by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 29 Mar, 2019 | Journeys
Kathmandu seemed seedier than ever as I waited for my Chinese visa. I had to keep busy, I couldn’t sit around all day or I would get depressed. It was August and the weather was hot, too hot, and by mid-afternoon I would feel slimy with sweat, as if I had been digested by a frog. I forced myself to have cold showers, hot water being unavailable in the Trekkers’ Lodge. The showers in cheap hostels doubled up as toilets: this was where you went to relieve yourself of diarrhoea and the smell, and the slime on the floor, was appalling.
One day I went for a trek (fashionable travellers don’t go for walks, they go for treks) to the nearest hill, just a few miles away. The atmosphere felt different as soon as I got out of the city and I could feel the tension ebbing out of my brain. While Kathmandu had been modernised, to a limited extent, by the influx of tourism, the countryside felt totally untouched.
By now I was at the bottom of a hill which, according to a sign, was a Royal Nature Reserve and contained wild boar and tigers. A high fence stretched out in both directions and I could see Nepalese soldiers patrolling it. They charged me two pence to enter. The path led through light woodland that reminded me of England, the air became cooler and within a couple of hours I had reached the top. I stood panting under a large, spindly observation tower, observing a laughing group of Gurkhas who seemed to be on their lunch break. My plan was to see the view when the mist lifted and see if I could scrounge lunch from some unsuspecting visitors.
The soldiers were friendly and offered me a glass of chang, a milky-coloured and quite disgusting home-made alcohol, from a jerry can. I gratefully swilled down a cupful and asked for another. An important question was pressing: where could I get lunch? I hadn’t brought anything and my stomach was rumbling. The chang helped relieve the hunger pangs but something more was needed. I climbed the observation tower and noticed a rather odd looking couple sitting nearby. I walked over to them and tried to look friendly. The girl was white and seemed to resent my appearance, he was Nepalese and older and invited me to sit down and join them. The picnic was small but she had constipation and couldn’t eat a thing. He invited me to tuck in while she asked me if constipation is worse than diarrhoea.
The man introduced himself as Shankar and started talking about his uncle who, he claimed, had been Prime Minister of Nepal and good friends with the king. It sounded very unlikely but I made I’m impressed noises as I bolted down their picnic. He had been educated at one of the English-style public schools that are dotted around India and had the behaviour, accent and witticisms that are typical of people who get educated in these places. As I started on the hard boiled eggs Shankar said:
– My uncle went to China and returned to make Nepalese history. I nodded with interest, looking forward to a good yarn.
In Beijing the uncle had opened negotiations with Zhou Enlai, the Prime Minister, and signed a trade agreement that resulted in cheap goods flooding into the Nepalese shops and the opening up of the land border to traders and international tourists. However, this created a problem with India, which had always considered Nepal to be within its sphere of influence and had never forgiven China for stealing a huge chunk of its north-western borderland – the Aksai Chin – in the early 1960s. China had briefly invaded northern India in 1962, but quickly withdrew. My new friend told me that there are other disputed areas along the Himalayan frontier and war between India and China was always on the cards. I kept nodding enthusiastically, trying to keep his attention away from my real priority: finishing off their picnic.
By the end of the conversation my head was spinning with names and borders and strategies and once I had eaten my fill I started to note it all down in my diary. Shankar seemed impressed that I was so interested in his knowledge and as we were leaving he whispered to the girl conspiratorially, they both glanced at me, and he said grandly:
– We must meet up again. Do call me tomorrow.
The following day I checked with the Chinese Embassy to see if my visa had been approved and, having heard the same answer I got every day, I called up Shankar. He had been very friendly on the hillside the day before but now he sounded quite distant and remote. Had the girlfriend pointed out that I had greedily consumed the bulk of their picnic? But he invited me to come and meet a fellow Scotsman, which sounded interesting. Later that day the three of us drove out of town, heading north, towards Tibet, on the first bit of decent tarmac I had seen in Nepal. We passed a series of concrete poles by the side of the road which supported overhead cables. Shankar explained that this was Nepal’s first electrified bus line, built by the Chinese.
We parked by the end of the flat plain that Kathmandu is located on and looked up at the vast wall of mountains, the Himalayas, that towered above us like a tidal wave. We went up to a tall, newly-built house, saw a well kept, English style garden and were greeted with great warmth by an old couple from Forres, Scotland: Mr and Mrs McLellan. They were a pair of bright eyed highlanders who had come to retire in Nepal. He was a tough cookie, thin and friendly, and a great storyteller. His wife complemented him perfectly – warm and sympathetic with a voice like a soft highland breeze – and kept our teacups full as he blethered on into the evening.
Mr McLellan began life in a croft, a miniscule farm in the Highlands, got called up for the Second World War and then got a job washing dishes in a hotel. He then learned the hotel business, worked his way up the management chain and eventually set up his own business. During the 1970s the McLellans moved to Nepal and he established himself as a hotel consultant. Because tourism is about the only thing that makes cash for Nepal, apart from drugs, they desperately needed a Mr McLellan, who loved telling people how to run things. He described Nepal as somewhere between autocracy and democracy and told us that corruption is rife. Comparing the running of a country to the management of a Scottish hotel, he saw himself as a source of practical economic advice, leading the region into the next century.
Some years before, the Chinese leadership had invited Mr McLellan to come and advise them about the hotel business. Due to some canny diplomacy on Mr McLellan’s part he managed to get a personal audience with China’s top leader.
– What, he asked, is the precise population of China? The Chinese leader thought for a moment, scratched his head, looked in his file and then admitted he didn’t know the precise figure but thought it was approaching a billion.
Mr McLellan was not impressed. He informed the leader that not having high quality demographic information is a major handicap for a government, and he explained the value of a detailed census as a building block for good government – especially when it comes to planning, which is something Communist governments take very seriously. The Chinese leader apparently took all this in good faith, spoke to someone on the phone about it and thanked Mr McLellan for his advice. He concluded his tale by telling us that their next census, taken in 1982, was the best that had been carried out since the Communists’ took over in 1949. We were impressed by Mr McLellan’s storytelling and even Shankar felt outclassed. On the way back to Kathmandu that evening he hardly said a word and I felt sorry for him when he glumly said goodbye.
After repeating the tale to Adrian and Richard that evening and imagining an audience with the Chinese leadership in the sumptuous Forbidden Palace in Peking, Trekkers’ Lodge felt grottier than ever. Sleep was impossible because of the buzzing mosquitoes dancing round the windows and the endless howls of the stray dogs that roamed the streets at night. My tolerance for the travellers’ life in Kathmandu was ebbing and the one idea that gave me cheer was the knowledge that the Trekkers’ Lodge was luxury compared to what would be available in Tibet.
Just as I had come to the grim conclusion that the Chinese weren’t going to give me a visa, or an explanation, and certainly not my money back, they promptly told me that I had a one month visa to visit the People’s Republic of China. I was delighted and I dashed off to inform my new friends of the great news. Then I started to ask myself if one month is enough time to visit Tibet, get through China and reach Shanghai? Is it possible to get visa extensions in Tibet? But I didn’t dwell on these future challenges; this was my ticket out and I was delighted to be leaving.
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This is an extract from 9 Months in Tibet — the eBook — which will be published soon. I’d be very grateful you’d reserve a copy (you’ll be helping me become a full time writer); just email me at wolfemurray@gmail.com (or post a short comment under this article).
by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 26 Mar, 2019 | Journeys
Kathmandu was the first Asian city I had seen that wasn’t built of concrete.
This small city seemed genuinely ancient and the centre was full of Hindu temples, each one a hive of activity. Some were covered with elaborate stone statues of Hindu Gods penetrating their consorts with massive stone penises. The streets were narrow and packed with crowds, people selling fruit and all manner of foods, sacred cows wandering freely and helping themselves to the produce of the fruit sellers who would get infuriated but were unable to do anything. There were more hippies per square yard than I had seen anywhere in my life and their expressions told me there were plenty of cheap drugs available. Everywhere you looked Nepalese men would be hustling, offering hotel rooms, cheap restaurants, tours to the mountains, rupees, precious stones, antiques, temple visits and, of course, hashish. It was pouring with rain and everything felt damp.
At 70 pence a night, the Trekkers’ Lodge was the cheapest place I found to stay. The boys in charge of the guesthouse walked me up some dark stairs, along a gloomy corridor and showed me into a small grubby room with three beds. The boys thought they were doing me a big favour by putting me in a room with two Englishmen. We entered the room and two shabby looking travellers glanced up from their fat paperbacks and tried to look welcoming. Mosquitoes circled the sole light bulb and a towel was stuffed into the small, broken window. I took the free bed by the door.
Richard was dark and good-looking and he had the bed by the window. He sounded like an upper class Englishman but he claimed to have worked as a brickie before going to study at East Anglia University. He fervently believed in the British Labour Party and put all his energy into convincing us that Neil Kinnock, the leader of the party, was different and would transform society when he became Prime Minister. His diatribes were fascinating and I learned more about British politics than I had done at university, where I had studied the subject, but I didn’t believe in party politics, or ideologies of any stripe. I told them that my view of parliamentary elections was based on some graffiti I once saw in Liverpool: Whoever you vote for, Government wins!
Adrian was in the middle bed. He was thin, witty, had a whispy beard and was a seasoned traveller from the West Midlands. He showed me a photo of his mates back home, lined up outside the pub, a grotesque glimpse into another world. Adrian had lived in Greece where he had witnessed the Socialist Party getting elected based on a promise of expelling the American troops from their country, a promise they had failed to deliver. Nothing could convince him that any political party delivers on its promises, Neil Kinnock being no exception, and so they had endless material for debate.
We would go for meals together in cheap restaurants with pastel drapes and nice decor, endlessly talking about world politics while eating westernised food at a tenth of the price. Prices are a big topic among travellers and I noticed how our understanding of money changed to suit local prices. The restaurant we frequented most often sold delicious bean burgers, with all the trimmings, for just twenty rupees which is one British pound. If we went to another restaurant and saw bean burgers on the menu for thirty rupees we would consider it extortionate and leave in disgust.
I had to get a Chinese visa and I wanted it quickly. Neither of my roommates had a clue where I should begin, but across the landing a chatty Chinese American girl with chubby cheeks and a bright smile told me where to go. At the Chinese Embassy, an inscrutable official sent me packing: I didn’t have the relevant papers and couldn’t possibly get a visa for China. They told me to get one in London. This isn’t what I was told in that bar in Budapest.
I then ran into a haggard looking American journalist who told me how to go about it: send a telex to Beijing requesting permission to visit the People’s Republic of China and to issue the visa in Kathmandu. Then send a telex to the Bank of China, New York branch, to pay for Peking’s reply. Whatever the reason behind this ludicrous procedure it took ages, cost far too much, and left me twiddling my thumbs in Kathmandu for the next two weeks.
My new Chinese American friend had travelled overland from Tibet with a horde of young people from Hong Kong. I noticed that Hong Kong Chinese people, when travelling together, can be incredibly loud and also rather exclusive: they seemed to ignore everyone around them and are self-contained in a rather selfish way. I had tried to share a dormitory with them, as they occupied the biggest and cheapest room at Trekkers’ Lodge, but they had specifically told the boys in charge that they didn’t want to share with anyone. I later noticed that Hong Kong Chinese people behave totally differently from their compatriots in the People’s Republic, where people seemed more friendly and humble.
But my Chinese American friend was different; she had all the openness and warmth of the Americans and was keen to talk. She had been brought up by an American family in the Midwest (I presume she had been adopted) and only learned Chinese when she went to live in Taiwan for two years. Her recent trip from Hong Kong through China and Tibet was the most potent experience of her life. She described her best moment as watching the Potala Palace, a vast and ancient structure that overshadows Lhasa, at sunset, while listening to country and western music on her Walkman. Her description of Lhasa’s street life was far more vivid that anything I had read in in the guidebooks. She talked of playful monks, dogs snoozing on the streets, the infectious friendliness of the people, children running alongside the tourist buses and demanding sweeties. She told me that Tibet was quite backward compared to China proper but the effect of western tourism was spreading fast.
Our conversation inspired me to find out more about Tibet and as I began devouring guidebooks, with their short potted histories, I realised my knowledge of Tibet was virtually non-existent. My only source had been Tintin in Tibet, a cartoon book involving a plane crash in the Himalayas, some amusing encounters with Tibetan monks and a showdown with the Yeti, the Abominable Snowman.
I learned that Tibet had been a medieval country until the 1950s. Neither China, home of ancient technology, nor Britain, the scourge of Asia, had introduced anything more than a radio set to this ancient abode of Lamas, or Buddhist priests. It seemed inconceivable that such a strategic country, located between the Chinese, Russian and British Empires, had managed to evade colonisation for so long. Tibet’s policy towards its imperial neighbours had been simple: ignore them. Incredibly, this policy had worked and they had been left in relative peace for almost a thousand years. When a Chinese dynasty got powerful it would install an ambassador in Lhasa and encourage trade in silk and tea, and when the dynasty grew weak their influence would wane and the ambassador would go hungry. Not until the 1950s did China conquer Tibet and incorporate it fully within their border.
By the nineteenth century Britain was raping China, selling them vast quantities of Indian opium and setting up fortified trading ports where huge profits could be made. Meanwhile, to the west, Russia was expanding into the vast deserts of central Asia, butting up against the outer rim of the Chinese area of influence and conquering the ancient kingdoms that had ruled the region for centuries. China’s ruling Ching dynasty couldn’t cope with all this. For hundreds of years they had considered themselves to be the centre of the universe – they called themselves the Middle Kingdom as they believed their land was between heaven and earth. When foreign kings would visit they would be expected to kowtow: prostrate themselves on the floor in a gesture of total submission. Unlike the Japanese, the Chinese were unable to adapt to modern technology and, as a result, the western powers were able to humiliate them. The Chinese didn’t know how to cope with the arrogant Brits who not only refused to kowtow to the emperors, but undermined Chinese society with opium, made a mockery of their armies and destroyed the exquisite Summer Palace in Peking, a vast playground of parks, pagodas and ponds, in an outrageous act of vandalism.
As the twentieth century approached, Tibet’s importance as a strategic buffer zone grew. In 1904 a British force marched into Tibet, fired a few volleys against medieval troops and met virtually no opposition. They found that rumours of Russian influence had been exaggerated, there were no foreign representatives in Lhasa, and they quickly withdrew. But they did sign a treaty, lay a telegraph line and install a trade representative in the city of Gyantse. The Tibetans started to realise that they couldn’t go on ignoring the rest of the world and they tried to sign a treaty with China, but the Ching Dynasty was disintegrating at the time and they were unable to make any progress in this regard.
The chaos of the Second World War enabled Mao Tse Tung and the Communist Party to seize control of China and by the late 1940s they turned their attention to Tibet. They considered Tibet to be another part of the Chinese Motherland that needed to be liberated. They didn’t need to fight their way in as they made a promise that Tibet’s autonomy would be honoured, that the Dalai Lama could remain as leader and that its unique cultural integrity, including a distinct language, would be respected. A treaty was signed in 1951, under duress, and for the first few years the Communists did carry out some useful reforms. By 1959 Chinese heavy-handedness had become unbearable to the Tibetans, and especially to the Dalai Lama, who was nominally in charge. It became clear that the Chinese would only tolerate Tibet’s culture for as long as it took to install the Red Army and their oppressive system of administration.
In 1959 there was a general uprising in Lhasa. The unarmed Tibetans didn’t stand a chance and thousands were killed. The Dalai Lama, followed by about 80,000 Tibetans, fled over the Himalayas and eventually set up a government-in-exile in the Indian village of Dharamshala. The darkest period in Tibet’s history was still to come: in the 1960s over a million were displaced or killed, villages starved, collectivisation was brutally installed and, during the Cultural Revolution, Tibet’s vast network of monasteries was destroyed and the monastic way of life abolished.
But this had all changed when China’s new leader, Hu Yaobang, visited Tibet in 1980 and publicly apologised to the Tibetans for the mistakes that had been made. He decreed that Beijing’s grip on Tibet should be loosened and that Tibetans would have a say in its governance. Part of the reform process that followed included the opening up of Tibet to international tourism.
At that point I still retained some faith in Chinese Communism, which I believed to be more benign than the East European and Soviet variety. I wanted to believe that Communism could work somewhere on this planet as it is such a great theory. I became fascinated by Tibet and refused to believe all the horror stories I was hearing. I wanted to find out the truth for myself.
The more I found out the more questions I had: why wasn’t Tibet even mentioned at university where, in my final year, I had studied The Western Powers and Asia? Why did all the other tourists in Kathmandu seem to know the history of Tibet back to front? Did people in the west know this story? Was I completely wrong in thinking that the Peoples Republic of China was the one place where socialism hadn’t been so terrible? Were the guidebooks wrong? Was the potted history I had just learned nothing but capitalist propaganda? Was Mao Tse Tung really such a baddie?
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This is an extract from 9 Months in Tibet — the eBook — which will be published soon. It was about a journey that happened in 1986 and 1987. If you’d like to reserve a copy just email me at wolfemurray@gmail.com (or post a short comment under this article).
by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 24 Mar, 2019 | Journeys
Bombay’s main railway station is vast, Victorian and teeming with people. I stood there feeling at a loss as to how to navigate through the crowd. Bombay is the biggest city in India and I didn’t have the energy to explore it. I stood in a queue, requested a ticket for the next train to New Delhi and was told they were sold out. I stood at the head of the queue wondering what to do next until the ticket seller took pity on me and said:
– Speak to Station Supervisor. Only he can help you.
The Station Supervisor’s office felt like a museum about Britain in the 1930s: shabby old cardboard files were stacked against each wall, from floor to ceiling; each file was bulging with paperwork, tied with string and covered in dust. An endless stream of small, thin men dressed in white cotton pyjamas came into the room to consult with the supervisor – a hugely fat monster who sat immobile behind his desk. He would give everyone a few seconds, look at their note, stamp or sign their paperwork, exchange a few words. He was like a spider sitting at the centre of a vast web. I wasn’t sure how to approach him, how to interrupt the constant flow of people. Nobody seemed to notice me, so I just stood there and watched. Time seemed to stand still.
– How can I be of service? the fat man asked, without looking up.
– I would like to get the next train to Delhi, but the ticket office says they are sold out. They also said if I came to the supervisor perhaps you could find me a ticket.
– Who on earth told you that? These Ticket Wallahs are acting very cheekily. They will have to be punished. If the tickets are sold out they are sold out. There is nothing I can do. Tell me please, where are you from?
– I am from Scotland.
– Ah, Scotland. I am very fond of your Scottish whisky. I don’t suppose you are carrying any on your person?
– Er…No.
– Well you can just stand there for a while and we will see what developments arise.
Eventually the penny dropped and I realised he was waiting for a bribe. I had never bribed anyone in my life and I had no idea how to do it. Isn’t it illegal? Maybe he would report me and have me thrown in jail? More time passed and I knew the Delhi train was about to leave. Desperation drove me on and I fumbled around in my money-belt and pulled out a Scottish five pound note, went up to him and said:
– I would like to give you this.
– What on earth is this?
– A Scottish five pound note.
– And what am I supposed to do with it?
– You can exchange it for ten rupees.
– That is not a great sum of money.
– It’s a gesture of my appreciation.
– I beg your pardon.
– I want to show my appreciation for getting me a ticket on the train to Delhi, which I simply must catch.
– I see. It’s urgent is it. Well, it all boils down to the same thing in the end. This train or the next one?
He barked orders to one of the nearby Ticket Wallahs and within minutes a ticket was produced, more money was exchanged and I was escorted across the station by a cheery old man in a white pyjama suit. He indicated a third class carriage that was packed to bursting point. There was no way that I would be able to get on there, but he shouted an order, an opening was made in the crowd and I squeezed through the railway carriage to the compartment.
It wasn’t the usual railway compartment with six individual seats, it was a sleeping compartment with three levels of beds on one side and three on the other. They weren’t beds with mattresses, they were simply hard wooden surfaces, like shelves in a store room. People were crammed into every available inch of space, there were faces in front of me, above me and even below in the narrow space under the bottom bunk. There must have been over thirty people in there and all of them were staring at me. Indians can stare at you all day and I always appreciated the absence of hostility. They seemed interested in everything: my clothes, my rucksack, my movements, anything I took out of my pocket. They had welcomed me in and I felt safe. I leaned forward onto my rucksack, which was standing on the floor, and immediately fell asleep.
When I woke up the train was moving and my fellow passengers were still staring at me. Time passed slowly. I had a book to read and a diary to fill in – every day I wrote one page – but the others had nothing to do but stare. Then I pulled out a packet of Shag tobacco and rolled a cigarette. There was a murmur of excitement in the crowd and they moved a bit closer. Each of my movements was scrutinised but it didn’t bother me. I finished rolling the cigarette, handed it to the person sitting in front of me and then lit a match. He was delighted and he puffed away happily. The others had become agitated with excitement and they all wanted a puff – but they didn’t ask me for more, they asked him to pass it round, which he did. This little act of sharing sealed our friendship.
I felt protected by this group and when I squeezed my way through to the toilet I didn’t think twice about leaving my rucksack with this group of poor Indians. I trusted them and knew that if anybody even touched my bag the others would have lynched him. When we arrived in Delhi I met a serious German couple who described how they had chained their rucksacks to themselves as they slept on the top bunk – but still their stuff had been stolen. I wondered if trusting people was the key to having a safe and stress free journey.
At every station we stopped at skinny old men in loincloths would stride up and down the platform swinging a huge aluminium kettle in one hand and a pile of tiny cups in the other. Gup Dee! they would shout. Gup Dee! Gup Dee! Gup Dee! These were the Chai Wallahs and they would appear whenever the train stopped. I crowded up to the barred window of our compartment, held out one rupee coin and was given a beautiful hand-made clay cup, full of hot milky tea. It was delicious, very sweet with a hint of cardamom. Best cup of tea I’ve ever tasted, I thought. I carefully handed back the precious clay cup, assuming I was doing the old man a favour as he could use it for the next customer, but he threw it down onto the tracks with a look of contempt as if I had given him a piece of rubbish. This was their form of disposable cup.
India doesn’t look very big on the map – especially if you compare it to Africa – but when you cross it by railway you start to realise how vast it really is. It took over 24-hours to reach Delhi and another day to cross the northern plains to reach the border of Nepal. By this time I had developed a sense of momentum and wasn’t hanging around in every city I came across. After Delhi I started hitchhiking on trucks that were so overloaded that they would swing from side to side like ships at sea, and motorbikes, jeeps and cars that had been designed in the 1950s. Soon enough I reached Nepal.
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This is an extract from 9 Months in Tibet — the eBook — which will be published soon. It was about a journey that happened in 1986 and 1987. If you’d like to reserve a copy just email me at wolfemurray@gmail.com (or post a short comment under this article)..
by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 20 Mar, 2019 | Journeys
I only stayed four days in Romania but it felt like months. I was glad to be sitting on the train to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, to be gradually moving on. Laurentiu and Cristina had brought me to the station, insisted I take some chunky sandwiches and waited on the platform until the train left. Their hospitality belied the image of hostility, fear and repression that had I felt on the streets of Bucharest. The train crawled out of town, made its way across a flat plain to the Danube. I was saved from excruciating boredom by a big, bouncy black woman from West Africa who was studying physics in Sofia and had been visiting her African friends in Bucharest.
– Why would you come and study here? I asked.
– There aren’t enough university places in Nigeria.
– But Bucharest? Sofia? Don’t you find these places dark, repressive and dull?
– Not at all, she replied cheerily. The place looks bad but the people are very friendly. They know how to party and the authorities leave us alone. The education here is very good and very cheap. Much cheaper than it would be in Western Europe or America.
We talked all the way to Sofia and when we arrived in that strange capital city she invited me to come and stay with her African friends in a block of flats, a student hall of residence. That evening I was basking in the euphoric friendliness of Africa, soaking up the human contact which acted like an antidote to the hostility of previous days. I hardly noticed the city of Sofia. I had no time or energy to look around yet another East European city. I was desperate to get going and first thing the following morning I went straight back to the station and bought a ticket to Istanbul.
When my train rolled up to the Turkish border I was in a deep sleep. Sounds of people shouting woke me up as I lay on the comfortable bench, not wanting to move. It was night outside and I lay there wondering why I was doing this journey. All of a sudden the whole journey felt pointless and I didn’t want to go on. I felt sad, lonely and bored and I had a powerful urge to go home. I was at the border and I had to get up, grab my rucksack, go outside and submit myself to questioning by the Turkish border guards. For the first time since I left home, I just couldn’t be bothered. A sense of doubt quickly started to grow and I could feel my purpose melting away. Then I heard a high pitched oriental song blasting out of a distant speaker. All of a sudden I knew why I was here. The Orient was calling, sweeping away all sense of doubt. I jumped up, grabbed my stuff and got off the train.
The travel agent in Istanbul looked like he never got out of his seat. He was friendly, helpful and spoke English but was so overweight that I wondered if he could even stand up. Everything he needed was right in front of him – telephone, reference books, airline catalogues, adding machine, cashbox – and I wondered if he slept there at night. I had noticed a lot of skinny people on the streets and wondered how this one had got so huge.
– I would like to fly to India, I said, not mentioning my fears about going overland through Iran.
– Hmm, let me see. The most comfortable route is through the Middle East but it is rather expensive.
– I want the cheapest ticket possible.
– Hmm…in that case you must go to Athens. I have a very good offer here of a flight from Athens to Bombay but you have to pick up the ticket in Athens.
– Greece? But I thought Greece and Turkey were enemies? Can I cross the border? There are so many newspaper reports about hostilities between your countries.
– Someone has been filling your head with a lot of nonsense, he said with a laugh. Indeed, the politicians and newspapers on both sides of the border do make a lot of noise, but when it comes to business we just carry on as normal. Do you want this ticket? You have a two day stopover in Athens.
– Yes.
I didn’t appreciate Athens with its infernal traffic, ugly modern buildings and westernised people. I had adapted to the gruff but friendly Communist citizen and was looking forward to the noisy chaos of India. I didn’t want to be in Greece but I now had a ticket for Bombay in my money belt, squashed up against my sweaty collection of US dollars, and I had to do something for two days.
The closest island to Athens is called Aghina and I got there by a short boat ride. All the buildings round the harbour were restaurants, hotels or something to do with the western tourists I was trying to avoid. It was the height of the summer holiday season and there were tourists everywhere. Aghina is a small island and I decided the best way to escape from the tourists, and to get some exercise, was to walk across it. It was less than twenty kilometres to the main beach resort on the other side. In my hurry to get away I forgot to take water and several hours later I felt I was dying of thirst in the middle of dry and barren hills. The heat was intense and I cursed my own stupidity.
Eventually I found a small village with old ladies walking around in long black dresses, with black headscarves, as if they were in mourning. It was the first place in Greece I had seen that wasn’t modernised; finally I was seeing the ancient stone buildings that travel agencies use in their enticing brochures. Perhaps I could enjoy Greece’s traditional culture? Maybe they would feed me something delicious? I had heard that the Greeks were hospitable. The village looked totally cut off from the tourist circuit and I wondered if any westerners had ever made it up here. I staggered through the village, feeling like Laurence of Arabia, and walked up to an ancient looking house with an outside well and an old crone sitting on a bench.
– Water, water, I pleaded. She looked at me stonily but didn’t reply.
– Water, wasser, l’eau! Can I have some water? I made drinking gestures and she finally got it, stood up and shouted:
– Cola, Fanta, Sprite?
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This is an extract from 9 Months in Tibet — the eBook — which will be published soon. If you’d like to reserve a copy just email me at wolfemurray@gmail.com (or post a short comment under this article)
by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 16 Mar, 2019 | Journeys
Next on the agenda was Romania, the biggest country in that part of Europe. I had been interested in Romania since university because it never appeared in the media. All the other Communist Bloc countries got mentioned now and again, but Romania seemed forgotten. All the Hungarians I met hitching across their country warned me about visiting their eastern neighbour:
– You go Romania?
– Yes.
– Why you go Romania?
– It’s on my route to China.
– China? But Romania not near China. I not understand.
– I’m on my way to China. Romania is in the way.
– You no go Romania. Not good country. No food in Romania. They steal everything. Bad people.
These warnings made me even more curious to see Romania, but I did take the advice about the food situation seriously. Could it be true that there was no food in Romania? Surely that would have been a news story at some point? I had some space in my old canvas rucksack and I went to a grocer’s shop and filled it up with tins of grim-looking beans and a big leg of smoked ham. The shopkeeper asked where I was going and shook his head in sympathy, as if I was off to the front.
The border crossing was deserted. There was space for trucks and cars and people, and men in uniform everywhere, but the only form of transport I saw going in or out of Romania that day was a single car, surrounded by armed soldiers who were patiently going through all the driver’s possessions, and a lone cyclist. None of the uniforms seemed interested in my appearance – I presume they were geared up to search vehicles and interrogate drivers and didn’t know how to deal with a foreigner who’d appeared on foot – and they seemed rather bored. I had a brief chat with the cyclist, who was an American. He was middle-aged, skinny and didn’t seem to have any luggage at all. I wondered if he was some kind of undercover missionary. I asked him what it was like in Romania and he said:
– It’s exotic.
I tried to hitchhike but it didn’t work. I walked from the border crossing point and eventually got a lift from a tractor driver, black with grease, to the nearby city of Oradea, a horrendous looking dump that had been disfigured by grotesque architecture. In fact, the whole country had been ruined by Communist architects. I walked through the city, saw greasy looking cakes in a shop – there was food but it looked inedible – and tried to hitch towards Bucharest on the road south. I stood on the outskirts for the rest of the day but none of the drivers would even look at me. On the street nobody would make eye contact and I couldn’t understand it. Nowhere else had I encountered unfriendliness on such a scale. They also looked incredibly shabby, as if they had been wearing the same clothes for months. That night I walked back into town, found the railway station and got a ticket to Bucharest and thought: What a horrendous place. I can’t wait to get away from here.
I was travelling in terra incognita and the only contact names I had were reluctantly given by the boyfriend of Gwen Hardy, the artist I had visited in Berlin who had given me the tip about the Künstlerhaus exhibition in Vienna. Gwen’s boyfriend was a dark, brooding, silent Romanian called Marian. He didn’t say much when I visited their apartment – was he jealous I had come to visit Gwen? When I found out he was from Romania I asked for some contact names, and he reluctantly gave me a scrap of paper with two names and two numbers. The names were Lolla and Vlad and there was no mention of a surname, address or any other information.
I was standing in Gara de Nord, the main railway station in Bucharest, the capital of this accursed country, holding that scrap of paper in my hand and wondering if I should call the numbers or get the next train to Bulgaria. The thought of leaving was most tempting but something made me hesitate. I found an antediluvian phone box and some grubby, aluminium coins and made the call. No reply. Vlad wasn’t in. Things were looking up: one more phone call and I could hit the road. I was keen to get away from the oppressive atmosphere of this station. And then I called Lolla – what kind of a name is that? – and a grumpy female voice shouted Alo and I was at a loss for words. I hadn’t learned even one word in the Romanian language and I had no intention of doing so. Marian hadn’t told me anything about this Lolla character. Was it male, female or animal? Did it speak English? What was I supposed to say?
– Do you speak English?
– Poftim!
– Sprechen Sie Deutsch?
– Moment! barked the female voice. There was a long silence. After what seemed like an eternity I heard footsteps approaching the phone.
– Alo, said a male voice.
– Do you speak English, oder Deutsch?
– Ja, the voice said, followed by a long pause
I explained in my kindergarten German that I had got this number from a friend of his in Berlin, Marian Stoica. There was another long silence on the phone and I could hear a frantic, whispered conversation going on at the other end. This is ridiculous, I thought, deciding to get the next train to Bulgaria and be done with this Godforsaken place. Eventually the voice said:
– You wait in station. We come! The line went dead.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if a squad of policemen had dragged me off in the next half hour. Maybe it was true what the Hungarians told me, that half the population were informers for the dreaded Securitate, the secret police. Had this Lolla character called them up and told them there is a dangerous foreign spy lurking in the station? And was Lolla the woman or the man? Maybe Lolla was the acronym for the Secret Police? Should I go and get my ticket to Sofia now? What was I doing here?
The scene that followed could have been from a romantic film. I was standing in the station looking at the collection of people walking by, wondering why everyone looked so depressed, as if we were in a massive psychiatric ward not a busy European railway station. And then the sun burst through the gloom, lighting up the station for the first time and, just as the orchestra struck up, a handsome looking couple appeared. It had to be Lolla and his sister, or was it Lolla and her brother? I just knew it was them as they looked so different from the mentally disturbed crowd that I had been observing.
– Guten Tag, I said, addressing the tall and handsome man. I was so pleased to meet normal people that I couldn’t get the huge smile off my face.
– I am Laurentiu. This is my sister Cristina, introducing me to a beautiful young lady who had a perfectly formed round face and long, flowing black hair. Her smile was enchanting.
– But who is Lolla?
– I am Lolla. My name is Lolla. And Laurentiu.
– Aha, so Lolla is a nickname?
– We must go from this place.
– You speak good English, I said to Laurentiu on the way out of the station.
– I do not speak English. I speak German.
– But you are speaking good English.
– I never speak English before. I watch English films.
Laurentiu was a maths teacher and a film buff and he had watched all the classic old films at the National Film Archive, the Cinemateca, learning English, French and Russian in the process. German was the only language he had studied formally and he knew it so fluently that when I tried to speak it he would wince in pain as he knew my pronunciation was appalling. He was incredibly good looking but seemed a bit sad and I presumed this was to do with the repressive country he lived in. Why didn’t he go to Berlin like his school friend Marian? But he didn’t want to talk about Romania, emigrating, the Securitate or the dictator who overshadowed everything – Nicolae Ceausescu. In fact, he didn’t want to talk about anything – but he was warm and understanding and silent communication worked fine.
We drove off in their father’s Wartburg, an ancient East German car with a two-stroke engine, leaving behind a cloud of blue-grey smoke. We went to their house in the old town, an apartment in a street of elegant nineteenth century town houses. They welcomed me in and fed me. I handed over the leg of smoked pork I had carried from Hungary in my rucksack but they refused it. I insisted and so did they, but when they weren’t looking I put it in their ancient fridge and it wasn’t mentioned again. Later on I learned that Romanians are the most welcoming people in Europe and if they take you into their home they will refuse payment and share all their food with you, however little they have.
Bucharest felt scary, especially at night when each street seemed to be lit up by a single street lamp. It felt good to have a friendly base in such a hostile location. The next day I walked the streets alone and saw the biggest queues in my life. I passed what seemed to be a grocers shop but noticed that instead of fruit and veg on the tables outside the shop they were displaying books. When I looked closer I noticed they were all the same books, all with the name Nicolae Ceasescu on the cover. This was strange; I understood the Communist Party urge to sell the great words of the leader, but to sell them on the street like fruit and veg? Didn’t that lower the tone? Later on I came across the Museum of Romanian History, one of the few buildings with an English sign on it, and noticed that the whole upper level of the building was dedicated to Nicolae Ceausescu. There was a big sign that described in glowing terms his personal contribution to Romanian history. This didn’t feel right, the creep wasn’t even dead yet and already he’s got half the National History Museum. Needless to say my new friend Laurentiu didn’t explain any of this.
But he did take the weekend off and show me round town. Gradually, I realised it wasn’t as grim as I had first thought. We met with Victor, his sister’s boyfriend, who had smiling eyes, a stylish 1930s moustache, a devil-may-care attitude, and a car. We went to a park that was wrapped round by a lake, shadowed on all sides by trees, where we played ping-pong on concrete tables outside and drank strange fizzy juice from glass bottles. Laurentiu took me to a screening of a new Russian film called Come and See and we sat in a small, grimy but totally packed cinema watching scenes of butchery as the Nazi army invaded Belarus and proceeded to burn, shoot and destroy the local population. The film was in Russian, the subtitles in Romanian, but I didn’t need to know a word of either language to understand it. Never before or since have I seen such a powerful war film. I later found out that the director of Come and See, Elem Klimov, decided that all he wanted to say was in that film and he never made another.
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This is an extract from 9 Months in Tibet — the eBook — which will be published soon. If you’d like to reserve a copy just email me at wolfemurray@gmail.com
by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 13 Mar, 2019 | Journeys
Professor Fastl seemed like a kind man. He was tall, handsome and pre-occupied. He had renovation projects going on all over Austria and wasn’t going to look too carefully at this scruffy applicant. He had no reason to not believe my story of studying art in Edinburgh, of working in restoration in that great city – and there was an element of truth here; I had worked on building sites in Edinburgh, and they were renovation jobs – for Stewart Anderson — builder, climber and my Mother’s boyfriend.
– Have you heard of the restoration work of Professor Stewart Anderson? He is the leading expert in the restoration of ancient buildings in Edinburgh. He always praises your work.
– Humph, said the professor.
– It has been my ambition for the last two years to come and see your work.
– Hmm…said the professor, not really listening
– And if there is a chance to experience your restoration work more closely…
– Come here tomorrow morning. Have a trial. We will see then.
On the one hand I was euphoric – I was going to work in the most beautiful building in Vienna. On the other hand I was a fraud and I couldn’t bloody paint. How on earth was I supposed to do anything? I was in a panic as I left but Krzysztof, the Polish doctor who’d landed me in this, told me not to worry:
– I show you how to do this job. Is easy. You see tomorrow.
– Er, but, I can’t paint. I never could.
– Is no problem. Just come tomorrow. It will be fine.
I worked harder than I ever did in my life, desperate to keep this job and cover up my deceit. To my relief, the job was a lot simpler than I’d imagined. A huge renovation project was going on at Palais Ferstel and we were dealing with a relatively small part of it: painting huge pieces of fabric with a simple floral design. Each piece of fabric was about six metres long and two metres wide and took weeks to complete. When it was done we would attach wooden blocks to the back of the fabric, climb up scaffolding that was erected inside a series of huge arches and screw the fabric into the arch. The idea was to make copies of the original floral design that had been painted on the wall, inside the arches, and then cover them with this new fabric. Apparently this would improve the acoustics, as the room was destined to become a concert hall.
It was a bit like drawing in a children’s colouring-in book: you just need to make sure you don’t spill paint, which is easy if you concentrate. The tricky part was drawing straight lines. I was a nervous wreck: surely everyone could see that my lines weren’t straight, my hands were shaking and that I wasn’t an artist. My new colleagues, the real artists, seemed happy to have someone new to talk to and they were patient and kind. One of them was a sultry, attractive Hungarian woman called Beata whom I soon fell in love with – a hopeless case as her artist-boyfriend was working alongside us. There was also a small Turkish lady who offered me a room in her spacious apartment, an offer I jumped at.
Her flat was located at the Schottentor (the Scottish Gate) which was five minutes from the job, very central and next to the Sigmund Freud Park. It was an old and spacious flat, the most elegant place I had ever lived in. She used to give me coffee in delicate china cups and then read my fortune in the leaves; one evening she described my father in chilling detail and then showed me the cup and there he was, in outline, among the tea leaves.
I couldn’t believe my luck, although I was dreading the moment when Professor Fastl would next visit as he would look at my work, realise I was a fraud, and fire me instantly. My denouement became even more likely when an American artist showed up and managed to paint at twice my speed, whilst gabbling on about his jealous Austrian girlfriend. I was convinced that this friendly, long-haired American would get congratulated and I would get the sack. To my amazement the opposite happened: the American was shouted at by the professor and fired on the spot. He had used brilliant white rather than the magnolia colour the rest of us were using and the professor, who had been very mild-mannered until that point, was furious. I was so nervous about my own performance that I hadn’t even noticed what colours we were using; I had simply copied what the other artists were doing.
Gradually I mastered the art of drawing straight lines and filling in colour. Once I’d cracked it I started inventing ways of doing the job more quickly. Krzysztof, the silent Pole, was like a foreman in that he organised the supplies. He was also in charge of hanging the huge pieces of fabric in the arches, the trickiest part of the job. I could see that his was the least artistic role of them all and realised that this is what I needed to be doing. I watched what he did, helped him constantly and slipped into his unofficial position by the time he emigrated to America – about a month after I started. I also loved the part that everyone else hated – climbing up the scaffolding and screwing the massive piece of fabric into the wall. I had found my niche.
Three months passed quickly. My love affair with Beata got nowhere, but it was nice being in love and I would amuse her trying to pronounce impossible Hungarian words like eggy-sheggy-dray (which means cheers). Her boyfriend noticed my obsession for his girlfriend but didn’t seem to mind, he even made the odd joke about it; was he bored of the relationship or did he trust her totally? The work was going far better than I had expected, all thoughts of going home were banished and I even managed to get a job for Bettina Tucholsky, my new friend from the Künstlerhaus. My apartment never ceased to impress me with its big windows, wooden floors and beautiful art on the walls and I kept thinking: What have I done to deserve all this?
It was time to go. I had over two thousand dollars in my money belt and this time I felt determined to keep going until I reached Shanghai. When I asked Professor Fastl for a reference letter he gave me such an excellent one that I considered staying on indefinitely. But it was time to go. I organised a going away party in my apartment and the next morning I was on the road, hung-over, with my thumb out and a cardboard sign that said Budapest.
In Budapest I met up with Bettina for a weekend together. While I was hitchhiking she was getting a ship down the Danube. We had become closer and closer over the preceding months and we would go out for long beer drinking sessions. My definition of a friend is someone you can talk to about anything, indefinitely, and never get bored. We had managed to keep the whole thing platonic – avoiding romantic entanglements is an essential part of my type of travelling – until the combination of alcohol, closely packed bodies and dancing at my going away party had somehow ended up in bed.
Budapest had a special status within the Soviet bloc. I could feel it as soon as I arrived in this most beautiful of cities. Its architecture was similar to Vienna’s but it had a sinister atmosphere I couldn’t explain. I was told that Budapest was more open than any of the other Soviet bloc cities in the region; the staff in restaurants and stations were friendly and efficient, they spoke English, there were foreign tourists everywhere and someone told me this is the city that Russia uses as a place to meet with westerners. It’s their window to the west. They also offered a service I had never heard about before: a list of families from whom you could rent a room. In other words you could officially stay with families. We stayed in a big, nineteenth century room belonging to an elderly couple.
I had a small camera with me but I took very few photos in those days. Film was expensive and you could buy professional photos, very cheaply, in the form of postcards. I kept one black and white photo of Bettina in a bikini, laughing, in an old fashioned outdoor pool (lido) for which the city is famous, where old men played chess on floating boards, enjoying the hot water. In the background was a line of concrete dolphins, water spouting from their mouths.
In a crowded bar we bumped into a young, chatty American with a neat beard and a loud voice. He turned to me and said:
– So, you’re going to China?
– Yes.
– Which way are you planning to go?
– The usual way, in through Hong Kong. It’s the only way in as far as I know.
– Not any more. Things are changing fast over there.
– What do you mean?
– I’m just back from Asia and I met people who got into China through Kathmandu, Nepal.
– You mean they got into Tibet?
– Yeah, they’ve just opened up Tibet to tourists.
– Wow, it would be incredible to visit Tibet. I’d never thought about going there.
– Go for it man! Go to the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu and ask for a tourist visa. They’re giving them out.
Heading for Nepal and Tibet seemed like a much better plan than working my way through South-east Asia where there were bound to be border problems, expensive visas and other hassles. I’d already spent enough time in Eastern Europe and I didn’t want to waste more time by picking my way through small countries like Burma and Thailand. On the spot I decided to head for the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu, from where I could discover a land I knew precisely nothing about: Tibet.
There were still too many East European countries to get through and I was getting impatient. I wanted to be in the wide open plains of Turkey, Iran and India – getting nearer to my destination – but I was stuck in this patchwork of small, complicated, repressive, dark countries. I didn’t feel I was actually getting any closer to China and over four months had passed since I had left home. If things carried on like this I would be an old man before I reached Shanghai. It was like a dose of the flu – I had to be patient and work my way through it.
