25 Seasons of Travelling

How To: See the Eiffel Tower

lalaloh — Wed, 28 May 2014 12:52:00 GMT

HOW TO: See the Eiffel Tower

You’d think this would be an easy one, right? Hop, skip and a jump to Paris and you can see the luminous tower from almost anywhere, day or night. This is true of course, you can see it from almost every point of the city compass in Paris as it looms over parks, buildings and canals. However in my eyes there are only three perfect ways to witness one of the most talked about, man made objects of all time; The Eiffel Tower.

From the ground up is obviously the first choice but this all depends on the time of day that you decide to go, as well as the season. Crowds are always a killer, no matter rain, hail or shine so never let yourself think for a second that you’ll be alone with Miss Eiffel, it’s just not a thing. The first time I laid eyes on her, I was nine and it was pouring down with rain in the middle of autumn. It was marvellous. It was an Odyssey at the time to even see her, gutters were storming with water, I wasn’t wearing closed shoes, and the lights had been switched off for the evening eradicating any potential for a magical moment. To be honest, I didn’t care about any of that, I had only wished to see her for so long that nothing could have dampened my nine year old heart, nothing. Understandably, one might not want their first visit to The Tower to be like mine that is why I haven’t included it in my top three. What I will recommend is this; you can’t go wrong in summertime. Yes, the crowds as I have said are a killer, but the gardens are alive with May flowers and freshly mowed green grass that glistens as the surrounding fountains spray the youth of Paris with sprinkling water. It truly is iconic. Everyone is there and it feels like a bucket list moment.

If this doesn’t take your fancy then you must be a midnight type of traveller. At the age of 18 I revisited Miss Eiffel at the strike of midnight as she lit up with blue, fluorescent lights. There was still a small crowd but it was cold, a slight wind making it feel as if she could sway against the rhythm of the sparkling lights, never quite falling. I recommend laying down in the surrounding gardens, quite close to the legs of the tower, and staring straight up to the very top. It’s a feeling of having total power and powerlessness all at the same time, exhilarating and less tourist-like.

Last but not least, you go nowhere near the Eiffel at all. Stay as far away as possible in a suburb known to host another famous building, Montparnasse. There are no lines here, no queues, no busying tourists with their cameras and satchels. You climb stairs and take a short elevator ride to the top and before you is the entire cityscape of Paris, including in the distance and not too hard to see, Miss Eiffel Tower, standing proud as the sun begins to fall behind her. This was the last time I saw her, an orange haze surrounded the edges as the sky lit up slowly with stars. Why climb to the top of the Eiffel just to see the city when you can climb to the top of Montparnasse and see both? Exactly.

How To: Fall in love with Regensburg

lalaloh — Wed, 28 May 2014 12:51:00 GMT

How can I explain a place in order to do it justice in your imagination? How? Instead of explaining perhaps I will share a story with you because in truth you can walk so sweetly through the streets of Regensburg that all your cares and worries suddenly evaporate and instead you find yourself floating carelessly through the narrow alleyways lined with nooks and crannies, shops of all varieties and the unique scent of Bougainvillea’s creeping up the stonewalls that you begin to simply wonder, “Shall I get an Ice cream?” This, I believe, is what is worth telling and is what travelling is all about.

Regensburg, a city in Bavaria, Germany has one of the most beautiful trees I have ever had the privilege of seeing. It was laced with tiny, white and fluffy flowers that simultaneously danced around the tree every time it was struck by the rustling summer wind. These flowers never seemed to reach the ground and the tree never looked thinner or gaunter once the flowers had flown into the air, never to return. The grass was superably green, tinged with burnt sunlit tips and sparkled in the sunshine as University students sprawled themselves across the lawns, talking, laughing and enjoying the Summer air.

Patches of four leaf clovers were scattered around the underpass of the bridge as the grass stretched out all around and the river flowed slowly and beautifully passed. It barely made a sound as the tourists stood on the bridge snapping photos of passing boats with the glistening water that lapped upwards towards their lenses. Then there was a boy. So quiet and hidden under the entanglement of the tree, reading with his legs sprawled in front of him as he used the trunk for support. He was so immersed in what he was reading he couldn’t see the floating summer snow of flowers that cascaded onto his hair, his face, and the tip of his nose. Was he German or someone familiar with the magic of his surroundings that he had lost interest? But how could you possibly? The thought seemed incredulous, to somehow forget that all around you was another world, one I surely had never seen before and never wanted my eyes to be blind to.

I walked over to the edge of the tree, my feet barely making a sound. My hair was in a long braid resting lightly on my right shoulder almost covered entirely in sweat, heat and white summer snow. I wore a light blue cotton dress, plain and perfect and carried my white backpack slung over my arm. I sat with my feet dangling into the canal, glistening against the sunlight every time they came up for air, instantly cooling down my temperature and encasing my heart in supreme happiness.

At the end of the day, in a city like Regensburg, moments like this is all you need to justify the meaning of life, it’s the transcendence of an endless summer, and its what travelling is all about. The city is like an infinite poem of Germanic tradition, stone bridges, flowing wine, jazz festivals and hidden secrets. The best way I can enable you to imagine Regensburg without having been there is this; stick out your arms to the side, find a point in the sky and spin and spin and spin. You might feel dizzy once you stop but that my friend is what love is. That is Regensburg.

Vietnam at Eleven

lalaloh — Wed, 28 May 2014 12:49:00 GMT

Vietnam at Eleven
Lauren Hall

And then I understood what travelling truly meant. It is the endless pursuit of understanding what makes the world turn and turn. It is the knowledge that there is more to see, hear, taste and feel than what is in your own backyard. It is the eventual and perpetual realisation that there are multitudes of cultures on this earth that are a privilege to see with your own eyes and Vietnam, to this day, has been my paramour of countries.

I don’t know if it’s their patent hats or the coloured lanterns that light up Hoi An all year round. It could be the fresh air of Dabar or the clearest waters of Natrang that elate my heart. It could simply be the memory of speeding through the streets on a tiny motorbike at midnight that sugar-coats my memory but all I know is that it is everything about that country that makes it a superb choice of location for all travellers.

By the time I was eleven, I had already had the pleasure of experiencing the North African cultures of Morocco and Tunisia that in my mind, I thought Vietnam would be no different. I was naïve and riding on an inflated ego by the time we arrived in Ho Chi Mihn City where the fumes, smog, stunted traffic and a compactness all reflected a culture completely unique to anything I had seen before. It may seem that I repeat that last statement whenever I speak of past adventures but in truth, it has never stopped being true and let me take a moment to be thankful for that. I thought myself a seasoned traveller and Vietnam reminded me that I had only seen the smallest portion of what the world still had to offer me.

Ho Chi Mihn taught me many things. The first and most important was that Asian cuisine was nothing compared to what it was in this city and it ran circles around any restaurant in Sydney. Aromas of all sorts would fill the street morning, noon and night. Whether it was a restaurant, a street vendor or a formulation of chairs around a man with a stove, the food was out of this world. One morning, my parents and I decided to discover the secrets behind this city, this countries, infamous cuisine and we ventured down to the Floating Market. If anyone reading this has ever seen a Floating Market before then you can understand how my eleven-year-old mind might have reacted to the scene. I had experienced markets before, the ones of Morocco and Tunisia are not for the faint hearted but Ho Chi Minh’s floating market is where I return to in my mind right before falling asleep every night. It is tranquil and hectic all at the same time. Hundreds of canoes line the waters in rows, filled with spices, fish, flowers, meat, wheat, eyeballs, animals, you name it and its there! No one really yells, no one fights for business; they all just sit there wearing their hats, talking amongst eachother and handing out treats and tasters to travellers who float through the watered aisles. It is what I imagine the embodiment of serenity to be.

Ho Chi Mihn is not unlike many other “cosmopolitan” cities. It is constantly in motion, buzzing with energy from day to day with many sites to see. For example, you can take your eleven-year-old daughter, who has never seen a dead body in her life before, to see Ho Chi Mihn himself, the man the city’s capitol is now named after. He is encased in a glass tomb that floats above nothingness and silence is not only requested, it is mandatory. Nothingness is also what I should have had in my stomach that morning but ill leave that tale for another time. Perhaps in fact, ill let my parents tell that story as punishment for their misguided judgement.

On the opposite side of the spectrum is a city known as Hoi An. It is famous for its lanterns and you will understand why when you get there. They line every corner of every street and riverbank throughout the city. They come in different sizes, shapes and colours but they are all quintessentially Vietnamese with their tassels and symbols. On that trip I must have spent all my pocket money on lanterns. They would encase you in their glow, swaying against each other in the early dusk light and capturing the magic of the country each time the moon came out.

Hoi An is also famous for tailoring clothes, another novelty an eleven year old wouldn’t pass up. However, it’s always the lanterns that first come to my mind. Even after countless trips back to Vietnam it’s always been those lanterns, shining bright and bold with the slight scent of spring rolls made fresh at the Floating Market to accompany them in their beauty.

I could speak to you for a lifetime on how I feel about Vietnam. I could tell you I’ve never seen water as clear or as blue as I have in Natrang, nor have I had the privilege of snorkelling those waters since that first visit. I could tell you how I truly felt like a fish in that water and how, unlike my mother, I was a natural underneath the waves. I could explain how years later, I formed friendships in Hanoi that haven’t been broken since or how an overnight bus ride can really form a solid appreciation for personal space. As I said, I could speak to you for a lifetime but I wont because all I ask of you is to experience it for yourself. For in my mind, it is a country that is still the perfect embodiment of the last frontier, at least for now. If it can be loved by another as much as I have enjoyed loving it, then my eleven-year-old self would be proud and that’s all I can ask for.

Tunisia at Ten

lalaloh — Wed, 28 May 2014 12:48:00 GMT

Tunisia at Ten
Lauren Hall

A year after I had journeyed successfully through Morocco with my parents, my father decided that my travelling education should no longer be overlooked and so he began preparing, planning and prioritizing a two week long adventure in a little country in North Africa known as Tunisia. Travelling here at the age of ten was even more unusual to me than Morocco had been at the age of nine. I struggled for a very long time to even pronounce the name (something I may have only learnt recently but we won’t say that out loud) and was unsure of how to explain the holiday to my fellow year five classmates who were used to hearing names like Italy and England.

This trip ended up being one of the most memorable of my life and that wasn’t just due to all members of my family being violently ill at some point of the holiday. Sidi Bou Said is considered to be amongst the most picturesque villages in Tunisia and they’re not lying. The town is a smaller version of the entirety of Greece with its whitewashed walls and blue doorways all of which are endlessly covered in jasmine bushes and Bougainvilleas. Blue is everywhere as if it’s the only colour they know. A peacock blue, lit up in the daytime by the sun of summer and a glorified hue of mystery in the evening as it protects their ancient doors from the secrets within. It was an oasis in a country that up until that point had been too unfamiliar for me to enjoy. The country was harsh and strange and ultimately it had been a refresher course in where not to take a ten year old if you wanted an enjoyable trip through unknown lands.

Sidi Bou Said, fortunately for my parents, changed this mentality. As we walked through the streets lined with carpets and crafts we stumbled into the medieval marina that sparkled with aquamarine water and had hundreds of merchant boats floating against the lapping ocean. It was like a painting, it didn’t seem real. It felt like those mirages that I had been warned about before leaving Sydney. “It’s never what you think it is Lauren,” but this was, this most certainly was! Bustling with vendors, restaurants and palm trees, the sails of the boats rested against the overbearing Mount Bou Kornine in the distance and seemed to multiply when you weren’t looking. It was glorious and I never wanted to leave.

But something did make me leave, a love of Star Wars. Matmata, in Tunisia is host to one of the infamous scenes in the original Star Wars films. Troglodytes live here, they are also know more commonly as Tunisian cave people who live in houses that are vertically dug into the ground and are usually 3-4 stories deep. Each of the nuggets of houses are complete with doors, rooms and staircases but have no windows. As you may imagine if you are a fan of the original trilogy, my little ten-year-old brain went into overdrive and I proceeded to run up and down the stone steps into each of the houses, yelling (spoiler alert for those who haven’t lived) “Luke I am your father!” Becoming increasingly breathless and with my heart pounding, I wandered around the abandoned set, with my father, looking at the inscriptions that fans had etched into the ancient walls of the years. I too wanted to make my mark but my father being a man of respect refused to let me graffiti my unknown name into a site that, in his eyes, should have been heritage listed. It was stupendously glorious and upon my return home, this was the first detail of my trip that was bragged about for weeks and if I’m being honest, is still to this day.

A journey that started off as increasingly difficult and tiring became a golden memory of mine and to this day, whenever I think of Tunisia, feelings of elation come to surface mixed with beautiful images of palm trees, blue doors and Lightsabers.

Morocco at Nine

lalaloh — Wed, 28 May 2014 12:23:00 GMT

Morocco at Nine

Lauren Hall

Throughout the years i've realised the importance of age when it comes to the existential analysis of traveling. When I was nine my parents took me overseas for the first time and the tune of the travel corresponded nicely with the age that I had turned. I’ve realised since first stepping foot in the city of Marrakesh that although a country may be beautiful, it evades the regular knowledge of what a nine year old knows of the world, therefore this experience was unlike anything that I had ever witnessed before and is the clearest in my memory of any other country that I’ve had the pleasure of visiting since.

When I was much older than nine, I soon met a young girl who’s first travelling experience involved eating too much blue cheese, visiting “the place the hunchback of Notre-something was from” and buying berets in all sorts of sizes and colours. When I walked into the chaos of the morning market in Marrakesh at 9am with smoke rising from all corners, snake bearers twisting a whistle, girls grabbing my arm to henna, the smell of eternal incense and the always overbearing sound of people cheering, yelling and screaming for attention, I realised that the world was a much bigger place then the nine square metre radius that had previously been my life.

But what an adventure! The ground everywhere in Morocco is tangerine and dusty. I remember lines of palm trees along the expansions of roads that we would chase mirages along and my parents trying to understand Arabic radio stations, searching for media commentary or a familiar tune. Bazaars in every city were filled with leather, spices, glittered fabrics and coloured glass. Tanneries in Fes are the clearest in my memory because this market hasn’t changed since its inception in medieval times. We had a tour guide at the time that led us through a leather shop to get to the Tanneries. It was filled to the brim with handbags, jackets and slippers. My mother, in her brilliant hind-site had bought fresh mint from the markets outside our hotel that morning and thankfully as when you visit the Tanneries, the animal hides have a scent that is not pleasant to smell and the pigeon poop they're treated in doesn't help.

Blue. That’s the colour of the streets in Chefchaouen, endless sky blue. From these streets to the Jardine Marjorelle with its psychedelic desert mirage and thousands of flowers and plants, my journey through Morocco was an enchanting experience. One that I would recommend to the rest of the world or even just another nine year old.