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Many Traveled the World to See Others' Lives

Cheryl Bentley/SUNCOAST NEWS

Dudley W. Lye of Port Richey brought this 100,000 Zimbabwe dollar bank note back from a trip to the African nation. Thanks to hyperinflation in Zimbabwe, the note would only purchase something like a can of soft drink.

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By Cheryl  Bentley | The Suncoast News

Published: October 3, 2007

The bands of bullets across their chests glittered like angry eyes.

In his minimal Italian, Dudley W. Lye rolled down the window and asked the armed men why they had stopped his car.

Sardinians would later tell Lye the armed men were "banditos," mountain people of Sardinia, who at the time, in the 1970s, occasionally kidnapped wealthy Italians for ransom money.

Sardinia is the second largest island in the Mediterranean off the coast of Italy.

Lye told the banditos he meant no harm. As a tourist exploring Sardinia, he had been to a famous cave and later taken in a village festival.

"Yes, I know," said the leader.

The men finally sent Lye on his way after ordering him to speak Italian, an event that evidently provided the day's entertainment. They laughed uproariously at his accent.

Many tales

More than 30 years later, the 80-year-old Lye relishes telling the Sardinia story. It is only one of the travelers' tales he recounts from his Port Richey living room as he reflects on nearly 60 years of travel to approximately 90 countries.

"I wanted to see how other people lived,' he says, explaining his zest for travel in his clipped British accent. "I think I've wondered about this all my life."

He insists on taking the countries one by one and recounting his memories of them, as if honoring them for the role they have played in making him a citizen of the world.

With his desire to see the world's treasures still unrequited, Lye has just returned from a 23-day trip to Africa, where he visited South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Zambia.

"It was wonderful, except for Zimbabwe, which (economically) is in a terrible state."

Lye holds up a Zimbabwean 100,000-dollar bill. "That would buy a Pepsi," he says.

Bug bites

The travel bug bit Lye with his first trip out of his native England in 1948.

It was to Paris, and it lasted for only a day, but Lye milked it for all it was worth.

"I walked the whole of Paris, arriving at 9 in the morning and came back at 9 in the evening completely beaten," he recalls.

Commissioned in 1806 by Napoleon, shortly after his victory at Austerlitz, and not finished until 1836, the Arc de Triomphe honors France's early fallen military.

Beneath the Arch is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. An eternal flame commemorates the French soldiers who died during World War I and World War II. The monument struck a poignant note with Lye because of his experience of living through World War II in England.

He had, however, not fought in the war. As a communications technician on British Railways, Lye could not serve because his was classified as a reserve occupation, one of the jobs that kept the country's infrastructure running.

Signing up

After the war, he joined the Canadian Royal Air Force. Not many of his fellow Brits knew they could join the Canadian military.

Why would an Englishman want to join such a group?

"Excitement, travel, something different."

Eventually, with wife Gwyndoline, son Graham and daughter Zena, Lye moved to Canada.

He worked as a photo technician at the Canadian Forces Cold Lake Air Weapons Range in the Alberta province.

Lye was in charge of maintaining the photographic equipment for Canada's reconnaissance planes.

Later, Lye was transferred to work at the Canadian Air Force base in France.

The family lived in nearby Virton, Belgium. He drove to work each day along an idyllic, tree-lined route.

He couldn't imagine a more perfect life. "I often said people would give their right arm to do what I'm doing."

He served with the Canadians until 1972. During that time, he visited about 35 countries.

On to England

After retiring from the Air Force, the Lyes returned to England, where Lye worked for General Electric inspecting telephone exchanges.

But the English sojourn would not last for long. In 1973, the Lyes went to Canisteo, N. Y., to visit their daughter Zena and new grandson Christofer.

On the way back to England, he and Gwyndoline decided they wanted to live in the United States to be near their new grandson.

They promised each other they would give themselves three years to sell their house and take care of other affairs before making the move.

That went faster than expected.

In nine weeks, they were back in the United States.

No big deak

By that time, pulling up stakes and starting life in a new country was no big deal.

"Of course, traveling didn't mean anything to us," Lye says as a kind of afterthought. "Moving around was quite easy."

They were awarded green cards, giving them official immigration status as lawful permanent residents in the United States. They lived in Canisteo.

But they didn't stay there much. They bought a recreational vehicle and explored the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Lye has numerous stories about kindness extended them by ordinary people, such as the American Automobile Association employee who came to fix their flat tire near Yellowstone National Park and ended up inviting them to his home.

"I never met any bad people on my trips," he says. "I only met kind, considerate people."

The couple moved to Port Richey in 2002 because of Gwyndoline's desire to live near the water.

When she no longer could travel because of health reasons, Dudley joined tour groups and kept traveling.

War stories

Some trips provided fodder for travel "war" stories. While Lye says it was a living hell at the time, these days, he obviously enjoys recounting his travails during a 2005 trip to the Russian city of Provideniya, across the Bering Strait from Alaska.

Provideniya is a former Soviet military port.

To hear Lye tell it, Provideniya could do with some upgrading of its tourist facilities.

He describes his visit there as "five days of seeing and finding nothing. There were no tourist attractions, nothing in the stores. The roads were dilapidated."

The family with whom Lye and another tourist were supposed to stay, canceled out. The two men were put up in a hotel. Lye's room was lit by a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling on a cord.

Electricity and water were shut off at 10 p.m. Even though it was July, the weather was bitterly cold. Lye couldn't even find solace in food because there was little of it in the stores, he recalls.

After arriving back in the States, Lye and his fellow tourist were so relieved to be out of Provideniya they got off the plane and kissed the ground.

But mostly, Lye's travels have opened up a world of wonder and beauty, as when he witnessed more than 100 elephants drinking at a water hole during his recent African trip.

"It made me feel how lucky I was to be there," he says.

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