If it is true that we as the human race emerged out of the African continent and from there migrated to all parts of the globe it is strange that we assume that once we had walked to distant lands we stayed put. If the races grew from such movement why should it not have continued in both directions. Archaeology is revealing forgotten travels that Euro-centrism had once denied. The peoples of Cathay or China had traded with the West centuries before Marco Polo apparently 'discovered' a route to the East, perhaps even prior to the days of the Persian empire. Phoenician, Egyptian, Vikings and Aboriginals seem to have travelled across the seas further and much earlier then the Spanish, Italians, Portuguese or English of the history books of my school days. Trade is always a motivation, but we are also a people who seek to know. We love to explore.

I have travelled occasionally to various parts of our planet over the last three decades and experienced the wonders our ancestors have left us and had a small taste of the life of our brothers and sisters. Some sights, both old and new, are grand and inspiring and others simple, but all are interesting. Often I get the feeling that life is much the same no matter where I go. We each have our concerns and needs. We each have our faults, but we also make contributions. We each experience love, loneliness, hunger and joy. Sometimes I have felt uneasy in a foreign land, but I might just as easily feel strange in an unfamiliar part of my own city. The one thing I am certain of, is that travel has helped me understand more. I have seen religious centres (ticket to Papal audience right), education spreading, culture celebrated, poverty and greed. I have come face to face with works of inspired art and expression. I have shared meals and even a blanket with people whom I could not understand. I have been smiled at and yelled at. I have been welcomed by many, questioned by some and even thrown off a train. I have been scared, enthralled, confused, exhausted, ill and inspired, but most of all I have been changed.

Apart from around my own country Australia, during five trips I have travelled to-

Austria, Belgium, China, Denmark, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Scotland, Switzerland, Yugoslavia,

It is so good to be able to say "I have been to Paris, Rome, London, Berlin, Tokyo, Beijing, Vienna, Pisa, Venice, Florence, Nice, Monte Carlo, Lourdes, Heidelberg, Munich, Edinburgh, Windsor, York, Cairo, Jerusalem, Sydney, Melbourne, Amman, Bethlehem, Luxor, Xhian, Shanghai, Aswan, Arles, Avignon, Nimes, Amsterdam, Oslo, Copenhagen, Milan, Zurich, Athens, Delphi, Liverpool, and many many more places.

I seem to have a fondness for seeing the great centres of civilisations past. When I travel I like to see the ruins, the places of worship, the collections of recovered artefacts and the store houses of culture. I like to experience the music and performances of the great and the common. I am shy, but I like to occasionally converse with people who have never been to, or even heard, of my birthplace. When away, I can do things alone that I would never dare to do at home. It is easier to be alone when you have no choice and you are unrecognisable. To sit for hours alone in a foreign cafe, watching what goes on around you, is a completely different experience from being sadly isolated in your own neighbourhood. The petty feelings of a need to wear a different outfit, have a shave, not be seen doing something immature are often washed away by a freedom from the constrictions of one's role play at home. 

Have I been improved by travel? I do not know, but I have been many places and I look at them differently now. When I watch the news I understand a little better, when I see a movie I get a different feeling, when I listen to music I hear with a slightly different ear, when I see wonders that I have not experienced I am now less jealous of those who have. Some things have been raised to a greater appreciation and others have been placed on a level of more realistic admiration. I find people a little more similar and my judgements hopefully less critical. I hope that when the next urge comes I am again able to once again set out into the world.

A couple of explorers

The Memorial to Captain James Cook at Great St. Andrew's Church, Cambridge:

IN MEMORY of CAPTAIN JAMES COOK, of the ROYAL NAVY,

one of the most celebrated Navigators, that this,

or former Ages can boast of; who was killed by

the Natives of Owyhee, in the Pacific Ocean, on the

14th Day of February, 1779; in the 51st Year of his Age.

Of Mr. NATHANIEL COOK, who was lost with the

Thunderer Man of War, Captain Boyle Walsingham,

In a most dreadful Hurricane, in October, 1780 ; Aged 16 Years.

Of Mr. HUGH COOK, of Christ's College, CAMBRIDGE,

who died on the 21st of December, 1793; aged 17 Years.

Of JAMES COOK, Esq; COMMANDER in the ROYAL NAVY,

Who lost his Life on the 25th of January, 1794; in

Going from Pool, to the Spitfire Sloop of War, which

He commanded ; in the 31st Year of his Age.

Of ELIZABETH COOK, who died April 9th 1771, Aged 4 Years.

JOSEPH COOK, who died Sept 13th 1768, Aged 1 Month.

GEORGE COOK, who died Oct 1st 1772, Aged 4 Months.

All Children of the first mentioned CAPT JAMES COOK by

ELIZABETH COOK, who survived her Husband 56 Years, &

Departed this life 13th May 1835 at her residence Clapham Surrey

in the 94th Year of her Age. Her remains are deposited

with those of her Sons  JAMES & HUGH.

in the middle Aisle of this Church.

Above left  a monument where he was killed and a portrait above right.

____________________________________________

Marco Polo (1254-1324

The Polo Brothers Maffeo and Niccilo Polo were on trading on the Volga, but unable to return via the same route they decide to detour to the east and marooned at Bukhara they met the Mongol ambassador who persuaded them to go further east to  the new capital of the Great Khan, Beijing in 1266. They were well received and one year later, Kublai Khan sent them on their way with a letter addressed to Pope Clement IV asking the Pope to send him 100 learned men to teach Christianity and Western science and asked for oil from the lamp at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. To ensure their safe passage they were presented with a golden tablet inscribed with the words "By the strength of the eternal Heaven, holy be the Khan's name. Let him that pays him not reverence be killed." 

The Polo family were nobles from the coast of Dalmatia, but Marco may have been born in 1254 in Venice which was the commercial centre of the Mediterranean. He had studied the classical authors, the Bible, basic theology and had a sound knowledge of commercial French and Italian. Marco was six when his father and uncle first travelled to Cathay (China) and fifteen when they returned, his mother was dead by this time. Two years later in 1271, with letters and valuable gifts from the new Pope Gregory x, the two brothers, the seventeen year old Marco and two friars, set out along the Silk Road to China. The friars turned back. After three and a half years they arrived in the presence of the Khan

" They knelt before him and made obeisance with the utmost humility. The Great Khan bade them rise and received them honourably and entertained them with good cheer. He asked many questions about their condition and how they fared after their departure. The brothers assured him that they had indeed fared well, since they found him well and flourishing. Then they presented the privileges and letters which the Pope had sent, with which he was greatly pleased, and handed over the holy oil, which he received with joy and prized very highly. When the Great Khan saw Marco, who was then a young stripling, he asked who he was. 'Sir' said Messer Niccolo, 'he is my son and your liege man.' 'He is heartily welcome,' said the Khan. What need to make a long story of it? Great indeed were the mirth and merry-making with which the Great khan and all his Court welcomed the arrival of these emissaries. And they were well served and attended to in all their needs. They stayed at Court and had a place of honour above the other barons."

Marco became a favourite with the khan and was given high posts and sent on special missions in China and to Burma and India. Marco described Kublia's capital, ceremonies, and many phenomena that were new to him. He was made an official of the Privy Council in 1277 and for 3 years he was a tax inspector. They remained for 17 years. The sea journey home took 2 years arriving home in the winter of 1295. Three years after Marco returned to Venice, he commanded a galley in a war but was captured and spent a year in prison - where one of his fellow-prisoners was a writer of romances named Rustichello of Pisa to whom he dictated the story of his travels ‘The Description of the World or The Travels of Marco Polo’. The book became one of the most popular books of the time but few believed that his stories were true. Marco Polo was released from the prison and returned to Venice. He was married to Donata Badoer and had three daughters. He remained in Venice until his death in 1324, aged 70. At his deathbed, he left the famous epitaph for the world: "I have only told the half of what I saw’  He made no mention about the Great Wall, never learned Chinese nor mentioned things such as women's foot-binding, calligraphy, or tea. Marco Polo's name was never occurred in the Annals of the Empire, which recorded the names of foreign visitors far less important and illustrious than the three Venetians. So did Marco Polo ever go to China?

" I believe it was God's will that we should come back, so that men might know the things that are in the world, since, as we have said in the first chapter of this book, no other man, Christian or Saracen, Mongol or pagan, has explored so much of the world as Messer Marco, son of Messer Niccolo Polo, great and noble citizen of the city of Venice."

Travel Tips etc.

It is not easy and it is not always just fun, but if you can do it, you must travel. To see and touch the wonders, the daily life and the soil of other lands and civilisations teaches you much. Often we look for the thrills, but when you realise that you are experiencing what it is and not what you want it to be, you can accept the hardships and know you are living something that is far from your secure comfort zone. You are sharing the daily experience of others. Hotel life lacks the familiarity of your home surroundings, but it should be no more than a place to recover and not a place to experience. I for instance miss being surrounded by my books, my music and my collections from life, but what I explore becomes part of my life. Constantly stepping on the streets seeking a new experience is not something one would do from day to day at home, but it is the reason for being a traveller. You are there to see, to feel, to learn.

       Open   doors                                           Die in Venice     ??                         Sup at the nipple of culture

The true traveller is he who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time. Colette

Own only what you can carry with you; know language, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag. Alexander Solzhenitsyn

When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable. Clifton Fadiman

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not. Emerson

Preparation is simple. Take little, because you will buy and buy. It is so much more fun to annoy friends with "Oh I picked that up in - - - " Although, please don't always think you are getting a bargain, but be happy that you are getting a memory. No matter how silly you may feel buy and carry with you a guide book. What used to be books like 'Europe on $10 a day" are essential. ($10 before inflation in the dim dark past of my first trip.) Study up or you are likely to miss the local treasures. Stay cheap because you spend no time in your room. If all you do is rest, you may as well have stayed at home. Yes it will be tiring, but you will recover.  Buy a map and find out what is on as soon as you arrive. It is no use missing a great play/opera/concert etc. by one day and you WILL get lost; remember even Columbus thought he had found the East. Talk to buskers and get them to sing to you. Travel overnight and save on accommodation. It is fun meeting and trying to sleep in a compartment with strangers. Eat what the locals eat and avoid McDonalds (a scourge on the dietary inventiveness of the world) unless you are in Paris and everything is too expensive. Photograph everything - you wont regret it in years to come when your memories need a boost.

Stand firm, open your eyes, wear a hat, something warm, sun-glasses and comfortable shoes.

Three trips to Europe

1975, 1979 and 1993. Once alone and twice with friends. I managed to see from England to Greece and back. My first snow, my coldest winds, my first Pope sighting, coffee with Kate Bush and some theatre and opera that I will never forget.

   Venice             Dietrich's cemetery Berlin        Brandenburg Gate Berlin           St Mark's Square under water

 Of course I  made many visits to every museum, gallery, palace and church I could find. I had a spiritual revival in Rome and threw away some porn bought in Amsterdam and again I felt holy in Lourdes. I understood the mysticism of the old gods at Delphi and heard the lions roar at midnight in the Colosseum. I felt awe and humility at the grave of Marlene Dietrich and solemn quiet at Dachau. 

Berlin                                                             Lourdes                                                     Paris

I made a fool of myself at the Paris Opera and cheered Zeffirelli at the Rome Opera until my throat was sore. I was thrown terrified off a train in Czechoslovakia and caught the wrong train to Sweden and ended up in Norway. I lay on the pebbled beach in Nice with my bum exposed and saw my first nude play in London.

     Venice                                      Pisa                                                     Rome                           Edinburgh                     Vienna

I ate McDonalds in the gutter on the Champs Elysees to the uncomfortable stares of others and drank unknown overproof alcohol with a kind old man, who spoke no English, on a train in Yugoslavia, while guards surrounded us with machine guns. I tried to pee into an overflowing toilet on a train and slept under a shared blanket with strangers.

Rome                                                 Florence                                                                     London

I smuggled stones in my shoes out of historical sights, and was bemused by prostitutes in windows as well as being thrown out of a porn shop in Amsterdam. I had a romantic, but platonic interlude with a vision while approaching the white cliffs of Dover and bumped into the Queen of England twice, but was abused for not hopping off a bus to see the Queen of Denmark possibly go shopping.

Glastonbury                                                                London                                                                         Vienna

I waded through demonstrations of 150,000 people to awake the following morning to find burnt out buses opposite my hotel. I slept in a  linen closet on a stretcher in Florence, in a room one foot bigger then my single bed in Amsterdam, on floors in London and in crisp white sheets in Lourdes constantly made fresh by a consumptive girl who appeared to have a Saint Bernadette complex. My lungs froze in artic winds. I lost sleep when cities awoke as I went to bed and I pondered over menus when rich food had saturated my taste buds.

Venice                                                                            Vienna                                                                                                   Berlin

The stories are too numerous and mean nothing to anyone but myself, but when you travel, you have your own treasured memories. You see things in the flesh, you meet people and the world looks forever different. You are forever different.

It is so great to run into some Indonesians in Denmark and then see them again on the roof of St Peter's in Rome, Mexicans on a train and sharing a travel book, Australians at Lourdes, Friends from home in Amsterdam or Munich. In fact the world is not much more than a village and apart from levels of wealth we are all much the same.  I have come to believe that it is only the language we use which creates the barriers of our understanding.  Often we hear what we expect to hear, but not what is said and felt. I think that most of us actually agree on most things, but our language separates us.  The curse and punishment of the Tower of Babel was truly effective.

Sooner or later  ruins can look like a piece of rock, all art looks just like the photographs in books and statues begin to look like decoration, which is what most of them were. I will, however still  continue to search them out, although saturation and familiarity do breed contempt.

If it were not for the mad, the megalomaniacs, the dictators, and those who selfishly had far too much money, often earned on the backs of the poor, we would have very few grand treasures in this world.  It is sad that most of our relics and much tourism depends on the by-products of evil or unfortunate men and women. No use arguing because that's the way it is. We only excavate what is true and what is dead. Even what was once built for the glory of God or the Empire (whichever one) has a history that is often cruel, egotistical, corrupt or manipulative. No matter what the subject matter, not even the works of the great masters are free from the influence of corruption, or produced without pain.   

An  extract from some old notes on Visions. A memory of travels.

1975, and I am on a train from Paris to London. Looking into the passage way from my compartment I see the most beautiful, elegant young man I have ever seen. Dark, well tailored suit, knee length jacket thrown over his shoulders and a green umbrella in his hand. He continued to stroll past my door, or loiter  in the corridor outside for the remainder of the journey to Calais. While on the Channel Ferry I continued to notice him in the distance until we met by chance on the deck of the boat, as we approached the white chalk cliff face on the way in to Dover port. As the spray washed over our faces we introduced ourselves, only to be separated a short time later at the Passport desk. I waited on the other side for him which seemed to please him. On the train to Victoria Station we spoke of Australia and sheep, Milan, where he came from and Germany which was his Fathers birthplace. This explained why the beautiful Italian boy with blond hair was named Hans. He looked like a young Helmut Berger. He spoke Italian, German, French and was to stay with family friends in England to improve his English. One week after parting at the station I jumped off the Tube and literally fell into him. For the next three days we explored London gently and together. I returned home with another brief, platonically romantic memory.

 Updated January 02, 2007