Practice makes me fairly fluent. I can walk into a two-bedroom “villa” that’s actually a teensy holiday bungalow with an open living area that won’t quite fit a sofa and a “plunge pool” smaller than some rolltop baths, and estimate the middle-boy’s margin comfortably.

I’m already aware that places sold as Echo Beach aren’t usually even in sight of the beach, and that “five minutes from the beach” usually means “five minutes if the road was empty, had no potholes and you floored it on a Byson”. Further, I’m starting to become familiar with the local landmarks where you meet the middle-boys and girls, AKA know one random petrol station from another.

A lovely 2-bedroom house with guesthouse and small pool goes for a song at some point during the 18 hour gap between the last time I visited that board and the next. Gah!

My parents arrive the next week; we’re commuting around 3 hours a day, albeit with driver, and I don’t even want to think what’s happening to the bank balance, because self-employment and house-hunting don’t go together, even if someone who might become a new friend (yay!) has directed me to the fast wifi at Milly’s.

The driver’s costing us two million a week because my ankle’s gyppy and even if I were triathlete-fit biking Ubud-Canggu at 6.45am during the rainy season is my idea of hell, poncho or no poncho.

Friday rolls around. I limp, yet again, into Canggu Deli, the rather pricy emporium of Western food and veggies-all-Australians-can-recognise that’s a local expat staple, and note the 2-bedroom place that looked quite heinously expensive at 11 million rupiah monthly (that’s over $900) is still available and looking, in fact, considerably cheaper than it did.

Further, it’s round the corner from the school. I’d like a three-bed, not least to have somewhere to put my parents (although I can always sleep on the sofa). But I sure as hell can’t fit my parents into our little place in Ubud, plus the driver’s costing us two million ($170) a week because my ankle’s gyppy and even if I were triathlete-fit biking Ubud-Canggu at 6.45am during the rainy season is my idea of hell, poncho or no poncho.

I ring the dude up; he meets us at the deli; we follow him round the corner; we have a look around; I test the water pressure and make a feeble attempt to haggle; the dude says no; I request some kitchen equipment and a thorough clean-up, bung him the cash I have left after paying the driver, and agree we’ll move in on Sunday.

Sorted. Or summat. We can stay three months if we want to, and after that we’d need to commit longterm.

I used to be able to pack up everything we own in under 10 minutes. Packing up all this pointless crap takes me the big end of an hour.

Sunday swings around. I make fond farewells to our most lovely landlords, Ketut and Komang, pay my electricity bill, give back my Ubud rental bike, arrange a Canggu rental bike, and pack up.

It’s still the case that everything we *use* fits into two backpacks and a ‘puter bag. Sadly, that is no longer the case for everything we *own*. The cheap-even-for-Dahab gym bag, which I bought in Egypt to keep things that I should probably keep now we’re settling down, and which broke before it even left said nation, weighs a bloody tonne.

Its contents? Random sundries like broken camera lenses, wetsuits, shredded clothing I intend to copy at some point, magazines with articles I wrote in them, books it seems worth keeping now that we have somewhere to put them, and bits of paper that might one day be important. Further, I now own stuff like oil and vinegar and spices and rice.

I used to be able to pack up everything we own in under 10 minutes. Packing up all this pointless crap takes me the big end of an hour.

There has been something of a vogue for “open living” in Bali over recent years, a trend which a cynic might connect to the roughly contemporaneous increase in crime.

It’s a nice house. We’re a couple of hundred metres from the beach, there’s a posh hotel across the way, there’s lots of timber and cute, semi-open bathrooms, and a tall glazed downstairs area, plus a terrace up top with open stairs that means the place is physically impossible to lock.

There has been something of a vogue for “open living” in Bali over recent years, a trend which a cynic might connect to the roughly contemporaneous increase in crime. And, believe me, it gets a lot more open than this.

I ask about security. “Oh, the guys at the hotel keep an eye on things,” he says. “But you need to be careful about shutting the doors – that’s usually what goes. Small things, like phones or laptops.”

The internet doesn’t work. Bugger. He’ll fix it. I can work in a cafe, for a change (not). On the plus side, Bali is extremely well-set-up with cafes, many of them replete with people poking at laptops – I might even make some friends!

We head up the road for sushi to celebrate our new abode, and the fact that tomorrow’s school run will start more than an hour later than Friday’s.

As a regular activity, in my universe, cooking is hugely over-rated. I feel rather the same way, to be honest, about getting up in the morning.

As in China, the boy, being at school, would prefer a home-cooked meal to going out to restaurants. This…. riles me. In fact, settling down riles me.

It’s not that I don’t like cooking. I do like cooking, honest!

Just, once in a while, when I’m feeling inspired or the boy wants something specific, or I’ve invited people round, rather than as a daily (or, heaven forfend, twice or thrice daily!) event. Left to myself, I suspect I’d cook about once a week. As a regular activity, in my universe, cooking is hugely over-rated.

I feel rather the same way, to be honest, about getting up in the morning. Left to myself, I’d stay up till 3am and rise at 9. Or 10. Or 6, if I had something I wanted to do.

Tidying? Cleaning? I loathe both activities with a passion, and here the cleaners only come once a week. This is not an uncommon attitude among women who choose to travel longterm.

Sometimes, in fact, I wonder whether I am at heart a teenage boy. I’m even feeling sulky.

This whole endeavour was his idea in the first place and I’d much rather be wandering the Galapagos gawping at marine iguanas.

My spawn, who is by contrast an actual teenage boy, is enjoying school, which is fortunate, given this whole endeavour was his idea in the first place and I’d much rather be wandering the Galapagos gawping at marine iguanas.

As in China, he sets his own alarm for bedtime – plus a really-must-go-to-bed alarm after that – and his own alarm for morning, followed by a really-must-get-up alarm half an hour later.

Me? Well, there are some saving graces. I have managed to set up a number of interesting travel stories – well, a few people have asked me to write things, and then I’ve managed to work out some things I can write for other people while I’m in the place I’m going to for the other people, and sell them to said people, so I guess that means I’m rockin’. (Kids! Don’t try this at home!)

This means I can go and be a bona fide travel writer on assignment rather than just meandering through having adventures and typing about them and once in a while selling something to someone who’s interested after the event, and, most importantly, that I won’t go absolutely stir crazy due to lack of movement.

Honestly, I love Bali, and I love Indonesia even more. If I HAVE to settle down, I’m glad it’s here. But, fundamentally, settling down sucks. Bigtime.

Catching the garlicky whiff from my armpits, I conclude that wherever we end up should probably have a pool. I add “daytime and night-time temperatures” and “ventilation” to my house-hunting checklist.

My folks arrive, which is kind of cool – despite the fact that the boy is in school from 8.20-3.20 and I spend much of that time hunched over a laptop, frowning and confusing Twitter with work, while simultaneously feeling guilty about not spending time with my family, which then makes me all passive-aggressive and weird. But, ya know, it’s nice they’re here, and all.

We head up to Amed, which we all love, one weekend, discovering the amazing Tirta Gangga water palace en route; they take themselves off to circumnavigate Bali in a car, get quite an impressive distance and find some new stuff; we eat a lot of sushi, drink a lot of Negronis, explore the local beaches a little bit, and a good time is had by all.

Well, apart from the heat, that is. My poor dad isn’t a fan of the tropics anyway. That lovely contemporary glazed-in living area with its elevated ceiling fan, and shady upstairs terrace were designed long before the hotel was built, and, aesthetic as it is, now that the breezes are blocked, our home has similar thermo-insulation properties to a greenhouse.

South Bali is considerably hotter than Ubud and, catching the garlicky whiff from my armpits, I conclude that wherever we end up should probably have a pool. I add “daytime and night-time temperatures” and “ventilation” to my house-hunting checklist.

And then… Item two on my run of bad luck occurs. Yes, in the ultimate new-to-Bali cliché, we are burgled.

I add “not in a development full of tourist villas many of which are holiday lets and therefore a bloody magnet for thieves” to my list of things I’m looking for in our permanent abode.

I’m awoken at 3am from a Negroni-induced sofa sleep by my mother yelling from upstairs to find the French window, which I’d hooked shut rather than locked shut, open, and my camera bag missing.

A rush of utter despair is followed by pure joy when I realise they’ve left our passports neatly on the table, and stripped my purse of cash, not cards.

Zac’s computer and iPhone are with him; my phone, my mother’s tablet and Zac’s Kindle apparently aren’t worth taking; and, thank god, my MacBook is still there.

I am, however, down an underwater camera (though I still have the case), plus hundreds of pounds worth of camera lenses (the body, thank the lord, is in the shop). I need both an underwater camera and a land camera with lenses for the jobs I’m headed off to do. Bugger.

I add “not in a development full of tourist villas many of which are holiday lets and therefore a bloody magnet for thieves” to my list of things I’m looking for in our permanent abode.

On the other hand, it is an absolute stonking pain in the arse, not least because I feel the need to lock all our electronics into one of the lockable bedrooms every time I leave the house.

I’d like to say I feel violated. I don’t. I’m a Londoner. I’ve been burgled plenty of times before, and no one would have had the courtesy to leave behind perfectly good passports and bank cards in that city.

Nor am I living in fear. Like most burglars, the guys were not intent on rape/violation/child-murder. They wanted to take my stuff. They took it; they went away; end of story.

Nor do I feel especially surprised that, in a nation where many live below the global poverty line and a laptop can cost more than a year’s work at minimum wage, a few bad apples have taken to nicking said goldmines when you leave the door open, just like they do in nations with higher income equality.

On the other hand, it is an absolute stonking pain in the arse, not least because I feel the need to lock all our electronics into one of the lockable bedrooms every time I leave the house.

I’ve been haemhorraging money since we got to Bali, I want to upgrade my camera to a pro-level one, and it will cost me at least the price of a pro-level camera to get back to where I was. Bugger, bugger, bugger.

Image: Burglars Burgle Elsewhere by Hobvias Sudoneighm on Flickr’s Creative Commons.

The post Settling Down, Take Two appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

How Safe Is Egypt?

As we approach the end of our time in Egypt, I’m going to address the hoary question of “How safe is Egypt after the revolution?”

I have seen a lot of blog posts on this topic, which seem to fall into two categories. “Raging revolutionaries and dangerous military junta – avoid!” and “What’s all the fuss about?! It’s safe as houses here!”

Neither of these are, IMHO, correct.

The aspect of last year’s revolution the Western media focused on was freedom and celebrations in Tahrir Square. But talking to ordinary Egyptians, one gets a different picture.

Many prisons were emptied after the revolution, and the police disappeared from the streets. The resultant wave of looting, rape and robbery has died down a little, but there are still more criminals and fewer police on the streets. Kidnappings, bank robberies, carjacking and motorbike robberies are rising, as, it appears, are serious sexual assaults.

Further, the revolution has wreaked havoc on an already weak economy and tourist numbers are down, which means people are more desperate. So the day to day hassle experienced by the typical tourist in Egypt is greater, as there are fewer tourists and more people struggling to make more money off them, often by illegitimate means.

Before the revolution, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood was banned. It is now the dominant political force. A number of Egyptian women (and men) have told me that the rise in militant Islam has made life even more difficult for women than before and that women feel less safe on the streets.

On a macro level, political protests remain ongoing in most cities, typically after Friday prayers.

There is under a month to go to Egypt’s presidential elections, with two months to go before the President is announced, and a high profile trial due to start in May. All of these things are likely to produce problems on the streets.

Both sides in the presidential runoff are currently claiming fraud. Although, as the junta recently abolished Parliament in what looks like a judicial coup, the results are most likely moot.

Currently, largescale protests are ongoing in the major cities against military rule. There is no hostility to tourists but an ever-present risk of violence and the political situation is volatile, and Egypt is less safe than it was.

The breakdown of control in the aftermath of the dictatorship has also unleashed simmering tribal issues, some of which impact significantly on tourists.

In the interior of Sinai tourist kidnappings are not unusual, while the Western Desert, Cairo and Port Said also have their challenges.

I’ll explain this in a bit more detail…

Sexual Harassment and Sex Crime – Women’s Safety

Egypt was generally acknowledged as one of the sexual harassment capitals of the world, and thanks to weak policing and (arguably) rising Islamism, this is getting worse, not better, since the Revolution.

Mona Eltahawy has written eloquently on Egyptian misogyny, and one conservative estimate suggests at least 200,000 Egyptian women were raped every year even before the revolution. Since the revolution, numbers appear to have risen.

Even dressed conservatively – that is to say, covered to neck, wrists and ankles with a scarf around my neck and shoulders – and travelling with my young son, I have been grabbed, groped, masturbated at, verbally abused so loudly and so constantly that both I and my son know the Arabic for “shit” and “whore”, propositioned, followed and endlessly and offensively complimented on my beauty.

This is enervating, to put it mildly.

Now, most rapists target local women, not tourists, and most sexual harassment is petty, rather than violent.

Still, the British FCO reports that rapes of British citizens are on the rise: they dealt with 26 cases of rape and serious sexual assault last year and, although tourist numbers are a fraction of what they were, reported incidents are rising. The US State Department is also dealing with more reports of sexual assault since the revolution.

Women will experience less harassment when travelling with an adult male, but this is by no means a panacea. Solo women should not expect much sympathy from police.

Sexual Harassment and Sex Crime – Men’s Safety

Amusingly, one Egyptian Arabic translation programme responds to the input “Do you know a gay-friendly venue?” with the advice “You must never say this.” It is correct.

One especially charming aspect of Egyptian underclass male sexuality is that, while it is acceptable to violently assault men who identify or present as gay, and gay men have been sentenced to hard labour, it is also fine to engage in sexual activity with the same sex – PROVIDED you are a top.

There is a flourishing but deeply undercover gay scene in Cairo, and on the streets attractive male solo travellers can expect invitations to the “hammam” (bathroom).

All the same homophobia is rampant, and Egyptian police have used Gaydar to entrap men into activities for which they can serve hard labour.

It’s worth pointing out that straight men who choose to defend their female partner’s honour cannot expect observers to support them.

How Safe is Egypt? Crime

Most crime directed against tourists in Egypt has always been petty: pickpocketing, change money scams, extortion of various forms. But since the revolution violent crime is on the rise.

Motorbike robbery is on the increase — one woman in Luxor was seriously injured after being dragged at speed behind a bike and then released — as is armed crime, including carjackings.

Convoys are necessary on some roads at night, particularly in Sinai, and if you are self-driving, you should stay with your convoy.

There have been multiple kidnappings of foreigners in the Sinai for political reasons, while kidnapping of Egyptian children for money is on the rise. Recent tourist kidnappings in the Sinai have been focused on releasing Bedouin from jail.

Kidnappings and Other Issues in the Sinai

Antipathies in the Middle East go back many, many thousands of years, and that between the Bedouin people of the desert and the Egyptian authorities has been ongoing since at least the time of the pharaohs.

Due to police weakness after the Revolution, there is turmoil in parts of the sparsely-inhabited Sinai peninsula, where many Bedouin are angry that Egyptians are benefiting from tourism, while they remain dirt poor.

The British FCO advises against all travel to Sinai north of the Suez-Taba road, where there is an ongoing conflict with Bedouin involving oil pipelines, drugs and smuggling to the Palestinian territories, and policemen are routinely kidnapped.

In tourist Sinai, particularly on the Saint Catherine’s Road, there have been a number of kidnappings of Westerners, even when riding with police escort (there were two in the last week we were there).

All foreigners were handed back quickly and unharmed. But, as with the armed Bedouin who have taken over resorts, blocked roads and extracted informal taxes from passing cars, this should not be taken lightly.

A convoy system is on place in most roads in the Sinai peninsula at night. Public buses with police escorts are generally safer than microbuses.

That said, life in the all-inclusive hotels of Sharm-el-Sheikh and the backpacker haven of Dahab continues, much of the time, as normal, though even the most obtuse traveller would be hard-pressed to miss the manned, mounted machine guns at the checkpoints.

Football Issues in Port Said

The industrial port town of Port Said is not on many people’s bucket lists. It was the site of epic riots last year after 70-plus football fans were killed at a match.

One set of fans, known as Ultras, were a driving force in the Revolution.

How so? Well, as one Egyptian explained to me, “They are used to fighting the police, because they do it all the time at football matches. So in Tahrir, when people like me couldn’t fight, they fought for us.”

The trial of those considered responsible for the deaths restarts on 5 May in Cairo, where many hardcore fans have gone.is underway, and Ultras have been active in the protests against the verdict in the corruption trial of Mubarak and his sons and will likely be active in other protests.

There are still ongoing protests in Port Said, and if the fans don’t like the result of the trial, these are highly likely to spill over into fullscale riots.

Western Desert

Thanks to the security vacuum, there is even more intertribal feuding in the Western Desert than usual. So expeditions going a significant distance into the remote desert now require fullscale army and police escorts. The required permits are harder to obtain than they were pre-revolution.

How Safe Is Cairo?

There are ongoing protests after Friday prayers in most major cities, particularly in Cairo, and notably in Tahrir Square against the military junta, which carry with them a high risk of violence, although directed at fellow Egyptians rather than tourists. Most of these are small and pass without incident, and a number of potentially inflammatory ones, notably the Land Day marches, have been cancelled for public safety.

Results should be announced on 21 June, which is likely to be a flashpoint for protests.

Over ten people were killed and scores injured during violent protests in Abbasiya, Cairo, in May, and tensions are running high in the cities at the moment for two reasons.

In the unlikely event that Shafiq wins, Islamists and liberals will be united in rage and outrage, and large scale, violent protests are highly likely. The result should be announced on 21 June.

Foreigners waving cameras around without the support of a press card and an international media organisation have been beaten and arrested on Tahrir Square, and women in crowds of protesters should expect to be groped.

The British FCO advice page, Al-Ahram, and all Cairo hotels provide guidance on where to avoid on Fridays and other days when trouble is due: I would, personally, not plan travel to Cairo until the situation is clarified.

Egypt is a wonderful, endlessly fascinating country in many ways, and can be very rewarding to travel in. Most people who follow basic safety precautions when travelling Egypt and stay well away from protests will encounter nothing more unpleasant than aggressive touts, the odd smalltime scam and, for a woman without a husband, ongoing sexual harassment.

Still, Egypt is a desperately poor country currently transitioning from a command dictatorship into…

And, well, here the jury’s out…

What is clear is that crime is rising, tribal conflicts are increasing, political conflicts are ongoing and solo women in particular should think harder than usual before travelling here.

Is Egypt safe, right now? Honestly, it depends how things play out. In general, resort towns are safer than the major cities, because the population have their livelihoods invested in keeping tourists safe. If I had a holiday booked right now, I certainly wouldn’t cancel it. But nor would I commit to flights until the situation’s clearer.

Personally, however, I would recommend you visit, and visit soon, because — and I hate to say this — things may well get worse, rather than better, in the future.

I would currently advise against spending time in Egyptian cities around the time of the presidential result: hopefully tourist areas in resort towns will remain relatively calm if the wrong result comes in.

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