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Email from Linda Anchell
I was on the RY268 trip in 1971. We went from London in February.
I have a list of passengers and the crew that I will copy below. Also photos of the bus, left behind at Lahore with Travers Cox (driver) and Margret Zimmerman (courier). We passengers hopped across the India Pakistan border to Amritsar to meet with another bus. The border was closed because of the recent India Pakistan war.
I can get the photos up on my web site or send a few to you. I won't send any until I hear back from one of you.Its great to see the site, and have great memories revived!
A few years ago I was contacted by another of Penn's passengers who had seen something I had written about my trip. I will have to go into the archives to find him. I'm sure he would be interested in your website and may have more information for you.
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| Hi Derek,
Here are some names and recolections. I have a detailed diary and clour slides back in Vanuatu. I am in NZ at present.
Geoff, driver.
Des, mechanic - Aussie
Andrew, passenger, doctor from Melbourne I think + wife
Two nurses from Oz
Ted Day, a Kiwi who went to live on the Chatham Islands, NZ
Bob Mulligan (me) + Lynne (who shot through 3 years later and has our photos of people)
Mother + daughter form Canada.
A tall skinny guy from Queenstown NZ. He was older than most of us. Someone Bird I think. Nice guy but quiet.
A young English school leaver (name?) doing his OE who got dehydrated and was confined to Jammu hospital, poor fellow, while the rest of us went to Kashmir for a week and lazed about on house boats, then he had too many hash cookies in Kathmandu and nearly died a second time!
I nearly died three times on that trip, in Kabul, Delhi and Kathmandu - too much Tibetan fungus in my Golden Dragon Special at the Golden Dragon restaurant and recuperated in a mission hospital for two weeks at Am Pipal in the Gurkha district (still have the trekking permit) somewhere up river from Dumre Bazaar. I was so weak the porter nearly had to carry me too. Should have stayed at Aunt Jane's!
But lived to continue the journey a month later on my own via Calcutta, Bangkok, train to Butterworth etc via KL to Singapore then Jakarta by 3rd class rail (the coffee was good) via Bandung, Jogakarta, Surabaya, to Denpassar, Bali - then Merpati airlines ("You think that is a Rolls Royce out your window", my Aussie mate said as the aging Hawker Sidley sputtered over the shark infested Torres strait "but I'm sure mine is a bloody Holden!!" So we reassured each other and survived that perilous journey to Oz which started in severe Monsoon rainstorm conditions, via West Timor to Darwin which had been flattened by Tropical Cyclone Tracy 11 months before, then next day (nothing to do there) with an Australian airline that no longer exists via Mt Isa and Brisbane to Sydney ("There goes a bloody guru" a tall Aussie customs officer said to his mate as I departed - I had a big beard, was as skinny as a rake, wore Thai Buddist monk sandles, an Indian shirt, worn jeans, a worn out backpack cast-off from some ill-fated Everest expedition I guess, carrying a huge Chinese coolie hat under my arm - but a big happy smile on my face - I had just had the best 5 months of my life - thanks to Swagman Tours!!) and across the ditch to Auckland then train to Wellington my home at that time.
I got sidetracked...
Plus various other persons on board Eastbound Swagman July something 1975 + exactly 80 days I recall, London to Kathmandu.
I have slides of most places including one with the bus and people at the desert lighthouse somewhere outback on the route to Bam. I remember a solitary Pakistani emerging from a mirage, pushing his bicycle along the railway track between Bam and Zahedan I think - heading to America I guess!!
Maybe I should compile some kind of report of that journey with a few more anecdotes, then track down Ted Day to see what he remembers. I have just turned 60 but my memory is still reasonably intact.
Thanks again Derek.
All the best.
Rob
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