So what could go wrong?
Passport – Check
Itinerary – Check
Accommodation – Check
Rail passes – Check
Insurance – Check
All systems go. However this client isn’t your everyday passenger. He came our way as we run a company called France Vacations.
Once upon a day, in walks Trevor – well Tracey actually. He, or … well I’m confused with the name … is of slight build, has shoulder length cascading tinted hair and could be 40 or 70 years old. So it was off to an interesting start. His purpose in coming to us was to book a French speaking tour of Sicily. But he doesn’t speak French, in fact not a word. On the itinerary he had found, the group would visit a palace that Trevor/Tracey had read about, that was not normally open to the public.
From this point on, I’ll call him Trevor although his passport and bookings were for Tracey. Trevor was a tad unusual in that he never returned my phone calls; instead he would come into the office. That, in itself, was one hour by public transport as he lived on the other side of town. His budget was tight and I was aware of some monasteries he could stay in throughout Italy.
So the itinerary was fixed: Melbourne to Rome with a connecting flight to Palermo, to arrive just in time for dinner at the hotel where the tour would start. After the tour, an overnight train to Rome, convent stay for a few days, overnight train to Padua, a ferry through a relatively unknown canal to Venice, monastery stay in Venice for a few nights, train to Milan, monastery stay, then a three month rail pass ending up in Paris to catch his return flight home via the Middle East. What could go wrong? After all, over the years, I’ve organised the travel for many people: from criminals being deported to ex-prime ministers (who some might say should have been deported).
Trevor made Palermo okay and had dinner at the hotel, however, somehow didn’t make connect with the group or tour leader. By the time my namesake worked out what he was doing in the morning, the tour bus had gone without him. Panic not, he got a taxi to one of the historic villas to be visited on tour that day. “Not due here for a number of hours” said the owner. The taxi driver didn’t know the preceding villa, so a change of taxi was required. He was still too early at this private villa but the Countess let him in to wait in one of the reception rooms. This 14th century villa was very impressionable on my client as he would recall to me (in detail) all the frescoes and wood carvings. The tour group eventually arrived and the tour leader says “Buon girorno, you must be Mr Tracey?” The tour with 32 people proceeds without a hitch with Trevor linking up with four French people who could speak English. They gave him the abridged version of the guide’s explanations. Whether he was enjoying himself so much that he didn’t want to leave the group on the last day, I don’t know but Trevor missed the overnight sleeper train to Rome that left at 1815 hrs. The tour finished in the morning, so there was a major distraction somewhere. So our intrepid traveller (see, you’re now part owner of Trevor) slept the night at Palermo railway station and had to wait for a train the next day. He said he got a good deal on the new ticket.
Arrived in Rome and stayed at the convent I’d booked for a week. He said breakfast at the convent was inedible rusks. Only the jam gave them any moisture. So departure from Rome was on another overnight train to Padua, however, at the station all trains north were “Sospendere, Sospendere” so another night without a bed spent at a railway station. The next day, he boarded a train direct to Venice, so he missed out on the ferry, the villas and the canal and spectacular arrival into Venice by water.
If you have ever arrived into Venice’s Santa Lucia train station, it’s chaotic at the best of times but Trevor found the correct “Vaporetto” ferry to the area of the monastery, which was situated near the Lido. On arrival at the correct dock, Trevor unloaded his bags on the quayside then jumped back on to get his suit pack. At this point, the ferry captain casts off and pushes on to the next stop oblivious that his customer had been separated from his bags, containing, amongst other things, his passport and his spending money of €6,000 in cash. His screams for turning the vessel around fell on deaf ears. So Trevor stayed on board and went around the whole circuit which took 1.5 hours, to discover that his bags were gone.
It’s at this point that I should tell you that the eccentric Trevor possesses no mobile phone, no e-mail address, no computer, no credit cards, no drivers licence. Nothing! This isn’t because he’s lost them; he just doesn’t possess them for his simple lifestyle. So Trevor rocks up to the local Politza office. To his amazement, the police have his passport but alas, no baggage and no money. So up fronts Trevor to the monastery but he’s unable to pay the additional nights beyond the first night’s deposit. Fortunately, the Brothers of the Order told him not to worry as something will work out (time to get another glass of red wine).
Not a good night’s sleep. On returning to the police station, Trevor was told to go to another police station as they might know the whereabouts of his possessions and money. Rate the chances in a country in financial doo doo of a free €6,000 to a person playing “finders keepers”. As a stroke of luck, his bags were there but, wait for this, so was the €6,000. Whoever handed the bag in is going straight to heaven. I have two theories –
(i) Somebody saw what happened at the quayside and took his bags into custody.
(ii) Trevor is one of the worst dressed people and suffers an excess of bacteria around the armpit region. In fact, he could knock over the whole Australian rugby team with a lift of an arm. So the person wasn’t going to go any further after opening the zip and handed the bags in.
Whatever the event, Trevor wishes he could thank you. The rest of the time in Venice goes without further incident.
Moving on to Milan by train was event free except, in hindsight, an earlier train might have been advisable. Turning up to a monastery at 10:30 pm wasn’t a good idea as nobody wanted to, and didn’t, open the door. A phone call from a public phone was answered but he was not understood. The ‘Order’ it seems were all tucked up in bed, but you’re running ahead of me. Yes another night sleeping out.
The following day Trevor had had enough of Milan and a voice inside him said “Genoa”. So that’s where he went for ten days. I can’t get anyone to stay there for one day but each to their own. He loved it.
His plans of touring France by train changed to travelling up to Bavaria, Luxembourg and Belgium. Other than having his new and first-ever digital camera stolen whilst hiking in Germany, all went swimmingly. Trevor is a history buff, verging on being a genius, and the battlefields of World War I were a must see. What he was not to know was that his battle was just about to begin?
There seems to be a common theme that was about to continue – that being catching a train that arrives too late to seek accommodation. He happened to be in Lille in northern France late in the day – it was the last day of validity of his three month rail pass and he was running out of money. The last train from Lille was a high speed TGV which requires a mandatory seat reservation which he didn’t have. The result was a very angry conductor, who could have fined him or removed him from the train, which is just as well he didn’t as the train was non-stop and travels at about 300 kph. Arrival into Paris’ Gard du Nord was very late and the rain had set in.
Having very little money or inclination to brave the elements, Trevor decides a bus shelter was as good a place to stay. That was until two men of Eastern European origin approached him and thought it necessary to sift through his bags for money and valuables. The only thing of value was his passport which they took off him. Having been parted from his passport once before, Trevor decides that screaming was the only option, which is what he did, over and over again. They actually handed his passport back and walked off. Trevor then ran to the nearby 24 hour McDonalds where the police were called. As you may have expected, nothing could be done. Where he spent the rest of the night, I didn’t ascertain.
A couple of days later, it was time to depart for home and he headed for Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. CDG has three terminals and our traveller was departing from terminal 2C. He did find terminal 2 but it is split into four sections and 2A, 2B and 2C, 2D are a mirror image. His thinking was that if he stood long enough where he was, he would eventually see his flight come up when the airport ground staff change the signs. In short, it didn’t happen and he missed the flight.
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Now this created a major problem as it was the end of Australian school holidays and flights were full for over a week except for a business class seat for €5,000. Our traveller wandered the airport for assistance but nobody could or wanted to assist. He now had no money and you may remember, no phone, no credit, nothing. So back to central Paris, where he goes to the Australian Embassy who would only assist by handing him a phone where he could call for free. It’s midnight in Melbourne – I’m awoken by a calm but bewildered passenger wondering what to do next. I told him I would contact the airline in the morning and see what I could do. This is the first contact I had with Trevor since he departed so I wasn’t aware of the seriousness of his predicament. Unable to sleep, I went into the office to search for seats. Not much but I eventually found a seat for the following night. Later that day I cleared the way with the airline for our passenger to fly home.
Off to CDG again, he found the check-in counter but the airline demands an amendment fee of €200. I’d made it clear he didn’t have any money and it was supposedly approved that they wouldn’t charge the passenger. Paris thought the authorisation was Melbourne’s responsibility and Melbourne thought it Paris’ responsibility. In other words, he was denied boarding.
Back into the Australian Embassy he goes, but the only way in was to jump over ticket turnstiles and jump off trains to avoid ticket inspectors as he now had nothing. His call was more desperate but still controlled. He says he’s hungry as he hasn’t eaten or slept in a bed for three days. I told him I couldn’t believe he was denied boarding and said he had to call everyday until I sorted some arrangements out for him. I now discovered that he’d spent three nights sleeping at the side of a cargo terminal at the airport.
A seat could only be found for him three days away. So we decide – book and prepay three night’s accommodation with breakfast, send him €250 via Western Union and book and prepay a transfer from the hotel to the check-in counter. Needless to say, he was greatly relieved when I gave him this news. All this, including another airline reissue fee, was over $1,000. We also suggested he should wash all his clothes as they had three days to dry. Hmmm! We were thinking of his fellow passengers. We thought we had covered all bases so an end to this saga was in sight. Trevor made Dubai and remembered that I’d asked him how he was going to get home after arriving at Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport as he had no Australian currency. So, during transit time in Dubai, he goes off to find a foreign exchange bureau to change the few Euros he had left into Australian dollars. He goes so far down the terminal and the queue is so long that he misses his flight to Melbourne.
He’s then booked by Dubai airport staff to Sydney the next day. He buys a U$10 phone card and rings my office and tells us “The airline wants more money which I don’t have”. The phone card runs out quickly but my daughter, who had answered the phone, tells him he must go back to the counter and keep checking with the airline. The next period of time was a blur, with my staff getting frustrated, angry, dismayed, unbelieving. Trevor spends the night in transit at Dubai airport. Fortunately, it’s a 24 hour airport so he spends his time watching thousands of people coming and going.
A seat was found for him on a Melbourne flight the next night but how were we to let him know? We paid another bloody amendment fee and then tried to call the transit desk at the airport to have him paged. It took us 45 minutes just to find the number, as the airline has a policy of not advising numbers. When we did reach a human, we were told “sorry we don’t page passengers”. Fortunately our passenger remembered my daughter Brielle’s words – “check at the counter”. He boarded the Melbourne flight but it went via Singapore. We begged the airline to alert the ground staff in Singapore to treat this passenger like an “unaccompanied minor” even though he’s sixty years old. “Sorry, nothing we can do under 24 hours but we can organise a wheelchair”. “Are you kidding? Thanks for nothing”.
At Singapore, Trevor goes into common-sense overload and sticks close to a fellow Melbourne-bound passenger. Hallelujah!
He arrives in Melbourne penniless and the only way home is to walk. As Melbourne airport is only connected by a freeway, there are not footpaths in many areas – I have no idea how walking can be achieved. What’s more his hand luggage and his main bag had no wheels so he had to carry them some 8 km. But home to his 96 year old mother he did not go. I also knew his mother was elderly and unable to assist him while he was away in case you were wondering why someone at home couldn’t assist. Instead, he went straight to his bank, withdrew $1200 plus a bit more for a train ticket and headed for the city and the Shrine of Remembrance, as it was the anniversary of the Battle of Fromelles, an Australian disaster from World War I. So there he attended the service, side by side with the Governor-General, politicians and other dignitaries and, not forgetting his luggage also attended the service.
So with unfinished business, he hops on public transport and virtually falls through the door of Hawthorn Travel, beaming from ear to ear. For some weird reason, I was elated to see him. After a two hour debrief and handing me $1200, he said “You know that French tour company have another tour going later this year and I’m thinking I would go”. “Sorry Trevor the tour is full”.
There is a moral to this story. “Without a travel agent, you’re on your own”. I feared for his safety and I feel as his travel agent we have a moral obligation for the safety of our clients. He said that, at times, he was very frightened.
Trevor Jones
Note that some of the names may have been changed but the details are as accurate as I could ascertain.
