When I think of travelling it always
brings about positive and fond memories.
The flashbacks usually put a smile on my face and it literally warms my
heart especially when the travel bug - the urge to go somewhere, anywhere
exotic, bites me! It’s a feeling that I have had for as long as I can remember,
which normally leads to day dreaming about all these foreign lands and its
people. There is just something beautiful and humane about travelling that
really can’t be described unless experienced.
The whole process of deciding on where and
when to go is absolutely thrilling! I could spend hours online looking for the cheapest
airfare, finding out where to stay or whom to stay with, which I learned over the
years is a way of reducing costs. It also helps when one has family members and
friends scattered around the world who wouldn’t mind letting you borrow their
bed for a little while or showing you around.
Fun, anticipation and day dreaming aside,
there is flip side to travelling. You can forget this and that in your
excitement and not realize till too late: the hair conditioner you can’t do
without, the vaccination card you must show on arrival, some important address,
all sorts of bits and bobs that mean a lot.
Assuming you somehow jump over the hurdles
and manage to leave the airport in one piece. There may still be unexpected eye
opener shocks to confront. Travel is not always a bed of roses. It can be a
mixed blessing.
When we are in our own comfort zones at
home, going about our daily routines, we rarely think of how the rest of the fares,
how different it could be from our own.
It suddenly hits us when we travel or
decide to move to a foreign country that things, even the simplest ones aren’t
always the same. Power plugs and sockets are a case in point. Forget to travel
with your adapter and you are going to face having to change all electrical appliances
to the new power plugs: again the pins may not fit or the voltage may be
different. It could be a nightmare!
There are some things we are able to adapt
to with the help of some gadgets but others can get under our skin. This
usually has to do with a mind set, which is not always easy to change if at all.
You certainly learn to either adjust or get winded up when nothing goes the way
you are “used to” it. Any well travelled
person would probably agree that having a “going with the flow” attitude is one
of the best survival skills in these situations.
In some parts of the world being time
conscious is a quality that everybody must have, at least to some degree. In
other parts though, time is something that is not counted by the minute and is
usually taken for granted. In these places there is simply no rush to get
anywhere. If something does not get done
today then it will get done tomorrow.
This can sound somewhat bizarre to some
but for others this is just the way of life. The most unusual and frustrating
experiences can at times have profound meaning to life experiences where one is
forced to evaluate and see things from another perspective. It really goes to
show that every thing has its flip side.
www.grassroots-traveller.com
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