Desert Journeys

Three Journeys Across Inhospitable Terrain

Abadan to Shiraz, with an Unplanned Stop at Bandar Deylam
30th of July 2000

Iran

On the 30th of July 2000 we set out with our driver/guide Keywan to drive some 540km from Abadan on the tip of the Persian Gulf to the 'Rose City' of Shiraz, the capital of the Province of Fars which gave its name to Ancient Persia and the modern Persian language (Fars /Pers - transliterations from Arabic script are infinitely variable).

Our journey would take us around the tip of the Persian Gulf to the small port of Bandar Deylam and then just north of east across an empty section of the map to Gachsaran where we would pick up the highway to Shiraz.

Iran is large so a journey of 540km across southern Iran looks small

The land round the tip of the gulf is sun-baked salty and often brown. It is not picturesque country, even before you add in the ugly remains of the Iran-Iraq war.

Leaving Abadan

A distant view of the small town of Hendijan made me wonder why anyone chose to live there. Perhaps no one did, their ancestor just washed up there on the tides of history and they never had the gumption to leave.

A distant view of Hendijan

The car was not been running well, given the dusty country we had been crossing for days it was not surprising the fuel filter had become blocked. We eventaully ground to a halt somemwhere north of Bandar Deylam. Keywan, for all his many talents, was no mechanic – and neither am I.

Breakdown north of Bandar Deylam

To give Keywan his due, he managed to get the car going again and we limped into the port of Bandar Deylam and found a garage.

At the garage, Bandar Deylam

The car restored to health, we headed north through the desert towards Gachsaran in the greener valley beyond. Keywan did not have total confidence in the repair and listened intently to the engine every time we climbed a gradient or accelerated away from a bend. This would not be a good place to break down.

In the spectacular desert scenery the only signs of human activity were the ribbon of tarmac and the oil pipelines which criss-cross the desert, sometimes running beside the road, sometimes veering off through narrow valleys or dropping down stony cliffs.

Road and pipeline between Bandar Deylam and Gachsaran

My father lived and worked in Iran from 1946 to 1951. I was born in 1950 in the refinery town of Abadan, and Lynne and I were taking advantage of a brief period of détente to visit the land of my birth for the first time since I left as a babe in arms.

For most of those six years my father worked in this desert, constructing pipelines, perhaps the very pipelines we were driving beside.

Pipeline between Bandar Deylam and Gachsaran

After 25Km we crossed the Zorah River which runs through the heart of the desert, scrubby patches of green clinging to its banks. Beside the bridge there is a village, I cannot imagine what its inhabitants do to earn their living.

Crossing the Zorah River

Gachsaran was still 50Km away, but the car kept going and Keywan gradually relaxed. An hour later we descended into a valley which seemed lush and green, though only in comparison to the desert we had just crossed. Here we joined the main highway to Shiraz

Into the Sunset, Ghadames, Libya
19th of April 2006

Libya

Most Libyans live beside or near the Mediterranean coast. The Jebel Nafusa (Nafusa Hills) in north-eastern Libya is the only significant non-coastal area of population, but even then it is not far inland, stretching 200km from Gharyan, just south of Tripoli, west to Nalut. Massoud took us to Kabaw, just south east of Nalut, to the home of his sister, Seham and brother-in-law, Omar, for lunch. Afterwards he drove us south into the desert to Derj and then to the oasis and former slave trading town of Ghadames (spellings vary) and Omar came along for the ride.

Ghadames is almost where Algeria, Tunisia and Libya meet

On our second evening we ventured out into the desert to watch the sunset. Hoping to attract tourists, a small encampment had been set up, bread baked in the sand,….

Baking bread in the sand
near Ghadames, Libya

… and tea were available for all. Twenty or so foreigners turned up; tourism was not big in Libya in 2006 and it is even smaller now, if it exists at all.

Bread and tea, near Ghadames, Libya

A Taureg rode into camp with the effortless elegance that is every Taureg’s birth right.

A Tuareg arrives in camp, Ghadames

He halted his camel by one of the huts and it lowered itself to the ground. Swinging his leg forward to dismount he strode towards the hut, his robes flapping in the gentle breeze. Then there was a strange electronic sound. Patting himself, he found what he was looking for and as his hand delved deep into his robes to emerge grasping a mobile phone, the magic evaporated into the desert air.

As the sun sank we climbed a sand dune…

Climbing a sand dune, near Ghadames, Libya

… and took up our position on the top.

Waiting for the sunset, near Ghadames, Libya

For reasons known only to himself, Omar walked off into the dunes for his own private view of the sunset. He can be seen in the photograph, a tiny figure at the end of a trail of footprints.

Omar of the sands, near Ghadames, Libya

Somewhere in the west, over Algeria, was a single band of cloud. We saw no sunset that day, the cloud swallowing the fiery orb long before it reached the horizon.

The sunset that no one ever saw, near Ghadames, Libya

We were disappointed, but it does no harm to be reminded that such things do not happen to order; sunsets cannot be bought and sold. Anyway, there would be other opportunities.

Bahariya to Siwa, Egypt
10th of November 2009

Egypt

We had crossed the western desert from Luxor on a good tarmac road through the oases of Kharga, Dhakla, Farafra and Bahariya. From Bahariya the blacktop turned east and headed for Cairo. To reach the Siwa oases 300km west near the Libyan border, the only way was over the sand. The British army had built a road of sorts in the 1930s, and we followed their route, but little of their construction remained. [Update: That was largely true in 2009, but a new road was planned and a few kilomtres were already in use near Siwa. I believe that road has been complete for some time]

Egypt and the oases of the Western Desert

Before setting out with Mohammed, our ever-affable driver and Araby, our cultured and knowledgeable guide, we presented ourselves at the local police station to prove we had a satellite phone for emergencies and to register for the desert crossing. The Egyptian authorities do not want anybody, particularly tourists, lost in the wilderness so they counted us all out, counted us all in and also checked us half way at an isolated army post, possibly the most boring posting in Egypt.[That might have been true in 2009, but between 2014 until 2018 there were a number of attacks on isolated outpost, and dozens of soldiers have been killed. An ISIS affiliate has been involved and the instability of Libya has not helped. This is no longer an area for tourists]

Outside the police station, Bahariya

The six vehicles making the crossing set off in convoy, but soon became separated.

Leaving Bahariya

After a couple of hours we stopped to stretch our legs, though finding a bush to pee behind presented a problem.

Stopping to stretch our legs

Half an hour later we encountered a small lake surrounded by reeds. It looked curiously out of place.

A small lake surrounded by reeds

Beyond the lake we dropped down into the Qattara Depression. The depression is the size of Wales, though a lot less rainy (where isn't?) and at its lowest point is 133m below sea level. Our route crossed only a small corner before we climbed out again.

Coming out of the Qattara Depression

At lunchtime we left the road and headed down to an oasis, now dry and deserted but once a centre of population. We walked down, leaving Mohammed to pick his way carefully over the firm sand and avoid the rocky outcrops.

Down to our lunchtime oasis

He found a shady spot for the picnic…

A shady spot for a picnic, Areg Oasis

….and laid it on the bonnet of the car. As well as being a skilled desert driver, Mohammed was also a top class picnic maker, in fact a good man to have around.

Mohammed's picnic, with added butterfly

The base of the cliff had been used as a necropolis in antiquity, but time had long ago opened up the graves and desert foxes ensured the area was littered with the bleached bones of the oasis’ former inhabitants.

Necropolis at desert oasis

Leaving our macabre picnic site, Mohammed navigated back to the track and an hour later picked up the new road under construction from Siwa. The last 20km or so were on tarmac, but we arrived with a sense of having journeyed across a desert and reached a destination of utter remoteness. This feeling lasted until we checked into our hotel and found it full of elderly Italians, bussed down from the Mediterranean coastal resorts.

Siwa

Breakfast in Kerala, Lunch in Libya, Snack in Istanbul, Dinner in Chengdu

Three Memorable Meals - and a Snack - in Different Places and Under Different Conditions

So we have survived Christmas and the New Year. The season of Peace and Goodwill has passed with family harmony intact and without us drinking too much or grossly overeating.

No gross overeating then, but traditional Christmas fare is heavyweight winter food, suitable for these coldest and darkest of days. Do we still need such food as we sit in our overheated houses, occasionally sticking our noses outside to see if we can manage a stroll between showers? Obviously not, but what has ‘need’ got to do with it?

Having consumed my quota of traditional British fare, my mind wandered to other meals in other places. The Independent Saturday travel magazine Pointless Celebrity of the Week is always asked ‘what is your favourite meal abroad?’ If I was asked, I would struggle to limit myself to one, but here is a day’s worth of good eating. None of these come under the heading of ‘fine dining’, none were expensive, but does that matter?

Breakfast: Ildis and Chutney
Palakkad, Kerala, India February 2010

India

Kerala

Bhagwaldas (call me 'Bhags') is the sixth generation of his family to reside at Kandath Tharavad, a palatial farmhouse in the village of Thenkarussi in Kerala. After thirteen years in California he returned to take over the family estates after his brother died in a road accident. He is now very much the village squire, but has also opened Kandath Tharavad for homestays.

Lynne at Kandath Tharavad

Bhags is a natural host. On our first morning he took us to a village tea shop for breakfast. Along with his other guests – a pleasant couple from Devon whose names I have forgotten - we set off on what we thought would be a short drive to the local tea shop. Half an hour later we arrived at the Sree Saraswaihy Tea Stall in the village of Ramassery on the outskirts of the city of Palakkad. Ramassery Idlis are renowned across southern India, ‘They are,’ said Bhags, ‘special’.

Sree Saraswaihy Tea Stall, Ramassery, near Palakkad

I have to admit I had hitherto been unimpressed by idlis, pale, fluffy, utterly tasteless rice flour buns which appear on every south Indian breakfast table.

Two idlis were placed on our banana leaves which, as is usual in basic south Indian eateries, were serving as plates. Food in such establishments generally circulates in stainless steel buckets, ranging in size from the full ten litre down to those too small for the smallest child on a beach. A mound of pineapple chutney was ladled out from a modest bucket. From a smaller bucket came a little pile of dust. We looked it uncertainly. ‘You make a hole in the middle’ said Bhags, demonstrating with his forefinger. A gleaming oil can appeared and the depression was filled with coconut oil. ‘Then you mix it to a paste.’ Bhags finished his demonstration, wiping his finger on an idli.

Bhags, Lynne and a 'man from Devon' eat Idlis and Chutney
Shree Saraswaihy Tea Stall, Ramassery

Keralan pineapples are the finest in the world, but Keralan pineapple chutney dithers uncertainly between sweet and spicy and is, I feel, a disservice to both pineapples and chutney. The powder chutney, on the other hand (or finger) was magnificent, concentrating the pure flavour of coconut in a way it never quite manages on its own. Served with Indian tea, made with condensed milk and poured from glass to glass from a great height so it arrives sweet and frothy, it even made an idli a thing of joy.

Unadorned idlis are outstandingly dull, but teamed with the right chutney their popularity suddenly became understandable. I took to eating them regularly after that. I have not come across powder chutney since, but when I do I will be first in the queue.

Lunch: Chicken and Chick Peas
Kabaw, Libya April 2006

Libya

On our way from the Greek and Roman ruins of Libya’s coast to the oasis town of Ghadames we passed through the Jebel Nafusa. ‘Jebel’ is Arabic for ‘hill’ but the Jebel Nafusa is less a range of hills and more a scarp where the land rises from the coastal plane to the desert plateau. When the Libyan War was at a stalemate last year, the Berber people of the Jebel Nafusa quietly freed their towns from Gadafi’s control and descended towards Tripoli, decisively tipping the balance.

Massoud, our guide in 2006, was a Berber from the Jebel Nafusa and we called in for lunch with his mother, sister Seham, and brother-in-law Omar at home in Kabaw.

The main road through Kabaw in the Jebel Nafusa

Their house was a new single storey building by a rough road in a small development off the main highway. A high wall cut off the clean and well-swept courtyard from the scruffy outside world. We were greeted by the family, Massoud's mother telling him quite firmly that he did not visit often enough. We were shown into a large entrance hall. In this land of heat and light, the curtains were drawn and the interior was cool. Then the women disappeared to the kitchen while the men (and Lynne) sat and chatted in a room with cushions around the walls but no other furniture. Massoud’s sister, a primary school teacher, had been given the morning off to cook for ‘important visitors’ -‘Don’t try this at home,’ I thought. The house seemed unnaturally tidy for a family home (we were to meet Omar’s children later) but whether that was contrived for guests or was just the way Omar lived (I could believe it of him) we never discovered.

There was no table; the food was placed on a cloth spread on the floor. The women served us and then retired, Lynne becoming an ‘honorary man’ for the day. This is not the way we would wish it to be, but as guests in someone’s home it would be inappropriate to challenge the way they do things.

The food was excellent. There was salad, noodles with chickpeas covered in a thick tomato sauce, portions of roast chicken with caramelised onion and a sort of quiche with pastry top and bottom, crammed with egg and diced vegetables. As Arab (or more exactly Berber) hosts must Omar and Massoud ensured the finest morsels were heaped high on our plates.

Lynne, Omar and Massoud have lunch, Kabaw

We were not allowed to finish until we were stuffed. Then the dishes were cleared away, tea, apples and cake appeared, and the children (Omar's three plus two cousins) were allowed in. The youngest climbed all over us as small children do while their very serious older brother read to us from his school English text book.

The women appeared again at the end, to say goodbye as we set off for the desert with Massoud, and Omar came along for the ride. It is always a privilege to be invited into someone’s home when you are travelling. Despite the lack of furniture and, more seriously, the regrettable invisibility of the women, family life in Libya is not so different from family life anywhere else. Well brought up, well behaved Libyan children are like well brought up children everywhere.

Since our visited there has, of course, been a revolution. We have lost touch with Massoud, so can only hope that he was all right. No fan of Gadafi, he was an impulsive individual who wore his heart on his sleeve. I can imagine him rushing to join the rebels and getting himself killed through an excess of zeal. I hope that did not happen. Omar was more thoughtful, and with a wife and family and a responsible job in the oil industry he had more of a stake in society. He was a devout Muslim and a decent man, I hope he and his family have come through without mishap.

Afternoon Sweeties
Istanbul, Turkey May 2011

Turkey

This was a later addition after a suggestion from my daughter in the comments section below - and it's only taken me 8 years to get round to acting on it

This was originally a lunch, perhaps not the most balanced of diets, but once in a while... Outside the Archaeology Museum we had found a faux-Ottoman narghile café where trendy youths puffed away at the water pipes which have recently become unaccountably fashionable. We ordered Turkish coffee, baklava and a plate of mixed Turkish delight.

A well balanced meal, Istanbul

It looked pretty and tasted wonderful; as a meal it may have been low on fibre, but there was plenty of sugar, and we probably needed the energy.

Dinner: Sichuan Hotpot
Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China August 2005

China

The people of Sichuan do like a chilli; Sichuan cuisine is indisputably the fieriest in China, and maybe in the world.

Few Chinese restaurants in England do hotpots, but they are ubiquitous in China; Mongolian Hotpot is popular in Beijing and we have encountered hotpot restaurants in places as far apart as Shanghai and Guiyang, in the the south west, but the Sichuan version is, reputedly, the finest of all. The hotpot itself is a bowl placed in the centre of the table over a heating device. It contains stock and various floating items probably including tofu, some random greenery and, in Sichuan, a lifetimes’ supply of chillies. You order your food and cook it yourself in the boiling bowl before you.

Hotpot restaurants were easy to find near our hotel somewhere in the south of Chengdu’s vast urban sprawl. The restaurant we chose, for no good reason, was the ground floor of a tower block with two absent external walls.

Management looked panic stricken as we walked in, a reaction we have met before in places where foreigners are rarely seen. We selected a table and realised the system was, no doubt inadvertently, foreigner friendly. There was no need to choose from a long list we could not read, all we had to do was walk to the counter and select from the many items skewered on wooden sticks.

While we were making our choice - some meat, tofu, mushrooms, bamboo shoots and several things we did not recognise but thought we might try - Management was busy. The chilli laden bowl was removed and replaced by the one containing plain stock, the one they keep out the back for when the eccentrics come to town. ‘No’, we said, though not in any language anyone understood, ‘this is not what we want, we want the one with chillies.’ Everybody in China knows that Europeans cannot stand chillies, so they stood looking confused as we pointed at the bowl in front of us and shook our heads, pointed at the bowls everyone else had and nodded. Convinced they were confronted with lunatics and perhaps worried that we might become dangerous, they relented and brought us a bowl with chillies. ‘You’ll be sorry,’ was the unspoken warning as they fired up the gas.

Sichuan hotpot, the bowl with the chillies

Compared with other meals we had eaten in Sichuan it was not that spicy, but we enjoyed ourselves for an hour or so chasing slippery mushrooms with chopsticks and watching our cubes of tofu slip off their skewers and disintegrate.

By the time we had finished, Management had reluctantly decided we might be alright after all. Calculating the bill was simple, he just counted the number of sticks and applied the appropriate multiplier. He wrote some numbers on a pad and held them up for us to see. 18 Yuan, then worth less than £1.50. We did have a tiny bundle of sticks compared with some of our fellow diners, but we had eaten well, we thought. Thinking he might have forgotten that we had a beer each, I pointed at the empty bottles. He nodded, 18 Yuan was the price, take it or leave it. ‘That bill is far too small,’ I roared, ‘take it away and bring me a bigger one.’ Of course I did not, but it is a rare joy to leave a restaurant with that thought running through your mind.

On the Current Troubles: Libya

The Great SPLAJ – the ‘Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’ is a very different country from Egypt. It is twice the size but has one eighth as many people, and the presence of oil has ensured that those people are, on average, four or five times wealthier their Egyptian cousins. The Egyptians are almost all Arabs, while the Libyans are a much intermarried mix of Arabs and Berbers - along with a few Tuaregs and minority groups.

The Waterfront, Tripoli

We visited Libya in 2006, flying to Tripoli and on to Benghazi before driving back to Tripoli along the coast, then south to the oasis town of Ghadames. Ghadames is 300 km south of Tripoli; another 1000 km of desert lie beyond. Most of Libya is uninhabited and uninhabitable, with the vast majority of Libyans living in cities along the coastal strip.

Cyrene

Our trip concentrated not on politics but on the remarkable remains of the Greek cities near Benghazi, - Ptolomais, Apollonia and Cyrene - on the Roman remains near Tripoli - Leptis Magna and Sabratha – the Berber towns of the Jebel Nafousa and the oasis of Ghadames. But politics can never be completely ignored.

Migrant workers await employement while the Colonel looks away, Derj

Libya’s relative wealth drags in migrant workers, few of them legal. In 2010, on the Egyptian coastal road through Mersa Matrouh and on to Alexandria, we saw many packed minibuses, their height doubled by a precarious stack of newly acquired household goods, bringing Egyptian workers home from Libya. In Zliten, a distinctly edgy town 200 km east of Tripoli, we sat discreetly on a park bench beside a roundabout and watched a hundred or more migrant workers, mainly from south of the Sahara, squatting on the pavement, the tools of their trade before them. Occasionally a Honda pick-up would drive round the circle, blowing its horn. Men ran towards the truck, a lucky few would be selected and taken away for a few hours much needed work. Libya has no minimum wage and these were desperate men willing to work for almost nothing; unemployment among Libyans is high.

Looking up the Colonel's nose, Al-Kabir Hotel, Tripoli

Unlike Hosni Mubarak, Colonel Gaddafi set out to generate a personality cult. He intended to make his little green book as ubiquitous in Libya as Mao’s little red book once was in China. He failed, but every Libyan city has its quota of banners bearing his image draped down the sides of buildings. His stance is invariably ramrod straight with his head held back and his nostril flared, reminiscent of Mussolini (Libya was ruled by Italy from 1911 to 1943). No doubt, he believes the pose exemplifies nobility and power, I merely wonder why he wants me to look up his nose.

Gaddafi is unstable and erratic, which is perhaps why his personality cult never took off. The people fear him, with good reason, but we saw plenty of evidence that they do not respect him. When we started joking about the images of Gaddafi, 'A' (our much travelled Berber guide whose experiences included a spell cooking pizzas on Tyneside) was quick to join in. T-shirts bearing the colonel’s image are widely available, but I never saw anybody wearing one. When I bought one the stallholder was well aware that the purchase was made in a spirit of irony rather than awe, and made no effort to hide his contempt for Gaddafi. One floor of the otherwise excellent Jamahiriya Museum in Tripoli is dedicated to Gaddafi memorabilia; his green book translated into many languages (and unread in most), his 1957 Volkswagen, and more photos than even his mother could bear to look at. M, who showed us round Tripoli, sneered as he told us about it. When we got there, the gallery was closed. The museum official charged with conveying that information seemed embarrassed that it existed at all.

The Berber town of Kabaw in the Jebel Nafousa

The Libyan people are largely good-natured and philosophical. They have never had much say in who their rulers are, so they merely shrug their shoulders and get on with it. Many laugh at Gaddafi behind his back, but opposition is neither easy nor safe, so they have tended to work round the problem; that was until last week.

Hosni Mubarak was a bureaucrat whose regime became old and sclerotic, Muammar al-Gaddafi is much more of a classical tyrant. He will fight back harder than Mubarak, and with fewer scruples but, as we have already seen, he cannot rely on personal loyalty. It is time for the Libyan people to consign this monster to the dustbin of history. As A might say, Haway the Berbers.

Lynne at the mudbrick fortified granary of Qasr al-Haj