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Published: February 13th 2008
Introduction
This blog, now in its second edition, is to act as a reference site for those non-fatal diseases, ailments and minor irritations that can blight the traveller is his quest bumming round the globe not having to work. Its a tough life on the road and contrary to one's working friends who believe that their mates are just on a long holiday and sending back the occassional sanctimonious 'having a great time while you are at work' email to their mates, nothing could be further from the truth. I give you a compilation of complaints incurred so far - expect others to follow as the suffering continues. Readers are invited to comment or contribute hitherto undiscovered inconveniences via the comments facility...
Update - 23th April
Templetitis
Causes
You are in a place considered 'out of season' because its so hot that firstly, any sane westerner would have by now bolted to the mountains, and secondly if there are any shops open the shop-keepers take the sensible decision to sit in the lotus position fast asleep until you wonder in and tinkle the irritating bell mobiles hanging from door. A feeling of obligation rises, however, to do something more cultural than just sitting about and going on the internet.
The indirect cause is the decision to try and seek out a temple or two - nice and cheap and can usually be done and dusted within a few minutes. You take to the streets in search of the magnificent red dome that you could see only a hundred metres away from the cosy roof-top of your guesthouse.
Symptoms
On stepping out, hassle arises from all directions in the form of hungry cows blocking the narrow streets, dedicated shopkeepers enticing you to buy their wares (those who have not passed out) and fakeoligist saddhu holy men rattling their tins and demanding money or even cigarettes (this in incidently how you spot a fakeoligist saddhu).
All the noise and sensory overload and the fact that the simple grid-plan in your tiny Lonely Planet map bears little or no resemblance to the reality of the many and winding streets, leads to immediate confusion and dis-orientation barely a few hot, weary steps into the journey. Heated exchanges follow amongst your party as to which side-street leads to the red-dome, which you can no-longer see because of all those roof-top guesthouses crowding around, the concentration of concrete intensifying the sun's blistering heat. Arguments based on little more than intuition and the position of the sun commence pretty soon into the pilgrimmage. After at least an hour of endless traipsing around and discovering that all roads lead to the same market square (or do they just look the same), and just when you think you are really lost, your guesthouse appears in-font of you like a mirage in the swelterlng concrete desert.
Treatment
Proceed directly to the rooftop and languish in a hammock, swinging chair or on a mattress adorned with colourful scatter cushions in the cool breeze. Make your way slowly through a vast menu of creamy lassis, thick fruity milkshakes, blended fruit juice cocktails with imaginitive fruit combinations (pommegranite and mint!!), and cold, cold sodas. Although not on the menu and offically prohibited in this holy temple town, some places will often manage to find you a therapeutic and relaxing golden nectar known as 'cold beer', though this may be served in a tea-pot and with mugs featuring slogans such as 'I Love Mum'. Repeat treatment daily for as many days as are necessary.
To prevent this condition, just don't leave the guesthouse in the first place. The temple will be much like any other and you have seen it all before.
Localis Terrifilis by Jon Chamberlain
Causes
The people you meet in the hostel are so bored of dossing around that their only relief is terrifying new comers.
Symptoms
Being offered an evening of free rum and cokes, before being propositioned by the hostel owner of same sex, before he breaks down crying about his broken childhood and wanting to be a woman.
Treatment
First plane back to Wivenhoe. (true story)
Mother-in-law Malaise (by Sue McCaskey)
Causes
You are taking such an outrageously long honeymoon that you have to endure visits from the mother-in-laws.
Symptoms
Squeezing 3 backsides into an auto-rickshaw that can hardly cope with one large size Western one. If, due to excessive facial hair, your new bride looks considerably younger than you (whilst there only being a mere seven year age gap) there is a danger of suffering repeated embarrasment from being asked wherever you go 'You pay for wife and daughter?'. It is highly likely your spouse will receive a dose of this treatment if you are away too long (check back for updates around Christmas time).
Treatment
Divor... err, no known treatment available.
Attitude Sickness
Causes
Due to the ridculous cost of a scenic trip, you are forced to join-up with fellow travellers who may not even be from the same country as you, maybe not even the same continent. After-all it may be a nice change to meet some new people and have someone else for company other than yourself and/or your travelling companion who you have spent twenty-four hours a day with for the last how many months is it?
Symptoms
A day or two into the trip, and maybe after suffering some minor doses of 'chat nauseum', attitudinal discrepencies surface between your good laid-back, tolerant, happy-go-lucky self and your companions, who come out with some completely ourageous lines. The first symptoms are mild winces or semi-amused raised eye-brow exchanges with one's partner on hearing things like 'In my country when we go out as a group of friends to a restaurant, everyone gets served at the same time and the food is always piping hot and cooked to perfection. These people tend to forget that all they ever order is steak-frites (the entire party) and the only challenge for the chef is whether to do it 'rare' or 'bleu'. These symptoms can escalate to astonishment and horror with remarks such as 'We met some people in this bar and despite being really fat they were actually quite nice'. Shock is suffered from their complete disregard for local customs and traditions, for example going about topless on a beach in a country where everyone covers-up all of the time, to the extent of going into the sea fully clothed. Appalling dis-belief is experienced when full-scale arguments arise with the tour group operators when the driver is half-an-hour late in the morning.
Treatment
To temporarily treat when the condiiton arises, stay ln the expensive non-dormitory option at the next guesthouse and take a long bath just so you can have a break and stay in your room as long as possible, sniggering at your companions for their non-pc attitude to life and travelling.
To prevent, blow several weeks budget paying the extra to just do the trip yourself, consoling yourself that you are going on a journey of self-discovey and need peace, seclusion and isolation, away from the necessity to iteract with people you don't need to pretend to like. Alternatively draft in some real friends or family from home to enjoy spending some quality time with in unfamiliar surroundings. Be aware however that this may lead to a bout of mother-in-law malaise.
First Edition - Feb 2008
Monasteria
Causes
Your on an outrageously expensive group tour which is wildly disporportionate to the cost of living of the local economy, expecting incredible Himalyan scenery and fascinating cultural insight. Instead you are dragged from monastery to impressive monastery seeing approximately the same thing every day for yet more unexpected 'fees' that do not even go to the local people but the overbearing and unvited Chinese Government that the locals don't even want in their own country.
Symptoms
On being asked to part with yet another fiver (in a country where a meal rarely costs more than two quid) for entrance into yet another monastery that is of course totally different from the previous one, in that this is the highest monastery in the land or that the way that past, present and future Buddha is presented is vastly different from that 50 km down the road, physical symptoms are to pout, grimace and screw ones nose up at the monastery entrance, and then question internally what one is really paying for in this 'trip of a lifetime', feeling rising contempt, anger and irratation towards the money-grabbing travel agency. At all times of course maintaining a smiling British reserve and not saying anything to upset anyone).
Treatment
Laugh off the monastery and spend the time wandering the streets in the vicinity, smiling and saying 'Tashi Delek' to all the locals whilst being swarmed by children all wanting to tug one's beard excitedly. Spend the entrance fee on a long lunch and a bottle of wine whilst waiting for other members of your group to return from their monastery visit to tell you that it was 'nice'.
A less cynical, more spiritual treatment is available. Take the time instead to hike out of the town to a small, less visited monastery on a neighbouring countryside hill. On arrival you will be greeted by several excited and grubby children who will accompany you for the rest of your visit, laughing , smiling and saying hello, and wanting to hold your hand. You will be greeted by the only monk who cares for the monastery who will smile and nod happily at you, insisting that you drink repeated cups of hot water for refreshment at the monastery door. After half an hour of this and perhaps learning something of the monaastery through the translations of your guide, the monk will show you round the monastery in great detail. You will actually be able to get up really close to the Buddha icons, art and religious paraphenlia rather than be hurried past everything in a throng of other westerners. After this escorted tour at the hands of the ever smiling monk one feels delighted to hand over a substantially smaller donation to the monk safe in the knowledge that the money will go directly to the monastery and the oppresive Government will see absolutely none of this. The monk will then smile even more infectiously and begin, literally, unlocking doors to other parts of the monastery that tourists do not usually see, such as his living quarters, inner temples that we are told that women are not usually allowed into but on this occasion an exception will be made, the monk's catering facilities and even a small sacred library that is closed to the public. On leaving the monastry an enormous sense of well-being with be bestowed upon the traveller, with faith restored in humanity.
Chat Nauseum
Causes
Too many evenings spent wiling away hours in traveller cafes getting drawn into conversations with fellow travellers one has never met before, being forced into finding out where someone is from, how long they have been on the road, how long they are away for and what are their primary motivations for leaving it all behind.
Symptoms
Symptoms begin with rising levels of irritation for this inane and predictable form of social interaction akin to those first days at University when one is forced to repeatedly recount what school they came from and what their A-level results were. They can easily escalate if unchecked to wild fantastical claims as to their lives back home, such as pilots, doctors, missionary workers or rocket scientists, and utter fabrication of motivations such as 'bringing peace to the world' and 'journeys of self discovery' in order to improve ones sense of well-being (instead of just bumming around avoiding real work).
Treatment
If the traveller is solo, spend a few extra dollars renting a room with satellite tv and hunker down for a few days surfing for English language films or premiership football, or if budget does not allow and you are in a dorm, sit in the corner of the cafe pretending to write some deep and meaningful retrospective journal whilst all the time scrawling into a notebook: 'All talk and no substance makes Jack a dull boy. All talk and no substance makes Jack a dull boy.'
If the travellers are a twosome, retreat to a corner of the cafe and play travel scrabble repeatedly whilst never looking up at ones surroundings, feigning a headache or perhaps a potential contagious disease to anyone that remotely attempts to engage you in conversation.
Site-seeing Sickness
Causes
This disease is usually contracted around three to four weeks after leaving home and then repeatedly at varying intervals when confronted with long periods on the road. One feels obliged to get up early and traipse out to sites of historic interest or museums and make the effort to absorb and appreciate the wonders on show, lest the city is never returned to and the opportunity to do the must-dos may be gone forever.
Symptoms
When encountering yet another impressive city filled with many unmissable sites and only a few days in each place, one feels heightened levels of malaise for the architectural and historical wonders being presented, and finds oneself saying things like 'The Drum tower in Xi'an is probably pretty much like The Drum Tower in Beijing - lets not bother.'
Treatment
Have a nice lie-in and then spend the day on the free hostel internet emailing mates and taking more of interest in the lower divisions of English football than is really necessary. Buy postards of the missed sites.
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Sanjay
non-member comment
Oh how the heart bleeds
:-) Perhaps you should add: Gritted Teeth The look of someone having to listen to a traveller's tale of how life changing their trip to Beijing / Delhi / Southend was. At least in the old days you had to wait until they came back before enduring the endless prattling and photos. Bloody Internet. Sanjay