I AM perched beachside on the island of Bali, ice-cold Bintang beer to my right, snatching deep, soul-satisfying breaths. I detect the salty smell of the ocean, a fragrant curry being cooked somewhere behind me and the heady scent of clove cigarettes wafting in my direction. I am an avid anti-smoker (I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life) but there’s something about those clove sticks which remind me of apple pie and exotic Asian holidays. I spend an entire hour sitting behind the smoker, passively inhaling the start of my break, which affords me the rare luxury to slow down, and in the end, become blissfully bored.
The next day I’ll board a boat to Nusa Lembongan, an island 30 minutes off of Bali, and battle the cloying humidity and general chaos. But none of this bothers me. I have my bag, a book and time. Two weeks in fact, to not be troubled by the constraints of the clock, or others. I quickly learn the phrase for no worries, sing engken, and will use it often in the next fortnight. I have absolutely no worries in the world. Travelling alone, I take the time to learn a few more useful Indonesian phrases. I want to connect with the world around me, not just hurtle like a hurricane through it. I become adept at the usual greetings, and then move on to the weather. I spend long, lazy days discussing the fact it’s hot panas and there has been no rain ada ida hujan. I become proficient at asking for a table for one satu and in my wildest fantasies, which I have plenty of time to indulge, I imagine I am quite the conversationalist.
On my first week, I have established myself in a traditional thatched roof hut on the quiet side of the island. I float down the steep timber staircase each morning to banana pancakes and pungent, muddy Balinese kopi for breakfast. It’s a small, family-run resort of just eight huts and slowly, I learn to know these Indonesians who delight in my curiosity. I cuddle new baby Made and swim with her cheeky brother Gede, who is five and mischievous. I tease Grandma who scales the coconut tree with a machete. “You’re a wild woman,” I say in English. She may not understand every word, but she gets the intonation and laughs and waves at me. The hard-working Wayan takes the time to teach me even more words. I punctuate reading chapters of my book with dips in the pool in the mornings. By lunchtime, I walk two minutes down a goat track beside the beach to a café on a cliff which captures the best breezes. I eat satay sticks and sip a cold brew while watching a sassy storm grumble on the horizon. The storms will knock out the electricity most days for an hour, during which I’ll sit on the stairs of my hut and watch big, fat raindrops fall on the frangipani leaves. By late afternoon, I amble through the village to a yoga sala I’ve discovered where we’ll stretch and meditate to the sound of a mooing cow in the paddock next door.
By early evening, I’ll shower in my outdoor bathroom before I’m back at my cliffside café, in time for cocktail hour. It’s all margheritas and merriment as I watch the last rays concede the day. I’ll clamber down from my perch when it’s finally cool enough, to one of the restaurants by the beach before I pluck my way in the dark back along the beachside track to my hut. I scale the staircase and climb into my bed, tuck the mosquito net around me, and redolent of childhood holidays, read by torchlight. I sleep solidly, for nine glorious hours every night, to the sound of the ocean smashing against the cliff, only to be awoken by the crow of a rooster. On days when it’s cooler, I’ll wander down potholed roads not caring where they’ll lead. I follow swirls of incense into temples. Cuddle more plump Balinese babies.
On my second week, I move to the more active part of the island and into another traditional Indonesian hut. I have a discussion with a young German tourist who is grappling with the notion of being blissfully bored. “We have no word for surrender in the German language,” she says, without irony. I advise her to go with the flow. That at first, I too found it difficult. But necessary. I rifle through pre-loved books at my resort, looking for a new tome to read into the night. There’s so few English books here, and I resort to reading trash I’d never consider at home. It’s delightfully decadent. I’m so blissfully bored, I even have time to indulge being sick when I am struck down by the inevitable Bali Belly. For once, with no meetings, no pressing deadlines, no travel, I can acquiesce to the illness and lay in bed all day. When I’m well enough again, I snorkel with strangers in the warm waters which produce similar corals and tropical fish to those at home. I fight strong currents to avoid being smashed against the rocks, chat with foreigners. I walk for miles and hire a kayak to paddle the mangrove forest. I learn the salacious saying for just walking, Jalan Jalan, and use it often when I’m approached for transport. It’s indulgent to use my legs for once. I stop and smell frangipani flowers. Observe the neapolitan swirls of clouds at sunset.
At dinner, I become the ardent observer. The German family on their phones, not connecting. The Swedish couple with their two little kids, sipping Rose wine, the sexy wife displaying not only her entire leg but her underwear as well. I giggle to myself. Sink my feet into the sand and truly ground myself. I sweat profusely, toxins exploding from every pore and better than any expensive facial I would receive back home. A young boy who sells jewellery at the beach every day grows accustomed to my presence. Shares a joke with me by pointing at my flip flops, and then his. We are both wearing the same gold-embossed havianas. We look at our shoes, and then into each other’s eyes, and burst out laughing. A rare, shared moment between two divergent cultures. I am blissfully bored. And I adore it all.
The Global Goddess funded her own holiday to Bali and loved every minute, Bali Belly and all. She stayed at Lotus Garden Huts at Mushroom Bay Beach, and Sukanusa Luxury Huts at Jungut Batu
Category: dating
A Collection of Camping Catastrophes
IT’S one week before summer officially strikes in Australia and I am sitting in my air-conditioned office, ruminating on the impending warmer weather and the sticky issue of camping. Apparently, people like to camp (and if you look at any Brisbane dating site, they not only like to camp, but 4WD, fish and go piggin’ as well). Me, not so much, but given the right circumstances, I’ll give it a red, hot shot. (The camping, not the piggin’). And by right circumstances, I mean a glamping tent with air-conditioning, bar fridge and, easy access to a toilet (preferably an ensuite). All of which I enjoyed a few weeks ago when I previewed Australia’s newest glamping product Hideaway at Cabarita Beach in northern New South Wales. Ensconced in my gorgeous, generous bell tent under a plump, crisp, linen doona, it felt like I was born for this camping caper. Until I remembered I am not.
It’s tricky to pick my worst camping adventure. There’s been quite a few. So let’s narrow it done to the coldest and the hottest. A few years back I was invited to cover the Mount Isa Rodeo, where, among other things, I interviewed the female boxer Beaver whose reputation for beating up blokes in the ring was legendary. Despite her size and status, Beaver turned out to be a gentle giant and she even made me a cup of tea. As much as I like to suffer for my art, I declined the offer to fight her later that night in the ring, as I value keeping my ribs intact. Had I actually fought Beaver, I may have spent the night in the cosy comfort of the Mount Isa Hospital, as opposed to the glamping in which I was staying.
Mount Isa in winter, like much of the Queensland Outback, is a curious beast. It’s hot during the day, and then plummets to freezing once the sun sets. But I came prepared, packing my hot water bottle Kevin 07 (who I named after former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s 2007 campaign). Or so I thought. The glamping was set up within a mining camp, those hot, horny miners happily tucked away in heated dongas. My tent, was, inexplicably, down by the creek, where the temperature dropped to one degree. I’d come home from my rodeo reporting, covered in dust, hand Kevin 07 to the camp’s toothless security guard with instructions to boil a kettle to fill Kevin’s guts, while I limped to the showers. The fact the showers had no doors, and the hot, horny miners were in the cubicle next to me, should not be lost on this story. And had I known just how cold it was going to get at night in my tent, I would have worked that fact a little harder. But alas, I rubbed and scrubbed only myself and then returned to collect Kevin.
It was so cold in that tent, that the cheap polyester blankets they’d given me would shoot off green sparks in the dark. But worse was when I realised that all of the water I had drunk throughout the hot day to stay hydrated, decided it was time to work its way through my kidneys at night. Years later, while travelling through Morocco with an Australian doctor, I learned that while our other organs slow down significantly at night to rest and repair, it’s when we go to sleep that our kidneys go into overdrive. Hence the reason you may need to pee during the night. Who knew?
It was way too cold, and too far, to drag myself to the toilet block, so I decided to improvise. With a tiny Tupperware container in which I had been carrying some sultanas for snacks. There I was, congratulating myself on my genital genius until I felt something wet and cold, on the only socks I had to keep me warm. I looked down in horror and realised I had peed on my foot. I tossed my warm urine and my wet sock outside the tent, and went to bed miserable. By this time Kevin was cold, I was cranky and even worse, I knew I had to repeat this camping caper all over again the next night.
My hottest camping episode, and I mean this in several senses of the word, was a few years back, when I went to the summer Woodford Festival on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. This time I was in Tent City, in a media tent, which was just like every other tent, and again, there was no ensuite. On this occasion it was as hot as hell. And I did what any journalist covering this event would do, and drank as much beer as possible to keep all jolly and hydrated. I was even congratulating myself on how well I had done not going to the bathroom all day when again, I lay down later that night to go to sleep, when my kidneys went into overdrive.
Luckily, I remembered I had again packed a small Tupperware container with sultanas in the car, which I promptly emptied and carried back to my tent as my makeshift toilet. Which I proceeded to use over and over and over again as my kidneys decided to process the equivalent of a carton of beer on this hot evening. Again, I missed as I pissed, but there were no socks involved this time, it was too warm. So warm, in fact, I slept with the tent flaps open. Which would have been fine, had I not awoken the next morning to a tent which reeked of stale pee and a curious line of festival goers walking past my tent, gaping as they went. I looked down, only to discover that during my wild night, my left breast had escaped my singlet and there I was, arms akimbo, my bosom on display for the entire festival to see.
I packed up rapidly that morning. Headed back to Brisbane and vowed I needed a new tactic should I ever tackle camping again. And should you ever feel the need to go camping with me, if I ever offer you a sultana in a Tupperware container, you’ve been sufficiently warned.
Flight Review: Air Asia Brisbane to Bangkok
JUST like a dish you’d create in a Thai cooking class, travelling on the new Brisbane to Bangkok Air Asia route is a blend of the five ingredients essential to this nation’s cuisine: sweet, spicy, salty, sour and bitter. Last week I flew this new route, which was launched mid year, to Thailand. I hadn’t travelled with Air Asia for a decade, more by default, than design, the majority of its direct flights previously operating out of the Gold Coast rather than the Queensland capital. As a Brisbane resident, who has seen airlines soar and plummet out of BNE over the years, I really wanted to like this airline. It was like going on a first date, where you’re secretly willing it to work. But, unfortunately, it fell short of the mark.
The Sweet
Check-in at Brisbane International Airport is prompt, polite and professional. On board, the all-Thai staff greet me in Thai, their hands poised in prayer position. Even better, I have an entire row to myself for this nine-hour direct leg. On both legs the Thai crew are super vigilant about safety, on take-off and landing walking through the cabin and checking and triple checking every safety detail such as fastened seat belts.
The Spicy
The cost of this return flight is extremely competitive, coming in at around $500 which is about half that of a full-service carrier. For an additional $400 from Brisbane you can upgrade to a Premium seat which reclines into a flat bed. For those who don’t want to pay the extra $400, but want peace and quiet in economy, there’s also a Quiet Zone towards the front of the plane, which costs an extra $15 and is well worth it.
The Salty
The word “salty” has crept into the Australian vernacular as a term you used when you are annoyed. On this flight this emotion arose from time-to-time. Inexplicably, on the day flight out of Brisbane, crew in the Quiet Zone insist that every passenger close their window shades for the entire flight, so that the cabin is plunged into darkness for nine hours. Even more bizarrely, on the midnight flight home, there is no such insistence, so several hours after take-off, once the sun starts rising in the southern hemisphere, the cabin is flooded with light as you try to sleep. More annoyingly, despite it being deemed a Quiet Zone, the crew did nothing to police the noise of the rowdy boys in the last row of the cabin who decided to share their entertainment device…without headphones. Speaking of entertainment devices, despite this airline being up and running for months now, there are still no devices, nor an entertainment App you can download on this route. I was advised to “bring a good book”.
The Sour
An airline which makes its money from extras such as food and drinks but rapidly runs out of both? Unbelievable. There were only two drink and food runs on this nine-hour flight and while you can pre-book meals, many people don’t. By the second run they were out of white wine plus numerous other meals including their signature hamburger dish they tout on the front of their menu. An ordinary-tasting Australian wine on this route costs $12. There are, strangely, no breakfast items on the menu and so, at 9am Brisbane time (6am local time) I am served a meal of roast chicken in black pepper sauce. Except it looks nothing like that which is presented on the menu. And no, you don’t get real cutlery as the photo suggests either.
Roast chicken in black pepper sauce, according to the menu
Roast chicken in black pepper sauce, the reality
The Bitter
I am not an entitled passenger who moves seats without seeking permission from the cabin crew first. On this flight, there were copious rows available in the Quiet Zone for the midnight flight home, so I asked a member of the crew before take-off whether I could move specifically to the back row. She said yes. We took off, the seat belt sign went off, I put on my eye mask, covered myself with my cashmere wrap and proceeded to snatch some much-needed sleep after this work trip. A few minutes later I was being shaken awake by a member of the cabin crew. She told me this was now a “crew rest” area and I needed to move. She accused me of not asking permission to move to this seat. I assured her I had. She left, and was replaced by a second, and then third member of the cabin crew, who all tried to tell me this seat was now reserved for crew rest. Finally, the crew member who originally told me I could have the seat arrived. She admitted she had “made a mistake”. Eventually she acquiesced and told me I could keep the seat. A colleague travelling in the same cabin commented that the crew took out another three entire rows for “rest” but barely used them. When I awoke in the morning I noticed the tray tables were filthy. So filthy I wondered whether this was dirt that was actually a stain which couldn’t be removed. I tested the dirt with my make-up remover wipes. It was easily removed.
The Verdict
Brisbane travellers who are solely price driven may wish to consider this airline but take your own food, entertainment and some antibacterial wipes to clean the seat. For those flyers who want more Bangkok for their buck, this may not be the airline for you.
The Global Goddess travelled as a guest of Air Asia http://www.airasia.com She made several attempts to source basic information from the airline for this review but received no response.
War and Peace
Between 1991 and 1995, while the Serbian-Croatian war raged, I was a young journalist, cutting my teeth in newsrooms on the Gold Coast, Hong Kong and London. Watching the nightly news of bombings in Dubrovnik and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, it was a conflict in a place far away, somewhere with which I could not connect and would never likely visit. Next year marks 25 years since the war in former Yugoslavia ended. Last week, on a trip to Croatia, I fell in love with this country and its people, many the same age of me, who have endured so much.
I AM flying from Zagreb to Dubrovnik, soaring above the dazzling Croatian coastline, whose aqua waters don’t even wear a wrinkle on this diamond day. It’s high summer when I land in Europe and my driver weaves around the Adriatic Sea, past cosy coves and quaint villas with their red-tiled roofs, rebuilt after Serbia bombed Croatia. I drag my plump suitcase into Dubrovnik’s Old Town, along polished sandstone streets, pushing past the throngs of tourists in their floaty summer frocks that they will wear to a fashionably late European dinner. There’s no rush in summer in Croatia, where the sun rises around 5am and plunges into the ocean about 8pm.
From my third-floor loft apartment in a 600-year-old building smack bang in the Old Town, I slip straight into summer in Europe with its long, lazy evenings. By early evening I sit on a shady terrace overlooking the Adriatic Sea while I feast on a salty seafood risotto and clutch a crisp, local beer. The outside air temperature is 32 degrees, the water temperature is 26 degrees and the ice-cream is melting along with the tourists. Later, as I drift off to sleep, I’ll hear laughter bouncing around the walls of this seventh century city.
I rise, glide down the steep, timber stairs of my attic apartment with its sloping ceilings. It smells of fresh pine and reminds me of my family in Germany and this is the Europe I adore. I climb a set of steep, cobbled stairs for breakfast, dining on a Dalmatia, or omelette with pungent Gardana cheese and parma ham. I wash down a buttery croissant with a strong coffee. Locals mistake me, a woman on her own who has slipped so effortlessly into this magical morning, as a Croatian and speak to me in the local dialect. I simply smile, nod my head and say “da, da”. Sated, I wander the old, stone walkways which sing to my soul.
It’s been more than a decade since I’ve visited Dubrovnik, another woman in another life, and one magical moment remains etched in my memory, a story my spirit has souvenired for years. Way back then I was walking the Old Town when a sudden summer storm struck. At that point, the store owner threw up her hands, snatched a bottle of grappa from the shelf and insisted I sip and sit out the fury. On that day, so many moons, travels and personal lifetimes ago, I bought a hand-painted egg and it has hung on my bathroom door since.
Last week, just when I’m about to surrender on ever finding this shop again, I stumble upon it by chance, as I’m about to depart the sanctuary of the city walls. I recognise the owner, more than a decade older, and remind her of this day. She smiles and say “Would you like a grappa now?” and we laugh, and sip a home-made rose water grappa. It’s 10am. She tells me this grappa is not for tourists, but for friends, and that I should not leave it another 10 years before I visit again.
I skip out of her store smiling like a fool. These are the reasons we travel. To connect with the world. For a brief moment, to remind ourselves what it is to be human. And the Croatians know what that means more than most. I join Cruise Croatia for my eight-day boat journey from Dubrovnik to Split and meet Nikoleta, my Cruise Manager. She tells me she’s 42. I do the mental maths. At just six years younger than me, she was a teenager when the Serbs invaded her homeland of Bosnia in 1992. I’m intrigued. How could a woman so like me, modern, passionate, direct and open, have survived so much?
“The war didn’t start straight away but you could feel something was going on. There was some weird energy,” she says as we sit on the back of the boat one sunny afternoon.
“My father came and collected us from school and said ‘I want you and your mother and sister to go away for 15 days to Vienna’.
“On the bus journey, a soldier got on the bus and asked if there were any Bosnian-Serbs on the bus and if there were, he would slit their throat. My mother was a Bosnian-Serb. I looked at my mother and a woman next to her said ‘no, there are no Bosnian Serbs on this bus’.
“Two hours after we left Bosnia, they started bombing. With a bag packed for 15 days we stayed away 5 years, leaving Vienna and coming to Croatia.
“My dad stayed in Bosnia to protect the property we had. He was a truck driver driving humanitarian aid from Croatia to Bosnia. It was very dangerous.”
Nikoleta says when they arrived in Croatia after Vienna “everything was different.”
“You always expect the worst things and you found them. There were many refugees from Bosnia,” she says.
“People had no money. You are getting humanitarian aid from all over the world and some are getting rich and some are getting poor. It was a very tense time.
“My mother, she was amazing, she would get canned food but she didn’t want her children to eat bad food. She would go to the local markets and trade the canned food for local products such as milk and cheese.
“Everyone was trying to survive. Everything was destroyed. We never entirely recovered.”
Nikoleta made a return visit to Bosnia but said she cried every day.
She applied to study economics in Austria and stayed for 12 years. Now, for the past 17 years, she has been a tour guide in Croatia, living on the beautiful island of Korcula.
“I lived my life to the fullest. I lived in Switzerland, married a Nigerian man but I got tired of moving around,” she says.
“I thought I should go back home but I went to the Croatian island of Korcula as Bosnia still didn’t recover.
“My husband came with me but his priority was money so we separated.”
Despite the huge changes in her life, she remains optimistic.
“Either you are satisfied with your soul or you are not. I decided to stay in Croatia because the quality of life is really good here,” she says.
“I often hear young people talking about the war and they have extreme ideas and I ask them ‘how old are you? Have you seen that?
“My life taught me there is never reason enough to fight a war.”
I am trying to wrap my mind around our different lives, despite our close ages. I tell Nikoleta that when I was a teenager, I was listening to Whitney Houston and trying on lipstick. That what happened to her was not fair.
“I was doing that too. But I was also worried about being hungry. And whether my father was alive in Bosnia,” she says.
“These days I take life as it comes. If I sit down and think I would have many reasons to cry. It definitely affected my life and destroyed it in some way.
“But I am never looking back and thinking.”
It’s time to wrap up the interview and we both look at each other, knowing that something has shifted in both of us. Two similar women from two separate worlds. More than a week later, as I sit back in Australia writing this, her words, her directness, still swirl around in my head as I try to make sense of it all. When Croatians speak, it’s a shouty jumble of consonants, like they are screaming at each other in rapid gun fire. And in many ways they are. But underneath this facade, they hide huge hearts. In their history, they’ve only ever known 45 years of peace and that was between World War Two and the Serbian-Croatian war. Next year marks 25 years since their last conflict. May these gentle, generous souls finally know peace.
The Global Goddess travelled with Cruise Croatia, Australia’s leading dedicated Croatia small ship cruising operator – http://www.cruise-croatia.com.au
STAY
Before the cruise, stay in Dubrovnik’s Old Town at Apartments More Dubrovnik. These charming apartments, smack bang in the ancient city, are 600 years old and are central to all of the key tourist spots.
http://apartments-more.net
After the cruise, fly directly from Zagreb, via Dubai, to Australia. Stay in the Croatian capital’s gorgeous Esplanade Zagreb Hotel, which dates back to 1925. https://www.esplanade.hr
PLAY
The cruise ends in Split. Take a day tour with Portal Split to Croatia’s stunning lake’s district to Plitvice Lakes, ending in Zagreb https://split-excursions.com
Only The Lonely
Everybody hurts, sometimes. REM
A BITING, bitter Brisbane wind is howling outside and I am inside, howling too. I’d love to say I have a case of the winter blues, but if only it were that easy. I am back home after a hectic six months of travel and I am struggling to earth myself, drop anchor. When you are out in the world, living the frenetic life of a travel writer, hunting and gathering the stories of others, it’s all too convenient to forget your own story. And that story is loneliness.
One in four Australians now live alone and despite having greater electronic connectivity than ever before, we are less connected. A recent article in the Guardian online, penned by Penelope Blackmore, examines the latest casualty of our disconnected world. In the United States, Uber has just launched a new service in which you can now request that you are not disturbed during your ride by the driver speaking with you. That’s right, cordial chit chat has just flown out the window.
In her piece, Blackmore argues that we can outsource almost every “irritation” in our lives, but we can’t outsource loneliness.
“Studies have shown that regular interactions with weak ties, or acquaintances, can drastically improve your mental health and feelings of connectedness,” she writes.
“So while we might think there’s no point waiting around at our local coffee shop when you can pre-order your flat white on an app, studies prove us wrong.
“Baristas, cashiers, yoga teachers – these are all people that might recognise you, and people that are worth talking to, even if it’s just a quick nod of the head.”
Baristas, cashiers, yoga teachers…her words resonate with me on this particular day, when the black dog of loneliness (or is that 10 cats for a single woman?) is nipping at my heels, poking and prodding at me with thoughts that I’m worthless, unlovable, all alone in the world. I’ve had a long, dark night of the soul that seems to affect writers who care about their words, and the world. Some days you wonder if you’re making any difference, on others, you doubt your basic ability to write. And then you panic. Because without your words, what are you? I have awoken on this particular morning in this precise frame of mind. So I force myself to return to my yoga studio that I’ve been neglecting for the past 18 months. Due in part to travel and part to laziness. I walk into the studio, tell the yoga teacher that “something” told me I needed to come back, and then burst into tears. “I need to release today, so please ignore me” I say. She understands, and tells me to simply resort to child’s pose at any point during the class. I make it through the class, noting how badly my balance is off, and leave in tears.
Around the corner, I pause at the second hand book store run by Lifeline volunteers. I say hello to the elderly gentleman behind the counter, and he greets me with a hearty hello back. I linger around the travel biographies section, my favourite genre, and see if any juicy new old books have arrived. On this chilly, crappy day, I want to escape into the arms of another writer, live vicariously through their travels, while I collapse on the couch. I should be writing words myself, but I’ll tell myself that this is research. Even better, the biographies are half priced and with their wizened, yellow pages, they smell so good. Of wild adventures, love, loss and ultimately triumph.
The next destination in my world which has shrunk considerably for now is the local coffee shop. Simon, the owner, sees more of me during winter, when I can finally bask in the winter sunshine after a long, hot summer. I am wearing sunglasses to hide my red eyes. I ask for a hot chocolate but then realise the Eftpos machine is out of order and I don’t have any cash on my person. Simon senses I need this hot chocolate, and simply says “no worries, fix me up next time.” I sit in the sun and fat, salty tears are streaming down my face. Anyone noticing me on this wild and windy day will think my eyes are running from the weather. I clutch my hot chocolate and nudge the karma fairy in Simon’s direction. If only he knew how much this cuppa means today.
Back home on this day, like the wind which is making my windows and bones rattle, I can’t stop howling. I try, but it doesn’t work. So I acquiesce to the sadness. Sometimes life’s answers are held in the pauses between the next breath. The next big adventure. Sometimes they aren’t. I have no answers today. I have friends scattered around the world, and in my hometown of Brisbane, yet I yearn to belong. I crave the next great love affair of my life. On a marvellous night, I want a moon dance. I search for a constant community with which I can connect, not merely dip in and out sporadically.
People think the life of a travel writer is one of pure glamour. And for 10, maybe 20 per cent of the time, this is true. But for the rest, it’s bloody, hard work. One of constant pitching stories and rejections. God, the rejections. Readers will stalk you from around the world to tell you that your story sucks. You spend an enormous amount of time chasing unpaid invoices, juggling Peter to pay Paul, wondering why it is so hard for publishers to pay you what is rightly yours. And for writers such as myself, it can be a lonely life on your own, out on the road. But you keep going, driven by a love of the written word, and the desire to understand the world. I know what a great privilege I have been afforded.
Blackmore sums up loneliness in her excellent article.
“Instead of plugging in your AirPods and listening to a podcast on how to better connect with your loved ones, or how to market your startup, or how to be as productive as humanly possible, try something new,” she says.
“Make small talk, make eye contact. Perhaps give a non-creepy smile to someone that looks like they need it.
“Walk to the train station without distraction, taking in the smells and sounds of your town. And for goodness sake, have a chat to your Uber driver. You never know, you might even enjoy it.”
Even the Pope has weighed into the conversation this week, during his Pentecostal Mass, saying “the more we use social media, the less social we are becoming.” The New York Post has quoted his warning that the temptation to cling to “our little group, to the things and people we like,” saying it’s only a “small step from a nest to a sect, even within the church.”
Two days later, the external and internal howling has finally relented and I return to my yoga studio. A woman I’d noticed the other day smiles at me when she sees me again. My teacher and I discuss my physical and mental release. I drop into the coffee shop and tell Simon I’m here to repay my debt. And I want to pay it forward, buying a coffee for the next person who needs one. His supreme act of kindness has reminded me to be kind, to myself, and others. I’m sipping my hot chocolate when a woman interrupts me. “Excuse me, but thank you, they just told me you paid for my coffee,” she says.
“My name is Chris,” I reply.
“I’m Aleisha,” she says, beaming as she skips off into the winter sunshine.
And all of a sudden, I’m smiling too.
The Perfect Playlist for Turbulent Flying
Yes, this is The Global Goddess, who at this precise point is actually terrified, but trying to look cool…
IT had been a terrific trip. I’d trekked for seven, blistering and beautiful hours through Queensland’s gorgeous Carnarvon Gorge, stayed up late partaking in star gazing tours one night, watching for yellow-bellied gliders the next. Heck, I’d even cuddled an echidna (and if you think that’s a little tricky, you are right). Hold it like you’re about to eat a hamburger, my host advised. Which was fine, except a hamburger doesn’t feel like you are holding 1000 sewing needles, nor does it wiggle in your hands.
On my last morning, I expressed reservations about flying in a helicopter as I am not a fan of small aircraft. Give me an A380 and four Rolls Royce engines any day. Preferably Business Class, while we’re at it. But the life of a travel writer is nothing if not many and varied, and I not only survived my helicopter ride over a neighbouring gorge, which involved some spectacular banking so we could see the valley below, but enjoyed it. As my gay boys back in Brisbane would say, focus on the cockpit and everything will be fine…
Like most things in life, it’s not the things you fear, but the things you don’t even consider, that will surprise you. Later that same day, I was on a Fokker 100 out of Rockhampton airport, bound for Brisbane, on a clear-sky night. In 45 minutes I would be touching down in Brisbane at the end of several months of back-to-back trips. My own, glorious bed, beckoned. And then, suddenly, the aircraft plummeted. Not slightly, but by 5000 feet I was later told by the cabin crew. And then it pitched upwards, only to drop again, and again.
My fellow passengers grasped for sick bags, I clutched at the arm of the young bloke next to me, at the same time apologising profusely for being all handsy. We were caught in a storm that wouldn’t release us, and for the next 10 minutes we continued to lurch around the sky. There was a five-minute reprieve, and then it continued again. So bad was this out-of-the-blue storm, we had to abort landing…and go back up into the storm for another 30 minutes before we finally landed.
I was once a good flyer, until all of a sudden I wasn’t. I blame years as a news reporter as the reason behind this. You experience and write about everything, including airline disasters, and eventually some of it sticks. I’ve tried everything over the years, meditation, wiggling my toes (apparently this interrupts the fear pathway to the brain), drinking (plenty of it), prescription drugs, and a combination of prescription drugs AND drinking which has resulted in me hitting the slightest bump and declaring “we’re all going to die.” But one of the best remedies, I have found, when encountering turbulence, is to have a great playlist on hand on your device. Treat this turbulence like a carnival ride, hold on, and go with the flow. And so, I give you, my Perfect Playlist for Turbulent Flying.
1.Stay The Night, by James Blunt
This is potentially the perfect take-off song, particularly with its opening lyrics. “It’s 72 degrees, Zero chance of rain, It’s been a perfect day, We’re all spinning on our heels, So far away from real.” Not only is this such a sunny song, you’ll be so distracted by trying to convert 72 degrees Fahrenheit into Celsius you won’t even realise the wheels have left the tarmac.
2.Daniel, by Elton John
A soothing song for when you are flying into the night and have said goodbye to a loved one. “Daniel is travelling tonight on a plane, I can see the red tail lights heading for Spain.” Who cares if you are only headed to the Sunshine Coast and not Spain, and you’ll be back later tonight? It’s the thought that counts. Except, of course, if you have just broken up with a bloke called Daniel. Then you should be listening to Elton’s I’m Still Standing. Stuff you, Daniel.
3.Uptown Girl, by Billy Joel
Yes, you’ve been living in your white bread world, and now you’re in the ultimate uptown, 40,000 feet above the ground. Enjoy it at least as long as Billy’s marriage to Christie Brinkley, particularly if you are living the rock-star lifestyle and have been upgraded (see my previous note about Business Class).
4.Working My Way Back To You, by Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons
So, the plane is starting to lurch around but hey, Frankie Valli reminds you that you are working your way back. To You. To Who? Who cares? Just don’t confuse Frankie Valli (who is still alive) with Buddy Holly (who died in a plane crash). You should never, ever play Buddy Holly on a flight.
5.Holy Grail, by Hunters and Collectors
Look, if you are going to go down in some fiery plane crash, let it be to good old Aussie pub band like Hunters, and seriously, what could be more fitting for your final descent than a song about the Holy Grail? And the chorus, should you hit turbulence, is rather fitting. “I’ve been high, and I’ve been low, But I’ve got nowhere else to go, There’s nowhere else to go.” Except down. You are going down. By hey how great were the 80s?
6.Human, by The Killers
“And sometimes I get nervous, When I see an open door, Close your eyes, Clear your heart”. No matter how nervous you get, don’t open the plane door. Just don’t.
7.All The Lovers, by Kylie Minogue
This song is a bit of a final montage to all those you have loved…and may never see again.
8.F**k You, By Lily Allen
Another song that pays homage to your past, but this is for those you hope to never see again.
9.If Tomorrow Never Comes, by Ronan Keating
Speaks for itself. (Note to my sister: make sure those travel editors pay those outstanding invoices in my in-tray)
10.Against The Wind, by The Tributes
Because, ultimately, no matter how turbulent and terrifying, you will survive this flight. Against the wind.
Note to readers: The Global Goddess takes hundreds of flights each year, and hasn’t dropped dead yet (nor been arrested for groping hot, young blokes or staring at the cockpit of pilots). Happy Flying!
8 Great Reasons You Should Be Goin’ To Bowen
1.Hugh Jackman
That’s right. The one and only. Regular readers will know I have erotic dreams about Hugh and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only Australian woman, or man for that matter, in this situation. The film set for the movie Australia may have long departed Bowen, but Hugh’s spirit lives on. Swim at Horseshoe Bay, where Hugh used to take a dip, or even better, head to Jocheims Bakery and wrap your mouth around Hugh, by ordering the Jackman Special Hunky Beef pie.
2.Coral Cove Resort
This 4.5-star apartment building, perched on the edge of the Coral Sea, is Bowen’s most luxurious and deservedly so. Opt for a penthouse or sub-penthouse and sit on your yawning balcony overlooking Grays Bay, sipping champagne and waiting for a spectacular sunset over the ocean. Every one of these tastefully-decorated apartments has a sea view, so you can’t go wrong. Order a tasting platter from Meraki Whitsundays, which also has a café overlooking the beach at Horseshoe Bay (where Hugh likes to swim), and you never need leave your apartment.
3.The Cove Restaurant
Everyone I spoke with about Bowen raved about the local Chinese place here. And there I was, picturing some badly-decorated joint from 1970s Queensland serving sweet and sour pork. Wrong. The Cove Restaurant, which is on the ground floor of Coral Cove Resort, serves delicious Chinese and Thai food. Feast on the likes of Local Barra Fish Fillet with Ginger and Shallot while enjoying a North Queensland sunset (preferably with Hugh). It’s Asian food, with an Aussie twist.
4.Three Sisters
While The Global Goddess actually has three sisters, none of them live in Bowen. Instead, I am referring to Le Sorelle, Three Sisters Coffee House and Florist. Three local girls, Alexandra, Bianca and Virginnia, who also happen to be sisters, have banded together to open this cute café with its faux grass walls and ceiling. You’ll find fake and real flowers here (Hugh, are you reading this?), as well as good coffee among an extensive menu.
Breakfast was so delicious I forgot to take a photo…
5.The Big Mango
Yes, it’s a bit daggy, but Queenslanders love their big things (um, Hugh…), and once you’ve arrived at The Big Mango, you know you’ve arrived in Bowen. Pause for a mango sorbet here or to buy some mango soap, learn about all the things you can do in this alluring area, and take an obligatory snap with this huge yellow icon. What I didn’t know is that what we call the Bowen mango is actually the Kensington Pride, developed in Bowen and considered the best eating mango due the fact it is not stringy, is sweet, travels well and looks good. It was Indian horse traders who actually introduced mangoes to north Queensland.
6.The Grandview Hotel
This heavenly hotel, which turns 100 this year, has recently undergone a facelift. Outside, it’s still that stately Queenslander building which was a popular haunt for cast and crew filming Australia (Hugh was here) but inside, it takes its exposed brick and timber and blends it with a tasteful Hamptons feel. Think plush olive couches, plenty of cushions, great lighting. There’s old black and white photos adorned along the bar above which sits a boat, while a ship mast in the courtyard has been salvaged off another vessel. In the women’s toilet, you’ll love the black and white photo of Bowen’s bathing beauties, which dates back to 1948.
Again, I was too busy eating/thinking about Hugh, and forgot to take a photo
7.Bowen Summergarden Cinemas
Built in 1948, this is the longest continuous-running cinema in Queensland, and potentially Australia. Even better, owner Ben De Luca has worked here for the past 56 years, since he was first a trainee projectionist at 15 years of age. Ben’s passion for film is palpable and while the cinema has transformed from one theatre with hessian chairs into two modern theatres, this institution retains its old-world charm. Walk down “Catherine Martin’s Hall” and admire signed movie posters from the cast of Australia (you know Hugh…). Ben was named Queensland Cinema Pioneer of the Year in 2018 and knows a thing or two about the flicks.
8.Beautiful Beaches
Bowen boasts eight beaches within a 10-minute drive. That’s one for every day of the week, plus a spare. And each beach has its own distinct personality. Kings Beach is for the Robinson Crusoe traveller who likes to take their dog for a walk; Rose Bay is ideal for snorkelling; The Front Beach is for families where kids chase soldier crabs and frolic in a water park; Gordon Beach is off-the-beaten track which is great for fishing; Queen’s Beach is the longest with a 5km stretch of sand; Grays Bay is for sunset drinks, paddle boarding and kayaking; Murray Bay is a hidden local secret found down a little track; and on Horseshoe Bay you can be snorkelling reef with 10 kicks off the shore. Did I mention Hugh Jackman used to swim at Horseshoe Bay? Which brings me to ninth beach. Nudie Beach. As the name suggests, it’s for those who like to get their gear off. Hugh, I know you’re reading this…
The Global Goddess travelled to Bowen as a guest of Tourism Whitsundays https://www.tourismwhitsundays.com.au
And Tourism Bowen https://www.tourismbowen.com.au
Matadors and Metaphors
I AM sipping a Spanish rose wine, the faintest colour of blood, which is apt, as I am perched among Spain’s largest collection of bull fighting memorabilia, staring down several mounted angry bull heads. But this is not a gory story, but one of love. It’s a crisp, damp November evening in Pamplona, in northern Spain, and I am crouched around a table with Senora Maria del Carmen Tahoces. While I ask clumsy questions, and the beautiful Senora attempts to answer them, my tour guide Francisco Glaria Baines, is tasked with the toughest job of all, translating our conversation which swings from bulls, to love, to loss, and life itself.
I am on a 10-day Novelties of Northern Spain tour with Collette Vacations and while my fellow travellers have since departed Maria’s home museum, which pays homage to bull fighting and her husband Marcelimo who died 10 years ago, I have asked to stay on. To dance with the bull. To find out more about this enigmatic woman who lives among these creatures. While Maria speaks no English, and I, no Spanish, we both understand the language of love and loss.
Before she met Marcelimo, Maria never went to a bull fight, she wasn’t interested. He was a doctor and on their first date they ended up at a ring. She admits she didn’t love bull fighting, or indeed her future husband at first sight, but both passions grew. That was back in 1967 and by 1970 they were married and had moved into Pamplona’s most famous bull running street, where the bulls turn a sharp right at Dead Man’s Corner and head straight for Pamplona’s bull ring. She lives there still.
When he died 10 years ago, Marcelimo left behind two children, six grandchildren, and a deeply heart-broken wife. But his love of bull fighting lives on. On this particular day, and for the first time in her grieving journey, Maria has opened her house to our tour group. Behind this unassuming entry lays Spain’s largest collection of bull-fighting memorabilia. There’s those bull heads mounted on the wall, a replica bull ring crafted by her husband, magical matador capes and even a Salvador Dali painting. It’s a huge step for the Senora to open her house to strangers – these artefacts are usually only reserved for Spain’s bullfighting community – and both her courage and grief are palpable.
I want to tell her how sorry I am for her loss, but I do not possess the Spanish words and it seems trite to communicate this through Francisco. These are words that are too important to be lost in translation. Instead, I tell her she is beautiful, for indeed she is.
“When my husband was alive, this was an open house for the bull world, you didn’t have to ask to come in,” she says.
“After he died, for two years, I could not do anything. We had everything in boxes for a renovation and I needed to put it out again.
“In the beginning, today was very stressful, but once I saw your reaction, I calmed. I was worried you would not like bull fighting.
“Bull fighting is not just what is in the arena. People only centre of the blood part. You need to make the decision to go for the human or the animal.”
While I don’t entirely understand bull fighting, I understand love. I clutch at small talk, and tell her my family are graziers in country Queensland. I know a little of El Toro. But not enough.
I ask Senora Maria whether she still goes to bull fights, but she says she can’t yet return to the one in Pamplona.
“I cannot go in Pamplona yet as it makes me sad,” she says.
“We always went to the same seats, me going alone, I cannot go there.”
I finish the interview, knowing I’ve already prodded deep enough around this woman’s grief. On the way out, I hug Senora Maria and thank her for sharing her story and her home. She tells me, through Francisco, that I am welcome to bring my family to visit and stand on her beautiful balcony during the Running of the Bulls. Sometimes you don’t need to speak the language to connect. It’s raining as I step out into the cold, night air and stroll along the empty, cobbled streets of Pamplona. I think of Senora Maria and her love story and a smile graces my face as I pluck my way back to the warmth of my hotel, walking the route of those running bulls and a love story which endures.
The Global Goddess experienced the Novelties of Northern Spain Tour as a guest of Collette
Vacations https://www.gocollette.com/en and flew to Spain with Singapore Airlines as a guest in their Business and Premium Economy cabins http://www.singaporeair.com/home.form
An Air of Refinement
IT’S a wonderful warm day and I am ambling along La Rambla, Barcelona’s beautiful and bustling pedestrian street, before pulling up a perch for a sultry Sangria and some prime people-watching. I sashay on, in Spanish style, arriving at a teeming Tapas bar, all colour and life on this glorious day with customers politely pointing and seemingly shouting for these tasty treats. Dinner and a show? You had me at rioja. I have arrived in Spain’s sexiest city earlier this morning, having flown in fashion aboard Singapore Airlines’ new A350-900 aircraft from Brisbane, via Singapore, with a brief touch down in Milan, before my final destination…Barcelona. And I immediately fall in love.
This jaunty journey for me begins before I even leave the ground in Brisbane. Last September, Singapore Airlines turned the heat up on the competitive airline food market, launching its Book the Cook service from Brisbane for its Business and Premium Economy Class customers. And I have done just that, booked the cook, a few days prior to flying pre-ordering a main meal from a selection of options with creations inspired by the Airline’s International Culinary Panel of Chefs, including Matt Moran. I had the privilege of taste-testing these delicious dishes on the ground last year, but I had never tried them at 30,000 feet. According to experts, you lose 30 per cent of your ability to taste at altitude, so would the dish I chose stack up?
But before I board, I am ushered into Brisbane’s SilverKris Lounge, a place I last passed the Duchess of Cornwell, Camilla, who was in town earlier this year for the Commonwealth Games with Prince Charles. Camilla, bless her, took one look at me and sighed, just as it occurred to me from where I knew this familiar face flanked by police. I may not be a blue blood, but I am treated like royalty in the lounge, with staff remembering me from previous visits, enthusiastically encouraging me to try “every dish on the menu”. “But I’ve Booked the Cook onboard,” I plead. I defer and munch my way through the lounge’s Asian-inspired delights including delicious dim sum and some Aussie treats with a twist as well such as mac and cheese infused with truffles.
Sated, I take my Business Class seat on Singapore Airlines’ new A350-900ULR aircraft, bound for Singapore. Singapore Airlines is the launch customer of these beautiful birds, taking delivery in late-September. In October this year, Singapore Airlines used this aircraft to launch the world’s longest commercial flight between Singapore and New York, covering 16,7000km with a travel time of 18hours and 45 minutes. By comparison, I have around 8 hours on which to sip creamy Charles Heidsieck champagne, before ordering a full-bodied 2015 Bordeaux to accompany my lunch. I’ve pre-booked the lamb and it’s as plump and juicy as I remember trying on the ground. In fact, I could be at a five-star restaurant. The other great thing about the Singapore Airlines’ afternoon flight from Brisbane is that it’s a meal, movie, a nap and snack before you are touching down at Changi Airport. On board, the Business Class service is so impeccable, the crew fold and tidy your bedding whenever you rise to stretch your legs, meaning you come back to a fully-made flat-bed every time, something I’ve never experienced on any other airline.
In Changi, I am ushered to the First Class Lounge and it is a first-class affair with a swanky bar where the bar man mixes your drinks and delivers them to you, and food is cooked to order, before again, being served to your seat. On this connection to Europe, there’s time for a shower with pristine facilities and thoughtful toiletries you’ll need for the next leg, before boarding, just before midnight, to Barcelona (via Milan). On the second leg I’m in Premium Economy which is a great, affordable alternative with the same service and meal offerings you receive in Business Class. Here, the seats remind me of the first-generation Business Class seats favoured by airlines before flat-bed became the norm. The only quirk in this entire journey was the refreshment served between Milan and Barcelona which fell short of Singapore’s impeccable meals, with my tuna, mayo and lettuce sandwich tasting less like tuna and more like mayo and lettuce. The young Aussie girl in the seat beside me, who raves about Singapore Airlines’ Premium Economy because of her long legs, says the same about her vegetarian roll, which is simply some soggy eggplant plonked onto bread. I note on the sandwich packet that it’s an Italian caterer, and may be something for Singapore Airlines to review, given this airline is excellent in every other way. I arrive in Barcelona early in the morning, and am ready to amble along La Rambla with a Singapore spring in my step following my flights.
My journey home, from Munich to Brisbane, via Singapore, is in Economy Class and is again, effortless. One of the reasons I personally book Singapore Airlines is that even in Economy Class, you are still granted that Singapore smile and service. There’s refreshing hot towels, speedy service, and on both of these legs, Singapore has taken the trouble to ensure every Economy Class passenger has a spare seat between them. This is something I’ve never seen any other airline do, preferring to let guests battle it out for space in the air. It’s little wonder this airline continues to win awards. In February in London, Singapore Airlines was awarded three top awards at Cellars in the Sky including the coveted Gold Medal for Best Overall Cellar. In April, it was crowned Best Airline in the World in the TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice Awards. And in July, it was named the World’s Best Airline in Skytrax’s World Airline Awards. And it’s easy to see why. Any airline can fluke good service once or twice, but you cannot fake that consistently supreme service offered by Singapore Airlines, regardless of which class you choose to fly. Consider booking your next trip with Singapore Airlines and treat yourself to an upgrade, particularly if flying long-haul. You, too, will disembark with that trademark Singapore smile.
The Global Goddess experienced the Novelties of Northern Spain Tour as a guest of Collette Vacations https://www.gocollette.com/en and flew to Spain with Singapore Airlines as a guest in their Business and Premium Economy cabins http://www.singaporeair.com/home.form
Snapshot of Spain
Hola from Spain! I am currently on assignment in Spain courtesy of Collette Tours and Singapore Airlines, and about to take a week of R&R in Prague and Germany, to catch up with family and friends. I’ll be back soon with some more tantalising travel tales. In the meantime, please follow my travels on Instagram @aglobalgoddess
The Global Goddess 