What’s a sure sign that it’s a good party? When people don’t want to leave …
Well, at last week’s WIT*e – Inspiration & Mentoring held at the Fairmont Singapore, I heard from Lim Neo Chian (left), one of our guest speakers, that he was still caught up with a group of students as late as 10.30pm.
They wanted to listen to his stories of his four-wheel drive round ASEAN. And it was this story that he shared during our interview session at WIT*e – how a personal adventure he undertook after retirement changed his life and perhaps a little bit of himself with it.
The former chief executive of the Singapore Tourism Board talked about how in his post-government service life, he now had time to do what he wanted to do – and okay, more than a little money set aside – and so he thought, since he loved to drive, why not explore a region that he’s always worked with, but never really had the opportunity to get to know first-hand.
It’s one thing, after all, for a government bureaucrat to talk about the potential of ASEAN tourism and another for him to get out there as a traveller and see it for himself.
He said there wasn’t one moment when he felt that it wasn’t safe, even when he went into the depths of Kalimantan, Indonesia. And he also learnt to fend for himself. All his working life, he’s had people looking after him, doing things for him – and on this trip, he learnt to do everything himself.
Lessons in life can come early or late in life, that don’t matter. What matters is we learn at every stage of our life.
And there’s really no better education than travel. For Westerners, it’s almost a rite of passage to go round the world after graduation and before gainful employment.
In Asia, things are changing but usually, kids go straight from school to workplace. And when you’re stuck at work, it’s hard to get the time to travel.
Yes, there are school trips – mandatory now in Singapore for kids to go off to poorer countries like Cambodia and Vietnam and do some good. But that’s education by compulsion, not inspiration nor compassion.
So Neo Chian’s message to the kids was, get out there and travel while you have the time. 
When I asked the students how many wanted to travel before they started work, almost all put up their hands.
It’s good to know that the spirit of travel is alive and kicking in our young.
It’s easy for us working in travel, and when we have to go on business trips when we hardly have time for anything else but work, to become jaded and blasé about travel. It’s also easy, in a world of widgets and gadgets, to forget about the romance of travel.
Plus, let’s face it, travel can be a hassle – ash cloud out of the blue, bugs, evil people who want to do us harm, nasty people who do it because they can …
But on the whole, we humans are wired to travel for adventure, romance and discovery. Technology should make it easier for us to do all that, not distract us.
Neo Chian’s blog can be followed at “ASEAN On Wheels”.
Featured image credit (open road) : iStock
