Travel Tips

These are true stories from my own travels, or some involving friends and relatives (where noted).

I had waited for ages for my flight from Mandalay to Heho in the Shan States of Upper Burma. The flight would take off only when sufficient number of passengers had shown up. Once on board, finally feeling optimistic about reaching Heho I commented to the air stewardess of the that time Union Of Burma Airways what a nice and new plane this was, and everything was written in French - emergency proceedures etc.
The longyi-clad lady of the UoBA beamed back that, yes, the plane, a Twin Otter was brand new, and leased from France. The old one she explained... "... you know, rockets? rockets, you know? booom! Same route, same,same route to Heho, rockets from below! That's why new aircraft!" with a great smile as only the Burmese can do.
Stay clear of any surface-to-air missiles...

Threading through the Irrawaddy plains by train is a somewhat timeless, time-consuming affair. Heading for Mandalay the Kipling way is interesting but has its pains.
To satisfy a rumbling stomach I leaned through the window while the train was slowly rolling and swaying out from a local station platform and bought a few bananas from somebody jogging alongside with a whole banana tree stack full. Handing out money gave an instant reaction - " no! no! no! " Having travelled in India I was prepared to pay more in response to such a wailing reply, but wild gesticulating made me understand that wasn't exactly the point.
As the train picked up more speed the whole banana stack was sent through the window crashing onto the floor of the train.
I found myself laughing stock walking the length of the train handing out bananas to everyone...
The value of the kyat is hard to judge for a newcomer. At the time there was a difference of some 100 times between the state fixed "official" kyat exchange value and the real market value to the dollar. Taxis were paid by cigarettes, hotel stays by whisky etc. etc. It appeared I had exchanged my dollars for the black market rate at the airport' s State Bank of Burma counter! I do not know how much I paid the the banana tree owner , but I hope he is still counting!

I was on job duty on Soroya in Northern Norway, and one of my tasks for the week was to feed the other crew members. They demanded smoked meat sausages for Saturday dinner, this was a Friday. Dived into the fridge and freezer - nothing. Skied to the nearest shop 4 km and 400 altitude meters away - only canned Frankfurters, not good enough. Called neighbours and aquaintances - everyone had run out. This was now surmounting to a team effort with many people getting involved in the hunt for the sausages. Called the next villages, 25 and 55 kilometres away, respectively - nothing. Even the airforce was checked out - no helicopter was scheduled our way. Friday was about to run out.
OK, let's go to the mainland, we could reach there by Saturday. Alta certainly had sausages, and this was confirmed by a phone call. I checked ferry and bus itineraries and the conclusion was negative - we would reach only after shops had closed Saturday afternoon. Private car was suggested, still, the ferry was the problem. Dark mental cloud cover at this stage, on the verge of giving up. A t this stage a bright lad from the village called and said shops in Finland keep open long hours on Saturdays and indeed Sundays, too! No kidding - only 4 km skiing, 50 km of snowswept coastal road, one heck of a ferry ride and 376 kilometres away on some of the toughest mid-winter road stretches in Scandinavia... At this stage optimism rose and we to the occasion. Several locals put in orders of things to buy in Finland (sausages, interesting drinks etc.). To cope with the Arctic night somebody gave us the key to a small and definitely frozen cabin in Assebakte, Finnmarksvidda, and off we went on Friday night. Weather was ok and we passed Alta's shops after hours on Saturday with raised middle fingers and pushed on to Assebakte where we found the cabin in the dark, fired up everything that would give off some heat, and travelled on to Karasjok and crossed the border into Finland at Karigasniemi. Late at night here we did the maximum duty-free shopping, went back into Norway, dumped the purchases in the roadside snowpile and went immediately back into Finland and did a new shopping round - raised eyebrows on part of the border guards and customs inspectors. Back to Norway, dug us back into the cabin in the snowy wastes and 30 degrees below at Assebakte, and settled for the late Saturday night smoked sausages dinner with a margin of one hour before midnight.
The next day we crossed back over the border twice for shopping for the locals on the island, and set off back home again, arriving some 8 hours later. I have one material memory of this trip, a very nice reindeer hide bought in Karigasniemi, but most cherished from this trip are the memories of good friends and the disrespect of time and distances of the Finnmark locals...

I went to catch my eastbound express train at Old Delhi train station, the train originating from up in Jammu or so, can't remember exactly anylonger. There was a fair absence of other fellow travellers on the platform, and the time of train departure did not stir many new ones. Weird. This is not like it? Departure time one hour past, with no train on the designated track, and still the advertised arrival said 08:00 departure. Eventually I gave up and found a station employee and asked about my train's arrival and departure. He looked at the announcement board, his watch, talked to a colleague and said in a serious nasal Hindi accented English: "Train is on time, but two days late!"
Apparently, it was stuck somewhere up in the Punjab.

Another time in India, with lots of baggage, I was about to be heading up to the Nepal border from Delhi by train, and was in the process of installing myself on the lower bunk, when fellow travellers, a youthful group of 4-5 English backpackers came in to claim the neighbouring seats and bunks. I quickly chained my suitcase and backpack under my bunk bed, took my daypack under my head and stayed well clear of the unpacking Brits to give them space - and away from the open train compartment window. The Britons expressed annoyed surprise that I had visibly chained my luggage and told me it looked offensive and insulting to be locking up my things like that, as if I did not trust people in India. I am not a quarrelsome type, so I admitted that it was just a precaution so I could sleep confident that I had my things safely under control, and that if they looked around they would see locals with metal boxes and suitcases and ropes and chains and padlocks 10 times bigger than mine. And, I added, if you see youngsters (men) loitering on a platform of a long-distance train anywhere in the world without uniform, luggage or apparent purpose, beware.... They just snorted and scuffed at me. I still remember this conversation with the annoyed Brits as if it was yesterday.
At this point the train departure was approaching and locals had decended on the upper bunks and in the flip chairs in the corridor, chatting, playing cards, eating peanuts, flapping newspapers and slurping chai, quite crowded as it normally gets on these daytime departures on 2 cl/3-tiers.
The huge 20-something cars train got off very slowly in a series of rattling chugs and the Brits settled down amidst a chaos of unpacked things, sleeping bags, toiletries, books, clothes...
Then suddenly the compartment and corridor exploded in a frenzy of coordinated activity; the cardplaying locals on the upper bunks jumped down and grabbed whatever they could, hands came in through the barred but still open window, stuff vanished out the window, into the corridor and the locals scrambled out onto the platform with the loot. It went so fast; I could see it all from my lower bunk, but it was all too fast for me to react: 5-10 seconds only and it was over. The card-and-peanut- team had gotten away with just about every small bag and loose items the Brits had unpacked and were all off down the platform, and by this time the train had picked up too much speed to even think of pursuing them.
What a show from my lower bunk position! And what panic and scenes that broke out when the situation dawned on the backpackers!
With all my stuff intact, I could now find the address to the UK embassy in Delhi in my not-stolen guidebook, tell then the next station they could get off at in order to return to Delhi, distributed malaria pills for the next few days and adviced them how to report on this theft and the process of getting new papers, passports and tickets. In fact, most of their essential stuff was gone, on their third day in India!
How I could think of such precautions? Well, I have been robbed in India, too, on a different night train between Agra Cantonment and Tundla...

I had the pleasure of going sightseeing by 747 Jumbo Jet once, not something I tell my climate-conscious colleaguesthese days.... It was a special flight from London, put it that way. After a champagne breakfast and prior to landing the captain added a half-hour sightseeing around Cape Town, Cape the Good Hope, the bays, wine districts and the surrounding table mountains. The crew announced a special treat, and so it was; I never knew a 747 could do such maneouvres; tight turns, screws, low dips, steep ascents, flying on the side, waving wings to them ground dwellers and what not. Despite its age and sluggish appearance, the Jumbo must be the most agile flying pieces of metal around. I'll scan some photos from this trip and and attach later.