***
There would not, perhaps, be a more pleasant, or more profitable study, among those which have their principal end in amusement, than that of travels or voyages, if they were writ, as they should be, and ought to be, with a joint view to the entertainment and information of mankind. If the conversation of travelers be so eagerly sought after as it is, we may believe their books will be still more agreeable company, as they will, in general, be more instructive and more entertaining.
***
If the customs and manners of men were everywhere the same, there would be no office so dull as that of a traveler: for the difference of hills, valleys, rivers; in short, the various views in which we may see the face of the earth, would scarce afford him a pleasure worthy of his labour...
***
To make a traveler an agreeable companion to a man of sense, it is necessary, not only that he should have seen much, but that he should have overlooked much of what he hath seen. Nature is not, any more than a great genius, always admirable in her productions, and therefore the traveler, who may be called her commentator, should not expect to find everywhere, subjects worthy of his notice.
4. Murphy's Rules of Travel
A TRAVELER I HAVE ADMIRED FOR MOST OF MY traveling life is the writer Dervla Murphy, who was born in 1931 in Lismore, Ireland, where she still lives. I began reading her in the 1960s, with her first book, Full Tilt (1965). In Singapore in 1969, I met an Englishman who claimed to have met her. He had asked her how she'd managed, as a woman, to travel through Ethiopia, for her book In Ethiopia with a Mule (1968). She replied, "It was simple. I went as a man." ¶ Self-educated (she dropped out of school at the age of fourteen to look after her ailing mother), she mentions in her early memoir, Wheels Within Wheels, that at fifteen she was able to levitate herself. This fascinated me. But when I asked her about it, she told me that many people have written to her to relate similar experiences of levitation. As she grew older she lost this magical gift. And when her mother died, she set off on her Full Tilt journey, riding a bicycle from Ireland to India, suffering many dangers and indignities—snow, near drowning, being stoned by mullahs in Iran.
"By the time I arrived at the Afghan frontier," she writes in that book, "it seemed quite natural, before a meal, to scrape the dried mud off the bread, pick the hairs out of the cheese and remove the bugs from the sugar. I had also stopped registering the presence of fleas, the absence of cutlery, and the fact that I hadn't taken off my clothes or slept in a bed for ten days."
In India, after enduring these hardships—but being Dervla—she worked in a home for Tibetan refugees.
Though she has never married, she had a daughter, Rachel, whom she raised alone and took everywhere, including India, Baltistan, South America, and Madagascar. She writes, "A child's presence emphasizes your trust in the community's goodwill."
She has written twenty-three travel books, including books about England and Ulster. All her travel has been arduous, mainly solitary, and terrestrial, her preferred mode of travel an inexpensive bicycle. She never complains, never satirizes herself or the people she is among, and though her writing often contains infelicities, it reflects the woman herself: downright, patient, truthful, reliable, never looking for comfort but always the rougher experiences of the road; a wanderer in the oldest tradition. I find her admirable in every way, and her advice to travelers, "to facilitate escapism," is full of the wisdom of a life of journeying:
CHOOSE YOUR COUNTRY, USE GUIDEBOOKS TO IDENTIFY THE AREAS MOST FREQUENTED BY FOREIGNERS - AND THEN GO IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION.
This advice reeks of political incorrectness; it's "snobbish" to draw a clear distinction between travelers and tourists. Yet it's also realistic. The escapist traveler needs space, solitude, silence. Tragically, during my lifetime, roads have drastically depleted that natural habitat. Ads for phony "adventure tours" make me grind my few remaining teeth. For example, "England to Kenya by truck! Overland adventure! See five countries in six weeks!" Who in their right mind wants to see five countries in six weeks? How not to escape ... I always try to get off the beaten track. One favorite place where I did so was a trek from Asmara to Addis Ababa. Things are different now, but most people I encountered then had never seen a white person before. Even on more recent trips, in Russia and Romania—where I took fairly obvious routes that certainly weren't uncharted land—I always stayed away from the tourist trails.
MUG UP ON HISTORY.
To travel in ignorance of a region's history leaves you unable to understand the "why" of anything or anyone. For instance, Castro's Cuba [the subject of Murphy's book The Island That Dared: Journeys in Cuba, 2008] must baffle visitors uninformed about the five-hundred-year lead-up to Fidel's revolution. Heavy sociological or political research is unnecessary, although if you happen to fancy that sort of thing it will add an extra dimension to your journey. Otherwise, enough of current politics will be revealed as you go along. And in those happy lands where domestic politics don't matter to the locals, you can forget about them.
Before your trip, learn as much as possible about religious and social taboos and then scrupulously respect them. Where gifts of money are inappropriate, find out what substitutes to carry. In Muslim countries such as Afghanistan, a code of conduct toward travelers prevents acceptance of money from guests, so I often buy gifts for children at the local bazaar.
TRAVEL ALONE OR WITH JUST ONE PREPUBESCENT CHILD.
In some countries two adults traveling together may be perceived as providing mutual support, making acceptance by the locals less spontaneous and complete. But a child's presence emphasizes your trust in the community's goodwill. And because children pay little attention to racial or cultural differences, junior companions rapidly demolish barriers of shyness or apprehension often raised when foreigners unexpectedly approach a remote village. I found this to be the case in all my travels with my young daughter, especially when we traveled through Kodagu in southern India.
DON'T OVERPLAN.
At sunrise, it's not necessary, or even desirable, to know where you are going to be at sunset. In sparsely inhabited areas carry a lightweight tent and sleeping bag. Elsewhere, rely on fate to provide shelter: dependence on those you meet en route greatly enhances escapism, and villagers are unfailingly hospitable to those who trust them. I have been welcomed into villagers' homes everywhere I've cycled or walked, and was always grateful for what was typically a space on the floor. "Trust" is a key word for relaxed traveling among people whose different way of life may demand adaptability but should prompt no unease or suspicion.
BE SELF-PROPELLED, OR BUY A PACK ANIMAL.
For long treks far from roads and towns, buy a pack animal to carry food, camping gear, kerosene for your stove if firewood is scarce—and of course your child, should he or she be too small to walk all day.
When organizing such a trek, allow for spending a week or ten days at your starting point, inquiring about the best source of pack animals. Take care to find a reliable adviser as well as a horse trader—preferably an adviser unconnected to the trader. In Ethiopia in 1966, I was lucky to be advised by Princess Aida, granddaughter of the then emperor, Haile Selassie, and half a dozen mules were paraded around the courtyard of a royal palace for my inspection. A decade or so later, in Baltistan, I bought a retired polo pony to carry Rachel, my six-year-old daughter, and our camping gear and supplies, including two sacks of flour, because in midwinter in the Karakorum, the villagers have no spare food. In Peru, as a nine-year-old, Rachel rode a mule named Juana for the first six hundred miles from Cajamarca, but a fodder shortage necessitated her walking the remaining nine hundred miles to Cuzco: poor Juana had become so debilitated that she could carry only our gear.