Secrets only traveling women can see, beyond War, Love and Crime

When I worked as export manager for a world renowned company, I traveled extensively and had friends all over the world. I also kept a diary, as this profession makes you a bit of a loner.

So I remember clearly that around 1980 I sat with my friend Claire in Los Angeles; she was an editor at a publishing company,  and we were exchanging news about our jobs and private life. She told me they had just  prepared a special summer issue about travel and reviewed 28 tales – all interesting travel stories – and each one of them had been written by a man.

Which brought her to the idea: “Why don’t YOU write a travel story? You travel all the time, see so many places, meet so many people and often get to look into their private life as well? You go shopping with these women, you look what they are cooking, how they manage money and rear their children, what they are dreaming about.”

Of course I just gave her a laugh – as if I did not have enough to do with my demanding job!

Today, I intend to follow her advice to a certain extent and write my travel blog.

You’ll not hear so much about how dangerous it is to travel as a woman in what is predominantly a man’s world. Speaking about that – these dangerous elements have infiltrated our country and cultures in the last 25 years to such an extent, that it’s just as dangerous at home (Austria) as anywhere else.

Our foreign minister is  saying that Austria should actually  take in 300 prisoners from Guantanamo, as they cannot go home, where they would be convicted – put into prison or worse – suffer the death sentence.  As if we did not have enough destitute people already, living in very sorry circumstances!!

However,  speaking about traveling and women, I’ll never forget my mother, born 1912, whose greatest wish was to travel to Paris one day.

While I studied in Geneva I invited her many times to come and see me – we could always go to Paris together. The years flew by – she did not come. She was scared of planes, and she was scared someone would rob her of all her belongings while she slept. Would she come by train?  Driving was out of the  question.  So after 3-5 years I finally got my diploma in the shortest time possible.

When I came home, instead of being pleased, she told me how disappointed she was, as she had just now persuaded my father to visit me and continue up to Paris with her, and fulfil her lifelong dream!  When I said, they could just go ahead and do the trip without seeing me in Geneva, she said – no, they would not. And just WHY- I asked? Well, she’d never have the nerve to suggest such an egoistic wish to my father and spend money on such a useless  fancy.

Now, believe me, this was just the same attitude I found so often with my friends in India and China. Women, well carrying their weight in life and earning good money, would not dare to utter wishes to their husband that were utterly selfish, just like my mother.

She legally owned 50% of the mutual business and could have just taken the money to do whatever she pleased, but would never have dreamt of doing so.

However, after my dad passed away, I persuaded her to join me for three weeks in Thailand. I had rented a pretty little wooden bungalow with a huge veranda and garden right next to the beach and a maid to do the shopping and cooking, and had engaged a “doctor” to look after my mother and order her treatments and massages to keep her busy.

We had to take a tuk-tuk  from the bus-terminal to our bungalow and sit in the back – and Mom was absolutely scared stiff, holding on to the wooden bench for dear life. So I said, “Mom, when you were small, you used to travel in horse carriages like this – not so?” She started laughing out loud, and from that moment on began to enjoy herself.

When I came back from work the second day and she had been alone in the bungalow, she told me that she watched the poor woman who worked for us and how hot it was and it was just a shame. I just told her – “Mum, nobody bothered about you, when you were working in the business 18 hours a week all through summer?  Now it’s your turn to relax and look after your health and wellbeing. This maid will also get her chance one day – when her son invites her somewhere nice.”

Luckily she made friends with a nice gentleman from Germany and a family from Southern Tyrol, and from then onwards it was wonderful.  She went shopping every evening, she was craving to try new restaurants all the time, and although she was a poor swimmer, dared to go into the sea by herself -  as long as there were people around.

I still have the  recipes she collected during that trip and gained by painfully interviewing everybody and shamelessly using the translation skills of me, my friends and hotel employees, as she spoke no English!

She visited shrines and pagodas and sat there in the cool shade and scented air. She’d tell me, she could think so nicely there – about all things – hold conversations with ghosts from the past, and she’d also pray for everybody, “and it’s so much easier here than in our Church at home.”

So all during my travels in Third World countries, and to this day -  while I am musing about women and their different role in their respective society – young women – I just keep reminding myself of my mother.

It’s not all that long ago that women in the heart of Europe were just the same. They kept their secrets to themselves, not daring to utter a selfish wish that did not hold a family benefit (often that of the children) as a hidden backing.

Did she ever write her thoughts down? Not that I know of. In fact, not too many women ever write about their lives or travel experiences. Apart from those Victorian lady travelers – rich and eccentric women, courageous, often childless, who traveled the Himalayas  and rode on camels through African  deserts.

We find but a few  exceptions of that rule after the First World War, like Mrs. R. West and M. McCarthy. It seems that the belief was that, if you were not a pilot or soldier or a member of the occupying forces in India etc. – in short, if you were just a woman – your experiences just didn’t count, unless (here we go again) they are dealing with love and crime – both is better, of course. You don’t hit the newspaper with a simple story of being mugged on the street. If you are not dead, it’s not worth mentioning.

Personally, I hope this is going to change. Or have you actually seen Thai recipes brought back by a British Colonel?  Would he tell us a story about sitting in a Pagoda and letting the ghosts pass by in a trance? Surely not, he would not enter such a place to begin with.

The author, B.J. Vetter, has been trading in Forex for the last 15 years  and with varying success at the utmost beginning. It was only when she joined forces with a real expert – friend Peter -  and learning through him to use eyes and ears properly, traded into huge profits.

Read here how it’s going lately in detail. She also publishes a travel blog. Should you consider entering forex trading with the help of software, go and get it at the bonus link right here.