Travelling was always part of the norm in my family when I was growing up and it had been so for generations. My grandmother, whom I have often mentioned before in my writings, was an ardent traveller from her youngest days. During the last years of the 1890's (before my time!!) she travelled around Europe travelling by steamer from Cork in southern Ireland where she was brought up, to Le Havre in France and onwards by train to places like Paris, Rome, Venice, Berlin and Copenhagen apart from frequent trips to London. Grandmother used to recount those early travels in her young days. She would tell how horrified people were in those days at the idea of a young lady travelling on her own to those (then) far away places. It was something young ladies "didn't do". However, she would relate with sparkle the fun and excitement, the joy and the interest she experienced on those journeys in spite of the fact that there were delays, long nights on trains as well as many other discomforts. Nevertheless, she enjoyed every minute. "It was an education", she used to say with a smile.
Europe was not my grandmother's limit. Her mother and father were more than upset when in 1900 she announced she would be leaving on March 1st of that year on the S.S. Southampton for India as she wanted to see what it was like. That was an absolutely unheard of thing then for a young lady to do, but set sail she did and she arrived in Bombay some six weeks later. I always loved hearing over and over again her tales of that journey and the places where the ship stopped like Gibralter, Marseilles, Naples, Port Said, Suez and Aden. They were so far away and were places I had only heard of in books. I wanted to go and see these places for myself.
As fate would have it, when grandmother arrived in Bombay she was invited to a Reception given by the Governor, and it was at that Reception that she met her husband - my grandfather - who was a doctor. They were married in Bombay and then moved to Darjeeling in the hills, where my mother was born. Grandmother lived there for five years during which time she visited Ceylon (not Sri Lanka) several times before she returned to Ireland following the sudden death of her husband. She never stopped travelling and returned home to Ireland after her last trip just a few days before she died at the age of 99. She had returned to India several times after she remarried as she always said it was a most fascinating country.
My mother was no different. She knew almost all of Europe as well as the Middle and Far East where she lived in Malaysia for many years. Whereas my grandmother disliked the idea of flying (it was unnatural, she would say) and never did enter a plane until she was 90 - and only did so then because she had to go to London and that at that age she said she could be dead by the time the boat and train got her there - my mother disliked travelling by sea and only did so if it was completely unavoidable. Actually she wasn't too fond of planes either, but tolerated them as a more acceptable means of getting from A to B.
All of the above family history made me realize that travelling was a necessary part of one's education as well as being a most interesting and fun part of life. I still hold that view. My first venture out of Ireland was to London to visit some (as I then thought) pre-historic aunts of my mother. We would travel by boat on the old M.V. Hibernia or the M.V. Princess Maud from Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead in Wales and from there to London by train. It was a tediously long journey that usually involved rough seas with high waves which seemed always to be present in the Irish Sea. In spite of that, it was always an exciting journey and even mother, with her dislike of boats, always admitted it was interesting and never complained about anything. In those days, not only did you buy a ticket for the journey, but you also had to apply several days in advance of your date of travel for what was called a "Sailing Ticket" which was free but limited the number of people who could travel. Without it you were not allowed on board.
The pier at Dun Laoghaire was always full of people standing in long lines waiting to board the ship for several hours at a time. As mother was quite well known, we never had to. She would telephone the shipping company's office and tell them we would be travelling with the result she was given a time to arrive, and we would be met at the pier by an official of the company and escorted past the long lines of people, through the Customs and Immigration which were necessary at the time, and direct to our cabin which was always on the top deck. The excitement and interest that was generated in me by everything - the people, the places, the events - during those trips, still exist for me today when I travel. I never find it stressful or boring.
I travel as often as I can and now that I am retired (officially) I have more time to do so. In fact I often say that I am at airports so often they are like a second home to me. I have a good friend who travels with me and he like me, takes a deep interest in everything when we are away. Like me, he wants to see and do everything even if he has been there many times before. If a plane is late or delayed, or there is some other hitch in something it is no big deal. We regard it as just one of those things that happen when you travel. One occasion last year when flying home to Phnom Penh from Bangkok - a flight that takes just over an hour - our plane was delayed for five hours due to the airline diverting its planes to evacuate tourists from southern Thailand who had been stuck there for several days due to flooding. People became furious, but we just sat and waited. Nothing you could do about it anyway. We passed the time by reading or watching other people becoming frustrated, stressed out and angry at being delayed. These things happen - so just accept them. To us and to many others as well - it is all part and parcel of travelling. One should take these things lightly and if you do, then they are not a problem.
At one point when I was working in Hawaii, I was co-chairing a committee that required me to fly from my home on the island of Kauai to Honolulu almost every weekday for almost a year. I could not count the number of people getting stressed at the airports every day. If the plane was even five minutes late in boarding, the cell phone would come out and they would call whomever saying they had no idea when they would be leaving, when they could get to the office, whether they would be home for dinner and so on. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the plane would start boarding before they even finished their phone call, but they would be totally stressed and complaining and vowing never to travel on that airline again. Airlines do not delay flights just for fun. There is always a reason. I sometimes wonder if people would rather just take off regardless of the fact there was an engine not working quite as it should, or regardles of the fact that the weather situation made the flight dangerous.
Several times in the week we have dinner in one of our favourite restaurants here in Phnom Penh that is on Riverside where the Tonle Sap and the Mekong Rivers join. It is what could be called the main "tourist drag". Nearly every evening we hear tourists complaining about food because it is not the same as at home, about the weather because it is too hot, about the guest house/hotel because it doesn't have all the amenities that are in American or European establishments, that the traffic is chaotic, that there are few taxis and no public transport. The list of complaints is endless, and these unfortunate people look so miserable and unhappy. I often feel like going over to them and asking them why they bother to leave home. The whole idea of travelling and holidaying in another country is to see the place, to understand the different culture, to get to know the people and to enjoy the experience. You travel to have a change from the regular routine at home and have a chance to see "the different" and to enjoy whatever you find. Soon enough you will be back to the old routine.
I am fortunate to live in a country that is full of smiles, laughter and happiess. It is seldom you will meet an angry Cambodian. It is sad to see people come here from thousands of miles away for a holiday - not just to Cambodia but also to other countries in the region - who are miserable and unhappy with everything they do and see.
Maybe it is what we call the "modern way of life" that makes people want everything to be the same and to happen at lightening speed even when they are on holiday and supposed to be relaxing and taking a rest. The world and its people are both exciting and we can learn much from seeing it and meeting the people. It is fun to go somewhere new, try something different, and when we do - then we have to be aware that everything will not be exactly the same as it is at home.
Many people say there is no fun in travelling any more, but yet they still do. So to them I say - open your eyes and ears to everything you see and hear. Observe the places and people you visit and meet. There is a lot to learn and if the bathrooms and toilets are not exactly like the ones you have in your home, or if the plane seats are a bit small or the plane is late - then look at the fun side of it. Enjoy the experience and the pleasure you will get from telling everyone about it when you get back home, remembering at the same time that even if you just cannot enjoy something - it will soon be history.
