want to break the monotony that had set in their life, for some it’s a way to de-stress, for some it is a get together with people gathering at one place. Some want to see new places and add to their list of having visited the must-be visited places.

But for some it is a way of expression, of them… they differentiate themselves from others based on this wanderlust; they meet new people, see new cultures, question the status quo within and synthesize themselves to a better human being. For them the wise men say…. "Wandering one gathers Honey". But what if the experiences that one undergoes while traveling, gets mutilated…what if people who meet start behaving differently. Would it not hamper his very own growth process? And if it does…as it certainly does….then how to avoid it.

Well to put forth a very small example… what if I base my understanding about Egyptians on the interaction I have had with shopkeepers of Khan-e-Khalili or the touts of Luxor (and very frankly most of the foreign tourists start and end their Egypt experiences with these few places). Or conversely, what if a foreigner coming to India base his experiences on the aggressive and chauvinist touts and tour operators and shopkeepers of the Golden Triangle (and to be frank most of the foreigners visit these places in India). If one does form his opinions based on the following experiences, then his understanding about the host country is almost totally wrong… and then it gets registered somewhere… and whenever the name of the host country or a country in the same socio-economic bracket comes, he tends to deal with them with a set of prejudices (both positive and negative). So in a sense traveling become counter-productive. The synthesis of your personality happens on utterly false premises.

The problem here, of course if that because the above mentioned places see a high influx of tourist…therefore the behaviour pattern of the residents of these places has changed to a high degree- especially in front of tourists… the people start seeing a tourist as a potential customer and therefore the interactions are not man to man but service seeker to service provider… (I am going to write about a real life experience about this, in the coming part of my ongoing travelogue on Western Desert)

So how best to avoid such experiences? Avid travelers must have designed their own approaches to counter these… their methods may differ as per the individual's chemistry and likes and dislikes, and therefore my methods may not apply in every case… but what I am mentioning over here is a widely agreed methodology…. And therefore has a high degree of applicability.

1. Travel alone or in a very small company- When you travel alone… you open yourself to a high degree of quality experiences. One because of the lack of companionship, you tend to search for the same among local populace and two because lack of company gives you a lot of freedom to experiment. In the worse case try to travel with a very small company…. This again will ensure a better interface with the local populace… but would not be able to create the magic of traveling alone.

2. Travel shoestring… traveling shoestring means that one needs to find ways of survival… this will essentially mean that you search for methods of survival… and therefore you will interact with the locals all the more to ascertain ways of survival in the alien land… traveling on high budget means you are tucked away in a comfortable surrounding and therefore do not get the real feel.

3. Travel off beat… Offbeat does not mean missing out the usual circuit… but after all how much time does a usual circuit takes…compress the much talked about monuments in a day or two… utilize rest of it for traveling offbeat… After all, there are so many things to be discovered in off beat places… they aren’t mentioned in the guide books and therefore they are off beat… Another advantage is that the local people in off beat places are not spoilt due to influx of tourists and therefore you can have the most transparent interaction with these set of people.

4. Travel the way locals do… If in Egypt… use more of Microbuses, if in India use Buses, trucks, tractors, bullock cart…whatever…using the localized transport means that you meet the commoners and not the elites of a society….By flying in air you don’t meet those who live on the ground.

5. Travel for long periods… short vacations at best are vacations… not a real travel experience… when one travels for longer period…his contact with his previous life diminishes with each passing day… and then after 4-5 days, he can actually stop thinking about things back home and looking forward to things then and there…and then the real travel experience begins..

Well find your own ways….there must be numerous more ways to negate the Hawthorne effect… but first you need to travel…so stop thinking and pack your bags… World is safer and cheaper than what most of us perceive.

Bon Appetit in Cyprus

A year ago, while in Nicosia- I had a chance to eat Cypriot mezze at Plaka Tavern. It tantalized my taste buds, and thereafter during my stay of 11 days in Cyprus I tasted the mezze thrice… despite it being exorbitantly priced at USD 25 (and therefore more than a 1000 INR). Nevertheless it was a very good value for money.

I have never tasted anything like Cypriot mezze, before that… and though I had heard about the Turkish, Greek mezze… but Cypriot mezze paled them in comparison (from what I had heard about them).

People arrive at a mezze joint in the evening and are greeted with a Kalispera (good evening) and a Kopiaste (Welcome, join us for the mezze) … and you are ushered into a open air restaurant, among live music playing distinctly Greek or Cypriot tune… which lend a typical Mediterranean bohemian atmosphere to the whole place. And they leave well past the midnight, having relished themselves with a wonderful meal in a relaxed atmosphere…thoroughly de-stressed, saying Kalinita (good night) to the owner.

Mezze is a typical Greek/Cypriot dish that consists of a variety of small portions of different foods served one after the other, coming along at intervals. The Cypriot mezze is regarded as something quite special and consists of more dishes than you usually get in Greece or in Turkey. Mezze is the best introduction to Cypriot cooking due to the sheer variety and quality, consisting of a number of dishes, from delicious sauces, vegetables, cheese, fruits to a variety of fish and meats, including the most delicious of them all…the snails. The main course comprises about 20-25 plates of food so it is highly unlikely that one would not find something that tantalizes his or her taste buds.

For the uninitiated however, I have a couple of advice…First and foremost… work up your appetite by eating sparingly through the day- either by eating frugal or having a real early lunch or having a lunch of fruits only. Two in the evening before going to the mezze joint, do some light exercise… couple of strokes in the swimming pool or a brisk walk…that works your appetite and also attune your digestive system to the delight you are going to have. Three and the most important, when the dishes are laid before you… take everything in moderation… taste everything and then you would realize what really suits your taste buds and can re-order the entire thing (Cypriots love it when they are complimented for their cuisine, the chef may also try to explain how to make a particular dish…if requested); As the Cypriots say eat Siga, Siga (slowly, slowly)…. If you violate this rule then you may get bumped off the mezze even before all the dishes are served. Last but not the least… after the mezze; do go for a long walk- Cyprus is a beautiful place… the weather is wonderful in the evening and the streets are well lit… there is absolutely nothing to stop from having a long walk. So have it… as it would help you in digesting everything. Remember… Cypriots are hard workers… even the eldest of Cypriot is seen gardening in his house… they can digest it all; but for us mortals-we really need to take this walk.

The mezze generally starts with Tahina sauce- made from sesame; mint and cumbered flavored yoghurt called Talattouri; Humus chick peas in olive oil with a dab of pepper, parsley and coriander; sometime it also has some fish blended with lemon juice or prawns- this is served with pitta bread and locally made white bread. And lest you imagine that wow that’s a good meal…. No, this is just the starter, to develop your appetite.

The second course leaves you wondering…what to eat and what to leave??? Potatoes wit lemon and olive oil; Salad with pickled cauliflower, beetroot, olives and herbs; Haloomi- mint flavored soft goat cheese and Fetta cheese- goat cheese famous for its sharp taste; Cypriot sausages called Loukanika and Sheftalia; Smoked pork fillet marinated in coriander; meat and rice stuffed vine leaves called Dolmades (a clear adaptation of Egyptian dish Warq Al Ainab (literally meaning the vine leaf)….And a huge assortment of breads

As the restaurant owner will tell you again and again…. The taste of everything has to be relished and therefore everything has to be taken in moderation. The dishes however are having large portions and they arrive in quick succession.

This is followed by a third course, this course is largely meat based and has to be eaten as it is…without breads - Tuna; Souvlakia (kebab); Grilled chicken; Snails; Squids; Moussaka- minced meat with eggplant topped by a creamy sauce; Afelia- pork marinated in wine; Stiphado- spicy beef or rabbit stew; Kleftiko- grilled lamb chops. This is just to name a few….which I bothered to ask and jot down in my diary.

By this time, most of us are through and wondering what is next… we actually started praying that there are no dishes to follow… but then we saw the Cypriots- they were still eating and eating… there is definitely a method in this madness.

The fourth course is of fresh fruits….you name it and you have it… oranges, plantains, figs, melon, grapes, kiwifruit, dates, olives… though Cypriots love Watermelon…. One person can finish a medium size melon by himself. Go to any Cypriot market and the place is full of exotic fruits

And then comes the final course…when the owner comes and personally offers you a cup of refreshing Turkish coffee.

The locals gobble it all with wonderful Red wine… Cyprus, incidentally also produces wonderful Red Wine Commandaria, and also sherries. Eating out is not only a social event…but also a way of life in Cyprus…

So next time when you are in Cyprus…don’t forget to have the MEZZE

Circumnavigating the Western Desert: Part Seven–Preparing for the Shangrila.

Twice, once in Mut at the El Nogoom Hotel and then at Al Qasr in Homda's Ahwa- I met and chatted with a couple… the husband was a Austrian, who worked in the Canary Island as a guide…and the wife a ethnic Chinese from Singapore, who now is a housewife. Apparently when the Austrian was visiting Singapore, he met her and then the rest…as they say…was history.

In Egypt, it is still considered a taboo to be a single woman and travel alone… more so with a male friend… often, therefore, a lot of single men and women pose as husband and wife… the most telling signal being their different nationalities… initially I thought them to be the same… but later I realized they were not the same…

When I alighted from the bus at Farafra, to my utter surprise…I saw them again…alighting from the same bus… we wished each other and were very happy to see each other… it is strange that in an alien land….some times two aliens to the land, feel closer than they really are… I have seen it in India…. When people of varied nationalities hang together and apparently, the only bonds they share is that both are alien to India… so I have seen an Israeli comfortably hanging out with a Thai… a German with Russian and then a French with an American… initially I thought it was something racial…that a white feels more comfortable hanging out with whites… but then in the last case I mentioned, the American I am talking about was a black American…. And then after spending two days with this couple, I realized it is natural for everybody. It is perhaps called a coalition of convenience… the thought of sharing unknown territories itself become a comfort zone.

I realized that this couple also wanted to visit White Desert and like me they are also on a shoestring budget… They started from Asyut came to Kharga- visited Baris on a day trip- came to Mut and then on a day trip to Al Qasr…. And now here they are in Farafra standing without any idea of what to do next.

As Farafra is not visited very often, there is a dearth of hotels in Farafra. We realized that there is only one budget option for us to stay… Al Waha Hotel, run by Homouda brothers. Some one told me that they also have a few four wheel drive vehicles for a White Desert trip. So we walked towards the hotel.

Farafra is different from all other oasis we had seen. The people were fairer and one tends to see lesser number of women in public life… earlier both in Kharga and Mut, I saw that all the shops in the market place were managed by women… and the men usually worked in fields… but here the women were totally absent from the public life. The residents of Farafra were true Bedouins…who came from Libya and then settled down in Farafra… as against people in Dakhla and Kharga, who are Egyptians- ethnically speaking. Perhaps there lies the difference… the first impression one gets about women in a Muslim country is that of a burqa clad women confined to the four walls of the house; but Egypt proves you wrong- roads of Cairo are full of giggling, happy girls- beautiful and attractive in their own way, coquettish in their own way, being eve-teased and yet carrying themselves with a dignity… they adorn a hijab or a religious head-scarf but take their own decisions in life, work and take up the social responsibilities with the male of the family, equally. Seeing Cairo, changes both your perception and attitude. It just washes away a lot of prejudices.

We settled in our hotel and then met Ahmed the manager of the Hotel; and then what followed was an excellent example of bargaining by the Austrian man….by this time we had agreed that we will do the White Desert together, even if it meant just walking there as daredevils. I have seen that Western tourists are always more informed and very good at bargaining a good price… they absorb this art of haggling, while traveling in different places and settings… they know that the bargaining in the streets of Bangkok will be different from New Delhi or Marrakech and therefore have varied experience in such dealings… the Austrian himself being a guide knew the trick of the trade. So the initial price of 750 Egyptian Pound was brought down to 400, meaning that I would have to shell out less that 150 including the inevitable Baksheesh.

We decided that we will see the Nasser desert (nothing but a precursor to the grander White Desert), White Desert, Beit Al Abyad (the White House), New White Desert…spend a night over there…then see the crystal mountain, the Naqb Al Sillim (literally the Passes of the Stairs), the Black Desert and have a lunch and then will be dropped at Bahariya. It was the best we could have bargained… later we realized that this year the business of White Desert has not been brisk for many reasons… one being that lot of desert buffs are heading towards Libya for a real desert experience. With time, Libya has opened itself up for foreigners; the security condition over there is as good as Egypt; and finally because of years of isolation Libyan Desert and oasis are still off beat, uncommercialized and therefore unspoilt. Therefore to keep the business running, Ahmed agreed to the prices we quoted.

We had an entire evening for site-seeing, we visited the Qasr Al Farafra… the old mud brick town of Farafra… shaped in the form of a fort… in older days the oasis were raided by Bedouins dacoits, who looted food and money….therefore the oasis town were made like forts… the best example being the Old Shali town in Siwa; I also saw the fields of Farafra, the water works… where water is pumped out of the ground and used for irrigation. Interestingly, most of the walls in Farafra have an image of the White Desert's Mushroom Rock painted on them…. White desert has become a part of their day to day life it seems…

Then we went to the museum of a local artist Al Badr… a wonderful museum. It is a single handed pursuit to preserve and develop the Ethnic art of the region… it is a must visit… Al Badr is a wonderful man who not only welcomes you whole heartedly to his museum, but also tells you a lot of things about the region and chats over a cup of Shai. However, with time he has become a sales person too… I believe he has to become one, if he needs to survive. I also met Mr. Socks (a man whose entire family survives by selling clothing made up of camel wool, to the tourists)... he is a funny character.

The night before the final journey…. I went to a hot spring… which is a tank full of hot water….replenished by a tube well… under a sky lit by stars, I soaked my body and existence for two hours in hot water…. The place is isolated… without a soul for kilometers, one can try skinny dip too..

On completion of the 50th post

Day before yesterday, I finished my 50^th post in this blog… I started it on 25^th May 2006…so in absolute terms, it is not a very big achievement… 50 posts in more than 13 months… that is an average of less than 4 posts a month

I was initiated into blog writing by a friend and a colleague of mine, Rajesh Swami- quite a few friends of his are into serious blog writing. I liked the idea… it was a wonderful way of documenting whatever I wanted to share with anybody…

The exercise began as an attempt to merely publish all my poetries written during the Graduation days… and I had many of them, they weren’t necessarily anything great (as their quality will speak for themselves) and yet they were written with a great passion, partly because those were my formative years and I had started viewing things from a starkly new perspective and partly because I was exposed to a variety of experiences for the first time… first crush, first love, first heart break, first ditching, first bitching, first friends for life… first fight with friends… first loss, first achievement…I was moving away from the cocoon of my family to transform into something new…. Did I or didn’t I, is something I will leave on people who know me the best, to judge. In retrospect, I do not have anything to complain about, whatever I did and whatever I did not- I grew with all these commission and omissions. After a while, I stopped writing poetries- my emotions took a sharp turn… when I developed a very strong friendship and camaraderie with a very very good friend (with time our relationship grew and today we are man and wife)… and I started writing letters to her… some of them 25 pages of long A-3 size papers. It actually did a wonderful thing to me… I started pouring out my feelings in a very eloquent way… my letters to her- became my refuge, my homecoming, my bliss, my faith and everything. (As well as for her, she still keeps them with her and so do I, her letters- in fact at that point of time, I hadn’t ever imagined if we were going to marry each other and therefore our communication was very very transparent)

Anyway back to the original topic…while maintaining the blog, I reached a point when I had exhausted all my previously written poems and wondered as to what I should post next… and though I did write something on blogging as a phenomenon in my first write-ups… but then after a while, I was at loss of words. And then my wife suggested me to write something about the Lansdowne trip we did after our marriage. This was my first brush with writing travelogue; earlier while doing the Konkan trek, I did write her a 35 page long letter about my journey and my reflections about the same. I had always told her as to how I always want to travel and see new people, see new culture, write about them and she said… to become a travel writer, one needs to do two things… travel and write and I would never be able to write travelogue till I start writing them. In retrospect, she was right- with time I have started seeing a difference in my approach to writing a travelogue… my initial travel stories were more of trip reports… and now I have started punctuating them with my reflections about the entire experiences.

But then after a few days there came a lull, when I stopped writing the blog totally… from August 2006 to June 2007, I hardly wrote anything…and if I did…it was merely to conclude some continuing topics or to write for the heck of it…

And then 0n 30 June 2007, I decided enough is enough…either I will just delete my blog or will maintain it on a regular basis…I cannot keep on going cribbing about wanting to write and not being able to write and still somehow maintaining the façade of a writer and therefore an intellectual (or at least a thinking individual). Since then I have not looked back… I have posted 20 posts… on topics close to my heart….even moved beyond writing merely travelogues and have started writing some other stuff…thought closely related to traveling and seeing the world as a common heritage.

One sine-qua-non of writing a blog is that- it must be read… people use various techniques to get their blogs registered among people… they tend to form a caucus cross advertising a blog, become a voracious blog visitors and therefore leaving their marks to be followed… and give their links to their acquaintances… but essentially I have seen only those blog stand out, which have anything substantial… which are regularly updated…they spread by word of mouth, regularly visited…therefore I have avoided any of the above technique to advertise my blog....

For now traffic to my blog is dismally low… but I am sure if I keep on regularly updating my blog with quality stuff, then people will start visiting it on a regular basis.

Till then, as I always say…Keep the Faith

On Rohidas Gaekwad: Part Three- Interactions with him

Rohidas was of a medium built, dark complexioned and an ever smiling person. There was a certain degree of innocence and thoughtfulness in his looks. The moment I saw him, I was convinced that he is a very friendly person. He was working in the clerical cadre of the office. And they had to work in shifts through out the night… shifts of 8 hours each. Rohidas' shift was from 10 pm till 6 am, I was therefore, lucky in a sense.

The moment Rohidas realized that I haven’t had any food since the afternoon… he sent a message to his house to arrange something for me to eat… he then busied himself with the taking over the charge and other formalities. Meanwhile, I had a wonderful dinner, it was the first time I had Kokam Sherbet and Soul Curry… the Konkani delicacies… as I further went southwards, it became my staple eatables.

Nights in that Outpost used to be lonely, with only one person present in the office… and therefore boring too…. But Rohidas told me that he loves Night Shift because he gets a lot of free time for himself… to read and to write…

After a while, he came over and sat with me… and we started once of the most enriching conversations of my life... which had drastically altered the way I have viewed a lot of things in life

Rohidas was born and brought up in Ratnagiri... his father was a teacher... after his initial schooling and then the graduation in Ratnagiri itself, he went to Poona to study journalism and came in contact with an ex-Civil Servant Mr. Avinash Dharmadhikari… being with him, altered his entire life… he transformed from a village simpleton to a voracious reader and social thinker… and started writing for vernacular press… but one day left this job to join government because of the reasons of stability and because he wanted to come back to his roots… the village.

A word about Avinash Dharmadhikari… He was born and brought up in Maharashtra… in his youth he extensively traveled India, especially in Punjab during the time of insurgency… and wrote for newspapers, he also wrote his memoirs 'Aswastha Dashakachi Diary' (Chronicles of an Ill Decade) in which he gives details about his travels throughout India … his meeting with important people and his reflection about the country as such… he later joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1986 and worked in Maharashtra government- in 1996 he resigned from the service and started pursuing his dream of creating a new generation of youth… he started something called Chankya Mandals in various parts of Maharashtra for inculcating a sense of confidence among the rural youth… Rohidas incidentally joined the Poona chapter of this same Mandal…

Meeting Rohidas left me wondering, if a disciple of this man has such a strongly fresh thinking then what the real man would be like… I wish to meet him once in my lifetime…

We kept on talking throughout the night about the various issues of life… IIT and the brain drain… Corporate India and its responsibilities… my travels…. Villages and its economy… development in Konkan…. Maratha and Indian history…. Social reforms in Maharashtra…. Comparison of Gandhi with Ambedkar… and many more.

This was the time when I was preparing for the Civil Services Examination and was reading so many diverse topics and subjects that I was totally humbled… before that I used to think that Social Sciences do not have a dynamism… and are merely descriptive… but my first brush with Sociology left me speechless… for I realized that Descriptive Approach is just one of the dozen of approaches in Social Sciences… and actually any Social Science, howsoever rigid it may be (say for example History…considering that historical facts don’t have an ability to morph) is always in a state of flux…

Listening to Rohidas gave me a new approach, the post-modernism…way of looking into social phenomena… One simple question that he posed and which became one of my most pressing analysis point was whether an individual wants to be rich or happy… because the two are not conjoined and often work at cross purpose… today when debates about economic growth and development rages… it is essential to test our progress with this poser… are we becoming an increasingly happier society in wake of economic boom… Sadly, we are not…

Rohidas had extensively traveled Konkans during his childhood… he recalled how every Sunday, he used to cycle alone from Ratngiri to Bhatye (a small yet beautiful beach on the outskirts of Ratnagiri town) and spend hours seeing the sea…

While talking about all these things… Rohidas had a spark in his eyes… a conviction… that I haven’t seen since then…sitting in a small corner of India… he had an amazing ability to visualize entire India… and form an opinion about it…

In the dread of night, he invited me to come over for his nightly inspection… we walked along the sea shore for a while… it was the time of High Tide and I could hear the roar of the splashing waves... Resonating within me…

He told me a lot of offbeat places in the Konkans and Sahyadris… showed me the virgin beach of Jaitapur… and then at 2 in the night I went for a sleep…

In the morning at 6 am he accompanied me to such a point where I could get a conveyance for a place from where I can get a ferry for Vijaydurg…. The most formidable fort I saw during my wandering… (incidentally it was the last Maratha sea/amphibious fort to fall, Maratha Navy was indomitable under Kanhoji Angre...but after his demise...his son were made Naval chieftains- a wrong practice...much like our caste system...and they were no match for the European meritocracy...the Maratha navy perished after the mighty Kanhoji Angre)

I wish to meet Rohidas once again…. May be he is still there in Jaitapur, reading his book and helping wanderers… or may be he has moved ahead in life…

Today the government is constructing a Nuclear Power Plant in Jaitapur.... I am reminded of the words of Rohidas...

"when a bus from city comes to a village, it brings hope but in the barter takes away the innocence".....

Why Ethiopia Part Two

India and Ethiopia share a very old relationship. Richard Pankhurst an academician with Addis Ababa University has written an interesting article on relationship between India and Ethiopia. It is an absolutely wonderful read…and tells a lot about cross cultural synthesis that kept on happening between countries in the past…I am yet to come across such a simple and thought provoking work between interaction of India with other countries …

The link for the article is

Ethiopia across Red Sea & Indian Ocean

Ethiop call India as Hind, same as the Arabs do….there was a vibrant trade between the two countries since ancient times … (incidentally tobacco is called 'surat' in Ethiopia…referring to the port in India, where it came from)…then there is a very strong semblance between Ethiopian food, which is largely vegetarian and flavored, and Indian food; Also Sari is used in both the cultures as a women wear(though the way of draping is different), incidentally even in Sudan and Upper Egypt some indigenous population use a Sari like cloth for draping themselves. On its part, Ethiopia used to be a source of ivory to India… and against the popular belief that Ivory used to come from Indian elephants; actually it came from African Elephants that have much bigger tusks than their Indian or Thai counterpart…Ivory carving is an age-old tradition in India…and therefore it can be easily deduced that Ethiopia and India had a roaring trade relations…in ancient period.

Some 8 years ago, in Jamnagar I met two brothers Joseph and Paul…from Palghar near Bombay… they were blacks and yet were speaking fluent Marathi and Hindi….it perplexed me; they were Roman Catholics…- and though with time I became a very good friend of Joseph, I just couldn’t muster enough courage to query them about their ancestry… …. It happened so, that one day, while having a hearty dinner with them in a local restaurant- I asked them about their ancestry… and found out that they had an Ethiopian Ancestry…

In Medieval periods, Ethiopia was a source of slave-guards in India… there was a regular flow of these well built people who used to work as personal body guards of the Nawabs and Kings…and were much in demand… slowly but surely some of them rose in ranks, becoming soldiers, commanders and then usurped power to become Kings…they started what is known as Siddhi Dynasty…this was a powerful dynasty and used to rule the Arabian seas for about 2-3 centuries, till they were decisively defeated by the Maratha and the Portuguese Naval forces… One must definitely go to the Janjira fort in Raigad district to gauge what they must have been like, in their primacy….

There descendents still continue living in India, in Gujarat and the Coastal North Maharashtra… most of them have converted to Christianity, for they were treated as the lowliest of caste among Hindus and Muslims… Joseph and Paul were from the same descent… their forefathers used to work as tillers of the land but today they are accessing good education and slowly moving to Western countries, especially US- in order to benefit from affirmative action…

Two Zebras were brought in a Mughal court during the days of Siddhis and everybody was dumbfounded to see them….many opined that, perhaps, they were painted that way….and days and days, went in efforts to get the paint removed….after weeks of trials…the court realized that Allah has made them so…funny but true... Therefore, India and Ethiopia are related in more ways than one had ever realized or imagined.

The relations between India and Ethiopia are not limited to ancient or medieval periods… In modern times too, we have shared a very intense relationship… the modern Ethiopian generation was taught by Indian teachers….hordes and hordes of Indian teachers went to Ethiopia to train the Ethiopian students during its formative years… therefore even today Indians are respected a lot in Ethiopia…as a country from where their teachers came… also, Gandhiji is a much venerated figure…

This unseen thread of relations is perhaps one big reason that entices me to visit this country; the other being the Ethiopian girls… I have heard many a praises from my acquaintances that have been to Ethiopia- according to them- Ethiopian girls are stunners…one of the most beautiful women in the world… and minus the cosmetic of it all.

One look at Liya Kebede and you realize as to why Ethiopian women are called stunners. Often, Liya is considered as one of the most beautiful women in the world. She is a mother of two, a top super model (in fact dubbed as the top 50 super models, ever).

One of my friend, who had been to Ethiopia last year, told me that though an average girl in Addis Ababa or even the hinterlands is black and rustic but she is very beautiful….she has a perfect jaw line, beautiful eyes and chiseled face… and is different from the rest of Africans, somehow.

I, therefore just want to be there and see the land … the people and the culture and the history and the monuments… Contrary to popular perception about Africa...Ethiopia is one country which gives you the best of nature and history… it is perhaps, an Egypt and Uganda found in the same country…

Why Ethiopia Part One

Why Ethiopia???

Whenever somebody asks me- which is the one country you would like to visit the most, I tell them it is Ethiopia… and then I see an expression of disbelief on the faces of those who had posed the question. The immediate question is –Why Ethiopia? Why on the holy earth Ethiopia?

Frankly even I do not know the answer… my first brush with Ethiopia was in class sixth, when while reading "Romeo and Juliet" in the "The sixteen tales of Shakespeare"…I encountered this

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night

As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear--

Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!

So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows

As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.

These words were uttered by Romeo to describe the beauty of Juliet to his friend. My teacher (and I still remember her name Mrs. A D'cruz, an Anglo Indian widow) told me that in the dialogue, Ethiop symbolizes night as the colour of both the night and an Ethiop is black. I was taken aback. Was this an insult to the Ethiop, whoever he or she is?

Around that time a Sudanese student used to come to our house to meet some tenants; he was a wonderful man- very warm and friendly- he had carved a special place in my heart, somehow. And off course, he was a black. One day, he picked up a fight with a few neighbourhood urchins, as they continuously used to tease him as "kallu", meaning black. Moreover my father used to tell me stories and stories about Nelson Mandela… and how blacks were treated inhumanely because of their colour. Therefore to my tender mind, calling anybody black was an insult, a racial insult (in the hindsight).

My teacher pointed out a significant term in English…Metaphor…which can be both simple or compound… and how metaphor always compare two similar things and not disparate things… She told me that the beauty of Juliet is not contrasted by the ugliness of night, but actually compared with the beauty of night…indicating that the author considers night as beautiful…and therefore Ethiop is beautiful… This registered in my mind… that Ethiop are beautiful!!!!!

In class eighth, my father brought me a book on World Famous mysteries… it had in it the mysteries of Nazcas, Machhu Picchu, Tutankhamen's curse, Mehruali Iron Pillar…. But the one that caught my imagination was the shroud of mystery surrounding the Ethiop queen Sheeba. Who was she, where did she come from… how did she have so much of gold, when she came to Jerusalem… the book said that it is widely believed that Sheeba was from Ethiopia, from the great kingdom of Aksumites … though Arabs differ and locate her somewhere in Yemen. Earlier I had read an abridged version of the classic "King Solomon Mines" (incidentally I was so smitten by Allan Quatermain that I wanted to be like him, traveling in Africa and treasure hunting… I must have seen "The league of Extra-ordinary Gentlemen" about 10 times…just for seeing Sean Connery playing Allan Quatermain)… the relation between King Solomon and Queen Sheeba rung a bell in my mind.

So all these things were continuously getting registered in my mind… and then came the sad part, during my teenage…I started hearing Ethiopia for all the wrong reasons… famines, wars, infighting, dictatorial regimes… slowly but surely Ethiopia was slipping away from my mind. And it slipped and slipped further, till images had faded.

A few years ago, when I was seeing a programme on the world's longest and arguably the most productive river, Nile. The documentary told that White Nile that starts in Uganda- actually becomes a marshy swampland in South Sudan and loses all its water. Then the shot shifted to Lake Nasser in north Sudan and South Egypt, the narrator asked- if all the water evaporated in South Sudan then how come this lake is full of huge amount of water…. And then as if to search for an answer it retraces its steps back to the Ethiopian highlands, wherefrom 3000 rain fed rivers and rivulets emanate and end into Lake Tana (Ethiopia has a five month long rainy season, akin to our monsoons, when moisture laden winds from Indian Ocean head towards Horn of Africa, are deflected towards Ethiopia due to coriolis force and hit Ethiopian Highlands, incidentally it is called Monsoon in Ethiopia too). And then from Lake Tana comes out a giant river called Blue Nile….carrying a lot of fertile topsoil from the Ethiopian highlands and about 80 percent of the water for river Nile. I was fascinated with Ethiopia again….

Ethiopia is an age old civilization; The Aksumite civilization was once one of the biggest empires in the world whose boundaries extended to Tanzania in South, Sudan in West, Arabian Peninsula in East and Red Sea in North… it has built some great monuments in the dusty city of Aksum in north Ethiopia… bordering Eritrea. Then came the age of orthodox Christianity, when the Christianity was introduced by the Syrian Orthodox church and then the Coptic Church of Egypt… the Ethiopian Orthodox churched evolved into a separate Church with the passage of time. They built beautiful churches in Lalibela, the monasteries of Lake Tana… and unlike the Orthodox churches of Egypt and Syria that perished with time and were replaced by Islam… Ethiopian Orthodox church continues to prosper… Islam was introduced in Ethiopia soon after the Prophet. Today it is the second biggest religion of the country… Islam also gave historical and cultural dimensions to this country…. Apart from ethnic Somali group who live in the Ethiopian lowlands and work as farmers, there is an indigenous Muslim population in Ethiopia, the non-Arab Muslims... then it has a huge Jewish population also… living today in either the highlands or in camps, waiting to go to Israel…. And then there are tribals with their animistic religion…Despite this diversity, Ethiopia has been relatively peaceful…

In many ways it reminds me of India, where so many religions live in relative peace….

Remebering the Konkan journey

Six years ago, I traveled off beat in Konkans. Those days I was studying Management in the IIT Bombay and took some time out during the winter vacation and started the journey without any inkling as to where I will be going… it continues to be my most favourite memory, one I cherish and relish the most. I will re-do it once again, this time with my son.

There were two rules which I had set for myself…one, I would not be using any Public transport – either Railways or MSRTC buses and will rely on the way the local people travel- in boats, hitch-hiking, walking and using shared taxis and two that I will not start with any pre-decided destination and would just reach a place and decide the next destination… based on the opinion of the local population….Then there was another resolution that I did not very strictly adhere to and it was that I will try to stick to the sea shore and come what may, I would not go hinterlands (this was challenging as the Konkan has a lot of creeks and there may or may not be a readily available mode of crossing the creek).

Sadly I was not able to maintain a perfect log of my entire journey and I have some diminishing memories about a lot of things… now that I have started maintaining a blog… I am planning to recollect it all and write a travelogue…

The starting point, of course will be writing down the entire route…

Thankfully I have been able to recollect most of it…

Mumbai

Rewas Jetty

Mandwa (night stay)

Kihim

Alibaug (night stay)

Chaul

Revdanda

Korlai

Kashid (night stay)

Nandgaon

Murud Janjira

Rajpuri (night stay)

Dighi

Borlai

Srivardhan

Harihareshwar (night stay)

Bankot

Anjarle

Harnai

Dapoli (night stay)

Dabhol

Vedlur

Anjanvale

Guhagar (2 nights stay)

Velneshwar

Hedvi

Jaigad (night stay)

Malgund

Ganpatipule

Bandarphule

Ratnagiri (night stay)

Bhatye

Pawas

Purnagad

Musakazi Bandar

Jaitapur (night stay)

Vijaydurg

Devgad

Kunkeshwar

Wayangani

Malvan –Sindhudurg (night stay)

Walawal

Kudal (night stay)

Sawantwadi

Danoli

Amboli (2 night stay)

After this I ended my Konkan journey and went to Londa, Belgaum and then into Karnataka. So in all it was a 15 day journey and one of the most wonderful journeys I have ever taken….wonderful experiences and memories…. I will definitely write a travelogue on the same

Circumnavigating the Western Desert: Part Six– Great Sand Sea and some reflections

The road to Farafra is scenic, and for this very reason- beg, borrow or steal a window seat on the bus to Farafra. Alternatively, retrace your step to Mut, from where the bus to Farafra starts and occupy the window seat- though I just requested my co-passenger to shift over to my aisle seat- telling him that I am a tourist and am traveling this region for the first time – in chaste Arabic.

Last few days had done wonders to my spoken Arabic- I was not only fluently speaking in Arabic, but also learning or remembering new words at a furious pace. Even my comprehension of the aural Arabic had improved… I was able to pick up a few words here and there and then put them in the context to arrive at the meaning.

Language is an amazing thing; I remember one of my Arabic instructors telling me- how language is partly verbal and majorly expression and context driven. He told me that though at times, we are intimidated by the fact as to how we will communicate in an alien land, but ultimately are able to- and quoted his own experiences in varied lands of Japan, Morocco, Mali and Ethiopia- where he was able to communicate what all he wanted, with relative ease. I am also reminded of Bawabs (Egyptian gatekeepers cum errand boys), they are mostly illiterate or semi-literate people from the Middle Egypt (region of Egypt that hardly sees any foreign tourists) and yet despite their minuscule repertoire of English, they are able to understand everything that is told to them, by their clients. My Bawab, Ahmed, says that it is not the language that he understands but some signs, and his experience as to what a particular sign may mean, that helps him to understand the clients.

Back to the road to Farafra; along this road, you start seeing as to what a real desert means… sand dunes everywhere, not even a trace of vegetation, not a trace of life or water. Till now what I had seen was arid- shrubland, where one could see some shrubs here and there fighting the wrath of the nature. And some camels, sheeps and donkeys grazing casually, challenging the reign of the deserts; but this was different.

Eric had told me that technically the Great Sand Sea starts just after the end of Al Qasr. The road to Farafra goes west till a small village, which has a small spring and therefore some Bedouin settlement and then takes a sharp turn towards north for Farafra. Beyond this small settlement towards the west, which has strategic significance for the Egyptian Army and looks like a cantonment, there is absolutely no life. This settlement heralds the beginning of the Great Sand Sea, which has in its folds Silica Glass valley (where sand has turned into glass due to some meteoric impact), Valley of Acacia (a patch of green in midst of desert, fed by an underground cistern) and the Gilf Kebir (a 1800m high peak in midst of desert). This is the same Great Sand Sea that devoured the marching 50000 strong army of Cambyses, the Persian monarch who wanted to destroy the Temple of Oracle at Siwa, and thereafter the Persian Empire was not same ever again. (Cambyses' brother Bardiya rose against him after his failure in Egyptian deserts and in Sudan against the Meroe rulers, interestingly he was defeated in both the expedition, by the desert...and not the opponents…in Sudan too he lost to the desert, after his garrison lost the way and perished… tragically the man died at his own hand, when he was all but defeated by enemies, and was buried in a desert town of Persia… his tomb was found in 2006).

Western Desert, people say is filled with amazing geographical features, there are fossil graveyards, stunning scenery, caves (one such cave was shot in the movie English Patient; I recommend this movie to anybody who likes good cinema and who would like to see a snapshot of Western Desert).

Farafra is not a pure oasis, at least from what I saw. In other oasis, I saw springs but in Farafra water is pumped out of under ground cisterns, so Farafra can at best qualify as a piece of land where the ground water is abundant and found easily (and may be I am wrong)… this opens a lot of possibilities, actually. There are some hot sulfur springs, where water is pumped out through tube wells and because it doesn’t come in contact with air, the temperature of the pumped water is fairly high, as high as 60 degrees. Imagine taking a bath under it… Jacuzzi is just a passé.

Farafra is closest to White Desert and yet farthest to Cairo, therefore hordes of tourists head towards Bahariya to make an excursion to White Desert. This has meant two things; one that Farafra has not developed much- there are hardly a few hotels and fewer outfits which run jeep safaris to White Desert and two that the people of Farafra are friendly and don’t interact with us as if they are interacting with a potential client. So in a sense I liked the place.

I had a worry at hand; the tougher part was how I would muster enough funds to visit White Desert, as it is done on a Jeep Safari which might cost USD 150- on my own I was not willing to spend so much. I was told by Eric that it is not very difficult to see the White Desert, he advised that I should just hop on to any vehicle going to Bahariya and alight at the White Desert- and then walk eastwards from the road, as the White Desert falls on the Eastern side of the road and then sleep somewhere in the desert… then the morning next I can just start walking towards the West to get back to the road and hop on to any other vehicle going towards Bahariya. The idea sounded fine. But what if something goes wrong? I will be stranded in midst of desert without any help.

Eric was of the opinion that nothing will go wrong, he said the worse that can happen is that you may be bitten by a desert fox, and in any case there are dozens of group from Bahariya coming for an excursion to the White Desert and in case of emergency they will be able to help me. But Homda had a horror story about how two Japanese were lost and then rescued after 4 days. Both had a point. And I was unable to make up my mind, whom to follow....and then the bus driver yelled....Farafra Farafra!!!!!

Some stray thoughts

Many a times and often, I wonder as to why traveling or trekking is so therapeutic. As an example- after a week long trek, even though my body craves for creature comforts, yet my mind is absolutely refreshed, far from any stress- interacting with new frontiers of consciousness.

I don’t know if it is true for all of us; there are a few friends of mine who totally abhor the thought of trekking and traveling without the proper paraphernalia. It is not to say that they aren’t into any physical activities; take them for a game of badminton or cricket, they will beat me black and blue. Perhaps it is just the thought of leaving one's comfort zone and experimenting with a new unknown zone, that unsettles them.

Comfort zones are funny things- you start adoring the challenges as well as monotonies of your comfort zones. You may go on cribbing over the way- your life is shaping up, but when asked for re-engineering it, you will harp upon so many positive things about the predicament you are in. In short, you love to hate your comfort zone and yet it's your first love.

One of the big reasons of traveling alone, has been the relative freedom I tend to get, while traveling. Singletons are generally more open to experiments, much more than twos. For example- when I was in Spiti with a very good friend of mine- with whom I shared a wonderful understanding- we had our share of differences over how the entire journey be done. Like when he wanted to stay back at Chandratal, I didn’t want to and when I wanted to just hop out of bus to Kaza and trek towards Key Monastery, he was craving for a soft bed. Yet despite a strong urge among both of us, we hardly had any interaction with the locals, because we used to take care of emotional needs of each other and therefore the urge to find it elsewhere, among the local populace was gone. So whatever little interaction we had with the locals was largely unparticipatory and therefore governed by Hawthorne's effect. (I am working on an article on this effect while traveling)

Ok, as an aside, one of my favourite travel writers Mark Moxon has written a wonderful yet simple article, on the pros and cons of traveling alone… I am giving a link to it (I hope merely giving a link is not a copyright violation)…Moxon's entire website is wonderful.

http://www.moxon.net/travel_tips/solo_travel.html

Anyway, back to the original question as to why traveling is so therapeutic. Some days ago, while trekking in the Sinai with Ahmed and Farid, the two Bedouin boys- I had a wonderful experience.

It happened when I was trekking from one small oasis spring- Ain Al Malha, where we had camped for the night- towards the Coloured Canyons- through the Wadi Al Atshan (Arabic for the Thirsty Valley). The trek was a tedious and tiring one, of about 4 hours.

I have done tougher trek in the Himalayas and Sahyadris, but Sinai is different because of its terrain, which is rocky and devoid of any humidity or vegetation. It is like a furnace that captures a lot of heat and does not let it go. The temperature of the ground exceeds 60 degree Celsius at times, though the temperature of the air remains at more comfortable 40-45. This makes Sinai a very different terrain to trek. Another factor, however, is that I am growing older and succumbing to a more hedonistic life style. This has taken a toll on my stamina- though the will power remains intact, in fact, in Sinai – I did the entire trek on my will power than on my stamina.

It so happened that there came a point while trekking, when I realized that Ahmed, who was accompanying me as a guide, has darted away and was out of my sight and I was left alone in a rocky surrounding, with imposing structures and without a sign of life. I was speechless, both frightened and exhilarated at the same time- these were the environs where Moses was given the message. It was all surreal; I started wondering why always the wandering souls have been given the message, in places where ordinary humans don’t dare to go. I started walking…to catch up with Ahmed lest I was not lost. Losing way in Sinai has meant death for many daring souls… Ahmed told me that just last December, two daredevil Israelis lost their way and rescued after 12 days, when one had already died and other was barely living... and to think of it, they were fresh out of their mandatory conscription.

And suddenly, everything turned inexplicable. With each passing step… I lost the fear and the urge to find Ahmed, I was very very tired and my body was concentrating over the next step to be taken, just the next step and nothing else, not even a possible death if I am not able to find Ahmed… and concentrating to breathe in a particular manner, which I have been taught as the first lesson of trekking. I realized that I had reached a particular state of meditation, where the time and coordinates had lost their meaning to me, and the only things that existed was- my breath and my next step. It was a very unique experience. It did not last that long, because Ahmed turned back to find me and called for me… that broke my trance.

It however left me wondering if Trekking is a form of meditation.