If you enjoy travelling and sightseeing, you have probably been on many different modes of transportation. Some you enjoy and others not so. I had my first airplane flight when I was four years old in 1953 when our family emigrated from Holland. My father had heard many stories of people being deadly sick on ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean and he didn’t want us to experience that so we flew.
We boarded the airplane in Amsterdam and had a stopover in Iceland for refuelling and then it was on to Gander, Newfoundland and then Montreal. My youngest sister was a year old and she hung from the ceiling of the airplane in a baby basket. I remember the stopover in Iceland where the engine had to be tuned up and we ate sandwiches in the terminal. I heard years later that the airplane was delayed in Amsterdam as mechanics were working on the engine.
In Montreal we boarded a train to Ottawa and then on to Renfrew. I have always enjoyed train travel. Air travel is fast but it’s cramped for a guy with long legs and I dislike busy airports.
I have been inside two submarines that were stationary in a harbour. It was quite an eye opener. Very cramped! One was a Russian submarine in Long Beach, California docked beside the famous ship Queen Mary. Friends and I toured the famed ship and then paid another admission to go inside and tour the submarine.
You don’t have to go to the Middle East to see camels or go on a camel ride. When friends and I toured California a few years ago, I saw a camel farm near San Diego where they milk camels. While driving out of the central farming valley I saw some camels in a field and a sign at the gate that this was a Camel Ranch and you could ride a camel. It was a chance of a lifetime to ride a camel. You could go for a short ride or longer ones. I chose the shortest one. A young man held the reins the entire time or I would not have mounted the beast. I was told the camel will get up from its back legs first, so lean back in your saddle as it starts to stand. The camel will then raise its front legs, as it does this you need to lean forward. It is a bit scary when it rises as you sit up there pretty high up. A camel’s walk is odd, irregular, and herky-jerky. It is NOT a pleasant ride. I’ve watched the movie Lawrence of Arabia many times. Don’t know how the Bedouins can ride camels for days on end.
A much better ride I had was in a pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) in San Diego. A rickshaw is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people. We were wondering how to get to an event a distance away along the waterfront when a young woman came along with her rickshaw and offered to take us where we wanted to go. I jumped at the chance to go riding in one and for $10, two of us had a most pleasant ride racing through crowds of people along the waterfront to our destination. The young woman was a college student trying to earn some extra money.
