SilverStreakers are not from the age of gas lamps and water drawn from wells, but we do recall when “up-country” and “going overseas” meant grown-up travel which was a big deal.
Rich classmates had brothers “going overseas” for further studies and a first-time flight to Penang constituted “a trip up-country”. It meant something.
Eclipsed now by classless travel, throwaway casual phrases such as “I’m out of town” and “We’re away” leave nothing to the imagination.
Faraway places and exotic food, jaw-dropping sights and quaint hotels, na-ah, been there, done that.
This last summer, after a self-imposed no-travel since Covid lockdowns I pootled off to Europe, perhaps a re-discovery tour? Apparently the rest of the world had read my feeble mind.
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Overtourism the bane of travel
Overtourism is the buzzword, heaven knows every village, town, capital is a-buzz with overtourism. Up your nose, at your heels, by your elbows, cheek-by-jowl and way underfoot.
Did you guys re-read Nostradamus or what, and did the seer adumbrate the next pandemic, and thereby exhort you to gird up your shorts and tees and sandals and water bottle, to quickly visit all the very same cities I’m in?
The ABCs of journeying
Adventure on a Budget with Cuisine?
NBL. Not bloody likely.
It was
- A Blessed Cathedral,
- A Boarded-up Castle,
- A Bloody expensive Cafe.
Repeat.
In a blessed cathedral or two – once a place of worship where all could enter freely for a silent solace – one even got a telling-off from the security guard.
Alamak, church jaga also can scold people one!
You could only get in after booking your time slot online. Then join the queue here and exit there and no photos beyond…
Por favor, Jesus want to go into his house also must pay and line up ah?
I think it was at this juncture one was chastised.
But I am of the faith that God has a sense of humour, even if it’s just travel humour…
I hazarded a guess at the next fortified sight, issit your castle is boarded up because there are real dragons in the dungeons?
Here cannot go, there also no entry, this wing is restricted, the ramparts are being repaired.
Only your cafe and merchandise shop are open?
I say, these sandwiches, you all use bread from the days of King Arthur ah?
Mister, may I borrow this sword from the display? They can have a laugh after all, he quipped, you want to cut the sandwiches?
No. My friend here — his name is George and he will slay the dragon so we can see the dungeon.
Between cathedrals and castles, and museums for their reproduction souvenirs (such as Breughel, the Flemish painter, on a tea towel, I’m showing off here, that I use tea towels) I do like to have a cuppa in literary historical cafes in Europe.
Where Mozart took his hot chocolate, Kafka his bitters, Hemingway’s home away from home cafe, Dostoevsky ate here, Casanova drank there, Shelley, Byron, Keats would scribble a line here, Oscar Wilde would remove a comma there, inspiration sting me!
More often than not, or rather always, it would be the bill that stings.
There is a price to pay. Retainers with Poirotesque moustaches earn minimum wage, the coffee is not Killiney, the cake is not Toast Box (praise be!), the bread is not Ya Kun.
These cafes run from modest to baroque, there are architecture chairs you want to buy off them, service usually impeccable, coffee’s good, cakes are sublime, and the moment of truth.
A beer, an iced tea, a cheese tomato on toast, only 75 dollars – my money.
And all this after battling the rest of the world in the snaking line for a table.
Farewell, overtourism, my next trip is across the Causeway at 4am, to join early riser workers in their nasi lemak with teh tarik breakfast in Johor Bahru.
Join me.
