Slow travel: sell the house, buy the yacht and sail away

Whenever I told people I lived on my yacht I knew I was going to have to unravel their assumptions. They thought I was rich.

Thus said author Mari Rhydwen at the very beginning of this book. Mari and her husband Allan were not yachties, but sold up all their belongings to buy a boat they called White Cloud. Starting out from Fremantle, Western Australia they ended up in Africa and then came back again after several years of very slow travel.


Mari has written a thoughtful book about their journey and with it observed the locals at the places they made visit. She also made comment on the various yachties that they met along the way, not always with positivity it must be said. She also learnt a lot about herself.


Do mountaineers suffer vertigo and do those that suffer claustrophobia take up caving? she asked at one point, because it seems that some who suffered seasickness took up yachting with yachting being “....A silly fantasy that perhaps...” can aid those that suffered seasickness and then “....you escape the drudgery of what passes for normal life.”

Slow Travel was first published in 2004 when Mari was, and still is today, a linguist and expert in Aboriginal languages. She was also a practising Zen Buddhist. It shows in the writing. Her tales of their journey is interspersed with lots of commentary as to the ‘whys and wherefores' and also with her opinions that made for very interesting reading. There is also a fair bit of humour in her prose. “As we approached the shore I realised that the numerous partially submerged boulders we were trying to dodge were moving. They were not rocks but copulating couples. We had gate crashed a turtle orgy”


Sailing out of Fremantle they made their way to Darwin. After time in Darwin it was out into the wider world and into Indonesian waters and the many islands it offers. At one point they ended up at Ende on the island of Flores. There they were befriended by Tommy who was “...the lector, the boss...” of the local university. Mari described the differences in their lives. Tommy was paid poorly as an academic as opposed to his counterparts in Australia. There was a general sparseness of the way he and his family lived. His family had a genuine interest in the outside world, thus was constantly questioning as to Mari and Alans lives and how they lived.
What about drugs and BF he asked at one point. “BF?” “Blue Films”. Mari stated that after being in a predominantly Muslim countries she too could view the west through different eyes. While in Indonesia Mari was aware that some Western women were in skimpy shorts and dresses and felt that for some it was an act of defiance but to others “....blatant unawareness of cultural sensitivities” When they were in Borneo fellow yachties had Mari listening to complaints about the local food, hygiene and lack of choice. “What do people expect in a poor country” Alan lamented. The sad part was that Mari had come to see the country itself, mix with the people and enjoy the experience. She had to listen to “....endless human complaints....”

After heading off from Indonesia they came to Singapore then travelled on to Malaysia and Thailand. At one point they stop on an island called Ko Muk that was described as the “.....ultimate tropical island dream come true” Mari describes the sink hole, the cliffs, the ferns and the reef. “I made bread and swam and pondered. This was different than being on holiday. This was cruising” Life was “....hedonistic and easy...”


From Thailand they sailed to Sri Lanka. They loved the sail there as it was easy, and Sri Lanka itself, even though it was in a civil war. Security was everywhere. There was also more poverty to deal with. Dealing with beggars was now part of the experience. At one point they got fleeced of a few dollars by a double act pretending to be the watchmen in the harbour, this was “.....part of the experience...” in poor countries. Sri Lankans, like all from the sub-continent, love cricket and it was assumed that they had come to watch a test match against England. No as they were there for the exotic, not the familiar. With that they made visit to temples, mountain castles, stone Buddha's among, caves among other things. At this time Mari made mention of the destruction of Buddhist statues in Afghanistan that caused outrage but found it “disquieting” that there was less care for the human lives lost in that tragedy. For all the lack of sense that Sri Lanka, as “infuriating isle” made, she was sad to leave.


The Maldives capital Male was next. The Maldives has a large tourist industry in which its tourists never actually see how the locals live. Whisked off to the resorts with all the sun sand and booze the Maldivian's wanted just to be paid for services such as snorkelling and diving. The trouble was the yachties really had no need for this; they lead a life doing such things for free in out of the way places. At this point Mari was sending emails to her children explaining to them her observations of “gross inequality” “corruption” “the maintenance of an uneducated workforce” and “oppression”. In the Maldives she was not blaming “colonialism or post- colonialism, this is people oppressing and exploiting their own people”. She apologised to her children saying that she was “slowly going berserk of people too long at sea”. At this point she writes that she begins to understand the local Muslim culture wanting to keep the tourists at bay. The Maldives had a population of about 300,000 with 500,000 visitors each year. As she wrote “Imagine 30 million tourists arriving in Australia each year, smoking opium and eating dogs. How would we feel and what would we do?” Expect compliance to the local customs of course.

Chagos was next, an island with no shops and that is its allure. If the yachties were stocked up many would stay for months on end. “Most of our time was occupied by fishing, food preparation, boat maintenance and walking around the islands......”. Mari did her best to get on with most of the fellow slow travellers but she was of a different thought process and had “... some self-destructive urge to argue and contradict”. She makes comment that most yachties come from the small business work and shared many characteristics no matter where in the world they came from. She was “...taken aback...” not by their need for freedom but their need to “.....unconsciously impose order on...” the “....most remote corners of the earth” After weeks on Chagos her memory of her former life was fading and her and Alan were “.....into another world where clock time stopped and life time began”.

Seychelles, Kenya and Tanzania were next. While in Victoria they witnessed the entire army of the nation parading to celebrate the 30 year socialist coup with the soldiers laughing and waving to their friends in the crowd, making it hard to imagine they could fight. Finally, Africa. At this point they met the voice of the radio guide for all the yachties in the Indian Ocean, Tony. He was not anything like his voice. He also told them of the loss of fellow yachties, Rick and Paula, during a storm. They had set of their emergency beacons but there was no chance of them being assisted and they were lost at sea. The dangers of the idyllic are close to the bone.

Mari fell in love with Africa. She loved the geography and the people. Even when robbed of a watch in broad daylight in front of witnesses it was part of the experience. With teachers on less than A$100 a month and doctors A$300, when a month's rent on an apartment was $900 life was difficult. When on safari Mari “..recaptured...” wonderment about the world around her. Tanga in Tanzania was that place that “..twangs at my heart strings” and the Serengeti was a place to “.....rejoice in the diversity of life forms...”. Africa was “...chaotic, it felt closer to the realities of life and death...” “...though it was risky, that was part of the pleasure.”

Why do we travel asked Mari at one point. It was supposed to be a ‘good thing' ‘broaden the mind' make us ‘better people'. With that she asked why today's tourists, travellers if one was to be kind, sat on beaches all day to fry themselves under a blazing sun and get inebriated. And if we do take in the cultural sites are we better for that and has that provided ‘succour for the soul'?

Recommended to those that like slow travel reading.
Not recommended to those that are less keen on a traveller writing their thoughts on how what they see and do affects their world.