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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 13, 2011 22:13:52 GMT 2
I've been meaning to stick this up here since I posted it elsewhere. Unfortunately I've just now had time to get round to it. I had a quick trip to the UK to sort out some house repairs for my father and it's only a couple of more weeks until I leave Egypt for the summer and then go to Jordan, in either case I'll be struggling for an internet for a while. So I thought it's now or never.
I was trying to think of something smart to say about this but couldn't come up with anything, so I thought I'd just stick this and the following up over the next period of time (might take awhile) for you to have a read of during those coffee break times with your feet on the desk. It's various episodes in my oh so distant previous life in the tourist industry. Many know already what I did for many years, if you don't then I've obviously not mentioned it enough and played on it over the years. In essence it involved taking a truck full of people on journeys around Africa, parts of the Middle East and Asia.
If you've read some/all of this before I apologise for the repetition.
Anyway, to make a start -
This was supplied to all potential Expedition Leaders before their application to the company I worked for -
PROJECT LEADER/DRIVER JOB DESCRIPTION LEADERSHIP – You may find yourself leading multi-national groups for months on end, many of whom you may not like, but nonetheless require the same level of attention as the others. You will be RESPONSIBLE for their safety and well being in sometimes difficult and potentially dangerous situations. You will be on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, often for months on end.
LANGUAGE – The working language of all our projects is English, therefore a STRONG command both spoken and written is essential. Spanish and French are obvious assets but not essential.
DRIVING SKILLS – The very nature of the majority of our projects dictate a considerable amount of driving – therefore you must enjoy driving. The safety and comfort of our clients must be your priority at all times and the standard required is for the applicant to obtain a British PCV (Passenger Carrying Vehicle – i.e. Bus/Coach) licence. It is not necessary to hold this licence at present; however were you to be offered and accept a position with us, this would be conditional to your passing the test if you are not already a holder of the licence. You will be expected to drive on some of the toughest/worst road conditions in the world.
VEHICLE & EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE – You will be responsible for the maintenance and repair of our expedition vehicles whilst deployed overseas. Utilising your initiative, common sense and resourcefulness often resorting to “Bush mechanics” but still maintaining a high safety standard. You are responsible for all of the company’s equipment repair maintenance etc.
ADMIN SKILLS – You will be responsible for the Accounting of Expedition funds, regular routine reports of trip progress and various other associated paperwork.
TRAINING – This takes place, on all aspects of expeditioning, in the UK and lasts approx. 6 months, during which you will be based in our UK workshops and expected to live on company premises. Some distinct mechanical aptitude is necessary, however this does not mean you have to be a qualified mechanic. You will learn about our vehicles and equipment from “hands on” experience assisting in their overhaul/refurbishment, and also being involved in the construction of new vehicles. Following this period in the UK you will then be deployed overseas on a “training trip” in the continent we feel you most suited to. On satisfactory completion of your training trip, you will then be expected to lead solo expeditions.
COMMITMENT – Due to the nature of the company’s projects, the Nomadic lifestyle of the Leader allows for no home ties. Therefore you must be single and unattached. Throughout the minimum 3-year commitment period you must be available for deployment to any destination at any time.
If your reason for working for this company is financial reward, or for the belief that we will “pay you to travel”, then I suggest you go no further. Rather that you wish to share our adventures, meet the challenges and give others the opportunity to visit those parts of the world that we are privileged to see. Finally, remember that this “job” is about people. So consider the following; Are you :- Racist, Sexist, Ageist, Xenophobic? If an honest answer is yes, then I suggest that you think again.
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 13, 2011 22:14:44 GMT 2
This typical journey would take us by road from the Kathmandu valley in Nepal all the way to London (apart from the ferry between Belgium and England). It was to take us eleven weeks and cross through or into twelve countries. Who were we? We were an assortment of sixteen travellers of different nationalities brought together and led by myself. We had a large truck to carry our kit and ourselves with a trailer behind for the luggage.
Why were we doing this? Well on my part it was my job. I was working for a British company who ran adventure travel trips throughout Africa, Asia and South America. Apart from rafting and trekking the majority were overland journeys round, through and in the three continents. You could start one Saturday from London and continue through Europe to North Africa, through central Africa and down to the south. Or upon reaching Kenya, turn north to Egypt.
You could then continue through the Middle East into Asia, to Nepal or in fact all the way to Saigon. It took a minimum of forty-two weeks to travel London to Saigon and to add to the excitement there was always the option of doing it in the reverse direction.
This was my job and my life. I had to be “at work” all day, every day for months on end, and I mean 24 hours a day. From breakfast, driving, maintenance, organisation, communication, breakdowns, border crossings, accounts, route planning, time management and so on. That was without any group members.
When there was then I was also a mediator, a psychologist, psychiatrist, a font of all knowledge (though not always), a driver (I know I mentioned it before but I did a lot of driving), a doctor, a nurse, a shoulder to lean on, a sympathetic listener, a marriage guidance counsellor, an entertainer, know about cooking, cleaning, sewing, repairing, a photographer, a game tracker, a guard, sociologist, behavioural scientist, could pinpoint exactly where you could change money and at what rate, where the best ice cream was (I knew this one by heart having a weakness for the stuff), where to get water and food and be able to impart this knowledge at the drop of a hat any time day or night.
I lost track of the times I was woken up by someone needing assurance or help because they were a little off colour or had heard a noise around the camp. The point was though that it was one of the best and most rewarding jobs in the world. I was to get the group from start to finish with the minimum of fuss and effort in the safest and most enjoyable way.
The people made it though. Not only the group members but the local officials and inhabitants of wherever we were. I hope to share with you some of these experiences, stories and the adventures I had over the time I was in Africa and Asia with different groups on different journeys. The thing that set me off with these stories was that after a time each new group would seem to ask some of the same questions. This group was one I was with when I had an experience of a truck being forced off the road. This led me to be surrounded by angry tribesmen, a story to come later.
They were a regular group, there were no eccentric characters and other than that incident, nothing went terribly wrong or out of the ordinary, or as ordinary as a journey between Nepal and London can be. But there was one man, called Anthony, who I realised, wanted to change career and was fascinated by my job. This prompted many questions, usually in an evening while we and the group were relaxing around the campfire. The question usually went along the lines of, “What was the worst/best/hottest/dirtiest/strange/stupidest etc etc.” As a result I would end up telling a different story each night. Hence each of the stories would stem from one of his questions about the things I had experienced throughout my time with the company.
The first question he asked was, “How did you start doing this job?” So I told him.
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 13, 2011 22:15:38 GMT 2
It all started as most do with a warm fire in a cosy living room (are you sitting comfortably? I know I was) when I was dreaming of a holiday. Not just a two-week thing into Spain but something different. Something with a bit of adventure. I had previously sent for brochures from likely companies and was reading these. At the time I already had a steady, well paid job for the last ten years as a policeman, before that I had been a mechanic, starting when I was 17 years old.
I made a radical change from one to the other and what I didn’t realise was that the seeds had been sown for yet another. I picked up one of the brochures, glanced at the front page and then opened it. On the next was a page devoted to a history of the project leaders currently employed. I read on but then came back to that page. A thought struck me. Maybe I shared a number of skills that they had.
Maybe instead of just having a holiday I could do it full time. After all I had no commitments, I was single, living at home after the end of a relationship, no debts and no ties other than to my parents. As my father had been born in Kenya into the world of the white middle class, joined the Royal Air Force, posted around the world, stationed in England where he met and married my mother and they emigrated for several years back out to East Africa, then they would understand my desire to travel.
I rounded up information on the five best companies I could find and sent off a CV. Then waited. Four letters of rejection soon came back. They all said I was too old. I was in my mid thirties and I felt as fit as a butchers dog so what was the problem? The fifth company actually telephoned me at work, also to say I was too old. I was having a bad day and I took it out on someone who I found out later to be one of the Directors of that company.
I told him that if he was rejecting me without an interview purely on the basis of age when clearly I was well qualified then I thought the company was narrow minded and hence it probably wasn’t worthy of my time and effort. I blustered on for a few more sentences then became aware he was inviting me down to London for the said interview. Needless to say I went and it started the long road physically and metaphorically to Africa and Asia.
Anyway, the first step I took after the interview was to give up my job and move south to the workshop the company ran. Here I was supposed to stay for up to six months and a further six months or so would be out in the wide blue yonder with an experienced leader finding all out about trip life. In the workshop I was supposed to learn mechanics, first aid, how to talk in front of people, basically how to look after the kit, the truck and the group.
A stint was down in the office in London where you found your way around various Embassies, were taught accounts and communications. One of the regimes in the workshop was that all the trainees took it in turns cooking each day. As the group would do this on a rota basis throughout the trip then you had to be able to do everything they did. The problem was that some had never cooked in their life. It made for some interesting meals and plenty of abuse from a dozen or so very hungry people.
You were judged on everything you did, your standard of appearance, your ability to cook, clean, integrate with a group, mechanical aptitude, leadership qualities, problem solving, habits, be they bad or good, did you get drunk and fall down, get abusive, go to sleep or retain an awareness of what was going on around you. Whilst I was there a high turnover of trainees was the norm. Everyone would dread Fridays as around lunchtime it seemed each week someone would end up in the office and the next you saw of them was as they were packing their bags.
There was a definite pecking order amongst us trainees with a “House Manager” and “Bar Manager” usually being those who had been there the longest. One ran all the day-to-day stuff with the house we lived in and the other ran the house bar, of course we had to have a bar, it was probably one of the most important parts of the whole training.
After only a month or so I went down to London and did my three weeks there, at the end to be given fifty pounds and my passport and told that I had five days to get down to La Spezia in northern Italy. There I would meet an established leader and we would take off a ferry one of our trucks and drive it back to England.
It had been put on the ship in Mombassa in Kenya and was to return for a regular overhaul. On no account was I to spend any of my own money on the way down. “This is a test” I thought, to see if I could survive on my own wits. It was easy enough to work out that ten pounds a day, including transport, wouldn’t get me very far. A quick trip to the bank, sod the rules, was my first call on leaving the office and an easy journey was made by train stopping off for a little holiday here and there to use up the time allowed.
No one ever asked and I think that part of the test was to see if you could get around the system, a skill that was put to use on many occasions. Upon our triumphant return I only had another week of training before I was off again. Probably they thought that at the age I was I had some experience of life. Being previously a mechanic and a policeman gave me a good grounding in knowledge of the vehicles and people so I was ripe for cutting short the original timetable and letting me loose as soon as the opportunity arose.
I found out that a trip had left London some months before to go in to Africa. The leader had some health, romantic and substance abuse difficulties so was to leave in East Africa. Together with a proper leader, actually an ex leader who was now the workshop manager, we were to fly out to meet this trip and take it over. I felt quite honoured to go so early on and even more so when I found that we were to fly to Nairobi on British Airways in Business class. Little did I know that they were the only seats available at short notice.
I lived it up any how, stealing the soap from the toilets, stuffing as many peanuts as I could in my mouth and showing the stewardesses my squirrel impression. Polite as she was, I don’t think she was too impressed.
One of my dreams then came true. I was in Nairobi. The birthplace of my father. This city became the stopping off point for many trips around Africa and I was to visit it frequently over the years. After an initial minor culture shock I soon became used to the hustle and bustle there but I was not sorry to leave. I did an uneventful training trip for the next few months to end up in Nepal.
Anthony’s next question was, "Does anyone ever pay for the trip but then doesn’t turn up?"
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 13, 2011 22:17:45 GMT 2
Two nights before we were to set of from Kathmandu towards India all the group and myself would meet to have a pre-departure meeting. This usually happened in the bar/restaurant around the corner from the office in Thamel. I noticed on this meeting that one of the group was not in attendance. This happened all too regularly so I thought no more of it. On the morning of departure we were still one short so I contacted my office in London to find if there was any news.
Neither the group or the office knew anything, so after leaving a host of messages with our itinerary myself and nineteen others set off. On the way into India we all got to know each other a little better and exchanged anecdotes about our travel. One girl had flown from England into Delhi a few days earlier and then caught another flight to Nepal, to Kathmandu. She said that it was quite tiring as she had not arrived until late, the reason being that a passenger on the plane, an American she thought, had boarded the plane, strolled up and down the aisle and then refused to go any further.
It seemed that the American was complaining about the condition and safety of the aircraft, operated by Air India, and was refusing to fly in it. After a long drawn out discussion between him and the crew it was decided that he would have his luggage unloaded and stay in Delhi. Nothing more was heard of him until, yes, you’ve guessed it, we arrive in a campsite in Varanasi (India) and I see walking towards me a male carrying a large rucksack.
I hear a voice behind me saying, “That was the man on the plane!” He approaches me and asks if I am the leader of the trip, which I confirm. The very next thing he says is, “I’ve missed the first 5 days of the trip and I want you to pay me compensation.”
It took me a long time to convince him that none was forthcoming as it was his decision to miss the plane, a flight he had booked independently. He was adamant in the fact that he was going to sue somebody for anything he could. I referred him to the airline company and wished him luck!
It was unlikely he would get anything out of them unless he was an expert in aircraft safety, which needless to say he wasn’t. The moral of his experience, I told him, was that you can’t expect a third world country to have the same standards as at home. Far too many people expect that when they travel they will not encounter any element of risk, everything will have the same conditions as when at home.
A couple on another trip in India complained incessantly about the dust in the campsites saying that the tourist industry ought to get their act together and clean up once in a while. They seemed blind to the fact of where they were and didn’t make allowances. After calming the American guy down he soon got in to the journey and at the end he gave away his expensive sleeping bag to one of the local beggars.
He also made a present to me of forty-eight condoms, which he had been carrying around with him in the hope, he said, of meeting Miss Right! These I made a gift of to a local guide I knew who already had ten children. The American guy also would round up any local he could find when we reached a campsite and pay them to put his tent up - also when it was his turn on cook duty he's either pay a local to do it for him or treat us all out of his own money at a restaurant. He wasn't the only one who did this either.
Another time a girl booked and paid for a trip and met up for the pre-departure meeting. She was doing the 2nd section of a longer trip that combined two shorter trips. She asked me what we would do in the evenings. I asked her what she would like. Her answer was, "I like to be entertained".
Funnily enough a guy who had finished the first section who was then ending the trip must have been 'entertaining' enough for her because she went off with him before the trip started and I never saw her again.
“Do people try and bring drugs with them?” asked Anthony.
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 13, 2011 22:18:24 GMT 2
John looked like the type of person you wouldn’t want to meet down a dark alley at night. He had the look of suppressed violence and I was wary of him from the first time he crept up to me. He tapped me on the shoulder at the predeparture meeting in Kathmandu, I turned and saw the eyes of a man, which had a psychotic glint to them. He said to me, “I’ve had a problem with the police here.”
I thought that didn’t seem unlikely but said, “What kind of problem?” He said, “They think I’m a drug dealer.” He then launched in to a story about how his room had been bugged and he had been pulled in by the police to answer some questions. I said, “And how has it ended?” He said, “They’ve just let me go.”
I asked him if there was any reason why he couldn’t start the trip, I didn’t want to get too deep into the conversation, and thanked him for his honesty. He told me as far as he knew there was no reason to have to stay. I was just about to turn away, thinking that was the end of it, when he came even closer to me and whispered, “But what shall I do with them?” I asked, “With what? The Police?” “No” he said, “With the drugs.”
He still had them with him and not had them found by the police! I told him as clearly as I could that there was to be no illegal drugs of any sort on the trip and he had a choice as to what he wanted to do. Get rid, start the trip and not have anything to do with them or he would be left behind. Or keep them and miss out on his journey. I saw him actually hesitate before saying, “Okay, I’ll dump them.”
The trip started two days later, with John, after I had confirmed with him that he had nothing with him and we made our way for some days through Nepal to the border with India. The border itself is in the middle of a very busy village with people coming and going all the time. There is a lot of activity with hawkers, beggars, moneychangers, officials of both countries, trucks, carts, animals, generally bedlam. So that I could keep the group together I would leave them in the back of the truck while I would take their passports and complete as much of the formalities as possible without them.
I collected all the paperwork together and started to walk towards the Nepalese Immigration office. I was counting the passports and kept coming up with one short, the group having collected them and handed them to me a minute before. I was halfway through going back when John approached me, he had jumped out the back of the truck as I was walking away.
He said, “You don’t have mine.” I said, “Well give it to me. We want to get through here as quick as we can.” He said, “The Police still have it in Kathmandu.” I was stunned. I couldn’t believe that he had not told me anything for the last four days.
Obviously the Police had not wanted him to leave the country and there was more to this than met the eye. I told him that the proper way to go about it was to go back and face the music. This he wasn’t too keen on and protested his innocence implying the Police had “fitted him up.” We stood there for some time deciding what to do, all the time being pushed here and there by the throng of people.
I wasn’t about to drive all the way back just for him. I started looking up and down the street at all the people walking up and down through the border and then said to him, “What if....?” We both had the same idea and I arranged where to meet him later.
He walked off along the street soon being lost from sight. It took about three hours to complete the formalities to leave Nepal and enter India, fairly quick for that border. Then we drove a kilometre or so to a nearby hotel on the outskirts of the village. Under the shade of a large tree with his feet up drinking a cold cola was John. In all the confusion he had just walked across the border without anyone stopping him.
He soon arranged to get a new passport when we reached Delhi after the “loss” of his old one and I told him that if there was one more incident he would be left behind. There never was but it was a relief to say goodbye to him at the end. He still travels but I don’t think he ever returned to Nepal!
Anthony asked, “Has anyone ever been really ill?”
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 13, 2011 22:19:21 GMT 2
Janet was somewhat older than the norm for a trip of this kind. We were to travel overland from Kathmandu to London for many weeks and through some difficult countries. To do this took a certain amount of stamina, fitness and the right mental attitude. The group would range in age between twenty and forty five years old. Janet was fifty four. At times on older person would come on the trips but they were very much in the minority. They tended to feel left out of the social scene, sometimes had difficulty physically contributing to the general day to day running and could be set in their ways causing problems with a flexible mode of travel and living.
Janet had somehow convinced my office that none of this would be a problem for her so she had duly turned up at the pre departure meeting two nights before the start. I had not really noticed her at the meeting other to introduce myself when she arrived a few minutes late.
The morning of the start came around and everyone gathered at the truck at 7am in order to set off. I noticed Janet was not there. We waited a further ten minutes or so and then one of the girls in the group, knowing which hotel and room Janet was in, went to fetch her. The hotel was nearby so the girl came back within a short time, came to me and said, “ She is just putting on her make-up, she will be ready soon.”
But it still took a further 20 minutes until she did in fact meet us. I had a feeling from then on that she would be a problem. Janet was dressed as though she was to take a Sunday drive through the country, stopping off for a short walk with her dog and finding small country pubs to have a glass of wine at. She had on an expensive silk blouse with matching scarf, slacks that cost enough to feed a family of four on for a week and leather shoes that looked as though they had been bought from a special edition of Home and Garden magazine advertised as the ideal footwear for safaris in the deepest darkest wilderness but in reality were probably designed by someone who the closest they had gotten to Asia was to step in a puddle on their way in to Marks and Spencers to buy a ready prepared Chicken Tikka Masala.
She wore earrings, necklace, a gold watch and plenty of make up. We all stood around in beat up T shirts, travelling trousers and either solid hiking boots or the more favourable open sandals with thick soles and Velcro fastenings. The contrast was quite stark. When a member of the group stands out so much I try and make a mental list of what I think their character is like and the causes of it. Sort of an instant judgement of who they are. As the trip progresses and I find out more about them I compare what I thought to what is reality.
The more I did this the more accurate I became. With Janet I found I was virtually spot on. I decided that she was divorced but that had been a couple of years ago. She had a child who had now settled elsewhere. Her ex husband was in middle or upper management and she had lived a middle class life with two cars, dinner parties and holidays in rented villas around Europe. When raising a family became less time consuming she obtained a job for something to do, probably as a small time PA or secretary but eventually bored of this or was made redundant.
She had sat around for many months with time on her hands, financially secure from her divorce and on a whim, after seeing a documentary on the television, decided to undertake a great adventure. She was a tall thin woman who when younger would have been quite attractive but was now fading fast. Too many sessions on the sun bed and exposure to the summer sun had left her with more wrinkles than usual. These and other deficiencies she tried to hide with the make up. I felt she would offer opinions on everything she could to try and monopolise the attention even when she clearly had no idea what she was talking about.
She would like to cut a figure, did so in the past but was more and more frustrated at the passage of time. She liked the attention of men to help her feel young but would become jealous when the younger men in the group paid more attention to the younger females, as you would expect they did. She was used to others making the decisions for her but now on her own would rather be seen to be making a decision than not.
Then if it turned out to be a bad one she would blame anyone else than herself. She would fuss around with a great flurry of activity but achieve nothing. She would feel that what she was doing at any one time was more important than what anyone else was doing and would try and monopolise me to sort out some minor problem when she knew that there were more major things for the rest of the group that needed solving.
I think I may have overdone the character assassination there, but anyway.
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 13, 2011 22:20:06 GMT 2
Each group member had a responsibility to ensure the smooth running of the trip. Hers was to each evening pass out the anti malaria tablets for who had not brought their own. I found out later on that she was in fact not taking any at all. She had decided on her own that she didn’t need to for some reason. Also she was supposed to be taking hormone replacement therapy tablets that she had not told anyone about.
Again, at the start of the trip she had decided she didn’t need these either. I didn’t find out about these either until weeks later even though at the start of any trip I would ask each member to tell me of what medication they were taking or what allergies they had, if any, in case there was a problem. I had to rely on their honesty to let me know.
One other factor became apparent as well. She was virtually an alcoholic. One girl happened to see inside her large bag. Janet had one very large bag, a large make up case, a large camera bag and a day rucksack. I always saw Janet struggling to move her large bag around and had helped her with it at times. It was very heavy. The reason being that it had numerous bottles of spirits in it and every evening she would spend time in her tent taking gulps of gin or vodka. This I knew would be a problem when we entered the dry countries of Pakistan and Iran.
Apart from her attention seeking all was well until we arrived in Pakistan. She had drunk all her supplies and was finding it difficult to get them replenished. As with most alcoholics she was very secretive about it. Also the lack of controlling tablets for her hormones resulted in wild mood swings. Eventually she fell ill one night with vomiting and diarrhoea. As most people had off days now and then we made sure she was hydrated as best we could and left her to sleep the day away. It was usual that out of a group of twenty people there would be the odd one or two who, because of the heat and food, would at times be dehydrated and have regular trips to the toilet for a day or two. The next morning she said she felt a little better so we carried on with the journey.
She was off her food so we tried to make sure she kept drinking a re- hydration solution and we arrived in Quetta. Janet was obviously weak but kept sticking to saying she was OK. In Quetta she again seemed ill so I arranged for a doctor to see her. He said she was just dehydrated and said she would be fit to continue the next day if kept in a cool room and fed lightly with soup and easily digestible food, with plenty of fluids. Janet again said she was feeling better the next day but I knew it was a risk continuing as it would be several days before we reached Iran and a large enough town to have a good doctor.
After talking it over with her she assured me she was feeling fitter as the hours passed and in fact the rest seemed to do her some good as she was walking about quite well. So we carried on and crossed in to Iran.
But Janet was still weak as we entered a town called Bam. There I arranged for her to see another doctor. He again said she was ok, just dehydrated but took some blood for a test. Again Janet stayed in a cool room I had arranged and ate a little and seemed to drink enough. But she was fooling us. When someone was with her she would regularly take sips of water and the re-hydration solution. But as soon as she was on her own she would tip mostof it down the toilet or somewhere else. So when a group member or I would return it appeared that she had drunk enough.
She was keeping a fine balancing act between being well enough that a doctor said she was fit enough to travel and ill enough to keep attention focused on her. We stayed two days in Bam until the doctor returned and said she predictably was fit enough to continue and there were no problems with her blood. I was unable with the language problem to find out for sure what tests he had done. I had wanted a stool test done but the doctor said there were no facilities there to do it.
One male in the group also came to me at that time and said that when he had just gone for a crap he noticed that, even though he felt no pain, the toilet was covered in blood and all his stools were red. He was very worried and so was I as it could easily be a symptom of something very serious. He was in a very agitated state and I got him to sit down while we talked about it. I watched him as he did so and he sat straight down without thinking about it.
I asked, “No pain when you did that then?” He said, “No.” We talked about what he had had to eat in the last 48 hours, he said his appetite was not affected. After a long list of food he came to the, “Oh, and nearly a whole jarof pickled beetroot.” I said, “Maybe you are not actually ill, you have just dyed your shit red for a day or two. What do you think?” He went off feeling a lot happier and suffered no ill effects!
The next large town on our agenda was Esfahen, two days away. Most of the group by this time had had enough of Janet and had left to travel for a day or two around Iran on their own where transport was cheap. I arranged to meet them in Esfahen and one girl decided she would come with me to look after Janet. On the way there Janet became worse, bad enough that she was sleeping all the time and the girl had to clean her where she had soiled the camp bed.
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 13, 2011 22:20:55 GMT 2
We rushed to a hotel I knew in Esfahen where again a doctor was called. He arranged to take her to a hospital to find out what the problem was. It was there that the nurses found her to be tipping away the fluids. I decided that she must fly home to England for proper treatment so I contacted her medical insurance company in England to arrange for her to go. The doctor in Esfahen said he would do stool tests but it would take over a week to get a result as they had to be sent to Tehran. He said that in a day or two, now she was taking fluids properly, she would be fit to travel on. The problem was that the Insurance company would only re-imburse her for flying home if a doctor said she was unfit to continue with the trip.
Janet had said she wasn’t going to go home and the doctor said if she was fit enough to travel home then surely she was fit enough to continue with the trip. Hence he wouldn’t tell the Insurance company she was unfit to travel and hence they would not pay for her re-patriation. The group were getting extremely pissed off with the situation and felt rightly so that they were missing out on the trip because of one stubborn old woman. Something had to be done.
I collared the doctor in charge of her and took him to the truck. I showed him how it was we were travelling, how physically demanding it could be, how there were no facilities for an infirm person, how heavy things were like the full cutlery draw with enough for twenty four people and so on. Eventually he was convinced that she would be fit enough to travel home on a plane but not fit enough to travel as we were doing. Luckily he spoke English as he had been trained in America.
I then took him to the phone, contacted Janet's’ Insurance company and got him to tell them the situation. Once that obstacle was overcome they authorised reimbursement for her flight home. The hospital released Janet into our care and I explained that she would not be out of pocket if she now flew home but she persisted in saying she was not going to go. Luckily one of the group was a Travel Agent from Australia. He had travelled extensively and had his head screwed on the right way. I explained the problem to him and enlisted his help in the plan I had.
He was perfectly willing to help. We got Janet dressed in the hotel and told her we were going for some fresh air. Near the hotel was an airline office so we took her into there and talking over her protests, which were getting weaker and weaker as she realised the true extent of our determination to make her go home, we got her to pay for a flight from Esfahen to Tehran for her and the Aussie lad, a return for him back to Esfahen, one way for her, and then a flight for her back to England.
This was to leave the next day, so he took her to Tehran and saw her on a plane home, he flew back to meet us and her brother who I had contacted in England met her. Janet was not strong enough to do the journey by herself so I had to enlist the Aussie lad to accompany her and ensure she was safely on the plane home. Problem solved.
It turned out that she went straight to a hospital at home, arranged on my advice by her brother, where she stayed for two weeks. She had to have ten pints of blood transfused into her and was suffering from malaria and dysentery. She admitted then that she had been not taking her medication prescribed to her for the hormone problem, which we knew nothing about anyway, that she had not been taking her antimalarial tablets or had been secretly spitting out those and any other medication given in Pakistan and Iran, plus pouring away the fluids when ever she could get away with it.
One totally mixed up woman.
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 13, 2011 22:21:34 GMT 2
I forgot to add the next question from Anthony. It was - “Have you ever had anyone on a trip who hated it?”
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 13, 2011 22:22:26 GMT 2
Kevin was a thug. He walked like a thug, he talked like a thug and he looked like a thug. From this the only conclusion I could draw when I first met him was that he was a thug, and I was sure I was right. He was about five feet six inches tall, that is around one metre sixty seven, and suffered from what could only be called, “small man syndrome.” This is a completely unmedical term but one that seems to cover the number of smaller men who compensate for their height by being more aggressive.
Throughout life they have felt to be at a physical disadvantage, starting at school where they feel that they have to prove themselves to be as tough as anyone else. Well, its my theory anyway, as uneducated as it may. Kevin had probably worked hard to promote the image of being tough and there was no let up as he got older. He was now in his mid twenties and felt no sympathy for lesser mortals.
He had very short cropped fair hair, like a skinhead, a slightly prominent jaw and eyebrows giving him a Neanderthal look. He had a bullet shaped head with no neck, perched on his shoulders as though when he was built someone dropped his head onto his body from a great height and because it was full of lead instead of brains his neck disappeared into his torso and was never seen again. He had small furtive eyes that seemed to follow you everywhere without his head turning, and they always seemed to follow pretty girls around.
One ear was in the shape of a cauliflower, caused during a fight in the middle of a rugby match, I had asked him what injuries the other guy had, Kevin said proudly, “I don’t speak ill of the dead.” He had a muscular body with short arms and legs and a barrel shaped chest. The chest he puffed out as often as he could like a latter day Mussolini whenever he was saying something he thought impressive about whatever he had done.
His manners left a lot to be desired as he seemed to believe that as all men and women are equal then he couldn’t be criticised for using his strength to push to the front of any queue he found himself in. Also when eating he usually only used a spoon to shovel in to his mouth whatever food was available, feeling free to burp and fart at will, he quickly alienated the girls in the group.
We were all sitting around chatting in a campsite a couple of nights in to the trip and finding out what people do for a living. Kevin was asked and he said he was still a student. “Studying what?” was the next question, “English Literature” was the answer. Spontaneous laughter broke out, as he was the last person we could imagine being involved in that subject. Kevin, realising he was being laughed at, flew into a rage, started shouting and swearing and stormed off not to be seen again until the next morning.
Over the course of the first few weeks of the trip he became more and more abrasive, never enough to cause real problems, just that no one wanted to be in his company. Nothing he ever saw was impressive to him and when we were in India he couldn’t believe how people could live like they do, especially the poor. I said to him that maybe they had no choice. His answer was that they should either get a job or leave the country.
I asked if he would be willing to accept them into his own country, just the odd five hundred million or so that it would take to relieve the pressure. “No way.” He said. “I don’t want those thieving bastards anywhere near my home.” “Ah hah.” Said I, “A true humanitarian.” My sarcastic humour was always lost on him but I found it funny anyway.
We were travelling between Nepal and Egypt, this involved crossing between Pakistan and Iran at a small place out in the middle of nowhere. A village split in the middle formed the border, one side being called Mirjaveh, the other side, Taftan. The Pakistan immigration formalities involved at one point queuing up at a small window where you would hand in your passport to a clerk that would fill out a register. During the busy morning period there would be a crowd of people pushing and jostling to try and pass through their documents. It was easy to tell the westerners, as they were the only ones to actually try and form a queue.
It was common practice to just try and approach from all sides and thrust your arm forward as best as you could. When we arrived I could see thirty or forty people already around the window and we tagged on and settled in for a long wait. But every time one of my group got near he or she would be forced to wait further as numerous arms snaked over them and passports were plonked through the window.
The locals seemed to know that we wouldn’t do anything to protest or cause a scene. But they didn’t know we had a secret weapon. Kevin.
I saw Kevin had been champing at the bit for some time so I asked him if he thought he could get to the front. His eyes lit up with pleasure and after cautioning him to be gentle he began to force a path through. I followed behind him and behind me came the rest of the group getting along as best as they could. Eventually we reached the window, Kevin stood to the right side and I to the left. Between us we marshalled the rest of the male members to form a rough semi-circle with the girls in front of us.
The clerk finished one passport, looked up to be confronted by a small sea of eager white faces and immediately stood up and walked out of sight to the rear of the darkened room. Typical, I thought, just as we get here it’s time for his lunch break or something. A minute or so later he returned with another man, both then sitting down at the table inside the window. I passed the first one my passport and he made an impatient gesture to get another one.
I passed him Kevin’s and he handed it to the second man, both then writing furiously in their respective registers. My groups passports were all handed through in a short amount of time while the males held off the locals from getting their arms near. As guilty as I felt for doing this I knew that we would probably still be there now waiting for a convenient opportunity to get through. We all, en masse, moved away back to the truck.
I sent off four of the group to do some food shopping, asked another four to stay with the truck to prevent any pilfering and told the rest to be back in an hour. Halfway through the village is a shop I knew where you could get ice cold drinks and I headed away to it for some peace and quiet. The shop was no more than a large room split down the middle by a counter. The walls were covered in shelves upon which were numerous items of tinned, bottled and packets of food. Scattered around were other household articles and on the floor were sacks of flour and rice.
A small corner was taken up with a display of spices, the aroma of which wafted throughout the room whenever someone entering through the open doorway sluggishly moved the still hot air. The only noise to break the peace was that of three or four flies who were buzzing around in a desultory way as though it was too hot for them as well but they felt they ought to make the effort to flit from here to there occasionally.
There were no lights inside the shop and when entering from the bright sunlight it would always take several minutes for your eyes to adjust. When I gratefully slipped inside to the cool interior I knew where I was going. Over in the far corner was always a small upturned crate set at the side of an old chest freezer. Automatically swerving around a couple of rice sacks I made my way over to it. I nodded a greeting to the small Pakistani owner who was propped up behind the counter reading a newspaper on my way through.
Electricity was intermittent at the best of times so it was always a bit of pot luck as to how cold the drinks in the freezer were going to be, I hoped today they would be nice and cold as the temperature outside was probably in the low forties centigrade. There was a system, which had to be adhered to when getting a drink out of the freezer. Normally in western society you would open the door, see what the type of drinks were and then ponder as to what selection to make, select one and then close the door. Thus releasing a lot of the cold air. No real problem as the freezer motor would then kick in and replace it. Here was different. The nearest place to here in Pakistan that could boast a somewhat regular supply of electricity was Quetta, over six hundred kilometres away.
Hence here it was expensive, only used when necessary and not to be wasted. So you would approach the freezer, open the lid and immediately close it again, hoping that you had a glimpse of what was inside. You would then think about what you would want, pull open the lid, quickly grab the bottle you wanted and close it again. Usually there was only a selection of cola, orange or lemonade anyway so the choice was never too difficult. I already knew what I wanted so I grabbed the nearest bottle of cola and closed the lid. Luckily it was very cold so I popped off the cap and sat down on the nearby crate.
I sat there in the quiet for a while, the only sounds coming from the odd truck horn away in the distance, the dry rustle of a page being turned by the shopkeeper and a couple of the flies who probably after having been sitting around bored came over to have a better look at me. I sat and contemplated the meaning of life, the way my sweat was beginning to dry and how dusty my feet were when disaster struck. Kevin walked in to the shop.
The advantage I had was that he couldn’t see me. He had come from the bright light into the gloomy interior and I was in the far corner of the room. He started looking on the shelves behind the shopkeeper but couldn’t seem to find what he wanted. He said to the man, “Toilet roll.” The man looked up from his paper but said nothing. Kevin repeated his request, “Toilet roll.” I knew the man didn’t understand English at all and he just raised his arm and motioned it in front of him as though to say, “This is all there is, see if you can find what you want” and looked down to start reading again.
Kevin started to loose his cool and raised his voice saying, “Toilet roll, f*****g toilet roll!” This I could see intimidated the man who began to point at things on the nearby shelf with a vain hope that something there was what Kevin wanted. Kevin started to go red in the face, throw his chest out and generally look as if he were pumping his body up. Kevin shouted, “I WANT F*****G TOILET ROLL!” The little shopkeeper must have understood some word or other because he grabbed hold of a packet of tissues from the counter and offered them up. This made Kevin even more angry.
He grabbed hold of them, put them up to his face and shouted, “THESE ARE FOR BLOWING YOUR F*****G NOSE YOU STUPID PAKI, NOT FOR WIPING YOUR F*****G ARSE!” Kevin made the motion of going to the toilet and using toilet paper, saying slowly and deliberately, “ I F*****G WANT TOILET PAPER!” and threw the tissues back on the counter.
Kevin looked as though all he wanted to do was drag the man over the counter and beat seven shades of crap out of him. The man shrunk back wanting to get as far away from Kevin as possible. All this only took a second or two and I felt it was time to intervene.
“Kevin” I said. He turned to peer into the gloom and saw me sitting there. “Maybe he doesn’t understand English.” “Well he f*****g should do.” said Kevin. I said, “Also maybe they don’t use toilet paper.” “Well how the f**k do they go to the toilet?” “The same as anyone else except at the end they use their left hand and water". “That’s f*****g disgusting” said Kevin.
“After all these weeks and all the toilets you’ve been to have you never wondered why there was no paper and just a bucket of water or a tap?” “No” said Kevin. “I just thought all the bastards had run out of paper. I’ve had to keep using mine and now I’ve run out. This is a f*****g backward country.” I said, “Your best bet is to buy the tissues and if you do run out then do as the locals do.” “No f*****g way” he said. “I’d rather save it all up until I get home.”
With a smile on my face to soften the message I said, “I always thought you were full of shit.” He did though buy all the tissues he could find in the shop and we left after I gave the shopkeeper a small shrug and smile of apology. He waved his hand as though to say, "Think nothing of it." I think he understood.
"What would happen if you get to a border without a visa?" asked Anthony.
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 13, 2011 22:23:18 GMT 2
Everyone needs a visa to be able to enter Pakistan. This is what I had been told and I had never seen any information to the contrary. But then I didn’t know Katrina.
Katrina was from Iceland, a small country of only around a quarter of a million inhabitants. Normally visas were a tit for tat thing. What I mean is that when one country begins to require that the inhabitants from another country have a visa to enter the first country then the second country soon make their own requirement that occupants of the first country need a visa to enter the second country. Know what I mean? Clear as mud I suppose, but when country A places a restriction on the entry of people of country B, country B does the same to A. Normally anyway.
On a trip from Egypt to Nepal we were to pass over the border between Iran and Pakistan, myself and sixteen others. Part of my responsibility was to ensure that the group had the required visas, dependant on their nationality, to enter all the countries we were going through. Myself and others of the group had told Katrina that she needed the visa for Pakistan but she was adamant that she didn’t. I had checked with the Pakistan Embassy in London who said she did, Katrina had also checked with her Embassy in Iceland though who told her she didn’t. I had tried to reason with her that if anyone knew for sure it would be the Pakistan Embassy themselves, but she was unwilling to accept this.
I hoped at the back of my mind that she was right because I foresaw only problems ahead. I suggested that maybe it would be wise to get one anyway when we were in Turkey. She flatly refused saying it would be a waste of money as she was certain it was not required. Katrina was a student, 19 years old, and this was her first major trip. Her parents were separated, her mother living in Iceland, her father a policeman in New York in North America. She had spent most of her time shifting between the two and understandably had not had a very happy childhood.
She seemed emotionally quite unstable and was prone to mood swings at the drop of a hat. She was also the type of person to latch on to others so she had a feeling of belonging to one group or another. I had seen her over the course of the first few weeks following around different members of the group for several days and then changing allegiance to someone else. She would then hardly speak to her first “friends” and even be critical of them to her new “friends”. This made her none too popular and as such she was quickly being alienated.
She also declared herself to be a Vegan, this being where she was sworn off eating and even wearing animal products. No one else on the trip had these personal restrictions and as such it always was a problem at meal times when she required different food to everyone else, the cooks each day being members of the group who took turns on a rotational basis. If someone had an allergy to a particular item, or was unable to eat something for a medical reason then I had every sympathy for them and would make sure that they were catered for.
But when it was a personal choice, it was something they just disliked, then I left it up to them to sort it out. I didn’t ensure a special meal was prepared for them and felt that if they didn’t like part of the meal then they should just leave it out. Otherwise it could become far to complicated with a large group of people and everyone having their own preferences.
I tried to make it clear that when it was your turn to cook then you made whatever you wanted as long as allowances were made for anyone with a medical problem, otherwise if it was a personal choice and you didn’t like it, then leave it. I had an aversion to pasta, so I never dictated that it shouldn’t be prepared, I just didn’t eat it if it was. Later on, in India, Katrina had one of her turns to cook. She made what she always made which was pasta and a tomato sauce. Anticipating this I had previously bought some bread and with this in hand I approached the serving table.
Katrina was serving out the pasta and as I got to the head of the queue she went to offer me some. I said no thank you and moved to get some of the tomato. Katrina said to me, “Don’t you want any pasta?” I said, “ No thanks, I don’t like it.” “I hate fussy eaters.” She said. “But you are the one that is the Vegan!” I said. “Yes, but that is out of choice.” “Well I choose not to eat pasta.” I said. “Why do you have to be so difficult?” she asked. “I think you’ve missed the point here.” I said, “I eat everything but not pasta, you seem to eat nothing BUT pasta. Who is the one that is being difficult?”
I knew I couldn’t win so I stared to move away. Behind me was a tall, blond, athletic Canadian guy who Katerina had taken a shine to. She loaded his plate up with the pasta and said, “There you are sweet thing, you have plenty, you know good food when you see it.” An ironic half smile formed on his lips as he passed by me.
Anyway, I digress. We had travelled all the way through Iran and had reached the Pakistan border. It was Katrinas turn to go through the Immigration procedure to enter Pakistan. Predictably they refused her entry because of not having a visa. I know she would have protested quite strongly but I wasn’t there to witness it. All I knew was that the Immigration Official was firm in the requirements and would not allow her entry. The problem was then that to continue she had to get a visa. Luckily about eighty kilometres back in to Iran was a town called Zahedan, which had a Pakistan Embassy.
Unfortunately it was now mid afternoon so I quickly arranged a local man with a pick up to take Katrina and myself back to the town. On arrival we found that we were just too late and the office had closed. There was no alternative but to spend the night there. I had been quite apprehensive about doing so as the place had a threatening air to it. It was close to the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan and near to the main drug smuggling routes. The town was full of unsavoury characters and we sought refuge in what looked to be a reasonable hotel. As we tried to book in for the night the receptionist asked to see our passports.
We gave them to him and he said we would receive them back in the morning. They had to be seen by the military and police in the town. Katrina was not happy with this, snatched hers back and demanded that she give her photocopy and keep the original. This was not acceptable so an argument began between the receptionist and Katrina. I knew it was a risk but it was beginning to get dark and I didn’t want to be wandering around this town at night. The receptionist finally persuaded her when he said, “If you want to keep your passport then you don’t stay here. You must find somewhere else, we don’t have to give you a room.”
I asked her if she wanted to search for different accommodation, she didn’t so she handed back her passport. The next problem we had was that we had no food for the evening, there being non available in the hotel, this entailed a foray in to the streets. By now it was dark but I had seen a small restaurant nearby. We walked quickly to it but on entering Katrina realised that as most Iranian meals involve meat, her being a Vegan, that she didn’t want to eat there and she would just buy something from a shop.
At first we were in a fairly quiet area but as we moved on there were more and more people around, or rather more and more men around, no women to be seen. We managed to find a shop cum takeaway and while Katrina bought some biscuits I had a very nice kebab and pickles thank you very much. On stepping out of the shop a tall hard looking Afghani man came up behind Katrina, in between me and her and sweeping his arm up from low down he grabbed her between the legs. Katrina let out a yelp and he let go.
I turned to face him, I don’t know what I was going to do but I was very angry. Katrina grabbed hold of my arm and began to try and drag me across the road, the Afghani walking away with a cruel smile on his face. She was right, discretion being the better part of valour. We made it back to the hotel without incident and decided not to venture out again.
Early the next morning we left the hotel, with our passports, and made our way back to the Pakistan Embassy. It was more like a bungalow set in its own garden in what looked like a better area of the town. The reception was open so we got the required application form and sat down with several other locals, all I assume going through the same process. After Katrina filled out the form we handed it back to the receptionist and I asked how long it would take to issue the visa.
She asked our nationalities and I explained the visa was just for Katrina, from Iceland, but I was British. She said it would be ready today probably. We had nowhere else to go so we settled down to wait. And wait we did....and wait.....and wait.
There was nothing to read so I examined my passport from cover to cover in minute detail, I counted all the bricks in the walls, paid great attention to my fingernails, stood up and paced off the room, did mental calculations as to area and volume, worked out that if the room was filled with coffee then it would take the average person one hundred and sixty four years, seven months and five days to drink it at an average consumption of one litre per day.
But then I thought the milk would probably be sour by then and I realised I had not taken in to account the volume of sugar required and if it would fully dissolve or how much I would need to factor in to the equation. I gave up. Whilst all these thoughts were happening it was difficult not to notice that the heat was gradually building and building. The room had open windows but there wasn’t a breath of wind. Sweat was beginning dampen all my clothing and I was sure I was starting to get something like bedsores on my backside from sitting for so long.
Just as it couldn’t seem to get any hotter I saw the receptionist go outside and close the room shutters plunging us into darkness, relatively anyway from the bright sun light. The room quickly got even more stuffy and as she returned I asked why we were now closed in. Sand, she informed me. A second or two later I understood. The wind rose and a smalls and storm had arrived. I could hear the sand battering at the shutters and walls outside and I realised that that was also why there wasn’t a shred of paint anywhere on the outside of the building.
A few minutes later it died as quickly as it had started and the shutters were opened once more. The heat was still intense as a man I had not seen before popped his head around the corner of the room and beckoned for Katrina and myself to follow him. This is a problem, I thought, as normally when applying in person for a visa you just sat and waited in the reception until the formalities were done and eventually handed back your passport.
We were led to the rear of the bungalow and shown in to another room the door quickly being closed behind us, our escort staying out side. There were several differences between this room and the first. This one was an office with soft furnishings and a large wooden desk. Sitting behind the desk was a Pakistani man, about fifty years old and smartly dressed in a suit. One major difference was that this room had air conditioning, the unit blowing out, or rather spluttering out as it seemed quite old, a steady stream of cold air.
The man behind the desk asked us to sit down. There were two comfortable arm chairs next to his desk and in between was a small, highly polished wooden table. I noticed on this was a tea set, a flask of water and a plate full of biscuits and small cakes. The man introduced himself as the Deputy Ambassador and asked that we help ourselves to refreshments adding that the water was quite safe as it was bottled and very cold.
He actually cautioned us not to drink the water too quickly as it would make us ill being so cold! This was a bit unbelievable, the drastic and sudden change in circumstances. I was going to make the most of it but I was still wary and unsure why he wanted to see us. It was not polite to ask straight away so we sat and made small talk for some time. I noticed he was more interested in talking to me and was asking me about Britain all the time, maybe, I thought, he had relatives there.
Eventually I plucked up the courage and asked if there was a problem with the visa application for Katrina. He assured me that there wasn’t and it would be ready in due course. I was still perplexed but decided to have some more tea and cake to pass the time. He was asking me about where I had travelled to, where I was going and had I travelled around Britain at all. He then asked me if I had been to Glasgow. “Yes” I said, wondering if this was where his relatives were.
I knew that Glasgow had a bit of a reputation of being a tough place and certain areas were difficult to live in. He then said, “I am soon to be promoted and posted there, can you tell me about it, I’ve never been to Britain?” Oh dear, thought I. This is the reason he has invited us in. Do I tell him the bad bits with the good or shall I keep him sweet because at the back of my mind I had this thought about the messenger of bad tidings being killed in ancient times. I decided to play it safe knowing that it was unlikely I would ever bump into this man again. Also I noticed that Katrinas passport was sitting on his desk in front of him along with several others.
“It’s a wonderful place.” I said. “There is very little crime and the people are very friendly and welcoming.” He began to ask me more specific questions about schooling for his children, about health care, the cost of housing, how much a car would be and the cost of living. I tried to paint a rosy picture for him all the time hoping that the visa would be ready as soon as possible. After a further half an hour or so he seemed to be satisfied with my answers and ran out of questions. Just then the first man I had seen, the escort, knocked and came into the room with a sheet of paper.
The Deputy Ambassador took it from him, scanned down the page, signed it and handed it back, the man then departing. I don’t think Katrina saw it but I recognised it as being her visa application. He then picked up her passport from the desk. opened it and as I leaned over towards him I saw him sign the visa stuck inside. He then handed it to me, apologised for the wait and said, “If you leave now you will catch the border before it closes.”
We thanked him for the tea and refreshments and just as we were leaving he said, “Maybe we will meet again in Glasgow.” I bloody hope not, I thought. I ushered Katrina out the door and we made a quick exit.
Anthony asked, “What are those holes for?”
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 13, 2011 22:24:06 GMT 2
For all the bad press Iran gets I actually rather like it. The people are amongst the friendliest anywhere I have been, the history is amazing and the scenery, being mostly desert, suits me fine. There are areas of green, lush vegetation but usually it is a rocky and desolate place, not a desert in the rolling sand dunes interpretation of the word but grand vistas of nothing with hills and mountains sprinkled around for added interest.
When you travel around Iran you see many doughnut shaped mounds of earth looking very much like a crater. These you see one after another in long lines cutting through the countryside. When I first saw one of these lines I stopped and went to look. I saw a circle of earth about ten metres in diameter, about one to two metres high with a large hole in the middle. The circle nearly always had a small break in it where the ground had been packed firmly down forming access from outside the circle.
It looked like some giant in the distant past had formed a doughnut out of the earth, took one bite out of it then thrown it down in disgust. Or better still there were any number of giants whose favourite game was the one where you throw a ring from a distance over a small post thrust into the ground. They then got fed up with it and moved on fifty metres leaving behind the ring but taking the post and starting again. This they did over and over until there was a line of holes and rings stretching in a straight line for a few kilometres to a nearby village.
The hole in the centre I saw to be very deep, I threw a stone down but couldn’t hear it land. I tried again and this time heard a faint “thunk” as it hit the bottom. Trying to remember my schoolboy maths as to the speed of a falling object and acceleration due to gravity I was going to time the fall and try and work out how deep the hole was. After screwing my eyes up, breaking out into a sweat, mumbling about the Leaning Tower of Pisa I eventually gave up and we came up with a better and more accurate solution. We used a stone tied onto a length of fishing line from the kite we flew from time to time and lowered it down until we hit the bottom.
We then marked off the line, pulled it up and strung it out on the floor. We paced the distance off and found the hole to be eighty five metres deep. We all then took a step or two back from the edge in respect. The craters we could see set out perfectly straight heading towards a village. We repeated the measurement with the next two and found them to be of about the same depth. Not then knowing what these were for we all had a theory.
The best was that they were a legacy from the Iran/Iraq war when some plane had released a set of bombs to target and destroy the village. We walked back to the road to discuss the mystery further when a car pulled up to us. It was one of the old style originally English made Hillman Hunters with a family in it. I don’t mean the English made the family as well, only the car. I’m sure that the Hillman factory sold to Iran all their old tooling when they went out of business. All around the country you see masses of Hunters and the crappy Hillman Avenger, still probably being made in great quantities.
Anyway, I digress. The family was in fact typically Iranian. All curious, all smiles, wanting to know if we needed help, always carrying water and food, which they would always offer to us and wanting to invite us home for a good Persian meal. The truck drivers I found to be the same. Whenever you passed a lay-by they would always be drinking tea and shout to you to stop, offering their glass to you. Part curiosity, part religion and part friendliness.
I assured the family as best as I could we were fine then pointed to the craters with a quizzical look on my face. The man paused for a second or two as though he was thinking about how he could explain it to me how they were made without words and then jumped out of his car and went quickly around to the boot and flung it open. I was curious to know if he had an unexploded bomb or something similar in there.
My imagination started up again as I was wondering if Iran was so dangerous that it was common practice to carry the odd piece of artillery and anti aircraft gun around with you when going out for a quiet Sunday drive. Maybe it was a factory fitted extra when you bought the car. But no, he pulled out a container of water, pointed to it and then the line of craters.
I still looked puzzled so he then went into an elaborate pantomime with us all gathered around him. It was the strangest game of Charades, in the strangest place, I had ever played. The British television programme of “Give us a Clue” had nothing on us as we attempted to decipher the story. We were in the middle of a dusty nowhere, in forty five degree heat jumping up and down and slapping each others backs as we understood more and more.
He was gesturing to the hills where the line seemed to begin, pointing to the water and nodding his head up and down. Then turning to face the village where the line ended and shaking his head side to side. We understood, the hills had water, the village didn’t. He then mimed a man digging and digging a large hole near the hills and jumping for joy when he found the water. He mimed digging hole after hole, wiping the sweat from his brow and having a glass of tea after each one, in towards the village.
I couldn’t understand though at first that the digger had only found water at the first hole and no subsequent one. A bit of a waste of effort I thought. Then he continued with the mime. He went down the hole in the village and dug through underground to the bottom of the next hole, popping up, so he mimed, for yet another glass of tea. This he continued all along the line until the last but one hole.
He then mimed taking off his clothes, digging through to the last hole where the water was, and swimming then down stream all the way back to the village, popping out like a cork. The village then had water. The swimming bit I think the man was having a joke with us about but it all made for a good ending. He then mimed having parties feasts and dancing to celebrate the coming of the stream.
So at last we understood, though the method of construction was debatable. The family, after giving us a bag of sweets piled in to their car and drove of to a loud blaring of the horn and plenty of waving goodbye.
Anthony asked, “Have you ever been arrested?”
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 13, 2011 22:25:25 GMT 2
The last major town in the south east of Iran from the border with Pakistan is called Zahedan. It was the same town that I'd had to obtain the visa for Katrina. Staying there once was enough, the whole area felt very threatening. I would normally bypass the town on the main road, which swung around the south west side in a lazy half circle. At the junction of the side road allowing traffic in to the town centre is a police checkpoint.
As it was close to the border nearly all the vehicles had to stop to verify they and the occupants had the correct papers. In the interval between the last time I had passed and my latest journey there had been a new type of permit brought into effect for foreign vehicles. This I had been informed about but also that it was not needed for tourist purposes, only for goods carrying vehicles. For some reason the police at this checkpoint didn’t know of this exemption.
I arrived around 5pm and duly stopped. I presented my papers to the duty officer who then took them inside the nearby concrete building. My plan was for us to drive for another hour into the hills and find a secluded spot to camp for the night. After around half an hour of waiting I went to the building and found the same officer. He was making a telephone call with quick glances at my paperwork he was holding in his other hand.
Warning bells started to ring in my head as I waited for him to finish. With some of the writing being in Farsi, a totally unreadable script to me, I could never be sure all the details were right. Eventually he put the phone down and gestured for me to follow him. We went through a number of offices before we stopped at the desk of what was clearly a supervisory officer. You could tell he was because the portable air conditioning unit was at the side of him, no one else could get near it.
Words were then spoken, papers looked at, I was giving my friendliest smile, the one that I had cultivated to say, “I’m sorry if I am causing you problems but please forgive me for whatever it is because I am just a simple tourist and very stupid.” This time it didn’t seem to work.
The superior officer pulled out of his desk a blank form, which I recognised to be a copy of a foreign vehicle travel permit. The one he knew I didn’t have. I tried to make him understand that as tourists we didn’t need one. He was adamant we did. During this exchange a further male appeared at the side of me. He wasn’t in a uniform but I could tell he had some authority here. I found he actually spoke a little English. The situation was explained as best as we could and he said that the right answer would be found from the relevant official in Tehran.
I learned that the first officer who I had seen on the phone had been trying to do that but the official had gone home at the end of his work day. He would be back tomorrow I was told. There was nothing for it but to spend the night the best we could at the checkpoint, the police retaining my passport for safe keeping. Early the next morning two heavily built men in suits came to me and in a very unfriendly manner directed me to a waiting pickup.
They pushed me into the front seat, one getting into the driving seat, the other squeezing in at the side of me. I hadn’t a clue what was happening but I quickly told one of my group that if I was not back that night then to contact my office and my Embassy. We then drove into the town where I was placed in a small room in a decrepit building with three other men. I had tried asking what was happening but got no reply. One man in the room was from Pakistan and spoke English quite well.
He asked me what I had done and told me that he knew my two “escorts” to be the Iranian version of what he called “secret police.” To say I was rather perturbed was to put it mildly. After what was only an hour, but felt like ten, the men appeared and gestured me back out to their car. One was then trying to say in fractured English, “No problem, you go.” I presumed he had made the necessary phone calls and checks and decided that we didn’t present a threat to national security.
We resumed our seats in the pickup and began to travel back. On the way I could smell some form of excrement, the other two could as well but had what looked like smug smiles on their faces. Perhaps they thought that they had made me so scared I had crapped my pants. I knew I hadn’t, as you would, but the smell got stronger and stronger.
Eventually they had to open the windows and gasp one breath outside before putting their heads back in. I was crammed in place between them and couldn’t move. After numerous breaths out of the open windows we arrived back at the checkpoint. As we stopped I was told to go and I quickly got out of the car. As I did so I saw that on the floor by my feet was a large lump of brown “doggy doos” which in my moving around to get comfortable I had rubbed well in to the carpet. I must have stepped in it when leaving the town.
The smug looks on the faces of the police turned to that of disgust as they spotted it too. Before they could react I shot off across the car park, jumped into my truck and drove away. No doubt they had a lasting reminder for many days of my visit to their country!
Anthony asked, “Have you ever run out of water?”
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 13, 2011 22:26:11 GMT 2
Sarah was probably the most “intelligent” person I had ever met. Intelligent in the way that she was a real life Brain Surgeon. She was from Canada, of Asian extraction, and had studied for many years to specialise in the brain. She was 33years old, tall and slim with a honey coloured skin and was a bit of an eye turner.
She seemed to embody all that is good about the human species, she was good looking and clever, attributes not commonly found together, (unless you are me) It was difficult to imagine her spending hours and hours sitting in a library studying, eating junk food at the computer and generally being a swot. On first meeting her it was easy to understand the problems she would have had to overcome to get to the position she was in.
She was in a male dominated world, she would not have been taken seriously because of this and the fact that she was attractive, and also that she was obviously not a native of her home country. She was single due to, she says, not having any time for romantic involvement and had decided to go away for several weeks to see a little more of the world.
She was to be one of a group I was to take from Egypt through Syria and Jordan, into Turkey and then back through Europe to England. She seemed to be the ideal sort of person who would benefit from doing something like that. The ancient history of the region would appeal to her as would spending time out relaxing on along the coastline. There was one thing though that she was sadly lacking, common sense.
It didn’t take too long to find this out. Each and every member of the group would be given something that they would be responsible for, be it to check that all the locks were closed when leaving the truck, checking the stores of food or even to obtain wood when available. One of the more responsible things was to monitor the water we carried. It was crucial that due to the areas of desert that we were to cross then we wanted to be safe and sure with the volume of water needed to keep a group of twenty people happy. This was what Sarah had to do.
It was her chore to keep an eye on how much water we had so that I could find somewhere to fill up in plenty of time. The truck I was using had two tanks each could carry about 100 litres, plus another six Jerry cans of 20 litres each. I showed her how to check the cans by just trying to move them, if they were empty then they would move easily. Also to keep one tank locked until the other was empty, when this happened then to tell me so we still had a reasonably supply and I knew that I should find more.
Always at the beginning of a trip I would double check what the group were supposed to do but then I would leave it to them as otherwise it would seem as though I was treating them like children and not trusting them with the most simple of tasks. After several days I told Sarah we were going to fill up with water as after that it would be difficult to obtain for a while due to the desert environment.
No problems occurred for a day or two then until one of the group came to me and said that both water tanks were empty. I checked and they were, but I knew we still had some in the Jerry cans. I went to Sarah and asked her if she had been watching the water, “No” she said, “I forgot.” I told her how obviously important it was and then had to explain to the group that we had to make a short detour to get more.
We filled up again and continued on our journey after advising the group that water was in short supply and to try not to waste it, we had seemed to use up more than normal. A few days later the same thing happened. A group member told me that it seemed as though both of the tanks were nearly empty. I saw that they were but still we had the Jerry cans to fall back on.
Again we had to spend time going in the wrong direction to re-fill the tanks. Again I asked Sarah why she had not told me we were running low, again she said, “I forgot to check.” I decided that as well as everything else I was doing then I had better keep my own eye on the water as not only as we were seeming to use more than anticipated and had experienced before, I couldn’t work out how we were using water from the tank that was locked by Sarah. I found out two nights later.
Normally when we were camping in the desert and there was plenty of room the group would spread out away from the truck to sleep, some for privacy and some so that they could sleep under the stars without the lights from the truck interfering. I would normally take my camp bed some yards away from the front of the truck and lie out of the light but with my feet facing the cab so that I could keep an eye on it.
The water tanks were out of my sight down the side. But that night I had lain looking up at the stars until everyone had gone to bed and then moved over and closer to the truck so that I could see the water tanks. Nothing happened so I drifted off to sleep. Sometime in the early hours I woke up to the sound of water quietly running but in my thoughts it was just as though one of the group were going to the toilet, this being a regular thing in the night as there were no toilets out in the desert. I didn’t want to move so as not to embarrass whoever it was. But the gentle trickle went on and on. So I opened my eyes and saw who I recognised by the figure and hair to be Sarah.
She was bending towards one of the water tanks with one of the large washing up bowls. She lifted it away from close to the tap and obviously being very careful as it looked heavy and full, walked away into the darkness. She returned several minutes later with an empty bowl, carrying it in one hand, and filled it up again. Again to walk off into the dark.
This happened twice more, she had a total of four large bowls of water each holding about ten litres. I couldn’t believe it, she could only be going each night or every other night, to have a full wash in the drinking water. I surmised she was also using the tank that only she had access to, apart from myself. She couldn’t seem to wait the time out between campsites like everyone else had to where you could get a proper shower.
I lay awake trying to think of what would be the best way to resolve this but I must have fallen asleep, the next thing I knew it was morning. I couldn’t resist though when I first saw her at breakfast saying, “ How do you always manage to look so fresh in a morning? It’s as though you ride off in the night to the nearest hotel for a wash and brush up.” She replied, “ Those wet tissues work wonders.”
The best and quietest way around this problem was something I thought about all day. There were a number of solutions, ranging from confronting her in front of the group, to having a quiet word with her to tell her what I had seen. I felt the best way, without leaving any ill feeling, was to just change the responsibilities around. The reason I gave for this to the whole group was to give them an idea of what it took to run the trip and they would get chance to do a couple of things or more themselves.
I put this to the group that evening and it was well received. I engineered it so that Sarah had the simple task of looking after the first aid kits and to let me know if someone had used some eye wash or antiseptic cream and so on. Not so strangely enough we never seemed to have water problems after that though at the end of the trip I did realise we had in fact run out of plasters.
That was not the end of her story though. I couldn’t help but keep out a special eye on Sarah after that, not that being attractive had anything to do with it I hasten to add. But I noticed that she never went out into the sun if she could avoid it, also very often rubbing moisturising cream into her hands, arms and legs. I thought it was just to preserve her skin. She also was routinely blowing her nose, more so than most in the dusty environment.
The trip though went on and on without incident all the way until we had just reached Turkey. Sarah then came to me as we were camping outside a town and told me she was going to leave the next day. I naturally asked why and she told me that the rest of the trip doesn’t interest her. I said that now was the time to relax on the beaches for a couple of weeks as we were going around the coast.
She said, “It was a mistake from the beginning. I have allergy to the dust and sand in a desert, I have a skin complaint that means I can’t go out in the sun and also it means that I can’t stand salt water.” I said, “It’s a strange choice of trip you made from the brochure then. We spend the first half of the trip going through the deserts of Egypt, Jordan and Syria then most of the second half working our way from beach to beach up the coast of Turkey swimming and sunbathing.” “Yes” she said, “I didn’t think it would be like that.” “What did you think it would be like?” “I didn’t really think about it.” She said.
The next morning myself and a couple of the group waved her off as she rode into the sunset (actually sunrise) never to be seen again.
“Are there many accidents with the trucks?” asked Anthony.
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 13, 2011 22:27:04 GMT 2
Over the years I would be called upon to train some of the new leaders over a period of several months. After the initial period in England they would be sent out to work with an experienced leader and from there to running the trips on their own. One of the most important aspects of the training was to ensure they were a safe driver as the conditions in some countries were very dangerous.
Andy was a trainee who first joined a trip with another leader in India. The trip was in its last month or so before ending in Nepal. Andy had done some of the driving but it was clear that the group didn’t trust him too much. The last section up to Kathmandu was up a winding road called the Raj Path. I was told later that the group went to the leader and asked that Andy not drive along there as they didn’t feel so safe with him. When the trip ended Andy was passed on to me to sort out this weakness.
At the beginning of our trip, from Nepal to finish in Cairo, Andy was driving very carefully, he knew what was at stake and was trying hard. Usually when I felt I could trust the driving of the trainee then I would often go and sit with the group. Knowing that driving in India was very taxing and still not being too confident of Andy’s level of skill I tended to stay in the cab with him until one day after we got to Pakistan.
Up until that time nothing major had happened, a few small mistakes but generally no real problem. We were to begin travelling to the north up the Karakoram highway to the mountains. The first couple of days were to be easy driving along a good road with not many hazards, so I decided to give Andy some confidence and sit in the back. We set off quite slowly but as the road opened up he started to overtake one or two of the local trucks. We were driving for a couple of hours when he pulled out to overtake again, what I didn’t know was that there was another truck coming towards us, I couldn’t see it from where I was sitting.
As the rear of our truck cleared the one he was overtaking Andy had to pull in to avoid the oncoming vehicle. Somehow he had either forgotten about our trailer or misjudged it and as he pulled over the trailer hit the front of the truck to our side and ripped off the front bumper and damaged all the front wing. The trailer was also damaged but not too badly. Everything came to a stop and we all jumped out.
The local driver was obviously not very happy and to sort it out we had to pay him for the damage, even though we had Pakistani issued insurance it really was not worth the paper it was written on and it was clearly Andy’s fault anyway. I banned him from driving from then on until I could contact the office in London in several days time after returning from the mountains. I knew that further on the road was small and somewhat tortuous with large drops and cliffs. I drove from then on until we arrived in Peshawar where I telephoned London to let them know what had happened.
I was quite harsh and said that he should be sacked and sent home, the office decided that he should be given another chance and I was to sit with him again all the time. The group were quite happy for us to do this and after a good talking to Andy was happy also, after all he didn’t want to go home in disgrace. I then drove all the tough sections through Pakistan and let him do it all when we arrived in Iran. The roads in Iran are all good tarmac, nice and wide with not much traffic so I felt it was quite safe for him to do so, as long as I was with him.
Gradually his confidence built back up and he was driving fairly well, but then again it wasn’t very demanding. We crossed into Turkey and a day or two later Andy was driving as we headed towards a town called Erzincan. The road was a little greasy but wide and smooth and we were doing around 60km/hr when we saw an Army base to our right. The entrance to the base was at the side of the road and there was a soldier nearby. The soldier saw us and took a step onto the road and put a hand up for us to stop, for what reason we never found out.
Andy immediately stamped on the brake and all the wheels locked up. Due to the camber of the road we began to skid off towards the soldier. I had a clear view of the look of fright on his face as we headed directly for him and he ran as fast as he could out of the way. All this was happening in a split second. I shouted to Andy to come off the brakes to stop skidding and try and regain control, I knew that the first thing you do when getting into a skid is to stop braking and allow the front wheels to be able to get enough grip to steer. Andy didn’t.
I clearly remember the horror on his face as he turned to look at me as I again shouted for him to stop braking. He didn’t though as he was frozen. We seemed to lose no speed at all as we slid off the road and headed towards the gravel bank surrounding the army base. The thought that went through my head was, “This is going to hurt.”
We hit the bank sideways on and the side of the truck became buried in it. The impact threw me forward to the windscreen, which didn’t break, but after a second or two to make sure I was in one piece I jumped out to make sure there were no injuries to the group, luckily apart from a bruise or two there wasn’t.
The soldier had managed to run off to the side and we had missed him. I checked Andy wasn’t injured and then began to check the damage to the truck. Apart from a broken power steering pipe it seemed to have survived but I couldn’t tell for sure until it was free from the bank. Many of the soldiers at the base came out to us and began to help us dig out the truck but it was very heavily stuck, I couldn’t drive it forwards or backwards. After a while we had a rest and I then heard the sound of a large powerful engine from inside the base.
A minute or two later a tank came out of the gate and reversed up to the rear of the truck! Two of the soldiers coupled up the tow rope and told me to get in to my truck and they would pull me out. This happened very quickly and we were soon back on firm ground. After a final check of everything we said our thanks and drove away. Or rather I drove away, I had again banned Andy from driving and I made sure, after telephoning the office that he got on a plane back to England, never to be seen again.
Anthony asked, “What happens when someone can’t cook?”
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 13, 2011 22:27:52 GMT 2
Food was always a topic of conversation throughout a trip. Many a hour was spent discussing what food you might be missing or what you fancied at that particular moment. The normal routine was that the group members would pair off to form a cook team. Each team would then be responsible for the food buying and preparation for a twenty four hour period. They would then hand on to the next team and so on until it was their turn again depending on the total number of group members.
As I was responsible for all the money concerned with the trip then each day I would give the cooks some of the local currency and find somewhere for them to buy food. It was up to them as to what they bought and what they cooked. Initially I would have to give them some guidance as to the proportions and what was available. But after a turn or two they would quite happily go off and I would leave them to it.
Not many people were used to cooking for a group of twenty so at first they would be unsure exactly how much food was needed. There was also a number of diverse nationalities and different tastes so that you could never be sure what the meal was going to be. Many people professed that they couldn’t cook so as part of the equipment each truck carried a recipe book for reference if they wanted it.
There were two English lads who teamed up and neither of them could cook, apart from pasta and tomato sauce, so no matter how much advice they were given you could guarantee that the meal was always the same. The main problem was that it was necessary to keep the meals as simple as possible due to the constraints of time and available food. This meant that a lot of pasta was served. I didn’t like pasta so I would try and find out what was to be cooked and then buy my own supply of potato or rice.
If one team were to go shopping it would be difficult if they had a pre-conceived idea of what they were to prepare. They would then go in to the market and not find the right ingredients. They would waste a lot of time wandering around and it took some practise for them to think on their feet and make a decision when they saw what was available. Often the meat available was not of a very good quality so there were many vegetarian meals, no problem usually but I had to make sure that an alternative source of protein was found.
Sometimes I probably didn’t make it clear as to what the money was for (actually I did, I just think some people are stupid). I would give them the money, they would go off and come back, as one man did, with sweets, potato chips, chewing gum and biscuits. He then said that there was no good food in this market and could we call at another one, and have some more money as well, but he had bought some snacks to keep us going.
Some other times a person would go off shopping and come back having spent all the money on expensive imported canned or packet food, not enough to feed the group though and then ask for more money. Breakfast cereals were a main sticking point. Normal cornflakes or muesli were very expensive but some of the group were so used to eating their normal brand of low fat, low salt, no sultana, no nut muesli.
Breakfasts consisted of some form of cereal and what ever the cooks wanted to prepare, but it was from local food. Also the quantities of something like cornflakes that a group of twenty would eat over a long trip were an impressive amount, and very expensive when they insisted it had to be Kellogg’s. On more than one occasion, when we were low on cereals one of the cooks would go off to shop and come back with some boxes of imported cereal and then ask me for more money to cover the rest of the food.
The amount of money available was in direct proportion to what they had paid for the trip. Had they paid a lot more money then we would have been set to eat in restaurants, but it was a self catering trip, as they all were, so the cost of the trip was cheaper. Some would always try and get you to pay for meals in a restaurant to try and get something extra, as we all would I suppose.
Each truck would initially try and carry a certain amount of stock in any case, sometimes to be used where there was a poor food supply or just to liven up the meals. These stocks were either bought from a major town before the trip started or if the vehicle was setting off from England then at one of the large local supermarkets near to the workshop. One Dutch girl felt that as we were advertising world wide, and the groups were from many different nationalities then we should stock up with international food sourced from different countries. A good idea but not really so easy to obtain.
The usual rule was that the cooks prepared whatever they wanted within the medical needs of the group, i.e. any food allergies, but not to take too much in to account of the large number of preferences evident throughout a group. Otherwise they would spend all their time in effect making individual meals rather than one for the whole. If someone had a preference then they could make that when it was their turn to cook. Have you ever tried to make eggs for breakfast for twenty people? Everyone always has their own way of wanting it. At these times I would tell the cooks to stand back and let each one cook it however they liked.
On one trip there were two Italian sisters who formed a cook team. Both of them were quite small and it was obvious that they didn’t eat very much. On the first time they cooked I offered to help them but they assured me they could manage. After a long drawn out process for the evening meal we ended up with a small bowl of pumpkin soup and half a slice of bread. It tasted very good but was clearly not enough.
I didn’t say anything but the next time another bowl of soup appeared. I asked them if that was what they would normally eat at home and they said it was. The next night we had decided that we would all eat out in a restaurant with our own money. I sat beside the girls (they were pretty after all) and ordered two main courses and two deserts, I was very hungry after having many days of working.
One of them, after looking at the amount I had consumed, said to me, “When we cook, do we make enough?” “Not really for me,” I said. “Ok” she said, “We will make some pasta as well” It wasn’t the best solution given my dislike of pasta but at least the rest of the group were happy!
Some of the best meals we had were the simplest. We needed something to fill up on rather than little but good tasting things. Mashed potato with sausages or a large stir fry with plenty of rice were good. Chips (French fries) were difficult as there was never enough to go round at the first go and the cooks would end up spending half the night slaving over a hot chip pan. When we could use wood for the oven I used to enjoy cooking a shepherds pie or even apple crumble. Baked potatoes always went down well, as did a large pot of Chilli. Cauliflower cheese or omelette were good as were pancakes and potato fritters. Bubble and squeak and corned beef hash were cooked from time to time with good results as well.
Bread was rarely baked as it was easier to buy it fresh but when I was going through central Africa this was difficult so we had to bake our own every night. The first results were quite poor but we soon managed to make something that was edible. In fact the worst place to obtain a regular food supply was in what used to be called Zaire, now the DR Congo. We had to virtually take in with us all the food we could, dried, tinned and packaged. We didn’t eat too badly, enough to keep you going but it tended to be monotonous.
One cook team of two women went shopping with the food money and never came back with any change. They always swore blind they’d spent the exact sum. Yeah, right. One woman insisted on cutting vegetables in the palm of her hand and sure as eggs are eggs made a deep cut requiring stitches. One group in India decided they’d had enough of cooking and requested paying a local to cook for us. I acquiesced as I was curious and after two days they sacked him because they didn’t like the taste of it and he used far too much oil.
One pair of cooks put all their eggs in one basket, literally, they decided to make a massive omelette/Spanish tortilla but on the way back to the truck dropped them all in the road accidentally. One good looking lad charmed a couple of girls to do the cooking for him every time. One selfish lad bought just enough sausages for him and his three mates on the trip. One woman said she did all the cooking at home and refused to do any. I told her she was on the wrong trip then and either cooked, found someone else to do it, or leave. She cooked and actually made some really good meals.
A few group members had never cooked at all, never mind for a group, they either always had takeaways, ate out, went home to their mother or had sandwiches. One Japanese girl made nothing but plain boiled rice and soy sauce. In Zimbabwe one lad who was a butcher bought a whole warthog and butchered and roasted it for us. One woman turned out the most perfect cakes and biscuits but couldn’t make toast to save her life. One girl decided to sieve the boiling potato water over her bare feet and couldn’t walk for a week.
Once whilst in a campsite a couple gave all the food money for the day and a shopping list to a local. He didn’t come back. The very worst though was at a lunch stop I fell asleep in the cab and no-one woke me up when it was ready. Etc, etc.
I never thought that water would cause a problem, not the supply but the taste of it. Most people had no problem but there was the odd one or two could not be satisfied. The water was kept in a tank on the truck and was made of metal. During periods of hot weather then it would get quite warm and it was unpleasant to have to drink warm water. That was the problem though, the hotter it got the more water you had to drink.
Also it had to be treated with a chemical to make it safe, if over used then the chemical would be able to be tasted. Some opted for buying bottled water but they still had the problem of keeping it cool. At times someone would become ill through dehydration and it would be purely because they were only drinking the bottled water and they were unable to buy it, so they would go without.
One Canadian girl was so used to only drinking bottled or mineral water at home that she refused to drink the truck water. She would search all over for some and if the was none then she would dehydrate and I’m sure she felt worse than drinking the truck water. What made it more difficult for her was that she had a thing about how much sodium was in it. I was with her in a supermarket when she went through a row of different types of water, examined the contents on the bottle and if she thought there was too much sodium then she would put it back and choose another. After passing up many different makes she walked out with a can of cola. That was all she had to drink that day until we reached a campsite with a bar where she went through their stock of water, rejected it all, and bought herself another cola.
It was a good experience to do a journey from Nepal through to Egypt as there was a large variety of different foods available. Initially in India then there were numerous different types of vegetables and fruit, lots of different breads and spices. Pakistan was similar but had more of a western flavour to the food. Once in Iran then few vegetables were to be had and it was mainly meat and rice based. On entering Turkey then I used to go mad and eat lots and lots of soft white bread with everything. Into the Middle East then the food became more Arabic and had a completely different flavour. It was all so good it would be difficult to choose my favourite. I would probably though say that my favourite meat was ostrich steak, which I had, many times in southern Africa, Turkey had the best all round variety and with India coming close second if you liked the taste of curry.
The meal which I was looking forward to the most and which tasted the best was, after spending over three months travelling through west and central Africa, arriving in Kampala in Uganda at a campsite I knew and having Burger and Chips. It was so good and rich though that it nearly made me sick!
Anthony asked, “How close can you get to the animals?”
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 13, 2011 22:28:32 GMT 2
High above Lake Malawi is a game park situated on Nyika Plateau. It was good to spend a day or so there as it was sufficiently high enough that the weather was considerably cooler than near the lake. The road was well surfaced initially but then deteriorated to a small dirt track. This was a route over the border to Zambia from Malawi, a little used crossing, the track up to the game park turning from the main one before reaching the border.
The plateau itself was at 2600 metres above the level of the lake, which lay a little above sea level, and it would take the best part of a day to drive up to it. The best part of a day if it was dry but when wet then the higher parts became just a bog of wet sticky soil. We would try and stock up with food at a small town called Rumphi before attempting to ascend.
The track would take a fairly tortuous path through the hills passing numerous small villages on the way. Frequently we could travel at no more than twenty kilometres per hour as we negotiated rocks, potholes and washouts. Washouts were where during a very heavy rain fall the run off water would scythe its way across the camber of the road or track and cut out a trench up to a metre deep or just cut away large areas of the surface leaving a mess of loose earth underneath.
As we ascended the air would get cooler and cooler and seemingly more clear. There were times when we could see further in to the distance than we had done for many weeks. After taking the turn to the park instead off straight on to the border then the track would get even worse. There were steep climbs and hairpin bends that required careful negotiation. Eventually we would reach the plateau and as it was fairly flat then any surface water tended to stay where it was. This caused the ground to become waterlogged and trying to drive through this often resulted in the truck getting stuck up to its axles in the mud. The area itself was always well worth the effort put in to getting there.
The countryside was reminiscent of Scotland in that there were rolling hills covered in ferns and heather. The trees were usually pine and not the acacia found at the hotter, lower levels. There were supposed to be no large cats around so it was relatively safe to walk on safari. The game mainly consisted of types of gazelle, antelope and zebra. But because of the lack of competition from other predators there were quite a few hyena roaming around. One of the favourite ways to get through the park was on horseback, a good vantage point for game spotting and ease of sneaking up on them.
Accommodation consisted of a couple of rooms at the main game park headquarters or a rather basic campsite. The campsite had no showers or running water and toilets that were only a hole in the ground surrounded by a rudimentary screen. It was located in a grove of tall pine trees and needless to say though, it was a wonderful place to be as it was miles away from anywhere and at night there wasn’t a sound other than the wind passing through the branches.
We set up our camp at the site and settled down for our evening meal. Later we lit a small fire to sit round as the weather began to get cooler. We sat and chatted for a while then eventually most began to drift off to bed. I hadn’t noticed before but there seemed to be not enough tents erected for the number of the group. Three of the males told me that as it was so peaceful they had decided to sleep out in the open around the fire, using the fire for warmth and protection.
I also soon went off to bed and left them to it, it had been a hard day driving for me and I was getting quite tired. Everything was so quiet I had a really good sleep and woke refreshed early the next morning. As I got up I noticed one of the three males from around the fire was walking about with only his shirt on, one was dressed but hobbling about with no footwear and one who was never to be seen without his hat on was walking around bareheaded.
As I came to them I was asked if I had heard anything in the night. I told them that I hadn’t and asked why. They told me that they were missing a pair of shorts, a pair of leather sandals and the hat. I knew there was no one else at the campsite and no one else within a couple of kilometres of us. We began to search around and soon found a dirty ripped rag, which was identified as what was left of the shorts. Nearby we found a knife, the remnants of the hat and just the plastic soles of the sandals.
After some initial puzzlement we found a common factor. Leather. The hat had had a leather band around it, the upper part of the sandals, a belt and knife pouch attached to the shorts were all leather too. We decided that the only explanation was that an animal had come to the fire after it had died down, and while the three were asleep had taken the cast off clothes to feed on the leather.
One girl in the group then said that during the night she had gone to the toilet, but after getting out of her tent she had seen a hyena passing through the camp and rushed back in again. She had gone to bed early the previous night and didn’t know of the three sleeping at the fire. I asked her if she was certain it was a hyena as it was dark. She was adamant she had as the shape is so distinctive. There was the answer then I said.
The male who had lost the shorts then started saying, “Oh shit, Oh shit, Oh shit.” We asked him what was the matter. It turns out that he was using the shorts as a pillow! The hyena must have taken them from under his head while he was asleep! “There is something else.” He said. “I remember having a dream that I was sleeping with a girl who had bad breath. She was breathing in my face so I pushed her away and turned over!”
The next night we all slept in tents and hid all our clothes.
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 13, 2011 22:29:23 GMT 2
We were travelling that day between Fort Monroe and Loralai. We were in the north west of Pakistan, an area known not unsurprisingly as the North West Frontier Province. Before 1947 it was part of India but then there was Partition when the separate country of Pakistan was formed. It resulted in a time of bloodshed between the Moslems heading west out of India to their new country and the Hindus travelling east.
Previous to 1947 it was all part of the British Empire but the North West Frontier Province was always the scene of bitter fighting. The British never managed to fully subdue the tribesmen, the area bordering on Afghanistan, a country of fierce fighting men, the British and Russians finding to their cost.
Fort Monroe was one of the fortifications set up by the British to protect the trade routes. The fort was now in a state of disrepair. This was the scene of our last night's camp after a hard drive up the escarpment. Actually we stayed in the grounds of an old rest house nearby, the fort being too structurally decrepit. We were heading that night for Loralai, the largest town in the area. But still unsafe enough that we were to camp at the local police station in the centre.
The road had risen out of the Indus plain from Derra Ghazi Khan in a series of narrow hairpin bends up to the old fort and then continued on with nowhere to turn off for mile after mile. Thousands of feet in height were gained from the plain, the road being the only way through the mountains apart from a several hundred mile detour to the south. Eventually this leg of the journey would see us in Quetta. A city by most standards.
The road itself was no more than a single strip of tarmac barely wide enough for a truck. When two vehicles met they both had to put their left side wheels onto the verge. As the road was frequently built up from its surroundings to protect the surface from the rains then the edges became waterlogged and soft. The vehicle who went furthest on to the verge ran the greatest risk of literally falling off the road.
The local trucks were always dangerously overloaded so when they met in opposite directions there was frequently a “Mexican stand off” where neither would commit themselves to manoeuvring around the other for fear off tipping over. Eventually they would creep past each other with a lot of shouting and cursing, the drivers mate would be out giving directions, often being contradicted by anyone else nearby. They would leave the smallest gap possible between themselves, I'm sure no more than a few atoms in thickness.
The road rises and rises getting smaller and smaller with a shear rock face on one side and a precarious drop on the other. Only in a small number of places is it wide enough to allow two trucks to pass. This results in the drivers rushing as fast as they can either up or down before anything else appears to block their progress. They dart between the passing places with horns blaring, the wheels scrambling for grip and the overloaded truck swaying from side to side as it careens around the bends.
Woe betide anyone who gets the technique wrong as it frequently ends up in someone disappearing through the flimsy barrier and launching themselves into a very quick and short trip into the atmosphere in a rather poor imitation of Pakistan’s answer to the space shuttle.
Anyway, I digress. At one point in the journey that day over a hundred tribesmen surrounded me. Each one held a gun. I didn’t. Some held old Lee Enfield 303‘s, others AK47‘s, made two days drive away in Darra. They all had one thing in common. They were all angry with me.
The temperature seemed to be rising quite quickly and a fragment of a song kept wandering in and out of my thoughts. Something about mad dogs and Englishmen. My face couldn’t make up its mind whether to be flushed because of the heat or drained because of fright. The local style of baggy trousers managed to hide though my shaking knees. In a previous job I had usually been able to talk my way out of problems. This time I doubted whether anyone at all understood English.
There were no Police or Army to be seen. Out here tribal law is everything, no one else has authority. The nearest station was a long hard drive back down the escarpment, back the way we had come and as in every country there never seems to be a helpful face when you need one. I realised this could cost me a lot of money at the least. The physical threat was always apparent.
I was quite surprised that so far everyone was keeping to a tight circle formed around me. Nobody had yet made the first move. The noise was tremendous, a few were quiet but everyone else seemed to want to have their say. I could never tell if they were arguing with each other or just working their way into a frenzy.
One man was extremely agitated, he was being held back by two others who were trying to stop him coming towards me. He was ranting and raving, pointing at first to behind him where a fully loaded truck lay on its side, badly damaged, and then to me. Spittle formed a punctuation to his words and gestures. He was very pissed off.
I was completely at a loss as to what to do. I knew the demand for money would come, I also knew that it was too much for me to pay. The problem would be the next step. It was no use knowing that I was in the right, that I had done nothing wrong. I had slowed right down, I had tried to give as much ground as possible but the other driver had veered away too far on to the soft verge. This had collapsed forcing his truck over onto its side, his speed had done the rest.
I had seen it in my mirrors as it flipped over spilling out the contents of the load as well as numerous passengers who had been perched on the top. I had stopped and seen that luckily no one was injured. I immediately drove on hoping that I could make it to the next large town the following day to report it to the police. It was just my bad luck that it had happened in the middle of a small village.
After being able to spend hours not seeing another vehicle there were two at once. The first being the truck that had rolled on its side, the second being an old pick up. The pick up turned round quickly and followed me. It was in fact the local bakery owner who then began to force his way past me. I was unwilling to block him as not only did he have a faster vehicle he had a rather large rifle held out of the window waving at me. He had all the advantages so I took the hint and allowed him past.
We both stopped and I quickly understood he wanted me to return to the village. Pointing the rifle at me had the desired effect and I managed to turn my truck around on a patch of rocky ground and drove back. That was when I had been surrounded. I then saw a man working his way towards the inner edge of the circle. He was difficult to miss, as he was a good head taller than anyone else. He stopped from time to time to speak with someone or other who then fell silent and moved away from him.
Eventually he came to the man who was being restrained. I then could see him quite clearly. He not only was taller than everyone else, he seemed wider and somehow just bigger. Part of this was the way he carried himself, a person of some authority. He was dressed the same as the crowd in baggy trousers, the “shalwai” worn throughout the region, large shirt worn outside the pants, the “khamis”, a small open waistcoat and a soft, round woollen Pathan hat, but it all seemed cleaner.
He looked to be in his late forties, about ten years older than myself. His face was darkened by years spent outside in all weathers, his beard was just showing signs of grey, his hands were large and strong, there didn’t seem to be an ounce of softness about him. He looked as though some time in the recent past his ancestors had come the short way south out of Afghanistan and settled here.
The other thing that set him apart from the rest was he was not carrying any sort of firearm, none that I could see anyway. He spoke in quiet tones, the driver of the other truck eventually falling silent. He then turned to look at me fully. I wasn’t sure if I should smile in a friendly way or look down or fall at his feet or just look very frightened. The last option was the easiest by far.
He walked the three paces over to me, his sandals kicking up dust as he deliberately placed his feet. He stopped an arms length in front of me and asked, “What is your name?” I told him and wondered how much English he actually knew, maybe I could explain everything to him.
He then said, “You are a guest in our country. Go now. But learn from this.” I said, “Thank you.”
I didn’t need telling twice so I spun on my heels and walked as calmly as I could back to my truck. I could tell the faces peering out the side at me were as concerned as I was. I drove away as quickly as I could without it looking as I was escaping. Not two hundred metres further on someone in the back of my truck pressed the buzzer signalling they wanted to stop for a toilet. I also wanted to badly but I didn’t for the next hour. Little did they know I had almost gone a few minutes before when first surrounded by the crowd.
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Post by Baz Faz on Jun 13, 2011 23:07:56 GMT 2
Oh my. What a life, Mark. I don't have time to finish it tonight but it is a treat to look forward to. Thanks a million.
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Post by Ethel Mertz on Jun 14, 2011 1:33:51 GMT 2
I second what Baz said. I've read your journal and looked at the photos many times. Please keep writing. I love it!!!
On all papers I have to fill out, I always put your name in the "Who to call in an emergency" space.
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 14, 2011 7:14:39 GMT 2
It is a bit much to take in in one sitting but also I've connection problems and I wanted to get as much down as possible before I lost it again.
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Post by Ethel Mertz on Jun 14, 2011 8:59:30 GMT 2
So happy you're doing this, Mark, and , yeah, get it down now before it begins to get hazy. I wish I had kept a bit of a journal. I now think of some of my adventures and experiences and wonder if I'm not making them up. The mind is a terrible thing to misplace.
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Post by ninchursanga on Jun 14, 2011 9:23:10 GMT 2
I love this.
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Post by happytraveller on Jun 14, 2011 9:39:03 GMT 2
Am looking forward reading all this !
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Post by mockchoc on Jun 14, 2011 9:44:24 GMT 2
Big thumbs up again. love it.
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 14, 2011 9:53:34 GMT 2
There's not a lot left now. I've got a long section that I'll need to cut up though. It's a bit big for just one post.
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Post by happytraveller on Jun 14, 2011 14:09:29 GMT 2
Awesome to read ! Thanks for sharing ! Haven't finished, about 8 more stories to go !
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Post by happytraveller on Jun 16, 2011 9:18:08 GMT 2
Where can I book a trip Mark ? Sounds like my kind of holidays. Actually, you could organise a Pot Trip, how about that ? Wouldn't we be the coolest group of people ever ? ;D
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 16, 2011 11:13:08 GMT 2
I wonder how we'd all get on being stuck together for weeks or months? Bear in mind my grand total of meeting Pot members is zero so it'd definitely be interesting.
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Post by OnlyMark on Jun 16, 2011 11:15:35 GMT 2
Happy, if you ever did seriously think about doing it I'd point you in the right direction - like here - www.dragoman.com/
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