Wandering Bolivia. La Paz.

Posted on January 2, 2018 by drsapna

This is more than a year over due. Might seem like a random discontinuous series of words but really it is the last of my Chile and Bolivia travelogue and should be read in continuum with my other Sud America stories. I had to refer back to my little book in which I diligently make travel notes to see if I had missed anything. That is my post Fellowship exam year brain. 2017. What a year! I could have spent the entire time blogging about world and local politics but am grateful I was bound to work and studies. The journey to this point has been tumultuous; a story I shall tell one day and name names, those who bullied me in the hospital, made unilateral decisions about my career and values, mediocre registrars and consultants. That is why it was important for me to be focussed and get through the year. Promises I made to myself and to my teachers who believed in me. I have left this blog verbatim from when I first wrote it and added the last bit only.

The highest capital in the world! I shared a taxi from El Alto into La Paz where I had booked my airbnb for the my final leg in Bolivia. I was going to be town! My companion was an Australian woman on a prolonged OE and we talked about Australian politics, as you do. Tony Abbott, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Australia’s terrible handling of their refugees on Nauru…all favourite Leftie topics of conversation. I invariably meet such Aussies on my trips. There was this couple in Samoa who also lived near Shepparton, Victoria, where my sister lived at that time, and they were rabid Tony Abbott haters. So much so they scared an American couple at the same hotel who, being Americans, had no clue of any other democratic system. Yeah. So this woman gave me a copy of Marching Powder and said I must read it. All about cocaine and crims in San Pedro prison, La Paz. Then she left me to go her way.

La Paz is a difficult city. I have never seen such traffic! Not in Bombay, not in Auckland, Tokyo or anywhere else. Narrow one way streets, people in queue for private buses, for taxis. Seemed like an eternity to get from Plaza De San Pedro to wherever. Same distance I covered in less than 30 minutes walking one way.

I reached my airbnb, dumped my gear in my room and went looking for food. I found a shopping mall right next door. Hang out of the Bolivian middle class. Shops, food court, multiplex. Even Hello Kitty ice cream!

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The burger and Fanta I ate almost made me throw up. My body is not used to aerated sugary drinks and that combo was poison but the hungry can’t be choosy. Sometimes lionesses have to eat hay.

There are three amazing things to do in La Paz in a short time. Not in any specific order this.

Visit the Church of San Francisco. An impressive structure in Plaza Mayor, a public square witness to constant transient crowds and traffic. Akin to the Strasbourg Cathedral in Place du Chateau. Both Catholic buildings but San Francisco not the slightest intimidating or ugly. Watch the faithful, see blue Jesus on the museum wall, climb up the steeple then wander out to Mercado Lanza and have fruit salad and ice cream like the locals. Don’t forget to check out the dvd stalls. Asian cinema is big in Bolivia.

Do a walking tour with the Red Caps. This is a bunch of enthusiastic La Paz locals who will take you through the food market, the Witches Market, Bolivian government buildings and finish in a bar. They have wicked sense of humour and tell a lot of jokes about Evo Morales. I was the only person of colour on the walk. An American-Chinese couple at the airbnb had warned me about the ‘ignorant Australians’ (surprise, not) on these walks. When we reached the Witches Market the boys made us sit on the street and told us a story about human sacrifice, to be careful of going out alone at night and the horrified ‘oh-my-lord-these-dark-uncivilised-barbarians’ look on the faces of the goras, the Americans and Australians was worth more than a million dollars. It was hard to keep a straight face. The Red Caps paused, looked around and snorted. ‘Oh you all got scared’! Then there was this story about Evo Morales telling Bolivian women they should keep their virginity until they got married. Those women, they came out on the streets telling him to mind his own business! He backtracked and said Bolivian women were the flowers of Bolivia. Of course they tell it better than I can. 🙂

The third thing to do in La Paz is to take the cable cars. Mi Teleferico. It is a great way to see La Paz. Locals told me it was a cheap mode of transport for all those who commuted great distances to get to and from work in this difficult, mountainous city. ‘It creates equality.’

A well travelled friend once told me that the poverty in India is different from the poverty in South America. I think the poverty in developing countries, invaded and colonised by Westerners, their cultures and indigenous ways destroyed, is the same and different from poverty in New Zealand and Australia. Or Europe and UK. (Can’t comment on America, never been.) There should not be homeless, hungry people in the Western world at all. There is enough wealth to provide basic amenities for everyone. But, greed. How to alleviate poverty in the post-colonial world? That is a difficult, complex process. (In my head anyway.)

So in that quest, I travel. Trying to connect the dots, connect humanity, find my place in the universe. I’ll go to South America again but I want to go to Africa first. Morocco. With a trip back to India. Maybe Korea or Taiwan in-between? Japan, beyond Tokyo again.

PS. My photos from Bolivia on flickr

Wandering Bolivia. Rurrenabaque

Posted on November 26, 2016 by drsapna

Back in La Paz overnight for an early morning flight to Rurrenabaque. Into the Bolivian Amazon.

El Alto airport is the highest airport in the world.

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It has a micro climate of its own and prone to fog. So I waited and waited for my flight to Rurre. At least I was not vomiting from altitude sickness. I was more worried about missing my boat ride into the jungle. I had booked a two-day-three-night stay with Madidi Travels in their Serere Reserve. It being Bolivia officialdom no one wanted to give me an exact time of departure. Until we were suddenly called to board.

Then it was to a muddy, humid village that could have been along the Konkan coast in Maharasthra. Except that it was the Beni river and the women did not wear sarees/salwars.

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The lovely people at Madidi had kept my ride waiting. Just for me. Solo. A very Indian looking female came up to greet me. She asked me where I was from.

‘New Zealand’.

She said ‘I’m from New Zealand too’.

We both looked at each other thinking exactly the same thing. “But you look Indian to me”

‘What’s your name’? I asked.

‘Nalini. What’s yours’?

‘Sapna’.

We both started laughing. She moved to New Zealand from the U.K. when she was a child. I gave her a Whittaker’s L&P. She was there when I returned from the reserve. She spoke fluent Espanol, was backpacking her way across Sud America researching ecological movements, environment, economics. She was a UNESCO global youth leader. She told me it was rare to see an Indian doctor backpacking anywhere. But I am also a writer and filmmaker, a creative. How else would one travel if not intrepid?

It was a two hour trip down the Beni river. Along the shores were clear signs of extreme poverty, environmental degradation a.k.a ‘development’, and just the sad plight of where the Amazon is heading.

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I could not be snap happy on this leg. There was no electricity except at the casa grande and that was used only for daily crucial requirements. The camera is such a first world luxury. Anyway there I was on a boat with two strange men and food and water supplies for the crew in the jungle. Then a thirty minute walk into the jungle with more strange men who also carried my backpack. Not for a moment did I feel fear. I would never have done this in India. I have in the past wandered through the streets of Gangtok and hiked alone in West Sikkim but that was then. It is hard now to walk the streets of my own city Mumbai without uncouth young men staring at your breasts.

That evening our guide took us across the lake rowing his little boat. I am unable to encapsulate the diversity of the Amazon. From pink fluorescent dragonflies to noisy red bottom monkey and every bird in between. Tarantulas, beautiful and very dangerous snakes, life saving flora that the local indigenous peoples have used for centuries, knowledge about the land and connections with nature, our wairua, our whenua, our breath. Living. Life itself. Words fail me. It is incumbent upon us all to treasure, to be care-takers.

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Later, after dinner, we went back to the lake. It was pitch black, the moon danced with the clouds, softly silhouetting the trees, silver rays teasing the water as it rippled under the oars. The milky way glittered like the star party it was. We were looking for caiman. We were not allowed to talk. It was magnificent. Then we saw them. Baby caiman with glittering orange eyes.

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The mother is around, the guide said. For a moment I thought I was going to die in this lake. I imagined Mother Caiman jumping out at me from under the boat, the orange gaze of anger and death. I shivered. It was clammy. The mosquitoes were a more imminent danger. When in the Amazon, not only be fully clad but spray insect repellent on the clothes as well. Their probosces penetrate thick fabric. Next morning young Zara (Indian-Pakistani-Australian living in London) informed us about the cockroaches running riot on her bed. Now if you have lived in India you know to tuck your mosquito net right under the mattress before dusk. Prevents larger pests from encroaching as well.

But it does not stop the monkeys from jumping on the roof first thing in the morning. I was in a cage and they were making fun of me 🙂

I had interesting conversations with Rosa Maria Ruz, eco-warrior, conservationist, kaitiaki who turned the barren Serere into a lush jungle. She talked about how Evo Morales is not really doing anything for the indigenous peoples. China is allowed to plunder even while he takes aims at Western capitalists.

There are special places in this universe and while all places I travel are special, this one, the Bolivian Amazon, Madidi Travels, Serere Reserve was like going into the womb. (I know, Africa awaits.)

How can the world order be re-established to bring back the balance?

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Wandering Bolivia. Sucre.

Posted on June 28, 2016 by drsapna

Nights rides on a bus are sometimes a blessing. You can sleep and not worry about missing the landscape. So it was on my way from Uyuni to Sucre. The seat was comfortable, I had a big llama fabric wrap around me, and my bladder stayed quiet. The bus reached Sucre at 3a.m. A short cab ride and I was at my airbnb Hostal CasArte Takubamba. I’ll write about this again but not once did I fear taking a taxi ride in the dead of the night in an unknown town, in an unknown country where I did not speak the language. I would never do that in India. Not an alien country AND I speak the language.

It was a relief to sleep on a bed in a warm room after the freezing temperatures on the bus. The hostal is a beautiful old casa, (house/abode in Spanish) that also doubles as an art gallery. One of the guys invited me to an opening later and it was really interesting to see the chi chi set of Sucre. This place offers a very good breakfast too. Fresh fruit, freshly squeezed juice, eggs on toast and a variety of Bolivian teas. I had coca leaf tea every day.

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It is laid out like a square grid, streets running perpendicular and parallel to each other with a green space bang in the middle. There is a church on almost every street. I wonder how Christianity dealt with indigeneity and vice versa. Indigenous cultures are embedded in nature, tied to this universe, manifesting multifold. Then there is the idea of a singular God. The dissonance therein and eventual assimilation would make fascinating study. Although I guess colonising forces always have the upper hand. On my last day in Sucre a guest at the casa invited me for Sunday mass but I had a flight to catch. Pity. I would have loved to go. A service in Spanish after experiencing one in Manase, Samoa.

The genteel atmosphere of Sucre was a welcome change after touring Uyuni in one day. I walked around and observed the locals as I love to. Bolivia is slowly getting prosperous (as one local in La Paz told me). I saw indigenous people tucked away in corners trying to eke out an existence or just beg. I don’t have a solution for poverty; to prevent people from being forced out of their own land, where no God or gods can alleviate suffering nor prevent greed or selfishness. It breaks my heart. I wish I had an answer. I don’t think global poverty can be eradicated with us from privileged positions wanting to help others but maintaining hierarchical status quo. The failure of free trade economy is obvious for all to see; the world is not flat! There has to be a collective solution, the will and leadership for it. How that can be when the world order is imperialistic? Not that communism is the answer either. That order to begets its own pecking order and unilateral power. President Evo Morales of Bolivia, not quite comunista y socialista you know. (Incidentally I blogged about Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat way back in 2009.)

Back to Sucre. As is also my habit I eat street food as much as I can and I discovered this little place under the stairs of a building. A whole pot of hot chocolate con leche, queso (cheese) empanadas, masaco de yuca con queso sonso, a kind of cheese pastry that is a Bolivian speciality. Another time I had Milaneza de pollo, a chicken dish, in the food court at Mercado Central, the central market. Right amongst the people some of whom were counting their coins for what was a treat out. It reminded me how I went to this roadside joint two of the three nights I was in Shanghai and finished off an eggplant and rice dish from an orange plastic plate.

I got a taste of South American soaps while dining. Like Hindi television soaps they are loud, melodramatic and hilarious. I was riveted :-p

Oh and was I not surprised to see Asians established in Sucre.

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An old Korean couple ran a Kodak Express right in the town centre. Asians rule!

I did most of my shopping at a co-operative in Sucre. The wool, the fabric, the style is quite unique. Arts and crafts that reflect the local people and their ideas of the world, their interactions with outsiders. Museo Casa de La Libertad was another little place I browsed to know more about the history of Sucre and Bolivia in general. And there is a great vegetarian cafe just off the town square too.

There were many parades through the streets during the time I spent there.

On my last night in Sucre I went up to the church behind the casa where the street was closed for a fair. A jatra जत्रा as one can see anywhere around a temple and on festivals in Maharashtra. Some things are the same across countries and cultures. So what if the language and religions are different.

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More Wanderings. Encounters

Posted on April 29, 2016 by drsapna

Travelling, as always, reiterates how I can be any person and live anywhere in the world. I will always be an outsider, I will never ‘belong’ (what is belonging…), and yet I am here. Of course I indulge in such existential questions and analysis because I can afford to do it. If I was struggling on a daily basis, trying to earn a living, support other people, pay the bills, if I was a minority where I was not allowed to be live with my beliefs, my culture, if I did not have a voice at all then the idea of travelling seems distant and alien.

Even my minimalist backpacking is a privilege because I can afford to do it. I have the choice to do it. As an academic friend who studies multiculturalism and international students pointed out to me, such kind of travelling is an upper middle class indulgence. It is not just me trying to make do without certain travel luxuries because they are beyond my budget (well, some are) or in a non-consumerist manner; it is because I have the freedom to do so.

That said, travelling is a very humbling experience for me. I don’t see myself living in hotels and seeing places with travel groups. Intrepid is my word, my thing. Simply because in this space I meet the locals, I get to have conversations with fellow travellers on a similar journey, I see my place in this world. A nothingness, an inconsiderable speck, a spectre of self-centredness in her daily existence.

As I waited in the lounge to board my flight to La Paz I saw this tall, dark man, very distinctly Indian. I strained to look again. I had seen many ‘Indian’ looking (not indigenous) people in Santiago. I am one of them but I rarely get recognised as Indian. I am from everywhere but there. Except other Indians who stare at me suspiciously. Is she? Isn’t she? But she has no designer gear on her, she is in rags…and she is alone…Indians don’t travel by themselves, not women…I can see the emotions flicker across their faces…so I fit among the locals in Santiago. Never mind that me no hablo Español, hablo only poquito.

This man was definitely Indian. I placed him as either from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh or interiors of Maharashtra. He had a moustache, a red thread on right wrist and a gold chain around his neck. All external markers of a Hindu male from India. Then I noticed the Indian passport. Bazinga! He looked at me suspiciously as I seated myself opposite him trying to eavesdrop. 😉 It was a group of four with the other three very possibly Chilean. I am pleased to report our man spoke impeccable Español. Rarely on my travels have I encountered an Indian speaking the local language or being so comfortable. It was quite cool.

On the flight sat next to me a man who kept peering at my book. He was, he seemed Chilean. Is that Arabic, he eventually asked me. No it is Marathi, my mother tongue.

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The Mahabharata

Where is that from? So we got talking. He was going to La Paz on business and offered to help me find a taxi to go to the hotel because the Bolivians might swindle me. Does not cost about seventy Bolivianos? I had done all my research. Nah, he said, they might charge more. He said he had been to La Paz a couple of times on business. He had a factory in Santiago and made industrial chemicals. He was, he finally told me, third generation Chilean-Lebanese. His grandfather had moved to Santiago from Lebanon. He could not speak or read Arabic except for a few words. Habibi, I said. He laughed. Yalla! He laughed more. Do you eat fatoosh, hummus, falafel? How do you know, he asked. I don’t, I said. I assume you do. Food is the great memory from and of your ancestors. Fifth generation New Zealand Chinese still have Chinese food at home. Curries and mango pickle, Yorkshire pudding, pho, sushi/kimbap; different flavours, same desires and yearning. Putting down roots does not mean belonging. Putting down roots does not mean permanence.

So I travel. Seeking home. It can be India, somewhere in East/South-East Asia, New Zealand, Australia, Europe and now South America. Wandering, encountering, believing in the oneness and diversity of humanity.

New Wanderings. Santiago.

Posted on January 3, 2016 by drsapna

First stop in South America was Santiago. I’d decided to forgo the laptop and just depend on my smartphone, one more way to be minimal. Just took an extra 16GB hard disk for my camera. I also gave myself an upgrade from the usual hostels to airbnb accommodations through the trip except La Paz but more about that as I write about those places. I booked a tiny room with Esteban and Arturo in Santiago Centro.

The plane manoeuvered itself through mountains and clouds to land on a rainy winter’s day, the Andes looming surreal as we touched down. They grew larger and intimidating as my shuttle went towards the city.

Slums on the outskirts, crumbling buildings, magnificent presidential palace, old world edifices, Santiago is a wonderful city. It could be in Europe but it is a remnant of colonialism and then the after effects of Western imperial interference.

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My first morning I walked to the Bio Bio flea market. I had assumed it started early but it was closed. So I took the 206 bus back to the city not knowing that buses in Santiago don’t take coins. The bus driver gave me a free ride to Santa Rosa and a wee lecture on getting a bus card. My host Arturo advised me to take the metro instead. I have been on the London, Paris, Berlin and Shanghai metros, I have done Singapore and Hong Kong but I give my gold medal to the Santiago Metro. Smooth travel, spacious stations, super security, signage, lots of art. It was a pleasure. No one stopped me taking photos or filming, a complete contrast to India where even a minor activity requires paying obeisance to self important overseers first.

The Centro Cultural de la Moneda is a small arts space in Santiago Centro, just below the Palais de la Moneda. Free entry, small and immensely interesting exhibitions, crafts shops and a cafe. This is a place worth visiting. I love art galleries and museums so I spent a lot of time here at the exhibition Grandes Maestros Del Arte Popular De Iberoamerica Coleccion Fomento Cultural Banamex-the great folk masters of Iberoamerica. Folk art from across South America reminded me of Madhubani and Warli art, Tapa cloth, various Pacific and indigenous weaves, sculptures and pottery. There was Christian art, lots of reference to death, mermaids, and tree like installations that I did not understand but assume are about Catholicism.

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Santa Lucia is like Mount Eden in Auckland except that it has lovely old structures and easy steps. There were lovey-dovey cuddling couples kissing endlessly in every nook and cranny. All other visitors, from skater bois to grown men everyone loved their selfie stick. There is a great artisan market on the other side of the road.

A little further up the road still in Santiago Centro (Alameda # 20) I discovered the best pizza ever at Pizzeria Bella Italia. I was careful to mostly eat vegetariano as they say in Español and there was quite a choice.

Chile must be the rare non-Western country that has a poet for a national icon. I searched and searched for English translations of Pablo Neruda’s poems but did not find any. It was at the Fondo De Cultura Economica in Santiago Centro that I found a an entire shelf dedicated to poets but no Neruda. Instead I bought a book of poems by Oscar Hahn for a young Colombian boy I am mentoring.

The place I was most interested in visiting was the Museo de la Memoria y Los Derechos Humanos, the museum of memory and human rights.

A modern structure on a very European looking street this building holds the stories and memories of the toppling of Salvador Allende and the cruel regime of Augusto Pinochet that was supported by Western ‘democracies’. This is a permanent exhibition. There are posters of the victims, torture instruments are on display, there is a section called El dolor de los niños, the pain of the children, all reminding me of the Stasi Museum in Berlin. I alternated between being very angry to tearful and then saluting the spirit of the Chileans for bringing back democracy. History is made by the people and while democracy and liberty are not perfect concepts they are worth fighting for. Even a ‘state of democracy’ is not static but a work in progress that should still have at it’s base and as it’s aim human betterment and independence, where social hierarchy and religious hegemony are disrupted constantly-not for the purpose of unrest but for mobility and hence freedom. And there are other exhibitions that look at other countries, their struggle for human rights. There was a photo exhibition on the complexity of the ‘war on drugs’ in Colombia called Violentology. A quote from another exhibition called Los Durmientes El Exilio Imaginado (The Railway Ties/The Imaginary Exile) by Enrique Ramirez said “Time as experienced through memory is not linear but rather a kind of pileup of events that become linked, tangled, blended together.” There is an audio-visual archive in the top floor that stores from across the world material related to this period of Chilean history. The librarian told me his memories of Pinochet’s return to Chile and his frustration that he never stood trial. We chatted via broken English and Español about democracy, refugees, migration and what not and would have gone on. Random conversations with strangers are most often the delights of low brow travel. But one has to go to the next destination. It was time to say ciao to Santiago.

More photos at https://www.flickr.com/photos/drsapna/albums/72157657651187374/page1

Wanderings again. South America. Prepping.

Posted on November 30, 2015 by drsapna

Long time since I posted anything. The intention is there not the time. Sometimes procrastination, sometimes fear. I might have lost my touch, I am a fake writer…then I remember..this is to share my thoughts and be grandiose enough to think people actually want to know. The thoughts were cooking and maturing. Ripening. There is a Hindi word for it पनपना.

I was coming to the end of my hospital runs, eighteen months in a hell where love and empathy are at the bottom of the list, and I needed to go somewhere to renew myself. I had two weeks paid leave (that I’d applied for months in advance), dreams of losing myself in a new adventure and finding the purpose of my existence again. I mean I know the purpose of my life but it requires reiteration from time to time. Especially when you are coming out of a black hole called hospital that has sucked your life blood and left you purely in survival mode existing day to day. I had just been to India (post about that later), I love Asia but it is not out of my comfort zone; Asia is home. I could have gone to Europe again but I am comfortable there too. The U.S does not interest me yet and anywhere in Africa is too far away.

I don’t know where and how South America came on my radar but the more I looked at it the more I liked the idea. The original plan was to do Chile only. Santiago is a direct thirteen hour flight from Auckland. However Chile is a vertical country and it was going to be either the North or the South. Chile Map

So it had to be Bolivia, a square-ish country. That I did not speak Español or that Bolivia had/has the reputation of being dangerous did not deter me one bit. If I could survive Shanghai knowing only three sentences in Mandarin, then Bolivia was a cakewalk.

I read Lonely Planet and blogs about Bolivia. It is not an easy place to access. My travel agent Shane Lust (yes you need one to do these out of way places) and I went back and forth working around dates and flights. Even then he could not book the domestic flights in Bolivia. Amaszonas is the only airline that you can book from outside Bolivia. There is a government airline but it is unreliable. I spent many anxious moments trying to confirm flights and pay online. Then I phoned their call centre and the process was smooth after that.

My travel doctor not only gave me my yellow fever shot but also advised me on how to plan my itinerary. La Paz, the highest capital in the world, was where I should spend time at the end of the trip; I had to avoid altitude sickness. So it was going to be La Paz-Uyuni-Sucre-Rurrenabaque-La Paz.

It was winter in New Zealand and winter in Sud America. The temperature drops to 0° in Bolivia but it was going to be hot in the Amazon rain forest! I had to buy a new backpack because I’d given my old one to my niece who was going on a school trip to Japan. Buying a backpack is quite an exercise. There are many, many helpful articles from other wanderers/travellers. Since I had gone through that process once I knew what to get the second time. It was easier because I found a really cheap one at Kathmandu. Next on the list were woollen socks, a light merino jacket and other bits all from Macpac. The idea was to take 4 pairs of clothing such that I could wash and dry locally in laundromats. Layered winter clothing is essential, as any New Zealander will tell you. Then there is sunscreen, lip balm, a hat, gloves, beanie, scarves. All essential whether winter or summer. That I would not get clean water in Bolivia was a given but I worried about my environmental clutter buying bottled water. Until I discovered this beauty.

Simple, easy to use and carry. A life long investment for travellers like me. Of course I also took water purifying tablets and coffee filters to strain water.

For this trip I upgraded myself from hostels to airbnb accomodation. I also decided to forego my laptop and only connect with my phone.

One last thing, the most important thing. Travel insurance. Medical students getting ready to go overseas on their elective told me about World Nomads. Cheap, effective insurance. I even got myself air evacuation, just in case. Another thing, on par with insurance, was to register on safetravel.govt.nz a New Zealand Ministry Of Foreign Afairs and Trade initiative that not only offers travel advisory but are able to count Kiwi heads via local embassies and consulates in case of emergencies. They will come looking for you even if you are deep in the jungle. Because they know. After what happened at Bataclan in Paris I will register wherever I go, except Australia. I was all set to go wandering, again.

Ready, steady, go! Souff America!

New Wanderings. Musée et musing, sort of. Strasbourg-2

Posted on March 27, 2015 by drsapna

I love museums. To go to a new city means to visit at least one museum there. Strasbourg has so many museums like every city in Europe.

I took the tram to Museé d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.

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I can live in a museum. Nah actually I can live in a library 😉 I would be dead and preserved if I lived in a museum eh. 😀 The Louvre can tire you, there is so much to see and absorb but this museum in Strasbourg is compact and just right.

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Then I discovered Gustave Doré. This here is one of his most famous paintings-Le Christ quittant le prétoire.

He illustrated Danté’s Inferno, he was cartoonist and sculptor as well. He was modern and contemporary and a pioneer whose influence is especially obvious on almost all graphic novels I have read until now.

There is a reason why I love museums. Because I learn new things all the time. How does Doré’s work affect my life? I now I have a reference for the ‘comics and cartoons’ I see AND work I look at in creative moments.

Next time I am in Strasbourg I will visit this museum again.

New Wanderings. Strasbourg-1

Posted on March 20, 2015 by drsapna

I must have told this story so many times, once more does not matter.

When I went to Europe in 2009, I mixed my Schengen visa dates (I had an Indian passport) so I had to cancel the Strasbourg leg. I don’t know why I chose to go to Strasbourg that time. It just seemed like an attractive city that no one I knew had travelled to or had even heard about. Which is strange because the European Parliament, the International Institute of Human Rights, Arté and the University Of Strasbourg are some of the institutions in this city. I was gutted I could not visit but let it go. I had been to Europe, my very own OE, and we all make planning mistakes. (Ha, wait till I write again about how I missed my flight back to NZ from Berlin because I forgot the date :-))

There I was, in Strasbourg. Through the last week of May and the first week of June 2014.

We drove from Surbourg into Strasbourg. We were flat and cat sitting.

We stayed for three days then moved to another part of town, again, flat sitting. This time for S’s cousin and her partner.

Moving gear at night, searching for a place to park, I almost did not notice the three young sex workers at the entrance of the building. Very young and one very pregnant, all of African origin. Before that, as we stopped at a set of lights, there stood a beautiful, slender woman. Only in her shirt it seemed. I looked closer. Was this a new French fashion? No she wore nude stockings under her shirt, appearing nonchalant on the street. Seeking business. My middle class bleeding heart cannot fathom what compels a woman to be in this industry. A very difficult life with no light, no love, and … I can imagine as I wish but it is not so simple is it?

The third time we moved to flat sit was to Gershteim, a village an hour by bus from Strasbourg. I thought the flat was ultra modern, S just laughed. She did not think so. And although the view was not great it was peaceful and quiet, not far from Strasbourg, with a good bus connection. Gershteim was lovely.

So although I was a tourist I got to see Strasbourg from the inside which I would have never managed if I’d visited in 2009. I loved wandering the streets, I cycled, very afraid to crash into a person or car, I almost walked into a tram forgetting that in Europe they drive on the other side of the road, I really liked Strasbourg. I could live there. I see myself working with the Institute Of Human Rights with relation to refugee health/medicine, and telling stories for Arté.

New Wanderings. Part 6. Alsace.

Posted on March 16, 2015 by drsapna

Alsatians are from Alsace. And no I am not talking about dogs but a French-German human subtype from a region that was in Germany, then France, then Germany and finally in France at the conclusion of WWII. My friend S is a native of the Alsace region. Her grandfather cared for the forest on the French side bordering the Rhine. He even planted trees there. S told me stories of her ancestors who grew up speaking German then had to learn French when Alsace became part of France and then their children who had to learn German when it was taken over by Das Vaterland. So on and so forth. But they all spoke Alsatian, the language and so does S. Her parents live on a farm in a village and they were curious to meet me, They had never seen an Indian in real life before! So many questions they had. The dot on the forehead, poverty, dirt, chaos, food, Bollywood film songs…I was exotic, from another world, and S getting more and more embarrassed of her parents. 🙂 Then they took me out for lunch. Real French local food in a restaurant in a neighbouring village.

Bouchées à la reine

Monsieur M drove me to see oil in the middle of the French forest. Oil in France! There used to be a budding oil industry in France. What would have happened if it had burgeoned and France became an oil supplier for the rest of the world? Language barriers meant I could have have proper discourse with Monsieur M but it did make me wonder. Oil producing countries have a ‘special’ place in our world. Whether as bullies or cultural and religiously rigid. Or just as hotbeds of conflict. Maybe France would have wielded more imperial power?

Oil in the middle of an Alsatian forest

An oil mill

Remnants of an oil company

The little villages in the region were so interesting.

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Alsace pottery is a speciality so of course I went into the local studios and bought myself souvenirs.

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If I were to compare the rural Alsace region to say, Samoa, then the disparity, the idea of rural idyll and subsistence within are so vastly apart that the inequality could not be imaginable to anyone in Alsace. France tested nuclear weapons in the Pacific not so long ago. I mentioned the Rainbow Warrior only once, no one knew anything about it. That world does not exist for the French, for most Europeans. Except in an exotic sense perhaps.

I travelled a lot through the Alsace region, through wine country, wandering through medieval castles, eating organic local food, being a tourist but with an inside view. My main hub though was Strasbourg and one of the museums I visited was the Alsace museum.

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New Wanderings. Part 5. Baden Baden

Posted on November 11, 2014 by drsapna

What it is called when, at almost 10.30 pm you are somewhere along the Western German border, driving around in a rickety car, peering through the windows at (and admiring) the German architecture but you really don’t know where you are because your stubborn friend does not possess a smart phone, refuses to use a GPS but refers to a hand drawn map that is mainly squiggles? It is called an adventure! Like being in a dream from which you cannot get out because it is not a dream. So there we were, creeping along the streets in ‘rural’ Germany wondering if we had reached Baden Baden, searching for an abbey that was to be our abode for the weekend. We almost went towards the Black Forest, then back again because we could not find the Lichtentaller Allee wherein was the Lichtental Abbey. It was almost midnight when we scrambled for the key in the cubbyhole outside the massive gates and finally found our room.

Lichtenthal Abbey

The entrance

Where we stayed

Lichtentaler Allee

Baden Baden is famous for its spas. British royals would go there during dreary English winters to bathe in the hot water pools and enjoy the atmosphere. Feeling much like that, we decided to go to the oldest spa in town. The Freidrichsbad is tucked away in a corner and one cannot imagine the grandeur within from the external Neo-Classical structure. These baths are supposed to be 300 years old and, in keeping with glorious German tradition, one can enjoy the various hot pools only in the altogether. There are separate areas for men and women and there are spaces for both. The main pool in the centre of the building, as if from the Arabian Nights perhaps, is where, if you are brave, you can dip in the warm waters, hoping not to catch a glimpse of male bits. For all my bravado I chose the female only bathing areas and then, when I went into the central pool I averted my eyes from the few masculine dangling parts hanging around. (EEK!) Although I must declare that it is on my bucket list to swim naked in the river Spree during a Berlin winter. Freidrichsbad is an amazingly luxurious experience that is seemingly unchanged since it started three centuries ago, and that plebeians can also enjoy.

These days it is the oligarchs and the not-as-rich Russians who apparently own half the town. My friend could spot the Roossies from afar even when they spoke fluent German. There are signs of Russian favoured consumption almost everywhere. Have a look at these pictures, there is nothing more to say. And also listen to S’s running commentary in the background as I try to film a video display in the shop window. 🙂

who dresses their kids like this?

Really?

The unpopularity of Russians in Europe is historical. I have not been able to figure it out and since the only Russian I know is a sweet, mad woman who is a wanderer like me there is not much of a sample to extrapolate from a reason why.

On our last day we went for a hike up to Badener Hohe, the highest peak in that area in Schwarzwald, the Black Forest. Every tree in every forest has its own energy that gives out a collective aura that, if you let it (and you should let it) engulf you. Schwarzwald has a unique force. Inviting and calming, with centuries of history and evolution oozing from every stone and leaf. It was surreal. In den Schwarzwald zu Fuss und I hugged a tree and two. ‘Coz I love forests.