Sirens Calling - Falling in Love

I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move. Robert Louis Stevenson

Travel to me is like a siren song, calling to me always.

I read the Classified Ads for travel ads on a daily basis, I surf favourite travel company websites ever so often to find out about what's available in the market out there. I can start up my own travel shop, if I want, armed with years of research in the market in Singapore. Heck, I even go to travel fairs for fun. I buy Lonely Planet guides sporadically to read -- and dream of getting to these places someday. When I was due to head to Canada for my friend's wedding cum vacation, we bought 3 travel guides in all! My to travel list is shrinking, thanks to the blessings of the Big Boss :D

Thinking, dreaming, researching and eventually going on the travels, that's what I am truly passionate about. It's the whole end-to-end travel experience.

I should've told Manama all that. Mine is close to a religious experience, beyond falling in love, it has become a consuming passion.

What I have seen around the world serves as a drug -- it eggs me on to the next frontier of experience. That's why after each trip, I plan my next ;) (Fortunately or not, after this wonderful Syria-Lebanon-Jordan journey, I have not made any plans for the next. Darned - Blame the man named M!)

Sirens. They and their songs are constantly close by.

When I am asked what I would like to achieve, immediately the answer would pop into my head: to travel the world. Not world peace, equality, end world hunger, stop wars, eliminate all evil from humans, free animals etc - but to travel. Quite terrible - I shall attempt to change and work towards World Peace (and win the Ms Whatever pageant ;)

Why I travel - in other people's words, as mine cannot capture the essence so eloquently:

I have wandered all my life and I have also travelled; the difference between the two being ... that we wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment. Hilaire Belloc.

How hard it is to escape from places. However carefully one goes they hold you -- you leave bits of yourself fluttering on fences: little rags and shreds of your very life. Katherine Mansfield.

And my fave:
To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world. You are surrounded by adventure. You have no idea of what is in store for you, but you will, if you are wise and know the art of travel, let yourself go on the stream of the unknown and accept whatever comes in spirit in which the gods may offer it. Freya Stark, Baghdad Sketches