The nature of travel

When attempting to define the idiosyncratic and rather curious human behaviourism known as “travel” ─ in other words, trying to understand the reasons why our species is also known for its peregrinations ─ I often make reference to the following:

“We travel to explore the diversity of human society; and in so doing discover the commonality.”

From the earliest migrations of human beings along trade routes, over pilgrimage trails, or through forced migration as economic or political refugees, there has always been intrinsic to that “travel” a search for ideals. And from what I have deduced from observing travellers (and travel journalists), this penchant for us to move about the planet is also a search for a sense of self ─ both of the individual and of the collective self.

Alternative travel

And in recent years the contemporary world of travel and tourism has shown a growth in such “idealistic” travel. In many ways it has become a priority. With the diversification and transformation that we have witnessed in the industry, especially with the advent of the so-called “information age,” there is no shortage of opportunity nor motivation for people to travel. Travel habits have certainly changed; they have become far more consumer-oriented and consumer-defined, but the desire to travel has never been stronger. In many respects, travel has become an activity of self-determination.

Recently I have been in contact with a young Scottish man who is, in my opinion, the 21st-century version of the explorer or idealistic traveller. He goes only by his first name (Dan) and communicates his love for travel and his interpretations of human society through an online blog simply called Dan’s Adventure. And in order to fulfill his need to travel, he uses the (relatively) new world of electronic communication.

Dan’s next stop is Africa.

The cultural products of tourism

Increasingly the cultural “products” that satisfy this kind of need on the part of the media-wise and engaged traveller in the 21st century are not “mainstream” but alternative travel experiences; journeys in which the traveller has the opportunity (and motivation) to explore a destination and a culture in a much more direct way; on a much more grassroots level.

All travel is a journey on so many levels: physical, emotional, aesthetic, philosophical and, above all, conceptual. There are some travel experiences ─ and herein lies the primary skill of the engaged traveller ─ that are not just one-way streets but reciprocal experiences, and an opportunity for intercultural dialogue.

This kind of travel experience is organic; it is travel in which the new “sense of place” that our psyches absorb is the result of so many factors: new geographical and topographical realities; the ebb and flow of history; language elements; in brief, landscape shaping culture.

But that landscape is also the realm of ideas and ideals.

Landscapes can challenge the traveller

Anyone can, from time to time, be challenged by landscapes that are both physical and cultural. Although we are a highly adaptive species, our need to acclimatize to our surroundings is not always easy. Perhaps that is another reason many of us like to move on.

I was reminded recently of how travel can be an ambivalent experience when I read Barack Obama’s early autobiography Dreams From My Father.

In the book he describes a time in his life when, living in New York City, he began to feel confused, disturbed, and even disenchanted with the environment in which he had chosen to live. Making reference to a physical environment in which he was feeling more and more alienated, he says,

“The beauty, the filth, the noise, and the excess, all of it dazzled my senses; there seemed no constraints on originality of lifestyles or the manufacture of desire [my emphasis] …. Beneath the hum, the motion, I was seeing the steady fracturing of the world taking place…. I might wander through Harlem ─ to play on [basketball] courts I’d once read about or hear Jesse Jackson make a speech on 125th [Street]; or, on a rare Sunday morning, to sit in the back pews of Abyssinian Baptist Church, lifted by the gospel’s sweet sorrowful song ─ and catch a fleeting glimpse of that thing which I sought. But I had no guide that might show me how to join this troubled world…”

In many ways, his journey had only just begun.

A case study of idealistic and results-oriented travel

Recently, I had the opportunity of re-visiting the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and having some direct interaction with the Mayan people in their own unique and distinct environment. I also got to meet another young man who, for me, has come to represent the idealism and search for universal meaning through travel that I have referred to above.

His name is Jesús Mesa del Castillo Bermejo. As you may already have suspected, he himself is not Mexican, but Spanish; a young journalist from Barcelona. You may immediately wonder, as did I, what he was doing in Mexico. His story and his achievements are impressive.

Jesús came to Mexico to work with the Mayan people themselves and to set up a non-governmental organization called Kanché, a not-for-profit organization that works with the Mayan people themselves who have established their own tourism industry in this part of Mexico called La Puerta Verde (Green Road). Together, Kanché and La Puerta Verde offer travellers unique indigenous travel experiences and interaction with the Mayan people. Along the way travellers discover the centuries-old wisdom of this ancient civilization, especially in terms of its knowledge base, and its sustainable land use, above all the water resources beneath the surface.

The organization is called Kanché because the Mayan word refers to an apparatus called a germinator which is raised off the ground. In the germinator the Maya plant seeds so that the sprouts will be protected from animals and insects.

The NGO that Jesús founded is also a germinator ─ of ideas.

Redevelopment and respect

Throughout the world there is a renewed recognition of the wisdom and pragmatism of aboriginal peoples. There is also a renewed emphasis on the art and artistry inherent in their way of life; and in their contributions to human civilization.

As many nations begin to refocus and re-orient their societies, especially in terms of the challenges inherent in their physical environments, and the growing urbanization of human communities everywhere, governments and non-governmental organizations are rediscovering and reaffirming the interdependent relationships to land and sea that indigenous peoples have always had.

Today the Maya are experiencing a renewed sense of themselves; once again their language is being taught in school and no longer are young people hesitant to use it. A renewed awareness of the critical dynamics of eldership and oral history are also now increasingly emphasized.

And this I suspect is what has brought Jesús to live among the Maya.

To hear my conversation with Jesús, click on the following link:

Kanché and Puerta Verde: A Role Model for Alternative, Grassroots, and Indigenous Travel

Other role models and examples of alternative tourism

(a) The Siksika Nation of Alberta: Self-determination, Cultural Affirmation, Land, and Time

A visit to the Siksika Nation (the Blackfoot of Alberta) is a case study of an Aboriginal sense of place that differs in many ways from both the preconceived notions that many of the Europeans held before their arrival, and conceptually different from the European relationship to the land. An encounter (however brief) with the Siksika Nation (and the Blackfoot Crossing National Historic Site) south-east of Calgary, will allow you a glimpse and a new appreciation of this distinct sense of place in part because the physical landscape will have a powerful sensory effect on you. And when you delve into the history and culture of the Siksika, you will discover that the sense of place is inextricably linked to a sense of time.

(b) The Kilim Nature Park and a Langkawi, Malyasia mangrove tour

The Kilim Nature Park on the Island of Langkawi in Malaysia is one of the world’s most important mangrove swamps. Whereas the mountains of the interior of Penang Island were the “lungs” of that Malaysian island, the 100-square kilometre Kilim mangrove swamps are the filtration plant for Langkawi ─ and beyond. That is how a mangrove swamp works. The Kilim Mangrove Swamps are home to once-in-a-lifetime flora and fauna experiences: Brown Eagles, Mud Skippers (which are still emerging from the primal sludge), Multicoloured Tree Crabs, and my favourite, the Monitor Lizard.

The Kilim Nature Park is also now part of a UNESCO Geopark.

(c) A Great Yukon River Journey with Chris Vetterlein on Lake Lebarge in Canada’s far northwest

Like all great rivers of the world, The Yukon has witnessed many comings and goings. Some anthropologists believe that the Yukon Valley was the main immigration route for North America’s first human inhabitants; those who came across the frozen land bridge, called Beringia between Siberia and Alaska. I should add that some First Nations peoples dispute that theory, preferring their own traditional beliefs that their ancestors originated in North America. But like all great rivers on the planet, The Yukon has nourished human culture in its many hues and shades.

(d) The Maori and the Treaty of Waitangi Grounds

At Waitangi in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand (as is the case in much of New Zealand), you can get an appreciation of how Maori culture has played a very prominent role in New Zealand. Especially important is the Treaty of Waitangi which itself established an international precedent. The Treaty made New Zealand a part of the British Empire, guaranteed Maori rights to their land and, at the same time, gave them the rights of British citizens. Still debated to some extent, the Maori consider the treaty a sacred pact; and in New Zealand, Waitangi Day is a public holiday and a significant commemoration.

(e) The Hands of Juan Quezada

In many ways, the road to Mata Ortiz in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua is a metaphoric journey to a place in which are inherent artistic integrity and the kind of altruism that is essential to integrated communities. For the outsider, this tiny, dusty pueblo in the northwestern corner of Mexico’s largest state seems the least likely place to encounter a world-class artist. Appearances are deceiving however because it is the area’s isolation and desert environs that in fact led to the renaissance of a distinct centuries-old art form. And here I met Juan Quezada, a living national treasure in Mexico.

(f) The Slovenian Tourist Farms

The principles, practices, and values inherent in the Slovenia Tourist Farms organization are not in any way old-fashioned, archaic, nor spent energy. Quite the opposite; they are as relevant today as they have always been. That is the nature of universality. As we discovered during the FIJET Congress in Slovenia, this grassroots tourism business model emphasizes natural resources. And people are also one of those natural resources.

(g) The Engaging World of Voluntourism and Joyce Major

When her children had finished college, Joyce Major set off to rediscover the world. As she herself says, “This passion for life propelled me to fulfill my dream of a year-long trip around the world; but with a twist. I knew that I wanted more than simply being a tourist looking at the world from arms-length. But how could I accomplish my goal to gain a deeper understanding of foreign cultures and benefit local people and the environment at the same time? Voluntourism seemed the perfect solution, combining a sense of adventure with active participation on local projects. It also meant that though traveling solo I would always be a part of a team and meeting new people at the same time.” The end result was her self-published book Smiling at the World.

(h) Along the Templar Trail: Brandon Wilson’s Journey of Peace

In many ways, Brandon Wilson is the ultimate traveller. His inspirational and arduous treks embody why we human beings are a species constantly in search of ideals. I highly recommend his book Along the Templar Trail. Also, watch for his soon-to-be-released new book Over the Top & Back Again: Hiking the Alps.

…

The photographs in this article were all taken in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, among the Maya. They are the copyright of Bob Fisher.

Meaningfulness

News organizations frequently emphasize the importance of investigative reporting, stressing the principle that in order for a story to be “newsworthy” it must be current and it must mean something to people.

It goes without saying that responsible news gathering also results in stories that are informative, accurate, and in the best interests of the general public. And those who work in the news reporting ”business” also emphasize the importance of keen observational skills, in-depth research, and critical analysis.

But isn’t this also what travel journalists do?

Don’t we also strive to find meaning and make sense of the complex issues and cultures inherent in the destinations we visit, whether they are national, regional, or local? Do we also not serve in a problem-solving capacity in that we do our best to put the pieces of the puzzle together in such a way as to engage the hearts and minds of our readers? Are we also not “foreign correspondents” who encourage our consumers to engage in imaginative identification?

So how are the two professions similar? How are they different? In the news journalism business, reference is often made to “hard news” versus “soft news”. Are there equivalents in travel journalism?

Is travel journalism newsworthy?

I have heard it said that travel journalists should avoid contentious issues, and certainly not engage in “political” commentary. Well depending on how you define politics, this is easier said than done. Let me use Ottawa, the national capital of Canada, as a case in point.

This is a very story-rich city in which is inherent a political-historical journey of considerable importance. To truly understand Ottawa you have to examine the geopolitical context in which it evolved. And whereas the historic “issues” in what today is a quiet, unassuming national capital are profound, visitors may initially only see it as the lovely and orderly city it indeed is today. But if you delve deeper, you will find a very meaningful story with universal implications.

Incorporated in 1855, Ottawa was a remote lumber town and the by-product of colonialism. Located on the Ottawa River a “safe distance” from the Canada-United States border, the city was chosen as the capital by Queen Victoria because, as part of ”British North America”, there was always fear of invasion by our neighbours to the south. And as Canada evolved and finally became a sovereign and independent nation (considerably later than our “American” cousins), the imminent threat of cultural and economic hegemony continued to be felt.

As a nation that decided to remain loyal to “the Crown” – as opposed to engaging in a revolution, declaring its independence, and becoming a republic – as a Crown Colony – Canada made a significant collective decision to remain part of the British Empire, and later the British Commonwealth. To this day we still engage in a lot of national introspection in this regard.

And even though we share what once was called (in the days before the 9/11 attacks) “the longest undefended border in the world” with our neighbours south of the 49th parallel, we still find ourselves struggling with problematic transborder issues with them. This is what comes of “being in bed with an elephant”, as our most charismatic prime minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, once said to the Washington press corps.

And, although many outside of North America see little difference culturally between the two principal nations of North America, if you ignore the historic and political events that caused each to evolve quite differently – similar of course, but different nonetheless – you will have ”read” only part of the story.

The state of our craft today

In the 21st century, thanks in part to burgeoning new technologies, alternative media and alternative points of view about issues related to travel have increasingly seen the light of day. However, whereas we are no longer obliged (for commercial reasons) to just tell “good news” stories, as reponsible travel journalists and editors we still face the age-old challenge of producing coherent and literate travel stories that emphasize the qualitative features of the information as opposed to simply producing a corollary travel product that “sells” destinations.

A case in point

I became particularly aware recently of the essential “story behind the story” in Martinique.

On this beautiful and resource-rich island (resources that are both natural and cultural), I also learned that the institution of slavery is fundamental to a real understanding of the Creole culture of this French département.

Slavery was a tragic by-product of colonial empire-building; and to sustain itself the latter required exponential wealth and natural resources, such as the sugar plantations of the Caribbean. The African slaves brought to Martinique, as well as to other islands in the Caribbean, were of course considered only property and were treated as such. However, with the eventual abolition of slavery by France, a distinct and multidimensional Creole culture began to flourish and today is an important leitmotif in Martinique.

As is the case in many other post-colonial destinations, a geopolitical power shift and a renewed emphasis on the lessons of history have led to a tourism industry that is truly indigenous.

And Martinique is an important case study for anyone who has an interest in political sociology. Among other issues, this field of study focuses on the relations between state and society; and how social forces create a dynamic that defines what we often refer to simplistically as “culture”. But intrinsic to culture is the question of identity; and this is perhaps the most consciousness-raising aspect of travelling in Martinique – and writing about it.

The nature of news, culture, and storytelling

As travel journalists we are also cultural interpreters, not unlike news journalists who tell their “stories” in such a way as to inform and enlighten their readers. However, defining human culture, as I have suggested above, is as problematic or challenging as defining beauty, justice, or truth.

And yet in so many of our stories creating clarity about human culture is the essence of our message. And whereas we strive to avoid the “one size fits all” generic template of travel writing, we also are constantly challenged by the maxim that “We travel to explore the diversity of the human experience; and in so doing discover the commonality.”

All travel is a cultural experience on some level, whether it be just around the corner or far afield. And when we travel in a physical sense, we also travel in a conceptual sense. We paint portraits of human culture in all its hues and shades, and that includes the flaws. In so doing we collectively define who we are as a species.

And because it is also in our nature and our “job descriptions”, we also develop an experiential understanding of culture and how components such as belief systems, language, history, cultural objects, climate, and geography all shape our perceptions of “the other”.

As objective observers, we are often privileged to see first hand how the dynamic of culture implies power structures. And because we are in a position to constantly renew our frame of reference, we also frequently witness the juxtapostion of majority and minority worldviews.

And as journalists who make conscious and carefully considered choices as to how we will tell the story – not unlike news journalists who also build for their readers a specific frame of reference – we know (or should know) that all media is a construction, a point of view, an interpretation. I suspect that the more we examine how “the reporter” communicates what she or he has experienced (to the best of her or his ability), the better storytellers we become.

Storytelling is an ancient tradition and craft. It is also – like news – often issue-oriented, although the issues may be more universal than specific.

And as travel writers we also begin by asking fundamental questions. What do I see? What do I hear? What do I feel? What is really going on? This too is investigative journalism. As Aristotle pointed out in his fourth-century BCE treatise on the city-state, “politics” deals with the structure, organization, and administration of the state. And the interplay and interconnectedness of the state and the people is a critical question for all journalists, in either the field of news or travel. How do you separate the state from the culture? What is “the state” as opposed to the nation? Or the culture?

Since the recent FIJET Congress in Shanghai, I have had the privilege of engaging in an ongoing dialogue by email with a journalist I met in Beijing. Although for me it is somewhat “after the fact,” and yet ongoing (surely one of the key goals of travel) he has helped me fill in some of the gaps in terms of my awareness of Chinese culture. He has also helped me shed some of my ethnocentric baggage. In a number of ways he has encouraged me to heed the caveat “Judge me by my culture, not by my government.”

The comprehensive skills and challenges of travel journalists

The travel journalists I have met around the world represent one of the most eclectic and multidisciplinary groups of people you could imagine; and they come to the métier from many different backgrounds.

And when in our professional capacity as journalists we explore a destination and strive to define its cultural elements, we are required, of necessity, to play multiple roles including those of public educator, historian, geographer, sociologist, cultural anthropologist, political and social scientist, and economist – to mention just a few.

In brief, when we are really good at what we do we are indeed reporters but also interpreters. And because of the grassroots connections we are privileged to have in this industry, we tend not to lose sight of the fact that the travel and tourism industry contributes directly to the bottom line of any destination. The commercial implications of this can of course make what we do an even greater challenge and problematic in that we may feel compelled to either present a “glowing report” or to not do the story at all.

And this is where the issues of objectivity and neutrality play a role.

At one point in my career I was working with the national news team of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the people who produce its flagship show The National. During a particular editorial meeting in which we were struggling to decide on the “lineup” for the project I was working on, and whether a certain troubling story had real value as a news story, or whether by emphasizing it we might risk indulging in sensationalism, one of editors spoke about the difference between being objective and being neutral.

I was rather surprised to hear him, a hard-core news journalist, say that although news journalists must strive to be neutral on the issue or issues behind the story, they could not be totally objective because they are also human beings; and thus always subject to the same emotional or affective elements of the story as the general public. And as the reporters who have “been there”, we are obliged on our return to present “a true account”, whether we are news or travel journalists.

And whereas news journalists strive to present a true account of the facts (the “who, what, where, when, and why” of the story), we travel journalists also seek to do the same, at least initially. However given the distinct nature of our medium, we often strive to give our readers, listeners, and viewers something more – our interpretation of the “sense of place” as we have experienced it. We also of course strive for accuracy but in so doing we are also in the position of internalizing in the mind’s eye of the reader a sense of authenticity.

And I believe that in this regard, we may actually lean slightly toward the medium of the novelist, as opposed to that of the news journalist, because our stories often emphasize the aesthetic elements of the destination – and the human theatre we see in it. And herein lie the fundamental elements of storytelling: character, characterization, conflict, rising and falling action, dénouement, and sometimes, a universal lesson.

Role models of eclectic journalism

In the field of human resources, the recognition and enhancement of what are referred to as “tranferrable skills” – the comprehensive skills that an individual possesses which allow her or him to work effectively in multiple fields of endeavour – has became increasingly important in the 21st century.

In today’s interconnected world, such skill sets as the all-important communications skills (verbal and written), the ability to project and predict outcomes, abstract thinking, and other related conceptual skills, are recognized as critical to the functioning of any organization that wishes to succeed in what many see as a constantly evolving “new world order”.

Such individuals tend to have a high degree of cognitive skills but at the same time are also able to express and process the affective components of “the story”. This creative “balanced brain” approach to problem-solving and task management is what allows such individuals to find their niche almost anywhere – in what is becoming in many ways a borderless world.

Jefferson Sackey, a multidisciplinary journalist

A journalist born and raised in Ghana in West Africa, Jefferson Sackey is the kind of broadcast journalist who finds multiple layers of meaning in the stories he does.

For example, his profile of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (a Ghanaian himself) in which Jefferson explores the vision of this charismatic and inspiring world leader, is a tribute to the kind of transcendent ethos that Annan represents, and which sustains human civilization. At one point, Jefferson quotes Annan: ‘‘You must listen to not only what is being said, but what is not said, which is often much more important.”

And in Jefferson’s own words, he explains why leaders like Kofi Annan are visionaries.

“What puzzled me was the attention Kofi Annan gave to the various sides of the conflict even after the session closed at midnight. From the little I saw, I came to agree with the fact that no one has done more than Kofi Annan to revitalise the UN.

After taking office as the seventh Secretary-General in January 1997, he managed in a very short time to give the UN an external prestige and an internal morale the likes of which the organization had hardly seen in its over fifty-year history, with the possible exception of its very first optimistic years.

His position within the organization has no doubt benefited from his having devoted almost all his working life to the UN. Experience in a bureaucracy is not always the best springboard for action and fresh approaches to the outside world, but Annan brought about both…. Kofi Annan figured prominently in the efforts to resolve a whole series of international disputes: the repercussions of the Gulf War, the wars in the former Yugoslavia and especially in Kosovo, the status of East Timor, the war in the Congo, and the implementation of the UN resolutions concerning the Middle East and “land for peace” just to mention a few.

On the basis of renewed emphasis on the Declaration of Human Rights, Annan gave his office a more active part to play as a protector of those rights.”

As what I will refer to as a ”crossover” journalist, Jefferson tells stories, especially those with an African focus, that promote global understanding – surely a key objective of travel journalism.

To see a promotional video of Jefferson’s broadcast television show “International Assignment” click on the preceding link.

His documentary on “The Castro Years” is also indicative of the kind of “educational” backgrounder that has the ”added value” effect of encouraging participatory travel.

Julia Bayly and travel as cultural anthropology

Julia is une femme à tout faire, a newspaper journalist, a travel writer, and a dog musher!

She is also an example of a journalist who understand implicitly the diversity of the travel experience and how the latter engenders a much broader understanding of world events. She is also the kind of journalist who encourages people to “go and look”; but at the same time she personifies the principle that looking is not enough – when you travel you must also engage.

In a recent podcast I did with Julia she said the following about the increasingly proactive and enlightened traveller in today’s marketplace:

“They want to do. They want to experience. They want to meet people … to become part of that which they are looking at. At which point they become someone who is looked at both by the others who are there to look and by the people they are visiting. The basis of cultural anthropology is about participant observation … and doing minimal harm.”

To hear the complete podcast, click on the preceding link.

Ian and Tonya Fitzpatrick celebrate the responsible traveller

By way of their online radio show and website, Ian and Tonya have created a public forum in which key issues that have implications for the travel and tourism industry are explored. In their roles as travel journalists they also explore the human values inherent in a destination, as well as the enduring values in human culture itself.

As they say on their site, “Responsible travelers are conscientious and wise travelers. They understand that we all share a common humanity and seek purposeful travel opportunities that are transformative and fun. Responsible travelers enjoy authentic travel experiences and leave positive footprints by fostering global citizenship and cross-cultural understanding.”

For more information on their show and their approach to travel journalism, see Travel’n On Radio.

For additional information related to this subject, see:

“An Irish Scholar’s Challenge to Travel Writers”

“Ottawa: Grace, Dignity, and a Delightful State of Affairs”

“Multidimensional Martinique: Where Landscape Shapes Culture”

“The Redundant Search for a National Narrative.”

“Travel Writing and Humanistic Culture: a blunted impact?”

When I arrive early in the morning at the Peace Park in Hiroshima, there are few visitors. A fine drizzle drifts like a veil over the city, and a feeling of absence hangs over the park. Blurring the scene, the moisture-laden morning air also mutes the sounds of the city. Although I have been awaiting this moment with some concern for several days, I feel strangely detached and separate. Crossing the street, however, I begin to feel propelled by a subtle pressure.

Under a large spreading tree of indeterminate species, a small group of green-uniformed city workers are methodically sweeping the night’s minor debris into compact containers. Refocusing my sight lines, I look past these silent workers and see the skeleton of a medium-sized domed building. Known simply as the A-Bomb Dome, this charred and denuded structure — now a world heritage site — was once the city’s Industrial Promotion Hall, a three-storeyed brick structure. Today it is perhaps the simplest and most evocative monument to a moment in time that changed the course of human history and our awareness of our species’ potential to destroy and obliterate.

At 8:15 in the morning on August 6, 1945 the first atomic bomb ever used against humans — military and civilian alike — unleashed its force several hundred metres from this spot. The entire city, with the exception of this solitary structure, was levelled. The fission of uranium and plutonium generated an explosive power unlike anything experienced in wartime before. Three metres long and weighing almost 3629 kilograms, “Little Boy” was the equivalent of 13,610 tonnes of high-performance explosive. The initial shock wave of the blast provided 50 per cent of its deadly force. Detonated approximately 580 metres above the city, it crushed nearly all buildings within two kilometres of the hypocentre and generated a diabolical wind that — when it reached the surrounding mountains — was reflected, turning its fury on the city a second time. Flames whipped up by the wind rushed through the city. Later, a black rain would fall on those running about searching for an escape route from the destruction. The intense heat rays that seared Hiroshima made up another 35 per cent of the explosion; the temperature at the centre exceeded a million degrees Celsius. In addition an initial release of lethal radiation made up five per cent of the event while residual radiation of 10 per cent would cause widespread cancers, deformities, and death for years to come. On that day 78,150 people died in Hiroshima. By the following December 140 000 people were dead as a direct result of the bomb. The cumulative deaths accounted for by the bomb is estimated to be 200,000. For all intents and purposes, in a few seconds Hiroshima ceased to exist. And the nuclear age had begun.

The Dome is perhaps the essence of incongruity in this extensive, formal park that today embodies a terrible beauty and haunting images. Crossing the river on the Aioibashi bridge, I turn to look at it one more time. Despite its gutting by the blast there is a solidity to it that suggests endurance and, at the same time, an ephemeral quality. With modern Hiroshima rising behind it and the calm Motoyasugawa river flowing by, the Dome appears timeless. This will be the first time I will experience a sense of timelessness and of being out of time as I walk through the park.

I pause on the bridge to get my bearings before proceeding. From my guidebook I am surprised and disconcerted to learn that the bridge on which I am standing once had a distinctive T-shape, a perfect target for a bomber. And the original bridge was indeed what the pilots of the U.S. plane carrying the A-Bomb used to direct their payload. When the bomb exploded, the bridge, built in 1932, was subjected to a blast pressure of over six tonnes per square metre. It thrashed about like a leaf in a violent wind and its slab floor rose and fell violently. But it did not collapse and lasted for another 35 years when it was replaced by a new one.

From this bridge one enters the northern tip of the Peace Park, a triangular piece of land created by the junction of two rivers leading to the port of Hiroshima. Although the park has been meticulously planned and arranged and one can proceed through it in a systematic fashion, I find myself walking aimlessly, unable to decide which monument, which site, which viewpoint should take precedence. Later I will realize that this is the principal challenge in visiting Hiroshima; the event that occurred here makes a rational, cognitive appraisal almost impossible, even pointless. Although the historical facts are carefully documented throughout the park, it is feeling that is evoked primarily. And it occurs to me that this is why historical sites, such as holocaust museums or battlefields, must convey extremes of human emotion.

I pass the Peace Clock Tower, an oddly-shaped structure. At 8:15 every morning — at the “mortal moment” — it chimes “its prayer for perpetual peace,” a ritual that appeals daily to the people of the world to grant its wish. Nearby is an enormous bronze bell. This Bell of Peace also is an instrument for sounding a wish that “all nuclear arms and wars be gone.” Like so many before me, I am invited to “step forward and toll this bell for peace.” Somewhat hesitant, I mount the steps. With both hands I pull the log-like clapper back and release it. Its considerable weight propels it against the solid bell from which a low-pitched resonance emerges in waves that continue for almost a minute. The sound seems to come from all around me. I feel as if I am at the centre of all sound. The waves are almost tactile; I feel them spreading outward like ripples on a still pond into which a heavy stone has been dropped. At the base of the bell is a small water garden in which float lily pads with pink blossoms. The drizzle has turned to rain and the blossoms seem to extend their petals to catch the droplets.

As I approach the Children’s Peace Monument, I see the first group of the morning. An elementary school class has gathered in front of the memorial to Sasaki Sadako-san. Their brightly-coloured umbrellas, white shoes and socks, and navy-blue uniforms are visual relief in the increasing grayness of the day. Their teacher is telling them once again a story that millions of children in Japan and around the world know. Sadako-san was only two years old when she was exposed to radiation from the bomb. By age 12, she had developed acute leukemia. Following the Japanese custom of folding paper cranes — senbazuru, symbols of good fortune and longevity — Sadako-san persisted daily in folding cranes, hoping to reach 1000 when a person’s dream is believed to come true. But she died after nine months of struggle. Her friends, however, established the Hiroshima Children’s Association For Peace which has raised funds world-wide and made the paper crane a symbol of the anti-nuclear campaign. Paper cranes in the thousands are sent to Hiroshima every year, especially on May 5th, Children’s Day. Standing quietly on the glistening paving stones before the monument, these children embody the wish fulfilment of a young victim of the bomb.

At the centre of the park, the Cenotaph for the Atomic Bomb Victims is a visual and symbolic focal point. The memorial, designed by architect Kenzo Tange, is built in the style of the A-frame thatch-roofed Japanese house that protected Japan’s earliest inhabitants from the elements. In the stone coffin beneath are books in which are inscribed the names of all those who perished as a result of the bomb. They are now sheltered from the rain in perpetuity. Looking through the arch-like cenotaph, I see the Flame of Peace that burns above a reflecting pond. The flame will be extinguished only when all atomic weapons are banished from the planet. The view is also like looking back in time. In the distance, perfectly aligned with the Cenotaph, is the Dome. As I contemplate this poetic alignment, a young man approaches the coffin, bows, claps his hands twice in Shinto fashion to summon the spirits, and then bows again. I turn and make my way to the last — and in many ways the most disturbing — stop on my visit to the park.

The Peace Memorial Building is a modern, two-storeyed concrete building with solid, clean lines. Sturdy columns raise it above ground level. Its north side is made of glass and looks out over the park, giving the visitor a slightly elevated and wider perspective of the memorials. It is a simple, elegant structure that is somewhat at odds with its contents. Inside the museum, I feel a stillness that is unlike the respectful silence usually encountered in other such archival storehouses The exhibits, the artifacts, the scale models, the film clips, the scientific information, and the historical timelines do indeed explain what occurred in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, but it is the remnants of individual human lives that are entombed in glass cases, embodying the dreadful truth.

It is difficult to say which tangible detail is the most compelling: actual paper cranes folded by Sadako-san; Shin-ichi’s tricycle that was buried together with him and his friend Kimiko in the family garden after the explosion and only rediscovered 40 years later when the families moved them to a more formal grave; a simple, slightly battered watch stopped forever at 8:15; stone steps on which someone had been sitting less than a kilometre from the centre of the explosion and on which his or her shadow can still be seen because the intense heat changed the surface of the stones around them while the body absorbed the heat; a female student’s torn and burned summer school uniform.

I proceed from exhibit to exhibit. I don’t think about what I see; I experience it on some level that I still don’t quite understand. Around me elementary students on a school field trip move quickly among the exhibits, staring, whispering. The exhibits engage them. Looking through one glass case in which some artifact is preserved — perhaps it was the charred lunch box — I see the small round face of one of the students watching me.

As I exit the main exhibition hall, the floor-to-ceiling windows are on my left. On my right is a display of artwork by survivors of the bomb. Each of these simple drawings and water colours tells the same story in muted tones of horror. I am drawn to one in particular. It is a drawing in which naked bodies have fallen in grotesque attitudes of death. In the background the orange-red conflagration continues. In confusion, blackened figures rush about in panic. Half-hidden in the flames is the Dome. In the lower right-hand corner one naked figure attempts to rise. On the left a standing figure attempts to cover his nakedness.

I turn and look out the window. It is raining heavily now; the water is streaming down the windows. A group of school children is approaching the museum. Looking down from above, I cannot see their faces; they are sheltered by their bright yellow or blue umbrellas, and are proceeding in an orderly fashion. Despite the overcast sky, their bodies cast shadows on the rain-soaked pavement.

State of grace

As she descends the stone steps leading to the small dark pool at the core of the exquisite Adalaj Step Well, her sari floats freely around her delicate frame. Her gracefulness and sylphlike steps give the impression that she is being borne downwards on a whisper of moist air.

Her son, a sprite of a boy, precedes her slightly. Barefoot and naked, except for a loose cotton shirt enhanced by a single hand stitched design, he slips carefully and silently from one step to the next.

Close behind follows the tall and loose-limbed father performing analogous movements. Together, the three of them have the weightlessness and beauty of an apparition; astonishing in their elegance. It is another moment in which I realize how much of India is perceived through the mind’s eye.

Road notes: Up at 3:00 am for a 5:40 flight from Mumbai to Ahmedabad. The drive from the Ahmedabad airport to a super (and seemingly incongruous) 5-star hotel on the main street is a morning eye opener. There are five of us so far;  one Dutch, one Dane, two Czech Repubs. Four Aussies wait for us at the hotel. Americans and others are arriving this afternoon. The world in miniature is coming to Gujarat.

Mumbai was primarily the 5-star eco-hotel I’ll be writing about for the show … and tramping around the “slums” (have got to invent a new word for that … slums just doesn’t convey the sense of the place) … people there very friendly, actually wanting their pics taken washing their laundry in the gutter. Air pollution as I have never experienced it. Marketing Director of the hotel spent a lot of time with me. Has a sister living where I grew up. Six degrees of separation! Complete tour of the ecosystem of the hotel. Even got to see the hotel’s great vats with their worms that turn all the hotel’s garbage into pure soil. Vermiculture. What a metaphor!

Acculturation

As the family of three descend towards what is left of the well water, they pause on a wide landing illuminated by the sun, which has worked its way through the complex architecture of the structure. Seeing an opportunity too good to be missed, I hesitantly approach and ask if I may photograph them. Anticipating a possible rebuff — at such times I always feel like a lumpish tourist — I am instead met with a beaming smile and a welcome invitation on the part of the father to admire his wife and son, and to record the moment. My Western mind hesitates briefly, considering what in my culture would likely appear as a paternalistic gesture. But, as has been the case with other individuals and families on this trip, there is a genuine expression of appreciation for the attention — a suggestion of a validation of their existence — and a desire for a cultural interchange.

I prepare to photograph the mother. She stands against one of the intricately carved walls in a somewhat posed position, eyes downcast, and demure. I lower the camera and glance at the husband. He smiles again and gently lays his arm around his wife’s shoulders. At his touch, she suddenly looks up, her sari falls back slightly off her face. I see an amazing radiance and openness of expression; and I realize that this is a privileged moment. I raise the camera and quickly capture what will become the principal focal point and theme of my visit to Gujarat — the faces of the Gujarati people.

Road notes: Face Value: noun, the value or price which is shown on, for example, a stamp, a coin or a bank note … the superficial appearance or implication of a thing. I am again aware of my need to do more; to observe, interpret, and record deeper levels of meaning in this special sphere of human intercourse.

All of the journalists received the same surprising email invitation to come to Gujarat … sometimes confusing … uncertain itineraries … Four of the group transferred just after midnight from the international to the domestic airport (all planes get into Mumbai/Bombay just after midnight) just a 15-minute walk from the very nice hotel I was staying at … and they slept in the airport until the 0540 flight this morning. I could have had them all over for a pajama party. An Urdu word, pajama. They are exhausted … I’m rested … even had an incredible massage last night with strange oils and was prayed over for several minutes … so I’m in pretty good shape … the others however look like your regular non-Indians in major culture shock.

The main street of Ahmedabad is everything I ever imagined about India … only in three dimensions and with all the smells. Through the windows of the brightly coloured airport shuttle, my Western eyes see dirt, garbage, sacred cows … even Holsteins … just standing about or lying down … many skinny dogs with protruding ribs all the same dun colour … goats … camels pulling carts full of people … hundreds of people (seems like thousands) moving inexorably to work … where I wonder … In one small green field … six small boys, and what looks like their teacher, are crouched in a 25-metre circle … all having their morning bowel movements … other boys do the same beside the road here and there … a couple of men too …

A Gujarati thali

Borrowing the adage, “you are what you eat,” and then extending that metaphor, the festive, ceremonial, and vegetarian Gujarati Thali cuisine can also be seen as representing this complex culture which is part of the larger (1.3 billion population) Indian culture. The Thali is exotica and diversity writ large. It is also the product of the millennia. To the Western palate it is a whole new culinary experience: farsans (delicate appetizers), sweet and sour chutneys, pickles, sweetmeats, vegetables of all kinds prepared with aromatic seasonings, Bhaat (rice), lentils, bean sprouts, butter milk, nuts, roti or poori (special flat breads), Batata nu shaak (a potato dish in a sauce), and a yoghurt dessert that is flavoured with saffron and fruit.

Road notes: The group: journalists, travel suppliers, travel consultants … and none of us know how or why each of us was chosen to be here. But here we are, and dear Mr. Pavitran has taken us quite in hand. We are starting to revive. Serendipity.

Still trying to figure out flights home … still in that other time every now and then. It sticks to me like sweat. “Please Sir not to worry … you rest … we take such very good care of you … please have nice day Sir … Not to worry.”

Things get started this afternoon as soon as the Americans tumble off their flights from New York. “No problems … All works out eventually … Please come now.” We follow obediently.

The human face is the first point of contact for the newborn and, if blessed with good fortune, the child will bond with the species. There are 43 muscles in the human face and functioning individually and collectively they control the outward signs of emotion and of “human” nature. But the real individual behind the facial mechanics must be detected through the facial cues. If the mouth smiles but the eyes don’t, there is a disconnect. The faces I see here suggest no such disconnect.

Ancient civilizations

Gujarati history and culture is also a kind of Thali of human experience. Coming from the recent “New World,” I learn quickly to adjust my sense of time; and I’m not just talking about jet lag. In terms of human civilization this is one of the oldest neighbourhoods on the planet. There is considerable archeological evidence that the area known today as Gujarat was part of the Indus Valley Civilization, one of the world’s oldest (3300 BCE until it mysteriously “disappeared”around 1700 BCE, give or take a couple of large chunks of time), and a contemporary of the Bronze Age civilizations of Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt.

It was known as the Harappan Civilization, named after the city of Harappa which was located in what today is Pakistan. This highly developed civilization was known for its organization and unified government; mainly urban and market-oriented. Gujarat is part of one of the most ancient trade routes on the planet. This was the part of the world that saw the first farming cultures and the emergence of human civilization. In Gujarat, the eons-old evidence of highly developed language, arts and architecture are all about, but not in the same highly structured way in which they are preserved in, for example, European destinations. Here you get a much greater sense of suddenly and serendipitously happening upon ancient treasures as opposed to being strategically introduced to them.

Part of the fascinating history of Gujarat also includes ancient empires (Maha, Mauryan, Gupta, Chola), sultanates, various subsequent eras, empires — the often highly romanticized British Raj — and the eventual Republic of India, which won Indians “freedom at midnight” on August 15th, 1947. The state is also (post-Independence) made up of many of the former princely states that once ruled India collectively, and the rich and regal residue can still be seen here. All these layers of history are woven into the brilliant fabric of Gujarat.

Like the larger nation of India, Gujarat is a diverse and multi-ethnic state, although primarily Hindu today. Gujaratis have a long history and tradition of hospitality, welcoming for example Parsi (Zoroastrian) refugees from Iran in 775 AD. Like the culinary harmony of Thali, Gujarat is known for its ethnic tolerance, despite a serious and politically contentious incident of violence between Hindus and Muslims that at the time gave the world a different view.

Gujaratis also have a reputation as entrepreneurs and the state has been the point of emigration for many successful new citizens of the Americas and the United Kingdom. The Gujarati people are leaders in arts and sciences — you will even find a space program here.

The 1600 kilometres of coastline of Gujarat and its strategic position on the Arabian Sea have contributed to its being a major trade route and global meeting place for millennia. In terms of agricultural products, think peanuts, cotton, dates, sugarcane, and the largest producer of milk and milk products in India. Oh … and diamonds. Of the colonizing powers, Portugal arrived first and close on that country’s heels was the British East India Company. Needless to say, it is a part of India that has spawned a great deal of historical writing — travel writing in the most comprehensive sense of the word.

Gujarat has also contributed universal ideals and social principles to the world through its native-born charismatic leaders and their defining independence movement. Three of the most prominent came from Gujarat: Saradar Vallabhbhai Patel (the Iron Man of India), Morarji Desai (the first non-Congress party Prime Minister of India) — and the most illustrious of all, Mahatma Gandhi.

The Adalaj step well

Approximately 20 kilometres north of Ahmedabad is one of the most curious and splendid archeological treasures in the ancient world — the Adalaj Vav Step Well.

Step Wells (vavs) are fairly common throughout Gujarat although most of them disappeared with the passage of time through lack of maintenance when other means of procuring water in this semi-arid countryside became available. Some however have been beautifully maintained as monuments to the early scientific and engineering skills of those who constructed them.

A step well is, as it sounds, a deep well around which are built elaborate structures with wide, multi-stepped stairways that lead down to the water table and away from the oppressive sun that despite its intensity barely penetrates the protective stonework built over and around the pool. They were of course a major source of water — hence life — and to that extent they have an air of the sacred to them, although they are not temples. They were instead utilitarian public resources which were also highly ornamented with religious carvings.

Every pillar and wall in the Adalaj Step Well is decorated with intricate carvings, many of which reflect the abundance of life (plants, flowers, fish, flowers) that would not be possible without the essential resource of water. A common marketing term used by the Gujarat Tourism Department is “Serene, Pristine, and Divine”; a trinity of descriptors that aptly sums up the Adalaj Step Well.

Because the long western coastline of Gujarat made it the point of departure for an ancient caravan route along which the fabled riches of the East were transported, step wells were built along the way as rest stops and sanctuaries from the oppressive heat of the day. Caravans travelled by night and stopped at the step wells during the hottest part of the day, transforming them into early “multi-national” community centres — cool and peaceful oases. And this is the sense that you still get at the Adalaj Step Well.

For a diagram and other images of Adalaj click here.

Ghandi’s ashram

We visit Gandhi’s ashram beside the Sabarmati River on his birthday, and find ourselves in the midst of a quiet family celebration. But it is a family celebration in a true “Gandhi” sense. As one writer has described life in the ashram, it was “a haven from the dust and din of the world. It was a family linked not by blood or property, but by allegiance to common ideals.”

In this quiet simple compound, families and many individuals have come to just be with the spirit of Gandhi on his birthday. There are no elaborate ceremonies nor complex rituals. People are just walking about, chatting, and remembering. It was from here that Gandhi set off with his band of followers on his famous 240-mile Salt March to the sea.

As foreign journalists, we are of course quite noticeable. However, we become quickly engaged in the place and welcomed like family; we do not feel different. Reflecting on his time at the ashram and what he learned there, Gandhi’s grandson Arun wrote, “Exclusivity must give way to inclusivity, if living in peace and harmony are our objectives. The choice before humanity therefore, is to learn to respect life or live to regret it.”

The ideals and principles of Gandhi are clearly inherent in the place, as they are in the people who visit it. Our visit to Gandhi’s ashram is a gentle encounter with humanity and hope.

Visiting the ashram and visualizing the life and work that went on here, it is very easy to get a sense of who this man really was. The artifacts, photographs, and the peaceful setting evoke Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, or as the world came to refer respectfully to him — Mahatma (Soulful One) Gandhi.

Road notes: “I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love.” — Mahatma Gandhi

The Sun Temple of Modhera

Aligned on and east-west axis, this stunning temple exemplifies the millennia-old tradition of sun worship, but is unique to India. When you come upon the temple on the bank of the river Pushpavati, it is difficult initially to take it all in. Once again, you become aware of how much there is to be discovered in Gujarat; how much has not become a part of the global tourist route. If this were on most other travel itineraries, it would be swarming with busloads of tourists. But the Modhera Sun Temple remains a wide open space and at the same time a temple with a rare kind of intimacy and privacy. This intimacy is especially reflected in the intricately carved golden stonework; the whole temple is a sculpture in itself, a model of geometrical design and an elaborate three-dimensional representation of Hinduism.

This is the kind of archeological and cultural treasure that deserves to be visited at leisure and in an unstructured way. As you meander in, out, and through the temple, you will see an exquisite pillared portico, a shrine with its resident deity that is also a refuge for the devoted, an assembly hall that is connected to the rest of the temple by a narrow passage, and most of all you will see an abundance of mythological figures and narratives. Among others, the temple is an archive of images of the deities from the Hindu pantheon, and a representation of Mount Meru where the gods resided. The temple, built during the Solanka era in 1026, is also an example of survival; having witnessed struggles between competing rulers over the centuries. Lord Rana is also believed to have performed a sacrifice here as penance for having killed a Brahmin.

As a pilgrimage site, the Modhera Sun Temple is a universal representation of our innate recognition of our dependence on the sun around which all life on this planet revolves. At the time of the equinoxes, the sun’s rays penetrate the temple and fall on the image of the sun god Surya.

The Hatheesing Jain temple

Built in 1850 by a wealthy Jain merchant just outside the Delhi Gate in Ahmedabad, the Hatheesing Jain Temple is an intricate white marble structure that is one of the best examples of Indian architecture demonstrating clearly the concept that the whole is the sum of the parts, a theme very appropriate to Gujarat, especially in religious matters.

A visit to Gujarat is like a course in comparative religions. For those who come from a European Judaic-Christian cultural heritage, it is a direct-to-source opportunity not only to learn about other world religions like Hinduism, Jainism, and Islam; but it is also an opportunity to absorb visually and aesthetically the precepts of these faith systems. The relatively undiscovered architectural and aesthetic legacies and treasures of Islam, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Hinduism are at the heart of this emerging travel destination.

This is the land of Lord Krishna, the eighth avatar (a deity descended to earth in human form) of Vishnu — the supreme being. His story is one that resonates easily; a young boy of royal birth, living a pastoral life, who eventually becomes an heroic warrior who triumphs over evil — and also becomes a respected teacher. Some Hindu philosophers have emphasized that one of the interpretations of his name is “union of existence and bliss.”

Road notes: Although I believe Mahatma Gandhi’s being born in Gujarat was chance, I am not surprised how this part of India nourished and formed his psyche. I can also now see why he returned here; that frail little man — Bapu — who brought colonialism to its knees through non-violence and the determination to not cooperate with what he saw as wrong. I also understand better now why he was sacrificed.

One of Krishna’s wives is Lakshmi. As the Mother of the Universe and goddess of wealth, light, fortune, beauty, and fertility, she is actually married to Vishnu and by extension Krishna.The Mother-Goddess personification will be a central theme of the trip, especially when we become caught up in the dazzling Navratri celebrations. Hers is also an ancient story that highlights her purity and divinity, and the goddess who is invoked in matters relating to happiness, family, friends, marriage, children, and the essentials of nourishment. Associated with the lotus, the exquisite flower that is born of the rich mud of dark waters, she symbolizes perfection and a transcendence of the material world. She is the embodiment of the nurturing female.

I am reminded again of the universal theme of the divine mother-goddess figure prominent in various world religions and mythology: Gaia, Aphrodite, Athena, Ha Hai-i Wuhti, Isis, the Virgin mother Mary, Lakshmi. How interesting that Lakshmi is one of nine manifestations of the mother goddess.

Gujarat is a romantic destination; in the sense of the word that implies heroic narratives and style.

The Nauakha and Orchard palaces

In Gondal, a fortified town about 300 kilometres from Ahmedabad, you will find palaces and a bygone lifestyle that could serve as a film set for the kind of romantic period piece about India and the British Raj that Westerners especially are drawn to. This set however is the real thing; a princely state over which ruled the Jadeja Rajputs who claim direct descent from Lord Krishna himself.

The buildings that are currently under development as part of the emerging tourism market of Gujarat, include palaces turned heritage hotels and a palace-fort that evoke the reign of Maharajas. Here you will also see ghost-like remnants of a colonial period in India: photographs, period furniture, and unique architecture that, in some senses, seem to have been almost casually set aside, but not totally forgotten.

The imposing Naulakha Palace for example, was built around 1748 AD on the riverbank and is an elaborate stone structure that incorporates various styles of architecture that are a blend of centuries past. The intricately carved arches of the courtyard are splendid. The private museum inside is at present rather undeveloped — from a tourist’s point of view — but a fascinating and priceless collection of memorabilia from the time of the Maharaja Bhagwat Sinhji. Evocative would be an understatement.

The Orchard Palace is equally evocative and has a slightly down-at-the heels look to it that actually enhances its authenticity. Part of the estate of the former royal family of Gondal, the palace and grounds are noteworthy for their art deco furniture and antiques. And an especially curious archive on the grounds is an automobile aficiodans’s dream collection of vintage and classic cars owned by the rulers of Gondal. The town is a striking example of the influence of the British Empire on India and the problematic alliance between two very different sets of rulers.

Road notes: The group bonds. We talk. It’s as if we are pinning flags on maps here and there … we engage in some kind of collective conceptual struggle between what we think we know (“the fixed notion” … more on that some other day) …. and what the full reality is.

Through the window of the the bus … a different depth of field … we are visually only at arm’s length from the graceful woman in the electric blue sari. She doesn’t walk … she floats among the rows of cotton that is just ripening … an antidote to the “chaos” my noisy and ethnocentric mind sees everywhere. So close, so far. Impossible to take a pic. It doesn’t matter.

It seems to me that romanticizing India is to a greater or lesser extent inevitable; it is a normal, self-defence mechanism. Indulging in narrative, telling the compelling story is probably a reasonable thing to do … especially as it helps with “re-entry angst.” And to come to a destination such as India and be bombarded by sensory overload far beyond what you could have imagined … and at the same time discover sensory skills you never knew you had … is both a risky escapade and something to dine out on for years … even if you prefer to eat alone. The framework of the travel “roman” is nothing new. Others have made passages to India; seen the jewel in the crown; experienced the delicate balance; strove to reconcile the high and the very low. Others have romanticized India in order, I suppose, to tame it in their own way. Others have tried to bridge that crucial gap in the human psyche that India can create. And they tell their stirring tales in part to find for themselves some kind of redemption in India. In a tiny way, they become in their story-telling like street workers. Is there is some rationality in the suffering you see in India? If you find yourself within reaching distance, then I think you tell the story to save your own soul as much as that of others.

The Somnath temple

The Somnath Temple, the “Shrine Eternal,” seems a bit of an anachronism compared to the other treasures we had been seeing given that its most recent incarnation occurred in 1950. The current lofty, and in my view a bit bombastic, structure is the seventh such temple built on this spot to the glory of Lord Somnath. Legend has it that the moon god Soma built the original temple out of gold. That one was replaced by a temple of silver built by Ravan. Krishna later built one of wood, and finally King Bhimdev of Anhilwad built his of stone. Soma constructed the original temple in thanks to Lord Shiva who cured him of an illness — well actually a curse placed on him by his father-in-law who was perturbed that the King was spending all his time with only one of his 26 wives; the only one that was not the daughter of Daksha.

The evening of our visit, there was a sound a light show happening at the temple, for which we arrived too late, but wandering behind the scenes while amplified celestial voices and creative lighting seemed to be happening in some other space, was a welcome departure from the group scene and an opportunity to feel a bit of privacy in the semi-darkness of the temple.

Road notes: The real “beauty” of this experience is … to have no choice but to feel and use your senses on every level … there are few tourist trappings here. Gujarat is the perfect crucible for this kind of total experience.

Am finding I too want to promote “The New India.” Quite understand why “the sensory overload here would cause some to just “shut down” … and miss the meaning … but especially the meaningfulness.

Why I find Indians physically so beautiful:

(a) the eyes … clear and penetrating;

(b) the fine, delicate, bone structure of the face (I hope I’m not objectifying them);

(c) the natural elegance of movement … in no way does an Indian lumber … even the multiple-handicapped move with grace;

(d) an innate self-presence that is almost tactile … nothing contrived about how they relate to each other … even though they can get into some pretty good screaming matches.

At the same time, I am aware of all kinds of contradictions. A huge billboard ad for “Fair and Handsome,” a face cream that says it will lighten your skin. (“For the First Time For Men!”) The man’s face is divided by a vertical line. The right half looks somewhat European, the left half looks very Indian. Who says racism isn’t a black and white issue…

We are 24 travel journalists and travel consultants from almost as many countries … in and out of a modern tour bus … constantly just a few millimetres from that other local bus that just misses us rushing in the other direction … it too passes just millimetres from the same sacred cow. Suddenly a major traffic jam … another cow in the middle of the road … “She is Mother. No Sir we cannot move her out of the way … we must wait … she will decide … it will happen.”

We talk and share our culture shock a lot … and these are journalists who have been “everywhere” … we share thoughts, ideas … at any given moment it is as if we have been nowhere … except here.

Paul (an engineer by training) and I discuss torque. He explains the mechanics, the opposing forces, the stress factor, the cause and effect … we talk about the psychic torque we are all experiencing … certainly a time shift … without a doubt a culture shift that intensifies the torque … and yet this is what allows you (if you permit it) to become part of the experience …

Words, phrases descriptors, other forms of language become increasingly secondary … impotent … a macrocosm of images passing in rapid succession … all different, all the same … like a dusty frayed and threadbare tapestry that threatens to unravel at any moment … but doesn’t. Something (who knows what) holds “it” all together….

The 2000 BCE Sanskrit carved into the huge boulder on the way to Girnar contains 14 edicts by the Emperor Ashoka, one of which proclaims that “perfection has already been attained … and that the perpetual abode of Lakshmi (the lily pad) is quite safe.” Someone mentions the obsessive need of the Western mind for fast food convenience … the arrogance … the antithesis of this place. One of the edicts declares that all religions are to live in harmony. Sigh.

Two large trucks have rolled over … separate events … separate times … same road … same India . One has spilled its load … India’s “many hands” are there to put things right. The other is empty. The driver and companion wait in the shade. Something will happen… sometime …

Five water buffalo totally submerged in a stinking pond … only nostrils and bulging eyes protruding above the water … “Ah bliss,” they say.

A sole donkey … separate from the many cattle, goats, pigs of all breeds that cross all major roads … the donkey led by one young female person bearing one stick … we pass her with just a breath of air between us. Her body language says, “Inshallah” (We are in a Muslim community) … or “Whatever!” … if she were a North American teenager

The brief space between us and them … not sure any more who is us and who is them … but the miniscule space determines whether there will be order or disorder … whereas everyone knows that disorder will be the general and normal state of affairs … another near miss … and we get out to pee. I feel the wind on my bum as another motorized rickshaw passes just behind me … fully loaded … like sophomoric college students trying the break the world’s record for the number of white guys you can cram into a telephone booth.

I’m walking on the haphazard main street. A very large woman gets bounced off the back of her husband’s moped when another one sideswipes them … I go to her defence … have to dodge bicycles, a lumbering cow and many cow patties … Motorized rickshaws buzz like flies around me … a camel looks at me indolently … I try to help the woman up … I retrieve her shoe … a heavy, substantial turquoise shoe with a few missing sequins … her husband just sits on the moped smoking a cigarette … chatting with the miscreant, another mopeder. I manage to hoist her up … she ignores me … I am not really there … she takes the shoe (I feel a light touch on my wrist) and throws it right at the chest of the other guy knocking him breathless. I slip away.

On the bus, someone (speaking for everyone?) says “Gujarat is where vision is everything and time and ‘the plan’ are of no consequence.”

Bas Pas (a gentle Dutch man who runs personalized tours everywhere in India through an agency called Thali Travel says, “The Indian mind sees no need to be ‘adult’ and to wear the extreme trappings of the Western world.” We talk about Gandhiji and his loincloth. The endless cacophony is as much visual as auditory. We talk about the “fixed notion,” the preconceptions, misconceptions, the multi-sensory ethnocentrism … our’s, everyone’s.

The cow thing again … three cows on the median of the highway out of town. Placid, complacent almost accepting, as if to say, “All this is to be borne with equanimity … while ruminating quietly … but in the final analysis, all of it isn’t really there. It passes. It’s actually a simple process that only seems disorderly.” I’ve never written dialogue for a cow before. On the bus we are getting a bit silly and playful. I suggest I interview several cows for Talking Travel but I suspect they will all say more or less the same thing … and make cud sounds.

Bas again … we remind each other that here time is truly irrelevant … but more than that … ephemeral. Yes, we decide, that’s the word. And it isn’t really even in the consciousness nor the subconscious, nor the unconscious. Kind of like somewhere in the distance … crudely constructed.

The street sleepers … they just lie down … maybe on a rag … and sleep during the day, throughout the night. Outside an old mosque, they are just waking up. One man, gets up from the pavement … he has slept on his beige shirt. One of two. He shakes the dust out of it and then in the most precise and delicate fashion, folds it … ever so carefully, puts it down beside him on the pavement and stretches. He sees me looking and smiles. Like 99.9% of the other Gujaratis we interact with, his smile is kind and welcoming … like being given a pat on the back.

A young woman has set up a makeshift cradle … a hammock strung between a wall and a lamppost next to the deafening street … she puts her tiny infant in it and I see her cooing. (How can the child hear her?) Everyone must make their way around the rockaby baby, which means stepping into traffic …and perhaps a cow patty … or oblivion … especially if that listing bus rushing towards us …

We discuss over and over how you have to suspend your Western mindset in order to even begin to “get it.” In order to recognize that this is not a faceless society.

The Navratri Festival

It makes your head spin. This event, touted as the world’s longest dance festival, is certainly the biggest party I’ve ever been at. And the most colourful, the most vibrant, the most engaging. Navratri is also Gujarat itself: you cannot separate the two. It is a cultural event that is all about mood, aura, and charisma.

Navratri (literally “nine nights”) is an ancient festival that celebrates the mother goddess in all her nine manifestations. It is also a festival that binds the diverse communities across the state in joyous revelry. And it was the principal reason we were here; our common journalistic cause. Whether it was at the enormous outdoor inaugural gala in Ahmedabad (with dignitaries, what seemed like a substantial representation of the 50 million Gujaratis in attendance, or a smattering of dazed Westerners) or whether it was at the local street celebrations, we were privileged to experience the heart and soul of Gujarat. And we danced too. Welcomed as special guests, we were called up on a small stage somewhere in the midst of endless Gujarat, and we joined in the festivities — rather awkwardly at first. But slowly we picked up the rhythms of Gujarat and became part of the nine nights.

The Navratri celebrations were everywhere and they seemed to be happening all at once. Time and space merged. I even experience the festival during my last few nights in India. In the pulsating downtown area of Mumbai, one street is taken over by great crowds of people dancing and celebrating life in the name of the goddess who symbolizes the triumph of knowledge over ignorance and goodness over evil. And even as I leave my hotel near the airport to catch a late evening flight, my drivers have to wind their way through the back streets of the poorest part of Mumbai (the “slums” where I first experienced India) because the main road to the airport is closed for the celebrations.

We drive a twisting, circuitous route through the pulsating spirit of Navratri, surrounded by laughing faces.

Road notes: The bus is modern but the shocks are long gone. Every road is a bumpy road. Multiple jolts per second. Every jolt visual, emotional, aesthetic … each comes as a wonderful surprise.

You cannot ease your way into Gujarat. Besides, it would defeat the purpose.

For more images and faces of Gujarat, CLICK HERE.

Travelling in Gujarat

For passionate Indiaphiles, a very special breed of traveler, Gujarat has many treasures and distinct regional experiences. If this is your first time to India, as it was for me, I would recommend a tour. I would also recommend that you practise thinking in a lateral, as opposed to a linear, fashion because that is the kind travel you will be experiencing.

The websites below will help in this respect.

The Official Gujarat website

Dandya Zone: the Navratri Festival

Thali Travel (Thali Foundation; Responsible Tourism) email: thalitravel@yahoo.com

Recommended hotels:

The Pride, Ahmedabad

The Grand Regency, Rajkot

The Orchid, Mumbai (near the domestic airport)

The Gordon House Boutique Hotel (downtown Mumbai)

A Philosophical Traveller Encore Presentation

A tacit agreement

Floating in sea kayaks on the choppy surface of the mighty St. Lawrence River, we sense the whales before we actually see them. It is as if these great marine mammals — wary and reticent in their resource-rich domain — have reluctantly agreed to share their world with us.

To encounter a whale close up in this magnificent yet daunting marine environment is to glimpse the profundity of all of nature, and to appreciate once again the regenerative powers of the oceans which cover the majority of the Blue Planet. It is, for the most part, a silent and serene experience.

However, the privilege of being among the whales of Québec Maritime is not a commercial “Marineworld” experience; it is instead an endless moment of truth, and a time and place for becoming once again sensitized to the prodigious life forces on the planet.

This is also — dare I say it? — a spiritual moment.

Above all it is a time for patience, vigilance, and hope.

The peaceful pleasures of Québec Maritime

This sensory-rich region of Québec is a poetic destination, replete with meaning and meaningfulness — a land and waterscape that embodies metaphor, allegory, rhythm, cadence, living symbols, and feeling.

As Wordworth said,

“The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:  Little we see in Nature that is ours;  We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!”

For this and other reasons, travellers are more and more in search of reconnecting; and of resolving the metaphysical “disconnect” that life since the Industrial Revolution has engendered. Increasingly nature travel, green tourism, ecotourism, soft adventure (however you wish to express it) has become a priority for travellers.

And in Québec Maritime, you can reintegrate, sit back, and watch the whales go by.

The “water road” to the interior of a continent

Born in a distant time, enduring, and abundant, the St. Lawrence was known by the First Nations people as Magtogoek; and the spirit of the mighty river still continues to nourish and replenish the life of an entire continent.

This part of the lower reaches of the river is also a land of magnificent and ancient boreal forests; and the amaranthine granite is that of the Canadian Shield, ancient mountains that also have stood the test of time — and the relentless elements. Here you will find a natural world that is still pristine and accessible, both physically and conceptually.

This is a travel destination where geological time and human time are blended.

In the fullness of time

Whether you are on the water, or driving, hiking, or simply pausing to reflect along the shores of the St. Lawrence in the Québec Maritime region, your vision will be constantly drawn to the river, to the ebb and the flow of the prodigious tides,  to its bountiful environment, to a sense of timelessness.

And every now and then, a dorsal fin or a fluke will interrupt your reverie and you will remember the often uncertain benevolence of the natural world.

And the whales will come: 12 species of cetaceans among which the Great Blue (the largest mammal on the planet), the Fin Whale, the Beluga, the Minke, the Humpback, the Northern Right, the Long-Finned Pilot, the Atlantic Killer Whale,  the Sperm Whale — all accompanied by a multitude of other species such as the Northern Bottlenose Dolphin, the Atlantic White-Sided Dolphin, the White-Beaked Dolpin, Harp Seals, Harbour Porpoises, and many species of birds (the Peregrine Falcon … the migrating Snow Goose) and other animals that also hear the call of the mighty St. Lawrence.

The estuary

Where the St. Lawrence and the Saguenay rivers meet, the world’s largest estuary is also to be found; over 230,000 square kilometres and a flow of more than 35,000 cubic kilometres of water. As you pass this critical juncture on your way downstream, the river bottom suddenly plunges over an underwater cliff that was carved out eons ago by glaciation which relentlessly also ate away the continental shelf to form the Laurentian Channel.

And these great geological forces combined with the powerful currents of the Saguenay, the St. Lawrence itself, and the Arctic currents that enter the Gulf of St. Lawrence, have created one of the most fertile and dynamic marine environments on the planet.

The constant recirculation of water from top to bottom in this deep underwater canyon, the astounding tides, and the constant mixing of fresh and salt water, have created a marine environment in which multitude of plant forms thrive in great abundance — the ideal feeding ground for the marine mammals that come here every summer.

The estuary is a key biological engine of this great river. It is also the embodiment of life itself.

Imagining La Nouvelle France

Great rivers also nourish human habitats. And the St. Lawrence has been a two-way water road to North American history since the arrival of the First Nations people who came across the frozen Bering Strait and migrated throughout a new world that was propitious, daunting, but also abundant in its resources.

And that is also why the Europeans followed the water road to the interior of the continent and beyond.

Sitting at a campsite looking out toward the distant south shore of the St. Lawrence, and slowly scanning the surface of the water for the next sighting, I imagine what those First Nations people must have thought and felt when they saw sailing ships proceeding inexorably upriver.

For these indigenous people who were quite accustomed to seeing the other visitors to the estuary of the St. Lawrence, I would like to believe that they greeted the new arrivals with the same generosity of spirit with which Magtogoek greeted them.

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Images and imagery of Québec Maritime

In many ways, the diversity of natural and cultural resources of this part of Canada and Québec, represent a world apart.

To see this slideshow, click here.

The whales of Québec Maritime

For wildlife photographers, it is always about capturing le bon moment, that moment that defines and celebrates the essence of the animal. This is no easy task. It requires skill, a keen eye, and above all patience.

To see this slideshow, click here.

A podcast with Patrice Corbeil, Director of GREMM (Groupe de recherches et d’éducation sur les mammifères marins)

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Québec Maritime resources and other adventures

(a) GREMM: The Group for Research and Education on marine mammals

(b) The official website of Québec Maritime

(c) The Saguenay-St. Lawrence Marine Park

(d) SEPAQ (The National Parks of Québec)

(e) The above website will also take you to The Parc national du Saguenay.

(f) The official website of the Manicouagan, North Shore (of the St. Lawrence) Tourism Region

(g) The Québec Maritime Lighthouse Trail

(h) Jardin des glaciers de Baie-Comeau (The Garden of the Glaciers)

(i) Marine Environment Discovery Centre (Parks Canada)

(j) Cap-de-Bon-Désir Interpretation and Observation Centre (Parks Canada)

(k) Marine Mammal Interpretation Centre (CIMM)

(l) Whales Online

(m) Croisières AML (whale watching in Zodiac boats)

(n) Mer et Monde Ecotours (sea kayaking, camping, restaurant, bakery, outdoor educational courses, corporate adventure/getaway programs)

(o) Cicerone (Québec City through theatre)

(p) Hôtel Le Manoir, Baie-Comeau

(q) Hôtel Tadoussac, Tadoussac

(r) To see a map of the region, click here and zoom in or out.

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“Seeing Whales”

by Michael Dickman

You can go blind, waiting

Unbelievable quiet

except for their

soundings

Moving the sea around

Unbelievable quiet inside you, as they change

the face of water

The only other time I felt this still was watching Leif shoot up when we were twelve

Sunlight all over his face

breaking

the surface of something

I couldn’t see

You can wait your

whole life

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Other stories from The Philosophical Traveller about the mighty St. Lawrence

The St. Lawrence: A River Through Time

Grosse Île: The Human Drama of 19th-Century Canadian Immigration

The contextual nature of all travel

The very nature of travel involves experiencing new realities, gaining new perspectives, and creating a new personal frame of reference on the world – perhaps even on life itself.

Travel is always contextual whether the “destination” you are visiting is just around the corner or much farther afield.

And the context of the destination is an essential element of the travel experience. Like theatre, it is the setting – and frequently the “set”. It is what determines the meaning a visitor derives from the destination. And the context is the amalgam of circumstances in which the destination has evolved.

History and heritage are the key connectors to the past; but it is also the historical context that allows us to understand the challenges of the present, and even more importantly, to predict the future.

This is why the increasing number of engaged and participatory travellers, who by the way are demanding more “bang for their buck” and a more meaningful travel experience, vigorously engage in the context when they travel.

New technologies of all kinds allow us to focus our interests on the kind of travel experience that resonates with us.

This is especially true when it comes to history and heritage.

Colin Old’s ingenious and ongoing history and heritage project

Colin Old is the Communications Officer of one of Canada’s most intriguing national historic sites, Bethune Memorial House in Gravenhurst, Ontario.

For more information on this site and to listen to a chat between Colin and me about Dr. Norman Bethune, the “unlikely hero” who was born in this small town but went on eventually to become a key figure in Mao Zedong’s Communist Revolution in China, go to “Norman Bethune: A Doctor Without Borders”.

Colin’s Google National Historic Sites maps

Using the magic of Google, Colin has begun a project that is ongoing. It is also a project that provides a very “traveller-friendly” tool to all those who love to experience history and heritage through the medium of travel.

For each of the national historic sites that Colin identifies in his interactive Google maps, he also gives a brief and concise description of the site. In essence, Colin is providing an historical and literal roadmap for exploring fascinating, meaningful, and grassroots sites.

To see the sites that Colin has identified, click on the links below.

The Google technology also allows you to zoom in or out, to add your own comments, to forward the map (or individual historic sites) to friends and fellow historical-heritage travellers. The maps are also topographical so that you can get a “bird’s eye view” of the physical landscape of the featured region. And finally, you can also save each of the maps in your own personal Google map folder.

Photos and Wikipedia articles may also be brought up when selected from the dropdown “More” menu.

Also, bookmark this webpage because more such Google historical roadmaps from Colin will be added here.

Eastern Ontario

Known in part as “Loyalist” country to many of those who chose to remain part of the British Empire as opposed to becoming citizens of the new Republic to the south (the United States of America), this region of Ontario is especially rich in “transborder” history and heritage.

National Historic Sites of Canada from Guelph to Lake Huron Coast, Ontario

The wedge of Ontario from the Guelph region by way of Kitchener-Waterloo to the province’s west coast on Lake Huron is unified by the commemoration of the Huron Tract colonization activity in the 19th century. The region also jealously guards the legacy of outstanding Canadians such as John McCrae, Billy Bishop and Joseph Seagram

Kingston, Ontario

As one of the first capitals of the “Dominion of Canada” the city of Kingston, at the eastern end of Lake Ontario and a key stop on the St. Lawrence Seaway, is a city that is also synonymous with Canadian history.

Central Ontario

Central Ontario is anchored by the natural and cultural gem of the historic Trent-Severn Waterway which runs 400 kms diagonally across the heartland of Ontario from Trenton to Port Severn. It has also, thankfully, brought us endearing characters such as Norman Bethune, Stephen Leacock, and Sir Sam Steele. It also features architectural delights such as Parkwood in Oshawa and Peterborough’s Cox Terrace.

Ottawa

Ottawa, the national capital of Canada is for many visitors, both Canadian and from other nations, a cultural treasure and an in-depth lesson in why North American history evolved as it did.

Northern Ontario

A region of significance historically, geologically, and geographically in Canadian history, Northern Ontario is known for its wilderness areas, its First Nations history, and its distinct local cultures.

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More … of Colin’s history and heritage Google maps will be posted here from time to time. Stay tuned. Stay “connected” … as Mark Kelly is wont to say.

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Other resources

National Historic Sites of Canada

The “home base” for all national historic sites in Canada, this website will help you find important historical and heritage sites wherever you travel in Canada.

See also … “Norman Bethune: A Doctor Without Borders” … a two part podcast with Colin Old.

Cultural and other walls

After a first-time visit to China, including of course an exhilarating day on The Great Wall of China comfortably and delightfully embraced by a Saturday afternoon swarm of citizens of this great emerging nation, I have been pondering the role, function, and meaning of walls in general in human society.

Why do we build walls? What are they really all about? As travellers, what intercultural skills are at our disposal — if we are lucky or so inclined — to transcend cultural walls? For the truly intrepid traveller a borderless world, conceptually especially, is the best of all possible scenarios.

Historically walls have helped keep the “barbarians” at a safe distance and ensure the sanctity of hearth and home. But they also have been structures that can deprive and oppress those within. However, even though walls exclude the “outsider” or contain the occupants, they can also have an inclusive function.

Notwithstanding the excesses and necrosis of feudalistic societies, throughout history walls (or borders) have also served to protect and preserve primary cultures; contain, delineate, and define a collective ethos; centre a culture; and engender introspection while at the same time providing a safe glimpse of that which is away and beyond. Personal walls, figurative and literal, can also assure privacy and intimacy; perhaps our greatest luxury in many parts of the world.

But it all depends on the nature and purpose of the wall.

Shanghai: welcoming the world… this time on its own terms

In the exponential world of travel and tourism — considered by many to be the largest industry on the planet — there is no shortage of new players. Everyone wants “a piece of the action”; and why shouldn’t they? Walls are being breached all over the planet, thanks in part to a 21st-century approach to the marketing of travel and tourism.

As one of the newest, most entrepreneurial, and multidimensional destinations reaching out to this global travel market, Shanghai is marketing its distinct history, heritage, and contemporary culture in ways that may seem paradoxical, or even incongruous.

Who would have imagined that the largest Communist state in the world would be instituting free markets (of a sort) and competitive, capitalist marketing strategies? And who would have imagined that Chinese cities would be competing with each other for foreign visitors. A colleague in China tells me that there is a joke going around that “Every taxi driver in Beijing can discuss world affairs with you, while every taxi driver in Shanghai can discuss the stock market.” He also suggests that while Beijing is more a political city, Shanghai is more a commercial one; a city in which the citizens are more “practical.” However, he also reminded me that every Chinese city has its own distinctive character. But there is no doubt that these two cities, not unlike tourism destinations in what is a whole new world of diversified travel and tourism, are competitors for tourism revenues.

At the time of my visit, the city was in mega renovation mode as it also prepared for its really big moment on the world stage — Expo 2010 Shanghai. (And by the way, it has been reported that the world-famous Cirque de Soleil, a Canadian institution and creation which was conceived in Québec, will “co-create” the Canada Pavilion at Expo 2010 Shanghai.)

Shanghai is also a city in which you sense a personal and collective self-determination you might not have expected. And if, as I did, you take the opportunity to talk to locals, many of whom speak English and are more than willing to engage in dialogue with you, you will understand what I mean.

With the Mission Statement of “Better City, Better Life,” Shanghai has committed itself to what promises to be the largest World Exposition ever. More importantly, it has committed itself to urban renewal in which I hope that people really do come first. Furthermore, it has committed itself to a greener way of life, which without a doubt will be a major challenge.

When we toured the Expo site, I must admit to wondering how on Earth they were going to get this mammoth undertaking finished in time for the opening on May 1, 2010. However, given precedents such as the Beijing Olympics, the workforce available, and the hierarchical and centralized nature of Chinese government, I’m quite sure this world exposition will go down in the record books as one of the most successful, perhaps even “the best” to date.

I say “one of the best” advisedly because, although I was very impressed with Shanghai’s ambitious and long-term strategy of becoming a major player on the world stage — perhaps even giving Hong Kong a run for its money — my only caveat to the Shanghai Tourism Department is that the “bigger is better” mindset is not necessarily in the best interests of any destination. This may sound pedantic but bigger is not always better; better is better. And of course what is “better” is open to debate; however all parties concerned (including visitors to Shanghai) will need to apply their own judgement as to the validity of the ethical conundrum of harmonizing quantity with quality. Please don’t get me wrong; I was very impressed with a lot of the initiatives I saw in the works in Shanghai, but, to be quite frank, I was also concerned that China might fall into the trap of becoming derivative, succumbing to Dysneyfication, and emulating the worst of Western civilization. And what a pity that would be given China’s thousands of years of history, cultural, art, and philosophy. But as it has been said in reference to other nations, “Judge me by my culture, not by my government.”

However as a leading destination within the booming tourism industry of “The New China,” Shanghai historically has been a familiar face and international city since the 1930s especially, a whole other story that is being told boldly and explicitly in Shanghai today. But today it is also a revitalized and enterprising city that knows what it wants and how it is going to get it.

To many around the world, this new no-nonsense business culture of travel and tourism from the People’s Republic of China may seem at first glance somewhat befuddling or even disconcerting. After all, the emergence of China as a global, political, and economic power does, at first glance, seem to turn things upside down. There may be very good reasons (of national self-interest) that make people fear a new world order. Empires do decline.

But as the old saying goes, time marches on. And if I were a hotshot marketing executive in Shanghai, I might also be tempted to throw into the media mix, the equally familiar “Everything old is new again.”

A 21st century frame of reference

According to the Shanghai Statistics Bureau, the city had a population of 18.88 million by the end of 2008. Beijing is the runner up as China’s second largest city (after Shanghai), with more than 17 million people. While travelling in China, you always have to remember that this nation has a population of 1.3 billion people, the largest in the world, and that those numbers have many implications and ramifications. On the other hand, I rarely felt overwhelmed by masses of people. In fact, as was also my experience in India, I never felt that this was a faceless nation, which can be the impression one gets “from afar.”

It is also significant that the median age in China is 34.1, and that the one child policy is still (more or less) in place. As one pundit recently said, this is a major challenge to China because “It will get old before it gets rich.” This aging society factor is something we understand well in North America, but the demographics in China are exponentially more of a challenge.

To give a little more numerical perspective, the armed forces in China (also the largest in the world) have 2.3 million enlisted members. In terms of China’s literacy rate, 90.9 of the people can read and write, an enviable achievement. And by the way, there are 253 million Internet users in China. The issue of the Chinese government’s blocking of websites, however, (including initially, by the way yours truly the Philosophical Traveller) is just one of the major issues that the international community is monitoring. In an address to students during his recent visit to Shanghai, President Barack Obama criticized what he referred to as internet censorship, while addressing students, while at the same time praising freedom of expression and political participation.

(Readers and Internet users may also be interested in the China Internet Project’s website China Digital Times, but as is always the case in the media world, caveat lector.)

Also, in terms of the global travel and tourism industry, it is important to factor in that China’s economy is ranked third in the world, behind that of the United States and Japan with a GDP of $4.4 trillion.  And a United Nations World Tourism Organization study in 2007, found that that China will produce 100 million outbound tourists by 2020; thus becoming even more of a player in the competitive world of travel and tourism.

China would appear to be adapting to the passage of time, and other global events, such as the most recent worldwide recession. On October 1, 2009, it celebrated “Sixty Years of Brilliance”; the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

And by the way, the Chinese Communist Party was founded in 1921 in Shanghai!

Timeless China

Whether time heals all wounds, as the saying goes, is of course debatable but time and history are also relentless. And the city of Shanghai, as a kind of New China prototype, is striving to take advantage of the 21st-century frame of reference in which it finds itself. At the same time, it is not turning a blind eye to the past; but in many ways is integrating the past with the present.

Images and Imagery of China

For visual narratives of Shanghai, Beijing, Xi’ian, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Fengjing, visit my Flikr site using the links below.

Surreptitious Shanghai

Contemplating Four Chinese Cities

Grassroots Beijing and Environs

Video Moments in China

Classical Ballet With a Chinese Flavour

Jazz Ballet Chinese-Style

The Art of the Chinese Acrobat

Chinese Lotus Dancers

Generational voices

As we make our way on foot through the highlands of Martinique, I realize that we are also entering the heartland of a distinct Caribbean culture in which the voices of many generations still resonate.

We have meandered through what are called the Creole Gardens, and the complementary and stunning physical landscape in which they thrive. These small private farms on the volcanic slopes of Martinique’s lush interior are intricately and skillfully integrated into a nutrient-rich ecosystem, which in many ways is also the essence of this culturally resource-rich island.

Biological and cultural diversity

Sometimes called les jardins de résistance (the gardens of resistance), these well-ordered plots of land today are models of sustainability and regenerative agricultural practices. They are also representative of a culture of self-determination; and of a deep sense of interconnectedness between a benevolent terrain and the people it has nurtured.

This is the soul of Martinique, fondly known as the Fleur des Caraïbes − the flower of the Caribbean.

But the Creole Gardens are also appropriate symbols for the struggles and ultimate triumphs of the heterogeneous culture of Martinique, a collective self-actualization that has been in progress for hundreds of years. It is these layers of history and culture that make up the mosaic of Martinique, evoking an historical awareness of the long-ago colonial aspirations of European powers and of empire-building. But at the core of the complex narrative that is Martinique is also the institution of slavery.

When France abolished slavery in its overseas colonies in March 1818, only 45 years before Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, a Creole culture began to flourish which would blend French traditions, mores, and a legal and social infrastructure with that of the oral history and traditions of people of African descent.

As was the case on other Caribbean islands, Martinique was part of the plantation economies in the West Indies colonies, of France especially. As a result, many of these islands began to thrive as centres for the export of sugar. But the forced labour of the black slaves on these sugar plantations was cruel and harsh, more so even than that of the cotton plantations of the American South.

And when emancipation came, the people of Martinique, who were then very much a blend of the Old and New Worlds, became the principal source of a renaissance and cultural élan by emphasizing this prodigious and magnificent island’s natural resources, and its intrinsic beauty. As Bertrand Russell said, “extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.” This is the transcendent beauty of Martinique.

Heritage travel

Canadians especially will identify with the island’s biodiversity as well as with its multicultural heritage; discovering layers of meaningfulness and a quiet passion that underscores the resourcefulness and insight that this rich natural environment engenders. And like the Creole Gardens, this relatively small island destination has an abundance of natural treasures as well as historical and heritage sites that both enlighten and entertain.

The hues and shades of the social fabric and natural history of Martinique are also reflected in the preservation and careful maintenance of sites such as the Parc régional de la Caravelle, an extensive 2.5-hectare nature preserve of considerable biological importance given its nutrient-rich mangroves. Nearby is the Château Dubuc, one of the island’s former sugar plantations with spectacular views and seascapes. The château dates from 1773 and today is tangible evidence of the historic and commercial importance of Martinique as a former colony of France. The Habitation Clément, a former rum distillery, today is a wonderful example of the kind of impeccably restored heritage site you will find in Martinique. The estate’s colonial-era buildings, contemporary art gallery, and luxuriant landscapes are worth a half-day visit at least.

A year-round destination, Martinique is known for its excellent infrastructure, accommodation to suit all needs and budgets, golf courses à la Robert Trent Jones, the glorious Tour des Yoles sailing race in August, horticultural travel at its best, and sustainable tourism.

The list of content-rich sites and unique experiences in Martinique is almost endless. But what also makes up the persona of Martinique is its aesthetic qualities and grassroots experiences. Here people and human culture matter, and in the classical French tradition everything is accomplished with finesse and style − especially in the culinary arts. Martinique is a gourmet destination in all respects, but it is also the beau idéal of what has come to be known as “slow food” culture. Local markets, especially the one in the capital of Fort-de-France, epitomize eating well.

The economy of Martinique is strong because of a discerning tourism industry which celebrates the island’s diversity. Agriculture is also a fundamental component of the economy; in particular in the growing of organic foods, the cultivation of bananas, and to some extent sugar cane, which today is used primarily for the production of rum. Fourteen per cent of the active population of Martinique work in the agricultural industry, compared to four per cent in what Martinicans call France Métropolitaine − “Metropolitan France”. Therefore, for those interested in agritourism − one of the fastest growing sectors in the tourism industry − immersing yourself in this harmonious landscape can be a purposeful and enriching travel experience.

Value-added Martinique

The alluring ecosystems of Martinique create a medley of sensory experiences in a landscape that welcomes up close and personal travel. It is indeed “the flower of the Caribbean”, an eclectic, inclusive, and sensory-rich destination where beauty is in the eye of the beholder – everywhere.

And Martinique’s beauty is all-encompassing.

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Personal recommendations in Martinique

La Savane des Esclaves

This superb attraction is another excellent example of how the people of Martinique preserve and create an in-depth awareness of their heritage. Conceived and managed by Gilbert Larose, a highly committed and self-taught historian, cultural anthropologist, and environmentalist, the Savane des Esclaves is a walk through Creole history and a lesson in how slavery played a key role in the Caribbean.  See La Savane des Esclaves

Habitation Clément

As I have mentioned in the text above, this former sugar plantation and rum distillery is also social and cultural history at its best. It is also an art gallery and, in my view, a wonderful example of how contemporary art installations fulfill many purposes. See Habitation Clément.

Le Tour des Yoles

A yole is a unique and indigenous boat traditionally used by Martinique fishers; and was often used to travel from island to island throughout the Caribbean. It too is social history in Martinique. The famous race Le Tour des Yoles Rondes takes place in August and is an event that draws large crowds of locals as well as international visitors. It is also one of the biggest and most fun events of the year in Martinique. See Le Tour des Yoles. At this site you can see actual videos. For more photos see Images and Imagery in Martinique on my Flikr site.

E-discover and Bruno Dompierre

The Segway has become a popular means of exploring a number of destinations. You can either hike or go by Segway along what is called Sentiers des Caraïbes (The Paths of the Carib Indians) which runs along beautiful beaches on the southern coast of Martinique, through local campgrounds and picnic areas, and through important wildlife viewing and indigenous ecosystems. For more information watch the video The Coolest Way to See Martinique. See also www.e-discover.fr.

Parc naturel régional de la Martinique

On a peninsula stretching out into the Caribbean is a Martinique ecotourism destination that for lovers of all things natural and biological, should not be missed. This regional park has numerous hiking trails that take you through Mangroves all the way to the sea. If you go with a guide, you will also be engaging in one of the best life-long learning through travel experiences in the Caribbean. See Martinique Nature.

Nearby is also the Château Dubuc, another historical and heritage site that is not to be missed. The views from this property are also stupendous and despite its troubled history, one understands why the European powers saw this part of the world as a source of wealth. See Château Dubuc.

Agritourism in Martinique

This form of grassroots travel is becoming increasingly popular around the world as travellers become more and more conscious of the important (and sometimes precarious) earth-based resources. One such farm-stay experience is provided by Auberge Le Domaine de la Vallée. See  www.martinique-domaine-vallee.com.

Golfing in Martinique

If you golf in Martinique, the biggest challenge will be keeping your eye on the ball, as opposed to being distracted by the landscapes and seascapes. See www.golfmartinique.com

Le Domaine de Saint-Aubin, Trinité, Martinique

This former sugar plantation is an excellent choice for those who want a quiet “home away from home” experience. It is also a a gastronomic experience. See http://ledomainesaintaubin.com.

Pierre & Vacances

For families especially, this full service and “full program” vacation stay hotel (an institution unto itself in France) will provide for all your needs. See www.pierreetvacances.com

Hotel Bambou

Each individual bungalow is decorated in traditional Creole style and wins my vote for most traveller-friendly accommodation on the island of Martinique. See www.hotelbambou.fr

La Table de Mamy Nounou and Hôtel La Caravelle

Another gastronomic treasure, as well as an authentic, and low-key vacation stay, this unique accommodation on a hillside above the sea and its “bonne table” is for those especially who appreciate quality as opposed to quantity. See Hôtel La Caravelle.

Tak Tak

The Tak Tak “network” (the word is Creole and means fireflies) may be the most grassroots and authentic travel experience I have had in recent years. It is a network of travel suppliers, rural gîtes (more or less the equivalent of bed and breakfast accommodation), and artisans, restaurants, nature/soft adventure experiences, in-depth historical travel experiences, and ecotourism travel. As a collective of service providers, Tak Tak is a low budget alternative to those who appreciate getting a genuine “up close and personal” view of this amazing Caribbean landscape. You may begin your day with a Creole breakfast and you will be hosted and enlightened by Martiniquais people who have a real commitment to the history and biodiversity of their island. And if you don’t speak, French do not worry. The principles and values of Tak Tak embody hospitality. They will manage to communicate with you in your language of choice somehow. What you will experience is an intercultural dialogue on a profound level. See www.taktak-martinique.com

Club Med Les Boucaniers

I have never considered myself a Club Med type, however the Club Med chain has diversified considerably and offers many amenities to many types of clients. This property especially is wonderfully situated, well-planned in terms of its extensive layout, types of accommodation and amenities available, and in the spirit of Club Med a travel supplier that respects your sense of privacy and personal choice. See Club Med Les Boucaniers (Buccaneer’s Creek).

L’Hôtel Carayou

This medium-size hotel directly across the bay from Fort-de-France (and accessible by ferry to the capital) is an excellent location in the laid-back town of Trois Ilets where you can walk to many local attractions and amenities, especially dining.  See www.hotel-carayou.com.

Restaurant 1643

Another slightly off the beaten track gem, this restaurant (and yes the house in which it is located was built in 1643) is quintessential Martinique. See www.restaurant1643.com.

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Visualize Martinique

(a) Images and Imagery in Martinique

(b) Walking Through the Creole Gardens of Martinique

(c) The Coolest Way to See Martinique

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Other resources

(a) While http://www.martinique.org is the official international tourism website of Martinique, http://www.lamartinique.ca is the Canadian site.

(b) Air Canada has non-stop flights from Montreal to Fort-de-France, the capital of Martinique.

(c) France d’outremer

Martinique is an official overseas département of France, one of four including Guadeloupe, French Guyana in South America, and the island of La Réunion in the Indian Ocean. The island is as much a part of France as Paris or the Dordogne.

(d) Produced by Martinique Tourism, http://www.martinique-bonjour.com has an English link. There is also an English print version of the guide

(e) A link to parks and gardens in Martinique can be found in English at http://www.martinique.org/activities/parks.php. It is part of the “Official Website of the Martinique Tourism Authority”.

(f) This particular PDF site is particularly useful to both repeat visitors and first time visitors to Martinique. See Comité Martiniquais du Tourisme.

(g) For more perspective on the institution of slavery in Martinique and the Caribbean see French Slavery.

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See also … “A Walk Through the Creole Gardens of Martinique”

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A version of this article was first published in Dreamscapes magazine.

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A comment and commentary by the Martinique Tourism Board

“Il s’agit d’un article (encore en anglais) publié sur le site de Robert Fisher, un Canadien qui est à la fois journaliste voyage, éditeur, éducateur à la retraite et ancien cadre en marketing. Il fait partie de plusieurs associations autour du voyage. L’article date de novembre 2009, donc pas si vieux que ça.

Dans cet article, Bob Fisher fait le récit de son voyage à la Martinique, et il est plutôt élogieux! Qu’il parle des jardins créoles ou des paysages qu’il a découvert, ce journaliste donne envie Il salue les pratiques d’une agriculture saine et voit dans ces jardins une part de l’histoire de la Martinique. Il y voit « une culture de l’autodétermination » et « un profond sentiment d’interdépendance entre une terre généreuse et les personnes qu’elle a nourries« . C’est pour lui, « l’âme de la Martinique« .

Il retrace brièvement l’histoire coloniale de l’île et décrit les martiniquais au moment de leur émancipation comme « un mélange de l’Ancien et du Nouveau monde [...] principale source d’une renaissance et d’un élan culturel en mettant l’accent sur les ressources naturelles de cette île prodigieuse et magnifique et sa beauté intrinsèque« . Il utilise une citation que j’aime particulièrement, de Bertrand Russel et qui dit que « les espoirs extrêmes naissent de la misère extrême ».

L’auteur souligne également la biodiversité de l’île, son héritage multiculturel, les trésors naturels qui y existent, les excellentes infrastructures, l’hébergement accessible à tous les budgets.

Il évoque la Caravelle à Trinité et la mangrove, le Château Dubuc, l’Habitation Clément au François, le golf des Trois-Ilets, le tour des Yoles… »la liste est presque interminable »;

Je n’en dis pas plus: allez jeter un coup d’oeil ici ou ici

Thanks Mr Fisher!”

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Publié dans Bibliographie, Webographie | Mots-clefs : activités, histoire, journaliste, mangrove, paysages, presse, récompenses

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Thomas E King taks in the open air museum of Skansen, marvels at the early 17th century warship Vasa and cruises in style on the canals of Stylish Stockholm
Sally Hammond explores Cornwall , a place where the English language nearly falls off the map.
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… a podcast with Graeme Calder

Culture and Permaculture

Culture is one of the prime reasons we travel. And travel as a unique human behaviour — as well as a concept — is always a process; never a one-dimensional event.

In the world of travel and tourism we often talk about intercultural understanding, and travel as a means of achieving universal aims and objectives.

Permaculture is also a conceptual and pragmatic way of interacting productively with the many “systems” inherent in the universe and in human communities. It is therefore a philosophical endeavour, a mindset, but above all it is a common sense approach to land management.

It is also not difficult to draw parallels between the Permaculture movement and the travel and tourism industry, given especially the regeneration of the Heritage Movement in which a return to a grassroots and meaningful form of travel is emphasized.

In addition, the increasing emphasis on responsible tourism (often referred to as green tourism or sustainable tourism) is also for many people a preferred method of travel which follows similar principles and ethics to that of the Permaculture movement.

Permaculture emphasizes the designing of human settlements and sustainable agricultural systems which in turn reflect the natural relationships found in the universe. The movement began as an agricultural phenomenon and quickly became an international movement, and for many a way of life.

Increasingly in the world of travel journalism — a corollary “system” to travel and tourism — many are also striving to go beyond the “Where’s the beach?” school of solely consumer-oriented travel. By emphasizing the advantages of a more integrated, reciprocal, and participatory approach to travel, the travel experience is re-affirmed as the most experiential form of learning.

And as you will hear Graeme Calder explain in this podcast, there are many opportunities throughout the world to “travel” in a Permaculture mode.

Statistical footnote

According to a recent Yahoo Travel/Forbes Traveler.com article, the essence of Permaculture is also statistically consistent with travellers who want a “big trip, low impact” travel experience.

“Along those lines, sustainable and eco-friendly tourism are also on the rise–and affecting people’s travel decisions. A survey conducted by the U.S. Travel Association and Ypartnership in July 2009 shows a 9% increase from 2007 in awareness of “green travel.” Six in 10 respondents in the same survey said they believed environmental programs at travel services could have a positive impact on the environment.

The general idea of such an excursion involves minimizing harmful effects on the environment and making sure the money tourists spend in a country stays there. For example, tourists stay at local accommodations and participate in fair trade, buying goods directly from the makers.”

To read more go to “World’s most unique places to visit” by Becky Chung.

Permaculture Resources

P3 Permaculture Design

Pacific Permaculture

The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia

The Montréal Bisophere

The Green Barn Nursery

The Permaculture Guild of Montreal

Earthship Biotecture

The 9th International Permaculture Conference

“Common Circle Education – Permaculture Design Course” (Youtube)

“Permaculture in Action – Greening The Desert” (Youtube)

“What permaculturists are doing is the most important activity that any group is doing on the planet.”
- David Suzuki, world-renowned environmentalist and scientist

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P3 Permaculture Design Media Release