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Leonora Dijkstra was a passenger on Capricorn's B23H, which was the first one to have to fly over Iran. She sent me an email yesterday, our first contact since that trip, and asked me to post her following letter here:
"Now that I am retired I read all my old diaries and throw the most of them out. But not the ones I wrote during my overland trip.
"I went on the B23H Capricorn-bus to Kathmandu from 25 November 1978 till 12 February 1979. Our driver was Kevin Venville, and his wife Gaye was with him this trip. Kevin was a quiet man, very focused on the road and his coach. Mike McDermott was our tour leader, he had so much information about all the historical sites we visited! And I knew he would get me across all the borders we had to pass. I hopped on in Ostende, Belgium and was the only Dutch girl and my English was very poorly those days. So what everybody was talking about and tried to explain to me was a mystery to me until the last week. Especially with the accents of all those Australians and New Zealanders on board. But I felt very safe because of these two men and I still am grateful for all the knowledge I picked up, as well as the English language. What I learned about traveling from them helped me a lot on my later travels through Indonesia, USA and during my job in Burkina Faso, Africa.
"The great memories of the other passengers also are alive again when reading this diary. There was Jean Maxwell from Sydney and Philip Chalk from N.Z., Diana Naumann from England, just as Adrian Baker, Michelle Ferraton from Canada, Brenda, David and Denise Richardson from Western Australia, Leonie Miller from N.Z., Bill Gailey from Papua New Guinea and so many more.
"I send also our group photo from the Taj Mahal and who knows….maybe someone sees themselves and want to write too….please do, would be fun.
"Our trip was different from the original plan because of the revolution in Iran. After visiting Syria, Jordan and Israel and a lot of gatherings to make decisions, we went back through Turkey and flew from Istanbul to Kabul. In Kabul we saw many Russian airplanes with military advisors. History shows what followed…In Syria, nearby Aleppo we were caught in a sandstorm, so dark as night, had just to wait until it blew over. The music from Tom Sawyer is linked to this trip in my memory, I still enjoy his songs sometime and am in a desert like scenery again.
With the Capricorn bus, that waited for us in Kabul, we continued our trip and had a lot of wonderful experiences in India and Nepal. At 12 February 1979 we arrived safely in Kathmandu, said goodbye and I went on traveling through India for some more months."
Leonora's letter and those names brought back some great memories for me too. As well as the Taj Mahal photo, Leonora also sent a picture of our coach in Palmyra (before the dust storm), and one of me in Meteora.
Her email spurred me to Google some of the names she mentioned. Like with me and so many others, the overlands seems to have changed the lives of others in quite major ways. For example, I found this comment online about the first person Leonora mentioned, Jean Maxwell:
"Jean's first travels were in Europe but it was on the journey home, when visiting many unusual places including Egypt, Afghanistan and India, where her love for the unique began. Jean is passionate about Africa, its people and its wildlife, having first encountered the vast continent on an overland trip back in the 70's, returning many times, visiting every country between Kenya and South Africa at least once. Since joining the travel industry her travels and experiences have included escorting tours to Nepal, Egypt, Africa, India and South America."
It's been 35 years, but I still remember Leonora, Jean, and most of the others; I recall all of the faces in the Taj photo Leonora sent, but I can't put names to all if them. I can with the ones Leonora mentioned though, and several others such as Brenda, Adrian Baker (who later joined me in a trip I led around Mexico with Explore Worldwide), and also G. Lewis. It was "G", as he was known, who told me that story about the poor fellow in Antarctica that I retold here long ago. I still have the passenger lists for lots of trips including this one, but they are locked away in a trunk far away from where I am now.
So, thank you, Leonora. It was great to hear from you and yes, it would be fun to hear from any others on the trip! Especially Kevin and Gaye; I have often though of them over the years. Like Simon and like me, Kevin also did several South American overlands, but Simon's and his were before their Asian ones, and mine were after. But out of all of us, perhaps Jeanie Maxwell kept on the road the longest, and as quoted above it was on B23H that "her love for the unique began".
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