The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

After much indecision and uncertainty, it was finally decided the week before last that myself and Nikos, my fellow ex-DAI student and agreed working partner, would travel for ten days to Beirut in Lebanon. We would leave today.

To give a little background to this, it must be explained that agreement was reached some time ago that a group of students would return in pairs to the five cities (besides Enschede) which were the site of the workshops during the Dutch Art Institute’s Here As The Centre Of The World project. After much discussion, it was decided that myself and Nikos would form the team for Beirut.

The purpose of our visit is somewhat loosely defined – we are basically to collect material (visual, written, or otherwise) pertaining to the previous workshop in Beirut and the experiences of the participants who live in Beirut in all workshops. How this will take place is another matter. Also, two years and a major armed conflict have passed since the DAI was last here, facts which of course cannot be disregarded.

Such complications can wait, however. The first thing was to get here, and get to grips with the place.

After the sort of frantically busy morning of getting things that cannot wait done which usually precedes flying, I arrived at Schiphol, my rucksack crammed full of clothes and other essentials just half an hour before. Actually I was in plenty of time to meet up with Nikos, get checked in, and endure the usual hanging around which makes air travel so tedious.

We needed first to fly to Larnaca in Cyprus, from where we would catch a short connecting flight to Beirut. Unfortunately, the first flight was late in leaving, but thankfully not long enough to put us in danger of missing the second. There is little to be said about the journey except that it was long (I am not used to more than about an hour and a half in the air), the food was OK, and there were no unusual incidents of any kind whatsoever. This is of course exactly what is to be hoped for when flying.

On arrival at Beirut airport, we were immediately accosted by a friendly taxi driver who was more than helpful in carrying our bags and asking all sorts of questions. What was quite stupid of course was that we failed to ask the price before getting in, which meant that we ended up paying an extortionate US$40 for a 15-minute journey. We had been told that it should have been about half that.

Not the best start to our stay in the city, but things went better from then on. We are staying at Zico House, an arts centre in a beautiful old house in the Sanayeh area of the city. We were made to feel very welcome. After having a chat with the owner we headed out for something to eat: a sort of folded over pizza, with a can of juice and a bottle of water for US$3 – not bad.

In the morning, it was quite hard to stay asleep due to the constant noise of traffic and incessant car horns outside. Being Greek, Nikos is a bit more used to this, but it is new to me. Hopefully it will fade into the background a bit after a day or two.

We spent the morning exploring the area around the house, which seems to be mostly banks, and western fashion chains and coffee houses; not really what would perhaps spring to mind when thinking of a city which has more of a name for endless, sporadic (and sometimes long-lasting) conflicts. Either this area has been spared the worst, or the Lebanese are very good at picking themselves up and getting back on their feet.

After Thursday’s fiddling around getting things to work, today was time for the opening of POST DORDT. I am not usually so very comfortable at art openings, since I generally don’t know what to say to people and feel a bit disconnected from the “art crowd”. Of course, things take on a slightly different perspective as a participant; at least in this case I could feel a bit more involved in what was going on.

The opening took place during a street festival in Dordrecht, on what will probably be one of the last warm, sunny Saturdays of the year. I couldn’t say that it was exactly packed with people, but there was certainly a decent crowd; it must be said that they were perhaps a little older and less hip than the equivalent in Amsterdam, or back in Glasgow for that matter. I guess this may be because there is no art school in town.

Of course, as can be expected, there were very few folks I know from Amsterdam through for the evening, mostly because of the distance but also because tonight was also packed with openings there. It’s the start of the season for this sort of thing.

Afterwards, we were invited to a Chinese buffet in a house further up the street. I had imagined someone’s living room with a table covered in plastic trays of noodles and tubs of satay sticks, but in fact we were treated to the most delicious and enormous meal of (so I am told) mostly Indonesian food, in a house which looked like it must have belonged to the richest family in Dordrecht at some point. Beer and wine were laid on in similarly generous quantities, and even the plastic chairs provided for the little garden party out the back were pretty posh. It seems like there is plenty money in this town.

So, that’s one result from my two years’ of study achieved. Hopefully not too long until the next show.

About a month ago, I received an email inviting me to participate in POST DORDT, a group exhibition showcasing works by graduating students from all the masters programmes in the Netherlands. Naturally I was extremely pleased indeed about this. Since my background before studying at the DAI was in design and not fine art, I have very little experience of taking part in exhibitions, and so this is still something quite new and exciting.

“If I could just take part in one group show, I would be very satisfied”, I whispered to myself earlier this year. Well, the opportunity to do so has come a bit earlier than expected.

As is so often the case with wishes that come true, the details were a little different than how I had imagined. Instead of some gallery or art space in Amsterdam, this exhibition is taking place at the Centrum voor Beeldende Kunst in Dordrecht. This is not exactly the teeming heart of the metropolis, and in fact I had to look it up on the map (it’s to the east of Rotterdam).

I am showing two video works, I your dear friend am in my self undone and Durée, the second of which is actually a series of four short videos. I had thought that this would be fairly straightforward, but in fact it took half the day to find DVD players which would co-operate and to solve various other minor technical problems. In the end it turned out looking pretty good though, and I am looking forward to Saturday’s opening.

Our little holiday in Scotland ended today with another morning in Edinburgh. We made a short visit to the National Museum of Scotland, all the better to increase Astrid’s knowledge (and mine too) of our colourful history. We only really had about an hour, which is of course not enough time to find out all that much.

After this, and some lunch and shopping, it was back to the airport with our heavy luggage and on to the plane home. Despite the fact that we have had a great time here, I am quite looking forward to being back in Amsterdam. Otherwise I would still live here, wouldn’t I?

Our night on the beach passed without disturbance, and we were treated to a beautiful view in the morning of the Moray Firth, unfortunately with no sign of the famous dolphins. Astrid decided to go skinny-dipping in the sea, which must have been quite a surprise for the old ladies who happened to be walking along the path next to the beach at the same time! Of course, following her example I had to do the same. It was actually not so cold, and very refreshing.

After this, we bought some breakfast and sat on the shore wall to eat it, while a seagull was continuously pestered by its young. The things were almost as large as the adult bird, and I was drawn to make comparisons with human children, who continue to be a drain on their parents well past childhood. I was no exception, it must be said.

We then walked around Chanonry Point, past where the Brahan Seer was gruesomely put to death by boiling in tar. Or so the story goes. Finally, we passed my old school, Fortrose Academy; besides the ruins of the cathedral there was not too much else to do in Fortrose.

The weather turned out very nice in the afternoon, which allowed a little bit of sunbathing on the beach. Certainly a nice way to end our time in the Highlands. What was not so nice was the running which we needed to do to catch the bus back to Inverness – it seems I will never learn to be on time for such things.

When we reached Inverness, there was yet more rushing after some idiot in a pizza shop assured me that my pizza would for sure be ready in plenty of time to catch my train. Of course it was not, and I was about to run out of the shop without it when it finally arrived. Hopefully tomorrow’s journey back to the Netherlands will be less stressful.

The final day of the West Highland Way began with a steep climb out of Kinlochleven towards the Lairigmor, a pass between various mountains with unpronounceable Gaelic names (Bein na Caillich, Stob Coire na h-Eirghe, Meall a Chaorainn, and so on). The views were really great once we had climbed high out of the glen, through a desolate landscape with few signs of civilisation besides a few long-abandoned cottages. It was hard to believe that it is August, such was the wind and rain even down between the mountains.

Later on, we descended through more felled planted woodland – it makes for quite a sombre scene, as if the whole place had been flattened by an atomic weapon or suchlike. Timber has to come from somewhere though, I suppose.

We made pretty good progress, and after lunch decided to try and bring forward the plan to go up to the Black Isle, which we were to have done tomorrow. The advantage in doing this was that we didn’t need to stay in Fort William for the night, which would have been quite annoying because the camp site is really far from where we were picking up our bags. Also, we would have more time to see my old home territory.

The last few kilometres of the West Highland Way were actually quite disappointing, since they consist firstly of dense woodland with not much to see, before following a road to finish quite unspectacularly at a roundabout. We Scots do not do dramatic and triumphant endings very well, as can of course be seen from our dismal record in international football.

This minor anticlimax over with, we picked up our bags and got on the bus to Inverness. Two hours of winding alongside the lochs of the Great Glen later, and we had arrived in the capital of the Highlands. The last time I passed through it was still officially a town, I think. Now it’s a city, but I can’t see much difference.

It was already getting late by this point, and of course you can’t camp in the middle of a city, or even a town for that matter. The mad plan then was to catch a bus to Rosemarkie, a small village on the Black Isle close to where I used to go to school. There’s a lovely beach there, where I had fond memories of camping on while still a teenager. It would make a suitably idyllic location for our last night in the tent.

Before all that, though, there was the matter of getting there. This took place in the sort of rattling wee bus that I have not been in for years, and by the time we had wound our way through the various other villages of the Black Isle it was very nearly dark. All the same, we managed to stumble across the sand and get the tent put up without too much trouble, before cooking some dinner on the beach. This proved to be less tranquil than hoped for due to the numerous jumping sand creatures (I don’t know what they are actually called) which kept trying to land in our food and thus be eaten. I’d rather not know how many I ate without seeing.

This morning there was another attack of the dreaded midgies – this time the worst so far. I had ventured out to make some porridge, but no sooner had I done so than a swarm of literally thousands had gathered round the tent. As I kept moving around in an effort to avoid them, yet more kept appearing to replace all those which I had squashed dead every time I tried brushing them off my face or hands. They are simply unstoppable. Thankfully, there was soon a gentle breeze blowing. Their wee wings cannae cope with this and they are forced to retreat, awaiting a lull and their next victim.

On the map, today was actually the shortest day. All the same, it still took as long as yesterday, which was half as long a distance again. This was mostly due to the fact that there was quite a lot of climbing to be done – firstly, up the side of Glencoe along the frighteningly-named Devil’s Staircase. This steep pathway between Stob Mhic Mhartuin and Beinn Bheag (try pronouncing those) leads to the highest point on the West Highland Way, 564m (1850ft) above sea level. So, not exactly mountaineering, but enough to build up an appetite for lunch.

From here on, it was up and down between more hills, slowing descending towards the village of Kinlochleven. On the way, we passed the massive pipes which bring water from the Blackwater Reservoir high in the hills down to the hydro-electric power station in the village. This power station was originally built to supply energy for the now-closed aluminium smelter; they do however still make aluminium up the road in Fort William, presumably with the electricity generated here.

Now that this large source of employment has disappeared, Kinlochleven has a slightly bedraggled, despondent look about it. That is not to say that they are not taking steps to regenerate the area – there is now a huge ice climbing centre, brewery, and various other businesses on the site of the smelter. This is quite encouraging to see, since when I was growing up in the Highlands there seemed to precious little done when a similar factory also closed. Heavy industry in such a remote location is likely always going to struggle to survive.

Tonight we are staying in a “bunk house”, which does not quite live up to what I had expected. Maybe I read the website wrong, but I got the idea that we were getting our own wee stone cabin. In fact, it’s just a small room (admittedly with en-suite bathroom, which is an unbelievable luxury after camping), in a huge building which resembles more of a youth hostel.

We went for a wander around town (took about 5 minutes…) looking for somewhere to eat, and ended up in one of the village’s two pubs. It became apparent at one point that the people next to us were speaking Dutch, and the people on the other side of them as well. The interior of the bar was not so different from what is typical in the Netherlands, and I could almost have believed that I was back in Amsterdam. That was, of course, until you look out the window and see the mountainside rising up on the other side of the glen.

The plan to wrap up warm in our little cabin and fight off the illness we were both suffering yesterday seemed to have paid off this morning, since we both felt much better. The stage we had planned to walk was to be the longest yet though, at 32km (20mi), and given that we were certainly not yet feeling 100%, we decided to take a bus to Bridge of Orchy. This shortened the route down to more like 19km (12mi).

Once we got out of the bus and got going, I began to feel much better pretty quickly, although still a bit stiff and sore. I guess it must have been food poisoning, since I don’t know what else would leave you feeling so ill but be gone within 24 hours. Anyway, it was such a relief to be out in the open again and active.

Today turned out to be actually quite an easy walk, since the route from Bridge of Orchy across the edge of Rannoch Moor is pretty easy to walk on – it is mostly an old droving road along which sheep and cattle would have been taken to market in former times. It has also been one of the nicest days so far in terms of scenery, with the moor and the mountains offering a dramatic landscape of grey, green, and purple. It is not too difficult to imagine that this would all look not so different thousands of years ago, so empty and devoid of the impact of humans is it. The emptiness and the scale of the whole thing is quite difficult to grasp, and certainly does not come across in the photos here.

At the end of the day, we reached our camping spot next to the Kingshouse Hotel at the end of Glencoe. This famous glen gives an even more dramatic impression, disappearing into the mist and amazingly beautiful in the grey light of the evening sun.

Last night, in the Drover’s Inn, we had ordered veggie haggis (which was delicious), as well as a pasta dish which was kind of cold and didn’t taste so good. We really should have sent it back, but I at least was too hungry to care at the time. I do remember feeling not so great immediately afterwards, but put it down to eating too quickly.

This turned out not the case, unfortunately. Both myself and Astrid woke up feeling really ill in the the night, and had to rush in the darkness to the camp site toilets. I ended up being sick and Astrid wasn’t much better. When we eventually managed to get to sleep and woke up quite late in the morning, it became clear that neither of us was in a state to walk anywhere. It seemed that we both had the same symptoms – aching limbs, feeling hot and cold, in fact quite a lot like flu. I am convinced that it was from the dodgy food last night.

The question came of course as to what was to be done about it. We are on a fairly tight schedule to finish the West Highland Way, and there was not time to take any extra days in doing it. Not only that, but I had booked accommodation for tonight and the last night in a cabin and bunkhouse respectively, which could not be so easily moved.

Therefore the decision was taken to miss out the walking that we would have done today, and take a bus to our intended destination for this evening, at Tyndrum. This was really disappointing to have to do, but it seemed like the only reasonable option. Because we had a room in a wooden cabin arranged there, we could hopefully stay in bed all day and try and shake off our illnesses, ready to begin again tomorrow. There are after all three more days after today to be walked.

This is what we did. Certainly not what I had planned, and not something which had featured on the list of things to be concerned about. Midgies, rain, my dodgy knee from earlier in the week, yes, but Scottish restaurant cooking, no. How annoying and ironic that it was also the first time that we had not cooked for ourselves.

Let’s hope that we are both feeling better tomorrow.

Yesterday evening and this morning, we have had our first encounter with the dreaded Scottish midgie – a small but vicious biting insect which terrorises the countryside here in the summer. We had bought a bottle of Avon So Soft, which is supposed to repel them, but I am doubtful if this is anything more than a scam by Avon and the numerous camp site shops and outdoor stores which are peddling the stuff. Thankfully they are only a problem if you stop moving.

Today has been a very long and not so very interesting day of walking. As stated yesterday, bad planning meant that we had a lot of walking to do (29km/18mi), over quite difficult terrain for the second half anyway. It was also quite boring, since we were stuck in forest the whole time with the shores of the loch to the right. There wasn’t so much to interrupt this, except making a short visit to Rob Roy’s cave, which lies right next to the path just north of Inversnaid.

Now, for the uninformed, Rob Roy was a Scottish outlaw of the 17-18th century, whose life has been much romanticised in writing and on film. No-one knows of course if he actually used this cave, which is in fact a crevice between some massive rocks which have come to lie next to the shores of the loch. It’s a nice thought, though, and he would have been dry and cosy in there in any case.

Finally, with it raining and beginning to become dark, we reached the camp site at Bein Glas. I had been a bit worried about money because there are apparently no more cash machines for the next four days and had only £20 in my wallet, but thankfully it was possible to get some cashback at the bar next to the camp site. One worry less at least.

The girls we had met earlier in the week had recommended a place called the Drover’s Inn near to the camp site, which is suitably bedecked in over-the-top kitsch Scottish style – innumerable stuffed animal heads on the walls, waiters in kilts, a log fire, and other such things. I had hoped for some traditional fiddle music perhaps to complete the atmosphere, but instead we got a guy with long hair and a Metallica t-shirt playing the guitar. This didn’t really fit with the picture, unfortunately.