Around India in Eight Days

Indians are the Italians of Asia and vice versa. Every man in both countries is a singer when he is happy, and every woman is a dancer when she walks to the shop at the corner. For them, food is the music inside the body and music is the food inside the heart. Gregory David Roberts

After recently traveling in India I am absolutely amazed reflecting back on the mad touring schedule my dad had us on back in 1987.

In 8 days, as a family of four, we did 8 cities, went from North to South then back again, spending about 30 hours on trains.

Dad figured if we sightsaw by day and traveled overnight we could pack a lot in. What he hadn’t factored into the schedule was Delhi fog, Delhi belly and delays, delays, delays. Not to mention the lavish ceremonies (more on that later.) But dad was nothing if not an ambitious and optimistic traveler. 

Dad’s passion for India was piqued during his trip to Delhi in 1959 – more on that in this post.

He had always wanted to share the love with his family, and so we stopped off on our way to an Irish Christmas with mum’s family.

Really the itinerary should have taken 3 weeks but between school ending and Christmas we had 8 days to cover 8 destinations. 

We started in Delhi. Culture shock almost sent mum into meltdown. 

As a shy 15 year old, I remember Delhi as a city of layers, layers of culture, religion, history and modernity: Old Delhi, New Delhi, sacred cows lying in the middle of the road, men in suits, women in saris, the grand opulence of Raj hotels and elaborate temples, contrasted with limbless beggars, hands outstretched in the dirt. 

Layers of houses, stacked ramshackle on top of each other – looking a little like a house of cards that threatened to collapse at any minute. As if the bustle and perpetual motion of the place keeps it together in a delicate dynamic balance.

It’s a city of exuberant life, colour and joy, intermingled with poverty, disease, suffering. All right there in the streets. India is never dull.

Yes, it was confronting. Arriving in Delhi in the middle of the night, stepping over sleeping bodies to get out of the airport. It was a foggy December and all I can remember is that smell, the people, and the frenetic drive to our hotel.

The fog was so thick all you could see was the headlights reflected in it for about a metre ahead. Out of this jumped people, cars, cows as the driver erractically veered across five lanes of traffic to dodge them.

It was so otherworldly. I had never been or seen anywhere like it. People literally mobbed our car. Waving wares and missing limbs, begging.

Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken. Frank Herbert

As much as I loved the grand mosques and temples of Old Delhi, the famous and magnificent Taj Mahal, the jungle of Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and the Mysore Palace – see how much we got around? My fondest memories of India are by far the two days we spent in a tiny town near Tenali, in Andhra Pradesh.

In some ways it is impossible to really experience India at her most authentic unless you get far away from the chaos of her cities and experience the divine hospitality of traditional India.

The story of how we ended up in a tiny village in the middle of India being welcomed like visiting dignitaries is pure dad. 

Dad was one of those enthusiastic travellers who would meet a person once and take them seriously when they politely said “If you’re ever in my country come and stay!” This led to an awful lot of uncomfortable stays at near-strangers houses, where the spouse, while eyeing off my brother’s fourth helping of roast dinner, would hiss at their husband “Where do you know these people from?”

Not so in Tenali. In the Indian tradition, a guest must be treated like a God. So when our family arrived – after a rather trying 10-hour train ride – we were met at the station and driven to town where the headmistress of the school and her family welcomed us into their home with a sumptious feast.

Travel makes you modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world. Gustave Flaubert

The next day we were taken on a tour of the area, down to the lake, past the fields. Stopping for a picnic in a lemon grove – which had unfortunately just been manured but was very pretty if you held your nose.

It was a magnificent place. Fields worked by women in saris under a bursting yellow sun, men singing as they made chai for the boat workers on the lake.

Little did we know this tour was a ploy to keep us out of the village long enough to set up the welcoming ceremony.

You see the reason we were in Tenali is because my dad – a teacher at a prestigious private school – had been sending old textbooks and library books to the school in Tenali for many years.

As such he was considered something of a benefactor and was to be commemorated with a lavish welcome. He was also considered quite an expert on education as the editor of the Australian Journal of Learning Disabilities.

After a brass band, a traditional dancing display and a speech lauding my dad and welcoming our family, dad was invited to give his keynote speech.

Er. What?

Dad was completely unprepared to give a talk. He froze. As mum describes it “he sat there like a stunned mullet and then told me to speak for him.” 

Now my mum’s fear of public speaking and lack of word skills are pretty legendary. This is a woman whose only contribution on a birthday card is ‘love, mum.’ 

Ever the quick-thinker (and let’s face it, well used to problem-solving my dad out of awkward social situations) she told him to do a question and answer session so he could talk about things the students were interested in. Genius! Saved!

Once they asked dad a question he was off and running. In fact, eventually they had to wind him up so we could all eat.

The entire community had turned out for the ceremony. It’s not easy to impress a 15 year old girl, but that day I was so awestruck by the hospitality, the generosity, the lavish spectacle of the whole experience and so proud of my dad. 

Dad and I will forever share our love of India. And yes, I have taken liberties, glossed over the illness, the hardships, the confronting aspects of India. But honestly what has stayed with me all these years was the welcome and the vivid beauty of the land and the people.

India is beyond statement, for anything you say, the opposite is true. Sarah MacDonald 

From fun and games in Rome to umbrellas, conkers, and galoshes in Kent

This post could have been sub-titled ‘Adventures of a travelling teacher,’ but really the title is quite long enough already. It seems I have inherited Dad’s love of the long and verbose sentence.

This letter marks the end of Dad’s full time travelling, and the commencement of his seven-year post at an English public boarding school in Kent. But fear not, the travels didn’t stop, they just were squeezed into weekends and school holidays.

This trip saw Dad back in Rome for the Olympic Games of 1960. His cousin was competing in the rowing events at the Games, so it was very exciting for dad to be there.

“So you wish to conquer in the Olympic games, my friend? And I too, by the Gods, and a fine thing it would be! But first mark the conditions and the consequences, and then set to work. You will have to put yourself under discipline; to eat by rule, to avoid cakes and sweetmeats; to take exercise at the appointed hour whether you like it or no, in cold and heat; to abstain from cold drinks and from wine at your will; in a word, to give yourself over to the trainer as to a physician. Then in the conflict itself you are likely enough to dislocate your wrist or twist your ankle, to swallow a great deal of dust, or to be severely thrashed, and, after all these things, to be defeated.” Epictetus

Making history was a fighter called Cassius Clay, later to become Mohammed Ali, who took home gold at the 1960 Games. And well, the rest, as they say, is history.

22/9/1960

Dear Mum and Dad,

My apologies for not writing sooner, in spite of the fairly hectic life I have been leading lately, it was mainly slackness on my part that let it drag. It in no way reflects my feelings of pleasure on Mim’s dramatic step. It was certainly a great shock and a pleasant surprise, I send them both my heartiest congratulations and I hope they will both be very happy. The prospect of having both you and the newlyweds over here shortly is most exciting and you can’t imagine how I am looking forward to it and I am very pleased to hear the wedding will not affect your travel plans at all. It seems to be working out very well.

By the way I just remembered two letters were sent out by surface mail as one hence the delay. I have 4 letters of yours to acknowledge. Have not heard about the insurance claim on the camera yet. Would you find out from Wastell and Cutter whether the prescription I sent you compares unfavorably with the last one they have and if so would they recommend another test?

I am very pleased to hear that the sarees have arrived at last, and so pleased that Mary likes them. There should be more things arriving soon, particularly some small carved animals in sandalwood. I was glad to hear that Ronald likes his new job and is getting good experience and pay, also to hear that John Scott is doing well at Grammar. Could you please send his mother’s address to me?

As far as Mary’s diploma is concerned, it will only carry weight in the Private schools over here and the shortage in these schools is felt more in the Primary section than the Sub-primary. But I don’t think it will too difficult to get a job in a good school if you live in. The difficulty is to find a school in, say, the Oxford area for example.

I am settling down at Coursehorn quite nicely, the people are very nice. It’s isolated and out in the country but really quite pleasant. One drawback is that my sleeping quarters are a five minutes walk across paddocks, or down a country lane from the main building.

Have made great use of my new duffle coat, gumboots and umbrella! We have had one or two nice days but on the whole it has been dull, dank, and miserable. And during the bad period a few days ago, which you would probably have read about in the newspapers, the shops in Cranbrook Village were flooded about 18 inches to a foot in water but it didn’t affect us here! One of our trees was struck by lightening!

I enjoyed very much the Games but not as much as if I had been doing them with a friend.

I was expecting to meet a German girl in Rome but she wrote to say she was recovering from an attack of pneumonia and couldn’t make it. Life in Rome nevertheless was quite hectic and I got a bit tired of it towards the end, so I disposed of my last two tickets and got a seat on a student flight to London on the afternoon of the 7^th. It was half the normal fare £13/10/- and much more comfortable than a train. I felt that it was not worth rushing through Germany in less than a week as I originally planned so I took the opportunity to get back quickly and cheaply.

However it didn’t quite work out that way I left for the airport at 3:15pm on the 7^th with the others, passing the 50 km walk on the way and finally got on the plane and prepared to take off. We then were told to get out again as the plane’s brakes were not responding and after a meal we were sent back to Rome, given another free meal at the air terminal.We were then taken on an all night coach journey to Rimini, about 60 miles from Venice, to catch another flight to London at 5am.

We arrived at the airport at 4.30am, just in time to see our airplane start to take off. The ground staff knew nothing of our coming and called the plane back, only to find there were four seats short. I volunteered to stay back and three others were drawn out of a hat. So I spent 24 hours in Remini at the airline’s expense, staying at the best hotel and having all I wanted in the way of food, cigarettes, and drinks. Good value for £13/10/- eh? I finally got into London about 9am on the 9^th September, Rimini is a fashionable seaside resort and quite a pleasant little spot!

Thanks for posting the Aussie papers but I need the books, I think they may be in the chest of drawers in my room.

Life at the school so far has been easy and I haven’t had a great deal to do in the way of teaching. I have a group of boys most mornings and do remedial coaching with them.

On the weekend on the 15^th I have been invited to visit Stratford-Upon-Avon with a friend I met in Amsterdam.

At the moment I am fighting a cold which I got in Rimini. The germ went to the left eye but it is much better now.

At the moment the boys are in the middle of the conker contests, a national pastime now, I have to supervise them when on duty to ensure fair play.

Love

Chris

Mim, is Dad’s sister Mary, not my mum, Mary, who is also known as Mim. If you think that’s confusing try coming from a family of males who called themselves by their middle name so my uncle Stewart Ronald, is Ron, while my dad, Ronald Christopher, is Chris. My grandpa, George Ronald, was Ron too. Got that? Good. It’s the Irish blood, I’m sure of it. Why be simple and straightforward when you can be convoluted and confusing!

Anyway Mim’s news was that she was getting married. Dramatic for dad due to the fact at nearly thirty, he was the oldest and the only unmarried sibling.

One thing that never ceases to bemuse me reading dad’s letters is the pace of communication. Letters took weeks; the saris dad sent from India seemed to take about seven months to arrive.

These days if my webpage doesn’t load in a second, I feel impatient. How fast everything is, how much we have sped life up. I don’t know if it’s such a good thing. Patience is a virtue, my grandmother always said. I guess she’d know after waiting for Dad’s parcels to arrive!

I love dad’s story of the ‘quick and cheap’ flight back from Rome. It seems the ubiquitous cheap airline convoluted delay story is not a new one. – at least dad knew how to make a party of it.

Conkers is a traditional children’s game in Britain played using the seeds of Horse Chestnut trees. The game is played by two players, each with a conker threaded onto a piece of string: they take turns striking each other’s conker until one breaks.

Britain is believed to be the only country in the world where the game of conkers is traditionally played with horse chestnuts in the autumn. Horse chestnut trees were first introduced to England in the late 16th century from Eastern Europe.

The first recorded game of conkers was on the Isle of Wight in 1848 and was modelled on a 15th century game played with hazelnuts, also known as cobnuts.

Ah! The english and their games.

Images:

Olympic Ticket

Cassius Clay

Olympic stamps

Olympic coin

Cranbrook

Rimini

I am from Barcelona…

Dad somehow went on a student trip to Barcelona, studying Spanish at the university and living cheap in university accommodation. Despite never having studied Spanish before, he had classes in the morning at the College and then the rest of the day was free to experience Barcelona. He was doing somewhat of an ‘Eat Pray Love’ before Elizabeth Gilbert was in nappies.

Barcelona, archives of courtesy, shelter of the foreigners, hospital of the poor, father-land of the brave , vengeance of the offended and pleasant correspondence of firm friendship, and in site, and in beauty, unique. Don Miguel de Cervantes

One of his favourite places, Sitges‘ has an arty reputation dating back to the late 19th century, when Spanish painter Santiago Rusiñol took up residence there during the summer. The town when Dad was there, became a centre for the 1960s counterculture in Spain, then still under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, and became known as “Ibiza in miniature”.

9/8/60 American Express, Barcelona

Dear Mum and Dad,

I hope all is well at home. This Barcelona trip has certainly been good value so far and great fun. We arrived in Barcelona on Tuesday after a 30 hour train ride, which was pretty tiring.

We were placed for accommodation in one of the university colleges in the fashionable part of the city. We are very comfortably placed in double rooms (I have a superior room to most with a balcony!) and the meals are quite substantial and good.

We usually start with a salad, followed by a typical Spanish concoction, then steak and ships and finally fruit of some kind, usually watermelon. Drinks (local) are extremely cheap 7 ½ D will buy a glass of superior sherry, port type, or ‘crème de menthe’ or similar liqueur.

 

We spend two hours in the morning at lectures and then the rest of the day is free. I have been on a number of excursions to see a bullfight, Spanish music and dancing, and to visit the towns of Sitges and Tarragona (once a famous Roman settlement); and two original El Greco paintings of St Peter and Madeline at Sitges.

Barcelona is a beautiful city on the same idea as Paris but substituting the parks and gardens of Paris for beaches. It is very warm here and I am doing a lot of swimming and I also succeeded in getting a bit brown.

The people here are gay and friendly and show this in their clothes. They have some excellent shops here which compete favourably with Paris or London.

I lost my glasses last Thursday at the beach so I went to the local firm and had my eyes tested with the help of an interpreter and the new pair were ready with 24 hours. They look very smart and function all right, but I am a bit concerned that the doctor, as far as I could gather, didn’t test each eye separately. I enclose the prescription for you to see and comment on. The new pair of glasses cost the equivalent of 3/7/6. Which is much better than getting it on National Health in the U.K. So the English people tell me.

Before I forget I would be very grateful if you would find my Russian books (3) and papers and post them over to me at my school in Kent. I intend to keep at it during the Winter months and they should arrive, if posted as soon as possible, in time for when I will need them at the end of October. It should be cheaper having them sent over than buying new ones. If you’re writing to Spain bear in mind it probably takes 10 days to arrive (by airmail) as postal services are not very reliable in Spain. You’d best address future mail to AMERICAN EXPRESS ROME or c/o Coursehorn, Cranbrook, KENT.

The night before I left for Spain, I had a meal at the Boykett’s flat and saw David and Peter as well as Nancy. Nan said that Ken was much better and in a private nursing home. They will not be able to go to the Games and they gave me a ticket for the rowing, which I could use.

The bullfight I attended was very interesting but I was still very disgusted by it. Six bulls were eventually killed between 6-8pm. One bull trying to escape leapt over the first of two fences separating the ring from the public seats, another tossed the matador, who recovered quickly to go on. The most fantastic and disgusting sight however, was to see the last bull being cut and skinned for some butcher shop, under the stands, as we came out to go to the College.

The most interesting part was the ritual of the sport but I will tell of this in my next letter.

Love Chris

My first exposure to Barcelona was through one of Dad and my earliest shared pleasures, ‘Fawlty Towers’ – God how we’d laugh at the antics of Basil and Sybil, Polly and Manuel…

It’s even funnier because one of Dad’s best friend’s bears an uncanny resemblance, in looks and temperament to Basil Fawlty, which just made us laugh all the harder. Ah, who says television can’t bring people together.

I did not decide to go to sleep, even though I wished to, so I could rise early and contemplate, in daylight, this city, unknown to me: Barcelona, capital of Catalonia. Hans Christian Andersen

Source:

Wikipedia

Photos:

Sitges barcelonaholidayapartments.co.uk/blog

Sitges beaches media.ticmate.com

Sitges apartment Apartmentbarcelona.com

Roman Aquaduct Tarragona wikimedia

Beach 1960 blogspot.com

Barcelona city Spanishwalkingtrails.com

Bullfight ryancore310.wordpress.com

The (Swiss) hills are alive with… cars and girls

Switzerland would be a mighty big place if it were ironed flat. Mark Twain

Switzerland is renowned for being neutral, despite neighbouring the occupied territories and their invaders in two World Wars – awkward!

A country whose army is famous, not for actually fighting, but for it’s super-handy camping knife.

A country that is landlocked by three of Europe’s most distinct cultures: the clean-cut, super-efficient, clock-making types in the German border region of the Northeast; the laconic, wine-drinking denizens of the French-Swiss border region to the southwest; south of the Alps, the coffee-drinking sun worshippers in the Italian border region; and in the centre, the classic Swiss mountain landscapes with their yodelling lonely goat herder types.

Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture. Ernest Hemingway  

Judging by Dad’s letter to his younger brother Ron, the main attractions were the cars, and the girls.

Geneva, 14/3/1960

Dear Ronald,

I hope you are getting over your operation. A knee operation is a bloody painful business, apart from the frustrating part of getting back to normal.

Being the only one at home at the moment, I suppose you have wishes of acquiring wings to fly to the land of your dreams, I don’t doubt for one moment that dreamland would be Switzerland.

Although it is not he season for tourists, many skiers may be seen making their way to the mountains, the beautiful snow-capped Alps, by way of car or train.

In addition in Geneva, they are holding The European Motor Show, which I attended today, and as well as the female chassis, there is many a four-wheeled one that would set your heart a flutter.

Apart from the latest model cars there is a magnificent display of boats and outboard engines (the Johnson dominating), camping equipment, caravans, farm machinery, and accessories. It fair took your breath away!

The only drawback was that many of the staff on the stands had a very poor knowledge of English and it was very difficult to get information. The folders were usually printed in French and German.

Of the sports cars the following made my hair curl: Alfa Romeo 2000 CVII ‘Spider’ (price in Australia £2490); Mercedes Benz 300L Sports; Fiat Abarth 850 (£2200); Maserati 5000; Bristol, Aston Martin; Ferrari Sports; Healey 3000 Deluxe Special (it had unusual back seats); Healey ‘Sprite’ Special; and the Valiant V200 14PS.

I hope these bits of information mean more to you than they do to me!

Of the sedans, the Rolls Royce dominated but the engine that can run on many types of fuel including peanut-butter was not yet available for inspection.

The others that pleased were: Panhard Citroen ‘Tigre’; Rambler, Vespa 400, Rover (it had its gearstick going under the dashboard to the engine, instead of in the flooring between the two front seats); Plymouth Fury; Studebaker Lark; Dodge Polara (it had a second back seat which was reversed to enable people to look out the back windscreen); Ghia Torina (looked like a space-ship and also had a second backseat reversed as an observation seat.)

The latest model Wolseley 6-99; Oldsmobile and Mercedes Benz were beautiful looking cars. Apart from the cars there were all kinds of aircraft, camping equipment – including portable transistor radios, TV sets and rotary grillers – they use to grill chicken these days – which all run off a battery. There was a fantastic caravan which consisted of 3 bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, and a lounge which included a 21-inch TV set!

Comparing Geneva with Zurich is rather difficult. They are so completely different. I think for the atmosphere and friendliness I prefer Zurich. In Zurich amongst other things I saw a very interesting exhibition which was being held on the theme of the ‘History of the Cinema.’ And today (now 15th March) in Geneva I visited the United Nations Building and listened in on a debate on Human Rights.

I have had beautiful weather in Switzerland and the food has been very good, they certainly know how to eat, the Swiss.

I have posted today by surface mail some of those felt badges to you. Badges from Athens, Rome, Pisa, Capri, and Switzerland, of varying quality, but they were about 4/- each and the best I could get at the time, so I hope you like them.

Tell Mum and Dad when they return that I collected their letters at Zurich and they were most welcome.

They were the first contact since I left India on January 31st.

Tell Dad that my Olympic Games tickets include the swimming.

Best wishes to you and Mary, Chris.

Ah, brothers, no matter how old they are, they can always talk in the universal language of cars.

I felt like shouting, enough cars, but what about SWITZERLAND? Then I saw the images of the cars, pretty impressive.

I guess we are still waiting for the peanut-butter fuelled one.

When I read this letter to Dad, not yet typed up – which didn’t please him as apparently there are people WAITING on the next post. I had the original folder of letters with me, and I noticed there was a gap of about four months in 1960.

No letters and no recollection from Dad where he was.

There was Paris In April, and the beautiful model (of the two-legged variety) he romanced in Germany, whose mother refused to entertain him because he wasn’t German, wasn’t Catholic, and lived in Australia. More on that later.

But where in the world was Dad in May-August 1960? He was at the Rome Olympic Games on August 25, but between Paris in April and then? Somewhere in Europe.

Dad told me to check his vast collection of slides, so I may soon be lost in Europe too.

I love a good travel mystery as much as the next person – did someone say Carmen Sandiego?

Stay tuned, I’ll keep you posted.

 

Source:

http://wikitravel.org/en/Switzerland

 

Images:

Title: goat-in-the-swiss-alps

Swiss Army Knife

Goat herder DONALD MCLEISH/National Geographic Creative

train-to-a-tunnel-in-the-alps

Alfa-Romeo_1100

catherine-deneuve-style-evolution-1960s-rolls-royce

amc_armitron_experiment_car

Marine car

Postcard_of_The_Swiss_Alps

Zurich

 Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

La dolce vita a Italia – Roma, Napoli, Pompei, Firenze, Milano

 

Please don’t be concerned that I’m going to be dropping in and out of Italian in this post. The title pretty much exhausts my knowledge of the language. Oh, and ‘attraversiamo’, from Eat Pray Love. Okay, that’s it now, done.

I have to say reading Dad’s letters is no easy feat. He was a master of squeezing about four pages of writing into a single aerogram – remember them? Which makes reading them akin to code-breaking. I think he missed his calling at Bletchley Park.

Ah, Italy. I have only been there in E M Forster novels and Merchant Ivory films, and of course, Eat Pray Love. As such I have an impossibly romantic notion of the place. Having met plenty of Italians overseas though, I imagine it is less like travelling demurely with a maiden aunt and more like getting pinched on the bum, a lot.

If every city has a word, I imagine Rome’s is romance, La Dolce Vita.

Rome is the city of echoes, the city of illusions, and the city of yearning. Giotto di Bondone

Florence 29/2/60

Dear Mum and Dad,

I hope all is well at home I am having quite a swift tour of Italy which has been quite interesting but rather tiring. The food varies but is mostly starch, and for the money, not very nourishing, you would get a very miserable meal 10/- in a cafe.

Since I wrote last I have visited the Sistine Chapel and seen Michelangelo’s famous painting on the ceiling and also work by Raphael. I also visited the usual tourist spots. Roman Forum, Colosseum, Piazza di Spagna, Keats, and Shelley’s memorial and the old Appian Way.

 On Feb 20th my friend Pat and I took a train to Naples, to which we both took an instant dislike. It is a dirty place with many pestering beggars so we took a ferry to Sorrento, which is a really charming place. We booked into a lovely hotel with a superb view of the bay and most inexpensive. It is quite the nicest place I have stayed at.

The Sunday saw us on a Ferry to Capri. It i certainly a very romantic spot – a great tourist centre and of course very expensive. There are ways of avoiding the expensive aspect of this and I have written a letter to David (Dad’s cousin, an olympic rower) outlining the economies he might like to use if he comes to Rome for the Olympic Games.

We spent the day walking round the island past Mussolini’s castle, old ruins, beautiful houses and gardens, and along the steep winding road, which you look down from quite a height onto this beautiful blue sea. We did not go to the Blue Grotto because the tide was not right.

We then caught the ferry back to Sorrento. On Monday we went in a local bus to Amalfi on what must be one of the most scenic driveways of the world. It is a fantastic drive along a steep, narrow, mountainous road with a sheer drop to the sea on one side and mountain peaks soaring up on the other with orange and olive plantations and vineyards on the side of the mountains. We were accompanied by a new Australian couple from Brisbane.

On the next two days we visited the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Unfortunately it was too cloudy to go up the Mount Vesuvius but the ruins were very interesting. Many of the houses were still standing and were very well preserved. Some of bodies were visible and distorted with the agony of their fate.

You could see the charcoal remains of loaves of bread and other food stuffs, the tools they used, and cooking implements, keys, cut-throat razors etc. all indicating a very high standard of living. Many two and three story houses were still standing. The excavations at Pompeii were commenced in the 18th century and are still continuing. They cover an area of about a square mile! It is an extraordinary place.

Our next port of call was Naples and there we stayed overnight and visited their local museum which house quite a lot of the artwork and relics from Pompeii and the Herculaneum. We then hurried back to Rome.

For extra cost we were able to fly to Pisa on the 28th. We took a bus to Florence, with the idea of returning to Pisa on the 3rd to fly to Milan. We passed the leaning tower on the way, it is quite impressive.

The bus took nearly four hours to get to Florence we though that it never would. It went on and on stopping everywhere and we were very fortunate in getting a seat.

Florence is a beautiful city with beautiful shops, particularly for leather goods. One is always reminded her, and all over Italy, how courteous and pleasant their policemen are. They are very pleased to help and in Florence most of them seem to be able to speak English very well. Today we visited Loggia della Signoria which is famous for its architecture and statues including the famous ‘Rape of the Sabines’.

Next door is the Palazzo Vecchio which dates back to 1298. It’s chief interests are the big, rambling, ornate rooms with paintings on the walls and ceilings, and many fine sculptures. The chief drawback to these kinds of places is that there are so many of these sorts of buildings and museums about and usually the lighting is so bad that it is very difficult to see anything. I get so sick now of heavy Roman statues and gaudy art that I probably miss a lot. I don’t know how I will see a fraction of what there is to see.

Love from Chris

Oh, how magnificent a problem, to be concerned not to see all the treasures of Italy. It strikes me that these travels are very much in the style I recall from childhood. Dad is a great believer in building Rome in a day, well, if not building it, at least touring it!

Our travels were always fly-by-night tours, we would spend a day, or at the most two in a place, madly scrambling around trying to see everything, then boom! Time to move on. Decades before the Race Around the World reality TV shows, Dad had that style of travel down.

As such, he has seen so much of the world, he is a tireless traveller who will walk from sunrise to sunset to experience a place in its entirety, to soak it up and be spat out into the next place to start over again. It’s a hell of a way to travel.

Dad told me another Italian story last night at dinner. His American friend, who turned up again in Rome, I think Dad missed a major romance right there, insisted Dad have a haircut to tame his wild, colonial locks. They found a hairdresser in Sorrento, who Dad claims, worked by picking up single strands of hair and cutting them one at a time – he was there all day. Probably the only time Dad sat still on the whole trip! It does speak volumes of the Italian way of savouring every moment, every sensation in life.

I am inspired by the regal self-assurance of this city, so grounded and rounded, so amused and monumental, knowing she is held securely in the palm of history. I would like to be like Rome when I am an old lady.  Elizabeth Gilbert

 

Images:

Title Image: Trevi fountain walksofitaly.com

Michangelo’s Creation of Adam Sistene Chapel wikimedia.org

Appian Way romanhomes.com

Capri torresaracenacapri.com

Amalfi Coast Drive shedexpedition.com

Herculaneum blogspot.com

Pompeii wikimedia.org

Leaning tower Pisa blogspot.com

Loggia della Signoria esploriamo.com

Among the ruins of Athens

The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown. Paul Theroux

Athens is one of the world’s oldest cities, continuously inhabited for at least 7000 years, with a recorded history dating back for 3,400 years. That’s old.

Known as the both the ‘cradle of civilisation’ and the ‘birthplace of democracy’; legacies of the golden age leadership by the great statesman, Pericles in 5th Century BC.

Pericles was a leader of vision, who promoted the arts, embarked on a building program that included the Acropolis and the Parthenon, and founded democracy.

Let there be light! Said Liberty, and like sunrise from the sea, Athens arose! Percy Bysshe Shelley

The playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides flourished in Athens during Pericles’ time, as did the historians Herodotus and Thucydides, the physician Hippocrates, and the philosopher Socrates. Just the founders of modern literature, history, philosophy, and medicine, is all!

The Greek playwrights wrote extensively about Hubris, the overweening pride – of the “pride that comes before the fall” variety – that was the tragic flaw in every Greek hero or heroine.

While my Dad is a proud man, fortunately he has more of the Australian-variety pride. The laconic, laid-back pride that enjoys lazing on a deck chair with a beer, and a terry-towelling hat, with the cricket blaring on the radio, watching the pretty girls walk by on the beach.

“Bird-watching” dad used to call it – you could get away with that kind of political incorrectness in the 1970’s.

Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts and eloquence, native to famous wits. John Milton

Hotel New Angleterre

Constitution Square
Athens 13/2/1960

Dear Mum and Dad,

This letter will not be as long as I would like as I am leaving Athens tomorrow.

I arrived in Athens, one week ago last Sunday. Being my first taste of a European Winter, it could have been worse, but it was an unpleasant change from Cairo. My health is much improved and I am standing up to it quite well, but I am sure I am losing weight.

I hope everything is alright at home.

I have had my plane ticket rerouted to include stop-offs at Milan, Zurich, Geneva, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Amsterdam, Paris, London. I thought I might make the most of my plane fare.

I am frankly disappointed with Athens, it has not the atmosphere of Cairo and its treasures are not anything like as well preserved.

Whether the lack of contacts here made any difference – perhaps it did.

 

Fortunately I have this American girl I met in Delhi to blunder around with. We visited the museums, the Acropolis, the Parthenon, the Theseum, the Temple of Zeus – to these we usually walked and ended up taking hours longer than we should have!

On Wednesday we went on an organised tour to Delphi (home of Oedipus Rex and other heroes).

Here the mountain scenery was breathtakingly beautiful and we passed through many quaint little villages.

The condition of the exhibits in most of the museums was generally poor, badly arranged and labelled and most of the labels in English were spelt incorrectly.

Usually the famous pieces war scattered among many different museums and you had to hunt around a lot of smashed up statues to find them. There was one exception – the museum attached to the Theseum. It was beautifully arranged and labelled. Most of the material was recovered from people’s graves – generally jewellery, pottery, and other personal belongings.

On display was an opened grave of a baby and a small girl exactly as they were found, skeletons, toys etc. Other things of interest were an ancient toilet-training device for children, a ballot machine, water clock, stoves and cooking utensils. There was also a fantastic little statue of Apollo restored from hundreds of tiny pieces of bronze.

This is a mess, I am sorry. I am tired from a late night and rushing to finish this at the airport before I leave for Rome.

Love Chris

Travel is glamorous only in retrospect. Paul Theroux

Athens sounds amazing, rubble and all, but I was much more interested in who this American girl was.

So I quizzed Dad. He said she ‘dropped into his line of sight’ in India several times. Then they caught up in Athens and Italy.

“They are pretty big cities to randomly run into someone Dad, I think she was following you.”

“Well, that would have been very flattering to think so,” he replied.

Absolutely convinced of my hypothesis, I tell him of a dear male friend who I met after we kept ‘bumping into’ each other at Uni.

After we had been friends a while, he confessed he had followed me around that day, so the constant running into each over was less serendipitous, more artifice.

Dad just smiled.

Perhaps I’ll defer to the wisdom of the Greeks on this one…

Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is just opinion. Democritus

Stories like this one, that emerge as Dad opens up about this time of his life are absolutely priceless. Mythology is the study of stories, as I dig further I gain insights into Dad’s personal mythology, an archaeologist piecing together fragments of treasured memories, for generations to come.

One thing I know, that I know nothing. This is the source of my wisdom. Socrates

Source: wikipedia.org

Title image: Map wiki.totalwar.com

Athens postcard flickr.com

Athens Greece postcard rlv.zcache.com

Acropolis excursion.gr

Amphitheatre telegraph.co.uk

Athens trio trinitytheatre.net

Pericles wikimedia.org

Theseum wikimedia.org

Delphi postcard blogspot.com

Acropolis porch of the Caryatids blogspot.com

An unexpected sojourn in Tehran

Most travel, and certainly the rewarding kind, involves depending on the kindness of strangers, putting yourself into the hands of people you don’t know and trusting them with your life. Paul Theroux

Last week when I was visiting dad, I read out the blog post about Delhi for him.

His eyes get a faraway look and a broad smile stretches across his face as he reminisces about his adventures through listening to his own words.

Each week, the blog post triggers a memory of another travel story, last time was his boat trip around Japan, which I must include in a future post, and this time was Tehran.

“Tehran?” I exclaimed, I hadn’t heard of this trip before.

While in Delhi for the teachers’ conference, dad met many people from all parts of the world. A delegate from tehran wrote him a glowing letter of introduction, as you did in 1959, so after the conference off dad set.

Dad was always rather taken with animal hide coats, at this time he was wearing a large sheepskin coat, with his artist looks and black rimmed glasses, he must have looked like a cross between Allan Ginsberg and the wild colonial man.

When he arrived at the airport, the local authorities were very suspicious of him – in fact, everyone seemed to be surveying him up and down left and right. He produced the aforementioned letter and suddenly everyone was falling all over themselves to be of assistance.

“Who wrote the letter?” I asked

“I don’t remember” he said “But they must have been very important”

I’ll say! So typical of dad to be completely without trepidation and always land on his feet, in wonderful surrounds, he has the true spirit of the adventurer.

 

Tehran, 1/2/60

Dear Mum and Dad,

I arrived in Tehran yesterday at 12.30midday. It is a very modern orderly city and the American influence is very marked. It is very cold here, like our winter days with more sun and no winds and rain as yet. The unit of currency is the rial, which is worth about a penny. Taxis are about the cheapest in the world charging a flat rate of 15 rials per trip within he city limits and 50 rials to the airport which is about 28 miles away.

I am staying as a paying-guest with a family who have a two story apartment in the city. Mr Mostofian works in some legal capacity in the Prime Ministers’ Office. He is 36 and has an attractive wife and two adorable little girls 3 and 6. They are very nice people.

In spite of the modern trends, sewerage is still very primitive except in the very wealthy homes, and this isn’t one of them! Another tendency I can’t adjust to is to serve – even in homes – food which is meant to be hot, stone cold. They don’t heat the plate, for one thing, and particularly in cold Tehran, I find this very trying. This seems to be common in Asian countries. For lunch yesterday I had sheep’s tongue soup, sheep’s tongue and a fried egg and weak black tea – all stone cold, and very nice stewed quinces.

Later I met an Englishman who was working as an engineer in Tehran and he took us to an Iranian cafe for dinner and later to an Italian film. I slept well that night being up for 21 hours. At the cafe I had rice, a raw egg, specially cooked mutton chopped up, butter, and some vinegar preparation all mixed together. I also tried what tasted like sweetened condensed milk made sour and watered down. they said it was like yogurt – it was terrible. The next course was simply a ring of pineapple.

My last days in Delhi were spent attending the Republic Day Celebrations, attending to visas, visiting a sikh home and ‘The Modern School‘ which is virtually an English Public School. During the Republic Day I saw a procession of decorated camels, elephants and State floats. Later I saw a demonstration of folk dancing which was very good.

Those parcels have not been sent home yet. The postal regulations are very strict, and they have to be sewn into a cloth bag. I have entrusted them to an Indian friend who will send them as a soon as possible. They should take by ship at least two months.

Love Chris

Dad’s focus on food and people is unwavering, and it really does epitomise his personality so!

Surrounded by the towering Alborz Mountains to its north, and the central desert to its south, Tehran seems in both in geography and history, a city of extremes.

My only experience of Tehran – having never been there – is the book Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. It sounds like a very different place that he experienced.

Which is by the by, except to say that yet again I am reminded how much of this vast planet my dad has walked upon, and what an intrepid traveller he truly is.

I feel so blessed to have this time with him, to share stories and connect with him on a deep, heartfelt level.

You go away for a long time and return a different person – you never come all the way back. Paul Theroux

 

Photo sources:

Title photo dearcoffeeiloveyou.com

Tohid Tunnel cristimoise.files.wordpress.com

Camel migration fouman.com

Tehran bus 1960 shahrefarang.s3.amazonaws.com

Rug washers 1960 media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com

Architecture farm2.static.flickr.com

Men on balcony in Tehran shahrefarang.s3.amazonaws.com

Persian food thelemursarehungry.files.wordpress.com

Painted elephant online.wsj.com

City with mountains static0.therichestimages.com

Iranian women 1960’s viola.bz

 

Delhi – a city of contrasts

The Indian way of life provides the vision of the natural, real way of life. We veil ourselves with unnatural masks. On the face of India are the tender expressions which carry the mark of the Creator’s hand. George Bernard Shaw

The indian capital, Delhi  is known as the City of cities. Delhi is really a cluster of many cities from different eras that, over time, have connected up as one. Throughout its inhabited history – since 6^th century BC – it has been captured, ransacked, and rebuilt many times, especially during the medieval period.

As part of its rich and colourful history, Delhi is believed to be the site of ancient Indraprastha, the mythical capital of the ancient Sanskrit epic poem, the Mahabharata, compiled over a period of 800 years from around 400BCE. Just to give you a sense of how epic it really is, the Mahabharata is roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined.

Due to its central position, Delhi emerged as a major political, cultural and commercial city along the trade routes between other parts of India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh.

Mughal emperor Shah Jahan constructed his namesake walled city, Shahjahanabad, in AD 1639. Shahjahanabad is known today as Old Delhi. The greater part of Old Delhi is still confined within the space of its original walls. In 1911 the British decided to shift the capital of India from Calcutta (Kolkata) to Delhi. A new capital city, New Delhi, was built to the south of the old city during the 1920s.When the British left India in 1947; New Delhi became its national capital and seat of the new government.

So from the end of dad’s solo travels on the Trans-Siberian Railway, let us back up to the beginning of his travels, his trip to India in 1959, on his way to take up a teaching post in England.

He went to India to attend a teachers’ conference in Delhi, The Tenth World Education Conference run by the New education Fellowship.

Dad was so taken by India that he brought us back as  family in 1988. While my very young brother and mother found India overwhelming and frightening, I inherited my father’s love of its intensity.

As he writes to his parents in the following letter, India is a place of contrasts, one minute sipping a cool drink on the balcony of an old Raj hotel, the next being thrown in the throng of people and traffic, of dust and dirt, of hands outstretched to sell, beg, and tussle. It’s not a place for the faint of heart, or the vacant-minded tourist, in India you are truly awake and alive.

Institute of Education, 33 Probyn Road, Delhi 8

28th December 1959

Dear Mum and Dad,

At last I have found time to write to you. I am now staying at St Stephens College on the campus, where I have been allotted a room. I arrived in Bombay, after a 3/4 hour stop at Madras at 10pm, when an hour’s ride in an airline bus took me to the Taj Mahal Hotel, the most expensive in Bombay, fortunately all I paid was 6/- Australian, in tips to the porter, the receptionist, and the man who turned down the blankets. You are quite right about Bombay, it has an odour of its own. It really is a fantastic and depressing sight. I was called at 4am the new day (25th) in time to get to the airport by 6.30 to go to Delhi. On reaching Delhi, I was placed with another Australian whom I knew in a wonderful old Hotel, called the Cecil Runby, Catholics now used as a school. We shared a two room suite with hot and cold water, and a shower, quite posh. We had to move into the College Hostels yesterday, unfortunately there things are not on such a grand scale. Hot water comes up in a bucket every morning, and lavatory basins are in the floor and you have to squat. The room (bed-sitting) is my own and the servants are very pleasant. It is very cold in Delhi at night and I consider the luggage to be very well chosen, particularly the rugs. I didn’t have to buy blankets, they were supplied eventually.

The conference is going to be a big show. There is going to be about 600 people attending from all over the world, including Fiji. I have not yet sighted Margaret. I have met many friendly people and am enjoying myself immensely.

Among these are two Indian students who have shown  me around Delhi and helped me purchase some bangles, sari, and sari blouse for Mary. I will post them on. Another friend is an Englishman who has lived in India for 50 years and is planning a cheap but wonderful trip around India. When I leave India I plan to stop at Athens and Cairo for a few days en route to London.

During the last few days, I have been to the World Agricultural Fair in Delhi which is fantastic. No expense has been spared. Our shows in Melbourne can’t compare to this. Every country except Australia was on display, which made me very ashamed. We attended two very impressive functions today. First was the Official Conference Opening by Nehru which was held in an enormous tent, very colourfully decorated. In the afternoon we were invited to a State Reception given by the mayor of Delhi. We were given the full treatment. Red carpet, fanfares from pipes, official scrolls of welcome, guards of honour etc. Not forgetting that the water fountains had been turned on for us – a great honour from a dry area.

We sat at small tables in colourfully decorated enclosure to eat Indian food while listening to speeches. You will be pleased to hear so far had no worries about money, or my knee which is standing up very well. My Indian friends have taken me to some bazaars and to cafes to taste Indian food. In particular they took me to a cafe called Motimahal where they are nationally famous for their treatment of chicken dishes. It was most unusual, the chicken having the appearance of being smoked. The streets of Delhi are fascinating, the pedestrian reigns supreme, with the traffic zig-zagging like dodgem-cars to avoid them. How there are not more accidents I wouldn’t know. The set up is quite an ordered chaos. I have ridden in buses, horse and cart, scooter-taxis etc. Delhi is a city of contrasts, extreme poverty and wealth, beggars, bodies and cows asleep on footpaths.

With love, Chris

As a shy 15 year old, I remember Delhi as a city of layers, layers of culture, religion, history and modernity: Old Delhi, New Delhi, sacred cows lying in the middle of the road, men in suits, women in saris, the grand opulence of Raj hotels and elaborate temples, contrasted with limbless beggars, hands outstretched in the dirt. Layers of houses, stacked ramshackle on top of each other – looking a little like a house of cards that threatened to collapse at any minute. As if the bustle and perpetual motion of the place keeps it together in a delicate dynamic balance.

It’s a city of exuberant life, colour and joy, intermingled with poverty, disease, suffering. All right there in the streets. India is never dull.

Dad and I will forever share our love of India. In a sense, a city of contrasts describes his personality too. One minute studious and serious, the next cracking a crude joke with a cheeky grin. And if you’ve ever seen his many bookshelves, they’d give Delhi a run for her money, ramshackle stacks, ready to topple at any moment.

Indians are the Italians of Asia and vice versa. Every man in both countries is a singer when he is happy, and every woman is a dancer when she walks to the shop at the corner. For them, food is the music inside the body and music is the food inside the heart. Gregory David Roberts

Source:

Delhi information wikipedia.org

Photos:

Title photo 3.bp.blogspot.com

Page from the Mahabharata wikipedia.org

Jama Masjid tnstravel.com

Riverside travelaroundindia.com

Rickshaws aroundtheworldl.com

Taj Maha Hotel prints.encore-editions.com

Hotel Cecil Delhi maryevans.com

World  Agricultural Trade Fair stamp 3.bp.blogspot.com

World Agricultural Trade Fair US Pavilion 1.bp.blogspot.com

Choosing a fabric blog.hostelbookers.com

Street food therewillbeasia.files.wordpress.com

Akshardham Temple dreamdiscoverytreks.com

Contrasts of Delhi cookingintongues.files.wordpress.com

Eating ice-cream in Siberia

Outside the window, there slides past that unimaginable and deserted vastness where night is coming on, the sun declining in ghastly blood-streaked splendour like a public execution across, it would seem, half a continent, where live only bears and shooting stars and the wolves who lap congealing ice from water that holds within it the entire sky. Angela Carter

Siberia conjures images of extreme cold, harsh, and wintery conditions. Gulags and slave trains. Dad was there in Autumn of 1966 and he says it was lovely – warm, sunny blue skies. Mile after mile of forests of bleached-trunk silver birch trees adorned in golden leaves. The majesty of Lake Baikal, as expansive as an ocean.

I had to search google images to get the Dr Zhivago scenes out of my mind.

Siberia has a rough wrap as being the playground of Stalin where forced labour camps drove the industrial machine and all the scientists and thinkers of the time, who weren’t forced into the Gulags for all kinds of minor sedition, were dropped off into its vastness, into the prefab communities of the 1950’s, along with their families, and left in Siberia for their entire lives, to work and breed more thinkers and scientists.

Siberia is so big, it’s almost more an idea than a place. Ian Frazier

Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia, is a city built on the Second World War where Stalin moved all armaments and industry production literally out of reach of Europe, so the planes would run out of petrol before they ever reached it.

A country of unfathomable vastness and isolation.

More concrete, yes, and more getting on and off buses, and more pickled soup, and more trees. But more nights, too, to think, and talk, and drink, and to know at least, of this long, strange journey, that they can say they have done it, and have done it together. Euan Ferguson

Apparently after six hours of silver birch forests going past your train window, the initial awe at their beauty wears off somewhat. As does the cuisine. However the camaraderie endures, and that’s what dad remembers most fondly too.

Across Siberia: Concluding a journey behind in the Iron Curtain by Christopher Davidson of Ballarat – Part 3 – First published in The Courier (Ballarat) April 1967

I walked freely around Moscow taking many photographs. Moscow buildings were large, very, very solid and ugly on the whole. I was amazed by the width of the streets, Tchaikovsky street, for example, easily can hold 20 automobiles abreast.

To cater for the pedestrians there was a vast network of underground passages. The underground railway stations were quite fantastic. Each station was different in character looking like a royal palace with marble pillars, mosaics on the walls and ceilings crystal chandeliers.

Everywhere in Moscow was spotlessly clean. There are no litter problems in Moscow or Russia for that matter.

I met a university student who turned out to be interested in Australian poetry! He took me to a cafe to have some wine, ice cream and a chat! He then took me to the Russian film version of “War and Peace”.

The film is to be made in five parts, each part to run for three hours. I understand there are two more parts to be made. I saw part two and it was magnificent.

On my last day in Moscow I had an excellent guide to take me round the Kremlin and the Museum of the Czars. Her English and knowledge of history were excellent and she was pretty into the bargain!

Were you aware of the fact that the Kremlin houses the world’s finest collection of English silver of the Elizabethan and Stuart periods?

Later that afternoon I boarded the Trans-Siberian railway for Irkutsk and to my relief found that the “hard class” (there is no first or second class on Russian trains – only hard and soft class) was very comfortable and one of my companions was a young American architect.

No English

Our other two companions were Russians who spoke no English. They were, as ever, very friendly.

The restaurant car provided a good selection of food which included caviar and borsch. The menu was in five different languages.

The waitresses were large, warm, motherly types who looked after us very well. They worked very hard for long hours on the train and never lost patience.

On our way back from our first meal we had on the train, the American and I were seized enthusiastically by a Russian lumberjack and were taken into his compartment to meet his family. We talked for hours with the help of a dictionary, maps and photographs. When Russians embark on these long journeys they bring the minimum in personal luggage but made up for it by bringing provisions by the bag load.

The lumberjack’s family plied us with chicken, slated fish and schnapps while the wife repaired a tear in my coat.

This delightful family were returning to their home in Sakhalin. We exchanged addresses and cigarette lighters and later I took some pictures of them when we had to stop at Eshen.

Being on the train was like being on a long, gay pyjama party. The majority of travellers remained in their pyjamas the whole time and roamed around the stations in them. There were lots of children and towards evening you find many of them on a knee having a story before bed.

The train stopped about every three hours at a station for 15 minutes to enable people to leap off to buy fresh provisions, ice cream and to stretch one’s legs.

Yes, ice creams! Does it amaze you to hear that crossing Siberia I had the hottest weather of the trip. The temperature was about 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

The flat country-side with vast cedar, silver birch, larch and pine forests provided a beautiful sight for hundreds of miles, in their autumnal colours.

We passed a number of big industrial plants on the way and I was struck by the fact that they were working 24 hours a day. The workers’ houses looked very crude and primitive, and the roads were terrible dirt tracks.

On September 21, the train pulled in at Irkutsk and there was out Intourist guide waiting to take us to our hotel.

When we had settled in she took the American and me on a tour of the city. There were over 300,000 people living in Irkutsk and we were amazed how European it was. It was more European than Moscow.

Distressed

We were distressed too that the old wooden houses that had so much character were being happily pulled down and prefab concrete flats were taking their place. The guide thought that we were quite balmy trying to photograph them.

The next day, the guide took me by myself to see Lake Baikal by taxi and I visited the museum and took pictures of the lake and the village houses which were quite picturesque.

Unfortunately the guide became rather offensive when I refused to co-operate over an earlier return than originally outlined, which rather took the edge off admiring the beauty of the place.

This was really the only occasion of any unpleasantness in my whole visit to Russia.

I returned to Irkutsk across the lake by hydrofoil. On 23 September I rejoined the train for Kharbarovsk. No other tourists were on this train so they made quite a fuss of me. One waitress in the restaurant car devoted her time to giving me lessons in Russian and seeing that I was properly fed. Food was available throughout the day and night. One could order meals in any particular order with voucher so you could eat from a breakfast menu for an evening meal if you so desired.

It took the train six hours to go past Lake Baikal and it was a wonderful sight. The weather is still warm. Industrial towns were more frequent and neater but tarred roads were rare.

Two hours from Chita the landscape became hilly, bushy and a dark brown colour. The few trees were spidery and there were many more rivers.

I arrived at Khabarovsk on September 26, and was put into a room with a bath by mistake! I was taken by a guide to a Pioneer Club (the Russian substitute for Scouts and Guides) where boys and girls are taught ballet, gym, sports, English conversation, making remote controlled model boats and aircraft, music, drama etc.

Were thrilled

I returned next day to the Pioneer Club and joined the senior English speaking group and spent two hours talking to them. They were so thrilled that some spent the rest of the morning showing me around.

A group came to the station to see me off with flowers and a small gift. After a rather emotional farewell I boarded the plush tourist boat train for Nakhodka, a port a few miles north-east of the forbidden Vladivostok.

It was a very comfortable journey in a four-berth sleeper shared with the American architect, a geologist from Zambia and a very attractive Japanese girl, an art student who spoke English well.

On our last night in Russia we were treated to an unforgettable sunset.

We arrived in Nakhodka 15 hours later and were immediately taken on a short bus ride to the harbour, where after courteous but thorough formalities we boarded the SS Baikal.

After a very comfortable two day voyage I shook of the earnest atmosphere of Russia for the vivacious vitality of Japan.

As you get older, you realise the best way to truly connect with another person is to discover what they are passionate about and talk to them about that.

It’s funny how we often forget to make this same effort with people we have known all our lives, saving it for the forced intimacy of parties and social functions.

Dad and I have been having the most wonderful and engaging conversations about his travels, and indeed our travels as he took us all over the world as a family.

We have decided to go to India next – via this blog I mean. How wonderful that as dad’s physical travels draw to a close, his virtual travels have only just begun.

Even in Siberia there is happiness. Anton Chekhov

 

Information on Siberia:

Trans-Siberian for softies by Euan Ferguson, The Observer, Sunday 20 May 2007

 

Photos:

Title image f.fwallpapers.com

Map irkutsk.org

Moscow in 1960’s media.englishrussia.com

Moscow Underground telegraph.co.uk

Kremlin dailymail.co.uk

Dining car Trans-Siberian Railway pompei-hotels.com

Siberian Village bugbog.com

Birch Trees wikimedia.org

Irkutsk slavic.osu.edu

Lake Baikal billpfeiffer.org

Siberian Tundra arcticphoto.co.uk

Sunset Nahodhka en.wikipedia.org

Sea of Japan images.forwallpaper.com

Massive ladies of Russia

Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it. Cesare Pavese

Dad was a Ballarat man, born and bred. A town, like most in Victoria, of grid-like parallel roads in the city centre. Moscow has a round structure: it was built around the Kremlin first, then it expanded further in all directions.

The Kremlin is the oldest historical part of Moscow, and its core, the original wall, was built in 1156 and rebuilt several times during its existence, the red walls it is famous for were built by the end of 15th century. Such an amazing history.

According to the 1914 Baedeker guide – the Lonely Planet of the pre 1970’s – the train journey from London via Berlin and Warsaw to Moscow takes about 3 days.

It seems after several days of train travel, and negotiating the finer points of Eastern European bureaucracy, dad’s patience was a little testy. So forgive his impatience with the ‘massive’ ladies of Russia. He is usually such a jovial fellow…

A Journey behind the Iron Curtain by Christopher Davidson of Ballarat – Part 2 – First published in The Courier (Ballarat) April 1967

My journey from Warsaw to Moscow was very pleasant. I was in a modern Russian train, very comfortable and I was lucky enough to have two charming Scots in the same compartment and an old babushka (granny, or old woman) who couldn’t speak any English but was very friendly, all the way to Moscow.

The people in the other compartments of the carriage, Poles and Russians in the main, came to talk by any means they could and share their picnic meals.

They made you feel that they were extremely interested in you and what you were doing. The carriage attendant periodically brought in hot chocolate or Russian tea in the familiar glass and silver mugs.

Through Poland one saw the women in the fields and also in the railway gangs by the tracks doing men’s work.

At the Russian frontier all went very easily and courteously; the only jarring note came when each carriage body was lifted from the European bogeys to the Russian bogeys by means of a hydraulic lift. This had been made necessary by the wider Russian gauge. It meant a smoother ride further on.

As we progressed towards Moscow I was more and more amused by the grand proportions by the railway stations, built in such strange, bad taste. Huge marble pillars clashed with ghastly statues of Russian heroes, all painted silver.

We passed miles and miles of forests with picturesque log cabins dotted here and there. When we finally reached Moscow there was an ‘Intourist’ representative waiting to take us to our hotels. (‘Intourist’ is the only travel agency in USSR).

The hotel I was taken to was called The Ostankino, a vast affair which had been called by some “tourist prison” and by others more generously, “an army barracks”.

The room I was given was plain but clean and spacious and like all hotel rooms in the Soviet Union had no plugs for the basins. Yet there were many clothes brushes in the wardrobe.

Each room was furnished with a reading lamp, a writing desk and a one station radio.

Massive lady

Like every other hotel in Russia there was every floor, a massive lady sitting at a desk at the head of the stairs or just outside the lift.

From her desk she would command maids, keys, linen, laundry, trays, messengers and no doubt the floor’s morals. There was always one of them on every floor of every hotel I visited.

What I objected to about The Ostankino was that the Service Bureau clerks would not speak any English and that the hotel was a good hour’s bus ride from the centre of Moscow.

The Service Bureau, there is one in every hotel, differs according to the character of the hotel. In the tourist hotels they attempt to have multi-lingual staff which arrange your tours, theatre tickets, railway and air transportation, local visas, automobiles, interpreter and so on.

The Service Bureau will arrange special trips at your request; if you wish to meet a Russian artist or visit a hospital or a school for the blind for example. It is your chief means of contact with the Russian public.

On my arrival at The Ostankino, I presented my voucher which was made out in London before I left and in return received a coupon for my accommodation, coupons for meals and coupons for excursions.

The meal coupons were marked breakfast, lunch and dinner and were different and were of different values, were interchangeable but not refundable. You chose your meal from a menu , written in English, based on what coupons you wished to use up.

If you didn’t eat you could use them elsewhere in Russia, on the trains or buy bottles of drink or tins of food from restaurants. You soon settled in and got to know the restaurants.

They varied considerably in their standards, generally they were very poor. Borsch was always a safe dish to order, it was always very good. So was caviar.

Meat and fish dishes were atrociously bad, potentially good food was ruined by indifferent cooking and poor presentation. The overall impression was nobody seemed to care.

Russian wine was very expensive so I avoided ordering it. The little I had was very poor quality.

When ordering a meal you soon learned to do it in stages otherwise you would get it all at once and the remainder of the meal was stone cold before you had finished the first course.

I ate most of my Moscow meals at the Hotel Berlin which had an excellent restaurant and a beautiful setting. In the centre of the dining room was an ornate fountain which cascaded water into a small fish pond which held the omuls (fresh water fish from Lake Baikal) until chosen for the table by diners. Overhead was a magnificent ceiling of gilt framed mirrors and Italian frescoes.

My first contact with the Russian people in Moscow was a violent argument over my bill at a restaurant in the Hotel Ostankino. The waitress insisted I had not paid her and I ignored her until she got someone who could speak English and all was settled satisfactorily.

My first full day in Moscow was a very busy one. I managed somehow to find my way into the centre of the city by a local bus. (The fare was a fixed 5 kopeks or 4c AUD per ride regardless of distance and paid on the ‘honour system’) and walked from the terminus to the Hotel National near the Kremlin, from where all excursions left, and booked myself on a tour round the Exhibition of Economic Achievements.

The particularly observant amongst you will notice a steadfast focus on the food and beverages on offer. The focal point of dad’s travels – as well as his whole life – have always been of both a culinary as well as a cultural nature. That is to say, dad is of the ‘live to eat’ not the ‘eat to live’ variety of the homo sapien.

The whole of nature, as has been said, is a conjugation of the verb to eat, in the active and in the passive. William Ralph Inge

The in-joke in our family is asking dad if he’d like say, tea or coffee, cake or biscuit, and he’ll reply “Yes please”. Matched with his mischievous grin, I believe if you look up ‘incorrigible’ in the Oxford dictionary, there will be a photo of my dad.

There is no love sincerer than the love of food. George Bernard Shaw

‘Yes please’ is dad’s philosophy of life.

Food is our common ground, a universal experience. James Beard

I love his description  of the lavish hotel restaurant with a fountain in the centre. And all the silver train  stations – I rather fancy that idea.

Moscow is the western terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway, which traverses nearly 9,300 kilometres of Russian territory to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast. Which means dad still has a long journey ahead of him.

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving. Lao Tzu

 

Source: Wikipedia.com

Tittle photo courtesy of: globespots.com

Baedeker image courtesy of: liveauctiongroup.net

Photo of Kremlin and restaurant courtesy of: englishrussia.com

Additional article photos courtesy of: meridian103.com

Food photo courtesy of: 56thparallel.com