the pyramids

oh the pyramids! yes they are as amazing as everyone says they are - and much much more! after spending most of yesterday walking through the unmarked streets of cairo, visiting the citadel and then the egyptian museum in the afternoon (both a bit disappointing), i was feeling a bit over the city as a whole, and planning my escape. it even crossed my mind that i could leave the pyramids until a later time here in egypt. thank goodness not! visiting the pyramids was just the inspirational pick-me-up that i needed :)

i met an english guy called dan in the morning on the metro on my way to giza, and we ended up spending the day together (in fact he's at the computer next to me as i type this entry). we turned up to the area in a crazy minibus, and after turning a corner the pyramids were just there staring back at us. it was simply breathtaking. these pyramids are enormous, and whilst that seems rather obvious, standing right next to one is humbling - dan and i looked at each other with mouths agape and both had goosebumps. we wandering around the site for a while, and then decided to head into the largest pyramid itself. there is a tunnel into the centre of the pyramid that is about human size, and then about 50 metres of crawling up a 45 degree angled tunnel that is only 1 metre wide and 1 metre tall. it leads into a sloping chamber whose stones are fitted together so perfectly that the mind boggles. atop this there is another small tunnel into the burial chamber. deep in the middle of the tunnel my head started to spin and i couldn't breathe. there were people everywhere and we were all squashed together and no-one could move either up or down, stuck in the tunnel with no air. i started feeling myself panicking - the first twinges of claustrophobia taking hold - and i realised that if something happened there was simply no way out. i kept having ridiculous thoughts like 'someone's going to catch fire and i'm not going to be able to run away - i'm going to catch fire too!'. there were parts where there was barely any lighting and we were just stuck in a tunnel a hundred metres from a small exit and couldn't see or move. a very intense experience. afterwards i rented a man on a camel to take me around for a bit, which was great except for the fact that my balls got pounded every time the beast took a step, and the guide couldn't stop talking about people fucking behind the mountain and downloading internet porn.

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afterwards dan and i went to a cafe and played backgammon and smoked sheesha for ages. this time it was strawberry flavoured and a real pleasure. everywhere you go here, there are coffee houses filled with men smoking sheesha and playing backgammon and watching tv. it's strange to see, and it only hit me today that the two things that define mainstream western culture - getting pissed and picking up chicks - are both unavailable here, so guys just hang around together doing nothing. maybe it fuels the fanatical undercurrent that i feel, as there's no way to blow off steam.

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because we were both tightarses, we reserved a table on a roof-top cafe across the road from the pyramids so that we would be able to see the sound and light show for free whilst enjoying a good meal, but when the time came we felt that it was all a bit too much money for a meal in egypt at our cafe of choice, and ran away to watch the show from across the road. for james bond fans, apparently the sound and light show appears in 'the spy who loved me', and hasn't changed much in the last 30 years.

for those of you who are interested, here is a picture of those roman coins in mentioned in my last entry.

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in health news, my shoulder still aches, but much less so, and i have started using it to do most things again. i have developed wretched blisters on my heels, but i took my orthotics out and the pressures changed so i was able to walk again - so hopefully some callouses will form and i'll have my orthotics back in in no time.

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my sleep-wake cycle is still all fucked up, so i've been getting up at 4 am, but it's ok because around 5 there's the morning call to prayer which is a magical music that rises up out of the pre-dawn streets of cairo caresses your ear. beautiful.

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loving my trip so far. not sure what my next stop will be. definitely going to leave cairo over the next few days though - too much more to egypt.

lost in transit

ondrej is in cairo

after spending most of my flight with a lady who was displaying obvious signs of transformed avian influenza, i arrived in a -4 degrees beijing. it got even colder over the course of the night, and when i went for a walk in the morning from my little gratis hotel near the airport, my skin burned and seared from the intensity of it. the sun rose over the airport as a red ball, the colour of blood and the image of the japanese flag, as i had never seen it.

my transfers in europe were a nightmare. the plane was late to paris. i had one hour to get out, go through immigration, collect my baggage, jump on a bus to a different terminal, re-check in, go through customs, find my gate and get on the plane. only with the help of a 15 minute delay and an italian diplomat, i made it onto the plane as the last passenger with my full backpack as carry-on luggage, my whole body shaking, wanting to vomit and explode with nervous diarrhoea. i had 20 minutes to do the same in prague, and i ran like the wind between terminals this time, and passed out promptly when i got onto this final leg.

i headed out this morning and thought i'd walk around a bit. after being shafted by a tout selling papyrus, i happened to meet a man who told me he was heading to coptic cairo (the oldest part of the city) to check out the restoration works. he told me he was involved in them. we settled in a cafe for breakfast, and sat for an hour chatting, smoking a sheesha pipe and drinking egyptian tea, all very typical cairene activities, and then took a roundabout journey through the city to check out the architecture.

as it turns out, this man, sherif, was not just involved - he was a famous architect and archaeologist invited by the government to head the restoration of coptic cairo and the oldest mosque in the city. he literally wrote the book on it, as i found when i entered the old church and saw a thick volume about the restoration with his name on it. i couldn't believe my luck.

he unlocked doors not open to the public, took me on a private tour, and as a bit of a gift and a perk (being the head of the whole thing), he slipped me two roman coins that had been discovered in an urn in the basement of the church (where jesus and his parents had apparently hidden when the romans were slaughtering first borns in israel). i put them in my pocket with the surreal knowledge that these 2000 year old metal scraps were easily the most precious things i would ever own.

we went to the mosque - a beautiful airy space where people come to eat, sleep, hang out etc, and afterwards sat in a cafe drinking coffee and playing backgammon for hours. i spent most of the day with him.

after leaving sherif, i wandered through a poor suburb of cairo just between downtown and coptic cairo. the people on the streets here were nasty. they look at you as if they could think of no greater pleasure than to cut your throat, and one man i passed actually put his finger under his chin and swept it across in a gesture of i'm going to cut your throat, all the while laughing savagely. another man spat on his hand and then shook mine while all his friends laughed. i found the whole experience unpleasant, and though all these things occured only in that one ugly suburb that i have no intention of returning to, i was quite shaken by it all and had to go back to my hotel room afterwards to stop freaking out and pull myself together.

i chilled out with my book in a little eatery in the evening and a sense of calm redescended over me that had been rudely stripped by the throat-cutters. i'm going to explore a bit more of cairo - pyramids and museum, but then i might head off. unlike most cities that i come to, i have taken an immediate dislike to egypt's capital. it's not my sort of place.

goodbye!

the bags are packed, the mp3 player is charged, the documents have been copied and e-stored. tomorrow morning i start the crazy 38 and a half hour marathon of flights to get me to cairo via beijing, paris and prague. have got blocked ears, a low fever, an irritating cough and a grin of deep satisfaction on my face.

as stilnox calls, i bid you all an amazing year! please write to me often with your news and views - anything at all: it will be my life blood.

goodbye melbourne! (hello ondrej)

THANK YOU

a big thank you to everyone who came last night! i felt quite overwhelmed with the number of people who turned up, and it was wonderful seeing all of you, including some which i haven't seen for years! it was a perfect last night out in melbourne :)

i have my suspicions that the dumpling bar double charged and i encourage everyone to go and eat there because the food is delicious, and when you have finished, run out the door and down the street without paying as an act of retribution ;)

thanks to all those groovers who got nasty at zinc (bit of a shit venue really, wasn't it?) i'll miss watching your sexy moves on the dance floor, and am already looking forward to the next time we get to shake it up :)

i left the peel this morning just before dawn, and watched the sun rise over melbourne as i made my way to flinders street. the air was warm, and the light was soft and the city was more beautiful than ever. mmmMMMmmm :) i'll miss melbourne a lot.

i'll miss you guys :(

three more days...

O.

where square?

1) so here's a photo of fed square taken from above (when patty, sarah and i floated over it last year in a balloon!) - let's meet at 7pm in the area marked with a red circle. is that ok with everyone? for those of you who find pictures and maps confusing, flinders street runs along the bottom, the yarra runs along the top, and flinder street station is to the right of the picture, so the meeting place should be roughly to the left of the area directly in front of the screen.

2) i've been asked whether you need to be a member to make comments on this blog - no, you just have to type in the word verification at the bottom and you can comment. even anonymously if you want to say something hideous (very welcome).

3) the visa situation has been sorted thanks to a tip-off from a man only known as 'the electric penguin'.

4) if anyone else is out and about, blogs are a great way to put up your photos, if nothing else, and very easily linkable, so please blog!

5) photos from last night's intern dinner can be found on my practice blog (got too cluttered here) - you can view the entry directly by clicking here. i apologise for being in almost every single one (though not really).

6) good luck and bon voyage to ang who, as i write, sits on a plane bound for vietnam - have fun!

7) the physio claims that my shoulder was actually a supraspinatus tendonitis, and it's feeling heaps better already, so that's great news for all who regularly benefit from my shoulder girdle.

8) only 7 more days until i fly out myself! very excited. have got my travel haircut and everything :)

Ondrej vs The Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China in Melbourne

preliminary result: consulate 1, ondrej 0

they've won this battle, but they won't win the war!

i turned up to the consulate-general this morning fully armed: i had my application completed in my bestest grade 5 handwriting, my passport, several extra passport photos taken yesterday and signed by a JP, my plane flight itinerary, a copy of my degree and certificate of registration (why not) and even wore my most conservative clothes, haircut and facial expression.

what i wanted was a 12 month multiple entry visa with no restrictions on length of stay. i begged and pleaded, dropped the D-bomb (i'm a doctor, and i want to learn chinese so i can better look after all my chinese patients!) and even started answering questions with questions. in the end i stared off into space wistfully hoping that the silence would be broken with a concession, but to no avail. the guy i talked to was one of these 'firm but fair' types that i couldn't help liking, and it was obvious that he'd seen it all before, so i ended up with a 12 month multiple entry visa with a 30 day limit on entry (you can come and go as many times as you like). we'll see what happens. i'm working on it :)

the falun gong were doing tai-chi out the front of the consulate behind their posters and placards of protest, and i made sure i didn't even think about making eye contact with them (though the thought did cross my mind that if i dragged one of their members into the consulate and savagely bashed them in front of the visa people, they might reconsider my application for extended length of stay in a more favourable light. after some deliberation, i decided that i wouldn't be able to pull it off, mainly on account of my recently dislocated shoulder).

carry on!

today is also the first day of victorian medical internship, so good luck to all you sexy young things!

finito

stick a fork in me - i'm done.

the only occurence of note during my final week at latrobe regional hospital was that i partially dislocated my shoulder during a particularly vigorous operation on tuesday. i didn't realise at the time, but the stupid thing was aching all night and when i was on ward round the following day, i felt a distinct 'pop' and suddenly had my full range of movement back...but no great reduction in pain :( i had been so excitedly insomnia-ridden for the week previous (secondary to the impending adventure) that the mild depression brought on by my retarded right arm at least afforded me some sleep at night.

did my bit to milk the southern health cash cow bone dry today with a 14 hour locum shift. as i handed my pager in to an unusually friendly switch-bitch at the end of the day and walked out through the tastelessly decorated front foyer, i felt that a moment in time was being marked: ondrej the doctor had become ondrej the something else but not a doctor, and i felt a deep sense of elation.

the year has been wonderful, but the new wrinkles around my eyes and the grey hairs (at the advanced age of 25) are indication enough that it's time for me to get some fresh air, some perspective, and some more adventure back into the game.

10 days to go. visas need to be organised, the wrong dialect of arabic needs to be learnt, queensland registration needs to be finalised, and loved ones need to be seen and enjoyed.

orbit

so i've just sent out a group email and launched this little blog into orbit (i feel like a nervous parent!) admittedly there won't be a lot of action here for another couple of weeks, but please feel free to leave a message anyway and tell me what you think, or tell me whether or not you'll be at fed square on friday 20th! (click hyperlink for more details) :)

and something i forgot to mention in my group email: i'll only have around two or three days in melbourne after coming back from china before i have to head up to brisvegas to get organised and start work, so this is yet another reason (as if you needed more) to come and have fun this friday week.