A Travelling Life

Ian Shires (of Yorkshire and Budapest)

We first met Ian and his partner, Judit, in the summer of 2003 on Camping Fifi in the Turkish border town of Edirne. They had just arrived from Bulgaria in his long-wheelbase Land Rover; we had motorhomed up from Greece via Gallipoli. We were later to visit them twice at their home in Budapest. In this article, Ian writes of his love of travel – from childhood adventures in Yorkshire, through a career as a major pharmaceutical company's Malaria Man in Africa, to his present day travels by Land Rover in and around Central Europe.

See also Ian's Expedition to Turkey on this website

There are several types of traveller. Those with lots of money who collect countries like some people collect postage stamps. And those who stay in a country long enough to absorb the culture. I fall between the two extremes. Sometimes I have been able to stay for a long period or return at regular intervals. Other times I've had to leave because of war or rioting. Life is like that.

My travelling life started in a small way when I was a boy. I lived in a mining village in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Luckily, my family had relatives in London. This meant that every year we would take the bus to Wakefield and wait for a train. It would arrive like a giant monster; the fire from the steam engine shining through the driver's windows like angry eyes. Even when the driver brought the beast under control at the platform it still wanted to catch me, and would give a great belch of steam that clouded the whole station. At the age of 3 or 4 there were few places more exciting than Kings Cross station in London. Ten platforms with a giant steam engine on each one. I can still smell oil, steam and coal.

Like most people in those days, we never had the money to go abroad. Foreign travel had to wait until I was 15 years old. My Boy Scout group had an exchange visit with Scouts in Echternach, Luxembourg. We did a lot of walking in the woods but didn't have much to do with the locals, although we did try their excellent beer!

And then a gap of 10 years before I went abroad again. It is easy for a European to visit another country, but not for a Brit. There is always water in the way. That means you must use an aeroplane or a ferry. Both are very expensive.

An opportunity arose when I applied for a job in Holland. I flew there for the interview. The first of many flights to come, and I've never lost the feeling of excitement. To my surprise I was asked back for another interview, and another one, before eventually going to live there. Holland was nicely positioned. Not too far from the family back home, yet on the mainland of Europe, so I could easily visit neighbouring countries. Germany was within easy reach and we went there to buy those things Holland could not supply. We had friends in Lille and Brussels, so we got to know northern France and Belgium quite well. It was during this period I learnt that people really are different the other side of an imaginary line drawn on a map. Yet at the same time, it was clear that everyone is generally kind and helpful, especially in the villages.

After three years, I returned to England and travelled extensively in the United Kingdom: Scotland, Ireland and Wales. If you think that these are not separate countries, ask a Scotsman. Be prepared to hear some definite opinions.

My greatest travels started after the age of 40 when I became a marketing manager in charge of malaria medicines for the pharmaceutical company I worked with. This meant that I had to visit the countries where that terrible disease is a great problem. I must tell you that, by comparison, Europe is boring. For the next 10 years I was travelling 2 weeks out of 4. Sometimes the journeys were 3 to 4 weeks, sometimes just a few days.

Naturally I took advantage of the opportunities. If I had to meet a Professor or a Minister in Kenya on the Monday, I would travel on the previous Friday evening. This gave me the whole weekend to myself. I would rent a vehicle and travel around the country. If work finished on the Friday, I would stay in the country and return home on the Sunday evening. In this way I got to know East Africa very well. I've been fortunate to meet some poor, but very generous, people. It's not possible to count the cups of tea I've had given to me, even though they did taste terrible. Imagine a large pot on a wood fire, filled with (often sour) milk, a handful of tea leaves and sugar, then boiled for 20 minutes.

More than once I have been the honoured guest in a village. The people would kill a goat and cook it on the open fire for me. Once I was presented with the stomach full of boiled blood. Black pudding never tasted as good.

Naturally the big memories are not the day-to-day visits to doctors in small villages, but the special events. In Tanzania I was asked to stay in the country for an extra week. I guessed they wanted me to meet the Health Minister. Instead I was asked to travel from Dar es Salaam to Mwanza on Lake Victoria with one of the company representatives. He had bought his driving licence the day before. Would I go with him and teach him to drive on the way?

It does not take long to make a decision in circumstances like that. We quickly sorted out the old, very old, Nissan Patrol. We equipped ourselves with rungu (wooden sticks) and panga (large knives) and off we went. Naturally I chose a good route that went through Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti National Park. It was there that the leaf springs broke, and the engine started misfiring, and the electrics generally went crazy. We had not seen another vehicle for 2 days, so we had to drive very slowly to get help. It was another 2 days before we arrived in Mwanza. My colleague, Luginga, was not much help with navigating or driving. When I got back to Dar es Salaam I was very proud of navigating the whole journey without a map, just a small button compass. The local Manager then told me that he had put a map in Luginga's briefcase!

In Hungary they eat a chocolate bar called Fundi. In East African Swahili, a fundi is a mechanic. The fundi in Mwanza took the whole wiring loom out of the Nissan, emptied the fuel tank into several buckets, welded the springs and repaired the whole vehicle in one day. The cost was about 20 GBP. And the Nissan worked perfectly after that.

A 4-week trip to Burma (Myanmar) was another highlight of my travels. Beautiful temples, kind people with a smile in the eyes all the time. The military government was not a problem for me because they wanted malaria medicines. I was always the honoured guest and was given the speciality at meal times ... duck's feet.

Sadly it was a problem for others. There was a curfew in Rangoon. People told me that I should be off the streets before 2200 or I would be arrested. They also said that after 2300 I could be shot!

One evening I was in a restaurant with some military officers (eating duck's feet again). The time was getting nearer 2200. No problem they said. As it got nearer to 2300 I was thinking I would sleep on the floor of the restaurant. But no it was not necessary. At 2330 I was nervously marched outside. Waiting for us was the perfect vehicle. A military Land Rover ambulance. No one stops a military ambulance with a blue light ... thank goodness.

Another memorable journey was to Baghdad during the Iran/Iraq War. I had been there many times but that journey was different. The Iranians were only 50 kilometres from Baghdad and were throwing 3or 4 Scud missiles into the city every day. The big airlines would not send their precious aircraft into the area of course. Our one week stay became two weeks and then three. At the end of the third week I heard through the jungle telegraph that Malev were sending an aircraft to depart 0200 Sunday morning. I quickly changed our Lufthansa tickets to Malev.

The whole of Saturday was very tense because it was President's Day. Surely the Iranians would like to spoil Saddam's celebrations. However they were playing psychological games and not one missile landed in the city. On Saturday evening we went to the airport for Malev Flight MA123. At 0030 a plane landed and we were told to board MA123 immediately.

After take off the stewardess said. 'Welcome to flight MA987'. It was a surprise, yet interesting trying to work out our destination; but it didn't matter, we were out of Baghdad. For the record, we landed in Cyprus.

Probably the highlight of all my travels was when we were making a film about the financial problems caused by malaria. This involved visiting Nigeria, Malawi and Brazil.

I will always love Africa, but Rio, Sao Paulo, Brasilia and Manaus were wonderful, especially outside of the cities. The journey by small boat up the Amazon has to be the ultimate travel experience. To be on a river that in parts was several miles wide was breathtaking. We saw the famous pink dolphins and lots of other wildlife, plus many kind gentle people.

One week later we were in a small village where our team carried out a vaccination programme. The village gave a giant thank you party on the evening before we left. One of the young girls from the village taught me the Lambada. Poor girl! She is probably still nursing her feet today.

Take the chance to travel. Forget about cities. Forget about sun loungers on beaches. Visit the real people. The world is a wonderful place.

Amazon dentist: Eric lost two crowns and I had to stick them back in. Nearest doctor: 5 days

Porto Velho team: Ian and the video crew in Porto Velho, Rondonia, near Bolivian border

Arriving at Amazon village: Sadly I never found out the name of the village

Bread delivery, Alexandria: Snap shot of this amazing balancing act

Concentration, Porto Velho: Interviewing a doctor who speaks no English (and I don't speak Portuguese)

Evening swim Amazon: Every evening the village kids swam around our boat while we fished for piranha

Flamingos, Lake Begoria, Kenya: The photo may only look pink, but that's what it was

Ian at Great Pyramid: A superb opportunity to see this amazing structure

Governor's Camp, Mara: Cool of the evening next to the Mara River, Kenya

Main street, Amazon village: Yet there were colour TVs for the Football World Cup

Vaccination project: One of the objectives was to set up a Hepatitis-B programme

Valletta door: High tech signage for a serious purpose

Valletta Grand Harbour: It really is GRAND

Vic Falls from Dr Livingstone: Dr Livingstone's statue provides fantastic view

Vic Falls, Flight of Angels: From a light aircraft trip round the lighthouse