Whatever you’re writing, on the whole, people need to get
from one place to another. And the more experiences you have yourself, the more
likely it is to occur to you to use something a bit different. When I started
thinking about this, I decided to list every experience I’d had, but, to my
surprise, there were so many that I had to create some categories. So, land,
sea or air, and weather.
Weather is easiest. Snow and ice
are the obvious examples. I first learned to ski in Poland with my father, when
I was fifteen. I wasn’t very good at it, and I’m still not very good at it. But
I did discover what it’s like to head down a slope which is far steeper than
you thought, and the terror when you realise there’s no alternative to just
keeping going. On the other hand, there was the sheer pleasure of a gradual
descent through tracks in pine forests with hawfinches, crested tits and black
squirrels. Skating was something that scared the living daylights out of me.
But my six year-old daughter wanted to try it, and showing her I was frightened
just wasn’t on. And to my surprise, I could do it when I had to and I actually
enjoyed it. But falling over hurts, and other people get in the way! I imagine
that skating on a river or a canal is very different to an ice rink, and a lot
nicer. I had a sledge as a kid, which my dad made for me, but there’s not much
snow in the UK, and there weren’t many hills where I lived. I went husky
sledging in Norway, and that was a surprise. I didn’t expect the dogs to be so
enthusiastic, but they couldn’t wait to get going. Nor did I expect it to be quite
so
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| Tatra Mountains |
smelly. There are no comfort breaks for the huskies, so draw your own conclusions... But the
silence zipping along under the stars is magical. Horse and sleigh? Yes, I’ve
done that too. It’s very Dr Zhivago, with tinkling bells, the creaking of
leather and the occasional snort. And it’s cold, even with a sheepskin over
your legs. What’s left to try? Snowboarding. Too old, I think. But what about a
snowmobile? I quite fancy that.
Air travel. Aeroplanes were the
only thing that frightened my dad, who had faced just about everything on the
long walk from Siberia to Monte Cassino. It took me a long time to get over my
fear of flying and, strangely enough, it was going up in a light plane that did
it. If I’d realised that was on the itinerary, I don’t think I’d have signed up
for the holiday! But it was Venezuela, and it was the only way to reach
Canaima, and the foot of the Angel Falls. It felt like going down the runway in
a bicycle, but six-seaters don’t go very high, and the view of the tepuis (table-topped
mountains, as in Conan Doyle’s Lost World)
was stunning. When we came in to land the pilot announced that he would land on
the road, as the runway had too many potholes. And since then, I’ve been fine.
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| Coming in to Canaima |
Familiarity helps a lot, of course. The more you do it, the easier it gets. I
know that air travel gets bumpy when you cross from sea to land, or vice versa.
I know the engine tones. I know that it changes as a plane levels out. In days
gone by I could never have envisaged doing a balloon flight – but I did, over
the Masai Mara. When the burners aren’t going the silence is amazing. These
days, travel is accompanied by noise so frequently that to be without it is
luxurious. The wildlife isn’t bothered by you, and because you’re travelling
with the wind it seems that there isn’t any wind at all. The landing was a bit
bumpy, but we were warned well in advance. Air travel is the category in which
I have the greatest number of untried methods. Helicopter, hang glider,
microlight – space travel? Even if I had the money, I don’t think I’d be up for
that one!
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| Over the Masai Mara |
Water transport. Big boats, small
boats, speed boats. Power or sail or oars, I’ve done all of them. Hovercrafts.
Most of us have experienced many of these at one time or another. Wind-surfing.
Couldn’t get the hang of it at all to begin with, and kept falling in the
water. Then, suddenly, everything clicked and I was away. A fabulous feeling of
freedom, and yet being in control. And then lots of aching muscles the
following day. And as for under the water… I’ve been in two submarines, once in
the Mediterranean (too muddy to see much, and not much to see anyway) and once
in the Red Sea, when the water was crystal clear and the fish many and varied
and very colourful. These tourist subs are like small aircraft with seats by
little round portholes, and are great fun. Which brings me to snorkelling,
which I adore. You are exploring a new world that is so different from the one
on
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| Iguana |
land that it is utterly addictive. I’ve seen Galapagos iguanas that feed on
the sea floor, sea lions that wanted to play with me, huge turtles that were
just quietly going about their own business. I’ve been head-butted by fish
which felt I was encroaching on their spawning grounds, and made eye contact with
an octopus. And the beauty of the coral and the seaweed and the anemones beats
any garden. So what’s left – Scuba diving, which I can’t do for health reasons,
and water ski-ing.
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| Uzbekistan bullet train |
Land travel. In my student days I
hitchhiked a lot, which meant that I got to travel in anything from Rolls
Royces and E-type Jaguars to Robin Reliants, 2CVs and motorbikes. Not sure
there’s much to be said about cars, although I had a few dodgy experiences in
lorries abroad. But the vast majority of people were incredibly kind, and would
go out of their way to get you where you wanted to go, and sometimes even buy
you a meal. Train travel – anything from wretched Southern Region to bullet trains in China and Uzbekistan. Overnight trains are the most interesting. The
one from Lviv to Kiev had a place to store your champagne bottle, and a lounge
with easy chairs bolted to the floor and curtains at the windows. In India it
was suggested that you kept
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| Camel ride in Mongolia |
your luggage secure with chains, and use the local
toilet rather than the Western one, as the locals know how to keep it
reasonably hygienic. Trams in many places – a good way of getting about, but
not necessarily the fastest. I’ve ridden horses and camels, both Dromedaries
and Bactrians, and travelled in horse-drawn carts and a proper carriage in
Krakow. In Madagascar the carts were pulled by Zebus, a sort of cow with a hump.
Riding an elephant was the most interesting, however, as they are very
intelligent indeed. The one I was on in Sri Lanka knew where the banana sellers
were, and used to slow down as he approached them. Of course we bought some,
and fed them to his questing trunk as we went along.
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My friend the cuttlefish
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I have a
huge back-catalogue of transport ideas, and it’s the little details like the
cuttlefish
following me around in the China Sea out of sheer curiosity and the Russian
truck belting across the Gobi Desert without anything that looked remotely like
a road to guide the driver that stay with me. And I’ve often combined
experiences to create something new when I’m writing fantasy. I couldn’t have
done it without the raw material in the first place.
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