‘My travelling life’ IMRAAN COOVADIA
Award-winning novelist and academic
How often do you travel?
As little as possible. I think there are two types of people: those who sit at the bottom of the ocean and form a shell that they live under permanently and those who happily float around like jellyfish. I’m the clam.
Describe the first holiday you remember as a child.
We didn’t go on holiday. I do, however, remember my parents going on holiday to the UK and leaving me behind. I was about three or four years old and I thought this was very unfair and I was very upset. Take this as a warning — parents should never go away without their children. We did visit extended family but that seemed to be a thing that families did, rather than a holiday. I can’t remember much of those outings but my sense is that we didn’t go very far; at that time even internal tourism was frightening. We seem to have forgotten the weirdness — as Indians we weren’t allowed to stay in most places. We had to get a permit to go through the Orange Free State and had to be out after dark, probably because we were harder to spot after sunset. Much later, I went to the Drakensberg with my dad. I remember it was very, very cold and we came back after one night.
And your first trip abroad?
When I was six, we went to the UK and lived there for two years. My dad was getting some degree — he was a doctor. All I remember is that I didn’t love it.
For me as an adult, the question is complicated. I (the clam who likes to stay still) was already overseas studying, so it was never clear when I was on a foreign holiday because I was already foreign. Also, the problem with being a writer is that you are simultaneously on holiday all the time and never on holiday.
What is the most difficult, remote or adventurous destination you have ever been to?
I spent 14 years in the United States, mostly along the east coast, and that seemed like a very remote and strange country. I was there when I was 18. There were sanctions against South Africa, the plane trip took 30 hours and it was hard to make a phone call — it was remote.
The US seemed fabulous because South Africa was dull at the time and politically repressed. On a personal level, Americans in 1988 didn’t have a reflective relationship to race and it was very freeing not to have to fight your way out of a pigeon hole — you could choose your own instead.
Although India has never seemed remote, a trip to the Himalayas in 1992 was quite adventurous. There was a huge Indian and Chinese military presence and I didn’t know quite what I was doing there. There were also large numbers of Buddhists who forced me to drink the most terrible butter tea. I also remember playing cricket and losing — I’ve lost at every sport I have ever played.
What is the best way to get about once you’re in a foreign town or city?
As slowly and luxuriously as possible. Unfortunately I usually have to keep up with my companions, and I don’t have enough money to do it in style.
What is your favourite city here or abroad?
I suppose Rome must be the most exciting but I’ve only ever spent a few days there. Kyoto, Japan, would be my favourite city but I haven’t been there yet. New York is everyone’s favourite city and I found it interesting to stay there for six years and watch myself turn into a New Yorker. The fascinating thing about New York is its fluidity. In Cape Town, for example, life is static — if you are born rich you are likely
to stay rich and so on — you don’t expect change and this leads to an immobility. New York is nothing like that. Its centre is a swirl of money and power and there are ways of engaging with and being enhanced by that.
Do you prefer roughing it or luxury when travelling? Describe the best experience you have had of whichever you choose.
I haven’t really had a chance to do luxury, I’m not sure I know what it is. I always think that rich people have an idea of how poor people live but not the other way around. Of course, luxury can also mean a good night’s sleep. We once stayed at Ilha Grande, a tropical island off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. It was very beautiful but our accommodation was right next to the local disco and I couldn’t sleep, which reduced the experience.
The one ultra-luxurious experience I’ve had was in Dubai when I was invited to report on an international poetry festival being held there. Breyten Breytenbach made the opening speech denouncing tyranny in front of a dictator. It was super luxurious and I hated every minute of it. It all seemed entirely false; the entire country is a medium-sized shopping mall.
What’s the oddest thing you have experienced while travelling?
I was on a German island, formerly Danish, for six weeks in mid-summer. Throughout the entire period there were only three days of sunshine. On the first sunny day I decided to have a run. I put in my earphones, turned on my music and began a slow run along the beach, which was packed with people in straw hats, sitting on chairs under umbrellas — and they were all looking at me, shocked. Turns out you have to have a ticket to go onto the beach and the ticket guy had been chasing after me throughout my run. It was as if I had stolen the beach.
Your best piece of travel advice?
Use the hotel safe. I’d never thought about it until I was robbed in Mauritius — they took everything, including my iPod. I was upset because, as a South African, I thought it was my right not to be robbed anywhere but at home.
What do you hate about travelling or holidays?
You have to be working all the time in order to have a holiday. It’s the 24-hour quality of a holiday that is so oppressive — when I am not on holiday, I never have to work for 24 hours, two or three hours a day is plenty.
What elements — destination, people, attractions etc — make up your perfect holiday?
There was a cartoon in the New Yorker that went, “We loved Tuscany. The cell reception was fantastic and the wifi was to die for.” Wifi is very important to me but, lately, sunshine has become even more so. I love being near oceans and beaches and restaurants; I also love wandering around a mysterious city. You can wander around or bicycle in Europe. You can’t really do that here — even in the suburbs, people run you over.
Name one place you really want to go some day.
Japan, for every reason possible. I read a piece about how the Japanese don’t sell their houses — someone will buy the land and then demolish the house and build a new one. You build it to last for 30 or so years. Even Ise Jingu, the sacred Shinto shrine, is demolished and rebuilt every 20 years. I really want to go there. —