The wander bug
I have been to many different countries since the late 1980s, yet it all started quite innocently when I took a flight out of Lydd Airport in Kent over to Jersey in the Channel Islands in the summer of 1988. I will never forget that time. It was my first time flying and it was a 52-seater propeller-powered aeroplane belonging to Dan-Air. Locally, we jokingly called it Dan Dare but, if you don't think that is amusing, here's a couple of truths about that trip. Firstly, a flock of sheep had to be ushered off the runway before the plane could take off (Lydd airport is on the edge of Romney Marsh, known for its sheep), followed by the pilot announcing shortly after take off that his name was Captain Python. I couldn't make a story like that up. Monty Python's Flying Circus and I was a part of it.
Up until the point of no return as the aeroplane trundled along the runway, I had no intention of flying anywhere, ever. That first trip in the sky changed my opinion on that forever. Yes, I was very nervous until we got high enough in the sky for me to risk looking out of the window at the land below getting smaller and smaller until it just resembled a basic Google map, had they been invented back then. As we touched down on Jersey it made me realise that landing is a much better passenger experience than taking off. The return journey was made even more interesting as the pilot had to fight with a strong cross wind as the aeroplane headed out over St Ouen's Bay and back towards mainland England. At first, I thought that the stewardess was going to come down the centre aisle and ask us all to lean forward, such was the struggle the plane had to get fully airborne; but she was just coming round handing out boiled sweets to counteract any possible turbulence the passengers might experience.
My next trip abroad saw me jump onto a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet for a massively long 15-hours trip towards the Philippines in 1989. I was absolutely loving the flight but, sooner or later, there has to be a snag and that flight ended with one helluva snag for me, as I was on my way to Manila to marry my now wife. We'd already decided we would get married out there because it was her country of birth and I was going to meet her there. But things went a little bit awry as the flight made its second refuelling stop, at Subang Airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A military coup in Manila meant that our British Airways flight was terminating where I didn't want it to terminate.
Six whole days I was stuck with other passengers in Kuala Lumpur when I wanted to be in Los Baños in the Philippines. I did see some of the city, however, when I took a long walk from the hotel. I couldn't believe how big the shopping malls were. I don't know how many different malls there were in the city, as I only managed to navigate inside one of them and it was humongously huge. I made the same trip back to the Philippines with my wife a few times again after that but without the extended stop in Malaysia.
Over the years, we visited countries like Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland in Europe. Scotland and Wales in the UK. Hong Kong before it was handed back to China and numerous other countries besides. Unfortunately, we never got to see Sweden or any of the other Scandinavian countries, nor the Americas or Canada, nor Japan. These are all countries that we had planned to visit but then my wife got ill and travel and holidays got put on permanent hold.
I still get the urge to just drop everything and go on a trip somewhere but that is not currently possible to achieve, given my present circumstances, but when I think back to that day in 1988 and what followed on my wandering agenda at least I can say I've been to some places others have yet to discover.