On a shoestring to Coorg Book

Dervla Murphy is one of my heroes. An Irish woman, she has travelled the world on a shoestring, getting around by foot, donkey and bicycle. I first came across her work when I was looking information about Africa and took The Ukimwi Road: From Kenya to Zimbabwe out of the library. Fascinating reading, with much to say about Central Africa, including how AIDS was transmitted along a major international highway, and, well before the horrible genocide in Rwanda, the way that Tutsis, pushed out of Rwanda in an earlier conflict, were waiting in Uganda to return.

This time I was looking for portraits of South India for my next book project. (Called Unidentical Twins, it will compare various political entities that are the same yet very different, including the Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.) During the trip that Murphy recounts in this book, she takes her five year old daughter on the pair's first major expedition, and the account is fascinating. They travel very light: two backpacks, one small enough for little Rachel to carry, and that's it. The time is December and January 1973-74, and while they have contacts to visit, the pair are very much on their own.

Rachel is a trooper, as is her Mum. They have mishaps--including a bout of brucellosis, not a disease you mess with--but they see people, places and things that few Western travellers did at that point. Travelling with a child opens new possibilities too.

Well into her 80s, Murphy continues to travel. Rachel's early experiences apparently had no bad effects: one of Murphy's most recent books tells of her travels with Rachel and Rachel's three daughters in Cuba, The Island That Dared: Journeys in Cuba. That one sounds like it should be good to read in this post-Fidel Castro days.