Stelios the barber of Monemvasia, gets to work. Peloponnese, Greece. Photo / Huw Kingston
For decades, travel writer Huw Kingston has made a habit of getting a haircut while travelling which, over the years, has led to some hair-raising experiences.
It had been a fine lunch – yams, plantain, taro, banana, pineapple – everything grown in the Vanuatu village.
But then the village headman, moving a chair to under the banyan tree, gestured me to sit.
“We think you want a haircut Mr Huw.”
Soon, a cloth was pulled from the table to my shoulders, and a villager called Andrew appeared with clippers. There, in the shade, at least six villagers took part in a mass shearing, others looking on.
For decades, I’ve saved my time in the barber’s chair for when travelling, seeking out local street barbers and salons. With a head of hair that grows out, not down, there’s little that can go wrong and there is, of course, only a week between a bad and a good haircut.
I’d been in Vanuatu checking out some projects as an Ambassador for Save the Children.
Rarely are my cuts entwined, plaited, but just weeks ago, a year after that banyan tree salon visit, I was in Melbourne giving a talk to a group of finely coiffured women.
My hair was in a Prince or Garfunkel-like state (some cruelly suggested Leo Sayer) as a year had passed since an Armenian barber had wielded his scissors upon me.
The women suggested I needed a trim.
Agreeing, I invited them to entice me with a donation to my fundraising for a project, again in Vanuatu – $2500 later, a man called Ethan was summoned and off came the curls.
My love for street barbers started in India, a box seat offered amidst the street theatre. Performances viewed not only out in front, but back and sides too, courtesy of a mirror propped on an old crate.
“Bashir the barber man is still here,” exclaimed Bilal.
I was back in Kashmir for the first time in nearly 30 years, back onboard the Badyari family’s Srinagar houseboat. Way back in 1991 I’d stayed on the same boat just before setting off on a long Himalayan journey.
And so it was that Bashir, then 18 now 46, gave me a shave and head massage in the same place as the sun went down across the lake, a shikara boat floating beneath it, the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.
Occasionally, it is more the journey to the barber than the cut itself.
One day, during a sea kayaking voyage through Greece, strong headwinds just weren’t worth fighting. In need of my first haircut of that trip, I landed at a small town.
Pulling my kayak up the narrow beach, an old man came out from a house behind. Theo, 86, told how he migrated to Australia in 1950 but subsequently returned to Greece 10 years later, his wife homesick.
He shuffled into the house and returned with some photos. Of their wedding in 1956 and a honeymoon at the Melbourne Olympics.
I glanced over his shoulder at the washing on his line, taken aback to see it blow drying in the breeze on an old Hills Hoist clothesline. Theo explained it was the first thing his wife had wanted to bring from their backyard in western Sydney back to Greece.
Purely by the chance of wanting a haircut, I’d landed bang in front of what I’m certain is the only Hills Hoist gracing the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. I hardly remember the haircut itself.
Once, I crossed Algeria, Africa’s largest country, by bike.
But I was not alone. For 1500km and two weeks, I did it presidential style with a police escort front and rear and, at times, a couple of motorcycle outriders.
Riding into towns and cities, on would go the sirens and flashing lights. All the traffic was held back as we flew unimpeded through red lights and roundabouts, numerous military roadblocks waving us through.
When I mentioned the possibility of a haircut in the town of Oran, all was arranged and armed police stood, guns cocked, as Abdul attacked me with his scissors.
But who has not exited a hairdresser or barber uncertain or even in tears? A butchering by a barber in Barcelona, left me in follicular despair and, after cultivating a fine mop, I found myself in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.
I had the desire for a detailed cut and shave; a deft, relaxing removal with scissor and cut-throat. Alas, it was over in minutes courtesy of bland electric clippers.
Nearly a year’s work cast unceremoniously to the cutting room floor. I did learn, however, that, by presidential edict, beards are banned in Tajikistan. Apparently, to cut out any moves toward fundamentalism in this overwhelmingly Muslim nation.
Here in New Zealand, in Greymouth, a bitterly cold and misty wind rolls into town off the mountains.
Locals call it The Barber. When I too rolled out of those mountains, in need of a shave and a shower, I spied the cutest of barber shop frontages, and the third owner in 70 years did a grand job tidying me up.
On the drive back east, over Arthur’s Pass, a handwritten sign advertised ‘Psychic Reading & Hot Shower’... Might I be told where and when my next cut would be?