Living like a local in Amsterdam

There's something about staying in an apartment that trumps a hotel every time. Like staying with a friend, or even living for a short while in a foreign city, booking a short-stay apartment allows you to feel like you belong. You step out of your own front door and it's as if you live there. There may be no fancy lobby or on-site swimming pool but what you lose in facilities you more than make up for in personality. Because apartments, although sparsely decorated, are never as homogeneous as hotel rooms. There's a kitchen, not a minibar; neighbours instead of a concierge and, in the case of this Amsterdam apartment, a fascinatingly vertiginous spiral staircase instead of a featureless lift.
 
Booked through Short Stay Apartments Amsterdam, our apartment at 36 Brouwersstraat in Amsterdam's funky Jordaan district was perfect for a short stay in the city. Had we wanted to cook we could have (it had not only a stove and microwave but also a dishwasher and proper coffeemaker) and the lounge area was spacious enough to loll around in on lazy afternoons - and far enough from the separate bedroom to feel like a proper living room. We found ourselves discussing where our stuff would go if we moved in, entertaining furniture fantasies and visualising dinner parties, and revelled in having a place to retreat to when the sightseeing got too much.

The location was perfect for us - near enough to a selection of inviting restaurants and bars, but far enough from the crazed bustle of the old centre. We could walk everywhere and were right in the heart of the action without having to be kept awake by it come nightfall. The bells of Posthoornkerk
marked the hours (which only became annoying when those hours were the early morning ones) and our view over the Brouwers canal meant minutes were whiled away watching boats float by and bikes meander past.

My only complaint about the apartment would be that the bathroom was small and not well-designed (the cord from tap to shower snaking across the bathtub was pretty poor), but this seemed a small price to pay for a home away from home in the heart of Amsterdam. Next time we visit, we won't be booking a hotel.

The Middle East for beginners

Unfortunately, all my knowledge about the Middle East has previously come from the news. Contentious cultural clashes in both the UK and across the Middle East, convoluted political relations between “us” and “them” and, most prolific of all, the threat of a conflict we are told is constantly looming.

But, of course, none of this even begins to help those of us living in Britain to get any grasp at all on a region made up of 20 or so different countries (depending on your definition of “Middle East”), each one with its own, often ancient, set of cultural values. For that, you have to visit.

I have just returned from my first trip to the Middle East, spending four days in Oman as part of the British Guild of Travel Writers’ AGM. It didn’t begin well – an overnight flight on which I didn’t sleep, a hotel which turned out to be almost two hours’ drive from capital city Muscat in the middle of (seemingly) nowhere, and far too many hours on a succession of coaches which dropped us off for five minutes here, ten minutes there.

Fortunately, one of those five-minute stop-offs was at the impressive Sultan’s Palace, the 1970s-style home of the Sultan of Oman, reached via a short walk along a wide avenue of impeccably gleaming white marble. From here we could see the beautiful old Portuguese forts bathed in yellow light on the hilltops surrounding us, while en route we had a 30-second leap from the coach to grab a picture of the skyline as a whole and a short pause at the souk to take in the frankincense scent and be tempted by pashminas and purses.

Slightly more time was spent at the Grand Mosque, Muscat’s crowning glory and a building more than worthy of this much-overused adjective. Covering my head with a scarf before being allowed to enter purely because I’m female did feel slightly wrong and I’m not sure any of us women were too pleased to see the stark contrast between the relatively plain women’s prayer hall and the riot of colour and overtly expensive furnishings that was the men’s, but all this was quickly forgotten as we soaked up the feel of this vast marble structure and gazed at the ten-tonne Swarovski crystal and gold chandelier. It really was impressive.

Perhaps more impressive was the chat with our guide, a Christian from the Ivory Coast, who told us how welcome he felt in Oman, and how free he was to worship his own faith. An interesting contrast would be to ask a Muslim resident of the UK how welcome they feel here – I wonder if the response would be as positive.

After two slightly fraught days of coach hopping in Muscat, the general feeling on leaving the Millennium hotel in Musannah on Thursday morning was one of relief. To be embarking on the very last long bus journey was to feel the weights lifted and a nap and another flight later a smaller group of ten of us arrived in Musandam, excited to be seeing another part of the country.

Musandam is separated from the rest of Oman by the United Arab Emirates and occupies the very tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Flying in, we could already appreciate the impressive geographical situation of the capital Khasab as sheer limestone cliffs closed in from either side and we landed amid towering peaks.

The main attraction here is the coastline, an intensely rugged landscape formed not by glaciation but by the movement of the Arabian tectonic plate under the Eurasian. We couldn’t wait to get out on the water to see it.

Happily this did not involve a long bus journey and by early afternoon we were bobbing towards the Khor Ash Sham on our beautifully painted dhow. Musandam Sea Adventure run trips from Khasab into the khor (similar to a fjord) to view the towering limestone cliffs and abundant local wildlife. Here the limestone is a mass of horizontal strata, packed together in their differing shades like the pages of a well-thumbed book. The lines run at angles, as if the cliffs have slumped to one side, and as the sun moves overhead a rainbow of colours running the gamut from ochre to russet can be seen in them.

If I sound like I’m romanticising, please indulge me. After hours of motorway driving and cramped legroom the chance to sprawl about on cushions as nature glides by in all its glory is akin to paradise. We all had soppy grins on our faces after the first few minutes and they were made all the wider when the local dolphin pod appeared to put on a show.

But not everyone has found this landscape so appealing. When a communication cable from India to Britain was laid through here in the 1860s and a telegraph station was built in the middle of the khor the men who manned it referred to being stationed here as “going round the bend”. This may or may not have led to the meaning of this phrase today but it is easy to see why being posted here would not have been top of anyone’s wish list.

After a scramble about on Telegraph Island we headed back to Khasab at some speed, told by our friendly guide Abdul that we had somewhere else to go. We weren’t expecting to see anything else and as we drove back into town many of us were yawning from the sea air. That is, before Abdul told us we were attending a wedding.

Nervous of how acceptable this would be, I felt unsure stepping from the minibus but Abdul sprang ahead through the crowd calling to us all to follow. We stood in the middle of a spectacle I never would have hoped to see, let alone be a part of, as people offered us drinks and children giggled delightedly as we smiled at them. The local men, most dressed in dishdasha (the long white robe which is the country’s traditional dress) formed two rows either side of a line of drummers, banging wooden sticks together in a manner bizarrely reminiscent of Morris dancing. Others stood around the edge filming on bang-up-to-date video cameras and mobile phones while a group of three men fired rifles into the air off to one side.

The women gathered in the house behind us, not mixing with the men at all. Fascinated by each other, we stared at them as they gazed back at us and after a few minutes Abdul told us we were invited in to sit with them (just the women). What followed was one of the most heartening experiences of my travelling life – they brought out fruit, drinks, a vast rice dish topped with goat. Despite the language barrier we communicated our names, made each other almost weep with laughter and were introduced to the mother of the groom. We shook hands with women wearing batoola (a metallic mask which covers part of the face), had sweets literally rained down upon us and chatted to an animated young girl who spoke good English about white wedding dresses – something both our cultures share.

I’ve been to dozens of different countries and have never had the good fortune to meet such welcoming, friendly people. Our experience in that lively house in Khasab couldn’t have been further from the images most often beamed from this region into our living rooms via the news. If only we could send every prejudiced Brit to follow in our footsteps – an encounter with these wonderful people could surely change the minds of even the staunchest bigot.

The best hotel in England?

In even the most beautiful, PR-slick of hotels, when you’re paying for nada and the drinks are free, it’s usually easy to find fault. Because, it would seem, most hoteliers don’t actually stay in their properties and, consequently, they forget to check that everything actually works. I’ve stayed in £300-a-night hotels where the socket for the kettle is in a place it’s impossible to access, where the bath takes (literally) an hour to fill, and where the TV doesn’t even have channel five, let alone digital.

Well, at Bovey Castle, the fault was obvious: the shelf in the shower was a full eighth of an inch too slanted so that the bottles of shower gel and shampoo slid…I can’t even keep up the pretence. My room (number 18) here is so obviously perfect that I literally can’t find a thing to complain about – which is, I hate to admit, a rare thing. Ummmmm… the maid who came to do the turndown service didn’t seem happy… it hardly seems important.

The room I’ve been given is amazing. Honestly. King bed, vast terrace with expansive views of Dartmoor, underfloor heating in the bathroom, double sinks, free-standing bath, a TV large enough for a cinema screening, a shower for two which could actually hold a barn dance, enough cupboard space to satisfy Cheryl Cole – there’s even a window seat for heaven’s sake. The toiletries are Elemis and the cups are Villeroy and Bosch. There’s a real fireplace and the décor is a pleasing shade of natural green, accentuated by oak furnishings. The swimming pool downstairs has kid-free hours, the spa offers signature rituals which involve hot stones and the restaurant has a plum soufflé to bring even the fussiest of guests begging back for more.

During the day, visitors can play 18 holes of immaculate golf on the octogenarian parkland course, practise their swing into the cricket nets, play tennis on the all-weather courts, take a guided walk on Dartmoor or learn the art of falconry with the wonderfully nonchalant Martin Whitley who brings out bird after bird of terrifying proportion and yet makes guests feel strangely at ease with these glorious yet deadly creatures.

I travel a lot and like to think I’ve seen it all, yet I can scarcely find words to convey how much I think of Bovey Castle. It’s British in the very best of ways, bringing patriotism out in the most traitorous of Englishmen. The Edwardian restaurant has a piano player outside to welcome you with tinkling ivories but maintains an informal, friendly atmosphere – it’s got a no denim policy but when I visit there are children in combats. There are formal-seeming lounges with puffed up sofas without the attitude to match for morning coffee and afternoon tea and the bistro serves up casual lunches to all and sundry with impeccable service but no airs and graces. There’s valet parking and porter service without the slavering, tip-expectant drool and a restaurant which pours the wine without the obsequious side order.

It’s wonderful – the kind of place you discuss bringing your partner back to and actually mean it, the sort of hotel you wish you’d chosen for your honeymoon. I can honestly say I’ve stayed at nowhere better and, believe me, that’s saying something.

A sauna and a sunset

I can’t decide if I like Broome or not. On the one hand it’s swelteringly humid and ridiculously spread out; but on the other (cocktail-holding) hand it does have some fabulous hotels – and I’m staying in one of them.

The grand dame of Broome accommodation is Cable Beach Club, a stunning resort within beachtowel swinging distance of the famous Cable Beach sands. The rooms and bungalows are dotted around what feels like a botanical gardens, all draping trees and exotic plants, and there are humpbacked wooden bridges over little lagoons to lead you from pool to spa, room to restaurant. It’s a wonderful place to spend the day and I’ve very much enjoyed taking in the last sunshine I’m likely to see for some weeks by the (adults only, hurrah) pool.

Unfortunately though, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind for my time here, nice as it is. I wanted to get to know the town better and maybe even get out into the surrounding bush but, as everyone keeps telling me, this is a bad time of year to be here. It comes as quite a shock after several weeks of high-season sunshine and busy resorts to suddenly find myself in low season, surrounded by closed up shops and restaurants and unable to join a tour because nothing is running. It’s like months have passed without my noticing. Numerous places are shut until next year, the hotels are quiet and the streets are near-deserted as everyone escapes indoors to avoid the unrelenting sauna-like heat.

So I’ve had to join them. I did venture into Chinatown where the touristy shops were open for business and the café terraces were full but now I don’t have a car it’s very difficult to get anywhere much else. I shared a taxi from the airport with a local guy who told me not to walk around alone at night and having been on the streets during the day it’s not hard to see why this is the local advice, so my evenings have been spent hotel-bound.

Fortunately this hotel has one of the town’s best restaurants, at least as far as setting is concerned. My dinner tonight was at the Sunset Grill, so-named because the terrace looks out towards Cable Beach and those famous ball-dropping sunsets. The food wasn’t the best I’ve had but the view certainly was and as I tucked into steak and local shiraz, I was able to watch the blazing sun disappear into the Indian Ocean. I may not have quite got to grips with Broome but could anywhere else have provided a better end to my Aussie adventure than that?

Snorkelling for beginners

I’ve always had what I consider to be a healthy respect for the sea. Others may call it a fear but I prefer to think of it as self-preservation. After all, why would you want to mess with something which can so easily kill you?

Just last week a British backpacker was swept out to sea on the south coast by a rip tide, never to be seen again. And yesterday the news featured a surfer who had lost her arm to a shark. Here the sea isn’t just a little bit scary, it’s bloody terrifying.

So it was with some trepidation that I arrived in Coral Bay on Friday. The coast from here north towards Exmouth is one of the few places in the world where the reef comes right up to the beach – and so snorkeling is practically compulsory. I had carried my trusty snorkel all the way from England pretty much for these next few days on Ningaloo Reef, and there was no way I wasn’t going to use it.

Thing is, there are signs everywhere (and I mean everywhere) telling you that snorkeling here is dangerous. There are offshore currents, rip tides, large waves, tiger sharks, sharp corals… I could go on. The advice from every corner is not to snorkel alone and never to attempt it if you’re not sure it’s safe. Of course I’m travelling solo and haven’t a clue about things like wave patterns and wind strength. I’m like a statistic just waiting to happen – last time I was here I freaked out my boyfriend by swimming too far out and of course, this time there was noone to stand on the beach scanning the horizon for me when I didn’t come back to shore.

But dammit, this is a sight worth a little risk to see. Ningaloo Reef is truly spectacular – miles and miles of multi-coloured ancient coral harbouring thousands of tropical fish, turtles, rays, and yep, sharks, all just a couple of minutes swim time from the sand. I saw more types of coral than I knew existed just on that first swim and spent many happy minutes mindlessly following shoals of shimmering fish around the reef. Of course every couple of minutes I’d have a little panic and stick my head up to check land was still ahoy but I’m writing this so you already know that I didn’t get eaten by a shark/taken to Indonesia by a freak wave/speared by a stingray – and it was fabulous.

The next day was even better. Cape Range national park reaches south from Exmouth, a string of jaw-dropping beaches with sand so white it almost looks like snow and water so turquoise you take your sunglasses off because you can’t believe it really is that colour. I swam at the aptly named Turquoise Bay, perhaps the most idyllic spot I’ve ever had the luck to visit and saw what felt like thousands of fish from tiny to half my size and even a sting ray. I won’t pretend my mind didn’t float straight to images of Steve Irwin but I didn’t panic this time and by the time I got back to the car several hours appeared to have passed.

Yesterday was my final day on the reef so I took a trip with Ningaloo Ecology Tours on a glass-bottomed boat so I could get further out and see the really impressive corals. And my god, but they were impressive. Huge lumps called bombies came so close to the boat I would have feared we’d hit them if it wasn’t for the self-assured skipper Alek, and we saw every tiny detail of these centuries-old living marvels. There were literally thousands of fish – striped ones, iridescent ones, electric blue ones, silver ones, all with names instantly forgotten because I was too wowed to get out my notebook.

It was amazing but even better was the snorkel we did here. All fear now gone I was one of the first in the water, battling the strengthening waves as the wind got up to swim within a couple of inches of every type of coral you can imagine and follow fish from one crevice to the next. The fish out here were bigger and the reef stretched for seemingly miles away from me in every direction. I swam until my flippers pinched and my skin shriveled but not once did I even think about those ever-present sharks. Until, that is, it came time to head back to the boat. Many of my fellow snorkelers were Aussies and, of course, they all had that typically laissez faire attitude to all things deadly. Floating just a few metres from the boat, one of them, Will, looked at me excitedly and said “wow, did you see that reef shark?” Despite the blazing sun and snorkel mask I, no doubt, went white and replied “No, where was it?” “Right underneath you mate”, he replied “it was huge”. He held his hands about four feet apart and grinned before he was off again. I like to think I acted cool, and I was actually sorry not to see it, but I also reckon not many people have climbed back on that boat quite as quickly.

On our way back to shore Alek told us what he wouldn’t elaborate on earlier – that there’s a resident tiger shark out here which is such a frequent visitor locals have named her. I couldn’t tell you what because Alek went on to tell us how it grabbed his flipper once last June and that it’s almost as long as the boat – a part of the story that had me gratefully packing my snorkel away.

This happy story occupied my mind for the journey back to the beach but just as we were about to lay anchor, Alek spotted a turtle and swung the boat around after it. Being mating season, the females are desperately hiding from the randy males at this time of year and so are much harder to spot – so this was lucky indeed. As we scanned the water for more turtle heads popping up, a vast loggerhead floated sedately underneath the boat. He was only there for a second or two but my mind was well and truly off that shark story. Well, at least until the next time I decide to go for a swim.

The best "job" in the world

Travel writers don’t get a lot of sympathy. People think all we do is swan around from one exotic location to another, pausing every so often to meet some fascinating local figure or other or possibly, just occasionally, bang away at a laptop for a while. Of course this isn’t really the case and so, in the interests of ever finding a kind ear to moan into again about the downsides, I am almost regretting writing this post before I even start.

Because I’ve just had the most amazing day and I know that if I tell the world about it my chances of ever making anyone understand that travel writing is not an easy profession may well be scuppered.

It started in Kalbarri, a dreamy little coastal town where nobody seemed to wear proper shoes and everybody appeared to be permanently in a good mood. My “hotel” was actually an apartment big enough to move into, the sun had popped back up again after its dazzling closing show the night before and I had an appointment to get to – with a pelican.

Every morning for the past 40 years the Kalbarri community has fed a bucket of fish to the local pelicans. Far bigger than any pelicans I’d seen before, these huge birds were much more graceful than you would imagine as they came gliding in to land on the grass. I got picked out to grasp a greasy fish by its tail and fling it into the pack of excitedly waiting birds, and the whole experience had a real theatre about it – the pelicans fighting over the fish with a bunch of seagulls who cheekily tried to muscle in.

I was sorry to leave Kalbarri but called in at the inland gorges on my way out of town and was confronted with scenery straight out of an “Outback experience” promotional video. The gorges are part of a wildly scenic area of dramatic red-rock formations which stretches all the way along this coast and they were spectacular – one of those sights you find yourself staring at mouth slightly open, camera hanging obsolete around your neck because you know you’ll never capture it.

From here it was – yet another – long drive. My destination for the day was Monkey Mia, about 150km off the highway in the Shark Bay world heritage area, and a five-hour drive from Kalbarri. Fortunately there’s plenty to see along the way, including a beach made up entirely of tiny compacted shells, several bays with sand so white and sea so aqua you start drifting across the road for staring at them, and the lifeform credited with putting enough oxygen into the earth’s atmosphere for us to start evolving. The stromatolites at Hamelin Bay may look just like any other collection of rocks but looking out to sea here is like looking at the earth millions of years before we were even a twinkle in its eye and it’s hard not to be a little bit moved by that.

I arrived into Monkey Mia feeling hot and tired but it’s the kind of place that makes you instantly forget about all that. Stuck out on its own on the sheltered side of the eastern Peron peninsula it’s basically just a sweeping sandy beach with a simple resort ranged along it. My room was literally beach-towel-throwing distance from the sand, with nothing to impede my view of the turquoise, almost-waveless water and the marine life within it. Before I’d even brought my suitcase in from the car I’d seen two dolphins bobbing along the shoreline – more than enough reason to see me immediately bikini-clad and heading for the water.

After a few minutes I heard a commotion just along the beach and looked up to see people with cameras pointing at the water. Despite seeing some dolphins already, I couldn’t believe that it could be anything more exciting than a fish or a seabird but I started to float towards them nonetheless. Convinced it was nothing too exciting I took my time moving along the beach until I glimpsed a telltale flash of grey – it was a dolphin they were looking at and I couldn’t believe they weren’t all in the water themselves.
Before I knew it the dolphins were just three or four metres away from me and as I stood there in the shallows two of them broke off and swam past me, one on either side. I was literally speechless (a rare thing) and just stood there gawping as a nearby family screeched with delight. Over the next few minutes we all bobbed about in the water, watching the dolphins swimming around us and chatting like old friends over our shared experience. Then we saw a turtle, a pelican landed on the water in front of us and an emu wandered along the beach behind. It was absolutely, completely amazing. And yes, it was technically part of my job.

So go ahead, tell me travel writing is more like being on holiday than having a job. Just for today, I’ll agree with you

The never-ending journey

Sometimes luxury is simply staying in one place. These past few days I’ve gone to sleep in a different bed every evening, woken to different sounds, struggled to find a differently located toilet in the middle of the night…it’s been exhausting frankly. Every day I get up, round up all my hastily flung around belongings, shove them back in my suitcase and hit the road again, off towards yet another different mattress.

But if I sound like I’m complaining, I’m not. Moving on every day means you see something different every day – and this weekend has been an extremely varied one because of it.

I left Kalgoorlie on Friday and spent hours driving past waving golden fields which held more wheat than the entire Ashes cricket team could hope to eat in a lifetime, and through the down-at-heel and downright depressing communities that have sprung up to tend to it. The fact that one was called Grass Patch might give you some idea as to the dubious highlights that pass for being attractions in these parts, and I was relieved to reach New Norcia after seven hours horizon-chasing.

Sadly this relief was short-lived. The architecture of this somewhat random monastic community is truly stunning when you compare it to the surrounding flat fields but unfortunately, though my hotel for the night looked grand from the outside, inside it was more akin to that hostel Leo stays in in The Beach. Paint was peeling off the walls, the rowdiness of the bar downstairs could be heard through the paper-thin walls and the ceiling fan whirred annoyingly and managed to be ineffective at the same time. Having been used to air con, flatscreen TVs and, well, having my own bathroom, I became instantly sulky at having to share facilities and cope without so much as a tap to call my own. The service didn’t help – it was by far the worst I’ve had here – and I went to bed with a storm cloud over my head to match those building outside.

Fortunately the next day I was heading back to the coast and, after a look around the outside of the beautiful monastic buildings accompanied by a flock of galahs, I sped off westwards towards the coast and Cervantes. This tiny crayfishing town would be nowhere near the tourist trail were it not for one, rather magical, thing: the Pinnacles, and there is an air to the town that seems to suggest they would rather not bother, thanks all the same. They may not have to for much longer in fact, thanks to the brand-new bitumen of the Indian Ocean Drive which has cut the journey time from Perth and ended the need to get anywhere near the town unless you specifically want to, but for now it’s the only place to stay if you want to view the Pinnacles at sunset – which I did.

The Pinnacles are bizarre rock formations which poke through the sand, forming a sea of columns across a vast area of sand dune. I joined Mike Newton’s Turquoise Coast Enviro Tour for a three-hour trip out to see them in the hope that this time I would understand a bit more about the natural phenomenon that caused these geological marvels. Thanks to Mike I now do, although I wouldn’t like to try and explain it without the help of numerous diagrams and possibly the internet. Suffice to say they’re amazing, and utterly unique. I was spellbound by them again and watching the sun set between them was an unforgettable experience.

From Cervantes I was heading further north up the coast but it turned out, as it so often does here, that the road was in fact miles inland and offered only more agricultural land as a backdrop to my day. Fortunately it wasn’t far to Geraldton, a suburban-feeling town which had nothing besides fine weather to offer on a Sunday afternoon. I lapped it up of course and wasn’t the least bit upset at my enforced relaxation time due to a lack of internet and open attractions to visit.

The town’s museum was open this morning so I learned all about the dangers of boarding a boat anywhere near this coast in the Shipwreck Galleries and discovered that it is here that some of the earliest evidence of life on earth leaving the water for land can be seen. It was fascinating and left me with a greater respect for Geraldton – a great museum is a rare thing after all.

My destination today was Kalbarri and this time the drive really did take in some coastal scenery – and spectacular scenery at that. The sandstone coast along here has been gradually eroded by the water and there are gorges and striated cliffs stretching for several kilometres south of the town. I popped happily on and off the highway, diving down access roads to viewpoints and short walking trails, and snapping away to try and capture the rich red, brown and ochre colours of the rock. Hopefully I succeeded enough to help me remember it.

My day ended with roast duck on the terrace of the Grass Tree restaurant while the setting sun turned the sky blazing red and gave the water a beautiful rosy glow. I may have had to drive several thousands of kilometres to get here but every last one was worth it for that and although I’m not looking forward to packing up the car – again – tomorrow morning, I am looking forward to where it will take me next.