Postcard from Bishkek

Some years ago I was having lunch with a guide who had just returned from taking a group around Kyrgyzstan, and he was giving me a report on how it went.  During the conversation the conversation was punctuated by gaps as he got out his notebook and started writing something in it.

Intrigued, I asked what he was doing.  OK, I knew what he was doing, he was making notes!

He had done the same when we had the “briefing” meeting before the tour “… you go here … they are particularly interested in x so make sure they see they see this … you have to go shopping for a picnic at y …” and so on.   He was making sure that he didn’t forget anything.  Even though the essential information was written on the tour notes that I had given him, he wanted to make a separate note of them for himself.  Some of the additional comments, however, were new … and so he was adding them.

What struck me as odd was that this was a debriefing meeting.  He was supposed to be giving me information about how the tour had gone, what went well, what problems there were, what we needed to pay special attention to in future … and so on … and I was supposed to be making the notes.  Here he was, however, grabbing his pen and notebook and jotting things down.

“Every now and again, ” he said, “when reading a book or an article, or listening to a talk, I come across something I didn’t know, or maybe a new idea, quotation or word and I think to myself something like: “That’s good, I must remember that.” … so, I write it down to help me remember.”

Here’s a budding author, I thought to myself … I was moderately impressed … and a little flattered – after all, he was taking the trouble to write down things as a result of a conversation with me … little gems of wisdom?, I wondered.  I decided not to ask … after all, it’s his private notes and, who knows, I may not like to know what he thinks is worthy of note … it could be all my gaffes, so that he could have a laugh at my expense later on.

I also refrained from asking the next crucial question? … did he ever to get to go over and review his notes, perhaps he copied them up, put them into some sort of order, or classified them,  or were they just things that he jotted down? … did he keep his notebooks – were they stored away, or did he throw them away?  It is possible that he had no intention of “keeping them for prosperity” … after all, the very action of writing something down can help someone to remember things.  It passes through their consciousness several times, three times at least: first when they read it, hear it or see it; then again when they organize their thoughts in order to commit it to paper; when they actually write it down, and the see what they have written …

Why did I think of him as a “budding author”?  Well, lots of writers keep – or rather, kept, – notebooks in which they jotted down ideas which might “be useful” some day.  Literary scholars spend hours pouring over them in research for learned articles.  I say “kept” because in these days of computers, many have taken to jotting things on their computer, they amend their drafts electronically, and the literary scholars no longer have access to the creative thought processes that result in masterpieces.

Perhaps the most famous notebooks , however, belonged not to an author but to a scientist, engineer and artist: Leonardo Da Vinci.

The people I notice use notebooks a lot, constantly taking them out and jotting down odd bits of information are researchers for guidebooks.  Telephone numbers, distances, GPS locations, names and addresses, opening times and specimen costs, drawings of little maps, the odd historical fact … and so on.

Now, it just that whilst reading an article in Forbes magazine, I came across a quotation that I thought was well worth a note: “Guidebooks go out of date even before they are published.”

How often have I met tourists who say things like “we have a love-hate relationship with our guide book.”

The trouble is that guidebooks may well be accurate, (more or less), at the time they are written – but they do get overtaken by events and get “out of date” very quickly.  As I understand it, the process of producing a guide book is something like as follows:

• Certain work can be done at home.  For example, basic geography and history can be researched and drafted in almost any good library.  Indeed, although it’s possible to compose a guidebook without having been to the place at all – and one, (very famous), publisher ran into a public relations disaster not long ago when it came to light that one of their researchers had written portions of a guidebook without having visited the destination – it’s not a good idea … the resulting work will lack vital practical information, “local colour” and advice.
• A researcher or a travel writer visits the location with a list of questions or issues which need to be addressed.  They gather the vital information about places to visits, names, addresses, telephone numbers, times etc., not to mention taking photographs if a professional photographer hasn’t been contracted.  Over the years, we’ve been visited by researchers for most of, (if not all), the major guidebooks to the region …
• They return home and work on drafts of the text, which are then put through an editorial process, to make sure it fits in with house style, is checked for legal issues and the like.  Sometimes they discover that there things that they missed … that need further checking or clarification.  There is a period of correspondence with people they have they met, (like us), with questions that need to be answered, such as: “Can you check the telephone for …?” and so on.
• When the draft is completed it is sent for typesetting … which is once again checked … before being printed and dispatched to shops for distribution.

All this takes time … and I suppose that it takes something like six months, or more, between the researcher’s visit and when the book actually hits bookshelves in your local bookshop or library.   Of course, in that time, things may change … for example: a cafe may have changed hands, may have closed – and another one opened up elsewhere; a museum may have changed it’s opening hours; costs may gone up, regulations have changed.  That’s why the writer in the Forbes article said that guidebooks may go out of date “… even before they are published”.

Then, unless they manage to obtain copy of the guide book on the first day of publication, time elapses whilst the book lies on the bookshelf before the tourist gets one in his or her hands … and more time before they actually arrive in the country.

That’s why guide books tend not to have a very big print run … they have to be updated regularly.  Many, for example, try to bring out a new edition every two or three years.   You can imagine that this can be quite expensive, especially sending researchers out to distant locations, so there isn’t much of a profit margin on guide books.  As it happens, the budget is not very large and research is often undertaken on a shoestring.   Indeed, very few guide book authors get rich from their endeavors.  As one seasoned travel writer put it when asked if writing a guide book was “worth the money” – “It’s getting harder to say Yes.”   So, they usually need “another string to their bow”.   So, you might well ask, why do they do it?  Well, the one big perk for the travel writer or researcher is that do get travel a lot and see new places, meet interesting people and garner interesting experiences … and so on.

Once this time lag between research and publication and eventual use is understood, then it becomes clear that a guide book is exactly that, what the name says – a “guide”.  It might well be authoritative, but it is not “holy writ” … infallible in everything it says or recommends.

Unfortunately, that is the way that readers often view their guide books. Infallible fountains of wisdom and knowledge.  I have actually seen situations where a tourists, guidebook in hand, has argued: “it says here that the cost is …”, or “it says here that you are open on …”, or “it says here that I don’t need a visa for …”.  On one occasion, (the visa example), the guide book they carried was two editions old … that is, about six years had passed since the researcher first jotted their notes into their notebooks … and here was the tourist quoting the resulting text as if it were Holy Scripture.  When they discover that things in reality are not exactly as written up in the guide book, they start complaining about how awful the book is – how useless it is – how it has got things wring – how it was a waste of money.

Of course, authors of guide books can make mistakes … for example, I once wrote that the dam at the head of the Toktogul reservoir can hold back nineteen and a half thousand tons of water … unfortunately I missed out one word and it wasn’t picked up by anyone in the editorial process until the fifth edition was being prepared and someone said, “that doesn’t seem much” and questioned it … it should have read “nineteen and a half thousand million tons of water.”  It happens … I made a mistake … sorry!

The problem lies not with the author but with the reader … and the way they are using the guidebook.

It is important to remember that guide books may indeed be “fountains of wisdom and knowledge” … but they are not infallible.

Tags: Advice, Expat, Tourism