Night Journey by Camel

Except for some twinkling stars in the sky, it was almost pitch dark on the road before and after the cart, lonely, deserted and silent but for the sound 0f the bell hung around the camel's neck as the animal plodded along pulling the cart down the often bumpy desert highway. The cart, a flat platform built above huge wheels with rubber tyres, was piled high with sacks containing jute bags and bundles of bamboo. Such cargoes were of no value to robbers who were wont to stop loaded carts such as this in the dead of night on the highway and make away with their cargoes for a quick cash trade for them at a nearby village.

A tarpaulin had been spread over the cargoes and Mir Jhan, the cart driver, was curled up fast asleep on top of it, leaving the camel up in front to make the journey using its instinct as it had always done for more that two decades on this same road from Karachi to Hyderabad.

Mir Jhan would wake up just before dawn at a watering place, get down off the cart, feed the camel and then perform his morning prayers, a routine he had followed all the years he had been on the road.

He would then join his fellow cart drivers at the same place for a light breakfast of leaven bread and beans. He would take the opportunity to exchange the latest news with his friends. An hour later, he was on the road again as the sun rose in the east where his destination, the town of Hyderabad, lay and where he would discharge his cargoes and take on a new load of cooking pots for his journey onward to Quetta where he lived with his wife and daughter.

Mir Jhan recounted to me the details of his travel all over Pakistan when he stopped over to visit his nephew, Rehman, who was working as a houseboy with me at Karachi. His was an interesting life full of adventure and trials involving highway robberies, sand storms and invasions of locusts that could blacken the whole sky. His descriptions of Hyderabad, Multan, Lahore, Peshawar and the Khyber Pass reminded me of Kim's wandering in this part of the world as told by Kipling.

Incident at the Five Cowrie Bridge

Lagos, the morning after the first military take over....

A soldier waving a rifle in the air above his head stopped my car on the Five Cowrie Bridge, opened the door on the passenger side and got into the seat.

"Take me to the Ikoyi camp!" he barked at me. I slammed on the gear and drove through the checkpoint barrier, turned right and headed for the Awolowo road to Ikoyi. Who was I to argue with a loaded (?) gun?

I was amazed that I was able to keep my cool and drove along without any difficulty with my heart pounding hard and sweat running down my face.

The Awolowo road was choked full of morning traffic. "Quick, Man, quick!" he yelled at me. waving his gun and pumping up and down on the seat. I put my thumb hard on the horn and overtook as many vehicles ahead of me as I could. Soon, I saw the Ikoyi Hotel looming up in the distance.

"Stop, stop here!" shouted my passenger. I pulled to the side of the road and he opened the car door, got out in a rush and slammed it shut. He melted away into a row of straw village huts.

I drove to the Ikoyi and got myself a stiff drink at the bar.

Train Journeys II

Albany, the state capital, Fort Ticonderoga, the Allegheny Mountains, the valley of the River Hudson, all the golden leafage of autumn and the historical feel of this part of the northeastern part of the USA, at any moment I would see a party Mohican hunters running Indian file through the forest glades or Hawkeye, out hunting face down in the tall grass taking aim with his muzzle loading flintlock at a deer beneath the trees. Is that a detachment of Montcalm's soldiery landing on the side of a placid lake looking for the British Redcoats to ambush? I was sitting most comfortably on the train from the Penn Station in Manhattan on my way to Montreal, Quebec and looking and enjoying the scenes it passed through the window. The train on this occasion had an electric driven locomotive up front but, I am certain, it would have a proper steam locomotive in years past for this journey. I moved down the train to the buffet car and got myself some egg sandwiches and a can of Coke for a snack.

Train Journeys - I

I climbed on board the Dover/Manhattan train one morning at the whistle stop at Mt. Tabor, New Jersey and settled down onto a comfortable seat as the train took off toward Morristown, Newark and the Penn Station in New York. New Jersey is known as the garden state and, as to be expected, we passed some beautiful townships, parks and some lovely sights. After Newark, the train dipped underground below the Hudson River which separates the shores of New Jersey and Manhattan. For some time we were literally underwater deep in the bowels of the earth until the train suddenly emerged from the ground before it pulled into the Penn Station in midtown Manhattan. It was quite an interesting experience to be sitting in a train that went into the earth like a legendary dragon and re-emerged on solid ground again.

Winter in Moscow

Well attired in heavy winter clothes, boots and thick leather gloves I sprinted across the Ulitsa Mosfilmoskaya and into the park that surrounded the grounds of Moscow University. The temperature was a few degrees below zero, in the depth of winter and the trees in the park were all bare but covered with snow. In the night, the temperature had dropped even lower and caused all the snow, on the branches of the trees and on the ground to turned crystalline. I had to trot carefully as the snow on the ground had turned to ice and extremely slippery. But the whole scenery that met my eyes was like a fairy land and with the weak sun that filtered through the park it was all so splendid and picturesque. In short, the whole park was so beautiful that words can hardly give adequate description of it. It was all silent, no birds were found among the trees, it was far too early in the morning. Later in the day, sparrows and other small species of birds would come out to look for food. There were no other human beings around, I was all alone in this wonderful world of crystals and white snows cape and light sunshine.

Fremantle: The Hole in the Ground

The sky is blue and the wind from the Indian Ocean blows over the sea front, balmy and fresh. Life is so sweet in this part of western Australia today.

But there is a large hole in the ground there. At least thirty feet down and years earlier it served a most diabolic purpose; human suffering of the most dastardly nature was permitted to be practised here. Thousands of human beings were rounded like cattle and thrown into this pit and imprisoned there like animals to await transfer by sea to perish in a desert island off shore.

White settlers to the newly founded country were in need of land to plant crops and rear livestock. They banded in armed groups, roamed the surrounding countryside and rounded all the aborigines they found there, dragged them to this pit. The land was then freed from its undesirable inhabitants and made available for use and exploitation of its mineral resources.

Memories of Mt. Tabor, New Jersey

That evening Bud, our friend living at Mt. Tabor, had dressed up to look like the Count Dracula it being Halloween. The children of the neighbourhood would soon be going around from house to house for Trick or Treat as was the American custom and tradition. The sky was dark and the wind was fresh but chilly; the fallen autumn leaves on the ground swirled around blowing hither and thither under the trees. In the near distance, across the park and downhill past the traffic lights junction to the row of shops, a train had just arrived from downtown Manhattan. Blowing its shrill whistle, it braked and came to a stop just behind the row of shops to discharge some homecoming passengers.

The Rattlesnake Restaurant, found at the end of the row of shops nearest the train halt, had already put on its lights and begun to open for the evening's business. We went and had dinner there one night when we were served passably good beef and swordfish steaks. Next to it was a Save on Food supermarket, catering for the senior citizens of the area, a real Indian cigar store,selling ice cream and the NJ lotteries,and a Korean family laundry, taking up the other end of the row.

There was a chill in the air signalling that winter would soon be here in this part of the country. And according to the weather report broadcast out of the favourite AM radio out of nearby Morristown, an early fall of snow was expected. In the park, the squirrels running up among the tree branches had already made their collection of nuts for the day and were scampering home beneath the autumn leaves.

Bud had collected a stockpile of wood for his specially made stove in the basement of his house to heat up the water for the central piping system to keep him snug and warm during the coming winter. An ironmonger and a highly skilled grille maker by profession he had turned his house into a veritable museum of grilles, trellises, iron tubs, pipes and bars, all beautifully designed and set in place within the house that were a marvel for his friends to see and admire.

We were on a visit to our daughter Jennifer, her husband Todd and son Evan who had a house close to the fire station by the park. Todd had been a volunteer at the fire station and saw some action with his fellow resident friends since giving his service there. But this summer, there wasn't any incident of fire in the neighbourhood and the huge fire engine had not been called out. Nevertheless, he and his friends had been kept fully trained and ready for any eventuality. A well stocked library could be found in an old cottage a little further beyond the fire station and the librarians there were quite busy looking after the books and publications for the use of the residents of the township.

Mt. Tabor is about ten miles west of Washington's first capital, Morristown and within walking distance to Denville. A road linking these two New Jersey towns passes between the park and the row of shop houses.
It is truly a lovely place to live in.

The Old Man with the Spring Onion Leaves

Have you lately seen the Old Man pushing a wooden cradle filled with fresh green spring onion leaves coming through the Zuhai-Macau border crossing toward the the market in Macau around ten in the morning ?
He was doing that when I met and talked to him about two years ago. He had on a cloth cap, faded grey shorts and a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of old sandals. He had just cleared through the Chinese border checkpoint without a passport or document. He told me had been doing that each morning for over twenty years. He would push his cradle fully loaded with the vegetables to sell to customers in the town and returned back the same way later about noon.

He told me he owned a small plot of land for planting his vegetables just past the border on the Zuhai side. Most of the immigration officials on both sides of the border knew him well and never asked him for his personal documents. I told him that Macau had been returned to China and there was therefore no need for him to have travel documents to cross the border.

He looked at me without understanding and just laughed at what I said and pushed off down the road with his vegetables.
If you are in that vicinity, I hope you have seen him.

I think he's still doing what he did, crossing the border each morning.

The Way to Glencree

Take the local train from Dublin to the seaside town of Bray in County Wicklow. The next part of your journey has to be done by using mini-buses and, as far as I know, there's only one bus service that goes up to Glencree each day. So you need to be aware of the correct time when this bus leaves Bray station before you depart from Dublin.

The town of Bray is a very interesting Irish town popular with Dubliners who go down there for its beaches during weekends and other holidays. I seem to remember a popular tune called "The Vicar of Bray" which is found in school recorder text books.

You catch the bus and ask its driver to take you up the winding roads to Knockcree and then to Glencree where there is an youth hostel near the church there. It seems that during the war, some German soldiers were killed in this part of Ireland and were buried in a nearby cemetery.

Glencree, on the top of the downs, is lovely in spring with lots of yellow gorse flowers on every fence and all the fields are covered with daisies and other wild flowers. The air here is fresh and invigorating. The road up passes through beautiful countrysides and picturesque villages and forests; Wicklow is one of the most beautiful counties of the emerald Irish isle.

Visiting Kirkby

I don't think you would want to go and visit Kirkby. You don't know where it is. Let me tell you. When I was there in the middle 1950s,
it was a small village about fifteen miles east of the city of Liverpool. As its name suggests, it had
a small church built out of stone and bricks by a small lake past the railway station and the small cluster of village shops. As to be expected in all Lancashire hamlets or villages, there was a pub where many of the inhabitants gather to drink and gossip in the evening.

It could snow heavily in the winter months, usually after January, and the snow covered most of the potato and hop fields all around the village.

A road, coming through the nearby town of Fazakeley from Liverpool, branched off just before the railway station to the trading estate and to Southport, about ten miles to the north. West of the village, across a man-made canal, was to be found the famous race course of Aintree.

What will you find there today if you go there ?

I guess the whole area has changed quite a bit. The fields between the two towns of Fazakeley and Kirkby would have disappeared and taken over by houses. The church, railway station and pub would probably be still there.
The inhabitants are no longer farmers but workers commuting daily by the train service to work in the city of Liverpool.