The Big Trip


Carol Kloskowski

 

© Copyright 2013 by Carol Kloskowski

Photo of a colorful Malayasia airliner landing.
 
Taking a year-long vacation traveling around the world is an impossible dream for most families, but Mark and Monica Hughes, who definitely weren’t millionaires, took their children and did it anyway!
 
Before they married, Mark and Monica had both been Peace Corps volunteers teaching in nearby small West African villages where they met and fell in love.  After fulfilling their commitments to the Peace Corps, they traveled throughout Europe for three month before returning home to the United States.  It was a trip they would never forget.  Later, married with children, they dreamed of taking another trip they would never forget, this time traveling around the world as a family. 
 
Could they afford to take a year out of their lives?  How would they pay for it?  What about their jobs?  What about the kids’ education?  These seemingly unanswerable questions were answered with the merger of Mark’s law firm, Earth Law, dedicated to preserving the environment, with Earth Justice a similar firm.  Once the financial settlement had been made, while Mark considered his next professional venture, there would be enough money and time for the family to live their dream.

Planning began.  First, where did they want to go?  The children: Duncan 13, Elliot (called Tote) 11, and Maggie 8, were each asked to present their cases for three places they wanted to go.  (Remember, dad’s a lawyer).  From their presentations and mom and dad’s list, the family whittled out an itinerary around the kitchen table.  They found a renter for their house, got passports, vaccinations, packed boxes of things to be stored in the basement, and finally found a year-long home for their goldfish.
 
Next, Monica got together all the materials they would need to home school the children as they traveled.  They left their Colorado home to begin their adventure in August of 2000.   Their itinerary was extensive—The British Isles, France, Spain, Morocco, Italy, Greece, Egypt, India, Nepal, Tibet, China, Malaysia and finally back to the U.S. in August 2001.  With a trip budget of only $110 a day, they stayed mainly at hostels or small hotels.  Besides flying, they traveled by bus, train, or they walked.  They rarely took taxis and only rented a car once.  Also, they traveled light—besides a lap top computer, digital camera, personal care items, and a first-aid kit, everyone carried a backpack and a daypack containing a restricted amount of clothes, shoes, and three books of their choice.
           
Their comments about the trip and journal entries are definitely not typical tourist guidebook entries.
 
Scotland

Edinburgh was charming and medieval.  When a cabby refused their tip saying, “You’ll need it; this is a very expensive city,” they discovered he was right.
 
There are no restaurants with a truly Scottish atmosphere in Glasgow.  Two Scottish policemen Mark asked couldn’t think of any.  “We could have had breakfast at Starbucks, lunched at MacDonald’s and dined at Pizza Hut,” Mark chuckles.
 
Everywhere they traveled, they visited museums, historical sites, castles, churches, local libraries, and marketplaces.  The children’s observations were to be incorporated into their journaling assignment.”  Monica admits, “Sometimes getting the journaling done took a lot of prodding but some of things the kids wrote are truly priceless.”
 
England 

London.  After visiting: Lloyd’s of London, St. Paul’s, the Bank of England, The Tower of London, and other attractions, Maggie’s journal entry was, “I played a game with coins, cream containers, coffee sticks, and tea bags on Duncan’s bed.”
 
France

Paris.  Duncan liked the restaurant where all the kids had wine.
 
Mark jokes, “After three weeks in Paris, Monica could actually go a whole day without commenting about dog poop on the sidewalks.”
 
Being cheated while traveling was Mark’s great fear.  When he discovered that a Paris bookstore employee had charged him $271 for two books that should have cost $30, he immediately went back to the store.  The manager checked his receipts; then in English, she apologized, explaining that they had caught the error, called the bank, and had the charge corrected.  The bank had refused to give them Mark’s phone number so they could call and explain what happened to him.  Mark left the bookstore smiling.
 
Tangier 

Duncan’s view, “England had accents and royalty.  France is an art center and rich, but both seemed normal, but here the Islamic religion is very strange to us.  People are called to prayer often.  In the market there’s trash and wasted food everywhere.”
 
Morocco

Chefchaouen. It’s hard to miss the illegal drugs here, according to Mark.  While he was waiting for a coffee, the man next to him in line added hashish to his cigarette.  Another man tells him in sign language that his business is hashish.”
 
The Berber Market.  Tote saw deer heads with fur and horns still on them lying on the ground, and a butcher cutting a horse’s skull in half.  “I was an inch away.  The insides were pink with blood all over them.  The Moroccans just walked past casually.”
 
Tote was impressed with the couches instead of chairs in a “cool” restaurant.
 
Fees.  Mark is sure most tourists walking through the narrow mazes of Fes’s oldest section feel fearful.  Guides swarm around, proclaiming the old city is very dangerous, and tourists are certain to get lost without a guide.  Refusing their services often brings on shouts of obscenities in whatever language they think the tourist speaks.
 
Spain

Sevill.  The youth hostel the family stayed in was built in 1513.  For centuries it had been a convent, and then a prison.  The Hughes’s were five of the eight guests in a building that could accommodate 120.  Smiling, Monica says, “It was great!  The children played soccer in the courtyard.  Mark worked at a desk in a nook, and I did schoolwork with the children on the balcony.”
 
Staying in hotels often meant living in the streets.  Monica explains, “Lobbies aren’t great places for the kids to play games or do school work.  Hotels don’t tolerate running, yelling or whining very well.  Most of the hotels we could afford didn’t have lobbies and the rooms were just large enough for beds.” 
   
Barcelona.  Monica bought a Spanish ham for their Christmas meal with Mark’s uncle who lives in Monaco.  Spanish hams are a whole leg with the hoof.  She says, “I carried it around town all day, and on the train to France the next day.  These hams hang behind the bar in nearly every bodega where they are sliced for tapas.
 
Italy

Venice.  Maggie was glad there weren’t any roads.  You couldn’t to get whacked by a car.  If you’re swimming you could get whacked by a boat though, she thinks.
 
Maggie found out you can get sick if the floodwater gets on you.  The deepest the water got was two and a half feet.  (She measured it as part of her math lesson.)
 
Florence. From Mark’s journal, “I received the wrong change again today.  This is the forth time on this trip.  Each time it’s been in our favor.”
 
Tote says of Michelangelo’s David.  “It was unrealistic.  First, David would be wearing clothes.  It seemed like the log was growing around his leg.  His hand holding the pebbles was in a bad pose.  His finger joints wouldn’t be straight if you were holding pebbles.  “I can’t make my hand get into that pose, and his head and hair were ugly.
 
The “artistic” hit of that day for the kids wasn’t at any museum.  It was the discovery that “The Return of the Jedi” was being shown at the hostel that night.
 
Greece

Athens. Marks feelings about Greece.  “When I convert our lunch bill into dollars, I cringed.  When our hotel turned out to be in the middle of a construction zone, I despaired.  When a man in a sandwich shop tentatively spoke English, I was happy. 
 
Snippets of conversation:

Hotel owner:  How are you”
Mark:  Well, thank you.
Owner:  How did you sleep?
Mark:  Do they work all night across the street?
Owner:  Yes, they say they are in a hurry to finish, after three years.
Mark” The room is okay but you should have mentioned the construction when I called.
Owner:  But if I mentioned it, you wouldn’t have come here.
 
Monica:  “I do not believe it is possible for a Greek to cook a bad meal.”
 
Egypt 

CairoMark loves it here, “People were extremely friendly.  If we needed directions they’d either tell us (several people have walked a block or two, leaving businesses unattended, to be sure we find our way), or they’d search for someone who spoke English and could translate.  One day, at the Bank of Cairo, we tied up half the counter personnel for ten minutes while we were being directed to an address we were looking for.
 
Duncan liked pyramids but couldn’t figure out why the Queen’s Chamber is called that, when queens are never buried in them.  Monica was surprised at how the city crowded right up to the plateau on which the pyramid is located.  Mark wondered why the best view of the pyramids is from the windows of a Pizza Hut. 
 
Luxor.  While Mark and children went hotel hunting, Monica waited in the train station with their bags.  A machinegun toting guard named Mahmoud sat next to her.  Monica laughs, “We communicated until he exhausted his English.  Finally, out of desperation to speak English, he sang, “Happy Birthday” to me.
 
India 

Thekkadi.  Going on a guided jungle trek, the family saw lots of monkeys, a group of boars, and fresh elephant prints.  Then they met the leeches.  Everyone spent of the rest of trip putting on tobacco powder on their shoes, smashing leeches with their shoes, or whacking leeches off their shoes with sticks.  Monica was bitten three times, Duncan once.  Tote came home with two leeches in his shoe but no bites.  Even the guide was bitten!
 
Madura.  At the Sri Meenakshi Temple, the family was amazed to see a live elephant in front of a shrine.  When you held out a coin; the elephant took it with his trunk; blessed your head with his trunk and gave the coin to his owner.
 
After the temple, the family went to a restaurant that served their lunches on banana leaves instead of plates.  They had to eat with their hands.
 
New Delhi.  The family stayed at a nice hotel.  Mark admits a clean, quiet, air conditioned room is a treat after their day walking in furnace-hot, polluted air, but he comments, “We were in this most amazing country, yet when we entered this hotel, we also entered a standardized world lacking any aspects that make India unique.  Also, the hotel costs for eating, laundry, phone calls and transportation were astronomical.”             

The Hughes discovered that New Delhi had a large middle class owning cars, houses, and computers.  They could compare beer brands and ISPs. They idolize movie stars. 
 
Duncan thought New Delhi was like Cairo—dusty, dry, polluted and hot.  He says.  “The sky was always white and sometimes had a brownish hue.”
 
When both Duncan and Maggie began running high fevers, a new Indian friend recommended a doctor.  There was no waiting in his office.  Mark says the doctor was extremely efficient.  “He told us to call him at home that night to get the results of the blood tests he took.  With the tests, the visit cost $9.60.  Mark adds, “An earlier emergency room visit in Kodai, had cost $7.70 complete with medicine.
 
Agra-Taj Mahal City.  The Taj Mahal surpassed all Mark’s expectations--it looked just like the pictures. 
 
Nepal 
 
Pohara.  When a tourist asked Maggie “I’ll bet you miss home, don’t you?”   She answered after a long pause, “No, I miss Greece.”
 
The bus ride from Pokhara to Galeswor was scary and interesting, according to Maggie.  “The scary part was being so close to the edge of cliffs.  The interesting part was having a goat on the bus.”
 
China

Tibet.  Tour guides making all the decisions were an adjustment for the Hughes, as were the members of their group.  One Belgian, terrified by the group’s cliffside trip, crouched in the bed of the wildly pitching truck taking sips of whiskey from a hip flask and chain-smoking cigarettes, while a Dutch girl made constant high-pitched squeals of fear, and an angry Australian woman continually shouted at the guide because her hotel room didn’t have bath and shower.
 
Lhasa.  Mark was amazed when he had heard “La Macarena” in Chinese coming from a kitchen of the Drepung Monastery.  He grins, “I like to think there were four or five red-robed monks doing the La Macarena in unison in there.
 
Conversation Snippet

Mark:  Tote has come full circle.
Monica:  What do you mean?
Mark:  He just ate a fish eye.  When we were in France he ate blue cheese and cried.
Tote:  Is there another one?  I just swallowed the first one.  I didn’t get a chance to bite it
 
Banner seen in Chengdu  “Cities should be clean like the souls should be pure.
 
Emei Shan.  From Maggie’s journal.  “ Elephant Pool Monastery has very dim lights and a lot of monkeys.  You have to keep stuff close to you so the monkeys don’t grab any of it.” 
 
Signs seen by the Hughes

Please don’t take food and drink to the frolic hall, cooperation amerce violator for 50 yan.
Please point out money or tickets to the eye.
Please keep sanitation
Civilized Airport
Pick your steps
No occupying while stabling.
Please flush the closet pot
No spitting everywhere.
 
Beijing.  Tote’s view of the opera there.  “At first it seemed like lady singer was making fun of a bad singer.  Then it sounded like she was practicing karate.  I thought it was insane that we paid to see this, but after a thief started trying to steal something from the main character and doing flips and somersaults, and the lady tried to stab him with her sword that he kept dodging, I thought it was very good.”
 
Hiking the Great Wall:  There were plenty of spots where a slip could prove fatal.  Sections of the Wall the family was hiking ran along ridge tops, but occasionally plunged into a valley before soaring up to the next ridge.  Because of the sheer drops and stretches with steep, uncertain footing, Mark admits, “It was one of the most frightening hikes I’ve ever taken.”  On the way home, the mini-bus the driver asked him for more money than the agreed price.  “I didn’t argue; I smiled and gave it to him,” says Mark.  “I was just glad to be alive.”
 
The Philippines

Manila.  Duncan thought Malaysia Airlines the best!  Nintendo in economy class, free unlimited drinks, and delicious food.  Maggie even got a huge bag filled with treats from the pilot.

Children had had this incredible, never-to-be-forgotten trip together.”
 
Home in America

Back in the U.S., after a year of checking foreign restaurant tabs and rarely finding even a small error, Mark was surprised when the friendly folks in Amana, Iowa overcharged him $10. 
 
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