EXTRACT:
A call for relevance
It’s a fact of life that even the most exciting of weeks can contain some very hum drum periods, when, whatever we engage in, seems quite a come down from all the enlightenment just experienced.
Travel is no exception to this rule. You may be journeying in search of adventure, but make no mistake, however fulfilling particular events, places or acquaintances were, there will be periods when you have moved on from that, with substantial stretches ahead of you until the next noteworthy occurrence.
So, in writing up my travel tales, I aim to strip out the dullness. Otherwise, there would be quite a few chapters on the theme of, ‘My passage through an average country and its ordinary people’. The important bit though is that in between melancholic spells, there are always interesting episodes worth committing to paper, which transcend any routineness.
To illustrate this, when I trundled up from Winnipeg to Churchill, on the fringes of the Arctic circle, the passage through hundreds of miles of fir tree forests and tundra was at first breath-taking, but after an hour or so of counting trees and with no one else to talk to – there were only eight other passengers on the entire train and one stop – it felt simultaneously beautiful and monotonous. Counting these trees soon took on the form of an alternative Chinese water torture. I became very agitated and found myself mentally climbing up the carriage walls.
Two days later at journey’s end, on dismounting at Churchill, my head was in a swirl. It felt like I needed some serious counselling.
I reflected in my jottings that it had been a different kind of journey, a bit of an endurance test. More importantly though, following my four day return journey and the days in Churchill, I had stumbled upon a range of stories that amounted to a sizeable alternative travel writing tale.
I was always confident, riding through those forests, that things would get better. Regardless of whether they had or hadn’t, I certainly would not have waisted my time with an extended travel essay about the hours spent zipping past all those trees and tundra. And yet, so much that now fills travel literature websites is concerned with focussing on the mundane – the five best coffee houses in Bristol, the 10 best book shops in Cambridgeshire, or ‘Our weekend in London’ travel journal – It is tourist information masquerading as travel writing.
It reminds me of a mock blue English Tourist Board information plaque that is pinned to the wall of a regency terraced house close to our own abode. It reads, ‘On 5th September 1782 absolutely nothing of any note happened here.’ And even the cat who sits on their step looks bored. But still, I am sure there are days in 2021, when for this household things really do happen, that on balance make it all worthwhile, and possibly writing about.
(Continues)
In full, see In Defence of (Good) Travel Writing
Slider image – The Women of Jaipur, Rajasthan, India – Author’s pic.
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