© Gretchen Wilson-Kalav for TravelBlogs, 2009. | Cape to Cairo | 2 comments |
Post categories: Blogs
Post tags: Africa, bus travel, Egypt, overland travel, South Africa, train travel

Since TravelBlogs launched in September last year, I’ve had the opportunity to discover many great travel blogs. Without fail, the bloggers behind these blogs have one key characteristic: they are all excellent storytellers.

Mike Smith is up there with the best, but his approach is unusual. A graphic designer and illustrator by trade, Mike decided the best way for him to share his travel tales was by doing what he does best: drawing. His blog, Blogshank, features illustrations he drew while travelling with his girlfriend from London to Singapore and through to New Zealand late last year.

In this interview with TravelBlogs, Mike shares why he decided to blog through illustrations and what the advantages and disadvantages of this approach are. He also tells us more about travelling overland through Europe, Asia and New Zealand.

Using illustrations to document your trip is a really cool idea. Why did you decide to do document your trip with illustrations?

Two reasons really. Firstly, I was always going to do some sketching on my travels, as I enjoy it and do it whenever I can. Secondly, I’ve been doing an illustrated blog since January 2007, when I bought a pocket diary and drew a few idle sketches as well as writing my appointments. For some reason I thought it’d be fun to post them online. Then when my girlfriend and I decided to go on our travels, I was determined to keep it going. I was never going to lug a laptop and scanner around so I photographed the diary pages and emailed them via internet cafes to my brother, who resized and posted them.

So I had my diary which I used as a sketchbook, and I also carried a sketchbook which I used as a diary! This is full of notes and other drawings to remind me of some details. At the moment I’m in the process of typing this up and scanning some illustrations for a separate little web account. This one will have some more practical information in case someone else wants to do the same journey.

What I find interesting about using illustrations to tell the story of your trip is that you’re limited in how much you can depict: for any given day, you can only draw one or two scenes. As a storyteller, do you think this is more of an advantage, or a disadvantage?

I found the most interesting moments were brought out in the things people said, and I tried to grab those.

In some ways it’s an advantage because as you say, I’m limited in what I can describe. This means I can try and cut the fat and make a single point. Otherwise I might be tempted to do what many blogs do, and say ‘and then we did this, and then we saw this, and then we went here…’

On the downside, the way I was doing it, I couldn’t go into the kind of depth that a good writer would, and this has been something that’s been on my mind since I started blogshank. It’s tough to tell a story in pictures without some kind of introductory text. I suppose I used other methods to do the same thing: maps, signs, conversations etc. I found the most interesting moments were brought out in the things people said, and I tried to grab those. Such as the English couple we met in New Zealand who’d been disappointed to find that a restaurant named ‘Punkawallah’ served Indian rather than traditional Maori food! I think exchanges like that can say a lot without one having to spell it out, and this is the key to good writing too, I guess.

There were some long and complicated situations on our trip, such as in Irkutsk the sheer frustration of sitting in a taxi on the way to the station in the pouring rain, caught in the gridlocked one-way system which took us within 100 yards of our destination but the driver refused to let us out, preferring instead to be deaf to our pidgin Russian and take us miles around so that we missed the train and then he wouldn’t take us back… those kinds of situations are quite easy to describe in words but take very much more time and space to draw. In a future trip I would take the trouble to tell this in comic strip style. Artist Craig Thompson has done this by turning his sketchbooks into a graphic travelogue called Carnet de Voyage, about his trip around Europe and Morocco.

On the other hand you don’t have to tell a story — you can just paint a picture. I tried to drop in the odd simple drawing of a scene, which may not have been as ‘correct’ as a photo, but, I hope, has something else. A friend of mine who works in a geological survey company told me that back in the Fifties their expedition team used to include an official diarist/sketcher who would record the data and draw. I’m trying to get hold of these diaries as I’m sure they would tell fascinating stories in a way that a camera can’t.

At the end of the day, in such a tiny format it’s difficult to do subtlety on one page, but I hope that anyone looking at the drawings long term would pick up a sense of how I see the world.

Now a bit more about your trip… What were some of the advantages of travelling overland from London to Singapore, instead of flying from place to place?

There are the obvious things like the landscapes you see and the sheer number and variety of the people you meet. We shared cabins with Dutch, Polish, French, Aussies, Canadians, Kiwis, paralytic Russian businessmen, a Mongolian Lama (or so he said), a load of chatty Chinese who went into hysterics at my attempts at Mandarin and a dour Icelander who poured us the last of his Icelandic vodka. To name a few.

When my girlfriend was little she used to point to a world map on the wall and joke with her dad that they would one day visit Omsk and Tomsk. As we trundled across Siberia it was amazing to think that we were going to those very places on a continuous set of tracks from London. It was, I guessed, about a fifth of the planet’s circumference with the scenery barely changing! I got a sense of the scale of the world and an idea of just how isolated and self-reliant some people are.

From the train, there is also a change so gradual that I barely noticed it: Muscovites turned into Buryats who become Mongolian… While the language flipped completely as we crossed the border, people changed gradually. As we left Ulaan Bataar and headed south, things grew hotter of course, but little by little. Sweating in Kuala Lumpur it was difficult to believe that we were on the same land mass as frosty Tomsk. By contrast, flying into New Zealand was like being teletransported: walking out of Christchurch airport, it was the first time in weeks that my glasses hadn’t steamed up when *leaving* a building!

Because, on the train, you’re not catapulted from one tourist honey-trap to another, it can be a good way of escaping the Lonely Planet bubble and wandering to places that on the surface seem to have no attractions. We could, for instance, have taken a flight from Laos to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but it would only have been so we could say we’d ‘done’ Angkor Wat, and that didn’t seem right.

You travelled by train through Europe, Russia and Asia. Which country had the best trains? What about the worst?

The most cheerful train was probably the sleeper from Beijing to Guilin. We were the only tourists, and it was like being on a school coach to Disneyland. Oddly the most uncomfortable was also Chinese: the double-decker train onward from Guilin: we were stuck at the back on benches next to a reeking toilet with a bunch of yelling, chain-smoking, hacking Chinese.

We spent one night on a German train from Brussels to Berlin, and this was the most luxurious. Only two of us in a second class cabin containing a shower and a piece of complementary soap that made it all the way to Hanoi.

The Russian trains were remarkably punctual, despite travelling perhaps five hundred kilometers between stops. The most annoying thing about them was that they were too bumpy to draw on, so I rushed to the window with my sketchbook every time we reached a station. Hence loads of pictures of guards and food vendors!

Crossing into Belarus it was pretty interesting to be in the carriage as it was lifted into the air while the wheels were changed for the different gauge. Although not so exciting if you forget to use the toilet before they’re locked. The Russian and Chinese trains were also blessed with samovars on every coach — good for tea but it also meant the place soon stank of pot noodles (as well as farting Russians).

Travelling by train from China to Hanoi

After getting to Singapore, you flew across to New Zealand. Why did you decide to go there?

Getting to New Zealand was the original purpose of the trip: we have two sets of friends who have emigrated there — one in Wellington and the other in Greymouth on the South Island. As we’d planned to spend six weeks there, which meant giving up our jobs, we decided we might as well take the scenic route, hence London to Singapore. In fact we’d hoped to catch a container ship from Singapore, but this proved too expensive and we would have been at sea for a month.

Because we stayed with friends, borrowed cars and camped, our stay in New Zealand was relatively ad hoc and untimetabled compared to the first part of the trip. Just for a sense of symmetry we took the famous Greymouth to Christchurch train as our final journey before catching the plane back.

Do you have any future trips planned?

Well, we’re skint now! Luckily however, we live on a boat, so we can move from place to place and it feels like we’re permanently camping.

We have two dogs, and we missed them enormously while we were away, so they’ll come with us on the next trip. Most likely we will buy a van and tour Europe. In Malaysia we met a Fin who promised us the use of his couch, so a trip to his country to see the Northern Lights is most definitely on the cards. Between now and then I still have a diary to scribble in every week. Next time the drawings will be the central point of the journey rather than something I fit in when I’m sitting between trains.

To enjoy more of Mike’s illustrations, check out his blog: Blogshank.

© Eric Daams for TravelBlogs, 2008. | An Illustrator’s Travel Blog: Interview with Mike Smith | No comment |
Post categories: Interviews
Post tags: Asia, Europe, illustration, New Zealand, overland travel, Russia, train travel

Ed and Fiona are a couple from the United Kingdom on a year-long trip around the world, with one major twist: they’re doing it flightless. Passing up the convenience of flying, they’re travelling by bus, train, cargo ship, bicycle, or any other flightless mode of transport.

They’re avoiding air travel to keep their environmental footprint to a minimum, but also because they relish the journey. Rather than jetting miles above the earth’s crust, they prefer travelling slower, savouring the cultures and landscapes they encounter along the way.

TravelBlogs caught up with Ed to learn more about how and why they’re doing this trip.

First of all, tell us a bit more about yourself and Fiona.

We are in massive collective denial about what changes need to be made in our lives to reduce our own individual carbon ‘footprints’

Fi and I met six years ago during an extremely alcoholic Hogmanay (New Year celebrations in Scotland) in the Orkney Islands where we both have friends. There it is traditional to go ‘first-footing’ – visiting all your close friends and family over the first few days of the New Year, so it was actually the early hours of January the 2nd (as the celebrations continued) that we met. We’ve been together ever since!

I’m a former marine biologist, undertaking research in New Caledonia in the South Pacific and in Brisbane, Australia, who has since moved onto more general environmental campaigning. Around six and a half years ago I co-founded my company Futerra Sustainability Communications Ltd (www.futerra.co.uk) with my business partner Solitaire. Our mission is to make a more sustainable, ecological way of life so desirable it becomes normal, so people aspire to be more environmentally friendly. We try to excite and inspire our clients and their audiences and we now have offices in both London and New York and a team of 25 fantastic and dedicated ‘Futerrans’. Changing the world one client at a time!

Fi also works in communications, principally in the charitable and governmental sectors and one of her last jobs was with the British National Space Centre (yes, we do have one!). We have no plans to twang ourselves into space with Richard Branson however!

Why did you decide to take a year off from work to do this trip?

Futerra is extremely demanding on my time when I’m at home as anyone who runs their own small business can no doubt relate to – especially as there isn’t much of a dividing line between my personal and professional life. We started Futerra because we wanted to change the way that sustainability is perceived, it’s more than a day-job, it’s a personal passion so I’m never ‘off duty’ as it were. As a result after nearly six years of intensive activity I was concerned about ‘burning out’ and wanted an opportunity to refresh my perspectives, get some reflection time in and recharge my batteries.

The travel dream has been there for a long time for both Fi and I. Fi lived in New Zealand for a short time when she was 18 and has wanted to travel more ever since. I have spent several years living and working abroad, beginning with a year as a volunteer teacher in Jamaica 17 years ago which whetted my appetite for more diverse and challenging cultural experiences, and we both wanted to travel the world again. I wanted a proper sabbatical, not just a short break and Fi and I had both saved for over four years for the trip so we wanted to make it worth our while.

Also because of our method of travel (avoiding flying) and our aim for a global circumnavigation we needed 12-13 months to ensure the trip was to live up to the ‘slow travel’ ethos and not be too rushed. We certainly didn’t want to go round the world in 80 days!

Why did you decide not to fly? Are you principally opposed to flying?

I get asked this question A LOT! I’m not opposed to flying in principle, and am less anti-flying and more pro the alternatives. I have done a lot of flying myself in the past and there is no doubt that the increased accessibility of flight has probably been a good thing in terms of global understanding. However, the threat of climate change is what really scares me and we are in massive collective denial about what changes need to be made in our lives to reduce our own individual carbon ‘footprints’. Flying is very carbon intensive – a trip from London to Paris for example by plane releases ten times more carbon than taking the train.

We are all flying more, even when there are good land/sea alternatives, largely because it is cheaper but we are wreaking climate havoc as a result! The growth in aviation in the UK threatens to cancel out all the carbon savings we make from energy efficiency and use of renewable energy – taking us right back to square one in the battle against climate change. So something has to give!

Yes flying is more convenient, in the same way that a McDonald’s burger may be quicker, cheaper and more convenient than going to a market buying fresh produce and cooking a meal yourself at home.

I made a personal decision not to fly on holiday about four years ago, since then I’ve had to take one flight to China for a five week working visit (ironically on a major climate change project!). It certainly hasn’t stopped me travelling, I’ve been all over Europe my train and ferry and there is something very satisfying about slow travel, it’s more contemplative, relaxing and the journey is the reward not just an essential sufferance to get you to your destination.

So the decision not to fly on this trip was two-fold. Firstly because it would be an adventure. Any idiot (no disrespect!) can get on a plane and fly around the world these days, and it can still be quite challenging undertaking extensive overland journeys and long sea voyages. Secondly because of the climate change impacts of the journey, by avoiding flying we are dramatically reducing the environmental impact of the trip.

A common reason people give for why they fly is because it’s more convenient. How inconvenient have you found it to not be able to fly?

Yes flying is more convenient, in the same way that a McDonald’s burger may be quicker, cheaper and more convenient than going to a market buying fresh produce and cooking a meal yourself at home. But arguably the latter is a far more satisfying and rewarding experience! The bigger issue is time. People feel unable to take time off and still want to have their travel cake and eat it so they more or less feel they HAVE to fly if they want to enjoy that two week break in India. One of the aims of our trip has been to encourage more people to take sabbaticals, travel less often but for longer periods and to travel more slowly without always assuming that the plane is the only option available.

Probably the only time we wished we could fly was in New Zealand when the opportunity to do a sky-dive came up. Actually, that’s a complete lie. Not being able to fly was the perfect excuse not to have to throw ourselves out of a plane!

What have been some of the advantages of not flying?

If you walk you see absolutely everything, if you cycle you see almost everything, if you drive or go by train you see most things but if you fly, apart from some admittedly impressive views at take-off and landing you don’t really get to relate to the landscape you are travelling over not through from 50,000 feet!

You don’t have to go to airports – which in my view are often the most depressing places. Though they are often architecturally interesting you have to arrive hours before departure and loiter around in crowded lounges with other tried and irritable or stressed passengers whilst running a gauntlet of commercial outlets determined to bleed money out of your sheer boredom!

You meet amazing people when you travel overland or by sea. On trains you can move about and it is much more social. The mode of transport tends to attract a different type of traveller, one whom tends to be of an entertaining, if slightly eccentric, disposition!

Of all the types of transport you’ve used, what have been the highlights?

My favourite modes of transport have to be the trains and the cargo ships. Trains often follow different routes to roads and we have travelled some of the world’s great railways during our trip. We took Die Semmeringbahn through the Austrian Alps on our way across Europe which offered breath-taking alpine scenery. We then boarded the Trans-Siberian Express, this is the ‘Daddy’ of slow travel and an absolutely brilliant experience where you can make life-long friends, sample vodka and the fare of Baboushka’s on the platforms and get an insight into the ‘big Russian soul’. It was brilliant. We also rode the Circum-Baikal railway around Lake Baikal, the oldest, deepest lake in the world, while the water was still frozen offering us stunning views across the ice sheet to the huge, craggy snow-capped mountains 60 miles away. We also trained our way through China, a fantastic cultural experience in itself and just a week ago we took the Copper Canyon railway up through northern Mexico, where the line runs along the side of precipitous valleys and through a mind-boggling 80+ tunnels and over 30+ bridges and viaducts. Simply incredible.

Cargo ships are also wonderful, if you have reasonable sea-legs! They are working vessels but they welcome passengers warmly and we have had some great fun singing drunken karaoke with Filipino merchant seamen, roasting a whole suckling pig on the back deck of a ship in the middle of the Pacific and on a French vessel we sailed on being provided with free wine at every meal! Marvellous stuff! There is something very special about the sensation of being literally 2000 miles from land in either direction when you are sailing across the Pacific. It is splendid isolation in its purist form and I would recommend it to anyone.

Your boat crossing to Spain was a pretty rough one. Have you had many other negative experiences like that, or has it been mostly smooth sailing, so to speak?

Funny how your memory works in hindsight but I even recall our Pride of Bilbao with affection now even though it was pretty hellish at the time! Our sea crossings have actually been remarkably smooth since then, though we have yet to cross the Atlantic, by far the stormiest stretch of ocean we must traverse, and that treat still awaits us on the final leg of our journey in the end of the winter storms in March. We are a little nervous!

Our biggest cock-ups and negative experiences have been during overland travel and crossing borders in particular – something you have fewer problems with when flying overhead in a plane! We didn’t realise we needed a Belarus transit visa to get from Warsaw to Moscow so had to do a last minute 36 hour haul by bus via Lithuania and Latvia to get into Russia which was thoroughly unpleasant. We also arrived on the Chinese border after our visas had expired, which was both embarrassing and a major hassle, though the Chinese border police were very kind and let us enter after paying a small fine. We did feel like idiots however.

Actually, overall the trip has been remarkably smooth so far with very few painful glitches or problems to contend with. I’d even go so far as to say I’d happily do it all again without changing anything (though I would get a Belarus transit visa next time!).

Keep track of Ed and Fiona’s latest adventures through their blog, Slow Travel.

© Eric Daams for TravelBlogs, 2007. | Flightless Round the World: Interview with Ed Gillespie | No comment |
Post categories: Interviews
Post tags: couples, cultural experiences, green travel, Round the world, sea travel, slow travel, train travel, Trans-Siberian Express

© Eric Daams for TravelBlogs, 2007. | On the Trans-Siberian Railway | No comment |
Post categories: Blogs
Post tags: overland travel, train travel, Trans-Siberian Express