Lady Chatterley's views on travel
Lady Chatterley's views on travel
Hampi, India
I ran across this passage about travel in, of all places, Lady Chatterley's Lover
"As for people! people were all alike, with very little differences. They all wanted to get money out of you: or, if they were travellers, they wanted to get enjoyment, per-force, like squeezing blood out of a stone. Poor mountains! poor landscape! it all had to be squeezed and squeezed and squeezed again, to provide a thrill, to provide enjoyment. What did people mean, with their simply determined enjoying of themselves?"
p. 299, Lady Chatterley's Lover
Yes, this question crosses the mind while traveling! Now, Lady Chatterley was having a tough time when she wrote this: she was crossing Europe by automobile to holiday in Italy and figure out how to leave Sir Clifford. So if she seems negative, she's allowed forgiveness.
In Hampi, the traveller's quest for enjoyment is evident. Shall we go to the lake today? Or hang around the guesthouse? It's like summer camp. You can go to the lake, go for a bicycle ride, or take a walk. When the day is done you can stop at the roadside stand for an ice cream, and then go back to the guesthouse restaurant for dinner and a movie. The difference from my summer camp is that here you can also explore five-hundred year-old ruins. Plus my summer camp wouldn't serve me beer.
Yes, people want money out of you. They are providing a service to make you happy. In Hampi most are from other places - other parts of India, and Nepal. No one lived in Hampi until recently.
But I am always aware of this relationship between myself and the people earning a living. This gap between us, as I watch Manjula sweep the guesthouse grounds while I am just sitting in the doorway of my hut, doing nothing. I sit in the restaurant and the staff prepares what I wish to eat, and I just wait. It strikes me as odd.
Lady Chatterley's views on travel
