I’m sitting on a comfy
version of a sofa, but it’s an exec class seat on Air Canada, a result of
having the good luck to be upgraded at the lat minute. I’ve been fed and watered and I’ve had a
long nap. It’s a strange thing to be out of time and place like this. Far below
in the dark lies Siberia, with its great rivers, its harshness and beauty, but
up here in this compartment of cocooned people, there is no sense of the real
world, just the sound of fans and a sprinkling of dim lights where people sit
reading or watching their individual screens.
This gated community in the
sky is a zone of privilege. I feel lucky to have been able to upgrade, using my
accumulated points. But what about everyone else? I am much more often in
economy, trying to sleep sitting up and feeling cramped, wondering when I dare
disturb the people next to me so I can get up and have a pee. The difference
between the two is a matter of small degree though.
For everyone travelling by
air, in whatever “class” is still immensely privileged. We’re all in the of people with enough access to resources
(our own or others’) to buy a plane ticket. It’s humbling to think that a huge
proportion of the global population will never be on an airplane.
The above was written on my
flight to HongKong a few days ago. I’m now in Chiang Mai, getting shed of my
jetlag. My head is clear enough, I think, to at last finish this much delayed
post; apologies for the long gap since my last one:
Those earlier paragraphs
reflect the fact that I’ve been thinking about the things we take for granted,
and how that affects our view of the world and our expectations.
I’m now trying to imagine
my way into my next book project, The Persian World, as I am calling it for
now. I’m travelling in my mind’s eye to Georgia and Armenia and Turkmenistan
and more, as well as to various places in Iran… There are political impediments
and technical problems with some of my travel ambitions, but basically I can
and do imagine going to these countries and spending time there trying to
understand the warp and weft of the food traditions there.
It’s only when I’m out and
about (for example on tour with the Burma book last fall) meeting people who
hold down responsible jobs, etc, that I get reminded that for most people there
are many obstacles in the way of imagining travel. I’m not talking about money,
strictly speaking, for many, especially in the developed world, could if they
put their minds to it make travel a priority and save for that rather than for
a car or other tangible purchase. What I’m talking about is the settledness
that comes with meeting day to day responsibilities to family and friends. We
tend to fall into patterns. It’s the obvious way to cope with responsibility,
and patterns can also be familiar and comfortable.
And one thing about travel,
especially budget travel, is that it reduces predictability and works against
pattern. It demands a certain preparedness to go with the flow that is very
difficult for most people, especially once we get past our first youth. And I
know this because it happens that sometimes I am reluctant to leave. If ever I
am tired or feeling low, especially when I am in Toronto and comfily settled in
with family and friends, I sometimes feel that I’d like to just stay put.
I think that the pleasure I
take in NOT knowing what tomorrow will bring is a sign of perpetual
adolescence. Somehow I want to find out each day rather than knowing ahead of
time what it will bring. And when I am tired I don’t have the energy for
adolescence!
There’s a bit of a
disconnect between having responsibilties, for example the need to meet
deadlines, and my perhaps immature liking of unstructured days. Luckily I hate
being late – whether for appointments or meet-ups or with writing assignment
deadlines – so my sense of obligation will always trump my wish to shape my
days and months freeform. That sense of obligation keeps me adult enough to
function responsibly, is how some might put it!
Where does that leave me
right now? Well I have a small article to finish in the next couple of days,
and there’s the work of preparing for the next immersethrough session, which
starts here in Chiang Mai on Sunday. But otherwise this week I’ve got time to
catch up on this blog, at last, and to do some reading too.
Then on February 2 I fly to
Rangoon and the next day the fifteen people arrive who are coming with me on
the first Burma Food Tour. We have an itinerary: Rangoon – Bagan – Inle Lake
area – Rangoon. It’s eight days in three places, joined by short airplane hops.
But the exact way we’ll be
spending our days, though planned, is also a little unpredictable. The reason
is partly of course that tourism in Burma can still be a little bumpy. But it’s
more that we are trying to engage with Burma through food. The local guides are
used to rather set itineraries, and to people wanting restaurant food, a
certain predictablity in other words. But we want to improvise, eat street
food, explore markets… and to be open to possibilities that present themselves.
All this means that I’ll be
reporting back here on how things go, and that I’m hoping the people who come
on this tour get the same pleasure I do from the unexpected. Burma is coming
out of a long isolation. It’s a difficult time of transition and we have the
privilege of being there to see the country as it evolves. But a work in
progress is not a finished sleek production; it’s a work in progress,
fascinating and frustrating too, and richly interesting.
A slice of life, in other
words…
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