There was a time, a long time ago when I had a suitcase that was always packed and kept ready to go at short notice. I would come home from some business trip or the other and arrange to get the clothes to be washed out of the suitcase to be replaced by fresh ones from the wardrobe and the suitcase would be immediately ready for another trip.
Since most suitcases coming out of airplanes looked alike, I even had a personal identification belt woven around the suitcase, so that I could quickly offload it from the luggage carousel. Despite such precaution, I have had the mortification of the suitcase being sent off to a destination other than where I was going and having to make do for temporary arrangements till the suitcase could be found and brought back.
My long suffering wife would put up with much of my cranky behaviour whenever I was at home, blaming it on a permanent jet-lag.
Such a life stopped in late 1998 and since then I have travelled almost entirely for pleasure and / or to attend to family matters. I have got out of the habit as it were. Just a few weeks back, I was emptying an old suitcase as part of my simplifying exercise, and found a portable iron, a fully loaded toilet kitbag, a pair of bathroom slippers and an identification belt in it and went back on a nostalgia trip for those bad old days.
Now the situation is entirely different. The last time I thought of a trip to South India to be with my brother who underwent surgery, Ranjan suggested that I do not buy a return ticket as the last few times, I had inevitably advanced the return dates to come back to my comfort zone. I have now become an armchair traveller waiting for some unsuspecting and captive audience to wax eloquent on my travelling days with some gory details of managing rural India without hotels, trains or buses and food that gave me a permanent Irritable Bowel syndrome!
I think that I have earned the right to be such a bore.
This topic was suggested by me for the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where currently nine of us write on the same topic every Friday. I hope that you enjoyed my contribution to that effort. The seven other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order, Ashok, gaelikaa, Lin, Maxi, Padmum, Pravin, Shackman and The Old Fossil. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, or not at all this week, do give some allowance for that too!
As usual, I think you should wax eloquent here. Yay, blogging and blogging friends!
Cheerful Monk recently posted..How Cool Is That?
Actually, it has indeed given me some ideas for some new posts and Lin’s comments have only added some inspiration to write about some of my travel stories or repost some old ones.
Well, I’m still a traveler. I go a lot for family matters of some sort or another (many times to watch sporting events or music recitals which include my descendants). In addition to that, though, There parts of the world that I love – the people, the culture, the food. I am hoping that when I am no longer able to travel I can be content with my memories and with sharing the few people who will want to listen.
Mother recently posted..Saturday: Three Funerals and a Birthday Party
Mother, I can and will travel at need. I just am too lazy and content now where I am, particularly being thoroughly spoilt by my immediate family and some great friends who ensure that I don’t have a dull moment.
you are many things sean.
but a bore is not one of them!
and yes.
i’d say you certainly have earned the right to stay home if and whenever you want to! 🙂
tammy j recently posted..the constant delight
Not even the double barrel variety of bore?
I’m not traveller now, but once I was in UK for a few years, and was forever hopping off on some trip or other…my old battered cardboardy sort of case probably has gone but I do have others that I used when coming home from boarding school for holidays…
I travel around via blogs and Google…
Yes, I love visiting your blog for instance to read and get to learn some things about New Zealand.
I love your blog for all things India and more…a place that conjures up a huge poplulation, many cultures and places that are only map-names – until you tell us more on sojourns and journeys to them…thanks
One life time is not enough to see and experience all the flavours that India can offer. I am fortunate that I was in a profession that enabled me to travel extensively in rural India. This is an experience that very few Indians have. That has moulded me to be a very different kind of Indian than most.
Personally, I’d love to hear about your travel experiences. They are new to me, so if you pick out, say, the best five or ten of them, for a series, I’ll swap you, among others, the story of how we spent our honeymoon trapped by a train problem in what appeared to be a haunted, nearly deserted castle in the middle of Ireland, with a hunchbacked servant who only made strange noises, walls and walls of funeral pictures, and an over-lifesize Jesus statue with a red pulsing light where the heart should be. Oh, and a door that didn’t lock. You’re on.
Lin, you have come late to the party. I have written many posts about my travels. Here is one where I had travelled to Hyderabad for my wedding and our honeymoon night. http://rummuser.com/?p=3449 . What I will do is start by posting some of the older posts again and as and when I remember some old stories, write about them too.
You have been given a new dream on my blog, Rummy. Enjoy.
blessings ~ maxi
Maxi recently posted..Do You Love To Be On The Road?
Thank you.
I have no idea why but reading your tale immediately brought this movie scene to mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ9U4Cbb4wg
shackman recently posted..The Traveller in Me.
A bunch of travelling salesmen having fun on a moving train? I have had such experiences but not with so many of them.
I will enjoy some of your travel stories. As for me, I had many years in which the backpack was always ready to go. At the end of it I developed some sort of airport-phobia and was glad to change my work. Now things have settled down to where I only need to go about 4 times a year and it is neither pleasant nor irritating.
Looney recently posted..A new restaurant for Fremont
My travels now are completely restricted to pleasurable ones. Primarily to visit relatives and friends.