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WIN A TRIP FOR 2 TO EXPLORE NORTHERN THAILAND! W WORLDWIDE E 2008 ISSUE #18 $6.95 GST INCLUDED

TRAVEL CULTURE

rget! o f r e v e n l ’l u o y holidays

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CAMER DETAIL A S

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GREECE TURKEY CAMEL WRESTLING VIETNAM 24 HOURS IN HO CHI MINH HIDING ON SIFNOS

CANADA PADDLING TO POLAR BEARS

EAST TIMOR AN UNTOUCHED

WHERE THE LOCALS GO ISSN 14491449 1449-3543 3543

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ISRAEL EATING IT UP SOUTH AFRICA HALFF PIPE HIST HISTORY TORY AUSTRALIA BARRA HUNTING HU

TR AV EL TO TH EN EW

BRAZIL

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PLAYGROUND

text: ben stubbs images: ben stubbs

Ben Stubbs discovers that camel wrestling is celebrated with passion along the Aegean coast of southern Turkey each winter.

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AM IMPRESSED BY THE APPEARANCE OF David Beckham as he strides out onto the dusty pitch. His goatee is trimmed and he seems to have bulked up over the summer. As thousands of rowdy fans cheer his arrival, he begins a lap around the ground.

The drums pound and the horns slice the air.

I notice that David is foaming at the mouth.

I also observe that his saddle is decorated in shining beer advertisements. Come to think of it, so is the posterior of Bill Clinton, his four-legged opponent.

I arrived on Pamucak beach on the outskirts of Selçuk for the city’s annual camel wrestling festival, the grand final of a series of wrestling bouts that have taken place across the region over the preceding few months. Led into the ground by my pint-sized interpreter, bodyguard and drinking partner, Yosef, my senses are assaulted by the aroma from the grills gathered #22 get lost! ISSUE #18

around the arena. Clumps of terracottacoloured camel salami are strung out on the coals ready for patrons to gobble up with a side of onions and a tumbler full of cloudy moonshine. Wobbling raki salesmen distribute their beverage as they jostle for space with Turkish flag vendors and a group of fidgeting riot police. As I look at the armour-clad policemen and the ambulance idling near the arena, it is not clear whether the precautions are for the camels or for the spectators.

On a sunny Sunday morning, around 20,000 picnickers have congregated at the camel wrestling. Many are decked out in checked orange and red scarves that, much like a Collingwood beanie or a Sydney Swans scarf, show their allegiance for the day’s festivities.

Selçuk seems to have a fascination with strange wrestling tournaments. During the balmy month of May, this Mediterranean

get in the know! The dromedary (one-humped) camel and the Bactrian (two humped) camel are in the camelidae family along with the South American llama and the alpaca.

turkey

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town plays host to Turkey’s annual oilwrestling festival. Hairy men, not camels, lather themselves in the finest olive oil before grappling away in the aromatic sunshine until one of them either gives up or begins to roast.

But there are no oiled-up men here today.

Finding a spot close to the fences and within spitting distance of the action, Yosef clears up my first misconception. The event is ‘camel on camel’, not man against camel as I initially imagined. As the noise intensifies we see the 108 camels (or tulus, as they are known in Turkish) led out onto the ground by their diminutive owners to do a lap of honour like prize poodles at a dog show. The shaggy animals grunt and froth their way across the dirt, adorned with elaborate saddles, op-shop decorations and gypsy costumes.

Over a glass of raki, Yosef tells me that Selçuk’s camel wrestling is more about tradition than the seriousness of the competition.

As we polish off our tumblers of liquorice-tasting firewater, Yosef explains that camel wrestling goes back hundreds of years and is an integral part of Turkish culture. The sport originated during the Ottoman Empire to demonstrate the strength of the empire’s Iranian camels against the wandering caravans blowing in from across the deserts of the Middle East.

The first match of the day is initiated and the crowd begins to convulse like at a Brazilian football match. Yosef and I climb up on the hill

Many are decked out in checked orange and red scarves that, much like a Collingwood beanie or a Sydney Swans scarf, show their allegiance for the day’s festivities.

’’

overlooking the arena to get a better vantage point of the festivities. A bushy-haired man with a fierce monobrow leads his equally ungroomed camel Tsunami out to meet its opponent, Berdus, who sports a mess of yellow teeth, not unlike its ageing owner.

It appears that it isn’t just dogs that resemble their masters.

After a few tense moments between the two beasts, a slinky female camel is led into the centre to roll around in the dirt suggestively.

Yosef catches the confused look on my face and tells me that the female is supposed to arouse the male instincts of Tsunami and Berdus and to encourage a duel for the lady’s honour – not that different to a Friday night at my local pub. Once the pouting young camel suitably excites the drooling males, the wrestle begins.

The two clumsy camels scuff around the edges cautiously, each stalking the other’s shadow and waiting to make the first move.

A roar ripples across the crowd when, with a dangling lasso of saliva, Berdus twists under the charge of Tsunami and takes a swipe at his rump. With the camels’ great curving necks, the battle resembles a hairy arm-wrestle in the dirt. One camel goes for a nip on the other’s foot, a deft shoulder barge brings out an “ooooohhhh” get in the know! It’s estimated that there are 1,200 camel wrestlers in Turkey.

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vietnam

24 hours in text: helen clark images: rico gonzales

Once known as Saigon, Vietnam’s largest city is the nation’s economic engine room and remains a magnet for travellers of all shapes and sizes.

W

HEN WRITER PJ O’ROURKE VISITED Vietnam back in 1992, he described Ho Chi Minh City as the mess left over from people making money. And it remains a chaotic, neon-lit sprawl of a mess that stinks in the hot weather and floods in the wet – but money is still being made. Despite recent inflation worries, the city’s economy is booming like the richest drunk at the bar. The mere mention of Vietnam, however, will always elicit reminders of the Vietnam War, and war and its effects continue to play a part in Ho Chi Minh City.

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get in the know! Ho Chi Minh led the Viet Minh independence movement from 1941 and then the North Vietnamese in the Vietnam War until his death.

8.12am

The traffic moves like a river after a hurricane One of the first things to strike people arriving in Vietnam is the traffic (pun intended).

The stream of motorbikes, trucks and luxury cars looks like chaos – because it is. Head injuries have decreased significantly this year since a law came in requiring everyone on motorbikes to wear a helmet. However, many of the helmets are low quality and for some reason, children aged fourteen and under are exempt. The booming economy means that hundreds of new cars are registered in the city daily, adding to the fun.

7:58am

Good morning Vietnam

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I stagger out of the airport and look for a taxi in the early-morning smog. My taxi driver grins as he drags my bags to his ageing blue sedan, probably because I forgot to buy a cab voucher.

Ho Chi Minh City is in the south of Vietnam, and people say southerners are much friendlier than their northern brethren. Different groups attribute this widely accepted notion of friendliness to different things: northerners say it’s because southerners are devious, twofaced rip-off merchants; southerners say it’s because they’re just fundamentally nicer, and besides, they have a better climate (who smiles when it’s two degrees outside and still humid?).

Newcomers and idiots attribute it to the presence of Americans in the country some 30 years ago. Apparently drunk army conscripts taught the southerners easy, international manners in between waging vicious war.

Ho Chi Minh’s nightlife is more diverse, more interesting and definitely plusher than Hanoi’s.

8:40am

I tentatively decide to stay in Pham Ngu Lao

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Unlike some other countries, Pham Ngu Lao – the tourist quarter – isn’t absolute hell on earth, and the city’s expats do venture in from time to time. But visitors to the quarter are still ambushed with cries of “You buy, you buy” from daybreak onwards, before they realise that no one needs one of those dogs with a bobbing head before breakfast. get in the know! Pham Ngu Lao was named after the war hero of the same name, who was renowned for his shrewdness. He passed away in 1320.

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brazil

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get in the know! In the seventeenth century Recife was the centre of a Dutch colony called Mauritsstadt. Many of the locals still have blonde hair and blue eyes.

Alex Robinson marvels at one of South America’s undiscovered corners. text: alex robinson images: alex robinson

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HE TINY TURBOPROP TOSSED IN THE turbulence as it climbed out of Recife.

Below lay a labyrinth of mangroves and a tangle of highways, wrapped around blocks of coloured concrete and Renaissance church steeples. Then came coastal sand dunes – spread like wrinkled sheets next to a fringe of aquamarine Atlantic – and the indigo expanse of the open ocean. Everyone on board was almost giggling with excitement. The young couple in front of me from Bahia were honeymooning. Next to me was an athleticlooking girl from Rio, reading a book on diving.

And we were all dreaming of Brazilian beaches – but not Ipanema, Jericoacoara or Bahia. We were going to the jewel in South America’s crown – the pristine, white-pepper sands of Fernando de Noronha, a tiny coral-fringed island in the solitary expanse of the Atlantic, which, at least up until this moment, has been a strictly Brazilian secret.

A few days earlier I’d never heard of the place.

I arrived in Recife from Rio in search of South America’s most vibrant music scene. Since the late 1990s the baroque buildings of this sweaty, former Dutch colonial city have been reverberating to the raging rhythms of mangue beat. I’d been listening to Brazilian music for years but had never heard anything quite like it. Bands like Chico Science, Nação Zumbi and Mundo Livre S/A combine pounding African rhythms with growling Nick Cave guitar and a kind of syncopated punchy rap vocal that Brazilians call repente.

I was staying in a little sweat-and-sawdust bar housed in an old colonial mansion house in the old centre. As a bizarre, drugged-out band from the desert thrashed out some psychedelic accordion punk, a local couple pulled up a plastic chair next to me. I was a curiosity – the only gringo in the bar and quite probably the only one in town. “You going to Noronha?” they asked.

To where? “Fernando de Noronha.”

get in the know! Olinda sounds like ‘o lindo’ in Portuguese meaning ‘oh beautiful’ but is more likely to have been named after a character from the Portuguese narrative, Amadis de Gaula.

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brazil

As I looked suitably bewildered, one of the couple, a tall gangly guy with a goatee and a Chico Science T-shirt, pulled out an iPod and flashed some photos in front of me.

They showed a succession of long, deserted beaches watched over by craggy rocks, washed by a turquoise sea. “Looks pretty,” I said. “Pretty?” he was offended. “These are the most beautiful beaches in Brazil, maybe the world. There is nowhere like Noronha... you have to go. You have to see it for yourself.”

I may have made a beach faux pas, but the couple didn’t seem to mind. They were clearly surprised that I was in their bar and delighted I was in their city. Foreigners are apparently an anomaly in Recife, but I’d made a good choice.

“Like all the best things, Recife is a city that people have to discover – unlike Rio or Salvador that welcome tourists with open arms,” said the gangly guy, who introduced himself as Felipe.

“Com certeza – for sure,” said his girlfriend, Juliana, a kind of chic, capoiera-toned hippy in computer-geek specs. “Let me tell you about Recife, about Pernambuco. Until the 1920s we were the centre of Brazil – the richest city and state and the best place for culture... then the bastards from São Paulo and Rio stole all our money and our political influence.”

So much for Brazil being the country of

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easy-going brotherly love. “We don’t like people from the south-east here in Recife,” said Felipe. “But we like foreigners.” They both smiled and in that infectious, charming Brazilian way, they took over my evening.

“It’s Easter,” Juliana told me, “what are we doing indoors? Let’s go out and see the parades!”

We walked a few blocks towards the whitewash and raw stone filigree facade of the eighteenth-century Madre de Deus Church.

I could hear distant fireworks and percussion.

And as both got louder, the streets filled with people. By the time we got to the church, laughing revellers were dancing wildly in brilliant orange dresses and blue satin suits.

The men wore sparkly hats covered in tinsel and tiny blue forget-me-not flowers. The thick night air throbbed to the deep ‘boom ba-da-ba boom’ of hundreds of drummers. “Great samba,” I said. Juliana scowled. “There’s no samba in Pernambuco – this is maracatu”. She explained that maracatu was both the cultural identity and the music of the West Africans, dragged across to Brazil by the Portuguese from Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Angola in the Renaissance world’s largest skin trade. Each African nation had preserved its memory and identity through this music and through the regular festivals,

get in the know! Recfice, which literally means ‘reef’, was one of the first areas in Brazil to be settled by the Portuguese.

which were originally exclusively African.

We followed the parade into the city and found another bar away from the throng. After buying a bottle of ice-cold Bohemia beer, Felipe looked at me seriously and said “So – you going to Noronha?” Resisting Brazilian enthusiasm seemed almost narrow-minded by this stage, so I caved in. They both grinned from cheek to cheek. “Great – you will love it. Just you wait... tomorrow we help you get the ticket.”

Soon it was time to fly and I was sitting

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We were going to the jewel in South America’s crown – the pristine, white-pepper sands of Fernando de Noronha, a tiny coral-fringed island in the solitary expanse of the Atlantic, which, at least up until this moment, has been a strictly Brazilian secret.

’’

next to the girl from Ipanema, bumping over a seemingly interminable sea. After nearly an hour, Noronha appeared – a little rocky dot fringed with a ring of golden beaches and emerald sea. The plane dipped and turned over the Morro de Meio – a sugar loaf peak crowning a glorious long, broad beach pounded by bottle-green breakers. I could see surfers on the sand. Then we bumped onto the tarmac and skidded to a halt.

The air smelt as fragrant and fresh as Mediterranean macquis and was as clear and clean as a breeze in the Kimberleys. The sun was low in the late afternoon sky and the deep greens of the forest and heath that shrouded the little island were burnished a deep tropical yellow. By the time I reached my pousada (guesthouse) it was nearly sunset – the moment, according to Felipe and Juliana, to head for the lookout over Boldró beach. At a clifftop shack at the end of a little dirt track a small crowd had gathered, beers in hand, to look out over one of the most breathtaking coastal views I’ve ever seen. The sun was low in the sky, a giant crimson ball hovering over a gunmetal grey ocean.

At my feet the long broad sands of Boldró stretched to a jagged, rainforest-covered spur that rose like a wall. Beyond was another beach, Cacimba do Padre. And I could see another forest-covered spur behind that, sheltering another golden bay – the Baía dos Porcos.

In the distance were the Ilha Dois Irmãos, two mysterious and tiny pyramid islands. Lulled by the mantra of the crashing waves, I realised that Fernando de Noronha – like the Hawaiian islands – was a vast volcanic pinnacle thrust out of the depths of the ocean. But it was far, far older than Kauai or Maui. The crag of Morro do Pico hill, which lay at my back, was as worn and ancient as the Grampians. The bays and beaches looked like get in the know! The principal rhythm of the Pernambuco style of music is maracatu but the most popular dances are forró and frevo.

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confessions

observing cust ms text: kevin pilley

image: magda bytnerowicz

I have a problem. Try as I might, I cannot walk through airport customs in a normal and convincing fashion.

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songs: “those misty water-coloured memories of the way we were.”

Admitting the problem was getting out of hand, I saw a psychiatrist. His diagnosis was interesting. “Since you have no recollection of being belittled at an early age by customs officials or humiliated during pubescence at the hands of someone who was later to grow up and get a job in immigration control, it’s clear that your chronic fear of customs is a classic case of self-love,” he said, studying his notebook doodles while I stared at the Artexing.

“He could be right,” I thought. My fear of customs may be a manifestation of a deeprooted and much repressed desire to be famous or infamous. Subconsciously, I wish to be singled out as someone special. I want to be stopped and searched because I desire to be stopped and searched. I want to be

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A

S SOON AS I PUSH MY LUGGAGE TROLLEY under the ‘Nothing to Declare’ sign, my body gives up on me. My legs turn to jelly and I start walking like Robocop. I feel like I am wearing deep-sea diving boots and my knees knock uncontrollably. I panic. I fret. I palpitate.

I pant. I cannot keep my eyebrows still. I develop facial tics. Everything clenches. Everything capable of puckering puckers. I suffer from extreme projectile perspiration.

This is paranoid behaviour that is both embarrassing and irrational. I live my life by the rules. I pay taxes and I am not a drug runner.

I don’t smuggle baboon noses into countries or human spleens out of them. I am not a bad person.

I am not an undesirable. So why is it that every time I walk through customs, breaking no laws apart from perhaps exceeding the allowance of dirty washing, I start walking like someone from the Ministry of Highly Suspicious and Incredibly Sweaty, Self-Conscious Walks?

It’s the same with Passport Control. I turn into a nervous wreck. As soon as I hand my passport to the person in the booth (why do they all look like they suffer from arousal dysfunction?) and see them look at my photo I begin drawing attention to myself by singing Carpenters

noticed because I need to be noticed. I wish to be something I am not. I am a non-entity and I resent it.

My panic attacks are all part of a desperate egotistical fixation to be recognised as something other than just a run-of-the-mill tourist who writes a bit. The shrink kindly gave me some props to overcome my aversion and relieve my anxieties about what I am and what I’m not. In criminal circles they would be called a disguise. So the next time that you spot someone looking obviously suspicious as he tiptoes furtively through the red exit in a striped sweater and a black mask with a bag marked ‘swag’ slung over his shoulder, please pull him to one side.

This is what he wants. He wants to be mistaken for an international jewel thief.

Anyone but himself.

...breaking no laws apart from perhaps exceeding the allowance of dirty washing, I start walking like someone from the Ministry of Highly Suspicious and Incredibly Sweaty, Self-Conscious Walks.

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get in the know! The Australian Customs Service employs around 6,000 people in Australia and overseas.