Eastern Horizons Read online

  ‘How about both?’ I stuttered, out of breath as we climbed a steep gorge, the square-jawed Sergeant Major now shouting at us to stop chattering and get on with the march.

  ‘And everything in between?’ I said, just as the soldiers’ stick narrowly missed the back of my head.

  We marched on in silence, but the seed had now been planted. I can still remember the feeling of restlessness and excitement that was born from that misty epiphany. I got home to my grimy flat on Kimbolton Avenue and thoughts of travel bounced around my mind. That night I lay awake, staring up at the flickering lightbulb and listening to the familiar sounds of the student flat. It was a cold December night and a drunk outside had begun singing merrily to himself before stopping abruptly, probably to vomit. In the distance, a faint siren could be heard, heralding pub closing time in the town centre. Finally, I drifted into unconsciousness and a journey began to unfold.

  I traced the route on a mental globe, a bold scarlet line over a smooth surface of azure oceans and dark green continents. A booming horn signalled the departure of a monstrous ferry, which glided away from the familiar chalky cliffs of Dover and then, in an instant, I was soaring high above the Paris skyline, then low, skimming like a smooth pebble over red-tiled Germanic rooftops and castles. Soon enough, as the plains of Central Europe gave way to the pine forests and onion domes of the edge of Christendom, I felt nothing more than the rough texture of a mountain or two as I soared joyfully over the Caucasus and then, in a second, I glided down, out of the wilds of Circassia and into the scorching deserts of Persia.

  Deep canyons and towering passes showed me that Bactria was close. Was this the route taken by Alexander the Great? I could almost hear the trickle of the River Oxus in the north, but no, I was still going east; more mountains. This time bigger – the Himalayas. But even these Tibetan thrones could not stop my strident progress, as I plunged into deepest India with its jungles, paddy fields and tea plantations. Within a moment I came to an abrupt halt. I was lost, alone, amongst the masses, in a frenzy of oriental commerce and mystical intrigue. I saw turbaned ancients amidst a sea of multicoloured rugs and carpets. Animals – humped-back cows, oxen and fettered chickens – fighting for their very existence amongst the busy throng of Punjabis. A kohl-eyed Pathan swathed in thick black robes scurried into the shadows before a platoon of Sikhs marched through the bazaar causing the crowd to part wildly . . .

  I woke up with a start, finding it still dark, but the sounds of morning were already whispering through the curtains. I realised that it was time to face the winter chill, and with it, revision, exams and reality. At the back of my mind, though, I remembered the scene, and, unusually, none of its vividness had faded with the night. I left the house without eating breakfast, too excited and too full of thoughts of travel.

  The eastern road towards the Indian subcontinent has lured travellers from the west since time immemorial. Thomas, apostle of Jesus, is believed to have travelled from the Holy Land to India in AD 52. But even he was no trail-blazer. Four hundred years before him, in the spring of 326 BC, Alexander the Great set off from Greece with an army of Europeans, bent on conquering the lands of Hind across the Indus river.

  Since ancient times, a succession of armies, merchants, missionaries, and that most vague of breeds, travellers, have been tempted to make the overland journey from the fringes of Europe to the Indian subcontinent – travelling by foot, horse, mule and camel. Sea travel was increasingly common, even two thousand years ago, and it was feasible to journey from the civilised ports of the Middle East to India in only a few months. But for many explorers, sea travel wasn’t satisfactory; it didn’t allow them the riches of the Silk Road, or the glory of exploring new and uncharted lands in the name of kings and queens.

  Before the modern age, the Middle East and South Asia were perhaps the best-charted regions in the world outside Europe. The newly discovered Americas were vast unknown quantities, full of savage jungle dwellers. Africa was still the ‘dark continent’, fearsome and threatening. In contrast, the Holy Lands, Arabia and Persia were centres of learning and civilisation. Even the lowliest of peasants in an Irish bog had heard of Jerusalem and Babylon. They, too, had heard stories of the ruthless Genghis Khan, whose barbarian hordes and their descendants had chewed away at the outskirts of Europe until very recently. Asia was a place of danger and awe and mystery, but it was also full of charm and romance. Stories abounded: One Thousand and One Nights confirmed what the inquisitive European already believed – that the East was magical, its women beautiful and seductive, its horses magnificent and its men untrustworthy.

  While Europe was still hauling itself out of the Middle Ages, India was flourishing. Vast empires traded goods and technology; science and creativity bloomed. But a barrier still existed between East and West. There were vast tracts of endless desert and freezing mountain ranges, populated by increasingly hostile tribes and religious fanatics – as well as the powerful menace of the Mongols. Despite the growing commercial promise of the East, only the most intrepid Europeans dared to travel the perilous overland route. It wasn’t until the establishment of the East India Companies in the eighteenth century that large-scale commercial activity became viable between Europe and the subcontinent, and most of that was conducted by sea.

  Only when the landlocked Central Asian states hit the headlines of London and St Petersburg, during the Russian expansionism of the nineteenth century, did it become necessary for Europeans – namely British and Russian political agents – to venture into the mountainous no-man’s-land in order to protect their respective empires against invasion. The Great Game became a byword for this exploration and overland travel in Asia. The bearded Conolly was only one of many adventurers who put their lives on the line in the name of empire and eternal fame. And he, for one, paid the ultimate price.

  The few individuals that did make the overland journey, when not being attacked, murdered, robbed, starved or forcibly converted, became part of an exclusive club of travellers. They saw with their own eyes what most people were content to read about in fantastic stories, where dog-headed men, mermaids and fire-breathing dragons regularly entered the arena.

  It wasn’t really until the twentieth century, and the advent of motorised transport and the social upheaval of the Second World War, that a new breed of travellers emerged who were able to observe, with a greater degree of objectivity, the reality of traversing a continent by clinging to its dusty caravan tracks. These strange, long-haired, spiritual sandal wearers, known to posterity as hippies, achieved what generations of travellers before them had failed to do. They popularised overland travel in Asia and made India accessible to the European masses. For the first time in history, the route was open to those whose livelihoods did not depend on spices, silk or spying.

  Then suddenly, in 1979, it all changed once again. The Russians invaded Afghanistan, Iran was taken over by a theocratic regime, and the overland trail was again off limits to all but the most intrepid wanderers. The year 2001 brought another dimension. On that bright September morning when the twin towers came crashing down, the world changed forever. East and West were forced apart yet again, this time in a battle over a way of life. The Silk Road countries bear the brunt of this struggle and only time will tell how they fare. In the opening years of the twenty-first century, it is sad to think that overland travel from Europe to India is probably more disrupted and hazardous, and less viable, than it was when Marco Polo did it.

  Encouraged by romantic notions of adventure, however, I saw my new task as a completion of my studies: a personal journey into the past as well as the future. In the university library, I searched the shelves for a copy of Arthur Conolly’s overland diary and began to scribble down routes and dates and prices. How long would it take? Where would I start? Where would I finish?

  I had already spent a very brief spell in the Indian subcontinent when I backpacked around the world before university, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. I spent two week
s hiding in the mountains of Nepal in 2001, when the Nepali royal family was massacred in Kathmandu and the whole country went into lockdown. There were Maoist riots in the countryside and a nine o’clock curfew across the cities. People were getting shot in the streets and my passport had been stolen.

  Luckily, I was taken in by a local farmer named Binod, who kept me away from the violence until things subsided. I finally retrieved my passport and embarked on a gruelling fifty-three-hour bus journey to Delhi. In India, I got violently sick and had to fly home after only two days, having seen little more than the inside of my $2 hotel room – and the shared toilet.

  Still, despite this, and perhaps because of it, I knew that I had to return to India. It has always been a part of the British consciousness. I thought back to childhood days of cricket in the park in Stoke-on-Trent, of being sent by my grandmother to the local corner shop, where I gazed in wonder at the rows of spices and exotic tins, with a smiling Bengali behind the counter. And, of course, there were my grandfather’s stories from the war – of docking in Calcutta, fighting the Japanese in Burma, and marching through thick, jungle-clad mountains alongside his Gurkha allies into Kohima.

  And then I realised. It was the same fascination with Britain’s past that had caused me to set off when I was eighteen. But this time I was more focused. I held those childhood images dear and wanted to see first-hand if the reality would live up to my expectations, whether Marco Polo’s tall tales and my grandfather’s gruesome stories, and those of Alexander the Great and Arthur Conolly, would bear any resemblance to the modern-day truth in an age of relentless change. It was the draw of the East, of the Silk Road and the Great Game. The same allure of the mystical Orient that has sent generations of British travellers to the subcontinent for hundreds of years.

  So, I had a plan. It was a very vague one, but it was a plan, nonetheless. I called Jon.

  ‘India overland. I’m being serious. Let’s do it.’ There was a silence at the end of the phone for a few seconds.

  ‘You’re mad,’ he said.

  ‘June.’

  ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’m doing a work placement until September. And anyway, what about Russia? I told you, I want to read War and Peace.’

  ‘We’ll do it all,’ I said, imploring him to see the importance. ‘Russia first, then overland through God-knows-where, till we get to the beach in Goa. It’s fail-safe. Tell you what. I’m going to hitchhike. Let’s meet up somewhere in Eastern Europe when you’re done faffing about in London and we’ll go to Russia together and see where we end up.’

  Romantic notions of being on the road took hold, and in June the next year, with exams out of the way, I set off to hitchhike to India, wild and carefree, and thoroughly unprepared for my journey.

  That summer was one of the best of my life. Time flew by in a hazy mixture of warm afternoons, snoozing in parks and staying with old friends. France was little more than a quick escape from the dingy dockyards of Calais, followed by shortcuts through vineyards in Champagne, but Germany passed by slowly and in vivid detail. The dream was suddenly a reality.

  Red-tiled roofs jutted skyward and colourful flowers danced on the eves of half-wood, half-brick houses. White carnations dangled in Teutonic uniformity from symmetrical hanging baskets on wooden balustrades and evenly mowed green lawns – all at the peak of their pride in midsummer. The thought of the Black Forest mountains with their emerald lakes still sends a shiver down my spine.

  In Nuremberg, all the details – the angular city walls, the immaculate drawbridges and the towering castles remain silhouetted against a clear sky. On top of ancient battlements, the red-tiled spires rose upwards to the heavens, and concealed in their torsos – unseen attics, filled with bats. The shadows crept beyond the city walls and the red and white panels that underpin the massive eves faded into oblivion. The streetlights flickered on, and at the end of steep, cobbled streets, the castles began to glow a deep red with their impossibly thick walls. Further east, pink hues of Czech villages stood proudly against backdrops of coniferous hedgerow, a shield from the untamed forests beyond.

  I travelled mostly at night and usually in the company of sullen lorry drivers. The stars would fade into the atmosphere as the dim light of dawn gradually approached, and it got wilder and more romantic as I went east. I was always delighted to be greeted with ever more attractive scenes of Swabian medievalism on entering a new town. I had breakfast in cobbled alleyways with the aroma of freshly baked pretzels, and lunches of Bratwurst, served by Bohemian girls with deep grey eyes. Days and weeks passed by. I hitched from town to town. Sleep would come rough, more often than not; next to rivers, hedgerows and even roundabouts. And when I became sick of the mosquitoes or slugs that were my constant bed partners, I would sometimes pay for the cheapest bed in a dormitory, but often find it worse. When the dorms became too loud, I would return to the streets or the parks, and disused factories.

  I met many interesting people. There was a Buddhist monk from Thailand undertaking his version of the European Grand Tour dressed ascetically in his orange robes; Kurt, a great German photographer, took me in for three days. Marta showed me places in rural Poland that no tourists would ever see. Christian put me up in his university and introduced me to the delights of German beer. And then there was Marc Engberg, the American scholar and comedian whose charm and intellect fed my imagination, and whose conversation ensured many a pleasant afternoon drinking coffee in Warsaw Central Square.

  Halcyon days. It was life at its freest. I wandered about Eastern Europe for a while. Places with strange names sucked me in: Szepietowo, where I fell in love, and Suwalky where I was almost robbed of my only pair of shoes by a gang of feral thieves. There were lots of castles. Castles on lakes, castles in forests, castles by the sea. Sometimes I would sleep on their walls or in little enclaves removed from view. When not being arrested for vagrancy, I was blissfully happy.

  I got to Estonia, where I dined with diplomats by day and slept on the ancient ramparts of the city walls by night. I would eat bread and soup at the National Library canteen, and write emails and letters to embassies trying to chase up my visas, and when I tired of that, I took the bus to the beach at Pirita, where the most beautiful girls in Europe gathered to bathe in the surprisingly warm Baltic Sea. I was an Englishman alone, before it became popular for stag parties, sitting in the beer gardens of the central Tallinn square, or overlooking the harbour from the upper town. I could have stayed for the rest of the summer and in fact almost two weeks passed by, hardly noticed.

  But one beautiful afternoon, as I sat reading and drinking coffee, the realisation dawned on me that it was looking less likely that I would get any further.

  ‘Your Iranian visa will be ready in Warsaw,’ the officials said in Tallinn.

  ‘Not here,’ they said in Warsaw. ‘Try in Moscow.’

  And as for a Russian visa: ‘Only in London,’ they said. ‘You have to collect in person.’

  It became more and more clear that no matter how many phone calls I made or letters I wrote, I would have to return to England to get the paperwork sorted.

  It was my own fault, of course, but I still felt a sense of dread at the thought of having to admit defeat. How could I face my family and friends who had bade me farewell, when I hadn’t even left the confines of Europe? To all concerned, I’d been lazing about on a mere beach holiday. Those long days of walking down motorways and sleeping under hedges – taunted all the while by threats from the police and criminals alike – had all been in vain.

  I felt like a fraud and it was hard to hide my feelings of disappointment. What about Kurt, Christian, Marta and Marc – all the people that I’d told I was going to India? Most importantly, what would Winfield say?

  But in the end, there was nothing to be done. The summer was coming to an end; the beach at Pirita was empty. I resolved to go home and start again as soon as I had obtained the necessary clearance. Next time I would be more thorough, I promised myself. Things w
eren’t so bad. Above all, at least I had travelled.

  2

  Tramps Abroad

  Blackened lorries trundled by, interrupting the silence of a September Sunday morning. To the west, endless fields rolled away like a patchwork quilt of green and brown. In the east, a Lincolnshire town was just about visible. Roofs pointed out from the tall hedgerow, and, in the distance, the spire of a church gave away that this was rural England. I already saw in my imagination the onion domes of Moscow, the jagged peaks of Georgia, the eternal deserts and minarets of Persia and the golden palaces of India.

  I had a combination of hope and dread in anticipation of continuing my journey from where I had broken it off. By now it was nearing the start of autumn and already cold gusts of wind were blowing through the streets – reddening leaves were starting to take on a crisper appearance, marking the end of a fine summer. Six weeks had passed since I turned back from the Baltic Sea, embarrassed and chastened, and although I had kept myself busy chasing around the embassies, earning a little money, and generally avoiding having to explain myself, I was getting restless now and knew it was time to get back on the road. I’d gone to see Jon and explain myself at having retreated from the expedition, but my worries had been in vain.

  I watched as Jon’s boots pounded up and down, transfixed by the gentle monotony. He had taken the lead and was now a few paces in front. Jon was the same age as me, twenty-two. He had finished his placement and recently moved to London, where he had been offered work with a big company starting in the New Year. He seemed happy to tag along – after all, Russia had been his idea. He hadn’t given me too much hassle about not making it further than Estonia and, in fact, told me himself that he was glad we’d be starting again, this time together.