Tag Archives: travel writing

Celebrating my birthday in Kosovo

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My birthday is on VE Day (8th of May). In 1990, I celebrated it in the former Yugoslavia. That year, I was driving around Serbia in a rented car with my friend from Belgrade, Raša Raičević. His birthday was the day following mine. Before I rented the car, my friend Raša, a very wise fellow, advised me to rent a car from one particular company because its cars carried Slovenian registration plates, rather than Serbian. This proved to be sound advice.

On the seventh of May, Raša and I booked into the comfortable accommodation provided at the beautiful Prohor Pčinjski monastery in the hills of southern Serbia. We decided to stay there two nights in order to celebrate our birthdays.

My birthday wish was to drive into the autonomous region of Kosovo and Metohija, which was populated by a high percentage of Albanians. Then as now, I was greatly interested in all matters connected with Albania and the Albanian diaspora. Both Raša and I had separately visited the area in the 1970s. We were both keen to see it again.

Old hammam in Prizren, Kosovo

Raša, a Serbian, had some reservations about driving into Kosovo, where there had been some unpleasant violent incidents between the Serbian and Albanian communities some months earlier. However, he decided that he would accompany me for two reasons. One was that our car bore Slovenian plates, not Serbian. The other related to his excellent command of the English language. He said he would only speak in English in Kosovo, not a word of Serbian.

We set off, driving through the relatively empty Serbian countryside. The boundary of Serbia and Kosovo was at the summit of a low mountain pass. As soon as we entered Kosovo, we discovered that, unlike the part of Serbia we had just left, the countryside of Kosovo was relatively crowded with people, by the road side and in the fields. The landscape was liberally dotted with recently constructed homes and other buildings. This was quite different from what we recalled of our earlier visits.

We drove into Priština (Prishtinë), the capital city of the autonomous region. The main road was filled with a sea of people. We inched forward. The crowds parted slowly to allow us to proceed. Raša advised, nay forbade, me to sound the car’s horn. He did not want to upset anyone. I had never before driven through such crowds. Four years later, I did it again, but in the central market area of Bangalore in India. There, I and other motorists sounded horns incessantly, but nobody paid the slightest notice to them.

We parked in the centre of the city in a car park that looked like it was the site of a large, demolished building.

I was keen to buy recordings of Kosovan Albanian music for my ever-growing collection of music from all over Yugoslavia.  The best supplier turned out to be a tiny kiosk that sold cigarettes, magazines, and newspapers. I bought about fifteen cassettes, the kiosk’s entire stock, but had no bag to carry my haul. The enterprising shop keeper saw my plight. He opened a couple of cartons that each contained twenty packs of cigarettes and emptied the packs onto his small counter. Then, he carefully packed my cassettes into the cartons.

After lunch in what seemed to be the grandest hotel in the city, we drove to see the beautiful Serbian Orthodox monastery at Gracanica.  Then we wended our way back towards Serbia, stopping for coffee at Gnjilane (Gjilan). There, I spotted a kebab shop that used a logo identical to the well-known McDonalds ‘M’. When I pointed this possible breach of ‘copyright’ to my friend, he shrugged his shoulders and said:

“This is Kosovo. Anything goes.”

We reached Prohor Pčinjski, where we ate a lavish and tasty dinner. The following day, Raša’s birthday trip was a drive through parts of Yugoslavian Macedonia. After passing some rice paddy fields, we were stopped by a policeman with a speed measuring device. He fined me the equivalent of £1 Sterling for speeding. My friend was fined half of that for not wearing a seatbelt. Otherwise, we had a good day, visiting an attractive small town, Kratovo, and the Roman ruins at Stobi by the River Vardar.

The following day, we drove back into Kosovo, stopping at the small town of Prizren. On both the 1990 and my 1975 visits, Prizren captured my heart more than any other place in Kosovo. Recently taken photographs I have seen show that it is still a delightful place.

From Prizren we drove to a dramatic pass that led from Kosovo into southeastern Montenegro.  We spent the night in Rozaje, a small Montenegrin market town. Thus ended a memorable double birthday celebration.

Soon after we visited Kosovo together, it was time for me to fly back to England. Raša accompanied me to Belgrade airport. Just before I entered the secure departure area, I waved to him and experienced a weird sensation. I felt that Raša knew that we would never meet again.

My sensation was not without basis. Soon after I left Yugoslavia, the country began its painful dismemberment. Visiting my friends in Belgrade and elsewhere in Yugoslavia became inadvisable.  Sadly, by the time that uneasy peace began to reign again in what was once Yugoslavia, Raša had passed away.

VE Day marked the end of hostilities between the Axis and Allied powers in Europe on the day that was to become my birthday a few years later. The imposition of socialist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe that followed did not put an end to festering sores that had been troubling the Balkans and elsewhere since the decline of the Ottoman and Austro Hungarian empires, which had already begun at the beginning of the twentieth century.  This was certainly the case in what was Yugoslavia. During the ‘reign’ of Marshal Tito, a semblance (or maybe more) of unity was achieved in his country. However, after his death, as if recovering from a general anaesthetic, old unresolved conflicts reawakened. President Milošević did little to resolve these, but instead helped to exacerbate them. Hailed by some Yugoslavs, mostly Serbs, as the new hero of Yugoslavia, this assessment was not shared by many, especially the Albanian folk in Kosovo.

All said and done, I cannot forget the warmth, hospitality, and friendship shown to me by ordinary people living in the former Yugoslavia, Serbians, Croatians, Bosnians, Albanians, and many others during the 1970s and 1980s. They did not deserve what befell them during  much of the 20th century.

Read more about Yugoslavia as it used to be in my book “SCRABBLE WITH SLIVOVITZ”, which is available from Amazon:

A peaceful scene at an ancient place in India

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HAPPY INDIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY

As it is difficult to judge a book by its cover, here is a brief excerpt from my latest book “Road to Heaven – a passage through India”. It describes what we saw at one of the ruined gateways to Mandu in Madhya Pradesh.

Mandu is a huge hill fort at about 2400 feet above sea level, and 1200 feet above the surrounding plains. This irregularly shaped, undulating plateau extends from east to west for between approximately 3.7 and 5 miles, and from north to south, it measures 3 to 3.7 miles. Deep ravines cut into the steep, and in places vertiginous, cliff-like, slopes sweep almost vertically down to the plains below,

Here is the excerpt:

 Our journey continued along a rough track that ended abruptly and without a warning sign at the edge of a high cliff that dropped down precipitously to the plain far below. The view from the cliff edge was spectacular. We could see a couple of lakes or reservoirs amongst the fields and trees, but the horizon was obscured by haze. To our left, there were the impressive, crenellated  walls of the hill fort and one of its seven gateways. We had reached the fortress-like stone Tarapur Gate at the southwest corner of the plateau. A staircase leads up from it to a walkway that runs along the remains of the high walls.  Near the bottom of this, an old stone roadway, now in a parlous condition, made two right-angle turns before passing beneath an arch and continuing as a rocky track that wound its way down to the plains below, clinging precariously to the steep slope of the drop at the edge of the plateau. Of this path, Yazdani wrote:

“… the fall of the hill beyond the outer arch of the gate is very precipitous, and although there are traces of a paved path descending to the plains, it is very difficult to believe that heavy artillery or chariots could be brought up this way, for the garrison could easily have crushed them by rolling down heavy stones. History, however, records that the Fort was invaded several times from this direction …”

While we were looking around, a straggling parade of farm animals, many cows and goats, made its way quietly through the gateway, and down the rocky track. They were accompanied by a couple of herders. The right-angle turns in the gateway were probably designed to make it easier for those guarding it to control entry to the hill fort. Apart from the farmers and their animals, we were the only people at the Tarapur Gate. It was in a part of Mandu which felt more remote than the rest of the hill fort.

After leaving the gateway, we drove through a hamlet where I noticed a man seated on the ground, weaving a cane basket. Further on, we passed women in saris carrying bundles of straw on their heads. We drove northwards through luscious countryside, passing many country folk chatting and working outside their simple homes. Then, after passing the Jami Masjid in Mandu village, we reached …

[ My book is available as a paperback from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0HBN8BZG2 ]

A few words on my new book about India

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It is difficult to summarise a 269 page book succinctly. So, here is something that captures the essence of my latest book.

India is a country whose vibrant contemporary life mingles intimately with its age-old traditions. My new book “ROAD TO HEAVEN – A PASSAGE THROUGH INDIA” explores the intimate interweaving of past and present in the life of modern India by describing a journey I made through western, central and southern parts of the country.

In addition to relating our travel experiences – places we saw and their histories, whom we met, what we ate, and how we travelled, I have included other topics. These include accounts of places we (my wife and I) visited written by earlier visitors, and a detailed insider’s view of the formerly British colonial clubs of India. These clubs used to be out-of-bounds to Indians, but since the country became independent, they are now part of the rich fabric of Indian social life.

And as for the Road to Heaven, this really exists, and I have described my journeys along it.

The book is NOW available from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0HBN8BZG2

A taxi in Tirana (Albania) in 1984

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UNTIL EARLY IN THE 1990s, Albania, the small state on the western side of the Balkan peninsular, was at least as tightly sealed-off from the eyes of the outside world as is North Korea today. It was a maverick socialist state, which, under the leadership of its dictator Enver Hoxha, regarded first the USSR and then later the People’s Republic of China, as being too reactionary to be its allies. Few visited it, the only country in Europe where Stalin was publicly revered long after his death, and even fewer escaped from it. And, not many people shared my long fascination with the country.

Central Tirana in 1984

In 1984, when solo travel was forbidden in the country, I joined a group tour to Albania. 28 years later, I was chatting about my experiences on the trip with a dental patient who had migrated from his native land, Albania, to the UK. After telling him some of the strange things that had occurred during my fortnight in Stalinist Albania, he told me that what I had noticed was indeed the case during Hoxha’s dictatorship. He said to me that if he were to relate the conditions that prevailed, nobody would believe him. However, he said, that if I, an outsider, told what I had seen, I would more likely be believed. This conversation led to me writing and publishing an account of what I could recall of my brief sojourn in Albania. This book is called “Albania on my Mind”. It includes my 1984 travelogue as well as what made me become interested in that then almost impenetrable country from the age of about 15. When I published it in 2012, I thought that I had lost the many photographs I took in Hoxha’s Albania, and I illustrated the book with images from out-of-print literature. A few years later, I found the colour pictures I had taken on the trip. Maybe, one day I will bring out a new edition that incorporates my photographs rather than the other images.

During my 1984 trip, our group was watched carefully by our Albanian guides, the coach driver (a party member), and members of the Sigurimi – Albania’s highly effective secret police. And everything we were shown was carefully stage managed so that we were likely to regard Albania as a perfect Socialist paradise. One day, a group of us decided that we would like to hire a taxi in Tirana (the capital) to visit a local beauty spot, Mount Dajti. This is what I wrote about it in my book:–

After we had eaten lunch at the hotel, a group of us went into the square outside it. We saw a long line of taxis, which were waiting vacantly by a booking booth. We wondered how often these were hired and by whom; there was not a soul in sight taking the slightest interest in them.  One of us walked up to the booth and asked the man sitting inside whether we could hire a taxi to take us up to Mount Dajti, some way outside Tirana. Just when it seemed that we had succeeded in hiring a cab, another person inside the booth lifted a telephone receiver, listened for a moment, and then whispered something to the man with whom we had just negotiated. He beckoned to us, and pointed at the hotel. Somehow, he made it clear to us that we needed to book the taxi not from him, but from the hotel reception desk.

We trooped back into the hotel’s lobby and made a beeline for the reception desk. Two suited men, sitting on a sofa nearby, looked at us over the tops of their newspapers. As we reached the desk, I noticed that the doors of one of the hotel’s two lifts were opening. Our (Albanian guide) Eduart hurried through them and towards the receptionist, who was beginning to attend to us.

“What do you need?” Eduart asked us, out of breath.

“We want to hire a taxi.”

“Why?”

“We want to visit Mount Dajti?”

“Why should you do that?”

“We need some fresh country air. We’ve been in the city for too long.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Eduart protested. “You have already spent many days in the countryside.”

“But, that’s what we want, and we believe that the views from Mount Dajti are magnificent.”

“You cannot go.”

“Why ever not?” we asked.

“There is a lot of traffic. The roads are crowded.” We looked at Eduart disbelievingly. Traffic congestion was certainly not a problem in Albania in 1984.

“You know that there’s a big national cycle race on at the moment.”

“That was over long ago,” one of us objected. “We saw the posters announcing it along the roads.”

“You can visit Mother Albania, but no further.”

We had already visited the Mother Albania monument, which was located in the outskirts of the town. However, as we were determined to not to give in to our obstreperous guide, we agreed to his compromise.

“Alright,” we said.

Then, Eduart said menacingly:

“You may take the taxi to Mother Albania, but remember that if anything happens to you, we cannot take any responsibility for your safety. You will not be protected by your group visa.”

“We’ll risk it,” one of us said.

I did not like the threatening sound of Eduart’s voice, but followed the rest of our small group back to the taxi rank. When we arrived there no more that ten minutes after we had left it, we found that all of the taxis had disappeared, and also there was an extremely long line of people waiting in a queue outside the booth.

It seems that while we were arguing with Eduart, a queue had been hastily assembled next to the taxi rank, and it was long enough to put us off the idea of hiring a vehicle.

If you enjoyed this extract and want to read more, “Albania on My Mind” is available from Amazon:

.https://www.amazon.co.uk/Albania-My-Mind-Adam-Yamey/dp/1291111476

A scooter on a wall in central India

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Here is another extract – a ‘taster’ – from my forthcoming book “ROAD TO HEAVEN – a passage through India”, which has reached the final editing stage. This sample relates to Maheshwar in Madhya Pradesh, a state in central India

+ + + + + + +

Maheshwar is a 58-mile drive south of Indore, a journey that took us about 2 ½ hours. Much of the way was through hilly countryside. In places the road goes through rock faced cuttings. Every now and then we saw distant high peaks, that looked bluish in the heat haze. During our journey, we passed pedestrians carrying bags and bedding rolls on their backs. These people walking in the hot sunshine were pilgrims, about whom I will tell you more soon. Occasionally, we had to slow down when we met flocks of goats and herds of cattle being led along the road – a common sight on country roads, including motorways, in India.

When we arrived in Maheshwar, our driver had difficulty both navigating and negotiating the maze of narrow, winding lanes in the lower, newer districts of the small town. Eventually, we drove up the steep, straight road leading to the main gateway in the walls that surround Maheshwar Fort. Traffic is not generally allowed into the heart of the fort, but as our accommodation, at Laboo’z Café and Lodge, was in the traffic-restricted zone, a barrier was lifted to allow us through. Nestling within a corner of the fort’s walls, Laboo’z is an attractive café with outdoor tables and chairs. An old motorbike is attached high up on the tall stone wall facing the seating area. Below it, there is a sign that reads: “Labooz’s Scooter”. The cafe was established in 2002 by Richard Holkar, a scion of the Holkar family that once ruled the Kingdom of Indore. Richard is the son of Yeshwant Rao Holkar II (reigned 1926-1948), who commissioned, and had built, a Modernist style palace in Indore, which was designed by the German architect Eckhart Muthesius (1904-1989).The palace, Manik Bagh, still exists. Stripped of its Modernist furnishings and sculptures by Constantin Brancusi, it now houses governmental offices. When Richard and his half-sister were children, they used to be ferried around Maheshwar on the bike now adorning the cafe. The driver who took them on the motorbike was tall (‘lambu’ in Hindustani). Over the years, he became known affectionately by the nickname ‘Labboo’. The scooter on the wall commemorates him.

Does this description make my forthcoming book sound appealing?

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COMMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS, PLEASE

My forthcoming book will be called “ROAD TO HEAVEN – A passage through India”.

Would the following ‘blurb’ attract you? Would it make you want to read the book?

“This book follows Adam Yamey’s engaging journey through parts of western, central, and southern India. Since marrying into an extended Indian family in 1994, Adam has visited the country more than 50 times and now sees it as both a second home and a rich cornucopia of remarkable people and places. His narrative moves between India’s past and present, weaving everyday details into the broader fabric of its culture and history. Along the way, his own impressions are set beside those of earlier writers who visited the same places. Unlike many travel books on India, this one reflects the perspective of someone who spends longer than the average tourist in each destination, allowing him to absorb and convey its distinctive atmosphere. It also offers rare views of life in some of India’s exclusive ex-colonial clubs. And, in case you are wondering, The Road to Heaven is a real place. In this illustrated account, Adam describes travelling along it and exploring many other memorable aspects of his journey.”

Comparing the art of Constable and Turner

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DURING A VISIT to London’s National Gallery, I entered a room in which paintings by JMW Turner (1775-1851) and J Constable (1776-1837) were being displayed.

By Turner in the National Gallery

Seeing these artists’ works together reminded me of a visit to the Lady Lever Gallery in Port Sunlight (Cheshire). I wrote about this place in my book “An Alphabetical Tour of England”, and compared the two artists. Here is what I wrote in my book:

“In one small gallery, … two paintings hang close to each other but are separated by a neo-classical fireplace (an exhibit). One of them is by JMW Turner (1775-1851) and the other by his contemporary and rival J Constable (1776-1837). It is interesting to see them almost side-by-side because it allows the viewer to compare their styles and what they tried to convey in their paintings. The Turner painting depicts “The Falls of the Clyde”, and the Constable depicts “Cottage at Bergholt”. Neither of the paintings, both created in the age before photography, achieves the accuracy of, say, a photograph. Both seem impressionistic, but the effects that the artists were attempting to have on the viewer are entirely different. Turner’s paintings are often far more impressionistic than Constable’s. Although his subject matter is always at least almost discernible, I feel that Turner’s works were created to evoke both the artist’s and the viewer’s psychological and/or emotional reaction(s) to what was being depicted. In contrast, Constable’s painting techniques seem to have been designed to emphasise aspects of the scene he was painting to give the viewer the impression that he or she is looking at the very same view as that which attracted the artist. Constable regarded painting as being a branch of science. In a lecture he gave in 1836, he said:

‘Painting is a science and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature. Why, may not landscape painting be considered a branch of natural philosophy, of which pictures are but the experiments?’

Turner, in his almost abstract paintings such as the one at the Lady Lever, appeared to be wanting to stimulate the viewer’s deepest emotions. In contrast, Constable tried to convey to the viewer what he saw or felt was important in his subject matter. Without resorting to the almost photographic accuracy of, for example, both Canaletto and Vermeer, the two artists, whose paintings hang almost next to each other in the Lady Lever, successfully achieve their aims. For me, the avoidance of detailed accuracy of representation in both Turner’s and Constable’s paintings, enhances the impression of reality in my mind, something that photography cannot do to the same extent.

Even if you do not wish to compare Turner and Constable, I can strongly recommend a visit to the soap maker’s gallery in Port Sunlight …”

Seeing the paintings at the National Gallery reinforced my feelings as expressed above in the excerpt from my book.

If you wish to read my book, it is available from Amazon’s websites, e.g.:https://www.amazon.co.uk/ALPHABETICAL-TOUR-ENGLAND-Adam-Yamey/dp/B0FVV6JLZ7/

A small hamlet in Kent with many memories

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GODDEN GREEN IS a tiny hamlet next to Knole Park, close to Sevenoaks in Kent. There is not much to the place, but it has a special place in my heart, and seeing the place, or even thinking about it, makes me nostalgic. You can discover why by reading my book “AN ALPHABETICAL TOUR OF ENGLAND”. The book and Kindle are available from Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0FVV6JLZ7/

A friendly encounter in a cathedral in Pondicherry (India)

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Between late 2024 and early 2025, we spent 88 days travelling 4000 miles through India. I have published an account of this fascinating odyssey in my book, “88 DAYS IN INDIA: A JOURNEY OF MEMORY AND DISCOVERY”, which is available from Amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FKTFBFM2). Here is a very brief excerpt from the book. It describes what happened when we were sitting in a cathedral in the formerly French colony of Pondicherry.

HERE IS THE EXCERPT:

“We sat inside the spacious cathedral’s cool interior within reach of the draught
coming from a fan attached to one of the pillars supporting the long nave’s high,
barrel-vaulted ceiling. As we were relaxing in the cooling breeze, a small group
of Indians entered, and went to the front pews, where they knelt and prayed in
front of the high altar. Amongst them was a young couple dressed in their finest.
Each of them had lavish flower garlands (malas) around their necks. As they
walked away from the front of the church towards where we were seated, we
asked them if they had just married. They told us that that was the case. They
had been married in another church and wanted to pray in the cathedral. These
friendly people invited us to join them in the church’s sunlit entrance while
photographs were being taken of them, of us, and of us with them. They asked
us for our blessing.

Opposite the cathedral on a corner plot, we entered a large bookstore. Tables
covered the floor. They were laden with books, mostly new, but not arranged in
any obvious order. Along one side of this vast hall, there were ...“

END OF EXCERPT

Read my book, and enjoy discovering the wonders of India without leaving home!

ENJOY INDIA WITHOUT LEAVING HOME

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TODAY is the 15th of August, the anniversary of India becoming independent of British rule. What better day to announce the ‘launch’ of my latest book?

My new book invites you to join me on a fascinating 4000-mile, 88-day journey through parts of India including Karnataka, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Pondicherry. My travelogue relates aspects of each place’s past and present; describes interesting encounters with diverse people – from autorickshaw drivers to artists and academics; and savours local foods. Immerse yourself in the pages of my illustrated account of a modern-day Indian odyssey, and discover the wonders of India without leaving home!

My book, “88 DAYS IN INDIA: A JOURNEY OF MEMORY AND DISCOVERY” is available from Amazon websites, such as:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/88-DAYS-INDIA-JOURNEY-DISCOVERY/dp/B0FKTFBFM2/