An Overland Journey to India in 1968, The Diary

By Ulrich Hochwald

This book is my account of an overland journey in 1968 from Germany to India and back. Since my funds were very limited I used the cheapest transport options available at that time. While my main reason to visit India was to see the orphanage in Bombay, my interest then broadened to discover the lands and it's peoples. In particular I visited religious festivals, temples and game parks. Included are many photographs which show the daily routine of people going about their work and their surroundings. Also as a chef I included my particular interest in the food available to me and the local people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483561806

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12Addendum

1 Getting Started

When I was in my second year of cooking apprenticeship (1960) I read a newspaper article about an orphanage in Andheri, India. A German administrator was quoted describing as to how difficult it was to cater to 800 orphans in this home. I was 15 years old at the time and I thought it would be great to help out financially. As apprentice chef in a large Restaurant in Bochum, Germany, my wages were 25 DM per month. I was living with food and staff quarters supplied as part of my remuneration. So I started writing letters, with some money included, to the Andheri home.

I kept this up through the next few years. In 1966 I was working in Zurich, Switzerland, as a cook in a busy restaurant, when the idea of travelling to India developed in my head. My hobbies since childhood were chess, photography, reading and hiking. My favorite books where about exploring new countries and stories about travelling and discovering new lands and continents. In particular I enjoyed a double volume book by Heinz Helfgen: Bicycling round the world. He started his tour in Germany, in 1951 and returned in 1953. So the seeds where sewn early for my travelling bug. My plan was to buy a secondhand motorcycle with side car, or a small car like the Renault R4. I would need a partner to share expenses. Since this trip would take up to six month there should be enough room for camping gear and emergency supplies. To finance this plan I would have to save the major part of my take home pay. At my work I had free food and my only other living expense was a small rented room 15 minutes to walk from my work. My room expense was about 10% of my take home pay and with a little pocket money I could save 50-60% of my net earnings.

Since I was a serious photo enthusiast I wanted to use a good photo outfit for this trip. I had Zeiss Icon Contax gear at the time, which had a few problems. For example, to use my small tele lens one had to put a homemade wire frame into the accessory shoe to show the proper area of the viewfinder, and therefore it had no parallax compensation and of course I had to use a separate light-meter. So I wanted a new outfit.

I was living at Hottinger Strasse, Zurich, and just opposite from my house there was a small camera store where I had my negatives developed and printed. The owner became my friend and I had many lengthy discussions with him. One reoccurring topic was another customer of his, who at that time was on a 6 month trip overland from Cairo to Cape Town. Since the shop owner was a Hasselblad dealer, he convinced me to take a loaner Hasselblad for a couple of weeks. I tried it out, but since I also wanted a wide angle and tele lens the total outfit would cost five to six month wages, which was out of reach for me. Instead I found two second hand Leica M3 bodies with one standard Summicron F2 lens. One camera body was designated for color slides and the other for black and white film. I also bought a Summron 35mm wide angle lens, a 135mm tele Elmar lens, a Leicameter light meter and a couple of filters. I had a tripod and decided therefore that a flash was not necessary. Everything except the tripod would fit in my small Omni photo bag.

At Christmas 1966, my would be partner told me that his father died suddenly and therefore he could not foresee to take part in the India trip. It was a big disappointment for me, because taking a car for the trip by myself would be too expensive. If I could not find another partner I would use local transport and to go alone in a year’s time.

In the meantime I was busy and contented at work. In my job I had to work ten hours a day, split shift, five and a half days a week. I had an Austrian head chef and mostly Italian colleagues in the kitchen. When I was not working I socialized with friends by frequenting pubs and drinking a beer or two. Working with Italians I had lots of opportunities to pick up some Italian language and there was lots of laughter and fun at work. To my little room I only went for sleeping eight hours a night. On my half day off I went regularly to a White Cross café, (no alcohol), to play chess with a small group of people who frequented that locale. I bought a season ticket to the zoo in Zurich and that’s where I went mostly on my full days off. And of course I took photos, like this billboard picture of a child in India asking for help.

Photo 011, a billboard picture, Zurich

Another thing of note was my sister’s wedding in September 1967 in Karlsruhe, Germany. I took the wedding photos, all 24 of them. The wedding party was a total of eight people and the dinner was rotisserie chicken at a Wienerwald fast food restaurant.

Then in the summer I answered an ad in the Union Helvetia paper for cooks wanted in New Zealand. I did get a positive reply, however I told the recruiters that I was going to India in January 1968 and would be available later in that year. They were agreeable to this.

Since I planned to travel overland with local transportation I had to figure out a rough route to get the appropriate visas. One problem was the Israeli-Arab Six-Day-War, which happened from June 5-10th in 1967. Tensions in the Middle East were high and therefore I could not get a visa for Israel if I travelled to any neighborhood Arab countries. Vice versa, if I got a visa for Israel I would not be permitted to travel to Arab countries. Besides that, I had to be vaccinated for cholera, yellow fever, typhoid and paratyphoid. I also bought 90 Malaria pills to be taken daily in affected areas in the tropics.

My outfit was as follows:

I had an old rucksack and purchased US army boots, a one man tent, a Swiss army pocketknife, a battery powered shaver, also a canteen pot with lid, cutlery and a sleeping bag. Otherwise I took the bare minimum of clothing: under-wear, two shirts, one spare pair of pants, a pair of shoes, a jacket and sweater. I bought 15 rolls of black and white film and 25 rolls of color slide film. A few miscellaneous items like of maps, a first aid kit and a compass rounded off my back-pack supplies. My money for the trip was $400 US, in American Express traveler checks, $20 denomination and a train ticket from Essen, Germany to Istanbul for 169.00 DM.

I quit my job and on the 15th of December 1967 and took the train home to my parents in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. There I bought the train ticket from Essen to Istanbul. I had a short vacation and spent Christmas with my family. For food on the way, my mother gave me some canned wieners, a packet of pumpernickel bread and an unsliced two pound piece of dry salami. Of course my mother had some last minutes concerns. For example: on the map I had of Iran, there was no railway further east of Esfahan towards Pakistan and there were no roads marked in. In general road transportation in this part of the world was not recommended by travel brochures. However on the 28th of December my mother drove me to Essen so I could take the train to Istanbul.

2 On the way at last

Map 1, the train route from Essen to Istanbul, 2500 Km

The train left Essen at 3.45 PM in light rain. I ate two wieners for dinner and changed trains in Karlsruhe. My train was not the Orient Express but a less expensive second class ride, with no