davethegrinch.net

Dave Says:

72 hours on a train from Irkutsk to Moscow is a long time to be doing nothing. There is no TV, only bad Russian radio and usable conversation between us and our Russian “cell-mates” dried up 1724km ago. I have taken to writing - writing rubbish maybe, but, rubbish none-the-less that you, my captive audience, are now honor bound to read. If I am going to spend three days and nights locked in train compartment for your vicarious pleasure then the least you can do is endure a few paragraphs of drivel.

Style note: I’m writing this in my moleskin notebook - by hand! My middle finger is already rubbed raw from the pencil. Could we have devolved our handwriting abilities in just two generations?

Of my fellow passengers, the Mongolians are still trading, the Russians are sleeping and the Western tourists are all feverishly scribbling in notebooks probably also wondering why their middle fingers are hurting so much. Which, in not so neat cursive, brings me to today’s diatribe: Travel Journals - Why, why not and what’s the point.

Travellers like to keep journals. Scratch that - Travellers think they ought to keep journals. It’s a tradition that goes back to the amateur explorers of the19th century where the process served to self-document an act of potential greatness - either the explorer would discover something of wonder and marvel or die trying. In either case a journal would cement a reputation and (posthumously) fame and fortune would follow. Today’s travellers continue that tradition although a hangover and a dose of local gonorrhea is about as close as most get to death and danger. So, what on earth are these people devoutly writing about? Perhaps devoutly is the wrong word, it implies devotion, faith and conviction but most I speak to talk of it as a chore one must ‘catch up on’. No doubt these 72 hours are an atonement; a few hail Marys and a self-flagellated middle finger for missed diligence.

So, again I wonder what the content of these journals could be. As I write this, one of my fellow Westerners is leaning over my head to copy the train timetable into her journal. That, I’m sure, will make fascinating future reading:

10:05 Arrive Malinsk

10:30 Depart Malinsk

15:55 Arrive Novosibirsk

16:10 Depart Novosibirsk

Perhaps they write blogs for public consumption. I’ve read a number and although I applaud the effort, a considerable portion are an account of the same trip everyone takes on the train to Ulan Baator followed by an anecdote where Tim got so drunk he thought he was a dog. Hardly Boy’s Own ripping yarns of high adventure. Besides, if you make your writing public you have a responsibility to your readers, a responsibility this writer takes seriously (except in this particular instance where boredom and, I’m afraid to say, bitchiness have taken hold). Educate, entertain and inform are the watchwords of good blogging and doubly so if they are accounts of actions rather than opinionated punditry.

Perhaps they are writing just for themselves. If they are then I hope they are exaggerating their trip to levels of the highest adrenalin or lowest depravity. “Why?”, you may ask. Well, I say, because no matter how exciting events seemed at the time, age and experience will force them to loose their luster upon future reflection. Take poor inebriated Tim. In the not-so-distant future, our young writer will have had many more Tim like experiences thereby rendering the original somewhat run-of-mill. Imagine your once in a lifetime round the world trip later appearing unremarkable and rather dull - what a disappointment that would be to your old age; your halcyon days rendered in monochrome. Perhaps it would be more future-proof to document Tim’s drunken desire to be a dog as Tim being drunkenly desirous towards a dog! I have seen and heard many things in my life but never that, therefore making it a truly original, memorable and thought provoking reflection on a trip abroad.

However, care must be taken not to stray towards improbability - believe what you write and write with belief. The trick is one of self-delusion. The faithful few still keeping current with our blog actually have no idea if what they’ve read is true or not. For all they know, we may not even be on a train. In a strange way the reality of this trip is irrelevant. If you are kindly readers, of which I do not doubt, you will want us to have experienced these tales of high adventure as much, if not more, that we would ourselves. Your motives for such may be many. Some of you may be hanging regrets of missed opportunity from our backpacks, some might be attaching the camaradiery of shared experiences, others vicarious voyeurism and I’m sure there’s a few who just want to track our progress home, safely and with a dream fulfilled. In any case, a journal of our actual reality is probably about as interesting to read as this train timetable. What you really want and, as I’m about to explain, what we really need, are blisteringly cracking tales of global adventure. But, rest assured, as they say in Hollywood: this movie is based on actual events and no animals were harmed in the making of this blog.

As painful as this sounds, you must come to terms with and appreciate that this blog isn’t really for you anyway. Your audience, comments, well wishes and support are what keep us moving day in and day out, but really, this blog is for us. It’s an insurance policy against our old age. When I’m old(er) I’ll want to believe my youth was everything we’re told it should be when it will inevitably turn out to be no more than what it was. In life it is important to keep upping the ante. To illustrate let us return to poor drunken Tim. To those having never seen anyone quite as drunk as Tim and his being in deepest, darkest Siberia to boot, the original story is adventure enough, but us experience junkies are always on the look out for a bigger and better Tim. We do that in reality and then born from fear we may fail to meet an experience to eclipse the last, Tim, the booze, Siberia and the dog must become just a little bigger and better in the written form. If one is going to tell a story then tell it with passion and gusto.

I am reminded of an old boss of mine who, when I was a young whipper-snapper of a boy, told me of his travels around the world. For some unexplained reason he had his new passport in his pocket when he told his Mum he was just going to the store to buy her some cigarettes. At the store he happened upon a friend who was just leaving for Africa and asked my boss if he wanted to join him. He said that he would and without returning home he left for adventures unknown, showing up on his mother’s doorstep six months later. Whether he remembered her cigarettes is unknown. Is this really what happened? I don’t know and neither do I care to; I like the story as is and probably so did he. So, my point being, that when you, our readers, have long since forgotten about this blog and our adventures our only audience will be ourselves. By that time in my life I’ll be stubborn and ornery so the story better be good or I’m walking out.

So, here I am, just like the other westerners, scribbling in my notebook. I hope for their sakes they can hear what I’m writing. I wonder if they wish I could hear their musings - perhaps they detest pomposity in journal keeping. I don’t care. Life is too short for the ordinary - our lives are not a series of train timetables or sequences of events, they are a patchwork of the insane and inane, all worthy of equal celebration. (damn - that was a little upbeat for me - that one was definitely an exaggeration!)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 10:39 am and is filed under Global Travels, Russia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.