Matt's Million

Matt's back!!

I don't know about you but

I've missed having Matt post on the blog. 

I would walk (fly) 500 (a million) miles…

As we returned from Texas, where we were celebrating the marriage of Selena’s daughter to the lovely John, I reached a landmark that I’d been building to for literally my entire life – flying a million miles.  The 4,900 miles from Austin to Heathrow took me to a grand total of 1,002,864 miles flown.  So I reached the landmark 42% of the way through the flight, which (by my calculation) means I was overhead Halifax, Nova Scotia when the magic moment happened.

 

The only picture I took when I was in Halifax.  Was going through a video phase at the time…

A million miles?  That’s a million proper miles, rather than a million air miles, which you can accumulate with credit cards and hotels and rental cars.  A million miles is London to the moon, and back.  And then to the moon again, then back again with enough left over to get from London to Sydney.  And back.  And then from London to Sydney again.  And back again.  With enough left over to get you to Cairo.  You get the idea!

Your correspondent in Sydney.  No, wait…

At this point, I need to apologise if this sounds like I’m showing off.  Travel has been an important part of my life for as long as I can remember, and while some people spend their money on kids, clothes or crazy stuff like pensions, I’ve spent mine on travel.  And after all, you are reading a travel blog!

How do I know I’ve flown a million miles?  I have a spreadsheet.  I’ve wanted to blog about my spreadsheets for some time now but according to Selena, the subject is “too niche”, “too introverted“ and (what’s was the phrase she used?) – “too mind-numbingly tedious” to blog about.  But here’s my chance!

I’ve tracked every flight and using webflyer.com, checked the distance between each airport flown.  It took a bit of work to get started, and required me to trawl through my parents’ photo albums to remember where we went on our Summer Holidays in 1976 (Gatwick to Gerona, 653 miles each way).  But I have what I believe to be a complete record of every flight flown, including the flights to the Grand Canyon we took in 1987 (Las Vegas to an unnamed landing strip in the Grand Canyon, 169 miles each way).

Las Vegas, whose airport I’ve transited 39 times…

Once you’ve compiled your records, you can see some fascinating things.  Well, fascinating to me, at least.  I’ve taken 564 flights, so each was 1,778 miles, which is almost exactly the distance from Calgary to Ottawa (which I flew on Air Canada in 2009).  The longest flight was Sydney to Los Angeles (7,490 miles, which I’ve done 8 times) – San Francisco to Sydney is actually 70 miles shorter (which I’ve only done once).  The shortest flight was only 56 miles (between La Ceiba and Roatan airports in Honduras), closely followed by Carlsbad to Los Angeles (only 82 miles, but it could take 3 hours by road).  Third shortest was from Tegucigalpa to La Ceiba (120 miles, which I only mention because Tegucigalpa is one of my favourite places to pronounce!).

Tegucigalpa was too ugly to photograph, so here is your correspondent in Roatan.

My most active year was 2003, when I flew 93,880 miles on 34 flights.  I have had many years of zero miles flown, although none since 1991.  I’ve flown British Airways 54 times, for a total of 91,200 miles, but Singapore Air wins the distance title with 112,200 miles spread across 36 flights.  In 2002 I only flew 9 times, but each one averaged 4,483 miles, which is roughly the distance from London to Miami.  Heathrow is my most transited airport (with 96), followed by Gatwick (88) and Sydney (80).

 

Only went through Bandar Seri Begawan airport twice, but it gives me an excuse to post this photo!  Bandar Seri Begawan is right up there with Tegucigalpa in my list of favourite place names!

Ok, perhaps I am showing off a little…  So what’s next?  Another million miles, obviously (London to Budapest soon - 923 miles each way).  A friend has also turned me on to openflights.org, which will track your flights online (and will turn your history into maps and other fun things), but even if I sign-up for this, I think I’ll maintain my little spreadsheet for as long as I’m still flying!

He's such a numbers geek.

One of the many things I love about him.

Do you collect miles? 

TWITTER | FACEBOOK | PINTEREST | SUBSCRIBE | BLOGLOVIN

I've been to... with Matthew - Morocco

When I have something difficult to say, I often turn to Matt for guidance.

He's great at helping me turn my thoughts into words.

So, when it was time to write about Marrakesh I asked Matthew.

"How do I say this?"  "How do I say that I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would?"

Everyone raves about Marrakesh.  It was the last stop of our tour and the one I was most excited about.

I'm not sure if it's because it was last, or maybe how and where we spent our time,
but it was my least favorite.  I'm going to let Matt help me out a bit.

I've been to... Morocco.

I went in 2013 as part of an Explore Worldwide trip with Selena.  I'm sure you've been reading about our travels here on Oh, the places we will go!  We started in Malaga in Spain, travelling through Moorish hill towns to Algeciras where we boarded a ferry to Morocco.

I’ve always loved borders.  I’ve often been perplexed by how much significance is placed on a line on a map.  A line that was drawn many years ago in a place many miles away by someone who may never have even visited the region they were bifurcating.  When I lived in San Diego I used to enjoy visiting Border Field State park, which sat right at the South-Westernmost corner of the USA.  Through a slender chain link fence was Tijuana in Mexico, physically only feet away, but economically another planet.

In Europe these days, it’s often difficult to even see its borders.  We recently travelled from Austria into Slovakia, and as it was a new country for Selena we wanted to celebrate the achievement, especially as we were crossing the “Iron curtain”.  I think we noticed a crease in the landscape that might have been the border, and there were some abandoned buildings that might have formerly been a customs point, but Europe’s economic integration is now so advanced that we couldn’t be sure.

So as we boarded the ferry in Algeciras, I was really excited to be crossing a border, especially as I was crossing a new one (I’d not been to Morocco before), was crossing by an unusual means (a ferry) and we were also crossing a continental border, which is quite tricky to do.  Unless you live in Istanbul of course, where some people do it every day.

Whilst I love borders, I don’t usually care much for border towns.  Tijuana was a bit of a dump, not to mention being a very dangerous place to visit these days.  When I lived in Singapore, the excitement of crossing the border to Malaysia marginally outweighed the disappointment of then having to spend time in Johor Bahru.  Tangier in Morocco has some charming corners, but can’t be described as Morocco at its best.

Fez however, was a revelation.  Founded in 789, if you dive into the Medina and tune out the TVs and Coca Cola refrigerators, you could easily be in the middle ages.  Traditional crafts are still pursued using medieval technologies.  Mules remain the primary form of transport through the narrow, winding alleys.  Butchers ply their trade (and offer their wares) in an authentic, but disconcertingly public way. 

The sights, sounds and smells are truly alien, but are fascinating to experience.  I can think of very few places where such an authentic and ancient experience can be found.  Damascus is close, but it’s not as ancient and it’s not a particularly attractive tourist destination right now.

Explore tours are usually structured to give you a big finish.  Our tour ended in Marrakech, so we were excited to reach the desert city to see what Explore had saved for the finale.  Gwyneth Paltrow, Sienna Miller and the Beckhams love it there.  Yves-Saint Laurent and Jean-Paul Gaultier own property there.  EasyJet and Ryanair fly there.  It must be great, right?  Oh, dear.

It’s rare for me to actively dislike a place.  I disliked Caracas, but visited in 1995 during widespread rioting during Venezuela’s economic crisis, so was too scared to leave the hotel.  Central Ghana was picturesque, but my time there turned into a tour of every available toilet as I got very, very ill.  But I’d rush back to either of these places before going back to Marrakech.

Marrakech was founded in 1062, and has a medieval souk and the same blend of mosque and mystery as Fez.  But Marrakech feels fake in comparison.  First of all, everyone speaks English.  In Fez, you need Arabic, French or a range of enthusiastic hand signals to communicate (in that order).  When you find a dense concentration of English speakers in a non-English speaking country, it tells me that their primary purpose in life is not to pursue ancient crafts and traditions, but to extract money from American tourists.

The central medina is a large, open space at the centre of the city, which fills up with tourist tat during the day.  Stalls will sell you low-quality, high-priced souvenirs.  Berber women will overcharge you for “traditional” henna tattoos.  Snake charmers and monkey wranglers will pose with you, then extort cash from you for the “pleasure”.

Let me linger on this for a moment.  Don't give money to a snake charmer or a monkey wrangler, in Marrakech or elsewhere.  The snakes and monkeys are taken from the wild, kept in appalling conditions and are tortured for your entertainment.  There is nothing authentic  about the experience and as long as people continue to pay for photos, the practise will continue.  I saw a monkey attack his handler with teeth and claws bared.  I was cheering for the monkey.

At night, the Medina turns into what must be the world’s largest street-food market. Whilst this is quite an experience, and some of the food is excellent, it’s a rather intimidating experience with every pickpocket in North Africa putting in a long and lucrative shift.

There are good, ethical operators in Marrakech, such as an independent hotel and hammam that we visited a few alleys down from the central Medina (post to come).  Some of the city’s accommodation is excellent and we enjoyed some great food while we were there.  But overall, Marrakech was a disappointment.

If Marrakech was your only experience of Morocco, I can see how the exoticism and mystery of the place (not to mention the climate) would make it an attractive destination.  If your only opportunity to visit Morocco was to go to Marrakech, then go, as the country has so much to offer . 

But let me say that Fez is so much more authentic and would make for a much more enjoyable experience.  As would Rabat.  Even Casablanca felt like it would be more interesting to explore.  Easyjet and Ryanair do fly to Fez, too.  

To be honest, when I first read Matt's draft I told him I wouldn't post it.  Way too blunt.
Even though I agree with most of it, I want to talk about the positives of the places that we visit.
I want to fall in love with every place we visit.  It's easy to write the good stuff.

But, what do you say when a place disappoints.  It's not an amusement park designed for our pleasure.

It's someone's Home, Sweet Home.  How do I say that I didn't enjoy it without being offensive?  

I guess honestly.   And with the disclaimer that this is simply our experience.

We were there for a very short amount of time and saw a limited part of the city.

We had a tourist experience that left us feeling disappointed rather than the
authentic experience that we were craving.

We did have some really great moments there that I'll definitely share with you.

But, I'll steer future travelers to Fes or Rabat over Marrakesh every time.

Tomorrow, I'll tell you a bit more about my experience and why I came away with a negative perception. 

Where were you excited to visit that left you feeling a bit deflated?

TWITTER | FACEBOOK | PINTEREST | SUBSCRIBE | BLOGLOVIN

I went to... with Matthew - Qatar

 I went to...  Qatar.

In 2006, I’d just finished an 18 month assignment in Singapore, and decided to come back to the UK to visit family.  Once that decision had been taken, the next exciting job was to decide a stopover location, as indirect flights are always much cheaper than direct flights.  Even though I was unemployed, I was fortunate to be able to take some time off before looking for my next job.

I decided to stop in Qatar, and so travelled on Qatar airlines, which turned out to be an excellent choice.  Qatar occupies a small peninsula in the Arabian gulf, sharing a land border with Saudi Arabia.  Bahrain is around 20 miles away by sea and Dubai is around 235 miles to the East.

 Qatar from my hotel window.  I travelled in February, so although it looks baking hot, it was actually a very pleasant time of year to visit.

Despite being a very small country, Qatar has the third largest reserves of natural gas in the world.  The rapid development of liquefied natural gas technology in the early 2000’s allowed gas to be distributed without needing a pipeline, which brought great wealth to Qatar.  In 2009, Qatar overtook Luxembourg as the country with the highest average income in the world.  That doesn’t quite tell the whole story though, as the 280,000 Qataris are supported by 1.6 million migrant workers who do not share in the wealth to quite the same extent as the Qataris.  As a result of the huge migrant workforce, my favourite statistic about Qatar is that 74% of the residents of the country are male.

Qatar’s capital (and only real city) is Doha, which is a very picturesque city built on a bay.  The waterfront is fringed by a delightful cornice, that runs for around 3 miles and provides a great opportunity for strolling and people watching.  At one end of the corniche is a vast mall, with the usual designer label stores, restaurants, cinemas and, perhaps surprisingly, a huge ice rink.

At the other end of the cornice is a large residential area for the migrant workforce.  There were markets, mosques and restaurants, but as they serviced a population drawn almost exclusively from the Indian sub-continent, the feeling of the place was much more like Delhi, Lahore or Dhaka than a major Middle Eastern capital.  This created a contrast which I actually really liked.

I found Qatar to be the probably the most strongly Islamic place I have ever visited, more so than Kuwait, Dubai and far more than you find in the Islamic parts of Asia  I don’t believe I saw an uncovered woman in the entire time I was there, and the (male) crowds at Friday prayers spilled out of every mosque.  The sale of alcohol was restricted to a small number of  bars which were very well hidden in luxury hotels.  Nevertheless, most of the customers in these bars were locals - it was rather disconcerting to sip on my Heineken while sitting next to a gent in full thawb and kufiya who was chugging a Stella Artois.

 Skyline work in progress

Back in 2006, Qatar’s wealth was building exponentially, and the country was in a phase of huge building works.  Nevertheless, I could sense a realisation that the gas would eventually run out, something I’d also felt when I visited Dubai and Kuwait.  It felt that the respective governments had recognised their long term obligation to provide for their populations when the oil and gas ran out, and each of the major states was trying to find a way to differentiate themselves from their neighbours so as to attract investment and tourists.

 Meet Orry, the mascot of the 15^th Asian Games. 

 A Qatari Oryx, if you were wondering.

Qatar picked sport.  In a surprise decision, it had been selected as the host of the 2006 Asian games, a decision Malaysia described as “ridiculous” and which China felt was “disappointing” (I’ll come back to this theme later…).   Despite the controversy, Qatar was proudly advertising its upcoming hosting responsibilities during my visit with a countdown clock on the cornice.

The old and the new are never far apart in the Arabian peninsula

In 2010, Qatar won the right to host the 2022 World Cup, beating out the USA, South Korea, Japan and Australia.  Giving the hosting rights to a country that has never qualified for the competition (and based on a global ranking of 106, would probably never qualify), was a controversial decision, to say the least.  It certainly satisfies world football’s desire to take the tournament to new parts of the world, but there are lingering suspicions of corruption in the bidding process.

Another problem is that the tournament is traditionally held in the Northern Hemisphere summer, where temperatures in Qatar can reach 50 degrees Celsius.  Qatar’s bid included a promise to build air-conditioned stadiums, although there are concerns over fan well-being when travelling to and from games.  The latest thinking is that the 2022 tournament will be rescheduled to the winter months, which would solve the heat issue, but which would require substantial concessions from national football federations.

Since I visited Qatar nearly a decade ago, the development has continued and Doha has become an even more desirable stopover.  A museum of Islamic art has been built on the corniche, which was quickly rated as one of the great museums of the world.  Qatar has boosted its sporting credentials by hosting major cycling and tennis events and a Qatari recently won the Paris-Dakar rally.  A long mooted bridge connecting the country to Bahrain is shortly to be built.   

A fascinating part of the world, that is well worth at least a stopover.

Matt

We've had such a positive response now that Matthew is contributing regularly to the blog.

Thanks so much for all of your great comments.

 

We're home from Barcelona this evening.

I can't wait to tell you all about it.

TWITTER | FACEBOOK | PINTEREST | SUBSCRIBE | BLOGLOVIN