Around the World with the Most Travelled Indian
By Nitin Gairola
I have witnessed this time and time again in our world travels that you get the maddest and most unfiltered attention in the most obscure of places on Earth, and sometimes the most dangerous (or perceived to be so). These are the places which most don’t visit and even if they do, they typically don’t go off the fixed trails. That’s why when you get into the everyday lives of everyday people, you have some very rewarding interactions and experiences. We had these in May of 2025 last year when we met the loveliest Somali, Ethiopian and even Yemini (refugees) people in the Somali Peninsula, what is today the far eastern region of Somali in Ethiopia, the break-away state of Somaliland and the original country of Somalia. In fact, a place called Puntland in the far corner of the Horn of Africa has broken free from Somaliland too, which tells you a tale of the volatility of this livewire of a land. But after a few days, all the attention was becoming a bit too overwhelming for Richa. Here’s how it began…
It started with a visit to a Somali village and with the usual stroll through a busy local market where local wares were being sold (sorry for the little tongue twister there). I knew how popular Bollywood and especially Shah Rukh Khan is in these parts so I was prepared, as ever, with around 20-30 postcards of SRK to gift to his world-wide fans. One lady even started jumping up and down and hugging the post card when we handed it over to her. I was truly stunned at how much people love Bollywood around the world. It is easily our biggest and most popular export.
Then we walked into a random village and suddenly I noticed kids starting to follow us. it began with perhaps 5-10 and then ballooned to 30-40 odd as the word spread that two Indian nutcases were walking these parts. I started to feel a bit like the Pied Piper since these didn’t let us go for the next 3 hours and that started to overwhelm Richa, since she isn’t all that comfortable in large gatherings. On the other hand, I being how I am, was loving the attention and wallowing in it, almost egging on the kids to shout a bit lounder and jump a bit more. Ah, the innocence of children around the world and the indulgence of (somewhat) attention hungry loonies like me.
After these 3 hours than felt like 30 to Richa, we were finally free and once again strolling in the market, buying peanuts and chit-chatting with shopkeepers. During the day I also played a bit of football with Somali teens and it seems Ronaldo and Rice are favourites here and definitely not Messi, who happens to be my favourite. They all made a face when I said Messi and we had a good laugh. The advantage of being in these parts is the English language due to the (limited) British influence here. That’s why the interactions were not one-sided and this is something you don’t get in West Africa for example, since there it is predominantly French (I ought to learn it but I am so bad at languages that it’s a miracle I can write in one).
Another interesting thing that happened over the course of our 4 days here was a bit away from the border in the Ethiopian city of Harar. The ancient Islamic city is undergoing a major makeover as we speak, so that it can be future ready for tourists. Tourists visit quite often and it being made more and more accessible to foreigners and I will take you to and through Harar probably later. But the one incident that was rather strange and amusing was that we were taken to meet the only Indian (apparently) in town and he happens to be a well-known barber originally from Gujarat. His name was Bachu Bhai and his claim to fame was getting the haircut done for Amitabh Bachchan once upon a time (the ‘once upon a time’ bit could either mean long ago or in his dreams). Also, now you can guess why he is called ‘Bachu’ bhai. Well, in his defence, he did show snaps of Amitabh Bachchan and other actors from the yesteryears but I didn’t see any image of his with Amitabh Bachchan. In any case this was an ‘interesting’ part of Harar and a lasting memory and another way Bollywood was not leaving us in this trip just as was the case in Uzbekistan and the Republic of Karakalpakstan, during our visit of the ‘Stans’ in November 2024.
The icing on the cake of the time spent in the peninsula was when a TV crew came upto me and said they wanted an interview. It happened to be a very large TV news channel called OBN Network and they asked what I felt about feeding Hyenas (yes, we did that in Harar, and with the mouth but that’s a story for another day). I had to tell then it was er ‘bone-chilling’, to say the least, and they seemed to be pleased with the answer. But then the interview went on and on about my perceptions of the country, if I believed more people would visit it if they knew that it was safe etc, etc. I said all the things I truly believe in, which is that people are good everywhere and it’s the people that make the place. So, for me all people and all places are good but I am not that naïve as to not know that there can be some bad elements here and there. I am willing to be fooled by some bad elements now and then, rather than to stop trusting everyone in the fear of being conned. If I did the latter, I believe I would be missing on the real meaning of life.
But preaching and philosophy aside, I am no Buddhist and I love attention. Richa is no Buddhist either but she doesn’t care much about attention. I sometimes envy her that she is so carefree and unconcerned about anything outside those who matter most to her. But as different as we both are in this area, we really loved our days in these parts. There were yet some more surprises in store as well as we were to go to a village of Yemeni refugees to see reality from their lens and to again be mobbed as two foreigners touched by the sun god.
This was an incredible little trip within a trip, albeit a bit overwhelming. The attention was good too, but equally good was the peace when away from it as well. And while this ‘peace’ I speak of is a personal one, I hope the troubled lands in the Somali Peninsula find their peace too, as hard as it seems right now.
Nitin Gairola is from Dehradun and is an extreme world traveller who has seen the natural world extensively and is often referred to as the ‘Most Travelled Indian’. He is on a quest to become the first person to travel to every major desert, forest, grassland, tundra & ice biome on Earth, besides every country. Nitin has set world travel records certified by India Book of Records, has written for Lonely Planet and holds National Geographic conservation certifications. He is also a senior corporate executive in an MNC and in his early days, used to be a published poet as well.www.facebook.com/MostTravelledIndian/
