Welcome to communist China. Er...

Hong Kong in a sentence: one huge monument to capitalism.

It is easy to think of this as deeply ironic for a region of China, but in fairness to China it agreed in the run-up to the 1997 handover not to make any attempt to dismantle Hong Kong's capitalist system for at least 50 years, but instead to run a policy of "one country, two systems". And there is no doubt that this is what they are doing. Hey, I even stumbled across a modest but noisy political protest right outside the government offices against alleged police suppression, which the very modest presence of security staff was containing but clearly tolerating.
 
The number of high-rise towers in the city, many albeit far from all of them belonging to financial institutions (as high-rise living is also very common), is pretty staggering. This creates what is surely the most dramatic and stunning cityscape view in the world, as you look across the water from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island itself - I knew roughly what to expect but it was still a bona fide take-your-breath-away moment. Think of Canary Wharf in London but then literally multiply it by 10 or 15 while keeping the same concentration, and you get somewhere close. The weather was misty throughout my stay, apparently very common at this time of year (and not helped by the notoriously poor air quality), but this only detracted marginally from the effect. 

Misty, but truly stunning

 
Unlike London there is very little more traditional/historic architecture to balance this out, largely because pretty much anything in the way of 'progress' over the years has been ruthlessly demolished - an attitude entrenched under British rule and only continued by the Chinese. However the very modest St John's Cathedral and the Legislative Council building are two rare surviving notable examples of 19th or early 20th Century architecture.

Everyone would probably know that uncompromising high-rise is what you get in Hong Kong, but what I think is comparatively little realised is that it also has stunning natural scenery - beautiful turquoise waters with shorelines to match, and a substantial quality of forested hills. The bus ride into the city from the airport, which juxtaposes this natural scenery against the backdrop of various city centre towers, was without a doubt the most attention-grabbing and memorable I've experienced. Conversely, the cityscape view from Kowloon is made even more incredible by the presence of several forested hills in the background.


However, walk around a little further and the overall impression in my eyes is not entirely one of a livable city. While Kowloon is a breeze to navigate, I spent a long time lost on Hong Kong Island. Admittedly there are a few oases of very well tended green space left in the centre (one of which, Hong Kong Park, was apparently designed to look as artificial as possible - fitting in with its surroundings I suppose, although to be fair it's vastly more pleasant than that makes it sound), and of course the aforementioned forested hills further out as well as many square miles of outlying shoreline and sparsely populated areas. The Peak area, around the top of Hong Kong's highest hill, which is reached from the city centre by a remarkably steep funicular railway (so steep that my sense of parallel and perpendicular was pretty much lost as I watched the towers on the way up), has always been the most desirable area of the city to live; given the view over the city, it's not hard to see why. Another lower but still desirable area called the Mid Levels has been provided with the world's longest outdoor escalator (some 800m long) to make it more accessible from the city centre! However I'm not actually entirely clear why the city proper hasn't spilled out further and more generally than this, as I reckon if this was my city even I would be tempted to live a little out-of-town if the opportunity were there, given its apparent beauty compared to the OTT-ness of the centre.

In fairness, there were a couple of surprising elements of public accessibility amongst all the urban sprawl - the famous Bank of China Tower, which has a bizarrely striking design where the four 'sides' of the building all end at different heights (from above it is four triangular prisms moulded into a rectangle, but each of a differing length), has a public viewing gallery on the 43rd Floor which Reception and Security smilingly whisk you through to, offering fantastic views over much of the city. And the HSBC Tower, the most expensive building in the world when it was finished in 1985 and apparently the one which really set the tone for Hong Kong's development since, allows you to wander up unchecked to the third floor to gawp up from the remarkable glass atrium.


The other element of the rampant capitalism on display was the astonishing quantity of high-end shops spread over wide areas and, in particular, shopping malls virtually everywhere. I was reliably told that Hong Kong residents tend to consider shopping a major hobby and don't like to spend time in the city centre without buying something. For a city with a population about the same as London, I was just astounded at how it was all viable - although it's occurred to me since that London has various satellite and suburban 'town centres' which restrict footfall in Central London, whereas HK probably has very little of that, hence pretty much everyone shops in the centre. It was also very obvious that this part of the world has seen nothing resembling a recession, only (as I understand it) continuing runaway economic growth - I didn't spot a single empty shop. Although I only had time to scratch the surface, you have to add to this a considerable quantity of much more traditional street markets too which thankfully seem to preserve an element of traditional Chinese economic culture.


There is clearly a substantial Westerner population within the city's 7 million overall residents, especially evident amongst the suited, booted businessmen I saw after the weekend. It's not hard to see why they are attracted, given the general Western feel of the place, with excellent English signage just about everywhere, English widely spoken, and the general sense of order and organisation (for example, the Metro is strikingly efficient and the airport may be the best I've ever used). Based on the very limited evidence of my short stay, I got the impression that there may be considerable social segregation between the Chinese and Western populations, at least in terms of venues they frequent. Certainly of the two gay venues I went to, the rather nice Kolours (which really felt like a generic European gay venue) was at least 70% Western, whereas the even nicer-looking but desperately over-crowded (albeit on a Saturday night) Zoo was overwhelmingly Chinese.


One by-product of the obviously astronomical real estate prices in the centre of the city is that budget accommodation is a little small and basic. For my last night I ended up in the infamous Chungking Mansions, which takes the concept of 'backpacker central' to a whole new level. This is a single delapidated 18-storey building which contains, at my count, no fewer than 67 separate hostels and guesthouses (honestly). There are only six lifts in the whole building, leading to regular long queues to get up and down - and it's better to queue because the stairs are not especially pleasant to say the least. You generally have to call a mobile phone to get reception service because the owners are typically away running other businesses, rooms are tiny (I think it was the closest I've ever come to feeling I was sleeping in a prison cell) and general cleanliness leaves quite a lot to be desired (and I was in one of the hostels there recommended by Lonely Planet) - but hey it was an experience and quite possibly a travelling rite of passage.

I'd only given myself three nights here before my next flight to Bangkok was booked - in hindsight this wasn't long enough, although especially so because I'd come down with quite a heavy cold (no doubt brought on by the physical rigours and the stress of my Indian tour) which reduced my energy for sightseeing. To explore the markets, temples and, particularly, the beautiful outlying countryside properly, as well as Macau (which sounds well worth a day but which I had no chance of getting to), you could easily spend a week here at your most energetic.

Indian summer

"We have now landed in Delhi. The local time is 3.45am and the temperature outside is 30 degrees celsius." If I hadn't already known what climactic conditions to expect in northern India in April, that announcement from the pilot of my flight in from Amman would have given me a bit of a clue. It's more or less impossible to do a substantial round-the-world trip and get favourable weather everywhere along the way - you just have to accept that and go with your plans anyway. However daytime temperatures consistently up around 42C, with sweltering humidity which diminishes only partially and very slowly in the evenings, have been a bit of a challenge. (October to February, or possibly March at a push, is the more hospitable time of year to go.) As if India wasn't a challenging enough travel destination to start with...

It's difficult to know where to start really writing about India. Even though this was my second fortnight-long visit (the first was early last year, with my partner at the time Matt, to Mumbai, a rural wedding outside Mumbai and then Goa) I'm still not sure I'm in a position to write any very coherent reflections or narrative about this extraordinary country, so this is likely to be more of a random brain-dump. I wrote some reflections on Facebook after my first visit and I won't attempt to cover all of the same ground this time, so if you are interested enough please read the two pieces in conjunction with one another.

The organised group tour I've been on with Intrepid Travel, titled "Classic Rajasthan", taking in Delhi, Agra and an assortment of destinations in the tourist hotspot state of Rajasthan, was definitely a very different way of travelling compared to the independent solo backpacking I'm doing everywhere else. Frankly I didn't realise how much I was valuing the independence and freedom of my travels until I temporarily lost much of it (this trip was always going to involve learning about myself as well as the world); but on the flipside I've experienced a number of memorable things (see below) which I couldn't have hoped to access on my own, generally been looked after and organised by our decidedly efficient local tour guide Lucky, and enjoyed the fellowship, camaraderie and banter of a lovely and diverse bunch of fellow travellers (6 other English, 2 Americans, 2 Australians and 1 New Zealander, ranging in ages from mid-twenties to fifties). From the time with the group I'll particularly remember the musical sing-alongs, strongly worded letters and silent cheers (probably best not to ask!), together with the wind-ups by Lucky - I was the sucker late one dark night getting slightly nervous at the insinuations that my room in the historic Castle Bijaipur was notoriously haunted, while a certain other group member was slowly but definitely persuaded that in India diamonds grow on trees! The other 11 group members included five couples; as the one other single traveller was female, Intrepid could only allocate me a single room throughout, which was a substantial bonus (especially when I was ill) as the trip is supposed to be based on everyone sharing twin or double rooms.

The tour started and ended in Delhi. Alongside the utter traffic chaos, the first thing that strikes you about this sprawling metropolis of a mere 12 million people is the woeful air quality; even in the middle of the night the polluted haze was immediately obvious to the eyes, the nose and the lungs. While as I wrote last year I really took a liking to Mumbai, I'm afraid it's difficult to say the same about Delhi, and I can't really recommend spending more than maybe one day here. I'd been sceptical about the warnings I'd received that Delhi is much more chaotic and stressful than Mumbai, as I doubted that was possible, but regrettably it's true. There are a handful of remarkable sights, topped by the truly beautiful Humayun's Tomb, a large and majestic 16th Century Mughal red-and-white construction set in stunning grounds, with Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque, and the India Gate, commemorating the 90,000 Indian soldiers who perished in World War I, not far behind. Immensely claustrophobic though it is, the streets of Old Delhi are also fascinating, fun and full of surprises.

The stunning Humayun's Tomb

Back street in Old Delhi

However, unlike Mumbai, these sights are pretty scattered amongst a mostly undistinguished and fairly illegible, unliveable (to my eyes and senses) and filthy sprawl, and the hassle quotient from hawkers and scammers pushes towards intolerable (to be fair, mixed with some local people who just genuinely seem to want to help and/or say hello - but if you can reliably tell the one from the other, you're doing a lot better than me). It doesn't help that the city centre, Connaught Place, is a building site at present to an extraordinary degree (without anything like cordons or alternative road crossings to help keep you safe), partially in connection with the forthcoming Commonwealth Games and extensions of the (remarkably and incongruously shiny and impressive) city metro. In a few years' time the area could conceivably be impressive and almost pleasant, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

Welcome to Delhi, the world's largest building site

Without a doubt the most optimistic slogan I've ever seen anywhere...

After Delhi came Agra, home to the Taj Mahal. This is one attraction which really does live up to the hype, despite the inevitable crowds - it is just incredible, incomparable and a real take-your-breath-away moment. It isn't just the utterly extraordinary building itself but the beautiful, perfect grounds which generate the whole unforgettable experience. It says a lot about the potential power of the human emotions of love and grief that one man was inspired to commission something like it solely for his dead wife. I believe it is regularly voted the best building in the world, and really I would take a lot of persuading that it doesn't fully deserve this accolade; I am pretty sure it was my best sightseeing experience ever. If you ever get a chance to go, you really must.

A large part of what Intrepid Travel seek to offer with their tours is authentic grass-roots local experiences, and I can only give them full credit for fully succeeding. These included: 

• Seeing a working high-end carpet factory in Agra where virtually everything is done, painstakingly and incredibly repetitively, by hand, with beautiful results;
• Staying in a rural fort and then in a converted palace, with traditional Indian music and hospitality.
• Seeing several of the forts and palaces for which Rajasthan is most famous - the best of these was Udaipur City Palace, apparently the setting for the James Bond movie Octopussy (really not my thing I'm afraid so I wouldn't know). The scale, opulence and attention to detail (seen in ways such as the engravings, interior decoraton and sometimes incredible miniature paintings) instituted by the different royal families in the region is certainly impressive, and if this is really your thing you could probably base a whole holiday around touring the many such sites.
• Going on safari in Ranthambore National Park - the chief attraction is tigers which unfortunately we didn't see (only pawprints) despite lengthy waiting around, but we did see deer, lots of monkeys and a couple of crocodiles, all in a beautiful setting.
• Seeing genuine rural Indian life including family homes - fascinating, humbling and possibly a little bit perspective-changing for good. Seeing families living in one room (complete with mini-temple and grain store), collecting water from a communal pump and bringing it home in pots on their heads, sorting through grain, and just chewing the fat and watching the world go by with the strength of family and community ties self-evident, somehow makes the ridiculous 'pressures' of modern Western life (domestic, financial, career etc) seem a little bit less essential and all-consuming.
• Seeing a traditional Indian show of music, dancing and puppetry, with the by-now familiar panache, skill and riot of colour - including what came surprisingly close to a gender-bending and camp element, and the incredible sight of a woman performing tricks as she balanced water pots on her head, starting with one pot but building up to a scarcely believable and breathtaking ten pots.
• Going camel riding in the desert - particularly good fun once you get over the initial moment or two of terror, and not quite as uncomfortable as you might think. I would have preferred that my guide hadn't randomly decided to get the camel jogging for several hundred metres without bothering to consult me first, but I didn't come as close as all that to falling off. I found camels strangely lovable despite the dubious noises they're inclined to make and the quantity of poo they randomly produce.
• Eating home-cooked dinner on the rooftop of a local family home, off big silver plates while sitting only on mats.

A partially unintentional (I suspect) local experience came when we travelled by train in what I think was third class without reserved seating. Firstly my tour guide had to have strong words with a local guy who was unwilling to uncurl himself from sleeping across a row of three seats so that I could sit in one of them; a little later he came back and unceremoniously shifted my rucksack across to the other luggage rack to clear the one above me so he could curl up and sleep there instead! When we got off the train, the stop was so short that several of our group hadn't disembarked when the train started moving again; everyone just about scrambled off but our tour guide was visibly annoyed. It took me a few moments to clock that he was annoyed not with the train driver for pulling away so quickly, but with members of the group for not grasping the seriousness of his warning that we really needed to be ready to all get off the moment the train stopped!

I can't really tell you anything about the city of Jaipur, because our time there coincided with a very unpleasant burst of 'Delhi belly'; I was out of action for around 48 hours, including 24 where I couldn't hold in any fluids - the ensuing dehydration was not fun in the ferocious heat. A doctor came to see me and two similarly affected other members of the group, and the treatment comprised of a cocktail of pills and an injection in the bum - nice. But maybe the total detox did me some good somehow.

As well as the ferocious heat and humidity limiting how much sightseeing you can do in a day without contracting heatstroke, a couple of our destinations, Udaipur (supposedly Rajasthan's most romantic city) and Pushkar (a major pilgrimage site due to its Brahma temple, one of only a few in the world, although really nothing to write home about from a tourist point of view) were not looking their best because their famous lakes have mostly dried up - the monsoon is due in a couple of months and it was poor last year. A bit of imagination does wonders - but there may well be a message here for anyone reading this about choosing your time of year carefully for visiting India.

I've mentioned how trying it becomes when you are constantly hassled by local people wanting your money in some way or other. Predictably the best way to get away from this and to encounter (somewhat) reliably genuine warmth from Indian people is to get off the beaten tourist track. We did this at times; walking through the small town of Bundi was especially genuinely pleasant because people only wanted to say a genuine hello and to find out where I was from. While being driven in jeeps or a minibus through the countryside many, many people (often but not always children), clearly not used to seeing white people, waved at us enthusiastically and warmly. (By the way, the genuine warmth and delight in the faces of these many dozens of children totally exposes the insinuations of any moronic bigots that there is anything natural or innate about racism or xenophobia...)

As I've mentioned before, constant financially motivated hassle in any given place inevitably leaves you less open to anybody offering a genuine welcome - one of my sadder experiences was being greeted on the street by a local guy in Jaipur who simply asked me balefully (with no ulterior motive I could discern) why European travellers were so closed off against approaches on the street by local people. I did my best to explain tactfully and I think he sort of got it, reluctantly. Also I can only assume that Only Fools and Horses is popular on Indian TV, because my answer of London to the frequent "Where are you from?" questions frequently elicited a smiling response of "Lovely jubbly!" 

The huge polarisation of Indian society hits you frequently, particularly in cities, where you see the likes of adverts for exciting financial investment opportunities one moment, and shocking destitution and poverty the next. (I wrote about the poverty last time; although it's difficult to know what new there is to say about it, it doesn't stop affecting you deeply.) Even in the countryside we were shown a community which for historical reasons of religion and culture eke out a rudimentary, traveller-style living outside and very separate from the relatively well-to-do village itself. And although it's less visible to foreign tourists, you don't have to read or listen much to be reminded that the effects of the Hindu caste system are still alive and well.

It's fair to say that I'm ready to move on now (there's an obvious but rather true joke that after travelling in India you need a holiday), but as I've hopefully started to document here the experiences and memories count for my two weeks here has been very considerable. I have an overnight flight tonight from Delhi to Hong Kong, which one way and another I expect to be a pretty different proposition...

Southern Jordan

I really didn't want to leave Tel Aviv, but with the driver of Israel being about to completely shut down for two days for the start of Passover, I reluctantly did so on Monday.

After a stopover in the pleasant but unremarkable Jordanian coastal town of Aqaba, where I started to recover from the considerable excesses of Tel Aviv, I headed to Wadi Rum. This is the former stomping ground of the famous Lawrence of Arabia, and the piece of the 'proper' Jordanian desert with sufficient infrastructure (including water) for visits by foreign tourists. I arranged to stay overnight in a remote camp run by local Bedouin people, to which I was taken by Jeep. The drive was breathtaking - the desert is remarkably beautiful, with its cliff faces of varying colours (sandy yellow, through reddish to dark brown... apparently if I'd had the time and budget to be driven around some more, I could have seen white cliffs too), set against the most radiant blue sky you'll ever see. There were also surprisingly plentiful patches of rough green vegetation and some sort of lavender plant too, as the desert had apparently recently had its best rainfall for 13 years. When you're dropped in the middle of nowhere, you're immediately hit by the total stillness - no creatures of any description to be heard. All there was to do was wander around (although not too far, as soft sand is tiring to walk through), finding the best spot to watch the beautiful sunset, and later admire the amazingly bright light, thanks I guess to zero light pollution, provided by the full moon. 

In the desert

Our hosts cooked us a lovely dinner the traditional Bedouin way, which involves digging a hole for an oven out of the sandy ground, and told us stories over the campfire. I was shocked to hear that a camel is capable of deliberately killing a human that has mistreated it, by throwing the human off its back, jumping on them and smothering them with its stomach - five years ago in the desert an old man who was getting too severe with his whip suffered this fate, while another man escaped an attempt that took place when he lay down to sleep five days after he had last mistreated his camel.

Early the next morning it was time to head to Petra, a large preserved ancient city in a stunning desert setting, and Jordan's number one tourist attraction. It was originally Nabatean in the 6th Century BC, and added to later by the Romans. I understand that part of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed here and it's easy to see why. Most stunning of all is the 1.2km-long path called the siq, literally just an earthquake-induced crack a couple of metres wide down the middle of a sheer cliff face, which brings you into the city. Most of the city's surviving buildings are not free-standing but carved out of other clay-red cliff faces, notably the Roman Treasury at the end of the siq. The city has been badly damaged by two major earthquakes (overall it's nowhere near as well preserved as Jerash), and you have to work out what you want to get out of your visit to avoid just milling around disappointing piles of rubble along with the tourist herds - but after the siq and the Treasury it comes into its own again if you get slightly off the beaten track and start hiking up one of the many hills. The view that most took my breath away, invoked the Indiana Jones spirit and really set my imagination flowing as to what it might have been like in ancient times, was on the way up to the High Place of Sacrifice. It had really helped that I'd got myself out of bed early the next morning and got there while it was still really quiet - by persevering with this trail (with thanks to Lonely Planet for the excellent coverage) I found the bonus of coming upon a small but very well preserved Roman temple without another soul in sight, and in other parts I only had goats and the occasional genuine local farmer for company. In the end I didn't want to leave as I could probably have spent another couple of full days hiking around - another one for the "maybe I can come back sometime" list. I always said I'd rather leave places wanting more than get bored with them, and I'm sticking to that line for the time being. :) 

Petra

I've now flown to India - it may be a while before my next blog post as later today I'm joining a pretty intensive organised group tour for a fortnight around Rajasthan run by Intrepid Travel. But I'm very excited about seeing lots more of India, and quite grateful to have guaranteed company for a fortnight and someone else doing most of the organising for a while. Watch this space.

Tremendous Tel Aviv

There are some cities where you just feel totally comfortable, embraced and almost 'at home' virtually as soon as you first arrive. You can't necessarily put your finger on why, but since life is always shaped by emotional responses it doesn't really matter. My list of these cities has been topped by Stockholm (surprise surprise), Amsterdam and Helsinki, but you can now add a high new entry - Tel Aviv.

Why? Good question. It's distinctly provincial in some respects (with a population of a mere 400,000), expensive, and often quite shabby. At just over 100 years old, the contrast with Jerusalem could barely be any stronger. And there's not a huge amount of active sightseeing to be done here.

However, it also nonetheless has a real buzz and vibe about it, while at the same time feeling very livable and manageable. It was a planned city inspired by the model of the, er, English garden city (so next stop Welwyn or Letchworth... or maybe not) and the care given to public space is very obvious - most roads seem to be tree-lined and public benches are very commonplace (something which is actually pretty important as a tourist and certainly missing in many cities). It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site for being the "white city" with extensive 1930s Bauhaus architecture (not entirely different to art deco) - albeit that many of these buildings need renovation. The city also has some very plush boulevards and squares, and an impressive collection of cutting-edge modern towers which lend it a dynamic 'going places' air. 

 Rothschild Avenue, Tel Aviv's swankiest street

Oh, and last but not least, the extensive and impressive beaches are only two blocks from the city centre! One of the many beaches is unofficially gay, although also the surfer's beach and the only beach where dogs are allowed - thankfully I only counted one dog turd...

Beachside

Tel Aviv is very obviously the liberal capital of Israel, and from talking to some locals, their pride in this is obvious. The gay scene is extensive. Everywhere else in Israel shuts down completely every Friday night for Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath), but in Tel Aviv it's actually the biggest night of the week - meaning that partygoers from everywhere else in the country descend on Tel Aviv. Combine that with the fact that it was the build-up to the big holiday season of Pesach (Passover), and my Friday gay clubbing experience at superclub TLV was uncomfortably crowded to say the least, although still memorable (and not just because I'd paid 17 pounds - the most ever anywhere I think, ouch - to get in) as there is no doubt that people here know how to party! The night before I'd been to another gay club called Barzilay which was holding a Britney Spears party - an interesting concept to say the least (albeit one I hope won't be repeated everywhere...!)

Increasingly I'm finding that my experiences in any place are heavily shaped by who I meet, and in Tel Aviv I hit the jackpot on two fronts - firstly with my fantastic Couchsurfing hosts Kobi and Ilya. I've thanked them, paid tribute (and expressed my wish to meet again) in person and on Couchsurfing itself, but I'll just mention their fantastic and multicultural Jewish cooking. Oshpilau is a delicious (and very filling) spiced rice from Uzbekistan cooked with chicken and raisins; malawach is fried bread from Yemen; while malabi is a yummy desert made with cornflour and passion fruit.

Secondly, I had a pretty intense holiday romance with a beautiful Brazilian boy called Paulo - it was lovely (and to be honest it severely curtailed the amount of time I spent out and about in Tel Aviv!), albeit that it's unlikely our paths will now cross again. It was an interesting glimpse into what the next phase of my life might have looked like if I spoke any Portugese (which I don't) and felt able to consider moving to South America (which I definitely don't). I guess such occasional glimpses into parallel universes is another feature of going travelling.

On my last night Kobi and Ilya were kind enough to take me to Evita for their world-famous (well, at least amongst Eurovision fans) weekly Eurovision Sunday. It is best known for the incredible dancers who stand at the front and perform move-perfect dances to all the modern classics of Eurovision - while I'd heard plenty about it, they truly have to be seen to be believed! There was a great atmosphere and the largish venue (considerably larger than downstairs at Retro in London) was full to bursting for some time. For those who don't know, the original concept of the Eurovision Song Contest in the mid-1950s was to promote international peace and understanding through the medium of song, and I couldn't help but think to myself when this British boy was dancing like a loon with his Israeli hosts to Armenia's "Qele Qele", that Eurovision's creator Marcel Bezençon would probably have been proud. :) Oh, and for those sad enough to care, the two UK songs played during the night were "One Step Closer" and "I'm Never Giving Up"... and the half dozen or so Swedish songs included two by Alcazar, yay!

This is one of those cities that keeps very different hours for party-going to London. The monthly Eurovision theme night in London, Douze Points, finishes at 11pm, but the Sunday night at Evita (i.e. during the working week) doesn't start until 10.30pm and didn't finish until around 4am... I understand that people don't usually bother going out before about midnight.

On the cultural front I did go to the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, which was sort of interesting in showing the many achievements and travails of the Jewish people worldwide over the centuries, but hardly a must-see to be honest. More memorable was a post-Evita walk home with Ilya which featured walking along the beach under an almost full moon, with crashing waves and the old port of Jaffa illuminated in the distance. Ilya persuaded me it was a good idea to have a quick paddle in the sea at 4.30am - definitely one for the "things I don't usually do at home" file!

 A couple of things I won't miss about Israel are:

• the airport-style security checks to enter shopping malls and bus stations (however necessary they obviously are); at Jerusalem bus station I was asked if I was carrying a knife, when I think what they must have been looking at on their X-ray screen was my nail clippers... 
• the currency - garish banknotes, confusing coins (the smallest value coin, worth less than 2p, is the shiniest and one of the largest, and they soon pile up in your wallet) and an apparent culture of dislike for 'large' banknotes even though they're what ATMs dispense. I think Tel Aviv was the first place I've ever been flatly refused service, at two separate places in one day, for trying to make a small purchase with a largish banknote.

However, Tel Aviv has been a real highlight and I really, really hope to make it back there sometime, and perhaps see some more of this fascinating country called Israel (and maybe the West Bank also while I'm at it, which I didn't get to in the end) too.

And did those feet, in ancient times...

I am probably going to be a little susceptible to hyperbole during this trip, considering that this is the first time I've gone properly travelling and I have a carefully hand-picked round-the-world itinerary taking in a number of the world's great cities. But on this I am certain I am 100% justified: Jerusalem is extraordinary.

Getting to Jerusalem by crossing the border from Jordan was in itself quite a time-consuming and arduous experience. There is only one heavily guarded border crossing in the area, and to get there you have to get a service taxi to the Jordanian side of the border from Amman; have your luggage scanned and passport checked by Jordanian security; wait in an airport-style lounge for some time for the next bus across the border (there is no other means of making the crossing); sit while the bus crawls painfully slowly down the crossing road; get off on the Israeli (actually West Bank) side and join a chaotic, tense queue for some time just to hand in your luggage for the security check and have an initial passport check; put your person through a security scanner; submit yourself to the main passport check, which is by far the longest interrogation I've ever received [What is the purpose of your visit? Where are you going in Israel? How long will you stay? Will you be going to the West Bank? Where are you staying in Jerusalem? Where are you staying in Tel Aviv? What flight are you on out of the country? Can I see your flight details? Can I see your bank cards? What is your profession?]; if you have any interest in visiting Syria or Lebanon (which I now do at some future point), ask for your entry stamp on a separate piece of paper as any Israeli stamp in your passport renders it impossible - I'd understood this isn't usually a problem, but it won me an absolutely filthy stare and several more questions (Why? Which other Middle Eastern countries do you want to visit? When?) before the guard consented; queue up again to hand in the coupon you were given at passport control; lastly try to retrieve your luggage, probably a good 20-30 minutes after you last saw it, which gets literally thrown off the carousel and put into an enormous, chaotic pile of everyone's luggage.

I am not actually complaining too much since the need for the world's toughest security is obvious (and I did get a smile and a "welcome to Israel" at the end of my interrogation), but it's a little tiring. It was also the place here where Arab-Israeli tensions are most obvious, since the mood of the many Palestinian travellers around during this arduous and somewhat undignified process was clearly frayed to say the least - and whatever your politics it's less than surprising, given that this crossing was just an internal crossing between Jordan's East Bank and its West Bank until Israeli annexation of the West Bank in 1967.

Where do I even start about Jerusalem itself? Maybe with the Old City, where I was staying. Much of it is anything between 500 and 900 years old (my hostel was a 500-year-old building); it's constructed entirely (like much of the rest of the city) out of very light limestone which reflects the bright Middle Eastern sunlight dazzlingly; it's a completely pedestrianised warren of extremely narrow and asymmetric streets, a number of them largely covered and many only accessible via staircases; it contains something like 20 venerable places of worship, including the world's most holy Christian and Jewish sites and the third holiest Muslim site; the businesses and 30,000 residents are largely Arab rather than Jewish (as it was on the Jordanian side of the border until the 1967 Six Day War); oh, and it's actually only about a third of a mile square. You have to be prepared to get lost repeatedly, although you're bound to find something identifiable within a few minutes, and you have to be prepared to slow down and push past the throngs of tourists (a lot of them American, unsurprisingly) and politely brush off the many small stallholders who will try to attract your attention.

If the incredible and unique religious heritage of the city is your thing, you could probably spend at least a week exploring only that. It isn't entirely mine (for the avoidance of any doubt I am a committed atheist, albeit largely respectful of religion rather than Richard Dawkins-esque); so I largely limited myself to walking around, taking it all in, getting lost and observing the different quarters (there's a Jewish Quarter, Muslim Quarter, Christian Quarter, and specifically an Armenian Quarter of all things; the Armenian presence has been uninterrupted since the 4th Century). I also enjoyed a walk around the top of the incredible, imposing but beautiful city walls, giving some spectacular views and giving some insight into the diversity of life inside the Old City. 

One of the gates into the Old City, in the characteristically light limestone

However the least I could do for site visits were the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Western Wall. I didn't manage to get into the Temple Mount, aka Haram ash-Sharif, to which access by non-Muslims is a little more restricted. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the likely site of Jesus's crucifixion and burial, on which a church was first built in 326 AD and the current church largely dates from the 11th Century. It's a remarkably modest construction with similarly modest courtyard, jammed between side streets largely otherwise filled with small touristy (and Arab-owned) shops... and it's literally overshadowed by a rather taller mosque all of 20 metres away. Just to add to the peculiarness, the Muslim call to prayer was sounding loudly from said mosque when I visited. It was definitely one of those "I don't know what I was expecting but it definitely wasn't that" tourism moments. However, the Church has certainly made the most of what it has. It is possible to line up to touch the rock underneath the floor of the beautiful chapel on the spot where Jesus is believed to have been crucified, and the powerfulness of emotion felt by the many people present who appeared to be on a pilgrimage was very obvious to see and even to feel. Helpfully however the site of Jesus's tomb was closed for cleaning when I visited.

 The most likely site of Jesus's crucifixion and burial, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

No less peculiar in my mind is the Western Wall, a non-descript outer wall of the Temple Mount, but Judaism's most holy site. It marks the spot of the Second Temple, which was destroyed when the Jews were sent into exile in 70 AD. When the Jews returned, the precise location of the site had been lost but they deliberately avoided the Temple Mount, as the inner sanctum of the Second Temple was barred to all except high priests. They started praying at the Western Wall instead, which rabbinical texts held that the divine presence had never left. The Temple Mount itself contains the rock believed to be the foundation stone of biblical creation, but it has been a Muslim site (Haram ash-Sharif) since the 7th Century - just to add to the mix, believed to be the location of 'farthest mosque' to which Mohammed had travelled. For reasons I'm not too clear about (peacekeeping?!), Israel allowed the Muslims to retain the site after the Six Day War - so Jews still limit themselves to the Western Wall, where they pray literally against it. Visiting is an interesting and slightly strange experience; unlike at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre I couldn't exactly feel the spiritual vibes but doubtless faithful Jews can and do.

 The Western Wall

Away from the Old City, I ventured into East Jerusalem to visit the Museum on the Seam, a pacifist modern art museum deliberately located (as the name suggests) in a former military checkpoint right on the border between West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem until 1968. It didn't entirely live up to its considerable reputation in my eyes, but it did nonetheless certainly hit me with a few of its punches about the horrific human toll of conflict in the region and beyond.

Also rather incongruous in East Jerusalem, wedged next to an ugly bus station, is the beautiful Garden Tomb, which has been claimed as a possible alternative location for Jesus's crucifixion and burial. Unlike at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the tomb is fully preserved a number of features described in the Bible "match" this site; unfortunately however the archaeological dating is largely against it and even the site's owners (an English Protestant charity) only claim it "could" be the correct site and that it's symbolically representative. However it's a lovely peaceful spot to come and relax for a bit, and as a Catholic priest once said, if it isn't the true site where Jesus was crucified and buried, it should have been!

The highlight of my time in Jerusalem was definitely an afternoon at Yad Veshem, Israel's main Holocaust memorial. As you might expect it's extensive and well appointed. The focal point is a huge museum chronicling the Holocaust from its early origins through to its ghastly conclusion. It was designed to resemble half a star of David, reflecting the fact that half of the Jewish race worldwide was wiped out by the Nazis. While the broad story of what happened is all too familiar, and still literally beyond comprehension, like with any big disaster it's some of the inhumane details which really 'get' you and make you most emotional: footage of skeletal bodies being piled up or dumped in open graves in the Warsaw Ghetto - by fellow Jewish inmates - like meat carcasses; the text of the desperate "Give Me Your Children" speech by Mordechai Rumkowski, the Jewish elder in the Lodz Ghetto, explaining the decision the Nazis had forced him to make on which inmates should be selected for extermination and which should be temporarily saved; eye-witness testimony from the 'death marches' of concentration camp inmates in the demented dying days of the Nazi regimes, that Nazi soldiers didn't "waste a bullet" on those who collapsed from exhaustion, but just pushed them with their rifle butts into the deep snow to die of hypothermia instead.

The terrible unwillingness of the rest of the world to accept Jewish refugees also makes you feel thoroughly ashamed - the quote that stuck with me was from the Australian Government that they largely didn't have a racial problem and had no desire to "import" one. The museum understandably focuses significantly on acts of heroism by Jews against all the odds. There were large numbers of Israeli soldiers being taken round - I assume this is part of their military service training, in the name of understanding what the Israeli military could ultimately be there for. Certainly, after I'd previously been seeing/hearing/reading a few things which hadn't entirely been improving the level of warmth I feel for the state of Israel, it reminds you in the most sobering way possible why it needed to be created in the first place.

I also took a stroll through the ultra-Orthodox area of Mea She'arim, where you can observe men wearing heavy black coats in full deference to the Eastern European Jewish tradition of the 1880s (apparently they do not take them off even in the height of the Middle Eastern summer). The high population density is obvious (ultra-Orthodox Jews believe it is their duty to God to have large numbers of children), and there are aggressive signs warning women and girls to wear "modest" clothing (i.e. exposing no skin). If that last point bothers you it's probably just best to steer clear of the area, since the locals are apparently not completely averse to throwing rocks at anyone who severely offends their customs. 

 

A very warm welcome to an ultra-Orthdox area of Jerusalem...

One other thing I enjoy doing abroad is checking out the main local market to get a slice of authentic local life, and Jerusalem's, Mahane Yehuda Market, is one of the more interesting I've seen. They seem to particularly like their soft white cheeses and their cakes here.

Overall I didn't actually find Jerusalem the most comfortable or relaxing place I've been to - the Old City is pretty stressful at the same time as it is unique and incredible, the hostel scene appears to be pretty poor, the lack of liberalism is obvious (e.g. the gay scene is virtually non-existent), I got aggressively and rudely shouted at to move a couple of times by apparently random locals when standing nowhere in particular minding my own business... and I got scammed a couple of times. One was very petty but one was severe, a cleverly crafted and patient confidence trick after I'd accepted what appeared to be genuine local hospitality. I don't want to go into the details; however there's nothing lost or damaged other than a one-off bank balance hit, and I've learnt a lot from the experience about how to avoid getting the balance wrong again in future between being open and applying the "never say no" principle but keeping oneself safe and secure at the same time.

Broadly, I would say Jerusalem fits broadly into the category of places that everyone should see - but maybe only once. If anything I've written whets your appetite, don't be put off giving it a go... and then make absolutely sure you go to Tel Aviv too. But more on that next time.

Hellooo! How are you? Welcome to Jordan!

I'm just about to leave Amman, capital of Jordan, where I've spent the last five nights. It's been quite an experience.

Just about the first thing you notice about Jordan is the legendary warmth of the people. As you mind your own business in the street, particularly back streets, local people will greet you warmly with something like "Hellooo! How are you? Welcome to Jordan!" and shake you by the hand. My personal best so far has been three such greetings in about one minute. I'm afraid that when I was in India a year ago, where such greetings were equally commonplace, I soon learnt to be at best extremely guarded, if not borderline dismissive, of them as they were usually (albeit not always) just a preface to an attempt to extract money from me. Here, that isn't usually the case - people just seem genuinely grateful that you are visiting their country (Amman isn't a major stop on the world tourist trail I guess) and they just want to say hello and find out something about you. They sometimes also ask where you are from - two of the more memorable responses I received to my answer were "Liverpool?" (Jordanians are apparently crazy for Champions League football), and, much less comfortably, "Tony Blair!" (how do you respond to that?).

Theft, violence and serious scamming is clearly rare here and there is generally nothing to be paranoid about, which is why for example I've managed to relax when a few times (including on arrival at the airport) I've ended up in the back of what have clearly not been official taxis but just enterprising locals wanting to make a few dinars.

Amman is not a conventionally beautiful city by any means. There is an impressive Roman theatre and remains also of a Roman citadel; however other than that sights are few and public open space seems to be virtually non-existent. Nonetheless I have found the urban landscape here fascinating. It's a city of 2.5 million people, yet I'm told that in 1946 the population was around 2,000. 65% of the Jordanian population is Palestinian, and nearly 10% are Iraqi Kurds - and the city and the country have been defined by influx after influx of refugees, for obvious reasons. The city is built on a large number of steep hills which means that (a) straight roads are virtually non-existent, but (b) you can see immense urban sprawl, mainly of greyish boxy buildings, in all directions. I hope that when I manage to upload some photos I will have managed to capture some flavour of this.

Beautiful? No. Remarkable? Yes.

There is a real buzz around the city, especially the Downtown area, always people around and plenty of traffic (crossing the road here requires full attention and a little bravery). People-watching is particularly interesting, especially the women who vary in their styles of dress from totally Western-esque, through elegant and colourful headscarves, through to a smattering of full burqas. Supermarkets and malls appear to be the preserve of the suburban rich, with long stretches of very small shops and souqs (markets) being the order of the day in Downtown. The city is clearly rough round the edges, but I've felt comfortable and everything seems to work - no sense of chaos. What is missing in terms of macro beauty is more than made up for, for me at least over a stay of a few days, by observing these many little details.

The countryside around Amman is simply stunning. Steep hills are typically all around (with the steepest roads I've ever seen), but the scenery varies quickly, almost literally as you turn a bend, from quite lush and tree-covered to sandy and semi-desert. The setting of Jerash, the very well preserved Roman city which made an easy day trip from Amman yesterday, was quite incredible. To this was added a touch of surreality when in one of the well-preserved theatres I heard a local band in full Bedouin dress play, er, the Scottish bagpipes...

Jerash

Just what you expect to see...?!?

I've also been to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth, some 422m below sea level. This also has a truly stunning setting which looks mountainous, although the tops of the apparent 'mountains' are probably no higher than sea level. The Dead Sea is of course actually a lake which is famed for the extreme saltiness of the water and thus extreme buoyancy, meaning that humans can float in it. I took full advantage of this - great fun and incredibly relaxing, and there will be a photo of me reading a book while floating!

I've really taken to the food here also - I've enjoyed shwarma (made with kebab meat but served more like a thin roll, and with distinctive seasoning), kebabs and delicious grilled meat. All very cheap as well, sometimes as cheap as £1.50 for a meal. Jordanians have a sweet tooth too, as do I, so I've partaken of an interesting dessert called kunafa that appears to be made of fried cream cheese topped with caramel, syrup and a hint of apple - seriously unhealthy but different and very tasty and moreish.

A few of my friends hinted at some surprise that I wanted to spend so much time away on my own. Rest assured that so far I'm feeling anything but lonely - I've been staying in a decent travellers' hostel where I've met plenty of people, including several that I've hooked up with for different activities. If you meet someone at breakfast who wants to do the same thing that day, you can just very naturally end up teaming up for the day - and the same happened when I got off the bus at Jerash with one other European guy. There seems to be a real sense of travellers' community here - perhaps because this region is somewhat off the most well-worn track - and that's included getting very helpful tips by word of mouth. There is still the occasional initiative test such as trying to locate the right bus in a large local bus station when there are few people around and everything is in Arabic, and slight uneasy moments like being gestured to get off said bus at the side of a dual carriageway in what looked suspiciously like the middle of nowhere (thankfully the bus station for my connection turned out to be just round the corner) - but it's all part of the experience and hopefully it'll put the odd delay on the Bakerloo Line into context once I'm home.

Another part of the experience for sure has been experiencing Amman's gay scene! It was not entirely part of my plans to go looking for anything gay in an Arab Middle East country, as I didn't expect it to be an entirely safe/comfortable or easy thing to do. However, I did decide to go for lunch one day at a well located and well regarded cafe which Lonely Planet had hinted was gay-friendly - and almost immediately found the male waiter saying to me, "You should come back in the evening - there will be cute boys, cute girls, whatever you like, everything is OK, you understand?" I did understand! He later told me also that he'd recently emigrated to Jordan from the West Bank partially because of "problems with his family" (again, I understood) and when I asked whether Jordan is more liberal, he said still "no one here talks about it". He said he'd be there as a punter later that night and I should come along. Happily I'd also located another longer-term gay traveller in my hostel who already knew the place, so I thought I would give it a go with him.

I'm seriously glad I did, because apart from being a remarkably bright and cool venue, it was fascinating and uplifting to see a certain understated confidence amongst the local guys there. There was no kissing to be seen and touching was brief, but everybody seemed relaxed and the guys I got talking to seemed confident in themselves, and bemoaning the absence of a gay club (there was apparently one for a while but it couldn't pay its way). They were also very funny and decidedly dirty-minded (let's just say that there isn't exactly a British reserve there and when they do touch you they're not at all choosy about where they touch...!). Although their English was in some cases limited, I guess some things are a universal language. :-) As well as being invited to a house party the next night, I even got asked out, incredibly directly, for lunch the next day by a different male waiter, which left me a little speechless just because it was so unexpected. (I accepted the invite to the house party which was another great experience, but unfortunately declining the lunch date because it didn't fit with my plans for the next day.) I also got the phone number of a guy which I decided not to use, partially because I wasn't sufficiently sure I believed his friends when they assured me that his repeated talk of charging JD100 (£100) for any liaison was all just a joke...

Er, on a slightly different note, anybody with any political awareness at all can't really miss the defining role that political tensions play in this region - not least in Jordan due to the demographics that I mentioned above. For example:

• Police checkpoints appear to be common on the Dead Sea Highway because it's close to the border with Israel.
• Maps of the region on walls here mark "Palestine", not Israel.
• At the gay bar on Friday night, one of the guys I'd been chatting to was keenly watching footage of Palestinian border demonstrations on YouTube.
  
• The whole of the city's main modern art gallery that I visited, Darat-al-Funun, was given over to displays concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - most notably a parody exhibition depicting the unilateral declaration of a Muslim state called "Ishmael" in the middle of Switzerland, with not-very-subtle parodies of Israeli citizenship laws and historical claims on the region of Palestine. Food for thought indeed.
• A young Jordanian guy I talked to at the party last night told me that his entire family heritage is in East Jerusalem, but he has only ever been able to visit once, and then nearly got shot by Israeli border guards for his trouble. He said (albeit in a positive and warm way) he was jealous that I am able to visit Israel freely on my travels, which is really quite touching and troubling as soon as you start to think about it.
  

I'm heading now for Jerusalem, for the start of a week in Israel and the West Bank, before returning to the south of Jordan.

Farewell Europe, farewell friends...

Firstly please forgive the continuing absence of photos to accompany these blog posts at the moment - I will upload photos when I can but it's going to be dependent on the facilities to hand in any given place.

I'll have arrived in Jordan by the time you read this, but this was written on my phone during the long journey from Stockholm via Heathrow. The change is going to be immense to say the least, so best to tie up blog entries on Sweden before getting to Amman...

Since my last post, further music-related activities in Stockholm included:

• Heading with most of the rest of the British schlager contingent to a British pub which we'd persuaded to show BBC1 for Your Country Needs You, the UK's Eurovision selection. The pub was a bit confused when we initially rang, asking whether Eurovision was football or rugby! The less said about the quality of the BBC show, and the contrast with Melodifestivalen, the better...
• Meeting two more schlager acts, Lovestoned (now contenders for the accolade of my new favourite Swedish band!) and the fabulous Nanne Grönvall.
• Seeing the Melodifestivalen final at Globen, which was an amazing, memorable show even if I'm very unimpressed with the winner "This Is My Life" by Anna Bergendahl. I'm still not quite sure I understand, or want to understand, exactly what Alex claimed about his fear of heights to get our booked seats about half a mile up in the rafters swapped for good ones virtually on the arena floor, but we were all very grateful nonetheless!
• Going to Club Paradise twice (if I find a club anywhere in the world on this trip which I love as much, I'll be amazed) and the compulsory culmination on a boat called Patricia, with its legendary gay nights on Sundays.
  

To get some multimedia into this blog as I can't upload my own photos yet (...is that a good enough attempt at an excuse? :-)), and as a final word on schlager (I promise) until Stockholm Pride in late July, here is my favourite song from this year's Melodifestivalen. It's called "Jag vill om du vågar", which translates slightly awkwardly into English as "I want to if you dare". It's about as good an example as you can get of the Swedish schlager I love, even if it didn't exactly come close to winning.



Managing not to be schlager-obsessed 24/7, I also:

• Popped along briefly to a Couchsurfing social, my first one in Stockholm but something I envisage beng a semi-regular feature of my trip. If you've not heard of it, Couchsurfing.org is a worldwide community of travellers, centring around the provision of a free couch to sleep on at each other's places ("couchsurfing") but also individual and group meet-ups. There's a group meet in Stockholm every Friday, and there must have been around 50 people there, a mixture of locals and visitors.
• Went to Uppsala for an afternoon, Sweden's fourth-largest city - although that mainly shows how small and scattered Sweden's population is, as Alasdair and I reckon we "did" the city (cathedral, castle, university and river) in all of an hour and a quarter. It was pretty, but the highlight was seeing the river completely frozen over, something I've never seen before anywhere.
• Caught up with my British/Irish friends Karl and Richard who are now living in Stockholm and Uppsala respectively - they're both thoroughly enjoying living in Sweden and I'm rather jealous, although our chats did rather press home that with my circumstances it'd be challenging to say the least for me to follow in their footsteps.
• Had a bit of a holiday romance! I met a lovely guy called Phillip at Paradise on Friday night, and ended up seeing him again on Sunday and then Monday. He's flatteringly disappointed too that I don't live in Stockholm, and it certainly seems like I may have an option on further dates when I'm next there - we'll see!

Phillip is originally from Chile, not Sweden, which I suspect may not be a total coincidence. Although Swedish boys are utterly gorgeous (to the extent that hoping to find one to marry could be one motivation for moving to Sweden *blush*), they also, frankly, often seem a bit difficult. Body language and rules of engagement, at least in gay clubs, seem quite bafflingly different to anything I've ever learnt, doubtless connected to the infamous Swedish reserve - a source of discussion and some late-night bitching with my British friends on successive trips! If anyone reading this can provide any tips for future reference, they'd be very gratefully received...! I do need to put on the record though the loveliness, warmth and humour of all my Swedish friends and acquaintances.

I've done a fair amount of slipping and sliding around, as after a particularly harsh winter in Sweden (repeated lows of at least -14C I'm told even in Stockholm) the thick snow is now in retreat, but often only to reveal thick sheets of sheer ice which had formed underneath - much more treacherous I imagine than when the snow was there. When Rob, Chris J and I decided on Friday to climb to the highest natural point in Stockholm to admire the view, we quickly regretted being clad in trainers rather than something more sensible! However I only slipped over once on the whole trip and thankfully without injury, unlike one member of the extended London schlager contingent (who probably wouldn't want to be named!) who I believe is still in pretty serious pain from bruised ribs.

Outside Stockholm the scenes are still totally snowy, and the train ride to Uppsala, and the view through the window on the departing morning flight, were rather beautiful as a result.

That's pretty serious snow... 

On the subject of trains, is it just me or is there a trend at least across Europe for modern trains to be much less comfortable than the older trains they replace? The old-fashioned train seating between Stockholm and Uppsala felt relaxing and almost luxurious, something I definitely don't remember being the case in my previous travelling within Sweden (Stockholm-Rättvik-Örebro-Gothenburg in summer 2006) on shiny new trains. It's surely the same on the West Coast main line in the UK.

Anyone with even the most cursory knowlege of Scandinavia won't be surprised to hear that I've spent rather more money than I would absolutely have liked, even with a basic hostel, basic food and very limited alcohol. On top of the intrinsic expensiveness, especially of alcohol, what is the real killer is the weakness of the pound now. When I first went to Sweden in 2006 you got 14 kronor (SEK) to the pound; now it is 10 and still falling. Low points were spending around £7.20 (72 SEK) on a glass of wine, a scarcely believable £8.80 (88 SEK) on one vodka and lemonade, and perhaps worst of all, £4.20 (42 SEK) on a glass of orange juice in a cafe - not even in Stockholm but in Uppsala. Granted it was freshly pressed in front of you, but you'd expect gold leaf in it for that price!

One thing that I've noticed before when travelling is that your relationship with eating can quickly change pretty drastically. Basically I've somtimes literally been forgetting to eat, and then sometimes I've been eating just because I feel I should rather than because I've actually felt hungry - and sometimes only twice a day at that. I think that hunger, at least for me, is largely driven by daily routine, daily stress and circadian rhythms - the first two of those have now vanished, and the latter completely changed by all the late nights in Stockholm clubbing. But combined with the obvious fact that it's relatively tricky to eat healthy nutritious food as a budget backpacker, I do need to keep half an eye on not arriving back in London in August as some kind of skinny, emaciated wreck, even before you factor in the risk of serious digestive issues at some point in Asia.

Thank goodness for 7-Eleven though - the ultimate in convenience stores that actually sells healthy things like fantastic salads, fresh fruit and smoothies, day and night. They are everywhere in Stockholm and will be also in many of my other destinations, but are nowhere to be seen in the UK. Why not? Boo. It's also always striking in Sweden that the general standard of food to go, especially cakes and even burgers, puts the UK to shame, although that's doubtless not saying much...

I found it a little bit emotional to say goodbye to my last two London friends left in Stockholm, Rob and Dushyan, on Monday night (after a lovely, laughter-filled evening at Torget with our Swedish friend Axel), as from that moment I am cut loose and officially travelling solo. The real experience/adventure (/slight nervousness) starts here...