Dark Travels - Stories From Tony Wheeler

One of the other sessions of the Melbourne Writers Festival was both travel, and book related, and fed my travel bug big time!

The stand out session for me was a free one at the Wheeler Centre, to listen to Tony Wheeler talk about his travels to "Dark Lands" and his new book about the same. Tony Wheeler is the name behind the Wheeler Centre, but also, of course, the co-founder of Lonely Planet.

You can just imagine the travel stories he has collected over the years! And he shared so many of them, sitting on stage sipping red wine, telling story after story. Amazing!

He talked about the concept of “Dark Travel”, being  ‘misery travel’, which is in fact getting a bit of travel blogger focus and attention of late. Places like visiting Hiroshima and Dachau count within one angle of this idea, but what Tony is talking about is places like Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, the Congo and Colombia. He travelled to a bunch of these places for this new book, to have more current stories for it. And then revisited them again, also within the process.

Tony stated that ‘places with problems are always more interesting’. He talked about the opportunity to ‘marvel at the mess we make of things’, like Chernobyl, and how people and communities get through to the other side.

Tony claimed that the Congo was the darkest – and yet the biggest and most fascinating country to travel around. He talked about how it’s been a disaster area from the start, to today, and yet a ‘wonderful country to travel around’. Plus, so many great books have come out of it, from the Heart of Darkness to (one of my favourite reads) The Poisonwood Bible. He also added that he was told that a trip to the police station there was as much a part of the travel experience in the Congo, as speaking bad French in France is!

Tony claimed that North Korea, followed by Saudi Arabia were the “maddest” places to travel to. Colombia, he said, was the place that has most turned itself around between these visits for this book.

He told the full room that he in fact spent his first 5 years of life in Pakistan, and two of his siblings were born there. 'Great to have on your passport' he quipped! Tony says that Pakistan has all of the things that people travel to India for. Made me think of standing at the gates between India and Pakistan at the border, hoping that one day we could travel around there to watch an Australian cricket tour.....and experience this land I know so little about. One day.

Tony told stories about figuring out the process to get his visa to go to Somaliland, and claimed that such crazy and bizarre processes is 'what makes travel to these places so much more fun'! He also told of the usual markings of travelling to a Dark Lands is surely the fact that your flight arrives at the 'arid time of 3am'. Ahhh, there are a few of those places around the world, indeed!

He touched on the idea of female travellers to these places, in response to an audience question. Tony reminded the room that Western women in many of the places he had talked about find themselves in the unique position of being between the elevated status with men, just for being from the West, but then also being able to connect with the women of such a place. He said that this status can lead to such great experiences and insights!

An audience member asked about the selling of Lonely Planet, and he graciously explained some of the pitfalls of the initial sale, and the status now - and the fact that whilst they had a passion for guidebooks, they 'don't have the stomach for the internet', which is where such travel books are now.

Another question from the floor dealt with the notion that Lonely Planet has changed many places, by publishing recommendations. Like Bali. Tony agrees that they 'were one of the many influences that changed places like Bali', but also spoke of the need to work with the changes, and be happy for the people and communities when things have gone well for them, or have changed for the better. He also talked about an interest in going to such places to see what went wrong in the tourism boom, and whether there are ways for a community to work through such lessons for the better.

Stories and anecdote after another, it was such an enchanting session! Tony spoke of Iran as a place people should visit - where 'poets are revered' and where 'people sit around drinking tea and quoting poetry'. He also urged the Australian audience to visit places closer to home, like East Timor, which is 'a place that needs more tourists, to help their economy'.

What an inspiring man, writer, and traveller! 

Development Verses Tradition

One of the sessions I went along to last month for the Melbourne Writers Festival was hosted by One Just World, and was a discussion about international development, and it's role in supporting or harming a community's culture and language. A panel discussion, the members were drawn from Timor-Leste (Abel Guterres, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, to Australia, New Zealand and Republic of Fiji), Indonesia (Butet Manurung, co-founder of SOKOLA and author of The Jungle School), and Australian academia, in linguistics (Simon Musgrave, School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash Uni) and economics (Stephen Pollard, formerly of the Asian Development Bank).

The discussion centered around the difficult balance between helping and harming; between good intentions and wanting to go into Developing communities to help, and the impact of that action on the community's unique culture, customs and language.

The notion of swooping in, meeting a donor's or NGO's own agenda, can have such ripple effects on a community. The English language was identified as a dominant language in Development, associated with power and success; but can encourage a dilution of culture and a dying of unique languages.

Abel pointed out that in fact, those of us who are monolingual with just English are in fact the world's minority, with most of the world's population having more than one language. Simon talked about Rwanda as an example of the fact that homogeneity of language does not actually lead to peace. Betut reminded us that if a language dies out for a community, than much of their culture and customs die with it. Preserving cultures and languages is so crucial to Development, and working with communities in a mindful, respectful and sustainable manner.

Participation, education and informed choice were highlighted as the keys to sustainable and meaningful Development for the very people such work is aimed to help. Abel talked about how without having villagers being part of a project being delivered, by them being part of the digging of the trenches needed, when the Aid organisation has moved on, the village is not personally invested in what remains to keep the project functional, to repair it and build on from it. Ensuring people are part of the growth, the change, and the development, is crucial.

The Economist in Stephen reminded us all that 'Development is all about people'. Abel talked about how communities already know their own needs; they know what they need to move forward. Agencies need to ensure that they are involved and empowered to be part of any development, to ensure the community's culture and customs are maintained, whilst making sure the intervention done is what is wanted, needed, and will be an ongoing help to the people.

These discussions really made me reflect on International Development, and how such movement and "assistance" may impact the communities I visited in Burma. Walking through the hillside villages towards Kalaw the reality of the isolation and self-sufficiency was all encompassing. Apart from groups of trekkers like myself, and a couple of trips into town to get supplies across the month, these communities have very little contact with the wider world. As I walked through, it struck me whether they would want intervention to change their ways of life. Yes, they work the fields for their families, and have so very little in comparison to the Western world. But they were also so friendly, content, welcoming and good-natured. They have no electricity at night, but they all come in together to prepare and share the evening meal. The children do their chores before walking to school, and live a pretty safe existence.

Walking through these villages, we went through at least three areas of different tribal languages. What impact would a roll-in of Development have on such communities – the dominance of English, introduction of Western customs, potentially the religious affiliations of NGOs...

It also brought back the mixed feelings I had when I was in Phnom Penh earlier this year, after my time there 10 years ago. So much has changed there for the Khmers, and yet so much of the undercurrent of poverty, oppression and fear is still there. Has International Development really done what it set out to do for Cambodia?

This session has reignited my want to be more involved in International Development, in meaningful, collaborative, capacity building, participatory discourse – in work, in conversations, in thoughts and current issue awareness.