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India. There were three of us. They told us we were arrested because they thought we were going to Pakistan to train insurgents. :eek:We all have military stuff in our backgrounds. They only kept us for a couple of days and then threw us out with no real explanation.
I find just the thought of that very distressing. :eek:
 
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?
Yes, it was a professional cook. I never thought about how difficult it could be ! What a job and experience that must have been for your brother ! And yes in my imagination it was only on other continents that there were cooks in trains 😂.
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...
If you have more money than we did, you can eat excellent lamb in Iceland. Canned fish was just the cheapest option! Not much vegetables though.
Iceland is on my list as well. It seems like a fascinating place. One of our friends honeymooned there. They loved it.
It's definitely worth it. The weather is not easy, so there is a bit of luck involved. I don't know how much work has been done on the gravel roads since I went in 2009. There were quite a few places you couldn't be sure to reach because you needed to cross some streams which would not be feasible if there has been too much rain.
Or foolish!
As I mentioned, there was a time in my life when I seemed to always be in the wrong place at exactly the wrong time!
Sound like good adventures. Arrested at the Pakistan border with which country?
I have had a few adventures on different parts of Pakistan's border at different times myself.
This is all giving me an itch to return to that part of the world - though I think it is all much more dangerous now (not that it was exactly safe before!). So I will flip through my memory banks instead while I still have them intact.
One of my cousin I grew up with is a full time reporter at Radio France International. He got that very coveted place as a specialist of middle east and more precisely Central Asia, in the early 2000. He wasn't an adventurous guy at all and after some years he thought it was getting more dangerous. He had an issue with one of his fixer, and also he made babies, and that decided him to stop. RFI was ditching many employees at the time and he really wanted to stay, but there were not many options. So what did he find in 2017 ? Full time correspondant in Moscow covering Russia, Biélorussie, Ukraine and all of the ex CCCR istan countries . It was wonderful the first years but talk about choosing the wrong place 😂.

I’m afraid all the time I personally felt or was in danger while travelling were due to my being so stupid I can't recall those memories publicly, even though some are rather funny.
 
Well when you are young you think you are invincible!
That's true, but in my case it manifested as riding my bike in a risky way and squabbling with my Dad :gig
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.
If I'd been there, would I have slithered across a road at nighttime with bullets zipping above just to relieve boredom? I don't think so, but I would have read every book in the hostel and relied upon your good self for news of the outdoors.
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!
And I suppose if the Chief wasn't trustworthy, you'd have known it either intuitively or because the carpet seller would have told you.
 
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.
You know, the one landscape that genuinely impressed me was the Grand Canyon. One day I'd like to go back and canoe along the river so I can look up at the canyon's magnificence.

Maybe I should retire earlier than planned so I can do a bit of travelling before my joints let me down.
If you have more money than we did, you can eat excellent lamb in Iceland. Canned fish was just the cheapest option! Not much vegetables though.
Oh! I didn't realise sheep were raised in Iceland! I imagined it was too cold for them.
It's definitely worth it. The weather is not easy, so there is a bit of luck involved. I don't know how much work has been done on the gravel roads since I went in 2009. There were quite a few places you couldn't be sure to reach because you needed to cross some streams which would not be feasible if there has been too much rain.
But I like unexpected problems in the landscape, so I wouldn't mind if I couldn't go any further and had to turn around. The adventure of it would be invigorating.
 
Or foolish!
As I mentioned, there was a time in my life when I seemed to always be in the wrong place at exactly the wrong time!
You must have inadvertently planned it by seeking adventure and going to "out of the way" places that have little social cohesion.
 
It was a special moment. The painting also made me thing of mum who was a chronic schizophrenic. Between knowing a little of van Gogh's lived experience and the effervescent colours, she was brought to mind in that moment even though she had died long before.
 

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