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Peter Moore
interviewed by Anthony Qaiyum on October 27, 1995
"It was six o'clock at night, and there are these U.N. tanks rolling up and down the street..."
Peter is an Australian, an avid traveler, and editor of "No Shitting in the Toilet," a humorous travel 'zine, which combines solid advice on subjects such as money and visas with a frank look at the ridiculous realities of traveling
Tripod: Why did you name your 'zine "No Shitting in the Toilet?"
PM: Well, a couple of reasons. It's named after a particular sign that I saw in China on a cafe door there. It caught my eye and tickled my fancy. I guess it amused me a bit. That was one of the reasons.
And why did I use a title like that? On the Internet, looking around, it's
often just a name that people see, and it's got to have some sort of intrigue, or whatever, to get people in -- to look at it and go, "What's that about?" If it was just an alternative guide to travel, you'd have a certain amount of people coming in. But if they just see "No Shitting in the Toilet," they go "Huh?" Amongst that Internet culture, it's a bit of an attention-getter, I guess. But being related to a particular sign and having a particular reason behind it, it's not an attention-getting name just for the sake of that.
Tripod: The whole publication is really funny, yet it's still filled with very useful information. What is the real focus of your magazine, humor or education?
PM: I guess what I'm trying to do with it is educate through humor. Travel, to me, is just about things going wrong and not being quite as you planned. That's the reality of travel. And that's the fun of it. That's what I love about it. If it was like, everything went well, it would be so boring. If you come back from holidays and you say, "Yes, I got on this train and it went on time, and all the meals were wonderful, and the hotels were all good and cheap," then people would get bored. But if you say, "Ohh, I got caught on this horror train, and the roof of the hotel fell in while I was there," then that's the making of a great trip, and I think that's what people want to hear. So it's through humor that I'm trying to get the message across to people: "Look, things are going to go wrong. Not everything's going to go as you expect, but that's great." I suppose I'm trying to teach people just to relax a bit, as well -- not to get too caught up. You can get a bit pompous about travel -- "I've got to see this. I've got achieve this. I've got to connect with the people," or whatever. I think I'm just helping, through humor, to get people to relax and enjoy themselves.
Tripod: It's obvious that you've traveled extensively. Can you give me a short travel resume?
PM: Yeah, sure. While I was at uni -- that's what we call university in Australia, sorry -- because we're relatively close to Asia, I used to pop up to Asia. So I've done a fair amount of Asia in my university years. When I finished uni, I lived in Japan for a year and taught English, and then from there I traveled around Europe. Then, back in '91, I traveled around the equator on a sponsored tour from Australian Geographic -- so that's cool. Went around the equator. Then I lived in London for a year. Then I traveled over land from London back to Australia through Europe and the Middle East and then across to Tibet and China and down through Asia.
Tripod: How many years of traveling has that been? How old are you now?
PM: I'm 33 now. I guess my first trip wasn't really until '84, so about 11 years ago, when I went up to Bali from home, and that was the first time and I was hooked. I just went around -- Especially when you backpack, because you're down amongst things. I just remember my first trip. I was staying in this horrible little place that was just decrepit. But the people invited me to have a game of chess with them, and I thought, "Wow, this is just amazing!" From then, when you get that connection with people you get a bit hooked on it, and that's cool. I think if you go traveling, and you put out a positive vibe, you tend to get it back. I think that's been said by someone better than me before. But I've really found that it's true.
Tripod: Obviously, you've had some pretty crazy travel experiences. Can you tell us about one of your more bizarre experiences?
PM: Yeah, okay. One recent bizarre experience that I've had -- I was on my way back from London, and I'd come down through the former Yugoslavia, now. I was in Split, and I thought, "There's this bus going to Mostar. If the bus is going to Mostar, then it must be okay." I caught this bus in, and I eventually got dumped in Mostar along the shoulder of the street. It was six o'clock at night, and there are these U.N. tanks rolling up and down the street, and go, "Oh Christ, what am I doing here?" So I thought I'll just get on this bus and go back out of here. And the bus driver said, "No, we're not going back until tomorrow morning. You'll have to stay." So I was sort of wandering the streets asking people, "Where are the rooms?" And they're sort of scurrying away, looking at me saying, "What's going on? Go to the police, or to the U.N."
I was on my way to see the police, and this young guy comes up to me and says, "Are you looking for a room?" I said, "Yeah." And he said, "Well, follow me." And this is what travel's about. Trusting your instincts -- "This guy seems pretty cool." I could have been led astray -- but anyway we were picking our way through bombed apartments. We came to this apartment building, and he said, "You can stay here." It was his cousin's unit. The cousin had witnessed the war and gone to the U.S. to live, and left a fully furnished apartment with hot water, electricity, everything going. These young guys used it for parties. I was going to go the next day, but I ended up staying for three days, simply because these guys were really generous.
So that was pretty bizarre. To just arrive like that. That's generosity thing I was talking about. I've never had a really bad experience.
Tripod: Have you ever had any moments when you were truly miserable?
PM: Oh yeah. You get those. When I was in Africa I hitched across Tanzania -- You're sitting in this petrol tanker. It's broken down for the twentieth time, it's taken you five days to go twenty kilometers or something like that, you're eating Ugawi which is just this pasty goo, and you think "What the hell am I doing here?" But those miserable experiences become the great experiences later. You look back on them and go, "Wow, that was amazing." I guess it's a sense of achievement. "I got through that, and I didn't realize I was such a patient person." That type of thing.
Luckily -- I'm going to touch wood again -- I've never been robbed or had anything bad like that go wrong. You just get caught in situations where the transport is very poor, or you wake up in the middle of the night and there's rats running along the petitions and clunking in to the bed. It happens, but it's not bad. It's part of the travel experience.
Tripod: In my travel experiences, I've run into so many Australians who were traveling around the world for months or even years at a time. Would it be accurate to say there are a lot of you out there?
PM: There are a lot of us out there. There's some statistic about it that says that Australians and New Zealanders have the highest proportion of the population with a passport at any time. So yeah we're out there. we're not big nations, but we certainly like to travel.
Tripod: What's the reason for that?
PM: I think it's a couple of reasons. I think number one is that we feel isolated out here. We're down in this forgotten corner of the world, and everything's happening somewhere else. The tyranny of distance, or whatever you want to call it. So you just want to get out and see what's happening.
Also, I think, because we're a new country, Australia is struggling to find a real identity. Part of that is searching and looking at all these other cultures, because you feel something lacking within yourself. That may be getting a bit too deep and meaningful. But, also, it's almost expected that you do your tour of duty -- go out and do your long trip. If you go for a job interview and you haven't done it, you're almost treated with a bit of suspicion. "He's not serious about his career. He hasn't even done his year away yet." [laughs]
Tripod: What is the best thing you could tell a first time traveler?
PM: Relax. Just know that the moment you step off the plane, things are going to start going wrong, or at least not as you expect. Taxis drivers are going to jump on you -- you just can't stress out about it. Take your time and realize that nothing is going to be that bad. If you have to stay in a dump of a hotel, that might be the best thing that ever happened to you.
Tripod: I know it's hard to pick a favorite destination, but if someone offered to send you anywhere right now, where would it be?
PM: Okay. I'll give you two versions. I have never been to Morocco, for some reason. If someone said, "Here's a ticket to Marrakech," -- that's such a great sounding name -- then I'd say, "Yeah, fine."
But if it had to be someplace I'd been, I'd say Istanbul. I really like Istanbul as a place to hang out.
Visit "No Shitting in the Toilet at: http://www.magna.com.au/~travdude/index.html
Or email Peter Moore at: [email protected]
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