My Love For Travel

Travelling is in my blood. It has been with me since I was a small girl. Going somewhere has always been an adventure of sorts. My late husband fully acknowledged this fact. When I was working he did not mind my going outstation to work. After I retired I used to join friends to visit foreign countries and the new experiences I felt were like fulfilling a thirst. That fascination lives on after my husband passed on and was an antidote to my grieving soul. 

The healing worked in mysterious ways. When I revisited London in December 2012, with my grand daughter, Radin Eliyana, and stayed with my eldest grandchild, Nur Ayne Faeza, I revisited the places and the shops I used to go with my late husband and relived the moments we were there together. After those relived moments I could physically feel my body lifted and my soul serene. My longing would no longer be with choked feelings in the throat and tears welding in my eyes. 

I treated my grand daughters to the very same Thai Restaurant at Oxford Street we went to in 1986 and ordered the same dishes and literally looked in my mind's eye at the happy moments of 1986. Those were just fleeting moments. My grand daughters were not even conscious of my momentary sojourn. I would then focus on our current happy, chatty times together with them. We really had a lovely lunch, lovely time together and lovely sharings. My husband used to love going for walks at the Hyde Park. In December Ayne's flat was at Lancaster gate, just across the road to Hyde Park. We very often walked across or in Hyde Park itself. First time I stepped my feet on Hyde Park, I felt nostalgically sick but as I moved on silently alone in my thoughts of those yester years, I began to feel better and towards the end of our stay I was able to sing his favourite songs loudly when it was my turn to sing with tears in my heart. To my grand daughters my songs were old songs unfamiliar to them. To me songs like Nat King Cole's ' when I Fall in love' and P Ramlee's ' Di Manakan Ku Cari Ganti' are songs of my soul and forever green in my heart. My late husband loved shopping. He had his favourite shops. I revisited those shops and sat at the same spot where we had tea at the shop's restaurant and felt better. After all those revisits, the city was no longer a place I earlier feared to visit. During my visit to the United States in August 2013, I was able to do the same during our stay in New York. My husband was particular about our accommodation. My daughter in law and my son took pains to ensure that our places of stay were comfortable, beautiful and practical. Our hotel, ' the New Zealand Hotel'  on 57th Avenue was a beautiful place. I used to walk up and down the Avenue alone lost in my own thoughts and memories and thereby slowly healed my loss and I feel stronger for it. The place is no longer daunting. I was so afraid before the journey that I might spoil my children's holiday if I would just spend time mopping around. I am so grateful that it did not happen that way. I had a wonderful holiday, in fact one of the best holidays I have had, visiting Radin Eliyana at The Le High University, Bethelemn, Pennsylvania. My latest travel was to Langkawi on the 9th of December 2013, when I treated my daughter and my four grandchildren together with my two sisters, my nephew and his family. My earlier visit with my husband in 2003 on a treat by Radin Azlan, my youngest son. I was able to mentally view that earlier visit from a distance that no longer pained the heart. The happiness imbued during those two visits were different. The earlier visit was just the two of us. We found joy in each other's company. The recent visit was a joyous time with my grandsons and grand daughter. We sat on the beach to watch the beauty of the sunsets and let our bodies being massaged by the waves. We then swam in the swimming pool, had races with each other even though I ended up the last. We also tested who could stay in the water the longest. We teased each other and laughed so much so we felt aches in our stomachs. Company of the young could be so exhilarating and consuming because every time the water splashed on our faces and every time our boat moved in our mangrove adventure, they laughed. They could find joy in the tiniest of things out of the ordinary. Being with that hunger for adventure and curiosity is simply satiating. Looking at things with their eyes is actually seeing beauty even in very ordinary things. To Fytri, my 7 year old grand daughter, a plastic pendant in the shape of the heart, could be so beautiful. She wears it and feels beautiful and dignified with it just because she has paid for it with her own savings from her pocket money and treated it as though it was like an expensive diamond pendant. There is endless joy when a child starts collecting shells on the beach. 

I derive a different joy when I travel nowadays. Its no longer just the happiness of being in different places but its the company and the bondings that I have with my children and grand children with my siblings and their families that I look forward to in my travels. This is a kind of joy many of my friends experience too, which is indescribable in words.