So it’s been a while and my film still has a way to go but here is a trailer for the meantime…

So it’s been a while since you heard from me, and I guess you thought I would be popping my head up soon to say my film is almost finished.  Well, it’s taking me longer than I thought – and I’ve taken a few detours along the way – including getting a full-time job and getting married!  Both the job and the husband are offering support, the former financially and the latter emotionally – so this should help the film with all things financial and emotional.  I fell in love with Manolo while traveling for the film, and he has moved to my side of the world to be by my side.  So just as other people have told me they have a lot to be grateful for with respect to their everyday travels (including some romances), I can also say the same about my travels.

I wanted to write this post to let anyone who I interviewed (or who helped me in other ways) and who managed to hold on to the scrap of paper with this website address – that you are in my thoughts and you make me smile and have hope in humanity every time I sit down to do some editing.  To have met such lovely people in my film is actually making my confused navigation through post-production a pleasure.

So, the film won’t be ready in the middle of this year as I predicted but I will try and work on it as much as I can and keep you updated.  Thanks for your patience!

A little video we made about the formalised dinking world of bicycle taxis in Africa

From the start I knew there would be an end to this trip and there would be tasks I’d need to complete along the way – but these were quite vague when I left Australia at the start of May.  I was abandoning promises to reduce my emissions as much as possible – as I hopped on the plane I hoped that what I could achieve would make it worthy of my extra large footprint.  So with my ill-defined timeframe and tasks – a race had begun … and then it ends (whether you were ready for it or not).  In this race I was going to have to find different rhythms, companions, inspirations, moments of courage and times of joy before I could say I completed it.  I would also have to bite the bullet at some stage to buy a ticket home – suddenly cutting this trip of infinite possibilities into a an ever tightening scheduled operation.  This is the story of my trip to film the experience of urban transport around the world.

Perhaps I start by asking (and maybe even answering) your more obvious questions – what was your favourite place? and what did you learn?

Favourite place???  To start with I want to cop out and say every city was interesting in its own way – in some ways it’s true and the diversity of my experiences in various places was my favourite space.  It was seeing how people all over the world could appreciate place that was more beautiful than any streetscape could be.

But I will mention one city which was very important in this scattered trip of a splattering of cities.  Hanoi – like a first love was my first city for this film.  I was a bundle of nervousness and excitement, still working out which way to point the camera and believing anything was possible, I trundled off a plane at Hanoi airport.  I was greeted by so much hospitality from the people I met, and beauty from the people that surrounded me, I felt tranquil in a foreign place.  And then there was this most photogenic transport culture, which made me feel like my film might just be on to something.  So while I have had special moments throughout my travels, I’d say that Hanoi was the most important city for me.

Every city has greeted me in different ways – stumbling on a library in Pune while still carrying my pack, and stopping to interview all the librarians, finding myself on the back of a scooter riding through the backstreets of Ankara minutes after arriving, and then there is always the philosophical taxi driver with too many kids who doesn’t have any change for 2000 shillings on the way from Nairobi Airport.

And I have always been sad to leave.  My heart has been weeping through my final memories of places, which include dinner, karaoke, ice cream, chocolates, frisbee, ping pong and of course rushing to catch various pre-booked intercity or international transport.  Well my heart definitely received a pounding as I would contemplate whether my travel insurance would pay if I miss my international flight/train/bus.  After almost meditating on transport for weeks, my last moments catching transport would involve a lot of stress – but I never missed a flight, so I somehow have faith in the urban transport I used (and possibly abused) to get to the airports and railway stations I needed.  As we bounced up and down the curbs, clutching bags in front of me, my backpack hoisted on my back, on the back of my friend’s scooter heading to the bus station in Casablanca the phrase ‘if god wills’ took on a life of it’s own.

And what have I learnt?  I guess you will have to wait for the film to really understand this.  But I have definitely seen a much more positive view of transport than I ever expected – I have also received pieces of wisdom, kindness and inspiration from all corners of the world.  My heart has definitely become a little bit more open during this trip and I hope my film will be able to convey some of this better than I have managed in my blog.

My first trip on the metro of Saint Petersburg was with a beautiful charming girl called Alice.  This is entirely appropriate because when you enter the metro through buildings of various forms, you enter a strange and enchanted world which has more in common with alice in wonderland than the modern metros of dubai or singapore.

Before going through  the rabbit hole, you convert your money into magical tokens that let you pass into this world.  In this world there are no tickets to be inspected only a gold token that is sent through a slot which allows the door to open, and once inside you are free of any evidence you have paid for your fare.  My immediate reaction to this discovery was that it must be easy not to pay – but who knows what would happen in this world to those who are trying to cheat the system?  Alice gave me a warning that there is always a lady with a red cap at the bottom of the never-ending escalators and when I saw one for myself I knew that I would would always pay from then on.  It must be either in their job description or training, but these ladies have faces that say ‘don’t test your luck or your life won’t be worth living’.  More effective than any fine.

[Please note I do not have a photo of these ladies because I am too scared to take one]

As mentioned earlier, to get to these charming ladies you must descend the longest escalators you have ever seen.  You suddenly really feel like you are part of a giant machine or organism that is filled with moving particles being piped around.  It is a surreal feeling to be in this dome and looking up and down the escalator realising you cannot see the start or the finish – just millions of people moving gracefully along at the same continuous speed – some going up, some going down.  The lights and the expressions on people’s face set the mood.  You literally pass hundreds of faces as you people-watch with no fear that you will ever see each other again.  Perhaps you even for in love a couple of times.  Alice tells me it takes 3 minutes and she can read two pages of her book in this time.  I can’t even imagine how far we have gone underground.  Somewhere along the way I have lost my sense of reality.  Once we finally pass the booth with the lady, we regain use of our legs to find our way to our little blue train that will take us away.  The platforms seem to be wider and shorter, somehow more appropriate for the comical old fashioned trains that they serve.

Finally it is time to enter the train.  The trains are coming all the time.  You don’t need to run to these trains – it’s better to wait til the next one where you have more chance of getting in the door.  Just think of yourself as chocolate being squirted into a mould on a production line.  For some reason during the three minutes of escalator riding it hasn’t occurred to me to take off my coat.  I guess such an awkward action would ruin the aesthetic of the ride for everyone, maybe this is why.  Well, now the chocolate is definitely melted as the temperature in the train reaches uncomfortable highs.  I guess I am happy though.  When everyone is awkwardly coping with ridiculous situations it always makes me smile.  Some people shut their eyes and I wonder if they imagine they are in a sauna.  A couple near me are flirting and hugging each other.  There is no space between people and not so many poles to hold on to, so people hold on to each other or wedge themselves between bodies.

Maybe it’s the Russian accent, but I find the man making the automatic announcements highly amusing.  Such a deep serious voice, that I could imagine to exist in a futuristic world where we rely on such voices to think for us.  In fact maybe this voice has been taken directly from a movie I’ve seen.  If I understood what he way saying, I’m sure I would obey.  I survive the sea of coats and sullen faces and manage to exit the metro keeping sight of Alice as we all flood out the door.

Every metro station is a little different, but there is always some mood lighting and interesting russian faces to look at.  As we ascend into the dark autumn night (which is surprisingly not as cold as I was expecting), I reflect on this simple machine that carts people around the city like they are particles.  For some reason, I am more accepting of the idea of being part of it than I am on modern metros – maybe because sometimes it’s easier for me to accept dreams and history than efficient modernity.

So with absolutely no organisation at all I just put together some little pieces of footage to create a mock trailer.  All footage except the interviews is with my little camera because I was too lazy to import all my other footage from the various hard drives.  I am still yet to go to Saint Petersburg or film in Sydney … but here we go … this is all a learning curve for me, so let me know what you think.

So, apparently this trip is meant to be a solo project, but I think I haven’t spent more than five minutes alone since I left for Morocco.  And it just so happens that I have met most of my companions while taking transport.  From the girl on the plane who spent 15 minutes negotiating with the taxi driver to get a good price to go to the city … to the guy I met at the train station who made sure I arrived safely, took me for a scooter ride, gave me advice about filming and invited me for lunch – it’s amazing who you can meet in the streets and on transport.

I guess the structure and interactions of transport are something that go hand in hand.  There is transport where everything is organised with maps and clean vehicles, places to validate your ticket, places to sit or to stand – you can get buy without needing help or without needing to enter anyone else’s personal space.  In Casablanca, I would say the Tramway is like this.  So I thought the Tramway would always be quiet, but then I noticed a couple of animated conversations between strangers (I guess that’s just the Moroccan way).  Then there are other modes of transport, which involve necessary contact with others as your are jammed into sharing seats with them.  I feel very much like I’m in a communal cocoon in the Grand Taxis which are Mercedes Benz cars that are built like tanks and built to last (and possibly built to carry six passengers and the driver).  You can usually start a conversation in the taxi with a need for guidance or a common complaint in such a vehicle.  While being in a Grand Taxi I learnt the art of making signals with your arms to indicate to passing drivers where you want to go.  This is very handy when no one can understand my pronunciation.

So it seems like it is easy for me to meet people and to experience what it is like to use transport at the same time.  However, this does not translate into people wanting to be interviewed in front of a camera.  I think this is going to be my biggest challenge but I’m guessing once the Moroccans start talking nothing will stop them 🙂

I know that I am not suffering the monotony of using the same transport everyday.  Within the two or three weeks I spend in a city the ordinariness of using transport still escapes me.  In some ways it is amazing to be flabbergasted and interested in what local people do everyday without thinking about it.  However, I can’t help but wonder if there is a different beauty, which I can’t capture, in having urban transport as the background of your life rather than the focus (as is the case for me).

With this in mind, I set my alarm for an hour well before sunrise to accompany my friend and see the world of his everyday commute.  Being forced to witness this time of day always gives me a thrill, but I must try and imagine how this thrill would wear off if this happened everyday.  Well, it was misty and dark and then we passed a good looking zombie wearing sunglasses and listening to music.  As we walked to the metro my friend started to talk about the things he notices on his commute.  He passes the same girl everyday and can gauge whether he’s running late by where he meets her – she has become a clock to him – but one with a face and thoughts that one can only imagine (because one never talks to the people they see everyday).  We cross the road this way and that and I try not to take too many photos even though the light is beautiful.  We run across the main road as the green man is flashing and the sound for deaf pedestrians, which reminds me of a futuristic battle, makes the run that little bit more fun.

Then we go down into the world of the metro.  In Madrid, this is a world with limited signal for phones (from my own experience) and hence the people who are awake enough to read, are reading books.  I’ve noticed an abundance of book shops in this city and I think the metro is doing a good job at keeping book sales up.  I love watching everyone focused on their own little worlds swaying together with the movement of the metro.  It is a great display of collective individuality (unless everyone is reading the same book I guess).  Between my attempts to secretly film the feel of the metro and chatting to my friend, we arrive at our stop in no time at all.  We were standing the whole time but it wasn’t a strain.  If we were trying to read I guess it would be a different story.

As we re-enter the world of natural light and traffic sounds, we head for the bus queue.  In Sydney I would always see these queues and feel sorry for the people in them.  Perhaps because it is a queue with no apparent door or window, like when we would have to queue up at school in arbitrary places for arbitrary reasons.  But the queue wasn’t so bad.  We were placed well – we didn’t have to wait too long and we would get a seat (provided no pregnant or older people needed it).  My friend gave me a bit of a guided tour as we went along, he described where the sunrise can be beautiful (if it’s not a foggy day) and where the bus sometimes jolts all the standing passengers as it picks up speed around the corner.  Today we were lucky because we had one of the good bus drivers – not the one that intentionally throws the bus from side to side (maybe he wanted to work on a theme park ride but his parents forced him to settle for the more stable career of being bus driver).

We get off at the stop before my friend’s work.  This is the better stop because he can see the mountains on a fine day.  It doesn’t matter that there is a big highway in his foreground, the beauty of his walk is found in the background.  I enjoyed hanging out with my friend and gaining insights into his transport world that I think an interview would have only given me a small taste of.  I guess my observation and presence changed his commute though – maybe this is why I gave up on physics.

I tried to fight the feeling in my throat that was telling me that a cold was coming.  I had just arrived late at night in Madrid and I was making my way to my friend’s house.  I was (probably illegally) taking my bicycle on the metro and hoping there wasn’t going to be too many stairs.  At the interchange, I left my spanish speaking friend, and ventured into the world of no comprendo alone.  However, within five minutes a girl started talking to me on the travelator (at that moment I had a desire to see what it would be like to ride a bicycle on a travelator but I haven’t tested this yet).  She made a huge effort to speak English to me and she was sweet and full of life – I couldn’t possibly be tired and sick – so I smiled and enjoyed her company all the way to my stop.  I was already amazed with this city and the public transport system, and it was probably because of this beautiful girl on the metro more than the connections and frequency of the services.

I have since collapsed in a heap on several occasions as the cold reared it’s ugly head.  Any feeble attempt to learn Spanish has been quashed by the loss of my voice, but the Spanish and their city are impressing me nonetheless.  I have been walking and cycling, catching metros and buses – and so far all is well.  People tend to be friendly, the streets are full of life and using the metro tends to be a smooth sort of experience.  There are plenty of motor bikes and scooters carrying elegant women and men in suits with a mediterranean flair.   There is an amazing park which you can ride through to get to other parts of town (reminds me of riding through centennial park to go to university in Sydney).

I am enjoying riding my bicycle in the streets even though there are less people on bicycles than in Berlin.  There are some cycleways and cycle lanes and it tends to be fun as you have to be more alert.  When there are less people on the road, you also feel like you are in on a secret that most of the city is yet to find out (the secret is that cycling in the city is awesome).  There are some hills in Madrid, but I think that just makes cycling more interesting.  I love riding past amazing monuments and buildings – being able to be playful around such works of art and grandeur.  So far I have had lots of (what I assume are) positive interactions with other road users (I need to learn more spanish to be sure).   Once I can speak, and hopefully speak spanish, I will have even more fun.

Sometimes I feel like I treat people as blank canvases when I ask them questions like ‘how does it feel to use a certain mode of transport’.  Life is much more complex than that.  We are hopping onto our bike, or jumping onto the train in various moods, with various things on our mind and after all sorts of things have happened in our lives.    And when we jump on in a happy mood our experience is completely different to when we have some melancholy or frustration.

In my ups and downs of travel and discovery along with the confusion involved in embarking on my own for a massive project, my mind and emotions have been going all over the place.   So there is nothing objective about the way I experience different modes of transport in different city, and I don’t expect this from anyone else.  So firstly I’d like to apologise for simplifying the world of using transport sometimes.  It is very hard to interview people with translators and get to the bottom of everything without taking up too much of people’s time.

However, I think transport plays an important role when we are suffering or enjoying highs and lows in life.  I have found myself crying on my bicycle from time to time, seeing smudges of light in the night streetscapes.  But there has been a beauty to being able to let the wind flow through my head my while I’ve been suffering some kind of heart ache.  It has helped me get over some of my troubles, and I can embrace the sensations of the moment to feel alive when I’ve felt numb.  In a different way, watching the world pass from a cosy public transport carriage has given me some space to let myself dwell on, and then expel, various problems that have been bothering me.  Perhaps seeing everything pass by lets me know I can let my problems go too.  It’s not always good, but it is amazing that we can get some psychological benefits from our transport from time to time.

When I’ve been happy and riding my bicycle, I have found myself hitting natural highs – like I’m floating – and I will break out in song and silliness with ease.  Sometimes on public transport or walking I’ve wanted to make everyone around my somehow smile.  And sometimes it seems to work.  I have walked like I’m wanting to dance and even driven in cars tapping on the steering while listening to the radio.  So happiness (or sadness) is brought on board when we catch various modes of transport, and the travel experience mixes with it, to give us something – sometimes for the better, sometimes not …. that’s just my take on it.