This image is a happy memory, though as often, there is a bittersweet accompaniment.
The setting is a camping ground in the French town of Saint Jean de Luz, on the Atlantic coast down near the border with Spain. In the picture are Pete, Chris and Kate, who I was travelling with, and “Big Ted,” the campervan that had become our temporary home.
Ten days or so earlier, we had left our homes in London, making our way southward on the continent, somewhat fitfully. In short, nothing had been perfect in the journey as the Volkswagen struggled for one reason or another.
Saint Jean de Luz, 1996
But arriving at this camping ground, with its setting overlooking the Atlantic, and the sun shining, suddenly the world seemed to be alright. This was what we had set out to do: slowly traversing Europe, hopping from town to town, to end the day in a new location at an exotic campsite. No stress.
Fuelled by a little of the champagne we’d purchased back in Epernay, there was an optimism that our three month journey was finally about to get going.
Having passed through the vineyards of Bordeaux earlier, and wound up in this setting, Pete pronounced that “today is the kind of day that you live for”. Adding my own interpretation, I noted that “every day is the day”. Carpe diem, if you wish. There was more than a touch of frustration to be shrugged off.
The sun set over the ocean with an orange glow, and the soothing sounds of the waves crashing on the beach, eased us to sleep.
Burgos, 1996
Sadly, our optimism that evening was not reflected in the next day’s proceedings. At lunch time, our campervan lurched to another halt, and we were left without it for a week. This was not the end of it, either, as our campervan dreams eventually evaporated. That’s a story (or two) for another day.
It’s such a shame that our trip never again scaled the same heights as we felt in Saint Jean de Luz. However, on this evening, there was just a simple feeling, a blissful happiness.
“Magic And Loss” is the title of an album by New Yorker Lou Reed, and it is those two words that come to mind as I look at this pair of photographs. Magic – an expression of my delight at seeing these views of Manhattan – and loss – referencing the fate that befell the World Trade Center in 2001.
1994 saw my first visit to the Big Apple, a stop on the trip back to Australia after my first six month stint living in London. NYC was yet to have shrugged off a reputation for danger that it had earned through the ‘70s and ‘80s, and so it was only after some wise advice from new found friends that I added it to my round-the-world journey.
Landing at JFK on Thanksgiving Day, I was excited by what lay ahead. At this point in my life, the cost of a taxi from an airport seemed a ludicrous waste of money, so I settled for the best public transport alternative, the bus (or was it a “coach”? I fail to distinguish between the two). With this came my first sense of my destination.
Having navigated my way to the bus station, I found myself among a group of similarly fresh arrivals gathered by a bus that looked like it would be heading in the right direction. There was undoubtedly a collective timidity amongst us; those first moments in a new destination where currency, language, slang, and signage are all new just bring on uncertainty, don’t they? And so we waited patiently in the shadow of this tall shiny vehicle.
Finally there was a stirring from the bus. Electric doors whirred open and out stepped the driver, an imposing black gentleman. He took one look at the meek mob in front of him, and despairing of our collective doubt, he chose to rouse us from our anxiety in a big booming American voice: “Well come on, is anyone here for New York City?” It wasn’t so much a question as a command, and we jumped to attention, loading up our bags and boarding the bus that would take us to Grand Central.
I will always recall those words as the perfect introduction to the USA.
In New York, I wanted to see the sights, and in particular take in the mighty skyscrapers that symbolised the city’s power.
On a chilly morning, I took the ferry out to Liberty Island, where I queued to climb the Statue Of Liberty itself. Just as stirring as visiting this icon was the view back towards Manhattan. On the left was Ellis Island, and the eye then caught the distant spike of the Empire State Building; on the right was the pair of bridges that connected Brooklyn to Manhattan. And sitting between those was a sequence of downtown buildings, among them the twin towers of the World Trade Center, a dramatic presence that dwarfed the rest. Magnificent I thought, and utterly reflecting the JFK bus driver’s thorough confidence.
Manhattan from Liberty Island, New York
‘94 was firmly in the pre-digital era, and so this image was taken with film, on a simple little Ricoh snap camera – I’d not yet stepped into the world of the SLR. And in fact, the picture has been manually stitched together from three separate images, taken in a single pan. This memory makes me sentimental, too.
Prior to visiting Liberty Island, I’d joined the queues, and passed the security checks, to take the lift to the top of the World Trade Center, 107 floors up. Here there were views in almost every direction (the exception towards the West, where the tower’s twin obscured the line of sight), each one captivating. I stayed for hours, repeatedly walking around the four angles and taking in New York City in all its glory, until after the lights of the city had taken over.
Manhattan from the World Trade Center, New York
As the sun dropped lower in the sky, I took this photograph, looking north. In the distance is the huge Empire State Building, here shrunk to a diminished scale. The straight lines of the borough’s avenues help set the location, and the colours of the buildings in the late afternoon offer an almost rustic tone. At the right, one of the lengthening shadows is from one of the towers.
Of course what makes this image even more memorable is that the vista can’t be repeated, with the twin towers long gone. The void created by 9/11 has been somewhat filled by a new skyscraper, though it feels less brash, less certain than the pairing of the previous towers. Understandably, it derives from a slightly more humble perspective.
Humble: that wasn’t a word that came to mind when I first visited New York. The memories that resulted were simply magical. Sadly ones that can’t be experienced again.
Taken at an intersection in central Jaipur, this picture says a lot about the India I discovered on my first trip to the country, bringing back happy memories.
India had long fascinated me. Primarily this stemmed from my interest in cricket, notably the characters that represented the country and Australian players’ reports of the challenges of touring the country, though other more personal influences played their part, too. One of my parents’ friends was an elegant Indian lady, Hema, and I began my first proper job at the same time as Sai, newly arrived from the country of his birth. The cultural differences were clear; my curiosity was piqued.
I was keen to visit, though wary, very wary.
By the time taking a look for myself became possible, I had travelled enough for curiosity to trump wariness. I was not, however, ready to go it alone, so made the decision to sign up for a group tour, focussing on Delhi, Agra and Rajasthan – and timed to coincide with the Pushkar Camel Fair. Before being accepted, the tour operator directly queried my travel credentials. It was clear that they didn’t want to be baby-sitting participants unable to tolerate the rigours of travel in India.
Among my preparations was the near compulsory purchase of a travel guide – Lonely Planet most likely, though I can’t remember for sure – in which I found a string of warnings that shook my composure. The dangers began just after arriving, with airport taxi drivers known to fleece weary, naive new arrivals looking for a quick trip to their hostel or hotel. And on from there continued the scams, the undrinkable water, the risky food, the beggars, crowds…
Arriving in Delhi in the dead of night, I had a few hours to acclimatise in a room in a fretfully chosen hotel before I had to face the world outside. Opening the curtains – well, it just looked like chaos out on the street. There was an incessant rush of activity, people and vehicles jostling for position in an apparently abstract fashion that seemed to deny logic, all the while accompanied by the interminable blasting of horns. Motorbikes darted cheekily between obstacles; cycle rickshaws maintained a cumbersome pace; trucks piled high with goods used their bulk to force a path; pedestrians gamely took on all comers. Crossing the road seemed very much like a real life game of Frogger. How on earth could I go there? I spent the best part of 24 hours plotting how I could deal with what I saw. Plotting? No, I was just delaying the inevitable.
Chhoti Chaupar, Jaipur
The picture above is not from that moment, but captures the kind of scene that I came across better than any other. There are just a couple of vehicles, but dozens of people on foot or bicycle, navigating the intersection according to their own unique principles and directions. There are no line markers, and nothing to delineate where the traffic separates from the pedestrians. It looks like there should be collisions and injuries and anger at every moment. Somehow, there’s not. In short, it is, to my western eyes, chaos, but the chaos is respected. Looking back, that strikes me as a microcosm of India, the nation.
Most of the movement here is people powered – pedestrians, bicycles, tricycles – and it seems to be from another age altogether, rather than just a little over 20 years old. The absence of commercialism in the scene is quite stark. India must surely have changed since.
By the time I took this picture, the tour had given me a week or so’s experience, enough to let me conquer those early fears. In fact, I was now even more enthralled by India. It’s sheer life was thrilling and it was a joy to be part of it. The fact that it made for a very stark contrast with clockwork Switzerland, where I was living at the time, heightened my happiness.
Street traffic, Jaipur
In Jaipur, having ticked off the key attractions, I elected to take my own foot tour of the city, for the greatest freedom and maximum immersion. This was not without its pitfalls. My white face quickly attracted the attention of a friendly local, who insisted on conversing with me, and following my every turn, in a frustrating fashion. Finally, he admitted that his friendship was nothing more than a patter to introduce me to his art shop, where – of course! – I would be keen to buy something from him. Of course not! Reflecting now, I feel a little guilty about how rudely I attempted to shrug off such overtures; as much as anything else I regretted the intrusion.
I don’t recall how I came upon the vantage point from which this picture was taken, but I am grateful now. Finding this spot allowed me to record something of what I was seeing and experiencing on my amble around town. I felt a little part of it all, and it was quite an adrenalin rush. Take note, though: I wasn’t yet up for the challenge of crossing the road here.
Jaipur was a magnificent city, in an amazing country, and this photo captures just a piece of that, a piece of India.
