The aircraft landed in due course, and after immigration, we headed for the baggage carrousel where one lonely case lay in splendid isolation: my companion’s. The staff had obviously identified the possibly suspect item, but, of course, their concern had been for any other unwanted item in the bagging area.

  The return flight also turned out to be memorable but for different reasons. A number of colleagues had decided to return to Toronto by train rather than join us on our flight leaving about the same time. We jokingly promised to wave at them below as we overtook the train below, agreeing to meet them when they eventually joined us in our shared destination. We all joked that our plan resembled the Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the hare, not realising how closely we would be following the story. Since the flyers had unconfirmed seats for the second leg of the flight from Calgary, we were declined seats, finding ourselves grounded in Calgary for four days before obtaining a flight, so in the end the train tortoises won the race after all. Isn’t life strange?

  Chapter 38

  Sabah, Borneo and Hong Kong

  There was always going to be a problem dressing for the flight from Seoul in South Korea to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia in January, with the temperature on departure at -10 C, and with arrival temperature of +30 C. After formalities and having divested myself of outer winter garments, I hailed a taxi whose driver enquired if I had a hotel booked because local elections were under way and all his previous clients had had the foresight to pre-book a room. It looked like trouble ahead, as we drove from one fully booked hotel to another, until finally one claimed that they were able to offer me one night’s accommodation instead of the three nights I needed, but beggars cannot be choosers, and I reckoned that once installed, I had time to make a case for holding on to the room.

  Feeling pleased with myself and feeling peckish, I wandered down to the huge dining room in the basement for something to eat, but finding not a single diner and not wishing to dine alone, I returned to the bar for a pre-dinner drink to await a few fellow diners. Big mistake. Before I had downed by G and T, a stream of dozens and dozens of young Chinese business types filed through the bar in the direction of my dinner destination. On and on they streamed, obviously some sort of works outing. I called for my bar bill and retraced my path to the restaurant where I was advised that it was now completely full, and they were ‘not able to accommodate me at the present time’.

  I had no choice but to return to the bar, order another drink or two and bide my time. Ninety minutes or so later, the diners filed out en masse, as the Chinese do not, as a rule, indulge in post-prandial banter having dined. Yes, you’ve guessed it: when I returned to the dining room, I once again found myself faced with the prospect of eating entirely on my own, what most solo business travellers try their best to avoid. I had plenty of time to devise my strategy for preventing the hotel’s intention of throwing me out the next morning and make a mental note to make sure I always make advance hotel booking, not that that always guarantees a room, as I found out once arriving at Hong Kong airport for an overnight stay flying from Seoul to Singapore during the annual Hong Kong trade fair, a very popular event creating heavy demand for hotel space. The main airport hotel is linked by a walkway, and on this occasion, the hotel had positioned a member of staff on the airport side of the link to confirm that approaching passengers held a firm booking. I felt very smug knowing my secretary had indeed made a booking on my behalf and proceeded to the check-in desk to confirm my name.

  After a suspiciously long interval, the customer services agent asked me if I planned to visit the hotel in the future, an odd question I thought, but I answered in the positive at which point she advised me that I did indeed have a booking for the same date but for the following month but none for that night. Panic. “Surely you can find me a room?” I said, “I only need it till 6 am the following morning.” No way. Really? Hotels can always pull one out of the bag if they want to.

  “Well, there is just one possibility,” she said; “we are holding 12 rooms for a Thai crew due in at midnight (it was 7 pm at this point) and sometimes the crew is one light, so there may, or may not, be a room at that time.” What choice did I have? It wasn’t worth the trek into the traffic-bound city for a few hours, so I agreed to wait. Six hours later (the flight was late), the full crew complement checked in, by which time, of course, it was only five hours to my departure time. Back to the desk in desperation. “Well,” she said, feeling sorry for my predicament, “we are currently constructing an extra wing, but the rooms are not yet finished, i.e. no door, not furnished, i.e. no bed, curtains etc., but we could let you have a blow-up mattress.” Such relief and I was so tired, I slept like a log. The only downside was that they wanted to charge me as if it had been a regular room. What a cheek, but beggars can’t be choosers as I often have to admit.

  Chapter 39

  Conclusions, If Any

  How to bring these ramblings to an end?

  Jean-Luc Godard, the French Swiss film director is quoted as having said that every story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order. Perhaps this struck a chord for me, being also of French Swiss stock, or maybe because it also brings to mind Eric Morecambe’s line: “I am playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.”

  It is easier to recognise the beginning than to predict the end when time catches up and life obliges the traveller to pull in his or her horns, accepting that the necessary energy and stamina are no longer up to the job. The beginning: perhaps the first school trip across the channel, the first package holiday with one’s parents, the first parentless trip with one’s peers, the first spark of curiosity that there is a whole world out there full of discoveries. For many, it is the impact of past travel writers who have evoked the magic of ‘abroad’, of history, art and architecture, music and natural wonders, different peoples, religious festivals and cultural events. For me, the Danish travel-writer, Jorgen Bitsch, conjured up wonderful images in his books of life in the Amazonian jungles, Arabia and Asia, which have inspired me to follow in his footsteps and experience such things for myself.

  However, while not everyone is smitten with the urge to see what lies beyond, for some it is an over-riding compulsion to see what is round the next corner or over the next hill. There is no known cure for this condition; the true traveller cannot really ‘get it out of his or her system’ but is smitten for life.

  But as time passes, a conflict arises, pulling the traveller in opposite directions and facing him or her with personal, social and moral dilemmas. On the one hand, the medical profession encourages one to keep moving continuing physical and mental activity to maintain one’s health; on the other hand, a range of factors are lined up to make this more difficult with the passing of time: increasing disability, anxiety about international political stability, overseas medical facilities if needed, and now the moral question of use of global resources involved in travel. Even the suggestion that travel is merely extended colonisation.

  This may well be a matter of global concern, but I do wonder if this view is shared by inhabitants of visited countries, particularly, of poorer ones, many of which now have a thriving and important tourist industry, people who would be negatively impacted if their country’s tourist revenue were curtailed or eliminated. This indeed has already happened in countries like Egypt or Tunisia, or now Sri Lanka, where security is or has been an issue, and it is often the poorest who are first to feel the effect.

  So this book only has an end in the sense that every book, or film or artwork must have a cut-off point for it to be released for public scrutiny, but travels and blogs are and will continue, insha Allah, unless any of the above impede that ongoing process.

 

 

  Chris Johnson, Mysterious Girlfriend

 

 

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