When A Parrot Eats Your Notebook
Kate Leaver talks to leading travel writer Frances Linzee Gordon about how best to navigate this Lonely Planet of ours.
‘Lonely Planet’ has always seemed such a delightful paradox; at once alluding to the lone traveller in a foreign land and a lone planet in an epic solar system. To me it wraps up the plight of the tourist; to manage their isolation among crowds of people, as an ambassador for their home country and a guest in a new one.
The real story behind the name is that founder Tony Wheeler misheard the lyrics to a song called ‘Lovely Planet’ and went with it – presumably because he too liked its muddled allusions to world travel. Being paid to explore the world sounds idyllic, but is the planet more lonely than lovely for guidebook writers?
Frances Linzee Gordon has worked for Lonely Planet for 12 years and visited more than 100 countries. She is the first person ever to be granted a visa to visit the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as an independent tourist. There she was a Brit in a burqa, scouring the Arabian Peninsula for every cultural experience she could find. Here in Sydney she’s a professional traveller; an authority on the foreign and an ambassador for Lonely Planet.
Immaculately dressed and made up, Frances braves the puddled stairs in dainty high heels and I wonder how this compares to scaling a cliff face in Ethiopia. Her femininity beguiles me; she looks no tougher than I and yet she has traversed deserts, deep sea waters and language barriers alike in the name of guidebook journalism. Frances has qualifications in ten languages. She has been kidnapped, lost, diseased and devoured by thousands of fleas on her travels. She has hiked up mountains that would make a pro rock climber shudder and thought dead when a boat she was on disappeared for two weeks. And yet she still advocates travelling on your own as the best way to appreciate a foreign culture.
When I was in Kenya the year before last, my family and I travelled in one of those gloriously chunky, indestructible Land Cruisers. The vehicle shook violently as it navigated its way, dinosaur-like, through the landscape. We watched five pairs of hairy little hippo nostrils emerge from muddy waters and we were chased by a hormonal male elephant. Travelling as a family we relaxed into our familiar idioms and moved about as a small herd of white humans in awe. When we were in Nairobi, we sat and watched the people go by just as we had the elephants and birds and giraffes. We’d often sit in silence, knowing that the cultural safari was best experienced without the gaudy commentary of tourists.
We were excited and respectful when we were there, befriending our guides and tasting the food, but I recognise in us that detached-proximity that sets aside the family adventure from the solo research trip. That group mentality meant we bonded with one another as outsiders in a foreign land, rather than becoming completely immersed in the country. Since our trip, I have often said that I would like to live and work in Nairobi. This may just mean I have inherited my mother’s habit of declaring that every place she visits is her spiritual home, but it also inscribes a desire to experience Nairobi as an insider.
“Have you ever travelled alone, Kate?” Frances asks me. Timidly I reply that I haven’t. “I’ve got big plans to, though!” I squeal as an afterthought. I tell her about my affair with Nairobi, my scattered plans to learn Swahili and about how my sister is learning Arabic. She smiles warmly; wryly. I think I detect the shrewd look of someone who has fallen in love with Africa before, and I can only hope that one day I shall know it so well as she.
“Being alone allows you to watch and to settle into a culture”, Frances said. And therein lies the secret of the Lonely Planet. To ward off the utter loneliness of travelling a country alone, you are forced to adapt to that country’s way of living in whichever capacity you can. By necessity, the lone traveller must dive into the language, the scenery, the local society in a way that is just not possible when you have the comfort of familiar company. The lone traveller, in being so far from home, is actually not alone at all. They are in a better position to camouflage themselves into the cultural landscape.
Frances has only ever travelled in a group once. As she trawled through an Aztec village in South America, her only soundtrack was the woman beside her complaining about the price of lamb in London. A boyfriend proved no better travel companion; he wanted to laze about in hotels and she wanted to get up before dawn to explore. She had never felt more alone in either of these situations. Lost baggage, upset tummies, miscommunication, shoddy travel bookings and encounters with local wildlife are all part of the adventure if you are in the right company. But if you make the wrong choice, companionship is empty, even a burden. Is travelling alone the answer?
Travelling alone as a woman is something we often perceive as dangerous, especially in Middle Eastern countries. Western paradigms dictate that women are vulnerable, that Middle Eastern men mistreat ‘their’ women and that ‘our’ women are at risk if unaccompanied by a male guardian. Frances believes otherwise. “It’s the most hospitable place in the world” she said, “You meet someone, you go back for lunch, you become lifelong friends”.
The anonymity afforded by the cover of a burqa meant that Frances could observe without being observed; free to take in her surroundings without parading her obvious ‘foreignness’. She loved being exempt from vanity for that time, not having to worry about hair and make-up. Further to this, she says the power dynamics between men and women are not what people imagine. “Women tend to be the rulers”, she said “they decide on the children’s education, food, family... it’s not at all a situation where they are cheaper than camels.
Women should never be afraid to go anywhere. If anything, femininity is a help not a hindrance when travelling. They don’t see you as a threat. People look out for you. They’re curious; they want to know who you are, why you’re on your own, where you’re going. You can more easily make that transition from being on the outside looking in, to the inside, within the culture.”
While in Saudi Arabia, Frances discovered the Saudi tradition that a man cannot refuse help to a woman in need. She very quickly felt like a spoilt princess, all at once poignantly aware of the convenience of gendered protection. She concedes that her experience was unique, but maintains the belief that this glittering hospitality reflects a gentle and exquisite culture that welcomes foreigners, rather than endangering them.
This is a short excerpt from her diary in Saudi Arabia:
During the remaining days’ research in Riyadh, and following an interview with a minister, I found myself passed like a parcel between princes. The hospitality was such that I found I had only to show the slightest interest in a subject, the least liking, and my ‘wishes’ were granted or dreams became true.
One day, Aladdin-like, I murmured imprudently about the ancient art of falconry. The very next day, I found myself being flown first-class to a nature reserve north of Najran to see a royal falconry display staged especially for me. On muttering about camels, I was whisked away to a camel beauty contest outside Riyadh and given a personal tour of the princes’ favourites.
Saudi Arabia. Quite possibly the most frustrating and fantastic, demanding and dream-like assignment I had ever had. Were it not for the sand still in my camera bag, I would never have believed I’d been there at all.
...An entirely different sentiment to the following warning:
Following attacks on foreigners, western governments are warning against non-essential travel to Saudi Arabia. If you are staying in the country, avoid public places where Westerners are known to congregate, ensure that your hotel has a good reputation for maintaining high security precautions and stay abreast of travel advisory updates.
Of course we must be cautious in choosing where and when we travel. ‘American’, ‘British’ and even ‘Australian’ are dirty words in places where our governments have clashed and there is little sense in laughing in the face of genuine danger. What we should be able to do is carry both Frances’ unbridled awe and government- inspired caution with us in our travels. Person-to-person encounters chip away at broader cultural disharmony and we can only really understand the workings of the international community if we make one.
We cannot make qualitative judgments about the level of someone’s cultural infiltration, nor their motive for travelling. I am not purporting to define what makes a good trip or what makes a good traveller; I am speculating about the nature of travelling and the way you could best get to know a country well enough to function as a guide to it; an expert. Because that is, after all, what Frances does. With every assignment, she is literally commissioned to become an authority on a place. Not a tourist who jots down their favourite cafe, hoards their train tickets and has a nap some days instead of going exploring, but an expert writing for the highest selling travel guidebook publisher in the world.
The Lonely Planet website is as extensive as any will you will find. It has reams of information on any destination, budget, site, author, accommodation, transport or suggestions you could ever want (subject only to my excitable exaggeration). You need never leave your computer, if a cornucopia of photos and videos satisfies your travel desires. But surely, travelling vicariously like this amounts to a greater sense of loneliness than exploring a country; Lonely Planet book in hand. “There’s something about a book” said Frances, “It’s kind of a dairy. The more tattered they get the more you want to save them. My notebook was eaten by a parrot but I love it because the bite marks remind me of the trip”.
Lonely Planet is an icon. Financial Times (UK) writer Nick Edwards wrote that “whether on the streets of Bangkok or Barcelona, the image of a young traveller looking for somewhere to stay or eat is almost incomplete without a well thumbed copy of Lonely Planet”. The brand is so embedded in the discourse of cross-cultural adventure that it has become hugely political. Lonely Planet released an 84-page Guide to Israel just before the current Middle Eastern crisis broke out. They were reprimanded for even writing a Guide to Burma, and rumour has it that guides to China are confiscated at the border.
Lonely Planet Guidebooks may have political ramifications, but they are also deeply personal. They are a companion and a souvenir; emblems of a trend towards cosmopolitanism. They keep the lone traveller company and they settle arguments between co-travellers. They sit patiently in our backpacks until we consult them for the right directions, they comfort us when we are lost. They take us where others have been before and they’re reworked and re-released when people don’t want to go there anymore. They tell us the basics about a place so we don’t make complete fools of ourselves and they’re helpful when deciding what to pack.
They are our way of abating the potential loneliness of travelling this Lovely Planet of ours.