selfINDULGED

ISS

UE

#7

www.selfindulged.com Photography by Sandra Herd

+WIN Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Photographywith “Where’s Dave?”

A twist of tango!

Dwarves: Delightfully DelinquentWroclaw

TRAVEL - BUENOS AIRES - CAMDEN LOCK - GOING BALLISTIC - WROCLAW + MORE!

Buenos Aires

Camden LockA little piece of peace

...and much more!

INDULGEDself

http://www.manfrotto.com

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Welcome to Issue 7 of Self Indulged.

We left our home in Perth nearly 12 months ago to start this whirlwind photographic tour and have been loving every minute of being on the road. As most of you know, getting the magazine out while we’re travelling is a challenge every time particularly as, in the past 6 weeks we’ve been trekking and camping in Patagonia with little or no internet access, but my little Dell laptop is still going strong and I’m proud to present to you (drum roll please) Issue #7.

I’m calling this issue “The eclectic/eccentric Issue”.

We’ve got a feature from Lithuania, firing semi-automatic weapons in an abandoned sports stadium (as you do!), a story about dwarves (no - really!), a feature on the peaceful parts of London and my feelings about the big bad city that is Buenos Aires.

We also have 2 chances to win the Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Photography which I know I lot of you will be interest-ed in reading. Just flick to page xx for your chance to enter.

We’re still on the road...currently in Santiago, Chile and are hoping to bring more stories and photos in the coming months. As long as you keep reading, I’ll keep on shoot-ing and writing. As always I’d like to say a huge thanks for the emails and words of encouragement I receive while I’m away. Ciao for now (see, I have learned something in South America), I hope you enjoy the travel tales inside and, as always, look forward to hearing your thoughts, reviews and comments.

Until next time. xx

ISSUE #7

Written by Sandra HerdPhotographer: Sandra HerdDesigner: Sandra HerdEditor: Sandra HerdResearch:Sandra HerdOperations: Dave Goldstraw

www.selfindulged.comwww.shotsinternational.comsandy@selfindulged.comwww.facebook.com/selfin-dulgedmag

Self Indulged takes no responsi-bility for links leading to external content. By reading this publica-tion you are agreeing to click on external links at your own risk. The links have been included soley as a source of information.

COVER PHOTO: One of the many murals on the streets of Buenos Aires

p8 Londonp46 Buenos Aires

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:: Wish You Were Here:: Where’s Dave?:: Gadgets, Gizmos & Goodstff:: Specialist Directory:: Parting Shots

644565960

Pg 44 WIN

LONELY PLANET’S

GUIDE TO TRAVEL

PHOTOGRAHY.

p34

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p22 Vilnius

Wroclaw

If you’d like to send me an email with your thoughts/comments/ideas about the mag,

please use the following address... sandy@selfindulged.com

Click the bottletops above to LIKE on Facebook or to FOLLOW on Twitter.

WISH YOU WERE HERE!

Dear Sandy,Don’t know where you find the time or

energy to put this together but I’m glad

you do...looking forward to the next is-

sue.Pete - WA

I wanted to write and thank you for your

article on Tromso. I’m from Canada and

lived and worked in Tromso for 2 years.

Your feature reminded me just how

much I miss it. The Aurora can be spec-

tacular in the later months of Winter.

Thanks for sharing your story.

John Rainer

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WISH YOU WERE HERE!

I’ve just discovered Self Indulged and I must congrat-

ulate you on capturing some of my favorite places

extremely well. The Nepal article has me checking

the latest flight prices to Kathmandu and the Mt

Emei article (China special) reminds me of my sub-

sequent phobia of stairs! oh, the stairs!

Adam - UK

Cheers Adam...glad I’m not alone with my stair phobia!

Dear Sandy,Don’t know where you find the time or

energy to put this together but I’m glad

you do...looking forward to the next is-

sue.Pete - WA

I wanted to write and thank you for your

article on Tromso. I’m from Canada and

lived and worked in Tromso for 2 years.

Your feature reminded me just how

much I miss it. The Aurora can be spec-

tacular in the later months of Winter.

Thanks for sharing your story.

John Rainer

Hi,I really enjoyed your chasing the light feature and

wanted to know if you could offer any tips on night

time photography and what settings the camerashould be on for an evening shot. I’ve been trying with my new DSLR but seem to bestuggling!Cheers, SteveThanks for the email Steve, we’ll have some

top tips for night shooting in the next issue.-Sandy

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Words: Sandra HerdPhotography: Sandra Herd

A little piece of peace...

exploring the quiet and chaos around Camden Lock

“Oh, to be in EnglandNow that April’s there,

And whoever wakes in EnglandSees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheafRound the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard boughIn England-now!”

Home - Thoughts From Abroad by Robert Browning (b.1812-1899)

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The library/sitting room at Tromso Bed & Books

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exploring the quiet and chaos around Camden Lock

Photo: About to exit the Maida Hill Tunnel...251m long

Little Venice& Brownings Pool

Maida Hill Tunnel:The bit where the

blue line diappears on the map! London Zoo

Avoid the queuesand get off the waterbus

here.

Cumberland Basin-Home to the Chinese floating restaurant.

‘Blow-up’ Bridge

If you’ve ever stood on London’s Embankment at 7am on a Sunday morning you’ll know that this major world Capital, soon to be host to the 2012 Olympic games, does have a quieter side. A peaceful Yin to the cities bustling Yang. The very wonderful thing about the centre of London is that there are little pockets of peace every-where, often delightful and unexpected at the same time and just recently, I discovered a new one.

I use the term ‘new’ loosely. It was newly dis-covered to me but the Regents Canal has been around for nearly two hundred since its completion in 1820. It links the River Thames at Limehouse to the Grand Union Canal Junction at Paddington and was named after the Prince Regent who later became known by a differ-ent name, King George IV. It quietly snakes through Hackney, Islington, Camden and Little Venice - the point where Regent’s Canal meets the Grand Junction Canal and the place where I would be boarding the London Waterbus for a 50 minute cruise up the canal to Camden Lock markets.

The waterbuses are traditional canal narrow boats and they float serenely down the leafy ca-nal corridor between Little Venice and Camden Lock. Beautifully decorated, complete with a traditional painted watering can on the roof, the narrow boats of the London Waterbus Company operate all year round with a truncated timeta-ble through the winter months. We boarded at Brownings Pool in Little Venice, a picturesque opening of water where two canals meet with a small island in the middle. Brownings Island and indeed, Brownings pool, were named after the Victorian English poet, Robert Browning who lived in the area in the late 1800s and whose poem, ‘Home – Thoughts From Abroad’ could have been written for a spring day spent cruis-ing the canals.

As we set off towards Camden I was astonished as an entirely new face of London presented itself to me. There were dozens of narrow boats moored along the waterside. Mea Culpa, Little Pud and the dark Iron Maiden gently bobbed in greeting as we glided down the canal. There were people on their narrowboats quietly read-

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London ZooAvoid the queues

and get off the waterbus here.

Chaotic Camden Lock!

Google Maps

‘Blow-up’ Bridge

“My newly found bubble of serenity was about to be burst in spectacular fashion as we were slammed, at 100+ deci-bels, back into the hustle and bustle (albeit a pleasant one) of Camden Lock Markets”

ing on the equivalent of their ‘front’ patio as we, the tourists, sailed by on our voyeuristic voy-age. One gentleman was cooking sausages on a small bbq at the front of his boat, sending the bouquet of brunch down the canal and making me wish that I, too owned my very own narrow boat from which I could lazily cook brunch and settle into a life on the locks.

We sailed (is it sailing on a canal?) past cou-ples and families strolling along the walkway, through the long and dark Maida Hill Tunnel and

past the fringes of London’s Regents Park. We continued down the canal, under Macclesfield Bridge, otherwise known as ‘Blow up Bridge’ after the original was demolished by a gunpow-der explosion in 1874. According to the British Waterways (the governing body of this slice of London), “At 3am on 2 October 1874, the boat Tilbury, carrying gunpowder to a quarry in the Midlands, exploded, demolishing the bridge and killing three people. Locals sprang from their beds, fearing an earthquake.” The Illustrated London Newspaper from the time also reported that, ‘The bridge was entirely destroyed; several of the neighbouring houses were half-ruined, their roofs and walls being greatly injured; and in hundreds of other houses, a mile east or west of the place, the windows were broken, and many fragile articles of furniture. St. John’s-wood and Camden Town were thrown into great consternation.’ The original pillars were used on the reconstruction of the bridge and you can still see the tow rope grooves on the ‘wrong’ side of the pillars.

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Photo: The Feng Shang float-ing Chinese restaurant in the

Cumberland Basin...on the way to Camden Lock.

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Photo: Arriving at Camden Lock markets via the

Waterbus.

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On the port side we passed the gigantic London Zoo aviary, designed in part by Lord Snowdon, the ‘Royal’ photographer (formally married to Princess Margaret) whose candid portraits of Princess Diana are well known but not often recognised as his. The waterbus also offers tickets to the London Zoo and will drop you off at the canal side entrance if you wish to visit and avoid the queues at the main gate. We pulled in and a handful of people got off before we slowly pushed off, continuing the peace-ful pace all the way to the Cumberland Basin where we took a sharp (well, as sharp a turn as a narrow boat can manage) left as we passed the huge red, floating Chinese restaurant, the Feng Shang Princess.

I would’ve loved to have kept going, through the lock gates at Camden and beyond to the ‘nearly a kilometre long’ tunnel at Islington but alas, my newly found bubble of serenity was about to be burst in spectacular fashion as we were slammed, at 100+ decibels, back into the hustle and bustle (albeit a pleasant one) of

Camden Lock markets. An immediate assault to the senses ensued. The sun was shining and the waterside of Camden Lock was packed. The market stalls spanned out into an end-less maze of colour and movement, music and food. Ethiopian dishes, Mexican tacos, freshly made sushi, noodles and curries, roast pig on a spit or good ol’ fish ‘n chips - the choice was incessant. We opted for the spicy Mexican and washed it down with a cold pint of beer, bypassing the overpriced Bar Risa in favour of the cheaper Weatherspoons’ Ice Wharf on the opposite side of the canal.

Satiated and refreshed we were drawn back into the markets to explore the plethora of stalls. Camden Lock Market somehow merged into The Stables, another market - so called because the horses that once pulled the barges along the canals used to be stabled there. The Stables was another labyrinth of over 700 shops and stalls selling everything from antiques to plastic kitty tat. The bronzed gal-loping horses made an impressive but frenzied

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Photo: Clouds over Camden Lock on the Regents Canal

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Photo: Busker playing on the roof of the narrowboat book-

shop. Camden Lock.

entrance as we fought the hoards of shoppers posing for a photograph in front of the rearing stallions. We wandered around the stalls and eventually spilled out onto Chalk Farm Road, it had been my intention to head up to Camden High Street to check out the Camden Market (yep...there’s more) but I was all ‘marketed’ out. I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out my ‘return’ Waterbus ticket...I was heading back out the way I’d come in. The calm canal was calling.

For more information on Regents Canal check out the links below. My advice would be to reserve a whole day to visit the ca-nal and markets. Follow the market link for information on which days and times the markets are open...most of them are open all weekend. If you’re more interested in the canals than the shopping you can visit the London Canal Museum in Kings Cross and learn more about the waterways of London. Little Venice is also home to a floating art gallery and, delightfully, a floating puppet theatre - check their website for current per-formance listings.

FOR MORE INFO CHECK OUT THE LINKS:

LONDON WATERBUS Co.

LONDON CANAL MUSEUM

PUPPET THEATRE BARGE

CAMDEN LOCK MARKETS

Map: www.camdenlock.net

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Photography by Sandra Herd

BALLISTIC

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G ING BALLISTIC

IN THE

BALTICS

Words: Sandra HerdPhotography: Sandra Herd

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“I s it OK for my face to be this close to the gun?

There’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear myself say but it’s the question that everyone should ask when they are hold-ing a Kalashnikov, otherwise known as the infamous AK47, half an inch away from their right cheek. Thankfully the bit touching my cheek was not the ‘muzzle’ end. I was the one about to fire the AK and I was more than a little apprehensive.

We were hanging out at a for-mer KGB shooting range in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius. When I say shooting range I mean deserted sports stadium and when I say ‘hanging out’ I mean sitting in a room with over a dozen guns on the table (some of them automatic weap-

ons) while the local constabu-lary walked through the room to reach their own training room next door.

The best way to access this particular shooting range is via the company ‘Baltic Stags’ as the premises have no current web page of their own. They are located at Kosciuskos 7,

Kalnu Parkas Stadionas in Vil-nius and we made an appoint-ment directly through our hostel without joining a ‘tour’...I’d give you a number but unfortunately, I don’t have one.

We’d passed through the other Baltic nations of Estonia and Latvia, both offered the oppor-tunity to shoot semi automatic weapons but on the advice of a Latvian local we held out for Lithuania...here, we were told, you have the option of shooting 13 different weapons in the one day. Living by the great Aussie motto of ‘go hard or go home’, we decided to go hard.

At this point let me just explain how I got here with my ‘dis-claimer’. I’ve never actually been into guns, I like to have a go at the odd fairground rifle

“Curiously, I did find myself morbidly excit-ed by the fact that I’d blown the top of his

ear off!”

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range to see if I can win some-thing stuffed but in general guns don’t really appeal to me. At the risk of sounding sexist I guess it’s more of a boy thing which is quite apparent by the amount of stag parties these ‘Eastern bloc’ tours accommodate. I can think of nothing worse than a gang of hung-over Brits out on their stag weekend firing semi automatic weapons....the tes-tosterone alone would be too much to bare. A nightmare of gung-ho wannabes quoting lines from Clint Eastwood mov-ies and to be honest, that’s ex-actly what I was expecting. A stag party novelty, a backpack-er’s whim, our experience was neither. Initially I tagged along to take the photos of Dave do-ing the shooting but right from the start our instructor included me fully and divided the bullets for each weapon evenly.

And so began the lesson.

I felt a little embarrassed for pre-judging as our young in-structor, Aidanas, began by pulling out each hand gun and quietly explaining its capabili-ties and calibre. He talked us through the safety protocol, eye and ear protection and how to check the chamber and fire a fi-nal safety shot just to check that there are no rounds left in the weapon before we moved on to the next one. Outside (we were firing through an open window) he pinned up the A1 sheet of paper, the target, an outline of a man who was to become our adversary. He showed us how to load the cartridge and hand-ed over the weapon for us to load ourselves and then it was time to start shooting.

First up was the Glock 17 pis-

tol. My hands actually trembled as I wrapped them around the handle. The anticipation of the kick back was worse than the kickback itself but as the weapons got bigger...so did the kickback...and so did the rush of adrenalin. The magnum ter-rified me with its ‘Russian rou-lette’ chambers, particularly as I got a shot (with the camera, not a gun) of Dave firing and the flame coming out of the gun.

When it was my turn it took a long time for my hands to stay steady enough to actually aim with some accuracy. After each weapon was fired we stepped outside to check out the dam-age and the poor paper man was perforated from his ears right down to his stomach. Dave was going for ‘grouping’ I was just hoping to hit the piece of paper. Although, curiously, I did find myself morbidly excited by the fact that I’d blown the top of his ear off!

As we shot through the selec-tion on offer the weapons got bigger and more powerful. The kickback from the Winchester Pump-Action shotgun caused me to swear out load on video (sorry Mum) but I can’t pretend

that I didn’t enjoy the ‘chck-chck BOOM!’ of the reload and second shot. Feeling like Ange-lina Jolie in tomb raider I was ready for more but alas, 5 shot-gun rounds between us was all that was included in the price. By the time we got to the rifles my arms were feeling like jelly and it’s here that the proxim-ity of the weapon to my face started to worry me. Of course, they are designed to be shot this way as most rifles are (un-less you’re an LA gangster, in which case you can just hold out the uzi at arms length and fire away...something which I now realise is a ridiculous way to shoot if you intend to actually hit a target). My target (which had been changed from the man to a more traditional round target and moved further away) wasn’t going anywhere and I still managed to miss it! It’s il-legal to shoot on fully automatic but even on semi-automatic the chances of hitting the target be-come very slim. The kickback kind of carries you away and you end up shooting at the sky as you try and control the pow-erful piece of machinery in your hands.

At the end of the two hour session we were exhausted but enthralled. We’d shot 13 weapons in total including the German WW2 machine gun of choice, the MP38. We also shot the American Thompson M1A1, aka the ‘Tommy Gun’, used by the Americans in WW2 and a much heavier weapon to lug around compared to what the German MP38. It was these small details – the history and the stories behind the weapons which interested me the most about the experi-

“I can’t pre-tend that I

didn’t enjoy the ‘chck-

chck BOOM!’ of the reload and second

shot”

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ence. For the equivalent of 95 Australian dollars we’d expe-rienced something that would be nigh on impossible to do in Australia and possibly most of the ‘Western world’ largely due to a few small regulations called Health and Safety. Of course, in countries like Lithu-ania health and safety is pretty much still unheard of...as is the concept of suing someone else for, in most cases, your own stupidity. Refreshingly, in Lithu-ania, everyday living still mostly relies on having that rarest of commodities...a little bit of com-mon sense. Certainly there are dangers attached when you hang around a firing range - not least of which is getting hit by the blank shell casings. Still...you pays your money, you takes your chances!

Other weapons fired on the day included:

Glock 17 Pistol

Israeli Uzi SubMachine Gun

H&K MP5 Laser-Sighted Ma-chine Gun

Winchester Pump-Action Gun

MP38 (WW2 German machine gun of choice)

Thompson M1A1

M4 (M16 short version)

Kalashnikov AK47

Links to firing ranges in

Vilnius:

Baltic Stags

Kalashnikov Shooting

Saudykla

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Now you can enjoy Self Indulged even when you are ‘offline’ with our Android

edition...

Our publishing partners at Issuu have provided a free app available to dowload onto your android phone or tablet.

1. Click the android logo below or simply type m.issuu.com into your andoird device2. Download the free Issuu app

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Delightfully Delinquent...

The Dwarves of Wroclaw

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Delightfully Delinquent...

The Dwarves of WroclawWords: Sandra HerdPhotography: Sandra Herd

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The Orange Alternative (Pomarańczowa Alternatywa) is a name for an under-ground anarchic movement, which was started in 1981 in Wroclaw, a city locat-ed in south-west Poland, by Waldemar Fydrych, known as Major (Commander of the Festung Breslau). Bearing some traits of Provos, and strongly influenced by dadaism and surrealism, it organized ‘happenings’ and painted absurd graf-fiti dwarfs on city wall which became its symbol and was one of most pictur-esque element of Polish opposition against communism. Source: Click here

W roclaw...I would write out how to pro-nounce it phonetically but I wouldn’t know where to start. Suffice to say if you are pronouncing it anyway near how it is written, ie: Rocklaw then you are way off the mark. We arrived to a city un-dergoing change; the landscape was dotted with cranes and potted with gaping holes, maybe due in part to its preparations as official host city of the 2012 European Football Championships in June of this year.

With a population of over 600,000 people, it’s the fourth largest city in Poland. It’s charming mish-mash of architecture is a result of a tumultuous past, spanning over 1000 years of rivalled own-ership between the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria and Poland.

It doesn’t share the dark recent history of War-saw, it doesn’t have the beauty of Krakow but what it does have is intriguing...over one hun-dred little bronze dwarves hanging out in the city and outskirts. Some of them in the unlikeliest of places and, although you can buy a map at the tourist centre of where they all are, chances are you’ll never, ever find them all.

Initially we’d started our search with cameras in hand and a ton of confidence. We intended to find every one of the dwarfs even though no-one seems to have a definitive number as to how many of the little critters have actually made Wro-claw their home. We had no problem finding the ‘original’ dwarf on the corner of Świdnicka and Kazimierz Wielkiego streets. This rather ‘giant’ dwarf was officially placed in this spot in 2001 to commemorate the Orange Alternative move-

ment of the 1980’s and became the catalyst for a dwarf invasion. It was becoming obvious that, without an official ‘dwarf’ map we were going to have some trouble locating all of them but even with the map many of the mischievous midgets still managed to evade us.

The old market square was a great place to start. Word on the street is that some of the local busi-nesses in the city pay the little guys to stand guard outside their place of business, a good gig if you’re guarding a posh hotel where we found one of the dwarves outside, tucked up in his bed sleeping the day away. Not such a good gig for the pizza shop patrol dwarf who’d scoffed down so much pizza that he couldn’t get up from the plate from which he’d gorged himself. His pants

were burst open to reveal a shiny stomach where tourists had rubbed his bulging belly but had failed to help him back up onto his feet.

Outside the bookshop in the main square were three holes on the step, proof that there was once a dwarf here (and indeed our map said he should be) but he’d vanished. I asked the ladies inside the bookshop but they could offer no explanation for his disappearance and couldn’t recall the ex-act date he’d gone missing. We darted around the square like kids hunting for Easter eggs, the two of us in fierce competition trying to add to our tally of ‘spotted and tagged’ dwarfs. We stopped for a coffee and to write a few postcards which were then deposited into the post-box which was dutifully guarded by the Postal Dwarf – another one to add to my tally.

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We’ve travelled a fair bit over the last few years and I have to say I’ve never spent quite such a pleasant day in an ordinary city. At one point I found myself talking out loud, unabashedly, to a small bronze figure who was relaxing on a sofa in the middle of the street as though it was per-fectly normal to be there. But it wasn’t perfectly normal...according to my map, he shouldn’t have been there at all.

“What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here. Shouldn’t you be standing in front of the bookshop instead of lazing around on the couch?”

He didn’t answer. In fact he completely ignored me which I thought was rather rude. I took the obligatory photo as he posed without flinching and moved on to find the others.

Maybe he was the dwarf from the bookshop, maybe he’d just moved on in search of a cuppa or a change of scenery. Some of the little guys did like to get around with rumours of dwarves being stolen in the night - it was hard to know if they had been pilfered or if they’d just up and left of their own accord...it was quite clear that no one in the city really had any control over their movements. By nightfall we’d given up on catching the one who spent the day riding the tram. Outside the old movie theatre we wan-dered around like fools in the dark looking for the ‘projector’ guy (and this was with the map) until eventually I caved in and asked the girls on the ice-cream counter where he hung out. He was hiding in plain site on the traffic island, sitting on his bike atop a movie projector.

We found one poor little chap having his tooth pulled in a back alley…it was obviously a last minute appointment as neither he or his dodgy dentist friend were on the map, in fact we only stumbled upon them as we took a shortcut down a back street to our hotel. We were quite aston-ished to see the two figures there at all. And it’s then that it dawned on me. There could possibly be hundreds of dwarves dotted around the city. The tourist office has maps –yes, but, reminis-cent of the passive resistance from which their ideology was born, it was becoming obvious

that these little guys had the clandestine run of the entire city. Quietly taking over, scatter-ing throughout the streets and alleyways, going about their business largely unnoticed by the le-thargic locals and inattentive tourists. They eat, they sleep, they climb lamp posts to survey the city, they ride Harleys, fight fires, canoodle in cor-ners, read books, spread happiness with flow-ers and the bad ones serve time behind bars. Or maybe that too is a ploy and he sits behind bars as just another sentinel at his post....watching and waiting. Maybe they stand sentry over not only the local businesses but the city as a whole, covertly carrying on the work of the original Or-ange Alternative.

“There is no freedom without dwarves.”

SELFINDULGED 43Photo: The ‘original’ fat dwarf.

ISSUE 6Answer: Dave was at Kjerag Bolt, near Lysefjord, Norway. Winners have been notified.

Where’s Dave?

* Image for illustration purposes only. Competition open worldwide however, the guide book will be in English.

CLICK HERE FOR TERMS & CONDTIONS

Every issue we show you a photo of Dave and it’s up to YOU to tell me where in the world he is.

Have a look at the photo opposite and email your answer along with your name, full address and contact number to

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All correct answers will be collated and winners will be drawn on the 10th of July 2012.

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version of the book.shipped from the Australian Lonely Planet office!*

2TOGIVE

AWAY!

WINLONELY

PLANET’S

GUIDE TO

TRAVEL

PHOTOGRAPHY

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Where’s Dave?

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DRAWN

ON THE

10TH OF JULY

ENTER

NOW!!

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A twist of tango!

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A twist of tango!

Bue

nos

Air

es:

Words: Sandra HerdPhotography: Sandra Herd

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PRELUDE:

RECIPRICAL PAYMENT AGREEMENT

Bang! ‘Welcome to Argentina.’

I’d just received my very first stamp...ever...in my British passport.

As dual citizens we travel to most places on our Aussie passports firstly because, well, we’re Australian and secondly because, like most geeky travellers, we’re collecting the stamps and want them all to be in the same passport. Each new country we visit we gleefully await having a new stamp to add to the growing collection and, even though I’m on my second UK passport, I’ve never had a single stamp banged into it. We’d landed in Buenos Aires and bypassed the snak-ing customs queue for the empty ‘Australian and New Zealand nationals’ line. As we approached the counter we were informed that to enter the country we would need to part with a ‘reciprocal’ fee of $100 US dollars...each! I’d checked the visa situation before we left and was sure that one was not needed. I was right, this wasn’t a visa fee this was a ‘you charge us so we charge you back’ reciprocal agreement. In under two seconds we had denied our Australian citizen-ship, pulled out our UK passports and proudly declared that we were British. ‘Fine’, said the of-ficial... ‘it is free to enter but you must join the other queue.’ We looked over in dismay at the now two planeloads of people patiently waiting in the ‘nationals and everyone else except Austra-lians’ queue and humbly wandered over to take our place at the back of the line. Dammit!

I’m not going to lie; I was confused by Buenos Aires right from the moment I stepped foot on the cracked pavements of the cities ‘microcen-tro.’ I’ve heard it described as a cross between Paris, London and New York, a bustling city with trendy boutiques and lively bars. I’ve been to London and New York but could find no trace of familiarity. Lonely Planet describes it as having ‘the charm of an unshaved Casanova, the mind of a frenzied lunatic and the attitude of a celeb-rity supermodel’...I was definitely missing some-thing!

On our first day in the city we hopped aboard the ‘hop on hop off’ tourist bus, something we’ve done before in many European cities to get an overview and ‘feel’ of the city. The service has only been running in Buenos Aires since 2009 and yet already the headsets are broken and trying to find a seat with working commentary is tough if there’s a crowd. The bus route took us through the main barrios (neighbourhoods) of the city and passed by the famous pink presidential palace, Casa Rosada and the famous balcony from which Evita (Eva Perón, the second wife of Argentine president Juan Perón - the ‘First Lady of Argentina’ in 1946 – check out the movie starring Madonna if you don’t know who I’m talk-ing about!) addressed her adoring fans in the late 1940s. When we arrived at the ‘hop off’ point for the soccer stadium, most of the bus alighted. Brightly painted in the team colours of blue and yellow, this stadium is home to Argentina’s pre-mier soccer team, the Boca Juniors – the Argen-tine equivalent of Man. United and known to the locals as La Bombonera. Like the rest of the La Boca neighbourhood, the club was founded by Italian immigrants in the early 1900s. The sta-dium walls are painted with murals of labourers and shipyards, highlighting the history of the port area and recounting its working class heritage...and working class it is to this day. A poor neigh-bourhood and one which the guidebooks recom-mend is best vacated by the tourist after dark.

We continued on to Caminito, the best known al-leyway in La Boca and an explosion of colour and corrugation...this was our stop but not quite yet, we stayed on the bus to finish the tour and later that afternoon we headed back to Camini-to to take some photographs and enjoy a cold beer. Touristy, yes, but it was a delight to the senses after being driven around the main shop-ping streets of Buenos Aires for most of the day. People were dancing the tango in the streets and outside the cafes, artists sold their colourful wares, Evita and Diego Maradona (life-sized fig-ures) looked down upon the alleyway from a bal-cony above. By the time we’d settled in to have a beer we noticed the place had started closing up around us and it was only 6.30pm. Where is the electrifying hustle and bustle? The all night party, the celebration....the ‘frenzied lunatic?’ Was La Boca so dangerous that they cleared

Photo:Street performer at San Telmo...wanna take a photo?

“Show her the money!”

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Photo: ‘Checking on his mo-torbike?’ One of the many olourful murals on the streets of Buenos Aires

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Photo: Reflection of the Green domed Palacio del Congreso

modelled on Washington DC’s Capitol Building

The small fishing village of Skarsvag.

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the tourists out before dark every day? By 7pm Caminito was largely deserted, save for a few stray dogs and the day’s rubbish. Certainly we were the only two tourists about so we asked one of the local vendors where ‘the place to be’ was. On his recommendation, we headed over to San Telmo main square but were scared off by the ridiculous price of beer - 50 pesos for one bottle! 35 is expensive but acceptable, 50 was taking the proverbial.

We settled instead for a meal at El Federal, a well known pub on Carlos Calvo in San Telmo. The service is terrible but the ambiance is great in the ‘faux glamour’ that is Buenos Aires. We sat by the window and watched the streets out-side. Around 9pm the pub started to fill with peo-ple coming in for their dinner and before long the place was full. There were pockets of life around but the streets on the way back to our hostel were still largely deserted.

On Sunday the city was a ghost town until we headed for the San Telmo market, we hopped on the metro (subte) for the few stops to San Telmo. The girl on the ticket counter averted her eyes away from her phone just long enough to issue our tickets and we arrived in just a few minutes. Afterwards we were warned by other tourists that riding the subte could be dangerous but it was the middle of the day and I felt safer down there than wandering the deserted streets above.

After three days of wandering aimlessly around the city we’d finally found some of the bustle and bohemia that the guidebooks and backpackers bang on about. Granted, it was ‘tourist’ central but, after days of searching for signs of life it was a welcome relief for us to discover Feria de San Telmo, the Sunday antiques market. At last! Life. Colour. Action...it was a street photog-raphers paradise. Aside from the main square, the markets ran all the way down Defensa, San Telmo’s main street. There were artists carving tiny tango dancers into matches – yes, matches. There were buskers and antiques, dancers and street performers. It was wonderful. We sat out-side one of the many cafes on the square and soaked up the ambiance. I ducked off to take some photos and discovered a little old lady

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who was her own ‘one-woman’ band. She saw me with the camera and held up a table tennis paddle with a dollar sign on it. I nodded, yes; of course I’d leave money for the photo. She turned the paddle around – the other side said “Show me the money!”

A little further down the street I watched as an older gentlemen quietly danced a soft, solo tan-go. Smartly attired in his suit and hat, with an un-lit cigarette in his hands, eyes closed and a soft smile on his face. At the time I wandered who he was. A fallen star perhaps? A one-time tango pro? The wall behind him was covered in post-ers of himself and a younger version of him...it turns out the ‘younger version’ was a poster of Carlos Gardel, arguably the most prominent figure in the history of tango and this gentleman, Carlos Lujan was his alter ego, a lookalike. He gave me a wink as I took his photo and then took the hand of a passerby as he led her into his tango.

Back at the hostel we’d got chatting to Alexander over a beer. She’d live in BA fourteen years ago and lamented how things had changed. “Back then it was good,” she said “Now it’s pretty dan-gerous.” And that was something else that con-fused my about Buenos Aires. It’s listed in one of the safest cities in South America and indeed I felt safe enough but the locals seemed to con-stantly be reinforcing how ‘dangerous’ it is. Don’t get me wrong...we didn’t have any problems but it was all the little things that struck me as either overly cautious or maybe I was oblivious and these precautions were absolutely neces-sary. At the travel agency we had to be ‘buzzed’ in, something we were unaware of. We tried to open the heavy black door but it was locked. We could see people inside. An old man waiting for the bus giggled and said...you must knock on the window, they keep the door locked for safety! We tapped on the window for attention and the huge black door was opened...we could have been the robbers! It seems their security is war-ranted as only cash transactions are accepted for bus tickets which is rather inconvenient given that the daily withdrawal limit at the ATM’s is just 1000paesos, something you should be aware of if you intend to purchase onward tickets.

We were happy to be purchasing onward tick-

ets. The crux of Buenos Aires seemed to be con-stantly eluding us. What was the appeal that so many others saw in the place? It was difficult for us to find. Maybe we’d find it at one of the ‘must do’ professional tango dinner shows. But I don’t like tango, it was my least favourite bit in the movie Dirty Dancing. Maybe Spanish classes would help, that seemed to be the other ‘thing to do’ or a visit to Recoleta Cemetery – not the best place to search for hustle and bustle, true, but it is another ‘must do’ on the list. Maybe I’m just not cultured enough for Buenos Aires. To me was just another city with a cool Sunday market and disreputable taxi drivers. A hop-off point from which to enjoy the true beauties of Argentina, El Chalten to the South and Iguassu to the North. I did enjoy my time there but wasn’t moved by the ‘romance’ or ‘rustic beauty’ of the place. Either way, I left Buenos Aires with the feeling I was missing something that everyone else could see and maybe I was...but I probably won’t be return-ing to find out.

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gizmos, gadgets & good stuff!

According to Bobble, each year roughly 50 billion plastic water bottles end up in U.S. landfills alone. Aside from the environmental benefits, these bottles are great for travelling with...change the colour of your filter for a new look.www.waterbobble.com

Just a rumour? I have to admit I’m not 100% sure, but it seems that IKEA are about to launch the world’s cheapest digital camera. I’m intrigued...don’t know about you but, if it does appear on the shelves, I’d love to take this quirky cardboard creation for a test drive!www.ikea.com

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gizmos, gadgets & good stuff!

An oldie but a goodie. These Reef Fan-ning thongs have been around for years but some people still don’t know they exist...I feel it’s my duty to inform them. They come with a bottle opener in the sole. Do you know how many times I wished I had a pair of these with me on my travels? Just watch out for any doggy doo on the streets!!www.reef.com

Bring some colour to your life with these funky iPad bags from Outcased. The more I travel the more I see fellow travellers using iPads as cameras...it seems kind of strange to me that for years we’ve been wanting smaller phones with cameras and now we’re using iPads instead. However, there’s no denying that iPads are a great ‘gadget’ to take travelling....and now you can protect yours in padded style.Blue, pink, green and orange available!www.outcased.com

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PARTINGSHOTS

PARTINGSHOTS WHAT - WHERE - WHEN - WHY

WHATLondon Skyline - one version of!WHERE Embankment... directly across from the Australian Walka-bout Pub.WHEN Great view anytime of year but to catch the place at sunset can be magical.WHYHow many more icons of London can you see in one place? The London eye on Southbank, Westmin-ster and Big Ben - incidentally Big Ben is the name of the bell, not the tower. This section of London is particularly close to my heart. This view is free and, if you’re an Aussie you can pop across the road for the local brew...leave early before the ‘drunk abroad’ Aus-sies turn up though. Take a stroll across the bridge to South-bank where a variety of pubs and restau-rants await.

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PARTINGSHOTS

PARTINGSHOTS WHAT - WHERE - WHEN - WHY

WHATThe Natural History Museum.

WHERE London. UKCromwell Rd, SW7.South Kensington is the nearest tube sta-tion.

WHEN Monday to Sunday 10:00 - 17:50 The Natural His-tory Museum is open every day except 24-26 December. Last admission is at 17:30.

WHYFirstly, it’s FREE to enter and secondly they have a giant animated t-rex...need I go on?The Natural History Museum is a great place to spend a rainy day in London and the interior is fabulous for photos if you can dodge the crowds for long enough.

www.nhm.ac.uk

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Issue 8

China’s Zhangjiajie: A Photo Essay

UB or not UB? A Glimpse at Mongolia’s Capital During Nadaam

A ‘Dear John’ Letter to Prague

“Wicked” Wanderings...Part 1

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