2. Planned perfection ends and reality begins

Departure day arrived: I woke up to read the news that Auckland was flooded with unprecedented climate breakdown related rains. Man. I know we are seeing heatwaves and floods in the UK too, but i'd been harbouring a growing fear in recent years that travelling further afield is a riskier business, and lo and behold, I hadn't even landed and it had begun.

I had a final lunch with my mum before catching the tube to Heathrow. All packed, and after what felt like weeks of agonising over how many trousers to bring, a cack-handed waiter managed to smash a glass of red wine all over me. Aargh no... 'You stupid man' I wanted to shout at him; 'I am not like normal people...I am now a TRAVELLER! I have to wear these trousers for the next 15 hours!'. They were alright in the end. Khaki turns out to be an ideal colour for going to war. I mean, abroad.

The flight was fine, the seat next to me empty so had half a seat extra to spread out into as I tried to sleep. Every couple of hours the elderly asian woman sat behind me grabbed my hair when holding onto the back of my chair to get up. 'Sorry miss, sorry miss..' doing it so often that she eventually included a bonus head fondle by way of extra apology.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

8. Backpacking

Image
Backpacking = Travelchat! The same conversation, every day, with endless new people, ad nauseum. Where are you from? How long have you been in New Zealand? How long do you have left? where are you going? Are you going to do a skydive? Early conversations like this in Auckland lead to the growing realisation... that everything here is booked up! tours, hostels, buses, rental cars... This was seriously disappointing as I was really hoping to hire a car and be free to stop off randomly around the south island. I posted a facebook ad asking if anyone with a car wanted a travel buddy, and only got messages back from kiwi men in their 60s, with additions like '... and may I also add that you are very beautiful'. Sigh. All these interactions, plus countless hours online researching and booking travel, accommodation and activities... in addition to lugging your too-much-luggage about, (because you thought you'd hire a car) makes backpacking on your own absolutely exhausting. Also...
Read more

3. Kuala Lumpur (stopover)

Image
My taxi driver from the airport was a cheerful chatty Indian Malaysian man, who brought me up to speed on the current state of affairs in Malaysia. In particular the realities of living in a country run by a Malay Government, when not Malay yourself. Apparently everything is weighted in favour of the Malay people in Malaysia, so Chinese and Indian students have to gain higher scores in school than Malay students, to be on an even footing. Malay people are able to buy property at less cost, and are able to borrow money on more favourable terms. However, despite our tanking economy and the embarrassment that is Brexit, taxi driver man said if he was going to leave Malaysia then London would be his number one choice of destination. He dreams of living in a meritocracy where skills and effort are rewarded fairly. Wow. Can't believe we've still got it. People in my bubble are so busy lamenting the latest Tory misdeeds that its easy to lose sight of the plus points; we still live in ...
Read more