Lilli and the Hippopotamus

This book appealed to me, in that: a/ it is somewhat obscure; b/ it was published by The Travel book Club; c/ it was published in 1958, meaning the travel occurred a few years prior; and d/ in the blurb it gives away the fact the 21 year old author hitchhiked ‘around the world' for two years. Fair to say, despite being on the light side this book is pretty well on point for my genre, etc.

Peter Beale is a little too smart, a little too stubborn and a little to lucky to come across as likeable initially, but he grows on you, and does become likeable. When I was younger he would have been referred to as a ‘chancer', someone who is always prepared to gamble, go all in, risk it all; but also someone who gets away with it more often than not.

And so it is that he hitchhikes his way from London to Singapore (ok technically he does only set foot in Singapore, but I won't spoil all the detail). On the way he spends time in France, Italy, Yugoslavia (Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia), Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Pakistan and India.

I imagine hitchhiking as a thumb out, car passing by experience (I did it for the best part of a year in Australia, and plenty around NZ when I was young), but Peter Beale takes it to the next level. He hitches rides for free on ships and freight planes, on trains as well as the more conventional vehicles. He occasionally pays a fare, but only when there are no free options.

He set off with about fifteen pounds, but there are plenty of ways to make money on the way. He lectures to school children about his travels, he pens articles, he sells some photographs (taken with a borrowed camera). He settles for weeks or months in a place he either gets stuck in, or enjoys. People help him, families take him in, he must be enjoyable company!

In the course of the book he falls in love - as the blurb tells us. “Lilli was an Italian girl who was a champion swimmer, the Hippo was a middle-aged she-hippopotamus in the Calcutta Zo0. With both of them, Peter.. fell in love.” The circumstances around both are amusing, but both are short-lived - he is back on the move.

The book does slow when he becomes stranded in Calcutta, unable to hitch a flight to Singapore. Circumstances and people in power conspire to make it very difficult, and his stubbornness in his refusal to change his plans results in weeks of delay.

This was a light-hearted travelogue, but it had enough in it to keep me entertained.

4 stars.