Travels of a Tourist: Anecdotes, Reminiscences and Reflections

By Paddy Rooney

This is a collection of anecdotes and reminiscences of the authors travels over many years and in many countriesfrom Uzbekistan to Peru, Yemen to India, Spain to China. It is in no sense intended as a guidebook, though it may give something of the character of the people encountered and the places visited. As the author explains in the foreword it is intended as entertainment rather than education in order to share with others his delight in foreign places.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Jul 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524593162

Paddy Rooney

Paddy Rooney was born in Calcutta in 1931. He returned to England to go to boarding school at the age of six, while his parents returned to India. Early in World War II, he returned to India, stopping in South Africa for eighteen months on the way. Finally, he returned to Britain in 1945. In 1949 he joined the Royal Navy, went to Cambridge University to read engineering, and retired from the navy in 1968 to work in a city think tank and, subsequently, in the engineering industry. He retired in 1991 to help on the family farm and to indulge his interest in travel.

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© 2016 by Paddy Rooney.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016911580

ISBN:      Hardcover         978-1-5245-9318-6

                Softcover            978-1-5245-9317-9

                eBook                 978-1-5245-9316-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 07/18/2016

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Contents

Foreword The Travellers` Hierarchy

Chapter 1 SOCIAL OCCASIONS

-   Fairs, Markets, and Shows

-   Race Meeting

-   A Traditional Country Fair

Chapter 2 SHIPS, TRAINS, AND PLANES

-   Round the Cape

-   Circumnavigation

-   Take the Train

-   Air, Land and Sea

Chapter 3 THE PAST

-   An old picture

-   Sound the Bugles

-   A Ruined Farm

-   The Tale of the Hawk and the Dove

-   A Lost City

-   Returning Home

-   An Abandoned Tower

Chapter 4 ENVIRONMENT

-   Lakes and Gardens

-   Mismanaging Critical Resources

-   Waterways

Chapter 5 PEOPLE AND EVENTS, A MISCELLANY

-   A Weeping Child

-   The Beautiful Game

-   Young Pickpockets

-   Dancing Bear

-   Chocolate Souffle

-   Fishy Story

-   An old man

-   Talking Shop

-   Bitter Fruit

-   A Miracle

Chapter 6 TASTES AND FLAVOURS

-   Spice of Life

-   Qat Culture

Chapter 7 LANDSCAPE MEMORIES

-   Variety

-   Translocations

-   Castles in the Sand

-   Farewell to Farming

Foreword

The Travellers` Hierarchy

We had just completed our tour of a silk factory in Margilan, a modest town in the Fergana valley in eastern Uzbekistan and, well-informed about silkworm culture, thread production, cloth weaving and dyeing, were now making the obligatory visit to the factory shop. A tour group had arrived, the women chattering happily as they compared patterns, colours, textures of the samples on display, the men looking rather bored, when a cheerful Australian voice spoke at my ear: Are you with this mob too? it asked. I explained that my wife and I were spending a few days in the area on our way to Tashkent after a visit to Kyrgyzstan. Ah, I`m pleased to see that you are a traveller, and not just a tourist.

It hadn`t struck me previously that visitors to foreign parts could be graded so clearly, but on reflection realised that, while to point out the distinction between travellers and tourists may have become something of a cliché, there is indeed something of a hierarchy.

At the peak, barely visible through the swirling Olympian mists, is the Explorer – resourceful and erudite, fluent in obscure languages, overcoming innumerable hazards of climate, terrain, vegetation, wild animals and disease; while crowded into the foothills are the package tourists – herded, cosseted, plied with pre-digested information. And between these are many levels and grades of traveller, on holiday or business, studying or taking a break from study or work, singly, in couples or in groups.

We fell into the last category: to our Australian interlocutor perhaps not as undistinguished as the package group, but, being on a well-beaten track, certainly not very exalted either. These recollections emanate, therefore, from the mid-ranges of the travellers` Olympus – journeys planned and organised with the help and advice of travel books and local agents, undertaken for nothing more exalted than our own enjoyment, for the simple delight of experiencing different sights and sounds, of making contact, albeit slight, with unfamiliar societies and cultures, without suffering undue discomfort; secure in the knowledge that after just a few weeks we would be returning to the comfort of home.

Such self-indulgence probably characterises much of the travelling undertaken by those fortunate enough to live in prosperous modern societies. We may need to commute to work, the shops may be some distance from our homes, the children have to be taken to school, but beyond such day-to-day demands there is no pressing economic or social need to go anywhere. Yet perhaps, buried in our subconscious, there may be a need to travel, to follow the patterns of our ancestors who of necessity faced continual journeys, long or short, simply to cope with the demands of daily life.

Reading the journal of Thomas Jenkins, a nineteenth century carpenter in a small town in West Wales, it is astonishing to see how he was continually on the move around the local towns and villages, usually on foot, often overnight, visiting customers or relatives. He was, admittedly, a many-talented man who could turn his hand to making boats and violins, to devising pumps to divert a river so that a bridge could be built, or even to coffin-making, and so would have been in demand for a variety of projects.

He was once called on to provide a firework display to celebrate the return of a local landowner, though this didn`t end very happily. His journal notes: Dec 3 made 30 torches; Dec 6 Lord Dynevor and family arrived 6 pm, town illuminated, made 20 fireballs; Dec 7 Dynevor Castle caught fire 8pm

Fire-raising apart, he was a remarkable walker; inevitably, because few working people of his time could afford stagecoach fares. His journal notes leaving Carmarthen one day at fifteen minutes past one a.m., arriving in Narberth at eight a.m. and at Haverfordwest at twelve noon; and then, having spent the day sightseeing, walking the twenty-nine miles back the following day. Was he a tourist or a traveller?

Today in less-developed countries, where most people have no option but to walk, such journeys are still the norm. In Ethiopia, a young ranger in the Simien Mountain wildlife park in the north of the country told us how, as a boy, he would walk for three hours from his home village to school in the morning and return the same evening. And everywhere, at all times of the day, roads were lined with people, women as well as men, carrying sacks of produce, herding animals, or staggering under great bundles of firewood, on their way to or from markets. Even in the developed world we are not many generations from such a life and it would be hardly surprising that the disposition to travel should have become embedded in our DNA.

For myself, to be unable to travel would be a serious deprivation. True to their self-indulgent character, however, my travels have not followed any particular theme and these recollections have something of a pick-and-mix, impulse-buying quality, involving a diversity of countries and cultures – little more than cultural dabbling. There is no particular time-line: some of the incidents are quite recent, some, and obviously those from my childhood, date from years ago.

For all that, though, some broad themes do emerge and I have organised them accordingly. This is not intended to be a guide book – it is not nearly as informed as that – nor does it propose any great insights, social, political or economic. It is simply a record, offered in the hope that it might entertain and that others may share the enjoyment which I have experienced over many years and in many countries.

Chapter 1

SOCIAL OCCASIONS

So many of the places we have visited over the years have been, if not remote, relatively rural. In these places, farming has been the main occupation, usually in the form of stock-raising though crops or fruit have been grown where conditions have permitted. In such places, lives tend to be isolated, and opportunities for human contact are much valued, to relieve the loneliness and discuss local events, complain about the weather or the government, arrange marriages, or just to chat and set the world to rights.

At such gatherings deep-seated human characteristics - the need to demonstrate skill, to compete, and to establish a hierarchy of expertise – often emerge. Where stock-raising is the predominant activity, animal breeding skills are especially valued - for milk or for meat production, for ability to survive in harsh conditions, for speed, or just for appearance, though this last tends to confined to those who can afford such considerations.

In every society we have visited a common pattern is to be seen, where quality and expertise are recognised economically by sales value in markets. In the very poorest areas, of course, where farming is at a subsistence level, stock is only sold in desperate circumstances. But elsewhere, markets are the chief occasions for social gatherings, and all manner of entertainments may be provided to occupy those not immediately involved: social and economic interests combining and reinforcing each other. It is a pattern which we have seen around the world, from Pisac in the Peruvian Andes to Zafra in Spain`s Extramadura, from street markets in Mandalay to the donkey fair at Tnine Ourika in Morocco, or the camel market at Sinaw in Oman.

Here at home, the Royal Welsh Show is a supreme example, with an astonishing variety of animals on display, from sheep and cattle to rabbits and birds, and even tortoises. But although showing animals is at the heart of the occasion, many, if not most, of the visitors come for