Indian tastes change

Pete, Nicola, Lola and Nell love to travel. With this blog find out how to travel the world in a very low carbon way. This post is by Nicola

Dear friends arrive from Wales for a cuppa and then some spaghetti pomodore - and being generous they bring along a treat. It's a box of delicious Indian sweets from Drummond Street behind Euston where you go to get the tastiest, and best value Indian buffet in London. Conversations later we're talking about the iniquity and misery of boarding schools. The children know them from Harry Potter (or even friends) and aren't taking the sides that George, Pete and I are. Turns out George's dad was sent to England from India when he was just three and then neglected in schools here. Pete's dad didn't board but he certainly got bullied. Mine boarded and remembered secondary school as a bullyfest, with him as the whipping boy. It probably didn't help that he was 4ft 6in aged 14 - though subsequently grew to 6ft!

Our dads were at school when England still had an empire. I find this quite astonishing, and of course the links to India are still there. Our friend Anthony, just turned 70, was born and grew up in India where his father worked. George's grandfather was military in India. Taking it further back one of my famous relatives (possibly famous for bad temper rather than actually famous) was Sir David Baird - on of the winning generals at Seringapatam (sp?) in 1799. If you don't know the battle, you might know the pic of the Fall of Tippoo Sultan, see here.

"Still it's all different now," muttered someone at the table. Did they then say modernity started with George Orwell and the Road to Wigan Pier? I can't remember, might have dreamt it, but checking up on these facts suddenly saw that George Orwell was born in India too. When it comes to my generation, or my kids' generation for that matter, the people I know who were born in India are no longer repressed Englishmen/women sticking to Victorian values, way past their sell-by date. They are sassy, bright young men and women who are making up the rules for the new media age. We do have something in common, all of us  still like those luminous coloured, teeth-rotting, exotically enormous Indian sweets...

Egypt

Pete, Nicola, Lola and Nell love to travel, in as low-carbon a way as they can. This post is from Nicola

Here in London - maybe the UK - the Egyptian drama unfolding in Cairo and Alexandria is an ever changing story, but for us so much safer. We just get to see the photos, watch the TV, and in the Evening Standard read the tales of all the British families who are taking flight back here. I'm not entirely sure why the coverage is so good... I'm sure there are many oil-driven, scared of the Muslim Brotherhood reasons, although military history lessons must factor too. My dad's National Service, back in the 1950s, was in Egypt - though he is sadly long dead which means I can't quiz him much about the whys of that post.

Anyway the result ensures Egypt takes a higher news position than say, Colombia.

It's the Facebook messages from Egyptian friends that worry me so much. Yes the internet is a big place but Murabak seems very capable of paying people to track down those who aren't on his side. Never has watching history unfold been so nerve-wracking.

One thing that has puzzled me is the allure of Egypt for tourists before all this. Until these pictures of the million on a march started flooding BBC, the Guardian, Skynews etc most of the noise about Egypt was what a lovely spot it is to visit - swimming in the Nile, touring the pyramids, taking a dive tour, avoiding that rogue maneater shark at the main tourist hotspot, Sharm El-Sheik on the Red Sea. Quizzing them now it seems none of these visitors had the slightest idea about Egypt's politics, let alone that the president has kept his seat tightly for 30 years. It makes me feel that before you are allowed into a country you should be given a mini quiz about it's most basic history and politics. Just like a British nationality test, only a lot easier!

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When hens need B&B

Pete, Nicola and their children Lola and Nell love to travel, but like to find ways to do this oh-so-low carbon... This off message post is from Nicola

I have this idea to make a longer trip than normal during 2011. It's a little hypocritical to attempt this (or maybe even mention it on my Around Britain No Plane blog), and I don't take much comfort from the fact that I've not flown for 10 years, but may do this year. However researching ways to keep my pets in the style they have become accustomed to while we may be away (eg, mud and the occasional worm pill) offers earth-shattering reasons to stay home. If climate change wasn't good enough, say.

The hens will cost £5 a night to go to their Club 18-30 stop-off at a nearby city farm. And someone has told me a kennel for the dog would be £30 a night. I can hardly breathe thinking about these expenses at the end of a three-month trip.

It's extraordinary how much influence economics has on decision-making. If only renewables were cheaper (or seeemed the sort of no-brainer choice that a smart phone has become). If only trains were the obvious way to get from A-B (or buses or maybe even feet). If only the richer world stayed put and the poorer world had more.

No surprise that "If only" and "too late" are famously still the two saddest phrases in the English language.

2010 roundup

Pete, Nicola, Lola and Nell love to travel - and try to do so in low carbon ways. This post is a summary of 2010 entries.

It may be better to travel than arrive but now we're in the fourth year of this blog (it was started in 2007) it is also a lot harder to find "new" countries for us to visit simply by using our imaginations in the UK.

Worth visiting
My top trips this year were to Ethiopia - via a coffee ceremony and music in my local London park, see here. I also loved the stop-off in Chile via Darwin-themed tour in another nearby park, see here.

We also visited the super dog-friendly Cheddar Gorge, a Somerset location that rivals just about any Alpian chasm, or Romantic- (as in 19th century German art) themed picture.

Just by making simple leaps of imagination - sometimes by choices of food, or doing the research, reading noticeboards or listening to the hubbub around us - our family stayed home but felt like we were tasting someone else's culture. I reckon we managed virtual visits to more than 35 countries including Nigeria, Bangladesh, Somalia, Croatia and Albania. I love the way this can happen. It just shows that 10 years of not using a plane has enabled our family to get to know the UK far better, and the UK's links with the whole world. Definitely one travel habit worth hanging on to.

Apologies for slackness
Just for the record, one reason my entries are down on this blog during 2010 is that I started up a new one, named after my book, Homemade Kids: thrifty, creative and eco-friendly ways to raise children which saw me post more than 60 times. Travel and kids, what could be better?

E-reading treat

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell love to travel, but want to find ways that are as low carbon as possible. This post is from Nicola Baird

Nearly 21 years ago I was living in the South Pacific. The pic on the left is me posing in a small Solomon Islands village, on the island of Makira, dressed up in frangipani lei (flower garland), tapa cloth (made from bark) and painted in tumeric. I was on a journalism trip for Solomon Islands Development Trust rather ruined by the villagers - unusually in this part of the Solomons all Polynesians - asking me not to reveal the detail of their astonishing tumeric harvest. And of course I didn't.

But during my two years as a VSO journalist trainer in the region I collected so many stories, ideas, experiences that had no choice but to merge, fizz and revamp them as a story which anyone could enjoy - and especially people who love to travel or who live in Solomon Islands.

Read Coconut Wireless
Hopefully this will tempt you to look at the new e-novel I've just published. It's called Coconut Wireless and is about life, love and gossip in the country's capital, Honiara. Enjoy downloading some free sample chapters by clicking here or buy for a couple of US dollars from Smashwords as a pdf here.

Half of any money generated by this book will be donated to projects supporting women and children in Solomon Islands.

Chernobyl makes me mad

Pete, Nicola and their kids, Lola and Nell, like to travel the world but are trying to do with as low a carbon footprint as possible. This Mrs Angry post is written by Nicola

It's rare that I use TV to travel but I made an exception when a friend (who'd done some of the filming on What the Green Movement Got Wrong) urged me to watch BBC 4, thursday november 4, which is available at catch up for a while here. The programme enraged me, mostly because it dismissed the idea that here in the West we all have to learn to live with a bit less. As the population keeps on growing - and poorer people expect to share more of the good things of this world, such as electricity - this means we need more and cleaner fuels. In the film, using a couple of turncoat Greens it was suggested this could only be nuclear. (btw No, it does not). But Mark Lynas thinks it is, both talking from his office and on a surprising trip to still-uninhabitable-since-April 1986- Chernobyl.

Two summers ago in Yorkshire I met two Belarus girls, young teenagers - so 2nd generation "Chernobyl" children (around 60 per cent of the radiation spread into neighbouring Belarus with long-term devastating effects). The girls were on a month's holiday organised by the Chernobyl Children's charity, see more here.

You'll die anyway
Last night on TV a scientist told us that not many people died after the 4th reactor went into meltdown, but lots died from alcoholism and stress from fear of radiation! How I laughed (in an ironic way). The host mum of these two girls told me how the Belarus children's exposure to Chernobyl gifts them with a lifetime of chronic ill-health. They are unusually tired, many end up with thyroid problems. It may not be a stark death under a blood-stained blanket, but it's a dreadful legacy. And one we could blight many other people with if we turn again to nuclear as a magic bullet for tackling climate change.

Obviously lots of watchers (it's the first thing most Greens have watched since the news of the failure of Copenhagen's climate talks last December...) were unhappy with the show. I like this calm comment from Craig Bennett at Friends of the Earth. That NGO has also published a briefing about what they thought was wrong with the film, see here.

Go girls
I have an extra complaint about the way "What The Greens Got Wrong" is that it reflects its own premise - Greens are too conservative - by almost exclusively relying on white men in suits. Where are the women who'd talk a lot more sense?

I know so many mothers who are doing their absolute best to help their children become the adults who will be coping with climate change. They are teaching their kids to think and learn real life skills, plus rewarding tolerance and co-operativeness, etc. But they seem to be a missing species in decision making. Probably because they're back home putting the kids to bed. If you're interested in more thoughts on this see this piece in the Guardian (from 2009).

It's a pyrrhic Victory

Pete, Nicola, Lola and Nell love to travel the world but are finding ways to do so without racking up their carbon footprint. This post is by Nicola

Just taken Lola and friends down to Portsmouth to catch a ferry to France. To avoid hanging around the ferry terminal we also visited Portsmouth's historic dockyard. An expensive trip (£55 for a family ticket) but full of amazing history lessons. For instance we were forced to whizz around the Mary Rose Museum which shows how Tudor seamen wore jerkins, measured the sea bed and plotted their routes, etc, just so we could have the guided tour of the navy's first ever commissioned battleship the HMS Victory at 3.35pm.

Because we made this trip the day after Trafalgar Day (October 21) there were wreaths marking the spot Nelson died while fighting the French. (Although the nearby Lady Hamilton pub seemed to have ignored this particular landmark moment). It was also a few days after the big spending review by Cons/Lib-Dem so felt strange seeing the about-to-be scrapped HMS Ark Royal tied up in a nearby dock.