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Remote Places

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We’ve all had a go at getting away from it all. But for Nicolas Kinloch, it’s become a lifelong quest, taking him to some of the remotest places on earth. Here he considers what it is that keeps those restless feet moving

Remote-places-6Once people learn that you travel in unusual places, there are always two things they want to know. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever eaten? And what are the toilets like? Two questions, of course, with a fairly obvious connection. The truth is that most of the time I stick to much the same sort of bland diet I eat in England. I’ve sometimes been accused of only liking food that doesn’t really taste of anything. If so, there’s good reason: unlike many travellers, I almost never suffer from an upset stomach. But I don’t want to disappoint people. So I tell them about eating maggots in West Papua. They were big ones, about four inches long, and you could have them live or cooked. I always point out that after a week of eating sago – a local staple with the appearance and texture of saliva – maggots were a thrilling addition to the leaf I was using as a plate.

Or I’ll tell them about the least pleasing foodstuff I’ve ever had to look at: a boiled bat, in Madagascar. Placed on top of a huge pile of rice, its little wings looked like folded umbrellas after a heavy storm.
I poked at it a bit, and then buried it under the rice. People in Madagascar eat more rice per person than anywhere else in the world; I’ve never been more grateful. I’ve also eaten seal blubber in Greenland, though I could have had cereals and milk if I’d wanted to. (Blubber, by the way, looks like a mass of blood-streaked lard, and is about as appetising.) I’ve eaten things in China which I couldn’t have identified without guidance from a local zoo. In various other places I’ve eaten snake, monkey, guinea-pig, dog and porcupine, as well as an unusual variety of insects. And all of them have caused me fewer problems, and aroused less revulsion, than the prospect of eating such common English foods as liver, honey or – a particular horror – shellfish of any description.

Remote-places-3As for toilets, I don’t worry too much about them. It’s true I don’t much like the open-air communal box-type that used to be such an unattractive feature of northern China: not knowing Mandarin, I hadn’t much to say to my unknown companions. Anyway, I was too unsure of the etiquette to start a conversation. I’ve certainly seen some loos which could have done with, shall we say, some basic maintenance: I took a long look at one on a train in northern Nigeria and decided that things would have to wait. But I long ago gave up travelling with a huge roll of loo-paper in my bag; I taught myself to do what many people in the developing world do. I won’t go into details; it involves the left hand and a lot of water.

I don’t want to suggest, however, that I’ve always been this intrepid. When I was young, and travelling on Mexico’s Pacific coast, I once had to visit the local facilities in the middle of the night. These consisted of a large pit, over which was suspended an alarmingly flexible bamboo pole. Apart from needing the athletic skills of Olga Korbut just to get on it – and I don’t believe she had to perform with a torch in her teeth – I became uneasily aware that the pole was dipping lower all the time. As I sat swaying in the darkness, I became aware of a truly horrendous noise from the pit below. Shining my torch down between my legs, I caught sight of a large pig directly below, its mouth open. One benefit this experience has brought is that I invariably win any storytelling competition when the subject is lavatories. And if there’s ever a competition to see who’s fastest at getting off a bamboo pole with his trousers still round his ankles, I expect to win that too.

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