Knossos Palace

Deciding it was time to sort through the papers on my desk from a trip Malaysia, Turkey and Greece in May/June, I thought I would mention highlights. The first is Palace of Knossos (Κνωσός) in Crete. There is not arduous journey involved, as it is a suburban bus trip from the centre of Heraklion, the capital of Crete. As with many Greek arecological site, first impressions are not good, with the bus stopping at a collection of roadside (actually on the road) souvenir stands. This is a very busy tourist attraction so it is best to arrive at opening time.

Just inside the gate there is a tasteful new museum shop and restaurant (which didn't seem to be open). The site is controversial with reconstruction by Sir Arthur Evans, not in keeping with modern archaeological practice. But it gives a good idea what the buildings may have looked like. Near the entrance there are a series of circular holes cut into the rock several metres across, which look to me like a three stage water treatment system. I couldn't find any explanation of the structures, but Crete is a very dry place and so water management was a big thing at the palace. Several sections have been rebuilt in concrete and painted. Much of the contents found are at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum in the city. If you are short of time, visit the museum and skip the palace.

New Acropolis Museum

This week ABC TV is featuring the New Acropolis Museum (Greece - Losing their Marbles , Foreign Correspondent, Reporter: Helen Vatsikopoulos, 07/10/2008). Earlier in the year I visited the museum , when only the foyer was open and the exhibits were stacked in crates. The building reminded me of Parliament House Canberra. There is a risk the scale of the building will overwhelm the exhibits.

The building is conveniently located near a metro station at the base of the Acropolis. It is built on concrete columns over an archaeological site, discovered during construction. Glass panels in the floor outside and in the foyer of the building allow the site to be viewed beneath your feet. This can be a little disconcerting. More seriously, the steel mesh in the floor at the front door is open to the site below, so that dirt and debris will fall down and contaminate the site.

The building foyer has good circulation space, but the lack of facilities such as toilets may be a problem. The grandeur of the entrance is spoilt somewhat by a row of ticket turnstiles, making it look like a metro station. In fact some of Athens metro stations look more like museums than the museum does, with materials discovered during metro construction on display.

While large, the building is not overly lavish. There is good use of modern materials in a stripped classicism style, including suggestions of Greek columns in modern material. The building is basically a rectangular box with a smaller glass box on top, rotated about 15 degrees.

When filled with antiquities, the space should work well. But I would have preferred something less grand, such as the more modest, but well proportioned Delphi Museum. Rather than one big building, the resources could have been spent in improving archaeological exhibits accross Greece and in particular on the Acropolis itself. What is needed is better interpretation of the material, particularly using computer based displays.

What to see from a Sydney to Melbourne Train Window

As I am going to Melbourne to talk at a Green ICT Conference I thought I should take the low carbon approach and booked on the Countrylink XPT train. Any suggestions as to what to see out the window would be welcome. Previously I have been Brisbane to Sydney by XPT, as well as other train trips.

There is an excellent rail map of the route: Central (Sydney), Strathfield, Campbelltown, Moss Vale, Goulburn, Gunning, Yass Junction, Harden, Cootamundra, Junee, Wagga Wagga, The Rock, Henty, Culcairn, Albury, Wangaratta, Benalla, Southern Cross Station (Melbourne). The route follows the Main South line Sydney to Albury, then the North East line to Southern Cross Station, Melbourne.

Sydney to Melbourne direct

		Sydney to Melbourne XPT		Sydney to Melbourne XPT
Central (Sydney) dep		07:45		20:40
Strathfield	u	07:57	u	20:51
Campbelltown	u	08:30	u	21:26
Moss Vale		09:34		22:30
Goulburn		10:23		23:19
Gunning	a	10:58		...
Yass Junction		11:29	a	00:23
Harden	a	12:16	a	01:09
Cootamundra		12:47		01:39
Junee		13:29		02:24
Wagga Wagga		13:54		02:49	Connections to Echuca, Griffith
The Rock	a	14:18	a	03:11
Henty	a	14:35	a	03:28
Culcairn	a	14:46	a	03:39
Albury		15:19		04:12	Connection to Echuca
Wangaratta		16:07		05:00
Benalla		16:33		05:26
Southern Cross (Melbourne) arr		18:55		07:35

From: Sydney to Melbourne direct Daily, CountryLink, 2008

Flying e-learning in Qantas's A380 Airliners

According to the Australian Newspaper (" Business school in all A380 classes" by Fran Foo, September 16, 2008), Qantas A380 Airbus airliners will be equipped will e-learning from the Melbourne Business School, Harvard and Stanford Universities for the seat back screens. It is not clear if the Quantas system will be as spohistaced as Singapore airlines A380 system which has OpenOffice.org's office software, a USB port and a mini-QWERTY keyboard for each seat. But is likely to be better than the disappointing Malayisioan airlines e-learning system.

Camping in the Middle of Sydney Harbour

The worlds greatest tourist bargain is available until early September in Sydney. The Biennale of Sydney is an art festival held at venues around the city. One venue is Cockatoo Island, in Sydney harbour.

The vintage ferry "RADAR" (which looks like something out of "Thomas The Tank Engine") takes you on a free harbour cruse past the Sydney Opera House, to the island for the free art display. The art is in the historic former convict settlement and Australian Navy shipyards. There are also camping facilities on the island, with views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The art on display is not that good, overwhelmed by the craft art of the buildings and their machinery. However, the site is worth a visit if only to see the harbour from a new vantage point.

For the first time, this year the Biennale takes over Cockatoo Island – the largest island in Sydney Harbour and Australia’s most unusual urban park. A former prison and shipyard, Cockatoo retains many remnants of its past. Its prison buildings have been nominated for World Heritage listing, along with other convict sites around Australia. For this year’s Biennale, 35 artists are utilising buildings and sites across the island. Spend a few hours exploring the exhibition at this wonderful location. A free ferry service leaves hourly every day between 9.45 am and 4.45 pm from the Commissioners Steps outside the Museum of Contemporary Art and from Pier 2/3, Walsh Bay. This shuttle service will also return from the island. Last departure 5.15 pm. ...

A380 Airliner One Tonne Lighter with E-documents

According to Flight magazine ("Weight Loss Plan Shapes up", Flight, 29 July 208) the publications provided to passengers on an A380 airliner weigh 2 Kilograms per seat. Emirates Airline are therefore planning to replace the usual magazines with an "online channel" on the seat back entertainment screen. This will save 1,000 kg (1 Tonne) per aircraft.

The entertainment systems on the A380 are new and so are sophisticated enough for such information displays. The problem will then be if compatibility has to be maintained with the systems on older aircraft.

Some A380 aircraft have a Linux computer with Open Office for each seat.

Qantas has also been reported as reducing in-flight magazines to save fuel.

Malaysia, Turkey and Greece - Technology and Travel

From mid May to June 2008 I traveled to Malaysia, Turkey and Greece. Highlights were a nighttime train from Greece to Turkey, ferries to the Greek Islands, opera at the Athens Acropolis, attending a Greek wedding and visiting the new Istanbul Museum of The History of Science and Technology in Islam. This was mostly for a holiday, but along the way I attended a corporate governance conference in Malaysia, presented at the World Congress on Information Technology, looked at ICT Education in Malaysia and gave a seminar on how to set up the Tsunami warning system for the Eastern Mediterranean.

Other travelogues:

Europe:

• Rhodes, Greece, July 2008
• Marmaris, Turkey, July 2008
• Istanbul by Public Transport, July 2008
• Istanbul Museum of The History of Science and Technology in Islam, July 2008

• Cambridge, Brussels, Berlin, and Hamburg by Bicycle and High Speed Train, 2005.
• Berlin By Bending Bicycle, 2004.
• Stockholm by Slow Boat and Fast Train, 2001
• UK: England, Cornwall and Stonehenge, 2000
• London to Paris By Eurostar, 2000
• Cambridge live from a Double Decker Bus, 1996
• London to Rome by Train, 1994

Asia and Pacific

• Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2008
• India, 2005
• Beijing By Bending Bicycle, China 2003
• Coming of Information Age in Samoa, 2005

World Youth Day comes to Sydney

World Youth Day 2008 (La Giornata Mondiale della Gioventù) is on across Sydney. I assumed it would only be in the center of the city, but stepping out the front door in the inner western suburbs I came across pilgrims visiting a local church and billeted at the local school. While the organizers claim this is a bigger event than the 2000 Sydney Olympics, there did not appear to be he crowds of people I saw downtown during the Olympics. There were groups with national flags out and about, the French were most noticeable, waving Tricolour and singing La Marseillaise (it is Bastille Day).

World Youth Day (WYD) is the largest youth event in the world and will be held in Sydney from Tuesday 15 to Sunday 20 July 2008.

WYD is a week-long series of events attended by the Pope and hundreds of thousands of young people from all over the globe. It has become the largest single mobilisation of young people in the world.

The week culminates in a Final Mass celebrated by the Pope on the last day (the actual World Youth Day). Typically, it is the largest event of the week and, overseas, has drawn millions of people.

From: About WYD08, 2008

High-tech access for heritage sites

While in Greece I noticed that some cultural sites and museums were not opened at the advertised times. According to a recent media report, this is an embarrassment to the Greek government ("Run-down heritage sites embarrass the Greeks", Helena Smith, The Guardian, June 23, 2008). The solution given in the article was longer opening hours and more staff, but I am not sure that is the correct approach.

The sites tend to open early in the morning and close in the afternoon (8am to 3pm). The media article claimed this was due to public servant working hours. But in the hotter months, it makes sense to be outdoors during the cooler early parts of the day. If the outdoor sites were open in the hottest parts of the afternoon, many tourists, particularly those getting off air conditioned cruise ships, would suffer in the heat.

One tip I do have for tourists to Delphi, and similar places in the hotter months, is to tour the outdoor sites as soon as they open in the morning. You usually have an hour of the monuments to yourself between 8 and 9 am, before the tour buses arrive. Then when it starts to get hot, go indoors to the air conditioned museums.

Don't be put off by the gates being closed. At a few sites the staff did not get around to opening until they saw they had some customers. In one case the gates were firmly locked and no staff were about. But after a five minute visit to the adjacent souvenir store, the site was then open (with some of the people who were sitting in the store now on site).

At the excellent Folklife and Ethnological Museum of Macedonia at Thrace, there was a sign on the side gate pointing to the front door, and a sign on the front door which said it was closed. Going back to the side door, there appeared to be people in there and having gone in I found the museum open with several staff waiting to assist. One staff member then went around turning on video introductions and interactive displays. On exiting I noticed the sign on the side gate had been changed to say to enter there.

More use could be made of computers and technology at major Greek cultural sites. In particular the Athens Acropolis needs something to stop it crumbling under the feet of thousands of tourists and to give them better access. Even the path marked for disabled users is made of slippery and uneven marble, polished smooth by many feet.

People Movers for the Acropolis

One solution for the Acropolis would be to install small automatic people movers. These would be a high tech version of the tourist trains commonly used to ferry tourists around the streets. In place of the noisy diesel engine they would have electric power. The units could run on a safe low voltage electric track, or be battery powered on rubber tires, or a combination of both.

This would require minimal alteration to the site and cause far less damage than have tourists wandering everywhere. Staff costs would be reduced and the individual cars could be equipped with commentary in different languages. Using computer control each car could be individually controlled, so that tourists would not have to wait for a whole train to be full.

Web Displays for Greek Museums

Another useful feature would be to provide more computer based displays for the museums. This would allow for more languages to be provided. The Folklife and Ethnological Museum of Macedonia had an excellent display of the history of the pot in greece, but all of the captions were only in Greek. The information could also be placed on the web for information. The Hellenic Ministry of Culture has attempted to provide details of museums on their web site. But this is a very large task. Being able to use the same information in the museum and on the web would make the task much easier. The Wikipedia has also attempted to catalog Greek museums, and it might make sense to combine the two efforts.

Online information for museums could be downloaded into the visitor's mobile phone. Existing web based services could translate the captions into any of dozens of languages and the result could even be turned into an audio commentary automatically. These are all features which major museums already have, but are prohibitively expensive to develop for every display in minor museums. However, free web based services can now be used to provide it if the museum information is on the web.

Cafes at Museums

One surprising lack in most Greek museums and monumental sites site is a cafe. Apart from the National Archaeological Museum of Athens
which has a cafe with a courtyard which is a work of art in itself and the Delphi Archaeological Museum with an outdoor cafe, most Greek museums do not have cafes. The traditional approach seems to be to have the cafes outside the gate. However, better integration might help keep the sites open longer and cover the costs.

Nyonya Food

Precious Old China restaurant & bar is located upstairs in the Kuala Lumpur’s Central Market (to the left, just inside the front door). The restaurant is located inside a Chinese antiques store and the effect is like dining in a museum. On the night I was there, there were only about a dozen patrons. The food featured is "Nyonya", which is Chinese with Malaysian spices. One aspect of the restaurant which spoils the old world feel is the wireless device on each table, with buttons for ordering more food, water or the bill. But I guess when the place is crowded this saves time.

Windowless hotel rooms?

After suffering poor quality hotels in Turkey and Greece and the relative comfort of the overnight train between the two, it makes me wonder why there are not budget hotels, even more basic than the Hotel Formule 1. Comfortable rooms could be provided at a low cost by replacing the windows with flat screen TVs.

In Melbourne, Accor have their excellent Hotel Formule 1 Melbourne CBD. This is in the center of the city at the end of the mall. On a business trip the usual hotels were full and I was put up in the F1 and found it very comfortable. From the street just a small door is visible (locked after hours and opened with the room card). The reception is upstairs and is tiny. The rooms are similarly small, but are clean. The rooms dispense with items the traveler will not need, such as a fridge and telephone.

The rooms are very quiet with double glazed windows which look thick enough to be bullet proof. Unlike fancy hotels where there always seems to be a staff member coming in to check the bar fridge, or put a mint on your pillow, here they you leave you alone. If you pay for the room when you arrive, you need not see, or talk to a staff member again. There is a DIY breakfast room, also equipped with a vending machine with toothpaste and the like.

It is surprising that more hotel chains or individual proprietors have not adopted this style of hotel. It could also be given an environmental angle for marketing. Most of the carpets could be dispensed with in the name of reducing material and cleaning chemical use (also to save the cost of cleaning the carpet). In countries where smoking is still permitted in hotels, it could be banned for the good of the customers (and to save cleaning costs). Similarly bar fridges could be dispensed with.

One additional way to make the hotels more environmental (and save costs) would be to eliminate windows from some, or all, the rooms. In many budget hotels the windows have poor views of dirty light wells, back alleys or into the rooms of the hotel opposite. Where the windows can be opened, they let in dust, smoke and traffic noise. It would make more sense to provide good quality mechanical ventilation and a large wide screen TV, in place of the window. This would allow rooms to be built up against the blank wall of the next building, or for the whole hotel to be built inside another building. This would greatly lower the cost of the hotel land and allow hotels to take up otherwise unusable locations. As a gimmick, when the hotel door was opened, the TV could be switched on to a CCTV picture from the roof, providing a virtual window on the view.

As well as making room placement more flexible, eliminating the window would make en suite rooms easier to design and make for a more efficient room layout. The most common hotel room design has the bathroom next to the door of the room. This is done so the opposite end of the room can have a window with a view. But the result is that a considerable part of the floor space is wasted with a corridor next to the bathroom to provide room access.

Without a window, the door and bathroom could be placed anywhere in the hotel room. A typical layout might be to have the door on one side at the foot of the bed and the bathroom in the end wall. This would eliminate the internal corridor and save several square meters of floor space. The one piece of floor space would be used for access to the room, access to the bathroom and circulation.

Assuming the room has a European Queen size bed (1.6 × 2 m), with 750mm clear space from bed to wall on each side and 900 mm (the width of a door) at the foot of the bed, making a room 3.1 x 2.9 m. The bathroom would be 1100 mm deep along the end of the room, making for a total of 3.1 x 4 m. A single room (900 × 2000 mm bed), with 900 mm access on only one side of the bed and the bathroom opposite, could be 2.9 x 2 m.

The hotel could also provide some very small budget rooms, like a compartment in a sleeper train. These would have only enough room to stand up next to the bed, plus luggage racks. To save more space the underside of the bed and the ceiling over it could be lowered to provide the space for the plumbing and air conditioning of adjacent rooms. Careful design could provide a better experience here than the average larger, but clumsy hotel room. It need not go to the extreme of the Japanese capsule hotel (カプセルホテル,), but could have rooms similar to the StayOrange.com Hotel, Yotel the Pod Hotel, or citizenM. But rather than have a whole hotel of these, they could be placed to use otherwise unusable corners of the conventional hotel.

In addition temporary hotels could be quickly erected on spare building sites using Flat Packed Housing and modular building technology. When the land was needed for other purposes, the buildings would be shipped back to the factory for refurbishment and then re-erected elsewhere.

Palaios Panteleimonas Pierias Greece

Palaios Panteleimon (Παλαιός Παντελεήμονας) ,"Old" Panteleimon" is a village in Central Macedonia, Northern Greece, near Mouth Olympus. The village is now a popular tourist spot, with guesthouses such as Nefelh (English Translation).

I attended a wedding at the Greek orthodox church and then dined with the wedding party and what appeared to be most of the village, and the guests left over from a previous wedding, at a tavern in the square next to the village. The party went on until about 2am, with much Ouzo and even a rendition of the theme from Zorba the Greek, to keep the overseas guests happy.

The nearby New village, was the scene of the film O Megalexandros by Theo Angelopoulos.

Hotel Rex Thessaloníki

The Hotel Rex, Thessaloníki, Greece might be a good place to stay after the current renovations are finished. But as of a week ago it was like staying in a building site. A new lift is being installed, but in the interim you have to walk up four flights of stairs to your room. New soundproof double glazed windows are being installed, but while that is happening you have to step over builders tools, and listen to hammer drills.

Rooms have air conditioning, but I found the filter in mine was blocked with several millimeters of dust and carpet fluff. There seemed to be more pile in the filter than on the grimy unclean carpet on the floor. I would guess the management have decided not to clean the carpets until the building work is finished, even if the cleaner could be made to carry their equipment up the stairs.

The hotel did have some good points: most notably, very helpful staff. It is very close to the railway station (perhaps a bit too close). It had a very good free cyber cafe, apart from the air conditioner set to 29 degrees and the flat batteries in the cordless keyboard and mouse. Who in their right mind installs a cordless keyboard and mouse in a cyber cafe?

The hotel will be even better placed when Thessaloníki finishes the Thessaloníki Metro, running past the door. But that could be decades away.

Ancient forum of Thessaloníki

The Roman Forum is an archaeological site in the center of the modern Greek city of ral Thessaloniki. The site is free to visit, with useful signs in English and staff to ask questions of (and almost deserted when I visited). There is a Stoa (covered walkway) which was the site of ancient trade (the modern covered marketplace is a few streets down the hill and operated mugh the same way as this one did 2,000 years ago).

The roman forum itself is at one end of the Stoa and has been restored for performances. The remains of the original floor have been preserved in glass under the modern stage. Unfortunately several of the glass panels have shattered, hopefully a fate not shared by the New Acropolis Museum of Athens, which has an extensive glass floor.

The Bridge: A Journey Between Orient and Occident

Geert Mak has written the book "The Bridge: A Journey Between Orient and Occident" about the Galata Bridge in Instanbul. I crossed the bridge a few weeks ago. It is not a great bridge, in terms of engineering or architecture. What Mak concentrates on is the culture of the parts of the city connected. One aspect of the bridge is that it is lined with food stores underneath and people catching fish on top. The new Istanbul tram crosses the bridge and ferries to Asia cross underneath.

The book was featured on the ABC Radio:

A bridge between orient and occident - Geert Mak

Listen Now - 26062008 |Download Audio - 26062008

Dutch writer, journalist and historian Geert Mak has written several books exploring particular places, including Amsterdam and Jorwerd: The death of The Village in Late Twentieth Century Europe. His latest book is called The Bridge and in it he focuses on one bridge in the city of Istanbul and the people who cross it, who work on it and who are drawn to it.

From: The Books Show, Radio National ABC, 26 June 2008

See also: Travel books about Istanbul.

KLIA Airport

Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) is billed as the world's best airport. It is big, with the gates in a satellite terminal connected by automated trains. It is an unusual feeling to be accelerating out of the station while still in the terminal building, with people duty free shopping beside you. Free wireless Internet is provided, as are a few web terminals (I used the WiFi to post this while waiting for my flight to Sydney). Web access worked fine, but I was unable to get my POP mail.

Dubai in a dust-storm

Something they don't mention in the real estate and tourism brochures is that Dubai has dust-storms. At present I am sitting in the Dubai airport transit lounge happy to have the air conditioning. Outside it is 35 degrees Celsius and there is a brown haze. But then Melbourne has dust storms occasionally.

The Palace of the Grand Master at Rhodes

The former palace of the grand master in the old town of Rhodes is now a tourist attraction. This looks like the fairy tale view of a castle with battlements outside and huge stone fireplaces inside. The effect is not entirely authentic, having been remodeled by the Italian government early in the 20th Century as a holiday home for government leaders. There are some glitzy art deco touches which grate a little along with some of the Fascist style of decoration. But then that is a criticism which can be made of some of the buildings of the period in Washington and Canberra. ;-)

Byzantine Monuments Thessaloniki

There seems to have been an international standard established for tickets to museums, such as the Byzantine Monuments of Thessaloniki. Each issues a ticket about the size of a bank note. The ticket has a larger portion with a photo of the museum or of an artifact from it. There are then perforated sections at either end, which are torn off and retained by the attendant at the door. Museum complexes may have multiple tear off sections (one had five) for different exhibits.

The tickets have some of the anti forgery features found on a bank note. All the tickets have micro printing in multiple colors as a backing to the ticket to make them difficult to photocopy or reproduce on a laser printer. The more expensive and popular museums have holographic strips and watermarks.

The tickets could make good souvenirs of a trip, when all placed in a frame together. However, one omission is that many do not say exactly where they are. After some weeks of traveling, you can forget which museum is where. For example, where are the Byzantine Monuments? The ticket has an image of gold and enamel bracelets from the White Tower, Thessaloniki, but where is the museum they are in?

Idyl at Lidl

When traveling all the new and exotic locations can be a bit tiring and you wish for something familiar and mundane. I found this in the Lidl discount supermarket in Thebes. Lidl is a competitor to Aldi, providing pallets of low cost house brands. The Lidl stores look very similar to the Aldi stores in Australia and so familiar. Of course the irony is that Aldi is a German based company.

Thebes Railway Station

Since the place was conquered by Alexander the Great in 335 BC it has been downhill for the Greek city of Thebes (Thiva). Sitting at the railway station waiting for the 4:10pm train from Athens to Thessaloniki, it is about 35 degrees census in the shade. Thankfully the waiting room has a breeze blowing through and the stone walls protect from the infrared radiation from the paving outside.

The surrounding region seems to grow wheat and cotton. There are also small engineering shops apparent. One worrying sign is the number of car sales yards and car advertisements on TV. Given that these intersperse news programs predicting oil at $US200 a barrel, this cannot be good for the way the country's economy is arranged. There have already been strikes by truck drivers and fishermen over oil prices in Europe. The Greek government seems none too stable and a few transport blockades might be enough to bring it down.

The obvious solution is for the government to increase funding for public transport and rail, away from dependence on cars and trucks. But seeing Thebes with its lonely, mostly deserted railway station, it would seem considerable investment would be needed.

In the meanwhile, just about every road in Greece seems to be dug up for improvements. The improved roads receive a pounding from the traffic and then need more work. India is introducing some bus transit lanes in its cities and this might be one solution. However, excluding private cars from roads will not be popular in Greece. The idea that you should be able to drive where you want, even though in practice you usually can't get there because of all the traffic, seems strong.

Having seen the roads of Greece and Turkey, the type of small people movers promoted by Bishop Engineering of Sydney, make a lot more sense. In Sydney, the idea of small van size electric rail cars zipping around seems odd. But in a densely packed city they make sense.

Rodos Sound and Light Show

In the Municipal Gardens of Rodos, just outside the wall of the old city or Rhodes is a sound and light show about the history of the island. Unfortunately it wasn't operating when I was visiting, with the city council worried about the cost. These shows seem to be common in tourist areas and are an inexpensive form of entertainment and education for the tourists. The audio commentary is provided in several languages, with different times for different languages. The lighting effects are computer controlled and synchronized with the commentary and music.

Long Distance Turkish Bus

The International Istanbul Bus Station (Uluslararsi Istanbul Otogan) is a wonder of the modern world. This is a three story circular structure which can cater for thousands of passengers and hundreds of buses at once. The buses are serviced on the lower levels, with workshops and stores selling bus spare parts and accessories. The higher level has stores, barbers and cafes servicing the drivers and passengers. The top level has shops the bus company offices, waiting rooms and bays for buses.

I went looking for a cyber cafe while waiting for a bus and descended one level down, into something resembling a scene from the movie Blade Runner. The dimly lit concrete corridors had all sorts of shops, bus parts and people sitting around drinking and eating. There was the risk of turning a corner and being in the path of an oncoming bus, or tripping over a pile of spare parts in the dark.

The cybercafe turned out to be on the open top level, directly opposite where I started. For two Turkish lire, I was able to check my mail in comfort and quickly download a week's worth of MP3.

The Turkish long distance buses are large, comfortable and smoke free. As well as the driver, there is an attendant who checks tickets and serves free drinks and snacks. There was no toilet on the Metro bus I traveled on, but it stopped every few hours at a bus station, equipped with toilets and cafes. The first time the bus stopped I was worried that it would leave without me. But I worked out that at major stops the bus was washed, in a ritual similar to the washing of an elephant, and I had until this was finished.

One surprise was at some point in the night the bus stopped at the water's edge; a car ferry arrived and the bus was transported across a large body of water. I still have no idea of what or where this was.

Walking Shoes for Ascending the Sacred Way at Delphi

On my trip to Greece my old shoes started to fall apart. Uncertain of the quality of the bewildering array of shoes on offer in an unfamiliar city, I ended up with a pair of Scholl Professionals from the local apothecary (chemist). These are black leather walking shoes have worked very well.

The Professionals are designed by Scholl for health professionals who who need to stand up all day. Usually they are sold in white for nurses, but they are also available in black, which I purchased. They resemble a sports shoe, with a flat sole (no heel), a long tongue (long lace up area) and large arch support inside. The shoes weigh much less than ordinary dress shoes and very much less than walking boots.

When I tried them on it was more like putting on a pair of sox, than shoes. They felt comfortable immediately, unlike shoes which need time to soften and shape to the foot. I was worried that this lightweight construction might result in the shoes falling apart quickly or not being protective or supportive (I have flat feet and need orthopedic supports). But the flat sole and long lace up area results in a firm fit which supports my feet. The soles have proved to have enough grip for climbing slippery marble at the Athens Acropolis. The leather has proved strong enough to withstand sharp rocks on the island of Crete.

Unlike a sports shoe, the Professionals have no logos, stripes or other adornment on them. They were respectable enough to wear out to the Opera in Athens, for a performance of Turandot and I will be wearing them with a suit to a wedding in northern Greece.

The Professionals have only a thin sole and I am not sure how long this will last. But in the few weeks I have had them they have withstood the equivalent of several months of normal use in visiting numerous sights of Greece, with little sign of wear. Also as they have a simple flat sole, it should be possible to have them resoled, which can't be done with some elaborately shaped sports shoe soles.

The shoes are not perfect. I would prefer some heel, to make them less subject to slipping. These are not suitable for trekking in rugged conditions, or for use in very wet conditions. The leather is covered with more stitching than a normal shoe. This presumably provides the comfortable fit, but is something which might wear and make them less durable. But overall I would recommend the Scholl Professional to those needing to do a lot of standing or walking, as a sightseeing tourist does.

ps: I couldn't find the Scholl's Professionals on Amazon.com. Scholl seem to sell different shoes in different counties. The closest similar show I could find was a New Balance Men's MW576 Walking Shoe.

Architecture of Istanbul

The Istanbul Lonely Planet City Guide told me to prepare to be stunned by Aya Sofia, but it turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Like St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, it is a vulgar display of wealth for a religion which supposedly values humility. What is remarkable is that such a building has survived this long, but in a sense it hasn't. The original dome fell down in an earthquake after 30 years and was replaced. The building is still being repaired today, with descendents of the stonemasons who build the place no doubt thanking the vanity of the commissioner's of the building and the folly of the architect for more than a thousand years of repair work.

It was good to be able to freely walk around such a famous and ancient building, but I worried if the visitors had a little too much access and would be wearing out the floor, as well as damaging other artifacts. There were signs that the building is carefully monitored, with corner reflector stickers on the columns, so a laser can accurately measure any movement. It is a shame that the repair work on the building is hidden away as I found it the most interesting part. There were also some glimpses out onto the roof, covered with plants and small trees.

Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Blue Mosque) was a little more to my tastes. This is still a working place of worship. I was worried all the tourists would intrude, but there is a well regulated system to keep them out of the way of the worshipers. The unadorned grey stone was more aesthetically pleasing than Aya Sofia's gold mosaics. The mosque is one big carpeted room, with one may pushing a very old upright vacuum cleaner from one end to the other, in what must be a full time job. It was disappointing to see the tourists who had been politely asked to wear head scarves removing them as soon as they got in the door. On the way out I made a donation (entry is free) and was surprised to get a receipt and a small book of translations from the Koran.


Outside the Blue Mosque, between it and Aya Sofia are a set of wooden covered concrete benches. Each evening at 9pm there is a free sound and light show about the building of the mosque. The commentary is in a different language each evening: French, German, Turkish and English. The light show is a bit dull (they need to invest in some lasers) and the sound track is a bit scratchy, but it is worth sitting there in the twilight.

While the Church and Mosque are Istanbul's big tourist attractions, I found the modest secular buildings more interesting. The Basilica Cistern, Grand Bazaar and many lesser buildings share the same design as these grand buildings: a shallow brick dome, supported by columns, but only a few meters across. To make a larger building the basic unit is repeated on a grid pattern, making a building of any size, with a roof of hundreds of dozens.

Basilica Cistern

In the bazaar, the columns are brick, in the cistern they are recycled stone ones from demolished buildings. The cistern is a disused part of the water supply being an enormous underground rectangular water tank, long forgotten under a city square. It is entered from what looks like a public toilet, but leads down into the large cool, dim space. This is a good place to escape the heat, noise and carpet sellers of the streets above.

The floor of the cistern has a few cm of water over it, with fish swimming around. There are elevated walkways between the columns for the visitors. Colored lights have been installed to accentuate some rows of columns giving interesting reflections in the water. There is water continually dripping from the ceiling. Over the walkways there have been plastic sheets attached between the columns to keep the visitors dry. These are formed into tent like structures matching the dome of the roof and fit in with the architecture.

One section of the floor has been drained so that two Medusa statutes in the base of two of the columns can be seen. There is a cafe near the exit, which appears to have a stage for musical performances built out over the water. The drinks are expensive, but it is worth it to be able to sit in this amazing space.

Grand Bazaar

The Grand Bazaar appears the prototype for the world's shopping malls. There is a grid pattern of arcades with shops on either side. Commodities are grouped in different areas (gold, leather and so on). The building is a simple square module repeated, adjusting for the sloping ground. It is worth looking up at the roof, to see how it changes in the different bazaars.

Around the Grand Bazaar are others for spice, clothes, even electrical goods and hardware. As you get away from the tourist areas, there are the shops which the locals buy things in, including shops servicing the traders, selling plastic disposable containers and ones making the gillers that fast food is cooked on. These stores lead out onto the waterfront, where there is the suburban bus station.

e-Learning in Mid Air

The new Singapore A380 airbus is equipped with a Linux computer in every economy seat, but traveling Malaysian Airlines, I had to bring an ASUS EEE PC. Even so I noticed that the entertainment in the Boeing 747 economy seat came with e-Learning, along with interactive games.

The interactive system did not make a good start. The system crashed with a segmentation fault and I had to wait a minute while it rebooted itself. This was useful in that the diagnostics showed the screen was at 640 x 480 pixels. Newer systems such as the airbus have a higher resolution, but even with the maximum practical screen of about 9 inches, there is only so much that can be displayed.

This is the second time within a few weeks that I have seen a problem with an airline entertainment system. The previous was on a QANTAS 747 to Perth which had to be rebooted. It is a little disconcerting to see the aircraft rebooting Microsoft Windows 3.0 in mid-flight, but then that is not running the flight controls. The report of a software failure which could have brought down a Boeing 777 flight out of Perth was released recently.

But back to e-learning; the system offers: Travel guide, Berlitz languages, b-Wise (business topics) and Soundview executive book summaries. The display showed an email address at mascorp.com and so presumably is from Panasonic Avionics.

The travel guide is a little out of date, having been last updated in December 2005. There are a few seconds delay after selecting a city guide, while the next module is loaded. Modules were offered for Asia, Europe, America and the Pacific. The interface makes good use of the limited screen size with simple graphics and menus operated by the hand controller's games buttons (up down, left right, select). Selecting the city guide for KL, I was disappointed to be confronted with a frozen menu bar as the system crashed again:

“galib: Signal 11: Segmentation fault received. ... System is going down NOW !! Sending SIGKILL to all processes. System is halted. Press Reset or turn off power.”

But then this was an old aircraft. Some of the panels in the toilet are, quite literally, held together with adhesive tape (Polyken 290FR aircraft cargo compartment tape to be precise). No doubt newer aircraft have newer entertainment systems.

While the system was rebooting (again), a little about how the EEE PC goes on an aircraft. What makes the EEE PC difficult to use on a desktop: the small screen and keyboard, is very useful in an economy class seat. The notebook sits firmly on the tray table (some larger notebooks tend to tip over). There is plenty of space around the computer for coffee, seat controllers and the like. The keyboard is less difficult than on a desk and the tiny touch pad is easier to use than a large one.

The language package for the in flight entertainment system is from DTI Software . This offers a large range of languages to learn in and from. However, the disappointment is that this is not multimedia: the system shows you images and words, but there was no audio pronouncing the words and so making it of limited value.

One interesting aspect is that the language package uses the controller in landscape (games) mode, whereas the travel guide uses it in portrait (telephone) mode, thus the up-down/left-right keys are rotated 90 degrees, which is confusing.

b-Wise was also also developed by DTI Software . This was the most disappointing of the e-learning packages. It provides a few paragraphs of text per screen, with some maps and photos. However, the screen resolution is so low that the text is all but unreadable. The resolution of the text generator does not appear to match that of the screen, the anti-aliasing is not set correctly, or perhaps this is a JPEG image, complete with text, but for whatever reason it is not usable.

Soundview executive book topics provides very abridged versions of business books. These have such titles as “Putting the Moose on the Table”, “Leadership Lessons from Lewis and Clark's Daring Westward Expedition” and “The Wisdom of Crowds” (TWOC). I selected TWOC and found it consisted of 50 pages (screen fulls) of text, plus 23 minutes and 40 seconds of spoken book. As with the business guides, the screen text is not really readable, but the audio worked well. The screen text is more abridged that the audio, but is useful reinforcement, however, the screens do not automatically update to keep up with the audio, the pages have to be changed manually.

The audio has a tinny quality, as if it has been decompressed and re-compressed several times, but is adequate. The controls for the sound are limited to pausing, there is no fast forward, rewind, or chapter skip. Overall Soundview is the most useful of the e-Learning units. The simplistic nature of business books particularly suits this summarising and presentation style. Books such as TWOC present a few simple ideas which can be summarised in a few pages; the books tend to repeat examples of these few simple points to reinforce the lesson (almost to the point of being indoctrination, rather than education). However, there was not test, or review at the end, so this is not really e-Learning anyway.

Also it is a little worrying that if it books such as TWOC are what the average business person can cope with, then then more sophisticated techniques for online business now being developed may be beyond most people in business to understand. ICT professionals, myself included, may be vastly overestimating the ability of business to absorb new online developments. One problem might be testing these ideas on university students, who are not be representative of the average business person. My ANU students in particular are far above the average. I had to get that plug for the ANU in, as they paid for the EEE PC. ;-)

But while criticizing the features of the in-flight system, it is worth keeping in mind how remarkable it is to have such systems while traveling over the South Australian desert at 756 kph (courtesy of iXplor moving map system a .On a previous trip aboard a RAAF C130 transport aircraft, things were a little more primitive. When I asked the navigator on the flight deck where we were, he gave me the longitude and latitude.

ps: After the flight, Malaysia Airlines sent some details of their systems:

The following is what we gathered from our Inflight Services Dept. Further information can be found on our corporate website at www.malaysiaairlines.com.

We update our movies title monthly .

B747/777: 3000i system which gives the passengers audio/video on demand (AVOD). More than 300 hours of inflight entertainment, including 50+movies, over 100 tv shows, 70 games, and 200 CD albums.

A330-200: Inseat Video System for Business and Economy Class. More than 3 movies and 10 TV programs are available.

A330-300: Overhead video system for Economy Class. For Business Class, it is the portable media player that carries 100 hours of on-demand movies, tv shows, and 10 games.

Portable Media Player : PMP available on A330- Business Class only with 10 latest Hollywood movies playtime for 02 months. ...

Folding bicycle film

Lynette Chiang, folding bicycle traveller and author of “The Handsomest Man in Cuba”, will be in Melbourne and Canberra, Australia in May. Apparently she has now produced a video. For more details of events, see the BikeFriday web site :

May 2008 May. 4 MELBOURNE RIDE! Lynette Chiang, Bike Friday Customer Evangelist, 0420 968 967 (Australia) MELBOURNE Let's jump on the MBTC Sunday Easy ride of Melbourne's bike paths - meet 9.15am Federation Square and circumnavigate the 'burbs, reacquainting yourselves with "the cyclists roadways". Plenty of places to bow out - lots of train stations. This is a good social "BF getting to know each other ride." Rain cancels, I presume... +++ Anyone want to suggest a ride (in between showers) that we can all join? Please contact me and I'll post it here. There isn't a formal Melbourne BF club as such, but plenty of enthusiastic Friday friends! I'm here til May 14, so anytime in between.

Galfromdownunder Film Fest @ BWM, Melbourne, Australia May 2008 May. 13 Galfromdownunder Film Fest @ BWM, Melbourne, Australia Lynette Chiang, Bike Friday Customer Evangelist, 0420 968 967 (Australia) 6 Bond St South Yarra, Melbourne (just around the corner from Cafe E Cuccina on Chapel St) DOWNLOAD POSTER TIME: 7pm – 10pm, Peru screens 7.15pm, Route 66 screens 8.15pm DIRECTIONS: Click here | Parking at Jam Factory, bike parking under the building of 6 Bond St COST: Small donation towards costs and the Peru Orphanage featured in the film The Galfromdownunder's award-winning bicycle films shot with a simple digital camera and minimal technology have been praised by cycling and multimedia audiences across the USA. 16,000 Feet on a Friday travels the world's highest highway to a remote orphanage in Peru, and was voted Audience Choice at the inaugural Boston Bike Film Festival. Route 66 by Bicycle is a 29-day expedition along the original alignments of the famous historic route, visiting beloved icons of roadside America. Q&A includes a demo of her folding bicycle and her techniques of "handlebar moviemaking" revealed. Visit http://www.galfromdownunder.com/talks Thanks to Belgiovane Williams McKay (creators of the Telstra "Too Many Rabbits in China" tv commercial), for the use of their theatre.

Galfromdownunder Film Fest @ ANU, CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA May 2008 May. 15 Galfromdownunder Film Fest @ ANU, CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA Lynette Chiang, Bike Friday Customer Evangelist, 0420 968 967 (Australia) Manning Clark Theater IV, Union Court, Australian National University, CANBERRA DOWNLOAD POSTER TIME: 7pm – 10pm, Peru screens 7.15pm, Route 66 screens 8.15pm | Directions COST: Small donation towards costs and the Peru Orphanage featured in the film The Galfromdownunder's award-winning bicycle films shot with a simple digital camera and minimal technology have been praised by cycling and multimedia audiences across the USA. 16,000 Feet on a Friday travels the world's highest highway to a remote orphanage in Peru, and was voted Audience Choice at the inaugural Boston Bike Film Festival. Route 66 by Bicycle is a 29-day expedition along the original alignments of the famous historic route, visiting beloved icons of roadside America. Q&A includes a demo of her folding bicycle and her techniques of "handlebar moviemaking" revealed. Visit http://www.galfromdownunder.com/talks Thanks to Bike Friday Club of Canberra leader Nic Gellie for organizing this event

Airline luggage and donkey pack boxes the same size

Not really sure if this has anything to do with anything, but have you noticed that the international size for aircraft cabin baggage is very close to the size of pack boxes for horses and donkeys? Pack boxes are side loads hung from a pack saddle. These are traditionally made from wood, cloth or leather. Modern ones are molded plastic. These are also about the size of the rugged cases used by military and emergency personnel.

Using the web for travel planning

In a few months time I am off on a trip overseas, so I thought I would do some research on the web of places to visit. Google Maps is useful for finding your way around cities, but less useful for small villages. I found that in a city it would identify down to individual buildings, but outside the city there were large blanks. Looking up online news stories is also useful for finding out what is of interest. One surprise I had was finding a story about guerrillas killing four people and shooting up the town hall of where I was planning to visit. This was worrying, until I noticed the news item was from 1947 (the newspaper had put its archives online).

One frustration is that mapping services tend to be for people in cars, not pedestrians and public transport users. Also smaller venues have less than useful web sites. You may get a short description and a blurry scanned map, but no way to book online and it can be difficult to find the contact details. While airlines have web based timetables and booking, railways still tend to give you a hard to follow timetable and then an off-line booking system.