We were a quite large group as numbers of us were back logged waiting for planes into Indonesia and slowed due to a ‘haircut’ policy. Men needed to cut above the ears. lingering longer, there were locals who were keen to fraternize with us. They asked a lot of questions about Western ideology and life. We would find out subsequently, they most likely would have been Fretilin planners. Sure enough, there was a coup in 1975 (2).
David chose not to go to the hairdresser. We stayed for three weeks in Dilli, Timor instead. Then we decided to fly back to Australia and head down to Alice Springs for six months of work. It was excellent to experience the middle of that continent - its relentless sun at over 40 degrees centigrade, its dry river bed, the cold nights. First, we lived in a campground in a fixed caravan. The receptionist job at the motel I worked at led to my running it for a time alone. The new manager had a car breakdown coming up from Adelaide and was weeks delayed. Twice, emblematically, when I was running the place, crews of the Flying Doctor Service moved in for overnights. David had driven eight hundred miles to the outback on contract work, slept on the back of a truck and lived off beef steaks delivered by Aboriginal employees who silently made day drops. He was out there straight for six weeks building cattle pens. We spoke once a week to each other on the radio phone. I ran an internal PBX system in the office. Then we flew over the Flores to Hong Kong, Singapore and Penang. After that we crossed the Indian and Central Asian continent. INDIAOverland travel provided so much stimulus. There had been a recent large cyclone over the Bangladesh delta the day we came into Calcutta. Literally hundreds of white shirts were drying. Cameo appearances of masses of civilization are never forgotten; for example, chai tea served through windows that we drank from then dashed to the stones, on the northern route train that stopped at the Ganges. Stumbling over a narrow bridge with hundreds to the next train link we had strict instructions from local passengers not to fall down, or else we would have been trampled. India was constantly an amazement. We travelled on a miniature railway for a three week holiday in Darjeeling. (The train was a well known Scot train on a 2ft gauge line). We slept at nights for three days crossing the north in third class. In our couchette from day one we had struck up an intense conversation with a man who became our host on two occasions in Delhi.
David chose not to go to the hairdresser. We stayed for three weeks in Dilli, Timor instead. Then we decided to fly back to Australia and head down to Alice Springs for six months of work. It was excellent to experience the middle of that continent - its relentless sun at over 40 degrees centigrade, its dry river bed, the cold nights. First, we lived in a campground in a fixed caravan. The receptionist job at the motel I worked at led to my running it for a time alone. The new manager had a car breakdown coming up from Adelaide and was weeks delayed. Twice, emblematically, when I was running the place, crews of the Flying Doctor Service moved in for overnights. David had driven eight hundred miles to the outback on contract work, slept on the back of a truck and lived off beef steaks delivered by Aboriginal employees who silently made day drops. He was out there straight for six weeks building cattle pens. We spoke once a week to each other on the radio phone. I ran an internal PBX system in the office. Then we flew over the Flores to Hong Kong, Singapore and Penang. After that we crossed the Indian and Central Asian continent. INDIAOverland travel provided so much stimulus. There had been a recent large cyclone over the Bangladesh delta the day we came into Calcutta. Literally hundreds of white shirts were drying. Cameo appearances of masses of civilization are never forgotten; for example, chai tea served through windows that we drank from then dashed to the stones, on the northern route train that stopped at the Ganges. Stumbling over a narrow bridge with hundreds to the next train link we had strict instructions from local passengers not to fall down, or else we would have been trampled. India was constantly an amazement. We travelled on a miniature railway for a three week holiday in Darjeeling. (The train was a well known Scot train on a 2ft gauge line). We slept at nights for three days crossing the north in third class. In our couchette from day one we had struck up an intense conversation with a man who became our host on two occasions in Delhi.
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Mr Mathur, with a Phd, was returning to India from America in Detroit after a ten year absence to run his father’s business. He insisted. He cleared space for us up in the luggage racks by moving four other passengers out so that we got some sleep. His action was, I suppose, as much his coming to terms with his own change to culture after ten years of being absent in the USA, as well as a delightful fierce pride in knowing the Anglo transactional world and enjoying being our host in his homeland.
He was very protective of us. We had struck up so much engaged conversation that in Delhi he introduced us to all of his family. He invited us to dinner at his house in a two storied home in the CBD of the old town. His father sat me down and talked to me about working for the British Railways and then offered to read my hand. The next day we were invited to a wedding of two nephews. We witnessed a ceremony amongst five hundred men and women, the couple exchanging mala garlands, after the grooms, bedecked in gold cloth, had ridden white ponies in front of a wondrous swaying percussion band in the old part of the city. After quite a time in procession, it stopped. We were all accommodated arranged buses to drive to a celebration at a modern New Delhi arena quite a distance away.
PAKISTAN
This was a frightening country. Travelling by train I had my camera stolen from under my pillow. I think I and 2 others women were drugged. An ugly incident occurred when we tried to explain to the railway police and we decided to chalk it up as a sad, bad deal.
Travelling over the Kyber Pass into Afghanistan was spectacular in its ruggedness. The Russians and then the Americans both found how difficult it was to do anything in that country.
KABUL
When it came to staying in a hotel in Kabul it was a matter of seeing that we locked our bedroom door. Tragic fallouts occurred for a few ‘lost soul’ Westerners with drugs that decade. Swift sentences were passed in East Asia. Some people were imprisoned. We slept for three weeks in that city awaiting a secondhand VW combi van overhaul as the engine had been sabotaged with sugar. Fervid knocks occurred at our hotel bedroom door more than once. These were from friends desperate to ask for money for food to feed those they knew who had been incarcerated.
Curious and conversational people gathered each night at the ‘chocolate pudding cafe’. We ' kids abroad ’ group were an elated culture fossicking crowd.
One night we were generously invited out to an evening of hot tea and conversation by a local host who invited us to listen to musicians playing lutes and ouds. It was memorable. We left the town that week to head to Europe.
What irrefutably imprinted into the psyche on that journey was seeing Nomads.
Calcutta 1970 Main highway afghanistan 1970
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