The Fabulous Life of Ponteuf

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You better be good…

It’s an empty threat in America. You’d better be good for goodness sake - Santa Claus is coming to town, and he knows if you’ve been bad or good. You’ve been bad, let’s say. We all have been. What happens? Does Santa actually put coal in anyone’s stocking these days? Do presents fail to appear under the tree, do any of us lack for cookies and fudge? Does a devil come running through town and switch you, growling and snarling?

Americans restrict their devils to Halloween; Austrians accept them as a natural part of the Christmas season, hanging grotesque masks next to Santa hats in store windows. While we celebrate advent by shopping and eyeing the cookie plate at holiday parties, Austrians take to the streets to be abused by Christmas devils – Krampus. Most small towns hold a Krampus Laufen, a devil run – at the appointed time the locals line the streets and scream as hordes of Krampus surge through the town, stopping along the roar with blood lust and rush the barricades.

Evil spirits, Krampus are the dark side of St. Nicholas, who usually leads the procession in a white cloak and bishop’s hat, calmly preceding chaos. The Krampus themselves come in many variations but always have large spiraling horns, heavy thick hair, grotesque faces and heavy, clanking bells tied around their ankles and waists. This unlikely pair used to visit children’s houses, the good kids getting a treat or a toy from St. Nicholas and the naughties a switch from the Krampus – or in extreme cases, an abduction to parts unknown in the large black sack he carried. The door to door visits have ceased, thankfully, but bad children of all ages are still at risk in early December in Alpine villages of otherwise saccharine cuteness.

Driving through the countryside we see many banners announcing the coming Krampuslaufen; luckily for us, Hallein was having one of its own. We’d seen Krampus before – last year they were terrorizing a small Christkindlmarkt we visited, tromping around the courtyard of a local castle and causing great spillage of gluhwein. I felt about them much the same way I remember feeling about Mickey Mouse and his cohorts as a child: I desperately wanted the glow of recognition that comes from interacting with the creature, but I was simultaneously frightened and horrified by the idea of being close to it. As the Krampus clanked past me, I caught a whiff of sulfur and history in the icy air, and hearing the children squeal with gleeful fear I wished that we still had a dark side to our Santa.

We clearly underestimated the popularity of the Krampus this year – at a quarter hour before the appointed time of the run, we were at the back of a five deep crowd along the barricades lining Hallein’s main street. Stretched high on my toes and straining I could only make out the top of St. Nicholas’ mitre and the tips of fire from the flame tossers, but I could hear the Krampus coming. Heavy boots laid down the bass for a cacophony of growls, cow bells, and clanking chains, overlaid with the screams of the locals. As they came closer the sound intensified and the energy moved through the crowd and then I could see curled horns and great shaggy heads dipping and moving, dancing to some ancient and dark beat. Lit by torches, the Krampus flickered. High above the street, their shadow doppelgangers danced, a whole new troop of devils moving along the hundreds of years old facades of the buildings, more menacing and grotesque in their distorted state than in the reality on the street.

We slipped away long before the stream of Krampus had run out – the air was brittle and frozen and we were dreaming of roast pork and schnapps and warm conversation. As we walked through the quiet streets of Hallein, footsteps echoing on the age old cobblestones, we could still hear the din of the crowd swelling behind us: clearly this revelry was going to continue for some time. We are, all of us, still a little superstitious, perhaps a little pagan, at heart – in the clear moonlight of an alpine December, that wasn’t so hard to embrace.

Gemütlich

The land around Salzburg has a satisfying quality to it. Unlike so much of Austria, the valley here is wide enough to feel pastoral, and the small towns that climb up the sides of the mountains nestle into the folds rather than clinging desperately to steep slopes. The mountains themselves have character; they spring from the flat ground as though molded from clay and firmly placed on an unsuspecting earth. With no foothills to help them recede into misty diffidence they are immediate, intimate – and surprisingly rugged, crested with teeth, or sharp bladed tops. The villages that dot the valley floor are cozy, as is the valley itself – the mountains protect but don’t intimidate.

Last December they were coated with a whipped frosting of snow, softening all but the most aggressive slopes; this weekend they skulk gray and shale coated, waiting for the kiss of winter beauty that will turn the entire Salzkammergut into a fairy wonderland. Regardless, the cold dry air and lackluster sun, seeming like weak afternoon light by 11am, tell the truth of the season even without the snow. So too do the Christkindl markets dotting the small towns and taking over the Domplatz in Salzurg proper. This is the first weekend of Advent, and people are drinking gluhwein and getting into the spirit.

We too, are drinking gluhwein and punsch, warming our cold hands around steaming mugs and browsing the small wooden huts filled with ornaments and crafts, gingerbread and sausages. The Salzburg market is large and glittery; miles of white lights form a canopy overhead and a life-size Nativity scene sits in a shelter covered with fresh fir boughs. People are everywhere, drinking and eating and shopping – perhaps too many people for us. We’re happier in the little towns where the markets are clearly a local event. Families with kids meet friends and mingle, chatting with the volunteers at the charity booth or their neighbors selling ornaments. These markets are nestled in the center of the towns, snug little collections of huts and people.

One, in the speck on the map of St. Leonhard, sits below the town church, dwarfed by the tower capped with an onion dome. In the dark stillness of a country town, it glows with white lights strung from tree to tree. A concert begins in the church and the sound washes over the market, clear as a bell in the frozen air. The Hallein market, which we think of as “ours” after visiting this town for the past seven years, is held indoors in the Alte Saline, the old storage building for the salt that made this region. People have been mining the salt here since the Celts, and this white gold made the Salzburg bishops richer and more powerful than mere men of the church. Now common, the salt entertains tourists in the salt mines and acts as snow in the winter scene set out at the Hallein market; salty snowmen cavort on a dry saline slope dotted with real firs whose trunks must be shriveling by the minute.

Effortlessly, the Christmas markets deliver the kind of holiday spirit that embodies the myth of “what Christmas is supposed to be.” Crass commercialism isn’t in evidence. Families come together, kids playing with friends, parents chatting. Couples come, strolling the booths and talking. Many markets don’t open until the sun slips behind the mountains and they can turn on their lights – gluwein is best appreciated when the cold slips under the edges of coat sleeves. Everything feels unhurried – this is a time to enjoy, not to accomplish goals. As Mike says, they really have this Christmas thing down.  Perhaps because so many of our Christmas traditions are firmly rooted in Germanic ones, this seems to me the kind of Christmas I’ve always dreamt of – as familiar as a pleasant reverie.

I’m back to that concept of Ancient Memory again – this area of Austria and its just slightly northern sibling of Bavaria evoke the same returning to a dream feeling for me. I don’t have to be here long before I am supremely contented, like I’ve slipped back into a warm and downy bed after being awoken prematurely with the delicious knowledge that I don’t have to get up for hours. I don’t require activities when we visit Schloss Haunsperg; after six visits we still haven’t seen the Residenz or Mirabell Gardens. Completely at ease, I find myself sliding into an abstraction where everything is pleasant. If indeed we’ve all lived before, I lived well and happily here.

With no agenda other than gluwein consumption, we’ve just wandered around the area these past few days. Every village, every church, every field, every view has been ideal; postcard photographers should have no lack of inspiration here. Turning one tight corner we dropped into a village so faultless that I kept waiting for it to disappear. Every building fit the Alpine mould of solid square topped with a more solid roof, built for heavy loads of snow. A wide balcony circled each floor, railings carved and painted brightly, eaves and doors and shutters matching. I knew that in the summer, geraniums would spill in profusion from every window box; now, smoke curled in elegant patterns from each chimney. The land around the village was wetly green, like so much rumpled velvet. This could have been a land of miniatures blown up to life-size.

This is, by no means, the most exotic place we’ve visited, and I’m sure that it ranks low on most people’s lists of “must-dos.” At one point, this bothered me; I like to share whatever (or wherever) I love, and I want the people I care about to experience the same joy I do from it. This visit, I find that I no longer care. Some facsimile of wisdom tells me that the happiness that I derive from being here is simply enough. In the past three months we’ve seen amazing things and visited wonderful places, and I wouldn’t trade any of that – but returning to Hallein, to this peaceful corner of the world where everything feels in its correct place, I’m aware of a sense of fulfillment. A friend pointed out recently that the trouble with airplane travel is that our bodies arrive long before our souls can catch up. If that’s the case (and I suspect that it may well be) I’ve been playing emotional hopscotch for months. After a few days in Austria, I’m back together once more.

Amazing

How do you describe a place that doesn’t want to be captured? How to put into words an experience that only revealed itself in the fullness of the moment? Angkor Wat and its surrounding temples have escaped my grasp since the moment I stepped into them, and certainly in the swiftly fleeting moments since I walked away, looking over my shoulder. I’m left with an overriding sense of awe, a memory of salty sweat and a continuing lack of words. As we walked around the temples – no, not around, that’s not right – through and over and in the temples – I was reduced to a solitary word, only: amazing.

I know that English has more words than German, but I still think we’re lacking. The subtleties are lost on us; primitive linguists only, we’re forced to say that we love both our spouses and sashimi, when in actuality we need another word or two to accurately decipher the myriad levels of attachment and pleasure that we feel. I’m as guilty as anyone in overusing a tired word that overstates my true feelings, and in travel it is easy to deem something extraordinary or unbelievable or incredible or, well… amazing. Those temples, though, hidden in the jungle that daily struggles to consume them, the last remnants of a once glorious society – I’m not sure that amazing is a strong enough word to label them.

The first thing to understand is that Angkor Wat (or Vat, as they list it in situ) is not the only temple complex hiding in the jungle outside Siam Riep and isn’t necessarily the most impressive (though it is the most instantly recognizable). Angkor Thom, just down the road, hides many surprises within its boundaries; we covered only part of them, but spent a full day doing it. And Ta Prom, known to most Western men (and our exuberant Cambodian tour guide, a bizarre mix of Austin Powers and Jack Sparrow) as the Angelina Jolie temple was a treasure trove of moss colored stones, giant tree trunks and walls barely standing. We’d booked a private guide and driver for our time and had consequently not researched what we would see, a decision that might have worked in our favor. With no pre-conceived notions of good/better/best we were open to everything, and all of it seemed magnificent.

My history of the area is shaky, but I do understand that the temples were built, in large part, by a particularly enlightened Cambodian King and his Queen as the spiritual center of a flourishing and magnificent country at a time when Europe was struggling to climb out of medieval serfdom and China had not yet risen to the heights of the Ming Dynasty. Hidden away in a sweltering jungle, I’m still not clear how many other powers of the time knew the riches that were there, but it must have been quite a secret; the walls of the temples were covered in gold leaf and the towers crowned with rubies the size of a man. Yes, the size of a man. The inner and most holy shrines housed both the images of Buddha and other gods and hundreds of diamonds, securely tucked into niches in the walls, ceilings and floor. Lest the doubtful Westerner question the size of these gems, the holes are still there, and I didn’t have a problem getting my fist in quite a few of them. When Indiana Jones movies or adventure novels talk about “riches beyond the imagination” they’re riffing on Cambodia of long ago.

In fact, the whole area has the feeling of a film set, or of Disneyland – we’d not been there long before we understood that most (if not all)Western ideas of hidden treasure, exotic temples and legends that promise untold riches at the end of perilous journeys are all based on Angkor Wat and its companions. It felt quite unreal to be walking all over these ancient ruins, stepping through doorways and monkey climbing to the top of the central temples. Signs in three languages announced the instability of certain sections, windows propped up, improbably, with wood struts and twine. This was no distant experience; I half expected to either be yelled at or laughed at for believing that this was the real thing and not a set constructed for tourists. The sun beat down, my clothes grew progressively more damp and I was glad of the light scarf covering my neck and shoulders. Monks in sunset orange and sandals moved through the tourists impassively, incense rose around the Buddhas and our guide insisted that we climb on everything and pose for photos that he deemed “so romantic, fantastic, absolutely brilliant.” We were so hot we didn’t want to touch each other for fear of melding into one skin – he wanted us closer. I’ve not been so loved by a camera since our wedding.

I’m glad we have those photos, now. In them, glistening and rumpled, we’re obviously there, in the midst of all that history and faded glory. Hinduism and Buddhism and some matrilineal worship swirled together in a crumbling melange of giant stone blocks hauled through the jungles from great distances, perfect celestial alignment and carvings so fine they were known to have been created with diamond blades – the temples don’t need their giant stones and gold to impress us. The awe is clearly spelled across our shining faces.

Our guide told us that when he first visited with his mother in the early 80’s the walls were choked with vines, infested with cobras. Today they stand amazingly smooth, beautiful and intricate carvings clearly spelling out the origin of man (the first human was a woman, incidentally) and the details of heaven and hell, reincarnation and paradise. Tumbled sections of walls and temple, coated with sea green velvet, shift and change, revealing faces and decoration as the filtered jungle light plays across the rubble, transforming it from mere blocks into past glory. Giant faces stare impassively over the jungle, past the tourists, past the locals scrabbling to make a living in a country fallen so terribly far from its glory days, torn apart from within and without. In front of all this, we stand. This, in itself: amazing.

As Promised

Photos of Cambodia, Hong Kong, Sydney, Thailand... plus updates to Ponteuf's glamour album, hotels and food.

NZ coming soon, but damn, I've flown 16000 miles in the past, um, day or something, and I'm sitting in the lounge in Munich waiting for our bags to catch up with us from Frankfurt, so I'm lucky any brain function is happening at this point. ;-)

A Sense of Adventure

People don’t travel to New Zealand for the interiors. The pubs are warm and cozy and the beer good, yes, but the real fun is to be had outside, in the oceans, rivers, mountains. Queenstown, far to the south of the South Island, isn’t known as the Extreme Sports capital for nothing; bungee jumping seems to be the least of the crazy options on offer. We didn’t make it as far as Queenstown (though I envision a separate trip that encompasses it, the Milford Sound and parts farther south) but we did manage to wander at least partially into the realm of exercise as sightseeing.

In Kaikoura, a funky little beach town on the west coast, we joined legions of other campas in the Holiday Park, all there for some serious marine wildlife viewing. Mike added marine life eating to the activities, stopping at a seafood store to introduce a giant crayfish to the campa. The town’s name actually dictated that we did this; in Maori “kai” is meal and “koura” is crayfish, so the town has been known for this activity for far longer than there have been Europeans of any stripe visiting. I was expecting crawfish, so the giant lobster-like creature was a shock – but a tasty one!

Most people go to Kaikoura for whale watching, but wanting something more interactive (and less available at home) we opted for the Seal Swim. New Zealand is home to large colonies of fur seals and for a modest fee and the willingness to climb into frigid water we could interact with them in their own habitat. I was sold, so our first morning in New Zealand found us getting fitted for serious cold water wetsuits, complete with booties and head coverings. The only exposed skin I had was on my hands and the part of my face not covered by my mask, and the backwards roll into the water was still so cold I felt my heart falter in its beating. Five minutes, the guide told us, and you’ll be fine. We were, but any time a rivulet of water found its way into my wetsuit I was shocked. We floated around next to a giant rock that housed a large colony of seals – the large bulls watched us impassively as we bobbed around at the edges. The younger males, hoping to butter up a female while the bulls were otherwise engaged (sleeping) slid in and out of the water with ease, circling the rock and us with a speedy grace.

It was cold and cloudy and the seals weren’t as inclined to be in the water as they would have been in burning sun, but being near them without a pane of glass was treat enough. When one came close enough to me to touch and then turned away, I swam along side him for a stretch, working hard (even with flippers) to keep up to his effortless motion. Still, I swam with a seal and it was worth the cold and the kelp wrapping around my ankles and my odd bout of seasickness brought on by the lack of visibility in the water and the death grip of my wetsuit around my neck.

In Abel Tasman National Park, a fringe of pristine tropical forest and stunning coastline at the top of the island, we took to the water again, this time in kayaks – and in sun. Our gear covered all parts of us above the kayak, and a skirt (Mike looked stunning in it standing up) clipped onto the kayak itself and kept our legs dry but the water here was warmer, clear and turquoise. I would have believed we were in the Caribbean if I hadn’t known better. The sun shone and the view from water level was postcard perfect. We kayaked all morning, surprising ourselves by clearly being the best of the group in a double kayak, often getting ahead and having to wait. In the afternoon we hiked three hours along the Coastal Track back to our campa, winding through the forest and back up to the scrubby ridge, catching sight of the never ending sparkle of the water from odd vantage points between prehistoric curls of tree ferns. I’d like to go back and walk the whole track, stopping overnight in the campsites above the powdery beaches and hearing the five beat calls of the exotic birds secreted high above in the vines.

In Oamaru we visited the Blue Penguin breeding colony and watched as rafts of fifty or more penguins came ashore at nightfall to sit their eggs and feed their chicks. Sitting in a shelter but still exposed to a biting wind and bits of rain, we watched the turbulent water for specks of black that rapidly grouped together and then swept towards the rocky shore as a group, swimming the way a flock of birds flies, all unified swoop and grace. The water here, as along most of the coast, was clear and we could see the birds as they moved through the swells, see them riding the motion of the waves through the face before they broke upon the beach and swept the penguins ashore. Here all their stupendous grace was lost and they struggled to waddle free of the surf, tiny wings flapping uselessly. A few of each group had to try again, circling around until a likely wave presented itself, but one group of five didn’t want to come in and they ducked through and over the waves for close to half an hour, riding the swells partially in before ducking out and backwards, rolling out of the wash and bobbing on the surface like unsinkable corks. Their grace underwater was stunning; they were playing, enjoying the waves and the freedom of their underwater flight.

On our last full day on the island, we drove out to the end of the Otago Peninsula near Dunedin and went for a horseback ride along the beach. Instead of a large group, we had the treat of it just being us and a guide. Along the water we rode, hooves clopping in the hard sand and leaving white hoof prints trailing behind us, splashing occasionally through the gentle white foam of the surf. The beaches were covered in shells. Covered. Huge drifts of them coated the sand all around us, as if 20 pound bags had been broken open and dumped. Pointed conical spirals mixed with iridescent buttons and the horses crunched through them as though they were no more remarkable than the sand itself. Along our way we passed not one but two sea lions, sunning on the beach and nonplussed by two big horses strolling past ten feet away. The horses were similarly nonplussed, though a flock of eight black swans making a noisy takeoff and formation flight over the inlet were less to their liking.

Further on we turned into a sheltered cove, hidden behind huge craggy rocks boasting a perfect keyhole opening about thirty feet up. In the surf ahead of us we saw a penguin escaping the surly bounds of earth for water flight, ducking into the foam before disappearing. We tied up the horses and had tea in the sand, so fine and soft it felt more like baby powder than sand, talking and wondering at the sheer beauty of the spot. Steep cliffs rose behind us, striated with browns and golds and topped with heathery gorse bushes. The crescent of sand was white and spotted with shells, empty but for us all the way to the many hued ocean, stretching calmly away from us and glimmering in the late afternoon sun. On one particularly fine curve of beach, my Irish Hunter Shannon and I got a chance to stretch her legs, and we pounded along the waterline in a full out gallop the likes of which I haven’t had in years. Our guide raced along side me, horse hooves splashing water and scaring any penguins that might have ventured to shore. Tears streaming from my eyes, result of speed and sheer joy in being alive and being there, I balanced on the horse, moving in rhythm with her hoof beats and her heart beat, balanced between chaos and order. This rush, I decided (once we’d slowed to a respectable canter that allowed for thought) was the motive behind adventure travel. Perhaps I’m more of a daredevil at heart than I suspected.