3 Cascades

Hell-Bourg is one of the key villages along the hiking routes on Reunion, so there are a number of options for hikes ranging from under an hour all the way to full day hikes (and off course the multi day hikes). The 3 Cascades (waterfall) hike was labelled as a short, easy 90 minute return hike by the tourist office. The 90 minutes was spot on, but it was hardly easy - while not technical, the hike has a very steep ascent from the start point with very short respites all the way to the waterfall. The route itself is mostly in the shade, surrounded by large bamboo.

You can hear the waterfalls before you see them, with the main trail ending rather abruptly by a small shrine. There is a small pool, with cold fresh water - but not more than just wetting your feet. At the far end, is the main waterfall - spectacularly set against the lush vegetation. Just to the left, is a steep drop to an amazing looking pool - though I could see now way down.

We met an older French couple on the trail, who spoke a bit of English, and had a small printout of the trail. Just before the end of the trail is a small detour by a bamboo grove and behind a fence, there is a short lookout by a dam, providing a better view of the main falls. Without this information, I don't think I would have found it - haven't seen it written elsewhere in English!

The return is uneventful, although the steepness of the climb is equally difficult to go down. There are great views of Hell Bourg once you clear the trees.

Driving in Reunion and Google Maps

Reunion, like France, drives on the right. The rest of our stay in Reunion is across a number of villages/towns, with the first stop in the picturesque village of Hell Bourg. The drive up the mountains followed a twisted road from the main highway that circles the island, with amazing scenery of the mountains with many water falls along the escarpment.

But it first means getting out of St Denis, and its many one way streets - and a big fail for Google Maps, which managed to get every one way street wrong. Luckily, I had walked around the area enough to know enough of the streets - but relying on Google Maps is certainly dangerous.

Restored Mansions

The spine of the old town St Denis runs from the central park (Le Jarine de l'État) to the sea with the cannons on the boulevard, as Rue de Paris/Avenue de la Victoire. Most of the buildings along this road are restored or reconstructed mansions from the early 1800's and the architecture is itself something to see. A few are museums and galleries, some seem to be government buildings while a few seem to remain in private hands. Even the lamp posts harken back to an old era where everything needed to be ornate.

A small museum/gallery

There was almost nothing open on Christmas day - even the main city park was closed. But amongst one of the restored mansions on Rue de Paris, a small art gallery with a recently opened exhibition was open - a cool, air conditioned respite from the heat. There were very few notes (even in French), nothing I could see about the artist and I have sadly even forgotten the name of the gallery.

Roland Garros

The namesake of the tennis stadium hosting the French Open, was a famed aviator and WW1 fighter pilot. Born in Saint Denis, he is probably its most famous son, and consequently there are quite a few things bearing his name (the airport, a road and a restaurant just the ones i have come across in Saint Denis). His statue is near the canons end of Le Barachois.

Le Barachois

Surrounding the city along the coast, Le Barachois is a paved promenade punctuated by a few attractions such as statues and canons. The statue commemorating a slave uprising in the mid 1800s is poignant; and the views are awesome.

Cathedral of Saint Denis

Over 150 years old, the Cathedral of Saint Denis is one of the landmarks of the city. The cathedral is surprisingly rather plain, although the mural of Christ is quite beautiful and strange (holding a cross while blessing worshippers?) and there was also a cute nativity scene on the side.

Church of Saint Jacques

The plain and simple exterior hides a simple, but beautiful interior. The church is a located a Km or so from the town centre, so it is not featured in most travel guides etc. but is well worth a visit for its stained glass windows and statues of various Christian saints.

Air Austral's Tail Fin

One of the most beautiful tail fins I have seen ...

The Grand Tour

Take the recipe of Top Gear (before the relaunch in 2016), remove the annoying celebrity interviews, add even better production quality (I didn't think it was possible for a car show), and you have The Grand Tour. 

There is not much new - and in fact, the segments that are frankly not needed. There is no need to have a chat sideline in "The Conversation Street" - the in-between segment banter is sufficient. "Celebrity Brain Crash", which replaced the celebrity interviews and instead manages to kill off interviewees in weird accidents is getting boring and nonsensical. 

The stand out is off course the cars and the fantastic test drive scenarios. Some segments - such as the Jordanian Special Forces in episode 2 or the environment cars in episode 4 have been weak; but overall the spread of cars, and the locations have been great.

Grand Tour can certainly run for the next 3 seasons - but the formula is ageing and I don't know how much longer it will make sense. But Top Gear itself, I think is now dead an buried.

Amazon Prime Video

The Grand Tour is not the most pirated show ever - but it certainly is one of the most pirated shows ever. That is not too surprising - Top Gear in the days of Clarkson was also one of the most pirated shows. Some years back, I wrote a paper on digital piracy (also related to a presentation at Indicare 2005) where I proposed that a key cause of piracy was availability of media and convenient format of media - and while factors such as price matter, digital piracy would remain an issue if availability in the right format is not solved for. The Grand Tour is the perfect example of this proposal - launching a highly popular show (well at least Top Gear was) but constrained to a few locations instead of the global reach.

Amazon's Prime Video service has now taken the leap of bridging the availability conundrum with its global launch. The key attraction - shown prominently on the web page - is off course The Grand Tour; but it does offer more than that. Amazon's own original series - Mozart in the Jungle, Man in the High Castle - are also on offer; and the price is phenomenal at USD 2.99 for the first 6 months followed by the standard price of USD 5.99. Oh, and there is a free trial also for a month.

However, the breadth of content is quite underwhelming. Starting with Amazon's own content - the content available is not all the content produced by Amazon. Furthermore, not all the seasons are there - I have access Mozart in the Jungle's first season, not the second for example (and the same with Transparent). Outside Amazon's own content - there are very few other top TV series, and the catalogue for movies is equally bare. 

Catalogue of content aside, the other big annoyance is the lack of Apple TV support. At this moment, I am downloading content to my phone and then playing via Airplay (and I am very impressed with its power efficiency). But what I would rather prefer is to queue content download on Apple TV, instead of relying on downloading when I am at home.I have tried the streaming - and have been generally quite impressed with the quality and speed. My Internet connection is flaky so prefer the download approach - but generally I have been impressed by the app.

I expect that the catalogue will grow with time - and there is enough right now to keep me interested and subscribed. I just need the Apple TV app ...

Movie: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

The book was sort of an encyclopedia, and JK Rowling has taken it to a rumoured 5-movie series expanding the Harry Potter universe. Undoubtedly, the strength of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, is the creativity in the conceptualisation of these magical beasts, although Eddie Redmayne's portrayal as a bumbling scientist magician (is there even such a thing?) is also notable. The movie plot is basic, and rather mundane - and the whole magic vs humans story-line resembles the X-Men story-line a bit too much. Undoubtedly, other fictional universes have handled the whole human vs magical worlds better - The Nightwatch Series comes to mind; and while the backstory is interesting - this seems far too much like a commercial expansion for the sake of commercialisation rather than expanding the literary world of Harry Potter universe.

Úyanga Bold

The Internet is great for stumbling across weird and wonderful music. I came across Úyanga Bold in a live performance of Hans Zimmer's Dark Knight score, where she was billed as the "Epic Mongolian Voice". She has a number of performances across Bandcamp, YouTube or featuring in other artist's spaces. Most of her performances have a mysterious spiritual effect - quite soothing, and her vocal range is most impressive. YouTube playlist

Robin Williams and Craig Ferguson

Craig Ferguson has been off late night TV for a while - with his eclectic collection of puppets and some amazing interviews. The double header with Robin Williams is one of his best!

Movie: Dr Strange

Strangely, the magical base of Dr Strange, is more realistic than most of Marvel's other long running series. I did not grow up reading comics, and my only exposure is through the various movie franchises. Dr Strange was one of the better movies - it still has the same formula; flawed character of great promise, who discovers something special, and then has to defend the world from destruction; but it was well paced, and fun - and a lot less America centric.

Movie: Arrival

I have not seen a movie at the theatre for a while; and eventually we decided to just go and watch something that looked interesting; without necessarily knowing what it was about. Arrival was more than a pleasant surprise - no hype (as with Interstellar, The Martian or Gravity), the movie explores first contact with an alien species. 

And the aliens are strange - they make indecipherable noises, their space craft and environment looks out of the world, they have technology that we cannot currently fathom, and they are not green men with big heads - but are rather like giant squids. 

While the story is set around first contact - it is a lot more. It asks some deep philosophical questions - on how language and the nature of language influences thought and actions; on how mis-communication leads to bad decisions, on how humans will actually deal with the knowledge of an alien species, on how talking heads on TV can easily whip up misinformation into panic and the question for the ages: on the nature of choice and fate.

This is a stunning movie with an amazing lead performance by Amy Adams in the lead role. As far as random choices and selections go - this was hitting the jackpot!

JPO's Japanese Night

A Japanese conductor (Yasuo Shinozaki), a Japanese violinist (Kyoko Takezawa), the Japanese ambassador in attendance and a Japanese sponsor for the week - the only item missing, sadly, was a Japanese piece on the programme for the final programme for the JPO in 2016. It was a difficult year, but one that ends with promise for a better future in 2017. The programme started with the lively Dvorak's Carnival Overture, followed by the ever popular Bruch's Violin Concerto No 1, before finishing off with Brahms' Symphony No 4. 

Governance in Africa

The Economist Newspaper's podcast this week features an interview with Mo Ibrahim on governance in Africa. Given the past week's events in South Africa, there is understandably some specific focus on Jacob Zuma; but the interview as a whole brings forward some very interesting discussion points.

Firstly, there is the role of the liberation struggle parties. Across post colonial countries in general, and in Africa specifically, liberation parties have often gone on to erode the trust of the people they liberated; and in some respects become the new oppressor. Mo Ibrahim's critique centred around the recent events in South Africa; but also drew comparisons to other countries such as Zimbabwe that also failed to make transitions - and the transition was not necessarily to another party; but rather the liberation party transitioning to a proper political party that has to deliver and govern the country (and is therefore not dependent on its history of liberation).

The second related point was on institutions. South Africa can manage the discourse around state capture because there are strong institutions to support the rule of law - most other countries in Africa, do not have the luxury. He specifically noted his own homeland of Sudan (and South Sudan) as failed states amongst the many countries in Africa that is struggling.

The highlight for me however was the discussion on migration. The number of migrants that manage to even get to the European sea or land crossings are tiny in comparison to the internal displacement within Africa. He called out the xenophobia within Europe and that ultimately, without addressing the underlying problems of migration and the hypocrisy of Europe's attitude to migration; he does not see lasting development in Africa. 

The podcast is a rare occasion where the issue of migration has been tacked so eloquently and so directly. In addition, it highlights some of the real challenges to improving governance - and to paraphrase the beginning; good governance is not about democracy; it also includes whether citizens are safe, have good nutrition, have access to jobs, education and healthcare. Governance improvements in Africa has stagnated and there is a long way to go.

JPO and KZNPO's 2nd Annual Joint Concert

The JPO has been quite inactive since last year's joint concert; and the 2^nd Annual Joint Concert with the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra, was sort of a relaunch of the JPO. The recently retired Deputy Chief Justice, Justice Dikgang Moseneke was announced as the new chair of the board; and the occasion had a lot more buzz - with attendees including Herman Mashaba, the new Mayor of Johannesburg (who managed to tie inner city redevelopment to the need for culture and thus the JPO), former First Lady Zanele Mbeki and a few ambassadors. It was a packed audience also; and witnessed what I think was one of the finest solo piano concertos and one of the best concerts overall - certainly of those I have attended.

The concert started with the lively Overture to Euryanthe by Carl Maria von Weber; which I don't think has been performed by the JPO before. The musical score was mesmerising and was the perfect curtain raiser to the solo performance.

There have been a number of performances of Rachmaninoff's 2^nd Piano Concerto; and this was in my mind, the finest, thoroughly deserving the standing ovation from the near full house. Pianist Valentina Lisitsa, described in the program as the first classical music YouTube star, was a late replacement; and she delivered an absolutely stunning performance. I am not sure what makes this performance stand out over previous ones - but something just made it special.

The concert finished off with Tchaikovsky's 5^th Symphony. In a time of economic and political turmoil in South Africa; and given the JPO's own recent turbulent past, a symphony that celebrates the idea of "ultimate victory through strife" was rather appropriate.

Sand Sculpture on the Beach