1196 words BACKPACKING FOR HOLIDAYS 27.3.99
Is it such a ridiculous idea? Have you ever envied the young people who go off globe trotting for months? Many of us willingly endure far more hardship and uncertainty. The mountain, walking, camping and sailing fraternities for instance. It might come as a surprise that the technique is practicable for three week holidays. In small bites it takes longer to see the world, that's all. Bed and breakfast touring on local transport is a fair analogy.
The adventurous Aussie globe trotters tackled Asia in the fifties on their way to Earl's Court. In so doing they caused the infra-structure to be laid down by local entrepreneurs. That is to say the necessary English speaking guest house/restaurant/tourist transport facilities. Now backpackers are a large and international fraternity. A Lonely Planet tells you all you need to know. The first year you will start nervously but finish with lots of confidence. On successive trips you will get more and more adventurous, probably choosing, like us, to get ever closer to the local people, their transport and their food.
You can choose to be energetic by trekking in Nepal, laze on beautiful beaches on islands off southern Thailand, explore the wonderful forts and palaces of Rajastan, or get lost in the jungles of Indonesia or Borneo. We have done them all. There aren't many of our age bracket out there, but there should be a lot more.
How can I persuade some of you to try it out? It's not a hard slog, in fact it is so different as to be exhilarating. Much of the budget accommodation is of a surprisingly high standard, but you can stay in good hotels if you must. Nowadays everyone raves about Thai food, so why not follow Rick Stein's advice and try the real thing in the night markets? Why not add a bit of adventure to your humdrum life? Choose a different region each year, we took three holidays in Thailand. Learn how satisfying it is to find your own way around, providing you do your research up front you can hit the ground running. You will get more efficient with every trip.
It's a cheap holiday, apart from the air fare. Costs are such that once in Asia you can live and travel for less than it costs to live at home. The longer the trip, the better the economics, especially when you consider all in costs. So in spite of the airfare a three week holiday in Asia is less than one in Europe.
One of our ambitions had been to walk in the Himalaya. We were into our mid fifties, clear of the kids and in full time careers, when we met two young people who frequently visited Nepal to buy and import specially designed jewellery.
'If we can do it, surely you can with all your experience! Buy a ticket and give it a go.' It was hard to ignore such a challenge, for we had never considered ourselves as lacking in enterprise. The more we read of Nepal, the more we realised it had to be our first project. Kathmandu awaited with Pie Alley and Freak Street, Durbar Place, temples galore and above all the Himalaya. We bought a ticket and set out
without even a hotel booking, determined to dive in the deep end. It wasn't until we reached Kathmandu that we set about organising a guide and porters for a fifteen day trek up the Kali Gandaki gorge in Annapurna, saving fifty percent on UK prices.
Several years later it was Borneo, Sarawak to be precise, for our last holiday before taking early retirement. Island of rainforest and huge rivers, head-hunting tribes, poison darts spat from blowpipes, bone penis pins, and longhouses where raw sago worms are considered a delicacy. Maybe a synopsis of some of the more unexpected happenings on that trip will help to explain why we became addicted to this form of travel.
Like to share at first hand the excitement of David Attenborough? We had exactly that feeling when we saw the rare large ungainly long nosed Proboscis Monkeys jumping madly from swaying branch to swaying branch, playing in the undergrowth of the forest at twilight before climbing high into the canopy to sleep. At the time we were staying at the Bako National Park, not far from the capital Kuching. By walking round forest trails you can experience a full variation of tropical vegetation, thanks to a substantial change of elevation in a compact area,. It ranges from coastal mangrove swamps and areas of virgin primary rain forest, unbelievably tall Dipterocarp trees, to a semi-arid plateau and its insect catching pitcher plants.
The same feeling of déjà vu whilst we watched for twenty minutes whilst dark columns of massed swallows and bats swirled in the sky. They carry out their celebrated shift changeover ,at dawn and dusk, at the famous Niah Caves. Inside we saw brave men, with simple flashlights strapped to their foreheads, risk death to climb the cathedral high interior on fragile bamboo scaffolding. They were gathering nests, whilst the swallows were on the wing, to keep the Japanese supplied with Bird's Nest Soup. Wall paintings of dugout canoes were found in an adjacent cave. The walk back in the dark to our wooden bungalow through the rain forest was enlivened with the sparkle of fireflies and the glow of phosphorescent mushrooms.
Fancy a trip to Mulu, the world's largest underground cave, over a hundred miles of it in dense jungle? At a travel agent in Bintulu we arranged a scheduled internal flight in a plane which turned out to have folding canvas seats.
Using local transport in Borneo means travelling by torpedo shaped 'express' boats, for there are only isolated sections of road. But it was far more exciting in a small high powered open boat, with our Liwan, our longhouse host, at the helm. Absolutely unforgettable when he swung round suddenly in the surging river to pick up a wild boar. The pig had got away from a native hunting party and was floating downstream with a wooden spear sticking in his side. Finders was keepers, so Liwan butchered him that evening on the long house floor, and his wife cooked some for our dinner.
Interested in hand crafted textiles? In Kapit we happened to chance on a major pua-kumbu competition. These intricately patterned, wall hanging, blankets are woven from cotton. The warp is tie-died by a process known as ikat, a speciality of the Iban tribe. Goodness knows how they succeed in weaving an accurate pattern this way. My wife recognised the judge Edric Ong, contributor to our Periplus guide book. He willingly explained quite a lot of the weaving technique as well as the symbolism in the patterns, and helped us to buy direct from the immaculately dressed tribal craftswomen.
All that and far more was packed into a twenty five day holiday. Was it expensive? An all-in cost, door to door, of £1100 each, of which air travel accounted for 75%. Since then both exchange rates and air fares have moved sharply in our favour. But the experiences were priceless. Interested?
Is it such a ridiculous idea? Have you ever envied the young people who go off globe trotting for months? Many of us willingly endure far more hardship and uncertainty. The mountain, walking, camping and sailing fraternities for instance. It might come as a surprise that the technique is practicable for three week holidays. In small bites it takes longer to see the world, that's all. Bed and breakfast touring on local transport is a fair analogy.
The adventurous Aussie globe trotters tackled Asia in the fifties on their way to Earl's Court. In so doing they caused the infra-structure to be laid down by local entrepreneurs. That is to say the necessary English speaking guest house/restaurant/tourist transport facilities. Now backpackers are a large and international fraternity. A Lonely Planet tells you all you need to know. The first year you will start nervously but finish with lots of confidence. On successive trips you will get more and more adventurous, probably choosing, like us, to get ever closer to the local people, their transport and their food.
You can choose to be energetic by trekking in Nepal, laze on beautiful beaches on islands off southern Thailand, explore the wonderful forts and palaces of Rajastan, or get lost in the jungles of Indonesia or Borneo. We have done them all. There aren't many of our age bracket out there, but there should be a lot more.
How can I persuade some of you to try it out? It's not a hard slog, in fact it is so different as to be exhilarating. Much of the budget accommodation is of a surprisingly high standard, but you can stay in good hotels if you must. Nowadays everyone raves about Thai food, so why not follow Rick Stein's advice and try the real thing in the night markets? Why not add a bit of adventure to your humdrum life? Choose a different region each year, we took three holidays in Thailand. Learn how satisfying it is to find your own way around, providing you do your research up front you can hit the ground running. You will get more efficient with every trip.
It's a cheap holiday, apart from the air fare. Costs are such that once in Asia you can live and travel for less than it costs to live at home. The longer the trip, the better the economics, especially when you consider all in costs. So in spite of the airfare a three week holiday in Asia is less than one in Europe.
One of our ambitions had been to walk in the Himalaya. We were into our mid fifties, clear of the kids and in full time careers, when we met two young people who frequently visited Nepal to buy and import specially designed jewellery.
'If we can do it, surely you can with all your experience! Buy a ticket and give it a go.' It was hard to ignore such a challenge, for we had never considered ourselves as lacking in enterprise. The more we read of Nepal, the more we realised it had to be our first project. Kathmandu awaited with Pie Alley and Freak Street, Durbar Place, temples galore and above all the Himalaya. We bought a ticket and set out
without even a hotel booking, determined to dive in the deep end. It wasn't until we reached Kathmandu that we set about organising a guide and porters for a fifteen day trek up the Kali Gandaki gorge in Annapurna, saving fifty percent on UK prices.
Several years later it was Borneo, Sarawak to be precise, for our last holiday before taking early retirement. Island of rainforest and huge rivers, head-hunting tribes, poison darts spat from blowpipes, bone penis pins, and longhouses where raw sago worms are considered a delicacy. Maybe a synopsis of some of the more unexpected happenings on that trip will help to explain why we became addicted to this form of travel.
Like to share at first hand the excitement of David Attenborough? We had exactly that feeling when we saw the rare large ungainly long nosed Proboscis Monkeys jumping madly from swaying branch to swaying branch, playing in the undergrowth of the forest at twilight before climbing high into the canopy to sleep. At the time we were staying at the Bako National Park, not far from the capital Kuching. By walking round forest trails you can experience a full variation of tropical vegetation, thanks to a substantial change of elevation in a compact area,. It ranges from coastal mangrove swamps and areas of virgin primary rain forest, unbelievably tall Dipterocarp trees, to a semi-arid plateau and its insect catching pitcher plants.
The same feeling of déjà vu whilst we watched for twenty minutes whilst dark columns of massed swallows and bats swirled in the sky. They carry out their celebrated shift changeover ,at dawn and dusk, at the famous Niah Caves. Inside we saw brave men, with simple flashlights strapped to their foreheads, risk death to climb the cathedral high interior on fragile bamboo scaffolding. They were gathering nests, whilst the swallows were on the wing, to keep the Japanese supplied with Bird's Nest Soup. Wall paintings of dugout canoes were found in an adjacent cave. The walk back in the dark to our wooden bungalow through the rain forest was enlivened with the sparkle of fireflies and the glow of phosphorescent mushrooms.
Fancy a trip to Mulu, the world's largest underground cave, over a hundred miles of it in dense jungle? At a travel agent in Bintulu we arranged a scheduled internal flight in a plane which turned out to have folding canvas seats.
Using local transport in Borneo means travelling by torpedo shaped 'express' boats, for there are only isolated sections of road. But it was far more exciting in a small high powered open boat, with our Liwan, our longhouse host, at the helm. Absolutely unforgettable when he swung round suddenly in the surging river to pick up a wild boar. The pig had got away from a native hunting party and was floating downstream with a wooden spear sticking in his side. Finders was keepers, so Liwan butchered him that evening on the long house floor, and his wife cooked some for our dinner.
Interested in hand crafted textiles? In Kapit we happened to chance on a major pua-kumbu competition. These intricately patterned, wall hanging, blankets are woven from cotton. The warp is tie-died by a process known as ikat, a speciality of the Iban tribe. Goodness knows how they succeed in weaving an accurate pattern this way. My wife recognised the judge Edric Ong, contributor to our Periplus guide book. He willingly explained quite a lot of the weaving technique as well as the symbolism in the patterns, and helped us to buy direct from the immaculately dressed tribal craftswomen.
All that and far more was packed into a twenty five day holiday. Was it expensive? An all-in cost, door to door, of £1100 each, of which air travel accounted for 75%. Since then both exchange rates and air fares have moved sharply in our favour. But the experiences were priceless. Interested?
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