Arriving in Yangon (or is that Rangoon?), the former capital of Burma (or should that be Myanmar?): Myanmar/Burma Part 1

Burma/Myanmar: Some Choices and Impressions

Burma v Myanmar

If I am going to write about it, I need to decide what to call it.

In 1989 the military government changed the name of the country hitherto known as Burma to Myanmar. The United Nations recognised the change, but ‘Burma’ is still used by the British, American and Canadian governments, among others. When Aung San Suu Kyi (whose name will turn up time and again in these posts) visited England recently she also used ‘Burma’ explaining the name had been changed without consulting the people. There is, then, a strong case for ‘Burma’, but I am going to use ‘Myanmar’. Firstly because the Bamar (hence 'Burma') may be the largest ethnic group, but they make up only 70% of the population so ‘Union of Myanmar’ seems more inclusive, and secondly because everybody we spoke to in the country called it ‘Myanmar’. They spoke freely enough on other issues, so I can only presume it was their preference. I will, however, use 'Burma' when talking about the country in a historical context and similarly ‘Burmese’, which can also refer to people, food etc of specifically Bamar ethnicity.

The new flag of Myanmar, adopted 2010

Rangoon v Yangon

The Rangoon/Yangon decision is easier. The city was founded as ‘Dagon’ in the 11th century. It became ‘Yangon’ in 1755, Dagon remaining the name of a central district. Rangoon was a British mishearing of Yangon, and has about as much validity as ‘Wipers’, as British troops called the Belgian town of Ypres in the First World War. For aesthetic reasons I would love to call it Rangoon - it is a wonderful name and it carries a rich whiff of colonial history – but although the airport code is still RGN, the truth is that ‘Rangoon’ is just plain wrong.

The pre-2010 flag of Myanmar

First Impressions and Driving Style

Our first sight of Yangon, like that of several other cities, was with jet-lagged eyes through the window of a car.

First Impression? Yangon is the least urban of cities, there are few high-rise buildings and parkland, even countryside, seems to break out in the most unlikely places. The driving is calm by East Asian standards. The horn is used sparingly, drivers do not crowd forward into any available space and cars in side roads wait for a gap in the traffic rather than pushing out; indeed drivers on the main road will often leave a space and wave them out. Myanmar changed to driving on the right in 1970 on the advice of an astrologer. Most vehicles, though, are imported second hand from Japan, Thailand or Malaysia, all of which drive on the left so 90% of vehicles are right hand drive. This seems to cause fewer problems than you might imagine.

Aung San Suu Kyi

On the northern edge of central Yangon we passed Inya Lake. Our guide Swe pointed across the water to a red roofed house on the far side. ‘That’s Aung San Suu Kyi’s house,’ he told us. We had been warned not to discuss politics but soon discovered everyone we met whether guides, drivers, trishaw peddlers, horse cart charioteers or waiters all wanted to talk politics, or at least talk about one person. The huge weight of expectation placed on President Obama when he was elected in 2008 inevitably led to some disappointment. It was nothing compared to the expectation that will be heaped on Aung San Suu Kyi should she ever become president of Myanmar. [Update: She became 'State Counsellor', roughly Prime Minister, in 2016. Her handling of the Rohingya problem has been a major disappointment to most foreign observers.]

Aung San Suu Kyi, (Picture borrowed from Wikipedia)

We passed the immense gold bulk of the Shwedagon Pagoda – of which much more later – and drove on to our hotel in the Dagon township area. Here our bleary eyed condition persuaded the receptionist that we should be allowed an early check-in.

Cash Problems

After a quick freshen-up we set off with Swe for the nearby Scott’s market to change some money, but the market was closed, or at least the footbridge over the railway was closed which amounted to the same thing from our point of view. Swe lent us 30,000 Kyats (about £25) and left us alone to deal with our jetlag.

There are a few (very few) ATMs in Myanmar, but they are not linked into the international system and do not recognise Visa or Mastercard. Before leaving home we had guessed how much we would spend and taken what we hoped would be enough cash in US dollars, going to some trouble to acquire new, unmarked bills. In such a poor country people can be surprisingly picky about which dollar bills they choose to accept. There are not many money changers either, so our failure had been half expected. Swe was well used to subbing his clients for their first day or two.

Dragon Fruit

Our recently reset watches told us that lunchtime was approaching and although our bodies remained unconvinced we wanted to show willing, so with our newly acquired wealth we bought a dragon fruit from a street trader.

Dragon Fruit

We have often eaten dragon fruit in the Far East, though it is, I learn, a native of south and central America. Later, driving to Mandalay we saw dragon fruit plantations, the cactus trained on a trellis like a vine. Dragon fruit look exciting, even sitting on our cheap plastic plate, and look even better cut open. The sad truth is the flesh of the dragon fruit is slightly sweet, pleasant enough but really rather dull.[Update:This Dragon fruit looks a little tired. We had the privilege of eating a very fresh dragon fruit in the Mekong delta in 2014 It was a revelation.]

Dragon Fruit cut open and ready to eat

Dull, however, was appropriate to our state and we retired to our air-conditioned room with its view of the Shwedagon Pagoda, ate our dragon fruit and had a much needed nap.

An Expedition up Shwedagon Pagoda Road in Search of Beer.

A couple of hours later we woke up and decided to take a walk. We were soon in Shwedagon Pagoda Road heading directly for the huge golden stupa. The air was hot and damp with a slight smell of decay. Occasionally the breeze would waft the scent of an aromatic shrub over us. Traffic fumes were relatively rare for such a large city.

It was a long, largely straight road, the size of the pagoda had made it look nearer than it was. The road was quiet and the buildings were mainly colonial, some of them somewhat dilapidated. We passed a language school, a church, a Buddhist temple, a monastery and a building flying the national flag with a bored looking armed soldier on guard in the entrance.

Small Temple, Shwedagon Pagoda Road

Around the pagoda the road was busier. There was a small park opposite with a café on the corner of the main road. It was a hot afternoon and we both heard the call of beer.

Myanmar Beer, overwhelmingly the best-selling brand, is bland, fizzy and unlikely to win many prizes, but it was cold and wet which was all we required. At around £2.50 for a 0.75 litre bottle, it was cheap by British standards, but expensive enough to be out of the reach of the average Yangon citizen, though draft beer is much cheaper where it is available. We were drinking beer, we realised, at 9 o’clock in the morning British time, clearly we were becoming attuned to local time.

Responding to the call of the beer, Myanmar Beer opposite the Shwedagon Pagoda

Shan Noodles

The long walk home was followed by another nap. We ate dinner in a Shan noodle shop a 100m from our hotel recommended by Swe, himself a Shan. The Shan homeland is in the mountains of Eastern Myanmar but Shan restaurants are widespread, their noodle dishes being similar to those found over the border in China’s Yunnan province. Shan food is generally eaten with chopsticks, while a spoon and fork are the usual implements for Burmese food.

Despite its size – it has some 4 million inhabitants - Yangon is hardly a centre of metropolitan sophistication and sizzling nightlife. Everything closes up around 9 pm, but by then we were already back in our hotel room, taking one last look at the now floodlit pagoda before turning in for an early night.

The floodlit Shwedagon Pagoda

Myanmar, Land of Gold

1 Arriving in Yangon (or is that Rangoon?), the former capital of Burma (or should that be Myanmar?)

2 Yangon, A Reclining Buddha and the Shwedagon Pagoda

3 Across the Yangon River to Dala

4 Bagan (1): Temples, Lacquerware and more Temples

5 Bagan (2): Yet more Temples and a Drift Down the Irrawaddy

Interlude: The Road to Mandalay (Kipling's Version)

6 The Road to Mandalay (Our Version)

7 Mandalay and Amarapura

8 U Bein's Bridge, Sagaing and Inwa

9 Pindaya Heho and the 5-day Market,
10 Inle Lake (1), Stilt Houses, Fishermen and Non-Swimming Buddhas
11 Inle Lake (2) Watching People Work and a Myanmar Winery

 +

Bangkok (1) The Old Royal Centre

Bangkok (2) Jim Thompson's House and Other Shrines

Commemorating the Dead: Tsunami, Earthquake and War

Local Memorials to Major Tradgedies

Following Favourite Gravestones I am progressing from memorials for one person or family to memorials for a community.

This is not about national memorials - most countries have their cenotaph or eternal flame (flames in Moscow, Sarajevo and Baku feature in this blog) - but about more localised memorials. The first we have come across by accident, the second we were shown by a local guide, the third we sought out.

Boxing Day Tsunami, Tharamgambadi (formerly Tranquebar) Tamil Nadu, India

On the 20th of February 2009 we drove from Pondicherry, down the coast of Tamil Nadu to Tranquebar.

The Danish Admiral Ove Gjedde had been there before us (in 1620) and he built Fort Dansborg.

Fort Daneborg, Tranquebar, Tamil Nadu

Tranquebar remained in Danish hands until 1845 when it was sold to the British along with all other Danish possessions in India (hands up those who knew there were any).

In the afternoon we strolled through the small town...

Tranquebar, Tamil Nadu

....and came across this obelisk.

Tsunami Memorial, Tranquebar, Tamil Nadu

At first we did not realise what it was. There is much writing around the base, gold against the black stone, but Tamil is one of the many languages we do not speak - and it is written in one of the many alphabets we cannot read. It appeared to be a list of names, some 250 we estimated, such as you might see on a war memorial, but we could think of no war that could have wreaked such devastation on this small town. Then we noticed the one thing we could read. It was a date, 26/12/2004, the date of the Boxing Day Tsunami. We should have realised straight away, but somehow it had not entered our heads.

Our hotel, The Bungalow on the Beach, had once been the residence of the Governor of Danish India. Many years later, and after two years of extensive restoration it opened as a hotel on Christmas Day 2004 - not an auspicious day to open a hotel on that particular beach.

The Bugalow on the Beach, Tranquebar, Tamil Nadu

Hotels can be repaired, and it opened again three months later. It is important to remember those whose lives could not be so easily repaired after the events of Sunday the 26th of December 2004.

The Spitak Earthquake Khachkar, Vanadzor, Armenia

On December the 7th 1988 a major earthquake struck northern Armenia, then part of the Soviet Union. Its epicentre was near the small town of Spitak. Between 25 and 50,000 people died in Spitak and the larger cities on either side, Leninakan (now called Gyumri) and Kirovakan (now Vanadzor).

The break up of the Soviet Union had a dire effect on both the Armenian economy and the earthquake rebuilding programme. When we visited in 2003 it was still easy to find earthquake damage in Gyumri.

Earthquake damage, Gyumri

Khachkars (literally 'Cross Stones') are rectangular stones carved with crosses and other floral and decorative motifs. Carving khachkars is a peculiarly Armenian craft and they have been doing it since the 9th century, at least. Every church and monastery has its collection of medieval khachkars and Armenian independence has brought about a resurgence in the craft.

It was appropriate to commemorate the victims of the earthquake with a khachkar. This simple, understated but very effective memorial sits in the churchyard in Vanadzor where many of the victims are buried.

Earthquake Memorial Khachkar, Vanadzor Church

38th (Welsh Division) Memorial, Mametz Wood, France

Tsunamis and earthquakes are beyond human control; wars are not. We should be able to avoid them, but apparently that is beyond the wit of humankind. Perhaps one disincentive to starting new wars is to remember the horror of those that have gone before.

No war killed and wounded more British and Commonwealth servicemen than the First World War. It is hardly surprising that there are memorials the whole length of the Western front. The major memorials on the British sector, The Menin Gate in Ypres, the soaring Canadian Memorial on Vimy Ridge and the huge Anglo-French Memorial on the Somme at Thiepval are well known (and now feature elsewhere in this blog). Less well known, and a little harder to find, is the memorial to the Welsh Division at Mametz Wood.

The Memorial can be reached by driving a couple of kilometres down a single track road off the Mametz-Contalmaison road, hardly a major highway itself. It stands beside a small quarry where the metalled road gives out.

38th (Welsh Division) Memorial, Mametz Wood

Between in the 7th and 12th of July 1916, as a part of the Battle of the Somme, the Welsh Division attacked across the open ground in front of the dragon and took the wood beyond against fierce opposition. The division lost 5,000 men killed or wounded. The 14th Battalion started with almost 700 men and finished with 276, others fared little better.

38th (Welsh Division) Memorial, Mametz Wood

There has been a memorial in Mametz church since the 1920s, but this memorial, the work of Welsh sculptor David Petersen, was erected only in the late 1980s at the request of the last surviving veterans.

Beside the narrow road poppies grow among the brassicas.

Poppies, Mametz Wood

For more about the destruction of the Welsh Division at Mamtez Wood see The Somme: One Hundred Years Ago Today

See also Three Favourite Gravestones

Three Favourite Gravestones: Armenia, China & Wales

It Isn't Really a Holiday Unless you Have Been Round a Graveyard...

...as Lynne so often says.

Père Lachaise in Paris and Highgate Cemetery in London are well established on the tourist trail, but the graves of non-famous people in non-major cities can also be interesting.

Grave of a Baker
near Goris, Southern Armenia August 2002

We had driven out from Goris to see some ancient cave dwellings. Getting as close to the caves as we could - which was not actually close enough to make them interesting - we walked through a graveyard. Several of the newer headstones bore representations of the deceased in a style we have not seen anywhere else.

The grave of a baker, near Goris, southern Armenia

I imagine he was proud of his profession and wanted the casual visitor to know that he had spent his life producing fine bread - an honourable and noble calling.

Grave of a Miao village
An Chi village, Guizhou Province, South West China November 2010

The Miao are one of China's larger ethnic minorities. 10 million Miao live in communities across south west China with another 1.5 million in northern Vietnam and Laos (where they prefer to be called Hmong). The Miao are divided into a multitude of subgroups, speaking several different though related languages. The Chinese and Vietnamese traditionally classify the groups by the dominant colour of the women's traditional clothing. An Chi, in rural South West Guizhou, is a Black Miao village.

Black Miao women, An Chi

Graves are situated throughout the village and adjoining fields. The distribution appears random but the graves are all in auspicious sites, carefully chosen by the village shaman.

Black Miao gravestone, An Chi

The gravestone names the deceased and gives a detailed genealogy including not only forebears but also descendants who are added, generation by generation, in ever smaller script as they arrive in the world.

The Davies Family Vault
St Cynog's Church, Penderyn, South Wales Summer 1991

Lynne is a keen genealogist and despite the problems caused by the Welsh National Surname Shortage, has traced both our families back through many generations.

It has long been a source of amusement to her then when searching for the graves of my ancestors it is usually sufficient to walk into the churchyard and head for the largest monument. It worked for my paternal grandmother's family in Magor in 2010, and we had found the technique effective for my other grandmother's family in Penderyn twenty years earlier.

Penderyn is a village on the southern edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park. Since 2000 it has been the home of the first (and only) malt whisky distillery in Wales. More importantly to my ancestors it is only a long drop kick north of the industrial valleys of South Wales, where they made their money.

The Davies family vault, St Cynog's, Penderyn
The picture was taken in 1991. Little has changed, except my daughter
and I are now more than 20 years older

The angel on the top of this Victorian monstrosity is probably pointing the way to heaven. I prefer to think the mason was a cricketer (as, doubtless, God is too) and the angel is the celestial umpire giving my ancestors 'out'.

Shutlingsloe and Danebridge: Cowpat Walk No. 5

A Circular Walk in the Peak District Based on Shutlingsloe Hill

Cheshire

Cheshire East

It is over an hour’s drive from Stone to the Hanging Gate, an isolated pub on the minor road that runs from the A54 to the Macclesfield Forest. East of this road the farmland drops away before rising to Piggford Moor topped by the bulk of Shutlingsloe, our target for the morning, while to the west is the Cheshire plain, the view extending from the huge telescope of Jodrell Bank in the south to the distant silhouette of the Fiddler’s Ferry power station over thirty miles away in the north.

Francis & Alison are ready to set off, The Hanging Gate, near Macclesfield Forest

The Hanging Gate to Macclesfield Forest

The sun shone as we walked north to the Macclesfield Forest, first on the minor road from the Hanging Gate, then on an even smaller road past the hamlet of Hardings.

Hardings

Reaching the forest we turned east through the trees, mainly larch, spruce and pine though with patches of beech and sycamore. Some areas have been clear felled - it is a commercial forest - and parts of these are being replanted with oak and ash.

Into the Macclesfield Forest

We could see the wide track we wanted rising steeply towards the moors, but our path seemed to be taking an eccentric route to join it, so we set off on a more direct, unofficial but apparently well-trodden path. It petered out, as these things often do, but we persevered, crashing through the underbrush and across a streambed. Ducking under the branches of a hawthorn bush, I came to an unexpected stop. A sizable thorn had hooked my shirt at the back of my neck and I was left ensnared in the vegetation as Francis and Alison disappeared into the distance. For a while I wriggled ineffectually but, as Alison returned to see if she could help, I finally managed to unhitch myself. I had a large hole in my best tee-shirt (and I’ve only had it ten years) and the freed branch lashed across my forearm leaving several deep scratches. [Update August 2017: Leaving a scar I must now regard as permanent!]

Up to Piggford Moor

We reached the path and slogged up it towards Piggford Moor. I am not entirely clear on our route as the paths on the ground failed to match those on the map, which is not unusual in forests. It mattered not as the relevant junctions were signed and we finally joined the single path across the moor towards Shutlingsloe.

Up towards Piggford Moor

Even in sunshine Piggford Moor is a desolate and boggy place. The National Park authorities have laid flags along the path to prevent erosion and keep it from spreading ever wider as walkers seek out firm ground. It also stops boots from trampling across the nature reserve. The moor does have an austere beauty, but I would seriously question the judgement of any species that chose to make it their home.

Onto Piggford Moor

Up and Down Shutlingsloe

Shutlingsloe had been out of sight since we started walking but now loomed up ahead of us. According to Wikipedia it is, at 506m, the third highest peak in Cheshire – was ever a hill so damned with faint praise? It sits on the ridge of Piggford Moor looking like a huge earthwork; only from close to is its rocky nature obvious. Constructed of alternate layers of mudstone and gritstone it has, like The Cloud in Cowpat 4, a cap of Chatsworth grit though, unlike the Cloud’s sloping cap, Shutlingsloe’s is, if not horizontal, at least a little flatter. The ascent is made up of a series of partly natural rocky steps, some of them large enough to require the use of hands as well as feet - at least for those with arthritic knees.

Shutlingsloe

From the top there is a fine view across the Cheshire Plain, with the Roaches and Ramshaw Rocks to the south, Macclesfield Forest to the north and Shining Tor (Cheshire’s highest peak!) to the north east.

The summit, Shutlingsloe

Even on a fine day it is a windswept spot so we walked a few metres off the summit for coffee and I took the opportunity to wash my arm. The hawthorn scratch had left a thick smear of blood around my watch strap, suggesting to the casual observer that I was enjoying the day so much I had slit my wrist.

Coffee stop just off the summit, Shutlingsloe

According to folk wisdom high flying swallows are a sign of good weather. I have difficulty believing that swallows are capable of meteorological forecasting, but if their altitude merely tells us that the weather is already warm, why bother observing the swallows? This has troubled me for years. A swallow flew past at head height, clearly flying low, four flaps further on it was 100m above the surrounding moorland, clearly flying high. What can this mean? Below us Francis spotted a kestrel gliding easily across the hillside scanning the ground for the slightest movement – some actions are easier to interpret.

Down into Wildboarclough

To the east the land drops directly into Wildboarclough, making the descent both steeper and much longer than the ascent. Without my poles I would have struggled to make it down to the farm track, along which we made a gentle descent into the depths of the valley.....

Finally a gentle descent into Wildboarclough

...pausing only for the mandatory photograph of botanical interest.

Foxgloves beside the track into Wildboarclough

We reached Clough Brook, walking beside it for a while before crossing it to cut off a bend and then re-crossing it to reach a minor road which we followed south to and across the A54.

Clough Brook

The Valley of the River Dane

Leaving the minor road we made for the confluence of the River Dane and Clough Brook.

The valley of the River Dane

Although there was only one path on the map the track split, an old sign pointing down the lower branch and a brand new one directing us to the higher branch. We followed the new sign, partly because its newness, partly because the map suggested we should keep high on the valley side. For a few hundred metres we followed the track in and out of the gorse, round (and through) a thicket or two and then it petered out.

In and out of the gorse....

Making a small downhill exploration Francis spotted a marker post a little lower in the valley and we made our way down to it. A very clear trail led downwards and Francis set off along it. A fainter track contoured along the valley side and Alison stood on that and wondered. I walked back to the marker post. The arrow pointed back the way we had come, but as there was no path there I suspected Alison was on the right track. Francis, though, was confidently striding down the most obvious path and as he is never wrong I shut up and followed him, and so did Alison.

The wide, clear path led us several hundred metres along the side of the valley before coming to a full stop at a wire fence. There was nothing for it but to climb straight up the valley side, the abundant boot marks in the steep slope suggesting we were not the first to make this mistake.

It was ten minutes’ hard slog (well, maybe five but it felt like fifteen) up to the opening in the fence on the correct path. We followed the path high above the river to Bottomley Farm and then through a small wood where a footbridge crossed Hog Clough. We emerged in the village of Danebridge, a long way above the bridge but, more importantly, right beside the Ship Inn. After a long morning’s walk it was nearer to 2 o’clock than 1 and the pub was a very welcome sight.

The Ship at Danebridge

The Ship, Danebridge

I have visited the Ship several times over the years on various walks – though none previously in this blog – and have often wondered why a pub as far from the coast as is possible in this island is called The Ship. We ordered sandwiches and soup and a couple of pints of JW Lees bitter and let Michael, the cheerful and informative landlord explain. Danebridge, he told us, was once a stopping point on a drovers’ road and shippen is a dialect word for a drovers’ shelter, a two story building with animals quartered below and people above. Over the years the ‘shippen’ had become 'The Ship', though the pub itself, built from stone recycled from the local monastery after dissolution in the 1530s, is far too grand a building ever to have been a shippen itself.

Michael, the cheerful and informative landlord, The Ship, Danebridge

The building's use as a pub predates the ship on the inn sign, partly hidden by vegetation, by two hundred years. This vessel is the Nimrod, Ernest Shackleton’s ship that was crushed by antarctic ice in 1907. The pub was once part of the estate of nearby Swythamley Hall, seat of the Brocklehurst family, and Sir Philip Brocklehurst, the second baronet, was on the Shackleton expedition. In the 1970s the Brocklehurst family- like several of our footpaths - petered out . The pub was sold separately from the Shackleton memorabilia it then housed, and the sign is now the only connection with early 20th century heroics.

North to The Hanging Gate via Hammerton Farm

The afternoon’s walk was appropriately brief, a mere 5km almost due north. It may have been short but the first 4km were almost all uphill – though not too steeply. From Danebridge at around 200m we reached a high point of 382m on the road south of the Hanging Gate.

We started with a gentle climb over pasture land, before dropping down to re-cross Hog Clough 400m upstream from our earlier crossing. It was a warm afternoon and the streamside vegetation clung on to the heat and exuded humidity. It was a relief to return to more open land climbing up to Hammerton Farm.

Towards Hammerton Farm

We continued along a small swale which led us onto more open land rising up to the A54. Across the main road the path rounded the low protuberance of Brown Hill before bringing us out on the road to the HangingGate.

Between Hammerton Farm and the A54

The walk finished with a kilometre and a half on tarmac along the ridge we had driven up at the start. Shutlingsloe came back into view, first poking its head over the farmland to the east.......

Shutlingsloe pokes its head above the famland

.......then gradually rising above it until finally, as we passed the high point on the road, we had a fine view of the hill and its surrounding moorland.

Shutlingsloe and Piggford Moor

Despite the heat I thought I was keeping up a good pace, but I started to lag behind Francis and Alison who reached the car about a hundred metres ahead of me. Then they had wait, because I had the keys.

I seem to be flagging

Approx Distance: 15 km

The Cowpats

1 Ironbridge Gorge

2 Eccleshall and Cop Mere

3 Swynnerton to Whitmore

4 Biddulph, The Cloud and Rushton Spencer

5 Shutlingsloe and Danebridge

6 Crowdecote
7 Scaling the Mighty Weaver Hills

 8 Morridge and Onecote
9 Codsall
10 The Roaches and Lud's Church

Street Chess in Armenia, Bosnia and Vietnam

Chess and its Variants are Played in Every Country - and in Any Space

I am not much of a chess player. I can usually beat the computer on Microsoft Chess Titans at level 2, which probably puts me at the level of a very average ten-year-old. Nor do I wander round the world looking for chess players to photograph, but when they fall into my lap......

Gyumri, Armenia

Armenia's second city Gyumri, formerly Leninakan (and before that Alexandropol, and before that Gyumri) is situated in the northern highlands some 130 km from the capital Yerevan. We visited in 2002, 14 years after the city was devastated by an earthquake that forced Mikhail Gorbachev to cut short his visit to London. Damaged buildings were easy to find and there were still people living in shipping containers. Worse, we saw several relief projects that had been abandoned when the money ran out, and there were signs that some foreign donors (Americans, to be precise) had been more interested in rebuilding churches than rehousing people.

A game of chess,Gyumri, Armenia

These chess players were sitting on a wall at the edge of a street near the city centre, completely absorbed in their game and oblivious to passers-by.

Sarajevo, Bosnia

This oversized chess board is in Trg Oslobodenja (Liberation Square), the centre of Sarajevo's Austro-Hungarian quarter. Whenever we went past a game was in progress and there was always a crowd of people watching - and advising. How they decide who gets to play we never discovered.

Trg Oslobodenja, Sarajevo, Bosnia

Sarajevo went through hell in the 1990s. The stylised, bloodless form of warfare that is chess is a vast improvement.

Can Tho, Vietnam

Chinese chess, or Xianqi, is a closely related game. Each player has a general and soldiers, advisors, elephants, horses, cannons and chariots who all have different moves. The 'board' is often made of cloth, plastic or even paper and can be unrolled anywhere. The game is widely played and can be seen in any park or open space in China, and even in the street.

And it is not just played in China....

Chinese chess, Can Tho, Mekong delta

...Chinese chess is also played in Vietnam. These two were deep in concentration on a street corner in Can Tho, the largest city in the Mekong delta.

Ilkley and The Box Tree

Driving the few miles from Bolton Abbey to Ilkley took us out of North Yorkshire and the Dales National Park and into the City of Bradford - at least that is what the sign said; the rolling green fields and dry stone walls did not look like anybody’s idea of Bradford or any other city.

Ilkley looks and feels like the country town it is. Athough it is an ancient settlement pre-dating the Domesday Book, modern Ilkley is largely a result of its development as a Victorian spa town. As a spa it never attained the grandeur of nearby Harrogate, but it did all right. The famous moor (visiting is inadvisable without appropriate headgear - or bah t’at as the locals are alleged to say) rises to the south of the town.

Ilkley Moor rises to the south of the town

Older buildings include the Manor House, now an art gallery, which is set back from the main road.

The Manor House, Ilkley

All Saint’s Church is a largely Victorian construction, though there has been a house of worship on the site since the 7th century. The three Saxon crosses which once stood outside but were moved into the church in 1860 are particularly impressive.


All Saint's, Ilkley

Ilkley is a foodie town featuring, among other attractions, a branch of Betty’s Tearooms (a delight so far unsavoured), a serious fishmonger’s and Lishman’s butcher's shop. David Lishman, one of Rick Stein’s food heroes, has twice won the national sausage championship so, inevitably, we went home with a kilo of sausages and a slab of black pudding. Pre-eminent, though, is the Box Tree which, in 1977, was one of the first restaurants in Britain to gain two Michelin stars. Fortunes have varied and stars have been lost and gained over the years but in its present incarnation under chef/owner Simon Gueller it has held a Michelin star since 2005. Marco Pierre White served his apprenticeship at the Box Tree and became a partner in the business in 2010.

[Update: At the start of 2018 Simon Gueller decided to let go of the reins in the kitchen and appointed Kieran Smith head chef and in October the Michelin inspectors took away their star. The decision was a surprise to many and a great disappointment to Gueller who said he had every faith in Kieran Smith, but the two parted company soon after. In September 2019, two head chefs later, Simon and Rena Gueller put the restaurant up for sale. In 2020 just before the arrival of Covid-19 they changed their minds. They did sell later in the year. Adam Frontal is now the owner, Kieran Smith is the head chef and they are operating a fine dining restaurant with a modern French style.]

The building was constructed in the 1720s, and if the décor does not quite date from that time, it has been criticised as being old-fashioned and stuffy. I think ‘retro’ is a better word, and we found it relaxed and comfortable rather than stuffy.



The Box Tree, Ilkley

Rejecting the Menu Gourmande as being more than we could eat and the Menu de Jour as rather tame, we went for the à la carte which offered an amuse-bouche and four or five choices for each course. The style leans heavily towards classic French resulting in a menu of tortured Franglais. English may lack words for velouté, terrine or foie gras (fat liver? Perhaps not) but ‘paupiette of squab pigeon’ was not the only uncomfortable linguistic juxtaposition.

The amuse-bouche, velouté de topinambour, came only in French. Although my French is modest I thought my menu French was pretty good but I had to ask about topinambour. It is, I learned, Jerusalem artichoke - so why not say so? Two huge bowls arrived with an amuse-bouche sized depression in the middle containing several small cubes of artichoke and a tiny heap of grated parmesan. The velouté was poured on top. The ratio of china to food was absurd, but the rich flavour of the velouté and the wonderfully old-socky parmesan made that a forgivable eccentricity.

The scallops in Lynne’s starter were, of course, ‘hand-dived’. I doubt it does anything for the flavour, but we appreciated the nod towards sustainability. They were huge and meaty, not necessarily the ideal texture for a scallop, but well flavoured, as these giants sometimes are not. The broad beans had been peeled (the sine qua non of fine dining!) but it was the slices of rich and powerful summer truffles which made the dish. The accompanying glass of unoaked Australian chardonnay was undistinguished.

The menu prominently featured foie gras and dishes à la Perigordine. Two foie gras dishes would have been over the top, but two Perigord inspired dishes seemed a good idea so I started with the terrine of Perigord foie gras with a salad of smoked eel and granny smith apple.

The slab of foie gras was generous in size and everything I could have wished for. The tiny sticks of smoked eel arranged around it were a fine counterpoint and the apple, in tiny cubes and blobs of purée, did the same for the eel. The tiny green/red leaves scattered around allowed it to be called a salad but were mainly for decoration.

The dish came, for a price, with a small glass of Monbazillac. Monbazillac may be Sauternes’ poor relation, but although this example* lacked the honeyed quality of a top Sauternes, it was intensely sweet and possessed an acidity which sliced elegantly through the fattiness of the foie gras. I know there are ethical issues with foie gras; my excuse is that it is a traditional food and that I eat it very rarely. I suspect this is an inadequate justification, but Victorian writer and clergyman Sydney Smith’s idea of heaven was ‘eating foie gras to the sound of trumpets.’ I would merely swap the trumpets for a glass of Monbazillac.


Lynne’s main course – paupiettes of squab pigeon - also contained foie gras. The small legs were swiftly devoured, the paupiettes, two of them wrapped in Alsace bacon, were large and rich, indeed so large and rich she could not finish them; fortunately I was on hand to help. The petit pois à la Francais were undercooked for Lynne’s taste and the stock they were cooked in had become overly sweet as it reduced.

My fillet of beef (à la Perigordine, of course) was a wonderful piece of meat. Striking a balance between tenderness and texture while maintaining a full flavour is a difficult trick but was performed to perfection. The petits legumes (surely ‘baby vegetables’ would have done) involved several tiny, tiny turnips and the inevitable broad beans (they are in season as a glance at our vegetable patch confirms). They came with a Madeira sauce, which was sweet, as Madeira sauce will be, but not too sweet.

A wine from Perigord, or around, seemed appropriate, and my search of the extensive wine list came up with Domaine Capmartin from Madiran, a bit further south west, but near enough. Tasting it before the main course arrived, the tannin drowned out all other flavours, but drinking it with the food revealed booming fruit and unexpected subtleties. I was pleased with the choice.

I am not a great fan of desserts; once sugar becomes involved other flavours tend to back off and let it dominate. I can often be seduced by pineapples or pistachios, but on this occasion found myself opting for millefeuille of raspberries with lemon curd and elderflower. It was, without doubt, as pretty a dessert as I have ever seen, three roundels of pastry separated by henges of raspberries encircling the elderflower and lemon curd cream. It was a shame to break it up and eat it, but I did. The raspberries were fine, but they were only raspberries, the pastry was excellent, but the flavours of lemon curd and elderflower had rather gone missing.

Two very pretty deserts
The Box Tree, Ilkley

Lynne’s iced apricot parfait with apricot ice-cream and an almond biscuit was pretty, if not as pretty as my millefeuille. It delivered full-on apricot flavour (not my favourite, but that is my problem) and Lynne declared herself well satisfied. They were both good desserts, maybe very good desserts but not great desserts, which are rare indeed and must be sprinkled with magic powder as well as icing sugar.

Back in the lounge we enjoyed coffee and petits fours, delivered by tweezers from a wooden box resembling an antique medicine chest. The coffee was disappointing, but a glass of Remy Martin brought a fine evening to an appropriate conclusion.



Petits fours in the lounge
The Box Tree, Ilkley

In Ludlow last year I was very impressed with La Bécasse which promptly lost its Michelin star. The fault lay, perhaps, in their inexperienced front of house staff rather than the cooking. That will not happen to the Box Tree, where the every aspect of the service oozed professionalism. Pleasingly old-fashioned, both in its décor and its cooking, The Box Tree does not cook sous vide or insert things into baths of liquid nitrogen. It sticks to the French classics and does them very well, which is comforting in this ever changing world. It also a reminder of why they became classics in the first place.

*wines buffs might like to know it came from the respected Bordeaux négociants Borie-Manou

'Fine Dining' posts

Abergavenny and the Walnut Tree (2010)
Ludlow and La Bécasse (2011) (restaurant closed, post withdrawn)
Ilkley and The Box Tree(2012)
Pateley Bridge and the Yorke Arms (2013) (No longer a restaurant, post renamed Parceval Gardens and Pateley Br)
The Harrow at Little Bedwyn (2014)
The Slaughters and the Lords of the Manor (2015)
Loam, Fine Dining in Galway (2016)
Penarth and Restaurant James Sommerin (2017) (restaurant closed, post withdrawn. JS has a new restaurant in Penarth)
The Checkers, Montgomery (2017) (no longer a restaurant, post withdrawn. Now re-opened under new management)
Tyddyn Llan, Llandrillo, Denbighshire (2018)
Fischer's at Baslow Hall, Derbyshire (2019)
Hambleton Hall, Rutland (2021)
The Olive Tree, Queensberry Hotel, Bath (2022)
Dinner at Pensons near Tenbury Wells (2023) (restaurant closed Dec 2023, post withdrawn)
The Cross, Kenilworth (& Kenilworth Castle) 2024