Who has gone traveling and made met really amazing people?

plenty of cricket to be talked about, too!

On my last travel to Bali I met a local man, he and his wife ran a local Dairy ie Seven 11 - for an Australian owner...we sat on the footpath and chatted about life in NZ and his life in Indonesia, I purchased a beer from his store for him and he politely drank it...I had no idea he did not drink alcohol......he showed me his new car which he purchased and was still paying off and probably will be for the next 20 years just so he could earn extra money by taking the tourists out and about to show them the mountains and the beautiful sights of Bali...hence my husband and I took him up on one of his tours the most amazing humble man I have ever met.

Well--there you go Ceili. That proves it is not people you wish to meet but mirrors dressed like human beings who will reflect back to you your own view of yourself.

You will have folks like me where you are for sure. We are in the majority.

You are designing your contacts. I'm in the melee mixing the medicine.

All I have said was to do with facts. You seem to lean towards the easy insult.

You "feel bad for me" you say. Even if I believed you I would ask why. You declare that where I am is "ugly" and that there's nobody interesting to talk to. When I respond to that you then declare you couldn't care less.

I can't think of anything that comes my way that I couldn't care less about. The obvious fact that you have two boxes marked Interesting and Uninteresting tells me you are a snob. And one with a nasty mouth when meeting alternative views.

How do you "welcome the world" with an attitude like that? The world, when it arrives for the bash, is going to have to be on its best behaviour it seems to me.

And I would never say, even casually, that " Life is sexually transmitted." That sounds ugly. The mind has been conditioned to think "disease" in that context. (Piaget).

And a signature is not casual.

"Life is sexually transmitted" is in response to people treating disease as if it were not a part of life.
We often punish people who have sexually transmitted diseases, treating them as if they are somehow less worthy of our care. This is a reminder that everything in life stems from the simple act of sex. Why should we condemn one action while applauding the next?

Again, following me around, quoting shite like a troll isn't going to gain you any fans. Just saying.

I was making a literary point. The expression "sexually transmitted" has negative connotations for most people which is why I wouldn't apply the phrase to "life" even though it is pedantically correct.

I follow Queenie around. I'm not looking for fans.

I have had numerous arguments about travel on other threads. It is a subject that interests me.

I saw Brian Sewell do his Grand Tour trip to Rome on Sky Arts. He made it look little short of gruesome. It is a good job we couldn't smell the smells he described.

I'm curious why travel interests you if you abhor it?
It's a bit like rubber necking, I guess, but I still don't understand your need to poke instead of asking?
Everytime I time I travel I learn things, but not like watching a documentary, where everyone/thing is edited.
When I was in Belize, I met a free diver. He was 18, his wife was 17. They'd recently married and sadly miscarried but were happy to try again.
He told me all about his job, diving great lengths without gear, on either side of the reef, to catch lobster, conch and various other fish. I'm allergic to fish and I'm terrified of sharks, deep water. He couldn't understand the fear, he's seen bull sharks and the damage they can do up and personal, considering I lived no where near the sea at the time....
Our lives were so different but yet, we had fun, we talked about our lives, we ate and laughed together.
I asked him if he resented tourists, did he sometime feel like we put him in a cage. He said no. Tourists help keep his family on that tiny island, but not in a devious way, he doesn't want to leave, this is his home. He was grateful, just the same my city will is when visitors come here. It's partly pride and partly economics. It keeps people gainfully employed, even I dare say, barmaids with spectacular knockers..

I presume that is addressed to me.

Travel is a sociological and psychological phenomenum of some importance. Mass travel, that is everybody taking advantage of it, is insupportable and I suppose the travellers on these threads would be the first to agree. It is therefore the privilege of the few much like silver tableware amd aspidestras in the hall once were. It has a snob value which is now reaching the end of its tether just as silver tableware and aspidestras did once everyone could have such things.

It is obvious that most aspects of mass travelling are demeaning and humiliating. Packing a suitcase and unpacking it two weeks later are both demeaning and humiliating activities although from somewhat different points of view.

We are not evolved for displacements of time, diet, customs and climate and it is well known that travellers are subjected to illness and accident and the sheer bloody-mindedness of their fellow man on a scale greater than that of the stop-at-home. Where on one's travels can one indulge the luxury of lying in bed until 11 or 12 am and drifting between dozing and that semi-hallucinatory state of transcendent meditation from which emerges at least some semblance of clarification about what is going on. One has an itinerary for goodness sake. A predetermined path. One's brain is cluttered up with a range of extraneous considerations the use of which I cannot for the life of me see. One ceases to think.

Now that the 47 inch HD screen has arrived one can get the benefits of travel in comfort and ease at a very cheap price. In fact moreso as camera teams and top presenters are granted views which are not available to the ordinary, common or garden traveller. I have seen the ceiling of the Sistine chapel in detail and had some of the lessons to be learned from it explained by experts.

And barmaid's knockers are more or less the same the world over. So the devil you know principle kicks in.

Looked at carefully the traveller's life is one of mooching about and getting pissed in the evenings.

I wouldn't say that " we had fun, we talked about our lives, we ate and laughed together" is evidence of having learned anything.

I spent 9 months diving and swimming off the southern coast of Cyprus and a few months revelling down the famous Gut in Malta, and a few other exotic activities, all the while aching with longing to return to my home patch where creature comforts were the natural order of things. I suppose it is that which gave me my attitude to travel.

I think travel is much like music or art. Some people "get" it, others don't.

We've got posters who have no interest in music, others with no interest in cooking, some with no interest in travelling etc etc etc

Thank god. It'd be dreary if we all wanted to do the same things.

What about people who have interests in music, art, cooking, travelling and many other things, I mean, in life in general?

What about them?

Those are my people...;-}

Here we go again. The interest in music, art, cooking, travelling and many other things is merely declared. It is not made manifest. Any benefits are simply assumed. Any drawbacks ignored.

With the internet, television and books one can range the world and save a fortune.

some things must be seen live to be understood and absorbed, spendi.

a picture of royal gorge cannot convey the feelings the spot produces inside of a visitor.

(i think partly because there is no sound in a picture)

Didja notice the wink?
Now who's stating the obvious? There are a million ways to skin a cat too. I like to travel. You don't. Apparently you don't like people coming to visit. Duly noted.
I just don't understand the need to constantly pester. You could ask a question instead of referring to all travelers in a negative manner. Painting it all with one brush, as it were...
While you had the opportunity, dare I say the luxury to travel, and immerse your self in another culture, I haven't. Though I'd like to think I've gleaned a little knowledge from each place I've gone. My last trip was to Ireland. I hadn't been since I was a child. It's my home, away from home, and it's not. I don't expect you to understand that. But I do understand the pull toward home, when you've been away for any length of time. I get that, but I also understand wanderlust. I can't apologize for it either.

Nods, my people too.

On Spendi, I used to rail at him for conflugleing travel threads... but he has a right to his point of view, a view I can understand although it is opposite to my own. Thing is, we all, until we learn, feed it, and then it takes over a travel thread. Clever indeed.

In October, I 'm going to San Diego
for a convention of the International Association of Near Death Studies,
a group of people who have survived death, and the medical doctors who
have attended them and have interest in the subject matter.

I have met interesting people in earlier conventions of this group.
I look forward to it.

I will also have the opportunity to explore the San Diego Zoo,
of excellent reputation.





David

I've survived death more times than I care to remember Dave. It was only the little death mind you. I haven't experienced The Big Sleep yet.

Don't forget to report back to us on what you find out. You'll be able to look Cal up. Not at the zoo though.

I was told that I died during surgery in 2005,
but I only remember awakening therefrom after it was over.
However, I remember some out-of-body experiences on-the-job in court
during the 1970s and 80s; also once, in a restaurant.

What is "Cal" that I shoud look up ?

California ?





David

I dissent from your point of vu qua travelling.
I have enjoyed it.
I certainly never felt demeaned.
Maybe it 'd help if u leave some cash behind with the locals.
That makes u hail fellow, well met.
Don 't be afraid to spread it around.

Note, incidentally that there is NO SUCH THING AS "12 AM".
Since the Big Bang until and including now:
there has never been nor will there ever be any "12 AM"
because that is a contradiction in terms.





David