The Driving Dutchman

It’s a mysterious law of nature. Wherever there’s a road link from Holland, no matter how far, unlikely, or inconvenient the place may be, like the Flying Dutchman's latter-day incarnation the Driving Dutchman will haunt you there. From an abandoned driveway in Liechtenstein’s alpine heights to the steaming hot tarmac in the midst of an arid Moroccan desert valley you can be sure to see six letters and numbers on the field of yellow and the proud NL on the field of blue whizzing towards the horizon.

Fly over the oceans and mountain ranges, Mr. and Mrs. de Vries will be there in the remotest Andean village or a God-forsaken station in Western China to discuss the recent price drops in Albert Heijn or the cleanliness of local toilets over a cup of coffee. Run to an island on the lake inside a volcano crater on Sumatra, the husky-voiced beer-guzzling Dutchman will be there cracking Fleming jokes exalting the virtues of Hemaworst.

Perhaps, it is in the blood of this sea-faring people that for centuries were sacrificing life, limb and family fortunes to bring back with a profit porcelain, spices and slaves from Japan, Sri Lanka and Brazil. These days it may also be the urge to escape from a rain-soaked flat country with world’s second highest population density, away from the rigours of living in a micro-managed ginger-house paradise.

Unlike the Flying Dutchman doomed to keep sailing around until the Judgement Day, the Driving Dutchman always makes it home in the end. Perhaps Baudrillard was not so far away from truth saying that “the bourgeois travel to get bored so that coming home wouldn’t seem so boring”.