Days three and four: to Capitol Reef

Battling to the car in Scott of the Antarctic conditions, we leave the plateau and drop down into relative calm, still cold but sunny, and investigate some further delights on Scenic Route 12.  Best along the route is the Petrified Forest at Escalante.  There is an easy walking trail up the hill, to visit the 150 million year old remains of trees, that were buried in shallow lake deposits and molecule by molecule replaced by mineral crystals, to produce an exact likeness of tree trunks.  Some are so detailed that you can see the exact form of the bark and even in some cases the tree rings within.  

To run your hand over these and feel the exact shape of the tree, just as it would have felt when it fell -- and it feels just like its current coniferous descendants -- is quite an experience.  

This area is known as the Grand Staircase, and all around are the terraces of sandstone and alternating limestone sediments descending, layer upon layer.  From about 200 million years ago, there was a great shallow sea between where the Rockies are today, and the Appalachians. Into this at various times descended the shells and bodies of chalky creatures to provide limestone strata; material was eroded from the surrounding mountains to form sand bars, or sand dunes invaded the site; volcanoes spewed out vast deposits of ash and lava bombs.  Layer upon layer, miles deep, until there was a great tectonic squeeze and the whole area was uplifted way above sea level to produce a vast plateau.  Then rapid erosion cut in the deep canyons leading to the Colorado.  The "staircase" is the exposure of the different layers, some softer, some harder, eroding at different rates and providing different profiles as they get exposed.  In the deeper canyons tens of millions of years are exposed to view.  

All day the temperature remains below zero, but at least the wind has dropped.  We ascend to 9400 feet and extensive aspen woods, interspersed with pines: the temperature drops even further and the weather  closes in with snow flurries and heavy skies.

We finally reach Torrey, where we are staying for two nights.  Our motel is perched on an outcrop facing a great layered wall, glowing in the late afternoon sun for a while, until the weather here too deteriorates and the cloud descends until nothing is visible.  By morning there's a good covering of snow everywhere and it's still falling. We drop into the Chuck Wagon General Store for breakfast.  It feels a little like Twin Peaks in this remote corner, so I order cherry pie and "dam' fine coffee".  The town is tiny but with a few much older buildings harking back to the original settlers, and a fine avenue of trees lines Main Street. 

The weather clears enough to let us visit the Capitol Reef National Park.  On the left are huge ranges of red sandstone, some layers incredibly detailed, others great blank walls. And on the right there are huge incisions many hundreds of feet deep further into geological time.  We are able to go to the edge of Gooseneck Canyon and look into its depths. Once it was a meandering stream on a low lying plateau.  Then as the rock was rapidly forced up, the stream cut down through the Mesozoic layer cake, maintaining the loops and bends of its course. We carry on to the Grand Wash, another such canyon where we can walk along its bed around 13 bends, looking up at the looming walls, some heavily overhanging our path.  As we walk, the snow starts up again, in flurries, then something stronger. We turn back and by the time we get to the car it's getting serious and we're getting soaked by freezing sleet (but it turns out Tilley hats are also waterproof). 

Just time for a visit to the old Gifford homestead, one of the few artefacts of early Mormon settlers in this remote area, the last to be explored and mapped by Europeans in the continental US. A good place to buy patchwork place mats, cedar rolling pins and home made rhubarb and strawberry pies -- at least that's what we came away with. 

Day two: to Zion and Bryce Canyon

An early start and we headed for Zion National Park, via its doorstep little resort village, Springdale, where we were all persuaded to buy Tilley hats, "made with Canadian persnicketiness" and guaranteed for life: perfect, we were assured by the charming lady who sold them to us, in sun, wind and rain.  Little did we know how well they would be tested over the next days.

Certainly it was getting windy as we walked in the park's canyons, but still sunny and fine.  The hats' ingenious cords held them firmly in place, once we had mastered the technique.  The canyon we followed wound deep into Zion's heartland, with a small river flowing out surrounded by cottonwood and juniper trees and many shrubs and spring flowers.

We continued on our way through a narrow tunnel then out into a completely different, dry, chaotic landscape.  We soon realised that the landscape changes completely over each horizon.  Wonders that we found amazing here don't even get national park status, because the parks have even better stuff!  We followed Scenic Byway 12, "Utah's first All-American road", and scenic it was. We were especially taken by Red Canyon, a collation of weird shapes resembling Asian temples or Castilian castles.  

So for our second night, at the Grand Hotel in Bryce Canyon City (population 300).  We had been steadily climbing since St George, and getting out of the car were almost flattened by an icy blast.  (Tilley hats up to the challenge though.). Even the locals were surprised by this late cold snap.  There were warnings of high winds gusting to 60mph, and temperatures dropping to minus 7 ("feels like minus 15").  From the tropics to the Arctic in one day?  

Nevertheless we managed a late afternoon visit to the adjoining national park.      The town sits on a rather bland plateaus, but offers up its great treasure as a surprise to unsuspecting tourists.  The land falls away into the vast canyon filled with layer upon layer of rock, fantastically carved into turrets, walls, and endless features, all looking splendid in the late afternoon sunlight as cloud shadows scudded across.  We visited several lookout points and walked along part of the rim, to get the most of the changing views.

A new trip to.the south west US

Time to restart my blog! We are in the southwestern U.S. on a tour of the national parks and having such a wide range of experiences that I'll forget it all if I don't write it down. I'm touring with Ian and Kathleen (with whom we stayed in New York before flying out here -- more on NY later). Five days into the tour and we have run out of adjectives.  We have only travelled across the bottom edge of one state so far (Utah) but the sense of space, of immensity, and of our infinitesimal place in nature, is very strong. Space -- and time -- because this is a region where you come face to face with the workings of the earth over geological timescales, with layer upon layer of sediments deposited miles deep, but here exposed to view.  But enough waffle! On to 

DAY ONE

We flew out of JFK to Las Vegas, which we dashed through like a nun in a brothel, our aim being to see the wonders of nature, not the excesses of Mammon.

We did cruise the Strip, which nowadays seems more Disneyland than ever.  Soon though we were out on the interstate across the Arizona desert, heading for our first night stop, just across the border into Utah, at St George.

A very pleasant little clapboard housed, picket fenced place, dominated by its whited sepulchre of a Mormon church, all under an immense red sandstone cliff.  Temperatures were tropical after New York and there was time for a dip in the hotel pool.  We found a surprisingly good restaurant with a panoramic view of the cliffs and watched as the sun set, shadows moving across the cliff, then the light twinkling on in the town below.  We were also introduced to the delights of Utah's microbreweries: it turns out they produce some fine IPAs and porters.  Come to Utah for craft beer -- who knew?  The omens seemed good for our trip.

khao lak - and home

Such a good place to end our tour, just lazing about in the pools or long walks along the beach.   

Behind our hotel the jungle rises up, a great green wall of pristine forest, from which a continuous range of sounds emanates, changing with each hour of the day.  Now the sound of doves, now an upwelling of chirruping insects.  At half past four on the dot every day, the evening shift starts up with what sounds like a hundred circular saws, provided by the crickets.  Then as darkness falls, it’s the frogs’ turn – redoubled if there’s a rain shower. As soon as the sky darkens, a waxing moon appears, dappling the still water with a trail of light.  The tide recedes, leaving a wide glistening strand of firm sand, onto which the crabs emerge for a busy few hours of feeding and arm wrestling.

Just north is Bang Sak Bay, an even more pristine stretch of white coral stand, with big shady pine trees at the back, and a lambent green sea.

We also took a day trip to Khao Sok National Park about 60km NE.  This is virgin forest, well protected it seems, draped across a mountainous landscape.  Said to be the oldest rainforest in the world (though this is also a claim made by areas of Malaysia and Queensland), it is well worth a visit. 

So I’ve had almost ten weeks away from home, and it begins to feel like travelling is my life.  I will be glad to be back for Christmas, but this has been the most varied and rewarding trip for me for a long time – meeting many very different people, visiting varied and stunning countryside and cultures.  I am more and more comfortable with the scenery and the leisurely rural walks, and less and less interested in the cities as I get older. In Asia the cities mostly are unthinking, badly planned, polluted and traffic-jammed, and the cultural offerings – at least those accessible to a foreigner – thin on the ground.   

London for me is everything that a city should be, and nothing compares.  I look forward to getting back to the theatres and pubs, to long walks along the river or through the parks – though not to the weather and getting dark by half-past four!

david cameron copycat

I reckon that David Cameron must have been reading my blog.  A few weeks after my visit to Chengdu, and he goes to  all the same places including Du Fu's garden and the same hot pot restaurant.  Not to mention the pandas... which gives me an excuse to post another picture of the baby pandas!  Awwww!
Now Mr C is back in London and trying to compete - but not a patch on the real thing!

Pandas, Chengdu

Not pandas... not Chengdu

south to the isthmus of kra and beyond

My Thailand destinations

 If Thailand is a sleeping flamingo, Khao Lak is the knee.  This was our destination for the last leg of the trip, driving down from Bangkok, with a couple of stops on the way. There is this long trailing slice of the country that slides past Burma then emerges onto the Andaman Sea, with the foot resting on Malaysia.

After negotiating Bangkok’s urban expressways with only one misrouting, we continue through the capital’s hinterland.  One of the ugliest things about Thailand is the way its cities sprawl out along the highways for mile after mile, endless factories and shophouses and mean looking road towns with vast advertising hoardings signaling the next fuel station or hyperstore: seemingly no planning restrictions at all and the architecture uniformly grim.  This stretches almost all the way to Hua Hin, so it was a relief to check into the Dusit Thani there after the first day’s drive: nostalgia for me as it was only the second grand hotel I ever stayed in, twenty years ago (the first being its sister hotel in Bangkok, a few days earlier). 

Though now perhaps showing its age a little – but in the way of a grand duchess, still magnificent and stylish and unconcerned by modern trends – its huge public spaces, all marble and vast chandeliers, embrace us.   It also has extremely good restaurants – we ate Thai and Italian very profitably.

Route 4, squeezed between the Gulf of Thailand and the Burmese border, continues down to Chumphon, our next stop.  We arrived at a strangely deserted Novotel in a gale, that continued throughout our two night stay.  Apparently this goes on here from November to February every year.  The endless wind agitates the sea so that the white-topped waves are brownish with churned up sand.  In the open lobby for dinner we seem to be the only guests; huge canvas wind breaks flap and crack: it’s like being on the Marie Celeste at full sail.  On the beach there are a few fishermen in their makeshift huts, but they seem to be staying put on dry land as the waves crash ashore.  Otherwise the shore is deserted: then we see a quick flash as a huge lizard over a metre long makes straight for the water.  In it goes, swimming very effectively, head up, and seems to surf the crashing waves, then dives under the water again. 

We continue on, and Route 4 now crosses the Isthmus of Kra (which sounds like something out of Frank Herbert) to the Andaman coast, through beautiful mountainous countryside, lush and green, with many waterfalls, towards Khao Lak.  A much more pleasant coast: gentle sea breezes at most, soft sands and a blue calm sea.

We’re hearing the sad stories of the riots in Bangkok, as two oligarchies slug it out once again, using the poor duped people as pawns.  We were intending to spend our last few days there, but may have to divert if this continues.

i'm an eco-tourist, get me out of here!

We were told that this is the now place to go: a former French colonial seaside town, abandoned in the Khmer Rouge years, but with the shells of the old villas now being slowly restored.  We decided to try an eco resort up in the jungle above the town, not without some misgivings given the warning in some of the reviews.

But first we had to get there.  We had a car with driver to take us.  There had been a few heavy thunderstorms over the previous couple of nights.  On the morning we set off, we could hear some localized donner-und-blitzen-ing in the distance.  Hitting the airport road it soon became clear that there had been a major downpour.  Water was shooting in torrents off the roofs of the buildings.  The road was flooded to a depth of several inches.  Everyone was trying to drive in the slightly less flooded crown of the road, in both directions at once (and in other random directions).  Chaos, as the saying goes, ensued. 4WDs were ploughing fast through the grey waters, splashing everything in sight. Motorbikes were breaking down by the dozen.  Our unfazed driver ploughed on through this: the waters lapping against the chassis so that it sounded like we were in a rowing boat.  Somehow we made it, and off we went across the vast waterlogged plain south of Phnom Penh, all rice fields and drainage ditches, with houses clinging to the causewayed highway.   

Then passing through the town of Kampot, just before our destination, we hit another snag: a huge traffic jam, apparently immobile.  The driver seemed happy to just sit: so Ian went to investigate.  Ahead of us, a bridge was being replaced.  A temporary single lane crossing had been constructed of hardcore and gravel, and right in the middle of this, a large flatbed truck, attempting a crossing, had sunk into the mud, and slid onto its side, completely blocking the way in both directions.  Eventually our driver made a few phone calls and backed up.  Following a route through all the shanty towns and back alleys of Kampot, and eventually along a muddy, rutted track in the middle of a rice-field, he eventually emerged triumphant just past the obstruction.  The final snag was getting up to the resort, via another highly rutted narrow track, that seemed impossible in this low slung ancient Datsun – but we made it.

So to the resort itself.  Let me say at the outset that this was a positive experience.  But quirky.   Perhaps any resort that advertises that it has a philosophy should be approached with caution.   

It is located in the most beautiful heavily wooded valley, with jungle noises all around; arranged as a series of straw-thatched huts, some on the ground, some built up into the trees, like a hill tribe village.  The staff are all local and the greatest thing about the place: incredibly warm, friendly and helpful.  But as for the accommodation, even the Spartans would find it spartan.  Our room is open to the outside, to provide ventilation at the roof level, because there is no A/C.  Power is limited to a few 12V bulbs and a half hearted fan, powered by a battery linked to a solar panel: and, we are warned, if this runs out that’s it for the night.  And no hot water.  The hotel notes say that the water is ambient ‘and most people think this fine’, but the supply seems to come from some deep aquifer with a direct link to the Himalayan plateau.  There is a pool – but its water is muddy, the colour of milky tea, and its approaches slimy, with fish and who knows what else in it: not a single guest dared to use it while we were there.  I’m reminded of those vegetarian restaurants of the 60s, where you were made, by the bearded and be-sandaled owner, to feel that an essential part of the experience was to make you suffer. 

But here there’s a lovely restaurant, with a wood burning oven and lovely non-veggie food; and, perhaps the saving grace, an array of interesting and lively guests.  As we are all essentially stuck at the end of that track once night falls (this would be a great setting for an Agatha Christie) everyone stays in and eats in the restaurant around a big table faced with broken tiles, Gaudi style, and the whole thing turns into a house party.

 There’s Brian, the most liberal American you will ever meet, on his first holiday for seven years. Ellie and Stefan, a British-Swiss couple with two very young girls, Anna and Aimée, on a five month Asian life-changing tour: the girls very friendly, lively and articulate (‘So you speak two languages?’  ‘No, four!’  ‘No, five!’).  And a delightful Australian lady with a remarkable history, who is giving English classes to the staff, part of a continuing program that makes me want to take all the negative comments back about the place.  So each night we sat and chatted around many and various topics and by the end of a few days had solved all the world’s problems.  Why can’t politicians do this?   

Then to bed in the profound darkness of the forest, drifting off to the sounds of creatures of the night, blurting toads from the pool, restless night birds, the sad falling cry of the geckos; trying not to think about odd furtive rustling sounds just outside.  Then you're asleep, to be woken at dawn by the light from the curtainless windows and a whole new daytime soundscape.