As I found out later, it was the same since the mountains were still there. There was no way that did not go through steep, bad roads.
Now I did add a certain amount of kerosene in my tank in India. I could not use jellied diesel. Of course you can't know everything, but I knew it this time. I also came to know that Lilian would fly from Kathmandu via Bangkok to Australia. What could I do that she would decide to stay with me and continue to travel with me?
Sometimes you don't have to do much and the solution comes its own, like this time as well!
There were no flights available from Kathmandu until further notice. Due to reasons not yet known, the connection flights to Bangkok were canceled. At that time there were flights only from Delhi. I reacted immediately and announced in the different hotels and guest houses that I would be traveling to Delhi.
I got back some of the old passengers and a few new ones too. It was okay because Lilian and her girlfriend were also in the bus to Delhi, which I was very pleased about! Just as the devil wanted it, I had luck in bad luck because the gearbox gave up its ghost at the outskirts of Delhi and no one could repair it, as a result of which I had to park it in the customs yard.
So I got my pass free for the registration and I was a tourist!
After I had found a gearbox, I could pick up the bus at any time again from the customs and drive away.
Lilian's girlfriend flew from Delhi to Australia via Hong Kong to do her Aupair - year.
Lilian decided to remain with me temporarily. I had managed it and had convinced her!
What could we do except for enjoying a few nice days of waiting until a gearbox was found or if one was flown from Germany?
I celebrated my 33rd birthday with some Indian friends at the Hotel Ashoka, a 5-star hotel!
We stayed in the Imperial Hotel and visited the Celler almost every night to enjoy our sizzling steak. After a few days we decided to fly to Sri Lanka.
We arrived in Sri Lanka, the former Ceylon, by Air India and landed in Colombo. It was a strange feeling, to be in Colombo with Lilian and to answer all the questions of my friends there. And to know that my wife in Germany was working as a hooker.
I was hoping that nobody here knew of that.
You can change the name of a country, but the people do not change. I was now in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. You noticed nothing socialist except that a few more Russians were here than before.
The lady president was probably getting some support from the Russians so that there was a little more first aid from the Americans.
I remembered my first visit to the island during my seafaring period.
At that time, there was economic aid from Germany in the form of some loads of fish tins. The herring in tomato sauce or with a curry sauce came from Bremerhaven. I still remember the GEG labels, which was probably a commercial chain at that time.
Herring in curry-sauce, but no fish trawlers as development aid
They did not an island fishing boats, no, it had to be herring in curry sauce!
No Ceylonese had eaten this stuff, you could buy the cans in the market or this fish was available in buffet in big hotels.
What could an island in the Indian Ocean do with a fishing boat? I can imagine that the persons responsible did not know where this Ceylon was.
I was glad that I could buy such a delicacy here - and even cheaper than in Germany.
Since my wife had told everywhere, that I was already married in Germany and that I had cheated her and that is why she had come back, now everyone could get to know the truth. Now I had the opportunity to set everything right.
Everywhere I introduced Lilian as my future wife because this news would definitely reach Frankfurt. If there was already a mess, then let it be a proper one. The people who knew Chitra from her dances in Tropicana, knew anyway where lies were being said and who lied.
My acquaintances and friends from my time when I resided there, were all surprised but glad to see me again. After all, almost ten years had passed.
They did not allow us to stay in a hotel and so we stayed with Ricardo. Ricardo was in the travel business and are very interested in my new business idea. He was excited that I drove buses from Europe to India and Nepal and brought tourists. He asked me why I did not bring any hippies to Sri Lanka. I explained to him that I wanted to bring flight tourists to the tri-country triangle of India, Sri Lanka and Nepal and was therefore there to establish contacts.
A relative of Chitra was a manager in the zoo and so we had to often put up with a visit to the zoo, even if it was sometimes just the restaurant.
The zoo was probably the best east of Vienna. It was an image of the zoo in Hamburg because this zoo in Colombo had been designed and set up by Hagenbeck.
Then there was another old friend, now a higher officer who insisted on taking Lilian and me to the Maldives. It was only a two-day trip, because my friend had something very important to do.
He dropped us off in the government rest house and attended to his matters. In the evening there was fish in all variations. Our host was either a high-ranking politician or officer.
The next day we flew back in the small machine. It was a very impressive flight.
There was no end to Lilian’s enthusiasm. I had to think of my best man and that he wanted to give me a certificate according to which I could have leased an island for 99 years. Only I did not have 2000 dollars and did not know how beautiful these islands in turquoise colored water were.
So I looked for him when I was back in Colombo and explained to him that I had the dollars now and wanted to make the deal. But of course it was too late.
That was my dream of an island in the Indian Ocean! I could never find out which of the many islands it would have been. Perhaps today there was a hotel complex on it.
I saw a poster in the Tourist Board, in which a flight was advertised for Nepal. There it read: From zero to eight thousand. You could fly directly from Colombo to Kathmandu - a new connection, which fit perfectly to our plan!
We got the tickets at a special price, since we were known now in the meantime as dynamic new entrepreneurs in the travel sector.
I had got a selection of slides from the Ministry of Tourism for brochures. From the 200 of them, I selected 50 of the most beautiful ones, which however cost $200. Now we had to go to Nepal and get the slides worth seeing from there.
The flight was one of my most impressive experiences and I will not forget it to the end of my life. From Colombo it flew above the green coconut trees, the blue sea, along the Indian coast and in the direction of the Himalayas. Since we enjoyed a special service so to speak, we also had the best seats without visual obstruction near the wings of the plane. I do not know whether the pilot flew extra low, but during the whole time we flew we were so low that the coasts of India could be viewed wonderfully.
Later he lifted up the machine high, and we could actually see the Mt. Everest.
We sat during the whole flight on the left side and saw a spectacle of indescribable beauty.
The hostess then took us to the cockpit and we were able to admire the mountain in all its splendor and also close to us, from there.
The pilot flew a huge loop and on the mountain you could see snow in the setting sun. As if it was a mysterious force had dusted the whole place with icing sugar and gold dust with a fine giant sieve.
It was a tremendous sight to be so high and still you had to look up.
Back in our seats, I could not believe what I had seen.
The Royal Nepalese Airlines had two planes of the Boeing 727 series. One had the name "Yeti" and the other of course "Yak". We also got very nice slides from Nepal that were significantly cheaper than those from Sri Lanka. The enthusiasm for my idea to market these three countries together as a package was very high here too. Now I only needed slides from India and I could get a catalog printed. Back in Delhi, Mr. Goya from the Student Travel was very pleased about the extension of the program. Not
only backpack hippies but now the “suitcase tourists” were also joined. Mr. Goya helped me to get slides for a reasonable price. Lilian and I had rented an apartment from a very kind widow of a deceased English officer. She was an Indian, while her late husband had been English.
The two daughters were very pretty, 18 and 20-years-old mixed kids. I had to think of my daughters, because they had the same skin color, not brown and also not white but the older girl was naturally a bit darker. But without worrying anymore about home, I had to concentrate on the new business. Now we had an address in a suburb of New Delhi and could get the travel brochures printed in Colombo. We flew back to Colombo and gave the slides and our texts to a printer, who had to print us 6000 copies in English, French and German provisionally. All this would cost me 1500 Dollars, first $ 1000, and the rest during collection. Lilian and I had a few wonderful days and traveled around the island. We also met Salim, Chitra's ex-boyfriend, so to speak, my predecessor, once in the city center. We had to go to his sales rooms and he showed Lilian the blue sapphires and other precious and semi-precious stones to Lilian. Finally he gave Lilian a stone but I had to buy the gold chain.
Then he took a picture from a drawer and i did not believe my eyes: himself proudly posing with "my" older daughter on his arm!
“Look, my daughter in Germany”, he told Lilian, who looked at me and didn't understand anything.
I had also shown Lilian pictures of my daughters but had not explained the background. So Lilian could not know that the older daughter was not my biological daughter.
But until then, I too did not know that Salim was her father, better said, progenitor.
I got a shock and at the same time it was as if someone stabbed many long knives into my heart! Chitra had never told me who the father of her child was - now, I could have thought of it. At that time, as she was away for so long and her mother had been allegedly dead, she had had a relationship with Salim again and had become pregnant through him.
If I had guessed at that time, I would not have acknowledged paternity.
But at that time I was still so in love with Chitra that I was blind.
And I had had a tense relationship even with my parents, who wanted to send her back, but I had always said that the child couldn't help it and that she was my my daughter and remained so.
After I regained my poise, I told Salim that he had given Chitra a child but that child would never become his daughter, she remained my daughter; with that, the conversation ended.
Such a stupid asshole!
What did he think he was? I could remember that Chitra once had said that she had been to her home country and had taken the older daughter along. But she had never mentioned that they had seen Salim or even that she had shown him the daughter. This cursed, whore of a woman, I had such a hatred for her at that moment. If she had there then, I would have killed her.
I had a slight disagreement with Salim because I told him that he was a crappy guy and that I would not accept him anymore as a friend. I also made it clear to him that the child, if she ever was in a position to decide where she belonged, would certainly not decide for him.
We left the office, but I was still highly volatile for a long time after what I had just heard. Lilian tried to calm me down, which she also succeeded.
Since it was just before Christmas and Lilian had promised her parents that she would come home for Christmas, I got her a ticket from Colombo and she flew to England.
Also our printed material were ready and I could fly back to Delhi. Here in Delhi I felt at home. I just felt very comfortable when I sat on the roof terrace and could listen to the deafening concert of the parrots in the huge mango tree listening or could drink a Sundowner. Now and then I invited the widow and the daughters for a German dinner and in turn I got a delicious curry with everything that belonged to it, i.e. with chutney and dessert. I had a good relationship with my landlady but she was a bit too old for me and the daughters were too young. She took particularly good care of her daughters. She probably guessed that if I had a chance, I would use it. I would have liked to try it once but I had Lilian and she would be back here again soon.
The telegram was on my table and it said that she could come on the 15th of the month and that I should pick her up at the Palam Airport.
In the last two weeks I also visited Martin, who had actually sold his buses in Afghanistan. Through him and his connections, I also found a gearbox for my bus, and I got it installed. The bus was ready for use again. I wanted to surprise Lilian with something special and I got an idea!
I gave the bus a high polish. Next I had hired many small Indians, who were otherwise at the Connaught Place begging and managed to get the bus look like new from inside and outside.
I decorated the bus quite according to Indian style; I bought a 15 meter long red bast fiber runner, hired an Indian wedding band with a team of 12 men, who were also able to make a lot of noise!
I drove with the band and the carpet in the bus directly up to the arrival hall, on the day of Lilian's arrival.
I rolled out the red carpet from the bus door to the front door of the arrival hall, made the band to line up and commanded them make noise, since I considered this “music” to be such. The guys understood their trade and in no time hundreds of people wanting to see - or better said, listen - gathered around the bus.
A bus with a foreign number, a white man at the steering wheel, which was also on the wrong side, that had to be something special.
A VIP, somebody very important, must be arriving.
"Queen Lilian" from England
I told the Indians who spoke to me in English and wanted to know who was arriving, that my Queen Lilian from England was going to arrive.
They had not heard the "my", because the news spread like wildfire that the Queen was arriving. So the queen came, my queen!
The show was successful, Lilian was still laughing her head off on the way home.
I allowed the musicians to make their noise right through New Delhi to Pancheel-Enclave. Once again there were also curious spectators in front of our house. But it was enough. I paid the band and also the beggars, who then went back to Connaught Place. That day once again made some people satisfied and happy! I did not mean Lilian, no, I meant the musicians and the beggars. Lilian assured me that she too was glad and happy to be with me again.
After such a long separation, there was a reunion, which lasted till the early hours of the morning.
The package with our brochures somehow made me afraid. Would I be able to pull through my idea? How much money would it cost till I would get profit? Now it was necessary to establish contacts in Europe. The deceptive feeling of well-being with our flight tourism evaporated a little after we got busy with the material once again.
We both didn’t have any experience in the tourism business. As newcomers, could we really assert ourselves and develop a market? I had my initial doubts.
After we realized that our finances were pretty much exhausted, we had even more doubts.
We had to find a partner who would be also willing to invest. But there was no one, who wanted to share the risk with me. All of them only said that I should come and show the product. The flights and the printed material had left a big hole in our cash box.
I still had the bus, which I could sell in Afghanistan.
So I booked passengers and was on my way to Afghanistan.
I promised Lilian that I would come back very soon.
The performance of the bus on the road was completely different after the gearbox was installed. I hardly did not need to change gears, but anyway the bus did not run more than 60 km/h and uphill I thought that it was a car; finally I found out that they had installed a truck's gearbox for me. I reached Kabul and was happy that I had managed thus far. What now? I had to get rid of the bus at all costs. I was in Kabul for two weeks already and Lilian sent me telegrams to the Mustafa Hotel and threatened me that she would fly back to England, if I did not ret
urn back immediately. I knew that rent was due at the end of month and that was the reason why Lilian was in a panic. I also knew that I could not need to travel to Delhi without money. So I had to get rid of the bus. I wanted $4000 but no one wanted to give me more than $ 2000 with the gearbox.
But on the other hand, there were many young people who wanted to travel to Europe... the leprechaun on my left shoulder advised me what I should do: I could easily collect 50 hippies. That would be 4500 $ and I would have the bus to drive back. After all that, I would have about $ 5000 remaining and the tourist business had to wait for a while.
In no later than 7 weeks I would be back again. In four days I had the bus full. I sent Lilian $ 500 by American Express so that she could pay the rent and money to live. With a good conscience, I drove off with the gearbox and my hippies.
This time I needed a little longer, since the gearbox did not function as I wanted. Often a mechanic had to work on the gearbox in different cities or even in villages. Each person tinkered about with it and finally in Istanbul it came to a point where a new one had to be fixed. There were no gearboxes for buses for this model in the whole of Turkey. The only possibility would be to get one sent from Germany.
It was clear to me that this would take many days and cost a lot; impossible. None of the hippies would wait so long.
I left the bus to be towed to the customs yard and paid my passengers. I was not able to avoid this, I had to pay them back.
After a journey with dreams of money, I was in shit once again.
I bought a train ticket to Frankfurt where I arrived two days later and went to my parents.
I called the "Magic - Bus", to find out if they needed a driver for a trip to Delhi. I got the opportunity of driving a bus to Kathmandu.
I gave my remaining money to my mother and drove by train with some pocket money to Amsterdam. In Amsterdam I got the next shot: The bus was already on the road with another driver driving.
What was happening? In which vicious circle was I in?
My Dream to Be Free Page 30