Prabhu Ghate has his eyes, ears and nose close to the ground when he travels. He lets chance take him places.
Nothing daunts Prabhu Ghate, be it a gorilla pressing its nose against his lens in a Rwandan national park, or having his camera stolen while crossing a river in the Congo.
A long conversation Ghate had with a Chinese farmer while climbing a trail up a holy mountain in China is etched in his memory, because neither of them understood a word of what the other was saying. Yet, both laughed at each other’s jokes.
People Ghate has met while travelling have always inspired him irrespective of nationality, race, colour or age. After decades of roughing it across 115 countries and at age 74, Ghate has compiled his travelogue, By Thumb, Hoof and Wheel: Travels in the Global South.
“I want to encourage people in our part of the world to move beyond just going to the West, or Bangkok and Dubai, and to get off the beaten track by travelling in the South, which in many ways is educational, especially before it changes unrecognisably with the forces of global homogenisation,” says Ghate, who was in Kathmandu last week for a book talk.
By Thumb, Hoof and Wheel
Travels in the Global South
by Prabhu Ghate
Bloomsbury, 2015
Rs 500
Asked by a member of the audience to mention one favourite country, he replied: “The entire world is beautiful.” But he narrowed it down to Mexico, Ethiopia, China, South Africa, Yemen, Rwanda and Georgia. And he added Nepal to the list.
Ghate has his eyes, ears and nose close to the ground when he travels. He lets chance take him places, and waits for serendipitous meetings in surprising places like the 2.7 km-wide Iguazu Falls straddling Brazil and Argentina. He talks about the Tao of hitchhiking, discovering prehistoric cave paintings, the treasures of the Silk Road, and running into people on the road who have since become lifelong friends.
Ghate was destined to travel from a young age, when he first took a flying boat with his father who worked for the United Nations. He hitchhiked around Spain as a teenager, and ventured further afield as he got older and when he worked for the Asian Development Bank in Manila. His interest in microfinance took him all over the world: on a paddle-boat steamer called ‘Rocket’ in Bangladesh, and exploring the Sri Lankan highlands.
Says Ghate: “One doesn’t need to be particularly rich to travel, or young. You just need to have the will and be young at heart.”
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