"Do you think you're a good traveller?", the Taswegian asked.
I thought for a moment. "No."
And I'm not.
I don't carry a camera to enable experiences to be shared in nice brief worth-a-thousand-word screens; I skip places I really REALLY should have seen (Wadi Rum, inside the Giza Pyramids, Simien Mountains) on the snap decision of a moment; largely stick to the easiest of routes beaten by travel guide writers; spend slabs of time doing nothing particularly useful (Gonder day 3: Wake late, walk up the hill to the Goha Hotel, eat fish and chips, do crosswords, watch the raptors circling, wander down late in the day, log onto the internet); and don't go as local as I feel somehow obligated to as a Good Traveller.
Principally, my problem is that I really don't like travelling. I think I'd go so far as to say that I actually dislike it; when they invent safe teleportation, sign me up. The disliked travelling starts with the flight out of Australia - half a day to anywhere except NZ if you're lucky, and closer to a day and a half of sleepless flights and transiting if you're not. And that's the good part. After that, there's long days and long nights of buses, trains (hint: Egypt's 1st class seats are more comfortable than the beds of the sleeper carriage), 4WDs and minibuses to look forward to.
Sure, there could be some lovely scenery on the way, and some interesting new folks to meet. True, what is a voluntarily self-inflicted once-off for those with the luxury to choose to travel is a regular fact of life for locals. But, if the minibus happens to be a local 12-seater Ethiopian one, then chances are reasonable that the bone-jarring ride will be shared with the driver, 21 or so other passengers, and an assortment of fleas.
Fleas? Oh yes. I was warned that spraying one's hotel room was a Really Good Idea, but experience has been that the fleas I've picked up have been mainly from the cramped confines of Ethopia's buses and minibuses. There have been a couple of hostels with a rat or three gnawing away in the roof, cockroaches scaling the walls after dark, and mosquitoes and flies strafing. Ideally, one wouldn't choose such a place, but it's not always possible to tell how good or bad a place is before you're actually installed. The quote unquote best hotel in Woldia, for instance had no hot water at night, no water in the morning, and a mosquito net that for some reason stopped 10 centimetres above the level of the bed. Go figure.
The fleas have been almost all acquired on the way, however. I tried slathering myself with DEET the other day, but it didn't stop them for long. Frankly, I have quite a lot of flea bites, and right about now, you should be rather glad that you don't get to share the experience with me through nice brief worth-a-thousand-word screens. Or through a large collection of itchy welts on your legs... torso... arm... right middle finger... or - somehow - palm of the left hand (dear ghod my luggage is getting bagged, fumigated, and hot-washed).
One thing about travelling, the commonality of experience allows conversations that would most likely be avoided closer to home. Such as one's collection of flea bites, the condition of one's digestion, or "What are the chances that all 5 of us at the table would have been to Tibet?", as one of the Brits posed at dinner one night. "Well, you are asking that question in Ethiopia...", I replied.
So I don't like the travelling from place to place, but what about the actual sites? Yeah, some (across the countries visited) have been wholly or partly great or good, but more have been so-so; perhaps enjoyable, but not a must or even necessarily a really should see. There's no polite way to tell a local that "Old stonework elsewhere is a lot nicer and more interesting", however, so (this might come as a surprise to some) I don't. But I sure think it often enough. And there's only so many things of a particular type I can see in close succession before it's more than enough.
So why travel at all? Well, the great bits - relatively few though they are - are really great, and often can't be approximated elsewhere; there's the opportunity to meet some interesting new folks; experience some small slivers of other ways of life; and perhaps see some lovely scenery while on the long way from one place to another. Most of all, I may be a lousy traveller, but I'm relying on my memory also being lousy. In a few months - perhaps weeks - the bad and ordinary bits will fade along with the flea bites, and the great, extraordinary, unique bits will stand out as one fantastic (or at least amusing) set of memories.
I may not like travelling, but I love remembering travelling.
