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Three Travel Books

Wednesday, 28 August 2024

I’ve been reading tourism related books of late, starting with Paige McClanahan’s very interesting book The New Tourist. I talked at length with Paige when she was working on the book, so Maureen and I feature in the intro chapter, along with Rick Steves, Mark Ellingham, Hilary Bradt, the ‘new guidebook’ publishers. Her book is particularly interesting when it looks at where the world’s current tourist boom has (Liverpool surprisingly) and has not (Barcelona, Amsterdam, Hawaii) worked. I wrote a blurb for the book:

• Like Goldilocks’ three bears and their varied porridge bowls the rapid development of tourism in recent years can be too hot (Barcelona, Amsterdam, Hawai’i), too cold (all those wonderful places still lacking visitors), or just right (surprisingly, as Paige McClanahan shows, the Beatles’ northern England hometown of Liverpool). Her account of that city’s transformation is just one of this book’s delights. As you’ll discover here, there’s plenty of good and bad in modern tourism, but the mixture is, in this author’s hands, a fascinating read.

My recent theatre visits in London included a National Theatre revival of the 1982 play Boys from the Blackstuff, which was an attack on British Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher’s demolition job on the working class in Liverpool. That was the city’s lowest point and it’s remarkable how it has recovered in recent years with a lineup of excellent museums and galleries (the Tate Liverpool, the Maritime Museum, the Slavery Museum) and, of course, the Beatles, the Beatles, the Beatles.

Next it’s Shanaz Habib’s Airplane Mode – An Irreverent History of Travel which looks at our current travel world through an alternative viewpoint, ie not just the usual First World perspective. So we get something on ‘pseudo-discoveries,’ the western viewpoint that things are only ‘discovered’ when we turned up. Fair enough Tahiti certainly existed before Wallace, Bougainville and Cook arrived.

There’s an amusing little aside on getting a visa to go to France and, because she’s Indian, having to provide an ID photograph with her ears visible. Well I could balance that with my China-visa story back in 2017 when I had to sort out 15 visas for the Silk Road trip I did that year – click here for the opening installment.

Several of the women in my group were knocked back because their ears were not visible in their photographs. I got them to provide new ‘ears-on-view’ photographs and then several of them were knocked back again because they were wearing earrings! And I’ve just gone through the rather time-consuming form-filling-process of getting an Indian visa. Now where were my parents born a century ago? And what was the number of my last Indian visa? And where did I stay in Mumbai on that visit to India?

There is, however, a huge difference between having a ‘powerful’ passport and a weak one. The Henley Passport Index ranks passports, essentially on how much trouble you’re going to face getting visas. Very little for most European countries – the top 5 powerful passports are Singapore, France, Germany, Italy, Japan. And weakest? Well you certainly don’t want to have a passport from Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan.

I was intrigued by the story of ‘Manual Scavenging,’ which is cleaning up Indian railway lines because all the shit gets deposited from the train carriages straight on to the railway lines. Or at least it used to be, India Rails says they do no longer do any ‘manual scavenging.’ Or is that because they simply outsource all the cleaning duties? Or is it because all broad gauge lines have moved on to more modern systems? And how much of the railway system in India is broad gauge, about half of the 130,000km total track length?

Finally The Economist came up with a list of six books about holidays:

1. Death in Venice & Other Tales – Thomas Mann
2. Swallows & Amazons – Arthur Ransome
3. On the Road – Jack Kerouac
4. Jaws – Peter Benchley
5. The Beach – Alex Garland
6. The Disaster Tourist – Yun Ko-eun

I’ve always been a fan for Swallows & Amazons, but The Disaster Tourist was new for me. Jungle is a (fictional) Korean tourist operation which sends people to disasters – the sites of volcano eruptions, earthquakes, wars, droughts, typhoons, tsunamis, avalanches, massacres, radioactivity, serial killers, animal abuse, contagious diseases, water pollution and much more. The disaster on the island of Mui, it turns out, is being created purely for the tourists. Until a real tsunami intervenes and wipes out the Jungle crew.

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Three Travel Books

28 August 2024 | Media

I’ve been reading tourism related books of late, starting with Paige McClanahan’s very interesting book The New Tourist. I talked at length with Paige when she was working on the book, so Maureen and I feature in the intro chapter, along with Rick Steves, Mark Ellingh...

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In Nigeria with MSF – Médecins Sans Frontières

20 August 2024 | Living

My travels in Nigeria included time as a typical tourist – particularly in Lagos and Kano – even though tourists are very few and far between in Africa’s largest country in terms of population. Nigeria already has more than 200 million people and it appears to be head...

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On the Tube – London

6 August 2024 | Transport

I spend a lot of time riding the tube, the London subway system, when I’m in London. I’ve got familiar lines – the Piccadilly Line (I’m not an enthusiast), the District Line (much better), the Victoria Line, the Jubilee Line. ▲ And familiar stations, starting wit...

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Cornwall – the British holiday zone

7 July 2024 | Places

With a group of friends Maureen and I spent a few days in Cornwall, the ever popular – with tourists – south-west corner of the United Kingdom. A long time ago we made the trek to Lands End, the very furthermost end of England, and we’ve made a couple of other trips t...

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Oxford to Abingdon on the Thames Path

28 June 2024 | Transport

Last year I spent several days walking the first 50-plus miles – 90km – of the Thames Path, the 184 miles (294km) route along the River Thames from its source to the Thames Barrage, east of London. That walk took me from the source to the university town of Oxford. ...

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A Tourist in Nigeria

17 June 2024 | Places

Most of my recent Nigerian travels were with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) although I did see a fair amount on the road – or in the air. I noted in my recent post on South Sudan that I was visiting places where the western government travel advisories were essentiall...

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On the road (or in the air) – Nigeria

6 June 2024 | Transport

Having started my African travels in Nairobi I continued north to Lake Turkana in Kenya and then crossed in to South Sudan, mainly spending my time in the Boma and Bandingilo National Parks. Next stop Nigeria, Africa’s biggest country in terms of population, but certa...

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People & Places – South Sudan

2 June 2024 | Places

My visit to South Sudan featured a fascinating visit to ‘Lucy,’ the gigantic Jonglei Canal excavator, and unfortunately did not include a stop at the Imperial Airways Shambe flying boat base from the 1930s. I only saw that from the air, I would like to have had a look...

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Parks & Wildlife – South Sudan

30 May 2024 | Places

My April travels through Africa took me to African-run projects in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, in particular Food4Education. Then I explored the Lake Turkana area of north Kenya, landscapes and the tribes and people of the region. Continuing to South Sudan the aban...

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The Jonglei Canal, Lucy & the Shambe Flying Boat Base in South Sudan

28 May 2024 | Places

◄ 'Lucy,' the giant Jonglei Canal excavator My recent travels in South Sudan were principally in the Boma and Bandingilo National Parks – more on that in my next blog post – although my travels started and finished in Juba, the capital of South Sudan. I visited Kha...

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