Tonight I've been watching a couple of episodes of one of the Michael Palin travel series. It was Himalaya but it could have been any of them. I love his series, truly I do. There isn't an episode of any of them that I haven't seen over and again. For me they are quite simply the very definition of what travel is all about - seeing the world through other eyes, experiencing it as the people that live in it experience it. Michael Palin visits famous resorts and obscure unheard of corners with equal regard for them. He introduces us as readily to ploughmen as to princes. He shows the shining and the seedy, side by side. Above all he, or rather his expert crew, allows the pictures to tell the story, to show the true diversity of the world's places and peoples.
Wonderful though they are, they are no substitute for the real thing. Watching him on a train journey through the mountains cannot compare with the feel of the hard seat beneath you, the cold of the glass as you wipe steam from the window with your hand, the flickering of your eyes from distant peak to distant peak.
The colours of a spice market may be bright and vibrant on the screen but the heady overpowering smell that is the real heart of the experience is missing.
Seeing the streets of multi-coloured buildings through the combined veils of the camera lens and the heavy rain is a different experience to standing in waterproofs with that same rain streaming down your face; tasting it in the corners of your mouth; smelling the freshness as the dust is washed from the air.
I love the programmes but they are a painful pleasure. I would so much rather be there than here that the feeling is physical, almost visceral. The episode I have just watched was mainly set in India and, as I haven't been there, that isn't so bad. The feeling is at its strongest when he visits somewhere that I have been; sees things that I have seen; does things that I have done. In the previous episode he was in Darra, one of the scariest places that I have been. It is a town devoted entirely to making, by hand, copies of the world's guns, mostly for sale to the local warlords. He went down the narrow alleys where people construct the stocks and barrels in tiny poorly equipped workshops. He saw the Kalashnikovs and the M-16s and even the single-shot fountain pen pistols that have been meticulously copied from the real things.
I did all those things and more when I was there and watching him brought back every second of the day.
Still, if I'm not travelling then watching someone else do it will have to do. And if I have nothing planned at the moment then I can always dream of the trips I've made in the past and hope for the trips I'll make in the future.
And Michael Palin's programmes are as close to the dream as you can get on television.
Wonderful though they are, they are no substitute for the real thing. Watching him on a train journey through the mountains cannot compare with the feel of the hard seat beneath you, the cold of the glass as you wipe steam from the window with your hand, the flickering of your eyes from distant peak to distant peak.
The colours of a spice market may be bright and vibrant on the screen but the heady overpowering smell that is the real heart of the experience is missing.
Seeing the streets of multi-coloured buildings through the combined veils of the camera lens and the heavy rain is a different experience to standing in waterproofs with that same rain streaming down your face; tasting it in the corners of your mouth; smelling the freshness as the dust is washed from the air.
I love the programmes but they are a painful pleasure. I would so much rather be there than here that the feeling is physical, almost visceral. The episode I have just watched was mainly set in India and, as I haven't been there, that isn't so bad. The feeling is at its strongest when he visits somewhere that I have been; sees things that I have seen; does things that I have done. In the previous episode he was in Darra, one of the scariest places that I have been. It is a town devoted entirely to making, by hand, copies of the world's guns, mostly for sale to the local warlords. He went down the narrow alleys where people construct the stocks and barrels in tiny poorly equipped workshops. He saw the Kalashnikovs and the M-16s and even the single-shot fountain pen pistols that have been meticulously copied from the real things.
I did all those things and more when I was there and watching him brought back every second of the day.
Still, if I'm not travelling then watching someone else do it will have to do. And if I have nothing planned at the moment then I can always dream of the trips I've made in the past and hope for the trips I'll make in the future.
And Michael Palin's programmes are as close to the dream as you can get on television.
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