It's Not The Airlines I Despair About, It's My fellow Passengers.

I think I was always destined to be a wanderer by trade.

There is nothing to beat arriving in a strange country, full of new sights and smells accompanied by a visual feast of different cultures, architecture and that glorious sense of ‘being away”

Its a hopeless  addiction this travel lark and it has reached the point where  If I haven’t used my passport at least three times a year, I feel I am failing at my craft.

The thing about travel though is that one has to get from point A to point B which these days can be a little stressful.  The famous advertising line by Cunard during the glorious age of travel read, ” Getting There Is Half The Fun.”

This line was always accompanied by an illustration of a beautifully attired couple standing on the deck of one of Cunard’s ships, gazing out to sea. He, replete with pipe, drapes his arm lightly around her shoulders like a feather boa, as she leans into his manly frame.

They look deliriously happy!                                     

How many of us now long for those days when, ‘getting there’ offered the adrenalin rush of setting off for the unknown. In today’s travel market, with its low cost airlines and package deals to all sorts of exotic locations, the travelling public has swelled to enormous proportions …in short it seems the entire world is on the move.

Airports (Changi and the like) are like mini- cities within cities and are more akin to shopping emporiums than merely a place to catch a plane. Through these massive halls stream millions upon millions of travellers eager to get to their destinations.

Having recently done a mammoth trip through Africa and Asia,  I spent an extraordinary amount of time in departure/arrival halls, followed by being suspended in a thin metal tube 35,000 above the earth.

All this movement gave me ample opportunities to study the people who were doing the same as I, in other words, getting from the proverbial  point A to B.

A few observations and , should anyone read this diatribe, a few words of advice.

1) I am not saying one should don one’s finest outfit for a journey, but at least attempt to wear at least some suitable attire. I was amazed at the hordes of men who left me aghast with their attempt at dress. It was if, they had been working under their car in the driveway of their home, and, suddenly looked up and thought. ” Hey, I think I’ll go to Thailand.

Should I shower?

Nah, I’ll have a swim when I get there and promptly proceeded to pack their sandals and head to the airport.”

And so (if you happen to be unlucky) one ends up standing in line with these fellows travellers, clothed in grease stained singlets and shorts wearing the obligatory flip flops  and giving off an odor akin to a football team after a long game in the sun.

2) When ones flight is called, the airlines announce the rows they would like to board first. This should make boarding a little smoother.

Nope!

When the rows are called each and every passenger will suddenly leap to their feet and jostle their way frantically towards the entrance. They all have a manic look in their eyes as if the flight will suddenly depart without them.

3) Do try to temper your conversations with the person sitting next to you.  I am not that interested in how many drugs you took at the full moon party on Phuket, nor do I wish to hear that the food you ate gave you severe diarrhea and that you had to use a squat toilet!

4) Perhaps it’s not a great idea to see if you can consume 100 beers in less than 5 hours.

5) Getting off the flight, or de- planing as the airlines like to call it suddenly turns into  a panic situation.

That gentle ‘ping’ when the airline arrives at the gate, seems to be  a pavlovian mechanism for the entire passenger contingent to suddenly leap to their feet and attack the overhead lockers, in order to haul out their oversized cabin baggage.

Now, think about it. The airplane’s aisle is approximately 2.5ft wide; there are 300 of you, standing up crushing the passenger in front of you. Pushing towards the exit is going to gain…. well absolutely nothing.

The more well heeled business and first - class travellers will be allowed off first (after all, they did pay triple your seat price!) Thus;

 QED. Shoving will only cause asphyxiation to the poor old lady three rows ahead of you.

6) Back to dress sense.

Those gentlemen I spoke of earlier, dressed as if they are in the country ready to fix industrial machinery, will inevitably be stopped at immigration for thorough scrutiny.(even though their luggage consists of a half-filled  grimy wallet)

This will in turn hold up the entire queue of the several thousand arriving passengers who have all disembarked from double decker 380 jumbo jets.

However, I do so love travel, and even with the crowded terminals, arrival halls, and airline seats designed for anorexics, actually getting there IS still half the fun.

If it weren’t, I wouldn’t have the fodder to write blogs like this.

Paul v Walters is the best selling author of five novels and when not cocooned in sloth and procrastination in his house in Bali, he writes for several international travel and vox pop journals. His latest novel, Scimitar  was released in late 2016 His latest offering Asset will be released in late 2017.