Sunday Papers: Ojisan Jake

 

"I rarely visit cities, so for me they are somewhat similar to safari parks... the chance to see exotic, possibly dangerous, creatures in their natural habitat."

 

On the turntable:  Ohio Players,  "Funk on Fire, The Mercury Years" 

 

Off the Rails (WiK version)

 

 

 

Thank you to Writers in Kyoto for hosting my latest, a musically-enhanced journey though Japan's rail system...

https://writersinkyoto.com/2026/03/15/nonfiction/off-the-rails/

 

On the turntable: Tom Petty, "Storytellers"
 

Sunday Papers: Rosemary Mahoney

  

"Travel never makes one cheerful. But it makes one thoughtful. It washes one's eyes and clears away the dust."

 

On the turntable:  TSOL, "Beneath the Shadows"   

 

Fushimi–Fukakusa Route

 

 

Thanks again to Heartland for publishing my piece, detailing a lesser-known walk through Kyoto's historically rich southern reaches...

 

https://heartlandjapan.com/walking-kyotos-circuit-trail-the-fushimi-fukakusa-route/

 

On the turntable:  Tom Petty, "Playback"

 

At the End of Japan

 

 

Thanks to The Japan Times for publishing my latest, recounting a recent trip to Yonaguni... 

 

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2026/02/28/travel/yonaguni-island-okinawa-travel-taiwan-china 

 

On the turntable: Traffic, "Heaven is in your Mind" 

 

Working for the Pharoah: Upper Egypt

 

Trains heading out of major cities never show that city's best face. This train out of Cairo was no exception, paralleling a rubbish-strewn canal.  It wasn't long before rural scenes opened up, rear projection for the next ten hours. Fishermen resting under the palms. Donkeys, squatting farmers. Villages again and again, and the fellaheen in the spaces between.  Fellaheen, a word that always reminds me of Kerouac, but Jack's idea about the "fellaheen feeling about life, that timeless gayety of people not involved in great cultural and civilization issues," didn't necessarily jibe with the hard labors I saw from the window, tending to the endless green. I knew from the map that the Nile was on the left side of the train, but I only saw it for a brief few moments, as we pottered along this fertile strip that she had midwifed.  

 

 

Luxor Temple sat impressively on the banks of the Nile. Napoleon's theft of its obelisk gave birth to Europe's fascination with things Egyptian, was the initial catalyst for all of us coming to stand here and gawp. From this vantage point there was somewhat of a theme park feel, partly due to the fact that it was surrounded completely by the city.  But upon entry, the details began to wow you.  The whole place was a study in the history of architecture, as subsequent dynasties kept adding to the place, the ultimate DIY hand-me-down.  Though they never fail to impress me, I tend to find heiroglyphic art to be like the simple drawings of children, an innocent being coming into maturity.  But these parallel walls served as terrific example the contrast between the high level of carving that the Egyptians could do, with the less skilled Greeks of a millennium later. And it wasn't until later that I found that I'd missed Rimbaud's graffiti altogether, carved here during his rambles. Another problem with group tours, as I like to go beyond the schoolbooks to lateral history, how these places played out in music, literature, cinema.  A reminder to read ahead, seek those details on my own.

 

 

Had I been on my own I'd have been tempted to walk the boulevard flanked by sphinxes, which had recently been unearthed beneath centuries of habitation. But I know that in being over three kilometers long, it would grow rather tedious after a while. Yet Karnak at the far end would have proved sufficient reward.  I was taken with it immediately, for unlike Luxor, it stood alone at the edge of town, backed by the desert.  A place to stumble upon rather than being led to by coaches moving along tidy roads.  Pillar after pillar was ornately decorated, a delight to wander beneath as you explored the labyrinth of her pathways and open courtyards.  The softening of the evening light and the call to prayer completed the mise-en-scene. 

 

The Valley of the Kings across the Nile was of bucket list material, but luckily we got there before the full rush of crowd.  Tut's tomb was of course a must visit, but it was relatively spartan as most of its decorations now rested in the museum in Cairo.  Seti I was the real stunner, the wall paintings alive with color, the most beautiful I saw in Egypt.  We popped into a few other tombs,  including the Tomb of Merenptah, which was real Indiana Jones material.  Most tombs open into multiple side chambers, but this one bore steeply and diagonally toward the center of the earth, its length measure by the sweat and labored breathing of visitors coming back up.  

 

 

There were other visits on the West Bank.  Hatshepsut, whose 1997 massacre never left my mind.  The Valley of the Queens which I loved for its quiet, near absence of visitors.  This must be how the Victorians experienced things, empty but for a few others.  Nefertari's tomb is supposedly the best in Egypt, but has been sadly off-limits for a number of years.  And the Amenhotep III Sun Temple, looking like a film set at the edge of the desert.  

 

 

Sailing the Nile in a convoy of cruise ships.  It was comedic somewhat, like Wacky Racers, each ship honking and jockeying for position.  After things thinned out a bit, it was wonderful to sit and read under the canopy, riverside scenes pulling attention from the page again and again.   There was one lunch out on deck, and a pair of visits to riverside temples. Yet despite the impressiveness of Edfu and Kom Ombo,  I'd have preferred more time just to sit quietly with life on the Nile.   

 

 

Aswan and its Isis Temple island of Philae, her squared windows perfectly framing the adjacent islands, the small craft cutting the most upper waters of the Nile.  (Yet again my attention being pulled from the surroundings of man-made glory to the natural world outside.)  A shopping spree spontaneously opening up on our small water-craft, followed quickly by a slower Felucca cruise.  The design on our sail proved our teenage Nubian crew's affinity for Bob Marley.  But they were no sailors, skilled more in the art of tack.  Again and again we'd race toward the steel wall of a moored cruise ship, to zig away at the last moment. Two boys on surfboards latched themselves to our boat, offering a Frère Jacques serenade for tips.  Kichener Island wasn't much, and how I longed to climb the dunes up to the towering ruins across the water.  The ride back was better, the current pulling us steadily through a lesser cataract, upon whose banks grazed water fowl, under the haunting gaze of the Aga Khan Mausoleum.  The setting sun again perfecting the scene.       

 

 

As expected, Abu Simbel was the jewel of the Nile.  Its grandeur made it easy to forget that it had been relocated here, and I wondered why more Egyptians aren't set designers for films.  It must have been incredible to stumble across such places accidentally, from the back of a horse.  In that spirit, I wish we'd sailed here, jumping another ship the other side of the dam.  I'm glad we didn't undertake the monotonous four-hour drive like the pair of Australian guys I'd had beers with on board a couple of evenings, but there was something absurd about flying down for 20 minutes, visiting for an hour or so, then jetting back.  

 

 

The latter flight eventually led back to Cairo, tracing the green strip of land that marked the Nile.  This aero-technology was a direct result her life-giving waters, which shaped her people, her culture, her civilization, and by extension, Western civilization itself.  

 

On the turntable:  Bob Dylan, "Desire"

 

Working for the Pharoah: North Coast

 

The Corniche of Alexandria reminds one of seafront Havana, all those crumbling, weathered facades of past glory.  This must have been a beautiful city in the colonial days.  But now all I see is the scrum of traffic roaring at their bases, a constant pulse that makes a bane of our waterfront hotel, as it cuts us off from the inviting beaches, betraying our sleep.  The symphonic honk at white vans that slow and stop to add more to innards already swelling with passengers, then the swerve across lanes that serve as mere suggestion. A sticker of Bart Simpson stares at me from one window, mockingly.

Daytime takes us away from this, to the glory of the past, albeit occupied.  The Roman amphitheater is tucked into a small park between newish apartment blocks, shocking white under a flawless blue sky.  Roman heads of stone line one fence.  The catacombs are a short drive away, a cornucopia of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman influences. Its the first real Egyptian tomb I've seen, but it harkens back to past trips, connects me with familiar context.  A trio of sarcophagi, empty chambers with shelving where the bodies once were, but generally pretty bare.  The same can be said for Pompei's pillar nearby, rising from a patch of earth bare but for a pair of small sphinxes.  (To be fair, a major excavation appears to be going on.). I had wanted to walk between the two sites, figuring that feet would move more quickly than our big bus, but the streets look pretty beat up, a state of dereliction usually seen in war zones.     

 

I think that Alexandria's glory is in her British colonial past, as this city thrived a century ago, a city filled with artists and writers.  I would have loved to have seen Lawrence Durrell's house, where we wrote much of his Alexandria Quartet.  And an overnight, or at least a beer, at the Hotel Cecil, just across the water from the most recent incarnation of the Alexandria Lighthouse, and beside Saad Zaghloul Park, from where Cleopatra's Needles were liberated in order to serve the good people of London and New York.  We do drive past the hotel, which holds pride of place in a rather nice part of town filled with green spaces and cafes, a neighborhood ready-made for a walk. But our itinerary doesn't allow for it, and our noisy hotel is too far away for a stroll at dawn.   

 

 

One thing with organized trips is you don't really get a sense for a town. In Morocco, we made that happen, bailing out on the group midday in order to explore.  Ping-ponging between tourist sites doesn't allow one to feel a place. I never really get a sense of Alexandria; my feet never pace off the length of her city blocks, my nose never fills with her scent.  In our self-exploration, Lai Yong and I
 got some idea of Cairo, but that place seemed to sprawl, and sprawl makes it impossible to befriend a place in a short time.  The same can be said about cities like Seoul or Taipei.
  Where is their heart?

 

 

In the morning, the road toward El-Alamein bisects a massive marsh. Apparently, this is what the Nile did during its annual flood, nurturing crops and creating fishing grounds.  In that spirit, today I spy a number of white-capped fishermen in skiffs, testing the waters in the shadows of massive petroleum factories.

This stretch is known as the North Coast.  Development stretches for dozens of kilometers along the shores of the Mediterranean.  Much of this is already inhabited, but large sections are developing simultaneously, which reminds me of Ashgabat in Turkmenistan, a city clean and tidy, but with little scenes of life or humanity. One billboard promises, "Summer season '26 planned here." Which, from the current state of development, is not very lightly. 

 

 

Being a British group, our purpose here is to visit the military cemetery.  I'm breathless at the sheer number of crosses here, a sensation I felt with all the names etched into the granite of the Vietnam memorial in DC.  So many men. And this is just the British.  Other allies are buried elsewhere. Identical crosses fill this narrow little valley, sunk in dry earth, though well-irrigated to bring color, life, into the flowering shrubs randomly spaced between the graves.  Backing the cemetery is a large rubbish tip. It seems an app metaphor for what old politicians and generals do with young men such as these.  We'll later pass the Italian cemetery a few miles out of town. Which got me wondering, of course, where are the Germans?

 

 

The drive back to Cairo cuts across a featureless landscape.  This is real desolation, unlike any desert I've ever seen, and I've traveled in many, lived in a few. With no mountains as waypoints, the emptiness feels infinite. And this is what they were all fighting for. Beside the highway is a scorched block of asphalt, rectangular, the size of a sedan.
 I hate to think of what would happen if you were stranded out here.

 

 

The world begins to take on a hint of green again, then all is pastoral. This is Wadi Natrum.  We detour to St. Macarius, a monastery fortified like a castle, with solid defensive structures 
and self-sufficent agriculture.  The earth-colored rounded structures remind one of Tatooine. I knew of Coptic Christianity, but wasn't aware that they make up 10 percent of Egypt's population.   The head priest leads us around, seemingly at ease with himself, but also quick to scold, a rebuke immediately followed by a warm smile.  I've encountered many such men in my travels, and their radiant calm tempts me into leading a similar self-reflective life spent surrounded by the natural world.   But the outside world inevitably calls me back.  In this particular case, it is in the form of Cairene traffic.   

  

On the turntable:  Kate Bush, "Never for Ever"