Trifter

Three older children and three adults in the party, we cooked, dined and slept entirely in the motor home on folding bunks.   It was a four cylinder Citroen van commonly used by the french police.   With a lot of head room inside, the children were even able to play with a basket ball.

Traveling with babies is an experience in itself.   Most of the day we were parked to cook, wash and feed the children and wash clothing, especially all those nappies.   Consequently, we had to awake in the wee hours of the morning and drive as far as we could before the children awoke.   Again driving until late at night after the children were put to bed.

When we transferred on the ferry from Talaimannar in Sri Lanka to Danushkodi in Southern India the van was loaded onto a long bed railcar attached to the cargo train.  We had to travel out in the morning train while the third adult, our lifelong friend Ralph de la Motte stayed with the van.   It was the most tiring experience of the entire trip because we had to wait all day in hot and dusty Mandapan Rail Station which had only one chair.

Having to buy and consume food from a local cafe, it affected little Shiromi so badly, she began to dehydrate and was seriously ill when we reached Delhi.  The Sri Lanka High Commissioner, Sir Richard Aluvihare who had served with my father in France during World War I, was determined to return us to Sri Lanka.   But after a great deal of persuasion brought in Dr. Rosy Manickam who was instrumental in caring for and curing Shiromi.

We encountered many difficulties on the rest of our trip through India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Yougoslavia, Austria, Germany and France, but happily never had any more health difficulties except that I collapsed with rheumatic fever the day after we arrived in England.   Those incidents are the subject of other articles.

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