Graham Williams - Traveller and Writer 
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Books and the Traveller

11/10/2012

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As an avid reader and traveller I’ve always been handicapped by having to lug around a decent supply of books. One of my great fears is not having enough to read. Some years ago I was caught up in a ‘strike’ on a road in India where our bus was held captive for a whole day. I didn’t mind this particularly except when I realized that all my books in my pack in the hold, and there was no way I was going to have access to it today, with all the demonstrators about. A day with nothing to do and nothing to read, it was very depressing and from then on I vowed I would always have at least 600 unread pages in reserve, just in case I was caught out like that again.

Of course books weigh a ton and always having at least two or three in the bag meant that I was always carrying a lot of weight. Places like Themal in Kathmandu where I am now were happy hunting grounds as I nearly always had books I’d read that I wanted to sell and I would spend hours trawling through the many bookshops, looking for new books, and deciding where I wanted to do my deals. The aim was always to be carrying only unread books to last me to the next place where there were bookshops.

Of course things have now changed as I now carry a Kindle which can store hundreds of books. I now don’t have to worry about running out of reading matter as I loaded my Kindle up with lots of new material before I left home. I still wander into the bookshops and look around but not with the avid interest I would have in the past. Of course using a Kindle brings its own problems, keeping it charged up which I do at every opportunity, and of course having ones’ eggs all in one basket so to speak, I would have real problems if it was damaged or stolen. It has now become one of most valuable processions. I could still read my books on my netbook, but it would not be as convenient as my Kindle. Luckily all my purchases are still stored at Amazon, so I could have another device FedExed out to me, or I could resort to buying the old fashioned paper versions.

At the end of the day my Kindle, even with its cover, only weighs the same as small paperback. I’ve just read a very long historical novel, which in its paper version is a 700 page brick of a book, only available in hardback. I’m very glad I could read that in its digital form.

I am still carrying some paper books. One is a history book which wasn’t available in a digital version; it relates to an area further on in my travels and I want to read it nearer the time. So I’m going to have to carry it until then but I rather resent it, and it will be sold or left behind as soon as it’s finished. Another book I have is a small guide to the birds of India. These kinds of books just don’t work on ereaders as they are now but who knows in the future?

When I planned this trip I thought I wouldn’t bother with a guide book, after all I’ve been to India and Nepal before so I could just wing it. On the day I was due to fly I bottled out and went down to Waterstones and bought the Footprint guide to India. It was like a comfort blanket, and I’m very glad I did as I would have been in real trouble without it, missing out on the most basic of information. I’m also carrying ‘Trekking in the Everest Region’ published by Trailblazer, another essential book as are all their trekking guides.

I have tried using digital guides, buying chapters of books as pdfs which can then be put on a Kindle. These are fine when you view them on a laptop, but on a Kindle the text is very small and it is very fiddly to move around the pages. They don’t really work. So to all my friends still in the travel book business who are today at the Frankfurt Book Fair, don’t worry there’s life in the guide book yet.

One thing I’ve been unable to do since arriving in the Indian sub continent is download any new books. The agreements that Amazon have to piggy back on wifi and 3G networks don’t seem to apply in India and Nepal. This again has implications for those travel book publishers who have gone for flashy digital material that can be viewed on smart phones and the like. What do you do if there’s no bandwidth to download all this information? In the end it’s back to the book.

Ereaders seem to have been designed for the traveller, limitless reading material for very little weight. I’m very glad I have one. However when it comes down to finding where you are on a street corner in a strange city, the guide book is still the gadget to have.


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India Revisited - September 2012

10/10/2012

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This was my first visit to India since 2007 so I was interested to see what changes had been made in that time. The news in the West is of India the rising power that will soon be one of the top dogs. Certainly on my last visit I could see signs of change and thought that India was becoming a more modern society. On my first visit in 1989, I arrived in Delhi airport which was something of a dump, now the new Inderia Ghandi (IG) Airport is slick and modern and at Western standards.

The first signs of the unchanging nature of Indian society came in the immigration queue. There were manned counters for Diplomats and First and Business Class travellers, except there weren’t any. So the half dozen or so immigration officers (all male and older and hence more senior) sat around and chatted while their colleagues’ a few desks away had to handle a plane load. Even these took time out every couple of passengers, so stop and have a rest, having a stretch and a yawn before beckoning the next person forward. Indian bureaucracy moves at its own place. Most of the passengers were Indians returning from the Gulf and they seemed to have reams of paperwork that needed to be examined, who knows why, after all they were only re-entering their own country.

Outside the airport, the swish new Metro link to the city was not working and no one knew why, so I had to get the bus. Outside the Airport, India was much as ever, endless honking horns, might is right traffic rules, traffic lights that were invisible; instead the push and shove of traffic that slowly grinds around the cities. There are lots of new cars on the roads and more motorbikes and the airport had big ads for RangeRovers and Jaguars but in reality the ideal Indian car would be Landrover with steel girders welded on the sides. There are still a few ‘Ambassadors’ on the road, the 1950’s British design, all of which are government cars, as it’s unlikely an Indian car buyer would choose one.

In 2007, the one thing that did impress me was the new Metro in Delhi, and since then it has expanded dramatically, so much so most of the journeys I wanted to make around the city could be done on the Metro. A new factor in Indian society is the threat of Terrorism and the Mumbai attacks a couple of years ago have clearly made an impression on the Indian authorities and this is most obvious on the Metro. To get onto the platforms everyone has to go through airport level security, so the bags go through a x ray machine and everyone is frisked and run over with a metal detector. I didn’t travel at rush hour but the queues must be impressive. Around the stations, in concourses and in subways there are sandbagged gun emplacements manned by soldiers, and as their AK’s have the disposable see through plastic magazines you can see they are loaded with live rounds. Soldiers and sniffer dogs wander the trains and platforms. This level of security surrounds every public building and they clearly don’t intend to be caught napping again.

The Metro fares are very cheap and even the longest journey costs IR 35, about 40 pence UK. Although there is a stored value cards to pay for journeys used by the more affluent who can make the investment, the cheapness of the fares brings its own problems. India just doesn’t have enough small change and no one has thought of either producing more or stocking the ticket offices with it. There are no ticket machines; you have to buy from a person behind a counter. What this means is that the ticket offices are besieged by people trying to buy tickets (actually a ‘smart’ plastic counter) but can’t as there is no change.

Glitches aside, the Metro is very impressive, clean, bright and punctual and in reality quite unlike the rest of the country.

Again on my last visit I was stunned by the growth in mobile phones and how everyone either had one or wanted one; so it was surprising how few I saw on this visit. The middle classes had their smart phones but the explosive growth I had expected in all phones was not evident at all. Again security may be the reason, the government is concerned that new phones may be used for crime or to set off bombs in Kashmir so in order to buy one lots of ID has to be produced, which many poorer people just don’t have. Even to use an internet café or log into wifi, ID has to be produced and names and addresses noted down in a ledger. As all this information is recorded on scrappy bits of paper all over the place its use as intelligence is practically nil as none of it is collected, and depends on terrorists not having false ID’s and telling the truth. All it really does is creates more bureaucracy and deters people from getting things like mobiles and internet access which could help the countries development.  It’s an interesting contrast to Africa where I was two years ago, competition was so fierce between the phone companies SIM cards were given away on the street and they were at the forefront of the development of new services like transferring money via mobile phones. This exists in India but is pitched mainly at the middle classes.

One thing that always impresses me about India is the Railway system, the biggest in the world. This has changed a bit in that some of the rolling stock is newer and on my trips I paid out for AC seat, which is really quite OK. Of course there’s no way you can buy a ticket from a machine, it involves filling out a form, producing ID (which you also have to show on the train) and queuing at a counter. The whole thing still runs on pre Amstrad software and the tickets are spat out on a dot matrix printer, just as they were in 1989. It’s the world’s biggest employer and it just seems too big to change but at the end of the day it works, I have never had a problem with it; every seat booked has always been there. The train masters, usually older, dignified men as belays their status, go around with their lists and make sure everything is as it should be, and it is. The trains are slow, stop and start a lot and are often held up by ‘strikes’ but they always get there. They may even be in for a revival, as many of the internal airlines that saw explosive growth a couple of years ago are headed for bankruptcy. So the middle classes may rediscover the pleasures of long distance train travel.

When I arrived I was ready to see the new ‘fast forward into the future’ India and apart from the some new infrastructure like airport and metro I haven’t seen it. India seems unchanging, there are some nicer cars on the road but they still have to compete for road space with cycle rickshaws and tuk tuk’s, and even the odd elephant. There are still frequent blackouts and every business of any size has a generator, a huge drain on resources and productivity. New technology, like mobile phones and the internet which should help moves things along seem to have hit the buffers. Even English seems to be less widely spoken, which is one of India’s natural advantages. I’m sure pundits will say it’s different in places like Bangalore, but these are only small spots in a huge country, a country too big to change fast.



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Oman

5/10/2012

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One of the local forts.
I stopped off in Oman on my way to India, mainly because the plane landed there and it was a country I’d never been too. Arriving in Muscat and heading out of the Airport it seem very much like other Gulf States with plenty of land, and it has sprawled along the coast line, motorways, modern malls and the big trophy buildings which here are the Grand Mosque and the Opera House.

I was staying in the area of Mutrah one of the older parts. What was different here is that bare, rocky hills crowd around the coast and the developments are built between them. Even more interesting was the fact that many of them had turrets and Forts built on top of them, and if Oman could be said to have an architectural style, desert fort would be it, as many of the new buildings have castle like features on them as if they could also be used to repel attackers. Down at the centre of Mutrah is the corniche which has a promenade, places to eat, and a view of the harbour. Tied up is the sultans ship but I’m sure he considers it just a yacht. There is also a large covered souk selling mainly clothes and spices and at the corniche end, souvenirs for tourist so that they don’t have to walk so far.

And with good reason, as one thing that can be said about Oman is that it is hot, killing hot, 40 o C + when I was there. The place pretty much shuts down in the afternoon. Nobody walks anywhere and even at night it’s too hot to sit outside and eat.

Like many of these newly developing countries public transport seems to be none existent, as if they got stuck between cheap and cheerful mini buses fighting for trade and everyone owning a car. Interestingly they have bus stops but they seem to have forgotten about the buses. So to get anywhere I had to hail cabs, which are all owned by Omanis, all of whom only had a rudimentary grasp of the principal attractions in their own city. In fact I was quoted a price for a trip where it turned out that the driver had no idea where the place was. It turned out to be very close and I walked back to the hotel.

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The Sultans Palace
I took a cab from Mutrah to Old Muscat, the cities first settlement which is where the sultans palace is. There’s something rather nice about there being a least one Sultan left in the world.  The Palace is a fine building with a wide parade leading up to it, no doubt used for ceremonial purposes. There are a few ministries scattered about and you walk down to the harbour for a look at the Sultans back door. A large fort was being renovated here, one of many scattered around the surrounding hills. What was strange about the whole place was that it was deserted apart from workers tending the gardens and every blade of grass is on life support in this climate, and the usual Army guards. If the public buildings around about had people in them, there was no evidence of this. I found one place to have something to eat, so I guess most of them bring their own lunch.

The workers tending the gardens were Bangladeshi following the pecking order in this part of the world where the Pakistani and Bangladeshi’s do the donkey work, the Indians run the commerce while the Omanis drive taxis and do whatever nice jobs need to be done. At dusk I saw groups of Bangladeshi’s in blue overalls and their tiffin boxes getting into mini buses to be driven to building sites for the night shift, definitely the one to have.  All the Omanis I spoke to were all very friendly and it seemed a very relaxed. As my cabbie from the airport told me, we don’t mind people wearing shorts and there’s no problem walking around at night. They are traditional in certain ways in that they all seemed to wear traditional dress, the white jelabia and round skull cap, while the woman were dressed in black but unveiled; and although one hears the call to prayer I never saw anyone actually praying and it seems generally very tolerant. My hotel served alcohol.    


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The Armed Forces Museum.
One attraction I went to was the Armed Forces Museum, which is housed in one of the original forts so it’s worth going to see it just for that. It’s  still managed by the Military and you have to have a solider accompanying you around, although it wasn’t clear why as he only announced what was in each room which I could read for myself, or maybe it was to stop you stealing the rifles that were just hanging on the walls? It is a very informative museum and a good introduction to Omani history. It seems that they spent most of the twentieth century engaged in internecine tribal warfare, hence the need for all those forts. They have strong ties to the British army, Royals and Sultans sticking together, and most of the weapons and kit on display were British although I looked in vain for any mention of the help we gave them putting down the Doufan Rebellion in the 1970’s or the 24 British soldiers killed along the way but I suppose it’s their museum.

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The grounds are lots of big kit, like a small ship, some aircraft and a group of manikins in uniform having a pay parade.


Cost wise, I paid £36 for one of the few budget hotels which I booked online, and it was pretty good and managed and run by Indians. If you eat with the locals food is about £5 - £8 for a reasonable meal. What does push the cost up is getting around with the ‘think of a number’ cab negotiation. When cabbies are ignoring the locals and insisting in taking the foreigner first you can be pretty sure it’s not to improve their English; which by the way is spoken by just about everyone. As a guide the cab fare to the airport was around £13.

If money isn’t a problem and you can hire a car I’m sure there’s a lot to see out in the countryside but my impressions from the Army museum are that Oman is very big, very empty and there is not a lot to see apart from forts, of which there is no shortage. So a return trip is not on my ‘to do’ list.

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The Greek Way

19/7/2011

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A few weeks ago I made my annual trip to Crete and on this occasion I spent a few nights in Chania, a town on the north coast, which is a large enough place to function as a Greek town, outside of the tourist industry. A friend of mine had been to Dublin recently and remarked that he’d never seen a nation so depressed and feeling down on its luck, so I was interested to see how the Greeks were dealing with impending bankruptcy.

Very well it seemed, on my first night in Chania, the bars full and still jumping until late in the night. Families were still sitting down to large fish dinners, people still seemed to be living the good life. Groups are men are still sitting down at 10.00 for the first ouzo of the day and café life is alive and well. Down on the south coast people were still heading for the beach at the weekend and still staying overnight. The only difference is that the powerboats that people used to roar around bay seem to have gone, the non essentials being the first to go. Other economies have been forced on businesses. In the past a large roll on ferry used to ply one of the south coast routes, this has been replaced by a much smaller ship, which can still carry few passengers the large one used to pick up. No doubt this saves a lot of fuel and elsewhere this kind of economy would have been made years ago, as soon as the accountants saw the passenger receipts. In Greece this was probably fought tooth and nail by all interested parties, particularly the sailors, so this kind of long overdue reform is a real sign of the times.

On my last night in Crete, I was back in Chania and having a pre dinner drink in a Greek area of town. All the cafes were full, lots of laughter and conversation; I had a job finding a seat. Walking through the bar a large flat screen was showing the news, which was all about the financial crisis. The next day there was due to be a vote in Parliament on the new austerity package. People gave it a glance as they came in but few gave it any real attention. It was almost if the whole crisis had nothing to do with them, the ‘problems’ were all in Athens (where half the country’s population lives), while they were still enjoying the good life.

Getting into the taxi the next day to go to the airport, my driver asked me if I wanted a receipt and when I said no, he said he would give me a special price. Not that special as it was the same fare from the airport which was on the meter! He then went on to tell me about his tax avoidance tricks, his friend in garage who gives him a receipt for Euro 75 when he’d only bought Euro 50 of gas and doing as much as possible in cash. He justified this by saying the real rich in the country, which to him meant people who owned flashy cars didn’t seem to pay any tax, so why should he? This detachment from reality, that if they protest too much, the EU and the rest will back down; that they can carry on living the good life and to hell with the government and the banks; everyone is cheating and so why shouldn’t they.

As one waiter said to me, ‘tourism is the only factory Greece has got’, but the endless unrest and strikes, particularly by groups like the taxi drivers just sends out the message that the country is to be avoided. They may be making a statement but in the long run they are just digger a bigger hole for themselves, which the countries of the north will be reluctant to fill.  

The Greek government passed the austerity measures and the EU through them another lifeline. Whether the government will be able to push the reforms through is another matter but having observed the Greeks over the last week they look that they will not be changing their ways soon.

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The Future of Books

15/4/2011

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This week I went to the London Book Fair, so see old friends, network and see what is happening in the market. Despite a big digital publishing section it was clear that publishers are still committed to producing books made of paper and cardboard, and although fiction may be more convenient to read on an e reader, it will never replace the tactile feel of handling and reading an illustrated book, of which there were thousands on display.  

I can see the attraction of ebooks, particularly as I travel so much; my pack has always been excessively heavy because of all the books I lug around. I always feel uneasy when I don’t have anything to read, I regard a reserve of 600 unread pages as the bare minimum. So to save all that weight I can see myself buying an ebook reader in the future.

Arthur C. Clark the science fiction writer, always foretold a long future for the book. They are cheap to product, look attractive, can be lent and resold, don’t need a power source to be used, and can suffer a lot of damage and still be read. Drop your e reader in the bath or even just let the battery run down and you’ll be reduced to staring out of the bus window. Besides, books do furnish a room, they are the perfect present. No one will ever cherish an ebook, or look at it fondly on the bookshelf. The fact that in Britain we have a buoyant second hand market for books shows that people are still prepared to track down and buy old favourites.

At a seminar at the Book Fair a publishing executive from the US announced that in America, heavy book buyers were now buying over 50% of their books in digital format. A heavy book buyer is regarded as someone who buys only twelve books a year, itself a pretty depressing statistic.  I see part of the problem as the way books are sold, and the demise of book chains like Borders in the UK is partly because they have followed the American retail model. Books are now regarded as just a commodity, they are sold in the same way as baked beans, pile a few titles high, sell ‘em cheap, regardless of the quality, and make this the same in all your stores. Waterstones are now doing this making a visit to one of their stores a particularly dreary experience these days. This mode of selling is fine for the supermarkets, after all it’s their business model but what the bookshops have forgotten is that book lovers don’t like having books sold to them as if their baked beans and they particularly don’t like the ‘do you want fries with that?’ type selling at the till. There are still good bookshops around, with a wide selection of titles and knowledgeable staff and I know many heavy book buyers who shop in them.

Many in publishing regard the advance of the ebook as unstoppable. I believe that people are buying ebooks not because they are so wonderful or practical but because the experience of buying real books is so uninspiring. Both formats can co exist and both have their advantages, as I’ve pointed out, but the publishing industry needs to stand up for real books. They should be helping to make them a pleasure to buy and own, reading books should be about more than the raw data printed on the pages. The booksellers also need to wake up and start finding out what their customers what and delivering it, instead of using a business model that only makes sense to the pointy heads. Those people don’t buy books.  

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Wilbur Smith at the RGS

14/4/2011

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On Tuesday 12th April I went to see Wilbur Smith who was ‘in conversation’ at the Royal Geographical Society in London. At these events a famous person is interviewed by a journalist, in this case Mary Rhodes from the BBC, and asked questions about their life and work.

We started off with a few anecdotes about his early life, as a child shooting pigeons while lying in bed, and a witty story about fishing using a stick of gelignite, which blew up the canoe Wilbur was sitting in. We also heard about how he became an accountant, mainly because his father admired his own accountant, so thought it would be a worthwhile career for his son. He ended up working in a tax office in Harare, and wrote his first book ‘ When the Lion feeds’ in work time on government stationary as he didn’t have a great deal to do.

Mary Rhodes asked him about his hunting and if he felt bad about killing a bull elephant. Wilbur pointed out that when he was a child there was such an abundance of animals it was almost as if they could never end. He also described how hunting could help communities in Africa. If an American hunter will pay $125,000 to shoot an old bull, and that half that money goes to the tribe in the area where the elephants live, then the people will look upon them as an asset, and they will be converted from poachers to conservationists. An old bull will have given all he can to the herd by passing on his genes; many of the younger animals will be his offspring. All he can look forward too is a death by slow starvation as his teeth wear down, so what is so wrong with a hunter shooting him, particularly as so many people will benefit from it?

Wilbur has a soft South African accent and he clearly loves Africa. He said he regarded Africa as a treasure house of stories, which was good because he thought people were fascinated by Africa seeing it as a romantic place full of adventure and danger. It also has such varied terrain and landscapes and well as wonderful flora and fauna. Interestedly he didn’t mention the people, about whom he has always written about with such insight and respect. Asked about how he sees the future for Africa, he said ‘Africa is eternal’ and that countries like South Africa will change but they will survive.

Talking about his writing, he said a writer should write for themselves and should write about what they know about, which is why he always wrote about Africa. A writer should be immersed in their environment in order to be able to write about it. For him, the characters were the most important part of the story, and I was lucky enough at the end to ask him which was his favourite character. Sean Courtney he said,, because he was the first, but he was also very fond of Taita, from the Egyptian series.

Wilber’s advice for writers is to start with a deadline, work business hours, have a daily routine and stop before you get tired, which for him is after about four hours. He said that writers become disillusioned as they go back and rewrite the first 100 pages countless times and give up, so he only reads the previous day’s work. He just goes with ‘the winds of the story’. Sometimes he leaves a book, goes away for awhile and then rereads the whole thing again afresh, carrying on from where he left off. What a writer needs he said is tenacity, keep on going with it, don’t ever give up.

A questioner asked Wilbur about his influences, and he said that all writers inspired him, although he had favourites like the Robert Graves ‘Claudius’ books, Hemingway’s ‘Old Man and the Sea’ and John Steinbeck, a writer he thought who had real compassion for human beings in straiten times.

At the end Mary Rhodes asked him about the radio programme ‘Desert Island Disks’ on which he appeared in 1982. She wanted to know if he would take the same book now as then. Then it had been the complete Oxford English Dictionary, the 26 volume set, now he thought, he would take Google. As for his luxury, then it had been a bed and he said he saw no reason to change that, as ‘all good things happen in bed’.

Afterwards, ever the pro, he sat and signed a large pile of his latest book ‘Those in peril’ for fans in the audience.

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Meeting Wilbur Smith

4/4/2011

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Its always a great thrill when you meet one of your heroes and today I did just that. The adventure and historical writer Wilbur Smith is in London to promote his new novel ‘Those in peril’ and he was signing books at the Waterstones branch in Leadenhall market, in the heart of the City. Having worked in publishing and arranged signings in the past, which are often not that successful I thought I could just roll up a few minutes before the start and get my book signed but as I turned the corner into the market and I was amazed to see a queue running the whole lenght of the street. Having checked it was the queue for the signing, I was told I had to go into the shop and buy the book first. On the way in I saw the man himself sitting behind a table in the corner of the shop, chatting to the punters at the head of the queue and signing books.

Back outside, and talking to people in the queue around me, I was surprised to find that this was not such a big deal for most of them. A couple had joined the queue, just because it was a queue and had bought the book and were having it signed as future present for a relative. Another was buying it for his wife. I gave them a potted biography of Wilbur Smith, all of which was news to them. The Waterstones staff, two girls who were keeping track of the numbers, had no idea who Wilbur Smith was, had certainly never read anything by him and their only comment was, that the books all looked rather long. Overall is was a smartly dressed crowd, tending to middle age and 90% male.

Finally, I was at the top of the queue. Wilbur shook my hand, I told him I‘d read all his books and thanked him for so many happy hours of reading. ‘We’ve obviously connected’ he replied as he signed my book with a big fountain pen. Connected was a bit of an understatement, I’ve crossed whole swathes of Africa inspired by the characters in his books, but how can you convey this in a few minutes? I’d bought my camera and people standing around who I assumed were minders from the publisher, were happy to take a picture. A young Asian woman who had been sitting next to Wilbur, jumped out of her seat so I could sit down. I later realized that this must have been his wife – Mokhiniso. The guy taking the picture messed up the first shot so took it again. ‘If this was a Lion, you’d have had by now’ quipped Wilbur. Then another firm handshake and I was on my way.

I’ve seen a picture of Wilbur Smith in a bookshop, as a young man, promoting his first book ‘When the Lion feeds’ which must have been around 1965. So here he is all these years later, he knows that getting out there to promote a book is all part of the job, and he’s a hard worker. In an age where even people with no talent can be celebrities, it’s gratifying to see over an hundred people were prepared to stand and wait to meet an author. Booklovers are still out there.

As Wilbur Smith is now in his seventies, you have to wonder how many more books we will see. I had never imagined I would meet him, so to have done so today is something I will look back on with satisfaction for a long time. And now to start the book...

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Jennifer Pope

30/3/2011

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Flicking through the TV and radio guide in the Sunday newspaper my eye was caught by the picture of a woman who seemed very familiar. I knew her face because when I was in Ecuador in 2006 it stared out from lampposts, hotel walls and bars all over the country. The woman’s name is Jennifer Pope and in January 2006 she mysteriously disappeared and was never seen again. The reason her picture was in the radio listings is because the story of her disappearance and the search for her abductor/murderer has been made into a radio play by the BBC.

Jennifer was a nurse from the Manchester area who was travelling alone in South America. When I was there I followed her story on the internet, how one day while staying in the town of Banos in Ecuador, she disappeared and her bank account was emptied by someone using her ATM card. The alarm was raised and detectives from Manchester went to Ecuador, found a video recording of a man using her card but eventually they left without making any progress in the investigation. Over time all stories fade if there is nothing new to report and the case seemed unsolved.

However the radio play followed the story of Dave and Stefan Pope, Jenny’s husband and son who was at University at the time. They came over to Ecuador determined to find out what happen to their wife and mother. Although dramatised, this turns out to be a fascinating story.

With their first attempts at investigation, they discover the hostel owner is clearly being intimidated and the local prosecutor deliberately obstructive. Instead they flood the region with ‘Have you seen’ posters and ask everyone they meet for help. Fortunately they get help, from a unemployed engineer who becomes their translator, and an ex Scotland Yard officer who has retired to the country after years of secondment investigating drug gangs. Their search really gets going and they obtain the name of a man who offered ‘jungle tours’ to backpackers, and who had fled Banos after Jennifer disappeared.

The man, Francisco Chica, was tracked down to another town. Evidence from his mobile phone and the fact that the exact sums of money has had disappeared from Jenny’s bank account had appeared his own were telling. When the police raided his flat they found lots of backpacks and other travellers material, some of which Dave and Stefan indentified as belonging to Jenny. The smoking gun was a bottle of Body Shop perfume, the same type that Jenny had taken with her. Friends back in the UK contacted Body Shop and using the serial number they proved that the bottle had been bought in Manchester.

Francisco Chica was convicted and sent to prison for twenty five years, but he was only convicted for abduction not murder. Without a body or any other evidence that cannot be proven. So the Pope’s still do not have closure and Jenny’s body lies almost certainly, out in the forest around Banos.

What is disturbing is that Jennifer Pope is not the only backpacker to go missing around Banos. The Popes were warned during their investigation to be careful themselves as they too might disappear. The backpacks in Chicas flat indicates that he’d taken other people out on ‘jungle tours’ and robbed and possibly murdered them.

With all these ‘adventure’ trips, try and go with someone who is recommended and established and don’t go alone.

Listen to the play on BBC iplayer  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zsjys



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In Tenerife

1/2/2011

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One of the vagaries’ of booking hotels on the internet is that you are presented with a random selection of choices, and you run down the options using your own criteria; number of stars, does it have a pool, do the pictures of the rooms look nice, and of course the price. Then you book it. But because of the wide sweep of the net you might find yourself in a place you would never have found yourself or even considered before. This is how we have found ourselves the only British people in a hotel entirely given over to German tour groups.

We are in Puerto de la Cruz on the north coast of Tenerife, a resort described as ‘fashionable’ in one of our guide books and it was in the past when the British ‘discovered’ it in the days when only the rich could travel. It still has an Anglican Church and an English school; but it’s clear that in recent times it has become a German colony, mainly populated by elderly Germans either living here year around or just for a few weeks,  escaping the northern winter. All the signs are tri lingual, Spanish, German and English and you can get by easily in German, as most of the people you meet speak it. Most of the Spanish are quite thrilled when spoken to in Spanish, especially when it’s pronounced properly.

Our fellow hotel guests could all be described as senior, mainly late fifties and sixties, ‘though a few younger couples help lower the average age. They are all very friendly and speak to you in German as if you are one of them, after all, how could you be any different? I don’t mind this as I speak some German and I like the practice. They probably consider me a little odd as my replies are never as allusive as their questions and comments, as usually I’ve only understood the outline of what they are saying. Still they are pleasant company, and we usually have the massive outdoor pool to ourselves as well, even getting a sun lounger is no problem; also for its size it has to be the quietest hotel I’ve ever stayed in.

I had one moment this afternoon when I nearly lost it though, when the desire for tectonic neatness almost pushed me to open up hostilities. Driving into the hotel car park I quickly pulled into a space, as rain was beginning to fall and a storm was clearly on the way. Having turned off the engine, I was surprised to be harangued by a passing German senior citizen because my back tyre was over the white parking line. My German isn’t up to yelling ‘so bloody what we’re not in Germany now we’re in a hotel car park in Spain’, so I just ignored him. I did move the car though. After all it’s not wise to alienate yourself from the dominant group even if officially you’re not even part of it.





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Winter at Home in St Albans

15/1/2011

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