Emails from the Edge (42 page)
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Authors: Ken Haley
Ken Haley is one of Australia's most widely travelled authors. To date he has visited 109 countries, 57 of these on his own two feet and 52 in a wheelchair. He became a paraplegic in 1991, but as far as Ken is concerned the only difference this has made is that he now observes the world from a sitting position. A journalist by profession, his experiences include stints on the foreign desk of
The Times, Sunday Times
and
The Observer
in London, the
Gulf Daily News
in Bahrain and the
Oman Daily Observer
. He has also worked at
The Age
, Melbourne, and as a newspaper sub-editor in Athens, Hong Kong and Johannesburg. He now lives in Melbourne.
OUT OF THE GULAG (Kazakhstan): Aboard the train from Qaragandy bound for Lake Balkash, the author takes up his seatâor, rather, has it taken up to himâin the vestibule, lifted by railway staff and the odd fellow passenger. Luggage follows.
RED CARPET WELCOME (Azerbaijan): Lunch is served at Baku's Caravanserai Restaurant, a refreshment and recuperation stop for camels and their owners since the 15th century. The latest piece of excess baggage to arrive on this side of the Caspian is shouted to lunch here by the Deugro freight-forwarding company on his first day in the Caucasus.
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BAKU (Azerbaijan): As stately in its way as the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet; more imposing by far than Yarralumla: Government House in the Azeri capital ought to be a world-famous landmark ⦠but this is well off the tourists' beaten track.
CLASH OF CIVILISATIONS, WHAT CLASH? (Azerbaijan, September 2, 2001): Apple tea, boiled eggs and bread on a platter are shared with the taxi driver who has brought me to a 1,600-year-old church at Kish, not far from the border with Russia. Ilharna, in charge of restoring the ancient Christian house of worship, and her family offered us morning tea, quite out of the blue. They are Muslims.
THE OTHER CAVERN (Georgia): Facing a plaque âdedicated to the Memory of Sir John Whinston [sic] Lennon', the author took this photo while bumming his way down to the basement of Tbilisi's Beatles Club.
HALCYON DAYS (Georgia, September 11, 2001): Sun-dappled scene in Tbilisi's Old Town quarter which seemed idyllic enough when it was viewed five hours before the attacks on New York and Washington shook the larger world, and even this apparently self-contained one.
HOSTAGE TO HISTORY (Iran): Behind the former US Embassy, now the Den of Espionage, is displayed the wreckage of the helicopter that crash-landed in desert country in April 1980 while on a mission to rescue the Americans held captive here.
BROTHERS IN ARMS (Bahrain): Sometimes people in wheelchairs are thought to have so much in common they will just âclick'. Often that's a fallacy, but this sedate gentleman and his daughter, encountered near Manama's entrance gate, Bab al-Bahrain, were enjoyable company.
JIHAD IN THEIR VIEW (Qatar): Tayseer Allouni (right), al-Jazeera's ex-Kabul bureau chief, embraces his former cameraman from Afghanistan days, Abdul Ibrahimi, whom he hadn't seen since 2000. At the time of going to press, Allouni is in a Spanish jail, convicted of being an al-Qa'eda agent.
MY LOWEST POINT (Jordan): Smeared with green mud, a supposed curative, in the shallows of the Dead Sea, 400 metres below sea level, the author lets his mind do the floating.
FINDING OSAMA (Iran): The author forgets to claim his reward for tracking down the boss of al-Qa'eda. Selling carpets in Tehran might have been plausible coverâthe author himself was flooredâif al-Qa'eda and the Iranians, whose embassy in Kabul they had torched to the ground with significant loss of life, weren't mortal enemies.
