The Hamilton Spectator
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
July 27, 1988
Scooting around the globe - for life
Tom dined with Bedouins and ambassadors
by DOUG LeFAIVE
Photos:
Ida Bruini - Tom Smith standing beside his scooter
Thomas Martin Smith - self-portrait with Amer Abu Khamis and his camel Hassan
FORT ERIE - The soft-spoken, ruddy-faced former law clerk looks nothing like an
international adventurer.
But after logging 56,000 kilometers (34,000 miles) on a two-year
journey around the world astride a 250 cc motor scooter, a machine desinged primarily for
inner-city commuting, Tom Smith doesn't need to look like Indiana Jones.
His resume speaks for itself.
Tom travelled from Canada to England and then road across Europe
to the Middle East. From there he drove south to Kenya before flying to India and
driving to South East Asia. He then travelled to Japan and Hawaii before returing
home via mainland United States.
Reinforced faith
During hsi recently completed tour of 29 countries, the
35-year-old shared meals with Bedouins and ambassadors. He shook hands iwth the
Pope, enjoyed the companyh of a baroness on the French Riviera and lived with gamekeepers
in Kenya. He's slept in five-star hotels and on the floors of railway stations.
In Tokyo, he proved his ingenuity by living in one of the world's
most expensive cities for two months, after arriving with only $8 in his heans. In
Nepal, a nasty bout of dysentary tested his tenacity by stripping 11 kilograms (24 pounds)
off his frame in just 16 days.
But more importanly the trip reinforced his faith in humankind.
Tom says he embarked on the trip becasue he was concerned with
increasing tensions in the world. he "wanted to meet people on their own
ground" to see if he could find "a common thread" between them.
"I have found that people are much the same inside, whether
they are Muslims, Buddhists or whatever," he says. "I met governors,
generals, ambassadors and famers, quite a variety of people.
"I just felt welcome everywhere."
A clutter of photos, travel posters, a roadmap of Madagascar and
an Ethiopan coffee maker are some of the many keepsakes piled high in his Ridge Road home,
as he tells of discovering that most peple share similar dreams.
"Basically peple are very much the same inside despite
differences in culture, religion and lifesthyle. Everybody in general loves life.
The want peace. Nobody I talked to wanted war."
The photographer and a free-lance writer, who had never ridden a
mtorcycle or scooter before preparing for his trip, began his Cycle for Life tour in May
1986.
Supplied with letters of introduction from Fort Erie's Mayor,
Chamber of Commerce and his local MP, he loaded his tiny scooter, dubbed Melawend after
his daughters Melanie and Wendy, with 63 kilograms (140 pounds) of supplies and headed
east.
To finance his trip, Tom Sold virtually everything he owned, but
the money did not last long. After it was gone, he relied on the generosity of
sponsors and a variety of temporary jobs, including baling hay, writing for magazines and
lecturing Japanese college students.
He says his overlaoded maroon scooter quickly became "an
international icebreaker" as peple gathered around"the friendly looking
machine" and its rider.
Crowds of up to 100 were common in India he says, adding that
it's very reassuring to ask directions and have 100 arms simultaneously pont in the same
direction.
Only minor repairs
A list of 135 names (actually 253), all of whom Tom hopes to stay in touch with, proves
that the unlikely adventurer with the receeding hairline and the gee-whiz grin had no
trouble making friends.
A flat tire in Norway - it cost $85 to fix - and a little gey
duct tape t med a crack in the scooter's fiberglass body were the only repairs needed on
the trip, despite three minor traffic accidents.
Theft was also not a problem.
Tom says while travelling on a train in the Sudan, one of the world's poorest countries,
he left all his gear below, including his cameras, as he rode thrid-class on the train's
roof.
Nothing was touched.
"Weath is a factor of lifestye, not of character," he
says.
Even though he is now having to start over again financially, Tom
says, apart from not seeing hsi daughters for two years, his regrets are mnor.
The Soviet embassy helped in arrange travel permits for the USSR,
but a lack of cash prevented the trip. And, he says, did didn't try hard enough to
visit China.
Now that he's home, Tom's beginning a book on the jrouney.
It's no small task considering he has 2,000 pages of diary notes, between 200 and 225
rolls of film to develop and almost 60 hours of casset tapes to work from.
Once the book is finished, Tom wants to work in the tourism
business, possibly as a travel writer.
He says his feelkigns on the value of tavel are stated by a sign
he saw in Kathmandu.
"It says, tourism is the passport to peace. And it
certainly is.
"The more we travel, the more we meet people and see where
they live, the more we understand.
"Ignorance is not bliss."
###
