Saturday, 24 October 2015

Soul safari with extra leopard

The Soul Safari concept was pioneered some years ago by the charming Bernie Smith of Garonga Safari Camp near Hoedspruit in Limpopo. Back then it raised a few eyebrows – a soul safari? Male ballerinas? Lite beer? Quick, call ranger security, get the rifles! 
But now the Lowveld has chilled out to the point we call it the Slowveld, and people like me and the Ministry of Fabulousness, remain eternally grateful to Bernie for the chance take our souls on safari.

The great outdoors meets inner peace. Gentle game drives end with massages in the Aroma Boma. Nature provides the inspiration for the North African style décor. Try a night time Bush Bath or head for the outdoor deck for sleeping out under the stars; just you and the roaring lions…

Oh and of course, Darling. This was indeed his first visit to the African bush after many years on an island in the Pacific and I think it would be safe to say he thoroughly enjoyed the Soul Safari. Astonishingly he remembered the name of the fork-tailed drongo – “That’s a fork-tailed drongo!” he shouted excitedly – he was peeing and had a beer in his hand.  I was impressed.

Garonga is a special place. We met a German family that had been there for two weeks once a year, eleven years in a row. That’s Trip Advisor fantasy stuff isn’t it? 
Darling and I got to see giraffe, rhino, zebra, wildebeest and lion. Although the lion were furtive. During breakfast we saw two elephants at the watering hole below the lodge and a whole gang of zebras and bokke pull in over lunch. We also spotted a very cheeky squirrel that stole the nuts and muffins from the breakfast buffet. 

We saw the iconic African sunset – and most deliciously of all - a leopard that strolled sexily over the sun kissed path on our first game drive. Aah lucky leopard. Darling’s first. Yeah, Garonga definitely scores high on the Fabulousness Rating. Soul Safari, must do. Check out www.garonga.com




Friday, 23 October 2015

The Ministry of Fabulousness: Welcome to Zeavola, yes we have Ladyboys

The Ministry of Fabulousness: Welcome to Zeavola, yes we have Ladyboys: The Zeavola Ladyboy and Selene “Welcome to Zeovola, ladies”, said Florian the friendly GM, “Please take off your shoes, this is a baref...

Welcome to Zeavola, yes we have Ladyboys

The Zeavola Ladyboy and Selene
“Welcome to Zeovola, ladies”, said Florian the friendly GM, “Please take off your shoes, this is a barefoot place, barefoot luxury is what we call it, in fact. You’re going to have a great time, we love parties. You can pretty much do what you like. We are also gay friendly and there are Ladyboys.”
This was an interesting welcome.
The Press Princesses had slipped and slithered out of the heady jungles of Elephant Hills Rainforest Camp in Khao Sok National Park and suddenly here we were on Koh Phi Phi island in southern Thailand, freshly disembarked off a speed boat, eager for Ladyboys,  yes, why not? But first, er, howabout a drink? We’re like, from the press remember?
“Tom Yum cocktails is what the doctor has ordered!” said Florian firmly. Well, Zeavola shall remain forever pleasantly blurred in my mind as a result of my discovery of the Tom Yum cocktail. This is surely Asia’s sexiest - made with vodka, rum, lemongrass, lime, chili and spices, like a very cold Tom Yum soup, right? With some serious kick-ass zingaling. Oh me oh my. Zeavola's slogan is 'step back to simplicity' but it may well have been 'stagger about happily'. 
Where does that leave me philosophically? 
Zeavola is suitably private and calm even though Koh Phi Phi island is a busy string of resorts with all the Experiences ranging from speedboats to visiting the actual beach where The Beach was filmed, I hadn’t seen it, but now I’ve seen the actual beach – so where does that leave me philosophically I wonder?  
I loved the place, I loved the names – Wang Long Cove, La Na Bay, Sea Gypsy Village, Loh Moo Dee Bay, sigh, yes I’ll have another Tom Yum puh-lease. Prrrr. We did just about everything from massages during a tropical rain storm to beach side dining to snorkeling, swimming. We even got to play for a bit at the Zeovola annual staff party (everybody wore red) and did indeed meet the, or a, Ladyboy of Zeavola who was suitably delicious and slender. 
The spirit of Tom Yum 
This was all after we went up the beach in search of tequila and found a Scotsman who had lost 18 friends in the tsunami a decade ago, and poured us four rounds of free tequila in glasses the size of candle holders! Anyway the Ladyboy didn’t seem to mind and I think it would be safe to say that Selene was definitely the belle of the ball. Check out www.zeavola.com
So pretty Phi Phi 

Monday, 12 October 2015

Then I fell in love with Ngam Ta

Oh  Ngam Ta, it's so big! 
They say Thailand is a pretty exotic and erotic place – and it was just a few days into our Thailand adventure that I temporarily forgot all about Darling alas, and had a heady lesbian encounter with an Asian elephant called Ngam Ta. I had a hosepipe and soap and I gave Ngam Ta an all over rub which pretty much changed my life. Her skin was rough and exciting, her ears flapped evocatively and her trunk, oh it was so big! Sorry Darling.

Sunday, 11 October 2015

Goodbye Darling, Hello Thailand

The lovely Noo Dang with bubbles!
So the next thing Darling has slipped out of my grasp like a greased piglet – or perhaps it is I who is the greased piglet – and he’s on a plane to LA and I’m on a plane to Hong Kong. The only thing that can assuage my shattered heart at our temporary separation is the fact that our Princess Press Party – destination Thailand - has been upgraded to business class on Cathay Pacific and suddenly I am quaffing real French champagne along with five other happy purring princesses and we are 12 000 feet above the ground, spoilt for life.
I am on my own next to the window. My seat is like a moveable pod, enclosed in all the right places for privacy and you can push various buttons to turn it into a flat bed, and yes, you get a duvet and pillows and there’s a little cupboard for shoes and alongside the seat, a wide surface to spread out your reading material.  Like the South China Morning Post and the international express version of the New York Times. A flat screen TV of course, all remote controlled, a vanity case with toothbrush and lotions and eyepads (as opposed to i-pads) and little bottles of stuff – and never mind the fine dining which involves silver cutlery, white tablecloths, a menu offering exotic Asian cuisine. Real French wines, 12 year old whisky…. Prrrrrrr.
A flying lounge, what heaven. I think of the miserable squashed up people behind the curtain – yes THAT curtain - in Comedy Class and I feel like I really have done something to deserve this although I am not quite sure what it is. I lie there finding it astonishing how we fly through the sky and gain hours, arriving much later in the next place, timelines and zones and seas and continents and land mass and all of this in my princess pod for the next twelve hours.
Peach of a day at the Sarojin Hotel outside Phuket 
Another 20 hours later I will be on the ground in a jungly spa with a pretty and lithe Thai girl squatting over my back and giving me the most incredible massage, ironing out all the dragging of suitcases, the onward connection, passport and customs, the drive through Phuket. And then OMG the welcome Thai massage at the Sarojin Hotel. There will be water lilies and an Indian Ocean beach, a bathroom with real pebbles and jungle plants, orchids and ice buckets. Then there will be fine dining next to a waterfall with five hundred candles.  A lovely woman called Noo Dang will bring me a glass of champagne for breakfast.
But right now I am time-warped and still purring happily on the flight in my princess pod.
I did think of you Darling, of course. I have always wanted to join the Mile High Club and I hoped you would suddenly slink up alongside me in the pod, maybe with a bunch of grapes or perhaps a small flower. Don’t worry about hot and cold towels – there is an endless round of those on this flight. Of course I would have preferred the décor to be a bit more Barbarella, and maybe a better music selection – I did trawl the channels – but you never made it. So I tried every conceivable gadget, ate everything that was put in front of me, drank some wine and then not being one to sleep on a plane - took the 12-year-old whisky option, popped a tranquiliser and watched all seven episodes in the first series of Breaking Bad.


Not Breaking Bad 

Prrr and a thanks to Lesley Simpson PR, Cathay Pacific and the Sarojin Hotel, Destination Asia and Thailand SA xx

Thursday, 8 October 2015

The Ministry of Fabulousness: A snort at the fort

The Ministry of Fabulousness: A snort at the fort: View from a chapel We looked out through an alcove window in the old  capela (chapel) onto a cross-shaped patch of sky. Outside, the e...

A snort at the fort

View from a chapel
We looked out through an alcove window in the old capela (chapel) onto a cross-shaped patch of sky. Outside, the eternal crash of Indian Ocean waves, inside, sacred gloom. We’d taken off our shoes and walked into vaulted heart of the Chapel of Nossa Senhora de Baluarte - a stoic little chapel built by the Portuguese in 1522 on the promontory of Ilha de Moҫambique, a tiny island off Africa’s east coast. Underfoot, through the cool marble, we felt the presence of ancient souls, and in the salty walls and faded inscriptions, heard their whisperings.
“Let’s have a drink!” I whispered to Darling perhaps a little too quickly. And I don’t know why I was whispering either. Our guide was outside talking loudly on his mobile phone. This little chapel had stirred me - I was imagining a desperate shipwrecked Portuguese sailor, for some reason, upon bended knee, or a sea leg perhaps, praying hard to God, with nothing left but his faith and the stars above him and well, all the Arabs, the Goans and the Swahili sultans who were here before him. Like #missinglisbonalot.
Inside the fort 
I had intended to bring a bottle of beautiful red to the Chapel of Nossa Senhora de Baluarte.  What else would you take to a Catholic church? I’d imagined a wistful cab sauv - perhaps we’d even remember to chill it to capela temperature – to go with the spirit of this tiny church and its island - only three kilometres long –all strung out by occupations, missionaries, slavery, colonialism and civil war.   
But I was giddy with travel and love and I had forgotten the wine never mind my own name, so here we were, Darling and I, slugging on a couple of ice cold Laurentina Pretas that we’d bought from a beachfront barracas near the fortaleza, It’s a lovely rich dark beer and I immediately felt better about the poor sailor and all the other lost and hopeful souls in the Chapel of Nossa Senhora de Baluarte.
And since we were in a Catholic church I confess we’d also had a beer before this one, we’d had one up on the ramparts of the fortaleza, overlooking the ocean and its mysteries. Fort São Sebastião was built after the church, from around 1560. Famed sailor for the Portuguese crown, Vasco da Gama first landed here in1498, in search of the sea route to India, and it was not long after that the Portuguese built this vast and powerful space. The light was falling in glorious ways as we’d browsed the fortaleza and its empty rooms, its corridors and cavers, its prison and chambersr. Here and there an outburst of graffiti.  We stopped talking and left as the sun was going down, silent in the presence of history.




Wednesday, 7 October 2015

Slow boat to Coral Lodge

The pretty pink boat that could  
So I’m in reception at Escondidinho, the forlorn Frenchman’s guesthouse on the historic Ilha de Mocambique. I’m already hot and discombobulated. It has taken three hustlers, the receptionist, the forlorn Frenchman’s son, a frenzy of sign language and haggling over small denominations of cash to finally kick start my Mozambican SIM card and load airtime onto my smart fucking phone.
Now here I am talking to Nelson from Coral Lodge 15.41 across the bay.
“Hi Nelson, do you think you could er, lend us the cash to pay the boatmen to come out to your place? Um, this is Bridget, er Bridget from the Ministry of Fabulousness…”  With a touch of Cash-flow-alitis- in-foreign-landus. “The island banks, they’re not synched to our, er, finances right now”. It was true. Darling’s Bank of Hawaii was not speaking to Ilha do Moҫambique’s Millenium Bim Bank . Funny that.
Pause.
“Of course!” said Nelson with enthusiasm, actual enthusiasm. “I will have the cash waiting for you, see you later”.
Salty sailor hard at work 
And so we sailed local style with a couple of happy salty sailors across the bay to Coral Lodge in an old-fashioned dhow and sure enough, there scurried down the stairs, the cash-carrier and above Nelson stood, arms akimbo and said “Welcome to Coral Lodge”.
Aaah Coral Lodge.  Karra-raj as it sounds in softer Swahili, corra-lodj, in swarthy Portuguese. Mmmmm. Soft white sands, baobab sunsets, fabulous food and really cool people. Set in a little bay with thatched chalets, a pool, various places of repose, a sexy bar and dining room visited occasionally by a nagapie (bushbaby) which sat on Darling’s head for a while. I can’t remember its name now, damn I should have taken notes but I was drinking an incredible G&T at the time, with lime, cinnamon, Madagascar peppercorns and star anise.
The place for honeymooners and swooners 
Seriously this place is amazing: there are outdoor showers, air-con built into the bed (WTF!) cushions everywhere, beach loungers. Waiters pop up with coconut milk cocktails at just the right time. You can go on gentle snorkels and dives, a bit of quiet kayaking or just hang out and swim. Oh and the Indian Ocean, that sighs and sings in blues and greens. Sweet tides.
Coral Lodge is the place for honeymooners, swooners, crooners, over- the- mooners. But the part we liked the most turned out to be the village nearby the lodge. This is Cabaceira Pequana, an ancient place with crumbling noble mosques dating back some 600 years, and a small population of about a thousand. It’s famed for its cemeteries and architecture and its boa gente (good people) as Da Gama described them.
Acine, part guide, part wannabe pop star 
Our guide was Amine from Coral Lodge. When he wasn’t working he was a singer in a local band. So along with a solemn visit to the grave of Mussa Al Biki who was the sultan here at the time of the arrival of the first Portuguese, he also took us to a house to watch a short video clip of him performing a kind of R&B island rap. “It’s about a broken heart right?” Said Darling with simpatico. Amine nodded and touched his chest.
The children of Cabaceira
He took us on a tour of the village and we saw children, cats, dogs, goats and chickens, and old men playing games on wooden boards. We peeked inside the small cool houses with thatch and reed and the spaza shops which have little on offer. Cabaceira is caught in the grip of old and new. There are increasing numbers of cellphones and satellite dishes but the people still live mostly off the land, a few employed in the hotel or on the island.
Water from an ancient well 

The village still draws its water from a well built by Vasco da Gama. Think jazz maestro Abdullah Ibrahim’s Water from an Ancient Well. We watched the young women and girls drawing water with plastic buckets and nylon ropes, waving palm trees in the background. And then round the corner, much to Darling’s delight there was a soccer field with actual soccer players! So he dashed on for a round or two and got over excited as men do when they play football.  I think it was the highlight of Nelson’s life when he heard about it. What is it about men and football?
Darling in action 

“We of Coral Lodge will never forget you”, he said to Darling, when we left. “You have played football with us, you have played the trumpet and made us happy and worn our bushbaby, thank you ... thank you my dear friend”. He said that about a million times when we left – and afterwards in emails and Facebook messages, “Dear friend, we thank you for the love and enthusiasm you gave us in these past days, many
The iconic dhow upon the Indian Ocean, sigh... 
hugs from Nelson… oh and say hello to Brenda.”
Check out http://www.newmarkhotels.com/accommodation/lodges/coral-lodge-15-41/  xxxxxx

 

Tuesday, 6 October 2015

A trumpet and a hipflask on Ilha de Mocambique

A three km long island off northern Mozambique 
History eats away at the coral rock from which the buildings on Ilha de Moҫambique are made. With its heady historic mix of Swahili, Arab, Portuguese, Dutch and Indian, this tiny island off the East Coast of Africa dates back to the 8th century. For such a small island it’s wrought from an exhaustion of sultans and chiefs, explorers and shipwrecks, pirates, occupations, missionaries, slavery, colonialism and civil war. It gives the island a strange edge, a restless sleep; a darker shadow to its timeworn passages, a deeper resonance to footfall on its ancient stones. Take a hipflask! 
Mystery and history - coral rock
“Great acoustics”, said Darling as he took out his trumpet and played some mournful scales. We wondered if music would drive out the sad spirits. We were staying in an old slave house with upstairs balconies that looked down onto big interior courtyards – figure it out. Today it’s a laidback, tasteful guesthouse called Escondidinho run by a rather forlorn Frenchman. “Louder”, I said. So Darling blasted out What a Wonderful World and we drank some Laurentina Preta, a lovely dark local beer and considered man’s inhumanity to man. Then he played Hello Dolly. Ilha de Mocambique is 2000kms from Maputo, up near Tanzania and the trade winds. It’s definitely NOT your typical Seffrican prawns and beer holiday. This is Taste, Food, History and Architecture – the entire island is a UNESCO world heritage site because of its amazing coral rock buildings and building methods. 
High street in Stone Town 
And Romance too - if you in a foray to Coral Lodge across the bay. Total blissykins. Watch this space for special blog to follow. There will be billing and cooing.
We’d landed in Nampula – Welcome Mr Bridget said the sign – Mrs Darling didn’t seem to mind this, then a two-hour taxi drive past village mercados and wild inselbergs (granite outcrops) and finally across the bridge at sunset to this beautiful old happy-sad place. 
The Black Road divides Ilha de Mocambique. On the one side is the hip and happening chic little Stone Town, where the tourists stay and there are guesthouses and a main strip, all the attractions and shops. On the other side is Macuti Town, which has basically been a slave pit since forever. 
Macuti Town is a warren of a township with squalid thatched houses sunk below ground level. The people are mainly Muslim, but its pretty much Muslim Lite and there is nobility and history here, amazing mosques and ancient architecture. The canals have long run dry and people fetch water from wells and sleep five to a room. The island was a refuge for many thousands of people during the 20-year Mozambican civil war – its population reached over 16 000, and the island is only three-km long. 
Macuti Town baby 
And over the Black Road in Stone Town it’s Euro Chic, darlings! Buildings are being renovated and upgraded, schools are being fixed up and there are boutique hotels, new restaurants, galleries and venues. In the course of our week’s jolling we met Danes, Swedes, Australians, Brits, Italians, Portuguese; people who have holiday homes here or local interests. And of course within a nano-second of our arrival we met all the local hustlers and guides, middle men, street kids, curio sellers and t-shirt peddlers. A haggle and a hustle is buried deep in the DNA here. 

Nice ass!
Stone Town is fabulous in architecture and style. Think narrow corridors, thick-walled, high-ceiling houses with shuttered double-volume rooms and interior courtyards. Ceiling fans, long inside swimming pools with mirrors and tiles, Makonde sculptures, local cloth. Alcoves and rooftop gardens for hot island nights and the stars – oh those stars that steered the ancient Portuguese mariners, the map that lay within the Milky Way. 
Darker shadows, deeper edge 
We stayed at Jardim dos Aloes (garden of aloes) which is an Afro-Mediterranean guesthouse with Egyptian touches, run by charming the Italian Bruno Misti, who is married to the beautiful Judy. Bruno left fascist Italy to explore early socialist Tanzania and is an intellectual and teller of many tales.  He was the commodore of the Maputo Yacht Club during the civil war. Bruno’s spot is across the road from Ruby, which is the backpackers and totally fabulous and funky – best affordable option. 
The lavish lounge at Terraco das Quintadas 
We also stayed at the bizarre and theatrical Terraҫo das Quintadas, an old house owned by two vets who live in Maputo – and filled with furniture and objet from Goa, Bali, East Africa, China and the Orient. The house is over 400 years old and once belonged to a massive fish trading merchant. It had strange sounds and spirits, mosquitoes and some damp. But the décor is amazing and we had a massive egg-shaped bath in our room which was fun. 
Shivers inside the fort
On the soul front – we explored the town and its museums, bistros , churches, alleyways, beachfront and bars. We went to a night food market, talked to just about everyone we saw and Darling bought a little boy a soccer ball. Sweet, man. I met the mayor who shook my hand and then excused himself immediately. I met the port captain, the woman who runs the backpackers in Macuti Town and a traveller from Cape Verde. 
Highlight was our amble through the old Fortaleza which was built by the Portuguese after Vasco da Gama checked in here in 1498, in search of the sea route to India. It didn’t take long for the Portuguese to establish a port and naval base here. The island was an Arab trading post from the 8th century. 
The window of the chapel 
And highlight of the highlight – a walk inside the tiny, brave church built on the promontory of the island in 1522, the Chapel of Nossa Senhora de Baluarte, washed endlessly by waves and the souls of the ancients. 













* With many thanks to Bruno & Judy at Jardim dos Aloes, Nelson at Coral Lodge, Antoine at Escondidinho, Antonio at Terraco das Quintadas and Natalie of Dana Tours and veryone else x

Monday, 5 October 2015

The Ministry of Fabulousness: Mozambique and back again via Thailand, with love

The Ministry of Fabulousness: Mozambique and back again via Thailand, with love: Ok so it’s been one of those entirely crazy years in which absolutely nothing has worked out the way I planned but the net result has been ...

Mozambique and back again via Thailand, with love

Ok so it’s been one of those entirely crazy years in which absolutely nothing has worked out the way I planned but the net result has been alarmingly global and somewhat astonishing. For example, I went to Malawi via Hawaii earlier this year – and snowy New York - and now I‘ve just been to Mozambique and back again via Thailand, with a bit of Jozi thrown in. There’s also been a heady back story involving love and a musician from my youth, my Darling, who is on his way to Frankfort now, from LA.
En route Ilha de Mocambique 
Sawudika I said to the doorman at the Southern Sun in Maputo a few days ago. I was back from Thailand and in Mozambique again, nine aeroplanes later, three yachts, a ferry and a whole lot of air-con minibuses. It’s a lovely Thai greeting - you hold our palms together in front of you and bow slightly, or curtsy, eyes cast down. The Mozambican doorman arched a wary eyebrow. “No lovey, said my friend Phil gently, “you’re in Maputo now, it’s bom dia (good day). 
Sawudika Bom Dia Hello
Sawudica, bom dia, ola, sawubona, hello, pingaling, kiss kiss. What a sexy mad scramble these past five weeks have been. It went like this: Darling landed in Jozi from Manchester, coming from Hawaii via Reykjavik and Wales. Then we disappeared into the heart of the Limpopo bush and saw leopards and heard lions roar and watched the full moon rise into the African skies. Then we hit Jozi, got on a plane and half a day and about eight beers later we were barrelling along past colourful mercados and dramatic inselbergs and at sunset we crossed the bridge onto the 3km-long Ilha de Moҫambique, some 2 000km from Maputo, nuzzling up to Tanzania. The whole island is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, its buildings hewn from coral rock and dating back to the 8th century. 
Ilha de Mocambique 
Vasco da Gama landed here in 1648 and we landed in Nampula quite some time after that and spent a week exploring this incredible island with its powerful history, ancient forts and brave churches, slave houses, squalid shantytown and amazing spirit and architecture. A strong sense of the past even if you don’t understand it, a trading post of people and history, happy-sad, despairing and delicious all at the same time. We met people from Spain and Sweden, Italy, Denmark, Australia, Portugal, Manchester; imbibed an amazing mix of African and Arab, Portuguese and Indian. Sea and salt and love, the sound of trumpets in high-ceilinged rooms; the thrum of the Indian Ocean. 
Indian Ocean prrrrrrrr
And then all of a sardine and a langoustine – we were outta paradise on a small yacht and then some walking plus a very long taxi back to Nampula and then onto a plane which then bumped us down on the Jozi tarmac. Then Darling got on a plane to Amsterdam and onto LA and I got on a plane and went to Hong Kong and onto Phuket, jolled around southern Thailand swimming in the very same Indian Ocean across the other side of the world with a whole lot of fabulous women. Then I got back on a plane to Phuket, onto Hong Kong and landed back in Jozi with a head full of rainforests, tropically dressed mountains, jungly islands, erotic beaches, emerald waters and and ohjafuckit a cheap tequila hangover. Godamn. 
Khao Sok National Park, Thailand
Darling in the meantime got a bit of travel in his troubadour and went unexpectedly back to Honolulu via San Francisco and Portland and Seattle, and is now tired – haha who would have thought? – and back in LA and flies off today, his time, on a three week desert rock tour across Europe -  check out 3rd Ear Experience. I got onto another plane to Maputo, did some work stuff then got onto another plane back to Jozi and now I am in deep rural Limpopo nine hours ahead of LA trying to figure out what the hell just happened and if I’ll ever get laid again. He tells we shall meet again on Guy Fawkes Day in Jozi. He promises fireworks and I love the predictably sexy metaphor even though I am in a startled condition back on the Harare/ Pretoria time zone two hours ahead of G&T, I mean GMT. Good god, Darling.