Dangerous Roads

Dangerous Roads

It's never good to boast or brag about ones achievements. Nonetheless I couldn't resist a little bit of boastfulness recently. It came about like this: on returning from our trip to Georgia I was looking for details of one of the stages we had cycled. Over the 2620m Zagari pass. I found all the information I needed on a site for 4wd enthusiasts and this comment: “ Any driver attempting this route should have supreme confidence in their vehicle and their driving skills”. By chance this same mountain track was featured in a TV programme 'The Worlds Most Dangerous Roads' a few days later. This was my chance to impress my car orientated family, friends and acquaintances living in England. Most of them, I fear, would prefer to have bicycles banned from the roads altogether. They find it more an eccentricity than an achievement or adventure that I spend my summers cycling up and down mountains in obscure countries. 

Well it worked...this time they were impressed.

Now, if you promise not to tell, here's the truth: on a mountain bike this road wasn't particularly frightening.
It was certainly tough going and physically demanding but not specially difficult or dangerous. For a bike the roads were wide enough, we didn't have to cycle along the very edge of the ravines and we could easily avoid fallen rocks. Without taking any risks I was much faster going downhill, and sometimes on the flat sections, than the motorized vehicles.

I tend to think that our vacations are a little more adventurous than most peoples but a lot less adventurous than others. Even then any reputation we may have for being adventurous travellers is largely based on the public perception of the places we visit.

Slovenia, a small,peaceful country a lot like Austria but with fewer tourists and nowhere near as many geraniums, is (or was) associated with Croatia, Kosova, Serbia, Bosnia and all the violence and atrocities that went with the break up of Yugoslavia. Most people have not even heard of Kyrgyzstan but it does have -stan at the end of its name so it must be a scary place! Romania, many people think, is full of thieves, bandits, pick-pockets and dodgy builders. Georgia, is associated with Russian aggression and organised crime syndicates. Despite these preconceptions, except for the odd attack by stray- dogs and being given the evil-eye by a gypsy women, we have not felt threatened or unsafe in any of these places.

Taking the number of murders per 100,000 inhabitants, per year, as a rough indication of the level of violence: Central Asia & Eastern Europe, the regions we have mostly visited  the last few years, score just 5.8 and 5.9 respectively which is certainly a little more than Western Europe (0.9) but far less than Southern Africa (31), Central America (26.5) and South America (22.6). In Tbilisi, capital of Georgia, the murder rate is 5.0: which is less than New York (5.6) and not much more than Amsterdam at 4.4. Inhabitants of Detroit or New Orleans are at least four times more likely to get murdered if they stay at home than if they visit Kyrgyzstan.

So the roads we travel and the countries we visit are not as dangerous as they at first appear. Perhaps we are not so adventurous after all! Ah well – one man's adventure is another man's walk in the park and vice versa and we do have our exciting and scary moments. This year they mostly involved travelling by bus, taxi, car or bicycle in Tbilisi. Just crossing the road was at times good for a serious adrenaline rush. The fact is, worldwide, assuming you avoid war zones, there is far more chance that you will be involved in a road accident than an act of violence. Sticking with Georgia for the moment, the number of fatal traffic accidents per 100,000 inhabitants, is 15.7, compared with the national murder rate of 4.3. In Slovenia there are 6.6 road fatalities compared to 0.7 murders. Greece 9.1 compared to 1.7, in the UK you are three times more likely to die in an accident than as a result of a violent crime.

 

Official travel advice for foreign travel will stress that you must beware of pickpockets when using local public transport but they don't usually state what the risks are of getting knocked down by a bus!
There are well known, common sense steps and precautions one should take when travelling: stay out of certain neighbourhoods, avoid demonstrations and don't wear your diamonds when visiting street markets for example. From experience I would add, especially after dark, watch out for unmarked excavations and missing manhole covers...
...but above all, travelling anywhere and everywhere : be very, very careful crossing roads.

             

Ostrich Time

Ostrich Time

It is a widely held belief that when confronted by unpleasantness or danger ostriches bury their head in the sand hoping that the danger will pass. Although this is a myth the concept has past into our languages. The Dutch have named the activity of avoiding inconvenient or unpleasant issues after this large flightless bird: The Ostrich Policy (Struisvogelpolitiek ). In English we talk of ' burying our head in the sand' in order to avoid uncomfortable facts.

It is the beginning of September, most our friends have returned from their summer holiday, or vacation if you prefer. We all have stories to tell, some more interesting than others, and we have photographs, lots of them, taken with tablets, smartphones and, how old fashioned, even cameras. It was my intention to write about our recent adventures in Georgia but instead I found myself considering holidays /vacations in general. According to the definitions, holidays or vacations, have an element of getting away from something, work or study for instance. A period of rest and recreation free of duties and requirements.

My first reaction is to say that I rarely feel the need to 'get away from it all', that my motives are far more positive, a desire to visit people and places, see new things and to stretch my horizons. However, on further consideration I have to admit there are several things that I am glad to get away from, if only for a while, and that my choice of destinations, to a certain extent, reflect this:

Grumbling, complaining and moaning.

The first thing that I am increasingly glad to escape from is all the grumbling and complaining I hear around me every day. The Netherlands has to be one of the best regulated countries in the world, at least when compared to most other nations, it has a well developed infrastructure, health service, welfare service, education system and a reliable and varied supply of energy. The measurable quality of life is high...and yet..the Dutch are habitual complainers. The British are no better, a few years ago there was a popular TV series 'Grumpy Old Men' followed by ' Grumpy Old Women', middle aged and older TV personalities would air their discontent on various subjects. These programmes were entertaining, witty and amusing but they also highlighted a national characteristic: the British, and especially the English, enjoy a good moan!

It seems to me that, up to a point, the less people have the less they complain.

To be honest I enjoy travelling in places where the electricity supply is erratic, roads are blocked by rocks or livestock, bridges are in a constant state of repair and where the water is temporarily unavailable and may or may not be hot when it does becomes available. It's all part of the fun. However what I really admire is the way the local inhabitants take these setbacks in their stride, a slight shrug of their shoulders and maybe an apologetic smile “ Ah well - that's the way things are around here”, they indicate... then they get on with their lives without complaining. What's the point – it doesn't help!

Choice
It may seem a bit perverse but another thing I like to leave behind, but not for too long, is my ability to choose. Honestly! Shopping in a store that, due to poor infrastructure, inadequate distribution system or its remote location, has a limited selection of products can be very refreshing.
Having just two sorts of shampoo or biscuits to choose from instead of sixty makes life very easy, especially if you can't read the packaging. And even if it does turn out that the blue bottle wasn't shampoo after all at least you had a fifty-fifty chance. Purchasing your daily needs based on availability rather than choice makes for simple, quick and efficient shopping trips. With fewer options to consider there is no need for lengthy discussions and therefore more time over for other, more important things, like drinking beer on a bench outside the shop.

Having said that, shopping in less developed countries or districts can actually increase the choice if you are travelling light! Often products like instant coffee sachets, tea bags or disposable razors, that you would normally have to buy in larger quantities, can be purchased individually.

24/7 News

It is often on the way home from a trip that it suddenly occurs to me that I haven't read a newspaper, listened to a radio or watched any television for several weeks and that I hadn't missed any of them. Well, I may have glanced fleetingly at a TV screen in a café but it would have been tuned to football or MTV. This summer the news was as bad as ever and maybe even more depressing than usual. Air disasters, riots, uprisings, revolutions, executions and genocide. Images of hate, violence and misery. Stories of whole populations killed, injured or on the run. All these news items accompanied by, ...and this is what I am most glad to get away from,... hours of opinion, conjecture, speculation and the endless repetition that is apparently necessary to feed the twenty-four hour news machine.
Whew! No it is never good to be ignorant or uninformed but sometimes, just for a while, it does feel good to take an Ostrich style time-out and bury ones head in the sand!!