First of all, an explanation of what we were trying to achieve, and how we went about it.

Our family lived in Singapore for many years, and my mother and I became interested in the butterflies of the Malay Peninsula. We left Singapore in 1966, and my father’s employer posted him to Jersey, which is where we lived for the next 10 years. We brought back with us our embryo butterfly collection, and my mother and I started to plan a return to Malaysia, to augment our collection. I left school in the summer of 1967, and it became obvious that if we were to do anything at all, it would have to happen before I went to university. So our hare-brained scheme was born: to drive there in a camper van.

At our departure, I was 17 years old, and my mother 45. We had a magnificent adventure, the experience of a lifetime, and we returned with a first-class scientific collection of Malaysian butterflies. 

We kept a diary, mostly written by my mother, and after our return she wrote a series of articles for the local Jersey Life magazine. Each chapter in the sidebar to the left contains the text of the diary for the trip, section by section. Each chapter contains links which open in new windows:
1) A route map for the section
2) Photos
3) The text of the articles written for Jersey Life

Reading the diary can sometimes be a little dry and factual. In contrast, the articles for Jersey Life contain a wealth of details, experiences and anecdotes which bring the whole adventure to life. It is well worth reading them.

It is notable that my mother refers throughout to “Malaya”, when, in fact, the country had been known since 1963 as “Malaysia”. My parents had lived in and known the land as “Malaya” for so long, that they seldom if ever used “Malaysia”.

The vehicle

Ideally we would have chosen a four-wheel drive vehicle, but the only one available at the time was the Land Rover, which was way outside our budget. Japanese 4x4s such as the Toyota Land Cruiser had yet to capture the market. The Volkswagen Minibus was the vehicle of choice for most overlanders on a limited budget, but we decided that we wanted to buy British, partly through patriotism and partly because we would be spending much of our time in Commonwealth countries and expected that maintenance and repairs would be more readily available for a British vehicle than for a foreign one. This was a decision that we came to regret bitterly. Sadly, at this time, British manufacturing industries gained an unenviable reputation for poor design, technical stagnation, poor quality raw materials, awful build quality and non-existent customer service. In addition, they were often incapable of delivering their mediocre products due to incessant strike action.

In the event, we chose a Bedford CA delivery van converted by Martin Walter into a 2-sleeper camper van that they marketed as the Dormobile. It was starkly functional, with none of the luxuries associated with a modern camper van: we had neither shower, lavatory, air-conditioning, heating, refrigerator nor radio. We made a number of modifications including the installation of a battery-operated tape-recorder and tapes pre-recorded with all our favourite pop songs. We also fitted a rather inadequate roof-rack.

And the engineering was a product of its time: drum brakes, steering-column-mounted gearchange, carburettor, no power steering, and a maximum cruising speed of about 50 mph. As soon as we got onto gravel roads, the whole structure started to fall apart and required constant maintenance. And, worst of all, Bedfords had left out one of the two planet gears in the differential; it was only a matter of time before the remaining one gave up the unequal struggle, which it finally did in Pakistan on the way home. The resulting damage – bent propeller-shaft, broken universal joints, damaged wheel-bearings, broken gearbox, worn hypoid drive and crown wheel, broken brake shoes, etc – caused us endless expense, delay and discomfort for the remainder of our journey home. We received neither help nor compensation from Bedfords, part of the Vauxhall Group, just the usual bovine indifference endemic to British industry at the time.

Our route

Nowadays we would plan a route using the Internet, and navigate with a Sat-Nav. But of course, in those days, such technology was still in the realm of science fiction. We pored over road maps which were almost impossible to come by for countries beyond Europe, and even then mostly inaccurate. We decided to subscribe to an AA 5-star overseas travel package, which provided vouchers for emergency funds abroad in case of breakdown, and a route planning service. Much to our surprise, the route plan that they provided for the drive to India was highly detailed and quite easy to follow. We did deviate many times from the planned route, but it was invaluable as a starting-point.

Ideally we would have liked to drive all the way to Malaysia, but at that time it was impossible to drive through Burma. So our plan was to drive to Calcutta and look for a ship to Malaysia or Singapore. In the event we drove the length of India, and took a ship from Madras to Penang.

For the return journey we modified our route considerably, notably driving through the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan, making a detour to swim in the Caspian Sea, and visiting the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. We also adopted a more leisurely pace, which allowed us to spend a little time in those places that pleased us. However, the mechanical problems of the van prevented us from undertaking many visits that we would otherwise have enjoyed.

Financial considerations

We did the whole thing on a shoe-string, and the entire net cost was only about £1000. This includes the loss on the sale of the Dormobile after we had returned, and also some income we gained selling butterflies surplus to the requirements of our collection, and fees for writing articles for the local magazine Jersey Life.

Our main problem came from the Exchange Control Regulations. At that time the British economy was in an awful state due to the incompetence of our politicians, and the amount of money that tourists could take abroad was strictly controlled in a misguided attempt to bolster the value of Sterling. We were each allowed to take £25 in foreign currency and £25 in Sterling travellers’ cheques. That is £100 in total for the whole trip, outward and return, in countries which were not part of the Sterling area. Pakistan, India and Malaysia were the only countries in the Sterling area, and we could spend as much as we wanted in those countries. To avoid cheating, the bank issuing the foreign currency was required to record this transaction in our passports. We had made arrangements with our bank in Jersey to have funds available in Malaysia.

Before we left, we loaded up the van with food and everything else we needed to survive, to conserve our measly £100 for petrol and other unavoidable expenses. It was a logistical nightmare, but we did manage it, although at the end of the journey we had to cut back on food, and arrived back in Jersey with not a single penny in our pockets.

Sightseeing

In recent years I have come to realise that we missed a golden opportunity to visit some of the world’s most spectacular and important sites: cultural, architectural, archaeological and landscape. We only visited a few sites in Istanbul and Lahore, and the Taj Mahal at Agra. Even at Mahabalipuram we failed to appreciate the importance of the Shore Temple, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We passed close to dozens of other world-class sites without stopping. Sad though this is, in retrospect it is quite understandable. Firstly, almost no information was available in those days about the existence of important sites; they were still mostly the exclusive domain of specialist archaeologists and art historians. Secondly, our finances were so limited that we had neither the time nor the money to dally on the way. Thirdly, cultural tourism was still in its infancy, and countries outside Europe did not generally promote their cultural treasures overseas, nor make any attempt to attract visitors.

One benefit of this, of course, was that we were virtually the only tourists in those sites that we did visit. At Agra there were no more than a handful of visitors at the Taj Mahal. We were able to camp at the main gate of the Taj Mahal, we visited the site by moonlight, and we descended into the crypts to see the tombs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan; none of this would now be possible. And the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, which is now awash with tourists from all four corners of the earth, was then unknown and deserted. Even two years later when I returned to Turkey with three friends, we were the only visitors at Ephesus and Troy; not another soul in sight.

Communications

At that time, communications were very primitive compared with today. No internet, no email, no mobile phone, no fax. International phone calls were possible, in theory, but the process was so difficult, expensive, time-consuming and unreliable that it was never an option. The only option was the post. Our family back home had our itinerary, and they sent letters to us to await collection at main Post Offices along the way – a system called Poste Restante. We did get letters this way, but many went astray because we were ahead of schedule on the outward journey. We tried to keep the family informed of our progress by sending back letters regularly.

Photography

Sadly, we have very few photos of this trip, and even they are of rather poor quality. These were the days of film cameras. Photography required knowledge, skill and experience. We had only the most rudimentary camera, and did not really know how to use it. In addition, photography was expensive; the cost of film, developing and printing meant that we used the camera sparingly. We were without a camera for some time, because our original camera ceased working in Turkey, and the replacement we bought in Iran did not work.

On our return, my mother typed the diary and bound the pages in A5 ring-binders. She incorporated a number of photos, but the remainder have all vanished.

Media coverage

We were interviewed by the New Straits Times on arrival in Kuala Lumpur, which resulted in an article in the newspaper. However, the photo is quite awful. This led to a meeting with the PR people for Goodyear Tyres who wanted to use our story for publicity purposes, since we had travelled all the way from Britain without a puncture. They gave us $150 and put Goodyear stickers on the sides of the van.

Once back in Jersey we had a write-up in the Jersey Evening Post. I was interviewed live on television by Gordon Young, the chat-show host for the local TV station, Channel TV.

Finally, my mother was asked to write a series of articles about our trip for the local lifestyle magazine. This magazine was never profitable, and had a regrettable tendency to cease publication without warning. When the articles started to appear in February 1970, the magazine was called Jersey Life. By the time that the fourth episode was published, probably in 1972 although the magazine carries no date, the name had changed to Jersey Illustrated. My mother was paid a small amount for each article, but she did not receive all that was owed, and the final two episodes were, I believe, never published. For the purposes of this website, I have split these articles into sections that correspond with the sections used for the diary.

Collecting butterflies

In this day and age, collecting butterflies is socially unacceptable and, in many cases, illegal. And rightly so.

But it was not always thus. The enormous expansion of science in botany and zoology during the Victorian and Edwardian periods owes much to the amateur collector, whose specimens form the bedrock of the Natural History Museum in London. At the time my mother and I were collecting butterflies, over 50 years ago, this spirit of amateur scientific research was still very much in vogue. Collecting butterflies was generally considered to be not just acceptable, but highly laudable. It was a fine outdoor activity for a young lad, with much scientific and educational value, and with the added bonus of creating a work of breath-taking beauty. My parents and other role models encouraged me to collect butterflies, and so also did the scientists of the day. The principal scientific reference work, The Butterflies of the Malay Peninsula, by Corbet and Pendlebury, devotes two chapters to catching, setting and preserving butterflies.

Morality changes. That which was once considered acceptable may now be taboo, and vice versa. I would not collect butterflies today.

In the end we amassed a collection of about 2000 specimens, all carefully set and identified. We donated two specimens of Charaxes solon (a male and a female) to the Natural History Museum, to fill a gap in their otherwise comprehensive collection. Tragically, almost the whole of our collection has been destroyed by damp, mould and mites, and only about two dozen specimens have survived.