Travel Diaries
London to Kathmandu 1983–4. On the road.
With the truck tarpaulins rolled all the way up, we could see what lay on both sides of the road. My perch of choice was on the end of the bench, staring backwards at everything we were leaving behind. Vehicles that passed us would honk their horns frantically, their occupants waving and cheering, and we couldn’t help but smile at the attention we received. It was up to Alan and Paul to deal with whatever appeared on the road in front, as they boogied to the music in their cab. Once in a while, they’d remember they had cargo, would take requests from the stack of dusty cassettes, and pipe music into the cargo hold.
Some of the more fastidious of the group had already felt it necessary to wash clothing, and the truck resembled a mobile Chinese Laundry. Tee shirts and undies were fixed to the roof bars as securely as possible, but this didn’t stop various articles from randomly taking flight. Within two weeks I was to lose three of the four pairs of undies I’d set out with, watching them fly off onto nearby car windscreens before lying forlorn at the side of the road, or pinned to a bush.
Our first proper camp was on the outskirts of Cologne. I wondered if there’d be time to visit two German friends my then boyfriend and I had met while hitching back to the UK from Greece in 1977, but decided it would be less complicated to contact them on the return leg of this trip …which I managed to do, almost a year later.
The morning after the night before -having been spent at the Oktoberfest in Munich, was slow to start. Besides watching vomit fly from drunk Ferris wheel riders during the evening celebrations, a young American soldier thought to impress me with his shooting skills -which were excellent. The prizes ranged from various cuddly toys to a few sets of automotive tools. Anticipating my girly nature, soldier boy grabbed a HUGE teddy bear, and presented it to me with a proud look on his face. Just what the truck needed, I thought, before breaking the news gently to him that we were to be travelling through desolate terrain, in a vehicle with limited space, for several months. The romantic gesture was acknowledged, but the bear was returned to its spot, and a box of tools selected instead. Just in case.
I’m not sure how we found our way back to the camp in the early hours of the morning, but we did, although not all of us to our own tents. This became a common confusion at the best of times, more so after evenings spent drinking with the locals. There was always one member of the group sober enough to be able to reverse a tent flysheet and cause no end of frustration for its occupant …to the amusement of the rest of us happy to not have been the recipient of such a childish, and oft repeated prank.
Packed and breakfasted by 07.30, after only a couple of hours sleep, we left for Austria, all in agreement that one night at Oktoberfest was enough. The group meetings had presented us with options about where we wanted to spend the most time as we moved through Europe. Two weeks of a more leisurely wander along the Adriatic coast won a majority vote, meaning the need for greater speed down through the countries between us and Jugoslavia. Austria was a blur of misty mountains and freezing fog, but still we insisted the tarp stayed rolled up for our viewing pleasure, and we bundled up in all the clothing and down we were travelling with. Next stop, the Jugoslavian border, to obtain entry visas for the Aussies and Americans onboard.
