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Around the world on two wheelsA sports car and a 25-year-old blonde would suffice for a mid-life soother for some, but for motorcycle adventurer and best-selling author of Jupiter’s Travels Ted Simon, a rickety Triumph and a lust for the unknown fuelled his journey of self-discovery, spanning the width of the globe (103 000 kilometres and 45 countries) and four life-changing years.
What makes Simon’s story that much more extraordinary is that 29 years on from the original circumnavigation in 1972, he would do it all again at the ripe age of 69, retracing his every step in 2001.
His second trip utilised a better equipped BMW R80GS, which roughly followed the same route as his 1972 trip – completing the journey in three years, which was illustrated in the follow-up book detailing the journey and apparent negative changes to the world between trips: Dreaming of Jupiter.
Simon worked extensively as a prized writer and editor in the United Kingdom and France prior to his globe-trotting, becoming features editor of the Daily Sketch (now Daily Mail), and later founding men’s magazine, King.
In late 1973, sponsored by The Sunday Times UK, the then 42-year old began travelling around the world on a 500cc Triumph Tiger 100 police-specification T100P motorcycle.
Simon decided to use the Triumph instead of a more reliable German BMW machine. As the trip was starting in England and sponsored by a famous English paper, he thought it fitting to ride one of the last bikes of that era of British motorcycles – before Japanese bikes flooded the market, forcing traditional UK manufacturers onto the sidelines, often into closure.
He tells Leadership in an exclusive interview, “In reality, the Triumph was the right size, as it was smaller than modern bikes and I was able to dominate it.
“The shocks were non-existent; it was like a wheelbarrow for me, really. There were situations when it was out of its depth, but when you’re going around the world, you can always make another plan.
“You need a bike that breaks down, you really do. That’s when you find out who your friends are and, in reality, everybody is your friend,” Simon adds.
Inspiration
“I wasn’t inspired to do it; I thought it would be a really good way to see the world. It was a mixture of self-interest and romance, really,” he says.
“I saw that nobody else had done it – I was a writer, and thought that it would make a really good book by the time I finished. It was just a question of getting enough money together to do it.
“I also realised that it was a good way to get around, and went through the usual thoughts: donkeys and skateboards; cars were out because you can’t see anything, and nobody can see you. It’s bloody difficult to get through small holes and park in a hotel room,” Simon says, laughing.
“So I narrowed it down well to a motorcycle.
“Generally, the sorts of people who ask me why I did it are kind of bemused by the thought that I’d do it at 42, and then it worried them that I was doing it alone. None of these things bother me, though. It was only recently that I realised that I’d done just about everything on my own. It’s a philosophy that you can’t expect to make really good connections with the world if you’re in a group, even a couple.”
Being one of the first of his kind, Simon was entering the unknown, with no Google searches to find out about hot spots and possible dangers. But for him, that is exactly the way he wanted it. The sense of adventure was all the appeal, and over-planning would have taken away the mystery.
“I went with a lot of trepidation. Only my curiosity was greater than my fear. There was nobody to ask about this, not like today where there are experts on every aspect of travelling on bikes around the world,” Simon says.
“They will never have the same experience as me, as they are mentally prepared. So in a way, they lose one of the great advantages of this kind of journey, of leaving yourself open to any eventuality.”
Vague planning
Planning is never Simon’s interest, choosing a vague route through Africa and beyond.
He recalls, “It was only planned in the vaguest sense; I had to go one way or the other, through Africa or Asia. Russia was not an option in those days; China was shut tight; and there was war in Vietnam. So going through Africa, I’d have to go through South America and on to Australia, and all of it wrote itself.
“The kind of book that I wrote, and the reason for its success, is that I was actually back there.
“So you have to mentally put yourself there. After four years, it’s difficult to place yourself back in the situation, that’s why I had to stop because I felt I was losing touch.”
Brazil imprisonment
Simon’s trip was not without incident, and he recalls being thrown in jail after coming off a ferry near Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, as police wrongly suspected him of being a spy.
He explains, “I sent information back by letter – the longest one was when I was released from prison in Brazil. It was written on low-grade paper and, thank God, it arrived. It was treated like a sort of cipher message from the Second World War, with wonderful archive quality that got a double-page spread in The Sunday Times.
“It was very hard to make phone calls, and I could only send the odd telex through shipping agencies.
“In the end, you’d have to ask them why I was out in prison, I really didn’t believe anything they told me. It was a bizarre spectacle coming off a small Greek freighter. These weird-looking guys in leather jackets, with pimples on their face and a plaster – real caricatures: with the boss and sidekick,” Simon relates.
“The first thing they asked me for was my scuba equipment. Maybe they thought I was there to blow up the port or to raise an insurrection – which would not be hard to do. But in the end, they said that they were looking for somebody with the same name, but in a different order.
“Finally, I got out because people found out where I was. But for a long time, nobody knew I was there, they could have got rid of me without trace. Without realising it, I had run into a terrible dictator state and simply wasn’t prepared for it,” he says.
Simon managed his way back on the road, another experience jotted down for the best-selling book.
Overcoming fear
Simon, who turns 80 this year, has seen it all, and insists that the world is not as dangerous a place as the news likes to portray.
“What I do, is let people understand the world is not a dangerous place; it’s a good place to be. You make it dangerous by your behaviour if you’re open to it. Don’t generate antagonism by your fear,” he says.
“You’ll gradually convince people that they don’t need to make war with each other, on an individual basis or generally. My books have affected people and sent them around the world, sometimes to their doom; but for most, they looked at the world differently through the book.”
Changes between trips
Twenty-nine years is a long time in the context of modern development, and Simon is ideally placed to document the changes therein, as he lives and breathes every moment.
“It would be harder to ask what was the same? Individual behaviour is the same: people are just as generous if you give them a chance. But the world is so obviously overcrowded, pollution is evident. These are real things,” he states.
“One of the problems I have, is with all the lip services paid to these things, but when you go out into the world, you see the effects of population and information explosion.
“The information explosion changes the way people think about themselves, their wishes and ambitions. Thoughts have changed from how they can get by in the village to how they can get to Hollywood, or become a financial titan in Bombay,” says Simon.
“It really is extraordinary how it has changed the way people view themselves and their rights and hopes. In many cases, people are better off, but feel they are worse off and feel underprivileged, and look to the cities to provide jobs and careers that may not exist.
“There was a sort of order in their lives in tribal societies.”
He continues, “Currently, people are saved from things (diseases) that would have previously killed them. For the individual, it’s a great thing – but for the general case, it’s a conundrum, as we’re saving people we can’t deal with.
“(It is) the notion of the sanctity of human life which we all subscribe to, but at the same time we see the slaughter of thousands.
“Take Lord [Horatio] Kitchener, who ordered the murder of thousands of people in Sudan and the Boer War, but who was seen as a hero in England.For those people it was clear: there were some people you had to murder and others you saved,” says Simon.
“If we’re talking about leadership, we need leaders who can lead others into examining these problems, and deal with these problems in a rational and not emotional sense. Not enough people are ready to speak the truth.”
Ewan McGregor
Simon has inspired countless global adventures since his first journey, including that of Hollywood actor Ewan McGregor, who was motivated to ride with fellow biker, Charley Boorman, to all parts of the world on their hit documentary, Long Way Round. “Ewan read my book and grasped the concept, and came up with the idea,” he says.
“On my second journey, I met all these people and nobody noticed me. It’s not the same as when I did it the first time.”
Living out of a suitcase for four years takes its toll on you mentally and physically. But what Simon found more difficult was reacquainting himself with mainstream society.
He reflects, “It was hard, and I learnt through making silly errors, like marrying the wrong woman. The sort of thing that everybody is doing, but I should know better, coming with all this newfound wisdom.
“Things that bother people seem so stupid: ‘I can’t afford this’, or traffic or their kids. None of that seems significant. But people don’t really want to be told that, and it annoys them.”
Mediterranean adventure
Simon has lived a long, full life, covering more file than your average truck driver. His passion for long-distance travel showed itself at a young age. As a 16-year old, he cycled from England to the Mediterranean in the south of France – just years after World War 2 had ended!
“That has become more and more significant to me,” he says. “When I look back on it, it was more courageous. Not many people today know what Europe was like after the war. France had been occupied and various warring factions distrusted each other.
“I was relatively innocent, but got on my bicycle and rode down to Paris, but had no sense of the geography of the place, and spent most of the time pushing the bike up hills on my way down south to the Med.
“I had nowhere to sleep. One night I found myself on a cobbled street, with trucks roaring past. I ended up sleeping in the police station with the door open. Another night I slept in a field, only to be told later that it was famous for being filled with vipers!
“My mother was in support of the trip, but I don’t know why she thought it was okay to let me go. I don’t remember being particularly proud, but saw it as my summer holiday,” concludes the likable Brit. ▲
Gregory Simpson
