If there’s one thing that gets strangers talking to each other on long-haul flights, it’s airline food. While hot meals have largely disappeared on short routes in Europe, for obvious reasons they are still dished out to passengers when they are being transported half way around the world.

And for the majority of us that travel economy class, we are by and large left disappointed on a daily basis.

When the cabin attendants bring round a printed menu soon after you board your flight hopes are raised. The dish names and their descriptions often sound like you are going to get something prepared by a Michelin-starred chef, using only the finest ingredients. And better still, you are promised the finest wines to accompany your meal.

But the reality is often a shrivelled piece of chicken, accompanied by some equally tasteless sauce and a measly portion of overlooked rice. The bread roll is tougher than the outer coating of the plane you are travelling on. Cheese and biscuits consist of a sweaty piece of cheddar, served with a plain cracker. And the dessert is a variety of sponge that you can’t quite place.

  
Just this week on my early morning flight from London City Airport to Edinburgh, I had a disappointing attempt at a full English breakfast on a British Airways service – encompassing a soggy hash brown, tasteless sausage and bacon, with absolutely no sauce (not even baked beans) to make it moist.

I know what you’re thinking though – it’s not that easy cooking a decent meal in such a tiny galley up in the skies. That may be true, but I think that’s just a poor excuse. If you consider how much microwave ready meals have improved in recent years, then you start to realise that more can be done to improve quality.
Given that cabin crew are only really heating up pre-cooked food, innovation needs to begin on the ground. Perhaps more use should be made of independent suppliers, rather than the vast mass-produced kitchens that the airlines currently use. Yes, it would probably prove more costly, but passengers would be left more satisfied if more love and thought had gone into their meals.

You could see a network of independent kitchens on the fringes of major airports and using fresh ingredients proving popular. There would need to be a sophisticated just in time supply chain in place, but modern technology allows this sort of thing to take place. And given that food is usually served on planes within 30 minutes of take-off, if it was freshly prepared it wouldn’t really need heating up very much.

Some airline meals are passable and actually even enjoyable (I enjoyed a beautiful, albeit small, piece of steak on a South African airways flight last year), but in my view that was an exception.

Given the length of time spent on some flights, passengers in economy class deserve better food to eat. Right now it’s boom time for airport eateries as people rush to consume a decent meal given they know what’s probably coming (I certainly do).

As I was presented with a terrible chicken frittata (made in the UK using chicken from Thailand) for breakfast on an Etihad flight to Abu Dhabi, this was the very topic of conversation I had with the person sitting next to me. Why do airlines simply not bother?

At the Automobile Club of Egypt, Europeans and wealthy Egyptians were served fine restaurant meals, gambled in the casino and drank late into the night. They found attentive waiting staff who catered for their every need from the minute they arrived in their cars at the entrance to when they staggered home, often drunk.

Members were drawn from across the upper echelons of society, but perhaps the most important and frequent visitor was the Egyptian playboy king. He would often arrive in the early hours of the morning and wouldn’t leave until he was up on his gambling.

James Wright, the general manager, was an Englishman who presided over the smooth running of the club and ensured that high standards were maintained. He thought little of the Egyptians he employed, believing they were untrustworthy and couldn’t be left to their own devices.

But much as Wright – and Alku, a tyrant and senior aid to the king – tried to prevent it, some servants in the club formed close bonds with members. On the face of it, employees toed the party line, but beneath the surface they discretely challenged the management – and Britain’s continued occupation of Egypt which they felt starved them of opportunities.

It’s into this rich and fascinating world that best-selling author Alaa Al Aswany brings us with his latest novel. After a couple of slow starts, he has written a masterpiece – just ignore the complaints in newspaper reviews about it being a clunky translation. There is a good story to be told here.

  
Had you merely visited as a guest you would have probably only experienced a slick operation, but swany has a gift in taking readers behind the scenes to introduce an array of interesting characters, many struggling to make ends meet and prepared to do whatever it takes to get their tips. His chapters flick between different groups like scenes in a play, always leaving the reader in suspense.

In the stock rooms, lobbies, bars and homes of the servants, we find how they survive on such meagre salaries, with little form of protection or pension. Yet in fact many do more than just exist; some work hard all hours of the day, so they can succeed at school or university. Yet even with qualifications, still for the most part they find their futures denied. Some, however, don’t take no for an answer.

If the beatings and other forms of oppression the staff received seem familiar in Egypt in the modern age, that’s because the parallels are there. Aswany is an outspoken critic of the current regime and has found his columns in Egyptian newspapers suspended.

The autocratic government in power today denies its citizens a democracy, while foreign powers – including former colonial ruler Britain – happily maintain cordial relations with Egypt. And conditions in prisons are just as terrible now as they were in the past. Perhaps they are actually worse.

Back in Aswany’s novel, the king was a big womaniser and his aides organised parties so that girls could be paraded in front of him. His Royal Highness would then select the one he wanted to accompany to his bed for the night.

With so much written about Britain’s former empire where colonial subjects were presented as powerless and forced to accept the fate awarded to them, it’s refreshing to read a beautiful piece of literature where individuals work together (often with the most unlikely of partners; people that would be expected to side with the occupiers) in an attempt to change the future of their country.

Although this is a piece of fiction, the club itself did exist in Cairo (some of the author’s relatives worked there and he focuses on the period between the Second World War and Nasser’s coup of 1952, the venue’s heyday). How it would have been fascinating, yet disturbing place to visit back then.

And while the British were thrown out by Egyptian nationalists more than 60 years, sadly the opportunities provided to ordinary people did not appear. The Arab Spring of five years achieved little bar lead to a change in president and so Aswany’s words tell us a much about Egypt today as they do about the past.

Taking a picture of Dubai’s skyline without construction cranes in the shot, is not an easy task.

The Arabian city in the dessert may have already wowed the world with its towering buildings, man made islands, luxury hotels, giant shopping malls, but it’s project has not finished yet. While some other parts of the Middle East are caught up in war and conflict, here is a place that’s oozing with confidence and looking to the future.  I’ve visited Dubai on numerous occasions since 2009 and every time I come there are new things to see. The date of my first trip is important because the Emirate had been hit by the financial crisis and some raised doubts about its future (on the plane I read reports of expats who had moved out here for a tax free life in the sun, but were apparently abandoning their cars in the airport car park because there was no work left for them to do).

I soon realised that Dubai was still here and doing very nicely thank you very much (and the airport car park story was discredited because there weren’t even enough spaces for the number of cars said to have been left). And on every trip I’ve made to the city since, it seems busier and shows no signs of slowing down.

There are still people in the UK who will write Dubai off as one big shopping mall, but I often find these people have not even visited the country. Yes, there are some mammoth retail emporiums (and more are being built), however you don’t need to set foot in these for your holiday to be enjoyable if you don’t want to. There are plenty of other things to do.

The beach scene has evolved considerably in recent years and if you just want to lie in the sun or swim in the ocean for a week, Dubai could be the place for you. Guidebooks don’t make enough of the fact that there are some great public sandy beaches, so you don’t need to be staying in one of the luxury (so expensive) hotels to be able to enjoy the seaside.

I’ve always stayed with a friend who lives and works in Dubai, but still enjoy nipping into these fabulous resort hotels during the day for a drink or a bite to eat (the food, from countries the world over is excellent). And some venues wouldn’t even notice if you decided to take a dip in their outdoor pools along the coast.

 

 
Dubai Marina has also come on leaps and bounds in recent years. There is now at least seven kilometres (probably more since the signs were printed) of landscaped walkways around the water’s edge. I enjoy stopping for a coffee at the charming cafes while soaking in the serene scene of luxury yachts bobbing about on the blue waters.

 
Many other beach resorts in the wider region (including Tunisia and Egypt) are currently off limits and so Dubai is the obvious option that some will choose for winter sun. Yes, staying in the United Arab Emirates doesn’t come cheap, but if you shop around and aren’t overly picky about which hotel you want to stay at, there are some good deals to be had.

Its a place that feels safe to walk around, the streets are clean and people are generally friendly. When it’s cold and pouring down with rain back home, who could complain about heading to the wonderful paradise that is Dubai?

Hillbrow is a central suburb of Johannesburg where you don’t want to linger at any time in the day. “It’s notorious for violent crime,” said my guide as we drove along the streets with the windows closed and doors locked. He remembers the joy of coming here as a boy to a video game shop, but now wants to get away as quickly as possible.

Even the private security firms that have sprung up in Johannesburg to defend people and their property apparently don’t want to accept contracts here because they don’t want to ruin their good reputations. Drugs are openly dealt on the streets, there are seedy strip joints aplenty and residential buildings are seized and occupied at will.

On another side of the city it’s a different story. In Maboneng – just to the east of the Central Business District (CBD) – you feel like you are in London’s Shoreditch district. Artists have reclaimed former warehouse buildings which had been left abandoned and turned them into trendy galleries, attracting both tourists and locals wanting somewhere to chill out. The walls of buildings are treated like giant canvases and are covered in colourful graffiti.  

Visiting early this afternoon, I stopped in a lively courtyard set back from the main street where people were enjoying lunch at the trestle tables. As some enjoyed a salsa dance class on a raised terrace, the area around me was packed with people drinking coffees and eating tasty burgers – and being Sunday, roast dinners were also flying out of the kitchen (I feel a bit of a traitor to my country for not having one).  

On the stretch outside, where artists sold their colourful wares on the pavement, I found more trendy coffee shops, as well as pizza restaurants and bars boasting craft beers. A little further along, there was also the 12 Decades Art Hotel with eye catching art works in the foyer.

 
What I found here was urban rejuvenation at its best. While crime is falling in the CBD – where Johannesburg first sprang up as a mining town little more than a century ago – it still exists, to the extent that huge hotels stand as empty shells because security is still considered inadequate and many businesses still see it as a no go area.
Many international visitors confine themselves to Johannesburg’s plush northern suburbs with modern shopping malls, like Rosebank and Sandton, but it’s nice to see determined people wanting to make a difference closer to the CBD.

For me finding Maboneng was a real treat and a perfect spot to take a break during a busy day of sightseeing (where I discovered much history, which I’ll chart in detail at Pastinthepresent.net in the coming weeks). My hope is that what has occurred here can be replicated elsewhere in the city and Johannesburg can shake off its reputation as a place of crime.

Sitting in a pop-up bar, with stools and tables carved out of tree trunks, we could have been in Glastonbury.

But the view from our decking wasn’t that of music stages and muddy fields of tents. Rather we were perched halfway up a mountain in northern Albania, overlooking amazing alpine scenery.

The bar stop provided welcome refreshment on the first of a gruelling three day hike, the first leg taking us – five friends – from Thethi (probably the most rural place I have ever been) to Valbone.

After a night in a charming guest house, where we were served soup, cheeses, dauphinois potatoes, chocolate tiffin and a round of beers, we carried on with our hiking, getting near to the summit of Maja Roshit.

The steep ascents and descents made the walking tough going, but the views meant everything was worthwhile. And every now and again, enterprising shepherd children appeared from what seemed like nowhere to sell us cool Exotic Fantas and converse in a few words of broken English outside their parents’ (or grandparents’) summer houses in the hills. 

 On night two of the hike we had planned to wild camp in what had been billed by one account as an “inviting meadow”. But given the heavy going path and the fact that the light was fading, we realised we wouldn’t make that spot.

Our main concern was finding water. Finally one of my friends spotted a tap on a pipe leading down from the mountains to an old abandoned house in a clearing in the trees in the place where we had decided to spend the night.

Dinner was a hot Batchelor’s chicken pasta meal cooked on a portable camping stove. Once we had eaten, we got into bivvy bags and lay down on our roll mats under the stars. Fire flies operated like flash flights, briefly illuminating the sky every few minutes.

I thought about the possibility of bears (we had been told they were around these parts) charging at us from the forest next to where we had pitched camp or bandits rolling up at the spooky-looking house in the clearing (the latter appeared like it once could have been a youth hostel, but now contained lots of graffiti). However, for the most part, bar a few animals rustling in the leaves or birds calling out, things were quiet and I got some sleep.

On the third and final day, we continued our hike through more amazing valleys and over limestone gorges – attempting to make conversation with shepherds hanging out in their summer houses along the way – before arriving back at Thethi.

Considered the centre of hiking in these parts, the village is a popular base for Eastern European tourists (we didn’t see any other English) during the summer months. We had been a little apprehensive visiting, as a week before we arrived two Czech tourists were shot dead as they returned to their camp site, but with the prime suspect reportedly caught and commentary suggesting it to be an isolated incident, we stuck with our plans.

The people in the guest house we stayed at were extremely friendly and, as had been the case in Valbone, we were cooked a lovely rustic evening meal and breakfast the next before carrying on with our journey across Albania.

Getting out of the Thethi valley was just as slow as it was getting in. The road was steep and there was little room to pass cars, so we had to keep reversing where it was a little wider. Yes, it was frustrating, but the beautiful scenery made it all worthwhile.

We stayed in some nice hotels elsewhere in Albania, including in the seaside resort of Duressi and the gloomy capital of Tirana (both places where museums didn’t open when they should and air conditioning was limited in the sweltering heat). But these places are not the country’s highlights. You want to head to the mountains to appreciate the best of Albania – look elsewhere for beaches and nice cities.

Our big question about rural northern Albania was – why don’t more people visit a place that’s more beautiful than most other parts of Europe? It’s time for the Albanian government to work harder to market itself to overseas tourists. This could give the boost that this country so desperately needs.