Paige Parker
PAIGE PARKER’S new book provides a fresh — and raw — perspective on the epic world trip she and husband Jim Rogers took together. melainne chiew gets the story
hitting the shelves this month, Paige Parker’s book, Don’t Call Me Mrs Rogers: Love, Loathing and Our Epic Drive Around the World, gives her side of the story about her marathon drive around the world with husband Jim Rogers nearly 20 years ago. In a sunshine yellow, custom-built Mercedes convertible and trailer, they drove for three years across 111 countries and three territories. The feat earned them a Guinness World Record for Most Countries Visited in a Continuous Journey by Car, which they hold to this day.
Peppered with photographic mementos and unforgettable anecdotes, Parker’s hearty narrative recounts how she first met Rogers in North Carolina and said yes to a wild adventure, which Rogers documented in his 2004 book, Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip.
She had been surprised to read her husband’s account. “His geopolitical travel book wasn’t my story, so I spent a couple years working on mine,” she says.
Asked why it took her this long to write this account, she says the flurry of life quickly took over — motherhood, moving to Singapore, becoming a fixture on the social scene, getting certified as a gemologist and then some — and Parker’s 403-page manuscript sat dormant until about three years ago.
“I thought I could make it better, so I did a complete rewrite. Don’t Call Me Mrs Rogers covers so many things beyond travel. It is full of adventure, relationship woes, the patriarchy I discovered on our travels, and female empowerment — things I want my daughters to know.”
Over nearly 220 pages, Parker details how they roughed it out, and made it through rough patches as a couple. “If you were flying from five-star place to five-star place and sitting in a nice section of the plane, maybe it’s not hard. But crossing 116 borders in 1,101 days in a car together can get frustrating. I haven’t gilded the truth. Bad names, fight scenes — it’s all in there.”
Imagine Parker, one of Singapore’s most stylish, toting just cabin-sized luggage in the trunk for the epic journey. Their other survival supplies included camping equipment, sleeping bags, Swiss Army knives and 2 litres of vodka as an emergency disinfectant and analgesic (only to be ceremoniously discharged by a customs agent into the dirt at the Saudi border).
“There were a few times I really wanted to give up but I couldn’t,” shares Parker. She recalls the night in Mali, in the Great Mosque of Djenné (and the world’s largest mud mosque), “The mattress barely fit the dirty room, the outhouse was disgusting and there was no food. I went to bed hot, hungry, and feeling sorry for myself. I didn’t have to be there, I had a really good job in New York. It felt crazy!”
But by morning, Parker saw things in a different light. “Meeting women at a women’s cooperative who dyed cloth for a living to feed their family fed my soul. There haven’t been many times I’ve pitied myself since, not after seeing the reality of how most women live in the world.”
In Japan, the duo attempted to ascend Mount Fuji and returned with cuts and scrapes from falls and misadventure. The doctor who tended to Rogers’ wounds shared with them a Japanese saying: “Everyone should climb Fuji once, but only a fool does it twice.”
Did the book inspire her to retrace her tyre tracks? “Absolutely not!” Parker declares with a laugh.
“There are places like that mosque in Mali I want take my daughters back to one day. I have this crazy idea to drive around China with them also. But another world journey? Bu yao, xie xie, no way!” My current read is… Theanna Karenina fix: lessons from russian Literature by Viv Groskop Sometimes I wonder… Why the inequality between women and men persists since we hold up half the sky. I am motivated by… A desire to live an engaged and engaging life. The first thing I think of every morning is… Why didn’t I go to bed earlier last night?! I often think about… My parents.
I regret… The roads not taken.