LADIES AND gentlemen, we have just landed at…
In the quietude of home quarantine, resonates with the deepest longing that which for so long was the harbinger of great joy.
Be it Bangkok or Boracay, Kuala Lumpur or Kaohsiung, Seoul or Singapore, Phuket or Puerto Princesa, Dubai or Davao, Taipei or Tokyo, Cairo or Coron, Ho Chi Minh or Hong Kong, the heart always leaps at the instant rubber screeches on runway concrete.
And that is only upon arrival.
Four days, one week, or a fortnight – days and nights why should they even count? Travel is happy hour, to the minute, every hour.
Of kidding — Disney or Universal. Ocean Park or Legoland.
And adulting –
Pattaya, Patpong, and Phi-Phi too. Grand Lisboa or Venetian. Sepang circuit. Macau Tower bungee, for the brave one.
Of awesomeness — Angkor Wat. Kinkaku-ji. Petra. The Great Sphinx and the Pyramids. Jerusalem…
…O Jerusalem, O Bethlehem turning happy hour into holy hour – Shepherds’ Field and Manger Square. Via Dolorosa and the Holy Sepulcher. The Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River. The Wailing Wall. Heaven’s very gate opening, nearer my God to Thee, the spirit soars.
Of nature’s majesty – Hanami. Momijigari. Mount Fuji.
Of man’s skyscraping glory – Petronas. Taipei 101. Canton Tower. Burj Khalifa. Tokyo Skytree.
Of gustatory delights – Ramen, sushi and sashimi. Fish amok. Nasi lemak. Laksa. Tom yum goong. Hainanese chicken. Chili crab…night–market street food, burp.
Of shopping – Aww, cash-fixed at Giordano and Uniqlo. Prada, Gucci, LV, Bally, unaffordably. Buddha heads and Bali masks, nothing else shall I want…
Moments then, memories now, one tries best to recapture, to relive in SD files or external HDDs ran and reran in old reliable laptop.
Verily, a flight from the doldrums of home quarantine, these happy thoughts.
Still, this reclusion – hopefully non perpetua, notwithstanding the restriction imposed on seniors in effect through the slowly devolving stages of CQs –rankles.
Painfully so with all the travel plans this nasty veerus scuttled. Most ruefully that dolce vita under the Tuscan sun, through Firenze, Venezia, Milano to the Vatican, long promised the wife, foregone.
Creeping melancholia arrested just in time by this National Geographic find: “This virus can stop our travel plans, but it cannot stop our travel dreams.”
Cannot agree more with travel expert Rick Steves. Thus: “Planning for travel—thinking about it, talking about it, imagining it—may in fact be the best thing you can do to stay optimistic and, when this is all behind us, be ready to embark on your trip of a lifetime.”
The NatGeo article goes on its flight into the wind, so to speak, with Matthew Killingworth, senior fellow at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, saying trip-planning encourages an optimistic outlook: “Our future-mindedness can be a source of joy if we know good things are coming, and travel is an especially good thing to have to look forward to.”
So, I submit.
Even as post-Covid travel is uncharted territory, it is not fear of the unknown, but rather excitement over the untried that takes hold of every traveler’s soul.
“New normal” air travel worries assuaged by the airlines’ health and safety protocols already in-place this early – from pre-flight, on-flight, to disembarkation: pilots and crew subjected to rapid antibody tests, seat spacing, thorough plane disinfection, wearing of masks, alcohol-based hand sanitizers, crew in PPEs, etc.
Cebu Pacific notches the issue of health and sanitation even higher with its fleet of Airbus jets equipped with high efficiency particulate arrestor filters that can filter the novel coronavirus, as well as other virus and bacteria clusters, with 99.99% efficiency.
So, what is there to even worry about, more so to fear?
A number of travel advisors suggest going somewhere one has not gone yet as best post-pandemic therapy, citing the novelty of the experience as sure trigger for dopamine and endorphins, yes, the so-called “happy hormones.”
I would rather first go back though to places that have given me the greatest sense of well-being. Places that imbue me even greater happiness at each return.
Top of mind now: Kyoto in autumn with the wife. Nothing less than Eden itself regained. After this pandemic hell.
