Nomad Old Farts' Guestbook

Nepal Roads 1974
Your photos prove the roads were better in 1974 than when we were there in 2007!

India/Pakistan border
When I got to this border, India and Pakistan were enjoying a war so John (my cousin) and I had to hang about in Pakistan until it either ended or a cease-fire was declared. To fill in the time, we took a bus/truck up to the Swat valley. Now a no-go area, it is a beautiful place sandwiched between high mountains but almost semi-tropical in its climate. We booked in to the only "hotel" in the valley and were just settling in when there was a loud knock on the door and two soldiers barged in. We were told we had to go with them to meet the local chief as he needed to approve our stay in the valley. We followed them with some trepidation as they had the guns and, even in the '60s, that area was pretty wild. Turned out that the chief (called the "Wallie" would you believe!) had been at Oxford University and there were so few English-speaking visitors that he just wanted to speak with us in English. We were there for two weeks and had a wonderful time (though I don't think I will ever eat goat again). Unfortunately we were already in the best (but crappy) room in the "hotel" so couldn't get upgraded. From there we travelled to Islamabad and then, when we heard a cease-fire had been declared for 24 hours, headed for Lahore. We managed to get to the border crossing in time but had to walk about 4kms through no-mans-land to get to the Indian side. We were immediately arrested by the Indian army police and interrogated about what we might have seen on the Pakistani side - which was pretty much nothing. My greatest fear was that they would discover I had illegally changed a large amount of dollars (about 30) into an even larger amount of Indian rupees which could have put me in prison for several years. Fortunately, they were more concerned with army type information, so I got away with it. (It occurs to me that I spent a lot of time getting arrested while I was travelling across Asia, through no fault of mine. Wait till you get to the Afghan/Iran border and the Italy/Yugoslav as well). Looking forward to reading more of your adventures. They are bringing back great (sometime not-so-great) memories for me.

Nepale border
I am loving your posts about your journey. I came from the opposite direction to you and in 1969. When we (I was travelling with my cousin) arrived in Raxaul, we checked in to a "hostel", we were exhausted after a nightmare train journey from Delhi and pretty much fell straight asleep. We were attacked by mosquitoes and I woke up during the night with cockroaches nibbling on the dead skins on my toes. Didn't get much sleep! Next day we went to the border crossing and I was arrested for resembling a gun-runner. Eventually (two days) the police admitted I was not the person they were looking for and released me. They flagged down a truck to take me to Katmandu. As the truck was leaving, the border police flagged it down and I thought they were going to incarcerate me again. Instead they gave me an "apology" gift for my arrest of 1/2 kg of hash. I was in Katmandu for a fortnight but don't recall a great deal. Ask me about Jerry Jeff Walker and "Mr Bojangles" and I'll tell you another Nepal story. We shared a dorm while he was composing it.

Thanks for bringing back memories of the Christmas of 1974...
when we spent a week in Burma.

Memories of Singapore & Raffles
Oh....those were the travelling days. Great to relive some of them. We've enjoyed a couple of trips to Singapore including the fun of throwing peanut shells on the floor as we sipped our Singapore Slings! Can't wait for those travelling days to return.

Comment error
We didn't get to Penang on our trip.

2007
We went to Raffles on an around the world trip in 2007. We sat on the porch for a while. I didn't pay the $22 for a Singapore Sling. As you stated... when watching your money you can stay on the road longer.

1972
I would have loved to travel the world in the 70's. Please keep these wonderful adventures coming. It gives all of wonderful things to imagine.

Beauty
Fantastic photo.

I also didn't get along with one of my first bosses...
on the construction job in Chiang Mai from Feb 1974 to Aug 1975...you've probably read my blog from that time. Fortunately, his boss was on my side as has been the case a number of times. We both know where our priorities lie!