WIN AN OVERLAND ADVENTURE THROUGH THE MIDDLE EAST
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ISSUE #25//$7.95 GST INCLUDED www.getlostmag.com “TO AWAKEN QUITE ALONE IN A STRANGE TOWN IS ONE OF THE PLEASANTEST SENSATIONS IN THE WORLD.” – FREYA STARK // ANTARCTICA I AUSTRALIA I AUSTRIA I BRAZIL I GREECE I INDIA I INDONESIA I JAPAN I MACAU I OMAN I PHILIPPINES I THAILAND I UK I USA
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ANTARCTICA The final frontier
BRAZIL 21 islands
GREECE Is the word
OMAN
Road tripping
Discover Kerala by boat
INDIA ISSN 1449-3543
JAPAN Powder-perfect skiing LONDON After dark ROLF POTTS Confesses XAVIER RUDD Talks travel
text: leanne walker images: andrew marshall
Leanne Walker watches rural life unfold along the backwaters of southern India.
LAZING AROUND T
HE SLAP-SLOP OF CLOTHING being thrashed to within an inch of its life is a familiar sound along the Pompa River. Swathed in brightly coloured saris hitched clear of the kneedeep water, village women are busy with their washing. Nearby, men load sacks of rice onto the many kettuvallams, the traditional rice boats that ply the backwaters of Kerala in southern India. With muscles that ripple beneath sun-blackened skin, two men propel a kettuvallam downstream with long bamboo poles. One man on the bow and another on the stern, they plunge their poles into the riverbed with perfect timing. Then, straining forward, they walk the narrow bulwarks propelling the heavily laden boat smoothly through the water. Constructed of dark lustrous jack wood, with planks ‘stitched’ and caulked with coir (the district’s natural fibre) in an age-old manner, many of these romantic old work boats have been in service on #32 get lost ISSUE #25
these intricate waterways of canals, rivers and lakes for well over 70 years. I have travelled down the coast from Goa, with my partner in crime, Andy, to take a fantastic two-day boat journey to explore these backwaters – a relaxing and rewarding way to experience the rural life of southern India. Kerala, India’s southern-most state, lies sandwiched between the Western Ghats Mountains and the Arabian Sea. It’s on the misty slopes of the Ghats that Kerala’s 44 rivers begin their passage to the sea, creating the backwaters. The silt carried down by so many rivers has formed one of the richest agricultural regions in India. Many of these maze-like waterways form canals so narrow that the coconut palms leaning precariously out over the water on either side form tunnels of tropical green. Occasionally, the horizon opens out onto vast seas of green and gold paddy fields – the rice bowl of Kerala.
get in the know Thiruvananthapuram is the capital city of Kerala.
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Straining on the bulwarks, a boatman cruises past on his kettuvallam.
get in the know Sreesanth is the first cricket player from Kerala to play Twenty20 for India.
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The spectacular eleventh century cliff-top monastery of Moni Hozoviotissa.
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get in the know The island of Amorgos is 30 kilometres long and 800 metres at its highest point.
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text: andrew marshall images: andrew marshall
With its rugged mountain scenery, excellent walking trails and an extraordinary cliff-top monastery, the Greek island of Amorgos is an unspoilt alternative for those wishing to venture off the well-worn Mykonos–Paros–Santorini route.
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T MAY NOT BE THE EASIEST PLACE in the world to get to, but after a two-day journey from the UK by train, plane, automobile and a ninehour ferry crossing from Piraeus (Athens’ main port), I’m out on deck gazing at Amorgos, rising from the deep blue waters of the Aegean Sea in a long dragon’s back of craggy mountains, white-washed villages and deserted beaches: the jewel of the Cyclades group. Weather-beaten fishermen are busy mending their nets along the harbour front when I step off the ferry in the picturesque port of Katapola in the island’s southwest, set in a horseshoeshaped bay with tavernas, colourful fishing boats, a handful of pensions and a small shingly beach. Armed with a copy of the local bus timetable and the excellent 3-D map of the island (which marks all attractions and walking trails), I catch the local bus to nearby Hora, the island’s enchanting capital and one of the best preserved villages in the Cyclades. At 400 metres above sea level, Hora is an impressive sight. A rock plug wrapped with a thirteenth-century Venetian castle looks down on a clutch of whitewashed houses and churches (including Greece’s smallest ‘Ayios Fanourios’ which holds just three worshippers). After collecting my luggage from the storage hold of the bus, I am quickly greeted by the quintessential Greek pension owner who offers to show me a room. Dressed in a black frock with a colourful headscarf framing her lined face, she must be at least 80 years old.
She’s as sprightly as an island goat and sets off at a cracking pace. Weighed down by my mountainous backpack, I have trouble keeping up with her as we negotiate a labyrinth of narrow alleyways that wind round unexpected corners and up and down short flights of steps. We pass graceful white churches and open plazas where bougainvillea and geraniums grow against whiter-than-white walls, on route to my welcome bed for the night. After enjoying a hearty breakfast in one of Hora’s surprisingly sophisticated cafes, I follow a wide cobbled mule track (a kalderimi) past a line of abandoned windmills that crown the rocky hilltops. I hear the trademark island sound of
goat bells tinkling somewhere on the distant slopes and turn to see an old lady tending a small herd of goats among a scattering of olive trees that struggle against the north wind and arid soil. Then, it suddenly appears as I round a bend near the coast – a dazzling whitewashed building clings precariously 300 metres up a towering cliff-face that soars above the lucid blue Aegean water. This is the spectacular eleventh-century monastery of Hozoviotissa: the star attraction of Amorgos. I follow the flight of 300 steep steps that snake towards this extraordinary structure that shimmers like a jewel displayed in a brooch of rugged stone. Father Spiros,
The traditional village of Langada at the northern end of Amorgos.
get in the know Greece adopted the euro in 2001. Before that the currency was the drachma.
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text: kirk owers
snow spills & thrills images: kirk owers
Kirk Owers has a crack at the powder-perfect slopes in Japan, and gets a little revealing when it comes to the country’s best cure for aching joints. A snowboarder happily losing his mind in the Jap-Pow.
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get in the know Japan built a new bullet train between Tokyo and Nagano for the 1998 Winter Olympics, cutting travel time from three hours to 79 minutes.
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The Tohoku region lies under a blanket of snow, out of sight of most western ski enthusiasts.
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O FRIENDS ON POWDER DAYS’ was the line we lived by in our skibum days. You fell, you were gone. You had equipment issues, they were yours alone. You T-boned a gum tree there was sympathy, but it was retrospective. We rode fast and waited for no one, first chair to last. Beer and schnapps flowed freely in celebration at day’s end. We’d burn the candle to a nub at both ends because a day of powder snow in Australia is usually just that... a day. So it’s a relief to finally make it to the powder mecca of Japan, which famously has snow on top of snow. Here the season lasts from late November until early May and night skiing extends way past endurance. Storms blow in from Siberia, across the Sea of Japan, as regular as bullet trains. They arrive laden with moisture that drifts down, dry and delicately formed, like origami from the gods. Everywhere you look snow blankets the land like a sumo flattening a bonsai tree. It isn’t snowing when I arrive at Appi, the first resort on my itinerary, but it soon will be. I am certain of this because
I am in Japan and it is February. Even when it’s not snowing in Japan, it is still snowing. We experience sun-showers of wispy fluff and a single cloud passes by, dusting the mountain for twenty minutes. A precursor for the storm to come, or a trailer from a storm recently past – who knows? My insistent questions are met with polite speculation and I learn, eventually, to relax about it. Appi (Inuit for ‘snow on the ground’) lies in the Tohoku region covering the northern third of Japan’s main island. It shares a latitude with Aspen (USA) and St. Anton (Austria) and calls its brand of light, dry powder snow ‘aspirin snow’. It hasn’t dumped in days yet we find acres of pristine aspirin in the birch tree forests, which skirt the immaculately groomed runs. Riding in the forests is forbidden in some Japanese ski resorts but here the authorities turn a blind eye. We thank them – or would have if we hadn’t been busy kicking up storm clouds of our own. The Tohoku region lies under a blanket of snow, out of sight of most western ski enthusiasts. Despite Japan hosting the
get in the know ‘Snow country’ refers to any place with heavy or deep snows and is widely recognised as the area on the Sea of Japan side of Honshu.
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get in the know If Antarctica’s ice sheets melted, the worlds oceans would rise by 60 to 65 metres.
antarctica
IN GOD’S
GALLERY text: justin jamieson
images: justin jamieson //andrew halsall
Justin Jamieson is reborn on a continent untouched by the masses.
Cruising the ‘iceberg graveyard’.
get in the know The largest icebergs ever measured was 295km long by 37km wide.
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Win an overland adventure through the middle east
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