What holiday memories are precious to you? When did you last feel you had truly connected with a foreign destination? Rather than being cooped up in an apartment block with fellow tourists, we lovers of Slow Travel understand the need to appreciate the communities we visit. Talking, walking and even working with those at home in for us unfamiliar locations gives us a much greater appreciation of the history and cultural fabric of a place.

What’s more, traditional mass tourism has negative consequences not just for the planet, but also for native peoples. Carbon-chugging short haul flights and huge hotel complexes built alongside substandard housing for locals are just two clearly visible  effects of modern mass tourism. Causing both geographic and cultural erosion, the tourist who takes has become a figure of ignorance and inequality.

In poet Derek Walcott’s impassioned Nobel Lecture on the detrimental effects of tourism he talked about the effect of tourism on his native Caribbean islands. “Its peasantry and its fishermen are not there to be loved or even photographed;” he said “they are trees who sweat, and whose bark is filmed with salt, but every day on some island, rootless trees in suits are signing favourable tax breaks with entrepreneurs, poisoning the sea almond and the spice laurel of the mountains to their roots. A morning could come in which governments might ask what happened not merely to the forests and the bays but to a whole people.” Walcott’s exclamation, “How quickly it could all disappear!” was a stark warning to travel companies and consumers looking for cheap mass tourism.

Fairtrade travel is a great option for those of us wanting to give back to the places we visit in an effort to avoid the consequences Walcott describes. From Himalayan home-stays to meeting Fairtrade product producers- there are all sorts of Fairtrade holidays for you to choose from.

Hands Up Holidays offers a new concept of ‘Voluntourism’, luxury holidays that include some work on community projects. You begin your holiday in luxury accommodation, exploring the sights and sounds of your destination. After a few days doing this you begin sampling volunteer projects. Hands Up say their staff “are committed to giving you an enriching travel experience and know what is required to achieve this.  The choice of sights will fill your photo album, and our Community Development projects will give you a real sense of achievement and help change lives for the better.”

Another option is Traidcraft’s Fairtrade holidays. Ever wondered where that Fairtrade chocolate bar or pot of coffee came from? Traidcraft holidays invite you to meet the people behind the Fairtrade story who produce such products. You can visit the Minka communities in Peru to see the Fairtrade coffee plantations, then take a lavish trip on the Orient Express to the shores of Lake Titicaca. Or you could head to Kenya to see Fairtrade craft producers and the vast plains of the Maasai Mara. These holidays make sure you take the time to appreciate and understand the hard work of Fairtrade craftspeople while satisfying your wanderlust.

The biggest adventure of my life was travelling across northern India, a diverse, awe-inspiring region of dramatic arid mountains and luscious green hills. My fondest memory of the trip isn’t seeing the golden temple in Agra, the dramatic hills of Manali or the bustling markets of Leh; it is of learning a nursery rhyme from a young Tibetan boy on a stroll around a small village below a Buddhist monastery. Such moments come only when you take the time to speak and stroll with local people.

Himalayan Homestays offers a holiday option that allows you to live alongside the people of the Ladakh region, generating income for the local community and providing you with an intimate knowledge of the community. The Snow Leopard Conservancy, The Mountain Institute and local villagers founded the company in 1999 and its Fairtrade holidays have delighted visitors for years. Living with local people is sure to make you acclimatise not just to the altitude, but also to a culture that appreciates the supremacy of nature and the power of the community.

This Fairtrade Fortnight people across the world have been swapping everyday items for Fairtrade equivalents, so if you haven’t already, why not swap in your usual holiday plans for a Fairtrade experience? Even Derek Walcott has been won over by the ethical options in tourism, telling Edward Hirsch in an interview: “Once I saw tourism as a terrible danger to a culture. Now I don’t… Everybody has a right to come down in winter and enjoy the sun. Nobody has a right to abuse anybody.”

In 1905, Edith Nesbit’s novel The Railway Children captured the allure of train travel by looking through the eyes of the child. The children in the book, excited by the train tracks at the end of their garden, are entranced by the strangers on the train and the idea of setting out on an adventure.

But does your train journey still evoke a sense of adventure and discovery? What were your trains of thought last time you travelled along the tracks? From an exotic journey on the Rajdhani Express from New Delhi to Mumbai, to a short commute to work; from all six thousand miles of the Trans-Siberian Railway (the longest possible train journey), to visiting a loved one in another region: the time spent on a train offers a unique space where new ideas and discoveries lurk behind every corner.

Train travel is one of the most relaxing forms of travel, making the train an ideal zone for creativity. In Phillip Larkin’s poem The Whitsun Weddings, Larkin’s imagination captures the ability that train travel has to unmoor us from unnecessary concerns. He writes:

“One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday
Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out,
All the windows down, all the cushions hot, all sense
Of being in a hurry gone.”

Larkin’s focus on Slow Movement and the often cathartic effects of train travel is just one of many poems that deals with this subject. In Peter Ashley’s poetry anthology Railway Rhymes, W.H Auden, T.S Eliot and John Betjeman all respond to the matchless experience of train travel.

But apart from being a place cut off from A and B, why have trains captured the imaginations of our poets and novelists? It might be that trains are modern instruments of fate, making a collective out of those who would not usually be together.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who becomes fascinated by the people lining the train carriage. Have you ever wondered what the man with the red hat will be doing when he gets off the train? Or thought about who the old lady in the suit will be seeing when she arrives at the platform? When we stay fully present in the moment and view life in the train carriage, stories can really come alive. So why not enjoy the communal experience of train travel, take out your notepad and find your inner storyteller?

If you are more into reading than writing, then choosing the right novel can really enrich your travel experience. We often buy travel guides for swatting up on the history and character of a place, but pouring over a novel set in your destination can bring the history and character of the place truly alive. It’s so easy to exit through the sliding doors of a train and march straight to your check-in desk or office without thinking about the city, village or town around you. Books are the perfect antidote to this.

I recently read Iain Sinclair’s book Lights Out for the Territory, a book about London which uses the concept of psychogeography (the effects of a geographic location on the psyche) to passively take pleasure in the character of the city, rather than take from it. In Sinclair’s own words: “To shift away from the culture of consumption into a meandering stream. Cut those wires.” Getting off the train at London, I wandered to my destination, staring at the city’s architecture and appreciating the diverse range of people pushing along its busy streets.

There are many books to choose from which evoke the secret pasts and idiosyncratic characters of your chosen destination: Just think of Margaret Atwood’s novel Cat’s Eye set in Toronto that depicts a woman’s return to her hometown and her past. Or how about Charles Dickens’s descriptions of murky and yet entrancing Victorian London through the eyes of the dazzled Pip in Great Expectations?  Or perhaps Paul Auster’s wandering writer in Oracle Night who lives between the fictional worlds he creates and the brownstone streets of Brooklyn. Spending time reading about your destination really is an investment in your travel experience. Getting off the train, you get that feeling that you know the place a little bit deeper than before.

Viewing a train journey as an in-between space, not inhabited by the routines and worries of home or work life, helps you appreciate the possibilities open to you while travelling on the tracks. If you’re a commuter, it may be that you find yourself planning ahead the day of work, which can sometimes leave you arriving needlessly stressed at the office. But have you ever written a ‘to-do list’ of things you just can’t wait to do? Your journey to work is a space between the home and your workplace, so why not plan fun things to do for the next week? Last time I was on a train I turned off my mobile phone, brought out my diary and wrote down the people, places and things I wanted to see over the next few weeks. If you happen to be on a train journey abroad this might not be hard, but even in places we are familiar with there’s always an opportunity to discover.

For those longer journeys, why not feed your tummy and your hunger for new experiences by sharing a communal feast? In India, families gather around tiffin boxes full of homemade goodies, with food carts of hot soup always on offer. On the Orient Express travellers awake to a decadent and unhurried breakfast in a new and unfamiliar location. Eating a selection of homemade treats either created from the cupboard contents at home or the extraordinary markets you visit on your travels is a true delight. You might even be able to trade some grub with your fellow passengers if you like the look of their concoctions.

The train carriage is a place to get your creativity flowing, to enjoy a sense of community and to take some time to enjoy the thrill of discovering new people and places. Be it hot, bustling trains in India or air-conditioned TGVs in France, the train is a unique setting for taking some time to reflect on the world around you. As the railway children in Edith Nesbit’s novel believed, the train is a place where magic might happen.

image: flickr

Slow Food enthusiasts will be in for a real treat with a menu of eight Petiscos with eight Decanter-award-winning wines from Casa Leal, Britain’s leading Portuguese wine supplier. Miguel Leal, Casa Leal’s proprietor and acknowledged connoisseur, will guide the evening.

The Pesticos will be prepared by Dave Cambridge, the chef proprietor of the Dispensary and former private chef to the Rothschild Family.  Unfortunately there are no vegetarian alternatives as it is not operationally feasible, and culturally inauthentic.

Menu

Dressed monkfish cheeks
wine: Ex Libris Sparkling White

Poached salt cod with onion and potato accompaniment
wine: Gloria Alvarinho White

Grilled sardines with tomato compote
wine: Filoco Reserva White

Mediterranean prawns seasoned with chilli, garlic and olive oil
wine: Arca Nova Rose 

Peri-Peri aromatic chicken 
wine: Pousio Rose

Squid with shrimp stuffing
wine: Monte da Ravasquiera Red

Pork and clam medley
wine: Conde d’Ervideira Red 

Beef in madeira sauce
wine: Quinta das Cerejeiras Red

When: Tuesday 9 March 2010 at 18:45
How much:  £23 members/ £25 non-members. Please book by Friday March 5
Where: The Dispensary, 19a Leman Street London E1 8EN 

Nearest tube:
Aldgate East – District Line
Aldgate – Metropolitan Line
Liverpool St – Central Line

In every culture, there is a historical proverb to reflect the importance of movement and doing rather than mere intention:

Arabia: A promise is a cloud; fulfillment is rain.
China: Talk doesn’t cook rice.
France: The first step binds one to the second.
Africa: When deeds speak, words are nothing.

This shows that action – however small it may be – is positive.

It’s not saying that one shouldn’t deliberate – we all know that a dose of procrastination is healthy to ensure we are confident in our approach. A beautiful Kiswahili phrase poetically describes this: “Haraka haraka haina baraka” (translation: Hurry hurry has no blessing). But what we think, know and feel about something is quite often the opposite of what we do. In modern society, rather than the pure, unadulterated pleasure of just doing the activity, there is a lot of “should do” and the overwhelming responsibility that accompanies it.

A friend recently described how she doesn’t enjoy the process of dating because of the unavoidable small talk – she just wanted to experience the moment with someone for what it was rather than talk about the weather, hear about the details of their date’s next career steps or be expected to list her favourite foods. I’m sure that she’s not the only one who has felt this way.

Speaking could be viewed as an antithesis to Slow Life. If we breathe in the moment, pause to mindfully listen and experience it for what it really is, we can shape our own actions and become inspired. There is no need for “I should donate to charity”, “I should make my own bread” or “I should say the right thing, even though I’m not entirely convinced”. If we are in the moment, the action comes naturally and the “should” quietly fades away.

It’s a substantial challenge to hit the brakes when we’ve been speeding along. All that kinetic energy has to go somewhere and if we try to speed up the slowing down process we can end up in the mud.  But if we leisurely wind down we will find that we are doing more and being truer to ourselves and our beliefs. And that’s what authentic is.

Bodhidharma, a Buddhist zen monk who lived in the 5^th century stated, “All know the way; few actually walk it.”

What do you think? Have you had a moment when you have found that actions do not speak louder than words? How do you slow down? What activities inspire you and expose your authentic self?  jorg&olif would love to hear from you.

Photos: MousyBoyWithGlasses