MJ's little flock

[BY Bob]

I stay at home now. As in, a two hours drive happens only three or four times a year .
I have a hard time picking out just one memory ! I have also travelled a lot in different circumstances... I chose some holiday highlights.

Three at random. Travel to get to a place : from Paris to Tanger by slow train and ferry, when I was 21. Almost three days long, but extremely cheap with the euro youth pass they had then. We were amazed that they had a cooking station on the spanish train- we had eggs and sausage, which was very exotic for us.

A memory of a road trip holiday : Iceland. We had broken the bank to rant a small SUV, a Jeep Wrangler, that was able to cross icelandish streams and go inside the island. With the plane that was 95% of the money we spent on the trip because it was so expensive, we camped and ate canned fish for three weeks. Iceland was like wonderland for me. And of course the car had a mechanical breakdown in the middle of nowhere and we had to wait half a day for the mechanics.

A tea memory: my parents invited me when I was 19 on a holiday to Luxor. We rented bikes to visit the valley of the queens and one of us had a tire go flat on the way back. Some egyptian guide took pity on us and made the necessary hocus pocus to get us the tire repaired. This took some time, until there was no one but us left in the middle of nowhere, and when he came back with the tire and friends he also had a small gas stove to heat and brew some very sweet and strong tea.

I also find for me, some of the worse travel memories, in time, also become some of the most interesting. Once you're safe back home and have had time to process the emotions.

Great stories! thanks for sharing.

 

[RoyalChick]

I stay at home now. As in, a two hours drive happens only three or four times a year .
I have a hard time picking out just one memory ! I have also travelled a lot in different circumstances... I chose some holiday highlights.

Three at random. Travel to get to a place : from Paris to Tanger by slow train and ferry, when I was 21. Almost three days long, but extremely cheap with the euro youth pass they had then. We were amazed that they had a cooking station on the spanish train- we had eggs and sausage, which was very exotic for us.

A memory of a road trip holiday : Iceland. We had broken the bank to rant a small SUV, a Jeep Wrangler, that was able to cross icelandish streams and go inside the island. With the plane that was 95% of the money we spent on the trip because it was so expensive, we camped and ate canned fish for three weeks. Iceland was like wonderland for me. And of course the car had a mechanical breakdown in the middle of nowhere and we had to wait half a day for the mechanics.

A tea memory: my parents invited me when I was 19 on a holiday to Luxor. We rented bikes to visit the valley of the queens and one of us had a tire go flat on the way back. Some egyptian guide took pity on us and made the necessary hocus pocus to get us the tire repaired. This took some time, until there was no one but us left in the middle of nowhere, and when he came back with the tire and friends he also had a small gas stove to heat and brew some very sweet and strong tea.

I also find for me, some of the worse travel memories, in time, also become some of the most interesting. Once you're safe back home and have had time to process the emotions.

Wonderful.
I will share another one from 1988.
I was in Kashmir when General Zia's (then President of Pakistan) plane crashed. The belief in Kashmir was that the Indian Government had assassinated him and Kashmir exploded in violence and protest.
A very strict curfew was imposed and it was impossible to move around.
I was with a small group of young tourists and we were stuck.
Every night a few of us would wriggle across the road on our bellies (to avoid being caught in cross-fire) to the shop of the carpet seller (whose shop of course was closed).
We would sit there on the floor while he gave us tea.
And every evening he and I haggled over a small silk carpet.
Late in the evening the police chief would join us because I always travelled with a SW radio and so I could pick up the BBC World Service which at the time was the only source of information that was trusted not to be Indian Government propaganda.
After a week we learned that the army(?) had got control of the airport and people who could get to the airport would be able to leave.
I traded the SW radio for an armed police escort to the airport (a fair price for me and for the chief of Police), and settled on a price for the carpet.
We left early morning laying prone on the floor of a bullet-ridden bus.
The carpet and I made it safely to the airport and out of Kashmir.
It isn't a very valuable rug but it has a story and I love it for that!

 

[MaryJanet]

Wonderful.
I will share another one from 1988.
I was in Kashmir when General Zia's (then President of Pakistan) plane crashed. The belief in Kashmir was that the Indian Government had assassinated him and Kashmir exploded in violence and protest.
A very strict curfew was imposed and it was impossible to move around.
I was with a small group of young tourists and we were stuck.
Every night a few of us would wriggle across the road on our bellies (to avoid being caught in cross-fire) to the shop of the carpet seller (whose shop of course was closed).
We would sit there on the floor while he gave us tea.
And every evening he and I haggled over a small silk carpet.
Late in the evening the police chief would join us because I always travelled with a SW radio and so I could pick up the BBC World Service which at the time was the only source of information that was trusted not to be Indian Government propaganda.
After a week we learned that the army(?) had got control of the airport and people who could get to the airport would be able to leave.
I traded the SW radio for an armed police escort to the airport (a fair price for me and for the chief of Police), and settled on a price for the carpet.
We left early morning laying prone on the floor of a bullet-ridden bus.
The carpet and I made it safely to the airport and out of Kashmir.
It isn't a very valuable rug but it has a story and I love it for that!

Blimey! I have never encountered violence and have always travelled safely, mainly for work. What was it that made you risk your life to obtain the carpet? Was it safer to move about in the evenings even though you were avoiding cross-fire? Was the Police Chief keeping you and your friends safe throughout the week?

 

[MaryJanet]

I stay at home now. As in, a two hours drive happens only three or four times a year .
I have a hard time picking out just one memory ! I have also travelled a lot in different circumstances... I chose some holiday highlights.

Three at random. Travel to get to a place : from Paris to Tanger by slow train and ferry, when I was 21. Almost three days long, but extremely cheap with the euro youth pass they had then. We were amazed that they had a cooking station on the spanish train- we had eggs and sausage, which was very exotic for us.

A memory of a road trip holiday : Iceland. We had broken the bank to rant a small SUV, a Jeep Wrangler, that was able to cross icelandish streams and go inside the island. With the plane that was 95% of the money we spent on the trip because it was so expensive, we camped and ate canned fish for three weeks. Iceland was like wonderland for me. And of course the car had a mechanical breakdown in the middle of nowhere and we had to wait half a day for the mechanics.

A tea memory: my parents invited me when I was 19 on a holiday to Luxor. We rented bikes to visit the valley of the queens and one of us had a tire go flat on the way back. Some egyptian guide took pity on us and made the necessary hocus pocus to get us the tire repaired. This took some time, until there was no one but us left in the middle of nowhere, and when he came back with the tire and friends he also had a small gas stove to heat and brew some very sweet and strong tea.

I also find for me, some of the worse travel memories, in time, also become some of the most interesting. Once you're safe back home and have had time to process the emotions.

For about a decade, my brother was a chef on the Indian Pacific and Ghan trains. It's quite hard work in a very small galley. Was that the sort of cooking on the slow train in Spain? Or was it travellers cooking for themselves?

I would like to see Iceland one day. The volcanic springs, wild ponies, and rugged landscape is appealing. Not too sure about all the fish in the diet though. Years ago it wouldn't have given me pause for thought, but today...

Marvellous story about tea in Egypt. It was very hospitable of him to bring the tea and gas bottle instead of simply fixing the bike and leaving you all to your own devices.

 

[MaryJanet]

It was magical.

Things like that feel surreal to me. I'm not used to snow at all, so the few times I've seen it when travelling were memorable, but most of all was the hot day in Turin with the snow up on the mountains in the distance.

 

[MaryJanet]

Another one-liner from me: I once unexpectedly came across a painting by van Gogh, I turned a corner in a gallery and there it was, and between the surprise and it's poignant beauty (it struck a balance between feverish effervescence and frozen fear of itself), I was moved instantly to tears.

 

[RoyalChick]

Another one-liner from me: I once unexpectedly came across a painting by van Gogh, I turned a corner in a gallery and there it was, and between the surprise and it's poignant beauty (the balance it struck between feverish effervescence and frozen fear of itself) I was moved instantly to tears.

I love that!

 

[MaryJanet]

I love that!

It was a painting I had seen in photographs many a time, but I had no idea where it was hung, so to suddenly happen upon it and to immediately realise how little of it iI had seen in those photos was quite a moment. The shimmer of light on oil paint is quite something.

 

[RoyalChick]

What was it that made you risk your life to obtain the carpet? Was it safer to move about in the evenings even thought you were avoiding cross-fire? Was the Police Chief keeping you and your friends safe throughout the week?

Well when you are young you think you are invincible!
Movement in the daytime was clearly not safe. At night if you hugged the road you were pretty invisible (no street lights). And being cooped up for a week in a tiny shared room in a hostel was not an attractive alternative!
I don't think I was going for the carpet, but for the experience and for something to do other than laying on our beds.
The Chief or Police had little control over the situation - but he did apparently have heavily armed folk who he could command (unclear to me if they were police or personal friends). He came in the evenings to hear the news as he had no more information than anyone else without my radio. I have no idea where he rustled up the bus, but I can't fault him for the machine gun toting guys he had hanging on all around it!

I would like to see Iceland one day. The volcanic springs, wild ponies, and rugged landscape is appealing. Not too sure about all the fish in the diet though. Years ago it wouldn't have given me pause for thought, but today...

Iceland is an almost magical landscape. As you are probably beginning to gather I have had a lot of strange travel experiences. But from a straight 'wow' for the landscape I would put Iceland and Bhutan right up at the top.
I have never been to Guilin so I can't say where they would rank against those strange mystical mountains.

 

[BY Bob]

Wonderful.
I will share another one from 1988.
I was in Kashmir when General Zia's (then President of Pakistan) plane crashed. The belief in Kashmir was that the Indian Government had assassinated him and Kashmir exploded in violence and protest.
A very strict curfew was imposed and it was impossible to move around.
I was with a small group of young tourists and we were stuck.
Every night a few of us would wriggle across the road on our bellies (to avoid being caught in cross-fire) to the shop of the carpet seller (whose shop of course was closed).
We would sit there on the floor while he gave us tea.
And every evening he and I haggled over a small silk carpet.
Late in the evening the police chief would join us because I always travelled with a SW radio and so I could pick up the BBC World Service which at the time was the only source of information that was trusted not to be Indian Government propaganda.
After a week we learned that the army(?) had got control of the airport and people who could get to the airport would be able to leave.
I traded the SW radio for an armed police escort to the airport (a fair price for me and for the chief of Police), and settled on a price for the carpet.
We left early morning laying prone on the floor of a bullet-ridden bus.
The carpet and I made it safely to the airport and out of Kashmir.
It isn't a very valuable rug but it has a story and I love it for that!

Oh my gosh! I can't imagine what that was like. Very scary. You are one brave soul.