Chants des Catacombes

Her Majesty's Hostel?

The  old Adelaide jail was an unusual location for a theatre venue and a start time at 11:30 pm ensured that the ghosts would certainly be in attendance.  As we approached the single door entry into the prison, the audience were allowed to enter 4 at a time and walk down a candle lit path to the jail’s exercise compound.  With the candles flickering, we sat on the ground, looked up to the stars and listened to The Twoks music.  It was very serene and peaceful in great contrast to the themes of the performance.

The theatre group, titled Present Tense Company, had chosen the prison as an ideal backdrop for staging their musical about murderers and victims.  The three young women who dominated the performance stage were working hard with physical movement, dance and song.  Each story had a lead songstress sharing difficult memories and experiences.  As the performers were in the centre of their audience, many of the conversations were taking place face to face with different audience members and this was very powerful.

Other members of the company helped boost the eerie sequences with the sounds of things that go bump in the night.  As we were in the dark rooms of the prison with limited lighting, the running/stomping/confetti dropping  that took place above our heads certainly fit the patterns of madness and a touch of hell.

We emerged out of the jail rooms to another open courtyard with the stars above and the cast ready to accept the applause.  A fascinating theatre experience.

Peta and Laura from Present Tense Company

 

Festival Season

The Festival season has commenced and Adelaide is primed for March madness.

Last night was the opening of the Fringe festival with a street parade, hundreds of performances occurring across the city and party venues for having a drink or three.    The Garden of Unearthly Delights is once again established in the East parklands and the bright lights, performance tents and beer gardens make it a beautiful venue for enjoying a night out.  Being opening night, the line up to get into the garden ensured that you were immediately ready for a cold one!

As we walked along East Terrace last evening, we were surrounded by people of all ages who were enjoying the buzz on a hot summer’s night.    I realised my age when I studied the outfits of the young women in short summer dresses and 3 inch stiletto heels.    I was reminded that a fashionable look does not feel heat and pain!

Performer expressing amazement at my comfy clothes and footwear!

We are looking forward to our month of merriment.

 

 

Being at home

I still call Adelaide home but there is a wonderful feeling about visiting a city that you know well.  We have that feeling in Sydney, Rome, London, Hong Kong, Toronto and Singapore.

Our visit refreshed our memories about our time here and how much we had enjoyed our three years.  It was also the best decompression zone from our India experience.  Being in a multicultural Asian centre that is thriving was a positive reminder about our region and its success stories.   We would recommend it to anyone needing a lift from the pessimistic situations of Europe and North America.

Singapore Lah

 

Connections

No, I’m not talking about air travel again.  I’ve happily moved on.

These connections are about people and relationships that have endured without the investment of daily, weekly or monthly contact.  Our stopover in Singapore allowed us time to reconnect with friends and even with an eight year gap, it was easy to recommence the conversation.

Drinks at Harry's Bar

Roger’s marketing colleagues had a healthy injection of his humour and the laughter was perfect medicine for his spirits.  They had chosen to meet at the rejuvenated Dempsey Road area of Singapore which is now alive with restaurants and bars.  He certainly enjoyed his evening and was agreeing with all of them that the second reunion must take place before another 8 years passes.

I had the pleasure of a coffee morning with Genevieve and then dinner with  Mei Ying.  She had specifically travelled down from KL for an overnight stay to allow us time for  hugs, lots of conversation and the delight in sharing each others news.

We feel very fortunate to have a global network of friends.

 

A smile – is a sign of joy.
A hug – is a sign of love.
A laugh – is a sign of happiness.
And a friend like me??
Shit…that’s just a sign of good taste!!

We’ll be friends until we are old and senile.

Then we’ll be new friends.

Mei Ying and I - the smiles say it all

 

Familiar and New

Familiar Clarke Quay

We looked for the familiar – restaurants, buildings, shops – and were always delighted to find some of our favorite haunts still here and thriving.  River Place, our home for three years, continues to  look great with its tropical setting on the Singapore River.  Clarke Quay has been upgraded and has replaced Mohammed Sultan as the bar, restaurant and nightlife centre in the area.  An umbrella canopy has been built over the central aisles and at night, the light changes to give different moods to the area.  The new look is functionally better and visually striking but I would admit to being a tad disappointed about not finding the friendly chaos of the traditional satay vendors.

While many people feel that Singapore exists solely for eating and shopping (and they do both brilliantly), there has been a lot of investment in creating a more diverse offering for Singaporeans and their visitors.      The stunningly architected Art Science Museum now showcases events.   The museums curator hosted a Van Gogh art exhibition followed by relics from the Titanic to ensure that his program for the year appeals to a wide audience.  His Titanic exhibition included many full size rooms representing different areas on the ship.  He had placed a large block of ice to allow people to feel the cold and understand the problems of hypothermia.  It was excellent.

Trivia note:  For those who attended Expo 67 in Montreal, the architect of Habitat 67, Moshe Safdie, also designed this beautiful lotus flower shaped building.

Shimmering lotus shaped museum

 

The Other Extreme

Great airline, great people

Our next flight after the Kingfisher episode was the overnight flight Bangalore to Singapore on Singapore Airlines. You can’t get experiences farther apart.

We were given seats 48C /49C and were just happy to be on the flight. My seat in front of Roger’s ensured that the seat back would stay upright and not crush his knees and legs. As the flight was boarding, I smiled nicely at one of the cabin staff called Derek and asked if there was any chance he could move Roger to a less physically challenging seat. He replied (with a smile) he would look at this after the doors closed.

True to his word, shortly after take-off Derek returned and escorted Roger to a vacant exit row seat with plenty of leg room for him to stretch out. This one kindness began to ease the tensions of our India experience and prepared for coming home to Singapore.

If you are ever venturing to India, just remember, “When all is said and done, there is more said ….. than done!”

 

*The author of this article was not paid by Singapore Airlines, has no shares in the company and is not receiving any privileges as a result of this review. A note to SQ was sent acknowledging Derek’s customer service since it was good customer management.

 

It’s a Bird, It’s a Beer, It’s a Very BAD Airline

A delicious beer

The Kingfisher bird is quite striking with its vivid colours and long beak.  A cousin of our kookaburra, we were so glad to glimpse their brilliant plumage during our stay in Kerala.  Kingfisher is also the name of Roger’s favorite Indian beer.  It goes beautifully with curry and tandoori items and is the beverage of choice even though we had bought a duty free bottle of gin.

Now we get to Kingfisher the airline. They appear to be in financial difficulty and having experienced their service during our two weeks in India, I can understand why. They cancel,  reschedule and delay flights without thinking about their customers.  Once the schedule looks manageable from a fleet and staffing perspective, that’s all that matters.  Who cares what it does to the bookings of domestic and international customers.

We had not left Australia on the first leg of our journey when I received an email indicating I could check in online.  A surprise awaited me as I began to realise our flight had been cancelled and we would be travelling on an afternoon flight instead.   Okay, that’s only one flight, all airlines have occasional operational hiccups.

When we got to Singapore, we made the decision to check our other Kingfisher flights.  Shock horror!  The following weekend, the whole tour party were going to be doing a journey from Goa to Cochin via Bangalore but due to schedule changes, the connections no longer worked.      A travel agent in Goa spent a full week dealing with the airline to restructure our flights.  Forget Bangalore, we needed to fly north to Mumbai, wait a few hours and then fly south to Cochin.

Now at this stage they have form so we began to look nervously at our final internal India flight that was going to connect us to our international journey out of India.  They didn’t cancel but they did reschedule and finally admitted to further delays.   The ground staff said they would communicate with Singapore airlines to notify them of our situation and once it was realised we would not make the transfer,  I was reassured that there would be ground staff in Bangalore to assist passengers affected by the delay.

Hah!  No Kingfisher staff were assigned to assist passengers and they palmed me off on the agent for the international airlines.  She didn’t create the problem but I can’t say she was a lot of help.  She gave us the telephone number of Singapore Airlines in India.    No, I couldn’t use their phone, it was for staff only!

Four flights, four dramas.  We weren’t the only ones.  As we sat in the departure lounge, every  Kingfisher flight status showed CANCELLED, RESCHEDULED or DELAYED.    Don’t fly Kingfisher airlines.  Drink the beer instead and admire the picture of a kingfisher bird on the label.

 

Clayton’s Cooking School

Not quite a gourmet experience

Given that I know Roger had looked forward to this experience for some time, it’s sad to report that our Indian cooking adventure was a Clayton’s Tour. Over the course of 11 days, Roger never did get to cook an entire Indian meal or indeed an entire Indian dish. We look on, he stirred occasionally and at the end of our time, he was both cranky and disappointed. You would have to been blind to miss the frustration he was feeling.

My interpretation at the end of the tour, possibly ungenerously, is that Diane Seed was on her winter vacation in India. She drafted a program and then delegated to the “staff” the delivery of the activities on the agenda. We went to her tailor so she could get clothes made, to the optometrist so she could have new prescription glasses made, to the little shops and markets to buy the little bits and pieces one can get so cheaply in India. On our guided tour of Goa, we stopped at one historical sight and 8 retail emporiums; even the knowledgeable local tour guide was amazed that his skills would not have been better utilised. While we were gadding about shopping, our leader was not managing changes to the plans, arranging the cooking events, or keeping on top of the situation. When things went awry, which they continually did, she blamed someone else or shrugged and said “well, that’s India”.

Fortunately Roger has a Teflon psyche and this too will pass. On the positive side, my value as a tour planner and coordinator just went up immeasurably!

 

Kerala Backwaters

Kerala rice boat

We had checked into a holiday resort in Kerala and India disappeared hidden behind an artificial environment comprising luxury villas, swimming pools, spa, great dining and a serene environment. Suddenly we were insulated from the traffic, the throngs of people and the general chaos that is life in India.

So we relaxed for the 10 minutes that Roger could cope with and then headed out the front gates to reconnect with the country.  One of the factors for our intrepid move was to search out tonic water to accompany our duty free gin.  The resort wasn’t going to gouge us for expensive alcohol.

Our walk down the lane way did not result in the purchase of our mixer but did give us one of the loveliest experiences of our entire trip.  We crossed over a bridge and were able to see the picturesque rice boats on the waterway below.  There was a little roadway next to the water and we decided we could go closer to get pictures.  As we reached the waterway, several men approached us to offer a tour.  I negotiated and we had a small 6 seater river boat for a 90 minute tour of the back waters.

It was beautiful.  The waterway is surrounded by a bird sanctuary so we were treated to many sightings of egrets, cormorants, kingfishers, geese, ducks and lots of little birds I couldn’t identify. Our boatman slowed every time we pointed a camera and allowed us to capture many moments.  At this time of year, the waterway is choked in many parts with aquatic plants so dense that our small boat struggled to make headway.

It was Sunday so we inadvertently became voyeurs as we passed through the country side and found women doing their laundry and getting their children bathed.  The flat washing stones were being used to scrub the laundry and then for rinsing to get the water out of the clothes.  You could hear the loud slaps of materials as you passed by.

We felt very fortunate to have stumbled on this experience and we would recommend it to any visitor to Kerala.

Our little cruise ship

 

Sharing Food and Family Recipes

Two of the cooking demonstrations that were organised for our gourmet tour were provided by engaging, entrepreneurial Indians who are working on establishing their businesses and supporting their families.

At Palacio Do Deao, Ruben Vasco de Gama gave us a tour of their renovated Portuguese/Goan rambling home with gardens. He had been instrumental in its restoration and in acquiring suitable artifacts to fill each of the rooms. He was very proud of their effort and it certainly gave us some insight about colonial life in India in the 1800s. A feature that both Roger and I noted was the windows with shells which were used instead of glass to provide shade but let light in.

Celia at work in the garden

His wife Celia is a self taught cook who has focussed on developing traditional Goan recipes to share with local and overseas guests. In a very small kitchen, she and her team produce delicious, authentic dishes. The pumpkin souffle was one of my favorites and Roger loved the hot chorizo dish. Celia took the time to do a cooking demonstration in the garden under the trees and amidst a profusion of tropical flowers. She demonstrated three recipes which we all got to sample during lunch.

In Kerala, we were treated to a visit to Philipkutty’s Farm. The two women owners, both widowed, run a guest house, a farm and a restaurant. They had already completed the preparation of ingredients before we arrived to allow them time to demonstrate the cooking process for four dishes. We were given a tour of the farm and then sat down to a delicious feast of 12 dishes. I was amazed that they had created such an extensive range of dishes with so many different flavours and textures. The Kerala fish curry was Roger’s favorite and contained the most spice. I loved all of the vegetable dishes.

Anu seemed rushed off her feet as she dealt with guests arriving at the guest house so her mother in law took the lead on demonstrating the cooking. The experience was excellent and we were very impressed with the determination of these two women to sustain and grow their business.

Mummy at the stove sharing her years of experience

We ate very well at both these locations.