Earlier this week I was chatting with friends about which places around the globe captured their imagination most when they were kids. One was fascinated by Mandalay, while another said Pondicherry caught his eye. Zanzibar was another name that cropped up.
For me, it was Timbuktu. For a start the name sounded exotic and I had no idea where it was except it was far away. I wasn't even convinced it actually existed until an atlas showed this tiny dot on the edge of the Sahara in the middle of nowhere.
Re-enforcing the mystery of the place were dictionaries which stated Timbuktu was "a metaphor for far away places" with the Oxford English Dictionary even interpreting it as "the most distant place imaginable". In the 19th and 20th centuries "from here to Timbuktu" became a widely accepted expression for a long and tortuous journey, somewhat akin to "from Bangkok to Buri Ram".
Alas in recent years, with Mali suffering major political unrest Timbuktu is not the fairy tale city that was once depicted. Childhood images of the magical city were far more alluring than the current reality. However, it still holds a certain mystique. In an embarrassing 2006 survey of young British people, 66% thought Timbuktu was "a mythical place", while the rest had never even heard of it.
At least the citizens of the Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye are aware of Timbuktu, the two places being twinned since 2007. The rather surprising link is a shared love of books, with Hay famous for its second-hand bookshops while Timbuktu is a centre for medieval manuscripts. So, for the people of Hay, the expression "from here to Timbuktu" may carry a little more meaning, but it is still basically a long, long way.
A song for sir
The remoteness of Timbuktu even reached stage and screen in the smash hit Oliver! During the song I'd Do Anything in which Dodger and Oliver make lots of heartfelt promises to Nancy and Bet, Oliver is asked by Bet would he "Go to Timbuktu?" to which Oliver responds "And back again!"
The film version of Oliver! was a huge hit in Thailand which I discovered in unorthodox fashion while teaching at a Bangkok college in 1969. The female students always sat at the front of the class and as one of my first lessons drew to a close one of them politely presented me with some Thai fruit as a kind of welcoming present.
As I thanked her, the lads at the back of the class spontaneously launched into the Oliver! song with a cheeky "I'd do anything for you sir!"
On the right track
Another name that caught my attention as a kid was Kalamazoo, for no other reason than it just sounded funny to my juvenile mind. Once again the atlas came to the rescue, informing me it was a city in southern Michigan. Apparently it does a brisk trade in T-shirts bearing the slogan, "Yes, there really is a Kalamazoo".
There was even a song released in 1952 titled Kalamazoo to Timbuktu, performed by the Paulette Sisters. The opening lines inform us: "There's a train by the station in Kalamazoo/And it soon will be leaving on track number two/ I heard the conductor say it's going a long, long way/ It's going all the way from Kalamazoo to Timbuktu."
Okay, the lyrics are a bit dodgy but you've got two legendary place-names in the same song. Kalamazoo also features in one of Glenn Miller's most popular songs (I've got a girl in) Kalamazoo. That's the one which begins: "ABCDEFGH I got a gal, in Kalamazoo" -- they don't write lyrics like that any more. If you remember that song you might possibly be quite wrinkly.
On top of the world
Another exotic-sounding place which caught my attention as a child was Kathmandu. It had a kind of Shangri-la feel to it. Kathmandu certainly looked a lot more exciting in the atlas than Timbuktu, perched as it was on the edge of the formidable Himalayas that make Nepal such an attractive place.
Kathmandu must have caught my attention at the time of the successful 1953 Everest expedition with Sir Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay. The summit of Everest was arguably the last place untouched by man. Hillary and Tensing became heroes amongst us kids -- anyone who got us a half-day off school was worthy of such plaudits.
Rhododendron road
Sixteen years after the conquest of Everest, I was sitting in the back of an open truck for the nine-hour journey from the Nepal border town of Birganj to Kathmandu. That trip was an eye-opening experience in itself with wonderful panoramas as we approached the Himalayan foothills. A lasting image is of all the colourful rhododendron bushes that covered the slopes lining the winding road. I admit to not being aware at the time, but the rhododendron is the national flower of Nepal.
In Kathmandu the majestic backdrop of the Himalayas certainly made you feel like you were somewhere special. I was actually in a place I had dreamed about as a kid. To top things off, the banana pancakes were fantastic.