The Lighter Side of Travel

By Helmut Peters

During the course of his life, the author has traveled to over 50 countries, flown on many airlines, and lived on three continents. Today this may not be unusual, and there are many travel books which describe all of these remote and exotic places in great detail. However, what is unique, are some of the most funny experiences which the author has had on his travels,and these are the stories which are captured in this most humorous book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257179350

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Introduction

Ever since man was born, he has traveled in some form or another. In the early days, travel was restricted to leaving the safe haven of the cave to go out on foot on a hunting excursion. Later, some form of hand-made transportation may have been used which later evolved to become a horse-drawn cart, or a wagon drawn by oxen. Then the mechanized form of transportation was used to travel, to the point where we are today, where we do not even blink an eyelid to step onto an intercontinental flight or go on a cruise ship to the islands. It has simply become common nature to travel. However, what is not common are some of the experiences travelers may have.

During the course of my life, I have traveled the world. I have lived on three continents and traveled to over 50 countries. I have traveled on cruise ships in the Caribbean and Mediterranean seas, and have flown on many airlines and have become a Lifetime Medallion Million Miler with Delta. In today’s age this is not unusual, and there are many travel books that describe all of these remote and exotic places in great detail. However, what is unique, are some of the funny experiences which I have had on my travels or living in all these different places, and these are the ones which I have captured in this book to share with you.

This book is not meant to be a travel guide. It is meant for you to sit back and laugh at some of the experiences which I have encountered. You may even be able to relate to some of them yourself.

All of the stories related in this book were real life occurrences.

The Early Beginnings

Darmstadt, Germany

Somehow, I was predestined to become a world traveler.

I was born in Darmstadt, Germany, in May 1947. Times were tough in Germany at this time, with all the major cities destroyed after the war, and very little food and clothing. I was fortunate that my father had a pen friend in California, who sent us boxes of clothing and food on a regular basis even until I was five years old. Already at the tender age of five, I was prancing around the German streets wearing American clothes sent to me by my father’s pen friend.

I became an international traveler at the tender age of 51/2 years, when my parents immigrated to South Africa. My father felt that the situation in Germany was so desolate with so much destroyed, that it would be better to try and start a new life in another country. He was a cartographer by trade, and sent his resume to companies in Australia, Canada and South Africa offering his services.

He received the first positive response from a company in Johannesburg, South Africa. This company was called the Aircraft Operating Company (AOC) which specialized in converting aerial photographs into land maps. They were quick to make a firm job offer, and were prepared to fly my father out to start his new career. He accepted the job and I can vaguely remember the excitement that reverberated through our house as we prepared to make these giant changes in our lives.

My father flew ahead on an airline called Trek Airways which is now obsolete. The plane was a four-engined York used by the RAF during the war to transport troops. Because it did not have the range, the flight took 4 days to fly from Frankfurt to Johannesburg, with night stops along the way in Malta, Egypt, Entebbe and finally Johannesburg.

It must have been quite cozy to travel, since the maximum capacity of the plane was 32 passengers. They would all dress up and meet at the hotel bar in the evenings at their various night stops, and became quite a group of friends at the end of the journey. I remember meeting some of these friends from my father in our home many years later. I still have a collection of photos and slides from my father from this exciting trip. The travel in those days seemed much more exciting and romantic than today!

My mother and I traveled by train from Darmstadt to Antwerpen, Belgium where we boarded the ferry to Southhampton, England. Both my mother and I got terribly sea-sick on this ferry which seemed to toss and turn all the way to Southhampton. To this day I really don’t have a great affinity towards boats.

In Southhampton I was awestruck by the size of ship that would take us to Cape Town. We spent one night in a small hotel by the harbor, before we boarded the Carnevon Castle early next morning to set sail for Cape Town, South Africa. This ship has also since gone to the shipyard’s grave.

Three weeks on a ship can be quite lengthy, and I often passed the time by kicking around my only possession, a soccer ball, on the deck. One day some big kid came by and hoofed it into the ocean. I still to this day have a very vivid picture of my ball disappearing into the distance in the sea. Of course I cried bitterly, and I am sure that this experience at my tender age must have also left its mark on me, although I am not sure where.

After three weeks of sailing, we finally arrived in the harbor of Cape Town, and despite being a tiny tot at the time, I still have a vivid memory of catching my first glimpse of the majestic Table Mountain harboring the city of Cape Town in its valley. It is strange, that over 50 years later, I now have a home in Cape Town and am held in awe by this same mighty mountain every time I visit.

My mother and I then transferred to a train which took us the 1000 miles to Johannesburg, where we were finally greeted in the station by my grinning father.

Johannesburg was to be my new home for the next 20 years.

I could not speak a word of English at the time and I remember being rather anxious when my mother took me to my first day at school. We had walked to school, which was about 3 miles away, since we had no transport, and when she dropped me off, she said that I was to meet her at the same spot after school when she would pick me up again. What she didn’t know is that we got out of school early that first day, and off course when I arrived at the designated spot, my mother was nowhere to be seen. Not being able to speak the language, I started crying and other parents came over to try to pacify and help me. I had no clue what they were saying to me, but felt that they were at least trying to be kind. Eventually my mother arrived on the scene and was shocked to see me surrounded by a bunch of mothers jabbering away. She could speak a little English and explained to them that she was not aware that school was coming out early on that day.

For me these were all new and traumatic experiences at a tender age, which I am sure, were a factor in shaping my future life of becoming a world traveler.

All my travel has resulted in my family gatherings today being like a mini United Nations. I am married to Ilona born in South Africa. My eldest son Konrad was born in Johannesburg and lives in Germany with Kathleen from Copenhagen Denmark; my middle son Jurgen was born in Bad Homburg, Germany and is married to Bettina from Germany, also living in Germany; my youngest son Richard was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, lives in Washington D.C. and has a French girlfriend Anais from Paris, France. When we have family gatherings, at least four languages could be spoken at any one time!

The Elephant Encounter

Kruger National Park, South Africa

It took my parents several years in South Africa before we were able to afford our first real vacation. My parents initially struggled to build up an existence, starting with nothing. I remember we even had to borrow some crockery, knives and forks from our neighbors when we first moved into our rented home in a nice little suburb called Kensington. A few years later, we were able to afford the luxury of buying a used old DKW car. I remember my father being very excited about this purchase, and he was keen to test it on our first vacation. We were going to drive to the Kruger National Park, which is a large game reserve located about 300 miles to the north-east of Johannesburg, on the border to Mozambique.

I was about 10 years old at the time and this was the first real holiday I remember having with my parents. We arrived at the game reserve after about a seven hour drive, and pitched our tent at the Skukuza camp. This camp was located inside the game reserve, and had accommodation in the form of Rondavels, which were circular single room huts, and also a camping ground where you could pitch your own tent. That evening we enjoyed our first braaivleis (the South African name for a barbeque) under the stars, and I remember hearing all sorts of animal noises emanating from the wild around the camp.

Early the next morning we set out in our DKW to go animal spotting. The roads through the game reserve at the time were all dirt roads, and they would wind through the reserve, connecting up with other camps along the way. The reserve still exists today, and is one of the largest natural game reserves in the world, being about 217 miles long and 40 miles wide, making it bigger than Ireland.

Skukuza camp was known to be elephant territory, and so we kept our eyes peeled in the bush for any animal sightings. I remember starting to get a little despondent, because other than coming across a troop of baboons, we had not spotted anything. We were just coming around a corner in the road, when we saw a few cars stopped ahead of us. We pulled up alongside the last car, and the driver commented that there was a herd of elephant in the bush just ahead. We peered over into the direction he was pointing, and sure enough, we saw a large herd not too far from the road in the bushes. They were moving towards us at a slow pace, and my father reminded us that we should just sit quietly to not alarm them in any way. My mother was getting a little nervous, since they seemed to be moving closer to us in the road. Suddenly the first bull elephant entered the road ahead of a few cars in front of us, and he was followed by a few other elephants shortly thereafter. They started to meander between the scattered cars in front of us and continued heading towards us at a slow pace.

This was when the car in front of us started to panic, and started to reverse back towards us. The driver backed his car past ours and I remember seeing the frightened faces of the people in this car as they glided past us in reverse. This dangerous maneuver left our car facing the oncoming elephants. This must have startled the bull elephant, because now he started to flap his ears at us as he stood in the road surveying the scene. He also started to wave his head from side to side, and his trunk was also flapping away at us. Suddenly he started to walk directly towards us with his ears still flapping, and I remember my mother starting to scream, as this bull elephant came towards us at a slight canter.

When he reached our DKW he suddenly stopped. He stood in front of the car and I could hear him breathing through his trunk. He suddenly raised his front foot and placed it on the right fender of our car and crushed it. My mother was no longer screaming and I wondered if she had passed out. It was rather quiet and surreal after this, and then the bull elephant must have been satisfied that we were no threat to his herd, and started to meander off into the bush, followed by the rest of the herd. They quickly disappeared out of sight and the remaining cars started to slowly drive off. Our car, other than the smashed fender, was also able to continue, and we headed straight back to the camp.

It was only once we were within the safe confines of the camp that we had the first view of the damage to the car. Fortunately we got away with only a badly dented fender. The game ranger that came over to get our story told us that this incident could have been a lot worse, since you do not want to mess with an enraged bull elephant.

What we did not know, was that the car behind us had captured the whole scene in a picture and had submitted it to the newspapers, so we were again surprised a few days later, when we saw a picture of our DKW being stamped on by a huge bull elephant on the front page of the morning newspaper. I still have this article saved as one of my first of many treasured souvenirs of my world travels.

The Young Pioneer

Hartebeespoort Dam, South Africa

My first real solo travel experience started when I was about thirteen years old, living in Johannesburg, South Africa, leading a modest normal life. Two of my school friends, Graham Huggins, an English kid from Manchester, Siegfried Scheiblecker (what a mouthful Austrian name!) and me decided to break away from the traditional summer vacation of driving to the coast with our parents, by instead venturing on a bike tour to Hartebeespoort Dam, a large man-made dam about 80 miles north of Johannesburg.

We pulled straws as to who would be responsible for carrying the heavy canvas tent on their bike, and I lost. This bad luck should have been an early omen to my future travels, which seemed to be always tied in with some fateful event.

I was happily breezing along with my friends until I reached the first hill not 5 miles from my home. Suddenly this canvas tent starting feeling like it was made out of concrete, as I struggled to pedal up the incline. In those days, the bikes seldom had gears, and you had to put all your muscle into an incline. I saw my two friends fading into the distance. When I finally reached the top they were two dots down below. As I started to coast downhill, what I did not realize, is that the heavy load of course added extra momentum going downhill, so that my cheerful smile on my face as I zoomed downhill soon turned into a crooked smile as I picked up speed. I soon realized that I was loosing control of my rapid descent, and my friends where quite impressed with my performance as I flashed by them. Eventually the incline slowed down much to my relief. I was dripping in sweat which was a combination of exertion and fear. This went on for the next 80 miles, but I got better as time progressed.

We finally arrived at our camping site at dusk, and soon after entry slumped to the ground. At last the tent could be put to its normal use, and because it was already dark and we were tired, we erected it on the spot. I noticed that we were the only ones around and found this rather odd. After struggling to erect the tent in the dark, we finally just collapsed into an exhausted sleep.

In the middle of the night I heard growling, and in my stupor thought it may have been in my dreams, or maybe it was my empty stomach. Suddenly I was wide awake and I felt that there was something watching me from outside. I pummeled up my friends and asked them to peer out to see what was making this noise. They said I was crazy and they would not do this! Well I was not going to do this either, so as a result we stayed awake all night huddled together in fear.

At the crack of dawn, I could not stand it any longer, and slowly opened the tent flap. I stuck my head out and saw nothing, so I bravely stepped out. I walked around the tent and saw nothing. Only then did my two buddies decide to venture out too. Suddenly Graham shouted in alarm and pointed to the ground. I saw nothing, but then he pointed out a paw print, which led to others around the tent. Whatever the growling was, it must have been some wild animal. I also noticed that we were the only tent pitched right in the middle of the parking lot! The actual camping spot was still some way away. In our tired stupor the previous night, we did not realize that we had settled on the parking lot!

This was my first mishap as a traveler, and little did I know that there were many more to come.

The Monkey Dance

Johannesburg, South Africa

Our family dentist in Johannesburg was a Dr Mizroch, who originally also hailed from Germany. He was not the best dentist in town, but somehow we just stuck to going to him for our dental problems.

One of the things I liked, was that he had a fishbowl placed right in front of the chair, so that whilst the dentist was fiddling in your mouth, you could sit back and relax by watching all these beautiful and exotic fish swimming around in the fish tank. Somehow this distraction helped ease the pain and pass the time, and our dentist had many positive comments from his patients.

He must have taken these comments to heart, because one day when I settling down into the dentist chair, I got the shock of my life when suddenly an animal jumped into my lap. It was a small vervet monkey, which had swung from the overhead drill into my lap. The dentist walked in and said not to be alarmed, because this little monkey was quite harmless and was his pet. Its name was Bouncy. He had nobody at home to tend to it, so he thought it would be another nice distraction for his patients whilst he was torturing them with his instruments.

After a while I got used to Bouncy prancing around me and actually found it more entertaining than watching the fish in his fish tank. This monkey could not sit still, and hopped around the surgery to its hearts content. Only when it lunged into the fish tank did Dr. Mizroch shout a loud No! I even looked forward to going to the dentist the next time.

It was a few visits later, when I was sitting in the dentist chair waiting to be surprised by Bouncy, when Dr. Mizroch walked in and still no monkey.

I asked where the little fellow was, and Dr Mizroch looked at me in despair and said Bouncy had died.

I was shocked to hear the sad news, and asked what had happened. Apparently Bouncy was up to his usual antics, dancing around one of Dr. Mizroch’s patients, when he suddenly bit into the cord of the electric drill and got electrocuted right in front of the patient’s eyes.

The only remembrance left of Bouncy was a picture of him hanging on the wall of the surgery.

The Travel Itch

Johannesburg, South Africa

When I first started my career as a structural design engineer, working for Jeffares & Green in Johannesburg, South Africa, I shared an office with a colleague whose name was Al. He was a grass roots engineer, and had spent all his career designing bridges and freeways. He was a good mentor to me, as I was just starting out in my career. We used to sit at our drawing boards, and invariably land up chatting about all sorts of things.

It was interesting, that whenever I brought up the subject of wanting to travel the world, he would start questioning why in the world I would want to do that. If I said I would like to visit the River Rhine in Germany, his response was that it was much easier to just visit the Vaal River, which was only 50 miles away. If I said I wanted to visit the skyscrapers of New York, his response was that I could go to downtown Johannesburg and see the sights. If I said I would like to visit the Lido in Paris, he said that he new of a good strip joint downtown which I could visit! He had never traveled more than what was within driving distance and you would think that with this type of daily company, I would be put off traveling forever, but this was not to be.

I endured sitting behind a drawing board for two years, and produced design drawings for several bridges and freeways in and around Johannesburg, before I got ants in my pants and felt I needed to move on.

The African Deal

Gaberone, Botswana

I saw an advertisement in the paper for a Sales Engineer for Armco, an American based company, with a South African subsidiary. The attraction was a company car, which was a SSS Datsun, a real cool car at the time. This would give me some mobility and get around. My job was to design and sell corrugated steel culverts in Southern Africa. Now I was venturing out beyond a drawing board, and becoming a worldly traveler.

One of my first business trips was to Gaberone, the capital of Botswana, a landlocked neighboring country, previously known as Bechuanaland, a former British Protectorate, which obtained its independence in 1966. I was to give a recommendation to the local municipality for a new drainage system.

Without batting an eyelid, I jumped into my SSS and took off on my first traveling assignment. Of course it would have been wise to check out the availability of accommodation first, but being a young mid-twenty entrepreneur, I didn’t give this any thought at all. After driving a full five hours, I eventually arrived in Gaberone. I stopped at a gas station, and enquired about