THE other day, I watched in horror as my sweet golden retriever pounced on a young monitor lizard, grabbed it by the neck and whipped it about three times. By the time I pulled Bowie off the creature, it was dead with a deep gash at the neck.
In many ways, it reminded me of what this year has been like for all of us working in travel. There we were, innocently playing in our own backyard when out of nowhere, this thing called Covid grabbed us by the neck and whipped us around.
Except it wasn’t done in three shakes but rather three quarters of the year – and who knows how many more quarters to come.
What we all hope would be a year of two halves became almost a flatline for most of the year. Our spirits lifted whenever we saw renewed signs of life, and then plummeted when that life was quashed yet again.
We got so used to it we became numb to the ups and downs. Days merged into a blur of sameness and “screen-ness”.
And as we enter the last days of 2020, Covid still has us by the neck and continues to whip us around.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel as the world watches the fastest rollout of vaccines ever. Singapore received its first batch last week and it was marked as a major milestone in this tiny country’s fight against Covid.
I liked it when Tao Tao, co-founder and COO of GetYourGuide, in his Dear 2020 letter in our podcast likened the fast tracking of the vaccine to the moon landing of his generation.
As I said in my letter in Part 2 of our “Dear 2020” podcast, Covid crushed the two industries that WiT sits at the intersection of – travel and events – and when you are busy fighting in the eye of the storm, with wave upon wave crashing upon you, you don’t really appreciate what you had to do to survive.
And it’s only now that as we stumble towards a new year that we have the mind space to reflect on the past months.
So firstly, to all of us out there, let’s give ourselves a big pat on the back for having made it thus far.
Secondly, take a break. We all earned it. Most of us can’t travel beyond our borders still but remember to exercise that travel muscle in our bodies by discovering new things about home. You know what they say, use it or lose it.
So don’t lose that spirit that makes you a traveller.
Last week, I went on a Journey to Jaffna through a private dining experience at the home of a sixth-generation Sri Lankan author and chef, Indra Iswaran. I’d never been to Jaffna but now I feel like I have, and it has whetted my appetite for the real thing.
Next week, I will go on a “Gin, Tonic & The Empire” tour which will start with a walk through the historic Labrador Park and end up in a private gin distillery where I intend to do so much tasting that it will awaken all my senses.
And oh yes, I have a Forest Bathing experience on Sentosa to look forward to. Forest bathing is a concept from Japan – Shinrin in Japanese means “forest,” and yoku means “bath”, so shinrin-yoku means bathing in the forest atmosphere, or taking in the forest through our senses. Let’s see what that does to my senses.
Speaking of forests, in “The Hidden Life of Trees”, Peter Wohlleben makes them come alive with his descriptions of how trees feel, communicate and support each other. His words make me feel like I am walking through the forests with him and listening to what’s communicated, but not said, between trees and the support systems around them.
He describes fungi as like the “forest Internet”, its distribution network, and in many ways, I feel like we are all fungi supporting the larger forest that is travel. Fungi needs food to thrive, and by so doing they support and nourish the forest.
And so as we enter 2021, with a glimmer of light but still a lot of uncertainty ahead of us, I wish for all of us to find enough food so that we can continue supporting and nourishing the industry we love and that unlike the monitor lizard, we will live on to fight another year.
Happy travels wherever you are.
