I will pass this way but once...

If I may turn this phrase to another use...


There comes a time in life when you realise that some places you will only visit for the first and only time. A large city like Paris, you may have a chance of visiting again. But that beautiful beach you glimpse as the bus goes past, those fascinating locals you meet on your day out, no, you are not likely to see those a second time. And anyway you cannot step in the same river twice. The world moves on, you change.


To every local who helped me gain my bearings, or overlooked my massacre of your language while trying to communicate: obrigado e felicidade. To every fellow traveller who shared stories and tips: thank you, and may the way be smooth for you.

And thanks to you dear reader for tolerating my rambles and jokes.

Timezone arithmetic 7 and signing off

The jump from Paris to Kuala Lumpur is from UTC+1 to UTC+8. That's a big difference of 7 hours and it's west to east, the difficult direction.

I have a method of dealing with this that I call The Flip. Problem is I don't know how well it works or even if it really does. I may be imagining it. But here it is for what it's worth.

There are two lows in the body activity, one during the normal sleep at night and a smaller one in the afternoon (the siesta!). The idea is to turn the smaller low into the normal night sleep. So you have to have been in the habit of taking an afternoon nap in the days before returning, which could be a small impracticality given that you don't want to waste any touring time. Say you have been napping at 1600 in Paris. This is 2300 in KL. Just go to KL and try to sleep longer on your "nap" at 2300. But you will find yourself waking up at 2 or 3 am. Oh well.

The blog ends here as I will be spending time with my family in KL and those activities are not of general interest. There may be some supplementary posts to fill in gaps for the final days, but otherwise this is me signing off.

CbdG

Charles de Gaulle airport should really have a 4-letter acronym so we fix that by inserting the great Aussie adjective.

The circular shape, interwowen ramps and satellite terminals of Terminal 1 may look elegant architecturally but confuses the heck out of passengers. When you emerge through passport control on arrival you go up to retrieve your luggage. So intiutive. The amount of space available for queueing for exit passport control has long been inadequate. The PA system could belong to a Tati film.

Terminal 2 is more conventional but rather strung out, like a chain of beads. I can't comment on Terminal 3 because I didn't use it.

To make things worse, the RER B from Paris arrives at Terminal 3, well actually close to 3 at Roissypole, and then goes on to 2. To get to Terminal 1 you have to change to an albeit free shuttle. That's for the RER (regional train from Paris). If you arrive by long-distance train, in particular TGV services, then you are at the SNCF station at 2. And we haven't got to the buses yet. Got all of that?

To be fair, the metro and RER B did deliver me to CdG comfortably and speedily. They do trains well in France.

I have yet to find an ideal entry airport for Europe. I was told my backpack was misplaced when I reached Rome, so I have bad memories of it, though I got it back a few days later. To be fair, it wasn't Rome's fault, it was either the Sydney or KL baggage handlers. But Rome airport is worn-out. I'm not game to try London with its alleged luggage loss rate, and besides you still have take the train or a shuttle flight to get to mainland Europe. Amsterdam is well-run but you'd better have a sackful of Euro shrapnel to feed the NS (Netherlands Railways) vending machines if you are going any distance immediately, or a PIN bankcard, or pay the service fee for a counter purchase of a ticket; since NS doesn't believe that their vending machines should accept banknotes. Frankfurt airport was ok, but a bit ugly. Madrid was ok, though a bit old, and might be viable if you can get a shuttle flight. It was the cheapest airport to commute from, only 2 € and half of that was the airport line surcharge. Come to think of it Barcelona's pretty good too. Zurich was also good, but travelling anywhere by rail in Switzerland costs an arm and a leg compared to the rest of Europe. I have yet to try Vienna.

Anyway once I got to the boarding gates and into the Malaysian Airline plane, I had no more reason to gripe and it was goodbye Europe, for this time.

Paris

I have one day in Paris to see the beautiful Parisian women, er I mean, the beautiful Parisian landmarks. Anyway it looks like half the women here are tourists. No, make that about 90% from the number of cameras being whipped out.

I remembered to put on my jacket, but I forgot the scarf. It was my one taste of a gloomy northern European autumn day to make me grateful I was going back to spring in Sydney. There was also a cold breeze so I had to duck into arcades or the metro whenever it got too cold in the open. 

If Madrid is an open-air history book, then Paris is an architectural museum. It is the top tourist destination in the world; show a picture of the Tour de Eiffel or the Arc de Triomphe to people and chances are they will recognise them as French landmarks. So I don't really need to caption the pictures; you know these places already. Sorry, no Eiffel or Grand Arch at La Défense—it was foggy and if you cannot see the landmark, then you can't see the ground from them either. Besides, that weekend, as it happened, due to works, metro line 1 terminated at Étoile.

I walked down Boulevard de Champs-Elysées towards Concorde. All the haute couture brands have a shop there. But my favourite shop was the FNAC.  For things you can get from Amazon, stick with Amazon, especially during this time when the greenback is getting a bashing, but FNAC stocks many small EU labels that put out some good compilations. Most of the compilations are lackluster sessions or lesser known works by famous artists, but some bargains can be found. They also have a good selection of world music.

By the way you may have noticed by now that 2 of the pictures aren't of standard Paris landmarks. In fact they are faux landmarks installed as part of the celebration of 50 years of Asterix and his plucky band of resistance fighters.

The last is a reworking of Olympia by Manet. So the French do have a sense of humour.

From Concorde I walked towards the Latin Quarter, which I found more interesting than than the architectural gems on the way.

The Latin Quarter has also a good variety of restaurants. Many of them are tourist traps, but off the busy streets you can find some gems. That evening I went back to the LQ, on my day ticket, to dine at an unpretentious Vietnamese restaurant that made very good phỏ. Afterwards a quick stop at Pigalle (actually Blanche is the closer Metro station) to take a picture of the famous Moulin. (I was too tired and too poor to do anything else, honest.)

AVE

The AVE leaves at 1330 so I have time to explore a couple of the plazas. South of Huertas where I am staying is Lavapies. (Lavapies translates to footwashers; one charming piece of trivia about Madrid is that there are many decorated tile street signs. I don't know what footwashers did historically; tell me if you do. But they are also not consistent; I saw a Calle del Leon (Street of the Lion) sign, alas behind scaffolding so no picture, and at the other end of the street Calle de Leon (the city, I assume)) There are a lot of Chinese-run import firms. It's not just the factories of China that are contributing to its success, but also a untrumpeted army of Chinese who set up import firms and variety stores in other countries. Someone once commented that you could judge the viability of an economy by the number of Chinese conducting business there. If so, then Madrid seems to be in good shape. At the Mercado de San Miguel I stop again to have a jamon bocadillo and a slice of truffle cake.

Security for the AVE for Atocha includes X-raying of luggage. I don't know whether this was already in place during the bombings. (It wouldn't have helped, the targets were suburban trains, but I suppose the AVE is a high-profile target.)

The acronym (expanding to Alta Velocidad Española) and logo are suggestive of speed. It takes 3.5 hours to Barcelona Sants but it made stops in Guadalajara, Zaragoza, Lleida and Tarragona. I think the non-stop service takes 2.5 hours and of course, costs more. It reached a top speed of just under 300 km/h by the display but this wasn't sustained. I wouldn't not have guessed we were travelling that fast. There are no means of comparison except the occassional car on a parallel road.

I'm too tired to see a bit of Barcelona so this time I'll just shoot through. There are frequent trains to França, where the overnight departs, so I have dinner at a Sants cafeteria and go to França around 2000.


The Elipsos coach designers could have been taking lessons from Japanese capsule hotel designers. Everything feels cramped, for example, the doorways of compartments are barely the width of one person. On the other hand, the coach is fairly new, all the appliances work and the airconditioning is perfect, so I am being picky. The curvy surfaces even look a bit art deco-ish.


I have a fascination with night trains going back to childhood journeys between Kuala Lumpur and Penang or Singapore. In those days, it took a whole night to travel 400 km. From the tiny ventilation window of my berth, snug under the sheet, I would watch as the train rumbled past rubber plantations and small villages with only one lamp burning. At night everything is full of mystery and wonder—a chthonic world dissipated and turned ordinary by daybreak. That feeling of mystery in night travel, fictituous as it may be, has never left me.


This trip, I watched for a while as Catalonian highways, shopping centres, and factories slipped past our window until the concierge came to lower the bunks. Except for a few minutes of interruption when a fellow passenger got out at Limoges, I slept deeply until the train deposited us at the Gare de Austerlitz.

Madrid

The Hotel Miau is very nice. Probably the best accommodation I will have this trip. Paris will cost more and probably be less comfy. I deserve some luxury at the end of this trip. Besides, how could I resist a name like Miau? They even have a pixellated cat for a logo.

In the morning I discover from the Elipsos website that there are no sleepers left for the Madrid/Paris night train. Not even reclining seats. Uh oh, panic time. I should have purchased a ticket over the Internet weeks ago, but I didn't want to tangle with the mess that is the Elipsos website and printing a ticket or giving an address to receive it, which I obviously can't.

Flights between Madrid and Paris cost too much, and I would still need a bed for the night. Wait, there are sleepers on the Barcelona/Paris run. I can get a cheap Ryanair flight from Madrid to Girona, where there is a transfer bus to Barcelona. But I'm sick of going in and out of airports. So I decided to go to Barcelona in the afternoon by AVE, the Spanish high-speed train. Costs more but I've never tried it. A trip down to Atocha station and it's all purchased. Whew. Incidentally Atocha is the nearest station to where the Madrid bombings took place.

Then a Spanish breakfast and I can do the two walking tours in my guide, Old Madrid and Artistic Madrid. Those take the rest of the daylight hours. I get back to Hotel Miau at sundown all exhausted. The Madrid metro is very efficient. I never had to wait more than 4 minutes for a service to come along. I had a day ticket so I tried many lines.

Puerta del Sol is where all distances in Spain are measured from and there is a Km 0 marker on the ground. There seem to be a lot of anti-GFC public works going on.

The Mercado de San Miguel seems to have a collection of boutique food stands, even a book shop. Obviously meant as a tourist attraction. I had a nice smoked mussel tapas.

There is an expo of pictures of the CERN LHC by Peter Ginter near Plaza de España, where there is a statue of Cervantes and his most famous creation, Don Quixote.

Madrid is one lively city. I like how the residents fully use their city every hour of the day. I'd come back in a trice if it were simple.

How to lose your things while travelling

Millions of unfortunate travellers come home with all their belongings intact. Here are a handful of tips that will help you avoid such a fate. 

1. Carry lots of bags. Why limit yourself to a backpack and daypack? Take along shopping bags, supermarket bags, any sort of carrier. This will increase your chances of losing one. Airline check-in counters will love you too.

2. Store things at random places in your luggage. For example, your passport can go into your toiletry bag, and your credit cards in the mobile phone pouch. While you may not lose things this way, they will be as good as lost when you need them.

3. Use all the storage locations provided by your accommodation. Why do hotel rooms provide so many cupboards and drawers? To store your things in, silly. Don't disappoint them. This will increase your chances of forgetting to collect some things when it's time to leave. Also see tip 5.

4. Stick things in outside pockets on your backpack or luggage. This will make it easier for them to fall out and for some lucky local to benefit.

5. When you leave your accommodation don't bother to do a final check of your room to see that you have everything. Of course you have. They are somewhere in your bags. You hope.