On my last couple of trips, I've invited motorcycling pal, Bill, along for the journey. Naturally, we had plenty of time to reminisce, and as I dug into Bill's colourful past, I discovered he spent some very interesting times overseas in the early 80s. Unlike me, Bill is a modest chap, not prone to dominating the dinner table tales, yet his adventures in Pakistan, Turkey, North Africa, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia almost 50 years ago would have Michael Palin on the edge of his seat. So, I've bullied him into dusting off his old photos and reminiscing before the synapses refuse to cooperate. Hope you enjoy. I did.
Ferries, forgotten lakes, Kashmir houseboats and the Khyber Pass on the roof of a bus: memories of an overland journey from Europe to Adelaide in the early 1980s.
The trouble with trying to reconstruct a journey more than 40 years later is that memory does not behave like a map.
I cannot always remember the name of the town, the exact order in which we visited places or even whether something happened in 1981 or 1982. I would need to dig out my old diaries and passport stamps to settle some of that.
But put an old photograph in front of me and the details begin to return: a fishing boat with a Volvo wedged across its deck, a flower seller paddling between the houseboats of Kashmir, cricket commentary drifting from the back of a Pakistani shop and the two of us sitting on the roof of a bus through the Khyber Pass.
I had been working in the Sinai Peninsula and was supposedly returning to Denmark. Instead, as often happened in those days, I took the scenic route.
From Haifa, we caught a ferry to Rhodes, where three of us wandered around for about a week. We then found a fishing boat heading to Marmaris in Turkey.
The boat was carrying a Volvo, positioned across the deck with its bumper bars hanging over the side. Passengers could sit at the bow or the stern, but moving between them was another matter.
“You couldn’t choose to go on the bow or the stern because they wouldn’t let you crawl through the bloody Volvo. It was really weird.”
Marmaris (Turkey) was a beautiful town then. We made a camp on a hill and stayed there, as you could in those days, without bookings, permits or much of a plan.
We bought a map of Turkey, noticed a lake somewhere in the middle of the country and said, “Let’s go there.”
I no longer remember its name.
This was before the film Gallipoli made that part of Turkey a familiar pilgrimage for Australians. We were not following a historic trail or ticking off famous sights. We simply saw something on a map and headed towards it.
Eventually, we reached Istanbul. One of our companions returned to England, while my friend Noel and I continued to Denmark. He caught a bus. I hitchhiked through Yugoslavia, back when Marshall Tito was still in charge and the Soviets were getting their butts kicked over the border in Afghanistan
“I’m pretty sure I got to Copenhagen before him.”
A complicated stop in Copenhagen
In Denmark, I reconnected with Mona, a Greenlandic woman I had met while working in Israel.
She invited me to Greenland to meet her family. I could afford the main journey, but not the helicopter flight required to reach her town, so I remained in Copenhagen.
By the time Mona returned, I had changed bedrooms and moved in with another woman, Birgitta.
“That was a bit untidy.”
Birgitta and I eventually decided to return to Adelaide, travelling overland whenever possible.
We flew from Copenhagen, possibly via Moscow, to Dubai. The modern towers, shopping centres and vast airport terminals did not exist.
“There was nothing in Dubai back then. It was just sand.”
From Dubai we continued to Colombo and travelled around Sri Lanka for about a month. We then crossed by ferry to India, where the journey expanded into a six-month zigzag across the country.
The photographs show the Taj Mahal, crowded towns, palaces and a much younger version of me looking like a wannabe hippie.
India felt rawer then. Agra was chaotic, and I remember seeing graffiti inside the Taj Mahal complex. The country had a population of about 700 million, which already seemed enormous.
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| Dry season in Srinagar |
From the plains we travelled north to Kashmir and stayed for four or five weeks on a houseboat on Dal Lake.
The boat belonged to a local family spanning three or four generations. They moved downstairs while we occupied the upper rooms.
“They must have heard the floor creaking a fair bit. We were like rabbits in those days.”
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| Life on Dal Lake, Srinagar |
Life on Dal Lake moved at the pace of the paddles. Traders came past in small boats selling flowers and other goods. Mountains rose beyond the water, and the houseboats formed a floating neighbourhood of timber verandas, carved panels and reflected light.
I cannot now remember precisely where Kashmir fits into the sequence. It was before Pakistan, I think, but I would need the diaries to be certain.
The photographs are often clearer than the chronology.
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| Somewhere along the Khyber Pass, I think |
Across the border into Pakistan
We entered Pakistan overland from India.
The trucks did not cross the border. Labourers carried the goods from one side to the other, with the Indian and Pakistani workers distinguished by different coloured clothing.
I can still picture them rushing forward as each new load appeared.
In Islamabad, a contact at the Australian Embassy helped arrange a visa recognising my de facto relationship with Birgitta. Otherwise, she could only have entered on a tourist visa.
It saved us from getting married for the sake of paperwork.
We travelled through Islamabad and Lahore, where we witnessed a religious mourning procession that remains one of the most confronting sights of the entire journey.
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| The annual procession in Lahore where young men self-flagellate is held to mourn the death of Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad |
It began at dusk.
Men and boys, bare-chested and dressed in white trousers, moved along the street beating their chests with their fists. They continued until blood began to show through the skin.
Later, some returned carrying chains fitted with small blades. They struck their backs as they walked, leaving blood on their hair, clothes and the road.
“It was incredible. You really had to be there.”
I had heard that mud from a particular mosque was applied to the wounds and was believed to help them heal. Decades later, I mentioned the procession to a Pakistani taxi driver in Australia.
He was astonished that I knew about it.
When I mentioned the healing mud, he became even more animated.
“You know about the mud?” he said.
He believed completely in its powers. I remained less certain, but the intensity of the procession was unforgettable.
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| Shopping in Lahore. We bought what we thought were gems. (sigh) |
Cricket and chai in the bazaar
Australia was playing Test cricket in Pakistan while we were there.
One day, while walking through a bazaar, I heard the commentary coming from somewhere behind a shop. I asked the shopkeeper for the score.
He looked at me and said, “Are you Australian?”
When I said yes, I was immediately ushered into the back of the shop. Cups of chai appeared, followed by small plates of food.
There I sat, surrounded by strangers in a Pakistani bazaar, listening to Australia play cricket.
That is the sort of moment that stays with you. It was not a monument or an organised tour. It was a temporary connection created by a game being played somewhere else.
From there, we headed towards Peshawar and the Khyber Pass.
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| The Khyber Pass: It was beautiful up on the roof |
We travelled on a public bus. There were seats inside, but they were already occupied, so we climbed onto the roof rack with the other passengers.
“It was beautiful up on the roof.”
The road wound through a dry, mountainous landscape dotted with mud fortresses and fortified compounds. I had been told that Pakistani law extended only as far as the bitumen and that disputes beyond the road were governed by local customs.
Whether that was entirely true, I do not know. It certainly added to the atmosphere.
The journey took a few hours and was completed in an afternoon. From the bus roof, the Khyber Pass appeared less like a line on a map and more like an ancient corridor through difficult country.
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| Camping in the Himalayas |
Peshawar, guns and misunderstandings
Peshawar was a wild town.
Gunfire could be heard frequently because local workshops manufactured weapons, including copies of AK47 military rifles. Someone offered to sell me a pen that could fire a bullet.
Another man asked whether I wanted to buy some hashish.
I said that sounded like a reasonable idea and followed him upstairs. Once there, the sellers began asking how many kilos—or perhaps tonnes—I required.
“I said, ‘I’m only after a couple of joints, actually.’”
Despite the gunfire, the weapons and the occasional misunderstanding, I never felt especially unsafe.
Birgitta attracted more attention than I did. Her blonde hair was a considerable novelty in that part of Pakistan in the early 1980s, and crowds sometimes formed around her.
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| Truck stop: The chai is served |
After Pakistan, we eventually returned to India and continued east. From Calcutta, we flew to Bangkok because I did not know whether it was possible to travel overland through Burma.
From Thailand, we took trains south through Malaysia to Singapore, where I bought a miniature stereo.
I then carried that bloody stereo across Java by train.
From Java, I think we continued to Bali, and from Bali we finally flew back to Adelaide.
The journey had begun with a ferry from Israel and a fishing boat carrying a Volvo. It ended with me hauling consumer electronics through Indonesia.
In between were forgotten lakes, Himalayan houseboats, crowded borders, a blood-streaked procession in Lahore, cricket and chai in a bazaar, and the Khyber Pass from the roof of a bus.
I may still have to consult my diaries to put every place in the correct order.
But some things do not require a date or a map.
I remember how it felt.
It was beautiful up on the roof.
(Stay tuned for more rollicking adventures)
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| They were just as curious about us and our blonde companion as we were about them |
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