Travel Faces: To Erin

My beautiful friend, Erin (left).

This has been a particularly sad week, topped off for me by the news of the death of my friend, Erin Gampar.

I’m writing about him in my new blog, Travel Faces, because you could say we met while I was travelling.

He was a musician from Flores, an Indonesian island east of Bali. His family moved to Kupang in West Timor when he was young.

And later he moved to Bali, which is where I met him one hot July night in 2004.

My friend, Ollie, and I were walking home after a night out bar-hopping in Seminyak when we heard beautiful music coming from a bar across the road.  It was salsa or the Gypsy Kings I seem to remember. We went over to investigate and listened to a few songs, then met the band and chatted to them. Erin was one of them. He was a superb guitarist and singer but could play most instruments - as shown by the above photo - and anything from reggae to ballads. I loved his rendition of Redemption Song.

He also had a cheeky smile and laugh and could see the humour in anything.

He should have been a journalist - he always made sure he was at the height of the action, telling me later how he’d been in the courtroom for Schapelle Corby’s sentencing.

I’ll never forget one story he told me. It was about 2am and we were sitting in another Seminyak bar.

It was about the night of the first Bali bombing, just after 11pm on Saturday, October 22, 2002.

He and his fellow musicians had finished their gig and were having a late dinner in a restaurant nearby. They heard a loud bang and saw flames and raced to the site to help people.

He focused on one man, making sure he got him to hospital to be treated for his burns, and visited him daily until he was able to leave.

We were engrossed while he told the story. It was fascinating - and terrifying - to be reminded of that fateful night from an eyewitness, especially a great storyteller like Erin.

Whenever I went to Bali I’d call or text him to find out where he was playing and go down and see him. If it was a Saturday night, he’d laughingly tell us he had to get up early for church the next day but he'd still stay up for hours.  He had been brought up a Christian.  He was so happy to meet his wife, Endah, and get married.

I still don’t know the full circumstances of his death but believe he had an illness he was being treated for in hospital.

Erin, I can’t tell you how much we’re missing you.

TRAVEL FACES: Germany's Wandering Carpenters

Meet some of the fascinating people I've met travelling - the first of a series.

Max and Robin

We’re in a Dusseldorf brewery eating dinner and enjoying a local beer when in wander two strangely-dressed young men.

They are wearing black corduroy suits with flared pants, and matching blue ties with gold pins. One sports a black top hat while the other favours a battered floppy version. Both wear waistcoats and carry curled, wooden hiking poles, known  as Stenz, and old-fashioned knapsacks tied with handkerchiefs to wrap up their belongings.

They are wandering carpenters, also known as journeymen or craftsmen or “Wandergesellen”, who travel door to door, in a Mediaeval tradition, known as “Wanderjahre”.

They set out for travel for at least three years and one day after completing their apprenticeships, and rather than accepting pay are fed and bedded by those they work for.

They have come into the brewery to ask for a meal in return for doing jobs here.  

Their names are Max and Robin; they have left off their last names, adopting the name of their organisation as their surname, in this case, Rolandschact, or a knight in Medieval times.

 “We are joiners or furniture makers, in a tradition that is about 900 years old,” Robin says. “After your apprenticeship you do this for at least three years and one day. We both have been doing it for one and a half years now.”

It’s said to be one of the oldest traditions in Europe and two seats on the European Union are kept for such journeymen. It’s also alive in France, where it’s known as the Compagnons du Tour de France.

But in Britain the tradition has died, with only the title, journeymen, still remaining as a reference to young men travelling throughout the country.

In Germany, the journeyman must be unmarried, childless and debt-free - so that they don’t use this as an opportunity to run away from social obligations. In modern times the brotherhoods they join often require a police clearance.

They must present themselves in a clean and friendly manner in public, which helps them find a bed for the night and a lift to the next town. These two both wear earrings in their left ears and I discover later that in the Middle Ages gold bracelets were also worn which could be sold to pay the gravedigger if a journeyman died on his journey.

Some say the song, Waltzing Matilda (Banjo Patterson’s poem about the swagman), comes from the tradition of the journeyman's Walz (or song).

While the Nazis banned the tradition, it came back into vogue in the late 1980s, especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall with economic changes and renewed interest in tradition.

We go outside to take photos and Max says he has just returned from South Africa while Robin has spent his time in Germany, learning the traditional craftsmanship. Max is the first in his family to follow the tradition but his father wasn’t that keen on the idea. Still he says that didn’t stop his own journey.

 “You used to have to do it 100 years ago. I met quite a few journeymen and it was clear to me I should do it too,” Robin says. “I don’t think it will die out that easily.”

They are an incredible reminder of the ancient traditions of Europe that have not been forgotten.

Dusseldorf, Germany: houses

Spring vegetables and fruit in Dusseldorf