On our first day, we left late because the keys to the passenger section of the truck were lost (and not found until the end of the tour), and we used up two hours doing groceries across the border in Zambia. We spent the rest of the day driving as quickly as possible on rough roads and didn’t stop until it began getting dark.

The unexpected stress of celebrity

After a brutal ride our butts will never forget, we drove into a village where Charles asked if we could camp in exchange for supplies we would donate to the school. This was completely different than what the first overland company we used, Nomad,  had done. It supported the school we visited by buying breakfast for all of the school children for everyday of the year and the supplies the travellers donated were just extra gifts.

The chief said yes and the village kids, about 50 of them, swarmed all over the place greeting us. This was fun at first as they were very excited, welcoming and curious about us. But we had to hurry to set up as it was getting dark very quickly – pitch dark because there was no electricity in the village – and the truck lights didn’t illuminate a large area.

We set up our tents, mattresses and our gear – not knowing whether it was safer to leave stuff in the unlockable truck or in our unloackable tents. Charles had warned us to keep a close eye on our belongings. And seeing how poorly dressed  the kids were, you couldn’t blame them for wanting anything we had.

One kid was particularly unnerving with his constant requests for money and ignoring our answers that we were giving to the school rather than to individuals. Of course Charles had no idea how to deal with him. And we realized how paltry our donations were in comparison to the one made by the other tour company we had used.

Big, bad, white tourists

Charles, the clueless guide, could also have learned from the first company by having us camp away from the villages we visited. That way, we would have imposed less on our hosts and caused less stress to ourselves. Dinner time only brought more anxiety as our guide cooked our meal on an open fire while the kids watched. They were obviously very curious – and likely, very hungry.

None of us could deal with eating a meal in front of these famished children so Charles had to ask them to leave. I suppose it was unreasonable for us to want him to feed them all. All the more reason our guide and driver – and especially the tour company – should have planned for a camping site away from a poor village.

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Read more about our three-week overland tour in next week’s Baby Boomers Traveling.

You can get daily Travel News and Tips and Baby Boomer Fast Facts through your Facebook page by going to DorisGallan. You may also follow on Twitter by clicking here: BoomerTraveling.

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Making an overland journey to Africa can be accomplished, for most people, only with the assistance of tour operators. And so, it was with great expectations of a trouble-free trip that we purchased a three-week overland tour of East Africa from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe to Nairobi, Kenya in 2007. The most important reasons for choosing an overland tour was to have a knowledgeable guide, safe and reliable transportation, and someone to arrange game drives and tours.

An overland tour is simply a tour in a truck outfitted with passenger seats, a camp kitchen and storage space for weeks of food, water, tents, mattresses and everyone’s gear. The great thing about this type of rig is that it doesn’t need to stay on marked highways or roads and so can go off to where villages and game preserves are located.

This was our second such overland trip in Africa so we had a pretty good idea of what to expect: long drives on back roads, usually unpaved and consisting of washboard gravel; bush camps with no facilities; limited access to modern conveniences such as communications, media and western toilets/showers; but also visits to villages untouched by modern life; and more wild animals than you have the right to hope for.

We booked our two overland trips one after the other for a total of five weeks but, fearing that it might be too much with one company, we decided to hedge our bets by changing tour provider after two weeks with the first. We paid more for the second and what we got for our extra money was: 1. a guide so unprepared and inexperienced that, if this hadn’t been Africa, it would have been laughable, 2. a whole new standard of horrid transportation, and 3. a lot more danger as our tour sub-contracted with an unfit safari provider.

Clueless Charles, Our Guide

We hadn’t left our group’s meeting place when Charles first demonstrated his talents. On our first morning, our departure was delayed because someone had misplaced the keys to the passenger area of the truck. But, because this would be too embarrassing to admit, no one told us what was going on. The hours dragged on while the dozen or so tour clients sat around drinking coffee wondering what had happened to our early departure time.

Our first stop that day took place half an hour after we’d left the campground: across the border in Zambia at a grocery store to stock up for the first week. Two hours later, we were finally rolling on the highway towards our first destination. We had to make a campground some seven or eight hours away and we only had five hours of daylight left meaning we’d be setting up camp in the dark.

Overland trucks, I may have failed to mention, aren’t really retrofitted with passenger comfort in mind: the shocks aren’t great, the seats are just okay, and there weren’t seat belts so people were being bounced two, three feet up into the air with every major bump.

And just to add to our sense of discomfort about our guide’s knowledge, Charles asked to borrow our guide books “just to see what they say about the area we’re in.”

Read more about Charles and all the fun we had on our three-week overland tour in next week’s Baby Boomers Traveling.

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You can get daily Travel News and Tips and Baby Boomer Fast Facts through your Facebook page by going to dorisgallan. You may also follow on Twitter by clicking here: BoomerTraveling.

If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the envelope next to the word ‘subscribe’ at the top of the left-hand menu. You will receive notification by e-mail every time this blog is updated. I solemnly swear to never sell, trade or give away your information to anyone!

Cars are safer than tuk tuks, but they get stuck in traffic. Buses are cheaper, but they really get stuck in traffic. Motorcycles are faster – they don’t get stuck in traffic – but you can’t fit two passengers, their backpacks and a driver (contrary to what they tell you and what the locals actually will fit onto their motorcycles and scooters).

But even among the lowly tuk tuks, there is competition not only for your fare but also for the tip you might give if you arrive at your destination quickly. Pushing their motors for all they can give, the drivers will race past pedestrians, bicyclists and rickshaws – and, if you are lucky, other tuk tuks – at speed topping 25 miles per hour.

The name tuk tuk comes from the noise the usually-overworked motors make when chugging along. They are sometimes called mottos, although this is also used for motorcycles or scooters which also can carry four or five people on what Westerners would consider a seat for two. The more aristocratic sounding ‘auto-rickshaw’ is essentially the same thing as a tuk tuk but, in some countries, it differentiates the modern vehicles from the old-fashioned human-powered ones usually pulled by very old men who cannot afford to add the ‘auto’ to their rickshaws. In Indonesia, they are called Bajaj – again the same thing as a tuk tuk – except more crowded, dirtier and more reluctantly hired.

Tuk tuks are a fusion of motorcycle and sidecar except that the sidecar is actually behind, not beside, the two-wheeled vehicle. These are more like a little trailer than a sidecar and can seat as few as two people or as many as a whole family crammed tight with some of the kids hanging out the back and sides. Tourists – needing more space and having more money – usually limit themselves to two or three to a vehicle.

They are sometimes constructed with the front end of a motorcycle attached to a small box resting atop an axle. The box usually has one or two seats and can be completely open or may have curtains to enclose it during bad weather. Some vehicles are just a box as described above except that it’s attached to a normal motorcycle whose seat is removed to reveal a hitch. These are common in Cambodia and permit the driver to offer a ride in his tuk tuk to, for example, the airport for three U.S. dollars. When you refuse, he can offer to drive you on his motorcycle alone for half the price!

Some tuk tuks are beautifully decorated with colorful paint, plastic flowers, as well as portraits and statuettes of gods and goddesses. Some are given names that reveal more about the driver’s dreams for future greatness than the experience tourists can anticipate ridding in the vehicle. Popular names include: Sanjay’s Heaven, Paulo’s Limo and Seventh Heaven. I have yet to see, however, a bumper sticker stating “My Other Tuk Tuk is a BMW”.

So why is the other tuk tuk always faster? First, tuk tuks are invariably parked when their drivers offer their services so that the potential client has no idea how well the vehicle runs until he is crawling to his destination at turtle-speed. Second, tourists tend to negotiate the original price down (knowing that the touts have tripled the price for Westerners) leading to drivers to go slow to economize on gasoline.

While tourist-filled vehicles are marginally faster than those with locals as they are less weighed down, your own two-person tuk tuk will invariably be passed by all one-passenger, some two-client ones as well as all customer-free tuk tuks. Something to keep in mind when you wonder why “are all the other tuk tuks are faster than mine?”

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First, let me say that I’m sorry for all of you boomers who 1. Waited until later to have children or have children from subsequent marriages who are still in school; 2. Are school teachers (including two of my sisters and many of my friends); and/or 3. Are raising their grandchildren (a number of my friends). Your turn will come when you’ll be able to travel during the fall boomer travel season.

For the rest of you, whose children are either old enough to take care of themselves, are away from home or are just not your responsibility anymore, start planning your travels for September, October and early November.

This time of year represents the worse time for the travel industry which, in turn, makes it the best time for us: the travelers. After the summer vacations ends, hotels empty out and planes have fewer passengers except for business travelers. That leads to special rates and fares to attract consumers often with bonus gifts thrown in.

Peace and quiet returns to beaches that are almost empty, to national park trails where birds can once again be heard, to museums that can be enjoyed, and to restaurants where a meal can be savored uninterrupted by a five-year-old child crawling around your legs.

The next few weeks may even see a reduction in air fares, hotel rates and other travel-related prices as the optimism of early summer appears to have been premature and a reversal of fortunes may soon become apparent. Take advantage of lower prices while you can – they won’t last!

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Some travelers will tell you they simply won’t let politics interfere with their enjoyment of a country and culture. But how can you visit an area knowing your money is supporting a regime that keeps its people enslaved through poverty, lack of education, health care and the basic needs of survival?

Reasons Not To Go

Human rights organizations and other non-governmental bodies often issue pleas asking tourists to stay away from locales such as Burma/Myanmar, Tibet and Israel in protest against the treatment of minorities or in support of imprisoned political leaders.

Governments may prohibit travel to countries which, for some people, makes it easy as they simply won’t go against the law. The USA’s 50-year embargo against Cuba, however, is seen by many Americans as a politically-indefensible and immoral stance and keeping within the law is for them a greater wrong than breaking it.

What of countries in which a large part of the community is marginalize by laws or traditions?  Women, children and persons with disabilities usually bear the brunt of the abuse a society heaps onto its less fortunate.

India’s social caste system, the conservative Arab world’s treatment of women, as well as a well-developed child-prostitution industry in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Thailand, Vietnam and countless other countries might make vacationers think twice about going to these destinations – assuming they are aware of the existence of the issues.

Decision-Making Resources

If your travel destination choices are giving you second thoughts, check out on-line resources that explain the issues as well as the severity of the situation in various locations around the world. You may find that you can actually do some good while you are there by frequenting locally-owned, small businesses, by volunteering on a project or, if requested to do so by an organization by reporting back on a local situation.

Human Rights Watch provides information on a broad range of issues including anti-terrorism actions that impinge on human rights, women’s and children’s rights, gay rights and more: http://www.hrw.org/

Tourism Concern also works on children rights as well as on the issues of environmental damage especially as related to the construction of golf courses, displacement of communities as a result of tourism, water abuse, cultural conflicts, exploitation of women, working conditions, and climate change: www.tourismconcern.org.uk/

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If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the envelope next to the word ‘subscribe’ at the top of the left-hand menu. You will receive notification by e-mail every time this blog is updated. I solemnly swear to never sell, trade or give away your information to anyone!