Peter Moore Interview
Rob Savage meets travel writer Peter Moore
Of your titles, the one that sticks in my memory is ‘No Shitting in the Toilet'. Talk us through how that title got picked out and the gist of the book – for those who haven't had the pleasure.
It's not a totally gratuitous title – it's actually a sign I saw in Darwin, in a place called Jack's Café. I was travelling through there and stopped for a meal and a few drinks, before going out to use the facilities. There I saw a sigh which said no shitting in the toilet and in case you didn't understand, it had one of those international forbidding symbols, like the ones for no smoking. Except this one didn't have a cigarette in the middle – it had a little guy squatting down. Then as if that wasn't enough to get through to you – it was a hole in the ground toilet and they'd put a very fine mesh over the hole. So you couldn't go - even if you tried! I took a photo of it - of course.
What I loved about it was how it summed up travelling and the sort of things you see, and the situations that you find yourself in - that are so illogical and bizarre. But then they're the things that stay with you. So anyway I got back from that trip, wanted to write travel books and decided to put pen to paper about a trip I took around the equator. That got rejected by every publisher on the planet.
The internet was just getting going at this point so I got myself a site and started writing regular travel articles. I listed No Shitting in the Toilet as one of the links because I thought that would be quite intriguing for readers. Then because there was only a million web pages in those days, instead of the billions there are today, it became pretty well known. The stories won a few awards and then I thought the collection would make a good book. I went to the publishers again and it got rejected again. But then someone at Transworld Australia picked it out of the slosh pile so it was really a result of perseverance and dumb luck.
In four succinct, verbal nutshells – tell me your story from Sydney in 1962 to London in 2008.
- My childhood was a like a Brady Bunch childhood. We lived on the outskirts of Sydney on five acres.
- Going to University when I moved in the centre of Sydney. That's basically when I got bitten by the travel bug.
- I went to Tokyo for a year, part way through a combined Arts and Law degree. I'd done the arts part and then thought – I'm just not interested in the law! I eventually got a job translating the 'Jap-lish' – making academic translations OK to be published in the brochures and so on. That led onto working for an advertising agency in Australia.
- Then it was my run of books. Trips I wanted to do that ended up doing well. Now I'm in England with my family.
One of the adventures you seem very passionate about is your journey around Italy on a classic Vespa. Where did that idea come from and what were the most memorable, off the beaten track attractions on the way?
I'm a fan of public transport, seeing things the way locals do and chatting with them. I find it's harder to do that in Western Europe because if you start chatting to someone next to you on a train here in Britain – they think you're crazy. That's the same in Italy so I gave picked an old Vespa for the trip. Because it was old it kept breaking down and I met so many people – getting it fixed. This way I got to see stuff that otherwise I wouldn't have seen.
This included Livorno. Normally if you arrived in Pisa and headed down past Livorno – you'd just keep going because it's surrounded by industry and from a distance it looks quite ugly. But I'd found this guy on the internet who restores Vespas and he was based here. He was called the Wasp Master and he and his friend became my best buddies – they took me out to local restaurants and bars, and now it's one of my favourite places in Italy.
There's a great place called Montenero – in the hills behind Livorno. There's a church up there and they've got this chapel which has one of the largest collections of ex-voto paintings in Italy. Ex-voto is something where if you have a near death experience you give thanks by commissioning someone to paint a picture of the experience, which is then hung up in a gallery. There are hundreds of these images in this little chapel and they've been doing it for centuries. The thing I love about it is how you can see the transition of styles. You've got eighteenth century paintings next to photo montages. You've got everything from guys getting kicked in the head by horses and people on bikes getting hit by cars.
In Same Same But Different, you chat about some of the strangest things you've seen on the road. From cows been driven across Vietnam in specially equipped, individual trailers - to dogs riding on the backs of motorbikes with their paws around the driver. Do these remain the strangest things that you've seen so far - or have there been more?
Well I've seen plenty of strange things but basically everywhere that you go – you'll see crazy stuff. I think the guys who wear nothing but red cloth, bound around their penises rival the motorbike riding dogs.
As someone who must have been stranded in a fair few airports, what top books would you recommend, to pass the time between connecting flights?
- John Irvine, Water-Method Man.
- Tom Robbins, Most of his stuff.
- Kyle Hyson's books.
- Paul Theroux, The Great Railway Bizarre.
Where are you itching to travel to next?
I've got an itching to do some old school Peter Moore travel – which is travel that's a bit more hard core and difficult. I actually get this bizarre sense of satisfaction out of completing these trips. I want to travel around the old Soviet Union. Go to Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and all the Baltic states. I'd also like to go down the west coast of Africa, which I think is a bit more interesting and chaotic. Basically anywhere I haven't been to yet.
And finally – what's next in the publishing pipeline for Peter Moore?
I've got the sequel to Vroom With a View coming up here early next year – that's called Vroom by the Sea. This is about a Vespa trip along the Amalfi coast. Then after that I've been asked by the Guardian to do a series of articles about travelling around the UK. I'd like this to become a book too.
- Rob Savage
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