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Thursday, January 16, 2025
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“Travel changes you,” writes Wall Street Journal columnist Andy Kessler. “As you move through this life and this world, you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life – and travel – leaves marks on you.”
It’s true. And it doesn’t seem to matter where you go. Weird experiences are never far away.
Here’s one. The New Year’s show on PBS featuring the Vienna Philharmonic reminded me of a blunder I made while still working. I had reserved a ticket to see a concert at the famous Musikverein only to arrive at my Viennese hotel and be told the ticket was for the night before.
Here’s another. Many years ago, a colleague and I flew to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to introduce some products to the Middle Eastern market. No one met us at the airport; never a good sign. No messages at our hotel either (strike two).
The next day we taxied to the Jamjoom Medicine Store and were confronted by incredulous colleagues who said they thought our trip had been cancelled. There was no one available – to squire us around to four countries and six calls in nine days.
TRECKER
TRECKER
“Come back at 4 p.m. when Dr. Jamjoom will be here,” they said. “Maybe he’ll know what to do.”
We dutifully returned and, upon entering the good doctor’s office, were hailed by still another colleague who, breathless, had followed us up the stairs.
“I’m Medhat Mounir,” he said. “I was just driving by and recognized you from a meeting last year.”
Mournir then canceled all of his plans and organized our trip, which turned out to be very successful. You can’t make this stuff up.
Some recollections aren’t as dramatic. I remember a fishing trip out of Doha, Qatar, on an ancient Arabian dhow. The passengers g were from all corners of the globe, a movable United Nations.
The weather was hot and the captain shed his robe and stripped down to his underwear as soon as we cleared the harbor. Shrimp were provided and we pulled up purple bait fish and were told to run our hooks through their eye sockets. Then, using some navigational voodoo (there was no radar or even a compass aboard), he maneuvered the dhow to the true fishing grounds where he instructed the passengers to wrap the lines around their hands (there were no rods) and to bottom fish for grouper.
And you know what? We all caught at least one. And we all left the boat with bloody hands. And we all had to pay for our groupers, which were grilled at the hotel that evening. Those folks are a shrewd bunch.
I remember visiting Berlin a year after the wall came down, visiting Hiroshima 30 years after the first atomic bomb was dropped, visiting St. Petersburg in 2013 to hear a Russian guide boldly say, “Putin’s days are numbered here.” I remember pilgrimages to where scenes in “Chariots of Fire” were filmed. I remember getting deathly ill in Cairo, then again in Mantova, Italy. Bad fish. I remember seeing a sea lion taking her leisure on a chaise lounge at a seafront hotel in the Galapagos. I remember openly weeping at the American Cemetery in Normandy. I wasn’t the only one.
Altogether, I’ve visited 54 foreign countries. I thought I was hot stuff until I ran into a real traveler, a woman who said she had visited 183.
What’s my next trip? My wife just gave me my cane and a grocery list. I guess my next stop is at Publix. ¦
Dave Trecker is a chemist and retired Pfizer executive living in Florida.
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