Introduction
Like so many others, we did not travel during the year 2020. Not at all. Over time, we even began to feel as if we were fenced in by the closure of the border between the United States and Canada, and the reduced international air travel. When people gave us a wide berth walking past us—turning their faces away—we knew public information on the dangers of the pandemic had taken hold. Then the lockdowns came, and our trips to grocery stores and the liquor store morphed into desired outings. My gym closed, which was terrible!
The one positive consequence of pandemic lockdown was our growing savings in the bank; without travel, we saved money. The other perception I discovered during this time was that travel had become a habit, and that we missed that habit—traveling both to known parts of the world, but also elsewhere. We missed especially the elsewhere travel.
I am not talking about holiday or beach sojourns, but trips to countries unknown to us, discovery trips I like to call them. There is freedom in discovery trips. I take minimal stuff: a suitcase and a backpack for daily excursions. Away from home, release comes from not thinking about bills to pay, daily commitments, and routine activities, like taking out the garbage at a specific time. Freedom also comes from the fact that nobody knows you at a foreign destination. In your hometown, people know you, know where you live and what you do, and accordingly, you follow habits, norms, and expectations these people have of you. Over the last decade, some of the elsewhere trips led us to discover India. When we arrived in India, no one knew us and we were under no expectations relative to our behavior. On discovery trips like this, you can change your habits and conduct. You could even take on a different persona, not that I changed my habits when traveling, but I did find that I had more time for people in conversation than I did during my routine at home—getting to know them; making friends with strangers.
So what was I to do with all this time once locked down in our city and missing travel? Earlier, while writing my memoir, I had discovered that I liked to rattle my fingers across a keyboard, even with all the mistakes I made—which could be corrected later. I liked going down the stairs to my man cave, where I was secluded and free from doing chores. And research was part of the writing, a part I liked. I could look up the historical context and add it to my writing. And so, the inevitable happened, I set out to write a new book, and this one was about, what else?—travel!
Travel has always invigorated me; I look at things with fresh eyes. I feel younger traveling and willing to try new things, like zip-lining. I visit unplanned places and engage in spontaneous events. I come home from my discovery trips rejuvenated and full of new energy. After each trip in this book, I changed my outlook on life—I’d learned new things. For example, the visible poverty in India put into context the general wellness we have in North America. Or, in comparing traffic in Ottawa to what I found trying to maneuver through downtown Dhaka, Bangladesh, I realized that our traffic problems were minor in comparison. And these comparisons provided context for local issues.
Before leaving I often did some reading about our destination, but not too much, because I wanted to be surprised. If I were to study my destination, I thought, it might disappoint me if I knew too much to really feel the impact. After coming back, though, I’d add to my knowledge of what I saw. For example, I knew about the caste system in India, but it took some real-life instances of seeing it in action to understand the implications. I cannot forget our experience at Kolkata’s (also known as Calcutta) airport when a well-dressed man came out of nowhere and put his suitcases in front of ours on the conveyor belt as we waited in an interminable line for the x-ray inspection. My temper quickly sprung into action, and I shoved his suitcase aside, explaining to him in no uncertain terms that we were there a long time before he showed up; he did not argue the point with white folks. The experience motivated me to come home and read up on the history and evolution of the discriminatory caste system in India.
But here I am already diving into lessons I’ve learned from traveling; let me go back to when we first got involved with one of the great discovery trips of which I speak.
In 2008, we were invited to join Sleeping Children Around the World (SCAW), a charity, on their trip to Chennai, in the State of Tamil Nadu, in India. We jumped at the opportunity since we had never been to India, and soon we were on a plane with our team of volunteers. Providing poor children with the necessities of life, like clothing and school supplies, was the focus of our work.
Sleeping Children Around the World worked overseas with local service organizations, and in Chennai, it was a Rotary Club. Since SCAW is a one-hundred percent charity organization, we paid for our fares and costs, and because of that, we thought it made sense to extend our trip and see more of India after we’d finished the charity work. We booked a trip with the travel company Intrepid to see Rajasthan, also in India.
The charity work was such a satisfying experience that when SCAW asked us to go again in 2010, this time to Bangladesh, we accepted and again extended our trip, this time to the states of Kerala and Goa in southwestern India.
And we piled up even more traveling experience in India when we joined still another team to go to the state of Maharashtra, India, in 2018.
Working with a series of joint Canadian and local Rotary teams, in three different geographic areas, provided us with a rich fabric of experience. Locals introduced us to culture and history, and then amongst the team members, we were able to have rewarding discussions, sharing our views. For example, the Dhaka Rotarians took us to their favorite restaurant where they ordered goat brains—during the period when mad cow disease was ravaging England! What did we do? We ate them. Besides thinking we should be courteous, some of us were curious. I can report: The dish looked and tasted like scrambled eggs, but with spices; we were in Bangladesh, of course. Afterward, you can be sure we Canadians had a lively discussion!
On each of our trips, we left behind our Canadian way of life and opened our senses fully to engage with local culture, culinary delights, and people. I did not take notes during those trips, which would have been helpful for this later writing, but then we did not know Covid was coming; we did not know we would be locked down; and I did not know I would write a book about our journeys. And yet, it is good, too, perhaps, that I did not have those notes. I was forced to go to my memory, and in thinking back, I have remembered the noteworthy details that differ greatly from our Canadian way of life. And so it is these, I set out to share with you not only the far-away experiences but also the preparatory work and often challenging travel.
andrasthehun.ca 