3 hours ago
1
We landed in Melbourne after our red-eye flight from Bali. Our then two-year-old was raging with fever (he was not ill when we boarded) and had screamed for five out of the six hours.
Dazed and confused, we joined the long line for international passport holders instead of the much shorter family line for Australians. We wasted 40 minutes. That was when our then four-year-old decided to vomit. We cleaned that up (FYI, immigration has spew bags), got past the custom dogs, hauled our stuff on to the insanely packed bus that would take us to the equally packed cheap car park, found our car and drove home, before collapsing into a heap.
I vowed to never travel again – except that we did, to Hong Kong and Vietnam the next year and to Hong Kong and Malaysia the year after that. We will probably go to Hong Kong again next year.
Why do I do this? I ask myself as I unpack the largely unused bottles, sprays, inhalers and the whole of our local chemist that I bought pre-trip.
Do I not have enough challenges as a parent?
When the laundry is finally done, I know the answer is not staying home for ever, never to leave again.
Like many Australians, I have family overseas, notably a centurion grandmother in Hong Kong who was widowed last year (RIP yeh yeh) so I have wanted, and will continue, to take my children to see their great-grandparent for as long as I can.
Hong Kong is also my birthplace and was home for the first seven years of my life. It’s half my children’s heritage so I never want it to feel foreign to them. I want them to feel the awe of the skyline and swelter in the humidity, ride all of the public transport and find comfort in Cantonese food.
I have always had an urge to travel. In my 20s I took off to live in London and backpack through Europe, lapping up the wonder and freedom of solo travel. In my 30s I ventured to South America with my boyfriend. We weathered the misread maps and timetables (mostly on my part), altitude sickness (also me), mystery tropical viruses (him) and food served on overnight buses (both).
We found inspiration in the Atacama desert and the Torres del Paine, in the Bolivian salt flats and the Brazilian jungle, and finally we found inspiration in each other. When we got back we felt as though we could do anything – even make lifelong commitments.
This boyfriend is now my husband and the father of said two children.
I want to pass on to the kids the joys of travel – and I suspect pandemic lockdowns deepened that motivation. When my then two-year-old daughter was locked in our small backyard (and I’m grateful we had one!) and confined to a 5km radius limit on where she could go, I dreamt of taking her to see the world when it was all over.
Now six, she has been to five countries and many more cities. She is learning to plan, pack her bags and look after her own things. She is experiencing differences, noting the little baskets of flowers, candy and incense in Bali and the call to prayer in Penang. She is asking why we brush our teeth with bottled water and why she is not in a car seat.
I am forced to really think, to explain things in an age-appropriate way or to find the answers if I don’t know them.
At the end of last year my daughter’s prep class was asked to draw themselves doing something that makes them happy for a tea towel fundraiser.
Children drew themselves skipping, on the monkey bars, playing football. My daughter drew herself, beaming widely, with a suitcase on big wheels alongside a rainbow. I felt her awe and wonder, the magic of travel.
It’s all I need to start planning and saving for our next trip, even if she vomits at immigration.
