The Art of Travel; Marrakech to London to Budapest July 2011

Unless you can step out of your front door and straight on to a luxury cruise ship touring the Mediterranean, you are probably going to suffer physically and mentally when you next travel.

There is nothing easy about travel, except perhaps the thought of the things you have left behind that you are glad to be rid of.

The body is not designed to cope with the rigours of travel well. You are constantly on the move through alien environments whilst every cell in your body is screaming “this is not right”.

The temperature, the noise, the language, the decompression/recompression of the plane, going through customs, the airport food, and the anxiety over whether your luggage will appear on the conveyor belt by the 4^th time around. The time zone changes, the currency changes, the humidity changes and the spare change from your last country.

The sensual assault when you walk out of the airport clutching your bags and looking for the clues given from your Lonely Planet guide and you realise you are hopelessly disorientated, it’s late, you are exhausted from a 10 hour flight and there’s not a friendly face in sight.

But this is why I travel.

This is when I am at my best and my most resourceful.

After two nights of saying “goodbye” and getting a send-off in various ways from my new-found Morroccan friends; I wake at 6.30 am and pack for leaving. The boys that run the Riyadh have had a big night, No-one is stirring and it doesn’t look like I have any chance of getting coffee. So, I leave without saying goodbye to my hosts and head outside for a taxi. After adventures too numerous to mention here, including a near head-on collision with a donkey pulling a cart, I arrive at Marrakech Airport. I don’t realise that it marks the beginning of 20 solid hours of travel before I arrive at my hotel in Luton, England the next day.

So the day goes; taxi to the airport, flight to Gatwick airport, then 3 trains before I arrive at Limehouse station, London. I need to get some clothes from my daughter’s apartment before Budapest, so I trudge with my bulging backpack and my laptop bag through the London summer cool and light rain to visit Kate and Wayne. I can’t stay the night as they have other guests; Wayne’s family is visiting from Australia.

It’s late July and for 160 British Pounds you can get yourself a shoebox or a wardrobe for a night’s accommodation in London. That’s about it. It’s the height of the tourist season and the place is full of palace and cathedral gawkers. So if I bypass London and go to Luton, I can stay near the airport and embark from there for Budapest. It seemed like a really clever idea at the time.

It’s great to see Team KW again. Unfortunately, Wayne has broken his foot after jumping the fence to their apartment one night. I have had one beer in a month in Morocco teetotaller territory, but my exile from alcohol ends exactly now as Wayne hands me what seems like a giant green beer can.

The cold foam hits the back of my throat with a rush, and things start to go a little hazy from herein.

I can remember going to the local pub for traditional English Fish and Chips with Kate, Wayne, Dave and Janet, and Lisa and Simon.

I can remember Dave and I thrashing the lot of them at pub dominos, and also the resident pub German Shepherd coming around for food, not pats.

I can remember tearing myself away around 10pm and, with extra clothes on board, trudging back to the Tube station, again through the rain.

I know I am fading fast; I’m carrying about 28kg which represents my whole life at this stage. I start to ache all over and wonder if I am coming down with the ‘Flu. I take the first train and get to Victoria station. It’s cold, bleak and deserted. I sit down to wait for the train to Luton which arrives at about 12.15am. I can’t fall asleep....I want to...but I must catch this train.

Finally it comes.

I find a seat and can’t help but sleep fitfully, trying to watch the stations, and having the woman sitting in the seat across from me laugh every time my head tumbles onto my lap and I wake, startled, checking that I haven’t slept through my stop.

Finally, Luton appears; nearly there. Through the rain once more. Through the car park. Find a taxi.

15 minutes later I get to the hotel, then check in, then get into the room and collapse.

I wake 13 hours later and feel like I’ve been run over by a freight train.

I look at myself in the mirror.

I can’t believe how much weight I’ve lost, maybe 6 or 7 kilos.

The shorts that fitted so snugly when I bought them in Thailand actually fell off me when I put them on last week in Marrakech.

It’s time to start eating again.

I found the breakfasts I was given in Morocco to be almost completely lacking in nutrition. Based on the French style; croissant and white bread rolls with butter and jam, and Mint Tea and Coffee just didn’t suit me. I resorted to making myself eat half a roast chicken most days, but still most of the muscle I normally carry just disappeared.

Staying healthy and fit is one of my greatest challenges while travelling. I feel that if I lose my fitness, to a great extent I lose my edge. I don’t feel as good, and I’m not as capable when it comes to pushing physical boundaries or getting out of the tricky situations you often find yourself in, if you are up for adventure, that is.

Just the look of a strong, fit physique is enough to give you free passage through most places. The reality is, in most of the places I have been, most of the men are quite soft physically, and they are looking for soft targets if they want to rob, rip-off or cause harm to you.

So, for me, the physical enables the appreciation of the Art of Travel; the emotional, the spiritual, the mental.

I have met so many fellow travellers for whom fear was a constant companion. There were places they wouldn’t go and experiences they wouldn’t have. They travel like a day at the office; 9 to 5, and then hunker down in the hotel looking for a TV channel in their native language, after sloshing down a meal little different to that of home.

I have begun to call it the 2 day syndrome.

Most people only stay in one place for 2 days then move on.

Up early to make the hotel breakfast buffet or the hostel toast and tea.

Get the sneakers on the bus or the pavement.

Experience a cornucopia of visual stimulants created or preserved for the travelling tourist.

And unless your destination is for a specific reason; such as a bull run in Spain or as a stand-in Jesus Christ to be nailed to a cross at Easter in the Philippines; your experience will probably be about Art.

Art Galleries, Architecture, Sculptural Statues, Museums and Music. With the odd day at a Writer’s Festival or a visit to William Shakespeare’s ink pot. The Art of a well-engineered bridge, or the Natural Art of a landscape.

Hell, even if you just lie on a beach you read a book!

Perhaps these are the things we deny ourselves in our normal daily grind. That we feel the need to fill our spirits with images that inspire us with their sheer beauty that we can take away with us in our minds. These things that are so visible and that mostly represent the best of Human creative expression and inspiration. We nibble away at this food for the soul to provide the succour we need to get through the next period of purgatorial penance, the wasteland of our everyday lives, until we have the opportunity and the time to do this again.

But, is this merely a sugar-hit you pick up from a Thomas Cook drive-through?

A new friend who has travelled far more widely than I have, piqued my interest in this subject when she said " I've travelled to so many cities, but to each one, I'm still a stranger".

Is this the Art of Travel?