Have Fun, Will Travel

WHEN Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said of “a journey of a thousand miles” that should be started “with a single step,” he was referring to travel, of course. “Traveling is almost like talking with men of other centuries,” said René Descartes.

 

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living,” explained Miriam Beard. “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go,” commented novelist Robert Louis Stevenson. “I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.”

Unknown to many, the word “travel” has a common origin with the word “travail.” At one point in time, travel was exceedingly uncomfortable and often dangerous. Indeed, the ultimate source of the word "travel" is a medieval instrument of torture - the so-called trepalium – a contraption would pierce its victim's flesh with three sharp stakes (tres for three and palus for stake).

Later on, the word trepalium became a verb, trepaliare, which meant any form of torture. It was from torture that the Old French concept of travailler came into existence – or “putting oneself to pain or trouble.” In time, travailler came to mean “work hard” in French. English borrowed the word as travail and this, in turn, was used to describe a wearisome journey — travel.

On the other hand, journey is a “day’s travel.” The word comes originally from Latin via French. The Latin word dies, meaning “day.” led to diurnus or “daily” and then to the vulgar Latin word diurmata (modern Italian giornata) which became jornee in Old French (journee today). The specific notion of a day’s travel appears to have faded out of English during the 16th century.

Traveling is a serious matter, indeed. But some people cannot help but poke fun on it. “Travel is the frivolous part of serious lives, and the serious part of frivolous ones,” said Anne Sophie Swetchine. “But why, oh why, do the wrong people travel, when the right people stay at home?” Noel Coward asked.

Most travelers will definitely agree with Robert Thomas Allen's observation: “Most of my treasured memories of travel are recollections of sitting.” Novelist John Steinbeck can't stop himself from writing: “A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.”

Murphy’s Law states: If something can go wrong, it will. This would most likely happen to when you are traveling. Don Rutledge, one of America’s most awarded photojournalists, and his journalist friend were seated aboard a plane bound for mainland China from Hong Kong. His friend was sitting next to an emergency exit door and Rutledge was sitting next to him in the aisle seat.

A flight attendant came to their seat row and asked Rutledge’s friend, “Pardon me, sir, but can you open this door?” She, of course, meant if he could open the door in case of an emergency. “Yes, I think so,” he answered and before she could say anything, he grabbed the door lever and swung it into the open position. Fortunately, this happened when the passengers were still loading and the airplane was not moving on the runway.

The door bounced out of its frame and Rutledge's friend held it by the lever. The attendant's mouth flew open wide as she screamed, “I meant could you open it in case of an emergency.” She quickly tried to help get the door back into the frame but, even together, they were unable to do so. While he continued holding the door to keep it from falling to the pavement, she rushed to the cockpit and got the flight engineer to return the door into its proper place and reset it. When it was already in the locked position, the flight engineer told him, “Don’t do that again.”

But I think, the persons who enjoy the most about traveling are the travel agents. Here's a collection of stories, which I am sure you have heard before but still will somehow tickle your pain away. The only hitch is that they happened in the United States. But most Filipinos can relate to the anecdotes since the people involved are - yes, you’re right! – politicians.

At one time, a travel agent got a call from a candidate’s staffer, who wanted to go to Cape Town. The travel agent started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information when she interrupted him with these words: “I’m not trying to make you look stupid, but Cape Town is in Massachusetts.”

Without trying to make the staffer look like the stupid one, the travel agent calmly explained, “Cape Cod is in Massachusetts, Cape Town is in South Africa.” Her response was a click of the phone.

Meanwhile, a New York lawmaker called and asked, “Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know whose luggage belongs to whom?” The travel agent answered negatively. “Why do you ask?” he inquired.

The lawmaker replied, “Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said FAT, and I’m overweight. I think that is very rude?” After putting her on hold for a minute while the travel agent “looked into it” (he was actually laughing), he came back and explained the city code for Fresno, California is FAT, and that the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage.

Still on New York: A New Mexico congresswoman called to make reservations, “I want to go from Chicago to Rhino, New York.” The travel agent was at a loss for words. Finally, the agent said, “Are you sure that’s the name of the town?” The lady lawmaker replied, “Yes, what flights do you have?”

After some searching, the travel agent came back with, “I'm sorry, ma’am, I’ve looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a Rhino anywhere.” The lady retorted, “Oh, don’t be silly! Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!”

The travel agent scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, "You don’t mean Buffalo, do you?" The lawmaker replied, “That’s it! I knew it was a big animal.”

Now, it came to pass that a lady senator called and said, “I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola, Florida. Do I have to get on one of those little computer planes?” The travel agent asked if she meant fly to Pensacola, Florida on a commuter plane. She said, “Yeah, whatever!”

Then, there was the case of a senior senator, who called and had a question about the documents he needed in order to fly to China. After a lengthy discussion about passports, the travel agent reminded him that he needed a visa.

”Oh, no I don’t. I’ve been to China many times and never had to have one of those.” Hearing this, the travel agent double checked and sure enough, his stay required a visa. When the agent told him this, the senator declared, “Look, I’ve been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express!”

American humorist Mark Twain said it right, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

But on second thought, Lin Yutang told us: “No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.”-- ###