Coming Home (1)

I believe it was Andy Warhol who once said that everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. Well I enjoyed my 15 minutes in my now distant youth when I was interviewed on Radio Essex. It seems that the radio station was running through some old news stories from the early seventies and had picked on one concerning a "Derek Ward, who had returned to England from Australia, travelling through 16 countries." The story had appeared in the Essex Chronicle. I was asked to contact the station to have a chat with the DJ, Anton Jarvis. As I never listen to BBC Essex (I was listening to Breeze at the time, a fact that dismayed Anton) I missed the story, but others heard, passed the request on to me and I contacted the station. My brief moment of "fame" followed!

One consequence of all this, then, was that I was made to realise just how few people knew of my travels. As one colleague said:- "I never knew you had been anywhere but here!" So here I relate the story for anyone interested to read.........

The trip was booked through the "San Michele Travel Agency", a rather grandiose name for what was no more than a one man band operating from an office near the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Little did I know it, but the guy had gone bankrupt a year or to before and went bankrupt again a few months after I reached England, leaving a host of travellers in mid-Asia without a prayer. I was mercifully ignorant of this at the time otherwise I might have had a few sleepless nights.

The idea was that you paid the agent in Sydney your full fare to England and he gave you your ticket to the next port of call, in this case Darwin. On arrival there you contacted a specified Travel Agent, presented your San Michele Pass, and they would give you your ticket onto the next destination. It carried on like this until you reached England (or didn't, whatever the case might be) There was no time limit, all the major cities were covered, but if you wanted to roam about within any particular country you had to make your own way.

The coach to Darwin

Having received my ticket I was off to Brisbane and then on through Queensland and into the Northern Territory to Darwin. There we caught a flight to Portuguese Timor (now East Timor), a small island just above Australia. This was followed by a rocky ride by local lorry to the capital Dili where we stayed at the "Hippy Hilton", a bus shelter like structure situated on the beach.

Dookie close to the Hippy Hilton

From Dili we island hopped to Bali in an old DC3 troop carrier that had obviously seen better days. The runway at Dili seemed to consist of stones and gravel, at the end of which was a clump of palm trees. I presumed that if the aircraft failed to lift off you could gather a few coconuts on your way to the Promised Land. Fortunately - after 6 attempts to start the engines - our aircraft jolted forward and sailed up and over the trees and into the wild blue yonder.

We landed safely at Bali in Indonesia and I spent the next couple of weeks at Kuta Beach, about six miles from the capital of the island, Denpasar.

One of the locals on Kuta
 Beach

There was nude bathing on Kuta Beach but I kept my trunks firmly on, not wishing to shock the locals. I had a couple of trips around the island, visiting various Hindu temples, including the Monkey Temple where I had a narrow escape.

Dookie outside a Hindu Temple on Bali

Just after Christmas Day I left Bali for Java, the main Indonesian island. We arrived by ferry in Surabaja, then travelled on to Jogjakarta where I made a side-trip to see the huge Buddhist monument at Borubudur.

Borubudur, Java

Then to Bandung ( a place no better than the name suggests ) then to the capital Jakarta where I heard the locals celebrating the New Year. From Jakarta I travelled on to Merak to catch the ferry to the island of Sumatra. Then on through Sumatra via Palembang and Padang to Samosir Island on Lake Toba. This island provided my first real culture shock. We stayed at the Mongoloid's Hut, a traditional style Indonesian house built on stilts beneath which the cows, goats, chickens and dogs roamed at will. No alarm clock was needed here, the farmyard noises waking you long before the dawn. 

The Mongoloid's Hut, Samosir Island

The only toilet on the island was an open air cubicle hung with old curtain drapes. The area had a resident pig, a huge black sow that patrolled about with evident curiosity. For anyone who dared use the facilities the idea was to hurry and finish the job before the thick slimy snout prodded the curtains aside to find out just what was going on; not surprisingly, you would often hear cries of anguish and the scamper of running feet coming from the vicinity.

We soon left Samosir Island for Belawan to catch the ferry to Penang in Malaysia. The ferry turned out to be a cargo boat and we sat on top of the hold praying to the local gods for a safe passage - lifeboats not appearing to be a fixture on board.

On board the ferry to Penang

A week in Penang and then up the coast of Malaysia to Bangkok. During my stay there we visited the Wat Po Temple, site of the gigantic Reclining Buddha, a religious figure close to my own heart (always being one to favour the reclining position, especially if avoiding work) I then took a coach trip up into Northern Thailand to the city of Chiang Mai, where I went on a jungle tour led and organised by a Mr Moo. We stayed overnight at a couple of the hill tribes, sharing our sweets with the local children, before returning to Chiang Mai, then back to Bangkok to catch the flight to Rangoon in Burma (now Myanmar)

One of the locals, Northern Thailand

There were no land routes open into Burma and the authorities had only just begun to issue 7 day visas instead of the normal 24 hour ones. The extra time allowed us to leave the capital and travel inland. We spent one day in Rangoon, seeing the magnificent Shwedagon Pagoda with its golden dome and precious gems, before heading up to Mandalay on the "express train"

The Express Train to Mandalay. Still remember vividly how a fellow traveller, a local Burmese guy, insisted on sharing his meal with us. 

We spent the night in Mandalay on the floor of the local Baptist Church before being given a guided tour of the famous town by a new Christian convert. This young lad insisted on calling everyone "my dear brother" (including the girls!) and he had a strange liking for the local cigars, giant slug-like monstrosities that judging by the pungent odour of the smoke billowing up around him were made of a cross between yak dung and straw. 

Our Mandalay tour guide, cigar in hand

From Mandalay our group caught the paddle steamer for the journey down the Irrawaddy River to Pagan, site of the great Burmese Empire of the 12th and 13th centuries. 

Down the Irrawaddy

The area consists of over 15 square miles of ancient Buddhist temples and shrines, all in various stages of ruin. We spent an atmospheric couple of hours on top of the biggest temple watching the sun set over the winding Irrawaddy, creating crazy shadow patterns around the hundreds of ruined temples. 

Pagan (1)

Pagan (2)

The following day we made a mad dash across country by various means of transport to catch the train back to Rangoon. At one point I found myself perched on the roof of one of the crowded buses, waving and shouting at the laughing Burmese people who roared by in the opposite direction. Had they never seen a mad Englishman before?

Mad Dogs and Englishmen!

We reached Rangoon safely before our visas ran out and then flew on to Calcutta, an over night stop, then on up to Kathmandu in Nepal. Three tyres burst on our plane as we landed in Kathmandu and one of the many slides I took shows the treacherous skid marks across the runway.

(To be continued on "Coming Home (2)")